Please let my dog's deafness be temporary...

Poor Sarah-dog. She had to be sedated last week and have her ears cleared out where they discovered one of her ear drums had busted. Her equilibrium had been off for a week or so after an ongoing problem that seemed to be nothing more than a runofthemill ear infection that cropped up just like she'd had last year. I got the same drops a month ago from the vet that she'd had last year and it seemed to get better...till she started getting dizzy sometimes when she got up and would tilt her head awkwardly.

Getting her into the vet was an ordeal in itself. She cannot get into my Explorer on her own because her joints just can't do it anymore and she is too heavy for me to pickup. Plus, I usually get a sedative from the vet to give her before taking her in because it terrifies her so much. This time, because they knew they'd have to sedate/anesthetize her, having her be on an oral tranq was piling it on...so she had to go in horrified with no little white pill buffer. And that goes for two of us...

I borrowed piece of plywood to get her into the car last Thursday morn and it actually worked like a gem. She soon figured out it was not going to be a happy ending. I wasn't sure if I'd even be bringing her home. We both ended up in tears, her staying behind at the vets squealing and being dragged into the back to be sedated and me driving home lumpy throated and crying every mile or so, recovering and crying again.

It wasn't till late in the afternoon I heard from the vet's and heard about the terrible state of her ears which they discovered was due to polyps in both of them; the worse being in the ear with the busted drum. They can't naturally clean themselves because of the polyps blocking the canal.

I know she could hear before I took her in. She would still react to dogs causing a ruckus outside and me. Since Friday, the only thing I am sure she heard was when I had a sneezing fit with one particularly loud sneeze. Other than than, I can't seem to get her to hear anything. We have so many verbal cues. So many words she understands and reacts to. Losing this communication is a small thing compared to the possiblity of not having her at all...but it is a loss that I can see she is navigating with an awareness something is wrong. I am doing what I can to approach her now so it does not startle her. I turn on light switches to get her attention and try to walk heavy, but she is still ends up getting surprised by my presence next to her in a world that is no longer supplying her with audio clues. She is on antibiotics and drops so hopefully whatever is going on will clear up. There must be swelling still going on from the cleaning. Short of a very expensive and very invasive operation that ends with them sewing shut her ears, the polyp problem is there to stay...and I can't even think about the tests I'm waiting on to see if they're benign or....what...

Matting Examples w/couple of Plath posters

Did this last weekend. The blue mat colour is 'off' on screen, it is actually close to the dark purple lettering of the poster.

The above was done a couple years ago and I think really enhances the smallish poster.

Nicholas Hughes couldn't keep living

Shit, it's not like I KNOW these people, but the Plath/Hughes legacy and poetry has been an major interest for me much of my adult life, so hearing Nicholas killed himself was like a small tsunami. Just recently, I've been re-reading Birthday Letters and planned on writing something about that journey, which in reruns is still devastating. But this morning, before I'd had a gulp of coffee my local news station starting talking about Nicholas Hughes. He'd died. Hung himself. Frieda...Depression...Oh fuck.

Frieda is now the sole living legacy of that story, sort of like Caroline Kennedy, but without the offspring. The end. Hughes had fallen off the professor list at UAF, so I had thought maybe he left the state. I read this morning after a quick google that he'd quit his job as professor a couple years ago to commit more time to pottery and other interests but stayed in the Fairbanks area. Pottery. Those wet circles that require all your attention, a respite from yourself. Art is like that, a respite and meaning when you feel like an empty glass, or worse. I too suffer (can't emphasize that word enough) from demon depression and can relate. Not to suicide itself, but pursuing something that you discover brings some relief; I imagine the pottery must have been like that for him. I'm completely projecting, but it could be true. It's so sad to think the of pain that lead to the final act, a sort of legacy via a propensity for depression, family ties, so says science and observation.

Depression is a wound that will not heal. Or it heals, but breaks again, and again. It's easy to understand those who tire of the routine of crawling out of those pits or pretending to have done so. What a sad turn of events for all who knew and loved Nicholas. Peace.

Dear diary...

Oy. I heard this morning that the DVD set that the Obama's gifted PM Brown was incompatible with England's system. This was my first thought when the story originally came out about the gift: Whether is was UK compatible. Now I know. It seemed sooo obvious from the items the Obama's had for Brown and his family were last minute grabs from their own shelf and the White House gift shop. It was sad. Who the hell is supposed to be informing him about the diplomatic protocol of these sort of things??!?? If Obama never bothered to investigate or ask what sort of preparaton would be needed for such a meeting between two world leaders who are our strong allies, what the hell could happen with some visitors from less friendly lands?? I was a staunch Obama supporter (after losing Hillary) and some of this stuff is making me cringe. Like the bar room type joke about Special Olympics. You leave that shit at home amongst friends. The guy needs to pull back and remember we are not his friends; we are looking to him for leadership and maturity in these really trying times. Get your shit together Mr. President!

In other news, the sun is shining...

Me and digital camera are finally getting along...

This is a picture I did a few years ago. It's not wonderful, but it does make me smile because I put in a little bit o'mystery. Also I framed it in a frame with glass and painted the gold paint (extending some branches, just a few) outside the perimeter of the canvas on the frame's glass.

There is a reflection on the glass on the lower corner that I couldn't figure out how to avoid.

A re-run picture...

I was looking around Olympus world for a picture of my hot tub deck/roof, pre-disaster (found one!) for my insurance guy and came across the pics of my blue winter tree painting. The colours have always seemed 'off' in digital world, so I tried the 'insta fix' edit on one of the frames and it looks some better...I also discovered that I took NO digital pics in 2008. Even when I worked like a bastard to get my yard in tiptop shape for last year's garden tour. I would have swore I took pics. But they are not there and pixels don't lie....

And now that the picture has downloaded here onto blogger I can see the colour is still off. It is a much more lovely colour of blue all around in real life.

The stock market is not the only thing collapsing...

We've gotten an insane amount of snow again this year, which makes it three years in a row now. This morning while listening to the the creaks and groans of my roof at the front of the house as ice and deep, heavy (it started raining) snow were forming a new glacier, I heard a cacophonous crash and discovered the roof over the deck my hot tub sits on had completely collapsed. You can see a bit inside the mess of twisted metal roof and splintered wood that the tub seems to be unscathed at the moment. (UPDATE: hottub Not unscathed, looks to be cleaved in the back by a gigantic beam) But, I've got to get someone out here to try and move some of the snow to see if the tub can be saved or it could be too dangerous to even try and move the snow at this point. In the least, I have three feet of snow staring at me when I open my back garage door that used to lead to the tub that needs to get moved before flooding occurs. Crazy, long fucking winter. I'm sooo over it.

These pics are opening the back door. The snow is up against the door and house and you can see the disaster a couple feet away from the killer snow berm. It looks like a bomb went off. I'm tired of ths place...

Oh wall

Here is my new half a wall. There was a cheesy piece of wood veneer on the back of my kitchen cabinets on the other side previous to the upper wall's existence. Now that it is there, it looks like it should have been there the whole time. It was put up for a practical purpose: so I could hang a new microwave over my stove on the other side. My olde (25+ years) micro was suspended from the upper crawl space with long threaded bolts...a set up I found out was completely unorthodox when I tried two years ago to replace it and was told I NEEDED a wall. A friend had her master carpenter husband take a look to see if a wall could be squeezed in behind the cabinets and tied in with the lower wall. It was possible and I am eternally grateful to them for the help! It looks great and the new micro is wonderful.

peekturapalooza

There is something terribly wrong with my ability to understand and maneuver through digitalcameraville...very, very wrong....I can't figure this shit out so that it is streamlined. Instructions? I don't read no stinkin instructions...

There should appear (in reverse order):

Art

a) moderne design nesting dolls

b) branches design nesting dolls

c) a little painted round box

Fruit

marble fruit I bought in Florence, Italy that is really awesome.