Last One, I Promise

 This is my sister's dog, Sir Francis Bacon "Frankie" or at least it was before he gained about 20lbs. Cute little shit, right? He's a straight mix between a Blue-tick Coonhound (his dad) and an Australian Cattle Dog (his mom).

He is a strange little awkward bugger and I'm not sure how big he's going to get, but my guess would be big. He will dwarf my short-legged little corgi before long.

He's not mine though, so that's about all I have to say about him except that he is pretty damn cute, right? With the spots and droopy ears and houndog mouth and all? Pretty damn cute. 

The plan: Katie wants to put him in Obedience and Agility training. He's already pretty good at Obedience, but Agility is where I'm sure my dog will wipe the floor with him.

-Sarah

Huge Neurotic Chihuahua

 This is Brutus Maximus, and we inherited him from my grandmother when she passed. I loved Non, and she loved dogs, but she never socialized them or fed them right or did shit with them. Because of that, we had a neurotic bundle of nerves who didn't understand dog food, treats, or how to play.

We have since remedied most of his neuroses and taught him to be playful and to stick up for himself and his food. He no longer feeds on table scraps, he no longer shivers in a strange dog's presence, he no longer cowers by my ankles at the dog park. He is, essentially, a new dog. Take that, Cesar Milan!

Just look at him posing all sexy with that Kong! That is a self-confident little fucker if I ever saw one.

The plan: Make sure he always gets as much attention as the other two dogs and provide with treats, walks, and stimulation. Take to obedience classes and hope something sticks. He is, after all, a chihuahua. Or so we were told. (At 12lbs he is twice the max weight of a AKC chihuahua, suggesting perhaps he was mixed with something or improperly bred.) I love mutts, so it really doesn't matter. Maybe whatever he could be mixed with will make him smarter than your average Chiwa.

-Sarah

On The Brighter Side: My Dog Is A Sexy Bitch

Look at this beautiful dog. Is this not the sexiest, vaguely Yoda looking dog you have ever seen in your entire life? (It's the ears.)
Actually, Yoda's a pretty ugly little frog. I'm going to ditch the Yoda analogy. It's not working for me. Pretend you didn't see that.

So yeah, sexy dog. His name is Remy LeBeau after Gambit from X-Men. (If I ever get a girl her ass is going to be Anna Marie after Rogue. Damn, I'm so lame...)

Remy is approx 2 years old and I got him from the city animal shelter where his previous owner ditched him for imagined aggression issues. Whatevs. He's a gentle cuddle bug as far as I'm concerned. The only thing he has aggression towards is used diapers and other disgusting chewable objects. It sucks to clean those up, but I have a pooper scooper, so bring it on. Totally worth it for this beautiful dog.

So here's the plan: I've had him for about 6 months and we love going on walks and doing stuff together, so I'm going to take him to Obedience training. After he's got the basics down, the real fun begins with Agility training. Jumping through flaming hoops FTW!

-Sarah

Dad's Officially A Toothless Hillbilly Now

So I'm at work freaking out right now.

Ferdley and Katie and I were supposed to go to dad's heart valve replacement surgery this Monday, but they postponed the surgery so we postponed our trip. The doctors decided to rip out 9 of Dad's teeth instead so they could get any infection out of his mouth before they put the new heart valve in. Then after the surgery he got mysteriously placed in ICU with no explanation. I was notified of this twice at 10:30 and 10:40 last night. I figured it was late but Ferdley would want to know, so I called and left a message.

Turns out he's in ICU because his blood pressure dropped after the oral surgery. They want to keep a closer eye on him.

I don't know what to do, but I guess I'll continue to hold out for his heart valve surgery considering I can really only afford to travel there once.

-Sarah

I'm Not Funny And They Aren't Philistines

I just read some of my blog to my family and they didn't laugh even once. Philistines. Actually I'm not sure what that means, it just sounds good. Appropriate.

Hold on, googling...

Definition of Philistinism: In the fields of philosophy and aestetics, the term philistinism describes the social attitude of anti-intellectualism that undervalues and despises art, beauty, spirituality, and intellect; ‘the manners, habits, and character, or mode of thinking of a philistine’.

That only works if I consider my blog art, and I don't. This is only a narrative of events. A cheap therapist. A diary, if you will. I'm well aware that nobody is reading this, and that's OK. I can say whatever I like because I have no audience. And thus I have no one to judge me for what I write, or how I write it, or my inability to create proper sentence structures or spelling. This works for me.

And with that I say adeu.

-Sarah

Everything Will Kill You!

It's true! 

New horrible fitness slogans:
"Work out! Or you'll die!"
"Gym or death!"
"Join the Running Team so you don't die as horribly as your grandma!"
"The Grimm Reaper loves a little junk in the trunk!"

Truth in Advertising Anti Smoking Campaign:
"You'll look really cool smoking in your hospital bed! Especially when the oxygen tank blows! Who doesn't want to go in a bad ass explosion?" (Do they blow up? I dunno...)
"Want to kill yourself incrementally over a long period of time? Smoking might be right for you!"

Diet Slogans To Really Motivate:
"A moment on the lips, years of diabetes before multiple amputations and inevitable death!"
"Cake and death!"
"The new McRib, now with carcinogen cauce! Mmm..."
"Nothing tastes as good as not being dead feels!" 

That's all I got.
-Sarah

Tragic Recap

I haven't written in a while, so here is the tragic recap:

Non's breast cancer metastasized to her brain and after a month of being completely out of it waiting, she eventually passed in her sleep in a nursing home bed. She is being cremated and her ashes will be spread on Dauphin Island in a few weeks when we can manage to get our shit together.

My other grandmother out of state who I talk to a couple times a month had a possible heart attack and had to have 2 stints I didn't know she had replaced. (I found out all of this a few days later. My out of state relatives suck at relaying news.) She then started vomiting green stuff and they thought her gallbladder was freaking out on her but then she stopped and they pretended it never happened. She will have another 2 stints in about a week and then hopefully be ok.

My dad. My dad has been a perpetual smoker of both cigarettes and glaucoma medication for my entire life and it seems to be catching up to him. He has a warp in a valve of his heart. That's bad, but apparently not the reason that his resting heart rate is about 3x what it's supposed to be. He also has pneumonia and had a fever of 107, which my knowledge of House tells me should have cooked his brain quite utterly. Still he managed to call me at work today and make me bawl my eyes out like a ninny. No one has the sense to update me on his condition either, so I'm getting all of my info from his poor gasping ass. Or lungs. Whatever.

Mom is dealing with Non's death fairly well considering she just lost her mother.

Middle Sister is dealing very well with everything going on. Her stalker is in juvie, so I guess that's helping.

Baby Sister seems to understand and be cool with Non being in heaven. She might just be psyched to have inherited a working cell phone at 4 years old though. BTW, she totally understands speed dial. I'm in for a lot of calls.

My dog, Remy, was abducted by the sometimes loathed County Animal Shelter as well as Middle Sister's dog. I had to borrow $160 from Mom to get them out of the pokey. (OMG I just figured out why they call it the pokey. Eww...) This made me realize that once again, I never have any savings when I need it. Got to work on that. Now we have to build a fence on the property. It's $1695 btw. Yeah, looking forward to that bill. Thank sweet baby Jebus for income tax.

My aunt wants me to perpitrate tax fraud with her. I must say I was tempted to do it for the $4000 or so it would net me, but it feels wrong and with the luck my family has right now I'm thinking it'll probably come back to take a chunk out of my ass.

And I am a broke mess who desperately needs a vacation and a few health potions or whatever to dispense. And maybe a full body scan. Getting kind of paranoid about my health at this point. After all, everything will kill you.