I was gone - did you miss me?

Strange as it may seem, I apparently have readers who demand new fodder every so often. Since they are family, they know how to reach me to nag me make sure I am okay. Anyone else probably did not miss my life updates. Actually, the blog gets updated more often when I am not busy doing anything. When I have actual new stuff to write about, I am too busy doing said stuff to write. Go figure.

I was happy today to find new Ladyslipper pictures on her mom's Face-book account and saved them to my computer to share. So with no further ado, here she is.

Hopefully, when she is a bit older, Shoeshine will be able to bring her to visit us.

The cold I developed in R.I. was still with me all of last week, which sucked, but the good news was I successfully kept the germs to myself and neither of my parents caught it. That would have been quite the guilt trip! My sisters and I browbeat my folks into accepting the fact that they should have grab bars installed in their bathroom. One sister suggested that they totally redo it with a walk-in shower and that was enough to make the bars seem minor, I guess.

J and I drove down Friday, took my mother out to buy the ones she wanted and installed them Saturday morning. We replaced a towel bar and added a lower one at the side, but that was it. #4 asked me where the others were, and I told her that was her argument to make- I hadn't won it when I tried for 2 more bars. Baby steps.

However, later drama forced their hands when my father stood up too abruptly shortly after dialysis and keeled over. A 911 call, rescue truck ride and 2+ hours in the emergency room later, he was sent home with instructions to stand up and wait before he moves on in the future.  We struck quickly and won the 2 extra bars in the bathroom. 

Ameranth stayed home with the dogs(Thank you) and welcomed us home with the news that Boomer had a large bump over his eye. Unknown origin. We are guessing it may have been a bit of porcupine quill that worked it's way out, especially since it drained overnight.

Oh, speaking of dogs, Rosie had her first monthly steroid shot Friday. It was pouring rain, and I had to force her into the car, then into the vet's office. As we walked in the lobby I heard a low moan, followed by a couple more- it sounded like a sad,sad cow. She has a few hard little bumps on her leg which are probably quills and I mentioned them to the vet, commenting that I told Rosie if they were tumors that was the last straw. The vet thought I was kidding.

Ameranth finally got her photos uploaded. Here's the evil porcupine in a tree after it tried to kill my dogs It's a little small so I think it's probably this year's and was out on it's own for the first time.

Here are the frolicking dogs moments before the 'incident'.

And here's Boomer as he repaid Ameranth's kindness in taking him with Anna hiking up Mount Pisgah. He raced up the fire tower and then promptly forgot how to go down steps. Ameranth doesn't like heights.

 

After forcing herself up as far as she could and having me try calling him down on speaker phone, a friendly hiker finally showed up. He didn't mind heights, but was a little leery of helping a dog who was growling at him. He had to lead him all the way down because as soon as he let go Boomer tried to head up again. 

On the plus side, there were lovely views from that far up.