Odds and Ends, This and That

Will we ever play fetch again???

We took Smokey to the vet for his checkup on Friday. He's showing so much more energy, and he's quite frustrated with us that we have not played fetch with him for eight days.

The doctor wants us to keep him on the pain pills for a little longer. She's also given us glucosamine for his joints. We're going to try to avoid surgery for as long as we can. She said, "He's so young. We have such a long way to go." We just need to watch him closely and make sure he doesn't have more episodes of pain. I think we also need to be careful about not letting him jump as much as he usually does. That means throwing his toys about three feet in fetching games instead of all the way into the other room. This is going to be difficult. He's an energetic dog.

A sobering thing happened while we were at the animal hospital. We were one of the first appointments, and the staff was all atwitter because late yesterday, a homeless man walked in and made his way to the bathroom and used the spray attachment to give himself a shower, thus getting water all over the floor. All the staff cared about was the inconvenience, the mess, their discomfort, the man's weirdness, etc. Not one appeared to feel sorry for him. I was saddened but I also wondered if I would have responded any differently.

In contrast, we saw something delightful as we drove home. A group of preschool children and several adult women were at the local fire station. They were all wearing T-shirts that were tie-dyed in rainbow colors, and they were watching a fireman demonstrate how fire hoses work. It was a charming sight. It reminded me of a scene from the novel-in-progress being written by a woman in my writer's group, in which a fireman visits a classroom to teach children about safety and meets the teacher who later becomes his wife. If you're reading this Maggie, hello. (She probably won't. She helps at a camp for child oncology patients every summer.)

Yesterday, I realized that the history chapter I'm writing is four pages longer than I originally thought, so I'm slightly behind the daily writing quota I need to make so I can finish on time. In spite of that, I took a couple of hours to run some errands with Michael. Usually, when I'm writing, I try to work a four-day week with Fridays off. I haven't had that luxury this summer, so I was feeling a bit sorry for myself. Because of that, I decided it was better to take a two-hour break. We sent some mail, bought decaf coffee at Starbucks (I'm weaning myself off caffeinated coffee), bought a new toy to give Smokey since he's had such a tough week (we spoil him), and ate lunch at Panera. Oh, and I bought a book because I had a credit at Borders.

Last, I'm going to conclude by talking about a couple of food experiments. This morning when we returned from the animal hospital, I was desperately craving a mocha. That's one of the indulgences that I think caused my bad test results, and I've drunk only one in the nine weeks I've been on my new diet. So I decided to try to make a more healthy one at home. Looking at our bottle of Hershey's syrup, I discovered that the top ingredient is high fructose corn syrup. Bleaah. I don't want that! And I didn't want white sugar either. So I made my "mocha" with espresso, skim milk, cocoa powder, and molasses. It didn't exactly taste like a mocha, but it wasn't bad. Next time I'll use a bit less molasses because it leaves an aftertaste, and I'll find a way to moisten the powder before I put it in the coffee. (BTW, did you know that molasses has calcium in it? Imagine. Nutrition in a sweetener.)

The second food experiment worked out much better. One of the meals we like to make for fun occasions (Super Bowl, Oscar night, etc.) is ground turkey tacos. I use my own seasonings instead of a packet because those seasoning mixes are so high in sodium. This time we made two other alterations to make them healthier. Instead of using white-flour or corn tortillas, we used whole wheat tortillas. And instead of lettuce, we used spinach. They certainly weren't your standard, tex-mex-restaurant tacos. But they were very, very tasty.

Hope you didn't mind this pot luck of a post. I wasn't feeling too profound when I typed it Friday evening.