More pics of where we'll be moving to.

For condos, these are very cool. There more like urban loft apts. Each condo is above a business--we'll have a yarn store below ours. Then the second floor of the building is actually the first floor of the condo. It's one big open space--no walls. The kitchen sort of divides the casual family room area from the formal dining room and living room area. The powder room and the pantry are across from the kitchen. Then the third floor of the building is the second floor of the condo---does this make sense? The 3 bedrooms, 2 of the bathrooms and the laundry room are up there. All of the condos and shops surround the town "green". Right now it's gorgeous--all of the trees are strung with Christmas lights and they just put up the town Christmas tree there. The streetlamps are the old fashioned kind and it just looks so pretty all decorated for the holidays. I really wish we could have been in by Christmas!

Warm would be good.

Geesh, it's so friggin freezing today. It's wet, gloomy and cold outside and inside isn't a whole lot better. This condo must not be well insulated because I have the heat truned up to about 75 and it's still cold in here!
On a much nicer note--things are going well all the way around. Cinnamon is feeling a lot better today and the swelling on either side of her jaw has gone down considerably. She had the drain removed from the top of her head yesterday afternoon and doesn't have to wear her clown collar 24 hours a day. Thank God, cause every time she tried walking with it on, she'd trip over it and land on her head. That can't be good!
We found out about our trash compactor in the new place today. The builder has been so snotty about the changes we want to make. We sort of demanded a compactor---we do not have individual garbage cans there, and I'm not walking half a block to the Dumpster every time I need to take out the trash. He was not happy about it at the time. But lo and behold--now anyone can have one. It's being offered as an upgrade now. My only fear was that that would mean I couldn't pick out the exact one I wanted. Turns out THAT'S the one they're now offering as an upgrade! It's funny, but I was hoping to get away from the "cookie cutter effect"--I wanted my place to be different from all of the neighbors. Now it seems like everything I picked out for my place is being offered as an upgrade to anyone. I think I've fooled them on the powder room downstairs, though!! I said I wanted them to eliminate the standard bathroom vanity cause I thought I'd put in a pedestal sink instead, so they didn't order the vanity cabinet. THEN I found out they started offering pedestal sinks as an upgrade. So I bought a gorgeous cabinet and a stainless steel vessel sink instead. They're gonna shit when they find out, but I'm keeping it a secret til I absolutely have to let them know. HEE HEE. Same with all the lighting fixtures--I didn't like what they offered, so I went and bought my own. If they don't want to install them, we'll take the standard offering and put our own up after we move in. I bet I can sell the other stuff on Ebay or Craigslist. I'm doing the same thing with my faucets, too. They're offering a bunch of different styles but they're all very country or Victorian looking. Our taste runs to comtemporary.
I'm once again getting excited about moving there. Now if I can just find some carpet I like. AAARGH. I am so not good at this!

The Culprit

The Victim

If it weren't stressful and chaotic, it would be someone else's life.

Thanksgiving started out as a nice quiet day. Over the meadow and through the woods, etc. Off to my mom's for the day. No cooking, no cleaning... just Rog, Ryan, the 2 dogs and me, off to Grandma's.
Well, I still don't know what provoked it, but Savannah (the boxer) attacked Cinnamon (the chihuahua). It was so awful. One minute they were fine--Savannah was lying on her bed and Cinnamon was just wandering around. The next minute, Savannah had Cinnamon by the head and was shaking her like a rag doll. I screamed and yelled and Savannah dropped her, but before I could get to Cinnamon, Savannah got her again. OMG. It all happened in an INSTANT. Anyhow, Cinnamon's head immediately started swelling up and she had a grand mal seizure. Rog and I jumped in the car with the phone book and headed off, calling the emergency vet's office from the car to get directions. When we arrived at the vet's, they immediately took her in and gave her manitol (sp?) to relieve the swelling. Fortunately, Cinnamon still has an open fontanel on the top of her head which allowed her brain to swell with less pressure. I should probably inject here the fact that a similar occurance happened 2 years ago on Christmas Day. But that time, Savannah had been sedated and while still groggy, Cinnamon walked up into her face and Savannah just pounced. Cinnamon's skull was fractured. It was a nightmare, but we thought it happened because Savannah was groggy and didn't know what was in front of her. We also thought it was an isolated freaky sort of thing and would never happen again. These 2 dogs have lived together as best buddies for over 6 1/2 years.
Anyhow, Cinnamon had to stay in the hospital down near my mom's, which is over 100 miles from home. Of course, we did not have her seizure meds with us (she already had a seizure disorder) so Roger had to drive all the way home to get it, bring it all the way back down there and then drive all of us home that night. Cinnamon stayed down there. Then on Friday he had to go back down there to pick her up and bring her to the hospital up here.
Cinnamon is now home and doing quite well. She has a drain in the top of her head that hopefully will be removed this afternoon, and she has considerable swelling and bruising on either side of her face. But she's alive and seems to have suffered no brain damage.
I'm dealing with a considerable amount of guilt even though 4 different vets have told me it wasn't my fault. I already know that, but I just feel so awful that this poor little dog has had to go through this--TWICE. All 4 vets told me that when you have multiple dogs in a home, they will occasionally have a squabble. If the dogs are of equal size, it's no big deal. They usually just work it out between them and then it's over. But when you have a 60 lb. dog and a 6 lb. dog, THEN it's a problem. Yes, I know this makes sense, but I feel horrible just the same. I will never allow these 2 dogs to be in the same room again unless Savannah is muzzled. They have never been left together without someone with them, but this incident--and the last one--happened while we were right there.
So the lesson here is: If you own multiple dogs, even if they are the sweetest, most gentle lovable animals in the world, be aware that anything can happen at any time.
We have learned also that the hectic holiday season is NOT the time to include both of them in our plans.

The Story of Thanksgiving. I hope yours is wonderful!

The Princess and the Pee.

No, this is not the story of the princess and the pea. It is the story of MY princess and her pee. So,all right, some of you already know I spoil my dog ridiculously. She has full reign over our home. And she is definitely my princess. I bought her this gorgeous dog bed and it's so funny how she knew, before it was out of the box, that it was HERS. The thing's so big, it's ridiculous. You could sleep a family of 4 pygmies in it. (Please don't send cards and letters, emails or other---I'm not prejudiced. But it is a fact, that pygmies are small people. If this still bothers you, pretend for a moment that I'm talking about pygmy goats). Anyhow, in a nutshell: my princess dog's bed is huge. Or my dog has a huge princess bed.
Next chapter. Savannah, though not well-trained in doggy etiquette, IS very well housetrained and has never, not once, had an "accident" in the house. Until yesterday. She had to wait until we were renting someone else's fully-beautifully- furnished home before she'd pee on carpet. This is what I get for buying her a $300+ doggy bed?
There is no moral to this at all. But it does involve a princess, a mattress and a pee. So I thought I'd write about it.

Soooo sick!

I guess the past 2 months have finally caught up with me. I woke up this morning with the worst cold. UGH. I am not a nice sick person! I become whiny and needy and demanding. I expect my pharmacist husband to come up with a cure--NOW. And when he can't, all hell breaks loose. I want my special Chinese chrysanthemum tea, which is only found in San Francisco's Chinatown. My Chinese friend Amy, just moved to Florida, so I no longer have a "connection". I've tried other chrysanthemum teas, but they just don't work the same. Whatever this stuff was, it was a miracle cold cure! You had to boil it in water for about 3 hours, then strain it and add raw sugar to it. Tasted like shit, but you'd wake up the next day feeling great! I've lived on this stuff every winter for the past 5 years and I swear by it. Damn.
The dogs are driving me nuts today. They want to go out every 5 minutes to poop and pee. And they never want to go at the same time. I'm trying to get them to go out just 3 times a day, cause I can't stay home every day just to take them out. I'm going stir-crazy here. It's time to pick out out cabinets and flooring and appliances, etc. for the new home and I can't get outta here. Maybe Sunday we can take them with us and leave them in the car while we look at carpet. Otherwise, I don't know how we're gonna do it. I don't want to settle for stuff I don't like, just because I don't have time to go shopping. AAARGH.

Flashback Friday--for you, Jan!

Jan's flashback of bugs in Australia, led me to think about bugs in Texas. Giant bugs in Lubbock, Texas. I arrived there in the spring of '73 with my 6 month old daughter. Her dad was briefly a long-haul trucker and on one of his excursions fell in love with Lubbock (????) and decided to stay there. He called me up and told me to meet him there. I was in Sacramento at the time. So, off we flew to Texas, baby and me and all baby accoutrements. We moved into the bottom of a triplex and our first night there was a nightmare. I opened up the cabinet under the kitchen sink and it was filled with GIANT cockroaches. Tons of them, big giant Texas sized cockroaches. OMG. We lived in that place for 6 months and I never got used to them and it was impossible to get rid of them. At night, if the baby woke up, I'd have to empty my slippers of cockroaches to walk over to the light switch. As soon as you flipped on the lights, hundreds of cockroaches would slip under the baseboards. Sometimes you'd wake up at night because a cockroach was walking across your pillow. Then there was the day, when Brandy was about 8 months old and I couldn't find her. I looked EVERYWHERE and she seemed to have vanished into thin air. All of a sudden I hear a giggle and a "nummy-nummy" from behind the radiator. There she was, happy as all get out, polishing off the last of a giant cockroach! Its legs were literally hanging out of her mouth and she just kept going ,"nummy, nummy" the whole time. I will leave the story of the 17 year locusts for next week!

Flashback Friday!

Memories. All alone in the moonlight...
Seriously. I was all alone in the moonlight. My mom left me outside all by myself late at night when I was 3. She was really pissed off cause I was throwing a temper tantrum and threw me out on the porch. I'm sure it was only for a few minutes, but it seemed like all night to me. This was shortly after I ran with a lollipop in my mouth and I fell and the stick went through the roof of my mouth, missing my brain by 1 and 1/4 centimeters. If it had hit my brain, I would have died. I can see my gravestone now. It would probably say "There's a sucker born everyday. And one killed by a sucker occasionally. Here lies Chris, killed by a lollipop." I digress. I just remember my mouth and head were so sore and my mom stuck me out on the porch where I screamed bloody murder til the next-door neighbor complained. Then I went inside where my mom gave me a dose of paregoric and knocked me out. For those who are too young to remember, paregoric was a strong narcotic, popular in the 40's and 50's for teething pain, colic and anything else that made babies cry. It shut them up. Really fast.

Movin' on up, to the Eastside....

Okay, so we've rented this condo in Fountaingrove until our own condo in Windsor is completed. Fountaingrove is the so-called "wealthy" part of town. Homes are over a million dollars, with quite a few costing closer to 2 million and a few for even more. So, I'm living in the poor part of Fountaingrove, if that makes sense. And everyone in this complex is retired. My son said they should have named it Stonefield Retirement Community. It's great, though, to see all of these seniors out playing tennis and golf--we're right across the street from the tennis court and can see the golf course right beyond that. We're probably the LEAST active people here as well as being the youngest.
ANYHOW---this condo is drop-dead gorgeous and I'm scared to death we'll ruin it with our 19 year old slob--I mean, son--and our 2 dogs and 1 cat. It's completely furnished with all new mission style furniture and looks professionally decorated. AAARGH. It's got 2 master suites that are to die for. It's all done in a Tuscan style---we're in wine country, after all--and there's a gorgeous mural on the breakfast nook wall. The colors are fabulous--different shades of gold, eggplant and persimmon on the walls. And the linens and towels are super luxurious--when I said completely furnished, I meant COMPLETELY. Linens, dishes, even soap dishes. It's like walking into a 5 star hotel. Everything is beautiful. God knows it should be for $2500 a month! I hope it still is when we leave!