Funny Shirt

I can't help it. I laughed myself silly over this, which means I have to share...

Religion and Politics

"In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination." - Mark Twain

How true, how true, Mr. Twain. Second hand + without examination = too much conviction in the reporting methods of 24 hour news services.

Just because someone said it doesn't make it fact; just because someone "theorized" it doesn't make it so.

Use logic. Use common sense. Look for the answers yourself instead of relying on 24-news stations and/or your preacher/priest (who is, after all, just a human capable of the same wrong assumptions, interpretations and ideas we all are).

Use your head. Don't let others think for you. That's how bullshit gets started.

(This elaboration on Mark Twains insightful quote brought to you by me.)

Our Little Gidget is Gone

The little girl my husband Eric picked up as a stray in June 2005 has passed away. She left us this past Friday (on St. Patrick's Day) at about 5:30 PM. Gidget was the sweetest little dog...a terrier mix of some odd sort that was about 9 or 10 years old.

Gidget was fine until Tuesday, when she started sleeping more and being less active. We didn't think too much of it because she always slept alot and was always pretty inactive anyway, so the change wasn't really drastic enough that we noticed until after the fact. She was always quiet and laid back.

Very early Thursday morning she took a tumble down the stairs. Eric heard the noise (I didn't...I was still sleeping) and went to see what it was and found Gidget lying on her side at the bottom of the stairs. He checked her all over and she seemed okay, so he brought her back upstairs to bed. He let her out with the other dogs later in the day and she seemed her normal self. He told me about her fall when I got home from work.

Just after he told me about it, I was sitting on the couch with her. It was around 5:15 or so and she seemed fine. Eric was getting ready for band practice. All of a sudden, Gidget stood up and arched her back and peed blood (we're talking bright red blood) and then went kinda funny-limp and collapsed onto her side.

I rushed upstairs and told Eric what happened and that I was taking her to the vet. While upstairs, Gidget jumped down off the couch and came all the way upstairs by herself. Once upstairs, she arched her back again, went funny-limp again, and once more collapsed on her side. We didn't know it at the time, but she was having seizures. Looking back now, we believe this is probably what happened that caused her to fall down the stairs. We were thinking at the time that she had injured herself in the fall, not that the fall was a result of something else.

I took her to the vet immediately and spent over 3 hours with her there while they did x-rays and blood work. They couldn't find any internal injuries, but they did find something in her blood work. They thought she might have IHA (Immune Hemolytic Anemia), but wanted her to see a specialist at the emergency vet clinic around the corner to be sure.

I took her there and they ran more tests and confirmed that she definitely had IHA. IHA is a disease that comes on very rapidly and runs its course in very short order, most of the time resulting in death for the dog afflicted. They don't know what causes it, but the survival rate is extremely low, even with very expensive treatments.

The emergency vet shot her with steroids and said her prognosis was very bleak. They said they could keep her overnight and do a blood transfusion ($1,000 worth of treatment), but they couldn't be sure it would work and that the chances it would do any good were very slim. They told us that at that point, in her condition, the medications they could send her home with stood just as good of a chance of working as the more expensive blood transfusion. She could die overnight while there getting a blood transfusion. We didn't want her to die in the emergency clinic surrounded by strangers. Since the transfusions stood a good chance of failing anyway, and we'd already spent close to $1,000 just that night getting her diagnosed, we opted to take medications and Gidget home to be with us. If she died overnight, at least she would die in her home surrounded by the people and animals who loved her.

She did pretty well overnight and into Friday afternoon. She even barked Friday morning when the other dogs started barking at a car that pulled into the cul-de-sac. She ate well and drank a ton of water. She was still sleeping alot, and pretty passive, but it wasn't too different from the way she normally was, so it was hard to judge by that alone.

On Friday afternoon at 4:30 PM, Eric left to take her back to the vet to have her bloodwork done again. He called me only 10 minutes after he'd left the house and told me that he had just gotten there and she'd started seizing again, this time crying out, which she hadn't done before. The vet had immdediately taken her to the back and injected her with something that would stop her seizing, but then, while Eric was on the phone with me (and we were only on the phone about a minute, so all this happened very quickly), the vet came out and told him that the injection had stopped her seizing and stabilized her temporarily, but that she was in the process of dying.

I rushed to the vet and Eric and I made the decision to have her euthanized rather than have her suffer through more seizures while she died. Eric held her in his lap while they injected her and she went very peacefully. Like Mardigan, the cat we lost to cancer only three months ago, we're having little Gidget the Midget cremated.

I called my mom that evening and told her what had happened and she started crying. She said, "Isn't that funny? It wasn't even my dog, but she was family."

She most definitely was...even if she was only with us for a short 10 months.

Rest in peace, little Gidget.

Click here to view Gidget's website.


Keywords:dog,dogs,IHA,stray,disease,died,euthanized

Crash? WTF is that?

"Crash"? ...
...won the Oscar for Best Picture?
Huh?
Never heard of it...

Not that I was exactly cheering for "Brokeback Mountain"--which is probably a pretty good movie if it weren't for the fact that I hate any Westerns without Jimmy Stewart and just the synopsis of "Brokeback Mountain" puts me too much in mind of John Wayne sporting pink cowboy boots and a lisp (sorry if that was harsh, but I'm just being honest). I've never heard of this "Crash" movie though.

Now, mind you, I'm not a big Hollywood follower. I don't care much what everyone is ranting and raving about at the moment. I form my own opinions about what I see/hear--sometimes they follow the crowd, often times they don't, but when they announced on the news this morning that "Crash" had won the Oscar for Best Picture, I had to stop and think...now what the hell is "Crash"? Usually it's at least a movie I've heard of.

Hm. They raved about that damned Bill Murray movie, too...what was that one? "Lost in Translation". I heard so much about it, and love Bill Murray, so my husband and I rented it and, well, it sucked...bad! My husband and I had this conversation about that movie not too long ago:

Hubby: Remember in that Bill Murray movie when nothing happened?
Me: Yeah.
Hubby: Remember when nothing happened in that movie for, like, two hours?
Me: Yeah.
Hubby: It was like watching the Travel Channel.
Me: Yeah, except not the slightest bit interesting.

That's the worst movie I've ever seen in my entire life. Eventually I'll see
"Crash", I suppose. I hope it's not like "Lost in Translation". I'll have to
assume that the Academy is susceptible to bribery...

Final comments...at least the synopsis for "Crash" sounds really good and very intriguing. Maybe it deserved that statue after all!

Keywords:Crash,Oscar,Academy,Brokeback,Mountain,Lost,Translation,Bill,Murray,Jimmy,Stewart

When Sweet Peas Go Sour

Directly relating to my vent post of yesterday, I've discovered the 52 individuals and/or small companies being unfairly harrassed/sued by a company called Sweet Pea Clothing for so-called "trademark infringement" have decided to fight! I couldn't be happier about this! I stand behind them 100% and hope to God they win this one!

Calling themselves "Sour Peas", they've obtained a Web site called sourpeas.org and have placed all the information you need on there to stand behind them yourselves. Hey, media people, grab this story and make a full-out mockery of this lame Sweet Pea Clothing company and their lame attorney, because this is as ridiculous of a lawsuit as it gets! This needs public attention and I mean now!

I've said it before and I'll keep right on saying it--trademarking common words and phrases should be ILLEGAL! This is what happens to regular folks when the laws stay as they are.

Hmmm...who in the media do I know that I can alert to this?

Go, Sour Peas, go!!!