Day 353

Well, it’s been a really good day. We had a visit from the dog I have talked about several times – Bandy is his name at the moment – and he came to visit because he’s going to stay with us a while. His current foster has a change in work status that requires here to be out of the house much more than she has been, and we decided Bandy needed more interaction than she can do at the moment. He is due for heartworm treatment, and that will require close and careful monitoring. It can be fatal, and is sometimes, especially in dogs that are already in trouble or who don’t have a really strong will to live. Why Bandy does is hard to know, but he has come from as near dead as any dog I’ve ever known to being strong on the comeback trail. His coat is filling out (he was nearly hairless), and the mange and neutering are both taken care of for him. Once he ahs the shots he will likely just lie around and feel bad for a while as the heartworms are destroyed. With most dogs, lethargy is a part of the treatment and it’s always important to keep a dog in treatment calm so that their heart rate doesn’t rise too much. If he makes it, he very well might be a new addition here.

The cockapoo and him hit it off, but I think it’s because she (the cockapoo) thinks we got her a dog of her very own. It was interesting to watch and they got along really very well. Actually couldn’t have been any better, though Bandy was hesitant to even get out of the foster’s car right at first. He’s due back Monday or Tuesday, and we are really looking forward to his return. Big white dog in the house again – hooray!

I don’t think I mentioned the shedding, and Great Pyrs - great big white double-coated dogs - shed – a lot. A little all the time –and Bandy is especially good about brushing, which is a really good thing. Once a year or so they blow their coats, meaning they shed a bunch over a relatively short time. Either way – whether a big shed or the brushing – the birds absolutely love it. One of the coolest things about the brushing is that all of the bird’s nests in the area will be lined with soft white fur come nest-building season.

Had the last of the “Mom’s” flakes this morning and will likely get another box, as it is pretty darn good. I am fluctuating between Cheerios (several versions) and the Mom’s flakes, though I will examine the cereal aisle more closely now that I am a breakfast cereal guy. I wandered around in the kitchen (doesn’t take that long in our compact, but efficient kitchen space) when I first got up, thinking I wanted something other than cereal for breakfast. However, the more I thought about it, it’s really hard to beat good grains early in the day – relatively low cal, easy, good crunch (at least until the flakes get soggy), and also fairly cheap.

Lunch was a couple of small slices of the leftover pizza form a few days back. Didn’t want to waste it and really nibbled the good stuff off and left most of the bread part (which KL promptly ate. She loves bread even more than me, which is really saying a lot. But hey! She’s Italian, so it’s in her genes).

Dinner was some sort of ready-to-go package of chicken and spinach, which we’ve had several times and which is really good (if a little heavy in spinach). Kl eats spinach in darn near everything, but I get a tad overloaded by it sometimes. Nevertheless, it’s loaded with good stuff so it’s a do and that’s all there is to it.

KL was hungry for something sweet and thought about cookies, but decided to make banana bread instead, as we had three bananas that were trying to go bad. We both like bananas, but sometimes I eat them easily and other times I simply forget they are there. I like that it’s easy to use them past the good-eating stage in bread so they aren’t wasted.

Graded papers – lots of them – and as is usual, I have a lot of students who are going to be surprised by their “grades.” I put it in quotation marks because I’m not going to post them. I really had them do simple autobiographies so I could see where their writing skills are at the moment. Some are good writer, but most are not. Here, in this state, we have “tests” that the teachers in high school teach to (even though they say they don’t), and it palsy hell with the students actually learning what they need to know to be successful in college. And then there’s the was that the top 10% get to go to the state school of their choice with automatic acceptance. Sounds like a good deal on the surface, but unfortunately there is so much pressure put so many students in high school that many who are actually in the top 10% actually cheated their way into it. One of the papers I have my students do is an examination of academic cheating (because it is so rampant and because the repercussions are so severe for those who are caught), and many readily admit to me that they cheated at least some of the time while they were in high school. It’s sad that so many potentially good students have to start their college careers handicapped by both a lack of information they should have and by the consequential poor study habits that cheating encourages.

Tomorrow is KL’s birthday, so the day is hers all day. Will likely do dinner somewhere and perhaps a movie. We most recently saw Avatar and were seriously impressed with the new technology used in it. Tomorrow will probably be a chick-flick, as it’s KL’s to decide and whatever she wants is okay with me. We’ve been married for 14 years now (I think) and I couldn’t love her more. Took me a while, but I finally got it right.

Surprise! No one sighed up as a “follower” after yesterday’s blog, so it looks like I really am the only one listening here. Again, not really a problem as I am writing for me. That said, dididitdahdedah. Ha! I know what that means!

Tomorrow.

-Average Joe
Somewhere, USA