The Hermits' Rest

What’s a book or movie that genuinely scared you?

Appropriately for today, I think, the first book that popped into my mind as genuinely scary was The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood. That book’s all-too-plausible dystopian future has come way too close to reality recently. Judging by how often women still dress as characters from the book during protests, I think it’s stuck with many of us. I could not bring myself to watch it on television or to read the sequel, The Testaments, though maybe I could try.

If you’ve not read this book, do so. It’s so easy to gradually shift a culture into something really frightening. As a woman, I’m always aware of how thinly societal norms hide the embedded sexism.

---

Blah blah. Today was strange in some ways, as well as a bit scary. Our weekly Mexican lunch was quite the fiesta, as you could imagine with a group of Democrats in an overwhelmingly Republican Texas place. Margaritas were drunk, cheering occurred, and I smiled so much that my cheeks hurt. The election results in the US have really shocked us, pleasantly.

I liked that we had good talks about what needs to be accomplished by the newly elected officials and what some potential issues might be. We each named what we would like addressed first. I wanted to get ICE out of our cities and back protecting borders. Others talked about returning Roe V Wade to its previous status. The one we ended up liking the best was getting rid of that Hegseth guy. Can that be done? Not sure.

And now for dogs

Scarier stuff came later in the day when Dr Amy and her team came to look at our sick dogs and advise us on how to deal with the flea invasion here. It’s so nice of her to make house calls. But then, when she comes here, she gets close to a day’s worth of patients. And a LOT of money.

Vlassic has been showing signs of pain in his rear legs, and been unable to get onto the couch and can’t walk far with Lee’s brother. He was our main concern. I hate to see my little buddy in pain. He received a shot and some pain medication to help him heal after some rest indoors. I hope it works. He also is having bloodwork done, as are Harvey and Alfred, who has been panting a lot and coughing strangely.

Harvey also got looked at, since he has been slowing down a lot. The issue is not his liver like we thought. He was severely dehydrated! I never thought of that, since he drinks plenty of water. Dr Amy believes his kidneys or liver might be causing the problem. He received a bag of IV fluid, which the poor vet tech had to hold up by hand, since they didn’t bring one of those IV poles.

Alfred got evaluated and they aren’t sure what his breathing issues are from. His arthritis is progressing, though, so Lee is adjusting his medication timing. His flea issue was so bad they decided to shave him. This time went way better than the first time we tried a number of years ago. Dr Amy has gotten very good at it. We laughed that she’s a very expensive grooming service for the most exclusive of clients. Dang, he had a lot of hair. And fleas. That poor dog. Well, now he’s all fixed up, including nail trimming (any dog that got sedated also got a trim).

Penney, Carlton, and Benito lucked out and didn’t have much done to them, but…

After much debate, we gave each dog the flea medication that lasts an entire year. It’s full of microbeads. This alone could explain a high vet bill. Ka-ching. To do this, each dog had to be weighed. This involved many hijinks.

Benny walked into the mobile vet truck, stood on the scale, and accepted his shot. He absolutely loved the vet truck. No problem. Vlassic got weighed ahead of time, so got to sleep through his flea shot.

Harvey was carried in by the vet assistants.

At this point I fell asleep. Oops.

Harvey, too, was out of it! Do I remember his weight? No, because I was off getting Carlton, who doesn’t like vet visits much. I was able to slip a leash over him as he tried to get into the house. I felt triumphant, because that was the easiest time I ever had getting him vet-ready. But I was so wrong.

I confidently took him to the screen door to go to the truck. But, no screen door for him! He proceeded out the dog door. I couldn’t get out the human door without dropping the leash, and I knew he’d take off immediately. So. I went out the dog door. Oh boy, am I glad no cameras were present for this undertaking. It was beyond awkward. My knees and elbows suffered, and I had to rotate my hips. Then I had to stand up. I’m fooling myself if I think I’m as spry as I used to be.

The good news is that Carlton just stood there and watched me through the contortions. But I wasn’t done. He was NOT interested in going anywhere. So I carried him, and at 100 pounds less than Alfred (i.e., 47 lbs.), it was like carrying a bag of horse food all that way. At least he let me carry him and was fine for the actual weighing and injecting.

Penney ended up requiring me, Lee, and the very patient vet tech to get her corralled and leashed. That was Lee’s turn to end up awkwardly on the ground. No photos. Once leashed, she walked right in, weighed, and got her flea meds. Once in the truck, she wanted to stand watch over the slowly awakening Harvey. It was kind of sweet.

Last but not least, we had to weigh Alfred. He was in the house recovering and not steady on this feet. So the vet tech and I got him going by putting a towel under him for support. That worked until we got to the steps. Alfred doesn’t do stairs. So, the vet tech held up his rear while I helped his feet onto each of the three steps. Eventually he was up, weighed in at 147 and then wagged his still-bushy tail at us. His heart sounded good, too, which ruled out one potential cause for his weird coughing episodes (congestive heart failure).

Getting him back down the stairs was equally challenging. He had to sit and rest afterwards, so the vet tech took the opportunity to shave his tail, which had been sorta hacked up in an attempt to get rid of the twig collection in it. When she was done, it looked like she’d removed another dog.

What a long adventure for all involved, canine and human. No wonder I fell asleep while writing last night! But today Harvey looks great and all dogs have forgiven us, except maybe Alfred.

Today’s a new day and I’m daring to wear a political shirt, now that Greg Abbott is rolling into the sunset.

And my morning was made complete, because I was out feeding birds when I heard my favorite migration sound: the Sandhill Cranes! It was a small flock, but they came close enough to see them well. Do click an image to see the big birds!

On that squawking note, it’s back to work for me. I think there’s less of a chance that The Handmaid’s Tale will come true now.