looks like somebody ate his wheaties

pouncey had some vaccines this morning and as i brought him into the office, the vet said "looks like somebody ate his wheaties this morning...with some CRACK on top..."



the beginning of a snarl



aww pouncey so cute



SNARL!

 

really he is a nice dog, just a little spring-loaded!

nachos falls

once upon a time there was a waterfall.

nacho went to the top of the waterfall.

nacho hopped straight down the face of the waterfall.

nacho had to think quick because there were slippery rocks at the bottom of the waterfall!

nacho thought quick and hopped even quicker!

nacho did a full extension leap and landed on the dirt and was fine! stuck the landing! 

 the rest of us had heart attacks.

stretched pouncey

nothing wrong with this dog's enthusiasm level!

fresh mullet

had a great time at the beach last week!  we went to the outer banks, where i lived for a summer 15 years ago.

i lived in a house with 3 guys and 3 girls. the guys were lifeguards. the girls worked in restaurants. the restaurant where i worked had a 6 foot iguana in an aquarium. the iguana was named frisco, the restaurant was named frisco's. i was not great at waiting tables. i had nightly nightmares about forgetting food. i think i took it too seriously.

anyway the outer banks are about the same. not much has been built in the past 15 years around nags head, and a lot that i remember has been been left to seed or torn down. some of the awesome old signs from the 50's are still up on hotels.

tortugas is still there. phew.

we tried to catch fish. even used bloodworms.

no luck.

we had more luck flying a kite

and boogie boarding



and touching the eyes of tunas 

it was a great trip!

nachos has issues

poor little nachodoggy.

he has allergies.

he has had allergies off and on since we moved from california to north carolina. for a few weeks in the spring, summer, and fall, he licks at his legs to the point that he bites the fur off and he's left with open sores. the vet calls them 'hotspots.'

after reading "some of my best friends are germs" in the new york times last month, i am wondering if he just does not have the microbes needed to deal with southeastern allergens, since he was born and raised in the desert of southern california.

last year the vet prescribed antihistamines which i gave him 2x/day for 2 weeks and did nothing at all whatsoever to relieve his itching.

allergies are the single greatest cause of vet visits in the US. he could be allergic anything - though grass is what i suspect. it could be cleaning products, leather, plastic, wool, carpets, corn, wheat, anything. 

it was so bad last week, he was scratching and licking and biting himself 23 hours a day. he wasn't sleeping. nobody in the house was sleeping. he is not quiet when he is scratching. he slams his feet into the floor. he whimpers. he pants. it's really sad. i tried to empathize and i imagine it feels like poison ivy, but worse, because he doesn't know that itching it spreads it. it got to the point i was thinking his misery was so great the kind thing would be to put him to sleep.

but instead of euthanasia, nacho has been getting oatmeal baths! for humans. the same oatmeal baths that helped my poison ivy. i mix the oatmeal and hot water in a bowl and then dump the bowl into a kiddie pool outside full of cold water. every day, nacho takes an oatmeal bath in a kiddie pool in the driveway.  he loves it.

kevin found this stuff online called dermapaw and figured it's worth a shot. it's all natural and soothing - it looks like a little jar of vaseline. i put it all over nacho's legs and belly at bedtime. and then - the best part - nacho wears socks!

every morning the socks are off, but still - it's pretty cute while it lasts!

i would say his itching has been relieved drastically by these two treatments. after 3 days, it was down about 50%. Today (5 days) it is down about 75%, if not more.  he seems so much more comfortable.

thank you aveeno oatmeal baths and dermapaw!

side note: the title of this is "nachos has issues." this is what kevin's 4 year old niece told us when we were talking about how nacho used to be afraid of small children. she obviously was repeating what somebody had told her, and it was hilarious. the same niece also looked at pouncey and said 'pouncey has a penis.' to which her father responded, 'pouncey DOES have a penis.' kevin & i have adopted both of these phrases - nachos has issues, and pouncey has a penis - into the vernacular. thank you unintentionally hilarious toddlers!

more from pouncey

in conjunction with the previous post, if your summer is not fun or cool enough, pouncey and his drool can help with that. 
 

brevard labrador vintage t-shirt with eli, nacho & pouncey!

the dogs were happy to help model a 80's vintage t-shirt from brevard nc featuring one of their cousins with a duck in his mouth.

2 minutes after this picture was taken our buddy the black bear came down the hill, headed towards us - there was a 4 foot chain link fence between us and him, though.

the dogs started barking like crazy and charged him, and i followed them also yelling at the bear. he made a quick turn and scurried to the neighbor's. 

garbage day!

happy father's day!

i hope all dads are having great days! 

here's pouncey this morning hopping through the hay like a white tail deer 

is that a dildo?

the river is kind of a trash can. especially after heavy rains, it's easy to find things like plastic bags, nerf balls, socks, hubcaps, and makeup brushes washed upon the banks.

the other night we were down there throwing balls for the dogs and saw what looked like a dildo bobbing around in a little cove. it was skin colored. it was phallic. it was floating. what the hell else could it be? a paint roller? we were flummoxed.

reenactment featuring curious pouncey as a puppy

do you want to know what it was?

it wasn't a dildo!




it looked like a dildo though, didn't it?










do you really want to know?










okay!






it was a baby doll arm!

having a stroke? call 911!

kevin's parents came for memorial day and among the great discussions that we had, they shared some advice they'd recently heard from a prominent neurosurgeon in tallahassee.

if you think you (or somebody else) are having a stroke, call 911! do not try to drive yourself to the emergency room.

it will take hours for you to be processed correctly through the system, for the neurologist to arrive, for help.

'time is brain' - the longer it takes, the less recovery.

if you call 911, an ambulance will be set up to help you and you'll be whisked right in once you get to the hospital.

call 911!

the warning signs for a stroke are: F.A.S.T.

• FACE: Ask the person to smile. Does one side of the face droop? 
• ARMS: Ask the person to raise both arms. Does one arm drift downward? 
• SPEECH: Ask the person to repeat a simple phrase. Is their speech slurred or strange? 
• TIME: If you observe any of these signs, call 9-1-1 immediately.

they also said that an absurd percentage of people who have a stroke/heart attack reports 'steak' as a meal in the previous day.

extreme kayaking

saturday morning we went to walmart to buy another kayak.

kevin bought a kayak for himself last weekend, drove up the river a mile or two, and kayaked home. it only took about 30 minutes.

he thought it was easy enough that i would like it too.

i have never been in a kayak. i was wary of the whole thing but after some cajoling and adventure-shaming, off we went with 2 kayaks in the car.

at first it was great. it was a lazy river. not too deep. not too many rocks.

then after less than 10 minutes we came upon rocks and rapids, and i fell out of my kayak.

i was a drowned rat. my kayak was swamped and sinking. the river rocks were slippery. i managed to get to the side, get most of the water out of the kayak, found my paddle and got back in.

i only screamed "I HATE THIS!" one time. kevin paddled over to help me and fell out of his kayak. this was helpful.

back in the slightly swamped kayaks,  we headed downriver again. more rapids ahead, kevin yelled "ROCK" and there was nothing i could do (that i knew of) so i let my kayak hit the rock where it flipped me over and out and got stuck.

there are no pitcures of this, but we can assume it looked like this.

the kayak was wrapped around the rock, stuck. i was waist deep in a rapid trying to get it loose. it was not budging. my paddle floated downriver, gone.

i screamed "I CAN'T FUCKING DO THIS!," waded down to where kevin was waiting for me and said "i broke my kayak."

he went back, dislodged the kayak (not broken after all!), stashed it in the woods, gave me the key to his car and paddled his kayak home.

i scrambled out of the woods completely soaking wet,  i passed an older couple of tourists on the trail and as i scurried by she said "oh...OH!" and i said "i fell in the river." she laughed. i cried.

i soppingly walked a mile back to the car and drove home.


 
this is where i left my pants and shoes. 

an hour later a jehova's witness knocked on the door, i'm sure she was thinking the people who live here need some jesus in their life!

brain damaged cardinal flying into window repeatedly

brain damaged cardinal flying into window repeatedly a video by skippy haha on Flickr.

the internet tells me that this male cardinal sees his reflection in the window, thinks it's a rival cardinal, and tries to air-fight him.

over and over. 

for hours every day.

this idiot cardinal flies face first into the window, smacks his face, goes back to a branch, and flies again face first into the window.

the internet tells me to put a piece of paper over the window so he can't see his reflection.
i think maybe i'll just let darwin take care of this guy.

bear in the driveway

2 minutes ago! smallish bear, probably only 150 lbs.  moseying, and i do mean moseying down the driveway.

the dogs went berserk.

it's garbage day and the bears like garbage!

16 seconds of sucking

here's pouncey sucking on grammie's bed:

caught a big one!

went on a hike last weekend and came to a spot of pure beauty and kevin said to pouncey and me, 'you two go over there and do something.'

voila!

things i've learned about baseball

1. when people hang the "K" signs after a strike out - frontwards K's mean they went down swinging; backwards K's mean they went down looking. 

2. home plate umpires put their hands on the catcher's back! so they know which way the guy is moving. 

photo via umpire-empire.com

pouncey has a twin

one family at the rv park where pouncey was born last year kept one of his puppy brothers, in addition to their mother blizzard. 

they named the puppy duke. i am choosing to believe it's after the bush's beans talking dog duke, and not after that crappy school in durham.

the park has a facebook page and they occasionally post pictures of duke.

poUNCey or duke? hard to tell!

this absolutely makes my day. i "like" all the pictures, and make comments, it's really the only page on facebook i go to, and i go there way too often. it's to the point kevin is hinting that i am stalking them. 

i think the dogs may have identical DNA - they even share have mirrior image tongue spots.

this is duke, click to see pouncey's tongue spot

it makes me so happy to see pictures of pouncey's twin having a nice little life over in waynesville. 

Nacho & Pouncey or Blizzard and Duke?

do you think it's natural to be fascinated by your pet's twin?

pouncey sucks pillows

pouncey sucks.

he sucks on his bed. he gets a corner in his mouth and sucks on it. sometimes he falls asleep with his bed in his mouth.

we always say 'pouncey, stop sucking on grammie's bed' (the bed was a christmas present from grammie), but the sucking doesn't stop.

he isn't chewing or shredding it, he is just sucking on it. for long periods of time.

i just googled "dog sucks on pillow' and the conventional wisdom seems to be that dogs who are taken from their mothers too soon may suck on pillows. like sucking thumbs. a security thing.

pouncey was taken from his mother at 5-6 weeks since she was too old to make enough milk for all the puppies.

and now he sucks on his bed instead. 

poison ivy

i am covered in poison ivy. all over my torso. ALL OVER my torso. itchy blisters. increasing intensity. appeared on monday, they are still getting worse 4 days later.

spent a half hour pulling weeds last weekend and will now spend the next 2 weeks in pure unadulterated urushiol hell.

the first time in my life i got poison ivy was last year after doing yard work. i've hiked and camped all over in and out of the woods for 36 years in shorts and short sleeves and never got poison ivy a single time. as soon as yard work entered the picture last year i've been plagued to some degree.

 i am politely recusing myself from doing any yardwork for the rest of my life.

i will plant food in the garden, and tend to the plants, but i am never pulling weeds again. chopping down unspecified jungle growth is not happening again. absolutely is not worth it.

i love doing yard work. i love making the yard look nice. i love watching the progress. i love how immediate the gratification is.

i cannot live 6 months of every year in itchy pain.

i have a friend tyler in california who told me a few years ago he could not move to asheville because of the poison ivy. at the time i thought he was kind of nutty. now i understand. all this beautiful bountiful natural wonder with hidden shiny red blistering biting side effects.

kevin is calling me 'bubble boy' and i feel like a whining, complaining wuss, but god DAMN this shit is terrible.

any poison ivy cures, natural or unnatural, lay em on me. i would much rather the rash hurt than itch. i can handle pain, it's the itchiness that is waking me up at night and generally driving me batty. 2+ weeks is a long harsh payment for 30 minutes of yard work.

jesus of puppies

we are still working on the trick where he turns this water into wine

spinart by kevin

for some fun arts &crafts, take a paper towel, pens and magic markers, and a lazy susan. add water and spin!