Happy Birthday Miss Loki

I realized it was Wednesday and thought I could quickly bring this blog back up to date with a Wordless Wednesday post. Then I decided that I don't dare post only a photo after abandoning the blog for several weeks.

So, here are two photos of the family and Miss Loki celebrating Loki's 8th birthday at the end of May. I can't believe she's 8 already!

Don't you love the party hats? We make the dogs wear them every year and every birthday. It's a silly tradition, but I love it and they tolerate it well.

As for the rest of us, we're keeping busy. Baby X is 10 months old and on the verge of walking. He loves to point at things and have us name them. We journey into Dad's office several times a day so that we can look at Dad's Godzilla action figure thingy.

Sorry to keep this update short. I'm late for bed, and Baby X will be waking me much to early in the morning.

Benign and doing fine

It was a nerve-wracking week at my house last week as we worried about the sudden appearance of a growth over Loki's eyelid.

On Christmas Day, it was just a tiny little bald spot. A week later, New Year's Day, it was a noticeable lump, and two days later it was turning red and ugly. The vet said it could either be a harmless histiocytoma or a mast cell tumor, which is cancerous, but she couldn't tell without sticking a needle in it and taking a sample.

Because the lump was so close to Loki's eye, and Loki would barely hold still to let us look at it, let alone poke at it, the vet said she couldn't aspirate it without sedating Loki.

The plan was to treat it was with a topical ointment for a week and see if it responded, which would mean it was the harmless histiocytoma. If it didn't respond, we would remove it.

We couldn't chance it getting any bigger because if it was a mast cell tumor, we needed to be able to remove it with clean margins to make sure we got all the mast cells, and being on the eyelid, there wasn't a lot of extra tissue to work with.

We were especially worried about it being a mast cell tumor because Loki had a previous grade 2 mast cell tumor removed from her belly in late 2007.

The lump continued to get uglier throughout the week, so on Friday Loki went in to have it removed.

At the last minute, we noticed a second lump on Loki, this one on her lower lip. It was right where her canine tooth hits, which the vet said meant it could be a simple callus, but since she only had it on one side of her mouth, not both, it might be something more so she'd go ahead and remove that lump, too, during Loki's surgery.

Fortunately, Loki came through her surgery fine, with a small shaved patch over her eye and some pretty white stitches. The vet was pleased with the margins she got on both lumps, and promptly sent them off to the lab for analysis.

Loki has been good and barely notices her stitches. She hasn't had to wear her cone since the first night, and really likes to take her medicine, which we hide in a big glop of peanut butter, swallowed whole.

The vet called my husband yesterday with the lab results. The lump over the eye was indeed a histiocytoma. Good news! And the lump on her lip was a benign tumor. The vet was very pleased. I don't have any more information than that. I plan to ask more questions when we bring Loki in to get her stitches removed on Monday.

Holiday Wishes

Wordless Wednesday: Watching You

Click here for more about Wordless Wednesday and to see other participants.

A line in life that I will not cross

My friend Jules thinks I should have a pet wedding for Loki and Thor like the weddings described in this article: More dogs are saying 'Fi-Do' to pet weddings.

Scott's clients include pet owners who want to mate their pets and don't want "illegitimate relations" in their home. Others want companionship for their pets, and some pet owners just want a public ceremony to emphasize how esteemed their pets are.

As crazy as I am about my dogs (we do celebrate their birthdays), I am not about to hold a doggie wedding.

Loki and Thor are adopted brother and sister, after all, and letting them marry would be yucky. :P

(Seriously, I would NEVER go there. Their relationship is 100 percent sibling and 0 percent romantic. They just don't have that kind of chemistry. Plus they're both fixed. And mostly, Loki thinks Thor is an extremely annoying little brother.)

Wordless Wednesday: Landscaper's Apprentice

I know, dog photos two days in a row. In the top photo, Thor decides to help me with my landscaping by trimming my decorative grass. At right, Loki surveys her domain from the patio stoop.

Happy 6th Birthday Miss Loki

Loki, our oldest Bernese Mountain Dog, turns 6 years old today.

We celebrated yesterday with a few of our neighbors. The dogs tolerated their birthday hats like champs. There were rewards waiting, of course.



For the sake of contrast, here is Loki (center) at six weeks old back in 2002.

A Beacon Time Capsule -- May 4-10

A brief look at where this blog has been:

A year ago, I was blogging about:
I was on a blogging hiatus.

Two years ago, I was blogging about:

Signing up to be an Amazon Associate -- Where I sign this blog up for the Amazon Associates program.

Garage Sale -- About the almost-annual garage sale I hold with my Mom and my sister.

Tales of the MS Walk, dogs and sit-down strikes -- Where the whole family (me, Dave, Loki and Thor) raise almost $1,000 for the M.S. Society.

Prairie Band returns to Shabbona -- A news story about a band of the Potawatomi tribe that ties into the novel I'm writing.

Tatterdemalion -- Fun with the words tatterdemalion and tintinnabulation.

Mother's Day roundup and other stories -- a collection of links to news stories about Mother's Day and motherhood.

Prior to that:
This blog didn't yet exist, and I haven't back-posted anything that qualifies.

Wordless Wednesday: Ham

My nephew hams it up while taking photos after his school production last night.

Call me indecisive, but I had trouble selecting a photo today. My runners up for Wordless Wednesday this week:

I don't even know this little girl, but I love her expression and I think she looks ridiculously cute dressed as a pig.



This lonely cow was part of the backdrop at my nephew's school production last night.




While enjoying laying in the grass during the cool afternoon yesterday, Loki turns to me as if to say, "Watcha doing?"

Life: Back to the Real World

The suitcases are unpacked. The laundry sorted. The dogs are already starting to get bored with us again. Even my snowboarding bruises are fading.

Vacation is over. I've blogged everything I'm going to blog about it.

(Thank God, you say?)

Now it's back to the mundane world of everyday life.

Speaking of which, according to the following analysis, if you are reading this site, you can read at a high school level. Congratulations. :)



Oh, and since it's April 1st, and this World of Warcraft announcement was released today, this has to be an April Fool's joke. It's Guitar Hero for World of Warcraft. Check out New Hero Class Revealed: Bard.

Life: The dogs of Breckenridge

Unfortunately, I had to leave my own dogs home with the dog/house sitter while we were on vacation. But if you go over to Flickr to view the photo-set from my trip, you'll see a lot of dog photos.

Evidently, Breckenridge, Colo., is a big-dog town. More dogs than children, one person told us.

Dogs waiting outside stores. Dogs inside stores. Dogs on the patio outside restaurants. Dogs all over the place.

We loved it. They were all friendly, and provided a lot of dog therapy.

Life: Daylight and dog puke

Daylight savings time got off to a rocky start Sunday, as my husband and I had trouble adjusting to that loss of an hour and getting out of bed for our nephew's baptism. (The late night with friends didn't help.)

We ended up just going to the post-baptism luncheon, and were only minorly hassled by the family. (This is one of the few photos that anyone took where my nephew is actually smiling -- perhaps he didn't like wearing a dress?)

But the payoff for the switch to daylight savings time was huge on Monday evening, when I could commute home while the sun was still up.

And now that the weather has decided to warm up into the 40s and 50s this week, I'm starting to feel frisky -- wearing lighter jackets, opening windows, wanting to get outside.

Speaking of opening windows, I had to air out the house last night. Apparently, one of the dogs got sick on Sunday and we didn't notice. Monday as I was leaving, I stopped in the family room. What is that smell? I look around, don't see anything on the floor, then notice dried vomit on the sofa. Yuck. And right where Loki likes to lay.

I cleaned the cushion as best I could, but that wasn't good enough. The room still reeked yesterday. So now, the sofa cushion has been banished to the garage while I figure out how to remove the odor from it. My concern is not just the odor, but cleaning it in a way that won't cause the cushion to fade. I guess it's a downside of dog ownership.

Another downside? Fur. Everywhere. Loki and Thor are majorly shedding. They have an appointment with a set of clippers as soon as it's reliably warm enough outside. Maybe in a month. And while I'm complaining about dogs? Poop. The snow has mostly melted off and it's time to get out and really clean that backyard. *shudder*

You know, I think I'm due some extra tailwags and snuggles when I get home today.

On the bright side, our Colorado vacation is fast approaching. Just 10 more days. Our tax refund should be direct deposited the day before we leave, so it'll almost feel like a free vacation. :)

Signs of Spring?

I have a rule in February, which is that I cannot even mumble about the approach of Spring. It's February. It's winter. Period.

And that wasn't so difficult this February, what with all the snow. In fact, I didn't even see our lawn for the entire month.

But then Saturday, the calendar turned to March. And, magically, we started to thaw out. The yard turned into one big, swampy mess, with puddles of standing water on top of thin layers of unmelted ice.

And I look at the calendar and see that Daylight Savings Time starts in 5 days (in the United States), Spring starts in 16 days, and Easter arrives in 19 days.

And now I see myself entering that seemingly endless wait for Spring.

The problem is, in the Chicago area, Spring doesn't arrive with a gradual increase in temperature. No, Spring is measured in the ratio of cold days vs. warm days. One day it'll be snowing, the next it'll be 70 degrees, and the next freezing again, with some fantastic thunderstorms and windstorms thrown in for good measure. Two months of teasing us until at least May 1, when we can be confident that it won't snow again.

But, today, it's only March 4. And as the snow melts away, I start looking at the landscaping in the back yard, wondering what the dogs have managed to trample, and when I can get out there and do a Spring cleanup.

In a few weeks, the grass will start to green up, and in a few more weeks, the trees will start to bud. But at the moment, it's pretty darn ugly outside.

Stealing a kiss

While I had the big lens on the camera, and the camera was still on the tripod, I decided to torture my dogs a little by taking more photos of them. I was disappointed in the blur, especially in the middle shot, but then decided I like the way they work together as a set.

Just sit there and look cute...

Yeah, I know, more dog photos. But I can't help myself! This time it's just Thor.

Lollygagger

It snowed again yesterday. A few inches. Especially on the drive home. Took me twice as long as usual to get to doggie daycare to pick up Loki and Thor. (Yes, I confess, they go to doggie daycare every once in a while. Fantastic place. Can't recommend it enough.)

The routine is that I gather Loki first and put her in the truck. She pulls a lot, especially when she's excited. She's 95 pounds of solid drafting dog, so it's much better to deal with her alone.

OK, so I get her loaded, then go back inside to gather Thor. The only time Thor pulls is when he's trying to keep up with Loki, otherwise he's great on a leash. But he's also a lollygagger. Likes to stand outside the car and watch the world go by. Give him enough time, and he'll eventually jump in. Most of the time, I have to pick up his front paws, put them on the back seat, then lift his 75-pound behind into the truck. He's perfectly capable of jumping, but doesn't want to be rushed.

So, I open the door, say hello to Loki for a moment so Thor can catch the sights, then turn around. And what do I see? Thor has *lain down* in the fresh snow on the sidewalk. Yeah, he's decided to get comfortable and settle in on the soft, cushy snow bed. Better to watch the world go by.

I sigh, then laugh. "Get up, dork."

What? he seems to say, not moving. It's been a long day at school and this snow is nice and cold and soft.

"I've been driving in this for the past hour. It sucks."

He doesn't move.

I walk around behind him, tug on the leash a few times. He ambles to his feet.

"Get in the car."

What? You want me to move?

Now the thing is, Thor is not my lazy dog. That's Loki. No, Thor is the one who's ready to go, day or night. There's a big, scary world out there, and he's eager to see every inch of it, from a safe distance. Today, evidently, that's from the security of a fresh pile of snow on a sidewalk in a busy strip mall.

I coax him to the back door, where he stands and stares at me. Fine. I put his front feet on the seat then lift his 75 pounds of seemingly dead weight into the truck. He lays down on the seat, and I carefully tuck his tail under him so it doesn't close in the car door.

Then it's another 45 minutes of sucky snow driving home, just so Thor can chill out in the snow in his own backyard. Lucky guy. Life is hard when you're a Bernese Mountain Dog.

Snow, cold and fog

We're deep in the throes of a Chicago winter. One day we get dumped with a ton a snow, then it warms up to the 50s and gets all foggy and dreary outside while the snow melts, then a few days later we get dumped with a ton of more snow, then the temperatures plunge and today we have single digits and gorgeous blue skies.

I think the only beasts enjoying this weather are my two Bernese mountain dogs (think Swiss Alps).

I'm not really complaining (OK, just a smidge), but in weather like this I can't help but sing "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow" with lyrics reworked by a former coworker (Briggs) years ago. The only relevant line you need to know replaces "Let it snow" with the more colorful phrase "F*** the snow". You get the idea, I'm sure. :)

New camera

My Dear Husband gave me a wonderful gift for Christmas, and even let me have it a few days early: A new camera! (And he was in the first photo I took with the camera.)

A Nikon D40x -- a digital SLR.

Is it the year of the digital SLR camera? Perhaps.

My sister, my sister-in-law and I all have the same camera now all purchased within the past few months.

It's been years since I used an SLR -- way back before my first digital camera. I think the digital SLRs have finally come down enough in price, and more people are switching over again.

Expect to see lots more photos in the coming months. I burned through at least 500 of them over the holiday weekend (many were instantly deleted because I was just playing). The nice thing about digital SLRs? Pixels and 1s and 0s don't cost money to develop.

So far, my favorite photo I've taken is this one, also of my Dear Husband, this time holding his new nephew:



And here are some runners up:



And of course I had to experiment with some abstract and artsy photos, which are not necessarily my best, but I had fun:



What do you think? Anything here worth saving?

I have a lot of technical things still to figure out on the camera (using lighting better, using the auto focus better, etc.) but that's what classes are for. Wolf camera is nice enough to offer free courses in January. I'll be there.

In the mean time, here are some more photos I like:

Merry Christmas!

I hope Santa brought you nice treats and your stocking was stuffed with everything you could hope for.

Why do you do this to me?

Loki got her stitches out yesterday. The vet seems happy with her results. He thinks he got the whole mast cell tumor and doesn't recommend any follow-up treatments at this time. But, we have to keep a really close eye out for future lumps that Loki may develop.

Also, where the tumor was removed, some fluid has been collecting. The vet said this is normal when a large amount of tissue is taken -- fluid collects in the opening. He drew off as much as he could, and said the rest will resolve itself over time.

So, even though the stitches are out, Miss Loki must keep away from her incision for a few more days and must still wear the T-shirt.