Dogged

I told Mom that I have been having digging respiration the last few days. Her kind and helpful reply: I'd be surprised if you didn't.

How mean!

I am just a little worried about the next two weeks of going to the dogs.

I know it'll be fine, even fun, and will go fast. But, as Mom pointed out, i haven't been anywhere for two weeks since I got Claren.

So yes I am worried.

You and me both, J'onn

I think I have to stop making fun of my sister for crying during one of the Spider-Man movies because my allergies may have acted up last night during Supergirl.

Supporting character J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter, is ready to give up. He is so tired, he says.

So am I.  

Granted, in the TV show, his wife and daughters were killed by evil Martians, and he is 317. I just fell -- multiple times, I don't know why or how to stop it, and I bruised my elbow.

But Supergirl gives him a pep talk including the line, "Dying is a lot easier than getting back up when the world's ended."

Once again, my world hasn't ended. If anything, it is about to get better with the addition of a dog.

I'm still tired, though. And it is probably a good thing my niece wasn't watching with me.

My mind on snow

I really miss Claren.

I know that in a little over a week, I will meet my successor dog. Three weeks from now, I will be on my way home with him or her. And I even got a photo of the dogs in the class.

Top row: Zuko, Levin III, Gilbert IV, Hadden, Cecily II, Odetta, Saralee, Ojai IV, Chevel; Bottom row: Haji III, Fliegel, Pisciotta, Dax II, Lovisa, Odie V. Aaron IV, Addie IV, Fame III

And while the idea of a dog named after an Irene Cara tune is exciting (seriously, but so is one named after Jonny Quest's buddy*, an airbender or any of them), Claren made snow tolerable, even enjoyable.

She loved snow, and for her I was willing to put up with it even if snow is my least favorite environmental happening. It is cold; it traps me where I am.

As it is now, I have my awful mind to deal with during this blizzard. Trust me, that's bad.

* Yes, Jonny's pal had a "d", but pronunciation is the same.

Hate-hate affair

I thought I wrote this before, but could not exactly find it, so I will present this as new.

I hate my wheelchair, no surprise there. But as much as I hate it, and I do, I really hate not having it.

On Monday, it started making a god-awful squeaking noise, so after work Tuesday, we took it in for a tuneup. Of course, it had stopped squeaking by then.

But I was without it till today and forced to use my manual chair.

Wow, even if I didn't have to get up in the middle of the night, the first time in months, it would have been a long two days.

I hate my chair, but it is the devil I know.

Say what?

I can hear -- not well but enough to know when I am missing something.

I am missing a whole lot on Netflix's showing of Scrubs. It's captioned, but the captions cover just the joke, not the rest of the conversation.

It reminds me of those martial arts films and monster movies where you see the Asian guy talking but in the English translation the guy just says "yes."

This is far from the only show/app captions are kind of pointless.

TNT did the same when you watched on demand or online.

It's kind of crummy.

Unplanned outage

Some people go like gangbusters on their resolution as the year starts, only to fade as time goes on.

Then there is me.

I don't like that I am blogging so infrequently. I have things to write about, which will improve my mood, but things keep thwarting my well-laid plans to blog more often.

And things are only going to get worse in 16 days when I head to New York to get a new dog.

Claren didn't mind my blogging; I suspect a young dog might. That might mean I'll have to stop watching awesome TV shows, like Spartacus: Blood and Sand.

What am I going to do?

What a surprise

I got new glasses recently that get darker when I am outside.

I didn't want them necessarily, but the optometrist said my pupils don't contract as well as other people's.

Shocker. Another part of my body fails.

The optometrist also dashed any hope to one day cast off my glasses. Because of my nystagmus -- another thing I am lucky enough to have, a condition of involuntary eye movements -- laser eye surgery would be bad, he said. Plus, he added, you'd need reading glasses right away, kind of ruining the point of surgery.

As it is, I'll still need bifocals in a few years.

I guess I'll just hope these frames are better able to handle the abuse I dish out.

Turning over a new leaf reveals same old crap

I fell in the bathroom at work today.

Neither of my two emergency responders answered. Neither did a female friend I was going to ask to round me up some help.

I was about to call some other folks when I heard someone and asked a complete stranger for help.

He got me up, then said he was going to stick around to make sure I was OK.

Good thing, because I could not stand up to pull my pants up. My feet slipped, my legs locked, my arms weren't able to sit me up properly whatever.

Finally, he asked if I needed anything. I said sure. He helped me pull up my pants, buttoned my pants, then pulled me into proper sitting position.

At this point, one of my first responders came in. He missed a call and wanted to see if it was me.

Yes, this guy is awesome, and yes, needing a stranger to button my pants makes me wants to barf.