Paging Dr. Moreau

November 9, 2014November 10, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments

He'll be back. Actually, he's already here. — He’ll be back. Actually, he’s already here.

All is well on the Island, for those of you who expressed curiosity. Herself is sounding less like Tom Waits and more like (wait for it) Herself, and Mister Boo is adjusting nicely to monocular vision.

The former has been subsisting on a diet of health-restoring soups (chicken noodle, posole), cough drops, and various over-the-counter nostrums, including a nightly hot toddy made with Jameson, local honey and lemon.

The latter is taking more prescription drugs than a right-wing radio personality, shamelessly using his disability to extort treats from anyone in his vicinity, and sleeping in the bed with Your Humble Narrator, who as a consequence has grown slightly red of eye himself.

He has his first follow-up appointment with the eyeball doc on Wednesday — the Boo, not YHN — but our uninformed opinion is that the little guy is doing quite well. And Herself has only missed one day of work, which is fortunate, because someone has to pay for all of this, and I don’t think it’s gonna be Obama.

Eye yi yi

November 6, 2014November 6, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

Mister Boo, full of drugs, naps on the couch. Kind of reminds me of my glory days, except nobody ever made me wear an e-collar.

Speaking of vision issues (see the 2014 midterm elections), we learned last week that Mister Boo’s eyesight had finally deteriorated to the point of requiring surgery.

His bad eye had gotten really bad — couldn’t see a damn thing out of it, thanks to an old lens luxation, and it had begun causing him some discomfort, being subject to periodic corneal abrasions. His good eye, meanwhile, had sprouted a mature cataract. Both of these issues are fairly common in Japanese Chins.

So, we pulled the trigger on a two-fer, having the defunct right eye removed and the left lens replaced. Didn’t use none of that socialistic Mooslim com’niss ObummerCare, neither. We paid for it in good ol’ fiat currency, and plenty of it, too.

“He looks like he was in a bar fight,” the vet tech warned me before bringing Mister Boo out for pickup yesterday. No shit, and he lost it, too, I thought after seeing him for the first time.

Now the poor little fella gets to take eight medications throughout the day — four drops, two pills, one gel and a liquid — and faces several follow-up visits to the vet over the next month or so.

But his appetite is excellent, he’s taking in plenty of fluids, and while he’s down to one eye, it seems he can see out of it.

So we might not have to buy Mister Boo a white cane and a German shepherd for solstice. But an eyepatch and a parrot? Maybe. Arrr.

Homes, homes on the range

September 16, 2014September 16, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 32 Comments

The view from the back yard at Rancho Pendejo.

The move to Duke City is going two ways, gradually and then suddenly, like Mike’s bankruptcy in “The Sun Also Rises.”

Since August we’ve managed to shift Herself, her toiletries and a subset of her wardrobe, and Mister Boo to Rancho Pendejo. Then, a week from today, boom! The movers show up and in two days Chez Dog will be stripped bare, its innards exported to New Mexico.

Mister Boo supervises my cycling coverage from the other side of the couch.

I spent Saturday night at the new place. Herself had scored a queen-sized bed for one of the guest rooms, which meant we could dispense with the inflatable mattress in the master bedroom, and come morning I did a few hours’ worth of paying work in the living room before stuffing the mobile office back into the Subaru and motoring north.

I’m out of practice at working on the go, and it shows. I tapped away at the MacBook in a crouch from the couch until I remembered the previous owner had left a cheapo desk and chair in a back room. Duh. That took a few of the kinks out of my process.

But I missed having the Turk sprawled out on my drawing board, and Mia peevishly demanding someone’s attention (“Meow? Meow? Meeeyow!”) So it was good to come home, even if “home” is something of a fluid concept at the moment — here today, there tomorrow.

And I even managed a ride, the first in a good long while. And just in time, too. Last night I dreamed that I had shed so much muscle mass since this two-speed exodus commenced that my bib shorts had become baggies.

Interbike 2014: The Peristalsis Project

September 8, 2014September 8, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

Speaking of moons, I snapped a quick shot of this one through the driver's-side window as Mister Boo and I barreled along north of Pecos. — Speaking of moons, I snapped a quick shot of this one through the driver’s-side window as Mister Boo and I barreled along north of Pecos.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (MDM) — It was about 9:30, and I wanted to hit the Whole Paycheck for a late dinner before it closed for the night, but after the long drive from Bibleburg Mister Boo was having some difficulty locating his inner turd in the largely greenery-free zone surrounding our hotel.

We’re here to close on Chez Dog South, a process that has been … interesting. Especially if you’re trying to do it from a distance, with Herself on a junket to Maryland, while holding down four part-time jobs. The deal is to be done this afternoon, but I will believe when I’m standing in the title company’s office with a key in one hand and my pants around my ankles.

Speaking of incoming and outgoing, I finally located a small patch of grass and steered The Boo toward it.

“Go ahead, man,” I told him. “It’s a mortgage company’s lawn. Knock yourself out.”

Reunion

August 17, 2014August 17, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

The Boo and Herself — Mister Boo and Herself enjoy a tender moment.

Oh, happy day. Mister Boo loves himself an auto trip, and if it takes him anywhere near Herself, well, so much the better.

The vet has given the Boo the all clear, though the one-eyed little stinkbug still has some meds to finish up. I passed the doctoring off to Herself and got back to paying work between forays into the Realty Jungle.

It helps to remember to fetch a mouse and SD-card reader along on these little junkets, which of course I did not, and if I have to keep working a trackpad and uploading photos via telepathy for much longer I will require a trip to the vet myself.

The good news — well, besides the Boo’s eye injury being healed and his reunion with Herself — is that we have finally made an offer on a place after examining eleventy-seven of the sonsabitches and are awaiting further reports from the front. More as we learn it.