Two days of Slack (kinda)

Two days of no running, no other real exercise to speak of, and no stretching routines.  (Tomorrow’s stretches and run should be interesting.)

Lucas had surgery yesterday.  It was not a big deal, but he is an old guy and there is always risk.

Dog on blue backdropI hold up quite well on the outside, but i don’t do too well when my dogs are in surgery.  I can accomplish what is necessary to support the dog(s), but i cannot focus on other things.

He had an epulis removed.  These are fleshy masses that grow from around the gums/root of the teeth outward and downward (or upward).  It was pretty big – as wide as at least two teeth and longer than those same teeth.

While he was in surgery anyway, i also had a cyst removed from his back (upper right shoulder area).  The cyst was small – like a jellybean, and i would not have (nor would our vet team have recommended) surgery done just for the cyst, but while he is under anyway, might as well.

The cyst we did not even need to send out for biopsy as it was obviously nothing.  Our surgeon said that the epulis looked fine, but we did send that out for analysis just in case.

They did have to remove 2 teeth to get the roots of the mass.  I knew that going in and told them that i would prefer that method rather than a surface or cosmetic procedure that would not actually get the root of the mass so that it would be able to grow back to full size within 6 months to a year.

I did my usual thing.  Vance and i got up early and walked 4-5 miles with Lucas and saw the sunrise.  I took Lucas and several books and the car-dog-comforter with me into the vet.  Lucas and i got in our cage and waited for our turn.  I read to Lucas and of course, all the other dogs in the kennel area.  They get quiet and like it when i read aloud.  We napped a bunch until it was Lucas’ turn.  The surgery went well and i was waiting in the cage for my main job – hold my doggy and pet him and keep his head from hitting the walls as he recovers from the anesthetic.

He was definitely sore and uncomfortable, but he (as usual) did not say anything about it to me, but waited until he had the audience of my mom and dad before he began to tell his tale.  I have been wondering all day if he was really in pain and letting them know about it, or if he was telling them, “that boy took me somewhere and i had a really bad time!”  I gave him his doggy pain pills wrapped up in some ham.

He was so tired, even though he did sleep most of the day, but sleep at home on my bed is different.  I got in bed with him and we both struggled  to stay awake (well he slept, i struggled) until his normal pill time at 8:15.  We were both out by 9.  I woke up at midnight and then again every hour to check on him, and make sure he was comfortable, and see that he had not vomited, or had excess oral bleeding, or ripped out some stitches, or…

Today he definitely felt better, though not 100% and he really wants to scratch where the stitches are on his back.  He is drinking loads of water again and he ate a pretty big dinner.  I have not looked into his mouth at the surgical area yet.  I remember mine and i imagine his mouth and gums and such are sore.  I can look in a few days.

Vance and i had a surprisingly huge amount of errands to run and Lucas came with us (of course).  We just finished out last errands (that we started at 9 am) and ate some pizza dinner and cleaned up about 8:30.

Tomorrow i will find a good time to leave Lucas and Vance to watch each other and get in another run and workout.

I did have some great and nostalgic experiences in Borders today.  I sold two books, or one book and one set of 7 books.  I really miss working in a bookstore.  You can’t make a living at it (not the fun part with the customers) but it is rewarding.  My mom was looking at some kind of Diary of a Whimpy Kid game and i asked her if she had read the books.  She had not but said that my youngest niece is into it.  I took her straight to the section to show her the books (they are not far from Artemis Fowl i noted on my last trip in to ogle Artemis).  Then i showed her Artemis, and the other Eoin Colfer Independent Reader stuff.  After talking with her for a minute about what my niece has been reading, i described Half Moon Investigations for her and she bought it.  While this was going on, i overheard a couple talking and they had found one book they were looking for but “…she also said the Chronicles, something.”  I reached over and grabbed a boxed set of The Chronicles of Narnia and politely interrupted to offer them the set.  They were so excited.  I talked with them a minute about their little reader and told them the history of the changes to the ordering of the books in the series and which way to go for different reasons.  They were grateful and went off to pay.  Something like this happens probably every other time i go to any Borders.  I can’t help it and people generally like it.  A bookstore is one of the few places i have found where eavesdropping (if done with good intentions) is usually rewarded.  This works out well for me as i am physically incapable of not eavesdropping.  I don’t mean in an ‘i can’t control my curiosity’ kinda way i mean in an ‘i actually cannot NOT hear you’ kinda way.

Anywho – Vance is good, Lucas is doing well, and i hope to get a little uninterrupted sleep tonight, after i check in with what is happening on Anacreon and Terminus

6 thoughts on “Two days of Slack (kinda)”

  1. I really enjoyed this! Any dog and his human story gets to me and reminds me of the strong bond Splinter and I share. I hope Lucas recovers fully. He is a brave boy.

    About Borders- do you miss The Book Nook?

  2. I do miss the Book Nook! That was my first “real job” so i did not fully appreciate how good i had it working there. But the owners did recognize that having a guy at all, and a younger guy could be useful. And i was the only one into sci-fi/fantasy so i got to build that section from scratch. I loved that at Borders i got to talk about all kinds of books, but that also meant i had to help people find business, computer, art, and history books – which are not really my thing (the books not necessarily the subject matter). At The Book Nook, it was all kids books. The store was so small, it only took a week or two to memorize what we kept in stock and where every book lived. So that was always nice and made you feel like a memory master.

  3. Glad the pup is doing well. And I loved the book store stuff. Yesterday I was at Barnes and Nobel and I overhead a man about a decade older than me asking for “Are You There Margaret, It’s Me God….um, I mean “Are You There God, It’s me Margaret” and I threw him a big smile. Saw him a bunch more times as I wandered and wanted to tell him I thought he was an awesome dad, that the book was excellent. But I couldn’t screw up the courage. I really regretted it.

    About Narnia-what is your view on the book order? Of course I grew up reading them in the order they were published and being such a sentimental person I can’t bear to read them in chronological order. Frankly, I think The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is a much stronger book than The Magician’s Nephew so I think the traditional order has a much better chance of snaring a readers interest for the long run.

    Both Z and I have copies of the same edition of the series. And we are so attached to them we kept them both. When we reread them he reads his and I read mine.

    • Wow – i think Judy should do a new Margaret book – kinda check in on her as an adult, and i think you found the title – “Are you there Margaret, Its me God?” Take THAT existential crisis!

      To the extent that wikipedia can be trusted, i learned something by posting the link to the wiki explanation of the book order controversy. When i talked to the couple at the bookstore, as i have done all (ok most of) my life, i was referring to what you and i would call the original publishing order versus putting Magician’s Nephew first. It turns out that CS Lewis did not number the books at all. A publisher did that. The order we grew up with was neither chronological (as we know) nor the order of composition by CS, nor the original publication order.
      Truthfully – i don’t care too much about all the before we born part of the brewhaha. After the first time i read the series, i said ‘these books are out of order’. I have always re-read them with MN first instead of LW&W. I have always recommended that they be read with MN first as well, with one small caveat. LW&W is arguably a better book – better written, more like-able characters and plot, easier intro into the series. So, if you are dealing with a first time, younger reader, who may not be the strongest reader, or is intimidated by “big” books, or the concept of a series, or gets bored when reading – then i recommend the “traditional” order (the one we grew up with). For everyone else, i advise a start with MN (for instance, even for a younger reader, but say they have already read A Wrinkle in Time, you can start them out chronologically.)

      So i was really excited when they finally changed the “official” order making MN first – i felt a great surge of childhood vindication. This was really recent too. I think i remember it was still in the order we grew up with when i stoppd working for Borders in aught aught (2000).

      I love that you guys read your individual series. I can totally relate. Not so much with CoN since i am well past my first edition of those (i give a gigantic amount of books away). But i do have several sets that i treasure despite the multitude of moves and overseas living. My Tolkien set of 4 books is the same one i first read in 7th or 8th grade. I “borrowed” it from Woody. I think i eventually asked him if i could keep it before i went to college. When i turn my head away from the screen, i can see it right now.
      I am also really careful with my Harry Potter books. I bought all but one of them at my Borders – and i did get 5 and 6 at midnight release parties there. (I got 7 at a midnight release party also, but i could not do the road-trip from PA to RVA that time and i just got it at a local Borders.) My folks have all the books as well, and in Doha, i acquired and brought home British editions of 1-5. My dad is a very smart guy and also a lover of books who maintains his own library. For some reason, he is death to HP books. I am quite diligent to keep my set away from him. After he shredded the binding on a hardback 6, i bought him a paperback 6 to read and continued to keep my hardback 6 hidden. I don’t like to be so selfish about many things but we are talking about Harry.

      I don’t go into Barnes and Noble if i can help it. If there is not a Borders nearby, or if Borders is out of stock on what i want and B&N has it in stock – OK, but otherwise, nope. This goes back to long before i worked at Borders. B&N just creeps me out. The stores feel weird. I do not like the back-flush shelf maintenance system. I recognize that it is infinitely easier on the staff, but it is equally more difficult on the customers than a front-flush (but Borders stopped front-flushing ‘recently’ too). But one of the primary things for me, aside from the way they split up their sections, is the lack of computers for customer use. In most bookstores, i don’t need a human to help me find stuff, i just need to know if it is in stock, or what wacky section you have David Sedaris in (fiction, essays?) or if you left all of Sarah Vowell together or split her up into several different sections. I can find that from a computer leaving your staff free to help folks who need it.

      Anywho – thanks for the good wishes for Lucas, and for reading, and for sharing some of your stories.
      (Now i feel like i shorted Paul on the comments comment, but he got to me before breakfast…)

  4. It is so much fun to read about other’s feelings concerning books because there is no right and wrong, it is completely subjective. And you really got me thinking about why the publication order is important to me with CoN. I’ve discovered I like the original publication order not just because it’s how I read them first. To me, the series starts there because it is first and foremost the Pevensie’s story. They are the core and the heart of the series, particularly because the resolution of the story concerns their journey to “heaven”. The chronology of the following books didn’t matter to me, but the way they filled in blanks of the Pevensie’s time in Narnia did. I remember the thrill of discovering Susan and Lucy as adult Queens in The Horse and His Boy. And the way the memory of the Golden Age of Narnia when the Pevenesies ruled permeated Prince Caspian drove the entire book. Even The Sliver Chair was significant in their mythology because they were conspicuous in their absence. It is one of the most melancholy books for a lot of reasons, but the Pevensies being too old for Narnia was a big one.

    So that is a better explanation of why I like the traditional order. That said, I really respect your reasons for liking the chronological order.

    I didn’t know you worked for Boarders, and my feelings about the two stores are based on being a consumer, but I gotta say I’m a B&N gal. There were more B&Ns in NYC, so that is what I got used to. I find the layout of the store more user friendly. And the plentiful table displays of fiction (local favorites, new to paperback, book club picks) are fantastic for browsing when I have no idea what I’m in the mood for. Boarders doesn’t have the same number or interesting selection in that area. The often do the “buy 2 get 1 free” tables and the selection of books are mostly stuff I’ve already read or am really not interested in.

    • Thanks for sharing – and for sharing such juicy goodness! I totally agree that it is fun to see what people think about books and why they think these things. I enjoyed hearing about why you think the order is important. I can totally see your perspective and it makes a lot of sense. What is also kind of funny to me is that part of why i prefer the order i use is that it does somewhat decentralize the Pevensie’s role (insofar as that is possible). I like them and i like their role, but i feel like part of the point is that they are not central. They change, they age, and they can no longer come back – Narnia endures. It will be there to help shape the next set of children, and the ones after that, and so on.

      And i don’t think that these are contradictory at all – just readers focusing on different elements of the stories, or those elements stirring up different reactions in different people. Literature is nice 🙂

      I am going to table the rest of my ode to Borders for now, because it gets longer and more detailed from here. You reference the 2 for 1 tables, and my first and most favorite job at Borders was being the Bargain Books Guru. I will put that story in here though since i know it will have at least one interested reader. It may take a minute to figure out whether or not to release it serialized or in one long chunk…hmmmm

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