MFA Mama

back

   Okay, so here is the deal now that I am done freaking out about it/going on hiatus.

   I no longer work for the erstwhile Job #1. It's absolutely fucking outrageous how that came to pass, so outrageous in fact that I think I'd better not run my mouth about it on the record, even pseudonymously. There is rather a lot of money at stake in certain...investigations...and I'm going to let that all shake out before I comment in any way. There are stories to tell though, oh yes there are.

   I have filed for Unemployment, but am hoping to have another job in place before I'd receive anything through that (there's a brief waiting period). I have one more paycheck coming, and a couple of bucks on the one after that (but nothing to write home about), and I've picked up work for this Saturday and next Saturday via Temp Agency #1. We're okay for the rent, the electricity, groceries for the next week, and the next bottle of Prograf. After that, I don't know. Hotter's eye surgery, sadly, is canceled, and I have NO idea how I'll afford my Pristiq (Synthroid and Symbicort are cheap and I can go without Mirapex and Nexium, although I'd prefer not to obviously).

   To add to my enjoyment of the above, the MFA Beater has been suffering grave mechanical issues, and was briefly unfuckingdriveable. I almost called out on my last day of work because of it, but managed to flog it downtown. Immediately after the shit hit the fan, I picked up a couple of applications within walking distance of the Hotel California (as we will start calling my now-previous employer), since I was already downtown, then barely got the fucking thing home. In a way this was good, as the workout I got (equivalent to a Stairmaster on low--think LOTS of revving the gas and stomping the clutch) kept me from getting emotional in any way until I was home. Today Hotter took a ratchet set and his feelings outside and rendered the Beater functional again by the skin of its teeth, so that's good.

   What else? Bumpus ran away. He slipped past Big Child, ran outside as if to greet the XY, who was here picking the kids up for dinner visitation, and just kept going. He was MIA for two hours. MICROCHIP YOUR PETS, Y'ALL. Now he's back, mysteriously damp and in need of a bath, and I have fond memories of being screamed at by my ex-husband on my front lawn to mull over when I wake up from tonight's round of nightmares in a cold sweat (yeah, HIIIII ANXIETY DREAMS).

   I'm trying to look on the bright side here. While the circumstances suck, I'm reconnecting with my kids in ways I haven't been able to in months and months due to work obligations. We're eating meals together as a family again, and thanks to the garden and beasts of Squatter Workshop, so far everyone/thing in the household has had enough to eat. If I were capable of timetravel I'd go back and kiss myself, with TONGUE, for getting rabbits. One fluffy-fryer only yields as much human-grade meat as a large commercial chicken breast, but its' giblets and trimmed skeleton yield three days' worth of meat for Isis, who would otherwise be subsisting on supermarket eggs about now (our four geriatric hens only produce enough backyard eggs for human consumption--we keep "dog eggs" in the fridge and crack one into each bowl of kibble we serve Bumpus to encourage him to eat more and help keep weight on him) given that she's a speshul preshus snowflake who's allergic to grains (including rice--WTF, ISIS?). So that's good. And finally, while I will miss those amazing benefits forever, working for the Hotel California was starting to take a toll on my mental health, and had been for a while. I won't go so far as to say I'm glad their underhandedness and illegal machinations forced a parting of the ways, but I'll admit to a certain amount of relief that it's OVER.

   Also, while life is sucking a fat one currently, I have some truly amazing friends, who have plied me with funny animal pictures and ratchet extensions, YA lit for my Kindle via Amazon and grocery money via PayPal (ain't technology grand?), sound advice and commiseration. Thanks for being awesome, everyone. Y'all know who you are.

   This too shall pass, like a kidney stone, slow and painful. ONWARD!

   And how are all of YOU?

 

something nice

   Sometimes physical work until one cannot do any more is just the thing.

   Last night at work I dug deep and did what I thought was impossible, because Good Boss said that if I got EVERYTHING done, I didn't have to come in today. I am talking clearing a ballroomfull of furniture, and a second smaller room, SINGLEHANDEDLY, after serving two groups of people two separate meals in same and cleaning everything that involved off of said furniture. Considering that at one point I was bedbound for the better part of two years that boggles my mind; I may feel rather put-upon what with all of the current coughing and wheezing, and I may have sounded awful doing it, but I was ABLE to do all of that, lump-foot and all.

   Today I slept in (until almost ten!) then worked outside. I weeded and dug and hoed. I transplanted perennial herbs from pots (parsley and thyme) into my herb bed, and from the herb bed (catnip and oregano) into pots to give as gifts. I tended the lemon balm and rosemary just taking off in the ground. I transplanted lots more strawberries and pulled dandelions for the hens and bunnies.

   When it was too hot to work outside, during the heat of the day, I came inside and cleaned up a little and found a CVS gift card I'd lost ages ago, and was able to use that to fill the Symbicort and start using that again (hopefully my lungs will get their act together before another round of antibiotics and steroid taper come into play, or the Symbicort will at least slow their rate of decline, because I can't afford that until Friday at the earliest).

   I then butchered two rabbits and broke them down into filets and "bunnybacon" to freeze and grind when there's enough for chili, rear leg chops (those went into the soup pot still on the bone with grassfed oxtails from less than twenty miles away that I've had in the freezer for a while, and simmered with salt, pepper, oregano, thyme, rosemary, carrot peel, green onions, and onion peel until the broth had good color then the pot went into the fridge--tomorrow I'll skim, strain, pick, chop, and add veggies to the broth, including a ridiculously gorgeous leek from the front yard, and we'll have Brunswick Stew), and front and rear stripped backs for Isis's BARF-diet meals (half a stripped rabbit is meat enough to make a meal for her; add some chopped veg and a spoon of coconut oil or a couple of egg yolks and she's a happy girl).

   Then I cut Hotter's hair and beard, which had gotten ridiculous, and then the MFA Children came home tired and smelling of chlorine from the pool at the XY's hotel* and we put them to bed and I took a long, hot shower. 

   Tonight, despite my worries, I will snuggle up to my husband and our rotten dog and sleep well for the second night in a row out of sheer exhaustion born of productivity, and that feels really nice.

 

*   The XY's house burned to the ground Thursday night, apparently. He was at CATHERINE's place at the time, and the boys were home with Hotter and me, thank the odds, so nobody died, and fortunately no pets were housed there either. I am uncharitable enough to suspect that this is just a wee bit too fortunate for the XY, actually (Hotter introduced me to the term "Jewish lightning," which is derogatory and I don't much care for it, but...that), but it may be that I am just a huge bitch and this was an accident...the excellent homeowners' insurance is, at any rate, putting the XY up in an extended-stay hotel where he only goes with the boys that has an indoor pool and free hot breakfast every day, and the kids are sad about the house (particularly their video game memory cards) but enjoying the novelty of the hotel.

mishpocheh

8:30 a.m. Eastern Time

Anonymous Friend: I HATE EVERYTHING!
How are YOU?
:P

MFA Mama: I hate quite a bit. Let's bitch.

AF: My SO has been traveling for a week and I have five animals to care for.

MFA Mama: *wince*

AF: I am not an animal person.

MFA Mama: Bahaha.

AF: They're all kind of wacky and demanding animals, too.

MFA Mama: I dislike animals currently as well.

AF: That is really what I hate the most followed closely by my insomnia.

MFA Mama: Word.

AF: You have a lot more animals to hate, I would imagine.

MFA Mama: Seventeen rabbits, four chickens, two dogs, a cockatiel, a bearded dragon, and two betta-fish, currently.
And ALL of them assholes!

AF: I'm not even sure I know what a bearded dragon IS!

MFA Mama: It's a great stonking lizard. The object of my youngest's affections and the acquisition of his gross little dreams.
Also: an asshole.
It rips its lizard-hammock (Godiva help me that I even know what that IS, much less own one) down daily, tears the bark off its shade-log, requires daily chopped salads from a proscribed list of veggies and twice-weekly live crickets...

AF: Wow.
For the record, having parrots is much the same.

MFA Mama: It takes big bird-like shits and can JUMP.

AF: They scream, they yell, they require frequent water changes because they have delicate immune systems, blah blah blah...

MFA Mama: Oh, and if it's constipated you have to run it a warm bath and let it crap in your tub, then bleach the tub, burn the house down, and move because they carry salmonella.

AF: WHAT OH MY GOD WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP THOSE AS A PET?

MFA Mama: They're charming creatures. Want one?

AF: I do not need any more pets in our tiny abode!

MFA Mama: Clementine's alright, I guess, just needy like every other damn thing alive in these parts.

AF: I share a really small space with these birds.

MFA Mama: The lactating rabbits are thirsty, the chickens smell and also need water, the hound whines early for having to pee, an hour before the middle-school bus because DST, at the correct time too because YAY WHINE, at mealtimes...
the pitbull is a bedhog
The cockatiel's treats are recalled and need to be returned to the store; they're mocking me in their bag. Actually, I think they were contaminated (or possibly contaminated) with salmonella, haaaa!
The 10,000 or so (currently) bees will soon require an expensive thingamajig in which to make honey...

AF: Wow.
I'm going to try to go back to sleep...I have A Thing in three hours, and the birds will need water changes, and UGH.

MFA Mama: Good luck with that. The hound woke me at six, we have a lunch-date, and then later I'm getting stabbed in the arm with a needle for an hour by a big scary dude for fun. I think maybe I am doing Days Off wrong?

AF: Yes, I am doing weekends similarly. 

beastly bullets

*   The day after we brought Clementine home, Hotter and I made a PetSmart run to get Little Child a book on the care and feeding of Bearded Dragons. While there, we also picked up a bag of crickets, some vitamins and supplements to keep Clementine healthy, and a new "basking tree" because Hotter's inner interior decorator was insistent that the homemade platform her previous owner had constructed HAD to go. We brought everything home, put the "tree" in Clementine's tank, and watched her crouch at the base of it, looking waaaaaay up. "D'ya think she'll be able to climb that thing?" I asked dubiously. Clementine studied the tree, the way a cat will study the top of a refrigerator, then leapt easily onto the topmost branch. LIZARDS CAN JUMP??? Holy shit.

*   The hens are laying again, all four of them! Hooray!

*   Iden the carnivorous killer-rabbit continues to be vicious and misanthropic. She also, however, gave birth to a litter of six the night before I'd planned to butcher her, so she gets a pass for at least six weeks. DAMMIT. After that she goes, though. She's just terribly vicious and untameable (I tried to befriend her once again, with romaine leaves and apple slices, but the moment I went to pet her the way the other rabbits like to be petted, she went for me).

*   Bumpus is doing much better in general than he has in ages, but he still goes into frenzied paroxysms of noise when the middle school bus is due to deliver his lord and master home. Clementine disapproves of this, and does pushups of reptilian fury. Hotter and I decided that this indicates she is a higher form of life than Bumpus, but then so, in our estimation, are certain species of blue-green algae.

*   Hotter divides the animal kingdom into two main groups "Things that like to be pet [sic]" and things that do NOT "like to be pet [I have given up correcting his English; it's become a running joke in our house to say this phrase incorrectly]. The day we got Isis, Hotter looked up at me in ecstasy and exclaimed "she likes to be PET!" (the cockatiel SOMETIMES likes to be pet, but not enough to fill the animal-hole in Hotter's heart). Hotter has decided that Clementine likes to be pet. I'm not sure if Clementine agrees, but she at least tolerates it. Iden? DOES NOT MOTHERFUCKING LIKE TO BE PET. The jury is still out on the disabled vulture at the local zoo who stole my heart a couple of years ago. I have a fantasy menagerie, you see, of various creatures I have fallen in love with and requested that Hotter find and bring to me at various times. It includes a domesticated fox, the vulture, eyebrow cat, and various others. I really do think that vulture would like to be pet.

*   And how are all of YOU? My enter key is broken, but otherwise I'm okay. Please excuse any horrible spacing. The spacebar is a sad substitute, but I simply cannot bring myself to deal with all of India over the phone on such a beautiful day. Oh, Dell :(

let's just call it a fever

   Greetings and salutations!

   Man, I had almost forgotten how amazing two or more consecutive days off while not acutely sick-in-bed can be! I say that as someone who is currently walking-wounded kind of sick, but STILL! Today I:

*   Slept in, because my husband is awesome and gets the boys up and off to school with a hot breakfast (if they will eat it--the littles frequently opt to skip what is on offer at home and have breakfast at school and as long as they eat SOMEthing I don't get terribly exercised about it).

*   Got up, piled into the car with my husband and flatulent dog, and got lost several different times in the wilds of County Over The Line, where we inevitably end up going to purchase meat in bulk. Purchased beef in bulk from a very cool farmer. Got lost once more for good measure on the way home. WHEE! Getting lost in rural areas takes Hotter and me back to our dating days :)

*   Made a delicious chicken stir-fry dinner that everybody ate featuring roasted greens from the winter garden (okay sure, Little Child didn't like it and only ate the three-bite minimum to not be In Trouble, but that beats the nights when he takes one lick and gags histrionically then bursts into tears--bad as that sounds he has gone from "can't eat at all, pukes all things" to "merely a turd, haha"--and he ate all his rice and most of his veg). When everyone eats something that I make, even Hotter with his GI issues and the littles with their food aversions, I always feel like I've won something! Sure, only Hotter and Big Child appreciated the individual lemon custard cups I made for dessert, but they were so very taken with them that it made up for the littles' lackluster reactions (Big Child in particular was all "OMG YOU MADE THAT WHOLE THING BY YOURSELF FROM SCRATCH? WOW I HAD NO IDEA YOU WERE SO TALENTED!" and is just ever so gratifying to cook and bake for), and ate their own custards and those the littles scorned with gusto.

*   Fed the center stalks from the dinner greens to the beasts of Squatter Workshop, and finely chopped some for Isis's dinner.

*   Bonded with Little Child over our shared love for iThings (I lost The Precious today and was half-convinced it was in County Over The Line but was able to page it via Find My iPhone from Little Child's iPod Touch, because they're both registered to my Apple ID and technology is fucking amazing), showed him how to work the various features, and watched him figure out the interface even faster than I did (and proceed to learn how to do things I hadn't yet mastered my own damn self, because kids are amazing like that, the damn whippersnappers).

*   Took Middle Child on a pharmacy run to get a prescription and spend some CVS Extra bucks. We got Hotter a fleece throw since he is always cold, and Middly remembered that it's his teacher's birthday and selected a heart-shaped box of chocolates for her. We talked about how Little Child is picky and we therefore do not discuss ingredients at the table, how awful Isis's breath is (we got some chews for her that are supposed to help with that), how Big Child is a lunatic for Minecraft, and things we might want to make for dinner in the near future now that Middly has hit the "hollow legs" portion of boyhood.

*   Walked dogs with Big Child, and discussed Bumpus's progress in training (he is slowly becoming a civilized canine citizen of Casa MFA, rather than a Fraggle/Alien demon-thing), Minecraft, music, and literature.

*   Made myself buffalo wings from the wings of the whole chicken I cut apart for Isis's meals this week (Bumpus is now on high-dollar kibble once more in an attempt to make him look less like a walking coatrack with fur; he's not a delicate speshul snowflake like Isis is and can have grains so we're trying that route again--Isis now eats one entire chicken, giblets included, over the course of a week minus the breasts and wings, which become peoplefood). They were ridiculously good.

*   Made turkey stock from the frozen carcass of our Thanksgiving bird, picked the meat, and refrigerated the broth preparatory to skimming off the fat--turkey-noodle soup tomorrow, aww yeah!

*   Took a hot bath.

*   Baked some ugly drop-biscuits so that everyone will have something they enjoy for breakfast tomorrow morning (the littles see it as a terrible hardship when Big Child has bacon and/or eggs, because they don't like those things and end up "starving all the way to school," and everyone likes biscuits with various permutations of jam/honey/butter/fried egg on them or else plain in the case of Little Child).

   I feel like utter shite and think I may be abed all day tomorrow; whatever is wrong with me my lungs are sucking and given all of the eating I did today I'm declaring it a well-fed fever at this point.

   In other words "didn't even have to use my AK, guess it was a good day!"

   How are all of YOU?

anemic?

   So I am just not feeling like myself.

   The cough is all but gone; I hack up some nastiness a couple of times a day, but that's better than I've been lung-wise in weeks and seems to be resolving. All in all, though, I still feel like crap. I can't seem to get enough sleep, even when I sleep for eleven hours straight, and caffeine fails to deliver the kick in the pants I hope for when I have a cup of coffee to try and perk me up (in fact, it tends to make me more tired, which I guess fits with the whole ADD thing but is VERY EFFING INCONVENIENT). Also, my feet are constantly cold and clammy and I'm paler than my usual.

   I think I'm probably pretty anemic. I've taken two courses of Levaquin virtually back-to-back, and in the past that's been shown, when we've tracked it through labs, to drop my hemoglobin down as low as nine (the normal range for an adult female is twelve to sixteen). I know what to do for this, and will be taking steps to correct it (by consuming lots of leafy greens and red meat, and making sure to get plenty of vitamin C with those), but in the meantime it sucks! I have too many jobs to be dragging ass, and we're getting into the busy season at Job #2 (Job #1 is slow-ish right now, but I am a fulltime employee there and they will find SOME way to put me to work for a certain number of hours per week regardless of how dismal business might be so it's not like I won't have work to do there) (and I totally WANT there to be work to do, I just wish I felt better!).

   Yes, if I don't feel better in a couple of weeks, or start feeling markedly worse I will make an appointment to have my doctor run some tests. I just think that given the lack of any acute symptoms and my history it's reasonable to assume this is anemia and/or me just being run-the-fuck-DOWN. I don't see much point in taking the time and expense to reduce my blood volume further by a few test tubes' worth to confirm my suspicions when getting plenty of rest and taking in extra iron and vitamin C won't do me any harm and will probably fix me.

    Hopefully Thanksgiving will perk me up some, too. It IS, after all, my very favorite holiday. What are all of YOU doing for Thanksgiving? What dishes will you make? I could seriously talk about Thanksgiving foods ALL DAY LONG and not get sick of it. We're doing turkey, stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce (homemade, with bits of orange peel in, not that canned stuff!), rolls, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie. Isis will have the turkey neck, as has become tradition here. And I'll probably have a green smoothie chaser. You?

mange and bunnies and hangovers, oh my

*   Isis does in fact have mange. As soon as I mentioned my suspicions she FWOOMP! Started going bald, in double-time, and got bumpy and welty and infected all over. She is now on amoxicillin and ivermectin, and after two doses of each is a new dog. Still itchy and balding, but no longer red-spotted and miserable. So here we go again...she's lucky she's cute.

*   I went back and forth, and finally today while at work decided that Pfeffer ought to come back from Squatter Workshop into the house to have her babies. So naturally she had them today before I got home. Seven squirmy pink kits, and they were nice and toasty-warm when we discovered them but I did some reading that confirmed that they'd be better off indoors with the temperature going down so low overnight. So I deposited my body-warmed sweatshirt, with the arms tied in a knot to form a pouch, on a dismayed Hotter's chest full of baby bunnies to keep warm while I moved Pfeffer into our living room. The babies are nestled into a dryer-shrunken angora sweater of mine, inside a box of hay under a layer of Pfeffer-fur and seem none the worse for wear.

*   I had a wretched hangover today, because yesterday was kind of ridiculous and I ended up dislocating my thumb. Which sucks as much as you'd think, and I ended up shotgunning a bottle of wine and popping it back into place myself. No, that's not ideal. But it's faster, cheaper, and more badass than going to the ER. Then Hotter took out the entirety of the shitty situation on me in juvenile form and berated me for not going to the store and buying him some fucking milk BEFORE getting inebriated and fixing my thumb. Mind you, I'd bought milk the day before. But he is "on a milk kick." And I am an inconsiderate wife. And once he finished telling me just what a selfish twat I'd been not to check whether he needed anything from me before attending to my dislocated appendage and rendering myself unfit to run errands I decided "BOGO wine" meant "drink the other bottle too."

*   I kind of think the medication adjustment didn't work, and don't really have anything to say about that at the moment, except: DAMN (Hotter's neurological mishegas manifests in a collection of ways, most dramatic of which is an uncharacteristic and yelly complete disregard for the comfort and feelings of others, mostly yours truly). And COULD I PLEASE JUST HAVE A FUCKING MINUTE, LIFE, TO GATHER MY WITS BETWEEN CATASTROPHES? 

*   Apparently not.

*   There is a new Higher-up at work. I don't have a solid opinion of them on an interpersonal basis just  yet, but they are VERY good at the job they were hired to do. Which is good. Because their arrival has caused all sorts of upheaval at my main job. Which? MEH.

*   How are all of YOU?

updates and Hurricane Sandy

*   Isis's skin/coat situation is looking worse, and I'm kind of concerned that we're hurting her by waiting to get her treated, but realistically even if a HUMAN was on death's doorstep right now they'd need to wait until after the first of the month for medical care. Ugh...

*   I am LOVING the MFA Beater! I took possession of it with an empty gas tank, then put ten bucks into it and drove it to work four times. Today I took it to the gas station and filled it up all the way. Total cost? $26. SO ADORABLE! I also checked the oil, and not only was it not low, but this thing has the cleanest-looking engine oil I have ever seen in a vehicle, even immediately after an oil change. LOVE!

*   Hurricane Sandy. Oof. I'm not liking this storm, particularly since losing our fridge and freezer right now would be nothing short of catastrophic for my little family. We're prepared, in that we have some bottled water and cans of Sterno, and some canned and non-perishable foodstuffs on-hand. Also, I ordered this for $9.99 from Groupalicious weeks ago before Carmageddon took place, and it came in the mail yesterday, so that's good. I'm irrationally terrified that the hurricane will drop a giant tree right on top of the MFA Beater, because wouldn't that be just the kind of thing the universe likes to do to me? On a plus note, "Sandy" is the name my ex-MIL, who had a not-insignificant hand in poisoning my first marriage and is all-around fucking evil, prefers to go by. So I am taking great pleasure in mentioning to the XY that Sandy is looking to be a real cunt but yes, we are prepared, when he asks me if we've done anything to ready our household for the storm.

*   I may or may not update the blog as events unfold, but for those of you worried about the MFAmily, the Twitter is the best place to keep up with me in real-time. If you don't follow me there and would like to, don't be shy! Go ahead and send a request! As long as you're not a tweetless egg or a Friend of Stalky I'll approve you.

*   How are all of YOU? Are you in the storm's path? Have you gotten bottled water, canned goods, and whatnot, and made sure you know where your can-opener, flashlight, etc. are? Are you good to go on prescriptions? Don't forget to have supplies ready for your pets! If you have horses or other outside animals, remember: it's safest not to confine them. Their instincts will offer them better protection than anything short of a concrete bunker, and if you box them up in a stall they'll probably either injure themselves or destroy your building trying to get out when the storm hits. I had horses during the last storm this major that came through MFAville, and they did just fine. If you're really worried, a lot of racetracks and police stables with sturdy facilities will let you bring your horse to them for the duration. Good luck!

the maybe mange

   So Isis has this skin-thing going on that started after her albuterol-amp snack experience, and I kind of think it's just a touch of the mange.

   God dammit!

   I guess it's not really surprising, since the vet did warn us that any extreme physical or even emotional stress/suffering could trigger a relapse, and Isis was about as sick as a dog can possibly get and not die. That one night I was sure she'd be gone before morning with the way she was breathing. But she's still here and now seems totally healthy except for some thinning of her fur.

   Since it's obviously out of the question to embark on a course of Ivermectin and Mitaban dips right now, with finances being what they are, and Isis doesn't seem miserable (she's scratching behind her ears a little more than usual, but not chewing herself to death or going completely bald like she did the last time this was an issue), we've kind of been watching and waiting. Today I decided to read up on demodicosis and see if there were any natural home-remedy type things we could try, and here is what we ended up doing.

   Disclaimer: I am not a veterinarian, this does not constitute legitimate veterinary advice, everything I am about to tell you is the result of consulting with Dr. Google, DVM and I don't have any idea whether it will even actually help at all. 

   First, I gave Isis a good scrubby bath, then applied the monthly spot-treatment we use to prevent fleas, ticks, and lice (the one that also claims to repel mosquitoes) and gave her a dose of monthly heartworm preventative (which does contain Ivermectin). I then emptied several echinacea capsules into a little water and heated that up on the stove in a small saucepan. When it reached a simmer I added a couple of tablespoons of coconut oil (which is a natural antimicrobial) as a carrier oil, the contents of several vitamin E gelcaps (that stuff is great for skin), a few drops of tea tree oil (ditto), a drop of citronella (which insects hate, so I figure mites might, too), a drop of clove bud oil (a natural antimicrobial and topical anesthetic), and a few shakes of lavender oil (which was recommended on several sites for use in discouraging mange--dunno if it works but it smells good). I then stirred in a handful of organic, food-grade diatomaceous earth, which is non-toxic and kills some types of insect (dunno if it'll bother mites at all, but I figured it couldn't hurt) and about a half a tablespoon of organic emulsifying wax, and poured the resulting olive-drab mixture into a four-ounce Mason jar to cool.

   When the mixture was cool, it had the consistency of putty (I think maybe I used a bit much emulsifying wax, or else possibly the diatomaceous earth thickened it further), but softened when I rubbed it between my hands. I massaged that into all of Isis's fur-free skin (belly, undersides of ear-flaps, etc.) and all of the areas where her fur is thinning (mostly her haunches, behind her ears, and the insides of her legs/between her toes). I'm kind of dubious as to whether this will help with the mange, but if nothing else it should provide some topical relief from the itching and discourage infection.

   The other thing I'm going to try is some dietary modification. Isis is already on a raw, grain-free diet, but in my reading several sources insisted that it was important to feed meat and bones ONLY while trying to help a dog through a bout of demodicosis, and avoid all forms of yeast (including Brewer's, which we usually give our dogs in their food). Small amounts of leafy greens are supposedly okay. Apples, carrots, potatoes, etc. are not. Antioxidant supplements are recommended, however, as is echinacea (to boost the immune system). Both our dogs get a daily Pet Tabs Plus already, but I'm thinking I'll add extra Vitamin E and a bit of echinacea for Isis, as well as extra fish oil (Isis already gets this for her skin and coat, but it's supposed to help so I'm going to double her dose).

   Hopefully this will work, or at least help keep things from getting any worse until we're in a position to afford some Western medicine for the situation. It'd be nice if we could avoid that, though, as the Mitaban in particular seemed really hard on Isis (she would retain a lot of water, swell up, get unusually thirsty, pee in the house, and act generally drunk and out of it for about twenty-four hours after each treatment). I'll keep y'all posted.

little

   I encountered two things this weekend.

    One was a family of five, out to Sunday brunch. Two parents and three people in their early twenties who were obviously the couple's children. The parents and two of the children were of average stature. The remaining kid (I feel weird calling him that, as he had stubble on his face) was...well, he was little. Not so little as to likely be affected by any sort of achondroplasia (I studied those and other genetic conditions affecting stature when Little Child was a sick little baby, so I feel pretty confident in saying that), and his body and features appeared to be perfectly proportionate, he just...wasn't very big. I was both trying not to stare and desperately trying to figure out how tall the guy was; I hope he didn't notice. I just...well. It made me think about Little Child, and wonder if he'll be THAT little when he's that age. I don't ever want anyone, no matter how well-meaning, to stare at my baby ever again (we got plenty of that when he had a tube taped to his face and later snaking out of his clothes and running into a backpack), and yet that's exactly what I ended up doing to the young man I saw today. For the first time ever I questioned my opposition of the notion of growth hormones for Little Child except in the case of an actual deficiency; I still think we should give him a minute to get used to not having a G-tube. I still don't like the idea of meddling with his endocrine system. He's not even seven and I think we have time to leave the kid the hell alone for a bit and see what his body does on its own. But...well, if he really isn't even going to hit five feet, and he's still healthy in a couple of years...MAYBE.

    We'll see I guess.

    The other thing was a trio of wee little dogs belonging to another large-ish family I encountered in a business context. They were mini-pinschers (the dogs, not the family, although one of the kids was chatty and informed me the dogs were also related), a breed of dog I've long admired, and they were ferociously opposed to my encroachment into what they obviously considered to be their territory. "Would you like to pet one," the chatty tween boy asked, having noticed how taken I was with the dogs, "the mom might nip you but the babies won't." And he proffered one of his dogs, which he held out easily with one hand under its chest, while his father was signing some paperwork.

    I never really considered myself a "big-dog person," having grown up with small dogs, but reader, I had no idea how to even go about petting a dog so tiny! I finally ended up stroking the little beast's head with one finger, chortling in utter glee.

    And now I'd really like to get a mini-pinscher when Isis goes.

    Hotter says no, but hopefully I've got at least a decade to work on him.



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