Doris' trip to the hospital

Last night, around 8 o'clock, we gave Doris a bath. She hates this. But, as parents it's our job to keep her clean and healthy. The hardest part of washing Doris is getting her into the tub. It's like trying to stuff a cat in a mailbox (Not that I would know. ...honest). I managed to get her in there and we commenced with scrubbing her terrified, shaking body. When we finished we dried her but she wasn't as happy and frisky as she usually is when she gets out of the tub. She usually hops about and tears around the house at warp speed. We noticed that she was licking her front left paw and then realized that she was bleeding! We quickly found that her dewclaw was bent completely backwards! I think that in getting her into the tub, her dewclaw must have snagged my tshirt. It's the only cause that I can think of.

So, we quickly searched the internet and were able to find an animal hospital downtown on 55th street. Not having a car, my wife's father happily drove by and picked us up. After an evaluation, the doctors told us that the dewclaw had broken very close to the bone and that the quick of the claw was exposed and very tender. She then removed the dewclaw and bandaged her leg. The bandage will come off today and the dewclaw should grow back over time.

Poor Doris. She was still quite sedated (As shown in the picture above) and was drowsy when we got home around 11 o'clock last night. She wanted to hop up into bed but just couldn't make it. She slept soundly through the night and was doing fine this morning while I got ready for work. In fact, when I got out of the shower, she had made it up onto the bed and had taken my spot, as usual. Looking up at me, she wagged her tail letting me know that she'll be fine.

Doris in the wild

Our dog loves being out in the wild. While we're visiting my wife's folks in Maryland we took her on a nice walk through woods along Sligo Creek in Takoma Park. There was nobody around so we let her off the leash.

As soon as we unclipped the leash she was off like a shot! She likes to bound through the snow as if she's a frolicking doe.

Check out my new threads...

Doris is cuddled up next to my new threads... not the hat... that's my crusty trusty Chrome hat. But, the threads on it are new. I got some embroidery done on it eh: "Phattire.net" on the front and "Velo Photography" on the back. Pretty sweet.

It's 9:00am, my girlfriend and I just finished a stack o' pancakes and now we're going to hop the Light Rail with our bikes, take it to BWI Airport and ride around the 11mile perimeter trail. It's beautious outside today.

You should be riding.
-Mike

The 411 on this week...

This week my girlfriend and I have both been really busy. She's taking 18 credits at MICA this semester and I'm working 13 hours /day at two jobs in an effort to get my new DSLR and road bike for this upcoming road/photog season. So, I usually get home around 10:30pm and my girlfriend is usually painting away. (Oh, by the way: check out my easel. I made that puppy out of wood I found in the alleys around my pad. Sweet eh?) It's awesome to date an artist by the way... I get all... "learned" on the stuff I'm interested in by a great source and don't have to go to the library (I've been there once before).

Doris the dog is doing well as usual. She's enjoying life in Mt.Vernon and at MICA also. I hear she's the most happenin' pup on campus. She's one spoiled dog, that's for sure. Must be rough being a dog... all that.... eating... and ... sleeping. Reincarnation never sounded so good.

We did do Aylen's Choose Your Own Adventure Alleycat last weekend though. That was a blast. It was damned cold. I blogged about it in my last post but here are some pictures that my good friend Kevin Dillard took. By the way, go to his site and check out his work. His portraiture is nothing to overlook. His site captures the essence of messenging better than any I've ever seen.

Above: Go check out Kevin's awesome site.

Above: My girlfriend at Ground Zero before the alleycat kicked off. photo by: Kevin Dillard

Above: some ugly bastid. Photo by: Kevin Dillard

Above: Saba, me & John; long time alleycat racers. We rock. Photo by: Kevin Dillard

-Mike

Farmer's Market Sunday

Yesterday was a great day. I woke up at 7am with intentions of taking some post card type pictures of a statue which stands behind my house next to the expressway. I wanted to catch the statue while the sun’s morning rays were shining on its face. However… I forgot that the statue faces west, so the morning sun was shining brightly upon the back of the statue’s head. Go figure. I took a couple shots of my bike and headed back to my house to shower and ride over to my girlfriend's for breakfast.

After breakfast (jiffy cornbread – my favorite) which my girlfriend had already cooked and was just pulling out of the oven when I arrived, we had to do some light work on her bike. Just had to swap out her old rear tire and tube for some new rubber. My girlfriend snapped away with the camera while I played with her bike… and her little dog Doris. We both got pretty silly.

Sunday is Farmer’s Market day here in Baltimore. So we headed over that way with only one crucial item on our minds: Cave Aged Cheddar. There’s a cheese stand that sells this awesome cheese down there and we both picked up a chunk, as well as some bread for dinner later on that night.

The Farmer’s Market rocks. You can get some really great, really fresh veggies, bread, fruit, meat, flowers, you name it there. It’s becoming our “Sunday thing” to ride to the Farmer’s Market and then spend the day on the bikes.

After we left the Farmer’s Market we stopped by the Camera Shop and I picked up a few .jpgs I had printed out. Nothing too exciting about this, however my girlfriend and I did look over some new Puma’s at the Foot Locker in the mall. Puma’s rock.

Next stop, my place to ditch some clothes that we were baking in. Then, we hit up the Owl Bar to grab some lunch and watch the Steelers loose to the Baltimore Rat Birds. I’m a Pittsburgh fan… too bad. This was a great lunch… chicken pizza with caramelized onions… and it was free! Yep, the bartender was embarrassed by the slow service and gave us the pie for free. Excellent. I took a couple photos inside before we headed on our way to Pla-za Art Store to say hi to Phil on our way home.


An excellent Sunday, looking forward to Thanksgiving!

Mike