Skip to main content

Get your goat

We had a scare with our Hoppsy last night.  She was in obvious pain, so sore she could not lie down.  She would try, move her feet an inch in that direction, then stand back up.  She even yelped when I lightly rubbed her tummy.  Not good.  This seemed to be something more than just arthritis flaring up, so I called the emergency number for the vet.  He listened to my description of her symptoms.  I had already given her some doggy pain medicine, which he said was good.  He advised adding a sedative to relax her muscles even more.  I didn't have any prescription stuff left, so I gave her the herbal ones.  It's a product called Mellow-Out by Oxyfresh and is the only herbal calmer I've used that works.  It's not as effective as Valium of course, but combined with the Metacam it did the trick for the night and got her to stop shaking and lie down.  I was worried that it was something internal.  I think the vet was confident that she was not suffering from abdominal torsion, which is very serious.  I will still take her in to have her checked out, but I am relieved that she's feeling so much better this morning.  I got up to check on her in the middle of the night.  Couldn't sleep worried about her. Poor Hoppsy. 

The kittens are officially tweens.  They are growing tall and lanky but still have their kitten faces and playfulness.  Ron gets upset when they, as he says, "Go after Lucy."  They don't go after her.  They just want to give her a little sniff and play.  She is not interested in getting to know them and just wants to be left alone.  So we do our best to keep the youngsters out of Lucy's personal space.  Meanwhile, Mr. Sox seems to dig the tykes.  They are his groupies, hanging around the big guy like he's a rock star.  Abby has warmed to them too, in much the way an icicle warms to a tepid ray of sun.

Yesterday afternoon, Ron spotted shadowy figures from the lanai.  
"Hey!  Goats!  They're eating my coffee trees!"
We ran out to shew them away.  They live at the neighbors, but jumped one sagging fence and found a big hole in another.  So we patched up the hole and the neighbor tethered them.  
"Shoot da fuckas," the neighbor told Ron when he went to tell the guy about the goats.  "Deya not mine."  They belong to Anthony, the man who used to live there and who recently moved to Hilo. This guy is Anthony's son-in-law (Ron thinks) so I guess he's caring for them.  But he really isn't.  As it turned out, the goats preferred the pineapples Ron had planted in between several keiki trees.  There was no fruit on them.  Just tough, sinewy fronds splaying out from the stalks.  They toppled three and nibbled the tips.  Hey, there's no accounting for taste. 

Good news at the winery.  We will be closed for Christmas Day.  YAY!  As much as I would like to earn time-and-a-half for standing around, I'd rather be home.  I'd rather be in Colorado, but here will do.

I mustered up the gumption to enter a short story contest this week.  You can't win if you don't enter, right? 

Not much else is new.  I'm reading James Joyce.  He's a genius. His stories are classics.  So far though, I'm not feelin' it.  

A hui hou.  Aloha!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Born and bred

The creature stared at me, wide-eyed through the florescent glare, Saran Wrap stretched tight across its broad back. Alone in the seafood cooler, he was the only one of his kind, there among the farmed, color-added Atlantic salmon and mud-flavored tilapia, perched on a blue foam tray, legs tucked 'round him like a comfy kitten. He didn't blink. He was dead, red, cooked and chilled, ready to eat. Such a find is rare in the City Market fish department in Gunnison, Colorado. What if nobody takes him home? I thought. This beautiful animal will have died needlessly, ripped from his home, family and friends (Dory, Nemo, Crush and Gill?) only to be tossed in the trash when his expiration date came and went. I lifted him for closer inspection, checked that date, felt the heft of him, scanned his surface for cracks and blemishes. The creature was perfect. I lowered him back into the cooler, nodded farewell, turned to walk away, took one step, and stopped. Shoppers strolled past, stud
4 comments
Read more

General goofiness

I was driving home from an abbreviated shift at work last night when I turned on the radio and heard Bob Dylan singing Everybody Must Get Stoned .  I was reminded of a placard I once saw at a Dairy Queen in Colorado that read, Everybody Must Get Coned .  So it occurred to me, there navigating through the misty darkness, that with a slight modification, this could be a great slogan for a number if different businesses.  Here's my list. Telecommunications company: Everybody must get phoned . Cutlery shop and knife sharpening services: Everybody must get honed . Credit Union: Everybody must get loaned . Brothel: Everybody must get moaned. Winery: Everybody must get Rhoned . Fitness Center: Everybody must get toned . Local planning commission: Everybody must get zoned . Bio-research company: Everybody must get cloned. Doggy daycare: Everybody must get boned. Manufacturer of modern, unmanned spy planes: Everybody must get droned . Reader of corny mottoes and slogans listed on a chees
2 comments
Read more

Re-writing Twain: Adendum

The best thing about rants, at least among the civilized, is that someone smart always makes a valid point to the contrary. My fellow University of Alaska Anchorage classmate, Wendy, directed me to this column, written recently for the New York Times by a writer I admire, Lorrie Moore . She's on both sides of editing Twain issue, and for good reason, posing the notion that maybe Mark Twain was never intended to be children's literature and that that is the problem. Give it a read, then tell me what you think, if you're so inclined. It was Flannery O'Connor who said, "The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information to last him the rest of his days."  No matter how idyllic one's childhood, no matter how hard grown ups try to protect their young charges, trauma happens, sometimes the likes of which no child should endure. Stories that reflect this are often the fodder for great literature, stories not necessarily suitable for y
2 comments
Read more