What do you say when you've been MIA for almost an entire month?

Except that life has been happening a bit too eagerly the past few weeks.

Let's see, Penelope came down with what ended up being a salivary gland infection to which she proceeded to scare the heck out of me since, let's see, a 7month old puppy went from running, jumping and frolicking happily to sleeping 75% of the day and had a swollen neck that looked like she swallowed a tennis ball. She had a fever of 104 degrees and true to what the Dr. said, it took 4 days for it to start showing signs healing but for which I was most impatient and, here's a good technical term, freaked the hell out.

But not before she had scratched the area under her neck causing a weakness so to speak. Thus the blood/puss trying to drain headed for said area and began to leak slowly. Monday evening I came home to find the area filled with fluid and skin that looked like it would die if it sat that way any longer. What did I do? Took my darning needle and poked a hole in the area and out gushed more blood and puss than I ever want to smell again.

I swear only a mother could do something like that.

Tuesday afternoon she awoke to no fever and almost back to her bouncy self, something I never thought I'd be happy to see.

Dooley however is another story. Mid-February I noticed her ears were badly infected and after 4 antibiotics and Prednisone for 2 of those rounds it wasn't getting any better. Then I noticed her stomach area was covered in sores, her eyes drained, her feet were itchy and had nasty sores on them and she was getting more lethargic by the day.

After several tests and no answers from 3 different vets, we finally got an answer and thank heavens the vet is here in the neighborhood because that certainly makes the chronic illness part more bearable.

So it is guessed she has auto immune disease and a severe skin infection. We see a holistic vet Thursday at 5pm and a dermatologist next Thursday at 8:40am. yay. Thankfully the woman who helped with the adoption of Dooley knows a lot of people who know a lot about this type of thing (which together we found is quite common in labs along with hip dysphasia, something else we think she has) and she also found a financial sponsor for Dooley so Lady Eleanor is headed to that very nice lady in a few short days. Without her kindness to send lots of money (I've already spent $1500 in credit and she's sent $750 thus far with another $1,000 promised) to a dog she has never met and a family she's never seen but for the pictures I've sent, Dooley would have had to been put over the Rainbow Bridge before her time.

Through the dog troubles my straight A of a student son has been suspended 3 or 4 times, not including the 2 times he's received in-school suspension. Finally we're gathering (or rather, the school peeps including his teacher) he's doing it on purpose to get kicked out of school. Even after an entire year Peanut remains steadfast in his dislike for this school.

The 6th time he was suspended for 10 days and I'm grateful for my friend L as she came up and stayed with us for those days, watching Peanut and making sure he stuck to the punishment and completed work while at home.

2 Friday's ago we visited a local free Episcopal private school for testing. We're supposed to hear back from them within the next 2 weeks so please keep all your fingers and toes crossed, wishing against all hope he'll get in since it will challenge him more and provide a safer environment for him so he won't feel the need to defend himself quite so aggressively.

Our new mantra is the countdown to the last day of school, with 14 days now remaining. He already hasn't watched TV or played any sort of video game for at least 3 weeks and I told him I had no qualms about pushing it into summer vacation if he couldn't get a grip on himself.

Isn't all that exciting? Between Penelope and Peanut I almost went nuts, quite literally, as they both happened at the same time. Dooley's condition has been chronic and steadily getting worse so that has been on my mind a lot, but not naggingly so.

So you see, the times I did have a moment to relax, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in front of a computer. I've been knitting a lot though as that has helped with the coping process and its better to take it out on yarn than beat someone senseless.

Oh, did I mention my ex-husband was on my ass, too? He said all Peanut's problems are my fault since I put him in the ghetto-ass school he's in and haven't tried getting him in another one in the area.

Yeah, he's that stupid and the argument quickly degenerated into something even more stupid and unworthy of my time. He is being rather nice and adding Peanut to his health insurance plan since it will only cost him an $64 extra a month whereas it would have cost me $200 extra for a total of $307 monthly. And they expect me to buy groceries with what money again? That's what I get for getting used to Medicaid covering Peanut and food stamps giving us lots of money for food, both of which disappear as of May 31st.

Did I mention my gas was turned off because I was behind on the bill? Yeppers. They needed an appointment to turn it back on, too, though the guy didn't laugh much when I asked him how come they didn't need an appointment to turn it off.

It's been a fun month in the ironic sense I guess.

To prove I've been paying attention through all this, I'm slowly swinging over to Hillary's side more and more because, let's face it, having a woman president would be fucking awesome.

And I have a ton of Peanutisms I must really remember to add to this thing so I'll have them in my possession when he's older and at the point in his life where it could very much embarrass him, :).

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Impressions

Just checking in to say I've been impressed with Hillary Clinton as of late. She's starting to really shape herself into a formidable opponent and she kicked ass on the debates last week. She's also taking hard stands on issues she played the middle woman to not that long ago which is equally impressive to me.

And I've always loved her health care plans and strong drive to get us to a place where more adults and children are covered than not.

So I thought it interesting when I found this Guardian story asking where the "Rodham" went. I believe the answer to be very simple given the past presidential races where wives kept their maiden names, i.e. Theresa Heinz Kerry and Dr. Judith Steinberg Dean.

The integrity and loyalty to their husbands came into question simply because they chose to use their father's name in conjunction with their husbands'. Does it really matter since they reflect patriarchal lineage and have nothing to do with the women themselves?

Isn't it irritating how petty society can be when it comes to women, but men seem to consistently get a free ride?


**Note: I just remembered Theresa Heinz Kerry kept her husbands name, not her father's, but the argument still applies as she chose to use both, not just Kerry.

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