Legs

A couple of autumns ago, Jamie greeted me at the front door saying, "I had to rescue a little puppy." I think, "Puppy! Cute! Furry! Cuddly!" Then I noticed the smell, the rotten garbage smell.

"What's that smell?"
"The puppy."

He had brought home a puppy nigh unto death, full of parasites and scabies (the stench) and with completely round legs from malnutrition.

Because the scabies commanded so much of our attention (quarantine from other house-pets, stinky-stinky etc.), I had rather forgotten about the funky legs until Juliana zeroed in on them while looking at old pictures.

How are Laurel's legs now? Perfectly straight.


Why is this relevant? Laurel is not the only one who joined our family with bent leg bones due to early childhood lack of nutrition.

Edited to add that scabies are not always stinky, but in Laurel's case, they had done so much damage that her skin had started to die, hence the stench.

bits and pieces of an over-saturated life

in no particular order . . .
* Andy starts his new school tomorrow. We are enrolling him in the private school I attended, known for its vigilent approach to character issues such as respect and obey.
* Jamie starts a turn-around next week. This is when a refinery is shut-down for maintenance and work is carried on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for several months. Jamie will be working 14 hour shifts, as he is the supervisor and has to overlap the crews that work mere 12 hour shifts. He gets a mandatory day off on the 52nd consecutive work day. So, I'll be pretty much parenting solo.
* I've been sick for over a week which means I can't go see my Dad which is a sorrow for me. Dad is, reportedly, much better.
* We have a new dog, Bear, who is staying with us while Dad gets better. He is a sweet dog and fits in nicely with our other dogs and has even learned to not chase the kitties. He regularly breaks into the goat corral where Betsy, the bearded lady goat, roundly trounces him.
* The lovely week of sunshine has come to an end and the more typical grey dreary bitterly cold days have returned.
* We are filing our post-placement reports and getting ready to start the Washington State readoption process. The sole reason for doing this is getting Washington birth certificates for the kids. In the event that they ever need to get a copy of their birth certificate, it is much easier to do this locally than to apply to Russia for one.

Happy for you . . .

We've been working on finding something more pleasant to say when someone gets something we want and we get nothing. We've ruled out saying "ME ME ME ME" and "I want one! I want one!" and decided that saying "I'm happy for you," would be nice. Jamie and I have been role-playing this and the kids have been practicing it in silly ways.

This morning, Juliana showed Andy the very cool mini-flashlight that she acquired yesterday during her big day in Seattle. You have to know that for Andy-The-Gizmo-Kid, there is nothing more attractive than an item that has both buttons and lights. With shaking voice he looked at it and said, "I'm happy for you Juliana." Then he burst into tears.

I'm so proud of him! I buried him in hugs and told him what a good boy he was.

In the orphanage they didn't give things to children unless they had one for everyone, or if it was a shared item. The idea of one child having a private possession and the other child not having is a big new concept. We are so pleased that they are accepting it.

Yesterday we went to Children's to see a doctor who said that Juliana was tiny. We are seeing a series of specialists who are all ruling out bad things, so it is rather good that all the doc has to say is that she is very small. We don't want the doc coming into say that she has some really interesting and unusual condition. But still, driving all that way to hear that she is little seems a bit unproductive.

My mom went with us and we redeemed the drive by going to Bellevue. We stopped in to visit my Father-in-law at work who was very pleased to see us. Then we went to the mall and rode the glass elevator up and down and waved at all the giant snowman and gasped at the flying reindeer and visited the LUSH store. We tried very hard to visit Trader Joe's, but after an hour of driving (slow progress due to street-lights being out), we got there only to find them without power and closed. They couldn't sell anything, as neither their tills nor fridges were working, but they did have a little generator going to keep the lights on; they kindly let us in so that Juliana could use the bathroom. At long last, I finally got into a Trader Joe's, I just didn't get to buy anything.

So that is all the news. Part of my long lull in posting was a case of the blues brought on by the return of Holly's cancer. Surgery is on Friday.

Holly Update

Holly came through surgery quite nicely. She has a big bald spot and a blechy looking scar; our cousins tease that she needs to wear a tutu to shield it from our eyes. She's more concerned with the collar she has to wear to keep her from messing with her staples.

Now we just wait for the lab results.

Name that author

Great Expectations: surf on over to D&L's blog to congratulate them on their long-awaited court date. D&L were our traveling buddies on the last trip. They will arrive in Khab right before our court date and will have their date while we are still there.

Hard Times: our beloved Holly dog has a cancerous tumor. Surgery on Friday, biopsy to special lab in Colorado, results back in two weeks: the day after court day.

Waiting

No news yet. Nothing to post. Perhaps I'll chatter about our furkids.

Holly and Laurel are our dogs. Holly is a ten year old Akita mix (smart and willful) and Laurel is a Corgi/Fox mix. Okay, maybe not Fox, but she sure looks it. We picked Holly when she was a pup. Laurel picked Jamie. She was starving, scabies-laden, crusty and slimy when they met. I think her little guardian puppy angel -- ack the theological implications of that are atrocious, but I'm half-crazed with waiting, so we'll let it be -- anyway her guardian angel pointed out Jamie to her: "Him, he's the nicest one ever; he's the one you want." So Laurel whimpered and staggered her way over to him and that was that.

Dill and Parsley are our kitties. When Pickle, our 20 year cat, passed I swore I'd never love another kitty again. It just hurt so much when they leave. But nine days later Jamie heard of a kitten that really needed us and I told him fine, it would be his kitty. We named her Dill in honor of Pickle. And yes, I love her. She was lonely though, and needed her own kitten. So then there was Parsley. She is in my profile pic and is probably the sweetest kitty that ever lived.

Joy and Bliss are our geriatric house-rabbits. Yes, they use a litter box. Mostly. They are mini-Rexes which are bunnies bred by the evil fur trade to be the softest thing you will ever touch. I most heartily hope that when you get to touch one, the fur is on its original owner. We rescued them from a hot cage in a parking lot with no shade and no water.

Alex and Betsy and Chester are our pygmy goats. Alex came to us first with his buddy Edgar (think Mariners 95). Edgar died and Alex went nutso with loneliness. Did you know that goat brains can either lead or follow but hanging around by themselves is not one of their options. They literally go crazy from the stress. (Hmmmm, sounds familar). So we found Betsy who was retiring from the breeder's life (She is a deluxo extra supremo grand champion descended on all sides from other deluxo supremo grand champions. She wanted me to tell you that.) and her wee son, Chester. So now we have a happy herd of three. Pics in goat post.

Egads. I'm done with the pet litany and still no news.