Work was a bear this week, eating me alive. I left late Sunday night and drove east to the lovely but highly polluted city of Ontario. Then I spent most of the week there getting up at 6 a.m to do treatments and work from the hotel. Then to the office by 8, on my feet all day and back to the hotel around 10 each night. A couple hours of treatments and to sleep at midnight.
The resting place for our black mutt
Before I left for the trip to the capital of polluting big rigs, we buried our black mutt on Father’s day. We sprinkled his ashes in the ground a few feet from our chocolate lab and planted a new plant on top of him. My daughter cried a lot. She loves dogs at age 9 more than I think I did as a kid, though we were not allowed to have them in the house, which made our relationship with them different. She’s grown up with a yellow lab for a pillow.
Knock on wood that I haven’t been spending much of my time at doctors lately. I have spent a lot of time at the vet with the dogs. It seems like I’m there with one of them each week. Yesterday, it was Luna. I welcomed the break from work, as I was moving slowly and not very productive early in the day. Luna has some “upset stomach/vomit on the rug” thing. Test results back today. Then, another trip this week or next to have Cali spayed.
The universe is happy when I’m speaking to someone with “Dr.” in their title, I guess. The only good part about the vet is not having to fill out 5 pages of medical paperwork and questions. The vet doesn’t care about who the parents of my dog are and what ailments her grandparents had. With real medical paperwork, I take the express train and line through those annoying questions.
Though I felt pretty good this week, it had its share of feel-bad moments. First was eating too much pizza for lunch on Tuesday and watching my digestion go south for the week, which is always a joy at group meetings and exceptional fun when standing in front of 50 people presenting.
Then my feet and lower legs swelled up thanks to the heat and Wednesday’s triple BBQ-meat lunch. I ate what could best be described as a small mountain of salty tri-tip, pork and chicken on Wednesday. I don’t know if it triggered a gout flare up, but I have to email the doctor and figure out what’s going on. By the end of each day, I was pretty creaky.
If I have any wish for my daughter today, it’s that she doesn’t work for a large corporation when she’s older – unless it makes her happy beyond belief to do so. And maybe I’m projecting my own wishes onto her, but there is something wrong with working for one. I can’t put my finger on it today with my tired brain, but I will in a future post. I just hope she does something really fun and is her own boss. Knowing her, she’ll be kind of bossy no matter what. Her poor future husband has no idea. 🙂
Stay rested.
The Unknown Cystic 
Sounds like a tough week all the way around. : ( So sorry to hear about your ailments and issues and having to lay to rest your pup on Father’s Day. So very sad. I hope that next week starts to look up for you.
JRP,
Thank you. The week was okay, not the worst I’ve ever had. A hard part of owning dogs, as you know, is having to put them down. Though we had to put our black mutt down a few months ago, we did get Cali in return, our sliver lining.
We’re spaying Cali next week. Not looking forward to it.
Appreciate the good thoughts and comment.
UC
Sounds like you need to go on a soup diet for a while. 🙂 You’re very brave to eat like that around coworkers. I’ll be interested in your column on what is wrong with working for big business. It was good to me but came at a price. I wouldn’t go back if you put a gun to my head.
Mal,
One day, I’m going to write about my dislike of these corporations. Check out the BMW article I tweeted on Twitter. That’s one reason. My post is percolating in my monkey brain. Once it’s cooked and is more than “I hate Corporations,” I’ll post it.
Hey, have they fixed those toes of yours yet? I want video of them drilling into them.
UC
hey, I’ll look for your tweet. No toe drilling yet. Have yet to screw my courage to the sticking place. Maybe in the fall. Promise to find gory video!