Condo stuff, doggie dental

Catching up after days of "Say, what--?" and head swivels around while I try to figure out what just happened.

The front of my condo used to look like this:


(I think I was taking photos of the sky. I can't figure any other reason I'd have photographed the roof--unless this was just after they reroofed the building.)

The back of my condo used to look like this:



At present, the front looks like this (with less stuff in the yard):



And the back looks like this:


(Not only did they wrap the windows--they wrapped the back door. I can't get the door open.)

Between normal and plastic wrapped, we had this in the back:



Normal Wednesday morning. Stripped by Thursday afternoon. Plastic wrapped by late Saturday. They'll be back Monday morning at 8am.

I'm getting off lucky on the repairs. A couple of windows I was worried about (that back window on the lower floor would cost $3,166 to replace) can be repaired without being replaced. There's no sign of termite damage and minimal water damage. My cost for repairs will be $337, and $125 of that is for new outdoor lights and a mailbox. (I think we might be getting a floodlight on the back patio.)

The dogs have been fine with the noise. (And my god, has there been noise. At 8am every day. They warned us to take down pictures on the walls because of banging and vibrations.) I've managed not to laugh at the workmen who dive for cover every time I come outside with the dogs and Tigger does his OMG! Pet me! lunge at them. 68-pounds of assuredly friendly is hard to take, and these guys aren't so sure of his lunging, open-mouthed temperament. The dogs are consistently disappointed that no one wants to pet them. The workmen are nice, young, and very polite. Their English is limited, but I think I've finally convinced them that they can't plug their compressor into my carport outlet without tripping the circuit breaker.

* * *

Tigger did the Marietta Farmer's Market meet and greet Saturday morning. Silver had a R.E.A.D. session at the library (where we're filling in because the regular handler is on maternity leave--it being awkward to get a pregnant body down on the floor with the dog and the reader). We had a good kid Saturday--a girl who really likes dogs and dog kisses. Silver was happy to oblige.


Waiting for a reader


Blanket side 1


Blanket side 2

We have one more month of filling in at the East Marietta Library. Then in June we start at our own library: Mountain View Regional--which isn't as close but will be all ours. ;)

Silver has to have a dental on Wednesday, though. I've lost two female greyhounds at the age of 8--one of them from a blood clot under anesthesia--so you can guess I'm not happy about putting 8-year-old Silver under. But her teeth need to be cleaned, she's not getting any younger, and she's having some trouble chewing. The vet thinks she may lose a couple of molars, but she was unhappy with his explorations in her mouth, so he said he'd wait and see what was what when she was under anesthesia. I gave him a printout about increased potassium during anesthesia being a danger in greyhounds (he's calling Tufts to get dosage info in case he has to give her calcium), and I'm going to pick up a prescription for Amicar tomorrow because Walgreen's will have to order it. A greyhound's blood clots just fine, but the clots fail easily, leaving a greyhound hemorrhaging from something as simple as a tooth being pulled. Amicar helps strengthen the clots...which seems strange to me, since Oreo died of a blood clot we didn't want. And Silver didn't do well after she was spayed--the anesthesia made her nauseated--so we also have that to try to plan around. (Her vet was calling the SEGA vet who did the spay to see what protocol he used.) Anyway, we've taken all the precautions we can take--Silver had a full "senior lab panel" done last week. I just need to try not to cry on her (or panic) between now and when I drop her off Wednesday morning. I've arranged her therapy dog schedule so that she has this week off.

NoNoNoNo 4-13

Dogs in torment:





No one's tongue is long enough!

Note: The dogs were supervised the whole time they were polishing off the peanut butter jars. When they no longer could lick and started to chew the jars, I took the jars from them, scraped out the last tablespoon of peanut butter (extra crunchy), and spread it on a dog biscuit. If you try this at home, make sure you have enough jars to have one for each dog. Otherwise, there could be warfare.

Yesterday, it was turkey necks. Waiting for delivery:



(Note that they're hooked to different posts in the carport.)

Sam is concentrating:



The lady-like Jacey:



(The SciFi channel recently reran the original series V. Remember how the aliens could dislocate their lower jaws to devour huge chunks of food--something that boa constrictors can do, too? Jacey may be an alien. Or a boa.)

The landscapers recently cleared lots of vegetation and debris from the banks of the creek. See the 3-foot-diameter pipes?



Compare that to the same location in September:



That's a very sturdy little bridge. If it goes, though, I'm stranded. There's no way out of the condo complex that doesn't involve crossing that bridge. And there have been a couple of occasions when water has been over the top of the bridge. Fortunately, I live on the high bank--and the high end of the high bank--so I'm actually not in the flood plain.

And some local vegetation seems confused about what season it is:







But this tree seems to be getting into the seasonal spirit: