The Cantina

By the time I get to the vet’s office Sky seems just fine. They check me in and I sit and wait for about 10 minutes. Vet girl #1 comes out and gets me to go back and weigh him in and go into the examination room. Sky jumps right on the scale no problem. 49.6 pounds. We go in to the exam room and wait for about another 3 minutes. Here comes vet girl #1 again, this time with a rectal thermometer. I get one arm up under his belly so he can’t sit down and hold his collar with the other hand so he can’t turn around and bite her and she does the deed and leaves.

So far so good.

About 4 minutes later here comes Doc Kepner.

Doc Kepner: “Okay, so tell me again what’s wrong”.

Me: “Well, I feed him a can of food every morning before I leave for work. He has dry food available all the time and whatever I eat at night, he eats too. Plus, he gets rawhide chew toys and bones on a regular basis, like three or four times a week. Everything was normal until this morning when I fed him his can of food. He took one bite and started yelping real bad and slunk out of the room. I coaxed him back in and he went right for the food again and took about 3 more bites but was yelping and crying really bad like he was dying. Then he came up to me like he was hurt and I started petting his chest and sides to see if I could find out where he was hurting, but he just yelped and cried like he was dying no matter where I touched him.

So I started freaking out. I’m thinking his stomach flipped or something. I saw Marley & Me you know, and it made me cry, so I go fire up the computer because I live in Juniata county and I don’t have a Daupin County phone book, and I just don’t trust the local vets up there….and that’s when I called you. I’m sorry for waking you up but honest to God Doc, I thought he was dying.

After I hung up with you I looked and he had finished all his food and I took him outside. He started playing and running around as if everything was normal. He took a dump, which I collected for you right here in this bag”.

Doc Kepner: “Well, let’s have a look at his teeth”.

Doc Kepner comes closer and starts to reach towards Sky

Me: “Careful Doc. He’s a little funny with strangers. He only likes me”.

Doc Kepner reaches out and grabs a handful of the loose skin on Sky’s jowls and…. it’s on. The switch goes off and Sky’s eye’s go crazy and Sky goes crazy. It sounds like the Tasmanian devil, only possessed and very, very angry. The ears are back , the teeth are out and Sky is jerking his head around violently trying to bite him, then he’s trying to bite me. He’s trying to bite anything he can reach but Dr. Kepner has the vet death grip from hell on that jowl.
About 45 seconds or a minute goes by, which actually seemed like a few minutes, and all the sudden the door bursts open and vet girl #1 and vet girl #2 come running in.

Vet girl #1: “Are you okay”?
Vet girl #2: “Do you need any help”?

Doc Kepner: “No we’re fine. We’re just getting to know each other in here. Besides, he told me that he was a little funny”.

Keep in mind, the struggle is still going on. Doc Kepner has Sky’s head pointed the other way now so he can see the other side of his teeth. The vet girls leave the room and the fight continues for about another 30 seconds. Then as quickly as it began, it was over. He released the vet death grip from hell, and Sky was sitting right up against me and looking at us like “What the fuck man?

Doc Kepner: “Well he has beautiful healthy teeth. I can’t believe it. He has better teeth than a two year old, and he’s as strong and healthy as a two year old too. Maybe he bit his tongue, but I don’t see any bruising. Maybe he ate something that gave him a sore throat. I’ll give you some mild pain killers for him. They’re about like baby aspirin but non-steroidal. Give him one twice a day and keep an eye on him.

And that’s it. He leaves, I pay the $69 bill and we leave.
We got home and I gave him his first pill, crushed up and in a little food. He yelped and cried when he ate it, but he ate it. That was around noon. Then just now after dinner I gave him the other one mixed in with dinner and he ate it without making a sound.

It seems like he’s getting better. We’ll see I guess.

Tags: General by Ron
1 Comment »

It’s strange how life works. We are born wide eyed and curious, and soak in our surroundings in our young formative years. It begins the base of our foundation. We are thrust into schools where we ultimately gravitate to groups of people who are similar to us in intelligence and interest. We eventually leave those schools as young men and women and we are tossed out of the nest to either find jobs or go to college depending upon our previous choices in school or our social economic classes.

Some of us go to work in factories or service businesses. Some of us fix automobiles or build houses. Some of us will serve our country. When we do, we find that we fit in socially with others in the same line of business and we see familiar faces in our recreation because somehow we all enjoy the same types of recreation. You can find these people in any hard working town like Pittsburgh, Cleveland or Steelton. You’ll find them in local bars raising hell and rooting for their favorite football team and you’ll find them at the watering holes where a line of Harleys are displayed majestically outside the front door.

Some of us go on to be doctors and some of us go on to be entrepreneurs. Some go on to be politicians or diplomats. Some go on to be scientists, lawyers, law makers and accountants. You’ll find these folks at country clubs all across America. You’ll find them vacationing in Hawaii and you’ll find them dining in New York and LA’s finest posh restaurants. You’ll find them in Colorado’s ski resorts and on any tropical beach in the Caribbean.

I’ve never seen a long haired tattooed scruff rolling out of Harvard’s parking lot. I’ve never even heard of such a thing.

Anyway, we live our lives. We form relationships and we fall in love. We get married. We raise families. We fall out of love and we get divorced. We move to different towns for better work and make new friends and find new lovers. Nothing stays the same. And then all of the sudden you turn around and in what seemed to have been just the blink of an eye you’ve lost a decade……or two. The spouse you wake up next to isn’t the same spouse you started with. Your children are no longer kids. They are adults with kids of their own and none of your friends are the same. They are new friends that you’ve made along with the countless other life changes that you’ve made. You wonder where it all went and how…and why.

Because of modern technology and social networking sites like facebook, we are provided the luxury and privilege of keeping in touch with friends and family, not only over miles but over time as well. I was recently provided with such a treat. Nine or ten years ago for me it was all about what I perceived as “the good time”. Bar hopping on the Harley every night and spending my life in pretty much an alcoholic haze and just living in the moment. Laurie was pretty much doing the same and our lives crossed briefly back then, and then we grew apart for whatever reason or another. And then she was gone and I was gone.

We recently found each other on facebook. We exchanged a few emails and promised to get together to reminisce the old times and to catch up on the new. The years have taught us both some harsh, valuable lessons and with ten years of wisdom and maturity on our side, we found that we have much more in common now than we did back then. I think we actually take the time now to step back and realize that we enjoy each other’s company rather than to just expect it to be so. We had so much fun on the first date that we had a second, and we had so much fun on the second date that we promise to have a third. I’m lucky to have the opportunity to spend time with such a lovely girl who has blossomed into such a beautiful person. I wonder who to thank for this. Do I thank God? Do I thank technology? Do I thank Mark Zuckerberg for founding facebook?

How about I just thank them all.

Tags: Friends by Ron
1 Comment »

I had never heard of Jennifer Nettles and had no idea who she was until recently. I was watching the 2009 CMA awards on TV when an angel appeared. And so there she was, this statuesque beautiful blond with warm green eyes that just make you want to swim in them. She appeared sort of awkward in her movements on stage. Not quite Joe Cocker awkward, but more robotic sort of awkward. It fit the performance. I was riveted to the screen. I cranked the volume up to max and melted into the song and I was hooked. The song was “Keep You” and her current band is commonly known as Sugarland.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. One of the marks of a true musician is when the person doesn’t play they song, but the song plays the person. Jennifer Nettles is one of those people who gets it. She is like a medium or a portal where the music somehow enters her body and uses her as the vessel to release itself into you. She is amazing.

So being the geek I am, I fired up google and started learning what I could about her. Wikipedia has some good info, and she has a dandy JenniferNettles.com homepage. Google images has seemingly endless collections of photographs of her, and it was about then that I realized that I’ve been hiding in this house too long and I should get out more. Here is this absolutely gorgeous, lovely talent and I’m just now finding out about her. What else have I missed I wonder.

Then through my googling I found the actual music video for Keep You. Wow! I’ve listened to a number of Sugarland songs since then, and while I really wouldn’t consider myself a Sugarland fan, I am definitely a Jennifer Nettles fan.

Enjoy the video(s). I’ve pasted the lyrics below for those who are interested.

We said goodbye. Tried her hand at magic.
But we couldn’t make us disappear.
Not a day goes by I don’t wish I had you.
So run away, I’m glad you’re still here.
It’s a bitter sweet victory.
Lovin’ the ghost in front of me.

Now I can’t laugh, can’t cry.
And I can’t run, can’t hide.
What do I gotta do?
What do I gotta do to keep you?
What do I gotta do to keep you from doing this to me?

I wrote a couple of notes.
One in love, one in anger.
They’re lying there dying in the dresser drawer.
Lived louder than my voice. Struggled through a stranger.
He loved me until I loved you even more.
It’s a bitter sweet victory.
Lovin’ someone else who wanted me.

Now I can’t laugh, can’t cry.
And I can’t run, can’t hide.
You get used to the pain, and numb to the sting
Till you can’t feel anything.

You tried to explain, but I couldn’t hear it.
As if your words were my tears.
Flowing freely, warm and quiet.
From the edges of my eyes and my ears.
Then all that disappears.

Now I can’t laugh, can’t cry.
And I can’t run, can’t hide.
Now I can’t laugh, can’t cry.
And I can’t run, can’t hide.

What do I gotta do?
What do I gotta do to keep you?
What do I gotta do to keep you from doing this to me?

Tags: Entertainment by Ron
1 Comment »