Ozark Pupdate

Ozark had his spleen removed yesterday, and is doing well, despite a bit of a setback yesterday. Turns out he was very sensitive to the anesthesia, and it took him about 4 times longer than I'd have expected for him to be fully awake. But rather than tell the whole story again here, and re-post pictures, I'll send you to the post I wrote today for our clinic blog. (Warning: Graphic medical-type pictures included.)

I Always Knew I Didn't Care For Baseball

Ozark has some issues. Go check out the post I wrote for our clinic blog today if you'd like to know the details. Then, think good thoughts!

Lori And George Sittin' In A Tree

Fact 1: I have very poor impulse control.

Fact 2: I am all about immediate gratification.

Add Fact 1 and Fact 2, factor in my bookworm status, and you get the Obvious Solution 3. I needed a Kindle.


Oh, I resisted. As much as I ever resist anything. (Which is not at all, once I decide I want it, but I did resist wanting it for as long as I could. Sorry. That's the best I could do.)

As many people have said, and as many of you might still be saying, I wanted a physical, paper book. I wanted a fist full of dead trees with pages I could turn. Plus, as a writer who hopes to see her own books in print in the not-too-distant future, I want to see my own work in hard copy. I don't want my novels to be nothing but electronic files being shot through cyberspace onto e-reading devices. I want paper and ink and glue.

Even if I got over the desire for a printed book, I wasn't sure which e-reader to buy. Amazon's Kindle 2? The Kindle DX? B&N's Nook? The Sony reader? When I began to even consider the nearly-blasphemous first step toward e-reader ownership, I did what I do every time I have a question that involves technology more advanced than a rotary-dial phone. I asked The Boy.

Initially, he advised I wait till the middle of the year, after the holiday rush and some possible new advances, and for some of the newer models to get de-bugged or come down in price. Okay, fine. I wasn't totally sure I wanted to get one just now, anyway.

Then... his wife got a Kindle 2. I immediately took this to mean that the Kindle 2 was now an acceptable technological purchase. Yet I remained undecided. And then I visited them at Christmas and met her Kindle. And what's that in the little gift box they're handing me? A gift card for Amazon! I instantly started envisioning the book-ordering binge I had coming, and then she said, "Yeah, you can put this toward getting a Kindle."

Wait. I had just met her Kindle, and was enamored. It wasn't at all scary. It was the Coolest. Thing. Ever.

Suddenly... Must. Have.

There was really no doubt how this was going to turn out.

Within a half hour of arriving home, I had ordered a Kindle of my very own. The agonizing 4-day wait began. Amazon helpfully provided the UPS tracking code, and I watched my Kindle's progress from somewhere in Indiana, to Illinois, to Minneapolis, to Maple Grove (our local distribution facility), and I could barely force myself to go to work the day it was scheduled to arrive.

During the hellish delay between ordering and arrival, Tom asked me if I would take care of my Kindle. I began channeling the old Looney Tunes cartoon, "The Abominable Snow Rabbit," in which the Abominable Snowman mistakes Daffy Duck for a bunny, and wants to make him a pet. "I will love him and squeeze him and pet him and pat him and hold him and caress him, and I will call him George."

So. My Kindle's name is George. And it was love at first sight. Within a couple of days I had downloaded 15 titles, with prices ranging from $3 or $4, up to $9.99 for some of the more current titles. (Fortunately, a lot of what I read involves lesser-known authors or not-quite-mainstream titles, so it's unusual for me to have to hork up $9.99 for a title.)

For Ms. Immediate Gratification (yes, that would be me), what could be better? I can discover I book I want to read - and in my case that means I want it right now - I can have it on George in less than a minute. See this title? See this button? Click! Presto! Begin reading!

Spectacular.

But while George is a book-nerd's dream come true, I'm beginning to suspect that Amazon is pure evil. In a good way, of course, but still. Evil. When I log on, Amazon has built a list of recommendations for me over the years, based on things I've bought and things I've rated. And 95% of them are available in Kindle version. Amazon is oh-so-pleased to show me page after page of recommendations. And I want them.

I don't usually like going into brick and mortar bookstores. I'm too easily distracted, the books on prominent display are never what I want, and I usually end up mesmerized with some obscure title that seems to have potential. I buy it, get home, read it, and find it blindingly mediocre. It doesn't help to go with a list. They won't have what's on the list. Besides, I always have tons of library books... and darned little bookshelf space for books of my own.

George, however, can hold 1500 books in something that's a little larger than a paperback book and as thin as a pencil. And it remembers where I am in every book, and I can organize them different ways, and I can search tables of contents or for particular words or phrases, and it has a built-in dictionary so if I put the cursor in front of a word, George can tell me what it means!

Whew.

And, I can shop the Kindle Store right from George's menu, and I can add notes and highlights to what I'm reading without folding pages or marking up books.

But the best/worst thing is Amazon's "Buy Now With 1-Click" button. It's beginning to terrify me. Amazon knows who I am, where I live, and how I pay for my purchases. So, if I want (And who are we kidding? Of course I want.), I can click that beautiful orange button and... in about 20 seconds, the book shows up on George's main screen.

We've discussed my poor impulse control. I see. I want. Unless there's something preventing me from having it (high cost, having to leave my house to get it, shipping charges that are as much as the thing I'm buying, maxed-out credit limit...) I see no reason not to have it.

And, hey... we're only talking $3.49. Or $5.69. Or at the most, $9.99, and no shipping, and it will be here ready for me to see and read and enjoy in about 20 seconds. Click. Click. Click!!!

And let us not forget. George needs things. I started keeping him in a padded satin lingerie bag, but he needed a nice, sturdy, safe Belkin case. Good thing I had a birthday coming up.


The one thing I couldn't resolve is that I read in the bathtub. No exceptions. Every time. And I didn't want to risk dropping George (meaning every book I've bought since I got him) into the bubbly-tubbly. I don't know how to do CPR on a Kindle. Plus I'm not entirely sure if battery-operated electronics can electrocute me.

Then I discovered that what I thought was a "gee, in case you splash Diet Dr Pepper on your Kindle, or some snot-nosed kid jumps in the pool and gets a bit of pool-water on it, he probably won't die" case was actually waterproof. Heavy vinyl with two double-zipper zip locks and a snappy flap, so unless I hold him submerged for a long long time (which I would never do)... George now has a swimsuit and can join me in the tub.


If this is starting to sound a wee bit unhealthy, just shake your head for a minute. That's what everybody does, and it seems to help.

I'll list all the titles I have (so far) at the end of this post. But here's something that happened late last week. I love the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. I fell for the first book right around the time of its original publication in 1991. I worked for the library in Indianapolis. I own the first 5 books (haven't read 6-7 yet... there was sort of a break in the publication cycle and I hadn't gotten back to it) (but now I will, thanks to George), and they have autographed book plates in them. A Facebook friend mentioned having just ordered the first book, and I started raving about how much she'd love it.

This made me want to go get my copy of Outlander (book #1) and re-read, or at least re-skim. But I couldn't find my copy. I know I loaned it to someone, and I'm pretty sure I got it back, but I'm not sure where it is right at the moment. And, true to form, I wanted to read it now.

Helloooooooooo, Amazon's Buy Now With 1-Click button. Shhh. Reading Outlander on George-the-Kindle. And, now I'm reading Book #2, Dragonfly in Amber, on George-the-Kindle. You know... because I can.

Kindles are for book-obsessed people who travel at least occasionally (I won't have to take an entire separate piece of luggage to tote books the next time we go somewhere), who possibly don't have a lot of space to accumulate books or whose husbands used to bitch back when you used to have to move every year about how freakin' ridiculously heavy all your stupid books were and did you really need all of these (Duh. Yes!). Kindles are also for people who read a lot and like lots of different authors and maybe things that aren't always to be found browsing the shelves of your local bookstore, and for those of us with extremely poor impulse control and a need to have things rightnowrightnowrightnow, and who can be easily sucked in by things that cost less than $10 and don't involve shipping because you keep thinking $7.39 isn't really very much money at all.

Also, you can download a sample of the first chapter of any book for free, so you can see if it's really what you want before you actually buy it!

So far (and the night's not over) (but I got George on 12/30, so cut me some slack) I have bought (* means I've read it or am currently reading it):

1. Made to Be Broken by Kelley Armstrong
2. Bark! by Darrell Bain
3. World War Z (Sample) by Max Brooks
4. Accidentally Dead by Dakota Cassidy *
5. Reading Between the Lines by Lauren Dane
6. Giving Chase by Lauren Dane
7. Vampire Sunrise by Carole Nelson Douglas *
8. A Dog at Sea by J.F. Englert
9. Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon *
10. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon *
11. Skin Trade by Laurell K. Hamilton
12. Deadtown by Nancy Holzner
13. Biting Nixie by Mary Hughes
14. Pleasure Unbound by Larissa Ione
15. Tainted by Julie Kenner
16. Demon Bound by Caitlin Kittredge *
17. Breathless by Dean Koontz
18. Help! A Bear Is Eating Me! by Mykle Hansen *
19. Storm Born by Richelle Mead
20. How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely
21. This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper
22. Kitty's House of Horrors by Carrie Vaughn
23. 50 Ways to Hex Your Lover by Linda Wisdom
    

And that's it! But I do have 72 titles on my Amazon Wish List! And now George and I are going to go take a bath.

Rooting Out Painful Problems

(Insert standard disclaimer for dental-phobes here.)

(This means if hearing about dental stuff squidges you out, go read something else. Maybe go back in the archives and read whichever post was written closest to this date last year. Chances are it'll be about the weather.)

Since you've already read my post from yesterday bemoaning the steaming shit-pile that is currently my life, I thought you'd like to know that today made it even better. And by better, I mean worse. Much, much worse.

Today I was supposed to get a tooth on the top right side of my mouth all chiseled down to a disgusting tooth-peg and then built up and temporarily crowned, in anticipation of a permanent crown in a few weeks. Sounds like all kinds of eye-poking fun, right?

I had to tell the doctor, though, that the tooth we crowned a month or so ago is not feeling right. I mentioned on my last visit (a couple of weeks ago for 2 fillings) that the crown-tooth seemed very cold-sensitive. He said this should diminish before much longer, allowing me to surmise that we were waiting for the tooth-peg-remains to die. Whatever. I just wanted to be able to eat or drink stuff more than one degree off from my body temperature. He asked me if it ached, and I said no, because it didn't.

Except a week or so ago, it started to ache. A lot. So I mentioned it today. This led to a real-whole-bunch of x-rays, and since I know that I have to wear a lead apron and a thyroid protector and lead-lined gloves and a dosimeter if I help hold a dog for a single x-ray at work, I can only surmise that I will now have the ability to transform into a saber-toothed reptilian creature if you piss me off. (Come to think of it, I might actually think that's cool. So go ahead. Make my day.)

The x-rays were apparently either inconclusive or disturbing, because the next thing I knew I was removing my jewelry and stepping into some super-duper-high-tech scanner. I put my chin in the chin-rest (aka "designated resting place of the chin") and my head was strapped into place. (Seriously. Strapped.) A scanning device circled my immobile head, and I was soon released.

Back in the exam room, tucked under my two fuzzy green blankets, the doctor carefully studied the resulting 3-D scan. I fully expected to see rabid weasels dueling with shrimp forks in my head somewhere (because that would explain a lot), but all I saw were teeth. He thought there might be a dark spot at the base of the root of the crowned tooth, but couldn't be sure. We figure we'll reevaluate it at my next appointment, or sooner if it gets worse.

But that wasn't the problem.

The tooth on the top, which I was there to have prepared for a crown, which he had root-canal-ified about 8 years ago but we never finished it because the root broke... blah blah blah, but the point is that I was having some cold sensitivity, which I shouldn't have been. Turns out that the nifty-snifty 3-D device can see what the x-ray couldn't... a "previously undiscovered canal."

Like my mouth is some remote valley in the Amazon.

It was hiding behind the canal that had been rooted and packed full of filler stuff so long ago, which is why it didn't show up on x-ray. Thank goodness for the 3-D scanner. Though come to think of it, that probably upped my radiation dose to the point where my saber-toothed reptilian self will now also glow in the dark. And maybe fly. Awesome.

The important part is that the previously undiscovered canal was infected, and that's why I was feeling stuff in a tooth that shouldn't be feeling stuff. This all meant that I wasn't getting a crown prep today. Oh, no. No, no, no. I was getting a... root canal.

Fine, but this is going to take a whole lot of drugs.

(Let me state for the record: My doctor is very, very generous with the Novocaine. Shoots my head all full of the stuff. But he's pretty useless when it comes to other drugs. Normally I approve of such hesitancy to prescribe drugs. However, this is my mouth we're talking about, and if there's a way for me to not be in pain, I'm pretty sure that's the way I want to go.)

My 1 1/2 hour appointment stretched to almost 3. I was somehow both brain-deadeningly bored and hyper-aware with anxiety wondering if excruciating pain was going to surface in the next three seconds.

Exhausting.

Back at home, my numbness is wearing off, and massive ibuprofen ingestion has begun. My jaw, gums, and teeth have been jabbed, stabbed, poked, drilled, chipped, chiseled, hollowed, irradiated, packed, ground, sawed, flushed, stretched, bruised, medicated, and abused. There is no fucking way this is going to feel good.

And now I get to go back next Tuesday for the crown prep that I didn't get to have today. Woo-freakin'-hoo.

All hell has broken loose at work. Chaos. I think I have an important meeting tomorrow, but I'm not sure. Oh, and let's not forget. It's also my 45th birthday. I do not want to go to work. I want to lie here on the Sofur and eat ibuprofen like jelly beans. In fact, the thought of going to work makes me start salivating for Xanax, except that requires a prescription, and I don't have one (because I don't have a doctor or insurance or money), or else a willing prescription drug-peddler, but I don't know any of those. If you know one - or are one - you are encouraged to make me little Xanax care packages.

Otherwise I'm going to have a meltdown and get fired and start asking to sleep on the floor in your family room - unless you have a really nice bathroom with a jacuzzi tub. Because if you do, that's where I'll be, and it's no use knocking because I'm happy there and am not coming out. Hope you have another bathroom. Or a bucket.

And now I have to go start dinner. Which I will not be able to chew or taste, but Tom will appreciate it (I'm pretty sure) and it will look delicious.

2010, You're On Notice

I have a lot to get off my chest, so brace yourselves.

Before I launch into what is sure to be a bitch-fest, let me say that a few things about 2009 didn't suck.

• The Boy and Fabulous Fiancee became Mr. & Mrs. Boy in April, with a lovely wedding in Orlando.
• I wrote my first book, finishing it on June 13.
  
• Tom and I enjoyed a few-day-long road trip to see Cross Canadian Ragweed two nights in a row.
• A glimmer of hope, a lifeline, appeared in November, though it won't come to fruition till later this year and required a very sad event to set it in motion.
• I met and fell in love with George. My Kindle. (An entire blog post will be devoted to George in the very near future.)
  
• For the first year in recent memory, we didn't lose at least one dog.
  

And that pretty much sums it up. How suck-tastic is it when one of the best things you can say about a year is that at least none of your dogs died?

Overall, 2009 ranks pretty damned low on my "favorite years" list. We experienced the loss of extended family members and friends, completely clueless as to how to help those closest to the deceased cope. There was never enough money, and more than a few significant, unexpected expenses. There was way too much work and next to no play.

This is Minnesota, and it's winter, so it's stupid-cold, and I am miserable. I didn't even get to store up any internal thermal energy because summer was all but nonexistent this year. I can't focus to start writing my next book, and I'm overwhelmed by a multitude of ridiculously complicated situations at work.

And my teeth still hurt.

While I had high hopes, 2010 is starting off with a great big ol' bucket of suck.

But it has to get better, right? Right??? We're clinging to the knowledge that later this year, perhaps as soon as August or September, some new doors are going to open for us. Literally. Like, a new little house on a sizable chunk of wooded property. And hopefully that will also include a job that Tom doesn't hate quite as much and my being able to stay home and finally devote my full attention to writing.

All of which probably makes it even harder to deal with bullshit at work now. I mean, as much as I believe in this business, part of my head is already in Lust Hollow or Dragon Run or whatever I decide to call the new homestead. (It depends. I'll have to see what it feels like.) To be honest, I should pack it in now because I don't know how motivated I am, but I need the paycheck, and I owe it to my friends to continue to make a contribution to the business as long as I'm still around. But it's hard.

Really. Hard.

And I'm getting my period and I have to go to the dentist (again) tomorrow and I'm getting fat and it's my birthday on Wednesday but I have to work and it's still fucking cold.

Even the static electricity is almost enough to launch me into orbit.

There's not enough bourbon in the world, believe me.

And that's it. I'll withdraw to my debris-filled den and gnaw the bones of those who have recently annoyed me and wait for spring. Or for something about 2010 to not make everything worse.

Is that too much to ask, Universe? Really? I'm just so deeply, painfully, tired.

End rant. (Or maybe "to be continued." I'll have to get back to you on that.)