During the past week, I've forced myself to be on vacation. When you're self-employed and work from home, it can be hard to make yourself stop working when the holidays roll around. There's always things that need to be done and the office is never more than a few steps away. Even though I'm now so far behind on work I can hardly see straight, it's been nice spending time relaxing and doing some fun things like reading, watching movies and doing some jigsaw puzzles.

This one was a Christmas gift from my inlaws. The images around the outside went together very quickly, but all the stripes in the middle were a pain in the butt. Got it done though!

We came home from the avian vet's office tonight with good news and bad news. The most important thing is we came home with Bungee.

Based on the fecal analysis, the doctor thinks Bungee has some sort of infection of the kidneys. They are inflamed and pressing on a nerve. This is causing numbness and explains why she won't put any weight on the leg. Notice in the photo how she's leaning and putting all her weight on her left foot. This is a marked improvement from earlier today when she just held her right foot completely in the air. Bungee is now on two different medicines - something to help clean acids out her kidneys and antibiotics for the infection. As for what happens next, the doctor gave us three possible scenarios:

1. Best case. This is just a random infection that will clear up with the antibiotics. Once the infection is gone, the inflammation and pressure on the nerve will go away and Bungee will be perfectly fine. Life expectancy: several more years

2. Not so good case. It is a secondary infection caused by a kidney tumor. She sees kidney tumors in parakeets more than any other kind of bird. Hopefully, curing the infection will still cure the leg problem, but it will only be temporary. The tumor will continue to grow and will eventually cause the same (and more) problem(s) with no hope of recovery next time. The doctor said Bungee will be able to manage for a while with just one leg when it happens again, but the tumor will eventually get too large and cause digestive problems, mobility and perching problems, and organ failure. Life expectancy: 9-12 more months

3. Worst case. Again, it is a secondary infection caused by a kidney tumor, but the tumor is already too large and the antibiotics won't help at all. If that is the case, there is nothing we can do except keep her comfortable until it's time to have her put down. Life expectancy: few weeks to a few months

Based on how fast this whole thing has come on, the doctor is really hopeful that it's case #1, but we do need to prepare for the others. That's a lot easier said than done for me. I don't know how much more pet death I can handle right now. It's not been a good year for us in that respect. All I can do is hope and pray that we'll get to have Bungee with us for a long while still. If the antibiotics are going to help, we should see improvement in 2-5 days. So, for now, we wait.

There are only two days left and yet 2008 continues to be a sucky year for pets in the Moo House. First, we lost Feesh. Then Zoe died in May. Now Bungee is sick. She won't put weight on her right foot. We know it's not broken because she'll use it to move around the cage. As soon as she stops moving, however, she lifts it up. A quick internet search indicates a possible tumor. Oh, yay. We're not sure when she started doing this, but it's been at least one day. She's been standing on one foot for so long now, she's getting exhausted and is starting to struggle. We're taking her to the avian vet later today to see if we can sort what's wrong with her. I know Mr Moo does not want to spend a lot of money on this because, for starters, he doesn't care for the birds. Also, Bungee is somewhere around 8 years old, which is getting up there for a parakeet in these parts. I have an awful feeling that we may not be bringing her home tonight.

I decided I was going to be on vacation for a few days for Christmas. I did such a good job staying out of the office, I'm starting to get emails from people asking if I'm dead. Fret not, good people. I'm still here!

Mr Moo and I kept ourselves very busy over the holiday. And when we weren't busy, we worked very hard at doing lots of nothing. We finished up our baking on Christmas Eve. When we stay home for Christmas, like we did this year, we bake cookies for the neighbors. This time, instead of just our five immediate neighbors, we decided to leave cookies and a card for everyone on our street. That's 23 boxes of cookies total when you add in one for the mail lady and one for the garbage dudes. That translates into about 63 million cookies. My oven was begging for mercy by the end. We finally delivered them all at 0100 in the freezing rain and snow. Mr Moo was thrilled about that. Not. We had a few neighbors we've never met before stop by to thank us in the morning, which was nice. Being neighborly is what it's all about. We did have one bizarre incident. Someone (we're not sure who) opened the card, rummaged through the cookies and returned everything to our doorstep with no explanation. My first guess was they were confused and thought they were for us instead of from us since we wrote our address along with our names in the card. After I noticed they rummaged through the cookies, however, I now wonder if they just didn't want them. If that was the case, why return them and not just toss them? Weird.

Christmas Day was very quiet. Since the weather was still kind of bad, my in-laws decided to postpone the family get together until Saturday. Mr Moo and I had already bought a small turkey to cook sometime this weekend so we cooked it on Christmas Day instead. We had dinner just the two of us and spent the rest of the day/evening camped out on the couch watching the brain rot.

Since we had been trapped in the house for days because of the snow and my broken car before that, we never got a chance to do any Christmas shopping. Friday was the day. We were pleasantly surprised to find the stores weren't nearly as bad as we thought they were going to be. The sales weren't very good either, but what can you do? We managed to get all of our shopping done in one grand trip and were home before the afternoon was out. I spent the rest of the evening making a pie and wrapping all the gifts for Saturday.

Saturday was Mr Moo's family's gathering. We went to his parents' house for prime rib dinner, which was most excellent. I received many nice gifts, but it was Mr Moo's dad (aren't dads usually the hardest ones to shop for?) who made out most like a bandit. He was sitting on one end of the couch and all of his presents filled the rest of it. We brought Josie with us and she sat in his lap for most of it, but eventually got tired of not getting enough attention from him and went to take a nap in a giant pile of wrapping paper. It was too cute for words and, of course, I didn't have my camera with me. Figures.

Yesterday was clean the house and get back to work day. I did several loads of laundry, washed the mountain of dirty dishes in the kitchen, picked up all over the house and, generally, did all I could to avoid doing any real work. I eventually ran out of excuses and finally sat down here in the office to work on some stuff, which I did much too late into the night. Still got loads to do today, too. Better grab a shower and get to it. Later, fishies.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Oops. Kind of fell off the Earth there for a couple days. Been having some problems with my PC. One of the hard drives may be calling it a day. I tried to sync my iPod the other night and everything went to crap. Once again, I demonstrate my touch of death with electronics. Mr Moo worked on it all day yesterday. He says he made the error messages go away, but it's not necessarily fixed. We'll be making incremental backups at least once per day in the meantime.

Still can't believe it's Christmas Eve already. We're supposed to be going to my in-laws' house tomorrow for Christmas dinner. However, it's starting to warm up and all of the snow we've been getting is going to turn into freezing rain, which is a million times worse. We're waiting to hear if everything is going to be postponed until the weekend. If so, Mr Moo and I will be spending a very quiet Christmas at home, just the two of us.

Mr Moo shoveled the driveway and walkway to the front door yesterday.

And, this morning, it's a mess again.

I might go out in a bit and shovel it again myself just to get out of the house for a while.

We still can't believe how much snow we've gotten. We realize it's nothing compared to what they've been getting on the east coast and in the midwest, but for us this is a lot!

We had a bit on the ground already and it snowed softly almost all night last night. I think we've had 5-7" total so far and the forecast is calling for more over the next couple days. We may end up with a white Christmas after all. Yay!

Josie went outside to "play" for a few minutes last night.

I hate you all with the fury of a thousand suns.

Looks like something else has happened on the main road by our house.

There is a police car blocking the road now. I asked Mr Moo if he wanted to go out and see, but he laughed and declined. Can't say that I blame him. It's freezing out there.

We noticed a bunch of cars turning around at the mouth of our street a few minutes ago. It didn't take much to figure out there was an accident somewhere further down the main road. What we didn't guess is it involved a bus! From what Mr Moo could see from the corner, the wind must have caught it just right on a slippery spot and blown it off the road. The butt of the bus is in the ditch and the nose is sticking out onto the road and blocking one whole side. Mr Moo has gone down the street to see if everyone is okay and if anyone needs to use the mobile phone. For Pete's sake, people! It's a mess out there. Stay home!

EDIT: It was getting dark, but snowing too hard to use the flash. I did what I could in PhotoShop and came up with this:

There was no one on the bus except the driver and he was not injured. Phew! A very large tow truck showed up, pulled the bus out of the ditch and off they went.

It is absolutely blowing a gale outside right now.

(Current MooCam image. Click to see the live feed.)

It's been snowing all day, but it's been fairly light and we haven't had much accumulation. It seems worse than it is because it's being blown around like a hurricane. The forecast is calling for the snow to start changing into freezing rain later tonight. It's going to be a hot mess out there by tomorrow. I'm just glad it's the weekend and Mr Moo doesn't have to go to work.

I saw a flock of birds in the tree outside my window while it was snowing the other day. Since snow is uncommon in these parts, I wanted to make sure everyone had something to eat so I put out some birdseed. I refilled the hanging thistle feeder, dumped a little bit of thistle on the ground and put a fairly heaping pile of cracked corn and millet in the tray feeder. Within just a few hours, the tray feeder was completely empty. Because it happened so fast and there was almost no mess (birds get seed everywhere when they eat out of the tray feeder). I started to wonder if perhaps a raccoon or Mr. Skunk had paid us a visit. The snow had mostly melted so there were no tracks. Yesterday, however, I discovered evidence of our Chupacabra in the freshly fallen snow.

Turns out it was a morning dove. They sit in the tray feeder when they eat because they're laaaaazy, which is why there was no mess.

Mr Moo and I baked some Christmas cookies tonight. I was crazy tired and didn't even think to take any photos. My bad. We have a few more batches to make either tomorrow or over the weekend. I'll see if I can remember to take some pics then. For now, I must away to sleep. Goodnight, fishies.

We've received many lovely Christmas cards this season. These are just a couple of them:

Found out this morning that the aunt and uncle we stay with in Massachusetts are still without power six days after the big ice storm. No power for them means no heat or running water either. Yikes! They have a wood stove, so they're able to stay warm, but what a pain. They have no estimate when the power will be back on either. She's heard some people have been told it may not be until after Christmas. If that's true, they'll have to cancel Christmas dinner (they're the hosts for the whole family on Christmas Day). It's a good thing we decided to do our annual visit in September this year.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 144

Click here for the entry form.

Over the weekend, Mr Moo and I stopped at PetSmart to pick up a couple things for Dr Jones' fishtank. One of the things I was after was a new plant. He caught and tore his tail fin on the plastic plant he was living with so I wanted to get him either a live or silk plant instead. I found a live plant that I liked and also bought a small silk plant as a backup. Good thing. Once we got home and I did a bit of research on the internet, I learned that the live plant we bought isn't truly aquatic. Everything I read said it would survive for several months submerged in the tank, then it would just rot and die. Lovely. We decided that Dr Jones would be living with his new silk plant instead. We haven't had a chance to take the live plant back to the store yet and, with the weather turning so crappy tonight/tomorrow, it's not looking like we'll have a chance anytime soon. I decided to keep it and let it live on my desk.

Isn't it cute? It's a peace lily or Spathiphyllum wallisii. It came in this little tube...

...in a small container of plant gel. It's great because I don't have to worry about it drying out every five minutes and I can wait until the weather warms up a bit before I plant it in a real pot.

Tomorrow, another winter storm is on the way. Look for snow to start in the morning with 2 to 4 inches of accumulation possible... We continue to track the possibility of a third winter storm this Friday night and Saturday. Metro temperatures may remain below freezing Saturday as a strong and very wet Pacific storm pushes inland. If we are below freezing, the storm could dump quite a bit of snow and sleet. Estimates could be as low as 5" and as high as a foot.

Wow. This is really freaky weather for this area. While I'm excited about the prospect of a bunch of snow, Portland just doesn't know how to handle it. It's going to be a messy weekend.

To: the boys playing outside

I realize our street is a giant sheet of ice at the moment and it may be fun to slide down it. However, I have watched many a car come flying around the corner turning onto our street and can assure you that they can't/won't see your tiny bodies lying on your little sleds in the middle of the road in time. Please, for my poor heart that's having an attack every time I see you slide by, go play in your yard.

We tossed Josie out in the snow tonight to see what her reaction would be. I don't think I need to tell you that Her Highness was not pleased. She extracted her revenge by tracking snow and water all over my carpet. And she'll probably poop in my shoe later.

It's gotten so cold that we've moved all of the animals upstairs. Even with the thermostat at just 63F, the furnace never seemed to stop running and it still felt like a meat locker downstairs. Now that we don't have to worry about anyone freezing to death, we've turned the thermostat down to 60F. The furnace is still running quite a bit, but at least not as much as before. Hopefully, I won't die of hypothermia when I go down for a bowl of cereal in the morning.

It's snowing!!!

(Current MooCam image. Click to see the live feed.)

It's supposed to snow here in Portland this weekend.

Can't wait! Can't wait! Can't wait!

My sister brought me the 2009 Chick-Fil-A calendar when she was here for Thanksgiving.

I'm all set for another year.

To treat Josie's chronic diarrhea, our vet suggested we get her off the canned food and feed her scrambled ground turkey to help bind things up. Let me tell you, kitty was beyond pleased at this latest development. She got her first turkey meal on Monday and Tuesday afternoon had a great big solid movement. Yay! Unfortunately, that's the last we've seen of the Ghost of Christmas Poop. She's done nothing since. I just spoke with the vet again and he said I shouldn't start to really worry until a week has passed. If she hasn't produced anything by Tuesday, we get to take her in for a full exam and x-ray to check for blockages. In the meantime, I have to watch her whenever she goes in the litter box to see if she's straining or even trying to go. If she's struggling, he wants to see her sooner rather than later and she might need an enema. Ah, my glamorous life.

For whatever reason, it's become a rule in our house that no other ornaments can be hung on our Christmas tree until the traditional first ornament has been hung by Mr Moo.

Yes, it's Darth Vader. And, yes, he's finally on our tree. I was starting to wonder if I was ever going to be able to decorate it this year.

I meant to update on Dr Jones' ich yesterday. He's doing much, much better now. Phew! We put him into a hospital tank and treated him with Maracide.

This stuff is amazing. Within 24 hours of his first treatment, almost all of the white spots were gone. He remained lethargic for a while longer, but he's pretty much back to normal as of today. He's now completely clear of any spots and is once again acting like the ravenous great white shark that he is.

He's due for one more dosing tomorrow, then he'll be going back into his regular tank.

Bought and finished a new jigsaw puzzle recently.

When I first started putting it together, I was worried it wasn't going to fit on the coffee table, but it ended up fitting just fine.

I decided that today was going to be the day I taught myself to drink coffee. Got up early (it's still dark out - this is not natural!) made a hot steaming cup of Folgers... and just about puked when I tasted it. How can something that smells so good taste so awful?! I just don't get it. Ain't no amount of milk or sugar gonna help this. Where's my Dew?

Welcome to the Moo House of sick pets. Dr Jones has the ich. Josie has horrifying diarrhea. And Stuka, one of our parakeets, had a bad case of the vomits the other day. Everyone is being treated/medicated accordingly and, hopefully, is on the mend. Dr Jones is the most danger of dying at the moment so send some good thoughts his way if you can.

Well, that was disconcerting. A large tow truck pulled up in front of the house a few minutes ago and sat there while the driver did some paperwork. Since we've got a ton of crap in the garage at the moment, my poor gimpy car has been sitting out in the driveway. I had a panicky moment when I thought he was going to tow my car away! Luckily, it wasn't my car he was after. The guy who lives two houses up walked over and they're towing his car away. Phew!

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 143

Click here for the entry form.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 142


Click here for the entry form.

Sorry I didn't post a new round last week. I got busy with my family visiting and it just never happened. Round 142 is still open.

From the day after Thanksgiving. Caption this!

From this year's Chick-fil-A calendar, One-Hit Wonder Cows:

For one long summer, everything in a cow's world was irie, mon. Medium Rasta's happy lyrics and steel drums were infectious, and tourists all over the Caribbean were skipping their beef entrees in favor of jerk chicken. If it weren't for a tragic beach bonfire accident, their music would still be inspiring chicken eating and limbo lines today.

Highlights from Thanksgiving Day (Thursday):

Highlights from last Wednesday:

Since I was more than busy getting things ready and entertaining guests, I had virtually no time to take any photos on Thanksgiving Day. I did manage a couple quick shots of the dinner table though.

Got up before the butt crack of dawn this morning to take my parents to the airport. Mr Moo dropped us off at the curb and went the park the car. Unfortunately, the skycap pushing the wheelchair for my dad was in an awful hurry and my parents disappeared past the security checkpoint before Mr Moo made it inside to say goodbye. I feel awful about it. We got them there plenty early and all of their flights looked to be on time so we headed home. I crawled back into bed for a few more hours of shuteye and Mr Moo left for work. Game plan for the remainder of today: a whole lotta nothing.

Today is our last full day with my parents. They fly home tomorrow morning. The only thing on the schedule is an appointment with our investment lady to go over some of my dad's retirement stuff. Other than that, Dad will probably watch a bunch of TV while Mom and I work on another jigsaw puzzle. Mr Moo is about a thousand years behind on his work, so he'll spend most of the day here in the office trying to get caught up.

Yesterday, my friend Kelly came over in the afternoon for a Thai cooking lesson from my mother. Before she arrived, my mom and I made a quick trip to the grocery store for a couple things. On the way home, my car decided it didn't want to play nice anymore. Something is going on with the hydraulic system/clutch. I managed to get it onto a side road before calling Mr Moo. Fortunately, we were less than a mile from the house. It only took him a minute to arrive. My mom and I drove his truck back and he limped my car home. We're still not 100% sure what's wrong with it, but it's low on the priority list at the moment. We'll deal with fixing it after my parents leave.

After Kelly had her cooking lesson, which I understand was very successful, and Dad and I watched the Patriots lose in spectacular fashion, Mr Moo's parents came over and we all went out to dinner at Outback. We came back to the house for a quick visit afterward. Dad finished watching a movie he had started before dinner, then we took them back to the hotel.