From this year's Chick-fil-A calendar, Great Works of Cow Literature:

Old Mooer
Perhaps no story has turned more people away from beef-eating than the touching tale of Old Mooer. Set in the prairie town of Pasture Point, Texas, the story begins with the Smith family reluctantly adopting the scruffy mutt cow that has appeared on their doorstep. After saving the family from wild wolves and a runaway stagecoach, the lovable Old Mooer quickly warms the family's hearts, persuading them to convert their farm from cattle to poultry.

I spoke with our veterinarian today about Oscar's weight. Oscar is starting to get a little pudgy (we're starting to have difficulty fastening the straps on his coats and pack) and I was curious what he is supposed to weigh. The doctor said he should be right around 11 pounds, which means, at almost 13.5, he's overweight. The chart on the dog food bag says, for his weight range, we should feed him 1.25 - 2 cups of food per day. Because of the additional training treats he gets during the day, we usually only give him right around one cup. According to the doctor, he should only be getting about one half of a cup. Yikes! No wonder he's getting fat. He said the only time Oscar should ever get as much food as the bag recommends is if he becomes a sled dog running the Iditarod in the Arctic every day. He works hard carrying his backpack, but not that hard. Looks like Fatty McFat will be going on a diet soon.

One of my aunts sent me a funny card for the holiday.

The inside reads: Wishing moo a very happy Easter!

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 201

Click here for the entry form.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 202

Click here for the entry form.

Yesterday, we took Oscar and Mr Moo's parents on a hike in Forest Park. As always, we searched out a geocache. This time, we did a multi-cache, which involved finding several way-points to gather information before we could sort the final destination. Rather than calculating coordinates, each way-point had us calculate distance and navigational bearing to the next stop. This is a lot more difficult than it sounds. If your bearing is off the tiniest bit at the start, the further away you get the worse the error gets. Since we were in the forest, finding the first few weren't too bad because there aren't that many trails to choose from. At the end, however, we ended up in a large open area near a water tower and really struggled to pinpoint where we needed to be. We spent some time searching in a completely wrong area before we regrouped, recalculated and finally made the find.

I was totally off my game yesterday and took almost no photos. I realized, when we got home, I didn't even take a photo of all of us together. Bad Moo. I will correct this next time we head out together. Here are a few I did manage:



That's the water tower in the last photo.

Bridesmaid alteration fitting tonight. Bride muslin fitting tomorrow. Mother of the Groom picking up still to be finished gown on Thursday. Guess sleep will just have to wait until I'm dead.

My latest client project:

It's for a bride. She does not want the sheer fabric on the bodice so we'll be changing that to the same fabric as the skirt. Otherwise, we'll be making it as shown. She came over for her first muslin fitting today and it went well.

My MOG (mother of the groom) client picked up her dress tonight. Here is the pattern she originally brought me:

And here she is in her finished dress:

As you can see, we made some modifications. Since my client isn't 6' tall and 85 pounds soaking wet like the model on the pattern cover, we changed the design to make it more flattering for her size and shape. Among other things, we eliminated the gathers on the skirt so she didn't look so "poofy", dropped the hem to the floor to make her look taller, and cut down the size of the neckline ruffle so she didn't disappear behind it.

Lord Oscar paid a visit to the groomer today. We've been taking him on a fairly regular basis to have his nails trimmed for a while now. We don't think he ever visited a groomer before we adopted him because his nails were about a mile long. Since they can only trim off a tiny bit at a time, it's a long process to get them short again. Unfortunately, each time we've brought him in, his behavior has gotten a bit worse to the point where we were starting to think they might have to put a muzzle on him. Today, I decided to try something different. Rather than standing there while the groomer trimmed his nails, I signed him up for the full package (bath, nail trim, ear and gland cleaning), brought him in and left. As much as I like to think I remain perfectly calm when we're there, I know I always have that little bit of "please don't bite anyone" stress/fear/nervousness and he can pick up on that. Amazingly, my plan worked! The groomer called about an hour later to tell me he behaved perfectly, didn't give her an ounce of grief about anything and was ready to be picked up. Yay! Not only did he behave, he was even making friends with some of the other dogs. When you're a dog owner, you sometimes have to accept that the problem is you and not the dog. And, sometimes, all you need to do to solve the problem is walk away.

I am Oscar, Master of Disguise!

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 203

Click here for the entry form.

I bought a new pair of running shoes on Saturday.

I need to start working out again and was in need of new footwear since my old sneakers are completely worn out. I'm considering giving the C25K another try, but will probably end up mostly doing step aerobics, so cross trainers were really what I was looking for. However, all of the shoe companies have redesigned their cross trainers to have very little rise in the back around the heel and none of them felt good on my feet. Some of them were so low I almost felt like I was wearing clogs and my feet were going to slip right out of them. After trying on what felt like a thousand pairs, I moved over to the running shoes to find something a bit more substantial and found these. Guess I'm out of excuses for not working out now.

Look, Momma! Look how well we're getting along.

Can we have some cookies now?

Besides the resource guarding, Oscar has a few other issues with his food. Among them is the gulping. He eats like he has never eaten before and will never eat again. He barely tastes his food, never mind chews it, and then spends the next 15 minutes or so coughing and choking on all the food stuck in his throat. I mentioned this to our trainer and she recommended a new product, the Portion Pacer.

It's a large porcelain ball you put right in the middle of his food in the dish.

Because it's made of porcelain, he can't grab onto it to pull it out. And because it's so large and heavy, he can't nudge it out with his nose either. The idea is he has to eat around it, which will slow him down.

It's not a miracle cure, by any means, but it definitely has helped some. He no longer has enough room to shovel such huge amounts of food into his mouth anymore. Smaller mouthfuls means more of them, which, by default, means he has to slow down. We're also still working on his mealtime training in addition to this. Hopefully, we'll get him to stop eating like a ravenous beast before too long.

Hey, look. Another puzzle.


I finished this one a few months ago in the deepest dark of winter.

During our day at the coast back in March, we spent some time on the jetty in Fort Stevens State Park looking out at the ocean.

We then drove over the Astoria Bridge into Washington state.

We got a great view of Astoria from the other side.

One of the mountains in the background there is Saddle Mountain, which we climbed back in June 2009.

Just got back from a four mile walk with the dog. He spent over half of it off the leash and he stayed right with me. We met several chilluns, passed half a dozen bicyclists and skateboarders, and even encountered our first rollerblader - all without barking a single time. He's come a long way since we brought him home six months ago.

We didn't spend a whole lot of time in Washington during our day at the coast back in March, but we enjoyed what we did, especially when we stopped at places which had nice views of the ocean.

We knew it would be closed, but we drove over to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center at Cape Disappointment (isn't that the greatest name?) anyway to check out the view. We got to see the lighthouse on the other side of the bluff and the beginnings of the sunset.


After one more quick stop for a geocache, we lost the last of the light and decided it was time to cross back over the bridge and head home.

Josie has really embraced her role as dominant member of the zoo. We've worked hard to establish her position and teach the dog to leave her alone. Now that she understands he isn't going to hurt her, she takes every opportunity to exert her dominance over him. Quite frequently now, I look over at the dog bed and see this:

At first, she only did this late at night when the dog was safely tucked away in his crate for the night. Lately, however, she's taken to claiming his bed in the middle of the day when the dog is out - sometimes when he's right here in the room even. When it happens, Oscar accepts his position and will go lie down on the smaller, less comfortable dog bed. At first, we thought he'd just go over and lay in her bed, which is the most comfortable of all, but we've since learned he won't dare invade her territory like that, even though it's only a few feet away.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 204

Click here for the entry form.

March hike in Forest Park.

I think I've poisoned our bird. :-(

Backstory: A few weeks ago, I discovered a new air freshener.

It's AIR WICK Aqua Mist, Lavender & Mountain Breeze flavor. I was excited to try it out because it's one of the only air fresheners I've ever seen that doesn't use aerosols (aka horrible ozone killing propellants) and it comes in a recyclable bottle. I bought one last week and used it a few times in the bathroom. Given that it looks like a bottle of just water, the scent was surprisingly strong, but pleasant. Who doesn't love lavender?

My bird. That's who. Because he struggled with the cold temperatures downstairs, Stuka has been living in the upstairs hallway, where it's warmer, all winter. His cage is against the wall just outside of the bathroom, where I used the air freshener. Normally, he's a very talkative bird - always chirping, singing and making noises. On Friday, I noticed it was awfully quiet in the hallway. By Saturday, the reason why was obvious. Stuka looked awful and was really struggling to breathe. When I checked on him in the morning, he was sitting on one branch and hanging onto another with his mouth just to stay upright. I immediately transferred him to the small cage, which we use as a hospital/transport cage, and brought him into the office to keep an eye on him. I, honestly, didn't think he was going to make it through the day.

Fortunately, I was wrong. As the day wore on, he started to perk up and ate a little bit. While he appeared to have taken a step back from death's door, he was still very poorly. I played his favorite bird song recording for him. He tried to sing along a little, but I could hear that his lungs were very wet and he was still struggling to breathe. Of course, it was Saturday night and the avian vet wouldn't be open until Monday morning. Why do pets always get sick as soon as the vet's office closes for the weekend? We just had to wait and see if he survived long enough.

Much to my relief, he not only made it, he seemed to be improving ever so slightly. He still had a lot of fluid in his lungs and sounded like he was underwater, but he wasn't nearly as fluffed up as he had been and his panting had minimized. I called the doctor first thing in the morning. After a long talk with one of the vet techs, we decided, since he was eating, pooping and being active, he didn't need to be brought in immediately for emergency care. I took the earliest open appointment, which is today at 1800.

Mr Moo will be taking us because we need to have a discussion with the doctor about Stuka's long term prognosis. He'll be 8 years old next month and has been getting sick a lot lately. I know Mr Moo is not happy with how much money we've spent on this $10 parakeet and I can understand where he is coming from. I, however, feel he is just as much a part of our family as the cat or the dog, and feel it wouldn't be right to put him to sleep just because he's getting expensive. First things first, however. We need to find out why he's sick. I'm fairly certain it's a reaction to the new air freshener. (I poisoned my bird. How long do you think I'll be carrying around that guilt?) It could be he just has a cold. Or he could have terminal pneumonia. We just won't know until we run some tests. Obviously, if it is something terminal, the decision will be made for us. If not, it will fall onto us, which is what I dread. I know what Mr Moo's choice will be, but it will be an agonizing decision for me. I am so not looking forward to this.

We have returned from the avian hospital with Stuka (yay!) as well as some good and bad news. The good news is it is very unlikely I poisoned Stuka. Phew! Also, the results of his fecal exam were very good. There is no infection or anything weird present. His poop looks good, which is something we never hear when we have to bring him to see the doctor. Now for the bad news. He's still a very sick little bird. He has a lot of fluid building up in his abdomen. There is a problem with his liver, which is constricting the blood flow through the organ and causing fluid to seep out into his abdominal cavity. There are a few things which can cause this (the air freshener is not one of them), but there is no way to pinpoint what it is exactly without an operation or other severely invasive procedure. One of the most common culprits is a particular heart condition, which is what we've decided to treat him for. We have an herbal medicine to put into his drinking water. The idea is to get the heart condition under control, which will improve the blood flow to the liver and, in turn, stop the fluid leakage issue. She has treated other birds with this condition, who have completely improved just with the medication. We're hoping he'll be another one. There is a chance the medicine will help with underlying condition, but not with the fluid already in his belly. In that case, he might need to have an abdominal tap, where she'll use a very fine needle to drain the remaining fluid out manually. There's a lot of risk involved in doing that, which is why we didn't do it today, but it can be done, if necessary. And, of course, there is always a chance it's a tumor or some sort of cancer, in which case, the medicine won't help, the fluid in his abdomen will continue to increase and we'll have to euthanize him, if he doesn't die here at home first.

So, it was a relief to know that the whole air freshener thing was just a coincidence in timing and not the culprit. However, he's still very ill and can use all of your good thoughts and prayers.

Okay, body. I don't know if it's just allergies or a full-on infection, but this sinus thing, whatever it is, has got to go!

In response to the inquiries I've received, Stuka is still hanging in there.

He still has a lot of swelling in his belly, but he's starting to act normal again. As a matter of fact, he's preening as I type this, which is a very good sign. He's still having some trouble breathing so we're doing our best to keep him as calm and quiet as possible. Hopefully, the swelling will start dissipating over the next few days. In the meantime, we'll continue keeping him here in the office in his hospital cage to keep an eye on him.

Oscar received a box from Amazon.com yesterday. He made out like a bandit. He got a couple new treat dispensing toys.

So far, he's completely terrified by them (as he is by everything new), but we'll work on it. We also got two new books.

Best Hikes With Dogs: Oregon and Best Hikes With Dogs: Western Washington. Unlike how he feels about his toys, Oscar loves to hike so I'm sure we'll get lots of use from those two books.