Why, yes, I would, thank you.
So.
Kelly and T-man are out of town for the next couple of nights, which means I'll have to fend for myself when it comes to food. Fortunately, I learned how to operate a BBQ at an early age (thanks, Dad!), so, for tonight at least, I won't starve to death.
What's on the menu:
Mmm… temporary bachelorhood food…
Every morning I wake Troy up, change him, and take him to the kitchen for his first bottle. Every morning, I set him on the floor for the 30 seconds it takes me to retrieve the bottle from the fridge and warm its contents. And every morning, without fail, I get 30 seconds of this:
It doesn't start until I've placed him on the kitchen floor. He's usually his happy, goofy self up until that point. Clearly, I don't understand how hard it is to be Troy Steven:
You almost feel sorry for the little guy, huh?
Well don't, because this is what he looks like after shotgunning his breakfast:
Punk.
We've been saying for several months now that Troy's hair is getting out of control, and that we needed to get it cut. That prompted strenuous objections from certain parties, who proclaimed vociferously that we must wait until after his first birthday. So we waited.
Yesterday, however, we reached the breaking point. We couldn't take it anymore, so we headed down to Jack n Jillybeans Salon in Roseville to get him a little trim.
Here's the dirty hippie just prior to our departure:
The view from the rear:
And from the side:
It's a pretty cool little place. Instead of traditional barber stools, they have fire engines, polices cars, and other things for the kids to sit in. Each station has a DVD player with Baby Einstein playing. And, of course, there are plenty of fun and shiny toys for the kids to play with.
The Dude did a great job. He only fussed a little at the beginning, but after that, he was a rock star.
And, we're done:
Front view:
Rear view:
Side view (with some fuss thrown in):
No more dirty hippie!
Poor Homer has really bad allergies. His regular vet couldn't "fix" him, so we ended up having to take him to a veterinary dermatologist. She ruled out food as the cause pretty quickly, so that meant it was environmental.
(Great job, Homer. Way to pick the more expensive allergy.)
Regular blood tests and treatments would have cost hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars, and there is no way we could do that. Fortunately, the vet has used an experimental drug to treat dogs like Homer with a good success rate. By participating in the experiment, the drug company would pay for all of Homer's blood work and give us the meds for free. We jumped at it.
The funky part is the blood tests (see picture). It's just like they test little kids with bad allergies. They prick him with a bunch of stuff and find out how allergic he is to those items. Each item is rated on a scale of 0-4, with 4 being the worst. Almost all of Homer's came back in the 3-4 range.
So, in case you happen to see Homer over the next few weeks, no, I didn't get drunk and shave him and meticulously draw a grid with a Bic pen. He just had his second round of tests last Friday, and they mostly came back in the 1-2 0-1 range. We're hoping that the drug helped, and it wasn't just the dormant winter that caused his allergies to subside, but I guess we'll find out soon enough.
Oh, and his worst allergy? House flies. No joke.