Parker went to the vet yesterday because I noticed this lovely thing growing in his lip:
The diagnosis? Dogwarts, also known as canine oral papilloma.
Seriously. He has the doggy equivalent of HPV, in that it's pretty much the same virus and it's also just about as common (most dogs have it). It's spread through saliva, so most dogs get it when they play with lots of other dogs. It's the doggy "social disease."
There's no pain, but there's no cure either, so it will just go away on its own—after he bites it. Then he'll never have it again. The vet said she could pop it, but that's a very unpleasant procedure for everyone and it's not medically necessary.
Poor puppy, with his canine kissing disease. He probably got it from Paris, who knows where she's been...
(Just kidding, Paris.)
Heel, heel, heel, sit, down, stay...it's all so tiring:
Also: good news to ParkerCam fans. The ParkerCam will return Thursday.
MSNBC reported overnight that U.S. troops have entered Sadr City in Baghdad. That's newsworthy in itself, but they added an extra level of irony by running their nightly headline-roundup email through an over-zealous spell check:
U.S. troops enter Sadder City
Hundreds of U.S. soldiers entered the Shiite stronghold of Sadder City on Sunday in the first major push into the area since an American-led security sweep began last month around Baghdad.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17450016/
Sigh.
The clouds broke this evening just long enough for me to see the eclipse. As they say in Boston: wicked cool.
The eclipse will be total from 4:44 pm CT to 5:58 pm, so when the moon rises over Chicago at 5:39 pm it will appear a deep red. (If it appears at all, of course; the weather will likely be cloudy.)
Observers on the East Coast will have a better view; Europeans will get to see the whole thing.
...and I don't mean on the locker-room floor. Just now NPR's Weekend Edition reported on a gym in Hong Kong that uses the kinetic energy from people walking on treadmills and using exercise bikes to power its lights. Neat.
Parker's second training session finished up well, but according to the trainer, Joe Hislop, Parker is a smart dog who got a little spoiled. Actually, he got a lot spoiled, which is totally my fault. But now, Parker isn't so spoiled any more. In fact, he knows how to stay down for as long as necessary now. Last night, aided a little by fatigue, he stayed in a down position munching on a bully stick for an hour. Here he is being quite a well-mannered dog while I walked out of sight and back in my office building's lobby:
You'll notice that I've replaced the ParkerCam with the Inner Drive Webcam. It may be a while before the ParkerCam comes back, for two reasons. First, when he's home and I'm not, he needs to be crated. This will continue probably for a few months at least, and may be permanent. Second, I've recently upgraded some of my office systems, and it's kind of a pain to set up the ParkerCam on an old system when he is in the office.
The ParkerCam will return. Meanwhile, I'll be more concientious about Today's Daily Parker.
At least one of my friends (ND-D) would be proud of me: as of tonight, all 21 of the lightbulbs in my apartment are compact fluoroescent, and in some cases of lesser luminosity than the ones they replaced. All told, if every light bulb in the place is blazing away, I'm still using less electricity than if only my kitchen and bathroom lights were on before replacing the bulbs.
Plus, unless I live here 20 years, it's unlikely any of them will ever need replacing.
It's a little thing, but if everyone did it, we'd use a lot less energy.
You will notice that the ParkerCam isn't being updated today. Parker is in his crate, which I had hoped not to use, but circumstances required it:
Parker and I watched the Oscars last night:
He got bored during the middle part, so he began repositioning furniture (in this case, my pillow):
But most of the time he just half-watched and half-slept:
Wow, do I have a lot of movies to see.
Update, 11:08 pm CT: Wow, Scorsese finally won!
Last update, 11:14 pm CT: Scorsese won again! It never rains...
One more update, 11:18 pm CT: MSNBC just sent a news alert out about the Best Actress Oscar™. I'm wondering: who is checking email from a place they can't see the actual Oscars broadcast? Anyone? Bueller?