Our hound of hounds was taken to the local animal hospital on Monday night by her faithful attendants so her lungs could be x-rayed. The lungs are clear and healthy which is a tremendous relief. Dixie did not approve of the x-ray procedure, however, as it involved getting her considerable bulk onto a stainless steel table, and forcing her to lie still in various stretched out positions. The worst was having to get her flopped over onto her back in a wedge-shaped pillow. Just try to manipulate 70 pounds of unwilling, ungainly dog into an unnatural position like that. It took three of us, and then she wiggled during the crucial shot, only we didn't know it until the photos were developed ten minutes later. So we got her back up on the table, golden fur wafting off her as she struggled and gave us Betrayed Dog looks, and the technician got her set up just right, and stepped on the pedal to beam the x-rays, and we let her back down, and it turned out there wasn't any film in the camera. So we did it a third time. Dixie isn't mad, though. None of my pets carry a grudge, which is something I hope to learn from them.
I was stressed out in odd ways today. My shoulders and back muscles hurt as though I'd been running laps. I haven't, of course. I have the physique of a potato. I was getting a little tired of my body hurting, though, so I took some naproxen sodium as an experiment. Normally, I take ibuprofen for aches and pains, and it works extremely well, but I've become tolerant of the normal dosages and end up taking quite a bit more than the bottle recommends. I've been wanting to find some alternative to pain management for quite a while. I don't want to be a slave to medication, even over the counter stuff. The chiropractor helps tremendously but that's an ongoing process, really. So I was ready to try a new medication just to get through the busy day. I'd tried one Aleve pill once, and it didn't seem to work, and two on a different day (and on a different neckache) which also appeared not to make a dent in the problem, so I popped three today.
Within half an hour I tranced out. I couldn't remember why I was holding a pen. I stared at my computer screen while trying to collect my thoughts (not that this is significantly different from what I normally do), and had trouble keeping my eyes focused. I opened the door for a while to let the frigid, arctic breeze clear the cobwebs out, but I was still pretty fuzzy for two hours or so. Eventually, my brain returned after its little shore leave, and I threw the bottle of Aleve into the garbage can. Next time I'll try something homeopathic.
After work, I put on my pajamas and watched the newly restored, director's cut Charlie Brown Christmas Special. Boy, it's great to see the snowball tossing scene again. I sure missed that. It really added a layer of veracity to the interpersonal relationships and the explicit trope of . . . I mean, I don't remember ever seeing it as a little kid. By the time I was watching the tv special my local station had long since cut it out in order to shoehorn in several extra commercials. I love it when everyone turns their face up to the sky at the end of the show to sing Hark The Herald Angels Sing.
Lu lu luuuuu lulu lu lu lu . . .
