FMC 3.0

I haven’t mentioned it yet, but I kinda figured that by know I’d told every one in person, or had picked up on it from Liz’s blog. It turns out that preparing for the worst wasn’t a bad idea. Mousse came home from the Vet last Thursday, mostly because there wasn’t anything more to do for him. After three days of dialysis, his toxin levels had just gone up. The doctor said that they might stabilize, and his body might adapt. That was so long as he kept eating and drinking to keep up his energy levels. Well, it went downhill very quickly from there.

Part of me knew that Mousse making it through that first weekend would have been a miracle. I thought that if he made it through the weekend, I might start thinking positive. Unfortunately, I was right. He came home, and didn’t want to eat. And then, Saturday he stopped drinking, and was in very obvious bad shape. So it boiled down to three options - let him starve to death, let his system poison him, or just relieve the pain altogether. When given those options, it’s pretty simple.

So Saturday evening, we lost pup number 4. It was the second time Nighthawk made the trip where the pup only goes one way. Even after 4, it doesn’t get any easier.

What gets you, after the initial depression and sadness wanes away, is the little reminders you get. That’s why I’ve never liked condolence cards - sure, it’s great that you wish me well, but you’ve also reminded me that my dog just died, and thanks for bringing all those emotions back to the surface. There’s also things that are so innocuous on the surface, yet just rip you apart. It’s things like feeding times - in the past, it was when you went to feed pups, and there was one less bowl to fill. Now it’s the emptiness of the house - and more importantly the bay window. There’s been a dog in that window every time one of us came home since we moved in here all those years ago.

I got another of these reminders yesterday while doing yet another innocuous task - mowing the lawn. As I rode around the backyard waging my little war against the flora, I happened across a tennis ball, no doubt left in the yard by Mousse some months before. The backyard’s always been littered with them, but now there’s no canine mouth to collect them and bring them back (only to be thrown again, of course.)

I’m sure there will be more sad reminders later down the road. But somehow, I don’t expect to see this house remain dogless for long.

(Fair Warning: If your last name is, or has ever been Raab-Long, you might wanna skip this one. Especially if you’re at your desk at work.)

That’s kind of a personal mantra for me when bad stuff comes at me (however, I’ve been oft accused of the second part being ‘expect the worst’.) It generally works well. You hope everything works out, but mentally prepare yourself for the worst. Of course, there are times that no matter how much you prepare, you’re still gonna get your heart broken. This is one of those times.

Truth is, I’m gonna lose a good friend. It may be this week (worst) or it could be years from now (best). In all likelihood it’s going to be somewhere in the middle. No matter when it happens, it’s gonna hurt. He’s fun to be around, fiercely loyal, and has been a good listener.

But lately he’s slowed down a bit, and very recently decided he wasn’t gonna eat much any more. He lost 13 pounds in two months. While most of us would welcome such a change, it wasn’t what he needed.

So we take him to the doctor, who pokes, prods, and takes his temperature. Gets blood to do some blood work, and runs down a possible list of reasons he’s not eating. None of them seem very good. The big ugly one on the list is cancer, which isn’t unheard of at his age. There’s plenty of other possibilities. That was Friday.

Saturday they call and say that there is some bad stuff in the blood - low protein levels and an infection. They want a urine sample as well.

Sunday is Easter, and more importantly, his 12th birthday. He’s gray in the face, and doesn’t want to do much on his birthday, not even eat.

Today the urine sample is collected and taken to the doctors. Within an hour, they want him back in. They want to start him on Dialysis, because his urine sample showed some pretty high toxin levels. His kidneys aren’t operating properly. Hopefully, after a few days of cleaning out his system, his kidneys will function at the minimum levels to keep him going. They’re also going to put him on major antibiotics to kill the infection. We won’t know how he’s doing for a few days. We don’t even know if he’s coming home. If his kidneys don’t improve, theres not much to do but make him comfy.

Here’s what I do know:
1. This picture was taken in 1995 shortly after Mousse came home. It doesn’t feel like 12 years have passed:

I can’t believe how small he was. Or how odd my dad looks with color in his hair and no beard. (Sorry dad.)

2. Tonight, Mousse is sleeping at the hospital while most of us are gonna have a really hard time sleeping in our own beds. It’s been a while since he’s slept away from home without any of us.

3. Coming home from work, I almost didn’t make it through the front door. Coming through that door knowing for the first time in nearly 20 years that a pup wasn’t gonna be on the other side of the door to greet me was possibly the most heart breaking and excruciating thing I’ve ever done.

4. When Mousse does go (which in hoping for the best is a long, long time from now) he’ll be the fourth in a line of great pups. It never gets easier. If anything, it gets harder and harder to say goodbye.

5. I always thought that if any of our pups were to find a way to live forever, it would have been Mousse.

But what else can you do but hope for the best, and prepare for the worst. It could turn out being a pretty good week, or it could be really rotten. Here’s hoping.

Ah, a nice laid back weekend. Just me taking care of Mousse, and movies galore. Oh, and I saved my sister’s computer from the brink of death. But this post is about the movies.

I’m gonna do blurbs in the order I remember them.

Poseidon - I caught this Saturday evening on HBO. While I’m not one for disaster movies, mostly because they’re so predictable. There are a few sure fire things - it’s always a complete accident, or something no one saw coming. There’s only a handful of survivors, normally because the leader of one faction trusts in the construction of man over the wrath of nature (I hope this becomes a well learned lesson after Katrina.) Someone nobly sacrifices themselves to save the band (normally a person that has to redeem themselves, or someone that has more life behind them than in front.) Oh, and of course, there’s normally some hinkey science. I liked this movie more than I expected to. The effects were rather impressive, and the capsizing of the boat was very convincing. The CGI could have been a little more less obvious, but small screens will do that. Not one I’d own, but didn’t feel I’d lost two hours. I was pretty gripped by the thing.

The Constant Gardener - I knew very little of this movie when I started this one. I’d heard of it, and heard the critical acclaim, but not much of the story. While it was a little slow in places, it was an intriguing story. It balanced a journey of discovery against soapboxing about the lack of caring from the western world about Africa well. My only problem was that at the end I was depressed, and also felt really guilty. Great acting jobs in this one, but with a cast like Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz, what else would you expect?

Transporter 2 - Ok, I loved the first Transporter movie. It was a simple, no frills action movie with some pretty nifty fight scenes (those of you nodding your head and thinking of the fight on oil scene know what I’m talking about.) This wasn’t complicated, but definitely felt the influx of Hollywood budget. The fight scenes were still top notch, but there were plenty of other effects that got in the way. Oh, and the completely implausible way of removing the bomb from the bottom of the car. But, glitz aside, Jason Statham is the man. He’s possibly my favorite action star these days.

Crank - Yes, it was a 2 for 1 deal on Jason Statham this weekend. This one was actually rented by Matt and I. This is the type of movie that from the first 5 minutes you know how the movie ends. You know the outcome already, so you just sit back and watch the journey. The concept here is that Statham’s character has to keep his adrenaline pumping, or his heart will stop. To accomplish that, he gets into crazier and crazier situations. It’s a heck of a ride, and pretty damn funny too. It was pure visual popcorn, but hey, sometimes that’s all you need.

School for Scoundrels - I’ve not yet quite figured out what criteria Billy Bob Thornton does to pick movies. Some of them I really like and are great movies, and some I get a kick out of but have as much substance as Paris Hilton’s cranium. This one is the latter. It’s got some funny moments, and the character that Thorton plays is a charismatic bastard. But Jon Heder’s an annoying whelp. If he’s like that in all his movies, I’m in no rush to see Napoleon Dynamite. There is however a saving grace of this one - Sarah Silverman. She doesn’t have much screen time, but the time she has had me in stitches.

The Illusionist - Whoever thinks this is the Prestige with a different cast, think again. While the careers of the protagonists are the same, what drives them is very different. This one was intriguing as well. I liked the cast in this one, even Jessica Biel, who I’d had some misgivings on. Paul Giamatti is also pretty slick in this one, even if he did get completely outfoxed. I was pretty gripped, not because I didn’t see the ending coming, but mostly I wanted to see how they really explained it. I mean, the hero has to get the girl, I just wanted to know how. My biggest problem (similar to the Prestige) was that they didn’t explain how he created the illusions. They did the minor ones, but not the big show stoppers.

Lastly, I caught the last half of The Lake House. I only stopped surfing because Sandra Bullock was in something low cut. I’m curious to see how the temporal anomaly was explained, but things were pretty run of the mill and predictable from what I did see. I also called the ending shortly after I started watching. Again, the hero always gets the girl. Actually, in this case, the hero got her guy.

Not much of the way in news (at least that I’ll cover here). NJ’s OotM tourney next weekend. Got to the kite festival on Friday, for pictures, check out Kate’s blog. That was a fun trip. Kids and kites are pretty natural combos, and the wind was perfect for flying things. Unfortunately, it also froze out my traveling companions. Sometimes its handy to carry arout this furnace in my torso.

This is the outcome I would have called at the outset of the tournament. That’s right, this final, this outcome. I would of had the final four wrong, but I would of picked the final game and the champion. It just seems odd to me that the two best teams in two different sports are from the same two schools, and the same team won both championships. While I’m thrilled it was the Gators in both instances, I think it would be an impressive feat for any school (or any two schools in that situation.)

So, anyone want a free bumper sticker? I ordered a bunch of t-shirts, and got this one free:

I got a t-shirt that says the same thing, and that came with it. It’s not that I don’t want it, but I wouldn’t know where to put it (there’s already stickerage on the back of the car, and no good spot to put this one.) Besides, I already have it on a T-shirt, and don’t need the duplication.

Yet another weekend has breezed by without so much as a minor slow down. Things are just like that in the springtime. Last weekend it was Sydney’s Birthday party (check out Liz’s blog for ample pics of that occasion.)

This weekend I went to Maryland to help out with their Odyssey of the Mind tournament. It was a nice, quiet, relaxing affair with a fraction of the teams we had in DE. But I learn stuff every tournament I go to. I also got an invite to go to NJ in two weeks to help with theirs, which I’ve started to look forward to. Looks like it’ll be a record tying year, with 4 total tournaments. I need to do more research next year and try to plan in 5. Or more. It’d be nifty to be like an official for hire.

Hmm… other news. Nighthawk is well over 48k now, probably closer to 49K. Still needs a bath. Still, for a tank, it did very well in the craziness that is the Capital Beltway yesterday (but that’s a whole different rant.)

I wish I’d made a bracket for the Men’s tournament, cause I would have had the final nailed. Hopefully the Gators will trounce OSU for a second time this year. I wonder if that’s ever happened in college sports - the same two teams playing a championship in two different sports.

Oh, picked up Command and Conquer 3 on Friday. It’s a nice add-on to the series so far, and they’ve got a whole lot of famous people to do cut scenes. The updates to the units are fun too, and I’ve only played as one side. I just need some friends to get it as well so that we can go head to head.

FerretGallery will be offline a little while as I need to make some updates to stuff. Mostly moving where it is hosted from. Fear not it will return, and hopefully faster than it was.

Lastly, and mostly to make sure all the upload stuff works after moving around, I snapped this in a Ben and Jerry’s yesterday after the MD tournament:

It’s a 20 scoop sized bucked. That’s a whole lot of Cherry’s Garcia. As it was, I only had a shake with that in it. But it was quite tasty.

Oh, and yes, I had thought of a great April Fool’s day post, but I came home and got immediately into basketball, and didn’t get to it. It would have been great though. It’d have been hard to top Google’s prank this year, however.