KIPPER

Kipper is a Maltese owned by my father and mother-in-law. He is probably Little Al's best friend. I am writing about Kipper because he died yesterday. He had been sick for maybe a week. Janice took him to the vet on Sunday and the vet said he had "the worst sore throat I have seen in years". So, Kip got a couple of shots and a couple of meds to take. He looked like he was going to be OK. We had a dinner planned for Monday in Oklahoma City to celebrate Ralph and Janice's 45th Anniversary, so Janice left Kipper with Al at our house on Monday morning. This has been the usual procedure when we all go to the city at the same time. Al and Kipper have kept each other pretty good company. Ralph and I came home last night because he had to water the yard and I had to work. When I got home it was strangely quiet. Usually when I open the door there are 2 tails wagging and 2 happy dogs ready to go outside. This time I had to hollar out twice before I heard Al's collar gingle. They were in the bedroom as Janice had left them. I opened the door and Al came out just like usual but poor little Kipper was gone. I am actually thankful that Amber decided to stay in the city until today. I do not think she would have been able to handle finding Kipper like that.

Dogs are wonderful and loyal companions. We speak of ours as another child. It is very painful to lose a dog and I am very sorry for Ralph and Janice. Our family (especially Little Al) will miss Kipper. He was a good little dog.

Epilogue: I have some new news on Kipper. We found out today that he died from cancer. He had severe liver involvement as well as other areas. It looks as if he would not have made it even if we had found out what it was. That is frightening to me because he was much younger than Little Al.

Yes, I have posted this picture before. I do not have access to all the pictures at this moment and I thought it might be nice to show what I have as wallpaper on my laptop. I hope to get some new pictures sometime this weekend. I feel like I need to get some shots every few weeks at least. Abbie is growing too fast. Today, she said "Hi" 3 times while I was at work. That is both exciting and frustrating. I know I have to fulfill my obligations at work to provide for us, but I am afraid of not being there for moments in my daughter's life. I can not get those moments back once I have missed them. Tonight she was bouncing around and holding her arms out as if to say, "Look at me, I am ALIVE!" I am unable to stay in a bad mood around her.
In college, I was in awe of God because of the complexity of his creation. Classes like Chemistry showed me his intricate design of elements and compounds. Now, when I look at my own daughter and her daily growth and changes I am reminded of this design again. I pray that I can express this to my daughter and that she will see the design as I do.
I do have a little griping to do. I got off of work today at 3PM. At 5PM, the phone rang and it was work. Derrick said, "Do you want the good news or the bad news first?" I thought of any number of catastrophic things that could be wrong. I said, "Bad news." It turns out that after I left there was a fax that came through telling of a conference call at 8:30AM on Friday for all Pharmacy Managers. The fax went on to say that all Managers were required to be on the call and if they were gone, to call them at home to let them know. This last little bit was for me specifically, because of the last conference call. That call was announced in the same manner and I was not there to receive the message Thursday afternoon about Friday morning's conference call. Since I was not at work either time I did not attend the call. I think I need better notification than that. Evidently, calling me at home is the answer instead of earlier notification. I am really not going to be happy if the call is not about something of vital importance. I am taking time at home (when I am not "on the clock") to deal with a work related conference call and that bothers me. I think that if the call is not due to groundbreaking changes, then the pharmacist on duty can handle taking notes and fill me in when I come to work. Is that being unreasonable? Is that being petty? Is that being selfish? Is that the actions of a manager that is trying to grow his business? Well, it may be and may not be, but I have become selfish with my time at home. If I am at work, I handle my work and do my best. If I am at home, I want to take care of things at home and leave work at work.

OK, I am done with that. If you have comments, suggestions, or think I should quit griping, I am all ears. Thanks for visiting and I will be back soon.

Little Miss Show Off

Well, another week has flown by. I was so ready to get on and talk about Mother's day and here it is one week later. This picture is from Mother's day evening at our house. Mom and Dad came over and Abbie put on quite a show. As you can see, she has a little cart that she can walk behind or ride on top of. Her grandpa pushed her around on it for awhile and she had on the goofy little smile that she always has when she rides the cart. Then we decided to see if she would walk behind the cart standing up. She really put on a show then. Abbie laughed and sqealed and walked with her little cart back and forth across the den. I realize you had to be there, but believe me, it was hilarious. I think Mom liked Abbie's show better than her Mother's day present. I took pictures (obviously) and Amber videoed some of it, too. I wish I could put video clips on here, but I do not think that is possible, yet.

After Mother's day I had to work all week as per usual. There was one thing that happened that I thought was pretty funny. I have to tell a story first to set it up, so bear with me. For the longest time I have had a clip on my cell phone from Napoleon Dynamite (if you are reading this, Mom, it is a movie the young kids really like). Just recently I changed the message alarm on my phone from Napoleon Dynamite to a clip from Pulp Fiction. The clip is this: {gunshot} then Samuel L. Jackson says "Oh, I'm sorry, did I break your concentration?" Well, I thought that was pretty cool for a message alarm. So this past week my boss and his boss (the regional manager) were in our district visiting the stores. That is not a big deal about my boss, but for the regional it is a big deal because we see him maybe once every 1-2 years. They came to chat on Thursday morning and we had a good visit. While I was talking to the regional manager, my wife calls my cell phone. The ring tone for a call from home is "Home Sweet Home" by Motley Crue. Needless to say, I muted the ring quickly. My wife then left a voice mail message for me, and what did my phone do? Yup, it went off with the clip from Pulp Fiction. I was mortified, but without skipping a beat, the regional manager gets a smirk and says, "Is that Pulp Fiction?" I was in shock. I said "Uh, yeah." Then he simply chuckled and went on talking. Once again probably a "you had to be there" story, but that is a better work story than talking about people getting mad about their insurance.

I have missed blogging about a number of things this week like Abbie running another low grade fever, and I got the yard mowed! I have long stretch at work again, but I am going to try and keep up with it better.

Almost Cooled off

Well, it is Friday, I only have to work until 3PM today and then I am off for the weekend. It has not been that bad, except for little miss Fireball in the picture there. Amber and Abbie went to OKC on Monday and sometime in the afternoon Abbie started running a fever. She has had fevers before, but this time she was running 102-103+. She has not been that HOT before. Tylenol and Motrin kept it down to 101-102 but she just would not cool down. We were able to get her in to the doctor first thing Tuesday morning. At the doctor's office her temp was 102.7. The doctor checked her ears, they were fine. He listened to her lungs, they were fine. He looked in her throat, and it looked fine. So, he swabbed her throat to check for strep, (which is what I was afraid it was) and that came back negative. Since that was negative he wanted to check her blood levels. So, Abbie got her finger stuck. She handled the stick OK, it was the squeeze, squeeze, squeeze on the finger that she did not appreciate. After another wait, the check on her blood revealed her white blood cell count was very high. The doctor said that it could be a virus, but he needed to rule out some things. Next, she had a chest X-ray. Sitting out in the hall and having to hear her during that was not at all pleasant. After waiting a while longer, the x-rays revealed that her lungs were fine. Then the doctor wanted to rule out kidney infection, so that meant a catheter for Abbie. She actually handled it OK, considering all she had been through. The urine looked good, no infection, so the doctor figured it was a virus. The instructions were to keep loose clothing on her, cold liquids, and tylenol and motrin. After more than 2 hours and having to put Abbie through all that, it was disappointing and relieving to hear. When I left for work later on Tuesday Abbie felt so HOT, it was very scary and worried me. Later on that evening, Amber called me at work and said "Your daughter is playing." It was good to hear. The doctor had said if she was lethargic, that it would worry him so I was a little paranoid about that. Now that it is Friday, Abbie has COOLED OFF and seems to be getting back to her playful ornery self. I used to not be concerned when she felt a little warm, but now I feel a little different about it. I felt terrible at the doctor's office. Abbie got to the point of hugging my neck and crying severely if anyone tried to pull her away. She had a very rough day on Tuesday. Hopefully, I can get some pictures this weekend if Abbie wants to cooperate. If I do not get back on before then, Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there!

It is always fun to find that I have pictures in the camera that I forgot about. This is one from last week when Abbie's friend Fischer came to visit. Unfortunately his family is moving, so there will not be many more photo ops like this one left. We will miss Fischer very much, I guess we will miss his mom and dad some, too.

I had my last day off for a while yesterday. The pharmacist I work with is on vacation next week, so I have 9 days straight. I may not be able to write much until I get some more time off, but I will do my best. I need to eat and get ready for work, so I have to cut this short.

I enjoy comments, so if anyone out there other than Tracy is reading my blog, let me know what you think. I shall return soon.