Wednesday...still waiting

I got off work two hours early today because of the approaching storm. School is canceled for tomorrow, and the district is taking a "wait and see" approach to Friday. I raced around when I got off, going by the bank, the grocery store for some last minute supplies, and the ABC store for a bottle of Kraken rum. If we lose power I'll drink rum and Coke for as long as the ice lasts!

Once I got home, I spent two hours cleaning and finishing up the laundry so that if we do lose power for a few days, the house will be tidy and all of our clothes will be clean. Speaking of which, I had so much help!

Supervising the laundry progress...one of his joys in life.

Something funny happened with Marco this morning. We had the bathroom window open a few inches, and a small bird (a Carolina Wren) flew into the house. It buzzed past my head and made it all the way down the hall, around the foyer, and into the dining room. Gregg and I managed to catch it when it flew between the blinds trying to get out of the living room window, and took it outside and let it go. A few minutes later, when I was applying my makeup with Marco on my shoulder (he loves supervising all personal grooming, too) I said to him, "Marco! There was a little wild bird in our house!" And I kid you not, he replied, "I know!" Crazy!!! That's one of the phrases he knows how to say, obviously, but his timing is just too perfect sometimes. That's a smart little parrot!

So we're still waiting on Dorian to pass through. Late tonight and tomorrow are supposed to be the worst of it, so I'll let you know how we fare. At least we'll have a little feathered comedian to keep us entertained if we lose power!

That face

What are you looking at? --Marco 

Talking to a bird (and a special day)

I was going to write about my wedding anniversary today, but we're putting off our celebration until we go to the mountains for our niece's wedding later this month. Gregg has to work today, and Wednesdays are his long days so he won't be home until at least 7pm tonight. We'd have been celebrating late in any event. But I do feel so very fortunate to be so happily married, 13 years today, to a good man, and usual I want to wish him a very happy anniversary here on the blog! :)

Instead of writing about all that, though, I thought I'd share a video I uploaded to YouTube this morning. Marco was in the mood to talk and I actually got him on film saying some of his catch phrases to me. Several of you have expressed interest in hearing him speak, so turn up the volume and listen carefully to this:

Have a good day, everyone!

Autumn sunshine

Marco loves to be out on his perch, basking in the warm sunshine streaming in the windows.

Have a good day, everyone.

It's time.

You all know that I love my pets. Our two dogs and our bird bring lots of love and happiness and fun to our home, and I wouldn't want to live without them. However....

They're driving me crazy this summer. If I don't go back to work soon I'm going to lose my damn mind.

First there's been keeping the dogs in the house this summer. It's too hot for them outside, so we've allowed them indoors since I'm here to keep an eye on things. With Ginger, that's no problem. She's good as gold and would never think of peeing in the house or chewing something up. George, on the other hand....well, he's been mostly good, except when he's not. We've caught him chewing up two paperback novels and the cover of a heating pad I'd left on the side of my bed. One night I fell asleep with both the dogs still in the house, and I woke up at 3am to find that George had peed and pooped in the hallway. I was not a happy camper cleaning that mess up in the middle of the night! Since then we've had to make sure they go outside at night to sleep. Ginger has gotten spoiled, though, and now she has to be forced out at night, which makes me feel terrible. And of course, Marco deserves time out of his cage and that has to be when the dogs are out of the house. It's been a constant struggle accommodating all three of them this summer.

The other night Ginger was having a terrible attack of seasonal allergies. Once or twice a year we have to take her to the vet for an allergy shot to make her feel better. On Thursday night we had made a vet's appointment for the next day, because she was miserable. Her eyes were red and swollen and she was rubbing the fur off her nose. Well, George did something to piss her off (we didn't see what) and she snarled and jumped on him and bit him on the side of his mouth. Poor George was bleeding and cowering in a corner, Ginger was sulking, and the whole house was in an uproar. George is always pestering Ginger to play, and sometimes when she's not feeling well she lashes out at him. I imagine that's what happened. I took her to the vet yesterday and got her a shot, and today she feels much better....

but now something is wrong with George's skin. We noticed the other day he had a couple of swollen red spots on his legs that looked like mosquito bites. All of a sudden there are several of them and they're turning into small sores. I freaked out this morning when I saw that and called the vet to see if they could see him. Well, they're only open a half day on Saturdays and they said they're booked solid this morning, and also that they have an emergency surgery. The receptionist said that unless something life threatening was going on, they couldn't see him until Monday morning. They advised me to give him Benadryl in the meantime. My friend Martina  who's a vet tech (and also happens to be out of town this weekend, of course) also advised me to pick up some antibiotic spray to put on the sores to get him through until Monday.

I swear, if it's not one thing, it's another.

I told Marla the other day that I can't wait to go back to work. These pets are driving me nuts!! It's definitely time.