Rez in the rearview mirror

Well here I am, at the Flagstaff library, with my only major discomfort being that I have this computer for 95 minutes and I failed to use the restroom prior to sitting down. TMI? My blog. Ha. Discomfort increased by the fact that I just came from drinking a ginNORMous coffee. I really need a nap, but when I close my eyes I think about patients. There have been about a ton and half since I arrived here, and I love them enough to worry over them on my days off. I have always know that my heart is tied to dogs and cats - I have a host of names and faces in my head right now that I cuddled and cried over all of my years growing up - now my skills are growing in the realm of several diseases and ailments that I did not get a chance to see on the Rez, as well as in the realm of learning how to move fast in one heck of a fast-paced clinic! Urgent care is a diet and exercise plan unmatched in effectiveness, I think. I'm back on days for a bit at the moment, and have just enjoyed a day in the midst of monsoon season here in Flag. Imagine that! Rain! Like! This library has a fairly large Navajo population as I look around me, so it feels kind of like home of last year with the exception of it being a library. Thoreau could use a nice library with wireless and lots of books/DVDs. I returned here to lurk in hopes that the annoying individual holding All Creatures Great and Small season 2 hostage might come through the door so I can drop and tackle her and get it from her dirty little hands. Small crush on James Herriot.

Well I'm off. There are 8 million stories and I might have to start a catchy new blog since I'm not really on the Rez anymore. Definitely enriched by the experience, and I think about them all often. The great news is that their new vet is fantastic. I met her when I returned to close some loose ends last month. Now that I'm back on days I will head back there for a visit soon, and collect my llamers! Missin' the llamers! Her wild boyfriend must also be tamed, and together we will explore the San Francisco peaks. Two llamas, two dogs, a llama pack with a tent... dream to come true soon, just you wait.

Once upon a Spring Day...

Pepperoni and I are getting some nice chill time here, hanging out at the clinic and staring off into the eastern sky of the Rez. It's pretty gorgeous out, and it's honestly the first time I've sat and thought about... whatever I want... for about 3 weeks. It's nice!

Some changes are on the horizen and I'm looking ahead with mostly eagerness at this point. I turned in my official resignation letter today, with a statement that if a part time position out here became available I would strongly consider taking it. Yes indeed, I decided it was time to go at the end of my contract period, end of this month. Or at least half-go. I'm off to Flagstaff, AZ, there the surroundings will be more homey, friends who seem like family are there, and a pretty kick ass small animal hospital has decided to give the Funk a go on urgent care shifts. Given that today's 6-day old very facially messed up suspect snake bite pup MADE MY DAY (and will likely be just fine if we get through 8-week-pup surgery on Monday), I'm pretty excited to all get out at the things I will see, learn and do there. A pretty cool Godsend job may have just shown up to occupy my non-urgent care time as well, so the future looks pretty interesting.

I was feeling rather morose these last couple of weeks as I gave my unofficial notice a while back and seemed to not even ripple the boats around here, but things aren't always as they seem. The students and my precious staff and boss surprised me Wednesday morning with a totally decked out clinic, food, a banner, and a whole mess of NTC faculty, etc appearing to send me off with some of the kindest words in the history of kind words. The people I have come to love will miss me, after all, and it makes me smile and tear up. Or tear overflow, as defined most of Wednesday. I'm entertained and sad that the night before HAPPENED to be a night where I decided to work at the clinic until around 10 PM on paperwork, and Sharie was circling the premises with decorating materials wondering when the heck Dr. Funk was going to leave, lol. Bless her heart, she's as fabulous as they come and I'm going to take her with me. Kidnapped in my car. Royce too. How can I be a vet without Royce?

I'd say all sorts of things have happened since the last blog, because it's like that out here, but I'll start with today and see how far I get. Oh... already mentioned snake-bite pup. Maybe snake bite. Sweetest owner in the world, but chose an incredibly bad dogsitter. This apparently happened last Saturday. Holy cow? I know. But also this week I euthanized one of my long term patients because he was left with someone who let him hop around with a broken femur for 3 weeks. Surgery wasn't an option for the sad family. Almost all circumstances out here are out of the ordinary and I sometimes get mad, often get sad, and just focus on helping the animal when it finally gets to me.

Along that out of the ordinary note, I failed to mention that my chill time is due to having locked myself out of the clinic without my phone or keys. Yay Janel. So with only a laptop and wireless near the door, I found my sister's sister-in-law online and she called the Crownpoint PD, who eventually picked up and sent someone to NTC to ask them to unlock the front gate so I can at least drive out. Many, many minutes elapsed, and nothing happened, so now another call was made. After a couple tries, someone picked up, and it turns out that NTC was apparently notified, however the Secretary of Education is visiting at the moment and noone can come down and unlock the gate. A connection I never though I would have with the Secretary of Education. He has made my butt hurt. Butt not designed for hourly sit session up against the clinic front door.

Ooh I hear my phone! My dear friend Jessica has texted me. She has a special text tone.

So tomorrow is the Crownpoint graduation, and I will decorate two students. One was mine, one finished up most of her classes before I got here. The rest of my students will graduate next year after completing some more of their other class requirements. I will miss each one of them so much. Eight made it through the first semester weed-out, and they are all very unique, fabulous people who have learned so much and have such bright futures. This summer some of them will be exploring Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa on USDA internships. I think they're gonna rock them.

Well I think Joy should be coming along soon here to give me a ride to main campus and look for people with keys. That's good because I'm SO HUNGRY. I'm about to start on these weeds out front and I don't really know based on my extensive retention of toxicology whether or not "Into the Wild: Reservation Starvation" would be the follow up of that adventure.

Mostly about Max

Goodness. All sorts of things have happened since I last blogged. I cannot capture them all. I can capture some of them, however, since I am on hold with … I don’t even know where I’ve been transferred to now. Apple I think. I’d like the new little ThinkPad laptop to connect to the internet at home, through my phone, and that’s just way harder to do than it sounds. People get a little nicer when I tell them that no, I can’t go download this thing or that thing. This is my only source of internet. Forever. I live on a reservation and the wire things that Qwest would need have been cut and no one will fix it. Please help me make the phone talk to the computer.  I have no clue why the magic isn’t working. I tried giving it penicillin and it didn’t work.

I’m currently in the process of burning through another apple man. Been on the phone 50 minutes now. He’s very nice.

So… I see I was sick last time I blogged. Well I got better, then I got sick again, and now I am healthy and just tired. Tired in general and tired specifically of all of the starvation and ATTITUDE out here. The numbness toward starving animals. The insensitivity concerning an animal that you hit in the road. The endless arguments about cost of care, necessity of booster vaccines, differences between vet clinics and animal shelters… GRAH. It’s not everyone, but some weeks it just seems like it. On the other hand you have the adorable sisters who returned their new sewing machine to pay for treating their parvo puppy. Thinking of them makes me tear up and thank God so much that their pup made it through. It’s national parvo week out here and that would be the other reason I am tired. I don’t sleep well when animals are in the hospital. I keep waking up wondering if I should drive in and check on them, and when I do sleep I have weird dreams. Like last night. I dreamed I had a baby and named it Hosanna, and it had a mohawk. 

Sinking heart, apple man is through with me. He reminds me of when I have no clue what is wrong with an confusing case, throw out some possibilities, send it home on some supportive meds, then run to my office and read like a mad woman. Last time I tried to hook this thing up an AT&T man spent over an hour troubleshooting, didn’t seem to have the right manual for my phone, then finally figured out all the right buttons to push to make it work. Apple men are weaker. They say it is probably a computer problem and email you articles. Ah well, I will take it to tech support at NTC and give them the sad eyes. They already know that they may have to come all the way out to the hospital to plug something in because I confuse myself with 6 remotes to projectors and giant computers and may fail to see that something is just not plugged into the wall.

Well I was trying to figure out what to write about and I got too tired thinking about all the weird, semi-interesting things that have gone on out here and I’m going to just go to bed. I really, really still miss my dog Max. That’s one of the biggest things that happened that knocked me pretty flat for a while. He was my best boy of all time, and while visiting my llama a couple of weeks ago he took off from his usual obsession with the sheep and got hit in the road. The vehicle didn’t even slow down or stop, and I found him when he didn’t come when I called. We were only at the farm for 10 minutes, but that’s how fast it can happen. He was gone already when I got there, and based on his injuries I think he died immediately, which is the only good thing that I can pull out of what happened. Well that, and that he did not have to die slowly of cancer or organ failure. He was 12 or 13 years old though and we should have had more time together, and I miss him so, so much. Pepperoni misses him too! She still isn’t eating normally. There are some things about the people here that are just wrong, cultural norms or no cultural norms. It’s wrong to hit a dog and not stop. It’s wrong to drive past a woman kneeling and crying in the road with her dog and not stop. It’s just wrong and I give those handful of people no excuses. The good people are here though. The people who heard from Dr. Daye what happened and came back to work to help me get some shovels, the people who cried with me and hugged me, the people who gave me a little section of land to bury him in, the people who helped me dig a hole in the dark and tell me stories about the local Big Foot while we were digging… I love them all dearly. Every student and every staff member at this hospital has my heart and loyalty forever.

Well now that I’m dripping tears and snots everywhere I believe I will turn in. There hasn’t been a night yet where I don’t look at his empty chair and think about him running around in heaven waiting for me. Here’s an odd thing: the Sunday before this happened I was in Flagstaff, and I still can’t remember the context, but the FlagNaz pastor said that all dogs go to heaven and backed it up with a few scriptures and some refreshing boldness about a belief I have always had. Of course all dogs go to heaven. Why would God make such wonderful, perfect companions for us on this earth and then take them away? One last good thing about what happened… my desire to see heaven one day is no longer an academic, apprehensive, inevitable type thing. Intellectually of course I’d like to meet Jesus and see what this much under-described, perfect forever-home is like… but now that I know Max is there I’m so excited to get up there and see his happy face and tail-wagging self come flying out the gates to meet me! I didn’t realize it before, but home has always been where Max is. I’ve been such a nomad, packing up and leaving Michigan with only what would fit in my car, then heading to the middle of this high desert to live in a trailerpark where I have often felt like the only white person in the universe… but every day for the last 11 years I have come home to that faithful friend. Boyfriends have come and gone, friends have moved away or I have left them, happy times and sad times, that dog has been the most unconditionally loving companion and friend a girl could ever ask for. I miss you Mr. Smurf, Mr. Boogie Woogie, Mr. Maxwell Jonathan Brown, Mr. Snuffles, Mr. Snoopy-doo, Mr. Fluffy-butt... all of the weird things I called you and you just put up with it, lol. What a good dog.

I will try to be a little more upbeat next time and talk about the holy terror I adopted last week. Rez pups are always more than willing to help heal some sadness in your life, or at least distract you from it as you spend each evening pointing out all of the things that we DON’T chew and attempt to barter for your belongings with rawhide chews and stuffed toys.

Rez-world update from the sickie

It is winter. This is as far as I can get in starting my blog off with a quote from the Red Green show. I have recently arisen from a 14 hour sleep fest, as New Mexico has opted to make me feel more welcome here by giving me yet another disease. The mundane 3-day weekend has thus far been interrupted with brief periods of awakeness wherein I take care of dogs and sort through reality and dream world. No, there really isn’t a polish chicken hanging from my ceiling fan. I don’t even have a ceiling fan. There is also not an impending visit from Jessica and Peter, wherein I have been cleaning the spare room and screaming at the discovery of 3 giant leopard geckos under a table. This also would not happen, as that sort of discovery would be awesome and not scream-worthy. Max has not become incontinent and peed all over the house, and I have not been trying to drive backwards down the freeway in a snowstorm. Those are the positives. The negatives of being awake are the pounding headaches, clogged sinuses, and desire to be sleeping. At this precise moment, I am in a lull of symptoms and enjoying it. I strongly desire to leave this trailer and have an adventure! Unfortunately, I attempted to do that yesterday in pursuit of my lost wallet (found at work, in the pocket of the designated cow coat), went to the grand town of Gallup, and despite a very large coffee and desire to explore, I could hardly keep my eyes open long enough to visit Radioshack and go home.

It is my 7-month birthday of being in New Mexico and living in a trailer on the Rez. Radioshack is in the Rio West mall in Gallup, and I wandered through it with only a mellow realization that I was one of two white people there. It really is a foreign country, their country, but it doesn’t feel like it as much as Japan did. I think because I can read the signs here J. I can also overhear everyone shopping and they primarily speak English. I would not have to whip out a dictionary to ask someone which kind of rice to buy, and then freak them out because I don’t own a rice cooker. Driving through Gallup, it was nice to see the number of successful businesses in Gallup that are allowing some people to earn a decent living and be able to take their kids down to the mall for fun on the kiddy rides on a Saturday afternoon. They’ll be okay – I think enough people live partially on/off the Rez now that they can see the value of education and good choices. In time I believe they will figure out how to level up their country to be a more prosperous land and still retain their unique cultural aspects. I don’t know how to make that happen other than drop in my two cents of providing education for them, and being one example of someone in a career they love, worked hard for, and can take with them anywhere they choose. Change comes from within. The Navajo know best how to help the Navajo.

I am pausing to realize how awesome it is to breathe through ones nose. Maybe I can have an adventure after all. The adventure should start with washing dishes. I spent last evening collapsed on the couch with my Kleenex box, distracting my inability to sleep with a string of old, chauvinistic musicals. Annie Get Your Gun, Showboat, Kiss Me Kate, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers… they are so exceedingly entertaining and wrong on so many levels. If I were one of those women I would most likely be Annie Oakley. A man never trifles with gals who carry rifles? Lol. I don’t carry rifles, but I will pull an upsidedown legs-back calf out and laugh when she showers me in foul smelling uterine fluid. Hopefully one day someone will find that charming. If not, their loss. I do scrub up nicely.

My head has ceased to pound as well, I believe I will explore my new books. This weekend on the Rez will be divided into “About a Boy” units of time: Wash dishes – 1 unit. Read Watership Down or Sacred Cows – 3 units. Watch a couple of surgery videos and generate a go-to chart for how I want to treat various creatures in various predicaments with fluids– 2 units. Make a portobello mushroom burger and peanutbutter cookies – 2 units. Watch an online service from Mars Hill or Timberline or FlagNaz – 1 unit. Check facebook and see what the healthy people are up to – 1 unit. Sleep – remaining units.

Cases this past week were so-so. I did all I could for a 1-day suspect Parvo pup, and she seems to be doing fine. I worked 3 hours straight keeping a 2-day old hypothermic dyspneic pup alive, and emerged at the end of their financial abilities with a live pup to have them say, "It looks the same way it did when we brought it in," then angrily leave without caring much for my suggestions on how to keep it alive. Another person brought in a cute but wormy little pup owned by a family member to start off puppy shots and deworming, and the owner called later to yell about how she didn't actually want it dewormed, and how was she supposed to know if it had worms because she was not a white person who has time to sit around all day and watch puppies shit. I have no idea how she found out my big secret about what I do all day.

Now that I've had a good laugh I shall start on my units. I just used 2 writing this blog.

February already

It is Tuesday, I have a fur pile on my couch, and I could blog. Today was a fairly bloggable day on the Rez, starting with this rather fascinating dream wherein…*pause* *censor the queasy* *consider yourself warned* *but you’re missing out if you don’t keep reading*… wherein one of my fat rolls contained a palpable transverse large colon and I felt the need to operate. Phase into the next segment of this ultra-weird dream, and I was at some sort of CVF meeting and behold I had a 3 inch segment of large colon coming out of each side of my belly, and it wasn’t gross, it just contained undigested hay. However, I touched it and it started retracting and AHHH I started freaking out because I didn’t want that crap floating around in my abdomen, and I went on the hunt for Andy Musick, one of the old CVF student presidents at CSU, because I was hoping he would give me some lidocaine to stop the retraction. I don’t even know if that would work. I also started planning my own intestinal anastomosis, with some debating in my head about whether I should do it myself, have the CVF group do it, or maybe have a professional do it if insurance would cover it.

 

 

Okay I don’t know why I found that so fascinating and I’m going to stop writing about that dream because I’m confused about the rest of it.

 

 

But that was before I got out of bed, way tired because my new habit is to wake up at 4 AM and think it’s time to get up. But get up I did, with the exciting knowledge that yesterday a man said he was going to bring a cow in today who had a dead calf hanging out her back end. Yes folks, it happens out here. And I believe that calf was first observed last Saturday. Out here, the fields are expansive, the cows are wild, and the fences aren’t often in the best repair. Maybe it took that long to round her up. But anyway, she was coming, and I was going to help her. The magical combination of tired, excited brain on coffee sparked a wonderful realization that my missing coveralls were in the broken suitcase in the storage room, and I loaded them up with all my calving books and took off as usual in the morning with my carload of pups. Rolled in just before 8AM and the dog spay and cat neuter were arriving, no cow yet, and ran to the back to check on her royal cat fatness who is looking WAY better today (YAY!) and then started helping the students with drug calculations and meeting the animal owners who were incredibly cute and worried about their cat neuteree. THEN the cow rolled in, and indeed there was a calf coming out, all sad and swollen-headed, no legs out. We got her in the chute and I started my investigating, hearing Dr. Callan’s voice calling for lots and lots of lube, can’t get enough lube… and it seemed pretty darn tight in there but I was able to get a chain around one foot. I had to break at that point and zip in for the spaying and neutering, but got that done and then returned to project cow. I thought I might be in for a fetotomy and reintroduced myself to the fetotome first, odd contraption that it is, but with the power of lube and getting the calf at least part way back in, one foot and then the other came forward, and I realized somewhere mid foot number one that Dr. Mortimer was truly the bomb. I think I almost died on that calving rotation, but he somehow instilled within me the knowledge that all calves can come out, somehow, and I can get them out. He was just incredibly matter-of-fact about things, mellow, and just seriously one of my favorite teachers ever. But anyway, we lubed the dickens out of her, and after about 30 minutes those front feet were out and with some rotating we got the rest out and left the uterus in, which is a good thing. The one thing I sort of forgot about is that what comes in must always come out, and in taking my feel for any possible calf number two, a WHOLE fire hose full of lube/uterine fluid came out in a couple of fast, drenching showers. Since my last blogging, I have learned to keep my mouth shut, so that wasn’t an issue, but I realized that Morty forgot to tell us one thing that would have been awesome to know: always take an extra bra and socks to work. Lesson learned. Lesson passed on to all readers. I didn’t really mind the shower; I was so glad that calf was out. I’ve also been given a strange blessing by God wherein I don’t think these things are gross. A couple of students disappeared for a little while and came back indicating that they had to leave or vomit, and Royce informed me that the fluid smelled pretty bad, but I thought it was seriously impressive how much fluid can be IN a cow’s uterus. Dude.

 

Anyway, the cow fared pretty well, as did her uterus and other parts that had to do some stretching for a while. She seemed relieved as well. She did have to go back to a big field, unfortunately, but I put in some strong requests for extra hay and daily check-ups. I like that cow. I’m sad for her too. When you think you had a bad weekend, think of Mrs. Cow.

 

 

So that was the morning, and the afternoon was also pretty interesting with several appointments and one baby Chihuahua emergency that ended sad. I did everything I know in the books for that kid, and he couldn’t bounce back. First hypoglycemia/seizures case, and the differentials are all not great for that and the possible fixes here didn’t fix him. He has lots of good company in doggie heaven.

 

Tonight I’m back in my trailer hanging with pooches. I was all jazzed up for tonight because I passed Navajo Trinity Church on the way to work and a big green sign said “MOVIE TONIGHT!!! COURAGEOUS! 7PM!!” It was still there on the way home too. So I got home with 5 minutes to feed dogs, scarf food, put socks on and head back, but alas the sign was gone and the gates were all locked. Boo.

 

That’s okay, I felt the urge to blog. It was an interesting day. It has been an interesting week, and the classwork is making piles again. The students all need review questions and next week there are 3 exams to write. It is better to give than to receive exams. Still. So I will get to work. A final word… I really like Flagstaff. I was there all last weekend with my AWESOME friends, met a classmate who is also awesome, and that town just suits me. It reminds me of my Fort. I also love goat cheese.

 

In one final note of depth that I almost forgot I was going to blog… I find myself once again wishing that I was more like my dog, Pepperoni. She is my snuggle-bear, and tonight I looked at her sleepy grateful eyes and realized that if God loves me as much as I love Pepper than I will be okay. I would like to love God as much as Pepper loves me though, happy day in and day out that He rescued me, that is all. He feeds me, He gives me a couch, He thinks I’m cute, He loves me even when I chew up Batman and Walle DVDs and shoes, He sticks me in a kennel sometimes to prevent me from destroying things, but He loves me and He will keep me forever just because I am unique and He found me and wanted to keep me. Pepperoni has such a good heart – so grateful and adorable and slowly learning to trust that food will always be there and foot wraps have to stay on even if she doesn’t like them... I’ll keep trying to be more like my dog. I’m pretty sure God does love me as much as I love her, and He can be trusted. I really don’t understand the foot wraps sometimes, but He understands that. Maybe He even thinks it’s cute when I overcome the bitter apple and rip it off.

Wisdom from a Mutt

It is Thursday. I am tired of coughing. I wander around all day seeing dogs, preparing lectures, catching up records and wondering about crazy people, then I get home at night and decide to go to sleep, and that is the magic thought that stimulates coughing so hard that I see white lights. The night slime. I think that I have been watching LOTR too much because the best comparison I can come up with for the amount of slime I have been dealing with is an orc being born.

Classes start next week. It’s a little bit thrilling to be teaching parasitology. Parasite pictures have always brightened my life.  I sent some to that fireman in cowboy boots and he stopped texting back. Go figure. Some people really just need to lighten up and appreciate parasites. Seriously folks, the NM dating scene is not good. If you don’t live here your odds of finding normal guys to date are probably pretty good because in my experiences thus far the odd ones come here.  Just so we are all clear that I am normal, I always ask before sending people pictures of parasites. So there.

What else… a urolith dog came in yesterday with some ultra-satisfying radiographic uroliths. It would have been cool to take them out myself, but having only done it on a pig and having no extra hands in surgery it is best to send it down the road this time. Feeling them and finding them was a thrill, and the client was a very fun person to deal with in a week of client madness. For the record, “your mother is a bum” is a major Navajo insult. While the insult continues to crack me up given that I’ve never heard such an insult before and it confuses me when no one here has met my mom… I do feel bad for the animal that was whisked away for home treatment when that option really was not appropriate.  There were some other odd events this week, but I think that one won the cake.

I went to another pharmacist potluck last night and met more of that community including the local optometrists and dentists. They are all such unique and interesting people. In one evening I am more amazed by life stories than I am in 2 months elsewhere. Families coming here from the Ivory Coast, holding their marriages together through war zones and immigration chaos, sticking together through entire degree programs and job situations while living in opposite ends of the United States or of the world… now that’s what I call a relationship. These folks should tour the United States telling their inspiring stories. Perhaps people would start to discern little problems from big problems and the universe would not be so saturated with kids in broken homes.  Sure, some problems are unresolvable, but others… people just need to grow up, stop being asinine, and quit running from their problems. Is your partner a priority or not? Then make each other happy. Take the Muttley pup for example. Last night, out of the blue, he brings me a partial spinal column that he found outside and lays it at my feet. An unexpected present of extreme value to him. Was I elated? Totally. Beat that big heart of a woof.

Tea time with tired Dr. Funk is now over, treasure her pearls of coughing wisdom, lol. In this blog you are just going to have to insert your own exclamation points because I am tired.

P.S. I just called my dogs in from their lunch run. I kid you not, Muttley brought me the rest of the spinal column. My heart is melted.

2012 on the roll

Tuesday has come to a working end and I have an hour to sit here before I go and explore a Young Life meeting in Crownpoint. A potential place to be useful during the week. Routine life is in swing after many holiday adventures, all of which should be blogged for posterity. Highlights should include the realization that it has just been silly of me to stay home for Christmas for the last 10 years when my sister has had four adorable children to shop for and mingle with on Christmas morning the entire time. Dude! How awesome are kids on Christmas morning! I want some! It was a lovely Florida adventure that started with a long drive with my three furry children in the back of the car on Dec. 22. We drove through the white area of the US weather map, braving snow all the way to Pueblo where a spinning SUV in front of me had me white knuckling for a while. I am a pretty good snow driver, it is all the other freaks out there who really frighten me. Slow down! Don’t stop in the middle of the freeway with your hazards on. Seriously. But we made it to CO Springs despite annoying windshield wiper fluid malfunctions, and I did soccer-mom stop number one to leave the Muttley pup with my friend Samantha for a few days. Then onward to Old Chicago’s (AWESOME) and home sweet home around 1 AM. Friday was sit around at home day/watch as many Bing Crosby Christmas movies as possible day until visiting my favorite dentist man in CO. He has my loyalty because he has not tried to kill me or judged me (openly) for acting like a 5 year old at the dentist. I have a couple of issues, this is one of them. But anyway, I left that night on the red eye for FL, and FL was just one awesome thing after another. The kids are all a foot taller, my sibs are more awesome than everyone else’s, and boogie-boarding is WA-HOO fun. And fish dip is the bomb. We shopped, we ate fish dip, I made snow pudding (a secret concoction that a holiday addiction to makes you a Funk, either by birth or adoption), I was again amazed at how dirty kid’s feet get, I tried hockey skates again, I watched War Horse, I did not really want to leave….

…but all good things come to an end, and at the end was another late night flight back, another soccer-mom trip to CO Springs for the Mutt, and a waking (too early) morning in Black Forest, CO, to gaze in awe at my wondrous mountains on the way back to the Fort Collins dentist to act like a 5 year old again and then pick up one more dog and go home. Fort Collins is always the same for me – spontaneous meet-ups with all my old buds, and deep, fantastic catch-up conversations with them that make me so happy that I have a stockpile of joy for a couple weeks back on the Rez. The great New Year’s Eve snowshoe trip 2011 was accomplished in the blowing wind and snow that separated the true Coloradoans from the false ones. It was awesome. I suppose it should be mentioned (for posterity) that at about 1 mile in with 3 miles to go I opted for long-term comfort and accomplished the great New Year’s Eve pee-in-the-woods 2011 mission. Not without trials, as the snow was incredibly deep and balance was incredibly challenging. The end result of my bare butt buried in a snowbank was exhilarating and intensely entertaining for all who heard about it. Noone saw it. Don’t judge until you try it. 

So it was an awesome trip… I didn’t have to drive back until Monday, so I was able to visit my church peeps, then more peeps all afternoon and evening. Monday I pretty much lollygagged all the way home, visiting more peeps and stopping at random lakes to ice skate.  In figure skates. Which are way cooler. One can always leap, even if they cannot land on their feet, and one can always spin, even if the price is nausea for the next 6 hours. 

I’m back to work, with 2 visits from my little miracle horse under my belt, a couple of sad Rez cases that more money could have saved, and the awesome cases that have taught me new levels of rubbery cat skin and unanticipated levels of Chihuahua appreciation. At 8 hours old, I do not fear them. In fact, the 8 week old that came it today also wanted to come home in my pocket. No more dogs for Janel, however, as I believe the Muttley pup may be here to stay. He’s just…too… mine. 

The first week back had me eating too many cheese puffs at my desk, missing CO and longing for adventure, so last weekend I zipped off to Santa Fe to explore. NEWS FLASH: I could TOTALLY live there. I thought I had to go all the way to Flagstaff to visit my mountains, but alas they are also in Santa Fe, and I love them.  I had a whirlwind tour from a nice Firefighter in cowboy boots (yeah! A Firefighter in cowboy boots. How cool is that?) and I do believe that the Santa Fe area will make my top 3 list for where I would love to live when I grow up. On Sunday I went back to Mars Hill church with my awesome ABQ friends and then spent the afternoon with my true ABQ love interest – the nutty Paso Fino. I think he has 8 legs. He bounces all over the place, and running flat out for a quarter mile just makes him nuttier :). LOVE.

Okay that has us basically caught up to today. Miracle horse came back today for a wound debridement and sheath cleaning, and my unfortunate Tuesday lesson was to keep one’s mouth closed when vigorously cleaning a very dirty sheath. I’m not sure why people think that is ABSURDLY gross, as many things are gross yet tolerable and interesting in veterinary medicine, and today’s adventure PROBABLY won’t result in an attack of crypto.

I’m off to Young Life, to see what happens there. BTW, last night I dreamed I was an outlaw trying to accomplish Christmas shopping for my family. I bought my dad two goldfish and was carrying them around in a bowl, and one of them died and its eyes fell out. I then sloshed the bowl and accidentally swallowed an eyeball. This has pretty incredible implications. I may have in fact time-travelled and with a little bit of wisdom I could have kept my mouth shut today and not swallowed smegma of horse. The other possibility is that my google-discovery last week that anchovies are FISH with EYES that people put on pizza may just have finally made it out of the horror zone of my brain into the subconscious dream zone.