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.

Finals week 2011

Where to start when you are so behind on the blog… yes folks, I’ve just been too busy to blog. Busy with being busy, and then busy with not being busy as I think that “Private Practice” may have generated one stable relationship after 2 seasons of drama and perversion, and alas last night they attempted to kill the woman off. Simply harrowing. This is the fortunate or unfortunate combination of finals week, grading until the brains begin to hemorrhage, then going home to your neighbor’s trailer instead of your own for the evening because they have food and Netflix.

The last couple of weeks have certainly been interesting and slightly drama filled, as the continuing saga of the mangled meat horse mentioned in the last blog became … well… a continuing saga. I have a smile on my face now, for sure, but some tears hit the dirt on that one as the nearly degloved muscle did not end up surviving the ordeal and the horse came back in a few days with my very first foul smelling wound infection with “dying” added to the adjectives list for that particular muscle group. I can’t go into too much detail on the personal stories associated with this case, but it was a heart wrenching case for me as the only thing I wanted to do was order that horse a new leg on ebay and send that remarkable family home with a miracle. My boss happened to be gone for a few days when the horse returned, thus there was more than one 4 AM email going out for advice from my mentors who have not only seen many awful things but have the confidence and experience to tackle them with both skill and hope.  Many thanks to my favorite mentor, who arose from his own drug-filled post-surgical stupor to tell me what I most needed to hear on that intimidating Sunday afternoon: “You can do it.” I did do it, with many, many prayers sent up to the Great Healer for that horse to turn around. The Navajo people were doing their own rituals as well, and although I don’t know them well enough to understand exactly who or what they were praying too, their heart was right. The horse stayed for a week and I discovered that even unwrappable portions of a horse forelimb can be defeated with lap sponges, pantyhose, cut-off jeans and duct tape. Handyman’s secret weapon.

*Pause* in diatribe as I exited the premises to go to the Crownpoint Elementary School Christmas program to see hundreds of little kids sing off key and off beat… super cute the entire time of course. Especially my favorite one waving around a giant poster of a partridge in a pear tree.

Okay what else was on my list of things that I consider interesting… ah yes we were in the midst of the week of scariness. Also within that week of scariness – another intense episode in my dislike of haggling about money coupled with my dislike of death. I don’t enjoy haggling about money, particularly when the haggling is with relatives of a sweet, sad Navajo grandma who doesn’t speak any English and brings in her broken dog to figure out how broken it is, then at the end of the day I have to put it to sleep. It will be a lifelong struggle, I believe, to combat this inner feeling that I shouldn’t get paid unless I fix the animal. I know, I know, logic wins and it costs money to diagnose brokenness and euthanize things, but I just feel so bad for the people. So, so bad. It seemed to be the week of death in the dog world. But alas, in the horse world, mourning turned to dancing. Or at least some nice sound walking on a forelimb with a heck of a lot less swelling and stinking. Tomorrow I will see him again, this horse who became my son.

Being a vet this particular week has been pretty awesome, given the large number of chocolates and cookies that have come walking through the door! My pancreas may be sad but my brain is happy. A little sugar boost to carry me through final exam week. It still holds that it is better to give exams than to receive, however it still quite the butt-load of work. I didn’t ever slow down from the horse saga – just took off to Albuquerque last Saturday night to hang out with my peeps, look at Christmas dinosaurs, squid and octopi, go to a seriously awesome church, and then by golly I rode just about the cutest horse I have ever ridden. Who knew I could fall so hard for a 14.2 Paso Fino? Not I. But I did. Even now I forgot about my very late in life realization/fascination that the plural of squid is squid… thinking about that adorable little feisty little horse…. *Pause.* I’m a little distracted right now. I want to write about this horse but I started wondering what a group of squid was called, googled it, discovered it was just “school,” and was so disappointed that I’m trying to think of a better word. I do believe my bestie just solved it. “Squee of squid.” Okay we can move on now.

Yikes it is 10:14 and I need some sleeps. I never slowed down because I played hard in ABQ and then came home to write and grade finals every night until tonight. I can write more about this magical Paso Fino horse next week beCAUSE I’m going to ride him again this weekend. In the snow and rain. With the sheriff’s posse. I can't believe how nice people can be sometimes... sharing their magical horses! Until then I will end this blog with a couple of bulleted reports:

• My one-eyed puppy short legs is now big enough to jump onto the couch and into the car all by himself,
•  None of my dogs mind that a mouse runs across the livingroom floor every night while I am typing up/grading exams… and there isn’t a lot I can do about it at the moment because I have NEVER been able to set a mousetrap (GUILT – that’s why I studied brains in the fruit fly lab instead of the mouse lab), and live traps are far away in Gallup,
• My dad sent me some AWESOME bright red snowpants,
• Today I received a tiny Bolivian nativity scene in the mail with… *drumroll* a LLAMA in it,
• I have a Christmas reindeer,
• I am annoyed that my new position as a working professional makes me feel obligated to wear matching socks every single day,
• Tonight’s “Private Practice” episode sent my single moral candidate into the role of psychologically messed up baby-hater. Don’t waste your time folks, stick with the muppets.

Adios

Max claims foul

Hello again from the trailer on the Rez, wherein one collie-mix woof is not only dealing with a stitched up nose and a tingley paw that needs to be licked, but his horrible mom has placed him in the CONE OF SHAME and life is just, well, horrible. I have been out of the blogging mood lately, not sure why. It's been remarkably busy during the week and the last weekend I faced was Thanksgiving and I tore on up to CO to float about my Fort. MY FORT! No historical pains shall steal it from me. It was a fun Thanksgiving with friends, bathroom stitching of a Max nose that collided with a horse foot, a not-so-awesome encounter with some heart pains, and a rescue from sadness by the muppets. MUAH to Kermit the Frog. Saturday was full of fun times with fantabulous friends, and Sunday landed me in Albuquerque around 8 PM to meet some interesting folks at Barnes & Noble again followed by speedy travel to the nearest Albertsons to buy some H2O2 and make Pepperoni puke up the 4 giant frosted cinnamon rolls she dug up and wolfed while I was in the bookstore. Monday had me back at work in spades with several dogs and cats, one dog with a hip lux, and then the horse with a left forelimb injury that seriously took the cake for mangled meat. An hour of clip and clean followed by almost 3 hours of stitching with the last hour done by the light of the owner's truck headlights. It was FREEEEZING when the sun went down and I took two breaks to run inside and whimper while my hands thawed, lol. But dudes, I LOVED IT!!!! Stitching up a horse leg in the cold by truck headlights... dream number XXX come true. There was a lot of tension, he kind of degloved his extensor muscles down to just above the knee, but spared bone and joints and could still walk, so we shall see! Nice people, they truly deserve some miracles.

Tomorrow is pharmacology student presentation day... I'm pretty excited to see what they have come up with. Each student will present a drug from a different category we have studied, and the media team is going to come down and tape them! I have very little doubt that they will do really well. Little things are still annoying here and there with calculations, record-keeping, details... but overall the 2nd year students make me proud with all the things they are able to do independantly now.

Anyhoo, I suppose I'll call it good. The pup just peed in the house again. My little twit.

Everyone wears Nikes

It is late, but I have a few minutes while my dog comes to her own decision that “Pepperoni, come!” is a reason to come towards me instead of run to her friend’s house. I’m just back from an interesting afternoon in Albuquerque. I visited the infamous Sagebrush church, hung out with a few great people, and landed at Barnes & Noble for a while where I huddled up to read, “Oogy: The Dog Only a Family Could Love.” I’m not over my pitbull patient yet. But that’s another story. Instead I was handed “Navajos Wear Nikes”and couldn’t put it down. I only got to page 32, but I suspect the author is headed for a turn-around where growing up as a white boy on the Rez transformed his views into a realization that people are people everywhere and this culture isn’t that different from our own, at its core. I thought about it on the way home, and I think that I’ve been bouncing around that conclusion myself. I meet people who think it’s so interesting that I’m down here and I should write a book or something; however, on a day-to-day basis I forget that I’m on the Rez sometimes. After working here Monday through Friday I feel culture shock going to Albuquerque. I swear I start thinking I’m Navajo. It really doesn’t make any difference to me who is bringing their animal through that door. Reading through that book… there were stories of kids beating each other up on the playground, bully kids picking on the different kids, homeless animals in pathetic states, racism, abuse in families… what’s so different here than in Detroit, MI? Every culture has their pride, their issues, their wacky sense of priorities… 100 miles from abject poverty “my people” are ground breaking an 11 million dollar church building. So people want to drive fancy trucks and live in trailers, so what? (Pause as pup is now obsessed with fetch…) What else do I have to say about this. I’m feeling decidedly unprofound right now. Anyway, I don’t feel the need to write books. I feel like they’ve all been written. I’d rather just be nice, do my job, and see if some of these ideas that we are so vastly different could be knocked down in the minds of some of the people I happen to interact with. We are just people. We love dogs. The good people get mad when boxes of puppies get left on the side of the road. Politicians often parasitize their people when they are supposed to be serving them. Teenagers need to learn to do their homework. Some do well at developing their God-given talents, and some waste their potential being selfish and/or stupid. (Okay, when is this pup going to quit peeing in my house? Seriously.) As a whole it would be nice if we all would just stop classifying people based on the ones we’ve met or what we’ve heard. For instance, I am a Christian. That does not mean that I’m an asshole, I hate homosexuals, I go to church because I have a guilt complex, I love everything Republicans do, I think I’m better than you, I don’t know and don’t care about any other belief system, and I reject science. It basically means I think Jesus walked around on this earth a couple thousand years ago and told the truth, and now I’m pretty sure I have a mentoring type friendship/relationship with an alleged dead person. Making Him not dead. Wow that sounds weird. It’s not too big of a stretch for me though, honestly. Life and death are over my head. When I watch the light go out of a dog’s eyes I already know nothing. A Superpower making planets hang in place and then sneaking Himself into a world He created and gave away seems pretty plausible. He had some pretty awesome Superpowers while he was here. Those folks got to see stuff and believe, I have to read about it most of the time, *BUMMER*, but that’s life. I think if my community college English teacher read this blog she would cry. There is no main point.

Clinic days this week… really good cases. I fell in love with a big, ugly, super-adorable pitbull with some serious anemia issues that I couldn’t fix in time to save him. His weak little tail-wag stole my heart and I cried my eyes out on the way home after euthanizing him. All dogs go to heaven, especially pitbulls. I went to Gallup for a drink with some friends and saw several cultures represented in the drunks at Applebee’s, had my own drink with my fav nachos with spinach-artichoke dip, and came home again. You can occasionally have some very interesting conversations with the drinkers at the bar. Everyone has their reasons for being there, and it’s often rewarding to ferret them out. It was too loud for much chat last night though.

Well my dogs have all crashed and it’s time to crash. I sure love my little car. We have many awesome adventures together J