Last Vet Driving

 (A gross mischaracterization, as so many of my colleagues have mobile practices but I’m short on energy and imagination this morning)

I know I’ve said this many times, but driving doesn’t bother me at all - as a matter of fact, I find it relaxing… we committed to a “life of driving” when we moved out here in the boonies, since it’s a bare minimum half-hour to get to the grocery store and about 45 minutes to drive into Big D.

So it’s not the time spent driving that bothers me at all - it’s time wasted in TRAFFIC! These problems have grown exponentially in the DFW area over these past 10-15 years, but I’m dismayed to see it spreading out into our area. I had my entire day planned around leaving the clinic at 5 PM to get to Comanche a little bit after 7:00; however, I hit a snag near Alvarado with a series of traffic lights that took me a good solid 15 minutes to get past. I have not driven through these parts during rush hour and I could not believe the sheer volume of traffic! By the time I struggled through to Glen Rose - still over an hour from my destination! my navigation timer was telling me I would arrive at 7:45. It hardly seemed worth it to drive almost 5 hours, and then my son called. I made a snap decision to renounce my quest & go back to see my son - the living taking precedence over the dead. (Yeah, I know the funeral arrangements are for friends and family - it’ll certainly make no difference to ME once I’m gone, how many people show up to weep over my casket)

51 minutes to drive back to see my son - I don’t regret this one bit. I’ve been worried about him and mom just needed some reassurance. As it was, I got home about 10 o’clock - whereas if I had pushed on to Comanche and left there a few minutes after 8 PM, I wouldn’t have gotten back home till almost 11 PM. No bueno when I’ve got a full schedule today; I still need to carefully marshal my time and energy.

Zach swears that this will be the week he makes those hard decisions about downsizing his collection - I keep on extending the deadline. I brought Bonnie the tegu home with me because she has not been eating. I’m getting ready to try her on a new pate of dog food and vegetables.

Last Vet Standing

 (I’m sure that’s a repetition of one of my old Spark blog titles, but whatever!)

Shocking news comes to slap Val upside the head once again - when I glanced at Facebook Friday afternoon (killing time as my girls finished up with our last client of the day), I saw that my friend and colleague Dr Gail Conway unexpectedly passed away. I can only presume it was some sort of cardiac event - he was 69 years old, which sounds younger every damn day!?!

We were just in horse camp together last weekend, trading off riding and vetting duties. (I rode Saturday, Gail rode Sunday) But of course after he was done riding, Gail came over to help me out and socialize a bit… It’s a couple of hours away, but if I’m lucky I’ll be able to at least put in an appearance at the Monday night visitation. (No earthly way I can get away for a Tuesday funeral unless it happens to be my own)

The weather has been cold’ish, drizzly and rainy which exactly suits my mood. Not that I felt like it anyway, but my son has apparently blown off any plans of celebrating my birthday since he did not return calls or texts yesterday. There may be trouble in paradise but Lord knows there’s absolutely zero I can do about it right now. 

At least I had a nice catching-up phone call with my friend Debbie this morning - she is finally back in her house almost a year and a half after an electrical fire. She lost two of her dogs in this tragedy. Our whole little riding community is in a state of shock.

I found a few photos to send to another friend who is putting something together for Gail’s widow. These are from 2017.

  https://memorial.comanchefh.com/gail-conway/5147369/index.php

Slow Learner

 I’m ashamed to admit how many times I’ve done this to myself by now (figuratively shot myself in the foot)…

I decided to take Baraq and not Alex-mule in a misguided attempt to forestall arguments or difficulties. I already had doubts about my energy levels & I knew I needed to keep something in reserve since I was working the ride on Sunday, then had to make that 5-hr drive home…

I should’ve held back to the complete rear-vanguard position to keep Baraq in check - if we overtook anyone he could then feel triumphant! But my buddy Chris was shepherding green horses through their first event from that position and told me quite honestly she didn’t want any distractions, so I wound up buddying up with another old friend of mine who SAID she was going to ride a slow to moderate pace (famous last words!) But after the first 2 or 3 miles, Donna wanted to pick up the pace, and Baraq was VERY unhappy to see his new friends leave!

I fought my little trick pony for the next hour and a half - every time someone else would overtake us, the fight was on! I wound up dismounting to lead him back in the last mile to camp, and pulled myself after the first 12.5 mile loop. I guess I can count it as a good training ride? At least he made me look like a good rider with all the spinning and plunging & tap-dancing in place - I definitely did not want to be eating dirt!

I am writing all this down for posterity so I remember these bad, bad feelings of defeat - maybe this time I’ll learn? The only redeeming factor was that Christina was able to ride him Sunday and at least got a good solid 25-mile ride under his girth with a ninth-place finish. I guess no harm, no foul except to Val’s ego. Fortunately both days were uneventful with only a few lameness pulls and no emergency treatments needed - I’m also proud of myself for making that long haul home even though I got home kinda late and I’m just now feeling like I am semi-regenerated on my energy levels - my tail was dragging Monday and Tuesday!

In other news, I signed off with the loan sharks so we should be starting the remodeling project this week. Alex is working for FedEx again & should draw his first paycheck Friday, yippee!

I keep on making excuses not to stop by the gym - I certainly got my strength training in with Baraq on Saturday! but now that that soreness is fading, I need to try to begin anew with my extremely degraded fitness level…

Jumping the Shark

 (or, Swimming with Loan Sharks)

I only **THOUGHT** the last document my Wells Fargo loan officer needed was a profit and loss statement - something I’ve never generated in over 25 years of running my own business. After a few hiccups, my CPA and I came up with something that looked legit - but when I emailed it to him yesterday, his reply was NOW he needs a balance sheet! (Insert thermonuclear explosion)

I am sick and tired of jumping through these hoops or dancing like their trained bear, so I went back to talking to the loan sharks. A trusted colleague referred me to BHG, which charges credit-card interest rates but should be able to get me my money in three days. They have decent ratings; as best I can tell most of the complaints came from the junk mail you will now receive - but that’s what I have a burn pile for!

https://money.usnews.com/loans/personal-loans/reviews/bhg-personal

The final approval documents are sitting in my email right now, waiting for me to pull the trigger. All I’ll have to do is stay alive for three years, and then I should be able to do the early payoff. (There is a clause in the contract which I need to review - some sort of guarantee that if I die, the loan will be forgiven and they won’t come after my son or my husband) Said husband has already taken off to the gym this morning - he was rather abruptly laid off last Friday, obviously this is my problem to untangle. (My son advised me to borrow from my mom’s investment accounts, which needless to say ain’t happening after all my misery in  getting her property taxes paid!)

It’s the cost of doing business, I suppose.

Epigenetics

 https://www.whatisepigenetics.com/fundamentals/

I flew home yesterday with a dull ache in my chest - was it grief, exhaustion, or ongoing long Covid pericarditis/myocarditis? Of course my sister‘s death was a cardiac event - she had had dinner with her friends, excused herself early because she was tired - went home, took to her bed and that was all…

The sad thing is that she was dog-sitting my niece’s good Lab mix Coldbrew (they had gone to visit her in-laws) - and you can tell the poor thing was still a little clingy and stressed out. 

I’m glad that I went - everyone was very welcoming: after a few puzzled glances, when I identified myself there were “Aha’s” of recognition & many claims of family resemblance once they had a good look at me.

Neither one of my nephews were able to come up from Guatemala, and Christina was bolstered by her husband and close friends. Linda had been cremated, so there was no emotional coffin-side scene there. I shed a few tears but it was more from the sense of what we had missed out on…

Alma (Linda’s mother) died at 84; her brothers at 57 & 62 (!!!). Linda had been happy to hear of the relative longevity on our Lewis side of the family - my dad made it to age 90, Aunt Sue almost 96. I think she shared my Aunt Sue’s hypertension and had been on antidepressant medications for decades. She had the comorbidity of obesity which also runs in our family.

There was a tremendous spread at her friends’ house after the funeral: a charcuterie board, quiches, overflowing baskets of baked goods… I went back for a few sweets, but what I thought was a loaf of something chocolate turned out to be black beans - ha ha, joke's on me! I’m glad I booked a room at the brand-spanking new Holiday Inn express, it was very nice.

There no longer seems to be commercial flights in the US which depart or arrive on time anymore - I flew out Friday night after work (direct flights to Richmond are either early AM or in the evening; midday flights all require connections). There was a 45-min delay of our departure, then we sat waiting for ground crew to get us parked at terminal another 15 min - just long enough that my airport-hotel shuttle was no longer running! To add insult to injury, somebody stole my Uber ride! I was standing there watching the little icon, then I looked up & saw another couple getting into that black Toyota Corolla... They recognized their mistake and double back with apologies in about 1.5 mi, so I didn't get to my hotel until past 1 AM. Bounced up at 7 AM to shuttle back to the airport & get my rental pickup, drove inland to Charlottesville to make it to the funeral with about 15 minutes to spare...

We couldn't have ordered more pleasant & mild late-winter weather, but rain rolled in Saturday night and the windshield of my rental had a thin rim of frost Sunday morning. I went ahead & drove back to Richmond to catch earlier flights since I felt like a dunsel (a superfluous part with no useful purpose). A few more delays, but made it home in time to watch the Superbowl (yeah Chiefs!).

A youthful photo of Linda in Guatemala

The black bean "loaf" 

                                                         

Monday Again

 Last week was far from “normal” with wintry weather shutting N Texas down for 4 days, more or less…

Appointment started canceling Monday afternoon, so we shut down early at 3 PM. Sleeting rain moved in, but things didn’t actually ice over until Tues afternoon/Wednesday night. Misty and I opened the clinic Tuesday morning to see exactly ONE appointment (for routine vaccinations, of all things!), and left about 1 PM. (Misti could check messages remotely). We remained closed for Wednesday which was the worst “ice day”. On Thursday, temperatures crept above freezing so I crept across the Metroplex to pick up Bo, he is doing great!

“Rank hath its privileges” since they handed me an envelope plus his lead rope - the surgery center’s front office was also closed due to our nasty weather. I could not bear to open that envelope to find out how much my free horse was worth now until I returned safely home - but it was only his treatment record & discharge instructions - ha ha, the joke was on me! This Aggie had to stay in suspense until Friday afternoon, when one of their receptionists called me. (Cue creative credit-card shuffling)

Speaking of credit, Wells Fargo is pissing me off - I’ve had an application in the pipeline to get what I have clearly explained is a short-term loan to get my remodeling done… obviously I didn’t handle things well - buying the new property, the mobile unit, and the surgery trailer cash-on-the-barrelhead. But I wanted things restored to how they were, owning everything outright. Nevertheless, with these items as collateral I should have enough credit to hang myself several times over - if WF keeps jerking me around I’m going to seek outside financing. As soon as the remodeling is completed, we can move into the building, I’m planning to flip the mobile unit and the surgery trailer which should easily allow me to repay that loan.

I’ve watched airfares bounce around for the past week, but I went ahead and booked my flight to go to my sister’s funeral next Saturday. “It’s only money” after all - what made up my mind for me was talking to my California cousin, who told me it meant the world to her when I showed up for her dad’s funeral. I am very sad for all that’s been lost, but hopefully I’ll be able to be a good “auntie from afar” for my niece and I should get to meet at least one of my Guatemalan nephews at the funeral. Stumbling around with shortness of breath and chest pain  - I guess I could schedule a follow up doctor’s visit but it seems there’s nothing to do but continue to ride this out.