According to this Yahoo!News story…

…for those living in the Northern Hemisphere, a great “window of opportunity” for viewing Mercury in the evening sky is about to open up.

My dogs have been sick. Really sick. Both of them. We first noticed one was acting funny on Thursday night – nothing alarming, but he wasn’t 100%. On Friday morning, we noticed that he was still lethargic, so we called the vet. We were able to get an appointment for 3 pm.

We were able to leave work at noon. Fortunately for us, we have flexible jobs. I guess that’s an advantage of working such long hours. Anyway, when we got home, the sick pup was even sicker and the other was also showing signs of illness. Both were lethargic and walked like their joints were sore. So, we called the vet and moved up our appointment to 1:15 pm.

The vet took their temperature (to the utter dislike of my pups) and drew blood. The blood work looked normal. The vet said that it was possible that they had eaten something that was making them ill. We tried to think what they could have eaten, but we hadn’t changed anything around our place. No new plants, no new food, no new cleaning products. Why would they suddenly eat a plant – both of them – that they had previously ignored? They’re never outdoors without being on a leash. It didn’t make sense that they would both be ill.

The vet decided that they should stay overnight, with fluids administered intravenously. He said he’d call in the morning. So, we spent an unhappy night at home, without the warmth of our beloved critters.

In the morning, we called the vet – he said they were doing well – still acting lethargic, but better. We could take them home. Happily, we rushed to the clinic. They were still walking funny and had goopy eyes. But at least they were coming home.

They hadn’t progressed from Saturday afternoon. By Sunday, they appeared worse. Neither was eating anything of substance. They would barely walk and were really not happy. So we took them back to the vet. They again spent the night on IV.

Today, the vet called to say that they are both showing signs of renal failure. They’re about to examine them using ultrasound. The vet should be calling soon. I’m really scared.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to comment, but thanks in advance for your thoughts.

With the first round of the NHL playoffs winding down, and nothing else I really feel like talking about today 😉 …

Eastern Conference

Montreal and Boston play game 7 tonight, 7pm EDT.  Obviously, the series is tied at 3 games each

Pittsburgh (2) swept Ottawa, and advances.  (Ottawa only scored 5 goals in 4 games)

Washington and Philly play game 6 tonight, 7pm EDT.  Philly leads the series 3-2.

NJ lost to the Rangers (5) 4-1.

Western Conference

Detroit (1) bested Nashville 4 games to 2.

San Jose and Calgary play game 7 Tuesday.  Obviously, the series is tied at 3 games each.

Minnesota lost to Colorado (6) 4-2.

Anaheim lost to Dallas (5) in 4-2.  (Anaheim was last-year’s cup winner)

Cream II

Strange Brew

Super Session?

Bloomfield and Kooper – Sonny Boy Williamson

A man who pretends to understand women is bad manners. For him to really to understand them is bad morals.

Henry James

For Nocatz…..

Cats and monkeys; monkeys and cats; all human life is there.

Henry James

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance… and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.

Henry James

P, Masslass, Victory Coffee, and I met in Boston for a DD girl get together. Special thanks to OTB for getting us the t-shirts. We would have loved to have had you join us.

Yes boys you were invited. Yes, we talked about all of you. In a joyous and admiring tone. Not one negative vibe invaded our evening despite the fact that once we started arguing, we did not all agree.

The girls thought I would be taller. I am short. And VC had a hard time picturing me as anything other than a cat. Naturally, I took that as the highest of compliments. We also picked up a stranger, a nice woman who was attending my conference. I saw her the next day and said,”I hope you didn’t think my friends and I were too crazy, we’re truly harmless.” She told me she enjoyed herself. Nurses tend to be ever so slightly nutty when taken off their work place leashes. Never. Never go drinking with a group of young nurses. You will be under the table. Engineers, at least engineering students, tend to think of themselves as being wacky hombres, nursing student can generally match them.

It was like meeting with old friends. No awkward moments, just glee.

Here we are!

Hope you are all waking up to a fine morning.

Turns out Joe Jackson just made a new CD in January….

Bonus animation I just thought was cool.

Not much to say in this early pony party. Chances are I am surfing for coffee.

Please don’t rec the pony party, hang out and chit chat and then go read some of the excellent offerings on our recent and rec’d list.

this is a phony pony….SomeOne Pforgot!

here’s some more phony’s….

pflease don’t REC this phony pony. Go see some of the Great Essay’s on the Pfront Page. They deserve your REC’s.

What are YOU doing today?

I’m going to start my day by e-mailing this piece to everyone I know (some will be getting it twice).  It’s about John McCain.  It’s called “Bigotry, Apology, Repeat As Necessary”.  An excerpt:

I’ve been on the net for such a long time that I feel like the next generation is passing me by.  Other than blogging, I haven’t adapted to the Web 2.0 social networking paradigm – it seems designed for the younger crowd. I don’t go to MySpace or have any Friendsters.  And I’ve noticed but never used the Social bookmarking sites like Digg, reddit and StumbleUpon.  Occasionally, one of our pages gets into these systems and I see a few clicks from reddit and other sites in our logs.  A few weeks ago one of pinche tejano’s essays President Bush Relegated to Sippy Cup brought a flood of StumbleUpon’ers – more visitors on one day than we have ever seen.   That really made me take notice, so I signed up for an account at StumbleUpon.   In just a day or two I was completely hooked on it.        It’s fun to take a break for 5 minutes and spin through a few dozen sites.