Friday Morning Update

I am not sick with an illness anymore, but my biannual allergies are in full force. I just wanted to stay home in bed, but I already took several days off the last couple of weeks. I feel pretty awful.

Dad’s second birthday present from us finally arrived yesterday. We got him a six month subscription to the Sunday Chicago Tribune. We also got him a lightweight Gerber pocket knife.

Goliath has been unusually active and happy last night and this morning. We played hard in the backyard last night for almost 30 minutes. His favorite game is him chasing my practice fishing lure. I cast it across the yard, and he stalks and chases it. I moves the blades of grass like a mouse or chipmunk running. It gets is hunting instincts worked up. I would put the fishing rod down, and he would start barking at it, wanting to keep going.

He also went for his favorite ball yesterday. Before last night, he hasn’t picked up a ball since before his cancer symptoms started. We were happy to see that. Whenever he gets in trouble, he always goes and gets his ball for us. It’s like he’s thinking “Everyone loves a ball! They can’t be mad at me if I bring them my ball. This will distract my people from what I did.” (He wasn’t in trouble last night, it just occurred to me to relate that.)

The only thing I can think of is we didn’t give him canned dog food yesterday; we just gave him his old kibble. Maybe the canned food is too rich and was slowing him down. It was good to get him to eat when he didn’t want to eat at all, but maybe it is time to go back to his normal diet.

It is going to be torture if I feel this way during the weekend, but I have to cut the grass, and get into the attic and pull the cable TV wire back into the house, and then staple it to a rafter. Right now it is hanging off the back of the house with a lot of slack. We are also going to buy a carpet steam cleaner. Our carpets have been taking a beating with a sick dog, and we are getting tired of renting Rug Doctors.

It is supposed to be very nice in Chicago today; almost 80°, no more rain, but humidity will be a little bit of a factor. The dewpoint will top off at about 60°. (A dewpoint of 65° and above is generally considered to be uncomfortable.)