Ethan’s Journey

 Paul and I left for our trip. Moe also came along. He will be exposed to uncomfortable situations in a weird place. Paul drove, his buddy sat in the front. I sat in the back so I could plug in my laptop. We have heated seats back there so it was no big deal. When we arrived, Moe didn’t stray too far. He stayed right near Paul and I. He followed me into the bedroom we are staying in and jumped on the bed. This Air Bnb is animal friendly, of course. The set up is perfect. The house has sleeping for 10 upstairs and 3 downstairs. There is a fairly open kitchen and livingroom. When everyone arrived, the counters looked like a convenience store. There were so many snacks that littered the counters. Another couple arrived, there were 5 of us total. Moe took a bit to warm up to them, but we got there. When two other couples arrived, I think Moe was overwhelmed. He seemed nervous and I heard a little growl that was corrected immediately.  Paul has mapped out several rides for the to e...

 We had a storm casualty. Our mailbox. Rip mailbox. Plow 1, mailbox 💀. The snow buried our patio furniture and piled up tall on my bird feeders like fancy hats. It is really pretty. Paul and I took turns shoveling the pathway. He was nice enough to plow out our new neighbor across the street. Ethan had his appointment today at the dermatologist. He had one mole that was “suspicious”. They injected him with lidocaine and cut it out. They are submitting it for testing. It could be nothing. He is a little sore this evening but is not complaining. I just noticed he was laying on his side and not on his back on the couch. Poor kid. He has to go every 6 months for a while. The mole is circled with black dots. The other marks are large stretch marks from when he retained about 50 pounds of fluid prior to putting him on dialysis. The fluid was just oozing out of his skin. It’s another battle scar and a brag to show what he over came. This office seems efficient. We were in and out fairly ...

 I am not impressed with our “snow storm”. Sure, we are getting snow but it isn’t like a huge amount. 12-18 inches over a day and a half? Eh. Seems like a typical January event. I was hoping for thunder and lightening or something cool to happen. Maybe a non-devastating earthquake to rattle our house a little. Just something a little exciting. Devastated I am thankful I don’t have to drive in the morning. Paul plans to work from home. Ethan plans to go to work as usual. A snow event like this one is an introvert dream.  Cozy in front of the fireplace. I do think about the homeless and hoping they find shelter from the cold and snow.  We are packing up and getting ready for our trip up snowmobiling. I will not be riding (and have been benched for life)….stupid back! My plan is to work during the day, hang out in the evenings. Still not a bad gig. It has been a few years since I was last able to go. I actually logged into work today and worked for a few hours because tomorr...

 I signed up to do a “smell test” for Parkinson’s disease research through the Micheal J Fox Foundation. It helps them collect information about having loss of smell the first indicator of Parkinson’s prior to loss of motor function. Seems easy and might help someone. I had read that smells like coffee, banana, licorice and anise (not to be confused with anus) are smells that people is early stages of Parkinson’s disease struggle with. If you want to see if you qualify visit mysmelltest.org Ethan and I headed out to the lab this morning. The temp was zero. We have a system for the lab. As soon as we get into the parking lot, Ethan scans the check in sign while I find a spot to park. That puts Ethan ahead of the people walking in that have not checked in.  We did that this morning. By the time we walked in, they were calling his name to verify his orders. It’s funny, he has so many tests done every 2 weeks, the new people always seem surprised at the number. I call it Ethan’s t...

 We had a bad smell in our refrigerator. I knew where the smell was coming from and purposely kept the item in the fridge. Everytime the door was opened the bad smell would burp out. I wanted to see how the boys would let it go on for. Ethan acknowledged the smell and let me know about it but did not troubleshooting to find out where it was coming from. Paul complained about the smell but also let it sit there without investigation.   Later in the evening Paul opened the fridge and burped out the sour fart, hot garbage smell.  He asked me what it was.  I asked him what troubleshooting he had done to try to identify the smell. He had not done any. I pulled the container I knew was the culprit as asked Paul to smell it to see if that was the smell he was talking about.  He gagged, coughed, and gagged some more. There may have been some dry heaving. There were swear words. He shook his head “yes” and we had finally identified the smell.  I know it was mean, bu...

 My old man, Ferguson, looks like the keeper of the crypt. He is perfect. This morning he was wagging his tail and playful. I picked him up and was giving him his daily belly and neck rubs. I laid him on the heating pad and turned it on. He soon discovered that the heating pad was GLORIOUS! Normally, I turn the heating pad on in the morning for Penny and Jiminy to snuggle. Penny saw me turn it on and came over to stare at Ferguson. So much dog drama! She was trying to use her stare and little murfs (quiet barks) at him to get him to move. I chased her away. Ferguson went fast asleep and was SMILING.  I love old animals! I even more so spoiling them.  The heating pad was a hot ticket item today. The dogs rotating on and off it. They happily shared with one another. Got to keep these little ones warm. How did my dogs survive when I worked out of the home? I picked away at phone calls I needed to make. Set up appointments, added them to my work calendar, home calendar and ph...

 Today I received an email saying that a girl on my team sent me a message to a group I am in on Teams. I clicked on the link in my email to bring me to the message. The link opened Teams with a pop up that said “You are not a member of this group and therefore do not have the privilege to see into the correspondence of this group.” Well that is a little snarky. I message my team lead. “Hey, and I supposed to have visibility into group XYZ? I got a notification but Teams is being quite passive aggressive about me seeing the note (I might turn Teams into HR for harsh language”. I wrote to him. He responded back and said that he was able to add me to the group. “Out of curiosity, when did this group start? I asked “October 1st” he said Holy crap! It took me this long to figure it out?  My team lead went on to say that they just thought I never responded to stuff because I was standoffish. Which makes me a little more mortified they thought that.  He was kidding. Ha ha! We w...