But last night when Katie and I were running, we went on the Mize Loop, which is where the disk golf course is going in. There were probably twenty people using the course; that’s okay — like I said: more constituents means the park won’t go away. I could even ignore the slack-jawed, unfriendly stares of the “golfers” as they rooted around in the underbrush looking for lost disks.

But not the cigarettes. Seriously, there are going to be problems if the disk golfers start leaving cigarette butts and beer cans (common detritus on the other course I see on a regular basis, over by the lagoon). I guess we’ll have to start leaving notes at the chalet every time we find more cigarette butts by the “tees” (do they call them “tees”?). It would be a shame if a few pigs turned one of our best parks into nothing more than a trashy party dump.

I’ve noticed two things about the feed: Apple sells more refurb stuff than I thought, and it moves very quickly, so if you see something you want, jump on it.

With Lola and Naboo, there’s no issue in going to the vet. Lola is a very polite and well-behaved dog and doesn’t freak out at the vet, and Naboo is always in a carrier, so they’re both simple.

Bolleke is a different matter, though. He hates being poked and prodded, especially from behind. He’s not a mean dog, and there are certain people that he’ll allow to hold his hips and hold his paws and move his legs and lift up his lips, but the vet is not one of them. He also gives very little warning when he’s going to bite. He just whips his head around and snaps his jaw, so he has to be muzzled any time he goes to the vet. We even have our own muzzle. (He’s never bitten anyone - he always stops short - but he’s demonstrated his speed a few times. And I’ve seen what his jaws can do to cow bones, so I have no doubt that if he decided to actually go for it, it would really, really suck.)

The last time we took him in for a dental cleaning, just a few months after we adopted him, the vet had to have me come into the operating room to settle him down enough to get the catheter in, even after they’d given him the pre-anesthetic sedative. So I expected to have to do that today as well. I sat with him in an examination room while the sedative took effect, then the tech came and got him. She felt like she’d do better without me in the room, and I understand that line of thinking; some dogs act up more in the presence of their owner.

So I stood in the waiting room listening to Bolleke growling and trying to howl and bark through his muzzle. I heard his nails clacking on the floor as he tried to get the muzzle off and tried to avoid the grasp of the tech. I heard one tech say to another “Man, he’d totally be trying to bite us if he wasn’t muzzled” and then exclaim in exasperation “GOSH!”.

All I could think of the whole time was that grainy footage you see on COPS when the blackout drunk starts throwing punches at the state troopers.

Now all the animals are home (no extractions! all had the lowest level of tartar expected! yay!). The cat is doing marvelously (the only indication that he was at the vet is the shaved patch on his leg), and Lola is doing pretty well. But Bolleke’s hips have been getting pretty weak over the last few months (he’s almost 15) and the anesthetic hasn’t worn off, so he’s making me think of that same blackout drunk, but now it’s morning and he wants to know why he can’t find his car keys. Poor doggie.

For example, when said “expert” expresses a very strong negative opinion about a decision that has been made and cannot be changed without significant delay or hardship, this can be seen as “marking one’s territory” and therefore called a peeveal.

Or, if you’ve been banging your head on a particular project requirement without coming to a solution, and the “expert” is revealed and supplies information leading to a solution that would have saved significant time and energy, it might be called a nerd ex machina.

Ideas?

A shirt by Mike. One of his best. For sale at the Mule Store. 20 bucks.

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A thousand thanks to Gord Fynes for providing me with a drum track played by a real drummer (albeit on a keyboard). The loops that come with GarageBand are good, but nothing compares to a real drummer. Hopefully Gord and I will work on more stuff together in the future.