Something that made me cry....

Guide dog dies after pushing 4-year-old boy away from speeding car

A beloved guide dog died after he pushed a 4-year-old Atlanta boy away from the path of a moving car that ran a stop sign — seconds after the pooch was struck, the owner said.

Dave Furukawa — the visually-impaired owner of the brindle boxer, Simon — said he was walking his son, Will, to school when a red Chrysler ran through the stop sign and hit the pooch as they crossed a street on Monday.

But the brave dog bounced back up in time to push Will out of the way, witnesses said.

There is a picture of Furukawa and Simon sleeping with a baby Will, which is priceless. As a guide dog, Simon kept his owner safe, being his eyes. But he loved the child enough to, although already having been hit by a car, get up and push the boy out of the way. Having been hit by a car, I can tell you that I'm not sure even I would have the presence of mind to do that. I was kind of in shock, and couldn't even grasp at first what had happened.

“Broken leg, and he had a gash on his side and he had internal bleeding — but he followed home,” Furukawa said. “Once he was sure Will was okay, he laid down.”

The family rushed the injured 80-pound dog to an emergency vet, but Simon died on the way.

RIP, Simon. You were a brave and good dog. And please folks, slow down and pay attention to paedestrians. A car sped through a stop sign and killed this brave animal and nearly mowed down the humans with him. Running late, playing with your phone, whatever causes the distraction--it's not worth a life.

Home and tired after a busy day

I wound up being over with my friends for about eight hours, and did the grocery run and helped with an organisational project. I have one of my own to do, of course, the rearranging of the living room, but if I do that now and don't finish tonight then I'll not be able to do it Sunday (the game), Monday (the prep for the colonoscopy), or Monday (sore and sedated). I really don't want to start and then have books all over the place waiting to be put back on shelves. So I'm thinking of waiting till next weekend. I need help getting the entertainment cabinet out of the house, and A has said he would, but there won't be time tomorrow, even if I get everything else finished. So it might be worth just waiting. Besides, my back is hurting a bit and I don't want to make it worse, either.

Still no word from the gasteroenterology practice about directions for preparing for Tuesday and the prep involved. I'm going by what I've found on the Internet for now, which means I'm eating a low-fibre diet as of yesterday and Monday will be just clear liquids, which I bought quite a bit of today. I now have apple juice, white Gatorade (it's cherry, but not red), Jello, clear soda, popsicles, etc. Oh, and toilet paper. Everything but the prep itself, as I was hoping for some directions first. Oh, well. I'm going to call them Monday to see what the deal is.

I think I'll listen to some Imagine Dragons and rest a bit. The notes were finished earlier. If I don't happen to write more tonight, have a good night.

I totally slept

the evening away, falling asleep about 8 and waking up just a bit ago. I knew I was pushing it on a Friday evening even though I need to do notes from the Cthulhu game. So I'm going to go back to bed, get up early, and do them. I have to go do a grocery run at 11 am, and I plan on rearranging the living room after retrieving my back brace from work (I forgot it there). But the notes have to be done first.

I spoke to Brenda today about taking me to the colonoscopy, so it's all set, and we're on for Tuesday. I haven't gotten my material yet, but I've looked some things to help prepare on the Internet. Tomorrow, when we go to the store, I'll go ahead and get some 'liquid diet' items, like Jello and the like. Monday will be hard, both in terms of not really eating any solid food at work and the whole stay-in-the-bathroom-for-hours bit. Wish me luck!

Not your average catwalk

Okay, I didn't like the clothes at all and the women have horrendous faces at times, but this is great in that 1) it uses women who aren't pale imitations of plastic manikins, women who have curves yet who move and are active, and 2) definitely this is different from the normal walk and pivot. Thanks to Vanessa Irvin Morris for sharing. What do you all think?



Oh, and as to the faces, as one commenter, penelopeat8pm, said, 'I'm pretty sure that if for the last 60+ years they've been telling you you're not thin enough, white enough or beautiful enough to partake of fashion, you'd have the same face. :)'

Watched TV with a friend tonight

including some episodes of 'Castle' and 'The Big Bang Theory' season premiere, and enjoyed it immensely. The latter show especially causes me to laugh myself silly. So once I got home, I didn't feel like watching any videos or TV, so I'm listening to Big Country's The Seer and relaxing in front of the fan (I was a bit warm).

I found out a nifty thing about my TV. It has a fitness feature where you put in your stats and set up a weight loss plan, and exercise to various videos on the TV, which are free. There were several yoga ones, including beginner's (I'm rusty and not as limber as I used to be, so I should start back up small.) So instead of being a couch potato, it actually has the potential to help with my weight. Now I just need to come up with a plan and make time for them. Most of the videos seem to be about 20 minutes long. It tells you how long and how many calories it will burn for each one. I'm going to try a yoga video tomorrow, and see how I like it.

*Yawn*. I think I'll head to bed early; I need to try to make up some time at work and go in early tomorrow. At least it's Friday, though. I haven't heard from Brenda or the office yet about the colonoscopy. I'll check with her tomorrow and see if we can do it Tuesday. Presumably I'll get the info they sent me from the office tomorrow or Saturday. Fun, fun. Good night.

Breathe in, breathe out

Driving in rush hour traffic on Richmond Road today, I was feeling a bit anxious after a pickup truck crashed loudly into a car about ten cars behind me (and I'm not sure, but think it kept going--I heard it and just saw the aftermath briefly in my rear view mirror) and then just about 100 feet ahead two other cars had had an accident. I hope no one was hurt; I didn't really see either accident happen and traffic was heavy, so I couldn't really stop. But it was a little scary. Be careful out there, people. So glad to be home and away from it all now. I know from firsthand experience how quickly a car hurtling into you can change things.

Why is it?

That sometimes my least favourite songs get stuck in my head. Today's? Lana Del Rey's 'Summertime Sadness' (or whatever it's called). :( And my, it's long and repetitive. Sorry if you're a fan. I don't care for it. I also don't like Florida Georgia Line's 'Cruise' and turn both off when the songs play on the radio. And I have a pretty wide range of music that I like--Celtic, folk, blues, jazz, show tunes, Oldies, opera, world, Motown, rock, pop, country, metal, even some rap, if it's incorporated into actual music. I don't care if it's hokey, edgy, weird, or whatever, so long as it's good.

Last night

I wound up totally absorbed in putting something together and testing it out for about three hours. I let my phone, which had a low battery, totally go down to the point it turned off, then couldn't find it for about fifteen minutes when I finally did tear myself away, realising that it was after midnight and time to go to bed. I had several calls and texts, but it was too late to respond to either. I did send an email to the person who'd called, saying it was okay to call back if he wanted, which he did so later that night, and we talked for about an hour. The person who texted and I caught up with each other this evening and had a good 'text conversation'. The project meant I messed the house up a bit. In fact, I need to redo a bit of the living room entirely to really incorporate things nicely. This will have the added advantage of giving me more room at the computer At the moment, a small bookshelf is slightly in my way and I sit at an odd angle, which isn't quite comfortable and would be less so for anyone else who isn't used to it, especially a guy. Since most people who might come over and use my computer are, in fact guys, at least one of which is left-handed, which would be even more cramped (and that's my setup as well), it would be nice to revamp things. I probably should have done that tonight, as I was home. Instead I had a quiet evening of relaxation while I planned inside my head.

The nice thing is that I always think my setup in the living room involves a computer desk and entertainment center that between them have bedrails upon which books sit as a double-decker shelving, when in fact, the weight is borne by the computer desk and a matching bookshelf. The entertainment center is separate, with books above it. It has to come out, and can do so without disturbing the majority of the books, and then I can move the table currently dividing the living area from the dining area over where it has been, and then I can stack the four half-bookshelves together in that divider, giving the computer room. The end result would be losing the entertainment center, which is very battered and over 25 years old (and it was a Sauder pressboard product to begin with, It is actually a relic of my marriage.) But things would be streamlined.

This was all set into place because I finally bought a television that is flat-screened and it is just a bit longer than the entertainment center allotment. It's not huge by any means, it's 32 inches diagonally, but it can stream Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Pandora, among other things. The old TV, a cathode ray tube television my grandmother gave me used before she died in 1993, is clunky but still working, so I moved that to the bedroom, along with the Roku box, so I can stream those services in there (I don't have a second cable hookup, but I can watch or listen to plenty of things just with Roku). I'm going to see about hooking up an old DVD player there as well. I discovered tonight as I was texting with Brandon that it was very pleasant to have Pandora streaming while I had my feet up in bed. I eventually fell asleep, and then woke up about 12:30 am and came out to take care of things like turning the aquarium light to night time use and taking my insulin. The rearrangement is tempting to start, but I think I'll save it for later in the week. I wanted to go ahead and get something while I could. It wasn't terribly expensive (I got it through Amazon, on six-month financing). But that will be the last major purchase for awhile, I think. And for now, I'll keep my cable TV, which fortunately I was already paying for an HD cable box (not sure why), so nothing increased and all I had to do was plug in an HDMI cable to use it to its fullest extent.

I made my appointment for a colonoscopy for next Tuesday, October 1st. The reality of it is really hitting me. Before that it was all in the theoretical category. When I went by the pharmacy today I quizzed them on different preparations. So Monday night I'll probably not be blogging, or if so, it'll be from the tablet or phone, and Tuesday I'm off from work and will probably be out of it. This is all contingent on whether Brenda can take me that day. Hopefully that will be a yes. I originally scheduled for arrival by 7:30 am and then called back and chose a later appointment since although I live just across a major road, she's coming from out of county to take me. I kind of want to get it over with. I have a lot of appointments coming up. There's finalising and signing my will and related documents (which to be honest it would have been nice to have that done before the colonoscopy, but alas, it's a couple of days later). There's a mammogramme, a trip to my regular doctor, a trip back to the gynaecologist, and on Halloween I go back to the endocrinologist. I'm also supposed to be starting physical therapy for my back, but that's only going to happen if I can do it after work. I am obviously breaking down and getting older. On the other hand, that should get most appointments for the year out of the way. I do still need to do a cleaning at the dentist; I'll wait until December on that one so that if they find anything, I'll have a full flexible spending card come January for anything pricey.

Our benefits enrolment is coming up soon, in mid-October. I'm interested in seeing how the health insurance changes. There have been several rumours flying around, and we got a required notice on health exchanges today as a result of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which I gather we will not be eligible for because we will still have adequate insurance. But I am interested in any changes. This major benefit is one of the reasons I stuck with my present job through thick and thin and even when it was only 20 hours a week, because I got full health insurance even at that amount and it was very good insurance. It's eroded a bit over the years (higher co-pays for stuff like outpatient surgeries that we didn't used to have, etc., but it's been pretty good and I don't need referrals to see anyone who takes my insurance, so I've been really happy with it.

Last year I had gone to the benefits fair and then the very next day I was hit by a car. It's amazing to me that it's nearly been a year. The anniversary is in nineteen days. I am so lucky it wasn't worse. Another anniversary that I'm marking, yes, even now, is the death of my last pet, my beloved dog, on the 24th of September. She gave me sixteen great years of companionship. It's hard to believe it's been six years since she passed. I only have goldfish and a betta (not in the same tank) these days. All in all, that's good. I don't really have a great deal of time to devote to a pet and I'm allergic to both cats and dogs. But still...I never thought I'd go this long without one. Also, it's hard to believe, but tomorrow would have been my grandfather's 90th birthday. (Sorry YKWIA, I know you hate it when people dwell on that.) It's hard to believe it's been nearly 14 years since he died. I wish he hadn't smoked like he had; he really might have lived to see 90. Most of the people in my family live to be close to that; the only ones who didn't either died of smoking-related diseases, accidents, or in one case, a severe case of diabetes before we had better treatments.

Speaking of which, I really need to see about going to visit my grandmother soon. With all that's going on this month it will be a stretch to do, but I should.

Okay, I've babbled on longer than usual, and I've been up for an hour in the middle of the night. Good night.

Home from the Cthulhu game

which went pretty well. We had a nice visit. Brenda agreed to help me out in terms of taking me to the colonoscopy sometime in mid-late October. Despite a busy day, I'm a little tired but not overly so. I think I'll listen to some music and maybe read a bit. I have a book out from the library, Gameboard of the Gods by Richelle Mead, plus plenty on the Kindle I need to read. I simply haven't read enough at all lately. So I'm going to get all comfy and go to the bedroom and curl up with a book.

I lost a few fish today, which isn't surprising, as the nitrates are still high. Oddly enough, they were the plainest of the bunch. The plecosotmus seems to still be there somewhere, although hidden. The snails are fine. There are still about twelve goldfish left. It's time to set the lights to nighttime (there are a couple of small blue lights for the evening). I am sorry that the ones didn't make it, although that is one reason I went for goldfish that are nineteen cents apiece. :) I put some water conditioner in that helps with the slime coat as a boost. Hopefully that will help. Sometime this week I need to give the tank a really thorough vacuuming.

Okay, time to retire to the other room. Hope you had a great weekend.

Ready for bed

Tomorrow, like most Sundays, will be busy. I spent the evening watching the fish, lighting candles and relaxing in the ambiance with the sound of the waterfall in the aquarium in the background. Then I rearranged the boards and blocks in front of the window so I could close the curtains easier. I usually keep them open, but the boards were so close I couldn't close then, really, and sometimes it's nice to have a little privacy. This entailed taking the plants off the top and taking the whole thing apart (three heavy boards and five concrete blocks). Note it's all back together, and even though it's only 10:30 I think I'll head on to bed. Tomorrow starts early. Good night.