She Feels My Pain

Last week was one of those weeks where things just kept going wrong. Sinks got plugged up, heads got bonked, paws got hurt, laundry hung out to dry got rained on. I actually had some work (though with killer deadlines), but for some mysterious reason, the fingers on one hand swelled up and turned itchy, painful, and blotchy like those fancy aubergines I saw at Central Market today. I went to doctors, frantically scribbling edits on prints-out while listening to BeeGees on overhead speakers in waiting rooms. (I guess "Staying Alive" is an appropriate tune for a doctor's office.) The doctors would examine my sausage-shaped fingers, wrinkle their brows, and say, "Huh. I have no idea what that is." And so on to the next specialist.

Since my fingers were barely working, I thought it might help to take apart my ancient computer's keyboard. One afternoon I gently pried off the keys and used a can of compressed air to blow out all the dog hair and dust.  Of course, in putting everything back together, I inadvertently reversed two keys, the s and the d. I thought I was going mad when I'd hit the apple + s keys to save and something else happened. And I was too busy to stop and fix the keys. I simply had to remind myself that s was d and d was s. I know what you're thinking. "What a sipdhit." It was really no different from the time I drove a crappy old Buick that had a clock so difficult to adjust that for six months of the year it was five minutes slow. After Daylight Savings Time kicked in, it was then 55 minutes fast. Or maybe it was the other way around. As if life isn't complicated enough.

Always sympathetic, Muzzy developed a sore paw, too. Her front right one--just like mine. I took her to the vet, who diagnosed a dislocated a toe and recommended pain meds and moderate levels of activity. At the same time, however, the vet also discovered that Muzzy has a broken tooth. It just so happens to be in the same place in her mouth as the tooth in mine that I need to have extracted. Estimated cost? Nearly $600 bucks. Same as mine. Good thing I'm working. Fingers don't fail me now.

They say that over time people grow to look like their dogs. I never was lovely and regal like my Roma. I'll never be as cute as the Muzz, who still sends the vet techs swooning, but I will feel her pain, and, unfortunately, she'll feel mine, too.
-z