Black Friday, a Vet Visit, and Christmas Decorations

Thanksgiving is over, we survived Black Friday, so now we can focus on Christmas.

Speaking of Black Friday … did you see the news about the Nike store in Seattle that was trashed by a herd of BF shoppers? Kinda reaffirms your belief that there’s still good in the world, doesn’t it? Well, maybe not on the day after Thanksgiving. Personally, I’m not a shopper in the first place, but if I was Black Friday would be the last day I’d choose to shop. People just go nuts to get things they probably don’t need. I’m one of those people who just take my chances and shop online. So far, so good. No problems.

This morning I took Ziva and Breezie to visit Doc Snyder at the vet. Breezie hasn’t been in a long time and wound up needing 3 shots. She was not happy, but she did good. No one came away bloody from that evolution. Ziva got one shot and had a pedicure. She also has a lump on her right arm which may or may not be of concern. We need to watch it to see if it grows. I have the same kind of lumps in my arms so I’m not worried.

This is Doc Snyder and her assistant counseling Ziva about the shot she got and the tests they are conducting.

Diane spent some more time at the courthouse this morning working on some vote recounts that needed attention. She had to be there at 10:00 am and I had to have the animals at the vet by 10:30 so I dropped off Diane and came back for Ziva and Breezie. Breezie managed to get outside before I left with Diane so there was a distinct possibility that she wouldn’t be available for the trip. I made a decision that if she didn’t show up by the time I returned to get them I would charge her a late fee for missing her appointment. The standard charge now days seems to be $35 but I really wanted her to feel the need to be on time so upped it to $45. Lucky her, she was in the house when I got home so avoided that problem. I suspect I would have had to file a small claims suit against her which she still wouldn’t pay, but it would screw up her credit.

Hope everyone has happy plans for Christmas. We’ve begun the process of getting out tree in and some of our traditional ornaments installed. The first thing up was this guy …

He didn’t come with a name but we got him from Costco so I’m calling him Costco Man for now. Yes, he’s a snowman, but that’s not a name. It’s a gender assignment attached to winter weather.

We did this, too …

Ziva’s just checking to see who’s been in the yard.

Then we got busy getting the tree ready for the house. This involved removing a very large plant from a very large pot so we could transfer the tree from its pot to the nicer pot that’s more suitable for indoor use. We’ve had the tree for about a week and it’s been sitting in the yard soaking up as much rain as it could. Consequently, it weighed a ton which was almost too much for me to lift from one pot to the other. But, I did it. Then we took it inside using a hand truck. Getting it off the hand truck proved to be problematic and resulted in me making a huge mess when it tipped over. Dirt everywhere. But, it cleaned up nicely and resulted in this once Diane got all the lights and ornaments attached. After the New Year the tree will be replanted in the lower yard where it can just grow as long as it wants to.

After it was all done we had a snack and Diane loaded the dishwasher. Whenever the dishwasher is opened, Ziva shows up so she can prewash the plates, something that she was trained for as a small dog. Personally, I think all dogs inherently know that plates need to be prewashed so it’s not a large training curve. It’s kind of instinctive, actually. They just know what to do. Additionally, when the dishes are clean, and the door is open, she checks all the plates to make sure they’re clean. She’s very helpful.