Sometimes All You Can Do Is Laugh...

Yesterday was one of those days, a stay in bed with the covers over your head kind of day.

It started out okay, although the West Coast is being hammered by an epic storm of torrential rains and super high winds that reached monster proportions by late morning. I really just wanted to stay home, but one of my neighbors called and needed a ride into town.  All went fine and we'd just made it back up the mountain when all hell broke loose, weather-wise.  It was really cool, with a dash of scary as the house shook and the rain overflowed my gutters.

I sat down to blog, but Max freaked out when a really hard blast of wind hit the front windows. He started to cry, then climb my leg where I'm sitting at the laptop.  I look down to reassure him and WTF??  His eye is once again swollen shut!  I can't freaking believe it. When did that happen?  His meds were done on Monday, he was fine on Tuesday.  Crap.  I glance out the windows.  Serious weather, sirens going nonstop down in the valley, looks like night though it's barely noon. **Sigh**  So much for staying safe at home.

I call the vet, get the last appointment of the day--5:00pm--and resign myself to a wretched drive in the dark, fighting a storm.  I hope things will improve by 4:30 when I have to leave the house.

Brief aside:  On Saturday my satellite receiver began to make noises like a 747 taking off at full throttle.  I called the company, they're sending me a new one, should arrive on Wednesday.

I give the boys some lunch and sit down to blog.  The UPS guy shows up with the receiver box. Yippee!  The box is a bit ungainly, but not heavy so I pick it up and head to the bedroom.  The dogs, of course, are curious about the box and are darting around me as I'm walking down the hall.  I can't see directly in front of me because of the large box, so I'm telling the boys to get out of my way, just as Max walks between my legs.  I do this hop, skip thing that might have saved the day...except Ozzy is now directly in my path so I twist to the side, hit the box on the side of the door, lose my balance and slam my toes into the jamb so hard I fall to my knees in stomach-churning agony.

I'm now hunched over the frigging box and I pretty much think I've just broken my foot. Waves of excruciating pain are shooting like lightning from my toes all the way up my leg. I roll off the box and sit up.  Holy crap. Why does my sock look...weird?  I hiss and yell and cry as I peel off the sock. Between the big toe and the little one, the three in the middle are...horrible.  One is pointing down, one is pointing up and the other is bleeding. Okay then.  Not a broken foot after all.  Just broken toes.

I hop to the phone and call my neighbor who's an ER nurse. Thankfully, she's home.  She comes down, laughs at my toes, says, "take a deep breath because this is gonna hurt" and yanks those little puppies back into position, then after bandaging the bleeding toe, she tells me to lay a bag of frozen peas over them and try to stay off my feet for a day or two. (Yeah, right.  In an alternate universe where I have servants and a dog walker).  I give her half my Swedish Chocolate Cake, just baked the night before, with profuse thanks for the rescue.

Then I install the receiver, which works like a dream.

I rest for about 14 seconds, but now that the excitement is over, the dogs decide they need to go out.  Hobble down two flights of stairs, hobble back up when they're done. Then I spend quite a bit of time trying on different shoes because it's almost time to leave for Max's vet appointment, the storm has gotten worse and I can't wear flip flops or go barefoot.  We're nearly blown off the mountain by the wind, I had to pull over twice on the trip to make way for emergency vehicles, and the roads were so flooded, I couldn't see the lanes. Though, throbbing toes stuffed into boots and teeth-grinding pain at every press of the gas pedal, I hardly noticed all the drama around me.

Long story short: Max had to have his eye abraded, then they removed a section of his eyelashes as several were growing downward and rubbing against the wound so it couldn't heal properly.  More swabbing, more meds, more money.  And I have to go back again next week to make sure the injury is healing properly.

Today, the storm is raging even worse than yesterday.  I fear for several of the old oaks up here on the mountain and expect some to fall before this is over.  Max is looking better, so hopefully the treatment and the medication are working.  My toes are swollen and hurt like...they got slammed into a door jamb.  I'm particularly fond of my new toenail polish: shades of black, blue and yellow.

I'm telling you, peeps, the fun just never stops...