scatterbrained nattering-on

Been trying to pull together the time and energy to post this since I got back late Monday night.

Woods Hole to my driveway: 175 miles, 3 hours 5 minutes.

Babies slept the whole way, and so were Very Awake after we got home. I played hookey from work on Tuesday so I could sleep; two hours was just not going to get me through my usual workday.

It felt really good seeing everyone at VP, and really awful leaving just as things were starting to get into full swing. At least I managed to get the manuscripts and schedules to folks in some reasonably organized fashion. I did one student pickup, fetched and carried a few things, but otherwise mostly hung around. I'm afraid I'm sufficiently exhausted almost all the time that my ability to come up with ways of helping was sorely limited.

It turns out that matociquala and I both know, and hung around with, the same crazy guy at nearly the same time period, but never managed to intersect ourselves. It truly *is* a small world.

It was good catching up with avocadovpx, at least in those brief moments when he slowed down long enough to talk to. I apparently need to dredge through his LJ to find a very cool meme he did and shamelessly steal it. Hey, it's a meme, after all.

tnh and I both pinky-swore we'd be healthier by this time next year. Easier said than done, but worth the effort. At any rate, now I need to make some vaguely confession-like sounds about health. ( Possibly TMI. )

We move on now to the contemplation of the state of health of my writing. ( Possibly TMB. )

Okay, I think I'm nattered out.

Worst Business Idea EVER

My poor doggie came back from the kennel with a bit of a urinary tract thing going on. I sort of suspected she was working on something beforehand, so no blame to the kennel here, but the woman who runs the kennel definitely noticed symptoms and reported them back to me. So today after work I dragged the poor fluffball off to the vet.

It is worth mentioning, since in fact this snippet of information is directly relevant to this post (and may be the only snippet of information with that distinction) that Zookie is currently blowing out her coat. This means she is shedding fur at a ferocious pace, in large, fist-sized clumps at a time. In the brief time we were sitting in the little exam room she managed (with the help of me petting her to calm her down) to produce a rather substantial pile of fur.

I apologized to the vet when he entered. "She's shedding," I then said. "We've already shed you enough fur to make a chihuahua."

The vet allowed as how there was a chihuahua, at that very moment, in the exam room next door, and agreed that the prodigious pile of fluff was about the same size. Then he left to go off and do with Zookie's pee whatever diagnostic thing it is vets do with dog pee and left us alone again.

So I sat there some more with my dog and the growing pile of fluff wafting about the room, and thought it was an awful shame that there wasn't something useful that could be done with it.

It was at that very moment that I struck upon the Worst Business Idea ever conceived, with the possible exception of subprime mortgages: dog toupees. But not toupees like people toupees, because, silly you, dogs don't go bald on their heads. Dogs get their butts shaved. A lot, though I'm not sure I entirely understand why. How humiliating and degrading that must be for poor Fido, proud Rover, shy Mimsiekins, to then be paraded at the end of a leash before the world with their nether regions exposed for all to see. Just as people donate cut hair to make wigs for those unfortunates who have lost their own due to chemo or other procedures, dogs could donate shed fur to their shaven brethren. Mutt Butt Toupees.

Sad thing is, there are probably people out there who would buy them.