One expensive week.

The week started out beyond awesome. Dan said he'd pay for half of a new Blythe (I'd been majorly jonesing). Woot! And thusly I ordered a Punkaholic People. Yay!

A day or so passed with dancing and rejoicing, etc. Then I noticed Topanga was limping a little. Upon closer inspection, she wasn't just limping. She was bleeding from the toe (OUCH), AND her lady parts were all red and swollen and horrifying. The scooting. Oh, the scooting! Poor dog!
An unexpected expensive vet visit followed this discovery.

Anyway, Topanga's back with pills, ointments, and a very infected ear. (An ear infection? Just for the heck of it, apparently.)
Anyway, how are you? Seen any good vets lately?

In which the carpets get stained

I used to think that one of the great things about dogs is that they certainly throw up a lot less than kids.
WRONG. SO WRONG.
Let me just warn you now that there will be some discussion of how the brand new carpets lost their innocence. And it won't be pretty. So, in order to not get too graphic, I'll substitute "present" and "cotton candy" for some of the actual words. Here goes:
The morning of the move, Dan woke me up saying "Hey, Buster left a present for you in the closet." Boy, did he ever. It was a thing of terror, this present. After lots of cleaning products and time, it still left a stain. But oh well! We were moving! Who cares! On with the world's longest moving day!
The next day, in the new house, I was awakened bright and early to the melodic sounds of Buster making cotton candy. All over my new carpet. And he continued to do so throughout the day, in pretty much every room of the house. Almost systematically.
And this was not ordinary cotton candy, folks. It STAINED. Stained my new carpet.
The weirdest thing was, most of the times seemed to coincide with my trying to catch a bit of sleep. I kept hearing the cotton candy dog gearing up, waking me out of sleep.
"It's okay! It will get better! He'll stop soon..." I reasoned to myself.
Onward came the presents, into the night and next day. At this point I started to freak out. "He's DYING!!! NOOOOO!!" It was too late to call the vet, so I decided to leave it until the morning. Fitful sleep. Visions of dogs cottoncandied to death.
The worst present EVER came that night. I promised myself I wouldn't actually describe anything, but let's just say it burned a hole in the floor. And our carpets will never be the same.
The next morning, Buster was...fine. Better than fine, actually. Leaping around, guzzling food & water and keeping it all down. The twinkle was back in his eye. What the heck?
I asked the vet if perhaps dogs can catch stomach bugs. "Eh, kind of. It's far more likely this was all just stress related, though." Stress? Seriously?
It's been a few days since then, and Buster seems perfectly healthy and happy. So we're chalking it up to stress. Let's add this to the "reasons to never move again" list.

Action Packed!!

New laptop. New movie. Enjoy!

Why wasn't there a shop update yesterday?

I mean, really. You were doing so good, sticking to a schedule and all...
Wait, wait, I have a really good excuse. Here it is:

Ta-DAAA! It's a new pug! He's a five month old sweetheart named...um, I don't know yet. Lando? Charlie? Something! (We've been calling him "Other Dog")

We just brought him home yesterday afternoon. It's still early yet, so I don't want to go on and on about what a good dog he is and jinx it. Suffice it to say that I'm a wreck on high alert for signs he may have to go potty, and he's pretty relaxed. So I think things are going to be ok.
If you want to see more photos, hop on over to Flickr!
Anywho, I've set up a sort of temporary studio in the living room, so as to better watch him. (Him? In my studio? With my RE-MENTS? And Chickenpants? NOT YET!!) So hopefully I will be getting things sort of back to normalish soon. ^-^

Animal Update!

Many thanks to everyone who left comments on the last post! I really appreciate it. Words cannot accurately express the feeling you get from internet based concern, so instead I present to you this emoticon: ^-^
Things have changed since yesterday.
Change #1: I took Topanga to have her nails trimmed. She has naturally really, really long nails, and a hatred of having her feet touched, so getting professionals to do it is worth every cent. However, we put it off a little longer than usual this time. Anyway: voila! Nails trimmed, happy smiling dog on couch again! She leapt from couch to couch entirely of her own volition. It was beautiful! So: Topanga's depression: pedicure related. There you go.
Change #2: Living in the country as I do, a cat to help keep down local varmints is essential. Word was put out a few months ago: WE ARE NOW LOOKING FOR A KITTEN! NO, NOT A CAT, A KITTEN! (Why? Out last cat was 15 years old when we got her. We felt we were due.) Anyway, nothing really happened for awhile until one of the folks who remembered our kitten call said the other day, "Hey. My friend is holding one last kitten for you. You'd better call her." Thus, I did, even though the timing could be said to be less than ideal.
So:

Nameless! Kitten!

Sorry about the crummy photos- he has not been trained to pose for the camera like Topanga yet. We'll work on that.
In the meantime- any ideas for names? He has a penchant for perching on one's shoulders like a pirate's bird, so we're thinking maybe a pirate name. Or a hobo name. Because hoboes have great names. Anyway, please leave some name ideas. ^-^

Doggy bounce? Please?

Today is a good day. Topanga is actually laying on the couch like a normal pug.
Why is this remarkable? Let me back up.
Ever since we bought the giant new bookshelf, Topanga has basically boycotted the living room. Barely has she touched tush to once coveted cushions. Instead, she's taken to lying on the floor next to our bed, or, for a change of pace, actually on her own bed.
Notice I did not say "on" our bed. That used to be another coveted spot. Nope. Jumping up has suddenly just become too much work.
When we watch a movie or otherwise desire her presence on the sofa, we have to physically remove her from the bedroom and place her on the couch. She'll stay there for maybe 15 minutes, and then we have to go get her out of the bedroom again.
What has happened here?
Depression was the first thing that shot through my mind. Do dogs get depressed?
It seems like she can still jump just fine- she can still jump on the bed or couch whenever she wants. She much prefers to be lifted, though.
Last night, Dan brought up a scary thought: "Maybe she's just becoming an old dog."
An old dog? Old. She's not old! She's...six. Practically still a puppy! (Here you see me willfully ignoring the bags of "senior" dog food. Those say seven...and UP.)
"Noooo. Can't be that she's getting to be old."
"Middle aged, then."
"Maybe. I can deal with middle aged. In the dog, anyway."
Anyway...anyone know of anything that perks up middle aged/possibly depressed dogs?

Topanga is a muse!

Pug Sketch
Originally uploaded by rosethistleartworks

And not just for me, it turns out!
The very lovely Gina of Rose Thistle Artworks made this wonderful sketch. Here's the original photo:

Pretty amazing, huh?
Thanks Gina!
p.s.: you can check out her shop here...in addition to drawings, she makes some amazing woolitures!

Lumps of Mystery

Time for another freak-out visit to the vet! Topanga has developed some sort of hard lump in her right hip. It's utterly confounded the vet. "It's not like a regular tumor- those don't usually hurt." Ergh. I'm trying to not freak out too much, but that is hard. "IT IS PROBABLY NOTHING." That is what the rational part of my brain is saying, very loudly. Loudly doesn't mean authoritatively, though.
Some thrilling life I lead, huh?
Er, what I meant to say was: after my day job of super top secret espionage, writing, painting, and sewing, I went hunting for some elves. I caught a pixie instead, and what a headache that was! Then I ate an entire pie, and saved an entire burrow of bunnies from ravenous wolves.
Well, at least the pie part is accurate. Sort of.

Daily...

Pug pathos #3
Originally uploaded by chicken widget.

An extra from a Daily Photo shoot

Well, sort of.
Daily anything is difficult for me. I keep forgeting to take daily photos- and when I do manage to take them, I often forget to post them on time. So if you look through my photostream on Flickr, you'll see them in a very wonky order.
But the idea of daily habits is fascinating to me, and I keep thinking how great it would be if I could actually keep up with some of them. So I keep on trying...and generally just keep on stumbling, falling off the wagon, running after the wagon, kicking the wagon when it breaks, etc.

Playing catch up

(A photo recap of the past few days)


Jack Sparrow impersonator!!
Originally uploaded by chicken widget.

We went to a party on Saturday. I detest parties, but Jack Sparrow was there, so that was nice.


The crane tree
Originally uploaded by chicken widget.

Then I finally put all those cranes I've been making to good use: I made a crane tree. It almost reaches the ceiling.


Hello.
Originally uploaded by chicken widget.

Then it was time to create some creatures. Here's a peek of one of them.


Embracing the blur, this time.
Originally uploaded by chicken widget.

Finally, here's Topanga's interpretation of the craziness that was this past week. And probably also the weeks to come.
Many, many more new photos on Flickr!

What, no new artwork today?

Daily Photo 6.20.07
Originally uploaded by chicken widget.

You can read the whole whiny reason for that by clicking on the photo.
Having my pup in pain really stresses me out. (Also the vet bills. They stress me out, too. Buy a painting or twenty, won't you?)
Whine, whine whine.
p.s.: Topanga is doing much better now!

Watching the human world

Originally uploaded by chicken widget.

Inspired by Topanga, who loves to sit outside and watch the world.