melted smoosh

it's a quarter past ten on Monday morning, and instead of reviewing lab results, palpating an abdomen, filling out medical necessity forms for diabetic supplies, or anesthetizing an abscess before performing an I&D, i'm home. greta just finished an entire trayful of scrambled egg bits and i took her upstairs to read Guess How Much I Love You  (a baby shower gift from Jon's mom!), laid her in her crib in her t-shirt and FuzziBunz diaper, and tiptoed out of the room with her laundry basket. but instead of throwing her clothes in the wash, i'm writing. the breeze is barely rustling the leaves on the big tree by the garage and a mourning dove is cooing, a sound that always makes me think of Camano. bertram is perched on the counter like a little orange owl, blinking slowly at the quiet kitchen. kaiser has squashed himself into the corner between the back door and the closet so he can take a snooze, assured that no intruders can sneak up behind him. and a few halfheart...

so it turns out that Kaiser, though he's a fantastic guard dog and gives the best non-droolcovered kisses, is not so fantastic at swallowing pills on command. we've tried a few tricks in the past when he had to take the pain medication tramadol for tendinitis, but that was only a few pills a day. we had to come up with a better plan when we were faced with this line-up twice a day: peanutbutter worked sporadically, but the problem was he'd somehow manage to lick all the peanutbutter off the pill and just when we thought he'd swallowed the medicine, it would drop on the floor with an impertinent plunk. he likes honey, but it was the same story. he'd ferret out a pill in his kibble or cottage cheese. then one glorious day, Nick in his infinite wisdom decided to try with pepperoni.  so now the ritual goes something like this.  "Kaiser! want some pepperoni?"  cue 85-pound German shepherd barreling into the kitchen and immediately...

...who's the worst mother of them all???  the story starts on Saturday, when the dilapidated full length mirror that has been hanging on the back of our bedroom door by three poorly mounted corners finally bit the dust. the whole bedroom really needs an overhaul, but i've been too busy pinning nursery decor ideas to actually get up off my butt and do anything about it. so the mirror gently slid down the door, and i equally gently propped it up against the rear wall of the bedroom until i could take care of it.  that night, while i was at Duquesne's performance of the State of the Union, and Nick was doing yard work, Kaiser somehow knocked down the mirror, and the top corner broke off in the process. and then, he sliced his rear leg on the broken piece of glass. so when Nick came back into the house, he found Kaiser waiting patiently at the back door surrounded by a pool of blood. ingenious husband that he is, he managed to wash out the wound with soap and water, then ba...