Sunday, March 13, 2011

A thousand words

It would be boring for me to tell you how I've wanted to blog for days and weeks, but haven't found the time, or how I couldn't think of anything blog about...so let's just assume going forward that anytime it's been more than a week between blogs, I feel that way - deal?

In case you haven't yet discovered the simple pleasure of Patti Digh's 37 Days blog (I've only mentioned it here a gazillion times), I urge you to check out the month of stories she just posted. It's from one of her other projects, in which she and two friends post a photo and a note every day for a year (you can read more on her site). Just a photo and a note.

How amazing would it be to have a photo and a note for an entire year? Imagine if you had one for every day of your life? Involving two other people is genius, of course, because it holds you accountable. Accountable to this thing that you supposedly want to do but will forget about or bump to the bottom of the list when things get crazy...what I'm saying is that I want to do that.

Maybe that's sort of the idea I had when I started my photo blog a couple years ago. My photo blog that I have since deleted because I couldn't stick with it. Maybe I should start again. Maybe there are a couple of you who would also like to photo blog?

If I had had a photo blog over the last week, I would have undoubtedly posted a photo of my sweet Lola mouse, whom you may remember I adopted at Christmas-time. Of our three mice, Miss Lola has been the most outgoing and friendly. And she's gotten the fattest, which I think means she's the happiest. But last Saturday, Lola was not so happy. Actually, I thought she was injured because she kept rolling to her left and it looked like she couldn't use her leg.

It was then that I learned two important things:
1) Veterinarians close early on Saturdays.
2) Most veterinarians don't treat rodents.

Those two facts left me the option of either taking my tiny mouse to the emergency vet, or letting her roll around, and possibly be in pain (it was hard to tell), until Monday. If you're like most of the people I've talked to about this situation, you would have just waited it out until Monday...however, Lola is our pet and we love her. So, although I definitely considered the expense of carting her out to the emergency vet, I decided that the fact that she's tiny doesn't mean it's okay for her to suffer.

So we spent a lot of last Saturday at the emergency vet, waiting for our turn amongst very sick dogs and cats. One ate poison. One had a tumor. One needed emergency surgery. And there were my boys and I, with our little Lola cuddled up in my hoodie.

But it was worth it! It turns out mice sometimes get inner ear infections that disrupt their equilibriums. But after a few days of antibiotics (have you ever tried to give a mouse antibiotics?), Lola has made a full recovery. And this could be my photo for today:


Healthy mouse, happy house.

No comments: