Whew...

I guess it's been awhile, huh? My Parents were here for a week's visit, after which I managed to pull a muscle somewhere in my neck/upper back area that rendered me mostly immobile for a few days, after which the dog got sick and was dry heaving for almost an entire day-- which meant, of course, no sleep for me. Oh, and the b.h.'s granny was very seriously ill for a few days, too.
So now my folks are gone (it was a very nice visit), granny's better, my neck is better, and it's back to the daily grind.
The dog is also better. The vet didn't have what I would call a good bedside manner. I basically took him in because he had a stomach problem of some sort and she took a bunch of x-rays and did blood work (both very expensive, x-rays were probably not necessary). She showed me the x-rays (which look remarkably like bones and multiple globs of nothing, really-- at least if you took English Literature instead of Science, which I did), and before the blood work even came back she started talking about barium and more x-rays and -wait for it- EXPLORATORY SUGERY. Well, that's not what you want to hear after not having slept all night because you were up with a sick dog and you have just drained your bank account for the current visit. When the bloodwork came back, she wrote a prescription for antibiotics, and now he's fine. I still kind of want to kill her, though. Our usual vet is an older guy (Doctor Bob, we call him, because we like the way it sounds better than his last name), but obviously it was an emergency so we had to get in immediately. Ugh. I need a beer just from talking about it. Anyway, the girl who printed out my paperwork and ran my bank card actually gasped when she looked at how much my bill was. Then she said,
"Don't you just wish you could put your pet on YOUR health insurance?" Which is somewhat hilarious, because that implies that I HAVE insurance, and I haven't had it in over ten years.
Ah well. Back to normal now, I suppose.