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I know that you are all dying of curiosity to find out what I decided to do in terms of transportation. Well? I’ll give you a hint…

Kristian and I did the math last night and taking the bus is only marginally cheaper than driving. In fact, if you only factor in the cost of gas, driving is actually cheaper. If you go by the IRS guidelines, it’s slightly more expensive, but I think that my time is worth a couple of bucks. I decided to think of paying for the parking pass in terms of peace of mind, giving myself more options and not having to drive around for 10-15 minutes looking for a spot. I still reserve the right to take the bus in (in fact, that’s actually the most practical thing to do on days when I meet up with Kristian after work). And, to make up for all of my carbon outputs and dinosaur juice consumption, I’m going to redouble my efforts to bike to work when the weather improves and the sunlight comes back.

This morning, I parked my truck right outside building where I have class tonight. I’m not gonna lie, it’s going to be pretty sweet to walk out the door and walk right up to my truck instead of trekking down to where I usually park.

Kristian isn’t saying what he plans to get me for Christmas. Cross your fingers for Sparkles!

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Gracie seems to be doing much better. The Cone of Shame has now been relegated to dust collector. One of these days I’ll remember to put it down in the basement. Or I’ll fashion it into a decorative planter. Either way.

Her paw has mostly healed, although she’s still on antibiotics. Antibiotics which are getting increasingly harder to trick her into consuming. The technique that worked so well in the first week (sticking the pill in a tasty piece of chicken. making it seem like she was getting a treat) has now broken down. She still devours the tasty chicken…. but now the pill ends up getting spit out on the floor. It would be quite impressive if it wasn’t quite so annoying. That dog has the ability to find her pills in whatever it is that we hide it in.

Say what you will about cats, once you get a pill into their mouth (after much gnashing of teeth and bleeding on my part), it’s really easy to hold their little snouts, massage their throats and watch the pill go down. Gracie will very happily allow me to pry her mouth open, will patiently wait while I hold her mouth shut, doesn’t try to scratch my face off when I massage her throat… and then cheerfully spits the pill out on the floor. And then gives me a look like, “what? what were you expecting?”

I swear, she’s better at tonguing her meds than most mental patients.

I stopped by the kennel to drop off the vet bill and they were fairly apologetic, but not exactly contrite. I got the manager’s business card. I will have to send them a stern email, although I’m not entirely sure what to say. Mostly because I’m not sure what I want to get out of them. I’d say a hefty discount on a future stay, but I don’t think I want to trust Gracie to them again. Maybe I just want to make sure that they never do something like that again. I would hate for anyone else to have to go through what we did for no reason other than negligence.

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Ruby’s quilt is almost done! I just need to sew the binding down. Possibly, on the bus down to NYC. My fingers have mostly healed from last time. Mostly.