Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Come on, man.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Proof of Life Proof of Ears!

Proof of Life Proof of Ears!

by | 72 Comments

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I put this together 10 days ago when we got home from the vet but posts were coming fast and furious on Balloon Juice, so I waited, and then I took a break because, damn, for the better part of a week it was so bleak reading Balloon Juice that i just walked away.

Anyway, hopefully better late than never is still a thing!

Here’s Henry at the Vet School in his old-man tshirt!

They said “he jumped right up” as soon as they gave him the meds to counteract the sedative.  Of course he did!

His little pink bandage is gone and he gobbled up his food just now like it was the first time he had eaten in forever.  In his defense, forever was since 9 pm last night, which is a long time!

Skip this part if you don’t care about all the Henry allergy details.

The primary thing he is allergic to is one particular kind of yeast that apparently all dogs have on their skin, but in his case, he makes the yeast and he’s allergic to it!  Not exactly auto-immune, but kind of in the neighborhood.   So he’s on a second drug every day for 30 days, then they test his liver to make sure his liver isn’t mad about the drug, then we go to that drug every Saturday and Sunday, then 5 days off.  Then we see if that schedule is enough to control it, then if not we go to one week on and one week off.

We’ll be taking him off the special food at some point to see what that does, but we only want to change on thing at a time, so this is a LONG process.  It’s already been about 4 or 5 months, and it’s a long road ahead.  But apparently this yeast is responsive to the allergy shots after about 8 months or so, so we might do that at some point once we have quit changing everything one thing at a time.

I feel bad for all the jackals who have had allergy issues.  Yikes, some of the stories.  Kalakal, we are glad you are still with us!

Bonus photo of my gerbera daisies today.

I look through the camera lens and all I see is the dog or the cat or the pretty flowers.  Only after I have taken the photo do i see the weed and the dusty pot!   oh well.

Totally open thread.

Reader Interactions

72Comments

  1. 1.

    Redshift

    Good for Henry, hope he continues to improve.

    Allergies have been rough for us too lately. We both took a covid test this week because of sore throats and stuff (plus being around people on the 4th.) Both negative, so it must all be allergies.

  2. 2.

    Josie

    Sounds complicated. I don’t know how you manage to keep all the balls in the air at one time. Here’s hoping Henry responds well to the medicine and simplifies that part of your life.

  4. 4.

    tjlabs

    We’ve got a similar problem with one of our Labs. Charlie has a recurring allergy on his front left paw. Go figure. Time before last our vet put him on apoquel for 30 days. Seemed to help but it came back. So this time we asked our vet to try him on Cytopoint. It’s an injection that lasts 4 to 6 weeks. Research said it has less negative effects than apoquil. We’ll see. Pricey, though.

  5. 5.

    Kelly

    Mrs Kelly is doing well after yesterday’s laparoscopic appendectomy. Doc said we may be able to smell the anesthetic on her breath for a few days and the cats certainly behave like she smells odd. Also they are a little hurt that she doesn’t bend over to give them a scritch every time they walk by.

  7. 7.

    Scout211

    Henry! What a cutie. I hope as he goes through all the remedies, you can find one that works for him.

    Yeah, there’s allergies and there’s severe allergic reactions.

    Remember when our first COVID vaccination was scary and we all wondered if we would have reactions? We had to fill out a questionnaire with all of our relevant medical history.  I checked yes to severe allergic reaction and the whole office went into crisis mode. LOL

    I had about a 3 year period during my college years when I had numerous trips to the ER, two hospitalizations and then had to carry the precursor to epi-pens: a syringe and several vials of epinephrine in a plastic case. Long story short, it was a medication that I had been prescribed.  I wasn’t allergic to anything, although at first they thought I was allergic to beer. Tell that to a college kid!  Noooooo!

    I stopped the med and all has been well for decades. But I have tremendous empathy for people who have severe allergic reactions. It’s always touch and go and very scary.

  9. 9.

    Sure Lurkalot

    I thought the pink bandage was some sort of knee pad. That and the tee shirt gave me Flashdance vibes. Does Henry disco?

  10. 10.

    Mnemosyne

    If you like romance stories, I have an anthology coming out this Tuesday, then another one the Tuesday after that, and then a novella in early October. I’m working on a sequel to the novella and a novella for next year while I wait to get notes back on my novel from a fairly famous author who’s reading the first 30 pages (I won that in a charity auction).

    Today I spent a lot of time pairing up socks. I have way too many novelty socks.

  14. 14.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mnemosyne:

    I pre-ordered the novella in the anthology that’s coming out in October, but I’d love to know how to search on Amazon for the ones coming out this week and next. Titles, please?

    Not everything my fellow Jackals write is necessarily in genres I follow, but I’m a big believer in supporting friends and colleagues in their creativity. As a consequence, I’ve had some lovely surprises, and a while ago I created a whole new category in my Kindle library just for authors I “know” — there are a few non-Jackals in there, but I would say 90% are stories by people I know from Balloon Juice.

  15. 15.

    SiubhanDuinne

    ‘@WaterGirl: As for Henry, he remains adorable even with pink bandages and the old-man shirt and everything. Poor little guy! I hope you and the vets can find the winning treatment schedule soon. Henry, we want you back at ❗️

  17. 17.

    kalakal

    Henry’s looking good there! Poor little guy, all the injections and messing around. I hope the treatment schedule gets sorted soon, and Henry can get on with being the best Henry

    @Kelly:  Good news, I hope she’s back to scritching the cats soon

  19. 19.

    kindness

    Skin yeast, eh?  Too bad it isn’t as simple as changing his skin pH with baths of various things.

  22. 22.

    CaseyL

    Henry is adorable in his Old Man shirt.  I do hope the regimen works for him!

    One of my kitties has sensitive skin – there was one brand of food that made her skin itch so much it drove her crazy, and because she is a very fastidious (obsessive!) groomer anyway, it took me a little while to catch on.  I finally did and stopped buying that food.

  23. 23.

    Benw

    Glad to hear you’ve got a plan for Henry! He is a good boi!

    My kids and I’ve been walking our friends dog, a sweet grey terrier floofball mix, while one of them is in and out of the hospital. They say that he now goes from 0-60 in seconds when he hears us ring the doorbell at our usual time!

  25. 25.

    debbie

    Uh, oh. The national news is reporting lowering gas prices. Heads will explode!

  27. 27.

    AJ formerly of the Mustard Search and Rescue team

    WatergGirl – good that you took some days off reading here when you needed it. And hurray for Henry! Very glad to hear the good news.

  32. 32.

    WaterGirl

    @kindness: We already do a medicate bath once a week.  It’s apparently not that he has an excess of yeast, it’s that he is allergic t the yeast that apparently all dogs have on their skin.

  34. 34.

    Kristine

    I hope the shots help Henry. I may be starting shots because wasp allergy–I still have a few more tests coming up.

  35. 35.

    Kristine

    Also, love the gerberas. I have three deep rose pink plants that I made by splitting up one, and two have multiple blooms while the runt is playing catch-up (2 buds).

  36. 36.

    Mnemosyne

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    In theory, you should be able to click on my name and get to my Linktree, which has links to all three anthologies.

    In practice, the one coming out July 12th is called “Flames, Flirts & Festivals” and is on most e-book platforms. The one coming out July 19th is called “It’s Always Been You” from The New Romance Cafe and is only on Kindle.

    Two out of the three have sex in them — I’ll let you find out which ones.

    And thank you!

  37. 37.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Mnemosyne: Oh how wonderful.

    Question…a novella is defined as a short novel or a long short story. Which isn’t crystal clear to me. I think 100 pages would be a short novel but I’ve never read a short story close to that long. What’s the sweet spot in the industry?

  39. 39.

    Leslie

    Thanks for the Henry update! I hope your long process leads to a healthy, happy dog. And hooray for you taking a break when you needed one. The daisies are lovely.

    @Kelly: Thanks for the good news. Perhaps the kitties will get some extra lap time as recompense.

    @Mnemosyne: Congratulations!

  41. 41.

    Mnemosyne

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    Very generally, a short story is anything up to about 20,000 words (though you can sometimes call yourself a “novelette” between 10k and 20k words).

    A novella is between 20k and 60k words.

    A novel is 60k words and up.

    There’s some wiggle room and subcategories possible, but those are generally about right. They don’t go by page count because you can easily change the printed page count with fonts, margins, etc.

    So I have two short stories (one about 7,500 words and the other about 5,000) words and a novella (34,000 words) coming out this year.

  43. 43.

    kalakal

    @Kristine: If you do go on the shots for the wasp allergy I hope they work for you. I’ve been on them for 4 years now and all seems to be going well. I just take some antihistamines before hand

  44. 44.

    Scout211

    Hey WaterGirl,

    Thinking about everybody’s rough few weeks, I was wondering if it might be time to have another thread inviting lurkers and mostly-lurkers to say hello in one of your awesome welcome threads.

    Those periodic (and epic) lurker threads seem to help smooth differences and remind veteran juicers about what brought us here and what makes us come back all the time.

    I know it’s a lot of work for you to rescue the newbies from moderation on those threads, though, so maybe it’s too big of an ask and maybe not the right time for it?  Not sure.

  45. 45.

    Brachiator

    Weird. I tried to put text in a reply in quotes and the quote box flashed, but never got applied. This was using the Visual tab. Android tablet and Brave browser.

    Also, I was going to ask if anyone had ordered the new M2 MacBook Air or M1 MacBook Pro laptops.

  46. 46.

    Mnemosyne

    @Brachiator:

    My spouse will be ordering the MacBook Air after we go on a trip next week. I got myself a new MacMini and iPhone for Christmas, so I’m not getting other new tech just yet.

  53. 53.

    Scout211

    @Baud:
    I was told there’d be cake.

    Would you rather have pie?*

    *I’m told you don’t do sarcasm tags, but just in case it wasn’t clear, that was sarcasm.

    ETA:

  54. 54.

    Suzanne

    Henry is such a cutie-pants!

    I had a dog, the dearly departed cocker spaniel Missy, who was super-allergic. We did various medications, special food, and she was still miserable. She was so allergic to grass, but she knew she was supposed to pee on it. So she would step her two front paws in the grass and then pee, not realizing that her tail end was still over the sidewalk. Gross and yet hilarious.

    I have Mr. Suzanne working this week on various exterior and interior painting tasks. One of those is to paint the front door. I finally decided on a color: Benjamin Moore Carolina Gull. I am very excited.

  56. 56.

    Geminid

    @Mnemosyne: People have been picking up the troll-fighting slack. At least Denise Oliver-Velez has been on Twitter. Recently MSNBC’s “CrossCurrents” show featured a young activist setting up and knocking down the familiar “vote harder” strawman: “…people waited hours to vote for Joe Biden, and they’re likely asking themselves, what did we get for it?”

    Ms. Oliver-Velez, a former Black Panther and current Professor of Anthropology at SUNY-New Paultz, just wasn’t having it:

       Where did you learn this garbled political science? If you had ever taken a class with me this “analysis” would garner an F. If you were in the street w me I’d have my earings off.

    @Deoliver47 via @eclecticbrotha.

  57. 57.

    sab

    Accidentally stepped on Dobby’s tail yesterday! Full on stomp! He was hanging out on his beloved carpeted stairs, and I miscalculated while stepping around him. He thinks I did it on purpose and is furious and frightened. (He thought he could trust me, unlike every other human in his prior life.)  I feel terrible but it was completely accidental. I’ll see how far cat treats go in making amends.

    StarScream will forgive anything short of felicide if he gets cat treats.

  60. 60.

    WaterGirl

    @sab: Have you told him how sorry you are?  If I accidentally stop on someone (or whatever) I always tell them how sorry I am – dogs and cats alike – and they all seem to instantly understand and are always gracious and forgiving.

    Granted, they didn’t have bad people in their lives before, but hopefully that will help Dobby understand.

  62. 62.

    sab

    @WaterGirl: Of course I have. He doesn’t quite believe me, yet

    ETA StarScream is enjoying the new favorite being out of the picture. I miss the new favorite, but thrilled to have StarScream back in the center of my life.

  63. 63.

    Jay

    @trollhattan:

    Rogers is an internet, Cable and cell phone provider in Canada. The also lease services to other smaller providers.

    They have about 25% of the market.

    They went down yesterday for over 24 hours.

    So unless you were “in network”, interact was toast, credit cards were toast, no cell phone, no internet, in some places not even 911*

    *emergency  911 is supposed to patch to any providers towers, but in some areas of Canada, there were only Roger’s towers, so that didn’t work.

  64. 64.

    Jay

    @sab:

    about your pittie, we used to massage Casey’s feet on a regular basis. She learned to like it. Then came nail clipping. It went from a struggle to a spa mani petty with groans and grunts over a year. Kalie, ( friend of ours granddaughter) even got to put on nail polish a few times.

  70. 70.

    sab

    @HumboldtBlue: Saw a different youtube. Kitten with dogs. Golden didn’t care. Greman shepherd thought it was a GSD puppy. That cat willl grow up to herd sheep.

  71. 71.

    HumboldtBlue

    That cat will grow up to herd sheep.

    I hope that makes into the revolving quotes up in the banner.

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