Odds and Ends

Number One

I've had a question or two about the football photos.  Tuttosport, being in the tank for Juventus as it is, usually has some really good stuff, but it's protected from downloading.  I get most of mine from either Daylife.com or Zimbio.com.  There are some on Getty's site that don't show up anywhere else, but they all have water marks.  I haven't found anything from last week's Juventus-Torino charity match.  However, a few days ago Daylife posted a few photos from the Bari match back in January, so sometimes they publish things late.  Photos from the Toro match could show up later.

Juventus Offside has posted video of the match, if you're interested.

Yarn Post

It has been a busy day.  I got rid of the dead chrysanthemums, I either prepped or trashed everything in the vegetable bin, and I did the taxes.  The only thing left on my weekend to-do list, aside from making dinner tonight, is pestering Mr. D to verify the taxes so we can e-file them and be done with it.  I've got this one leetle post to finish, and then I can knit, watch football, knit while watching football, or nap, whatever my heart desires.

I've finished a few things, and that has given me the urge to start some new things, but aside from the Cable Love Cardi, I've decided not to cast anything else on this month.  Having a startitis festival once a quarter is enough, but when April 17 gets here, watch out!

So, the finished things.

Kirby goes for a walk

Kirby doesn't go on walks any more.  This started in the fall when he couldn't walk.  Once his treatments started working, he was able to go, but had gotten used to being a couch potato, and we didn't have the heart to force him.

Since then, I have tried to walk him, but his stubbornness goes to 11.  He sits his little dog butt down and makes you drag him.  I guess that at some point, he gives up and does what he's told.  But first, you have to drag him far enough for him to get little scrapes on his legs and tummy.  You may think that a steady application of calm, assertive energy will work as magically as it does on TV, but  no.  When he starts to bleed, I give up, so I don't know how far I have to go to win the battle.

This cannot stand.  He needs some exercise for one, and he needs to be reminded that the house does not revolve around him.  Stop laughing.  So today we went for a walk around the block.  Sort of. Tiki and I took a walk around the block.  Kirby took a ride halfway around the block to Bogie's house and walked home from there.

For a dog with mental issues, he's pretty good at geography.  When we're going away from the house, he fights every single step, but he always knows when we've reached the point where we're starting back, and from there, he's all "race ya!  Last one home has to feed the beagle!"  So you see, it isn't a matter of "can't."  It's all about the "won't."  Silly boy.

Dog News

Ugh. So as we all know, Kirby Sweetheart has numerous medical problems. The most troubling right now is an inflammatory disease which may or may not be GME (if you look up encephalitis in dogs, you'll find it. There's a reason no one calls it by its full name). This is what is suspected to have caused his little "can't walk" problem last fall. Since then, we've been going in every six weeks for a chemotherapy treatment called CCNU (I don't know what that is either). It suppresses his immune system in an effort to calm the inflammation that gives him so much trouble, so we have to get blood work done regularly to make sure he hasn't got an infection. The treatments have been more or less working. He's always walked funny, and now he just loses his balance on the rear end more frequently than he used to.

Only last week he started limping on his front legs. We went through another round of very expensive tests and the latest is that this is probably is progression of the inflammation and, since it manifested while he was in treatment, it means the CCNU isn't working as well as it used to.

There's a lot of uncertainty in all of this. GME is progressive and usually/eventually fatal. I've known this for six months or so, but he's been doing so well that it has been easy to pretend that this is just another one of his chronic problems and it's perfectly manageable. He's getting to be an old dog, and he could be even older than we think since we don't know where he came from. Right now we're going to switch to more frequent treatments and when that stops working, there are other drugs we can try, and so forth.

He's happy and doesn't seem to be suffering at all. However, the bottom line is Kirby is getting worse. This is real.

My immediate coping strategy is to eat everything in the house that's remotely appealing. Maybe I'll snap at Mr. D over something meaningless and maybe I'll look to see if there are any cigarettes in the drawer. I hope to have a better plan for tomorrow.

Old Lady Post: The Juventus Defense----60% of the time, it works every time

 Cesena 2:2 Juventus



What a big improvement!  Instead of the Zebes uniformly playing shit, they only played partly shit.  It was an exciting match.  Juventus went up 2-0, then gave up a penalty that could have been a whole lot fucking worse than it was, and then the second half was thirty five minutes of nail-biting to see if the boys could hold.  Alas, they could not.  Also, I'm pretty sure that Lady Luck hates seahorses.

Old Lady Post: Milan Cheats

  Juventus 0:1 Milan




Well, what else would you call it?  With all the attacking threats Milan has, who would have thought that Juventus would have to protect the goal from Rino Gattuso?  I mean come on!  Rino almost never scores.  His last goal was October 23, 2008 against Heerenveen, whoever the fuck that is.  If Rino is going to score, Milan might as well have been playing with an invisible extra man, and maybe I can't find a rule against that in The Laws of the Game, but that doesn't make it right.  Sheesh.

Old Lady Post: It's Official

Juventus 0:2 Ex-Juventus Bologna




The Bianconeri have their heads firmly up their butts.

Whew!

When last we spoke, I had finished the body of the purple Bud Collins sweater and was worrying whether I had enough yarn left for the sleeves.  I had two skeins, one skein per sleeve.  For a while I turned over various scenarios in my head as to how I would get more yarn when I needed it, but I finally decided to find out if I needed it.

Nope.  One sleeve, one skein, with a bit left over, but not enough to trigger leftover yarn angst.  Perfect.