Today

Happy 2010, everyone!

As a matter of interest,  here is a photo of Teddy, Joshie’s half-brother.  He is 13 weeks in this picture.

Here is a photo of the Joshie and Teddy’s Dad: Monty, taken when he was 18 months old:

Monty at 9 years of age:

Monty at 12 years of age:  Christmas 2009

Monty will be in the last year or so of his life and he’s still going strong !

It’s warm over here.  The temperature is climbing steadily towards 38 degrees.  It’s just over 30 degrees at the moment and it’s mid-morning.

Yesterday was hot;  well into the 30’s.

I had an appointment to take my delightful feline to the vet’s this morning for her ’seniors checkup’ and her annual vaccination.

She is 16 years old.

However,  she is a 3/4 persian from the RSPCA and it’s too warm to load her up into a cat basket and put her into the car and drive her off to an appointment.

That can wait until it’s cooler.

Her one desire today will be to find a patch in a garden bed in the shade near a bowl of water.  There she will lie,  stretched out, changing places to avoid the sun until the weather breaks and we have blasts of cold rain,  refreshing the plants and the trees and the earth.

It reminds me of travelling up to Newcastle from Melbourne by plane in similar heat three years ago.  The purpose of the trip was to collect a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppy from his breeder and bring him home.

Yes,   extraordinary to have to fly  interstate to collect a puppy, even with dirt-cheap air fares.  But that was the deal.  Either that or a five hour car trip to country Victoria to present ourselves for approval to a close family friend of the breeders.  Breeders who were cautious and demanding and who wanted to take every precaution before they sold their puppies and were left wondering  ‘did we make the right decision?’

The weather that day was so hot.  It was almost 40 degrees on arrival  in Newcastle and the puppy was tiny and sensitive in temperament.

We call that ’sooky’ these days as we have got to know him.

I vividly remember going to the cargo hold of the airline after we touched down in Melbourne.

It was midday.  The sun was burning.  Finally, at the end of unloading all of the cargo,  a wire crate was driven up smartly on a scooter.  Inside was this tiny 13 week old puppy, terrified and frightened out of his wits after a  bumpy, turbulent flight down to Melbourne.  It was his first time away from his mother and his home.   I recall holding him close for a long time on the grassy strip outside the cargo hold as he cried and shook and tried to burrow  beneath my hair.

How much this warm weather reminds me of old animals and very young animals;  coping with the heat.

Relying so much on their owners.  Completely relying on  their owners to watch out and care for them.

Just back from a trip across town to have a breast ultrasound done as a screening for breast cancer. There was a pause after the operator finished and she went off to show the films to the radiologist. It was at that time that I thought to myself ’what if’ there is something positive that would turn my life upside down.

Anyway, I could tell from the way it was all handled today that the result is negative.

Breast cancer can be cured if it is caught early enough.  It is one of those cancers that can.  However,  there are so many people where it has spread before it has been detected.

I am most grateful.
I can get on with my life.

Having said that, another couple of things: returned to the long walks to the park and back with the hounds last night.
I have a considerable need for a stress-buster at present.
What with Carl’s needs and ensuring that he is safe and well at home on his own,  this Christmas is a particularly busy time.

Will set off to the park again sometime today or this evening. The hounds loved it last night. They walked as fast as possible the whole way with their tongues hanging out with delight.

The other thing was that as I was driving to this imaging centre this morning, I passed a veterinary clinic with a sign out the front. This sign said:
”  …..   VetClinic.com.au. 10% off when making online appointments”

Well, this is new. The clinics around my part of town sure don’t have this type of blossoming e-business.
It all depends on the demographics surely. I wouldn’t have thought the area I was driving through has a high proportion of
generation Y’s. Ah, now that I’m thinking about it, an area with high density housing and a mobile student/young person population is nearby.

One thing I am understanding very fast indeed: it is a matter of jumping right onto this technology wagon that is moving along at high speed. I was at a seminar the other day and someone delivered a talk on ’How to Find Quality Health Information on the Internet’. It was all about using keywords in search terms, timeframes, understanding how search engines work and using advanced options to search and asking endless questions in order to evaluate the information.

Half of the audience who were over 35 years of age did not appear to tune in particularly.

It is a matter of understanding that more and more business that was conducted over the phone (eg: bookings for a vet clinic) may now be conducted over the internet.

When Carl was in hospital, they suggested video conferencing for his review at his acute teaching hospital instead of him physically going back to the hospital for an appointment.

It is a matter of accepting the need to find out, ask questions and be aware of how the internet works and how to make the best use of it.

It is here to stay. It is a matter of learning to use it to your best advantage. Maybe one suggestion could be to join a local PC-Users group in the new year. Think I may do that myself!