State of the Pug

All is not well in Blondie's world.

I don't write much about the pug here, which doesn't seem quite fair -- she was, after all, my first "baby." However, her last few days have really stunk, so I figure she deserves some air-time on the blog.

On Saturday, I noticed that her bulgy pug eyes were perhaps a little more boogery than usual. I resolved to keep an eye on it, as eye issues in pugs can become problematic quite quickly. By Sunday evening, her left eye had completely crusted over to the point where she couldn't really open it, and I knew we were in trouble. I suspected a corneal ulcer. She's had a couple of those in her seven years, and they haven't been too serious; the worst one required a few days of goopy eye ointment and an E-collar, one of those awful cone things that dogs have to wear to keep them from making injuries worse by biting or pawing or scratching. It's truly a pathetic sight on any animal, I think, but take a pug -- who can look as though you've run over their whole family when they're in a perfectly good mood -- and add one of those contraptions, and you've got I HAVE NO FRIENDS and I HAVEN'T EATEN IN DAYS and I AM ALL ALONE IN THE RAIN. I wasn't looking forward to that possibility.

We called the vet right away on Monday morning, and I took Blondie in after school. She was clearly miserable, with all sorts of crusty yellow goop around her eye (I was too afraid to look closely at the eye itself at that point), but let me tell you about my dog and the vet. She loves the vet, loves the vet with an undying adoration beyond all reason. The minute we scoot in the door she's all, "Look at me, look at me!" and the receptionists all coo at her and say, "THERE'S our Blondie! Look at her tail! She's so wiggly! Blondie! Blondie! There's a good girl!" She really struts her stuff all over the waiting room. And even though they do terrible things to her there -- they take her temperature in a rather uncomfortable place, for instance, and I always have them trim her nails, and for her, that is apparently just as bad as removing them would be -- she never stops throwing herself at people and licking and wiggling. We board her there whenever we take a trip that isn't dog-friendly, and when I go back to pick her up, the receptionists look at me glumly and say, "Oh. It's you." Then I have to wait while they march my pug through the clinic to say good-bye to every single vet, every single vet tech, and all the receptionists. And then they bring her back to me, wearing a bandana that they custom-made for her.

Anyway, she really loves the attention she gets at this place, and I trust them to take good care of her. So I tried not to panic when one of her vets (she has three, we love them all) peered at her eye and grimaced. The look on his face suggested that I should prepare myself to hear, "Sorry, but we're going to have to remove the eye." IT WAS THAT BAD.

Well, no, it wasn't that bad; Blondie isn't going to lose her eye (I hope). But it's pretty bad. She does indeed have a corneal ulcer, but it's a nasty one, right smack in the middle of her eye. It's visible even without the dye strip, like there really is just a big chunk torn out. It's horrifying. I have a pretty strong constitution when it comes to these things, I think, but I had a hard time looking at my dog's eye (and that green dye doesn't help. It made her eye all green and glowy and alien-like). I tried not to sob, "How did this happen? She's hardly outside, and she's never alone with the toddler, and the toddler is really gentle with her anyway..."

The vet said it probably was as simple as her running into something and reassured me that pugs can damage their eyes in a plain old room with walls and a door sometimes. First of all, they're not -- well, they're not the most graceful animals. Second of all, they have those really bulgy eyes (oh, how I love her huge brown eyes! HER POOR EYES!) and really slow blink reflexes. So when they run into something, or when they see something coming at them, they don't close their eyes in time. I couldn't think of anything Blondie could run into; when she's inside, she's normally lying in a heap in one of her beds, and she only moves quickly when I get her food dish (or when I make popcorn, which is her life's obsession). I suspect she injured her eye in the yard, either by wandering too close to the bush underneath our bedroom window, or by racing along the fence with the neighbor's dachsunds. She gets going so fast sometimes, and she's not looking straight ahead -- she's looking at those shrieky little dogs -- and I've seen her stumble and crash face-first into the fence when her momentum really gets going. (Ahem. I suppose now you're going to be tempted to make jokes about pugs and their FLAT FACES and how they ALWAYS LOOK LIKE THEY'VE CRASHED FACE-FIRST into something. Ha, ha.)

We were sent on our way with some goopy ointment, an E-collar, and orders to apply it every few hours. The vet thinks it will probably heal all right, hopefully with minimal scarring. Blondie gets E-collar breaks to drink water every few hours and to eat, and the rest of the time, she sits forlornly on the beanbag chair in the familiy room, the only place she can manage to get comfortable with this contraption on her head.

While we were there, I had her nails trimmed, because her day wasn't quite rotten enough. She struggled and thrashed and ended up bleeding pretty heavily from one toe (how she's never had one cut off is a miracle to me, and also the reason I will never, ever trim her nails myself). But she pranced into the hallway as cheerfully as ever, where she was promptly surrounded by people wearing scrubs telling her WHAT A GOOD LITTLE GIRL she was.

Problem? I don't have a problem. Reading isn't a problem.

We went to dinner at a pub in Tacoma with my brother and sister-in-law on Saturday night. We drove the back roads to get there, which are thickly lined with trees that part every so often to allow a beautiful view of Puget Sound. We drove down at dusk, and splatters of rain hit the windshield while winds tossed the trees, showering us with leaves bright against the grey sky. The leaves were so thick in the air at one point -- but falling in slow swirls -- that it looked as though they were coming from the sky as well. That moment changed everything about my day, somehow, in that small way that moments can.

And now, a list of books I bought at Powell's:

Paper Towns, by John Green -- I read the uncorrected galley proof in September and loved it. And yes, I still have to own this one. I'm pretty sure you understand this if you're a John Green fan.

Making Certain It Goes On: The Collected Poems of Richard Hugo -- it's a completely beautiful book, one I probably won't find in the skimpy poetry sections at Borders or Barnes and Noble. I'd probably find it at The Country Bookshelf in Bozeman, because I always think of him as a Montana poet -- but I won't be there until December, and this one grabbed me now. I love his work and owning the full collection makes me...so happy.

The Little Friend, by Donna Tartt -- because it was only five dollars for a nice hardcover edition, and because I loved The Secret History. Matt spilled some of his pretentious Oregon beer on the spine and it smells a little beery now, but otherwise it's still in pretty good shape.

The Stories of Doris Lessing -- because I was seduced by the gorgeous copy, because I need to read more short stories, and because she's a brilliant and -- in my opinion -- incredibly important writer, even if she was less than gracious when she was first informed that she'd won the Nobel Prize earlier this year.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer -- because a friend of mine insisted it would "destroy" me, because I need to get over my irritation at his existence and read something he's written already before I write him off as over-hyped, because I've almost bought this book about a hundred times so far, and because I found a very nice, very cheap hardcover. I do like hardcover editions if they're not too bulky and I think they're a book I'm going to want to read and "use" again.

The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon -- because the new English teacher, who reads as voraciously as I do and used to work at the Elliott Bay Book Company, said I just had to read it. And everything I've read about it suggests that it'll be an over-the-top but completely gorgeous reading experience. (Also, it was a discounted copy -- still in great shape, though.)

The Discomfort Zone, by Jonathan Franzen -- another cheap (but slender and attractive) hardcover. Because The Corrections is one of my favorite books, and because this is nonfiction and broken into easily-readable sections -- a book like this is something I can insert into my day, read a little here and a little there, and have it finished in no time.

A completely gorgeous collection of John Steinbeck's later novels: Travels With Charley, Sweet Thursday, The Wayward Bus, Burning Bright, The Winter of Our Discontent. I bought the Library of America version -- those are often really expensive, but they're gorgeous and sturdy and, despite being hardcover editions, they're surprisingly easy to cart around, unlike the typical bulky editions of new releases. It's been too long since I've read Steinbeck and he cracks my heart wide open.

I also bought my Moleskine Weekly Planner for 2009. I am severely addicted to those.

We bought Suzannah several Little Golden Books, including some classic favorites: The Poky Little Puppy, Scuffy the Tugboat, Dan the Bandage Man, and The Little Red Hen. There's one about Grover from Sesame Street that I find hilarious, and a few others, I think, that I can't immediately recall.

I don't remember what Matt came home with, because my brain has shut down. I'm going to go snuggle my stack of books now.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

She was awfully cute, even if it took a lot of convincing for her to keep her costume on. She did better at her Halloween party with the other kiddos -- I think it helped to see everyone else wearing a costume. I especially like Blondie's face here; she was all, hey, I was trying to sleep.


She was trying to reach for her sweats -- I'd tossed them on top of her dresser. She even sobbed "Please!"


This is a baby backpack I had as a child. You can see her little doll's feet sticking out at the bottom.


She did love carving pumpkins! (If you look carefully, you can see my stack of books from Powell's on the dining room table. Hi, books!)