It’s been a strange weekend. My dog started throwing up Thursday night and, by Friday afternoon, when my dog-walking neighbor called me to tell me he was still throwing up in addition to some much smellier, harder-to-clean things, Jason and I decided that a vet appointment was definitely in order. We took him in to the Cahuenga animal hospital the next morning. We waited in the lobby with a German Shepard who had been attacked by a pit-bull and had several staples as well as a length of surgical tubing used as a drain sewed into her shaved back. There was also a cat with an ear allergy. Normally Lando would strain at his leash to check out both of these animals but he just sat under my chair, curled up in a little ball of dog, looking pathetic.
I tend to fall into the camp of overreacting to any sign of illness, my own or my dog’s. The last time I thought he was sick, I was so worried that I thought I needed to take the rest of the day off work to take him in right that instant, and then he was fine the next day. This time, though, the vet seemed more worried than I was, and named a litany of very scary things that could be wrong with him. I assumed they would poke and prod at him maybe for a few hours and then we could take him home but, because he was throwing up even water, she wanted put him on doggie I.V.s and keep him until Monday. She also wanted to charge me a sum of money that would probably buy her a new one of those Louis Vuitton bags I saw her walk in with and, because I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with my dog and didn’t want him to keep looking at me with that “Mommy, what’s wrong with me?” puppy face, I acquiesced.
AD/HD symptoms tend to get worse with stress, which, of course, creates more stress, which is why a person with AD/HD is usually either slowly trudging up a hill or falling down one at any given moment. I guess I must’ve been stressed about Lando because I managed to earn myself TWO parking tickets in two days and lock my house keys in my office. The first ticket was because of a tragically short five minutes of expired meter. I knew I had to check the meter again at 6:36 pm and I knew I should’ve set an alarm on my phone but then I started reading this REALLY funny book (This Book Will Change Your Life, which apparently has an accompanying website www.thiswebsitewillchangeyourlife.com). I mean, it was really funny. So funny that when Jason was finished with his haircut at 6:41, I looked up at the clock, swore, and ran to the car only to find that yes, I was zapped in somewhere in the five minutes that I was laughing my ass off in the salon waiting room. (Apparently there are still a few LADOT employees who have not read my pro-meter maid blog from 8/4/09.)
Thinking foolishly that LADOT lightning could only strike once, at least in one weekend, I chalked it up to bad luck. Then, the following morning I was late for work and, rather than walk the 10 minutes, I took the car so I could drive in 3 minutes, proudly sending my “in” email to attendance at 7:01 am. Since we try to keep the parking lot free for prospective students to park in, I parked outside at a meter, because it was a SUNDAY, and THEY HAVE NEVER EVER MADE YOU PAY FOR PARKING ON SUNDAYS BEFORE. So of course I didn’t look at the signs – I was running late and I had parked here without feeding the meter monster at least ten times before. How surprised was I, then, to find yet ANOTHER ticket on my windshield, and only then saw the sign that said the “2 hr parking Sunday from 11:00 – 8:00 pm.” I rescind my positive blog about meter maids.
Oh yeah, and I also left my keys in my office. These keys also included a key TO the office. Since Jason had met me at work and had keys to the car and house, I just shook my head and told him I’d get them on Monday.
Well, it’s Monday now and I’m supposed to get a call from Dr. Louis Vuitton at any minute (she’s very nice and competent, I should add) telling me I can go get Lando. And it’s a good thing that I thought of sending a text message to someone as I stood in line at the bank this morning, not because I thought of something funny to text about but because sometimes when I am bored for more than three seconds and I have nothing to knit, read, or play, I text message people, because that’s when I realize that I had left my cell phone at home. I reminded my boyfriend about 9 times last night and this morning to remind me to get Lando’s leash out of the car and then I left my phone in my apartment. (Again, Jason was with me so he was able to drive me back and let me in to my own apartment, since I had no keys.)
So Jason gets the Best Boyfriend Ever award, my vet gets a new purse, and the city of Los Angeles makes an easy $100. But I won’t care; as long as Lando gets a clean bill of health I get a happy, furry ball of dog back in my possession today.
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