Pupdate on Mommy-Dog: All went well - but what's up with the cheese?

A lot of our friends have asked, so I thought I should provide a pupdate:  Mom's surgery went well.  Dad says the titanium plate looks really cool on X-ray.  Mom is fine and is home resting on the couch trying to decide between the Olympics and True Blood reruns.  She is really  playing the sympathy card and is taking full advantage of the situation.  (She’s all “honey could you get me this?” and “honey could you get me that?” – and Honey isn’t even here!  She's in Australia, for pete's sake!)

But the truly remarkable aspect of all this?  

Mom came home with a giant block of cheese on her arm.  

Excuse my language, but there’s really no other way to put this – WTF?

Cheese arm

Booga's Birthday Bash - Part 1

On July 3, my Grampa Booga turned 80 years old!  His birthday festivities began on July 3 and continued for several weeks afterwards.  The humans and the pups had such great fun celebrating!

On July 3, we went down to Beaufort, North Carolina for the first party, which was a joint party for Booga and David, who share a birthday.  It was David's 50th birthday, so the two of them celebrated 130 years!  

Everyone had a wonderful time and no one was ready to go home when the party was over, so they all (including Booga) went to a nearby bar and continued to celebrate until the wee hours.  (how many 80 year olds follow the "young" people when they go out carousing?)

Grampa Booga
July 3, 2012

I wasn't able to go to the party because it was in a restaurant, but I went along for the trip anyway because we found a dog-friendly hotel, and mom & dad hate to go places without me.  I'm a very good traveler and I love to walk and sniff and pee in new & different places.  Plus it was 102 degrees F in Richmond when we left but only 85 down in Morehead City where we stayed, so it was a nice break from the heat.  And our hotel was a short walk from a beautiful neighborhood for walking, so I got to walk and pee and sniff in a new place.

Walking near our hotel in Morehead City

Making sure they don't forget me

It was an extra special treat that mom & dad were able to make it to the party in Beaufort.  It was such a fun group of family and friends, and they all really enjoyed themselves.  

Grampa Booga, Grandma Gayle, & Amos
circa 1950s
(Apparently being a dog person is hereditary)

The sound of one hand typing

Many of my friends and readers have asked about my mom and how she is doing, so I thought I would provide a pupdate.  Mom has a "comminuted" fracture of her left radius and ulna.  We were out hiking last Saturday and she slipped on a wet slippery rock, fell backwards, and caught herself with her left hand.


Because the bone is broken into several pieces, mom is having surgery tomorrow to install a titanium plate with a couple screws -- to put things back together and hold them together until things heal.  (I can picture it now -- my Uncle Randy will be chasing her around with a magnet.)  The joint wasn't involved, which is great news, and the surgery is being performed by the doc who did both of mom's carpal tunnel surgeries, who is thought to be the best hand/wrist doc in Richmond.


Mom is not really worried about it because she has had a number of other surgeries, the most notable of which was when she fractured her left olecranon (a small bone in the elbow) 20+ years ago in a hang gliding accident (yes, I said hang gliding) and had to have it wired together.  (People think my mom is brave/crazy now -- you should have seen her when she was young.)

Mom & what was left of her training glider
circa 1991

Mom with crunched hang glider

Mom says to tell everyone she appreciates the thoughts and kind words.  She is doing fine and sees this all as a minor inconvenience and a consequence of an active life.  

Mom doing fine

As you know, mom is my assistant, IT staff, chauffeur, hiking buddy, chief belly-rubber, etc.  She was working on helping me with a couple blog posts before she broke her wrist, so she will likely help me finish those up because they are already mostly typed.  But I may be blogging less frequently for a while until she gets full use of both hands back.  She said it's difficult to type with one hand.  Hmpfff - try typing with PAWS.  And the Silly Photo Contest prizes will be delayed for perhaps another month or two.  (Mom can't even open mail right now, much less package up prizes.)  


But as long as she can still scratch my belly, we're good


Mom insists that I include some photos of her actually flying, lest you draw false conclusions about her hang gliding skills from the above photos.  Before she retired from hang gliding, she earned her Hang 2 hang glider pilot's rating and had 9 mountain flights and hundreds of training hill flights under her belt.

5/9/94 - Mom's first mountain flight

Thanksgiving 1994 - Mom & her snazzy
new glider

Birthday Hike Number 2! -- and a minor mommy mishap

It was cooler today, and since we're still celebrating Mommy-Dog's birthday, we went on a special mommy-and-me birthday hike.


Mom checked the river level and the river level forecast as well as the weather forecast (high of 78 - TOTALLY AWESOME) and we set out early, which is our preference.


The river was beautiful, and there was hardly anyone else on the trail, since it was early and overcast.


We hiked out to the secret island, and I splashed and swam and retrieved my ball. We were having lots of fun, but then mom stepped on a wet, slippery rock. She slipped and fell, and reached back with her left hand to catch herself. She may have said an HBO word or two. 


After righting herself, she looked at her wrist and knew it was broken because it looked kinda' funky. So we had to stop playing and head back. It was starting to rain a bit anyway. 


After we got home, Dad took mom to this awesome place called Ortho On Call. The people there were really nice. They xrayed her hand and found out her wrist is broken into a bunch of pieces and she will have to have surgery to fix it. Mom says it's no big deal. She doesn't think it's as bad as when she broke her elbow hang gliding and they had to wire the pieces of bone together for it to heal. She's kinda accident prone, you know.


So I may be blogging a bit less for a while (although she does pretty good with the iPhone Blogger app and typing with just her right hand), and the contest prizes may take longer to complete, but the bright side is that I may get some extra snuggle time out of this. Fortunately her right hand is her dominant petting and belly-rubbing hand.

This is where we started

We stopped at one of my favorite swimming spots

I can walk on water

Early morning river

You have to walk across a dam to get to the secret island

I'm a very brave puppy

We had the island all to ourselves

This old sycamore is one of our favorite trees

Splashin'

On the way back, in the rain, with an injured photographer

Birthday Hike! (and CAKE!)

Tuesday was my Mom's birthday, so she took the day off from work, and Dad and I took her on a birthday hike! 


It was REALLY hot, so we didn't hike very far. We hiked along the trail at Texas Beach, where I could jump in the river and cool off whenever I wanted to.

Splashin' in the James River

Mysterious rock towers at Texas Beach
Mom says they are called cairns,
but I think that's a kind of terrier

Retrieving between the cairns

Liberating a stick

Mom seemed to like those rock things

Post hike, relaxing in Hero's bed
(he couldn't take it with him to Scotland -
what a pity)

Of course, if it's a birthday, the humans must have cake (Dad insists), and they must have cake made by my mom's friend Pam of Sugar Cain Bakery.  (You may have seen my post Did someone say CAKE? about my dad's birthday cake.)

Pam decorated mom's cake with mom's favorite things.

This is ME -- in the ocean on top of mom's birthday cake

Me on top, seahorses and a sponge below

Coral, jellyfish, a starfish

Fishies, coral, and jellyfish

This is Nugget, one of Pam's 5 chickens,
all of whom assist in cake production
by conveniently laying eggs on Pam's
deck furniture and under her kayak
(but not in the chicken house)

As usual, I wasn't allowed to have any of the cake because it was chocolate and mom says I can't have chocolate for some silly reason.  So I just had to sit and watch while mom and dad ate cake and made comments about how fresh and delicious it was.  Totally NOT fair.

Mom said she had a wonderful birthday because she got to spend it with me and dad, her two favorite creatures on the planet, and she got to go hiking, one of her favorite activities.  Plus it was the perfect continuation of all the fun we had celebrating Grampa Booga's birthday -- but telling you about that will have to wait until another post.

NEED CAKE?

Mom says to tell you that if you are in the Richmond, Virginia area and need a cake (birthday, wedding, retirement, etc.), you should check out Sugar Cain Bakery's website and Sugar Cain Bakery photos.  Mom says that her friend Pam's cakes are the best-tasting, freshest, and most beautiful cakes she has ever had (well, except for Grandma Gayle's cakes).  Dad seconds that -- in fact, he is totally obsessed with Sugar Cain Bakery cakes.  He is always trying to think of new occasions to have a cake.  Sugar Cain Bakery cakes are also very reasonably priced.  Nugget asked me to point out that the cakes are all made from very fresh eggs.

Contest Announcement - Re: Prizes!

We have been very busy celebrating birthdays (Grampa turned 80 and Mom turned 45 25) but I am interrupting the ongoing celebration for these important announcements:

Announcement Number 1:

I still need shipping addresses for some of the winners.  If you have not already done so, please email your address to me at garth DOT riley AT rocketmail DOT com

Announcement Number 2:

As you may recall, a donation to All Breed Rescue & Training in the winner's honor was part of certain prizes.  All Breed Rescue & Training is a Colorado Springs-based nonprofit organization that helps place at-risk shelter dogs and provides educational services to their community.  During the recent Waldo Canyon fire, All Breed Rescue provided shelter for pets who had to evacuate their homes due to the fire, and helped with overflow from the local animal shelter.  Because the fire was in everyone's minds while my contest was going on, I wanted to contribute to an organization that assisted in the relief efforts, particularly with respect to the animals who were affected by the fire.

So, in honor of Smudge, Trooper, Stella, Dirk, Honey, Lightning and Cobi, I have made a donation to All Breed Rescue & Training in the amount of $60.  

Announcement Number 3:

The other prizes will be sent to you as they are completed.  This may take 2-4 weeks, depending upon how much longer we will be celebrating.  (And yes, I have lots of photos of the festivities which I will share in upcoming posts.)

The whole family got together to celebrate
Grampa's birthday.  This is me, my cousin
Mia, and my cousin Sadie, playing tug on the beach.

ANNOUNCING THE WINNERS!!!

First of all, thank you thank you thank you for your participation  and enthusiasm!  It made me so happy that my FIRST EVER contest was so well received!  I got LOTS of entries and LOTS of positive comments, and I'm so happy my readers have enjoyed it!

Second of all, thank you so much to the judges!  I appreciate the extreme effort you put forth over the past week, spending long hours chain-chewing bully sticks, carefully contemplating each photo, and agonizing over your decisions.  (As you can imagine, we judges had a very difficult time choosing from amongst all of the wonderfully silly entries.  We would like to give awards to ALL of the entries, because they are all so awesome and deserving!)

Third of all, I hereby announce the winners!

Technologically-Enhanced Silliness

1st: Roo - Roo's Doins

2nd: Lightning - The Chronicle of Woos

3rd: Arabella - Arabella

LOL Awards: Miss Mindy - Hood's Happenings

Local Silliness  

1st: Noro

2nd: Zosia

3rd: Serveta the Cowboy

Coolness award: Serveta the feminist (due to my household's feminist leanings, we think this is great!)

LOL Awards: Noro

The judges were united in thinking that Bob should receive special recognition because he’s a turtle!

Pure Silliness -- Silly Creatures

1st: Molly & Faline - Ludo, Ludwig van Doggie (who knew that bunnies could be silly?)

2nd: Zip - K-9 Katastrophie

3rd: Billy Boy - K-9 Katastrophie

 

Pure Silliness -- Silly Kitties

1st: Trooper - Friends FurEver

2nd: Dirk - Quilts, Cats and Automobiles

3rd: Zoey - Zoolatry & Gracie - Goodness Gracie (tied)

LOL Awards: Princeton - Prancer Pie

Pure Silliness -- Silly Woofies

1st: Stella - Stella and Rory from Down Under

2nd: Honey - Honey the Great Dane

3rd: Ruthie - K-9 Katastrophie

LOL Awards: Fiona - Another Tequila Sunrise

Pure Silliness -- Silly Woofies -- Garth’s Picks (yes this is a whole new category that I created to recognize my favorite woofie photos) (I can do this because I’m in charge!)

1^st: Abby -  Another Tequila Sunrise and Oliver (tied)

2^nd: Casey - The Legacy Chronicles

3^rd: Jacobi - The Dog Who Doesn't Fetch and Reuben - floppy tongue joy (tied)

and last but not least (drumroll) . . .

Grand Prize: Smudge - Mayzie's Dog Blog

Important notice to all winners: Please send me an email at garth DOT riley AT rocketmail DOT com with your shipping address and the name of your human.  Prizes will take 2-4 weeks, maybe longer, because they are hand-crafted and customized, so please be patient.