Three Beautiful Things 03/28/18: Corgi Checkup, Tasty Hybrid Soup, Teri Sent Me Pictures of Mom

1. Maggie and Charly spent the day at Kellogg Pet Medical Center. They were due for some vaccinations, due for a check up, and it was time for them to be shampooed and groomed. The Deke made this appointment for the corgis before she left for Maryland/New York and wondered if we might find out if we can do anything about Maggie's new habit of waking up every couple of hours during the night, wanting to eat. The vet couldn't give us any definite answers. He speculated that Maggie might have Cushing's Disease, but when he listed symptoms to me, Maggie shows none of them outside of increased hunger -- but this increased hunger is only a nighttime phenomenon. The other possibility? Well, older dogs, and Maggie is nearly fourteen years old, can develop dementia and one symptom of canine dementia is sleep-wake cycle disturbance. I've read what other symptoms can be: pacing, anxiety, staring at walls (that's me), elimination disorders and I don't see much, if any, of these behaviors in Maggie.

I talked with the Deke about my visit and we are going to wait and see how Maggie does over the next couple of weeks or so. The Deke returns in the middle of April. We will assess what I've seen in Maggie, she'll make her observations, and we'll go from there.

The good news? No emergency. Even better news? Maggie is full of energy. When we go to the basement together, she bounds up the stairs upon our return. Her elimination habits are the same as they've always been and she's not having accidents in the house. She continues to be Charly's good friend with no signs of aggression.

She simply wants to eat about every two hours through the night, beginning around 11 or midnight.

I assured the Deke that this isn't annoying me, not making me mad. I know these wakings are coming every night and when Maggie starts to insist on a feeding, I just get up, feed the dogs a bit of food, give them a chance to go out in the back yard, and we all return to bed.

2. I was just going about my day today, writing, listening to news podcasts, mailing out Mom's tax returns, talking with Christy, and so on when it suddenly struck me that I had the ingredients on hand for a potentially very delicious soup. I had a pound of ground beef on hand so I browned it and added celery and sliced mushrooms and broccoli to the meat. When these vegetables had softened, I pulled a quart of my homemade onion soup out of the refrigerator and poured it in. I let it heat up and, after a while, I added sour cream to this emerging soup and the result was a rich, savory, very tasty ground beef and onion stroganoff soup. It turns out this soup was a hybrid of onion soup I prepared after braising chicken thighs a couple of weeks ago, onions and liquid that were at the bottom of the pork roast braise I prepared for family dinner a little over a week ago, and the combination of ground beef, vegetables, and sour cream I already described. I'm very happy that I still have a bowl or so leftover to enjoy again in the near future.

3. Through Facebook, Teri (Rucker) Brandt, KHS Class of 1972, several of my other classmates, and I are in contact with each other.  Teri informed me, possibly reminded me, that she visited her mother here in the Kellogg area in 2009 and, along with Doris Kerns, they paid Mom a visit. Today, Teri passed on to me pictures of that visit. These pictures startled me in a very good way. It had been a while since I'd seen pictures of Mom that I'd never seen before. I was thrilled to see Mom looking so fun-loving and happy, looking so light in spirit and maybe even unburdened by pain. I laughed when I saw she was wearing a Shady Lady Saloon T-shirt. Here are the two pictures. I hope you see the lightness of being in Mom I'm trying to describe and enjoy seeing her look so good:

Teri's Mom, Doris Kerns, Mom

Doris Kerns, Teri Brandt, Mom