Five for Friday, Edition #50: The Good and Bad of Our Four-Legged Friends

There's a lot (too much?) of capslock in this post. I'm just warning you. If you don't want to watch me go off the rails in real typing time, maybe skip this post. 

1) Remember that adorable fawn with its mom? Well, the fawn is no longer in the picture and the doe has taken to sitting under our pine tree drooling. She's skin and bones and is not even remotely moved when Hannah lunges and barks at her, so we're pretty sure she has CWD (don't click that link if you don't want to be sad). It's not a good scene. The DNR thanked us for calling, but told us to the call our local police, who politely told us to fuck off. So, hey, if next week there's an update about a dead deer in our yard, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR MY REACTION. (NOTE: She hasn't been in our yard for about 24 hours. I am hoping she went off and died in an appropriate deer dying place, LIKE THE WOODS.)

2) Speaking of, we think something died in our basement and it smells repulsive. We cannot figure out WHAT died, though, OR WHERE IT IS, so if you come to our house, now it smells like dog shit AND dead animal. WELCOME TO THE GIMBALSH HOUSEHOLD, HERE'S SOME queaseEASE. (I don't think this is actually true, but who the hell knows? I'm nose blind to the house at this point. Who wants to volunteer to come visit and tell me?)

3) I hit a ground squirrel on the way to work this morning. Am I sad about this? YES. There was also a dead squirrel in front of the sidewalk two doors down earlier this week and Hannah now thinks that when we get to that sidewalk square, we need to walk ten feet into the yard to avoid it. She is so smart that she was trained to do that on only two walks, isn't she? 

She is all nose. 

4) Life hack: Some months ago, we switched kitty litters to Lightweight Tidy Cats after years of using the cheapest 40 pound bag I could get at the local pet store. THIS HAS BEEN LIFE CHANGING. It's less dusty, less stinky, and when I spill it, it doesn't require every single muscle in my upper body to clean it up. I strongly prefer the scent free versions; there are Glade versions that I think are sort of gross - do you want your cat poop to be covered up with the artificial scent of an ocean with dead fish? Anyway. Do you have a cat? Does it use litter? Consider lightweight litter. Pro tip from me to you.

Collage of bad photos I have taken of my pretty kitty. She refuses to look at the camera when I take out my phone. She's like a sulky teen. I'm particularly fond of the one where she's cuddling scissors and earbuds. 

5) Life hack: Make homemade capsules for the bitter powder your dog has to take for the rest of her life. Remember Hannah's GI issues? Well, the vet has given up on trying to treat whatever the underlying cause of it is. Apparently some dogs, MOSTLY SHEPHERDS, OF COURSE, are just on this medication all the time. So now Hannah's in that club. Anyway, we bought some 1000 (ONE THOUSAND) empty capsules, fancy tweezers to hold said capsules, and now we have an assembly line of pill making once a month. DON'T YOU WISH YOU LIVED WITH US?

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Random things I need to tell of you.

1) I'm going to be out of town for a conference next week, so I'll be MIA. Am I looking forward to this conference? Absolutely not. But I might get to see my cousin, so that's all right. Oh, if you happen to be in Philly on Monday morning, let me know. I have nothing on my calendar right now. I'm not opposed to sleeping in, to be honest. 

2) What is this complete and utter bullshit? TREES ARE ALREADY CHANGING. I HAD TO WEAR REAL SHOES ON TUESDAY BECAUSE IT WAS TOO COLD FOR SANDALS. Bring back summer! Boo to fall! Next year I'm moving to Belize. (I am not moving to Belize.)

3) I don't remember the third thing. It's probably for the best.

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Any news from four-legged creatures in your life? Are the leaves changing where you live? How do you feel about that? Are you going to be in Philadelphia early next week?

Photo Every Day: July 2026, Week 4

Thursday, July 23 - This time of year we sometimes have tiny ants come inside our house, especially in our shoddily constructed addition. We use Terro bait traps and they do a pretty good job. However, a certain feline was playing with the trap, which WE DO NOT WANT, so Dr. BB had to construct a solution. A Chewy box is almost always the solution.

Friday, July 24 - Our new local bookstore had a fun Dungeon Crawler Carl bingo night. It was really quite delightful and we had a good time. I'm really enjoying having a bookstore in town and am basically going to go to every event there I possibly can in order to make sure it survives. 

Saturday, July 25 - Is it possible that the only photos I took all day were of my kitty? Yes, yes, it is. Also, we're kind of worried about Zelda Belda. She's not eating well, even though her weight is stable. I'm giving it another week of her weird eating habits before I call the vet. She's on a steroid, which is supposed to increase her appetite, but maybe we need to up her dosage. Poor baby girl.

Sunday, July 26 - This should be illegal. Usually Costco can do no wrong in my world, but this is unacceptable.

Monday, July 27 - I have once again forgotten I was supposed to take a photo every day this month. This is my dog. She's walking before bed. She's not happy about it.

Tuesday, July 28 - You guys. I'm so bad at this. Let's pretend Tuesday didn't exist.

Wednesday, July 29 - Last freshman registration event of the summer! Woot! They have been doing construction in the building we use all summer long and they're redoing some lab spaces. I took a photo to show that the reno is nearly done! Next summer we'll get to use these classroom spaces and we're pretty excited about it. 

Thursday, July 30 - Do you want some whiplash? Now we're at a waterpark! My husband's siblings and all their kids are in a Wisconsin family fun area (Wisconsin Dells) and we are doing all the things. 

Friday, July 31 - Back at the VRBO, my nieces are attempting to teach me to make friendship bracelets. I have to admit that there was a lot of poking fun at Aunt NGS for not being able to figure this shit out. 

Saturday, August 1 - My husband and I took my niece and we got our nails done. Her first manicure! We're obviously building core memories over here. 

Sunday, August 2 - I have no words for this. All of the kids are surrounding their grandfather and his wife. Have you ever seen anything so cute?

And that's a wrap on July. Thank heavens because I am bad at remembering to take a photo every day. 

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What's a favorite memory you have from July? 

Three Things Thursday

Stephany does an occasional Three Things Thursday series, so I thought I'd do something similar. I feel like hers is less whining than mine. 

Three Times I've Felt Invisible

1. I have complained about the limited number of self-checkout lanes for more than a handful of items at our local grocery store before and I'm here to do it AGAIN. If the store is going to limit self-checkout to only ONE lane for people with more than a few items and then that lane doesn't work, we're going to have to wait in line for a cashier. Fine. (It's not fine. I want to bag my own groceries.) The cashier did a fine job, although Amy's tendency to chuck items down to the bag means we had to toss a can of tomatoes because there was a brand new dent on it after she threw it. Fine. That's the cost of dealing with a human being who doesn't care about our groceries. 

But the bagger. Her name was Kylie. Was she drunk? High? I specifically said, "hey, those nectarines are very ripe - can you treat them like they're the most precious things on earth?" and then she threw them into the bag. Fine. But then. THEN. She literally threw baking potatoes on top of them. My husband and I both yelled don't, but it was too late. My nectarines were squashed. 

This happened more than a week ago and I'm STILL STEWING ABOUT THIS. Customer service is dead. If I have to checkout at a lane with a cashier and bagger, I'm not so politely telling the bagger to get out of my way and not touch a single item. 

2. It's registration season here at my job. In the afternoon, I do a presentation to all the students in our college to tell them what classes to register for and how do so. So I'm in the computer lab working with students and I say, "hey, can you open X program?" and they say "how?" and I say "how did I tell you to do it?" knowing I told them at least three times and they say "you didn't." AND THEN I SCREAM politely, but maybe not patiently, tell them how to do it AGAIN.

3. I was waiting patiently in line at a local business and when the person in front of me was finished, the people behind me just barreled in front of me and checked out. Like...I was standing right there? Maybe I AM invisible. 

Three Things Happening Right Now

1. As mentioned above, student registration is this month. June sucks at my job. So I'm basically doing the bare minimum in the rest of my life. But don't feel too badly for me because July is going to be a whole lot easier. 

2. Our book club is reading a book by a local author and we asked the author if she'd like to come to our next meeting. We'll see how it goes.

3. My new office chair came in. I'm enjoying it. 

Three Podcasts You Should Listen To

1. Sea of Lies - Some folks on a fishing boat find a dead body. How that dead body got to be there is batshit crazy. There's international fugitives, financial crimes, stolen identities, and incest. What more could you want? Everyone told me to listen to this last year and I didn't because I resist popular things, but I should not have resisted. 

2. Time Capsule: The Silver Chain - I was NOT expecting this. A reporter stumbles upon newsletters from a swingers club in 1970s suburban Minnesota. He starts researching the club and what happened to its members. It sounds salacious, but instead turned out to be heartbreaking.

3. Dirtbag Climber - A rock climber in Squamish, British Columbia is shot dead. Who would want to kill him? Well, it turns out that the suspect list is pretty large because the guy was really a dirtbag. Great investigative podcast. 

Three Photos of Zelda (she is perfection)

MY PRECIOUS KITTEN

Three Times My Husband Made Me Snort Laugh

1. Our car has this feature where it recognizes who's driving and adjusts the seat settings for that driver. My husband recently shaved and now the car doesn't recognize him. He made a new profile with "Summer Ted" as the name and now the car says "Hello Summer Ted" with a pink colored background whenever he's driving. This makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.

2. We were at the grocery store yesterday and parked next to an SUV as per usual. As we were getting out, the SUV guy was emptying stuff out of a cooler in his trunk and one thing was an egg carton and he just flung the water out of it. I looked at my husband and said "I'm surprised you didn't get wet" and he said "well, I wasn't expecting egg water on my foot today, but here we are." AND I LAUGHED SO HARD. EGG WATER.

3. The way he will watch endless videos of Belgian Malinois dogs snapping at air. 

Three Books I Have Requested from the Library

1. Kittentits by Holly Wilson - The aforementioned book club book. It sounds absolutely unhinged.

2. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn - Kind of a cool premise. Letters keep getting banned, so the book follows suit and doesn't use those letters. I'm excited to see if it lives up to expectations.

3. The Unseen World by Liz Moore - The guest on this week's Sarah's Bookshelves podcast recommended this so highly that I couldn't stop myself from putting it on hold. 

Three Things I've Watched Recently

1. The Princess Bride - When I mentioned to my husband that I'd never seen this movie, but I felt like I had the gist through bits and pieces because it was always on TBS when I was a teenager (baby Fred Savage, rolling down the hill, a torture machine?), my husband was HORRIFIED. So I watched it. I think it's probably the first movie I have watched since before COVID. 

2. Taskmaster - The current season's final episode will be available tomorrow. I'm finding the current season pretty meh, but even a meh season of TM is better than most television. 

3. This guy talking about birds on YouTube.

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What's the last movie you watched? What was the last photo of a pet you've taken? 

May 2026 Photo A Day: Week Four

Saturday, May 23 - Look at this cat!! I can't stand the cuteness.

Sunday, May 24 - It was our anniversary. I forgot about the yearly photo until it was nearly bedtime. We took a selfie. It is horribly unflattering to both of us, but I guess in the interest of keeping this tradition alive, here's a terrible photo.

Monday, May 25 - Two photos that sort of touch on how weird it felt to be "celebrating" Memorial Day today. 

First up, $2.79 for a pint versus $1.50 for a pint is a difference that makes a difference in whether or not I'm going to buy these raspberries. WHAT'S THE PRICE, GROCERY STORE?

Then there's this. If there's never been a sadder execution of patriotism, I haven't seen it. Happy Memorial Day, America.

Tuesday, May 26 - My Tuesday night fitness class has ended for the summer, but we all walked over to our local ice cream stand for some sweet treats. 

Wednesday, May 27 - Tomorrow is our first registration event at work. It's a lot of work on our end and it meant we spent much of the afternoon in one of our academic buildings getting things ready. The theme: random animals. Also, the internet and phones went out for HOURS and we had no idea because we were busy cleaning, writing on whiteboards, and taking photos of random animals.

Thursday, May 28 - Zelda is basically allowed anywhere downstairs except for the table and stove/countertops. Anywhere else? Fine. Guess where I found her when I came out of the shower tonight?

Friday, May 29 - For the last two weeks, we've had to give Hannah this antibiotic that comes in a powder and is really bitter tasting. We have had to do this twice a day. It involves copious amounts of pumpkin and chicken HANDFED TO THE DOG. Today is the last day we have to do this. Now it will be a couple of weeks of once a day and then a couple of weeks of once every other day and then once every two days and then "as needed." 

I wish I could take a photo of Hannah's face as she eats this stuff. (I can't because my hands are covered in pumpkin.) She hates it so much. I haven't been to work on time in weeks because it's taking me twenty minutes to get her to eat two tablespoons of this what I can only imagine is a gross pumpkin mixture. Anyway, here's to only having to do it at dinnertime from now on! I can (maybe?) get to work on time. 

Saturday, May 30 - It's peony time!

Sunday, May 31 - Gratuitous photos of my girls. 

New Hannah habit: Doesn't want to be on a walk, but also doesn't want to come inside when we get to the house, so she just lays down on the driveway. 

Are you familiar with the rescue dog internet meme where they take photos of dogs before and after being told they were good. Here's Hannah's version.

Before:

After "you're such a good girl for eating that yucky pumpkin":

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What flowers are in bloom near you? Could you draw your favorite animal? 

May 2026 Photo A Day: Week Three

Saturday, May 16 - It's too hot for Hannah. We are literally less than a block from our house and she just can't do it anymore. 

Sunday, May 17 - Anne and Birchie came over to visit! They bribed Hannah with chicken and we worked on a jigsaw puzzle. And Hannah and I are not as good at doggy selfies as Birchie is.

She looks so worried!

Monday, May 18 - For exciting reasons, I cannot attend my regular fitness class tomorrow after work. My fitness instructor holds a class at a neighboring town on Mondays, though, so I left work early and attended that one instead. There was a yellow goat at the park where we were throwing ourselves about.

Tuesday, May 19 - I went to an author event with Sarah and her friend Shannon at the Madison Public Library. It was so much fun!

Wednesday, May 20 - Listen, friends. An old dog does not want to go for a walk. An old dog wants to lay down in the sun. 

Photo credit: Dr. BB

Thursday, May 21 - THIS CAT. I can't tell you how much I want to squeeze her because of her cuteness. 

Photo credit: Dr. BB

Friday, May 22 - This area was underwater last month! I love how grumpy Hannah looks in all these photos. She's SO SERIOUS. I frequently wonder what it would be like to have a goofy dog. 

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When's the last time you were at the library? Took a picture of a dog?

May 2026 Photo A Day: Week Two

Saturday, May 9 - The only photo I took all day long! Sheesh. I let Hannah loose in the football field behind the middle school. She stayed when I told her to, but refused to actually look at me to acknowledge it. 

Sunday, May 10 - Is Hannah spoiled well cared for? Well, the coffee table usually sits where Hannah is laying, but Hannah wanted to be in the sunny spot, so my husband moved the table for her. If your dog doesn't get this level of care, I don't know how your dog survives. 

Monday, May 11 - Look at my baby. She's a sloppy, sloppy eater and drinker. Did you know that? She makes ten times the mess Hannah does. We must clean her mat and bowls about ten times a day. BUT LOOK AT HER FACE. I think she's the cutest thing on the entire planet. 

Tuesday, May 12 - I was scouting out the riverwalk on my morning walk with Hannah because we were having our fitness class later on the day and I wanted to let the instructor know if it was safe to use. It's dry from the start to the end! Silty and sandy, but dry. 

Wednesday, May 13 - Look, friend, Hannah is having a time of it and I'm exhausted. This is what you get today - "notes" I took in our team meeting.

Thursday, May 14 - Hannah! Look at me! Hannah look at me! Hannah: No.

Friday, May 15 - Just a photo of my cat perfectly placed in the sunniest place she could be. She's basically perfect. 

All but one of these photos is of my pets. Maybe I'm obsessed with them? Should I join a support group? 

Do you doodle in meetings? What's your preferred doodle? 

Five for Friday, Edition #40: The Random Photo Edition

1) The cat is queen of the house. Have we discussed how Zelda has taken over poor Hannah's kennel? 

2) I'm going to get a new office chair! I was actually given a new office chair (see below), but it turns out they sent the wrong chairs and I'm actually going to get one that's fancier than this one, so now you know just as much about the chairs as I do. I had the use of this one for one entire working day (Wednesday). 

3) Library books! As of Saturday, I only had four library books and I was freaking out because that's the number I had when the library closed because of the pandemic and I'm NEVER going to be unprepared for a library shutdown ever again. I immediately ordered more books from the library than I could ever read. 

Where They Last Saw Her by Marcie R. Rendon - currently reading

We Lived on the Horizon by Erika Swyler - I have started this one twice, but it doesn't hold much interest. It gets one more shot and then I'm returning it. 

We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida, translated by E. Madison Shimoda - IRL book club pick. 

 

The Way We All Became The Brady Bunch: How the Canceled Sitcom Became the Beloved Pop Culture Icon We Are Still Talking About Today by Kimberly Potts - I borrowed this to fulfill a Pop Sugar Reading Challenge Prompt, but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to really read it.

Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History by Lea Ypi - This sounds depressing as hell. It might not be a great fit for this time of year.

Bittersweet by Sarah Ockler - Mindless YA? I don't mind if I do.

Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum and translated by Shanna Tanj - Cozy Japanese Korean literature? YES! (Thanks to the Anonymous commenter who pointed out this error. I'm sorry. It's not a great mistake to make.)

Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence—and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process by Irene M. Pepperberg - It will not surprise anyone that Pepperberg was on an episode of the You're the Expert podcast, would it? 

Running While Black: Finding Freedom in a Sport That Wasn't Built for Us by Alison Mariella Désir - For a Pop Sugar Reading Challenge prompt. I usually despise running/athlete memoirs, but this has a 4.55 Goodreads rating. Surely it's good? (I suspect I will not read this one, either.)

On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes by Alexandra Horowitz - This book was cited in Humor Me, so I ordered it immediately. 

By the Sword (Valdemar saga) by Mercedes Lackey - I enjoyed the last installment of Valdemar so much I ordered the next one. 

The next couple of photos are brought to you by me trying to document things that make me laugh.

4) Ted and the Giant Carrot - In this sequel to James and the Giant Peach, we try to figure out why the carrots at our grocery store are the size of melons.

Look at those carrots!

5) This dog. If you are ever driving around my town and you see this dog in the terrace rolling around, just know that she is loved and cared for. I mean, look how clean those teeth are. I laughed so hard at her.

Have you read any of those books? What's on your to-read list next? If you had to pick one of my books to read next, what would you read?