On the mend

As usual, never a dull moment around here.  Since I last wrote Penny got really really sick for about 6 days.  She was so sick she wouldn't walk.  We had to carry her outside to potty and she didn't eat anything for 2 or 3 days.  We took her to the vet last Saturday and they gave her some medicine for her stomach and told me to bring her back Monday if she wasn't better.  Well by Monday she wasn't better, she actually seemed a little worse so I took her back.  It was one of the worst days ever.  I had to leave her there for a few hours while they ran tests on her and did x-rays.  I was on pins and needles waiting for the vet to call me.  I was seriously a total wreck all day sobbing in hysterics thinking about my little baby getting poked and prodded and her not being able to talk and tell the doc what was wrong.  When I finally picked her up I got a $411 vet bill and ZERO answers as to why she was so ill.  I was confused, scared and furious.  How could I just have spent over $500 on two vet visits in three days and they have no answers for me.  If I went to the doctor and was sick I would demand an answer!  But there was nothing we could do but take her home and hope that she would get better.  And Thank GOD she did!  She actually started getting better the next day.  Mills was right...Murphy's Law!  We took her to the vet and she instantly got better.  But if we wouldn't have taken her, who knows what would have happened.  I don't want to think about it.  But actually I have been thinking a lot this past week about how close I am to Penny and how much I really love her.  To some people who are not pet owners they may not understand.  I have pretty much been a pet owner my entire life.  I have had horses, ponies, dogs, cats, miniature horses, chickens, cows, guinea pigs, rabbits, love birds and even a rooster named Cecil as a pet.  I have probably had nearly 100 different pets in my lifetime.  But Penny is the first pet I have been solely responsible for.  Her well being depends entirely on Ryan and I.  And I think that it why I seem to have such a strong bond with her more than any other pet I have ever had.  I still remember the day he brought her home.  She wasn't even a pound and she was about the size of a hot dog bun.  She could easily fit in one palm.  She was so tiny and fragile and seriously the cutest thing you have ever seen.  Anyways, since that day she has become such a big part of our lives.  She is part of our family.  We would be devastated if anything happened to her.  I can't imagine her not being in my life.  She seriously brings us so much joy.  She has so much personality.  She makes me laugh numerous times a day.  I am so grateful she is back to her normal crazy self. 

On a different note I went to the New Orleans Museum of Art this week and City Park which is one of the largest and oldest parks in the US and also has the largest collection of mature live oaks.  It is truly a beautiful park.  And the museum was awesome as well.  I went on Wednesday b/c it is free every Wednesday and I was there about 3 hours and didn't get through all of it so I will be going back soon to check out the rest.

Friday Ryan and I drank three bottles of red wine and played a 4 hour game of Monopoly.  After spending a lot of the game not doing so well, I came back and ended up winning!!  Saturday we were so hungover from all the wine, we did absolutely NOTHING.  Literally, we didn't leave the house or our pajamas the entire day.  The only time we saw the light of day was to let Penny out back and when the pizza guy arrived that evening.  Today we went to Oak Alley Plantation for it's 5th annual Arts and Crafts Festival.  It was awesome!!  Since I didn't get to go to the Covered Bridge Festival this year (which is an annual tradition for my grandma, mom and I) this was the second best thing.  Plus we hadn't been to Oak Alley Plantation yet and I have been dying to see it.  A lot of people think it is the one of the most beautiful plantations down here.  The driveway leading up to Oak Alley has 28 live oaks (14 on each side) lining the road all the way to the house.  They are over 300 years old and absolutely stunning.  If you have never seen a live oak as I had not before I moved down here it is one of nature's most beautiful and mysterious trees.  It is absolutely huge and towering and a lot of the time the limbs are touching the ground and sometimes the trees are covered in moss.  It is almost sculptural looking.

Here is a poem I found about live oaks that I am quite fond of.

I SAW IN LOUISIANA A LIVE-OAK GROWING

“I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,

Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green,

And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,

But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its lover near—for I knew I could not.

And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss,

And brought it away—and I have placed it in sight in my room,

It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,

(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)

Yet it remains to me a curious token—it makes me think of manly love;

For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide flat space,

Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend, a lover near,

I know very well I could not.”

(Walt Whitman, 1860)