two exciting items

1) we found what looked like a sick bird in the back yard. scared about bird flu, etc., we phoned the RSPCA (the royal society for the prevention of cruelty to animals), and they sent a guy out within minutes. turned out is was a pretty much full-grown baby pigeon who'd fallen out of his nest (which we could see if we looked hard enough up into the tree in our yard) looked bad because he was still molting his feathers. since we have a cat living next door, he decided it was best to take the little guy in to the shelter and hand-rear him. he said he'd be flying within a week. so good news there.


2) weather is still good! august was dismal--cloudy and dark and rainy and depressing, but september has been fairly warm (during the days anyway) and cheery! d took a nap in the sun today, and i spent a while sunday sunbathing and getting my vitamin d and anti-depressant natural light.

dog report: all is a-ok

our questionable vet (who's from south africa, i learned today) says that wook is healing nicely. he'd accidentally broken apart the tight stitch on his foot--the nasty one from the large lump that was the main cause of the entire operation in the first place--but i'd put some antibiotic cream on it after it busted, and made him wear the elizabethan collar for a little while while the cream worked its way in, and it appears to be fine so far.

he's supposed to avoid walking in mud and water for the next 10 days. try doing THAT in oxford. mutha, please.

speaking of which, it was drizzly and dark all freaking day today. we hauled out the light box in preparation. time to start using it in the mornings, i think. the winter is coming, the winter is coming...

poor dog!

the dog has been under the knife in this second-world country and has lived to tell the tale!


he was very brave, and the vicious bump on his foot is now gone. also, his teeth are sparkling clean, and we had some of the larger bumps on his face removed while he was under the anaesthesia. but now he looks like frankendog. ok, in the first photo, he was still a bit groggy from the anaesthesia, but it's a funny picture. you should've seen when we tried to put an elizabethan collar on him to keep him from picking at his stitches. that didn't last long.

i had lunch with my friend Yuli today. he's just gotten back from bulgaria (home, for him) and is depressed to be back here where he finds it impossible to find work that suits his qualifications. but he's got only another year or so while his wife finishes her degree, and then he can move on.

OK, two months of not a single entry...

... hardly surprising to those who know me at all, I suppose. I think by now I will have duly killed off the impatient, the non-curious, and the faint of heart.

Not much happened this summer (and I use the past tense because save this week, we seem to be moving into autumn already here). I worked a heck of a lot, teaching students mostly from Japan, but also from Spain and Russia, etc. I managed to save some money and am looking forward to taking some time off next year to go visit friends and family in California and Washington State, as well as on the east coast.

D spent most of his summer taking a break from philosophy, and I think he needed it. He's refreshed and has a different perspective now and is looking forward to getting back into it. He's been working on a computer science project that keeps him busy. When he works on it, he reminds me of Jack Nicholson in The Shining. He won't demonstrate the program to me--keeps saying that it's not ready yet--and he seems obsessed with it. As I tell him every now and then, he's always been the caretaker.

The dog is going under the knife tomorrow morning, sadly... apparently, his teeth are rotting away in his gums. We had no idea, but his gums do look pretty red and puffy (I won't post a photo, to spare the weak-hearted).

So that's about it. Pretty boring, really. I'm working on managing my stress levels and impriving my health. We've been running and swimming, doing one of those two every day, followed by stretches and some kind of strength training like weights or crunches. My pants fit a lot better, and I definitely feel a lot better. I also cut back to one egg for breakfast instead of two (it used to be three!). We got some egg cups, and now I eat soft-boiled eggs instead of fried, which is a bit healthier, I think. Plus it puts me closer to being truly English.

Again, I'm really sorry about the delay in writing. Work has died down a bit--only working until 12:30 every day at school, then I have a couple of private students in the afternoons. I'm working on that, though--trying to get more--since I make more money on them than I do at school. We'll see. Hope you're all well and have had a lovely summer...

July 9th? Yikes...

i'm really sorry. i'm not deceased. i'll post soon, i promise. very very busy summer filled with foreigners wanting me to teach them english. new post soon. i swear. don't give up on me... :-)

..k