Our happy little basset developed lymphoma early this year, but after several wounds of chemotherapy he seems to be in remission. So, good news. Maybe not for the squirrels though.

That would be "good" news for our dog too, even better would be if it was benign. Sadly the most likely scenario is something that is resistant to chemotherapy and leaves him with a couple of months.

Huh, I didnt know that they could use chemo on a dog. Does it lose all its hair?

I've got two weeks until Ironman California. I'm feeling pretty fit. I've knocked out a bunch of 10 miles runs and 6 hour bike rides. This weekend is the last long training session. I'm still worried about nutrition. I still don't feel like I'm taking in enough. I'm using sweet potatoes on the bike. Basically I just have some baked sweet potatoes in my back pocket and I eat one every 90 minutes. These are good and don't upset my stomach, but I think I need more. I'm going to try a couple sandwiches this weekend. One halfway through the bike and one before the run. Hopefully that will help.

Project deadline crunch, the best part of working in IT. Excruciatingly long days, lack of sleep, everyone's on edge and nothing works in production the way it's supposed to. :D

8 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

Huh, I didnt know that they could use chemo on a dog. Does it lose all its hair?

Not when we did it for our dachshund. Only bought him a couple months, which sucks. Still miss that dog.

2 hours ago, majestic said:

Project deadline crunch, the best part of working in IT. Excruciatingly long days, lack of sleep, everyone's on edge and nothing works in production the way it's supposed to. :D

Yeah my company's doing weekly deployments, because...**** your weekend time off I guess. Wouldn't be an issue if it weren't geniuses removing servers from the network or blocking IPs that we need.

Edited Saturday at 12:07 AM5 days by Malcador

The company I PMed at, did prod deployments on average every 2 days and they had multiple prod instances plus mobile apps. That **** was exhausting to document let alone organize, especially when any major project release almost always screwed up prod. Combined with the awful crunch for every single feature, I do not miss it. Except for the cash, that was nice.

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

Not when we did it for our dachshund. Only bought him a couple months, which sucks. Still miss that dog.

I still miss mine too and its been ~8 years.

13 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

Huh, I didnt know that they could use chemo on a dog. Does it lose all its hair?

Apparently dogs can tolerate it better than humans, so the side effects were relatively mild. I was surprised by that. It needed some hormone treatments and ate like a, well, dog, but otherwise was all right. It's kind of expensive though.

Vet prices have always been expensive (outside of very basic care) relative to time period, and I can only imagine what it's like even in the past 6-7 years since I paid attention. Never been one re: constant preventive care vet visits - just like me with human docs, heh - but regarding emergency and/or "symptoms: is something wrong", most of the time I'd be hit with $500-$1600 vet charges for initial exams/treatment etc.(California). Even spay/neuter/vaccinations could be difficult for many. Really gotta shop around for vets, too, just like human-care systems. I've had ones that charged twice as much for same things (and/or I didn't like the vets there) that I immediately tossed to curb. It's nuts.

Edited Saturday at 09:02 PM4 days by LadyCrimson

Oh - what I did today:

--dealing with an ever more depressed hubby etc
--we are considering selling the small Bay Area house within a year or so. The renter wanted a year long contract this time (he's been doing 6-months) but we said no. Renter is an older retired fella, where our house is walking-distance from his progeny, so he really likes it. But not sure if he could afford to actually buy it. Any hesitation is mostly that once we sell, there is pretty much zero chance we'd ever be able to buy back into the Bay Area (at our age/years left). Zero. But it's more sensible and we could do more by selling.
--decided perhaps a "new" hobby for me would be to get more into cooking. Mostly for hubby (back = difficulty standing/bending/hunching re: cooking even simple things). Trying to figure out/master hand made noodles/biscuits/dumplings. Soft ones for soups/stews, not pasta dishes. Can't figure out how to make them not taste like - well, half-raw dough. Maybe more butter in the dough? May be time to pull out all those currently unused mega cookbooks from mother's era. Searching the net gets irritating.

I think all in with the operation and pre/post op the vet cost us around around 1k euro.

I did my last long training ride today, despite it being over 90 degrees about halfway through. I did good on nutrition. I was doing a 16-mile loop around a reservoir, and we had our car set up for aid. First loop I ate a bagel as I rolled out. 2nd loop I ate a small sweet potato, repeated that on the 3rd loop, and then ate a sandwich with salami and Havarti after the 4th loop. I found my wife and her friend back at the car after 4 loops complaining about the heat and a bee sting. They had only done 3 loops, so I told them to get moving. Then I put my running shoes on and ran for 40 minutes. It was way too hot and I was dying, but I got it done. I downed an entire coke afterwards. But I was happy my stomach was in good shape, so hopefully that will bode well for the race in 2 weeks.

Let's hope Sacramento isn't surface temperature of the sun on race day.

^ I don't know about race day, but it's supposed to cool off some point next week, 80's instead of 90+.

Spent some time giving the stray kitty a good groom with a flea comb. She's been obviously flea-bothered recently. Got a lot of fleas off. Sure, being outdoors, she'll just get more, but maybe it'll make her feel better if I do it once a week or so. Then winter it'll calm down for a while. May get her a topical neckdrops flea thing, see if that helps for a while, too. Anyway, she really loved the comb/was very patient. Flea combs are great.

She's still not MY cat tho. I'll keep telling myself that.

Went for a lovely and cool early morning run along the South Saskatchewan River. The sunrise did not fail to inspire!

16 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

^ I don't know about race day, but it's supposed to cool off some point next week, 80's instead of 90+.

Spent some time giving the stray kitty a good groom with a flea comb. She's been obviously flea-bothered recently. Got a lot of fleas off. Sure, being outdoors, she'll just get more, but maybe it'll make her feel better if I do it once a week or so. Then winter it'll calm down for a while. May get her a topical neckdrops flea thing, see if that helps for a while, too. Anyway, she really loved the comb/was very patient. Flea combs are great.

She's still not MY cat tho. I'll keep telling myself that.

Do you just remove by brushing or also use a topical or med of some sort, LC?

On 10/3/2026 at 4:52 PM, Hurlshort said:

I did my last long training ride today, despite it being over 90 degrees about halfway through. I did good on nutrition. I was doing a 16-mile loop around a reservoir, and we had our car set up for aid. First loop I ate a bagel as I rolled out. 2nd loop I ate a small sweet potato, repeated that on the 3rd loop, and then ate a sandwich with salami and Havarti after the 4th loop. I found my wife and her friend back at the car after 4 loops complaining about the heat and a bee sting. They had only done 3 loops, so I told them to get moving. Then I put my running shoes on and ran for 40 minutes. It was way too hot and I was dying, but I got it done. I downed an entire coke afterwards. But I was happy my stomach was in good shape, so hopefully that will bode well for the race in 2 weeks.

Let's hope Sacramento isn't surface temperature of the sun on race day.

When is race day, Hurlshot? What's the distance?

5 hours ago, Fionavar said:

Do you just remove by brushing or also use a topical or med of some sort, LC?

I have no real method, outside of my official kitties are always indoor only (except Mr. Black the last 2 years of his life or so). When with parents they were indoor/outdoor, until the discovery that I'm one of the especially delicious types. I could stick a hand/foot four inches above a carpet and within seconds a dozen would jump on, while they completely ignored my mother (hubby too, grr). I remember mom trying weird things like layers of eucalyptus leaves under my bed and other such but didn't do jack. At that point mom fogged the house and the cats became outdoor-only. >.> anyway I digress.

Since I sometimes brought strays home, I've had a few house-flea times. Back then there was this Raid flea+egg spray (purple can) where I'd stick cats in one aired room and spray carpets, let dry, vacuum, air out, and all gone and stayed gone (until I brought another stray home). Miraculous stuff. Probably not healthy at all, tho, haha. So yeah, these days it would be initial mega-combing sessions, then maybe a single flea bath, then if that didn't work enough after a month or so, I'd probably fog the house, chemicals be damned.

I simply am too much of a biting insect magnet to be able tolerate anything less than "totally eradicated in the house."

Stray kitty is outdoor and not 24/7, so I'm only concerned about her general comfort (constant biting/scratching), not mine. :) She acts like she'd like to come inside but I am all "NooOOOooOOooO, you fleabag."

EdITEDIT: I've used a topical like Frontline once (now twice, on this yard cat). But I don't think i'd want to use it constantly (every month). or those oral pills. Haven't researched them enough to decide if using such is better/worse than once in a blue moon house-fogging - and another reason I probably will never try a dog (indoor/outdoor/walks etc).

Edited 4 hours ago4 hr by LadyCrimson

Postscript: that was probably way more answer than you wanted, haha.

But it did make me think - maybe I could a get a job at some flea-b-gone service co as the "did it work" tester. Just walk into a treated home with long white socks on and sit in the living rooms for 10 minutes each. If they don't appear on me, you're clear! :D Seriously, I've been a guest in several ppl's houses (dogs/cats) where they'd talk about how they were sure they had no fleas this time, but they'd be all over my socks.