Maryland, I'm Coming Home

It's a Vonda Shepard song and it's a perfect theme for today. Maryland, I'm Coming Home. Just a quick jaunt up 495 and bam, boom, bang I'm back from where I came!

First, I loaded up the two legged and four legged creatures and we all went to my old work at the animal hospital in Bethesda. Sadie still has the mystery 4am pukefest living inside her. Andy and I are tiring of camping out in the sunroom so she can go in and outside for three hours to relieve her gut in the grass instead of on our carpet (our landlord's carpet, more accurately). I decided not to listen to Doctor Google as he is a fatalist with nothing but bad news and possible heinous maladies a lab like Sadie could have at her age. Seriously, all it took was typing in, "dog coughing only in the morning" and out pops congestive heart failure. I'm sticking to fecal exams from now on.

(Oh, get this....here's an upper for today- SO, went to my old work unannounced and the doctor for whom I worked hadn't one sneaking suspicion who I was. I guess the extra two dependents and easy twenty pounds makes me look like the older, more mommyer version of myself. Wait, that is myself. Damn. Forgot that part. You should have seen her face. I smiled (all giddy with surprising my old friend) like the cat who ate the mouse and she smiled back like the doctor who had NO CLUE who the hell I was. A complete stranger I was! It took an entire awkward two minutes of me smiling maniacally for my (water retentioned) face to sink in to her familiar file. Then her jaw dropped and she admitted that she was blown away. Sweetly, she tried to cover for her shock by stating it was my hair that threw her (it is tres long now and I had short hair when I worked there fifteen centuries ago.) Again, she was sweet but you're right, probably not so much the hair.)

Back to Sadie: The morning sickness (she's spayed, it would be a baby Jesus puppy) for Sadie is still a mystery but at least now we have medicine to help her if she a.) has worms (lovely) b.) has acid reflux (dogs can take Pepcid, did you know that?) or c.) just really digs white cocaine looking powder sprinkled over her Beneful once a day for five days. We shall see. I was just happy to learn that her lungs and heart sound good and quite probably she's been eating a cow's worth of grass that could be making her so vomitose. Why just the wee hours of the morn only? Andy thinks she likes to commune with the moon, the stars and the crickets at that hour; her alone time with the universe if you will. I think Sadie is trying to kill me by way of sleep deprivation to shorten my life span by 40 years so we can be buried together the way nature intended. She has separation anxiety. So does her mother.

After that party was over, I ponied up for an impromptu visit w/my beloved Uncle Jimmy and his beautiful family who live close to the animal hospital. We took their back porch by storm and before five minutes was up their cat had been nearly mauled by my canine, their adoring smiles were met with baby cries plus toddler attitude and their grass was hurled on by -again- awesome house guest pooch. We really know how to charm the pants off a place, no?

Luckily for me, I have the most patient and kind-hearted family and they took the entire Situational Hurricane in stride. They all "ignored" Moody Blues frontman Grayson long enough for him to finally cave and make the actual human gesture of eye contact. Aunt Mary even broke through to the other side and had him watering her flowers (his idea) and eating chocolate chip cookies (hers). While Grayson made nice with everyone, I got to sit back (okay, continuously remove sticks and dirt from Abby's mouth but still) and have a chat with my family. It was amazing. It was healing. It was chaotic. WE were chaotic but they were so very gracious and acted like it was nothing to have their home turned inside out in the middle of a (working) afternoon. Unlucky for them, we live a mere 15.7 miles door-to-door so we can have an encore performance of today's live show. Or I could have some tact and invite them to our house instead.

I am so happy to live back here this close to my family. It's been too long but Maryland, I'm Definitely Coming Home.