Trichoepithelioma - say what?

Trichoepithelioma -  hard to say, impossible to spell but very good news.  Here's the whole message from Dr. Church, one of Ella's vets:

"Ella's biopsy results came back as a benign trichoepithelioma, which is an uncommon benign mass of dogs. The surgical excision was complete so recurrence is 
unlikely and the surgery is considered curative. So, great news! I hope she's doing well."

Ella IS doing well.  Her franken-scar is healing up.  We made an appointment to have her stitches removed next Wednesday.  She has finished all of her medications except antibiotics, and has one more day to take that.  The cooler weather (it was 24 degrees this morning) has made her frisky, and I would say that she's bored.  She wants to play.  She wants to run.  But although we've resumed our long walks, I haven't let her off leash to run, or chase a ball or a stick.  Soon, Ella, soon.

Meanwhile, Chicago finally releases a video showing the execution of Laquan McDonald, a 17-year old black youth, who was shot 16 times by a cop.  The cop has been indicted - but who wants to bet he gets off?  He's on paid leave in the meantime.  Paid leave!  

And the one year anniversary has come and passed of the murder of Tamir Rice, a 12 year old.  I understand a 911 caller reported a young black male with a gun - which the caller also told the 911 responder "might not be real" - but the cops who came to "investigate" claimed they were not told that the gun might be a toy, and they shot the child dead.  The toy gun was tucked in his waistband.  Tamir, may your memory be a blessing for your family and community and all young people of color everywhere.  These are my grandsons, Tamir.  I wish you could have known each other. I will tell them about you some day.

  

Meanwhile... Donald Trump would water board suspected terrorists whether or not it did any good (presumably whether it led to any useful information) because "they deserve it."  And Muslims would have to "register" and have a "special ID."  I think I went to sleep and dreamed I woke up in Germany in 1939. But wait, I'm awake.  Aren't I?

Thanksgiving arrives.  We will have dinner with our neighbors, Melissa and Tobias, and others of their family.  I have much to be grateful for, and notwithstanding the state of the world, it is important to remember that fact.  I am grateful every day for my health, for David, for my children and grandchildren, for Ella, for living in this beautiful place:

Peace.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

First, Ella:  her $1,000 surgery is scheduled for next week.  In the meantime, she has been bothering the place on her leg where they shaved the fur off of the cyst, so that the incisions they made to do a biopsy and then drain it haven't healed well.  We had go back and get what the vet referred to as a "cone of shame".  Ella doesn't like it, but she is very stoic.  Poor baby.  She's not thrilled right now.  Wait until post-surgery when she has to wear this thing non-stop for a week or more:

And... my truck's in the shop.  We had an appointment for the past two weeks for this past Monday.  On Sunday, the "check engine" light came on, and the truck began running really roughly, a problem it has had in the past but which I thought they had resolved last year.  Two days later, I'm waiting on the call to pick up the truck.  The "check engine" issue was a bad spark plug, likely due to a underlying problem with one of the cylinders.  To "fix" the underlying problem is major work - $1,800-$2,000.  Not doing it now.  Will just keep replacing spark plugs, hopefully once or twice a year until that doesn't work any more.  Meanwhile, the other "routine" work that was planned before the "check engine" issue will come to slightly more than $1,000 - just stuff needed to pass the safety inspection.  (One thing I wonder is how everyone in Maine keeps their cars "safe," given the cost to meet the inspection standards.  There are too many poor people driving too many older cars, so I know they can't be having $1,000 in work done on their cars every year.  There must be mechanics out there who will do a pro forma job and issue the stickers.  I guess I could look for such a mechanic, but our guys are good, trustworthy, and in the end, I actually do want a safe vehicle.  Still, $1,000... with a larger $2,000 problem looming in the future ... it hurts.)  And...

Yet another visit this week to Dead River, our new fuel company, the one that sold us the new propane furnace.  They have been unable to straighten out our billing since day one.  Having paid the $7,500 purchase price for the furnace, my next invoice showed me owing $9,000.  I've been into their local office (conveniently a block from our house) twice a month since August.  Finally this week their office manager got involved.  The result of her calculations: I owed another $800, which I paid (I do have a sneaking suspicion this may still be wrong and I plan to double-check her numbers.)  Of course, I am still waiting on a $600 rebate the company was responsible for applying for on my behalf.   A customer - at least, THIS customer - just can't win.

Anyway, maybe it's just the Bang! Bang! Bang! of these three big bills, but I'm feeling down.  Or maybe it's reading about what's going on in the bigger world. I need a sanity check.  I wish I could magically leave the U.S. and spend a week in 5 or 6 different countries so that I could "see" the U.S. from a different reality.  Living in the U.S. feels like waking up in a carnival "fun house" where you look in the mirror and you see 100 images, all distorted:  A mirror in which Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio are considered "mainstream" Republican candidates and Hillary "Wall Street" Clinton is referred to as a "progressive."  Students in a Yale fraternity turn a black woman away from a frat house party, openly saying, "white girls only."   An 8 year old African-American child is taken away by police in handcuffs.  10,000 refugees enter Greece in one week, and Trump earns applause for insisting we will forcibly remove all undocumented workers from the U.S. and build a fence between the U.S. and Mexico ("It will work," he says, "look at Israel."  Yeah, let's look at Israel!).  Ben Carson says the pyramids were built not for burying pharaohs but to store grain, and he wants to replace Medicare with a $2,000 health care savings account.  A doctor sends out a notice to his patients that he will no long prescribe birth control because he's a Catholic, and people I know and believe to be educated and reasonable defend that position.  A poll conducted in Israel finds that a majority of Israeli Jews believe that "suspected" terrorists should be executed on the spot, and the houses of their families should be demolished; the Israeli government approves 2,000 more housing units in  the West Bank and retroactively approves two illegal settlements - the same week Obama welcomes Netanyahu to the White House.  2015 is on track to be the warmest year on record, with record carbon released into the atmosphere, carbon that will continue impacting the environment for hundreds of years, even if we were to cease releasing any more carbon into the atmosphere today.  

I could go on, but I really just want to go back to bed, or go into a closet, wrap a coat around my head, and stay there.  Or take a long walk off the end of this pier (pic from Ella's and my walk 2 days ago):

At least I don't have a cone around my head.  At the risk of spitting into the wind, I will pray to the God of Abraham, who is the God I choose not to believe in, for:

Peace.