Sum-sum-summertime

Summer is in full swing. This too snuck up on me, as most things tend to do these days. I think it has to do with spending too much time indoors. I don't have the seasons to remind me when it's always air-conditioned. I could guess, from more fleas and hot spots, that it's warmer outside, but I haven't actually spent much time there.

It's puppy season, and that's always fun. Not as many kittens this year, but we're seeing lots of puppies and a few litters. I get jaded about some things, but I still enjoy working at one of the few professions where you get to play with puppies regularly. I was at a coworker's house for a cookout and several of us spent awhile just watching puppies wrestle. There are worse ways to spend the time.

In lieu of actual deep thoughts, I realized I could recycle old stories while I'm (that thing you call it when someone can't think of what to write; not stuck, not plugged.... BLOCKED) while I'm blocked. And not just for the right word.

I was recycling this for a client the other day: years ago at the Dallas clinic I had just finished a mastectomy on a rat, who was recovering in an incubator. I still remember the bill: $100, a phenomenal bill at the time, especially for an exotic. Couldn't believe someone would pay that for a rat. I walked by the incubator carrying a bag of food for the hawk that was hospitalized in the back, and I had to stop. I looked at the $100 rat, recovering from her surgery, and then I looked at the bag of identical rats I had in my hand, frozen and ready to thaw-n-eat for my hawk patient.

It's all depends on who you know.