Sandwiched, Sandsquished

1) Never title a post "one of THOSE weeks" (as I did my last post) because it invites the fates to throw more at you, vengefully, spitefully. I imagine the Roman gods (Neptune, for instance, in an especially petty mood) and the Bacchae (who will rip one to shreds) combined here.

2) My 85 year old father went to hospital in Vancouver and, because he is my mother's primary caregiver, and because their a) extremely helpful or b) somewhat intrusive neighbor thought it was a good idea, she went too.

3) I flew out for a week, taking emergency time off work.  The whole week I was not with my children (gah!) and then I left, even though my parents are both still in hospital and both still really need help and should really (really) be convinced they need to move to assisted living but I was unable to convince them (gah!).  Sandwiched and squished!

4) Evidence re: the wisdom of assisted living:
Mother: "Oh, but I see my Dr. on the 33rd!"
Father: "Just reach through the wall, Knut.  The dry cat food is right there."
Father [from hospital bed]: "I think the neighbor's dog was just here looking for your mother."

One of THOSE weeks

Monday night: alarm-like whine in the basement turns out to be a substantial amount of water, under pressure, spurting from a pipe near the hot water tank: basement flood.

Tuesday: porch repairs stalled til weekend because workman doesn't have the right size post and need to order one.

Wednesday: all the wet woollen carpets (heavy, smelly) from the basement get draped on parts of the broken and under construction porch (classy!).

Thursday: Kids bound out the door to be driven to school, whereupon we all discover that someone ploughed into my parked car overnight and it is not driveable.

Sigh.  At least the weather is nice . . .

Shoe Shopping Frustrations

Here are some questions for you:
Though DSW sells children's shoes online, they do not in their Towson, MD store.  Why?
Macy's in the mall doesn't sell children's shoes, even though they have a huge children's CLOTHING section and an impressive Layette layout.  Why?

I would have thought that children's shoes would be a great thing to sell (those feet grow so much so often and so stinkily, new shoes happen all the time).  Why doesn't everyone sell them?

Puppy

Did I mention the puppy?  The one acquired before Xtide primarily to make me feel better when my children were away?  The one that's half pug, half question mark?
Mm. hmn.
That puppy is roughly 5 months old, naughty yappy, and blessed with a prodigious and adorable underbite.

Last night  between 8.40 and 9.30 pm he peed in the following places :
On Voice's bed,
On Voice's carpet,
outside in the yard,
in the basment, on a throw rug (while I was trying to get Voice's bedding into the wash),
outside  in the yard
and
on the couch.

1) My god, is the dog ill that he peed so much?? (No, I just put down too much water with dinner and let the smelly puppy jump into the bath with Smiles at bathtime, where the small dog drank large amounts of bathwater)

2) And how am I holding up?  Ragged my friends.  Ragged cranky ass bitch faced ogre does school drop off this morning.  Whee!  The broken-down bus clogging up traffic and making us late didn't help . . .