Monday, July 26, 2010

the ugly tourist

today i heard the most ridiculous excuse for backing out of a tour. it was a cemetery tour and the lady actually expected us to put on a jazz funeral for her. i kindly pointed out that we save jazz funerals for people that have actually died and therefor she would not be witnessing one on the tour today. she got mad at this. she actually got angry over the fact that there would not be a convenient death and consequent jazz funeral for her amusement. the tourists are getting so demanding. perhaps this is our answer to all the criminals sitting on death row...we execute them for the tourists' enjoyment and then send them off to the cemetery in fine fanfare a la a jazz funeral. the funny thing is, even if we had given her just the spectacle she was looking for, she probably still would not have tipped. the gall!

Sunday, July 25, 2010

cabin fever

i was thinking on lands where the winter comes in harshly and locks down the countryside for extended periods of time and dreaming of snow,snow, snow. i would settle for a breeze that whispers of autumn but we won't be blessed with that until october. in those places accustomed to cold, summer is pure freedom. it is a time to get out and enjoy endless sunny days but here where winter is a ghost of itself, the summer is the real boogey man. it is a truly brave soul that ventures from the dark, air conditioned cave of a home and into the noon day streets where the heat rises, shimmering and distorting the look and feel of things. it is a wet wool blanket drawn tight about the face so that you panic into thinking you might literally drown in such a tepid soup. every day there is the unsettling feeling that maybe you are the frog in the boiling water as the temperature is slowly increased.

my girlfriend just left for the north and that has further accentuated my suffering in this circle of dante's inferno. new orleans settles in the summer. it is a slow sagging, pulling down into the miasma of this swampy mess of a place. we ooze, drip, and radiate dissatisfaction. the air is still. the air is heavy. the heat index has surged above 100 degrees. we drag ourselves along like weary soldiers burdened with shell shock, all of us inflicted with the ten mile stare. we have seen too much. we have felt too much. storms. oil. heat. stagnation. crime. decomposition. everything is slowly rotting in this heat under the odor of french quarter trash, stale beer, piss, and the ever present stench of oil. every year i say, there is no good reason to suffer another summer in the not so easy "big easy" and yet here i find myself.oh well...there is always next summer. russia? finland? alaska? in the mean time, i am sipping my pimm's cup and losing myself in reveries of snow, snow, and more snow, falling like sweet relief.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

comfortis

comfortis is a new flea medication that is administered orally to dogs. it kills fleas within four hours thus making it something of a hit with veterinarians. my vet recommended the drug and we administered it to our three dogs on wednesday and by thursday morning, two of our dogs had vomited. as the day progressed both dogs became increasingly lethargic and depressed to the point of being nearly unresponsive. we grew worried and began some online research into comfortis(which admittedly we should have done prior to giving the drug). what we discovered was frightening. they only tested the drug for 90 days before unleashing it on the public. it has killed dogs. people report giving it to their otherwise healthy dog, only to have seizures and death occur. as the night wore on, one of our doge exhibited neurological ailments...his face began twitching and he suffered from dizzyness. as we read on, we discovered that these symptoms could get increasingly worse, dragging out for weeks at a time before the dog died or got better. i discovered that the drug elevated the liver enzymes of the dosed animals and made the executive decision to give our three dogs milk thistle to combat the toxicity. by friday morning, our dogs seemed much better and we have continued the milk thistle to maintain healthy liver enzymes and ensure that the toxicity is totally abated.

i write this as a warning. please DO NOT give your dog comfortis. some of you may have already given your dogs the drug and they tolerated it just fine but discontinue its use anyway. i read countless testimonials of people that had dosed their dogs numerous times prior, only to have them go into seizure, coma, and die. this drug is dangerous. there are non toxic ways to combat fleas and i should have gone that route. i thank God that our dogs survived. please do not put your dogs at risk.