Dog Days, continued

Yesterday was Murphy's turn to be poked and prodded. The vet was rather pleased with his condition, for an eleven-year-old dog; he has cataracts starting to form and his teeth definitely need work, but his weight's good and he hasn't developed the hip trouble that aging bassets often have. (The fact that he's half coonhound probably helps; I don't imagine there's been much inbreeding pressure in those breeds.) So it's all good; I'll probably be taking him in for his dental work next week. Ben gets his teeth done Thursday. (The vet gave me antibiotics to give to Ben for two or three days before the dental work. The instructions say two pills daily. They gave me about two dozen pills. Right: two a day for two or three days, that's two dozen. Sigh.)

I finished Monte Cristo a couple of days ago, and am now reading a collection of Wodehouse's Jeeves-and-Bertie short stories. Wodehouse is always fun. It's odd, though; I actually like his Leave It to Psmith rather better than the Jeeves stories. I have to admit, though, that Psmith is actually a fairly straight screwball comedy; it doesn't really display the features that make Wodehouse Wodehouse. One thing puzzles me. He claims, in the preface to Psmith, that Beach, the butler, was a precursor of Jeeves. Other than that they're both butlers, I really don't see much resemblance between the two; Beach is more the victim of manipulation than its instigator, and doesn't have Jeeves' general air of competence. Whatever; it's a fun read.

On Being a Pack Rat

Oh, I am. Things pile up. Every horizontal surface in my house that isn't a bathroom fixture or a floor (and some even of those) is stacked high with miscellaneous Stuff. Books, old magazines, ten-year-old receipts, boxes that other things came in... Every so often I go rooting through one of these piles, often finding things that are frightening (bills I thought I'd paid), startling (books I thought I'd lost, and bought new copies of), or simply happiness-inducing.

Today's adventure belongs in the last category. Buried amidst assorted debris, I found three more CDs: Bad Animals, by Heart (I like every song on it except the title track; I bought it for the sake of "Alone"); Canciones de Mi Padre, by Linda Ronstadt (going in the wrong direction there; I want earlier stuff!); and another Stones album, which has "Satisfaction" (but not "Kicks").

And coalboy has kindly sent me a couple of Moody Blues CDs, which should arrive in another day or two. Throw in a couple of Turtles discs (another recent discovery), and I've almost got enough for another playlist.

I still want all that stuff I mentioned before. Add Elvis, Jim Croce, Santana and Yes to the list.

It's summer, and I'm on about 33% pay, so I can't afford to do much ordering just now. Come September, though...

PS: in other good news, I've finally talked ZoneAlarm into accepting some Java activity; I can now see tygerr's icon poinging away. I still can't get it to cooperate with haloscan, though.