Gunther’s airplane trip and other matters.

Susie and Gunther playing.

Thanksgiving day:  Gunther’s veterinarian, Dr. Kate Kilzer, prescribed 5mg acepromazine to sedate Gunther for the plane ride to Duluth.  That’s where our oldest son lives and we spent four days with his family and our daughter’s.  Her husband couldn’t come from Rochester, Minnesota, because their furnace went out and he wanted to stay and prevent the pipes from freezing.  Anyway, back to the tranquilizer.  It worked well.  G. slept like a puppy in his crate and was easy to wake.  He played with our daughter’s male puppy.  They seemed to want to have intercourse with each other, much to everyone’s merriment.  We sat around the periphery and tried to converse, all the while stifling laughter.

Ahem.  Acepromazine, flower children, is a congener of chlorpromazine, or Thorazine, the antipsychotic used to bring people down from bad acid trips or psychoses. Acepromazine can cause constipation in dogs, not a bad thing on the plane.  G. is still constipated.

Since returning, I walked him around the block twice and he hasn’t pooped yet.  Unusual for G.  I used the plastic bag I had intended for G.’s to scoop three poops from the next door neighbor’s dog, Susie.

Remember?  Susie, a black lab, is G’s girlfriend, so I harbor no ill will and scooped up the shit with only the usual throat full of rising gorge.  The sight or smell doesn’t bother me.  It’s the coldness of the lumps.  I digressed, sorry.  And sorry, sister.  I know you threatened to unfriend me from Facebook if I mentioned dog poop more.

In Duluth, I spent some great time with two of my grandsons.  Oh, there were five grandkids in all, but they fly in and out of the room, presenting moving targets and I only really connected solidly with two of them:  Roland and George, the two youngest.

Roland responded well to some boring stories about my childhood and I knew I had him, when I told about playing cowboys.  George was a bit more difficult, if expensive.

Like a smart-alecky adult, I grabbed Geo.’s bare foot and thrust it into my pocket, telling him I wanted it.  I handed him a $50, and I’m not sure what I had been  thinking.  George liked the idea and said it was a deal.  I didn’t know how to get out of that.  P. gave Geo. $10 and asked him to give me back the $50 because I had been only kidding.  This made Geo. cry.  Then Geo. handed me the $10.  Long story short:  I ended up with the $10, Geo. got the $50.  I was happy because it’s easier for me to spend $10, the way my life is running these days.  Geo. wants to buy some Guinea pigs that his cousin Cyrus says cost about $25 each  All the while I thought what a great story this is becoming.  Only it didn’t turn out to be a great story at all, merely stupid.

However, George did give me an extra good hug when we said our goodbyes.

The score:  Todd and Susanna baked a turkey with dressing and lots of green beans.  He boiled 10 pounds of potatoes and I turned 3/4 into lefse.  He baked a couple of pumpkins that I turned into four pies.  We struggled through the woods for exercise and I had to hang onto a tree to keep from sliding down into a river.  Okay, to keep from sliding down some mud into some brush.