Here is Rufus with his duck. John bought it for him last Friday and Rufus has been carrying it around ever since. I'm impressed with the quality of this duck; four days of concentrated chewing by a determined dachshund and so far only a foot has been removed. The squeaker quit working (hallelujah!) on the second day, but it's still inside the duck.

Thursday I had a neuroma removed from my left foot and today I got to look at the wound for the first time when I had my follow up visit with the podiatrist. The hole down there is a lot larger than I expected and there are several stitches. I've been cleared to start riding a bike again, but I am not allowed to get the wound wet until the stitches either pop out or are removed. Yes, more days of sitting in a tub with my left foot hanging over the side to come. I miss showering. More days of washing my hair in the kitchen sink, too.

John has flown off to Canada and will be back next Saturday. I just heard the pitter patter of squirrel feet overhead, which means that his efforts to run them out of the attic yesterday didn't work. This also means that I'll get to climb back up on the ladder and pull the flashing out of the siding so that there will be an exit. The big question is how to know that they're out of there before sealing the exit again. John climbed all around in the attic yesterday hoping that he'd scare them out. I watched the exit, but didn't see any leave. However, I'd realized what a grand photo op this would be and had deserted my post by the corner of the house long enough to limp quickly inside and grab the camera. When I returned to my post, I never saw any furry rats with fluffy tails leave despite standing and watching for 20 minutes. Since John was very loud and stomped all around the attic, we thought they'd left while I was awol. We never heard them again so we thought there was success. Dang it all. I'm going to wait until tomorrow when it is no longer raining.

Ok, off the web I go. There are books to be read and dvds to be watched on this fine state holiday.