Saturday Night Smackdown . . . at the 7 count, but, then, who's counting? ME for one!

It's going to take a lotta $$$ to CURA our ACURA because she's'a pretty sick'a puppy after being smacked in the fanny last night on our way to Bridge Club.

This is the 7th time we've been hit since we moved here in 1991. This time was 5 minutes from home, yielding onto Cool Springs Blvd. from Carothers. Only the 21 yr. old girl (with her friend) in her 2-month-old Jeep didn't yield. She hit us pretty hard; her car did a 90-degree turn and sustained a pretty decent amount of damage to her front end (driver side door wouldn't open, etc.). When I originally got a cell phone, I immediately programmed every police force nearby into it and since we live by the mall, the Franklin police came within 5 minutes. It still took 50 min. to get us back on the way to bridge club. Lucky for cell phones, I could call our hostess and tell her why we would be late. Also lucky for cell phones, the driver called her mom, and she came to give her daughter moral support (hopefully not holy hell).

The nice thing is Bill had previously encountered a woman in a grocery store parking lot, resulting in a small, no-fault dent in the bumper of the Acura which we didn't want to pay for because it would have cost $1000 (since that's the least you can pay for body work these days). I had just said "wait, we'll get hit." So, last night, 1 second after impact, I didn't ask Bill if he was OK, I just said "well, you just got your bumper fixed." Not the best way to do it though.

But, we're in good hands, the girl - Kelsey Owen - she has Allstate.

A word to the wise . . . and you know who you are

• I got my hair cut yesterday at our favorite low-price shop, Great Clips, because we are so much poorer than our children (not) who would never get their hair cut there. Of course, I do appreciate it when they look good as they do when they have full beards or are clean-shaved.
• At any rate, this little story is about AML (acute myeloid leukemia) cancer, which her daughter had when she was 15 (she is now 23). As Wikipedia defines it:
• Acute myeloid leukemia (AML), also known as acute myelogenous leukemia, is a cancer of the myeloid line of white blood cells, characterized by the rapid proliferation of abnormal cells which accumulate in the bone marrow and interfere with the production of normal blood cells. AML is the most common acute leukemia affecting adults, and its incidence increases with age. Although AML is a relatively rare disease, accounting for approximately 1.2% of cancer deaths in the United States,[1] its incidence is expected to increase as the population ages. The symptoms of AML are caused by replacement of normal bone marrow with leukemic cells, resulting in a drop in red blood cells, platelets, and normal white blood cells. These symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath, easy bruising and bleeding, and increased risk of infection. Although several risk factors for AML have been identified, the specific cause of AML remains unclear. As an acute leukemia, AML progresses rapidly and is typically fatal within weeks or months if left untreated.
• My stylist, Debby, told me they took her to St. Jude's and they believe that hospital is why she is alive today because in the year they were there she could have died 4 times. She went into remission quickly but then took 164 days for her immune system to come back. During that time she got aspergillus (fungal) infection in her right lung, which was lucky because you have three lobes on the right and only two on the left. So I guess they had to remove one. Anyway, my mom had an aspergillus lung infection a couple of year's ago.
• Another at any rate, MDS, myelodysplastic syndromes (formerly known as "preleukemia") are a diverse collection of hematological conditions united by ineffective production (or dysplasia) of myeloid blood cells and risk of transformation to acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). Anemia requiring chronic blood transfusion is frequently present. Myelodysplastic syndromes are bone marrow stem cell disorders resulting in disorderly and ineffective hematopoiesis (blood production) manifested by irreversible quantitative and qualitative defects in hematopoietic (blood-forming) cells. The median age of diagnosis is between 60 and 75.
• As thankful as we are to places like St. Jude's, and M.D. Anderson, and UCLA, who work so hard to save lives, I am so glad that we now have a president in office willing to make stem cell research available. Onward into the 21st centure - if the cure doesn't come from the United States, it will come from Europe, and with our economy at such a low point, we need any leg up that we can get.
• Obama, if fact, recently told Democrats at a private meeting that he will sign an executive order to reverse the executive order signed by George Bush in 2001 which limited embryonic stem cell research. He told House Democrats he wants to work with the House and Senate to ensure his executive order on stem cell research has teeth. "God gave us (the) power to make smart decisions to cure diseases, to alleviate suffering," the president said.
• I know that I have signed my driver's license to donate my usable organs when I die. I think that if I was a usable embryonic stem cell that no one wanted to parent, I would want to be a part of curing someone's disease. Wouldn't you?

Doggy Day Care - we get to be Granddogparents again today

Our baby Magi was returned to us last night. We just want to say thank you for all the amazing support we received from the community. We got tons of calls giving us ideas, advice, support, and potential sightings. There were even people who drove around looking for her who we had never met!! And then last night when the founder posted on craigslist we got even more calls and emails helping us put the pieces together. We may not have found her without all of you, so THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts - and Magi's too!!!

That is the post that went out this morning on Craigslist.

I suggested to Grant last night that she spend the day with us, people she loves and who love her rather than home alone while he works and so she is here. She still wants to play ball but seems a little more tired than normal and has not played with Mojo as usual. Grant said she was smelly so we have given her a bath. That is the royal we. Bill is the bather in the family. I am the blogger. And now it's time for me to get something other than blogging done . .

All's well that ends well to quote my dad . . . by it was hell on wheels for awhile

Magi's Great Adventure

• This seemingly gloriously happy picture is located on over 125 posters stapled on telephone poles all over East Nashville with the words "LOST' and "REWARD" on it. That's because dear Magi left her new home on Thursday, January 29 at 2 p.m. when a mover left a door open and she said "I don't want to live here; I liked the old place." Or maybe she just wanted to explore the new grounds; and, when someone she didn't know chased her, she got spooked and ran and didn't know her way back home.
• Fast forward - I wouldn't care to guess how many streets searched, dire-dog-scenarios imagined, dog-finder/shelter websites visited, and prayers lifted up - to this evening at 8:30 p.m. when the phone call came that Bill and I had been awaiting. Except that we weren't expecting it at that moment for some reason except for the reason that that's just how those things always work, they come when you least expect them. Grant just said "All the glory be to God. I have her here with me." I just started screaming "Oh my God, Oh my God, OMG into the phone and finally, "get on the other line" to Bill.
• As much of the mystery that we may ever know is that she finally wandered up onto the right person's back porch about a mile from Grant's and about 1/2 mile farther north in the area that 2 people had spotted her in on Friday. Bill and I never hit that street although we looked in that area for several hours today based on the hope that the Friday spottings were correct. Grant said he must have gone up and down that street several times and even turned around in the man's driveway once. I really wish we had just to see if we would have found her. Or if she was still in hiding. Which she may have been based on no more sightings on Sat. or Sun. But, my guess is, she's not talking. Grant said there is more to the story, but he'll call us later as he had so many phone calls to make. This is true because when I drove around hanging flyers with him Friday, he had tons of phone calls from friends calling to see what was up with the dog search. Don't these people have to work, I wondered?
• The thing I'm waiting to have answered is that he said he got a call from a friend who said there was a posting on Craigslist of a Found Welsh Corgi. The listing said:
• FOUND: Female Pembroke Corgi Gentle; loves tennis balls; cuddles on couch; just wandered to my back door Monday; no tags; collared
• Now, we worried a lot about her losing her collar - hence her tag with her phone number on it - but never the scenario of just losing the tag. How did that happen? Again, I don't think she's talking. Also, I registered her as lost on http://www.petfinder.com/ and they sent me an email notifying me that there was a Found Welsh Corgi listing on Craigslist for a Welsh Corgi within an hour of it going up. Now, how cool is that??? I'm going to have to go on their site some more to see if they said they did that. I was totally surprised.
• All, I can say is that we all fear having lost children; well, lost "man's best friend" ain't no picnic neither. Especially when you really need your best friend.