I took this picture today of a blossom on our Okame Cherry tree.  A blossom!  On a cherry tree!  In February!  It’s hard to contain the excitement, people.

I must also boast about the fact that it was 70 degrees today here in Georgia—meaning that it was way too nice to be cooped up inside the house watching reruns of Leave it to Beaver.  Not that I would do that or anything, but there is a LITB marathon on TV Land at the moment and GR is deeply engrossed.  Anyhow, it was so beautiful outside that I took some time to throw the tennis ball to my poor, deprived brat-dog, Bindi…

Oh, that Bindi Sue.  She’s a dear.  And poor Billy Ray, he just sat perched on the deck watching the action below.

Oh, that Billy Ray.  He’s a fun-loving thing…as long as the fun-loving involves a treat and a nap.  Or reading Meghan’s blog, A Mom of Two Boys…

Anyhow, I’m sure that the fates are laughing at me right now, and Georgia will end up with a foot of snow at some point in March.  Oh, well.  At least I had today…

FAVORITE MODE OF TRANSPORTATION

If you read my postabout the horrific landing that we had at the Munich airport, then you must know that a Delta 767 is not my most favorite mode of transportation.  In fact, I’m scared to death to fly…but that’s a whole other story.  While in Germany, we traveled by many means of transportation. 

We traveled by Munich’s fabulous S-Bahn (btw, Atlanta?  You need to get a freaking clue):

By bike around the city of Munich:

By Opel Astra around Germany and Austria:

By a mining train into the Berchtesgaden’s salt mines (Check out the second family from the left.  They need to learn to contain their excitement):

By electric boat on Lake Königssee:

By motorcoach on The Sound of Music tour:

By horse and carriage up to Neuschwanstein Castle:

And finally, my favorite (and second scariest), by cable car—5900 feet—to the top of Mount Jenner:

The tranquil Lake Obersee:

An angel on high in the Franziskanerkirche in Salzburg:

The Abbey of Ettal in South Bavaria:

A grave marker at the Pfarrkirche St. Peter und Paul in Oberammergau:

Looking down on the village of Hohenschwangau and Hohenschwangau Castle:

Looking out a window of Neuschwanstein Castle:

And finally, looking down on the square in the medieval town of Rothenburg:

 OVERALL IMPRESSION OF GERMANY (BAVARIA)

First and foremost, I can honestly say that I’ve never been to a county where people take so much pride in cleanliness.  In Munich and in Rothenburg, we witnessed shop owners scrubbing the cobblestone in front of their stores with soap and water.  Every public bathroom that I walked into seemed bleached clean (even at gas stations!).  Our hotel rooms were spotless and seemingly sterile.  I saw regular citizens stopping to pick up the smallest piece of trash on the street.  Recycling seems to be a way of life for everyone. 

Another thing that I noticed is that German dogs are freakishly obedient.  Freakishly.  Many dogs walk along through the city streets with their owners OFF leashes.  They don’t bark at other dogs.  They don’t bother people.  They sit quietly under café tables waiting for their owners.  And that is why I have decided to ship Bindi off to a German doggie boot camp.  I’m hoping that she’ll return home freakishly obedient and able to clean my bathrooms.  I can only dream.

Thanks to random.org’s integer generator, the lucky integer generated is:

This random integer belongs to my 5th commenter, Kelly at Cheaper Than a Happy Meal!  Congratulations!  And I hope that winning this cheers her up just a teensy bit.  Sadly enough, I just read Kelly’s most recent post, and her dog, Emily, is very ill.  If you get chance, click over and send some good wishes her way.

I’ll be back later this week with an update on the weekend with my mother!

Anyhow, GR and I thought that the growth was a fatty tumor, which is a non-malignant tumor that is very common in Basset Hounds and will sometimes go away on their own.  Therefore, we didn’t take Billy to the vet.  However, over the past several weeks, the alleged tumor started growing bigger and bigger until it was the size of a golf ball, which caused Billy Ray’s eyes to become even more bloodshot than they already are.  And he was beginning to get a bit lethargic, which is also very common in Bassets, but he was becoming more sluggish than usual.  Which basically entails not drooling with wild abandon and bleeding eyes when food is anywhere in the vicinity of a solid square mile.

So, on Wednesday of last week, Billy Ray went under the knife to have the tumor removed.  And it turns out that it’s probably not a fatty tumor at all, but a type of skin cancer called hemangioma.  But, we won’t know the outcome of all this until another week or so when the biopsy results come back.  And if it does come back to be hemangioma, I have no idea what the prognosis is for this type of cancer.  I’ve been trying to find related info on the internet, but you know how that goes…he’s either going to die a tragic death tomorrow afternoon or he’ll live to be 20.

Nevertheless, we’ve taken the approach that we’re just not going to worry about it until the results come back.  In the meantime, his recovery is going slow because of the location of the surgery—imagine having a gazillion stitches in your wrist and then walking around on your hands all day!  Bless his heart.  His dog cousin, Kaya (who also ), even sent Billy Ray a handmade pawmade get-well-soon card in the mail:

(Obviously, Kaya has way too much time on her hands, er paws…)

And this is just how the dog days of Summer are going around here at Casa Lulu.

And as an ode to Billy Ray, here’s some pictures of the stinky hound for your viewing pleasure:

To start with, Bindi Sue had this sharp, pointy baby tooth that refused to fall out and her adult tooth had grown in beside it.  It was not pretty.  And you’ll have to take my word for it, because I forgot to take pictures.  But, it’s not like I could hold Bindi down long enough to actually take a picture of it.  She can sit still for only seconds at a time.  I’m surprised that we even found the extra tooth.  But we did.

And after we found it, we started blaming all of her bad behavior on the extra tooth.  If she tinkled in the house, it was the extra tooth’s fault.  If she took something that was off-limits, it was due to the hostile tooth.  If she barked incessantly for no reason, we cursed the freaking tooth.  You get the picture.

So, week before last, we decided that it was time to get rid of the antagonizer.  The tooth, that is…not Bindi.  And after a trip to the vet (cha-ching!), the bane of our existence is gone!  Just like that.  Okay, so maybe not the entire bane of our existence.  She’s still a bad dog.  But, a very, very cute bad dog:  

And one more thing about my little Bindi-boodles, her birthday was Saturday…she’s a one-year old pup now!  Happy Birthday Boo-boo!

More tomorrow on Billy Ray’s vet excursion.  Which is not very good news, by the way…

Anyhow, this is going to be a short post because it’s 10:35pm, and my eyes are propped open with toothpicks at this point.  I just want to send out a quick “get well soon” to Phoo’s beast, Kaya, who is recovering from metal-plate-in-the-knee surgery (technically speaking) that cost as much as a very used Ford Escort.  Big H sent me this picture of Kaya earlier today, and I just couldn’t help but post it here…

Get well soon, Kaya!  I know that Big H is just counting the moments until you’re back to your old self again…

Quick note:  Angie over at Confessions of a Wayward Diet Goddess guessed the name of the mystery actress in my Mystery Theater Thursday post yesterday.  The actress is Taylor Miller who played Nina Courtlandt on All My Children.  Woo-hoo, Angie! 
Also, be sure to check out AlphaDogMa’s new MTT post!

Five months ago when GR and I went to {{post id=”its-a-grrrl” text=”pick up”}} our own special, canine version of Bindi the Jungle Girl, we had a small inkling that this pup would be a wild one.  The first time that we laid eyes on her, she was bouncing around a crate in the middle of Donna’s kitchen floor crying to be set free.  She was a 2-lb bundle of yapping, constant-moving, energy that could not be contained.  Or photographed, for that matter.

Try as I might, my camera could not keep up with her:

This was hardly the sweet, calm puppy in the picture that Donna sent to us.  Surely she drugged Bindi for this shot:

Anyhow, Bindi is truly a force to be reckoned with.  GR says that Bindi is a hypercondriac.  Much like a hypochondriac, but without the health phobia, and possibly mites.  GR sometimes forgets how to speak the English language or just makes up random words like hypercondriac to piss me off.  He also makes up words like gendres—as in, “The work of Georg Lukács also touches on the nature of literary genres.”  (I totally just copied that from Wikipedia.)  Except for GR would say gendre instead of genre.  Freak.

So, what I’m getting at here, people, is that my sweet, little Bindi?  Is either a complete neurotic or an obsessive-compulsive genius.  Just take a look at this quick video that I taped yesterday evening:

Click here to view the embedded video.

People?  She’s playing ball with herself on the basement stairs.  Which she does every night.  Well, first of all, she goes around the house begging anyone (the chair, the blanket, the refrigerator) to throw the ball to her.  And if that doesn’t work, she’ll entertain herself. 

She is truly a jungle girl.  With a touch of hyperchondria.

Well, I know that you’re not here for the idle chit-chat.  You’re here because you reallllly want the pink poodle that I’m giving away.  And maybe the strawberry milkshake Whoppers.  If there’s any left.

So, without further ado or added drama, the powers to be at random.org have chosen Christie of The World According to Christie winner of my Valentine’s Day giveaway!  Christie said that Roman Holiday is her favorite romance movie.  Congratulations, Christie!  I know that you are a lover of animals, so I’m sure that the bundle of pink frufru will have a happy home.  

Thanks to everyone who played along with my little giveaway!  And I want to give a big shout-out to my blogging friend JayJenny who I have been so awfully neglecting!  I am so bad.  I hope that you and the hubby had a great Valentine’s Day in your new home.  

I’m pretty sure that Sleepless in Seattle received the greatest number of nods for favorite romance movie.  Whatever happened to Meg Ryan anyway?  I’m just hoping that her lips didn’t finally devour her body.

I would still cut off a pinky toe for her hair, though.  Not so much in those pictures, but nevertheless…

Anyhow, wish me luck with my Chinese New Year party this weekend!  I’ll give you a full report of the festivities next week!

Xie Xie!

If you don’t want to be semi-grossed out, step away from the computer. This ain’t gonna be pretty, y’all.

I think that my little Bindi-boodles has contracted leprosy.  Or the mange.  Or possibly a parasitic fungal infection of the epidermis of the canine paw.  I’m not sure.

A little over two months ago, I started noticing small, red bumps in some areas around Bindi’s hind paws.  After a couple of days, the areas increased in size, and she started losing hair in those areas.  At first, I thought it was a rash, so I treated the areas with a gentamicin topical spray that is meant for itchy, rash spots on dogs.  And social deviants.  And when that didn’t work, I took her to the vet. 

The vet instantly thought it was the mange.  I was mortified in the same kind of way as when the school nurse tells you that your child has lice.  Thankfully, after a scrape test, she found no trace of the mange.  So, she sent us home with an antibiotic, some helluva-expensive medicated shampoo made especially for social deviants, and a different brand of dog food.  And after two weeks, the redness was still there.

After another trip to the befuddled vet, Bindi is now taking a round of steroids (user!) and another round of antibiotics.  However, in four days, she will be finished with her meds, but her sweet, baby paws still look like this:

Up close, personal, and painful-looking:

Actually, the funny thing is, I don’t think that these red spots even bother Bindi.  She doesn’t limp, nor does she bite or chew at them.  The vet said that they kind of look like burn marks, and I’m wondering if she’s gotten them from playing catch with the tennis ball in the back yard.  She always seems to skid on her back paws.

Needless to say, next week I’ll be taking her back to the vet who will undoubtedly order some type of $400 test to determine what’s causing this ailment.  Unless of course, you, my faithful readers reader has ever seen or experienced anything like this before with your precious mutt and can give me some advice.  Because at this point?  It’s a medical mystery, y’all. 

If you want to participate in Mystery Theater Thursday, just click here to find out how.