It can’t rain all the time.

Yea, I’m gonna get my bitch on a little.

Today turned out to be ‘one of those’.

My ol’ buddy the Eraser had called me a few days back and said he’d be rolling through town and wanted to get a road ride in and catch up, maybe grab a bite. I was down. I told him though that it had been raining here like mad and that he’d probably be better off (for his bike’s sake) leaving it at home and maybe we could spin on the mountain bike if the weather held out. Nothing like a pounding consistent rain to do in a bike sitting in the back of a truck. He agreed. He was supposed to roll up around 2pm today.

That was gonna work out well as I had to get up early, do a little freelance work, some other freelance work, and do some real work that I’d gone to the office yesterday to pick up on the bike (in the rain) and I also had to set up a bike for him to ride. Later in the evening I hoped to get around to setting up the new MacBook Pro with some software that I – ahem – ‘borrowed’ from work as well. It was shaping up to be a full day.

Well instead of hitting my training ride this am (more rain, the torrential kind), I slept in. The kids, by some miracle did as well, till like 9:30. So that was pretty cool. I got up and started the morning shuffle, dressing ’em, hooking them with some cartoons, planning on getting my design on…

Leadfoot Eraser called and said that he had misjudged the timing and would probably be here more around noon. Yikes. I tried to get some work done on the computer, but the kids were having none of it. No matter I thought, there’s after the ride with Eraser….

Eraser shows, we catch up over some basement wrenching whereby I raped 4 different bikes to cobble together 2 for us to ride. Cool. I can put one back together tonite in time to ride to work tomorrow.

We ride. It’s fun. I try to stick to ‘dry/legal’ trails and we spin a good deal on the gravel trail at Wakefield and Accotink. We get into the singletrack just enough for him to get a taste and decide he’s hooked. Cool, another convert. He was just happy he got dirty. The water in the stream crossings was the highest I’ve EVER seen it. Over the banks in on the stream valley trail and there was a good 8-10″ of water on the trail tread. With them prediciting rain for the next 3 days, I’m saying the race on Wednesday is going to be a wash – excuse the pun.

So we head back with visions of some sort of Ruby Tuesday’s meal in our heads – it’s next to Performance and he wanted to hit it up.

I return to the house to find Lyn and the kids screaming at us through an open window to come quick that the dog is really sick. They had tried to call, but I’d left the phone at home.

My 7 year chocolate lab, North is on the floor, he can’t get up his eyes are rolling back in his head and he’s having ‘seizures’. They’re freaking out. Course it’s Sunday and the vet’s closed, but they’ve managed to locate an emergency joint so we set out to get him there. He can’t walk and is sort of squirming around so Eraser (poor guy got more than he bargained for – a workout on the bike and animal rescue) and I managed to get him onto a blanket (North tips the scales at about 120 – he’s a big boy) and got him into the back of the car stretcher style. I said a hurried goodbye and said we’d catch up and Lyn and I were off to the vet. Thankfully my sister was here and able to watch the kids, who were of course very upset and asking “Daddy, is North going to die?” I was pretty freaked myself and wasn’t sure how to answer that one. That worried me even more.

So we go him to the emergency vet and they got him in and went to work on him. He’s still there as I type this – staying the night – we thought that was better. Earlier this week he was into our regular vet for his annual checkup and some meds for an ear infection he’s got. They think he may have some thyroid issues as well (oh, the irony), but we’re still waiting for the lab results on that. The emergency docs told us that it would appear that the ear infection may be much worse than initially thought, and that in essence he couldn’t stand or get his bearings ’cause he’s basically got the dog version of vertigo. They also think that the infection may have gotten in behind his ear and/or broken his eardrum, but they can’t tell yet as the swelling is so bad. They’ve got him on more intense antibiotics and have kept him there for observation. They called not too long ago and apparently he’s doing better and is up and around a bit. He should come home tomorrow.

So this afternoon, after he was stabilized and Lyn and I came home and reassured the kids that he’s gonna be ok hopefully, Lyn said she would take the kids to the pool so I could get some work done…cool.

Well…

I managed to get one of the freelance jobs done. The other one, I’m waiting to hear from the client on. Will have to wait for a reply – course, the job’s due Tuesday at 9am, so you and I both know what I’m going to be doing tomorrow night – and I’ll have to do it while nursing the ailing North.

I hunkered down and decided to try and get some the of the think work done. Well, in order to do that, I needed to install some of that ‘borrowed’ software on my new Mac in order to get it done. Well, no dice. For once Adobe outsmarted me and I got busted on the activation tip. Ugh. Strike 17 today. I decided to hook my old computer back up and do the work on it. Strike 18. The files I brought from work were Illustrator CS2 files and I only have Illustrator 10 on that machine. I go down swinging.

I decide to cut my losses and install what software I actually own on this thing which pretty much amounts to my banking software and Delicious Library.

We get the kids ready for bed just as another round of monster thunderstorms are rolling in. More rain. Sleepless kids. Boom.

Oh yeah, and I just remembered I need to get down and get some sort of bike together to ride to work tomorrow. In the rain.

So I finally said screw it and decided to update this thing. I’ve been promising an account of my first race experience, but it’s looking more and more like that ain’t gonna happen. Between the vet appointment on Tuesday ($600) and the Emergency run today ($500 estimate…”we’ll see, depending on how he does or if he needs more treatment”, says the nice lady vet) I’m in the serious financial hurtlocker. Time to clock some hours with The Man.

Actually on second thought, someone can have the race story….first $1100 gets it. I’ll show up and tell you in person. You can even ask questions.

But if it’s raining, it’s gonna cost you extra.