But by Monday evening, I decided something was definitely wrong with his rear right paw and possibly also the left paw because he kept lifting his paws off the ground, mostly the right one but sometimes the left one as well. I tried to take a look, but he almost ripped my face off when I touched his paw. So without a second set of hands to hold him, all I could see was a little bit of his paw getting a little raw from him licking. I decided to take him to the vet on Wednesday if he didn’t get better.

Yesterday I dropped Foster off at the vet in the morning, and let me not digress and talk about the receptionist again this time cause it will just frustrate the shit out of me even more. Foster’s paws had been getting worse, not being able to play with Georgia and having trouble pooping since he has a hard time getting into the position to push since he keeps trying to lift his rear right paw off the ground. But I wasn’t worried too much because I thought it was some superficial wound like a little cut on his paw pad made worse by him licking.

The vet found out not only his rear paws, but all four of his paws have skin legions or ulcers that look as if he scraped them on a rough concrete surface. The rear left paw was in the worst condition. The vet thinks Foster has Lupus because not only there was no such occasion for Foster to have hurt his paws like that but it’s very uncommon for a dog to hurt ALL of his paws like that. He’s pretty sure it is lupus since he has seen enough cases like this even though the only way to make sure is to do a biopsy.

I am angry. I am tired. I am frustrated. I am afraid I’m about to crack.

For now, I came home with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory for the wounds. If his paws don’t get better after this round of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory, then we’ll go from there and treat it with steroids. In the mean time, I’m looking into natural remedies that would help with canine lupus, but it looks even the most holistically minded people seem to say the steroid is the way to go (from what I’ve found out in a very short period of time). If you have dealt with canine lupus or know anybody who has, please let me know. I would like to hear about the experience.

I don’t know if you heard about the Montana No Speed Limit Safety Paradox:

The desired safety effect from posting speed limits was achieved by removing them.

This paradox came from the results of the study done by Montana DOT, which revealed some very interesting facts  such as:

• The fatality rate in highway accidents decreased during the time there was no speed limit.
• More people used seat belts.
• Posted speed limits had either zero or negative effect on traffic safety.

Well, not so paradoxical to me. I think it’s because of those drivers I mentioned above. We all know fast moving vehicles on the left and slow moving vehicles on the right. With a speed limit, people drive as slow as they like on the leftmost lane, and think it’s their right, no matter how other people want to go past them. And I can just hear them say, hey, I’m driving already at a legal speed, you go around if YOU want, but I’m not fucking budging from my RIGHTFUL place. I have the right to drive in this lane! But withOUT a speed limit, these selfish people have to get out of the way since they don’t have the right to drive spitefully in the left lane. So with these these people out of the way and not blocking the flow of the traffic, less people try stupid reckless things with mounting frustration, tailgating, maneuvering to get in and out of lanes literally pushing cars off the lanes, trying to drive as fast as possible to close that gap and squeeze in, towards that promised wide open space a mile ahead of that moving wall. And then if and when they finally clear that wall, they take off dangerously fast to make up the lost time and to shake that frustration off and behind with that spiteful fuck.  No wonder the fatality rate decreases and people drive at more leisurely paces that suit them under no speed limit.

I don’t care how fast you are driving. If you’re driving in the leftmost lane at the same exact speed or slower than the other lane(s), you not only create traffic behind you, but also increase fatality rate. People need to change lanes. People need to get on the highway or get off the highway. People need to merge. So a half of  mile behind you, people have to drive 40mph on a highway because you are so fucking callous. Get the fuck out of the left lane if you are blocking the traffic flow for fuck’s sake.

So the next morning I tried to investigate, but the eaves being about 20 ft above ground, and the “creature” being not huge, I still couldn’t see what it was. A few days later, I zoomed in with my camera, and it revealed it wasn’t  just a creature, it was a nest full of creatures with a big fat “S” at the end!

I tell you, I hate nature. I don’t get along with nature. I don’t know why nature wouldn’t just leave me alone. What have I ever done to it except, you know, a lot of things like using dish washing liquid, detergents, cleaning products, driving a car emitting harmful gas, using heating oil, etc… such small things… Negligible really… Sigh…

Anyway, I asked on plurk what to do about it. Some people told me they were yellow jackets, and some others told me they were wasps. I wiki’ed them, and yellow jacket is the common name for a type of wasp. Who knew? I thought yellow jackets were bees… or does it mean wasps are bees? Oh, who the fuck cares, I hate them. I want them gone!

The thing is this. I wanted a way to get rid of those creatures and the nest without using harmful chemical. (You see how considerate I am about nature and environment and shit? But does nature have any consideration for me? Why does nature has to do this to me, huh? I hate nature.) But to do that, I need to get a 20 ft stick, swat at it and haul ass. I know. Where the fuck am I gonna get a 20 ft stick? And if I have a 20 ft stick, where the fuck am I gonna haul ass to, assuming I CAN haul my big fat ass? Ugh. I hate nature.

Oh, and yeah, have I told you I hate nature?

Me: Hi.
Boss: Hey, how are you doing?
Me: Getting depressed.
Boss: Playing with Foglight?

Anyways. I was told I’m going into it with a wrong attitude because I was already completely turned off  by Foglight the instant I saw the term “cartridge” being used as one of its architectural components. For all intents and purposes, their cartridges are equivalent to software modules. The term “module” is not good enough for them so they had to create a whole another definition for another word?

You know, that’s exactly the reason I didn’t like Starbucks when I walked in to Starbucks for the first time to get a coffee long long time ago. I asked for a medium coffee. And this guy who was taking my order had the audacity to say in a derisive tone, “We don’t have medium. It’s called, tall, grande and venti.” I stood there speechless, dumbfounded. Finally I answered, glaring at him, “I don’t give a shit what YOU call it. I want a MEDIUM coffee. In case you don’t know, it’s the size in the middle, between the smallest cup and largest cup you have.”

Believe it or not, I had to go through this again and again when Starbucks first came to NYC (after the third time I just stopped going there), and my friends used to complain about the same thing. What? Small, medium and large not good enough for them? Why do I have to learn a whole new vocabulary to order a fucking coffee? Arrogant fucking asses. Fortunately, I was told this practice of correcting the customers stopped pretty quickly.

I don’t know why using unconventional words for conventional things is supposed to appeal to the decision makers on things like this. I wonder if it appeals to majority of consumers. Am I in the minority? Do people really like this bullshit? Is it supposed to be cute?

I got a comment that I had to approve because this person had never commented on my blog before. So I read the comment, and it was something like “Excellent strategies and explanations!” Naturally, I was about to mark it as SPAM, but then something caught my eyes. Commentluv had a URL pointing to the commenter’s most recent blog post, which had to do with Thursday 13. So I went to Thursday 13 site to search for the same URL among those who participated. And what do you know, she was one of the participants. Clearly, she was going through each of the participants’ blogs and leaving comments without reading the post, without a cursory glance, not even the title, because would YOU leave a comment like that when the title of the post is Food Is My Daddy? Well, assuming she’s not extremely fucking stupid.

Basically, she was just putting comments to get people to come to her blog and leave comments. Not only that, I noticed that on Thursday 13 site, there is a list of participants’ blogs on the sidebar according to the number of comments left, under the heading of “Most Commented.” And her blog was up there (I’m not going to put her blog link here because I don’t want to increase traffic to her site by doing so).  So I marked her comment as SPAM and deleted it. I regret deleting it though since I could have used it in this post.

I know this wasn’t the first time it happened – believe it or not I’m not THAT stupid, and I appreciate it if you left comments without reading my post because you felt I’d be disappointed. But I tell you now, so you know.  If you don’t want to read my post, you don’t have to read it. But if you haven’t read it, please don’t comment. Don’t get me wrong. I like people leaving comments on my blog. I love comments. Who doesn’t? I feel loved when somebody leaves a comment. But I don’t want people commenting without reading it just to get comments back and increase traffic to their own blogs. Think about it. That’s the definition of SPAM comments.

So what I’m saying is this. Don’t spam my blog.