I didn't have a very good week I’m afraid.

First, the cats hate me. You see we took them to the vet last weekend. They are in good shape except for some gingivitis on Geiger. The vet recommended two things: Either brush his teeth with our fingers flavoured with tunafish, or change their food. Now, as I think the former is not likely to succeed in doing anything other than costing me a lot of blood we settled on the latter. The cats have been eating a special (and very expensive) food all week. The thing is, they hate it. Geiger especially.  And they blame me, not Marsha, just me for taking away their old food.

But that wasn’t the most stressful bit.

You see on Monday we signed the paperwork to sell our current house. This finalized the whole deal. We were all set to move. Then on Tuesday as the agents were reviewing the documents, a “miscommunication” was found. On July 29 we turn over the keys to this house. It turns out that we close on the new house on August 30. We were going to be homeless for a month. The agents for all four parties in this string of houses argued about moving closings around, closing on this house but renting it back from him for a month, all sorts of plans were floated. Mostly though, they argued about who promised what in which conversation and who’s fault this mess was. Finally by Saturday we had sorted out a plan. We’ll leave this house on the 29th. We’ve arranged to rent a place for a month, and then move into our new digs at the very end of August. By a strange coincidence we’ll be renting the suite in the first house, the one we bid on but did not get, with the suite that we had originally planned to rent to Barbara. You remember Barbara. This all started because we needed to find a place for Barbara. Now it looks like she won’t be moving and we’re the homeless ones.

But even that wasn’t the most stressful bit.

On Tuesday Marsha mentioned that one of her teeth was bothering her. As I know Marsha doesn’t mention this sort of thing unless it’s REALLY bothering her I pressured her to call right then to see the dentist. Finally she did and got an appointment for 11:00 Wednesday morning.

You know it’s not going to be good news when the dentist takes one look and calls for backup. One tooth that had been a root-canaled and capped years ago had gotten a cavity and the old canal was infected. They put her on heavy antibiotics and pain killers and made an appointment with a specialist for Thursday. Thursday I drove Marsha to Duncan, about an hour south. We went there because that was where the best oral surgeon on the island works. I drove because driving and codeine pain killers are a bad combination. The surgeon cleaned out, disinfected, and repacked the root-canal. Then he looked more closely. It turned out that what the first dentist thought was a cavity on the tooth was a cavity on the adjacent tooth. The cavity and infection were separate problems. Marsha has been on heavy antibiotics and will continue them through July to make sure the infection is gone. Finally, by Saturday the pain had gone down enough so that Marsha could drop the codeine and so could function. She has a follow up this week to see if they have to replace the cap.

So, between the pain and the codeine Marsha hasn’t been sleeping well all week, the cats have been starving all week, and most of the agents in Nanaimo have been arguing all week about who's the biggest idiot. Oh and by the way we are still planning on driving to Minnesota in July for the family gathering.  Just a brief break in my crazy life.

So like I said I had a really bad week.

Doug & Marsha

Ten points to whomever guesses what this flower is. I've never seen one before.