The big news of the week is that both puppies are doing fine post surgery. I’ll go into more detail in the Pupdates portion for those who want more details. For those who just want the bare bones—the surgeries went well and pretty much without complications and they are back to running around like dingoes and smashing into each other (which I have been trying to prevent as much as possible).

On a personal note, I was knocked down with a bug or something last week. I was nauseous and exhausted for a couple of days. A lot of Vernors was imbibed. For a couple of days it was really hard to even stay awake. Now that I think about it, it could have just been the comedown after days of being nervous about the dogs.

I can hear some of you in the background asking, “well, that’s all well and good, but what about the mead?” Worry not. The most recent batch of blueberry mead has been back sweetened and pasteurized. Now that it has cooled off, I will be able to bottle it (as soon as I get done writing this). Honestly, this could have been done ages ago, but I just didn’t have the time to work on it. The batch has been sitting in the fridge for weeks since I put it in there to cold crash overnight. I have a second batch, this time the triple berry (the one that is The Mrs’ favorite), which I am in the process of stabilizing now. Hopefully I won’t forget this one in the fridge. Once that’s done I will have no batches currently in primary or secondary! The next few weeks are going to be busy, but I have a couple of new recipes that I want to try out including one that should end up purple.

Listening To: I’m almost finished with The Faceless Thing We Adore by Hester Steel. There was a point where I thought the book was coming to a conclusion, but it was only the end of the first part! This book has gone places most authors do not go and I’m loving it.

Currently Reading: I wasn’t able to do much in the way of reading last week due to being so tired. It’s a lot easier to listen to an audiobook than to try and get my eyes to focus.

Current Obsession: We both enjoyed Spider Noir (watched in black and white, natch) and are currently working our way through the second season of Monarch.

As mentioned above, both of our dogs are now “fixed.” As I stated on various social media platforms, we don’t have to worry about any “Alabama children” and Bob Barker can get the hell off of my back.

Dropping them off was the usual combination of nerves and guilt. Finnegan ran in, all excited to see people and maybe get some treats. He is extremely outgoing and optimistic about everything. The only thing he was unsure about was sitting on the scale. Apparently we have to work on his body positivity issues. Quinn was much less sure about hanging out with the nice people at the vet clinic. She also had a bit of a reaction to the pre-anesthesia meds. Finn was a bit slow, but pretty with it when I picked him up. Quinn was loopy and drooly.

They both did well during their recovery time, with the exception of Finn’s GI issues. I had to add another medication to his regimen to help clear up that issue. Neither one of them seemed to have any lingering pain, even right after the operations.

The good news is that we still have some left over sedatives to use the weekend of the Fourth, also known as The Most Hated Time For Dogs.

However, neither one of them is bothered by the noise from the gun range nearby, so maybe the fireworks won’t bother them either.

This is it, the last post with the reminder to visit us in Port Huron for Frankenfest which happens this Saturday (the 27^th). We will be on the lawn at Fort Gratiot, right in front of the aerialists and down from the hearses. We’ve been posting about this one for a while, so you should know all of the details by now.

Don’t worry about missing us talking about this one. We will also be at the Frankenfest held in Detroit at Fort Wayne in September.

Because there is no rest for the wicked, and we definitely fall into that latter category, we have added another appearance to our schedule. Look for us at the Mortuary Manor BOOkfest in Toledo, OH 1 August. The event will feature numerous authors and vendors and is held in a Victorian funeral home which is now a museum. There will also be flashlight tours of the building after the event as well as a ghost tour. Click here for more information.

This Week’s Rambling: When Technology Fails

One of my biggest pet peeves is when things just don’t work right. This is especially the case when it is a big ticket item, something I’ve spent a lot of money on.

That is what I have been dealing with lately. The laptop that I am currently writing this on has been hanging for no reason that I can determine. I’ll be trucking along and suddenly everything just stalls. The cursor stops moving, the track pad becomes unresponsive, and sometimes I even get that stupid spinning beach ball. It isn’t all the time, but when it happens, it is maddening. The pause is just that, a quick pause, but it is still enough to absolutely infuriate me.

Things are supposed to work. All of the time. No questions asked.

I know that this is totally ridiculous. All things have problems from time to time. This is just one of those things that immediately snaps my patience and sends me from zero to a bajillion in 2 seconds flat.

Fortunately, I’ve been working with Apple products for decades, so I know most of the little tricks. I’ve gone ahead reset the NVRAM, PRAM, and SVC. I fiddled around with a couple of the settings to make sure that it is not a memory hog issue. None of the regular fixes seem to have worked, so I’ll be doing a deep dive on the internet to see if there are any solutions there.

If not, I will have to actually put on pants and go out in public.

Ugh.