Dogs and dogtown

They're always up for a post-walk treat. Or an anytime treat for that matter.

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Health/Medical.

The mass in my belly has responded remarkably well to treatment. It's essentially gone now. The treatment has been a bit of a rough ride but most of that is behind me, at least for the moment and hopefully for some time to come.

The remaining problem and all of the pain comes from the fact that the mass was pressing against some lumbar spine nerves, mashing them against other tissues.

Tight fit and plenty of opportunity for "mashing."

Nerves don't like being mashed. They tend to get into an inflammation feedback loop and it takes time, patience, and steroids to settle them down and chase away the pain. On that front there's been good progress too, but it looks like I'll be having a round of steroid injections directly into the affected areas. Hopefully that will interrupt the vicious circle of inflammation and pain and allow me to get back to where I was before all this crap started. I seem to be trending in that direction already and I'm having a lot less pain over the last week or so. Mind you, it comes back with a vengeance from time to time and there are moments when it feels a lot like agony.

As much as I tend to focus on my own immediate problems, I never have to look far to see that many others have much worse problems. It seems clear to me that I've been blessed with the ability to see that I'm not the center of the universe and that I've somehow gained enough discipline over time to recognize that fact and appreciate the suffering and courage of those who are more severely afflicted than I. The siren song of self pity and egocentrism leads only toward splintering rocks and disaster. It's always a choice, and the song can sound really good at times.

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Traveled to Cheyenne (dogtown) today. There's a new Qdoba restaurant. "Mexican Cats." Whoops, that's "Mexican Eats." Sorry, old eyes.

Interestingly, this new restaurant is located on the site/lot where Carl Corey's house used to stand.

Carl Corey? Yes. Prince Corwin of Amber used that alias in Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber. In fact Carl Corey is the first character you meet in that tale. Carl had been banished to our particular "shadow" of the true earth, suffering from amnesia. At one point in the tale he returns to this shadow and his now dusty and boarded up residence. Where Qdoba stands today, there once stood an abandoned and boarded up house, and just like the liquor store below, I drove right past it many times over the years. Unlike the liquor store, I noticed the house, and for whatever reason was always strongly reminded of the Amber tales and Carl Corey's house. How's that for goofy? I first read those stories in High School and have always enjoyed them.

Here's DT's Liquor Mart, an annex of the Tusker Bar. I've been driving past this place for years also but never really noticed it before. Ah the irony.

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Filling my pickup was an event that recently featured in a video I shared with a farmer friend from Herefordshire. He was curious how much money it took to fill the pickup, which is usually circa $75-$80 depending on tank depletion and gas price. Seem's like that's pretty cheap compared to over there.

There are just over four liters in a quart (1.05 liters per quart, or 4.2 per gallon), so 4.90-ish British Pounds Sterling per gallon. (Man, I gashed that math before returning to fix it). Firetruck me. Crazy George III must still be running the show. Or the national democratic eurocommunist union of unicornia, which many merkins seem to want to emulate. Butt I digress.

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This Day in Chicken History (actually September 10, 1945, in Fruita Colorado.

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