The Stars That Usher Evening Rose

Papers, Papers, Papers. That is pretty much what my weekend has consisted of so far. Though I have finished them now but still can not really relax as I have two test coming up next week. Thankfully though the following week is Spring Break.

As I am sure you all remember back over Winter Break my parents offered me a even swap of my car for the new PT Cruiser which I eventually turned down. While talking with my mom yesterday she asked me if I wanted a 58' Chevy Impala. I do not know much about the details right now. Like I have no idea who currently owns the car, or even exactly what the car looks like. Though supposedly they are going to e-mail me some pictures. Only problem I have is that I am not big on agreeing to something like that without really seeing the car in person and if possible even driving it. Mainly because I don't want to agree to anything and then find I am not comfortable in the car and end up regretting my decision. So unless whoever owns the car is willing to wait a while to make a possible sell then I probably wont end up getting it. But who knows we shall see what happens.

Only other bit of news that probably no one but me cares about is that my favorite Nascar driver, Mark Martin, won the Busch Race yesterday which was his 46th career victory in the Busch series which is a record. Also last week he won the IROC (International Race of Champions) race which was his 12th career IROC win which is also a record.

Today I got some good news from my parents. No, it did not relate to Clancy. Though he is continuing to do better. I was talking to my mom this evening and she informed me that my car insurance has literally about dropped in half. It has gone from over $1400 to just under $800. I asked them why and they assume it is because I turned 22 and other than that one small accident I had back in late 2002 I have had a perfect driving record. But knowing that I am probably not all that far from having to start paying my own bills it was quiet nice to hear that a big one like that one took a nose dive like that. Funny thing is that now that my parents have officially moved to Florida their insurance is taking a hike in cost. So now my insurance is probably around the same if not less than theirs.

My parents are now officially down in Orlando. They made the final move down there on Friday and Saturday. Clancy made the trip well they basically sedated him so that way he would sleep the whole way down and not move. Since being down there they have moved him out of the cage because they feel he actually stays more calm outside the cage than he does in the cage. So it seems that he is continuing to do better which is very good news and hopefully he will continue to do so as times passes. If this trend keeps up then I will probably head to Charlotte for Spring Break.

Well on a more depressing note after meeting with the Residency Appeal board last week I got a letter in the mail yesterday informing me that again I have been denied for in-state tuition prices. Not sure what else I have to do to get in-state as we did what they told us to do yet they still deny it to us. We will figure it out though and try again next semester and hope things go better that time around.

I went to Charlotte this weekend to celebrate mine and my sister's birthdays since we were not able to do it last weekend. Though while there we had two unexpecting events.

I got there on Friday around 6:30pm and met Cathy and the kids at Captian D's to eat dinner. Afterwards they had to take me to the pet shop to show me this Wire Haired Fox Terrier (yes that's the same breed as Clancy) that they have been wanting to buy for a month but can not afford it. So we get there and they find the dog and notice that it is $200 off which is still much more than Cathy can really afford to pay. Cathy gets someone to take the dog out and they put us in this pin type thing so we can play with the dog. We sit there and play with the dog for a while and the guy that is helping us keeps trying to talk Cathy into getting the dog while Cathy keeps begging him to go to the manager and try to get her to come down on the price. He kept telling her its pointless because the manager will not do it because they had just marked the dog down that day. So he asked her why doesn't she just finance the dog and she told him that there is no way she would finance a dog. Then the first shocking thing happened when out of the blue William says "I will sell my PS2". Now this is the kid that worships his PS2. So both Cathy and I look at him like you have to be kidding right. Cathy asked him if he was serious and he said that he was. So she told me to call our parents to see what they thought of the deal. But when I called they did not answer. So then Cathy tried and on her second try she got my dad who even had to agree that him selling the PS2 was a good deal. So Cathy asked William again if he was being serious and once again he said yes. So she said are you sure and again he said yes. Cathy then stalled for a minute and then the second shocking thing happened and she turned to the sales person and said "Ok go get the paper work". So after about 30 minutes of filling out paper work and buying a cage we walked out of the pet shop with a new 3 month old dog. So William is now selling his PS2 though he does not yet know for how much. He gave me the game "Need For Speed: Underground 2" and his memory card, so I made out pretty good from the deal.

After getting back to the house they started setting up the cage and decided to name the dog, Casey. Oh, the dog is a girl. So now we have a new Wire Haired Fox Terrier in the family but this one belongs to Cathy and the kids. Casey reminds me of Clancy in several ways but she is still not Clancy. She has Clancy's hop when she runs and she can sleep in as many weird positions as Clancy can but she wont howl and atleast right now doesn't seem to be that big into balls, but that could always change. The dog loves to fall asleep on my stomach though probably six times while I was there she fell asleep on me.

As for Clancy I have not heard much so I am taking that as a good sign that he is still doing ok. Hopefully that will continue. As for me I am doing better I seem to have finally broken this allergy thing. I am also trying to decide what I am going to do for Spring Break whether I am going to go to Orlando or Charlotte. I think it will all depend on how Clancy is doing. If he continues to do better and is almost back to normal come time for Spring Break then I will probably go to Charlotte since I really do not want to make that 9-10 hour drive to Orlando. But, if Clancy is not doing better or gets worse then I will make the drive down there to Orlando. As for now though time to get homework done.

Well things this morning did not work out the way I wanted them too. I feel worse than I did yesterday in the way of being sick, though I still have been going to class because it seems to be just allergies so far. My neck is still very sore this morning as well. Between the two last night I got very little sleep I was up and down the whole time. Only reason I know I got any sleep at all is because I did have a couple dreams last night only one of which I remember which I will post about because it was another one of those really messed up dreams, I don't know where my brain gets this shit. On a better note my Humanities lecture was cancelled today due to technical difficulties.

As for the dream It started with me and this other guy, don't know who the guy was he must have been just someone my mind made up, standing in a desert area about 500 yards from this fort looking thing. Next thing I know the people at the fort start catapulting cars at us. We run towards the fort while keeping an eye at the sky to try and dodge the cars that are flying at us. Two cars came within inches of hitting me but luckily I was never actually hit by one. As we made our way closer and got within about 200 yards of the fort they stop catapulting the cars at us and these two large blue transparent heads appear just floating above the ground and they start shooting basketballs out of the mouths at high rate of speeds at us. One head shooting at me and one head shooting at the other guy. This was the last time I saw that guy so I don't know if he was taken out by the head or just disappeared from my dream. As I make my way forward trying to dodge the basketballs I finally get even with the head and you could tell its whole attitude changed as it got angry and started shooting the basketballs more often and faster at me. Some of them did hit my arms as I used them for protection but oddly none of the ones that hit me hurt me nor did they even knock me off balance. As I made my way past the head it never moved it just turned and continued to shoot the basketballs at me even as I made it to a ladder at base of the fort. The head did not stop firing at me until I actually started up the ladder. When I reached the top of the ladder and got into the fort there was a female, wearing a black dress, crouching looking out to my left. When she noticed me she took of running and I tried to chase after her. This is when I noticed that it wasn't people holding this fort it was actually a pack of skeletons. So I reached behind me and pulled out this large wooden stick, that I didn't realize I had until I actually pulled it out. Using the stick I would strike the skeletons which were easier to defeat then I expected as with one blow they would crumble into a pile of bones. I continued to make my way around and up more ladders knocking off any skeletons that came my way trying to find that lady in the black dress again. I made my way to the last ladder that lead to the upper most level of the fort and took out the last skeleton at the base of the ladder and looked up and saw the lady in the black dress run by and then I woke up. One thing that made this dream so weird, besides the fact of what it was, is that it felt like it was a video game and I was stuck in it.

I am back up in Asheville. I know I said that I would post from Atlanta but I never had a chance too.

I got to see Clancy and see how he was coming along. When I got there he was very happy to see me and wanted out of his cage so, even though we really are not supposed to, we let him out of the cage for a few minutes. He came up to me and gave me some attention before grabbing a new toy that he got and laid down on the ground and started playing with it. After a few minutes we put him back in the cage. You can definitely tell that something has happened to him as he walks with his back arched a lot kind of like cats do sometimes. He is also at times very unstable on his back legs. He has full movement and control of his front legs again but his back ones do not always do exactly what he wants them to do. His back legs are also fairly week as if he stands in one spot long enough his back starts to sink (this I noticed mainly on Friday). He almost looked like a drunk at times as he would be walking around and then put his head down to smell something and his whole center of balance would go out of wack and he would start to fall over and some times fall completely over. Though Saturday and Sunday he seemed to be a lot more stable and even tried to run around and jump on to the ottoman even though we kept yelling at him not too. One of the big problems they have with him is when they walk him and he takes a crap, because his back legs are so weak still, he falls into his poop or diarrhea and would get covered in it. To make matters worse because of his back my parents could not bath him so he stunk of poop the entire time. He spent 90% of the time in the cage. He does not like the cage at all and his whole attitude would change when he got out. Because of the steroids they have him on he has been drinking of lot of water which means he has to go out about every two hours instead of the normal four or five hour wait. But overall considering how he was a little over a week ago I think he is doing pretty well. Anything is still possible and he is due for a checkup on Monday, so if I hear anything there I will post. And they are not thinking about putting him down, now in three weeks if he is not better than that might change.

As for me I was sick all day Saturday which made helping my parents move more difficult. Today I feel somewhat better but still have a cough. Then early Sunday morning before I got up I was laying in bed and picked my head up off the pillow and I felt and heard something pop and had a sharp pain shoot through my neck and back. I rolled over and went back to sleep hoping that was all there was going to be to it. When I woke up the second and final time I realized that the pain was still there. It felt kind of like a really bad kink in the neck. Though as time passed my movement in my neck become more constricted and the pain started to move down my back. At this point it felt more like I had pulled my back again but none of my muscles were tight and where in fact quite loose. So when we left to eat we tried to find a chiopracter but all of them were closed. So we went ahead and ate. While at the restaurant my movement slowly started to come back as the pain started to lift some. So since I was already running later than I had wanted to in order to leave I decided to forget getting it checked out and just hurry home so I could leave. When we got home I took two ibuprofen to knock down the pain to make the drive back to school easier. By the time I left a lot of the pain had lifted and it only felt like I had a small kink in the neck. Still now my neck is stiff and sore as is my back but thankfully nothing like it was this morning. Hopefully by tomorrow it will be much better if not back to normal.

My plans for this weekend have abruptly changed on me. Originally I was to go to Charlotte, as were my parents, to celebrate mine and my sister's birthdays. My mom called me and told me that my dad has come down the bronchitis and does not feel like traveling so therefore they will not be making the trip up there. Also during that phone call she asked me if I would come to Atlanta instead. I told her that I would but asked why and she told me that Clancy in the last few days has shown no improvements at all and that she would really like for me to come down and spend some time with him. Her asking that question disturbed me some as the only two reasons I can think she would have asked me to come down for is if they feel my being there will raise his spirits and maybe help him get on the way to improving once again or that they are thinking about possibly putting him to sleep if his condition does not start to improve in the near future. Though she did not say either I have a feeling it is probably the latter of the two. So I will be going down to Atlanta this weekend to spend time with them and especially Clancy. I will probably post from there to update what is going on and hopefully have better news than what this possibly is.

In my Humanities 214 class today towards the end of class the professor had us get involved with a very strange yet interesting exercise. He first told the entire class to first get into a big circle (moving desk and all). So we did that and he then said ok take all your stuff (Bookbags, notebooks, school books and such) and stick the in the middle of the circle. We all did that. He then says ok now put any valuables and forms of ID in another pile in the middle of the circle. Everyone got up and did as told. He then says ok now everyone kick off your shoes. Everyone by now I am sure was wonder what in the hell this was all about. Then he says "stay quiet and in your mind repeat after me 'I am a stranger,... (I don't remember rest of it)" and then after that he says "Continue to stay quiet and keep that phrase in your mind and follow me". He then walks out of the classroom. So we follow him with nothing now in our hands or pockets and barefoot(or socks) out into the hall and we proceed to walk around the building before final return to our classroom. At first when we walked out of the room I felt a little strange but decided what the hell and tried to get into the frame of mind he was looking for and before long I noticed a difference I almost started to get a feeling of a weight being lifted off my shoulders and began in a way to feel detached from the world around me. The other people that where in the building (ones not in my class just people hanging around the building) that we passed eventually felt more like they were more coming from my imagination than from reality. Once upon returning to the room I returned to my normal state of mind while the teacher talked about a few other things before class ended.

Clancy is back home. My parents where able to bring him home today. They said he is still very wobbly on his feet when he tries to move around. They are still keeping him in the cage to continue to limit his movement as much as possible. They are now saying that they may not bring him up with them this weekend because they are afraid that he might try to move around to much in the car. I was hoping I would get to see him but I guess it best to do the right thing for him and if that means leaving him at the vets then that's what they should do. They said he is totally ignoring him because he is mad that they left him there at the vets for that long. But overall he is still doing ok.

A quick update on Clancy. He is continuing to improve. They said that he is moving around more, though only as much as the cage he is in will let him. They still do not want him to be moving all that much as the injury has not fully healed, it will take at least two more weeks for that to happen. My parents will get to pick him up either tomorrow or Tuesday depending on what the vet says. My parents said they plan to bring him up to Charlotte when they come up next weekend to celebrate mine and my sisters birthdays. So I will get to see him and get a better idea of what kind of condition he is in. Though when they bring him he will be mostly confined to the cage. If I hear anymore bigger changes in his condition I will post.

On a different note I finally finished reading Koontz's From The Corner Of His Eye" it was, as all Koontz books are, very interesting and suspenseful and overall a very good read. I have decided to take a one book break from Koontz and so I went and bought Blindness by Jose Saramago. I had read one other book by Saramago, called The Cave, a few years back and really enjoyed it and I had the "Blindness" book recommended to me.

A month back or so I had, with the urging of Michael, submitted a quote of mine to a couple quote sites. Yesterday I got an e-mail from one of them saying they had selected my quote to publish on the site. So supposedly on Monday if you go to this Quote Site then you should find my quote there.

Update on Clancy. I just got off the phone with my mom and she said that Clancy has definitely made improvements. She said that the Vet had said that on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the worst and 10 being best, that when they brought him in yesterday he was about a 2 and that today he is up to about a 6. They said that today his feeling in his back legs has come back and that he can now start to move them and said he has even attempted to stand up a few times but that he is still very wobbly and uncoordinated. They plan to slowly back him off the steroids starting tomorrow. He is still on pace to head back home on Monday though he still will have to be kept in a cage most of the time and kept fairly immobile so as to not re-injure himself until it completely re-heals. They also said that the degradation of the bone is due from age and the wear and tear he has put on his body from being hyper and a hard playing dog. So the only real way to possibly prevent this from happening again is to attempt to slow him down some which with Clancy is a lot easier said than done. But, so far so good and hopefully that trend will keep up. I will post again tomorrow when I hear more.

Tonight I got some bad news from home. My dad called me while I was up in the math lab and when I returned back to the room I called him back. After the saying hi he says "Clancy is in bad shape". Of course knowing Clancy's age 12 years old, going on 13 in April, I started to assume the worst. Thank God it wasn't the worst but it still was far from good. I was told that Clancy is currently in the Animal Hospital and is expected to stay there until at least Monday. My dad said when they got up this morning that Clancy could not even walk and that his back legs were motionless. There first thought was that he had a stroke overnight so they immediately rushed him over to the vets, thankfully though that ended up not being the case. At the vets they did several x-rays and found that Clancy's back is deteriating. One of the vertebrae in his back basically gave way causing temporary paralysis of his back legs. They said that all that can be done is to give him some steroids, sedate him, and wrap his back up so that way he will not move at all. This should let the vertebrae heal on its own and they said if it goes well, which they think it will, he should be back on his feet like normal in about two weeks. My mom said when they had Clancy on the table doing the x-rays that he would not take his eyes off of her and that she could tell that even he himself knew something was seriously wrong with him, kind of sad. I will keep anyone who reads this informed as I hear things.