Alyssa, my daughter who is in the Army, is home on leave.  She absolutely did not want me to rehome the pups before Christmas because she was worried they would become "Christmas puppies", i.e. dumped a week later.  So I will start my little rehoming project this week, for a few of the puppies (I am keeping several).

Puppies never make good surprise presents.  The only time a person should get a puppy as a present is when they have asked for one, are aware of what they would have to do to take care of one, are willing to commit to taking care of the young pup, and love the little monster. 

Because for the first few months, that pup will be a monster.  A real monster.  The puppy will chew up everything, shit on your floors, piss on your Persian carpets, eat your favorite book, tear up that dissertation you worked on for a year, ruin the power cord to your laptop, and make a playtoy out of your iPod. The puppy may make you pretty miserable.  This is a temporary state, and will end when the puppy becomes a dog. 

What they bring to you is joy and love and happiness that will last for years.  But since most people don't seem to know how to handle those things, they focus on the negative temporary effects that even human toddlers go through.  If they could only see that back some decades ago they were the ones chewing on the furniture, maybe they wouldn't be dumping that puppy at the pound a week after Christmas.... 

I spent six hours in the ER yesterday because the middle stitch in my left palm came out.  While I was there, I was told the spreading infection in my hand caused the stitch to pop.  Since I didn't even know I had an infection,  it was actually a stroke of luck that the stitch did come out.

The center of the palm of my hand has turned very dark purple, almost black, and the mound on flesh next to my thumb has turned bright red.  And the damn thing hurts worse now than when it first happened.

In response to a question about how I could have cut myself on the blender blades, here are some pictures of the blender in question. (I took some painkillers, so forgive me if I wander a bit.)

The blender comes in three parts, the base, the blades, and the container.  Unlike a traditional blender, there is no way to put anything in the blender if it is screwed together (there is also no way to use a spatula to get stuff stuck to the sides loose).  The parts screw together, and the motor is not supposed to come on unless the blades are locked on the base.  Unfortunately, there is no lock on the container to stop the blades and motor if the container is not attached.

When trying to remove both the container and the blades, only the container came off.  This made a big mess, and may have been what caused the blender to come on when I tried to remove the blades.  That is the only explanation I can come up with because I know I didn't touch the power button.   I was lucky in that I was trying to avoid the blades when I was trying to unscrew the blades, or I could have gotten hurt much worse.

This is how the blender looks when it is screwed together:

This is how the blender looks when all the pieces are apart:

This is how the blender should come apart after blending something so nothing falls out:

Unfortunately, this is how it came apart after I tried to blend the tuna and mayo (due to the lap-band, everything has to be very small):

Because it came apart like this, tuna/mayo/gunk got everywhere, possibly even in the motor.  And because I wasn't thinking and didn't unplug it before trying to remove the blades,  the "up" blade chopped into my hand.

I hope this makes it more clear about what happened. 

This will be a very short entry.  Last night my new blender malfunctioned and sliced open my hand.  It started up without the power button being pushed.  Then there was blood everywhere (which the dogs lapped up very happily---little carnivores that they are).  It didn't really hurt at first, but I panicked from the blood spurts coming from my left hand.  Then I called Ronald to come get me, and called Christine to calm me down.  She did a good job, and calmed me down enough that I got it wrapped tight enough to stop the bleeding.  (I bleed easily due to aspirin therapy and Plavix.)

The wound doesn't look like much.  It is only just over an inch long.  But it is over half an inch deep, and I could see my bones through the flesh.  As the first panic wore off, I was even curious enough to look inside quickly and see fat globules under the layers of skin.  I had to do it quickly, because the damn thing bled like crazy if I took the pressure off at all.

Now it is sutured up (though it still bleeds--doc said to keep it wrapped tight).  This is what it looks like when kitchen appliances go bad:

The bandage is off for a couple of minutes because I picked a puppy up and she pissed on it....

The doctor had sort of a hard time suturing it because though it was like a razor had done it, it was curved.  I also ended up with a tetanus booster and a shot of antibiotics (after all, the blades were covered in tunafish and mayo...)