show of hands: how many of you out there have ever spent three hours in the vet ER waiting room, with both your current husband and ex-husband, and the bleeding, elderly dog? without dinner? hmm? nobody but me? really?

well i guess that's why i get to have cioccolato scuro black walnut gelato tonight and you don't. because that's how we all spent last evening. up at VHUP with flan, who had been bitten by a neighborhood chow yesterday afternoon.

VHUP is wonderful, really wonderful, but god. dismal. we saw far too many things we didn't want to see -- a before/after euthanasia of a dog, and a shih tzu whose eyeball had popped out when it got its collar stuck on the mechanical part of a chair recliner. compared to everyone else, flan was in great shape, and frankly, showing off as usual. she has a big wound, and a staple in it, and is on the mend, as you see, enjoying her special attention.

last night it was all just awful though. so tense and so scary. we got home and i cried like i haven't cried in maybe five years. i never thought it was going to stop. and then ben put ripley in the bed with us, and her dog magic just worked. she's like a little nuclear heat source. she's the best medicine for flan, too, although the antibiotics don't hurt either.