I'm glad to report that Cassie's face looks pretty much like it did before surgery. But for the next few days she's going to look like something out of Buffy. Here's the before, last night:
And here's a few minutes ago:
Her left ear is now a bit back of her right ear and slightly closer, but it does look like the surgeon did a great job taking out only the minimum.
Right now she's napping on the couch. We'll try going for a walk before dinner, where we'll work on her not smacking me in the bum with the cone as she did getting to the car.
Updates as conditions warrant.
I dropped Cassie off at the hospital a little before 7 this morning. The surgeon called me just before 10 to say that the operation went well and Cassie is recovering normally. I'll pick her up at 2 this afternoon, after which I'll post before-and-after photos.
We spent some time at Montrose Dog Beach yesterday:
Of course, we walked 3.2 km to the beach, 1 km to The Dock for lunch with Butters and her family, and then almost 5 km home, so by 5pm Cassie was pooped:
Including one more walk around the neighborhood in the evening, Cassie got 12 km of walks over 2½ hours yesterday. Today will be less strenuous for her: only about 6 km. And lots of nap time.
New York City adopted Ranked-Choice Voting before the 2019 Democratic mayoral primary, and they got Eric Adams—their least-popular mayor in decades—out of it. Since ranked-choice voting was supposed to reduce the likelihood of electing an extremist, this was a surprising result. Fortunately New Yorkers have had a few years to get the hang of ranked-choice, so in this year's Democratic primary, they won't make that mistake again, right?
Oh, bother. The extreme leftist won. With incumbent Eric Adams running for re-election as an independent, and former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who lost last night, threatening to do the same, it's quite possible the Republican (Curtis Sliwa) could squeak on through. Good work, guys.
(For what it's worth, I don't know who I would have voted for if I still lived in NYC. I am fairly certain it would not have been Cuomo or Mamdani.)
In other disappointments:
- Former Secretary of State Anthony Blinken argues that the OAFPOTUS's attack on Iran "was a mistake," but he hopes it succeeds.
- Surprising absolutely no one, Illinois governor JB Pritzker (D) has announced he will run for a third term, without a hint of whether he'll run for president in 2028.
- Is US Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) the future of the Republican Party?
- The Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Scott Turner, has decided he'd like the National Science Foundation headquarters to serve as his executive mansion.
- Chase Strangio, the guy who lost the most important trans-rights case perhaps ever, blamed everyone and everything except his own extremist strategy for the loss, proving once again that narcissism knows no political party.
- A rumor going around town says the Bank of New York might buy Chicago's last locally-owned bank, Northern Trust, though the latter denies it.
- The Economist goes deep into the history and consequences of OnlyFans.
- Apparently I was one of a record number of travelers to pass through O'Hare on Sunday.
Finally, how did I not know about the Lake County Forest Preserve Districts's giant 18-hectare off leash dog area in Lake Forest? Cassie, honey, guess where we're going this weekend?
I spent all of last weekend with friends, and we wound up just having fun and not worrying about photos. So, not much from Seattle to post. I did capture Hazel lazing on the couch, though:
I don't know what I did to deserve it, but Hazel spent a long time staring at me the way Cassie does. Of course, they do know and like each other:
I'll have the usual roundup of horrifying current events later today.
What a weekend. I mean, for the world; for me, yesterday included vacuuming the house and my car, and taking Cassie on 2½ hours of walks plus sitting outside at Begyle to get pats from random strangers. (To be clear, Cassie got random pats; I did not.)
We started at Horner Park:
And stopped briefly at Burning Bush, where Cassie was under the table even before I got my beer:
I had some stuff about the political events over the weekend, but I'll put that off until later.
Cassie enjoyed some couch time with me yesterday evening:
Eventually she decided on a full-bagel nap:
Cassie and I met with her surgeon today to discuss removing the mast cell tumor on her head. The good news is that the tumor is small, sub-cutaneous (as opposed to being in her skull or more delicate tissue), and very slow-growing. The bad news is that its location, about a centimeter from her left ear, complicates the removal a bit. The surgeon generally prefers to remove about a 3-cm circle of tissue around the tumor. Since everyone wants Cassie to retain her left ear, she'll have to remove slightly less tissue, which increases the probability of missing some cancer cells.
Still, the surgeon is very optimistic, not least because dogs can live for many years with untreated mast cell disease. Popping the tumor out now gets Cassie's life expectancy to the same place it would be without the disease. She may develop another mast cell tumor later on (as Weimaraners, in particular, are apt to do), but that doesn't indicate metastasis, nor does it mean she'll have a shorter life span.
Really, the worst part of it will be the bill. Because, of course, all surgeries at this clinic come with a complimentary (and mandatory) walletectomy.
So, on July 8th, she'll get a chunk of her head removed and sewn back up, and she'll be in a cone for two weeks. She'll also look ridiculous for a month or so until the fur grows back.
Updates as the situation warrants.
Two photos this morning. First, Cassie tried to convince the other patrons at Spiteful Brewing yesterday that no one ever pats her:
She was pretty successful with the ruse. People stopped to pat her continuously. She has us all trained.
Second, here is the GOES-East visible light photo from about half an hour ago:
See all that haze from Alberta and Saskatchewan in the northwest, through the US Midwest, and swooping all the way down to Jacksonville and out to the Atlantic? That's wildfire smoke from the Canadian plains. There isn't a cloud in the sky over Chicago right now, but we can really see the haze.
Cassie and I are about to go on an adventure involving A Ride in the Car!, and we'll probably get another hour of walkies today. The smoke hasn't yet descended to ground level so the AQI is not great (61) but so far not hazardous. Still, the number of fires this early in the season doesn't bode well for the summer fire season.
First, an update on Cassie: her spleen and lymph cytology came back clean, with no evidence of mast cell disease. That means the small tumor on her head is likely the only site of the disease, and they can pop it out surgically. We'll probably schedule that for the end of June.
I have had an unusually full calendar this week, so this afternoon I blocked off three and a half hours with "No Meetings - Coding." Before I dive into finishing up the features for what I expect will be the 129th boring release of the product I'm working on, I am taking a moment to read the news, which I have not had time to do all day:
Finally, the city of Chicago has started formal negotiations with the Union Pacific Railroad to acquire an abandoned right-of-way on the Northwest Side—that Cassie and I walked on just a week ago and that my Brews & Choos buddy and I used to get to Alarmist back in November 2023. The project still requires a few million dollars and a few years to complete. Still, the city also is talking about building a protected bike lane along Bryn Mawr Avenue in the North Park and Lincoln Square Community Areas, which would connect the Weber Spur with the North Shore trail just east of the Chicago River. For the time being, the UPRR doesn't seem to mind people walking on their right-of-way, though technically it's still private property. But that trail will be really cool when completed.
And now, I will finish this feature...