Why I REALLY wanted to smoke this past weekend...

Yeah, I did just post about my (gasp!) relapse of a few weeks ago, but as I wrote that post, I was reminded of another thing that actually did make me think about obtaining some more of the wildwood flower: this past weekend.
Friday went from crappy to pretty cool. Earlier in the week, I finished a pretty cool brochure for a symposium after many trials and revisions. Then I passed it off to my associates for printing. Friday I was asked to post the "new" version to the web site I had set up to promote the symposium. Wait a minute - NEW version? I open the PDF, and THEY HAD TOTALLY MESSED UP THE FONTS AND THEREBY THE LAYOUT IN SEVERAL KEY PLACES. As you may have inferred from the all-caps, I was pretty upset about the whole deal. Turns out a few speakers wanted to add/change their seminar descriptions and/or bio's, and my associates "didn't want to bother me with such little changes". I suspect that these changes were made BEFORE the final brochure was printed, which means that the symposium brochure cover will look somewhat different than the site, the brand identity has been shot to hell, I won't want to use the brochure as a portfolio piece, and on and on.
When I got home, I found out that my wife had painted the kitchen, which is overall a good thing, although she and I have distinctly different ways of approaching projects like that one. By which I mean that I spend a LOT of time with preparation (taping, making a plan of attack, shaking/stirring paint for some time, etc.) whereas my spouse is more concerned with "getting the paint on the wall". Irksome, but I've learned to let these things go - left to my own devices the project would get done right, but it would get done sometime in the next few years or so.
However, the kitchen being in the condition it was negated the possibility of eating at home, and I was able to pitch the idea of going to Outback Steakhouse. Laugh all you want, they make a great steak, and I like to eat said steak. The wait was (surprisingly) short, and the Metro Cruise was going on, so we could sit outside and watch all sorts of sweet old vehicles go by.
After a killer ribeye for dinner, a trip to the bookstore - I thought for a minute that it was my birthday or something.
Saturday - pretty awesome. Didn't do diddly-squat, other than some stuff for church (I do the website, and it's like most pro bono projects in that it's a lot more work than advertised, for little to no thanks). Not that I mind - I can get a little creative with the visuals, and it's my baby, so no one messes it up a la some brochures that come to mind. Also rehearsed the reading that the wife and I were going to do for the morning church service - normally not a big deal, but of course this reading was from some newer interpretation of "Song of Songs/Solomon". While flattered that our pastor thought of us as a natural choice to read, we were mostly worried that we were going to start cracking up in front of the whole congregation - when she's talking about her lover being like a virile gazelle, leaping mountains, and I'm talking about my little dove and her ravishing face, well - we're "shwoopy" as I've mentioned, but we also tend to make each other laugh.
Sunday - got through the reading just fine, lots of compliments afterward, etc. I though we were expressive without being irreverent, and we didn't collapse in a heap of giggles. Although I did see several congregation members with pretty goofy grins showing while we were up there.
Nice sunny day, I treated myself to a mocha on the way home (we drove separately as she had some youth-director stuff to do), and then we had a nice light lunch and prepared to laze around and/or nap the day away.

And then it happened.

Our greyhound was sitting on the floor, as she usually does. Then she hops to her feet, and suddenly starts yelping in pain repeatedly, which if you've ever heard the sound, well, it's pretty scary. So my wife and I converge on the poor little pony, and damn if her leg isn't bleeding a little bit. Son of a witch, with a capital "B" - she did something to her leg all right.
This is the same leg (right front) that she broke pretty much in half several years ago. She spent nearly half a year in casts and splints, so her "ankle" bones are fused, and the leg was pretty gimpy and sad-looking since. She hardly uses it, to be honest. Not that it bothered her, but still, I always felt like a bad parent walking with her - people always come up and ask, "Oh, no - what happened to your dog?" or "It looks like your dog hurt her foot." The dog picks up on this and will then "milks" it for all the attention she can get. The little bitch is crafty, trust me.
ANYhoo, my wife and I are pretty freaked out at this point, and although we get the dog to calm down pretty quickly, it's pretty obvious that something is wrong (again) with her right front leg. Since it's Sunday, our usual vet isn't open, so we need to truck the poor dog to the other side of town to the emergency animal hospital, which is 1)inconvenient, and 2)wicked expensive.
We get there, and it's a madhouse - it was apparently "let your animal hurt itself day" and though we beat the rush, it was a long wait before, during, and after examinations/procedures.
Finally the vet comes into the exam room after running x-rays, and shows us the film. Ouch. The dog did break her leg again - apparently right at the end of the plate that was installed to fix it the last time. On top of that, the bone looked not-so-good in general, as in "osteosarcoma" as in F-ING BONE CANCER IN MY F-ING DOG. Sh-t and f--k!
I managed to keep it together, and my wife mostly did, but we were pretty much in shock. The dog got splinted and doped up (not in that order), and we got a nice big bill for the trouble of getting some pretty crap-tastic news about what is basically our kid.
So, yeah, I wanted to get stoned pretty badly at that point.
I decided not to cry until we got home, but once there, my wife looked some things up and found out that lots of times, if a dog gets the osteosarcoma diagnosis, the life expectancy is about a year. W. T. F.
So now I'm wondering if/when my dog's going to die, and my wife is a mess. Literally, she made herself sick for the rest of the day, and most of the next. I bit my tongue, because I was thinking her condition was one that could easily and appropriately be mitigated with the judicious use of marijuana.
Our vet was pretty cool about things, and has sent the x-rays to MSU for a few more opinions - it could just be osteoporosis, or it could be osteosarcoma. Either way, I'm thinking I'll have a three-legged dog in the near future.
And I'm okay with that. Of course, I can't reason with the dog and tell her she'll be fine, etc. - all the poor pup knows is that she hurts like hell. My wife is damn hot mess, so I get the unenviable position of "emotional rock" for the family unit for the time being. Hoo-friggin-ray for me. So I never did get the chance to cry about it.
For the record, I am upset, but not overly. The dog will be fine with three legs, and we'll enjoy whatever time we have left with her. It sucks like crazy - this greyhound is something special, and you can ask around for verification on that. Granted my opinion isn't worth much, probably, but they broke the stinking mold when God made this dog. I've never met a hound with more personality, who could make me laugh every darn day, and charms everyone who meets her, dog-person or no.
In summation - my dog's probably dying of bone cancer, and it sort of makes me want to get stoned for a bit.

But I won't. I don't do that anymore, remember?