It's always nice to have a backup plan.....

Today a couple of things have taken place, so far anyway.  First our one dog, Casino, has been sneezing and had a clear runny nose for about a week. I began homeopathic treatment as soon as I noticed his repeated sneezing. Although during the course of the treatment he got no worse, he didn't seem to get any better either and this morning he was shaking his head, a sign of ear involvement so..... I call the vets office and they said to bring him in by 9:30am. So we hurry about getting everything in order; start the car to let it warm up, load the dogs( can't take on without the other*wink*) and head down out About 2 miles down the road I notice that the car is about to overheat so I pull off to the side and let it idle with the heater running on high( no warm air), gradually it begins to come down. Now I'm thinking we're beginning to freeze up or something, so we sit and wait to let it cool down, then we proceed slowly, watching the temperature gauge at all times, it never went so high again, but was bouncing around like a ball, first high, then drop low, then climb, then drop*sigh*  By this time we were just minutes from the vets office. I left Cortney in the car with it running to see if it would stabilize, with instructions if it got to the point I'd showed her on the gauge, she was to turn it off. After running for 10-15 minutes while at the vets office it did level off, but was still higher than normal.

Okay back to Casino, they weighed him and he was 51 .8 lbs which the vet said is perfect for his breed. With Casino on the exam table, I explained that he'd had some sneezing, clear mucus from his nose and was now shaking his head. The vet took his temp. it was normal, then began examining his ears, the left one was clear and looked good, then the right, it had a small seed head from grass embedded and was red and irritated but not yet infected to the point of pus. I helped to hold Casino while the vet extracted the grass seed head, he held still like a champ. :o)  Then the vet took a look up his nose and swabbed it, just clear mucus, so that was a plus.  Anyway Casino will be on a course of antibiotics now for 10 days. I'm thankful it wasn't something worse.

Back in the car, we head for home, this time on the county back road, after calling our neighbor to make sure they were home( both of my parents were gone before us this morning) in case( my backup plan) we needed a ride.  We managed to make it home but the temperature gauge was still up and down, definitely NOT normal!  I put a call into Mike, but he is on a job site where there is spotty cell service. I know he checks his phone from time to time and will see our missed call and call us back.  He does call back on his lunch break and asks how Casino is and what the vet found, he is also relieved that it's not something worse. I tell him what the car is doing and that we'd cancelled Cortney's Driver's Ed. class in the city. He thinks it's the thermostat, it's stuck and will put in a call to see about getting it in to get fixed.  We have Mike's truck( but it's horrible on gas, he's driving it today because we needed the car) and our 1987 Bronco II, but it's just what we term as a "local rig", I wouldn't trust it on a long trip but we drive it around our area.  So...... now we'll pray that we can get the car repaired in short order, as Mike needs this car to drive to and from work. He can drive his truck, but only as a short term solution, the gas bill alone would kill us!

What I'd like to know is why it is that the vehicles always seem to run right for Mike and break down  or act up for me? *sigh* Praying the rest of our day is uneventful *wink*