raccoon, yellow, work, cold, birthday

last evening and the evening before last steve jumped up on our bed and growled and barked as she looked out the windows of the back door. this is not usual behavior for her, so kara got up and investigated. she took these pictures of a raccoon in our back yard and on the roofs of our garage and of our neighbors' houses. sorry the pictures aren't the best, but it was nighttime after all and kara was shooting blind. she was proud of steve for alerting us to the presence of this predator. cute little creature, though. needless to say we did not feed it. nor did we let the dogs out of the house while it was around.

in other news, though yellow seems to be responding well to the antibiotics, he has developed a limp. kara thinks it's due to some sort of discomfort in his left hip, though it is not tender to palpation. it's probably just a muscle strain of some sort and will work itself out in a few days. if he doesn't seem better in another day or two i'll call the vet again. those vets love us; we keep them in business.

today's my 3rd day of work after my week off, and it's been a smooth reentry. yesterday i talked for a minute with the head of the department, offering to assist the transcriptionists with radiology-transcription backgrounds to get more acclimated to typing a variety of reports and thus become more productive members of our little society. (at the moment most of them are resistant and afraid.) i hope she takes me up on it. i think i would be good at something like this; i would like to work more on the qa side of things.

it's very very clear and very very cold outside. yesterday i broke out my woolen winter hat.

tomorrow's kara's birthday, a birthday she shares with leadbelly, django reinhardt, jeanne moreau, rutger hauer, and of course mariska hargitay. happy birthday tomorrow! i think we're going out for dinner on friday to celebrate.