Sorry for not posting in a while. It's been a chaotic few days around here lately. Yes, I'm on vacation--took a week off of work for DeepSouthCon and Kent's visit--but the past couple of days have been distinctly un-vacationlike. I've been running around like a madwoman trying to get my house cleaned and my yard mowed and generally get things in order for having a house guest. I also had to make time to swing my my doctor's office to get my quarterly shot in the ass. (Yes, I'm on Depo Provera, or what I refer to the pregnancy vaccine.) But all of my various errand-running was complicated by the fact that my dad had to go into the hospital on Monday. It was fortunately not as serious as had originally been feared and he was out the next day. But it was discovered that his diabetes, which had previously been controllable through diet, was now needing insulin to keep it under control. So Tuesday afternoon was spent in learning how to give insulin injections. Part of the learning process is actually injecting oneself with a syringe full of a saline solution, and it was nice to find out that with the ultra-fine needles used with insulin, you really can't feel the shots. I had jeans on, so I gave myself my shot in the stomach--my second injection of the day and much more painless than the first.

But I finally got my house cleaned to the mostly-presentable point, and went yesterday to pick Kent up at the airport. I think he deliberately conspired to be the last one off of the plane, but he finally made it out and we had a mushy-sappy reunion.

Back at my house I armed Kent with a bagful of Snausages (doggy treats) and had him wait outside while I put the collar and leash on Zeus and brought him out for proper introductions. I had not fed Zeus that morning to be sure he was hungry and wanting treats. And Kent was very careful not to make any sudden or aggressive moves. It all apparantly worked, because with the exception of one attempt by Zeus to eat Kent's hand, a tacit truce was reached and the dog allowed the man to stay relatively unscathed. Kent did, however, note that Zeus had a tendency to go straight for his balls whenever he came out of the bathroom. Kent wasn't sure whether it was to sniff or bite, but he didn't care to take chances.

"He's a very good guard dog," Kent noted on several occasions.

We finally made it out to dinner last night, and went to the sushi restaurant in town. Kent was pleasantly pleased with the quality of the sushi, which I considered a high compliment coming from a California-sushi-snob. We ordered a wide variety of sushi, including some really strange concoction consisting of flying fish roe with a quail egg on top. The thing was huge, but I gallantly tried one, and then tried to not have tiny orange fish eggs come out of my nose while Kent made me laugh.

Today I think we're going to storm New Orleans, so more later.