A new location

On the way to our hotel in St Louis last nite, I tried to take pictures in the dark. It was not successful, but this Court House shot turned out kind of neat. Barry and I had looked at even more apartments for him to live in while he is working there, and been to see Dad, and gone to dinner on the Landing, before we got back to our room.

Dad is getting a little better. He was able to sit up in a chair yesterday, although after seeing how weak he is, I cannot imagine how many people it took to get him there. He was at least normal people color, which he definitely was not on Saturday. He says he feels 300% better, but not even close to normal. Even changing positions in the chair was a major production.

Today, he was able to walk to the end of the hall. I do not know how he was able to do that yet--I would have thought it would be several days before he could. They are now evaluating when he will be able to leave the hospital--but they want to send him to a skilled care rehab facility for some undetermined amount of time so he can recover with the kind of support he needs. There is no way mom can take care of wagging him all over the house, as weak as he is.

I guess that is the next step.

Meanwhile, Barry thinks he found a place to live and it is very cool. He actually found two--one a typical townhouse apartment in Soulard with a balcony--very handy for Mardi Gras coming up. The second one is an alley house also in Soulard--kind of cool to have a little house tucked away so no one knows it is there. We had the hardest time deciding--we really could not even get a gut feeling. By this morning, he had decided on the townhouse. God willing, he will move into it on Monday. That is such a fun area to be in--restaurants all over, and famous music clubs and bars--I think it will be a lot of fun. And how often do you get the chance to be so frivolous and just pick something for fun like that? Pretty much never.


Being there this morning before I came back home, I started thinking about all the photography opportunities I would have while Barry is living there. I was born in St Louis and lived there when I was little, and of course, I shop there, go to the doctor there, etc, but because I am always in a hurry with everything I do, I have not paid as much attention to so many of the neat things there are to take pictures of. This is going to get me out of my photo rut, and we are going to have a great time enjoying all the little things we miss by rushing all the time.

All this running out of town business always ends in the same way---what kind of mess will I find when I get home? Today, it was not what I expected. Sly had a crack in his hoof, so the farrier was scheduled to come out tonight. I mentioned to him that I thought he might have been a bit off on his hind left the other day, but it might have been just the bad frozen muddy ground. I left Matt there with Sly to go start the water at the farm, and when I got back, he said the crack was fine, but Sly was breathing really weirdly. I had noticed when I fetched him up that he was nowhere near himself--he made me walk all the way out there to get him, drag him back, and was not happy to see me. I can count on one hand the times that has happened--he loves me and gets so excited to see me every day. He was not that way today.

After his trim, he seemed off on his front left--where his crack was. However, the crack was not as bad as it had first appeared, so it was not that. He is definitely not right on that side. There is no heat, no pulse, not lumps or bumps anywhere to explain it. I suppose he could be working an abcess and I hope it is that easy. Even though I cannot imagine what it is, I do not think it is what is making him act so weird. I called the vet, took his temp, checked his gums, his level of hydration, his tum is working if all the poop means anything--its all normal. Doc M suggested I keep him in a stall where I can watch him, bute him up a bit and supervise closely--and call if he does something else weird. I think he thinks perhaps his trim is causing him pain, and since I did not see the onset of heavy breathing, I cannot rule it out, but I sure saw no sign of it in his hoof itself.

We have a weird stall situation here--Sly has removed most of the boards dividing two stalls, so the wall is only about two feet high. He does not like to be stalled. He does not freak out, he just looks at it as a challenge. He is more than a bit of a houdini. I put him in the good stall, went to get him hay and fresh bedding, and when I got back, he was in the next one. Matt had tied him up and laughed at him. I could not get him to go back for love or money, so I had to take apart our temp fix-it and walked him back to his stall. There, his grain and hay and water were waiting for him--but he had known that for two hours by then. He had perked up a bit seeing it, but could not get himself to it. That is just weird.

When I left him, he was torn between eating his hay and eating grain. I am hoping they keep him busy enough that he stays put, but I would not be surprised to find him somewhere else. As irritating as that can be, it will be a suggestion that he is feeling good enough to cause trouble.

In the only at Paige's house theme---I found a pile of pony poop in the tack room tonight. Obviously, I know who did it--but why? And when? What goes on down there when I am not there to watch them?