Oh yeah.

I meant to post some photos of Ruby, the dog we're fostering, but it's hard to get pictures of her because she is so terribly, painfully shy, and will only come near me sometimes and M not at all. But I managed to get two decent ones this evening:
She was trying to play with me in her "I'm terrified but will you please lavish me with love because I'm starved for it" way, where she comes up to me and puts her paw out to touch me and then runs away again. She occasionally lets me touch her and pet her, and when she does, she surrenders herself completely to me, writhing around in my arms as if she's trying to get under my skin to be closer to me. Other times, she won't come near me.

S'nuff to break yer heart now 'n then.

Here is another that nicely displays her whiskers:


Lost a lot of detail on the nose there because I had a wide aperture, but the whiskers came through pretty well.

I grew frustrated today with the extra-long hours I've been working this week. It was sunny and 58 degrees out today, a rare treat in Cincinnati in January for sure. I had to return my iPod to Apple via DHL (yeah, it officially bit it), and took an escape from the office around 2 this afternoon and ran all the way over to the Convergys building where the nearest DHL drop box is. Happily, I made the discovery that the Convergys building has a gorgeous lobby with some fountains and lots of plants in it, including orchids (bliss!), which I intend to photograph next week on a lunchbreak, if I get one. The sun and the running felt so good...my downtrodden soul perked up a bit to be outdoors. But then it was back to the gulag. Nerves are wearing thin at my place of employment this week, in more departments than just the one I work in. I kvetch about not getting home from work until 8 pm every day, but there are still people there working when I leave. I feel bad for them. Too bad we don't get paid overtime.

When the sun was setting and I was still being a busy worker bee, I took a few quick photos out my office window. Here's one:
This building faces south, and the sun was setting in the west, so there are some very interesting shadows on it. The colors are so emblematic of the transition between night and day--warm tones where the sun falls on the facade, and cooler shadows. It is not the best-composed photo in existence, but hey, I balanced it on my cubicle wall and shot it through a window in between proofing paragraphs. My brain is pretty wobbly just at the moment. It's a wonder the photo came out at all.

Only one more day to go, and I actually get to leave work early tomorrow--have an appointment with the pulmonary specialist to read the latest CT scans, and see if he can provide me some assistance in getting rid of this ridiculous cough I've developed (to the probable annoyance of my coworkers, poor them). Feels like mild bronchitis or the beginning of walking pneumonia. We'll see. I'm overdue for either of those.

It does make me slightly more able to identify with Ruby, though--when she was found and rescued, she was laying in a ditch with her three-day-old puppies, some of whom were dead, all of whom were starving because Ruby herself was so starved that she had no milk to give them. She had pneumonia and was on an IV for three days. The other night, she woke me coughing at about five a.m., so it's back to the vet with her on Saturday.

Poor lil' soul. Hard to believe an animal can be put through that much suffering in her short life and still function.

Anyway.

Someday, I will look back on this insane week and laugh. Maybe I'll even write a post about it. If I can stand to relive the ridiculousness enough to write it down.

That day is not today, however.

Past time for bed.