Day 7 - Paradise Valley, AZ

[Paradise Valley, AZ] Wilma's navigation system got us to the vet very efficiently. The Saguaro Veterinary Clinic opens at 7:00a.m. and we were there by about 7:03a.m. The sign above the door says "By Appointment Only". Linda went to see if we could get Maggie some help. John and Maggie waited in the car. Linda came out and told us there might be a 20 minute wait. That was just wonderful. We agreed she would come get us when it was time. Maggie was still pretty traumatized and not moving around much.

Within 20 minutes, Linda came and fetched us. We were ushered into a surgery room where we met Dr. Rick Soltero, founder of the clinic. Dr. Soltero is tall and lanky and wears sandals to work. Our kind of guy! Fortunately, Maggie's wounds were puncture wounds on the back of her neck which wouldn't require any stitches. He said, "I can tell by the wounds that the other dog was definitely trying to kill her". The danger is infection. Dr. Soltero gave her a shot of antibiotics and some pills as well. He also assured us, from his personal experience (he especially remembers a doberman and a cat) that Maggie was in a lot of pain. So he gave her a pain shot (can you say "narcotics?") and some pain pills. He told Linda that he could tell she had been traumatized as well. (When Linda thought about it later she came up with a good example. Gloria had shown Linda that she had put out purple towels for her and brown towels for John. When John was headed to the shower Thursday night he asked Linda to get him a towel. She thought she grabbed the brown one but noticed later that the purple one was what she had given him.) John had been traumitized using a purple towel.

Based upon the above, we had decided that we couldn't have Maggie and Misty together at all. It just wouldn't be safe. We could have stayed in a motel and gone to visit some, but we weren't going to leave Maggie cooped up in a motel room for hours on end. Especially after what she had gone through. Fortunately, Gloria and Gordon had decided they would board Misty for the weekend. That was very kind and generous of them. In fact, they had already started to find a place while we were at the clinic.

When we got back to Gloria's, Misty was still there, but was soon to leave. We just sat in the comfort of Wilma until Gordon pulled away. Now we could safely take Maggie back into the house. Except Maggie wasn't so sure it was safe. She kept crouched down very low to the ground and was looking around for Misty. That lasted for several hours. Fortunately, the previously aforementioned pain killer shot kept Maggie pretty dopey and drowsy for several hours. She slept a lot which is what the kind Dr. Rick had told us to expect.

For the rest of the morning, Gordon and John had been trying to "fix" the internet cable wireless router to make it secure. They fixed it so it wouldn't work at all. It was a Belkin N Wireless Router and John was convinced it had bit the sand (could have said dust, but there's so much sand in Arizona). Soooo, after a lengthy conversation in broken Hindi with Belkin technical support and going through all the same setup that we had gone through before, we finally got an RMA number to return the unit. John does not know when he has had to ask someone to repeat themselves so many times. Gloria and Gordon are to send the router back and Belkin will replace it. That's fine and dandy, but they need internet service. So, an afternoon trip to Fry's Electronics was in order. Fry's Electronics and Fry's Marketplace (grocery store) are both prolific in the Phoenix area. The logo name "Fry's" is exactly the same for both businesses. We're told this is so because they were started by two of the Fry brothers.

We had been hearing about Sweet Tomatoes, the terrific salad bar restaurant, so we went there for lunch. It was great. Huge selection of salad fixings, six or seven kinds of soup from which to choose, cornbread with kernals of corn in it, pizza, biscuits, and on and on. And, for dessert, fresh hot brownies and / or frozen yogurt. The "and / or" is because you can put the frozen yogurt on your fresh hot brownie and add chocolate syrup, caramel topping and soy nuts or granola mix. It's a killer. Of course, there can ba a problem of not having any room left for desert. Oh, well.

Off to Fry's Electronics. Found a nice D-Link N Router (N is the new wireless standard just coming out that is faster and "more reliable"). It is backward compatible with "G". We put the router in Gordon's cart. Gloria had been talking about needing a new computer. She knows what a geek John is, so she asked him to look at what they had and make a recommendation. Little did John know what was coming. We looked at all the desktops and found a nice HP model running the new Windows 7 Premium, 64 bit. Gloria wrote down the model number. Then, Gloria went ahead and bought the thing.

John was in geek heaven the rest of the day. First, installing the new D-Link wireless router and getting it going (after all, we have to be able to post to our travelogue). Then installing Gloria's new computer. Once it was up and playing, John got Gloria's business software installed along with some goodies like AccuWeather. Windows 7 no longer supports Outlook Express. Instead, you get to download Windows Live. There are several component parts to Window Live, one of which is Windows Mail. It takes the place of Outlook Express and seems quite nice. He also installed the Windows Live Photo Gallery, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Publisher, Stamps.com, 7-Zip (Free version of Win Zip), FortiClient (much better than Norton) and possibley some other applications. It all went well. And Gloria really did appreciate the geeky help. Neither Linda or her sister have EVER been described as Techie Chicks! When we were shopping at Fry's Linda had to explain to Gloria what a Propeller Head is when they passed by a display of propeller beanies.

That pretty much sums up Friday. Because of our concern for Maggie CWF (our child with fur) it was a bit of a terrifying day, but it turned out OK and we had lots of chance to visit.

No photos today, but tomorrow we're off to the Phoenix Botanical Gardens.