Sue's Blog - Some assembly required.

Country & Western......pants.

This is Tootsie's favourite hiding place. Strange kitty.

Last night was the first River Rhythms of the year........supposedly.
The last few days have been very hot.....98F and there was threats of thunderstorms for yesterday afternoon & evening.
We kept a close watch on the weather situation as there is no point sitting in a park in a major thunderstorm.
Philip was home as he had an appointment with a urologist as a follow up to his kidney stone adventure.
Armed with the stone in a jar, he set off in the morning to the hospital. Firstly though, he had to drop Bubba off at the animal hospital as he was having his ultra sound to determine why his liver didn't show up on the x-ray.
Philip's appointment seemed to go well, he has various things he has to do and they are going to analyse the stone to see what caused it.
The general opinion though is that it is probably due to genetics as both his brothers had kidney stones.
He also had a prostate exam which he was not happy about ( he wasn't expecting that!). I will let him tell you himself about that .......if he wants to.
Suffice to say I wasn't too sympathetic about it as the things women have to go through make the prostate exam fade into insignificance.
Men!!!
He picked Bubba up on his way back and the results of the ultra sound were normal. No idea why his liver didn't show on the x ray but they then wanted to do an endoscopy and take biopsies from every which way.
They said it could be inflammatory bowel disease or cancer.
They seemed a bit put out when Philip said we would try treatment for inflammatory bowel disease first before we start on all the other invasive stuff.
I have just spoken to our vet who agrees and Bubba will soon be on a special diet.
I really hope this works as I dread to think how much the other stuff will cost. It isn't that we wouldn't pay it for him but I don't like to think of him going through all that only to be told that he has cancer and nothing can be done.
Keep your fingers crossed for him please.

On then to River Rhythms.
Or not.
The storms looked like they would hit later so we set off.
As we got into Downtown we noticed more and more people about. They couldn't all be going to River Rhythms as the first couple are generally a little quiet until everyone realises they are on again.
The crowds grew greater the nearer we got. Something was afoot.
But what? I hadn't heard of anything.
I had my 25 cents ready for the parking meter but Philip doubted we would find one amongst the heaving throng.
He was right. Pants. We would have to go to the parking lot and pay $5. We hate having to do that.
HA.
And HA again.
We got to the parking lot................the fee for tonight...........$30.
WHAT!! We tried all the other lots.........they were all the same.
There was no way we could find a parking space and no way we were paying $30.
Philip dropped me off at the River Rhythms park so I could go and tell Gary, who gets there before us. I told him we couldn't park so we couldn't do River Rhythms. He had no idea why all these people had descended on Milwaukee either.
I then spoke to one of the organisers. He told me......there was a Taylor Swift concert on.
Who?
Apparently it is some country & western singer. Obviously popular with the people of Milwaukee......even more popular with the owners of the car parks.
Philip picked us up, but rather than go home, he found a lovely park on the lakefront which had picnic tables. It was beautiful. A lovely evening. A flotilla of small boats out on the lake. We had our picnic, had a good chat with Gary and then took him home. I really enjoyed it and fully intend on going there for a picnic again.
So, all was not lost. Poxy Taylor Swift may have buggered up River Rhythms for us (and for many others I suspect) but our evening was still a success.
Gary took some photos for me and I will put a couple up when he sends them.
The storms held off until about 11pm........but wow.........they were very fierce and seemed to go on for hours.

posted by Sue Banks @ 1:06 PM