The girl's sick. Esperanza, that is. I gave all the dogs a smoked beef knuckle for a treat and even though she's had this very same delectable in the past, she did not tolerate it well this time. She came up with acute abdominal pain, lethargy, lack of appetite. She cried through the night and first thing Sunday morning I had her at the vet office.

She had some IV meds, a little banamine for pain, some antibiotic. Even after that she could hardly walk. I could tell her gut hurt. The last few days have been devoted to caring for her and working myself up into a neurotic frenzy of paranoia. Could it be cancer? Meningitis? Her back? I was reluctant to believe it was just a stomach ache. I don't know what else it could be though. Any other guess on my part makes me look like just another common crazy suspecting the Chinese of conspiring against American dog owners. Texans, I have found, will always have time to blame the Chinese for all the ills of the world. Send the FLDS children back to their nest of incest (because they should not be removed from the ranch in the first place) and blame the Chinese for everything.

Fatigue and worry have me feeling a little disheartened. I want things to be drastically different right now and I don't even know how.