Ooi racetrack

Yayyyyy, finally had a chance to visit Oi Racetrack!
Godddd, I've been waiting for this moment. Horses everywhere. So exciting and excited.

I don't fancy the idea like getting married with very very rich man but if I ever had that kind of idea, it's only because I want to be a horse owner. It would be great if I can become a racehorse owner then will be able to name my horse. Oh, I miss the horses from Woodbine. I remember my favorite were like Morley the Great and Mighty Halo, and I wonder what they are doing now.
馬の名前を見ているのは好きです。日本はその時々の流行で，「〜マオチャン」といった自由な名前が多い気がするけれど，Woodbineで私の記憶に残っているのは「偉大なる〜」やら「行け行け〜」といった勇ましい名前が多かったような。
だけど，"Working Man Blues"といった悲哀感漂う名前もあるし，「Watching かわいこちゃん」みたいな名前もあって，飽きないね。

The circumstance at Woodbine Racetrack was surely not decent or rather awful, but still it was so energetic and full of excitement everyday.
And the people there! How much I miss Asley, LeRoy and Clive. Hilarious Rick. Tom the great director and Ian the smart trainer. Sue and Willie's wonderful couple. And of course Susan! She showed me that women can also live really freely in a way. I just cannot forget her burp lasting like a minute and she even broke wind! It was funny to hear her using F-word as if it was adjective for every single word. There were also Troy the cute boy, Hali the red haired sexy girl, and Beth, Avril Lavigne in the horse lover form.
To me big daddies there, they were so coarse, harsh, stupid, emotional, cursing and swearing all the time, but still they were so sweet to me and I really appreciate that. Precious times. Maybe I won't be able to be back there working as a horse groomer or a hot walker again but a horse owner someday! Then I'll have more commitments with the people from back stables rather than just watching the race.

A little sentimentalism? Maybe. Autumn is not here yet.

大井競馬場では冷やしキュウリとチョコバナナが並んでいます。B級グルメがたくさんあって嬉しい。

夏の逢瀬

動物づいた日々。

本当なら本物のお馬さんを見に行きたいのに，府中レーシングサブレで妥協。早くtwinkleに行きたい。

大國魂神社の真っ黒い烏の絵柄が入ったお守りで厄払いに願いを込めて。
黒い動物は犬にしろ，猫にしろ，馬にしろ憧れですが，西洋の影響によるものかどちらかというと禍々しいものにとらわれがち。かっこいいのにネ。少年の黒い馬は名画。
でも，自身の負のパワーで向かってくる負のパワーを跳ね返せる，というのも期待できるハズよね。

入浴中にもキュウキュウと耳慣れぬ音を聞く。
お風呂場の床下にはネズミが住むため，一瞬湯船の中で身構えるけれど，いつものゴリゴリ，ドタンバタンとは違った様子。
音のする方を探すとアニエス・ベー発見。
左下方にももう一匹。どうやらsummer time rendezvous。求愛中の音だったらしい。

夏だあね。

Saitama Children's Zoo

It's been a while since I went to a zoo last time. The last time was Toronto zoo on a really hot summer day. The park was huge and I remember walking on sun-reflective burning asphalt made me just thirsty, tired and feel like I was the one in a cage being watched by surrounding animals.

So I didn't expect much about visiting Saitama Children's Zoo but I found the zoo quite attractive. The park is huge as well but it's located among trees so it gives us nice shade and refreshing atmosphere. And the animals! Many of them are my favorites like capibaras, prairie dogs and slothes. Fun.

上野動物園にお嫁に行っちゃうカピバラのマオちゃんのお別れ会にも急遽参加でき，ブロマイドまでもらっちゃう。

They do also have Beatrix Potter museum which suddenly appears with English-garden like looking in the zoo.
大きな自然公園の中にピーターラビット資料館。イギリスにあるoriginal museumと同じ外観の資料館を入るといきなり身なりの整った学芸員らしき人にわらわらと囲まれる。たった今まで広大な動物園でほっぽかれ，たまに長靴の飼育員にすれ違うくらいだったので激しく違和感。
隣にある大東文化大学の所有らしい。
なので拙い解説の学芸員はきっと該当ゼミの学生かとも思われ，説明を聞きながら思わずこちらがエールをおくってあげたくなっちゃう。
でもこぢんまりした資料館で一息つくのに丁度よい。

動物園にはasia-pacific areaだったり，熱帯的な鳥を集めたareaがあったり。Englandの雰囲気味わえたり，避暑地的な雰囲気味わえたり。kidsが多いのでもちろん日本の行楽地的な雰囲気もたっぷりで，なんだか色々お得な気分になれ，ちょっとコーフン。

？

おひげが素敵だったので。

recent pics

一番似合ってます。


それより久しぶりの味。やはりすごいなあ、hersheysの味は。チョコに何を入れたらこんな味になるんでしょうか。

かえる

　青山のど真ん中を歩いてた都会の蛙。これはトノサマガエルかひきがえるかな。すぐ動くからうまく写真撮れなかった。
でもさすがにそのまんまにしておくと、自転車か人に踏まれてぺちゃんこになるのが目に見えています。昔、子供がいきなりひきがえるを足で踏み殺してしまうびっくりシーンがテレビで流れてたけど、ちょっと衝撃的でした。

だから、近くの高校のグラウンド脇の草むらに逃がしましたが結局同じことかな。
でも久しぶりに蛙もったけど毎回かえるって思ったより体表面が硬くて、重量もずっしりしていることに驚かされます。お腹が柔らかいからか、どうしても軽いと思ってしまうのだけれど、７割が体表の重量感からきているような感じの重さ。

でもやはり可愛かった。
両生類か爬虫類いつか飼えたらいいですね。特にイグアナ。ガラパゴス諸島はかなり行ってみたい場所の１つです。

今日は帰り道ねずみも見ちゃったし、結構動物づいてました。

currently favorite pics

haven't posted anything for a while. so,

ヤモリ

it's getting rare that ヤモリ(gecko) to be seen in big cities like Tokyo but I saw one at home today! my mom got freaked out seeing it but i was rather happy. this is Japanese gecko (Gekko japonicus) and we call it Yamori in Japanese. Yamori(家守り）,the word literally sounds "house guardian" and we take the animal a kind of good luck. No mention to it cleans up house bugs like mosquitos or spiders, superstition says ヤモリ keeps out bad omen from a house he is in.

だから外に逃がそうかちょっと迷ったけど家の中におきっぱなしにしてしまいました。それなりにクモとかもいるから餌に困らなければいいな。

いつもヤモリとイモリの区別ってしにくいのだけれど、ヤモリは爬虫類（reptiles)で５本指。イモリは４本指の両生類(amphibian)で水のあるところに生息する。虫はあんまり好きじゃないけど爬虫類とか両生類は可愛いなあ、と思う。このヤモリも結構可愛くて手の上で緊張しているのかじっとしていました。

hana

This is my dog Hana. Isn't she pretty? I had two dogs before (pug and shelty) and for some reason they all end up being good lookings. Oh I envy them. Being there is their job. Just their presence makes us happy. There should be something I can learn from them.....

何はともあれ a life with dogs. priceless. デスネ。

there were many other animals I had other than dogs. budgerigers. beetles. rabbits. gold fish and turtles.

turtles were one of my favorite pets. they ate feed from my hands and it is really lovely. each of them has different personality (turtlality?) and I named them with suitable ones.
Speedo, Black Sambo, Cromartie(after popular baseball player from the Giants (Japanese one) at that time), Peewee and Carl Lewis.

once you had cats, I guess you'll become a repeater too. 以前に大家さんが飼っていたRussian Blueの猫ちゃんがしょっちゅう部屋に遊びに来てくれたけど十分可愛かったもの。一度嫌がらせでベッドの下に糞をされてかなり困りましたが。

↓　cats I found on my way home. they take their turf on someone's pretty scooter and look really comfortable.

surgery2

I got a call from the vet and he told me that the surgery did go well. He took out something like a toy ball which had been stuck in my dog's gut.
I went to see the doctor to see what it was (I was not allowed to see my dog yet though. She has to be hospitalized for 3 days and any factor that makes her excited should be avoided meanwhile. Yeah, dogs can't know why they should keep calm when their owners came to see them but excitement surely doesn't help healing the wound).

The reddish stuff in the second picture is the thing came out from her body. It is a part of rubber ball but it has already lost its color and elasticity. I don't know how long it had been staying in her gut but I wonder if I should put her muzzle on from now on when I take her a walk. She likes to pick up anything like a ball but I can't see clearly what she is picking up when I take her out at night.

The first picture is the one the doc took at the surgery. The roundish thing at the left top is the ball stuck in the small intestine. It looks pretty big, doesn't it? I don't know if you can see it clearly from the pic but the dark-reddish part at the right bottom is the small intestine with necrosis. We had to cut off that part and it almost reached to 20 cm. The doctor showed me the severed part of the intestine and asked me if I wanted to bring it home but I said no. I brought home only that ball with me.

It's good that the surgery is done but we have to worry about later reaction too. Since quite long part of the intestine was cut off and the end of the intestines with different diameter was sutured each other(the diameter of the small intestine becomes bigger towards the large intestine), there might be a chance of leak at the sutured part. If bacterias living in the gut leak out of the intestine they can cause peritonitis.

Hmmm....worries never end......but considering it has already caused necrosis, it was good decision to have her take the surgery. Even if we wait a little bit longer I'm sure now that the foreign material won't come out as a poop.

はなちゃん、気付くのが遅くなってごめんね～。
('ε')/ peritonitis: when bacteria in the digestive system leak into the abdominal cavity (which should be aseptic), it causes inflammation on peritoneum. That's peritonitis. Accompanies severe pain. 

surgery

My dog stopped vomitting but as she hasn't recovered her appetite yet I decided to have her go under surgery. The doctor is sure that something still remains in her small intestine. According to the doctor, it is harder for us to see the emotions of those smashed-face dogs like bulldogs and pugs from their face expression than that of long-nosed dogs. So there might be a chance that she is suffering even she looks okay and although she stopped puking, it's just because of the current location of the foreign material in the gut and she might start puking again when it moves forward a bit.

The fear is that french bulldogs tend to fall respiratory failure after a surgery but the worst case this time is that if the thing she swallowed remains at the same location in the gut for long time, it eventually gets adhesive to the gut wall and causes damages or rupture of the gut. If that thing causes damage, we have to sever some part of the intestine but if it doesn't we just open the small intestine to take out that material.

It was kind of hard to make such a decision to take a surgery or not cause we never know which causes good result. Doctors give us advice but they don't force us to choose which solution. In my dog's case she might suffer respiratory problem if she takes surgery but she might also suffer gut necrosis if she doesn't take it. I wonder if doctors don't assert one method in fear of the case they fail that method they chose but it IS an owner's responsibility to decide things about his pet so I can't blame them.

I already left her at the clinic so I'm just hoping that the surgery is going well. Cross fingers for her!

(' ε')/ necrosis: cell death caused when cell degeneration persists or worsens., or when injury is severe. 4 general machanisms for cause of necrosis are: impaired energy production, impared cell membrane function, metabolic derangement and genetic abnormalities.

introducing my dog

This is my dog, Hana. She is adoreble and really hyper all the time but for the last whole week she didn't seem feeling well.

Since it is every morning routine for her to puke yellowish sputum (though she is only 2 yrs old) I didn't worry much when she threw up what she ate last Thursday. But her vomitting didn't stop. She kept puking all day on that day and it was unbearable to watch her suffering so I took her to a vet.
The result is....something is inside of her stomach. It was impressive that the doctor could tell that only by palpation. Oh Hana, you did again. About a half year ago, she accidentaly swallowed debris of toy ball and she had to endure discomfort until it came out with her poop.
So this time too we can wait until that stuff make way out of the large intestine. The doctor told me that when foreign material stayed in the stomach the vomit would continue but if it moved to the small intestine it would be alleviated.

So I'm now waiting.
It is really concerning cause even she could eat something she puke it later after all. I take her to the vet to give IV but Hana started losing her weight..... you poor thing...... Just excrete it.

まだかな～まだかな～。

('ε'): sputum: things such as discharge, foreign materials and bacteria frim respiratory organs to be discharged with mucus and saliva when you cough