So, first, the exciting news. I started My Little 2021 Mathematics A-to-Z: Multiplication leads a shortened and non-alphabetical glossary project this year.
And second, the important news. Remember when the big panic about Sunshine's health was on, like, two months ago? And we found this place near Detroit that would see her, but couldn't before the end of September? And we kept that appointment, wisely, despite the apparition of that place in Ann Arbor? Well, this Wednesday was the day of that appointment. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger's work schedule meant she couldn't go with. So this would be my first veterinary trip with Sunshine in the new car, as well as her longest car trip in her life so far as we know it. She took it in fair stride, with her usual single thump of protest on being put in the carrier.
The clinic, in the northeastern outskirts of Detroit, didn't give me a single specific time to get Sunshine there, just 'between noon and 1:00', because they're doing as much animal care as they can without the animals' caretakers around. They said they'd call me when they were done and I had been given to understand that would be after about 2:00 to 3:00. It would turn out to be after 6:00 before they were done, long enough that I worried, and bunnyhugger would leave a worried voice mail on my phone as she did not notice the texts I had sent about the delays and when I was starting for home.
The summary is that Sunshine's heart seems to be good, far as they can tell. So we can rule out a bunch of issues (including cancer) as reasons for her fast breathing. What we can't do is explain the breathing. There is still the possibility she has something wrong with her adrenal glands, but those are on the kidneys, outside the scope of the echocardiogram. It's possible that, in the end, she just breathes fast is all.
Meanwhile, what could I do while waiting so long? Turns out the clinic is about a 15-minute drive from the Sparks Pinball Museum, out in Chesterfield. So I went there. I was the only person in the place the whole time I was there, hours alone in a place with about fifty pinball games, almost all of them 80s and 90s games. And it ... wow. It was great.
Like, playing all these games, I could hear just the games. Dialed In, for example, always a game I liked? Now I could also hear without distraction all the callouts, and instructions, and music cues, and such that the game gives. It's a much better game with that and I wonder if it would have a better reputation if more people got to play like that.
The sad thing is that FunHouse wasn't working. Doctor Who and Bad Cats neither, which were small disappointments. What I did do was play all the solid-state games, and the other games that I couldn't play in virtual form. And, for the most part, did great, as good today as I played lousy in league finals the night before. I had a good game of Stars, an early-solid-state game I never play well. Why, on Paragon ... well, I had three lousy games on that too, but I mean, it's Paragon. It's impossible to have a good game on that. Got a multiball going on Popeye, though, and could actually hear all the callouts and such clearly, which, yeah, helped the game be better.
It was a really good experience. While I'd rather not have the need for it, having the time alone in a nice arcade, just ... playing? I needed that more than I'd quite realized.
And when that all was done, Sunshine wasn't yet done. So I went to White Castle for some Impossible Sliders and a huge Mello Yellow Zero Citrus Blast, which again, is something I needed. And listened to the wonderful triumphant return of bad-books podcast I Don't Even Own A Television.
I got Sunshine back home a little after 8 pm, and she went into her pen to refuse to come out and deal with things. Certainly understand that.
No pictures today. I finished up the Cedar Point pictures yesterday, and didn't have time to process more, so here, enjoy a plain old-fashioned long essay about the things I just did that day.
Trivia: In 1877 there were 233 full-time personnel working for the United States Weather Bureau. Source: A History of the United States Weather Bureau, Donald R Whitnah.
Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Sundays Supplement 1941, Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.
