Wedding RSVP's

I guess I've been naive. I used to think there were really only 2 ways to respond to a wedding invitation but apparently there are actually several options.

1. Say yes by promptly returning the pre-paid RSVP card or say yes online at the wedding website
2. Say no by doing one of the above

. . . both #1 and #2, of course, being the traditional responses

3. Don't respond until well after the deadline
4. Don't respond at all
5. Call, saying you "will most likely attend with your 13yo uninvited daughter but its too early to tell"
6. Tell a mutual friend that you'll be coming
7. Invite yourself and inform the couple that you will be coming (no invite required)
8. (My personal favorite) Promptly return the card adding who ever you think may be interested in coming: the invited couple, grown kids, plus a mystery guest -- basically bringing an entire unnamed and uninvited entourage

And of course, I'm waiting for these responses as well . . .
9. Don't respond but show up AND
10. Bring some additional people with you

Where everybody knows your dog . . .

Its now official. I think that our dogs are probably the best known by vets in the Hollister and Santa Cruz areas. I had been thinking that Gregg's "tough" male dog has been the only healthy one of the bunch. But recently, G noticed a little mole or tick on his nose that we've been concerned about. So finally, yesterday G took him to the vet and what do you know, its a tumor! Probably benign but they'll have to remove it and make sure. What almost cracked me up about the whole thing was that G said he spent a good half hour discussing our other dogs' ailments and issues, because they've been referred to specialists now and the vet was curious about their progress.

BTW -- Bandit has Cushing's disease. All that leaking and peeing? Its because she has little tumors in her pituitary gland. It got quite a bit worse before it got better -- lots of appointments and tests before they identified the problem. She started eating poop (I guess because dogs with Cushing's are constantly hungry and thirsty). She woke up several times a night to drink water and/or pee. It was fun. Finally, though, after about 2 weeks of meds, she had her first full night's sleep last night! And both G and I noticed quite a bit more energy when we've been walking her lately, so apparently all her lagging this last year was all connected to this.

Mia's hip stem cell treatment worked really well on one hip and not so much on the other side. So we're going to try it again. To try to do something different, the vet gave me some meds to help regenerate cartilage which I have inject into her several times a week between now and the treatment. All I can say is that I've been staring at that needle wondering how I ever thought med school might be an option for me.

Between the lot of them, seems like we're at a different vet each week, and the vet bills will probably almost equal the wedding bills before we're through.

Anyway, I'm sure everyone was dying for the doggie update, so there you go. :)