The curse of the liver enzymes, and the love of Chanel

What a week! Damn. What a month!

It seems I have not had a free minute the whole month of February.

Last week upon returning from a nice, albeit stressful trip to California with my 92 year old Grandma, I had a really sore throat, that morphed into a full on sinus infection-ugh!.
On Thursday morning I took my 11 year old Dalmation, Forrest into the animal hospital for knee surgery. A while ago he must have torn his ACL. He started limping, we took him to the vet (our old vet) and they said it was his hips. They put him on an Advil type med for dogs and sent us on our way. Fast forward about 6 months later--turns out is was his knee the whole time. It is so frustrating that dogs cannot tell you where it hurts. All we knew is that he was not putting weight on his leg.
So I take him in Thurs. morning for the surgery. Two hours later, the Vet calls me to tell me that when they did his preliminary blood work prior to surgery his liver enzymes were sky high. One test they did (The ALT test) , the enzymes were supposed to read 1 to 100 and Forrest's were 838. Needless to say, until they did abdominal ultrasounds and other tests to rule out cancer I was freaking out. Thank God, they saw no tumors. Now we are just waiting to get results from other tests and blood draws. The Vet said with the winter being as cold as it has been here, they are using a salt on the roads made of calcium chloride that can be very poison to dogs. When the temperatures are not so cold, they use a sodium chloride (like table salt) which is not harmful to dogs. Forrest had not been in the front yard near the road or the driveway, however we track it in on our shoes so he could have injested it from the floor or even the garage--so pet owners in the Midwest--please be conscious of that.

On to happier things like friends and fragrance!


In the midst of my sick dog, my sinus infection,and my stressful travels- I did have a very bright spot in my weekend.
My friend Felish and her husband Phil sojourned to Chicago for a business/leisure trip. I met them at Barney's on Saturday and we shopped, ate lunch and shopped some more. They both looked great and were thoroughly enjoying the city of Chicago. The main attraction of the day was the new Chanel Exclusif fragrances. Oh we LOVED them. They lived up to every single expectation and anticipation.
We both fell in love with, and purchased Bel Respiro. Now that I have worn it for 3 days, I believe it smells a lot like IPF Melograno. That is a very good thing. We also fell in love with the Eau de Cologne, which is a very fresh citrus. I have a feeling it will be my next fragrance purchase next to the new Creed, which I am also in love with. I will post about it soon.
Bel Respiro is the namesake of Coco Chanel's home she purchased in 1920 in the Paris suburb of Garches. It was created by Jacques Polge and the notes are: Sun kissed grass, crushed leaves, and the aromas associated with the French Garrigue, carried by the breeze. Gorgeous!

This is Felish and me in front of Barneys. We were not trying to be goofy tourists, but the window said RED in big letters made out of Big Red Gum packages. Being redheads, we thought it was as good a photo as any to honor our maiden voyage together in Chicago.

Oh--another bright spot was that my friend (who shall remain nameless) hooked up with a very cool guy from a very cool rock band. He is hot and talented and very, very nice. I got to hear the whole story, and it is exciting!
My days of hooking up with hot guys from rock bands are over (well honestly, they never started) so I love to hear exciting stories of my friends and their exciting lives. With rock stars. And famous celebrity personal trainers. Who Ann Curry wants to date. It is painfully obvious Ann. You are fooling no one.

I would also like to wish the beautiful Baby Fi at THIS COOL BLOG a very wonderful and joyous FIRST BIRTHDAY! Fi is a cool baby with kick ass parents. Fi and me go way back--to the womb. Seriously.

Please keep Forrest and his liver enzymes in your thoughts.

Have a wonderful day!