doggy procedure

i brought the dog to the vet to get a further test of lyme disease. the doctor said she needed to do a urine test. i asked if i had to “harvest” it. she said, no, she would take care of things. when we got to the office, there was an assistant and a 14 year old intern. she seems to have lots of 14 year old interns (same age as jj – who will do her internship next week). anyway, she needed to get urine and i was curious how she would do this. maynard got up on the table, obedient as always. the vet pulled out a long clear tube. “oh”, i said to myself. the assistant held maynard. i held maynard’s head, trying to keep him calm. the vet then raised the table and squatted down next to him. i couldn’t see much from my angle, but there was a lot of grunts and fiddling with both hands (no gloves!) and more grunts and groans (on her part). this didn’t seem to be going easily. maynard had one of those typical dog faces of minimal expression, who’s eyebrows seemed to indicate concern and confusion and “what’s going on?” with slightly widened eyes. he was VERY patient and tolerant. at one point, the vet’s long blond hair seemed to be getting in the way and she took her gloveless hands off maynard’s private member and carefully put her hair behind her ears (“ick!”, i thought). after more grunting (her tongue sticking out in intense focus), she stood up and went to the other room. she came back with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a new, thinner tube. more grunts and finally, she came away with a sample. she had the young intern hold the top of the tube (without gloves!) while she found various testers. she did a first test to see if there was a need to go further in testing. she determined that there was a need and another 80 euros later, we walked with our packaged sample to the drop it at the post office. (this is how many medical tests are done in france, the patient has to walk the sample to mail it themselves or deliver it to the lab – this was true of my amniotic fluids 15 years ago.)

later that day, my cousin’s daughter, libby who is 25 and living in parma, italy, arrived for a visit. she took a cheap flight with ryanair – 25 euros or so each way. she will stay with us for a week. on sunday, my other cousin, (libby’s aunt) will be arriving with family to visit paris.

we decided to go out to the brasserie near the champs de mars, for dinner. “le suffren” is a very reasonably priced brasserie with good seafood, a nice ambiance and fairly quick service. afterwards, we walked the block over to see the eiffel tower and watched it glitter (which it does every hour for a few minutes)

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