Still Not Much New

Karen saw a neurosurgeon recently after an MRI revealed she had spinal stenosis, which is a narrowing of the space the spinal cord runs through. He said that stenosis is generally classified as moderate to severe, but hers is "double severe," and he didn't understand how she was even able to walk (to be fair, she's not really walking that well) but that she wouldn't be able to walk much longer without surgery.  Karen had some concerns about complications, as you might expect if you read this blog in August through December 2008, August of 2010, or, oh, forget it, if you're interested, here's an assortment of Karen's complications and other stuff that might cause concern. He brushed her off. She asked about going to the Mayo Clinic since we're going to a wedding near there next month. He said he was trained at Harvard which was as good as Mayo, and that's when Karen stopped listening and we left.  Nothing is as good as the Mayo Clinic. Except this weekend was horrible, so on Monday, twisting my cap in my hands, I called them to schedule the surgery. They said they'd get right on it, and they apparently dropped everything to concentrate on ignoring us since they've never called back.
By the way, the wedding is outdoors in Iowa, which to me is the scariest part of Iowa. Karen's brother told me once that if they stayed inside every time there was a tornado watch, they'd never go outside. I was like, "Fine, then why are we out here?" but apparently I'd misunderstood him. Karen's family has a windowless room in the basement with a freezer full  of ice cream which sounds like a great vacation hideaway, but I guess there wasn't enough room for all the wedding guests in there.
Leah reminded me that I was trying to drive traffic to this blog by posting cute dog pictures and pandering to vegans, and then she sent me this picture she took of our dog, so there's this:

Ellie got up on the table and knocked over a jar of cashews,
so she is apparently vegan-curious.