Interesting times

Oh yes, I do mean as in the old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." In blogland, various minor nice things have happened, like coming second in one of the Smart Bitches' competitions, and being tagged for a meme by Meljean, and reading most of Monica's book, but all these things will have to wait until I have less stress and more time to post.
If troubles come in threes, I really hope Duracell's demise, which now seems like old history, was number one. Number two was on Thursday. I was out at a mum's social evening - not exactly swinging society, but, as someone once said to me, once you're a mother you tend to become a reverse vampire (i.e., never get to go out after dark), and are grateful for what excitement you can get. Anyway, there I was, eating chicken salad and waiting for the kareoke to start, when John phoned to tell me there was an emergency at home. The other mothers assumed it would be a child problem, but I knew at once it would be a dog problem, and it was. We have two bitches who are deepest, darkest, mortal enemies. There's a very good reason why the word "bitchy" has entered the language - if two bitches hate each other, they REALLY hate each other. In our case, the battle is somewhat uneven, as Copper is 16 and Thistle only just over a year old: Copper made Thistle's puppyhood hell, but since Thistle's puberty the situation has been reversed, and Thistle has damaged Copper several times - hence, the two have been kept apart. But management always fails, and it failed on Thursday, when doors got left open and Copper woke up to find Thistle attached to her left hind leg.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I rushed back home and rushed Copper down to the surgery, where my boss put her back together with forty stitches, and got home at one in the morning, and took Thistle over to a friend's kennels the next morning, to prevent further incidents while we decide what to do. Copper has been making a slow recovery since: very slow, but she ate a normal supper for the first time tonight, so I think she'll live. Maybe I'll post the horror movie pictures some time.
After this excitement, you'd think we'd have had enough for one week, but no: in the following four days, we've had my (belated) fortieth birthday party, intruders breaking down the garden fence, and the younger daughter getting a full thickness burn on her finger from a hot glue gun. I'll come onto at least some of these things tomorrow. I'd better leave the PC alone now: off to hospital with daughter in morning : (