HAPPY NEW YEAR - a cautionary tale

Just when we thought we had cleared the last hurdle of near death experiences, we found ourselves back in the emergency room, this time Neil.

A lovely sunny morning, anywhere USA, but this one is in downtown Dunwoody,Ga. A Starbucks, as safe a spot as any, one would think. A lovely family of four was inside enjoying a little morning cafe' and left their oh-so-sweet looking black labie dog tied up to this no parking sign, right outside the door of the coffee shop.
As any good dog-o-phile would do, Neil reached over to pat the nice doggie ...... (yes, we all know, don't pet strange dogs.... yeah, yeah, yeah..) He came back with a little bit less nose than he started the day off with. Well, no, he had all his nose, it was just bitten and bleeding ... A lot.
At first Neil thought that the dog had just bumped his nose, and caused a nose bleed, not until he pulled his hand away and a full blown River Nile running red poured down onto his sweat shirt and the pavement did we realize it was more.
Bursting into the Starbucks, I was all " who's dog is this " and " give me ice, STAT!" .. and call St. Paul Spencer to come fetch us to the emergency room...... Turns out the dogs name is George, and you know" had never done this before". ( we had to go back to get our car and I took pictures of the blood stained sidewalk)
Now let's back track , just a little bit, and remember that we did not travel South with our insurance card, we had the number somewhere thanks to Dahn and David.. but me in my clear head, and Neil in his gushing blood state, could not remember where. Another call to Fairport and the number was retrieved, yet again. Friends just do not come any better!
Now if you are in the Greater Atlanta Area and you have to have your nose bitten by a cute black labbie dog named George, North side Emergency room is the place to be. Into a room VERY fast, and many many calming words to the crazy crying fishwife that I had become. Sometimes it is good not pictures were taken.

Neil has nine small , really small, you could not even really see the thread he was using, it was just a refraction of light, stitches in the left side tip of his nose, cute Dr Mike did a wonderful job. I did call 911 and report the bite, like I was told to do, and the animal control people called back and said that George did have all his shots and all. I also spoke with George's owners and made sure that the dog would be fine as well, he will.
Neil and Paul were very much troopers during all this, like I said yesterday , I was Shirley McLean and Debra Winger needed her shot....At one point I was told to calm down or leave. I behaved after that.
We see our Doctor in 5 days to get the stitches out, and they said there should not be much of a scar, Neil does have a perfect nose and all.
Christmas 2009 rolls on..... Rochester on Monday....hopefully.