Trouble in paradise

While the last weekend was amazing, this weekend has been anything but. Earlier this week one of the puppies, Michelle, got sick. She got better quickly, but then all the other puppies got the same stomach flu one by one and it's been even worse for the others. Especially Bungee is becoming skin and bones after not eating in four days and vomiting everything she ingests. I took her to a vet who gave her some medicine and instructions for treatment but there's not much else that I can do.

Poor Joy not feeling as joyful as usually.

So the weekend's been mostly cleaning up after the puppies. And fighting off ants that try to overtake new lebensraum. The big man-eating ants already overtook the puppies' food tank so I tried spraying them with as dog-friendly sprays as possible, like vinegar although the dogs hate the smell of it. And the smaller ants keep trying to find new trails inside while I try to find the holes where they enter the house.

At least I got my social security number issue progressed this week... sort of... There's a lot I can't do without it, like get a local cellphone plan or buy a car but getting one has turned out to be much more difficult than I anticipated. First time when I went to apply the number I was missing my birth certificate, which we don't get in Finland by default but have to request separately from a notary, and of course I hadn't even thought of that before moving here.

So the day after I received it (sent by my mom from Finland as soon as possible but still 10 days later) I went to the social security office at 9 am when it opened. I waited outside for half an hour in a line that extended some 20 meters from the door. After I got inside I took my number and waited for another hour or so. Note that this is normal here and could be even worse if I came later during the day. Last time I did the same in fever. The office was open only from 9 to noon so probably no one who arrived after 10am got service that day. I've heard that many offices are even worse, such as the department of transportation where I have to go after buying a car to register it to me (possibly twice). Can't wait that trip...

When I got to the officer, he took my papers, wondered how young I look considering my year of birth in the papers and told me to wait some more while he registers me in the system. After another 20 minutes he calls me back and asks my papers and wonders some more of how young I look, being a doctoral scientist and all. Then I wait for about 10 minutes while he takes photocopies of the papers (don't ask me how copying a few papers can take that long...).

Five minutes before the noon I walk out with an application receipt, request to call the next day to find out if they got the process running (I was the apparently the only one with a status of non-immigrant visiting scientist status that he had ever tried to process so he had some problems trying to register me in the system) and a rum recipe for a cough (I was coughing a few times while sitting there so he wanted to share his family recipe of rum, honey and lemon). I tried to call him a few times to ask about the process but he was never available. Next week I'll probably just try to call a random officer to ask about the status of the application.

The most special event of the week was the official re-opening of the visitor center. There was some fruit and pastries, speeches and eminent people cutting a symbolic ribbon.

Coquí report #6: After the sunset I can see some small and dark creatures moving on the yard but with a closer look they're just cockroaches. Maybe I should change the coquí report to a doggy report... It took me multiple hours to write this post because I had to get up every few minutes to see how they're doing.

Earlier this week I tied up Joy and Michelle before leaving to work because they're the escape artists of the pack. But when I came home, they had tied themselves up accidentally even tighter to a near-by chair. 

Late update to the post: According to another, better vet, it's probably a parvovirus. Bungee and Joy didn't make it. Jumper was taken into an animal hospital so I hope that she will get through it although the vet didn't want to get my hopes up too soon.