Dog Days of Springtime

"You move 15 tons, and whaddayou get... another day older and deeper in debt... St. Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go, I owe my life to that Home Depot store..."

Some people go to the beach for the weekend, some head for the lake, others to the mountains...

We decided to move a mountain. Of rock.... 15 tons worth... In case you're wondering, that comes out to about 180 wheelbarrow loads.

As many of you know, Maggie the Yellow Lab won an award two years ago as the most destructive dog in the State of Arizona. She's met her match in Coogee...

Last year, we put a fence up to keep Maggie out of the pool area, but she still managed to get at it over the winter. And she's been training Coogee in the off season.

Now, what does 15 tons of rock have to do with Maggie?

In preparing for putting down the rock, what Maggie and Coogee didn't destroy, the teenage landscapers did...

So, in addition to laying down 15 tons of rock, I got to rebuild the drip system for the third year in a row. This year, I decided to improve a bit. When the original system was installed, the flex pipe used got mixed in with the regular PVC pipes for the grass pop-up sprinklers. Not a problem, except there were places where it was near impossible to get to the flex pipe to plug holes or put in new drip lines.

Rather than fight the same battle I'd lost twice, this year, I ran new flex pipe along the edge of the pool deck, and for good measure, installed PVC where the dogs had access to the flex-pipe along the house wall... All in all, a good six hours of work, and a moderate success. I also have the added benefit of now knowing where all the lines are, which will make repairs a heck of a lot easier.

The dogs? They're just waiting for the opportunity to get into the pool area. They saw where I was working...

OK, now what do I watch?...

For 15 years, they've been a fixture in living rooms around the world, including ours. This week, ER said goodbye, and I have to say, did so with style.

Spoiler alert for those who didn't see the show yet.... stop reading now. Close the browser. Now.

For the rest of us who did see it on Thursday night, watched it online at NBC.Com, or, like millions of others, downloaded it illegally off the internet, it was a good way to close things out.

Over the past six months, we've seen all of the original cast return in some form or fashion. The flashback sequences with Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes) , Mark Green (Anthony Edwards) and my personal favorite, Robert Romano (Paul McCrane).  John Carter (Noah Wyle) returning from Africa, and winding up on the table for transplant surgery with none other than Peter Benton (Eriq Lasalle) at his side, an almost direct flashback to Season 3, when Benton winds up on the table with Carter doing the honors. And yes, Doug Ross (George Clooney) and Carol Hathaway Ross (Julianna Margulies) made their reappearance, albeit from a distance.  Jeanie Boulet (Gloria Ruben) made her return early in the season.  I was really starting to wonder about Susan Lewis (Sherry Stringfield) , who finally showed up in the finale.

There were only a few recurring characters who didn't return in the last season.  Of those who lasted more than two seasons, only Deb Jing-Mei Chen (Ming Na) and Yosh Takata (Gedde Watanabe) didn't come back in some form or fashion.  Don Anspaugh (John Alyward) also didn't make any appearances, however he was referred to in two of the last episodes, including the finale.

I must admit, I really like how they handled the finale. In the opening sequence of the , Archie Morris (Scott Grimes) is woken up by Lydia Wright (Ellen Crawford), which is something she did in the pilot to Mark Greene.  They opened not with the newer techno music, but with the original Marty Davich theme.

Greg Pratt's brother Chaz is giving a tour to a group of med students, and one keeps lagging behind the rest. It turns out to be Rachel Greene (Halle Hirsch), Mark's daughter, now 22 and in med school and applying to CGH.

During the remainder of the episode, a few loose ends are tied up for good. The Carter Center is opened, and John's estranged wife Kem makes a reappearance at the opening reception, but it's not the happy ending some expected. Taggert and Gates finally reunite, and Benton and Elizabeth Corday (Alex Corday) have a very brief moment in which they finally become friends again following their breakup over ten years earlier.

The closing scene, and last line?  Absolutely perfect.  There's a mass trauma coming in during the middle of the night. All the docs and nurses are standing by in the bay, almost as though it is a curtain call, awaiting the arrival of the first ambulance.

Ambulances start to arrive, and organized chaos ensues as the injured are brought in one by one.  

Carter, heading in with one of the last patients, turns around and calls out to Rachel, who has been standing on the edge of the action, watching with interest...

"Dr. Greene, are you coming?"

A smile breaks out on her face, and she runs in after Carter, following in her father's footsteps quite literally.

So, rather than there being a real ending, things wound up coming full circle. And definitely not the explosion killing everyone in one fell swoop as some radicals expected...

Thanks to John Wells for an excellent ending to a series that I was convinced had lost its way a year earlier...  It's too bad Michael Crichton wasn't around for the final curtain, but just as the Mark Greene character would have watching the final scene unfold, I'm sure he would have approved.