I took Sierra the Chihuahua to the vet Monday because one of her bladder stones had migrated to the neck of the bladder, blocking it. She had surgery to remove two suspected stones. but when they got in and looked, the stones had mostly broken up due to the Unicorn meat we’ve been feeding her. The doctor could not get a catheter to pass from the bladder to the outside, but as the night wore on, things improved. I brought her home today.

Abby and I completed the first step to getting our Oklahoma Self-Defense Act license to carry a concealed weapon on Saturday when we took the required class. My notes:

• Older instructor, retired k9 cop from Ohio. Poor communicator, kind of an ass. Threatened to throw someone out of the class for looking at his phone.
• Too much politics, not enough actual instruction. Too many sidebars about disagreeing with law instead of just giving it to us.
• Very little actual firearms instruction.
• Required written safety test was nearly worthless.
• Abby was very nervous. She told me it was because of her father’s perfectionism about shooting when she was growing up.
• At the range, I was very surprised at how close the targets were. I shot very very tight groups and found it completely unchallenging.
• The guy next to me at the range shot a borrowed .40-cal; was injured by something he claimed was the trigger guard. His shots were all over the target.
• One woman, who had never shot, had a new Ruger P95 9mm; she was completely lost.
• There was apparently no way to fail the shooting portion of the class, no matter how poorly you shot or handled your weapon.
• In the end, I got very little from the class except the certificate.

The next step is to take our certificates to the Pontotoc County Justice Center and be fingerprinted, then send all our paperwork to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation for a complete background check.