Seven Years

Seven years ago today, we had to say goodbye to the best dog ever.  I'm not sure why, but it's hitting me very hard this year.  I hope you will forgive my little bit of melancholy as I republish in its entirety the tribute I wrote to our Katie that day.  

Goodbye Old Girl 

When you bring a puppy into your home, you know that dogs don't live as long as humans. Somewhere in the back of your mind,  you know that one day you'll have to face losing that puppy.

But you don't have to think about that yet.  That's a long way away.  Right now she's just a cute little puppy, with soft little puppy fur and sharp little puppy teeth.  She'll make a good companion for your little diaper wearing, pappy sucking baby.

Time goes by. The boy grows up.  The puppy becomes a dog.

She's a part of the family.  She's always there for you.

At Christmas.

At Easter.

Camping in the living room, with her own backpack.

The first day of school.

The first day of Cub Scouts.

And Little League.

The first day of the last year of junior high.

She's there to comfort when you're sick,

or any time a sleeping boy just needs a little extra security.


It seems you barely turn around and before you know it, that diaper wearing baby is in high school and your dog is no longer that bouncing little puppy she once was.  You know she's getting older, but you try not to think about it.

Then one day it hits you.  She can't see.  She can't hear.  The black patch on her eye that you nearly named her for has faded to almost completely white.  She has trouble getting up and down the front steps. That's when you realize, your dog is old.

That long way away suddenly got a whole lot closer.

You know that the decision is coming, but still you try to put it off.  She may be ready, but you aren't. You do what you can to keep her happy and healthy, but time still stalks the old girl.

Relentless.

Unyielding.

Then one day, you wake up and you know.


It may be that look of patient suffering in your dog's eyes.

It may be the sounds of pain she makes when she lays down,

or the scream when you try to help her up the steps.

Whatever the reason, you know.


It's time.


An agonizing trip to the animal clinic.    A shaking hand signs the paper.  The doctor that  gave her her first puppy shots now gives her one last injection.  And she drifts away, peacefully and without pain.  She's gone.

An "I'm so sorry" and a hug in the parking lot from the vet, and you take your faithful companion home for the last time. You ask your boy if he wants to pick out a spot for her, and he says, "I want to do this myself".  And your boy --no this man your pappy sucking boy has somehow become-- buries his dog out by the back fence, near the cow pasture she loved so much.

A bouquet of plastic flowers.


A too quiet house.   A big, gaping hole in your heart.

And it's over.


Goodbye old girl.    You really were the best dog ever.





Epilogue:  October 3, 2009


When you bring a puppy into your home, you know that dogs don't live as long as humans.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you know that one day you'll have to face losing that puppy.

But you don't have to think about that yet.  That's a long way away.

Right now, he's just a cute little puppy with soft little puppy fur, and sharp little puppy teeth.

He'll make a good companion for your guitar playing, soon to be driving, teenage son.

Hello, Sweetie

First off, I want to thank everyone for your kind words regarding Jake.  Some of you may know him better as Not My Dog. He was Cody's dog, but he lived with Beverly and James.  Still, he spent so much time at my house that he was about half mine.  When people asked me how many dogs I had, I'd say, "2 1/2".  Jake was the 1/2.

He had apparently been hit by a car, and the scum sucking maggot who hit him never even stopped to see if he was OK, or to try to find out whose dog he was.  What is wrong with people today? 

I want to be River Song when I grow up.  If you don't know who River Song is, well, you need to find out.  She is the baddest of the bad.  She made a Dalek beg for mercy.  Smart, sassy, and tough.

Naturally, when I saw this t-shirt, I had to have it. 

I ordered it from a place called Fresh Brewed Tee.  They have lots of cute designs.  The only drawback is that you have to be patient.  It took nearly a month for this shirt to get here. 

Remember the small holes I found in my sheets last fall?  Well, I was putting them in my imaginary husband's side of the bed.  And one night, my imaginary husband put his imaginary foot through the small holes and turned them in to a big hole. 

Oh, wait, that was me.  Nevertheless, I think these sheets have finally had it.  I hate to just throw them away, though.  I'm thinking about trying to sew them up and making a dog bed out of them. 

I don't know.  I'll figure something out.

Goodbye Jake

You left us too soon.

August 21, 2009 - February 18, 2014

An Ordinary Day

It was a perfectly ordinary day the day they came. The sky was blue. People were going about their lives as usual. Out of nowhere, they swarmed the town. Hundreds of them. All dressed in black, they declared Sharia to be the law of the land.

Most people just put on their burkhas and went on with their lives. But some of us had a purpose. We had a plan. We were going to take our country back. We'd heard rumors, undercurrents of something like this happening, so we'd amassed weapons and ammunition, and set a rendezvous point up the mountain, out in the woods, so we could regroup and get organized. That's where I was going.

But first... I had to get out of town.

Last night's dream. Sheesh, is it any wonder I wake up more tired than when I went to bed? Kinda makes me long for the good ol' days when all I dreamed about was dinosaurs eatin' my head.

This morning before work, James called me and asked if I would take Jake in to the vet, since he was working days and wouldn't be off before the office closed.

Jake had gotten a stick wedged up in the roof of his mouth, and they couldn't get it out.  Straight after work, I ran him up there.  As I was telling the receptionist what was going on, another lady in the waiting room  said, "That happens to my dog all the time.  All you have to do is reach your hand in there and pull it out."

Duh... I'm sure they tried that before spending boucoup bucks on a vet bill.  

When the vet came in, he wanted to look inside Jake's mouth, but as soon as Dr. A approached him, Jake growled.

"Okaaaaay, I guess I won't be sticking my hand in your mouth," the vet said.

Anyway, they gave him a fast acting sedative and got the stick out.  When I went back to pick him up, the vet said, "Tell him to be more careful when he's chewing on sticks."

And that was my excitement for the day.

I know, I know.  My life is so thrilling.

I'm starting to get a hankering to knit a hat in lace weight.  Since I can't find the pattern I want, I think I'm going to try to work up my own.  It's going to have an eyelet lace panel, alternating with an 8 stitch cable, on a background of reverse stockinette stitch.  Slouchy, beret type of thing.

But first, I've got to finish this other hat I'm designing.  I'm kind of dragging on it, because I'm trying to figure out how to do the decreases without messing up the pattern.

I'll let you know how it goes. 

It Always Amazes Me

It always amazes me how skies that can produce so much death and destruction one day, can be so beautiful the next.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected by the storms yesterday. Things got a little hairy here for a minute, but the worst of it passed to the North of us. We didn't even lose power, though I had both the phone and the kindle fully charged-- just in case.

Today proved blessedly noneventful. Yes, my big excitement for the day was to head back into town and get a new pair of rubber boots.

I went back to Wal-mart, thinking that they might have gotten some more in since Thursday.  Sure enough, they had some in my size.

As soon as I got home, I put them on, went out, and worked on clearing off some more honeysuckle from my plum trees.  I'm to the point now that I have to get somebody with a chainsaw to come cut down the other trees that have grown up through the plums.  Might as well get the elm tree out of the pear tree and I can work on that one, too.

Jake did help me with one.  I'm not sure what kind of tree it was, because it hadn't leafed out yet.  I was pulling the vines out of the top of it, and Jake grabbed them and started pulling, too.  After I'd cut the honeysuckle loose, the tree didn't snap back up. I shook it a few times, but it just laid there, draped across a few dead plum branches.

"Something is wrong with this tree," I said to myself.  When I walked around the plum tree and looked, Jake had broken that tree right in half.   It was a  young tree, too, green and alive.  About twice as big around as a broom handle, and he broke it like it was an old twig.

You know, sometimes people ask me if I'm afraid, living without a man in my house.  I just smile, and say, "nope".

Long Week

This has been the longest week!  I think it's the first time I've actually worked a full 40 hour week since October.  I'm just not used to it.  I keep hoping to get some overtime, soon.  They say by the end of next month, we'll be working 6 days a week.  I hate the hours, but I sure could use the money.

I've still got a few weekends left.  I'd better enjoy them while I can.

Jake

Remember when I told you about my cousin's dogs a couple of weeks ago?  Well, today the guy that owns the house on the other side was in his yard and Sadie and Zoe went after him.  He scared them off with a shotgun, and by the time James got over there, Ronnie was still shaking like a leaf.

James told me later that the little old lady on the other side of him was in her yard one day.  When Sadie and Zoe saw her, they went crazy, barking and snarling and jumping at the fence.  Mrs. Woods started freaking out, shrieking and crying and stuff.  If they'd gotten out, they would have eaten her up with her acting like that.  If they'd bitten her, her son wouldn't have just fired a warning shot.

Sadie

Even me, when I come outside of my house, they still come after me.  It takes a minute, and they eventually calm down, but for that minute, they truly look scary, what with their teeth all out and everything.  They look for all the world that they are going to attack me.   

That was always my worry.  If they did bite somebody, they'd probably end up being destroyed because they've shown a history of aggressive behavior, and Mike and Dennise would be fined or worse.

They're not really bad dogs.  I think they're insecure.  They're in a new place, surrounded by strange people and strange dogs.  They've always been inside dogs, now they're kept in a pen in the back yard.  The pen is too small for one dog of that size, much less two.  They're used to having walls around them.  Now everything is wide open. I think they must constantly feel like they're having to look over their shoulders, so to speak.  It's made them aggressive.  Kind of an "I'm going to get you before you get me" thing.

I don't know what's going to happen in all of this.  I did tell Dennise that I would start walking them when I walk mine and Jake in the evenings.  Maybe that'll help. 

I don't know, but it sure won't hurt.

Monday Misscellany

My day started pretty early this morning--around 3:30 AM, when thunderstorms blew in and woke me up.  I was dreaming about the Dallas Cowboys.  I don't remember the dream, but I remember Jason Witten being in it.

This is the third night in a row I've dreamed about them.  The first night, I dreamed they were having a pre-season game against the Buffalo Bills.   In the dream, one of the fans ran in from the sidelines and shoved Tony Romo out of the back of the endzone with his hands around Tony's neck.  He still managed to complete a pass to Miles Austin.  The Bills won the game, and even though it was just pre-season, they were acting like it was a SuperBowl.  Guess them two losses back in the 90's still rankle just a wee bit.

The next night, I dreamed the Cowboys were in the Super Bowl, only Jason Garrett had benched DeMarcus Ware for disciplinary reasons. Yeah, like that'll ever happen.

Anyway, my day started early, and ended a bit early, too.  One of the machines in tubing was broke down, and when it became obvious they weren't going to get it fixed in a timely manner, they shut the lines down and sent us all home.  I tried to get Greg to let Vanessa and me stay until 3:00, but he said no.  Greg is a tough case.  I could always talk Former Group Leader Rod into it.

When I got home, Jake came to visit.  Somewhere he found one of those rings that come off of the milk jug and brought it to me to throw for him.

 Not a ball-- of which I have plenty-- or a bone, or a rope toy.  But a milk jug ring.

 Throwing a tiny piece of plastic for an 80 lb dog ended up being quite comical. Um, kindly ignore the hair on my carpet.  When there are more animals than people in the house, it kind of comes with the territory.

Wait, what?  Houses are supposed to be cleaned?????  Boy, talk about shattering my illusions...

I think I'll go huddle in a corner and whimper a while now. 

Our Evening Walk--A Pictoral Essay

Top to bottom:

Rylea and the neighbor's dog
Blue sky with just the right amount of clouds
Deer tracks
Horse Tracks
Bird tracks
Cotton Bolls
Rylea--What is that there in the kudzu?
Military Aircraft
Neighbor's dog
Soybeans (I think--I'm not 100% sure on this)

Starting Over

I'd mentioned before that I'd wanted to rip my I Love My Cowboys scarf and start over, because I didn't like the way it folded in half. I finally broke down and did it. First thing I did was to soak the yarn and rehank it to dry. The hangers are there to stretch the yarn just a tiny bit to pull the crimp out.

I'd wanted to knit it during the game yesterday, but the yarn wasn't dry by the time it started. Today was a holiday, and we got the day off at work, so I got up this morning and rewound it.

I found the pattern, which I had already printed out from the first time I knit it, and cast on. First thing I did was to knit 5 rows of garter stitch for the border. It did seem to give some more stability to the pattern. I am knitting five heart motifs--to represent the 5 Superbowls the Cowboys have won, then another 6 rows of garter stitch. I'll repeat this until I run out of yarn, then kitchener it, like last time.

I got this much done today.


I've been knitting so much lace weight lately that I've forgotten how quickly worsted weight knits up.

Speaking of lace weight, I only have 15 more rounds to finish Queen Anne's Lace. Yes, they are long rounds, but the end is in sight.

The only other thing I did today was to take the dogs for a walk. This was the first time I'd tried to walk them both at once, and they did really well.

Once we got to the dirt road, I let Jake off the leash, but kept Rylea on the long lead. I keep them both leashed on the paved road, but let them off on the dirt road since there is very little traffic there. I mean like, one vehicle a week. Today, I kept Rylea on the long lead, because she didn't come when I called her before we left. That's what happened when you prove that I can't trust her. (I don't know what happened to the color in this photo. I was using my P&S, since it's smaller and lighter.)

The view from the top of the hill.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day, cool and breezy, with just enough clouds to give the sky character. The plan had been to get up and go to the zoo, but I decided I was just going to be lazy today. So that's what I did.

And it was great.