Summer 2008

Fall is officially here (I needn’t state the obvious.) This is the time of year where I get ready for the holidays. Better Half and I are cleaning our downstairs carpets, washing down the woodwork and wiping down walls. The décor becomes more simplified in order to make room for the knickknacks that will mutate from fall into winter, encompassing Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. We are behind schedule.

It seems that we had a very mellow summer. We did not achieve some of our goals, such as stripping and painting the back deck. There is much to do in the back yard; the gardens need to be bedded down for winter, odd bits of trash require policing and the summer fixtures will be placed in their protective boxes.

I will be sorry to see my beautiful summer flowers disappear. I will have to mulch my beds out front, being careful to avoid any toad holes that I stumble across. The fountain will be brought to the garage and I shall tuck my hanging lantern into a corner for yet another year. Cushions must be washed, the porch swept and clematis clipped back. We will have leaves to rake, fall and Christmas decorations to place, and another few months were the car remains unwashed.

I leave you with memories of Summer 2008.

Goodbye Maddy. Not a single day has gone by that I have not thought of you and mourned your passing.

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Autumn Changes and Bewbs

“Autrice, this blog looks like fall!”

Why yes, yes it does. I’m in the mood for fall. I’m also in the mood to delve into a teensy bit of HMTL tinkering.

Working with code is a mesmerizing thing. It almost seems as if I detach my mind from my body. I am completely unaware of ordinary aches and pains. I don’t notice the muscle spasms or palpitations. I am, in essence, free. Of course, Better Half does not seem to identify with that; we wage wars over “too much time online”.

This fresh fall template is my way of telling the summer heat to piss off. We still have a bountiful crop of tomatoes on our vines. Squash is slowing spreading across the driveway asphalt as if it were an outrageous B-movie creature. Time marches on and I march with it. I am also saving time by having this done early.

Autumn is my preferred time of year. I do become somewhat maudlin when I look out my window and observe all my gorgeous flowers wilting like a defrocked prom queen tiptoeing out of a cheap motel. Flowers be damned, bring on the crisp air. Let me see rosy-cheeked children dashing up the street. I long to hear the crunch of leaves under my feel. I also long for a nice scarf, perhaps ivory in color and as soft as a cloud. Matching gloves would be phenomenal. Is this too obvious a hint? Hello? Husband?

An interesting note: there has always been something evocative or naughty worked into the background or banners of my blog since its inception. I have no idea why. I don’t even discern it until someone (a-hem BAAAA) points it out to me. Thus, I checked my email just now and found a note from the Ox and Spider. “Your banner,” he stated, “the pumpkins look like bewbs.”

Bewbs? My banner? Certainly not. Two eyeballs and nose, yes. Headlights on a car, perhaps. Oh who am I kidding?! They DO look like perfectly round breasts. Good Lord. We will not discuss the pinecone. I am not going to change that banner either. I have been working on the blog for most of the afternoon and I am certain that Better Half will start up with, “You spend too much time online” any moment now. He does have a point.

Thank you, Ox, for showing me where to get font for my banners!

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Tomes and Tomatoes

My day can end with a healthy sense of satisfaction. Better Half and I were able to clean the bedroom yesterday and the office today. He’s asleep now, resting up for the VA tomorrow. They plan to run a sleep deprived EEG in the hopes of diagnosing his “non-episodic seizures.” I will wake him at midnight and then I will try to get some sleep myself: we leave at 5:30 AM.

One of my major achievements today was cleaning my office. I thought it would be a good idea to sort through all my books and piles of paper. My cheaply made bookcases did not weather the move well. I have two large six foot ones in addition to a small three-shelf bookcase. Half of my texts are located in my office, and perhaps a third of Better Half’s books are here. It is a weak cross-section of subjects, mostly sciences with some military history thrown in. The rest of our collection is housed quite unceremoniously in boxes in the Dungeon (AKA stinky basement.)

Our tomatoes are thriving. I snipped a half dozen from the plants. They will redden up a touch more in the refrigerator before becoming perfect for sandwiches or added to a scrambled egg. Our squash threatens to overwhelm again. I plan to hand some of the yellow squash to the neighbors. I am sorry to report that zucchini bushes are not doing well. Patty pans are holding their own. We are doing our best to keep things picked when they are young and tender. I honestly do not understand how some of my crop-growing friends manage to care for huge personal gardens. It is worth the effort, however. I have tasted the first tomato from the garden and proclaimed it good.

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Countdown to the Olympics

Beijing 2008

The link on this widget will take you to a Chinese homepage which will not load properly if your computer does not have the language set. I recommend that you skip that link and use the link below for Olympic information.
The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

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Summer 2008 Vegetation

Summer 2008 Vegetation

The front yard in bloom

A symphony of dusty miller, impatients,

mums, elephant's ear, dianthus and lamb's ear.

The front porch planting beds

"Monster Hosta" in bloom

The Mimosa tree

View from below

flowering

Hitch hiker

The Eats

3 varieties of squash

Romano tomatoes

Strawberry pots on the deck

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July 1st, Canada (birth!) Day

July 1st – a relaxing day. Not only is it my birthday, but also the day that Canadians celebrate the birth of the man (Oscar Canada) who discovered their great land. I’m told that they hold dog sled races in the deep July snow to commemorate the occasion, replete with lumberjack competitions and RCMP formation drills. The PM, Stephen Harper, was on hand to help judge the moose beauty pageant. The moose (or “mooses” if you are from the any state in the deep South, USA) must sing the national anthem (dedicated to Mr. O. Canada) with perfect pitch least they be disqualified.

My wonderful Canadian friends are going to kick my ass all over the Internet, to be sure.

I had a friend “back in the day” that honestly thought that Cinco de Mayo was held in celebration of the “man who discovered Mexico”. His name, of course, was Cinco de Mayo (no relation to Oscar Canada or even Oscar de la Renta.) The mistranslation of “Fifth of May” to “this guy’s name” undeniably stymied her attempts to date a Hispanic male. It didn’t surprise me one iota when some foolish person refused to believe Canada Day was about the enactment of the British North American Act. I am not going into detail about the “how and why” of it. Google and learn.

How sad is it that Americans seem clueless with regard to their neighbors to the north and south? Are we nothing more than a nation that saturates itself with prime time talent contests, baby daddy talk shows, and hyperbole as it pertains to our self-estimation? (Be forewarned, the next generation was weaned on Fruit Roll-Ups, Starbuck’s burnt coffee and Go-Gurt. I don’t expect much in the way of vigorous brain cell activity. God forbid they reach their 40’s and suddenly discover that Canada is not the 51st state.)

I can overlook some things. If you have never called a living and breathing human being in Canada, you might not know that you can dial the number just as you would any long distance phone number, using only 1+area code. Please do not try to place a call to Canadians who are not living and breathing; the dead tend to ignore the phone’s ring.

Another misconception: Canada does not have “states”. Should you ask a Canadian what state he lives in, he will probably think, “a state of hell, having to deal with yet another inept American.” Canada is a federation of ten provinces and three territories. They have a PM (Prime Minister, which is not the same thing as prime rib) rather than a president.

Canadians enjoy indoor plumbing, paved roads and buildings comprised of materials other than ice. They drive in the same sort of vehicles that you would see in the United States. Most do not finish every sentence with “ay”, although there are some that do. Contrary to popular belief, Canada has a military and space programs. Mounties do not ride yaks (the Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen are Ren and Stimpy fantasy.)

We will not even touch the clueless American who became rather perturbed upon hearing that Niagara (pronounced nye AH grah by the bungling) Falls has a “Canadian side”, how dare they! Les Chutes du Niagara cascading down from the Niagara River surely must belong to the Americans. It never occurred to her that there was more to Niagara than a single cataract of water.

My birthday (I did not discover Canada) was splendid. Better Half treated me to the new Disney-Pixar film, Wall-E. We had a lovely dinner out and enjoyed a wonderful cherry cake.

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Waltzing Matilda, in pictures

6/15/08 Final days on the porch

2/29/08 Mads loved snowballs.

She would chase them, eat them,

and run about in the snow after them.

2/29/08 snow

2/20/08 Mads goofing off on Sami's pillow.

Mads takes over the couch

10/25/07 Daddy is Maddy's favorite person!

Same day - She is giving a smile

Same day - investigating

4/8/07 Easter Dinner filled her up.




11/23/07 Thanksgiving dinner is just as good!





6/28/06 Mads had a habit of blending into red things

8/8/06 Yep, she loves her daddy.

9/5/06 Car rides are cool

Loving on daddy and vice versa

Mads at the vet the first time. Notice how she blends

into the woodwork.

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Waltzing Matilda - Final Day

Today at approximately 11:40, we euthanized Maddie. My heart is completely torn from it.

We made the decision yesterday, when it was apparent that we were simply prolonging the inevitable. Maddie would only eat three teaspoons of baby food every hour, not nearly enough to sustain her. She looked positively skeletal, yet her spirits were good. She would roll over and sleep on her back, she went to the front door when we opened it and joined us on the porch. She was alert. That being said, she was physically weakened, tottering about in the back yard while straining to poop. She would exhaust her energy reserves easily by doing nothing more than going up a flight of steps. Although her mind and heart were willing, her body was fading.

Maddie’s final days have been filled with peace (and feedings around the clock.) She had been able to do most of her favorite things (minus eating out of Gennaker’s bowl and chasing ducks in a pond.)

She was “porch dog” nearly every single day since her illness began, including braving the massive thunderstorm with her daddy yesterday. I went outside and found them squished together on the old iron patio couch, content to sit there like bumps on a log while lightening flashed all about the neighborhood. I took off my denim shirt and tucked it around her to help her conserve some body heat. She watched the birds most days, content to hear their song.

During my “shift” with her, we would spend time either eating (that is to say, I would warm up the baby food and place it in my palm so that she could lick it off) or cockroaching (that is when a dog rolls onto their back and sticks all four legs in the air.) I pet her, scratched her ears and under her collar and told her all sorts of things that needn’t be repeated here.

We brought her to our vet today. Maddie, as always, went to her favorite corner in the waiting room and blended herself with the wood paneling on the wall. She trotted (sort of) down the hall once we were called, and lay down on the exam room floor.

Better Half and I had a bit of a wait, which suited us fine. We reassured Maddie with kisses and petting, whispering, “I love you” and “Such a good dog” to her. We cried and blew our noses, then cried some more.

When the time came, our Doctor (who I like immensely) came in with the euthanasia drug. I have worked as a tech previously and I have had to endure the pain of watching my own dog put down; I wondered where the pre-euthanasia tranquilizer was. It is customary in Colorado to administer the tranquilizer first as it knocks the dog out. The euthanasia drug itself can be very harsh on the system, meaning the animal feels the burn of the drug and panics as their body reacts. Feeling one's heart stop and slipping into death can be traumatic.

This is why my heart suffers. The doctor, his tech and myself attended to Maddie. Mads was perfectly calm, but they could not get a clear vein on her right foreleg. This left her stressed, but I wonder if there wasn’t a bit of the agent that made its way in, as she began to react strangely. At this point, I told her “exam” and “blood work”, two commands that are a lifesaver for any vet tech. We tried again on the left leg and did find a vein. It was at this point that Maddie began to cry. It wasn’t her “I don’t like this” cry, or her “I’m uncomfortable” cry. It was her terrified, agonal and in distress cry. I began to weep and repeated several times, “Good girl, it’s okay.” The only thing that stopped her struggle to cling to life was the agent stopping her heart.

We lay upon the floor with her, shedding tears and stroking her fur. I placed my hand over her chest, knowing that her heart would not beat again. Her soul was gone, free from her ravaged body. I began to apologize to her for the aweful way by which she passed.

As I write this, I am still horrorstruck by it. I hear her final cries, her pleading with me to make it stop. Better Half grieves and relives looking into her eyes; they were questioning, asking him, “why?” Euthanasia is meant to be a peaceful departure from this world.

Her final moments are seared into my memory and replay on an endless loop. I was prepared to part with her, realizing that I was giving her the gift of liberty. I was not prepared for the agony that she endured during those final few minutes. It is as if her soul followed me home, and hounds me with the same phrase: damn you, I was not ready.

I mourn, I doubt myself, and I am angry. Furiously so. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t even begin to mourn; rather I find myself so bitter that my companion of fourteen years departed this earth knowing only blind terror during her last few moments. It was inhumane.

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Waltzing Matilda Friday Update, and Annie

TGIF, although we are still struggling to with Mattie’s health.

She was refusing to eat when I last updated here. She is eating small portions now, mainly baby food. This evening she ate a bit of steak (meaning that she actually chewed and swallowed it.) This is cause for celebration for us, but I will still remain guarded with her prognosis. I do realize that she could crash at any time and I will not delude myself into thinking that she will emerge from this unscathed and with the vigor of a puppy. Mattie is dieing, albeit slowly and (at the moment) painlessly. When her time comes, we will be ready. I grieve yet I am grateful for the privilege of having her beside me. (This doesn’t make my pain any less.)

I had a wonderful surprise from my friend Annie. She had called to cheer me up and told me that she had dropped something into the mail for me. It arrived just as I was crawling through one of my most frustrated moments with Mattie and my own health.

Annie sent me a milagro that reminds us both of St. Bernadette. Milagros are small devotional charms often venerating a particular saint when one wished for a miracle (thus “milagro”.) She could not have picked a better saint.

St. Bernadette of Lourdes was an amazing woman. I urge you to Google her or purchase a book about her. She lived a life of complete poverty as a child. She chose to serve God as a nun, however she was not a healthy person. Regardless of her health and poverty, she was chosen by God as the person to see the Virgin Mary (Our Lady of Lourdes.) She, along with St. Philomena, is one of my favorite saints. Her patronage is against bodily ills and illness in general, however she is also the patron saint of Lourdes in France. Her benefaction further extends to people ridiculed for their honest piety, impoverished people, and shepherdesses (as she was a shepherdess herself at one point.) Annie pointed out in her letter to me that “St. Bernadette had absolute faith in her vision of Our Lady.” It would be sensible of me to consider her attributes and incorporate them into my own life.

Also inside the packet was a photograph that Annie took in Capitola, CA. I have never been to this place but I did ditch school with my boyfriend Bill to spend the entire day poking around Big Sur, Monterey and Santa Cruz. Annie’s photograph artistically captured an old sea break weathering the surf as it lapped the shore.

The picture is poignant to me. I have been away from my beloved ocean for over two decades. The beaches are an extension of my soul. My attraction is not due to childhood memories of visits to the beach with my parents (although those are some of my favorite memories.) It is the feeling of inner peace that courses through my body as I recall sand and surf.

Isn’t it fascinating how the mind works? I gazed at Annie’s photograph and I knew exactly what the water sounded like as it rolled over the break and caressed the shore. I certainly would have been able to tell you secrets that can only be delved by counting the seconds between each wave. I could see the wet sand and for a moment I felt it between my fingers, the cherished joy of its weight and the texture of the grains. I knew that it would coat my bare feet (the only cure it to step into the surf – of course, once you leave, you would have coated feet again!) I could smell the salt and wind, the seaweed (so much fun to pop!) and the wildlife. The gulls were riotous and boorish compared to the majestic herons or egrets. Black-necked Stilts darted in the wet sand, hoping for a quick meal. Perhaps a pelican perched nearby. If I were lucky, I would see a Cormorant. Wading into the surf, I’d feel the ocean churl sand, seaweed and UFTs (unknown floating things) against my shins. My favorite activity was simply standing in the surf to experience the push/pull of each wave. I was also an avid shell collector; sadly, the shells seemed to disappear as the years passed.

I hung Annie’s photograph on my bedroom wall. I shall look at it when times seem tough. It will not only take me back to my beloved beach but it will also remind me that I have a wonderful friend.

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