Well, it's not going to kill you

The day finally arrived

with breaking hearts we let our beautiful Max go today.  It was way past time but as he was really Larry's dog so I had to wait until he was ready.

We are blessed with vets that make house calls so none of us (Larry, Max and I) had to make the long trip into town.

We had him laying on a blanket with a fan blowing a slight breeze upon his beautiful self.  We'd given him his pain pills in the morning so he was already kind of mellow.  Marty, his vet gave him a sedative first.  He actually feel asleep and was snoring so we know when she administered the real drugs he didn't feel a thing.  We spent a few hours with him, Larry sitting and thinking while I petted him.  Then had our tenants help us move him to the place Larry choose to bury him.

He has a lovely spot by a Chinese Pistache tree.  One of his truck beds is in the bottom of the hole which had been lined with plastic to keep his scent away from the wild animals (forest and all you know)  We had him wrapped in a blanket, his other truck bed on top, a layer of dirt, a wooden barrier, then more dirt and a couple of beautiful but heavy rocks.

You all know how I've struggled with this but I had to wait until Larry was ready.  He was finally ready today.  We buried Max, came back into the house and shared favorite Max stories, Dr. Sanity - God bless her soul called twice to make sure we were ok.

 We cracked open our last GOOD bottle of champagne and celebrated our puppy boy.  We were so lucky to have him in our lives and we will miss him so.

Before he left, I tasked him with finding a new puppy for "Dad" while he's busy enjoying Dog Heaven.

Dr. Sanity strikes again

First it was Rachel Maddow.  Now she's introduced me to Wallace & Gromit - I'm hooked.

So far this is by far my favorite

Lights, camera, action

As the regular season viewing comes to an end we've been watching pay-per-view movies.  We've had Directv since it first came out.  When you live in the middle of nowhere tv viewing is iffy at best.  I remember before Dtv trying to watch Monday night football and the screen was so fuzzy you could hardly make out the players let alone the ball.  Ah yes the good old days.
But I digress. Pay per view was the subject.  We watched Slumdog Millionaires which was great, not sure it should have won the best picture Oscar but terrific none the less. 

Then we watched Frost/Nixon which we knew would be good but it just blew us away - now that's the movie that should have won best picture.  Amazing performances especially from Frank Langella. You forget he was an actor playing a part and he simply seemed to be Nixon.  For those of you to young to remember most of us were glued to the TV during the Watergate hearings and I'll bet a lot of people remember exactly where they were when Nixon resigned.  I happened  to be at work.  They had a tv that was always on in the Jr. dept.  I worked the floor above but just happened to be "passing" through the Jr dept when he made his announcement.  I remember the entire 3 floor store being totally silent for a couple of minutes.
Last night we watched Doubt, another winner.  Meryl Streep did her usually stellar job but the supporting cast was just as good.  As a (once upon a time) Catholic who knows one priest that was convicted of child molestation and one who was accused it was a very enlightening, disturbing, unsettling movie.  And it does leave you with doubt. It did bring back the days when priests had way too much power, especially over the nuns.  But it also brought back childhood memories.  Growing up in Garberville the priest was the same age as my parents, aunts and uncles.  He was just part of the family.  As kids we were always trooping through his house, he was coming to ours for dinner or a party.  He was just a regular person that was part of our life.  Drove like a fricking maniac but for some reason our parents seemed to always sending us off hither and yon with him.  I guess they figured he had God on his side. I'm glad some things have changed but sorry that because of the taint of some really bad priests people, particularly kids, don't have the same relationship with them anymore.  I know one priest that feels he can no longer hug the girls (elementary school age) because he fears that someone might misinterpret the situation.
As for the nuns things have changed light years.  Growing up we NEVER saw the nuns out of their habits.  In fact there used to be a group of nuns who came to Garberville every summer to teach us whatever - Garberville was too small to support a school- and the nuns would come out to our house to use the pool that our three families shared.  At that time the pool was completely fenced, later one end of the fence was replaced with chain link fencing so our parents could take a glance and make sure no one was breaking the rules while my cousin and I reigned as queen of the pool*.  So the pool was completely fenced which allowed the nuns to use it.  We were not allowed to be anywhere in the vicinity of the pool when they were there.  I always thought it was so unfair because these nuns were usually young joyful women who would have had a blast playing and swimming with us.
 * we got to reign because every fricking summer until we passed Sr. Lifesaving we had swimming lessons in the dirty, gross river (to us) Eel River at Benbow Lake.  Once we advanced to Jr. lifesaving Susan and I were appointed caretakers of the smaller kids in the pool.  Our special enforcement was making sure the little kids didn't get into the deep end unless the could really swim.  Our poor San Franciso cousin spent many a summer in the shallow end or in a life jacket because he only swam when he came up for the summer.
Well that turned out a bit more rambling than I expected but there you have it 3 great movies.

Oh please not another sleepless night

Last night, or rather I should say this morning I didn't go to bed until 5 am.  The sun was actually starting to rise as I retired.  At 10:30 the alarm went off because my appt with Dr. Sanity is at noon on Friday's. Makes FWF much easier - but we didn't have one this week. 

 
I bolted out of bed, checked email to see if there was anything important I needed to attend to and hopped in the shower.  Oh how I love the shower, water sluicing over my body for as long as I want because we have an instant on water heater.  I spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME in the shower so I  ended up fairly bolting out the door to make it to Dr. Sanity's office in time.  It's about a 40 min drive when traffic is good.  Oh, excuse me while I laugh hysterically, Cal Trans just finished adding a lane through Santa Rosa now they're moving north.  Traffic is never good

Since I had sent her an email just before I went to bed she was pretty impressed that I made my appt.  We had lots to talk about but I was so tired things kept leaking out of my brain before I could speak the words.  But I feel we had one of our best sessions ever.  We talked about Larry and Max, about how I'm stretched to the max emotionally which she validated.  This is probably the last weekend we'll have with Max so I've vowed to make it the best one ever.  Surprise 9//////////-00/444444  (Sophie was helping me post)  tri-tip snacks,many belly rubs which he loves and just total attention.  

Now I have wandered far astray of my original point about sleeplessness, please forgive me, it's a very stressful time. I promise I will soon get back to the recovery aspects of breast cancer and of course politics - WTF with Dick Cheney??? In the mean time, understand that life here is challenging and I'm doing the best I can to make it through each day.

 

Well insanity still reigns

Larry is still refusing to accept that it's time to let go of Max, which is stretching me to my emotional limits.  All the CA propositions failed so now the State Assembly is actually forced to make some hard choices

Dick Cheney is still making a fool of himself, personally I think he's doing his speaking tour to set up a defense when people wake up and finally start coming after the prior administration

Rush Limbaugh still thinks he speaks for the Republican party

Gas prices are going up again.

And I only have 9 days to find an acceptable dress to wear to Marissa's graduation!

Sorry about the tiny font I can't seem to get typepad to cooperate tonight.

Voting

Next Tuesday is election day here in California.  For the first time in 35 years I'm not voting.  This was a hard decision for me to make  and came to it for many reasons.  I'm tired of government by proposition it's made Ca budget an unmitigated disaster.  So much money is dedicated to specific projects because of prior propositions that there's not much money in the general fund.  As I type I think our budget shortfall is 15 - 16 billion dollars.  Of course that shortfall results in program cuts mostly effecting schools and child health programs.  Funny, some how they always manage to come up with money for prisons  
I also don't have the energy to weed through all the mudslinging and really research the propositions.  I am usually very dedicated about that.  This election I just don't care.  There are too many other things on my plate, like keeping body, mind and soul together

 So although it makes me feel a little sad to break my voting streak, no one is going to notice my one missing vote.

Bubbles are nice, tri-tip and who says I don't like salmon???

Yes a nice and varied post for you tonight.

Bubbles are very nice, I don't know if it was intended but I think Dr. Sanity gave me permission to put myself in a bubble for a while.  There are so many things going on in my life, Max, our mortgage broker that seems to have disappeared into the wood work, Larry's mom and what to do with her that I have no control over (I'm REALLY, REALLY not good at no control) that I've just been a mess for the last few weeks.  So after my session with Dr. Sanity yesterday I took myself out for my favorite comfort food Asian soup.  I went to Chinois .

It has rapidly become my go to place.  The food is to die for, the atmosphere calm, welcoming, soothing and they're perfectly happy to let me sit and read after I'm finished eating.  It's almost a meditation spot for me.  As I came in for lunch on Thursday the owner gave me a big welcome as I'd been there only 2 days before.  She asked me how I was and explained that life was kind of falling around my ears and that I come to the restaurant not only for the food but the comforting atmosphere.  She was very pleased that I felt so comfortable there.   We talked about Max and how Larry is not willing to let him go.  It turns out a friend of her's near by breeds Pyrenees.  We know we want another Pyrenees so when we're ready I'll get in touch with Debbie.  In the sweetest gesture she gave me a free dessert, a wonderful flourless chocolate cake.  I was so touched I almost cried.

 I had my soup and asked if she minded if I just stayed and read because the restaurant closes at 2:30.  She was more than willing and tried to get a friend to come and sit while.  The friend couldn't come so Debbie asked if  I would mind moving out to the patio because she had to go home and walk her dog.  As the patio is just as calm as the restaurant I had no problem.  She left me with my refilled ice tea glass and another teapot full if I was so inclined.  I read for another 2 hours then decided I really should go home.  Sometime in the 3 1/2 hours I spent at Chinois I entered a bubble.  It seems to have set up a protective field around me please I'm feeling much less stressed, angry and anxious. 

Now the tri-tip - it's STILL working!!!  Yes until Larry is ready to let Max go I can keep him a bit more comfortable with the pain pills hidden in tri-tip.  Who cares how much it costs if I can keep the edge off his pain? .  It only took him 2 days to realize that when I get up in the morning he gets tri-tip.  He lays in the middle of the living room and watches intently as I head into the pantry to the frig.  He also gets 2 at night.  Tonight was very funny, he usually gets his chemo pill and prednisone in his beloved hot dogs.  Tonight he took the chemo but spit out the prednisone 3 times - tri-tip to the rescue.

And who says I don't like salmon is about Ted.  I made salmon spread for FWF and I'd also made deviled eggs because I thought there would be 10 of us.   Of course the eggs were gone in mere moments but  we had a bit of salmon spread left over.  I put it in a storage container and as Ted was dancing around my feet and meowing I put the bowl down for him to lick.  Ted D.O.E.S. N.O.T. like salmon cat food, period end of sentence.  Tonight he almost climbed into the bowl in his fervor to get to the little bits of spread left in the bowl.  I wonder if it was the cream cheese that did it for him or perhaps the dill?

Now I know it's going to kill me

In the figurative sense.  Larry has once again changed his mind about Max.  It just makes me so sad to see him (Max not Larry) limping around barely able to get any support from his back legs and now his front legs are wobbling as well while Larry pretends it's not happening.

The good news is that I discovered he'll take his pain pills quite nicely in tri-tip!  I got 2 into him last night and 2 this morning.  Hopefully he'll keep taking them because that's the only thing I can do to help him while his father selfishly hangs on to him.  Can you tell I'm getting just the slightest bit pissed about the situation?

This might actually kill me

To be more accurate this week will seriously suck.  Larry has finally recognized that it's time to let Max go.

 

We have friends who have been out of town that want to visit him before we do the deed.

They'll be home tomorrow afternoon and we're going to have a little Maxfest.  Some appetizers, probably lots of champagne and Max will get to spend time with 2 of his favorite people before he leaves for dog heaven.

I had a session with Dr. Sanity today.  We talked about how hard this has been on me because it's been clear to me for at least a month that it was time to do what was best for Max but Larry didn't agree.  We talked about grief and shared dog stories that made us laugh and made us cry.   Dr. Sanity's dog who went everywhere with her died about 1 1/2 years ago.

She always gives me a hug at the end of a session today she stood there and just held me while I cried for about 5 minutes.  I honestly don't know what I'd do without her.  Right now she is my biggest support system.  I know I'm going to need to hold her close this week so I can be Larry's support system.

Under construction

Yep, I'm adding, subtracting and rearranging again.  I get bored easily what can I say.

Stay tuned.