Missing the little Bed Bug

When Osha first passed, I felt okay about it. He was old. He had gotten very sick. It was time. And while I still believe all of those things, the more time that passes the more I am just really missing him.

Because he rarely left our bed, we called him the Bed Bug. In the middle of the night I still wake up and expect him to be cuddled against my head, or within reach between our pillows. While it's nice that now I can roll over without worrying about squishing him, I miss his heavy purrs. He had the purr of a cat four times his size.

Tess misses him in her way - sometimes I find her squirmed up between our pillows in the middle of the day, where he used to sleep. (she will occasionally try to get up there at night as well, but there isn't really enough space. But she tries.)

Simon also misses him. He seems to sleep a lot more now, and is more cuddly. He's like "okay, the old guy has moved on, now it's time for my retirement to start."


Such a little guy, who made such a big impact on us.

Sad days

Sadly, today we lost our little buddy Osha. The B'Goshie. Hamburger. Goshus.

While we only had Osha for the last few of his 20 years, he fit right in with our crazy little family. He loved sleeping. He loved cuddling. He loved cookies. He purred a lot and gave headbutts which we called Kitty Knucks. I was freakishly allergic to his saliva, and broke out in a burning rash whenever he sneezed on me, but I didn't care and loved him so so so much. 

Here is one of the last photos we have of Osha. In spite of being old and frail, he loved everyone, even kids. Our friends brought their oneish year old to visit after Marlowe was born, and Osha was all about trying to cuddle with that kid. He also loved Marlowe, even though she still doesn't know how to be gentle and would grab him by his kitty cheeks. When she let go he would give her Kitty Knucks. Anyway, this photo was taken one Saturday morning while they were hanging out together.

Purging

it's a grey, grey day. No rain, just greyness. Fall is the only season where this is acceptable, for some reason.

I picked up some movies at Blockbuster - it's cheaper to buy their pre-owned DVDs than to rent new ones, and since SB and I are horribly behind in our movie watching it doesn't really matter to us.

I grabbed Ghost Town - lately I have been obsessed with Ricky Gervais, and I had heard great things about this movie. Hopefully it's at least a little bit good, and Tea Leoni is in it so SB will be happy.

I also picked up Marley and Me. We've been avoiding this movie. It came out on DVD right around the time we lost Gabby, and we just weren't ready. I'm still not sure we are, but what better day than a chilly, grey day in fall to let some of that out?

Wanting

Lately I have been feeling guilty about all the things that I want.

I realize that I am a very very lucky person. I have someone I love, I have a fantastic home that I love, I have three little furry babies who I love and who make me smile every single day. But every day I find something else that I want. I become convinced that it will add value to our lives, that we need it. But lately I have been trying to evaluate where this sense of need comes from.

I think it's natural to want things, and I think it's healthy to have goals, and to want to surround yourself with things you love. But what is excessive? And what is normal? And is normal really normal, or is it just us imitating what seems "average" and has "average" become out of control?

In my case, I think I am trying to find a balance. There are so many things in my life that make me very very happy, but there is one giant thing that makes me seriously unhappy. I think I'm trying to drown it. I'm trying to say, "well, I can live with it, but only if I have...." Like I'm trying to fill up all the time I spend unhappy with things. In the past two months, I have felt so much happiness, and I want to keep it going, because I really loved feeling full from happiness instead of half-full from buying stuff.

I don't want to talk too much about the Giant Happiness Sucker, but I will say that now I am focusing on how to change it. It's much slower than I'd hoped - what I had dreamed would be done by November is now looking more like February or March. And while I can't possibly express how that saddens and disappoints me, I can say that I am trying to think only about how happy I will be if it happens.

Epitaph

Grief is big. It throws this blanket over everything and you could smother in it if you aren't tall enough.

I lost my dog this week. She died. We had to "Put her down". It was the "humane" thing to do. I was ready for it, had been preparing for years, but things are not so cut and dry as you wish they would be. Her life had become sad, mostly, with little moments of happiness. That's not a life, even though most of us live that every day. Life should be full of joy, especially when you are a dog and when things are going shitty you have no idea why.


Grief is full. A lot of people say they feel empty, but I feel full. I feel like at any moment my sorrow is going to burst me.

She would have been 15 next month. I have known her over half my life. We went to high school together, got two university degrees, endured many shitty schedules for many shitty jobs. She always looked to me like "what's next?" with a silly grin and lolling tongue. My favorite days were spent with her and SB curled up on the sofa. She tucked neatly behind my bent legs and would lay her chin on my hip.


Grief is joyful. Because thinking about the last few months of sadness and stress and patience, impatience, fear and frustration, I have been contrasting against all the years we had that were full of joy.

The older she got, the whiter her face. Her eyebrows became even more expressive, if that was possible, since you could really see them raise and lower in her interest and apathy. She did not have much apathy, until the end. She usually basked in any attention whatsoever, desperate for a pet or belly rub. Her favorite was ear scratches, and she would grunt and moan with her mouth cocked to the side in pleasure.
Grief is funny. Especially if you are me and you find humor in absurd and inappropriate things, even when you shouldn't.

When we brought Gabby to live with us at Bishop's, she had never lived with a boy, only girls. And girls are more docile, and more calm when they play with animals. The first thing SB wanted to do was wrestle with her, which he promptly did, which promptly terrified her and caused her to not eat for a week. She would take her toys or treats and hide them in the corner behind the bedroom door, pushing them in tight with her nose. This caused her to rub her nose against the carpet, making it burn and bleed. As she was relaxing from the sedative on Wednesday, I touched that spot on her nose, and it made me smile.
Grief is comforting. If we do not love, we do not feel loss in our hearts, where it counts. So to feel grief means you have loved big, and loved fully, and loved wholly.

She gave me a lot of happiness. I hope I did the same for her.

Disconnected

I started crying five minutes ago because I was watching eTalk daily (stay with me) and they were talking about this week's Giller awards.

I didn't even know the Gillers were this week.

Who am I? What has happened to my interest, passion, and ambition for literature and writing? I have been reading All the Pretty Horses for two months now and McCarthy is a god to me. I bought 7 summer novels and four of them haven't left the shelf.

More importantly I haven't written a thing in longer than I would like to admit.

My biggest fear is that I will never do this. But I am getting closer to the point where I will be ready to admit it to myself that it's not going to happen. And if I was enjoying what I was doing instead, I may feel differently about it.

But for now, it is embarassing and it is heartbreaking.

A very big loss

Last Monday morning when I took the messages, I was sad to discover that one of my favorite dogs had passed away over the weekend.

She had taken her regular group walk on Thursday, and was happy and hoppy and extra into trying to play chase with all the other dogs. Friday when her walker went to pick her up, she didn't meet her at the door. The walker found her in the bedroom, laying down, not interested at all in getting up. She brought her out for a pee break and I called her owner to let him know she was feeling ill and we weren't going to force her to walk on the mountain in that condition. He told me she had been throwing up all night, and that if she wasn't better by the following morning, he was taking her to the vet.

Saturday morning she was so weak, she could barely walk to go pee. He took her to the vet where blood tests showed she was in liver failure. He said there was no treatment, and that the most likely cause was tumors. The vet said the only option at that point was to put her down.

When I heard the news, I broke down crying. SB thought something had happened to someone in my family. In a way, it had. She was one of the first dogs I walked when I started this job. The previous owners of my company said that she was on her last legs, and that she could go at any time. But the more I walked her, the more I saw how this wasn't true.

She was vibrant, and excited to get out and see the world. She liked to walk along beside me and let me lay my hand on her back as we walked. She loved to play stick, and would hop up and down until I threw it - she looked like a newborn fawn with her big, long, awkward legs.

The thing that set her apart though was her sensitivity. When I looked her in the face, it always struck me how wise she seemed. She was always right there with me, engaged, and totally into what we were doing, what we saw, what I said. She was extremely sensitive to people - she knew a weirdo from a nice person and would often run to cower behind me when she wasn't sure about someone.

When I took over the company, I asked her owner what he thought about placing her in group walks. I had seen how much she loved other dogs we met, and thought it would be really good for her. He agreed, although said she hated the car and might give us some difficulty. She did, but we got through it. And for the past year she has been running through the woods playing and goofing around with dogs half her age.

We've lost a couple of dogs this year. But none of them hit me this hard. She was so rare - I don't even see a connection like that when I look in my own dog's eyes. I'm sure there are a lot of big black Danes out there - but none like her.

The best film that I forget that I love

There is something at work in this universe of ours, that knows what I need and when I need it. Or at the very least knows what movie I need to be watching because I am down.

We have had The Movie Network for several years now, and sometimes I get downright frustrated with the selection provided by these fiends. I pay $20 extra per month - why should I ever need to use my video on demand? For a while we had it just for The Sopranos. Then Big Love. Also Six Feet Under back in the day. Now it's Flight of the Conchords and Entourage.

Anyway, even though it's frustrating 98.7% of the time, it always seems to know when I am feeling low, or sad, or down, and you know what movie it plays then? Elizabethtown.

This is the best movie I know that can let me wallow in whatever melancholy I am feeling, but still leave me with a very good feeling. But I forget how much I love it until I start watching, and each part gets better with each viewing. It's one of the rare films that I actually enjoy seeing Orlando Bloom in. Kirsten Dunst plays much as I imagine her to be in real life. Susan Sarandon cracks me up every time with her tap dance. I love that the dad always said "If it wasn't this, it would be something else." I think I would be friends with him in real life. I desperately want someone to make me a very unique map, and desperately want the time to be able to follow said map.

I always gasp when he sees the photo of his mother (Susan Sarandon) when she was young. I always laugh out loud when she talks about Boner Bob. I always nod my head to the beat (who are we kidding, I full on rock out) while Ruckus plays Freebird. I always giggle when Bloom dances alone in the field. I always cry each time he lets go of another handful of his father's ashes. I always hold my breath when Bloom searches for the girl in the red hat.

I have seen this movie in its entirety at least 10 times. I can't even count the number of times I have watched only part of it for a little pick-me-up.

This weekend, I watched it again. It was the first time SB had watched it. It still makes me feel better.

And over on the East Coast....

It turns out that last night while I was playing the Oskar Schindler of muffins ("this banana, I could have used this banana to bake just one more...."), my sister was having herself a car accident.

Driving home at night on the highway, possible mechanical error, some swerving, and some rolling over of the car a few times.

My sister bought her car on Monday.

When she called to tell me about it, I asked details about the accident, and we chatted for a minute. She sounded so normal that it didn't hit me until hours later how lucky it is that she's okay.

I feel horrible for her, not only because her car is probably totaled, and now she is very nervous to drive again, but also because it appears that she may have inherited my luck. I hope she keeps her chin up, and I hope she keeps driving. But in daylight. And maybe at like 30km/h at first.


***note: sorry about the tasteless Schindler joke, but to my tired, sick, melancholic brain it was too funny to ignore.

Aching

Throughout high school, I earned my extra dough by working at McDonald's. I started on my sixteenth birthday, and was there on and off until my fourth year of university. After...not very long working there, the only job I liked to do was work in the drive thru, and did so even though it involved doing all of the dishes. Probably my least favorite thing to clean were the muffin trays - even though they use the muffin cups, the trays still get really crusty, and the sweet, burned smell can really get to you after your fourth or fifth tray.

I remembered all of this tonight while I was baking.

Something really terrible happened yesterday - not to me, but to one of my closest friends. I'm at a loss, really, and am not sure what to do. How to help. What to say. When to say it. It has been a very long time since I've been in a situation like that, and I'm not sure what I would want from a friend. I know what I want to do - I want to make it better, easier, less stressful. But what will do that? And what will just make it worse?

So, I'm baking. I will deliver everything tomorrow and leave it on the porch - I'll call after so she won't have to see me if she doesn't want to, but the stuff won't get eaten by a stray dog or anything. I've made stuff that can be frozen, so if no one feels like eating, it won't go to waste, which would probably make things worse. Mostly muffins. Lots of them.