The Dog ate their Homework!!

Good grief people!!! I swear, I write three serious blogs in a row and people get twelve ways to CRAZY......sigh.......

This is another in a series of TRUE stories about things my much beloved, and sadly departed, Dalmations ate/desroyed....

Othello was a Mama's Boy to the core! He also had seperation anxiety. I never knew what destruction would await when I came home.
Fortuneatly, I never had the money to buy nice stuff....so USUALLY what he demolished was not of value....USUALLY.
And NO I didn't crate him because he would hurt himself trying to get OUT of the crate because he was SO upset Mommmy was going bye-bye. So, I decided to take my chances with the destruction.

Plus, I found out he could READ! One time I came home to find three specific CD'S chewed to bits (yeah...indestructable my ass...).
And ALL three CD'S were by the SAME group....The Squirrel Nut Zippers...(cool band, google them, they rock!)
Apparently, he thought the band title was an ingredient list...not sure.

ANYWAY......
My hubby is an English Teacher, and ALWAYS has tons of papers waiting to be graded. Reaserch Papers took oodles of time because he has to make sure the little darlings didn't steal it off the internet.
He had a huge pile of said papers stuffed into his briefcase, along with a bag of Malted Milk Balls. Ya GOTTA have some chocolate when you grade.

For reason's unknown, he LEFT the briefcase on the floor....WELL within Othello's grasp. We left to run to the store.
Now, I love my husband, but he has a slow learning curve for some things.By this point, Othello had already destroyed/eaten: Two TV Remotes, a pair of slick, black dress shoes and MANY books....ALL left by my husband within the "Othello Zone", as we called it.
WHY he didn't think to move that dang briefcase, I'll never know.

When we arrive, I was the first in the door.
Paper bits were EVERYWHERE!!!! Along with shreds of black leather from the briefcase....and a tiny bit of plastic from the Malted Milk Balls.

And Othello was smiling his gorgeous smile, as always....with a bit of chocolate on his nose.
Now MY first concern is that my dog just ate an ENTIRE bag of chocolate, which is VERY toxic to dogs!!!
Blessedly, he was a giant sized Dalmation, and the chocolate didn't effect him one BIT!! Over the years, we discovered that my Baby Boy had a cast iron stomache. The things he ate that NEVER hurt him or made him sick is STAGGERING!!!
Including: batteries, a rock, and ANOTHER bag of Halloween candy. Wrappers and all. Only thing THAT did was cause him to poop out Reese Cup wrappers for a few days.
SIGH...............

However....the breifcase was a TOTAL loss.....as were ALL OF THOSE RESEACH PAPERS!!!!!
Yes, it's true.....the Dog Ate the Homework.....ALL of it......

I didn't know if my husband was going to CRY or have a coronary. Or both.

The HARDEST part, for him, was to go back to School and tell his students that the Teachers Dog had indeed eaten their Homework.

And yes, he he made them do it all AGAIN....meanie....

I Still Hate Mothers Day

Maybe not HATE.....but I still get weepy and emotional and sometimes grouchy when it rolls around. I just hate when this time of year comes along.

Of course, it's better than it USED to be!!! Oh, LORD have mercy, I remember that first Mother's Day without her. Hiding out at Kendra's house, so we could both avoid the day together.
Since her Mom died DAYS before mine, she and I were on the same "grief timetable". What a crappy year that was.

It's been a little over ten years since our mothers have passed. My friend is now blessed with hansome (albeit ornery...) young children of her own, so hopefully Mother's Day now has a more joyful feel in her life.
But I know she still grieves, as do I.

The thing about grief, there is NO timetable. People who have not faced a profound loss just DON'T GET IT!!!
Just because one year, five years, a decade may have passed does not mean you just "get over it".
Yes, in truth, it is easier now than those first few years. But it doesn't go AWAY, it just becomes a part of you that you learn to live with.

Somewhere around year five or six without her, I was at church (different church than Unidiversal...VERY different! LOL!) forcing myself to sit through the Mother's Day service.
I think it was the FIRST Mother's Day service I went to since she died. I figured that enough time had passed that SURELY I would be over the "weepiness" by NOW.
No such luck.
So, it's after church and I'm weepy, Travis is comforting me, and a friend from church asks what is wrong and appears to be sympathetic.
She asks how long it's been since I lost my Mom, and I tell her.

And she just looked at me stunned, kind of confused.
"Oh.....I thought with they way you were upset it happened recently".
Look, it FELT recent. And isn't 5 or 6 years recent when you talk about losing someone that had been there everyday for the previous 28 years???

Oddly, I've never had a problem with Father's Day. I guess since I never celebrated it, it never made much of a dent in my mind.
Father's Day, Flag Day, Presidents Day....big whoop.
I get more out of Groundhog Day!

And why can't pet parents celebrate Mother's Day? Let me tell ya, I love my furry kids, but they are WORK! I take care of them EVERYDAY...because I am their Mom. And I love them.
Actually, I bet Hallmark has a card for that by now....don't you think?

Celebrate tomarrow, enjoy your Mom if she is still on this earth....or if she's worth enjoying...I know some people were NOT blessed with good Moms.
Love you kids, furry and non-furry alike.

But I still hate Mother's Day.

Don't Freak!

Yeah, it's been kind of crazy lately, but I'm getting better, stronger. I can feel changes on the horizon.....not sure how it's all gonna go down.
I'm coming back....slowly.....but I'm still here.

Last Call

I know....been spending WAY...too much time in "da clubs" with my band lately.
But I'm talking about a DIFFERENT "last call"....

Tonight, I was talking to a friend who has someone in her life who has been told they have "TERMINAL CANCER".
Yeah....lovely news to get from the Doc...right?
Both she and I have been through this MANY times before. More times than either of us care to mention.
Here's the thing....the doctors that gave him the "terminal" news...no hope, no chance.....have put him on aggressive Chemo.
He's sick ALL the time. He hurts. He's tired. He's sad.

Okay.....so if it's "TERMINAL"......why the Chemo? To do....WHAT, exactly?
Tourtue him for his last days/weeks/months?
Drain his insurance companies wallets?
Prove a point?
Film an episode of "House"....(Google it...I'm too sleepy...)?

As most of you know, My Mom died September 7th, 1998.
She had a "blood cancer", known as CML.
They have a drug called Gleevec that can treat it now...but it wasn't ready then.
Granted, by the time they figured out what was WRONG (It took months!!! No one would take her seriously. All they saw was an over-weight woman with low income and their answer to EVERYTHING was...."lose weight"), it would have been too late anyway.
They gave her three months to live.
That was April 17th, 1998.

Now, even though they told her she had NO CHANCE WHATSOEVER of getting better......they INSISTED on more tests.
Some very painful. Some that made her cry. And get sicker. And hurt....more.

I was not "allowed" to make decisions for her. That was left to my Aunt. Her older sister.(there is a backstory there about 16 pages long....no need to go there now).

The point is....my family felt they "had" to do what the doctors said. It never occured to them that they could say...NO.
NO more.
Stop.
Now.
So my mother's last days were a blur of tests, trips, meds, pain, medical hustle and bustle.
When it was Granpa's turn, he too fely he could NOT say "NO"...but he had his own way.
He'd let them out in the needles, say thank you....and pull them back out. Every, single, time.
No tubes. No needles. No meds. He was 92. He was done. He was ready.
After my Aunt saw all of this unfold...it eventually becamr HER turn.
Now SHE had "TERMINAL CANCER".
No chance, no hope.
She refused all treatment.
The doctors FREAKED!!!!!!
How could she? How dare she? She was going to DIE???
Ummmm...yeah.....isn't that the whole point of "terminal", doc?
You're gonna die....big surprise.
So WHY was it SO horrible that she choose to go out on her OWN terms?
She had no more tests. No more weird meds.
Her last memories were of being in her favorite chair, with her cat on her lap (the same cat that is on MY lap now...shedding on the keyboard...), in HER home.
Her comfort zone. She slipped into a com in that chair. Never woke up. Died the next day.
Most of you also know I am a animal lover. Maknig that choice for their "last call" is a VERY hard thing to do.
It SUCKS!
Even when you KNOW they are ready...it hurts so MUCH to let them go.
But people tell us that's a "kindness".
Letting an animal linger and suffer and struggle and hurt....that's bad.
I AGREE!!!! They deserve better.
But.
If a human, of sound mind, chooses of their OWN FREE WILL to deny "treatment" that will NOT help them at all and only make their "last call" drag on in a horrible way.....they are wrong too?
Whoa...wait a minute.
Seriously?
Why?
Because animals don't pay insurance premiums?
And this "all life is sacred" stuff......
So, if it's sacred.....why let them die a slow painful death when they tell you they are done? They are ready?
If they refuse "treatment" so they can have a FEW days of peace before their "last call".......why is that so wrong?
It just doesn't make sense to me, none of it.
The creatures we "can't" communicate with....we can see in their eyes and their behavior that they are READY. We let them go becasue we LOVE them.
The creatures that "CAN" communicate with us tell us in our OWN language that they are READY.....and we let them suffer some more....beacuse we love them???
WHAT??????
Look, I don't have all the answers.
Cripes...I don't even have all of the QUESTIONS....but....
if ANY of you are around when it's my "last call"....and I tell you I am ready, I am done, I am NOT afraid.....
treat me like you would your most beloved "furry-baby", okay?
You can even bury me in the backyard.