run on sentences

Jackie, our dog, and my best running buddy ever, lost his fight last Friday with his dumb liver tumor - despite his best efforts and my best hospice nurse efforts.  I won't go into detail but he let us know it was time, and a wonderful vet, Dr. Tanya Kjeldberg came to our house to help us.  I had promised Jack I would not take him back to the vet and I would not let him suffer.   Tanya was obviously an animal lover - you would have to be to do what she does and this is all she does - home pet hospice and euthanasia.  After this experience, I will never take a pet to the vet for his final exit.  Her website is here. Jack did not suffer.  In fact that day, he did not seem to be in any pain, but retreated from us as some animals do.  Death, I think, in animals as well as people, is something that you have to do alone.  Just two days earlier, I had taken him for a walk to the park because another promise I made was that I would not give up on h...

Back in the early 80's I got hooked on the TV series "Dallas".  I was a lot younger then and so were the characters.  On Friday nights, I put my kids to bed early so that I could treat myself to the trials and tribulations of the Ewings and drink Squirt and whiskey and eat popcorn.  At the time, Bruce was working at the Tinderbox and on Friday night, he volunteered for KRCL, a local radio station.  So Dallas was my secret Friday night indulgence. This is what the characters looked like back then - Jock Ewing, the patriach is missing from this photo.  But Miss Ellie ruled the roost anyway. I was never one for soap operas but for some reason,  I loved watching this show and seeing what people with unlimited funds lived like.  There was a definite theme - JR was the bad guy, his wife Sue Ellen was the long suffering wife who put up with a husband who screwed any pretty girl he could.   JR always drank Bourbon and branch water - whatever that i...

 I have been working on this post for a few weeks.  It was going to be called "detours"  But I took too many detours and went into too much rambling about what I wanted to say and then I never said it.  I really just need to spit it out so here goes. What I really wanted to say is that sometimes life sucks.  I hate that my dog has a tumor the size of the Great Salt Lake in his liver.  I hate that my neighbor and good friend has three tumor in hers as well.  She has a bag that is draining bright yellow liver juice from her liver.  Jack is just pooping bright yellow liver juice in splotches on the lawn or sidewalk.  Interestingly enough, they both are getting the same treatment - anti nausea meds and pain pills.  They are  around the same age.  I think Jack is doing better because he is a dog and doesn't know he is dying.  On days when he feels good he follows me around till I take him walking.  On other days when he ...

I wake up at 5:20 when Pirate the little pug grand dog starts whining. "Is it time to get up yet?" he seems to say.  He looks at me in a way that only a one eyed pug named "Pirate" can do.   Hanzo, the other grand dog, a Boston Terrier  is over by Bruce's side of the bed waiting for Bruce to rub his belly.  Bruce reaches down and gives him a few belly pets and Hanzo goes back to bed.  Pirate goes reluctantly back to his bed, but not without a whimper of protest, much like a little kid.  He will stay there for ten minutes and then try again to get me up. I hold my breath and wait to hear if our dog Jack is going to get up.  His bed is on the floor on my side of the bed.   Finally I hear his usually shake and he is standing by the bedroom door, tail wagging.  I smile, knowing that he will be with us for one more day at least.  I get up and see his usual tail wag greeting as I head into the bathroom. 12 years ago today, we got Jack from...

I like old people.  But every once in a while I run into one who is so caustic and mean that I cannot help but yell cranky things back at them.   I don't like cranky people whether they are men or women, young or old.  Cranky people suck the good day right out of you. When I say, "run into them" I mean this pretty literally  Most of the cranky old guys I have encountered have been while I was out running.   The worst one was when my youngest son was about eight years old.  He accompanied me on my run on his bicycle, along with our dog Bailey.   This was one time that I had forgotten my poop bag and Bailey decided to do his business right in front of a house where an old guy was just getting into his car to drive off somewhere.  I remember that the car was a typical old guy car (OK I am stereotyping) - a big Cadillac.  His wife was already in the car.   Before Bailey was even finished pooping he went on a tirade....

Sometimes I have weird and irrational thoughts about my dead loved ones.  When my dad died, I wondered if his amputated leg went to heaven or if it was just floating around somewhere with all the lost socks that enter another dimension through the washing machine or the dryer.   Or was it with my missing uterus, ovaries and fallopian tubes?   I know that these kinds of thoughts are normal (or maybe a little bit less normal than the thoughts that the dead person might still walk through the door) but still...sometimes I worry about myself and my mental condition.  My imaginary friend Jennifer worries about this too - but that's another story.    I think some of the weird thoughts took root when, at the funeral home signing papers for my dad's cremation we were asked to sign a statement saying that we understood that cremation was not reversible.  Do people really think the ashes can be reconstituted into a person?  And with my weird thoughts, maybe...

"I am going to have a girlfriend named Scarlett some day" my son Bill told me several years ago even before he was dating her.  Of course, I googled her and saw a beautiful girl who liked yoga.  It would be a while before we got to meet her. For a while,  Bill admired Scarlett from afar, but his persistence in pursuing paid off.  After a few years of dating, he told me "I'm going to marry her some day".   Last weekend he made true on that statement and they were married in New Orleans in one of the best celebrations of love, friendship, fun and family I have ever experienced, in my favorite city. The wedding invite - made by kseniya thomas.  http://www.thomas-printers.com I looked forward to having a real vacation with Bruce that didn't involve attending a funeral, and getting together with our children who are scattered over the country, in a city we have all grown to  love.  Billy, Scarlett and Desmond, their son.  Kseniya and Ca...