House of the Dying Dog

Gabe never got to have a pet as a kid because he was abused. Obviously.  As a result, he’s always wanted dogs, lots of big dogs. After we bought our house, we decided it was time to add to our family. We started out small with Toki and Evie but after awhile, he started making noise about getting a dog and his need for a canine companion was made greater when the neighbors got a ridiculously cute and fluffy Great Pyrenees puppy, the runt of the litter. Her name was Cassidy Jasmine. I called her CJ. Gabe tried to steal her and she obliged by regularly digging under the fence and squeezing through the hole to play at our house.

When Cassidy was almost 2-years-old, sad things happened to our neighbors and they had to move away. The worst part was that they couldn’t take Cassidy with so asked if she could live with us since she had grown up next door and it wouldn’t be a big change in her life.  We were pretty sure we could afford her so we accepted. Gabe re-named her Kassidy (because the K is far more impressive than a C) and we had a dog of our own! Kassidy did well with us as long as she was at home or in the car. We found out quickly, though, that she didn’t like to go on walks; she was shy and unsure of other people, other dogs, new situations. We took her to Pet Smart once and found out that she didn’t walk on slippery floors, no tile, no laminate, not even wood. It was carpet or earth for her.

Kassidy enjoying a lovely summer afternoon far away from hard, slippy surfaces.

One night, she got sprayed between the eyes, point-blank, by a skunk and that is why we found out she was sick. She started pooping blood and vomiting shortly thereafter so we took her to the vet who thought she’d contracted leptospirosis from said skunk. Guess what? It’s highly contagious and can be spread to humans so Kass was quarantined at the vet’s which was awful since she hated being away from home. They ran tests and found it wasn’t leptospirosis; it was Addison’s disease. Her adrenal glands had never been up to par and slowly fell apart each time we took her on a new adventure. We were killing our dog by doing things people do with dogs. Of course, we felt terrible and had many realizations in hindsight. Getting sprayed had simply been the last stressful straw and her kidneys that had been taking the brunt of her adrenal failure, failed, themselves.

This is how we kill dogs.

More killing of the dog. At least she had fun while we were inadvertently murdering her.

She lasted only a few months after that. She had to visit the vet three more times and each time, the vet told us to say our goodbyes but twice, she called us the next day and told us to come get her; she’d survived the night and could go home. The girl had fighting spirit; she just wanted to be with her family. That third time, though, she didn’t come back to us. Toki was devastated, they’d always been close, and Gabe said he couldn’t face having another dog. In my pragmatic way, I felt we weren’t suited for another dog, anyhow. Gabe had lost his job plus he’d been awful at keeping the dog poop picked up. We needed to mature a bit before we would be able to do that again.

This was after the second trip back from the vet. She was so small and weak but she really REALLY wanted to be home so she lived through the night and came back home with us.

Fast forward to last year. One of our big-hearted couple-friends had lost two dogs in a relatively short time span. They still had two dogs left – Daisy and Abby, both rescue dogs who hated each other – but decided to try to fill the hole by getting a puppy. While he’s an adorable little monster and was able to rearrange the remaining pack to his liking, Daisy was miserable. She already hated Abby and now there was this new punk on the block. She grew despondent and spent most of her time sullenly guarding her food bowl.

Because our friends are good, caring people, they realized something had to give. They also remembered that we freaking LOVED Daisy so they told us that if we were interested, they would let us give her the single-dog home she wanted. She was good with cats, she’s on the medium-small side so would fit in the house with no problems and she’s cuter than anything. While we couldn’t really afford a dog, it killed us to think of her suffering, miserable and full of emotional trauma because her food bowl might be attacked at any minute. We said we wanted her and she came to live with us last September.

“Please, sir, may I have more?”

Daisy May is a sweetheart and I am awfully glad she became part of our family. She and Evie are best buds, they have their girl time together, but otherwise, she’s sort of shy and is ridiculously submissive. Her first week with us was hard; she jumped at everything and her tail was always between her legs. She eventually became more confident and comfortable and that’s when we decided it was time for her first vet visit. The vet told us her shyness, submissive attitude, and unsure behavior may be a result of having been neglected as a puppy and that it was a lucky thing that our friends had rescued her. While none of us had any real information on her, we’d figured she was about 7-years-old but the vet said she was an older dog, probably 10+ based on her teeth and blood and whatever else the vet was looking at. Then she told us that Daisy was in renal failure and her kidneys were more than 75% shut down. My first response was, “Are you KIDDING me? What are we, dog killers?” It turns out we’re not, we just find the dying dogs somehow.

This probably isn’t good for her, all the nature and hiking and stress. We know that…NOW.

Daisy’s on specially medicated dog food that smells like dirty, sweaty, old testicles. It’s pretty gross. We have to watch what we feed her; she can’t have too much protein or salt so no fancy food or table scraps. We have to fill her saddlebags with kidney juice every 10 days which means we’ve got a bag o’ liquid medicine that we inject under the skin around her hips or shoulders 3 times a month. She hates it but it’s supposed to help her body do all the things that her kidneys can’t. If we’re lucky and she continues to react well to all this treatment, we could have her for another year and a half which would have been her expected lifespan anyhow. The kidney juice really does help, too; she gets lethargic around day 8 and her appetite fades but for several days after the injection, she’s bright-eyed, happy to go for walks and she eats well. She has many more good days than bad on this regimen and we’re doing as much as we can to make her life fun and full of love. We learned with Kassidy that there’s no use in getting frustrated or sad or pissed off over vet bills. The important thing is that Daisy has the best end of her life as possible.

As long as there are treats, she’ll stick around.

It’s a hard and horrible thing, being the House of the Dying Dog, but there are so many friends out there who need just that, a place to finish out their days and even though we swear our next dog will be the picture of health, I suspect that won’t be the case. Everyone has a calling and I think we have found ours. It’s a painful job but it’s also a good job.

This post is in memory of Kassidy who died on May 19th, 2010, and is dedicated to Daisy May who makes us laugh with her funny little faces and her bouncy ways. We love you little monsters! And a big shout out to Kathleen who held our hands and sent care packages when Kass was on her way out.

Hoops and Leeks, Springtime Edition

My hoophouse worked! The leeks survived the winter AND there are seedlings inside so take that, Chris, you naysayer. You can say me nay no more!
Ok, he can and will but not about my hoophouse because I was right and it really worked! Part of the credit goes to my favorite garden center, McCord’s; they told me that I could keep it just above freezing in there if I strung a strand of Christmas lights under the plastic, which I did and it looked lovely glowing from beneath the snow on winter evenings. Also, it was awesome because not only were the plants not dying but I was being charmed, as well. Win-Win.

Macy over at the garden center told me that putting a string of lights into the hoophouse would help keep it from freezing. Apparently, it worked. I still have leeks. In addition, I have baby sproutlings. I just don’t remember what they are.

The hoophouse survived all sorts of weather between November and May!

I wish I weren’t so lazy. I’d have one of those gardens that look like something from Pinterest by now if I just put forth a little more effort. Sadly, I don’t care enough to unlazy myself so what I’ve got will have to do. But the exciting news is that what I’ve got is pretty great!
In January, or maybe it was February, I planted some seeds in the hoophouse, cold-tolerant things, hoping they’d come up in March. They did and I started opening one side of the little tent during the day so that the leeks wouldn’t get too hot. One night, I forgot to re-pin all the corners before bedtime and a giant storm rolled in, blew the plastic off, froze all the seedlings and then had the audacity to dump icy snow on top of everything. I was heartbroken and I felt stupid (and lazy) for forgetting to tuck my sproutlings in and accidentally letting them all die. The leeks survived, though, and as they had been the original reason for the hoophouse, the plan was still working.
A couple of weeks ago when I was getting the carrots, onions, and spring peas in the ground, I figured I’d put a row of radishes in the hoophousestrawbale garden since all that extra space was suddenly available what with the murder of seedlings, and all. But the most amazing thing had happened, which I found as I peeled back the plastic: there were things sprouting. Some chard, some something else and cilantro of all things! I went ahead and planted the radishes, removed all the extra mulch and let the sun shine down on my new babies for part of the day. I have since remembered to cover them up again each night.

See how big the leeks are?

The little bushy thing off to the right is the cilantro. I don’t know what the other seedlings are, though. All my signs erased themselves over the past 5 months.

In the foreground, there’s an onion and some Swiss chard. Behind them are radishes, or as they say in Korea, “Ladeeshes” I’m not being mean, they really do say that.

See? One little strand of Christmas lights lit the whole thing up and kept it warm throughout the winter.

We’ve had a difficult spring. It was dry and warmish through February and into March but then the cold came. April followed with weekly storms and below-freezing temperatures. I thought gardening time would never come and didn’t even bother to start seeds inside; I figured they’d be too far along by the time I could plant them outdoors and wouldn’t make it.  Thankfully, I don’t have to solely rely on seeds. The perennials and bulbs are all busy getting their grow on with the garlic going gangbusters -I think we’ve got 50+ plants out there? The strawberries are back, gleeful and “Yay! This year we’re gonna be BIG!” The herb garden has been greening up since March; we’ve already harvested oregano and Egyptian onions. The mint is ready for picking so mojito season will be early (hooray!) and then there are the flowers. The daffodils made it through the tumult that was April and are sunshiney yellow; there’s even a rogue tulip next door, blooming among the trash and dead trees.

Here’s our garlic patch. It’s doing quite well.

Bedot came over a few weekends back and we finished the bottle border. Now I just need all the flowers to grow!

In the bottle garden, the gnome stealers are active. BTW – Evie hatched that daffodil all by herself.

There’s one lone tulip in the trashpit next door. I want to rescue it so badly.

Still, the most important thing this season that my hoophouse worked and I get to tell Chris how amazing I am. Ha ha ha.

Writers, come to me

I have this great plan that will involve lots of help from friends as well as copious amounts of moolah. See, there’s a mansion in my town that’s up for sale, complete with acreage, about a town-block’s worth, and views. It’s lovely, all nestled up against the mountains and it’s only like a million and a half dollars! I am going to win the lottery/get a giant inheritance from an unknown benefactor/go gangbusters on Kickstarter or something equally unlikely that will provide me with piles of cash, then I’m going to buy this mansion and turn it into a writer’s retreat! As in a place for writers to retreat, not a place that teaches writing classes, though, come to think of it, that could be an option as well.

Here’s the mansion that will become my writer’s retreat. It’s so popular that even those evil deer who mug poor townsfolk for their birdseed hang out here.

This is a great idea for several reasons.

Reason 1: I know a lot of authors. They often need help finishing their stories and help could easily come in the form of a quiet room with no distractions and I would totally be able to provide that with my writers retreat.

Reason 2: I stalk many other authors and once the authors I know started telling their author friends about the fabulous place they stayed and all the inspiration they received and the wonderfulness of the quiet mansion in the mountains, said stalked authors would be intrigued enough to want to try it out themselves. In essence, they would PAY me to stalk them! How perfect is that?

Reason 3: Something useful needs to be done with that mansion and making it available to artists would not only bolster my town’s economy somehow but it would also make people care about the mansion and they’d want to help with its upkeep. I don’t really know how that one works but in my mind it does so we’ll go with it.

The mansion would not be open all year, though. Oh no no. It would close to the public from October 1st through January 1st. In October, I’d hire (because I’m rich, remember) costumey and theatery people from the local colleges to decorate the house and grounds for Halloween and then we’d have a ginormous party the night thereof. The whole town would be invited. It probably wouldn’t be very safe because that is not my first priority, but it would be extremely fun.

In November, I’d invite all my friends and family over for Thanksgiving and the cool thing is that I’d have plenty of room for everyone to stay a few days.

In December, we’d have wintertime parties GALORE! I’m pretty sure there’s a festivity for almost every day of that month. We would  celebrate them all, every one. Again, the entire town would be invited. There would be lights and fireplaces and hot spiced cider and a constant supply of freshly-baked cookies. It would be the highlight of everyone’s end-of-year.

See? This is what wintery festiveness will look like.

Seriously. EVERYONE in town will be invited.

I’ve got some of the staff hired already, too. Pam, one of the instigators of this blog, is going to be the overall manager and her son can be the chef. She doesn’t know that yet…well, actually, she does if she just read this. Noelle is going to be the entertainment director and will be in charge of arranging pick-ups and drop-offs of authors at the airport in addition to any fun things they want to do while they’re in town. Gabe can be one of the drivers because it means he can have a nice, new car. Bedot is going to be the hiking tour guide. My favorite nursery will be in charge of the grounds and my mom will be in charge of the indoor plants. I’ve got a lawyer, I’ve got a CPA…I think I’m set. If you want in on this, now is totally the time to sign up either as a guest or as an employee. Let me know your preferences below.

The Wonderful World of Being Bipolar!

Reblogged from Gabriel's House of Fun!:

Something special today!

The Clown Auditorium

Note - I am not a doctor and I am stating my opinion of what I have.  This should not be taken as hard fact nor should you Web MD it.  Talk to an actual physician or psychiatrist if you would like to know more - End note.

Seven years ago I was diagnosed Bipolar type II.  

Read more… 1,214 more words

I want to share Gabe's post from today. I think it explains some of why we are the couple we are...you know, evil.

Patience: Helping me win bets with my husband since…all the time

This post is brought to you by the number 1 and the letters IN YOUR FACE!

You probably know Gabe and I are evil, it’s not like that’s a secret. So once upon a time, we had these wonderful neighbors whom we loved, but bad things happened and they had to move away. We worried about our potential new neighbors because earlier that year, the nice people on the other side of us bought a house and left and these punk kids who make me want to slice their tires moved in. We needed a way to keep that from happening on this side, too.

Our house is a little weird with a north face made of cedar siding and the rest of the house covered in normal siding. We stained the cedar a pleasant barn red. Everyone loved it. Then we painted the rest of the siding alarming yellow, like sunflower petals that have been enhanced instead of toned-down. This isn’t really a strange color scheme…in the Mediterranean or Mexico or other such festive places. We added royal blue trim, as well, and suddenly, we lived in a Crayola meltdown. The plan was that no one would want to live next door to such a color explosion and we would have the time to save our money and buy the damn house ourselves.
Only that didn’t happen and as the years wore on and the housing market continued to languish, we worried that maybe we’d acted a little rashly, that maybe the only kind of neighbors we would get, now that our house looked like something from the circus, would be drug dealers who dropped acid and would then stare at our house for hours. That would be creepy.
We couldn’t afford to repaint the house after we’d just painted it but we didn’t want to, either, because something unexpected had happened: We fell in love with our crazy house colors. It was all ridiculously bright but it matched everything around us – the aspens in the fall, the brilliant summer skies, the rose hips and crabapples, the rocks on the mountain after a rainstorm. Ours was the brightest house on the block, a block that had an abundance of stone-colored or white or olive green houses which is silly because we live in the mountains. We’re supposed to be zany. It’s a law, or something.
We did wind up with good neighbors totally by accident and I’m not sure what we’ll do if they ever move. Probably paint black stripes into the yellow to make it look like a big square bumblebee or something.
But that’s not the end of this story. This story ends in my triumph over Gabe which is one of my most favorite things in the world. Obviously. See, after we’d painted, our house numbers looked stupid on the freshly-colored cedar. They were plain dark metal numbers and it was hard to see them and they just didn’t match so we went looking for replacements. We found some tile numbers we agreed on but by the time we got around to buying them, they were long gone. That’s what started the Great War of House Numbers. Back and forth we went, one of us finding one thing and liking it and the other saying, “OH HELL NO!” It got ridiculous. But you have to have house  numbers so fireman can rescue you. Otherwise, they don’t know where to go. Apparently not even in our tiny town.

At one point, Gabe fought me with paper and tape. We had these leftover Vote NO on Anti-Library Measures yard signs from a past election and Gabe took one of them, turned the plastic sign inside out, and taped a piece of paper with our house numbers over that then put it all back on the metal frame. He stuck that into the ground in the front yard. When I saw it, I said, “What happens when it rains or snows?” He answered my question by taping over the paper with packing tape and then framing all of that with blue duct tape. And that’s how we became the ghettoest house on the block. Well, not really because the blue of the duct tape totally matched the blue of our trim.
Weather was on my side and eventually blew the sign away but I didn’t have a comeback plan. The war was back on, the arguments over numbers picking up until the day I found Carly Quinn Designs on Etsy. It was like angels had invaded my computer and sent me a divine message of perfection because these house numbers were exactly what we needed.
I told Gabe I’d found our numbers and I’d buy them when I could and he’d just have to suck it up. He told me I was mistaken and that he was going to learn the art of making mosaics and he would create a number plate. He checked out a jillion books on how become a mosiacitian, he collected his art supplies, and I had visions of a horrible blob of dripping cement and broken plates hanging on the front of our house like an inbred gargoyle. I started saving my money even faster only that wasn’t happening because there was no money to save. That worked to my benefit as well as my detriment, though, because Gabe realized that if you’re not already set up to make mosaics, it’s got a fairly steep start-up cost (for poor people, at least). So there we were in a battle for the Ultimate Numbers but hindered by impoverishment, each fearing the other would get their creation up first. Finally, I came up with a compromise.  Gabe had six months to create his monstrosity/piece of number art and if he didn’t have it done by the time I turned in the tax stuff in February, 2013, then I got to buy the tiles I wanted with the tax refund. We shook on it and a deal was struck.
One good thing about some bipolar people is that they are easily distracted and they forget what they were saving for and they spend their money on video games, instead. I am not one of those people and I have patience and perseverance and it just so happened that February, 2013, showed up and I turned in the tax stuff and was promised a refund and I had the beautiful opportunity to look at Gabe and yell, “IN YOUR FACE, SUCKA! I GET THE HOUSE TILES! I WIN!”
Unfortunately, he’d forgotten all about our deal and didn’t care anymore. To make matters worse, when I showed him the tiles online he said, “Oh. Those are actually really cool. They’ll look nice on our house.”
So the good news was that I won this war and I got to buy the coveted number tiles. The bad news was that it was sort of a hollow victory because I didn’t know my opponent had left the battlefield and I’d been laying siege to pretty much nothing. The worse news was that the refund was yoinked right out from under my greedy little hands and I had to file a claim to get it all back so I didn’t actually receive the money until sometime in April. When it finally arrived, I deposited the check and the very next day, I ordered the numbers I’d been salivating over for months.
Poor Carly Quinn. She had to deal with me and my enthusiasm. I read the part on her website that said she custom makes everything to order but I figured with house numbers, she’d probably just made a bunch of tiles in advance and had them stacked in little bins in her workshop because, really, who wouldn’t do that? Carly Quinn wouldn’t do that. She sent me a message confirming my order and mentioned that it would take her two weeks to make the tiles. I wrote back and told her I was sure she had some numbers lying around that she could send me because I really really REALLY wanted them now that I finally had the chance to own them. She told me I’m funny and said that she’d see what she could do because she understands the pain of waiting for something you want so badly.
Even knowing that it would take two weeks to fill the order and another week for them to get to me, I started checking the mailbox every single day, hoping that maybe she really did just have some spares she would send and they’d get to me right away.
On the 21st, I got an e-mail from Carly Quinn Designs. It was a shipping confirmation. She made the tiles in a week and they were on their way and I peed my pants in excitement! It was ridiculous.
Then I had to check the mailbox twice a day because I didn’t want to miss anything. Finally, Friday rolled around and I figured they had to be here because it can’t take more than a week for something in Arizona to make it up to me; it’s not like these were coming from Maine or anything! But there was nothing there. I was heartbroken;  I probably wouldn’t get them until the following week and there would be no time to hang them for two weeks because of my crazy schedule. Oh, I was sad. The next morning, I had to go to the post office so I figured I’d check the mailbox one more time and there was a lonely little yellow slip waiting in my mailbox, letting me know that I had a parcel. OMG!
I ran to the front office and there were 10 billion people waiting in line. They were doing passport stuff. Of course they were because Saturday morning when my long-anticipated tiles are in is the perfect time to apply for passports for your entire family, you jackass traveling people. I thought about hopping the counter and just going back there myself, but I don’t really know how things are laid out in the postal nether regions and they’d throw me out before I found what I sought.
After hours and hours and HOURS (or ten minutes) of waiting for the people to finish up, I handed my card across the counter, the post mistress took it and vanished. She returned with a nice-sized box and I danced around and thanked her and told her I’d been waiting for so long and I ran out of there, pushing people aside, knocking down children and kicking dogs in my haste (not really). The box was from Carly Quinn Designs and I could not get it home fast enough. I unpacked it on my back porch.

This is the box I’d been waiting for. I danced it around the post office while I squealed with glee. I don’t think I’ve been this excited to get mail since I was a little kid.

We gotta find out what’s in the box! Ooooooo-YEAH!

There it is! I can see it!

Ok, so, despite the picture on Etsy, I just assumed I would get 5 loose tiles and a frame. I figured I’d slide the tiles into the frame and then mount it to the wall. I mean, that’s what I’ve seen everywhere else; the tiles we had originally considered were like that.
I was wrong.
Carly Quinn (I like her whole name so she has to be Carly Quinn all the time) makes the tiles and the frame and she grouts the tiles together and puts them in the frame and seals the frame and welds hangy-hole thingies to the back. And look at the hangy-hole thingies on mine – they’re beautiful! They’re not the ones from Etsy, which were just little rings with pointy hats. No. These are lovely. I passed out and died because – wow. It was amazing. It was 100% more awesome than I’d expected and I was already expecting a lot!

Woah. This is really 100% better than what I’d expected. It’s phenomenal. Look at its beauty!!

But there was one problem. This thing was around 5 pounds and I wasn’t sure how I was going to hang it because I didn’t have any screws big enough. Would I need an anchor? Should I glue it to the wall? And crap, if I used decking screws, cuz they’re tough, I’d  have to use a bunch of washers and I ran the risk of hitting the electrical stuff behind the wall and zapping myself to death. So I did what one does in these situations: I freaked out and called Chris.
He came over, saw the number sign, was super impressed, which is saying a lot because he’s a perfectionist/machinist and most hand-crafted things piss him off because they’re so full of flaws, and he ran off to fetch some lug screws. He had the sign up in a matter of minutes and I could hear the angels in the heavens singing gloriously because these numbers are exactly perfect for our house.
So, to sum up: I win X 100. Yay me! Thank you so much, Carly Quinn. You make magnificent things. I can’t wait to start collecting your Day of the Dead tiles. Also, thank YOU, stupid husband, for being poor and forgetting we had a bet so I could win and buy our gorgeous house numbers!

My vision has come to fruition and I have to say: I was right all along. I am a freaking genius.