Our Muffy

Today is a very sad day. Our little Muffy has gone to dog heaven. To me, she wasn't just a dog, she was my little sister in a dog costume.

Muffy has been in our family for fourteen years. We got her from Blanche's family when she was only a few weeks old. I went up to Sutton with Mom and Grandma Edie to bring her home on New Year's Eve that year. Muffy rode home in the back seat of the van, nestled into my coat. As a young puppy, she had the colouring of a Rottweiller. As she grew, so did her hair, and its colour changed from black and brown to silver and blonde.

I'd often joke about how it was so obvious that Muffy was related to me; we had the same hair colour afterall.

Fourteen years is a long life for a dog. And Muffy had a good one. From trips to the cottage, rides in the car, squirrel hunts in the backyard - she was well travelled, because she was easy to take everywhere. When I first moved out on my own I used to bring her to my house for sleepovers. Sometimes they ended at nine o'clock when she'd stand at the front door and look at me as if to say, "Okay, you, it's time to take me home." Other times she'd curl up on a blanket or a pile of clothes on the floor, and just go to sleep.

A few years back a lady stopped on her walk by the house and asked Mom how old our dog was. Mom told her that the dog was seven, and the lady chatted for a while and continued on her stroll. i knew Muffy wasn't seven, because we'd adopted her when our friend's son, Garrod, was just a baby - and now he's a teenager. I rummaged around in the filing cabinet until I found her registration papers, and discoverd that no, she wasn't seven, she was thirteen. We laughed nearly every day about what a spry dog she was for being as old as seven.

I came home at lunch today, fearing the worst, and yet knowing that prolonging her suffering would just be selfish, and wrong. I sat and cried with Mom and Dad for a while, ate some lunch that had no taste at all (funny how shock does that to you), and went back to work where I tried to keep myself composed all afternoon.

I was afraid of how to break the news to Logan... but by the time I got home, Dad had already told him. Logan greeted me with a big hug when I walked around the house to the backyard.

"Are you sad about Muffy, Mom?"

That's when I lost it. After a lot of tissue, lots of sniffles and a few more hugs, we talked about Muffy and how she was old and it was her time to go.

"Poppa told me that it's okay to be sad, but that I shouldn't be too sad because Muffy's gone to a better place...so I'm not too sad, even though I'm sad", was Logan's synopsis of how he was feeling. Then he wandered off to play some more.

I'm proud of my father for knowing when it was time to end Muffy's suffering. If I ever get to the point where my body is failing, I'd like to think that someone who loves me can help me to get to a better place where there is no pain, and there are no struggles.

I shouldn't be too sad either. And I know that with each passing day, the grief that I'm feeling, and the empty sound of the house when someone rings the doorbell, and the little corner of the livingroom where Muffy's bed is - well, that will all turn from sadness into memories. I won't ever forget her.

I think I'll get to a point where I can talk about her, and all of the memories that I have, without tearing up. It's strange how grieving makes you remember all of the other things that you've lost. Muffy wasn't the first fur-person who was a part of my life, and she won't be the last, but she was with me the longest.

"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened." Anatole France.

Comfort

A friend of mine got a phone call this morning that I'm sure every mother dreads. Her adult daughter was in a bad relationship, and had come to the decision that she was leaving, so off we drove, to do a 'snatch and grab'. We loaded a bunch of stuff into the car, and were back home in no time at all.

It bothered me slightly, not because I was 'inconvenienced' or anything... but because I've been there. I know, and I have always known that I can always go home. So did she. Some people don't ever have that option. The idea of not being able to go home is not something I can even fathom. Every day I learn how important family is.

I spent a fun afternoon downtown with my cousin Jaime yesterday. We've got more in common than I ever imagined - physically, emotionally, and intellectually. There's a lot to be said for genetics, and even more to be said for parents who raise their children how they themselves were raised.

This afternoon I sat outside enjoying the weather, thinking just how thankful I am that I have the family that I've got.

I'll try to remember that when we're all driving each other crazy!

Surely I'm not the only one...

...who would like one of these as a pet!? It's called an aye aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis). I think I need one. I'd call him Dauby. Or Maddy. Yep!

Beijing? Or not?

My ears are bleeding from listening to all the radio announcers talk about the Olympics in Bejing. I say Bay-/zh/-ing (I think it's 'alveolar fricative'), not Beijing where the 'jing' sounds like jingle.

Have I been misprounouncing it forever and ever?

Sometimes being a thinker is enough to make me crazy. Especially when it starts early in the morning. I woke up thinking about this, wracking my brain to decide whether this warranted digging out my university linguistics course textbook.

How do YOU say it ?

Lean That Way...

I think this is the best picture so far. Notice my father and David are pointing with their fingers instead of their thumbs? Rebels!

Gak! I hate being sick!

My sinuses feel like they're exploding, and any time I bend forward I feel like my brains are pouring out through my nostrils. I stayed home from work today because I feel absolutely terrible. Not just slightly under the weather. It wasn't even one of those days where I dread going to work. Lately, work has been very satisfying. I just feel like I've been steamrolled and all the pressure is building in my head.

And, I'm coughing like a....like an I don't know what. I'm not barking like a seal, I'm simply coughing. All the time. After every second breath. It's one of those 'I want to smother you in your sleep' kind of coughs. Thankfully nobody else thought of that while I coughed all night long. I was advised, though, to take a handfull of pills and shut up. Sinutab is a wonderful thing.

Fever, chills, sweats, I've got it all. It's the kind of day where I just want to curl up under a blanket, hug a box of tissue, and read a book. And, that's exactly what I've done so far today.

I just hope I don't pass this along to anyone else. Nobody deserves to feel like this, and frankly, I'd want to smother them if they caught the same cough. It's much safer for ME to be the one who's ill. But still, I don't have to like it!