Horse, The Getting Back On Of
Feb. 19th, 2010 04:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akirluWords. I can do words.
I am not demised, contrary reports or no. I do, however, have the Mother of All Colds. Or perhaps She has me. But really, I have been slipping on this Journaling business for rather longer than that. I would tell you why, but I haven't entirely figured it out for myself. Little bits of this and that come to mind, and I mean to write them down, but then stuff happens and the writing doesn't. I've not been posting to Flickr either. It's like I somehow came down with an allergy to documenting things.
It may have started back in the fall, with Sarah's cancer. Right around the time the growth blossomed on Sarah's chest, our Lumix camera went AWOL. I had it with me in the pocket of my rain coat the day I stopped at Renaissance Yarns just to see if Kate had decided to come up after all, and then the next day, it was gone. Losing the camera, or having it stolen, whatever happened, put me into a silent tailspin. That first awful Saturday in September when the dog's clavicle inflated like there was a balloon under her skin, she suddenly became old. She had trouble getting to her feet. She needed help climbing onto the couch. She had to put both front paws on a stair step before essaying the next one, just on the short flight down into the side yard. She wasn't even able to catch treats out of the air if I threw them to her. This in a dog who always ran and leapt everywhere, full tilt at the fences. It was...beyond awful. And just when it seemed like we could lose her at any moment and every tail wag was precious, I had no video-capable camera. All her little quirks and gestures that I had never thought to record when she was younger, now on the brink of oblivion and me without any way to make up for lost time. I was going to lose my dog and have nothing but regrets to show for it.
It didn't quite go down that way. The next day the rains fell from the sky in torrents and we took Sarah to the beach, and somehow the old Victorian sea cure took. At least in affect, she was her old self again, exploring the tide line and truffling after interesting smells. And Hal bought a new series Lumix, and for the rest of September we made a lot of time for taking Sarah to the beach. So there are rather more photos and video clips to remember her by than there might have been. But that moment of reaching for the tool to record the moment, and coming back with an empty hand, that stayed with me.
I think I've been a bit depressed. And a bit at a loss for where to start again. But the days keep rolling remorselessly on anyhow. In the interim, I've missed saying a few things.
The university inexplicably decided that the right way to memorialize alumni veterans of foreign wars was to erect a miniature Avebury Henge in the middle of a traffic circle.
We decided to keep Kaylee.
We discovered that there are several nice off-leash parks in the area, once you have an off-leash safe dog. One has a lake. Another has intermittent spectacular Mountain views.
Seattle has been enjoying this incredibly mild winter, which now is rolling seamlessly into a decidedly early spring. Irises! Crocus! Quince! Pussy willows!
The Swedish baker who had a stall at the Public Market no longer does. But I managed to find semlor once before Ash Wednesday anyhow.
The flooding danger for Kent seems to have been greatly exaggerated.
I knitted some stuff.
Kaylee ate some of the stuff I knitted.
Bone hockey! The dog plays bone hockey! The buffet in the kitchen is the goal.
There are two things at which I thought Sarah was pretty dang good which it turns out she was a piker at: shedding, and reducing tennis balls to their constituent elementary particles. Dear Universe: pliz send more fur-and-fluff-eating moths.
No doubt there was more. Astoria. Cape Disappointment. The dog beach on Whidbey. Swans in the Skagit Valley. But there. I have set down some words. Time for more words later. For now, I'll press the 'Post' button and make a proper start.
I am not demised, contrary reports or no. I do, however, have the Mother of All Colds. Or perhaps She has me. But really, I have been slipping on this Journaling business for rather longer than that. I would tell you why, but I haven't entirely figured it out for myself. Little bits of this and that come to mind, and I mean to write them down, but then stuff happens and the writing doesn't. I've not been posting to Flickr either. It's like I somehow came down with an allergy to documenting things.
It may have started back in the fall, with Sarah's cancer. Right around the time the growth blossomed on Sarah's chest, our Lumix camera went AWOL. I had it with me in the pocket of my rain coat the day I stopped at Renaissance Yarns just to see if Kate had decided to come up after all, and then the next day, it was gone. Losing the camera, or having it stolen, whatever happened, put me into a silent tailspin. That first awful Saturday in September when the dog's clavicle inflated like there was a balloon under her skin, she suddenly became old. She had trouble getting to her feet. She needed help climbing onto the couch. She had to put both front paws on a stair step before essaying the next one, just on the short flight down into the side yard. She wasn't even able to catch treats out of the air if I threw them to her. This in a dog who always ran and leapt everywhere, full tilt at the fences. It was...beyond awful. And just when it seemed like we could lose her at any moment and every tail wag was precious, I had no video-capable camera. All her little quirks and gestures that I had never thought to record when she was younger, now on the brink of oblivion and me without any way to make up for lost time. I was going to lose my dog and have nothing but regrets to show for it.
It didn't quite go down that way. The next day the rains fell from the sky in torrents and we took Sarah to the beach, and somehow the old Victorian sea cure took. At least in affect, she was her old self again, exploring the tide line and truffling after interesting smells. And Hal bought a new series Lumix, and for the rest of September we made a lot of time for taking Sarah to the beach. So there are rather more photos and video clips to remember her by than there might have been. But that moment of reaching for the tool to record the moment, and coming back with an empty hand, that stayed with me.
I think I've been a bit depressed. And a bit at a loss for where to start again. But the days keep rolling remorselessly on anyhow. In the interim, I've missed saying a few things.
The university inexplicably decided that the right way to memorialize alumni veterans of foreign wars was to erect a miniature Avebury Henge in the middle of a traffic circle.
We decided to keep Kaylee.
We discovered that there are several nice off-leash parks in the area, once you have an off-leash safe dog. One has a lake. Another has intermittent spectacular Mountain views.
Seattle has been enjoying this incredibly mild winter, which now is rolling seamlessly into a decidedly early spring. Irises! Crocus! Quince! Pussy willows!
The Swedish baker who had a stall at the Public Market no longer does. But I managed to find semlor once before Ash Wednesday anyhow.
The flooding danger for Kent seems to have been greatly exaggerated.
I knitted some stuff.
Kaylee ate some of the stuff I knitted.
Bone hockey! The dog plays bone hockey! The buffet in the kitchen is the goal.
There are two things at which I thought Sarah was pretty dang good which it turns out she was a piker at: shedding, and reducing tennis balls to their constituent elementary particles. Dear Universe: pliz send more fur-and-fluff-eating moths.
No doubt there was more. Astoria. Cape Disappointment. The dog beach on Whidbey. Swans in the Skagit Valley. But there. I have set down some words. Time for more words later. For now, I'll press the 'Post' button and make a proper start.
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-20 04:28 am (UTC)The reasons that kept you from writing were, unfortunately, far too reasonable reasons.
(And I'm glad you kept Kaylee. I liked her in the pictures.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-20 10:53 am (UTC)Which is, of course, the most important piece of news of all.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-22 08:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-20 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-22 08:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-20 05:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-22 08:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-21 07:37 am (UTC)Yeah, I compose many more posts in my head than I put down in pixels.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-22 08:20 am (UTC)