A little Christmas melancholy but a very Merry holiday to you

T-shirt tales—Because every t-shirt tells a story, don't it.
And I have so very many of them. Shirts. And stories. ---- Tell me more. or Read all t-shirt tales

SUMMARY:  It is hard not to feel it. For me anyway. At this time anyway

Source: Discord chat with another writer Dec 22,2023

Somehow I seem to be more busy than before I retired, moved out of state, and left most of my family and friends behind. But I have finished my Christmas shopping since I really have only two family members, two dogs (Only one of them mine), and a couple of neighbors And friends to shop lightly for this year. Such a small number of gifts. So surely I can leave wrapping them until the last minute tomorrow.

As much of my life as I can remember – – and I'm retirement age, so that's...forever – – everyone in the family and their significant others (And often their parents and siblings) and their children and random friends and cousins from near and far and Dad's parents until they died (in the 1970s, but I can still recall how disquieting it felt the first Christmas that neither of them were there) gathered at my parents' house Christmas morning for an astonishing number of Christmas present openings. Even if each person received one gift, that was still a lot, but some of us--like my dad and me--enjoyed giving more than one gift to each person. Christmas at their place became legendary.

Then my dad died in 2015 and it impacted me like a crash and burn. We still all gathered that Christmas and still had a lot of gifts. But he had been the true driving force, And of course their house was good because it was huge because we all grew up in that house. The following year, mom's health declined rapidly and she died two days after Christmas, and we sold their house. We tried for a while, but it wasn't the same. I know they say that, to avoid this kind of sadness during the season, one should create new traditions. We didn't seem to be doing that. I didn't know what to try to create.

[Sidenote: That was a hard, hard year. Lost dad and mom, Tika and boost, dad's cousin who used to spend Christmas with us, and the beloved dog,Who got along well with Tika and boost, of My cousin (dad's cousins daughter) who also used to spend Christmases with us]

I have to work at managing the grief around this holiday. Not looking for sympathy, it's just a thing that is true. Three of us moved completely out of state to basically the same town and we are experimenting with planning a Christmas this year more suitable to three people than 20. We will open gifts, we will have a good meal, we will go for a probably short hike, we will drive out Christmas Eve looking at decorated houses,  we will see about trying to visit some of the many local waterfalls that we haven't seen yet, we will go through our notes and photos from our big trip in October, We will probably watch some Christmas shows or movies. we might do a jigsaw puzzle. Whether a new tradition will spring out of this remains to be determined.

This will be our ninth Christmas without Dad Cheering us on and preparing parts of a Christmas feast to browse from all day and mom trying to keep him moderate and doling out love. Missing them still feels like yesterday.

I have mom's Christmas T-shirt that she received fairly late in her life. It's almost new. I have worn it at Christmas. I don't feel like mom when I do. But the message on the front feels like her.

Remembering Señor Hot Tub and Sir Shed

SUMMARY: Flashback Pre-Pandemic

Rollback to September, 2019.

I had grown tired of a hot tub that I hadn't used for several years because of [scary music] Drought, and finally couldn't use after our old frenemy Entropy entered the scene.

And of a pre-existing wooden shed whose condition had been iffy when I first moved in 18 years previously, and by now it visibly consisted largely of rot and rat debris; door no longer opened or closed (so I left it open, so really the shed provided no shelter and I no longer used it for anything).  

When Zorro finally started dismantling the shed in July to get at rats or squirrels or capachubras or whatnot, I had had enough of it. 

When Zorro finally started dismantling the hot tub's pump housing in September to try to get at rats or squirrels or capachubras or whatnot, I had had enough of the hot tub, too.

Zorro is so useful at helping me make decisions like these.

Despite knowing that all of my dogs had loved it as a sunny, soft pillow with an expansive view of the yard (see June 9, 2019,Vantage Points) I finally decided that I wanted that hot tub space back. And Zorro would be perfectly competent at finding things to rip apart other places in the yard.

After I returned from Walt Disney World that month, I found a handyman who would haul them both away. For not too much money. (The hot tub was lightweight vinyl and styrofoam.)

Still Missing Her

SUMMARY: Wrong kind of anniversary, but it's in my heart.

Backfill: Copied from my Facebook post this morning

April 21, 2005: The most gorgeous blue merle pup in the known universe came home with me.

We had joy, we had fun, we had agility in the sun! And hiking! And All The Things!

The utterly reliable off-leash dog sometimes helped with the mostly reliable off-leash dog. 

April 24, 2015: Ten years and 3 days later, she was suddenly gone. She overflowed with life and that spills over into my life now, every time I think about her.

Good girlie, Boostie, Booster, BOOST.

Tip: Follow the "Boost goodbye" tag for more photos and then more anniversaries...

If this were Tumblr or Archive Of Our Own, which I have started using in the last year, I might tag this "#I'll probably do this every year."  Oh, what the heck, I'll tag it like that anyway.

My Hearts, My Dogs, the Same Cycles

SUMMARY: Struck by the similarities between these posts after Tika and after Chip.

It's like Groundhog Day. The movie. 
I've been here before.

Apparently my mind and heart go the same way each time I have to say goodbye.  Certainly I'd have expected similarities, but I just tripped over a post from 2015 and realized that I had written essentially the same thing last July.

July 3, 2020: Erasing 2

The post, near the beginning:

Don’t want to be reminded of the absence of a dog at every turn in every room. My initial reaction this morning was to load Zorro up into the car with me and go away somewhere for four days. Then I started realizing that, if I did that, I would be coming back to all the memories still right in front of me. It’s not that I want to erase Chip. I just want to reduce what I see.

March 25, 2015: Clearing Away

The post began: 

It's not that I don't want to remember Tika--I do--but I don't want things ambushing me everywhere I turn.

After she was gone, I started right away in clearing away everything that I knew would sucker-punch me in the gut if I were to see them.

And yet I keep lining up my heart for more. Usually I think it's all worth it.

Goodbye, Mom, Four Years Later

SUMMARY: My story, or Mom's.

Backfill: Remembering Dec 27, 2016.  [posted on Facebook , then added and edited here, Dec 27, 2020 ]

Four years ago--

Today minus 3 or 4 days [or it might actually have been Christmas morning, but I think it was earlier]: Mom had been bedridden in the den for some time,  a month? two? Less? More? Weaker physically and mentally all the time. She missed Dad so much. 

I and other people were in the house. I wandered into the den, and Mom already displayed a big smile. 

"You look happy," I said.

"I am!"

"Care to share your happiness?"

"I'm waiting for my ride!"

Me--puzzled--"What ride?"

"Grandpa is coming with the sleigh to pick me up!"

Me -- "Okayyyy..."

We said other vague pleasantries--she wasn't talking much now. I wandered back into the other room and mentioned this to someone. 

Or it was an uncle rather than her grandfather, I don't remember now. 

She had old sleighbells that had belonged to that sleigh when she was a girl, and she loved those memories. She'd hang the bells on the door each Christmas season, so every arrival jingled a joyous welcome.   I wondered whether she was thinking of that.

She was so weak.  I went home and spent hours working on a slideshow of her and dad, realizing that no physical gift would matter to her at all now, but that she would like this.

Four years ago minus two days: Christmas morning. It became clear when I walked in that she wasn't going to be watching a slideshow or doing anything else. I think that she was just awake enough to say I love you when "I love you" is first offered, but not much more than that. I wish that I remembered more details.

Because, four years ago today, I was still surprised--were we all surprised?-- when she slipped away after my sister called us but before any of us arrived.

Did her grandfather arrive with his sleigh? I've often wondered. It must've been a glorious ride through gleaming unsullied upstate New York snow.

As I stood on her front lawn, watching her being driven away,  the skies saluted in the only way they could.

Memories and Grief and Joy

SUMMARY: Dad. And Mark Lynch.

Yesterday, Dad died 5 years before.  The day sits so clearly in my mind, lurking with the things about it that I would absolutely have done differently, but also with relief about a couple of crucial things that I had been afraid that I wouldn't have been able to do for him that I did. So--a wildly emotional day. Plus, he died. So, yes, laser burned into my mental memory book.

And that's all on that for now. But it brings up this:

My Archaelogy/Anthropology prof at Santa Clara University, Mark Lynch, was killed by a drunk driver after he graded my final but before I picked it up.  Yes, relevant--

holding this space hoping for ok to post painting of Mark lynch

I "dropped out" of college after my junior year, struggling with what I really wanted to major in. Then I got a dog, bought a house, got married--and a few years after I left college, I went back. Santa Clara accepted me, thank goodness. [that might be another story]. As a Senior, which was also Thank Goodness, because SCU has specific breadth requirements for each year (frosh, soph, jr, sr) to earn your degree, so that, as a Senior, I needed only one of each category and could concentrate on my major classes.

I don't recall which breadth category Anthropology fit into, but that's where I headed. The first class I picked sounded interesting but after one day of the prof's dull, dull, droning delivery, I knew that I couldn't handle it for a full quarter. That he had only maybe 10 students in his class said something, too.  

That left me stuck: My other classes were already set, so I had to find something in essentially the same time slot, and I believe that left only one choice, and of course now I had missed the first class session.

I went anyway, to ask whether he'd add me (the class was listed as full so I couldn't join without that).  And his classroom overflowed with more folks than there were places to sit, lining all the walls. Many more than what he was allowed, but he added everyone, even late me. AND he remembered everyone’s names right away. I don’t know how he did it--must’ve been 50 people in that class. An amazing man.

So, I know that he graded my final because grades were posted (yes, an A).  He put all graded papers and tests into a cube outside his door, but I never did get my final--everyone else’s were in the bin--and I’ve often wondered whether he had kept it on his desk or wherever he was working because I knew all the material well and it was essay(s), and so I had a lot of fun writing it while still delivering the goods. I felt that he'd be OK with that and maybe even enjoy it and maybe he had held onto it a bit for that or had thought that he might see me again to say something.

He was so young.

I had mostly not bothered my profs through all the years of college except occasionally for a specific class-related question, but I had gone in to talk to him a couple of times about some fiction I was trying to break through on (Anasazi-related). Because, in class, not only could he be funny, but could elicit deep emotions with his fabulous descriptions of life and death and the effects of European colonization here in the western states. So I was quite comfortable chatting with him about fiction and about Anasazi and related topics and whatever unrelated topics we went into. Not that we were likely to become real friends, but he wasn’t that much older than I was at that point --I don’t recall exactly--or the same age (I was 27ish). But, still. 

I learned about his death while listening to the car radio--and then I was driving on US-101 bawling my eyes out.

I cried over several days, couldn’t stop thinking about it at night when all those thoughts you don’t want come calling. Then, one night, I dreamed that i was sitting on the outside steps of the building where his class was, head down on my knees, crying again. Suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder, and I looked up, and there he was. He said, you’re crying? And I was stunned, just staring at him being there. And then he said, “About me? Oh, there’s no need for that” followed by words that I don’t remember exactly any more but something along the lines that he had had a happy life and he’d be honored if people would remember the fun that he had and the education that he gave and be happy about all of that for him. And I nodded and he smiled his familiar smile and trotted on down the steps and away.

It helped me so much when I woke, even though I know that it was my brain inventing things--I think it was inventing a story for myself that I could grasp to not wallow in grief and to, indeed, remember him cheerfully.

So, yay, brain.

(See end of post for links related to Mark Lynch.)

I haven't had dreams like that about either of my parents.  I try to remember the same things for them, though.  But these anniversaries are hard.

Photos from family Thanksgiving 6 and 7 years before they died --
because they were always a couple

And a final note: Links related to Mark Lynch

• The Alameda -- see "A campus divided"
• Obituary
  
• Wow! This page has a painting of him done by another of his students
• Article with 3 mentions of excavations he did at Mission Santa Clara
  
• "Site Artifact Density and the Effectiveness of Shovel Probes"
  
• Articles he published -- he did work in Africa, too
  
• "Ph.D. in anthropology in 1978. Mark Lynch was an outstanding young scholar who was greatly interested in the method and theory of archaeology especially as ..." ...  I can't get at this text without buying or renting it, but I wish I could.

Erasing 2

SUMMARY: Goodbye Chip part 2 -- what I'm doing, what needs to be done, quandaries, anger, sleep...

Update: Added some photos July 5. Will probably add more later.
Backfill: Written June 17 -19; posted July 3.


Written June 17-19 while wandering helplessly around the house and yard and crying.

The thoughts are the originals.  After the fact--early July--I realized that I probably had photos to match a lot of these, so started adding. So hard to go over this again. But I'd rather do it while he's fresh in my mind.

June 17

Don’t want to be reminded of the absence of a dog at every turn in every room. My initial reaction this morning was to load Zorro up into the car with me and go away somewhere for four days. Then I started realizing that, if I did that, I would be coming back to all the memories still right in front of me. It’s not that I want to erase him. I just want to reduce what I see.

So things to work on today:

Package and label the uncooked chicken that I bought for him. And put in the freezer. Package and label the cooked chicken that I made for him and put into the freezer. Wash all the pots and pans that I used to cook for him: rice (which he decided he liked for one meal only, and the rest I finally tossed), pasta (which he didn’t like at all by the time I offered it to him) (and which I will try to remember to feed to the other dog is a bonus in the next day or so). And to cook two different batches of chicken. Wash them all and put them away.

Liked rice with chicken for one meal the previous night.
This morning, likes only chicken.
This evening, he won't even eat the chicken if it has touched the rice.

Remove and wash the cover on the dog bed that I bought for him for his sixth birthday then put it back on its Styrofoam base and hide it somewhere. It’s a big bed so this will be a challenge. I just can’t look at it right now.

Pick up all the toys that I either got especially for him or that were his favorites. Hide the ones that are still in good condition. For a while. Hide the ones that were of interest only to him that were his favorites and that he would always bring me. I don’t know why, but I’m going to have trouble letting go. Maybe I can bring myself to toss the ones that are in not good condition but that I saved because he also liked those.

His most favorites.  Interestingly, of all the zillions of toys in this house, Braided Monkey and the RopeBone came  with him from his old home and are still among his top favorites--except that the 2 items next to Purple Hippo are his absolute favorites, and they're actually remnants from larger toys!

Pick up the two different kinds of bowls that I used for his food (see photo above), wash them, stash them in the cabinet in the garage.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do about the two elevated beds in the kitchen. For one dog, I don’t think that I need two, except that, depending on whether they want to be quiet and out-of-the-way, or if I’m eating, then they want to be under the table, but if they’re watching the yard, they might be wanting the one by the door. Anyway, I’m not sure where I would put the extra bed, though its legs do come off.

Bed under the kitchen table.

There are two crates in my bedroom. The one that I think I’ll keep there is the one that Chip liked and most of the time slept in. So I have to decide… I don’t know, Zorro has slept in that one as well from time to time when Chip decided he wanted the smaller one for some weird reason. So maybe I’ll take Chip's bedding out of the big one, move Zorro's bedding in from the smaller one, and put away the smaller one.

Crates in the bedroom.
Dogs are blurry because, as you can see from Zorro being halfway in the air,
they are playing a wild game of chase in and out and roundabout.  January 2020.

Also in my bedroom, in the back corner of the closet, is a dog camp bed (insulated flat one-layer sleeping bag or, like a flat down comforter) that I put back there after Chip's escape from the fireworks that first July, because that’s where he hid for a while before I came home and found him missing. (I know because the bed was soaked with what I think was panting saliva.) So I’ve left it there, and he has used it from time to time when he’s scared of something, or sometimes, I don’t know, maybe he just wanted to be away from Zorro. I’m not sure how easily that cleans, but I have to figure it out and put that away.  ... ...  He spent a lot of his last night curled up there in that corner, with his back to the door; when I got up in the morning, he didn't move and I thought he was already dead.

I know that I have a photo of him  hiding on the bed in the closet, but can't find it.
Meanwhile, there's the puffy tan camping bed in the back corner of the closet.

I need to sweep and vacuum like crazy to get all the pale dog hair out of everything. I need to change the sheets on my bed today because they’re covered with Chip's dog fur.

Call the vet's office and get the expiration dates for the medications that they gave me the day before he died. So I can stash them somewhere just in case they might be needed for someone else, although I am putting out messages to see whether anyone local wants them instead.

Try to avoid thinking too hard about the new dog toys that I just bought two of, two weeks ago. Maybe put one away in a closet.

I'll replace with photo of the actual 2 maybe tomorrow.

I don’t need two crates in the car. Need to take one out, find some place to put it, maybe it’s time to get rid of some of the other soft crates that I’m not using that aren’t in the best condition that I haven’t gotten rid of because, for example, the green one that Chip ripped a hole in the first time I used it at an agility trial, was brand new when he did that. And then there’s the big really ancient teal and purple one that Remington used that I loved, and I’ve not been able to get anything in those color combinations ever since, so that’s a huge souvenir that I really probably don’t need to keep, as part of it is ripped, also, and I would have to have it repaired, and then what: store them all again? I could use the space.

I need to clear out some of the extra leashes from my front hall, and the second harness.

I need to get rid of some of the extra tunnels that I got just last year from a couple of friends specifically to set up a bigger tunnel path throughout the yard, because he loved the tunnels so much and I wanted to give him some variety. I think I have four now that are in shape that someone could use in the backyard, but would need replacing in a year or two anyway.
Zorro doesn’t need six tunnels, I don’t need six tunnels. So I need to evaluate the ones that are in the worst shape to decide which to keep.

Another Chip tunnel game, August 2017

Another photo I remember taking--all the tunnels in the yard--that I am now not finding. Will have to retake.

June 18

I had a hard enough time this morning when I went out to use the hose sprayer to water some plants. He was there every time I wanted to do that the last six years and now he’s not going be there I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to get over that. I certainly can’t get rid of my hoses.

Is this *really* the only photo I ever took of him trying to grab the spray or hose?
When it was almost a daily occurrence for 6 years?
Now I am very sad.

The thunder shirt that I bought for him finally last year and intended to train him to use it when we were comfortable and relaxed, and never did, so now I will never be able to verify whether it helps with thundering and fireworks. The one time I put it on him before the evening started, it made no difference whatsoever.

Thundershirt first arrives. March 2019.

It was hard enough going outside this morning, because he would always go to the same spot in the yard to have his morning poop. Every day. First thing. And he wasn’t there.

March 1

March 5

March 9
Is it rude that I started taking photos of him doing that?
I'm glad that I took some-- back in March-- but kept forgetting to have a camera in hand
as he dashed out first thing, and then I'd miss the shot.  So I gave up after 3 times.

And then picking up the yard and there was no poop for two dogs just one. I can’t do anything about that either.

Picking up the pieces of half-eaten paper from under and behind things where they fell--Chip was, for some unknown reason, fond of eating paper. Later on, he'd sometimes bring it to me after he had chewed off only a corner and drop it at my feet like he would a toy, after I started giving him treat "Trade"s for them. It did teach me to pick up papers from the floor as soon as the fell or I dropped them if they were important. If nothing else were around, he might pull one off the pile to be shredded or out of the paper recycling bin. 

Found this under one of the dog beds after he died.

Piles of toys in my bedroom and at the top of the stairs (and often at the bottom of, or on, the stairs): Chip almost always carried a toy with him when he thought I was heading upstairs for a nap or for the night. Might drop it on the top landing, or just inside my bedroom door. Sometimes when going downstairs after a nap or first thing in the morning, he'd grab one and carry it down with him.

[Another heartache--I can't find any photos of these toy piles!
Surely I'd have taken some--wouldn't I have??]

 Sometimes when I was busy in the bedroom (dressing, cleaning, what-not), he'd select one of the toys and push it against the ground with his mouth while chewing on it, trying to tempt me to play (and/or to find a possible squeaker). Or drop it at my feet to point out that I needed to stop being dull and play with a dog.

He was so very gentle with toys on most occasions. If I gave him and Zorro identical new toys, Zorro would squeak away at it enthusiastically, while Chip would push slowly at it with his nose, or bite it gently and slowly, and when no noise came out, he'd stare at Zorro as if to wonder why Chip always got the defective one. If I picked it up and squeaked it, his whole face would perk up, eyes wide, and then he'd try again, sometimes more forcefully and sometimes not.

When, this past winter, I finally discovered a toy that was of the size he likes and squeaked very easily, i searched for it online and in April ordered a whole box of them. A whole box. Set out 2 so far. And there most of them still sit, and will continue to sit, as my plan was to dole them out as each died. Zorro's not much into small toys, but he'd love to squeak these a little and then tear their ears and legs off and that would be the immediate end to them. I just can't do that.

Just his size -- Original Li'l red dog toy that I now have a box full of new ones. January 2020.

In mid-March, I bought a beautiful brand new, expensive, red and silver name tag for his collar to replace the one where the lettering was wearing out. Its ring was difficult to work with, so I set it on the table for later. As too often happens, I didn't get back to it. Last Friday or Saturday when I trimmed their toenails, I did wipe down his old tag to clear the dirt and make sure it really needed replacing. I pulled the new tag out of the box on the table, and then he started not looking that healthy, and then -- so there it sits.

June 19

His hair is collected on the upholstered backs and the sides of the seats of all of my dining chairs where he rubbed against them going past. I have to get that all off, too. Zorro wasn't quite that tall.

Only one dog’s poop in the yard. Small amounts of poop in the poop bin. Just silly stuff.

Do I leave two crates in the car for a few trips for Zorro? Will it matter to him? I’m moving him into the crate that Chip used to be in. On Chip’s side of the car. He seemed unperturbed when I’ve done that yesterday.

Likewise, do I leave two crates in the bedroom for a while, just put him into the one that Chip used to have for a few more days? I was going to just leave the small collapsible crate up instead of the larger soft crate, because that’s what Boost used her whole life., And that’s where Zorro has slept most of the time when I’ve used the crates. And I think she was a couple inches taller at the shoulder than he is, but he is much more upright than she was, So he can’t stand up completely straight without pushing against the top, which does get very easily, but still…

It has been very hot the last couple of days, so even though I want to get more done, I get very hot and thirsty very quickly, just from, say, sweeping the kitchen and hall. Plus I have to stop and collect myself. Dictating or even writing is very hard about this.

The night he died, I thought I would never get to sleep. But then, somehow, I did, early in the morning, and then slept well over six hours, which is unusual for me. And I don’t remember waking at all during that time.

Last night it wasn’t quite as dramatic; I woke groggily a couple of times to use the restroom, but fell right back asleep. It did take me a long time to fall asleep, though. I read for a while, turned out the light, wept often on for a while, then turned the light back on and read some more. At some point I fell asleep and turned out the light, because when I did wake up, the light was off, and the book was still in the bed with me.

Fitbit shows I slept 6 1/2 hours Wednesday night (the day he died) and 5 1/2 last night. Also shows that Wednesday night, the first four hours were pretty ragged sleep, and then fairly solid after that. And last night, it was kind of up and down and up and down.

Chip has been blowing his coat like crazy. Maybe I notice it more because I rub and pet him more than I do the other dog, so I see it coming out everywhere in clouds. I have been threatening to come them both for a couple of weeks now, and yet never did. Around four today, I did a bunch of combing on Zorro. He’s also blowing his coat. But Chip liked the process; Zorro does it for the treats and gets bored quickly.

At least I did finally get around to trimming their toenails on Sunday. Before I had a clue.

I’m just so angry as well as heartbroken. It just shouldn’t keep happening. I don’t know how to stop it. I do donate a lot to Morris Animal Foundation cancer funds, maybe more than I should sometimes, but this is just awful.

Some people say to give your dog an ultrasound at nine, but Chip's birthday was only a couple weeks ago. And it wouldn’t have helped by then. At Boost's ninth birthday probably nothing would’ve shown; hard to know, of course whether she’d been suffering for well over a year, but it seems unlikely. Unless you’re going to shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars a year for tests for each of your dogs, I don’t see how that helps.

I have been busily washing all of Chip's bedding and then suddenly realized that maybe Zorro would want some of his scent still around. Cried for a while about that, but hadn't washed all of the bedding in the kitchen yet so I'm leaving that for some time later. How long is enough? I have no idea.

6:09 PM

I just saw that San Jose had a 3.4 earthquake Wednesday morning at 10:35 AM. That was me sitting with the vet and the internal hit that was my world falling apart again fuck

Chip is Coming Home

SUMMARY: Heartache and a history of love.

Posted on Facebook, today, 11:07 AM.

This will be a weird day. Chip is coming home. May be in an hour or so. I am glad, and I’m not sure how I’ll hold it together.

It will be another tiny wooden kennel like the others. On my memories shelf. I need two shelves.

Added 12:04 PM on FB: Dr. Kuty dropped him off for me. We kept over 6' distance and she wore a mask (I would have, but I just stepped out of the door to open the cardboard box while she watched).

About the memorial shelf--

• [only here, not on FB:]
• Sam, my family's dog when I was a kid: the teal and brown tile on lower left shelf, I made that of her in Junior High art class.  Not too accurate: She was a longish-haired pale yellow collie/shepherd (guess) mix.
• My first dog, Amber, constant companion: Mom was German Shepherd, dad was Golden Retriever (known facts). Next to Sam's tile--that was a gift to remind me of her.
• Second dog, Sheba, a gray/white Siberian Husky. So easy to find things commercially of such a dog, although not always with blue eyes like hers. Still--there are 3 here in various places; two were gifts.
• Then Remington, my first tricks and tracking and obedience and agility dog. The box on the right of the main shelf, with a tiny photo of him on top.
• My friend Stephanie's dog Sparky, whom I spent a lot of time around and who died of cancer at about the same time that Rem did, is in a little round photo frame next to Rem's box.
• Jake, my super-champion agility boy, in the box with the purple collar around it.  All the boxes have their dogs' collars around or near them.
• Tika's and Boost's boxes are on the left; their photos are on top of Jake's box.
• And Chip--  I might spend this weekend dusting and rearranging and trying to reduce my quantity of books again.
• Also there are some sympathy cards and books, some of the very few "trophies" I ever won, paw prints of several of the dogs...

Erasing

SUMMARY: Chip is complete--

Text mostly from Facebook posted July 2, 2020

Erasing.

You might work for years on a piece of art or a piece of writing, scribbling in the margins, sketching in the shape with pencil, trying little colors or different words. And then suddenly--sometimes without warning--you realize it’s done. So you erase all the extra pencil marks, print a fresh copy of the manuscript with no markup in the margins. Erasing.

So many pencil lines never completed, blank areas never filled
(No idea when I drew this. Intending to fill it in completely--and then suddenly stopped.)

That Monday morning that I took Chip in for his blood test and still didn’t know what was about to land on us, I got home to discover that his leash had dragged behind my car on the freeway at 65 mph for about 15 miles. I don’t recall that ever happening before. The handle became quite filthy. I don’t believe in omens, but clearly this was an omen. I didn't know it then. The next day I learned. I learned.


Two days later--the day after Chip left us--when I took Zorro out for a walk, looking at the leash, a knife of memory said, this leash belonged to Boost, who died early of cancer. And now it belongs to Chip, who died early of cancer. I love it, because I love blue and I love Paisley, but with that realization, it hurts every time I look at it. It is retiring. I will wash it and put it in a box with the other extra leashes for extra dogs. Maybe to use again someday. Or maybe I’ll never be able to resurrect that one.

I bought Zorro a brand new leash today that matches his coat. And that reflects light like joy.

Chip is a completed work of art now. I’ll erase all the bits I don’t want to see. That aren’t needed any more. That break my heart.

Goodbye Mr. Chip

SUMMARY: My sweet boy is gone.

Note: Also posted on Facebok, more photos currently.
ALSO NOTE: The original link for this was mucked up, so I reposted. If you bookmarked this before & it appears to be gone--that's why. But here it is, still same date and time.

I can't believe, can't bear it--third dog to die of cancer between 9 and 10. I am grieving for them all now and railing against the Universe.
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Goodbye Mr. Chip

Chip (Finchester’s Butterscotch Morsel)
May 25, 2011-June 17, 2020

Monday morning, when Chip went to the vet, I suspected pancreatitis. Twenty-six hours later—Tuesday—I learned that cancer and fluid filled him. He is dying. Twenty-one hours later—Wednesday —the vet arrived and, just like that, my long-legged, skinny, perky, happy, bright-eyed boy is gone.

The one who loves people. The one who sometimes worries about something new until he has carefully figured it out. The one who is terrified of fireworks and thunder. The one who, no matter how many times I say “Stretch!”, doesn’t—until we’ve done other tricks and I’ve put the treats away. The one who takes everything cautiously, except exchanging expletives through the fence with the dog next door, except playing in a spraying hose, except for his Indy car tunnel performances. The one so soft, so smooth, who loved hands on him.

Wet dog! Happy spotted tongue!

The big dog with the small, black-spotted tongue who loved tiny toys. Who loved sleeping in his crate.

He interviewed for, then joined, Taj MuttHall in May, 2014 as a rehome from a family who loved him. He was going to be my next agility dog. After the first several classes, though, it became clear that it stressed his slow, studied way of figuring things out (he’d run and hide in a tunnel) and so he became simply a proud and excellent companion dog.

Things he loved the most:

- Going wild with the hose spray (watering flower pots became a challenge). When the spigot came on, he’d fly in from wherever he had been.

- Being touched: Lying quietly on his side being stroked and massaged, or standing for gentle brushing, or pushing his head between my knees to be wiped down after another hose spray experience. For as long as I wanted. And if it weren’t as long as *he* wanted, he’d wriggle and verbally demand more until I started again.

- Blasting through the yard’s agility tunnels full speed, back and forth and around, and then hitting a high-tension play bow just inside the end of one, eyes sparkling, waiting for me to say readyyyyy GO! and then blast to the other end of the same tunnel and wait again. And then explode out to the next tunnel. If I were inside, he’d do tunnels all on his own, the b-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-um sound of a dog breaking the tunnel speed barrier echoing into the house.

- Digging.

- Marking. Everything and often.

- Rubbing his head and back on my wet hair fresh out of the shower.

My sweet volunteer assistance dog—he’d come and get me if I accidentally closed Zorro in the garage, or if Zorro found an open gate and went outside to explore, or if my alarm went off (any alarm, any time of day), or if anything occurred inside or outside that he wasn’t sure what it was or felt that it was out of place in his carefully ordered world.

He is deeply intelligent, in a quiet genius way: He’d consider each piece of each thing I wanted to teach him, maybe for a while, and try a couple of things cautiously, and then more confidently, and then he’d have it. No wildly offering random behaviors for him.

In that way, he replayed my beloved thoughtful-learning Remington (1993-2003), whom he resembled , which is how he ended up coming home with me. Like Remington, he wanted to smell my breath once daily (only 2 dogs to do that). Like Remington, he loved to run, but agility wasn’t high on his priority list. Like Remington, he has cancer in his 9th year.

My heart is sundered.

And yet I am replete with gratitude for those who brought him into my life so that every day I could laugh and smile repeatedly with him and could receive as much snuggling as I wanted. What more could I really ask?

March 20, 2014 - New dog!

That look...!

August 14, 2004 - First time through dog door on his own
(Full set of photos: Dog Door Success!)

June 17, 2020 - Le Chien Soleil 
Really, Human Mom? More photos?

Daily - Full-speed flying through tunnels

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NOTE: the same text with a bunch more photos should be viewable on Facebook at the moment: https://www.facebook.com/ellen.finch/posts/10221178115937779

ALSO, just copied them (and maybe more) to my Smugmug photo site under Chip Photos for His Obituary.

I'm posting this now, butI have many more photos to add. Trying to cull from 6,000 with so little notice--

Goodbye to Mom and Dad --

SUMMARY: Two years after the actual final goodbye.

I just posted their expanded obituary, now here at Taj MuttHall dated Feb 25, 2017. That was an early draft after several edits from all of we sisters five. But obits in the San Jose Mercury News were so expensive that we eventually edited it down to bare bones for publication there.

We ended up posting separate, slightly different, obits for each of them in the SJ Merc.

Boost -- a little in memorium

SUMMARY: Photos

Boost's death was so sudden, and Tika's death was so recent before that, and my dad's illness was so bad-- I never did a photo retrospective of their lives. This isn't one, either, but I wanted to gather some photos for a smaller project. Here they be.

Boost had no fear of racing to almost the end and riding it to a slam-down.

Championship in CPE!

I had to hustle to be anywhere near her at the end of a dogwalk.

Boost loved to help me in the yard while I trimmed. I'd toss the trimmings into the air; she'd leap, catch, shake them firmly, and toss them to the ground with great finality, then wait for the next.

Waiting to run, tugging on her Riot Tug.

We did a little nosework. She was catching on.

My Merle Girl.

Resting between rocket-powered frisbee catchings.

Boost loved the snow. Anything in the snow.

Heterochromic eyes, like her mom's and many other relatives.

Get In The Box trick.

She learned this from watching Tika. Amazing.

Running at the beach. She just liked running.

Demonstrating her lightning-fast weaving technique.

Floating through the air down a line of jumps. Like magic when it worked.

Tika also taught Boost how to use tunnels, although Boost's puppyhood playground included tunnels.

Hiking, climbing, exploring.

Loved running through the powder; preferred that to running along the trail!

Atop Coyote Peak, one of our frequent hikes.

Boost's absolutely favorite toy of all time.