Hurricane Sandy

" There's a storm a comin'!"  I remember standing on the middle school stage years ago during a school production while a young lady playing Uncle Henry spoke that line.  It always made me laugh because she said it with such little expression that I used to wonder if a storm really was a comin'.  Following Facebook posts this past week had me questioning the same blase` attitude reflected by people directly in the path of Hurricane Sandy.  Didn't they know Frankenstorm was a comin'????  Who were these people drinking wine, making jokes and planning parties while I was planning my survival?  Weren't they worried?

I was worried.  And scared.  I worried about the power going out, and therefore my sump pump giving up the ghost (I purposely used a Halloween metaphor in honor of the holiday).  The last time that happened my guardian plumber Jerry took care of everything.  But dear Jerry's gone now.  Maybe his spirit would watch over me, but it couldn't pump out a basement.  And my refrigerator?  I had just gone shopping and for once had actual expensive food in there.  My car and garage were such a dilemma that I posted to FB for a solution. 

Should I put the car in the garage, but leave the door open?  When my car is filling the garage there is no way in hell I can reach the release for the door opener; so if I close the door and the power goes off, I am trapped in the house, unable to drive my car with its obligatory required-for-surviving-a-hurricane full tank of gas.  Should I just take my chances and leave the door open, inviting storm damage, looters and zombies into my abode?  (Barbara, they're coming for you.)  Should I leave the car in the driveway and take my chances that the pear tree won't fall and flatten it?  Everybody had suggestions.  I loved the one that suggested "someone" tie a long rope to the release so I could grab it.  Obviously that person hadn't read my blog about the lack of a house husband.  And if I had someone to tie the rope, then couldn't he just pop the release?  Nobody came up with the answer that I arrived at after worrying away Monday night.  It was such a simple solution, I'm embarrassed.  Park the car outside, grab the ladder, climb up a couple steps, pull the release, return the ladder, move the car back into the garage, and manually close the door.  See?  Simple, huh? Yep, I figured that out after I decided to take my chances and just close the damn door.

At 6:00 pm on Monday the wind was whipping, the rain was pounding, the trees were twisting, and the power went off.  Because I was prepared for my survival, I had every candle in my house, a camping lantern, and three flashlights at my personal ground zero and ready for use.  I pulled an Abe Lincoln and read my book by candlelight, rationing the batteries of my precious lantern for what might be my third or fourth night without power.  It was a lonely night.  I had no neighbors.  The house on the left (where the woman who used to share her generator with me had lived) was empty.  The dear old people on the right were at the daughter's house.  The guy across the street was gone or else his stinky fireplace would be polluting the neighborhood air.  It was scary.  Poor, poor lonely me.  When I put Trixie out, the drone of the generators at the houses with husbands made me feel even more pitiful.  It was a long night.   

I woke to sun breaking through the clouds on Tuesday morning.  About four inches of water covered the basement floor.  The outside of the refrigerator was still cold.  I was ok.  By three the power was back, complete with TV and internet.  The sump pump started sucking out the water.  I was saved!  I had survived!  And then I turned on the television and saw the devastation in New Jersey and New York.

How silly my worries.  How small my problem.  How humbled and thankful I am to be as safe as I am.  Whole neighborhoods were decimated by the sand and waves invading and destroying property as if the buildings were hotels on a Monopoly board. One New York community lost homes to flooding and even more terrifyingly, uncontrollable fire.  A historical ship was sunk and two crew members lost at sea.  And so on and so on.

I plan to donate to the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and any organization that can use my money to help these poor damaged people.  I urge you to consider doing the same.  It is literally the least we can do.

Worry

I'm a worrywart.  Always have been, looks like I always will be.  My mother told me that I was just like my father in that respect.  He would worry so much that he'd get up in the middle of the night to drive around the neighborhood until he relaxed enough to go to sleep.  Mom finally got him to take a pill for anxiety by pretending it was a sleeping pill.  He'd have worried endlessly had he known he had anxiety.  But, he was ok with taking a sleeping pill.  Go figure.

I don't know why I worry so much.  I can't think of any problem I ever solved by worrying about it.  And, I can't think of any situation that didn't eventually work out in a way that I could manage.  So, you would think after fifty plus years I'd have realized that worrying is pointless and I should just stop doing it!  Yeah, just stop!  Once I figure out how to just stop worrying, I hope I can figure out how to just stop eating junk.  But that's food for another blog.  (Food? Eating?  HaHa.  I'm so dang punny.)

Today's major worry is Hurricane Sandy.  The repeated calls to my house from the county disaster center have me ready to pack a bag for the nearest shelter.  The 24/7 newscasts have convinced me that I am in a lot of trouble.  I have not boarded up my windows.  I just know the hurricane winds are going to blow my front window into shards.  Poor little Trixie will be swept up in the furious winds, funneled out the hole in the window,  and blown away, never to be seen again.  I will step on glass which will infect my foot, cause gangrene, and leave me a partial amputee who's afraid to walk with crutches.  Yep, I worry too much.  I doubt I'd let the leg get gangrenous.

I don't have a generator.  Years ago when the power went out for a few days, my neighbor shared her generator with me.  The storm was over, the night was humid, and I was wide awake worrying about my silent sump pump and refrigerator.  As I lay in my bed, I could hear a voice whispering loudly, "Barbara! Get up and get out here and help me."  My neighbor was standing outside my bedroom window.  We were Lucy and Ethel in our nightgowns figuring out how to set up the generator a friend had loaned her.She saved my sorry unprepared butt, not to mention a refrigerator full of groceries.  However she has moved (just down the street, but too far for an extension chord to my house). The 24/7 newscasts have convinced me that we will be without power for days, maybe weeks. Maybe if I cook some of my freezer food on the grill I purchased for $3 at a yard sale this summer,  I won't starve.  I know I'll have plenty of water though because my basement will flood a few feet deep.

Could this Frankenstorm be the end of the world???

Maybe I need to stop reading so much.  Books deeply affect me.  A year ago, I read Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. It taught me that life as I know it can end catastrophically due to the unpredictability of nature and our universe. Here's the review:

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-8–Pfeffer tones down the terror, but otherwise crafts a frighteningly plausible account of the local effects of a near-future worldwide catastrophe. The prospect of an asteroid hitting the Moon is just a mildly interesting news item to Pennsylvania teenager Miranda, for whom a date for the prom and the personality changes in her born-again friend, Megan, are more immediate concerns. Her priorities undergo a radical change, however, when that collision shifts the Moon into a closer orbit, causing violent earthquakes, massive tsunamis, millions of deaths, and an upsurge in volcanism. Thanks to frantic preparations by her quick-thinking mother, Miranda's family is in better shape than many as utilities and public services break down in stages, wild storms bring extremes of temperature, and outbreaks of disease turn the hospital into a dead zone. In Miranda's day-by-day journal entries, however, Pfeffer keeps nearly all of the death and explicit violence offstage, focusing instead on the stresses of spending months huddled in increasingly confined quarters, watching supplies dwindle, and wondering whether there will be any future to make the effort worthwhile. The author provides a glimmer of hope at the end, but readers will still be left stunned and thoughtful.–John Peters, New York Public Library

See? See? Oh the damage that can be caused by wild storms!  tsunamis! volcanism!  And I did not gather supplies!  I don't have a battery powered radio! I don't have batteries!  We're all gonna die!!!!

No, not really.  I'll be ok after this storm and so will you.  Maybe I'll need to have some repair work done to the house.  Maybe I'll lose a boatload of groceries.  But I'll be ok....if I could only stop worrying.

 

Renn Fest Fun? Not so much.

I dunno.  Maybe I'm getting too old or too cynical or too something.  What used to excite me and inspire me to get up early on a Saturday morning or stay out late Friday night, no longer holds the appeal.  Here, I will say it.  I HATE festivals, fairs, carnivals, or whatever you call them.  Hate them.

I already avoid the local ones.  The Darlington Apple Fest was a lot of fun when it first started: reasonably priced crafts, free parking, friends to visit with, and lots of good food.  I can't go anymore.  The crowds choke the streets making it impossible to see the booths or comfortably walk the area. I get tired really fast of being elbowed and bumped by people who won't let the words "Excuse me" escape their mouths.  I went once to the Seafood Festival when it was just starting.  I did some volunteering and still have the apron I bought (I wear it to Grace Place since there's no need for an apron in this non-cooking household). I remember sitting with friends and laughing as we ate steamed crabs.  I wouldn't go near the place now because of the crowds and the bus loads of tourists.  The Independence Day Carnival?  Haven't made it down to the park in years.  I do go to the Art Show as I can get through there in about forty minutes.  And so far, Graw Days has been fun.  But Graw Days is new; everything's fun when it's new.

I took my nieces to the Renaissance Festival in Crownsville today.  I hadn't been there in probably twenty years, but that last time was such fun.  My friend and I bought flower wreaths for our hair.  We sang with the musicians, posed with the characters, and bowed to the queen.  The jesters danced around us and kept us smiling the whole day.  I told my girls how much fun it would be,  not to be afraid of the characters who would speak olde English to us, how great the shows would be, and how we'd get to see a real sword swallower.  They must think I'm a liar.

I knew we were in trouble when the turn off to Crownsville was a traffic jam of revelers.  We had to park so far back in the lot that we couldn't even see the castle.  (And we were close compared to the miles away some overflow parkers got stuck.)  The fairies on stilts at the doorway "creeped out" the girls.  The girls were already whining and ticking me off, and we hadn't even got our tickets.

Once inside, the place was wall-to-wall people.  We struggled to get lunch and struggled to sit.  Of course the older niece didn't want anything until I'd already gone through the line and bought the food for the younger girl.  Yep, I got stuck in line again.  We were fifteen minutes into the "fun" and the older one was already pouting and asking how long we had to stay.  We indulged in a little shopping.  I looked for the flower and ribbons headpieces from yonder years, but there were none.  Reba wanted a fascinator though, a black rose.  A thirty-five dollar black rose. Which brings me to my next complaint.  Everybody was out for a buck.  Literally.  Billie wanted to play the games; soon all my dollars were gone and she hadn't won me one free beer.  The museum of horrors?  Just a joke to these kids who have seen Disney World.  We had to pay a buck each to get in.  The woman in period garb had a huge wad of bucks in her hand.  Billie was more interested in all that money than Grendel's arm.  And the elephant ride?  Eight bucks per kid, sixteen bucks per adult.  I actually saw families of four bobbling on the bored pachyderm.  Thirty-six bucks for a one minute ride!  The girls were getting off the elephant before I'd even seen them hop on.  No pictures for me.  Lines! Lines!  Everywhere!  The longest line we saw was the one leading to the ATM.  No surprise there.

We saw lots of people in costume, but no Renn Fest actors to cajole my nieces into the spirit. If there was a royal family parade, the crowds blocked us from seeing it.  The jousting?  Sigh, it was over by the time we waded through the crowd to get there. And speaking of costumes, can somebody explain to me what the costume is where the young men have about six trash bags neatly folded and hanging from the back of their pants?  And what does a panda with an umbrella have to do with the Renaissance period?  My girls wouldn't go near him (it creeped them out).  Got me to wondering who was completely hidden inside that costume, a perv?  Yes, it creeped me out too.  And don't get me started on the almost naked sagging bosoms too many women were flaunting.  Honey, if you've got a couple as big as eggplants, a thin cotton flounce on top of your corset isn't sexy. Maybe, as Honey Boo Boo says, it's smexy, but most of the looks you're getting are looks of wonder, as in I wonder when they're going to fall out and hit the ground.

After three hours of how much longer are we going to be here, we headed back to the exit.  Had delicious apple dumplings with ice cream before we left.  And we had no trouble finding the car, unlike the Renn Fest bride and groom who were disgustedly tromping up and down the aisles looking for their pick up truck.  The girls were thrilled to curl up in the back seat with their I-pods, pillows, and bag of junk food.

I dunno. Maybe I'm too old, maybe things have gotten too commercial, or maybe, just maybe, these things aren't the fun the advertisers make them out to be. No more festivals for me!

Huh? Wud ya say?

As sad as it is to admit, I have become "that person."  You know the one; the person who drives for miles with their turn signal flashing because he/she can't hear the clicking that reminds said person to turn it off.  I can't hear like I used to.  I don't know how it happened or when it happened, but if I'm honest with myself, it has happened.

Years ago at the dinner table, little Reba answered everything said to her by twisting her ear towards you and saying, "Huh?"  After she did it about five times, her mother asked her what she was doing.  She replied, "Being Pop-Pop."  We broke into laughter.  My dad kept asking what we were laughing about because he hadn't heard her.  When we told him, he was mad.  According to him, he could hear just fine.

I used to feel that way.  My hearing wasn't bad.  Other people just spoke too softly.  We all know that middle school students mumble every word they say, right?  It's not my fault I can't hear their questions and answers. Surely there is something wrong with my television.  Sometimes I can barely hear it, even though I have the volume raised to the highest level.  Can't tell you how many times I've been on the phone and had to tell the service reps to speak up, how can they expect to help people if we can't even hear them?  My car radio makes me jump when I start it for the first time in the day.  It is so loud, I immediately turn it down.  No, I can no longer hear a lot of what I need to hear.  I can hear the stuff I don't want to hear like somebody snoring in the next room, the neighbor's stereo, my sister's alarm clock(that, by the way, she sleeps through), or the cat that screeches all night.  Why is that? 

I've thought about hearing aids.  Friends of mine have invested in them.  But frankly, they often "forget" to wear them, or the background noises render them ineffective, or the batteries are dead.  I can't stand the thought of something in my ear;  it makes me itch.  I guess the next generation will have it easier.  They will most likely make the switch from ear buds to hearing aids very fluidly.  And, with the way they listen to loud music, I predict they'll be making this switch in their thirties rather than my generation's sixties.

I often pretend to hear people when I haven't a clue as to what they are saying.  Sometimes I know I've answered incorrectly because of the puzzled expression on the listener's face.  Other times I just smile and nod and hope that does for an answer.  With people I'm close to I say things like, "Dammit Dee you know I can't hear.  Speak up!"  Reading lips and cupping my hand behind my ear are two methods of compensating for my handicap.  I'm not accurate with the lip reading.  And people laugh at me when I make Dumbo ears with my hands. Sigh, I know it will only get worse.

So, I reach my sixties knowing that not only do my knees hurt, my ears are failing. The next time some rude person says, "What are you, deaf?" .... My answer will be, "Yes, you want to make something of it?"  That is, of course, if I hear them in the first place.

Yard Saling

Sandy C. started me yard saling 20+ years ago.  I'd been living in a furnished apartment and had just moved into the house she helped me buy. I had nothing.  Nothing, that is, until I started yard saling every weekend. The world was my treasure chest.

I perfected my yard saling skills over the years when I traveled the roads with my buddy, Dottie.  We used to call it home shopping; we'd go to your home and shop.  We were a perfect team as we each searched for different things.  Eventually, we went our separate ways.  Dottie began getting up at 5 or 6 in the morning; I thought 8 was early enough.  However, we continued shopping for each other and every Christmas we'd exchange a Santa Sack of newspaper wrapped yard sale gifts.  In fact, a lot of people received newspaper wrapped gifts from me, the newspaper signifying that you were about to open a true and unique treasure.  One of my favorite finds was given to my sister, Helen.  At the time, we were both Rosie O'Donnell fans.  I found a new, in the box, autographed Rosie doll.  The person selling it was a former student so I could trust that it was the real deal.  My sister couldn't believe it!

Anything you could ever want can eventually be found at a yard sale if you are persistent.  I like wine.  Yep, you can find bottles of wine at yard sales. 
I can't remember the last time I bought soap from a store. All those pretty hand milled soaps that people spend a fortune on as Christmas gifts?  They end up on the twenty-five cent table for people like me to indulge in.  My nieces have the best dress up clothes!  For months, three year old Reba practically lived in the pink tutu I found for fifty cents at a yard sale.  My house needed ceiling fans; I found great ones, new in the box, at yard sales.  I was amazed the day I found an antique Chinese bowl that someone, with no idea of its value, sold to me for $5.  I bought another antique bowl at a different yard sale for $20; but it was a fake.  You win some, you lose some.

A few years ago, I burned a hole through my kitchen table and luckily did not burn the house down.  (Story will be told in a future blog.)  I needed a new table, bad.  On my way to church one Sunday, there it was.  It was a perfect size table for 6 with a tile top and wooden chairs in great condition.   They asked a very reasonable $50 and I talked him into delivering it for another $10. I put my old table and chairs outside and someone from Freecycle snatched them up.   A win win situation.

I think everybody who yard sales is always looking for that one special find that will make them Antique Road Show stars.  I found my thing a few years ago.  At a small sale in front of a tiny, worn out house, were two framed pictures.  I was drawn to one of a woman with a cane walking her dog. It was me.  He wanted a lot for the picture, but as much as I loved it, I couldn't afford it. So, I left and saled for a few more hours.  I purposely drove past the house at the end of the day and the picture was still there.  I appealed to the guy by opening my wallet and showing him that all I had left was a twenty.  He sold me the picture.  After researching, I learned I had a signed limited edition silkscreen worth a tidy sum.  The artist is Mackenzie Thorpe and the title of this piece is Walking the Dog.  I have no idea how to create a live link on this blog, but if you copy and paste the link I've provided into your browser, you can see a bigger picture of this "rare" (their words) work of art and what it sells for.

                 http://www.monetfineart.com/walking-the-dog-686-p.asp

Now, isn't that just the best rendition of me and my dog?  (Use your imagination.)

I haven't yard saled in a while.  Now that I'm retired, I'm trying to downsize my home, not add to it.  But the crisp autumn air drew me outside.  And oh, the treasures I found!  I have wanted a Moroccan style pillow for my living room for ages.  Found it today.  I found the most gorgeous Chinese calligraphy scroll that some tourist paid a small fortune for.  It has the name of a good friend of mine; I'll soon be surprising her with it.  Found a really nice cat purse; one of you cat people reading this may find it under your tree this year.  And Helen, my dear sister, your Christmas present will be wrapped in newspaper.  However,  the best find, the most exciting find, was a beautiful bridal veil with a pearl tiara. Hope my dress-up girls don't fight too bitterly over it.

Yep, I thought I was done with yardsaling.  Ha! A true saler is never done.  I wonder what the weather is supposed to be like next Saturday? 

Remembering Dad

Today would have been my dad's 89th birthday.  He was so dear to me.  He taught me how to drive, even though many of our lessons ended with me stomping home, him following me and yelling at me to get in the car, and then him pouring a stiff drink the moment he got in the door.  He taught me how to pray.  We were not raised in a religious home, but as a kid I decided I wanted to know how to pray, so he taught me, "Now I lay me down to sleep..."   People said I looked like him when I was a kid, but I never saw it.  He passed away in March 2004, and those were some very dark days.  Anyhow, today I'm sharing the eulogy I wrote for him those eight years ago.

Eulogy for my Father

I want to thank you all for coming here today to support my family and say goodbye to my father.

We each come with our special memories of a man we knew as a nature lover, dog lover, bird watcher, friend, neighbor, co-worker, veteran, cousin, uncle, husband, dad, and pop-pop. Many of you have been sharing your memories with us, and I’d like to tell you one of our family stories usually shared by the relatives each Christmas gathering at my parents’house. Mom and Dad met thanks to her brother Ralph. He took his sister out to a club one night, and it was then that Mom met the blond, blue-eyed gorgeous sailor from Toledo, Ohio. It was love at first sight, but Dad was definitely a catch that took some taming. Stories have it that Mom’s father, a Philadelphia cop, liked to stroke his gun while talking to Dad about his intentions towards my mother. They made a beautiful couple. I have their wedding picture on my desk at school. Once, one of my students asked me who those people were in the picture. I looked at him quizzically and he said, “You know – that lady from Gone With The Wind and that movie star.”

My parents would have been married fifty-seven years this April.

We remember what a handsome guy Dad was. What a funny guy he was. If he got tired on a shopping trip with Mom, he would quickly walk around the store and touch all the merchandise. “There,“he’d say to Mom. “I’ve touched everything for you. Let’s go.”

We remember Dad as a war veteran. He liked to remind us that he was there in Pearl Harbor at the beginning of World War II, and he was there at the end, as Japan surrendered. He was a modest war hero, one who didn’t talk about his service duty. But he proudly wore his Pearl Harbor Survivor hat wherever he went.

Neil Sardinas best summed up my Dad recently in a comment he made to my sister. I am paraphrasing, but he said that Dad was quite a guy…a tough guy, a war hero, but yet the kind of man who would let his daughters, Lien and Laurel, play hairdresser and put ribbons in his hair.

We will all carry our special memories of Dad in our hearts. But if we look carefully enough, we will see him in others.

If you look closely, you will see my Dad behind and beside my mother as he holds her up while she begins to independently care for her health needs. Stop by our house at 5:00 on Saturdays; he’ll be there watching the East Enders with Mom.

If you look at me, you’ll see him at my side as I scour the yard sales and flea markets looking for that piece of junk that is really a treasure. You’ll hear him in my jokes and wry comments, as we shared a similar sense of humor.

When we were little kids, my dad was a rough and tumble daddy. We’d crawl all over him and do somersaults on his stomach. All you have to do is look at my brother with Reba, and you will see my father.

My father will be hovering over my sister, watching over her and guiding her as she raises her daughter, Reba Jean.

Reba Jean. The light of our lives. My father’s special “Bao Bao,” his treasured granddaughter. Helen tells us that Reba’s first spoken word was Pop-Pop. And that was also the first word she learned to write.
 

Reba loved her Pop-Pop. This Christmas she gave Glenn a cap with the Chinese character for the word “hero” written on it. He was delighted with his gift. However, we all were touched when all on her own Reba threw herself into Dad’s arms and said,” You’re my hero, too.”

When Helen explained to Reba what had happened to Dad, she told her that Pop-Pop would always be in her heart. Reba thoughtfully digested that information, and then asked her Mom a bunch of questions on the drive over to Bubbe’s.

“Is Pop-Pop in my heart?”
“Yes Reba.”
“Is Pop-Pop in Mommy’s heart?”
“Yes Reba.”
“Is Pop-Pop in Bubbe’s heart?”
“Yes Reba”
“Is Pop-Pop in Uncle’s heart?”
“Yes Reba”
“Is Pop-Pop in Aunt Barbara’s heart?”
“Yes Reba”
“Is Pop-Pop in the Survivors heart?”

So there you have it. Dad hasn’t left us. He’s here. In our hearts.

Lucy the Wonder Dog

When I was younger, I used to pray for my Prince Charming to find me.  I was sometimes lonely, and I wanted a companion with whom I'd travel through life.  God answered my prayers, but not as I expected.  He sent me a dog.  Yea God! Good move on Your part.

Lucy Dogge was my first pet as an adult.  We met in Atlanta, Georgia.  My sister had a home there, and I flew down one day with an empty dog crate and every intention of filling it with a dog from the local pound. Helen and I spent an afternoon walking up and down the kennel.  Helen kept steering me to a sad looking beagle on his last days; but, sweet as he was, the beagle just didn't call my name.  She also kept steering me away from the filthy, scrawny, flea-infested grey poodle with pleading eyes. When I saw another visitor considering the poodle, I snapped up the card and Ladybird was mine. I promptly renamed her Lucy after my favorite comedienne and my favorite soap opera actress.

Lucy was a mess. Within twenty-four hours, she'd infested my sister's house with fleas.  I bathed her and thought she was bleeding because the bath water turned red from the Georgia clay caked in her fur.  She had to be spayed, and she was shaved at the vet's.  When they brought her out to me, I didn't recognize the bundle in the tech's arms.  "That's my dog?" I yelped. "What the heck did you do to her?"  She looked like a big naked rat. Helen and I drove the dogs back to Pennsylvania to visit their grandparents.  At every pit stop, folks would fawn over Helen's basset.  They'd look at mine and ask, "What is it?"

Eventually, Lucy got her cute back.  She wore ribbons in her hair making her ears look like ponytails.  She gladly dressed in costumes.  Kids came to the house at Halloween more excited about seeing Lucy in her costume than about the candy.  Everybody in my new neighborhood knew her and her mom.  One of the neighbor boys would knock on my door and ask if Lucy could come out and play.  He'd cuddle up with her on the steps and tell her all of his secrets. When his mom, who could see my steps from their house, called him home to dinner, he'd open the door and let her in.  My students frequently made me laugh when they used her as the main character in their creative writing stories. Lucy the Wonder Dog was quite a sleuth!  She loved to be outside, so she'd hold court on my steps and greet the world as it passed by our house.

Lucy's health was not the best.  Her first teeth cleaning resulted in her losing a bunch of teeth.  By the end of her days, she'd get pink bows in her hair to match the pink tongue hanging out of her mouth.  Helen once took my niece to a pig roast.  When Reba was gifted with a pig tooth, she said she was going to give it to Lucy because she didn't have many of her own teeth. My dog's back was bad, but my vet at the time took good care of her.  I will always be thankful for Dr. Thompson.  When I vacationed in Europe, my parents babysat the dog.  Her back went out.  Dr. Thompson stayed open so they could bring her down (an hour and a half drive), and he refused to charge them for the visit.  Despite her poor health, Lucy lived to be seventeen years old.  I will always believe the power of love sustained her.

I was with her when she took her final sleep.  My colleagues at work were as compassionate and caring as if I'd lost a human child.  My students were sad for me.  Some cried.  Many told me about their dead pets.  All of them treated me gently for days.  If you know middle school children, you know that good behavior does not come naturally to them. I was touched.

I didn't know if I'd ever be able to own another dog.  But two months later, I was looking at FARM's page of adoptable dogs.  I wanted one very different from my Lucy, so I wouldn't compare them.  Then, I spotted Trixie's picture.  She looked like she was smiling, so I decided she was smiling at me.  I brought her home, and she was, indeed, very different from little Lucy.

How different you ask?  Look for a future blog about Trixie the Demon Dog.  I will reveal her secrets then.