dysfunctional. d-y-s-f-u-n-c-t-i-o-n-a-l.

my parents bring a smile to my face, even in a sad time such as this, when we are all trying to move forward after losing sadie. i sent the link for my blog to them today; until now they never knew it existed (and i'm still not sure dad knows what a blog is...).

i called them tonight on my way home from work and they both told me that the last entry, the one about losing our sadie, brought them both to puddles of tears just as it did for me as i wrote it. dad swears his keyboard is officially waterlogged.

now, something you should know...after sadie, i am the most perfect one in the family. at least in my parents eyes. even when i mess up, they are proud of how i recover from my mistakes. so of course, after reading the blog entry about sadie, they decided i am a brilliant writer and probably should be published. they forwarded it on to the relatives so that they may also get a brief glimpse at moi, the rising star. (remember, i'm speaking for my folks people, i really do have the slightest bit of modesty...)

anyway, i told them not to make such a big deal about the blog, that it's just an online diary and, to quote bridgette jones, everyone knows diaries are filled with crap. too true. but the more i said don't make a big deal about it, the bigger deal it became and so on, to the point were my mom was calling my aunt to make sure she didn't read any other entries, and my dad asking if my brother knows about it and, if not, should he not say anything?

yowza. we know how to make things complicated. long story short, this is my blog and it goes out to millions of people, if they so choose to view it, so obviously i'm not going to say anything too incriminating or embarrassing, etc. (not that there is anything like that; remember, i'm perfect). i don't care who reads it. love it or leave it, i say.

personally, i think my parents will love it.

the last thing i said to my mom was that i had to go now so i could make fun of my parents in my latest blog entry. she said, "do you know how to spell dysfunctional?" and i said yes, i'm planning to use the word at least three times.

one more just for luck...dysfunctional.

love you mom & dad.

loss.

Just after midnight on Monday August 20th, my favorite dog in the whole world, Sadie, had to be put to sleep. She had an enlarged heart and was experiencing arrhythmia and constant seizures. Once she got sick and had her first horrifying seizure last Thursday, things progressed from bad to worse very quickly and at the advice of the vet, she went to sleep forever, lying in the laps of her (my) mom and dad, her tail still wagging until the very end.

sadie loved to fish, loved to swim and was the smartest dog i'd ever met. she loved her biscuits and putting on her "jewelry" (collar) so she could show it off to everyone. she was more human than any human being i've met except that, unlike humans, sadie loved us all unconditionally. i will never forget her and neither will anyone else who's life she touched, i know that for sure.

i am crying as i write this, i have been since i found out about her death and probably will cry many more times to come. she is being cremated and i believe we will scatter her remains at the lake, her favorite place. mom and dad can't even bring themselves to look at the dock, let alone walk down there.

there's a very big empty place in our lives that sadie once filled. i miss her so much.

goodbye for now, sadie girl...

oh sadie girl...

i'm soooo tired tonight; i've been cleaning all evening and doing like, i don't know, eighty loads of laundry?! at least it feels that way. i have been so busy with homework and other things that i've taken little time to stop and smell the roses. but i think i'll try to do that a little more. so much can happen so quickly! i think a lot of us have learned that lesson lately.

this past thursday night my favorite little puppy (ok, she's 12 years old but she'll always be a puppy to me...) had to be rushed to the animal emergency room after a very scary seizure. i wasn't there, but as far as i could tell from my dad's very accurate description and my mom's sobbing, it was very scary. sadie's legs went right out from under her and she shook and stiffened and lost control of everything...

turns out she's got heart disease, an arrhythmia and now they have to figure out what to do next. she ended up having to stay in the hospital two nights because her heart raced at 200 bpm! but she's back at the cabin now, resting. sleeping a lot from what my folks have told me. she'll have an echo cardiogram on monday and i guess we'll know more then. i'm scared and worried and my mom and dad sound very concerned and sad. i wish i were there. sadie is a big part of our family.

i will hope for the best. she's got a really good spirit and loves fishing for sunnies too much to say goodbye. i love her very much and hope she's dreaming of eating cheese and doggie paddling around the dock right now. xoxo. love you saiders...

ok, i have goossebumps.

i LOVE the coen brothers and tommy lee jones. i totally can't wait to see this...

not even remotely interesting to anyone but me.

here are pictures that make me smile. but i am posting them purely for my own enjoyment. sorry. i can be a bit egocentric at times...



i took this one on our honeymoon in aruba. tony likes it a lot and thinks i should send it to the shoe company and ask them to use it in one of their ads. he has a very good eye for quality, to be sure.

this is also from the honeymoon (and yes, we pretty much spent every moment at the private island owned by the resort we stayed at, i highly recommend it). there are flamingos everywhere, kind of like the squirrels in the parks here in the cities, and at first it's very cool and you can't get enough snapshots and you feed them your extra fries from lunch. big mistake. after a while, these buggers follow you every where and if you are innocently laying on your beach chair and happened to point at something with your finger, they will bite it in the off chance that it's a flesh colored french fry. moochers.














this picture is for my good friend rose and her main man erich. for our wedding, they gave us this awesome portable dvd player on which we watched episodes of the sopranos all the way to and from aruba. it rocked and hopefully the thumbs up expresses that. by the way, this is obviously on the trip home, as i actually have a tan. usually, i'm pasty white. very attractive. easy, i'm taken fellas.

ok, enough for now. i should be doing homework (as usual). i am a slave to school and resent that. which is ironic considering i'm graduating with a degree in education. i love to torture myself.

yikes!

if my parents dog could watch this, she might not be so quick to "chase the munks"...

(definitely view with sound)