How I broke my toe
Published October 26, 2015 by

How I broke my toe

Late Friday afternoon I spoke on the phone to a woman about a cat she owned a few years ago. She recently applied to adopt a new cat from the animal rescue where I volunteer and I needed to find out what veterinarian she used.

As we were chatting, I realized she sounded like someone — Linda Belcher from the animated series “Bob’s Burgers.” I’m not a major fan; I’ve only seen it a few times. But the voice resemblance was so strong that I couldn’t stop laughing after we hung up, and I ran up the basement stairs to tell Mike about it.

 

 

I don’t normally run up the stairs —which aren’t carpeted, by the way — but I did this time in my exuberance. And I broke my toe.

I screamed and hopped around then I fell down and screamed some more. Mike checked it out and deemed it broken. (Since he’s an Eagle Scout, I tend to believe him when it comes to stuff like this.)

It was bruised, swollen and a little crooked. I couldn’t walk without limping, and I still can’t. It’s my first broken bone.

I Googled it and found that going to a doctor would probably be a waste of time since it wouldn’t be splinted. The next day, after a painful trip to Trader Joe’s during which I actually started to cry in the produce section, I kept it elevated and iced. Mike wrapped it in an ace bandage to keep the swelling down.

I spoke to the Linda sound-alike a few more times. I ended up approving her application and on Saturday she adopted a kitten from the off-site adoption center at Petsmart where I volunteer — our 200th adoption! (We opened this adoption center in April 2014, so that’s 200 cats in a year and a half! It’s an exciting milestone.)

I realized I still had a voice mail from the Linda sound-alike on my phone and played it for Mike.

Me: “See! Doesn’t she sound just like Linda?!”

Mike: “Uh, maybe a little. Actually, not really.”

Oh.

Great.

Sigh.

 

I was going to share a photo of my toe, but it's too gross and I don't want to scare you away.
I was going to share a photo of my toe, but it’s too gross and I don’t want to scare you away.

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Remembering last year on “Back to the Future Day”
Published October 21, 2015 by

Remembering last year on “Back to the Future Day”

My dad died one year ago today. The last time I saw him was two days earlier, on Oct. 19, when we had lunch at Friendly’s. I’m pretty sure that was his very last meal at a restaurant.

And, as everyone knows, today is also the date that Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd reach in Back to the Future II, Oct. 21, 2015. I gotta say, if my dad had to die, I’m disappointed that it didn’t happen on this date instead.

For one thing, obviously, this is just a cooler date. Right? And also, he could’ve attended our wedding and heard about our trip to Scotland and I could have told him about how we drove through his old Scottish neighborhood. I also would’ve brought him back some shortbread cookies, which that you can get in the US, but they taste better in Scotland for some reason.

Oh well.

I miss him.

I’ve noticed something about how my dad’s death has changed how I feel about Halloween. It’s unfortunate that his funeral was a few days before Halloween, but it’s not like we could’ve done anything about that. I feel like the whole Halloween season has this shitty halo around it now, sort of how my mom’s death, which happened Dec. 13, 2006, created a shitty halo around Christmas. It’s just never the same after something like that happens so close to a holiday.

I’ve never been one of those super enthusiastic Halloween people, anyway.  I like a good party and dressing up can be fun. But there were many years when I didn’t acknowledge it in any way.

This year, though, I can’t help but view Halloween as a silly, hokey thing. (And furthermore, what’s up with our national obsession with zombies?)

Of course, that won’t stop me from going to a Halloween party this year, and I know it’ll be a great time. But I just feel like I just no longer “get it.” Maybe next year will be better, or maybe I’m just getting old.

Life goes on.

 

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At my parents’ 50th anniversary party in 2003.

Caption for featured photo: My family went to Bushkill Falls in the Pocono Mountains when I was 9 or 10 and my dad and I rode these carts down a mountain. I remember being terrified! My dad took this photo and I love how we’re elevated and can see the winding path that runs through the woods, and how nobody else was around. It wasn’t often that we spent one-on-one time together and I’ve always remembered this.

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How opening an envelope gave me closure
Published October 16, 2015 by

How opening an envelope gave me closure

The other night I came home to find a business-sized envelope addressed to me in a woman’s handwriting in blue ink.

“What’s this?” I muttered and opened it.

Inside was my original birth certificate, birth registration certificate from the Office of Vital Statistics, and my Social Security card. There was no note, but there didn’t need to be one, because only one person would be in the position to have them.

I immediately understood why I couldn’t find these things years ago. I’d assumed they got lost in the shuffle during one of my moves. With a mental shrug, I had replaced my birth certificate and SS card as I needed them, and didn’t give it much thought.

Here they were now, in my hands, sent by someone I’ve never met, but with whom I have something in common: A man. For me, it was years ago, and she’s with him currently.

FullSizeRender(32)I don’t know why they were sent, why now, or which party decided to send them. But I received so much more than some pieces of paper.

Having the originals gives me comfort, especially since both of my parents are gone now.

And it also gives me that closure that I never received when things ended. I thought maybe we could meet 30 years from now and have a fine chuckle over the messes we created for each other when we were young and spry, but receiving this envelope makes that unnecessary. When you assume someone you were with for 11 years now hates you, and then they perform a simple act of kindness and you realize they probably don’t, it’s a huge relief.

I briefly considered mailing a thank you note, since Mike and I are about to mail a bunch related to our wedding and we have a box of them. I even thought of three simple and sincere sentences of gratitude. But I decided to send my gratitude into the universe instead.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

 

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Living with dog dementia: Is that an overripe banana on the floor or did she poop in the house again?
Published October 5, 2015 by

Living with dog dementia: Is that an overripe banana on the floor or did she poop in the house again?

Despite my attempt at humor in the title of this post, I’m feeling pretty concerned right now. I wrote a few months ago about how Sassy, who is 15, was diagnosed with dog dementia, also known as canine cognitive disorder. Her vet recommended supplements, and we noticed a big difference in her after just a few days. She seemed more clear-minded, quicker, more active, more normal. Granted, the pacing was still happening, but it became less of a focus for her.

But now she seems to be blacksliding.

So many things have happened in the past week.

  • She keeps falling down the stairs. Like, tumbling, rolling, down. We’ve been carrying her, but she doesn’t like it, so she’s been getting upset — she grunts and yelps and gives us what we call nibbles, basically opening her mouth and pretending to bite us. That’s progressed to actually biting us. Well, Mike. It’s happened twice this weekend.
  • She can’t really jump up onto the bed or couch anymore without numerous tries or help from us. This morning after her walk, she couldn’t even hop up the three steps from the sidewalk to our front door without a few attempts. Motor difficulties is something that accompanies dementia, according to this site.
  • One of the classic signs of dementia in dogs is that they’ll stand at the hinge side of the door rather than at the side that opens. Despite all the other stuff we’ve been seeing, it was somewhat of a comfort that she hadn’t been doing that. But, she started doing that a few days ago.
  • She peed in my bathroom the other day, which I think she used to see as one of her safe, cozy places and not a place she’d soil. Not only did she pee, she started lapping it up before I had a chance to clean it up. This is really abnormal behavior.
  • She’s been pooping and peeing in other places of the house, another dementia symptom that’s increasing. It doesn’t seem to matter if she’s just been walked or just been outside in the back. Forgetting house training is another symptom; she seems to be confused about when and where she’s supposed to go. Every time she goes in the house, she seems really ashamed. We just clean it up and pet her and comfort her — it’s not her fault.
  • She doesn’t seem as interested in food anymore. We’ve been giving her this wet food since she’d been on these supplements and she usually dances on her back legs with a happy look on her face, eager to get her chicken stew. But she stopped doing that this week.

Last Friday we picked her up from the pet hotel and as we were getting out of the car, her bottle of omega 3 liquid fell to the ground and shattered. So she went without that until Monday. (Her vet was closed all weekend due to the Pope visiting Philly and it’s stupid that the omega 3 comes in a freaking glass bottle.)

I noticed a marked change in her over those days of being off her supplements, and now that she’s back on them, she’s still exhibiting those same behaviors.

Then again, she’ll have moments where she’s her old self again. I was out a few nights ago at a work thing and Mike said she was running around downstairs like she used to.

I’m hoping that the fact that she was off her supplements for three days last week (last Friday, Saturday and Sunday) might have something to do with her current behavior. Hopefully in another few days she’ll get back to how she was before we left for Scotland. I feel awful that we left her.

She saw her vet in July and the vet said her organs are healthy and strong and her system is in good working order. This makes things even more difficult because it’s a quality of life issue for her, not necessarily a medical one in the strictest sense.

I think we’ll observe her this week as Mike and I write our wedding thank you notes and go about our routines, and if we don’t see any improvement, we’ll bring her back to the vet. I read about a medication, Anipryl (generic is selegiline), that became available a few years ago for canine dementia and it’s shown promising results, so maybe it’s time to resort to that. The supplements were the first step.

This is so hard.

She’s been by my side as my fiercely loyal best friend since 2004.

I love my puppy.

 

 

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