July 25
Rar! We were just going for a walk around the pool, just me and him and we were maybe going to go for a swim, maybe, and we were walking towards it and we were thinking well, maybe we'll go for a swim, raar, and so he stuck his foot in the water and said that it was okay, well, he doesn't really talk so no, he didn't SAY it was okay, but I understood that he MEANT that it was okay, because I knew what he meant and so we were getting ready to maybe go in, maybe because monsters don't always like getting wet without a real reason, but it was hot and raar, monsters DO get hot so we thought that floating around in the pool might be just the thing to do. It had been more than a half hour since we'd eaten anything and so we were getting ready to go in, when this HUGE THING appeared over our heads! RAR! RAAAR!! RAAARRRR!! Not that we were scared, but we decided to just go have another hotdog and look for a tree to climb.
Firstly:
Do you have an opinion on the mp3 thing? Are any of you downloading it? Do you want to know who it is? Do you care? It gives me stupid pleasure to inflict music on you. If you listen to it really loudly and have someone curse near you, you can pretend you're driving through traffic with me!
More Dog Talk. I Can't Help It:
(if you're sitting there all "Goddammit, when will Dana stop making us read about her stupid dog and talk about retards or BS or something else", well, go fuck yourself. I love my dog. More than I love you. Plus, I dont know you, so I can't write about you, can I? )
I saw a dead dog yesterday. It's not everyday you can make a statement like that, but it's absolutely true. I went to spring Grayson from the animal hospital after her first day of chemotherapy (it's a remarkable system: Nick drops her off in the morning because I'm far too much of a pussy to be able to just hand her over and watch them lead her away. I'd stand there and cry. I get to pick her up when she's all happy to go home). The place is busy, I've never been able to go right in and out, and usually there aren't cool or fun animals to play with while I wait. Yesterday, there was a menagerie! A slobbery, happy rottweiler/pitbull puppy who was having his nuts sawed off the next day (note: this is not to say that they use saws at this particular veterinary hospital. I do not believe that they do. They are swell. Dandy, even!) was running all over the place begging for love and scratches from all the people waiting for their pets to be released.
When I finally got up to the counter to pay my bill and collect her medicine and discharge papers a woman comes in and stands right next to me. Plenty of room at the counter, she is literally standing shoulder to shoulder with me. At this, my personal space meter goes off, and I shoot her a dirty look which she appears not to notice, or chooses to ignore and she just stays where she is, until someone behind the counter says "Hit, right?" She nods, and moves away. About 40 seconds later a man walks in holding up a bundled sheet. I look at him and what he's carrying and decide that it's a small puppy or a cat. I smile at him. He steps around to the front of the counter. I am still waiting for the tech to give me the prednisone, and am unwilling to step back onto the pee-soaked floor (the friendly Rottie met up with a sort of timid Husky who responded to an enthusiastic sniffing by peeing all over the floor, in about 10 different places). The man holding the bundle speaks to the woman behind the counter. I hear them say "cremation", the man says "my dog was hit by a car." I realize right then, holy shit, the dog is dead.
It was a dead, dead dog. The woman standing next to me? The owner of the dead dog. I thought mean "Ugh, get the fuck away from me, it's hot and get out of my buffer zone" thoughts about a woman who's dog had been hit by a car that day. The passing of the dog over the counter (It was a little white dog, but not little and white the way I say that Grayson is a little white dog, which she is. This was a fluffy little white dog, like a..uh..little poodle or something) made me sad, as it did everyone else waiting. Everyone got very, very quiet. The slobbery Rottweiler stopped panting around. The hyperactive, growling miniature Pinscher grew still. Everyone, I guess, knew. Something in the way the legs hung down when he handed it over, or the way it no longer had the smell and movement of a living dog. The silence lasted until she took the dog away, just for those few seconds, then it broke, and everything went back to normal.
Except, of course, for the woman to whom the dog belonged. She filled out the paperwork to have it cremated, while we all shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, thankful that it was someone else's pet. When they finally lead Grayson out (this was after, for your information, the woman walked in with a duck on a piece of cardboard under a milk carton. Why the duck? I can not say. It looked neither pleased nor displeased to be under a milk carton, and wore the expression of a duck who was thinking: "I am a duck. Duckduckduck. Duck? Duck! Duck! Duckduckduckduckduckduck!! Duck! DUCK!" Which is, quite honestly what I think that most ducks have on their minds all the time) we greeted one another like we'd been separated for a year. Like I'd been away fighting a war and she was being boarded the entire time. She jumped up onto me and I lunged down and her and we embraced, or at least as much as someone can be hugged by their little white dog. When I stood, the crying woman was still filling out paperwork and the tech handed the now empty sheet back to the man.
It's a simple matter of human nature to feel sorry for other people when something bad happens to them. That's how we are. I don't yet know what it's like to go back to my house and not be greeted enthusiastically by my animals when I open the door. I don't know what it's like to hear that silence when there should be barking. I will. Pets die just like people die. It's also human nature to be relieved as holy shit that I got to take my happy dog (she was fine, by the way. The first bout of chemo went well) home.
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How can I tell you that I love you, I love you
but I can't think of right words to say
I long to tell you that I'm always thinking of you
I'm always thinking of you, but my words just blow away, just blow away