God, my head hurts
Sep. 22nd, 2006 04:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cleolindaA business deal (well, as much "business" as you can have at a non-profit) fell through for my stepfather, and while I feel bad for him, I am so relieved because this means he and my mother won't be going to a related convention in Orlando next weekend. The problem, you see, is that poor little Meko is blind and diabetic now, and she has to have an insulin shot with food in the morning and at night. Well, I say "poor little," but actually she's quite chipper, still very opinionated, and prowls around pretty well on her own. She's gotten very, very thin, though--this from a dog whose nickname used to be Wide Load ("Y'all! That's so mean!"). But my mom was predicting that Meko was in her final decline... back last November. I said I thought she'd troop on for a good while longer, if only because I saw how much energy she had. I mean, it's not a lot of energy, because Meko's always been a quiet curl-up kind of dog. But there was no change in that energy level, you know? She still sits there and pants and smiles so hard that her eyes have to shut to make room for it.
Which is great and all, but I am not very good at giving shots. I've only had to give two shots total, while my parents were out of town overnight, so I was kind of dreading having to give four days' worth. And then Wednesday happens, and Lucky's gone, even though he was a healthy dog. You can imagine how easy it would be for something to happen to Meko, who's a few years older and actually ailing, and has been ailing for a long time, and how awful it would be if 1) I were home alone when it happened and 2) George wasn't here to be with the pomeranian he raised from a puppy. So while I feel bad that work's not going well at the moment for him, I am ridiculous kinds of relieved that they're not going anywhere after all. I couldn't handle something happening to two dogs in one month, and I couldn't handle worrying that something would.
While I was looking for the entry about Meko's shot, I clicked on the "dogs" tag and found a few things that made me smile:
>> "I dropped a quarter out of my jeans pocket, didn't see where it went, and found my dog sleeping with his face on it this morning. We're now referring to it as 'Lucky's savings.' It has since been moved to the First National Bank of Dresser."
>> "Mom's doing our now-weekly amateur steaming of the carpets, and the dogs are upstairs hiding with me. Also, Lucky is trying to dig through the hall carpet outside my door. I kind of dread breaking it to him that China's not under there."
>> "All three dogs came home from the vet on Saturday with clean new Easter-print bandannas around their necks. The poms wanted theirs off pretty quickly, but Lucky is still wearing his--and before you start in on me about how making a dog wear a bandanna is tacky and/or cruel, he's worn them before, and he's always very sad when you take the bandanna away to wash it, and always very happy when it comes back. Don't judge my dog for being stylish, okay?"
>> "The bad news is that I was up until one o'clock cleaning, and then Lucky woke me up at about 3:30 by jumping on the bed, chasing his tail for about three minutes solid, and then getting right up in my face all 'Hi! Hi! Hi!' So I got up, got vaguely dressed, and took him outside in the freezing-ass cold. Turns out no one took him out before going to bed, so he must have been pretty hysterical by three in the morning. And then he was so happy to have gone that he was hyper for a good half hour afterwards. In conclusion: there was no sleep."
>> "Lucky (my English cocker spaniel) seems to have ingested something--something dropped on the floor, I guess; as best we can figure, it was either a Halloween candy bar or one of Sister Girl's Adderall, because he could not sit still last night. But in a really freaky way. Like he would sit there, and he would look at you, and then he would run across the room, sit down, and stare at you again. He kept me up all night jumping on and off my bed, trying to dig through the bathroom tiles (SCRITCHYSCRITCHYSCRITCHY), and breathing really, really fast. Not panting; it was normal breathing. It was just really, really--oh my God. You know what it was like? It was like when you give a GoPet coffee and they get sped up. That was exactly what it was like. And Lucky's smart, I give you that, but I don't think he's tall enough to make his own coffee yet. He seems to be okay today, but I still don't know how he found something bad to eat in the first place, and I'm really upset over this. I mean, whatever it was probably could have killed him if he were a smaller dog. Anyway, that's why you kinda got [read] The Riot Act earlier today, because my dog was chasing his own tail at five in the morning. On my spleen."
>> Adventures in the front yard, also known as "the rooster story." "The dog" by default means Lucky; I tend to refer to Sam and/or Meko by name or as "the pom(s)."
I feel like there must be other stories in there about my dogs, but if so, I didn't tag them.
Also, I thought this was sweet: my mother, who calls her mother every day to check in, told her what happened, and my grandmother started crying. "I'm just so glad I got to see him one last time," she said, referring to Saturday night when she and my great-great-aunt came over. Lucky had run over to where she was sitting on the couch and immediately parked himself on the floor, sitting upright between our knees with his back to us, a prime petting position. I hadn't realized my grandmother would miss him that much.
Another story, and I'm not making this up, hand to God: my sister's boyfriend was running late getting over from Tuscaloosa last night, and when he got here, he mentioned that he'd been pulled over by a cop for speeding. (He admitted later that he'd been going over a hundred.) The cop basically walked up to his window and said, "Son, what's the hurry?" I imagine there being a level of sarcasm here, actually. My sister's boyfriend, who is a complete sweetheart and may not have a sarcastic bone in his entire body, told him quite truthfully that he was trying to get to his girlfriend's house because her dog had died and she had gone to pieces. The cop was so touched that he let him off without a ticket.
In other news, I had a burst of creativity and decided on the title for the second Black Ribbon series--the first is still The Black Ribbon, and the second will now be The Red Queen. Given that you want the thing to have a thematic unity, that's a big thing to decide. I also decided on--well, not the final scene, because I'd always had that in mind, but "the ending" in the sense of how I'm going to dispatch one of the major antagonists. It's always hard to figure that kind of thing out, because you've got to think of something that's both appropriate and resonant without being just hideously clichéd. You don't want to go too far with the poetic justice thing, you know? And this ending came in the form of a major twist that I would have to start setting up in the second or third volume (I love how I've already assumed there's just going to be four because there are four in the first series), which gave me a huge amount of structure in terms of what I've got to have happen in order to set that up. Let's put it this way: if you were writing The Sixth Sense you're going to need to have scenes with the Bruce Willis character and other non-dead people in which they seem to ignore him, but in which it makes sense for them to ignore him (the "strained" relationship with his wife, the boy's mother who leaves the room), in order to make the twist both surprising and, in retrospect, logical. This is what I mean when I say that you can figure out that certain things have to happen once you set a particular plot point in motion. You have to support an outcome with the preceding scenes. And this is why I tend to know the ending when I start a story--I know where I'm going, and roughly the path I'm going to have to follow to get there; it's the specifics I get to discover along the way.
Today's Poem Hunter delivery: "And how the chief / Of joys seems--not to suffer pain?"
From ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
eyemage: omg paper dolls. This completely made my day yesterday.
I have no idea what the hell went through some people's minds here. "KATE MOSS IN BLACKFACE WILL TOTALLY MAKE WHITE PEOPLE CARE ABOUT AFRICA!"
Premiere Magazine Honors 5 Actresses: "Annette Bening, Cate Blanchett, Sofia Coppola and Sally Field received Premiere magazine's Icon Award for their achievements in the entertainment industry at its 13th annual Women in Hollywood event. Evan Rachel Wood received the Spotlight Award for Emerging Talent at the dinner ceremony, held Wednesday at the Beverly Hills Hotel."
You Won’t See Your New Boyfriend Naked Until You Shoot Him In The Chest Day! Despite how grim it often is, I love Girls Are Pretty. I seriously don't know how they crank out a piece every single day.
An intriguing review for Gondry's The Science of Sleep.
The Fountain Wins $25,000 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Award.
Trailers for The Good Shepherd, 300, Bobby, Déjà Vu, Letters from Iwo Jima. (My understanding is that the 300 clip may have been taken down.)
Aww, Chuck.
Kate Bosworth blames her suicide murder paralysis multiple sclerosis homeless insanity breakup with Orlando Bloom on the Superman curse. Bitch, please. If that's the worst thing that happens to you because of that, you ought to break out the champagne.
ETA: This made me laugh really hard just now.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 10:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 11:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 02:05 am (UTC)<3 Calvin & Hobbes
no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 10:36 pm (UTC)It sounds like Lucky was a really great (and...interesting) dog. I'm sure you're sick of hearing it by now, but I am so sorry you lost him.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 10:37 pm (UTC)I'm not sure what it says about me, but at the very least it indicates I will continue reading GAP daily. Although I would've done that anyway. Er.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 10:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 01:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 10:55 pm (UTC)Oh gods, I just snorted a huge clump of mucus on my arm. That story will never get old.
The cop was so touched that he let him off without a ticket.
See, that's a true wonder you've got there, given that, "[I] was trying to get to [my] girlfriend's house because her dog...died and she['s] gone to pieces," is about as made-upish a story as can be imagined.
I just wanted to add...
Date: 2006-09-22 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 10:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 12:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 06:53 am (UTC)(Warning, may be slightly inappropriate. There are pictures of a girl in a tshirt and underwear.)
http://www.gamegirladvance.com/archives/2002/10/26/sex_in_games_rezvibrator.html
no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 01:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 02:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 09:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 09:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 11:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 04:18 pm (UTC)I just want to say that my heart goes out to you so much, and I wish there was something, anything, I or anyone else could say to help. It's been over 5 years since I lost my cocker spaniel, but reading all this has put tears in my eyes, reminding me of her (but not in a bad way). My poor beagle was subjected to a bit more attention than she really wanted, as I thought of what a mess I'd be if I lost her.
Sorry, I'm rambling. I just needed to add some more internet hugs from a stranger to what you've already gotten, and completely agree with everyone who's said that the grief is to be expected.
::big hugs::
no subject
Date: 2006-09-29 07:21 am (UTC)I blame the curse of She Looks Like Skeletor.