Here’s something I didn’t know. When Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day was little, he traveled around singing at retirement homes. Apparently he was liked well enough that when he was five years old, his music teachers helped convince an independent record label to put out one of his songs, Look for Love.
Tell me you’re not going to have that stuck in your head all day today.
The b-side of that record consists of a woman interviewing him about how much he loves singing, and also how he’s been learning a whole lot about Jesus and the bible in nursery school. In a roundabout way, I suppose one of those things ended up helping him out quite a bit with the other.
Telling the police that you don’t own the shirt or pants or jacket you’re wearing that just so happen to be stuffed with weapons or drugs or whatever is highly suspect, but at least it’s the smallest bit plausible. It might even be true once every couple million times. Trying that with the two bags of drugs they find wrapped around your own bag, though? Not a chance.
During a search of Florence, a deputy discovered two plastic baggies “wrapped around his penis.” One baggie contained “cocaine powder and cocaine base,” while the other held a “crystal substance” police identified as methamphetamine.
Questioned about the narcotics, Florence “stated the package wrapped around his penis was not his,” reported Deputy Levi Blake. It appears Florence–who has multiple cocaine convictions–did not identify the purported owner of the drugs wrapped around his penis (or whether that individual consented to their drugs being stored in such a fashion).
There are still a few things I wanted to write down, even though Tansy has moved on to the next chapter of her life. A few? Who am I kidding? There’s a lot here. I hope you have some time.
Tansy has taught me that I haven’t spent enough time with old dogs. By the time our family dog was getting old, I wasn’t around as much, and Trixie moved on to Brad when she was 7. Whenever I would see Tansy do anything unusual, I would get paranoid. “She forgets why she’s out here to pee. Is she developing dementia?” No, she’s getting old and doddling around. “She keeps changing direction when we’re walking. Is she losing her vision?” Nope, I think she’s bored.
She definitely started thinking like old people do, not having patience when they need something. When she was younger, she would stand and let me talk to people as we headed out to go pee. Not anymore. If I stood too long, she’d try and start moving. I often didn’t think Tansy had a voice, but when she would do this, I would think I heard an old lady saying “Bla bla bla…I have to poop! Let’s go!”
I’m glad that she still sort of enjoyed working sometimes, even though I could tell she was less and less keen to do it. In fact, one day, she tried to trick me into believing we couldn’t get to the mall at all. There was a bit of snow near the exact spot where we would usually cross the crosswalk, but all we had to do was walk a bit over and we could have crossed. But she acted like “No, I just can’t see a way to do this. I don’t think you’re going to the mall today.” Once we had someone’s help to convince her it could be done, she was ok, although draggy, and was especially keen to come back home, but that was one of those moments where I had it driven home that I was not a fool and it was time for her to retire. But sometimes, we would go into places like the office, and she would get so excited. I’m just happy she didn’t grow to hate working. I didn’t want to scar two dogs.
The need for extra pees never stopped, even though the numbers seemed to indicate the urine was concentrating as it should. So since things weren’t getting any worse, whenever it looked like she had to pee, I just took her out. Somebody asked me if she had a schedule. I had to say “define schedule.” I have a schedule that I plan to take her out for, and I always did, but there were usually extra trips.
One thing that surprised me was that the vet suggested that I give her more food! We’re not exactly lighting the world on fire with our amount of activity. But somehow her metabolism is devouring the amount I was giving her and she was losing more weight than she should. So we did, and her weight got better. The vet also said her eyes had gotten more cloudy, and she had a bit of arthritis in one hip. I didn’t even notice. But when the vet was doing the range of motion tests, she said she could see discomfort when she played with the one hip. I did notice that one time, when the fire alarm went off, Tansy did not want to go down all the stairs, which was a new development from the last time we had to do that giant stair descent.
Another thing was nobody had talked about Tansy having dandruff. Trixie had that problem, but Tansy never did…until this April. We went from no one saying a word to everyone having something to say. The vet said the flakes were mild and not to worry about them. But what flipped the flake switch? She had been having fish oil for years. I had just bathed her. I groomed her regularly. Why did they suddenly become obvious?
For a bit, she developed a persistent cough and I was worried. But eventually, it just went away. But sometimes she would start hacking and coughing at night and I would wonder what I would do if it looked like she was in serious distress and I thought I had to get her somewhere.
She also got out her barf bingo dabber and harfed back in April. The only thing that was new was we had been playing at the dog park with the person who eventually adopted her when she retired. But there’s nothing else I can think of. She’s so silent about it…and then…one of us finds it. Yuck!
Some days, she would really ask to play, and you’d think that she was full of energy, but usually she was only good for a couple of laps up and down our hall. This was a lot different than the way she used to be, but I guess she is much older now.
Also, she would run around like she used to, except she just couldn’t stop in time. You would hear her tear down the hall, and then…wam! Right into the corner! Her eyes apparently were getting cloudier, but I think she just couldn’t put the brakes on fast enough.
The circle of life continues. It was happening a few years ago when dogs Trixie’s age were passing away, but even younger ones are getting older and passing away, because they’re older now. It really makes you realize how old Tansy actually is.
This spring, she got more frisky when it looked like spring was coming for real. I said that she was talking to the groundhog and she got the early predictions. I don’t know how accurate she was, but she got more frisky than usual and really wanted to play more. She even thought a pair of big fuzzy socks would make great dog toys and I had to hide them.
The Shmans never managed to win the nephews over to liking her. They’re either indifferent, or they’re scared. Seppa can’t figure out if he likes her or not. As long as she isn’t trying to lick *him*, then he might be kind of sort of ok with her. He even giggles if she’s licking someone else. Once he laughed and said she was licking me like an ice cream cone, and another time she was spanking me with her tail. But he just finds her super unpredictable. One time, when we were going to stay there, he tried to find a way to uninvite me so the dog wouldn’t have to come. He said I looked different. I looked stinky, in fact. Apparently, the way to look stinky is to get a short hair cut. But he eventually decided maybe the dog was ok. For some reason, he was really excited to go out in the yard to find the “two dog poops that Aunt Carrot’s dog Tansy put there.” I’ve never seen anyone so excited to pick up poop.
He’s really watching things, because he noticed the sing songy way I would say her name when I would call her to me. Later, he said “Aunt Carrot,” say her name like when she listens to you.” And then he would pat his leg and imitate me. Yup, he’s watching everything.
Sukie is kind of like Seppa. He giggles when she’s running around…but if she gets too close, he gets worried. He called her “the evil dragon.” When we asked him what he would think about taking the evil dragon home, he said “No, that would be worse!” Poor Shmans doesn’t want to be evil. She might have dragon breath sometimes, but that’s about it. Poor, poor, misunderstood Shmans.
Talking about Tansy’s interactions with the little guys makes me wonder. How am I going to explain this retirement thing to them? Adults have enough trouble. How will kids take it? When Trixie retired, I never had to go through this. The only kid I had lots of time with was the huppy, and we moved away right after Trixie moved in with Brad, so didn’t see him anymore. But these little guys are going to have questions, and how do I find the right words?
For most of Tansy’s career, I didn’t have those abandonment dreams like I did with Trixie. All the dog dreams seemed to stop after Trixie passed away. But while trying to figure out where Tansy was going to go, I had a couple of them.
One of them consisted of Tansy going to the dog park with me to meet up with the person who eventually adopted her. In real life, we did go to the dog park so she could play with her other dog and we could see how they got along. Sometimes, Tansy would try and hump this dog, and she got told off by the dog, and by some miracle, Tansy listened! So, she would stand beside the dog and hump the air as if to say, “Can I get away with this?” Well, in the dream, I guess Tansy got a little overzealous, and before the two of us could stop it, she had humped this poor dog to death. That would never happen, but I guess I was worried Tansy would be too rambunctious.
The other dream I had involved us taking the dogs to play on some kind of trail, and us losing sight of Tansy. When we found her, she was trying to cross a busy street, and dodging cars. Gees! My mind knows how to let me know that this decision I’m making is weighing heavily!
This next thing is funny and sad. These 9 years I have had her, whenever I use dictation on my phone to write messages, it can never get her name right. It usually writes “Tansey” or “Kenzie”. If I say “Shmans”, it’s usually hopeless. Sometimes it rights “She mans” or “Shermans”. Well, pretty much as soon as she left, it started reliably writing “Tansy” and “Shmans”. What the heck is up with that?
I was sitting and thinking about how crazy she was when she was young. I was thinking about how hard she would run around the house after we finished a route. Then I was listening to some old recordings I had, and I found this gem recorded after she had just finished a meal. I had to laugh, because at one point I said “Aww, this is more subdued than I’d hoped!” Meanwhile, when I’m listening to that now, I know that her post-meal celebrations aren’t nearly that vigorous. Yes, the immortal Tansy is getting older. That is definite proof. Oh, and if you’re wondering what I referenced in the second recording about the sports broadcaster running commentary on his dogs eating, here it is.
Once Tansy left, I braced myself for the barrage of “Where’s your dog?” “Where’s your buddy?” “Where’s your puppy?” that I knew was coming. But I think I saw another dog do it, just like in the Trixie days. Back then, the dog came towards me, then froze and backed up. This one looked at me and barked a few times. It was like she actually asked “Where’s your dog?”
I just have two more things she did recently that made me laugh, so I had to write them down. The first was when we had COVID. As each of us had the worst of it, she couldn’t stop licking us. I had just heard about COVID-sniffing dogs, and wondered if that was what she was picking up on. We’ll never know, but she stopped being so obnoxious about the super licking as we got better.
But the goofball was obsessed with me whenever I would climb the stairs. I’ve started going down all our stairs for exercise, and then coming back up. Whenever I would get back, she would run over and lick me. Yuck! I know I’m sweaty, but I don’t want to be a human salt lick.
And those are all the notes I have. It was hard doing this one, because I know that she’s off starting her new life, and I won’t have nearly as much to say about her. I’ll pass on updates when I get them, but this will be the last time I have a big bunch of notes. We hope to have a little party in a park to let a bunch of people who loved her around the office come and say goodbye, and we might get some pictures and I’m sure I’ll have stories, but for now, this is it.
Hope you’re all enjoying your holiday Monday. Assuming you get one, of course. this August long weekend is so weird and I don’t think I’ll ever understand it as long as I live.
We’re enjoying ours, thanks for asking. The weather has been absolutely beautiful and we’ve been taking good advantage of it to do fun summer things like eat ice cream and corn on the cob, enjoy some cold beverages and relax with the radio on.
Speaking of the radio, I’m going to be on it tomorrow morning, so I’m told.
A little over a week ago, I recorded a segment with our good friend Jason Dunkerley. He’s co-hosting a weekly show on CKCU radio in Ottawa. It’s called Connection, and here’s what it’s all about.
Connection is a new weekly show which will explore the power of connection with people who are making a difference in our community and beyond.
We’ve missed out on so much connection over the past couple of years. We’ll play an eclectic mix of guest-inspired music, and through the show, connect with people and ideas across the fields of health and wellness, creativity and spirituality to deepen our understanding of what helps people to remain rooted and engaged in this changing world.
I think I fall into the creativity category. Lord knows it isn’t health.
Some of the people they talk to are Ottawa famous and some are just regular folks that they’ve met in their travels. I have some friends and family in and around Ottawa, but that’s not enough to make me Ottawa famous, I’m pretty sure.
Anyway, I’ve known Jason at least in passing for nearly 30 years and have been lucky enough to count him among my small group of very close friends for more than 20 of them, so it was easy for us to have a 15-20 minute conversation about life in a pandemic and doing our best to maintain sanity and important relationships. I think it went well. If you’d like to find out, tune in tomorrow at 8:30 A.M. Eastern time. 93.1 FM if you’re in the listening area and have a radio, CKCUFM.com if you aren’t/don’t. You should also be able to yell at your smart speaker to play the station if you’re into that. I believe it will be archived for on demand listening as well if that’s more your thing. You really have no excuse for not listening to it, you guys. Unless you just don’t want to. That’s fine. But I hope you will.
Enjoy the rest of your day, in any case. If you’re looking for me, I’m probably outside.
I just heard about Tim Horton’s dream donuts. I haven’t tried them yet, but I was curious what they’re all about and whether I should. I’m still kind of curious about them, but they remind me of the Creamy Chocolate Chill from days long ago, and the Dairy Queen royal blizzards. Funny. I also linked to the chill in that one.
Here’s a closer look at the new Dream Donuts:
The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cheesecake Dream Donut features a yeast shell donut with a peanut butter-flavoured cheesecake filling, dipped in chocolate fondant and topped with colourful chocolate candy bites and a drizzle of Reese’s Peanut Butter sauce.
The Birthday Cake Confetti Dream Donut features a Birthday Cake ring donut that’s dipped in strawberry fondant, showered in confetti sprinkles and then finished off with a rosette of buttercream.
The S’mores Dream Donut consists of a ring donut packed with a rich chocolate filling, dipped in marshmallow-flavoured fondant and topped with graham cracker crumble and a drizzle of chocolate fondant.
Woosh! I think my pancreas is questioning how much I do love it, and thinks I need to sing that song again.
The birthday cake one might not be half bad…but that peanut butter one makes me dizzy just thinking about it, and so does the s’mores one. I’m getting older. I remember when my parents would say a dessert was very rich, too rich, and I would say “What’s wrong with you? What do you mean ‘too rich’?” Ok, I still like rich stuff, but I think I get it.
These donuts don’t make me say mmm, so much as hmmm. I probably still will try them though…like a fool.
https://twitter.com/g33kgurli/status/1472081064797491203
If you’re so confident in your own immunity, would you have unprotected sex with someone who you know has an untreated STD?
I think I may use this argument the next time I’m stuck listening to some goober prattling on about his god given immune system being his vaccine. Heaven knows whether it’ll work given how so many of us tend to dig in on a position no matter how dumb or illogical it is, but it’s worth a shot.
I do know that variations on this is a stupid conversation and I’m not going to have it are very handy, though. Saved me a lot of mental anguish, they have.
Holy crap, I took a trip! I took the plunge and took a trip. I came back on Saturday, and so far I’m not dead, so I think it was a success. Through the pandemic, I would have nightmares that I’d forgotten how to travel and didn’t pack the right supplies and failed all over the place. Thankfully, that wasn’t what happened.
I admit I’m a bit of a chicken and the first trip I took was work-related. At least then I was travelling with coworkers, so if I screwed something up, someone might give me a hand. Plus, the first time I would be using ArriveCan for real, at least I could get help if needed.
My experience was mostly smooth. It was weird travelling without a dog because I could actually check in in advance, and when I got to the TSA, there was no dog drama. I went through and didn’t make a sound. Admittedly, I was with colleagues, so I didn’t have to do the assistance shuffle. Also, we went to Billy Bishop airport, the one on the island, so we didn’t deal with Pearson hell.
There were two small bumps on my trip. One was while flying to Boston. I folded my white cane and put it in the seat pocket in front of me, like I had often done. The flight attendant immediately told me I had to stow it in the overhead bin…and took it and put it up! This really bothered me because this is my cane. It’s my navigation aid. It won’t do everything in terms of getting around, but it would sure help if I needed to go somewhere. And in the event of an evacuation, you’re not supposed to open the overhead bins so I couldn’t get my cane back. Thankfully, on the way home, I just put my cane under the seat in front of me and nobody said anything, so I don’t think the canes getting taken is a Porter policy, but I’ve asked anyway.
The other one was at the hotel. We stayed at the Boston Marriott Copley Place. The staff supporting us were wonderful, and the hotel was nice, but the elevators were terrible!
Let me explain. So depending on what floor you’re on, there were two or three banks of elevators near each other, Each bank had 3 elevators in it. They were numbered a, b, c, etc. Each bank also had a panel where you told the elevators what floor you wanted. Inside the elevator car itself, there were no buttons except open, close, and maybe an alarm.
If you could see, on the panel where you requested an elevator, there was a touchscreen, you entered the number of the floor you wanted, and were informed what elevator was coming to get you. At this point you had to figure out where that was, and hustle over there before the elevator left without you.
But if you couldn’t see, you were subjected to a different experience. Below the touchscreen, there was a button with a wheelchair symbol, and three raised dots. If you pushed that button, a voice would come out of the panel saying something like “Press the button again when I reach the floor you want. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.” and so on. There were at least 38 floors in this hotel. Then, when you pressed the button again asking for a floor, it would say “proceed to elevator f.” and then it would give directions like “behind you to your right.” Sometimes, those directions were accurate, sometimes not. Also, you didn’t get any extra time to find the elevator, and it didn’t always verify that it was the elevator taking you to your desired floor. Needless to say, I didn’t use those elevators alone much.
I have seen the buttonless elevators work better in a different Marriott. In the one in Anaheim, there was a physical keypad. You would hit a long button first which would make it realize you needed accessibility help. Then you would enter your floor on the keypad, at which point it would give you directions, and give you extra time. When the elevator arrived, it would confirm that it was in fact the one you were looking for. That is an accessible experience, even though it’s weird to have an elevator with no buttons.
Designers of this stuff need to realize that they are plunking this in a building where people don’t have a chance to get familiar with idiosyncracies, so they have to make it is simple as possible.
Hotel rooms are getting weirder and weirder. They have more and more elements of surprise. Fridges are stuck in closets. Who looks in a closet for a fridge? In some fridges, they load them with items, but put sensors in there that will charge you if you even so much as jostle the items. I always worry that the interface for heat and air conditioning will be a touchscreen, or worse, there will be touchscreens that will cause me to buy things I didn’t want. The lights turn on automatically when you enter the bathroom. While I guess that’s nice, it scared the hell out of me the first time it happened. The phone in your room isn’t normal at all. If you want to call the front desk, sometimes you have to locate the “guest services” button. For reasons I don’t understand, one day, somebody activated my alarm clock, a thing that just looked like a USB hub. Then, at 6 a.m., something started beeping. So now, I have more things to check before I settle down for the night: check that the curtains are closed and make sure someone didn’t turn on my alarm. Ack. It’s supposed to be fun staying in a hotel. Eventually, it gets better, but that first day is no fun at all.
The trip itself was pretty good. I fed off the energy of everybody else, got to see people I hadn’t seen in a while, and acted totally goofy, but we had fun. I noticed that when I get nervous, I get goofy. Then a little voice in my head would say “I think you should stop now. I don’t think you’re funny anymore.” Sometimes I would listen, sometimes I wouldn’t. Oops.
And I’m so happy, because I was able to do ArriveCan all by myself! I did it on the laptop because I wasn’t sure if I would run into trouble if I tried to do it on the phone. But it worked perfectly. So this is a message to past me. I held up my phone, my qr code went boop, and all went well.
I would ask what kind of person would try drinking hand sanitizer to beat a breath test, but I think most of us know the answer. And if a few of us don’t, the circumstances will explain everything.
Also, her last name seems appropriate.
Nutter, from Beverley, admitted drink-driving and using a vehicle likely to cause danger of injury on April 7.
The court heard a cop spotted her “swerving violently all over the road” in her white Suzuki Swift and ordered her to stop.
All the tyres on the car were flat and the windscreen was smashed and had two noticeable impact marks.
There was also dried blood on a rear door and a smear of blood on a front headlight.
Nutter’s eyes were glazed and she twice refused to provide a breath sample.
She eventually blew 52mcg of alcohol in 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35mcg.
Recorder Alex Menary told the court that Nutter had put hand sanitiser in her mouth in an effort to reduce the alcohol reading but it did not work.
A good hand sanitizer, according to the article and some Googling I just did, contains anywhere from 60 to 90% alcohol.
It sounds like she may as well.
The story also notes that Nutter nearly went to jail a year earlier for possessing crack and heroin with intent to supply. I shudder to think what she ate to get out of that one.
I don’t know what happened right after my sleep study…let’s just blame Omicron for screwing up scheduling, but I didn’t hear from them at all. Finally, in March, I reached out and asked if I had missed a memo and was supposed to do anything. Suddenly, I was sent some crazily inaccessible forms and was asked to fill them out. Once I did, I was told I would talk to the sleep physician in June in person. Because life’s mean, my COVID infection kind of incinerated those plans, but they got me in in Early July. Luckily, I could come to Waterloo and I didn’t have to go to Paris.
The sleep physician was very nice and told me a lot of enlightening things. He told me that I had mild sleep apnea, but it’s probably closer to moderate since the quality of my sleep in the lab was dirt poor. But all those James Bond movie wires really do their job because they got lots of info on me. I can’t remember all my stats, but during REM sleep, I stopped breathing way more, my oxygen levels dropped like crazy and my throat muscles collapsed several times. I got more restorative sleep than I thought, but I didn’t get a lot of REM sleep, which is why it probably felt like I didn’t sleep. He told me I need a CPAP machine, and I should come back in and get wired up again, only this time, I would put on a mask and they would figure out what pressure I needed.
So, I asked him if I could come to Waterloo instead of Paris, and he said “Yeah, why did you go to Paris in the first place?” I told him that’s where the doctor sent me. Then he said “Of course you would come to Waterloo…that’s where you live!” Ok, that was easy. And then I asked the hard questions. I asked him if I could come alone and wouldn’t be obligated to bring someone. He didn’t want to commit to that, because he’s not the clinic administrator, but he said he couldn’t see why I would need someone after talking to me, because I’m perfectly capable of answering questions and following instructions. I nearly jumped for joy, especially when he said he would write a note in my file to that effect.
So I scheduled my sleep study for a few days later, and asked to speak to the clinic administrator about this nanny requirement. They said the administrator was out, and they’d ask tomorrow. They would not let me talk to them directly, and they didn’t seem really clear on this supposed policy. I’m really starting to think this “company policy” didn’t exist, because it couldn’t be explained or shown to me, and when Steve’s mom had called the Paris place to do her COVID screening for our first round of this, they asked her if she wanted a separate room. Wait, what? If you put her in a separate room, I have no way of communicating with her, and she has no way of helping me in the night. Hmmm. In any case, I guess the note was convincing enough, because I got a call in a couple days saying I was good to go.
This experience was far and away better than my Paris experience. I think the tech must have thought I was nuts because I arrived super early since I had been told that to get in the lab, you had to be buzzed in at this strange back door and I wasn’t sure if I could find it. So I gave myself a ton of time. So she brought me in and I just sat and played with my phone until it was time.
Then, she filled out all the forms with me, got me on the scale, and then let me go pee before she wired me up. She also told me some things I might have done wrong at the Paris lab. For one, I shouldn’t have put the blankets over the hand that had the pulse oxygen monitor on it because it might have given false low readings. I also shouldn’t have been on my stomach because that might have screwed up the monitors on those bands around my chest and belly, and I might have broken them…I guess if I was especially obese. Oops.
And then I put the mask on. We first tried a half mask that just goes over my nose, but I know there are other models. I have some sad news for you guys. The sleep talkin’ me bit might be dead, because once I’m wearing this half mask thing, I’m really hard to understand, and as soon as I open my mouth, the air starts feeding back through my mouth. I kind of sound like this cat.
So the only way Steve is going to understand me is if I get good at taking my mask off in my sleep, or he gets really good at translating “Oh Long Johnson” to English.
So after the tech got me to blink my eyes, snore, yawn and do other stuff, it was time to attempt another trip to the land of nod. At first, I thought it would be just as rough, but I know I did sleep some before I had a break in the middle of my sleep. I woke up, and my mask was digging into my face! Stupid me, I know I was supposed to call out if I needed something, but I had heard some beeping and chaos at one point, so I didn’t want to disturb her for a bit of discomfort, and I wasn’t sure if it was kind of like breaking in a new pair of shoes and was totally to be expected. But I found out later, when she rubbed the giant mark on my face, that I should have called out. Oops.
But then! I went back to sleep and I had a wickedly vivid dream about a bunch of us blind folks all having a sleep lab at once and somehow we broke a bunch of stuff, stole other stuff, and would owe $4000. I woke up panicking…and then excited that I had had a dream in the sleep lab! An honest to god very vivid and detailed dream! My readings must have gone nuts or something because she said I was awake and would I like to stop the sleep study now because I only had 15 minutes left. I asked her if she had enough data, and she wouldn’t say, so I tried to sleep for the last 15 minutes, but I think I was so excited about dreaming while all wired up that I didn’t sleep.
She then helped me fill out the post-sleep study forms, and when we got to some questions about her, she asked me if I wanted to fill those ones out too. I did fill them out because I had nothing bad to say about her. But I thought it was nice that she asked.
And in even better news, when I came home, I had life in my bones. I only napped for about an hour, and that was at the end of the day after calling around to different providers of CPAP machines. I must have been more awake, because I was able to wash all the glop out of my hair in one go. Or maybe they use better glop. And somebody commented that my voice sounded different! So yeah, I think I need one of these suckers. Maybe we can tame my blood pressure after all.
So after calling around to a few places, I have chosen a machine provider. It’s so hard to know if you’re making the right decision, but the consultant I spoke to from this place seemed to know a lot more details about insurance requirements and other stuff. Let’s hope I’ve made a good choice.
Also, apparently there’s a CPAP machine shortage, just like everything else, and I’ll have to go on a waiting list. They’re not sure how long.
So here we go into the sleep apnea journey. Wish me luck.
I’ve wanted to write this post for a while, but I couldn’t find the words. Now that some time has passed, I figure I’d better find them, and fast!
I have been working on Tansy’s retirement process for a while now. It started at the beginning of the pandemic, so everything was frozen for a time. Then as things were kind of headed back to normal, I started to look seriously at where she was going to go. I would have given her to Brad, but Brad’s work hours had changed dramatically, and he was worried she wouldn’t be happy being alone so much. Her raisers couldn’t take her back because they’re getting older and already have 3 dogs. Several other options that I thought I had weren’t going to work out. I was starting to get a bit nervous. I knew that if I couldn’t find anything, the school would place her, and whatever home they chose would be a wonderful one. But if they placed her, I would probably never see her again, and I might never hear updates again either. Maybe I would, but of course the school couldn’t promise that I would. I already know how it feels to never hear about a dog again. That happened with Babs, and there was no way that that would happen with Tansy if I could help it.
Then, like magic, two really good options popped up. One was a family friend whose wife was a vet tech. But they lived far away, so there would be no chance to try and make sure it worked. The other was a local person, a friend of several friends, who specializes in taking in older dogs. I didn’t know her personally, but she came highly recommended from several people. Now, I went from having no options to having to choose, which was a good problem to have.
Eventually, I went with the local person. Tansy had a little sleepover at her place back in May, and we had met several times at a dog park with her older dog, and it just seemed like we had the same philosophy about a lot of things. A couple of weeks ago, I made the hand-over. Tansy was happy to go to her, but she kept looking at me like “Aren’t you coming too?” As I went to go inside, I got a nose to the leg trying to nudge me along in her direction.
I was a basket case that whole day. I was a basket case before she left, and I was a basket case after. It’s been two weeks, and even now, Steve and I will hear, or trip over, an imaginary dog. We’ll think of something that has to be done for the dog that isn’t here. We’ll just look at each other and say “Phantom dog!” Sometimes I think we’re improving…and then I’ll go on a trip, and I’ll come back and we’ll be worse than ever. She is entrenched in every little thing I do, and so it affects Steve too.
Thankfully I’ve already gotten some updates and Tansy is settling in beautifully. She and the other dog are figuring out how they like to play, and Tansy has started doing Labrador loops around her new home. Also, she has gotten up to mischief. The other dog was given some zucchini and didn’t finish it all, so Tansy just helped herself. What a nut! But all members of the pack seem happy with the arrangement, so I’m happy too.
I still don’t know when I’m getting a new dog. I thought it might happen quickly, which is why I hustled to get her settled in. But I’d rather have her nicely settled than wait too long and have to scramble.
What a treat! I get Brad playtime!Here’s a picture of Tansy on her last day of work. I took the harness off and let her snuggle with Brad for a bit. I still have a few more things I want to post and some more songs to mention that she likes…but her career has reached its end.
