Bereft

My dear little old poodle has been put down and all I want is to get him back.  He was very old, partially blind and completely deaf and suffered from the heart condition and I loved him.  I could not get him put down so finally I asked the vet what she thought and she explained everything to me and the decision was made.  He went off to sleep and when he died I wrapped him up in a blanket and sat and cuddled him.  The vet was lovely and let me stay in the room while I cried.  I went out the back way so I did not have to pass through the waiting room where people were waiting their turn.

Now all I keep thinking is that perhaps he could have lasted longer.  Maybe I could have kept him going just so he didn't leave me.  I would gladly have saved up for the expensive tablets every month or so.  I would have stayed home with him all the time and just ordered my groceries on-line.  If only.  If only it was not the start of a hot summer. If only my car had air conditioning we could have gone down to the beach every few days.  He loved the beach and the mandatory ice-cream before we set off home.

I would never believe just how much I would miss him.  He was the best dog I ever had.  I am not closing my eyes to the fact that he usually peed and pooed in the kitchen while I was out.  He also used to howl the whole time I was gone but he just wanted to be with me.  He was always so thrilled when I returned and did laps around me in the backyard.  I had to stop him as I knew he could have a heart attack at any tick of the clock.

I want to be loved again.  I want to walk to the letterbox accompanied by the dear old thing.  I want to have someone to cuddle up to and to sleep with.  I don't think I can go outside and sit in my swing seat.  That swing seat was for both of us.  I don't want to visit my friends who still have their own healthy dogs.  I don't want to look at pictures of dogs or go to pet shops.  I do, however, want to go to the Animal Welfare League and try to find another 'him'.  Of course that is impossible because he can never be replaced.

My daughter keeps telling me I cannot afford another dog and that if I have no dog it is easier for me to travel to Melbourne whenever I want.  I know all this but my heart is broken.  I just want my dog back.  I am bereft.

The Christmas Tree

The Christmas Tree.               

I have never been a great fan of the after Christmas sales, however, the Child of my Loins and I decided that we wanted a really nice tree.  We arose early and went to dear old John Martins.  The Child is much more aggressive than I and so made her way to the front of the crowd and as the doors went up she ducked under them and sprinted up the escalator.  She grabbed a marvellous tree and had to hang on to it for dear life as people tried to snatch it. 

When I arrived at the tree site I was happy to see that she had latched on to the best tree ever.  We found that was in two pieces and so took one part each and tried to make our way to the cash register.  Unfortunately the branches just hooked in to the main truck and started falling off.  We managed to get most of the tree to the line for the cash register and then the Child literally dived into the crowd to collect the errant branches.  It was the funniest thing I have ever seen. 

The line for the register was interminable.  It took an hour to get served and then told that there were no more boxes.  That was no trouble to us or so we thought.  We made our way to the back of Johnnies to the public phones and rang the Grumpy Man.  Needles to say he was less than impressed that we bothered him when he thought we should make our way home under our own steam.  This did not bode well for the tree.  We waited on the back steps on North Terrace and watched for Mr. Joyful to get there. 

When we saw him coming we raced down to the car and started flinging parts of the tree into the boot.  The rest we shoved into the back seat without really leaving room for me.  I was pricked and poked by the branches but could not complain.  I didn’t want to annoy him any more than we already had.  I tried to make soothing noises and the Child in the front seat happily chatted to him but he was deep in the ‘Why Does This Always Happen to Me State.’

Needless to say later in the day he cheered up and started to believe that his was the idea to buy the tree.  In fact, it was like he had actually invented the Christmas tree all on his own.  The dear Crabby Creature even helped to decorate the tree once we had put it all together. 

I have never gone to the beginning of Christmas sales since then.  I am not capable of pushing and shoving or getting pushed and shoved.  If it had been left up to me that day I would have picked the oldest rattiest tree in the shop.  Hooray for the Child who has guts and gumption. Onya Child.

This tree saga is my greatest adventure in Christmas shopping.  It was a lot funnier on the day than it appears to be in my story.  I can still see the Child diving between people’s legs and coming up for air with a tree branch in her hand.  She is totally amazing.   

Geriatric

I now admit that I have lost it completely.  I went in to the chemist to fill a prescription and while the lady was filling out the ticket I asked for geriatric tablets.  Naturally she was quite happy to give me those tablets because a person who asks for geriatric when they mean generic should have as many of the geriatric tablets as they need.  The next thing she should have done was to call the little men in the white jackets to come and take me away.  Luckily  I can put on quite a turn of speed when I need to so I left the shop before I could be detained.

I wonder how many pre-senile things I have to do before I am classed as actually senile.  I have already put my the driver's licence in the ATM, tried to pay for the same thing twice, asked the girls in the Donut King for coffee and scones, tried to do the washing without turning on the water and of course making scones with plain flour instead of SR.  Maybe I will be senile when there are a certain number of  things on my dementia list.  Maybe I will be senile when I don't know what a list is.  They say that you are not suffering from dementia when you lose your car keys but when you don't know what car keys are.  That is fine I do know what things are.  You will be the first to know when things take a turn for the worse.  You had better, because I will be too far gone to notice.

This geriatric is going to make a nice cup of ?

Reasons

There has to be a reason for most things.  The trouble is that some requests or orders are not immediately clear to me I tend to disobey or ignore them.  My dearly un-beloved Mother was a great one to order me or tell me what to do or what not to do.  I always asked her why and was always told it was because she said so.  That my friends used to irritate me beyond belief.

I was desperate to go the dancing lessons with some of my friends from school but that was immediately vetoed. I begged and pleaded but even though each class only cost a penny it was a definite, "No because I said so".  All these years later I realize it was probably because she knew that there would be costumes to pay for at the end of the year.  If she had told me that I would have immediately understood and stopped my histrionics. I knew she couldn't afford things but I thought that a penny was not too much to learn all about dancing.  Actually after all these years the thing that I wanted to learn was calisthenics.

In grade 7 we had a big concert at the end of the year and I was picked to be the compere.  Naturally Mother dear said no, no, a million times no.  I begged and pleaded and cried all to no avail.  My dear teacher Miss Simons was disappointed but not half as much as I was.   I guess now that Mum did not want to have to walk to the school in the dark and back again.  I also think she was expecting me to stuff it up and embarrass her.  Why couldn't the stupid woman explain herself.  I am fine if there is an explanation.

Miss Simons also wanted to teach me to play the violin.  Again the no!  I am not quite sure of Mum's reasoning.  Probably she thought that it would cost money or that she would have to buy me a violin.  I really don't know.  Hence I am not the slightest bit musical and not first violin in an orchestra.

I wanted to learn to swim but amazingly she said no to that as well.  Maybe it cost to learn I really don't know.  I still cannot swim well but I absolutely love the water.  She couldn't stop me from that.  After seeing Jaws I have been a little fearful of the water.  Let's face it I probably haven't really been in deeper water since that miserable flick.

By the time I was in high school I had pretty much stopped asking or telling her things.  The school put on a concert but I didn't ask Mum.  I just got on with everything by myself and managed to make a good fist of singing and prancing around.  We also did some Shakespearean stuff and I just loved it.  If I had asked Mum if I could do it I would have missed out again.  One year the year 10 girls did a cabaret show with the first years. It was excellent and a great success.  It was the first time I had ever had to audition. I still remember the words of some of the songs.  I was on top of the world when I was chosen and of course chose not to share the news with Mum.  I think Mrs. S. the lady across the road took me as I remember her being there.

At speech night in Year 11 the theme was other lands.  My role was to be a fortune teller reading one of the first years fortune and describing all the places she would visit when she grew up. I guess the premise was that one could do anything or go anywhere we wanted with a good education. We had a lot of trouble at rehearsal because I couldn't make myself heard throughout the Waterside Worker's Hall.  When I got home I was miserable and Mum kept saying I didn't have to go.  Well how was she to know I just had to be there. The problem of not being heard was fixed by me reaching back for the microphone when I had to talk and then handing the huge thing back to the teacher behind the curtain in between.  The reason being that the microphone was hooked up to a tape recorder with the dance music on it. Amazingly, Mrs. S. got Mum to go to the speech night because I was getting a book prize.  Mum didn't even know it was me performing on stage.  Admittedly I had long dangling earrings and a brightly coloured shawl so it wasn't immediately apparent that it was me.  Also I was doing a damn fine job so she wouldn't have expected that.  Mrs. S. said to Mum, "Joan's good isn't she?"  I imagine Mum must have nearly swallowed her false teeth.  I also introduced something for one of the other classes and I think that this time Mum would have picked me out. I still have my book prize and am just as proud of it today as I was back then.

After all the years of Mum telling me what to do I question everything. I still hate to be told anything without a reason. I want to know why you can only take 8 pain killers in a day.  I need a reason to stop eating something or maybe to eat something.  Why is it that use by dates are rigidly adhered to by people like the Child of my Loins.  I want to know why.  Is the use by date a suggestion?  If I eat something out of date will I get sick or die?  When a doctor tells me something I want it completely spelled out.  Why can't I eat salty food, sweet food, chocolates, ice-cream and so on and so forth.  Why do I have to be three feet taller for my weight. Why, why, why???  I remember some guest lecturer at Uni came in and told us to take everything with a grain of salt.  To illustrate his point he kept giving us a jelly bean every time he told us something.  Now there is a man who wants everyone to ask why.  A man after my own heart.

If you want me to do anything you had better have a jolly good reason.  I want a logical explanation for everything.  If there is a good reason I am quite happy to acquiesce.  I never ever want to hear, "Because I said so."  That my friends is that!

Sick poodle

My dear old Herb is not well.  He has an enlarged heart and the valves on the left hand side of the heart are damaged.  On Sunday he was in a terrible state.  He was coughing, wheezing and panting and looked like he was ready to turn up his toes.  After an intravenous cortisone injection plus antibiotics, plus new tablets he had a new lease of life.

He is back to his old but silly self.  I gave him a bath this morning before we went back to the Vet and when I dried him and put him down he started doing laps of the house.  A bad heart and laps do not go well together but try telling him that.

So off we went to the Vet for a follow-up appointment.  The Vet has just done a course on giving ultra-sounds and wanted to practise on the old Herbert.  This was free and just the price I can afford at the moment, however, I did have to pay for more medication.  Today it was $77 and the other day the visit and medication cost $114, plus the original teeth cleaning and medication all up $500.  I think I also paid for something else but I cannot find the receipt.  Probably a good thing really.

I realize that I cannot really afford to pay for all this treatment but I just cannot get him put down when he is so good in between times.  I think that putting him down will just about kill me.  I would not allow someone else to take him to the Vet for that.  If he has been good enough to be my dog for all these years then I am not abandoning at the end.  I think the only way I would put him down is if they tell me he has no quality of life.

Herb is my friend and I am not ready to let him go.  How can I possibly choose to end his life?