An Update On My Life

Sweet Rody-10 yrs.

Brewer Man-12 yrs.

Dino-6 yrs. and Miss Sheila-14 yrs.

Hello dear friends and family,     

I have been purposely avoiding updating this page because I avoid painful things when reasonably possible.

In my last post, I thought that I was going to have family coming, but it turned out that my daughter got a position she had been wanting for a while so they stayed.  That was actually kind of funny, in retrospect, because I was already planning where to put things and had reserved a storage unit for their possessions, when I read on Facebook about her new job! Of course I was happy for her, but I was also hurt that she didn't tell me first.

I'm blessed that I don't hold grudges, except one instance in my whole life, so things like that fade pretty fast and I get on with the business of living.

I have actually been hired three times and I moved from one job to the next with the happy consent of the last to get higher pay. The final move was from a $7.5 and hr. (can you believe that!?) to a $10.28 hr. job.  Well I had to get OSHA qualified, which I did at $135! and then I got my VA badge so I could work on the VA Hospital campus.  The site Foreman was very pleasant and showed me around the job and then we got the badge. There has been one delay after another since then and I still haven't actually worked a day, three weeks now. I was to get the money back for the OSHA test as soon as I got to work.

As you may have guessed, I've been looking for more work, but making my bills due to my widow's pension, just. There are some promising propositions in progress, so we'll see, again.

The reason I mentioned trying to avoid pain when at all possible is because I have to actually "say" one of the more painful things I've had to say in recent years and that is that my Rody passed away on October 29th. It was the seizures. That last one got him and wouldn't release him, so in desperation I took him to a local emergency Vet that operated nights and weekends only.

Even now, two months later, I am crying trying to write this, so suffice it to say that that damn seizure stole him away and I had to let the Dr. put him to sleep.  Three different Vets said that he was quite healthy and the last one really believed that there was probably a tumor in his skull pressing against the spinal cord causing the seizures. I am still so lost without him. A lot of the color has faded from my life.  Intellectually knowing, and having it gouge your heart out are two very separate things.

One of my neighbors, the one that I painted all the rooms in his apartment, as a way to earn money, and his daughter insisted on giving me their cat.  While I painting in their apartment, Rody and the cat got along so well that when they got a dog that was a puppy and chasing and terrorizing the cat I actually thought about offering to take her.  After Rody passed away I didn't think about much of anything for about a week.  Then one day I was talking with the man and gave him "what for" about letting that dang dog harass the cat. He just sat there and let it chase her around so I got mad at him and told him that doing nothing was the same as condoning it's behavior. Dogs are like kids in that, if you don't say anything, they figure its ok, if they think about it at all.  It was actually funny because then he did do something about it, it just hadn't occurred to him to. He said he'd been a little worried about her and that she wouldn't leave the dinning room table. Duhhh!

Anyway, after Rody had been gone about a week and a half, maybe two, I don't remember a lot about that time because I slept and cried A LOT. The man and his daughter pretty much accosted me saying I had to take the cat because I shouldn't be alone and she really needed to get away from that darn dog.

So they cave me a beautiful back cat, with shots, litter pan, food and even toys. She's six months old, probably seven now.  A really great companion and Islamicly acceptable to boot. I got a lot of silent flack from some of my friends and new ones, when I warned them that I had Rody living with me, they didn't speak to me again. Oh well, their loss, he was a really wonderful guy, the best one to date. I won't be a dog owner again because of that. He was the last of my pack of four. They have all passed away now of old age.

The cat really is great, but she just isn't a dog and I've always been a dog person.