Tomorrow is my sister's birthday. She'll be 61, which is astonishing to me. As astonishing as it is that I'll be 60 in December. How did this happen? I suppose if you have an 85-year-old mother you're bound to be old yourself. Anyway, Happy Birthday Molly.
I haven't been doing much, had a nice three day weekend (we love our dead presidents). I got a fair amount of stuff done, sorted some clothes. I threw out a whole bunch of sweaters and tops--some of the sweaters were old, very old. And 2 sizes smaller than I currently like to wear. There was a time when some of us here at work would wear the same clothes in different colors. We ordered a bunch of clothes from Eddie Bauer & Lands End, and compared our outfits regularly. Those days are long gone, as should be the clothes.
My good friend, who was dying of leukemia, died on Monday. She was at home with Hospice and her 2 daughters, and was in a lot of pain the last 2 days of her life. That's pretty sad. Sadder still is that she really didn't want to die. The last time I talked to her--last week--I said "I'm so sorry," and she said "So am I." So now she's dead and I'm very sad. I cried a lot (which made our newbie clerk here at work freak out--what was he supposed to do? he wondered. In the end he just kept shelving books) but now am accepting the fact that she's dead. It was hard, very hard for me to imagine. She's a colleague and contemporary of mine, and I suppose I should get used to the idea that people in my life will be dying as we age. But still... I'll go to the calling hours Sunday night, and to the funeral Monday morning. And will cry, doubtless.
All else is OK. We had a ton of snow overnight, which surprised me. It was snowing big lazy flakes when I went to bed, and there was 6-8" of snow on the ground when I got up. Where was my plowman? Nowhere near my house, that's for sure. I got out OK, and the town had plowed my road nicely, so it was a non-issue. But still--Donny, I need to be able to get to work, you should plow me by 7 a.m.
Dogs are fine. Treasure certainly has settled into a routine in my house. She's very happy but would like more activity and attention. She's way too into having things in her mouth, and chews the way Tess no longer does. Shreds things. And throws up a lot. Are the two activities connected? I bet. I don't know what the puking is about, but it happens during the night in a very dramatic way. At least she doesn't throw up on the bed anymore, now has the sense to get off the bed. OK, enough about dog puke. How do you teach a dog to Drop It? I keep trying to get her to give me things she's not supposed to have, but she's got a rock-solid bite and won't let go. I have to pry her jaws apart & stick my hand in her mouth to get things away from her. She's as gentle as a dog can be but boy she hates to give up her prizes. Her treasures. Get it? Anyway, I think maybe I need to try swapping biscuits for the things she has in her mouth. Positive reinforcement, that's the ticket.
Speaking of positive reinforcement, something my father firmly endorsed, I got an email from the son of some friends of my parents' this week. His mother is 90 something and lives in North Carolina; they knew my father in the 40's when he was at Columbia getting his PhD. This guy was visiting his mother and she was talking about Spaulding, so he searched the Internet for Spaulding Rogers, and came up with my blog. And from there he found my email. And sent me a nice message about our respective parents. So I sent his mother's address to my mother. I vaguely remember these people, I think we visited them once in Michigan on our way home from the lake. Sometimes we'd go through Canada so my father could speak French.
Kim, who works with me is out this week so I'm a clerk. There are parts of her job I like, parts I can't stand, and parts that are just OK. So I do them all and suffer when it's appropriate. Keeps me busy, makes the time go by.
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