Cafe Hitch-hike

2020-08-24

It would look something like this

I didn't expect a humorous early birthday gift: a Scooby Doo lunch bag and t-shirt, a deck of astronomy flash cards, and a US half-dollar with the side view of JFK and the year '1973.' It gave me a good laugh; I'd get gifts like this for school very regularly. It's not as bad as people who have birthdays near the Yuletide, but these gifts tend to be high in utility (socks), low in entertainment, and good for educational purposes. I loved Scooby Doo and astronomy as a kid, actually. My favorite annual field trip was to the local planetarium named after an astronaut from the area.

The JFK means a lot to me because it reminds me of his portrait that was in my grandpa's room (and what the portrait meant to him as a naturalized citizen), not to mention being circulated the same year I was.

Puppy Dog is now taking old people medications, like ones for arthritis, inflammation, and pain. She does seem to feel better though she still has some issues with stumbling a little. Miss Marley has also chilled out considerably. She could be anxious or restless at times when she was more spry, but I see less of that. We can't do our power walks anymore, and I miss those so much. We do a shorter one, and she wants to keep going sometimes, but we don't. I noticed that she gets very tired, especially if it's hot out.

When I talk on my phone, she sits near my feet and attentively looks up at me. I say she enjoys conversation, especially with females. She often hangs around and I joke that she's nosy and has to know everything (kinda like Mommy, heh). I'll never forget how quickly she bonded with my siblings last Thanksgiving and then my aunts and uncles last Christmas. She was more than happy to be held, adored, and carried by them! My mom cooked up some bacon for her during the visit! I'd say Miss Marley has a good life, but she is such a dang charmer!

I've been calling her my Senior Puppy for the last 2 years, and now she really, really is. It makes me ache because I think I know the time we have to say goodbye is likely to be closer than it was last year and the years before that. I can keep her comfy and keep some hope; she could just be this way for quite a while, maybe even 3 years. We will see. I saw a cute meme of 2 cartoon dachshunds. One was in a chair with spectacles and a blanket, while another with the same coloring as Marley stood on its hind legs and with a cane. 'Senior Wieners Rock!' was the caption.

We are returning to the vet specialist for a follow-up next week to see show she responded to the meds. Since surgery isn't a very viable option, maybe this is what we'll have. I'm not too fond of that because because she won't take pills, so I have to almost shove them down her throat; she won't even take them if I wrap it up in ham because she'll eat the food and spit out the pill.

We are back to work but everyone is encouraged to be in the building as minimally as possible. Services are being scaled back, and what remains at this time is a combination of it being an essential service, if it can be online or in-person as little as possible, and interact with few people. I feel bad for the students who won't get the traditional first-year experience. Hell, I feel bad for leaving them the world we now have.

I watched a historical series, and it made me think about how life was so different 120 years ago and beyond where people had much shorter lifespans and more dangers than we do know (or at least different ones). In the 'Little House' books about life on the prairie and plains, the father kept a shotgun above the door so it can be grabbed on the way out of the the house. My great-grandfather died from TB, and it's probable that a great-grandmother died from influenza. Yet, we now have a pandemic. I thought of a pre-pandemic CDC report that talked about what it learned from the 1918-1919 pandemic and looked at where we are now; a part of me cried inside.

Meanwhile, back at work, I had a dream that our grand pubah was meeting individually with people because they were about to make a beeline for the exit. They wanted to meet with people who would be willing to take on certain roles of their job. I was offered one along and a few hundred dollars laid on the table during the discussion. I actually was mortified; yeah, the roles are appealing but the next thought went something like hell no! I cringed when I imagined facing the hyena-like smiles of some of the grand pubahs in the organization, and that I'd have to face them to get a lick of support to operate. If I were to be successful at that, it would look something like this:

downwind | upstream