You Can't Take It With You

A good friend of mine is battling cancer and while she lives far away, I have tried to stay in touch by calling, sending cards, putting notes on Facebook, etc. She is also a real dog lover and knows the story of my recent doggie woes. Out of the blue I got a card from her thanking me for all the support, and a rather large check to help with my dog's treatment. I was floored. This person who is herself struggling to get well is thinking of me and my dog and trying to help. I burst into tears when I saw the check, and promptly called her, causing her to burst into tears. I told her that was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. She replied "Well, you can't take it with you."

Say Cheese

The oddest thing happened last night when walking my dogs through Shirlington. This family stopped me and asked if they could take pictures with my dogs. There was a guy, 2 women, and 2 children--one in a stroller. Luckily my dogs are very social and love people and kids, cause these strangers were asking me to get the dogs to cuddle up to their kid, to sit with them. They were having a ball and snapping away on their camera phone, laughing. They even asked me to pose for a photo. While all this was going on, another couple approached and asked if they could pet my dogs. The husband of the first group said I should charge them. The first group barely spoke English, so I really couldn't get any sense of why they were doing this, and why it was so fun. Sometimes life is just too weird to figure out. So now my dogs are going to be popular in some unknown country, probably somewhere on YouTube. I should have charged them all!

Priorities

In my recent commentary on dating (see January 16), I made a comment about a certain married guy who was "interested" in me. It turns out that he called one of our mutual friends on Valentine's Day, yet I didn't hear anything. Interesting. So who knows what kind of game he is playing--is he adding to his entourage? I mentioned the call to him, and he claimed he was just "being nice." Uh . . . yeah.

Going Through the Big C

And yes I mean cancer . . . not me personally or my family, thank God. But my dog. Like family. He has two large masses in his lung. I had one $200 consultation with no definitive results, and it will cost another $600 in testing to find out what exactly it is, so I know what the treatment options are. Since my dog is 12 with a heart murmur, I don't plan to do surgery or anything too crazy, but there seem to be some drugs that can be administered at home that will potentially help shrink the tumors and give us more time. Cause unfortunately as much effort as people put in to trying to save pets with cancer, it never really seems to help . . . all you can do is buy a little time.

This has been quite a surprise cause he's still acting peppy and normal and you would never know he is sick. But I know it's just a matter of time before things get worse and that is a terrible feeling. Plus he's too young, it just is so unfair. At least when my other dog got really sick, she was 13-14 and really frail so my decision not to do anything invasive was a no-brainer, but this is less clear-cut, and it is hard to fight the instinct to do whatever it takes and drain my entire savings. So I'm just taking it day by day, but this has been a terrible blow during an already difficult week . . .

My Day in Reality

Per my little tag line above, this blog is about the good, the bad, and the ugly. Here are those truths today:

The good - I actually had a job interview and it went well. I heard from the recruiter that I will be called back next week for round 2.

The bad - I found out from the vet that my 12-year-old dog with a heart murmur has 2 large masses in his left lung. As the doctor said, "This is going to get bad soon." Thanks for the insight and the $200+ bill.

The ugly - A supposed good friend of mine who has been randomly avoiding me had invited me to a Superbowl party last night. The host has been sick, so the friend uninvited me, claiming the host just wanted to keep it small. In truth, it seems that was not the case, as reported by another friend who went to the party. He said if he knew I was uninvited he would have invited me. No worries, cause I had 2 other parties to go to including an invitation from an ex who has been texting me a lot lately ...