Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
No Sam, dinner is still 40 minutes away. He gets hungry about 60 to 90 minutes before dinner and climbs into my lap and studies my every move, sometimes making biscuits on my stomach to suggest dinner must have been hours ago and I have clearly forgotten to feed him.
With the cooler weather of fall, Ellie doesn’t tire so easily and has been up for longer walks. Anti-inflammatory medicine and pain pills help with her advancing arthritis too. Since I’ve been home most mornings after getting laid off a few weeks ago, I’ve been able to take her on lots of long walks, a real treat since who knows how many more we’ll get together. She still enjoys going to see if her buddy Steve is out on his porch, as he gives her treats, but he’s only been out once. He mentioned that he was the caretaker of a man who just died and they weren’t sure if they were going to move someone else in for him to look after, or move him somewhere else and do some renovations on the house. Fortunately Ellie can’t hear well and thus is unaware her buddy might be moving.
Not far from Steve’s house is this mural on the side of a dialysis center that I frequently walked past on the way home from the train, so I was pleased to be able to get a picture of Ellie next to the perpetually smiling Pepper. I wasn’t sure if I’d get the picture even though she wanted to come down this way on multiple days (mostly I think to double back to give him Steve a second chance to be on his porch), as the blinds in the window above Pepper were open and I didn’t want the people inside getting treatment to worry about why someone outside was taking pictures. On this day though the blinds were drawn and I got my picture of the two good pups.
Sam atop the scratching post a few days after we adopted him in 2007, probably watching Emma play with her mice (we adopted them on the same day).
Long known as a dragon-friend, Ellie helps out by looking after one of the babies while the mother was away.
ALRIGHT! ALRIGHT! Sleep wherever you want! Sorry I asked!
Sam’s not been feeling well the past couple of weeks, his appetite has been off and he’s had diarrhea. He had been throwing up too early on but we think that was a red herring as he was having trouble getting a hairball up. One benefit of getting laid off is that I can be home to give him extra feedings as he only eats so much in one sitting, so he’s ultimately getting enough food and hasn’t been losing weight, but we don’t know what is going on yet. His blood and urine tests both looked great, and he’s not in pain, so the vet wants to give him another week on gentler treatments before getting more aggressive. I’ll be a lot happier when he’s back in the pink of health.
One of my favorite pictures of young Sam when he came to live with us in 2007. My lasting impression of him from that time is of a kitten who purred easily and loudly. This impression was formed right from the start, he purred the moment they brought him in to see us in the meeting room at the Humane Society when we were deciding if we should adopt him. Once we gave him free reign of the house, I loved to climb into bed at night as Scout jumped up to join me, and I could listen to a purring sound grow louder and louder as it moved from my office, as it climbed the stairs, as it jumped into bed with Scout and I. Sometimes he and Scout would start rubbing faces and then they’d both be purring at full bore, the sweetest music to fall asleep to.
After 21 years at the same company, the company I joined out of college, my luck ran out today and I got laid off. Not just me, but my entire engineering group. I’ve worked with some for most or even all of those 21 years, and we made a great team, so it was a heartbreaking day saying goodbye to such a good group of people. I had an inkling it was going to happen the night before when a meeting with the new management suddenly showed up on my calendar at 11:30 at night for the following morning. I was unable to sleep so eventually I apologized to Boo, curled up asleep in my lap, and got up and went downstairs and typed up a quick resume.
I haven’t written a resume in 21 years, but there was a position open in a different group that I thought I was a good fit for, so I brought my laptop to the meeting and the moment they announced we were all losing our jobs I uploaded the resume and applied for the new one. A handful of my friends are equally qualified and equally deserving, I hate that we’ll be in competition when we worked so well together for so long. My wife and I have plenty of savings and I have a decent amount of severance if I don’t get rehired, so I’m very fortunate to have some time to find a new job (although I desperately want to find one in the Portland metro area, it will break my heart if I have to leave).
I’m proud of the work we did, and all things considered even this bad news isn’t nearly as bad as what many people in the world face every day, day after day, and I’m very thankful for those 21 years and the team I got to work with. It’s been an emotional day, particularly since I got little sleep last night (I did end up getting an hour and a half after finishing my resume), goodbyes are never easy, and I’m physically and emotionally spent.
This picture of Trixie has nothing to do with today, but it makes me smile, and I need to smile. We were playing a game of string on a sunny afternoon a couple of weeks ago when I paused to take her picture, framed by the arch behind her, as she patiently waited for me to put down the camera and play with her once more.
Templeton in 2006 exploring the backyard. I used to give the cats supervised time in the fenced backyard but don’t do it anymore, it was easier then with just the two of them and the yard more closed off. Everything in this picture has changed. Templeton died a year later. I dug up the mint and raspberries years later (but they keep coming back). There’s a wildflower garden there now.
A happy Ellie on the day after I got back from a long trip in August. Her blood pressure is up again as is the protein in her urine so we’re upping her blood pressure meds and switching her to a kidney-friendly dog food. We’ve also added some pills to help with her arthritis as that’s been getting worse, they seem to be helping and with the aid of the cooler (and much, much wetter) weather she even made it all the way to Steve’s on our walk this morning, a rarity these days. He wasn’t out but she pooped in his yard to say hello, despite my telling her that’s not how people communicate. Age is taking its toll on her body but not her joyful spirit.
A couple of the new pills she only gets for a few weeks, and thank goodness, because they aren’t coated and she hates the taste. She even spits out the hotdogs we normally put her pills in, and even when I hid them in her beloved cat food, well, the sweetest dog you ever met can be surprisingly stubborn. She doesn’t hold a grudge after the battle is over, however, because she’s Ellie.
Boolie 