Tag: resting

That You Might Take Me With You, Wherever You Shall Go

Our cat Trixie sleeps on my clean T-shirt on our bed

I have this romantic notion that at least one hair from each of our pets will follow me all the days of my life, so that on my deathbed I will have a piece of them with me. A romantic notion but not a realistic one. In day-to-day life, however, I’m quite confident I do carry each of our current pets with me, and Trixie is doing her duty to make sure of it as she sleeps on my clean T-shirt. In the picture below, Trixie doesn’t usually sleep in my desk chair but she loves the feel of these hoodies.

Our cat Trixie rests on my hoody on my chair

Still Sick

Enjoying His Freedom

Sam in early 2008 enjoying his freedom in the house at large after we adopted him and kept him in isolation with Emma for a couple of weeks. He’s had diarrhea the past month and we got the first clue as to why from a fecal sample, he doesn’t have nearly as much healthy bacteria as he should despite taking probiotics the past month. He’s going to start some antibiotics soon if he doesn’t improve, as he may have some bad bacteria that’s keeping the good bacteria from thriving. If there’s a silver lining to getting laid off a month ago, in addition to being able to take Ellie on long walks each morning, it’s that I’ve been here to take Sam to the vet and get his medicines and give him second chances at eating when he’s not feeling well. He actually put on a little weight this month, not what you’d expect from someone with his condition, so the good news is he’s getting the nutrients from his food. After what we went through with Emma, that’s a big relief.

But I’ll be a lot happier when we know what is going on.

Under the Weather

Our cat Sam snuggled up in my lap

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.

21 Years

Our tortoiseshell cat Trixie sits at the top of the cat tree, framed by the arch behind her

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.

The Happy Pup

Our dog Ellie lays on the hardwood floor in the dining room

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.

Resting, Hiding

A black-tailed deer rests in the shadows, hidden by the tall grass, along the Rich Guadagno Memorial Loop Trail at Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon

A black-tailed deer rests in the shadows, hidden by the tall grass, along the Rich Guadagno Memorial Loop Trail at Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. I’d frame this a little differently today, I took this in the summer of 2001 during my first full year with a digital camera, although to be fair to my past self I was working around hot-spots created by the bright sun. I think the trail back then was known as the Baskett Butte Trail, as the trail leads up to Baskett Butte, but the trail is now named in Rich’s memory. He was a former manager of the refuge and would die two months after this photo was taken in the attacks on 9/11. There is a plaque dedicated to him atop the butte.