Update

Daddy is still with us but moving pretty steadily towards the end, and it's just been wonderful to be here. our family has always been dad's heaven on earth and you can tell that as sick as he is, he just doesn't want to leave us. he's got his kids and a wife and assorted other loved ones around his bedside, his dogs sleep at the foot of his bed full time, he can hear our laughter and togetherness down the hall even if we're not in his room at the time, etc. he's just beginning to have pain that requires treatment, sleeps at least 23 hours a day, still no food and only sips of water for something like nine days so far. but he's still here with us. the hospice nurse gave us some wonderful tips about how to help him transition emotionally from where he doesn't want to leave to where he's going whether he wants to or not, and there are enough of us here to share the work so none of us feel burned out or burdoned. it's really been a wonderfully sacred time and I'm just so glad I'm able to be here and share in it. yesterday I was sitting in his room with maggie asleep on my chest and realizing that there really wasn't anywhere else on the planet for me to be that was more important than where I was. which is pretty great.

PEACE Quote

There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside of them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself.
- Hermann Hesse

Houses and Art

I was just vacuuming in my dad's room and he asked me, "Whose house is this?"

"Jocelyn's house" I answered.

"No..." he said with a small smile.

"For real!" I said. "Jocelyn owns this house!"

He looked around and then indicated the two paintings of his dogs that my friend Nicole painted for him. "Oh. When I saw those pictures of my dogs, I knew I was home, but I knew this wasn't my home."

"Well this is your room in Jocelyn's home." I said confidently, and that seemed to please him. "My girlfriend Nicole painted these for you, do you remember that?"

"Yep... Those pictures have followed me all around where ever I've been it seems. Every place I go, those pictures are with me. From the hospital to the jail to here!"

"Isn't that wonderful?" I said. "Did you know that Nicole is pregnant? She and Matt are expecting their first baby real soon."

"THAT'S wonderful." Dad said confidently.

We're Here!

Maggie and I have arrived safely in Seattle. Dad seems to be really comfortable and happy to be home here at Jocelyn's, and it was quite wonderful to have seen everyone I have seen so far. The plane ride was fine, Maggie was wonderful, and I had a wonderful conversation with the woman next to me on the leg to Chicago.

I'll try to write more later.

PEACE Quote

One has to abandon altogether the search for security, and reach out to the risk of living with both arms.

One has to embrace the world like a lover.

One has to accept pain as a condition of existence.

One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing.

One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.


- Morris L. West

A Good Dog

This is a hard one to start. We put Rudy down last week. It was time, it was really time. Bless his heart. The whole experience was beautiful and peaceful and sad. Our vet, who we love, was so wonderful. She said it's the worst part of her job, but it may be the best work she does, that careful and calm and soothing sheparding she did to get us through. And our friend Matt from down the street was also so kind and generous to provide a beautiful final resting place for Rudy tooty fresh and fruity. I've never known anyone as well as I knew Rudy who is actually buried somewhere. it's kind of a comforting feeling.

I've also found that now that he's gone, all my memories of him have shifted so certainly to the healthy dog he was for so many years. I realize now how much of my feelings towards Rudy in the last little while were ones of guilt and annoyance and even resentment. When all he was doing was trying to get along in the world, play the hand he was dealt! How unfair of me.

I wish I had shown more compassion for his plight. And now that he's gone, my memory serves up only the good times, the healthy times, and it turns out - that sick little toothless gooey eyed stink bomb on the carpet was the same damn dog! the same damn dog.

So thanks for everything Rudy. You were a good dog.

HIS APOLOGIES

Master, this is Thy Servant. He is rising eight weeks old.
He is mainly Head and Tummy. His legs are uncontrolled.
But Thou hast forgiven his ugliness, and settled him on Thy knee...
Art Thou content with Thy Servant? He is *very* comfy with Thee.

Master, behold a Sinner! He hath committed a wrong.
He hath defiled Thy Premises through being kept in too long.
Wherefore his nose has been rubbed in the dirt and his self- respect has been bruised.
Master, pardon Thy Sinner, and see he is properly loosed.

Master, again Thy Sinner! This that was once Thy Shoe,
He has found and taken and carried aside, as fitting matter to chew.
Now there is neither blacking nor tongue, and the Housemaid has us in tow,
Master, remember Thy Servant is young, and tell her to let him go!

Master, extol Thy Servant, he has met a most Worthy Foe!
There has been fighting all over the Shop -- and into the Shop also!
Till cruel umbrellas parted the strife (or I might have been choking him yet),
But Thy Servant has had the Time of his Life -- and now shall we call on the vet?

Master, behold Thy Servant! Strange children came to play,
And because they fought to caress him, Thy Servant wentedst away.
But now that the Little Beasts have gone, he has returned to see
(Brushed -- with his Sunday collar on) what they left over from tea.

***************************************************

Master, pity Thy Servant! He is deaf and three parts blind.
He cannot catch Thy Commandments. He cannot read Thy Mind.
Oh, leave him not to his loneliness; nor make him that kitten's scorn.
He hath had no other God than Thee since the year that he was born.

Lord, look down on Thy Servant! Bad things have come to pass.
There is no heat in the midday sun, nor health in the wayside grass.
His bones are full of an old disease -- his torments run and increase.
Lord, make haste with Thy Lightnings and grant him a quick release!

by Rudyard Kipling

Maggie as Snow White

Yard Sale Finds 2007

Check it out. We found it this Saturday at a yard sale, covered in grime and dust. With a broken lightbulb thingie. I scrubbed it with a toothbrush and soapy water and Jeff rewired it and hung it in the porch for me. We put in a bulb and turned it on. Nothing. After a few seconds, Jeff shouted enthusiastically, "Happy Anniversary!" - my gift apparently, being a non working lamp. It was very funny.

Turned out it was a bum bulb, because check it out!!! Isn't it beautiful? Sigh. Makes me so happy to have it. I have been wanting something like this for just this spot in the porch and now I have it. With no compromises required. I love the bamboo design, how nicely it complements the trees beyond. Love it love love it.








And the price? just five dollars!

Rosie.com

Rosie O'Donnell has a blog, you know.

On this blog, she's begun to create video blogs pretty much every day. It started out with her answering questions from an "ask ro" section of her blog while having her hair done by this woman named Helene. Very casual and informal but real at the same time. Over the course of a couple weeks of this, people started to write in asking questions about Helene, and so she became more involved and the energy of the video blogs changed into something really entertaining.

Now it's Rosie, Helene and Janette, and they've all worked together for years, you can tell. They do their video blogs every morning, before the 9am meeting about that day's "View" show. So funny and real and sweet. Check them out.


Weekend Fix

Henry's Spring Concert

Henry had a spring concert last night, and he did wonderfully. So handsome and tall up there on the risers. I couldn't get a focused picture of the stage from where I was, but perhaps you can find him. Top row, wearing a blue t shirt with a tiger on the front...




His dutiful sister, watching proudly from the stands.



The post show afterglow.



And this one I got after the concert. Such a classic picture of brother and sister, don't you think? And maggie with her silly faces. This one is a new favorite, for sure.

PEACE Quote

Life shrinks or expands according to one's courage.
- Anais Nin

Tweet Tweet

Oh my goodness is it beautiful and gorgeous and crisp outside this morning! The birds are really showing up. lots of movement in the trees and different bird calls. Love it!

The squirrels are everywhere, also. This morning I saw that one was sitting in the gutter along the screened porch roof, digging around for stuff to eat! They are pretty much everywhere right now. Almost like an epidemic. you go outside and look in one area and within seconds you'll see one. Turn your head, and you'll see three more! Crazy. I'm starting to fantasize about dead squirrels hanging by their tail on long wooden sticks. And if I had a dog that had one shred of hunting instinct, I'm sure he (or she) would be going ape out there. All Kermit will do is perk his ears up and head down the steps in a spirited, determined way and then stop at the edge of the lawn (so his feet won't get wet or muddied unless they have to) and listens very carefully. Then he turns to chew on a blade of grass. No big deal.

Chucky Sue Returns!

We are expecting our third child! A total surprise. But we are pretty thrilled. The more the merrier, right? Maggie wants a baby sister and Henry wants a baby brother. Of course. We will take either, but we're not going to find out until the baby is born (around Christmas). We had definitely been heading towards a future that had only two kids in it, even contemplating my going back to work or Jeff going back to school, etc. All those things you can start to think about when your youngest is no longer a baby. But it would appear that there is one more little person coming to join our family, and so we'll count our blessings and get on with it.

I had been seriously contemplating going back to work full time, and had even made contact with a great company and had two terrific interviews with them. I found out I was pregnant in between the two interviews. D'oh! It's taken me until very recently to work through the crossroads I found myself at as a result of these two events. I was all over the map about it, imagining a future where I worked full time (for the first time since becoming a parent) and we had the two kids in a very well respected day care center here in town, and the whole family smoothly shifting from a homemaker based operation to both of us working and bringing home the bacon. Then I took the test (or, as Jeff put it, "Susie failed her pregnancy test.") and found myself facing a much more complicated, much more exhausting future if I tried to wedge a pregnancy and the uncertainty of returning from materinity into the mix. And I thought to myself, "blech."

Also I got to thinking about a day care solution for the summertime for the kids. And how Lanie and I have both been looking forward to getting the kids together a lot this summer and how all that would have to go on a shelf. To say nothing of my goal of returning to Seattle with the kids again this summer. And I thought about being pregnant and how nice it is to be able to close my eyes for a bit here and there when I need it, how at home I won't always have to power through the day (making myself more exhausted), burning the candles at both ends. so basically I realized that the job I really wanted was the one I was about to walk away from! The pay is crap, but you can't beat the perks, you know?

Anyway, that's the update. All this stuff was unfolding and I wasn't sure which way it was gonna go, that's why I haven't updated more regularly. I needed to get my story straightened out.

More later!

PEACE Quote

May the tree of our life
Be firmly rooted in the soil of love.
Let good deeds be the leaves on the tree.
May words of kindness form its flowers
And may peace be its fruits.

-Amma

Video of Flooding in Wilton

Sunday's snow had turned to slush and then it rained all night, so I was surprised to see that school was closed on Monday. Then I went outside and saw the small river pouring through the stone wall, down the side of our garage, across our back lawn and then into and through our fire pit.

Our dirt road washed out completely a few houses down the hill from us and around the corner one neighbor almost lost their living room to the torrent.

Roads all over town will need to be repaired or repaved after water completely overwhelmed the normal drainage system and dug deep channels next to them, undermined the blacktop. I don't look forward to next year's tax bill, though state and (supposedly) federal aid is on the way.

Route 101, the main east-west thoroughfare across the state was blocked by a landslide at the town line and even now, nearly two weeks later, all Rt 101 traffic is detouring through downtown Wilton, where a temporary traffic light (the only one in town!) has been set up. It's a mess at the commute hours. The hillside that collapsed is so unstable it may be weeks before it can be repaired.

Yes, that's a fish in the street next to Town Hall.

- Jeff

Can you find Henry in these photos?

Round 2 of our newest game here at Susie's minutiae. Can you find Henry in these photos? Good luck, because he's decked out in camo, head to toe!

Making Change for Good

My girlfriend Christine and I went into Cambridge last night to hear a talk by Cheri Huber, who I've mentioned here before. I would link to the posts I've written about her in the past, but I don't know exactly how to do it and BloggerHelp is unavailable. So go up to the search window up there and type in "Cheri Huber". That'll get you there. I just haven't posted in awhile and I want to get this out. Otherwise it won't get out.

Which was Cheri's point last night. She's a buddhist monk, from a big monastary (complete with hermitages!) in Northern California, and has written many books that have changed my life and the lives of others.


---
I am having to laugh right now... I'm trying to pull my thoughts together into something with enough power to perhaps get you to check out one of her books or search for past posts of mine. And I'm listening to Dave Matthews, whose music can make my emotions swell and my heart pound just from the sheer goodness of it all. And Maggie is standing at my feet telling me her favorite lines from her favorite movies, in attempt to entice me to play one for her. She wants to watch Madagascar. "Please? can I watch it please?! I really want to watch it. I like that part --" and now her voice drops a couple octives "I like to move it move it I like to move it move it!"

I'm having trouble centering my thoughts. Which was ALSO Cheri's point last night! But I know she'd be laughing too. Anyway. really good stuff. The title of this post is the title of her new book, and I will be checking it out for shizzle. You should do so also. You will thank me.

more later, I hope!

Stormy Monday

What a bunch of rain that has fallen today!




Here's behind the town hall, and is that a dead fish in the road?!



This is about a mile from our house. Yikes!

We get a visit in the night

Friday night, Henry observed the following:

Well, I saw my motion detector light go on outside. I thought there was a car pulling up. So I looked out my bedroom window and I saw a big black bear with a grey nose, but the tip of the nose was black.

I went to my parent’s room and said, “Mom! Dad! Call the animal patrol! There’s a bear outside!” We all ran back into my room and looked out the window. Luckily the motion detector light was still on, but we didn’t see the bear.

Dad ran downstairs. He looked out the porch window, turned the backyard floodlights on and here is what he saw:

Jeff observed the following:

I remember Henry saying it was a black bear. He swore that’s what he has seen and I know that Henry really knows his creatures, so I had no reason to doubt it. I crept down the stairs to turn on the backyard floodlights, which are not on motion detect and have to be turned on from the second-floor screen porch. I opened the door, switched on the outside floodlights, and listened. I didn’t hear anything, so I started tip toeing to the screens. That’s when I heard the footsteps start. And they were very close, it sounded like it was right underneath me. It must have stopped walking when it heard me or when the lights came on. But it didn’t seem in a hurry; the steps were very slow and heavy-sounding in the crunchy snow, like a human’s. It was heading out toward the back lawn, right where the floodlights shine. When I got to the screen, there he was, 10 yards away walking away from me! He had walked down along the west side of the house, and was now shuffling out onto our backyard lawn. We have seen small black bears crossing through our backyard before, but this one was big. Definitely full-grown. He turned back toward the house once or twice and the nose was just as Henry described. I wanted the others to see, so I ran upstairs just as he started heading across the back of the house toward the fire pit. By the time I got Henry and Susie to Maggie’s window, they only got a quick glimpse. Poor Maggie was almost asleep when we rushed into her room and turned off her princess lamp so we could see out the window, much to her chagrin.

Maggie observed the following:

It was very scary.

And I observed the following:

I saw the tail end of the black bear heading around the tree toward the fire pit.

Kermit gets his haircut

Well, sort of. We're not exactly finished yet. He looks like he's got big cowboy chaps on his front legs because he got so skittish about the clippers on his legs. And of course the little goatee he insisted on.

Here he is in the middle of his haircut:



Poor Kerm. bless his heart. Here he is just trying to put the whole experience behind him:



But it does make him a very popular cuddle buddy!