I’m currently in the process of burning through another apple man. Been on the phone 50 minutes now. He’s very nice.
So… I see I was sick last time I blogged. Well I got better, then I got sick again, and now I am healthy and just tired. Tired in general and tired specifically of all of the starvation and ATTITUDE out here. The numbness toward starving animals. The insensitivity concerning an animal that you hit in the road. The endless arguments about cost of care, necessity of booster vaccines, differences between vet clinics and animal shelters… GRAH. It’s not everyone, but some weeks it just seems like it. On the other hand you have the adorable sisters who returned their new sewing machine to pay for treating their parvo puppy. Thinking of them makes me tear up and thank God so much that their pup made it through. It’s national parvo week out here and that would be the other reason I am tired. I don’t sleep well when animals are in the hospital. I keep waking up wondering if I should drive in and check on them, and when I do sleep I have weird dreams. Like last night. I dreamed I had a baby and named it Hosanna, and it had a mohawk.
Sinking heart, apple man is through with me. He reminds me of when I have no clue what is wrong with an confusing case, throw out some possibilities, send it home on some supportive meds, then run to my office and read like a mad woman. Last time I tried to hook this thing up an AT&T man spent over an hour troubleshooting, didn’t seem to have the right manual for my phone, then finally figured out all the right buttons to push to make it work. Apple men are weaker. They say it is probably a computer problem and email you articles. Ah well, I will take it to tech support at NTC and give them the sad eyes. They already know that they may have to come all the way out to the hospital to plug something in because I confuse myself with 6 remotes to projectors and giant computers and may fail to see that something is just not plugged into the wall.
Well I was trying to figure out what to write about and I got too tired thinking about all the weird, semi-interesting things that have gone on out here and I’m going to just go to bed. I really, really still miss my dog Max. That’s one of the biggest things that happened that knocked me pretty flat for a while. He was my best boy of all time, and while visiting my llama a couple of weeks ago he took off from his usual obsession with the sheep and got hit in the road. The vehicle didn’t even slow down or stop, and I found him when he didn’t come when I called. We were only at the farm for 10 minutes, but that’s how fast it can happen. He was gone already when I got there, and based on his injuries I think he died immediately, which is the only good thing that I can pull out of what happened. Well that, and that he did not have to die slowly of cancer or organ failure. He was 12 or 13 years old though and we should have had more time together, and I miss him so, so much. Pepperoni misses him too! She still isn’t eating normally. There are some things about the people here that are just wrong, cultural norms or no cultural norms. It’s wrong to hit a dog and not stop. It’s wrong to drive past a woman kneeling and crying in the road with her dog and not stop. It’s just wrong and I give those handful of people no excuses. The good people are here though. The people who heard from Dr. Daye what happened and came back to work to help me get some shovels, the people who cried with me and hugged me, the people who gave me a little section of land to bury him in, the people who helped me dig a hole in the dark and tell me stories about the local Big Foot while we were digging… I love them all dearly. Every student and every staff member at this hospital has my heart and loyalty forever.
Well now that I’m dripping tears and snots everywhere I believe I will turn in. There hasn’t been a night yet where I don’t look at his empty chair and think about him running around in heaven waiting for me. Here’s an odd thing: the Sunday before this happened I was in Flagstaff, and I still can’t remember the context, but the FlagNaz pastor said that all dogs go to heaven and backed it up with a few scriptures and some refreshing boldness about a belief I have always had. Of course all dogs go to heaven. Why would God make such wonderful, perfect companions for us on this earth and then take them away? One last good thing about what happened… my desire to see heaven one day is no longer an academic, apprehensive, inevitable type thing. Intellectually of course I’d like to meet Jesus and see what this much under-described, perfect forever-home is like… but now that I know Max is there I’m so excited to get up there and see his happy face and tail-wagging self come flying out the gates to meet me! I didn’t realize it before, but home has always been where Max is. I’ve been such a nomad, packing up and leaving Michigan with only what would fit in my car, then heading to the middle of this high desert to live in a trailerpark where I have often felt like the only white person in the universe… but every day for the last 11 years I have come home to that faithful friend. Boyfriends have come and gone, friends have moved away or I have left them, happy times and sad times, that dog has been the most unconditionally loving companion and friend a girl could ever ask for. I miss you Mr. Smurf, Mr. Boogie Woogie, Mr. Maxwell Jonathan Brown, Mr. Snuffles, Mr. Snoopy-doo, Mr. Fluffy-butt... all of the weird things I called you and you just put up with it, lol. What a good dog.
I will try to be a little more upbeat next time and talk about the holy terror I adopted last week. Rez pups are always more than willing to help heal some sadness in your life, or at least distract you from it as you spend each evening pointing out all of the things that we DON’T chew and attempt to barter for your belongings with rawhide chews and stuffed toys.
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