A Total Blam Blam

Today we put Jasmine to sleep. It did not go as smoothly as with DeeDee, but it's over now. I miss her and I love her so much. I hope that in the end she was able to feel the comfort I tried to give her and died knowing we were all there with her. It's amazing how you know without a doubt the moment life leaves. Mom left today too. She says she will be back soon, but I probably won't see her again before I leave. This evening Grandma and I watched a video I'd made of Jasmine when everyone was in NY.

Now it's Jasmine's dinnertime. It feels really unnatural that there is nothing waiting in my bedroom. I don't have to drop what I'm doing every couple hours to let Jas out. I don't have to feed any creature at night, I don't have to get up several times during the night to let her out, I don't have to be woken up in the morning to feed her. I don't have to wash any blankets and towels. I don't have to clean the blender. I don't want to throw away her food or her food bowl or her ball or her stuffed monkey. I wanted to and did throw away all her pills. I still have to clean up the dog poop in the backyard. I miss her so much. It was such a big job. A big part of my life, taking care of her, and this is such a terrible horrible emptiness.

I'm gonna go stay over with Aunt C. and Aunt G. and her dogs and my sister at the horse farm this weekend.

A lot has happened, blah blah etc. Sunday before last, way late at night, my dog had a very scary asthmatic episode. She was just barely getting any air in, pacing around, gasping, choking, eyes bugging out, body shaking trying to get in some air. I made her lay down in her bed and pet her and tried to breathe calmly and talk softly to her until she finally started breathing again. Since then, her breathing has been pretty labored. We took her in to the vet's, got some x-rays. Radiologist says the bronchitis has progressed a bunch, her entire respiratory system is affected. Vet told me signs to look for that mean it's time to put her down. The signs are there. She has gotten a little better since the attack, but I will have to decide sometime in the next one or two weeks when to have her put to sleep. This sucks a lot. But I knew it had to happen soon, and it's a gift that I can be here for her when it happens, and that she will not have to miss me when I leave for Norway.

Friday was my last day working at the Y. YAY!!! It was warm and sunny that day, a perfect last day. I will miss the kids. Chris says he has found another job and will be resigning soon also.

Monday, though the weather continued to be record-breakingly warm and sunny, I very suddenly fell sick. I have been sick as a dog since then. Fever, ground-glass sore throat, foul cough, general achey-ness, chills, dizziness, headache, plugged ears and snotty nose, all of that stuff. I really want to go hiking w/ Mom before she goes back to California, dammit. She's leaving in the next few days, and I probably won't see her again before I leave for

NORWAY! Yesterday my WORK PERMIT CAME!!! Which means that now it is up to me. I must get everything taken care of as quickly as possible. Plane ticket, room cleaned and packed, loans dealt with, immunizations and eye and tooth checkups, hair cut, and the biggest, scariest thing of all: driver's license.

Ughughugh ugh.

Ugh. I kept putting it off and putting it off. I'm pretty sure the mother needs me to have a license. I can list a million excuses why I haven't had the chance to get one yet, but bottom line is, this was my responsibility to take care of and I haven't. So now I only have like three weeks to get my license. The two cars I can practice on are G-ma's big fat lousy steering and brakes Suburban, or G-pa's big fat expensive black truck. I need a small car.

Argh I'm too sick all I feel like doing is complaining goodbye.

Well, if you want to sing out, sing out
And if you want to be free, be free
Cause there's a million things to be
You know that there are
You know that there are

Early this morning I had an extremely vivid bastard of a dream. In it, my home town was swamped in tidal waves. First, there was a sequence where I was climbing this strange white tower, and there were people sitting everywhere on this tower. I got to one point I thought would be high enough, and there sat this little group of girls from where I work, and they were all sweet and said, "You can sit here with us!" but then I looked down and the water was still boiling higher so I kept running up the tower and it seemed to go up forever.

Next part: My grandma and grandpa had a really tall beach front house with outdated furniture from the 70's. It was Grandma and me, and Jazzy was somewhere in the house. Grandpa was at work I guess. Grandma was sick, all wrapped up in her housecoat feeling old and achey. I looked out to sea, and there was the tidal wave, frothing towards us and gathering height. So I took off with Grandma, we ran up the stairs, up and up, and I lost track of Grandma, and I ended up in the tip top of the house, in the attic, and there was this strange part where I was trying to climb out the window into this happy carpet world, but I didn't quite make it when the tsunami had passed. So I look down through the window and there is a ladder I can climb down, and there are some firemen and rescue people, and soon enough Grandpa shows up. They find Grandma in the house. She didn't make it. After examining her body, though, they tell us that they are not sure if she died from drowning or from the bout of chocolate poisoning she had been suffering from. Chocolate poisoning was a very serious malady. Apparently her achey sickness was a result of this chocolate poisoning, and I had never known. Grandpa was holding back tears, all tough gentle grizzly bear, and he seemed like this working man hero. Then we are back in the house, and we find, cradled in a rescue worker's arms, Jazzy, all wet and cold and freaked and jittery, happy to see all of us, licking everybody like crazy. So that is a happy moment, that Jaz survived after all, at least. There are other parts somewhere in there too, but I can't remember.

I haven't had a tsunami dream in at least two years. I used to have them all the time, ever since I got pummeled by a 12-foot wave in Mexico when I was 11.

This thing in SE Asia is so horrible and godawful. I wish I had the skills they are looking for in a volunteer. I just can't fathom what the people who live there must be feeling.

I scored a 51% on the "How Norwegian Are You?" Quizie! What about you?

Mom is in town again! Grandma is still in NY and it is just so strange without her here. Grandpa misses her a whole lot. My favorite Christmas presents are some assorted glass beads and a skein of this heavenly soft, pale, and fuzzy yarn. I don't know if I've started to subconsciously censor what I put in this journal, or if I'm just not in a very self-reflective frame of mind these days, but it feels like I've been posting way too many "This Is What I Did Today entries, and too few navel-gazing ones.

Also, did you hear about the massive earthquake and tsunami in SE Asia? It's so horrible, and I didn't even hear anything about it on the local news, I had to tune in to BBC World News. I wish I could fly over there and volunteer in the clean-up and disaster relief.

Jasmine ran away. At about 11:30, when I put her out while I got her dinner ready, and then got sidetracked by one of my knitting projects. Just before midnight, I came out to find that she was gone. I can't believe I left her out there. I took the flashlight and searched the neighborhood for 30 minutes, calling her name and listening hard for the click of her toenails. Nothing, no sound at all. Already this is not like her, because whenever she wanders off, she always stays within a block of our house, and she always comes back sooner than 30 minutes! So I go back home, she isn't there waiting, I find Grandpa nodding off on the couch, I tell him, crying, he stands in the front yard for a little while, smoking and thinking, then we get in his big black pickup truck with our flashlights and search the surrounding area for almost an hour. We go until we have no clue where to look. Tonight is foggy and very cold. My hands are freezing, and Jas is so old and she needs her medication. Nothing at all. We go back home, and she is not there waiting.

Grandpa smokes. The weather forecast is for rain or snow. There are two busy streets near our house. Jas is not a friendly, social kind of dog with strangers. All she is concerned about is finding things to eat.

We get back in his pickup, search again. Nothing. Hard to see in the fog. We get home around 2. Jasmine is not there. This has never ever happened before, I don't know what to do. I make her dinner, extra steaming hot, and put it out on the porch with her blanket, in case she comes back. Grandpa says, "If she hasn't come back by now, she must be lost, and we can't look any more until daylight." Then he says good night and goes in to bed. I'm really freaking scared now, feeling like I'm gonna puke, imagining horrible things like her lying in a ditch somewhere and all that. I use the bathroom, start to get ready for bed. I keep checking the back porch, praying she's there. At 2:20, I check again and there she is, wolfing down her dinner, and her belly all bloated from some mystery feast.

Oh my god I am so relieved oh my god. She looks absolutely fine, the same as always, except her legs are soaking wet. She wasn't even shivering.

Now she's upstairs sleeping. God I'm so glad she's back. The things I was thinking. So now I've gotta try and finish all these Christmas presents, yes, everyone knows what a procrastinator Aimee is.

But guess what? Tomorrow my vacation begins! Won't be back at work til after New Year's!!

Grandpa got home late last night and stayed up til 2 telling me his side of the story with the Uncle T situation. It was nice to hear Grandpa's feelings and experiences, he's a pretty thoughtful person in his own way and usually he just says a few gruff words now and then. Grandpa has always been like this short, stout grizzly bear.

Then I got up way early this morning for a meeting, and then work today. The "Winter Celebration." Utter horror and chaos. Utter... I don't want to talk about it, but one of the two scariest parts was running out into the dark helping a panicking mom find her lost four year old. The mom was back inside looking in the classrooms, and I stood in the field on the hill and called "Ari," and out from the dark of the plaza, in the far corner of the schoolyard, this solitary little boy came toddling. The boy and his mom and older brother were united, and all was well, but it sure was surreal finding that boy.

Then I went home to find the house empty, but luckily as always, Jazzy was there, so we settled down all warm and cozy, took a nap, and I watched tv while Jas gnawed on her ball. I guess I zonked so completely that I didn't hear the call from Grandpa that he's staying the night with Uncle R. and my cousins. Dang it. I hope he comes back over here tomorrow. I miss humans.

So I think that brings us up to date.

Good night, lj friends.

Okay, today wasn't *that* bad. Just one of those lonely, boring, empty kind of days when you can't find anything to do that doesn't drive you crazy. Stayed in my pajamas pretty much the last couple days and felt yucky. I hate that tomorrow is Monday and I don't feel like I got anything done this weekend even though I don't think there was anything much that I was supposed to do. Things that suck: tv, the internet, tv, the Y, ugly potato sack-shaped work shirts, getting full on crappy food, spending all day alone, tv, commercials, dirty clothes, messy rooms, spending 4 hours crocheting a fucking doily, chapped lips, dry hands, re-reading old back issues of Outside magazine, tv movies starring that lady from the Golden Girls. Wait--today *did* suck.

Oh yeah, last week I got upgraded from Program Aide to Program Leader, with a pay increase of 45 whole cents per hour! *wah wah wah puke*

I'm getting on the computer too often lately.

I wonder if religion is all tangled with politics in Norway the way it is becoming in America. I read some random Norwegian girl's blog and she had this whole post that was saying things like, "Right now, I'm just sick and tired of living in a country ruled by inteligent conservatives, where the people in general really aren't conservative, they just have so much that they can't be bothered to think about any such things because they take them for granted and because they have more important things relating to clothing and make-up to think of. I think that nothing in this world is as scary as religion mixed with politics and we see a lot of that here in Norway...though not many people say that they are religious."

I know this is just one random girl's opinion and yeah she's probably generalizing, but it worries me a bit because what she said in the quote above is reminiscent of what I really dislike about my country's government, and while living abroad, I kinda wanted to get away from that.