R.I.P. Chloe

In loving memory

Chloe Bushong

(Jan 1995 - November 30, 2008)

Chloe the Amazing Wonder Dog

As Mike said in the blog he wrote on Thanksgiving it has been a tough week. Our Chloe dog isn't doing to well. At this time, despite some amazing fighting on Chloe's part, I am pretty sure our next blog is going to be a very sad one.

Right now I don't want to dwell on that. I just want to write about what a wonderful friend Chloe has been. She has been a wonderful part of my life for almost 14 years now...through thick and thin. She has been through multiple moves, changes in jobs and my search for the perfect guy to become a part of our little family. Kind of amazing when I think about who many stages of my life Chloe has been a part of.

She was even an instrumental part in Mike and I falling in love. I first felt the tug at my heartstrings when she visiting his place for the first time and she was laying down in her dog bed. Mike was walking by and he pulled a blanket off the sofa and covered her up because he thought she looked cold. Since that time they have become best friends. I may be Chloe's mom, but Mike is her best buddy. I am thankful for the joy Mike has added to Chloe's twilight years, and I am equally as thankful for how she has brought us together as a couple.

So, to our Amazing Wonder Dog. Thank you for a lifetime of love, companionship and happiness. You are one of a kind and we will always treasure you.

Tough Thanksgiving

Well, it is Thanksgiving night, and I should be in a nice turkey-induced coma right about now. Instead, I have snuck away from the ambient noise in the other room, away from the remnants of the third terrible football game today, and find myself in front of the computer in my dad's office.

In Thanksgivings past, I might be thinking about my family, or re-telling the annual tryptophan factoid my cousin repeats every year, or maybe talking about how I really am going to get my shopping done early this year (let it be known, by the way, that I am done shopping already). But this year has been a bit more somber.

When Stacy and I made the trip down to my parents' place to spend our first married Thanksgiving together, we decided we would bring our pup Chloe. She is getting a little long in the tooth, coming up here pretty quickly on her 14th birthday, and we want to spend every bit of time off we have with her.

We pulled into the drive on Saturday night, and things were pretty good. Chloe was at her best, hogging both the middle and both edges of the bed (how can that even be possible?). I must have slept a good 3 hours that night, fighting for covers and trying to keep an ass cheek on the bed. By Sunday night, though, I would have killed to have that battle.

She wasn't eating here food. Now this, in and of itself, is worrisome, but with Chloe, this is tantamount to hemmorhaging openly. Chloe is a voracious eater. She loves food like a fat kid loves cake. So when she refused to eat, we were worried. When she threw up her food, we were terrified. And by the time we had made our way into the emergency vet, we were downright mortified.

Since Sunday, she has spent a couple of nights in urgent care, a couple of days with doctor Mike at the local vet, and very little time with us. Apparently, her albumin levels are low, which basically means her body is starting to succumb to the cancer. I won't labor all the finer details here, but I will say that Stacy and I have found ourselves embracing and remembering, grieving and loving our precious Chloe.

As I type this, Chloe is resting comfortably in the bedroom with Stacy. After a trip to the beach today, she has been eating a bit better, perking her head up a bit more. Indeed, she is way better than earlier in the week. How will it turn out? Hell if I know; I don't even know what tomorrow will bring. But I know she has brought Stacy and I even closer together, and my whole family is now rallying around our sweet little pup of almost 14 years.

I guess if I can share one nugget of wisdom it is this: despite this being the toughest Thanksgiving I can remember, I am more appreciative than ever that we have had Chloe. Just being around what my wife calls "The Wonder Dog" makes me appreciate how much I care about my family and how much I love my wife. Even at her most worn out, she continues to prove that even if you can't teach an old dog new tricks, an old dog can teach us humans a new trick or two.

I _HATE_ when this happens to me

Now, for those of you who know me, you know that despite working in high-tech, I am about as technology-behind as anyone. When people talk about high tech, I immediately think about burritos (http://www.hightechburrito.com/). I don't gawk over the latest gadgets, and the doohickeys that I do have go largely unused.

It is with that in mind that I want to lend some support to the following gentleman. You see, he went and bought into all the iPhone hoopla, only to be absolutely screwed by high tech. He was sitting there watching a football game one afternoon, I am sure, when he thought to himself, "You know what I need? A beer? Nope, that wouldn't do it. Maybe I will get myself some pizza. Naah. I've got it - a picture of my own genitals on my phone!"

So this poor, innocent guy snaps the photo. Imagine his dismay when his iPhone had a "glitch" and the photo was sent to some random woman. What are the odds?! I realize the sample size is small, but based on this story, I would put them at about 1-in-1.

And this is why, folks, you don't see me toting around an iPhone. You can't trust those damn things.

For the full story, read about his "iPhoney Story".

Doggie Socks!

As many of you know, Chloe is the amazing wonder dog. Kind of like a Timex watch...she keeps on ticking, or the Energizer Bunny...she keeps going and going. Well, even amazing wonder dogs need help sometimes.

In this case, help is in the form of mobility socks. Chloe tore a ligament her one of her back legs about a month ago and surgery to fix it is not an option due to her age. Despite measures to "old doggie proof" the house (i.e. carpeting the hardwoods in ugly, inexpensive area rugs and using a baby gate to keep her off the stairs during the day) she would still loose her footing on occasion. So my friend google and I looked around...voila, mobility socks. They look a bit ridiculous, but she doesn't seem to mind them and they really help stabilize her back legs. http://www.wizardofpaws.net/pages/store.htm (scroll down to the mobility socks)

I'm happy to report that Mike and Chloe can one again engage in their favorite game of running in circles around the downstairs.

Pumpkinpalooza!

Well, the election has come and gone, but I am going to go a little more old school and write about Halloween - our first in Pleasanton. It would have come sooner, but we didn't get the photos downloaded until just a few minutes ago. Alas, the wonders of technology. Anyway, this was our first Halloween as a couple. And our first in our new house. So we were pretty excited to go get pumpkins and do the carving thing. On the Saturday before Halloween, we drove by a big pumpkin patch, so we strolled in. This place was awesome. They had big pumpkins, green pumpkins, little pumpkins, pumpkins with character, and carnies. Yeah, carnies. They had rides and stuff. We strolled about and picked out a couple of big pumpkins. Seriously, these things weighed about 40 pounds each. They were gynormous, the kind of pumpkins you pick out when you don't remember how hard it is to clean them out. The next day, we headed over to Bill Bates' place to hang out with some friends and their kids. Stacy is a married woman of child-bearing age; you can imagine where her mind went (no worries, though - I want kids too). We craved and scraped, shoveled and cut. While I was arm deep in my pumpkin, Stacy was picking out the pattern for hers. So Stacy ends up trying to make this skull thing. It looked awesome until she got to the teeth. Whil trying to carve out these little holes in a pumpkin the size of a small fridge, she broke her pumpkin. She did some toothpick repair, but this pumpkin was doomed. It lasted for a few minutes until one of the kids walked over and poked at it. Lovely.



We eventually got the pumpkins home. They rode in the backseat while I took every curve with caution, every light with a slow start. We got the pumpkins up on our front porch on Sunday. Halloween? It was on a Friday. As it turns out, that is waaaaay too long to wait between carving and Halloween. We ended up with this giant orange, smelly, mushballs. Seriously, if you touched the pumpkin, it was dissolve in a moldy mess all over your hand. So it is almost Halloween, and Stacy goes out to buy candy. I left her with one piece of guidance - "Don't buy lame candy." She came back with High School Musical, Incredible Hulk, and body part candy. None of it tasted particularly good. Strike that. None of it tasted at all good. I will pick out the candy next year. Who doesn't like $100,000 bars? Those things rock, and you never get enough of them at Halloween. None of it mattered though. The smelly pumpkins and untasty candy were no big deal. When Halloween rolled around, we got all of 3 trick-or-treaters. Three. _3_. That's it. Next year, we are going to put up a stand in some residential area where there are more kids. If they won't come to us, we will take Halloween to them. And they will like it, damnit.