Winding Down

So, a month or so ago, my dog, Puckett, was diagnosed with cutaneous lymphoma. It's pretty much a death-sentence as it's not a type of cancer that responds well to the usual cancer treatment options and, even if it does respond, it has a high incidence of recurrence. In that month's time, I've seen an 11yr old dog go from an energy level and demeanor that caused most people to guess his age at maybe a third his actual age to seeming like an eleven year old dog.

When I say he used to act like a dog a third his age, I'm not kidding. Included in the people fooled, by Puckett's energy, have been neighbors that have known us more than four or five years (and did pet lookins when we were out of town), vets and vet techs who'd not yet looked at his file. Of course, people new to him, were always immediately fooled.

It just seems like, in the last thirty days, the full weight of eleven years of life have come slamming down on him. The initial diagnosis said that dogs with his condition average about six months from diagnosis. That projection was based on later detection than was his case. So, I was hopeful that he might go on the long side of that death-sentence. With his recent, sudden aging, I'm feeling like I might be lucky if he makes it to summer.

Today, the sudden aging really struck home. Throughout the entire time that Puckett has been with us:

• He was always the first dog at the door. He was always the most exuberant. This last week, especially, he's no longer at the front of the lineup - he's sorta hanging back, waiting his turn for the hellos.
• You could always tell when he was near a wall, standing near a table, next to the kitchen island, counters or appliances or even positioned "just right" in a doorway by the loud banging of his tail. And, if he happend to be standing in a corner, where his tail would hit two surfaces, it was a loud, stacatto drum-beat of enthusiasm. His wag was always done with such energy and vigor that, even if it wasn't banging against something, it made is head bob about as some kind of counter-balance. His wag has been so everpresent that he even frequently wags in his sleep (a bit disconcerting a phenomena). He's still wagging his tail, but it's not with quite the same vigor and, it seems more that he's doing it in response to a request for it than doing it unbidden out of shear zeal for life.
• Except when drawn away by food or not being inside the house, he always followed me into the bathroom. I'd come to make it a habit to leave the door open, lest he stand there bumping at it till I let him in. Today, for the first time, as I sat there with the door open, he remained parked in the living room, resting.

He's also been a bit wheezy and generally tired the last week or so. His legs seem to be stiffening up. And, of course, the "coffin-nails" (what I've come to refer to his skin tumors) seem to be multiplying - as yet, most are detectable just as a disturbance in the lay of his fur rather then yet being felt by a stroke of his fur.

Tomorrow, I take him to the vet. I'm hoping that some of the energy levels and wheeziness are related to it being allergy season: I know my energy is sapped and my breathing gets ragged when the pollen count's really high. However, obviously, I fear that it's more than that. I fear that the vet's going to deliver yet more bad news that I just don't want to deal with, yet. And, if she does, I don't know what the hell I'm going to do.

I've had a number of dogs over the years. Each has been special. I've celebrated the lives of each and grieved the loss of each. However, there's been something special about Puckett. I'm about the opposite of the permanent-happiness that Puckett affuses, so, I fear that losing him will effect me - the impending loss is effecting me - more than any previous pet has.

When we lost Lana in December, it seemed natural to get another dog. This has been how I and my family has proceeded upon losing a pet - try to find another bundle of life to help fill the hole left by the prior one. Cira's been a great dog. She's her own kind of sweet and her own kind of happy. She's not Lana, but I wasn't expecting her to be - any more than any prior "replacement" pet has been the same as its predecessor. Yet, with Puckett, I don't know whether I want to try to fill that hole. Or even if I do, whether I want to do it as immediately as I have with prior pets. Who knows - maybe the severity of the loss will make me want it more than in prior instances. Hell, it might take two dogs to "replace" his energy, presence and shear "Pucketty-ness". Dunno. Any way you slice it, I'm not looking forward to finding out, but it seems to be bearing down on me like a runaway truck. 

Another Successful Turkey-day

Donna loves to cook. She loves to make big, complicated meals. When it's just her and I eating, it's usually hard to justify the kind of effort and cleanup that such proclivities entail. So, occasions like Thanksgiving gives her a real chance to shine.

It doesn't come without real effort and hard work, however. Thanksgiving meal preparations are a multi-day affair. Before we left DC, she'd had to do some last minute marketing (going to farmers markets to source fresh food stuffs). She also mixed the doughs for the pie crusts she would be rolling-out once in Carlisle. She made a fresh loaf of challah bread to be used in the turkey-day stuffing and in a breakfast bread-pudding. Lastly, she did her whirlwind packing of all the cooking supplies (knives, specialty pans, etc.) she would need for this year's spread.

That was Tuesday. Wednesday, she made the pies. This year: two pumpkin pies and one pecan pie:

Pies!

The pumpkin pies were made from freshly (home) processed pumpkin purée. The pecan pie (or, as my mom frequently refers to it, "peekin pie") was made from pecans she and I had freshly shucked and flavored with her homemade vanilla extract (vanilla beans steeped, for over a year, in Ezra-B 10 year old KSBW). Pies done, she cut up half the loaf of challah bread and made an awesome bread-pudding (also flavored with the homemade vanilla extract!):

Fresh Bread-pudding

I imagine that, when she gets around to it, she'll post the recipe(s) on her blog.

The turkey-day sweets out of the way, she began her preparations of the turkey. Now, there's just the three of us, so, we don't bother with a whole turkey. We just get a couple drumsticks and a small, half-breast from a local farmer. For three people, it still manages to turn out to be a lot of meat. At any rate, over the years, we've discovered that brining turkey's is the key to ensuring that they're extra moist and flavorful. Sourcing from a good, local farm also helps a lot.

Years previous, when she was preparing dinner for five (Mom, Dad, my grandmother and Donna and me), we usually did the (small) whole bird thing. This required putting an entire turkey into a brining bag and letting it sit, over night, in a cooler out in the garage. This year, with it just being two drumsticks and a half breast, it was only two, large resealable Ziplocks tossed in the fridge:

Salty bird ...in the bags, that is

This morning, she got up and resumed preparations. Mom was scheduled to work at the nursing home and wouldn't be back till after 15:00. So, it was to be a late Turkey-day meal. Having stayed up the night before with the prep-work (and then some pre-vacation sewing!), Donna slept in till after 10:00. Wasn't long after that (and a slice of fresh bread pudding) that she got into the actual cooking phase. On the menu:

• Brined turkey rubbed and stuffed with herbed-butter
• hashed brussel sprouts with onions, garlic and bacon
• fresh cranberry relish
• horseradish mashed potatoes
• herbed, baked stuffing
• fresh, scratch-made biscuit
• gravy

No, I don't have the recipes for any of it. Hopefully, she'll make a post on her blog detailing it all. All I can really do is document it all. In the end, this was what ended up on our table:

As per usual: an excellent spread

All in all, a great way to get back into a family holiday.

A Better Homecoming

Seems like the family's back in stride on the Thanksgiving thing. Last year was a bit haphazard, given that my dad had died just a week prior. Much of our thoughts were on processing the emotions of that event and taking care of the mountain of bureaucracy that death lays at the survivors' feet.

On Tuesday evening, Donna and I packed up supplies and our dogs into the family truckster and headed northwards. My mom still lives in the town I grew up in - Carlisle, PA. It's about 120mi northish of Alexandria.

In general, it takes us about three hours to get there on the major holidays: an hour (or so) to get past the northern interior suburbs of DC (i.e., past Bethesda/Rockville/Gaithersburg) and then another hour or so to cover the remaining distance. In other words, we spend about 50% of the total travel time covering just the first 30% of the trip's distance. I hate DC traffic.

We left around 19:30. We didn't go directly to my mom's house, but, instead, stopped at the Wegman's in Camp Hill to pick up some stuff Donna needed for the turkey-day meal. Afterwards, we dropped by Your Place to pick up some frozen strombolis to take back to DC (they're not especially great, they just taste like "home"). Since we'd arrived after 22:00 at the grocery store, all of the Wegman's prepared foods had already been packed up for the day. So, having only had breakfast, I opted to pick up an additional fresh/hot `boli to take to my mom's house to eat for dinner.

We left Camp Hill for the final leg of the trip to Carlisle. My mom lives north of Carlisle. Typically, when we go straight there, from DC, I take Route 34 all the way up from US-15. That wasn't really an option, given that we'd detoured to Camp Hill. The GPS told me I should take US-11 back to Carlisle. Wasn't in the mood to do that, so, I turned north on PA-114, instead. The GPS suggested I might want to take I-81. Again, wasn't in the mood to follow its instructions. Instead, I kept heading down PA-114 till we hit Wertzville Road.

Now, Wertzville Road is one of those twisty-turny back roads you find all over PA. It was great fun as a teenager in a car packed full of friends. As an adult in an SUV on a dark, windy night, it wasn't as much fun as I remembered. However, the memories of high-tailing it down that road made it a more enjoyable trip. Donna loved it because, being so off the beaten path, there was very little in the way of light pollution meaning that she could see the stars in a way you can't see in the suburbs of DC. The dogs? They mostly just sat in the back seat and farted.

We finally arrived at my mom's house around 11PM. We unloaded the truck and started settling in. I set down to eating my stromboli while Mom and Donna caught up and made plans for the week.

All in all, much better than the prior year's urgent drive to PA to be by my mom's side in the wake of my dad's death.

Sobering Reminders

So my dogs, Lana and Puckett are both on Dogster; our cats, Bella and Grumbles, are on Catster. I rarely log into either site. Basically, I only log in when I get some kind of email that reminds me of their existence. Today was the first day in at least a year since last logging in.

So, I took the opportunity to look through our herd's profiles. Each has a set of "friends" (dogs or cats of people that like the looks of our pets and sent out a "friend" request). I was sad to note that several of the "friends" were listed as deceased. Sadly, I look at my 8 year old dogs and 11 year old cats and am reminded that, all too soon, they'll have "RIP" placed next to their names, as well.

Unexpected sobering reminder... Last time I felt like this was last spring, when we were looking at relocating to Germany and I was taking care of pet-related paperwork. On the dogs' health reports were their ages - 7 at the time. I realized that I'd been on the road, away from home and them, for nearly five of those seven years. Basically, I'd been traveling for slightly less time than we'd had both dogs. Was like a kick in the gut.

Lonliness

I don't know that you can, in the strictest sense of the feeling, say that the sense of isolation and disconnectedness that I feel, on a nearly constant basis, is "loneliness". It's simply a recognition that I don't feel very well connected to my fellow man. I don't feel like there's anyone out there that truly gets or understands me. Hell, I'm not sure that even I do, fully, I'm just the closest to someone who does.

When my dad first died, the most salient thought was "the one person with whom I could actually really talk and who 'got me' has died". That was a lonely, empty feeling. That said, in the months since he's died, and, in particular, this past father's day weekend, it struck me that that initial feeling wasn't quite accurate. It wasn't so much that my dad 'got me' as much as he was of a similar enough mental makeup that he was closer to getting me than anyone else I've know. I've realized that he probably didn't really get me, he just came close. The source of this realization being that, much as we were similar, I didn't really know my dad.

While I've never had a sense of having a place to call "home", my dad apparently felt that Mahanoy City, PA was his "home." I'm not certin, however, that even that's quite accurate. If my dad truly was of a similar mental outlook to me, then no place was really home because there was no one, anywhere, who really knew him. Mahanoy City was just some place he could hang his head on as an idea of "home".