spoken for » death

Farewell to an old chum

Val — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 17:50:13 +0000

Things did not turn out as I’d hoped. I talked to the vet this morning on the phone and he said he wanted me to come down to talk about Rimshot, that after further observation and research, prognosis did not look good. I started then trying to prepare myself and Elijah for losing him.

Have I ever mentioned that my in-laws are awesome? My mother and father-in-law came in and she stayed with Kayleigh (who hasn’t even noticed that the dog is missing) and my father-in-law, Elijah, and I went down to the vet’s. Steve was at work.

Well, the vet had said yesterday that it was strange that Rimshot’s front legs weren’t working but the back ones were ok. Apparently it usually is the back legs. The outter part of the spine controls the back legs and the inner does the front and he determined it was highly likely that Rimshot had some sort of lesion and clot in the spine already and that it had just been a matter of time before this happened. That maybe when he missed the couch the other day, it sort of activated it. Whatever happened, Rimshot was still paralyzed in the front. He said that it was possible that within 1-2 weeks he may recover but the chances of that are not good, and then there’s the chance of partial recovery with disability.

He brought Rimshot out to see us and BOY was he excited. He was especially excited to see my father-in-law, they were buddies. We spent some time with him and when the vet came back I signed off to have him put down. The boys went back to the waiting room while the vet took Rimshot back again. When he returned, he told me I was making the right decision. I’m glad we got to see the dog fully alive and say good-bye. I even took a pic with my phone of Elijah and Rimshot, told him he could have it to remember him by – I don’t think I have any other recent ones of the two of them. I had told Elijah that Rimshot was hurt really bad and “dying” though, he doesn’t know that the vet had to do the “dirty work” – I think it’s a bit easier that way. This is his first real experience with death, the people close to us who have died did so when he was too little to remember and we’ve had no other pets.

Elijah was just wailing and such, so they went back to the house while I waited and then my father-in-law came back for me and the body. He has since taken The Box home with him and is going to bury him and when Steve gets home from work, we’ll have a little doggie funeral.

Elijah wailed for a while more here at home but I’ve finally got him playing some Wii so he’s a bit distracted. Every so often he still says “I miss Rimshot” or “I wish Rimshot was here” or even just, “Oh, Rimshot.” He will be fine in time, I know. It’s really interesting, though, how this boy loves that dog because all he did was harass him and cause that poor dog grief and then yell something like, “UGH, I need a dog that respects me!”

I am not without tears. I’ve been crying off and on since I found out that he was hurt. When I realized that it wasn’t just a hurt paw that would go away in a few hours, I think I knew where this was headed.

So farewell, old friend, we’ve been allies in this house of crazy people for 10 years now and I’m really gonna miss you.

getting political

Val — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:02:58 +0000

I’m not going to talk (except maybe for a few comments here and there), I just want to post some videos my friend sent me. If you disagree, that’s fine. I’m not here to argue. I disagree with a lot of my friends on stuff and that doesn’t change how I feel about them [my friends]. There are just some issues I feel strongly about.

CHIMPS! I’m working with CHIMPS!
And Michelle is apparently the biggest one of all. WTH

Did ya see his face at the beginning and then his face at the end? LMBO! And his last response… WHAT!?? LOL Still working with chimps here…

I don’t think I can add anything to this…

One more:

Enough said.

die, die, die!

Val — Fri, 23 May 2008 04:07:26 +0000

Or rather, it DIED. Hallelujah!

I’ve hated this bush ever since we moved in, hated it, always wanted it gone. Sometime between the end of last summer and this spring, it finally died… and the villagers rejoiced.

Here it is sometime in the winter of 2005:

Can you see why I hated it? There were times it would get all big and green and just in the way and it had these gross seed pod things. So, yes, when it died, I was very happy.

Last week, I started ripping it out. I was so proud, I got it all out but the stump and it looked like this:

Of course, now the brush pile is gone, the grass has been cut (lol), and the stump is gone, too, Steve took care of that yesterday.

So, now the question is, what to put there? I really want something decorative, perferrably a tree, but I’ll take another bush, too. Anything that has either lots of pretty flowers or colored leaves.

I’d love to have another lilac bush. In fact, one of my life goals (haha) is to have one of each color. So far, I have the darker purple with white outline but I also know of traditional purple, yellow, white, and crimson red. There might be more. But we don’t have room for all of that. And lilacs are known to tear up water lines and such when they get too big, and this would actually be very close to the water line, so maybe that’s not a good idea.

I’d also love to have a fruit tree or two but by the time one would start bearing fruit we would (hopefully) be moved out of here.

So, suggestions? :)

Heath.

Val — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:36:12 +0000

Everyone’s talking about him, why shouldn’t I? :P

By now the world (that has access to television, radio, and the internet) knows of Heath Ledger’s passing and I think that most of the people who know are surprised, though I wonder how many actually care.

Was he one of my favorites? Yes. Did I like all his movies? No. Did I see this coming? Yes. Am I surprised, though? Yes. Do I feel like he died too young? Yes. Is there a certain politician I’d love to trade him for? Yes.

The world, she still turns, and life goes on. He had all that money, the fame, and what to show for it? Just a beautiful daughter. He’s still dead. You can’t stop that, can’t buy your way out of that. Did he know that the combination of no sleep, sleeping pills, and (probably) pneumonia would cause him to go to sleep for the last time? Probably not. Was he surprised? I think so.

Just goes to show you, death is not only imminent, it is no respecter of persons. We all will die and unless you’re suicidal, we don’t know when that might be, it could be right around the corner. Make sure you have all your final arrangements in order, and I don’t just mean the funeral. Be prepared for that final exit.

#2043

Val — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 04:10:00 +0000

It’s been crazy around here… more than usual. Let’s see, in the last week…?

Elijah’s basically started Kindergarten. Yes, we’re homeschooling, yes, he’s only four. A lot of the preschool stuff I have for him is too easy, so I figure what’s the harm in starting a bit early? That way we can take it a bit easy, too, and not have to worry about actually finishing until Spring of 2009. At “worst case scenario,” he’ll be ahead. It’s a long story about this, but if you have my usual password, look a few posts back.

Last night I put a 120GB hard drive into my laptop. Nothing wrong with my previous hard drive, but it was 80GB and I really needed it larger. I should have known to go ahead and upgrade the hard drive at the time I bought the laptop, but I didn’t. This was the easiest hard drive removal ever. Only two screws and it slides right out the side, awesome. But I wasn’t able to get my operating system and everything to backup and copy correctly so I started from scratch. I’m still waiting on a 16GB SSD which will work to ReadyBoost and for automated backups.

A dear family friend died yesterday morning. He was our old pastor, one of the ones who officiated our wedding, in fact. I’ve known him for darn near 20 years now. In February, he was diagnosed with acute leukemia. It was in remission for a little while but it came back recently and he decided he didn’t want the chemo anymore. He wanted to live out his life as normally as possible. He was doing quite well but got sick in the last few weeks and passed away Monday, surrounded by friends and family. So the last two days have been spent on the phone and with text messages and emails trying to notify people of first the death, and then the arrangements.

Looks like I’ll get to clean computers after the funeral, too. The same people I always do for this, well, apparently their son came home from college during Thanksgiving break and screwed up all the computers… again. Even the office computer and it won’t print anything either now; their bedroom computer is full of viruses now, too. Fun.

I’ve been kinda sick lately. Nothing serious, but it’s funny that I would get sick on the same day as I did last year, the Monday/Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Thankfully, it hasn’t been nearly what it was last year (should have been hospitalized then, honestly) but it’s been enough to make me miserable and tired throughout the day, and really miserable in the mornings. It’s also caused me to fall behind a lot of things, it seems, including my 365 Days project, which I was actually doing pretty well at. I have some pictures but haven’t unloaded my camera in over a week, so I’m not sure how many I actually have. Also kind of funny because getting sick was the same reason I stopped trying the 365 last year. I guess I could just pick up where I left off…

I’ve also not worked out much lately because of this. I did some last Tuesday but since I wasn’t feeling too well, it was just the bike and some weights. Then Thursday, not at all. Today, this Tuesday? Not at all. It’s making me very sad. I’m also sad that if we don’t go back to the Tuesday School (which after today is now on a 5 week break anyway) I won’t be able to work out with my friend during that (for free, too).

No, I did not go shopping the day after Thanksgiving. I get enough of crowds when I have to do fairs I guess I don’t want to deal with them elsewhere. Instead, Bes was out texting me prices. Heehee, my own personal shopper! ;-) He picked up for me a 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo and a 4 GB SD Card. I was hoping to use the 2GB for ReadyBoost on the desktop and the other for the laptop but it turns out that neither are ReadyBoost…able. Hence the 16GB thing I’ve more recently purchased. I also almost lost the 2GB Duo inside the card reader on the laptop, haha. It says it takes Pro but apparently the Duo is shorter in size? I obviously don’t have experience with those types of cards. But when I pushed it in, it was too short and I had to get some tweezers to get it out. Who knew? :) And oh well with them not being ReadyBoost, I can use them for storage and stuff, of course.

I got back the collages for Christmas gifts and got some perfect frames for them. A 10×13 for my parents and an 8×10 for my grandpa. Then that smaller one of E you see in the photo is also in an 8×10 for my in-laws.

A few days ago I ordered a calendar for my parents, too. It’s a full size thing and is 12 month. It arrived today and it’s nicer than I expected, good sturdy paper. The only thing is the front cover is the same photo as the first photo. I don’t know if I was supposed to pick a cover photo, or what, I would have picked a different one, but it’s cool. There are four photos of my kid and my niece together and then the rest are an equal amount of them separately. I sort of put them where they go by season as well. After that test run, think I’ll do one for Steve’s parents, too. Either just of E, their only grandchild, or maybe of E and their six kids. Not sure yet. But it would figure that the calendars are now on sale, they went on sale the day after I ordered the previous calendar. :P I use winkflash.com – they’re awesome.

Um, what else? Heck if I know…

Why are people so stupid?

Val — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 03:22:08 +0000

Update to the first part, read this comment.

Today, a man very stupidly let the two-year-old son of his girlfriend walk away and disappear while at a St. Louis County park. Police started searching for the little boy around 5.30pm, it is now 10.15. The search has been called off.

Called off!?!

They will resume in the morning, they say. They are sealing off the park, they say.

But! This is a TWO-YEAR-OLD! And he is LOST! BY HIMSELF! ALONE! In a park AT NIGHT! AND THEY ARE CALLING OFF THE SEARCH!?!

Someone please explain this to me because I totally do not understand!!!

This park has a good sized water area, from what I understand and the news cameras showed. There is also a wooded area, they say. Police have been searching both areas. There is no sign of an abduction, police say.

Think about it – the little boy could still be in the wooded areas. Alone. Scared. He wants his mommy. Let’s assume a wild animal doesn’t get him and he wanders off again – he could drown in that dang water! Not to mention that the Meramec River is nearby that area!

AND THEY CALLED OFF THE SEARCH FOR THE NIGHT!?

I am so upset, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray for the little guy.

Equally upsetting was the following news story: a man who shot his 12 DAY OLD son with a pellet gun FIVE TIMES in January. Bastard! He’s lucky the baby lived!

Want more?

Steve saw a house fire on his way to work today, along the interstate. Turned out that this couple was going through a bad divorce and she got the house. He bragged that she’d never get it, that he’d burn it down instead. He shot himself in the head and let the house burn early this morning. They didn’t even know he was in there until around noon today.

How about the Pennsylvania 19-year-old who was supposed to be babysitting a 20-month-old and a 2-year-old instead slept off her drinking and awoke later to find the garage door open and both the little darlings’ bodies floating in a pond near the house.

Then you got morons like Josh Hancock’s dad who is suing not only the owner of a towing company and the driver of the truck into which his son ran into on the interstate, ending his life, but the owner of the stalled car whom the tow truck driver was trying to help!! I’m sorry, Mr. Hancock, but that tow truck was lit up like it should have been and your son’s death is only his own fault; if he had not been drunk out of his gourd, he would have had the wits to see that tow truck and would still be alive today!! I am sorry that he died, but he took his life in his hands when he got drunk, no way around it! There are more important things in life than making money and getting attention out of your son’s death! Grieve and MOVE ON, don’t needlessly make other’s lives miserable!

Why are people such morons!? It gets worse every year, I swear!