Love, Life and Puppy Dog Tales

I am listening. I am hearing my dogs talk to me. I have one asking for more adventures. More more more more more, please. I have one asking what can he do next - whatever I want, he will deliver... just tell him what it is. And I have one that is reaching out to important people in her life... in my life.... those that are open enough to listen. She is trying to prepare me for her transition. I can hear enough of what she is saying to understand that. I need to let her know I am complete now. That the purpose she was here to fulfill with me she has completed. I need to let her know that WHEN she is ready, I am okay with her going on to her next mission. And if she needs help in that transition that I am here for her for that. I see nothing really wrong with her, just by looking at her. I mean, I know that she has an enlarged heart and that she has horrible hips that are painful for her. I know that she can't hear well and her last bloodwork showed her kidneys were beginni...

Cruise the middle of nowhere long enough and there will be a site that you can't believe actually exists.... this is a driveway, lined with toilets. In the toilets are flowers. Please forgive the poor photograph - I only had my cell phone with me, but I couldn't pass this up without some kind of photographic evidence that this exists in the world.

I had a very long and very difficult day. I thought about writing about it here, but then I thought I needed to refocus myself. So I got out my camera and chased the moon around. I took dozens of pictures (thank goodness for digital cameras!) and got nothing but a white blob. Then I looked up how to take pictures of a full moon (thank goodness for Google!) and went back to work. A few dozen pictures later, and this is the result. Isn't she beautiful? I took all the day's pent up energy that strong emotions can bring and I focused on learning something new and putting that knowledge to use. And for the evening, all my anger, anxiety and irritation are now out of focus and harder to dwell on. Sometimes you just have to refocus yourself. Kaeden knows how.

I am once again seeing patients that I remember seeing as puppies getting to the point in their life where we have to say good bye. I can so vividly remember the happy little ball of energy or fluff or fluff and energy coming in for the first times and the owners needing guidance to get through the terrible twos and all the other rough stages to get to their 'perfect' dog... and sometimes they never got their 'perfect' dog, but they could make do, so to speak. Now, some come in and you can just see it in their eyes. They're tired. They have done what they have come here to do, and it is time for them to move on to their next mission. They give us so much during their lifetime. Unconditional, unbridled love is often a benefit we get from them. If only we could be so giving of our emotions to them. We wish that they would just 'go in their sleep'... but sometimes that just isn't in the cards. Sometimes we are put in a position to make the decisio...

A great day with friends yesterday spawned an interesting conversation that hasn't left my head. Great friends will challenge your thought process and yesterday I was confronted with the problem with 'even though'. How often have we, as lesbian and gay people, heard someone say something like this to us: "You know, I think you're (fill in the adjective.... nice, wonderful, awesome, intelligent, great....) even though you're gay," or, even more delicately put, "you're the way you are. " I know that when people that have become close to me or that I have admired have said something like this to me I have felt good about it. I have felt like maybe I have been able to change their prejudice, certainly where I am concerned, but perhaps on a broader scale. But in taking pleasure from that, have I actually perpetuated the prejudice? Here's the thing.... no one would ever get to know someone and then say "You know, I think you're a g...