For Sasha

I knew something was wrong because while I was walking home from the bus stop on 119, Clarisa pulled up and was bawling her eyes out. I figured it might have to do with Sasha, our dog, and it did.

I'm a wreck.

She's sick enough that we will put her to sleep tomorrow.

We'd dropped her off at the vet to board her this past weekend and get her checked out - she had a little growth on her eye that had just sprung up. They ran some blood tests and discovered that her kidneys and liver are failing. She also has lymes, despite using Advantix. Ultrasound results show cancer all over the place - her neck for one. So, rather than let her suffer from it, we're letting her go while she's happy.

Sasha's been great. We've had her over 10 years of her 12+ years here and she's been a joy. Sometimes a royal pain in the ass, but a joy overall. She's not a ball fetcher or a trick doer. Though, if you were playing with a ball with someone else, after a bit she'd grab it and go hide it. How DARE a ball get better treatment than her!

When we got her she was insanely submissive - so much so that she would crawl on the floor to you when called and then roll over and whiz straight into the air. With patience and kindness that stopped and she's graduated to just being a nervous dog. A happy, nervous dog that wants to sit on your head and loom the way Snoopy does when he pretends to be a vulture. Nervous, but happy and a fan of humping our big gray cat, Little Guy.

She's been my buddy for a long time and I'm just so sad that tomorrow she's going to be gone. I'm so sad. I really don't know what else to say. Things turn on a dime.

Tonight she's getting boneless pork spare ribs and tomorrow we're going to go the park until it's time.

And to top it all off - today I saw a lady with a small child on the street asking for help. The same lady I saw back on October 12th and had passed by. The same lady I had passed by the day before my sister died.

Today, I passed her again in a rush to get home when it hit me who it was. So I went back around the corner of 39th and 6th and gave her two dollars. I wondered, what, if any, portent was there. Coincidence - probably, but I'm enough of a mystic to think there's much more than we can see here.

I really don't want tomorrow to come...my heart is breaking.