A great new time waster

I've now found the best way to waste time on the internet.

Go to Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org

Then click on the "Random Page" link on the left-hand side. It is amazing what is in Wikipedia.

Goodbye 2006

It's the end of 2006 and I have to say that it's been quite the crazy year for me, with lots of ups and downs. Here are some highlights.

I moved -- twice! For one move, I drove a 1-tonne Budget truck. For the other move, I hired Angel's moving, and the driver was named Jesus (I'm not kidding!).

I started contract work for the first time, realizing a long-awaited dream of mine.

I flew to Santa Barbara to give a 2-day training seminar on a not-quite-ready software project.

The ferry sank. Josh was on the ferry, but was OK. That prompted me to buy a lifejacket for my dog, which came in handy later.

I went without a phone or internet at home for 2 weeks while I waited for Telus to do something, which eventually I found out they couldn't do, so I switched back to Shaw.

Had a great trip to the Observatory Bed & Breakfast in Osoyoos and got to take pictures through a telescope!

Joined a band, went on tour, left the band. I visited Tofino, Gambier, Hornby, and Cortes on that tour.

My cousin Leanne married Ricky Roxas. She is now Leanne Roxas.

My cousin Mike & partner Bridget had baby Ashlyn.

My cousin Krista & husband Jason had baby Ceilidh (kay-lee) on Halloween day.

I went to a cob-house buliding workshop at the ecovillage, and lots of work parties after that. Lucy made dens there. She got to wear her lifejacket.

I worked for a startup company. I've always wanted to do that and now I've done that.

I started taking Ceroc dancing, and became a taxi dancer.

I took up the guitar!

I went from long blonde hair to short brown hair.

Vancouver underwent a boil-water advisory.

Lucy got sick.

There was a big snowstorm.

Lucy played in the snow.

Lucy got sicker.

Lucy died.

I cried.

A couple of my friends had close people die right around the same time as Lucy.

I got a contract at BOBJ.

I worked hard, and then took a break at Christmas and went to Victoria.

Now it is New Year's eve and I will say goodbye to 2006 and all of the drama that went with it. It was a year of constant change, with 3 homes, 4 jobs, the loss of my dear old dog, and joining and leaving a band and the social group that went with it. 2006 will always sit in my mind as the year that we lost the trees. Before all of the storms, the next-door-neighbor cut down the tree in the back yard, and then the windstorms and the snowstorm hit and that took down so many of the other ones.

I hope 2007 is a little bit lighter, and a lot more loving.

I wish you all the best in 2007 and beyond.

xo

Sandra

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you all.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday. In keeping with the dog theme, I've attached some pictures of Lucy enjoying the big day. We'll miss her this year.


Lucy, Dave, and Santa. You guess which one is which.


Lucy liked to help Grandpa open presents.


Lucy got to open a few presents of her own.


Look! Lucy is actually wearing her reindeer ears! Usually they only stayed on her head for 5 seconds. I don't know why she didn't like them. I think they're cute. This must be an older picture, because Santa still had his hat.

More Lucy Photos

Do you have any Lucy photos?

Hey everyone.

Well, I am slowly adjusting to life without my dog. I have to say that it's been very emotional. I especially miss it when I come home from work and she's not there to greet me, and when the clock radio goes off in the morning and she's not there to wake me up. (Ok, that was annoying, but I miss it.) I also keep mistaking my guitar case for her, and I often catch myself looking around for her before I realize that she's not here. And I've caught myself putting plates of food on the floor.

Another intersting thing for me is turning off the lights in my house when I go out. I always used to leave a light or two on for Lucy, but now I don't need to. It's weird to come home to a pitch black house.

My life revolved around my dog -- there is not much way to get around that when you are a single person. I have so many habits because of her. For instance, I feel a strong urge to get home as quickly as I can right after work, even though I don't need to anymore.

But the good news is that I have a whole bunch of new freedom now, once I get used to it. I can go away for the weekend. I can stay over at a friend's house. I can go for dinner after work, and then see a movie, and I don't have to feel bad about it! I can sleep in. I haven't really slept in in 6 years.

I sort of lost my appetite for a while there, but it seems to be coming back. Damn it, I was losing weight.

I've been going through photos because I want to start working on an album with pictuers of her in it. If you have any good pictures of her, can you send them to me? If they are online, try using http://yousendit.com to send large attachments without clogging your outbox and my inbox.

In general, I feel like I've been moving through the greiving process well. I've been really sad, but it's a good sad because it's mixed with love.

Here are a few photos of her that I particularly like. I just came across them while I've been gathering the photos of her together.

My beloved Lucy - 6 years with a great friend.

I'm sad to say that Lucy, my beloved dog and star of this blog, passed away peacefully at the vet yesterday - Dec 4, 2006.

The anti-inflammatories she had been taking worked fairly well, but they didn't mask all of her symptoms, and she was still falling over a lot, even at a high dose. They also made her need to pee every 2 hours, which is a situation that is hard for both of us to live with. We reduced the dose from 6 pills a day to 2 pills a day, and it quickly became clear that the symptoms were very severe.

She did fairly well to start with, but one night she suddenly became very disoriented, and lost her ability to walk. She fell over constantly, and sometimes it looked like the fall hurt! It was pretty funny, though, if she fell in the snow outside, because after she realized she was down, she'd just start munching on snow. That dog loved to eat snow.

We took her to the vet and said "enough's enough". It had all the symptoms of a brain tumour, and it was clear she wasn't going to get better. Any thing else we could do would just add a few painful weeks to the end of her life, and we all (Lucy included) decided to skip that.

So, we put her down at the vet. It was very sweet. My best friend from Victoria, Jen, was there in the room with me. The vet gave her a tranquilizer and we patted her as she slowly got dozy. She looked lovingly in to my eyes until the very end. I had about 10 minutes to say my goodbye to her in there, and it was very sweet and lovely.

I will miss her a lot. I've been crying like crazy, but I am really happy she is not suffering any more.

The good news is that her decline happened really fast. The last week of her life was actually pretty fun. We had a lot of fun walks in the snow, including a magical walk around Camosun Bog. We shoveled it. She peed in it. She made dozens of doggy snow angels.

She actually got sick in February, with the head tilt and similar symptoms, but I told her to hang out for the summer, and I knew she'd be gone by the end of the year. We had a great summer together, going to the ecovillage, where she got to build a lot of dens, and she got to come to work with me as well. The last year of her life was probably the best one.

I'd like to thank everybody that was part of her life with me. She was a great friend, and I know she'll be missed by more than just me. I'd also like to say thank you to everyone for the notes and cards -- I was really surprised by how sweet everybody has been.

Take care

Sandra

Carnage on the Dunbar streets

Hey everyone.

Wow. Is there ever snow here today. At the moment, the accumulation is about 1 foot, I think. It's heavy, wet snow and has been compressing down over the last few days. Now that it's well-below freezing, the snow has become rock-hard ice.

This is not good news for the local trees. I just took Lucy for a walk around our block and I saw about 8 or 9 large branches that have split off their respective trees. The rest of the trees are drooping majorly. Instead of having their branches point up, they are all weighed down to head level. It's like walking through a tunnel of white branches on some of the sidewalks. I am sure there are more trees to come down. At least it's pretty.

I ventured out to the grocery store today with Karin from upstairs. It was fun. My car did really well even though the side streets here are super-slippery. Fortunately, the main roads are sanded quite well. A few blocks over, there is a fairly big power outage that spans enough blocks to hit all of the coffee shops.

The snow in the back yard is up to Lucy's armpits, and instead of squatting to pee, she just sort of stands there.

Lucy seems to be doing better. The medication I gave her is an anti-inflammatory so that should help with whatever is ailing her. I think it makes her thirsty though, because she's been drinking an tonne of water and peeing a lot. She actually has been waking me up in the middle of the night to be let out to pee, which is unusual.

Fortunately, we have power here and the boil-water advisory has been lifted (YAY!) I'm snowed in with a very thirsty dog and possibilities of power failures so it's good to be able to drink the H20. I also have a cold and am starting a new contract tomorrow. I'm the only able-bodied person in the house capable of shovelling the walk so that's been my job, cold and all. That's OK, I have to walk the dog 3 times a day anyway, cold or not. At least I have some food in the house and a gas fireplace!

Now I think I may go make some hot chocolate and watch something on the Space channel.