They say time flies, and I know that's often true.  It is, however, not true for all parts of that same year, or however much time you're specifically measuring.  In some ways the past year has seemingly passed quite quickly, while a big chunk of it, a heart chunk, has gone by agonizingly slowly.

Our beloved Lily died one year ago today.

There is little I can say.  Not a single day has passed that I have not thought of her often.  Very often, actually, and most of the time when I do, I still have to force my thoughts away because I will end up crying.  Yes, I miss her that much, even with the rock steady adoration of Goblin and the goofy love of Ghost.  Lily will always be a part of my heart, and that part is mixed with her ashes in her little Memorial Garden in the back yard.  When I went out there to talk to her this afternoon, I noted that there are blooms on the choya, and the other three cacti have blooms coming (we recently added a rather fragile new one). 

So, a few Lily Memories:


In the lefthand picture, Lily, was a young lady (about 16 months old) on a playdate with 8 month old Zeke the Wolfhound (pictured elsewhere in the Gallery, link below). It was early spring in Arizona. Look how beautiful and healthy she was.

In the righthand picture, Miss Chunky started out sitting on the couch, then simply let herself fall sideways. Goblin tried to squirm out, only to find Lily wiggling her way up and next to his chest. She immediately went sound asleep, and he just gave up and did the same.

Both photos will click out larger if you like.  For those who haven't seen, here's the full Lily Gallery.

Sleep tight, Lily.  We still miss you.

Today is the four-month anniversary of Lily's death.

It is still shocking and unreal to me that she isn't here with us, that the summer passed without her bright blue eyes and kisses. Lily was a summer dog. Despite her heft and longish fur (we teased her about having a Lab or a Malamute in the far-flung genetic woodpile), she would lie in the sunlight rather than shade even on the hottest of days, making me constantly worry that her pretty pink nose would sunburn. As a little Lily Memory, here's a picture from the Gallery that was taken last summer. She never passed up what she thought might be an opportunity for a car ride:

A heart-dog, or cat, is a pet whose presence filled your heart with a love unmatched by any other pet you've owned. The space left by its loss can never be filled by another animal, no matter how loving the pet or how long the years. Lily was my heart-dog, and I have felt her loss each and every day since May 1st. Sometimes I could shake my head and move on with other tasks. At other times I shed a few tears. But sometimes, after the sun sets, I go out to her little corner in the backyard and literally wail at the stars. A few days ago, docbrite lost her precious Nathan, and my heart breaks all over again for her. I know how crushing it is to lose a heart-pet, and how painful.  We will love other pets with everything we can, but there will forever be a hollow, lonely space inside us.

 

So both The Husband (westonochse) and I have auctions up on eBay right now:

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZdustystacks
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZdrkwrtr

Check them out and support our sumptuous (uh...) Arizona lifestyle.

I am trying to be productive for a change. Right now we have a handyman-type friend replacing the trim around our back door, which was apparently installed with a prime coat on it but never painted. It has warped beyond repair. After that, time allowing, he's supposed to install a set of glass shower doors in the master bathroom. As I despise the way the air circulation makes the shower curtain blow around the tub, that is something to which (note the proper grammar, dam-bit) I'm particularly looking forward.

There are 23 pictures in my LJ Lily Gallery:

http://pics.livejournal.com/yvonnenavarro/gallery/0000qrq6

Some are shots that folks have seen before, posted here and there in the LJ. Many are not, particularly on the second page; for instance, the one of Lily in Grandpa Marty's Puma, which is barely larger than a freakin' go-cart, is alone worth a look.

Because some things look so close and realistic you feel like you can almost touch them, today's techology can bring immense joy as well as incredible pain.

Today marks one month (or 4 weeks) since Lily died.  Sometimes it seems like she was just here an hour ago; at others, it seems like she's been gone forever... and I've been missing her the entire time.  I am so grateful for the time I had with her, and so very, very full of sadness and regret that it wasn't longer.  It takes no effort at all to remember how soft her fur felt, her warm fuzzy tummy, her messy little kisses, how her light blue eyes sparkled.  There is such a sense of unreality about it all, especially every time I'm on my way home and I realize how much she made me look forward to getting there.  Lily brightened up everything for everyone in her world-- me, Wes, and even old-man-before-his-time Goblin.  But then, the reality always catches up with us, doesn't it?


I realize I should have left these in the Gallery or put them behind a cut, but I wanted everyone to see the beautiful clarity of this special place.  We laid Lily's ashes to sleep beneath the stone, in the snow-white plastic case in which she was returned to us.  It was one of the hardest things I think either of us has ever had to do.  We built the fence and moved the choya cactus from the wild part of our property, then bought and planted the two small cacti on the other side, both of which are ready to bloom.  While we bought the white stone, Wes and I went back to the wild property part and hand-picked the soft tan and white desert quartz pieces that surround the three cacti and also serve as accents.  What's not in the photo is a solar light that I added because I can't shake the idea that if Lily wanders around out there in the night, she'll be scared if there isn't light to guide her.  She only had about 70% or so of her eyesight and stuff in the dark always startled her. I hope someday I can see her again, and that she knows how very much we love her.

So this "landscaping project" in the backyard is actually a pool. I've been in denial because I have mixed feelings about it (which have to do mostly with the unfrackingbelievable COST), but no, oh no, we won't go into that. It's there, and it's finished, and Saturday morning we put the solar cover on it (which is supposed to raise the temperature of the water by 10-15 degrees and also cut down on dirt and evaporation) and so there you go.

Which is exactly what Goblin did, somehow, on Saturday afternoon when Wes turned his back.

Wes heard a ::SPLASH!:: and whirled around to find Goblin floudering at one end, between the cover and the edge. I looked out the kitchen window in time to see Wes with his hands under Goblin's armpits (yes, dawgs have armpits) hauling our 150+ pound boy out of the water. It was quite the sight. We think that in running, he cut a corner a little too close (perhaps because the cover looks almost solid compared to just "bare" water) and tumbled in. We dried him off, tied him on the patio for an hour or so to finish drying, and just like a boy who fell in a mud puddle, he's none the worse for wear. My guess is when it's hot and we're in the pool this summer, he'll probably come crashing in, especially once he realizes there are concrete steps at one end and he can climb in and out at will. In fact, we opted for the sand filter rather than fiberglass because it thumbs its filtery nose at dog hair.

Ah, but poor little Lily.

Yesterday we put the pooches into the backyard for a romp and watering (big fresh water bucket on the patio). A few-- maximum five-- minutes later I hear Wes yelling "Von-- get out here now!" I rushed out (from the bathroom-- isn't that always the way??) in time to see him running toward Lily, who was, oh yes, in the pool and clinging for dear life to the edge by her front paws and her chin. Goblin fell at the 3 1/2 foot end, she opted for the center, which is the maximum 5 feet deep (stairs are at the other end, which is also 3 1/2 feet). She was on her hind legs and you never saw a more tragic and I just know I'm doomed! expression on a poor dog's face. I don't know how long she was in there-- if either dog would just freakin' bark we'd know something was wrong!-- but she was completely traumatized. We hauled her out and dried her much heavier fur as best we could, then brought her inside, where she crouched on the carpet and trembled off and on for the next two hours. When I could get her to walk, she wouldn't put weight on her right front leg, but there was no swelling and she wasn't howling. I finally gave her a little sedative, one left over from the $400.00 dog toy incident not quite two years ago, and she calmed a bit. I knew she was okay when she ate her entire bowl of food without any problem. After that I gave her two yummy muscle anti-inflammatories (those left over from Goblin's $900.00 shoulder incident a year ago) and she finally calmed down enough to sleep through the night. I put her out a couple of times in the front yard to go potty (away from the Evil Pool) but she wouldn't go off the front porch until Goblin came out with her. She kept that pathetically hurt and insulted expression all last evening. Seeing as how one of the training tools for a Deaf Dane is a squirt bottle, she must've been convinced she somehow did the worst wrong something of her life and got thrown into a giant bathtub of I done wrong! as punishment.

Oh, and did I mention that when we pulled her out of the pool, Goblin was hiding behind the eucalyptus tree?

Oh yeah. We think he probably stuck his nose into her unmentionable area when she wasn't expecting it and goosed her right into the water.

::sigh::

A man must always have a remote within easy reach.



And, of course, our Christmas Lily (Okay, so I'm late with the picture. Whatever.):

      There is a distinct advantage to living in a small town or small city over life in a large one, namely, the ability to actually socialize with your friends on a regular basis. Sure, there's always email and telephone, but most writers are also naturally reclusive and really good at hiding, especially if they have a full time job and/or go to school, as I do. We horde our free time jealously, not because we don't love our friends, but because our free time is also our time to write, and for most of us, there just isn't very much of it.
      Sierra Vista gave me something I never had anywhere else: friends who actually lived close enough so that I could be a friend in person as well as just in theory. Nothing here is more than twenty minutes away from anything else, and as anyone who has sat in Chicago or Phoenix traffic for an hour and forty minutes (one way) understands, going to someone's house for a party or meeting for lunch can be like scaling a mountain. Ditto for public transportation-- transferring buses, riding commuter trains, and heaven help you in bad weather. Here in this small city of about 40,000 people, for the first time in my life I actually had a group of girlfriends within reach-out-and-tangibly-touch-me range. This meant we could easily have lunch during the work week, or go to a movie-- just that-- on the weekend, or meet for dinner on a weeknight. Then everyone could go on about their business-- writing, school, kids, other plans, whatever. We could have a bite to eat and then head home to do whatever we needed to get done that evening. We could meet up and do a little shopping, then ditto-- back home. If someone needed help with a project or was having an impromptu cookout, it was easy to just buzz on over for an hour or two. We helped with garage sales, went to town art fairs, helped move, cooked and were cooked for. When we had the house before this one and Toni had her previous house, we were six blocks from each other; not long after we became friends I threw gold-colored dog goggles on Lily and walked her over to Toni's house just for fun. Toni answered the door with the phone in one ear, looked down at the dog, and said in that great Virginia drawl, "Oh, my Lawd!"
      But what Sierra Vista gave, it also took away. This is a military town, and almost everyone here with whom I come in contact is military-oriented. Because of that, I said goodbye to the last of those friends, Toni, today. She stopped by and gave back a sweater and mumu (yes, I said mumu) I'd loaned her and forgotten about, and she's headed off to Virginia while her husband goes to Iraq. Another friend, Jeannette, left for the east coast in mid-October, while Rochelle and her husband moved to, of all places, the Chicago area in May. Shira and her family also headed east in June. These were all friends from work and my cherished group has now been scattered around the U.S. I would have never thought that at my age I would cry in saying goodbye to a friend, but today is a repeat of May, and I did it both times. I guess you have to experience the downs to truly appreciate the ups in life, and it doesn't help that today would have been my mother's 72nd birthday. It's hard to believe that Mom's already been gone a little over six months.
      Anyway, here's hoping I get these links right to post these two pix that were taken right before Toni and Jared drive away.



Toni and Me



Toni with Lily and The Goblin

Life with a couple of Great Danes is always interesting, but a deaf one definitely adds a little pizzazz. It took Lily about 8 months of coaxing before she would drink from the bathroom sink faucet like Goblin (he loves water and will chase after you in the yard when you try to water the plants), but she's been doing it for, oh, maybe 2 months now. Deaf Danes are often trained with squirt guns, which is a great way-- okay, the only way-- to get their attention fast from across the room. Because of that, Lily (who minds wonderfully, thanks to Deaf Dane Rescue) took some convincing to come near the faucet. Anyway, Deaf Danes are not particularly fond of things that change in their world, and since Lily also has a little bit of vision deficiency, she is also never particularly happy about things over her head. Well, this morning, in the midst of a little sip of water at the sink, she suddenly noticed the bathroom light fixutre.

Woof! Woof! Woof!

::hee hee::

We've been through this in particular with ceiling fans, of which we have a lot (we live in Arizona, after all). One of the funniest times, however, was not long after we got her in January 2003. I call this story "Lily and The Evil Muffin Monster." On a Thursday morning she became convinced that a plastic-wrapped chocolate muffin on the counter (which had been there for two days, figure that out) was the Evil Muffin Monster and she wouldn't stop barking at it, even when I offered it to her for personal investigation. I finally just put it in my bag to take to work; when I went back into the bathroom to finish getting dressed, she pulled the bag onto the floor, dug out the muffin and pulled it to the center of the floor, and started barking at it again. One has to appreciate a dog that will protect you against the evils of the universe.

I have the day off today, in honor of our wonderful U.S. Veterans. I have to keep reminding myself that it's Friday, not Saturday. I'm going to Home Depot. That will teach my husband to leave me unsupervised.