Mentally drained...

Today was supposed to be a quiet day. But its turned into a mentally unproductive one. A shutdown day for work, I had a list of small projects I wanted to get done. Not to mention more laundry. But it seems none of that would get accomplished today.

It started yesterday. I got called out of work early - Christopher was sick. This was slightly surprising, Christopher never gets sick. So I left work early (we were getting out early anyways) by leaving at noon, rushing to get gas in the car so I wouldn't have to walk home and made it to the school in under 40 minutes.

Got Christopher in the car, yeah - he was marginally sick. Tummy ache and all that - but no fever. Settled him on the couch where he lasted about 20 minutes before he was up ditching his jeans and belt. Can't blame a kid for not wanting a belt around his tummy if it already hurt. He watched Chipmunks Chipwrecked and then started to put in the squeekqual when off he went to the bathroom. He was gone for a while so I yelled after him. Seems things were going okay, but slow.

A few more minutes - and here he comes back to the couch... wearing even less. Sometimes a mom just knows when to not ask questions, but listen to the unmistakable sounds instead. Things had worked themselves out. But since I brought him home from school - he was destined for the couch fpor the rest of the day. This did not impress him very much. By now he was getting antsy and wanted to go outside and play with his sister who had just gotten off the bus. "No can do, if you came home from school sick - inside is where you stay." "But Mom, I'm feeling better now." "That may be - but you're still in for the rest of the day. If you are feeling better tomorrow and can go back to school, you can play outside tomorrow." This bummed him out - but amazingly enough, there were no issues about getting him to go to school today.

Veronica on the other hand was different. My parents have two golden retrievers. Buddy and Lucky. These dogs are a long line of goldens that my dad has had over the years. He's always had goldens... Winchester, Abby, Martini, and the list goes on and on. While I'm not the animal freak that my other two sisters are, I can appreciate good animals. I would never want any of them hurt, but I also do not live a lifestyle that warrants owning a dog.

My motto is - if it cannot tell me its hungry - it doesn't eat. Probably also why I have no plants in my house - they do a perpetually poor job of verbalizing their needs as well. Cats - well that's a different story completely. Cats don't 'need' anything... they just 'are.' Therefore - in our house, the cats can stay. Actually Ron takes care of them... well feeds them. They have a cat door - so for the most part - they are independant.

So yesterday - after we settled the kids down, my mom comes over to tell me that they are putting Lucky down. This is a golden that they rescued from the side of the road. It was tied up in a bag, and was very ill when they found him. But he has never been 'all there,' if you understand my meaning. But he's was a good dog as dogs go. He had some serious issues that my parent's could not get him to break, running away and jumping on cars were the worst two. And when he jumped on a car - he practically clawed it to death. About a year ago, Lucky started to have seizures. And they started to get worse. My parents had Lucky in the vets office so many times to just be given another script to try to calm the dog's nerves.

To make matter wrose, every time my Dad would go for a long drive (he is a car driver for the local Ford dealerships and tends to hop in his car at the slightest notice and drive to... upstate NY, VT, MA, all over Maine, etc.) - Lucky would develop seperation anxiety. This would make the seizures even worse. And then he would end up getting multiples of them at a sitting. So after numerous medications that did not help, and lots of heart wrenching talks - they decided to put Lucky down. They told my kids last night.

Christopher was okay - Veronica, not so much. So this morning, after my parents left and I was trying to get the kids ready for the bus, Veronica fell apart. Sobbing and yelling that she wanted Lucky back. This lasted about 45 minutes. Finally - after lots of attempts to try and explain how it was better for the dog, I managed to get her to stop crying. Actually it was Christopher's offer to let her have the computer that finally ended the sobbing. We talked a little more about it, and she seemed resigned by the time she was getting onto the bus.

After they were gone - I headed out to pick up "Evil Laugh" and came home in time to see my parents digging a hole for Lucky. My parents are not young. 70 and 73 - and I do not think they should be digging holes in the ground for golden retrievers. So I helped them finish the task. I had to step away as my Dad put the dog down in the hole on the sheet and covered him up. I went back and helped return the soil over his limp body.

My mom commented "You're not an animal lover, bout you came back and helped us." There really wasn't anything I could say. My Dad is a huge animal lover. I know inside he was torn up. I know even though Lucky drove my Mom crazy with all of the stupid things he did, she was in no better shape. Animal lovers are animal lovers. While I'm not an animal lover - I am respectful of life, and death. Both are necessary - but sometimes both are so cruel.

So after doing my duty to help replace the soil over Lucky's limp body - I returned inside, lacking all of the ambition I had earlier. Gone was any desire to be creative. Gone was any desire to be productive. Gone was my desire to even eat. I finally finished carving a stamp - because I promised Veronica it would be finished for her by the time she came home from school. A Tiki man with surf boards and ALOHA! under it... maybe this would calm my daughters torn heart just a bit.

But for me...I'm feeling mentally drained. So here I sit - not being productive or energetic or even enthusiastic about much of anything... until Veronica brought me the mail.

Oh the joys a simple Priority box from Stampeaz can create. Thanks Diana for the lovely leopard frog!