Their last photo together.
This isn’t at all what I thought I’d be writing about this week. On Monday, my plans included talking about cookies, and showing off my nearly done sweater.
Then on Tuesday, the second of my biggest fears happened.
Tuesday was the first big storm of the season. Extremely windy, very rainy, and the dogs just refused to go outside. They would wander near the door acting like they needed to go out, but when I put them in the dog run, they just stood there whimpering at the door, refusing to move. So I’d let them back in.
E and Honey hugging. It was her favorite thing to do.
Towards noon, I moved from the living room back to the “office” to hop onto the internets. I hadn’t seen the dogs in about 15 minutes, and I wondered what they were getting into, since usually they lay on the floor of whatever room I was in. I found them coming down the stairs, and went up to investigate. Instead of moving from the door in the rain, they had both decided to do their business upstairs.
I was so mad. I called my mom and told her that I hated them, telling her what they had done. Of course I didn’t hate them, but I hate cleaning up the messes. I was so mad that they both cowered in the cage together1, when usually Honey wouldn’t let them outside. I was so mad, that even though I didn’t hit them or rub their noses in their messes, they knew I was serious. Rocky was so afraid that he refused to come out of the cage when I told him too, and growled and snapped at me when I tried to pull his collar.
The trip back from Redding.
I was so mad that I put them in the full backyard in the storm, and then didn’t think about them for the next hour. I put them in the backyard because that’s what we do when they disobey and go in the house, and I chose the full back yard so they could at least lay under a tree or the gazebo to stay out of the rain.
About an hour later, after I had cleaned up their messes, and wasn’t so mad at them anymore, I looked in the backyard to see if I could see them. I couldn’t, but that wasn’t so worrying. There are lots of places for them to hide. I walked into the garage, and looked out a different window. And saw that the gate was open.
Immediately, I knew they weren’t in the backyard. The gate didn’t stay latched because the wind was pushing a wobbly fence around2 and the latch had nothing to hold, blowing the gate wide open. I walked to my room to put on some pants, and while I was in there my phone rang. Since I had just seen the gate open, and I didn’t reconize the number, I thought maybe it was someone in the neighborhood who had caught the dogs. It’s not uncommon to see animals loose durning the storm.
She would lay her head on anything, regardless of whether it was soft.
It was in fact, someone who had found the dogs. It was animal control, and the dogs had been hit by cars.
This wasn’t immediately serious, not for at least five seconds. Our last dog Zippy had quite the habit of escaping and getting hit by cars, but in her case, it was always a graze. However, this time we were not so lucky.
The words that tumbled out of the phone were terrible. “Your dogs have been hit by a car, and the German Shorthair is still alive.” Even in a shocked state, I could parse that. Much quicker than my mom did when I said the exact same words to her. The dogs were hit. Honey is not alive.
She loved my pillows. And shoving me around on my bed.
I was so relived when she said that Rocky was alive. He’s my brother’s dog, and he spends the day with us while he’s at work. I was so relieved that my bad mommying (I shouldn’t have put them in the backyard! In the storm! It’s all my fault!) had only killed my dog, and not his. As I was still on my cell phone with Animal control, and she was trying to calm me down, I was dialing my mom, whose work number I would probably be able to dial during a terrorist attack3. I called her to have her call my brother, because I wouldn’t be calm enough to, because I still had to give animal control a vet to send Rocky to. Because I had to pull together enough to get dressed and find my glasses and run in the storm to the vet’s, which took me 15 minutes. 15 minutes of sobbing uncontrollably and nearly hyperventilating, because the only thing I can think about is how it’s all my fault.
When I got to the vet’s, Rocky is standing there in the room, much blood on the ground, but standing. They had been waiting for me to start, to put him under to stop the bleeding on his leg. They couldn’t address anything else until he was done bleeding. After they take Rocky in, I call my brother to tell him the status, to tell him the vet I’m at. And then I have to sit there and wait.
Her very first time at a dog park, and she loved it.
The animal control officer comes in and tells me they were hit, and Honey died immediately. There were lots of people on the scene trying to help Rocky, which is why she got their so quickly. Rocky had tried to run home on his bad leg, but they kept him their for help. She told me they were hit on Madison, and I wasn’t surprised at all. When I worked there at Taco Bell, we would see dogs hit or nearly hit all the time.
I feel terrible for whoever hit the dogs. They probably crested the hill going the speed limit, and right then, there’s a dog in front of them. Or maybe they didn’t see them at all. And now whoever it is has to live with the fact that they hit and killed my pretty emo puppy. A dog they didn’t see.
Honey and Rock in the back yard.
After the officer gave me Honey’s collar, it still didn’t seem real. Her body was in the truck, but I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t want to remember her mangled and broken. I would like to choose to believe that the officer fell in love with her and she didn’t want to give Honey back, so Honey is alive and being emo on the other side of town.
Rocky will live, but still may lose his left hind leg. It was open to the bone from hip to ankle, and the vet said he was dragged for a bit, so there is bone missing from his kneecap. The surgeon is supposed to look at it today and let us know, but Rocky was up and around in the vet’s kennel, trying to run around on it. But then again, Rocky is too dumb to know when he’s hurt.
I feet terrible for him, because he’s going to miss Honey as much as I do. My brother and I got our dogs within days of each other, and Rocky was only a little puppy. Honey was the mommy-dog who was patient with her but knew how to put her foot down when he was over the line. They lived together during my first year in Chico, and when I brought Honey up to join me, my sister said Rocky whined and was lonely, and looked for her all the time. He’s going to come home and be looking for her again, not knowing where she went. I can’t imagine not being able to comprehend why your friend isn’t there any more.
I miss my dog. I miss her in the middle of the night when she moved around and wanted out. I miss her in the morning when she would sing to my mom for her treats. I miss her when I’m alone on the computer, when she used to lay with me, her body along the length of my bed. I miss putting her out at night, petting her, and just being able to look over at her and know that there is one thing in this world that loves me unconditionally, even when I screw up. I only had her for three years, but they were the best years of our lives.
I loved Honey, my emo puppy, with all my heart, and she will always be missed.
Sleep well, little puppy. I'll love you always.
- I was not so mad, though, that I didn’t recognize how cute they were and ran to get my camera before one of them moved. [back]
- In fact, that portion of the fence fell down completely that day. [back]
- Which is actually good to know, due to all of the dreams I have where I can never dial 911 properly. [back]
It’s starting to get nippy outside. I wake up cold in the morning, and socks are more of a necessity, rather than an option, at this point.
I am very pleased with this turn in the weather. This last summer was very hot, and much more humid, than we’re used to here in the valley. I was tired of feeling like I was covered in sweat the moment after I hopped out of the shower. But now that the temperature is beginning to drop, I am reminded that my extremities tend to be much chillier than the rest of me.
For some reason, I have never knit myself a pair of actual mittens1. I have knit myself armwarmers2, fingerless gloves3, convertable-mittens4, and even mittens that were not for me5.
But Christmas is coming, and I have dedicated myself to knitting two pairs of mittens for two friends, which means I have spent far, far too much time on Ravelry, looking at mitten patterns. There are so many options when it comes to covering hands, and I still haven’t settled on a pattern for the second pair. Although, I keep contemplating mittens for me too.
I seem to be drawn to color-work mittens. After knitting exactly one color-work mitten in the round and loving how it turned out, I seem to not be able to see anything else. Case in point, only one mitten in the mitten montage above is a non-color work mitten. I feel like I need to be knitting a pair of mittens right now, never mind that I’m still working on a sweater and have the sleeves calling/mocking me, and I ‘d like to wear that sweater soon, too.
If all goes as planned, I am going to need mittens this Christmas, for a trip I’m taking with my immediate family6, and so I dream about mittens. Poor E, he’s been subject to a lot of “what do you think about this pattern? How about this one? Do you think these would look okay?” He’s been a good sport, but he doesn’t particularly care about mittens.
This is about how I felt about socks when I first learned to knit them a few years ago. I did nothing by browse sock patterns, hoping to find the elusive “one” that would speak to me. Of course, I just knitted a bunch of socks. Oddly, I know that I have issues knitting the second sock because of it’s sameness, but I don’t think this will apply to me when knitting mittens. Perhaps this is because mittens are slightly different, even when identical. After all, your thumb is on different sides of your hands.
The only thing keeping me from knitting a bunch of mittens is my holiday knitting list, and my lack of available yarn stash7. Otherwise, I’d be doing more than just dreaming of mittens.
- Well, there was that one time… I was still learning how to knit/read a pattern, and somehow the mittens I had knit in yellow acrylic yarn ended up two wildly different sizes, even though I had used the same needles for both of them. [back]
- Actually, I’ve knit this pattern twice, in cotton and in wool. I love them both. [back]
- Still really, really sad that Honey stole one and buried it where I can’t find it. The one’s I knit were so deliciously soft and warm. [back]
- I suppose these count as mittens, but since I had to knit finger holes, I don’t really think it counts; especially as I inexplicably lost one on a class camping trip [back]
- Now that I think about it, it makes sense that the ones I knit turned out pretty big, since I only knit them in one color and so the color-stranding that would have made them smaller didn’t happen. [back]
- It’s not set in stone yet, and I don’t want to jinx it. Suffice to say I should be filling out paperwork for my new passport. [back]
- And I have rummaged through it. I have a lot of lace-weight, which is unsuitable for mittens, and a dearth of DK/worsted weight, which is of course just perfect. [back]
I love birthdays.
It doesn’t even have to be my birthday. In fact, I love celebrating my friends’ birthdays just as much as I love celebrating my own.
Yesterday was my friend Ally’s birthday, wherein she turned the dreaded 231 In an unfortunate turn of events, I was unable to go and celebrate with her, as she was headed to Chico to spend the weekend with her boyfriend, and I was in Sacramento due to E’s parents being in town for a car show. Otherwise, I would have found a way up there.
I did manage to make her a lovely birthday present, though, and I didn’t want to ruin the surprise by posting pictures of it before she actually got it, hence being a day late with her birthday post.
I met Ally in the same class that I met E. In fact, she sat directly in front of me, and I was intrigued by her riotous curly hair, and the way she was so self-assured. I remember being pleased as punch when I realized that she was awesome. We never really hung out, only talking in class. It wasn’t until the end of the next semester, when I ran into her in the BMU2 —she was just returned from a semester abroad in Prague. We were inseparable all that summer. We played Mario-Kart, I helped her move, she threw my birthday party. We fell in love with Cobra Starship, and managed to make it to Warped Tour to see them.
Ally is one of my most favorite people, and made going to Chico for school entirely worthwhile. I only lament now that we live far to far apart for such good friends to live. I am so proud of her, being a reporter for the newspaper in Eureka, but I won’t deny that I still wish we lived in the same city, instead of 5+ hours apart.
Happy Birthday, Ally! I know that you’ll get everything you want (and maybe a few things you don’t).
I chose to knit Ally a jellyfish because the very first thing she crochet for me (and, if I recall correctly, the very first amigurumi she ever made) was a tiny octopus. This jelly is the second amigurumi I’ve ever knit, and is the first time I knit a fair isle pattern and didn’t rip it out afterwards. I love the little details about the knit, and hope that it brings a smile to her face when she sees it.
Originally, I had intended for this to be a Christmas present—I began my Christmas knitting in August, and October wasn’t on my mind. It was a few weeks after I knit it that I realized that Ally’s birthday was fast coming up. And that wasn’t a bad thing, since the moment this was off my needles, I wanted to mail it to her so that she could see the awesomeness.
Of course, I still need a Christmas present for her, and given a list of options, she’s chosen mittens.
So now I’m dreaming of mittens. But that’s a whole ‘nother post.
- Dreaded because as Blink-182 so eloquently put it, “nobody likes you when you’re 23.” [back]
- Oh, how I love that place. All the best things seemed to happen there. [back]
So, it’s the beginning of October, and I’m still looking for a job.
I’ve had three interviews with Macy’s, as it seems they keep passing me from department to department with no actual takers. And they’ll be hiring seasonal soon, which I would be perfectly fine with, if they had said that was all they had back in August.
In August, I went to a job fair for Kohl’s, which was a bust. Though all online/newspaper outlets said it was a job fair, it was really a mass interview session for people who had managed to swing interviews a month before.
I keep putting stuff out, though it makes me sad. After doing weeks of 5+ a day and not hearing a word back from anyone, I’ve lost heart. It’s like I’m sending my resume out into blackholes never to be seen again.
I keep applying at the school district I used to attend; every week they have between 2–10 postions that I qualify for, mostly clerks and secretaries and campus monitors. Working there is top of the list, since I know they pay well and I know I’ll do good in a position there. The problem is all the inter-district hiring that goes on, along with the influx of applications. At least I’ve had someone mention they remembered me because my resume design was so memorable.
I’ve also taken a test to be a librarian’s assistant out in Yolo county. I like libraries, and everyone says that this would be the perfect job for me. It’s hard to be upbeat about it, though, since maybe 15–20 people took the test with me, and none of them looked terribly stupid. I know that I’ll make it on to the list they can interview from, but I have to hope I’m in positions one or two to actually get interviewed, and I don’t know if I did that well on the math portion. Never mind that if you’re a veteran or county employee you get preference points to boost your score.
I’m sure I’ll be working before Christmas, but I really hope it’s not a seasonal job. I mean, I’m okay with that, but I hope to have another position somewhere, too. I could really use the money.
I woke up in the middle of the night last night, and couldn’t fall asleep because I was so stressed about how I was going to pay back all of the money I owe. It’s not as much as some people, I know, but it still stresses me out. I have to start paying back my student loans in November, and that’s only a month away.
If you hear of a job, let me know, ‘kay? As for me, I’ll be scouring ProBlogger at the suggestion of Josh, to see if there is anything I am knowledgeable enough to be blogging about.
