Beg

The vet says there is a mass, most likely cancer. We'll know for sure next week. It's already eaten its way into her jaw. She's lost 10 pounds already, a quarter of her weight, and her ribs are painfully visible through her still healthy golden brown coat.

We will cook her chicken and mix it with rice and a little garlic. We'll fill her bowl with the People food she was trained not to beg for. We will give her all the soft treats she wants—cheese and bacon and beef flavored. We will take her to the Tropicool and get her a small vanilla softserve in a cup even if she is too weak to do the traditional run through the park beforehand. We will scratch her ears and tell her she is a good girl for finishing her food and hope we have time left to spoil her with it.

lisah. You made me cry with that on.

You made me cry with that on.

me too! It's about one of my best dog friends and it's happening right now. She was just at the vet yesterday and it's not looking good.

Man. This topic is about as uncomforting as it gets. But we're getting some incredible drabbles out of it.

lisah. That was simply amazing. Sometimes I wish we had a Collected Drabbles by Great Write Wayistas.

ETA: Though one would go nuts as an editor selecting them.

Sometimes I wish we had a Collected Drabbles by Great Write Wayistas.

I'm actually about to pitch that to my agent.

Wow. Remind me to send flowers to the Editor. See how sure I am that it will fly?

Allyson, I'd love to see something fly right now. Jon Karp at Warners just passed on the Chronicles - he loves the idea but wasn't hooked by the writing.

Le sigh. Trying not to be cranky about it.

Sickness/Health

Another surgery, another setback. Me, in the kitchen.

"Digestive problems", they called it at the hospital, another term for just one of many remnants, many after-effects, of that short, destructive bout of rheumatic fever that would take you down as an adolescent and kill you too young.

So much you couldn't eat, so thin, so much determination sparked in me. I cooked for you, anything I thought you might eat: hot fresh bread. Steelcut oatmeal flavoured with vanilla and nutmeg. Chicken done a thousand ways, all of them bland.

The cooking was to comfort myself. The food? Stayed mostly uneaten.

Oooh, Deb, that's gorgeous and painful. And a little bit like the one I have brewing.

All of these are wonderful -- Liese, and Sail, and juliana's spring to mind immediately.