This is such a good and kind community. My sincerest thanks to the many, many people who have sent me the loveliest message this evening, and for helping me to do the best I could.

I won't be around the threads much for a while, but I deeply appreciate the support and kindness.

It is three o'clock in the morning but I can't sleep and do not know when I will again.

Bartleby is dead and I am shattered.

He is everything. Just everything to me. But now he is gone and I honestly don't know how I will be me anymore.

I want to just be grateful for all the joy but I'm really not there.

Now that I'm sitting by myself, clutching his blanket and not hearing him sleep near me, I can't believe I did it. In some ways, I wish I had not, but my most rational mind...however lost it is in my grief...tells me I could not be honorable to him and do anything else.

The test today revealed a large tumor in his nose that was pressing down through his hard palate. There was evidence of it in his mouth that had not been there a couple of days ago. It was also strongly suspected that he had bone cancer based on an xray of his chest on Monday. And, he had begun to bleed again, which absolutely no one could explain to me.

While I sat in a darkened exam room, praying harder than I ever have in my entire life...fantasizing that they would burst in and say, "False alarm! He just snorted a blade of grass. Take him home now."...I heard a dog in the hallway who sounded miserable. So old/sick, struggling so hard to breathe. I said, outloud,"I won't let him suffer like that."

Somehow, I knew.

The very kind technician told me that chemotherapy would perhaps keep him alive for a few more months, maybe a year, maybe not at all. But it would have been for me...to stave off my grief and I just could not do that to him.

I asked them not to bring him out of the anesthesia because I could not bear the idea of him having one more moment of pain or fear. I held him so that I could feel his heart beat...and then I couldn't. It was so quick. So quiet.

This morning, he was strong and happy. I let him play off leash for the first time in weeks and he got to serendipitously run into his life-long buddy, Bob.

He was so happy.

I slept for a few hours last night and in that time, a shift occurred in my grief. Expected, but not welcome.

I wrote a blog post about it here, and here is an excerpt:

Now, I am in the world without him, which doesn’t seem possible to anyone, not even to people who barely knew us. I have heard ‘But, it’s always been Bonny & Bartleby!” so many times in the last two days.

It turns out that ‘always’ is defined as 9 years, 9 months and 4 days. 3556 days…only 22 of which were spent apart.

85,584 hours of knowing what I was about, where I was going and why I did whatever I did.

Today, almost everything is different and that difference is dreadful. It is an ache in my heart that is threatening to overtake me.

How many times will I look down, seeking those huge, brown eyes? How many more tears will I shed when I cannot find them?

Over the last two days, I have been SO comforted by the many reassurances that I did the right thing for Bartleby. I wasn’t sure in the first dreadful hours, but I do know the rightness of it now. What he taught me about love and devotion fueled my actions and guided my steps even when I felt as though I was pitifully flailing.

But, what now?

I was honorable. I let love steer me. I did the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entirely eventful life. And now, my devotion, my gaze, and my heart, are all falling into empty space.

My fifth installment on Early Sixties Horror is up at Hilobrow.

Here I look at Roger Vadim's Blood and Roses (1960), the original lesbian vampire movie. It's dreamy and strange and beautiful, and I include a clip that will blow your mind! Or, at least intrigue you.

As ever, if you could Like it on Facebook or reTweet it, that would be good. Thanks!

bonny, when I click that link it says I don't have permission to read a draft.

(sorry Stompies, posting here b/c I don't know where bonny is lurking at the moment)

Thank you smonster. I'm so scattered, I posted the link from my wordpress account.

The post is the first you see at www.thedoggylama.com.

I will go fix the link.

(additional apologies from me for messing it up)

It's been kind of an excruciating process, involving serious WTF is wrong with you moments from everyone but the mortgage broker, but as of about 4:40 this afternoon, I own a house.

WHEEEE

Yay Perkins!

As of 3:19 this afternoon, I own a baby.

His name is Calvin James, and pictures of him are here: [link]

8 lbs, 7 oz. He was a surprise!breach baby (we think he was head down until this morning, the cheeky boy), so was delivered by surprise!c-section. But everything is good.

It's a new year, and Ryan's ready for his close-up, so I'm starting it off with the latest set of photos of our little boy. It covers the last couple of months, including our holiday to Phillip Island (home of the Penguin Parade and Faunapalooza).

At the playground: [link]
In his sleeping bag and smock: [link]
At soccer training: [link]
Fun with blocks: [link]
Spending time with Mummy and Daddy: [link]
His childcare centre's Christmas party: [link]

Christmas holiday! Time for pressies: [link]
On Phillip Island (the rainbow appeared on Christmas Day): [link]
Visit to Amaze'n'Things ( [link] ). I don't think I've ever seen as much joy in this little boy as when he was confronted with multiple Ryans in the mirror maze: [link]
Faunapalooza! Ryan meets one of the residents: [link]
Back home, and Ryan does his best Freddy Krueger: [link]

Faunapalooza generated more photos than that, of course. However, most of them are in my animal collection. They start here: [link]
Aaand the echidnas start here: [link] (Ryan loved them.)

Here endeth the photos. Please note that the number of Ryan photos still exceeds the number of echidna photos. (Though admittedly, the number of Ryan photos at Faunapalooza does not. Ahem.)

My grandmother passed away this morning, 14 months after my grandfather.