Ah, poor Mother, once again proven a victim of Old Skool "boil it till it's dead!" cooking traditions.

Shir, my 14-year old dog Sage got a brain tumor a couple of years ago. She was generally energetic and happy right up until the last 24 hours. She had a couple of massive seizures and within hours she was brain damaged (confused and very disoriented). I took her to my wonderful vet the next morning, with Steve at my side, and said goodbye. It was so very, very hard, and I am crying now just writing this. But the vet assured us that right up until her last 20 or so hours, she was still enjoying life.

The hardest thing was that Chile Pepper was still very young and had grown up with Sage. When we came back out of the hospital to greet Chile (who had been waiting in the car), Chile seemed to immediately understand that Boo wasn't coming home with us. She was very depressed for weeks.

Oh gosh. What's worse - grieving ourselves, or having to watch the four-leggers grieve?

When we lost Bertram , our cat Percy knew he was going before we did. Percy needed more people time, but he didn't exactly mourn. Of course, they had a somewhat adversarial relationship. Not enemies, but not friends

I remember when Harvey and I lost the cat Catherine. He took on some of her habits and mannerisms. And he went missing for a few days himself - I swear he went looking for her. But then came back to me. Oh, I snuggled him like I'd never snuggled a cat before.

While Mooshu was at the vet all last week, Pisces sensed something was up and acted out in a way that I haven't seen from her since her earliest days with us, in terms of having potty accidents in the house almost every day. I think she really missed Moosh, who she sees as the doggie alpha (I'm the Big Kahuna Alpha), and she was acting out because she was worried as to why he wasn't there.

Ooooo! Found out new job benefits starts day one of employment. "If something happens on your first day, you won't have a card, but if something happens, you are covered." How cool is that? I guess that is one of the advantages of working for mega state job instead of small theater company.

That's awesome, omnis! Better than having to do Cobra from the last job, by far!

I just realized that someone on FB had been posting, and the whole time I'd been thinking she was someone else. And then she posted today about entering her 30s, and I was like "wait, what? If you were in my class, even if you were really young, you'd be at least turning 32, now!!" And then I realized she so wasn't who I was thinking she was, and was someone else entirely. DOH! The dangers of adding people you only vaguely remember from college. NO WONDER I thought it was odd that she was espousing such liberal viewpoints. I mean, I was GLAD she was, but I thought it odd. Now, it makes way more sense...

My uncle is signing writing the nicest things about us in this landlord reference letter!

I need to move to an apartment with thicker walls. Or maybe even a house where I don't share walls with anyone. Or neighbors who have quieter sex.