Book Roundup #2

16 Oct

Columbus Day weekend meant a lot of cat-sitting for me. This also meant a lot of extra travel time to and from my client’s apartments. It can be irksome to get out of bed earlier than usual on a Saturday morning, but the extra money is so nice to have. Plus, CATS! And one of the greatest joys I take in living in New York City is the opportunity to use travel time to read. I love popping on the subway, pulling out my book, and zoning out until I hear my stop announced. No matter how busy my life gets, I still need to get from point A to point B, and I love that I get to read whilst doing just that. I also took care of one of my favorite cats this weekend, Grayer.

Grayer

Grayer

Despite being a former feral cat and a rescue, Grayer loves people and wants nothing more than to be petted. I often like to sit and pet him with one hand and read with the other. I was lucky enough to read two great books with Grayer this weekend.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

4989I grew up in a Christian home and am well-versed in the Bible. Somewhere in my teenage years I began to question the faith I had been raised in. My questions were varied and complicated and eventually led me away from the church. One of my biggest problems with Christianity was the way women were treated in the Bible. I didn’t like that women were often a sidenote. Often reduced to nothing more than mothers or sinners or whores.

This book is about the wives and daughter of Jacob who is spoken about in Genesis. While it is fiction and imaginative, the writing is beautiful and captivating. She captures the relationships of mothers and daughters of sisters and of friends. I did some basic research on the book once I was done and most of the things she writes about aren’t historically accurate. But the story is moving and believable.

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

zeitounWhen Hurricane Katrina hit, I was 19-years-old and self-centered. I remember so little about the hurricane and the after math. I remember going to a keg party to raise money for the Red Cross, and I remember this.

But I was young and didn’t pay much attention to the news of the struggles going on in my own country. “Zeitoun” is a beautiful, creative non-fiction book that depicts the experiences of a man who stayed behind, who canoed through the streets of New Orleans. I feel late to the show, but wow was that a FEMA fail. The main character Zeitoun is separated from his wife who flees the city with their children. The unfolding of the catastrophe and the injustice they exprienced was so suspenseful, so enraging. I read this in two days.

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Hiking in the Catskills

10 Oct

2013-10-06 11.46.57 Life in the city has been stressful. So to get away for awhile, my boyfriend and I planned a weekend in the Catskills. We got a room at a Bed and Breakfast in a no stoplight town called Fleishmann. We wanted to enjoy some quiet, some fresh air, take in a bit of hiking.

We almost didn’t survive.

We asked our innkeeper Ben for some advice on different trails. He pointed out his favorite one called “Giant Ledge.” Ben described it as an “aggressive” 4-5 mile hike which I found intimidating, but I ended up deciding I could take the challenge. The next morning, around 10:30, we bought water, chips, Ring pops, and Reese’s Pieces at the corner store and headed to the summit.

The weather wasn’t ideal. Crisp fall air in the 60’s with some sprinkling rain. Describing the hike as aggressive was the perfect adjective. There were some steep sections of the trail with high rocks to climb on. I’m not in shape and found myself out of breath for most of the hike. After an hour or so, we reached what looked like a Giant Ledge. The trail was self-explanatory with blue markers scattered on the trees and no other signage. So we only assumed it was the lookout point we had been promised. Because of the poor conditions, the view was underwhelming and bizarre. It was an abyss.

"View" from Giant Ledge.

“View” from Giant Ledge.

We spent some time resting, eating our snacks, and throwing Reese’s Pieces into the mist. We had no concept of how high we were. The light rain was making us chilly, so we wanted to keep going and get back to our inn to shower and rest.

We continued on the path which after a brief decline, became sharply steep with huge rocks to climb over. My legs were shaking with each climb. We assumed that the trail was taking us to a smoother descent than the rocky climb we had just done.

We seemed to reach another summit, but we were both so tired, cold, and wet that we opted to not stare into the mist but keep going. Finally the trail started to descend. It was steep and the trail seemed less defined. We walked through brush that scraped our legs as we tried to not step in mud or slip on the leaves. The path became so misty that it was difficult to see where the next blue marker was. After about an hour of descent, without seeing any other people, and not being able to see up or down the mountain, worry set in.

We began the hike just before 11, and it was well after 3. The trail was only supposed to be 4-5 miles, at that point we should have been done, we shouldn’t still be walking. We didn’t know what else to do but to keep following the blue marked trail. If we had turned around, we were worried that we wouldn’t make it back before dark. As long as we stuck to the trail, we weren’t too lost in the mountains. It was frustrating and a bit unnerving, but our only option was to keep moving forward.

At one point, I slipped on leaves and fell smack on my butt. I sat in the rain and the mud and began to cry. My boyfriend knelt down to comfort me.

“We’re going to die up here,” I told him through my tears.
“Do you want to rest a while?” he asked.
I thought about it and shook my head “no.” He helped me up, I wiped my tears, and just put one foot in front of the other.

A little while later, I heard an ESPN alert go off on my phone.

“The Seahawks must have scored,” my boyfriend said.
“Since I have service, maybe I should look up the trail.”

I googled the trail name and found a site that said in all caps, “WHEN YOU REACH GIANT LEDGE, TURN BACK. DO NOT GO STRAIGHT.”

Shit.

We called innkeeper Ben and told him our predicament. My phone was almost out of battery and the call kept cutting in and out. He said he thought he knew where we were, but that we should keep walking, and he would come meet us. We had continued on to a 15-mile trail.

We had no idea how far into this trail we were, but we had been descending for a while and decided to continue on. After about 90 minutes more, we see Ben on the trail ahead of us. A light at the end of the tunnel. He breathed a sigh of relief as well as he had been hiking for 45 minutes to find us. My legs have never felt more strained. I took to counting to keep them moving forward. As soon as I saw the road, I wanted to throw myself upon it and sleep for days. It was past 6pm.

Back at the inn, a hot shower has never felt quite that amazing. We threw out our muddy, soaked socks and headed to a fancy restaurant up the road. We feasted. Beer, onion rings, steak, fish, apple cake. As hyperbole as it may be, I was happy to be alive. I was happy to not be lost in the woods, to be a news story of hikers gone missing. I’m not going on another hike for a long time.

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The Master of the PU

23 Sep

When I was a wee receptionist, I had to be taught what constituted an emergency and what didn’t. For instance, if a client calls and says their pet is having a seizure, and it’s an emergency. It IS an emergency. If a client calls and says their pet sneezed once this morning, that is NOT an emergency.

One of the weird things that is an emergency is a male cat straining in the litter box. Neutered male cats have narrow urethras, and if they get stones or blockages, it can lead to serious complications, even death, due to a ruptured bladder. The condition is painful and can be recurring.

There is a solution. Though it is not a pretty one. It’s a surgery called a Perineal Urethrostomy (in most clinics it’s called a PU). Or in simpler terms, amputating the penis. I happen to work with the leading PU surgeon in the world, Dr. G.

Dr. G estimates he has done over 3000 of these procedures in his life. At one time, he was flown to France to perform the surgery, while it was filmed and broadcast to veterinarians around Europe. Another way in which this man is a total badass. Last Friday I got to help him with one of these procedures on a chronically blocked cat named Cuddles. He came in on his day off to do it as Dr. S was too afraid to perform the surgery himself. I was excited to see the master at work. Although (like a good technician), I spent the majority of the procedure monitoring the patient’s vitals, adjusting anesthesia, and handing Dr. G different surgical instruments, I did get to see a lot of what happened. His hands were quick and nimble and before I knew it, the penis was removed.

Everyone left the surgery suite, except Dr. G and I. He sutured open the new urethral opening and let out a sigh.

“You know, Chris, I’ve done so many of these surgeries.”
“I know! You’re the master.”
“I’ve done it so many times that I have visions, and I have them a lot.”
“About the surgery?”
“Well, I have these visions that in my next life, a cat performs this surgery on me.”

That’s the hardest I’ve ever laughed at work.

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28 Before 28

16 Sep
Red Velvet Cake from my co-workers.

Red Velvet Cake from my co-workers.

Another year, friends. I still haven’t processed that I’m now 27, but the festivities of the last week have made me feel happy and loved which is all a girl can ask for.

This was a tumultuous year for me. I spent a lot of time in self-reflection, trying to figure out where I want to take my life, making peace with the past, and taking deep breaths in the present. A lot of it wasn’t easy. But from where I sit at this moment, I am the happiest, most together I have ever been.

Unfortunately, all this soul-searching and self-reflection left my bucket list out in the cold. I only accomplished 10 things on my list, down from the 12 I managed to do last year. But it’s a new year, and as much personal growth as I’ve gone through, my idea of a bucket list has also evolved, and I’m excited about the next year! As I’ve done before, I rolled over some of the previous items. One asterisk represents things I neglected to do last year. Two asterisks represent things I’ve neglected to do the past TWO years. Therefore it also represents my shame.

  1. Read Slaughterhouse-Five– I have never read any Kurt Vonnegut! Let’s face it. Despite prolific reading, it’s hard to read ALL the classics, ALL the best authors. But I enjoy tackling one embarrassing omission per year. This year is Mr. Vonnegut.
  2. Visit a new state– My grandfather visited all 50 states in his lifetime, and I admire the accomplishment. I’m only at 12. This will hopefully be a recurring item for years to come.
  3. Visit a new country- I’ve hesitated from putting anything travel-related on the list for fear that having something too big would hinder completing the list. But who am I kidding? I only completed 10 last year, so I should be able to dream as big as I want. So many countries I want to see. This will also be recurring.
  4. Visit the top of the Statue of Liberty– Whilst also dreaming big about traveling, I want to likewise take better advantage of living in the capital of the WORLD, New York City. I tried the Tourist Tuesday thing, which I’d like to continue, but putting things on my list will also push me to do them. What could be more touristy than this?
  5. Go to a live taping– This is the point in my list where I must give some credit to my friend Quincey who also does a birthday bucket list, although hers has been more New York City centric, so I’m pilfering a lot of my New York City items from her list. So, yeah, some sort of late night show, or the Daily Show, SNL is nearly impossible, but I’d like to try.
  6. Do Some Gardening**- I live in a city. I don’t just trip over gardening opportunities every day.
  7. Anonymously Pay Someone’s Tab**- I know it looks bad and selfish that I haven’t done this yet, but the majority of the time, this is my life: tumblr_ls5sctFDGt1qm30qjo1_500
  8. Be an extra in a tv show or movie**- I’ve looked into it, believe you me! I just haven’t found a simple way to do this without registering with an agency. I just want to be a witness in a Law and Order scene, do we have to bring my social security number into this?
  9. Take a boxing class*-Again, I looked into it. Just have to commit to a class.
  10. Visit a new baseball stadium- Wasn’t able to do this last year, but now that I’m dating an adorable baseball fan, things are looking up! We’ll definitely accomplish this one…next season.
  11. Do a Juice Cleanse*– Still determined to do this despite the eye rolls I got from people about it.
  12. Go to Lucky Cheng’s- Dinner and a drag show! Sounds like my ideal night out.
  13. Eat at White Castle– The East Coast fast food staple has eluded me. But one night (hopefully after imbibing a few adult beverages), I’d like to find myself there.
  14. Go Skinny Dipping**- I don’t think I’ve been to a beach or a warm body of water this year where this was even possible. Not sure how to rectify this situation.
  15. Go Scuba Diving**- I’m thinking I can accomplish this one if I plan out the visit a new state/visit a new country items appropriately.
  16. Go sailing**-So, who’s got a boat? Anyone, anyone…
  17. Join a book club**- I don’t have enough friends who are nerds. Where are you book nerds? Where do you all congregate, and can I please join you?!
  18. Ride a mechanical bull- Almost did this once. I told my friends I wasn’t drunk enough to do it. So when I finally felt I had the liquid courage, I march up to the bull. It’s then that I notice the room was spinning, I turn back to my friends and tell them that I was TOO drunk to do it. That was six years ago. I will find the perfect balance and embrace the urban cowgirl I know I am.
  19. Go to roller derby*- I wish I had the guts to join a roller derby team, but for now I’ll settle with watching other girls be violent and awesome.
  20. Go to a dog show*- Now that I’m a full-time vet tech, I think I’d really enjoy this, ogling all the breeds.
  21. Do a Circle Line cruise- An uber-touristy item. It’s a cruise around the isle of Manhattan, from which one can see all five boroughs, important landmarks, bridges. It sounds neat!
  22. Visit a whiskey distillery*- I’ve been to many beer breweries, and it’s always fun. And if there’s one thing that I love more than beer, it’s whiskey.
  23. Take a trapeze class- I’m not the most graceful of girls, so this could be interesting.
  24. Go to a gun range**- I want to do this! I want to do it so much! Why haven’t I done this?
  25. Eat at Serendipity- A famous New York restaurant known for amazing desserts. I tried to go once with visiting friends, but the 90 minute wait deterred me.
  26. Get a facial- I liked having the self-pampering list item of massage last year. Going to continue the “treat yo self” trend.
  27. Drink at the Bridge Cafe- The oldest business in New York, it has been open since 1794 and was once a brothel! This nerd loves her history.
  28. Go to a Monster Truck Show– Because why not?

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Urgent Care

7 Sep

When this situation happened to me a couple of days ago, I was mildly annoyed and uncomfortable, but the more I think about it, the more upset I become.  And when I’ve told co-workers and friends the story, the look of horror on their face has made me realize how much worse the situation was than I realized.

I’ve been sick. A week or so ago, my left submandibular lymph gland became swollen. Last weekend my ear started hurting…a lot. By Wednesday this week, I was sent home from work for “looking like death” and feeling dizzy and nauseous. By Thursday I decided it was time to see a doctor. I walked to an Urgent Care near my boyfriend’s apartment where I had been staying the night before. I was taken into a children’s exam room, walls covered with Toy Story stickers and sneaker scuff marks on the walls. A nurse look my vitals and asked me some questions about my ear pain.

About five minutes later, a doctor walks in. He doesn’t introduce himself. He doesn’t even say hello. He walks up to me, stands about a foot from my face.

“Your eyes are puffy,” he says to me.
“Oh, that’s not why I’m here. My ear hurts.”
“You have dark circles under your eyes.”
“I know. I’ve had them since childhood. That’s not why I’m here.” He lifts his hand to my face and runs his fingers along the skin under my eyes.
“We are in the same boat, you know. I have rings under my eyes too. I know what it’s like.”
I sit there silently, confused as to why he’s talking about this. He goes on for the next 5-10 minutes telling me about different products from Clinique that he has used and that I should use. All I can think about is how much pain I’m in and how all I want is a prescription to fix it, some advice on what I can do to make it better.

Once he finishes my makeup lecture, he finally looks at the notes the nurse took and grabs an otoscope. Not to look in my ear mind you. He comes over and asks to look at my throat. I open up and say, “Ah.”

“So do you use cucumber or ice packs or anything?”
“On my ear? No. I’ve put a warm towel…”
“No, your eyes!” he interrupts me.
“Oh, no. I don’t. I put makeup on sometimes.”
“Do you…not care?”
“No, no I don’t.”
He sighs and turns away from me, “It’s just that most women CARE about their appearance.”
I sit there feeling awkward, reminding myself in my head that at least my boyfriend thinks I’m pretty. It can’t be all that bad.

He comes back over and uses his stethoscope to listen to me breath.
“Well I think you have a throat infection. I’m going to give you an antibiotic, take some advil, and you’ll need more vitamin C this winter. Oh, and get plenty of sleep. I’m not going to see you in the club at 4am tonight, am I?” He turns to me and smiles.
“I don’t go to clubs.” I mentally decide I hate this man.
“Okay, come with me, and we’ll get you some prescriptions.”

I follow him to his office where he writes up the prescription. THEN, he goes on the Clinique website and starts showing me the products he thinks I should use. I’m not paying attention. All I want is my prescription so I can start taking care of the ear that is throbbing with pain.
“You know, these products would only cost you about 60 bucks and they’ll last you like five months. It’s an investment you really should make.”
“Can I just have my prescriptions?” I say coldly.

Three days later. I don’t feel better. My ear is throbbing. I get out of the subway after work to go to a different urgent care. I walk by this one and see him standing outside. I’m so furious. I’m also incredulous at how unprofessional the whole experience was. How dare he critique my appearance? I rolled out of bed and went to a doctor’s office in pain, not to have my makeup criticized. I wish I’d said something.

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Obligation

26 Aug

Cover_IJThis has been a great year for me, reading-wise. Being the Type-A nerd that I am I devised a whole new system on how to pick books and optimize the quality of what I’m reading.

First of all I joined the Good Reads website which is a social media for books. Before I joined the site I had a hard time keeping track of book recommendations from family and friends. There were so many books I wanted to read, but when I found myself in a bookstore, I couldn’t remember a single one. So Good Reads keeps the list and I can sort it by highest user ratings so that hopefully I’m reading the best books on my list. I then take the top books on that list and put them on hold on the New York Public Library website.  I pick them up at a branch near my work on my lunch break. It has become such a perfect routine, and I’ve read great books this year and not had to buy them.

One book, though, has put a little hitch in my giddy-up. I have nothing against reading classic literature, even larger volumes. I read “Anna Karenina” and “Moby Dick” last winter and enjoyed them both. I’ve read massive nonfiction books about horizontal identities and the digestive tract. Some of these I’ve enjoyed more than others. But David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest”? I can’t do it.

My relationship with David Foster Wallace has historically been bad. I just don’t get it. What is all the fuss about? I think a lot of his writing is overdone and depressing. I’ve read “This is Water” and a number of different interviews by him. In these things I see his wisdom, his intelligence, his ability to write very well. But, man, I could not get into “Infinite Jest.” I just couldn’t. I spent much too long trying to, because every review I found was glowing. The ratings on Good Reads were high. In a lot of ways, it made me feel stupid. What am I not getting about this book? What does it say about me that I feel as though I’m being tortured while reading it? I kept trying to push through, thinking at some point I’d be hooked and want to finish it. Alas, I eventually though, “Life is too short to read bad books.” I trotted the book back to the library branch near my work and returned it, probably never again in my lifetime will I try to read it.

Now I’m reading a trashy crime novel based on a network television show. But I’m enjoying it. I know it’s not great, and I don’t think I’m doing myself any favors by reading it. But guilty pleasures are so necessary in life. I’m happy reading this book, and hey, I’ve watched “The Jersey Shore” and liked that too! It is what it is. I have “The Count of Monte Cristo” on hold at the library and maybe that’ll cleanse my reading palate of the cheap-thrills book I’m reading now. But, I feel a bit like a failure that I couldn’t get through “Infinite Jest.” What am I missing? Why is that book such a classic? How is it possible to get past the first 100 pages and not start banging your head against a wall? I would love to know.

 

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Taking a Moment

12 Aug

A couple of weeks ago, my friends and I pooled our money together to get our own suite at the Staten Island Yankees. We took the ferry from Manhattan and as we arrived on the island, we were greeted with a torrential downpour. We ran to our box and settled in to wait out the storm. The grounds crew pulled a tarp onto the field, and we set to eating the food provided in the suite (four hot dogs for yours truly) and drinking the beer that our suite attendant dutifully got for us.

About three hours later, the game was cancelled. As we finished up the beer and talked about rescheduling the game, my friend Quincey asked me to come out on the balcony with her, onto the seats that overlook the field. “Take a moment with me,” she said.

I stepped out into the cool, humid air of summer, a breeze coming in off the water just beyond the right field fence. I assumed she was going to tell me about a boy who had been texting her or maybe laugh about the bizarre conversation going on inside the suite about last will and testaments. Instead she just stood there sipping her beer.

“I just needed to take a moment with someone who’d appreciate this,” she paused. “We live here.” She gestured out across the water at the lit up skyline of lower Manhattan.

2013-07-20 21.07.23

That picture is a poor representation of what that view is actually like. I do forget sometimes that I live here, how lucky I am, how despite the hard times and the uncertainty, I ended up here, in one of the most amazing cities in the world, continuously finding new adventures, new people. I’m living a life that I only dreamed about as an awkward 13-year-old in Northern Nevada. Quincey’s story is different than mine, but same general idea, finding happiness despite struggle on the other side of the continent from her home.

It’s easy to forget how amazing this city is, and I’m glad that I was reminded to stop and take a moment, because those small moments of appreciation are such an important key to happiness. I enjoyed it so much that I took another moment that same night as we rode the ferry back to the city, and I saw this lady. (Also not a great representation)

2013-07-20 22.26.29

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2013 All Star Game

23 Jul

2013-07-16 16.32.38On a breezy summer evening, we sat out on a terrace sipping beer.

“So what are you doing for the All Star Game?” he asked me.
“Actually nothing. I’m going over to my friend’s apartment to watch ‘Whose Line is it Anyways.’ What are you doing for the All Star Game?”
“Oh, we might go to McFadden’s to watch it. But I was thinking about getting tickets.”
“Wow, that’s awesome.”
“Sooooo, you’re pretty set in your plans, don’t think you could go with me?”
“Wait, what? No, I could totally go. You know me and baseball. I’d love to go.”
“But what about your friends?”
“They’ll get over it.”

So I got to go to the 2013 All Star Game! When I heard the game was going to be at CitiField in Queens, of course I wanted to go. Mathematically speaking, the odds of being in the same city of the 30 options when an All Star Game is happening just doesn’t seem like it would happen to me again. But I also didn’t think it was possible to get tickets. Then two days before the game, I get invited to go! Dream come true!

We got to the stadium around 4:30, before the gates opened. Once we were inside the gates, it was like a carnival. So many baseball players, so many stars. We went down to watch batting practice and ogle the stars. For two baseball fans, it was exciting to point out all the awesome players before us. Including the most awesome baseball player ever, my beloved Felix Hernandez…

The King himself.

The King himself.

Some bullet points from my All-Star experience!

  • So many fans! As we wandered around the stadium, we made an attempt to find a fan from every team, which was a lot more entertaining than it sounds. We almost did it except for one stupid team that apparently doesn’t have any fans, anywhere. The San Diego Padres. I’m disappointed in you, San Diego. Very disappointed.
  • Neil Diamond came out of nowhere to sing “Sweet Caroline.” While this is a traditionally Red Sox experience, it was fun to sing along to it in a New York stadium.
  • Really hard to cheer for any one team playing. Most pitching/batting matchups were between players that I liked with near-equal enthusiasm. It was a constant win-win situation. Either a pitcher I like gets a strikeout, or a batter I like gets a hit!
  • Prince Fielder got a triple. Bahahahahaha! Prince Fielder got a triple! That chubby man can run!
  • A moving dedication to Mariano Rivera. Even though I’m a firm Yankee hater, Mariano Rivera is a great pitcher with an astounding career, and he deserved the honor or warming up on an empty field to thunderous applause.
  • They had a mascot race with different goofy mascots running around the warning track. It made me giggle.

An amazing night. A great experience for any baseball fan. I feel like such a lucky girl that I got to go.

Beautiful Citi Field

Beautiful Citi Field

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27 Before 27: Eat Pork Belly

17 Jul

In my 27th year of life, I’m attempting to do 27 new things. Full list here.

Spicy Pork Belly Sliders

Spicy Pork Belly Sliders

I thought this would be a little more adventurous than it turned out to be. Don’t get me wrong, it was delicious. It just wasn’t as exotic or exciting as some of my other culinary adventures (fermented shark head.) Turns out pork belly is just a type of pork. Bacon is typically cut from pork belly. It’s fatty, and it’s delicious.

Pork Belly is used in a lot of Chinese and Korean cooking. So I went to a tapas style Korean restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen called Danji. My pork belly came in slider form with scallions, cucumber julienne, and gochujang, which is a Korean red chile paste. I also got an unfiltered rice beer, which turned out to taste like carbonated sake.

The sliders were delicious! I love my food spicy, and this did not disappoint. Perhaps that was my failing, it was so spicy, I didn’t get to pay too much attention to what the pork belly tasted like.

Even if it wasn’t the craziest food item I’ve ever eaten, I liked it a lot and will definitely order it again.

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Shalimar

15 Jul
My girl sleeping. I didn't want to open the cage and wake her.

My girl sleeping. I didn’t want to open the cage and wake her.

Shalimar started coming to us last winter. She’s a pom-mix, less yappy lap dog, more fox. She’s also a rescue from Arizona that around the office, became known as the foot dog. No one knows exactly what happened to her. The shelter that took her in found her wandering the desert streets, her paw pads scalded by the heat. But the radiographs we took show significant bone loss, and some have theorized that someone tried to declaw her by ripping out her nails. Either way her paws were severely infected with oozing drainage tracts on the tops and the bottoms of her feet.

Radiographs of her back paws, with distal bones missing.

Radiographs of her back paws, with distal bones missing.

The one blessing in this mess was that she seemed to have nerve damage to the point where she couldn’t feel her paws. She also happened to be the most stoic dog I’ve ever met. NEVER tried to bite, would only quietly cry in pain. Since her feet hurt, she liked to be held like a baby, feet up. Most dogs are hesitant to look you in the eyes, but she would focus her big brown eyes on yours. I adored her.

We treated the paws the best we could, but the infection was aggressive and not responding to antibiotics. They’d get better, then they’d get worse. Her owner was particularly patient and loving toward Shalimar, never complaining to us about our inability to fix the problem. That only makes the situation harder for us as good clients are hard to come by.

She deteriorated at a faster rate the last couple of weeks and Dr. L decided to admit her for heavy rounds of antibiotics and intensive nursing care. I took on a lot of her treatments and would hold her whenever I had some free time (which was not often this week.) Doing foot soaks can be a pain as animals flop around, splash water, want to escape. But with Shalimar I would hold her in my lap while her sad paws sat in the Epsom solution. She loved it and would often fall asleep as I held her paws in place. With gloves I would massage her feet in an attempt to reduce the swelling. One of the most disturbing things I’ve experienced as the paws would crackle like bubble wrap in my hands.

A part of me wanted to title this post “Delusion.” Too often I see owners who keep their pets alive too long. They selfishly refuse to accept that their pet is suffering and only getting worse. It makes me angry. But over the last week I realized how natural that feeling of hope can be and how hard it is to let go of something you love. I held Shalimar so many times and felt her labored abdominal breathing (a sign of pain). I watched her struggle to walk, refuse to eat. But because I loved this dog so much, I refused to see it. It wasn’t until Saturday night when Dr. L upped her pain meds that I realized she would have to be euthanized, and soon. She was conked out from the morphine and finally feeling a little peace. It was so hard to be pulled from that delusion and see what was really in front of me, an animal in a lot of pain. I started to cry and ran into the bathroom to try and contain myself.

I can’t say enough about how wonderful the owner was, how much she loved this dog and how reasonable she was. They euthanized my girl last night. I’m so sad about her being gone, but in that sadness I have to search for a little bit of happiness that we did the right thing.

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