From my mom: Thought I would let you know that Lazy was no better today, and was put to sleep. I went in after work, and they gave me little hope that things would improve. I saw her for a few minutes and it broke my heart to see her, even her eyes had changed color, probably from the steroids.

I could be really upset (actually, I am a little teary) but I called home and found out she was sick last night and at the vet’s office being monitored overnight with an IV. I could be really mad about my parents being shitty dog owners* and leaving her home alone all day AND THEN not taking her to the vet sooner (like the very first second they noticed she was paralyzed). But I’m not. My mom’s e-mail is her way of saying she’s destroyed by the loss of the lazer too. I’m just sad we couldn’t play fetch more time.

Lazy was seriously the best dog-friend/roommate ever. She wasn’t even THAT lazy. I probably wouldn’t have made it to this point in my life if not for her. I’m sure of it. I owe that puppy a lot. From our first day together (Hallowe’en back in ‘96) when she was so small she fit in my dad’s slipper, to jumping down from the back of the couch onto my abdomen when I was recovering from kidney surgery, to the only time she ever went missing: we scoured the neighborhood, only to find her hiding from the sound of fireworks behind my dresser), to our last secret sleepover just last June…she always knew when to sigh in agreement with my exasperation about how shitty the world can be. That’s what real friends do.

This was taken a long while ago. After my first year of university. I’m not sure anyone else ever took Lazy and the monster for w-a-l-k-s. Or did a lot of other things for them, actually. May/01.

Lazy is admiring her puppy-like reflection in the floor and/or searching for crumbs. January/08

Here she is blissing out in 30 degree midday sun. The dog loved being cooked alive. June/08

After having a satisfying roll-about in the grass. June/08

I’m not sure there’s reason to go back home if the lazer isn’t there.

a rifle sits behind her sleeping ear
an echo on the cold wall closest neighbor couldn’t hear
we dug a hole in the fall
so now its a frozen burial
and she’s gone
just before the new year

well i’m gonna build a cross for the spot between the trees
and stick it in firm so it won’t sway in their breeze
well you and i have trouble making up our half-assed minds
but she’d seen 16 years of our kind
and what’s it like when your memories start to freeze

oh and i wonder what it is about dogs and thunder
what they hear coming over the fields
backhouse shelter warm nights in the summer
shaking the ground that you lie under
well i know you’re not here but at least you don’t feel it anymore

and i came to see you on the day that it happened
you said hey sorry sar but i gotta go
and i was trying to read some sorta reaction
it’s something you just can’t show
so i guess it’s time i go

across the snowy barnyard just past the driving shed
a shadow of me in the moon well i was in a movie in my head
this pile of dirt on the ground
will sink when nobody is around
and winter covers everything but everything’s not dead

oh and i wonder what it is about dogs and thunder
what they hear coming over the fields
backhouse shelter warm nights in the summmer
shaking the ground that you lie under
well i know you’re not here but at least you don’t feel it anymore

-Sarah Harmer – Dogs and Thunder

*edit: my parents aren’t shitty dog owners. from thousands of miles away, it’s easy to say i would have done things differently. maybe i don’t know the whole story, but from what i DO know, I wouldn’t have given up on a dog that was healthy one morning and couldn’t move just a few hours later when the only diagnosis i’ve received “maybe it’s just a pinched nerve in her neck.” that’s all. i mostly blame the vet for even encouraging it. that seems odd. i know someone who had their gerbil diagnosed with a tumor, and … i need to let this go.

1. the older i get, the worse i am at spelling
2. i start school next week!
3. had dinner at boyfriend’s cousin’s girlfriend’s gigantic castle in-fill last night. am jealous.
4. wants vacation! has vacation time! has no monies. is sad.
5. am a bit homesick today.

I just finished clicking in my grocery order. For the second week in a row. The hermit wins out on this one. Who likes going to the supermarket anyway? I mean, the real supermarkets, I’m ok with. The big-box-factory-made-crap-markets, I can do without. Anyway, it’s a pretty sweet deal, the online grocery delivery service. You place your order, and a random hippy (that if you’re cool like me, you actually know) delivers it to your door a few days later. Repeat weekly. Sign me up.

Grocery delivery seems like a yuppy fantasy come true, and I guess in a way it is. The thing that validates the extra cost for me: I don’t think I’ve eaten better than I have this week in a long time. When you actually have groceries in  your house, you don’t eat out. When you have fresh organic groceries in your house, you’ve probably paid an exorbitant cost for them, and you probably want to use them before they go bad. So  you do. The next thing you know, you’re having a salad for lunch. It works for me, anyway.

The pizza we ordered Friday night was an accident.

This weekend was pretty business-as-usual. Yesterday we did some Costco-ing for bulk shampoo and a desk chair for me. I am an office-chair-stealer. If we are both in the office at the same time I am forced (I force myself due to imagined obligations) to sit on the dreaded card table chair. While also from Costco,  the card table chair is significantly less comfortable. It is the suck, actually. As an aside, I hate Costco. Why do people pay for the privilege of being tortured by harsh lighting, long line ups, AND everything costing $9.97? Why? That’s not even mentioning the torture of being harassed to pay more and join the super-bonus-ultra-shinier-metal-club each and every time at the check out.

When we got home from our commercial expedition, we made dinner and settled in for an evening of typical hermit activities. UNTIL duh duh duh…. I got a text message from a co-worker asking if I wanted to go to the Feist concert. The message came at 7:00 and the show started at 7:30. I’m not sure why she offered them to me, but I’m pretty grateful that she did. For the $5.00 it cost us to park, we saw a really good show. Hayden opened for Feist, which is funny, because earlier in the day we were talking in the car about how I’d never missed a Hayden concert until this one. I did miss a few minutes of his set, but I think it counts as perfect attendance regardless.

There’s a review for the Feist show here. I really enjoyed the shadow show. Listening to Feist was fun and even though I’ve never been what I’d call a fan, I still recognized a number of her songs. The only thing that really sucked was the audience. They didn’t stfu the entire time. It was constant drunken chatter, as if they were at a hockey game.

One more thing. Not that I’m trying to be proprietary in any way, but Feist isn’t from Calgary, Calgary. She’s from Nova Scotia. I guess maybe that’s why you were so chattery, drunk, and disrespectful. I’m not really sure why you were eating gigantic containers of popcorn either, but that could explain why you look so gross.

How My Heart Behaves is a pretty cool song, but enjoying it makes me worry that I’m on a slippery slope towards enjoying Barbara Streisand.

Today I went to the museum to learn the art of book binding. It was pretty fun. There have been a lot of exhibit changes since the last time I was there, including a lot more interactive-type stuff. For example, I blew up an oil well, AND walked through Sir William van Horne’s supposedly moving train car. I love the shaky floor feeling in a museum. Like an amusement park ride but educational. The books my friend and I made are pretty awesome too. I also managed to capture some pretty fantastic pictures on the blackberry.

All of these pictures were taken in the Maverick section. LOOK OUT John McCain.

The only thing I really wanted to do this weekend that I didn’t is see Religculous. Religulous, whether it turns out to be good or bad, is TOTALLY my kind of movie. It will no doubt be one of the more enjoyable evenings I spend this fall. Whenever it happens.

Cono Sur’s cabernet is back, locally, which means Christmas is right around the corner. What to do, what to do? The only clear answer about what to do for the Christmas holidays is to drink wine. That’s what I have come to understand over the last few fall seasons. The other good thing about Cono Sur is that it looks cool, with its trendy bicycle label, it’s somewhat crappy cork that falls apart, and it’s organicness. Behold the organic wine schmoozing with the organic pears. Cono Sur is a player.