A quick revisit, and maybe some changes

"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea."
   ~ Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen)

My work comes in waves, as predictable as the seasons. Like many, it is deadline oriented, but with the knowledge that the deadlines (almost) never change from year to year. As such, November and December are when things go from frantic activity, to trying to fill your day with work. Naturally, this is when it is easiest to take time off.

Even knowing it was coming, I didn't plan a vacation. Then last week when I found out the two partners at work were taking much of November off, it became clear that it was now or wait and take two weeks in December.

Last November I just stayed at home, "staycation" mixed with chores ignored during the busy season. This year I figured I would take a couple of days at home, but I was a bit twitchy to get out of town for at least part of the week. In a few hours I cycled through some possibilities within driving distance: State park yurt or cabin...Orcas Island...Mount Rainier...Crescent Lake... All sounded tempting, but with weather and dog considerations, none quite fit.

This time instead of the mountains calling, it was the ocean.

I am not sure if it is the endless horizon, the timeless waves, the symbolic washing away of cares, but the ocean has always drawn me in. The Oregon Coast in particular holds a special place in my heart. I have been there as a kid with family, made trips with girlfriends, spent time there alone, and of course rode my bike down its length some ten years ago. I looked at the map, paged through memories, and settled in on Cannon Beach.

Cannon Beach offered the perfect blend of seclusion with a nearby crowd. There is a town filled with little shops, but you could spend all your time walking the beach and hiking in nearby parks. Though it was an impromptu, unscheduled trip, I was soon packing my car with lots of possibilities: Running gear, hiking gear, books to read, ukulele to play, and a shinny new laptop since I was out of excuses to write. Mostly though, I was looking for a little Vacation Bubble to step away, reset, take a look at things anew. 

I had a dog in tow this time so there would be lots of walking and less time looking in shops or going out for a nice meal. I did find a few dog-friendly patios, but the options would definitely been more plentiful with nicer weather (he says already making excuses to go back).

Sort of at the last minute I threw my own book in with the luggage. It had been a few years since I had read it, and I reasoned that since I would be driving the roads and hanging out in the backdrop of the story, it might be fun to revisit.

And I brought a pen.

I do not plan to re-write the story, but I did mark some things up this time through. If I wrote it today, it would be different, but I am still happy with it and proud to have put it out there. Still, there are a couple of typos I would like to fix, some repeated words too close to each other, and a part of one scene I would like to change.

Most history can't be rewritten, but with print-on-demand, my book can. There is no stack of books ready to be sold, so if I upload a new master file, any new copies sold would be missing those things I circled in my copy. I think with the Kindle versions, people who previously bought the book could actually get an updated copy for free (in case they ran out of other books and wanted to re-read it).

Of course I should be writing something new and not trying to rewrite what is in the past, especially since NaNoWriMo kicked off today, but I am going to take some baby steps to get back at writing.

The running gear was not used, the ukulele stayed in its case, but there was lots of beach combing, viewpoint scouting, coffee and beer sipping on patios, and a book and more read during the brief getaway.

Not planned, not perfect, but pretty nice.

Lessons from dog

After finding her online and in Texas, I first met Izzy in person on May 10th. Baggage claim is not the most warm and welcoming place to meet, but such are the things with internet relationships becoming real. As such, it was and understandably awkward first meeting. It had to be very confusing for her to be shipped to find her new home and person, locked up in a crate in the cargo hold. We wandered around the parking lot to stretch her legs and see if she needed to take care of any business. She was tentative and nervous.

She was much more relaxed in the car.

I took the next few days off to help her get settled in and us acquainted. She seemed to be a pretty happy pup, but we did not bond right away. The ladies at the rescue organization warned that she may be more hesitant with men in general. She had been around only women for the last few months, and of course they had no real idea of her history. She may have been abused in the past. I tried to just let her take her time and figure out that I was her person now.

There were adjustments and hiccups in the first few weeks. Wanting to go back inside as soon as we stepped out back. Howling and crying if I left for more than a minute or two. Accidents in the house and at the office, some not seeming so accidental. Over time she has settled in, but she still has separation anxiety. She seems just fine if I leave her in her crate, but if she is loose in the house, she freaks out as soon as I leave.

Fortunately, my office has been very welcoming of Izzy, so she goes to work with me most days. It is now to the point that if I show up without her, they are disappointed. We are both very lucky, and she is rather spoiled in this right. She gets lots of attention and plenty of outdoor time with walks throughout the day. I have tried to give her the best life I can, spending time, taking her places, introducing her to lots of people and dogs.

If I had written this a few months ago while we were still in the honeymoon period, it would have been a thousand cute pictures and stories about how happy I was to have a dog back in my life. Now reality has set in. At risk of tarnishing my reputation as a dog lover and a patient man, this dog drives me freaking crazy.

She is incredibly needy. She is much like a toddler with a short attention span, constantly poking me and demanding attention - but only on her terms. When I am working, she will put her chin on my lap or hop up to put her paws on my leg. When I pet her, she will look off into the distance, barely interested that I am there, but if I stop, she nudges me to continue. If however I offer her to hop up to get attention when I actually have a pause in work, she can't be bothered. Maybe she is actually a cat in dog's clothing.

For all the time we spend together and the worrying over when I am away, I still don't feel much like we have bonded. It feels more like I am the caretaker in a co-dependent relationship than anything else. The running not-so-joke is that someday I hope that someday Izzy loves me half as much as my friend's dog Macy does.

A book was recommended to me called "When Pigs Fly! Training Success With Impossible Dogs" and wouldn't you know that her main breed (Bull Terrier) is the dog on the cover. One of the things it talks about is that these breeds are less interested in checking in with their human for instruction, reassurance or connection. I suppose in my ignorance, I believed that dogs inherently want this connection.The fact that Izzy may never connect with me like other dogs have is one of many lessons I have resisted/started to accept over the past few months.

Others include:

• I am not nearly as patient as I thought I was. I have always felt empathetic and able to put frustrations in perspective. Izzy gets to me like only a faulty machine could before, and I find myself snapping out of proportion.

• Out on walks, I leave the headphones at home more often these days, and I feel more present.

• We try and find new places for walks whenever possible, and it has led to discovering many new and forgotten parks. We live in a beautiful state, and I am so glad that we have set aside these bits of wilderness among the concrete.

• Izzy is the ultimate ice breaker. People will let other people walk by with hardly a glance, but when I am out with Izzy, blinders come off and smiles come more easily.

• Though I do not often make plans at the last minute, I have found that I really appreciate having this flexibility, and having a dog mostly takes this away.

• I really value my alone time. I did not think that a dog would really encroach on that, but it turns out she does. Apparently I don't do well in clingy relationships. 

• Izzy can go from pain in the ass to adorable in a blink of an eye. The reverse is also true.

• Izzy may make it easier to meet someone new, at the same time making it more difficult to bring them into my life.

• Sunrises are a nice reward for getting up early to walk the dog.

• Overall, Izzy is a good dog. Daily frustrations can add up, but they do not equal the whole. There will always be good days and bad days. I am re-learning perspective.

As I fight against getting crusty and impatient, there a definitely places where I have softened. The couch rules were immediately relaxed with this new pup (but the bed remains a human(s)-only space).

Another heartbeat in the house

There is a dog in my life once again. She came with the name Isabella, but you can call her Izzy.

I have been without a dog of my own since Sierra passed away four years ago. I waited two years to try again, but the dog I found (Annie) was a definite mismatch and the adoption turned into a foster until we found a home where she could be happy. I waited another two years before trying again, mostly to figure out if there was anything I could do better. Sort of a pattern in my failed relationships.

I waited until after the April work/tax deadline before really looking, but wasn't officially considering it until I knew I wasn't getting a permit to hike the Wonderland Trail this year. Being gone for almost two weeks would not be good for the new pup. Izzy is also why I stopped considering a walk up permit to hike this year. Life isn't quite as flexible these days.

I started surfing Petfinder.com regularly. This website lists available pets in local, and not so local shelters. I had found previously that when you search in the Seattle area, the website mixes in lots of pups from all over the country, and you don't see that they are in Massachusetts until you read the fine print. After some time, I found that on the website you could go to direct links to the local shelters to see which dogs were actually in the area.

I was a bit better at reading the descriptions this time around. With Annie, I found that "Needs to be the only dog in the house" really meant "I will lunge and try to attack any dog I see." I wanted my next dog to be able to not only go many places with me, but to also play well with the other dogs in my life (hi Macy!). I wanted a dog I could hike and camp with, hang out at dog-friendly breweries, take on road trips - basically share in as much of my life as possible.

So I surfed the local shelters and didn't find any dogs that seemed like a good match. After coming up empty for a couple of weeks, I went back to the general search and there were lots of dogs in Texas waiting to be adopted. I had a friend adopt a dog from Texas a year or so ago,and I swore I would never adopt a dog I didn't have a chance to meet and interact with.

I was wrong.

I found Izzy's profile and she sounded pretty great.

One of Izzy's profile pictures

Meet your new adventure buddy! Isabella is a super sweet 2 year old girl looking for a loving forever family! She is a gentle, loving spirit and absolutely loves people. She deserves an amazing home where she will be treated like a princess! She is very social and loves meeting new people and gets along great with other dogs. Her ideal playmate would be of a larger size dog. She lives in a foster home with a 10 year old child and she is gentle with him. She would be great to take to the dog park or to go on long walks, hikes, or jogs! She rides well in the car and enjoys puppuccinos at Starbucks as well as belly rubs!  (video too)

I contacted the rescue organization and they were very helpful and forthcoming. Izzy had been dropped off at a Houston area pound right after having a litter of puppies. The previous owners kept the puppies, dumped the mom. There is an over-population of dogs in Texas and it sounds like there are many irresponsible owners. As such, I was told Texas pounds only keep dogs for seven days before euthanizing them. The rescue organization (K9Kare) rescued Izzy on day seven and took her to their ranch. The spayed her and got her otherwise healthy before offering her for adoption.

Along with the emails and phone calls, they were nice enough to send some videos so I could see Izzy interacting with other dogs. This one seem to show that she "played well with others", and of course made her look pretty cute in the process.

They also sent me some references for other people in Washington who had adopted through this organization. Apparently K9Kare tries to get as many pups out of Texas as possible due to the over-population/owner problem down there. All the people I spoke to had only good things to say about their experience.

After a few more phone calls, emails and paperwork exchanges, we had a flight reservation to fly her up. I figured that they would send Izzy to a local shelter that they partnered with, but actually I would be meeting her for the first time in baggage claim.

How that meeting went and our first five months together in the next post.

Merry Christmas

I hope it has been a wonderful Christmas season for you all. It went by so fast this year, not like when we were kids. I hope in the whirlwind you found some time to enjoy some music and all the small things that add up to so much.

A recent favorite

The pup's owners left some presents for the husky I am dog-sitting

Another non-traditional Christmas favorite

Long days in a long year

It is hard to believe it has been a year. In truth, it seems even longer. It was a year ago I had to say goodbye to my sweet puppy.

Life is quite different these days. I will admit, that in some ways it is bit easier. There are occasional mornings where I can actually sleep in, now that there are no scheduled shots of insulin. I don't need to come right home after work, and can take care of errands, or even meet up for an impromptu beer with friends.

But of course there is a great emptiness she left behind. She was this smiling soul that lit up the darkness. There have been many moments over the past year where I wasn't just living alone, but loneliness crept in. I may not have to rush home, but in a way it is less of a home that I am returning to.

Particularly at this time of year, where I am gone for twelve hours at a time, It would be wonderful to have a pup waiting by the door. But it is these exact times that make me hesitate to have a dog. It is not only rather unmanageable, but it would not be at all fair. I didn't want to put Sierra through a move and these crazy hours at her age, but it isn't fair at any age.

Dogs need more, just like people. They need the time, the contact, the connection. They exude this near constant joy, but it must be fueled, and that fuel is us. As I have mentioned here and elsewhere, it is that act of giving that is as soul enriching as the joy we receive tenfold in return.

There is so much more to say, but it all would come to simply this -  you remain in my heart, and I still miss you so.

Quiet time

It is a strange, wonderful, lonely experience to come home to an empty house.

After the wife and house went on to live their new stories with a different set of characters, I have lived with others, metaphorically sleeping on someone else's couch for the last three or four years. Great strides were made, and setbacks were had in the meantime, but it never really felt like I had truly found my feet and started life anew.

I moved into my own place at the start of the summer. Beyond the last few years of living under someone else's roof, I had not lived alone for fifteen or twenty years. On the one hand, I longed to set up my own camp, cook in my own kitchen, have the mess or cleanliness be mine, but I also wondered what it would be like to be left entirely to my own devices. Though people may not actually put expectations on you, their presence nonetheless acts as a monitoring or filtering device. What would it be like with no one to consider or watch over.

I have found that now living alone, the battle against slipping into bad habits is more difficult. I'll have that larger helping of food, a second beer, or call chips and humus a meal with no one else around. Maybe I veg out to a marathon of Pysch episodes instead of shutting it off after an hour and reading a book. Since alone time is mine to be had, there is less of a push to go out and say go for a walk or hide out in a coffee shop where writing seems more likely.

I have actually been doing some writing, though nothing has appeared here in quite some time. I started the NaNoWriMo challenge on November 1st, and it felt like if I were to be writing, I needed to focus on that. Well, I am not going to make it to 50,000 words, so I feel safe to "waste" a few words here. I am only about half way at this point, but I will press on even as the deadline goes whishing by me this Saturday. The point of the exercise was to get me back in the habit and mindset, and I will call it at least half successful. The habit is still spotty, but the light in my eyes is flickering more regularly.

I have always been pretty comfortable on my own, but I have become less so in the past few years, and I think that is a good thing. I am glad to finally get started again with a place I can call my own, but I do miss the random conversations that come from living with others. It is funny how someone you haven't seen in a few weeks will ask you how you've been, and what's been going on, and you can come up blank. All the details fade into the background that is your daily life. But a daily conversation with someone at home, and you share the little tidbits that may not seem important a day later, but made for a good story that night.

And of course I still miss Sierra. She wasn't much of a conversationalist, but she was a wonderful presence and beacon of love. I went for a bike ride last Sunday, and I swear every whitish yellow lab was out for a walk. Each one made me smile, and reminded me of what a special thing it is to have a dog in your life. There will never be another Sierra, but there will be another dog someday. I don't know that I am ready just yet, but since my apartment doesn't allow them, the decision is at least delayed until next summer. Cats are allowed here, and I will admit that thought has crossed my mind.

Summer was pretty busy with big biking events, the annual family trip to eastern Washington, a hiking adventure and the run around Chicago. For the first few months it felt like I was hardly home (that is my excuse for still having unpacked boxes stashed in the den). Work filled up some weekends through September and October as well, so for several months it felt like I was just home to sleep, shower and change.

Now things have slowed dramatically, and life has been pretty quiet this past month. The days are shorter and the freezing temperatures have kept me indoors, looking at the growing list of projects that were left for another day. The silence of the house is more noticeable without all the activity of summer, and the cold seems to creep in and it can be hard to shake the chill.

I am happy to say the quiet house and calendar has encouraged me out in a different way now, and I have kept up on the group bike rides the past few weekends - new places, and new faces. And the holidays are on the horizon, and the weekends will fill up with all that is wonderful in family and friends. Then it is on to another tax season in the new year, and the weekends will be filled with a different sort of craziness.

I relish the peace, but look forward to a little noise now and then.

Where the hell have you been?

I know, I know, the apology/excuse post has almost become a trope in blogging, short-lived as the medium is. Why after five plus years did it all come to a screeching halt.

I wish I had a better excuse for my excuse post. 

Truth is, I just lost it. The energy, the motivation, the belief that I had anything worth saying at any moment in time. Work was crazy while we made the mad dash to April 15th. In the weeks leading up to our deadline, it didn't feel that I had the time to pause and get anything down. Truth is, there is almost always time, but I didn't make any. I will say that my brain was pretty fried, and though there may have been time, I didn't have the mental space for anything creative, much less insightful.

And of course there have been events that shook me. Sierra's passing was difficult. Not only had I lost a great friend and companion, but I was actually lost in her absence. After three years of routine, I woke the next morning uncertain what to do. She was not downstairs waiting for me. No breakfast kibble to serve, no shot to prepare, no morning amble out to the front lawn. I actually stopped in the hallway, unsure that I even needed to go downstairs before getting in the shower. (I did, only to flip on the coffee pot).

Then on the day of our metaphorical tax finish line, finally able to pull up after weeks and months of leaning into it, the bombings happened at a real finish line on the other side of the country. Feeling rather beat up myself that day, and having run that kind of race in person, I could clearly picture the joy and relief of the finish area seconds before. What I couldn't begin to understand what happened next, and the stupid, misdirected anger behind it. 

People suffer, bridges fall, children and other innocents are brought down, and we argue over trivialities and do nothing. For fear or opportunity, we entrench ourselves further and understand less. Friends have turned on each other and have become unrecognizable. It has all been disheartening and I suppose I pulled back too. I stopped writing, stopped reading, stopped checking in on others who were still writing. 

Time passed, and getting started again became that much harder. I lost the habit, and imagined failure before taking a step (that first post back better be good). Silly, and no excuse, but that is some of what has been going on. I have probably lapsed long enough that people have stopped checking in, so I can just blather on until I find a rhythm again. 

Some good things have been happening while I have kept my head down and eyes away from the news. I have met a few new friends, reconnected with old ones, and my bicycle no longer gathers dust. Work is steady, summer is just around the corner, and I may have my next home lined up. 

I have described this time to a few people as Life 3.0 (sounds much better than 'mid-life crisis'). Round two began when I was shaken awake and then regenerated in the sun. I am home again, ready to start anew. Some things have changed while I have been gone, but I am different too. There are still empty spaces, but the slate is also pretty clean for a new picture to take shape. The first steps don't have to be perfect, and I will just stumble forward until I find a rhythm again.

Time

Time is a funny thing. It is absolute, unavoidable, yet pliable to our perception.

That last week was very difficult. Probably not the worst of my life, but definitely up there. I don't recall the exact moment when it became clear that the end was near, but once the decision took root in my head, the clock started.

As I mentioned earlier, I spent the last five nights sleeping on the couch. Sierra was only three feet away. The decision had basically been made that first night, but I had not uttered it aloud. There was still time to back out, to get a reprieve, to pray for a Governor's pardon.

While the days seemed to hurry by, time slowed in the evenings as we stared at each other in the quiet of the night. I had so many moments, pictures, stories running through my head. Each night I would write a little, and spend time going through the various hard drives looking for photos. Each picture would call up a memory and make me wish I could say, "Remember that time..." As the turmoil of emotions ran roughshod through the week, I would get each night this hour of silence. Time where I could just be. Time where I could stare into those trusting eyes, and be completely present.

The last night, time stretched out even further. Sierra was up at 3:00am, probably looking for a really early breakfast, but we went outside for a pee and poop instead. As I stood outside in the middle of the night, I realized there was just 12 hours left. I tried not to read too much into it, but it did keep me from falling back to sleep for a while. It seemed that I had just closed my eyes and she was pacing at 4:30. Then again at 5:30. Each time, I would usher her back to her bed, scrub her ears, and alternately worry about missing sleep and be thankful for the hourly wake up call. At 6:30am, it was finally time to get up and have breakfast.

I tried to make those last hours go slowly as possible. Outside of quick three mile run, and a trip to the store, I spent the whole weekend at the house. We went outside more times than normal, not wanting to turn her down even though we had been out an hour ago. With nowhere to be, I just let her wander around, sniffing the air and the grass. Nice and easy, nice and slow.

After the vet left, and I was alone once again, I packed up most of her things before I had time to think about it. I sent up the post to let everyone know what had happened, and then I went outside again. Not sure where I was headed, I turned right instead of left. I exchanged messages with Kristy along the way, but mostly I was there with my thoughts and memories.

I ended up walking the same three mile route I had run earlier in the morning, only in the opposite direction. Moving more slowly, and seeing things from the other side, my eyes were carried to the trees and trails running through them. To the paper-thin bark was peeling away from the trunk of the tree, even as someone had wrapped it to keep it secure. How the bits of spring growth lurked in the background of winter bare trees. My perception moved out of my mind and into the world. More slowness and time to really see.

My heart felt a bit lighter when I returned from my walk. The anguish leading up to that day no longer weighed on my soul. There was a void, and emptiness, but I too felt a certain amount of amount of release, a place of peace.

I am thankful for all the time I had with Sierra, and strangely blessed by moments in her last week. She is in my heart always, along with the lesson to take it slow, to take the time to just check out your surroundings, to be present and wait for the peace to come.

Sierra

And some things are over.
Some things go on.
And part of me you carry,
part of me is gone.
But you've got a heart so big it could crush this town.
And I can't hold out forever,
even walls fall down.
~ Tom Petty

Today I have to say goodbye to a very dear friend. The best, really.

Sierra has had a tough road these past few years. Already slowing down, showing her age and the strain of two bad knees, she seemed to age rather rapidly after our move to San Diego. In fact, she had her first episode on the road south, falling over that first night in Newport. It frightened me and made me question what the hell I had done.

She was diagnosed with diabetes not long after our arrival, and once she began treatment, she bounced back. Though adjustment is never easy, I am sure she enjoyed the sunshine over the rain of Seattle, like a retiree headed to Arizona in the twilight years.

But in the past three years, there were moments of pain, days of struggle, and then the episode where I didn't think I would get her back. But then she returned, not quite the same, but she was back. She had more time. I had more time.

We moved back in November, and somehow it seemed to accelerate the aging process once again. She seemed to adjust to the surroundings pretty quickly, but soon there were more dips that she never quite came all the way back from. Trips to the vet, pills and shots, a closer eye on every move and moment.

This week, there was a noticeable change. Her eyesight has all but disappeared, and she is bumping into walls she used to have memorized. She is unstable on her feet, and now she seems afraid to walk across the wood floors. Stairs have been a problem for a while, but now I have to carry her up a single step half the time. She can’t see or hear me coming, so she lurches awake in a panic when I just place my hand on her.

I was with a friend when he had to put his dog down. He had asked me over to help him with some part of it, but then left to the vet on his own. He forgot his credit card, so I ended up being there in the end. He had tortured himself with the decision, not wanting it to come from a place of inconvenience. His dog had been ill for a long time, and it was clear that it was time. It didn't make it any easier for him, and now I am torturing myself in the same way.

Sierra has taken a great deal of care these past few years, care that I was willing to give, but care I depended on others to help me provide. Matt, Holly, Kristy and now my parents have kept watch on her, administering shots when I couldn't be there, taking her outside because she couldn't do it on her own. I am forever in their debt for helping me, helping her, giving us more time.

People have asked when I would know it was time, and I have always answered that it would be when I saw that she was no longer happy. Like my friend before, I didn't want there to be any question in my mind that it was just too difficult. That is not what love is.

In the end, it was not the lack of happiness, but the presence of fear. She was still happy when I came down to see her in the morning, even if she couldn't see or hear me coming. Her tail would wag and she gave as much bounce as her body would allow. When I came home after too long an absence, I could sense the relief, even though she had been in the house with caring people and another friendly dog.

She is my dog, and without stretching the truth much, I am her world. But outside of those brief bits of morning and evening recognition, there wasn't much for her. And it is just so hard to see the fear and confusion in her cloudy eyes. As much as I am struggling with this, it would be selfish at this point to move her again and make her learn a whole new house. To be alone all day while I am at work, just to have those brief moments of joy for each of us.

So it is time. As much as I have been her world, she has been mine. My divorce shattered me into a million little pieces. Doubt and self-loathing, pain and confusion, the need for comfort and the inability to reach out for it. In that time, there was one constant. One place I could go without fear, without shame. One soul I could pour mine out to. As I wrote elsewhere, she was not only there to give me love, but to receive it when I so desperately wanted to give it. She was the furry zen in the sea of chaos.

She was the rock that I lashed my tether to, the anchor when I was drifting and flailing. I couldn't fall completely apart. I couldn't get too self-destructive. She was counting on me. As I sat on the floor as my friend said goodbye to his dog, we were both comforted by the vet who was there to ease the passing. She said that the dogs don't know what is coming, that it is only the humans that are anguished over what is about to happen. They are at peace as they so often are, about to go to sleep for the last time.

Another friend when she was about to lose her dog to a relentless tumor, took her dog on a tour of her favorite places. A trip to the dog park, a trip to the beach, windows rolled down and her fur blowing in the wind. Sierra and I are not making the trip. She doesn't have the strength to walk across the road, much less dip her toes in the surf.

She has always been more of a homebody anyway, preferring the company of people over other dogs. Our place was always the backyard. Where she couldn't care less about chasing a ball or other dogs at the dog park, she loved motoring after the hurl-a-squirrel frisbee in the privacy of our backyard. I would come home and we would step out back together. I could wind down as she wound up, and we would both walk away with our minds clear and a smile on our faces.

Those are the moments I will remember. Her tearing off across the lawn until I made her stop. Her sitting in that chair by the window waiting for one of us to come home. Her tail not just wagging in greeting, but arcing in great circles to express her joy. The bouncing dance she had at mealtime where all four feet would leave the floor. How she would bow her head and sigh contentedly when I rubbed her ears. Her patiently letting me unquestioningly bare my soul. The certainty that there was no place she would rather be.

And I will remember these past few years when the dynamic changed. When she needed me more than she had before. All the shots, all the sleepless nights, and each and every time I picked her up when she was too tired to move. Because that is what she has done for me. My sweet puppy.

I spent the last five days sleeping on the couch so she would have me nearby. Neither of us slept very well this week. There are so few moments where we sit still and be present for any length of time, so I just watched her as the hours clicked by. That first night I saw that much more clearly how disoriented she was. But as the nights went by, she seemed to be more comfortable. Though she couldn't always see me, I think she knew I was there.

Someone is coming over to the house on Sunday to ease her into the next world. I couldn't bring myself to take her anywhere clinical. Even in better times, she always panicked at the vet, and I just didn't want there to be any fear or slippery tile floors on her last day. I want her to be comfortable, to be at home, to be at peace.

I will want to turn the ship around a thousand times on Sunday, but in my heart I know that this is the right thing to do. During those nights of staring at each other, I wished she would give me a knowing nod to let me know I had made the right decision. But all I saw was unwavering trust that I would do the right thing, that I would take care of her.

She has been much more than a dog for me, as if that wasn't enough. She has been my home for the last four years. There is going to be a tremendous void where that loving heart used to be. Time and distance will do their thing, but there will never be another one like her.

I have been blessed by this light, this pure love, this simple but beautiful creature. My companion of ten years. My fuzzy buddy. My sweet puppy. My Sierra.

Adoption day - January 2003

The first Christmas together

The chair where she would wait for us to come home

peeking through another window

caramel ears

camping

surveying her backyard

Best gift ever

road tripping to California

at Dog beach

"suffering" through California winter with the Beeze

weekends with Nike

waiting for me to come home

chillin' with Annie

 a little off kilter after her episode, but still smiling

riding shotgun on the way back to Seattle

are we there yet?

sleeping peacefully a couple of days ago

Dinner time in younger days.

Romping around in the snow, January 2009

At the beach in her retirement years

Oh, I will miss you so.

Adjusting

I have been back in the Pacific Northwest for three weeks now, and there have been some definite adjustments, but Seattle felt like home again relatively quickly.

Naturally, the weather is the most glaring for this particular switch of home base. Moving from "The Best Climate on Earth" to the rainy northwest, particularly in November was a kind of jarring change. The shorts and flip flops will be as rare as pants and jackets were in San Diego. I also managed to lose my sunglasses the day before I left, and sad to say I haven't needed them much.

I can remember flying back one summer and noticing how gray everything seemed. The colors just seemed a little washed out after spending a year in the sunshine. Since I drove up this time, the transition was a little more gradual, and now it is just part of the landscape. I don't feel the need for one of those Seasonal Affective Disorder lamps, so it seems that the rain never left my bloodstream

One thing that is pretty much the same about December in San Diego and Seattle - there isn't much need to check the weather forecast. You already know what is coming. It does make you appreciate when the clouds finally part, though, and the hillsides are lit up in brilliant fall colors.

Sierra still gets me up at the same time each day, though it is now by my alarm clock instead of her happy panting or clicking nails. My room is on the second floor, and the only way she would make it up the two flights of stairs is if I carried her. For the first five years I had her, she slept out in the living room rather than in the bedroom. She would hop up on the couch as soon as I left the room (we both pretended not to notice). In the mornings, she would generally wait quietly at the bedroom door, emitting the occasional heavy sigh if I slept in a bit. Once she heard the alarm clock though, all bets were off.

When we were down in San Diego, she slept in my bedroom instead. With no door between us, she was less patient when it came to breakfast time. She would wake me bright and early whether it was a weekend or not, and more than any job, this was what finally had me getting to bed at a decent hour. Back in Washington again, she is back to sleeping in the living room, though she is long past being able to hop on the couch.

I was a little worried how this would work out. With the health issues and declining eyesight, she has been known to panic when she feels lost or out of sorts. I imagined cries or yelps for the first few evenings, but she did pretty well from the start. She has had to learn a new house layout, but she seemed to figure that out in a day or two. I set an alarm every morning so her meal of diabetic dog food hits her system on schedule, but she has still had a number of hypoglycemic crashes. I guess she hasn't adjusted entirely.

When I moved down to San Diego after a lifetime in Seattle, I was surprised how easy the transition was. It helped to have great friends there waiting for me, but there was still a whole new city to map out. Coming back home, my own layout is much more familiar, and I haven't had to feel my way around as much. We're both transitioning pretty well, though now and again we both bounce off a wall that wasn't there before.

Second leg

I woke all too early after repeated nights of short sleep, but it did allow us to hit the road at a decent hour. Fueled up on gas, coffee, and a fast food breakfast, it was on to our next destination.

When plotting out our course, I decided to veer off of I-5 after getting out of L.A. to take the smaller highway 99 north. I remembered the stretch of I-5 between L.A. and Sacramento as being pretty desolate. Not much to look at, and not many towns to stay in overnight. Highway 99 offered multiple turn off points if we were running out of daylight or energy. I was happy to make it as far as Modesto on day one.

Much of the traffic on 99 (and probably I-5) seemed to be long haul truckers. I was constantly leapfrogging them on the flat portions of the two lane road, and struggling to keep pace on the climbs. Even though we shared the right lane for hundreds of miles, when I joined them again in the rest stops, my little truck trailer combo seemed a little out of place.

Though my truck struggled on the hills, I probably picked the perfect week to travel. Temperatures were cool enough to prevent any overheating, and snow and ice are still a few weeks off. Many years ago, my family got stuck in the passes of northern California, and memories of seventeen hours in Pollard Flat made me extra thankful for relatively smooth sailing this time around.

Highway 99 was nicely tree lined in some sections, and when we reached Sacramento (City of Trees apparently), the landscape started to change overall. The hillsides once folds of brown were now covered in rich textures of green. It also began raining off and on, so it started to feel like Washington with eight hundred miles still to go.

Once we reached Shasta Lake and the base of our last mountain pass, the trees started showing their fall colors. I tried to take pictures as I was driving, but of course most of them didn't turn out. The one semi-decent photo has the snowy peak of Shasta mountain hovering above the changing forest hills.

As I mentioned in the previous post, Sierra was doing much better this time around. I still tried to stop every two hours so each of us could stretch our legs. While leading her through parking lots and rest stop sections of lawn, it became apparent how much she was relying on memory to get around the house. When she would get to a painted line in the road, she assumed it was a curb (or small cliff from her reaction) and brace against moving forward. When I urged her forward, rather than test it out with an extended paw, she would leap ahead to dive in head first. Even a wet portion of pavement was enough color differentiation to make her think the bottom was falling out.

Our destination for the second night was Ashland, Oregon. Holly's cousin had offered up her spare bedroom  as a stop over on our journey. I had met her a couple of years ago at Thanksgiving, and we had become good (if distant) friends on Facebook. She ended up having the next day off from work, so offered to show me around town and give us a day away from the road.

I had heard stories about Ashland from my parents when they used to travel to the Shakespeare festival each year, but had never seen the town myself. While she tied up some work things in the morning, I headed out to a local coffee shop to get some writing in. I would have defaulted to Starbucks, but she pointed me to Noble Coffee, and it was a much better experience. We had a little time to spare, so Sierra and I went to a local park to walk around in the fall leaves.

Sara and I walked around the shops of the downtown area, through another beautiful park, and eventually out to a nearby lake. The town is lovely, and everyone I ran into seemed friendly and outgoing. I can see why she likes it here so much. Really glad we stopped, but now it is on to the last leg of our trip. We are setting out (relatively) early, and should be in the Seattle area later Thursday night. San Diego still lingers in my thoughts, but I am starting to get excited about getting Life 3.0 off the ground. I know Sierra will just be glad to be off the road.

On the road

The plan was to hit the road on Monday the 12th. Since I wanted to spend as much time with my friends over that last weekend, I tried to do as much to prepare ahead of time. When I moved down in February of 2010, I only brought what would fit in my pickup truck. But since I don't travel particularly lightly, I had it stuffed to the gills. The back was packed, the front seat was full of stuff I might need to get to, and Sierra rode in the shelf that is my back seat.

Of course over three years, I accumulated more stuff. I picked up mundane stuff like a laundry hamper, and during visits to Seattle I shipped down more tools and grabbed my golf clubs (which were ignored). I also started homebrewing beer in the past year, so that added more equipment to the mix. So, even though I did my best to thin out my possessions over the past month, it was clear that I was going to need to rent a trailer to get it all home. 

I packed the truck to the gills on Friday, and would throw the rest in the trailer I picked up first thing Monday morning. I ended up unpacking and repacking the truck to get some weight off of the sagging springs, but even so I was ready to hit the road by 10:00am. Matt, Holly and Annabelle were the last to see me off, and we hugged and cried until we couldn't take it any more. With a last look at my San Diego life, Sierra and I hit the road.

When we drove down to San Diego three years ago, I had planned to re-travel the route I had biked back in 2006. The Big Ride was one of the best times of my life, and I wanted to relive it in some small way. Sierra had other ideas. She whined and cried as we drove the twisting roads, and soon I gave up the nostalgia and headed inland to the straighter I-5. She was still miserable, but we were making better time. 

She was diagnosed with diabetes shortly after our arrival, so it is possible that had amplified her problems in the truck. Still, I was not sure how she would tolerate the drive north, three years older, more fragile and now easily disoriented. Since I was going to have the extra room in the trailer, I decided to take out the passenger seat in my truck to give her more room to spread out. She would be less confined, able to see me and stand up and stretch her legs now and then. 

Riding shotgun. 

 She has done great so far. I have no idea if the new seating arrangement has made any difference, but it is kind of nice having her right beside me the whole way. The other two things I was concerned with for the drive was making it through L.A. unscathed, and whether or not my truck would be able to climb the passes. On our trip down, we got stuck in a traffic jam that tested us both. Sierra would not stop whining, I had to pee something terrible, and my clutch leg was getting worked. I did not want a repeat performance, dragging a trailer, goosing the clutch to keep it in gear.

Well, we sailed right through L.A. Monday was Veterans Day, and that may have made all the difference in the traffic levels. My truck struggled to climb the hills of the Grapevine, but we made it as far as Modesto the first night. The planned hotel did not work out as there was no place to park my truck and trailer combo, but we found a Motel 6 farther down the road with tractor-trailer parking.

After sending off text messages and emails to update folks, Sierra and I tried to get some rest. Unfortunately, I am also dragging a cold with me, and we were both up way too early in the morning. More stories from the road to follow.