I've been gone a long time.  During that time I aquired another grand daughter, Autum Jewel...   and my faithful companion of 14 years, Granger, died a very slow death. 

As he began his decline my son and daughter decided I should have a puppy to help me through the transition.  I had Granger for comfort when Max died [also at 14...].   It seemed like a good idea.

Kitten went to a friend of a relative of a friend and got her.  Suzie.   When we met I was not impressed.  I didn't want her. My heart was cold.  But I took her home and fumed because she was not house trained.  She'd tease Granger, who could barely stand, barely see and hated her guts.  He'd snarl at her and she'd run around in circles of estactic joy.  I'd yell at her to leave him alone and she'd prance about in happy anticipation.  She invited him to play.  He told her to get off the planet. 

She'd try to entice him into a boisterous game of tag by racing around him in circles and knocking him off his feeble legs.  I ranted.  I raved.  Why did she have to come here!  My daughter tried to find someone to take her.  I felt guilty.  It wasn't her fault.  The timing was all wrong.  I felt very old and Granger suited me.  She was obviously young and an obviously a misfit. 

She chewed the limbs off my mock orange bushes down to a nub.  She trashed the yard with found items that no one else had noticed.  She chewed and chewed and chewed.  It rained and she would  tear into the house and through the rooms with muddy feet.  She claimed the upstairs hall as her toilet.  Somehow she managed to get up there and leave a smelly pile...  I would  get down on my knees and scrub and fume.  Suzie had to go!  She was a nuisance, a stress inducer, too much trouble!

Though he fought to stay alive with every ounce of his being, Granger finally took his last breath.  In determined pragmatism I had been digging his grave for three days.   I used my new tiller to break up the ground so I could shovel the dirt out.  The Georgia red clay was demonic.  I struggled and struggled as long as I could each day, my back screaming in pain as I tugged the little Mantis up out  of the hole.   Somehow two, then three feet seemed a insurmountable distance...

I wrapped him in the rug I had croocheted years ago with stripes of fabric left from clothing I had made for Kitten.  It was a favorite haven for him to sprawl upon when the tile was too cool for his ole bones.  It was faded from so many washings but he didn't know or care.  It was "his".  It wrapped around him well as I lifted his dead weight into the wheel barrow to transport him to his resting place.  As I lowered him into the hole in a sad stuggle of physical inaptitude the skies opened and pounded upon us.    My tears were unnoticed by the surrounding forsythia bushes and honeysuckle vine as I lifted the heavy wet dirt with the shovel.   I barely covered him and had to stop. My girly muscles failed me.   Later I returned to add more dirt and later still. 

 I felt my years keenly when I trudged into the house in my rain wet clothes.   Suzie would greet me with excitment each  time as though I had come especially to play with her.  I ran my hands though her long

white fur, so thick and soft... she tried to chew my fingers.  I tried to hug her but she wanted to wrestle... 

 I wanted to weep but she had come to play.    I felt alone and betrayed.  She was no comfort at all.

As time went by I continued to pick up mysterious bits and pieces of plastic, paper, metal all over the court yard, and mopped muddy tracks once again and vaccuumed up that long white hair, my resentment grew.  I made dire threats.  She had to go.  She was a pest.  She was a trial..

 She was not my dog!

My son came over one afternoon to put up a trampoline in the backyard for the  Kittens sons.  He fussed over Suzie.  She was estactic.  He worked with her a few minute, teaching her to sit.  He called her Sweetie...  She wiggled with adoration.

I felt so ashamed.  I had been angry with her and she was just being a puppy.  My attitude was totally out of line.  I knew I had to make the change.  It was hard.  She was so destructive.  And she did not want to cuddle. 

We placed a baby gate across the bottom of the stairs to keep her from going up there.  Mostly is worked.  We have to move it each time we want to go up or come down. One evening I started to move it and Suzie shoved her body between me and it, turning me somehow so that I fell down upon it.  I knew immediately something was wrong with my hand.  I pulled it up from behind me and my little finger was canted at an odd angle.  |/

I ran to LT H crying, I'm broken!    He scoffed.  Naw, it's just out of joint.  He grabbed my tiny little bone and jerked.  I did strongly dislike him with great intensitivety.   I screemed.  Loudly. 

Suzie thought this was all great fun.  Yes, my finger was back in line but it hurt furiously.  For a week.  I kept saying it was broken.  Finally, to shut me up, LT took me to a clinic and had it exrayed.  It was broken.   Suzie did it. 

So.  This has become the home of Suzie.  She chews.  She digs.  She tracks in mud like the expert she is...  She also sheds prodigiously.  I put that cream between her shoulder blades but fleas romp about her body anyway.  i comb her daily and collect great clumps of hair and tiny black fleas. 

Will it ever end.  I doubt it.  Suzie has come to play.  Oh, she will grow and no longer be a puppy . ..

But she smiles.  It makes one wonder..........

Miss Meg

PS:  sorry no pictures yet -- I thought I had congered but I am still pre -K.  mm 

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