She's Gone

           We’re thinking it’s time to put her (Itsy) down. Another few days? A week? Probably — definitely before Christmas, I told you last time.

Monday was another bad day for Itsy. She didn’t want to eat and her pooper wasn’t working right. She was only eliminating every two days or so. I’m sure that affected her appetite. And she still cried a lot. And fell over a lot. You’d think with four legs that that would be hard to do, wouldn’t ya?

“It’s time,” Mike said. As bad as he hated the thought of putting her to sleep, he hated to hear her cry worse.

Tuesday, I called the vet.

“I need to schedule Itsy’s euthanasia,” I said.

“We can do it today,” Kelly said.

I was surprised. I thought I’d have a few more days to wrap my head around the death sentence we’d pronounced over her. But euthanasia’s aren’t anything our vet fools around with. When you say it’s time, they make a spot and get you right in.

“She cries the whole time she’s in the car,” I told Kelly. “Can I give her extra gabapentin?”  

Kelly checked with Dr. Lori and got back with me. “You can give her a double dose about a half hour before you get in the car.”

The Kipps stopped by on their morning walk.

“Today’s the day,” I told them. “Today’s the day we say goodbye to Itsy.”

Miss Rosie was sad. “Aww. I’m so sorry.”

I got Itsy from her bed where she was sleeping and gave her to Rosie to say goodbye to.

“I’m gonna miss my Itsy kisses,” Rosie cooed and stroked her.

“Let me get a picture,” I said picking up my camera. Miss Rosie gave me her beautiful smile.

“That’s the only thing beautiful about me,” she says.

Not so. I think she’s a beautiful lady all the way around.

I’d made a beef roast for our lunch that day and made sure Itsy had some. Then all too soon it was time to go.

We’d just gotten off our dirt road and onto the blacktop when I realized I’d forgotten my camera.

The gabapentin was working beautifully. Itsy laid quietly in my lap. We’d only gone about eleven miles, to a little town called New Albany, when Itsy started crying and cried the last — very long! — eight miles to the vet clinic.

Because of COVID we had to stay in the car.

Even with the car stopped, Itsy was still crying. With a double dose of pian meds in her, I didn’t believe it was pain. I believe she hated being in the car. So I took her over to the grassy dog-walking area and let her walk around for a while. Then I picked her up, stuffed her in my coat and went back to the Jeep. I thought if I just stood outside and talked with Mike through the window that she’d be okay. She wasn’t. After standing still for a few minutes she started crying again, so it was back to the dog area.

Finally, our turn came. We settled the bill up front and Katelyn took Itsy to put the catheter in her leg.

Because of euthanasia, they would allow me to be with Itsy. Mike didn’t want to be there.

“I gave Itsy some extra meds so you could spend some time with her without her crying,” Dr. Lori told me.

“Do you think it’s time?” I asked. “Or am I just being selfish because I don’t want to hear her cry anymore?”

“I think it’s time. When I listened to her lungs there were some places I couldn’t hear any breath sounds. That means there’s something else in there and why she’s having to draw such a big breath.”

Dr. Lori gave me a little time with Itsy. I held her and stroked her and told her what a good girl she’d been all these years. She was just three months shy of being sixteen years old. And I cried — but I bet you knew that.

Dr. Lori came back, put the syringe in the catheter, and Itsy quietly slipped away while I held her.

We hadn’t gotten Itsy’s ‘bed’ made even though we intended to have it ready. I went and got my camera to commemorate the moment.

One hundred thirty-five days — nineteen weeks, two days — four months, twelve days after we laid Ginger to rest, we laid Itsy to rest by her side.

With that, I shall dry my eyes, wipe my nose, and move on.

“Peg! Wait! I’ve a question,” you say.

Okay, shoot. Wa’ch’ya got?

“Did we miss anything because you forgot your camera?”

Did you ever! You missed the aftermath of where a car wrecked into a barn and a house that burned.

But I didn’t forget my camera when we went on a road trip.

“Where’d you go?” you wanna know.

We went to a town called Tylersport. It’s 127 miles from here, a little less than halfway between Allentown and Philly.

And I already know what you’re going to ask me next. You’re going to ask me why we went there.

Well, someone in this house, I won’t say who but his name starts with M and ends with ike, thinks he would like to have a mid-size tractor. A guy down in Tylersport has a Ford 2000 for sale and Mike wanted to go look at it.

I complained a little about these road trips cutting into my Santa-making time.

“I don't think he has to pull too hard to "drag" you to new places, does he?  Sounds like you're always up for road trips! I love new road pictures too,” my beautiful West Virginia gal says.

And she’s right. I love seeing new sights, even if it is only through the window of a speeding car. And you get to go with me.

“A flat-black truck,” Mike says. “You don’t see those too often.”

“Did he paint it himself?” I asked.

“Probably,” Mike answered.

Then there’s this shot. I’ve been on this road a few times before and always missed this old car.

“Did you get it?” Mike asked.

“I don’t know. I’ll try again on the way home.”

Ouch!

Our GPS routed us on the toll road.

“If we change it now,” I told Mike, “the time might be different and we’ll be late for our appointment.”

So we took the toll road which took us through the Lehigh Tunnel. Toll roads might save you time, but in my experience, there isn’t much to see from the toll roads.

Sixty miles! That’s how long we were on the toll road — and they don’t take tolls anymore. What they do take is a picture of your license plate and send you a bill. There were a couple of exits that said E Z PASS ONLY.

“What happens if you don’t have E Z Pass and it’s your exit?”

“I don’t know but if our exit says that, I’m taking it anyway.”

My husband is such a rebel. Luckily, we don’t have to find out what happens because our exit didn’t say that. Once we were off the toll road, the click of my camera permeated the Jeep.

“You’ve taken more pictures in the last five minutes than you did the whole time we were on the toll road,” Mike observed.

“I know, right!”

          I have my doubts about some of these pictures. Are they worth sharing? I wondered. Then, maybe someone will like them.

Mike didn’t even fight to go first.

We started to see places that had huge rocks — boulders in their yards. It reminded me of Yarnell, Arizona where they incorporate the boulders into their landscaping. This picture isn’t a good example of that but it’s the only one I took. Sometimes I just don’t think fast enough.

Then we were there.

“It’s a nice-looking tractor,” Mike says, “and about the right size.”

We had to wait a bit before John showed up and he and Mike talked for a while. I sat in the Jeep the whole time. It was a little ch-chilly out there.

John picked up a tow rope, attached it to the front of the tractor, then the truck.

Mike came back to the Jeep and opened the back door to get a jacket.

“What’s he doing?” I asked.

“The battery’s weak so they’re going to pull it to start it,” Mike explained.

It wasn’t long till we heard the tractor start and John yells for his mom to stop.

She didn’t stop.

John’s yelling and waving his arm and she keeps right on a-goin, down around the curve.

I laugh. Mike laughs.

“I guess she didn’t know what they were doing,” I said.

“I guess not,” Mike said.

“I need to find a place to pee before we get back on the road,” I said.

After a minute or so John comes putt-putting back and Mike closes the door and finishes looking over the tractor.

Mike really likes it but it’s more than he wants to pay. So, we’ll look at other tractors.

“There’s a park right there,” Mike said indicating someplace beyond the wood pile. “You can go there if a Porta John’s okay.”

“Fine, but you get to go first.”

“To see if it’s clean or to warm up the seat?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t have to sit,” he pointed out. “They’ll be a urinal.”

“Okay, then to see if it’s clean.”

Mike, ever the gentleman, opens the door and checks it out. “It’s okay. You can go first.”

I stepped inside, not locking the door because Mike was standing guard on the other side, unbuttoned my jeans, unzipped, and just as I was sliding them down, felt my phone in my back pocket.

In my mind’s eye I saw my phone flip from my pocket, through the seat hole and right down into the blue lagoon, splashing as it hit bottom. In an exaggerated cartoonish way, I could see my arm elongating as I fished for my phone.

Uh. Yeah. No. If that happened it was staying there.

But it didn’t happen. My phone stayed right in my pocket where it was supposed to.

“Your turn,” I told Mike as I pushed the door open.

The whole grassy area was squishy with water. Rather than go back through that I thought I’d try going through the wood chips in the play area. 

That’s when I noticed all these eruptions of ice needles. I’ve never seen anything like this before and was quite fascinated.

They were delicate and broke easily when I touched them. Mike was heading my way so I didn’t have much time to take pictures.

Before we hit the road again, we told the GPS not to take us on toll roads. I didn’t know I wouldn’t get another chance at that old car, but that’s what it meant.

Look at this siding. Is it slate, do you think?

There were lots of beautiful stone houses down in that area too, but, once again, I was a little slow in thinking to take pictures of them so I could show you. As a result, I don’t have to fret over which one to show you.

I saw this big beautiful house! It had fabulous windows. I missed one of the best ones. A huge beveled glass window I glimpsed just before the hedges hid it from my camera.

Then living right next door you’ve got the Ninja Turtles and a really scary dude holding a bloody knife.

We were creeping along, caught in a traffic jam because of construction.

“What’s sticking out from those tires?” Mike asked.

I looked. “Are they valve extenders?”

Our lane started to move and we came alongside him.

“They’re attached to a lug nut,” Mike said.

“Do they help him see where his tires are?” I wondered.

Mike didn’t have a clue.

Kalahari Resort.

A FALLEN ROCKS sign.

It did take us a little longer to get home by bypassing the toll road but I enjoyed the scenery much more.

 

>>>*<<<

 Mike caught me sitting on the edge of my chair.

“Why are you sitting on your chair like that?” he wanted to know.

“Cause Tiger’s behind me,” I told him.

“Pfft. Move him!”

“No!”

A week or so later I see this.

“How come you’re sitting on the chair like that‽”

He knew I was teasing and didn’t say anything.

But speaking of Mike and cats…

He’s taken a shine to Mr. Mister. In all the years I’ve been taking care of Mr. Mister, Mike hasn’t had anything to do with him. In fact, he used to chase Mr. off. Mostly because he blamed him for beating up on our cats. But late this summer Mike took the time to get to know him.

Then Mr. disappeared.

I didn’t think too much of it when he missed one breakfast, but the second morning he was a no-show, I began to wonder. “He’s probably held up some place staying out of the snow,” I told Mike.

But Mike still fretted. “He’s probably dead. And just when I started to like the cat too.”

I had an occasion to talk to the Kipps that second morning. “Did you walk today?” I asked Miss Rosie.

“I didn’t but Lamar took Tux out.”

“Did he see any dead cats?”

“Like who? Who’s missing?” she wanted to know.

“Mr. Mister. He’s missed breakfast two days in a row.”

Rosie asked but Lamar hadn’t seen any ‘tired’ cats on the roadside.

Guess who shows up that afternoon?

I was standing at the kitchen sink and saw him coming across the yard, jumping the fence. “Mr.’s here!” I called and heard the recliner slam down.

The sun was on the wrong side so I went out to get a better picture, wondering if Mike would cooperate.

He did.

Speaking of cats…

No! Wait a minute! We’ll get back to cats in a minute. But speaking of tender hearts…

We watched the movie Eight Below. Have you seen it? It’s not a new movie but it’s the first time either one of us had seen it. It was based on a true story and is an amazing story of eight huskies having to survive for like five or six months on their own in the dead of winter in the frozen Antarctic. Two of them didn’t make it and it made Mike so sad that he had a nightmare about it that night.

I was sad for the two lost ones too but happy for the six!

Back to cats now…

Look who’s looking through the window at me. Normally he looks in the door when he wants in but I mustn’t’ve seen him because he got up to the kitchen window where I was standing washing dishes.

He cracks me up.

Opaque red, blue, semi-transparent red, John Deere green. That’s my Santa line up and what I’ve been working on when Mike’s not dragging me all across the country looking at tractors!

Speaking of which, he persuaded me to take a short break from Santa-making to go to a local equipment dealer. This guy has fields and fields of equipment, but he usually wants too much for his stuff. Mike went by himself to look at a tractor the day before but it wasn’t running.

“Come back tomorrow and I’ll have it running,” he was told.

So, I went with Mike to hear the tractor run. “You don’t have to get out,” he placated, and, “It won’t take long. If it runs, I’m going to offer him a lot less and see if he takes it. If it’s not running, I’m getting back in the Jeep and we’re leaving.”

I took pictures for you.

We had to hang around a few minutes while they talked to a guy who was there before us.

          “I came to hear that tractor run,” Mike said.

          “We’ll get to it right now,” the worker-guy said.

          “Why didn’t you get it running?” Boss-man asked.

          “There wasn’t anybody to help me,” he excused.

          “Never mind!” Mike said in a huff. “I can’t wait. She’s got an appointment.”

          I did. I had an appointment to make more Santas!

          “Come back Monday!” Boss-man called.

          “Nope!” Mike said. “I’m buying a tractor Sunday!”

          Actually, we’re going to look at an Oliver on Sunday.

          “I’ll call you!” Boss-man yelled to Mike’s retreating back.

          “Don’t call me!” Mike got in and started the Jeep.

“Wouldn’t it be better to take less money and get rid of some of this stuff?” Mike asked me. “What good does it do to let it sit here and rust away until it’s not worth anything‽”

He was preaching to the choir.

Let’s end this week with a golden sunrise picture. 

Done!

P.S. Our friends and neighbors, the Kipps have a 50^th wedding anniversary on December 26^th. Because of COVID their anniversary cruise has been canceled. Their daughters are putting out the word, asking us to send them a card. If that’s all you do, that would be great. If you have a memory, a kind or encouraging word, or something personal to say, that would be even better.

Lamar and Rosie Kipp, 238 Robinson Rd, Wyalusing PA 18853