For the record, I don’t really believe in dressing my dog up.  Rather, I seize opportunities to make myself and my family laugh.  I hope everyone can enjoy them - and please, don’t report me to Pet Protection Services.  I promise, this beautiful beast is very much loved.  Besides, look how stylish she is!

First, Happy Birthday Liberty (a few days early, but she is a very forgiving type)

Here, she is really vying for a vacation:

And lastly, after hitting the bottle.  Who is a pretty, pretty princess? 

My fierce puppy dog has saved from from what she perceived as certain death - the rinse cycle of the washing machine.  What would I do without her?  She is so brave and fearless!

She also pulled a Dakota on me today - it tugged at my heart.  Dakota was such a good girl, especially at bath time.  It took a couple of years, but eventually all I had to do was point at the tub and she would begrudgingly jump in.  Not her favorite event ever, but she did enjoy the toweling off process and I believe that in her head the reward outweighed the inconvenience of being lathered, scrubbed, and rinsed.  Today, it was time for Liberty to have a bath as it has easily been 6 weeks or more because of the staples in her side.  But since they are finally out, it was time to wash the stink off (and oh did she stink!)  I politely asked her to join me in the bathroom, and she did.  Then I pointed to the tub and she gave me the look of DOOM.  She slunk around behind me, looking for a way out.  I gently cajoled her and then, like a little miracle, she jumped right in the tub.  I am so proud of her.

I sold my motorcycle over the weekend.  Turns out, maybe I shouldn’t have.  My insurance premium went from $760 for TWO bikes to $1111 for ONE bike.  WTH?  Something about losing the multiple motorcycle discount.  Too late now.  I self excluded myself from riding Lambchop’s motorcycle and that will drop the rate down considerably, and seriously, I have not, nor will I ever, be the driver of that bike (except in dire emergency).  His bike is just too big for me to be comfortable handling.  So no loss really, just a shock that the rate would increase, let alone go up so much.

While I shopped for new motorcycle insurance today, I also checked out a new homeowners policy and managed to save about 40% there.  Auto is as low as I can get it considering our personal comfort level.  I might try to reduce our flood coverage, but dealing with all of the other insurance wiped me out.  No joke, I have spent HOURS in the phone today.  Some day “off”, eh?

I sold the motorcycle to pay for a new computer - should be here tomorrow.  Yay!  This little old Dell is about at the end of it’s days.  I hope the computer is here when we get home tomorrow, or preferably, that Fed Ex comes when someone is here.  Not sure any neighbors are home during the day and naturally, I could coordinate my day off with the delivery company.  So far, we haven’t had problems when they leave packages at the door - but just my luck, my computer will get stolen.  O, the inhumanity!

This is the face of a dog who will eat your face off:

Seriously, we need to work on the no biting thing.  I have scratches on my face that seem never ending.  She is so calm and sweet - she sucks you in with “the kewt” and then GAH!  You have no nose.  She plays to win.

And this is the face of a dog that does not appreciate Halloween costumes:

I think she has forgiven me.  I could have picked a full-on chicken costume and sent her trick or treating.  But no, I was nice and what kind of thanks do I get - DISDAIN.

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I am currently home recovering from a lumpectomy in my left breast - well, armpit really.  Quite an interesting little procedure.  The surgeon was having such difficulty (I was awake during the procedure due to the location of the lump under muscle.  If I didn’t place my arm and body in a specific position, that required me to be awake, the surgeon would have had to do a very invasive procedure, so while it was uncomfortable, it was the best choice.)  Anyway - he was having such difficulty, that I offered to let him just take both of my breasts and then he could put a pretty perky pair in.  He declined.  The wanker.

But he redeemed himself by saying that not only was I the “MOST AWESOME PATIENT EVER”, my “lump” was certainly in the top ten most interesting and unexpected procedures he has performed.  Um, thanks?  First, most of his patients are completely sedated, so my competition for most awesomest patient is from a very short list.  But I am NUMBER 1 baby!  As for the procedure, he told me he expected the entire thing to take about 10 minutes - after all he has done hundreds of these very routine procedures.  I finally emerged about an hour later - not completely unscathed.  It appears that the tear drop shaped “mass” that they thought was a lymph node about the size of two peas, was in fact about the size of a walnut and much deeper than he expected.  He was shocked (I have that effect on the medical community).

Ultimately, it was not a lymph node and it is not cancerous.  Just some weird calcification that they attribute to an infection I had in that same area about 17 years prior.  We all suspect it started hurting because over the past year I have started riding my bicycle to work, and the vast array of backpacks that I have tried, seem to irritate the area.  They have insisted for a few months that this mass could absolutely NOT be causing me pain, but I insisted someting was causing pain and if not this, then what?  The mammo was completely clear except for that.  After the procedure, the Dr. appologized and stated that this absolutely could have been causing the pain I was referring to, but that the mammo couldn’t get that deep into the chest wall and they had no way of knowing.  So much for technology and a medical degree - I just barely graduated kindergarten! 

Again, kind of fascinating how all that stuff works.  I just hope he and I are right and that was the source of the pain, because I am quite over it.  I can’t wait until my armpit heals now as it is quite sore.  But I will take an extra day off of work, and given some stuff going on there - well, let’s just say I am wondering what I can have them operate on next to get me more time off!

Now, for the public service announcement portion of this post - Perform your monthly breast self-exams.  Push deeply, and don’t stop at the obvious places.  Go up to the armpits and up to your neck.  That is all chest area and potential areas where tumors can hide.  Not all lumps and bumps are bad news - but if you know your body and you listen to it, you have a fighting chance against some of the cancer crap in the world.  Also, mammograms are NOT as bad as I had been led to believe.  Well, in fairness, they used a new digital machine and while it still squashes your boobies, it is really not that bad.  I promise.  They let me see the images and because they found something suspicious (which was NOT found during my self-exam, or my doctor’s) they took a lot of extra pictures which were a bit more invasive but still tolerable given their importance.  They called in a specialist and a manager - they should work on that, they really freaked me out.

I will wrap this for now - but I have more to say on that issue.  And of course, since she is the center of my world, I am sure I will have more Liberty reports.

Let me say that my husband is NOT a dog person.  I brought Dakota into the marriage and as unfair as it was, he was always the odd man out.  He loves me, he loved her, but in the overall scheme of things - he could take her or leave her (I feel the same way about cats - he has 2 of them).  To me, she was everything.  My world revolved around her to a very large extent.  Sure, Lambchop is important to me, but once his needs are met and he is content and doing his own thing, I had Dakota.  She was my fur-child.  I know a lot of people hate that term, but being childless, she is all I had.  And I treasured it as much as possible. 

I knew Dakota’s time was coming to an end.  I was accepting of this fact, but not thrilled.  She lived a rich, full life - I could not ask for more than that for her.  I promised, PROMISED, my husband that I would not ask for another dog.  This was my choice.  He never asked me to not have a dog, though I know of his preference to be entirely pet free.  We could not make plans that ran too late because I wanted to get home and let the dog out.  We could not go out of town without arranging alternate pet care.  When I was travelling a lot for business, he had to fill in for me doing pet duty - and for the record he was very good about it, rarely complained, and in fact brought her to the airport to pick me up many times. 

The vet was shocked that I found the mass on Dakota’s rib cage so early because bone cancers take a long time to show themselves and they can be deceptive.  They gave her a prognosis of 3-6 months…I had 3+ glorious years.  I credit that to finding it so early - but just like we have to know our own bodies, we have a responsibility to know our pet’s body too. 

I take my responsibility very seriously.

But apparently, not my word.  While in some people’s eyes it will make me a terrible person, within a week, I broke down and begged my husband to release me from my no-dog promise.  I honestly felt that while I could never get Dakota back - a life without a dog is not a life I want to live.  That sounds so extreme - but I am a dog person, I don’t think I can explain it beyond that.  It would be like asking Robyn to give up ALL of her cats.  Conversely, to try and put my husband’s feelings about the dog matter in perspective, it would be like forcing Robyn to live WITH a dog.  Some people just aren’t dog people.  That is okay.  They can still be good people.  I think.  I mean, I am married to one of THOSE people and he is mostly okay, so I think I have a factual basis here.  And I like Robyn, so I am seeing a trend.

So anyway - the point of the whole entire post -

Meet Liberty Belle:

She is about 8 weeks and 10 weeks, respectively, in these photos.  She was born on Mother’s Day, 2008.  While she will never be Dakota, we are working things out and building a solid relationship.  In fact, I must say that introducing her so soon after I introduced Dakota feels a bit disrespectful.  But you see, it is BECAUSE of Dakota that Liberty is in my life.  Without her lessons in pure, unconditional love and complete and utter devotion - I might never have known the possibility and HOPE that opening your heart to a dog can bring.

In fact, it would be completely inappropriate to not also thank my husband for his patience and support.  To thank him for allowing me to be quirky, strange, and a Rescinder of Promises.  For making my life complete in so many ways.  Thank you.

Meet Dakota :

11/1995-06/2008

(She’s the white dog.  The other head is Kelsey - my mom’s dog.  She’s cute too.)

Dakota was the light in my day and the moonlight shining down on my path at night for almost 13 years.  She was my purpose, my hope, my love.  She represented every nook and cranny of my heart and my soul.

This past summer, her time came to leave me.  I knew the day would come, but that did not ease the pain in my heart and soul - the vast emptiness left behind.  I am grateful for all of the great memories and happy times she gave me.  I miss her.  More than seems possible sometimes.  That dog would do ANYTHING for me and I don’t think I have ever felt as loved as she made me feel.  Ever.  No disrespect to my mother, who I know worships the ground I walk on, but it was different.  Dakota CHOSE to love me - she had a choice.  Mom’s don’t really have a choice.

Dakota was such an important part of my life, that I could hardly function without her presence.  I joke that she was my therapy dog, and then I realized that it was 100% true.  We were two peas in a pod - so alike it was hard to believe we were not cut from the same cloth.  Maybe we were - she was made from the finest sections of that cloth, and I was made from the remnants.  Maybe that is why we fit so well together - we were always destined to be together.

I wish I could tell the world just how much she meant to me, but the legacy of her life and love that lives on in my heart will have to be enough.  Everyone has their own Dakota, and I raise my glass to all of the Dakotas in the world.

When one door closes, another door opens.  There is still hope in my heart - she made me promise that.  She expected more out of me, she expected me to stand up and fight, to honor her every day.  She taught me to appreciate what I have because I could lose it tomorrow and in some cases, there are no do-overs.  To lose that hope would be disrespectful to all that she gave me.  I will never forget her and I will try to honor her all the days of my life.  I will try to be the person she believed me to be.