February 16th, 2009
So we had Melanie's birthday party yesterday. I think it was a huge success! The kids really seemed to enjoy themselves swimming, and although the room temperature could have been warmer, I think the pool was warm enough. We were all surprised when, at about 11:30am yesterday, as we were preparing to leave for the pool party, it started snowing outside! It was a flurry, and nothing stuck to the ground, but it added to the irony of a pool party in February. Melanie and Morgan were awestruck by the falling snow.
We didn't stay at the hotel last night. We were tempted, but it didn't seem worth it to me to try to get the girls to sleep in a hotel room when we could put them to bed in their own beds. But this morning, while I go on to work at WeightWatchers, Chris is planning to take the girls to have breakfast (they have a free breakfast buffet for hotel guests), and they can do a little more swimming before we have to "check out". Chris posted the pictures from the party on our Shutterfly photo album site. So to see those, click on the Photo Album link on the left.
I do recommend the place where we held the party. It was the Quality Inn at exit 4 in Clarksville. They charged me $63 to rent a room for the night, and that was it. As a hotel guest we could reserve the pool area for as long as we wanted it. Originally they said there was a $25 "set-up" charge, but I wasn't actually charged that. In fact I will argue it if they ever try to get it from me, since I had to straighten up the pool area myself before the party. It was no big deal, just towels other guests had left lying around, but there was definitely no "set-up" done for me. Then, if you happen to have out of town guests, there is a room available and already paid for. I did look at the room and it seemed very clean and looked nice. The beds were small though, which is another reason we opted not to stay there. They were double beds, not queen. So it probably would not have been a good night's rest for the 4 of us. But the free breakfast buffet is another bonus, and then just the fact that the kids can go swimming again is a treat too.
February 13th, 2009
I can't believe it. Tomorrow Melanie will be 5 years old. It doesn't seem possible that 5 years have passed since the cold, icy morning that she came into our world. Where does the time go? On Sunday she is having a small swimming pool party at a local hotel with a few close friends. Since last Spring, when she attended a birthday party at a swimming pool, Melanie has been asking to have a pool party for her birthday. It took me a while to figure out the logistics of that, since her birthday is not in a time of year that is amenable to swimming outdoors, and there aren't a great many indoor pools around here. So I called a couple of hotels and finally found one that would allow us to rent out their pool area for dirt cheap, so long as we rent a room for the night. So that's what we're doing. It will be interesting, at the very least.
I am happy to say that she seems to have forgotten that she wanted to have a Spiderman themed party. Her good friends, twin boys Josh and Ryan Morse, are avid Spiderman fans. So for a good part of last year, Melanie insisted that her next birthday party would have to be a Spiderman theme. Sometime in the last couple of months she forgot about that though, and so a few weeks ago when I asked her what kind of decorations I should buy, she told me My Little Pony. Spiderman would have been easier. I visited nearly every retail store in Clarksville looking for My Little Pony party supplies, and in the end I had to order them off the internet. Who would have thought...
So anyway, more will follow on the party. I'll try to post the pictures soon after. In the meantime, have a Happy Valentine's Day!
February 8th, 2009 - A Tribute to Casey
So far this has been an eventful month. Most notably, our dog, Casey passed away on Wednesday, February 4th. He was 10 1/2 years old, and just a one in a million kind of dog. I got Casey when he was 5 weeks old. I was living in Killeen, TX and was in a small town outside of Houston for the Texas Renaissance Festival in October 1998. While on the bus back to my hotel, I spotted a lady with a litter of Lab puppies on the side of the road at a large fruit stand/farmers market. I couldn't even tell for sure that they were Labs, but I knew I had to get back there to find out. I had been thinking of getting one, and a yellow Lab is what I wanted. So I started jotting down the highway signs so I would be able to retrace our route. By the next day, when I could get back there, the lady with the puppies was gone, but I asked at the fruit stand if anybody knew who she was, and they did. So they called her and she brought a couple of puppies back with her. I wanted a female yellow lab puppy. But the only yellow ones she had were males. So I picked up Casey (all 5 fluffy pounds of him), and the rest is history.
Casey was an incredibly smart dog. There was nothing I couldn't teach him to do. He loved food, so all I had to do was dangle a dog treat and he would do anything I asked! Only once, I got sidetracked and never got back to finishing one skill, which was operating a light switch. He could have learned it. I just never followed through. (Laziness, I guess...which would explain why I wanted him to learn that skill to begin with!) Once we had some friends over and we were showing off all the tricks he could do. One of them asked if Casey could play dead. I hadn't taught him that yet. So Casey and I left the room for about 10 minutes, and when we came back in, I held my hand out toward him and said "bang!", and Casey rolled over and growled with his feet up in the air. From then on that was a favorite among kids of all ages. He could learn anything! He had some very useful skills too - like fetching the newspaper off the end of the driveway (and sometimes the neighbor's paper too) and bringing us the TV remote! Noticing the pattern here? He just wanted to please us...and be fed treats. Lots of treats.
Casey was not a wanderer. He wanted to be where we were. Once when he was very young, we accidentally left the side gate open and put him outside in the backyard while we were eating supper. I looked out the window to the front yard, and there was Casey looking in at us. He had escaped the back yard, but he didn't want to wander off. He wanted to be inside with us. He was always like that. He enjoyed the outdoors, but he was a family dog, and he was happiest if he was wherever we were.
Like most Labs, Casey loved the water. We used to take him to Canyon Lake, near San Antonio, and spend the entire weekend throwing sticks, balls, frisbees, and anything else we could find, for him to fetch out of the water. He could swim all weekend long. He wouldn't quit until we dragged him home, and then he would just pass out. He was a dog who loved life. If he even heard the word "Frisbee" he would jump to his feet and start looking for it. He was a good Frisbee dog and could leap high into the air to catch one.
When our kids came along, poor Casey didn't get near the attention he was used to. But he didn't mind. As long as he was with us, he was happy. And how Melanie loved him. Her first word was "Casey". And that is no lie. When she learned to crawl she would crawl over to him and sit against him. Later, she would ask if she could sleep in his bed with him. Often she would lay with him and pet him for a long time. Two nights before he passed away, she came down in the middle of the night, and in the morning I woke to find her sleeping in his bed with him. I hope that her love brought him some comfort.
Morgan's affection for Casey was a little less obvious. But no one doubts that she loved him too. In December, 2008, when Casey went to go stay with my parents in Ohio for a couple of weeks due to his injured leg, Morgan insisted that Grandpa bring him back as soon as he got better. When Grandpa did bring him back at the end of January, Morgan told Grandpa he couldn't take Casey home with him again. He needed to get his own dog, she said. Casey belonged here with us.
Casey had almost 10 great years. This last one was a tough one for him. In March, 2008 we had a snowstorm. Snow was one of his favorites. He would race around in it like a greyhound chasing a rabbit. Well this time he tore his left ACL. He was otherwise healthy, and from the looks of it had several good years left in him. So we had his leg operated on and he recovered marvelously. In June I noticed his coughing. I took him to the vet, and she said a thing called Laryngeal Paralysis was causing his coughing. That is where the larynx, which in a healthy person or dog, opens to allow air to flow freely into the lungs, but closes during eating and drinking to prevent objects from getting into the lungs, becomes paralyzed and remains in a semi-open state all the time. It makes it hard for the dog to breathe when he gets hot or excited, and increases the risk of aspiration (inhaling objects into the lungs) while eating or drinking, leading to pneumonia. So that wasn't good news, but we managed the condition quite well by keeping him cool and calm. Not an easy task in the heat of the Summer, but we did what we needed to do and he didn't have any problems. In August, his left eye started looking a little funny. By early September, I noticed that the whole left side of his head had started wasting away, to the point that all the facial muscles were gone and so it looked like his cheekbone was protruding out. The vet said the facial nerve feeding those muscles was damaged, resulting in the muscle atrophy, and that the two conditions were probably related and had the same underlying cause. It could be caused by a tumor somewhere, but this nerve damage could also just happen for no apparent reason. There was no way to know for sure without expensive testing, which wouldn't do anything for him. We just hoped for the best and did what we could to manage his health. He didn't seem to mind it, although it did affect his vision in that eye, because his eyelid drooped down over the eye so much that he couldn't see much out of it. In early December, he got a little frisky with some small creature in our backyard, and came in limping on his right leg. The vet confirmed he had torn his ACL again (this time the one that had not already been repaired). This was devastating news, because with his other health issues that had developed, we didn't think another surgery was an option. The stairs seemed to be his worst problem with the torn ACL, and our house has 4 or 5 steps outside of every door. So there was no way for Casey to go in or out of the house without steps, which were obviously very painful for him. So my Dad offered to bring Casey to Ohio to their home, where he wouldn't have any steps to deal with. By Christmas, he was doing lots better, and by the end of January, you would have never guessed he had injured that leg if you didn't know it. So he came back home. And I am so glad he did.
Last Wednesday morning, Casey apparently had a stroke, or a seizure, or both. I was here with him when it happened, and I am so glad I was. I sat here and talked to him and pet him for awhile, until Chris could get home and we could get him to the vet. Chris and I were with Casey to the very end. So, hopefully Casey didn't suffer terribly, and hopefully he knew how much we - and so many others - loved him. He gave us so much love and joy over the years. We will all miss him. He was a great dog, and a great, great friend. I just can't believe he's gone.