It's been crazy busy here. After a slow work summer, October has really picked up -- and I have a book to write in November.  Not a NaNoWriMo book, but a contracted book.  But I signed up for NaNo to help keep me on track.

The husband and I were able to take our very first vacation in a long time -- a cruise with my professional writer group.  The cruise was way too short, as was the vacation, but the husband didn't have the extra days after using them all for his thesis writing.  He'll have at least 6, maybe 8, depending on when we travel, for our 25th anniversary trip.  It was great to talk shop with my writing buddies while drinking margaritas and soaking up the sun, though.  But way too short.

We thought the snow dog was dying last night.  She's 16 1/2 years old and her health has been in decline for a while.  She doesn't eat much at all these days.  She has arthritis.  But for an old dog she's still pretty healthy.  When we came home from the trip, we were told that she had been whining and crying a lot while we were gone, and yelping like she'd have sharp pains.  Now had she been with strangers, I would have attributed that to homesickness.  However, the boy was staying at the house, and the dog loves the boy and his girlfriend.  She was fine with them last year.  I noticed straight off that she didn't seem the same.  She was walking more gingerly.  She yelped a few times for no reason.  The boy's girlfriend has a lot of  experiences with dogs and their life cycle and she said the dog is beginning a sharp decline.  Well, last night, the dog tried to stand up but she couldn't get her back feet under her.  She kept falling and stumbling and we had to physically stand her up.  She began to panic and tried to run but her back legs kept giving out and she kept falling over.  It then seemed like she had a seizure.  Her body was twisted. She couldn't breathe right.  She kept trying to move but her legs were useless.  We called the girlfriend and she said, "Keep her comfortable and stay with her."  While I talked to the girlfriend, the dog threw up violently.  She was gasping for air.  We brought her bed downstairs and laid her there.  She threw up again and the spasms were worse, rolling her all around the floor.  She didn't want to be near us anymore, so we put her bed in the dining room and put her there.  We could see her but she couldn't see us.  She finally seemed to calm down, but at one point I noticed she stopped moving.  I thought that was it.  The husband looked her and confirmed, she wasn't moving.  He said he'd call the vet, and turned on the light -- which startled the dog and she popped up.  She got up, unsteadily, and came back to sit by me.  We brought her bed in here, and she curled up.  I pet her head for a bit and then went to bed, very sad.

Except this morning, I heard the husband ask her if she wanted to go outside.  She survived the night.  But more than that.  She was back to normal.  She even hopped the steps into the house.  You'd never know she was sick last night.  She hasn't left my side today, though.  She's sleeping under my feet now.  It's a relief, but it's so clear now how numbered her days are.  That makes me a bit sad. 

My hope is that she makes it to next week so the daughter can see her puppy for what might be the last time. 

To end on a happy note, seeing the daughter also means I get to see the grandbaby and he's always a blast to have around. 

There are times the husband does things that are both heart warming and down right evil at the same time. That's when I love him best.

Like today.  He told me that through his high school's alumni directory, he found the daughter of some of his parents' friends, from back in the day when his parents were very involved with church-related things.  When my inlaws marriage broke down, this family actually blew off my MIL because they were disgusted with her behavior (and rightly so, in my opinion. I wish more people would have been disgusted with it but that's a different story).  The husband then also tracked down the friends of his parents through Facebook, and he sent them a message.  In the message he said that he appreciated the good things he learned from this couple and that period of time in his parents' marriage, and that the lessons he learned have done him well.  "Unlike my parents," he told me he wrote, "I'm going to soon be celebrating 25 years of a good marriage."  He sent links to some of our picture pages. 

The couple was thrilled to hear from him and asked him to please keep in touch.  And I thought, how nice of him to contact these people who I knew made an impact on him and how wicked of him to get that little dig in on his mother for not only her behavior back then but for her refusal to acknowledge our 25th anniversary's milestone, considering she was the one who talked the loudest about us not surviving 5 years. (Although I know if the other siblings' marriages last this long and if she's around to see it -- she turns 70 soon and the couple closest to us in married years just celebrated 16 years -- she'll make sure there is a huge event.) 

He'll probably stay in touch with them casually.  It will be interesting to see what happens. 

Warning: this post will be a little religion and a little politics.

Today the deacon gave the homily at church and he emphasized how Christ wanted us to take care of our fellow man and remember that the lowliest amongst us are our greatest treasure.  To me, this is the very basis of my religious belief -- we have to take care of each other.  There were times in my life when I struggled and I depended on others to help me through.  Sometimes it was family, when my grandmother gave us foods from her garden or my FIL sent us a random check in a card that said "Love Pops."  Sometimes it was student loans or WIC.  Today, we're doing okay and we don't need that extra help. Rather, we're able to help others, and that, I believe, is our duty. 

This religious belief is also the very core of my political belief.  I believe we must take care of those who need a helping hand.  I believe we must look out for those who are struggling.  I believe we must all be looking out for each other.  I would never, ever, begrudge a person in need from getting help.

But there are people like my sister who drive me feckin' nuts.  My sister has been ranting lately about how much she hates the idea of a government health care plan, how she hates government being involved in her life, how she hates people who need help asking for help because they are "bad people who don't do anything for themselves." 

Okay, those are my sister's beliefs and my philosophy is that everybody has their own point of view, live and let live, etc.  What I don't like is a hypocrit.  And that's what my sister has become.  See, as she rails on and on about how she hates people who have a hand out, she is on unemployment, her boyfriend is on unemployment.  She openly admits that she can be unemployed because her kids are getting Social Security payments because of their dad's death, and the kids' health insurance is the S-CHIP. 

My sister has a good heart.  She's letting the daughter and her family live with her until they can get on their feet (okay, it bugs the shit out of me that my sister complains that the daughter needs to find a "real" job. The daughter is a massage therapist. She is building her client base, something that takes time, something that I as a freelancer knows well. The daughter is also the only one in the household that is working for a paycheck). So I just don't understand why she hops on a soap box and essentially says, "I don't want to help other people," even though other people are helping her. 

I just don't get it.