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So we hired another crew to repair that...and refinish the hall...and refinish the big bedroom (which we had cleaned thoroughly and waxed, but to no joy), and refinish the small bedroom (ditto), and five closets...all for 1k! I wish we had found these guys first. They are doing a fine job, but they're doing it this week - Thanksgiving Week. They've been here Monday, Tuesday, today, and will be here Turkey Day and Black Friday. It's only for a couple of hours each day as they are doing it in stages so we can stay in the house upstairs at night and sleep. Otherwise we'd be in a motel for two or three nights as bathrooms and beds would be inaccessible with polyurethane drying everywhere.
We have been outside raking leaves in the front yard and back yard for several days. Today we are resting after going to bed at 8:30 last night and sleeping till 6! We don't have the energy we used to think we had. The closer we get to the last of this work, the more disruptive it becomes. The back bedrooms now live in the living and dining room. It's interesting to come downstairs to the living room to get dressed these days, then going out the back porch door and walking through the yard and unlocking the breezeway door to get to the kitchen door. It's getting close to the old Popeye line: "That's All I Can Stands, I Can't Stands No more!" Karen's sister is moving this weekend, so we know what we'll be doing! In addition, Karen and Lynn's Uncle Elwood died yesterday. The funeral is Saturday morning in New Orleans, but we just won't try to go what with the goings on
we're already committed to.
We have a house inspection scheduled for next week and the delivery of our reupholstered chaise lounge as well. We'll paint the breezeway walls, ceiling and floor, clean the garage, and call it quits. We've been entirely too self-absorbed for our tastes in this project. It's time to stop saying "we," put a sign in the yard, think about other folks and other places for the future.
But, before that, a few pictures...
Living room and sun room with some additions. Another view of the living room with friends.
Another view of the living room/dressing room Big bedroom and closets sans essentials
Big bedroom with wasted floor work pre-refinishing. Welcome to the dining room...Table for two? Sorry,
Half of hall and foyer-refinished. Small bedroom - cleaned, waxed, buffed - next up...strip, sand and refinish.
Patio by Karen...with Juice added to spruce it up. Ruins of Kitty Wat...where Gryphon and Sable spent their lives.
Well, this is my third attempt to post pictures of our new upstairs carpet install along with all the painting and work that has been done there. I'm an hour and a half into this project and all my fancy work is gone. So, take a look at what I could get done. That's Karen in her aerie - she moved the furniture back 15 minutes after the installer left!
The Memphis Zoo is a reclaimed treasure. I've been going for over 50 years and the last 15 have been a pleasure. From its rude beginnings featuring a black bear tied to a tree in 1906 to now, the zoo has arrived in this new century with buttons busting in pride. The giant panda exhibit, the Northwest Passage expansion, and the coming Teton Trek, Zambezi River Hippo Camp and Chickasaw Bluffs exhibit all attest to continued happy progress.
Yesterday's visit was a delight and here are some photos to prove it:
Fountains declared it a nice day as well. Karen at foot of obelisk in entrance courtyard.
Entrance to Northwest Passage-Seals & Polar Bears Orang the doorbell, but nobody answered.
'Mingos in the Mist
Everybuddy wantz ta gedinta da act! For Stand Up Diners only
"Harold, the flame has died. I'm bored." Doncha hate it when you lose a contact?
Cool Karen in porthole at seal tank. Karen holding game made by our daughter-in-law's company!
Congratulations to the Memphis Zoo and thanks for a nice day all 'round.
Remember Desiderata? If you do, do you remember the parody of it, Deteriorata? I was going through some old papers last night and found a typed version of Deteriorata that I had forgotten I ever made. It had to be about 1970. I used to play a version of Desiderata, I think by Ed Ames, on the radio back then, but I don't ever remember hearing Deteriorata. It was done by National Lampoon in 1972 in response to Les Crane's Desiderata recording from 1971. I've gotten over both of them by now, but you might enjoy hearing either of them through the links posted above.
First Installment
I am writing this from downtown New York. In a perverse reversal, I have no way to contact anyone except through my high-speed wireless internet connection--phones are out, and electricity in the area is intermittent.
The media will ultimately tell the story better than I, but I can tell you that there is massive loss of life. The sky is black with ash, the people have been panicking and fleeing in unadulterated terror. I have never seen anything like it. It is very difficult to breathe, even with your mouth covered--the ash blows down the streets and burns your eyes. It feels like the world has ended. When the screaming started and the crowds began to run after the second plane struck it was a horror film running in overdrive, jumping frames and cutting in and out. Time got lost--I don’t know how long this went on. I have a cut on my leg. I ended up in a Wendy’s where a huge number of us took refuge. I don’t know where the workers were--I helped get water for people.
I am starting to see emergency workers, and the streets are clearing somewhat--at least the first waves of panic are passing. I’ve seen bodies draped in white sheets--it took me a time to realize those were bodies, not injured people; they must be out of room or not be able to get them to the morgues or the hospitals.
I’m headed for the Brooklyn Bridge to walk out of the city. I’m going to stop at any hospital I find to give blood before leaving. If anyone reading this can, please donate blood--I heard from a medic that the hospitals are already running out.
Mike Daisey 2:26 PM
Second Installment
I am writing this from my home in Brooklyn after leaving Manhattan. I have signed up for a time slot to give blood later this evening and have a few hours available before then.
After my last posting I made my way east through an urban moonscape--everywhere there is ash, abandoned bags in the street, people looking lost. I managed to get a cell line out to Jean-Michele, who is still in Seattle, and she helped me navigate with online maps as I plotted my exit strategy.
Bizarrely, I caught a taxi crosstown. I was standing at a corner, I’m not even certain where, and a taxi was sitting there. A very pushy woman, whom I will always be thankful for, barged her way into the cab. In a moment, without thinking, I climbed in too. The driver, a Pakistani guy who had an improbable smile, immediately took off.
The ash blocks out the sun downtown--it’s like driving in an impossible midnight, and even more impossible that I’m in a cab, with this woman who won’t stop trying her cell phone and another man, my age, who looks like he’s been crying. Maybe he just has ash in his eyes. I know I do--I feel like I will never see properly again, though that’s probably just trauma. I don’t even know where the driver is going. The crying man got someone on *his* cell phone, starts explaining what he’s seeing out the window. It’s like having a narrator traveling with us--I only notice the things that he is describing as he describes them.
God bless that taxi driver--we never paid him. He let us all off, and I think he got out as well, near the Brooklyn Bridge. There are cops everywhere; people are herding themselves quite calmly, mutely, onto the bridge. We all walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, which is unbelievably beautiful, the wires and stone of the bridge surrounding us and the bright sun ahead, passing out of darkness.
No one is talking to each other, but there is a sense of warmth. Everyone has his or her cell phones out, fishing for a clear signal. Those who catch them talk hurriedly to families, friends, people in other cities, children in their homes. It is comforting to hear their voices, telling how they are okay, shhh, it's okay, I’m okay. As we walk out into the sunlight, I am so happy to be in this company, the company of people who are all right, those who walked out.
I was in the city today to turn in some of my book, I had stayed up all night writing and I was so worried--is it ready, have I done my work? Those questions seem small today--not unimportant, but smaller, in a new proportion. I kept thinking of how much I have left to do in my life, so many things that are undone, people I haven’t spoken to in years. It's overwhelming to feel everyone around me thinking the same thing, the restless thoughts trickling over this bridge as we come back to Brooklyn.
From the Promenade I stand with hundreds of others, listening to radios, watching the plumes of smoke and the empty holes in the skyline. People stand there for a long time, talk to one another in hushed tones. Someone hands out a flier for a vigil this evening, which I will go to after I give blood.
What can be said? Just this: we will emphasize the horror and the evil, and that is all true. It is not the entire story. I saw an old man with breathing problems and two black kids in baggy pants and ghetto gear rubbing his back, talking to him. No one was rioting or looting. People helped each other in small and tremendous ways all day long…a family was giving away sandwiches at the Promenade. Everyone I talked to agreed to go give blood. If a draft had been held to train people to be firefighters there would have been fights to see who got to volunteer.
No matter how wide and intricate this act of evil may be it pales in comparison to the quiet dignity and strength of regular people. I have never been more proud of my country.
md
Mike Daisey 6:41 PM
Now that's an improvement over this!
The thing we really like? The grass lies down when it reaches about 3 inches in height. No mowing or fertilizing from now on. We've watered every morning for 33 days except when it rained. We'll continue that for a few more weeks, then the roots should be deep enough that we can just let it go on by itself. Needless to say, we are very pleased with the whole deal.
An old college roommate posted on his blog today tons of beautiful pictures of the natural garden he has been working on for some years. I commented on it and then just kept writing...
I really enjoyed this posting, James. In fact I have a hard time deciding if it's the pictures or the writing I enjoy most. Dr. Boyd would have enjoyed your phrasing I'm sure. Nice work. (Dr. George W. Boyd was head of the English Department at Millsaps when we were there in the '60's.)
If I may insert a memory...
I grew up on a high school campus as an educator's son in the Mississippi Delta. Other teachers lived in the campus housing as well. As one of the "campus kids" I was privileged one late fall day to take part in building a giant kite with the help of one of the younger male teachers.
I suppose there were 5 or 6 of us helping, but he did most of the work. First we went into some deep, weedy brush along a marshy patch on the campus edge and pulled up tall, dried weeds perhaps 6 or 7 feet and quite strong. Then the teacher brought out used brown kraft paper from the local cleaners.
With these items and some paste and string, we built a hexagonal form from the weed sticks, overlaid the paper on it and built a kite that stood over 6 feet tall and perhaps 4 feet across.
We launched it with a long tail made from rags begged from our mothers and, with several balls of string, pulled it steadily aloft. It flew well and extremely high. We flew it until dusk approached and then took turns pulling string in double handsful while another would wind it into a giant ball. Our fingers burned with the strain from above
It was dark when we the kite came to earth and parents were calling us to dinner and bed. Everyone was so excited I don't believe any of us got much sleep that night.
Of such simple things are life memories built and the kindness of a young teacher gave one group of youngsters a new way to see above us all those years ago.
The whole yard looking north from the south. This area was mostly moss before the change.
This area was completely barren before we tilled, limed, fertilized, leveled, seeded and watered..
North side front yard one week after seeding on Aug.9
Closeups of yard 8 days after seeding - Yes, that's GRASS!!!
I know, I know, we can't find Judge Crater, Amelia Earhart, D.B.Cooper or Sasquatch...but we HAVE found sprouted Eco-Lawn grass in our own front yard and
we're kinda pleased about it, donchano.
we're kinda pleased about it, donchano.
Why? Well, most sod costs about $45-$80 per pallet. The particular style of Zoysia our neighbor put down cost $195 per pallet...wholesale. The neighbor's son did the job for him and I hope he got a family rate. Our 2,000 sq. ft. front yard would have been around 2k...not an option!
Karen did a lot of online searching and found a grass seed that might just grow in partial shade in the South. We ordered two bags at $40 per to cover our 2,000 sq.ft.area and crossed our fingers.
Monday, July 27, we rented a tiller for 24 hours at about $80, loaded it into our PT Cruiser, much to the amazement of the fellows at Dixie Rents, and came home with it. I about killed myself with the thing. It vibrated so hard I could only get through about half of one side of the yard before I had to stop. It just couldn't cut it, but it sure took care of me. The yard looked pitiful...
Tuesday, July 28, it rained beaucoup buckets; same on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. We watched most of our work flow down the street those days. Tuesday, Aug. 4, as you can see above, was sunny, but we were depressed and involved with our front storm/security door installation and such.
We did nothing on the yard but think about it and discuss options until Friday afternoon when we went to Home Depot. Robert C. Ruark wrote a book on African big-game hunting titled, "Use Enough Gun." Too many hunters back in the '50s and '60s were trying to kill large critters with smaller and smaller caliber weapons in an effort to prove something. Ruark took umbrage with the trend and wrote this book. I remembered that book when we went to Home Depot.
We rented the biggest tiller Honda makes with two big tires and the tines BEHIND the wheels so you don't carry the thing but pivot it against the wheels. We got it into the PT Cruiser as well and brought it home last Friday evening - 24 hours for about $95. We also rented two folding aluminum ramps ($5) and that made life possible. No way Karen and I could have lifted the thing in and out of our car. I cranked it up and in about an hour had done all of the front yard and done it beautifully.
Saturday morning we went back to work again. I tilled the whole yard again and had about a six-inch deep, loamy pile of soil in both parts of the yard that was lovely. Since we had put lime and fertilizer down sweveral days earlier, we were ready.
We took the tiller back to Home Depot Saturday afternoon and came home. We plucked roots and grasses out of the lawn until we were shot and took the rest of the day off. This morning we went out and started filling our wheel-barrow with the excess soil that had spilled into our driveway and our sidewalks from the tilling. We loaded 10 wheel-barrow loads of dirt and I dumped them in the back yard deep in the jungle back there. Karen raked along the edges of the yard and smoothed out the inclines. I dragged an old cyclone fence gate by a couple of ropes all over the yard, leveling it up and smoothing it.
We had dug up a number of concrete pads that had served as steps before they had sunk out of sight years before. We placed these on the soft soil to give footing along the flower bed on the left of the front. We'll pick up several more pads for the right side of the front to give the mailman et al safe footing in front of the house. Then we seeded the lawn and ran a roller over it to compact it a bit. Not much, just enough to give the seeds a bite on the ground.
You see, until the soil sets well, you will sink a good 4-6 inches into the lawn. That's going to be a problem for a few weeks until the grass seed germinates and the soil settles. Hopefully the neighbor cats will be the only ones walking on the "lawn" until the lawn becomes a LAWN.
We feel jubilant that the job is ended and await something that looks green and lush to appear where all the brown is now. (Hopefully not my weird cousin.) Oh, we're watering an inch a day for the next few weeks as well. Wish us luck!
Leo the Inspector checks it out.
- Mood:
good
First, I'm listening to some of Billy Joel's greatest songs right now, so I may be a little carried away. "The Entertainer", "Root Beer Rag", "Goodnight Saigon", "We Didn't Start the Fire", "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant", along with "L.A. County" and "If I Had a Boat" by Lyle Lovett and more will do that to folks my age.
Second, we're entering our second week of waiting on the weather to work in our front yard and I'm feeling guilty. A week ago last Monday I rented a tiller and wore myself out on half the front yard, tilling down about 4-6 inches in anticipation of seeding the lawn after we had leveled it. Tuesday my forearms were in full rebellion from the vibration and exertion from Monday and I took the tiller back, having gotten about 5 hours use out of a 24 hour rental. Then the rains came. Tuesday through Friday I half expected Sadie Thompson to show up with the tropical torrents. We watched our tilled, but unleveled front yard flow down the street, leaving a quagmire that is only now beginning to dry out:
It rained again this morning and still no Sadie and no reason to rent another tiller till I can be assured I won't sink to my fetlocks...so Karen has been packing boxes of books and toys and games and I've hauled them to our storage cubicle.
Yesterday our new storm/security door was delivered and installed:
as opposed to: 
We love the door but have some finish carpentry to do as the door is about 4 inches shorter than the main door. The installer built a false top to insure the new door fit, but he didn't finish the job. We're going to see Lowe's today, but I imagine it'll be our problem. I thought we were buying a custom (taller) door, but got a standard door. This was explained to us, but it didn't sink in. Even though this was well over $500...aw, well, you get the idea. Rehab is never pretty.
The roses we planted back at the first of June are doing splendidly:
Downstairs bathroom is painted now and looks great...still need the tub resurfaced, though. We'll meet some new friends soon, I'm sure.
Just about all the books, games, old computers -
, slide carousels, and unconscionable amounts of near and dear junk has been boxed and moved to a Superfund site in the suburbs. That leaves everything else and, though we really have been tossing stuff, 40 years of marriage does bring a lot of baggage into a house, much less a relationship.
Just about all the books, games, old computers -
, slide carousels, and unconscionable amounts of near and dear junk has been boxed and moved to a Superfund site in the suburbs. That leaves everything else and, though we really have been tossing stuff, 40 years of marriage does bring a lot of baggage into a house, much less a relationship.I wouldn't have it any other way...
I'm in full agreement with Lyle Lovett's lyric in his song, "If I Had a Boat"...
But Tonto he was smarter
And one day said kemo sabe
Kiss my ass I bought a boat
I'm going out to sea "
But Tonto he was smarter
And one day said kemo sabe
Kiss my ass I bought a boat
I'm going out to sea "
I have thrown myself back into the work and that has helped. However, our heightened sensitivity has been remarkable as regards those two small creatures. For several weeks since our return, we've seen black cats everywhere we look, reminding us of Sable. TV ads with black cats on white couches and more. Every time I go into the living room, our digital photo display seems to be rolling through pictures of Sable and Gryphon. There are nearly a thousand pictures on that thing! It is a bit spooky, but it has happened.
This too shall pass, I know. I've refused to let their play tower go or their window seat. Sometime, somewhere, we will embrace another cat, but not yet.
My computer died as I was attempting to back it up to an external drive a couple of weeks ago, so I've been dealing with that as well. Today marks my installation and use of a brand new HP hoss with 6mb of ram and 640gb of disk space. Not only that, it runs. The first computer I bought had to be returned when it started talking French to me as it was installing itself! Pay back for those 18 hours of French I took in college...only 6 of which I passed, thus no degree for me.
All this doom and gloom I apologize for and I promise I'll do better in the near term. I'm glad to be back online and will close with one final picture of those two dear pets who've gone on ahead.
Left Side of Front Yard - Today
Left Side - Before -a Trifle Bushy! Right Side - Before - Where's the House?
Left Side from Front Sidewalk - Today Right Side from Neighbor's Yard - Today
Back Yard -Fig Tree, Begonias, Caladiums Refinished Living Room Floor -from Porch
Another View
View from Dining Room into Foyer Reminder View from Last Week
Sorry for the introspective view of things these last weeks...afraid it may continue a while before I get back to some stories from the past and other such folderol.
Today the floor refinishers came, hooked up their Tapocketa-pocketa sanding behemoth and blew out the lights. I went to Home Depot, my home away from Lowe's, and bought out their supply of fuses (yes, Virginia, some homes still use fuses instead of multi-breakers for power delivery).
Tim the Quiet, our 21st Century Zen painter is coming back tomorrow morning in his space suit to do the sanding in the downstairs bathroom (the one we thought we had finished last fall) where he has demo'd the ceiling and hung new wallboard overhead (that doesn't sound right) and put lots of skim coats of joint compound and tape and Poe's The Gold Bug, for all I know.
With the floor refinishing crew here at 7:45 tomorrow morning working over the living room and foyer and Tim arriving soon after to get the bathroom walls and ceiling ready for us to paint, we're getting the heck outta here! Karen's job has called her back for a partial day's work on site and I'm chauffeuring her and reading in the car while she works for real folding money. Maybe when we return around noon, Tim will have finished and the refinishers may be staining rather than sanding. I know our fuse panel will be happier and we should be too.
Before the elves return in the morning, I crept around just now with my trusty camera and thought I'd share our 7th Circle with you. Take a seat anywhere you can and enjoy the floor show:
The Redrum or my Man Cave with some fugitives added. Another view of the Redrum where I slave for you.
Glassed-in porch with fugitives Left side of porch and more fugs Living room with repaired floor & sanding.
Foyer behind across to porch entrance. Foyer from living room; front door-left, dining room ahead.
View from kitchen into dining room full of fugitives. Dining room with fugs tv and more plus "seal del morte."
There's a Duncan Fyfe table somewhere there. Bathroom with primer and ceiling we didn't know we needed.
Thanks for your visit. Carol has some lovely parting gifts for you on your way out...and that would be through the garage door or backyard. The front door is off limits to all but the floor guys and any cats who want to visit. I love the smell of burnt electrical fuses in the morning!
My dad was gunnery officer on a tanker that plowed the waves along the Gulf Coast and up the Eastern seaboard in the last two years of the war. He never saw action, but he served his country proudly. He was 33 when he joined the Navy, married, father of two, and a school principal in Mississippi. He didn't have to serve, but felt he must, like so many thousands of others in that far-off time.
I wish to thank my Dad, my father-in-law Billy, my uncle Hilton and my uncle Bill (an Army 1st Lt in the Solomons), my aunt Laverne (did spy work!), and everyone else who served in WWII on this Memorial Day, 2009. The wars since tug at my heart as well. Cousins and, later, friends who fought and returned or fought and died in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Iran and all those "little wars" in my lifetime. While I never served, I am conscious of the immense debt I owe to all those who have. The days are growing shorter for me now, but I shall always endeavor to honor those who served to my last moment on earth.
God bless 'em, every one.
Friday, while my brother-in-law was sitting on our front porch taking apart two chainsaws in preparation for an attack on some tall bushes/trees in our back yard, our painter arrived to begin work on our living room ceiling. Of course he needed all the furniture taken out of the living room. We moved furniture for 30 minutes - into the dining room and on to the porch, totally disabling three rooms. Of course we were sure no one else was coming to stay with us before we had the repairs done and things adjusted.
Wrong, DIY Breath! We worked till about noon Friday with Betty and Dave, cutting brush and hauling it to the street for pickup. They hit the road to Ashville with chainsaws, Jeep and trailer. We were exhausted and hoped to get some rest that afternoon. But, of course, Karen had to prepare potato salad and sliced, seasoned tomatoes for evening festivities to come. We showered, dressed and drove to see our niece, Lacey, graduate Friday night from high school:
That was fine and we went to sister-in-law Lynn's home along with our contributions for a wonderful meal with friends and family of the grad. We returned home to a hot, muggy night that required our first air conditioning of the season. We turned on the main unit of our two central air units and it froze up very quickly. It wouldn't blow though the compressor ran. We gave up and moved upstairs where our company had been the night before. The AC worked fine there and we had a good night's sleep.
Saturday and Sunday we did some more yard work with some rest interspersed.. Then came Monday. We started digging up Nandinas in the front beds of the house. That was a fair bit of work. Then we dug up a holly bush. That was a bear. I sharpened shovels and we tore into it for close to an hour before we were able to cut the last taproot. It took both of us to carry the root ball to the curb. I mowed the lawn front and back with the neighbor's mower. (Mine died two weeks ago after 12 years of grinding bricks and tree roots and I put it on the curb - gone in 14 minutes!) During this labor, Karen got a call from her cousin, Allen and his wife Sharon. They were driving south from Wisconsin in their pickup, towing this monster 1945 Farmall tractor Allen had bought on eBay while he was in Africa last month at his job with Exxon on an island off the coast of Equatorial Guinea. You get bored at night locked up in a compound, you see, and you do things on your laptop you might think better of in the light of day...like bidding on 64-year old tractors on eBay! He doesn't get out much, donchasee.
Well, that solved the problem of what were we going to do with the rest of the day. Somewhere in there our hvac guru came by and put his hands on our central air big unit...said it looked fine to him and not to drop the thermostat so low so quickly to avoid freezeup - kinda like drinking a Slurpee too fast on a hot day. Oh yes, that plus the news the new high school graduate had just wrecked her car and it was totaled. She was badly tossed about, but besides a severe case of bruised ego, there were no serious injuries to any of the occupants of both cars. She is home and sore and so, so sorry - you can just imagine how she feels.
A few hours later and here they are with IT:
Karen gawks in disbelief.
Those of you who know tractors might notice the drive wheels are reversed as the tractor is too wide to fit on the trailer otherwise. We were stunned by the thing - I remember a friend who drove a Farmall Cub for the county one summer, but this is a big boy. Allen cranked it up and that diesel roared to life and started popping the flap on top of the exhaust stack to beat the band. Then he idled it down and you could barely hear it...just a whisper! This damned thing was made the same year I was born and IT'S IN BETTER SHAPE THAN I AM!!!
They pulled out for Texas yesterday morning after a breakfast served in camp chairs in our empty living room. We had a wonderful visit, but we're ready for some quiet time. Only a floor refinisher, our new neighbor and our painter came by today so we had to find something to do outside...so
They pulled out for Texas yesterday morning after a breakfast served in camp chairs in our empty living room. We had a wonderful visit, but we're ready for some quiet time. Only a floor refinisher, our new neighbor and our painter came by today so we had to find something to do outside...so
WE CLEANED OUT OUR 10 FOOT INFLATABLE POOL:
Suspended from three ladders after soaping and washing, the pool is in its Aussie Down Under Mode
We hope to have it in its Rainbow Drive mode once more:
Then we'll empty it, wrap it up and sell it on Craigslist just like we did the lovely patio furniture in the background here. One of these days we'll be through and can get this danged house on the market so we can move to the Olympic Peninsula. We're starting to feel like James Garner in "Support Your Local Sheriff" where he keeps telling everyone, "Basically, I'm on my way to Australia." Wish us well!
- Mood: good
If you missed the Thursday, May 7, CBS Evening News, you missed one of the most remarkable, heart-warming stories to come out of the Iraq or any other war. Take a couple of minutes to view this story:
- Mood: good
- Mood: good
Our family pet died today. Gryphon lived a full and happy life here on Rainbow Drive. After a full breakfast, he went out this morning into a bright sunny day and, at some point, lay down on our neighbor's front porch, a place he had often slept long sleeps, and quietly left us.
We discovered him this evening after searching for him for some time. We both felt this might be coming, but that didn't make it any easier when my flashlight caught his beautiful face in repose. I sat by his side and wept and Karen joined me.
There's not much more to add. We loved him and he loved us. In a way we are relieved. With the thought of an impending move to the northwest, we have worried long hours about Gryphon's ability to make that trip. He made the journey his way and that is no surprise. He was a wonderful pet and friend and we miss him terribly.
- Mood: good
