Jinx!

So my last blog was about how wonderful my summer has been. I've been able to find an appropriate balance of work, fun, family, and friends (a task I'm not sure I'd ever mastered in the past). With that said... I'm pretty sure I jinxed myself! The last two weeks haven't been terrible, but they definitely have not been as relaxing as the rest of my summer. Get ready, this is going to be a long one...

A couple of weeks ago, I had some photos taken with Charley. My friend Brittany is starting a photography business as a side job, and I asked her to take some family pictures. We'd planned to meet on a Tuesday, and of course it rained heavily the night before, which historically means my allergies go crazy. Anyway, we met up at a local park and wandered around for an hour or so, while Brittany took photos of Charley and me. We had a couple of mishaps, including Charley having an attitude with me (I don't know what I'd done to offend her, but she was NOT happy with me), and then Charley stepping in a large pile of dog poop. That was nice. But overall, it was a great experience and the photos she took were AMAZING! I was seriously blown away.

So... We had photos taken, which was wonderful. But the next day, I woke up with a stuffy nose. Over the next few days, my stuffy nose turned into laryngitis which meant I sounded awful, but really didn't feel that bad. It's totally unrelated, but somewhere in this time frame I went to The Body Shop and bought a bunch of shampoo and conditioner. Big mistake. By Saturday, I not only sounded like a chain-smoker, I also had hives all over my body. It never crossed my mind that I might be allergic to products from The Body Shop, but when I read the shampoo label, I noticed it contained birch bark and willow (both of which I'm allergic to). So, basically the connection I'm alluding to is that nature and I just don't seem to get along. Ha!

Anyway, on Wednesday afternoon when I picked Charley up from school, I was told she'd bumped her head (she face-planted on the playground). Yikes! So, I let her sleep in my room that night, which I'm now convinced was kind of meant to me. Naturally, she was wide awake and ready to get going by around 5:30 Thursday morning, a solid hour and a half before we'd normally be up and moving. I had literally just poured her a bowl of cereal, when I got a text. "Who in the world is texting me at 5:30 in the morning?" I thought to myself. When I glanced at the phone, I saw a message from my dad. "Are you awake?" he asked. I thought it was odd to respond that actually, yes, I was awake at 5:30 a.m., but I did so. "Bad news," he said, "Oscar died in his sleep last night." My heart dropped. It was a message I'd been waiting on for months, but the finality of it was still kind of a shock to me. "What's wrong, Mommy?" Charley asked. Without thinking, I replied, "Oscar died last night."

After the words came out of my mouth, I wondered if I'd said the right thing. But then I remembered, Charley and I had talked previously about Oscar dying. We were told in May that he had only a matter of days to live, so I'd prepped her at that time, telling her that Oscar was going to live with his dog mom. "Why did Oscar die?" she asked, matter-of-factly. "Well," I said, "he was really old. His body was tired. And he wanted to go see his dog-mom and dog-brothers and sisters." She seemed content with that answer, but I should've known she'd ask me the names of all of his dog relatives. As I rattled off a list of dog names that I came up with on the spot, I thought, "Crap. I'm going to have to remember these names, because she's going to ask me about them again." Typical Charley. I posted on Facebook, took Charley to school, and went to work. I'll admit, I didn't look at my Facebook page until I was home, by myself. I've never been one to be overly emotional in front of people, and I knew if I looked at what people had to say, I wouldn't be able to hold it in. But when I did sit down and read through the comments, I was so grateful for the support of my family and friends. I was touched. I wrote a bit of a tribute to Oscar in that Facebook post, but I reserved some of I wanted to say for this blog.

The year I moved to Las Vegas, I knew I wanted to get a dog. So, I started obsessively looking at the Nevada SPCA's website, for a rescue dog. I came across two dogs, Linus and Lucy, that I was interested in. So, my ex and I went down to the SPCA to meet them. We wandered around the facility, met Linus and Lucy (who were known to open doors and jump 6 foot fences...no thanks!), and had pretty much determined we weren't going to get a dog that day. Then, we went down one last hallway.  The first dog I saw, had long hair, almost like a sheep dog, and a ridiculous underbite. His name was Sammy. "He's smiling at me!" I stated, happily. I looked at the details related to Sammy. "Special Needs," was written at the top of his information sheet. Basically, he was a senior dog (the shelter said he was 6, but the vet thinks he was closer to 8), who couldn't live with other animals or children. At the time, I wondered if he would change and eventually be able to be around dogs and kids, but quite frankly, I didn't really care. I named him Oscar and took him home that day.

Oscar's hair was heavily matted when we picked him up, so one of the first things we did was take him to get groomed. When he emerged from the groomer, I thought, "I should have named him Falcor." He seriously looked like Falcor from Never-ending Story. Ha! He was a great dog right from the beginning. He was older, and although they say dogs tend to have accidents the first few weeks in a new home, we never had that issue. In fact, I'm fairly certain Oscar never had an actual "accident." The few times he DID go to the bathroom in the house were clearly intentional. I mean, my sister, Kelsey,  came to visit shortly after we adopted Oscar. She gave him tons of attention, but I think he was threatened. So, she opened up her door one day to a nice little present from Oscar. It was funny, because it was clearly his way of saying, "Screw you, this is MY house." Ironically, in later years, Kelsey became one of his favorite people.

When I got pregnant with Charley, I was kind of nervous about how he would deal with the change. I mean, I was told he shouldn't live with kids, right? But when Charley came home, he bonded with her quickly. I have a great picture of the two of them on my couch the day I brought Charley home. He's at one end of the couch, Charley is at the completely opposite end. I took a similar picture a week later, and Oscar was nearly on top of Charley. They were two peas in a pod. It surprised me that he was so gentle with her. She would pull at his tail and he'd let her do it, without even threatening to bite. But what really amazed me about Oscar was the way that he could read people and situations.

 In the year after Charley was born, there was increasing stress in my marriage, and Oscar could  sense it. Since the time we brought him home from the shelter, Oscar would wait for my ex to get home from work every night (sometimes after midnight), before coming upstairs to bed. But there came a time when Oscar stopped doing that. He'd go to bed when I went to bed.  I didn't think much about it at the time. Looking back, I think..."He chose me. As much as I chose him in the shelter, he chose me in the divorce." And he did. He came along on a cross-country journey with Charley and my Aunt Naomi, and me that involved nearly running out of gas in Utah, a close encounter with the entire cast of Sister Wives, driving through the mountains in Colorado PRAYING that my RAV-4 would be able to haul a trailer without breaking down, through Kansas, and finally back to Minnesota. Of everywhere we've been, I'm convinced Oscar liked Minnesota the best.What long-haired dog wouldn't like prancing around in the snow? Ha!

When we moved back in 2012, I didn't really expect Oscar to live much longer. At that point he was at least 12 years old, if not older, and his age was beginning to show. He was happy to go on a walk every day, but couldn't go for more than a couple of blocks without getting tired. He spent most of his days on the couch, or following Charley around the house. I worked from home at the time, so he got plenty of attention and was pretty content. Just an old guy. When I started teaching in a school again, I knew it would be problematic. Oscar was used to having someone home with him all day, and I couldn't do that if I was back in the classroom. He did better than I thought, and honestly never really had accidents. But I know he was probably lonely. So, when Charley and I moved to Hugo, he only stayed with us for a short time. He went to my dad's house, where he got PLENTY of love and affection from my dad and Scott, and he had two other dogs to spend his days with. I was sad that he wasn't living with us anymore, but knew he'd be happier in their home. I also realized that he was beginning to fade, and it would be less of a shock to Charley if he wasn't living with us and part of our routine, when he passed away. He had a wonderful last year of his life, and was truly spoiled rotten. So the text that came on Thursday was sad, but not surprising. I'm content knowing Oscar is in a better place, and not in pain anymore. As I told Charley, he's with his dog-family, and he's happy. And he'll always be her dog-brother.

Needless to say, the last two weeks have been more challenging than previous weeks this summer. But that's just par for the course. And I'm thankful to have such supportive friends and family.