Welcome to the craziness....

Friday, August 28, 2015

Saying Hello Again....And Goodbye To An Old Friend

Hello...

Hello...

Is this thing on???

I'm back. 

I'm sure all three readers are excited. Try and brace yourself for some thrilling, captivating, awesome, never heard before reads. 

Or perhaps prepare for me to bore you to tears. 

Either way, I have decided to fire up the 'ol blog again. Which means I've jumped back on Facebook. Sort of. That's a whole other story. The hiatus continues there. At least for now. I am just using it to shamelessly plug my blog. And hopefully go from three readers to five. Or maybe just four. Or maybe at this point I have even lost the three of you that started at the beginning.

Anyhoo, how do you recap 2 1/2 years of your life into one blog post. 
And not lose all three readers? Easy.
You don't.

So I'll just start right where we are. Or at least where we were last February.

Now, I must say, this is the point where if you are a PETA person or if you can't laugh in the face of tragedy you may want to look away. I write this post because I choose to look at the face of tragedy/sadness and laugh. In fact I look at a lot of things and choose to laugh. Which can sometimes lead to trouble...

So about three weeks ago I was home with my three small children. Who by the way are now 4, 7, and 9. And daddy was out of town. Don't things seem to ALWAYS happen when daddy is out of town? Why is that?!!

I had just come down from putting the youngest to bed and I noticed our 15 year-old Pomeranian, Bailey, sitting by her water bowl. I looked and there was plenty of water so I figured she was just there to fend off the imaginary dogs who may steal her precious H2O. 

I went around the corner to brush my oldest two teeth and prepare them to hit the sack. It was a Sunday night and the school week was on the horizon. (at least that's what I told myself....the forecast said otherwise)

As I began to brush my daughter's teeth I heard a faint halfway barking coming from Bailey. Now, she is 15 and she does sometimes bark at imaginary people/dogs/things but this sounded different. So I went and did what any normal pet owner would do and told her to knock it off.

As I rounded the corner though, I could tell something was not right. Not right at all. 
Poor Bailey was laid on her side and was giving me her "last I love yous" in dog language. 

I quickly ushered my oldest two into my bedroom and then knelt down beside little Bailey as she took her last little doggy breath before heading to the rainbow bridge in the sky.

Now. 
I understand this is sad. 
And believe me, after the fact I grieved. We all did. Bailey had been with us 15 years. Jeff and I got her only a few months after we had started dating. So I am not making light of the situation...

But.

What do you with a dog body on your kitchen floor?
At 10 PM on a Sunday night.
When your husband is out of town.
And you are expecting 15 inches of snow the next day.

After frantically calling 1,001 friends. Texting 974 more. It finally dawned on me to call the vet.

The vet and I agreed that with temperatures headed south of Siberia and a truckload of snow headed our way that outside would be the best option. 
Thankfully the good people at Rubbermaid make a sturdy tote that is just the right thing for this sort of predicament. 

And that is when my driveway became a makeshift morgue for the family dog.

I will add that I tossed and turned that night when I went to bed. 
I kept second guessing my dog nursing skills and wondered if perhaps I had jumped the gun and Bailey wasn't gone. That I had stuck our poor 'ol dog outside and she was in fact very much alive. 
I blame seeing Pet Cemetery in the third grade for this. 

I would be lying if I said I didn't go out to the tote the next morning just to make sure. And I'd also be lying if I didn't say I was slightly terrified I was going to open it and she was going to be gone. (Cue scary movie music) 
But all was right with the universe and she was in fact right where I'd left her. With the addition of 15 billion inches of snow surrounding the tote. (Great timing by the way Mother Nature). 

Now, I do have to add, my husband is even more sensitive than I. Well...he's actually a lot more sensitive than I. So I had to make sure said dog was gone before he returned home two days later. 
Funny thing is the 15 billion inches of snow that came caused the entire metropolis to shut down. Which meant the vet was closed. 
So the Orberson morgue stayed open one more day. 
Luckily my dad came to the rescue the next day and the vet agreed to meet him at his office (two days later if you're following along at home) so that Jeff wouldn't be traumatized when pulling into our driveway Tuesday night greeted by the little blue Rubbermaid tote. 

We are still waiting on the ground to thaw so Bailey can have a proper burial. And of course we miss her terribly. But she gave us a good 15 years of life and for that we are thankful.

RIP Bailey January 2000-February 2015