20 May 2010

Q: funny how quickly you can fall in love with someone you barely know...

i bought a puppy yesterday. he was living in awful conditions for the first 7 weeks of his life - in an outdoor kennel with all 9 of his siblings with a plastic barrel as their only shelter. mama dog was skin and bones herself and the owners chalked it up to the bad weather in the area recently. since i haven't actually been in roanoke for the last week & a half, i just assumed i could trust that the puppies were otherwise healthy and simply scared and nervous about having strangers around. i wish i had known a little better.

i bought little no-name some puppy supplies at the first pet store i drove by on my way home, then let D take him home for his first bath while i ran a few big girl errands. a few hours later, i reunited with my newly-cleaned and yet-to-be-named little guy. he was a little listless but otherwise really affectionate and fell asleep easily in either of our laps so we were pretty happy that he was calm and we hadn't heard him bark yet. he started getting sick while we were still in botetourt, but D & i both assumed it was because he accidentally drank some bath water. i brought him home to roanoke and made him a bed. every time i got down to floor level to play with him, he immediately put his tiny paws in my lap and gave me these eyes begging to be picked up. i took him to petsmart for a few last-minute supplies like softer puppy food since he hadn't eaten since i got him. poor little no-name.

this morning, i woke up at 130 because he had gotten sick yet again. he gave me an "i'm sorry" look before crawling back into his bed so i turned the lights out and resumed sleeping. at 7 this morning i woke up to him throwing up yet again and just having an awful time in general. he hadn't eaten and was barely drinking any of the water i put out for him. i decided it was too much and took him to the banfield pet hospital at petsmart as soon as they opened. unfortunately, it was too late for little no-name and he tested positive for parvovirus - a virtual death sentence for puppies, especially since he must have had it for weeks already. tearfully, i had to hand him over for euthanization and barely had time to say goodbye because he started convulsing as a result of the parvo ravaging his tiny little body from the inside out. rest in peace, little guy, i loved you for 24 hours.

i have a pretty bad habit of dropping everything for people i really care about. i have an even worse habit of doing the opposite when i feel like someone isn't worth my time. it's unconscious. i've heard i'm a pretty awful person a lot lately and i guess i've hurt a lot of people who meant a lot to me in my life. if i believed in karma, i guess i'd say i deserved losing little no-name.

...but what did he ever do to deserve it?

R: Thursday nights make me want to drink for some reason...big pitchers of beer...with a side of Japanese food.

C: Since we both were recently abandoned by our more regular house guests, Xie and I decided it was time to catch up with each other, one-on-one. Despite my overly-sensitive stomach, I made the plans to meet up at MATCH for their $5 entrees on Ladies' Night Thursdays. Having been away in Nigeria and eating irregularly all of last week, I am still getting hungry at odd hours - and thinking I would eat light when I got there anyway - I had an early snack of leftover mango fried rice from yesterday before our dinner date. Of course, the idea of filet mignon with goat cheese mashed potatoes and sautéed spinach - and being $23 dish for $5 - was too overwhelmingly delicious that I went for it. Plus a glass of wine. I'm not sure if it was worth it after all (my stomach tells me "no!"), but my heart says "Yesss", while my brain supports it with a "What a steal!"