The words occur to me when I lie on the floor next to her, propped up on my elbow, watching her face for signs that tickles and scratches and gentle rubbing bring her respite, never mind happiness.  But by the time I get home, its only the cloud of sadness I can remember, knowing that the peace I want for her can only come in one way, and that nothing afterwards will be the same.

A snooze is always cozier when you can get your nose tucked under the blankets.

And for the record, the only way Katey would ever show any interest in a bone is if it was a donut.

Her motto:  More ear scratches, please!

Her favorite treat:  Walker’s Shortbread

She got plenty of both, today.

I’ve been giving Christmas a fair chance.  No one can say I haven’t.  The mantle is decorated with the sequinned balls in clear glass goblets.  The tree is piney, with icicles and red feathered birds.  A choir of penguins in red scarves are poised on the bookshelf, waiting for a wooly German Santa to conduct them in a carol.  All along, I’ve been planning to spend Christmas morning making pictures with my Christmas gee-gaws and enjoying a world that is invisible to me unless I am looking through a lens.

Above, however, you do not see any of the jolly, clever, Kitsch-massy photos I took this morning, and expected to add to the blog tonight. Instead, the news is Katey.  Tonight I learned through the opaque signals and vagaries of texts between ex-spouses that Katey girl has, unbeknownst to me, been sporting walnut sized tumors on her neck for 10 days now, and “isn’t doing very well.”

I can’t even begin to write about my visit with Katey; my tiredness and emotion are still too tangled up with the warm living talcum of her fur, and the sweetly rotted odor from her jowls, both lingering on my hands.  It isn’t our last visit, yet; of course, I was crying. But Katey, I meant what I whispered in your radar ears while you pretended you were asleep so I would keep scratching them – “Oh, we had FUN!“