I was on the plane flying home from Christmas, and overheard two passengers talking (loudly) about what an awful year 2009 was. Tell me about it, I thought loudly in their direction. I was thinking about Riley's ordeal.
The blonde passenger, who talked a blue streak, told the other woman she lost her mother in 2009.
Oh. Never mind. Sorry.
She wasn't done though. Three weeks after the funeral her father packed boxes of his deceased wife's clothes to take to the Goodwill. As he descended the stairs with the boxes he fell and broke his neck. She lost both parents in 2009.
Oh, Geez.
When did this happen, her companion asked? Blonde replied, it happened at 7pm at night, in July -- the night before her birthday.
Can this be real? I hope, for everyone's sake that this woman is a pathological liar.
Sounding surprisingly chipper, she added that in 2009 she also lost her beloved Chow dog, named Lo Mein. She had him cremated. The companion asked if she kept the ashes.
The ashes, sure, but Blonde had more than just the ashes as it turns out. Whenever she brushed Lo Mein, she put all the brushed-out hair in a garbage bag, and kept it. Kept that bag of hair for years. After Lo Mein died, she bought a throw pillow cover with a picture of a Chow on it. She removed the stuffing and replaced it with the dog's hair.
Okay, that's kind of creepy. Creepier even than my eavesdropping on total strangers (conversations on a plane are fair game, I say). I suppose I have some variation on a bagful of dog hair in my house. Whatever brings you comfort.
I learned a lot this year, but it wasn't exactly the year I dreamed of having. So what about you guys? Did ya have a good year? What was your highlight/lowlight?
Thursday, December 31, 2009
2010, Where have you BEEN?????
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Honestly, I'll be glad to leave this decade behind. The last three years have been kind of hellish for me and my husband. We endured near financial ruin, a separation because of jobs in different cities (job-related only, not relationship-related, but still difficult), seven miscarriages in three years, and some real estate trouble (see near-financial ruin above). I really hope this new decade is better.
ReplyDeleteI keep thinking of what Henry Ward Beecher had to say about a new year and holding it close to my heart as we enter this new decade: "Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past."
Happy new year for horse lovers!
ReplyDeleteThis was not a bad year for me - I got a book deal for the sequel to my cat-to-cat-only advice book... with a pretty decent, mid-sized publishing company! It's scheduled to come out in August of 2010. My human is still waiting to write a book of her own, where she doesn't have to share the author credit, LOL!
ReplyDeleteOther than that, it's pretty much the usual - spats with my two roommates, Binga and Boodie, making sure the dog knows her place, supervising my human. No new cat tree, which was kind of a bummer.
Seriously, when it comes to this sort of thing, here is this cat's opinion: events are 10% of what goes on; your mental attitude makes up the other 90%. So years come and go, it's what you make of them that makes them what they are.
Sparkle, tell us more about the book! Is there a web site yet? Cat to cat, you say?
ReplyDeleteMy highlight was a week at Paradise guest ranch in Wyoming. My husband, daughter, and I rode twice a day every day for 2 1/2 hours at a time, and never went the same place twice. It was a fantasy come alive! And after two days my non-riding husband was saying, "When we come back next year . . ."
ReplyDeleteThe highlight of my year is easy- my Arabian filly Yalla! was born and I assisted in her birth.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, it was not a very good year. I was unemployed for most of the year and lost my two dogs to cancer in a span of six weeks. Everything broke, blah blah, blah.
I did earn my associate's degree and now I have a job again.
I am really looking forward to 2010
Happy New Year's to you.
Yes, it is cat-to-cat advice - you humans are hard to manage sometimes! Here's the Amazon link for the first book - you can "look inside": http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0978918118/
ReplyDeleteThe second book is more of the same, only twice as long, and with color instead of black and white photos and a Really Cool Cover!
I won't have a website for the book(s), but I am setting up a section of my website/blog for them.
Whenever things seem bad, I guess there is always someone who has it worse. 2009 was not a good year for us since my daddeh was laid off from his job of 25 years. But he just started an exciting new job, so I hope things are looking up!
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year!
The dog hair pillow sounds super weird to me, but I do have a bracelet of tail hair from my old hunter. So maybe I'm the weirdo?!
ReplyDelete