Bad Acting- I Can Still Fake A Smile

Sweet Minguslove and Chasearoo,

Look, it took a few days but I can still fake a smile! Okay, so my teeth are a bit clenched, but, hey, that's my business face. It paid your bills for long enough! Let's hope it can pay mine!

More tributes and condolences for your "passing" (and they ain't meaning gas this time!), Mingus. Dr. Sue who moved to Arbutus West Animal Clinic, Dr. Tonya and everyone at Mosquito Creek Vet, and Dr, Michael and the staff at Vancouver Animal Wellness sent lovely cards that made me cry more, and Jenny and Harold sent their condolences, and Auntie Virginia will miss picnicing with ya, and Donna commiserated with me, and your ex-Dad of course who balled his eyes out on the phone with me right after you died, and Uncle Kaye was so kind and you might meet up with his truelove--Maxine-- and of course, Auntie Joy has been checking in on me twice/day along with Auntie Lousia who checks in on me five time or more a day, and Melanie naturally, and Patricia at the office ... so you see, we did manage to build a net of great humans during our years together my puppylove .... I think I could make a biz of this professional mourning thing.... managing the grief and the condolences is actually more time-consuming than the last several months of nursing you my lovely.

Hope you're digging holes in the sand bigger than the hole in my heart pumpkins.

kisses,
The Bitch

p.s. I forgot, my favorite new platitude, and it is utilized incessantly, is "time heals". WTF! Time erodes--not heals! Anyone with an ounce of consciousness knows this. I know, just smile and go deaf! kisses

p.p.s. I still don't know where tears come from. Somewhere in the solar plexus.... miss you!

Mingus and Chase As Urned Carbon Deposits

Dear Sweet Mingus and Chase,

You're side by each again, but in a very dusty version of yourselves. It's a little/a lot macabre, but I'm getting into it. I put you above some of this year's canning. Okay? I'm sorry Ming, they didn't have any black urns so you're in a pearly ivory one like Chasearoo, but I can't find a black lab on roller skates for the top of your urn yet. I will. The orchid spray is from David upstairs. He left a beautiful bunch of them at our door on Tuesday.

Chelsea is hanging out with me today. She came with me to pick up your ashes. Very weird. We took you to the dog park but left you in the car. Very weird.

Do I have to serve liver birthday cake at your wake? I don't think the humans will like it. Chelsea is the only pooch left. You outlived all your buddies Mingie.

I miss everything about you.

Kisses,
The Bitch

p.s. I posted some of our friends kind sentiments on your death day page: http://mingusandthebitch.blogspot.com/2008/11/hey-i-didnt-take-elevator.html

copyright 2008 Christine Saulnier, Mingusandthebitch

The Morning After You Died, Mingus

Hey, how come I can't be at my wake with you? I'm here. Where are you? Where's that demolecularizing/remolecularizing poodle, Benson, when I need him? I need him to show me how to walk through walls.... so I can get back to you. Here's a slideshow for you T.B.. You look like shit when you're so sad. I'm glad you have a hair appointment today.

love,
Mingus

Words by Pablo Neruda, as recorded for soundtrack for the film 'Il Postino'



Dear Mingus,

I slept with your thick black fur blanket from your downstairs bed cause it smells like you. Please don't be jealous. I thought Benson had taught you how to beat the confines of traditional physics--where are you?

Here's a cool thing that happened. I was having a hand massage from a masseuse who doesn't know me and after she finished my right hand and was just starting work on my left she blurted out, "do you have a dog?". I burst into tears of course and had to tell her that you had "died" yesterday, and she said she didn't know how she knew but the thought wouldn't leave her mind while she was working on my right hand--body memory baby, body memory. Anyway, she worked the kinks out of my right hand which is now deformed from carrying your fat butt down the stairs for four months. I'll be glad when you get that demolecularize/remolecularize thing beat Minguslove.

Did you have dinner with Chase? Love him for me. Any signs of Icy and Jenny and Woody and Chelsea and Shadow and Marina???? Is there an ex-pat Labrador Club? How's the food?

I look a little less like shit. I had a haircut and color and put some make-up on. I'm going swimming. Why don't you remolecularize in the pool but be invisible and we can beat Stupid Health Regulations at his exclusionary game. :-) They'll just think that a hirsuit guy was swimming in the pool.

Kisses,
The Bitch

copyright 2008 Christine Saulnier, Mingusandthebitch

Hey, I Didn't Take The Elevator

MINGUS THE GREAT
APRIL 8, 1994-NOVEMBER 18, 2008


Sweet Mingus,

Don’t cry for me

RUN, SWIM, CHASE RABBITS, HAUL LOGS TO SHORE, BARK WITH THE VITALITY OF YOUR YOUTH,
and eat your peas.

Don’t cry for me

I know you won’t forget us. Who could?

I’m going to believe in something beyond your physical beauty.

I’m going to believe that your sweetness remains here on Earth.

I’m going to believe in something….

I’m going to believe in something sweet and not as salty as this deluge I’m leaking, so far only from my eyes and nose, but I think my mouth is going to join in soon.

By the way, you did pee again after you were dead.
How cool is that?
You didn’t eat the cookie I tried to give you for peeing though. I tried the kangaroo ones, then the buffalo liver….
I’m glad you ate some of that pot roast last night and didn’t save it for today or you would have missed it. Would you like to be cremated with the pot roast? I could drive back to the clinic and have it packaged up with you.

I’m going to throw up now and then I’ll get back to crying, and then maybe I’ll finally fall asleep. It’s been quite a few days since I slept, but I liked listening to you sleeping. I’ll miss listening to you sleeping I can tell.

Well, good-bye for now. We’ll commune again later in the day okay?

Your love,
Christine

p.s. You didn’t take the elevator. I carried you.


copyright 2008 Christine Saulnier, Mingusandthebitch

Christmas in November

I'm resting up for my big overnight adventure to visit AuntieLouisaMichel--WHO ARE THE SOLE PROPRIETERS OF THE BEST DOGGIE CULINARY BOUTIQUE IN THE WHOLE WIDE UNIVERSE!!!! Forget Urbane, I mean Urban, Fare, this is Top Dog Cafe! "Star Pets Only"

zzzzzzzzzzzz
Mingusindreamland

Wise or Just Old? My NIkes are wearing out....

So, I hippihopped down the stairs this morning in an effort to save T.B.'s back for a change and to impress her that I could go down on my own and she didn't have to carry me, and I did, and I peed, and I sniffed around, and then I had a damn seizure when I got back into our den. It was a happy seizure in My Bitch's lap, cause she saw it coming and caught me and snuggled me through it, but I'm pissed. My Nikes are wearing out as you can see in this picture, and yes, I realize I can't run anyway, but I liked the soft deep cushion of my younger feet. I know it is okay, T.B. loves me and fends for me no matter what. I wish I could still do the same for her.

Minguslove

Laryngeal Paralysis Next?

Will the indignities never end? We just get my hind quarter working a little better and now I'm likely to asphixiate! Who designed us? What moron gave us one big muscle and one long nerve to control such a long and important area from the top of my head, down my throat, around my heart and back up to my larynx??? Very f__king funny! I'm not amused, even if it means The Bitch strokes me most of the day and night. She looks like hell I might add when she doesn't get any sleep.

I'm breathing. I'm breathing. She said to consider it as doing Yoga together and practicing our deep breathing. Fact is, I can still do a better downward dog than T.B. can, so I can probably master deep breathing in a jiffy too!

Minguslove

I Had A Dream

Was I dreaming?

T.B.'s spirits have shifted. There's latent optimism surfacing, she says... "After a seemingly interminable period of havoc and darkness coming from that white house, it feels like HOPE can take a turn at setting the pace, not just for the United States, but for all of us. When the camera settled on the Rev. Jesse Jackson crying in the Chicago crowd--tears of exhaustion, hope, recognition, disbelief?-- a few hundred years of vicious solitude seemed unshackled at that moment. There is a sense that the U.S.A. has been delivered into the present tense and that there will be intelligent dialogue audible in the streets in my lifetime, Mingus, if not in yours."

copyright 2008 Christine Saulnier, Mingusandthebitch

The Human Credibility Crisis

It isn't just a credit crisis apparently. It is a crisis of credulity ... the loss of meaning in the language is just the tip of the Alaskan iceberg according to T.B.. She still believes in me though. Wholeheartedly. Unfailingly. Devotedly.

It's reciprocal.

Mingus

copyright 2008 Christine Saulnier, Mingusandthebitch

No Pork On The Election Day Menu

Can’t Beet The Blues Deep Dish Pie

Dark Mumbo Gumbo and Giant Shrimps

Where Are The Greens?

Garden of Eden Crumble with Proposition 8 cream


copyright 2008 Christine Saulnier, Mingusandthebitch

Green Contact Lenses For My Birthday

Minguslove! You put in green contact lenses for my birthday celebration!

Thanks for staying alive for another of my birthdays Mingie Pingie Pooporramma. It just wouldn't be happy without ya big boy.

kisses,
The Bitch