Julie and I were getting groceries on that stormy day. We had our hands full and as I fished in my pocket to get the keys to the front door I saw something behind me. It was a bedgralled blond dog with long overgrown hair. She appeared to have decided to come in the house with us.

I put her in the backyard, but she started barking due to the thunder. Feeling sympathy I convinced Julie to let me bring her in and give her a bath. Julie didn't want to. I gave her the bath and Roxie followed Julie around the house for the next day. Obviously knowing who she had to convince to get adopted. She was our hobo dog. Ready to settle down after a rough life riding the rails.

So yesterday stunk. We had our vet appointment for Roxie at 4:30pm. That morning Stella was a hellion. Screaming louder than we had ever heard her scream before. She's been off kilter because our lives have been so busy, and I think our generally despondent mood just pushed her over the edge.

My mom graciously volunteered to watch Stella while we took Roxie in. Roxie had been lying in her bed for two days. I occasionally picked her up and took her to the water bowl or took her outside. While Julie was gone I took her to her water bowl. She drank a bit, then staggered towards the back door.

I took her outside and she stood on the grass. Then she staggered around, wagging her tail with her head in the air. Roxie was never a big tail wagger, so you could really tell that she enjoyed being outside. She wandered slowly through her normal haunts. Then she stopped at the best place in the yard. There's a box hedge to the left and the right, and you can see the entire yard all the way up to the 600 year old oak tree.

Roxie just stood there for about 20 minutes looking at the oak tree. When I look at that tree I feel like my life is so short. Many generations have come and gone under that tree. I can't even imagine how old it must feel for a dog.

Her passing was quick. The vet agreed that while she could potentially help her, she could never get her quality of life back up to anything resembling good. We got to spend some time saying goodbye to her after we agreed that putting her to sleep was the best option. They put her on a leopard print blanket so that she wasn't on the cold examining table. She looked very peaceful as we looked into her eyes. Then she was gone and they took her away. And we sobbed for a bit. And then left to go get Stella and get some big hugs.

This morning Stella said, "No pee yet" when we walked into the kitchen. She had become the pee spotter for incontinent Roxie. And I had to explain to her that Roxie wouldn't be peeing on our floor anymore, and that she'd gone to the doghouse in the sky to be one of Jesus' doggies. And she did her frownie face for a few seconds and gave me a hug, and then ate her breakfast.

Thanks to everyone for your kind words.

So my dog Roxie is dying. From what I can tell she's dying of old age. This has involved a loss of appetite. Loss of weight. A bit of dementia. A bit of hearing loss. A lot of incontinence.

We kept expecting to wake up one morning and she wouldn't wake up with us.

But she just keeps getting worse. Her back legs barely keep her up. This morning she woke me up howling softly. She was splayed out flat on the floor. She had slipped and landed so that she was partially under our Victrola, and couldn't get up. Plus she had slipped on her own waste. Which I'm assuming was not particularly pleasant for her to lay in.

This insured that she got a bath today. Which she found unpleasant.

Then at lunch time she got stuck in the middle of one of our box hedges. And barked to be let out. Just now she got stuck inside a chair. I've figured out that she's getting into these messes because she's trying to stand up with something else helping to prop her up.

She's sitting on my lap now. I guess we'll need to see the vet in the next few days.

I guess I've been prepared for her to die, but not for her to suffer.

This is the view I got of St. Basil\'s and the Kermlin in Moscow, right after arriving. Well first after arriving we had to walk past the scary soldiers with machine guns (I really appreciate the US Government not putting machine guns in our airports). Then we had to wait for the the 20 odd 75lb suitcases to come through the bagage check, and put them into a van. I seem to recall at this point my dad noticed the destroyed printer from the last post, and was ushered into a small smokey windowless office to talk about possible remedies. I seem to recall they wanted to give us roubles. Which at the time were worth 1/6 of a dollar. That\'s not too bad except you couldn\'t really find anyone to change your roubles to dollars. The other way around was easy. But we needed a replacement printer from the United States where they don\'t take roubles so there was a protracted negotiation that went on for quite a while before my dad got the money for the new printer from Pan Am.
But back to the picture. You see, being the consumate tourist I am. I fell asleep in the van, woke up long enough to notice that the van had stopped and that there was "that building from those pictures", and drifted back off to sleep. Apparently everyone else went to St. Basil\'s and took pictures in Red Square, and went to GUM, which is apparently this amazingly big department store/mall thing near the Kremlin. I mostly slept. Never to fear though, I did eventually go into St. Basil\'s on a subsequent trip to Moscow (to go anywhere in the Soviet Union you had to either go through Moscow or St. Petersburg). Oddly enough it was very small and dark inside, and was reminiscent of a cave made out of wood. You would not guess from the bright cheerful exterior that the inside looks like a fairy tale woodcutting. Next stop Domodedovo airport! Well, unless I go back and talk about the Baptists we stayed with in Lancaster, PA. Their last name was Booze. They were Baptists.

Lookie here kids... isn\'t that Tim sitting inside that ugly green van? Ready to leave on a 5 week trip across the United States that will culminate in a plane ride across the Atlantic to the Soviet Union. I\'m not remembering the number of bags. I think we could only have 18, but then we paid for extras maybe? All those bags were the full 75lb. max weight limit, btw. And yes, we did cart a large proportion of these through the Paris Metro (albeit a bit later, maybe we\'ll have more pictures then). Ah... good times.

You might also wonder how we got all those suit cases in that van with 6 people. Not with people sitting particularly ergnomically I can tell you that.

Your euphamism for the day is deputation. This is when you go from church to church asking people for monetary and prayer support. I suppose this is because they are deputizing you to carry out the good work they should be doing, but can\'t because, well... fill in the blank as you will.

UPDATE: The longer I look at this picture, the more I remember. See this box? That\'s our Epson Dot Matrix printer. When we got to Alma-Ata it had a gigantic hole through the middle of the box. It was amazing. It was as though they had taken a Javelin and thrown it straight through the printer. The most impressive part was that they had managed to get all of the circuit boards. This was back in the early nineties when most technology was still in a huge box with a lot of empty space in it, so the airline\'s ability to target the most sensitive part of the printer was impressive. We had traveled to the Soviet Union via an Aeroflot/Pam Am joint venture. So my dad had to get a refund from Pan Am, and then get a new printer hand carrier over to us. I\'ll write more about the topic of hand carrying things soon.

yes, apparently my parents are moving to San Dimas, CA, Ted. I should probably call them and find out for sure, but that\'s an awful lot of work to go to. I\'m sure they\'ll tell me for sure at some point.