I'm officially an
adult! I officially live in California! My mom
has seen my house. All is right with the
world.
:-)
I
believe only people who have moved far
from home understand my excitement. It
doesn't feel official until your parents
say so. LOL. It all feels like some
long-running game of make-believe. Hell
who am I kidding, I don't know
if you ever feel like an adult sometimes.
I think that's the key to life - you
just keep acting like you know what you're
doing and someday you look up and you're a
dad with kids wondering the same thing you
were.
But it
is an overwhelming feeling of
accomplishment to finally have my mom come
out and see me in my own environment. It's
like the night my dad watched me running
The Late Show on WTVN. It just changes
everthing. It's hard-wired into our
DNA to make our parents proud and a
big part of that is them just seeing you
as a self-sufficient human. I'm sure my
mother assumed that I was capable of
paying bills, but I think even she would
admit that it finally puts everything into
perspective for her to actually see
my house. See my city. It's a
connection I think you just have to
make with people you love. And of course
she had to have a picture with Spencer.
It's worth the flight for that alone. Man
that's eerie. :-)
Now as monumental
as all of this is for The Journey, #600 is by all
means a double dipper. It was the death of Shizzle
that finally made my mom come out to see me (mom's
just know sometimes) and we promptly went to Pet
Orphans Fund to see what we could find...
Say hello to Miss
CeBe Snazzypants. Figured that was a creative way to
work CBS into the name of the new pup. Her name is
obviously just CeBe, but I have a place in my heart
for Snazzypants and it does indeed round out all 3
letters of the acronym. She's an 11 week old Lab-mix
that easily stole everyone's heart and has quickly
healed Miss Roxy...
...who had taken
loneliness to new heights. I thought I was
pathetic when it came to Shizzle. This old pup was
just agonizing to watch. As I mentioned before,
I'm not really ready to get a new puppy, but
I just feel so responsible for Roxy that there
was no other choice. How hard it is to watch a pet be
depressed... I've just never experienced that. So sad.
Amazingly she was waggin' her tail the moment we
brought Cebe home and little by little they've bonded.
Each day a little more...
Roxy
is incredibly gentle and CeBe is
completely
fearless.
Roxy even lets CeBe eat out of her food
bowl as just a minor annoyance. Her
demeanor is night and day from where she
was a week ago. It literally melts your
heart. Again, I've just never experienced
a grieving animal and wow... it really is
heartbreaking.
I'm
however... a little shellshocked. I've
expressed ad infinitum what Shizzle meant
to me, and I'm fairly certain that he's
that one dog you have in your life that
you never really get over. In the
same way I'll never own a cat that
I bonded with like J-Dog, I'm pretty
certain my body won't allow me to get
as close for a very, very long time
to another dog.
It's
like Roxy... I love Roxy - but it really
didn't come close to the connection
I felt with Shizzle. I still
play with Roxy and sing to her... but
she's just a dog. I get the same feeling
with CeBe and it completely feels like I'm
trying to heal Roxy...not myself. It's
actually made me miss Shizzle more. Man
I hope CeBe holds off on learnin' to
read until I can sit her down and
explain this to her. I'm sure by that time
she'll understand.
You can't deny
she's cute though. And that does go a long
way.
I'll leave you
with a joke CeBe told me tonight that was quite funny
for such a young pup...
See, I was
expecting "Catsup", but she put a twist on it. I
respect that.
