I'm Temporarily Giving Up on Mascara

The long hot days of summer had a stronghold on September. That intense heat has slowly faded as the daylight hours have shortened, and it is slowly starting to feel like autumn has arrived.

It seems fitting that our home is experiencing its own transitions, one of which that has made me somewhat distant as I've tried to emotionally deal with the change.

It's Archibald.

Back in that dreadful September, he began to have trouble using his hind legs. After a couple of days of "taking it easy," his mobility worsened and soon, he wasn't able to walk at all. It appeared that he had hurt his back; however after many tests, and many visits to specialists, we learned that there is a tiny lesion inside his spinal cord which is causing paralysis.  It's unknown as to what exactly this lesion is, because it's very rare, but most likely it is some sort of cancer. 

Here is Archie, thrilled to be in the car, extremely happy for a dog who was just told he has cancer and will never independently walk again.

Since he doesn't have an actual diagnosis, we have no idea what his potential life expectancy is. Based on the battery of tests he endured, we did learn that other than this tiny thing in his spinal cord, he shows no other signs of cancer.

It's incredible how something so small can create so much chaos. 

The first week after we learned that he most likely had cancer, I could barely look at him before I would begin to cry. The thought of him no longer being a part of our family broke my heart. But, Archie finds crying to be distasteful and accordingly, I am sucking it up.

He's on medication to manage his discomfort and to reduce the inflammation that the lesion is placing on his spinal cord. The medication is pretty amazing -- within being on it for 1 week, he is now capable of placing some weight on his back legs.  This is a remarkable improvement and makes it easier on us when we take him outside.

Since we don't know how much time we have left with him, I've been allowing him to do pretty much whatever he pleases. We go to the park, and he gets to lounge on a blanket without a leash; he lays out on the back patio in the sun (which is a no-no considering he is a skin cancer survivor); there is no daily cap on the number of treats allotted to him; and every meal comes with a tiny bit of peanut butter.

Here he is on his newly created outdoor patio bed, doing what he's always wanted to do for 3 years: forcing Lola to lay on the concrete, while he lounges on memory foam.

At the park for a Sunday afternoon picnic, with a little assistance from Josh.

After a lot of soul searching and asking myself, how am I going to be able to do this, I've come to a sort of peace. I've decided that I need to focus on the fact that my role is provide him with security, comfort, and love. As long as he has those three things, he will be happy and then, I will be happy too.

These last few days of summer

Put away your pumpkin spice latte, Internet. It's still summer.

Well, or should I say, it's still summer in our town. The daytime temps are continuing to hover around 90 degrees which means we are continuing to spend our weekends at the community pool. Earlier, in August, we had something like 10 days of temperatures of 100 degrees or higher.  Never before has 90 felt so good.

In honor of this hot weather, Amy visited us. She fled her cloudy city in search of some sun. She got plenty of that, and this cute kid who was eagerly waiting for her at the train station.

Lola, in her newest pose, the double thumbs up.

We spent the weekend engaging in a trifecta of things you do when its really hot outside:

1. We saw an outdoor movie at the park.
2. We swam at the community pool.
3. We went to a River Cats game and ate Merlino's Freezes.

This was Amy's first time at a River Cats game, and her first experience eating a Merlino's.  Hopefully, it lived up to its yelp hype. 

We did wear our jackets at the game, but I think that's only because after sweating out 90 all day, 70 degrees is just a little cold.

Conversations with Lola

Given that it's summer and we have an abundance of summer squash at our house, I like to add zucchini to anything that I can. This includes pancakes. On Sunday, I made a huge batch of zucchini pancakes, and when I handed one to Lola, I pointed out its green flecks and told her that her pancake had zucchini in it.  She looked at it and then turned to Archie and said, "Look Archie, my pancake is wearing a bikini!"

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I tell Lola that I want to stop at Ulta, a beauty supply store, on the way home from her swim class. She loves to frequent the fragrance counter there.  She asks, "Do they have cookie monster perfume?"

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At home while looking at the Ulta catalog, I hand Lola one of the perfume samples. It's Lady Gaga's new fragrance,"Fame."  Lola smells it and then hands it to me.  "I like it. It smells like sandwiches."
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Upon seeing herself in the mirror, wearing her new soccer cleats: "When I grow up, I'm going to be a famous soccer girl!"

Family Camping Trip, Part V

We also fit in some serious beach time.

Lola with Josh and Jacob, and of course, her kite.

Lola with her "Dan Dan"

 Lola with her "Auntie Auntie"

Upon her request, Lola was semi-buried in the sand.

And a family photo too!

The beach was also home to a creek, which Lola really enjoyed. Even though she is theoretically loves the ocean, she is also simultaneously terrified of it. Still water is really her preference. Josh attempted to teach her how to skip rocks.

His lesson, as he expected fell a bit flat, but she did have fun "skipping" rocks with her daddy.

Family Camping Trip, Part IV

On one of the afternoons of our trip, we went to see the local elephant seals. Whoever named thee animals really did a great job.

 Lola was mesmerized by them for approximately 3 minutes. However, the rest of us probably could have stayed and observed them all afternoon.

I tried to take a photo with Lola, but she wasn't into it. 

 

So, instead, I took a photo of Daisy, who by the way, was also interested in the seals for about 3 minutes. 

I think we were the only American tourists at the seal santcuary. We were surrounded by European travelers. So, in typical tourist fashion, I requested that someone take a family photo for us. Lola has such a serious look on her face, she might as well be saying, "These are my people."

Family Camping Trip, Part III

There's something about the hot valley air that makes me crave the ocean.  My need for some marine layer usually starts around mid-July, which is a big reason why our summer family trips are set on the coast for this time of year.  Josh indulges me by driving us down Highway 1, even though we both know this route is the long way.

Our first glimpse of the water is in Benicia, but we always joke how that doesn't count. It's the Bay, we say, as we continue toward Santa Cruz. Each mile we head west, the temperature drops. First down to 90, then 80, and as it quickly moves toward 70, it settles in around a blessed 68. If we're lucky, it may even dip into the low 60s.

Winding our way into Big Sur, I roll down my window. Lola shouts, the wind is too much for her in the backseat. I take a deep breath.  We've made it, I say. Josh quickly reminds me of the many miles we have to go, the many extra miles we must go.

But that's OK, because this road is my indulgence. It's my welcome to summer, enjoy it while it lasts, because in a week you'll have to go back to heat, back to work, back to reality.

Each trip, something unusual will happen. It's like this highway knows it has a historical reputation to live up to.  Last year, as dawn broke on the west, we saw a man on a skateboard. Given that this road can barely contain its two lanes, plus a slew of bicyclists who believe in playing chicken with amateur RV drivers, skateboarders tend to stick to the small coastal town.  But he, he was moving so fast, we had no need to slow down other than to stare.  His friends followed him in a van, one of them hinging themselves on the side of the vehicle with a video camera in hand. Later on, we searched for him on YouTube. We never found him, and now I wonder if I imagined it all.

This year, it was I who nearly fell out of the passenger side window, as I saw a California condor. Given that this was the only time I had ever seen one outside of a zoo, I could barely stay in the car when I saw it sunning itself on a cliff. Josh! I shrieked. A condor!! A what? He shouted.

In which we then had a very brief discussion as to how he would not be turning around the car to go and verify my sight, and no he would not stop the car so I could run up the cliff and take a photo to confirm that I did indeed see a condor.  The conclusion of this conversation then led into another in which we began talking about exactly how endangered California condor birds are (the one I saw had large tag marked "40" on it), what sort of habitat they must require, and the possibility of whether that specific condor had been born at the San Diego Wild Animal Park (which we determined was not likely.)

After another hour of switchbacks, slow traffic, and an endearing conversation about conservation, we leave the rugged cliffs and coming flying out onto the flatland. 65 has never felt so fast. Only a few more miles and we're there.



 

Family Camping Trip, Part II

I realize that I'm about to contradict myself from my previous claim that our only camping activities consist of eating, sleeping, and reading. While it is true that we do mostly sleep and eat, and occasionally read, on this particular trip we were lucky enough to be staying in a state park that was home to an easy 3.5 mile hiking trail. 

Being the bossy mother hen that I am, I broke the eat-sleep-read cycle and I rallied the troops out into the woods. 

 

Josh insisted on carrying Lola on his back.

He claimed it would be a good work out.

At different points during the hike, there were informational signs about the area. Several of them mentioned animals native to the area, like mountain lions, bobcats, and snakes. Since my niece had already seen two snakes near the campground, I was a little nervous about running into more natives. 

Thankfully, the only thing we saw was a lizard, which my nephew plucked off a log like Bear Grylls! He flipped it over, you can see that the lizard has a blue belly.

Other informational signs described the native plants, including one that went into extensive details about poison oak. I was particularly thankful for that sign because directly next to the sign was a beautiful bush full of red berries that I thought looked delicious. The sign indicated that poison oak bushes had red berries and included an illustration that was strikingly identical to the berries that I wanted to snack on.

Halfway through our trip, we ran into a family hiking the opposite direction as us, and the father said, "By the way, there are some berry bushes ahead, but I don't recommend eating them because they are very sour."

Can you get poison oak in your mouth? I'm thankful to say, I don't know.


However, speaking of awkward moments, Andrea and I took an awkward family photo. For whatever reason, she is grabbing my waistband, and I about to punch her in the chest.

Realizing how awkward we were, our subsequent photos proved to be futile as we couldn't stop laughing.

When we got back to camp, Lola and Josh were a sweaty mess. Lola was less than thrilled about the situation, but I was thankful for the coin-operated lukewarm showers available to us.