A Real Entry *gasps*

Yeah, yeah, I know, I’ve been lax for, well, forever now.  I just don’t have much in me these days.  Things pulling me from opposite directions, illness, just in a funk still.  But not so much that I am hiding in a darkened room crying or anything.  Just, yeah, I just don’t want to crawl around inside my own head much lately.

Let’s see, what can I type about.

Our Tenth Wedding Anniversary: was, well, quiet but lovely nonetheless.  Don’t know if I mentioned it in here or not but awhile back Brian and I had talked about taking a killer vacation somewhere tropical and outside of the US to celebrate this major milestone of marriage.  But then as you know he went and got hurt and that ended that.  Not just because of his injury, but because of lowered finances.  Instead I went to work, he sent me flowers.  GORGEOUS flowers.  I then took him to his (our) favorite Thai restaurant and we had dinner.  Then we went home and did the hokey pokey…I turned myself around.  *cackles*  Because, hey, as you know, that’s what it’s all about.

I still have Coco.  The original couple from Salem *getting mad again* that were so interested in him and whom strung me along for almost 2-months putting off the home visit?  Well it was because they hadn’t really talked to their landlord.  They assumed that it would be okay for them to have a dog because their downstairs neighbor had a dog.  About 3 weeks ago Diana and Luie were supposed to take Coco for the weekend as a trial run to see how he did with their cats.  I get an email that Friday morning saying they were waiting to hear back from their landlord.  Turns out the real landlord lives in Portugal or something and the son lives here and runs the place.  The son had to call the Dad to ask.  Saturday comes and Diana leaves me a voicemail message while Brian and I are out.  She’s crying and tells me the landlord said no.  Evidently the Boston Terrier on the first floor tore that place up.  Chewed moldings, floors, baseboards, you name it.  But the BT’s owner is related to the owner of the property.  Furthermore there was a tenant before that who had a very loud beagle that wasn’t taken care of and was left outside to bark incessantly all day long.  They also never cleaned up the yard of the dog’s waste.  So now I am back to square one.

Got a new inquiry about Coco last Friday morning.  The gentleman lives right down the street from me.  He completed his application right away, sent it back.  His vet reference and his landlord reference all clear.  I decide, something I’ve never actually done really, to do the homecheck that night after work.  He asks before I come over if I will bring Coco with me.  I always do when I do a homecheck any way, it’s smart.  I get to see the person interact with the dog firsthand and vice versa.  So over I went right after work.  Immediately upon meeting Guy I am struck with an overwhelming sense of lonliness just radiating off of him.  We go upstairs to his apartment and sit down and start talking.  Turns out Guy just separated from his wife of 26-years and she kept their beloved dog, a shih tzu named "Happy Days".  He’s got pictures all over the house of Happy Days.  Coco then proceeds to take a poop right on the floor.  I held my breath but Guy just laughed it off.  Whew.  He seemed like a great match for Coco, he loves to walk all over, Coco has energy to spare.  He’s a lonely dude who loves dogs, Coco is/was a lonely little dude who loves guys.  I went and agreed to leave Coco with him for a test run.  We go to leave and Coco starts pulling to come with me.  I get outside the door and into the car and just start balling my eyes out.  I missed him already.  I literally cried all night long on Friday.  Sobbed even.  Weird for me.  I usually do not allow myself to get attached to fosters I take in.  Well, I haven’t in the past any way.  But for some reason, perhaps because I’ve had Coco now for so long, perhaps it’s because he’s so playful and funny, perhaps it’s because he soaks up love and attention…I don’t know.  All I know is I was so sad and missed him terribly.  Saturday comes and there’s an email from Guy back to me saying that he and Coco had such a great evening together.  Immediately after we left Guy took Coco for a long walk on the beach.  He said Coco loved it.  (I already knew that as Coco has become my beach walking partner because he’s the only one of my monsters who doesn’t go completely nuts when he sees a larger dog.)  He went on to say Coco made no mistakes in his house overnight, sat and listened to him practice the same song on the guitar for 2-hours and then went and slept at the foot of Guy’s bed that night.  (Here I was worried about Coco freaking out and feeling like I’d abandoned him when in fact he perfectly adjusted immediately.)  The next morning he said he left Coco for 1/2 hour to go to get coffee and Coco was sitting where he left him just waiting for him.  Then he took Coco to work with him where he stayed all day.  He said although Coco was a great little dog he wasn’t yet ready to commit to adopting him because he is unsure how his beloved dog will get along with him.  Secretly delighted Coco was coming back to me Saturday night because Guy had to go to Andover to pick his daughter up and go prom dress shopping with her.

So he’s back with me.  I’m still looking for a home for him, I am.  But secretly I do want to keep him.  Yet I understand how impossible this is considering I have 4 of my own and RENT.  I can’t imagine how tough it would be if I had to find a new apartment with 5 dogs!  Bah! 

I’m saying this now, to mark it down permanently, this will be my absolute LAST foster dog.  I am just way too soft for this now.  I see this clearly now.

Other than that?  Work is work, days are days.  Now I’d better skeedaddle and get some work done.  I am getting paid for this.