Goodbye Violet

We had to put Violet to sleep on April 30th, just about a week after her eighth birthday. We had thought that her cancer treatments were working and she was making progress, but things took a wrong turn and fluid started to fill her lungs earlier in April. Once she began to struggle to breathe, we could tell that it was only a matter of time before her quality of life would plummet. We didn't want to see her suffer. I was really glad that we had an in-home vet come and help us to say goodbye to her in our home. We were all there.

It was a very sad time and I had several big cries in the following weeks. I asked J to help me get rid of the dog things in the house, because it made me too sad to see them. I remember going on one long run on the trail in our neighborhood and listening to Carole King songs, and intermittently crying on the trail during different songs. I turned off notifications on my phone sometimes, including on my birthday, because I didn't really want to talk to anyone. We went down to the Enchanted Forest that weekend and tried to distract ourselves.

It took me a while to be able to write this post, not just due to lack of time (we have been moving!) but also my emotional bandwidth. But I feel like I am in a good place tonight, and I want to celebrate My Lovey Girl. I loved to give Violet ridiculous nicknames, mostly because she clearly had no idea what I was saying and why the nicknames were ridiculous to begin with. Vivian and I used to give over-the-top silly nicknames to our little sisters when they were tiny ("Milly Willy Huggy Hilly Lovey Lilly Silly Gilly"), so I'm sure I was tapping into my childhood while calling Violet silly names. 

Most nicknames involved some mixture of these words or similar ones: "fluffy," "bum," "lovey," "heart," "day," and "face." I will try to remember all of the ones that I have said to her (and I'll have to come back as I am reminded of more or my family reminds me of more):

• Bummy Cheeksie Love
• Fluffiest of the Fluffies
• Fluffiest of the Fluffs
• Fluffy Bum
• Fluffy Bummy Cheeksie Love
• Fluffy Bummy Face
• Fluffy Bummy Girl
• Fluffy Bummy Squish
  
• Fluffy Face
• Fluffy Squishy Bummy Love
• Loviest Heart
• Loviest Heart of the Fluffiest Day
• Loviest Heart of the Squishiest Day
  
• Loviest Girl
• Lovey Girl
• Lovey Heart
• My Babiest Love
• My Babiest Love of the Heartiest Day
• My Heart of Love
• My Lovey Baby
• My Loviest Girl
• My Loviest Girl of the Heartiest Day
• My Squishy Lovey Heart
• Smooshy Face (when she woke up from a nap and her fur was smooshed over to one side
• Snuggle Bum
• Snuggle Bummy Heart
• Squishy Face
• Stanky Leg Girl (when she would sit with one of her back legs pushed out straight at an angle - we called this her "stanky leg")
• Trouble Bum
• Trouble Heart
• Troubliest Trouble Bum
• Troubliest Trouble Heart
• Violet Beauregarde
• Waggle Bum
• Waggle Heart
• Wiggle Bum
• Wiggle Heart

We miss just about everything about Violet. We even miss reprimanding her and telling her to stop barking at the neighbors, and we miss getting amused at her belligerent silent barks (when we would tell her to stop barking while in the yard, and she would stare at us and give silent barks to let us know that she wasn't going to fully obey). We sure miss all of her quirky ways, too. We miss finding random bones on the front porch or in Lucy's room. We miss having her silently stare at us while standing at the front door, willing us to know that she wanted to go out. We miss watching her carry her food in her mouth from the dog bowl to the carpet, so she can eat only on carpet. J and I miss holding her while we drive (she loved sitting in the driver's seat best) and getting her to nestle just right into our laps on the driver's side, with her little forearms on either side of our arm. We miss seeing her sitting on top of the couch or the chair, especially when she would extend her back legs behind her and do a "spread eagle" move across the top of the couch.

We really appreciate the kind friends and family members who sent small gifts. One of them included the drawing at the top of this post that my brother A commissioned by cousin H to create. It looks so much like Violet!

Now that we are in our new house, I keep reminding myself that it was nice for Violet to spend her whole life at our old house. It had plenty of carpet (her favorite surface), a big yard (we called it her "estate"), and a high porch so that she could look down (literally and metaphorically) on everyone who walked past. She wouldn't have been as comfortable here. We tried out best to make her feel comfortable and happy her whole life, right up until the end. Goodbye, sweet Loviest Heart of the Squishiest Day. 💜

Birthday Celebrations

I had a wonderful 40th birthday and I felt very spoiled for several days! The celebrations started the evening before my birthday. Jeremy, Lucy and I went to hear the Tallis Scholars concert at Saint James Cathedral. We dropped Sam and my MIL off downtown too, so they could attend the Paul McCartney concert that same night. (I was torn choosing between the Tallis Scholars and Sir Paul, but I decided to go to the Tallis Scholars since I have been lucky enough to hear Paul perform three times.) Of course I ran into Joy Sherman there, which was was a delightful birthday gift because she is one of the people I love and admire most in this world. Whenever I run into choir concerts, Jeremy jokes that he plans it as part of the celebration.

Lucy was kind of wiggly during the performance, but everyone in our family had a good evening!

The next day I had to work, but I had a break between classes. Carrie and Rachael took me out to eat for lunch at Café Flora, a restaurant that I love because of all of the vegetarian options. I love these women so much! This is our first official photo being members of the "40s Club" together - which only lasted a few weeks before Rachael had another birthday.

Here I am with my fancy in-house soda drink. I can't remember the drink, but probably pomegranate-flavored. I'm very predictable in what I order.

What I didn't know is that while I was at work, Carrie and Rachael also were busy decorating my lawn. I came home from work in the afternoon and saw that they had left a yard sign, heart-attack designs and 40 tulips on my porch! These women know how to celebrate and I felt so loved that day!

I think that evening we had Thai food for takeout. Sam had a cello lesson that evening, so our birthday meal was a quick one. But the great part of that evening was that Violet jumped through a hoop for me, not just once but multiple times. I have been trying to train her for months to jump through a hoop and she finally acquiesced on my birthday!

The rest of our celebration continued that weekend, when J and I stayed at Treehouse Point for a night while my in-laws watched the kids. We ate a fancy dinner at the Snoqualmie Lodge and even won $100 that night! It was a lovely date and the treehouse was charming.

The next morning, Jeremy dropped me off at the Rachael's house and we headed out for a Girls' Day celebration. We first went to Value Village and found some sequiny and fancy outfits to wear rollerskating. Then we took a long walk along the the waterfront toward Alki Beach, and I remember we had a long chat about sharing opinions about abortion rights and the constitution because of the Roe vs. Wade leak. I love the variety and intellect of the conversations that we have together. Then we ate lunch at Salty's and went out for pedicures at Daily Nail & Spa on 35th Ave (they did a really good job for a good price!).

Probably the biggest surprise of all was that afterward, Rachael and Carrie took me to iFly for a surprise indoor skydiving adventure! I knew that they were taking me somewhere for a surprise, and my only clue was that I needed to bring something to hold my hair back. When they told me this (the day before), I had joked with them in a text thread that the hair tie was for a skydiving activity. They laughed and diverted the conversation elsewhere, but I did get a bit suspicious when I told Jeremy later about my skydiving joke and he got a stricken look on his face and then tried to laugh at my joke. But I still was surprised when they took us to iFly. I wasn't sure if I would be nervous, but it really was fun and a very memorable way to celebrate with friends. I knew this would be an especially dear memory, knowing that Rachael would be moving away in just a few months.

We had a little bit of time to kill before the last part of our marathon Girls' Day Out - which was the one thing that I had planned and requested. So we hung out at the Southcenter Mall for a little bit, wearing our matching iFly shirts while we shopped at Sephora and ate at the food court. Then we headed to the Southgate Roller Rink for disco skating. (Although there wasn't really a lot of disco music, but that's okay.) It was so fun to be back on skates again and revive a dormant part of me that I never get to do anymore!

This video makes me laugh because we clearly are trying to be all cool with our "raise the roof" dance skills and thrift store purchases, but we're kind of fumbling around even more nerdy when I stop and say, "I think we're blurry!" Ha! I also like that I'm chewing gum in this video (because I rarely do now, but I did it a lot when I was a teenager so it fits with throwback disco skating vibe that night).

These several days were really wonderful and I'll always remember them. I feel lucky to have such a great family and such great friends. The Bruno Mars song "Skate" has been reminding me of this birthday adventure since it happened, and now that Rachael has moved away I keep thinking of how the Bruno Mars song "Count on Me" also is a good one to encapsulate our special friendship. I know that, despite the geographic distance, that the lyrics of the song still pertain to our friendship: we will always "be there" for each other and we will "never say goodbye" to each other.

Violet Faces

Sometimes, like earlier this afternoon, Violet can drive me crazy. She was barking to get let outside every ten minutes, and then barking three minutes after I let her out, asking to come back inside. And then sometimes when I open the door for her, she just stares at me and won't walk in. Sometimes she'll come in after a minute, I graciously bow to her in and usher her in while saying something silly like, "Yes, come in! Welcome puppy, please enter your abode!" Today, after being such an annoying pill and yapping so she could be let inside yet again, she had the gall to lie down and just stare at me, without moving a muscle, when I opened the door for her.

She probably just wanted a friend to come out and enjoy the sunshine with her. But I was getting plenty of sunshine myself, as I kept going outside to get her away from barking at Maddie (the neighbor's dog on the other side of the fence). But despite getting annoyed, she is a Snuggle Face and we have lots of fun with her. She gives us the cutest Dickensian eyes during dinner time, so that we will take pity on her and give her scraps of food. She never begs for food by barking or pawing at us, she just s-t-a-r-e-s into our eyes for a l-o-n-g time. I usually say something like "Please sir, can I have some more?" or "Penny for the baby, sir!" (from "Scrooge") when I see her pinpointed, constant gaze. This is what we see when we look under the dinner table during mealtimes:

So even though she can be annoying, she is very cute and we love her. And I'm glad that she mostly just likes to snuggle with us on the couch. She is a fun friend to have while I sit on the loveseat and grade student submissions. Lately she has been perching on the back of the couch cushions, too:

Violet Puppy Dog

This picture was taken the day that we brought Violet home.

One of the reasons I haven't been able to blog so much this year is due to the topic of this post: our puppy Violet. We got a new puppy in June this past year and she has filled up much of our free time. It has been an adjustment having a new kind of baby in our house, but we really do love her. I have never really considered myself to be much of a dog lover (which is ironic, since I worked at a pet store for two and a half years as a teenager), but Violet won our hearts over. Just like with having kids, I think that often a person grows to love pets if you have one of your own.

Lucy actually was the first person to plant the idea in our heads about getting a dog. For several weeks she talked about how she wanted to have a white dog that she named Coco. I would look up pictures of white Bichon Frise puppies online to show Lucy, and she would gasp and say, "That's Coco!" This led me, out of curiosity, to see if there were any Bichon Frise puppies for sale in the area. When there was a litter of eight that was born on April 22nd, and the breeder didn't live too far away., I convinced J that we should go and "just look" when the puppies were old enough to leave their mother. Of course, the puppies were so darling that we couldn't resist them at all.

These are Violet's seven siblings. We watched them play while the breeder got Violet ready to come home with us.

Violet's siblings

The breeder had each puppy in the litter wear a different colored collar, so that she could tell them apart. Our puppy had a violet-colored collar, which ended up influencing the name that we chose for her. (I'm glad we convinced Lucy that we shouldn't name the puppy Coco, especially since "cocô" means poop in Portuguese.) Violet is sweet and demure like a small violet flower, I think, so her name is fitting.

The day we brought Violet home

Sam's friend Logan lived near the breeder, so we invited Logan to join us

After we got Violet home, I realized that I had a slight allergic reaction to her. We debated sending her back to the breeder, but we decided to stick with it - Sam sobbed and sobbed when we brought up the possibility of sending her away, and I felt like I couldn't break his heart (and truly, it was a sad thing for any of us to consider). For the first several weeks that she was with us my throat often had a tickle (especially after I vacuumed) and sometimes my nose would be runny. But we found an air purifier that helped and my immune system has since built up a tolerance to the small amount of dander that she produces. Luckily, she doesn't shed and that helps.

For the most part, Violet has been a fairly easy pet. She also doesn't bark very much. She loves to sit in our laps and likes to have J scratch her ears. She is patient with the kids; she adores Sam and tolerates Lucy's affectionate hugs. The only time she is really difficult -- which isn't that bad -- is when she gets a naughty streak and runs away from us. She zooms around the yard and often digs in the dirt while we chase her. We usually call this her "witching hour" behavior (J's co-worker calls it the "zoomies") since Violet goes back to her demure self afterward.

Violet likes to sleep in funny positions along the baseboards of the house that make us laugh:

One of Violet's other quirks is that she doesn't like to eat her food right at her dish. She gets kibble in her mouth and then steps a foot or two away (or even walks into the next room) to chew it. She also has a lot of self-control with food and will stop eating if she is full, which is different from the dog I had growing up (Maple).

Violet's favorite activities include picking up toys and bones and distributing them around the house to arbitrary locations. She also likes to join in when J plays a game he made up ("The Leg Game") with Lucy and Sam. She adores J and likes to be with him all the time. She also responds best when J is disciplining her.

Violet also likes to find makeshift dens around the house. She doesn't like to sleep in her crate, but she loves to sleep under couches and also in her soft travel carrier. Sam tried to climb under the loveseat and join her one day, but he got stuck after I took this picture (below) and I had to lift up the loveseat so he could get out!

It has been fun to watch Sam assume responsibilities and care for Violet. He is so good at taking care of her basic needs, playing with her, and walking her.

Sam carrying Violet on a hike in Lake Tahoe over this past summer

In fact, the only reason I have free time right now is because I'm watching Violet while J is with his brothers and their families at RB. We hoped to send Violet to doggie day care for the day, but Violet went into heat yesterday (her first and only one) and, for obvious reasons, should not be around other dogs. Currently she's sitting in my lap while wearing a makeshift diaper made from one of Lucy's Disney princess panties.

We plan to get Violet spayed, but she had some health issues this summer which led our vet to recommend that she get spayed after her first heat. The health issues really made this summer difficult for us and Violet - and I think that the stress is what caused me to lose all of the hair in the middle of my right eyebrow (which, thankfully, is now growing back). About two or three weeks after we got Violet, she began to squat frequently to urinate and would squat for long periods of time (as if straining to urinate). She also would wake me and Jeremy up multiple times in the night - it was worse than having a newborn! We thought she had a bladder infection, and we treated her for such, but her squatting and straining didn't improve. Our vet began to write off the behavior as simply a quirk, but then Violet began to have traces of blood in her urine. Again, she was treated with antibiotics but without result.

Finally, about two months since Violet's symptoms began, the vet did an ultrasound and found that there were multiple stones in her bladder. We made an appointment for her to go in for surgery, and a few days later the surgeon opened her up to discover that the stones were gone! After dealing with the stones for two months, she passed them just in the day or two before she went in for surgery! If only dogs could talk - then she could have told us that she didn't need to go in for surgery after all! We still had to pay for the surgery and Violet had to heal from her incision, which was really maddening and unfortunate.

This was taken just after Violet came home from her surgery, and the anesthesia still was wearing off. What a rough day!

Since that point, we have kept Violet on a special rice-and-egg kibble diet with a Cosequin supplement. In order to make sure that she gets enough protein (since she no longer eats the regular puppy food), she has a hard-boiled egg about every other day. She may be on the smaller side because of this special diet and her health issues, but I don't mind if she ends up being small.

Since Violet passed her stones and recovered from her surgery, she really has been an easy pet. She likes to sit in my lap when I work, and she is a cute fluffy buddy.