Yesterday evening, 24 hours ago as I write this, Raina and I came home to find that Grizz had died.  We knew it was coming, but we weren’t prepared, of course.  Raina is devastated.  Grizz was a member of our family for thirteen and a half years.  He was a great friend to us, and he so loved his mommy.  Toward the end, he spent every possible moment by Raina’s side.  When he lost his hearing a few months back, the only way he could know he was in the same room with her was to have some part of his body touching the chair or couch she was sitting in.  That way, when he felt movement, he knew he need only look up to see where she was going so he could achingly get up to follow her.  After a while, his arthritis pain kept him from doing that.   Lately, he had been panting nearly all the time, which we learned indicated a possible heart problem.

Raina was most sad over the fact that Grizz died alone.  Alone and scared, not understanding what was happening.  We think he died quite suddenly of a heart attack or some kind of respiratory failure.  He was lying on the cool bathroom tile, where he liked to lie down during the hot parts of the day, and it looked like he was merely asleep.  When I passed the room a second time and he still hadn’t moved (and usually he could sense when we were home through the vibration of the doors), I knew something was wrong.  When I touched him and he was cold, I had to get up and go prepare Raina.  That was very hard for me.  She just fell apart crying.

Raina has lost so much in the last couple of years.  Both parents in 2006, an aunt and uncle, and now this.  We’ve done a lot of holding and crying the past 24 hours, and it’s been difficult explaining to Ian that Grizz won’t be back.  He asked why his eyes were broken, what color he would be when he came back, and why weren’t we just taking him to the doctor.  It was awful, and it made Raina cry so much as she tried to explain the situation to Ian.  On the way back from taking his body to the vet, Ian began to sing softly and sadly how he was going to miss his puppy.  Raina thought it was the most adorable and sweet thing ever.  When we came up the driveway, she stayed in the car to hear Ian finish his song.

We will miss Grizz so much.  It still hasn’t quite hit me what we’ve lost, but it’s starting to sink in.

Done with school for a while. This past semester I took Philosophy, Anthro-Archeology, and ‘Library Science,’ which were great classes, but I’m happy to be done with them, nonetheless.

So now I’m hitting the hard stuff and playing video games (things I couldn’t do much while I was still in class and working for the Air Force full time), so I’m blissful.

Raina plays more WoW than I do, and there’s someone we’re supposed to travel to Orlano to meet who Raina raided with quite a bit. I plan to drag Eric with us (friend from work), in case I don’t know what to say to this person. We’ll eat out (probably at Chili’s) and get kraunk, so it’s all good no matter what happens.

I’ll keep you posted. “You” meaning Mom, probably, since I doubt anyone else reads this prolific, popular blog.

Johan Daveed Leekiemeister

For the past three days now, I’ve had Labyrinthitis. It’s an inner-ear infection that, scientifically speaking, makes life suck. My eyes do circles and I feel as if I’m moving when really I’m not. I’m taking Meclizine for it, and, while it serves to take the edge off, it still leaves me holding the walls to get from one end of the house to the other, and it makes me so tired. It’s a great relief that I can read and do things on the computer. If I couldn’t do those things, I would need to be sedated for my sanity.

A good thing to come of this misadventure is that my dreams have been fantastic. Planes looping and making those elusive “water landings,” small craft caught in a “perfect storm,” tossed from one giant wave crest to another, and finally holding on to the top of a car for dear life while it slaloms its way through the city streets. No one does anything to help. Great stuff.

I’m told it will last only a couple of days. I think I’ll start with the extended version of The Fellowship of the Ring and make my way through the LotR movies again. Why not?

John

I tested for MSgt (That’s “Master Sergeant,” for the Air Force uninitiated) this past Tuesday, and so now I have only the classes I’m in to worry about. This is quite a relief. This long weekend, I got on WoW for a solid few hours each day and managed to get myself to level 58, the level of eligibility for the Outland Expansion Content (or OET, just kidding). Once there, things got a lot better. My friend, Eric, and I tooled around the amazing new areas, doing quests to gain better items, as well as scads of experience. Then my wife joined us late this morning, helping Amarthas (Eric’s character) and Zubrette (My character) go through a couple of “instances” to gain even more phat lootz and experience. Now I’m halfway through level 59, and I can’t believe how many of my items I’ve replaced by Outland items. It’s crazy. A couple of guildies helped us through those two instances as well, so I was very appreciative to them and gave my wife a few extra kisses.

Anyway, it’s good to be untangled enough to get some recreational time in. I feel human once again. Now, for that shower…

I just tased a bunch of people on Facebook. He he. I wish you could do something like that on MySpace. I don’t know if I like MySpace all that much. I like that it has put me in touch with a bunch of friends from Back in the Day, but other than that… meh.  I think I’m on hi5, too, and Friendster, and some kind of MSN-related space, Classmates, and here, and… there’s not enough of me to keep all that stuff up.  I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.

But, I was able to tase a bunch of people today, so I’m happy.

If you don’t know where the “Don’t tase me, bro!” line comes from, youtube, meet e-tard, e-tard, meet youtube.

JDL