Half a decade since Griffin left a hole in our hearts.

Photo copyright Aji, 2021;
all rights reserved.

It's been a terrible day in so many ways today, but the worst is the one that repeats on this day every year. As of 5:00 PM tonight, it's been exactly half a decade since Griffin left a hole in our hearts.

It can't possibly be five years, and yet it is. We were gearing up to build the house, and he was supposed to live in it with us. He was fifteen and a half, after all; we wanted him to age in comfort, instead of that rattletrap RV in which we spent seven long years, and him with us. There's no question, of course, that that toxic tin can shortened all their lives. They all hurt, but this one hurt the most.

Griffin found me; literally saw me, at the shelter, before I could see him, because of the angle of the walkway. He was five months old, abandoned, abused, and supposed to be going elsewhere, but he had other ideas. He seized my heart immediately, and I have yet to understand how he arranged it, but he was always conversant with more powerful spirits, and he made sure everything else fell through so that he could come home with me.

He was the dog of my heart and my spirit, and not just a dog; he thought he was human, and damned if he wasn't. He managed to save my life in very literal terms more than once. He would capture Wings's heart the same way.

He was not a fighter, and yet he was always, always the pack alpha, even as a puppy. Oh, he would fight to protect them, but only for that reason. More often he just . . . laid down the law with a look, and everyone fell into line. And like all good leaders, he needed time to himself, and he would often follow me outside and then find a nice shady spot in the cool grass; at night, he'd do the same on his own. It was always clear that he felt the responsibilities he'd taken on himself weight heavily, and that he needed a little time apart from the other dogs to recharge every now and then.

He was my my baby, and yet not; he was my best friend, and there is not a day that goes by that I don't feel that gigantic hole in my heart. He was always incredibly healthy, until one September day when the then-"puppies," She-Wolf and Raven, decided to escape onto the highway to chase something. Griffin went to round them up and herd them back, and he was the one who got hit. I went flying out of our old house, and he was "running," as much as he could with a fully dislocated right hind leg dragging behind him, one eye bleeding, scanning, scanning, looking for me the whole time; he found me and ran straight to me, and we took him straight to our vet, with Wings's instructions to save him no matter the cost.

It turned out to be mostly superficial, in the sense that torn hip ligaments and a leg that needed resetting in the joint and a blow to the eye that necessitated removal of an inner lid and would cause eventual blindness can be said to be superficial. No damaged organs, no internal bleeding, no broken bones. We were able to bring home the next day, as I recall, and he wore his left hind leg bound up for five weeks and learned to run on three.

There would be other damage, but we didn't know that yet.

After losing Lilith in 2014, he grew withdrawn. He lay apart from the other dogs, the sadness evident on his face. he had long experience with mourning, but we thought maybe her death had hit him harder. And then one day, I called him from a few inches away, and he didn't even twitch an eyebrow.

He couldn't hear me.

It would turn out that he had been steadily going deaf for months, and by then was pretty profoundly deaf, and as his world grew more limited, he was beginning to fear for his daily life with us. The moment I realized it, I tested him enough to confirm it; then I knelt down in front of him, alternated putting my hands over his ears and pointing to my mouth and touching his chest repeatedly, and he visibly relaxed right before my eyes. He had been afraid of what would happen if we knew, or if we didn't know, and once I told him that we would be his ears, he was instantly, as in that very second, back to his old self. We think the impact from the truck that hit him probably hastened it.

It hastened something else, too: Grif developed canine vestibular syndrome. It's terrifying as hell the first time you see it; it looks as though your dog is having either a seizure or a stroke, and of course the first time it happened was one year on Easter Sunday, when our own vet was not on call. So we took him to the other one, and they rehydrated him with fluids subcutaneously and checked him over. I was there for about three hours with him, and we would have to take him back a year or so later for the same problem, but by then we knew how to manage it and we got him through numerous smaller episodes on our own.

Until the last one, in the early weeks of April in 2016. It began the same way, and so we thought that was all it was, and even though he didn't bounce back the same way, we attributed it to age and the vagaries of the weather, which were brutal that year. And then, on the 16th, we had to carry him outside, and he couldn't really stand without help. So Wings brought him in and put him on the couch where he could be next to me. It was better to have him indoors anyway; we had gotten a full foot of snow that morning in one hard, heavy storm . . . snow that had melted almost wholly by noon. And while outside, I saw the Cooper's hawk, who had her own history with us, land in the aspen by where I stood and stare down at me. I thought she was there as a friend; little did I know she was there in her role as guide.

Griffin by then was tired, and we had placed his bed on the floor of the RV's kitchen so that he could stretch out and be comfortable, and still we had no idea of what was coming. Periodically I'd go and sit with him, but not because I expected his spirit to leave anytime soon; I did it merely so he'd know I was there with him, and he always relaxed and breathed more easily as soon as I laid my hand on him. It was a day that I did not help with the outside chores; Wings had told me to stay in with Grif and let him handle it, so I did. He came inside about five minutes to five, went over to greet Griffin and stroke his velvety head and ears, and then sat down beside me.

And then I saw Griffin stretch suddenly, and I knew exactly what it was, and I went running for him to hold him and beg every being I could imagine not to take him from us, but he took only a few more breaths, then rested in my arms and let his spirit go. It was five o'clock on the dot.

And the moment that life force left him and all the remained was the body, with gravity pulling at it now, I felt along his spine what we had not been able to feel while he was alive: a tumor of some sort. It would, given the size and location, probably have been pressing on his heart and lungs and airway by then, and coupled with TBI-induced CVS, it was more than his body could overcome. And it wasn't for lack of watchfuless; I had monitored his whole body regularly after what had happened with the girls, but it was too deep to be felt until he was gone, and up until then, he showed not a single sign that would have sent us to the vet to try to catch it.

Once more, it was too cold, the ground too hard in the fading light to dig, and so we wrapped him gently and laid him in the studio until the following morning. And we both wept like we have never wept for any other being.

At five o'clock, I did as I promised Wings I would always do for all of them: took him water and cedar and tobacco, this time with a little sweetgrass in it. There was no hope of anything more than the faintest tendril of smoke; the wind, mostly lying low all day, had kicked up at five minutes to the hour, and has howled most of the evening since. But I managed a little, plus the rest, and I stood there beneath the big blue spruce with the tears, and the tear, in my soul, and I remembered the spirit who took care of me when no one else would, or even remotely cared, this small sweet spirit who saved my life more than once, and whose absence is as raw today as it was five years ago. Some spirits are more than they appear to be, and he was — is — one.

We love you, Griffin. You're always in our hearts, and our spirits are always with yours.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.             

My Eagle and My Lion, Four Years Gone

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

Four years today. Four years that ripped the biggest of all the many, many holes in my heart, and this will never be repaired.

I was walking out to the studio this evening to start evening chores. Chinook stood off to the left, and for a moment, I swear, just for a moment, I thought it was Griffin. It wasn't just that she has the same coloring; yes, she's a hound, too, but her body type is very different. But just for a moment, he seemed to be present there, in her, just a little — just enough for me to start to speak his name.

But the, Griffin's always been powerful, his spirit far outsized to his body or length of time on this plane.

He was my spirit dog, a soul mate of a different sort, and he nearly immediately became the same for Wings. He saved me on more than one occasion, taking care of me when there was literally no one else to do so. He was what a friend called a benevolent alpha, always gaining the deference of the pack without ever having to enforce it, because his job, his role, his task and obligation, as he saw it, was always, always, to keep his whole pack safe. And on those rare moments when he had time to wholly himself, his favorite way to unwind was simply to lie in the cool grass, maybe a shaft of sunlight or only the shimmer of moonlight falling across his rich brindle coat.

We lost him too soon, and yet, he had a good long life: fifteen and a half years, far longer than most dogs of his size, and especially those who were rescues. But he rescued me: On the very night I was at the shelter to see a different dog, he saw me coming long before I could see him, and he was waiting. He was promised to another, but he knew better, and he worked his spirit magic to make sure he went home with me. And his trust in me was complete from the very first moment, a gift, with his purest kind of love, of incalculable value to someone like me, from a life of being not merely unwanted, but deliberately forced out of every space that by rights should have held a place for me.

It was 5 PM on this very day, and so at 5:00 I went out and took him everything we always take them: cedar for smoke, tobacco, water. Wings also gave me a piece of his home-made elk jerky, and its's tucked under his stone. He'll find it; he always does.

And I will feel that hole in my heart, that empty space, a little more deeply tonight. He was my Griffin, my eagle and my lion, four years gone — as fierce and brave as either, as strong and protective, too. Four years gone, but the love, and spirit, of our sweet boy is as strong as ever. We both feel him, even "see" him, every now and then.

We love you, Griffin. You're never out of our hearts; our spirits are with yours, always.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Year three.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved.

Year three of this being the worst night of my year. That won't change. 

It was five o'clock in the evening when Griffin left us on this date in 2016. We were completely unprepared; we thought it was only a bad relapse of his canine vestibular syndrome. It was much worse (after his spirit left his body, we found the tumor buried deep along his spine), although the blessing was that he simply went to sleep on his own, no pain, no agony, no aids needed.

The agony was all ours. Mine especially. I know no one will understand — how could you never (thankfully for you) having been forced to live in my mocs. But Griffin found me some years before Wings and I even met, and it's no stretch at all to say that he rescued me, saved me, even more than I did him. There were times in my life when there was literally no one . . . except this pure spirit. I have never felt such a void as when he left us, and it is not diminished by the passage of years. 

He rests where most of the others do, and at five, I went out and left him cedar, tobacco, fresh water, a jerky treat. Earlier in the day, I'd extracted the still lively bright-purple sprigs from the last flowers Wings bought for me, grocery-store flowers some two weeks ago that lasted all this time, and put them next to his marker. They suit him somehow.

Another year gone without my boy, the spirit who was always closest to mine. Another year of an endless void in heart and soul, a small desolate spot in the shape of a beautiful brindle dog. He left a hole in Wings's heart, too, one that always looks for the brown dog in the bright red coat, patrolling in the snow.

We love you, Griffin. You're in our hearts, and our spirits are with you every moment.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Griffin, two years and countless tears on.

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

This is my boy, my soul mate, my spirit dog. Both of ours, actually; he adopted Wings several years ago as his second charge. He was the kind of dog who wasn't a dog: He was always half-human, and something more besides. When we say he was our spirit dog, we don't mean "spirit animal"; we mean a dog who was, and was of, the spirit world as much as this one.

I talk to him every single day. He's always in my heart; my spirit is always with him. That will never change. He was that rare once-in-a-lifetime friend who just happened to have four legs and floppy ears. I mourned him in a way I never mourned a human being, and still do. He was an old soul, and a wise one, and he was with me for years when no human could be bothered. Once he came here with me, he captivated Wings, too.

The time was 5:00 in the evening, pretty much on the dot. It was a line of demarcation, a rift in my life that upended all the rest, and will never be repaired, at least not on this side of that line. The best I can do now is talk to him, take him water (and sometimes, like tonight, a little food of some special kind), take him cedar and tobacco and feathers and smoke, as I did this evening. 

I've never known such an outsized, influential spirit, and it's not just me. A few days ago, when She-Wolf was having trouble in her battle with cancer and the complications presented by her diabetes, I came back from closing the gate and surprised her there, where his body is laid to rest. I've seen her near there many times, and Raven too, occasionally, but this time, she was right up against the marker, looking downward as though communing directly with him. She acknowledged my presence but kept her attention firmly fixed on the ground where her alpha's body is, and she was clearly communicating something and getting something in return. This isn't entirely new; his walking on upended their world, too, and they both frequently could be found in Grif's spot under his favorite cedar tree, looking directly over at his grave as though seeking to draw strength from his spirit. But this was another order of magnitude altogether.

She's doing better now, too.

He's always been a healer; I can attest to that.

I am so fortunate, so blessed. And yet, there is a Griffin-sized, Griffin-shaped hole in my heart, in my soul, that will never be mended, not as long as I'm on this side of the line. That's true for Wings, too. And so he will always get food and water, tobacco and cedar, feathers and smoke.

We love you, Griffin. You're never out of our hearts.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Griffin. Our spirit and our light, one year on.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

I have been dreading this day for so long. This date, one year ago, proved to be one of the worst days of my life. 

It was the day Griffin left us.

It should not have been unexpected; after all, for a dog of his breed and size and age, he lived to be roughly 107 in human years. And yet, we were completely unprepared. I was unprepared. No one will understand what I mean when I say this, but Griffin was my soul mate and spirit guide, the one being other than Wings to whom I was most connected in this life.

He had a good life. He had it with the person he chose. He also made room in his heart for Wings, adopting him as his own charge as well. And in the year just past, despite no longer being with us in body, we feel him with us, and his spirit returns occasionally in more obvious (if not as recognizeable) form. he is still our guardian and guide, our spirit and our light, and he always will be. 

At 5:00, which was the moment on this day that his spirit began its journey last year, I took him cedar and tobacco and sweetgrass and fresh water. Wings gave him some flat cedar yesterday. And I still feel him, and I still see him out of the corner of my eye at unexpected times. He visits me in my dreams only rarely, but when he does, it is a gift beyond all value or description.

I had planned to write about who he was, because he was the rarest of dogs, one with utterly human sensibilities and a clear strong spirit that transcended anything either of us had ever known. But tonight, I think he just wants to be remembered as he was, and is.

We love you, Griffin, our spirit and our light.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Griffin's World

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

Otherworldly, this dawning of Griffin's world . . . Griffin's will in this world — in spirit, his world still.




All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

We buried our boy today.

Photo copyright Wings, 2016; all rights reserved.

A couple of days ago, as I was walking out to the studio, a mourning cloak danced past me on the breeze, headed eastward, and I felt something cold clutch at my heart. They are aptly named, these butterflies: They tend to appear when death is at the door, even if we don't know it yet.

I shook it off. Two of the horses had been in full laminitis flare for months; all three of the dogs had fought off a nasty reaction to something in the last couple of weeks. Griffin's CVS had just flared again, but that's by now an annual occurrence at this time of year, and there's little for it but time. He's always bounced back just fine, and there was no reason to think this would be any different.

It was different.

At five o'clock yesterday evening, with snow falling softly outside, our boy walked on, over the threshold and on along that western road to The Interstices and beyond, to the place where the Thunderbird flies, to a place where we cannot yet follow, and my heart is broken into too many pieces ever to be repaired.

I don't think I can make anyone understand. You have experienced this sort of relationship with another being, or you haven't, and if it's the latter, nothing I say will make the slightest bit of sense. I have never had such a one before, nor will I again; Griffin was entirely one of a kind, and there is no succeeding that.

The Guide

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

Now, she will be his guide, in a place where I cannot go with him.

If we are lucky, he will someday walk with us again

In dreams and visions

Until the day we join him there.

Note: There will be no fundraising post tonight, nor for at least the next four days. I know most will never understand this, but we have lost our guide tonight, and we are in mourning in its purest form.


All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

This boy needs some help.

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

Update:  He's gone. 5:00 PM MDT. More later. My heart and spirit are gone with him.

Folks, whatever ya got, my boy needs it.

I hate spring. Absolutely hate it. The winds are enough for me to despise it with every fiber of my being, because they are so incredibly destructive to my own body. But what it does to the animals is so much worse. It's colic and founder season for the horses.

For Griffin, it's CVS season. 

No, that's not the drug chain. It's short for Canine Vestibular Syndrome, a mostly idiopathic (save age, and, in his case, a TBI seven years ago) condition in which the juncture at which a dog's brain and inner ear become grossly inflamed, and it creates a particularly nasty form of vertigo. When you have the kind of rapid-fire changes in barometric pressure we've had the last few days (to say nothing of today, which has been the worst yet), it flattens him. He can't walk; he staggers, drops, falls. He has clonus in his limbs. The vertigo causes such nausea that he can't eat and mostly can't drink water, either, leading to dehydration. I'm reduced to crouching on the floor, ankle be damned, and syringing him with Pedialyte. I've been dealing with this for days, but today has been nonstop. And the longer the weather stays a mess, the longer he won't be able to eat, and it just becomes a vicious cycle, with no fuel in his system to help fight the inflammation.

And the superstitious side of me is damning myself for causing it, because in trying to help someone else's dog, I invoked this goddamn thing as a possibility, and now he's paying for it. Again. This is either the third or fourth spring in a row that he's dealt with this, and it's a bad one this time around.

So I'm begging: prayers, good vibes, whatever magical mystery stuff ya got goin', send some of it his way. He's been my soulmate for more than fifteen years now. We need Griffin, and he needs to be healthy again.

Thanks. 


All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Improvements and Slow But Steady Progress

Thanks to everyone who shared our YouCaring page directly from the widgets on the link itself since last night. Please keep the momentum going; you never know who will see it and decide it's a worthy cause, and they only see IT (i.e., the image of the project, rather than a placeholder) when it's shared from the page itself. We're only $100 shy of the $4K mark, and $600 short of hitting our target for the week of 30% of this stage's goal.

Again, here's the link. On the lower right-hand side of the page, you can grab the widget code, which will cause the image above to display (and auto-update) anywhere you post it. Thanks to everyone who's helped out so far. We just sent off the final okay on the basic blueprints this morning, so now it's on to specific plans for foundation, frame, plumbing, wiring, etc. It's getting very close now.

Also, for those wondering about Griffin, he had a much better night last night, going out only at 11 PM and a little before 6 AM (which means that I finally got some sleep). He's sleeping more soundly, too, although he's (naturally) exhausted at this point. After eating nothing yesterday, I'm now getting a mixture of raw buffalo and watery rice into him, with some flax powder mixed into it to try and help his lower GI tract. Fingers crossed that it all starts working today. And now, I've got to get caught up on thank-yous and all the thousand and one things I couldn't get to this weekend.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Two Requests

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

As the title up there says, two requests today. The first is the obvious one. We've had zero shares from our YouCaring page since Thursday, and we need them. I'm beyond exhausted (basically continuously awake for the past 37 hours straight, and very little sleep even before that; more about that in a moment), so I'm going to be really blunt here: Please don't bother liking or sharing my Facebook links to this post or the fundraising site. It does essentially nothing. What we NEED is for people to do as I've requested consistently from the beginning: share via the widgets (or by cutting and pasting the link) on the page itself, and by grabbing the widget code and copying it over. I realize people mean well with the FB likes, but everyone's seen it, and it doesn't show anything but a link to this post, so please don't bother from this point forward. Yes, I'm cranky; I don't have words to describe my health right now. [Well, actually, I do, but no one wants to hear them). Here's that widget, and you don't need to be on FB or Twitter to use it; you can post it anywhere. PLEASE use it:

Now, the second thing, which has to do with my boy up there at the top, and also why I'm getting no sleep. 

I hate Easter. There are lots of reasons for that, mostly associational, but for the last three years straight, I've hated it because every single one of those three years, Griffin has gotten sick. Yes, I realize how unlikely that sounds, given that Easter falls on a different weekend every year, but it's a fact. I thought maybe we'd escaped it this year, since I did not wind up spending the night of Good Friday in the doggy ER, as I did in both 2014 and 2015. No such luck. This time, it's not his CVS, for the most part, but a gastric issue. Still, I'm up around the clock working on him, letting him in and out, chasing him down outside in 10-degree weather at four o'clock this morning, etc., etc. I'm out of energy, mental and physical resources, and patience for much else. So please, whatever good vibes ya got, send 'em Grif's way. He's in great health otherwise, and at 15 and a half, we want to keep him that way.

Thanks. Now I'll leave everybody alone while I get evening chores done and then probably go pass out.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Sometimes, you get a miracle.

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

It's been a brilliantly sunny and hot day, with high afternoon winds. It's raining now, with a swatch of rainbow forming against the peaks to the south.

We spent the day at hard physical labor: I got the last of the garden in; together, Wings and I filled giant sandbags; and he and a couple of the guys brought the water down for our first round of irrigation (easily a month later than usual, thanks to all the early rain).

In between, we spent the day watching this guy closely.

But yesterday, we got our miracle.

UPDATED: This Boy Needs Help

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

UPDATE: We are dealing with one of a couple of possibilities. Either a CVS flare has inflamed his optic nerve sufficiently to do damage, or he had a mini-stroke this morning. Either way, he's on Pred to try to reduce any swelling and the inflammation that is a given at this point. He became pretty profoundly deaf two years ago, and has long had a full cataract on his right eye thanks to being hit by a truck six years ago. [We believe the deafness and the CVS both ultimately stem from that.] At any rate, his world, which was near-silent, has just gotten a whole lot smaller and darker. He's his usual otherwise-perceptive and aware self, if entirely exhausted. So prayers, energy, good vibes, etc., for his sight and his balance and his survival would all be much appreciated right now.]



He needs all the help he can get right now.

We're hoping it's just a flare of his CVS (canine vestibular syndrome). But he's nearly 15, and his body has been through a lot. So everything is magnified in ways that it wouldn't be in a younger dog.

This is my soul mate, my spirit dog. he's been with me longer than anyone ever has, and he's been there for me when literally no one else was. He adopted me on sight as his cause, and later on, he expanded that to include Wings.

Right now, we're dealing with Cree's feet, Shade's feet, the never-ending saga of Ice's years-old sand colic, She-Wolf's diabetic eyes, Raven's weight. All on top of Wings's knees, my new(ish) hypoglyecemia/anemia issues, and all of our pre-existing health concerns. I spend most of my days feeling like I'm an inch from fainting dead away from my own physical issues, forget about the weight of the stress of everyone and everything else. 

Griffin is my rock. He's been my touchstone, my guide, when I had nothing else to hang onto in this world. So please, if you believe in the power of anything, send some of it his way today.

Thanks.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Need a little help here (Griffin) . . . .

Photo copyright wings, 2014; all rights reserved.

He always waits until after hours on a weekend, so that it costs more.

Actually, it doesn't matter; for Griffin, we would move heaven and earth. But he could use a little help from his friends tonight.

Just got back from an emergency trip to the vet; driving at sunset and nighttime with post-concussion syndrome has blown my migraine (4 days straight, this time around) back into the open with full force. The good news is that he's improving.

It appears to be an apparently very severe flare of his CVS. It's possible that he had either a seizure or a stroke that set it off or occurred concomitantly with the beginning of the flare; no way to tell without an MRI, and that's beyond our means (and probably completely unnecessary stress for him, anyway). He had been in the studio with us, and fine; a few minutes later, we were getting ready to go in, and found She-Wolf worriedly standing guard over him in the field. He saw us and tried to get up, and collapsed.

Call feverishly for an available vet; get a 55-pound dog in clonus into the car, drive in in a panic. One prednisone/dramamine IM injection (and a weekend surcharge) later, and we're back home, with a pred scrip and instructions for an increased dramamine regimen (we've had him on it anyway).  So we''l see.

In the meantime, if you can spare some good vibes for Griffin, we'd all appreciate it.  Thanks.

What a horrible day.

Photo copyright Wings, 2014; all rights reserved.

Home again, finally.  Spent 2+ hours at the vet on an emergency basis with this guy.

I've spent $500 today that I wasn't expecting — half toward newly-arisen needs for Wings's show; half for Griffin's emergency care — and I'm fricking wiped. No food, no coffee, lots of carrying of a nearly-60-pound dog by myself, and the absolute terror that I would lose my canine soul mate a mere ten days after losing Lilith.

It's [mostly] good news. It's CVS [canine vestibular syndrome, geriatric form]. I called it earlier today, as a matter of fact, but his condition deteriorated so fast that I was fearing something much, MUCH worse. He can recover; it'll just take a few days of working with his condition, some anti-nausea meds, and some confinement. His labs were outstanding, and all the more so considering his age.

But I've been through the wringer, and so has he, and so has the checkbook, and I probably won't get to the brochure stuff (or anything else) yet tonight.