Goodbye 2007, Hello 2008

The Holiday season has passed and we start a new year. Hopefully, everyone has made it through safely.

2007 was not a particularly good year for Ol’ Vettie. I suffered and very bad bout of pneumonia that landed me in the hospital for over a week. After that, a disk in my back decided it needed to explode causing near unbearable pain resulting in an additional back surgery.

Earlier in the year, my oldest step daughter totaled the ‘kids’ car. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but a great little car was sent to the scrap heap. Yes, cars can be replaced, people cant and I am thankful she or no one else was injured. The same step daughter, later in the year, had to have her wisdom teeth cut out. I guess that explains her lack of wisdom sometimes…

The youngest stepdaughter received her driver’s license. Need I say more about that? Ok, I will anyway. After the loss of ‘their’ vehicle, Ms. Vettie and I decided to buy Ol’ Vettie a small truck to drive back and forth to work and to ‘use’ it around the house or when Ms. Vettie buys plants and trees or whatever that has to be transported from the store to home. The kids inherited a newer compact car to drive to school and work and band practice and all the things they do. Youngest proceeds to back over our mailbox on her way to band colour guard practice. Later in the year, she is involved in a small ‘bump’, a hit and run accident in a ‘not so good’ area of town on her way home from her high school’s home coming game. No real damage and no one hurt, but now that nice little compact car of theirs’ has a nice shiny white spot on the front bumper. Shows up nicely against the sea foam green paint…

Zoe was one of our family cats. She passed this year around Thanksgiving. We had raised her from a kitten of 4 weeks (her mother was killed as well as some of most of her siblings) to the ripe old age of 13 years. Zoe spent her time in or out of the house. On hot days or cold ones, she would come in, but she preferred to be outside. She was a sweet cat and she had a great life, always staying in our yard or in our house. When she was inside, the ‘boys’ (our other two cats) knew who was in charge! She passed of natural causes.

The worst thing that happened during 2007 was Lucy. Allow me to explain. Lucy is/was our 2 year old beagle. Lucy was the sweetest pup. We had selected her a couple years ago from the Humane Society. Someone had mistreated her mother after she gave birth to 3 pups. My wife has always loved Beagles and we would have taken all 3 except that 2 were males and we already had a male Husky (also a rescue).

Simon was just barely 33lbs when we adopted him. You could count every bone is his body. We thought he was brown and black until we got him home. We gave him a bath and scrubbed him for over an hour. Turns out the brown was not brown, nor was it dirt, but instead, it was dried blood where he was being eaten up by fleas. The dog was actually white and black. We took him to be groomed after we finished cleaning him up and when we picked him up, we thought they gave us a different dog! Well, 5 years later and Simon is a ‘comfortable’ 53lbs and one of the most beautiful Huskies I have ever seen.

Anyway, Simon is very territorial (as are most Huskies) so we did not want to chance bringing another male dog into ‘his’ territory. Even though Simon had been neutered, he still owns the back yard. We thought Lucy would stand a better chance simply because she was a female. It worked. Simon and Lucy got along famously. They would run and romp and play together just like Forrest and Jenny.

Little did we know that poor Lucy had an inherited disease, the canine version of Addison’s disease. The week before Christmas, Lucy suffered kidney failure and began having seizure’s. After 2 or 3 days at the animal hospital, many tests and attempted procedures, we were told that Lucy would not recover. We did not want our little pup to suffer so we elected to do the humane thing. She has left a big whole in our hearts and we wont forget our sweet little W000ceee.

It’s a hard thing when you lose a family member. Vettie’s family does consist of animals. We treat our pets better than many people treat their kids. This past year, we lost two of our family, Zoe (mostly because of her age) and Lucy (due to an unknown (to us) disease). In both cases, there would have been nothing we could have done to change the out come, neither were hit by cars or mistreated in any way. Zoe had been with us for nearly 14 years and was a big part of all of us. Lucy came to us only 2 short years ago and touched us very deeply with her sweetness and loyalty. Her mannerisms and facial expressions were often human like. They both were always given the best of care by the family members and medically.

So 2008 begins. I have mostly taken time away from my blog during the holidays, only posting once or twice. Now most of you know or can figure out why. Its hard to write about stuff that really doesn’t matter (in the grand scheme of things) when so much is happening to you or your family. Hopefully, all that is behind me now, I mean, I wont forget and I still miss by ‘little girls’ but I cant change that and I have to accept that they are gone. I have pictures and memories and the faith that the Good Lord will care for them now.

Looking forward into 2008, I plan to continue my blog as long as there are folks out there that read it. I will continue to write about the mechs, the weapons, the maps, the players and the tactics. I will continue to throw in the odd story every now and then. Of course, you need to expect a rant or two through out the year, too. I am getting old and grumpy and things don’t always go my way, or maybe I am just old school, but I call things as I see them.

I hope you enjoy Vettie’s View’s on things and I encourage you to post your comments. Let me know what you think and if you have things what me to post about, let me know that too!

Hoping that everyone has a great 2008!

Vettie Out