Tuktoyaktuk

Mr. Tuktoyaktuk lost his battle with cancer on June 11th, 2009. He died in my arms.

We took him to the vet within an hour of his passing, and they confirmed that he had died. On Friday (June 12th) we picked up his remains.

He was an inspirational dog, and he will be missed.

I do plan to write more about him, his life, and his three year journey with cancer.

Rest in peace my son, rest in peace.

Feeling a bit guilty

There is a part of me that feels guilty about wanting to move from Detroit to Seattle - and not just because I'll be part of the area 'brain drain' as things go from bad to worse. Though, since I'm currently employed, and not by an auto maker or any of their direct or indirect feeder businesses, it's not as much of pressing concern to leave as it is for others.

Having cared for a dog with cancer for three years (this last year has literally been a day-by-day thing of not knowing how much longer he'll go on), I know that we're getting toward the final end and know that I have been able to provide him a level of care that my partner-in-dogs cannot - during the really 'bad' times I crush the medication, mix it with raw honey and water, and give it to him in an oral syringe; and I also run the bag of fluid under his skin to help rehydrate him.

It's that I feel bad that I really want to go, yet I know that my leaving will also mean that he will have passed, so you can see where there can be grounds for conflicted feelings.

But to be totally honest, it really is time for me to go. To move on and do my own thing. Detroit never was my city.

Like the song says: "I gotta live my own"*

*Laura - Scissor Sisters**

**Oh I think that the first of many Scissor Sister post and references will be following soon.

I just remembered...

Funny, in my looking for jobs in my field in the Seattle area (since having decided that I will relocate there) it only just occurred to me yesterday that I graduated from a 'Big 10' school (which really didn't mean that much to me at the time, since I was so busy with grad work that it was sorta like an afterthought), and that we have alumni associations and networking that can be an assist in relocation and job searches.

Yes, sometimes I really can be that slow.

I didn't choose my school because I thought "Oh good, someday I can use its name and connections", rather I chose it because it was the best program for what I wanted to focus on.

I didn't plan on this...

I didn't start out thinking that when I finally started blogging that it would be about the personal and the political in my life. I thought that I'd probably have a blog related to dogs and dog training, or to spinning and knitting along with many other folks on Ravelry .

But a number of things that have happened over the past few month have left me thinking that in spite of my fears and my love of privacy that I should go ahead and blog about things that I find to be important.

In March I was at a soccer game as part of traveling support for TFC and someone had brought an alt weekly paper down from Toronto (there will be a full blog entry about this later) and in the back was Dan Savage's column - "Savage Love". I was reading the column while waiting for the game to start. Reading it reminded me that I was familiar with some of Dan's work/appearances and knew that he was a person whose point of view I had liked and enjoyed in the past.

After the game I checked on my Kindle to see what titles by Dan were available. I found that three were available in electronic format and I ordered them that moment and began reading "The Kid" on the way back home (obviously I wasn't the one driving).

Rediscovering Dan and discovering his writings and other contributions has turned out to be quite a godsend.

Shortly after returning home, Tuktoyaktuk (Tuk for short) - 14 year old Siberian husky who has been fighting cancer for more than two years - took a turn for the worse. During the days and weeks that followed, as I liquefied baby food and medicine so that he could take it via oral syringe, I was encouraged, inspired, and strengthened by reading Dan's accounts of how he and Terry adopted and prepared for the homecoming of their son.

Tuk started to recover from that particular downswing, and I continued to read Dan's other books, as well as his columns and start listening to his podcasts.

It was only a short time later that I started reading The Stranger online and began reading Slog on a daily basis (and contributing there as well).

So, I guess that this is a way of giving fair warning that many of my posts will probably reference Slog, Dan Savage, the GLBTQQ community's struggle for equality, as well as music, literature, movies, and of course dogs and maybe even some of the fiber arts.

Bear in mind that this site is under construction - and can, I hope, only get better.

And so it begins...

This is going to be a work in progress for quite a while, so bear with me as I try to sort stuff out.

I promised myself that if I was really good and finished up the app that I was working on today, that then I could start on this blog. So the fact that there is an entry, and that I have an icon loaded are all pretty positive in the 'getting started' direction.

I'll add more to this later - including what possessed me to finally start blogging.