Farewell to Hunny Bear

Today Monica and I said goodbye to our best friend in the whole world.

Late Thursday night Hunny Bear started gasping and couldn't catch his breath.  We rushed him to the local ER vet and many tests and adventures later -- including transporting him with a portable oxygen tank -- we determined he had fluid in his chest which not only made it hard for him to breathe but was cancerous.  They were able to drain the fluid to make him more comfortable so we brought him home Saturday to pamper him.  He was still having difficulty breathing last night and this morning and we knew it was his time.

I share how Hunny Bear died, because I know everyone will ask and I would if it were your dog, and it gives a sense of closure, but I'd rather talk about how he lived. And Hunny Bear lived like a prince. Our dogs are our "kids" and we spoil them -- premium food, lots of love, lots of treats, and even the specialty vets know us by name. Our floors our covered with dog beds but the dogs usually sleep between us in, and we upgraded to a king bed for them. But because Hunny Bear was our first dog -- Monica got him when he was eight weeks old -- and the #1 dog, we spoiled him just a little bit more, though please don't tell Cocoa. While Hunny Bear wasn't the cutest, the cuddliest, the smartest (if you can get OUT the dog door how hard can it be to get back in), or the sweetest, he was the toughest.His vet described him as stoic.  Despite problems with multiple organs, per his blood tests, he never showed any sign of being sick and just wanted to live life to the fullest.

And we think he did.  When we spent two months driving across the county in 2004, Hunny Bear and Emily were with us every step of the way. When Monica and I drove to the Grand Canyon and saw the National Parks in Utah, Hunny Bear was there alongside us. And at the end of the trip when I dropped Monica off at Angels Gate and made the 18-hour drive home he rode shotgun. He was the best listener ever. Hunny Bear has been to more states and stayed in more nice hotels than most people. He saw Mt Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, Old Faithful and many more historic sites. Our favorite trip with him was probably just to get away for the weekend to Seattle or Portland. He was an incredibly well-behaved hotel guest and house guest.

I remember the first time I really met Hunny Bear. I picked Monica up at her apartment -- we weren't even dating yet -- and she wasn't quite ready so I waited in her living room. Hunny Bear barked at me the whole time and when I tried to pet him he ran away and barked some more. At the time I thought damn, I really like this girl and her dog hates me; I'm doomed. Of course, it worked out and I learned that little Hunny Bear is Monica's protector, barking at every stranger who comes into Monica's home, and many friends as well.

I have lots of wonderful memories about Hunny Bear that make me smile but I'll share this one in closing. Monica and I have been very active as volunteers with Seattle Beagle Rescue. Every year SBR hosts two Beaglefest fund raising events where beagles and their friends are welcome. Hunny Bear wasn't particularly what I'd call a trouble maker, but he was very food motivated. At Beaglefest he sat right in front of the "people food" hoping someone would drop something or not pay attention and he could steal food out of their hand. He perfected his technique so well that I coined the phrase "It's not a Beaglefest until Hunny Bear steals a cupcake". And even though I warned everyone who took a cupcake and pointed out Hunny Bear, he always found a way.

So in memory of Hunny Bear, have a cupcake today, or better yet steal one from a friend.

July Update

It's pretty clear that my blog has been neglected the past month.  Even without a 9-5 job July is pretty crazy busy.  I looked at the start of the month and there were about 5 days where Monica and I were actually free in the evenings and two of them were last night and tonight.  A couple others opened up, but it's busy, busy, busy.

Softball really becomes a dominant factor in July.  We have weeknight games which are always challenging to field a team. The playoffs start and takes a lot of time to get my team RSVPs and get ready for games.  As league commissioner there are a lot of little things to deal with -- questions, complaints, issues, players going postal on umpires, etc.  Oh and then I actually have to play softball.  We won our first two games, including knocking off the #1 seed which was a great start.  But then a bit injured and a bit shorthanded dropped our next two to finish in 3rd place.  3rd out of 11 teams isn't bad but when you think you have a championship caliber team and there are only 4 real contenders, 3rd of 4 isn't that exciting.  Still we had a pretty good year, had a lot of fun, and were well behaved.  My team actually likes each other which is a good thing.

Mariners.  Yuck.  Still going to a lot of games and watching/listening to my team.  Cubs, ditto though obviously I'm not going to games.  Can baseball season be over yet?  I can't recall a year where my teams had so much "potential" and were so terrible.  Can't believe the excitement is the Cubs reaching for .500 and the Mariners trying to avoid 100 losses.

Busy around the house.  Deck is done.  Hardwood floors are done.  I put in grout between the hardwood floor and the tile edges.  Learned a lot and will be easier next time.  Of course, "next time" will probably be 20 years down the road and I won't remember anything.  Don't you hate when that happens.  Have been watering plants and the lawn now that summer has arrived and it doesn't rain anymore.  Sadly everything is too wet in May and June and then dies in July and August.  Re-arranged the art with help from my parents.

My mom and dad visited for 5 days last weekend and I spent a lot of time running around town with them.  We mainly spent time at the Belleve Arts Fairs.  Monica and I bought a few things for our house and my parents found an anniversary gift for us -- though we have to pick what we want and order it -- but I'm not sure they actually bought anything despite hours of looking at arts and crafts.  They also helped with hanging art as noted.  They are helpful, but it's really more their presence inspires me to hang things up.  And dad likes putting up pictures.

Tommy has been getting acupuncture twice a week and will start the underwater treadmill next week.  We're trying to strengthen his back and legs or at least make sure they don't get any worse.  Cocoa has horrible yeast infections in his ears that won't quite clear up.  They're better especially in one ear, but we're still working on it.  Hunny Bear is good.  He's suddenly the easy one.

With all that, I really haven't played much poker.  I active in online forums thinking about my game, but really need to find time to play.  Hard to believe, but someone it never quite happens.

Day 11 and 12, Sports

Met a friend for breakfast at the Original Pancake House in Kirkland.  On weekends this place is packed crazy, hard to find parking, and basically you give your name and walk around for 45 minutes.  I was surprised that at 8:30 during the week I could park right in front and the place was empty.

Spent a bunch of time Wednesday trying to get my softball team in order.  Everyone seems to be out of town this weekend and I'm trying to find subs to show up at 10 AM.  Fun, fun, NOT.  Also the floor guy came back to check on the hardwoods and how they're "settling".  Can see the cherry wood getting darker already.  We set the official date for him to finish and talked about doing the stairs as well.  Will all wait until I'm back from Vegas.

Wednesday night went to the second Storm game of the season.  I've been to two of two games so far and will likely make about two games the rest of the year.  As I expected they were sloppy at times and looked great at times.  They trailed most of the game but put in together in the last three minutes and won by 3.  In the end it's a W not an L and that's all that counts.

Started some research on electric toothbrushes for Monica (why aren't these called teethbrushes?) and continued today.  Down to a handful of choices.  Basically got up today, had breakfast, did some misc stuff, tried to walk Hunny Bear until the drizzle turned to pouring rain and got ready to go to the Mariners game.  When Aaron and I split up tickets before the season, I figured this would be a beautiful day to be outside and the Mariners would be fun to watch.  Instead it was 50 and cold.  The sun was out for a couple of innings, but then they closed the roof because storms were approaching. Then it was 50 in the shade and COLD.  And the Mariners were terrible, down 3-1 going to the 9th.  In the ninth they showed more life than they have in weeks and put together a great rally to win!!  This was the first time I've seen them win in person this year (1-6).  Aaron, who I share seats with, says they've won every game he's attended. 

Got home, made dinner, and met with a photographer who's doing a family photo for us.

Friday and the weekend (long)

Friday I finished cleaning our outdoor furniture and moving it upstairs to the deck.  We now have 10 chairs and a "bench", so it's more work than it sounds.  Though it's mainly tedious -- lots of trips around the house.  I moved our table on Sunday.  It's big, glass, and heavy; that was actually work.  And when I thought I was done, Monica said "hey let's put one chair downstairs so I can sit with the dogs".  Score one point for well-written acceptance criteria.

Met my friend Jay for lunch on Friday and got to catch up.  Jay's sort of like Griffey, Jr. -- he was the face and the star of our softball team for a number of years but was often injured and those injuries have finally led him to retire.  What's that?  Griffey hasn't retired yet?

Spent a lot of time over the weekend working on taxes, mainly stock sales, interest, and dividends.  This is where having managed accounts -- like mutual funds but you own actual stocks -- becomes a pain. Lots and lots of stock transactions.  Import/download is a life saver, but verifying is still a fair amount of work. Yuck!

In more fun stuff, Saturday I helped man the both for Monica at the Redmond pet fair.  My role is basically to watch the booth when she needs a break and keep her company.  It isn't busy enough and I don't really know enough about Ttouch or pet adoption counseling to share the booth.  For the first time she's set up at one of these things, it was actually useful.  I don't know if she'll actually get anyone who calls, but she talked to a number of people who seemed very interested in her services, took her card, and should call her. On of our observations mid-way through the day was that 10-3 was too long for this event.  Everyone started packing up their booths at 2:30, so I guess we weren't alone in that view.  I walked outside at 2:25 to get some fresh air and when I came back 1/3 of the "vendors" were gone.  I think once the first person bailed, everyone else decided it was OK to follow suit.  By 3:00, there was no one left.
 Saturday night we went to a great dinner at Ruth's Chris, separate post coming.  Sunday was mainly running around.  We had softball in the morning and played one of the key games of the season.  Before the 2008 season I split our team in two.  We had developed a group of players who thought recreational co-ed softball was all about winning and not about having fun (OK they liked to have fun, but their idea of fun was winning).  Their attitudes sucked and it made it no fun to play on Sunday.  I kicked a couple people off the team a few of their friends from my team joined them and they decided to recruit a bunch of good players and form their own team.  I wouldn't say this team is our rival but they're one of the better teams in the division, they care a lot about the final score, and half the players used to be on our team, so the game is special.  We scored 3 runs in the top of the first and never trailed though the game was a toss up until we pulled away in the 6th and 7th innings.  We played terrific defense which was the key and got them out running the bases four or five times, though the umpire missed one of the outs.  Final was 13-6.

Sunday afternoon Hunny Bear had an acupuncture appointment.  And then Sunday evening I went to the Storm Opening Night.  The game was sloppy as I'd expect.  Training camp is about 3 weeks in the WNBA and the star players don't get back from overseas until the last week.  So you're watching a team that's practiced together for about 4 days.  It was pretty ugly at times and the Storm had long stretches where they didn't score, but in the end they beat LA, their #1 rival, by about 10 points.

Oh yeh, Sprint 3 planning Sunday night.

Day 8, Thursday

A very busy and productive day, though I started by sleeping in since we didn't have contractors coming at 7:30.

I made it back to the gym for the first time this week.  Lined up a contractor, actually two it turns out, to trim and tack the carpet in the doorways where it bumps up against the new hardwoods.  Made a nice dinner -- brisket and sweet potato casserole (Yams Richard).  Was a nice treat to do that without it being a holiday.  Sort of like turkey only gets made once or twice a year. 

Made a lot of progress catching up on financial records.  Really I hadn't entered our "bank" statements into MS Money in a year.  Which was really dumb because it took 10 minutes for most months and 20 minutes for tricky months... it just became a pile I never looked at.  Caught up through the end of 2009, so I can work on taxes now.  And so, I really started on our taxes for 2009.

Went to Kinko's to print some brochures for Monica's business to use at the Pet Fair this weekend.  In the end, she has nice looking brochures -- I assume, I've only seen the proof, but the process was a bit frustrating.  Actually working with the people at Fedex/Kinko's took 5-10 minutes but driving there, figuring out where I needed to be, and waiting in line took 45 minutes -- very high signal to noise ratio.  Also helped Monica do through all her stuff to get ready for Saturday.

Worked out cleaning our outdoor furniture for the season.  Everything has sat outside getting rained on or worse since the fall.  A quick soap and rinse and letting mother nature do the drying.

Somewhere in between we took Hunny Bear for a nice long walk.

Days 0 and 1

The weekend doesn't count because I'm usually "unemployed" on weekends, so this isn't different.  And this was pretty typical for a spring/summer weekend.  Went to the Mariners game on Saturday and played started softball season on Sunday.  Mariners lost and I've yet to see them win in person this year.  Softball team went 1-1 which is good since we started last year 0-7.  We also met with our hardwood installer again and finalized our floor plan.  We're going to install real cherry wood floors rather than prefinished wood.  It's a lot messier and will take a few days longer because it will have to be sanded and finished, but it will look a lot better and be less expensive.  Also we can get the wood this week instead of a 3-4 week backup for delivery.

Monday was day 0.  When we got laid off, it was supposed to be our last day of work, but as noted I was already done so my real plans were for Tuesday.  Slept in, went to the gym, hit Costco for some essentials, finished Mother's Day shopping and mailed all our Mother's Day gifts.Got movers in place for Wednesday.

Tuesday I had some plans in place.  I took the dogs to the vet in the morning.  Cocoa was due for his annual checkup and some vaccines and Hunny Bear needed to have stitches removed from his surgery last week and was due for a vaccine as well.  Hunny Bear is great though Cocoa has a yeast infection in his ears.  We need to do some serious ear cleaning on him. Then I met a friend for lunch, met with my financial adviser to discuss converting my traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs which has special rules in 2010.  It turns out to be a good idea if you're far from retiring and don't want to be forced to take withdrawals at 70 1/2 -- say you don't expect to ever need the money.  Didn't make it to the gym.

Monica and I had a 4:30 meeting regarding the Humane Society's vision plan, so it was a bit of a short day.

Plan for day 2 is to be here while they do the prep work for converting carpets to hardwoods.

Hunny Bear climbs into bed

For a blog named for Hunny Bear, there's not actually much about Hunny Bear in the blog.

But yesterday Hunny Bear did something we've been trying to get him to do for years.  And we're very proud of him!  A few years ago we got a Tempur-Pedic bed and found that with the thicker mattress and his advanced age, Hunny Bear could no longer jump on the bed to sleep with us.  So we got some pet steps and put them next to the bed. (They don't quite look like the picture but you get the idea.)  He wouldn't go near them.  Emily immediately ran up them.  Every foster dog or dog we've dog sat ran up them into bed.  Hunny Bear wouldn't touch them.  If you put his front paws on the first step, he stepped off. 

We tried off and on to teach him, but finally we put the steps away.  But in the new house we have them out.  For the first time yesterday, Hunny Bear used the steps to walk into bed without any physical assistance.  I patted the bottom step and once he stepped on, I patted the second step, and he stepped up and figured the rest out from there.  And he just repeated the behavior tonight.

I only wonder what took him so long to try it.