Reagan

Most of you who are close to me know that I love dogs, especially my dogs, and especially my black lab Reagan. On Monday June 9th I had to put Reagan to sleep. Even writing those words now still evokes tears to stream from my eyes. The more that I have to relive Monday and the pain that it brought having to watch my puppy go to sleep in front of me and not wake up, the more it hurts, the more frustrated I get, and the more depressed I become.

I bought Reagan the day after I proposed to Jen. She was our engagement dog, and she was supposed to be with us for a long time. I got to raise Reagan as a puppy, with a ton of help from my dad, I got to teach her the things that I always wanted to have in a dog. My first day with her was spent throwing the ball around the backyard and her fetching. One thing Reagan always did was chew. She chewed up furniture at my parents house as a puppy; she chewed up my furniture after we got married. The list of things she chewed is quite long and not worth detailing here. But my favorite thing that I taught her to do was to cuddle. Now I am not foolish enough to think that I taught her how to cuddle and that’s that, because her personality was just so sweet that it brought her so much joy to cuddle and it was just something she did pretty naturally, but I encouraged it like crazy, and she would cuddle with anyone and everyone. It drove most visitors to our home nuts, but that’s who she was, she was a lap dog, a 45lb lap dog.

One night last week she threw up about 15 times in the middle of the night. The next day I took her to the vet, they checked her out and did x-rays and everything came back ok, so the vet gave her a couple of stomach flu shots and sent her home with me. Over the next couple of days she wouldn’t eat, it didn’t matter what I gave her, she just wouldn’t eat it. Reagan was always in our trash and up on the counters trying to get our food, so when she wouldn’t even touch a slice of pizza I put in front of her I knew something was seriously wrong. The weekend came and went and she just refused to eat, so I arranged for her to go to a different vet Monday morning.

I was at work joking around with my coworkers when Jen called me, she was crying so I knew it wasn’t good, Reagan had chewed something and it was stuck in her intestines. The doctors did the same exam as the other vet and could feel something stuck in her intestine track. I spoke with the doctor and heard my options. Option 1- $1,200-$1,500 surgery and have the item removed. Option 2- No surgery and Reagan dies at home suffering within a couple of days. Option 3- put her down.

Jen and I are not well off, we live paycheck to paycheck and we make enough to pay our bills and have a little bit of fun every so often. So needless to say we don’t have $1,500 sitting around to pay for the surgery and after speaking with the dr. a second time, he gave Reagan a 50% chance at living even with the surgery. I was not about to go home and watch her suffer for a couple of days just to have a little more time with her, I’m not that selfish or inhumane, so I made the decision to put her down. I left work and headed to the vet to say my goodbye. I got to the vet and went to the room where my crying wife was, they brought her in a couple of minutes later. The only thing I could do was fall to the ground and grab my puppy. I got to hold her for about 10 minutes; all 10 minutes were spent cuddling with her in my arms. I then had Jen go get the dr. and let them know I was ready. Within seconds of the injection she was gone and I was heartbroken. Even now I can not write this with dry eyes.

So heres the reality, Reagan was a dog.

And heres the truth, I don’t care if she was just a dog to you, she was a part of my family, she was a child to me, and I am broken by losing her.

The rest of the day was basically spent in tears between me and Jen. I had the support of my brothers through lunch and later was embraced by my closest friends who knew I had lost more than a dog.

As I was driving home alone Monday night I broke into to tears again, but this time God was teaching me something. I am not one to say that I heard the audible voice of God speaking directly to me, but rather God was giving me clarity and teaching me in this time of pain. Out of nowhere all I could think about were these words "how much more so do I love you".

The thing in all of this is that Reagan was a dog, she didn’t have any way to truly communicate with me, she had no way of telling me last week that she ate something and it was stuck in her throat and it eventually moved down into her intestines, she couldn’t hold my hand when I was lonely, I didn’t have a part in her birth or creation, Yet I loved her unconditionally without hesitation. Yet God was telling me “How much more so do I love you". In the midst of my tears I began to have some clarity, I began to gain some understanding. I am in so much pain over losing my dog, how much more pain does God feel when we turn from him. He created us, He had a hand in our birth, and He can and does communicate with us. How much more pain does Jesus feel when we turn our back on Him.

I will miss Reagan so much, I wish I had the money to pay for surgery because I would have done it without even thinking, yet I am grateful for what I have learned in these past few days. I picture God sitting there as I turn my back on Him throughout my daily life, and I just picture him cringing thinking "don’t you know how much I love you?" I wonder how much pain God felt when Adam and Eve sinned, “Don’t you know how much I love you?"

You see I have the ability to express my pain for Reagan, my tears are enough to say how much I loved her. And so I look at Jesus as a tear from God just for us saying, "this is how much I love you!"

The sports guy in me

As all of you know I am a die hard sports fan, tonight I went to opening day for the diamondbacks (Funny how they call thier home opener "opening day"). first of all it was a great game, good seats and good company with that said it is time to rant on people who think they know, but really have no clue.

Nothing can drive me more crazy than that guy, you know the one who mis quotes stats, thinks good players are great and great players are good. That guy annoys the piss out of me. Unfortunately tonight he was sitting to my left. He was the guy who played little league and no more, was probably the right fielder and batted 11th in the order. The kid on my team was named Joe so I named the annoying guy Joe for the night.

He knew a little about the game, which is fine, he knew a couple of corrects stats, and thats cool. However he was truly clueless when it came to talent judging and knowing situations. What made Joe even worse was that he was there with a girl, and was "showing off" to the girl with his outbursts of idiocy. The best was when he sang his own words to take me out to the ballgame and start laughing hysterically at his version. To which of course I responded with the loudest fkest laugh I had in me. Of course he thought I was seriously laughing with him and thats when he went for the high five. Of course I didnt return the gesture and continued my fake laugh in his face.

Thanks for the memories Joe.

Heres the point of all of this, any time you go to a sporting event there is always a Joe within nearshot of you. You just probably dont him hear, but I do, and now since you will be looking for Joe next time you go to a game, remeember the best remedy is a simple moking of Joe and his lack of knowledge.

Actually now that I think about, there is no point to this post. Lets just leave it at that I hate Joe.

Joe, you suck!

Yeah I can do it there too.

I remember one of the first blog posts I ever read, it was from Mark and he was at a Diamondbacks game and was blogging about blogging from his blackberry at the game. Well I am at work and blogging from my sidekick 3. Now its time to get back to work.......

This is my strength, oh and my weakness

I am amazed at how string willed I am some times and then other times I am incredibly weak. Allow me to show a piece of my life.

I am string willed in my convictions. Hence I have never been drunk, I have never done drugs, and I was a virgin when I got married.

And then there is the side where I cripple like a school boy in front of the schools hottie, and it is always over money. I like things, like a lot of things! Not to show off to people, but because it gives me a sense of fullfillment. It isnt even big things, I love getting shorts, Movies, t-shirts, video games. I love my new truck and the PS3. I love buying stuff! and lately I have gotten into one of the biggest money spenders you could ever get into, trading cards.

Yes, I am like a kid again, buying sports cards. It started at sports authority when I bought 1 pack with a buddy of mine, then it turned into a box from Walmart, and now, I cant get enough. My biddy and I even created a draft for buying a box of cards. We split the box and then go to someones place and open half the pack and have a draft and slowly open the remaining packs to complete the board. There are rules and everything, lots of them, it's crazy, but it is so freaking fun.

And that brings me to today, where I am dying to get a 1976 Walter Payton rookie card and a 1966 Gale Sayers rokkie card. The sad part is I actually talked the PalmercatGal into letting me buy them. We are talking about the prospect of spending over 150 bucks on 2 cards!

Crazy, yes, but I love to do it. and so my weakness shines.

So i guess the moral of the story is this: If you want me to drink or do some drugs, you have little chance, unless there are some cards involved, then all bets are off.

P.S. If you have a card collection, I am your man to give it to. errrr sell it too.... errr. CRAP!

South Park

I hardly ever catch a full episode of South Park, I generally leave it to friends to tell me about parts of episodes that I need to see. Well lets just say that after mutch searching I have found links to some of my favorite clips of the show and here they are:

Evolution explained

N_ggers

Hell orientation


Thats all I got for now so enjoy and until next time.

The name is Crap, James Crap

I figure that since my last post (over 7 months ago) was a movie review the best way to come back is with a movie review. As the title says I am sure that you could come to the conclusion that I do not like Bond movies. Call me a girl or whatever you may, I just do not enjoy them. All the supposed great ones were told old for me to enjoy as a kid and well the Pierce Poopman years are a joke.

I just cant get into this cookie cutter series of movies. Crazy maniac wants to take over world, Bond snogs 4 girls, 1 of them gets captured and 1 of them is evil, Bond fights crazy maniac man and wins, thus the world is saved and we can all leave the theater happy.

Needless to say when the latest Bond came out into theaters and all my chums who so dearly love Bond went and saw it at midnight, I was at home sleeping and not wasting my time. Casino Royale came out on video a couple of weeks ago and I found myself in an odd positions as I was at the electronics of Fry's.

The sign read, BluRay DVD Casino Royale SALE 22.99, yes I have a bluray player (thank you PS3) and I absolutely love watching movies in BluRay. So the dilema was do I buy a movie I know I am going to hate, or do I buy a movie I know I am going to hate that is on BluRay. So I bought the freaking movie.

2 weeks passed and the movie sat on the player unwatched when one Saturday night I decided it was time to watch a movie. Choices were Gladiator or the new Bond. I chose Bond, only because Gladiator is a regular DVD.

I watched the Bond and I loved it. It was so unlike every Bond I had seen before. This Bond was like Greg House, a jerk but so cool it didnt matter. Yeah he flag the girls and saved the day but it was so much cooler than anything I had seen in a Bond movie, After watching the movie and thinking abnout how much I enjoyed it, this thought came to mind:

Broznan is to Bond as Clooney is to Batman.

The official Palmercat score: Hell Yeah!

P.S. with my new blogging theory, I know there will be typos and terrible punctuation. and I dont really carebecause I am thinking freely and as long as i am on the throne nothing can bring me down........except those fissures.

Tis a Good Time to Review Some Things

It’s been a while since I reviewed anything, so I am going to make this a review post.

Kellogs released a new breakfast bar called “Go-Tarts”. It’s an on the go Pop-Tart. I had my first one about five minutes ago, and could go without having one ever again. Are Pop-Tarts not “on the go” enough? I mean I know its hard to unwrap that silver stuff they package them in, its slightly harder to tear than tin foil, and then proceed to eat the Tart. You could do this anywhere! Also the Tart is very versatile, you can heat it up in the toaster, the microwave, the toaster oven, the oven, or you could just eat it as is out of the wrapper. Also everyone knows the best part of the Tart is the frosting. Have you ever had one of those Tarts without frosting, yeah they are unbearable. The Go-Tart has a serious lack of frosting and way too much of that crust stuff. Add that on to the fact that there is simply not enough filling and you have yourself a pretty crappy breakfast bar.

Official Palmercat Score: 3/∞

Now let’s move on to movies, I finally saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2 last weekend and I think this is a good place to review Footloose.

I was getting in bed last and the Palmercat Gal had fallen sleep to none other than the 80’s classic Footloose. I remember watching the movie as a kid and thinking that Kevin Bacon’s character was so cool. I watch the movie now, and he was clearly gay. The reason that this is a classic 80’s movie is that if it came out today, no one would go see it. Even if they updated the filming the story is terrible, dancing is really not outlawed anywhere, and no one wants to see a movie about dancing anymore. (Step Up is going to absolutely bomb, I promise.) The movie does have some redeeming qualities, If you know the Palmercat you know that he is a sucker for montages, and this movie is not short on them at all.

Thinking back now I don’t think there is any difference between the montage in Footloose where Bacon is looking back on all that has gone wrong and start frolicking around an abandoned warehouse (where there is a mysterious illegal poetry library and some train tracks) and the montage in Rocky 4 when Rocky goes speeding off into the night after Apollo dies and he gets into a fight with Adrienne. No difference, except for all the frolicking.

However there is an absolutely classic laugh out loud, this is so ridiculous, montage. After the kids get the ok to have the dance in the basement, it cuts to a scene of Bacon riding a dirt bike, and then his 2 friends come in from the side and join him on his ride. The very next shot they all have girls on the back of their bikes. Next thing you know there’s like 20 of them all on dirt bikes heading out to decorate for the dance. This scene is topped off by the gay sand bag tossing from person to person to cover 10 feet of space and then Ariel switching on the lights and mass hysteria ensues over the fact that they decorated a warehouse basement for a dance. Simply classic.

Also I bet you can’t name a more famous movie with more B-list actors as leads. Bacon, Sara Jessica Parker, Chris Penn, Dianne Wiest, John Lithgow, Lori Singer.

Official Palmercat Score: 7/10