Happy Fu Ears!

Happy Fu Ears!

May 2008 be filled with peace, love and the opportunity to joyfully wear new hats, just like Fugee. Doesn't he look happy?

If we haven't had the chance to connect in 2007, I'll try to be better in 2008.

Namaste/Peace/Love

Craig

You People Have Powerful Connections.

Wow- you people have some powerful connections.

The vet saw a rebound in Fugee that was completely unexpected and equally unexplained. He certainly isn't out of the woods yet, but the vet felt it warranted bringing Fugee home, as the environment of the hospital was stressing him out immensely.

If it is or was Fu's time, I didn't /don't want him to go out alone, scared, in an environment so foreign in smells, sounds and without people he knows.

This is a monitoring time. There are many positive signs--Fugee wagged and quivered when he saw me--first time he'd done that since going in to the hospital, and he pullled, pulled pulled on his leash when my friend Jane and I walked him to the park.

Hopefully he will get some much needed rest and stop digesting his own organs. Silly pancreas.. Oops that reminds me--need to go get some Mallox for him.

When I got home, Fugee leapt up on to my bed and immediately started snoring--that's exactly the same response people have! Uncanny!

One thing that really touched me so was by how much and how deeply Fugee had touched many of you. He's a special bag of bones and stink, and a very real vehicle of unconditional love & friendship.

Thank you for loving him like I love him.

Have peaceful, easy Eagles' Sundays, all.

Love from Craig and Fugee, the medical miracle twosome.

Think A Happy Thought.

Happy Friday, All...

Just a quick request-- think happy thoughts for Fu. He's really, really sick with pancreatitis, which he may not bounce back from. He's been in the hospital three days now, on IV.

Since I am made of money, what the heck, what's another 5 grand on the debt pile? It's just delayed dues paying for being a member of Club Fugee.

And I say without hyperbole, this pooch has been my lifesaver on several occasions. He came to me the week before I found out I was positive. When I shut people out trying to deal with this, he'd push his big, loving, stinky head into my lap and give me a "Let's go for a walk or chase birds!" look. He got me outside of myself.

It's weird, I noticed a woman walking her 42 year-old much loved relic of a Lab, who was walking sideways, hunched over, with locked hips and sad, sad eyes. I looked at that scene and hoped that I would have the compassionate good sense to let Fu go went his quality of life declined. What makes Fugee's situation frustrating is that he was the same hyperkinetic puppy four days ago, who pulled me 4 miles on a run. If he can be that puppy again without putting him through extraordinary stress, it's my obligation to help him out.

I am a believer in positive intentionality, so send him a kind thought and a smile if you will.

Wrote a blog the other day about challenges, positive thinking, and what we are to conclude from them. It's here if you'd like to read it: http://hermesbrainbelch.blogspot.com/2007/08/melancholy-optimist-aka-to-coin-phrase.html

Oh, and HUGE thanks to Patrick for spending an hour and a half with Fu at the hospital yesterday, to David, for talking with my vet and helping me to ask the right questions, and to Beth for driving me over to see Fu.

I have a 7 mile maintenance run for the marathon tomorrow. Who'd have ever thought that seven miles would be considered a short run?

Enjoy your weekends.

Peace
Craig

A Wish For A Peaceful Day.

Just a quick wish for a peaceful day. Took this pic on ALC near Carpenteria. Who knew it was near Chiang Mai?

Started running last Saturday. It kicked my ass. Entirely different muscles & cardio level from cycling. I was beating myself up for feeling slow and fat, but when I finished my three mile time trial, I found out I ran at exactly the same pace as five years ago, when I was running all the time. I'm a Switzer again!

Fugee saw me putting on my heartrate monitor for my maintenance run and flipped out--he, as my friend Michelle put it best, leapt through the air like Rudolph in the "She thinks I'm cuuuuuttttttttteeee......" episode. I wondered about taking him on a 4 mile run, as he just turned 11. I figured if it killed, him, he'd die ecstatic. He left me in the dust.

Gotta run-

Craig

https://www.sfaf.org/give/marathon.cfm?e=FL07&f=Craig&l=Hermes&n=5053

AIDS Marathon Florence 2007 Runner #5053, ALC Rider #4147, SFAF Client, HIV+ over 12 years, a pain in the ass for far longer

The Healer Watches.

Funny how concerned Fugee was with my being really, REALLY sick this week. Had a fever of 102.5 for five days, not strep, not pneumonia, not sure what it was. Maybe just an ideal way to do some endurance training three weeks before ALC.

Spent most of the time sleeping, Fugee pressed into me with his head on my chest, occassionaly looking up and giving me a worried glance and a lick. When friends came by to walk him, he had to be coerced to go out and leave me.

What a good friend.

"We are not amused..."

Fugee, upon hearing that Helen Mirren won best actress for The Queen, sniffed his nose and sighed. I think living in a Victorian has given him a Queen Victoria complex.

Royalty. So temperamental.

Slurrrrrp.

Fugee sends a tongue bath. Happy Sundays, all.

Dog Days of February aka Here Comes The Rain Again...

So, it's been interesting! Had quite a few friends wonder "Where the hell's Craig?". Been here, trying to fit my round life into a square hole, finding the humor, feeling the sadness, railing at the frustrations, and just shaking my head at it all. I'm tough, as you know, and have that ultra-annoying quality of appearing grateful for the lumps and the loves, seeing the lesson in the situation. But even I have my limits.

Fessing up, yeah, I know I can appear frightfully New Age, all crystals and idols and smiles and light. But there are times when I hear people say, "Blessings... I'm so grateful..." and I wanna sock them in the ultraviolet chakra. Sometimes things suck, there doesn't appear to be a reason for an illness, a hardship. It just happens. The universe is a series of random occurences from which we try to glean meaning in order to understand our lives. Isn't it possible that some, if not many, things simply defy explanation?

I was talking with a family member who said that they were being "comforted" by another relative around the early and tragic death of my mom. There was the implication that there must have been some action on my mom's part to cause her illness. Whathefuck? Is that serious? She was human, yes, but you would be hard pressed to find a more engaged, compassionate, giving, loving, selfless person. What twisting of God's word or the universe's plan would drive someone to come to this conclusion? Then I realize it's just this same attempt to find meaning in seemingly random tragedy.

So, I'm confused. Sometimes I see the pattern, other times I feel lost in the bumper car collisions of the spontaneousness of life.

Okay, that's deep enough for today. Just enough to worry those worried about me. Don't worry about me. I'm tough. I just question. Call it my existential tango.

So what's new... Fugee just came home from thje SPCA after a two day hospital stay. He had an attack of pancreatitis which caused 12 hours of explosive vomiting. Seems the pancreas releases too much amylase and lipase and the pancreas starts to digest itself. Horribly painful. Talk about feeling helpless. Fugee is such a sweet dog--to see him in pain just breaks my heart.

His situation seems to have stabilized, so here he is at home spending some bed time with Craig. My free dog has been really expensive this year--his $500 dollar eye surgery followed by $1,000 dog bite at Duboce fiasco, followed by the $1,500 pancreatitis debacle. I'll just throw it on the debt pile and hope that at some point, I might actually be able to make some headway on my debt.

Shaking my head, I still have some annoying positivity which lets me know this too will be okay.

I am actually okay. I just voice what I am feeling at any given moment--an uncomfortable reality for many. I'm just working through this dream trying to grasp meaning where I can and understand those random moments which seem to defy meaning.

On a side note, I'm really saddened by Anna Nicole Smith's passing. It has always struck me as odd at how hilarious people found her train wreck of a life. She was obviously a woman in a great deal of pain. Why is pain funny? If she'd had cancer, would we be elbowing one another in the ribs and saying, "Hilariosa!" Her drug problem was a terminal condition. She deserves some compassion, not ridicule.

Stepping off my soapbox, settling back to a night of TV, Chimay beer and my great friend, Fugee.

Peace-
Craig.

SF.

Here's a pic of the hotel. Will write more soon. Has been a weird transition back to SF. Fugee got attcked at dog park- $1,000 later, looks like he'll be okay. Thrown on the debt pile.

Sometimes I wonder if I am God's manifestation of a sick sense of humor. It all gets a bit old.

Can you tell the dark twin has come out to play? 'Cept play isn't fun.

Hopefully this too shall pass.

We'll see if anyone reads this.

Ciao.

Ease on Down the Road.

Fugee looks wistlfully at the Sierras...



...and settles in for the rest of the haul.



True to fashion, Fugee is pointing the wrong direction at the Weimar Institute.



Comfy California Roads.




The Once and Future Virgins, Craig n Dana.

Reno, Nevada. A Day Off.

David, Fugee, Nomad, Lex & the Truckee.



Fugee having a snuggle with one of his best pals.



Me and Truckee.



Fugee and the Truckee duckee. Wish you could see him trembling in the pic...



Off to cross Donner

Nebraska Sketches.

tanks for the memories.



mcmourning gerald ford.



model citizen.



fugee thinking "what the hell? why are my paws bleeding and cold??"

White Castle. It's just good eatin'.

mmmmmmmmmmmm. castley goodness.

Happy Fu Year.