The funnelcloud of everyday living continues. If I can step back even a tiny bit from the maelstrom to be observant, it is all quite fascinating. That may be one of the true benefits of writing. Distance.

Events in the last few days remind me of some of the places I’ve fished on the Copper River, dipnetting salmon: Standing on a rock and plunging an 18 foot-long net handle down into the swirling brown chaos requires strength, agility, and a certain amount of sensible caution to avoid tumbling into the boiling eddies and being carried away like so much flotsam.

It’s exactly like that here on our little patch of northern heaven. Thursday, Olaf, our year old Malamute pound puppy puked up yellow bile in the house. By evening he was unable to eat. Thursday night he repeated the vomiting scene in our bedroom. Out on his chain for the rest of the night. I woke up early to walk him, and he blew out a huge puddle from the other end. (This is gross, I know, but it is necessary for the telling of this tale. Gratuitous use of gross imagery is, uh….gross.)

The kicker here is that it was Amy’s birthday yesterday. I left her a happy birthday note with a long description of what happened in the early AM with Olaf, and how it seemed pretty ominous. This was not the first time that this happened to him. He was near death from a similar episode 2 days after we brought him home from the shelter. 600 bucks fixed him. Or so we thought. This is the third time he’s been like this. So now we are not real casual about waiting to see if he gets better. Amy spent her birthday with the vet, on the phone with the vet, crying, and skijoring at Creamer’s Field with our normal dog, Bosco.

Olaf spent the day in doggie hospital with an IV because he was in real bad shape. More gross stuff came out of him, from both ends, except that it was bloody. The vet was leaving for Anchorage and the start of the Iditarod. So we brought the dog home wearing a diaper made out of a towel with a hole cut in the middle for his tail. It works pretty good. He fouled the vet’s office more than once yesterday. We also have IV bags; Amy got a quick lesson in administering the IV. He’s locked in a huge airline kennel in the basement.

The irony (there’s the word) is that it was Amy’s birthday. We spent a good deal of time discussing what heroic lengths we are willing to go to in order to keep this loving beast alive. He’s borderline right now. We aren’t selfless heroes. The kids were in tears. Amy was sad. She played all the birthday messages on the answering machine from her friends and family. She opened all the cards that people sent. She opened and admired the presents we gave her. We enjoyed a pizza dinner the kids made. And we sang Happy Birthday.