Say Cheese... Now Smile!

3 hours to finish packing... then its off to Sacramento for some good times at the river. :) How exciting!

We left Penelope with mom's co-worker's ex-mother-in-law for the weekend and I'm having some seperation issues about leaving the dog with a stranger. This is absolutely worse than having to leave her at the groomers for 3 hours. This is 3 days!!

The reason (I'm thinking as I overanalyze the situation... but really bear with me because to me it makes sense) why I'm having such problems leaving Penny with people goes beyond her absolute cuteness and my constant need to love someone so much that I just need to cuddle someone/something. Our very first doggie was a gorgeous white pomeranian named "SID." He was a very sweet dog and smart dog who could actually sit and come to me or my sister at the command, which is quite different from Penny since she'll do anything only if there's food involved.

Anyways, in 1986, my piano teacher was a flipino lady by the name of Miss Ampy. Although I don't really think she was a "Miss" because that would lead you to think that she was young and single.... and well, she wasn't. She was old and had the habit of hitting your fingers if you didn't get the keys correct. Oh those were some good times.

Since Miss Ampy came once a week and was flipino, my parents took a liking to her and I guess a bond of some sort was formed... so when it came for the family to go on vacation, Miss Ampy volunteered to take care of Sid.

2 weeks in Hawaii breezed by and the DAY we got back, Miss Ampy came to our door in tears. WHY!? Well, I'll give you 3 guesses...

Yeah... she lost the dog.

SHE LOST THE DOG!!

Let me tell you how you tell 5 and 6 year olds how you lost their dog. You hug them and start sobbing in tagalog about how sorry you are. THen you watch their little faces come to the realization that they will NEVER SEE THEIR DOG AGAIN... and then cry some more.

Mom: Miss Ampy said that Sid went outside and she couldn't find him.
Nicole age 6: So...
Mom: Sid ran away.
Nicole age 6: *blinks* Can't we go find him?
Mom: They tried looking...
Nicole age 6: *starts to cry*

Quite tragic huh.

GOod news though, the next day, the Humane Society called and said that they had Sid. Apparently he had been picked up as he was wandering the streets of Pomona and luckily he had his tag on. So everyone ended up happy, Sid lived to be 16 years old, and I continued playing the piano for Miss Ampy another 2 years.

:)

Well the story ended quite nicely.. so I'm sure things will be fine with Penelope. In fact, her babysitters have 2 (neutered!!) boy dogs... so I'm sure she'll be just dandy. :)