A little more Ruby talk
2004-07-02, 11:28 a.m.

I can tell it�s summer vacation for students. All morning Diaryland has been busy so I haven�t been able to add an entry. Normally, when I�m at work, I can get on with no problem because all the kids are in school. I wonder how long it will take me to get sick of this and buy a gold membership?

A little more Ruby talk.

First of all, thanks for the sweet and comforting notes. I appreciate you all. I appreciate you telling me I�m not nuts for grieving so much.

Yesterday, I was fairly weepy. I have a picture of Ruby as my desktop picture and that was actually comforting. To be able to look at her.

After we got her back on Wednesday night, we buried her in the yard behind the house. Right along the border to the ravine. We can see her from the living room, if we decide to look out there. She has big rocks on her grave so that no animals dig her up. We have what appear to be fox dens in the ravine, so we aren�t taking any chances. I also saw a deer on Tuesday, though they aren�t likely to dig anything up. Besides a carrot or two. When we were finished, I just sat there crying. I did *not* want to leave her. I sat there for about 20 minutes before I went back inside.

Last night when I got home, I went back out there. PJH made it very pretty, so that�s nice.

See, the thing about Ruby is that she is different from other dogs I�ve known. We have another dog, Tasha, and she isn�t anything like Ruby. Ruby was almost human feeling. She would look at you and her eyes seemed so knowing and so wise. She was very attentive and she wanted nothing more than to be close to me. I was �hers.� Me and Tasha. She really loved Tasha, too. Ruby had this � energy about her. Though that sounds so new agey and I hate that. But she did. As weird as it sounds, I could feel the life in her. I could feel it in her body when I held her. She would crawl up on the sofa when I was sitting there and sit in my lap, with her front legs around my neck and put her head on my shoulder. Of her own accord. She would sleep in a little round ball with her head resting on my ankle. That is when she wasn�t trying to crowd PJH out of the bed or we hadn�t caged her so P could get some sleep. Ruby was a rescue dog and she had been starved and abused. I feel really good that even though we only had her for 4 months, she was well loved and happy during those 4 months. She was the tail waggingest dog you�ll ever meet. She was so *happy* all the time. Except when she was caged away from me. She hated that but sometimes she had to get caged so I could do stuff.

Did I ever show you guys the photos of her? I know there were a few I put on this site, but there are more. You can go to: http://photos.yahoo.com/nimiiwin and click on the Ruby album. There are quite a few there. I love the ones called �Curly Ruby.� Whenever Ruby would be without her little jacket or her collar, I�d call her �Naked Ruby.� She wore a jacket for the first 2 months or so she was with us because she doesn�t tolerate extreme weather well and Michigan weather is best described as extreme.

I have to tell Octavian tonight. He still doesn�t know. I�m not looking forward to that. He really liked Ruby, too.

But, then, everybody liked Ruby. You couldn�t help it. She was just too cute, too happy and too friendly not to like.