Snicker's Journey

Last weekend, on the fourth of July, after we had begun packing the car for our once every two years family reunion... my beautiful baby girl, Snickers Olsen, a full-size dachshund, reddish brown, 15.8 pounds, collapsed.

Her rear hind legs just gave out, she began dragging herself, like a wet seal, across my carpet to the couch, as I cooed to her, to come see her mommy.

I had no clue that she had just been paralyzed with a type 2 disk degeneration. It broke my heart. We were just on our way out to finish loading our luggage into the two cars, we dropped everything to say goodbye to Snickers Olsen.

I pulled her body across mine, gently laying her down in my lap, stroking her beautiful, slightly matted fur, murmuring words of love, comfort, as I spread kisses across her face, head. Her body weight was entirely shifted onto my numb leg, which she laid on, but I could care less. The only thing in the world that mattered was my Snickers.

My dad phoned our vet friend and he told us, from the looks of it, Snickers was going to have to be put down. At 14 years of age, she was getting too old. Her body couldn't handle the enormously expensive 4,000 surgery that she might need and the fracture she sustained would most likely be too much.

We would have to say goodbye. My mom, generally insisting she doesn't love all three of our dogs, knelt down, laid her head across Snickers', kissed her forehead, tears dribbling down her cheeks. My sister screamed, ran to her bedroom, to cry in silence. My brother, Jon, mostly stoic, was clearly upset.

And my little brother, Riley, was even crying, gently petting Snickers, comforting her. We packed her into the car, with her favorite blanket, toys, in my dad's lap and transported her to the vet's office in Riverton. What seemed like an eternity, but was really twelve-to-fifteen minutes, and we arrived at the clinic.

I opened the door, hustled my dad, who bundled Snickers, into his arms, into the office, my remaining family members trailing behind us. We were a troop of solemn soldiers, preparing to pay our respects, to our fallen comrade.

We were ushered into the largest room they had, offered lukewarm, small, bottles of water. The room for being their "biggest" was small, slightly cramped. It contained a medicine cabinet, a scale to weigh dogs, a counter to lay them upon and six small chairs. Otherwise, the sparse room was decorated in cat paraphernalia.

Snickers was panting, heavily, still, clearly in a deep amount of pain. Our vet arrived, tested her, weighed her, gave her an x-ray. When he took Snickers away, in his arms, for the x-ray, I feared I would never get her back. That he was secretly signaling mom and dad, to let them know, he was gonna put Snickers down, to sleep, that there was no hope for my baby girl. My girl, who would make the angels cry at one glance at her.

Then he pronounced, a slight, trembling smile on his face, said, "the situation is optimistically hopeful. Snickers will live. Here's some medicine. You have a four week trial period. If she improves, she lives. If she doesn't..."

We shuffled out, parted ways. At home, dad said a tearful goodbye to Snick and everyone but Mom and me left for the family reunion. Snickers was the world's worst patient.

Our first day, she jumped off the bed, nearly straining her back. She couldn't potty. She couldn't do it by herself. She couldn't walk. We had to hand-feed her. She was refusing solid food, still is. We feed her medicine through peanut butter on a spoon.

I'll update more on the situation, later, but my baby is struggling.

I hope I don't have to put her down.

I love her.

She's my everything.

My sun. My moon.

There is no world without her.

I don't even want to see the sunlight, when I know, on a nice day, I can't enjoy it in the park with her. I don't want to see the day, when I know she could be walking beside me, trotting, growling, demanding, cutely, for a treat from the jerky bag in my fingers.

I would do anything to make sure she was okay, to ensure that my world remained intact, with Snickers Olsen, in my life.

Just long enough even for her to see me graduate high school.

I would give her every year I had left of my own near 18 years of life to ensure that.

I'm praying for a miracle.

---Emily

Edge of tommorrow movie review

 
Image credit: David James

Tom Cruise has outdone himself this time. In The Edge of Tomorrow, he not only managed to keep his shirt on (the entire film), but also hook us into a world that is true to it's tagline, "Live, Die, Repeat." The movie begins with Major William Cage, a coward, less than gracefully moving in the front lines to the English Channel.

But let's rewind for a brief moment and explain exactly what Cage does.

He is the slick, charming, ever-smiling UDF PR spokesman, the smoother than oil "talking head" of the United Defense Forces.  And when he charms the masses, The General (Brendan Gleeson) decides to force him into the front-lines to capture heroic footage of their spokesman.

Cruise panicking is a welcome sight, even the nervous, "I'm not a soldier" stutter is surprisingly enduring.

So Major William Cage does what all desperate, sleazy spokesman do best: he stutters nervously, in a surprising move of boldness, tries to blackmail the General.

That lands his pretty, panicked face in the front lines for the hell of it. Cruise's reaction is perfect and proves that he can definitely underplay emotion when necessary to better the script. After a few major failings, one of them being his 2013 Oblivion, a movie no one remembers, that fades just like its title.

Thrown to the wolves, he wakes up in an unknown location, uncertain of his surroundings. He's quickly treated to a rude awakening by a stern, deep fried Sergeant (Bill Paxton), labelled a deserter, handcuffed and led to his new team and a suicide mission: the J squad, the misfits of the army, who squabble and play poker. (Despite the consequences from the sergeant, such as forcing them to eat the poker cards because, "Their fate is in their own hands."

Untrained, ill suited for the job, Cruises muscular body is suited up in high tech robot armor, ready to propel strange Ailen metallic cresties away. Once he learns how to work it, that is...

Forced to confront his greatest fear, death, Cage, armed, is strapped into a plane, with the J Squad, failing to get advice on where the safety is on his suit. The plane is immediately hit, near-exploding.
Panicked, he struggles to "drop" from the plane as the rest of his J Squad is already on the ground. Seconds near death, he drops and falls into the water, right in the middle of the battle.

He wades through the battlefield, successfully evading death, even as his fat team-mate, immediately gets it. But his suit is foreign to him, he grapples with his blaster.

And after watching the glorious, Full Metal Bitch, aka the Angel of Verdun, Rita Verdanski (Emily Blunt), all muscles and business, in action, he shoots a blue creature and bites the dust.

The screen goes black almost immediately. And Cage wakes up, once more, back at the begining. What is going on here?

 Cage is forced to relieve the events of the day over and over again, video-game style, until he gets the day right, wins the war. Going through a super-cool training sequence, he repeats the day, trying to force them to realize the plane is going to be bombed, they will be immediately attacked, forced to drop down, unprepared.

Cruise, unfairly, has clearly re-lived this day, over and over again, learning new things about his team-mates to convince them to be on his side, things we never got to see. Finally, after dying more than 60 times, Cage finds Rita, shooting at all the right places, saving her life, proves that whatever blood he absorbed is now giving him the power to re-set the day, over and over.

Rita glances at him, desperate burning in her eyes and demands he find her when he wakes up. Then they both die in a fiery explosion, he is back at the beginning.

This time, he says and does all the right things, participating in training. Making a cheeky remark, he is forced to do 50 pushups, after doing 5, sees which truck she is in, rolls under it, getting run over, dying immediately.

Three more times is the charm and he rolls, perfectly, under the car and scurries onto the training grounds, dodging metal training bots about to scissor his body, finds her, doing a push-up, her body gloriously fit. Cage's eyes can't leave her and they argue, he convinces her, they begin making a plan of attack to use this power, as a team, defeat the beasties.

But first, she trains him in a very cool, combat sequence. Unfortunately, after coming so close in the battlefield, they desert the army and trek together, using a stolen car, to a farmhouse. Cruise's true emotional abilities are shown, beautifully, as he pained, begs Rita not to start the chopper. Once the engine starts, the metallic cresties show up and she dies. She never gets farther than this farmhouse.

Rita firmly, learning this knowledge, that he just wants her to survive, demands, "Why is my life so important? I'm a solider..." And ignores him, starts the engine.

Desperate, Cage dives into the action, but Rita is still dead. So when he repeats the day, again, he goes on without her.

Eventually they reach a point when they realize the monster brain is using Cage to learn how humans fit, just like Rita was chosen for. Turns out, she offered humanity at victory at Verdun, but it wasn't real for the ailens allowe dher to win to observe nad master her tactics. Once they figure this out, they recognize they must get one step ahead of the aliens and anticipate their play one move in advance, in order to make their advance towards the final battle in Paris.

  I highly recommend you watch this film. It is one of Tom Cruise's best movies. For the first time in a long time, he is not just a sexual object of women's fantasies. He is an actor who gives it his all, truly enjoys this concept of Live, Die, Repeat.

As one of the last actors of a previous era, still fighting for time on the big screen, Cruise does a fabulous job. Perhaps, this is his greatest acting up to date (despite never taking his shirt off, not once, ladies). It might never win an award, but it definitely will help the box office this June.

Edge of tomorrow receives an A-. Running time: 1 hour and 53 minutes. Pg-13

2014...Bitches!

Greetings, bitches!

I heard that off a T.V. show yesterday and it just called to me.  To anyone who still reads this blog, it's 2014 and I am back.

What has 2014 been like?

Honestly, it's a blue Thursday. I've been depressed, struggling with the ACT, I lost my best friend, J, to boys. 

And yes, I know that girls like boys and boys like girls, but when all you want is to spend a little time with her, she rejects you in favor of guys, what can you do...but feel a little bit hurt, rejected?

On a brighter note, this is my first real attempt at writing again. I've been quite struggling to read or write lately, much less get up off the couch. 

I now own two lovely, beautiful dachshunds, in addition to my dog, Snickers, also a dachshund. Their names are Peanut and Butter, they are 5 and they love me.

I am still not over this gorgeous guy I've been crushing over for a like a year now. It's inappropriate, not my place to feel this way, because of work reasons, but I do.

I'm fighting it, it's working, but its still a struggle, especially when half the time all I can do, is put my foot in my mouth, try not to stutter.

Yet, losing my best friend to a few bad boyfriends, the bottle, has made me realize that I can incorporate all this in my story, Obsessed and repurpose it like I've done for the last six years. 

Maybe 2014 is my year to shine.

Luck to all.

I will start updating this again. 

Weekly.

Live long and prosper as SPOCK would say.