I sat with Maggie for hours...

...waiting for someone to help me get her in the car. I couldn't do it myself. While she was here and immobile, I fed her croissants, cheese, leftover turkey and a steak all washed down with milk. I gave her a few treats as well. She was totally alert, just unable to move without suffering a lot of pain. She was afraid to lie down when she was tired so she would stand in one place for a long time, that's been getting worse. It's all been getting worse quickly. I kind of wish it had never gotten to that point but I did all I could to make her happy and as comfortable as I could, even giving her the ibuprofen and Xanax.

I wanted to thank you all for the following comments:

I am SO sorry to hear that is happening to you and your Puppy. You're a good mom :)

I'm do my best which at times hasn't been ideal, but we all do the best we can with the tools we have on any given day. And today, I had the tranquilizers for my dog.

I am so sorry Meg, I went thru the same thing with my last two babies, words don't really comfort do they, but their love for us makes sure we see them again "-)

Yep, it's amazing how much they can love us and count on us, what a humbling feeling that is. So, you have to live up to their expectations, as well as you can today.

If you feel that it's "time" and there is nothing that will make her have an extended life worth living then it's all you can do.

Yeah, I can't stand to watch her in pain like that. I asked my dad for his opinion and he said that to let her suffer like she did was a sadistic thing to do. That made the decision easy...so did watching her eyes.

Meg I have an old cat and she is starting to show signs of pain and arthritic symptoms. I don't want to take her to the vet, but I know I have to. I don't want her to be in any pain, but the thought is so painful I just don't want to deal with it. My thoughts are with you

Thank you hon. The vets do have some medication that can make the arthritic animals more comfortable so maybe they will be able to give the cat something, it was just too far advanced in Maggie's case. She was a German Shepherd and those dogs are susceptible to hip dysplasia's and that can be very painful. Even if my dog didn't hurt, she was belly down in the kitchen like a frog kicking her legs to get up and she just couldn't. It was awful. That's when I loaded her full of Xanax. I hope you cat does well...good luck!

And so far as my letter to Dear Abby is concerned, you guys agreed with my father. It's just that I recently came across "an" used with "uniform" or something else with the "Y" sound. It was in my encyclopedia and therefore I assumed it was right, but my father agrees with these guys:

The letter 'u' is pronounced here like 'y' with no preceding vowel. It is not pronounced as a vowel, and words starting with the 'y' sound should have 'a' in frontan unanimous That's wrong. The letter 'u' is pronounced here like 'y' with no preceding vowel.

And:

Good question. It's because of the consonant sound that the vowel "u" makes in both words ("yu", consonant sound of "y-"). You already know the rule for articles that preceed a word - use "a" if the word starts with a consonant (or consonant sound), and "an" if the following word begins with a vowel or womel sound. That's why.

Like I said, I thought that I was right because it was a World Book encyclopedia, not Frank's Encyclopedia. But, my father said what you said and then you all searched it. Thanks for straightening me out. By the way, I made up the argument with my sister, we never discussed that...it was just a way to get Dear Abby to choose it as a question. And, there's something else that I'll find out. I didn't sign it "Befuddled in Georgia", I just signed my name. So, if she ends up signing it something like that or "Lingual Nitpicker from Marietta", I'll know that she or her staff make them up and people aren't really so lame.

I mentioned Dear Abby to my father today, showing him the blog where I had discussed the stupid letter. When I first brought her up by saying, "Do you know the new Dear Abby?", he responded, "Oh, she's an asshole." Then I showed him what I had written...so he and I were on the same page regarding the goofy broad that gives advice. Oh well.

The other night my son and I watched something that I never would have watched alone, he picked it out and I agreed because I just wanted to spend time with the kid, I didn't want to watch that particular movie. But, it ended up being pretty funny. Sasha Baron Cohen played a great character in that movie so I wanted to see Borat. My father and I watched that one and although I liked it just fine, I liked the other movie better.

I have an opinion on the ridiculous situation with Imus and I need to do a bit of reasearch and then I'm going to lay it on you, peeps.

But for now, I think that I need to go to bed because my father is still here ("SURPRISE! WE'RE STAYING FOR ANOTHER NIGHT!") and he will be getting up at 6 so I have to get up at 5:30 to make coffee and breakfast for them and to pack a few turkey sandwiches. I should be up early enough to get to Imus first thing. So, good night for now and I'll see you in the morning!

Meggers

PS What do you guys think of Imus's statement?

OK, it's late Monday morning and my father JUST left, I'm going to write the ost about Imus now, I'll post it as soon as I'm done with it.