Sophie's Story

   It happened yesterday. We had to do the thing that everyone who lives with a pet has to do at one point in time. The thing we don't think about. The thing we dread doing. We had to say goodbye to our sweet, beloved Colby. After four days of not eating and more than a week and a half of not eating enough, we had to make the decision. We had to end his suffering.   It's not easy to do. It's worse when he was walking around, jumping into his cat tree. Using the litterbox. Coming to his cat dish even if he didn't eat anything.    However, he  was spending more and more time in isolation under the chaise. You could see the weight melt off of him. C had a frank talk with our veterinarian about quality of life in cats and signs to look for when making these decisions. Being Christians we also prayed. We got our answer.   There were a few tender mercies yesterday. He came out to sit in the window and get some fresh air. I got to spend some time petting and talking to him. I

   C has always had a missionary spirit. Finding his faith and joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has helped him to improve his life and come to terms with several difficult things from his younger years. As a result he loves to talk to people about the church, faith and God, in the hope that they might find some of the comfort and help that he has found over the years.   As a result he started a page called "Come Unto Jesus Christ" on Facebook.    The page has gotten some attention. The vast majority of the attention it has received has been positive.   There have been a small number of comments from people who deride the page and religion as fake and fables. One person was annoyed at the fact that he felt that faith was being crammed down his throat.   Part of the me is annoyed by these comments. The other part of me is curious. Obviously these men (I think they are all male.) do not believe in any kind of higher power. I have no problem with that. It&#

   Lately it seems to be the in thing to be offended. Actually this has been going on for awhile, but it seems much more noticeable now.    Many years ago my manager was a guy named Scott. Scott was a smart man in many ways and I enjoyed conversing with him when things were slow at work. One of the things he told me is that he did not see anything in the Bill of Rights about the right to not be offended. The United States has great cultural diversity. Since this is such a diverse culture there are a lot of opportunities for people to be offended by a range of things.    I will admit there are a lot of things that we should find offensive and work toward correcting. In a country as wealthy as ours we still have homeless and many of them are veterans who served our country.  We should be offended that there is not equal educational and employment opportunity for all. We should be offended by the fact that income determines what kind of health care one receives. We should be offended by t

   Colby wasn't eating his dry food. In fact he wasn't eating much of anything. Normally he plows through his meal and then goes looking for more. He wasn't doing that now. Something was obviously wrong.    We took him to the vet. He was six months early for his checkup,but something like this can't wait. We brought him and and they checked him out. He was fine except that he had lost a lot of weight. They took some samples to send out to the lab. The vet was worried because he had noticed a mass on a small ultrasound while getting a urine sample. They wanted him to come in for a more complete ultrasound.   The blood work came back. All normal except for the pancreatic enzymes. Maybe it was just some pancreatitis. I wasn't so sure. I had a sick feeling. It was going to be something worse.    We brought Colby in for the ultrasound. It was not good news. There was a lot of fluid in the abdomen around the intestines and a spot on the liver. It was lymphoma. In other wo

   Things are starting to open back up in Minnesota. Last Sunday was the first time that a worship service was held in the chapel. I wondered how it would be coming back. I knew there would be precautions taken to prevent as much as possible the spread of COVID-19 due to being around a lot of people. I wondered how it would be. Would there be an aura of fear lingering in the chapel? Would it be a spiritual experience? Would anyone show up?    The Bishop had given instructions a week in advance for how things would go. The ward was split up into two halves. One half would attend on the first and third Sunday. The other half would attend on the second and fourth Sunday. We were asked to wear masks into the building once seated they could be removed.  Pews would be blocked off to insure proper distancing. There would be no singing and no handshaking or hugging. We were asked to bring hand sanitizer to be used before taking the Sacrament.    We walked into the church building with masks in

   In the movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Milly, the female lead character is a cook in a rooming house. Adam, the male lead, is in town buying supplies and has decided that he is going to find a wife before he heads home. He lives on a farm with his six unkept brothers. His reason for marrying is, "The place is like a pigsty and the food tastes worse". He sees Milly at the boarding house serving a meal to the men there and goes in to sample it. After the meal he finds her milking a cow and proposes to her. She accepts on the condition that she finish her chores first. Over the objection of the local preacher who doesn't like a marriage arranged on such short notice, they marry.    On the way to Adams farm in the mountains, Milly talks about how she is looking forward to solitude and taking care of one man after cooking for the men at the rooming house. The pause to water the horses and Milly picks sorrel (" makes real nourishing soup"). While she's p

   A word of warning before you read any farther. I'm going to throw a temper tantrum in writing. I'm not going to be nice or politically correct. I'm angry, upset, fed up,indignant, incensed,furious, boiling and seriously ruffled. I plan to verbalize, vocalize, pour out, unleash and seriously vent. I know that many of us have been subjected to quite a few angry people the past few weeks and would prefer to take a break from it.  If you are one of them, you may want to pass on this column.    I'm sure you are wondering what has got a mostly mild mannered person like me so upset. The answer is one word. Karen.   I know a woman named Karen. She's very quiet and very smart. Would you like to know what she did during the early days of the coronavirus outbreak? She did her job as a county procurement officer and helped to set up and supply places for homeless people infected with coronavirus to go to be safe and to not infect others. I also know, not personally, another