Clean Them or Kill Them

I have been keeping them clean. Everyday they get the swab down, a once over with baby wipes or a warm washcloth. She isn't so bad, but he is just crustified. Thanks to her incessant grooming of his ears with a warm comforting tongue he has chronic infections. There are things living in his ears that came from his ass. Why? Because she is also his asslicker. I have a song I sing to the baby about this that always makes him smile and giggle. It's only one simple obnoxious line consisting of "Lick Your Own Ass Lu-Lu / Lick Your Own Ass Lu-Lu"

They have been with me through so much: alone and pregnant, now the mamma of an 18 month old bambino, the death of my 27 year old brother, everything that happens to all of us in life.

He is almost blind... scratching his bulbous eyes on the thorny wild berry vines intertwined around his beloved concord grapes. The grape vine is over 80 years old. Every summer for the last 11 years Gingko has found his way to the lush fragrant plant growing on the side of my house, disappearing into the foliage, feasting on it's blue fruit, snorting like a crazed pig.

She is the Alpha. Years ago I dubbed her the "saucy Bitch". The oldest and smallest, she is also the most controlling. Never letting the other two have too much fun. A sweet terror. She has breathing spasms now and a big lump on her side. She still hasn't realized at the ripe old age of 13 that she farts. Everytime it happens, she whizzes around as if she's been cattle-prodded from beyond. This too inspired another one liner for the baby. A punkish tome that goes like this- "Lu-Lu and the ASS GHOSTS/ Lu-Lu and the ASS GHOSTS!"

Two months ago my mother commented on Lu-Lu's Yeti like appearance, "Clean them or kill them!" I got her groomed, but now it is time to let the two of them go. I vacillate thinking hmmm... they were so spritely this morning, forgetting the day last month when Gingko couldn't even get up to go outside. There never seems to be a right time. My sweet loves, you will always be my first babies... Forgive me.


pets, loss, euthanasia