I've come to terms with the idea that I won't be defending Courtney Lane from the evil-doers on the ARC committee for much longer, but I'm not sure Mom & Dad have.
They've put up with my shenanigans for so long that they're convinced that they'll actually miss me when the time comes. Which, sad to say, will be soon.
As some of you know, after being overbred as a young girl, I was tossed aside and ended up in the Jersey City Animal Control Center and put on what amounts to their version of Death Row. It's not their fault -- idiot people, bad press and a lack of funding is a bad combination for urban Pit Bulls like me. I was literally rescued at the 11th hour by sweet, kind Erin who brought me to Mercer County. She couldn't foster me in her apartment, so I had to spend most of my time in a kennel, breaking out only on Saturdays to hang out in front of the PetSmart in Princeton, hoping someone would take me to a forever home. A lovely lady from Trenton gave me a try, but when I chewed up her magazine rack, she returned me. Really, I didn't know any better! Plus, wicker is just so dee-liscious! If she'd just taught me how to behave in a house...
Everything happens for a reason, though, because after no one else wanted me for another year or so, things started looking up. Mom & Dad were going to Best Buy to buy a computer when Mom spotted me from the car. "Let's just go to take a look", she said. She saw me outside that PetSmart sitting back in Erin's camping chair "like a little person", she said. She didn't see my droopy belly. My runny eyes. She didn't see the concrete-bed sores from the kennel. The skin condition. The cyst on my ear. She didn't even know I was a Pit Bull. I let her hold the full weight of my head in her hand, "Heavy in the hand," she said. "Produce Pete says that's how you know they're sweet", she said. She just knew, she said...
They've put up with a lot from me. The breaking-out-of-the-crate episodes, the chewing, the cancer. The peeing. The never barking. They say that my stubbornness is something they'll miss, too. I've been stubborn since the beginning. Hearing but not listening is a trick I learned from my pals in the kennel. It's the posture you need to take "on the inside", but it doesn't usually help us if, and when, we get out. I was lucky enough to find maybe the only two people in New Jersey who would accept me for me...
I must admit, I've been given a good life. Fancy food, great medical care (thank you, Drs. Bacon & Quin at Cedar Lane Animal Clinic and Dr. Clifford down at Red Bank Veterinary Hospital), beds galore, a fireplace to warm my golden slumbers. I loved to dress up and march in the Princeton Halloween Parade (and win prizes!) I met Santa at the mall. I've been to Baltimore, stayed at a fancy hotel in Cambridge and rode the "T" in Boston. Josh Hartnett gave me some lovin' down in the Village. I had my Make-A-Wish day on Coney Island where I rode the Wonder Wheel (really, you can check my YouTube Channel if you don't believe me... twenty thousand hits and counting!) I even got to meet the famous dancin' Candy Man, Uncle Belve!
Great friends along the way, too... The Renegades: Dr. T & RR, Jim & Kathy, James, Jacques, Cliff, the Smiths, The Rosenthal - Hubleys, and especially my best buddy Lenny! (By the way, thanks, everyone, for all the pizza crusts!) Moe & John Shepancy (I still blame that smell we smelled on the NJ Turnpike -- on the NJ Turnpike!), my favorite neuroscientist and fellow Chowhound - Marnie Phillips, Marcia Wilson (my personal portrait artist), babysitters Patty and Alan Newell (sorry about chewin' up the woodwork, guys), Frankie from Sheffield Court (I kissed a girl bulldog and I liked it... )
As you know, I'm a survivor (melanoma, surgery, radiation, experimental vaccine, lung metastases), but after almost four years... I'm afraid cancer's finally gotten the best of me. I'm stubborn, but no matter how much I fight -- and I've fought -- it's time to say goodnight. I'm comfortable and in no pain. No worries. Really.
I do need to set the record straight, though. I know I just said that cancer had gotten the best of me -- but I was wrong.
That part -- the best of me, I have given to Mom & Dad...
Once there was a way to get back homeward
Once there was a way to get back home
Sleep pretty darling do not cry
And I will sing a lullabye.
Golden slumbers fill your eyes
Smiles awake you when you rise
Sleep pretty darling do not cry
And I will sing a lullabye...
