I was wondering last night why Mark and I seem to be on a different page as far as saying goodbye to everyone and everything. Maybe its because he is a man and he hides his feelings well. Maybe its because he doesn't have as many people to say goodbye to. I don't know, but I think that I am having such a hard time because I have never lived more than 30 minutes from my two sets of parents, and never more than 2 hours from my sister. Except for my 4 years in college. And then I was only 4 hours south at Miami U. Mark has lived more than 2 hours away from his mother for most of his adult life. He has even lived as far away as Texas. Not having that close proximity to my family is throwing me for a loop I admit. "See you later" is still very hard.
The entire upstairs is done. Cleaned and packed. Just have to bundle up what we have been sleeping on, vacuum and call it a day. The downstairs has a bit more work, but Mark and I have become a very efficient team when it comes to cleaning. The final packing needs to be completed today, and I need to review the protocol for preparing Scout for flight. I need to attach all of the paperwork to her cage, and place water, food bowls and zipties in the appropriate places. I'm not sure if her crate will fit with all the luggage as is. We may need to collapse it for travel and put it together again once we are in the hotel. Or maybe she can just sleep on a towel or something.
Today we need to scatter Pongo's ashes. Pongo was our gentle and loving greyhound. We adopted him at 5 years old. I don't know what kind of life he had before he came to us, but it wasn't a good one. It took 5 months living with us before he wagged his tail. It took quite awhile longer before he would put his butt in the air in that puppy play stance. He had to learn how to be a dog again, but once he came out of his shell he was such a happy guy. Except when I left him. Then he was a bit destructive, but when I was home he would lay on his bed and stare at me with adoring eyes. I always said that Pongo would marry me if he could. LOL He loved living here in Oberlin and romping in the yard or on the bikepath in the winter when I would let him off his chain. Most greyhounds have to be on a lead at all times. They are sight hounds and once they set their eyes on something they are off. By the time they stop and look up they could be miles away and their noses are not as keen as other dogs. They are not able to find their way home. But, I could let Pongo off his lead. He was that attached to me. He loved to bound down the bikepath and run as fast as he could back to me when I called him. And he was fast! I loved to watch him run. There was such joy in him then. Pongo died in the spring a year ago. We had a terrible ice storm with ice inches thick on top of snow. I didn't realize that it had frozen on top when I let him out in the morning and he went flying and broke through the thick ice with his very thinly skinned legs. He hurt himself badly then and the vet thought he had torn a ligament. However, it never healed and it turned out he had bone cancer. I went to the vet with a very sick dog thinking that we were going to make a decision about surgery and was not expecting the verdict of bone cancer. We put him to rest that night. We did our best to make sure that his spirit came home with us and I think he did because Finn has said that he has seen him. I had considered taking him with us, but I think he will be happier here in the yard where he used to romp, play and run laps around the house. 
Last night we had a nice dinner with Grandpa and Grandma EE. Grandma took the kids shopping at Walmart and they each picked out a little gift. Tali got crackle nail polish and Finn chose Legos, of course. He was up at 6a.m. playing with them. He was up before me!
This morning we are meeting Nana and Grandpa at The Feve for our last gourmet breakfast. Last time I had pear and blue cheese pancakes. Sounds weird, but they were SO delicious. I wonder what crazy concoction they will have today.
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