Edmund Schweppe

Erin's dog Avallu is gone. He was throwing up yesterday, Erin took him in to the vet today, and he didn't come home. Cancer, ruptured spleen, a large dog and ten years old.

Avallu was a Tornjak, a big fluffy livestock guardian dog. Mostly white; brown facemask, speckled muzzle, and a dark patch over his hindquarters. He came from somewhere in Europe. Erin and I picked him up in Van and drove him north to Fort.

Once the fence went up, and once he learned to stay inside it, he was an exemplary guardian. He chased off lynx and bears; he was polite to the cats and the various fowl. It took him awhile to warm up to Solly the new pup a couple of years ago, but eventually they (and Thea, a little younger than Avallu but arrived slightly before him) worked out a routine to keep the place safe. He was, I suspect, always a bit anxious. We got on well. I'd stand outside, watching birds or pigs or Erin, and he'd come and stand next to me, his hip pressed into my thigh.

I don't really have stories about Avallu, not like Whiskey being a scaredycat until he discovered that petting is Good or Void Demon the cat who 'doesn't like people' settling in on my lap. He was just always there, a solid presence in the chaos of farm life. He was the best of pups.

Cleaners and "floor-planner" and photographer come today, starting in just under half an hour, and then we list on Monday (for what I had realistically and then optimistically hoped to get, which in practice in this market means probably somewhat less but eh).

Corvaric is about three-quarters of the way to being a blank slate. The last couple of days have entailed packing up things I still need, so that it will Look Nice for the photographs. (I shall unpack at least some of them once today is over with.) This has been frustrating because it means finding a Home for things that already HAVE a Home and are in it. But it's pretty much ready to go. I have even done some v basic spackle and paint work, for which I had to buy an entire gallon of paint because they didn't have any quart containers, but maybe the next people will appreciate it.

My brain can apparently only cope with so much at a time. I know that I'm going to the Gathering next month but I have been unable to plan for that in any real way, like timing or plane tickets or anything. Far as my brain is concerned, things that happen after Monday don't really exist. April is a nebulous blur and past that, I get nothing, it's a huge blank.

Facebook reminds me that four years ago I was standing in an apartment surrounded by boxes. I guess it's a small win for my psyche that the boxes are in a storage unit this time.

I'm gonna miss this place. It is Too Small but not by a whole lot: a second bedroom for a library/office would have made it perfect. (The unit upstairs from mine, with the same floorplan but with the addition of a loft over the kitchen, was for sale about a year before I bought my place. For, as I recall, what I'm asking now. O, Vancouver.) I've even mostly reconciled to the kitchen having an insufficiency of counterspace and drawers. I won't miss the Stifling In Summer, though. Or the upstairs neighbours who vacuum and galumph at all hours, though they probably won't miss the viola playing either, so, fair enough.

I've had the Paranoid Style's "Doug Yule" stuck in my head for the last few days. It's loosely about the guy who Lou Reed recruited to turn the Velvet Underground from a set of clashing personalities making really interesting music to the Lou Reed Backup Band, while the rest of the band quit one by one, eventually including Reed himself. I've rehearsed and rehearsed that my life is a curse / I've been driven away in a rudderless hearse / I've made things that were merely awful much much much much much worse (much worse) (much worse). (Interestingly I think that verse is written to be from the perspective of Sterling Morrison, the second VU member to leave after Reed fired John Cale. I think the verses are each from a different VU member, and the choruses from Reed. I appreciate that a lot.)

Onward to face the day.