I talked (well, texted after the kiddos bedtime) with my sister and brother-in-law to let them know that Maddie had flaked out and for now to once again just expect me in May and that I didn't know my exact plans for the drive back but as long as they weren't waffling about Waffles I was still planning to come even if it's just me. They reassured me they hadn't changed their mind and then my sister sent me these two pictures, the first after telling Waffles I was having difficulties with the plan for me to come visit and take her home with me so it might take longer, the second after telling her that I was still coming for her in just a month and a half as planned.

I promised Waffles on my very first visit after they adopted her that she is family pack and to keep being a good girl even when the rules seem strange and hard and that if she's ever not wanted in her current primary pack, I would come get her and bring her home to live with me. I have been working hard ever since it became clear that things were headed that way with my sister during her last pregnancy and last summer my parents planned 3 separate drives out there and executed 2 of them planned around rehoming Waffles and both times my sister's family decided RIGHT beforehand by family vote that they actually wanted to keep the dog. And then changed their minds later. My da wanted to steal her their first visit because he didn't feel my sister (who is NOT a dog person) deserved the love of Waffles.  But the clincher is how upset Waffles got right after I left in December and how sad she still is over my absence -- the picture is actually in the daybed where I sleep when I'm there and is currently the place where Waffles spends most of her time. She tried so hard to come with me to the airport and got so upset when I told her that I had flown and she couldn't easily come with me on the plane, I'd have to come back with a car to bring her home with me. Then when I left in December, that very night, Waffles took her bed out of her kennel and destroyed it then stayed up all night howling and keeping the entire house awake (including the then 6 month old baby and the 4 year old who gets night terrors easily.)  Waffles repeated this EVERY night, with EVERY bed they tried to buy her, until they decided to put the blanket I had slept with and that still smelled like me into the kennel for the dog to use as a bed. (The reason it still smelled of me is because my sister felt it was getting too worn and should go to Goodwill and so hadn't bothered to wash it, just put it in the give away box to wash before taking over.)  Immediately they gave her the blanket that smelled of me, she settled to sleep and stopped keeping the entire household awake all night and hasn't destroyed the blanket at all -- but she's still been mopey and spends most of her time waiting for me to come back.

This is why me waiting til June and pushing my sister's "I'm done" any later could end up with a sudden decision to rehome her locally and breaking my promise to the pupper.and break her heart and make true those contingent precogs I have spent 2+ years battling  And it's why regardless any other contingent precogs about that drive and the permutations it could take, I'm not willing to do anything that doesn't involve me bringing Waffles home to Wisconsin in May.

I'll figure it out. My anger was about being lied to and feeling betrayed and what had been prioritized above me by someone I counted a close friend, but I can't say I was entirely blindsided by it because I never could precog Maddie in my sister's house or interacting with my family in Seattle area...and so it wasn't the fact that the precogs didn't exist because those fatelines were truncated by her free will choice, it was the lying to me and the reasons for it and the excuse she used to make it more palatable to me rather than giving me the truth. And. I'm actually really calm and not worried at all that every set of plans  keeps falling apart for someone to do that drive back with me and Waffles and I keep returning to not having anyone but me and the dog for it. It FEELS like one of those "sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together" situations. (that's a Marilyn Monroe quotation, one of my favorites; the full quote is: "I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.") Do I have any idea what the better thing is or how it falls together? Nope. But I have that inner bright flame of faith that that's just how it is about this and not to stress, that the answer will unfold organically in its own time as long as I don't do anything stupid and don't lose faith in Divine Timing.

Faith be like that. It's that stupidly stubborn thing in your heart that calmly defies all logic to the contrary and just keeps right on believing in its own dreams and that they're still possible. You haven't truly fucked up til you give up on believing that somehow there's still a path to reach whatever you set your heart on.

O. And speaking of faith of that sort. The stubbornly illogical faith that keeps itself burning regardless of everything that happens before you reach the desire! I listened to the most recent of the songs Eric has been posting for his 100 Songs By The End of the year challenge. Come Back Home is really beautiful, it's my favorite so far. It cracked my heart open, in the good way, made me feel that weak in the knees soft "awwwww" love the way that the line "but you know I'll be there waiting, with my arms outstretched to reach for you my love" has always made me feel when I listen to The Meaning of It All. Just that overwhelming softness and brightness of inner light and the surge of love where you feel cherished. And it made me smile the sort of smile you just can't stop from shining out of you and it made me desperately want one of those really long "this is what I choose and I'm never letting go" type hugs. Wasn't expecting that. But there you are. It's not logical, but that's how I react to the song and what it makes me feel. Every time I've listened to it. It's definitely one I'll be singing and that will stick in my head, it'll stay in my head exactly as it is in this form with just his voice and the nylon string guitar. And I can tell, my brain will replay it for me from memory at the most unexpected times. And it will crack my heart open that same way every time I hear Come Back Home, ain't no point in me denying that truth,

I need to clock out and head home now. It's past bar time getting into rape o'clock questionable life choice to be a single woman out by yourself and Spock misses me. My cat turns 13 in May and he's having a really hard time missing our Pisces pup luck dragon emo girl since Audrey died -- I had adopted my dog before rescuing Spock from the situation he was in so until her death he'd never known life here with me without her. Soft heart is how I rescued Spock, I like having both a dog and a cat for a place to feel home to me but hadn't planned on getting a cat. Not until the friend of friend roommate vet tech was having her other male cat attack Spock (it's why part of his nose is scarred missing) and she needed to separate them and i told her I loved Spock from the pictures would take him in if nobody else wanted him. And that's how he ended up moving in with us even though nobody knew how he would react to a dog only that he was now terrified of other cats including his own reflection, lol. There's a reason I don't volunteer at rescue centers and I would be a foster fail every time if I tried and I know that if I owned a house instead of a 2 bedroom condo so I had space for more fur babies, my home would be even more of a menagerie as well as a library and garden and greenhouse and art gallery then the current scaled down to a just me size version of that, lol.