Well, I'm all the way to the one-boot-on stage of readiness which given how very much I did not even want to get out of bed today is no mean feat.
Or something. The delayed boot goes over an ankle brace, and while I feel SO VERY MUCH BETTER at the end of the days when I wear that piece of equipment, it does make getting into and out of shoes and boots a lot more work.
Other than that, not much is happening. Himself and I are at the point where we know Ruby cannot go on much longer; she falls down at random times, one of which had her falling into my worse knee and another jangling his balance badly enough to put him in bed for an hour or until his Big Pill kicked in. I'm feeling really guilty; she's been a thorn in my side for most of her life, and the primary reason the worse knee has gotten, uh, worse, over the years- she has never understood the size hole she needs to actually go through without bending things, and when I have been the primary opener of gates and doors that means I've been what gets bent. She was good for keeping rabbits down and coyotes out of the yard, but those jobs have been beyond her for at least four years (when she turned 11; her Chesepeake Bay Retriever dam died of old age at ten). She's loosing weight rapidly but neither Franklin nor I can lift her- she's "down" to about 75 pounds, after a top weight of something like 110.
My dislike of her (and the resulting doubt about my motivations) and also worry for what her death will do to Griz, who is about 15 months older than she is but in substantially better health and just a much better dog all around, have delayed this decission to a point where there's some sort of canine-induced Stockholm Syndrome going on: other people seem to think that she should have been put out of this mutual misery last winter.
Bother. Why does life have to be so complicated?