Travellin' Penguin

A Recap of the Past Week….

This has not been a good week. Not at all. No, It has been an awful week except for maybe one bright spot later on in the week, but that hardly seemed important.  Let me start.

On Monday we took our beautiful dog Odie to the vet for more tests to ascertain why his legs are swelling. Why is he in pain. Making a long story short…A full day at the vet’s, extensive blood work results and three hours of ultra sound tests on his shaved belly have revealed a 5 1/4 cm tumour in his pancreas. As well as another tumour on his spleen and his liver. Prognosis?  Weeks maybe? If the swelling doesn’t go down in his legs then probably he will be put to sleep pretty immediately.  The swelling has gone down a bit and medication is managing his pain.  So he continues to be cared for night and day by us. Now, a week later, we are getting our heads around it and are not a sobbing mess.

We have a month long trip coming up to the Eastern European countries the end of September. That is our dilemma. It’s booked and paid for and the Housesitter who Odie loves has come to visit him and talk with us. The vet doesn’t think we will still have him by the time we leave. But they don’t know if the tumours have been slow growing or came on quickly, all at once. Surgery is not an option as the pancreatic tumour is very inaccessible, a great deal of vascular things tied up with it and we won’t put him through even an exploratory.  Besides we all know pancreatic cancer doesn’t generally end well. So if he is still coping okay before we leave do we leave him for a month and hope nothing comes up with the Housesitter? Though the Housesitter and the vet will easily work together. Do we want to have him put to sleep when we aren’t here? Or do we have this happen before we go even though he may be okay while we are gone? The dilemma. I guess we will wait and see until closer to the date and see what the vet says. We trust her and she’s a good friend as well so we’ll see.

Now we are enjoying what time we have left and doing everything in our power to get back to normal and let Odie know that he’s okay. He is very happy and very comfortable. As soon as that changes, then he will gently be put to sleep. And please, I don’t want anyone talking about the ‘rainbow bridge’.  I really don’t like the way  many people look at death of a pet.  He’s had a caring, loving life and has never known pain, hunger or lack of shelter. When it is time for him to go he will go with as much love as he had when he lived. That’s all any of us can ask for.

Enough….

I have started the book I talked about last week. These Dividing Walls by Fran Cooper.  I’ve not read a lot as it’s often hard to temporarily concentrate enough this week but the writing is exquisite and I am really enjoying it. The Paris apartment block where this story takes place has interesting characters and wonderful descriptions.  I will read it slowly so my slow mind can enjoy all I find it to be offering.

On the Audible scene I am listening to The Golden Earrings by Belinda Alexandra. It’s historical fiction based on real events in Spain. I haven’t read historical fiction since I was in the my 20s and 30s.  But when travelling in Spain we saw a performance of Flamenco dancers that was stunning. I enjoy the music and dance of Flamenco so much. One of the people who travelled with us told me how much she enjoyed this book. It focuses on the time when women were first allowed to dance Flamenco as it was a man’s domain for a long time. The protagonist evidently decides that she is going to change this and the novel is based on the woman in life who made this happen.  We’ll see how it goes. Since Audible.com had it for one of my credits I decided to see if the story is good or not.  I’ll let you know.

The bit of good news I had is about my photography. Months ago I saw a competition in Australian Photography magazine calling for people photos taken in Black and White.  I took a photo of a hotel porter walking in the rain, taking our bags to our room in Sri Lanka. We walked behind him and the photo in my mind called me to pick up the camera that was around my neck and snap his photo. I loved the result and thought why not send it in.  Then I completely forgot about it.

Thursday night I received an email from Australian Photography magazine that it had received a Commendation congratulating me on the photo.  It didn’t make it through the second shortlist but did make the first shortlist.  Considering thousands of people enter these competitions I was really happy it got as far as it did.  It won’t go any further now but I do have the commendation certificate on the wall.  I needed a bit of good news this week and that could not have been better. Especially as the more conservative landscape photographers in our Photo Club never seem to like my photos of people.  They never do well in the local challenges. However a love of photography and all art for that matter is subjective and I never let others put me off something if I like it. That’s all that matters. Photographers in Tasmania take lots of photos of wilderness areas.  Lots of lone trees on sun bleached landscapes. I call it Trees and Moss photography and waterfalls that looked like combed ice.  It is beautiful photography, no question about it, but I prefer to document life as I see it and Street Photography is my favourite form of photography so I continue to do it. Many in our club believe it exploits people or the photos should not be allowed without permission. I would never focus on someone I thought I was exploiting, ie (homeless people or disabled people). I generally get permission when getting frontal views and never share photos or take photos of children without parent’s permission and telling them why I’m doing it although Australian law states one can take as many photos as one wants if in a public arena.  There are ethics around street photography and I tend to adhere to them.

Well we will see what this next week brings because for now everything really is One Day At A Time.