Sometimes some small seemingly insignificant affirmations keep me going. These days affirmations are like a lifeline, tossed to me, a woman out on very rough seas. This was another one those days.

It began with getting a message from Pete saying that the Bright Lights book Project is going to receive a check for $25,00O from Saltchuk, a marine company that’s funded us in the past. I am grateful but I am still wondering how come we can’t find other organizations like this one? What gives?

And secondly, I got word that I have been selected to give a talk at Anchorage’s Performing Arts Theatre; I’ll be one of seven who will talk for seven minutes in the next few weeks.

Now today I needed this affirmation because in some ways I felt like I was thrown overboard wearing cement boots. Glub, glub, glub, no bobbing to the surface here.

A dozen special needs children stamping books this morning – with the car still full of books I attended to them – then sent Dan to Anchorage without my unloading these books. Glub glub glub

I went to the dentist no no no – I went to the oral surgeon – oral surgeons do specialty work like put in implants.

Dr. Monaco is going to do the honors. He’s an older gentleman with gray hair, tall, lanky – he’s the sort of guy one might think has a yacht in some far-off harbor. This most likely is not beyond the realm of possibility – he makes a lot of money, I am sure, doing what he does I hope so well.

I pretty much followed along with what he was saying, one, maybe two implants and the dentist who also may or may not have a yacht, will put a cap on the lone tooth. Now I know two things. I will be sedated and this is going to cost a lot of money. And it is going to be some time, maybe up to six months before I no longer have to wear a retainer. Glub glub glub

So that was one foot in the cement boot. The other is not on yet, but the foot is in a boot, and the cement is soon to be poured. Ryder, we made an appointment to have her euthanized on Friday afternoon. But amazingly, she did better today. She knows where she is and she’s ambulatory. She also still has control of her bladder and pees outside when we put her outside. And she gets up and down the outside stairs, with difficulty. She eats dog treats now, but nothing else.

If she resumes eating food, she’ll be around for a while.

I don’t know why I don’t want her to go. Now if I knew where her soul was going and that this soul would be better off elsewhere, I’d be less reluctant to let her go. I do love her and perhaps love has a high degree of selfishness associated with it. Perhaps. Glub glub glub.

Now tomorrow looms ahead like that cruise ship that came bearing down on us when we were sea kayaking in the Inside Passage. We could have been hit. We had a 50/50 chance of making it to shore. And we did make it. The analogy is this: I have a 50 percent chance of making it through the day without for one reason or other being stressed out. Glub? Glub? Glub?

Next: 279. 10/22/26: Miracles