TRAVELS WITH MATTIE

It's SUMMER!!! The biggest news, of course: Mattie Mae is kicking butt! Still on her steroid treatments, our little best buddy charged through an unexpected spring together and has made it to another summer. Summer has always been our favorite time together. We've spent countless weeks living in a truck along Lee Vining Creek, made a mobile home in the Eastern Sierra from Lone Pine to Hope Valley, trekked to different states and mountain ranges, swam in alpine lakes, slept in the sagebrush under meteor showers, fished big rivers and lazy lakes, worked from the Latte Da, watched soccer at the Ljung's summer home in Mono City, watched moonrises over Mono Lake and found new laughing places all throughout the Owens Valley. Now, we're starting another summer together. Here's how it's going. I was spoiled this spring and taught an intensive 5-week course instead of the usual 10-week quarter, so said goodbye to my office on April 28th to kick off our longest summ...

  Hi everybody! Yes, it's been a while. We're sorry to make you wait. As some of you know, and some of you may not, little Mattie is sick. After almost losing her in January (and four terrible days when she was in the hospital, and I couldn't stay there with her), she has temporarily rebounded and is riding a steroid train that has kept her feeling good for the past few months. The working diagnosis is lymphoma, which was basically the conclusion after every other possible test in the entire world came up negative. She's an old lady (probably 14 or 15 now!) and I'm grateful that she had so many healthy years before this crept up on us. So it's not tragic (she's at least 98 in doggy years!), but it's still hard, and trying to come to terms with her time running out has - in a word - sucked. Mattie comes home from the hospital. Greg trying ANY kind of treats to get her to eat. That fuzzy face. She's been getting to sle...