Let me get this over with.

I won’t be at Boskone next February. I’ve written to the Boskone admin and asked Blogmom to take the sidebar down.

I’m extremely sorry. I don’t like screwing people over and . . . and I wanted to go.

I’ve also known this was coming for a while but I have been trying to pretend not to know it.  I’ve been putting off talking to my vet for . . . probably two months, because by two months ago I knew that his Miracle Cure for the hellhounds’ digestion, while it has certainly improved matters for which I am very grateful indeed, it hasn’t been quite the miracle cure we’d been hoping for.  One of the possibilities is that the other dogs he’s cured (and admittedly there are only a few of them because it’s kind of a new and experimental as well as last-ditch treatment) are all half the hellhounds’ age or less, and my hellhounds may just have permanent unfixable damage. . . .

Last Friday I finally talked to my vet.

The bottom line is, the hellhounds are a life sentence, of which I’ve already served eight years while trying not to think about it in those terms. A kennels won’t take them and I wouldn’t inflict them on a pet sitter* and my few certifiably deranged-ly doggy friends who could and would cope are all hundreds to thousands of miles away.

And this is just the way it is. Fortunately I’ve turned into something of a homebody in my old age, and while there is a needs-must aspect to it, still, I don’t exactly sit around twiddling my thumbs, do I?  And have I mentioned I’m going back to homeopathy college?  Speaking of sitting at home not twiddling.**  I discovered rather by accident recently that since I dropped out of the face-to-face, classroom, commuting kind of college***, on-line courses have come a long way.  I’ve been poking around the corners of this intriguing information the last few weeks, and about a fortnight ago, when I finally made the appointment to talk to my vet, I thought, okay, when the vet tells me what I already know he’s going to tell me, I’ll get serious about college.  Because I have so much spare time now that I’m not writing a blog post every night.

Who knows. Maybe I’ll find a cure for the hellhounds.  But it won’t be before next February.

* * *

* This aside from the fact that after my interesting acquaintance with a downward spiral of dog minders and my one DISASTROUS even by my standards experience with a national pet sitting company, I wouldn’t be likely to inflict a pet sitter on the hellmob anyway.^

^ Although I could just tell the hellterror that if he/she gets out of line, eat them.

** Except knitting needles, of course.

*** For the given reason of my ME-afflicted energy level not being up to it, but the hellhounds had something to do with it too.