Snoopy-sitting

Well, my folks are off for their Fall Great American North-wet sabbatical in the morning. Which means, the Cute Chicks and I headed down there this morning to give them a crash refresher on the Cobra 5550 gps and pick up this guy:

That's Snoopy, Charlie's son and Poppy's shadow. More on him later.

So, the GPS tutorial, that was fun. I sat on the couch with mom on my left and Poppy on my right, and ran through the basics. Turning it on, setting the destination point, choosing alternate routes if preferred, finding rest stops, truck stops, restaurants and hotels, checking traffic lane closures. I paused to ask, "Any questions?" "Um, where's the on button again?" ~sigh~ So we go through it again, mom writing down every step, setting my brother's home as their first destination, going through the turn-by-turn drivethru, Poppy asking, "Why does it show us in West Virginia?" ~SIGH~ Went to Hasting's and bought a large print atlas, highlighted each route through each state with bright pink, and wrote down town and highway changes. Almost 5000 miles worth. They have the GPS AND AN ATLAS; I'm fairly confident we'll lose them somewhere around Denver tomorrow afternoon. Just FYI, they'll be headed up to Spokane, WA; across WA to Eugene, OR; down to the Redwoods in CA, across CA to Reno, NV; down to Las Vegas; then I-40 home. Dear God, please keep them safe.

And now Snoopy. When we got Charlie back in 1999, she was pregnant and just about a week away from dropping puppies everywhere. She was starved, so skinny you could see the puppies moving, and dumped in front of our house in the middle of a snow storm. Took me about 5 days to coax her into the backyard and the shop where she eventually had 7 puppies, beautiful, fat, wiggly puppies. She was such a good mom, so caring and attentive, and Teen Queen was smitten. Most of the puppies had Charlie's long coat and coloring, but then there was Snoopy. When Poppy saw the puppies, he laid claim to the little black and white stinker. Carried him home in his coat pocket, and that's about as close as they've been since.

It's been a couple of years since Snoopy's been here, since before we lost Charlie. As soon as I let him out of the momvan, he ran into the back yard, barking. Ran all over the yard looking for his mom. Came in the house, searched every room. He slowly walked back out to the yard and sat there quiet for several minutes before trotting over to where we buried her, circled a couple of times and laid down with his snout pointed to the head of her grave. He hasn't moved; I'm afraid it's going to be a long few weeks. And if you aren't sniffling yet, here's their last meeting a few years ago. He stayed with us for two weeks, during which he tested his mom's will. They'd chase each other and roll around on the ground until she got tired of it, at which time she'd tackle him and sit on his head. When it came time to go home, she walked us out to the momvan and watched her son jump up, turn around and lay down with his snout to the door. After he was settled, she rested her chin on the floor, snoot to snoot, and they stayed like that for about five minutes while I loaded everything in the back. Time to go, she licked his nose, whuffed quietly, and stepped back. Snoopy whined quietly the whole way home. A mom and son's final goodbye.