I Hope Rosie The Rat Dog Can Now Rest In Peace

There is something about being a couple thousand miles distant from the place you still think of as home that makes getting the sad news that someone has passed on to the great beyond  that makes that news seem sadder than it might seem otherwise.

At least that is how I am feeling at this precise second in time.

A few minutes ago I got email from Spencer Jack's dad asking me the following question...

Did you get the news that one of my cousins passed away yesterday?

No, I did not get the news about Rosie the Rat Dog. Rosie's parental unit de-friended me a couple weeks ago, on Facebook, for reasons unknown to me, so I do not have direct access to some news I might otherwise have had direct access to.

Rosie the Rat Dog lived a very long life. She had to be at least 20 years old, likely older, when she died.

Rosie the Rat Dog was internationally famous. Way back in the last century I made a few, now antique, webpages about Rosie the Rat Dog. This led to a Japanese entity called dogmark.net declaring that Rosie the Rat Dog's website was 'cool dog site of the day.'

I don't think any of my nephews, including the oldest, he being Spencer Jack's dad, can remember a world where Rosie the Rat Dog was not in it.

I believe the last I saw Rosie the Rat Dog was way back at some point in time in August of 2008, at Bay View State Park, on the same day I met Spencer Jack for the first time.

In the picture with the Seattle Space Needle in the background that would be Spencer Jack's Uncle Joey holding Rosie the Rat Dog. Joey is Spencer Jack's dad's little brother and my second oldest nephew.

In this picture Joey appears to be 12 or 13. Joey is 32 or 33 now, give or take a year. Joey just had a birthday in November, but I lose track of numbers such as ages. But, this gives one a good idea of how old Rosie the Rat Dog was when she passed on to the Great Doghouse in the Sky.

I remember well that day with Joey and Rosie the Rat Dog in Seattle. We were all over town. I don't remember if the transit tunnel yet existed, or if one could have smuggled Rosie on to it.

I do recollect taking Rosie to the newly opened REI corporate headquarters on that particular day in Seattle.

A corporate headquarters that remains REI's corporate headquarters and has not been turned into a community college and was built without abusing eminent domain. Which are not statements one could make about Radio Shack's corporate headquarters fiasco in Fort Worth.

I must email my sister my condolences. I assume she is not blocking my email. I don't think you can de-friend someone on email. And you really can't de-friend relatives in any venue. You are just sort of stuck with them, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

I would be the Ugly, often Good, but never really Bad.