I feel pain... therefore I make salsa

I got really, really pissed at myself when I was driving home tonight. 'Bout halfway home, I started crying. It was a stupid and oh-so-self-centered thing to do, but I couldn't help myself.

Now that I'm home, I no longer have the option for that sort of indulgence.

Earlier today, Ames, my wife and one of my two best friends in this world, took my other best friend to the vet. His name is Tucker. He is the black lab my dad is petting in the picture to the left. It was taken a little over a year ago during Easter '07.

He's had a bump in his side for awhile. It came on fast and it was HUGE. We took him in, and the vet, after a great bit of difficulty, took some blood samples from the "bump" and sent them in for a biopsy. Turned out ok. In her defense, it was hard to get a good sample.

So, anyways (hard to write coherently) it wasn't. He's got cancer and it has permeated the muscle in his leg.

It's not his first experience with Really Bad Shit. He had Parvo as a pup - which pretty much screwed him for life, both with trying new food and knocking his immune system to hell. For those not in the know, parvo actually eats your stomach lining if you are a dog. It rots out like Gangrene and then you spew it everywhere. The stomach lining is purplish gray and it sits in many, many pools of reeking, fetid blood. (Looking for the recipe still? :))

Because of the Parvo, he has had allergies up the ying-yang which we have gone to war with every single spring and summer since moving up here.

He also tore his rotator cuff, probably put his foot in a hole running across our fields. He has prosthetic tendon because of the surgery.

But all of that. ALL of that, could be dealt with by simply internalizing a certain viewpoint we sometimes can choose to adopt in life - "It's only fucking money." And. "If we throw enough money at it, it will go away". It's surprising how many things that applies to when you get right down to it.

And it has. 5k and counting...

But here is the #&$damn difference. I'm really not sure it will this time. But I'm prepared to throw as long as... goddamit I don't know. I really, really don't. I am prepared to throw whatever it takes at this problem. But... I don't want to torture him doing it. and hereis the fucking thing - mybiggest fear is the 'smallest bill' when he follows one of us up to the vet and ... crap i'm crin again.

Ok.

Alright, to answer The One Big Question people might have when they read this... "Why, it's only a dog?" ... here is my overly emotional answer, in multiple parts.

1. If you ask that, you don't get it.
2. No, it's not the same as if this was happening to my son, but it's pretty damn close.
3. Yes, they live less time than us, but extending that time is our payback for what they give us.
4. No, I don't know when that time is.
5. Yes, I could give examples of why I feel it's important - from the time my job at the studio, my dream job, vanished and he sat at my side for nearly a week leaning his head against me at my parent's vacation home in BB, to where he sat between my wife and the nearest door guarding her while she breast fed, to how I can work at night and not worry too much about her. Too... I dunno, he is one of my best friends. Do I really have to explain more?

Anywho... on to the salsa. The reason I am going to try out some salsa recipes is two fold. My wife LOVES salsa (she deserves it after today), and it masks my smell - the reason I got pissed at myself crying when I drove home - Tuck smells the stress and does his best to stress along with me. For example, every time I have... gotten... emotional in this post, he has dragged himself up a bit. So I dig back into the post. Grammar and spelling are MAGIC when it comes to making you emolate indifferrence.

Oh, and salsa really is a first rate BASTARD to make. You have to CONCENTRATE (it finds any unknown open pore or errant swipe of the eye and rewards it with 12+ hours of throbbing pain). Which means I can sit in the kitchen with my best friend and watch over him without stressing him out.

Here is the recipe I am starting with... (APPEND... the damn thing keeps, I dunno, inheriting the styles from whence it came. It keeps cutting off the words. So I can't comment on, and update, the recipe. I'll make it tonight and update tomm. Ok?)

Source: Sunset Mexican Cookbook

CILANTRO-LIME SALSA
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Ingredients:
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1         small onion, finely chopped
1 cup     chopped fresh cilantro (coriander)
1/2 cup   each chopped parsley and salad oil
6 tblsp   lime juice
3 tblsp   distlled white vinegar
2 cloves  garlic, minced
1         jalapeno or other small hot chile, stemmed, seeded and minced

Instructions:
-------------
Mix onion, cilantro, parsley, oil, lime juice, vinegar, garlic, and
chile in a nonmetallic bowl.  Makes 2 1/2 cups.

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OK!!! Back to me. This is a VERY good starter recipe. However,