Personal tragedies seem to abound in my personal care attendants' lives. Of the four I have, three have experienced deaths in their families in the last week. The latest was just yesterday evening, and this one affected me the most, not because I would have to reschedule my own personal needs still further, but because I knew the lady. I had only met Mrs. Ruth Paxson (Aunt Ruthie to my best friend Anita) twice, but she was a truly beautiful soul that I feel I will miss very much. The first time I met Mrs. Paxson was at the funeral of Anita's uncle Dale (whom I have mentioned in my Musings) last October, and she fell in love with my assistance dog Reba. This love precipitated my second meeting just this last Sunday. Mrs. Paxson had been in the hospital for more than a week, and every day she would ask her granddaughter Marian (my attendant) how Reba was doing. I offered to take Reba to the hospital after she was feeling better from her surgery, but Marian asked if I could take her on Sunday to get her grandmother's mind off her triple bypass/valve replacement surgery the next day. Apparently it worked, because Anita told me that night that Aunt Ruthie had been telling everyone that Reba the sweet dog had come to visit and snuggled with her. Rest in peace, love, and light, Mrs. Paxson.

To keep myself from getting too depressed, I've been losing myself in my books. I just finished the fifth installment of Laurell K. Hamilton's "Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter" novels. Full of zombies and vampires and werewolves, oh my, the books are fast and generally entertaining reads. Sometimes Anita (the character, not my best friend, hee hee) is a little too perfect (she is considered a master in the vampire community and an alpha in the werewolf community without becoming either -- come on!), but I can let it go when the action gets moving. Suspension of disbelief truly can be a wonderful thing. I've also started the classic Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, which puts a new (at least at the time it was written) spin on the Arthurian legend by telling the story from the women's point of view. I've also been told that my book club is reading Alice Hoffman's Seventh Heaven, so that will be three books I'm reading simultaneously after I start it and the next Anita Blake. Busy busy busy.