R.I.P Maxine Frasella June 19th, 1995 – Sept. 2, 2008

Hello friends and fellow animal lovers of ours. We are sad to tell the news that on Tuesday the 2nd, we had to let go of our sweet sassy sue love child, Maxine Frasella (aka. Max Fras), so she could go meet her brother, the ever famous, Kramer at the Rainbow Bridge. Its been a bitch of a year for us and just when I think that nothing can possibly happen because of the amount of crap that we have dealt with which is more than our fair share, something else major happens that was totally unexpected. BTW, this is Mrs. Bmac, not my husband, Bmac, so what you are about to read is from my mouth. I just thought I should mention it was me since I am so mouthy lately, you could have trouble telling us apart. The only difference is that I seem to be the only one so far in our Mac team who has aquired what I am calling “My Turrets” after enduring all this shit. “My Turrets” is when I blurt stuff out or it seems to indadvertently just fly out of my mouth without thinking of how it may be percieved, who it may hurt, or how it might make me look. My turrets usually flares up at the most inappropriate times. I’m sure that Bmac would love for someone to invent some type of mouth tampon for me.

Just to give you an idea of what has actually been going on with The Bmac’s in 2008, up until Tuesday when we had to let go of Maxine, I will give you a short list of things we have been forced to face. We have had a tremendous amount of loss this year. I don’t want to appear as being a Debbie Downer because I’m the furthest thing from that. Seriously. I have just come to the realization that life is actually a cruel comedy and now I am starring in the 2008 series of it with Bmac as my unlucky sidekick. This is the time in life when you learn that good looks can’t even help you anymore and you find yourself living life with your hands blocking your face.

Ok, now to my “short list” (or is it?) I promised you:

First of all, my mom dying at the end of January almost took me down. Almost. Yeah, almost. Actually, every day I am still really challenged with it. I just try to bury it better so I don’t make others crazy. Even though she was sick and I knew it was going to happen, everything I thought I would feel and think, didn’t happen how I thought it would. Not even close. It sucks-it hurts really deep and is a pain never felt before-but no one else feels it with you-you feel totally alone-the end. The biggest shocker for me had to be how quiet everything got. One day the earth was spinning around like normal, when suddenly, it stopped like someone pulled the emergency brake and you hadn’t braced for it. I miss her every day and I hate that pain that goes along with it. Its something you can’t shake off.

Then, 13 days later on February 8th, Kramer dies at home in the arms of Bmac. Wow! Another thing that I really love? The shocker for that one was that he didn’t even die from his cancer. He was in remission! What the hell was happening here? Our little precious boy was gone. Just like that! His little heart just gave out. How long did he have a heart problem without us knowing! What the fuck was going on?

You would think it would end there but apparently that is NOT how this is going to play out for us. In late February, Bmac had to close up the doors to his business he had worked hard at building for the past 3 years. Hey everybody! Wanna play a game and try and guess why Bmac had to close his business that he slaved at for 6 days a week. Was it: 1. the economy, 2. someone thought it would be funny to see the looks on our faces, 3. that’s how the Bmac’s roll, or 4. all of the above.

I can’t speak for Bmcac but I think this may around the time I had officially lost my mind because all of a sudden it was March 1st and we driving an hour from here to pick up a homeless German Shorthaired Pointer. The GSP rescue called and asked if we could drive and pick him up and temporarily foster him for them. He had been wandering around for 3 weeks in some little town and no one seemed to know where he came from. It was sad that this little guy had no place to call home.

We decided to call him Mikey. Oh, sorry. I am getting ahead of the story. How it actually happened was about 2 weeks after Kramer was gone, I called my friend at the GSP rescue and told him that our house was so quiet without Kramer and we knew we were going to have to have another one at some point. That is when we hear that they had already set aside a dog for us who they think will be perfect for us named Gunner but knew I was busy packing my mom’s house up so didn’t tell us before then. The next week they called and asked if we could go get Mikey, or as we also like to refer to him, the homeless hobo dog, and foster him until we get up to the rescue. Sure, no problem. That’s we learned the true meaning of the word foster. It means giving them up at some point. Saying bye. Never knowing them longer than that short time. That’s the part that we couldn’t seem to do. Plus, I didn’t know how I was going to pry Mikey off of Bmac. Or was it pry Bmac off of Mikey? Whatever, they were attached at the hip. Did it really matter at that point. No. What really mattered at the time for me was that Bmac told me that if we could keep Mikey, I could still get Gunner. Woo Hoo! We never once thought that if we did that, it would mean 3 dogs! 3 large dogs? Thinking was something that we heard about other people doing but we were too busy to try it ourselves. Exactly 2 weeks after driving to pick up Mikey, we were now on our way to California, with Mikey in tow, but just to take a ride in the car, to rescue Gunner. I know what you are thinking. Idiots. Hey but Maxine was so happy when Mikey came home she would be really excited to have another young psycho dog named Gunner running around the house. She did have a new spring in her step with the new youngsters around. It was obvious that she was morning Kramer too.

When April rolled around, I had another death to deal withwhen a friend of mine died unexpectedly at 43 years of age. I mean, honestly. Come on? Does this ever stop? Life and all the crap that was happening was getting a little out of control and obviously no one seemed to hear me standing outside with my megaphone and screaming “UNCLE!” at the top of my lungs.

I was hoping and praying Maxine would make it until next year. Max was 13 years old but she was tough. I actually was the one who picked her out of the litter. She was Bmac’s dog and got her from our good friends who’s Chocolate Lab mama named Abbi and Yellow Lab daddy named George, just had a litter of nine little pups. This was well before Bmac and I even started dating. Max was great yet a handfull for Bmac. She was very loving, yet incredibly independent, and the most hard-headed bitch you ever met. She never did a single thing in her life she didn’t feel like doing, and it if she did, she only did it exactly when she felt like doing it. She ran the house, or so it seemed. From birth until about 3 years old, she was an absolute terror; a shredding machine that destoyed everything in her path. Bmac almost gave her away about 3000 times. He was reaching his wits end with her. Also, that girl had an iron stomach. She once ate a pair of glasses made with real glass that our friend Marnie had just gotten that day. She ingested them glass and all. She dug about a million holes in the yard in search of finding all the sources of where there was water. She was successful at it too. Bmac didn’t want that sprinkler system anyways so it was no big deal. I think she had something internal built into her that would be similar to those “Stud Finder” things that most guys have in their tool box. You know, its that one thingy they like to point at themselves and pretend they have found a stud instead of finding the stud in the wall. What most of our friends that would come over remember best is that she LOVED beer. If anyone gave her the littlest bit of beer, she was stuck to their side for the rest of the night. She would bark at them until they gave her more. She was a bit of a boozer but wore it well. She also was a licker. She would lick you until you walked away soaking wet, but hated being fussed over or loved on. SHE dispensed the love, not you. You were good to go as soon as you learned that from her.

She lived longer than either of her parents or siblings did, so obviously I chose well. She was never sick, or got hurt, she was a tank. I would get up at 4 in the morning and walk her and Kramer for 3 1/2 miles every day for many years. In 13 years, we can count on one hand how many trips she had to the vet, which she HATED with a passion.

We’re gonna miss stepping over you in the kitchen Max, where you loved to plop down right in our way, refusing to move. Or the hallway, or the bathroom, or the back patio in the morning. We will especially miss seeing you in your favorite place at the front door, where guests had to step over you to enter “your” house, and how dare they think you’re gonna move for them.

She loved “the boys” too. They were such a pain in the ass but she loved having them around and they were her pains in the asses. She loved keeping them in line and we thought it was keeping her young. So did the vet!

God speed to Kramer, our sweet little froggie sue! You were the reason we fell in love with and wanted more dogs. You were how we got Kramer. You will be forever remembered and we will meet again down the road. We love you more than we can express!

I suppose we should have realized that there was no way that the planets would realign and make life easier for us and maybe things could slow down a bit so we wouldn’t have to bend over and take yet another horrible experience up our asses without a kiss. I would have even taken just a hug if that was offered as an option. I will continue to scream UNCLE! Why the hell is no one responding? You’d think I’d know better by know. Life sucks right now, but it can only get better from here. Right?

Look at the list of the good stuff in 2008:

1. Hey, there is Wicked Pinto! Yippee!