I'm ready to talk about it.

It's been two weeks since we said goodbye to Coco, our dog whom we have had since 1998. He was really sick, and we had to put him down. It was really heartbreaking, and I don't think I've lost anyone this close before. It was hard trying not to cry when he died because I knew it was especially tough on my little sister, who pretty much only has memories after he came around, and I wanted to be strong for her.

Anyway, so I just wanna go through and write down some memories that I have of Coco, and immortalize him in a blog post which is pretty irrelevant as far as the internet goes, but it makes me feel better.

I wish my carpet actually looked like this. That'd kick ass.

Cocoa was a funny dog. He loved stealing sticks of butter off the table and hiding them throughout the house. One time there was a stick of butter in my bed. Another time we found one under his pillow which we kept under the kitchen table for him to sleep on (since he took to sleeping there anyway.) It's pretty disconcerting when you're sitting on the couch, your hand moves the wrong way, and you discover a stick of butter in between the couch cushions. It was clever of him, actually.

This is Coco's Vogue pose.

Coco also for some reason never went into the basement, no matter how hard we tried to get him to. We were thinking maybe the owners before him kept him down there when they were away or something.

He was a little bit lazy too, but that's ok.

Oh, and he never played fetch. Not often, anyway. Every now and then you'd catch him in the right mood and if you threw a ball, he'd go after it, but most of the time if you threw a ball and said, "Go get it!!" he'd just sit down and stare at you like, "You're the one who threw it. YOU go get it."

With my older sister, Jenni. And creepy demon eyes.

When we first got Coco, my little sister Molly was 3 or 4. Soon after he came home, she would often shove his hand down his throat to see what was down there. It was pretty gross, and eventually we got her to stop, but just in case you ever meet her, feel free to tease her about it.

Our favorite story to tell is the Russian Chocolate story. We hosted two Russian nurses who were on a several week exchange program learning some nursing stuff here in the US, and they brought with them some Russian Chocolate for us as a gift. The day after they left, COCO ATE THE WHOLE DAMN THING. All of it. This was like, three full-sized bars of chocolate we're talking about. And he didn't even throw up any of it. It's been a running joke ever since.

He was a really great dog; I couldn't have imagined a better dog to grow up with through high school and college. He was always happy to see people, always happy to see people's food, and always happy to be scratched behind the ears or on the belly. He was also a great cuddler, which is an excellent feature in a dog.

Sleep peacefully, old buddy.