DearScruffy

Dear Scruffy,

Oct. 2, 1998

I've done a lot since you've been away. I came back from San Francisco and you were gone. I told Mom and Dad that I would have taken you to college with me -- broken leg or no. But they said I was just being silly and it was too late anyway.

They had put you to sleep.

What were you doing running out into the road? Did you think I had left you? That I wouldn't come back? Scott said you moped around the house all summer and wouldn't even chase birds at Minnow Brown Island.

My hair colour is the same as yours now, just like when we were kids.......or when you were a puppy. My hair is sometimes platinum white in some places, just like in the picture where no one could tell where I started and you ended. After you died, my hair turned brown. Not all the way brown, but it just got darker. The tips of the
curls remaining blonde, making me look like a frosty dye job.......i was insulted when people asked and i cut it off....I mean all the way off......and I got a fish. A Siamese fighting fish. A beautiful male so fierce he had to live by himself because he would kill all the other fish. I named him Zood He danced to 'Lust for Life" by Iggy Pop when I played it really loud. One day I carried him to my Girlfriend Monique's house. She asked, "what are you doing?""I'm walking my Fish, okay!" But it just wasn't the same.

Now, I'm growing my hair out again and parts of it are the same colour as yours. I grew it long, but it was a costume, so i cut it off, and now I'm growing it again but this time it's real. I have Mr. Blue. He's my parakeet. I even had a cat, although you know i don't like cats, but i kept Hihimanu for 6 years. That means 'Stingray' in Hawaiian, Hihimanu. That's where I live now, in Hawaii.

Remember when I was 15 and Mom and Dad made me go and we couldn't take you with us and Nicki Freepons took care of you only she didn't do it very well because i had to comb fur balls out of your hair and you never got fur balls. I don't know how you got fur balls with short curly hair.

I don't know a lot of things. I was a Big Shot. but I didn't like it . I didn't like it
at all. Dad tries to make me a big shot.....but I'm just me. I wish you were
here....we could play on the beach together. San Souci beach, that's where i go. They might let dogs swim there.

I play with my niece. She has brown hair. We go on walks and on adventures all over- just like me and you. She has a cat. A white cat. I named it. I named it Blueberry. She likes that name cuz it's like Mr. Blue.

One night when I had the flu, Mr. Blue was pulling at my hair and waking me up.

But I never got another dog.

Love,

Julia