Merry Christmas Everyone!

 

Happy Holidays all of you:

I’ve had a very eventful year.  First, I died.  And for any of us, that’s pretty dang eventful.

I remember being at Dr. Pokey and a tearful mama was whispering in my ear (no, I’m not telling you what was said – that’s private, confidential, information), and next I know I went to sleep.  Then, I woke up on a train seat, filled with other dogs in the train car, and the train was slowing down.  The conductor came through, said “NEXT STOP, THE RAINBOW BRIDGE TRANSIT STATION.  ALL MUST DEPART!”

Being a Scottie, I don’t usually follow orders, but I had a feeling this was an order I better obey.  So I got off the train as directed – boy, what a busy place it was as I got off the train.  Dogs walking, cats strolling, birds flying, fish in their bowls, all scurrying to and fro.

As i left the platform and entered the Grand Arrival Hall, I saw my Golden Retriever sister, Lady.  And a Scottish Terrier that I recognized from family pictures, her name is Aberdeen.  Boy was I happy to see Lady!  Aberdeen – well, let’s just say the reports I received from my hoomans about how cantankerous, aloof, and moody she can be were well-founded.

They told me what I already knew – that I am at the Rainbow Bridge now.  Got me all settled in- I shared a room with Lady and Aberdeen is down the hall in our three bedroom condo.

So what about this Rainbow Bridge place, you want to know.  Is it all a big meadow, with everyone playing,  frolicking, and stopping occasionally and putting their nose in the air when a hooman comes in?  Heck no!  The poem the vet gives you when one of us dies, while not totally wrong, is misleading!

First off – let’s do the math here.  Every animal that ever died is here (well, not quite – since the Pope opened up Heaven for us pets, many animals went with their hoomans to Heaven.  That’s cut the population quite a bit, and means that now real estate prices have plummeted, as the housing supply is outstripping demand, but I digress).  There are easily 5 billion animals here.  Think of Shanghai on a Saturday night, and multiply that  by 500, and that gives you the scope of this place.

So it’s a big sprawling metropolitan area.  Neighborhoods, suburbs, expressways, subways, trolley cars.  Right in the middle is the Rainbow Bridge Meadow…think Central Park, with the famous Rainbow Bridge at the edge of it.  Do we go to the meadow a lot?  Sure, maybe, some of us.  But we don’t spend all day there.  We got afterlifes to lead, y’know!

Which brings us to what I’ve been doing.  Of course, I offered my services to the Scottie Army, Rainbow Bridge Brigade.  And of course, the work I’ve done on Earth, especially in the Husky-Scottie War of 2009, preceded me here at the Bridge and impressed the Generals here in the Scottie Army.  So I joined the Rainbow Bridge army, after some refresher training, at my old rank as Master Sergeant.

But that’s not all I do.  No siree.  I realized real quick that there are 5 billion animals here, 2 billion of them dogs, and not  much of a supply of Boiled Eggs AND Ice Cream (preferably Vanilla).  So I found an empty storefront in the heart of TerrierTown (got a good deal on it too, see my discussion above about the decline in real estate prices), and opened up my store this past Summer.  “Angus Fala’s Boiled Egg and Ice Cream Parlor.”

It’s done quite well too.  Got lots of specials and events at the Parlor.  Tuesday is buy a dozen boiled eggs, get the thirteenth free (I  call that an Angus Dozen).  Thursday is Piano Night – Liberace plays in the main dining room with his 27 dogs accompanying him.  Saturday night, the mayor of Terriertown, The Late Great Fala himself, FDR’s beloved Scottie, holds court in the backroom.  Fala can really put away the vanilla ice cream with hamburger sprinkles, let me tell you what.  And Sunday afternoons, I bring in an expert to lecture the patrons on various subjects.  So far, the expert has been me every week.  I can’t find anyone as knowledgeable or handsome or modest as myself.

Anyway, the Parlor is going great guns.  We have it decorated for Christmas too – my Golden sister, Lady, has helped me with that, as you see in the painting above.

In fact, the business is doing so well, I just opened up a second location, in the Rainbow Bridge Meadow, that you might have noticed from the picture of the new Golden Retriever who joined my Rainbow Bridge family late last month.  That would be Cary Grant 2.0.  Cary Grant 1.0 stayed with us a while this past Fall, but he moved on and moved in with Goldens that he was actually related to, since he never officially was a dog owned by the staff back down there at Angus Manor.  But Cary 2.0 is a member of the family – so he has moved in with Lady, and I took the third bedroom of the condo. (When Ainsley joins us, she will be crashing on the couch in the den)

Anyway, I will answer your questions now, gentle reader.  What’s that you say?  Have I seen your dog that is up here? Yes, I know your dog.  I probably have served your dog AT the Parlor, or served WITH him in the Scottie army.  And I go to the Rainbow Bridge Transit Station every afternoon to meet the new arrivals, and give them an advertising flyer for my Parlor, so I met your dog there too if he or she arrived in the past 8 months or so.

Next question?  Does your dog miss you?  Of course.  Your dog misses you greatly, but we stay busy here, that’s for sure.

Any more questions?  No?  None?  Great, that’s it, I got to get back to the parlor.  I’m busing in some illegal immigra…excuse me, undocumented workers…to work the kitchen at the Parlor.  That’s gonna drive down my labor costs, even though it means I’m gonna have to lay off a bunch of Pomeranians.  Some of the business strategies we learned down on Earth are directly transferable here, doncha know.

Anyway, this is going to conclude my Holiday Newsletter.  I hope you and your family have a very Merry Christmas.

Sincerely, and Hooyah!

Master Sergeant Angus Fala

Rainbow Bridge Scottie Brigade, and Sole Proprietor, Angus Fala’s Boiled Egg and Ice Cream Parlor with two great locations to serve you better, right in the heart of TerrierTown at the corner of Stoic and Stubborn, and our new location at the Rainbow Bridge Meadow