But why?

It’s been just more than a week since Ding left us; a week and two days and a couple of hours actually. Since then I’ve talked to so many people about how I feel; about the overbearing sadness that comes with this loss. Interestingly, everyone I spoke to was right there with me. So why do we do it? If it hurts so damn much to lose a pet why do we have them and why do we keep getting them?

One of my issues is that I feel like if I’m not sad every second of every day then I’m no longer honoring Ding and all she means to me but is that really true? Would Ding want me to be sullen all the time? I don’t think so. I think she’d want me to live life even more knowing how bad loss feels shouldn’t I want to celebrate the life I have and the lives of the other two dogs? I know this is the right thing but I can’t stop myself from this feeling that I need to mourn her loss every single second of my day.

I worry that I’ll forget her. I do. I worry that I’ll forget the details of her and her life. Will I remember the little things a week from now? A month? A year? I don’t want to forget her; I don’t want to forget a single minute of her time with me but I can already feel those details slipping away.

Dammit. I don’t want to forget anything about her. I don’t want to forget that sometimes the “saddle” marking on her back looked like a heart if she curled up a certain way. I don’t want to forget the first night I brought her home back in April of 2001. I was single then and lived in my little tiny first house. I thought this adorable dog would be so thrilled to have free reign to be on any furniture she wanted because she was my girlie and could do what she wanted. I put her new doggy bed in my bedroom with me and patted the bed for her to jump up. She jumped up for a minute, let me pet her soft ears then jumped down and dragged her new dog bed out of the bedroom, through the kitchen, through the living room and planted herself next to the front door where she proceeded to hunker down for the night in protective mode.

I don’t want to forget when we moved to this house and she got out of the yard but didn’t cross the street because someone had taught her not to cross streets so she was wandering the neighborhood as long as there was no street-crossing going on. My husband (then boyfriend) was the one who left the gate open and he knew if he couldn’t get her back safely he’d do best to pack his stuff and skip town. Lucky for him he got her back safely.

I don’t want to forget all the years she started out the night on the dog bed in our bedroom and then once we were safe and sound she’d quietly make her way downstairs to keep her guard by the door.
All the times she contentedly would roll onto her back and spend hours and hours in that position. I think it was because she was so safe and happy and content with her life, I need to believe that. Sadly, after the stroke almost two years ago she was no longer able to roll over that way and snooze away the hours in her favorite position. She never complained though. Nope, not my Ding girlie.
How much have I already forgotten? Too much.

I dreamt about her Monday night. One week ago was the last night she spent on planet earth…one week later all I had was her in my dreams.

The dream was so beautiful, so HAPPY that I was sad to wake up. I was so damn disappointed when I woke up and realized it was just a dream.

In the dream I was going up to bed and Ding was on the stair landing, I was surprised to see her, especially on the stair landing because she couldn’t do stairs since she had that damn stroke so I knew in my dream that she was all better, she was whole again. I bent over and rubbed her super soft ears and she looked up at me. I told her that I loved her so much and she made her happy grunting sound (we used to call it her piggy grunts) and put her head back down. Then in the dream my husband came up to bed and I looked up to see him and Ding was on the dog bed in the bedroom just like old times, my husband looked at me and said, “Did you see her? She’s HERE isn’t she? Did you pet her? I did”. In the dream as I lay back down I was actually waking up for the day, I looked over to the dog bed but it was empty.

Was she here with us? I sure hope so. Maybe it was just her way of comforting us and saying “good-bye” and letting us know that she really IS okay, she IS whole again and not broken with cancer and neurological issues.

I don’t want to forget her, ever.

But I’m human, how do I make this happen?

How does my feeble human brain keep all those memories safe and alive when she isn’t anymore? I don’t know the answer but I hope I can figure it out. I’m open to suggestions folks.

Dogs make us more human

Ding died this past Tuesday. Ding was my first ever dog. She was the one living being I wanted more than anything else in the world. My earliest memory is of wanting a dog. I got Ding in April of 2001. She was about 10 months old, maybe older, who knows she was a rescue and there wasn’t a lot of info about her. And yes I did have a lot of years with her, I know that, she was a dog and they just don’t live all that long (certainly not long enough).

I’ve gone through a lot of emotions this week (obviously). We have two other dogs that still needed to be fed and cared for so as attractive as it seemed to curl up in a fetal position with Ding’s collar and cry until there was nothing left; that wasn’t an option.

I asked myself why we have pets if we know we have to face this in the end. I mean there was a moment when I looked at the other two and thought, “I’ll RE-HOME THEM! I’ll never have to see them sick or dying, they’ll just go away…” That’s ridiculous. There’s no chance that could happen.

The many, many horrible animal abuse stories we see every damn day on Facebook and in the news ran through my head. Now that my husband and I had held my beloved Ding as she left this world it really made me wonder what kind of creature could abuse an animal when we stood there together as our hearts broke with our loss. It made abuse so much worse to me because it de-humanized the abusers for me; completely and totally removed their humanity in my eyes.

And then I knew that dogs (and cats), our pets make us more human. They bring out all our emotions and still stand by us. They make us feel things to the core of our beings in ways that other humans just can’t.

Ding made me laugh and cry, she made me angry sometimes and sometimes she just listened as I poured out my anger after a frustrating day. She never complained. She was beautiful, she had the softest ears. She caught Frisbees, I loved that.

Interestingly though, I don’t know anyone that can say anything different about THEIR pet(s). Each animal has their own distinct personality but they also all share what they give back to us; the ability to stretch fully into being human.

I never wanted to see the day come when Ding would leave me. Never; and now that she’s gone the past several days have seemed fuzzy, surreal, I don’t have many clear memories of each day. My brain is playing tricks on me to try to protect my shattered heart but the fact remains that she most certainly has left this world.

My husband has said that he thought a few times he’s heard her bark in the night and thought he caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye, so have I, she’s there you know, she’s just at the fringe of “being”.

I’ve done breed specific rescue since 2008 or 2009, I don’t even remember anymore, it’s just that thing I do. It’s that place where I’ve made a whole “other” set of friends who “get” me in a new and different way. It’s that place where we can celebrate our successes and mourn our losses together. Ding even brought me this area of my life. She got me to this group, to this place, to these fine and wonderful people. And doing rescue makes me more human. Doing rescue has helped me define my own boundaries while also pushing a little at my comfort zone. I’ve learned how not to over promise and how to honestly deliver what I do promise. Funny that all my years in the corporate world never taught me these simple truths I learned doing rescue. We can’t save them all no matter how much we want to; and we definitely want to.

Since Ding’s loss I’ve been treated so warmly by so many people. My co-workers have been amazing, my boss sat with me on my first day back in the office and shared my grief, my friends far and wide have said kind, wonderful things, hell, the folks I know only through the bar where I hang out, literally my neighborhood watering hole, all sat around last night sharing their own stories, people I normally only argue politics with or debate the jukebox choices were now telling me about their pets and the losses and the joys they experienced. Wow. Strangers were even eager to share and as my heart broke more and more it also soared with the value of what dogs, pets, bring to our lives. There is just no comparison.

It’s truly astonishing that so many have been so willing to give a hug and share their own stories, it’s made them more human to me. What an amazing gift a 40-pound dog has given me. How does anyone ever re-pay something like that?

My house feels empty with just the two blue dogs here. They don’t bark as much, they barely bark at all which is so strange, so QUIET but they are who they are, they each have their own personalities and also their own grief, a grief they can’t even tell me about so where I get to see friends and share hugs and tell the story of my sadness these two other dogs have each other to communicate with and us to stand by them unquestioningly. And stand by them we will, as they too grow old, as they change into old dogs, we’ll be right here with them and we’ll be more human for having them in our lives.

My friends have told me that I’ll never stop missing Ding but that the hurt will change over time. It’s amazing to know that all these people in my life who have lost pets still feel that loss years later, if that isn’t humanizing then what is? And here we are, caring for them, walking them, playing with them, and loving them. Mostly loving them.

Ding girlie, I’ll miss you every single day and I’m grateful for the person you’ve helped me to be; the imperfect human I am was made just a bit better because you were with me for all those years. I’ll never say good-bye because you’ll always be a part of me.

Occupy this…

I'm going to explain a harsh truth here. Companies are in business to earn money for their investors. That's it.

Despite whatever you may hear, it is NOT about the patients (heard in the pharma and biotech industry), it's not about healthy living (food industry), it's not about a healthy lifestyle (certain sneakers, workout fashions, etc.) it's not about ANYTHING other than the investor community.

What you eat, what you ingest, what you wear is not there to nurture you, heal you, or keep you warm and dry…it's there to line the pockets of the very wealthiest people in our society.

Here are two recent articles detailing exactly how far we've come in the greed game:

This one, from the Huffington Post speaks to how business has managed to skirt a law to REVEAL CEO pay, the greed here is heart stopping. The question is, could someone else do as good or even better than these money sucking CEOs? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/30/ceo-to-worker-pay-ratio_n_3184623.html

Bloomberg puts a more personal spin on things; they show the difference between a JC Penney employee who lost her ($8.30/hr) job vs. their recently departed CEO. Yes, he did an awful job, yes, he walked away with wads of cash. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-30/ceo-pay-1-795-to-1-multiple-of-workers-skirts-law-as-sec-delays.html

It's astonishing to me that this system has gotten so far and that the American public doesn't seem to mind supporting this system. Do people really believe that these overpaid CEOs are worth the money they're paid? I've heard people say to me, "well, they've worked hard for it". I work hard; just about everyone I KNOW works hard and none of us are pulling in that kind of money.

Here's another article, one talking about the 10 things Americans don't know about America, http://bananenplanet.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/10-things-most-americans-dont-know-about-america/ this article actually touches on the fact that America's primary economic intention is to satisfy the investor community.

I can say with some certainty that the current selection of FDA approved pharmaceuticals on the market are nothing short of miracles. We have cured or controlled countless horrible diseases just in my lifetime and that's GREAT. What isn't great is what we pay the CEOs and other officers of these companies. In some cases a pharmaceutical CEO makes in one year what an entire drug research and development program would cost over the entire lifespan of that program! Yes, it's true.

Many research programs get started but most of them fail before every getting near to an actual product and all those failures cost money, LOTS OF MONEY but there is value there as well. For all the failures many make it through to save or enhance our lives. But why oh why does that mean that the CEO, CFO, CMO, etc. of these companies are entitled to salaries and bonuses equal or greater than the entire cost of a drug development program?

And why do we do nothing here to put a cap on that? Trust me when I say that not one of these people is the sole or even PRIMARY reason that a particular drug makes it to market. Their goal is to bring value for the investors not better health and well-being to the public.

Another bit of background reading, http://www.fiercepharma.com/story/novos-exceptional-first-quarter-still-disappoints/2013-05-01?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal about a diabetes company, you'll notice that most of this article is about the investment community and their response to the Q1 earnings update. But here's what ISN'T said, this is a company that primarily makes insulin to expand their product line they've gone further and further down the insulin path into more and more EXPENSIVE territory. Guess what folks, you could remain reasonably healthy with diabetes by using regular ol' human insulin and a vial and syringe. As long as you were compliant about testing your blood glucose and knew how and when to inject your insulin you'd be fine, but that isn't what's at question here, it's how well the investment community is responding to how well a company can generate profits.

It doesn't matter if you're the CEO of Target or the CEO of Pfizer, you're there for one reason and one reason alone…investor profits. The clothes you stock your shelves with can be poorly made by cheap labor in foreign lands because that boosts profits and higher profits equal higher rates of return for investors and that's the only good news. Buy American you say? How when no one will SELL AMERICAN. No one will INVEST in America in the truest sense of the word.

How much really is ENOUGH? If I made $17 million this year and was expecting $21 million next year how would I even SPEND all of that before I die? Why can't this be cycled back to the employees and the products and services offered? Why are the rich so breathtakingly richer than the rest of us; and what is it really buying us? It's buying us unemployment as jobs are off-shored, it's buying us inferior quality products, it's buying us American poverty and a forced greater dependence on welfare and other social systems.

I still have no answers to this but I can't help but raise the issue again..and again…and again.

Please folks educate yourselves' about these things, if corporate America isn't willing to admit it has a problem then maybe if we all wise up we can find a way to change things, Occupy had good intentions but nothing changed. We desperately need some change.

So whatcha gonna do ‘bout all that?

A friend of mine at work, someone who listens kindly and even encourages all my wild ranting, asked what my solutions are. She agrees that I've done a good job of identifying the problem or problems but what next? Most people, most BOSSES, don't want you to come to them with a problem unless you're prepared to offer a solution.

I thought about it for a second then admitted that maybe I don't have a solution, maybe I'm as far as putting the thesis together and that's where it stops for now.

As I talked though it occurred to me that even if I come up with a solution it won't matter because, just like with a substance abuser, the first thing is admit you have a problem. That's it. Corporate America, corporations, need to step up and say, "Hi, I'm a corporation and I have a problem, not only do I HAVE a problem…in many cases I AM THE PROBLEM!"

Right now, from what I can see, corporations don't believe they're the problem. They tout their corporate values and make sure everyone is abiding by them and then check each one off during the twice-yearly performance reviews. Yay for us, we have values and we stick to 'em.

What a crock of crap.

When corporations are ready, willing and able to call themselves out on their behavior then I can start coming up with solutions or better yet maybe THEY can come up with solutions. For now I'd like to see it get to the point of admitting a problem. At least it would be a start.

And once they each can own up to having a BIG problem then they can start to drill down to the little ones, get specific, look in the mirror and see the warts, and blemishes, and worry lines wrinkling their corporate foreheads.

But right now, I'd just like to see them start by standing up and admitting there is a problem and it can't be fixed by re-writing the core values or doing another lame team building exercise.

$$$ Uh-huh $$$

I've always kinda thought of myself as someone who *gets* math and even science at some level. Sadly, I've never really pursued it beyond patting myself on the back for knowing that I *get* that so yay me.

Some of my posts are just about silly things like please stop picking on Jennifer Aniston (I stand by that one, give it a rest folks, she's in her 40's there's no baby bump, shut up) but others, from the beginning of this blog, dealt with things like what the HELL is wrong with corporate America. I still hash this shit out over and over again with friends but haven't re-visited it here in a while.

Somehow in the past 24 hours I managed to come across two companies that might be getting things right.

Valve (http://www.cnbc.com/id/100522971/A_Billion_Dollar_Company_With_No_Bosses_Yes_It_Exists) is a video game company with no bosses, no HR department and seemingly no corporate-style issues like performance reviews. It seems to be working. Why is it working for them but not for everyone?

This morning I saw a news story on The Today Show about Zildjian (http://zildjian.com/About/History/Background ), the cymbal company, yeah, you know those shiny metal discs that hover above the drum kits on arena stages all over the world. They maintain a more corporate structure but still keep a family feel to the whole thing. They've never had a layoff in the company and when a job gets replaced by an advance in technology the person who had been doing that job gets re-trained for another comparable job. They showed one guy who'd been re-trained 7 times during his (many) years there and was pretty darn happy about it.

Why are these companies news items? Because they're not the norm, they ARE newsworthy. No one is reporting on the drudgery of corporate life in the entire REST of the companies here. No one is talking about the uselessness of performance review and goal setting season (just now drawing to a close in corporate America).

I'm discouraged, I'll admit it. There are no changes out there in the big world of corporate jobs.

I recently read an article about a couple of new books about FDR and The New Deal. I admit most history has completely escaped me by now. I know I learned about it but that's all I remember, I remember that I learned about something and that's it. The article made me want to read more about those times in not just US history but in the history of the world overall. It was during that era the Securities and Exchange Commission was founded and wasn't that a significant step towards where we are today?

Where are we? We don't innovate, we don't provide quality goods or services, we DO just enough to satisfy the investment community and that is our primary focus for anyone at all who even TOUCHES an industry. Even the small town deli owner is touched by big corporations when they buy their deli meats and other products. We're all in it; we're just all in it for the wrong reasons. I admit, I'm no investment guru but now I'm beginning to see that is the only real way to play in this game.

As the world became more and more industrialized people went from working farms or other small family businesses to working for someone else but in the beginning you did your job, you did your best to turn out a good product and as a reward you got to keep your job (usually for life) and even walked away with a pension, something that was set aside for you to live off of in your declining years. It was easy in many ways.

With the rise of stock trading markets it is clear that we no longer work for a company to produce quality goods and work out our days until we're rewarded with a pension in our twilight years. We work to meet the goals and expectations of the financial investment community. That's it. There's no gratification in that. Yes, I want to make money as much as the next person and live comfortably and all that but there is no deep, personal, emotional connection or gratification to doing what I do.

Systemic mediocrity just may be the result of historic bureaucracy and governed by a financial system only looking to increase the bottom line at any cost. It sucks the soul out of the people engaged in doing the actual work and in turn seems to suck the soul out of the society the work is (supposedly) being done for.

Obviously there will be more on this from me. Some thoughts perhaps on what happens when you DO suck the soul out of individuals and society as a whole…

I’m American

I recently participated in a Scarborough Research survey. I wasn't going to, it seemed invasive but then I thought of all the times that I heard about a survey in the news and when I didn't agree with the results my knee-jerk response would be "no one asked ME" so someone was asking, I thought I'd answer.

The gentleman conducting the survey was a sweet, friendly guy. I chatted him up quite a bit which I'm sure negatively impacted his call time since the objective of any of these positions is to get people OFF the phone but I figured I wasn't giving in THAT easily, he'd have to put up with my corny jokes and reading recommendations (also I had already polished off a beer and was feeling friendly).

The survey was fine, I answered honestly and could see how some of the survey results we see published in the media end up the way they do. There were questions like "Do you think there's too much sex on TV?" The problem was that the only answers were "yes" or "no" and honestly "I don't care" would've been my true response. Saying "yes" made me sound like a member of the "Million Moms" (crazypants) group (newsflash, I'm not even a mom) and saying "no" kinda made me sound like a pervert. "I don't care" would've been more accurate; without that option I chose the pervert route.

There were other minor flaws in the survey questions and their proposed answers but none that were really offensive, they were mostly just dopey omissions of what a real answer (at least for me) would've been. It highlighted the flaws of survey research.

Then it was time for him to gather the demographic info, household income, own or rent, value of home, number of children under 18 living in the home, number of children over 18 but under 26 living in the house, and all that other happy horseshit. We were wrapping up when this question came over the phone line:

"What ethnic group do you identify yourself with?"

This was EASY. Oh yeah, no question about that one, I'm American. I am. My mom was in The Mayflower Society and The Daughters of the American Revolution. My family has been on these shores long enough to have intermarried and crossbred enough times to identify with an American ethnicity.

American wasn't an option.

I kid you not.

He kept prompting me for something more specific. What kind of food did we eat growing up? Mac and cheese, hot dogs and hamburgers, pork chops and chicken cutlets, salads made with iceberg lettuce and fresh jersey tomatoes, grilled cheese and tomato soup. We ate American food.

What languages did my grandparents speak? Huh? They spoke English…American English.

I finally gave the guy several answers, none of which I was happy with.

This ate away at me for the past few days and I finally sent Scarborough Research an e-mail explaining to them just what I've explained to you. I'm American. My name is American. My mom was born in da' Bronx, NYC. My dad was born in North Jersey, at home. I'm from HERE. Right here. I knew how to take the bus to NYC by the time I was 8 years old. I knew how to ride the subway. I knew where to get the best New York style cheesecake in NYC and in No. Jersey. I knew where to get an Italian hot dog or a Texas weiner (it's a way of serving a hot dog, trust me here). I have several wonderful recipes for mac and cheese.

I'm offended. Not just for me but for anyone who does identify as American, just like me. American.

I might be a bleeding heart liberal and have friends that are hardcore conservatives but the thing that allows us to have lively debates and remain friends, is that we're American.

I can't wait to hear back from Scarborough Research. I've asked them to add American as an ethnic choice and to be sure to update my survey answers to accurately reflect that response.

So, what ethnic group do YOU identify with?

PS: This blog post is dedicated to my mom who died approximately 2 ½ years ago. Mom and I didn't see eye-to-eye on most things and to say we had a contentious relationship would be an understatement but I know that she'd agree with every word I just wrote.

The Great Canine Christmas Caper of 2012

This only peripherally involves a "real" dog, it's really the story of an iron doorstopper.

The back story; hubby was working with his brothers a few years ago to get their parents into a nursing home and then sell the family home. One brother (we'll call him "GB" for "good brother") was great and very helpful hubby and GB would spend entire days getting rid of a lifetime of crap out of that house. It wasn't a big house but it sure contained a lot of CRAP. The other brother (we'll call him "PiA" for "pain in the ass brother") lives further away, is basically un or underemployed (by choice) and is generally a pain in the ass. PiA managed to cruise by one day when hubby and GB weren't there; his contribution to the clean-out was to pile up any and all metal he saw so he could sell the metal and keep the profit from it, he also brought his bulk trash all the way from one state away to leave at the curb.

Hubby went over, found this pile and was FURIOUS, how DARE PiA make this decision for his own gains. Hubby picked through the "trash" metal and found a lovely iron dog. He brought the iron dog home and looked it up on the internet, it was about 4 inches high at the withers, the head was probably about 6 inches from paw to the top of the head, it was a fox terrier (we have Aust. Cattledogs so there was no emotional connection to the breed). The internet (as usual) revealed some interesting details about the little bugger; they were Victorian era doorstops, there were certain breeds, all sorts of stuff. He excitedly read off details to me as he found out more and more about the history of the little iron dog. It was nice that he was so excited about this. It was interesting to look at. We have a sorta Victorian style home that is nearly 100 years old so it even "fit" nicely in our home.

Hubby named it "Ironsides" and Ironsides quickly won a place of honor in our home. He was placed on a soft mat in the center of a side cabinet in our living room. Ironsides became a family member. We were glad he was rescued from the trash heap…just like our three flesh and fur "real" dogs had been rescued.

We're not collectors. We don't have Precious Moments figurines or beanie babies or anything collectible. I can't stand the clutter and even without that stuff we STILL have clutter so we are NOT collectors of anything. Hubby made it clear that we would not BECOME collectors either, despite his clear love of ol' Ironsides he would remain our one and only iron doorstop and we were both good with that. Despite his obvious value on eBay, we didn't rescue him for profit or to become hoarders, we rescued him because he was on the junk heap at hubby's parents' house and he certainly was NOT garbage to be sold for the price of his metal weight.

Hubby and I have been together since December of 2001 and been married almost ten of those years. We're not new to each other so Christmas giving between us has become quite a challenge, add to that the fact that we have no kids to buy for so we can't even divert our gift giving attention to our kids or grandkids. It's just us (and some friends, etc.). I struggled this year over what to buy him, I actually bought AND RETURNED gifts before Christmas even dawned. We had agreed to buy ourselves a new TV for the living room as our "gift" so we were really just getting some smaller items but once the shopping frenzy hits it's tough to stop.

I had finally come to terms with the mediocre array of gifts I had stashed in the upstairs closet. It was the eve of Christmas Eve (that'd be December 23^rd), other than buying some scratch off lottery tix, I was DONE with my shopping. Put your pencils down folks and close your test booklets…you are DONE! Awesome.

Hubby and I were sitting in the living room enjoying The Sound of Music on TV with the dogs (3 live, 1 iron) strewn around us and the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree adding sufficient atmosphere when hubby mentioned that in his shopping travels he wandered into a local antique center and was AMAZED by the many interesting things there. I grunted in agreement and let him continue talking. He went on to say that he was surprised to find another iron doorstop there, he mentioned it was tagged at $140 and he didn't buy it because he doesn't want to become a "collector" but then he went on to say that maybe after the holiday he would go back and offer them $100 for it and see if they would take it.

EUREKA! A "special" gift…but it was at an antique center in a small downtown area where they kept variable hours AT BEST…would they even be OPEN on Christmas Eve? SHIT! But suddenly I was fired up by the thrill of the hunt.

Hubby rarely has a day off but he DID have off on Christmas Eve so I needed a reason to leave him the morning of Christmas Eve and go on my hunt. Enter one of the LIVE dogs…"Honey, I'm taking Maggie to the dog park…." Perfect, we can spend HOURS there so how would he know if we were there for an hour or 3 hours? Off we went.

We did legitimately spend an hour and a half at the dog park because I had to give said antique center time to open for the day, I figured if I got there between 11AM and noon I'd be able to get in because they'd either be open from early-ish until noonish or from noonish to whenever. We (meaning me and Maggie…the youngest of our dogs) got to town around 11:30ish. Maggie hunkered down in the car tired from her hour and a half of running around like a lunatic at the dog park and off I sprinted to the antique center. SUCCESS, according to a crayoned sign on the front door (not lying, blue crayon) the antique center was open on Christmas Eve from 11AM-2PM; YAY!

The place, like many antique places, is really an old store (Woolworth's in this case, I believe) divided into little booths with different vendors for each booth but they usually cover for each other. The guy manning the front booth was a grumpy guy; I explained what I was looking for, an iron fox terrier doorstop my husband had just seen the other day. Grumpy Guy (his name is actually Rudy) kinda shrugged and said he wasn't sure if he'd seen one of those but there was a Boston terrier somewhere in the back…maybe. Three other women, booth owners, were also there; they were MUCH more enthusiastic than Rudy. We spread out across the space to start looking for this silly iron doorstop. We were shouting across the store as we found things that might be "my" doorstop. Two more shoppers wandered in and got sucked into the hunt for the iron fox terrier. Dare I say this, it was FUN!

I was starting to wonder if maybe I should settle for that Boston terrier in the back and wandered off to use the ladies' room while the hunt continued in full swing. Suddenly I heard someone shout, "GOT IT!" I ran out of the ladies' room still drying my hands, the booth vendors and the other patrons were all shouting and pointing at a glass case RIGHT UP FRONT BY GRUMPY GUS RUDY ("GGR")! It was right under his NOSE. They fumbled around to find the key and finally liberated the little guy from his glass prison and placed him in my hands. He appeared to be in good shape and the genuine item but he was priced at $195 and I KNOW hubby said the one he saw was $140. Hmmmmmm.

I told GGR that I was sure this was the one but that my husband told me it was $140 and this one was marked $195. Without flinching GGR shrugged and said he must've told hubby he could have it for $140 so I could have it for $140. He barked out (HA, DOG…BARKED…soooooo funny), "you want it?" YES! YES I WANT IT!

I was soooooooooooo happy.

I figured I'd leave my little treasure in the car overnight and sneak it in the next morning when I got up with the dogs. I snuck it in, wrapped it in tissue paper and then tucked it into one of those holiday bags and then I stashed it in the cabinet in the living room where the Christmas tree was and where Ironsides resides.

Hubby FINALLY wandered downstairs at around 10ish, made coffee and said we'd open presents once he got some coffee in him.

I was like a little kid, so excited I was ready to POP!

We did the usual "you open one, I open one" and giggled and oohed and aahed over each gift.

When we were all done I said, "hmmm, the cabinet seems to be open a bit, did Santa hide something here?" DUH!

I handed hubby the bag from the cabinet, he remarked that it was awfully heavy (DUH) then he ripped the tissue paper off and his face went into one of those truly surprised faces, the kind where your mouth forms a perfect "O" and your eyes get big and round. I thought, "wow, he IS a good actor"…or maybe he really is surprised?

And then I found out that he really was surprised…and why.

It turns out that the eve of C'mas Eve I hadn't been listening to him all that well, he hadn't seen the fox terrier doorstop, he'd seen the BOSTON TERRIER one, he was kinda willing to SETTLE for the Boston terrier because he had no hope of finding the matching fox terrier to Ironsides, the FACING one. He asked where I'd ever found it and I sheepishly told him that it was at the antique center where he'd seen the Boston terrier doorstop, I admitted I thought he DID see this one. He said that had he seen this one he would've bought…at $195 and I admitted that I had gotten it for $140 because I thought this was the one he'd seen and I told GGR that it was $140 so he gave it to me for $140.

It was so much better than perfect. My mistake turned the gift into something so much better. He spent the next hour or two scouring the internet to learn more about our now perfectly matched pair of iron fox terriers, one left facing, one right facing. He'd occasionally grunt then shout out some little factual tidbit.

SUCCESS!

And there ya have it, The Great Canine Christmas Caper of 2012!

 

The SATs of Shopping

Christmas shopping is like taking the SATs (those are the Scholastic Aptitude Tests, you knew that, right?). You shop and you shop and you shop right up until the end. It's like when the teacher tells you that you have to shut your test booklet and put your pencil down. That's it, suddenly it's Christmas Eve and you are DONE shopping, whatever you didn't get you are NOT gettin'.

I thought that I was down to just buying some scratch off lottery tix tomorrow and I was DONE. DONE. I could finish before the time was up and I had to close my wallet and put down the stylus used to sign the credit card receipts. I thought I was there…then I remembered that essay question I skipped back on page three.

FUCK!

I bought hubby some small and rather benign gifts. We've been together quite a while and with no kids to buy for we just kinda buy ourselves whatever we want…within reason…when we want it. Awesome, right? Yes but it really would be nice to surprise him (or me) with something…well, UNEXPECTED (like the year hubby got me a commissioned portrait of our dogs at the time, we've since added one to the pack).

And when did that opportunity for me to do that for him rear its ugly head? Ooooo, at about 8:30 on the eve of Christmas eve. Yeah, swell.

And is it something easy? No, because easy would not fall into that category of the "ah-ha" moment on C'mas morning.

So what is this rare and precious item?

An iron doorstop in the shape of a dog that is somewhere at a local antique center that may or may not be open for some random and unpredictable hours tomorrow…and I don't know what booth the damn thing is even in.

So here I am realizing at the last minute that I forgot that essay question back on page 3 of the test booklet.

We have Christmas Eve plans starting at 3PM tomorrow including a 7 fishes dinner with a newly engaged couple and yet I'll be up early banging on the doors of the antique center two towns away and willing to pay any price for the damn thing.

And pencils down students.

Christmas Fun

Today was a really DIFFERENT day for me. For one thing I spent the day Christmas shopping with my best friend of more than 30 years. Now that should sound perfectly normal except that my best friend HATES to shop and I used to love it but no longer do. I was a solo shopper because I wanted to steep myself in the moment, she was a solo shopper because she wanted to be over and DONE with it all. Somehow, without trying, we've managed to meet in the middle.

We set out by meeting in a parking lot where she'd just run into one of my many ex-boyfriends in line at the ATM. We started to head to the local outlet mall and before we got far we agreed we were STARVING. Awesome. She had a $5 coupon for Applebee's, I had a $15 gift card I'd recently won. We NEVER eat at Applebee's. There was an Applebee's right there. WOO-FUCKING-HOO! Awesome.

We had a reasonably decent lunch for which we each chipped in $8, that's right EIGHT DOLLARS. Cool. There was a Harmon Store (that's one of those kinda health and beauty products discount stores in case you all don't have them) in the same strip mall, she needed stuff from there. She checked out and had COUPONS! We have never remembered to use coupons in our LIVES but there we were…using coupons and gift cards like we had done it forever.

I also had a Starbucks gift card I had won. I had used some of it but didn't even know how much, there was a Starbucks in said same strip mall. We don't even LIKE Starbucks…we went and each got a small coffee and a little package of chocolate covered graham crackers (one for each of us). AWESOME. It turned out that we owed 30 cents after the gift card.

The day was shaping up really well.

We headed up the highway the few miles to the outlet mall. Interestingly we actually got a parking space! Cool.

She needed a pair of brown boots for her 18 year old daughter. I had a coupon for $10 off at Famous Footwear. And there they were, the perfect brown boots, on sale and then there was that $10 coupon! And I even got hubby a pair of slippers (the coupon specifically excluded slippers).

Off we went to The Gap outlet…she had a 40% off coupon there. She did well there and even got herself a few things.

Next stop the G.H. Bass outlet. Massive sale and with my $5 rewards coupon the scarf I wanted was just over $6!

The jeans she wanted at the Levi's outlet store were only $24.99…and they had her size and style! Whoop-Whoop!

Off to the Eddie Bauer store…she found a great duffel bag for her daughter…and a super soft and comfy flannel for herself…and I had a $5 coupon.

What an absolutely exhausting, fun, coupon-filled, hilarious day with my best friend.

We're both exhausted but I have to say it was a lot more fun than I could've ever hoped for, today, TODAY was my perfect Christmas. Everything else is just icing on that cake but a few hours of coupon-crazed, giggling madness was the real joy.

Feliz Navidad!

Still not over it

I'm not over the events of last week in Newtown, CT and I'm 90+ miles away with no kids of my own. If I'm not over it will those people EVER be over it?

No matter what I do, no matter how my brain tries to twist it, I cannot understand how any human being could pump 11 bullets into a little kid with two missing front teeth and cock-eyed pigtails. I can't. It makes no sense. I get upset with myself if I yell at my DOGS for barking too much.

Those people in Newtown, CT will NEVER have a joyful Christmas or holiday season again. Those little kids who lost siblings last Friday will carry that with them forever. Those twins that were cut in half by a crazed gunman? The remaining twin will always feel that loss.

Every bit of it, every little nuance is unimaginable. As the news media continues to camp out in Newtown the images show people surrounded with holiday decorations that can't possibly bring any joy to those people.

I love the corniness of this season, I love stumbling upon an ancient re-run of a Sonny and Cher Christmas special, I love Holiday in Handcuffs with Mario Lopez but all of that has even lost its corn right now.

WTF? Let's get rid of these fucking guns. These guns that allow someone to pump 11 bullets into a smiling, gap-toothed six year old.

Guns that allow you to shoot your way into an elementary school.

Do we even NEED THOSE?

Gun advocates are saying this wouldn't have happened if the teachers had been armed! Really? My best friend is a teacher, she teaches art to little kids, 3 and 4 year old kids. She's barely 5 feet tall herself and wears a size 5 jeans, she's tiny. Could she even safely wield a gun? Could she safely wield a gun that would combat what that killer walked in with? I'm sorry but I don't think so. Even if she could though, I know she doesn't WANT to. She's a TEACHER of SMALL children, a peaceful, loving person. She has no interest in learning to shoot a deadly weapon, she doesn't even eat MEAT for goodness' sake but the gun lobby is blaming the un-armed for this. Should we have also armed a room of SIX YEAR OLD CHILDREN?

Yeah, I'm wounded and I'm pissed. It needs to stop NOW. Get these guns GONE. I'm sorry but you don't see this in urban communities, you see it with middle-class white folks. That best friend I mentioned? She works in a dangerous urban area. Know what? I'm more worried she'll get mugged walking to her car at night than that a crazed gunman will burst into her classroom, another friend who is a school teacher works in an upper class neighborhood, I'm scared for her and her kids. She's a more likely target it would seem.

Anyway, once again, hug your loved ones tonight, two legged, four legged, whatever and tomorrow? Tomorrow do something nice for a stranger. Buy a cup of coffee, pay their toll, let them go in front of you at the grocery store. Nice feels good and we all need to feel good right now, hell I'd settle for feeling BETTER right now.

The year without a Christmas

Today is the day after my 54^th birthday. It was the end of a stressful and busy week at work. I routinely check the news on the internet. By 11AM I had a chance to do that before I made a quick trip to the mall at lunch to do some Christmas shopping.

TWENTY CHILDREN WERE DEAD. WTF? Really?

I'm childfree by choice but I do have tons of kids in my life. My friends have kids, some of THOSE kids even have kids. My next door neighbors have a kid who will be 5 in a few months. We love that kid. We love our neighbors. I wave to the little guy every morning on his way out to school with his dad. R's backpack is usually hanging jauntily off his back and he waves to me as they head out. In the evening I'm usually getting home from work and letting the dogs out when R and his dad are on their way in. We wave, sometimes R has something to tell me and he runs over to the fence before he goes inside.

Little kids like him were killed today. I don't know why. I hate it. I hate guns.

My heart can't help but try to understand what those parents are feeling. It's 11 days before Christmas. I'm sure that they had most of their Christmas shopping done. They had presents stashed all over the place, they were hoping that the kid liked it or that it fit. It's one of the last days of Hannakuh, was there some little kid excited to go home and light another candle with his or her family tonight and get another gift to continue to memorialize the 8 nights the lamps burned bright?

I can't help but think of all the kids in my life. My friend Ei's grandkids. She has many. I just saw an adorable picture on facebook of her youngest grandbaby, she'll be a year old soon, wearing an awesome Winter ensemble as she strolled the streets of NYC with her parents. She's only been with us for a year but I couldn't imagine her being taken away…not like that.

There are a lot of people asking us to pray. Pray for the souls of these angels, pray for the souls of the adults and pray for the soul of the killer. Pray to whom? I want a God that I don't have to pray to when something like this happens, where was this God WHILE IT WAS HAPPENING? Before it happened? Where was this God to stop the killer?

I believe in a deeply spiritual place. Something that exists in SOME OR MOST of us that is good and honest and spiritual. But who is this God that allows 20 little kids to die today? 20 little kids who were looking forward to Christmas, 20 little kids who recently sat on Santa's knee and whispered their deepest desire for whatever is currently the equivalent of a Red Rider BB Gun.

My heart breaks tonight for those families, all of them, not just the ones who lost their babies today but the ones whose babies had to be told to close their eyes so they didn't see bad things as they were led to safety and their waiting families.

Love hurts, it always hurts, even when it's happy and good it hurts in the anticipation of loss, today's losses were inconceivable. This needs to stop. It needs to stop NOW.

That 2^nd amendment that the NRA is so fond of is about bearing arms as a MILITIA, a military fighting unit when there is none, it doesn't mean that we can have semi-automatic assault weapons. Might I add, the founding father had no idea how good we'd become at inventing efficient killing machines that would bear the name "guns" same as their old, slow muskets.

Please hug your loved ones tonight and I don't care if your loved one is your spouse, your kid, your dog or your turtle, hug 'em, love 'em and feel free to be angry; we've all been stripped of something tonight, some more than others but we've all lost something and I'm fucking PISSED.

Today…in New York

I'm an NBC kinda gal. As long as I can remember I've been an NBC kinda gal. Not necessarily NBC shows but NBC news and news related shows. I never gave my NBC loyalty much thought, it was always just THERE, a family tradition as far as I can remember…we were an NBC family. The Today Show has long been the cornerstone of my NBC watching. I lived through the heartbreak of Katie breaking up with us and warmed up to Meredith after an appropriate period of mourning the loss of Katie. I cheered when Ann finally took her rightful place next to Matt and cursed them all when she was rudely dumped.

Now of course the rumors are flying that Matt will be shown the highway (though I'm not believing that one).

The bigger question though is why NBC? Why the Today Show? As their ratings continue to tank and people seem to be migrating over to GMA (I don't even know what network that's on) I had to ask myself what is it about NBC that holds my heart.

So here it is, best I can tell the NBC shows based in NYC come from Rockefeller Center and growing up in the general area as I did…Rock Center is THE CENTER OF NYC. When NBC lights a C'mas tree…they light THE CHRISTMAS TREE, sure there's some tree lighting up at Lincoln Center, but let's face it, that's like the understudy of trees.

When people gather outside of The Today Show they're gathering at Rockefeller Center not wherever those other shows broadcast from.

So maybe it's snobby of me but that's it, my comfort zone is right there where the Rockettes high kick and where the living nativity gets walked around the neighborhood each morning during the holiday season.

Oh yeah, and Brian Williams is a member of my triumvirate of awesome guys on TV (Jon Stewart and Jimmy Fallon round that out).

Confessions of an EX-shopoholic

Yup, that's me. I'm sure I mentioned this earlier here. I used to LOVE to shop. I'd plan my time around it. How soon before I could hit the stores on a weekend? What could I cut out of my day to add more shopping time? It was the biggest and dopiest waste of time ever. So I've worked hard to curb that behavior (and mindset). I thought about what I REALLY needed to have in my closet. I weeded out a bunch of crap and I set up a plan and a WARDROBE for work that would require little thought on my part each morning and very little shopping time as well.

How have I filled all that wasted time? Quite well, thank you. Yesterday I did another rescue transport. I have more time for those on weekends because I no longer need to carve out shopping time. But today was even better. I do still have to grocery shop and do that sort of thing. I took my youngest dog to the dog park for almost two funfilled hours. After that we went to PetSmart for some necessities then I stopped in Costco (quick trip and used a list for what I needed), then it was off to buzz through the grocery store.

I got home in the 3PM hour. I had time to put away the groceries, finish up the laundry, prep some veggies for dinner, vacuum downstairs and play a bunch of Frisbee with the dogs. WOW, right?

A year ago I wouldn't have gotten Maggs to the dog park because it would've cut into my shopping spree. I would've raced through the required shopping not because I wanted to get home and have fun with the dogs but because I NEEDED to get my ass to Marshalls or Kohl's. Not anymore. Matter of fact I buzzed into Kohl's to use the rest room and was surprised to see C'mas decorations all over the place. I barely slowed down to notice and I didn't even caress a random blouse. Nope, I used the rest room and high tailed it outta that joint.

What a great gift I've given myself. Not only is my bank account feeling better but my time is used for better things than retail therapy.

That's it really, just basking in the glow of good times WITHOUT wasting the day in a brightly lit store buying things I don't need.

You’re DRUNK!

Last night hubby and I went out. The weather was GORGEOUS (clearly we DON'T live along the Gulf Coast of the US) and we wanted to grab a few hours on one of those last great summer nights. We went to a local outside bar where we ran into some people we knew. Hubby's birthday is Thursday (tomorrow) and I mentioned this so these folks decided that it was a good time to buy him roughly a half a glass of Jack Daniels (and a beer). He had a few more beers. We left the bar and wandered down the boardwalk. We bounced in time to the drum circle going on, we talked to people we knew, we looked in stores and restaurants (trying to decide where to have dinner).

We finally decided to stop at his new fave dinner spot on the way home. It's a gorgeous old beach club with a wall of windows looking out over the ocean. The place wasn't crowded; we sat at the bar to eat so we'd have the full ocean view. He had more beers. He was DRUNK! I mean giddy, silly, talkin'-to-loud DRUNK. He'd go between the very serious drunken conversation and the very silly drunken conversation. He savored every bite of his dinner (tilapia, a fish that usually doesn't do much for me but this place really does make it special), he drank more beer.

As we left he looked towards the ocean and just threw his hands in the air to celebrate how glorious the evening was in every way; the weather, the food, the fun, maybe even each other. I turned to him and said, "YOU ARE DRUNK!"

He said, "YES I AM and WHY NOT?" He went on to point out that life is really not a bed of roses. You generally don't wake up every day immersed in the joy of living. He's right. As much as I most definitely prefer living to dying its true, every damn day is not exactly sunshine and lollipops.

We do need to make of it what we can even if it means being drunk on a Tuesday night. We don't have kids, we both work, our house is nearly paid off, we're okay but he's right, what is there to life? Life really is what you make of it. What makes your soul sing? I know I address this pretty often but he really had a point last night.

As we drove home he asked if I wanted to stop for ice cream, usually I'm the one asking and he reluctantly agrees but last night he asked ME to stop! He said, "it's ICE CREAM, why not? Let's enjoy it!" I love this, I hope this stays with him. When we stopped for the ice cream there were two women on the bench and they offered to move over so we could sit, I said I needed to stand after such a big dinner but we started a fun conversation with them, hubby rarely talks to strangers but last night he engaged EVERYONE in conversation, it was fun.

I don't think I want or need to actually be physically drunk all the time but I'd like to kinda live this feeling from him a bit more often. Yeah, I'm fuckin' drunk so make somethin' of it, go ahead, I'm serious, make something of it!

Shortest line in the grocery store

As a bleeding heart liberal and someone who routinely rails against the inhumanity of humans I have a shameful confession to make. I find that I often avoid handicapped people. I think it's a knee jerk reaction and I don't like it in myself. Look, I know that someone with a severe physical handicap isn't "contagious", I know I won't "catch" what they have and yet I shy away and I don't want to. I feel like an ass for behaving this way but I also don't think I'm alone with this horrible prejudice.

Last Sunday I was in the local grocery store and as we all know, Sunday's at any grocery store are not a great experience. The lines were, of course LONG. I surveyed the scene and noticed a very short line, I made sure the light above the register was still lit so that I didn't race over only to find out she was closing her lane. When I was sure I had a chance of making it there before everyone discovered this rare and beautiful event of a short line on a Sunday I bolted over to grab that prime spot. Once there I noticed that the cashier had some very severe physical handicaps, I looked around and wondered if everyone else was shying away because, like me, they didn't want to be confronted with this reality on a Sunday afternoon. It was tough to tell but it was clear that this short line was not growing.

I took a breath, silently called myself a horrible name and proceeded to unload my cart onto the belt. When it was my turn, I made eye contact and treated her the way she deserved to be treated…like she was the exact same as me, like she had feelings and emotions, got mad and sad and happy. I made the usual small talk, I told her I had my own bags with me and would bag my stuff. We worked together nicely and I pointed out that she was too quick for me to keep up with her so my bagging had lagged behind her cashiering. She dug in and lent me a hand and we finished our transaction.

I hope I grew a little bit from that and what else did I learn? That maybe I can grow a little bit and at least for now, until my fellow humans catch up with me, I can also get the shortest line at the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon it turned into a bit of a karmic bonus for me, choose to try to grow and get out of the store faster.

And THAT'S how I got on the shortest grocery line this past Sunday!

I think it may be working

Sometime earlier this year I decided I needed to stop shopping. I don't mean stop grocery shopping (though I'd love to stop doing THAT) I mean stop bullshit shopping. Shopping was a hobby for me even when I had no real money to spend on things. I'd just go out to "look" at stuff and then come home with the perfect dress or shoes or whatever but perfect for WHAT? No clue.

I long used the excuse that I was always looking for work clothes. I'm one of the many office drones saddled to a "business casual" dress code. I usually work one day a week from home (usually Wednesdays) and of course on Friday (because Fridays are somehow magical) we can wear jeans to work which is easy. I know that every single person who reads this (both of you) are able to do that math, that means I need three days of biz casual clothes per week and the remainder of the time is mine to choose.

So how in the world could I possibly spend so damn much time shopping for 3 days per week of clothes? I have no idea. I think that when I first latched onto this idea I decided on a "uniform" for the year. During the cooler months the uniform would be black or gray trousers (the super comfy pull-on ones from NY&Co. that look like "real" trousers but are just smartly disguised stretch pants), a pretty cami from Ann Taylor (they have tons of them and get in more each season, they don't really look like your standard cami they look like a cute, professional, sleeveless top that goes with everything) and either a jaunty men's cardigan or one of those light "swing" jackets.

Summer would mean wearing lightweight summer dresses or skirts. Easy (and those things are usually fairly inexpensive as well).

As summer is drawing to a close I realize that I've done pretty well with this plan. The best part is that it's EASY. I hate having to actually THINK in the morning about what to wear to work. I don't have time for that shit. I wanna jump out of the shower and into something presentable and run out the door. I don't iron, I could, I don't; which means making sure that everything is wash and wear (it is).

So now that I've stopped shopping as a hobby I'm realizing how great it is to NOT shop. Sure I definitely have more money in my bank account. That's the first obvious benefit here but pulling in a close second is the time I now have to do things OTHER than shopping. I'm not kidding when I say that I'd get up on a weekend and if it was crappy out (meaning no playing outside, no bike ride) I'd have to hurry out the door to go…shopping. What a friggin' waste of time, right? Here's the thing, for many things that I need to buy I'm now buying them online because it keeps me OUT of the stores and keeps me focused on what I actually NEED to buy. I'm easily distracted in a store…"ooooo, I want this and this and this and this…" but if I don't go into one then I'm not distracted.

Here's an example. I need printer ink cartridges, I could buy them online or I could buy them at Target but if I buy them at Target I'll BE IN TARGET! And frankly that's a dangerous temptation for me. I'll have to check out the sale items and poke around the seasonal crap and buy a few tank tops because look, they're marked down to $3.99!

Another benefit of this plan is that I've taken the time to go through my closet and dressers and more than once to weed out shit that I just don't wear. It's been liberating. I can now easily flip through the clothes in my closet because my closet is no longer jam-packed with shit I bought and never wore or wore once or twice. It's gone. Just gone. I'm feeling another purge coming on me soon.

Look, let's do the math here. Taking into account my 5 weeks of PTO, my work from home days, my 10 holidays/yr, figuring in roughly 104 days of weekends/yr, I'm thinking it all boils down to needing roughly 132 business casual outfits per year and you can slash off 20 weeks of those 132 days (roughly 3 days/wk * 20 for 60 days off of those 132) for summer skirts and dresses which are for me easier than pants (mentally) but even if we look at it as 132 business casual outfits per year, that doesn't shake out to really NEEDING all that many clothes. There's no need to make a fashion statement at the office, you need to look professional and reasonably well-groomed. So even if I actually went out and purchased 132 business casual outfits it still wouldn't have equaled all the crap I amassed over the years in my closet and dresser drawers.

One of the things for me was that I was always chasing the elusive item that looked and fit great and I'd settle for something that did one or the other but not both and then I'd regret it but still try to wear it. I can't tell you how many pullover sweaters I've bought in my life that never really made the cut but there they sat in my closet just waiting for their chance to "wow" me; or trousers, OMG they are the BANE of my existence (until discovering the ones at NY&Co) they'd be cut to high on the waist…or too low. They would be too long or too short, too tight through the butt or thighs or not tight enough but I'd keep trying and BUYING and the buying part was the WORST.

But what was I missing out those crappy days when it wasn't a day to go out and "play"? What else is there to do when one isn't going shopping? Duh! Howzabout just staying home? Just hangin' with the fur kids or reading or, WRITING? What about doing that? I would literally wake up on a weekend day and try to figure out how quickly I could get in my car and head out SHOPPING. Now I don't do that. Instead I linger over a bowl of cereal on the deck with the fur kids lounging around me or I'll plop down at my computer (like now) and dash out some words while sipping lukewarm coffee…with the fur kids draped over sofas and dog beds and me. Oh yeah and I listen to the radio again. Real radio is my favorite thing in the whole world and always has been. Radio where someone actually plays what they want and puts together sets of music that go somewhere (Vin Scelsa, Mike Marrone, Meg Griffin, I'm lookin' at you guys). Sunday morning on Sirius/XM, The Loft is programmed by Mike Marrone and is amazing, it makes my heart sing. It feels like old-timey (1970s/1980s) NYC radio full of long sets of connected music and artists.

So I guess I'm not exactly boosting the economy these days but the personal gains are so much better, I'm boosting my spirits and my quality of life. I'm slowing down to smell the roses, or in my case I'm smelling the fresh basil, mint and thyme growing on the back deck.

 

Human Babies

This may sound odd to some (most?) people but I finally identified this the other day. Human babies creep me out.

Uh-huh, they do. I know a lot of people think human babies are just the cutest things ever but the more I think about it the more they just plain creep me out. I'm creeped out by their little pudgy legs and sausage-like arms and the unnatural way their fingers and toes seem to work. They're legs don't even lay right until they've been walking for a while, their legs just kinda splay out all bowlegged and stuff.

I saw a commercial the other day for Cheerios, apparently the cereal of babies and people who need to lower their cholesterol (interesting combo), there was a tight close-up of a baby in a high chair picking up a Cheerio in her pudgy little fingers and stuffing it in her little round "O" of a mouth. Based on the voiceover copy and the overall tone of the commercial I'm certain it was meant to be adorable but between those little, uncoordinated, pudgy fingers and the "O" mouth I was completely grossed out.

Actually most of the faces they make strike me as odd. I guess since we have no idea what's going on in their little human brain we can't figure out why they're wrinkling their nose or puffing out their cheeks which adds to the overall grossness of the behavior.

Of course there's always the great moment when you realize that the little critter also has a "poopy face" (we'll get to the whole diaper thing next). Yuppers, it's lovely when the parent looks over and says, "oh, that's his poopy face". Ya know what? I think if that were me and I was able to identify a "poopy face" I'd grab the little bundle and race it to the nearest toilet, rip that diaper off and sit it down there. Look, start early, Freud's wacko theories about potty training were debunked years ago move on.

Diapers. They're another thing that just freaks me out. As the little bowlegged critter toddles around there's this big ol' bulge of diaper all over the place. Of course we all know what goes on in those things, the kid is sitting there peeing and pooping on themselves, which, GROSS.

Then there's the spit-up. They just do it. No aversion to it or anything. One minute they can be fine and the next minute the smell of sour milk is spewing from them in a gooey stream. OMG that is disgusting.

The more I think about it the more I realize just how non-cute I think human babies are. What is it that people get all gaga about when they see a human baby? Puppies and kittens? Now THEY'RE cute!

More arrogant humans

Get used to my rants kids they're never gonna stop. Here's the deal folks, humans will argue to spare the life of a convicted, violent killer but a dog bites someone who threw HOT COFFEE on them and they get a death sentence (http://www.causes.com/actions/1671310?recruiter_id=168392094&utm_campaign=invite&utm_medium=wall&utm_source=fb&open_inviter=true ) really people it is time to stop the BULLSHIT. This dog is just one of many that have recently been sentenced to die because of an act of cruelty by a HUMAN. Yuppers, humans do the deed and the dog gets put to death.

I have to say in all honesty that the longer I live, the less love and respect I have for humans and the more love and respect I have for animals. Humans truly have learned nothing from their past history. Discrimination led to years of hatred (still going on, sad to say) and lost lives, did we learn? Nope.

We scream forgiveness and rehabilitation for hardened criminals, they get out, they kill again or they languish in jail with 3 meals a day, TV, radio and books to read. A dog bites someone and its death. We need to STOP. Just stop. Stop our own bad fucking behavior.

Sometimes I get angry or frustrated with my husband because he doesn't want to go out much. He's truly content here at home in our modest digs with our little back deck and our three rescued dogs. And then sometimes I think that he's the smartest man alive for knowing where his heart is. Look, we stay home we get to hang out; we get to enjoy the basic, primal company of the three beautiful animals that share our lives and our world. Three pure and genuine souls without the arrogance of humanity built in. Could they bite if they get angry? Yeah, probably but they'd only do it if there was a reason.

If you're a human, and you read this please do your damnedest to try, just fucking try, to also be HUMANE in all your actions. Stand up for animal rights because there are a few (million) too many arrogant humans who truly believe they hold sway over animals and honestly it's simply arrogance that let's any of us do this, just protect them, just be kind.

I'm sick to pieces of all of this crap and I'm gonna keep ranting against it.

So suck it and be real.

Not so bad this year

If you read back about a year I think I posted about the hideous retail habit of forcing the seasons forward at breathtaking speed cycling me closer and closer to some unpredictable end. As you may already know I'm not thrilled with this shit.

This year, for some weird reason, I have to say that my local stores don't seem to be on this death march. By mid-August last year my local grocery store had their Halloween displays out. This year there is an obvious switch to that from the barbeque items of a few weeks ago but it isn't in your face, crazy displays dripping with Halloween stuff. It's just that a few shelves have started to roll over to Halloween from summer sun.

I have to say that everything seems more evenly parsed out this year. Maybe it's the recession or maybe a few marketing folks realized how creepy THEY feel when they walk into a store and feel that life is being forced right past them.

This year the back to school assault came appropriately after July 4^th in most cases (let's leave Target out of this since they had moved on by Father's Day, summer moved quickly through the aisles of Target this year) and even now with Labor Day looming large on the calendar ahead I'm not seeing too much season-specific stuff clogging the shopping aisles.

Hubby and I hit up the local outlet center a few weeks ago thinking there'd be slim picken's for summer stuff but we were pleasantly surprised to find great sales and TONS of summer stuff. We weren't assaulted by wool and flannel with the lightweight summer cotton relegated to a back wall of the store, nope, front and center screaming "BUY ME…CHEAP!" was where we found the summer stuff. Wonderful, glorious, seasonal stuff…in SEASON!

I actually think that the smart retailers are sneaking in a few other buying seasons between the big ones, benign stuff that is really not associated with any one time of year or a particular holiday or event. Things like furniture and home appliances seem to be filling the gap and this makes good marketing sense. You've just lived through summer, you've had wet towels draped on every surface in your home, you've had piles of kids eating and drinking in the family room, your spouse has embarked on some half-assed projects that left you more in ruins than repair. What to do? Spruce up the joint a bit. Buy that new sofa you've been thinking about. Upgrade the bathroom vanity.

It sorta hints that you know you'll be entertaining guests soon but you're not quite draped in garland and humming White Christmas just yet.

I hope I'm not imagining this. I hope this is a trend that can stick around for a while. Let's let things coast along, let's enjoy each time of the year in its own time (not 4 months before its time).

Not every item for sale needs to be associated with a holiday or a season, sometimes retailers and marketers can just MARKET to us without putting us through a forced march through the seasons.

A-LONE!

I tried to start this with a song title and the two that came to mind were either "Alone again or" or "Along again naturally". I didn't like the need for the word "again" as the second word of each of those, "again" just made it sound so despondent and that wasn't at all where I want to go here…but it did lend further thought to the discussion. Why does "alone" need to be quantified by "again"? Why can't someone just be "alone" and then "not alone"? What's the opposite of alone anyway? Is it coupled? That doesn't work because that means that you're either alone or with one other person. Alone would seem to lead to lonely and lonely just doesn't have a good vibe to it. But you don't have to be alone to be lonely and when you're alone you may very well be quite content and not the least bit lonely.

But I digress.

My best friend's daughter is heading off to college in a few days. My best friend has been dreaming about this moment for YEARS. She can't wait to not have to cook for anyone or clean up after anyone. She yearns to sit peacefully on her patio with the Sunday Times and a cup of coffee. These are the daydreams she's shared with me through all the years of getting up early on a Saturday to get to a soccer game or when she's stayed up too late making sure that all the kids hanging in her basement have safely made it their respective homes.

My BFF (we'll call her BFF) has been divorced for more than a decade. Her long-term significant other lives several hours away and although he's often with her he also travels frequently for business which means that she doesn't have him to worry about full-time.

Her older child mostly lives with his girlfriend now; although they are nearby they aren't there full-time so he's no longer a full-time member of the household.

That left just her daughter and now her daughter has to report to her college dorm by 8AM this coming Sunday morning and when BFF heads home that afternoon it will be to house empty of all humans (but still populated by a cat and large dog).

All of this suddenly occurred to her last night while we were out having dinner and sangria at our favorite local restaurant. Alone. She's going to be ALONE. Not long after she said this we both realized she had NEVER lived alone. NEVER. She lived with her parents until college, at college she had two roommates (both of whom she's still friends with), after college she got an apartment nearby with a friend, I was invited to go in with them but the other person was CRAZY and I opted to get my own little garden apartment. BFF went from a year or two of living the wild and crazy single life to being engaged and married. By the time her marriage was splitting up she had two kids so even after hubby was gone there were still those other two humans to reckon with.

WOW!

I've lived alone for long stretches of time twice as an adult and both times were wonderful. During my second turn at alone-ness I even bought my own little house. A cottage really, very small but cute as could be and quite comfy on a nice sized piece of property and all mine. I never thought of being alone as being an unnatural state of being. I never had a problem with it. I can remember at least two times when I had my little house and I was on my way home from a long day at work, I turned onto my street and as I approached my home I thought, "this is the HAPPIEST moment of my LIFE!" I could go in and not walk into anyone else's mess; no laundry on the floor, no dishes in the sink. The house would be just as I'd left it that morning. I could settle in at my coffee table with whatever I wanted to have for dinner; I could read a book and not have to wrestle for control of the TV, hell I could listen to the radio instead and not even turn on the TV.

Don't get me wrong. My current husband? Yeah, I'll keep him. One reason though is that we're both excellent at being alone. He "gets" that alone thing. He's been there himself. When we met we were each living alone (well, not really, we each had a dog); he in a one bedroom apartment and me in my little cottage. There were no roommates to deal with when we slept at each other's places it was just us. With no roommates in the mix we could bring our respective dog along for any sleepovers. We had privacy and time to get to know each other.

I mentioned this to A3 this morning (you know her, my current phone friend who doubles as an actual friend) and we started going through her family and realized that of anyone she's the only one who has spent any time alone and even her time on the A (as in alone) list doesn't really tally up to more than a few months.

So what to make of all this? Can we be alone? Do we want to be alone? For some weird reason I always thought that alone was a natural state of being and we had to adjust ourselves to be with other people but maybe the reverse is true, maybe coupled or grouped is natural and alone is completely unnatural. I doubt that pre-historic humans could have subsisted alone, they needed their community to hunt and gather and care for each other. As civilization progressed people lived in villages and towns, they had large families, they went from their family of origin home to their family of marriage home and started pro-creating. There were always people around. I'm sure no one EXPECTED to come home to an empty house or to things just as they'd left them that morning. It's me, isn't it?

We really AREN'T "alone again naturally".