What Comes From Too Much Freedom May 24, 2008

Hooray for long weekends!

And in my case a long weekend is a TWO day weekend. In four years at my current job - policy of working “every other holiday” notwithstanding - I have never ever had Memorial Day off.

And I don’t care. Because I am NOT picking up extra hours this weekend, and I have TWO whole days off in a row for the first time in over a month!

I came home last night, fended off friends’ text messages to go out with them, welcomed home my baby boy from college, and sat down at the computer and carved up my paycheck into my bills. And with what’s left over I ordered four brand spanking new windows from my favorite supplier. They’re no frills, but they’re perfect for what I need - their prices are good and - even better - their customer service is terrific!

So I sit here on a cloudy, windy day-off morning wondering: what to do? What to do?

I can’t go shopping. Last night’s online ordering spree took care of that.

Right now I’m in the “not so fun and oh so expensive” part of re-feathering my nest. The “I have to get the walls, windows, and floors sound before I can put anything pretty inside” part.

So all the drooling over design websites is just mental gymnastics - kind of like Avi and porn. Hehehehehehe. The budget, she is shot for another 2-1/2 weeks. Turn on HGTV.

I have been invited here and there, but man, I find it harder and harder to leave my little nest, after being away from it so much and so long.

I love Home. Even as shabby and oddly dysfunctional as it is - and I mean that in a structural sense - for once.

I rescued a homemade bird feeder from the neighbor who made it and was going to throw it away because “it’s summer now and the birds can fend for themselves”. Silly man. Like winter won’t come again.

And that sets me to daydreaming about the “losethelawn” area I envision to the east side of my home - a narrow little strip between my house and the neighbors. I’m not a bland expanse of green grass type person. I see winding walkways and flowers and plants selected for their color and height and texture and fragrance.

I see odd little reclaimed treasures tucked here and there - like this homemade bird feeder that uses a license plate bent as the roof. I want to mount it on a pole and sit by the window and watch the little ones come and breakfast while I do.

I want to curl up on my second hand couch, bare feet tucked under me. When you’re on your feet working as much as I am, the shoes come off when the time clock clicks, not to appear again until it’s time to punch in again. Flip flops, sandals, and bare feet are the order of the day.

I want to take my puppies “bye bye”, even if it’s just a run to the convenience store for cigarettes and a fountain pop. “Home”, in my head, extends to my big old cruiser.

I don’t want to “give” to anyone today - not after several days of not feeling well and a month of giving the best I can manage at work.

I want to cook something. I want to nap. I want to go to the library and get new books. I wonder if libraries have shortened hours for Memorial Day?

I wonder if this post is just mindless rambling - and then I wonder if, if so, what the hell is wrong with that?

Things That I Really, Really Like May 16, 2008

This is kind of a silly post. But then, I am in kind of a silly mood. Just, you know, happy.

I was going to title this post “Things I Love” but then I would have to do the whole disclaimer thing about how, most of all of course, I love my children, my grandchildren, blah blah blah. Or be branded a bad mother and shallow person.

I do love those things - er, people - with a fiery passion and fierceness that would scare you, were you to run afoul of it.

But that’s not the point of this post. This is merely a “fluff” post, written to celebrate a lovely, contented and grateful mood I’m in.

Here is a list of things that I Really Like a Lot, that Make Me Happy:

My Washing Machine and My Clothesline: Because I can make my entire world look and smell and feel better simply by washing my bed linens, hanging them out to dry, and then snuggling into them at night.

My Puppies: No, they are not my children. But they are indeed, my roommates and friends. When I tell people that “we” are going to the park or for a walk or to Dollar General, they are the companions to whom I am referring. They are the “people” I spend most of my time with, outside of work. Not because I am a lonely loser, but because they are funny as hell, adore the shit out of me, and make me laugh consistently.

My New “Outdoor Living Space”: Which sounds a lot cooler than it is, aesthetically speaking. I dragged my old wicker loveseat around to the south end of my house, which faces very little. And I sit out there of a morning smoking cigarettes, drinking a great big travel cup of hot coffee, listening to the birds and feeling unseen, because of the big tree which has finally leafed out and which shields me.

My New Bathroom: with virgin vanity territory, that I can leave stuff out on, like my new flat iron, and go to work and not worry about it being in anyone’s way or “space” or looking untidy. I like everything about it, from the peel and stick tile floors that look like stone, to the cabinet doors I primed and painted and put hinges on and hung all by myself - and they work! To the hidden nook for my laundry basket. I like it a lot.

Reading Other People’s Blogs In The Morning: There are really some fascinating people around. It’s like, when I read the paper newspaper eons ago, I always went to the Op-Ed section and read the columns and editorials first. Because people, and their perspectives, are amazing. I can’t list one without listing a lot, and then surely I’d leave someone out. But it’s a treasure in my life.

That’s my short list today.

What are some things that you really like, that make you happy on an ordinary day?

A Day In Which Healing Comes By Leaps and Bounds May 7, 2008

Yesterday was the best day off I’ve had in a long long time, and I realized, sitting here on the couch last night sharing pizza with the puppies, just how good the last six weeks have been for me.

I got up when Britt called - the highlight of my day, as we all know. I drank my two big monster cups of coffee, and then packing my little backpack, I grabbed up the puppies, put them in the ghetto cruiser, and off we went.

Now remember, I went for over a month with no car, and before that I went for about a year and a half driving a car that was not my own, but someone else’s to give or take away at their pleasure. I hate that feeling.

So as I steered this big boat down the highway, it felt like big flaky layers of something were peeling away and flying out the open window.

I stopped in Wellsburg to see a friend for a few minutes, and then off we went to Pine Lake.

On a weekday morning, there were only a few random souls who would appear for a minute or two. So we had the place to ourselves, the puppies and me.

You’re supposed to leash your dogs - and I did, I really did. But Buddy, my little stray, gets so sad and morose when he’s on the leash. And he never gets more than six feet away from me anyway. So I eventually I let them both off, and we wandered down by the boat ramp.

There’s a dock there, and we went out to the end of it and sat there. Neither one of them, I think, have ever been around water like that. Leah, the puppy, was curious and sticking her nose out as far as she could go, while I wondered if I could grab her fast enough if she lost her balance - or if she would have to learn to swim very quickly.

A lone goose paddled away back and forth about 50 feet out - and then it was joined by two others for some kind of impromptu goose meeting in which they honked and paddled around each other.

I took us back up away from the water onto a grassy hill and laid back just listening and feeling the breeze and watching. The stray - my spooky one - would wander around in about a 20 foot radius. The puppy, my hotshot, would wander further away, and then I would see her come barrelling back with her little dachshund legs churning and her little ears flipped back, skidding up to me like “Jeez, Mom, I thought I lost you!”

We walked around looking at stuff - they followed me into the outhouse because certainly there was something fascinating in there that smelled like that.

We just hung out there all morning. And then we got back into the boat and drove back to town where I did some errands and we came home.

We took a nap together, and then for supper I ordered pizza, and we curled up on the couch, watched TV and listened to the thunderstorm - until I realized that the three windows on the north side of my “tipi” were all leaking. Note to self - putty tape and caulk until I can replace them.

Now, that all might sound very boring and weird to anyone else, but it gave me a lot of time to think in a very not-have-to way.

I realized that I have been so angry and defensive and on guard for so long. Far before this breakup - in fact I was swept into that relationship with my dukes up, never having taken the time to heal from my divorce five years ago, and the whirlwind stupid bad-boy relationship I got into a year later.

Being by myself has been scary at times, like the night of the oops with the tub surround adhesive, frustrating lots of times. And I’ve continued being royally pissed at the whole freaking world.

And I really don’t like myself that way. But I couldn’t seem to pull myself out of it.

No, I am not “cured” after six weeks and one bucolic day.

But truly, it helped a lot.

I really really need days of sunshine and puppies and holey jeans and flip flops and just time to wander around entirely by myself.

I’m very social by nature - but I’ve been so focused on everyone else’s thoughts at work and in my private life that I had completely lost sight of me. The best parts of me.

The part that really and honestly believes that the world, in itself, is a lovely place - the part that feels gratitude and delight just because.

Last night, when the windows were all leaking - and NOT the ones I put in, thank you very much, but the ones still on the “need to be replaced” list - I didn’t get angry, or cry frustrated tears. I put up towels and looked on the Internet. This morning I went outside and walked around and realized that taking the old ones out, and putting in some new putty tape and caulk before I put them back in would keep me dry until I can replace them. And it’s no big deal.

The man I had lived with came over to pick up the drill he had lent me, and we had a chance to sit down and really talk, honestly and openly, without recriminations and blame. I told him I had never been ready to be rushed into the relationship we had shared, and hadn’t even been me for that entire year and a half.

I feel very content today. Very centered and peaceful. I feel like a have a tool in my box again for when those moments hit - just get outside and hit the open road all by myself with the dogs for a few hours, and I can find balance again.

This probably all sounds so elemental to anyone else that a reader will think “Well, duh, everyone knows that.”

But I had truly forgotten. I’ve created enough drama around myself for the last five years that my instincts were completely off.

I really really need my space. I need to know I can do it by myself - and not in a gritted-teeth kind of way either. I mean, I can be happy all by myself.

That’s a good good thing to remember.

What’s Outside Around You? May 6, 2008

I don’t know if you’ve ever read Selma in the City - if you haven’t, honest to God, treat yourself and do so. The woman is a rarely gifted writer, that is, a craftswoman with words. And a dear and tender and brilliant soul to boot.

She also has an artists’ eye, and sees beauty in the natural around her. As friends, we are in the getting-to-know-you-tell-me-about-your-world-so-I-can-picture-it stage - especially since we are a hemisphere apart. Two, actually.

So she asked me about the birds around me.

I’m bad at naming them.

One thing I can tell you for sure is that there are mourning doves nearby. And I know that because I hear their sweet song every morning. And it takes me back.

When I was a little girl, I was raised a good part of the time by my grandmother, for whom my daughter was named. Her house was my haven and sanctuary, and with Mother’s Day coming up I was lying in bed last night thinking about her, the silly things she did to make a little girl feel loved and protected.

She lived in an old genteel neighborhood with a church right across the street. A “gospel hall”, actually, where all the women wore hats every Sunday to church. That fascinated us, and we would sit in the breakfast nook together and watch them and ooh and ahh over the different hats worn by the women and even the little girls.

On top of that church was a pair, or more, of mourning doves, so named, apparently, because their very distinct call reminded people of a mournful mourning cry.

Not to me. To me their song sounds like home, like comfort and safety and warmth and unconditional love.

I hear them here every morning early - I never hear them later in the day for some reason. And every morning it grounds me and makes me feel “at home” and in my place in the grand scheme of things. Like all my wanderings over the years have brought me full circle back to where I should be.

So I told Selma about them.

And I told her about the coyotes I heard yipping far off in the fields to the east of where I live the other night when I let the dogs out at midnight.

My friend Joyce asked me how I knew it was coyotes - what did they sound like?

They sound just like they sound on TV.

And no I wasn’t scared. I could tell by the sound they were far away. And anyway they weren’t doing the “I’m going to eat you” howl thing. They were yipping like they were calling to each other while hunting or playing or whatever it is coyotes do at midnight.

But other than that, I can’t really identify anything other than the fat fat robins who are everywhere right now. At work we have little jewel toned finches who come around.

By next year I hope to be able to concentrate on my outside living spaces and create a beautiful lush and abundant place to retreat complete with bird feeders and stuff.

But for today I am planning on spending my day off outside, enjoying a break from the constant rain we’ve been having.

The puppies and I are packing into the car and heading off to Pine Lake for at least a full morning of tramping the nature trails, sitting on the docks, and rolling in the grass together.

They need it. I know they’re just dogs, but they’ve been so good about the move, faithful adaptable little souls. “OK Mom, whatever you say.” As long as they can curl up on my bed with me at night, they seem to be pretty cool.

But I have to kennel them up right now while I’m at work, and I hate that. When I get a little further along with my home improvements, I plan to just gate them off in the kitchen and let them wander around there during my work hours, where at least they have more room.

And I need it too. I need the space - the sunshine and the birdsonds and the light refracting off the lack so it looks like a cajillion diamonds. Much to two of my kids’ annoyance, I really am a nature girl. I need fresh air and grass stains to feel whole and complete and sane.

So hopefully I’ll be able to report back to Selma something a little more intelligent about what I see after today.

Or, if not, at least I know the puppies and I will feel a hundred times more relaxed.

An Intentional Life May 5, 2008

Remember how I have posted before about how it was always my fantasy to live in a tipi? I know - ha ha, very funny, how cute.

No seriously. I really wanted to buy a tipi. I even knew where I would set it up. I looked it up on the Internet and everything. (I look up everything on the Internet.)

For a number of reasons. Smaller environmental “footprint”. Simplified possessions and lifestyle. I knew I would be preparing meals in a much more simplified manner than I had been used to, and laundering my clothes. Believe me, I wasn’t suggesting living in primitive conditions. I had the whole toileting and showering thing figured out.

I was thinking this morning that my lifestyle today is not so far from what I had imagined.

I am surrounded by walls instead of hides - but truly my lifestyle has gotten much more simplified by intention and by design. And I am really tickled by that.

My kitchen is going to be gutted - even more gutted than it was when I walked in, actually. Rather than the traditional configuration of upper and lower wooden cabinets, think in terms of a token big sink base cabinet, and the rest a lot of open shelving, light colored walls, wood floors (OK - laminate or maybe even vinyl planking) with compact appliances.

Because let’s face it. I no longer have to cook meals for 5-7 people on a daily basis. Or even three or four. Unless you count the dogs. (And I do.)

I have a washer and dryer. The dryer is old and needs a new “four prong 220 cord”. Meh. I’ll get around to it. I lived two years without a dryer once, with a husband and three kids at home, and it wasn’t that big a deal. Happily, I am entering the season of hanging things out. This morning I washed laundry early (one load - just me!) and was outside with the dogs hanging them out in the sunshine while they investigated around me. Birds singing, dew still on the grass.

Heaven.

I know every single one of my neighbors by first name. Danny to the east of me - nice man whom my puppy Leah absolutely loves to chase and bark at, and whom he teases by walking by and “barking” at.

Tim to the west of me. I’ve seen him outside once, gone to his door once to borrow water the first day I was here and needed water for the dogs. Not sure I’d recognize him in a crowd but, hey, I can truly say that about a lot of people. I’m bad that way.

Martha to the north of me. Her son owns “Dean’s” where I went to breakfast Saturday. Her granddaughters went to high school with my kids. I know her from church. I’ve met her daughters, one of whom is a nun.

Cheryl to the far north of me. I remember when her husband died a year or so ago in a freak construction accident. I took care of her mom at work. She is a very very cool and interesting woman and her “tipi” is all duded up with sheds and patios. Makes me daydream about my own “outdoor living space”.

Don to the far west. He’s only here about two months out of the year I guess. Danny’s dad. I helped load him into an ambulance the first week I was here when he was having chest pain that turned out to be gallbladder. And I was here when he came home and nagged him about getting enough rest and eating well. He likes my dogs.

Sonny, Velda and Jen to the northeast - three young women and Sonny’s two baby girls ages one and three or four. Miss “Why” and Little Miss Blowing Kisses. They love my dogs too and were where I showered, did laundry and - uh - borrowed candles when I first moved here. I am the one they come to to pour out the stories of their love lives. And Jen cuts my hair.

And then Tiff, one of my dearest friends who also drives me crazy sometimes (and I her), from whom I bought my house for a whopping $500.

Yes - $500. Lock stock and barrel.

We used to work together. We’ve camped together and partied together. I threw shot glasses at the jaw of the evil nasty man who is now her ex-husband one night when I was distraught. Like, five in five minutes - or so they tell me. She drove gravel roads frantically searching for me one night when a man I was desperately and neurotically in love with threw me out of his car on a gravel road after midnight. Her ex-husband loathes me and is sure that she and I are lesbian lovers - so I paw at her whenever he is around, which makes her extremely uncomfortable. Heheheheheh. We drew up a bucket list together after we saw the movie, and stopped after the first item, sharing secrets with each other.

It’s not at all the house with the mortgage and the lawn and the whatever.

And quite obviously I will spend the next year or so slowly crafting my home to be my home - with burlap wall coverings and a big sculptured stencil of a tree on one wall.

Oh but kids, this morning it feels so so good.

My stray puppy Buddy is laying in the doorway in the sunshine as I write this.

Little Leah, my miniature longhaired dachshund, is rambling around pissed at me because I smeared dish soap on the rocker of the chair she has become attached to chewing on. Hey - it worked for kids with potty mouths, I figured it would work for naughty chewing puppies too. She’s reacting about like my son did.

Tomorrow is my only day off this week, since I’m picking up another extra shift this weekend for the overtime.

So the big plan is to accomplish nothing. Instead, the puppies and I are piling into the car and heading for a nearby state park and planning to spend at least part of the day just rolling and running and playing.

Someone asked me last night if the puppies could swim.

I don’t know. I guess we’ll see.

YAY For Wine Coolers and Getting My Period! April 16, 2008

First of all, I am humbled and awed, not only by the compassion showed in your comments yesterday when I was mid-meltdown, but also for the practical nature of the advice. Basically, to keep moving forward, to take one thing at a time.

Isn’t that the best way?

When one doesn’t know what to do, sometimes the best thing to do is to get oneself out of bed, and just to put one foot in front of the other.

Thus, the bathroom did get it’s second coat of “spackling” this morning, and then got sanded even before I went off to work.

Which sucked. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that there is no scientific basis for people with dementia being affected by the oncoming full moon.

Trust me. It’s nutso. Everyone is restless and owly and very very needy of attention. And all you can do is hang on, lace up your running shoes, and survive.

But tonight my friend called me and asked if I wanted to go out for a drink after work. No, I said, because I needed to go home and let my poor dogs out after eight hours of me being gone (which drives non-dog-people crazy) AND because I needed to tape off the bathroom so I could start priming.

OK, she says. Then she would bring over wine coolers.

She did, and we each had one while I let the dogs out and folded my laundry, and then she went home, apparently underwhelmed by how exciting my home life is.

And I found myself, not having drank much lately, with a king sized buzz on.

And feeling very mellow and much better indeed!

That and the fact that PMS is done and over. Trust me, the lead up is way worse than the main event. I am as irritable as can be - a first class bitch. The day that part is over, other than a massive headache and an inordinate need to sleep, I am back to 95% optimistic.

So there you have it.

Thank you so much!

Tomorrow is my day off and I will keep chipping away at my DIY projects.

AND my electric bike is scheduled to be delivered!

Everyday Joy April 7, 2008

It’s a good thing I didn’t write my post last night, as I usually do, cuz I was pissed pissed pissed. Another phone call, more guilt tripping, more me getting sucked in and arguing in an absolute no-way-to-win-much-less-communicate situation.

Instead I went to bed, seething, and my two little puppies snuggled up with me, and as my heart rate slowed and my muscles relaxed, I recalled a line from a book I read about joy. About how joy is realizing how good things really are right at the present moment - that no matter what the circumstances, one can have a surety that one is in the right place at the right time and that the world is spinning along just fine without one’s anxieties, thankyouverymuch.

Life is very very good for me right now. I’m sorry if there are those who think it “shouldn’t be”, but it is.

I love my little abode, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. I love small living spaces over large ones and I am cool with the fact that it’s going to require a lot of work to get it nice. It’s habitable.

I love my job - except, you know, on those days when I realize why they have to pay me to go there. Everyone has those days. I am really really lucky to do the work I do, to work with the people I work with, both as clients and as co-workers and friends.

I am overwhelmed with gratitude for my family, my little ones and their little ones - I am especially gratefully that the Brittnado wasn’t hurt in her car accident Saturday night. That scares the shit out of me!

The weather is turning nicer - not great but nicer. Iowa spring, after all, which means a blizzard could hit any minute but for the moment it’s supposed to be 50-ish today.

I’m getting a car this weekend, thanks to a lovely little friend who kept me in mind and is selling me - dirt cheap - a big ass boat that will get me from Point A to Point B - and I still think I will walk as much as I can. I hope I do. I probably won’t.

I have lovely lovely friends. Just friends, you know? The kind I can call up and chat with, the kind who always say, “Love ya!” when we hang up or I leave. Interesting, brightly colored people who fill my life and let me poop in their bathroom on those days when one’s toilet isn’t functional. Also the kind who understand my need to stay home and let my joo-joo fill up this space so that it is mine - and who tell me, “Wow, it looks so different already!”

It’s just good, this life of mine. Very very good.

As I write this, the little terrorist dachshund who insisted on getting up at 6:30 am is now curled up on my lap, exhausted from running up and down up and down up and down - or perhaps shell shocked from skidding into the kitchen wall.

And I do indeed feel a quiet, everyday joy.

You Call This A Day Off?!?!? April 1, 2008

OK I know - all I have talked about for the past week has been “The Big Move” and the adventures pertained therein. Which is totally a dangling participle and I don’t care.

Actually, it hasn’t been the last week because I’ve only had Internet service for the past - um - OK four days. I had a big break in between there.

But honestly, it has consumed me, between cleaning and planning and plotting and “managing” - and taking an inordinate sense of pride when I figure something out.

Like how to wash dishes in the bathroom sink, like I mentioned yesterday.

Anyway, yesterday morning I got up bright and early for my favorite telephone call with my favorite person, and then put on my walking shoes and sashayed “downtown” to the post office and the bank. And it was freaking snowing, which made me outraged.

As I walked, I decided that as bad as my little abode is right now - and kids, it ain’t good - there are definitely some ticky tacky nasty little f’d-up houses in this town and wondered why. If I can bust my butt to make a place cute, why aren’t these other people?

Then I came home, huffing and puffing - I guess it was about a mile each way all told. I was counting blocks and then forgot - and anyway, I forgot how many city blocks are in a mile.

Then a girlfriend called with a truck and we loaded up yet more of the nasty stuff that was left in here by the previous owners and hauled it off to the landfill, where I was amazed to find they also had a Goodwill dropoff box.

As we were standing in the truck bed flinging big heavy stuff, we felt like Wonder Women - which made us laugh. I’ll probably be crippled when I woke up, but baby, I WAS WOMAN at the time!

Then I came home and passed out. Me and the puppies. Because I absolutely refuse to have a day off go by without at least a two hour nap. If I had a contract, it would be in it. And because I had been doing what was, for me, heavy manual labor for the previous six hours.

Then another girlfriend called, and she and her husband and I hied ourselves “into town” - which is not the same as “downtown” because it’s 30 miles away and includes stop lights.

Home Depot, I’m yours. Bedazzle me with your abundance. I priced kitchen cabinets (unfinished), bath vanities, area rugs, flooring. I bought a mailbox and a post to stick the damn thing on - which I still maintain is ridiculous but hey. I even bought letters to personalize it, prissy me. And a closet rod and a hook to hang my jammies on the back of the bathroom door, because right now if I lay them down anywhere else, they are indistinguishable from all the other stuff cluttered around. Clothes, I mean.

I must have been looking peaked - and their four year old daughter was whining, so we went off to Carlos O’Kelly’s and I revelled - revelled, I tell you! - in eating good spicy salsa and suiza con pollo that I haven’t been able to have for the last year and a half. I tucked some in a doggy bag (for guess who?) and then, by God, they dragged me off to Walmart.

Now by this time, I was fried. And my budget was shot. And I discovered, to my horror, that my girlfriend was one of those people who strolls around Walmart looking at stuff. Random stuff. “Oh look it’s on sale” stuff that I never see because I march in with my list, grab my shit and run out. I am a shopaholic’s worst nightmare.

I finally got home after 10:30, dragging my wagon in pieces, had to endure “Sure you can come in and look at the puppies - no - don’t grab the doggie’s bone she’ll bite you” with a nasty suspicion that I hadn’t heard the last of that delicious Mexican food.

And now here I sit. Tired, gassy, my tape measure by my side and plans in my head, color palettes dancing and vision blurring.

I need to go back to work to get a rest!

One Baby Is Home December 13, 2007

Well fuck it all, I still can’t get wordpress and epson to communicate but whatever.

My baby is home. Uh - one of them. The littlest one.

And in keeping with my darling’s epiphany, I don’t care how odd that makes me.

At the end of September, completely by surprise to me, her, and everyone else involved, I fell in love with and brought home a miniature longhaired daschund who we named Leah, who was nine weeks old.

You have to see her here and here since epson sucks.

She was nine weeks old.

She is now 4-1/2 months old, and since that first day has become my constant, if schizophrenic, companion.

She goes to work with me every day and we call her a “therapy” dog because she crawls up onto people’s laps and she (and they) fall asleep for an hour.

She and I are working on “clicker training” and so far she does a pretty reliable sit, fetch and retrieve, even if that means stealing stuff from under people’s beds and then bringing it to me and dropping it at my feet. She will “touch” a target and has let 3,000 little kids pet and slobber over her when she didn’t want to.

This and this was her a few weeks ago. She weights 6-3/4 lbs. now, has whiskers like an old homeless guy, and hates-hates-hates the cute Christmas bling bling sweater I got her to wear.

And I had her spayed yesterday.

And man, I was a real idiot. I worried all day about such a little thing going under general anesthesia (I lost a rabbit that way once). I worried about her staying there all night overnight all alone just to satisfy their stupid policy of “watching her” when there was no one there to actually “watch her” and I could have watched her a lot better here at home by myself. I’m a nurse, for God’s sake. I know about post-surgicals.

And I got up this morning earlier than I would get up for anyone except Britt to get there when the door opened and bring her home.

She’s sore. She’s feels bony in my hands from being a little dehydrated. She was starving and thirsty. She wagged herself silly and kissed my face for an uninterrupted hour. And she’s fine.

And she’s beautiful.

Things That Irritate the Shit Outta Me December 3, 2007

* When an ice storm comes along and blows all my hard work housetraining my puppy and the should-have-been-perfectly-trained-before-dogs, who won’t go outside because everytime they try to “assume the tripod position” for pooping, they slip and fall down.

* When illnesses that affect women more than men statistically, such as fibromyalgia, are assumed to be “all in her head” for several years until enough people complain and some dumb ass figures out that there might be something new that he doesn’t know about that is an actual, by-God, medically caused problem and deserving of medical research and respectful treatment.

* When I, an intelligent and pretty computer-savvy woman, can’t get pictures posted here. And no, honey, there is no damn “tree”!

* When I drive 20 miles in aforementioned ice storm to get to work, leaving early, driving slowly, like a damn grown-up - and some little snot who lives five miles away doesn’t come in “because of the roads”. Grrrrrrr.

* Trying to wait 21 days until Christmas and my little ones coming home - it hasn’t been this hard since I was six!