November 5, 2009 by momonroof

It’s the Poppy and Te-eeex SHOOO-OWWWWW!!! They’ve become such buds! I sat here this morning with my tea, for about 20 minutes,  just enjoying the show. The best part is, they are not barkers. Somehow I managed to get the TWO breeds of dogs that do not much bark.. is just pure luck. Or maybe it’s my karma. Maybe God thinks I could use ONE TINY BREAK in the NOISE AND CONFUSION Department…

I was feeding and watering the horses and cats and dogs and fish and frogs this morning, AND that needy damn ROSEMARY on the windowsill,, and I was thinking, you know, this is like a daggone farm and I’m like this tiny little farmer, and I have to go about every morning and every evening and do my chores and stuff, haulin’ buckets and scrubbin messes, and scoopin feed, and burnin’ TICKS OFF OF… THINGS… and I was thinkin, you know, it’s a lot of work, it really is, and the feed and the vets are a lot of money, and the time and the mess and the hair and the little clumps of horse shit on the porch… But I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It’s the best part of my day, just trudging along…. doing what needs done….

Sigh…

Now if the rest of the world were just that simple, eh?

I ran into Mary Poole at the library. The same downtown library where a neighbor lady, in fact, she lived RIGHT NEXT DOOR to Mary Poole, anyways, she was carjacked coming out of the library, beaten about the head, her car was in gear, she and the assailant crashed into a telephone poll up the street, and she died from her injuries. Mary Poole was interviewed for a newspaper article on the tragedy. The lady was a PTA-type mom, very artsy-craftsy, a gardener, a library-goer, an upstanding citizen… she left behind two children and a husband… The lowlife who killed her, of course had a rap sheet a mile long. He lived.

EEEEeennyways, I haven’t spoken to Mary Poole in a while. We used to run into each other at school functions, and girlscouts… She’s a little different. She’s kinda… She speaks about 190000 words a minute, like a machine gun RATATATATATATATATATATAATTTTTTTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, and she says the most amazing things, like, she’ll say something devastating,  like, “Yeah, my daughter’s trying out being a tramp and a druggie… she’s trying to see if she can sleep her way through all the guys at Lowe’s” and then she’ll LAUGH, this really loud, barking kinda laugh… And then she’ll say, Aw Fuck it…

But here’s the thing about her, even though she’s one of those fast talkers, and it’s hard to get a word in edgewise with her, she’s different, because when you DO get to say something, she’s not only listening, she is able to tell you back what you said and reword it and offer you some sort of commisseration or hope or just empathy… It’s strange, because usually that type of person is not listening, they’re just trying to get all THEIR words out…

I guess I’m saying, she’s sorta… borderline… autistic? Something like that. Except she’s NOT! It’s hard to figure out. But she doesn’t strike me as a hugger, which is why I was caught so off guard, when I finally got to say something about what we’re going through with our kids., and she reached over and grabbed me and locked me in a hug on those library steps, and big ugly tears SHOT from my face, my mouth curled into that horrible thing that you can’t get to relax, that painful painful thing, where it curls up and you can’t get it curled down, and I just found myself clutching onto Mary Poole for dear life, on the library steps, as all sorts of possible hoodlums and vandals and murderers and car thieves passed us by…

So here’s how Mary Poole’s life is stacking up, and just keep in mind as I unfold it all for you, WHICH ONE OF US SHOULD’VE BEEN CONSOLING THE OTHER:

Mary has 4 children too. A daughter 21, and three sons 19, 15, 12.  Her daughter hasn’t spoken to her in a year.  Daughter is in Florida, she’s wrecked 3 cars in a year. Mary and her husband split. He has a drinking problem, but is sober,  but he’s one of those “dry drunks” in that he’s not addressing the problem, he’s just not drinking. They lost their house to foreclosure, Mary bought another house, which just yesterday she got an eviction notice, because she’s been foreclosed on AGAIN. Her sons are all on various medications, due to the shitstorm that is their life recently. Mary lost her nursing job because she wasn’t keeping up on her paperwork,  so she’s fired. She has constant headaches, and the doctor wants to do a nerveblock or surgery. She’s moving into Section 8 housing this week,  she’s living on $400/month child support and food stamps. 

and she’s consoling ME.

It just gives me perspective.  It doesn’t mean I don’t have my own little shitstorm going on here. But it does mean, I have to re-evaluate. I have to attack. I have resources. I have support.  Family. Friends. Really good friends. I didn’t have that before, I didn’t have time for anyone, and I couldn’t let anyone get close to me.

Mary’s called me 4 times since I ran into her night before last. She’s  emailed me with some resources, some numbers, some agencies… to help my daughter… She leaves me long, rambling, rapid-fire messages on my voice mail, and she ends with “I’ll be thinking of you”, “There’s always hope…” “Call me back…”   or “Let go and let God…”  It’s just… what I need to hear right now..  and I’m grateful.

I”m calling her today, to see if I can help her move… onaccounta I’m a mack daddy furniture mover… 

Fresh green paint

October 31, 2009 by momonroof

This color font brought to you by… fresh greeeeen painttttttt!!!! YAY!!!

I’m having COLOR WARS in my head, oh shit, I lost my fresh green…  Is this close? Close enough.

So I’m painting a rental unit…. But I cannot, CANNOT, howyousay,  acquiesce? Yes, I cannot acquiesce (neener) to the fact that Sherwin Williams Navajo White is the ONE, the ONLY choice I have for wall color… Do you  people know how many color chips I have poured over,  nay, SALIVATED over, for the past month?!!!! DO you?!  And you’re going to tell me I have to try to apeal to a WIDE VARIETY of people and so I should choose a lovely NEUTRAL color!!!!????  Do you know  what you are doing to me, do you know you are verily CRUSHING MY VERY SOUL!!!! 

le sigh…

I did get to “get my color on” with the kitchen cabinets though… I painted them the same blue as Flower Childe’s bedroom set… sorta “high energy” blue… and I freshened up the cupboard interiors with a gloss white and some kitschy wallpaper folded into shelf liner, and drawer liner.. It’s cute. Maybe too cute… feminine… But I want to rent to girls anyways,  not guys… One of my husband’s friends has some rental units, and he says the best person to rent to is a single mom… hmm…

So I’m going to Sherwin Williams today. Dang.

The dogs bonded yesterday. They played hard together for about 15 minutes, just rolling and wrestling about… Tex was so good with that puppy, so patient….  He looks like he’s having fun too!

 

funny face

October 30, 2009 by momonroof

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On the couch. With my favorite pillow.

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Oh sure, let’s cover her up with my corduroy quilt…

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Her face looks like this every evening around 9 pm. It’s her ornery, “tasmanian” time,  she loses a grip, she flings herself across the room, ZAP!  ZING!  PYEEEERL!  She’s growling, she’s “myark”ing, and all manner of squirrelly, screwy noises, which causes her face to go sorta… askew…

She’s so much fun, and such a pain in the butt, good lord, I have no idea how I would’ve handled TWO of these creatures!!! Holy crap!!! This one is like… she’s just so busy, and such a character…

Do you know,  later, after she got settled down a bit, she snuggled and snuffled herself into my lap, and it was just such a calm, quiet time with her, I found myself saying to her, “You’re a good dog…”   Which, after I said it, when I heard what I’d said, it just sounded so friggin’ WEIRD, to call her a “dog”, … because she hasn’t seemed like a dog. Or I wasn’t thinking of her as a dog…  even though I read TWO of Cesar Milan’s books, in which he tells me I have to see her, not as a baby,  and not as  a “Poppy”, and not as a  ”Boston Terrier”,  but I have to see her first as a … D. O. G.  

Uhhhh… yeah.

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This is a dog.

BUT LOOK AT THAT FACE!!!! ARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!

Okay, so other stuff’s going on, and it’s not as fun or cute as that face… I’m subbing.. yay, but my GOOD GOD I am tired at the end of the day…

And when I’m not subbing or sleeping, I’m painting over at the rental house. Beane moved out. It didn’t work out. I can’t even begin to explain… well, I COULD, but it breaks my f$#king heart all over again… and so I will instead… I will PLOW THROUGH, or FORWARD, or whatever,… I will jUsT kEep sWiMmInG, SwiMmiNg, swImMinG…., right? I will do the best I can to make the best of … I was going to say a “bad situation”, but I’m not even going to say that… It’s not all bad..  It’s such a cute little house, we can paint it up and we can fix up the bathroom and the plumbing and the windows… just clean it up and have a nice little rental unit… and if it works out for our other kids to use, down the road… well, even better…  And if not…  well.. I may move in and become Crazy Cat Lady…

And speaking of daughters who grow up and start making their own decisions, decisions which you may or may not be wild about…. Flower Childe went out and got her first tattoo! Unbeknownst to dear old MOM!!!  So she’s 18, right? Sigh. And she wants to be a tattoo artist, right? So she can’t well be a tattoo artist, without any tattoos.. that would be ridiculous, right? I submit to you, wouldn’t it be… refreshing… unique… distinctive… to be the ONE tattoo artist without any tattoos? Anyone? Anyone?

Yeah, she wasn’t buyin’ it either. Which is why she’s now sporting a small pink CARNATION on her beautiful little belly.. which makes me think of her beautiful little belly when she was a beautiful little baby… I just shouldn’t go there anymore… sigh… 

I should count myself lucky she’s not going for the pentagram and flames stuff… Even better, the carnations are a tribute to her grandmother… long story… but my mom had a waist corsage of pink carnations at her senior prom,  with her kelly green dress which perfectly complimented her skin tone and her hair and the lady at the dress shop was holding the kelly green dress, waiting for just the right girl to walk in, and in walked my mom with her pale pale skin and her dark dark hair… and my dad, when he was getting her corsage made up, and it wasn’t big enough, he wanted her to have flowers all down her dress, so she ended up with possibly the largest waist corsage known to MANKIND…

And now it will be immortalized forever… on Flower Childe’s tender flesh…

Hey, I know, let’s look at more puppy pictures…

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wild things

October 25, 2009 by momonroof

and they ROARRRRRED their terrible roars! and they gnashed their TERRIBLE TEETH! and they ROOOOOOLLLED their terrible eyes! and showed their TERRIBLE CLAWSSSSAAARRRRGGGHHH!!! I’m paraphrasing… That’s how I read it to my kids, and I always raise my hand into a claw and dig it into their bellies ARRRRGGHHHH!!!

Took them to see the movie last weekend. For me, when I was a kid, the book was… just magic, and I was Max, chasing a dog with a fork, and then sailing in and out of a weeks, and almost over a year…

The movie was so strange and gritty and full of childlike things, things that only make sense if you’re using your child-mind…

We came home that day after the movie, it was sunny, and the leaves were ridiculous colors, oranges and reds and yellows and that pale yellow-green… and the movie had swept me up and carried me away so that I just felt like I had to run through the woods and WOOP and HOWL and, well, let’s call it what it was, I had to GET MY WILD RUMPUS ON!!!

Usually I have to “convince” (plead, beg, threaten…) my kids and husband to take a walk in the woods, but this time, it was like we were all caught up in it together. We all rushed the door, and the dogs too, the dogs were so excited… ANd you know, we ran, down, down, down into the hollow, and we WOOPED, seriously, we WOOPED and HOWLED, every single one of us, like a bunch of… WILD THINGS!! I ran so hard down the steep part of the path, my legs did that cartoon WHEELIE thing!!! And I felt like, if I run into a tree at this speed I will surely die! Like ya do. But what a way to goooooooo!  I always think that on the steep part of the path!

The boy, who’s almost 11, and this is the funny part, to me, my son had grabbed up a copy of the BOOK, and took it with us, so that he could… I don’t know… he would run up ahead of us, and stop in the path, bend down, and reference the book! He was so into it! Nobody said, hey, let’s go have a wild rumpus, let’s go be wild things in the woods, but he knew that’s what we were all doing. And he wanted to have his references correct! HAR!!!

I’m grateful for that, to be in touch with ME again, the me that I was before I got lost, (I promised myself I wouldn’t use the term “inner child”), and to see it all come full-circle, into my kid’s childhood memories, that the  book is important to them too…

Just felt like sharing, thanks for reading, if you made it this far. I’m not on a pink cloud. The rest of my life is in the shitter pretty much. Which is why I have to remember to stop and smell the roses, when they occur… Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a fork, and a dog that needs chasin’…

Nuthin’ Lahk a SUNNIH DAYYYYY!!!

October 17, 2009 by momonroof

And this IS nothing like a sunny day! It’s a rainy, cold, dreary, daggone day. Except my FAM is here, Mom, Dad, my sister, and her kids… and we have Poppy snuggling in my bathrobe, which I am currently wearing, so, you know, puppy on your lap making snuffling, happy, contented noises… Who cares if it’s rainy on yard-sailin’ day…

“Nuthin’ lahk a sunnih dayyyyyy” is something Zack said once, probably when he was… 6 or 7 yrs old, it was, well, a beautiful sunny day, and  he just looked up and it all washed over him, the beauty, …the sun…, and in biggest, hugest, most cheesiest boisterous voice, he exclaimed “Nuthin’ lahk a SUNNIH DAYYYYY!”  Just like that. And we’ll never let him live it down. Especially when he’s trying on his surly little man-child boots…

We’re getting together at Aunt Pam’s today, for soups and chili dinner… Uncle Dick, Aunt Barb, Uncle George, Auntie Rach, AND Cousin Ray are in town, so it’s going to be a BIG HO-DOWN, fer sure!!! Cousin Ray is a big-time GEOLOGIST in Californie, he just got his DOCTORATE, holy shit, and we never see him, probably the last time we saw him was… 10 years ago? …  Why am I capitalizing all those words, geologist and doctorate… I don’t know, I guess I’m impressed, and so should you be…. impressed… so.. we need CAPITALS. HAR!!! Whatevs… ‘

Here, I have to preserve this for posterity: Last night my sister said to me, and I was just minding my own business, emptying the nasty sink-drainer thing into the garbage can, and she says, “Yeah, but YOUR baby doesn’t suckle from your teat!”    HUH?  Were we talking about teats? NO! Were we comparing her baby to my puppy? Not until she said THAT!  I don’t recall, actually… if we were talking about ANYTHING, but that’s what popped out of her mouth! And It took me aback, because it hasn’t escaped me… this puppy is an awful dang LOT like a baby, she is filling some sort of need in me, that’s true… and I do hold her against me and snuggle and fall asleep listening to her coo… But, by GOD, she does NOT, in fact, suckle from my TEAT.  Ick. Don’t say suckle and don’t say teat. … Nasty…  My sister… continuously cracks me the hell up…

Yesterday I showed up to teach 2nd grade, and it was a mix-up, they needed me for that one NEXT Friday, but since I was there, they “floated” me, which meant, I did a lot of getting to know the COPIER, and stuff… I hung out in kindergarten for a while, and compiled some stacks of kindergarten work sheets, and then DE-compiled  OTHER stacks of kindergarten work sheets… and then spent  the afternoon in the artroom, helping 1st graders cut and paste together a witch made out of geometric shapes, one of which was a HEART shape, which, I wanted to stand on a chair and scream, “BUT A HEART IS NOT A GEOMETRIC SHAAAAAAAPE!!!!”  Except I was a “guest” in the classroom, and it wasn’t my place to question the validity of the lesson…  friggin’ heart… Pythagoras would be APPALLED… I did get to know the art teacher much better, she told me her whole life’s story during her planning period… I just have that sort of face, I guess…. but it was good, I’m always trying to connect with the art teachers, pick their brains, get idears and  make contacts for Flower Childe…

I have to make an appointment for Poppy, whatfer gettin’ her lil’ snip snip… Do you know, that lady sold me her WITH AKC papers, and no spay-clause! Isn’t that weird? I don’t get it, Paula, isn’t that, like… wrong? She left me with the option of breeding her, right, isn’t that… sorta… I don’t know, I’m not part of the whole AKC thing… I could care less… but isn’t it considered wrong or irresponsible to sell a pup with open-ended… breeding… options?  And me, I’m just goofy enough to start thinking… oh… wouldn’t it be fun to have a litter of tiny little POPPY SEEDS running around… those stupid wheels could start turning, you know…  I’m not doing that though, Poppy will be fixed and much happier for it, but still.. I thought it was just a little… i don’t know… wrong… to leave a goofball like ME with that option…  Because my EQUALLY GOOFBAll SISTERINLAW,  ‘Vonnie, has a lil’ Yorkie, named Ziggy Zen, which, we could, hey it could happen, we could make our own little batch o’ “BORKIES”… holy shit! We might have to do it, just so we can use that WORD!!! BORKIES!!! Oh help me, help me God, to make that call right away and do the right thing….

I’m kidding. I don’t need God’s help on this one…

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edited: Oh crap, I just looked it up, there are already “Borkies” in the dog world, but they are a cross between Bichon Frise and a Yorkie, which, why on earth would you want THAT…  Also, holy shit, people are really REALLY against these so-called “designer dogs”, they say you shouldn’t pay ANYTHING for them… oh well, doesn’t matter, I was just kidding and playing with words… no Borkies in my future…

October 15, 2009 by momonroof

I’m reading Cesar Millan’s book “Cesar’s Way”,  because, you know, I want to be the PACK LEADER around here, for gosh sakes! 

So Cesar tells me I should not “humanize” my dog, I shouldn’t fixate on her “name” and I shouldn’t assign her “personality traits”…  I shouldn’t coddle her, or baby-talk to her, I shouldn’t give her affection until she is in a calm-submissive state… Um…. I am screwed…

She’s in the kitchen right now, yipping and freaking out, because she can see me in the dining room… I”m ignoring her. Because I’m doing it Cesar’s Way, is why. She is not impressed.

You know, this morning, at 5:00 a.m., when I brought her onto the couch and cuddled her in a giant down-comforter (oops!) … she snuggled right in, even though she had already slept in her crate a good 6 hours… I looked down at her, and the moonlight, by golly, the moonlight SHIMMERED off  her shiny black seal-coat, and I could make out the outline of her funny little black n white face, and her bug-eyes, and her batty ears… she looks like a teeny tiny miniature version of a Boston Terrier, she’s perfectly formed, it’s funny, these dogs always look like this!

It’s not like, well, when we got Tex, he was about 12 weeks old, and he was very cute and gangly and fuzzy and very pale yellow… he didn’t look anything like he does now, his fur now is 6 and 7 inches long at places, long and silky, and deep, deep golden in color…  He’s beautiful, and satinny and, holy crap, when he runs in the wind, he looks like some kinda slow-motion, overly sentimentalized… dreamy thing…

But the puppy, sometimes when I see her sitting pretty, looking up at me, looking like a friggin’ BOSTON TERRIER, with her funny  square little face, and her pink tongue sticking out and she looks like she’s laughing sometimes, like that dog, remember that dog in the cartoons, Muttley, …. oh… Muttley… found it! Good old YOUTOOBZ, here’s Muttley laughing, this is what Poppy looks like she’s about to do:

Or when she’s snuggled up next to me, and she’s snorting and snuffling and sighing and grunting and making funny little prairie-dog noises,  trying to find the “sweet spot”, and she rolls over and sleeps with her legs sticking straight up in the air like some sort of, I don’t know, COW?  And then she peeks at me with one eye… I just get sorta…  WEIRD.  It’s like having a fairy or a sprite or a daggone LEPRECHAUN living in your house, is what it’s like, like you can’t believe it,  it’s almost… magic. There. I said it.  I think she’s a magical fairy sprite thing. Sent from the universe.

I think, are you really here? Are you for real? Does something this wonderful actually exist?

I think that! And sometimes I say it!

Cesar would be very  disappointed in me.

I know. Don’t even tell me. I KNOW! I told you I get WEIRD about her!  I’m going to finish Cesar’s book though… I think he’s right… about treating her like a DOG, instead of a baby… I really REALLY don’t want to be one of Those People.

Look at this, I ignored her, and went about my business, and didn’t she just go and settle her own little DOG-self down:

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Hey, you know, I CAN talk about other stuff, besides this D.O.G…. ohhelpmewillyoulookatthatFACE!!!…

I’ll tell you about Flower Childe’s big news! Well, first, did I mention she got her license? Yeah, well, she did, FIRST TIME OUT, she passed the test, which, don’t tell her I said this, but I didn’t think she would pass first time… But also, I didn’t factor into the equation, most people drive much better when they don’t have their MOTHER or their FATHER in the passenger seat (this goes for me too, if my Dad is in the car with me, you can bet I’m going to SCREW UP MAJORLY…) So she’s on the road, she’s all out-fitted in a shiny purple-type car, it’s a mid-sized car, so you know… lot’s of car wrapped around her, which makes me feel a little better…

And guess who taught her to PARALLEL DANG PARK!! That would be… MEEEE!!! And you know what, teaching her to parallel park, it did something to me, it made me analyze it all, geometrically-like… and I even used MODELS, don’t laugh, but I sat down with her and a bunch of Zack’s Hotwheels cars, and showed her the bird’s-eye-view of the whole…  maneauver… and do you know, something clicked in me, and… suddenly I’m a parallel parking MACHINE!!! I used to avoid it, at ALL COSTS, I’d rather walk 15 BLOCKS than have to parallel park! And now I just zip right in there, back it up, cut it, bingo bango, cut it the other way, and then ease on up a foot or two, and HELLOOOOO I am IN THERE!  It’s a thing of beauty! It’s like buttuh!  I”ve spent 25 years avoiding something so… USEFUL….

So that’s not the best news. The best news is.. she made herself an appointment this past Wednesday with a local tattoo artist, drove herself over to his shop, showed him her portfolio… and she’s got herself a very VERY strong chance of an apprenticeship, beginning in January! He said her portfolio is the best he’s seen since his partner, his former apprentice, walked in his shop 9 years ago!  And you guys, tattoo artists, if you know any… they’re not always real big on praise or encouragement… they see so many people dragging in portfolios… and they just sorta keep the whole industry… guarded, closed-shop…  A lot of them are down-right snide, arrogant, abrasive, abusive…  I shouldn’t generalize, I’m just saying, it’s hard to find someone to encourage you, when you’re just getting started. It’s hard to break in, without paying your dues, whatever they think you need to pay, whether it’s YEARS of grunt-work, or thousands of dollars PLUS years of grunt-work…

She walked in there without a single tattoo on her entire PERSON too. He said, how long have you been 18? She said 6 weeks. He said, you should’ve had a couple tattoos by now!  He was kidding her. But the fact that she’s not covered in stuff, she’s not pierced all over the place (if you don’t count the sweet little, mother-approved, tiny nose jewel), she uses make-up carefully, she’s always asking me if it’s too much, and she dresses, well, artsy-like, but still, she’s covered, not a bunch of skin showing…   So her appearance really was a plus, with this guy, I’m sure. He’s got a whole personal code of ethics, which we all do, but he’s got a really strict  practice, he won’t do piercings, he doesn’t think they are … I don’t know what he said, but he doesn’t find them of value, artistically… (which is awesome! As a parent,  you know, I don’t want my kid full of holes…)  He won’t tattoo above the neckline. Period. She said if he’s tattooing something, and the design reaches past a certain point, his partner will have to finish it out, because he just won’t do it.

He’s my husband’s age, my husband’s brother went to school with him and speaks highly of him, everyone speaks very highly of him, he’s respected and on good terms with the owners of the other tattoo shops in the area, which is not something that can be said about a lot of tattoo artists, I’ll bet.. . I’m generalizing again, sorry…   I looked him up online, there were several reviews of his shop and his service, they said he’s so personable and easy-going and puts you at ease with the whole process, does beautiful work, and they wouldn’t go anywhere else for a tattoo! 

Ho. Ly. Shit.

This shit just doesn’t happen. Also, I realize, it hasn’t exactly happened YET. But we are very encouraged. And she’s made a FANTASTIC contact with someone who seems to have his head on straight, and is serious about doing things right…

I”m just so excited for her. For her life…. I read somewhere that that’s one of the nicest things you can say to a person. I’m so excited for your life! 

Other exciting news, Franki is marching tonight in the Homecoming parade. The highschool band invited the 8th grade band over for pizza after school today, and then to march with them in the parade, and then to sit with them tomorrow night at the homecoming game, and play at halftime! Which is a BRILLIANT marketing strategy, if you ask me, giving them a taste of the excitement of the game, so they stay in band next year… Also, our team is undefeated, and so is the opposing team, which means it’s going to be a MAJOR GAME!!! Me, I don’t care much for football, but I do like the frenzy and excitement part!  I can’t wait to see Franki out there with the big kids! 

And Zack, Zack just started playing trumpet! He’s got a rental right now, but if he sticks with band, Grandma’s going to kick in for the new horn, partial ownership of which to be awarded each year until he stays in band at least five years, at which time he will be in ninth grade and own his new horn! Grandma’s AWESOME! She bought Beane’s and Franki’s trombones the same way.  Franki has earned 80% of her horn by now,  and next year it’s hers!

Zack says trumpet is easy. EASY?! Okaaayyy… I hope so… doesn’t look easy to me. He’s doing great though. Much less WYOOOONKKKKing… A couple weeks ago, it was like we had a mortally wounded BISON in the house, or something… yikes!

Okay, so, we just keep swimming,    swimming,     swimming….. right? It’s all good… It all evens out in the end, right….

RIGHT????

Yough in the Fall

October 13, 2009 by momonroof

Took the kids to the Ohiopyle for an over-nighter, onaccounta the weather was so sparkly-dang beautiful, and they didn’t have school Monday and all…  We left early Sunday morning, just threw some stuff in the car and drove off into the sunrise… This time we had a really good heater with us though, and real-by-God sleeping bags (last time we had a eighteen bed comforters, and we were still freezing, the draft blew right up in those things and froze our butts!)

We rented one of the “barns” at Benner’s Campground, which is not really a “cabin”, it’s more like… well… did you ever go to boy-scout camp? The barns are really… RUSTIC, is the word,… But we were much warmer this time.

Plus we had  a little something extra with us, to warm our hearts:

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This is what she looked like after we wore her out on the Peninsula trail, climbing and running and jumping… and then I had to carry her in my jacket for the last two hours of hiking (in which we may or may not have been lost, it depends who you ask…), where she snored and snoozed peacefully, as I struggled to climb over cliffs and ledges, with one free hand, and an extra 10 lb load…. She’s a moose.

Also, sadly, she is no longer going by the short-lived name, “Jackie O”. I thought we had the name!!! We even had Zachary on board with Jackie O!!! But then Flowere Childe fell off board, she DITCHED US! She said she didn’t look like a Jackie O! So we spent the weekend hashing and rehashing and RE-rehashing thousands of names, everything from Abbysinia to Zelda… over and over and over… Zack vetoed EVERYTHING. Except Bella. And Farris. For some reason he actually liked those two very girly, very sentimental names!  Bella, I thought, was too… well… there are a LOT of Bella’s right now… and Farris… Farris is something you name a… whispy… svelte, willowy-type dog, like a Whippet, you could totally name a Whippet “Farris”. But not something with a hippopotam-ASS:

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That there looks like something named “Henrietta”. With face planted in a bag of Puppy Chow. I call this one “Exhibit A”.

Here’s the problem, we already had the perfect girl-dog name, “Chili”. But we used it on the little dog that had to be returned, and then our hearts were broken and we couldn’t even consider re-using the name…

But I think we have done the impossible. I think we have found THE OTHER perfect name! The only one out there! It’s off-the-scale perfect! It’s what she acts like and what she looks like, she’s ornery, she’s bubbly, she’s everywhere at once, she’s under-foot, and then she’s gone, you can’t find her and then PING!!! There she is, chewing on the hem of your jeans, barking ferociously at Tex, tearing across the room, skidding to full stop just in time to rip and tear apart the edge of the nasty, mean old AR-E-A RUG OF DOOOOOM!!!…

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Poppy! Is her name! Doesn’t she look like Poppy? This is her, terrorizing Tex, guarding his water dish!… She is rotten! She stands inside his food dish, and drinks his water! She grabs onto his fluttering, whispy tail and pulls and barks at him! She goads and teases him, she lunges and barks in his face, she takes his pull-toy and drags it into her basket… We are applying for Tex’s sainthood, because he is so very patient with her…

Here’s the inspiration for her name, and if you haven’t seen this movie, you should, Poppy is beautiful and infectious and optimistic and… she’s just great fun!

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happy-go-lucky-poster-0

It’s like I always say, if you can’t BE Poppy, you can at least name your adorable, loving, happy, ferocious little puppy after her!

So we did some more of this:

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Can you see Franki in this picture?

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And a little of this:

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And staring down the raging river, and realizing… stuff…

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and lots of hot chocolate:

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and cuddles:

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And now we’re home and the sweeper needs runnin’ and the dishes need doin’ and the campfire smell needs washin’ out of our clothes and our hair…

We missed you, Beane, we missed you at the Yough… my  heart breaks for my daughter… I can fill up my life with all of these noises and going and being and getting and cleaning and painting and doing and climbing and driving and feeding and nurturing and playing and running and pushing and pulling and hugging and petting and… appreciating…. But I can’t fill that hole…

More Cute

October 8, 2009 by momonroof

SORRRRYYYYYZZZZ, I gotta post some more picsssssss!!! I gotta spread the CUTE around…..

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This is her little limey green sweater I made this morning, refashioned from a baby sweater… She loves it… NOT.  She acts as if we’re torturing her, making her wear this… THING… But she shivvers outside, like she’s freezing! You’d think all that baby seal  blubber would keep her  a little warmer…

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She ’specially loves the little pink flower on the front. Our girl really knows how to accessorize! Jackie O would be proud!

Oh shit… I’m becoming one of Those People…

I’m not calling myself “mommy” though. I’m not her mommy. I’m not one of THOSE people…

Could I love her MORE…

No, I could not.

But  here’s the REAL puppy hog:

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Flower Childe. She wants to cuddle her ALL NIGHT. I’m trying to crate-train! CRATE is supposed to be the lovey, warm,snuggly place, not COUCH WITH TEENAGER.  It’s like I have to train my KIDS, not the puppy!. She loves her crate, she even goes inside when she gets tired and wants to nap.

Tex is adjusting well to her, he was a little rough with her at first, he wants to play, but he’s 100+ lbs of “enthusiasm”.  He did growl at her once, which I didn’t like.. but we’re giving him lots of extra attention, and treats and stuff. ..  I think this pup’s going to be able to hold her own, though.  She’s already got a little BARK. And a tiny, pitiful little howl, in which she says WHOOOOooorrrllll…  She met the horses too, it was a bit of a show-down… or at least a stare-down…  The cats are keeping their distance, we only see them when puppy is napping. The fish and frogs… well, they haven’t weighed in on it all yet, they’re reserving judgement.

Me, I got another tiny baby sweater to re-fashion… This one in rose-pink, with tiny crocheted flowers…

guess who didn’t learn her lesson…

October 7, 2009 by momonroof

 

Thanks everyone, for the commisserationz… It was a bad experience, and it continues, as I watch Carol’s website daily, waiting to see when the puppies sell… and wondering…

I don’t know if I should call her, and ask her… shit, what would I ask her, “Ummm, Carol? Are you going to tell the potential new buyers that the puppies have serious friggin’  CONGENITAL ISSUES?!” Actually, I do know I should darn right call her and ask her that. Will I? Uhhhh… you would, wouldn’t you?

Regardless, one bad apple didn’t spoil the whole bunch for me… In other words, I di’nt learn NUTHIN from that experience, because I drove 4 hours roundtrip today to accomplish THIS:

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First, she did a little of this…

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… and then she did a little of that…

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…and then she made Franki look like this!  That there is what we call “GLEEEEEEEE!!!!”

Check out the little hippo butt! She is eNORmous, she’s fat and she’s sassy, she snores and she farts,  but in very ladylike manner, of course!  and her name is Jackie O. I think. Don’t quote me on it, we still have to get it past His Royal Highness, The Young Prince (Zack vetoes every single name, if he doesn’t think of it. But when we said “Jackie”, he tried it on  a little, he called her “Jack”… so I think maybe that’s a GO. Jackie O. We’re getting her a pearl collar, and a tiny pillbox hat too…

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Also, some EAR-TAPE. Which is what you use to make their little ears stand up. It’s true, you stick tape on the inside of their ears, and it trains the ear to stand up proper-like… curiouser and curiouser…  Look at that face!  Look! HAIR! THere’s hair on her face! She’s so soft and silky and shiny, and  rolly and polly and blubbery, she’s like petting a  baby seal, I guess, if you were able to get your hands on a baby seal, that’s what they would feel like, just solid satiny rolls of blubber. ..

My mom even had to have her turn holding her, and if you knew my mom… she’s not so much an animal person, she loves animals, but she doesn’t pet them, it’s just not her THING… My MOM had to have that fat puppy up against her, cuddling and snuggling! My brother and sister are going to be gob-smacked when they see this:

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Can you believe the size of that pup! She’s 8 weeks old, I have her papers, she’s AKC, I met her parents, they’re large, but not enormous… the mom is 16 lbs, and the dad is 18 lbs…

I thought she was big, until the breeder brought out her two brothers to show me! I’ll bet, if our pup weighs… oh… I don’t know, at LEAST 6 lbs, I’ll bet her one brother weighed 8 or 9 lbs! He was a monstrosity!  Jackie O was the RUNT of the litter, HARRRR!!!

Okay so I didn’t learn my lesson… I bought this pup from another nice lady, raising puppies in her home… But this lady had all her papers in order, and she’d been breeding for years… she gave me a 1 year guarantee also… And I just had a feeling about the puppy…. Not from first sight though, because I couldn’t get over her size, even though I had seen plenty of pictures of her previous to driving out there, the lady sent me a bunch via email…  I didn’t buy her right away, I told the lady I had to go up the street and get a cup of coffee and think about it…

Which worked out, because I was very close to my BFF’s, Dar’s  house, Hi Dar!!!, and I’d been trying to get ahold of her all morning to arrange to go to lunch while I was in town (we live 2 GARGANTUAN hours apart), so I left the puppy-lady’s house, drove up to the nearest convenience store, parked my car, and sat for a minute, just collecting my thoughts… when Dar called! And she was able to go to lunch before her first appointment! Serendipity! Don’t tell me there’s no serendipity!  WEeeeeee! So we went out for authentic by-god chimi-changas, and shot the shit for a while. She advised me to buy that puppy, POST-HASTE!   Ha ha! No she didn’t… I just wanted someone to blame it on… 

I dropped Dar back at her apartment, and then had a 10 minute drive back to the puppy-lady’s house… It was the shortest 10 minutes of my life, because there I was, at her door, not sure what I was doing… was this our puppy??? Aren’t you supposed to just KNOW? Isn’t there supposed to be some sort of… MOMENT? Like in the movies? I had spent much of my 2 hour drive to Canton, asking God to give me a sign, and then… taking it back, I don’t believe in signs, that’s silly… you can find any sort of “sign from God” you want to find, if you look hard enough,,,, right? Yeah.. I still believe that. I wasn’t going to be given a sign from God…. I was going to have to put on my big girl pants and make a… shudder!…decision…

So I held her and I looked in her eyes and I asked her if she was my puppy… and she said yes, I’m pretty sure I am. Well, what she actually said was,  “Grunt. Snort. Fart.” Which I took as a sign. From God.

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October 2009 023

Square One

October 4, 2009 by momonroof

Some days I hate my job. I am the Initiator of All Things, Great and Small. It’s heavy, man.

We took the puppies to the vet on Thursday. We returned them to the breeder on Friday.

A bunch of stuff happened in between. A bunch of bullshit, really. Decisions. And agonizing. And crying. I hate my job.

I thought I had done my homework. I did a LOT of homework on this thing. A lot more than when we bought Tex, 8 years ago… JEEEEEBUS, when I decided I wanted a Golden Retriever for my kids, do you know, I just sorta… well, my Aunt Sis says, hey, I work with a lady who has Golden Retriever puppies, and I said, HEY, I want one! And so it was done.

We lucked out that time, because Tex is beautiful and just a great all-around dog.

This time I searched, and I watched, and I learned and I asked questions…

And in the end, we brought home a couple puppies that, you know, I looked at them when the lady handed them to me, and they just didn’t look right, their faces were almost bald, and the one puppy was TINY, with distended belly…

It’s really difficult, even though we saw the puppies IN PERSON, they were only a week old when we chose one… and that’s how you have to do it now,  you have to choose right away, because people start to put deposits on them, and they go fast.

And when you pick the puppy up, and the lady hands it to you wrapped in a baby blanket, and it’s trembling, and you’re holding it all gingerly- like it’s going to  shatter in your hands, and you just look in those little eyes, and you just… I don’t know, if you’re ME, you lose your shit, you fall in love with the scrawny little bald thing, and you don’t even take it out of its blanket, and see if it can WALK right, or see if it looks PROPERLY FORMED…

Yeah, that’s right, that’s exactly how I picked up my puppies. I hustled them into the car, it was chilly out and they were shivvering, and all the way home, my mom was driving , all the way home, an hour and a half, I wondered, am I doing the right thing? Are these puppies RIGHT? Is this how their faces should be? Should this one be quite so small compared to his sister? And why is a big chunk of hair missing from the little girl’s neck, pink skin showing through…

I had asked the breeder, we’ll call her Carol, for that is her name and she puts it on a website, for all to see… I asked Carol, I said, their faces, the hair is very thin… She said, Oh, that’s just how their mother is too, and she picked the mother dog up to show me the side of her face… barely any hair at all… and she showed me this as if this is THE WAY IT IS, ISN’T IT ENDEARING, and I thought, gee… that’s not really how I envisioned my dogs to be… and I was disappointed… but I didn’t speak up… I had given her the money, I had first choice on puppies for the girl, and then I took the little boy after no one else wanted him… sight-unseen, except for a picture on the internet, in which he looked EXACTLY like his sister…

I had looked at the 10 other puppies romping about in the play-pen. They were big and round and shiny, except for one teeny tiny black one. Three of them were from the same litter as my puppies. THEY had hair on their faces. And still, I said nothing. I don’t know how to explain myself here… it was just the situation… And inexperience. And a lifetime of not being sure how to carry myself… when to speak up… when to shut up… when to question… when to just go with my gut…

Carol handed me their vet folders, they had their shots and wormer, all up-to-date… no additional notations on either chart… It looked good. Fine.  

We got them home, unwrapped them in the yard and took a good long look. What we should have done at the breeder’s. The boy was half the size of the girl. And half as active. I loved him so much my heart ached. He was a little snuggle pie, with a wrinkled, bald, little-old-man face… He would play a little, he would run and zip and romp and bite and roll with his sister, but then he was done in, and searching for a lap to snuggle into, while the girl puppy continued to zip around, exploring, chewing, pitter-patting about…  I thought, well, maybe he’ll catch up…

Over the next couple days, we tried to do just that, catch him up. We fed him in his own little crate/basket, because the bigger pup would wolf down her food and then go for his… He was always climbing up into the nearest lap, after a few minutes of playing, while the other pup zinged and zipped around the room in a little black and white BLUR…

We made an appointment with my vet, for their first check-up on Thursday. I had one week to get them to the vet and address any concerns with the breeder… HO. LY. SHIT. Concerns?

I got their vet charts out and looked them over again… These puppies should be fine, there were no notes about any problems, any concerns…  all of the first series of shots were noted… and then a folded paper fell out of the boy puppy’s chart.  It was in a pocket that I hadn’t realized was even a POCKET.  It was a print-0ut of the puppy’s weight, and his other information, his breeder, his address… and at the bottom of the printout, hand-written in ink: “has heart murmur”.

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Heart murmur? No one said anything, ANYTHING about heart murmur.

I opened the girl-puppy’s folder, and reached in the nearly undetectable POCKET, to find another print-out… at the bottom of which, hand-written in ink, “Has heart murmur”.

I thought, jeesus, am I stupid? Am I insane? Why didn’t I open and scrutinize these folder FOR HIDDEN DAMN POCKETS when I was standing there at the breeders holding a trembling bald little puppy who’d already snuggled his way into the pocket of my hoody sweatshirt and into my very HEART… OH! THAT’s why…

I went to the internet and researched. Friggin’ HEART MURMURS!!!! Of course there were 85 different opinions, 962 different prognoses… stupid internet…

I called Carol. I said, um, er, um Carol? (I’m still not at this point even ANGRY, would you be angry, would you be insensed, would you be irate? Yeah, most people would, but I’m… well… ME…) I said, Carol? Did you see this paper in the vet folder that says these puppies BOTH have heart murmurs. She said, NO!!! She didn’t know anything about it! And I believed her. I still believe her. I don’t  understand why her vet didn’t VERBALLY tell her, why it was just a tiny notation stuck into a secret pocket in a health record… Shouldn’t her vet have said, these puppies should not be sold? I don’t understand any of this…

So Carol says to me, she says, take them to your vet, see what he says, if you want to return the puppies, you can, or you can exchange them for the two remaining, unsold puppies… Okay, I think, at least I’m not STUCK, I guess… but we love them, they are our puppies…

 Flowere Childe and I took them into the vet’s office, in a crate. She wanted to carry them, she wanted to show them off, she was so proud of them, she wanted people to OOOOOooo and AWwwww… But you can’t do that in the vet’s, you have to keep everyone contained… So we get shown into the examination room, she whips them out of the carrier, she’s so excited for someone to SEE them, she can’t wait for the vet to SEE them, I can tell this, because of the way she’s acting, she’s overly fussing over them.. and I’m the same way, I expect the vet to walk in and MELT over the cuteness…

I should know my vet by now. He’s not so much a “melter”. He looks like a Bulldog, actually, he’s a big ol’ barrel’chested, pink-skinned, crew-cut… burly thing… And he’s real dry too, he’s harsh-like… I don’t actually like him very much on a personal level, I guess, but he doesn’t intimidate me, I kinda josh with him some when he’s really abrupt, I let him know he’s being… well… REALLY ABRUPT…

So he walks in, glances at the pups, our beautiful, beloved little pups, we’re so proud, aren’t they the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen, and he says, “So, how is it you came into possession of these two mangy dogs?” That’s almost verbatum. He also, during the course of the examination, expressed his dismay that these pups would be OFFERED UP FOR SALE. And also, in no uncertain terms, that anyone would be stupid enough to buy them. He didn’t much sugar-coat it either, and it stung. And it angered me. Because I loved them, mange, and heart murmurs, and holes in the skull and all… That’s right, I said hole in the skull. The bigger puppy had a soft spot in her skull. He said it could be nothing, and it could be a problem, but… probably not… probably…

He could only detect a heart murmur in the boy. A soft spot in the girl. And mange in both. He scraped and examined under the microscope, but he said it was indeterminate mange, it could be the short-term, easy-to-cure-but-highly-contagious kind (sarcoptic?) or it could be the long-term, difficult to cure-but-questionably-contagious kind (demodectic)… Either way, he said, you don’t start out that way, with brand new pups. And the heart murmur was pretty bad, as far as heart murmurs go. This pup was going to have problems.  And he also suspected intestinal parasites. Just to icing that cake.

He advised me not to exchange for the other puppies either, as they were all of the same genetic make-up… And also the mange..

I cried from the vet’s to home. And I also made the decision to return the puppies. I didn’t agonize over it. But I knew what was ahead of me, breaking it to the kids… and actually, physically returning the puppies…

It rained all day Friday, dreary, cold, charcoal sky… Flower Childe and I set out around noon, for what should have been a 90 minute drive… I asked her to load the puppies, figuring she would carry them down in the travel-crate. Instead, she wrapped them each in the baby-blanket they came from the breeders in, and planned to HOLD THEM all the way there. I said, you should put them in the crate. She said, I want to hold them…. It was awful. She sat behind me in the van, because we have airbags in the front seat…

I cried most of the way there. I couldn’t follow my directions, it’s a straight shot  North to this lady’s house, but I took a wrong turn at Hermitage, and headed 20 miles BACK DOWN SOUTH towards home!!!  I pulled over in friggin’ NEW CASTLE, to figure out what the hell I had done, I stared at the map, and I just couldn’t process what I was seeing, I couldn’t read the tiny towns, I couldn’t tell left, right, north, south… I knew what was happening, I knew I was having some sort of hysterical blindness, and that’s not exaggerating, I knew my own eyes were betraying me for a PURPOSE, so I stopped, I didn’t allow myself to freak out, even though, you know, hysterical blindness is the perfect opportunity for doing a little freaking out, if you are so inclined… I just breathed…. and told my daughter, I’m having trouble here, it’s not making sense.. I think it’s stress… I just need a minute… She put the puppies in the crate and came up to the passenger seat and looked at the map. We pieced it together then, what had happened, I had back-tracked 20 miles south, it was done, there were no sense getting upset about it, even though I hate with the fiery intensity of a THOUSAND HELLS getting lost and back-tracking and losing time on the road!!!! I just said, I have to shake it off, shake it off, get through this, I don’t want to do this… just get through it…

So that’s what I did. I found Carol’s house, it was right where I left it, 6 days and a thousand-miles of heartache before…  We handed Carol back the puppies, she snuggled them and coo’d over them… And she put them back in the pen with their mom and the other puppies… We talked a little about the vet visit. She reitterated that she did not see the paper about the heart murmurs either… She said her vet didn’t say anything… She showed me the other two available puppies… It was a bit awkward, but I was able to say, thanks, but no thanks…

and we left.

I had asked CArol before, on the phone, I said, if we do return the puppies, what will you do with them? She said, well, if they have serious issues, I will keep them here with me. As pets. That’s what she said. And it helped me, to think that they would be there with their mother…

I looked on Carol’s website this morning, for the first time since Friday. She has the puppies back up for sale, with brand new pictures. You can see the mange on the boy puppy’s front legs, right in the picture, tiny dotted bald patches. .. But what you can’t see, is that little tiny hole in his  fluttery little heart. Or the one  he left in mine.

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September 2009 006