eBay

I have an eBay account.  It's actually a lot easier to sell on eBay than it looks.  I signed up for the account in order to sell my collection of Precious Moments® figurines.  My grandmother bought my sisters and I each an item from a collection annually since we were little (Precious Moments® for me, Hummels® for Sarah and Annalees® for Chloë).

I'm not a big collector (unless we're talking clothes!), and the porcelain figures are kind of a pain to store, transport and display.  So a year after she died in 2008 I asked my mother and my grandfather for permission to sell the figurines to people who would love them and they agreed.  So that's how I started on eBay.

After successfully selling almost all of the Precious Moments®, I started sporadically selling other things...gifts we couldn't use, books, clothes, etc.  I don't always charge for shipping so sometimes I just break even.  Still, it's good to get stuff out of the house.  Plus, now I have a good reputation on the site and I can buy stuff with no difficulty. 

I just bought My Husband a Lonsdale Boxing sweatshirt (Lonsdale Boxing is an English brand of sports clothing and you can't get it in the United States)...I brought one home for him in 2006 when I came back from my semester abroad in Great Britain and it looks grody and needed to be replaced.

Still, I wonder sometimes where this stuff is going.  Ever watch that show Hoarders on A&E?  It would be weird if something I sold on eBay shows up on top of a pile of stuff at a hoarder's house.  I'll be watching placidly and the therapist will pick up a package of heart-shaped doilies from my overflowing box of holiday stuff and say, "Well, what would happen if we threw this away?"  Has that ever actually happened to anyone?

Once I was watching Addicted and the show's host took a young addict/prostitute to an old prostitute's rathole apartment and there on top of a dilapitated dresser was a pair of purple faux-snakeskin pumps.  I totally had those shoes in my closet.  Not the same pair, mind you, but the same type of shoe.  You should have heard My Husband laugh when I told him I wore my junkie hooker shoes to Easter service in 2007 with cream slacks, a violet top and a cardigan. 

I just sold them to Plato's Closet (a local thrift store) two weeks ago.  Got me $5, too.

This is the Army, Mrs. Delaney

I've mentioned before My Husband's squadron is down a few NCOs; people are moving up and moving on.

People are also doing stupid shit and having stupid shit done to them and it's starting to affect my life.

In the fall an NCO got shot in the leg by an elk hunter while his troop was doing a field exercise.  It shattered his femur and he's looking at at least a year of physical therapy.  Our Lieutenant Colonel and our Sergeant Major recently refused the squadron's request to have him relocated to a "desk job" since he can't do anything physical normally required of a guy in his position.  So he's staying but one of the other officers or NCOs has to pick up his slack.

And now we've lost another NCO.  This particular Sergeant First Class (SFC) got arrested for DUI over the weekend and before the leadership could decide what to do with him he resigned his position in My Husband's troop.  Besides that, his wife was the leader of our FRG (Family Readiness Group), so she resigned her position too.

So now My Husband's at work all day today, in the field all night and then at work again tomorrow because our dumbass former SFC had a few beers and felt it necessary to mouth off to a couple of local cops.  And I'm the new co-leader of our FRG.

Fantastic.

I've never seen morale this low.  They were happier in Iraq, for God's sake.  I can't comment on the enlisted men (since I barely interact with them) but the mid-level leadership is the gloomiest bunch of guys these days.  They're tired, they're spread way too thin and they're working more hours than is healthy.

And the apparent disconnect between the upper leadership and My Husband's level is incredibly frustrating.  You'd think this Lt. Colonel could take 15 minutes out of his day to walk through the troop offices and tell the guys they're each doing the work of three men and they're a fine example to the rest of the unit.  Maybe he could cut them some slack on their workload or give them more reasonable timeline to get it done.  Maybe he could send me a quick email and thank me for stepping up and volunteering to take control of an FRG steeped in disagreement and disarray. 

I'm not going to hold my breath.

So if your congressman is telling you the army cares about its soldiers and that family programs are at an all-time high or that we're the military's most important resource and they treat us as such, you call BULLSHIT.  It's been my experience that any officer above a Major cares more about themselves and their careers than any of their men.  And considering a huge chunk of these men (and women, of course) are between the ages of 17 and 23, away from home for the first time, have kids of their own, have marital issues and/or PTSD, they need to be taken care of. 

In our squadron and our troop, all of that care is falling to My Husband and his peers.  And all of My Husband's care has fallen to me.

Good thing I don't need anyone to take care of me.

"Are you a good witch or a bad witch?"

I came across an interesting article about a woman who claims she was fired from her job as a TSA agent in Albany, NY because A) she complained about the terminal's lack of security and B) she practices Wicca.


Wiccan "Triple Goddess" symbol.  It represents
the Maid, Mother and Crone and the
phases of the moon.

 Wicca, in case you didn't know, is a duotheistic (a male and a female deity system) nature-based religion that predates Christianity.  It's interesting because it happens to be vehemently female-centric (something modern religions lack, if you ask me).  In any case, it IS a recognized form of worship here in the United States...so that means the First Ammendment protects Wicca and you can't discriminate against someone because of it.



Courtesy of tsa.gov

 Anyway, you can read the full article here.  It strikes me as a little jaded toward the Wiccan woman, but it's obvious this is a convoluted issue.  What gets me is the original complaint against Smith, made by a supervisor she'd already had an issue with (Mary Bagnoli).  Apparently Bagnoli told supervisors Smith followed her car in her own vehicle one snowy night and put a hex on Bagnoli's heater so it wouldn't work.  She claimed to feel threatened by this episode of "spell-casting."

I'm sorry, is this real life or a Saturday Night Live skit?

So whatever you think about Smith's work record or behavior post-complaint and whether it warrants termination, you HAVE to admit taking that heater thing seriously is pretty freaking ridiculous.

Shouldn't TSA agents stop harassing each other and, oh I don't know, prevent another 9/11? 




*If you'd like to learn more about Wicca, please visit http://www.wicca.org/ or http://www.religioustolerance.org/witchcra.htm.

Objects d'Art

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Kansas City, MO

My Husband and I visited Kansas City, Missouri this weekend.  We walked around the shops at Country Club Plaza, had an amazing dinner at Capital Grille and spent the night at the gorgeous, historic Raphael Hotel.  The next day I got to show off taking My Husband around the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (I minored in art history in college...specifically Southern Baroque art & architecture and English portraiture).

They had some beautiful pieces.  I took a bunch of pictures so you could see what we saw.  I don't have very many photos of paintings; I know turning off your flash protects the work, but the older the painting is the less inclined I am to photograph it at all.  I'm sorry I can't share the Caravaggio (Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness) with you, but maybe you could visit it yourself.

It was really nice to walk around all the exhibits.  I miss museums desperately.  When I was on the East Coast, I was a regular at a number of fine art and science museums, planetariums, aquariums and zoos.  I get the same feeling I'd get as a kid on a field trip but it's better because I'm in charge :)  Plus, Nelson-Atkins has donation admittance, something I haven't seen since the semester I spent abroad in London.  So let these inspire you and have a beautiful day!

The Post Office is NOT Eco-Friendly

I'm not the most eco-friendly person myself.  My carbon footprint has definitely made its mark...but I do try.  I recycle my yogurt cups.  I haul all my plastic, aluminum, paper and glass to the local recycling center because there's no place to put it here at the apartment complex.  I don't drive when I don't have to.  I re-wrap boxes sent to me from family, friends and stores and use them again.  That last bit, however, appears to have gotten me in a little trouble.


This morning our mailman dropped a package off to me with an apologetic face.  It was a gift for one of My Husband's cousins...their little girl turned one year old a few days ago.  The following note was taped to the top of the box -->

Apparently some enterprising postal employee sliced open my brown paper cover to reveal the recycled Priority Mail box underneath (a recent eBay purchase).  And when I say sliced I mean purposely; the cut was clean, not on a seam in the paper and through a few layers of tape.  I also took a photo of that for your enjoyment.
I mean, what's that about?  Is the United States Post Office so hard up for money that they're policing all the packages?  And believe me, I send A LOT of packages.  I have an active eBay account (sell, sell, sell), two large, birthday-ridden families (My Husband is one of FIVE for Heaven's sake), an extensive network of globe-trotting friends and oh yes...I'M AN ARMY WIFE.  I sent at least 3 Priority Packages a month the year My Husband was gone: not including the platoon care packages we sent through FRG (Family Readiness Group) and the school supplies donated to Iraqi youth.

Apparently that doesn't count...even if you "rehabilitate" a used box, cover it in brown paper and tape the hell out of it, you're still at the mercy of a postal employee with a box cutter.  I was under the impression messing with someone's mail was a federal offense, but apparently I was mistaken.  Where's the Pony Express when you need it?

Garden Woes

I like to garden.  Living in an apartment we don't have a yard, but I do have a number of potted plants and two window boxes courtesy of one of my brothers-in-law.  The summer/fall My Husband left, I planted a bunch of perennials, specifically herbs: echinacea, rosemary, mint, aloe, thyme, sage, etc.  I also had a pot of Labrador violets and one of evening primrose.

Our little balcony gets very little sun (we face north) and not very many of my plants made it through.  The summer My Husband returned I think I only had two or three left.  My aloe is still alive and thriving indoors...I cut back everything else for the winter and hoped for the best.

Spring is officially here and I'm facing another disappointment.  The bulbs I planted in September 2010 have yet to sprout.  No daffodils, no tulips, no nothing.  Not even a little stirring under the dirt.  It's already the end of March; even with the long winter we had, I feel like I should be seeing something.

What have a done wrong?  Is the lack of direct sunlight really that bad?  Or is it the excessively dry air?  Am I over-watering?  Under-watering?  If anyone out there has a gardening blog or any experience with potted plants, I'd love some advice, please.

IN MEMORIAM

The Oscars "In Memoriam" reel is going to have some very familiar faces on it next spring.  I was very sorry to hear about Elizabeth Taylor's passing.  I've always adored movies from the 1930s-1960s and she was certainly an icon of the times.  I'd also like to mention Jane Russell, who died on February 28.  Their talent and beauty will stay with us on screen forever.



Courtesy of http://missprints.net



Courtesy of Roger Moore's Blog at the Orlando Sentinel

Baby Talk Part Deux: A Decision

On Saturday My Husband ran in an annual St. Patrick's Day 10K here in town.  He placed 45th out of about 1500 people.  In case you couldn't tell, he's a runner...track & field all through high school and college.

Afterward he was feeling pretty sore so we spent the rest of the evening at home relaxing.  Eventually our conversation turned to starting a family, and we actually made a decision.

I'm going off birth control in April, May, June and possibly July.  If we get pregnant, we get pregnant.  If we don't, then I'm going back on birth control.

We came to this conclusion after My Husband's superiors informed him his squad is more than likely deploying to Afghanistan in April 2012.  July 2011 is nine months from April 2012, so that was the stop marker we decided on.  He and I both would rather not my due date be right around the time he's scheduled to go overseas.

We also discussed waiting until his five year contract with the army is up...but he wants to make it to Company Commander, which is probably a seven year stint.  My Husband told me he didn't want to wait that long to start a family.  Sidenote: I know it's all the hormones flying around in my brain after thousands of years of evolution, but I can think of only a few things sexier than the man you love telling you he wants to have children with you.

I suggested we look at the approximate timeline for the next few years.  I'm quite the control freak and I would probably plan this out until Judgement Day.  My Husband, wisely, pointed out the futility of this...we're an Army family.  You never really know what's coming, and if we attempted to map out every detail based on a "perfect" scenario we'd go insane.  I told him I don't know if I could leave such a major decision in God's hands.

My Husband said, "Lark, it's already in God's hands.  You're only accepting what's already true."

His serenity amazes me sometimes.

I asked him if he was prepared to miss our baby's "firsts": rolling over, talking, walking.  He told me it would hurt but it was worth it to know we had a family of our own.  Afghanistan, of course, is a completely different deployment than Iraq.  He may shut himself off emotionally the entire year in order to deal with it, which will prevent him from pining for his wife and child.

I told him I would only agree to this if he acknowledged that if I thought our little family wasn't "meshing" when he returned, we'd go to counselling immediately.  He consented.  So this is where we're at.  I feel like I've just chosen a college...I'm excited and terrified and can't wait to begin but desperately want everything to stay exactly the same.

PROS/CONS of Our Decision:
PROS:
1. Having a baby with the love of my life!
2. Having a baby at a young enough age where the problems (hopefully) are minimal.
3. Pregnancy at a time where my husband can be there for me.
4. Possibly having a newborn while he's home as well.
5. Getting to be a mom.
6. Getting everyone's attention almost all the time.
7. Above deserves two spots.  I love attention.
8. Focusing on my own health and well-being because I'm focusing on the baby's.
9. Hormones making me beautiful (hopefully).
10. Not being fat pregnant through the heat of summer.
11. A due date in the winter/early spring with a good chunk of time to lose pounds before summer.
12. Having people do things for me because of the belly.
13. Maybe not even getting pregnant at all.

CONS:
1. OH.  MY.  GOD.  I'm gonna be a mom.
2. My Husband possibly missing all our baby's firsts.
3. Being alone with a newborn.
4. Having a newborn while My Husband's deployed...can't wallow like I did last round.
5. Oh, the responsibility...
6. Dealing with My Husband's mom for 12 months.  Alone.  "No, Mom, I don't think you should move in with me to 'help out.'"
7. Being the only one of my friends/sisters with a child.  Talk about being a guinea pig.

There are more PROS than CONS and all the PROS are big and most of the CONS are nitty-gritty.  Plus, the idea is that if we do get pregnant in the next few months, it means that God knows I can handle it.  If I can just keep reminding myself of that...

Stay tuned.  Things in my life are getting serious.

Just Another Reason to HATE Flying

There are a few private industries I think are so out of control the government needs to step in and reform them.  This may sound communist or socialist to some, but I think the United States can stand a little more of the government working for the people.

One of these industries is the oil industry.  The summer before My Husband and I got married, gas in Massachusetts was $5.00 gallon.  You know how much profit Exxon Mobil made in 2008?  They registered $45.2 BILLION in profits, according to the Washington Post.  That's just not right.  With gas that high, oil companies should be BREAKING EVEN...managing to pay all their employees and keep themselves afloat, but that's is absolutely it.  Five dollars a gallon and after everything is said and done, almost 10 BILLION times that in pure profit?  I'd say that's bad business and the government has a right to step in.

Now the oil companies should be joined by the airlines.  I know they took a hit with that crazy-petrol summer and that's when a lot of this nonsense started, but now that barrels of oil are down to a "manageable" price, airlines refuse to remove the fees they put in place to try and even out their fuel losses.

Now you pay for beverages, carry on luggage and the chance to choose your seat in Coach (which is what I discovered the last time My Husband and I flew).  It's $15 on American Airlines to select a seat in Coach ahead of time...if you opt out of this, the airline assigns you a seat at its discretion.  I gotta tell you, the gall of someone asking me to pay $15 to ensure I fly next to My Husband made me want to hit somebody.

My newest issue has to do with taking advantage of Americans attempting to get out of Japan.  I feel for these people, since the Marine base on Okinawa is full of folks just like me.  I came across this article last night, and I just had to share it with you.

http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-grandmother-says-airlines-gouging-americans-fleeing-japan-20110317,0,5003272.story

According to the story, flights from Japan to the United States run about $1500 round trip per person (of course, not accounting for baggage or seat fees).  The average price of flights now is between $4000 and $5000 ONE WAY.  The most interesting point was in a comment below the story, where reader Shannon Hanks disputes the airlines' position the flights are so expensive because they're booked on short notice:

"Bought a one-way ticket with AA from Seoul to th [sic] US a few weeks leaving on June 1st.  This ticket cost around 1200 USD and is still ofered [sic] for this price.  It flies from Seoul into Tokyo and then to Dallas, Texas.  BUT if you just want to fly from Tokyo to Dallas minus the Seoul leg of the trip it costs you 3-4,000 USD and this is not a last minute ticket. Terrible thing for the airlines to do at a time like this!"

Pardon my language, but this is fucked up.  How is this not against the law?  Is anyone watching these airlines to make sure this kind of pricing is kosher?  Where is the BBB when you need it?

People are not going to stop flying, just like they're not going to stop putting gas in their cars.  I honestly don't think "supply and demand" applies in these two industries.  There will always be demand...so someone who has more than "billion$ on the brain" needs to regulate the supply.
   

Lark Delaney: Foster Mom!

Springtime at the shelter means a lot of things: sweeping out the winter hay we use for insulation in the pens, shoveling mud out of the breezeways and nicer weather for our walks.  It also means stray puppies, which is both a blessing and a bad thing.  We obviously love to see the little guys, but it's a harsh reminder how many animals would be spared suffering if everyone spayed and neutered their pets.

Dogs can breed all year round, but depending on their health and the weather puppies are most often born in the spring and summer, when the temperatures warm up and food is more plentiful.  Last year we had six litters of puppies come through our doors, not counting the single puppies who got picked up or surrendered. 

Our first foster puppy, Tucker

One of those puppies, a 12-week-old Australian Shepherd mix called Tucker came home to be fostered by My Husband and me late last summer.  Tucker had a nasty cough that was aggravated by living in the shelter’s concrete pens barely protected from the elements.

I had never fostered a dog before…I wasn’t sure I could do it without becoming overly attached.  But Tucker needed help.  Puppies, though relatively easy to adopt out are notoriously difficult to place in foster homes because of all the care they need.

I, however, am almost ideally suited to foster puppies until they can be placed up for adoption because I’m home all day and we have a sweet young spaniel to help socialize the visiting dogs.

We called him "Joey," as well as "Tucker"

Tucker spent two weeks with us…one week to cure his cough and another to get some obedience training.  I was surprised about not getting attached to him.  I mean, I loved him and he was a sweetie (My Husband and I called him “Joey” because he looked just like a baby kangaroo) but he wasn’t my dog.  He was some other family’s dog.  Does that make sense?

Tucker, unfortunately, got TOO comfortable in our home and started marking territory with his urine.  He went to another foster family with a huge chunk of land and a bunch of kids, and they had him another two weeks.  He was finally adopted in January by a military couple just before the husband deployed.  His new mom sent the shelter a nice letter telling us what a wonderful addition to the family he is!

So I guess we’ll see who the spring brings into our lives this time...

Express Yourself

I've noticed two things since moving here: 1): The Midwest LOVES its vanity license plates.  I've seen more in my year and a half here then I ever did on the East Coast. 

And 2): I've never been so entertained by businesses' outdoor signage.  You know, those big marquees with the movable letters that are outside fast food places and stuff?

The vanity plate thing here annoys me.  I mean, half the time the plate doesn't match the driver.  Excuse me, retiree with the Dodge Stratus?  I don't think WLDMAN is for you.  And to that lady who's so overweight the driver's side of her Prius is tipping?  I'd reconsider SXYMOM.  True stories.

But then again, perception may be half the battle.  One day I came across a beat up hunter green Jeep Grand Cherokee with the license plate HRSLVR.  And honestly, my first thought was "WHORE SLAVER?!  Why would anyone put that on their car?!"  Obviously this person means "Horse Lover," so maybe I just have too much imagination.

As for the business signage, I've never been disappointed.  Sure, you get your random "DQ BLIZZARD OF THE MONTH: REIGNDEER RUN!" but the homages to Leslie Nielson after he died and the pre-Thanksgiving break "GET YOUR OIL CHANGED HERE BEFORE YOUR DAD SEES IT!" totally make up for it.  I took a photo of an especially hilarious (if irreverent) sign outside a local bank:

Keep up the good work, local businesses!

Unprotected Sex? LOL!

Courtesy of http://www.hollybaby.com

You know what's funny?  When teenagers whose only claim to "fame" is being friends with another teenager (whose only claim to "fame" is an inability to use condoms) tweet they're pregnant too!  I honestly can't think of an announcement more deserving of an LOL!

I'm sorry, did any of my sarcasm drip on you?

Nineteen-year-old Megan Nelson, former roommate of Teen Mom 2's Chelsea Houska announced her pregnancy on Twitter with the gem: "No names yet and not 16 & pregnant lol im nineteen."

According to http://www.hollybaby.com, Nelson and her boyfriend of four months, some Air Force guy named Cody, are due in July (quick math kids...that places conception sometime in November, so I guess that's where the "boyfriend of four months" comes from) and the rumor is she's angling for a spot on MTV's Teen Mom 3.

You can read their whole article here.

My Husband and I continue to discuss the timing of our having our first baby...the financial aspects, the health issues and the possibility of his deployment sometime during pregnancy, birth or the baby's first year.  I've read everything I can get my hands on; I've considered every avenue.  What if the army relocates us?  What if it doesn't...should we buy a house here?  Should we try and time the pregnancy or should I throw my birth control away and leave it to Fate?  I'm telling you, this has been at the forefront of my mind for at least three months.

And here's this child having a baby with some dude she barely knows and it's all LOL, sparkly cell phones and Ed Hardy tees.

So am I wrong to judge?  Well, obviously it's wrong to judge but my halo's in the shop so I'm letting that one go.  It is hard for me to swallow the idea this girl...most Teen Mom girls, for that matter...are not facing the REAL consequences of such young motherhood.  They're actually being rewarded for it...I've heard two (Farrah and Maci) have used their MTV paychecks to get boob jobs.

I'm thinking about when I should start saving for college for a baby who does not even exist.

So you know who the real losers here are?  The kids.  These gorgeous little babies are watching their parents smack each other around (Teen Mom Amber), get high (Teen Mom Jenelle) and/or call each other heinous names (Teen Moms Chelsea and Kailyn). 

Wasn't the point of this program to show the "real" problems of a teenage pregnancy?  Shouldn't it have taken the route of MTV's True Life, where producers had to sit back while participant Unique discovered she couldn't use a friend's personal check to pay for her family's first groceries in a month (and had to tearfully leave the store empty-handed)?

Unique (True Life: I'm supporting My Family) became a single mom at 17 with the birth of her son Dominick and then the sole support for her 3 younger sisters when her mother committed suicide two years later.  She was also responsible for one sister's boyfriend and their own unborn child.

True Life graphically showed the family struggling to pay for necessities, Unique's customer service day job and her nights spent stripping for extra income, driving an ancient minivan to the Salvation Army or the Open Pantry for supplies and putting together good meals on a tiny budget.

She kept her family together and out of foster care with enormous sacrifice of self.  Blogger Leila wrote a nice summary of the episode here.

THAT'S real motherhood.  Celebrate that, MTV.

Worst Disney Movie Ever

I have a friend who LOVES DisneyWorld.  She interned at the park every summer during college (she played the character "Stitch" her third year!) and has wanted to get married there since we were like, ten.

Now, you should know that I too love DisneyWorld.  My grandmother (my mom's mom) loved all things Disney and integrated it into all our visits with her.  For example, she had a bag where she'd store gifts before giving them away called "The Mary Poppins Bag."  The hidden panic room in their New York home (which they used for storage) was called "The Alice in Wonderland Room."

My grandmother and grandfather were (and still are) very wealthy.  My family isn't, but we benefitted a great deal from their generosity and took a number of trips to DisneyWorld, sometimes with my aunt and uncle and their boys, too.

DisneyWorld is my "Happy Place."  I'm not optimistic as a rule, and DisneyWorld is the ONLY place I remember all the good things and none of the bad things.  Of course my parents had vacation fights...my dad's never spent money without some regret...there was plenty of rivalry with my sisters for attention and any number of incidents in which I was punished for wandering off.  But all that stuff falls by the wayside when I think about being with my whole family in a place that's warm and sunny and magical.

My Husband has never been to DisneyWorld.  Now that the friend I mentioned at the beginning of this post is getting married (May 11th, yay Kate!) there, we planned a weeklong vacation to celebrate her marriage and so I could share all the DisneyWorld goodness with the love of my life.

We've been planning an all out vacation, our first that will be just us since we've been married.  Nine days, themed Disney resort, the works.  I've been bugging My Husband to get the OK from his commanding officer (CO) so I can use our Southwest miles to book plane tickets.

Enter the multi-tentacled monster that is the United States Army.  My Husband will be spending the entire month of May with his squadron in the field doing training exercises.  Oh wait, not the ENTIRE month...they have Memorial Day weekend off, just in time to go to My Husband's college roommate's wedding in which he's a groomsman.  Of course.

And this is after he's scheduled to spend the whole month of April in Fort Benning, GA at Scout School.

So no DisneyWorld wedding/vacation for the Delaneys.

Now, I've heard all the "army life" bullshit about missed vacations and holidays and this "is the life I've chosen" and all that.  I KNOW.  I know this is a hard life.  I did the deployment, I'm doing the training and the 14-hour workdays.  I know complaining is pointless and unproductive.

But I wanted to get married in September and we had to marry in July because of his deployment.  I wanted a honeymoon...same deal.  I just...I only wanted to go to DisneyWorld with My Husband and see my friend get married.  We've been planning this for more than a year and now...nothing.  I'm so tired of having my plans wrecked and having to pretend it's no big deal to keep the peace.

And so here I am; learning to live a life that someone else is in charge of.  And trying desperately to be grateful for it despite everything.

Shelter Stories: Rudy

I’ve mentioned before I volunteer at a no-kill animal shelter about 20 miles from here.  It serves both as a last resort for local kill shelters (a lot of times we get dogs whose time has run out somewhere else) and as the place where city authorities send strays.

It’s an unfortunate location for such a wonderful place.  The shelter sits at the end of a long dirt road, through a trailer park and in between a waste water treatment plant and the city’s compost dump…there’s some kind of burning or churning going on pretty much all the time.

As a volunteer, my main job is to come in at least three mornings a week and walk as many dogs as I can.  Our dogs get at least one mile twice per day (morning and evening), depending on their size, health and the weather.  Short-haired dogs get shorter walks in winter; dogs with thick coats get shorter walks in the summer heat.

Since I don’t have a job or classes to get to, I also spend some time just hanging out with the dogs.  If they’re very active (maybe a hunting dog or a border collie) we’ll go out into the fenced run and play fetch.  If they’re sick (we have a lab mix recovering from heartworm treatment right now) we cuddle.  If they’re damaged and frightened (which happens too frequently) I’ll just sit with them in their pens, speaking softly and maybe tossing them treats.

Last summer we got a 5-year-old shepherd mix that’d been confiscated from his abusive owner.  We called him Rudy.  He spent the first two weeks completely still in the corner of his pen, curled as tightly as he could be.  It was as though he was deciding if he wanted to live or die.

He didn’t like to be touched but wasn’t aggressive, so we’d brush him and stroke him and spray him with fly ointment (they’re merciless in the summer months) every day.  Eventually he got used to our presence even if he didn’t want it.

Rudy got friendly with another dog at the shelter, a three-year-old yellow lab called Teddy.  Rudy hated to be leashed (every time he was put on a lead he’d immediately crawl into his doggie igloo and refuse to budge) but one of the staff found out he’d stay with Teddy while on a walk.  The first day I saw him out in the world with Teddy, romping and smiling a dog smile, I thought I’d cry.

As the months went by Rudy eventually got more confident.  He’s still very timid, but he actually gets excited to see some of the volunteers.  Yesterday we had a major breakthrough: he walked on a leash, by himself, with his favorite staffer!  The whole shelter was abuzz J

This means he’ll soon be available for a “special” adoption, one where the adopter is informed of the dog’s unique issues and extra care is taken with his placement.  Rudy will need a devoted, patient and gentle owner who will take the time to gain his trust and affection.

But until he meets that owner and heads off to his "furever" family, Rudy will have a loving home with us at the shelter.

"Dyeing" for a Wardrobe Change?

A few summers ago I bought an awesome halter top from Victoria’s Secret (if you don’t get the catalog, by all means sign up; their clothes are fabulous for all sizes and shapes!).  Unfortunately the only color they had left was a very pale, pale pink.

In case I haven’t mentioned it, I am a white girl.  And not the slightly exotic Greek or Lebanese or Spanish from Spain white.  Just plain pale white with a few freckles and nondescript blonde hair.  I’m also pretty obsessive about sunscreen so I’m basically the same shade all year round.

My improved halter top!

Anyway, I LOVE this top but I look totally naked in it.  So I was considering buying a new one, but the style is discontinued and the closest one I can find is $50.00.  In my research, I found http://www.ritdye.com/ where you can buy powder or liquid dye and change the color of some clothes (especially if you want to go from a light color to a darker one).

Plus, you can do it in your washing machine so you don’t have to slave over a steaming bucket of colored water and tint your arms violet to the elbow.  So far I’ve done my top and two dresses and I’m very pleased with the results.  I dyed the halter top in a scarlet red bath and it turned coral pink.  I dyed a light aqua strapless dress from J. Crew in a dark green bath and it’s now sea green.  I dyed a heather gray maxi dress black, turning it a smoky charcoal and it's so much more versatile now.

I didn’t use the full color packet so my colors are not as deep or dark as they could be.  But the process was very simple and I love the freedom of being able to buy any piece of natural fiber clothing that fits and flatters me no matter what color it is and spend $2.29 to tweak it.  This is going to be especially useful for J. Crew dresses, since I only buy those on sale and color selection goes down with the prices.

You can purchase Rit Dyes at most craft and fabric stores.  I’ve heard Wal-Mart sells them but I can never find them there.

A Manicure with a Side of Racism

I was supposed to have lunch on post Friday with My Husband’s troop but not a lot of people showed up so he told me not to bother.  I had already cancelled my standing weekly appointment with my therapist, so I found I had a few hours free.

I’m a nail biter but I’m vain enough to leave them alone when they’re pretty, so I decided to go get a manicure.  I headed over to the nail place in our local Wal-Mart (so I could get milk too) and chose O.P.I.’s “Red My Fortune Cookie” and took a seat.

This particular salon is run by a Vietnamese family.  Everyone who worked on me made very polite conversation.  In one lull in the chatter I was subjected to an example of racial stupidity I haven’t seen in a while.  A 50ish woman at the station behind me was having her purple talons accented  with flowers or something foolish.  She was attempting to make small talk with her manicurist; a girl who’s English wasn’t so stellar.  The woman noticed the girl’s Board of Health Certificate posted on the wall and made a half-hearted attempt to pronounce her name (by the way, it was Ngo Thien Vu) and then asked, “Have you chosen an American name for yourself yet?”

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!  First of all, our language is not American, it’s English (would you ask a Sean from Ireland if he’s "chosen an American name yet?") and just because you can’t pronounce the name someone’s mother gave her, you small-minded Midwestern bitch, doesn’t mean she should pick an Anglo one you can.

This poor manicurist just muttered no, to which the woman knowingly replied, “It’s a hard decision to make.”

I can’t stand this “White America” anti-immigrant assimilation bullshit.  The national language of the United States is English, so as long as one can handle Basic English (or have someone who can translate readily available) I have no issues with maintaining one’s culture.  Of course, this also means American travelers should stop running around foreign countries obnoxiously shouting “CAN…YOU…UNDERSTAND…ME?” at the top of their lungs.

As soon as my appointment ended I got the hell out of there before she could ask if having "slanty eyes" impairs your vision or something.  I can only take so much bigotry in one day.

My Dog Saga Continues

My Husband pulled a 36-hour shift yesterday and came home exhausted.  I cooked him dinner, sat with him and heard about his day and had him take a shower and go to bed about 9pm.  The guy was like a zombie…he could barely string three words together to form a sentence.  I was doing everything I could to keep him quiet and comfortable

Buoy, unfortunately, had other plans.  She got very fidgety at about 6:30pm…refusing to sit with us on the couch and laying by the door, which she rarely does, staring at us.

So I took her outside.  She did her business and came in.

Afterward she still couldn’t relax; she stayed by the door and started to cry.  Sometimes, living in an apartment building, we get a lot of noises and stuff sometimes I can’t hear that freak her out.  But this was different…she seemed very uncomfortable IN the apartment.

So all I’m thinking of is there’s some axe-murdered hiding in the extra room or the ceiling about the second bathroom is gonna cave in.  Check all the closets and corners…no axe murderer.  Check the mouse traps under all the sinks…no funny dead mouse smell (or worse, live mouse stuck in the sticky traps).  Buoy just cried and looked like a tweaked out crackhead for the next few hours.  Finally she lay in front of our bedroom door as if to say, “Can we please go to bed now?”

So I put her in her crate in our bedroom, no problem.  My Husband is sleeping and I’m reading in bed with my little lamp on.  About 20 minutes later Buoy starts crying in her crate.  Now, she NEVER does this unless she has to go outside.  So I take her out.  She didn’t do anything.

Back in her crate, back to my book.  Another half hour goes by and she starts crying again.  I tell her in a stern voice to go to sleep and shut off the light.  She does.

Two hours later she’s up and crying again.  I tell her to knock it off and go to bed.  She quiets.

30 minutes later she’s crying some more.  I get up and take her outside and then put her back to bed.

Another hour and she’s up again.  I let her out of the bedroom and she goes to her water bowl and has a drink.  I try to put her back in her crate but she stands at the door and absolutely REFUSES to go in (something she also NEVER does).  Now I’m worried, so I decide to let her sleep on the bed.

She settles on the bed and goes to sleep.  Buoy makes it…you guessed it…an hour before getting up and wandering around.  She’s whimpering sporadically but nothing like she was doing in her crate.  By this time My Husband is getting a little upset because of all the movement and the crying.  I take her out one last time and the kind of push her into her crate.  She cries for about 10 minutes and then settles down after I ignore her.  An hour later My Husband’s alarm goes off and he heads out to work.

I get up at 7am to go to the shelter.  I give Buoy breakfast and let her out.  When I try to put her back in her crate she once again refuses to go in.  So I pull out her bed, put in the pillow from the living room and in she goes; no sweat.

She’s been sleeping most of the afternoon next to me on the couch.  She still has this skittish look in her eyes, but if she’s frightened of something in the apartment we just have to wait until she’s comfortable again.

So what happened?  Did she get bitten by a spider or something in her bed?  Is someone’s smoke detector chirping and driving her crazy?  I have no idea.  And I’m definitely losing sleep over it.

Sick as a Dog

Buoy went to the vet on Monday.  She’s a very itchy dog (her skin is exceptionally sensitive) and a few weeks ago she sliced her face scratching it.  We’ve been trying to keep it clean and help it heal, but whenever she scratches she just opens the scab again.  So I had to call in the big guns.

So the vet gives me a spray with antibiotics and steroids for the facial cut and tells me she has a slight yeast infection in her ears (VERY common for cocker spaniels) which is probably why she’s so itchy in the first place.  Then the vet asked me if I had any other issues/questions.  I tentatively mentioned something that has been going on for almost a year…Buoy wets her bed.

Now, she doesn’t WET wet her bed; she marks it.  Almost every night she spends a few minutes (usually after we’ve shut off the light) scratching and arranging her pillow and then squats and urinates a little somewhere on it.  Then she lies down and goes to sleep, occasionally in the spot she wet.

All I can think of is that she’s marking her territory.  And I’ve NEVER heard of a spayed female dog doing that…only male dogs and female dogs in heat.  Buoy has been housebroken for more than a year and always cries when she has to be let out.  But this “marking” happens in three places…her bed, our bed and the big pillow on the floor for her in the living room.

Anyway, I said this to the vet and she immediately got this look on her face and started to feel Buoy’s kidneys.  She asks me if Buoy ever wets herself WHILE she’s asleep (no), if she ever wets the floor or the couch (no) and if she drinks a ridiculous amount of water (no).  The vet tells me she wants to rule out any kind of infection so we need a urine sample from my baby.

Ever collected a urine sample from a dog?  I wouldn’t recommend it.

Since Buoy didn’t have to “go,” we went home and waited awhile.  The vet gave me a flat tray to get the urine when Buoy squats and then a test tube to pour it in.  I put on some plastic gloves and got down to business.  Buoy DID NOT appreciate having a tray under her tail and proceeded to flee and try and pee somewhere else, but I did get a respectable sample after three squats.

So I take the sample back to the vet and wait the 20 minutes it takes to test for infection.  Here’s where my story gets emotional.

My family lost our 16-year-old Lhasa Apso, the dog I grew up with, when I was 12.  After a long search, my parents chose a gun-shy Springer Spaniel puppy a hunter was selling for a song.  My parents especially loved this dog, Ripken, since she was there little girl when my sisters and I started moving away for college.

After seven years and a few occasions where Ripken would wet her bed while she was asleep, one night after dinner her kidneys failed and she died in my mother’s arms on the way to the emergency vet.  My parents blame themselves for not “knowing” something was wrong and still haven’t gotten over it completely.  After almost an entire dog-free year (something my family just doesn’t do) I managed to make my mother go out looking again and they’re now very happy with their Labradoodle Wrigley.

My Husband thinks one of the reasons I chose a spaniel while we were looking for puppies because I want to “redo” the Ripken thing and give it a happier ending.

I ruminated on this the entire 20 minutes I was waiting for Buoy’s test results.

The vet came back and told me Buoy is 100% healthy and has no signs of infection.  As I was breathing my sigh of relief, the vet told me not to get too excited, because this means Buoy’s marking is behavioral and we still have some work to do to figure it out and fix it.

So that’s my story.  Our vet is gonna do some research and try and figure out what’s going on.

Baby Talk

My Husband and I are talking about getting pregnant.  As is customary for me, as soon as we began discussing it seriously I raced out to the library to get books about pregnancy.  I’ve always depended deeply on the research and opinions of experts (or at least people who have experienced an event I have not) and let’s face it…knowledge is reassuring.  Libraries even smell like safety. 

So far, I’ve read the following:

·         Before Your Pregnancy: a 90-Day Guide for Couples on How to Prepare for a Healthy Conception by Amy Ogle & Lisa Mazzullo

·         What to Expect Before You’re Expecting by Heidi Murkoff with Sharon Mazel

·         Perfect Hormone Balance for Fertility: The Ultimate Guide to Getting Pregnant by Robert Greene

·         Misconceptions: Truth, Lies and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood by Naomi Wolf

·         Vaginas: an Owner’s Manual by Dr. Carol Livoti & Elizabeth Topp

I found Before Your Pregnancy and Perfect Hormone Balance to be informative but a little preachy about organic foods and living.  The latter has this whole section on “biomutagens” that reads like your baby will develop horns and a tail if you use hairspray or nail polish while pregnant.  I did learn why you should cut caffeine; not only can it constrict your blood vessels and diminish flow to the baby, but your baby can come out addicted to caffeine!  So they cry and cry because they want caffeine but they have no idea what it is.  That stuff’s like crack.

What to Expect has been the Bible for pregnancy for years.  It had some useful tidbits, but half the time I felt like I was being spoken to by that youth group pastor who’s trying desperately to be cool: “Now that you’re talking baby, will you have to say ‘later’ to your morning lattes—and ‘nighty-night’ to your nightcaps (p30)?”  Ummm…yes?  “Been trying for a few months to hit baby bingo, but without success (p120)?”  It’s like every sentence ends with a pause for a recorded laugh track.

Naomi Wolf’s Misconceptions was one of the most depressing books I’ve ever read.  It chronicles her issues of losing her sense of self after becoming a mother, her traumatic and detached Cesarean section and her post-partum depression.  She also harps on American culture and its response to motherhood, race and wealth.  Don’t get me wrong, all of her points are necessary to get a full spectrum of conception and birth in the United States (I’m sure she’s frightened plenty of women into opting out of motherhood) and it wasn’t information I found in any of my other books. 

For example, did you know it’s customary for doctors to slice the perineum (the space between the vulva and the anus) down to the muscle in order to make a wider outlet for the baby during labor?  It’s called an episiotomy.  They do it to prevent a tear during birth, even though most tears are superficial and much less drastic than the surgical cut.  Most of the time an episiotomy results in increased post-partum pain and bleeding, trouble defecating and severe issues with sexual function for up to SEVEN years (p170).  Wolf instead suggests women demand massage of the perineum with something like olive oil and a slow labor to permit the perineum to stretch accordingly.  In her book she mentions some celebratory midwives who ‘caught’ (a midwife’s term for delivering a baby) “an 11lb, 4oz baby girl over an intact perineum (p171)!”

I didn’t know any of this, and you can bet because of her book I’ll be doing A LOT more research.  But chapter after chapter of heartache and milk stains and lack of appropriate health care and support was extremely wearisome.  I guess it’s just one of those things…you have to take the bad with the good.

I loved Vaginas.  I really did.  It’s written by an Ob/Gyn and her daughter in a gossipy yet informative manner.  Kind of like your favorite teacher from high school who does lessons about phenethylamine by handing out chocolate.  I liked it so much I even read parts of it aloud to My Husband (he probably appreciated it less).  Considering most of my “sexual education” consisted of a seventh-grade video in which dozens of speedoed and swim-capped men flounder erratically in a swimming pool toward a sole serene woman in an inner tube, it was kind of nice to really start to understand the inner workings of my body. 

(To be fair, my mother showed my sisters and me a video about puberty around the same time.  I had gotten the original “talk” from her years before…I was six years old…because a local boy my age had been molested by his dentist and I asked her curiously one evening what rape was.  All I remember from these discussions was thinking the whole idea of coming-of-age and conception was disgusting and I wanted nothing to do with it).

So my research continues.  I have a few more books I’d like to look up, but the REAL verdict about a baby is still to come.  I’ll never find that on a library shelf.