Going to the dogs

As I sit here with my daughter and my morning coffee, I am watching my foster pit bull Prince and my foster mutt (who knows what) Tink wrestle all about the living room, bumping into the sofas and raising an occasional shout from my daughter when their play comes too close to her.

I am thinking about what a shame it is that both of the have an incredibly hard time finding homes. Tink because she is bonkers on a leash, and Prince because he doesn't like to meet new dogs and is, well, a pit bull.

Prince came to me when he was just a 6 month-old pup and was adopted to a family at 10 months of age. He recently was returned because every working person in the home lost their jobs. The home was being foreclosed upon, and, in a storm of tears, Prince was returned to rescue.

Having been one of those Detroit pit bulls chained outside and starved, probably used as a bait dog for fighting, he is incredibly well-adjusted. He is great with people and is good with other dogs, but only after a stressful few days of adjustment. He loves to cuddle, is intelligent, learns any and all tricks, always pottys outside, and is just one of the best dogs on the planet, truly.

Prince has all the cards stacked against him in this world and has found me and rescue by the luck of the draw. As I watch him interact in a home full of dogs, I wonder why is it that we have to list him as a dog who cannot go to a home with other dogs?

It is because so many people looking for dogs are afraid, terrified, in fact, of that first meeting where Prince growls and lunges at other dogs. It is scary, but I know it is short-lived and resolves with minimal guidance. It is not an indicator of how well the dogs will get along in the coming days. I just wish it were not perceived as such.

My heart aches for Prince. He has survived near death illness and neglect. He has become one of the most perfect dogs I have ever had in my home, and I know most people can only feel fear when they look at him.

I am hoping for Prince and all those other fantastic bullies who are misunderstood.

Cold

Cold is one of those words with multiple meanings:

• devoid of emotion or resists showing emotion
• an illness
  
• low temperature
• an act of cruelty
• (in Japan) a bad joke

So, when the weather turns from Fall to winter, cold washes over everything, and it is hard to keep from drowning in the gloom of "cold."

When it is cold outside, I enjoy movies like Sweeny Todd more than I would in the warmer months. The warm side of me shrinks to the size of a small ball, and I have to bounce it around with lots of effort to spread the warmth.

So here is a cheers to the hard work of the cold months which remind me to be grateful for the warmth that does exist in my life.

Heartbreak in an hour

Have you ever had a dream that effected you so deeply that you awoke unable to shake the emotions conjured in your sleep? My guess is that most of us have.

However, some of those dreams are so much more vivid or painful than we realize.

Today, while taking a nap with my daughter, I dreamed of falling in love, living a lifetime with that love and losing him. It was not death that caused the loss but a strange disappearance, as dreams so often offer.

I am still feeling the devastating loss of someone who never existed, yet, who spent a lifetime with me. I was not entirely me, either. More like the me I would be in a fiction story. I mourn that loss, as well.

How mysterious is the mind!

Oops

So, I have been making a lot of silly mistakes lately. One day I wore my panties inside out, oops. Another day, I forgot how to turn off the parking lights on my car, oops.

Today, I cleaned my bathroom floor with lotion instead of my cleanser. Similar bottles. Oops.

Adult Child

Tonight, while watching House and preparing lunches for my children, I paused at my reflection in the darkened window. A shock to see an adult woman holding a beer looking back at me. She was thin and her shadowed features were almost beautiful. Unbelievably me.

I am an adult. Strange I am old enough to drink a beer. No matter the long chain of memories: warm blankets thrown over me after having a baby, college graduation, marriage, that first bar night after turning 21 (ugh), boyfriends, travels overseas, etc; I still look at my adult reflection with shock. It honestly crossed my mind, "Am I really old enough to drink a beer?" No matter I was preparing lunch for my two children listening to my three foster dogs chew laboriously on their bones in the home I own. It was the beer and the reflection that felt too old for me.

This week, I found myself absorbed in the book Twilight remembering the feeling of a teen crush, and I longed for that feeling. I was sad to know that some magical vampire hunk would never sweep me off my feet, fall in love with the weird and unique soul that is me. That sad loss of magic has occurred. Or is it a change in my feelings about magic? I see myself as stronger, bolder than I was as a teenager (thanks be to maturity for that), but I also have the same sense of self and longing. The book sent me into a week of feeling depressed. I long for that mystical sense of protection and wild adventure, so absent in my daily life. I still love the romantic vampire stories, and I don't care who knows it. I have come out!

A "bedpan" is the base of a musical box

In 1811, the first music box appeared. I thank the Swiss watchmaker for evolving tick-tock-time into a musical composition, adapting the watcher of passing moments to a world of infinite sound possibilities in a timber unlike any other instrument. Proof that the earthly can become ethereal, but humbly, of course--pocket-sized for starters.

Today, I was a music box (maybe everyday). "A motor under tension," I turned my cylinder around in a blur until all my memorized notes ran together and those unfortunate enough to be listening were left dazed, holding their heads. At risk of a mechanical jamb, but lucky enough to avoid it, the day slowed to a close, and I remembered to wind myself again, a bit gentler this time.

So, I repeat the same cycle; the only song I can really play from my tiny box, but I repeat it differently every time: sometimes faster, slower, on cherry wood, on thick oak, on linoleum, on tin, in large rooms, in the shower, huddled in a dark corner, in the middle of the Grand Canyon, the bottom of the Royal Gorge, under my pillow. And it is good to have that music wherever I go.

A big whine

Today, I wish someone would come scoop the kids up and take them somewhere glorious, letting me have the day completely alone to collect my wits before heading into the busy weeks ahead. I wish I could figure out how to earn money to support my family today, not two years down the line. The collectors are calling, and I have to apologize profusely for not having money. How to juggle children and jobs and school in a tough economy???? To keep our heat on while appeasing the medical billers.

Sometimes the pressure makes enjoying anything the biggest challenge of my life. The sorrows of struggle. My son, age 5, cried on MLK day at school hearing about the struggle for civil rights because he already knows the struggle of poverty in the US.

Done whining now. Thank you.