Italy or bust

My parents told me that for Christmas they are going to buy mine and my husband's plane tickets to Italy because they don't want us to have to wait til 2012 to go. I've mentioned before on here that we are steadily saving for a whirlwind two week trip, but because of our slow progress in that department, we hadn't planned to go until 2012, or The Year I Turn 30 (dum dum dummmm).

Because of their generous offer (which of course we jumped on right away, I don't turn down presents, no matter how generous or uncalled for) we have amped up the planning process. We're thinking September next year. I made our itinerary the other night:

Fly into Naples, spend the night
Explore Naples- one day
Day trip from Naples to Pompeii
If we can, day trip from Naples to Positano and/or Sorrento
Train to Rome, explore Rome the rest of that day
Two more days to explore Rome, leave later second day
Train to Florence
One day to explore Florence
Day trip to Pisa
Train to Venice, stopping in Bologna and Ferrara, so taking a day
Full day in Venice
Tentative: Next day train to Vienna (all day train)
Two days in Vienna
Fly home

So including all the tentative plans and flight days, that's a full 15 days. Wow. What an amazing trip it would be if we can pull it off.

Naples worries me. All I've ever heard about it is that it's run by the Mafia and it's dangerous. I don't know anything about the city though. I've been to both Pompeii and Sorrento and loved them, so I want husband to see them. My alternative plan would be to fly into Naples and directly catch a bus or train to Sorrento, making that our "stay" those couple days instead of Naples. But we would probably have to go back into Naples to get the train to Rome. I'm concerned that with the traveling I've done in Italy no one has ever thought to take me into Naples. Is that a bad sign?

On the other end of the trip, we have friends in Vienna we'd love to see, and I've never been there and am dying to go. It's a full 8 hour train ride from Venice, but it may be worth it.

I feel like I'm leaving out so much. I want to go to Sicily, I'd love to go to Capri, I want to see Lake Como and the Alps, I loved Assisi and want to take him there too but can't figure out how to add it in. There's only so much that can be done.

His mom asked us the other day to make our Christmas lists, and my first thought was "money!" But it being his extended family doing the giving, I dutifully made a list of easily accessible and wrappable items like books, cds, and other randoms that I don't really need or want (although I did add a disclaimer at the top that cash is perfectly acceptable). I'm not asking the parents for a single other thing, though, not after that gesture. I need to think of something great to get them.

Comments fixed!

I want to apologize to anyone who's tried to comment on my blog in the last couple days. Something in my new html was messed up, but it's all fixed now! Thank you for bringing this to my attention Rachel!

Grateful Thursday

1) Although apparently I have scared everyone away, I'm glad for the new direction I'm taking with my blog. I'm sure topical conversations will arise from my chronicling of every day life, but I'm tired of trying to force them, so I'm changing tones. And looks too, in case you haven't noticed the lack of black.
2) Halloween. It's my favorite holiday. When else do you get to dress up and act like a child and eat candy, and no one thinks poorly of you for it? We're going out with a couple couples-- one dressed as Fred and Wilma Flintstone, the other as Mario and Luigi (the female in that couple has an odd obsession with wearing a mustache). We'll be a Hippie (me) and a Mime (husband), better known as Peace and Quiet. Thanks to whomever posted that in my earlier costumes post-- I'm grateful for you too!
3) My Friday night plans. We've got tickets, third row, to see Lewis Black perform at the Orpheum in Memphis. He's one of my favorite comedians, and I can't wait to laugh my ass off.
4) The relationship I've formed with our VP of Sales. No one else likes her-- they all insist that she's rude or demanding, but really she just knows what she wants and asks for it. She knows, now, that she can call me and talk about issues she's having with other employees, the same way all the employees come to me, so I'm better able to mediate problems between everyone now. I'm grateful that she trusts me enough to be honest with me.
5) Diet root beer, which tastes a lot like regular root beer, especially when it's really cold. My boss says that I'm poisoning myself, but he's one to talk with his solo-slim pills and protein supplements. Plus, we all have to die of something, right? If I die because I had too many sodas, then so be it. At least I was happy while I was here.

I was supposed to go to the grocery store yesterday after work, but my email refused to work properly until 4:30 yesterday afternoon. I had our System Admin trying to fix it all day, meaning I got no work done until then, so I had to stay til nearly 6 catching up. I could have stayed longer. But we had the makings for dinner at home, cleaning out the pantry, with cream corn, crowder peas, and biscuits. A nice, warm vegetable plate.

I slept with ear plugs in last night, and I don't remember ever waking up, not once. It was so refreshing. Husband bought me pink woman-sized plugs as well which is nice because the regular ones make my ear canals sore. Who knew such a thing was possible.

snoring, unfortunate meals, and muffins

I'm tired lately. I'm tired of my blog, I'm tired of thinking of things to write. So I'm not going to think anymore, I'm just going to write. I started this for me anyway.

Husband has been snoring at night. (I think I should start referring to him as "'usband" in a sort of Eliza Doolittle voice-- it makes me giggle). It started maybe a month ago. We both noticed that as the weather started to change, so did the level of snot in our noses and throats, and while my just continually drains down the back of my throat and makes it sore, his stays stuck, apparently, like gooey peanut butter in the back of his airway, causing him to rattle and shake when he breathes deeply at night.

I'm a light sleeper. There's a dog that lives out our bedroom window and across our neighbor's backyard onto our neighbor's neighbor's deck, and at least two nights a week I wake up to a poodley sounding "yap... yap yap... yap... yap yap." And yes, it keeps that same rythm, that musically trained poodle, for hours at a time. Quite annoying. Between that and the snoring, well, these dark circles under my eyes keep getting darker and bigger and deeper. I stuffed toilet paper in my ears for a while, realizing while sitting in the bathroom in the middle of the night for one of my 3 am pees (I'm like an old woman), that I could roll up half a sheet and stuff it down in there, and that was enough to at least drown out the yap yap. But not the 'usband.

I got frustrated last night, asking him to roll over at least twice. It's not a constant snore. It's random. He'll be quiet for half an hour, then all the sudden he'll let out one loud SNAAA and then quiet again. Just enough to wake me up completely. He made a particularly loud noise at about 2 last night, to the point that I flopped over on my back so hard I shook the bed, and then I let out a little whine and sigh, so he stood up, grabbed his pillow, and walked to the couch. I didn't say a word. I slept hard until my alarm went off at 7:30. Today, on his day off, his only task is to go buy me some real ear plugs.

We went to dinner with friends last night. It was a birthday celebration, so the birthday boy got to pick the place. Everyone loves this restaurant, they all rave and say it's their favorite, the best shrimp and grits and steaks in town. I've had the shrimp and grits there. Eh. 'Usband doesn't like it either. I had fully decided to eat a salad and then pick up Sonic on the way home if I was still hungry (grilled cheese and onion rings... talk about gourmet), but they had changed their menu a little and added an interesting looking grouper dish with a hollandaise sauce and new potatoes and wilted spinach.

It looked interesting, but that was about it. The hollandaise tasted like butter and mayo whipped together, which don't get me wrong, those are two of my favorite things, but if I'm paying $20 for a dish, I expect more creativity. The potatoes and spinach were ok but boring. The fish was at least cooked well. Overall, I was not impressed though, and the chicken my husband got was just so-so as well. I hate so-so meals in general, but with a $68 tab, I was annoyed the rest of the night. I think the birthday boy enjoyed his pasta at least.

I was hungry the rest of the night too since I could only manage to put away half my piece of mayo-butter bathed fish. At some point a Dunkin' Donuts commercial came on, and no I was not tempted by the donuts, no, not the coffee either. The muffins. I got the oddest craving for a muffin, particulary the apple cinnamon friendship muffins that my mom used to make all the time. (They're called friendship muffins because the recipe makes so much dough you're supposed to give some of it away to a friend, but you can keep the dough refridgerated for up to two weeks while you use it up, so we used to just make a batch and keep the dough ready for freshly baked muffins every day for a couple weeks.)
I emailed my mom, as if she would be up at 10:30 pm, and asked her to send me the recipe. She emailed me back this morning and said that she hadn't thought about those in a while, but thanks, she now has a craving too. She'll send me the recipe tonight when she gets home from work. I can't wait. I can taste the warm fluffy apple cinnamonyness now.

inside my room

I wish I could remember when, but at some point in my life I decided I was too sensitive. A raw bundle of nerves, feeling every prick and thump and caress too vividly. I couldn't take it.

I hurt much too deeply and too long; I loved so deeply I drowned. I huddled around my emotions for a while, trying to shore myself up for a long life filled with higher ups and downs than other people experience or could even imagine. I tried to explain to myself, convince myself, that this won't kill me, that it's a wonderful thing that I feel so much, and that I just need to protect my innermost self a little better. So up went the walls.

I wonder what it's like to live inside other peoples' heads. I wonder what someone would do if they were trapped in mine for a while. I imagine a rational brain, like my husband's, as a tidy little library with memories and thoughts and feelings and information all tucked away neatly into their places, clean of dust and spiderwebs, ready to be pulled out when needed. Or a creative brain like my boss's, an imaginative fairy-tale world where he encounters no boundaries on what he wants to think or do, booming with confidence and bravery.

Then there's me. I imagine my brain would look a lot like my teenage bedroom-- clothes, shoes, books, pictures, toys, pillows, all strewn carelessly around, a riot of colors and shapes and movement, with some darkness and dirt hidden under the beautiful mess.

I cried last night while laying in bed alone in the dark. I don't know why. If you had asked then I wouldn't have been able to tell you. I must have stumbled on a stack of books and uncovered something deep and dark without knowing it. I hadn't cried in a while. I miss my grandfather; time passes too quickly; I'm afraid of losing Bub soon; work is stressful.

It's a condition of being me, being confined behind these walls, that I bundle things like this up and let them out at once. But if I were to tear down a wall and let the sunlight into my chaotic little world, who I am and the depth of my ever-changing emotions would spill out onto whomever is nearest. It wouldn't be pretty. I don't think I even want to open a door-- someone may come in and mess up my mess. I think I'll design a pretty Keep Out sign. I like living in my crazy little room. It's comfortable and cozy, and I wouldn't really be me without it.

So what does your brain look like?

new look

I was bored with black. I hope you all find this easier to read as well.

I'm going to have a busy couple days here at work, but by Thursday I think things will be slowed back down to a more manageable pace and I'll find some time for writing.

devil's advocate

My husband is a natural born arguer. He'd argue that the sky was green if he could find someone to labor the point with him. He loves a good debate, but very early on he learned that he could not argue with me. I don't put up with it. If you don't agree with me, fine, agree to disagree and I'm going to continue liking you unless the argument is on a couple of specific subjects: women's rights, animal rights, and my family and close friends.

One night early on in our relationship, he had had too much whiskey and picked a fight with me over why I volunteered so much for the family crisis center here in town. (I was still in college and actually had time for such things.) He claimed I only did it for recognition, so people would think I was a good person. He made me so mad I cried right there in his living room, and he got so mad at himself he threw his glass into the sink from across the kitchen. He passed out on the bed, and I, not being able to drive his stick shift and not knowing who to call so late, slept on the couch. In the morning he drove me home in complete silence, and later that day he sent flowers with an explanation that he didn't believe anything he had said.

Silly arguments, that's all we ever had or have. After a couple more like the one above, he learned that he couldn't argue with me about stupid things, that I'll cry and make him feel bad or I'll give him that look, with one raised eyebrow and a down-turned mouth, that says, "Watch that line, buddy." And our arguments are usually about why he likes to fight with people (it annoys me even to watch) and there's usually alcohol involved, if not for both of us at least for him.

Luckily we've both matured enough so that now I'd say we fight, like knock-down, drag-out, voices raised and sleepless night fight, only about twice a year. We have little spats maybe four times a year. And snide comments immediately followed by an "I'm sorry, I'm just tired and taking it out on you," or similar maybe once a month. Occasionally he'll still try to get in a pointless debate with me. Once we talked about whether a shirt of mine was pink or red for thirty minutes. (I was pro-red, he was pro-pink.) He claims he's "always right," only conceding that we both can be right in some select instances.

I don't know why I don't like to argue. You could walk up to me right now and tell me that my house is ugly and I have no sense of style, and I'd probably just say, "whatever" and go back to my business. But if you tell me a woman shouldn't have the right to choose, that animals should be factory-farmed because it's our "God-given right," or that my momma is ugly, I turn into a rebellious demon, determined to make you eat your words. My husband likes me like that, likes to see that fire in me, as long as he's not the one that brought it out.

I just don't think there's any point to fighting or even debating in most circumstances. My husband's "always right" attitude is the same attitude that most people have about their beliefs, especially the dearly-held ones like my little category of three. There's no convincing someone of an opinion contrary to their own. Even if you happen to have concrete proof, you have to get the person first to admit they were wrong, and there are very few humans who will do that willingly.

I suppose this all relates back to my agnosticism. As Socrates said, "I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing." I, too, know nothing. I don't believe I'm the smartest woman alive, not by a long shot, but I do know that in order to learn anything, in order to have a mind open to all the amazing things and people in this world, you first have to admit (swallow your pride and admit) that in actuality, you aren't sure of anything and probably never will be. It's so liberating. You at least have to give yourself wiggle-room; otherwise you're stuck inside a set of beliefs that you outgrow or that get proven incorrect and you have no way of extracting yourself from them gracefully and with dignity.

As John Mayer says, "Belief is a beautiful armor. It makes for the heaviest sword," but very rarely does it strike down the real problem. More often, we end up fighting between ourselves, even waging wars, over simple disagreements about belief systems, and we end up with lost friends, damaged relationships, and, in the worst cases, murdered innocents.

No one is right and no one is wrong. The sooner everyone realizes that the better off we'll all be. Live and let live. Clinging to a closed-minded set of beliefs stifles the growth of not only individual people but also of entire communities and countries. Our biggest enemy is usually ourselves.

Grateful Thursday

1) Pepto Bismol. Enough said.
2) Cardigans. I think I own too many cardigans, one in every color... except blue. Now that I think about it, I don't have a blue one. I will have to remedy that. I'm a t-shirt girl, love a good "favorite" tee from the Gap or similar, and cardigans instantly dress them up in the fall, no fuss, no muss, and they're so much cozier than blazers. And more colorful. Today I have on a slate grey t-shirt and an slouchy plum cardigan. Tuesday was a black tee and a red boyfriend card. Simplicity.
3) Hand sanitizer. It's my I'm-not-getting-a-flu-shot substitute. I hate shots. A nurse told my husband not to get the H1N1 shot, but he got his regular flu shot as usual. I, as usual, will not. Instead I bathe myself in hand sanitizer all flu season praying that I won't get sick. I haven't yet, (clean) fingers crossed.

That's about it today. Mostly I'm sleepy and my tummy is rumbly, as Winnie the Pooh would say, so that's all I seem to be focused on. I wonder if it was the pile of spaghetti or the bread pudding that did me in? More likely it was the aloo palak and naan at lunch. Indian food, so good going in.... There's been absolutely nothing going on at work since the boss is out of town, so I've been making up stuff to do, like cleaning my desk and making phone extension labels. Calm before the storm, that's all it is.

hope against hope

I don't like to do political posts. I leave politics out of my life, and my head, for the most part, because living where I live its rare that I find someone who agrees with me. Besides, I don't believe it's possible to change most people's minds, so why argue? But it's probably pretty obvious to my more dedicated readers that I lean to the left, what with my agnostic ramblings and animal rights rants.

I drank the Obama kool-aid pretty early on in his campaign, dumping Hilary like last season's worn out designer purse and picking up the new, shiny, hopeful Obama model. It was all the rage, and with all the promises made about a new way of being, a positive change, how could I resist?

I forgot when I committed that it was a four-year committment. No matter how pretty a purse is, no matter the designer label or the pretty features, none are perfect. The straps are too long, the zipper sticks, or it turns into a black hole where your keys and lipstick get lost somewhere at the bottom never to be seen again.

Obama is a black hole, a bottomless pit, the worst of all offenses. I poured my hopes and dreams in, wanting so much for this country to make a positive change. I wanted the wars to end, Gitmo to close, public health care for all, and maybe even to give gay people more rights if not legalizing their marriage, but none of that is happening. He's a puppet of his designers, a false front created to give us all false hope. He was branded, the same way a purse is branded. He may say Louis, but really he's no better than one I could pick up at Target. Same materials, same construction, same end use.

I wish I could meet him in person. I've planned out what I would say. I would shake his hand, look him in the eyes, and say something like, "I voted for you because I believed you could change things. You have the power now, you have the Senate votes, you have America's undivided attention. Now do something. Stop sitting on your hands, fretting about bi-partisanship and keeping everyone happy. You can't please everyone. Follow through. It's time. You may fail, but you're sure to fail if you do nothing." Then I would let go of my grasp on his hand and hope that somehow my words sunk in, because they are the words of so many.

Not only would his failure create another 4 or 8 years of do-nothing politics, where we sit and spin our wheels while people die and our earth falls to pieces, but the apathy of the voters of this country would swirl out of control. He got me off my feet, made me excited again about the possibility of an America of which I could be proud, but now... I worry. I worry he was too good to be true and no one will ever be able to motivate us again. We'll all be afraid, and rightfully so, that we're being tricked into backing a false prophet once again.

I don't know that I've ever believed one small person could make a huge difference. I know that one person can make a difference locally, and that local changes can create regional and then national changes, which is why my personal political mantra has always been "think globally, act locally." I support local charities and follow local politicians. That's why I'm having a hard time right now understanding how this happened and how to fix it.

There may be no fixing it. I may just need to wait out this four-year contract, pray that no more of my hopes get lost somewhere at the bottom of the bag, and then reluctanly pick out a new one in 2012. I won't be taken in by another smooth talking salesman again though. I don't really believe anymore, and that's the saddest part of all. Yes, we can, but we haven't yet.

eavesdropping

My dad fell at work last week. Nothing serious, just bruised his knee and thigh and spent a day or two limping around. I called him on the way home from work one day to check on him. He didn't answer his cell so I called the house phone. I wish I could record all our conversations, for posterity.

Dad: 'Lo? breathless

Me: Hey, Dad. What are you doing?

D: Oh, hey. You've got me running around this house, back and forth from one phone to the other. By the time I got to my cell you were ringing the house.

M: Sorry... you shouldn't be running, just let it ring and I'd call back. Your cell went to voicemail. How are you feeling?

D: Eh, I'm alright. I guess your mom told you I fell.

M: Yeah, what were you doing?

D: Nothing, just going down the stairs at work, and I missed a step. It's not bothering me too bad anymore, but that night I took two pain pills and went to bed, and when I woke up my Meniere's was acting up...

M: Oh! I was wondering what that word was earlier. That sucks.

D: I was really dizzy, the room spins clockwise, you know. No throwing up but I didn't go to work. Feeling better today though, I went to work and checked my email at least

M: That's good, I'm glad you're doing better

D: Yeah. Well your mom's not here, she went to get a pizza for dinner

M: Oh, that sounds good

D: She was going to cook a couple little pork chops, you know, and some biscuits, but she had that look on her face that said she didn't want to cook, so I told her to go get a pizza. Hawaiian

M: Oh, yum. We all have days like that. That's why God made Little Caesar's

D: Haha true, true. Well... what are y'all up to?

M: Tonight?

D: Yeah

M: Nothing really, going to make some black bean burritos and watch tv. That's about it

D: Burritos, that sounds good

M: Not as good as Hawaiian pizza thought, right?

D: Obviously. There's a woman on the news, just had triplets

M: Where, there in town?

D: Yeah, I guess. They're cute

M: I wouldn't even know what to do with triplets. Heck, I wouldn't know what to do with one

D: You'd figure it out. Especially if they were this cute

M: I guess. Kathy is doing in-vetro right now, you know our friends Kathy and Byron. She's was implanted last week. They did the whole shots, pills, et cetera, all the things they could do, but this is their last resort. But they're only implanting 4, they don't want to end up like Octomom

D: Probably all four won't take

M: I know. They only want to do it once though, because it's so expensive

D: I hope it works for them. Hey, your mom is here. Here... rattle

M: Hey Mom

Mom: Hey, just got us a pizza

M: Yeah, that's what Dad said. He seems to be feeling better

Mom: Yeah, he even went to work. You know how men are though, big baby. laugh Well we'd better eat this pizza while it's hot

M: Ok, well y'all have a good night

Mom: You too, love you

M: Love you too.

rude awakening

"Hey, hey, wake up. Wake up."

"Hmmm... what," he croaked, rolling over to look in my direction through the darkness.

"I hear something. Don't you hear that?"

"I was asleep, so no." He jerked the sheets I'd stolen back to his side of the bed.

"Well listen."

Nothing but quiet

"To what?"

"Just LISTEN."

Quiet... and then, faintly...

munch... munch munch crunch

"See!?"

"What is that?"

"I don't know, that's why I woke you up!"

He sighed as he rolled away from me and placed his feet on the floor on his side of the bed. He was lucky he had a his-side. I had the cold yellow wall against me in this cramped half-studio flat. He stood slowly as he snapped on his bedside lamp, and the crunch munch suddenly stopped.

"Turn it off, it went away," I whispered.

He clicked the light off, and in bare feet he crept over to the doorway, standing and waiting in the dark for the crinkling to start again. I could see the outline of his tense body in the white street light streaming in from one of our two windows. He stood and stared at nothing, leaning slightly forward, focusing all his energy on listening.

Crunch...

He slid slowly and silently the two steps through our tiny living room to the kitchen doorway.

Munch munch crunch

I rose out of the bed and moved to where I could see him, what little I could see in the dark, into the arched doorway of the bedroom. The bare floorboards were cold under my feet, and I hugged myself against the chill and my anxiety.

"What is it?" I whispered as quietly as I could.

He slowly reached over to his left, his long, naked arm shining bright in the street lamp's light, and snapped on the kitchen light.

"Shit!!"

He jumped straight up, turned, and high-stepped back into the living room, his face contorted in horror and disgust, hands clutching at his shirt. And then I saw it, the little brown furry creature, scurrying towards him.

I've never felt myself move so fast. Before I could even think, before recognition of what this was had even popped into my head, I had jumped into the air and perched on the end of the bed, clutching the bottom of my short cotton nightshirt, dancing around from foot to foot like a frightened little girl, kicking sheets. I finally peeked around the doorway trying to see what became of my cornered husband.

"Where'd it go, where'd it go??" he was yelling, looking all around his feet, spinning in a little circle.

"I think it stayed in the kitchen, I don't think it followed you," I told him, holding onto the wall from my perch on the bed, leaning around the archway to look at him.

"Ok, ok, we need a barrier. Here." He snatched my long, narrow dressing mirror off the wall and shoved it against the frame of the kitchen door on its side, then put a couple large books on one side and the London phone book on the other to prop it up.

"Where'd it go? Well, that's what the crunch was," he said, a bit calmer now, as he leaned over the mirror and pointed to the bag of trash in the corner by the front door. There was a small hole chewed into the bottom of the black plastic, and some food scraps had fallen out onto the floor.

"I put it over there because I wanted to take it out when I left for work in the morning. It's so cold outside, and I already had my shoes off so I didn't take it out earlier. I don't see him anywhere.... Look," he said as he pointed at the kitchen floor, "there's a hole where that pipe goes under the stove. I bet he went down in there."

"Well stick something over it so it can't come back up!" I yelled as I finally hopped down off the end of the bed, curling my toes under my feet to try to keep as much of me off the rodent-ridden floor as possible.

Stepping very gently over the barrier, pausing with foot in mid-air to look all around before putting it down, he reached and grabbed a plastic Sainsbury grocery bag from the counter and shoved it into the hole, then quickly jumped back over the mirror.

"Let me get some shoes and I'll take the garbage out," he sighed as he walked to the closet part of our bedroom and grabbed his tennis shoes, taking care to stuff his pajama pant legs into the shoes. "I'm not taking any chances of that thing jumping on me."

When he was back from taking out the trash, we stood on our side of the divide, staring at the kitchen floor, watching for any movement.

"I think it's gone now."

We turned off the kitchen lights and found ourselves still standing and staring into the darkness, listening for tiny scurrying movements. When the silence persisted long enough to put our minds at least a bit more at ease, we returned to bed. Fairly quickly he began his slow, quiet snore, but for the rest of the night I laid and listened, hearing nothing but his breathing, the muffled street noise, and the scratching of my thoughts inside my sleepy brain.

Grateful Thursday

I'm having a hard time picking things today. Not because I have nothing to be grateful for but because I have too much.
1) Sushi. It just makes me happy, especially this new roll I've found that's deep fried and covered in spicy mayonnaise. No, not very Japanese of them, or healthy for that matter, but sooooo tasty.
2) My raise! Got my first new paycheck today. It makes me want to run out and buy a new wardrobe or something big, but I'm restraining myself. I'm going to up the automatic savings plan we have instead. (And maybe take us out for a nice dinner and one pair of shoes for me, because what's life if you don't live it?)
3) The new HR software I've got that's making my work life so much easier. It's automated a lot of the little tasks I've been doing that were so time-consuming. Now there were at least a couple times this week where I felt like I'd run out of things to do, which never used to happen. I even got to organize my desk!
4) Cooler weather. This weekend the high is in the 50s. We never have much of a fall-- we usually get two good weeks of great 70 degree days, but this year those were all rained out, and now suddenly it's getting to be winter. In the way that our humidity makes our summers feel so sticky and thick, it makes our winters bitterly ice-cold as well, where they feel a lot worse than the temperature reading implies. But I'm looking forward to sweaters and fires and snuggling under a quilt.
5) Life. I don't really know how else to put it. There are some good days and bad days, but overall I'm thankful to just be here, experiencing everything that I'm blessed to experience.

conflicts of interest

By now, you all should have picked up on my slightly irrational love of animals. I am one of those people that would jump in front of a bus for my dog. (Of course I wouldn't let him wander out in front of a bus in the first place, but you get my point).

I was so proud of one of my new friends when he and his new wife adopted a dog from the shelter for her little boy. I know very well that she did not come from a mutt-friendly family: the day I met her mother, she told me all about the King Charles Spaniel she had tucked under her arm, how she had found the perfect breeder and paid him $1200 for the dog, then shelled out another $600 to "have him trained," as in she did not participate in the training as well.

So when Lee said they were adopting an abandoned dog, I was surprised and thrilled for them. It's always been my belief that mutts make better pets, especially those from a shelter-- they appreciate you more, suffer fewer health problems than over-bred dogs, and though they have their issues, no dog is perfect and adopting a previously discarded animal gives you a sense of doing something good for the world.

I met their puppy a few of times. Dottie, a black short-haired Pug/Cocker Spaniel mix, was very friendly and curious though sometimes shy about new animals and people. Lee told me that she was a little bit food aggressive, meaning she'd snap at other animals that came near her bowl. This is typical with shelter dogs (most of them had to at one point fight for scraps of food) but is easily trained away.

Another friend, Cindy, has a spoiled rotten little rat of a dog. While I think Cindy is a sweet person, her main flaw is in the way she has raised that dog. It jumps all over, licks, body slams and nips at other dogs, runs around like all she feeds it is sugar and Red Bull, and just generally makes life miserable for the rest of us. She chases him saying, sweetly, "Manny, honey, stop it," which of course does absolutely no good.

So Dottie bit Manny. Of course she did; if I were a dog I would have too. Manny ran up to Dottie as she was eating, pushed her, scared her, and jumped in her food. Dottie took offense and bit her. She didn't break the skin but Manny squealed and cowered under her mother long enough that the two human moms thought something terrible had happened. Cindy overreacted and took Manny home, so Lee overreacted as well.

There are so many ways in which this could have been avoided-- training Manny and Dottie both properly, not feeding a slightly-food aggressive dog when other dogs are around, and even just keeping cool and acting like adults with dogs and not little girls with baby dolls would have helped.

No, I didn't live with the dog so I only witnessed the aggression once or twice, but after seeing the way they reacted to her snapping at Manny I can only believe that it's not as bad as they made it out to be. I've spent a lot of time with animals, and what Dottie did can be completely trained away.

But apparently she sheds as well. (Does anyone know of a dog that doesn't at least to some degree?) So that with the snapping was enough for Lee to take her back to the shelter, even though her son loved that dog, and even though she had made a commitment to the shelter, her son, and most importantly to Dottie that she would take care of her and love her for the rest of her life. It's not like when you get divorced and both adults walk away able to take care of themselves or even when you put a child up for adoption and some other family or the system raises it. Humans have a choice. Dogs do not. 70% of dogs at that shelter get put down because in this state, not enough people care about these animals, people don't think about how their actions are going to cause the death of this animal. So long as it's out of their life, that's all that matters to them. It's selfish and moronic and makes me so angry I could spit.

I saw Lee and her husband this weekend. Her husband and I have been friends for a while, through other friends, so we're going to keep seeing each other whether I like it or not. I could barely look at them. There is no getting past this for me-- there is now a line between them and me that will never go away. I didn't know about them taking the dog back until it was too late. I didn't have a chance to talk them out of it or at least help them find her a new home. Now anything I want to say to them feels like too little, too late.

I have so many lines drawn. I still see most of these people, the ones who have said or done that one thing that has caused me to wet my finger and stroke it across the air between us, but I wall myself up when I see them, look at them through glazed-over eyes, counting all the stupid things they say and do when I'm near them. I don't do this to everyone... it takes an especially dumb or rude moment for me to put someone on this list. Lee and her husband are now at the top.

Grateful... Friday, right?

What a week. Good, but long.

I realized on Wednesday on the drive home from work that my life is perfect. Some song came on the radio, and I was bopping my head and singing, thinking about work that day and about going home to my husband, cooking my bean and veggie burritos, and snuggling on the couch to watch Top Chef.

The thought occurred to me that there's nothing I would change. Not one thing. I couldn't think of anything particularly bad in my life. Yeah, work gets stressful, but it's the best job I've ever had and my hard work is appreciated. There are a couple annoying people in my life, but they all serve their purpose, making me a more tolerant, open-minded person. Changes keep happening-- friends move away or have kids, and suddenly our core group has melted and molded into a new group. But inside I'm happy, my husband is happy, and everything feels very stable and secure and content.

There's a tiny voice in the back of my head telling me to not trust it, that it's all an illusion, the calm before the storm. But I shush it. Even if it's right, I might as well enjoy this while I have it.

Today is going to be a good day. Already I'm grateful for:
1) My short doctor's visit. I had a follow up with neurologist who gave me a new prescription, and it only took me twenty minutes! That never happens.
2) The new prescription. It's a smaller dose of the Imitrex I had been taking but has another medicine mixed in, and I get almost no side effects from it plus it doesn't take as long to work.
3) Kindness. I stopped at a gas station to get a drink. The check-out lady told me it would be $1.17. For once in my life I didn't have .17 in my coin purse, so as I was exclaiming about that oddity, the large man with his hands full of honey buns in line behind me pulled out 17 cents and told me he didn't want me to have to walk around with 80 cents in my wallet all day. What a nice thing to do.

I'm going to have to find a way to pass that kindness on today. And every day.

a way past

Emily's best friend lost her dad yesterday morning to cancer. He was in his fifties. My office door creaked loudly as Emily opened it and stepped in sideways in her red plaid tunic and tall black boots, a long braid of brown hair coming down over one shoulder, cell phone in her hand. She wiped her face dry as she told me the news, and we decided she should leave right then for her friend's side.

I got a little choked up myself, although I've never cried in this office. Other workplaces, yes, but not this place. Here I am the stoic one. We become what others need. Losing my father is my second biggest fear, coming in slightly behind losing my husband, and only really falling behind because I know it's an inevitability that at some point in my life, unless I die first, I will lose him. I will have to learn to live without him. It's the way things work.

So her friend is now learning to live without her father.

A few years ago I was working at an antique store. I was everyone's friend and the one they knew wouldn't stick around too long. There were a couple college boys working with us, moving the big pieces for the little old ladies with thick wallets and disinterested husbands. One of them, Tanner, confided in me that his parents had gotten divorced when he was a child because his father was an alcoholic. Although he didn't see his dad much, he loved him, and when he spoke about him I could see in his big blue eyes the hurt and longing for fatherly approval that he so desperately wanted.

The huge, dusty store was empty other than Tanner and I when he found out his father was dead. His cell phone rang, and from the way the muscles in his face dropped, the way the light in his eyes dimmed instantly, I knew something had happened. He ran outside and paced back and forth. Not knowing what to do, I just waited. He finally hung up, grabbed his hair and yanked, stretching his neck back and looking towards the cobwebbed eaves outside the glass doors. He turned around and came back in in one fluid motion, walking straight to the office for his jacket.

"My father died," he croaked as he tried to walk past me. I grabbed him and hugged him, not knowing what else to do, told him-- whispered because I couldn't speak-- how sorry I was, and let him go from the one-sided embrace.

I closed the store myself that night although I don't think I actually counted the cash or turned off all the lights. I couldn't think. His father was buried three days later. He had been drunk and fallen and hit his head. The coroner said he was dead at least three days, laying there on his kitchen floor. Tanner's mother found him.

Emily's friend's dad was luckier, I guess, in that he died with his family around him, peacefully taking his last breath, if too early.

Grief is an odd thing, especially someone else's grief. There's never a "right" thing to say or do. Your own grief you understand, at least in part, because you live inside it and feel all the stabs and burns it inflicts, cringing and screaming at just the right moments. Those outside it, however, have to react without any prior knowledge, fumbling around trying not to upset but also comfort, providing a shoulder when needed without pushing it in the griever's face. It's a delicate balance, walking on a thin line of despair.

Some of us are better at it than others. Those of us who have lost someone dear know that sometimes nothing helps, and sometimes all you need is a warm, quiet body next to you while you scream. We must become what the person needs, and reading that is the hardest thing to do.

Deep inside of myself, I know who I am. If you stripped away everything-- my husband, my father and mother, my dog, my house, my job, my friends-- I would be ok, meaning that little acorn of myself that lives deep in my soul would still be there, and it would take over, putting me on autopilot until I was past the grief, at least the parts that are passable. I breathe in and out and I feel it in me, that I'm invincible. Life goes on and so will I. Not that I want any of that.

I know someone who doesn't have this, who wouldn't even know what I was talking about if I expressed my sorrow to her that she doesn't have it. She, Sherry, doesn't know who she is. While it's true we become what others need us to be, that only works to an extent, and it's mostly unconcious, or subconcious. She becomes what she thinks other people will like, and though she is wrong, she's so blind to others' feelings, so caught up in her own mind, that she has no idea. She's transparent: I see her grasping at straws trying to force us to want her around by forcing her presence on us. If she's loud enough, we'll notice her and pay attention to her; if she could just find that one interesting story, she'd capture all our focus and revel in it if for just a minute. But her stories and her brashness only make us push her away.

Emily had to tell Sherry where she was going yesterday. Sherry commented that she was in the same place as Emily's friend, woe be her, that she knew exactly how she felt as she had nursed her mother all weekend after a terrible fall. It was one more story (lie?) in a string of stories added to her collection, the stories that she uses to try to make people comfort and console her.

I don't know how to act around her because I don't know who she is. Mostly I am simply off when she comes into my office, a blank stare on my face and my lips tightly sealed, only letting out the necessary words. I feel sorry for her, in a way, because obviously she missed something somewhere in her life, something that if she had gotten would have made her ok, made her self-sufficient. I feel like she is constantly grieving the loss of something, making her irrational and fearful, and so like with all grieving people, no one knows how to react around her.

I wish someone would give me the strength to see past her grief, the ability to know what to say or do to make her stop. Some grief is impassable, I know, but if she doesn't figure out a way to that nugget of herself deep inside, it may be lost forever in her murky uncertainty. There is no knowing or finding out for me, though-- in reality there's nothing any of us can do or say to help a truly grieving person. They must find their own strength and move past it themselves.

Grateful Thursday

My boss accused me of being a negative person the other day. I think perhaps I was being negative that day about how things were going at work. With the stress we've been under, it's a wonder I'm still alive, much less happy-go-lucky. This week has been better. Anyway, I informed him that I keep a gratitude journal and count my blessings nearly every day, so if, for some reason, I appear to be negative about something, it's probably because I am also a realistic person and there's a characteristic of that something that shouldn't be celebrated.

Even though I only publish this gratitude post once a week, I do consider it my "journal," and knowing that every week I will come up with three to five items (big or small, random or planned) keeps me on my toes. I find myself all week feeling grateful for things which previously I wouldn't have even noticed. So here are the three out of a million that I've selected this week.

1) Onion rings, and in correlation, discovering new favorite foods. I didn't think I liked onion rings. I don't particularly like onions, especially red onions, but apparently I do like yellow onion, the sweet ones, and fried and battered with ketchup makes them absolutely sensational. I was so hungry one day in Vegas, and the deli we were in only had onion rings and meat sandwiches, so I ordered myself some onion rings and haven't been able to stop eating them since. I'll be as big as a house if I don't stop soon, but they're just so good.

2) New technology. While also scary at times (I don't think I like that a cell company can pinpoint my location with GPS whenever they feel like it), I do have to admit that I love my new iPhone. I had left work the other day without remembering to call and change my hair appointment, but I realized sitting at a red light in traffic that I could google my stylist from my phone and then with two button presses be speaking to her directly just minutes before she was to leave for the day. A small victory there, but several small victories an add up to a pretty good day.

3) Even greater financial stability. I got a raise, a pretty significant one, 25%. I also have two new employees to manage who took over a couple of my responsibilities. It's been great except I'm kind of out of things to do today and it's only 1:45. I'm sure this will all even out, and my managing of new employees will take over the time I used to spend doing the million things that they're all handling now. I had gotten overloaded with duties so it's about time I got some help. But right now I'm feeling a bit lost. Richer, but lost. It'll work out.