Not Drowning, Waving

Too much to think about

2010-10-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

I didn't sleep well. It was a combination of stuff. I have a cold that makes it hard to breathe without snoring (which wakes me up as well as waking up everyone else in the house); I'm suffering through a late menstrual cycle (late as in it took 6 weeks to get here and now it either trickles or floods and has been doing so for the past two weeks...I know, too much information) that makes me wake in a drenched sweat equally influenced by a slight fever from my cold; and I have a lot to think about of late.

Oh and let's not forget about the phone ringing at one in the morning. I didn't get to it in time, but the caller was "kind" enough to leave a message, "Would I be interested in walking their dog?" WHAT? It's one in the morning! And they didn't leave a call back number or even say their name. If it's a prank phone call couldn't it be more interesting than that?

The worst part, of course, is that I was awake and steaming about the phone call, which gave me more time to think about the choices ahead of me.

Let me clarify. Life is going great. Yes, I have a cold. Yes, I'm stuck between menstruation and menopause (meno without the pause, I like to call it) and yes, I've been given something to really think about that is pivotal in my life, but when I take a moment to stop and look at everything around me (and in me, for that matter), it's amazingly good. For instance, I've been asked by a university publication to submit a piece of my writing. I've never been asked before and while they may not publish it, to be asked feels pretty cool. I live in a really amazing house with a really wonderful partner and a silly, but special dog. I have good friends and I get to laugh a lot. My work is busy (sometimes too busy) but rewarding and aside from aches and pains of my aging body and this nagging cold, I'm healthy.

And then I'm given this option: Would I like to work full time at the hydrotherapy pool with the understanding that I'd eventually (within a year) become the manager?

What does this mean? It means I'd have to give up or cut back on my dog walking. Doesn't seem like such a big life decision when you've spent most of your life as a classroom teacher and been faced with much bigger and more important choices, but I'm not that teacher anymore and the choices I'm faced with in my life are much different now and surprisingly, just as important to me.

Dog walking has been a great experience. I've started my own business, I've made it fairly successful (there's only so much of me so there's only so many clients I can have without overdoing it all), and if I really wanted to go out and drum up more business, I could do it. But I don't have time nor do I think my body could handle walking more than 10 (or sometimes 13) miles in a day. I'm not 30 years old anymore. I'm not even in my 40s so the wear and tear is taking its toll.

When I first decided to start this business it's because I knew I wanted to work with dogs. I've wanted to work with dogs since I was in my twenties. I've wanted to write, too, but that's something that fits between everything else and so far, it's going fairly well. But I must admit, of late I've been so busy there's very little time to write. Still, I know once I've finished earning my small animal massage license, I'll won't have to study and I'll have more time to write...so again, I'm not too worried about making time to write. It's just on hold for now.

Which brings me back to my dilemma. Out of the blue, working at the hydrotherapy pool fell into my lap. My boss, who believes quite strongly that this was meant to be, doesn't think it fell into my lap, but was the plan all along. It may be. Regardless, I didn't expect to be here and yet here I am -- two great jobs and not enough of me to do them physically.

So she asks me -- do you want to work full time? I wish she weren't such a great boss because it's not like she's pushing me, she's just offering it. "You need to do what feels emotionally, physically, spiritually, and financially right for you." I can increase my hours and my involvement as much as I want. I can take on more responsibilities as my learning allows and I can make a full time job of it.

But full time pool work means little or less or no dog walking. Do I want to give it up? Do I want to do less of it? What would that look like? There are so many configurations it makes my head hurt -- or maybe my head hurts because of my cold or my endless menstrual cycle or the fact that I'm working too hard. Who knows?

Of course, I don't need to make the decision right away. I'm not sure that's a good thing though because it means the contemplation of it might linger longer than I'd like. Somehow I think this is another life's lesson: Not rushing into something and really making a choice that comes from thoughtful deliberation and not gut reactions. Or maybe the lesson is to learn to really listen to myself and do what feels right for me and not necessarily what I think might please others.

See? There's too much to think about. I'm going to take the dog for a walk and contemplate it some more, talk it over with Ann some more, and hopefully tire myself out enough that I might sleep better tonight!

I Know, I Know...

2010-09-24T21:20:00.000-07:00

...it's been awhile. In fact, it's been so much of an awhile that I almost forgot my username and password to this blog.

It's been a busy September. August was busy, too, but September is flying by so fast I think my eyes have switched sockets. I can't complain. I'm doing work I love -- walking dogs, swimming and massaging them too -- but I can feel the tiredness seep into my bones of late.

Or maybe it's just the changing weather. Regardless, I'm working far more than I thought I'd be this September.

Last September I was back in the classroom. That's a different kind of tired. That's brain tired, but brain tired can zap you faster than physical tired trust me. Now I'm just physical tired and am so awfully glad (oxymoron?) that I have a massage scheduled for my own body tomorrow.

Of course, I have to go into to work at the pool for a brief bit because a 100 pound Great Pyrenees is coming in for the first time and there's no way my boss (who recently wrenched her back) can handle that. I'm not sure I could handle a dog that size on my own either, but hopefully the two of us -- one tired (me) and one wrenched (her) -- can woman-handle the big gal into the water.

I should definitely bring my camera.

This blog has been neglected because I'm always writing on my business site (www.wagsnwords.com) or my work blog (http://wellspringsk9.blogspot.com). Rubinations has been neglected as well.

Not that anyone is reading this, but if you're out there, I'm just sayin'

Off to bed...weary bones need to lie down for awhile.

Untitled

2010-08-07T08:26:00.000-07:00

I woke this morning and found myself in the mirror -- slightly tired with a wave-like swoop of hair curling over my head. I've known teenagers who've achieved this look with pounds of gel and hours of personal attention in front of their own mirrors, but for me, the hair curls on its own and only a shower will wash it out.

That's how I slept -- curled with my face smooshed into my pillow and my hair, apparently, pressed into a wave. I slept hard last night and woke occasionally from dreams worthy of a surrealist prize -- quilted snippets of my life pasted together in unexplainable patterns. Ironically, I feel rested today. Yesterday was long -- 5 hours of walking dogs followed by 5 more hours in the pool swimming the sick, elderly, and injured. Surprisingly, the day (and evening) passed by quickly, but when I got home, I was wired and worried that sleep would give way to thoughts about scheduling and massage strokes, the tangled leashes and persnickety owners.

Instead, I crashed. I fell asleep and only occasionally heard myself snore or the dog in his bed whimper or the sound of airplanes making their way to the airport.

I work at the pool again today and then we're off to a basketball game tonight. Another long day.

I keep comparing my days now with my days as a teacher. Ann has one last week of vacation before she's called back to school for her own education -- classes offered by the district to prepare teachers for the upcoming year. I remember that feeling. All of the sudden you think about all the things you wanted to get done on your time off and you realize there isn't enough time to tackle them. You are both excited about the new school year and wary of how much energy it's going to take, especially the first two months, to meet the new students and their families, organize the lessons and field trips, and attend all of those meetings that the district somehow thinks is supportive.

While there are parts of that routine I miss (shopping for school supplies!) that feeling that someone is turning up the speed on the treadmill without your knowledge is something I don't miss at all. Yes, it's hard working without knowing when my next vacation will be. Yes, it's physically draining to walk dogs for 8 miles a day and then wrestle with 125-pound dogs in the pool. Yes, I don't earn the kind of money I used to, which allowed me a certain kind of freedom. Nor do I receive the healthcare benefits offered by a school district (thankfully I can be on Ann's).

But when I think about where I've landed -- dog walker and K9 massage/swim therapist -- I smile. No longer am I struggling with the "art" of teaching or the politics of education and I can feel my sanity return a little bit each day.

Why all the flower photos? Because I keep taking pictures of flowers I see and I realize how happy the photos make me. Kind of like a photographic take on "Just stop and smell the roses..."

The Next Move

2010-08-01T07:56:00.000-07:00

I've finished my first round of small animal massage work and am on to the next and hopefully final level before I become licensed. The next round looks much more involved something for which I feel both apprehensive and excited. I want the challenge though I know I'll be stretching my 51-year-old brain in ways I'm not sure it can stretch anymore.

We'll see how it goes.

But after my dreams of the past few nights, I can tell I'm focused and nervous about this next move. First, I keep dreaming about people watching me as I massage a dog. This is a reliving of the "test" I was asked to take during my first round of massage education and in the dream, I feel the pressure (no pun intended) to do everything just right. This is not good pressure. Instead, it's the kind of pressure that didn't (and doesn't in the dream) allow me to really feel what I'm doing. Since I'm still new to this profession, the knack of "feeling" my work is new to me and with eyes watching every move I make (not only with the dog, but with my own body) put me more in my head than my hands. My boss always says her brain is in her hands and now, after a few months of this work, I'm starting to understand what she means.

The other dreams range from trying to escape from floods, helping friends with their grammar, and trying to manage large groups of dogs or children in huge, crowded cities. This is how I handle my doubts about this next move. In my dreams, I put myself in tough situations and work on trying to maneuver through them. Ironically, I'm sleeping better than ever before though not as long as I'd like.

Of course yesterday, after finishing my massage course, I sat on the couch relaxing by watching a movie when I saw the aura in the bottom part of my right eye. "Damn!" I thought. "A migraine." Despite the medication, it hit me full force. I knew it was a result of a week's worth of concentrating in a way I don't have to either as a dog walker or massage therapist, but nonetheless, it knocked me out and sent me to bed for a dark and fitful sleep.

I'm back to dog walking tomorrow and then an evening at the pool. Spike, my favorite old dog is on the schedule and so is Max, my second favorite. I'm looking forward to that work again -- both the walking and the massage -- moving from my head to my hands and my feet. I still marvel at how I got here and while there are times I panic about money, life is moving along quite nicely these days.

Quite nicely.

Will the cycle be broken?

2010-07-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

My friends have always told me I'm a perfectionist. I don't see it. There are so many things I don't do perfectly that it's hard to understand their perspective. Of course, I guess it says a lot about me that I am aware of my imperfections and all the things I don't do perfectly perhaps proving their point.

But recently, I've come to understand that I might just be suffering from perfectionism. Since I've enrolled in small animal massage classes and started working at a hydrotherapy pool for dogs, the perfectionist in my has emerged -- well, emerged more clearly to me.

I am on a steep learning curve. My brain is trying to wrap around learning all the anatomy and kinesiology of dogs at the same time I'm trying to remember all the details of my new job and stay on top of my own business as a dog walker. Because the learning curve is steep, I make mistakes. They are minor mistakes mostly, but to me they feel major. I forgot to take the garbage out at work, for instance, feels like a huge transgression and then not taking the time to schedule a dog into the scheduling book, a big mistake, feels monumental.

I am lucky in that my boss is forgiving and compassionate and in many ways, that's part of the problem. I have the utmost respect for her not only as a business owner and my boss, but as a person. And that's what made me realize my perfectionist tendencies are in overdrive. I want to do a good job both in massage school and at my new job not just because it's my nature to do the best I can (personal perfectionism), but because I so admire the woman I work for and the business she's created. I'm not sure what kind of perfectionism you'd call that, but it's moved my perfectionist tendencies into a whole new realm.

When I make mistakes -- in my work or personally -- I am extremely hard on myself. I eventually can let it go, but it takes time. Now that I feel the need to do an exceptional job because of my high regard for the work of my new employment as well as for the respect I have for my new employer, I am exceptionally hard on myself, which takes a lot more time for me to overcome.

I realized all of this yesterday while I was walking dogs. "Ah," I thought, "This is why I can't let this go!" No one, of course, is in control of this except me. I'm the one who creates all these pressures and while others are willing to forgive and move on (in fact most don't really see any reason to forgive because the transgressions are minor), I can't.

What's most frustrating about all of this is that I've been here before. Not in this exact same position, but similar enough that I bang my head against my fist and scream, "When will I learn?! When will this cycle be broken?" I get frustrated with myself that I haven't yet learned this lesson. Just when I think I've worked through these issues they circle back around and I moan in their arrival. "Not again!"

Apparently, I haven't learned what I need to learn and once again have put myself in a position to face them head on.

Argh!

What Is Seen

2010-07-17T08:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, on a walk with a dog through an impoverished neighborhood, I came upon this planter box. I had to take a photo. I'd walked this street countless times, but I'd never seen the flowers or their creative "pot." Each day is like this. I walk past the same neighborhoods with one or two or perhaps three dogs on a leash and see something new and interesting -- a house, a car, a yard, a mailbox, a flower -- as if someone were sprinkling presents on the path before me each and every day.

Helicopters woke me last night. They were searching for a suspect, the white of their searchlights tracing the grid of each block. I couldn't sleep. Instead, I got up and watched the helicopters fly their pattern methodically through the sky. My head ached, a migraine knocked at my temples and so I drank a glass of chocolate milk, downed a heavy dose of medication, and waited for the swelling and throbbing in my head to subside. By the time I got back to sleep it was 3:30 in the morning.

In the past -- as in when I was a teacher -- nights like that one would drive me insane. I knew I needed every ounce of energy to survive a classroom day and lack of sleep made it difficult to do my job well. But I'm no longer a teacher and while I'm still grappling with what that means in my life and while I was still irritated that I didn't sleep well, I knew I'd be okay today -- tired, but okay. Which is weird because my work is now much more physically demanding than when I was teaching.

Teaching was all in my head. It was endless hours of questions, of thinking one step (sometimes ten) ahead of what needed to happen next, and of planning for all the options if things didn't go as planned. I came home exhausted both physically and emotionally though I didn't put out much physical exertion. Still my body was tired because of the obstacle course my head had to navigate.

Now the obstacle course is physical. While I must engage my brain to figure out the dog walking schedule of the day, the actual walking is a relatively quiet activity. There are no questions, no need to think about the next activity, no worries about options if things fell apart. There is this dog then that dog and on most days, two or three dogs at once. And then it's off to the hydrotherapy pool where I greet the owners and their dogs, spend an hour in a warm pool encouraging an elderly dog to use an injured limb or thinking with my hands as I massage a nervous, overweight hound.

I lift dachshunds in and out of the pool, maneuver mountain dogs to the side of the pool, and level hounds in the water as they tend to swim vertically at first. I talk softly to scared mutts, ignore nervous Labradors who seek my attention, and cuddle with Newfoundlands whose nature is to trust without much encouragement. After miles of walking all day, the warm pool is an elixir for my tired muscles. There's a meditation to my work, a meditation I never found while teaching.

And every day there is something new, something unseen before. I found the soft belly of a Bernese Mountain Dog especially comforting last night. She's had the same belly every time she's come in, but last night it was particular warm and inviting. I saw a side of my own dog I never knew before -- the one who allowed other dogs to tackle him like nephews on their favorite uncle. And then later, he remained calm and mature when my boss's Doberman raced around him in blissful puppy joy. A hawk followed me through the park yesterday and the trees seemed to enjoy the cooler weather as much as I did.

There is so much unseen or maybe it's that I've never had the space in my head to be able to see it before. People always ask me if I miss teaching. I really haven't been away from it long enough to really know, but at this point I have to say that I don't. This doesn't mean that I'm not proud of the work I did as a teacher or that I regret my choice to become one. I think it means that I've walked that road to its end and now I'm on a new journey, a new road. I think it means that I've seen the sights I needed to see and am seeking a different landscape I can explore with different eyes.

This road is calmer. This road allows me to breathe and take in the full sensory experience of my life. It's not a better road than the one I walked teaching, it's just very different and if it's better, its betterness comes from the fact that it is the road I need to be on now. It is the road that lets me see what must be seen at this time in my life.

And so I'm tired this morning, but still ready to step into the pool with a nervous hound, an aging Lab, and a sweet and compliant spaniel. A long day ahead.

The Smell Next Door

2010-07-15T21:24:00.000-07:00

It's not a bad smell. No. It's a glorious smell and it reminds me of our vacation to Mexico a few years ago. Mexicans live next door and they have been dancing in the backyard all evening. Oaxacan, they practice the traditional dances of their people and perform them at street fairs throughout the summer. It's fun to watch the line of men (and one woman) hop and skip and laugh as they memorize the steps over and over again.

And then there's a feast. The kitchen, which sits just outside our office, is a flurry of cooks stirring up pots of delicious food that wafts out their windows and into ours. Everyone sits out on the back porch and quietly talks and eats. The music of their dance is as beautiful as the music of their language and my only regret is that I can't speak any Spanish...

...oh and that I can't have a plate of food!

It's too dark to take pictures or I would. I know they wouldn't mind. They see me with my camera all the time and when S. was pregnant (their first child) we snapped photos of her belly's progress. In fact, Ann went over and helped her make a belly cast right before the baby was born. Now the sculpture hangs in the baby room and S. makes jokes about wanting to wear it again just so she can feel skinny.

I'm tired tonight. Big, big day. Not a bad day, just lots of activity. I should go to bed. I'm certain I'll dream of Mexico and maybe I'll even hear the ocean out my bedroom window. That would be nice, but for now I think I'll just have to settle for the smell of Mexico.

And I know...the photo at the beginning of this post has nothing whatsoever to do with the post itself. I just liked the photo!

A Good Tired

2010-07-10T22:55:00.000-07:00

I took a nap on the couch this evening after working at the pool. I didn't really want to sleep too much because I worried it would keep me from sleeping tonight, but off I dozed into the ethereal kind of sleep that feels refreshing and drugged all at the same time.

I love taking naps, but I've tried to avoid them lately because then I have trouble sleeping at night. But today, I needed it -- even if the nap only lasted 30 minutes -- I needed it.

Six months ago I never would have imagined myself living the life I'm currently living. Not all that much has changed -- I still live in the same house, with the same woman, the same dog, the same friends who come over to visit, my same family all still alive and well -- but in many ways, everything has changed. Part of it has been difficult. Having been a teacher for so many years, my summers have been mine to craft as I saw fit -- naps were routine and each day I made myself lie down on the couch and feel the glorious dreamy glow fall over me. No papers to grade, no parents to confront, no staff meetings to attend -- yes, glorious.

Now I'm self-employed as a dog walker as well as holding down another part-time job at the pool working to help dogs rehabilitate from surgeries, maintain their mobility, or just strengthen old bones and muscles so that they remain relatively fit in their old age. I work six days a week now and though my days aren't the traditional 8 hours a day, I work hard and the work is physical.

The difficult part is not the jobs, it's not the physical nature of the work or the one day off a week. The difficult part is that Ann, also a teacher, is used to spending her summers with me and the leisure pace of our days were a strong part of our marriage. I know it's hard on her now that I'm gone for long stretches of the day and even harder when the weekends are short and I'm off to work. She doesn't say anything, but I know she misses the "old times" when we were not tied down by anything except our playful plans to swim at the lake or visit friends or see a movie.

She's adjusting, as am I, and while I'm trying not to feel as if I've put a strain on our time together, I fear I have. Yet I'm torn because the work I'm doing now feels so right, so exactly perfect that it's hard to feel any need to change. Ann has never asked that of me nor would she. Instead, she's taken on this amazing role of doing things for me -- things I normally did for her like making me meals or cleaning the house -- and I am immensely grateful for her support.

I suppose this is what makes our marriage strong and steady -- we adapt to what is needed and though it means we must change in ways we are unaccustomed to, we are making the transition relatively well. I've thanked her repeatedly for her support in this move from full time teacher to...to what? Business owner? Massage therapist? Dog walker? I still struggle to define exactly what I am these days and often find myself saying, "I was a teacher" avoiding the thing I am now.

The thing I am now is a good tired. My work is rewarding and exhausting. My work has got me on a steep learning curve and yet each day I feel a little bit more sure of myself, a little bit more accustomed to not being a teacher. It's made time all the more precious. Working with dogs -- on walks or in the pool -- has provided me with so many lessons already, but if there is one that really sticks out it's that living in the now, in the moment is much more fulfilling than the pauses in between the teaching.

I have to remind myself that most people live like this -- working without long vacations, doing a job and then leaving it behind when they head home in the evening. I have to remind myself that living a teacher's life is very different than the vast majority of the working world and while I appreciated the gift of those summer vacations, there's something more powerful living inside of me right now.

The other day I sent my blood pressure numbers to my doctor. We're keeping track as I continue on with the medication she prescribed. My numbers are lower than they've been in years and I jokingly told her it's either the medication or retiring from teaching -- I'm not sure which. She smiled and said that whatever I was doing I should keep it up because it was working.

I think what's working is me. I think what's right is that I'm on a path that feels true. Not that teaching didn't feel true in many ways -- especially after 23 years of it -- but this true feels deeper on some levels. As a teacher, I always doubted myself and while the doubt raised my blood pressure and gave me sleepless nights, it also drove me to be better, to give more, to overcome my insecurities by striving to be the best teacher I could possibly be.

Now I still have doubts -- especially with the dog massage -- but instead of the doubt defining me or driving me forward like it did in teaching, this doubt feels more like an opening up of sorts -- an allowing, as it were, to live at a different pace and see that not knowing is as important as knowing, that the angle of the learning hill is all the sweeter when I'm not so worried about getting to the top but more focused on this moment's step.

I know, I know. It sounds Oprah. It sounds like a self-help book filled with gibberish and impossibilities that only the wealthy have time to afford, but when I come home from six days of hard physical work where I've exercised dogs either on long walks or at the pool and I feel this good kind of tired, I know I've found something I've been looking for all of my life. Not only is it in the work I do, but it's in this house, in this marriage, with these friends, with my extended family. It all feels like a circle that's finally connected and I just want to hold it for awhile.

Enough of this sap, eh? I'm off to bed.

Dead Battery

2010-07-04T13:26:00.000-07:00

I'm reclining in a faux-leather recliner sofa looking out over the Willamette Valley's walnut groves and mountain horizons while my brother lies snoring in the recliner chair. We are relaxing after a too big of breakfast and not much exercise. It's nice, but I'm bummed because my camera has a dead battery and the spare is still charging at home -- 200 miles away. I took a total of three photos before it died and those three didn't turn out so well.

I'm not sure why I miss my camera so, but I keep seeing things that I wish I could take a picture of only I can't. My sister-in-law's point and shoot just doesn't cut it and there's no way to catch the hummingbird on the flower with a lame lens. So all the photos I want to take aren't getting taken (took?) and my hands feeling itchy with the desire to frame something beautiful within the lens.

All morning I've been trying to figure out how to set up google calendar with different colors only it isn't happening. They only offer me one color, which isn't going to work for the purposes I need and it's frustrating. It seems like such a simple request -- multiple colors -- but maybe it's just me -- not tech-savvy enough to figure it out.

So the next step is to use the 60 day free trail for Mobile Me. That might do the trick, but then what? If I like it then I pay money to use it? Seems a bit like a scam.

Frankly, none of this is what I want to think about, or write about yet here I am in this beautiful house with the beautiful view -- my brother snoring beside me, my dog impatiently resting at my feet, and my partner asleep in that sad way she does with her mouth turned down at the other end of the couch -- and I'm thinking about calendars and my dead battery.

I guess I don't know what to do with my free time. I haven't had much of it lately and now that it's here, I've napped some, taken a couple of walks, and even watched a rather ridiculous movie. I think this is called vacation.

Okay, I best go play fetch with the restless dog before he wakes up all the napping. If only I had my camera to take a photo of it all!

Taking the Test

2010-07-02T07:09:00.000-07:00

I am on my final chapter of my animal massage course. It's all about First Aide. I feel pretty confident, but I have yet to log in and take it. I'm too tired right now, my brain feels like cold oatmeal. So in the meantime I'm studying -- rereading and rechecking all the details I sometimes forget or overlook.

Once I pass this test, I must write a paper and take a week-long practical and then the first course is done. The next will be/should be more involved, but frankly I haven't been impressed with the rigor of this program. Maybe it's because I was a teacher for so many years or maybe it's because I paid so much money to take the course or maybe it's just me, but this course hasn't really prepared me for massaging dogs.

What's prepared me is my work at the pool where I get to actually work with dogs and apprentice with my boss who is, in my humble opinion, a great teacher. I wish I could have paid her the money I'm paying the school, but these are the hoops I must jump through in order to continue on in my new career.

It feels odd to call it a career. Teaching was a career, but I suppose at the beginning of it I didn't see it that way either. Twenty some odd years later, I can call it a career -- a profession even -- but I don't know if I'll have the same feeling with this new direction in my life. Maybe it's because I'm over 50 and I don't have a lot of role models in my life who have changed careers at this age. Or maybe it's because I'm really enjoying my new work and since it took me about five years to relax and enjoy my job as a teacher, I'm having a hard time believing that something so joyous can actually be a profession.

I'm rambling this morning -- another result of cold oatmeal brain -- but I guess the point is that I keep waiting for all of this to sink in. I am no longer a classroom teacher (with my summer's off, which is truly something I miss). I am a dog walker and K9 hydrotherapist -- well, not yet since I first have to finish the course -- but I'm on my way to being a hydrotherapist and every morning I still wake up and pinch myself. "Is this really my life?"

The cold oatmeal is warming up. I best go take my test!

Food for thought

2010-06-25T07:39:00.000-07:00

Since he joined our family, Rubin has been a challenge. Not a bad one, just testing our patience (mine in particular) and posing problems we never thought we'd have to deal with. The main problem has been his inconsistent eating habits.

I've never had a dog who didn't like to eat, but Rubin is the most particular and finicky dog I've ever met. A whole bowl of the most expensive canned food will be set in front of him, he'll sniff it then walk away. From another room I can hear his stomach growl from hunger, still he won't eat. I'll offer a treat and sometimes he'll take it, but if he's particularly hungry, he won't touch it.

He also struggles with what I call intestinal distress. I won't go into details, but after getting up late at night to take a anxious dog outside to do his runny business, I'll take him to the vet whereupon I find out he has neither parasites or giardia just an upset tummy. Prescription? Rice, boiled chicken, cottage cheese, and pumpkin.

He won't eat it.

This last time his intestinal distress lasted over a week, which was unusual. The vet prescribed doggy pepto and antibiotics. In addition, I was supposed to give him "flora" in his food -- a brown powdery substance that came in expensive packets. But how was I supposed to give it to him if he refused to eat?

I took to stuffing globs of food into his mouth until he swallowed. As you can imagine, a battle ensued. I'd fix his food, he'd run to the other room. I'd encourage him to eat and he'd race upstairs fearing I'd force food into his mouth. The weird thing is that once he ate that first shoved in mouthful, he'd eat. It was like his little brain said, "Hey, that tastes pretty good. Who knew I was so hungry?"

Still, we have this psychological battle going. Ann tried feeding him, but he'd only eat if I weren't in the room or if I left his food out while I went to work and he could eat alone and in peace. But mostly, he wouldn't eat.

He'll eat when other dogs were at the house though. He'll watch them devour their food, wait for them to finish, and then put his face in his bowl and finally eat what's served. We talked about getting another dog just to help him out, but realized another mouth to feed wasn't the best idea with our busy schedules.

The final solution was to make his food. I balked at this because I didn't want to be "one of those" kind of dog owners who was over the top spoiling my dog more than I might a child. But he needed to eat and I needed to figure out a way to get him to eat.

Through some research and an accidental contact with a woman who teaches classes on cooking for your dog, I found a recipe that seemed simple enough -- ground meat (beef or chicken or lamb or pork or bison), grated fruits and vegetables, flax seed oil, turmeric (yep!) and some liquid acidophilus. I mixed up a batch of what I called Canine Hamburger Helper and what do you know, he ate.

Like a Lab. Voraciously, enthusiastically, and hungrily...like he hadn't eaten ever before in his life. I felt relief. My dog wouldn't starve to death and he had an appetite. No more force feeding, no more coaxing with sprinkled cheese or exotic dog treats.

Of course this morning, I'm sitting here waiting for him to eat and he's not. Ann says I worry about it too much and that makes him nervous. She's most likely right, but I still find it frustrating. I guess that's my life lesson -- learning to let go of the things I can't control. Leave it to Rubin to provide me with another chance to work on my issues.

He does that a lot -- reflects back what I need to learn. I always say you don't get the dog you want you get the dog you need and Rubin is proving that in spades. I need to relax more. I need to learn to let things go and not stress out about them. I need to slow down. I need to be kinder to myself and allow myself breaks. All of my "issues" are reflected back to me through him. The only thing I can do is take a deep breath and learn patience -- not with him, but with myself.

That's a hard lesson and one I've been trying to learn for most of my life. Still I have to give him kudos for trying to teach me. He's a brave little boy to take me on as a student. I sure wish he could see that he'll need more nutritional strength if he's going to meet this challenge.

And in the background as I type, I hear him sigh deeply and with an edge of exasperation as if to say, "Who's the challenge?"

Coming Back

2010-06-20T07:53:00.000-07:00

Right now I'm sitting at my friends' computer at her house in Port Townsend. I haven't been back to PT in two years and I have mixed emotions about it. We drove in yesterday and were happy to see the skies clearing and the sun trying to make an appearance. It was good to leave the rain of Seattle behind, but there is so much more to a place than the weather.

I lived in PT for 17 years. 8 years ago I left and moved to Seattle. Those are the surface facts. The deeper details are a tangled web much of which I can't and maybe don't want to recall. But when I return here, especially after a significant absence, I am overwhelmed by the subdivision of my feelings. That's the best way I can describe it -- distinct plots of emotions and memories as neatly laid out as a housing project.

In one plot is the history of my relationships here. I had many friends in PT, but now it's winnowed down to just two with whom I stay in contact. Ironically, those are two people I met right before I left PT and while they keep me informed about all my other friends, I find it odd that when I come back to visit, I end up visiting them and not everyone else.

In another plot is my life on the farm -- the long-term relationship that held me here for longer than I should have stayed. I am reluctant to explore this acreage in any depth because it all seems so long ago and while important in the development of who I am now, I don't want to expend the energy. So when we drove by the road that lead to the old house yesterday, I glanced but had no desire to take a look. Some plots are best left unattended.

Then there's the plot of my teaching career that includes the students I worked with as well as all the teachers I've known. Last night some of those teachers were here and it was good to catch up -- to survey that plot again -- and realize I am still remembered. We also ran into a couple of former students, which is always a little awkward because I can't always remember their names or their personalities. Still they smile, we exchange a bit of history, and then I can move on holding a bit of that past in my back pocket.

There is the plot of new friends some of whom were here last night as well. I like the merging of those boundaries -- old friends introducing me to new people and then establishing my own relationship with people I didn't know while I lived here. And then there are the acquaintances who I sort of knew many years ago, who are friends with some of my older friends. They are like a web of connection through which I can pass on well wishes to those people I don't see anymore.

Of course there is the plot of gossip and after a late night of dinner and visiting, to settle down with the three last remaining friends to talk about who is dating whom, where so and so is working, and how much weight everyone has gained or lost is a nice indulgence. I feel as if I don't really have to put forth the energy to visit those plots because I catch up through the eyes of others.

The most significant plot to me, though, is not the people or the memories or the stories. It's the place. I miss many things about PT -- the food for one -- but what I miss most of all are the tall trees, the musty forest smell, the open pastures, and the beaches. We're going to go for a long walk on the beach this morning and though the rain has finally found us, I'm still looking forward to the salty air, the sandy walk, and that view across the water to the straight line of the horizon.

When I lived here, it was those long walks in the woods or along the beach that gave me peace. They were also the medicine that made me realize how much of my life I'd lived in fear. I suppose it's not ironic that now I've made a job out of walking dogs in the city since walking here in PT (usually with dogs) was the way I grounded myself, the way I found sanity at a time when I thought sanity was lost. Still, if I could take one thing back to Seattle with me, it would be the nature of this place -- the smells and sights and the long, long walks where I never see another soul.

Everyone is still asleep from last night's party. While I want more sleep, I found myself lying awake and listening to the morning chorus of birds calling me to go outside. I took the dogs out in the backyard and while they were eating their breakfast on the porch, three adult deer silently leapt over the fence and sauntered across the lawn. Luckily the city dogs didn't see them, but I watched and smiled, realizing I need to come back every now and again just to remind myself of the acreage on my past.

Happy Dance

2010-06-17T07:09:00.001-07:00

As I write, there is a very long-haired dog sound asleep beside me. The curly one is on his bed in the living room -- his usual morning position.

My body is relaxed but tired today. I somehow thought that ending my teaching career would give me more time, but as of late, I've been busy. That's not a bad place to be considering, but it's not the place I thought I'd be. I worked last night at the pool -- apprenticing actually -- after spending the day walking dogs. Standing in a warm pool after walking 5 or 7 miles is exactly what my tired feet need, but both jobs are physical. Therefore, I'm tired -- a good tired, but tired all the same.

Still, like Woobie in the photo above, I find myself doing the Happy Dance...well, that and pinching myself. "Is this really my life?" I wake up asking. "Am I really making a living working with dogs?"

Okay, so I'm not rolling in the dough and I'm lucky to have Ann who has both a frugal approach to life and a good paying job, but still, I'm holding up my end of the financial part of our marriage and doing something I love. There's a lot to be said for that -- marriage and work I love -- and that's why I keep pinching myself. I keep reviewing exactly how I got here and most of it feels like a cosmic combination of luck and timing.

And dare I sound like one of those woo-woo guests on Oprah, there is something divine in trusting both my instincts and the universe. Sure, I still have the bad habit of worrying too much and an even worse habit of wondering if I've faked my way here and am actually not as good as everything thinks I am, but those feelings are not as intense anymore. Which I guess is to say that I'm trusting more -- trusting that perhaps I am good enough, perhaps I am competent and kind, perhaps I got here by my own character and not so much by chance.

While Woobie's Happy Dance exemplifies how I'm feeling about where I've landed, Rubin's levitation is also representational of each day when I realize I am in this amazing place in my life. "Hey," I find myself saying as Rubin is doing in this photo, "Look what I can do?"

Maybe I should write a book that will land me an interview on Oprah. Instead of "Eat, Pray, Love" it could be "Walk, Water, and Wonder." Even though some days the reality is more like "Poop, Rain, and Wrinkled Skin" either way, I'm still dancing and walking through my life a few inches off the ground.

Age

2010-06-06T07:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we sat in the sun at my parents' house surrounded by elders -- my parents, two friends with whom I grew up (surrogate Aunt and Uncle as it were) and a more recent friend. We represented age by the decades -- 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. We talked of the past, we talked of the future, we talked of now, and we talked of our ailments. Collectively, there was enough medication prescribed we could have started our own pharmacy, but we didn't dwell on the aches and pains. We didn't dwell on anything too long, which is precisely why I loved the day.

And the roses...
And the canine youth amongst us...
Instead, we ate German. Bratwurst, sauerkraut, potato salad, German beer, and German chocolate cake. I ate myself stuffed and devoured the time with my aging parents and our aging family friends. Happy Birthday, Papa (the occasion for the festivities). You have always surrounded yourself with interesting people and I am happy (as are Ann and Rubin) to be counted among them.

On the drive home, Ann and I got to talking about the 32 years difference in our ages. There was a time in my life when 32 years seemed like an impossible journey, an eternity of sorts, but time, of course, has changed all of that. 32 years seems as quick as lightning these days and when I look forward to those years, I wonder how to slow them down, how to force my heels to the ground and press the brakes a bit harder.
The other day I heard a story on the radio that one of the low points of happiness in one's life is at the age of 50. The highest points are childhood and old age. Apparently, I am in the dip though things feel pretty wonderful right now, which either means the statistics are wrong or my life is going to get measurably more wonderful.

I vote for the latter.
Sitting around that sunny table (and where has the sun gone today?), I started to look forward to the days ahead. All those "old" people knew how to relax, knew how to appreciate good food, good friends, and good memories. All those elders knew that these moments were what it's all about and so they sat in the moment and took a deep breath. This is what I am learning as I slip from age 51 to 52. Or perhaps it's not a slip at all, but a step forward, a march onward.
I'm glad I've had such role models. And I'm not just glad that the important adults in my life are all still alive, but that the important adults in my life are people I love spending time with. I get to laugh. I get to eat good food. I get to take in the wisdom and question the assumptions. I get to ask for another bratwurst and hint at the need for a larger slice of cake. And I get to do what a lot of my friends don't -- I get to spend time with my aging parents who are relatively healthy and just as quick-witted and sharp of mind as they were when they were my age now.
So Happy Birthday again, Dad and thanks to both of you for inviting us to your wonderful party. Now, let's see if we can find that sunshine again!

Peeing in My Pants

2010-05-31T18:23:00.001-07:00

In the pool with Gussy. Photo courtesy of Wellsprings K9.

As a child, I remember wetting my bed. I didn’t do it often, but I still have a clear memory of lying in bed after a terrifying dream or a dream where I think I’m sitting on a toilet and then the shock of waking up to the warm chill of wet pajamas and a soggy bed. I have vivid memories of the bathroom linoleum under my feet, the glare of the stark bathroom light, the icy washcloth in my mother or father’s hand, the smell of the fresh pajamas, and the feeling of clean sheets as they slid me back into bed.

I was never a chronic bed wetter, but the occasional times when it happened were enough to imprint long-standing feelings of shame. My parents never shamed me, they just methodically cleaned me up and put me back to bed, but still I learned early on that peeing in one’s bed or clothing was wrong. That, of course, didn’t stop it from happening as a child. Sometimes I wet myself after a fit of uncontrollable laughter or out of fear or when I waited too long and got stuck halfway to the bathroom and felt the warm humiliation trickle down my leg.

Once, when I was a teenager sent on a community ski bus up to the mountains for lessons, which I detested, I avoided the bathroom for long hours because it required fumbling with the layers upon layers of clothing my mother insisted I wear. Then, when I knew I had to go, but was neither close enough to the bathroom nor quick enough to drop my three layers of pants, I wet myself on the side of a very steep hill. At first, the warm sensation was a relief to the bitter windy cold of the mountain where I didn’t want to be in the first place, but the comfort was brief. Soon, the smell of urine overwhelmed me and my wet long underwear froze against my skin.

The bus ride home was interminable; my peers, none of who were my friends, sat as far away from me as they could.

Eventually my body and my common sense kicked in and the act of peeing in my pants became in impossibility. If I were swimming in the lake wearing my swimsuit I’d have a difficult time peeing in the water. Hiking in the mountains, squatting behind a tree or a boulder, I’d have to drop my drawers and wait for the longest time before my body would allow the function to happen naturally. My brain had learned and my body had complied, I must pee in a toilet with my pants down and my bottom bare.

Now, years upon years later, I have a new job, which requires that I wear a wetsuit for the entire length of my shift. I stand in a hydrotherapy pool for hours at a time helping injured and aging dogs recover muscle memory and tone by swimming in warm water and massaging them at the side of the pool. I love my job and despite the dryness of my chlorine skin, the bruised claw marks on my legs and arms, and the feeling that dog hair is permanently embedded in my nose, I can’t imagine working anywhere else or doing a different kind of work.

Until it comes time to pee. Sliding a wetsuit off and then back on takes time and I don’t have much between clients. So I invested in a wetsuit with a zipper that runs the full length of my crotch from my belly button to my lower back designed specifically to let me relieve myself. My boss calls them kinky pants, which they really are, but they serve an important function. They allow me to pee. Or so I thought. During my first 15-minute break between dogs in my new wetsuit I unzipped, squatted, and waited, but soon I found myself in a panic.

I had to go. I mean, I really, really had to go, but nothing came out. The pressure built and no matter how hard I concentrated, I could not pee. At first I thought something was wrong with me. A bladder infection. Kidney failure. A disease for which no scientist had conceived a name. Then I took off the wetsuit and I peed like a racehorse. Sweet relief. I put on my wetsuit, worked with another dog in the pool, and then once again made the attempt to pee using the handy zipper.

Torture. I could not pee. I breathed deeply. I tried to relax. Nothing. The pain was excruciating. What’s wrong with me? I thought. Why can’t I pee? Again, off with the wetsuit, racehorse time, and back on with the wetsuit to work with the last dog of the day.

“You’ve been conditioned to not pee in your pants,” my partner says later that night.

“But there’s a hole for me to pee out of,” is my response. “Why can’t I pee out of the hole?”

“Because your mind and body still sense that you have on pants and you haven’t peed in your pants in decades.”

There are so many processes where the brain takes over. Breath, heart, eyes, reflexes – functions that don’t need to be learned, but just are. Learning to pee in a toilet is learned. Diapers work up until then, but once you learn to pee in a toilet, there must be a neural pathway created that says, “Do not pee in you pants” and pretty soon, you can’t. Your brain won’t let you. There’s a communication block or an understanding that pants on means no peeing. Pants off – pee. Despite the little hole in my wetsuit, my pants are technically on. For all intents and purposes my brain can’t conceive of a hole in my pants as reason enough to release my bladder.

I kepy trying. By the third day, I’d figured out that I can pee in my wetsuit if I’m standing up, but that wasn't going to work for all sorts of reasons. Eventually, I sat on the toilet, the zipper unzipped, stretched my legs out to the side, leaned back on the toilet seat, took a deep breath, closed my eyes and willed every muscle in my body to relax.

Success. Ridiculous success. I’m rewiring my brain, I think, I’m rewiring my brain to be able to pee in my pants. To put aside all the shame and guilt and humiliation and allow myself the simple, convenient relief of peeing, though not technically, in my pants.

This will take some time.

Where I Stand

2010-05-23T21:17:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday night. Tomorrow I go back to work. 3 hours of teaching, 3 hours of dog walking, and then obedience class for an hour. That's a short day. I think I can handle it. Tuesday's not so bad either, but Wednesday's shaping up to be a long one and Friday, too since I'll be working at the pool with the dogs. Oh, and let's not forget that I work a full day on Saturday. Thursday will allow a breath, but only a short one.

This is my life for now. Until June 11 when I am done with teaching and will be able to retrieve my mornings again. It's weird thinking about being on a non-teacher schedule. I know it's hard on Ann since we've almost always had the same schedule, but she knows this is the way the rest of the world works and so she is resigned to spending some Saturdays alone and waiting up on some nights.

At least it's no longer REI where I got home at 10 and worked one day every weekend. And I was sore from lifting backpacks onto the backs of rich people for less than $10 an hour.

It's a transition and my body can feel it from head to toe. There's the physical changes -- walking dogs for 4 hours a day then climbing into a pool with them for massage, active exercise, and doing my best to keep them level and swimming -- as well as the mental ones -- learning the difference between cross friction massage and passive range of motion, memorizing superficial muscles and all the tendons, and keeping track of the intricate communication system of client charts, scheduling books, and employee notes written on blue sticky notes.

My head sometimes feels like it's going to explode. But it can't yet because I must finish report cards -- 2 page narratives for 22 students -- and I must finish out the school year including a late night event for the students' final performance. My head must stay intact. My body, too.

Today was my only day off this week. Next Sunday and Monday I'll have off as well. There's a part of me that just wants to lie in bed all day and read a book while eating an omelet followed by waffles with strawberries and whipped cream. Working so much has helped me lose weight though I'm not sure it's a healthy way to lose it. At the end of a 13 hour day, when I've eaten very little, I down a quick dinner and fall into bed. On the days when I'm not working as much, I binge on as much food as I can tolerate hoping to supplement the calories I've missed on the days when I don't have time to eat.

I'm hoping it all levels out after June 11. I need it to level out. I need to feel the rhythm again in my life.

Soon.

Defining Rural

2010-05-14T09:01:00.000-07:00

I didn’t want to wake up this morning. I wanted to sleep in for a long, long time. This is not a bad thing for I am usually an insomniac waking up at 2 in the morning to ponder details that seem important, but truly aren’t. When the alarm went off a 5:50 this morning, I groaned. Usually I say, “About time” since I’ve been lying awake for a good hour or so just waiting for the alarm to sound.

Not this morning. This morning I was deep in sleep dreaming about a contest where I could win oodles of money if I could give a good definition for the word “rural.” All the other contestants went before me and most had no idea what rural meant. When the judges finally got around to me I said, “Rural means a greater distance from what you think you need, which ultimately means you must drive your car way too much and pollute the natural, rural world where you’ve chosen to live.”

When the alarm sounded, I groaned (as I’ve said), but I smiled at my answer. I knew I’d won the contest even though I was no longer in the dream.
But I was still sleepy. Very, very sleepy.

Hours later I know if given half the chance, I could curl up under a warm blanket and take a long, long nap.

It’s not going to happen, but thankfully today I’ve scheduled my own massage. While it’s never happened before, I can imagine myself falling fast asleep on the massage table.
This is all a result, I suppose, of working three jobs – teaching in the mornings, walking dogs in the middle of the day, and working until late in the evening at the dog spa. I know I can’t sustain the “both ends of the candle” routine, but on June 11, teaching will end and I can sleep in.

I hope.

For now, though, my body and mind are tired. Actually, they are exhausted and aside from the teaching demands, it’s a good exhaustion. I’m at my growing edge these days learning the anatomy and physiology of dogs, massage techniques and medical documentation during my time at the pool, and continuing my education about dogs and their owners (something I do every day with my dog walking business).

I’ll be happy when my teaching job is done and I can sleep in a bit more though the early morning sun is making it difficult. Still, I’m amazingly happy. Not sure how that’s happened. Not sure how I’ve landed in a place that feels so right, but someone said to me yesterday that I am where I’m supposed to be and I guess that feels exactly right.

I guess I really did win the prize!

Queer Reflections

2010-05-12T09:08:00.000-07:00

I am in my final month of teaching. After 24 years, I've tried to "retire" once before (two years ago), but then the financial crisis hit and I panicked. So I took a part-time job back at the old school where I taught before. The money has been nice, but I am so ready to be done.

But that doesn't mean I haven't been reflective about my career. I have. I know I'm a good teacher. I know I've done a lot of good in my career. I know that I've made a difference in a lot of lives and that if I had the stamina for it all, I'd teach to my grave. But I don't have the stamina. I need change. I need to be challenged and frankly, I've met and faced all the challenges teaching has had to offer.

Still, this morning as we were reading our all-class novel (Totally Joe by James Howe), I realized that so much has changed over the past 24 years. The novel is about a middle school boy who is "totally gay" and figuring out what that means as he moves through those difficult years of adolescence. It's a great book and given the popularity of the television show GLEE, the novel has given us a lot to talk about.

20 years ago (even 10) we NEVER would have talked about this stuff. By this stuff I mean, gay stuff. 20 years ago (even 10) I couldn't be out to my students. In fact, 20 years ago I was doing my best to hide my identity for fear I'd be fired or accused of something immoral. Now, as I look out over my classroom of 22 students, three have gay and/or lesbian parents, two have gay uncles, and 75% of the class adores the show Glee and the gay character, Kurt.

Sure, they still giggle when Joe, the character in the novel we're reading, talks about kissing a boy and sure they get a little squirmy when he talks about playing with dolls and dressing up like a girl, but then they make comments that floor me. "I don't want Joe to break up with Colin," one student said this morning.

"But Colin' being a jerk," said another in response. "Can't he just be comfortable with himself?"

"But that's the point," another chimed in. "It's hard to be true to yourself if everyone is teasing you and calling you hateful names."

Of course, they have a long way to go in some regards. They're writing their own stories as well and none of the characters in their stories are gay and even the kids with gay parents didn't give the characters in their stories gay parents, but still, I marvel at how much more enlightened this generation is than the previous ones.

And I suppose I played a part (a very small part, but a part nonetheless) in "enlightening" generations about queer issues over the last few decades.

There are parts of teaching I'll miss. Reading novels out loud and discussing them is one of the things I'll miss. Kids have amazing insights and even though I've read some of the novels 10 or 15 times over, when I read them with kids, I learn something new every time -- a new perspective, a new connection, a new insight.

But there's that stamina thing again and I just don't have the stamina. It's time to pass the baton to some other queer teacher who can enlighten the next generations.

Been Awhile...so much has changed

2010-05-01T06:48:00.000-07:00

I know, it's been awhile. It's been such a long while I forgot my login name and password.

Not that anyone cares. I write this to clear my head, which of late is very crowded.

I woke up at 5 this morning. I'm bummed that I couldn't sleep longer especially since it's Saturday and I really have no reason to get up early. But here I am, awake, my head spinning and my feet cold.

Inside the crowded space I call my head is the following:

I must get up and begin reading my text for animal massage school. Yes, I've enrolled and the materials arrived the other day so with yellow highlighter I've been reading about dog senses and cat's whiskers (among other things) and the whole time I'm worried that I'm not going to remember a thing when it comes time to take the end of the chapter quiz.

There is no food in the house. What shall we have for breakfast?

The house needs a good cleaning. When will I find time to do that?

I must go to work at 11 this morning. Yes, Saturday work, which is really an apprenticeship at this point and perhaps this is what crowds my brain the most. I applied for a job working at a hydrotherapy pool for dogs. I got the job (to my joyous surprise) and have been working their about 12 hours a week. Every moment I'm exposed to so many new things that I'm both giddy and overwhelmed. I can I learn all of this?

Sheila, my new boss, is phenomenal. She knows so much and is extremely thoughtful and patient teaching me. I catch on quickly to the routines none of which have anything to do with the dog's rehabilitation. Things like turning on the jets, cleaning the filters, washing the floors, and returning phone calls. I find myself gravitating to those tasks because when we're in the pool, an aging or injured dog between us, I am flooded with vocabulary I am trying desperately to understand. Proprioception, Plantar Extension, Plantar Flexion, Hyper tonicity and on and on and on.

Then there are the techniques for swimming the dog -- using the pulley system, not using it; balancing the dog by holding the outer back toes or rotating the tail between your fingers; holding the dog against the side of the pool using your knees and hips; inverting the dog and pressing their spine against your belly; medial lines and lateral lines and on and on and on.

But what makes it hard to sleep is not the learning so much as it is the fact that I have four jobs going at once. I am still teaching in the mornings, then walking dogs in the middle of the day, and then working at the pool in the afternoons and evenings. Oh, and let's not forget the article I'm supposed to write for school (part of my job description), which makes a total of four jobs.

I know it's temporary. I know the teaching will end on June 12 and for that I am eternally grateful. But getting to June 12 feels like a long wait. I just want to be in the pool learning more or sitting on my couch reading about gait analysis and massage techniques so when I'm walking dogs or working in the pool I will feel confident.

Yes, that's it. A lack of confidence wakes me up each morning and in the pit of my stomach, I can feel this excited hesitancy bubbling away, which activates my brain and gets the thoughts and lists ticking away at 5 in the morning. So today, even though it's Saturday and I'm allowed to sleep in, I got up.

And let's not forget that my sister flies in this afternoon. What psychic energy that's going to take. Energy I don't feel like I have right now. Still, I'll do my best to be present and polite, to listen to her endless stories about her work and her cats and god knows what else.

I'm glad I have a few hours at the pool this morning. Despite all the challenges of learning new information and even feeling a lack of confidence, when I'm in the pool working with a dog, there is a calm that comes over me. It's primal in many regards and it feels exactly like what I need right now in my life. Something grounding. Something where my brain and body must connect in ways that doesn't happen when I teach or even when I walk dogs or even when I write.

Of course, I'm tired now. Ready to go back to bed, but instead I'll figure out something for breakfast and move through the day one foot in front of the other.

Can't See the Stars

2010-03-16T20:16:00.000-07:00

I can't see the stars tonight -- way too many clouds along with wind and rain. But if I could, I think they'd be out of whack. Here's why:

Friends' house got broken into and ransacked today.

Rubin's friend Monty is feeling crummy and has the squirts.

The doctor finally put me on blood pressure medication...it makes me feel old.

Everyone unexpectedly converged here for dinner throwing off the night I needed to organize the last of my taxes (they're done I just need to tie up loose ends and WRITE THE CHECK TO THE IRS...who me, yelling?)...and go over the edits for my Caylx piece.

But there's always tomorrow.

Ann's at a school event, though I'm hoping she comes home soon. Rubin is under the desk grumpy with me because I cleaned his ears.

I need a bath.

I need something sweet.

Things feel a bit disorganized.

So I'm trying to remember the words of one of my students last week who, during her parent-teacher conference, said, "I think I'm doing well in class because I'm using my time affectionately."

I need some of that wisdom right now.

Wish I could at least see the stars.

The Book I'm Not Reading

2010-03-15T20:07:00.000-07:00

I'm actually reading a book, but last night we saw Patty Larkin in concert with John Gorka. He was okay, she was fabulous. Amazing guitarist. I don't know why she's not better known. It's not really the lyrics that are amazing, but rather Patty's riffs. As our friend said last night, "It's like she has extra joints on her fingers!" Anyway, she sang one of my favorite songs -- The Book I'm Not Reading -- with the chorus that says, "I need someone to read me stories."

That's what I was supposed to do with the current book -- read it out loud with Ann, but she's still finishing up Kingsolver's latest (The Lacuna), which I finished a while back and then I read Erdrich's new one (Shadow Tag) and had nothing to read while Ann was still working her way through Lacuna. So, I picked up "The Girl Who Fell From the Sky" by Heidi Durrow and Ann asked if we could read it out loud. I said yes, but then started reading it and am now halfway through.

My excuse? It's not a good read aloud, but it is a good book. Quite good.

I've been on a reading binge of late. I suppose that's a good thing because it helps get more stories in my head. Next up is Ash by Malinda Lo, a young adult novel that is the retelling of the Cinderella story with a lesbian twist.

All this reading means I haven't been writing. Well, I've been "helping" Rubin write his daily dog blog, but I haven't really been focused on "serious" writing -- writing that involves no quotation marks. But today, the mail guy delivered the copy edited version of my story that has been selected by Caylx for publication in July. It's filled with all sorts of editing suggestions complete with an editing guide to help me figure out the chicken scratch in the margins.

I'm half tempted to send it back and say, "Looks great, go ahead," but I feel the need to look at it closer and find something that I disagree with if only to make myself look intelligent. HA! (All the while the editor may well be checking out this blog to see if they made a mistake deciding to publish one of my pieces! Such is the nature of internet publishing, I suppose. Note to Caylx editors: If you're reading this, I am a reasonably intelligent woman who, like most of my generation, have a wobbly sense of self esteem that, despite years of therapy, still asks, "Did they really like what I wrote?")

But the point is, I'm reading more than I'm writing these days and replaying the sage advice of one of my mentors (Diana Hume George) who told me that reading IS writing so never apologize. I'm not apologizing, Diana, just shouting out through this blog that I'm being productive.

Really.

Oh, and I've been cooking. Tonight's concoction was pasta with olive tomato sauce. Simple, easy, and mighty tasty. Now we have enough food for the week! Alas, I always make way too much, but it's a good thing since we both like to eat leftovers for lunch.

Still, in the back of my mind are the threads of a story. I'm not a fiction writer, but I keep trying to convince myself that if I write the story like it's true (the nebulous definition of creative nonfiction), I can pull it off. First, though, I must read to keep those creative juices flowing.

I must admit, it's not helping to watch season two of "Damages" on DVD. I can easily binge on Glenn Close and the show has so many twists and turns that dig me deeper and deeper into the story, I'm expecting to strike oil soon!

Terrible metaphor, but remember, I'm in my reading mind, NOT my writing one.

Dreams of Swimming

2010-01-31T08:09:00.000-08:00

I woke early this morning after a dream where I was swimming deep underwater though the water was actually in a pool that stretched out from someone's home for blocks and blocks. I think I was in the neighborhood of Lower Queen Anne trying to find the house of a dog I walk. I found the dog, but as soon as I put him on a leash and realized there was water all around the house, the dog turned into a 4-year-old boy. And just like the dog, the boy/dog had very red, curly hair.

"Can you swim?" I asked.

"Living here," he said, "I have to!" Then he laughed and dove in.

I followed though I held tightly to the leash that was attached to the boy/dog's belt. We held our breath, but we didn't need to. We could talk underwater and soon I realized I was breathing underwater as well.

"We have to go through that tunnel," the boy/dog told me and so we swam into a narrow passage only to be met by a large, long lizard. Instinctively I knew the lizard was harmless because he looked at us with the same fear and trepidation that we looked at him.

It was then that I heard the voice of a friend who said, "Whatever you do, don't turn around. Swim toward the lizard." My friend had driven me to this watery house and she was waiting for us in her car out on the street. We were trying to swim toward her and somehow she could observe what we were doing.

I started to swim forward, but the boy/dog turned around and swam the other way and I no longer had hold of his leash. Even the lizard looked worried especially when a bright light lit up the tunnel from behind us.

This is when I woke up, my sciatica burning a hold in my left leg and the strong urge to pee overwhelmed me. I got up, hobbled to the bathroom, did my business, and headed back to bed, but sleep was hopeless with my burning leg and butt nagging me awake every few minutes.

Sometimes dreams are just dreams, but sometimes they are not. I can't really figure this one out. I know there is some flux in my dog walking schedule with the said red-headed dog's family putting their house up for sale while trying to find a new home hopefully in the area. Another dog walking client is doing the same (moving that is), so perhaps my curious dream reflects the uncertainty of these two clients.

But the swimming part is intriguing. I love to swim. Swimming calms me. Swimming is a meditation for me. Being able to breathe underwater is often something I can do in my dreams. It feels natural and since I think I spent half my childhood in a pool, it makes sense that I find water to be a safe place.

But the lizard thing and the bright light behind me, the light that I knew represented fear, confuses me. What does that mean?

I'll have to think about this today. There maybe something there, there may not, but I know that I've been trying to work something out in my dreams lately, I just am not certain what it is. Regardless, dreaming of swimming makes me want to actually go swimming, which may be a result of my massage therapist encouraging me to get back in the pool to help with my sciatica.

Easier said than done these days, but I'll do anything at this point to end the burning in my butt and leg.

First up, though...a walk at the park with Rubin...my own curly-headed, semi-blond little boy...so he can go for a swim and romp around in the big field with all the other dogs.

Crossing the Rubicon

2010-01-24T08:16:00.000-08:00

Not until I watched the ridiculously overdone ROME series did I put two and two together: The Rubicon is river in Italy. Crossing was forbidden. Thus when Caesar crossed it, well there was hell to pay...really overwrought hell according to the HBO series.

Silly me. Being a history major I should have known this, but somehow that little fact didn't stick. I wonder how much else goes unstuck?

My dreams last night were all over the map, but the one that sticks ended with a huge house fire, an emaciated father standing with his almost dead young son in his arms, and the father shouting to the fire, "Take me, not my only begotten son!" And then the father collapsed and died. I didn't stay asleep long enough to know what happened to the son.

I can't even begin to imagine what that dream was about. Religiously themed dreams rarely populate my sleep, but this one was definitely religious. Except when I woke up from the dream, I kept thinking -- Who was God? The father with the son in his hands or the fire? I imagine many who question the foundations of Christianity have asked that very same question.

The dream has stayed with me this morning. Not in a bad way. Not even in a good way. It's just stuck -- images, sounds, and all -- unlike the factoid about the Rubicon.

Of course, now that I know about the Rubicon I'll not forget it. When things stick with me, it's hard to un-stick them and while that might seem like a good thing, it's not. At least, not always. They become tidbits I gnaw on at the weirdest times -- usually in the middle of the night -- and I have a hard time letting them lie flat. I pick at them constantly.

Perhaps my dream was informed by my late night reading -- Barbara Kingsolver's "Lacuna." I read a lot of the reviews before I purchased the book and most weren't glowing. Reviewers liked the book, but thought it lacked something and they kept comparing it to her other novels, particularly "Poisonwood Bible." That must be a bummer for Kingsolver. Kind of like a famous musician always asked to play their hits from 20 years ago. Does she always have to write that same novel over and over to get noticed?

I mean, I liked Poisonwood, but I also really liked "Prodigal Summer" -- so different from each other, but each with enough weight to draw me in and make me live the stories in my head even when I wasn't reading. Lacuna is very different and yet those images, the rhythm of the voices stick with me even when I'm doing the most mundane tasks.

Yesterday, I had to venture into Costco for some needed items. Costco is always overwhelming, but on a Saturday afternoon, it's stupefying. I survived simply by recalling the voice of Harrison Shepard, the storyteller in Kingsolver's book. His voice calms me only it's not his voice, it's really hers and that is why I find this novel as powerful and wonderful as her previous ones. The character is in my head and yesterday, while elbowing my cart through the crowded Costco isles, I thought about Mr. Shepard's voice (aka Ms. Kingsolver's) again and again. How does she do that, I kept thinking, how does she make me hear him, see him, feel him when all the while it's her?

I like it when things like this stick. It's a comfort. So it's hard for me to figure out how my religious dream of begotten sons connects to the soothing voice of Kingsolver's story. Maybe there is no connection and the psychic patchwork of dreams threaded these facts together until I was left with images of a dying father and a limp son falling perilously close to the flames.

I cannot make sense of what sticks and what doesn't. We each have our own Rubicons to cross, I suppose, I just wonder what hell I'm trying to pay.

No News

2010-01-07T06:40:00.000-08:00

I'm doing my best NOT to read the Huffington Post. It was a New Year's Resolution. I made it because I found myself reading it every chance I got and the more I read, the more yucky I felt. It appears that everyone has an opinion about everyone else and even though those opinions are often conflicting, the headlines are bold and threatening, warning of dire consequences should one opinion prevail over another.

I started reading the Huffington Post during the last presidential elections. I wanted to follow the polls and the pundits in hopes that my candidate would get elected. Now that he has, the polls and pundits are chronicling his every move and subsequent opinions about his performance beat on the website like an erratic and ailing heart. After reading the posts, I find myself searching for my own feelings and opinions and often can't find them because they're buried under the words of "experts."

Years ago -- before I was a teacher, before I was a dog walker, before most of my life -- I worked in television news. I was a "behind the scenes" worker who coiled up cables, tested microphones, and sent signals back to the news station for LIVE reports. I enjoyed my work, but found it extremely stressful since everyone in the newsroom took their jobs so seriously it was hard to remember that most people weren't glued to a police scanner just waiting for the next disaster.

I decided to leave the news business because I realized - while driving way over the speed limit to a car accident I'd been ordered to so the station I worked for could have "first coverage," - that local television news was about nothing more than paranoia and tragedy. The stories on the morning, afternoon, and evening broadcasts warned about all the things that could go wrong -- faulty wiring in new homes, baby food with potentially hazardous chemicals, diseases that could befall anyone who touched this, ate that, slept here, or vacationed there.

If the stories weren't fueled by fear, they were focused on someone's sorrow. Numerous times it was my job to hold a microphone up to a surviving victim of some heinous crime or worse, the grieving family. I followed reporters who knocked on the doors of the parents of a murdered woman or stand out on chilly nights while the reporter told the tragic story of the "family in the house behind me."

I have a vivid memory of being summoned from my warm bed on an early winter morning to cover the story of a fire in the north end. A husband and wife were found dead in the burned down house and we stood outside waiting for the body bags to emerge because body bags made for good visuals. And so we waited, for hours, because it turned out the husband was a famous artist who had just been sued by his daughter for years of sexual abuse. We didn't know that at the time, nor did the neighbors who set up lawn furniture to watch the action while they ate their breakfasts before heading off to work.

Turns out the daughter had set fire to her parents' house in revenge for all the tragedy her father made of her life and so we spent the next week searching for people who knew the family, who could provide any information. "Did you see this coming?" was a common question followed by "How does it feel to know she did this?"

It was tragic and therefore was the lead story in the 5 o' clock news followed by a story about a dentist who sexually molested his patients.

Depressing. The job was depressing and stressful and so out of touch with reality. Yes, those horrible things happened, but when all you could focus on were the horrible things it was difficult to find any not-horrible things in the world.

That's kind of how I feel about HuffPost. Well-written, articulate analysis that focuses on the problems of the world is, in my humble opinion, no different than poorly written, inarticulate crap focused on the problems of the world -- it's all just focused on the negative and pretty soon, that's all you can see.

So, I've taken to reading food blogs and photography blogs, and postings about rescued dogs. I still listen to NPR because I can tune out what I don't want to hear and at least once every few hours, there's a great story about creativity or music or a funny new play in New York that I'll probably never see.

This week in my classroom, we're taking a brief look at the Civil Rights Movement as a prelude to a new novel we'll be reading. In my introduction to the students I said that to me, history isn't about events or wars -- it's about people and their stories. So we'll be taking a look, I told them, at the individual stories of the 1950s and 60s. Some will be sad, I explained (because their 5th graders and they are moved by sadness), and some will be inspiring. But remember, I added, that people change the course of history and it's their stories that can inspire us to action.

Those are the stories I wish I could read more of on the Huffington Post. Imagine how that might change our outlook on the world around us?

Living with Elvis

2010-01-03T19:08:00.001-08:00

I woke this morning and greeted Elvis in the mirror. We do this every now and then, arranging a visit about once every 7 or 8 weeks. Generally, our get-togethers are brief -- he smiles, I scream and then it's over. But today, looking at Elvis in the mirror, I realized he was going to be around for awhile seeing as how the woman who cuts my hair - Mary - is finishing up her honeymoon in Paris for the next few weeks.

If it weren't her honeymoon, I'd be made at her. How dare she take a vacation (to Paris of all places) and leave Elvis to wreak havoc on my life!

Elvis, you see, lives in my hair. After a night of tossing and turning, smooshing a pillow on top of my head or burying myself in the covers, my hair rises like a mountain on my head. "The bigger the hair," Mary tells me, "the closer to God."

She doesn't mean it. Neither of us are religious and therefore not focused on being closer to God, but still, one look at my stack of hair and even she is singing Elvis tunes.

Many people admire my hair. Not now, of course, not when it's got a life of its own, but in general, when Elvis is away and my hair behaves itself. At 51, I am lucky to have a thick, healthy head of hair, gray though it may be. People often comment on it-- the salt and pepper coloring, the waves or curls if it's recently gotten wet from rain or from swimming, the thickness of it -- but when it gets long, like now, it is so strong and so thick that it doesn't fall around my face. Nope, it stacks up on top of my head.

Once, when I was bored with my haircut, I decide to grow my hair out. It took forever and though I knew I'd have to live through the ugly stage, I didn't realize that the ugly stage would put me in the company of entertainers like Elvis or Conway Twitty or those tele-evangelists who must have to spray their hair with lacquer to get it to stand so tall.

I use gel to subdue any elevation and still, it rises every morning like prehistoric mountains pushed up by shifting tectonics.

My hair got wide, too when I was trying to grow it out. The longer it got, the more it grew out sideways never gaining enough weight to hang down long. So now I keep it short, but if I don't schedule a haircut every 6 weeks or so, the top part grows sky high and Elvis comes by for a visit.

"You need a haircut," my teaching partner said to me the other day. Even though I laughed, I was a bit wounded.

"Elvis is in the house," I sang out. She laughed uncontrollably.

Mary doesn't come back for another two weeks. I'll need to pick up some more hair gel when I see her. I've been over-indulging in the stuff in an attempt to tame the wily beast, but still, every morning, Elvis and I meet in the mirror.

The only thing I'm missing are sideburns and a sequined-studded white leather coat and pants.

Too bad Halloween is so far away.

To Be Resolved

2009-12-28T08:35:00.000-08:00

This is the time of year when I am always more resolved than others. I make resolutions and then get frustrated (sometimes even before I start) that I don't stick to them. Still, I feel compelled to come up with a list of things I'd like to change about myself and my life's routine. I'm not sure if it's some ingrained message that I must make resolutions or if the dark evenings and long nights make me more reflective of my laziness and disorganization.

Okay, I'm not that bad, but this time of year everything, including me, slows down. Yesterday, for instance, I had planned on reorganizing the kitchen cupboards (perhaps after seeing my mother's highly organized kitchen over the holidays), but found myself on the couch watching reruns of Law and Order SVU, many of which I had seen before. Eventually I fell asleep under the warm down and flannel blanket and woke up in time to feel the guilt of not finishing a task I'd set out for myself.

So I got up and cleaned the house. While it needed to be done, the kitchen cupboards remain in disarray this morning and I feel slightly guilty that I did not complete my goal.

Why then, would I choose to make a list of resolutions for 2010? It just feels like an invitation for failure.

Yet, resolutions this time of year feel compelling and so I find myself making lists in my head about losing the last 10 pounds I can't seem to shake, setting up a routine for morning stretches and meditation, joining a yoga class, and putting myself on a news fast to fight off that hopeless feeling every time I hear the stock market has dropped, terrorism is on the rise, and that the man that I voted for President is acting more like a Republican than the Progressive I so hoped he'd reveal himself to be.

But let's face it -- I am a tad bit OCD and making a list is as satisfying as making certain the picture frames in the house are straight or the ottoman is centered in front of the couch. It doesn't help that recently I went to the doctor for a much needed (and rather avoided) physical exam. Blood tests revealed that while my bad cholesterol is a bit high, by good cholesterol is stellar offsetting the bad effects of the cruddy stuff. And even though my blood pressure is moderately high, the fact that I don't smoke or drink and exercise far more than most my age, I am at a low cardiovascular risk.

Sweet.

But give a woman like me a high number - as in my bad cholesterol -- and you'll find it on her list of New Year's resolutions as "Eat Oatmeal!" When the doctor gives the same woman an order to monitor her blood pressure once a week, know that said woman will monitor it twice a week and religiously write it down in the handy-dandy little card given to her by the doctor. In addition, she will resolve to meditate in the mornings, take yoga classes at least once a week, and practice breathing in times of stress.

Though I might not write down my resolution list this year, it runs like credits in my head scrolling by me in a bright white on a dark background. I will be resolved even when I try to fight it. The trick is, as it always is, not let the resolutions fade by the end of January. That's a resolution I struggle keeping.

And yes, I know I am not alone.

To Write About Death

2009-11-15T08:31:00.000-08:00

Death, they say, is a part of life. I get it. I know it, but still, until you have to deal with it -- the death-it -- it's easier to just talk about it as an elusive someday. But as I get older, the someday gets closer and I am forced to let death be a part of my life.

It started with Jim M., a man I thought of as a beloved Uncle, but who was more than that in many ways. He was substance and satire, sturdy and symbolic. If I were to pick one person out of all the family friends who would die first, I never would have picked him. Even though he smoked for a long, long time -- longer than he should have -- and even though he had one of those hard, round bellies cardiologists warn you about, I never would have picked him to be the first.

Probably in the whole scheme of things he wasn't the first, but for me, he felt more like the first than anyone else.

There were other deaths in between Jim M's and Ann's mom, but their impact was not of the same weight or significance. That sounds cold when I write it, but deaths have different weights, like a Richter Scale. While some are a magnitude of 5 and there is significant damage to lives and hearts, a magnitude 6 is ten times more significant and you feel that damage as if it were a thousand times more powerful.

Ann's mom, Genevieve, was in many ways a thousand times more significant, but for very different reasons. It was unexpected. It is unresolved. No one really knows for certain how she died, under what circumstances, and the clouds around her death will most likely remain there for years and years to come -- unresolved. Jim M's death was tragic, too. Asbestos the weapon, corporate greed the murderer.

That's what they share in common, I suppose -- what their deaths both share in common -- that they were both murdered though no one will ever truly be prosecuted for the crimes. No amount of reparations can replace either of them be it money from lawyers willing to settle or from estates spread from Mexico to France.

And then, Jim F. dies as unexpected as any of them, and I am consumed by memories of my childhood, of the days and weeks I spent with his daughter, my best friend, on their 20 acres in what was once a rural part of the county. Carrol, his daughter, had a huge influence on who I became as an adult. She was wildfire and I was water. She was a tiger and I was a kitten. She was the ascent from the highest peak and I was rock firmly resting on solid ground. She'd jump from a plane without a parachute and I wouldn't even step onto the plane. Night and day, but we balanced each other in many ways.

I think her father, Jim F. knew that. Though he was rarely around, rarely really in Carrol's life, he stormed through often and frequently enough that he knew I was the common sense to Carrol's irrational risk-taking. And for that, he treated me like a daughter. Not all loving and cuddly or even supportive and proud, but rather he smiled when he saw me and he'd occasionally give me a hug. He's ask about my life, check in on what I was doing, and he'd do so with the utmost sincerity.

I can't imagine what Carrol is feeling. Her relationship with her father was stormy at the best of times and tsunami-like the rest of the time. She feared him in many ways (I did too...perhaps more than she did), but she always defied him. She'd swing from one end of the teenage angst continuum to the other never resting in the middle, which is where her father would have liked her to land.

Still, he was proud of her, he loved her -- that was obvious -- but there was always the hint of cynical disappointment that his daughter didn't quite turn out like he'd imagined.

Of course, the dead get off easy. It's the living who must deal with all of these questions and doubts, losses and longings.

I've been trying to write a sympathy card to the Jim F's family all day, but I stumble over my own words. Yes, I am sad at his passing and even sadder that his family must now keep on living with all that baggage of their relationship with their father, husband, brother, but Jim F's passing is a 3 on my Richter Scale and I'm struggling to not feel bad about that. Maybe he should be a 5 or a least a 4, I keep thinking. Maybe if he were a 4 the words would flow more easily and the sympathy card would say what I need it to say.

Instead, I just keep thinking about that funny man -- the odd and scary one, too -- who had a biting wit and a quick temper. I keep remembering how we were forbidden to go into his study and how, as a kid, I thought for certain it was protected by an invisible electric fence. I keep remembering how, when Carrol and I would bake cookies or heat up soup, he'd gruffly tell us to "Clean the damn kitchen," or "Don't make a damn mess" and I find it hard to be gentle and thoughtful in my sympathy for his family.

To write about death is more complex than any other topic I've ever tried to write about. It has such layers, stretches to depths I can't quite grasp. It's tangled like roots and knotted together in complex twists my fingers hurt with the attempt to pull it apart.

Ann put a photograph of her mother on the wall in the study the other day. I know she needs to do this, but the other night I had to tell her that it was hard to work when Genevieve kept looking at me with her sad, tired eyes. "Perhaps we could find a different photograph," I suggested and Ann agreed. Ann's sister sent a photograph the other day with a note that said she, too, was trying to "bring up some fond memories."

That is all we are left with in the end, I suppose, shreds of memories that hold us up in the tumble of our grief. Too many are tumbling these days. I want to recall the memories, allow myself to remember fondly, but sometimes I find myself just shutting down. It's too much, I think, it's too much and I worry that this is just the beginning.

Death is a part of life. Death is a part of my life now more than ever and the future does not look promising.

And then I think of when I first heard the expression of Mother Jones who said, "Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living." I always thought that was a feisty bit of advice, but now, with these deaths of the past few years, I understand what she was saying in a much different way. It is the living who need us the most.

It is the living who I need the most.

Due Dates

2009-11-02T20:09:00.001-08:00

Ann flies out tomorrow morning for Phoenix where she'll meet up with her younger sister for the 3 1/2 drive to Mexico. There they'll connect up with their mother's much younger boyfriend and they will divide up their mother's ashes.

Genevieve died Monday morning and our house has been about answering phone calls and Skype calls and emails -- from France and Mexico and Madison, Wisconsin. Ann spent all day yesterday in her classroom preparing lesson plans for the week and tonight admitted that she's lost her patience with demanding parents and energetic second graders.

Nothing's really hit her yet. At least, that's my unprofessional assessment. She cried on Monday morning just a bit, but has been focused every day on working, preparing, and making plans to travel to Arizona and then to Mexico. I know she'll cry eventually. She's not the kind who doesn't cry. She hates it when I tell her, but she's not a pretty crier so I can only imagine how ugly it will be when she really opens up and lets herself feel the loss of her mother.

And then when it hits her that her father is gone, too. They'll be a flood.

We're planning a memorial in early December in Phoenix. Ann has asked me to go with her then, but not tomorrow. When we made that decision it seemed like the best one, but now that I think about her in Phoenix and then Mexico absorbing it all and crying in that tight-fisted way she does, I wish I were going to comfort her.

But I don't think there is much comfort to be offered. Her mother died. Unexpectedly, but not necessarily surprisingly. Her mother's health had always been iffy and she was stubborn about her medications and doctor's opinions. You couldn't argue with her. She knew what she was going to do and there was no persuading her otherwise. She'd lived her whole life like that so it makes a kind of ironic sense that she'd die that way clutching her heart that she was convinced was perfectly fine even after all the doctors told her otherwise.

Ann is pragmatic, though. Unlike me, she doesn't hold onto things past their due date. She feels her grief with intensity and commitment, but when she's grieved, she moves on with sensitivity and practicality. I'm not sure I could do the same, but then I'm the person who holds onto way too much stuff long past its due date.

Still, I wish I could be there when the tears come just to hold her, just to listen, just to hand her tissues and remind her to breathe. That's the problem with her crying, really. She holds her breath for what seems like hours. Her face scrunched up and red it's like she'll burst. And then I say, "Breathe" and she laughs just enough to take some air in once, twice, and then holds her breath again and then I wait, nervous about how long it's been since her last breath and I say, "Breathe" and we go through the whole thing again.

Rubin is worried. He sees her packed bag by the front door and all night long he's curled up by her feet, wherever she may be, and sighs these big deep sighs. He's reminding her to breathe too. He wants to be there in Phoenix and in Mexico, but instead, we'll be here waiting for her phone calls, her Skype calls, her emails...waiting for her return.

This is the time of my life, isn't it, when people die? I've been lucky (if luck is really the right word) that not too many people I'm close to have died yet. There have been some, important people, but when I talk to others my age, my death statistics are a mere blip on the screen compared to others. Of course, that might mean that my blip, when it happens, spikes all at once. For now, my grief tank is pretty full compared to so many others.

Compared to Ann's.

Ann comes home on Saturday evening. I'll be there, of course, with open arms and the dog waiting in the car in the airport parking lot. She'll like that, to see the dog and know that she's coming home. She'll talk about the difficulty of it all -- finding the will, bringing home the ashes, seeing her mother's belongings, meeting the boyfriend for the first time. She'll talk about the stories she remembered with her sister and the hot weather in Phoenix and the hotter weather in Mexico. She'll talk about her Dad, remembering his death again. And she'll talk about her mother and the complicated relationship she had with her, they all had with her.

And I'll make potato leek soup again, from her mother's recipe, and bake fresh bread and on Sunday morning, we'll get up and I'll drive to the wonderful French bakery in West Seattle and buy a fresh baguette and some pomme chaussons for us to eat. I'll make her my best latte and rub her feet and later, when Rubin gives us that look, we'll go for a walk down by the lake and look for the turtles who like to bask in the sun.

It's November now. They'll be no turtles. It's too cold, but we'll look anyway. You just never know.

Gnawing

2009-11-01T19:46:00.001-08:00

I like how Rubin deals with his frustrations. Take this photo where he's destroying a large stick with glee. I sometimes feel like I need a large stick on which to gnaw. Even the word "gnaw" sounds mighty appealing. It actually fits the action which it labels.

Currently, I'm still sort of gnawing on being "fired" by one of my dog walking clients. Everyone tells me not to worry. She'll pay me for last month's services and that will be that. But late at night (or early in the morning) I find myself still gnawing that stick. It doesn't matter what the gnaw is about, I just can't seem to let it go, which is funny because, in the middle of the day, when everything is rational and balanced, I'm actually glad to be rid of her. And her dog, too.

That dog was my most difficult walk and since I walked her every day, I started to dread the 1 o' clock hour. I liked her well enough, but the physical energy I had to exert to get that dog to focus on walking nicely was exhausting. A few weeks ago I got a massage from my favorite massage therapist. She started digging into my left shoulder when I flinched and gasped. "Sorry," she said, "But there's something deep here."

"The dog," I said only I named the dog and then I told her how hard I had to work to not be pulled down the street by this exuberant, out-of-control dog. Weird thing is, I really liked the dog. I mean, when she settled down and we got to walking, she was really quite fun and silly. But settling down and getting to walking sometimes took 50 minutes of the hour we were together. Sometimes, because I felt so sorry for her that she had to go back into her crate for another 5 hours after I dropped her off, I'd take her out for a longer time at no charge to the owner. That wore me out even more.

But today, when I was making a pear streussel and using the last of our tomatoes for a pasta sauce, I said to Ann, "I feel free knowing I don't have to walk that dog anymore."

Ann just kept correcting papers and so I added, "She really wore me out!"

"The dog or the owner?" Ann smiled without lifting her head up from the 2nd graders' spelling tests.

Good question.

So in those balanced moments like today, I'm glad my schedule has opened up more. I'm glad that my left side won't be pulled up and down hills, that I won't be jerked left to right or have to pick up large poos 5 or 6 times in one walk.

It's just at night when that I start gnawing on it all, replaying the whole thing in my mind again that I wish, like Rubin, I could just find a huge stick to destroy enthusiastically and then be done with it! Fall fast asleep in a little ball, my feet flinching with the memory of it all.

49 hours

2009-10-30T20:41:00.001-07:00

My clock will be turned back one hour on Saturday night. I want to turn it back now, but then everything would be wrong tomorrow.

Still. Not everything has been right this week.

I want to turn it back now because I want time to turn back just a little. Not a lot. Just one hour of a little.

This has been a weird week. Ann's mother died at 5:30 Monday morning. We received an email from her ex-convict, Mexican much younger boyfriend. In broken English he wrote "your mother dead" and we sat staring at the screen like someone had just sent us a chain letter that we didn't quite understand.

Phone calls to Mexico and France and Phoenix and even to Peru. Arrangements. Cremation. Emails from her mother's Facebook friends. More phone calls. More emails.

Ann must buy a ticket to Phoenix, but not until her sister comes home from her vacation in Peru. They must make their plans. The day they drive to Mexico. The day they drive back to Phoenix.

Still Ann has not cried. She did at first, but only a little. Now it feels unreal. It's just a thought, not a reality yet. I know when she sees her sister she'll cry. They'll both cry and that will be good.

Meanwhile, I will stay at home until December when we will fly down together for a memorial. Meanwhile, I will continue working at the school in the mornings and walking dogs the rest of the day. The rest of the week.

Only one less dog since an owner "fired" me. A training dispute, she called it. Ironically, I was formulating a letter to fire her. So today, I didn't walk the dog I normally walk every day and I was happy about it. Well, sort of happy. I wasn't nearly as tired as I normally am on a Friday. I no longer have the dog pulling at my left arm, lunging forward on the wet sidewalks, making me worry that I'd slip on the slick leaves.

Yes, training differences. We can call it that.

And in between Ann's mother dying and the dog not being walked today were all these stupid worries that consume me at times, making it hard to sleep, making it hard to believe in myself, making me doubt the path I am on. Can my body take being a dog walker as a career? Can I make a living at it? I mean, I am making somewhat of a living, but I can't walk that many more dogs to increase my income. Do I really want to go back to teaching?

And what about Ann? She deserves time off, too. She deserves to find a passion and follow it. But we need her health insurance and her steady income. If I went back to teaching, even more part time than I already am, she might get that break and my body might not hurt so much from dogs pulling me down the street.

But it was only really one dog and now that dog is gone. I will miss her, but at the same time I won't miss the owner who thinks everything the dog does wrong is my fault. Yes, I am too excited and therefore the dog jumps on me and bites my hands or my collar or my hair. Yes, I am too excited. If I were calmer, she'd behave. Calmer like the owner only every time I see her with the dog, there is the same behavior -- the biting, the jumping, the crazy flaying and spinning.

Training differences. I should say.

So much is swirling around my head. Ann wants me to get angry and realize that this is for the best. No more dog that destroys my body. I want Ann to cry about her mother's death so I can comfort her. She must be sad. Or maybe not yet. Maybe it's not her reality yet.

It's so hard to figure out what to do next. That's why I need the extra hour so I don't have to anything next. The other 48 hours I'll do something -- mostly practicing letting it go -- but during that one hour I just want to sleep in or sit in the sun (if there's sun) or eat a waffle with blueberries or raid the Halloween candy one more time.

A 49 hour weekend. How blissful. Or so I hope.

On Second Thought

2009-10-19T21:03:00.000-07:00

It crossed my mind today that maybe I don't want to be a dog walker. For those who know me well, this second guessing comes as no shock since I'm always doubting my decisions. But today, while walking only 3 dogs, I thought, "Maybe this isn't what I want to be doing."

Of course, I'm sick with some laryngitis thingy, am feeling overwhelmed by both teaching part-time and owning my own dog walking business, and have realized that owning one's own business means it's really difficult to call in sick. Perhaps this isn't the best time to be second guessing myself, but it's against my nature not to so here I go.

What I miss this year (as opposed to last year when I was just freelance writing and walking dogs) is the extra time I had in my life for things like cooking, cleaning, paying bills, and just thinking. I miss the thinking the most -- those quiet times in the morning when I could really stretch out and collect my thoughts. I don't have that anymore, which is probably partly the reason I am sick and partly the reason for my second thoughts.

So today I thought, "How do I get that back? How do I get that time back to write, to read, to think?" I could quit teaching, though that won't happen until next June since I can't really abandon my contract. Or I could quit dog walking and just teach part time. But here's the irony of it all -- dog walking gives me the physical stimulation I need as well as the time to really think about my writing and my life. Teaching sucks it out of me and by "it" I mean everything that grounds me.

Even this year. I'm only teaching a minimal amount and already it feels consuming. And the weird thing is, I'm not really into it. I go in, do my job, but nothing feels like it's on fire and that's the part I used to really like about teaching -- being on fire. Of course, being on fire is probably what literally burned me out because frankly, no one can sustain that kind of energy for very long. I'm living proof.

So now, between the walking dogs all day long and the teaching in the mornings, I'm back to that place I was before where there's no time for me. No time for thinking. No time to relax. No time to breathe. No time for doctor's appointments or going to the post office or shopping at the Farmer's Market.

No wonder I'm sick. And I know better. Don't make decisions when you feel crappy because the decision will always end up being crappy.

So I shall go to bed. I shall sleep. I shall shake this thing and get through what needs to be gotten through. No more second thoughts. I just need to find time for the first ones, then I can have the second ones!

I Just Had Ta

2009-10-11T11:12:00.001-07:00

Each week I put in about 30-40 miles of walking with my dog walking business. My feet hurt by the end of the week. On Friday, I got a massage and my massage therapist said, "Do you walk on weekends?"

"Not usually," was my mumbled response since she always puts me in a state of such relaxation, it's hard to do anything but grunt and groan.

"Good, you need to give your body a rest."

It's true, but today I just had to go for a walk down by the lake and up through the neighborhoods. It's beautiful out there and with the promise of rain for the next few weeks, this seemed like my last chance for a shirt-sleeve walk and photographs. So armed with the dog, my camera, and my backpack we headed out for the lake and then up through the neighborhoods, about 5 miles in total.

While the lake was beautiful, the part I like the most about the walk is the passage through Sam Smith Park. Whoever designed that park needs continued accolades because it's the best kept secret in Seattle. The trees are blazing with color and the park invites you to just stroll and take your time. It leads to the tunnel over I-90 and down to the lake. I spend a lot of time in this park and I never tire of it. So today, I whipped out the camera and took photos of the trees, the park, and the views of Seattle.

I know I should have rested my body today, but really, I just had to walk this morning. The benefits of the walk had to outweigh the damage to my body. It just had ta!

Chagrin

2009-10-10T16:07:00.000-07:00

Much to everyone's chagrin, I do not own a cell phone. I may be stupid in many ways, but I cannot tell you how much I loathe and despise them. It's like they rule everyone's life and they have become an acceptable excuse for being rude. How many people do you know, with whom you are carrying on a conversation, stop everything to answer their phone? No apologies, no turning it off and answering the message later, no, "do you mind if I get this?" Nope, they look at the phone and maybe, maybe say, "I'm sorry, I have to take this call from my brain surgeon," though more times than not, they take the call and stop all conversation.

Okay, I'm ranting. My rant comes from the fact that yesterday, as I crossed the street at a designated crosswalk complete with red lights and my own walk sign, I almost got run over by a woman who was looking at her cell phone while driving. I've seen this many times and have often yelled or worse while similar cell phone addicted drivers run red lights, but yesterday was beyond comprehension. I was halfway through the crosswalk! I had one dog walking on my right side, the other on my left. Luckily, they were close at my side and I had control of them because when I looked up (HALFWAY ACROSS) a minivan was moving on through the crosswalk with nary a drop in speed limit. I yelled, "Hey!" as loud as I could and the woman looked up from her cell phone as she passed me by and then waved.

Waved! Like "Oh hi, didn't see you!" Didn't see me? What about the red light you just blatantly ran? Or the two large dogs at my side. Or the fact that I had on a bright red shirt? Guess you can't see anything when you're LOOKING DOWN AT YOUR CELL PHONE!

Did she stop? Nope. Just a wave and she was off. The driver behind her stopped and from her car I could see her shaking her head. "I was almost killed here!" I wanted to shout. I wanted someone to notice the stupidity of it all, but instead, I made my way across the rest of the crosswalk to the park on the other side and burned my anger all the way home.

Okay, maybe this has nothing to do with my own refusal to get a cell phone, but I just don't want to become that kind of person - oblivious and over-multi-tasking. Friends call me on their cell phones, family members too, and if I can tell they are driving -- even if it's a hand held device -- I tell them to call me when they've stopped. God knows I don't want them hitting some dog walker in the middle of a cross walk.

Enough of my rant.

In my calm moments, I see the benefit of a cell phone especially as a professional dog walker. But the idea of it feels wrong. I mean, 15 years ago there were dog walkers without cell phones, right? They got along just fine, didn't they? Why is now any different?

My real dislike stems from the idea that we must be communicating or open to the possibility of communicating every second of every day. In other words, we keep ourselves busy -- dialing, texting, talking -- and why? Does it really make for better relationships? Does it really make us more connected? What I love about being a dog walker is that amazingly wonderful quiet time when it's just me and the dogs walking through whatever kind of weather happens to present itself that day. I can think about all sorts of things and not have to feel pressured to connect in ways that pull me into a million different directions. Even when I'm pulled into four different directions I feel ineffective. I can't imagine being pulled into any more.

I know cell phones serve a purpose. I know they aren't evil in and of themselves (though they are made from coltan mined in Africa by hungry teenagers and destroying jungle habitat), but they've somehow turned us into evil people. Okay, lady, you almost hit me. Couldn't you stop your van, get out and apologize? Couldn't you say, "Gosh, I'm so sorry. I was being stupid while talking on my cell phone. I'll never do that again!"

Or were you just too busy talking on the phone to give a #@% that you almost killed me?

My Mother's Daughter

2009-10-03T18:33:00.001-07:00

My parents are both excellent cooks or perhaps the proper term these days, with all the cooking shows on, is chefs. My mother, in particular, spends the majority of her life in the kitchen. The rest of her time is spent campaigning for Democrats. While I admire her for both endeavors, I seem to have inherited more of her cooking side than her political side. Let's just say that politics gives me a stomach ache while cooking lowers my blood pressure.

So today, after a long, long week of teaching and dog walking, I needed to make something. I needed to relax and the best way I know of relaxing is to cook.

See, I am my mother's daughter.

It started with the desire to make these power bars that our friend Jessica once made for us when we went camping in Twisp (yes, there is a town named Twisp and the bakery...one of the best in the world in my humble opinion...is called the Cinnamon Twisp). These power bars were so natural, so organic I was certain that would grow roots out of my feet, fertilized by brown rice syrup, organic puffed rice, and steel cut oats.

Then Jessica left for India and I never got the recipe. Well, she's back now and today we made power bars complete with candied ginger, organic almonds and pecans, and yes, the infamous candied ginger.

As far as cooking goes, the power bars were beyond easy, so before Jessica arrived, I started to make chicken soup and prep for basil cream chicken pot pie. By the time Jessica arrived, I'd used every pan we own so we had to wash the dishes before we could melt the candied ginger with the brown rice syrup.

Now we're waiting for the basil cream chicken pot pie to finish in the oven complete with homemade biscuits on top. I've tried to help out by doing all the dishes, but let's just say, it's been a whirlwind in the kitchen. My mother would be (and probably is) proud.

Tomorrow there's a lot to do. Papers to grade, lessons to plan, billing to organize, dog walks to schedule along with cleaning the house and doing the weekly shopping. But I gave myself today -- no obligations, no commitments -- just an apron, a dirty pan, and some melted candied ginger!

Playing

2009-09-13T11:01:00.000-07:00

"Dear Dog, she bought a new camera!"

The way things turned out -- my camera wouldn't work. Tried to fix it, but no luck. So, I decided to buy a new camera. In the course of buying a new one, I also bought a new battery for the old one and what do you know? The old camera now works AND I also have a new camera.

It's okay. Now that have my own (nice) camera, I won't hog the camera and Ann can use it more.

Lucky me.

I played with the camera and the settings yesterday and this morning. Here's what I'm learning...

This photo is on "fine" image. Later I turned to "standard" to see a difference. I like how the camera picked up the morning light as Rubin does his morning stretches.

Again, the light is defined really well and it captures the details of Quillette's whiskers on the left side (right in the photo) of her face.
This is a pot on our deck. I had on the telephoto lens. I think it would have done better with the standard lens, but still, lots of nice detail and pretty realistic with the colors.
I really get the feeling of morning in this photo, maybe because Ann's in her pajamas, but the eastern light highlights everything very well and I'm impressed that the camera picks that up.
We went for a walk up over the hill and I took this photo of the I-90 bridge or the floating bridges even though Quillette was pulling at the leash. This is NOT a "fine" setting, but rather "standard." Still, it picked up what it looked like with my eyes and did a nice job capturing even the details of the shade in which we were standing.
Coleman Pea Patch is the climb back up over the hill. Lots of shades of green. Can you see it?
Telephoto lens again. I like how the dahlias stand out against the green background.
Ann wanted to play, too so she fiddled with a few photos. This one turned out the best. I'm not darkened by the light over my head. Nice.
We stopped at the bakery at the top of the hill for some delicious bread pudding (the baker only makes it on weekends) and ran into an old border collie named Chance. Even the peeling paint on the door behind him is pretty vivid.

I think I'm going to really like this camera. Tomorrow will be the true test since I'll be taking photos of my students on a ropes course in the foggy morning (or so it's predicted) and then of my dog clients in the sunny (or so it's predicted) afternoon. And I get to test the action setting. Should be fun!

Lost to the Dogs

2009-09-12T10:00:00.001-07:00

And here I stand

2009-08-26T07:11:00.000-07:00

I've gone back to work teaching part time. These past two weeks, we've been in our classrooms, attending meetings, and doing all those little things that need to get done before the kids walk through the door. Every year of my teaching career (I'm about to enter into my 23rd), there are attempts to help teachers find balance in their lives. There are workshops and discussions, small group get togethers, and commitments by everyone to not work as hard this year as last.

Nothing has changed this year. In fact, we were all handed a leather journal and asked to complete a writing assignment that will be given to us every week. I have mixed feelings about this, but have decided to make the attempt.

The first topic of the journal is why I became a teacher. This is a difficult question for me to answer, but here's my attempt:

I was combing through photos the other day, clearing out my computer files of accumulations I really don't need when I came across a photo of Rubin, our dog, as a 9 week old puppy. He stood in the kitchen looking up at something, his round puppy belly covered in red curls, his tail straight up, and his ears perked and ready for action.

And then I laughed. The laughter came out of nowhere and caught me by surprise. He is now an adult version of that puppy picture in all respects except for his legs. In the photo, his body is about 10 inches in length, but his legs are about 3 inches high. Today, Rubin is all legs -- the tall, muscular legs of his poodle genes. But in the photo, I could barely find his legs and this is what made me laugh. Sure, I can see the adult Rubin in the puppy Rubin, but what I realized is that as he aged, his legs simply got longer. He literally grew up, his legs stretching tall lifting his body further off the ground with each passing month.

When I look back at my career as a teacher, I realize I am much like Rubin. I didn't have teacher legs. I had these little stubs that held up a form uncertain of my potential. I look back on why I became a teacher and I can't put my finger on any one moment or person that said, "You must teach" nor did I have any desire to teach. Not really.

My mother would disagree pointing out that as a kid I always liked hanging out with younger kids and as a teenager, volunteered to work at a school for autistic children all on my own. "No one made you do that," my mother would say. That may be, but I still don't remember saying to myself "I want to be a teacher."

I wanted to be a professional athlete most of my high school years and as a little kid, I wanted to dance on the Carol Burnett Show, but I the latter was more because I knew at a very young age I was gay though I had no language for it. I just had a serious crush on Carol Burnett. If I danced on her show, I'd be close to her.

I didn't go to college to become a teacher. Instead I worked in television news hoping one day to be an editor, which I thought would catapult me into film making. Then, after about three years working for an industry I have very little respect for anymore, I left, headed back to school and got my teaching degree. Looking back, I haven't a clue why I made that choice. I know I had some friends who encouraged it, I know I was fed up with my stressful job, I know I was at the end of tumultuous relationship, and I know I was always a follower more than a leader so somehow, someway I followed something other than my own initiative into teaching.

And the first years were anything but easy. Still that's when my legs grew, if you will, and 5 years later, then 10, then 15 I looked down and saw that my teacher legs had gotten longer and stronger. It was shortly after my 15th year of teaching that I could finally say to myself -- hey, I'm pretty good at this and really mean it. It was a bumpy, bumpy road up until that point and I still have moments when I doubt, in the deepest sense, what the hell I'm doing or have done with my life.

But these are my legs. Whatever path led me here, I've come to realize, was the right path. Just as Rubin was destined to be a long-legged dog even though he was born with stumpy short legs, there was some kind of voodoo working lifting me up into the teacher I am now.

And here I stand.

The World Asleep

2009-07-12T08:37:00.001-07:00

I am sitting in my brother's dining room on his computer while everyone else sleeps. Even the dogs, each curled by my side, are asleep. I hear rumblings occasionally -- my parents' radio downstairs, my sister-in-law shuffling her slippered feet in the master bathroom, and the bird -- a loud cockatiel -- silent in her cage.

The loudest noise comes from the swallows who have nested in my brother's chimney. Every 15 minutes or so, they chirp in urgency. No doubt the mother had returned from a successful hunting trip and they loudly protest to be fed first upon her arrival.

It's beautiful here, though the beautiful blue skies of yesterday have given way to gray. Still, the horses are in the pasture just beyond the fence line, the wide expanse of open fields dotted with groves of walnut trees stretches out before me, and the colors of summer -- wheat and green -- remind me of a pastoral watercolor.

I am taking pictures, trying to lift my lens from the dogs and the landscape to my family. My mother with her gray curls for the first time in a long time not working in the kitchen; my father quietly sitting in the shade on the porch, smiling ever so slightly at our constant stories and witticisms; my sister-in-law who takes up work in the kitchen preparing meals, cleaning the counters, and discussing exact instructions for barbequing the halibut; Ann, my love, swinging in the macramé chair suspended at the corner of the deck, enjoying my family as much if not more than I am; and finally the dogs -- ours and theirs -- learning to co-habitat and share and occasionally chase each other around the yard.

This is not what I expected my life to be, but now that I'm here, I can't think of any other place I'd rather end up. In the car ride down here, I told Ann that I was hesitant to say it, but my life feels golden right now.

"I don't want to open myself up to disappointment," I explained and she laughed telling me to relax and appreciate it all.

I'm trying.

Now, with the world around me still asleep, I'm letting myself settle in to the golden moments. And just as I feel my body sigh, a bathroom door opens, I hear more rustling from downstairs, and the world opens its eyes.

Oops, I'm Not Keeping Up

2009-07-01T08:09:00.001-07:00

Summertime is always so much busier than I think it will be. I can't keep up. Ann's mom left yesterday morning and Ann morphed back into her real self -- relaxed, jovial, unhurried -- but the busy pace of the past few weeks keeps building and I'm not sure I can keep up.

Okay, so I'm blowing it all out of proportion, I'm sure, but still it's hard to find time to do all the things I want to do like hiking and lake swimming and cycling and visiting and let's not forget eating. Summer foods are my favorite. I must find time to eat, but not gain back the weight I've lost.

And there you have it: The paradox of summer. So little time, so many temptations.

Ann just set a slice of her beautifully delicious cherry clafouti down in front of me. What's a girl to do?

So here is my attempt at catching up. My favorite moments of the past two weeks captured digitally:

The best grilled polenta I've ever tasted...
Jocelyn and Maisy (cousins) sitting in a leather boat made by Maisy's dad out of two leather chairs pushed together. Who needs toys!
A magnificent lunch with my amazing parents who entertained Ann's mom for an afternoon -- yum and thank you!
The lunch was so good I had to sleep it off before we headed back to Seattle...
Ann's mom, Genevieve, stemming cherries that later she pitted (by hand) and from which Ann made three clafouti's, six jars of cherry/rhubarb jam, and still there's a bowl of pitted cherries in the fridge.
Visiting our good friends on Vashon where Rubin got to swim in the Sound (brrr) in the shadow of Mt. Rainier.
Swimming at Doris and Steven's house...
And there is that cute, cute Maisy again getting her diapers wet...
Oh and there is so much more...stay tuned. I'll catch up at some point!

A Father and a Day

2009-06-22T20:07:00.000-07:00

The other night I woke from a bizarre dream. I was on a boat with my entire family right down to uncles and cousins and distant relatives on board as well. We were leaving. That was the sense. Not that we were going anywhere, but that we were leaving only something was wrong. Mom and Dad were not on the boat. We were still at the dock so I looked to see if I could find them and there they were -- my mother in the lead, my father right behind, and my sister behind him holding her little dog. My sister was laughing, my mom was waving, and dad was looking down at the water.

I thought Is he nervous about the water? Is his eyesight bad? Does he know the boat is about to leave? What does he see?

I knew they'd missed the boat, but I tried to make it up to the pilot house to let the captain know we needed to go back, that the whole family wasn't on the boat. But I couldn't find the pilot house or anyone else who worked on the boat so I stood on the stern and waved as the boat powered on its way. My mother was looking off in the distance, not in the direction of the boat, my father was still looking down at the dock, and my sister was still laughing, slapping her thigh as if she just heard the funniest joke.

No one waved back.

Then I realized it was all a dream. This happens to me often. In the middle of the dream I realize I'm dreaming and then I redirect the dream. This is my dream and I can make it do what I want, I say to myself and then whatever I want to have happen, happens.

So I made the boat go back to the dock. I didn't make it turn around. Instead, I made the boat back up or go in reverse so that I never lost sight of my parents and my sister. But once I'd realized it was a dream and that I had control of what happened, I woke up. My last image was of my father looking up from the dock and finally seeing me. He lifted his right hand slowly and ever-so-slightly gave a little wave then turned toward my mom and sister to let them know I was on the boat, but they didn't see me.

I'm never sure what dreams mean. I try to analyze them for some kind of meaning and with my father 81 years old, my mother 82, and my sister living across the country, there are a bevy of interpretations I could offer this dream.

I don't want to. Instead, I want to focus on the fact that I could get the boat to go in reverse with my thoughts alone. No need for a captain or a crew member, no need to find the pilot house or to alert any of my other relatives that our family was incomplete.

When I woke from the dream, I felt a combination of grief and confidence. The dream stayed with me for most of the day as we drove to my parents' house for the Father's Day weekend. I suppose it's rather ironic that my brother, who came with my niece, brought kayaks and we spent the first afternoon paddling the inlet where the current pushed us rapidly toward our parents' house. My brother and niece headed out on the boats first and as I stood on the shore waving to them, the emotions of the dream returned to me. I was sad, but hopeful. I was confident, but overwhelmed with the feeling that the tide was more powerful than my ability to change any course.

We had a great weekend despite my dream. We're boarding a cute dog this weekend named Argo, so he came with us as did our own dog, Rubin. They were both fun to have around with Rubin lying by my father's or my brother's feet depending on who was sitting in the living room. Argo hung out on the couch, but occasionally sat in dad's lap just long enough for a photograph.
We ate way too much (why can I never feel full at my parents' house?) and laughed a lot. We told stories, watched bad TV, and took naps.

That's how a Father's Day should be spent, I think, the sails not as full as they normally are, surrounded by a family all looking up.

A Matter of Money

2009-06-17T08:41:00.000-07:00

Running my own business, a business dependent upon people and their money, has made me realize (though I realized it before just not this realized) we all look at money in very different ways.

Take for instance this client: Three cars -- two SUVs and a sports car -- one BMW, one Mercedes, and one Honda. There's money there, yes? Or perhaps it is locked up in car payments. Hard to say, but three cars and two people makes very little sense to me. Okay, there's a small child involved and an even smaller dog but the small ones can't drive. So while each adult drives a car, one car sits. The client said to me, rather off hand, "I'm not sure why I bought that BMW."

I'm thinking: Sell it.

Instead, I am asked to cut my rate for dog sitting. Not by 10% or 20%, but by 60%. Only, they didn't ask me directly. They accidentally "replied all" on an email and I got to see the request from wife to husband. "Perhaps we could negotiate the price?" she wrote and then offered a sum for seven days of work, a sum 60% less than what I'd normally charge.

I would have offered them a discounted rate since I know seven days is a long time and times are tough. I usually do this, but I wasn't afforded (interesting word) the opportunity. And it's hard to imagine cutting my rate by 60%.

Not when they have three cars in the driveway, two of which cost more than the full-time salary I made as a teacher.

Not when I inadvertently receive an email asking to negotiate my rate.

Or take a look at this client: Large house on the water. In large I mean at least 4000 square feet. Four cars which includes a Volvo for their daughter. Really nice people. They never once questioned the rate I charged for pet sitting their dog.

Okay, that works for me. I clear my calendar to make room for their dog since I only sit one dog at a time. Now they may want the dog back earlier, which means I cleared my schedule of potential clients who would pay me for the whole time in exchange for a dog who won't be staying with me for as long as scheduled.

Not a big deal to them...they get their dog back, but I'm out money. Money I could have earned from someone else.

I can't figure out if they just assume I have enough money and dog walk and pet sit for fun or if it never crossed their mind that $100 carries more weight with me than it may for them.

Or maybe it's both.

Or maybe it's neither. Maybe it's something entirely different. I can't tell, but in both instances I would not make the same choices.

I know this makes me sound as if I think I'm better than them, which is not my intent, but still may be how it comes across. I wouldn't own three expensive cars nor cheat my dog walker out of the rate she quotes me. I might cancel my boarding dates, but I'd expect a cancellation fee or even offer to pay part of what I'd agreed to pay originally.

What I've learned is that people with money and people without have a very different view of the world. I have one client who I know scraps together the money to pay me every month AND they include a tip. I have another client who balked at a rate increase, which was still half the rate I normally charge and yet every month she flies to San Francisco or New York because she "has to get away." And she NEVER tips. NEVER.

Money makes my stomach hurt. It always has. Funny how I end up here, dickering over money with people who view it very different than I do.

One View

2009-06-14T11:22:00.001-07:00

Phoebe on the right with her fellow PhD friends.

Now that I'm 50 years old, I look at the world differently. It was inevitable, I suppose and I know I'm not the first 50 year old to feel this way, still it's curious to look around and assess the world from this misnamed halfway point.

Last night was our friends' daughter's (Phoebe's) PhD celebration at her parents' house. Doris and Stephen are like family and therefore by extension, Phoebe and her family are part of ours. For me, Phoebe represents energy -- the kind of energy I don't think I ever had even when I was her age (early 30s). In the past 5 years she has gotten married with a large wedding at her parents' house, she had her first child, and completed her PhD in Philosophy and Anthropology with a focus on shell fossils.

Just writing that paragraph made me tired. Was I that ambitious 20-25 years ago? I don't think so, but I know I could stay up later than I can now. I know my body didn't hurt as much as it does now. And I know I could eat a helluva lot more than I can now and not suffer the consequences.

But then I look at Phoebe's mom, the Grandmother to Phoebe's daughter Jocelyn. Doris is in her mid-late 60s and seems to have more energy than Phoebe. Two days a week she provides daycare for Jocelyn and two other days a week she provides daycare for her other grandchild, Maisy (only a few months older than her cousin Jocelyn). Occasionally she watches Elliot and like one of those relationship mazes, he is the son of her son-in-law's brother and his wife.
Elliot has a new baby sister, Penelope and while she has yet to stay with Doris and Stephen, her other Grandmother steps in.

This, I suppose, is what everyone thinks about when they define nuclear family and even though it's gotten a bad rap as of late, it's a pretty sweet deal. Everyone seems extremely happy with the arrangement. In addition to all the daycare, there's a weekly evening meal where the whole lot of them get together for a massive dinner that includes food fit for the vegetarians and the carnivores, the lactose intolerant and the gluten-free dieters.

Is this what I want in my life? No. I'm happy. I'm content. I like the relationship I have at home with Ann, with my friends, and with my biologicals. It all suits me and it does not wear me out...well, not on a weekly basis. But mine is just one view of family; Doris and Steven's is another view. Theirs suits them as much as mine suits me.

Yet, like a Venn Diagram we cross, sharing a family space of commonalities. Their family represents energy and laughter, and accomplishments. Mine represents the same laughter, but it's much more relaxed and settled. There aren't big things to get accomplished and though my niece may end up with a PhD at some point in her life, no one is working on such accomplishments while getting married and then getting pregnant.

Phoebe's homemade PhD cake (made by her mother, Doris) representing the three degrees of the three candidates - fish, charcoal and shells...yes, all edible.

Blueberries

2009-06-08T13:54:00.000-07:00

I am eating fresh blueberries. I am in heaven.

There are two dogs fast asleep beside me. One is my own -- Rubin and he is tired after a big romp at the off-leash park including swimming in the river. The other is Marley who, if I didn't already have a dog, would try to adopt. That's the trouble with my work. Dog walking introduces you to many dogs as well as their families. Most families of the dogs I walk are responsible owners, but every once in awhile I am asked to walk a dog whose circumstances pain me.

Marley is such a dog and although I was never asked to walk Marley (I offered), it's very hard to put him back in his yard knowing he will spend the rest of the day (and night) there without much human interaction.

And so, as comfort, I am eating blueberries while he sleeps. I'm not sure if it comforts Marley that I eat berries, but he must feel how delighted I am in their sweet tartness and fleshy juice.

I have yet to see Marley settle down. This is a first. Usually, he is all over the place peeing to his heart's content as he is not yet neutered (yes, part of the neglect he faces in his life). I rarely bring him inside the house for fear he'll lift his leg on anything that smell like Rubin. Occasionally, like today, I'll let him in the house on a leash and then he walks wherever I walk. Now that I am at the desk, he has no other choice but to be here with me and so he's relaxed into a nice nap and I have let the leash relax as well.

There is nothing like a contented dog.
There is nothing like a neglected dog.

Both pull at me emotionally and thus, the blueberries.

Marley does not belong to the neighbors up the street. They are watching him for some friends. Since Marley is used to activity in his life, sitting on the back porch all day (and night) long is very boring so he jumps the fence and comes to our house. They've fortified the fence as best they can and while I've agreed to walk him for 30 minutes a day, he ends up getting much more than what the time I'm getting paid.

How can I turn him away?

He goes back to his real home tomorrow afternoon and I'm hoping the whole out-of-sight-out-of-mind effect kicks in. It will be nice to walk by the neighbor's house and not have to see the bored dog howling at me from the back porch.

But I shall miss him. He's a really wonderful dog -- so smart and loving and willing to please -- it's a shame he hasn't found a better home in this life. A home with loving owners who take him everywhere they go, train him to do tricks, and teach him to swim and fetch and roll over on command. A home that feeds him better food than kibble from the grocery store, who allow him to suck on frozen marrow bones, and toss blueberries in the air so he can catch them.

Maybe he'll find his blueberries in the next life.

Hot Tamales

2009-05-31T15:31:00.000-07:00

It's warm out, though not as warm as yesterday and the day before. Still, standing on our neighbor's porch making tamales was sweaty business!

This Summer I Went Swimming

2009-05-30T07:43:00.001-07:00

My parents tell me that when I was a kid, I took to the water like a fish. I'd leap off the side of the pool and into someone's waiting arms so repetitively, they grew tired before I did. It's no wonder then, that our son (read DOG) likes to do the same thing -- swim, leap, and splash.

And it's no wonder that one of my favorite songs is called the Swimming Song:

"This summer I went swimming, this summer I almost drown
But I held my breath and I kicked my feet
And I moved my arms around, moved my arms around"
(best version sung by Kate and Anna McGarrigle, but written by Loudon Wainwright)

Yesterday was hot and now that my life is spent primarily outside (as a dog walker) and I am approaching my menopause years, I get hot in the sweltering heat. For instance, yesterday was not only a full day of dog walking (8 dogs in total), but it was our first 80 degree day. While those who live in Phoenix may laugh at 80 degrees, for those of us in the PNW 80 degrees is record breaking heat. And since it was the first day of such heat, no one was prepared for it. Remember, we are the people who rejoice when it's 60 and bask in the "heat" of such a day by wearing shorts.

So, when I began the walk with my last set of dogs, my destination was the lake even though I knew that the lake was at the bottom of a very, very big hill. Going down to the water wasn't a problem for any of us, but going back up was quite a climb. Even the dogs had to stop in the shade and catch their breaths.

Lucky for them, though, they'd gotten into the lake (I did not) so they were quite a bit cooler than I when we made the climb back up. I was beat red and drenched in sweat by the time we arrived and even the air conditioning in the car couldn't cool me off fast enough.

I had to laugh yesterday when Rubin, Monty, and I got into that warm car. I blasted the air conditioning while Rubin and Monty jockeyed for the perfect position, which for them is right between the two front seats since that's where the cool air is felt the best. Like an old married couple both sweaty and hot, Monty would push his larger body into Rubin's trying to get him to move over and Rubin would growl as if to say, "Don't touch me, I'm hot!" Once they got their positions settled, they sat sphinx-like side-by-side with their tongues long and panting. It was quite a sight.

So when Ann got home shortly after our last walk, I asked if we could go to our friend's house for a swim. "Great idea!" Ann agreed and we piled the dogs (yes, Monty was still with us) into the car and drove straight to the pool. I wore my wetsuit because the pool is unheated and we haven't had enough warm days to really heat up the pool, but I was pleasantly surprised when I jumped in the pool and felt refreshed.

Monty and Rubin were, too. They both donned their own "wetsuits" and I helped Monty swim since he struggles as a swimmer and also has a sore front leg. (This was not only a refreshing break, but a therapeutic one as well.)

While Monty practiced his crawl stroke, Rubin swam around and around thrilled to be in a cool pool and with his best friend.

Thanks mom and dad for spending all that time with me years ago while I perfected my addiction to water. I'm sure I tested your patience.

"This summer I swam in the ocean,
And I swam in a swimming pool,
Salt my wounds, chlorine my eyes,
I'm a self-destructive fool, a self-destructive fool.

This summer I swam in a public place
And a reservoir, to boot,
At the latter I was informal,
At the former I wore my suit, I wore my swimming suit.

This summer I did the backstroke
And you know that's not all
I did the breast stroke and the butterfly
And the old Australian crawl, the old Australian crawl.

This summer I did swan dives
And jackknifes for you all
And once when you weren't looking
I did a cannonball, I did a cannonball.

This summer I went swimming,
This summer I almost drown
But I held my breath and I kicked my feet
And I moved my arms around,
Moved my arms around."

Scheduling

2009-05-21T08:14:00.000-07:00

When I first began teaching, seasoned veterans of the profession told me that my success depended on being organized. I've always seen myself as a scattered person, so I've never felt that organization was my strong suit. Then I got to meet people (teachers among them) who were extremely unorganized and I realized I was pretty good at it.

Pretty good, not great.

Pretty good, meaning not my mother. Of course, when one has the high standard set by one's mother then one will never see themselves as organized.

But this is beside the point. Now that I own my own business, my "pretty good" organizational skills come in handy. Right now, for instance, I have sticky notes on my computer telling me when to walk which dog, right down to the last minute. If I don't do this, I wake up early in the morning worrying about timing.

Today is not as packed as tomorrow, but today I have an afternoon interview and then Rubin's agility class 45 minutes out of town. Those solid and scheduled appointments remove any flexibility in the day. Luckily, there are only 5 dogs to walk today. Tomorrow there are 8, but I have no afternoon commitments so my time is a bit more flexible.

This matters to no one but me (and Rubin, of course) though it obviously matters to me a lot. My free time -- time when I'm not expected to be somewhere walking one dog or another -- isn't really free at all. I must keep up with billing, since I blog about the dogs every day, I must keep up the blogging, and since I take photos of the dogs every day, I must catalog and sort the photos at least once a week. This takes time and right now I'm feeling pinched for time.

No, let me rephrase that: I'm feeling what I always feel when it comes to organizing my time -- I'm feeling as if my priorities are all wrong. My mornings are spent with this internal dialogue -- should I do this first or this? Should I read the newspaper or get right to work transcribing interviews? Is there time for a Sudoku puzzle or should I really organize photos?

At 4 this morning I woke thinking, "I need to pay bills" and after the shock of remembering, I tossed and turned for an hour thinking of all the things I need to do in addition to paying the bills. "This is ridiculous," I told my sleepy, worried self. "You'll get it all done, you always do. Sleep. You need sleep."

Eventually I fell back to sleep and first thing this morning, I paid the bills, organized my invoices, cataloged my photos, and re-considered my walking schedule so I might be more efficient with the car. Oh yeah, and wrote a check for the agility class tonight.

Of course now that I've listed all of that out, more things have popped into my head: Get the walking gear together -- I won't need rain gear, but I need two extra leashes. Replenish the poop bags in my backpack. Put the photo card back in the camera. Get a new video tape, too for the interview this afternoon. Get everything ready to go for agility class like special treats to really motivate Rubin.

When will I have lunch? Better make a sandwich to nibble on in the car in between dog walking.

See? I'm pretty good at organizing, but that Ferris wheel of spinning details keeps turning and sometimes, sometimes I want to get off. I woke this morning thinking it was Saturday and then realized that no, it was only Thursday. Can't really get off the Ferris wheel until then...but even then, I've already got a list going -- reorganize the pantry, wash the windows, buy a new fridge (Ann's idea) which means cleaning out the old fridge, make an appointment to service the car and the scooter, clean the house, pick up some more pet food and treats...blah, blah, blah.

I wonder what unorganized people think about?

Arnold's eyebrows

2009-05-20T08:29:00.000-07:00

I read the newspaper online this morning and was presented with a photograph of Arnold the Terminator Governor's face. He dyes his hair apparently because his eyebrows were not even close to the color of his hair and each eyebrow was speckled with gray.

Hmmm. Curious. While his State is living in catastrophic debt, I doubt he is suffering financially. Has his house been foreclosed? Has his credit card raised his interest rates? Is he stuck at home on a "Stay-cation?"

I think not.

So, can't he afford an image specialist who can advise a different course of action - don't dye your hair at all so your eyebrows and your hair color actually look like they came from the same head or if you're going to dye your hair, let's dab a little on your eyebrows.

Apparently not.

This is trivial, I know. There are so many other things going on around the world that I waste precious time focusing on Arnold's grooming. Hell, there are so many other things going on in my life the amount of wasted time feels monumental.

But sometimes I don't want to focus on anything truly important or meaningful. Sometimes that feels like a waste of my time. Like this morning, when I tossed and turned at 5 unable to sleep. Too much to think about followed by a hot flash that not only raised my body temperature, but also fueled my worries. Or last night, after my sister called and Ann asked me what she had to say. "Where do I begin?" was my response. It was too much, simply too much to retell.

There is a lot of walking I must do today. Six dogs are on the schedule including two new dogs who do everything but walk. A Basset Hound and Beagle, they are all about their noses and so it's walk a few steps and then throw nose to the ground for a good five minutes. I'm going to take Rubin with me in hopes that they will want to smell him enough that as he moves, they'll move. We'll see.

I have an interview this afternoon for an article I'm writing followed by a much needed haircut. I have turned into Elvis with my hair poofed up on my head like an evangelist. "The taller the hair, the closer to God," my stylist always jokes.

These are the things I want to think about -- which dog to walk first, who to walk with whom, the interview, my haircut, dinner, and yes, Arnold's weird eyebrows. I want them to push out the things I don't want to think about -- mainly my sister's needs and her inability to tell me something only once, not seven times in a given hour.

Clear my mind, clear my mind. Breathe and breathe and breathe. Focus on the eyebrows. Focus.

The Art of Exercise

2009-05-15T08:17:00.001-07:00

I walk a dog named Gerta. I was hesitant to walk her because she is part pit bull and with all the bad press, I didn't want to take my chances. Meeting her helped calmed my reservations a bit especially when she licked my hand and rolled over on her belly within the first minute, but for the first few weeks of walking her I didn't do much out of her normal routine. We walked through her neighborhood just the two of us -- no other dogs allowed.

The more I got to know Gerta, the more I realized my fears were unfounded. She's very sweet, though she has a habit of being very destructive. When I arrive at her apartment, there is usually a mess scattered about and not of the owners making. Gerta gets into things. Boxes, garbage, and her current favorite -- leather boots. The other day I arrived to three pairs of boots tossed about on the couch with huge chunks ripped out.

I am not Gerta's full-time dog walker. I am simply helping out the regular guy who is out of town for the next few weeks. How much should I get involved? Well, this is my problem: I could care less about the owners. My sole concern is the dog.

So here is a dog -- a sweet and wonderful dog -- who is obviously bored silly. Or should I say, bored into destruction. I walk her for only a half hour, but she needs more. Lots more. I kept counting the weeks until my temporary job of walking Gerta would be over and I could pass her back to her permanent dog walker, but when I saw the boots and the obvious boredom, I stepped in.

This is what makes me a bad business owner. I'm walking Gerta for about 45 minutes each time though I'm paid for 30, I've strapped on a weighted pack to her strong back, and yesterday I introduced her to my own dog, Rubin.

Rubin is funny when he first meets dogs. He hates it when they come at him to smell his face and ears or his butt. He backs away and gives a little growl as if to say, "I hardly know you! Back off!"

Once we get to walking, he's perfectly fine and his aloof nature comes in handy. He ignores the other dog, which in the case of some dogs, is perfect. Teabiscuit for instance. (Yes, that's the name of another dog I walk.) She's scared of her own shadow and another dog is trauma to the nth degree. When she met Rubin she raced to the end of her leash back towards home, but after a few walks together, Teabiscuit keeps a wary distance from Rubin though will occasionally walk beside him. Now in fact, when other large dogs approach (and all dogs are large compared to teeny weeny Biscuit), she hides behind Rubin for protection. Rubin's aloofness makes Teabiscuit feel more comfortable.

It doesn't have the same effect on Gerta. Gerta wants to play and Rubin, since he has yet to really know her, does not. But once they are walking together, once we're all moving forward, well Rubin's disinterest calms Gerta down. Combined with the weighted backpack, we successfully tired her out yesterday. 15 minutes into the walk she was panting and by the time we got back to her apartment, she was ready for a long nap on the couch.

This is the art of exercise. I don't care about all the disagreements people/trainers have with Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer, he has done a great job focusing America's attention on exercise. His phrase -- Exercise, Discipline, then Affection -- are words for dog owners to live by. Even the other TV personality -- Victoria Stillwell of It's Me or the Dog -- stresses the importance of exercise.

Still, so many people don't get it. They keep their dogs in their backyards and feel as if that's enough. It's not. For Gerta, who doesn't have a backyard, the apartment is a house of boredom. Her owners run her in the morning and take her to the dog park in the evening, but she spends long hours alone during the day. She's smart and strong and you can bet a leather boot looks interesting.

If I were a good business owner, I'd pressure the owners to hire me for an hour instead of half an hour, but Gerta is a temporary client and I'm not the kind of person to push an issue. Instead, I walk Gerta for a longer time and don't charge for it, I bring a pack to weight her down, and I try to offer her stimulation she normally wouldn't have -- like walking with other dogs or hiding homemade dog cookies in her puzzle toy.

Gerta's owners are good people and they are doing what they can to help her out. They didn't seem the least bit upset about the torn leather boots and are appreciative of the extra attention I'm paying to Gerta. They clearly love their dog. I also know that people can't give their dogs 4 hours of exercise a day (often what Rubin gets since he is a dog dog walker...though Rubin still has issues), but if I had one wish granted in this world it would be that every dog in the US (the world?) could be exercised regularly. Imagine what an impact that would have on humans as well?

Today is another busy day. I'm tired and glad it's Friday. Rubin's tired too, but the day is scheduled with 5 dogs and a few errands. Rubin will accompany me on most of it, but not all. He needs his rest, too. Certainly, he'll walk with Gerta again today though I think I'll give Teabiscuit a break and just walk her alone. She'll like that.

Thankfully it's sunny today and I'm looking forward to walking in the warmth instead of the cold and rain of late. I, too, need the exercise.

Painting Myself Into A Corner

2009-05-06T07:44:00.001-07:00

I have submitted my 2 week notice to my retail job. I do this with a bit of trepidation. First, the summer months will be financially lean as I will be solely dependent on my dog walking business. Next, I worry about my choice to quit which was precipitated by an offer to return to my teaching job (part time, not full time). Finally, I will have a lot more time on my hands -- something that makes me a tad bit nervous.

Dog walking is going well. It is a job that ebbs and flows. I have some steady clients (about 6 dogs a week) and then I have additions -- covering for another dog walker, for instance, or walking dogs for people who are in a temporary need. The additions are not permanent though there is always a chance they may well be. I'd love to have more permanent clients, but with the economy being what it is, hiring a dog walker has moved down the list of priorities for most people.

My freelance writing job will end after the next newsletter due June 1 and that will fold into my return to teaching beginning in September. I am excited about the chance to continue writing for the school, but I'm a bit nervous about my return as a part-time teacher. On the one hand it will be a great way to practice maintaining my boundaries, but on the other hand, it will no doubt tap into my quirky perfectionism -- the need to make every lesson plan and assignment meaningful.

After four hours of retail work last night, I couldn't sleep. My body aches after a shift and so I tossed and turned and my brain shifted into worried thinking. I spent a good part of the morning trying to put my finger on the core of my worry and the best I could come up with is that feeling of not knowing what will come next.

After 22 years of teaching, I decided to leave because I knew EXACTLY what was going to come next and none of it felt new or different or motivating. Now I'm on the other side of the feeling. I should be excited and in many ways I am, but I am also nervous. At the center of my nervousness is the need NOT to get stuck in the predictability of my career or, as the title of this blog suggest, not to paint myself into a corner.

And there, perhaps, is the prickly conundrum I'm feeling: I want the possibility of the future to outweigh the uncertainty of the future. I want that edgy feeling of having to make my own way in the world, but not the nervous anxiety of not knowing which way to head. The greatest difference between my life as a full-time teacher and my life now as a small business owner is that most of my work today revolves around making more work. As a teacher, most of my work was wading through mountains of work, most of which was not generated by me. It came from all the expectations outside my classroom -- the meetings, the committees, the institutional desires to document and explain and justify.

Each side of this dilemma has benefits. There is as much comfort in predictability as there is frustration and disappointment. Equally, there is as much thrill in making my own was as there is worry and anxiety. The cliche of one day at a time has some weight in this dilemma. I find myself saying, "Today is good. I have what I need. I'm doing good work. I am happy and content."

To live inside that moment with a bit more permanence is the dance I find myself doing of late. I suppose I should trust my history -- the more I am open to possibility, the more possibilities open up for me.

Meanwhile, there is rain again today. If it weren't for the leaves on the trees and the slightly warmer temperatures, it would feel like November. They say it will dry up soon and I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to a lot of things of late, but walking dogs in the sun feels like a small comfort on which to begin.

The Champ of Shame

2009-04-29T07:23:00.001-07:00

Prison Dog

I can really beat myself up if given half a chance. It doesn't take much, but when I do something really worthy of a good beating, I am the champ of shame.

Here it is: I made a big mistake 10-days ago and the reverberations of that mistake have made it difficult to sleep, difficult to feel fully happy. It seems silly now, but the decision to let Rubin off leash when I knew (I knew!) he wouldn't behave burns in the pit of my stomach. The result? He antagonized two nasty dogs so much that one of them bit his owner. But that's not the worst of it. The worst of it is that she (the owner) wasn't sure who bit her and then she called the police.

Yes, the police ... who in turn called Animal Control. A nice officer showed up at my door and put Rubin under house arrest. It was called quarantine, though I had an option to keep him locked up here at home versus letting the nice officer haul him away. So for ten days, he's been unable to step outside the confines of our fenced yard.

This is a dog who walks with me everywhere. We log about 5-7 miles a day. He swims in the lake, runs through the wooded trails, and visits his dog friends all over the city. Under house arrest no dogs (or humans) were allowed in and Rubin wasn't allowed in the car to go anywhere.

It was torture for him and it was torture for me --torture doubled, in fact, because I understood why the situation was the way it was, but he had no idea. When I left the house and he stayed behind, he was confused and uncertain. As the confinement progressed, his mood changed. He became more stubborn. He refused to do things like come inside from the backyard or lie down when asked. He ripped things up. This is a dog who rarely ripped anything up yet there were toys he'd ignored for months torn to pieces. He whined at me. He stood at desk while I tried to work and begged with his eyes, with the cock of his head, and yes, with his moaning questions asking me to explain what the hell was going on.

Rubin is, if anything, a dog of routine. The woman who sold him to us warned us -- he'll grow to like habits. The habit has always been the same -- slow mornings, long walk, visits with other dogs and friends, more long walks and excursions on hikes, trips to the lake, and scheduled play dates at off-leash parks. A dog's life -- food, fun, friends, frolicking.

All of the sudden the routine changed -- still slow mornings, but then I left...without him. I came home, we played in the backyard until we were both panting and then I'd have to work at the computer or leave for an errand. He stayed behind. He never stays behind.

And every night I'd lie in bed stewing about my stupidity. I made the mistake yet he paid the price. He didn't bite anyone nor would he (unless threatened, but even then I'm not so certain). But here he was, stuck in the house and our small backyard wondering what was up with the major change in routine.

Forgiving myself has always been difficult. The forgiveness needed for this mistake is mountainous and I have yet to make my way up its slope.

Perhaps today will help. Rubin is free today and as soon as I take a shower, we're going out for a long, long walk -- down to the lake, up through the park, all along the ridge and to every doggie friend's house we can think of.

Perhaps that will set me on the path up the mountain of shame.

The Other Half of the Story

2009-04-13T06:55:00.000-07:00

We watched the Sound of Music the other night. Not all the way through. During commercials of one show, we'd flip over to the movie taking bets on which song we'd hear, which scene we'd watch. "Somewhere in my youth or childhood," I sang to Ann, "I must have done something good." Flip the switch and there was Julie Andrews in the arms of Christopher Plummer singing that very song. Followed by the short but regal wedding with the nuns "trapped" (Ann's word) behind the iron gate watching the problem like Maria dragging her ridiculously long veil down the aisle toward the handsome Captain.

"I always thought the movie ended here when I was a kid," I told Ann. "And then in college, I watched the movie again and was astounded that there was this whole other escape-from-the-Nazis part of the movie."

Ann laughed at me a little and then said, "I guess it makes sense. The happy ending is a lot easier to remember than the stress of real life."

The next day, I had to go to my part-time retail job for a short shift. I've been thinking a lot about quitting, which is probably stupid given the recent economy, but it's hard to put in a whole day of work walking dogs, researching writing projects, and finding time to write them and then stand on my tired feet for four or five more hours in the evening. But I won't quit, not yet. Not until my business is a bit more firmly established or something else opens up.

Meanwhile, I am a part of a retail community distinctly different than the educational communities I've been involved with most of my adult life. The best way I can describe the difference is that both jobs take themselves too seriously, but I understand teachers carrying a greater burden of responsibility than that of retail employees whose sole responsibility is selling expensive camping equipment.

But there are a lot of similarities and the one I find most interesting are that they both are filled with gossip. It was easy to get sucked into the rumors of teachers, but I laugh at the gossip of retailers. "Did you hear what happened to L?" a fellow employee told me the other day and without any response from me, she said, "She was fired for having an undisclosed relationship with N."

When I was hired, we had lots and lots of trainings. One hour alone was devoted to ethical training, which consisted of a list of things we could not do followed by explicit examples of how the store would "release you immediately" if you violated the code. These included things like using your employee discount for someone else, stealing (obviously), talking about sales records with competitors, and yes, not disclosing a relationship with another employee.

In other words, if you're going to date someone in footwear you need to tell your supervisor. If you don't and they find out about it, you are immediately released. So it was the case, it appears, with L and N -- both supervisors in different departments. The kicker, according to my co-worker was that they didn't spill the beans rather L told her friend and co-supervisor C and C told her superiors.

"That's just wrong," said my co-worker, "And it's so stupid because N and L only went out for like 6 months and then broke up. No harm, no foul as far as I'm concerned. Can you imagine your friend telling on you?"

Working retail is a lot like being IN high school as opposed to teaching in a high school.

This is when the story gets tangled or, at least, when I get tangled up with it. C is my supervisor and she recently asked me if I would be willing to walk her dog two days a week for the month of April. This was a favor on my part since I didn't charge her my full rate and she lives about 20 minutes from my dog-walking area. Still, it was only for a month and the extra money would be good for business.

So now, every Wednesday and Friday I make my way to my supervisor's house and walk her very sweet older dog. In the process, I've learned more about C, a woman I didn't really know, but treated with respect since she was, after all, my supervisor though she is 25 years younger. In the basement of a beautiful old house, she shares her small apartment with her dog and apparently, with someone else or previously with someone else. She lives, it appears, a life solely focused on work. It feels lonely to me and in that sense, I find myself having sympathy for her where no sympathy existed before.

"I'm kind of in flux," she told me one day. "There's a lot going on in my life right now," she added in an email. And then later, "I might be moving so I'm not really sure if I'll need you after April."

As more and more unfolds, I've softened a bit. She's a cold person, that's for sure, and focused on getting ahead at work climbing the retail ladder quickly and efficiently. But in her personal life, something's gone terribly awry and even the dog projects a kind of serious sadness about it all.

I don't really want to know what's going on and I'm certain NOT to share any of it with my co-workers. If she wants them to know, she can tell them, but at this point our "relationship" is undisclosed.

"Are you worried that it's unethical not to tell someone?" Ann asked me the other night.

"It's business," was my response, "not personal." But the more I walk the dog, the more I let myself into her house and see her side of life, the more I see there is another half of the story. Her story doesn't end with her role as my supervisor. There is nothing as dramatic as an escape route over the Alps, but more complexity exists between work and the rest of her life.

I have no idea if her friendship with the fired supervisor has any relationship with her possible move from her home or her need for a dog walker. Perhaps all the chips just fell the wrong way all at once, which happens to all of us throughout our lives, or maybe the falling of one chip created a cascade of all the rest. I don't really know nor do I really want to know, but the other night, flipping through the Sound of Music (of all movies), it struck me that we are all made up of more than one story. Our chapters overlap the chapters of others and in the process, our stories grow more and more complex. We are novels as thick as War and Peace, as sad and entertaining as The World According to Garp. We are a Farewell to Arms and The Wizard of Oz all rolled into one. We are the Sound of Music from beginning to the unexpected and unremembered end.

PS -- The next day, I saw this movie on You Tube -- the next chapter!

What Brothers Want

2009-04-08T07:43:00.000-07:00

Not my brother, but it could be!

My brother is a good guy. I love him a lot. He's older (and soon will be getting older) than me, but I think the age difference served me well. I looked up to him in many ways and now that I'm 50, I still do.

But I won't get too mushy here since the reason for this post has more to do with his demanding side than his loving side =-).

Ann and I went to Mexico. My brother wrote emails and skyped us to find out about our trip. He wants pictures, he said. He wants to see our adventures. He wants to know what our little corner of Mexico was like so he can compare it to his little corner of Mexico.

Geez! Okay big brother...here are more photos...love ya, man!

The town plaza...much more lively at night when it's cooler.

Ann and Lisa at the Beach of the Dead -- Dead because it's near the cemetery.

A bit tired, but the flowers make up for it!

Ann catching a wave.

It's almost Easter so I thought I'd share a religious photo taken at the cemetery by the Beach of the Dead.

Ann sleeping in the sun, though NOT in the sun as it were.

How brave am I? Sharing a photo of ME in a swimsuit, doing the thing I love the most! You big lady!

Our first night at our favorite restaurant!

On the way down the steps (147 of them) to the beach.

My favorite photo looking back at the beach where we spent most days.

Yes, a mosque in Mexico. Colorful, eh?

Not our beach, but a neighboring one. Very empty because the riptide's a killer.

The deck outside our bedroom. I forgot to take a photo of the bedroom. Oops.

The blue room in between the bedrooms.

A look back from the living room to the kitchen. Yes, they now have recycling! Yahoo!

From the kitchen back to the living room.

The view from the upper deck to the flowers stretched over the lattice overhang.

A view roughly to the north from the upper deck.

Our house with Lisa and me sharing a moment in the distance.

I have a million more, but I'll wait until my brother demands MORE.

Love ya, man!

Waves of Change

2009-04-05T10:59:00.001-07:00

How we handle stressful situations says a lot about who we are as people. I get agitated and my brain slips into overdrive trying to figure out solutions. President Obama, it appears, breathes deeply and sallies forth undeterred by Republican rancor, royal protocol, or this audacious recession/depression we find ourselves slogging through.

We traveled to Mexico this past week and yes, the photograph above was taken at one of our favorite restaurants in Sayulita, (the town where we stayed) -- Burritos Revolucion!.
Our vacation was relaxing and rejuvenating. We swam, ate, slept, walked, ate some more, played games, and yes, dealt with some stress, but only on the last night of our stay. It went down like this:

The Casa where we stayed, high atop a hill where the cool evening breeze kept us happy, is completely open. Aside from the locked gate upon entry, there are no other doors except for those going to the bathrooms and bedrooms. Ironically, even the bathrooms have "open windows" to the rest of the house with only large plants to block full view of one's nakedness.

A view of the porch with the house to the left and the gardens to the right...

Consequently, the rental agency offers a hotel safe bolted to the adobe shelf in the one kitchen closet. There we kept our passports, wallets, extra cash, and other valuables whenever we left the house. Sayulita is known for its food, its surf, and its hospitality -- everyone knows everyone or at least everyone knows someone who knows someone else, but with the increase of Americanos, there has also been an increase in theft.

So every morning, before we headed to the beach or to breakfast or for a journey through the town we locked up our "valuables" under the special combination we'd agreed upon in the steel safe bolted in the closet. On the last night, I went to open the safe to retrieve our flight itinerary double checking exactly when we needed to be at the airport...

...only the combination didn't work. ERROR ERROR ERROR the safe squawked and the more we tried the combination, the more it beeped at us and the more I panicked. Our passports, our money, all of our ID, the cell phone -- EVERYTHING was in the safe. Without entry, we couldn't get home and despite the glorious time we'd had in Sayulita, I was ready to come home.

We traveled to Sayulita with our good friends Jeanne and Lisa. We travel well together and sharing a house is always stress-free and wonderful, but it was at this moment of stress that our true colors emerged and like a psychological exam, our quirks came to light.

I went into overdrive trying to figure out our options. I couldn't sit down. I paced. I implored. I wrung my hands and pulled my hair.

Ann tried to calm me down, but at the same time, worked the problem solving angle with me going back to step one and reading the instruction booklet that came with the house (to no avail I might add -- you'd think "How to break into the safe" would be an important chapter in the manual, but no.)

Lisa, on the other hand, developed what she at first called "heartburn" that then turned into "indigestion" that later turned out to be Montezuma's Revenge. While Ann and I flitted around the house in worry and problem-solving mode, Lisa tried her darnedest NOT to throw up on the beautiful Mexican rug in the living room.

Meanwhile Jeanne, the hospital administrator who handles crises almost daily, sat in her chair and watched us. Her advice? Wait until the morning, ask the house manager (Ramon) and stop freaking out.

Wait until morning? You don't tell a person like me (uptight, nervous, and worried) to wait until the morning. Besides, no one knew exactly when Ramon would be around, we had to leave by 9:30 to catch our plane (though there would be no traveling anywhere without passports or ID or money), and we weren't certain if Ramon knew how to break into the safe.

I must say, I was astonished at Jeanne's calm. I suppose that's a necessary role in any crisis situation, but I was a bit miffed that she wasn't in the same frenzy I found myself in. You know, when in crisis you always want everyone else to behave the way you do...it only makes sense. Ha!

We are all different, aren't we? In some ways I suppose the world needs those who problem solve out of panic as much as we need those who thoughtfully practice patience. Let's just say, she was the Obama in the situation and I was -- well, I was more like Paul Krugman, the doubting Thomas, the person who's certain everything we are doing (or not doing) is wrong and will therefore fail.

In the middle of this odd scene -- me in a panic, Ann not quite panicked, but soothing mine, Jeanne contemplative and calm, and Lisa about ready to hurl her fish taco onto the floor -- I remembered that one of the owners of these hillside casas was in the house (his house) right above us.

Let me step back a moment and tell you one other quirk of mine (besides panic and overdrive problem solving): I am not a good initiator. For instance, I'm not good at making phone calls to people I don't know, I rarely complain about food at a restaurant and never send it back, and I'm not someone who would willingly walk up to a stranger's house late in the evening, and ask for the combination that gets us into a locked safe.

But there I was, walking up the garden path to this amazingly beautiful house to find someone I did not know, had never seen before and ask him if he could help. Ann went with me (she's always so supportive of my neuroses). I won't go into all the details, but it turned out that Cap (the man in the house) was warm, welcoming, and willing to help. He gave us the "secret" code to try and if that didn't work, "come and get me!"

As luck would have it, the secret code didn't work so for the next hour, Cap problem solved with us! He called his sister (who owned the house), searched for a "jumper cable" to override the possible dead or failing batteries, and punched in the secret code again and again aghast that it didn't work. He called his sister once again (back in the US) and she gave us the same advice we'd heard from the locals all week long -- relax, take a deep breath, have another beer, and try again.

None of us drink, but we did the rest and lo and behold, it worked. Why it worked, we have no idea, but I could feel the stress leave my body the moment the door opened and I saw my precious passport. At which point Lisa headed to the bathroom where she spent the rest of the night (off and on) battling Montezuma.

We are home now and safe, after a long journey back though we still have visions of Sayulita to keep us warm...
In hindsight, I think I'm glad that Obama is more like Jeanne than like me, but I'm also glad there are Paul Krugman's in the world, too.

Coming Back to Breathing

2009-03-23T06:56:00.001-07:00

Each night, when I curl up on my side to go to sleep, I can feel my heart thub-thubbing. I worry about it at times, but my doctor assures me that it beats well and strong though occasionally, the thub pushes harder than the thubbing making the second thub feel hesitant. It's hard to explain, but when I feel the lopsided push my breath alters a bit and then, as if there is nothing else to think about in the world, I focus solely on my breathing.

I wish this was a meditation, but it's not. When I focus on my breathing it all feels wrong as if there's not enough air coming in or too much air going out and I find myself inhaling and exhaling without rhythm or ease. It's exhausting. At first, I try to turn it into an exercise, fully concentrating on each breath in and each breath out, but I can only maintain this for a short while never having mastered the art of meditation. To fall asleep I must concentrate on something else -- focus my attention on a detail of the day or a story I wish to tell and then, after awhile, I'm lost in my brain and not in my lungs.

It's not only at night that such obsession happens. During the day as I work around the house or sit at the computer, I realize how little I'm breathing, how my intake of breath is short and shallow and my release tight and staggered. My mind focuses again on breathing with more intention, regulating that which should be natural but feels superficial and stagnant.

The only time breathing feels right, the only time my body feels enriched by oxygen is when I'm walking or exercising.

Yesterday we went for a late afternoon walk with the dog. We call the walk "Up and Over" because we walk up the big hill to the east and back down it to home. A friend's parents are visiting from Illinois and they came for dessert the other night. When asked how they liked Seattle, they continuously commented on the steepness of the hills. "Walking is a challenge," said the father and yesterday, as we were climbing up the long hill I considered his perspective.

I have known nothing but hills in my lifetime and each hill requires strong breath. Even when my mind focuses on my breathing, I don't get trapped inside of it like I do at night when I'm trying to fall asleep. My breath has a life of its own with each push of my legs up the steep grade. Instead of obsessing about each exhale and inhale, I can watch them from a distance knowing my life depends on the depth and release of breath. It's a partnership of sorts and then, only then do I feel as if I'm meditating.

The same thing happens when I'm swimming though I understand why much better. Swimming, by nature, is rhythmic and each inhale and exhale is confined to an exact movement, a precise moment in a stroke. When I first practiced breathing both to the left and right while swimming, I tired much more quickly unfamiliar with the rhythm. Now, the breathing every third stroke feels natural and balanced, but it took time and patience to adjust. Somehow, I can't find that cadence while trying to fall asleep or during my day when working on a project.

I come back to breathing often -- in my thoughts, in my writing, in those moments when I need it most. We are about to travel to Mexico, for instance, and I dread the plane trip down and the plane trip back. The nervous passenger. I can breathe, but it takes meditative focus to keep my breathing steady, strong, and substantial. Such focus exhausts me. I can feel the tension rise in my neck and back and tie up my body in a gordian knot.

When we arrive in the village where we'll be staying, once we get settled and unpacked, the first thing I will do is take a walk -- no matter the time -- and find myself a hill. Then I'll hike up and down it as many times as it takes to find that rhythm of breath I so crave.

Perhaps then, after I've sweated a bit in the Mexican heat, I'll be able to sleep in between my breathing, resting on that bubble between full and empty.

The Dangers of Walking Dogs

2009-03-15T07:56:00.001-07:00

Lately, I've been feeling my age. Well actually, maybe I've been feeling my past. My right foot hurts both in my heel where I have a serious case of tendinitis called, of all glorious names, Haglund's Deformity, and in my big toe where I've developed a bunion that flares from time to time.

My left leg hurts from a nagging case of sciatica fueled by a bulging disc in my back and a hip bone that is twisted and smooshed from a shorter left leg. In my right elbow, I've pulled something that makes it difficult to pick up anything heavy. I need to take some time today to do some serious stretching to relieve the tightness in my back, butt, and legs.

When I wake in the morning, I limp and shuffle to the bathroom and achingly squat onto the toilet. The walk down the stairs is assisted by the hand railing and I'm sure to take one step at a time.

I am only 50 years old though on days like this the "only" feels like a cruel joke. Yesterday, I was a couch potato unable to really feel motivated to do anything other than shop for groceries and make some bread.

I know all of this makes me sound cranky and whiny, but mostly my aches and pains make me feel reflective. As I moaned and groaned yesterday from the couch, worrying out loud about my condition, Ann consoled me by saying, "It's okay to relax. You work hard walking dogs all week long. You need to rest. Let yourself rest." (See why I love her?)

I know that many of my injuries are irritated by walking dogs. I walk about 3 hours a day and second only to my shoes, my body is taking a beating. But my injuries are leftovers from a lifetime of competitive sports and I can trace each kink and cringe to that volleyball season where I played with a sprained ankle, the track season when I raced with a pulled hamstring, the endless practice sessions where I jumped up and down stairs (with 25 lbs of weight on my back) to build strength in my legs, and the hours of diving after volleyballs, basketballs, baseballs, and god knows what else.

So now, when I walk -- just simply walk -- all those nagging injuries flare up in weird ways. My feet have taken the worst of it, the roots of my ability to run fast, jump high and far, and lift heavy objects. I wear orthodics in my shoes and my shoes must be incredibly supportive in order for me to buy them. And then they only last about 5 months if I'm lucky, wearing out like butter in the sun. When I wake in the morning, I must stretch my feet for a good 5 minutes before I can attempt walking and all the rest of it -- the sore butt, the sore back, even the elbow -- I know come from my crappy feet.

And now I'm attempting to make a living by walking dogs (and throwing the ball for them) during the day and standing at a retail job at night. In between it all, I sit at a computer and work on my writing and even that has detrimental effects on my aging body.

This was something I hadn't predicted when I left teaching and entered a world that focused on my feet, on my body. True, I've lost about 12 pounds and I know I'm in good cardiovascular shape, but oh how I hurt, which is something I never would have guessed would have be the outcome of such a career move.

All of this is to say, I'm not ready for a 9-hour shift today. I'm dreading it, in fact because I'm scheduled to work in the pack department, on a Sunday, during a sale. That means I will be lifting 30 pound loaded packs on to small women and tall men all day. I will squat down to fill the pack on the floor, hoist it up onto a back, and lift it back off again and again and again until it fits the customer in such a perfect way they're ready to fork over teh $250+ to purchase it. In between the bazillion customers who've come to the store to take advantage of the sale I'll rearrange packs hanging on the wall, clean up the pack display (people just rummage through and throw those packs hithter and thither), and restock the department with packs stored on high shelves in the warehouse.

All for about $90 for the day.

And tomorrow, it begins again though I am thankful that I only have two dogs to walk followed by a much shorter shift in the pack department (5 1/2 hours instead of 9).

Who knew such a career change could beat me up so?

Okay, I must go and stretch before donning my green working vest and hoisting packs onto the backs of eager hikers.

Between Pakistan and Medication

2009-03-10T08:02:00.000-07:00

I've had to work the past two nights at my retail job. When people ask what I do, I tell them I hoist packs onto the backs of rich white people, but I learned last night that's not always the case.

The store is struggling, as are most, from the lack of business, but in the backpack department (where I've been working) we've been swamped. I'm not sure why. From my conversations with customers it appears that they way some people are dealing with the dramatic economic downturn is by leaving the country for places far and wide. I've helped people by a backpack who are traveling to the Sierra Nevadas, Thailand, Spain, Morocco, India, New Zealand, and for one couple, a backpacking trip to the mountains of Pakistan.

Pakistan? Like the mountains where Osama is said to be camping? Yikes.

On Sunday, a couple purchased $400 backpacks after both losing their jobs, receiving their severance bonuses, and deciding to travel in Mongolia and China until the end of summer. According to my supervisor, the pack department is carrying the store at this point, so I wasn't surprised at all when we were busy last night -- usually a quiet night in packs.

In four hours of work, I sold 4 backpacks, 2 travel packs (luggage-like packs) and a few suitcases. One man, a good 6 1/2 feet tall and equally wide looked like Santa Claus in denim. Every pocket in his pants, shirt, coat and current tattered backpack was stuffed and overflowing. It looked as if he were afflicted with unnatural bumps all over his body, but in fact they were wads of paper, rags, and plastic bags. We struck up a conversation about assumptions -- I'm not sure how we got there or why -- and he said, "You'll see a man picking up a quarter from the ground and you may assume he's unemployed, but he could just as easily be a brain surgeon. It's so hard to tell these days."

Amiable and gracious, he had questions about backpacks. He wanted a bigger backpack and settled on one twice the size of the one he was currently carrying. Though I tried not to assume, he gave the first impression of a homeless man carrying his every possession on his person. His hands were dirty, his fingernails long, and his gray tangled beard looked stained around his lips from too much coffee. He was grateful for my help and said as he left, "Thank you for all your assistance. You have been most kind." He bowed then bending his full head of long gray hair down to his waist. Doctor or vagrant? Hard to tell.

One young couple I helped pushed around a store shopping cart filled to the brim with all sorts of camping accessories, clothes, and shoes. Their last stop was in the pack department where they wanted to purchase two waterproof packs of substantial size.

I won't get into the options of such a request. Suffice it to say, waterproof and large equals expensive. Even the options in the clearance bin were $450 (yes, on clearance) so when they decided on two $500 packs, I roughly estimated their shopping cart to be rolling around $2000 worth of merchandise.

An hour after helping them, I went on break and as I was leaving the department I saw the man still wandering around the store pushing his pricey cart. His girlfriend was looking at a few last minute accessories and he was, rather frantically, walking up and down aisles perusing all the camping knick knacks.

While I didn't know this young man, I knew him. He was the student I always had in class who fidgeted -- tapping his pencil, bouncing his leg up and down, squirming in his seat, popping up constantly to sharpen a pencil or throw something into the garbage. Though he was now in his mid-20s, as a middle school student he would be the student who needed to visit the school secretary for his lunchtime medications and if he forgot, he'd be the annoying, out of control student teachers dreaded in their afternoon classes.

This was ADHD in adult form and as I watched him squirm up and down the aisles, pushing his cart with exuberance, never settling to look at any one product, I had to laugh when he slapped his forehead and shouted out (and yes, I mean shouted), "Oh no! I forgot to call the unemployment office!"

There is so much in that one exclamation. I can't even begin to dissect it. It carried the weight of today's economic concerns, the American need to consume, the lack of recent medications, the impulsive nature of a 20-something, and the apparent disconnect between the statement and the reality of his current situation. $2000 of merchandise and the need to call the unemployment office.

I work again tonight. I'm hoping it's slow though the way things have been going, I will most likely be hoisting packs onto more backs -- some rich, some unemployed, and some stradled between Pakistan and medication.

The Long Wednesday

2009-03-04T06:39:00.001-08:00

I expected rain yesterday so I packed by dog walking backpack with enough rain gear and towels preparing for a sloppy, sloggy day, but the rain was a no-show. Thankfully. By the second walk of the day, I'd peeled off my layers, stuffed them into the already packed backpack, and walked around in the sun in a t-shirt. I even lamented the fact that I wasn't wearing shorts.

Today is starting off much like yesterday. I woke to rain and when I let Rubin out this morning to do his business, I watched the rain pattern the puddles on the deck. Yet, unlike yesterday, the forecast calls for afternoon clearing and sun. By then, of course, I'll be done with the dog walking portion of my day and busily working with a small group of 8th graders as they continue laying out their yearbook -- indoors.

And then I'll race home, take Rubin for one last spin, shower quickly and take off for a 5 hour shift at REI.

This is going to be one long day. I'm trying not to think about all the bits and pieces of this day. I'm trying not to think about how exhausted I'll be once I start work this evening. I'm trying not to imagine the hours this evening -- will it be busy at REI or dead like last week? I'm only trying to picture myself coming home, brushing and flossing my teeth, and crawling into bed when it's all over.

But that goes against my commitment to live in the now. It's so hard, this now thingy. I can do it while walking the dogs. They're certainly living in the moment and their silly antics make me very attentive to each minute I am with them. Quillette (pictured above) especially. I've decided she is very much a happy Eeyore. Perhaps an oxymoron, the happy Eeyore, but she has this way of looking at me that makes me laugh.

Rubin, too. Yesterday, I took them both for a walk through the wooded park and along a trail that often has muddy puddles. When we reached those puddles, he sniffed at one and then looked at me saying, "Oh god, I LOVE puddles and mud!" and off he went, sprinting and galluping and bouncing up and down the trail inviting Quillette to join him. Older and less likely to frolic, Quillette looked at me and then at him and threw back her head in a hilarious howl. Meanwhile, Rubin continued his romp possessed by the mud on the side of the trail. By the time he was done, his legs were black to the knees, his nose covered in mud, and his tongue slung in an exhausted pant.

The blur of Rubin being frisky!

I thought of nothing else during those moments. I just watched him play and listened to Quillette howl at him. This is what I love the most about being a dog walker. There are no big worries. No thinking ahead or reflecting back about the job I've done. I wouldn't mind a long Wednesday if it was solely focused on walking dogs, but unfortunately it isn't. There's this funny thing about making a living and since making a living involves cobbling together a weird array of jobs, I am stuck with today as it is -- a long Wednesday

Pouting Rain

2009-03-01T07:25:00.000-08:00

We'd planned on skiing today, but woke to heavy rain. The mountain pass report is no better and now we must regroup and figure out something else. I am disappointed. Not much skiing this year and I was hoping for one last ski before the spring weather.

Our weather has been a mix of rain, snow, sun, and wind this week. As a dog walker, I live in it all. Last week I went through three sets of rain gear, rotating through it by hanging the wet stuff in the downstairs bathroom, donning the dry stuff, and then hanging the second set of wet stuff alongside the first and wearing a third set I dug out of a plastic tub in the basement. The next day, sun and I walked most of the day without a coat and at one point in a t-shirt. That day was followed by snow and I pulled out long underwear and a warm hat. There was no dressing against the wind, but I walked through that as well.

I shouldn't have been surprised by rain this morning. I read all the forecasts, but I convinced myself that rain down here meant snow up in the mountains. I was wrong. The snow level is at 6000 feet and we ski at 3000. That would mean skiing in the rain. Not fun. Even the traffic cams mounted at the pass make the day look uninviting.

So now I must figure out what to do instead.

What an interesting proposition. As a teacher, I never was without something to do -- grade papers, plan lessons, contact parents -- though I did everything I could to put it off until the last minute (usually Sunday night when I tantrumed my way through it all). Just because I'm not teaching doesn't mean there aren't things I can do. There are bills to pay, there's a piece I'm working on that needs yet another rewrite, there are papers on the desk that need to be filed and there are dishes to do and laundry to fold. And I must get all my tax papers together. How's that for exciting?

None of it feels pressing and perhaps that is my disappointment niggling me into a kind of pout today. I really wanted to ski, but now I must turn to other choices none of which seem as appealing.

Vacation

2009-02-21T19:03:00.001-08:00

No longer a teacher, vacation has taken on a whole new meaning. We went away for a few days to our friends' cabin along the Wenatchee River. There is snow, but not as much as usual and the temperatures were unseasonably warm. I suppose global warming may alter the idea of seasons altogether, but we certainly noticed the limited snow pack as well as the 44 degree skiing weather.

Vacation, for me, has always been something I've looked forward to. Not that I didn't this time, but it was different as I was not nearly as burned out as I used to be before a teaching vacation. I'm not sure what I expected, but this vacation took awhile to get the feel of. I wrote in my journal about the unnerving silence (something I may post here at a later date), but it was more than the silence of the place. It was my lack of need for it.

Once I accepted that I did not need it, I relaxed into the vacation more and enjoyed time skiing along the ridge, taking long walks along the river, reading late into the night, and eating home cooked meals without counting calories or feeling guilt. Ironically, the time moved quickly and before I knew it, we were driving home. Ann, on the other hand, felt the time went slowly, which for her, felt like a perfect vacation. She as a teacher, of course, needed the vacation in the way I once needed it.

Tomorrow I go back to REI for an 8.5 hour shift. Everyone must be watching the Oscars and therefore I've been summoned. Fine by me. The extra money is always important when my living is so cobbled together these days. I actually have a total of 15 hours this week, which is astonishing after weeks of minimal to non-existent hours over the past month. I'm actually looking forward to it plus it gives Ann quiet time to prepare for upcoming teaching week.

We took lots of photos on this trip as the light was astonishing and the days were filled with blue mountain skies. The above photo was taken at Lake Wenatchee. We hiked along a snowshoing trail that was so packed (due to the lack of snow) we could walk it without snowshoes. Rarely do I allow photos to be taken of me, but Ann snapped this shot in the shade and I snapped the subsequent one in the bright light of the sun. A contrast of our hike.

My legs are a bit sore today after a long climb up a ridge and back down again in our cross country skiing adventure, but it reminds me of how good it felt to get away and equally how nice it feels to be home again.

Remaking the World

2009-02-08T21:12:00.000-08:00

Entering the world of dogs and dog care has been an interesting experience of late. I love my solitary time walking dogs, watching them play, and attending to their needs, but there's a whole other world out there of people obsessed in strange and bizarre ways with their dogs.

I do not wish to enter this world for it is a world of dogs dressed up in weird costumes, dog-related websites adorned in frilly brick-a-brack and cartoon illustrations of puppies, and people who sell dog products that I could never imagine buying. I'd rather create a different world, a world where a dog is simply that -- a furry canine who wants to sniff the ground, chase a squirrel and lie at your feet while you pet him or her.

But in this other world, in the world I wish not to enter, there are people who buy sidecars for their motorcycles so the dog can ride along. They adorn said dogs with "doggles" and leather jackets and helmets. Others write long posts detailing every movement (and I mean every movement) their dog makes in the day. Some even set up webcams so anyone who dials in can watch their dog take a nap, eat their dinner, roll over for treats.

Whatever happened to the dog as companion? When did dog become toy for human folly?

So, while I have a dogwalking business and a corresponding website, while my dog Rubin writes of his days adventure, I hereby promise never to enter the world of dressed up dogs who live in their own designer rooms or who eat at the family table or are groomed to look like Ninja's.

I shall remake this doggie world, one dog at a time. I will return to the natural order of things where dogs and humans can join not in the human world, but in their shared animal ancestry.

(Of course, I just got done giving Rubin a massage so perhaps I have one foot in said "other world!")

Looking In; Looking Back

2009-02-04T07:42:00.001-08:00

Fishbowl Gemma...

Yesterday, I spent the day at the school where I taught for the past four years to cover a story I am writing for their newsletter. The story will be on the art program taught by my friend Trina who is an amazing artist as well as a wonderful teacher. This is her last year at the school having applied to graduate schools across the country. She'll get in but her gain will be the school's loss. Oh how little educators understand the beauty and necessity of art.

But that's the topic for the newsletter article. What I want to write about here is how odd it is to return to something I know longer do. I sat in on Trina's classes (two of them) to jot down notes and to photograph the students working with Trina and their art. I know most of these students. Many of them were once my students so when I am in the classroom, they carry on a conversation with me much like I am still their teacher.

But I'm not and as hard as it is to bite my tongue and not scold them back to work, I was sorely tempted yesterday as I watched (and listened) to the same rowdy students who tormented my teaching days, torment Trina's. There were the three spoiled girls who never once stopped talking during their classmates' presentation on artist Willie Cole and there was the ADHD student who is clearly off her medications running roughshod over her peers as they tried to sketch their self portraits in a contemplative silence.

And there was Trina, desperately trying to spread her passion for public art (the project of the 7th grade) to girls who didn't understand why Maya Lin's work was so interesting and quietly working with a young girl in tears who couldn't get her eyes in her self portrait (the project of the 6th grade) to "match." Trina is young and therefore has the patience I lost over the years. When she works one-on-one with a student, she is able to block out the clamor and the rigmarole of the rest of the class working on their projects. She is kind and compassionate. She listens and tries to help the girls resolve their individual and group conflicts. And she always carries on a conversation with each of them on an adult level -- in other words, she treats them not as children, but as thinking, feeling human beings with fascinating ideas.

After school, Trina came over for dinner and we talked about her philosophy and her vision for teaching. She was just as passionate and focused on helping kids understand that they are all artists, that art lives in all of them as she was all day long while she taught.

I remember when I was that idealistic. And while I don't think I lost the idealism, I do know it was tempered over the years by all the institutional demands, the mish-mash of families and students who walk through the door with mountains of emotional baggage that I never had time to attend to. At one point during dinner, Trina laid her head on the table and said, "I am just so tired."

I remember those days. In fact, February was the month when I dreamt of leaving on a long, long vacation to Bolivia or Kenya or living off the land in some commune in Eastern Oregon. I wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep in the sun for weeks at a time, to let go of the consequences of my decisions.

I don't feel like that now...this February. In fact, I reflected on that very thought the other day when January rolled away. "I'm outside most of the day soaking in the sunlight," I told a friend. "I think that's why I've avoided that winter gloom and doom I always felt this time of year."

"And you're not slicing your soul in little pieces all day long like you were when you taught," my friend responded.

So true.

Still, there are parts I miss. Mostly the parts don't involve students, which I suppose is kind of cold-hearted, but after watching Trina try to herd cats all day yesterday, I know my teaching gifts are more on the creative end and not the relationship side.

Sometimes I think teaching is like being a goldifish in one of those tiny, round bowls. It all seems so contained. Your world is a gallon of water and a plastic castle. There's only so much you can do, only so many ways to swim, only one real view -- out. Leaving teaching is like jumping out of the bowl and realizing how enormous the world actually is, how many views the world offers. And even though there's no water in which to breathe, once you learn to breathe differently, your lungs actually expand in a way you never imagined or never believed when you lived in that little glass bowl.

I woke with laryngitis this morning, the final exclamation point of this nasty cold. Once a year, while teaching, I'd lose my voice so I'm not surprised that after my day-long visit back at school I woke without a voice this morning. 22 years in the fishbowl changed my life in many ways and made me, in some regards, the person I am today. I have no regrets, but neither am I sorry that I left. It was time. I have no idea what the future holds, but I know that I am not contained by deceptive glass walls nor limited tours around a little plastic castle.

And there's that thing about my soul, the daily slicing my friend mentioned. It's nice finally getting a chance to stitch it back together. That's what yesterday's looking back and looking into the world I left reminded me of -- I gave a lot and I don't need to give anymore.

I am good enough. I did give enough. I am enough.

Where's the Beef!

2009-02-02T20:52:00.001-08:00

I have doubled my income from last month. This may seem astounding in an economy as bleak as this one, but when you consider that the doubling of $500 only totals $1000, perhaps then it makes sense.

I'm not complaining. I rarely complain these days (though I cut my thumb and it hurts like hell and whenever I use my right hand, I complain...thumbs actually DO come in handy...pun intended!), but even though I rarely complain, the money in all my accounts is a matter of diminishing returns. Not diminishing as fast as I thought they would when I padded my savings account before I left teaching, but still it's odd to watch the money float away without much effort.

And absolutely NO effort in terms of my retirement account. Wham! Thud! Kerplop! Like a watermelon off the Empire State Building. And I was worried about there being no social security when I got to retirement age. Hell, that might be the only thing left! My predicament is whether I should put anymore into the black hole of my investments or just hold onto it until we bounce out of this downturn.

Will we bounce out?

I suppose so, though sometimes I waver between the two ends of the spectrum: The "We came out of the Depression okay" side and the "Did they know Rome was falling BEFORE it fell?"

Okay, I'm still not complaining. I have a house, a car (paid for), a great partner and a funny dog and some money flowing into the bank. Oh, and I have a TV on which to watch THE CLOSER. Even Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon lost money...more money than I'll ever see in my life, mind you...when Mr. Madoff made-off with their investments.

I wonder if they're complaining?

A Three-legged Dog

2009-01-29T20:03:00.001-08:00

This is Oliver. He's a three-legged dog with one blue eye. He's shy, but friendly and today we shared our tennis ball with him. He was very interested, but was not very interested in playing fetch. We liked him very much and hope to see him again soon.

But now we're listening to the Seattle School Board meeting which is very much like a three-legged dog with one blue eye only this dog is neither friendly nor interesting. Rather, it is nasty and ugly with people shouting out obscenities and chanting in the background. It shows, I dare say, the wrong-headedness of the school board as they dig themselves into a deeper and deeper hole of bigotry and poor judgment.

Why do I watch? Ann wants to know what's going to happen with her school and the program in which she teaches. I'm trying to busy myself with other things, but like a bad accident in the highway, it's hard to look away.

Change is constant, that's for damn sure, but some do not adapt well. Ann is good at it. She's remained positive throughout the ups and downs of the threats and rumors of closures and changes. Ann is like Oliver -- good at getting around on three legs, looking handsome with one blue eye.

All of this makes me even more happy I am no longer teaching. It's a mobocracy.

And still, I am signing up for a class to retain my teaching certificate. Why, I wonder? I suppose it's fear...this economy makes me fearful and a teaching certification seems like a good fall back position. "If anything," I tell myself, "I can substitute."

But why would I want to? Seattle Public Schools is in a mess and you, too, can watch it LIVE on your television.

I'd rather play fetch with Oliver.

On a bright side, I've doubled my income this month! It was never much to begin with, but now it's double and well, that's something. My one website is finished (www.wagsnwords.com) and I'm working on my other. I will advertise soon and see if I can attract more full-paying doggy clients. Or writing clients or soon, once I get my ducks in a row, some tutoring clients.

Someone asked me today if I enjoyed working for myself. I have yet to pay taxes, so perhaps my enthusiasm is premature, but even though I'm working very hard (and have a cold to prove it), the work feels oddly rewarding. Obviously NOT in a financial way, but in a way that feels creative and reinvigorating.

Leah (who recently passed) always encouraged me to do two things -- dream and work to my potential. At her memorial service, her brother said that he learned important lessons from his sister, chief among them that he may not achieve all of his dreams, but he will always achieve his potential. I feel as if I am now doing both. In teaching, I worked to my potential, yes, but I lost my ability to truly dream. It's hard to explain, but charting my own course each and every day has rejuvenated my belief in my dreams.

Okay, this is getting way out of hand. The point is, I think, that I like what Oliver represents -- he embodies his dreams in his potential.

(Go to bed...the cold medications are talking again!)

Blog Overload

2009-01-26T19:57:00.000-08:00

This is crazy Rubin. We all went skiing today (Ann had the day off) and in our adventure to the mountains, we ran into some pesky, persistent birds. Gray Jays. They wanted our lunch. Rubin wanted them for lunch. Here he is staring up at one of the birds (you can't see it) who has propped itself up on the tip of my ski (planted into the snow).

It was a beautiful day. Blue ski, crispy cold, and warm sun (whenever we got in the sun). I'm tired tonight and yet here I sit posting yet another blog about my life. I now have three blogs I keep track of -- this one, Rubinations, and my business blog -- Wags n' Words. Often I'm double posting, which I'm realizing is not the best use of my time, but somehow I think it keeps my life compartmentalized so that business does not cross with personal.

Silly notion.

Until I figure a way out of it, I will maintain all three blogs and just blur the lines when I post Rubin stuff on this one and business stuff on his.

Today was truly beautiful. It was great to have time to spend with Ann (and Rubin, though I spend most of my time with him). I wanted to clean the house this weekend, but Ann said I had to do it when she was at work, that when she was home was a time to be together. Of course that means I'm the one cleaning the house and she's not...funny how that works...but she was right today. Today was a perfect day to go skiing.

We had the place to ourselves, amazingly. Usually this spot is swarming with people and their dogs -- skiing, snowshoeing, walking -- but today we saw no one but the birds. I'm assuming this was for a number of reasons: 1) It was a Monday and everyone had to work 2) the snow was kind of cruddy -- it hasn't really snowed since Christmas and 3) well, I can't think of a third, but that snow was more ice and very difficult to ski on. Even the ski resort up the street where the downhillers fly like maniacs was sparsely populated.
Regardless, we had the place to ourselves and we all had a great time. Included in this great time was a good lunch -- it always tastes better outdoors, doesn't it? Rubin partook and did his best to keep those pesky, persistent birds at bay.

What are you doing with your hand, Ann?

Many Thoughts

2009-01-23T07:12:00.000-08:00

Lessons in relaxation...

I woke in a panic this morning after dreams of poverty and an inability to get a job. In my dream, I was sobbing in the office of my former school begging for a teaching job all the while knowing 1) there weren't any jobs and 2) going back to teaching was a desperate move on my part. But in my dream I knew I had to calm myself down and as if I were in a movie and not a dream, my body split in two. Not literally, but one whole me moved out of the other whole me and standing in the room were two mes -- one sobbing for a job and the other giving herself a pep talk.

I'm not sure what spurred on the panic, though there are many contributing factors, few of which I can control. I watch and listen to way too much news. The radio reports all day long offering in-depth analysis about financial crises and our inability to figure out how to solve it and the television at night offers more analysis and heavy doses of doubt.

Chief among those doubts is the chase-your-tail kind of logic I find myself consumed by: The CEO of Starbucks made millions of dollars last year and yet, they are laying off employees. The same, I'm certain can be said for Microsoft and Google and Sony and all those other corporations by which we measure our economic success. We are encouraged to "buy things" as it will stimulate the economy, but we've had 2 decades of buying things and somehow we ended up in what is called a "credit crisis." I have always believed we should consume less, which makes me some kind of defeatist in this capitalistic world since my job in retail (along with everyone at Starbucks and Microsoft and Google) is dependent upon people consuming more and more and more so the CEO's can make a killing and I can earn a minimum wage with which I can go out and consume things.

Speaking of which, I have no hours scheduled for my retail job as the store is cutting back to the "essentials" though I am still to be "reviewed" the first week in February. I filled out my self-evaluation form yesterday and found myself unable to take the statements I must rate myself on seriously. "Creates a welcoming environment through acknowledging, approaching, and engaging customers in a timely fashion" to which I am to provide examples. "No, I stand at the back of the store and busy myself with the task of dusting hidden shelves." This isn't rocket science people. I work for minimum wage less than 10 hours a week (if that) and at the same time am expected to "take personal initiative to develop and increase knowledge and skills to improve job performance..." Sorry, I don't have time...I'm trying to make a living.

Next, I got my business license yesterday, which means I must now work on advertising myself prolifically to increase my client base. And the more I increase my business, the more I wonder if I should keep my retail job???? Being a "business owner" carries a weight I had not expected and my shoulders ached this morning as if the weight were measured in tons and not in metaphor.

And lastly, I have an idea for a book that requires me to interview a lot of people. When will that happen? Oh and let's not forget my freelance job. I must put out the newsletter by the end of the month and I have yet to write one word.

This then is stress, a kind of stress of which I am unfamiliar. I am used to the stress of teaching, the stress of the classroom, the stress of having to email a worried parent, attend a meeting with co-workers, and plan a lesson with a community partner. While both jobs (my previous and my current) carry expectations, those of teaching are made by others and those now are made by me. No wonder I found myself sobbing in the office of my former school begging for a job. It was as if I were asking my two selves -- the two who split apart in my dream -- which do you want -- this stress or that stress?

(...and in the background on the radio right now, the stock market just dropped to a number we have not seen in years. Oh my poor portfolio...one among the millions diving head first into the unknown.)

But would I trade the stress of now for the stress of then? This is what I worked out in my dream: I would not. I distinctly remember in the dream last night that my biggest panic was NOT not having a job, but was a deep and devastating worry that Rubin, our dog, would have to stay at home alone if I went back to work -- that we would no longer spend our days outside with other dogs walking and playing. That thought was the fuel for my tears and so this morning, when I woke with a pounding headache I reassured myself that as stressful and scary as the future of being a "small business owner" is, I wouldn't trade it for the world...even if that world is crumbling under the stress of stress.

Sleepy Optimism

2009-01-21T06:52:00.000-08:00

The alarm went off four times before I realized Ann was hitting snooze again and again. Technically, I don't need to get up until later, but in support of Ann's bread-winning position in my life, I get up early to make coffee and breakfast. We are both tired this morning after sitting in front of the TV way to long watching one more analysis of Obama's inauguration. (If there is one thing I've learned from all of this it's how to spell inauguration.)

His words were moving. I keep reading in this morning's papers the word "somber" as if everyone had a different expectation. These are somber times, aren't they? Was he supposed to come out and say, "Ain't life great?" I mean, what must the guy be thinking about late at night when he can't sleep? "Shit! What have I done? I could have been a cushy lawyer in some high paying law firm or a tweed-coated professor at Yale. Why this?"

And what does his wife tell him? "You screw this up and it's grounds for divorce, sugar!"

Still, even though I know it's awful in the world right now, even though I worry myself about finances and the future and all that falderall (which I'm uncertain how to spell and the dictionary is offering no help at all!)...I am feeling optimistic these days. Sure, when the bank lost my deposit the other day and another bank shows a debit I had never recorded for the same amount the previous bank lost (too confusing to explain, but it's eerie) I feel hopeful (though I'm trying not to get tired of the word "hope") and optimistic.

Maybe it's because Bush is finally gone. Maybe it's because I don't have to listen to his slurry, slushy speech anymore. Maybe it's because, as a country, we're looking more critically at the crazy values of our economy. Maybe it's because people seem somehow nicer these days, kinder and more gentle with each other. Maybe it's something more personal -- like turning 50 and realizing this is it, baby, and the more I whine and worry the more whine and worry hover around me.

Who knows. This is a new day and oddly I'm carrying with me the voice of Aretha Franklin singing My Country tis of Thee. That's a pretty good start for a day, for a week, for a month, for a new country and a new world.

My favorite moment:

"...we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right." Rev. Joseph Lowery

Defining My Work

2009-01-16T07:24:00.000-08:00

Employment has always been, for me, a matter of getting a job and then showing up at the time it began and performing the tasks at hand to the best of my ability. This was true when I worked at a bike shop in my college days and all through my teaching career. Someone else set the time, and day in and day out it rarely changed. Sure, what happened during those 8 hours (or 10 or 14) was often determined by outside forces and fluctuated, but when I went to bed the night before, I knew the expectations.

Now, well, now it's different though when I try to describe the differences, they are hard to really see. What is clear is that every week has the potential for being different...perhaps every day, too, but for now, I'll just try to explain the week thing. Take, for instance, the latest email from my most current client -- Gemma and her two worried fathers. Unlike my weekly commitments to Lucy (Mondays and Wednesdays) or Monty (Wednesdays and Fridays), Gemma's schedule is dependent upon her one father's work schedule. Since he often must travel out of state for his work, he is gone on an irregular schedule.

This week I was called up for a 3-times-a-week visit and now, it seems, I am asked for a different 3 days next week. Then a week of no visits followed by 2 days the next week. I'm not complaining. I make more money walking their dog than I do at my retail job (which is on an economic downturn hiatus it appears), but it makes for a kind of schedule I am unaccustomed to. There is no clear beginning and no clear ending. Add in my freelance writing obligations and a new, temporary contract advising the yearbook students at my former place of employment every Wednesday, and well, the days can be busily crowded or deadly silent.

So I sit in front of my iCalendar and try to map it out. The other day, with 7 dogs to walk, I literally had to time it out -- these dogs at 9:30, these dogs at 11:30, these dogs at 12:30. Often I am left with little bits of time in between, which are always awkward. I've made a commitment, now that I technically work from home, to not turn on the furnace unless I am here for more than an hour and the thermostat reads less than 58 degrees. (I don't want to spend more money than I make.) On the day of 7 dogs, there were times when I was home for 30 minutes until I had to head out for the next walk. Often sweaty and a bit overdressed for my walks, I cool down quickly and can feel a chill building even with the thermostat hovering at 59 degrees. So I've taken to warming up by doing busy tasks -- organizing the laundry requiring me to run up and down the stairs from the second floor to the basement (27 steps in total) to get my blood flowing or sweeping the hardwood floors of the first floor, requiring me to move rugs and furniture and literally jogging while I push the broom. I can stay warm in a cold house if I work at it -- a kind of sacrafice akin to walking on one's knees or wearing a shirt of hair.

Trying to plan meal prep and cooking time in 15 minutes intervals has been fascinating as well. Yesterday I made Indian curry butternut squash soup. In 15 minute intervals I chopped onions, peeled and chopped the squash, and set out the spices. Pause -- off for a walk with Gemma and Rubin -- and then back at home to cook up the onions, saute the garlic and spices, and set out the chicken broth for my return. Pause -- off for a walk with Chole -- and back in time to set the whole thing boiling. Pause -- off to a meeting at the school to learn about advising yearbook -- and back home to puree the soup in the blender and mix up the cornbread ingredients, place them in an oiled pan, and top with cheese and frozen corn. Set aside to allow the corn and chees to sink into the batter. Pause -- out the door again to shoot photos at the school for both yearbook and my upcoming newsletter article -- then back again to put in the cornbread just in time for Ann's arrival home from her day of teaching.

But that was just yesterday and rereading what I've just written I realize I forgot the exact order of things, but am too lazy to rewrite it all. The point is made. Each day has a schedule, but each schedule is influenced by commitments that can be continuous (some dogs, the laundry, making dinner) while others are a one-time event (like the advisory meeting or the photo shoot or unexpected errands).

Again, I'm not complaining. In fact, this kind of scheduling taps into my slightly OCD tendencies (like counting the number of steps from basement to second floor) and I can feel the order of my life during those focused moments. But it's also very different than how I've lived the first 50 years of my life (god, is it really 50?).

And now I look at the clock and realize I must begin today's schedule -- which includes Monty, Oshi and Perdito, another photo shoot at the school, a writing meeting with my friend, Laurie, finishing the laundry I started yesterday, a stop at the grocery store for some essentials like milk and finding time for my own workout (weights and cycling).

Let it begin.

Leah

2009-01-13T06:40:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, when I was thinking about my employment options, I thought about Leah, a life coach and consultant I worked with a few months back. I met Leah during my last years as a teacher. She was hired to help the faculty and staff communicate more effectively with the administration. We had numerous meetings both as a group and individually and they were always difficult -- not because of Leah, but because the issues were straining everyone, creating a very low morale at the school.

Leah was a perfect choice for a mediator. Her presence in the middle of the difficult mess calmed us all. She articulated the issues, listened intently, and made us all feel that she was on our side even when those sides disagreed. When I "retired" my co-workers gifted me three sessions with Leah and last summer, Leah and I talked about my transition from teaching to something else. It helped me tremendously because she always had an important insight, she always said just the right thing, she gave me so much to think about, and she laughed in a way that made me feel confident in myself.

So yesterday, when I felt uncertain about my future decisions, I thought to myself call Leah because I knew she'd offer some needed guidance.

But I didn't call her. Instead, I went about my day, which included stopping by school, my former workplace, to pick up a dog I walk for a staff member there. Rafael, the Assistant Head of School, called me into this office and I thought he wanted to talk with me more about the Dean of Faculty position, but no. He wanted to tell me that Leah had passed away over the weekend.

Shock is an interesting feeling. All the air went out of my lungs and I sat stunned. I kept waiting for tears, but there weren't any. Instead, there was a hole inside of me and outside of me that felt vast and swirling. I fought all these feelings. In the measure of things, I barely new Leah. I was not her friend though we were always friendly. I was not a confidante though I felt as if she were always honest with me. In the past 3 years I've known Leah, I've spent possibly 15 hours with her in total and most of that time was in large group setting.

But when I heard the news, I felt as if I'd lost something personally significant -- a dear friend, a loving relative, a hopeful symbol. After I heard the news, I walked the dogs for an hour and it gave me time to reflect on Leah, on how amazing she was. This must be how some would feel if Oprah were to die, I thought to myself trying to measure the loss in a way some might understand. Only I'm not a huge fan of Oprah's and I don't mean to suggest in anyway that Leah had celebrity status, it's just that for some, Oprah changed their lives and her loss would reverberate.

Leah changed lives. She changed mine and when I think about all the people and organizations she worked with, the people and organizations she helped and improved, I realize just how many people she's influenced with her intelligence, wisdom, and wit. Leah not being here leaves a huge hole in the fabric of all that is good and positive and optimistic. Only those who worked with her, as well as her family and friends, realize the magnitude of her passing, but somehow I want everyone to know and even as I write it, I know everyone won't know what's been lost.

At one point in my walk yesterday I ran into my friend Laurie who'd just returned from a month in Mexico. She smiled her tan at me and we hugged. Laurie worked with Leah too and when I told her, the same look of shock crossed her face; the same suck of air escaping her lungs. "Oh my god," she said, "I was just going to call her this morning for some advice!"

Death is like this for everyone, I suppose. Everyone feels that gap in the world when someone of significance leaves us. I've felt it before, yet every time it surprises me. When Laurie told me she had thought of Leah that morning, I realized again how many lives Leah had influenced, how exponential her life was.

This morning, I'm still trying to hold the magnitude of that loss in my hands and no matter how hard I try, I can't.

Dilemmas/Decisions

2009-01-12T08:04:00.000-08:00

A posting for a Dean of Faculty position at my previous place of work came across my email this weekend. It's not the position for which I hoped -- part-time, no teaching, flexible hours -- but rather a full-time position, including a teaching assignment. Ann and I have been talking and there are the usual lists of pros and cons developing in my head. I have two meetings this week with people involved to discuss exactly what this position will look like, but in my gut I have doubts.

To complicate it all, I had an epiphany this weekend. Since I quit teaching I have had this gnawing feeling that I should be doing something, that what I was doing in that moment was just a task to be completed before the next something came along. Sometimes that next something was defined -- an appointment, an errand, and a job -- but often, there was this nagging feeling without anything clear and coherent ahead of me.

For instance, Ann wanted to visit with a friend of hers who has recently been in the hospital, but who is now home. Since the visit was in another part of town, a part we enjoy walking through with the dog, we decided to visit the friend and then head for a walk around the neighborhood. After that, there were a few shopping errands to run and Ann had some schoolwork she needed to complete or at least, begin completing that afternoon.

The whole time we were visiting the friend -- an elderly, kind woman who stands barely 4 feet 8 inches in height, but whose heart is as big as the moon -- the gnawing, nagging feeling that we needed to get going chewed at my conscience. In my head, I was meting out the day in minutes -- so much time for this visit, so much time for errands, so much time for the walk, so much time to travel between places -- and feeling as if we were way behind schedule. While I fought the feelings, they tugged at me mightily. As we walked through the neighborhood, I wrestled the urge to walk faster racing to the end of the journey so we could get to the next task.

The next day, yesterday, we woke lazily and ate a nice breakfast before heading out to play with the dog. That nagging pull was still there and by the time we got home, I had created a list in my head of all the things I wanted to get done. Top of the list -- cleaning out and reorganizing the kitchen cupboards and drawers. This was no small task and when we returned from our romp with the dog, I positioned myself to jump right in. The voice in my head chattered with a buzz fueled by adrenaline and necessity...this is a big task, get started now, it's going to take a long time, you can get it done, set a time limit...I will be finished in 3 hours...that's the goal...three hours...get ready...go...

Only I didn't go. All the sudden I thought, This is a much bigger job than I have time for! Which was followed by another thought...Wait...what do I have to do after this?

Enter epiphany: There wasn't anything I had to do after the kitchen cleaning. Sure, there were things I could do, but nothing had a deadline. This is the exact moment I'd wanted my entire teaching career -- the moment of no obligations just choices. I had no papers to grade. I had no emails to parents to answer. I had no field trips to plan or lessons to lay out for the week. I had no administrative paperwork to complete. There was nothing accept that which I chose to do.

Hell yes I had time to reorganize the kitchen. Hell yes, I could take my time completing the job and better yet, I could enjoy each minute because I'd chosen the endeavor and there was no time limit imposed by the what-I-had-to-do-next feeling. Throughout my teaching career, I'd felt as if I could never fully breathe. I've written about it a million times and there I was, standing in the middle of the kitchen, breathing and deciding and finally relaxing into the moment -- a moment unencumbered by the moments that were to follow.

I liked the feeling very much so when I read my email and saw the posting for the Dean of Faculty job I felt a conundrum: IF I ventured back into the world of teaching (albeit part time) and take on the new administrative tasks outlined in the job description, would I lose this feeling?

"I don't want you to work full time," Ann said to me yesterday afternoon.

"Why?" I asked.

"I like that you cook and clean," she smiled.

We have an on-going joke about my current role as stay-at-home wife and mother, but I knew this was her way of saying I was a nicer, less stressed out person.

"You're just getting started," she added.

This was reference to my business as a freelance writer and a dog walker. I love Ann's perspective. I don't feel at all that I've just gotten started. I feel like it's taken a long time to get this business off the ground and only recently has it even shown signs of possibly lifting one heel off the ground. "I think you need to give yourself more time to see how it goes," Ann suggested.

"But what about money?" I asked, for this is ALWAYS my concern, but I didn't give her time to answer. "I could always tutor on top of the writing and dog walking. I'm certain I could get some clients if I offered myself as a tutor."

Ann is both pragmatic and encouraging. "I don't think you've really given yourself enough time to really know if you could make a living outside of teaching."

She's right, of course, and frankly I haven't done much to promote myself. So yesterday, after reorganizing the kitchen and discussing my options with Ann, I went on a long walk with the dog. Walking clears my head. Walking gives me ideas. Walking is the best way I know of meditating, something I'm never able to do if I'm asked to just sit and breathe. And this is what I decided:

I will not make a decision until I've gathered together more information. I will talk with the Assistant Head of School and see if he can give me a better feeling for exactly what the job is all about. I will talk with my former teaching partner about the possibility of sharing the job. I will work on advertising myself as a dog walker, a tutor, and a freelance writer. I will let the decision come to me naturally and not out of some panicked desire to get to the next thing. I will not worry about money until there is no money available -- then I will worry, but only then.

So today I am printing out more business cards. I will make the rounds this week to all the pet stores, vet clinics, schools, and even post an ad on Craig's List advertising myself as a dog walker, tutor, and freelance writer. I will finally fill out the business license. I will work on my book idea and begin interviewing people for the stories I have in mind.

IF the job as Dean of Faculty works out, so be it, but I will not hold my breath. Not again.

I like this breathing thing. I'm not about to let it go.

Bacon

2009-01-11T08:23:00.000-08:00

Not my bottom...trust me...my love of bacon has not produced something so trim and firm.

I am trying not to cook up the bacon sitting in the fridge. I am trying to lose weight along with millions of others who faced the new year with more than they expected. But I love bacon and that says a lot about me since for years and years I would not eat meat. I still avoid red meat like steak or roast beef fearing what it will do to my digestion after not eating it for so long as well as worrying about things like mad cow and injected hormones.

I eat chicken and do my best to purchase organic, free-range chicken though economic times make that difficult. I avoid seafood, unless it's served to me, because of my knowledge of the sea's depletion (years of teaching environmental science) and I spend time combing through vegetarian recipes trying to find something meat-like that can fulfill my craving for a sink-your-teeth-into meal.

But bacon...I could eat a whole package of crispy, chewy bacon. I could make quiche with an overabundance of bacon in it. I could eat BLT's all day with more B and limited L and Ts. Oddly, though, I will not eat a pork loin or pork sausage nor a pork chop. I bought a pork loin for Ann the other day because I know it's one of the foods she loves the most and misses the most now that I do the cooking. But I will not cook it for her since I have no knowledge of how to cook meat other than chicken, fish, and strips of bacon.

Yesterday, while I emptied the groceries into the fridge, I saw the bacon in the meat drawer and realized I needed to do something with it or it would go bad. This morning, that thought is still with me although it's no longer a thought -- it's a craving. Perhaps this craving is due to my impending menstrual cycle -- the elusive, sneaky, and uncertain beast that either floods my life or saber-rattles with out much bloody warfare.

I crave chocolate, too, but more than anything, I crave meat. Since bacon is the only "true" meat I allow myself to eat, the package in the fridge is like a drug begging me to consume it. Scrambled eggs with cream cheese rolled into a tortilla with three strips of bacon -- that's the kind of thing I think about when I hear the impassioned cry of the bacon. Or a zucchini bacon quiche with tart Swiss cheese and a golden brown, slightly crispy crust.

The planned menu for this evening is Oaxaxa Tacos -- a vegetarian dish made with black beans and potatoes. It's low-fat. It's filling. While it's a complicated recipe, the end result is a beautiful dish -- tasty and slightly decadent.

Still, it might rise to the level of extraordinary with crispy bacon mixed into the black beans or strips of bacon atop the potato-filled tacos.

Come on...I get let that bacon go to waste.

My only question: Who the hell bought the bacon in the first place?

Please note: The above photo comes from a series of "Bacon Clothing" found at the following blog...yikes!
4.bp.blogspot.com/.../s400/bacon+panties.jpg

Blind Shots

2009-01-09T14:41:00.000-08:00

Ann took the camera today. We have three cameras, so it shouldn't have been a problem it's just that the camera she took is the one I love to use the most. It's a video camera, but it has the capability of shooting still photos. What makes it great are...

1. It has a mighty zoom and I can shoot good photos from a great distance
2. It has a HUGE card and long lasting battery. I can take almost 200 photos with the battery barely depleted.
3. It has great resolution. The pictures are clear and detailed.
4. It has a flip view screen so I can hold the camera low and still see the display by adjusting the view screen. Nice. Really nice, especially when shooting dogs who are below knee high
5. And it doesn't have that horrible digital delay of most digital cameras. You know, snap and the shot is gone before the camera actually takes the photo. Not with the video camera. I still miss shots, but nothing like...well, nothing like the camera I had to use today.

So what did I do? I shot blind. This meant I didn't look into any view finder. I just pointed the camera in the direction of what I thought would be good shots and crossed my fingers. The end result is that I got pictures like the one of Rubin above and then some like this:

Not bad, but not great. Mostly fur and butts and ears. When I downloaded the photos it made me laugh. Still, it was frustrating, though I got kind of good at it. Take these, for instance...

Someday, when I'm rich and famous (or maybe just rich) I'll buy myself one of those super duper digital numbers that can do all the things I want it to do...

...like the clean the dirty dishes =-)

It's Friday...whew!

Water

2009-01-08T07:31:00.000-08:00

Before I became a teacher, my friends gave me the gift of a horoscope reading. I was skeptical, but interested so I visited an astrologist in her home and gave her the algebraic details of my birth. Weeks later, she prepared an elaborate chart with beautifully designed planets encased in artistically sketched wheel.

I don't remember much. Her office in the loft of an enormous house. Her quiet and kind voice. The parchment of the chart. Her acknowledgment of my doubt. And these three "readings."

1. Most of my planets were in the family house. This meant I was deeply connected to family -- biological or not -- and I was a person of integrity and loyalty, she said.

2. While I was venturing into the correct profession (according to her interpretation), I should focus my attention on younger students, not high school students.

3. I had very little water in my chart. I can't remember what that meant for me, but I remember the astrologer saying, "You will need to surround yourself with water in one way or another to help you feel balanced."

I'm not sure if what she shared with me was "true" or if it has reflected my past 23 years correctly, but these three remembered points have offered some remarkable clarity.

1. While I struggled for a long time with my family (the biological one), I have never felt as close to them as I do now. It took some work -- especially on my part -- but I not only love my family, I enjoy them for the most part. I couldn't have said that 25 years ago. The therapy work I did around my family did make me feel balanced and understanding that "family" is more than genetics has also offered me an expansion of my familial circle. My logical family is as important as my biological one.

2. I started my teaching career teaching 8th grade. I moved to the high school grades within 6 years and while I spent another 6 years there, I headed back to the middle school age because it felt more comfortable. For the last 4 years of my career, I taught 5th grade and that felt like the perfect age.

3. And this is the point that has astounded me the most: I need water. I crave water. Not just to consume, but I need to be around it, immersed in it, and not too distant from it. When I think of my "happy place" water is always there generally in the form of a river though I can find peace by the ocean or a lake just as easily. When I am feeling out of balance, I need only expand my access to water to lift my spirits even slightly.

Today, as the water levels crest above their flood stage, as the rain falls like water poured from a bucket, as the ground squishes like a drenched sponge I am not unhappy. I feel balanced.

"I have a scientific question about water," I told Ann last night before we headed to bed. She studied science, I did not. "If you weighed all the water in the world, no matter the form -- gas, liquid, or solid -- it would weigh the same over time, right?"

"Yep," she yawned. Rain makes her sleepy.

"Like for thousands of years?" I asked. "It just recycles again and again over time, right?"

"Millions of years," she mumbled and then paused. "We could be drinking the sweat of Elvis or bathing in the urine of dinosaurs," she added.

"Ew!" I whispered. "Too much information."

But it wasn't really. When I try to hold the concept of water in its entirety, I sit in awe.

Record amounts of rain are falling on us right now. The once heavy snows in the mountains are melting. Our rivers from north to south and east to west are all flooding. The water of the world is focused on us right now. This means that somewhere else, somewhere continents away, there is a record-breaking drought. The sponge of the atmosphere is squeezing above us and not over other areas of the world.

Yesterday, while walking my assigned dogs for the day, the water on the sidewalks came up over the sole of my waterproof boots. The small dogs I walked were soaked on their underbellies from their fur sloshing through the running water. I had to leap over clogged street drains where lakes of water pooled and stagnated.

"What's a cubit?" a co-worker joked last night referring to the Bill Cosby routine about Noah and his arc.

"It feels like that doesn't it?" I laughed.

Ann went off to work this morning, tired and grumpy. "It's the rain," she said. "Indoor recess again and the kids are wacky."

"Take them outside," I suggested. "They aren't made of sugar. They'll survive."

And, I think, perhaps they are like me needing to surround themselves in water to feel balanced.

"I wish I could," she grumbled, "but the principal makes the call, not me."

It's not raining as hard right now. In fact, I think the rain has stopped as I can't hear its patter on the windows or the roof. It will make my life easier today if the weather dries out a bit and it will help all those people forced to evacuate their river homes. Still, I find a strange comfort surrounded by water determined, I suppose, by my birth under constellations aligned in algebraic equations.

5 Manner Reminders for the Privileged

2009-01-05T06:45:00.000-08:00

1. Please and Thank You
A man approached me last night at work. He was well-dressed in pressed slacks and a heavy wool coat. His beard was trimmed and neat with flecks of gray. His wool hat set precisely on his head. His wife, or what I assumed to be his wife, walked three paces behind him looking shy and unassuming. I was stacking sleeping bags. The store was busy, but not hectic. He walked up to me and stood approximately 5 inches from my face. Standing in between two display bins, I felt a bit trapped. He held a rolled map in his right hand, lifted it to my face, and asked, "Where do they laminate maps now?"

There was an urgency to his request, the kind of urgency I recognized. Customers are often befuddled by how often the store "moves" around -- ski shop in one corner, the next time the customer comes in, the ski shop is moved into an opposite corner. This customer had searched for the laminating machine where he once remembered it only it wasn't there. In fact, it hasn't been there for years as the store discontinued offering the service. "I'm sorry," I responded, "We no longer have a laminator." He rolled his eyes. I saw the arc since I was still "trapped" between two display bins, a wall at my back, and his well-groomed beard 5 inches from my face. He turned and walked away. Not a word, just a huff. His wife spun hesitantly on her sheepish heels and looked at me quickly before bowing her head and staring at her husband's fast-paced feet walking out of the store.

2. Wait your turn
I helped a very nice young man choose a sleeping bag for his girlfriend. He had questions about length of the bags, loft of the down, durability of the fabric. I answered each in detail and deliberately while he worried about cost versus quality.

A woman approached carrying an expensive backpack and carrying a shopping bag filled with clothes she'd selected from upstairs. Behind her, her tall, teenage daughter talked on her cell phone and curled her ponytail around her long fingers. "Does this come in a better color?"

At first, I didn't realize she was talking to me. I'd been in mid-sentence with the young man, explaining the advantages of a down sleeping bag over a synthetic one. He looked at the woman and then at me, taking a step back to give her room. I stuttered. "Uh, I'm not certain. Which pack do you have?"

The pack department sits on the opposite side of the store from sleeping bags. While I work in packs on occasion, I had no idea about the colors we offered in the various bags. My head spun on the details and then I caught myself. "I'd be happy to help you as soon as I finish helping this customer," I said to the woman, but the man shook his head and said, "Oh no, go ahead and help her." He deferred and I let him.

I walked across the store and checked the computer. "It only comes in that color," I told the woman. "Well, what else do you have that she could use?" She nodded to her daughter who was still on her phone. "Uh, what does she need the pack for?" I asked and for the next half hour I helped them select a pack, fitted it to the daughter who refused to get off her phone, and all the while worried about the man who waited by the sleeping bags.

In the end, the mother bought a $400 pack for her daughter along with two expensive down coats, three pair of exercise pants, endless shirts and sweaters, and two pairs of shoes. After ringing her up, I headed back to the sleeping bags where the man still stood looking at some choices. "I'm so sorry," I said, "I didn't expect that to take so long." He smiled. "It's okay. Some people are very demanding. What can you do?"

Yeah, what can you do?

3. The most expensive is not always the best choice
I love working in the travel department. Customers who shop there are often on their way to somewhere interesting. Thailand, Cambodia, Kenya, Guatemala -- their stories are often colorful and they have very specific needs. There are many options for the world traveler -- an assortment of luggage from the standard carry-on to wheeled bags that turn into backpacks. Most customers want to know the options, though a few come in wanting a certain brand name.

A man came in last night and asked, "Do you have the Victory (fake name) line of luggage?" I showed him what we had, the red line of expensive options. He opened each bag, looked inside, and pulled on the handles. "Yes, this is what I want." Five different bags sat before him. "You want them all?" I asked. "Yes."

I was shocked. We had other options on the floor, options more than half the price and just as good if not better. The total for the 5 bags was well over a thousand dollars. Surely he wanted to look at comparable luggage -- luggage that was, frankly, better made and far less expensive. "Are you sure you don't want to look at some other options?" He pushed one of the bags toward me, "No. I only buy Victory bags." And then he turned and walked toward the cash register.

The bags he'd examined laid splayed and open on the counter and the floor. I realized after a bit of hesitation, he wanted me to close them up and haul them to the register. I did it, of course, what else was I to do? He paid with a platinum credit card and asked if I could carry the bags to the garage. I did, of course, what else was I to do? I loaded them all into his Lexus SUV (he didn't offer to help, he just watched) and I closed the hatch of his car. He drove off without a nod of any appreciation.

When I returned to the sales floor Dave, who has a witty sense of humor smiled, "Take solace in the fact that he just purchased the crappiest luggage for the highest price and it will most likely fall apart on his next trip to Paris and all of his silk underwear will fall out in the lobby of the Ritz Carlton." I laughed.

4. Clean up after yourself
For a half hour after the store closes, the employees are to "zone" their departments. In other words, straighten things up. This can be particularly important after a busy day when items are scattered about and half open. In the Travel department, it means placing bags back on their hooks, zipping up open zippers, and restocking the traveling knick knacks. In Optics, we must straighten the items in the display cases and wipe the glass of those cases clean with a wet cloth. In Packs we restack the packs against the wall and hang the displays on the appropriate hooks. We're given a half hour, but it rarely takes that long so often the supervisors will come by and ask us to help out in another department.

A few weeks ago on a closing shift, my supervisor came by before we closed and asked if I could "zone" the hats and gloves at the front of the store for the last half hour of my shift. There weren't any customers in my department (Travel), but at the front of the store there were customers aplenty searching for a warm hat and warm gloves for the changing weather.

We carry a wide variety of hats and gloves. Too many in my opinion, and their organization is random. Typically, they are organized by brand, but there are at least 50 different brands and the categories are blurry on their displays. By the time I got to the section, most of the hats sat on the bottom shelf of the display, scattered about like forgotten children. Even the top of the displays were covered in hats, stacked in precarious piles.

I gathered up all the randoms and put them in a shopping basket and began the tedious task of finding a home for each of them. Customers shopped around me and as I muddled through the arranging, customers pulled more hats from the display, tried them on, and then put them back...not at all where they got them from. I followed one woman around for more than 15 minutes and watched her try on hat after hat, pulling it from it's hook and then tossing it onto the bottom shelf of the display or stacking it on top.

At one point I said, "Are you still interested in these hats?" holding a pile in my hand.

"Oh," she mumbled, "No," and tried on another hat, looked in the mirror, and threw the hat onto the bottom shelf.

I picked it up, put it in my basket and bit my tongue.

I went back to shelving the hats in their proper place, working my way down each aisle only to find more hats randomly tossed along the shelves and on top of the displays. It was a losing battle.

I returned to my department after my half hour of "organizing" and said goodbye to my co-worker, Jeanett. "You look frazzled," she said.

"I've become the mad hatter," I laughed. "Never agree to zone the hat section when they ask."

"Oh, you haven't learned to run the other way when they come looking for you at the end of your shift? Trust me, it's worse in clothing. Those dressing rooms are a nightmare." We smiled at each other as I headed to the time clock to check out.

5. Not everyone needs to know your business
A couple looked at new packs last week. Both young, the woman was very, very thin and the man, rather short and pudgy. She tried on packs while he sat off to the side talking on his cell phone. She was determined to fit into a large pack measured by the length of one's torso even though it clearly did not fit her. Marion, a co-worker, did her best to help. "That's a really wonderful pack, but it's not quite your size."

"Why not?" the skinny woman asked. Marion did her best to explain how packs were fitted -- how the length of the torso mattered and how, despite how it might feel, a pack should sit on the hips, which contrary to the current lo-slung pants style, was significantly higher than one might imagine. Marion flashed me a few looks, rolling her eyes and shaking her head slightly whenever I looked over. Eventually, I joined her to see if I could help.

"We leave tomorrow," I heard the man on the cell phone state. "Yeah, she's getting her pack now."

Marion, always pleasant asks, "Where are you headed?"

"My boyfriend works for Bill Gates and he's giving us a trip to Asia as a gift for all the work he's done for Microsoft," explained Ms. Skinny.

"Oh, that's cool." Marion was clearly faking her enthusiasm.

"Last year," Ms. Skinny continued unprompted, "He took us on his personal boat to the Caribbean. He's such a wonderful person."

I busily arranged scattered packs on the floor and tried my best not to look at Marion lest I break out laughing.

"We've traveled all over the world," Ms. Skinny continued, forcing the waist belt of the pack as far down on her hips as she could possibly push it. "We're going to meet Bono next month and have trip planned this summer to float the Grand Canyon with Steven Spielberg."

"And you leave tomorrow for Asia?" Marion asked.

"Yes, that's why I need a pack." Ms. Skinny looked over at her boyfriend who was still on his phone and tipped her head in search of approval.

He moved the phone away from his mouth and said, "Whatever you want, honey. Bill's paying for it all."

At this point, Marion's loaded the pack with weighted bean bags and sent Ms. Skinny on a walk around the store to see how the pack felt. Ms. Skinny walked away pushing the waist belt down way past where Marion had fitted it.

"Do you really think they're going with Bill Gates?" I asked.

"Hell no," Marion responded. "And if I didn't have any integrity, I'd fit that pack so it hurt like hell 10 minutes after she started hiking."

It took over an hour to sell a pack to Ms. Skinny and her cell phone boyfriend. In that hour, names were dropped like pennies. There wasn't a celebrity they didn't know or a fancy or exotic place they hadn't been to or were going to within the next few months. I hung around for most of the fitting to support Marion in her efforts to fit the pack properly, but in the end, Ms. Skinny purchased the largest pack and insisted it felt better strapped below her hips.

"I really like this pack," she kept saying, "I just wish it came in a blue. Do you have it in blue?"

"No," we both chimed in. "They don't give color choices with packs like these."

"That's too bad," she said, "I'll have my boyfriend call the company and complain."

You do that, Ms. Skinny, you do that.

TWOOO9

2009-01-01T08:50:00.001-08:00

We survived New Year's Eve. It's always a question -- our survival -- since we live in a neighborhood where the event is celebrated not only with fireworks, but with guns. When I lived in a more rural area, guns were also a popular choice of celebration, but the distances between my house and my neighbor's was measured not in feet, but in miles.

Not so now. I can hit at last 9 houses from mine with a hurled rock, if I so chose to and my propulsion capabilities are nothing compared to the guns brought out on New Year's Eve. The guns, though, aren't my biggest worry. It's the sound. Loud, explosive, cracking, whistling, and booming -- it is the dog who bares the brunt of celebration. So we take necessary precautions.

First, we exercised him more than usual yesterday. After long walks and a few play times (fetch, chase, tug of war) we went out one more time last night for a short walk and a romp with Monty, his best dog friend. By the time we got home, he crashed under our outstretched legs as we watched Amelie and drank a celebratory Mexican hot chocolate. By 9 o' clock, we all went to bed and crossed our fingers that midnight would be short and relatively uneventful.

Surprisingly, I was the one who woke at midnight to the sound of distance fireworks. I waited, expecting to hear the neighbors at the end of the block igniting their arsenal, but before long I fell back to sleep. The dog slept. Ann slept. And even I slept.

Until 1:30 when a "drive by fireworks" attack motored and exploded down the street. The dog raced off the bed in a fit of barking and I shuffled off to the bathroom for my nightly visit. But five minutes later, the fireworks faded into the distance and we were back to sleep again. Until 2:30, but again, only one or two bangs, a few barks, and finally we were asleep for the rest of the night.

Now, Rubin sleeps curled on his bed in the study, we're still in our pajamas, and rain dampens the already soggy streets. Oddly, all of this feels like a good omen for the coming new year.

Christmas 2008

2008-12-29T21:21:00.001-08:00

Niece Lindsey and Nephew Nathan...oh, and lounging Hope snuggled into her favorite position

It was an interesting Christmas this year...not "interesting" as weird or uncomfortable, but interesting as in timing and journey. We traveled on the day after Christmas due to the abundance of snow and ice on the road and still felt a bit nervous about the conditions even though we were a day late. Lucky for us, the journey was only eventful at the arrival of my parents' home where the slush and ice provided for a squirmy ride and the last hill by my brother's house, 5 hours away, meant ignoring a stop sign and barreling through over a pile of snow and ice. But Christmas proceeded as usual with stockings unstuffed and food stuffed in our faces.

Did I mention how much Hope likes to lounge? Nathan, too.

After we opened presents we entertained ourselves. Rubin demonstrated how simple it is to jump over my brother who conveniently displayed his ass for the camera.

Sister-in-law Patti, on the other hand, got other games to entertain us all and my mother, a youthful 81, kicked all our asses in bowling!

Grandpa and Grandma were a hit in many ways, but mostly because of the ENORMOUS stocking they presented the to the dogs. Rubin was more than happy to grab a tasty gift if he could get his cousin Ringo out of the way.Ann tried to calm the mighty beasts, though Ringo was hard to rein in. He wanted nothing more than to play tug of war with Rubin while Hope was looking for a place to lounge.

Don't let this picture fool you. Ringo's a devil he is and only on occasion would we find him relaxing from the strenuous behavior of irritating everyone.

Regardless, the snow all melted and we arrived back home safely though tired from the journey, the food, and most definitely, the fun.

More holiday photos can be found on Rubinations...

It Just Keeps Coming

2008-12-24T11:54:00.002-08:00

It's still snowing though it's kind of wet snow and there's a bit of rain mixed in. Sloppy stuff. Ann saw this little critter looking in our kitchen window this morning. He didn't move any when he saw her. He looks pretty fat, so we're not too worried about him.

We headed to the dog park where Rubin played a little fetch and Quillette smelled the air. Quillette's mom is in Chicago where it's a helluva lot colder and snowier. It could be worse.

Meanwhile, Rubin is entertaining himself and us with is silly snowbound antics!

As promised

2008-12-22T14:36:00.001-08:00

We went skiing this morning and had a beautiful lookout over Lake Washington to Bellevue. If the cloud cover hadn't been there, I'm certain the Cascades would have been spectacular. Alas. Cloud cover and snowy cloud cover at that.

Here's Ann on the lookout. I always tease her that she never smiles big when I take this pictures. She claims it's her Wisconsin heritage. "You've got to keep your mouth closed to keep your teeth warm."

Despite all the snow, I-90 was bare and wet, though not a lot of traffic. Usually this direction you can see Mt. Rainier, but that damn cloud cover has her hidden.

Rubin loves to ski, but he gets kind of rowdy so we have tire him out before we go skiing. We took him to the tennis courts to play some fetch where he met up with his buddy Dixie. He also got covered with snowballs (as you can see) on his legs. After fetch, we skied and the boy was a happy camper until the very end when he got so tired, he could barely move forward. Now he and Ann are both asleep in the living room.
Finally, a shot up our street. Not a lot of action though people are out shoveling their walks and building a few snow-people.

Our house looks like a ski lodge with boots and coats and gloves and hats piled around the furnace vents. I have yet to be called off work, so I will shower and drive slowly to the store in about an hour. I'm hoping they call between now and then, but I have a feeling they won't.

Who knows what tomorrow's weather will bring. They're talking about more snow tonight and then a gradual warming trend, which isn't the best news as it will make for messy, messy roads and lots and lots of potential flooding. Still, we may make it to Bremerton to pick up the folks and then plow our way to Hillsboro to be with my brother's family. I hope we make it.

Deeper

2008-12-22T10:03:00.001-08:00

This was yesterday morning. I got the car out later that day for my drive to work. Not bad. The car did really well and I made it to and from work without any scary moments. Sigh. But once I got to work, the snow began again and we got another few inches. We're over a foot now...here's the back of the backyard.

We measured the snow in the raised bed. It's about 13 inches, but who knows how much really fell since we've had a bit of wind blowing it all around. Rubin loves the snow, though he struggles every morning trying to figure out where to pee. It's hard to lift a leg when the snow is at your belly.

He's taken to either peeing on the deck or finding the path Ann's made to the bamboo, which she shakes about 5 times a day in hopes that the snow won't break the treasured bamboo.

We're about to go out now with the dogs and than ski later. More photos to come! What a way to remember one's 50th birthday!

A mighty crunch

2008-12-21T10:25:00.000-08:00

Well, I have to work today. This could be interesting. I just called in and apparently yesterday was the biggest day of the year. They are anticipating the same today. So, I shall make my way slowly to the store, avoiding hills when possible. I took the car out around the neighborhood just to see if the all-wheel drive would be of any use. The car did well so hopefully the 4-mile journey to work will be okay.

Rubin likes the snow, though he was pretty surprised this morning when he and Quillette (our boarder) stepped onto what they thought would be soft snow only to find it to be very hard and crunchy. We walked through the neighborhood and as you can tell from the video, it's mighty crunchy.

At least we have electricity, unlike some in the state, and for that we are incredibly thankful. Now, if we could only make it to Hillsboro later this week. We'll see.

Throwing My Shoes

2008-12-20T08:30:00.001-08:00

I'm going to put this out there in hopes someone has more technical ability than I possess. I'm sure someone somewhere is putting this together, but I want to go on record as sharing this idea early on.

Someone needs to create an electronic shoe that can be thrown at George W. Bush. We should inundate the White House during his last days to really let him know how awful he's been. You could buy an electronic shoe and donate the money to one of your favorite anti-Bush charities like Amnesty International or the VA or the UAW or hell, even your favorite public school. I know people are placing shoes outside the White House, but that's too easy to ignore. There needs to be millions of shoes clogging up the White House emails. Millions.

And while we're at it, shoes need to be laid at the dais of President elect Obama during his inauguration in response to the selection of Rick Warren's invocation. No need to throw them, just silently spread them out, thousands, millions of them in a protest against bigotry. Works for me.

I'm not nearly as incensed as my friends about Rick Warren. I understand the idea of being inclusive -- pulling in those with whom we disagree -- but I also feel for all those people (like myself) who supported this campaign in hopes that we could chip away at all bigotry, not just some of it. Besides, chipping away at some of it does not work. Even a chunk of bigotry in the world is ugly.

I keep hoping that maybe MAYBE Rick Warren will have the courage to just step aside and say, "Hey, I don't represent all Americans so choose someone else, Mr. President," but if there is one thing I've learned this life is that politicians and public figures are arrogant and really good at faking sensitivity. While I was hoping Obama was different, I don't think he is and though I still have high hopes for his presidency, my hopes have been knocked down a peg or two.

I'm a pacifist, so I'd never throw a shoe, but give me a chance to place one in front of the president, past and future, and I would do it in a minute if need be.

Let It Snow!

2008-12-18T12:05:00.000-08:00

Rubin wanted me to post these pictures on my blog, not his. His feet are still warming up and are therefore incapacitated for typing on his own blog.

First up...Quillette who, while frisky in the snow, took this moment to be contemplative...Rubin doesn't have a contemplative bone in his body, but don't tell him I said that!Ollie likes to chase Rubin and Rubin, of course, is always game for a good chase...especially in the snow. They both had HUGE ice balls attached to their legs and got warm baths to remove them when they got home.Okay, maybe he's not contemplative, but he's pretty damn cute, don't ya think?
We have about 5 inches of snow right now. Another 3 inches are predicted. It's snowing still as I type. A steady stream. Work called and told me I didn't have to come in....HALLELUJAH! I've come down with a cold and was dreading the drive down the hill towards work. Turns out most of the roads are closed anyway AND the store is closing early. Yippee!!!

Ann and I are both contemplating naps as we were rudely awakened by a bolt of lightning whose thunder shook the house and set the dogs to barking. Ann has another snow day, but unlike yesterday, there's actually snow and lots of it, so we can really be relaxed with no obligations.

The dogs -- Rubin and Quillette -- are both sound asleep. They played hard this morning, ate a big breakfast, and are enjoying the whole gang being home in a warm house.

More later, perhaps -- play and photos and German chocolate cake (my present from Ann for my 50th birthday celebration this past week).

An Icy Surprise

2008-12-15T07:20:00.001-08:00

Yesterday morning we woke to snow and this morning, the same snow, but now it's turned to ice. Ann is happy -- a two-hour late start means she can dawdle this morning (something she enjoys doing) and not feel rushed to get to her classroom and prepare for the day. The thermometer reads 20 degrees, but on the news they claim it's 10 when factoring in the wind chill. That's cold for these parts and while deep in the heart of Wisconsin or Montana or Alaska they might think we're wussies, it feels mighty chilly to me.

Rubin loves the weather. Well, yesterday he loved it. He played hard in the snow morning, noon, and night and slept like a brick all night long. He's still asleep even now. This morning, though, he wasn't so sure about the frigid temperatures or the ice that clung to his paws when he went into the backyard to take care of his morning business. He came in shaking his paws and skating slightly across the kitchen floor.

We have a fairly light weight day, though I must work tonight and walk the neighbors' dogs twice as the owners are off to Hawaii. Lucky them, though frankly, I'm more of a cold weather gal than a steamy, humid one. Not sure how their dogs will fair in the ice and cold seeing as how they are small and more cat-like than doggish, but if we keep moving, I think they will be happy, as usual, to get out and smell the trees -- literally.

My feet are tired from yesterday's shift at work. It was busy in a steady sort of way with no outrageous customers to speak of. I'm still amazed at what people are buying these days seeing as how there are warnings of such economic doom and gloom. In the first half hour of work, for instance, I sold three $200 tents and a $200 sleeping bag. It kept on from there and when I glanced over at the optics counter where the real pricey items are displayed, they were swarmed with gift-buyers. Marion, who works in Snow Sports, said they were never without 3-4 customers trying on ski boots, testing out snowshoes, or trying on helmets. I can only help that tonight the store is as busy so my 3-hour shift moves quickly.

It's the drive there and back, of course, but Ann and I are still working out the details of our transportation. In the meantime, we're enjoying the morning eating our oatmeal and drinking our respective coffee and cocoa in a warm, warm house.