Bad Blogger!

It's true - I'm a very bad blogger. It's not due to lack of conviction on my part, as I have sat down with the laptop approximately twenty times since my last post, but I just never manage to hit the "Publish" button.

There has not been much excitement in our little corner of the world, and a major part of that is Corey having been in Texas all month completing his instructor training for the new position. It's not the first time the Air Force has separated us, and God knows it won't be the last, but to say that I'm counting down the minutes until his return would be an understatement.

In the meantime, Sprocket and I have been at home trying to find some sort of routine in the chaos that is a puppy's first few months of life. So far, we've come to a stand-off in the area of sleeping habits as he would prefer to only sleep a few hours at night and then lounge around all day taking naps as he pleases. As this doesn't quite work for my schedule I have been a walking zombie, at least until noon, and not as much gets done as I would like. These are the days that I miss coffee. A lot.

He is growing quite well though, and once we got his sicknesses under control he has put on enough weight to make him a happy 24 pound, four month old lab. He is quite obviously mixed with a breed that has a less substantial bone structure than normal black labs, and we don't expect him to get anywhere near the 60-75 pounds that most full grown adults get to, but we would be foolish to think he would be a good guard dog at any weight. Sprocket has never met a person he didn't want to paw, lick, and nibble to death - regardless of the location, time of day/night, or just the fact that they look frightening.

I have some rather unfortunate medical tests and problems to deal with in the coming months, and it will be nice to get Corey home and establish a little order to our tumultuous world (as least as well as we can). Nothing life-threatening, but definitely emotionally draining, and I am very thankful for the thoughts and prayers of my family and friends in-the-know (and of course those who just send general good tidings our way).

As we get more resolution and perhaps some answers I will post more about the situation, but until then I am doing my best to find comfort in the blessings I DO have. It's sad and amazing to me how much we (and especially me) overlook the things we are gifted with while focusing on the things we can't and don't have. It's a daily struggle for me to remain on the positive side of the fence (perhaps Maleficent gifted me with pessimism) but I do appreciate the warmth that comes with good friends and family.

I hope that going into the holiday season this year all of us receive not only the gifts that we are asking for, but also the ones we need.

Day of the Monkey

I post this with full knowledge that it may be a case of a proud parent thinking their child or pet is the cutest, smartest and best looking ball of adorableness on the planet when in reality it more resembles a clumsy ape than the Gerber baby. However, I am going to proceed with complete belief that Sprocket is the most precious puppy in the history of the world.

With a bladder the size of a walnut, Sprocket must be taken out every few hours to relieve himself and keep me from scrubbing pee out of the carpets. This works just fine during the day, but at night it is rough because my little puppy experiences an out of body experience when woken up from a deep sleep. In a zombie haze it takes him approximately five minutes to recognize a) that he is, in fact, a dog, and b) who we are and why we are waking him up and dragging him outside. He walks around in a daze, stumbling like a drunkard and running into walls on the way from his kennel to the sliding glass door. Sometimes I can scoop him up, carry him outside, and place him in the grass, and sometimes he seems intent to do it on his own.

This morning around five I got up and stirred him enough to wake him up and coax him out of his kennel, and I walked to the living room to open the door for him. Several minutes later he toppled into the dining room, lopsided from dragging something with him and sideswiping several walls on the way due to walking with his eyes closed. Squinting in the darkness I realized he was bringing his good friend Monkey out to go potty with him.

Since he is, by all intents and purposes, housetrained and a strictly indoor dog he knows what he has to do when he goes outside and I can only assume that he figured Monkey had been cooped up all night too and needed relief. He tottered to the door and marched outside, dragging Monkey along with him across the cement, down the stone pathway, and into the damp grass. He gingerly placed Monkey down in the grass, walked a few feet away to do his business, and then stared at Monkey for a few seconds, yawning, as if he was politely giving Monkey space and time. He then glanced at me, waiting for his pat on the head and "Good Boy!" that is part of his positive reinforcement, received it, and scooped Monkey back up and escorted him down the pathway, into the house and into the kennel where they curled up together and went back to sleep.

All of this took about five minutes and I am convinced none of it was conscious on his part.

Other than managing his cuteness, our little guy has had a busy time of it the last few weeks. Since getting him three weeks ago, he has made four trips to the vet, only to learn that he has two internal parasites, Giardia and Coccidia, common to puppies who are raised in, ahem, not so sanitary environments. We don't fault the rescue association from which we acquired him as I think they do the best they can as a non-profit, and as he resided before that at the county animal shelter there is no way of knowing where he picked up the bugs. We think he is on the up-and-up thanks to his medicine although it causes him to vomit so it is hard to tell. He's the first puppy we've seen who doesn't like to eat, so it has been quite a challenge to doctor up his food with gourmet treats to get him to devour it, and between his anorexia and gut bugs he's on the smaller side of the size range for his age and we're busy trying to fatten him up. I feel like the witch in the Hansel and Gretel fable as I squeeze his belly and weigh him on a daily basis trying to gauge whether or not he is putting on the weight, and resist the urge to slather his milk bones in butter. He may have to go stay with his deep fried grandparents in the south for a month or two if we can't get him a little chunkier.

Until then, we're thinking of making him a puppy runway model.

Transition to adulthood...

Of course I know I'm a grown up - I am the ripe old age of 27 after all - but sometimes the degree of grownupness sneaks up on me, and this weekend was one of those times.

- After a week of getting up every two hours to take Sprocket out, what I was most looking foward to on Friday night was not an exciting night out, or even an exciting night in; I was incredibly thrilled about the prospect of getting seven hours of sleep while Corey was on puppy duty.

- After a trip to the doctor yielded some very unwelcome news I wanted nothing more than to go to church on Sunday. Corey and I have been talking about it for a while now, but I think that was the proverbial straw and I needed to feel a little divine-ness and that I'm not really as forsaken as I sometimes imagine I must be.

- We decided on a non-denominational church that we felt was a good balance between the beliefs we were each brought up with, and got up to get dressed as we were both accustomed to. In my dress and heels I stood out like a sore thumb as the dress code for church now is somewhere between golf course casual and car wash classy. Jeans, cutoffs, tank tops, and T-shirts now classify as Sunday best. I was horrified.

- We budget all of our money to the penny so we can put a large amount in savings. This is not optional as I am the budget nazi at home. This week I'm dying to break our rules and make an unauthorized purchase: the new purple animal Dyson ball vacuum. I'm such a rebel.

- I just pulled a live spider out of the puppy's mouth without even cringing. This shocked even me.

- The smell of pot roast on Sunday made the house so inviting! No, I haven't started eating meat, but the smell makes me happy.

- Last but not least, every day I appreciate my mother and all of her parental nonsense more and more. I KNOW I must be getting old when this starts happening!

Meet Sprocket, the wonder dog

We have a new addition to our family to announce, and as you can see from the picture, it's not the kind that incubates for nine months.

This is Sprocket, part lab, part something the rescue organization couldn't identify, and 100% cute little black dog.

Sprocket came into our family by way of his new Daddy's weakness for cute little dogs with big brown eyes last Saturday from the HALO rescue organization. This non-profit rescues animals that are scheduled to be put down at other shelters and adopts them out at local pet store locations. Why our cute little man would be put down is any one's guess, although I am brokenhearted to understand that it is simply because of the overabundance of homeless animals in Maricopa County and the distinct lack of facilities and volunteers to care for them.

Depressed about the call he received from the radiologist identifying his foot as broken, the boy woke up Saturday morning and began moping around the house. Because we had been talking for months about getting a dog, I quietly transferred some money into our checking account and announced that it was time to go shopping for puppy amenities.

A few hours later we arrived home with dozens of bags containing treats, toys, a kennel, puppy food, and cleaning products (for housetraining mistakes) and embarked upon the journey of finding a new member of our family.

When we walked into the Petsmart we were told the adoptions were taking place in the center of the store and we were upset to find that the puppies available were all chihuahuas and other purse dogs. Dejected, we knew that this kind of dog would never fit in with us as we were sure we wanted a tough dog, good for hiking, walking, and wrestling on the living room floor on lazy Sunday afternoons. As we headed for the door to return home, we noticed a few people gathered around the entrance, one of whom was holding a tiny black pup who looked scared to death of the excitement that was going on around him. Before I knew it, the boy had scooped the baby up into his arms, and the puppy had promptly fallen asleep on his forearm. Lucky for us, this was a secondary rescue association and they were also adopting puppies out. Although I was hesitant to pick the smallest, youngest, quietest pup of the group, Corey was already in love with him, so I filled out the paperwork, wrote a check, and took my boys home.

He's now been with us a week and it is hard to remember a time when he wasn't here. Truly a baby at nine weeks old, he is much like an infant as he needs to be watched constantly and tended to every two hours so he doesn't have an accident in the house. Although things haven't been perfect and we've utilized our new carpet cleaner on several occasions, he is doing quite well at the house training and we're on our way to understanding 'sit' and 'shake' so far. He loves bacon treats, milkbones, and drinking water by the gallon and hates baths and mud. He is also quite the little charmer and enjoys the attention wherever we take him.

Labs are supposed to be quite good with kids so we're hoping that Sprocket becomes the bodyguard for our future children as he has already become my constant shadow during the day, following me from the bedroom, to the laundry room, to the kitchen, without making a noise. He adores sleeping on his daddy's lap (or back, or stomach) while they lay on the living room floor watching college football, and has seamlessly worked his way into our hearts, as if he was there all along.

Oh, and he has his daddy wrapped all the way around his little paw. What took me two years took him all of two minutes.

I guess that's just what happens when your husband falls in love with a dog.

Getting older every day...

Last week was the boy's thirtieth birthday. I'll let that sink in a moment.

30!!!

I remember back in the day, while playing with barbie dolls and EZ bake ovens, thinking that surely when I was thirty I would have the whole world figured out. There would be no stress, no complications, no hard decisions. Knowledge is power, and certainly by thirty I would know everything there is to know. Also, I figured that the beginning stages of Alzheimer's and arthritis would be setting in because, damn, thirty is old!!

He didn't seem to feel much older, or to be bothered by the milestone, so we headed up to celebrate with dear friends in Las Vegas.

Brandon and Kim have been good friends of Corey's for years now, and upon meeting them I immediately felt that I'd known them forever as well. I know that I can be a bit standoffish towards new people and I have high standards for friends, but to know these two is to love them so we are sure to have a good time when we see them.

Quietly, I was hoping that we wouldn't need a repeat performance of last year which involved copious amounts of whiskey and beer (on the boy's part, not mine) and sitting at the blackjack tables until dawn, but I was prepared to honor Corey's birthday wishes whatever they involved.

Thankfully, his age must have kicked in somewhere during the last year and we enjoyed the weekend without much debauchery. We played with Chase (the world's cutest baby), went shopping, played (and watched in my case) enough Tiger Wood's golf to qualify for some kind of Playstation tournament, and ate at Hubert Keller's burger restaurant to celebrate. We did hit the tables for a while on Saturday night, and then ventured to seedy Fremont street on our way out of town to play some roulette, but all in all the gambling was a secondary point in the trip.

When we got home to celebrate his actual birthday my parents showed me up by buying the boy a new driver that he'd been lusting after since seeing it featured in last month's golf digest, but he also got a new golf bag, some golf clothes, a sand wedge...notice a theme?

I think he enjoyed himself, and I know that he handled the milestone much better than I will in a few years!

Updates

I don't have anything particularly interesting to post, but I hate the idea of having a blog and letting it sit idle 90% of the time. Most people I know understand that my life (and most others) is a series of monotonous events punctuated by the occasional excitement - so don't begrudge me a boring post now and then.

We are moved into our new place and even though we still have the small annoyance that we're renting, we are in love with it. The owners are considering selling, so there is a small chance we'll purchase it in a year, but if not I will enjoy cooking in my enormous new kitchen for the next 11 1/2 months. It truly is wonderful to have sunlight and space and GRASS, none of which we had at our previous residence. I have also yet to hear and see the ghetto bird circling my backyard with its spotlight beaming, so that is an additional plus.

This is the boy's last week in the job he's been doing for the past nine plus years and I know he's a bit melancholy about it. Ten years ago he was just a small town boy who wanted more out of life and thought it would be cool to work on F-16s. Now he's in the middle of a promising career and will be training the future crew chiefs of the air force and making a difference in their lives just like his instructors did for him. I know he'll be amazing at it and this is just another step to getting where he wants to go in the military, but I am definitely going to miss him for five weeks while he goes to instructor training in Texas!

We are taking baby steps towards finding a real medical diagnosis for what's going on with me, and I'm happy to be going in the right direction. The tests aren't generally fun, but I feel like I have doctors that are listening to me and taking my concerns seriously, which is a welcome relief. It appears that I may well have a systemic pain problem, but these are quite hard to diagnose correctly and I am not intersted in a doctor labeling me just to get me out of his office and medicated, so it is involving quite a lot of research and questions and requests on my part. I'm hoping that if I do in fact have the problem that they think I might, that I am able to be definitively diagnosed by a specialist and we can move on to treatment. What a thought!

If I could think of anything else remotely resembling intersting information I would write it, but this is where the monotonous part comes in. Sometimes the day to day stuff is nice though right? It could always be much worse...

The price of personal integrity

I used to believe in karma. I thought that when you were a good person who made good choices and affected the world in a positive way you would be repaid in kind. Maybe not tit for tat, but certainly that the world or universe or higher power would see your good deeds and pave your way a little.

My mom taught me the golden rule and I bought into the theory. Treat others as you'd want to be treated. Sounds fair, right? If you are nice to people, they will be nice to you back.

But wait, that's not the moral of the story at all, is it? The rule of karma doesn't talk about the payout, we just interject that of our own accord because we think that's what is fair and just.

Unfortunately, the world is not fair and just at all. The world is full of givers and takers at a ratio of 1:10. Takers rarely see their ways from outside themselves and become givers, and givers rarely sell their personal integrity to become takers. So, are we destined upon birth to become one or the other, and sentenced to a life within that role? Because I was brought up to believe that I am blessed and I should help those around me that are less fortunate, does that mean that they are fated to have things I cannot?

I know this all sounds very bitter, and truthfully I feel bitter about it on many occasions. I feel bitter when I see people take advantage of programs that were not designed to help them simply because they feel they deserve material things more than others. I feel bitter when I see the local adoption agencies struggle for funds because they have more unwanted and uncared for children than they can take care of. I feel bitter when I donate extra money to the electric company to help those who can't pay their bills only to hear that the people who can't pay their bills are in that predicament because their air conditioner is set at 65 degrees or their jacuzzi heater is on high.

The problem is that there are also those that are truly in need. There are mothers who cannot feed their children, not because they pay too much for cigarettes and booze, but because they were laid off or left an abusive relationship. There are veterans who are disabled and homeless, who hold signs at freeway entrances hoping to earn a few coins and purchase another gallon of water. There are dogs, ribs sticking through their skin, left chained in backyards to die in the heat because their owners left them when they moved.

They deserve to be takers. And the people that are giving deserve to be able to gift things knowing that they will make it to the hands of these who are truly needy.

The price of my personal integrity is high as of late and as much as I'd like to cut and run at times I fear that I'm a lost cause at this point. We could stop all of our contributions and live an easier life, but would I be able to lay my head down on my pillow and not see the faces of those I could have helped haunting me?

The food at restaurants doesn't taste as good when you know that there are those going hungry in your neighborhood, and a new pair of shoes puts you in excruciating pain when the man on the corner has holes in his soles.

So, it is better to be a taker? Is ignorance truly bliss? If you don't see that beggar at all does his plight weigh heavy on your mind?

I struggle with this daily as we decide how we are going to raise our children. Do we set the price of their personal integrity so high that they will wish they had been raised to be takers? Will my children resent that they don't have some of the same things that their friends have simply because we believe in giving and saving?

And, can givers even raise takers? When I look at the people I know they are definitely products of their upbringing and often turn out exactly as their parents are. So, do I sentence my children to a life of being caring and contributing, but also being confused as to why their friends are carefree with their ignorance and government checks?

How do you raise children that are both conscionable and happy, as it sometimes seems that these traits are mutually exclusive?

Moliere, one of my favorite writers of all time said, "Every good act is charity. A man's true wealth hereafter is the good that he does in this world to his fellows."

I hope he was right.