My Dog & The Library Police

My dog is a complete character, a perfect fit for my family. In other words she is a nuttball. I think she is enjoying this whole recover from surgery down time that I have going on a little too much. She seems to think that I need to be with her at all times though, lazy little thing that she is. If I am in our office for too long she comes to check on me, smiles her little toothy smile, wiggles her numb, and then departs to go back and nap on the couch. When I leave the house for a little while she loses it when I walk back through the door, hopping around on her hind legs, smiling, turning circles, and chirping like a bird. She has always been the happiest person in my family to see me when I come home, but I think she might be developing a few separation issues. I am going to feel guilty about this when I go back to work on the 7th. Poor little fuzz ball. She really is one of the best dogs we have ever had though. I think that is because she is more like a cat fat, lazy, and very indifferent. Now if I could only train her to use a litter box.

I am hooked on a new book series. No big shocker there. There is one slight problem to this little addiction, unfortunately. Since I had to have an emergency surgery out of the blue that has put me out of work for a month we are a tad low on book money. In other words I have already spent $50 on these books and I just can not justify spending another $50 before the week is over. Damn addictions. Why do all of mine have to get so pricey? I guess I just need to accept the facts that I really do live in this state and get a library card. I just keep telling myself, the library is my friend, the library is my friend, the library police are not real, the library is my friend. If I chant it enough in front of a mirror do you think it will make it true? I am so paranoid because I probably owe like $16 dollars to a library in my home town that I racked up when I was eleven. Amazing how the guilt of that has followed me through the years but so many other horrible things that I managed to do as a teenager have never bothered me. I wonder what that says about my psyche…hmmm… too much self evaluation. The library is my friend, the library is my friend, the library police are not real, the library is my friend.

Nutria Solution

Anyone who has ever spent an extended period of time in Louisiana knows about our Nutria problem. Imagine the biggest, fattest rat you had ever seen. Give that fat rat a stubby tail, no natural predators, and loose him in the swamps to be fruitful and multiply and you have yourself a Nutria. The government actually pays for the carcasses. One of the Sig’s uncles takes them up on this offer and often goes out and hunts them. This weirds me out a bit since he keeps one Nutria as a pet. The Nutria’s name is Newt, and my son just thinks he is the coolest thing since chicken mc’nuggets. The uncle in question, we think killed Newt's mother and then felt bad, but he found him as a baby so he took it home to raise it as his own. Newt is kind of like a cat except his favorite past time is spent playing in his fountain. He’s the safest freggin Nutria in the country, he even has his own vet! However, Newt a side, these little fuzz balls are becoming a real problem, and in exception to the price that has been put on their heads little else is being done. So I have come up with a solution! Chihuahuas. Yes that is right, Chihuahuas. Chihuahuas were originally bred as a form of hunting dog in Chihuahua. They know no fear, and believe it or not they can be pretty vicious when they want to be. Tinkerbelle has just given them all such a bad rap! Anyway, what we need to do is turn packs of Chihuahuas loose in the swaps to hunt the Nutria. Just imagine it, wild packs of Chihuahuas running loose in the swamps of Louisiana. We could even give them their own little nick name. Gator Snack Packs.

The Manipulation of a Child

I received a call from my mother-in-law last night she told me that the Little Man wanted to talk to me and then gave him the phone. Normally a phone call from my mother-in-law followed by the phone being handed to my offspring means that he has done something that he needs to have the fear of god put into him for. I did not realize that I was to become part of his stunt for the moment until long after our conversation had ended. He started to tell me about how he wanted to come home because he missed me. When I informed him that The Sig and I were not going to be home he asked if he could come with us. I told him no, we were doing adult things that he would not enjoy to celebrate our anniversary. He started to cry. I have never been able to stand it when he cries, it just feels like someone is choking a part of me. I was fortunate that The Sig walked in at that precise moment carrying a dozen roses, my favorite coffee, and a lovely card. I asked Little Man if he would like to speak with his father and he said he did, noticeably lacking any sign of tears in his voice. I gave the phone to The Sig and he spoke with our child for awhile inadvertently calming him down and finding the root of the real problem at the same time. Later at dinner he informed me of the real reason our son wanted to come home, he was trying to punish my in-laws. It turns out that he had wanted to spend the night at The Sig’s grandmothers house with his cousin but my mother-in-law told him no. She had good reason to say no, and I am glad she did, but our Little Man was very angry with her. In his anger he told her that he wanted to go home, so she called me. On the phone with me he proceeded to lie and manipulate in order to get his way and punish my mother-in-law. Little did he know things are not that easy in our family. My mother-in-law spoke with The Sig and gave him the whole back story which he in turn relayed to me over dinner. Naturally I am pissed. I will not tolerate my child acting like a spoiled brat, and his attempt to punish the adults around him is one of the most intolerable displays of arrogance that I have ever seen come out of him. It is going to be very sad when he comes home tonight only to have his butt busted, but maybe he will learn a lesson in there some where. Man, I didn’t think this BS would start until he was a teenager. Gods help me this probably means that he is going to take after me and be my reason for frustration in ten years. Why couldn’t he just take after The Sig? Damn Karma.

6 Years

The Significant Other and I have been married for six years today. They have been wonderful years. I am a very fortunate person. I married my best friend and we have managed to stay friends. After six years I would still rather hang out with The Sig then with anyone else. In fact the time that we have spent together has only proven to me that I do not just want him any more, I need him. It is strange to know that at one time I knew that I could and probably would stand alone fighting the good fights in my life, a one woman show on the road to who knows what type of mischief. Somewhere along that road I was side tracked by the most soulful eyes I had ever seen. Seven years after being side tracked, six of marriage, and I find myself unable to imagine standing alone. One set of soulful eyes led to another except they are accompanied with my nose and sense of eternal questioning and those eyes will be my life’s greatest accomplishment. Then again who doesn’t feel that way about their child. So why all of the happy remembering? I suppose it is shock, possibly awe, at how quickly the years pass. Soon I will be staring out from behind many wrinkles at some kind of celebration wondering how fifty years could go by in the blink of a eye. Live for today people, because it is our only definite, and the days go by so quickly.

So we watched ‘Lars and the Real Girl’ last night. Talk about a surprisingly touching movie. I just thought it was going to be some off the wall comedy, but it was so much more. The character development of all of the characters involved, including the doll, lacked for nothing. It also made me realize that my friends are not as understanding as Lars’ friends. If I started dating a doll I guarantee you that most of the people I know would quit hanging out with me because I had gone weird. Not like I’m normal now but I don’t think I have dipped far enough into the pool of wackiness to start having delusions, well not severe delusions at least. I have to give props to Ryan Gosling, who plays the character Lars, his portrayal of a man going through mental illness and emotional trauma is very convincing. He made me care about Lars, and about what he was going through. Way to go, I’m not really the touchy feely emotional type.

I am listening to my play list on random at the moment. Does anyone know how odd it is to have Luciano Pavaroti followed immediately by Sixx AM and then by Alan Jackson? It messes with you. Although speaking of Sixx AM, I think they are one of my new favorites. Most people that know me know about my admiration and strange love for Nikki Sixx, so they no doubt are not shocked at that revelation. However Nikki Sixx aside they would still be one of my new favorites the music is powerful, original, and haunting. Their music is meant to be accompanied with the book ‘Heroin Dairies’ and if you experience both of them then you will appreciate the spiral and descent of addiction in a disturbingly new light.
Luciano Pavaroti is one of my old favorites. However the magnitude of any opera is multiplied by a live performance compared to a recording.
Alan Jackson just got lucky.

Back to Myself Again

Since November of last year I have been sick. At first they thought it was just my gallbladder, but during the removal surgery they discovered that I had a very rare ‘reproductive disease’. A few months later after no response from treatment they discovered that I had more then one. A few months after that and there was still no response from the most severe treatments other than a very adverse reaction. It wasn’t long before I could do little more then work and sleep, the very act of living was taking all of my energy and hope. Soon I found myself in and out of the hospital, each time pleading with a little more desperation for help. On the fourth I was admitted to the hospital one last time. On the sixth I woke up after surgery and felt less pain then I have in months. It finally came down to an emergency hysterectomy. It is a very strange feeling to wake up and realize that you have been sleep walking through your life for over half a year. All of the pain medicines are gone, I ditched those two days after the surgery. The pain of healing is so much less and so very different from the pain of disease that I felt that they were unnecessary. My boundless energy is returning, driving me out of my head because the desire is there to go out and do so many things but the ability has not returned yet. The healing process is a bit too slow for my taste. I feel like I haven’t been living for the last seven months, so adding another month and a half of healing time on to it is like twisting the knife in the proverbial wound. Everyone who knows me claims that I am myself again, no one is quite sure who I was before but apparently it was someone that caused great alarm. It unnerves me to know that I worried my loved ones so deeply, especially The Sig. He told me last night that the energy that had been flowing out of me was tinted like a poison. Poor guy was terrified about what was happening to me but kept a good face trying to remain strong. I have always been a pretty strong force to reckon with so it is strange to hear others talking about trying to be strong for me. I can not lie though and say that I held my head up easily through out the whole ordeal, there was one point where they thought that I had cancer, the day I went in to get those test results was one of the most frightening moments of my life. I was tired from the sheer act of existing and I was scared about what cancer would put everyone else in my life through. Dark times the past few months, but the long night is at a end and I can see the light shining at the edge of the horizon. I am myself again. I have caught myself looking at near by bike trails, kayak runs, hypostasizing about possible connections between uncorrelated dead civilizations, writing, and reading again since the surgery. I can not tell you the last time I was able to do those things uninterrupted or with a clear mind. I know that I am well known to take breaks in my writing that are worth months of silence. I also know that my writing has been few and far between this year. I wanted to explain to you why I had little to write about. If I am going to bring up a depressing subject then I would rather be on the sidelines throwing my sarcasm out at the world in retaliation for the one being injured, I do not like being the depressing subject itself.

On to other topics.

I am buying a new car. My little Dodge Neon just isn’t meeting our expectations these days. I think The Sig and I have settled on a 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid. We drive so much in a week with our commute to work that it just made sense to us to purchase a hybrid and we have a deeply unshakable loyalty to Honda. Considering the loyalty our current Honda Civic has given to us it is the least we can do. After the car I think The Sig is going to try to talk me into a boat. My premonition comes from the boat talk that he is already trying to slip into the conversation as we drive down the road. But then again he is also slipping in motorcycle talk into the conversations as well. There isn’t a ounce of my being that doesn’t enjoy that man’s unshakable thrill of adventure. He definitely keeps me as entertained as I keep him.