My Pitiful Dogs

If you live in the area you know that a thunderstorm just passed through. There's a warning siren right near the house and when it went off of course it hurt the dogs' ears. So Scooter started howling and Emma commenced... yodeling. Yes, the dog yodels. Well, maybe not exactly, but that's the best way I can describe it. I've never heard a sound like that come out of a dog before.

When it finally started the announcement instead of making that terrible noise Emma sat down beside me. Close. Her body felt tense and she was shaking in terror. I felt so bad for her. Little did I know that it would get worse once the storm actually got here. She tried every way possible to get in my lap (and yes - I did hold her for a while) and the few times she'd been adventurous enough to get more than a few feet from me that all changed when the thunder clapped. She would run back to me - tail tucked every time. She is the biggest baby. Gotta love her, though. 😍

Well, Scooty was fine during the storm. He didn't seem all that bothered by it. BUT... Nick brought up something that I hate to say I think might be true.

For those of you who don't know:  Scooter is a strange little fella... more so now than before his stay in the hospital. He was knocked out for a week with Ivermectin Toxicosis which affects a dog's neurological system. It was a vet error that caused it and there was nothing they could do besides sedate him to stop the seizures and put him on an IV then hope that he survived long enough for that ONE dose of Ivermectin to work it's way out of his system. Well, it FINALLY did (that was the longest week of my life, I think). But they said that he may have some long term effects... though they did not say what they may be. So he's developed some strange mannerisms in the time he's been home (about a year), which we didn't think much of. Things like walking backwards a lot, running into things, not wanting to go outside, biting when you try to feed him treats... *sigh*

So back to what Nick said... he thinks Scooter might be going blind. It makes perfect sense though I really hope that's not the case. It's time for a checkup, anyway, so I suppose I'll ask the vet to check him out when we go. From what I've read dogs get along fine even if they do go blind (as long as you don't move the furniture around much) so hopefully if that's what's wrong with him then he'll adjust, too. I just don't wish that on my little buddy. He's been through enough. 😕

Well, according to Emma it's time to end this blog. Between her grabbing my hand in her mouth, and petting me with her paw, and wedging her head into my lap, and trying to sit in my lap - I think I get the hint. I know it sounds obnoxious, but I love the attention. She's one of my furbabies. She needs love, too. (Especially after a night as traumatic as this one).

June 2007

Marriage and Pregnancy - You asked for it.

I've had a lot of questions over the last few years about having more kids and getting married and such... Recently, a friend of the family called me up pretty much to ask if I ever planned to marry Nick since we've been together for so long and live in the house together now. So uh, here are the answers. These are only my opinions and my feelings that apply to my life... so as always - do your thing and I'll do mine (whatever it is), and we can still love each other anyway. 😀

On more kids... is that what the world really needs? Honestly?? I don't feel that it does. Not only are there wayyy too many children without homes and families, but there are wayyy too many kids who are in terrible homes and that the system simply cannot take care of. On a more personal level I don't know that I'll ever have any more... At one point I wanted nothing more than to have another child. Now, that is not the case. But I suppose that could change again. Nothing is set in stone.

First of all, FOR NOW, I don't want the wear and tear on my body; despite the fact that I've had a child I'm pretty happy with my physical appearance and I want to enjoy that for a while. Second, I don't want the responsibility; Shadow's FINALLY old enough that I don't feel guilty and evil for letting him spend the night away from home once in a while if I want to take some time to myself. Third, babies are a lot of trouble. I've been contemplating going back to school off and on... right now I feel like I need to focus on myself and where I'm heading more so than anything else. A baby would probably jack that up. While I do understand the urge to make one together with someone you love I'm just not having that urge right now. We have time; there's no rush.

Don't get me wrong - if I ended up preggers I'd be just as happy as I was with Shadow. Not only that - I really enjoyed being pregnant. It's an awesome thing. An inopportune or unplanned pregnancy is not the end of the world to me, simply a surprise that I would embrace and welcome with open arms. That doesn't mean that I'm a kid person, though. I'm not fond of the little buggers, honestly. And you definitely will not find me old and saggy with a litter. That's not my thing. Unless I somehow have twins I wouldn't want more than one more.

On to marriage! My first thought when that is mentioned is "Why?" Do you not think that in this day and age of casual sex and constantly changing minds that it's sort of an outdated concept?? I certainly do. From what I understand nothing really changes once married these days unless you've been abstaining from sex and not living together (which seems to be rare). So all that you're really gaining by getting married is the expense of a divorce in the event you no longer want to be together, which happens A LOT. Wtf? Who wants that? Not me.

I dunno. Not only that, but once you're married it's no longer your choice to be with someone... it becomes your default. I'd personally rather know that the man I love chooses to be with me every day - not that one day he chose to be with me. I mean, truly, if I'm in a committed, loving, trust-filled relationship with someone then what more do I need? What else IS there?

Aside from that I HATE hearing how about how "you're now joined as one" and all this "forever" bullshit. What is that? I wasn't a whole person before I bought this expensive ass piece of paper? Wow. It must be magical or something. And no one knows how they'll feel later down the road. I'm sorry. I'm not afraid of commitment, but I find the idea of pledging yourself to someone "for better or worse" just bogus. If I were to marry a guy who just one day started beating my ass daily I'm promising to stay in that situation? Gnaw man. Not me. No one should have to. Which brings you to divorce. So what does that say about the whole institution of marriage? It's just flawed.

Anyhoo, I don't have anything against married people. If you're married I wouldn't chase your man - but I wouldn't do that to my unmarried friends who are in relationships, either, so don't think you're getting special treatment. 😜 All in all I'm not even saying that I would never do it, but I don't feel that it's likely to be something I'm very interested in doing. If the man I was with joined the military or moved to another country I would marry him so that I could be with him if he meant that much to me. And other junk like that. But just, you know, on an average day it's nothing I desire to do.

So I guess that's it. There you have it. I feel lucky to have found Nick (we share very similar if not the same views on these subjects) because I know not many other people share them. But oh well. To each their own. Feel free to share your feelings on the subject. Yes, this is MYspace, but I'm open. 😊

My First Week of Bald

As of yesterday my head's been mostly naked for a week. As I guessed would be the case I've gotten a lot of "What made you decide to do that?" type questions. Not many people were very shocked (that I know of), which is cool - that means my friends know me. 😂

As for the answer to that question, here it is: I've wanted to do it for years, but never had the balls. It's not like I was having one of those crazy Britney moments or anything... I've been working up to actually doing this for the last two or three years. Either my concern for how ugly my head might be, or how cute my current haircut or color was is all that stood in the way most of the time.

As for why I wanted to, well, there's a few reasons for that. One is that I just don't like having to deal with hair... there's haircuts, color, combing, brushing, drying, styling, worrying about how it looks all the time... I mean, seriously, (not that I'm much of a girly girl), but if my hair looked bad or felt gross that would be enough to make me not want to leave the house. I don't like that shit. It's just too much, which is why my hair hasn't been colored in over a year and also why I'd been keeping it pretty short already (so that it didn't require much styling).

Not only that, but I feel a lot cleaner. I tend to feel dirty with too much hair (same thing with fingernails - I keep them cut off, too). I dunno. And I guess I was just curious to see what it would look and feel like (which I'm pretty happy with on both accounts). As for how long I'll keep it this way - who knows. I may grow some back for the winter, but then there's always hats. 😊 I'm really enjoying it so far, though. 

However sappy this may sound, it's the truth - the breeze, the warm sun, getting your head rubbed - all that feels a lot different (and much much better) without hair in the way. I'm definitely digging that aspect of it. And honestly I don't feel unpretty without my hair, which is a pleasant surprise. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about myself once I looked in the mirror. But I'm not disappointed with it at all. So that's cool. All in all, if you're thinking about doing away with the hair - I say give it a try. If you don't like it - you can always grow it back; so no worries. 😀

Oh, help me! My inappropriate laughter has got me in trouble again!

For those of you who know me, it's nothing new that I laugh at almost all the wrong times. Uncontrollably, even. But today I think I may have offended someone. And I feel sort of bad about it.

So here's the story: We have an ad in the paper that we're accepting job applications at work... and so this lady came in to fill one out. When she handed me back the application she noticed my hand. For those who didn't know - I've got a GNARLY rash covering my whole right palm. It sucks.

Anyway, she asked about the job, etc., and then she left. But then she came back and said she had a few more questions. So we were talking about the job some more and then before she left again she asked if she could pray for my hand. (I'm sure you can see where this is going...)

Caught completely off guard and not knowing what to say I was just like, "Uh, sure." So she came and got my hand and I'm all, "You might not wanna touch that." She said that she wasn't scared of it so I was just like, "Ok." And then she started praying. And then I started laughing. 😬

Trying not to sound like a complete ass I was all "Thank you. I hope it works." (After the fact I realized that that might not have been the right thing to say...) She just said, "It will" and walked straight out.

I feel really bad. I hope I didn't hurt her feelings because she was only trying to help. I've thought about getting her number from her application and calling to apologize... but I don't know if that would be too weird. Plus, I'm not 100% sure that I upset her, but I think I did. So what do I do now??

R.I.P. Lily

So yesterday Lily was acting a little weird. I didn't think too much of it because honestly - she's a strange bird... always has been. Well, when I noticed her in the bottom of her cage again I opened the door to touch her and she didn't move. Normally she is not ok with being touched. So I called AMC who told me to call Birmingham who told me to call Auburn... no one had anyone who knew anything about birds in the emergency office. I fell asleep waiting for the Auburn clinic to call back and when I woke up this morning Lily was dead. And no they did not call. *sigh*

Honestly, one of the worst things is knowing that one of my babies are in pain and that I'm helpless in the situation... so I guess I'm relieved to know that she's not suffering, at least. I'm sad, though... I'm gonna miss her. She was something else. I really liked her silly ass.

TOOL

Last night was the show and it was AMAZING. I am not really a fan, but Nick is. He's been so stressed that something would go wrong and that we wouldn't get to see the show or something, but last night was pretty much PERFECT. The tickets were supposed to be mailed to us, but we found out at the last minute that they'd switched us over to will call... so we didn't know how good or bad our seats were. Well guess what. WE WERE IN THE SECOND FUCKING ROW. We could have practically touched them. The only problem I had with that was that a giant security guard kept jumping up on the fence and shouting at people and I couldn't see over him when he did that. Luckily, the crowd wasn't too out of hand so that wasn't a huge deal. Also, along those lines everyone just stood in front of their seats so there was no pushing or trampling going on which was great.

Aside from that the show was AWESOME. There were lasers, screens with images (lots and lots of eyeballs), smoke, videos playing in the background, Maynard dancing like a monkey, etc... not to mention how nice the band actually looked and sounded (I'm giving props where they're due!). That has to be, hands down, the best show I've ever been to. AND, the drummer walked right by us. I don't think anyone else recognized him, but Nick did. (Speaking of, that man has a MASSIVE set up... I couldn't even believe it). AND, the venue was pretty easy to find. AND me and Nick got the last two pair of earplugs in the place (once we saw our seats we knew we'd need them). AND, I almost got the drummer's autographed drum head, but in the process I was almost smooshed by two big guys who were also going for it. So I didn't get it. But that's ok because last night was almost too good to be true anyway.

At the end of the night we decided we wanted Waffle House. So we drive by the closest one, which, go figure, was packed with Tool fans. We would've never been served. So we got back on the road and took the next exit with a Waffle House sign. We drove and drove, then saw the Waffle House. It was the exact same one. 😂  That was really funny to us for some reason. So we just waited until we got back on I-20 to stop again. It turned out really nice, though. It was great to just relax and eat and think about how great the day turned out. We always have fun, but my goodness. EVERYTHING went well. We usually at least get a little lost or something. Anyhoo...