OH my ever-pooping goodness.
I tried a new dog food. Paid $60 for this premium bag of wild bison and elk or something which had no grain. The dogs ate it, but weren't entirely thrilled. In two weeks they got F.A.T. and I halved their portions. And their poops quadrupled, quintupled, multiplied exponentially.
I mentioned this to Bill one day. It was 110 with 200% humidity and I crawled in on my belly after having picked up the yard. "This new food makes too much poop," I panted, just before passing out from heat prostration.
Well, yesterday while I was at work, Bill picked up the yard. Then he drove to the dog food store and bought a 40 pound bag of the old dog food. The kind that produces little poops. He took the half-bag of mega poop food ($30 worth) and put it in the back corner of the pantry.
I love Bill.
Yesterday was a marathon at work. I left the house at 6:35 AM and got home at 8:30 PM. I live 20 blocks from the hospital, so the 'commute' is 5 minutes. The rest is work. It is so nice to come home to Bill and the dogs and the latex mattress topper. Oh how I looked forward to sleep. I had decided it would be a wonderful idea to have an anxiety attack at four in the morning before going to work. I haven't done that since the winter. Some chirping beeping noise from my computer plug in thingy woke me up and my brain went wacko.
You know, you wake up and your brain starts rapid firing bombardment of everything you've done wrong in your life since you were four and you scooped out a big chunk of your sister's birthday cake and ruined the whole party? It was all your fault and you should be ashamed of yourself. And the more you freak out about getting back to sleep because you are facing a Very Long Day, the more you can't fall asleep and then you remember the time...
So last night I was soooo looking forward to sleep. Only as I brushed my teeth and tucked the dogs in, I heard an unmistakable chirp. The dreaded smoke detector chirp. I said a Very Bad Word. Bill got the ladder (we have stinkin' 11 foot ceilings) and got the smoke detector down, setting off the whole house ear piercing alarms only twice - a new record! Oh thank you honey, I said.
Bill went to his study to read. Chirp.
It's still chirping, I said.
He took it into the guest room at the other end of the house. Chirp.
The room is still chirping, I said. Chirp.
We examined all of the possibilities. The attic? No way, there isn't any attic above our room. I, the Queen of Acrophobia, climbed the ladder to see if the bald wires were somehow chirping. No.
We listened. Chirp.
Ah! It seemed to be coming from the corner where Bill's out of season clothes were stored in Tupperware bins. We tore through every bin, every pants pocket. Chirp.
Nothing.
Chirp.
We went into his dresser drawers. Finally. Finally. Finally!!!! In the back of his junk drawer was an old smoke detector. Chirp.
Bill calmly removed the old battery from the thing. I really wanted to stomp it, hit it with a hammer, throw it through the bedroom window, smashing it to bits. I actually wanted to bite it.
Instead I climbed in bed. I had a little trouble falling to sleep because I was so enjoying the sounds of the dogs' quiet breathing, feeling the extraordinary comfort of lying down, my legs and feet and shoulders on fire, most of all the sweet nearness of Bill.
hug your hounds
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
Fat Charlie's Home Safe
So, maybe once or twice you've heard me mention that I love my vets?
I LOVE MY VETS!!!
First thing this morning I loaded up the whole waggle (minus Delia and Looch who went a'walkin' with Bill) and headed to Ol' Poke n Stick's before breakfast. (Hey, if Fat Charlie couldn't have breakfast, none of us could. That's only fair.) Wait, let me back up a minute.
Last night was awful. Pure personal hell. The fourth of freaking July.
I hate fireworks. Long before I had boom-phobic dogs, I hated fireworks. If you sneak up behind me and say "boo" you better duck and run and protect your private parts. I respond to being startled by hitting. Hard. While I scream. And I kick. Hard. Then I yell at you for being so STUPID. It is completely reflexive and I've been that way all my life. So I hate things that supposedly are going to look all pretty and then out of nowhere go boom.
In the country, you loaded up and went to the church or the fairgrounds and watched the fireworks. My mother learned early on, when she couldn't get me out from under our car, where I lay in a fetal position with my hands over my ears, screaming "Stop it stop it stop it," that it was better if she and I stayed home and popped popcorn and watched TV. They tried to condition me to liking them by buying sparklers and making a big deal of how fun it all was. Bull Shit. You couldn't fool me even at age six. But, in the country, at least home was safe. You could hear the bangs in the distance, but home was safe.
Then as an adult I worked in the Operating Room. Oh yeah, those blown off hands, feet, eyes: whewie, there's some fun. Idiots.
When my first whippet, Gracious, was around eight, my teenage son thought it was a good idea to shoot a squirrel out his bedroom window while she was sleeping on his bed. Thus began her intense terror at sudden loud noises. Caruso (Lindy Loo's great grandfather) and Giacomino (Very Old Dog) both developed old age thunder phobia. They would lie in some corner and tremble violently, panting with the curled-up panic tongue, eyes popping and nothing nothing nothing could I do for them. We all suffered through the week of the freaking fourth.
This year would be the first year since we moved here to the city that I didn't have a boom phobic dog. What a relief. It's just so different in this southern city. Cherry bombs, bottle rockets, things that make that ZZZZZzingBAMBOOOOM going off all over. The city sponsors a fireworks show over the river - only eight blocks away and bad enough though it lasts only an hour and a half and is done by people who supposedly know what they are doing. But everyone goes to Missouri and buys their own fireworks and sets them off all over. I hate it. But at least this year I wouldn't have an old dog trying to die of a heart attack.
Or so I thought. My neighbors had apparently bought out the entire state of Missouri. (Sorry Missouri, I guess you guys did without, lucky dogs.) Early on, way before the city's show started, HUGE explosions started going off in the empty lot right across from our house. And then over our house. All the dogs started looking alarmed. Then one firework went haywire (imagine that) and did the falling bomb sizzle noise as it shot horizontally past our TV room window and then exploded. I hit the floor and the dogs went ballistic.
We were clearly being attacked.
This went on and on and on. The city's display started; we could barely hear it over the amateur crap right outside our door. And over our roof. And in our yard.
I was already worried about Fat Charlie's surgery today. Anytime you anesthetize a thirteen year old dog, well... I said, "Let's just go to bed." I tried to let the dogs out to potty, but they were WAY too freaked out. Our world was exploding. We went up to our room. I couldn't find Mama Pajama and Fat Charlie. Found Mama Pajama in Bill's study, eyes huge and worried. I got everyone in our bedroom and handed out treats. No Fat Charlie. The calm dog, the unflappable. The one who was going to protect me - tooth and nail - with all he had when an old drunk guy thought my house was where he needed to be one night when Bill was out of town. My bravest fastest Whippet who had to have surgery in the morning. My oldest dog. Thirteen.
I found him in a dark crate downstairs in the dog room. Panting. Trembling violently. Eyes wide with terror. He didn't know how to protect us from this. I got angry.
My other sweet neighbor called. Her thunderphobic dog, Cooper - a lab/border collie cross - was wild with fear. "I'm afraid he can't keep this up much longer," she said. Should we call the police? It's our neighbors, our friends. But this is ridiculous. Those can't be legal.
This is just what my old dog's heart needed nine hours before anesthesia. It was getting louder over my house and he was getting more frantic. I asked Bill to read in our bedroom to keep the other dogs company and I took Fat Charlie and Sam I Am (for company) down to the van. We were getting out of there. As we ran from our breezeway to the van one exploded right over our heads and the burning things landed all around us. I screamed, "Stop it stop it stop it," just like my six year old self. It didn't stop. As soon as we left my immediate neighborhood Fat Charlie settled down and went to sleep. I called my sweet neighbor with Cooper to tell her what a good idea the van was. She answered her cell by saying, "We had to get Cooper out of there, so we're in our car out by the Mall." They had left before I did.
I tried coming home twice, but the neighbors were still at it. As long as I kept driving and Charlie couldn't hear the idiocy, he slept. We came home around eleven; the show across the street was over. But it had moved to the back yard. Fat Charlie didn't mind the firecrackers too much and he was worn out. He finally went to sleep. I did too. Around 1:30.
Okay, now I'm back to loving my vets. They let Fat Charlie wait in his own crate - his safe place - in my van while the pre-op shot went to work. They let me stay with him, with my quiet calm voice until the Propafol was injected and he no longer knew or cared what was going on. I took the rest of the waggle out to the kennel club to burn off their energy. My vets called me: Fat Charlie's surgery was over and I could pick him up in an hour.
He was FINE.
Now we're all lying in the kitchen/dining room. Fat Charlie's rear legs aren't working too well yet, but they will. He stopped panting when we got home. It's normal quiet here. Mama Pajama is sleeping a couple of feet away from her brother on Bill's armchair. Sammy is curled up by my head and Swede William is lying on my right leg. My foot's asleep.
As awful as last night was for me and for Fat Charlie, I kept thinking of a nurse I know. Her husband served in Iraq. He suffered from injuries from a roadside bomb. And now from PTSD. What the hell was last night like for him? When explosions brought back memories of friends' being blown to bits and his own stunning injuries. I kept thinking of him.
I HATE fireworks. I HATE fireworks. I HATE FIREWORKS. Hooray for the FIFTH of July. I hope all of you and your dogs are okay.
hug your hounds
I LOVE MY VETS!!!
First thing this morning I loaded up the whole waggle (minus Delia and Looch who went a'walkin' with Bill) and headed to Ol' Poke n Stick's before breakfast. (Hey, if Fat Charlie couldn't have breakfast, none of us could. That's only fair.) Wait, let me back up a minute.
Last night was awful. Pure personal hell. The fourth of freaking July.
I hate fireworks. Long before I had boom-phobic dogs, I hated fireworks. If you sneak up behind me and say "boo" you better duck and run and protect your private parts. I respond to being startled by hitting. Hard. While I scream. And I kick. Hard. Then I yell at you for being so STUPID. It is completely reflexive and I've been that way all my life. So I hate things that supposedly are going to look all pretty and then out of nowhere go boom.
In the country, you loaded up and went to the church or the fairgrounds and watched the fireworks. My mother learned early on, when she couldn't get me out from under our car, where I lay in a fetal position with my hands over my ears, screaming "Stop it stop it stop it," that it was better if she and I stayed home and popped popcorn and watched TV. They tried to condition me to liking them by buying sparklers and making a big deal of how fun it all was. Bull Shit. You couldn't fool me even at age six. But, in the country, at least home was safe. You could hear the bangs in the distance, but home was safe.
Then as an adult I worked in the Operating Room. Oh yeah, those blown off hands, feet, eyes: whewie, there's some fun. Idiots.
When my first whippet, Gracious, was around eight, my teenage son thought it was a good idea to shoot a squirrel out his bedroom window while she was sleeping on his bed. Thus began her intense terror at sudden loud noises. Caruso (Lindy Loo's great grandfather) and Giacomino (Very Old Dog) both developed old age thunder phobia. They would lie in some corner and tremble violently, panting with the curled-up panic tongue, eyes popping and nothing nothing nothing could I do for them. We all suffered through the week of the freaking fourth.
This year would be the first year since we moved here to the city that I didn't have a boom phobic dog. What a relief. It's just so different in this southern city. Cherry bombs, bottle rockets, things that make that ZZZZZzingBAMBOOOOM going off all over. The city sponsors a fireworks show over the river - only eight blocks away and bad enough though it lasts only an hour and a half and is done by people who supposedly know what they are doing. But everyone goes to Missouri and buys their own fireworks and sets them off all over. I hate it. But at least this year I wouldn't have an old dog trying to die of a heart attack.
Or so I thought. My neighbors had apparently bought out the entire state of Missouri. (Sorry Missouri, I guess you guys did without, lucky dogs.) Early on, way before the city's show started, HUGE explosions started going off in the empty lot right across from our house. And then over our house. All the dogs started looking alarmed. Then one firework went haywire (imagine that) and did the falling bomb sizzle noise as it shot horizontally past our TV room window and then exploded. I hit the floor and the dogs went ballistic.
We were clearly being attacked.
This went on and on and on. The city's display started; we could barely hear it over the amateur crap right outside our door. And over our roof. And in our yard.
I was already worried about Fat Charlie's surgery today. Anytime you anesthetize a thirteen year old dog, well... I said, "Let's just go to bed." I tried to let the dogs out to potty, but they were WAY too freaked out. Our world was exploding. We went up to our room. I couldn't find Mama Pajama and Fat Charlie. Found Mama Pajama in Bill's study, eyes huge and worried. I got everyone in our bedroom and handed out treats. No Fat Charlie. The calm dog, the unflappable. The one who was going to protect me - tooth and nail - with all he had when an old drunk guy thought my house was where he needed to be one night when Bill was out of town. My bravest fastest Whippet who had to have surgery in the morning. My oldest dog. Thirteen.
I found him in a dark crate downstairs in the dog room. Panting. Trembling violently. Eyes wide with terror. He didn't know how to protect us from this. I got angry.
My other sweet neighbor called. Her thunderphobic dog, Cooper - a lab/border collie cross - was wild with fear. "I'm afraid he can't keep this up much longer," she said. Should we call the police? It's our neighbors, our friends. But this is ridiculous. Those can't be legal.
This is just what my old dog's heart needed nine hours before anesthesia. It was getting louder over my house and he was getting more frantic. I asked Bill to read in our bedroom to keep the other dogs company and I took Fat Charlie and Sam I Am (for company) down to the van. We were getting out of there. As we ran from our breezeway to the van one exploded right over our heads and the burning things landed all around us. I screamed, "Stop it stop it stop it," just like my six year old self. It didn't stop. As soon as we left my immediate neighborhood Fat Charlie settled down and went to sleep. I called my sweet neighbor with Cooper to tell her what a good idea the van was. She answered her cell by saying, "We had to get Cooper out of there, so we're in our car out by the Mall." They had left before I did.
I tried coming home twice, but the neighbors were still at it. As long as I kept driving and Charlie couldn't hear the idiocy, he slept. We came home around eleven; the show across the street was over. But it had moved to the back yard. Fat Charlie didn't mind the firecrackers too much and he was worn out. He finally went to sleep. I did too. Around 1:30.
Okay, now I'm back to loving my vets. They let Fat Charlie wait in his own crate - his safe place - in my van while the pre-op shot went to work. They let me stay with him, with my quiet calm voice until the Propafol was injected and he no longer knew or cared what was going on. I took the rest of the waggle out to the kennel club to burn off their energy. My vets called me: Fat Charlie's surgery was over and I could pick him up in an hour.
He was FINE.
Now we're all lying in the kitchen/dining room. Fat Charlie's rear legs aren't working too well yet, but they will. He stopped panting when we got home. It's normal quiet here. Mama Pajama is sleeping a couple of feet away from her brother on Bill's armchair. Sammy is curled up by my head and Swede William is lying on my right leg. My foot's asleep.
As awful as last night was for me and for Fat Charlie, I kept thinking of a nurse I know. Her husband served in Iraq. He suffered from injuries from a roadside bomb. And now from PTSD. What the hell was last night like for him? When explosions brought back memories of friends' being blown to bits and his own stunning injuries. I kept thinking of him.
I HATE fireworks. I HATE fireworks. I HATE FIREWORKS. Hooray for the FIFTH of July. I hope all of you and your dogs are okay.
hug your hounds
Friday, July 2, 2010
Fat Charlie the Archangel
Around two or three years ago, I noticed a half-pea sized growth that showed up over night on Fat Charlie's hiney hole. I freaked. Ran him in to Ol' Poke n Stick, certain it was some hideous rectal cancer. Doc looked at me like, "Get out of here, you're not really an RN, are you???" but said, kindly, "Why that's just nothin' but a little polyp." I tried to save face by explaining that I didn't think humans got polyps on the outside of their hiney holes, and if they did I for sure had never seen one, but anyway I was so mightily relieved that nothing else mattered.
We named Fat Charlie's polyp his 'butt bump' and it has slowly grown to the size of a large marble (for those of you who are old enough to know how big a large marble is - about an inch in diameter for the sake of the younger readers). It sticks out from under his tail and shocks visitors for a moment until we explain, but it hasn't caused any harm.
Now, last week I noticed a spot on Fat Charlie's leg. It looked like a Bad Spot and I didn't like it. I decided on Wednesday that I would call the vet on Thursday (from work) for an appointment Friday. I left for work Thursday morning. Charlie's butt bump was pink as usual and the Bad Spot looked not as bad, but I fully intended to make an appointment for Friday during my lunch break.
I forgot. Work was crazy busy.
When I got home to the insanity of eight whippets who have wondered all day if I had gotten lost or eaten, I remembered that I forgot. Then I saw Fat Charlie's butt bump: it wasn't pink. It was purple/black.
Rats. My wonderful vets worked Fat Charlie in this morning.
They would have removed them both today, only Charlie had already eaten his breakfast. Cheerios, Total, and a sprinkling of Grapenuts with Organic Fat Free Milk and Organic Lowfat Yogurt. He'll have to go back in first thing Monday morning, with an empty tummy. He's a great good sport and doesn't pant or shake at the vet's. He looks at me and looks at the door: "Let's go now, why don't we?" But he kisses the sweet tech and even Ol' Poke n Stick and Baby Doc too.
Then something remarkable happened. I was back out front, paying for the meds, and the radio that is always on in their office played an old song. You know, the theme song for Gray's Anatomy (I think, I never watched it), "Chasing Cars"?
It was the song I used for Very Old Dog's tribute. I was writing the check, blab, blab, blabbing as usual and then boom I was soaking wet sobbing. Well, what do you do when you hear these lyrics piping right into your heart?
"I need your grace to remind me to find my own. If you lay here, if you just lay here, I can lie with you and just forget the world."
Oh I sobbed Fat Charlie out to the van, where the rest of the waggle waited and we beat feet out to the Kennel Club property. They ran and soaked up the gorgeous morning, I mowed and fixed the fence, and appreciated each of them.
And then I lay there. I just lay there with them and just forgot the world
hug your hounds
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
How to Walk Dogs Backwards
Stella asked how we manage to walk three dogs, backwards, while filming, as seen in the video on the previous post.
It's easy. I am a marvellous dog trainer. I wish I could share my secrets with you, but really it is an inborn talent. A gift. Like charisma, this can't be taught or learned, it just is.
the end-
Patience
Who's training whom????
[Sam I Am here. I've distracted the Dear Servant momentarily. (No great challenge there, bless her heart. As the humans say in these parts. It translates into: the woman hasn't got a single bone to chew on.) We let her think that she has some magical gift of whatever she was talking about. It makes her feel good about herself, and honestly she has so little to feel good about that every little bit helps.
Here is the real scoop. The Elders tell me that in the Olden Times they all walked together in fields and woods full of every sort of delectable vermin. They speak of fox, groundhogs, bunnies, evil squirrellies, and something magical called deer. Of course the Elders knew that the Servant was crippled, blind, and senseless, so they would allow her to tether herself to them so she wouldn't get lost. As clumsy as she was, even back in her relative youth, more often than not she would land with an 'ooph' on her bouncy belly whenever the vermin were sighted.
A large, gelatinous, human anchor. Screaming obscenities with her face in the mud. (Makes me giggle just a little bit to think of it. Silly human.)
Here and now we walk in this city. No fields, unless she drives us to the Kennel Club. No fox, no groundhogs, no magical deer. (I sure would like to chase one of those one day; they sound great!) Plenty of Evil City Squirrellies who show no respect, Evil C.A.T.s who are V.I.L.E., loose dogs who are danger-danger-dangerous, and lots of cars and trucks.
She doesn't walk us all at once any more. She makes us take Turns. I get two turns because I have taken my Great Uncle Giacomino's place and she can't stand to be away from me for a minute and a half. When it's not our Turn we wait in our Dog Room and get a biscuit and howl our heads off to let her know how stinky not-our- Turns are.
It's taken us eight years, but we finally trained her. She used to (close your ears, Dogs, this is for the humans only) jerk on our necks and froth at the mouth and yell something which made no sense like nonobaddogs or some such unintelligible nonsense. Of course we payed absolutely NO attention to this demonstration of human stupidity; we barked louder and pulled harder. REALLY! I mean. She's not a bad human, but, sigh, she is a human.
One day she had a treat in her pocket. We were dutifully alerting her to the danger of a horrid, rabid, stinkypoopbutt C.A.T. at the top of our lungs and she was getting ready to behave badly. I said, "Hey Idiot Servant! You have treats in your pocket. They might be more interesting than that ol' stinkypoopbutt C.A.T."
She didn't get it (no surprise) so I bumped her pocket with my wonderful long skinny nose.
HELLO!!! LIGHTBULB!!! The human thinks she has a GREAT IDEA!!! Don't you just love them? So now our walks are a treat a minute. We don't pull her? We get a treat. We don't bark our heads off? We get more treats. Treats treats treats!!!
Yah, life is good. We can still bark our heads off at anything we want when we're in our Yard. Unless she's near the Flying Object Of Doom (she calls it the plastic watering can). Then we just run to her instead, and... GET TREATS!!! They are so easy to train if you are consistent and get on their level.
goose your humans-
Sam I Am]
It's easy. I am a marvellous dog trainer. I wish I could share my secrets with you, but really it is an inborn talent. A gift. Like charisma, this can't be taught or learned, it just is.
the end-
Patience
Who's training whom???? [Sam I Am here. I've distracted the Dear Servant momentarily. (No great challenge there, bless her heart. As the humans say in these parts. It translates into: the woman hasn't got a single bone to chew on.) We let her think that she has some magical gift of whatever she was talking about. It makes her feel good about herself, and honestly she has so little to feel good about that every little bit helps.
Here is the real scoop. The Elders tell me that in the Olden Times they all walked together in fields and woods full of every sort of delectable vermin. They speak of fox, groundhogs, bunnies, evil squirrellies, and something magical called deer. Of course the Elders knew that the Servant was crippled, blind, and senseless, so they would allow her to tether herself to them so she wouldn't get lost. As clumsy as she was, even back in her relative youth, more often than not she would land with an 'ooph' on her bouncy belly whenever the vermin were sighted.
A large, gelatinous, human anchor. Screaming obscenities with her face in the mud. (Makes me giggle just a little bit to think of it. Silly human.)
Here and now we walk in this city. No fields, unless she drives us to the Kennel Club. No fox, no groundhogs, no magical deer. (I sure would like to chase one of those one day; they sound great!) Plenty of Evil City Squirrellies who show no respect, Evil C.A.T.s who are V.I.L.E., loose dogs who are danger-danger-dangerous, and lots of cars and trucks.
She doesn't walk us all at once any more. She makes us take Turns. I get two turns because I have taken my Great Uncle Giacomino's place and she can't stand to be away from me for a minute and a half. When it's not our Turn we wait in our Dog Room and get a biscuit and howl our heads off to let her know how stinky not-our- Turns are.
It's taken us eight years, but we finally trained her. She used to (close your ears, Dogs, this is for the humans only) jerk on our necks and froth at the mouth and yell something which made no sense like nonobaddogs or some such unintelligible nonsense. Of course we payed absolutely NO attention to this demonstration of human stupidity; we barked louder and pulled harder. REALLY! I mean. She's not a bad human, but, sigh, she is a human.
One day she had a treat in her pocket. We were dutifully alerting her to the danger of a horrid, rabid, stinkypoopbutt C.A.T. at the top of our lungs and she was getting ready to behave badly. I said, "Hey Idiot Servant! You have treats in your pocket. They might be more interesting than that ol' stinkypoopbutt C.A.T."
She didn't get it (no surprise) so I bumped her pocket with my wonderful long skinny nose.
HELLO!!! LIGHTBULB!!! The human thinks she has a GREAT IDEA!!! Don't you just love them? So now our walks are a treat a minute. We don't pull her? We get a treat. We don't bark our heads off? We get more treats. Treats treats treats!!!
Yah, life is good. We can still bark our heads off at anything we want when we're in our Yard. Unless she's near the Flying Object Of Doom (she calls it the plastic watering can). Then we just run to her instead, and... GET TREATS!!! They are so easy to train if you are consistent and get on their level.
goose your humans-
Sam I Am]
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Oh Happy Happy
It is Mama Pajama's and Fat Charlie's thirteenth birthday. Along with Sammy's mom Jessie, who lives in Maryland.
I'm going to go sit on the porch with them.
Steve Surfman photo
Laurie Erickson photo
Laurie Erickson photo
please hug your sweet old hounds
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Shhhhhhh...
[She sneaks up on the blog. Eyelids straining ever more widely open, like she's trying to see better. Futile, that: it's pitch dark. Bug eyed. Her heart is just a'pounding. Great, now she's fresh out of spit. She's thinking twice...]
Well, if Dolly Parton can sing "Stairway to Heaven". (Playing on my local NPR Saturday morning station. It's pretty. Acoustic banjo, she whisper-sings ala Dolly, "And the forest will echo with laughter.")
Lower those expectations. If I'm going to write this blog, it's got to change. I've overscheduled myself into a deep dark corner. I've made friends in blogland. People I care about. Writing a blog isn't about only the time it takes to write; it's about visiting and commenting on other blogs. That takes hours. Literal hours.
I ain't got 'em anymore.
And there's that Temptress, Facebook. I can check in and check my friends out in minutes. The bitch.
When I started this blog, it was meant to entertain. Those of you that sent me notes in the months this blog lay fallow, saying kind things and encouraging me to write - that meant a lot to me. Thank you.
I got stuck. Tired and stuck. Not that I wasn't doing fun stuff. I just ran out of oomph to write about it.
And here's the truth: I need to write about my sister who died of ovarian cancer, and I haven't been able to. And since I haven't been able to write that, I just haven't been able to write.
I'll do that. And Mama Pajama and Fat Charlie and Sam's mom Jessie in Maryland are going to be 13 years old on the 29th. I'm just not promising to be entertaining anymore. I'm going to write for myself. I also can't promise to visit everyone else's blog. I'll be that kind of blogger, yuck.
I need to write the way I need to breathe.
hug your hounds
Well, if Dolly Parton can sing "Stairway to Heaven". (Playing on my local NPR Saturday morning station. It's pretty. Acoustic banjo, she whisper-sings ala Dolly, "And the forest will echo with laughter.")
Lower those expectations. If I'm going to write this blog, it's got to change. I've overscheduled myself into a deep dark corner. I've made friends in blogland. People I care about. Writing a blog isn't about only the time it takes to write; it's about visiting and commenting on other blogs. That takes hours. Literal hours.
I ain't got 'em anymore.
And there's that Temptress, Facebook. I can check in and check my friends out in minutes. The bitch.
When I started this blog, it was meant to entertain. Those of you that sent me notes in the months this blog lay fallow, saying kind things and encouraging me to write - that meant a lot to me. Thank you.
I got stuck. Tired and stuck. Not that I wasn't doing fun stuff. I just ran out of oomph to write about it.
And here's the truth: I need to write about my sister who died of ovarian cancer, and I haven't been able to. And since I haven't been able to write that, I just haven't been able to write.
I'll do that. And Mama Pajama and Fat Charlie and Sam's mom Jessie in Maryland are going to be 13 years old on the 29th. I'm just not promising to be entertaining anymore. I'm going to write for myself. I also can't promise to visit everyone else's blog. I'll be that kind of blogger, yuck.
I need to write the way I need to breathe.
hug your hounds
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