Letter to an old Love

Hi old love,

I haven’t heard whether or not you took early retirement when it was offered this time. In case you did, and in case you are leaving at the end of April, I wanted to drop you a line.

I wish you well with the rest of your life. The love is still there, and I want to think I have largely forgiven the cruelty of the silence that ended our association. Forgotten, no. Put up shields I’ve not yet been able to lower, yes. Believe I may understand some of the reasons behind the silence, yes. Agree with them, probably not all but perhaps a few. Curious about whether or not I am correct about the reasons, mildly.

It was a complex relationship between two complex people with a lot of baggage. At least we tried, for a while. Whether or not it’s in this lifetime, I do think we’ll meet again.

If nothing else, you were a good catalyst in some ways. I go up on my roof when I need to, and I have Fluff and all that she means to me. I do wish she could meet you again, because she loved you a lot and I think she would still remember you.

Again, OL, good luck in your future. I wish you joy and abundance.

kabbage

Health Insurance

Right now I have health insurance based on COBRA coverage. Recently I had a few minor blood levels checked (mostly thyroid, IIRC). I just received my insurance statement.

The lab billed the insurance company for $171.35. The discount was $139.30, for a net cost to the insurance company of $32.05. That is a discount of OVER EIGHTY PERCENT! Is this reasonable? Which is the "real" cost of the service: 32 dollars or 170 dollars? I used a lab at the local hospital because it's "in network." Recently I talked to a lab scientist who works there, and she told me that that hospital does over a billion dollars' worth of charity care a year. Is that counted at the "normal" rate or the "discount" rate, I wonder.

If I can't afford health insurance, wouldn't a blood test for $32 be more reasonable for me than $171? How would I afford the blood test to tell me the reason I had such low energy that I couldn't keep a job was because my thyroid was almost devoid of function? Given the blood test and the (pretty inexpensive) natural thyroid, Icould get the energy needed to keep a job and then hopefully afford insurance.

This is a harsh, cruel, stupid system. Would that I knew how to fix it.

Saved by the Receipt!

The phone rang this morning with "Scott" asking me about my car payment (due last Saturday). I said I had made the payment on Friday the 13th, so he said they had no record of it, but okay, and hung up. I called customer service to see if Scott was legit, and sure 'nuff, they don't have me as having made the payment, either. The nerve of me for making the payment at the local branch instead of by phone or electronically directly to the auto loan people! She could not possibly check on a payment made via branch.

Called the branch who said bring down what you have, unless you can fax it, and we'll figure out what is going on. Off to the branch with my receipt, the kept part of the payment voucher, and a fresh balance from my checking account to verify no bouncing scenario possible.

Strangely the branch guy had to call the auto loan folks, too, but after about 10 or 15 minutes they figured out the branch teller had somehow applied the amounts to principle and interest without actually marking it as a routine payment. Very odd. It's fixed now, supposedly with no late fees applied. Teller is probably going to have a review of "how we handle auto loan payments". The branch guy had the grace (and sense) to apologize for the inconvenience.

I am pleased that I was able to find the receipt quickly and easily (although since it was on an end table, probably no one else would've been able to find it), despite the overall disorder of my papers. Yay, me!

Household Horrors, or You're Not a Domestic Goddess, Are You?

Last night I decided to vacuum for the first time in forever. While chasing cobwebs in the kitchen, I took a swipe at the overhead light fixture, a tacky stained glass monstrosity in shades of brown, orange, and cream. You know things are bad when the amount of light in the room noticeably increases as you remove the dust.

Tonight I fixed the dogs' suppers from my leftovers. As I finished adding and mixing in the supplements (old dogs, like old people, get a lot of supplements), I dropped Sleek's bowl upside down on the floor. Quick calculation: she'll get more of the supplements if I let her eat supper off the floor than if I scrape up what I can from the floor and put it back in her bowl, plus I won't waste any supplements by restarting her meal.

And of course the bathroom didn't get cleaned this weekend, despite an obvious need.

Update Monday: the shame of confessing the bathroom situation led me to cleaning the toilet and tub before going to bed. Thank you, blog!

Dogs are Weird

I'm talking food here. Both my dogs love food. Sleek is more discriminating -- she generally wants some form of meat in her snacks -- but Fluff will often eat things like blueberries or apples. I think when she was young she helped herself to some tomatoes from the vine. That's one reason to go with cherry tomatoes: at least you can probably get some toothmark-free tomatoes. Sleek was mad about prune plums for a few years when we had a tree in the backyard. She would eat several windfalls at one sitting, including their pits. All that fiber, surrounding all those very hard, pointy things. I felt for poor Sleek when she said goodbye to those pits.

Anyway, I have leftover Easter eggs and decided to give the dogs part of one of the egg whites. I did a good job with the boiling, so these were very nice eggs. Each dog sniffed her ~1/2inch cube of egg white very suspiciously but took it from my fingers. Fluff laid her egg bit on the floor, where it seemed to be difficult to pick it up again. I handed it to her again, and she mouthed it for a while before swallowing it. Meanwhile, Sleek is chewing and chewing hers. Now, this dog eats a raw chicken wing in about 3 crunches, with none of it touching the ground after its first introduction to her mouth. I have seen her swallow entire four-ounce chunks of meat, but she has to chew 3 grams of hard-boiled egg???? Sleek caught and ate a baby rabbit one time, and I think she chewed that less than she chewed this stupid piece of egg. If she deigns to take a Cheerio, it's the same thing. A single Cheerio must be chewed 20 times. A quarter pound of liver need not be chewed, only inhaled.

I've read that dogs have fewer tastebuds than we do, and that seems reasonable given that most of their diet doesn't stay in their mouths long enough to even leave a flavor. Good thing they have the 10x stronger stomach acid!

Eyebrows

Which is worse? Having a single eyebrow, or finding you've inherited your father's eyebrows in that there was an inch-long, curly hair growing in one (of two) eyebrow?

A new one for the neighbors

Ms. Fluff got a bath and blow-dry today. She was soooo filthy. To the casual glance, she still looked okay, but if you took a second look, those whites were cream-colored. If you touched her, you really knew, because of the residue on your fingers. Yick.

I borrowed a dog blow dryer for the big bath because I knew there was a whole lot of undercoat that would be coming out with the dirt, and even more that would be loose but unable to work itself out during the actual bath. Xena loaned me the dryer and gave me some hints on how to get the dog dry and the dead hair out with less tangling. Most dog dryers of this type don't have heat -- they just blast the water out with a lot of air. Essentially they're vaccuum cleaners turned to "push" instead of "pull."

We did the bath in the tub and the drying on the front stoop. You don't want to blow dry in the house because the hair goes everywhere. I really don't know how much was blown out because it just went with the wind. The stoop gave Fluff an idea of where she was going to be, and she was okay with that. Not much fussing or trying to dart off into the front yard to roll. She was a little surprised that I chose not to let go of her neck fur when she decided she wanted to hoot and holler at the neighbors for coming home. Fortunately for Fluff, only 3 steps lie between stoop and driveway, so she landed okay when she launched and I didn't let go.

She looks, smells, and feels much cleaner. In really good news, I had no allergy symptoms during her bath and dry! Last time I bathed her, I had to use an inhaler and didn't even try to blow her dry. Digestive enzymes and other supplements seem to be helping my body cope with its overall load of allergens.

Peaceful Warrior

I've seen the new movie The Peaceful Warrior twice in 2 days now. My guess is that most reviewers won't care for it because most of the conflict is internal. There is a fairly dramatic car/motorcycle intersection, but any physical action between men and women is understated by today's standard. I'm really surprised it has a PG-13 rating rather than just PG.

I enjoyed it a lot, but I'm into the stuff they're talking about, although I'm much better at reading about it than practicing it. On the visual level, watching high-quality male gymnasts is always pleasant :-) I'm also old enough to see some of the physical cycles. Twenty or 25 years ago, the lead character, Dan, would've been played by Tom Cruise, and his chief physical rival, Trevor, by Val Kilmer. The current actors reminded me much of Cruise and Kilmer in face structure and coloring.

I haven't read Dan Millman's books yet, but this movie will probably work for many people who are fans of Eckhart Tolle and other "new age" authors who believe we will benefit greatly by turning off the mind chatter and spending a lot more time in the present moment.

Equinox Editing

Sorry, I'm trying desperately for alliteration in this title. If you can come up with a better (more appropriate for the ultimate topic), please drop it into the comments.

Today's edit: my hair. I spent two or three years growing my hair out to shoulder length. It was a nasty, shapeless shoulder length, but it was long enough to pull into a respectable ponytail. My hair is very fine but has some natural wave. The fineness means that only the last several inches can sustain wave without the weight of subsequent hair pulling it flat to my head. The wave is also very humidity-dependent, so I could go from pretty straight hair to wild frizz and back in a few hours if I went from inside the forced-air-heated house to the perpetual winter mist/drizzle and back.

As of this afternoon, I have much less hair and much more shape to it. I'm very happy! I look forward to the first hair wash and feeling how little hair is there. Must remember to use less shampoo! I have bangs, I have layers, I have wave and body. Ahh.

Of course, the outside temperature stayed in the 40s all day, so my neck is cold.

I just warned Ms. Fluff that she might be the next one to get a new spring 'do. She definitely needs a bath, and there is always trimming to be done. The girl is part hobbit -- she has the hairiest feet, for a breed who nominally has short hair on the feet.

No Wonder

I thought we were having an awfully long gray spell. According to wunderground.com, the last day we had completely free of rain was February 5. We only had a trace on Feb. 6 and 17, but we've had measurable accumulations every other day since the 5th, with another week of rain forecasted!

I think rain and 42 degrees F (502 Kelvin, if I remember correctly -- that sounds warmer!) can be colder than snow and 30 degrees F. Oh well. Despite their geriatric status, the troops wish to go out for a walk. Who am I to deny them? Off we go!

Update: we're back, and I checked Weather Underground again. Despite having only 3 rain-free days in February, we had almost an inch less rain than an average February! We only had 3.97 inches instead of 4.86.

I started thinking about our rainfall on the walk (since it was raining at the time). We have about the same yearly rainfall as most of the places I've lived in the east and midwest. Like those places, we have about 30-36 inches of rain a year. Let's call it 36"/year or averaging 3 inches per month. That doesn't sound too bad: an average of about 0.1 inches per day, so you expect a lot of days of sun and a few of rain.

West of the Cascades, though, we have some very dry months. Typically we have very little rain in July (at least, after the often damp July 4 holiday!), August, and at least the first half of September. When I say "very little", I'm talking about maybe half an inch during that entire time period.

Let's continue on our very crude calculations. If you round it so we have 3 months with 0 rainfall, that means we have 9 months in which to fit our 36 inches of annual rainfall, or 9 months averaging 4 inches per month. We've just increased the month rainfall by one third. This is when things start to get tough to take. Our winter months actually tend more toward 5 or 6 inches of rain per month beginning in late November and running through February or March. We get about two thirds of our rain in one third of the year.

The other factor is that nearly all of this is rain, not snow. Rain absorbs light, snow reflects it. Four months of clouds and light-absorbing puddles can get to many of us.

On the bright side, the pussy willows are starting to come out, and many of the daffodils are above ground though perhaps not quite blooming yet.

10 Weird Things About Me

I was tagged by Joy for this meme.

1. As a kid I hated popcorn. We had it a lot as a family snack after dinner, and I never ate it. I think I was allowed 3 Bacon Crackers instead. As soon as I went to college, I started eating popcorn. Boy, did I freak out my family that first Christmas break when I oh so casually took a handful of popcorn and ate it.

2. Every fall I become anxious and unsettled and want to move. I think it's a throwback to childhood, college, and grad school. I want to start over with the new school year, even though it's been 20 years since I've been in school.

3. I really became a firm believer in pre-marital s*x after dating a guy with a thing for shoes and feet. It may work for some people, but I am the queen of tennis shoes, Tevas, and hiking boots. Nary a high heel in sight. That turned out to be a deal-breaker for the two of us (among other issues), and I was so glad I found out before we were married.

4. I have 5 siblings with whom I have civil or better relationships. The last time I saw any of them in the flesh was 4 years ago.

5. I studied mechanical engineering because my father was a civil engineer.

6. When we were little, we went to the library every week. For some years they had a limit of 10 books per library card. We all had our own cards, we all took out 10 books, and we all read them before the next week's library day. This includes both my parents.

7. Although I'm extremely messy and disorganized in my own stuff (and in my own work cubicle, when I had one at the corporate cube farm), I really want common areas organized in a sensible fashion. Unfortunately, I'm the only human in the house, so there are no common areas that must be organized or tidy. I do insist on no hard dog toys where I will step on them in the middle of the night!

8. My dog Sleek is a female Belgian Malinois. I was looking for a male Australian shepherd when I found her. Both breeds are dogs, and both belong to the herding group. Physically, they have little in common: Aussies are long-haired, drop-eared, bob-tailed while Malinois are short-haired, prick-eared, and long-tailed. They don't even come in the same colors!

9. My mother tried to teach me to knit multiple times, but it took a work friend to get me to really learn. She had me make an Icelandic sweater (similar to this, but in 3 colors) for my very first knitted project -- no scarves for her!

10. Eleven years ago I spent over $1000 (yes, 3 zeroes) for a bike. It has less than 1000 miles on it now because 6 months later I spent $50 to purchase the divine Ms. Fluff from our nearby animal shelter. Priorities!

Transmission

Today I walked my dogs past Blonde Streaks' house. Her dog is the one who bit my beloved Fluff. Blonde Streaks was out, so I asked her if she still had her dog, because Animal Control said she had told them she was going to get rid of it. Unfortunately, she replied in the affirmative. I will tell AC this and ask them to press for an abatement so the dog has to be removed from the city.

The real point, though, is how much adrenaline and tension flow down the leash. Even having that much of a confrontation (that is, not much of one) with Blonde Streaks is enough to send me into a heightened state of tension and adrenal arousal. Two houses later, the two toy dogs were tied out. We've seen them before, and, although they turn on each other from barrier frustration at being tied, they don't normally bother Fluff. Today, though, she was much more aroused by them and regarded them as a threat. Same deal at the park: even though separated by a fence, she was much more aware and concerned about a couple of golden retrievers who weren't even interested in her.

Emotions are still interesting, and the dogs I love are still wonderful.

Does Life Go On?

A blogger who does not believe in any sort of afterlife recently lost a much-loved but elderly dog. I thought about this quite a bit today, because some of my comments were among those deleted because he found their expression of belief in an afterlife painful.

My personal belief is that conservation of energy works. We may change form at death, including the possibility of going into a state of no physical form, but there is a form of energy in us, that IS us, that will survive the death of the physical form. I believe there is a good chance that the energy may incarnate itself again (and again and again) if it chooses to do so.

The question may be, why do I believe this? On the one hand, I may choose to believe this way because it's easier. If I believe I have a chance of seeing/feeling those I love again, that may make losing their current physical forms easier. Maybe it's the lazy woman's way to put off dealing with some of the grief that might come knowing that those who are gone are simply, irretrievably, gone. Add to that my own not-so-far-off-as-it-used-to-be mortality. Maybe I can't/don't want to face the idea that this is a one-shot deal. I think this may be a very real part of it, because I certainly don't see myself as being spectacularly successful yet in this life. If I believe I'll have addition opportunities for "getting" what I'm not understanding yet in this life, it takes some of the pressure off to achieve, achieve, achieve. I also grieve less for people like my mother, who died unhappy, thinking she'll be back and hopefully in a position where she can achieve some happiness and maybe some other things she would've liked to do or have (we're talking personality or soul development here, not financial).

Mostly, though, I don't think the evidence supports the one-shot deal theory. We describe our friends as being more than just their physical attributes, often in ways that indicate we feel our friends transcend their physical forms. We feel an anima, a spark of life in them. If/when the physical attributes stop, why would we assume that more than those physical attributes stop? Why would the spark die just because the body does? During life, at least part of that anima needs to be with the body at all times to keep it going, but often part of it seems to wander, whether in dreams or daydreams, out-of-body experiences, or deep sleep or meditation. Why wouldn't all of the anima be able to leave when the body no longer needs it? Dead bodies seem heavier than live ones. Perhaps part of the anima also acts as buoyant force to keep the body able to move on its own.

Another branch of my theory is that we all are interconnected on some level. I believe that many of us live and die mostly unconscious of the level of connection, but that education and experience can help us achieve awareness of the connection, or at least awareness of the possibility of connecton, even if we can't quite feel it. Again, because I feel this connection exists, in some ways we cannot die in the finito sense because the whole would be less than whole with bits and pieces of it continually dying and leaving holes in the whole. This gets me to where I have to stop believing in time as absolute. I believe that we here blogging or reading blogs have chosen to act as if we believe in time and that time runs only in one direction (international date line and speed of light travel notwithstanding). In reality, I think, there is no time. I'm always an infant, a teenager, a young adult, a middle-aged adult, whatever age I get to on this round of the mortal coil. I can't really grasp that logically and describe it because I think our language is inadequate to the task. We're too time-tied, or at least I am in language.

As usual, I don't know how to wrap up my thoughts into a tidy package for a conclusion. I guess, I can just say it's better for my already questionable sanity to believe we go on after death than to believe death is the ultimate end. I think the latter would be a hard way to live.

Sainthood

My neighbors tell me that they are nominating me for sainthood. They are heading out of town for a week in an hour or so. I usually feed their cats, bring in the paper & mail, etc. This time is much more “special” because 13 (or more) year old GrayBoy has a UTI. This means he’ll be staying inside, with his litter box, and needs antibiotics in his little mouth twice a day. Have I mentioned I’m allergic to cats and rarely touch them because of that? Have I mentioned that the smell of cat poop makes me want to hurl? And that the thought of dealing with the litter box is one reason I have never really wanted to own a cat? Or that GrayBoy usually tries to bite me when I do touch him? And that the only neighbor I am comfortable asking for help with GrayBoy spends half the week 3 hours away from here taking care of her parents? It’s going to be a long, long week! But, that is why I’m nominated.

Update: in the 6 hours since his owners left, GrayBoy has puked 2x on the carpet, used the litter box (solid only, should I be concerned? Esp. with a cat with a bladder infection? Or assume he's found another "convenient" corner to use, which I know he sometimes does?), and had most of one dose of antibiotic, almost destroying the dropper in the process. His sister sneaked into the house and had to be escorted out as she can be destructive. The week is looking longer.

Bits & Pieces

The publisher did not answer her phone at the time she had suggested we talk, nor has she responded to my email asking her what time on Monday I could reasonably expect to reach her. I sense this is not going well.

Despite my allergies to horses, spent much of the day at a horse expo. Fortunately, I didn't have to use my (new) inhaler. I did some EFT at one point which took the fluid level in the lungs down to manageable levels and kept me from feeling asthmatic. Going for a second, longer day tomorrow should be a trip. It's quite a hoot parroting what people have said about the saddle being sold in our booth.

I've been trying to eat a bit better quality of food (more veggies, less processed sugar), and my body is starting to adapt. Tonight at the grocery store, I looked at my usual sugar highs and really didn't feel like buying them. And I didn't buy them! This is pretty big news for me. Of course, I still have to come up with a gluten-free dessert for our women's group meeting Sunday night.... I'm thinking about coconut sticky rice, which has the added benefit of being vegan (this is a tough crowd to cook for!)

Being stuffed up renders Greek salad tasteless. I can taste the onion if I really bite a piece of it, but the kalamata olives and feta cheese are remarkably taste-free. Sad, really.

Time for bed. I got 5 hours of sleep last night, spent close to 8 hours on my feet on a concrete floor, and can't breathe. I need some rest!

Longer than I Thought

I hadn't realized how long it's been since I posted (thanks, "Joy" for your note -- I'll try to reply later, although this may answer some of your concerns).

Things are going okay, other than no money coming in. I will be talking to a woman about a part-time editing position. It's only about 1/2 to 1 day per week, though, so not much money. The good news is that I should be able to continue it even after getting a "real" job. I still don't know what I want to do for a real job, although I'm not interested in going back to engineering or major, major corporations (I spent nearly 19 years working for Fortune 100 companies). I have an idea for a business of my own, but there are a lot of unknowns in getting started. I'd love to have a partner, but it couldn't support two people at the beginning (how soon before it can support one is still a question). I also don't know anyone right now that I think would be a great fit for me as a partner, both in terms of knowledge and compatibility.

Anyway, I've started taking yoga which is very nice in terms of stretching, relaxing, and learning to be present in the moment. My instructor had a great quote yesterday, but I can't remember from whom. It was something along the lines of "The gift of a lifetime is to be with yourself." That's not right, I know, but it's got some of the right words in it. I will try to get the real words and author from her. Update: The quote is from Joseph Campbell and reads "the gift of a lifetime is becoming who you are." The instructor is a really sweet woman, and she makes me smile every time she says the word, "belly" because she says it with the same inflections (beh-LEE) that I use when I'm telling Fluff how cute she is with her pink and white and spotted belly.

I've also gotten back in the swimming pool which feels good, although they do use a lot of chlorine in that pool. Keeping my skin in good shape is a little tough with that added to forced air heat at home. Today I had an interesting experience. I wanted to join a woman in a swim lane. I tried to ask her if she minded, but either she didn't hear me or she blew me off. She was swimming counterclockwise laps, going up on the right side of the lane and then back on the left side (from my POV outside the pool). I got in on the left side since she had all her stuff stacked on the right side and made sure she saw me. I then start swimming up the left side of the lane. At the end of the first length she asked me what I was doing and why I wasn't swimming circular laps. I told her from what I had seen, almost everyone in that pool swam parallel laps when only 2 people were in a lane. She told me she felt that wasn't very welcoming, but added "whatever" and took off swimming. To me, her one-person circular laps had felt very unwelcoming, like she was firmly establishing that both sides of that lane were hers, all hers. Apparently she felt otherwise. Maybe she's done more "official" training swimming. I've never done that much group swimming, but it seems to me that it takes time to figure out when you can or cannot pass in circular swimming or to make sure one particular person is in front because s/he is known to be faster, etc. Parallel is much simpler when it's just two people.

I'll be helping out at a TTouch booth at a local equine event this weekend. Must remember business cards!

Oh, I forgot to mention that my girl Sleek seems to be getting worse in the heart murmur department. She's up to a grade IV out of VI. I'm looking at over $500 in diagnostic testing next month (soonest we can get into the local canine cardiologist) to see what is the thing to do. Ugh. The symbology of Sleek's heart being her weakest link is fascinating. She loves the people she loves very intensely and is very loyal. On the other hand, cats and small varmints would consider her to have a very black, evil heart because of her desire to pursue and kill them. Frankly, I don't think there's any malice involved. She's not interested in torturing them. She just loves the hunt and the kill (for those of you with cats, to the best of my knowledge she has never actually killed a cat, although she did catch one once and when young had gone over 7-foot fences to go after them). In some ways, she is a very primitive kind of dog who could have gone feral successfully. On the other hand, she can go downtown in large cities and just look at her surroundings with calm, confident interest. She's well-behaved in almost every circumstance (probably would have been ill-behaved in a cat show) and a favorite with vets and their staffs because she does not bite or threaten to bite (one time a tech was trying to get a blood sample from Sleek's front leg. Sleek twitched and threw the syringe across the room. When they came back with another syringe, Sleek tucked her head under the arm of the holding tech so she wouldn't see and twitch again). I think she'll see 13 (her birthday is in late April), but I have my doubts that she will see 14.

Power of Reflected Light

I just took the dogs out. It's a clear, clear night, unusual for us in January. Moon is about 2/3 of the way to full.

I noticed the moonlight is bright enough that the power line to the house is throwing a shadow tonight. Moonlight is reflected sunlight. If the moonlight is that powerful, what kind of metaphor could that be for me? Even if I'm still fearful of letting my own light shine, maybe I can let a little reflected light from the rest of the universe shine through or past or off of me.

Watching Animal Control Court

I went to Animal Control Court today to see how it is run, since there is a good chance I’ll be going there next month to testify about the neighbor’s dog Sadie attacking mine. Sadie is owned by Blonde Streaks. Blonde Streaks had to go to ACC today because of a complaint made by Mr. Volatile, another neighbor. This session promised some interesting emotional outburst possibilities because after Sadie attacked Mr. Volatile’s dogs, Mr. Volatile followed Sadie home and kicked a hole in Blonde Streaks’s front door. That part is a whole ‘nother trial, not in Animal Control Court.

The hearings officer is a lawyer with a strong interest in animal law (and who happens to own several Belgian Tervuren – perhaps my case would be even stronger had Sleek been the one Sadie nailed, esp. because Hearings Officer is Sleek's co-owner's personal attorney). Dress among most of the defendants and complainants was distinctly casual. Hearing Officer wore professional clothing, and the Animal Control officers wore their uniforms.

Blonde Streaks slumped into her chair and made a number of comments that led Hearings Officer to tell her to wait until it was her turn. AC read the appropriate parts of the statutes into the record. Hearings Officer asked for clarification on the definition of “vicious behavior,” which was given from other statutes. Mr. Volatile told his story and mostly stayed to the facts, rather than the emotions. Blonde Streaks had her time for rebuttal and had to be drawn back to the issues at hand (e.g., the door kicking is not relevant to the AC case). Blonde Streaks admitted Sadie had gotten loose and accepted responsibility for that. She said they have gotten rid of their second dog (neighborhood rumor says this dog was Sadie’s puppy) which she said belonged to her son (aka “Wheelchair Man” to the neighborhood). AC mentioned that in terms of legal responsibility, because Blonde Streaks is head of household, she was the owner of the second dog. Blonde Streaks thought about protesting that part. Blonde Streaks mentioned how Sadie could not be vicious because she lives with and has not harmed 18-month-old twins, and children aged 9, 8, and 4 years. Blonde Streaks also mentioned that if Sadie was going to be considered having shown vicious behavior by fighting with Mr. Volatile’s dogs, then shouldn’t Mr. Volatile’s dogs behavior be considered vicious because Sadie could’ve been hurt by them. Hearings Officer was unimpressed and soon cut the discussion off. Blonde Streaks’s appeals were all rejected and her fines were held at the initial levels (total of $200). Blonde Streaks replied that she had no money to pay, and Hearings Officer told her to work that out with Animal Control.

Blonde Streaks stomped out, and Mr. Volatile, his wife Bleached Blonde, and I left a few moments later, accompanied by an AC officer to ensure there was no altercation between Mr. Volatile & Blonde Streaks in the building. Fortunately, Blonde Streaks was gone by the time we reached the elevator.

We all are hopeful that at the next hearing, when my case comes up, that Sadie will be declared a Dangerous Dog and Blonde Streaks will be told to remove her from the city. The timeframe for that is 96 hours.

Keep your fingers crossed! Meanwhile, Fluff continues to grow her hair back and is doing okay around other dogs. (You will notice she was not invited to attend the big dog show this past weekend!)

Choice

In honor of Blog for Choice day, here's today's off-the-cuff writing.

I believe in choice for a number of reasons:

A woman's body belongs to her. As such, she has the right to determine whether or not she wishes to become a mother and when.

If a woman doesn't want to have a child, why would one think she would be a good mother to that child? Eighteen years is a long time to live with someone who would rather you had not been born.

Birth control education and availability is a disgrace, especially for those who are young or of limited means.

Abstinence works for some people, doesn't work for others.

Abstinence is not an option for those who are raped, forced by partners, etc.

Faintly Stunned

I've received two emails today from people who've just lost their dogs to hemangiosarcoma. Both dogs were in late middle age and much loved companions valued for their beautiful souls. It's time to go hug my dogs and be grateful that I am watching them go into old age.