His scent is still on my hands as I write this. Not ready to wash him off just yet. I have bits of his fur on my sleeves from the final hugs. We all crowded into the tiny exam room at the veterinary hospital. His parents, his step-parents, and his brother and sister. Six sad family members surrounding an aching elderly dog who certainly wondered what all the fuss was about. They put him on a blanket and gave him the injection. We said more goodbyes, held back tears, then let them flow. He was asleep and then he was gone. I cried with occasional bursts of loud, ugly, heaving sobs of gut-wrenching grief. I hugged my crying children, knowing I was helpless to ease their pain. I leaned hard against my husband’s shoulder, trying to quell my trembling. His father, usually so stoic, wiped tears from his flooded eyes. I hugged his stepmother (probably his favorite parent) and thanked her for taking such good care of him. She thanked me for sharing him with her.
Unintended Two-Year Hiatus Comes to an End. Readers Brace Themselves.
I was a writer until my life interfered with my writing about it. Over the past two years, I haven’t written much of anything other than about 523 clever Facebook statuses or Instagram captions. And maybe a grocery list or two. And of course work-related correspondence and briefs. And there was that one nasty note I put on the windshield of a car that was parked by a douchebag who thought his (clearly leased) BMW deserved to take up two spaces. (The note said something to the effect of, “Thanks, asshole.” I would have continued the vitriol, but decided that less was more, as if to telegraph that I wasn’t going to waste any extra time on the likes of him. I’m sure my words gave him the epiphany he needed and he changed his ways after that.) My few snippets of writing, while sometimes creative and always well-crafted, did nothing to feed my hunger for opening veins at the keyboard. Instead, I starved.
If only other families could swap insults with impunity the way mine does, there would be no petty or protracted estrangements and Jerry Springer would never have had a successful show. While we looked forward to Thanksgiving that year, we all were a little apprehensive as well. It was the first one without my dad. Before we all got to my mother’s house, my sister e-mailed me and my brother to say, “I’m looking forward to y’all getting on my nerves this weekend.”
The year was 2006. Picture seven adults, six kids, and a few dogs cooped-up in a three-bedroom, two-bath farmhouse the size of a double-wide. (Well, it may technically be a double-wide, but it’s so well-disguised that my dad always joked that a tornado could never find it.) It’s probably the only 20-plus-year-old pre-fab dwelling with hardwood floors and ceramic tile. The Winnebago-style Fiberglas showers have yet to be upgraded to imported Venetian marble, however. I say “cooped-up” because I am a spoiled upper-middle-class American brat. A lot of families in this world probably happily sleep that many in one room. In fact, my Russian sister-in-law told me she felt right at home with so many people in what seemed like such a small space.
My parents were always amazed at how different their three children were. We still question my sister’s paternity, but then she is quick to remind us that she has the upper thighs of our maternal grandmother’s side of the family. Bless her heart.
As we were growing up, my sister and I could not have been more different. I was the wild child, and as the oldest, I got away with everything since our parents had no idea what I was getting into. My sister was the popular one. As she progressed through high school, she went from homecoming duchess to princess to queen. She is three years younger. I’m sure my teachers would dread getting my little sister in their classes, but then would be pleasantly relieved. I was like the Ally Sheedy character (without the dandruff) in The Breakfast Club while my sister was Molly Ringwald. We fought mercilessly for years. Mostly about the phone. We had those mod, donut-shaped, coil-corded phones, just heavy enough to throw and leave a good size hole in the sheetrock, with receivers perfect for a good headlock/forehead pounding or punch in the eye. All kinds of hair-pulling, biting, spitting, door-slamming, and clothes-stealing. All taking place as I cowered in a corner. She was mean. All I ever did to her was try to steal her boyfriends. When we sold the house we grew up in, a splintered hole remained in the door of our shared bathroom. I think I was the one who kicked it in. She was probably taking too long in the shower, and I needed to get in there to check on my hydroponic pot plants. We often laughed at that hole later, along with all the boys’ names we had carved into the door’s latex-painted trim. Good times.
(or How to Spend $600 After Almost Killing Your Dog)
First, a little bit of background. Our dog Buzz was a 50-pound Australian Shepherd mix. We think he was about our daughter’s age, so that would have made him seven or eight years old when I almost killed him. He was named after Buzz Lightyear, but we didn’t do that. He came with that name when we adopted him six years before from a local no-kill shelter. We decided to go for a mutt this time, seeing as how Buzz’s two predecessors (one disobedient inbred AKC-papered Lab after another) brought us nothing but grief.
Our first dog, Boo Radley, was a 100-plus pound black Labrador Retriever, who found it necessary to bust through our fence and get hit by a truck on the highway before he reached the age of two. His remains are supposedly resting comfortably in a pet cemetery in Lubbock, Texas.
Before my then-husband left for a deployment to the Middle East, he fully briefed me about all the things he did outside while I was in the house watching A&E or Bravo marathons and pretending to do laundry. The only indoor item I needed to worry about was the humidor. Apparently, it needed watering not unlike my thirsty houseplants. One spring day, he spent what seemed like four hours or so giving me detailed instructions on the use and/or maintenance of: the riding lawnmower, the gas-powered Weed-Eater, the leaf blower, the septic tank, the water softener, the sprinkler system (which I incidentally had theretofore been unaware that we even had), the propane tank, the soaker hoses, the Miracle Gro plant feeder, the weed killer, various insect killers, and, of course, the humidor. He checked me out on all of these as I took notes in hopes of remembering what should be done twice a week as opposed to what should be done every two weeks.
Maybe it’s bad karma. Or a disability. Or raging pre-menopause hormones. Maybe it’s my meds or lack thereof. Or this unnecessarily dramatic midlife crisis I nurture. Maybe I should consult an astrologist or a hypnotherapist. Or a pharmacist. Either I am easily overwhelmed, exhausted, and spent, or I just whine about it more than anyone else does. Others seem to manage life so much more deftly than I do.
I will start a day with the best of intentions. A solid, ambitious plan. And more often than not, the plan goes out the broken window and everything gets swept up into a shitstorm. Like every item on my to-do list becomes a turd that gets thrown one-by-one into an oscillating fan. A whirlwind of clusterfuckery beyond my control. I feel pulled in 73 different directions and all I want to do is go back to bed until I desperately need to pee. I juggle candles that are burning at both ends. I bite off more than I can chew. And fight off more than I can do. I have too much on my plate and no dog under the table willing to help me eat it. Like I’m driving drunk with no steering wheel. In reverse. Blindfolded. Every once in a while, I will remember to breathe. Other times, an involuntary gasp reminds me. Not only do I have no time to wipe my ass, I have no time to take a shit in the first place. I know I am not alone. My girlfriends and I often share the Thelma and Louise escape fantasy. But with my luck, if I were to go for a flying drive off a cliff, I would survive in a persistent vegetative state until my family put me out of their misery.
In 1972, George Carlin’s Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television was a scandalous hit. Even though most of the words can be heard regularly on many media outlets now, they are still considered inappropriate. Why certain combinations of letters that make certain sounds are deemed “bad” has always concerned me. But as a writer, I know that words are powerful. Especially words like the original seven: Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. He also mentioned Fart, Turd, and Twat as contenders. I capitalize them to give them the authority they so richly deserve. I have a few to add as well. Mostly because I have stories to go with them.
This is a combination of random crap I have posted before at various times. I thought I would see if it worked together. I’m not sure I succeeded, but I also don’t much care.
I don’t like to advertise that I’m an attorney. Can you guess why?
1. No one believes it’s possible because
(a) I’m a “blonde”
(b) I’m never serious enough
(c) I have only a superficial understanding of world history and current events
(d) Any combination of the above
(e) (b) and (d)
One morning, my son (who was maybe ten years old at the time) told me, “I play this Nintendo game good.” I replied, “No. You play it well. Well is an adverb, adverbs modify verbs, and to play is a verb. Good (in this instance) is an adjective. Adjectives modify nouns.” After I realized (again) that I sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher to him, he looked at me and asked, “Why aren’t they called adnouns? Shouldn’t adjectives modify jectives?” He totally missed the point.
The majority of my friends, acquaintances, blog reader(s), and healthcare providers are well-aware that I am a bit of a stickler when it comes to proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Hell, spelling ability was one of the top five reasons I married my first husband or even dated him to begin with. (Same for husband number two, in fact.) And I’m proud to say that both of my children know the difference between “your” and “you’re” and the difference between “its” and “it’s,” which is a lot more than I can say for most adults I know. I have convinced my family that the only thing worse than misplacing my keys is misplacing a modifier. They pretend to know what a gerund is so as not to upset my fragile psyche. And they know all-too-well that dangling a participle in front of me is an open invitation for my unbridled wrath to rain down upon them. I don’t care what you say, as long as you say it correctly.
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