Happy Monday, you guys.
You’re welcome.
Do you think they want something?
Theo, Smellmutt, and Valentine. Their expressions clearly say, “Where the food at, human thing?”
Dogspeak
Theo communicates with his urine, but Valentine uses body language. This is her “Wanna throw the platypus?” pose.
I doubt you’ll argue that this next one means anything other than, “You know you want to rub my belly. Do it. Come on. Just give it a little scratch.”
This one is, “Omg I think a cat just walked by.”
Lashes
The fringe of blonde lashes on her dark-rimmed eyes gets me every time.
This Post Has Nothing To Do With Bolivia
Everything about today is frustrating. Irritating, annoying, anxiety-producing. I think it has something to do with the fact that I started my period today. Or else it’s because it’s Wednesday and I’ve already had it up to HERE with everything. Or it’s because I haven’t exercised in an entire week (if you don’t count the 45 minutes of yoga I squeezed in yesterday.) Of course it could have something to do with the fact that I feel like all I ever do is work work work work work work work work work and yet there is always more more more more more more more more more more work to do. And by work I don’t just mean paid work, I mean laundry and dishes and bills and dog walks and vacuuming and shaving my legs and everything. Life just feels so dreadfully exhausting sometimes.
Yes, I know, these are first world problems. I’m lucky. I have a job. I chose to have four pets. Blah blah. But for once I’d just like to have one. week. of nothing. One week where I could just … rest. Without feeling guilty. Without email. Without nagging phone calls. Without knowing that at the end of the week I’ll have to pay for my rest in the pile of emails/bills/laundry/dog hair. Is that really too much to ask? Apparently it is.
No, Bolivia didn’t count as a restful vacation. There was too much hiking and not enough eating. Literally. We were hungry most of the time. At least I was.
In other news, Valentine FINALLY got her bandage off on Monday afternoon. Remember when I said her injury was minor? I’ve changed my mind about that. When an injury requires FIVE doctor visits, two rounds of anti-biotics, and two rounds of pain medication, it is not minor. But, as of Monday, she’s been declared mostly well. No more bandage, no more meds. She has to wear the lampshade hat for another five days and she can’t have a bath for another week, which is horrible because she smells so awful even I can barely stand to be around her (and I usually really like her stink-doggy smell) but other than that, she’s doing very well.
She’s totally over the lampshade hat.
Michael has spent all this week crashing classes at our local junior college, trying with all his might to cobble together a full load for the semester. Did I ever tell you about the time he went to sign up for classes on his assigned registration day and he discovered that every. single. class at the school was already full? And the wait lists were full too? This is due to the fact that we’ve cut our budgets for school, so the schools don’t have any classes, even though there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of students needing classes. Welcome to education budget cuts! Cheers for the legislature and government and yadda yadda! So glad we’re not raising taxes. Budget cuts makes SO MUCH MORE SENSE. I mean, what the fuck is education anyway? Like that bullshit is important.
Mike texted me this photo of HALF of the line of people waiting to get added to Anatomy yesterday. The head of the department was there and told the waiting people, “Hey! This isn’t bad! There’s not so many of you.” That isn’t bad? No, no, I guess it isn’t bad. IT IS FUCKING APPALLING. Fortunately, by some sort of miracle, Mike’s name was one of the four names the teacher pulled from her purse (she didn’t have a hat, so she put everyone’s name IN HER PURSE) and so he will most likely be able to add. He’s also managed to get into Spanish II. That’s two classes for the semester. Out of six he has crashed. Which is good, you know I don’t want to complain or anything, even though at this rate it will take him four years to get through a two year program. But whatever. It’s not like there’s a job market anyway.
Do you see? I’ve had it up to HERE with EVERYTHING.
The good news (for me) is that I’ve actually stopped feeling all self-conscious about my Bolivia posts and have begun to really enjoy writing them. When I have time to write them. They take FOREVER. I am so long-winded, I know. I go on and on. But the fact that you read my ramblings at all means a lot to me. I swear, sometimes I feel like y’all are the best thing I have going for me. And of course, my husband. And my family. And these guys:
TAKE A PICTURE OF ME! says the wiener.
Yeah, all right, so life isn’t that bad. Whatever.
Sweet Sweet Valentine
Poor little thing.
Last weekend Dopey, Kim, and I all got together for a lady blogger dinner. We met at my place and that is when it got complicated.
You see, my beloved, loyal, sweet, smart little Valentine does not take too kindly to household guests, especially if she’s never met them before. She doesn’t bite or anything (she doesn’t have any teeth to bite with), she just goes absolutely berserk when she hears someone coming up to the door. Absolutely berserk as in, uncontrollable, out of her mind, unconscious crazy. This is something we’ve been trying to train her out of for all the six years we’ve lived with her, with no success. Now we just try to ignore it, hoping that if it doesn’t garner a reaction she’ll give it up. We tell guests walking in that, “the little dog will act psycho for about five minutes. Ignore her. She’ll be asking for a belly rub before you know it.” Because that’s usually how it works.
On this night, Dopey and I were sitting out on the balcony when Kim pulled up in front of my building. Valentine was in Dopey’s lap and when I called hello to Kim, I saw the dog’s nostrils flare and her ears stand to attention. The dog heard Kim’s footsteps on the stairs and went balls-out ape shit, literally throwing herself off of Dopey’s lap, landing on the floor of the balcony with such a loud thud that even Kim heard it. V-dawg looked a little stunned, but stood up and went right on back to barking like a frothy-mouthed maniac. I ran downstairs to let Kim in and warn her to ignore the hysterical barking. When we came back inside the apartment, Valentine was doing what she normally does, charging Kim’s legs and barking like she meant it. That was when I noticed the blood spatter all over the carpeting. Of course, I didn’t realize what it was at first. Why is the carpet covered in red polka dots? I wondered out loud. Ohhhhhhhhh shiiiiiiiiiiit. Ladies, looks like we won’t be getting dinner for a while. Anyone want to drive us to the emergency vet?
This is where I’d like to say that I have two of the best blogger girlfriends ever. Were they starving? Yes. Was our evening being taken over by a broken toenail? Yes. Did they care? Not at all. They just wanted to make sure Valentine was okay. Dopey grabbed my purse and the leash, Kim cleaned up the blood, and off we went.
The minute Valentine was in my arms she was completely subdued. She was perfectly still and quiet the whole way to the vet’s office. When we arrived, Dopey filled out paperwork so I could hold her. She was starting to shake, but she always gets the shakes at the vet. A vet tach came in and weighed her, took her temperature, listened to her heart and her lungs, told us her vitals were all good. This wound was not serious, she explained. Very painful, but not serious. They’d just need to clip the nail off and we’d be on our way home.
Toenails should not stick out at that angle. Ouch.
After the tech took Valentine into the back so the doctor could work on her, Dopey and Kim helped keep me calm by telling jokes, live tweeting the event, and taking photos like this:
Do I have anything on my shirt?
The light-hearted banter worked, too. I was a little on edge, worried, but I was okay. Until suddenly I wasn’t. Kim was telling us a story about something, I can’t remember what now, because somewhere in the periphery of my hearing there was an animal screaming. One minute I was listening to Kim and the next minute my arms and legs were tingling and my vision was all swimmy and gray at the edges. A thought floated into my head: What’s happening to her?
“Is that Valentine screaming?” asked Dopey, horrified.
I leapt up and ran into the nurse’s station. “Is that Valentine screaming?” I asked, adrenaline soaring through me.
“No, ma’am. That is not your pet. That is a dog who ate snail bait. He’s in a lot of pain and we’re doing everything we can for him. But it’s not your pet. Your pet is with the doctor and she’s going to be just fine.”
After that, we three girls were pretty sober, saying little prayers for the dog who ate snail bait. We were lucky. Our little dog was going to be just fine. And she was. Is.
The broken toenail left a nerve exposed in her foot, so she’s in a lot of pain, even now, five days later. We’ve got her on anti-biotics and two kinds of pain medication, so she’s a little loopy. When we tried to take her for her first walk post-injury, we couldn’t help but laugh at the stoned little dog who couldn’t seem to remember why we were outside. She sat in the grass leaning so far to one side I thought she’d tip over, staring sleepy-eyed over the edge of the e-collar, until her feet finally slid out from under her. Then she just lay there, staring up at us, looking very pathetic and miserable.
We think that when Valentine fell out of the chair, she caught her toenail on the edge and ripped it out. This maniacal barking at guests is clearly more than just an irritating behavioral issue – it’s dangerous to the little dog. If anyone can recommend a dog trainer in the West Valley who can help us train her to stay calm when guests come over, we’d really like the help.
Play Date
Hey Theo. Your ears smell funny. Wanna play?
Yeah, yeah! Let’s play! Totally!
Time out! Let’s rub our faces on the carpet!
Yes! The carpet smells funny!
Theo? Dude. Where’d you go?
Rawr! I got you! Ha! I totally took you by surprise! Rawr!
(dramatically) Oh! You got me! I’m dying!
Yeah! I got you! You’re dying! Rawr!
Whoa. Your butt smells funny.
Scouts
The dogs do this thing where they have to get up and go on patrol. Valentine will be worrying a toy when she’ll hear something and freeze, ears erect, nostrils twitching. She’ll drop her toy on my belly and trot back and forth in circles around us, until she’s sure we are safe. Then it’s Theo’s turn. He’ll have watched her make her rounds and when she’s through he heaves himself up with a grunt and scuffles the dozens of dachshund steps between my feet and my chin to check in, lick my face.
I’ll scritch him behind the ears for a while as he breathes hot puppy breath in my face.
When he’s certain I’m ok (or when he’s accepted the fact that I’m not dead yet and no, he can’t eat me), he’ll walk around the top of my head, back down towards my feet… (it’s a long way for a wiener)
Then he’ll drop to his side with a thud and a sigh, his job complete.
Little guardian lapdogs.
A Little Bit Anxious
When Valentine feels anxious, she humps the pillows. It’s a lot more awkward if I do it.
I don’t even know how to begin this post. Except, maybe I do. I just feel sort of weird getting all honest about my feelings up in this hizzy.
You guys mean a lot to me. Like, a lot. It’s kind of hard to explain, but the other day I read a post from Heather at The Extraordinary Ordinary where she talks about how blogging not only gives her a creative release, but it has helped her create a little community in her heart, full of people she knows and cares about, even if she’s never met them in real life before. She described perfectly how I feel about this place, this blog I write in and once in a while pour my heart into. Ok, maybe not once in a while, maybe all of the time, even if my heart is all about new apartments and wieners, it’s still my heart. And I put it here on the Internet and you come by and check it out and then you’re all, “Hey, I totally understand what you’re talking about.” Or maybe you’re like, “Dude. Don’t get it at all, but that’s cool.” Whatever you say, you pretty much always say something that makes me feel good, even if I started out feeling bad. And I can’t find words enough to accurately describe how much that means to me.
The other day I thought my MacBook died and it made me feel like someone had just pulled my stomach out through my nose. This is the opposite of that.
So when I disappear for a few days, like I did last week, it’s not because I don’t care or I’m too busy or anything like that. Maybe it never even occurred to you, I don’t know, but when I disappear for a few days, I always feel like I’m letting you down. Or like I’m letting me down. After all, I am the one who needs this, needs you.
Last week was kind of tough. Not because anything horrible happened, nothing bad happened at all, it was actually a really nice week. Off the top of my head I can think of more than fifteen awesome things that happened, and yet? I spent nearly every day with a constant feeling of impending doom crowding my heart. And I was having panic attacks. Dear Goldfish, panic attacks are awful. If you’ve never had a panic attack, I hope you never have one. One minute I’m wandering around with a feeling of impending doom, but it’s a dull aching feeling of impending doom and I’m basically able to go about my business, mostly ignoring it, and then, out of nowhere, a thought will pop into my head. Usually it’s something ridiculous and farfetched like, “I only have a period every forty days, so I must be infertile. Normal healthy women have their period every twenty-eight days. My ovaries are drying up. I’m never going to have a baby.”
Was that TMI? Too deep of a glimpse into the inner-crazy that is my head? Maybe it was. But how do you think I feel? I have these thoughts and then I think, what’s wrong with me? Why am I obsessing over something that I basically just invented? The thought of having kids right now is not even on our radar – ok, it’s CONSTANTLY on my radar, but we’re not in a position to have kids, so it’s a big fat moot point. Do you see? Even just telling you about this makes me feel like a crazy person. And then I hate myself.
I just threw up in my mouth a little.
So I have these thoughts and then the next thing I know my heart is pounding so loud it’s taken over the space in my head where the thoughts used to be and my limbs are vibrating with adrenaline and I can’t draw a breath or see anything but static. That’s usually when I start wandering around the house freaking out because someone left socks on the floor and why the hell did Michael leave my bra on the table?
He didn’t, I remind myself. I left it there. But it’s so much better if I can blame it all on him! I argue with myself. I am losing my mind.
And that’s why I haven’t written anything for the last few days. Because I was afraid if I sat down and said hello, I’d start writing all this crazy talk about all of the f-ed up stupidness that makes me wake up in the middle of the night with a pounding heart and electric shocks of adrenaline rushing through my legs. Fight or flight, even in my sleep.
I’ve never been diagnosed with anxiety, so my saying I have anxiety isn’t a medical diagnosis or whatever, it’s just what it f-ing feels like. Horrible, awful anxiety. For no real reason. Yes, there’s anxiety about work, there’s anxiety about money, there’s anxiety about everything. That’s life, I totally get it. You can’t live a normal life and be free of anxiety. But this is anxiety over stupid shit, and so it makes me feel like I have a mental illness.
What do you think? Do you hyperventilate over stupid stuff like I do? Or do you have no idea what I’m talking about and suggest I seek therapy?
