Doxie Proxy

I remember.

I remember the way you held out your hand, fingers wiggling slightly in encouragement. Your smile was gentle, and so very sad. You didn’t placate me with soothing lies, or offer false promises that everything would be OK, because we both knew it wouldn’t. You just walked beside me while my world fell apart. I don’t know how long we wandered, but I’ll never forget that you were my anchor.

They say pain makes you stronger. They lie.

Sometimes, pain like that eats away your heart and shreds your soul. It makes you less then you were before, and teaches you a new type of fear. In the park, I remember being on my knees, the wet, bitterly cold ground soaking into my very bones. I couldn’t stand, couldn’t breathe. I just curled up and keened. Great, gasping sobs that didn’t seem to make any noise. There aren’t enough words to describe the hurt.

It’s been a long time since I’ve allowed myself to ponder that night for any length of time. I’ve not seen or heard from you in nearly two decades, but I’ll always remember how you cared. How you stood beside me while I unraveled, and kept me tethered. Thank you, with all that I am.

Thank you, because I remember.

Ouch.

Note to self: Never, ever, ever deign to write a *gasp* positive review of a Laurell K. Hamilton novel on Amazon.com, because you will thusly be thought of as akin to an ignorant female dog. I just read some of the nastiest, most uppity postings and reviews from people who’ve most likely never cracked an LKH book.

Me arse is still aflame, I tell ye.

Sheesh, ladies. (And…I do use that term very lightly.)

LKH is hugely popular. She’s published as hell. Apparently the gazillion of us who like her novels are all brainwashed. *snicker*

Elitist cows. Keep chewin’ that cud, and spittin’ out your mile-long reviews where you pop in every single bleedin’ spoiler you possibly can. Please do toss in several huge, completely irrelevant words, to strike us all with the desperate need to kneel and lick your boots. Lo, we are the scourge of readers everywhere.

Heifers.

God, how I love that word.

Soul-Search, Aisle 1

I learned a lot about myself today. Or rather, I recognized a lot about myself today. I took the True Colors course, and discovered that I’m a green, with a little gold thrown in for flavor.  It was creepy to recognize so many characteristics of my personality, but it put into words some things I’ve always felt, but never really understood about myself. What is boils down to is that intellect is my personal yardstick, and how I measure my worth as a person. I need to constantly learn more, know more, understand more than I did before, and it drives me crazy to feel unknowledgeable about a subject. (With that said, I must feel insane most of the time, eh?) I need my kudos (atta-girls, as my husband calls them), and a structured, accountable environment generally makes me a happy (green) camper. Being brutally honest here, I generally look down on others who skirt or completely disregard set rules and regulations (although I am sure I have a blind spot the size of Houston when it comes to my transgressions), and incompetence frustrates me completely. I am definitely not as under-emotional (not a word, I know) as the trainer indicated greens are, but I definitely don’t like it when my emotions control me, and I hate having mixed emotions about something. I hate feeling bittersweet about something, or angry/amused, or anything where it’s not a flat-out regular feeling. Thinking about it now, this must get to me a lot, because how often do we feel one pure emotion at a time? I’m horribly, horribly impatient about many things, although I dearly love to teach, and am willing to go at whatever pace whomever I’m teaching needs to move at.

On the other hand, God forbid someone tell me a story and let it draaaaaaag out. Oh, and if they get to a part that is obvious (e.g., where I’ll try like heck to speed it along by stating the obvious, like “And then you realized you’d forgotten your keys, so you went back in the house, AND?”), then repeat exactly WTH I just said (”Yes! I looked around and realized I didn’t know where my keys were, so I turned back to the house, went up the stairs, and walked in my door….”) - Oh….Oh, God, how that annoys me to no end. In fact, I hate it with a green and purple passion. I want to scream “Oh, FFS! GET TO THE POINT!” You see, I’m a wretch. If you are saying something pretty interesting, it kills me not to get to the good part, because I am dying to know what happened! I don’t consider the storyteller a bad or uninteresting person, I’m just….eager. Egads. Eager in a pathetic, rude, vile way. I’m a bad person. Sigh.

What else? Oh, yes, the school part. Apparently greens were constantly challenging authority as young ones in class. Yar (as Jamal would say), there be the ticket. I wasn’t a smartalec, and I followed the rules, however I asked “Why?” or “Why Not?’ as often as I could. I wanted to know everything, and if you couldn’t give me a decent explanation (or what I considered decent, in my puerile mind), then I had little use for you, and what you could teach me. God, I must have been a pain in the behind. I hereby apologize completely, on bended knee with bowed head, to every and any teacher who had to put up with my terrible challeneges to their knowledge and/or authority. These days, I think teachers should make, oh, at least $250k/year, because of all the crap they put up with, and I’m here to tell you that I was, er, part of that crap.

With no way to segue into this next bit, here ’tis, and let me state that this rant is due to repeated instances of this, and is no way me being pissy because of one isolated incident.

A dear friend of mine hurt my feelings today. (Yes, I know. This is antithetical to the green way of life.) My father is retired from one branch of the military. He served in Vietnam, and for my entire life, he has been the most honorable, wonderful man I’ve ever known. I was raised to show respect to all who give their time, effort and skills to support and defend the US. It didn’t matter what branch of the military you were in, or if you were with the Coast Guard, National Guard, or a reservist. It just didn’t matter. Even if a man or woman never sees one moment of combat, or is never put in harm’s way, the fact is that they could be, and that they’ve agreed to stand between us and the bad guys when the time comes. This is what matters. When you voluntarily choose to be my country’s defender, you are a hero in my book. I was raised this way, by my Dad. My awesome, amazing Dad.

My dear friend has a son who went into boot camp a few years ago, and it was during this period that I met my friend. From the moment we met, she’s been gung-ho (Har! Pun! See?) about the service branch her son joined, and it’s been several years of non-stop gushing about how the soldiers in that branch are better, faster, stron…. wait. Sorry, tangent. It’s been non-stop gushing about how that branch apparently has the best of the best, and no others can compare. There were repeated snide jokes about how other branches of the military had puny basic training compared to his branch, and how other branches were weaker, less intelligent, and essentially brain-washed, and anyone could do their jobs. I’ve listened to this for years. YEARS. For the record, I am SICK of hearing about the demi-gods of his branch. I’m sick of the rude jokes, and putdowns, and the complete lack of respect for every other soldier out there who happens to wear a uniform different from what her son dons.

He’s a youngster, basically, with less than a handful of years in his role, and though he’s been off native soil, he’s never been put in actual, immediate danger. He’s not now, nor has he ever, been to Iraq or Iran. (Thank God.) Compared to the sacrifices made by countless other older, more experienced soldiers, he’s a pup. He’s young, and cocky, and today, he said some hurtful, hateful things about the branch my father retired from. It started out with “Now, it may be different now, than it was then, but……”

Don’t backtrack. Don’t give me a disclaimer. Don’t pretend that you aren’t acting like a rude, disrespectful punk, when I know you were raised to be better than that. Don’t sit there and crap all over the sacrifice and heroism of every other soldier, everywhere. You are a kid, and while I can certainly understand your pride and youthful exhuberance for what you do, and how well you do it….enough is enough. Do not act as less than the intelligent, strong, competent young man that you are by disregarding those who have been soldiers before you, or at your side. I don’t care where you serve, or what shape the shiny buttons on your uniform are. I don’t care about anything other than that you stand between us and the bad guys.

At least, I used to. Today, I lost respect for you. I lost respect for a soldier, and that makes me sad.

Tags: rants, True Colors

Home

Abigail is home, and doing fine. She was so very glad to see us. I missed her dearly, and being at home felt just plain wrong without her.

Happy MLK day (for another 45 minutes). A wonderful person, indeed, who should definitely be honored.

Our three-day weekend is kaput. I did a minimal amount of laundry, cooked a bit, read a bit, WoW’d a ridiculously large amount, and slept now and then. All in all, it was enjoyable. =-)

Tags: pets

Laughter

It’s been a long, long time since I laughed til I couldn’t breathe, but while watching  Paul Blart: Mall Cop, I did just that. As my dear friend K. would say, it was Hi-LAR-ious! Kevin James has the most versatile face, and the expressions he makes are hysterical. It was a cute, feel-good movie, and I walked away smiling and entertained. Mister and I don’t expect every film to educate us about life, or be an academy award winner; we just want to be entertained. We were, and that’s what matters to me.

We wanted to go see something that would take our minds off the present dilemma:

Abigail has relapsed again, we think. Her back legs are becoming wobbly, for lack of a more sophisticated term. Upping her dosage has usually corrected the problem fairly quickly, and we’re then able to taper her back down. The vet, while I don’t want to say he insisted, felt strongly that she needed to see the surgeon again, and probably have another myelogram. I was really against this, for a variety of reasons to be detailed later, but in the end, I know that I’m not the one with the knowledge and experience regarding my beloved dog’s illness, and I went with what he suggested.

She had her myelogram this morning, and it was clean. Normal. Fine, as in the CSF looks clear, and her spine is fine. So.. I just put my poor dog through a painful and invasive procedure for nothing. OK, not for nothing - at least now we know that her symptoms are related either to her illness or the treatment. But… still. I’m up at 0432 in the freaking morning because they wanted to keep her overnight for observation after the test, and I can’t stand the thought that she’s not here with me, in the bed, snuggled up beside me. I’ve damn near dehydrated myself with bouts of tears, and I would give much just to be there with her, or to have her here with me. Yes, I know the reality and facts of the situation. Yes, I know I’m being an emotional, rambling, irritating family member. I just can’t stop worrying that she’s not sleeping, because I forgot to bring a blanket or something that smells like home, and are they checking on her frequently enough, or is she hurting, and my God, I’ve got to stop this, because here we go again with the tears.

The surgery center she’s at is clean and professional, and the people there have never, ever been anything but kind. I know this. My rational half knows this.

Please just let the time pass. I can pick her up in 4 hours, and bring my sweet baby home - after I pay the $1200 for the test, the CSF send-off, the consult and the overnight fee. TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS! And she went through needles and dye! In her spine! So we could see that it’s completely unchanged from the one she had 1 year ago!

Ranting again…must stop.

I know, emotionally, intellectually, and professionally, that a test or procedure with a negative finding can have just as much diagnostic importance as one with a positive finding. I know that the outcome of this test - the fact that she has no spinal issues - is important to know at this time, in that it affects her treatment regime. If it was a spine issue, then the GME meds would change, and visa versa. I know this. Her ataxia could be due to prolonged steroid treatment, as this can cause relaxation of the tendons/ligaments. At least, I think that’s what can happen. I’m tired and upset, and am running on fumes at the moment. I’ll verify my thinking later. Verify…clarify. Something like that.

I just want her home. It feels like a part of me is missing. How cliche. How true.

Praying, and counting the minutes. A post entitled “Laughter” that is mainly about sadness. Sheesh!

Tags: Abigail, GME, movies