Category Archives: Pets

Yin and Yang

16 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by in Personal, Pets

≈ 5 Comments

2015-12-14 16.08.41

Z’s attitude to B has been, from Day One, an appropriately regal, “You are invisible to me.” This is infinitely superior to her attitude toward M, which was a wary, “You might be dangerous. Do I need to defend my person from you?”

The latter led her into some very painful behavior. Painful to both of us — breaking up dog fights is not fun and has generally involved damage to my person, except for the one time where I scooped Zelda up and threw her into the pool. I read something about Jack Russell terriers once that said you should never own two of them, because if they fight, they will fight to the death — they are incapable of giving up. M had every advantage over Z but when Z decided she needed to fight, she would not let go, and M, quite sensibly, defended herself. Anyway, I think that book was probably silly — plenty of people own two JRTs without trouble, but Z has a stubbornness and a focus that is innate. She would have been good at catching rats, I suspect. Put her on the job and away she goes.

Her job, however, at least as she sees it, is me, the care and keeping of. Her focus is on reading my mind, delivering her interpretation of my wishes, keeping me safe. B has just been a peripheral creature, innocuous, not threatening, not interesting. Lately, however, I’ve been leaving the house a lot more often than I used to, and leaving the two of them home alone. Gradually, slowly, tentatively… well, you can see the photo. R called them Yin and Yang. I call them adorable.

A magical dog ability

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by in Bartleby, Pets, Zelda

≈ 3 Comments

How is it that when your day is mapped out to the minute — when you’re planning morning writing from 9-10, yoga at 10, grocery store at 12, cranberry sauce on the stove and simmering by 1, furniture rearranging, bathroom cleaning, vacuuming, silver polishing, dinner planning, picking up the kid, table arranging, dinner, clean-up, potatoes prep, all on a time table that includes no room for anything extra — how is that on that day the dog can magically wander through a plant that leaves dozens of tiny burrs in her fur? On other days when I’m feeling scheduled to the max, she’s been known to roll in opossum poop, which demands immediate and extensive bathing. No way around it. And the burrs shed little black seeds which means the morning vacuuming that I already started is being defeated with every step the dog takes.

Sigh. It’s like a toddler knowing exactly the wrong time to throw a tantrum, exactly the moment when you are least able and willing to be patient. Of course, that’s probably some psychological principle along the lines of always thinking the line you’re in is the slowest — not objectively true, but just the way it feels. But it does feel like I don’t want to spend the next twenty minutes pulling burrs out of Z’s fur.

Reframing for positivity — how lucky I am that I get to spend several minutes caring for my darling dog. Admittedly, she’s not so enthusiastic when she sees the brush come out, but she likes the petting at the end. We’ll both survive.

R comes home today. I woke up feeling happy and joyful. B came on the long walk with us and never flagged — my positive messages to him of how strong he is, what a survivor, so healthy are maybe getting through. At least to me, since I am, in fact, the person who decides how long a walk he’s going to get. But he did great, stayed with us the whole way and never pulled his sit-down-and-refuse-to-move protest.

And that’s all I’ve got, because I have to go pull burrs out of the dog’s fur now. Wish us luck!

Hepatocellular vacuolar disease

15 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by in Bartleby, Pets

≈ 4 Comments

Scary name, isn’t it? But as far as I can tell — as far as my google-fu can take me anyway — it means “something’s wrong with your dog but we’re not sure what.” Ironically — and really oddly — one of the possibilities is an over-abundance of copper in the liver. (Ironic, because that was a major plot point in A Lonely Magic. It will be very sad and extremely weird if my dog dies the way Fen’s mother did.) However, since B is behaving normally, eats like a cheerful piglet, enjoys walks and swimming, and in no way acts like a sick dog, I’ve decided not to worry about it. Well, after several hours spent worrying about it and trying to decipher vet materials that are extremely way far over my head I’ve decided not to worry about it.

Given that I’m writing about it, I’m actually probably still worrying about it.

But I’m going to stop. I’m going to use the ACT technique and every time I start to dwell on it, I will remind myself that I’m worrying and try to identify the emotion that goes with the worry. It’s an easy call on the emotion — fear. I dread the thought of losing either dog.

Last night, I hung out with a friend who is a believer in the law of attraction. I … well, sort of think it’s a silly concept. I don’t think thoughts have energy. But as we talked about it, I could see ways that it’s worked for me in my life, even though I didn’t know I was using it. Especially with parenting — I think it’s enormously more powerful as a parent to notice and appreciate the behavior that you like and dismiss the behavior that you don’t. You get the behavior you focus on. I’m not actually convinced that it works, but I intend to start thinking of Bartleby as a healthy dog who’s overcome lots of problems instead of dwelling on all of his issues. He’s a terrific little guy, strong and tough and a survivor. My new mantra. I’m going to make a sign and post it on my wall and remind myself to say that every day.

Also to be said every day — writing good words is fun. 🙂

Winter

14 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by in Bartleby, Boring, NaNo

≈ 2 Comments

Winter has finally arrived. My neighbor was out putting blankets over his bushes, which I assume means that it might even freeze tonight. I haven’t bothered to look that up, of course, nor will I make any effort to save my bushes, but I don’t think he was doing it to dress up the house.

Given that it’s the middle of November, I suppose it’s about time, but it was really nice to get to swim so long. Summer swimming was pretty miserable this year, because it rained so much and so long. If I hadn’t swum by about 10AM, chances were that I wouldn’t get to swim at all until late August. One can, of course, swim in the rain, but in Florida, rain generally comes accompanied by thunder and lightning and swimming with possibility of lightning is a no-no. I assume if the pool gets hit by lightning while you’re in it, you basically get cooked, but I have never looked it up.

Huh. Now I have a gory fascination with the idea. Off I go to google… well, I did not find any graphic descriptions of people dead from swimming during lightning storms, but definite internet consensus that yeah, it’s stupid to swim outside during a storm and yeah, the lightning will kill you if it hits the pool.

Side note: why do we call them thunderstorms when the thunder is meaningless? Noticeable, of course, but lightning storm feels so awkward and yet the lightning is the dangerous part of the storm. Storm alone could, of course, simply mean heavy rain and wind, so I understand the need to clarify that we’re talking about electricity, but I think its strange that we think the thunder is the meaningful part.

Ahem. Moving on! B was a very good dog at the vet yesterday. He had many things done — blood drawn, his ears cleaned, an ultrasound, a biopsy of the liver — and apparently he was well-behaved throughout, even when he was getting his ears cleaned. I assume they put a… whatever their fancy name is for a muzzle… on him because he has a clear notation at the top of the file warning the tech that he may not be so nice. But he was nice. I’m proud of him, but it’s funny to try to explain to your dog that you’re proud of him for behaving well. B gets that I’m talking to him and paying attention to him and thinks that means he should try to lick my face a lot, which disrupts the glow of good behavior pretty thoroughly. Still, two years ago, he would growl and snap and try to bite, so having the vet tech tell me he was a sweetheart pleased me in the same way that parent-teacher conferences used to please me.

Words… well, didn’t do much yesterday. I did make it to some understanding of why I’m stuck, but I didn’t get unstuck and today — well, it’s 5:39 and I’m still writing my blog post. But I’m hoping to get a solid hour of writing in, so I’d best get to it. Good luck, fellow NaNo’ers. I hope you’re doing better than I am!

Mediocre dog mom

13 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by in Bartleby, NaNo

≈ 2 Comments

I took B to the vet this morning and dropped him off and it’s thrown off my whole schedule. Nearly forgot about writing a blog post entirely!

He’s getting his liver enzymes tested again. They were too high a few months ago and he’s been on liver pills ever since. I wish I could say that I thought he was going to be all better, but I have a sneaking suspicion that what he really needs is to lose weight and to not get any treats. I, however, lack the willpower to make him stick to a diet. He’s such a beggar and his eyes are so eager. The moment when his ridiculous fluffy tail starts to droop instead of frantically waving just gets to me every time and I succumb.

That said, he’s in such great shape compared to how he was when he came to me. His fur is gorgeous and sleek, his eyes are bright, he doesn’t hide, he lets me clean his ears and put my hands by his food… I wish I was the perfect dog mom and he got nothing but kibble and the occasional greenie — oh, and got his teeth brushed every day! — but we stumble along in our mediocrity.

Managed to get some writing done yesterday, although only a few hundred words. This morning I’ve written 103. Not NaNo numbers. But I’ll persist. I keep reminding myself to just tell the damn story, but I’m finding my current scene really difficult. I can remember, years ago, having a therapist very patiently ask me, “But what were the feelings?” and to whatever I’d answer, she’d say, “That’s not a feeling. Try again.” That’s what’s happening in my current scene. Grace is having feelings and I don’t know how to name them. Fear led to anger led to… ? Self-recriminations, I guess, but maybe my problem is that I’ve gotten there too fast. Anyway, I’m going to get back to it — I hope all my fellow November writers are doing better than me. More words!

Time change

06 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by in Bartleby, NaNo, Zelda

≈ 2 Comments

I used to hate the time change when R was little. It took us so long to get back on track, to get our schedules returned to something sensible, for him to not be over-tired at bedtime and awake too early in the morning. Now I’m really appreciating it. All last week I had to keep negotiating with the dog, who somehow has a really phenomenal internal clock.

I would point out the sky to her and say, “Look, it’s too dark to go for a walk now. I cannot see to clean up after you when it’s this dark outside. We have to wait until it’s light or be bad neighbors.”

And she would put her paw on me, and look at me earnestly with her deep brown eyes and try to transmit the thought, “What’s wrong with you, my beloved person? Do you not see that it is 7AM and time for us to be out sniffing other people’s garbage?”

Now it’s light at 6:30 and she’s still comfortably asleep when it’s dark. The fact that I can’t get used to the time change and am waking at up 5-something every day is but a minor burden. Although seriously annoying as I lie in bed telling myself that I should be asleep. There should be some good riddles about sleep, being one of those things that you aren’t aware of when you have but miss desperately when you don’t.

Anyway, yesterday’s word count was a lot higher than the NaNoWriMo site thinks it was, because the way they do word count is really annoying. You can’t easily post your words for the day — it always wants to know your total, as if you’re guaranteed to be working in one big file. I don’t work that way. I keep lots of separate little files. But it makes it seriously inconvenient to try to track my word count on their site if I want to count all the words I write and not just the ones that I keep. I bit the bullet yesterday and changed my total to not include the words I deleted, so it thinks I wrote something like not quite 1300 words, but I am pretty sure I wrote more like 3200. In other words, a really good word count day, even if that’s not obvious to the NaNoWriMo site.

A fairly terrible diet day, however, and oh, I am paying for that today. I don’t know why my brain, appetite, and body can’t work together to make healthier choices for me, but yesterday was not a day of healthy choices and today is a day when everything hurts. Shoulders, elbows, wrists, fingers, and on down. Ha, which I suppose is not everything, but simply every joint. I shall endeavor to be grateful for all the spaces between the joints that don’t hurt. I suspect it won’t be easy, but it’s worth a try.

Lots of plans for today and, happily for me, a pretty clear chapter destination. I feel like the section that I’m working on will be fun, interesting, and take a fair number of words, so yay, words galore. As far as the NaNo site goes, I’m already 4000 words behind so not much chance that I’ll catch up today. I’ve never had a 4K word day in my life and today has too much going on, so it’s not going to be the first time. But I am going to aim for 2K and maybe I’ll make it.

First things first, though — it’s 6:52 and the dog is stirring. A nice brisk walk to get the creative juices flowing… well, no, that’s not usually how it happens. First a slow saunter around the block, watching as B leisurely sniffs every corner of grass and waddles along. Then a nice brisk trudge with Z.

Random side note: “pick and choose” is the weirdest phrase. We’ve apparently been using it since the 1400s but how does it make any sense at all? Once you’ve picked, haven’t you by definition chosen? I wonder if it came from harvesting, like first you pick all the apples, then you choose the ones you want? But it’s redundant in modern English and yes, I wrote it yesterday, then had to waste precious writing minutes pondering it and questioning whether it made any sense at all and why I had it in my head and then looking it up to figure it out. Bad me. But I’m going to try to eliminate it from the default word choice list in my brain, because it makes no sense.

And now, really, truly, time to walk the dogs. Goal for today: words! May all your November writing goal writing flow beautifully today. 🙂

Crazy cat dream

27 Tuesday Oct 2015

Posted by in Pets, Swimming, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

I dreamed last night that I owned a van and a big orange cat. I think maybe I was homeless and living in the van with the cat, but for some reason I needed to leave it alone temporarily. I was worried about it but a mysterious friend said that she’d have her cat take care of it. In the dream, that made perfect sense.

It also made sense that I owned a cat despite being seriously allergic. There is no way that a cat and I could share a van as living space. I would literally die when my airways closed off in my sleep. Dreams are weird.

Back to the dream, I returned to the van to find a tiger guarding my cat, defending it from a cougar. The tiger stood in front of the open van door, huge and orange and sleek, the way that tigers are, and when the cougar — beige and muscular — crouched as if to jump in the van, the tiger did that nonchalant tiger thwack with its front paw, sending the cougar scurrying away.

I was so grateful to the tiger. I was also afraid of it. It was a tiger. In my van! It was huge!! I couldn’t bring myself to get any closer and then all of a sudden, I was standing in the road, and big cats — the tiger, a snow leopard, a lioness, maybe a couple of others (but not the cougar) were all gamboling around with a bunch of little cats, including mine. I was horribly worried that they would get hit by cars and killed and I knew we had to gather them up and get them to safety. But I was also worried that they would kill me. How do you gather up gigantic predators?

And then I woke up.

I had a couple other weird dreams that I wanted to remember, but they’re gone now, lost to the morning routine and the dog walking thoughts and the stupid ruminations that I haven’t quite let go of (even though I’m now reminding myself that I’m having a thought when I catch myself drifting in that direction.) But I didn’t want to forget the tiger. It felt so symbolic, so significant. Definitely one of those dreams where you think “this means something important” but then you’re forced to admit that you have no idea what your subconscious is trying to tell you.

Ooh, another weird dream remembered, or at least a bit of it. Some kind of adventure, Agents of SHIELD style, but it ended when one of the people in the adventure, possibly a Simmons like character, was shot and fell to the ground. Two of the team chased after the shooters, but three of us stopped by the girl. I put my hands over the injury, pressing as hard as I could, knowing how much it must hurt her, but the blood just kept pouring forth. I was calling for help, 911, a doctor, something to stop the bleeding, anything, but the blood just kept coming. It was surprisingly warm, which I suppose is logical but had never really struck me as an idea before (and makes me want to go find a thermometer and see what 98 degree water feels like) and it felt clingy, like it would never come off of what it touched. And I couldn’t stop it. It was no time and endless time and then the blood stopped because it was all out of her. I felt like I had failed and I also felt really angry, like this is not how the story is supposed to go. This character cannot die. This is the wrong direction. These writers suck.

I guess those writers are my subconscious. My subconscious sucks.

It was not a particularly restful night.

***
For future reference for myself, it’s looking very much like the last swimming day of 2015 was October 15. That’s the latest it’s ever been, which is nice after the horribly rainy summer where it was always thundering. But the dogs and I miss it already. Zelda keeps trying to convince me that I want to go in the water and you know, I really don’t, but Bartleby is almost worse. He can’t seem to understand why I only want to sit on the porch instead of taking him swimming. And he is completely opposed to me sitting and writing on the porch. He seems to think that if I’m going to sit there, it is my job to provide him with a lap to sit in and hands to pet him.

Word count yesterday existed. Word count today is definitely going to do the same. NaNoWriMo starts in five days and this year, I’m making it to 50K words. I just wasted twenty minutes looking for a good quote about determination and failing to find one, so here’s my own: one word at a time, one minute at a time, one day at a time, that’s all it takes.

Lazy Sunday

13 Sunday Sep 2015

Posted by in Bartleby, Florida, Personal, Pets, Zelda

≈ 3 Comments

I have a sore throat. I’m trying to convince myself that it’s allergy-related, and it could be, but suspecting that it’s my own damn fault does not make me feel any less sorry for myself.

Nor, unfortunately, does it make me any more inclined to avoid the foods that I’m allergic to. Cheese & chocolate are worth a little suffering. If it wasn’t Sunday, I’d head over to Trader Joe’s, in fact, to buy fresh rice noodles to make myself the most delicious crab pasta dish — crab sauteed in browned butter (allergen!), with lemon zest, garlic, lemon juice, white wine (allergen!), lots of cilantro, and served over rice (allergen!) noodles. I made that recipe up last week when my friend S sent me a couple of cans of Dungeness crab meat and it was so good that I’m still thinking about it.

But I also know that a year into my AIP experience, I’ve gotten so cavalier that I’m losing the health benefits I gained. Pain influences my choices too many days lately. Would I be more inclined to write today if my throat and hands didn’t hurt? Maybe. Maybe I’ll go eat some sauerkraut and convince myself that it has enough virtue to balance out the goat cheese.

Apart from the sore throat, aches-and-pains, it’s a grey, rainy, bleak day, further reason to think browsing the internet and/or watching television and/or reading bits and pieces of old books is more appealing than writing. My usual techniques for being productive on grey days all revolve around caffeine (not AIP-friendly, of course) and sugar (ditto). And I am abruptly reminded that I drank a real latte — a pumpkin spice latte, in fact! — on Friday, which is a whole bunch of real dairy. That’s sort of comforting, since it means I might still be able to continue including goat cheese in my diet as long as I avoid cow milk. It was delicious, and maybe even worth it.

Friday was actually a spectacular day after I got over being gloomy about the state of the world. I got Z a new pink basketball at Target (and myself a pumpkin spice latte and a pair of capri jeans for $7.50) and we spent the afternoon in the pool. Much splashing & floating, much throwing of the ball, much, much sun. I wish I knew how to capture the memory of that day in a way that could really replicate the physical sensations of my love for my dogs, the affection and joy and happiness of playing with them when the sun sparkles on the water and the water itself is pure smooth comfort on my skin. A writer ought to be able to, but I suspect when I reread this two years from now or whenever, I’ll think — huh, must have been a nice day with the dogs — without really having the slightest recollection of what the day was like.

But B does these little tentative jumps into the pool these days — he wants his front paws on my shoulder before he’ll step into the pool, and then once in the water, he swims delicate little circles around me, always returning to sit on my arm, and then paddles straight on to the steps and out. He’s baby weight — 14 pounds — and it reminds me of those long-gone days of taking toddler R into the water, always alert. On Friday, it was so warm that he didn’t bother to immediately rush to roll himself dry, just wandered around wet until the next time he wanted to come in again. And bark, bark, bark if I go under. I think he’d really prefer it if I only ever stood, never swam, in the water.

And Z was so happy about her new ball. Her doggie smile, open-mouthed and panting, tongue hanging out, while she stands on the steps of the pool and watches the ball float away from her is the purest, clearest, most joyful expression. I wonder if I have a picture. Well, this is from the beach two years ago, but it’s as close as I can come. Doggie joy.

Zelda at the beach

1000 Reviews

22 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Bartleby, Self-publishing

≈ 4 Comments

I don’t know if those extra reviews came in faster because I mentioned them, but I reached that milestone much more quickly than I expected. Woke up this morning and Ghosts was at 616, and the total for all titles was 1000. I added it up twice to be sure, then — in a ridiculously grade point average motivated spirit of celebration — made a spreadsheet and totaled up the individual ratings. Worked out to 93.5% positive (4 & 5 stars), 4.5% neutral (3), and 2% negative. I hope I can now let go of my numbers obsession for a while.

I’m not sure I can express how guiltily gratified I feel about this — it’s like getting an A when I willfully didn’t follow the instructions. That never happened to me in school, because I always followed the instructions. I would never have dreamed of not doing the assignment exactly as told. The only point was the grade, right? But that wasn’t the point of Tassamara or Fen, not even close, and to have so many people find them and enjoy them … well, it’s a lovely feeling. Thank you so very, very much to all of you who enjoyed the books and wrote reviews (or otherwise told me so) — you’ve brought me much joy and I’m very grateful!

Conveniently enough, today is also B’s anniversary, so we get to celebrate both things at once. I invited my niece over for the weekend, so she’ll get to provide the extra hands helpful for taking two dogs out for ice cream, plus do something fun with me. I’m thinking water, of course — beach, kayaking, inner-tubes? — but she’s not much of an outside sort of kid, so it might be movies instead. I wonder if my son would forgive me if I went to Ant-Man without him?

Today, though, it’s back to Noah. Progress is still ridiculously slow, but at least it’s movement.

Two years

20 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by in Bartleby, Personal, Randomness, Reviews

≈ 2 Comments

In two days, it will be two years since Bartleby arrived in the backyard. Given that I got to spend $400 last week running liver tests on him because he has some elevated enzymes — liver tests which found basically nothing except, yep, his liver enzymes are too high — the pessimistic vet who predicted that he would be a very expensive dog to own was not wrong.

On the other hand, the ridiculous little dog has brought me joy and snuggles, just the way dogs are supposed to. I’m feeling as if I’d like to celebrate his anniversary with me somehow, but I’m not sure how. He does not need chocolate cake or pizza, my two favorite celebratory foods. Maybe I’ll take him out for dog-friendly ice cream. My only hesitation is that I’d have to bring Zelda, too — no way does B get to come out for ice cream when Z does not — and juggling two dogs and two doggie ice cream cones, while driving the car sounds just a little unsafe. Okay, a lot unsafe. But it’s not until Wednesday so I’m going to figure out a way to accomplish it. It’s a nice plan.

Today’s plan — words, words, words. I took the weekend totally off. Read a lot, swam some, did useful house stuff. I actually felt pretty damn proud of myself yesterday when I’d finally finished dragging all the bougainvillea branches out to the curb. Bougainvillea is such a mean plant. I never manage to cut it back without losing some blood in the process. (Although, as my nephew pointed out last week, if I wasn’t chopping it down, probably it wouldn’t be making me bleed… yeah, point taken. But if it didn’t grow so fast and have such harsh thorns, I wouldn’t have to chop it down!) Anyway, the garbage guys — justifiably — require that it be tied up in neat piles to be disposed of and I’ve gotten satisfyingly good at getting big branches of thorny viciousness out to the curb in neat little bundles. So it wasn’t word count, but I still got to feel accomplished.

Today, though, it’s time to be all about word count. I was looking through past posts, trying to find the exact date B appeared, and then curious about other Julys, and at this point in July 2013, I was 25K words into Time. In 2011, I’d spent months writing the first five chapters of Ghosts, and finally had a first chapter that satisfied me. It was a good reminder that I’ve been stuck before — repeatedly — and still managed to produce a satisfying book in the end. Although I really hope that once I break loose on Grace, I don’t need to agonize quite as much as I did on Time because I remember that autumn as being… difficult.

In entirely random other numerical notices, I added up the number of reviews I have on Amazon.com yesterday because it occurred to me that I was pretty close to a milestone, and my books have received 996 reviews, not including any reviews from the anthology. (The only one of the anthology reviews that mentions Guests, though, described it as “super fun, sassy” which pleased me so, so much – sassy, in particular, is really endearing to me.) Anyway, 1000 reviews also feels like something to celebrate so I’m going to have to think of something nice for me, too, although it probably be another couple of weeks before I get there. Nothing food-related, so maybe I’ll do another kayaking day trip. I bet it’s really damn hot right now, though. Maybe I can steal a kid or two — my niece, maybe? — and go inner-tubing next week. First though, words. Lots of them.

Fingers crossed that Noah is obliging!