About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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September 19, 2014
Taking a leaf from eemusings, I thought I’d try focusing on some things to be grateful for to break up the wallowing in this or the coping with all that comes with this.
1. PiC
It almost seems to go without saying but he’s just been unbelievably supportive without getting patronizing or grumpy. You’d be surprised how easy it is for someone in a caretaking role to fall into either of those modes. We’ve been grieving together but he’s picking up the pieces where I just can’t do what’s needed, leaving me to do the things I can handle (bills, work, finances, laundry). Also he brings home fresh fruit and delicious popcorn so I don’t have to leave the house if I don’t want to.
2. Modern medicine
There is a lot left to be desired but once in a while, there’s actually a medication that actually does the job that it’s meant to do. Blessed relief.
3. Friends who really know me
A dear friend insisted on treating me to some nice things “because I wanted you to have them and I knew you wouldn’t buy them for yourself.” Another dear friend sent the loveliest frame for Doggle’s memory and thought of precisely the picture I had in mind for it. This sounds a bit like “I like friends buying me things” but that’s really not what I mean. It’s just that I didn’t have to explain to them how much this has affected us or why I’m being (even more) careful about money with a Little Bean on the way (so obviously I wouldn’t spend on myself).
4. Bonus: Seamus is by no means Doggle… But he’s good company and helpfully distracting. I don’t deal well without a four-legs around and he fits the description. And he’s actually pretty funny even if he’s totally not helpful at all in the opinions about tv shows department.
What are you most grateful for at the moment?
September 10, 2014
I’ve been having what feels like more than my fair share of scary or awful symptoms lately. I won’t get into defining what’s fair, for the purpose of staying on track here, though. There’s been the usual (dizziness, intermittent nausea, pain rotating through the body, cramping of all sorts, weakness) plus a dash of new, weird, annoying stuff (chest pain, difficulty breathing) so basically it’s been like throwing a bright springtime picnic.
At some point there was a definitive moment, while contemplating all of the weird, that it seemed clear that something had to be different, this wasn’t just the usual “I’m broken” kind of wrong. Amid the usual range of random symptoms that cycle through, it’s usually impossible to tell when a new symptom is actually different.
Despite my typical assumption that I’m just broken, I ventured a test anyway. It was a bit on the early side and so to keep us on tenterhooks, the home test strip (1 line for no, 2 lines for yes) came up: one and a half. Seriously.
It took a blood test and an ultrasound, for me to actually believe: I’m expecting. We’re expecting. There’s gestating going on in what I have always referred to as a non-childbearing *waves hand* midsection. Did you know it’s possible to almost immediately start having symptoms in Weeks 5 and 6? As PiC said, “you can have symptoms this early??” Not cool.
It’s been weird. All kinds of weird. Both from the gestating POV and from being among a lot of blog and offline friends who are in baby stages of life, either having had them or struggling with having them, and I find myself torn. I hurt for those friends who are hurting and there’s a small part of me that’s hesitant to be happy about having a thing they want so much.
Because this is, despite all my practical reservations, a thing that I find myself happy about. Over the years, practical reservations have ruled my thinking: family health and financial history, my health issues, who the hell knows how we’re going to raise a child to be a good thinking human being without any help we don’t hire except for the few loved ones who might be able to come over for a week or handful of days, and BTW the Bay Area is frakkin’ expensive.
You might see where I derail into all of the scary life things and start to forget that this is actually a good thing. It is. I’m grateful that it didn’t require serious intervention and ever so grateful that I’m even able to conceive at all. Infertility, multiple miscarriages, difficult pregnancies and all are common in my family and at my age, with my health … I’m grateful.
And because I’m grateful and happy and possibly even a reserved excited about it (because again, early days), I’m trying to concentrate on what’s in front of me.
What IS in front of me?
Food is a problem. I LOVE food but uhm. This microscopic alien has literally run my life from minute to minute. I eat driven purely by instinct. In a single day, I might be repulsed by the very names of my normal foods, only cold veggies and orange juice allowed, then desperately need a steak. Cravings are normal and I typically ignore them but this level of craving is ridiculous.
I alternate between wanting to do ALL the cleaning and wanting to do nothing at all. Energy aside, my brain has become subject to an ON/OFF switch flipped by who knows what.
The seventeen trips to the bathroom a day have commenced and I’m possibly more annoyed about that than anything else but I suspect something else will top it soon enough.
Even after having it officially confirmed, it still doesn’t feel real. After all, fatigue and queasiness is a normal fibro/fatigue symptom for me. But as it turns out, there is a reason for it and it has a heartbeat. A heartbeat. This is weird.
When I’m fatigued, it’s about as bad as any kind of fatigue I’ve had ever, but as I described to a friend, it’s like I walk around w/50 lbs of bricks on my back daily. What’s another 5 or 10 bricks? They suck but I’m already accustomed to slog through a swamp, bearing lead weights.
All the literature keeps warning me and PiC to tolerate my mood swings but so far they’ve been:
1. If I can’t eat food today, again, I’m going to yell at someone.
2. If I can’t sleep tonight, again, I’m going to collapse.
Those probably aren’t considered moods, though.
This doesn’t in any way mitigate the pain of losing Doggle. However well intentioned, please don’t suggest that it does or it will. In some ways, it’s almost worse, Doggle loves – loved – small children (and really loves – loved – the smell of them); there were few things that could get his attention but concern for a crying child has always been at the very top of that short list, easily trumping anything else.
We had very much looked forward to introducing him to his human sibling to love and grow up with.
September 8, 2014
Most of my days are “those days”. Days where I’m happy if I’ve managed to work a full day and get things done, fed myself real food, taken care of the dogs, and possibly even created less mess than I cleaned up.
Most of them are “Igh, feels like crap” days.
But on occasion there are those stellar days when I didn’t just work, I didn’t just eat, I’ve also: cleared the monthly finances, done the housework, made an actual meal, and done some financial research. Even played with the dogs, not just skated by with a walk and some petting.
They’re rare and I love them all the more when they come around. Never mind that there’s a big ole letdown in the aftermath when I can’t do that much in one go again, the actual day is pretty fantastic.
Anyway, I haven’t decided yet which day this is, but PiC’s caved in our ongoing (wimpy) battle over whether to handwash or use the dishwasher because the time and energy we save not handwashing can really be better used on the 30,000 other things that need doing but for which we don’t yet have some sort of automated, robotic way to do them. So that’s kinda nice. It does mean that I more routinely horrify horrified the dog when the dishwasher runs (just Doggle, Seamus is utterly indifferent), but today’s run has had me hopeful he’s going to he would get over it as we‘re not stopped fighting over where he should go in case of Dishwasher Lives! Emergency.
This whole thing’s got me thinking about how else we can save more of our energy.
Also it’s got me thinking about how in the old country, as recently as during my childhood, food was always fresh and we weren’t connected or didn’t rely on electricity around the clock ..
BUT:
dishes and clothes were always washed by hand, using rainwater or water brought up from the river if it’d been a dry winter or especially hot summer;
meals were planned based on what was fresh at market and cooking them always included marketing once or twice a day;
electricity was only possible when you cranked the generator and sometimes not even then so bedtime was sundown;
forget actual running water for showers or toilets;
and good grief, the mosquitoes. I don’t care who you are or how tough you are, if you’re a blood bar for mosquitoes, you would hate them too.
I loved my time growing up in the rural farmstead but never will I ever romanticize that pioneering type life!
Right, so back to the point… !
I’m still mulling over whether it’s worth hiring help to lightly clean the house; we don’t typically care about super cleanliness unless people are coming over to stay.
Perhaps the solution to my inability to keep up with the shedding (by rugs and by dogs) is really just the robot vacuum? Or is cleaning that thing more trouble than it’s worth?
I’m actually back on the fence about the dishwasher – I need a better tutorial on how to load it or something.
We’ve experimented with ordering in a little bit more during the hectic times using coupons and deals. It’s absolutely a load off my brain and energy to not think about what to cook on delivery days but I’m not in love with the offerings all the time and without a deal it’s not quite cost effective enough to win me over. Still, we’re playing with the idea of scheduling delivery twice a month and economizing by buying and cooking more fresh produce regularly.
Is it weird that the only outsource candidates are cooking and cleaning? Everything else seems to require our input/judgement calls: looking for deals, managing the household finances (though I am now outsourcing our taxes because BRAIN), routine shopping and tidying, laundry, dog medical care. Of course I do enjoy doing laundry, and most of those other things, so probably that’s why it doesn’t make the list.
It’s not like we have vast sums of money to spend on this stuff, I’m just pondering aloud while I figure out how to maximize the money we do spend and the time we could use more wisely.
What would make your lives easier?
September 2, 2014
I’m still hardly about to talk about it, still leaning on PiC and some close friends very heavily to explain why I’ve been so quiet except for some heartbroken sobs on Twitter, but it feels wrong to continue on not saying anything at all.
I can’t memorialize him yet, I can barely accept that this is true, much less find the words to properly eulogize him that won’t further destroy me in the doing.
When I lost Mom, I almost viciously forced myself to say she was gone. It was both scourge and self flagellation to force myself to say those words I knew to be true and desperately needed not to be; a soul-scouring attempt to face the truth and absolve myself of my failings in taking care of her. It didn’t work but it kept the guilt and the grief somewhat at bay for months.
This is … in some ways, this is almost worse. In the suddenness, in the senselessness, in the overwhelming rawness of prostrating grief, I can’t bring myself to cope as I once did. Because he was our responsibility and I cannot absolve myself of the failure to protect him.
“People have forgotten this truth,” the fox said. “But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
We didn’t tame him, we just gave him a new life with us, somewhat pampered though he hardly seemed to notice, and he was coming into his own in these few short years as my wonderfully loving, opinionated and constant “coworker”, my therapy dog, we called him.
PiC was his favorite person in the entire world, you couldn’t match his dance of joy upon being reunited with his papa even after just a few minutes’ absence, and together we were a family. There wasn’t a person, dog lover or not, who didn’t fall for his charmingly quiet, happy personality; many became convinced they wanted a dog “just like him”, after a single visit.
He was our cat-dog, we joked, he being thoroughly exasperated by the hugs I always wanted to give him, and mostly keeping his distance lest I pet him too much. But he clearly loved us. He had a funny way of insisting on family time, staying by our side no matter how late it was, no matter how annoyed he was that it was another late work night; he kept us both in view at all times as if simply by being in the middle, he ensured we stayed “together”.
He’s licked me on purpose exactly once, as an apology for terribly scraping up my foot; he’s inspected PiC’s awful injuries and given them a healing lick but no more than necessary.
As clumsy as the classic bull in the china shop, and yet the most gentle, non reactive companion to any infant or toddler whether he knew them or not, we always knew he’d make the best big brother.
And now our beloved Doggle is gone. We have no reasons and we have no explanations. The heart of our little family is gone and we don’t know how to bear it.
August 25, 2014
Part Three of the Real Estate Chronicle
The property manager has already well earned the first fee.
The property came with legacy renters. At first it was a bonus to buy into a property with existing rent coming in and they seemed like decent people at the first meeting. It also meant that I didn’t have to go out of pocket to make sure the place was move in ready: no cleaning crew, no equipment purchases or replacements.
Later, we discovered they were … well, kind of jerks.
Apparently the sale came as a surprise to them, but rather than discussing any concerns with me or my representatives during the sale and closing process, they shut them out and then became unreasonable when it was time to sign a new contract and pay the rent.
It seems that they felt entitled to having their alleged agreement with the previous owner honored (nothing existed in writing, mind you) without having discussed it with us at any point. They insisted that the previous owner was about to let them out of the lease and go month to month instead. Aside from how unlikely that is, their belligerence and rudeness destroyed any initial goodwill they might have traded on. Since they decided to insult the staff, I decided that if I had to abide by their existing lease as a term of the purchase, so do they.
The property manager gets to deal with their jerkitude each month until the lease runs out and I suspect we’ll be plenty happy to look for new renters at that point. We’ll do full background checks, and of course the lease policy will be quite clear.
At this point, I’m thrilled that I spent the money to have management services; it means I won’t be dealing with sullen faces, nasty attitudes, and having to personally chase them for rent each month.
Aside from that, the last thing I need to be adding to my plate is any version of the 3 am “there’s a leak and the pipes burst” sort of calls, so I made sure to hire management that takes care of everything, 24 hours.
So far…
I’ll have my hands full handling the financial aspects of this new venture, and I’m feeling a lot better about the whole thing now that we’ve weathered the first few bumps in the road.
I should probably wait at least six to twelve months before diving into more investments, but if this continues to work out pretty well, there may be another one on the horizon. This whole thing DID go much more smoothly than expected though, so I am tempering my enthusiasm. Just in case.
August 21, 2014
Funny about Money, that is. I swear VH does more in a day than I do in some weeks but every so often, I find myself channeling her.
This was my version, recently….
1. Wake late for the second time. Having gone to sleep around 2-3 am after working too late, fail to appreciate Seamus’s charming morning check-in around 6:30 or 7 wherein he confirms I’m here and alive. I notice this is a thing that’s never concerned Doggle. PiC thankfully does their morning routine and I get a lick more sleep.
2. Rouse to give dogs their morning meds.
3. Swipe myself into some semblence of order and hygiene. Set down to work.
4. Check all the emails, clear out the FYI stuff that I cannot unsubscribe from but rarely read. Can’t filter because some subject lines are too similar.
5. Start a load of laundry.
6. Answer newbie questions.
7. Load the dishwasher. Ponder as my technique, not having grown up running a dishwasher, is still evolving. Recently had a long conversation with Anne of Unique Gifter about her technique and fabulous dishwasher. We haven’t had a successful, totally clean load for a few rounds now and I’m questioning everything: is the detergent crapped out? Is it my loading? Is it the washer? (I still think it’s me..)
8. Review the pile of stuff I have to check and approve.
9. Remember I haven’t eaten breakfast. It’s noon. Throw together something like a quesadilla; wave at Doggle who, whenever he’s saved part of his breakfast, will eat with me.
10. Cram food in my mouth as I clear more emails.
11. Start second load of wash.
12. Frantically run to a doctor’s appointment, find out it’ll take no less than an hour. Goody.
13. Get home and dive back into work, juggling Swagbucks on the side.
14. Remember that I haven’t finished booking parts of our upcoming trip and take a break to get that done.
15. Synapses connect and realize that the first load of wash was super heavy because it was still too wet, not because I was weak with hunger. Drag it back out and toss it in for an extra spin. Thankful we have an extra spin option and that I didn’t start the dryer while I let that puzzle simmer.
16. Seamus still needs a sitter for a while and we’ve struck out with half a dozen possibilities and another half a dozen options never answered. Not impressed with DogVacay at this point but neither am I thrilled about (or even mildly happy with) kennel options.
17. Start to stress out big time. Have a vent on Twitter to a couple friends for ten minutes to blow off steam, then buckle back down.
18. Read all the fine print of booking train tickets. Way too much silliness to do with times and delivery options. Everyone should let us print at home or view the email on phone screen as standard options that don’t cost extra!!
19. Post-booking, comb through TripIt itinerary to delete the last bits of my last mistake: booked a hotel near a train station but wrong train station. And then wrong date. Luckily hotel reservations are the easiest thing to cancel or rebook as long as you remember to actually do it.
20. Start to breathe, stop again as I dive back answering newbie emails and my own projects.
21. Resurface briefly to throw dinner ingredients in the oven. Thank whatever that while I joke that PiC has to eat what I make, he’s actually quite happy to. He supplements my baked chicken breasts topped with sliced onions, tomatoes and lemon with a garlic onion green bean concoction. Was that with butter? I can’t tell. It was great but a touch salty, mine was good but a touch dry. I could really go for a steak right now. Baked potato on the side. Cooked by someone not me.
22. Back to work.
23. Oh but stop and translate a menu. As a favor to PiC whose hands were already full with related organizing, I took over arranging a dinner for a horde of people. But the menu required translation first and in doing so, I culled most of it, making an executive decision we’d have a set menu with few choices and those would be whatever I could translate. Kick the whole multi-course list to PiC for approval and mentally plan to make up a survey to collect orders tomorrow.
24. Back to work and Swagbucks. This is all meant to fund some ongoing expenses we have and alleviate the pinch on our cash flow. Since I’m in front of the computer anyway, most days I can eke out some points without too much distraction. Other days I let it distract me from buckling down which isn’t good.
25. Drag all the dry laundry out and shake it out on the guest bed. PiC will be a good soul and actually make up the bed later.
26. Fold and store the dog towels, hang the guest towels. Things are coming together.
27. More work. Fight with Amazon for an hour for being stupid and stealing my gift card money weeks before shipping my subscribe and save items. What’s up with that?? Hugely annoyed.
28. Write up some more guidelines for people who’ll need them. Realize I could work straight through the next morning but then I’d be all discombobulated for Seamus’s vet appointment.
I keep thinking that if I power through just one or two more days, it’ll all come together but that’s starting to sound like a load of hooey. Serves me right bringing home Seamus! Among other things…
August 18, 2014
We had a bad experience at Nopalito some time ago, not being seated at all or called for our table after THREE hours of waiting (2 of which were on the phone in wait list), and were pretty grumpy about it. A complaint yielded some results so we decided to give them another shot.
The wait staff this time around were great: attentive, helpful, and genuinely nice. I don’t know if we’ll ever risk dinner with them again but a weekday lunch worked really well. Everything was amazing, and I think we could make a meal of any variety of appetizers.
I thought I was just ordering fancy chips and dip with the Totopos con Chile but nope. SUPER fancy, very filling, very generous serving.
Had my doubts about the brown paper wrapped Carnitas for about a split second, then I smelled it. Then I tasted it. *swoon*
The taquitos de papas were fun and easy (I have a soft spot for taquitos); and I’m going to be dreaming about those empanadas.
Nopalito may not be authentic Mexican food but all that flies out the window when you’re served.
