Dog Dreams

Robin does sleep in elaborate and seemingly uncomfortable contorted poses, wedging herself in a space next to my side of the bed and flinging her legs akimbo. She often has one leg thrown across her face in dramatic fashion... quite the diva! And this little diva has a Urinary Tract Infection!

I thought she was suffering from blocked anal glands when I took her to the vet last Wednesday. She had been dragging her butt on the floor and had rubbed a good deal of hair off her tail (which I didn't really notice until I looked an older picture of her and noticed her tail lookd skinny). They "expressed" them (half full) in a professional manner- oh! Yes! I watched several dazzling Youtube videos on the correct fashion in which to empty dog anal glands but found it not at all easy to locate "two grape sized glands at five and seven o'clock; lift and squeeze". Needless to say, Lil' Robin the Good was deeply disturbed by all of the attention to her back side and spent the next several days with her tail clamped tightly down and spinning if I approached her from the rear, as if to say , "Oh no you don't!"
I was less than impressed with the "new vet" who was on duty that Wednesday that we visited the office. I sometimes think that there's a conspiracy to make vets more like people doctors: they're now very quick to recommend expensive tests and lab work and x-rays. The vet I had been going to for years was much more common sense and was really a nice guy. His son has inherited the practice and is very "yuppie" in his up-selling approach. I suppose they did (expensively) redesign the waiting rooms and exam offices and have to pay for all that antique woodwork somehow! Like when Robin was taking a course of antibiotics for a tick-borne disease this spring. Vet Junior proscribed a "pro-biotic" for Robin... sort of like when I take acidophilus while on Doxycycline to keep my gut moving. I went along with it and then was flabbergasted to see Robin's pro-biotics were waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more costly than the antibiotics and possibly irrelevant. I had actually asked Vet Senior this same question years ago when Frank the Dog was under treatment for Lyme disease. He scoffed and said, "Look your dog is probably picking up all kinds of bacteria from eating animal poop and the like. His gut bacteria is just fine." Doctor knows best.

(There's Robin now, wondering what all the fuss is about. And enjoying the mess that she has helped to create. Way to go Robin!)
Many friends have reported similar experiences with their vets: a rush to tests and much more aggressive interventions, without better results. Friends have dogs on chemotherapy and long term diabetes treatment. It's pretty appalling that our four legged friends are suffering the same debilitating chronic conditions that we do! (Bad diet, awful breeding of "purebreds" with congenital disorders, stupid ill advised medical procedures like spaying and neutering... don't get me started! Much of this is avoidable). And I know several friends who have sprung for very expensive pet health care plans. I read the fine points of a few of these plans and was less than impressed with what was covered for the cost; many of the larger bills are not covered.
So Robin seems fine; ironically her urine test came back negative.... but she's also not waking me up at 2:00 am to go out and pee so maybe she had a very low-grade infection. I've had the same! Symptoms but a negative test. And Robin looks great- very shiny and in good weight and she has more energy than the average dog (although she is far from average!!) so I'm certain her prognosis is good. Long live Robin the Good!

Cleaning Out Mommy's House

Many of us have been faced with the emotionally and physically taxing task of emptying a deceased parent's house. My sisters, Cathy and Beatrice, and I are doing this now.
It makes me feel all sorts of uncomfortable things, all at once. I get impatient: I just want it to be done! Over! I want to spend my time in something other than a mouse poop infested house that isn't mine. I know my sisters share this emotion, although perhaps they express it differently. Cathy seems capable of seeing our house cleaning activities as a way to spend time together. That's a nice thought but I'd rather we had gathered for dinner or a trip to a museum or something else entirely.
And then there's the mixed feelings of picking up a chipped coffee cup and thinking, "Wow, Mommy drank out of this every day but who wants it?" On the one hand, it's just an old cup. And on the other hand (yes, Cathy! There are five fingers... a family in-joke of sorts, referencing our other deceased parent. Hello Daddy!) and on the other hand, it was a cup that Mommy used all the time. It now takes on that eerie personal history that infiltrates frequently used items. A tough thing to do- throw away bits of some one else's life!
But you can't keep all of it: Beatrice thinks every box we open, full of chewed newspaper and yes! more mouse poop!-will hold a treasure of sorts: that antique Barbie doll in an original box, her Foxy hand puppet (Stieff) or a simple million dollars. No such luck!
What we turn up is weird bits and pieces. Maybe this old coffee pot is worth something? What do we with a few matching plates that have no cups? Do we really want to dispose of those old dolls, even though they have been desecrated by play? It all takes time and an untold toll on your psyche to paw through it.
We know all the good stuff left a long time ago. There wasn't much but the jewelry was probably shoved into the pockets of underpaid substitute personal assistants and the few other things- a mirror? a set of cushions? also mysteriously vanished.
So there truly is not much left of a life. A pile of furniture that didn't look quite so worn out when you were seated around a Thanksgiving or birthday celebration, a couple of paintings that Mommy did (which I seem to be babysitting) and a trunk full of old photos that no one wants, but no one wants to throw out. The very fact that some one else (your Mother!) made the decision to keep these items, only to have us toss them away is sad.
I get bitchy and angry and depressed. I am exhausted by so much debating the relative merit of that old blanket or that pile of old school work. And then there's more mouse poop...
I just want this to episode to be over with!

Stairway to Heaven

After that last posting, I was ready for a change of pace and attitude! So here's a project with a positive outcome: a brand new stone and mosaic step for my studio. And yes, those are my feet at the bottom of the picture.
Bob had said for quite a while that he had stones picked out with which to construct an official step for my studio. I have been making due with a simple wooden step that was functional but not especially pretty. And instead of one large stone that would have been hard to move up from the stream area and put into place, Bob suggested three large stones with cement and mosaic in between. A great idea!
Bob did his usual magic leveling and arranging the stones and then he helped mix up the cement. I had the fun part of selecting the plates from our vast collection of smashable crockery (cheerfully provided by my place of employment as many dishes come in already cracked, chipped or otherwise defective). I first toyed with the idea of using a slew of green plates, then red plates and finally circled around to choosing blue plates as it references the blue walkway we made through the Blue Garden. It was the right choice as the perfect plates volunteered themselves and I happily bashed away.
It was fun playing with mosaic again; we hadn't done that since the walkway project. I know that making the terrace behind the house was a big inspiration to making the step. And what an important step it is! It leads into (and out of) my studio. There is that inevitable metaphor of crossing a threshold from one reality to another.
Here's a slightly further back view:

Isn't that nice the way the stones and the tile integrate? Plus it's so much larger that Robin and I have a bigger landing pad when we depart on our morning walk. (I don't remember exactly why we always exit through my studio, but we do... ). Bob correctly decided that the shape and color of the mosaic looked like an eye. I showed him a preliminary sketch I did- of an eyeball! I had wanted that as a sort of subtle suggestion, nothing really literal or obvious. Just a suggestion of the internal seeing that goes on when in the studio...

Where Do I Begin?

I have been mulling over three utterly different subjects for this post. I could either describe our recent trip to Vermont (fun), the lovely stone and mosaic step that Bob and I constructed outside my studio (useful), or the scary meeting Bob and I attended about passing an ordinance prohibiting the carrying of gun in public places in our town (weird). As you can see (sort of) from the above picture, I chose to write about an "interesting" (in all the worst ways!) experience...
I had received- and not paid too much attention to- emails about a Southbury town meeting that was so well attended and so large, that it had to be postponed and moved to the high school auditorium. It was a meeting about an attempt to pass an ordinance that would prohibit the carrying of guns on public property. I also received a phone call from a woman on the Democratic Town Committee who explained what was involved. Bob and I decided to attend.
As you can see from the above picture (which is a re-photo of a shot posted on a news website) there was quite a crowd. We, the gun safety proponents, were on one side of the main doorway and they, the gun advocates, were on the other. We sized each other up.

Bob was initially hesitant to actually go into the auditorium (as were other people that we talked to outside) but I was pretty adamant that we were here, we should hear what people were presenting as arguments. It was packed and lines formed for attendees to testify. We had been handed signs that announced we were residents of Southbury, and this mattered as many of the gun supporters had been urged to attend even if they lived in other towns. I had checked the CCDL website and learned that they were actively encouraging members to attend and "wear CCDL swag". I think the majority of the pro-gun people were out-of-towners as I didn't recognize many of them...
There was an introduction by the resident state trooper about what is in the actual existing gun laws. There is apparently a bit of room for interpretation in the carrying in public places rule that is already on the books; a murky "need for a special license". 
Residents from our town and surrounding towns then addressed the Board of Selectmen. Many spoke movingly about being from Sandy Hook (the next town over from us) and how crazy it is to allow- or promote! the idea that we're safer if we're all "packing". I was entirely in agreement with the woman who said simply, "I don't want to think about the person next to me at the library carrying a gun. Or the person next to me while I'm licensing my dog or paying my taxes..." But it was disheartening to hear the people who gave their ideas about the 2nd amendment and how it was their right to bear arms. It was terrifying and I seriously began to wonder what I was thinking, encouraging Bob and myself in coming into this auditorium to be surrounded by so many gun totin' whack jobs! I felt my eyes opening wider and wider and I started breathing so that I thought I'd hyperventilate; it was not a good place to be. PTSD, anyone?
Ultimately, we stayed through about a third of the speakers and then left. We had had enough. Honestly? The police on duty (and there were more present then I've ever seen before in town (except at the local pizza joint) looked a bit uneasy, too.

But we got tee shirts and placards and buttons and I plan on wearing my tee shirt to work. I have requested that the auction house be declared "a gun free zone" as I know that several of my co-workers think very differently from me about their right to bear arms.
And this meeting took place after Las Vegas but before the (most recent mass) shooting at the church in Texas! And don't forget the shooting at a Walmart in Colorado, in which it was described that the gun man "nonchalantly" opened fire on people shopping!* Good grief! where does this end? Cynically, I still fear that if the death of 26 children and their educators didn't provoke a change in the gun laws, then what will? And how did we all wind up in a replay of The Wild Wild West?

*Interestingly, the argument was raised that if everyone has a gun and starts shooting at the person who initially started shooting, when the police arrive, how on earth are they supposed to know who the "good guys" or the "bad guys" are? And the two men who pursued the shooter in Texas were driving at 90 miles an hour and shooting. What if they had shot an innocent bystander? Or caused a traffic accident? And how did they really know the story behind who was shooting? Too many disturbing details...