Dog Blog

Every now and then I like to write about the antics of our dog. He's an almost 5 year old Boxer named Brewzer.

He is a humongous baby.

Even though he weighs 80+ lbs. and has a chest like a heavyweight lifter.

Brewz is very broad. Everyone blames me for his weight issues. I had him fixed as soon as the vet gave the okay. Having no experience as a dog owner, I didn't know it would stunt or escalate any form of his growth. I just didn't want him peeing everywhere and hunching everything in sight. So we have a stocky, smaller headed Boxer. Sue me.

But Brewz is a sweetie of a dog. At first impression he may scare people. He's big with a big ol' head, teeth and droopy jaws. And he's excitable. He loves people. Everyone is his friend, regardless if they think so or not. Company cannot get past him without acknowledgement.

We live a rock's throw from an elementary school with a huge grassy field. Husband takes Brewz down there and lets him run. Running in the fenced yard cannot be compared with running without fence constraints. I don't know if Clydesdales gallop or sprint, but if they do, that's what this dog reminds you of as he runs at full speed to his heart's content. We call him "PonyDog"... At one point when I was with Husband during one of these jaunts, I commented,

"Ahh, look at him...He's so happy, he's smiling!"

Husband gave me a sideways look..

"If you had floppy jaws and were running at that breakneck speed, you'd look like you were smiling too."

Well, let's just conjure up that mental picture.

I still think he smiles when he's happy.

This past Sunday, as we sat at the table reading the paper and drinking coffee, Brewzer sat between our chairs. I ran across an ad that had a full page of doggie stuff on sale.

I held the ad down to Brewzer's level saying,

"Lookey Brewzie, there's all kinds of doggie stuff!"

Brewz studied the ad.

Once again, a sideways look from Husband,

"Teri, he can't read....."

Oh yeah?

Later that day when I came in from shopping at the same store as the ad, Brewz got all excited as I brought the bags in with the store logo on them. He sniffed around and really wanted to empty one particular bag. Well it was the one with his "Busy Bone" in it as advertised.

HA! And Husband says he can't read!

A big part of Brewzer's weight problem has to do with eating too much people food. I don't feed him people food, and Girly doesn't feed him people food. His other set of doggie parents (Son and Girlfriend) don't feed him people food either. So who's the offender?

Husband.

Whatever husband is eating, Brewzer gets some of it. He really doesn't beg, but he just sits there on his rump watching you eat, with big longing eyes. Husband has no will power. He is constantly feeding Brewz something.

If Husband cooks, it's on Sunday morning. Fried eggs are his specialty. Mostly because for some reason, I just can't fry an egg without busting it up. So then it's a scrambled egg. It must be a hand/eye coordination thing, because I am sorely lacking. Girly and I like fried eggs with toast to dip. So on this one particular Sunday, Husband had fried us up eggs and toast. He continued over the stove and I assumed he was fixing his own. All of sudden I hear the dog,

"Lap, Slurp, Lick, Lap, Slurp..."

Unbelieving, I say to Husband,

"Did you fix the dog eggs too?"

"Well, yeah... dogs really like eggs and they're good for them. It's not fair for all of us to sit here and eat while he doesn't get any."

Oh Geez.

And Husband tells me that Brewzer doesn't have any human qualities. Well, the dog can certainly can play the man like a fiddle.

At least I can admit I spoil the dog.

A Lenten Conviction or 20 Pounds and Counting.....

Why O why does our metabolism slow down to a pace equivalent to a half dead snail as we mature? I don't want to say age, because I still think of myself as young.. Unfortunately, my metabolism doesn't.

I have been fighting with the cumulative value of 20+ lbs. for 10 years. At first it was 5, then 10, then 15.....You get algebraic formula? Now it's creeping toward 25 and I am panicky about it going any further.

The kicker of it hit me right between the eyes last month. It was Son's Girlfriend's birthday. (I really need to come up with a new name for her as she is expecting his baby in 4 months. "Girlfriend" isn't quite hitting the mark.)

But anyway, Girly and I went shopping to a Mall maternity shop looking for something for Girlfriend's birthday. We were perusing the racks and racks of very trendy (and I might add expensive) maternity clothes. I had a couple of shirts hanging across my arm as Girly and I decided what most fit Girlfriend's style and personality. We were having an in-depth conversation, when the sales clerk approaches and says to me:

"I can start you a fitting room if you like."

Uh? Who is she talking to?

I look at her as if she has just popped a third eyeball. You talkin' to me? It took several moments to register before I start to sputter:

"NO,,, Uh.. Gawd NO!!!... Not for me!!! No, no, no...... This is for my ummmmmm, daughter in law....no, no, not me.. My baby days are over..."

Before it registers what I've said, she looks at Girly... For gosh sake lady, SHE'S TWELVE!!!

"No, No,,,, not for us.." I sputter on....

She replies, dripping with syrup, I may add..."Well, you just never know these days....."

And goes about her merry mommy clothes sellin' way. I silently damn her to a lifetime of fat pants..

By this time Girly is suffering from apoplexy and is heading toward the door, cell phone in hand, ready to call all the human race and announce the saleswoman thought her mother was pregnant. She is rolling.

Grant it, I did not look my best that day. It was a legal holiday, Girly was out of school and I was off work, so we took the opportunity to schlep around, eat a breakfast buffet and use up the rest of our Xmas giftcards. Apparently, tooling around the mall in sweats after gorging on the breakfast buffet was the wrong idea. When I relayed this incident to my family and friends they encouraged me to take solace in the idea that the sales lady actually thought I was still young enough to reproduce. I really didn't find any comfort in this.

My weight issue is compounded by the facts that I am of short and petite build. I never had to watch my weight until I hit somewhere in my thirties. I'm totally undisciplined when it comes to diet, exercise, etc. I just can't get make myself get serious.

I'm not a bad eater. I do eat relatively healthy. Don't do very many sweets at all. Both Husband and I are salad freaks. We eat lots of it. At least once or twice a day. I'll usually make a big bowl of just veggie salad and the two of us will eat off it for couple of days or so. I do pretty good with it. He could do better. He's a real eggs and cheese man. He also pours on the dressing as if he's trying to hose down a blaze. But, regardless, we're talking about me, not him. I do crave salt. I can knock out an entire bag of chips and onion dip in one sitting. Not that I'm proud of it, but I used to be able to do this without conscience. Never had to think about it hitting my midsection.

With the onset of Lent...I vow to give up the things that are making me fat. Most likely one of them is alcohol. Empty calories, so no alcohol for the next six weeks.

Now, remember, we're Catholic.

It's Fish Fry season.

Tonight is the first night.

I am Fish Fry Co-Captain.

So I'll be there from 7:00 till close and clean up. It's usually our custom to hang around afterwards to eat and drink some of the leftovers. I guess I'll sit there with my Fiji Water (one of Husband's products) and eat the broiled fish and green beans rather than those big rolled oysters, onion rings and a cold Bud.

O Discipline, I call on thee to be my friend!

The other thing I need to do is exercise this 46 year old body some. I do nothing physical... zilch, nada, zero. The fact is that if I do, I can cut my weight problems in half...

Girly and I have been talking about taking up walking in the neighborhood. I used to do this quite a bit and really enjoyed it. I did it a lot when she was small as an effort to take off the baby weight and as a way to have some "me" time in the evening. With her age and the teen years lapping at my heals, it would be good for the two of us to walk 30 minutes in the evening and have that one on one time everyday. I hope I'm not fooling myself by thinking we might actually "bond".

Some years ago (quite many, actually), Husband the opportunity to win a high end exercise bike is a sales contest. I begged him to win this particular item (rather than an all expense paid trip or something equivalent). He won the bike, put it in our basement. I can probably count on all my fingers and toes how many times I've been on this bike. Every once in a while he throws the subject of the unused bike at me, but since he doesn't get on it either, he can't say much. It just kind of sits there next to the pool table like a piece of pop culture art. I vow to make use of it in bad weather, when I can't go out.

I vow to cut out fried foods and cut down my salt intake. This is hard. I am a saltaholic. In the summer, when we have fresh tomatoes from our yard, it's nothing for me to grab a big one, cut it up, salt it like no tomorrow and eat it. I can do this several times a day. I add salt to my ketchup......after I've salted my fries. I'm sure my sodium level is off the geiger counter.

So that's the Lenten plan.. Hopefully, with effort, discipline and prayer, I'll be successful. And maybe drum up some brownie points from Heaven at the same time. I just hope there's fried onion rings, salt and Budweiser when I get there.

Point Proven

For Valentine's Day, I got some herb seeds for my herb pots and spring lettuce seeds for my garden...

And of box of candy..

As Christina Agu-what's-her-name would sing...

"What a man, What a man, What a mighty good man!"

Valentine's Day Musings

Valentine's Day approaches us and romance is supposed to be in the air.......

Did you ever have one of "those" moments that confirms you're married to the exact person you were meant to be with??

I have on many occasions.

One was this past Sunday morning while taking a shower...I don't know what happened....One second I was washing my face and the next my right eye started to ache something awful.

Husband had just shouted to me that he was going to have to go to work for a while because one of his people failed to show up.. As he's yelling, "Honey, I'm going now......", I proceed to yelling:

"OW! OW! OW....MY EYE!!.....OW! OW! COME HERE QUICK!!!!"

Husband throws open the bathroom door, comes in and says, "What the hell is the matter?"

I continue standing in the running water with suds in my hair, hollering..."MY EYE! OW! OW!"..

Husband, "What'd you do, get soap in your eye?"

Me, "NO, IT JUST HURTS!!!! OW! OW!"

I will take this moment to confess I am somewhat of a wus when it comes to pain.

Still a little puzzled, he pulls back the shower curtain and there I stand in all of my glory, suds abounding, with my hand over my eye.

He reaches in, pulls my hand away and says, "OMG, your eye is like, bleeding or something... Like you've busted a blood vessel.."

He proceeds to pull me out of the shower, suds and all, and plop me on the toilet seat..

Peering into my face, he says, "I can even see the red creeping around your eyeball."

He rushes out of the bathroom, puts some ice in a ziploc bag and comes back..

"Maybe if we put ice on it, it'll keep the red from spreading."

By this time the ache is all but gone, I'm sitting stark naked on the toilet seat, dripping suds and water all over....The hot water is still running and the ice is melting on my eye because it's hot in there from steam.

But he stands there holding the ziploc on my eye with one hand and drying me off with a towel with the other. He continues this administration and calms me down.

As he stands there with his jacket still on, getting wet, I have "the moment".

This is the man who always has my back. This is the person who loves me with all of his heart. This is the person I was meant to be with.

The first time I noticed one of those moments was several years ago. Girly was just a baby and by luck of the draw I ended up having a hysterectomy. I remember after the surgery, they kept coming in and pumping morphine in me. Now, that can be a good thing (a really good thing).. But after a while, even a wus like me gets tired of not being even a tad clearheaded. Of course I couldn't vocalize anything because my lips and tongue were mush. At one point the nurse came in to see if I needed anything...... a drink? blankets? ready for food? and oh, yeah, some more morphine? I remember looking into Husband's eyes and mentally thinking, "I just wish I could get my head straight...."

Husband says to nurse, "Ya' know, I don't think it's the pain that's bothering her.... I think she's just tired of being "out of it"... She can't stay lucid." At that point they started to cut back the morph and only gave it to me when I asked.

"YES!!" This is the man who can read my mind. He knows me like a book. I don't need to vocalize to him... Except when I'm trying to get him to put stuff back in the refrigerator, pick his underwear up off the floor, etc..... When it comes to the real important stuff, he knows what I want and need.

Romance is the first year we lived in our current home.. Almost 20 years ago.. There were some hideously huge evergreen bushes in the front of the house. Grossly overgrown and ugly.
I wanted azaleas... something with flowers. So I went to the greenhouse and came home with 5 baby azalea bushes. Husband asks me where I plan to put them.

"Why, in front of the house, of course. "

"And what do you plan to do with these 45 year old hideously huge evergreens?"

"Well, I guess we'll have to take them out."

It took him a number of weekends to get those evergreens out.. The roots were huge and deep. He ended pulling his truck into front yard, tying up the roots and yanking them out. I thought the truck was going to pull the basement out from under the house, but he persevered.

Almost 20 years later, I have 5 very large, well groomed purple and pink azaleas along the front of my house. I think of him sweating, digging and pulling all those years ago.

That's romantic.

We are not the kind of people who get into flowery arrangements and words. Neither one of us is tremendously romantic. I think we both make a lot of romantic gestures which we, personally, think are romantic. Like on our anniversary, most every year, Husband brings me some sort of perennial or bulb plant for my front flower bed. Nothing expensive or big, but over the years I've developed a nice flower garden and we both can usually remember when we got each plant.

Never mind both of us have a hard time remembering what exact day our anniversary is...If you ask Husband when we got married, all he'll tell you is that we got married on Final Four Weekend. I remember it that way too. We had to make sure we had televisions hooked up in the reception hall. And later, we finished watching the playoffs on our honeymoon from Lake Tahoe. If we can't get the date right, we can at least get close on pinning down the weekend.

What matters is that I would jump over the moon for him and vice versa. Almost 25 years later, we are closer than we've ever been. We are bestest of best friends.

That's romantic.

Anywho, I did go to the doctor on Monday to find out that I had scraped an outer layer of my eyeball. I look gross. Everybody at work keeps looking at me, saying "Do you know your eye is all red?" Well, duh.... Yep, I think I noticed.

But my Husband took care of me. Romance can be relative.

The Various Forms of Stupidity

The exploitations of a couple of women have been splashed all over the press the past several days..

The recent debacle of the astronaut turned "Fatal Attraction" persona is the first to come to mind. This lifelong ex-military career scientist/engineer took it upon herself to confront another woman about a relationship with her intended love interest. Everyone is musing over just what happened in this female's mind. Did she snap from exceedingly high expectations? Over her fear of failure? Loss of control? And on and on and on.....

Come on people! Snap out of it! Don't overanalyze the situation. The smarter our society gets, the more we over-intellectualize every freakin' thing.

The woman made an incredibly stupid decision and committed an incredibly stupid act. I've known many highly cerebral, educated people who can't exercise a lick of rationality or common sense. The whole mess is a blatant act of stupidity on her part and she should take her lumps and learn from them. Moral of the story, you're not gonna get your man by act of pepper spray, steel mallet and 900 mile dependable diapers. Bad move. It just won't work.

Does this mean she's incapable of serving in our space program in some adequate capacity? Probably not. Does she need intense psychoanalysis and treatment?

In my mind, probably not.

She definitely needs help getting her personal life in order, but it doesn't mean she's not a good engineer. This is not a rant in her defense. Quite the opposite, really. I just think there is too much emphasis on analyzing her psyche. Because she is highly educated in a high profile career we want to blame some sort psychotic breakdown rather than dealing with the situation at hand. There has to be a good reason someone that highly regarded would stoop so low. Or could she have just been stupid. My vote is on stupid.

The other woman is dead. Most likely from a drug overdose. She came across as pretty stupid.... But was she totally stupid?

In my mind, not really.

She was smart enough to capitalize on what (umph) "assets" she possessed. We, as well as our media, have been interested enough to keep the (umph) "exposure" alive for well over ten years. She cashed in on her so called celebrity status quite famously. She lived a pretty high life, no pun intended... Pretty good for a highschool droput, backwoods chick who without the exposure would still be working at a greasy diner in some rural town or, for that matter, living off the government.

Where does her stupidity come in? When she crossed the line and let the celebrity status take control. She wasn't smart enough to stay in control. Whether it was drugs, poor management or a combination. She lost her control and what common sense she had. I'm not saying she had a lot to begin with... but she obviously had some.. And now she's dead. That makes her stupid. Not necessarily cashing in on exploitation of her (umph) physical assets and the drama surrounding her life. She let the drama and celebriality (sic) take control. If you're going to capitalize on the drama, keep your head about it. Letting the drama and other influences get control is stupid.

I'll add this disclaimer to this short rant.... I am not a rocket scientist nor do I possess any such (umph) assets that may draw exploitation. So I'll just paraphrase my favorite local eclectic columnist... "This is just my own damn opinion, so if you don't like it, sue me."

And remember......there many forms of stupidity...One of our goals in life should be to avoid them.

Another Stage of Life

My sister in law is about to embark on a journey.. One that I don't even know I would have taken, given the option.

She is quitting work to stay home.

For many people, given the option, this would be a no-brainer. But for L, it has been a monumental, heart wrenching decision. The middle child of 5 from a blue collar family, she started babysitting when she was about 11 and has always held a job since.

You see, L's a very independent, driven individual. She married very young at 20 (the first time) and the guy was.....well, let's be honest, a bum. She worked, went to school and was the sole responsible party in the marriage. Luckily, the marriage ended after five years (5 years too late, if you ask me) but it left some permanent scars. L became so self sufficient, it actually scared men off. She has had a lot of trust and control issues. It's understandable.

She stayed in school, working full time plus a part time job, earned two degrees and sat for the CPA and passed on the first go round. She bought her first home while she was single in 1988. For the past several years, she has been controller at an international tool manfacturing company, (initials B&D).

I might also add the L is a very attractive woman with a huge heart.

To cut to the chase, she remarried in 1999 at the age of 38. Her husband (the BIL that has to have a manly Harley, see 11/14/06 post) is a pilot who has also been married before. L has always wanted children and became pregnant for the first time at age 40. Unfortunately, the pregnancy ended with a stillborn baby girl. L was diagnosed with an incompetent cervix. If you're not familiar, this is where the cervix cannot withstand the pressure the baby exerts as he/she grows, typically resulting in premature labor. It was ironic that someone who has spent her entire life being so highly competent would have this problem.

It was devastating. I was devastated for her. I hurt so bad for the two of them. But L took it in stride. I never saw her truly cry. She got emotional, but she was a rock thru the whole thing.
I worried that she needed to let go and grieve. If she did, it was between her and BIL.
They debated another pregnancy. BIL wasn't really up for it, but he wasn't all that up for it the first go round as his kids from his first marriage were 20 and 17 at the time.

They decided to give it another shot, more for L's sake than anything. And on January 30, 2004, L gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

Recently, after kicking it around for several years, BIL has taken a flight captain's position. More money, but more commitment, responsibility and more travel. L had tried cutting back her hours, trying to work only 25-30 a week. It wasn't working. She is too damn dedicated.

She should be like me and work for the government...I'm dedicated, but only to a certain degree.. It just doesn't take much to excel around my agency. But that's another subject for
discussion.

So, she is going to quit her job. At 45, for the first time, she will be unemployed. She will not have her "own" income. And she is terrified. I don't blame her. This is the one thing that always got me. My "own money".. Plus, how does she convert from being a corporate power to the SAHM of a 3 year old?

Will her educated, finely tuned brain turn to mush? Will The Wiggles take the place of Meet The Press? Will she be cutting up everyone's food at the table, no matter what age?

Some may think I'm undermining SAHPs, but I'm not. My question is, once you've made the decision, how do you make the transition after sooooo many years of conditioning.
She is so used to being the one in control, making the decisions, I just don't see the adaption process as easy.

Please be assured that the question is not just for her, but for me also. This year I qualify for early retirement. I have the state retirement systems calculating several options for me as we speak. The difference between her and I is that I do not have a small child at home and will receive an income in pension form. In many ways, I'm ready for it. I don't want to be the "answer person" anymore. At least I think I don't want to be.

I wonder if I go to work at some firm or wherever if I'll be able to cope with some preppy just out of grad school greenie for a boss.. What will stop me from fighting the urge to take control and upstage them? Or treating them like a child, for that matter--throwing them in a time out when I don't like their smart mouth.

I'm not so sure I'm ready.

So my question is, how does one deal with the transition? What can one do to avoid the feeling of loss over "financial independence"?