GENIUS. Required viewing. You shall not regret it.

I have an awesome job. I office manage for a veterinary practice. I get to cuddle a virtual non stop stream of puppies and kittens. Word. But there are downsides.

I don't know quite how I ended up with this tweak in my brain structure, but I love other people's pets. LOVE. Almost as much, and in some cases possibly more than, my own dogs. I get very, very attached very, very easily. I don't know why. This becomes a problem when those people go away and stop bringing their pets to me or worse, when that pet dies.

I had my first real rough beat a few nights ago when a client's dog passed away. He came to us with what looked like bloat, which is when the stomach inflates with gas and flops over, causing major issues. Turned out to be his bladder, which was blocked and swollen. The doc tried to correct it surgically, but the tissues of his bladder had deteriorated so significantly that we couldn't really effectively sew him back up again and his bladder ruptured a few hours later. He could not be saved.

He was a three and a half year old american bulldog named Mac. He had a ninety degree kink in his tail and a head the size of a watermelon. He liked to lean on you and pant in your face. He was an accomplished snuggler. He was always ecstatically happy to see everyone and his wag was a full body explosion. He was sugar pressed into dog form. He was a beautiful boy. I miss him very much and I am sad and angry that we couldn't do more. I need a goddam magic wand.

1) Plan your menus, as much as you can. Makes grocery shopping a helluva lot easier and removes the necessity for the stressful and annoying nightly, "We should eat." conversation.

2) Cooking meat is not that scary. Seriously. Grow up, Lady M.

3) Buy stuff when it's cheap/available and freeze it. We are buying a chest freezer as soon as ever we can, much to PDeinus chagrin.

4) Bulk spices are insanely cheap. Never buy the pre-bottled McCormick spices ever, ever, ever again. We now buy all of our spices at our slightly janky grocery store with an awesome bulk food section, or at a really lovely spice market up in the artsy fartsy neighborhood. A SPICE MARKET is still cheaper. Holy cats. Never again.

5) Cook lots of new things and build your repertoire. I feel as though I am just getting started here.

6) If after you bring the fresh basil home you trim the stems and put it in water like cut flowers, it will last a good long while, possible weeks, as long as you keep refreshing the water. Would've saved myself a lot of wilted basil. Still looking for a way to keep fresh cilantro from dying. Same trick doesn't work.

We are no longer poor, now that PDeinus is gainfully employed once again, however that is not say that we have the monies. We are trying to repair some of the damage inflicted during our six months of one paycheck and that eats up anything that might be leftover for us to kick up our heels a bit. Plus which, Laverne decided that now would be an excellent time to reveal to us that she has a hernia in her abdominal wall that is only repairable with surgery, so sayonara money I had ear marked for a possible plane ticket to Chicago! I miss Chicago friends very badly, and after months of mostly one another for company, PDeinus I are, while still very much in love and pulling at the same wheel, are very much in need of others. Had I but the magic wand I crave. We would also like to be able to afford a trip to Massachusetts this New Years. Fingers crossed for both, say I.

All the financial woes aside, Portland continues to astound. Beautifully dry and hot so far this summer. During the heat wave of four or five days of 100+, I went upstairs to climb into bed only to realize that the mattress had retained so much heat from the day that sleeping on the living room floor seemed like a MUCH better option. The dogs, panting upstairs at 10:30pm agreed with me. We bivouaced for the next few nights under the coffee table. Bizarrely, the dogs were still interested in snuggling and I was most assuredly not. We saw the Oregon coast for the first time days later and it was appropriately incredible and salty. We have had a coworker and friend of mine staying with us while she is between an apartment with an appalling roommate here and vet school in Corvallis, Oregon. She has been delightful and was responsible for our trip, being possessed of a car and appropriate wanderlust (currently she is traveling in Costa Rica and will bounce through here on her way to backpacking in Washington). Punk was ecstatic to see a large body of water and a beach for running as fast as she can, only slightly less so after discovering that when she puts her mouth in the water it tastes funny. Laverne was having none of this wet and cold business and yea she did pout mightily. Very funny.

Our tomatoes are starting to yield and our farmer's market as well. PDeinus has declared his intention to make a whole passel of tomato sauce for the next few weekends, and I am not at all unhappy about this. We will have jars full of summer saved up for the winter. The landlord stops by once a month to collect rent and always brings us something from his garden, peas, a truly huge bag of shallots, and basil. I look forward to it now. Our fig tree flummoxes us slightly with its overwhelming bounty, and there are neighborhood kids who stop by periodically and relieve us of bags of them. One attempt at fig jam went south, and the second featured the addition of strawberry which seems, so far, to have been successful. Also a batch of blackberry jam with fruit gleaned from our backyard bramble. Unbelievable color. Ouchy collection process. Only a matter of weeks before apple butter.

Lots of work, lots of Netflix, lots of walking dogs and laughing at their silliness, lots of worrying of one type or another. Mostly everything goes very well.

Made by jearl to accompany her delightful review of The Philadelphia Story. If you love that movie or Hepburn as I do, this should crack your shit up.

Since PDeinus outed us over here, I am charged with posting photos of the ridiculously adorable chihuahua who now lives in our house.

( Behold. )

Yup. I got whammied. She was hanging out in a holding area at the adoption event, and suckered me in with those big, googly brown eyes and the jaunty little tail. She isn't as yappy as you'd think, although people on bikes are pretty evil. Did you know that? Although she doesn't really know how to play with other dogs, she does seem to like them and is very happy to exchange wags and butt sniffs. She also really likes people, which is definitely a change for us. Punk is adjusting pretty easily to not being an only dog, and doesn't seem to mind. Even though Laverne snores like bejesus and snorgles like a truffle pig the rest of the time, and doesn't always share the chair nicely.

In other news, our garden is growing, and I still love my job. Portland in spring is INCREDIBLY beautiful. You should come visit. Seriously. Then you could cuddle the fat chihuahua. Think about it.

2008 The Northern Lights of Happiness
posted by CHARLES MUDEDE on NOVEMBER 5 at 4:53 PM

It’s the fifth day of November. It’s nearing 4 pm. I’m standing on the corner of 6th and Main. Behind me is a small beauty business, and heading west on 6th is a truck for a plumber. As it passes, I read on its side: “A way goes trouble down the drain.” An old black man is slowly walking down the steep hill between Main and Washington. Two white women in a red BMW (dented door, dirty windows) stop and let a very pregnant Asian woman cross the street. In the distance, cars flowing up to the freeway. Further still, a string of airplane lights. Then it seizes me. A rush of joy. It emanates from a warm area deep in my being and terminates with tingles on my flesh. To see the inside of my body is to see an aurora borealis on an arctic sky. Obama is the president of the United States of America.

I've missed you guys! Thank god we have internets at the house now. So let's celebrate with a meme! Post your answers in the comments, yo!

01) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
02) What was your dream growing up?
03) What talent do you wish you had?
04) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
05) Favorite vegetable?
06) What was the last book you read?
07) What zodiac sign are you?
08) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
09) Worst Habit?
10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
11) What is your favorite sport?
12) Do you have a Pessimistic or Optimistic attitude?
13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
16) Do you have any pets? Tell me about 'em.
17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?
18) What was your first impression of me?
19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
22) What color eyes do you have?
23) Ever been arrested?
24) Bottle or can soda?
25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
27) What's your favorite place to hang out?
28) Do you believe in ghosts?
29) Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
30) Do you swear a lot?
31) Biggest pet peeve?
32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
33) Do you believe in/appreciate romance?
34) Favourite and least favourite food?
35) Do you believe in God?

So we're taking almost four weeks to get to Portland and in the meantime we'll be in Kansas, Colorado, Arizona and Washington DC. People have asked for updates while we're traveling, so I'm gonna post stuff at the following address if you're interested in following our progress....

http://majorlady.blogspot.com/

Woo hoo! The world so needed another blog, did it not?

OK. The Big Move to Portland, while exciting and all about manifest destiny and so forth, is causing me to gently panic on several levels. Commitment phobia, major life change, but Chicago is where I LIVE!, finding a job, what ifs from hell, you name the level I'm a gently panicking on it. PDeinus is being very patient with me, and he listens to me babble if I ask him to, but most of it I'm trying to process myself so I don't irritate the complete bejesus out of him before he's trapped in the cab of a UHaul for days with me AND the dog and most of the stuff burbling up has to do with old monsters that maybe didn't get as thoroughly slain as I might have liked them to years ago when I was very busy with all that therapy and FEELING but I'm just bored with parsing feelings and trying to analyze triggers and talking myself down from various ledges in my brain. I am very tired of myself and would like emotional feely brain to shut the fuck up and lizard survival brain to take over for awhile.

People, I've lived in Chicago since I was 18. I moved here to go to college. From my parent's house. Gack.

You're all super cool people who've been through stuff and are not dead or completely loony. In fact, you're all just the kind of loony that I like. Any advice on getting onself through major life changes without going full on nutty or indeed completely alienating one's partner would be greatly appreciated.

Mom got our quilt back from the quilters this weekend and it looks so great! I can't wait to touch it. They did a beautiful ginko leaf pattern that just subtly softens the squared geometric lines of the blocks and the sashing. Mom is going to finish up the binding and is going to applique a small fabric polaroid transfer one of their wedding photos to the back. We're giving it to them as a fifth anniversary present when we're all together in Colorado this summer. SQUEE for handicrafts!
( FIRST BIG QUILT PRIDE BE HERE! )

Henri The Ennui Cat has an owner who has a blog where he posts cat haiku. These are pretty hilarious. My favorite being....

they forgot my food
time to poop on a pillow
I see no other way

I think Henri may indeed have opposable thumbs after all. And can write haiku...

.....or enjoy silly parodies of French cinema featuring existentially tortured cats, please enjoy the following.

I crave your mouth,
Your voice, your hair.
Silent, starving I prowl
Through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me,
Dawn disquiets me,
I search the liquid sound
Of your steps all day.
I hunger for your sleek laugh,
For your hands the color of the wild grain,
I hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your loveliness,
The nose, sovereign of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,
And I walk hungry, smelling the twilight
Looking for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barren wilderness
—Pablo Neruda

Anyone else woken up by a wobbling bed last night? Scared the bejesus out of me, I'll tell you. I woke up thinking the dog had come upstairs and hopped onto the bed, and then I woke up further and PDeinus and I just sat there and stared at each other while the bed went wubbawubbawubbawubba. So relieved to find out that it was a earthquake this morning. I was convinced we had a poltergeist problem.

1) Yea! A post from me that is not an issue or a meme!

2) I have recently become totally addicted to Facebook. I am suitably ashamed, but one should understand that one can play Scrabulous there. I am in love with this feature. I can conduct four games simultaneously (including one with my mom!), in all of which my ass is being soundly kicked. Fun!

3) I want more Hot Doug's. We went last week and I am already craving it AGAIN. This time, I packed my own BBQ sauce for the fries, because MAN are they good with BBQ sauce. PDeinus was embarrassed. I cared not. We also met a very cool guy while in line who is totally PDeinus in 20 years. Sensible shoes, sharp raincoat, paper, fantastic hat, happy to chat with strangers.

4) We recently finished Season 6 of Buffy and are about to embark upon Season 7 (Thanks, Pam and Manda!) and I will be sad to see it go. The non stop sexual tension between Spike and Buffy this last season, though? Nearly killed me. My stomach has barely recovered from the repeated dropping and swooping. 10 to 12 years ago? I would've been completely obsessed with Spike. Sigh. I did so love the dark, pouty, skinny, badly dressed emo boys. All that tension and drama and cheekbone. That's what I thought love was about. Sigh again.

5) Plans for the move are progressing nicely. We will be here through the end of July, probably leaving the last weekend thereof, then making some stops along the way and taking some vacation while attending a couple of weddings. We should end up in Portland by mid-August, and then shall commence with the apartment hunting and the job finding and so forth.
EXCITED!

OK, let me begin this post by saying I'm nowhere near ready emotionally and psychologically to be a mother and it is currently my default setting to prevent a pregnancy from occurring. I'm frightened of the prospect of becoming a parent, but the process of pregnancy and giving birth fascinates me, has always fascinated me, and I can't deny that my body yearns to do this incredible thing; to carry a new life and deliver it into the world. However, because the parenting and raising that come after and the sacrifices that one absolutely must make to do that responsibly scare the bejesus out of me, I know I'm not gonna for the time being. Maybe not ever. I don't know. But until I know for sure, NO BABIES FOR LADY M.

But if in some future alternate universe I do get this chance to be a mother, and if I'm a good candidate with a normal pregnancy and no complications on the horizon, and with an emergency backup system in place and after a lot of consultation with medical pros, I am damn sure gonna try and deliver that little person in my home. I have been aware of midwifery and alternative birth practices for awhile, after a big article was published in the Reader which opened the whole world up to me (the legal status of midwives in problematic in Illinois and has been for some time) and ever since I asked the question, "What's a doula?" and got a great, thorough answer. In the most recent installment of my fascination, I watched Ricki Lake's The Business of Being Born and was utterly riveted. It is not balanced, it is not objective, but dammit if it doesn't convince me that once again the American healthcare system is extremely fucked up. They induce most women's labor on a set schedule in order to ensure they deliver on that set schedule rather than in their own time and indeed the babies' own time, which places more stress on the fetus, which can in turn lead to further complications, which can and often does lead to c-section. 1 in 3 babies in the US are born via c-section and that number is rising. Most of the women I know had their babies via induction or c-section. I personally know no one, outside of my own mother, who gave birth without some kind of medical intervention, be it drugs, vacuum assisted delivery or the surgical. And the majority of them did not have complications that necessitated intervention. Their deliveries were either taking too long and the doctors wanted to speed things up, or they were induced on a set schedule. WEIRD. Not to mention that remaining still on one's back with one's legs in the air is probably the most uncomfortable and least efficient way for a woman to get that thing out, but very convenient for doctors. It blows my mind. Watching the women in this film, including Ricki Lake, give birth reduced me to tears. Very powerful and unlike any other birth footage I have ever seen. Not the screaming, face-tearing, rending asunder that you expect. DIfficult and effortful and loud, sure, but then the baby is placed into the mother's arms and time stops for a minute while they recognize each other and holy cow. It is incredible.

So, if you're squicked out by this kind of thing, maybe not, but if you can deal I think you should see this film. Women who may someday potentially possibly think about having a baby should absolutely see this film.

Looooong night of hunting horrid witches at RandyCon '08 and I am now at work on a hastily snatched four hours of sleep and a big ol' Dunkin's coffee. It was a great weekend, though. After how utterly shit things have been at work it was heaven to feel like we were getting away, even if it was just the suburbs and a Courtyard Marriott. I took two baths and watched movies on the laptop curled up in the big, crisp, white hotel bed, had yummy brunch and a very good nap, and of course burned many witches playing Witch Hunt into the wee small. Watched "Cold Comfort Farm" for the first time and was laughing my ass off. How is it that the British just have comedy completely pegged? I don't even know why we try, really.

When I stopped for coffee this morning I also bought some Munchkins for the others working today and I've now had a few myself, and for some reason the sugar feels so strange and yet so good on my tongue. Also, we added a thing to our "Before We Leave We Will..." list yesterday. Or at least I did. We will absolutely brave the North Shore to go back to Walker Brothers Pancake House so I can have another big fluffy German Pancake before we go. So delicious with powdered sugar and lemon. Hooray for sugar!

Chicagoans, former Chicagoans, and people who visited here once and who just can't get that one Sausage Superstore out of their minds-

PDeinus and I are currently engaged in creating a list of things we have to do before leaving Chicago this summer. Please put yourself in our shoes, picture your imminent departure from this city, and provide us with your absolute "must do" list, wouldja? What places would you fell compelled to revisit? What restaurants would you linger in one last time? You get the idea. Don't worry. We're taking a weekly trip to Hot Doug's as a given.

Many thanks,
Lady M

From magdalene1, added a few, subtracted a couple....

Three Things I Learned From My Dad
- How to read maps and find the way.
- Animals are to be treated with kindness, respect and gentleness.
- How to stand directly in front of an oncoming softball and catch it.

Three Things I Learned From My Mom
- Books and reading will bring you lifelong satisfaction.
- People appreciate small, thoughtful gestures.
- Women are equal to men and should have equal rights.

Three Things I Learned From My Brother
- You will survive high school.
- Read things you don't understand and ask questions to try and understand it.
- Know your tolerance for alcohol and respect it.

Three Things I Learned From A Teacher
- The choice that scares you is usually the best one.
- Even though you may think it is stupid and a waste of time, do the homework.
- Poetry will give you so much more than you ever thought it could.

Three Things I Learned From Grammer
- Hospital corners.
- Family is more important than anything else, and friends are your chosen family.
- How to iron properly.

Three Things I Learned From Being In Theater
- Be on time and be prepared.
- Make bold choices that get you excited and you will learn more from the failures.
- Know the names of the production staff, be nice to them, compliment them and thank them for their hard work and never, ever take your bullshit out on them or treat them like servants.