Inhale, But Watch the Thorns

I'm deeply honored to have been bestowed the Pink Rose Award by both Searching and STE. Y'all make me blush and scuffle my toes. And to know that this award originated from the one and only Kymberli? Well. Very honored indeed.



I'm going to pass this along to at least one person I know already got it, but there's a theme here so bear with me:

A few people in this neck of Blogville really got hit upside the head with rogue commenters in the past week or so. I'm never sure if these commenters are trolls who like pushing buttons and seeing what transpires, or if there really is some sad sack of a person who has nothing better to do than to read blogs that have nothing to do with him/her and butt in and comment in what I can only describe as an embarrassingly unhelpful fashion. So I'd like to give big bouquets of fresh goodness to the following:

Alice, at An Empty Chair at Our Table, who got a nasty comment the week of her daughter's deathiversary -- which sadly corresponded with a failed IVF. She handled the comment with far more grace than I ever would have.

Honey, who reads Alice's blog, who caught the comment and directed some of her own blog traffic over to show Anon how to abide. Thanks so much Honey, the world needs more people like you.

CLC, who also got some Anon bullshit, and who also handled it with grace and class, and

C., who stood up to some blissful ignorance regarding stillbirth in the face of being called "overly sensitive" and a whole lotta other garbage.

All of you rock my world. Pay it forward like so:

The rules are as follows:
1. On your blog, copy and paste the award, these rules, a link back to the person who selected you, and a link to this post. You will find the story behind the Pink Rose Award and other graphics to choose from there.
2. Select as many award recipients as you would like, link to their blogs (if they have one), and explain why you have chosen them.
3. Let them know that you have selected them for an award by commenting on one of their posts.
4. If you are selected, pass it on by giving the Pink Rose Award to others.
5. If you find that someone you want to nominate has already been selected by someone else, you can still honor them by posting a comment on their award post stating your reasons for wishing to grant them the award.
6. You do not have to wait until someone nominates you to nominate someone else

Best Day Ever

So apparently some blog platforms have a place in their stats section where it conveniently tells you on what day you had the most traffic. I have yet to figure this out in Blogger -- clearly not so obvious. But, in other platforms, not only is it obvious, it's um, very poorly worded. Instead of saying something innocuous like "Most Traffic:" followed by a day, or "Date of Most page hits" it says

BEST DAY EVER.

And let's face it, for blogs of this nature, or any number of other natures I could dream up, I'd be willing to guess the day with most hits does not remotely qualify for what "Best Day Ever" implies. They might as well have a little smiley guy blowing a horn with some confetti and balloons over the text.

As you can imagine by this point in the conversation, someone had their worst day ever, got a bazillion page hits by people tuning in and leaving condolence messages and looking for updates, and now blogger platform thinks this day is a reason to decorate and buy cupcakes. Every time A.M.S. at Our Own Creation checks her stats, she's greeted with this slap in the face: a chipper acknowledgment followed by a series of numbers which for her will always be the day she lost Sweet Zoë. Oh, and by the way, the same incongruity appears on Sweet Zoë's page, too.

So here's what we're gonna do: Make today, May 29, A.M.S.'s "Best Day Ever!" All you have to do is click. That's it. You don't have to read, you don't have to comment. Just click here, or on the tree picture on the upper right side of this blog, and that's it. Oh, and while you're there, please click over to Sweet Zoe's site too. And then tell your friends. All of them. If you don't want them to know about you and your weblife, send them here ("so I stumbled across this blog . . . ") and tell them to look for the icon on the top right.

And because her website runs on GMT (really, could this blog platform make things even more convoluted?), that means we here have from 8:00 PM Eastern, Wednesday, 5/28 through 8:00 P.M. Eastern, Thursday, 5/29.

Click it. We need a lot of clicks. Because "The Best Day Ever!" should be reserved for, you know, the best day. Like the funny absorbent angular guy says.

Up Your Nose

Apparently I need a dogblog. (But someone's already claimed that.)

But you can thank God almighty I do not have a mommy blog (at least in any ordinary sense of the term) or else it might go something like this:

I consider Bella, in her late-threes, to be smarter than average but certainly not brilliant. Smart enough that she lulls me into a state of complacency. She likes asking how things are spelled, and making up her own counting problems ending with a celebratory upward arm motion, "I just did math!" (Certainly not a trait she encountered in a Barbie commercial.) At the dog party on Sunday, she ran around asking everyone if they'd like a drink. "Would you like a Sun Tea? DON'T WORRY I'LL GET IT!" (arriving minutes later with very warm drink over modicum of ice). "Is that your beer? Do you need another? Do you LIKE beer?" The hostess gene is definitely recessive.

I should not have been surprised, and yet I was, when yesterday morning, already late leaving the house for a day in the country, I glanced into Bella's room where she had contentedly been playing by herself for 10 minutes, to find her awkwardly hunched over her shell collection on the floor.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to get a seashell out of my nose."

A call to our neighbor who is a pediatrician currently on emergency rounds yielded the following information: a) he was currently 90 minutes away, not four doors down. b) Could we feel it? (I squeezed her nostrils together. No dice.) c) Did we own long tweezers? (why in hell would we own long tweezers? But I put them on my mental Target list which I'm sure I'll forget in 5 minutes time.) d) Could we get her to blow her nose out of one nostril?

DUDE, do you have a three year old? Can you get a three year old to do ANY.T.H.I.N.G? Cuz really I'll leave the shell up there and take picking up her clothes or not dipping her hand into her beverage cup or any number of assorted daily activities that will make my life eons easier.

Well, said he, the emergency room is likely not to be crowded this early on a holiday. So, in our most chipper yet resigned voice we said, "Bella, we're going to the hospital." At which point she began to bawl and the whole process of crying and snotting loosened things up, I got her to blow with me holding one nostril shut, and out came the seashell.

Crisis averted. And today we were light enough to joke that had it not come out, we probably would've driven to Children's (not the closet ER by any stretch of the imagination) and paged our point people. We guffawed at sending our seashell to Baylor for the genome project. But this is what deadbaby parents do, I suppose, is realize life is a series of medical mishaps and it's all fun and games until the seashell enters the optical cavity.

SO: SPILL IT. What did you jam into your nose or ear when you were a kid? You can post anonymously. And if you failed to be so curious, feel free to rat on your sibling.

Go, Dog, Go!

We adopted Max in '99, a month after moving into our new house (now old house, in old state). Max's picture on the DC Animal Shelter website turned us into cooing nutjobs: a small, red puppy, head askew, with upturned expressive ears. According to the story, Max was left homeless when his owner died. (We always kinda assumed the worst because I'm thinking you don't get a puppy when you're knowingly terminally ill, or 98. But who knows.) While Mr. ABF had a dog growing up, my life with animals had been limited to cats, gerbils, and fish. We already had Tucker & Kirby, two rescue felines that we dragged to the DC environs from Chicago where we adopted them. But now it was time for a dog.

For years, this was our life: two cats, one dog. I loved that having a dog forced me out to walk twice a day. We had long Frisbee lunches when the weather was good. We took him hiking with us, and we wrote letters and attended local meetings in order to build a dog park near our house.

And then, when Max was 5, we had Bella. And as you can imagine, pet time diminished dramatically. Gone were Frisbee lunches. Bella was not allowed in dog park. While I could walk Max in inclement weather, I couldn't always sling or push my kid through it, and walks would often get jettisoned for some out back time or sprints around the block.

Eventually we figured out a routine, but I think Max missed being the focus of attention (a claim which makes my oldest cat Tucker snort as he sits here reading over my shoulder). And at some point we began to ponder if he might be happier if we had a second dog.

We had tried this briefly: one day we entered PetStoreChain and walked smack into an enormous adoption event with some really scraggly dogs, one of which looked eerily like Max. Apparently a recluse had killed himself leaving 40 some odd dogs behind, in various states of disarray. Did we want one? No, not today. Could we foster one? Certainly. It was karma: we adopted a dog who had been fostered when his owner died, and now we could pay it back. We took home a small beautiful red dog.

The ticks were literally jumping off her body, and so shell shocked was she that we had to carry her outside to do her biz. She fell hard asleep when we weren't flea dipping her. She awoke two days later the cutest, sweetest dog, completely smitten with Max. We put her on a leash for what was obviously the first time, and began to teach her sit. And two weeks later at an adoption event, she was the star of show, her coat glistening, her head held high prancing around the store. She was adopted by a lovely couple who we kept in touch with for a few years.

We always thought Max would get jealous of another dog, but we discovered that WE were jealous of the other dog. Instead of greeting us at the door when we walked in, Max ran and sat by her crate, "Let her out! Let her out!" They wrestled for HOURS, never once coming over to investigate my lap or lick my hand. After she left the house I think we were all depressed for a week.

We started thinking maybe Max would be happier with a second dog. So like the good students we are, we did some research, and asked friends with two what the deal was. Somewhat on purpose we timed our visits to places to correspond with adoption events, and occasionally perused the shelter websites. Nothing really clicked.

And then we decided to move, and got pregnant, and a second dog seemed the farthest thing from our minds.

And then Maddy died.

And sometime in mid to late May last year, I came back from a run (sigh), and Mr. ABF said "you HAVE to go see the dog that [our neighbors] are fostering." Turns out our neighbors are friends with an emergency vet, who took in a dog that had been severely hurt in a car accident. Sadly, the owner relinquished him when faced with the bill. (This apparently happens a lot in animal emergency medicine, and I suppose is a good public service announcement for animal insurance.) And there at my neighbors, was the sweetest dog, his leg shattered and rebuilt, missing a few teeth, flapping his tail against the couch when I walked in. "We never foster dogs for this doctor although she asks us all the time," our neighbors said. "But this one reminded us of Max."

What the fuck were we doing? Barely three months beyond our daughter's death, neither of us able yet to get through a day without breaking down in some form, thinking about adopting yet another pet? Wasn't this irresponsible? Rash? Stupid?

Probably. But we did it. And suddenly after three months, I woke up.

For starts, I realized that when we brought Buddy in the house, we'd consciously have to let all the pets know that we still loved them. And it dawned on me (by "dawn" I really mean "hit on the head with a cast iron skillet"), I have pets. I had completely neglected them at least since February if not a bit longer. Max's walks had become fraught with emotion as I hated being in public and running into people. I was a zombie in my home, sleep-walking through my days, mechanically doling out kibbles at the appointed time. But with Buddy in the house, suddenly Tucker jumped on my lap. Kirby (Kirby! Where in hell have you been for three months??!!) started sleeping in our room. And Max developed energy. He wanted to play. He wanted to run. He wanted to show once again that he could retrieve too. I literally felt as though they were all brand new, and I was just discovering each of them for the first time.

Buddy also helped me personally. He needed taken care of, and needed rehab. And so rehab we did: we drove out to the dog therapy pool 2-3 times per week. Dutifully I gave him umpteen medications for pain and infection and swelling, and monitored his gait. When a screw holding the plate together in his leg popped, I drove out to the emergency vet during her overnight hours so she could look at it. We carefully observed him when we realized that his hip wouldn't stay in the socket, and pondered more surgery (we opted no; the hip has formed a false joint. He will likely suffer from arthritis earlier than usual, but we're already taking preventative measures). Buddy got me out of my house, talking to people, and reminded me that really I'm fairly good at looking after dependent mammals if given the chance.

Max is an alpha dog, and I like to say that he'd hump the fridge if he thought it would get him somewhere. I was a bit nervous about bringing another dog in the house, especially one who couldn't agilely let Max know he wasn't welcome, but I shouldn't have worried. Apparently they came to some gentleman's agreement in the yard, and there has never once been a show of dominance although clearly Buddy is thrilled to be the beta. (Gamma, corrects Tucker, nearly throwing up a hairball in amusement.) We knew Max was good with sharing, but I've never been so impressed to walk into the kitchen, see that one of the dogs got Bella's left-over peanut butter and apple dish off the counter (a dish which measures about 5" in diameter), and find them both with their noses in it at the same time. I know dogs who live together who bare teeth in order to claim roasting pans.

Buddy likes to sleep with a headrest. And it's not unusual to stumble upon the dogs somewhere -- on the bed, on the windowseat, on the couch -- lying asleep next to each other with Buddy's head resting on Max.





A year ago, Friday, Memorial Day weekend, our neighbors brought Buddy over, and left him here to become part of our family. Today, we celebrated a year with Buddy with many of the neighborhood dogs (about 15 in total), and even the vet who saved his leg and probably his life.


And quite possibly, our lives, too.

Guts

I posted over at Glow In the Woods today. About Guts. Your guess as to what I mean by guts:

1) the kind that hang over one's my waistband

2) the stuff that oozes out with blood in scary war footage

3) the stuff that makes you brave

4) the tiny voices from within. What, you don't have these?

Freud Would Have a Field Day

I've been suffering from allergies for the past week, bad. Real bad. You know when you wake up and feel like you had a pitcher of 'ritas the night before? Fuzzy, throbbing head? Cotton dry mouth? The need to chug a gallon of water? Yeah, that's me minus the party to go with it. Nothing like a hangover without the table-dancing and embarrassing cell-phone pictures to show for it. I've never had seasonal allergies quite to this extent; usually I'm an itchy eyes, few sniffles kinda gal. It's probably too late to do much about it this year, but next year at the onset I'm seeing someone about some more potent drugs than the standard OTC stuff which a) did not help with the congestion/breathing remotely, and b) made me feel as though I did chasers with my 'ritas.

I'm sure as a result of the completely ineffective pharms in addition to sleeping rather poorly in between post-nasal-drip coughing spells, I had two really weird dreams this week.

I open a door in a darkened house to discover that my mother has hung herself. I run and find my father, and we decide to wait until morning to make calls. At some point Bella wakes up -- she's in a room with me -- and after I explain what happened, she proclaims that she wants to see my mother's body. I agree, open the door, and my mother is in fact, not dead, and is berating me and my father for waiting until morning to make phone calls.

Wow. I'm telling you, this little vignette has so many layers we might as well spread guacamole on it and pass around a bag of chips. I'm actually not too hung up on the Bella part (she's been all about looking at dead birds before I dispose of them lately, and having small little discussions about death. Spring is chockablock with these lovely teaching moments), or the mother not dying part (OF COURSE we did it wrong! What's a mom dream without mom guilt?), but the initial part where she apparently killed herself? What is THAT about? Am I really thinking about my own mother here, or should we do the Jungian thing where everyone in the dream is really me? And if so, huh? OR, does this represent Motherhood, capital M? Am I wary of it's death? Am I killing it? Or is the message here about (some really fucked up) rebirth so to speak (it's just a flesh wound!)? Analysis welcome.

In dream number two, I remember the critical moments clearly, but the rest is very blurry around the edges:

I have a baby. Maddy. She dies. I believe this happens in a field at night. And a doctor informs me that she died before they could do whatever it is they needed to do, and ergo, I need to have another baby. And so I say, "fine," lock myself in a bathroom, by myself, and have another baby, who of course is Maddy. Who also dies, moments after birth right in my arms, but this time a bit more dramatically.

And that's all I remember, so I don't know if they got what they needed or not (I'm guessing no). I'm not sure if this is supposed to be telling me something (about future reproductive attempts?) or if it was just a standard issue deadbaby nightmare compliments of PTSD.

Needless to say, I'm off to try yet another [product placement] allergy medication, blow my nose, and hope these dreams turn into something involving David Beckham.

Myself, My Mother

Charmed had a moving piece recently about how she feels P@ige gave her back her father. That is, without P@aige dying, and her mother flipping out for the umpteenth and final time, she would've never resumed contact with her father. It's an odd gift to come from a dead child who never walked the earth (usually isn't it a live child that finally melts hearts and minds?), but a gift nonetheless.

And it got me thinking about relationships in my own family. So for your reading enjoyment, I'll dissect a relationship I got back, too.

Perhaps "got back" is too strong. My mom and I weren't remotely "lost" (ok, enough with that) like Charmed and her father. We were probably your typical loving mother/daughter relationship with a touch hint plethora of friction, stemming from the angst-ridden ages of 12-17. I realized a few things during my first few months at college when we were all sitting up in the wee hours trying to get to know each other and marvel in each other's backgrounds. One was that now, retrospectively, with a bit of context, my parents were pretty cool. Some of the other stories I heard were decidedly not so much. The second thing I realized, quite belatedly, was that I never really acknowledged all that my mother did for me -- in no small way to make sure I wound up in a better place than her: an English major hausfrau who went back to work during the Reagan years in order that the family might eat and I might attend college. She drove me everywhere (traveling soccer team, violin obligations), bought me nice accessories for my extracurriculars, and all while doing the same for my brother AND feeding us, clothing us, and not denying us such necessary items like turntables (shut up) and attending rock concerts.

Just how much thanks does one owe her mother? And what are good times to ask for and express this gratitude?

Mom also did a lot with the guilt thing. There was always an underlying sense that she wasn't thrilled with what she was doing, and hence the pressure for me to be something better. She realized early on that I respond very well to guilt. She never had to ground me because she could simply look at me and say with just the right tone of voice and just the right dismissive look "well, I'd stay home and work on that paper if I were you." And it worked.

We had a rather contentious five year period there when I was a teen, but I felt it rather melted away when I moved 2,500 miles away to attend college. I suddenly felt free to tell her stuff about boyfriends and whatnot that I never did when I was busy sulking in my room over my calculus homework. And it worked for quite some time.

Cut to my wedding, which was slapped together rather last minute at my aunt's home after we fired a wedding planner (long story). My aunt, obviously being the property owner, and only living three hours away, was as one can probably guess somewhat involved in the planning. So when my mom showed up 4 days in advance, a lot had already been done (phew), and what needed chewed through had to be pronto, without a lot of backing up and explaining how we arrived at the conclusion to use so and so as the caterer, or how we did the math that dictated we needed so many cases of wine. And mom flipped. According to my father, who for some reason instead of telling her to chill told me these things, my mom started down this "she loves {aunt} more than me" road which is hilarious if not ill-timed. And then there were furtive conversations with Dad asking me, "could you just tell your mom you're happy she's here? that she's important to you?"

And I realize I probably should've done this better all along, but IS NOW REALLY THE TIME?? I mean, isn't it self-evident I love her more than my aunt, her being my mom and all? And can we cut it with the whispered conversations already?

And on and on with the ridiculousness, which got so out of control that on my wedding day, as I was getting dressed, I heard my dad call up the stairs and I was so sure given the prior meetings that this was AGAIN about my mom's feelings that I went screaming out the door in advance of him saying anything about how I SIMPLY CAN'T DEAL WITH HER RIGHT NOW! I'M GETTING MARRIED FOR FUCK'S SAKE! CAN SHE JUST CHECK HER INSECURITIES UNTIL TUESDAY WHEN I HAVE SOME SPACE TO DEAL WITH THEM? and emerged to see my father with one of my grad school friends: "um, M's here." (Cut to friend looking at me with Deer in Headlights look. She was apologized to, and bribed with alcohol delivered to her door following this bridezilla episode.)

Cut now to Maddy's birth/death. My parents were here "to help out" which translates into: read the paper until 10 a.m., and agree to "help" with whatever it is I need done -- right after they make a few phone calls, launch a 30 minute discussion about what to do about dinner, and another 45 minute discussion on a movie/art exhibit/political issue they just read about in the paper. Maddy dies. I do what any mother would probably do in the next 48 hours, which is cry a lot, drink gatorade exclusively, cry some more, spend copious amounts of time with my living toddler. To be greeted with a "I don't think you're taking care of yourself" lecture from my mom, replete with airplane/putting mask on yourself before the child metaphor.

Oh, and at least one visit from my father, asking me "could you just tell your mom that you're glad she's here?" met this time by a stream of expletives about just who was here for whom.

Needless to say, when they left a few days later, I decided I needed some time away from them. And didn't speak to them for about two months.

I started up again with trepidation. I simply did not have the emotional reserves to deal with both my own overwhelming depression, and my mother's insecurities. I expected the worst.

And she was amazing. During the time I didn't write her, she would simply sit down and send emails, never asking me to respond, always ending with "call when you're ready. We love you." I'm not sure how she found Jesus in there, but she did. And she abides. And when she fucks up (asking Mr. ABF about the birth of his brother's baby) she apologizes and then analyzes what she did wrong and verbalizes out loud that she'll be more careful in the future. She listens to me talk about Maddy. She asks about her, how I'm doing, if we've heard any news. How Mr. ABF is doing. That she thinks of her. While my in-laws were standing me up at December's memorial service, my mother, 2,500 miles away, arranged her own candlelight service and asked for a picture. On Maddy's birth/death week, they sent flowers, asked us what we needed, and then lit a candle every night to represent her short life. For Mother's Day I donated money to "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" in her honor, and she was thrilled.

I'm stunned. It's as if it took this massive tragedy in order for her to finally just be a mom -- one who just gives without asking, and takes in return simply the love from her grateful daughter. I do know that her best-friend's daughter-in-law is a grief counselor, and it may just be there were some harried phone calls and exchanges of literature in there. But the fact that she took it upon herself to even do that (and I don't know for sure that she did) speaks volumes. She's moved from someone needy to someone I need, she's become an advocate and a shoulder and a comfort.

I'm not sure I'm ready to enable her fantasy about moving to my neighborhood, and she still drones on about movies she's seen (often giving away the critical parts as I check them off my Netflix list with the phone on my ear), but she's been terrific. I guess if I had to do a quicky analysis I'd say: mom tries to make sure daughter winds up ok; mom flips a bit when daughter is independent and no longer needs her; mom comes around when daughter does in fact, need her.

I remember when I had a foot problem around age 11 (I know! Foot problems then too! Clearly a chronic problem) the doctor told her she would have to buy me better soccer shoes. We researched who made the best shoes, and she drove to the one store in Phoenix that sold them, and forked out what was then a fortune for children's footwear. And she poured herself into soccer, not knowing much about it at first, and now she looks forward to World Cup like I do and tapes all the matches, and even confesses that sometimes at halftime she has to pour herself a glass of wine to calm the hell down. She always helped me become better by involving herself in my life to the best of her ability. And she's done it here, too. She's involved herself with Maddy, and with my grief, but in a good way. And I certainly don't thank her enough.