One of the problems with blogging...

...is that it tends to take the place of regular journaling. Of course, you can write anything you want in a journal (unless you have a little sister in the house who will find it no matter where you hide it). You ought not write anything you'd like on your blog.

If you blog a lot, you find that you often "blog while living...." sort of writing posts in your head while doing things throughout the day. Obviously all those real-time creations don't end up in the blog. Probably almost none of them do.

So when I get the urge to post something...unwise. Or something that with ultimately make me look rather...pathetic...in the long run. I just sit down at my computer and look for the music and links that I might use in such a post, and after about a half hour, I'm content.

Then I run off into the sunshine, happy to have "posted" my frustration out, but pleased with my restraint.

and there you go.

Feeling the wind through our ears

I go through these weeks that are sort of foggy. It seems like things are clear. Seems like things are under control. Then one day, BING! Thing will be really clear, and it will be obvious I've been rather out of it for quite awhile.

This evening was one of those sessions of clarity, where I suddenly started cleaning house and only then realized things were cluttered (that morning it had seemed quite spiffy to me), made dinner and realized I had lots of options (whereas before there had been "nothing to eat"), and brewed myself a pot of tea, dusting off the teapot I hadn't used in weeks.

So odd.

Who is the playtoy? Kitten or dog?

There is nothing bouncier than a newly washed dog.

The magic of a towel

Cats are odd. I've had a cat bed kicking around for a number of months that no one much cares to sleep in. Last night the cats were seriously peeved because I had not one but two litters of kittens running around before they went off to foster homes, and there was hissing, growling, and general discontent, so I set up a few alternate sleeping spots. Cricket was going back and forth between two open windows, obviously unhappy, so I put the unused bed on the table near one window.

Her sneer was nearly audible.

I went in the closet and pulled out a cat towel and laid it over the bed. She immediately straightened, looked extremely pleased, and stepped right in.

Glad to make you happy, Cricket.

Non-statement of the month....

Sometimes I wonder who thinks up these things.

The fair had planned to include Jackson in a buttery display celebrating the lunar landing in 1969, but word of their plans prompted complaints to fair officials. They responded by putting the issue to a seven-day online vote.

The result released Friday wasn't close - with more than 100,000 votes, Jackson lost 65 percent to 35 percent.

Voters couldn't comment about the reasons for their stands, but fair spokeswoman Lori Chappell says earlier complaints focused on Jackson's lifestyle.

And, um, maybe the fact that Michael Jackson has absolutely NOTHING to do with celebration of the lunar landing? I'm sorry, but the moonwalk is really not a connection.

This unhappy man is dead, people. Throw "Thriller" on your vintage turntable and let him finally rest in peace, okay?

The lesson of the morning walk

Pre-post declaration for the benefit of family and friends: this is NOT a post of angst. Merely one of reflection.

One of the benefits of having a young dog is being forced to go for hikes. The dog technically can poop in the yard, but without regular exercise, they turn into little bundles of frustration and non-compliance. A happy dog is a tired dog.

Sadie was Mark's dog. When we were in West Danby, we had a fenced yard, and regularly scheduled walks weren't required. When we moved to Spencer, there was no fence, just a long quiet country road. So Mark took Sadie for a walk, every morning.

Now that I am walking Molly, it has been a beautiful revelation to see the seasons unfolding. Every day there is a new flower blooming. Some days it is chilly, some days hot, some days breezy, some days raining. I always return from the walk glad that we took it. While sometimes it's rough to get going, the walk itself is always great. Sometimes I run into neighbors, and we chat. Sometimes our walks coincide. I make Molly sit when cars come by (in anticipation of her one day getting loose and needing this "come-and-sit" obedience), and the local travelers appear to have gotten used to this.

Mark used to ask me to come along on his Sadie walks. Now and then I did, but I'll bet in eight years I can count those times on two hands. While I still don't believe that any change in our past would have turned Mark into a "I'll stand by your side through storm and illness" type of guy, I do think that, had I said yes, and we had walked every day, this might have given us the opportunity to share our frustrations and dreams, and perhaps he might even have opened up and blurted "I'm unhappy."

Maybe yes. Maybe no. I reflect upon it simply so that I can keep it in mind for the next time around, should there ever be one with another person.

There were always reasons for not joining him. When I worked at IC, there were limited hours to get up, get showered, dressed, and take care of the cats. I could have gotten up earlier, but I chose not to. Once I had my "career job" I was leaping on the computer in the morning to catch up.

I assumed there would be times in the future for walks. I was wrong.

After Mark walked out, I used to stand under the stars at night in the road, as I did my late-night cat check, and think "You know, he never was out here to stare at these stars, and hasn't fallen in love with this place like I have."

But now, having gone for these dog walks, I realize that he had a different connection that I never had myself, walking along our road each and every day. He had that connection but gave it up anyway. So I guess I need to give that one up as an answer, and also need to surrender my conceit that I knew our environment better than he did. I didn't. He walked daily, mowed the fields, etc. etc. He knew what he was walking away from probably better than I knew what I was keeping when I stayed.

So, with my lesson learned, I want to pass it onto my friends.

If you are sitting there in your daily life, realizing that you probably haven't spent as much time with your spouse as you ought to but "damn, I'm really busy, and he/she knows this, and there will be time in a few months, and I know he/she would tell me if they were unhappy..." well, don't count on it. If you have any regrets at all that perhaps you aren't being the partner and friend you ought to be, I suggest you reflect on that feeling now, rather than later. There may not be a later. I thought Mark was surely the kind of guy who would say "This is a problem...this needs to change." You may be similarly certain.

You may be right. Or, we both could be wrong. Why put things off the way I did?

Again, I'm not certain that this would have made any difference at all with my past relationship. I expect that at the end it would not have, but maybe, five years ago? Who knows, and it's too late anyway.

FILE: under "Lessons learned."

STATUS: enjoying my newly mown and raked lawn, on a gorgeous sunny Sunday.

I've opened comments

People can now post if they don't have a Blogger account. Sorry! I didn't realize I had that setting checked.

I am a Facebook whore...

...and have abandoned my poor blog readers. There's something nice about being able to post only one sentence a day on Facebook and have people know you are alive. You know...if there is no Facebook post for four days, and someone will come and make sure I'm not decomposing on the floor. But the fact is, a lot of people have been reading my blogs for a very long time and aren't on Facebook, and aren't going to get on Facebook. So there you go.

Blogs are about audience. If you don't write with at least a little bit of concern for your readers, well, you won't have any. Facebook is about connections. Twitter, as far as I'm concerned, is about marketing (personal or business). You have a Twitter account to promote yourself. (I have a Twitter account because for work I sometimes need to follow someone who is Twittering, but I don't post there at all). You have a Facebook account to reach out and be reachable. Once upon a time, both the roles, plus creativity, was what drove blog writing. But blogging takes work.

Facebook doesn't. It's an internet room where you get to see what your friends are up to in just a few clicks and a few minutes a day. Every once in awhile I'll take a quiz for the fun of it, but I don't play the games, swap the plants, etc. etc., mostly because I don't have time. I just want to see how everyone is and stay in touch.

My phone has rung when my "one sentence of the day" has sounded down-and-out to a friend, and I myself have done the same. I've found myself in face-to-face friend time after touching base via Facebook. For some reason when people read my blog, if they wish to contact me, they send an email. On Facebook, people ring my phone. Even from across the country.

But Facebook isn't my blog. Blogging is my first technic love, so I need to find time for it. Besides, on Facebook, photos are just albums. In blogging, they are part of the story.

It's quite catchy, too!

Here's the story.

I don't know why I'm not blogging

It has been an odd spring---now summer. While rainy, the weather has been kind. I don't like 80-90s type temperatures, so this long period of 70s weather has been blissful to me. It means the cats aren't sweltering in the cat facility, and the dog can go with me in the truck on cloudy days.

Life comes and goes. A catbird just stopped on the porch with a beak full of moths to feed her young. I feel no particular sorrow for them--just pleasure at seeing the catbird so closely. But then this particular moth arrives injured, spending his last days on my table, paralyzing me with the decision of whether or not to mercy-kill such a beautiful and large creature. It's not like squashing a fly spinning on the floor. Beauty and sadness together.



I've fallen into a rut of just listening to whatever is on the radio. This weekend I forced myself to choose some music rather than letting the top-40 spoon feed my audio to me. Supertramp is wailing from the other room, and earlier the Indigo Girls helped rouse me from this stupor I seem to be in.

When I'm uncertain about what's going on in my life, I've discovered that moving furniture is rather like having a cup of tea with a quarter-shot of whiskey. It's not really medicine, but it makes you feel better. I moved things around in my bedroom. I also ran across a maple table for $25 at a neighbor's garage table that goes well with my antique chairs. I scratched the hell out of the floor dragging it in the house, but I'm repainting the floor, so no regrets.

The round blonde table can go upstairs. For some reason I just can't do paperwork on a round table. Go figure.



The lawn was very nearly out of control because I was traveling for work last weekend. I managed to hack it into submission this weekend.

Travel with Dog

I'm traveling this weekend, and because I'm not flying I brought Molly along. She thought getting to sleep in bed with me was VERY cool. She curled up at 10:00 pm and didn't budge until I got up at 6:30 am. I was concerned she would be up and down and might pee on the carpet, which is the reason she sleeps crated at home. Well, that and the fact that Ivan and Ditzy would be very upset at sharing the bed with a canine.

She was a perfect princess at the Eastern States Hedgehog Show. When she was crated under the table, she never made a peep. She didn't bark or whine once during the entire show, and she thought the children were WONDERFUL! She wasn't sure about ferrets, and she thought hedgehogs were very cool. She sat on a chair behind the booth and other than a few out-of-control wigglefests, she was great.

Making her sit on a chair was a great discovery. Wigglefests are limited in scope when the dog only has an 18x18 pad upon which to wiggle, and she didn't try to jump because she had some height advantage. I remembered to bring a tape-roller which was a good thing. I had to do some fur removal from the chair at the end of the day.

If I can keep her out of trouble until she is five or so, she is going to be such a great travel dog!

She loves the outdoors, so camping with her wasn't a concern. After all, there is no problem if she pees in the campsite. I was very worried about the hotel experience, and I needn't have been. She did bark and whine once or twice while left in her crate in the hotel room when I went to the truck, the front desk, and the hotel internet station (since my laptop objected to the hotel wireless). When I arrived at the hotel room door and heard her whining, I told her "no" through the door, and waited outside for at least five minutes to make her her silence was permanent. Then I went in, let her out, praised her, and took her for a walk.

One learning moment was when I realized that she would have to be walked immediately upon waking in the morning. So I'll need to invest in a sweats rather than pjs or a ratty t-shirt to sleep in, because she's not going to be able to wait while I shower and dress, and I'm not going to parade around the outside of the hotel in plaid flannels or oversized conference t-shirts, thank-you-very-much.

There were two other dogs at the conference: a long-haired chihuahua and a pomeranian. Funny to have Molly to be the biggest dog there.

June is Goat Trauma Awareness Month!

Spread the word.

How I feel after four days of rain and two more to come...

And that, my fair friends, is sweet Hope, caught at a bad moment by Cary, her loving adoptive (and foster) mom, who of course has no shame and shared it for me to embarrass her cat internationally.

Quote of the day

Seen on a t-shirt in a video, worn by The Skunk Whisperer.

"I handle wild animals for a living. If I am running...KEEP UP!"

Love it.

Take two kittens and call me in the morning

I think it may be time for a 100,000 mile tune up. I just posted--and deleted--two paragraphs of whining about my health. Posting about my health is something I swore I would never do in public. So HA, you don't have to endure that, you lucky things!

The kittens have reached the "Gawdawful cute" stage. They are fully weaned but are having a hard time giving up a bottle at bedtime. I'm afraid I give in, because then I know they'll sack right out until morning. I'm out of KMR after tomorrow's bottle, so they may have to grow up and be big kittens.

I AM so tempted to whine, so I'd best just shut this down, curl up, and limp off to sleep.

Late night baking

Aren't tired of rhubarb yet?



Alice sent me a link to this rhubarb coffee cake. It's WONderful. And I did not wait for it to "cool completely before serving." It's already after midnight, and no way am I waiting until morning. I'll have some then, too.

Meditating by the fire

Hmmmm...

This was supposed to be a thoughtful post about sitting around the fire, and making decisions about my next steps.

But it is now 12:04 am and I am just too sleepy.

ZZZZZZzzzzzZZZZZZ

Molly earns her keep

I'm not sure why I got a dog. I guess because it "just happened"...rather like the cats that come into my life (and, hopefully, go out again, into someone else's).

One rationalization was that I would be forced to get out and about, because unlike cats, dogs do not take kindly to being ignored. I can't keep her stuffed in a crate all day, or tied up, so we go for walks.

Well, you can only walk up and down your own road, or up the hill, "X" many times before things start looking exceedingly familiar. So I've been running errands after the blaze is off the sun, so I can take Molly with me without her frying in the truck. In a quick trip to Owego yesterday in search of cheap Tiki-torches (so the bear doesn't fall over me as I sit in my side yard at night), we stopped at a park in Owego, to visit the stony creek. Much to my surprise, there is a nature trail there.

I had no idea.







There were far more human artifacts than natural ones. An old house. A railroad bridge (in use). A small sand and clay bike jump (complete with graffiti-covered bench).



This whole area--and much of Owego--was underwater during the flood a few years ago. My truck would have been four feet underwater where I parked, and I'm guessing this ribcage was washed against the tree far over my head when the waters receded. Whether it was mere bones then, or a dead deer, I can't guess.



I expect to spend the summer finding other places to explore now that I have a furry little midget staring at me with a waving tail that says "I'm bored I'm bored I'm bored I'm bored!"

what do you think?

I think they may be calling me.

Watching paint dry...

Who said it was boring? I can't imagine a better way to spend a beautiful May afternoon.



It seems like a number of the most unpleasant tasks I've been putting off were sitting on my front porch. The bird poop on the cushions of my porch chairs. The unpainted stand I picked up alongside the road for free. The pile of kitten-pooped towels that need to be shaken out and washed. The porch table that needs to be moved out of Molly's reach so she doesn't climb up it, launch herself off over the rail, and hang herself (which she nearly did the other day. Dogs! Stupid humans--me!)

I've been ignoring them all for awhile.

I took a great course in college with Richard Creel. It was on B.F. Skinner and how all we were (as selves) a product of our environment, period. When we discussed whether or not free will could exist in such a state, Dr. Creel pointed out that you could choose to change your environment, and therefore change yourself.

;)

So if I am not completing Task A, B, and C, the thing to do is undertake Task D, which will force me to complete the first three.

So today I picked up a gallon of green semi-gloss porch paint and...painted the porch.

Which meant the poopie towels had to be picked up, the table moved, the cushions may as well get scrubbed off, etc.

So here I sit an hour later, watching paint dry.

And yes, that is my glass of wine on the railing that I have painted out of my reach. And no, I did not wade through the garden to fetch it from the other side. I did indeed pour myself another little glass of wine.

Because I am, at heart, a lazy girl. And I really want to enjoy watching my paint dry.