Alabaster Mom

I was deleting emails from my in-box this morning and it occurred to me that I really need to unsubscribe from Graco, Babies R Us, and One Step Ahead. I've been on these mailing lists since my kid was a wee lass. I'm still mildly traumatized from the day I unsubscribed from Carter's mailing list. In just three months, Her Highness will be 10. Double digits, yo.  ( And are we quite sure that she definitely doesn't need any onesies???? ) Right now, she has a friend over for a sleepover. Every time I poke my head in the room to see how the girls are doing, I hear things like, "Mom alert!" and "Good-bye!" Now, just wait a second here - I'm so uncool that an alarm must be sounded when I come in range? Geez. In the morning, the kid and I are headed to a pet expo out of town. I'm volunteering with the Boxer Rescue booth and she's volunteering at the reptile booth. I probably won't even see her for most of the day. And she's already t...

I just finished watching the new documentary " Night Will Fall ," an HBO film about the Holocaust (it's actually a documentary about an unfinished documentary, which will make more sense if you get a chance to see it). I caught part of the documentary on my Kindle while at the gym. I was paddling away on the elliptical as I was watching these horrible atrocities playing out on the little screen. I chose a machine that was tucked away in a corner of the gym. That way, no one would walk by and think, "What on earth?"  I then watched the rest of it at home. I made sure my daughter wasn't around, as I felt like nightmares would surely ensue. "Night Will Fall" is definitely worth seeing.  It should almost be a requirement. I wonder if there will ever be a time when the horror of the Holocaust becomes less sharp. I mean, I have seen many films about the subject (and have visited the Holocaust museum in Washington DC) but I never fail to be horrified an...

I finally got a chance to see the movie "Selma" the other day. I was out of town for the weekend and since I had some time to myself, I thought I would catch a movie. I also had a movie theater gift card from work (Christmas gift) so it wasn't going to cost me anything. I thought about going out to dinner but I had an inkling of what might be coming with Duncan so I mostly wanted to be alone.  (Well, alone in a theater full of strangers, but you know what I mean). What I will probably always remember about the movie is that the teenager who sat three rows in front of me  had a mohawk.  This was no ordinary mohawk.  This thing was about ten inches tall. Every time his head would swivel back and forth, I got a new view of it. And I mean to tell you that not one hair moved. Not one.  It was truly a sight to behold. I don't know what sort of product he put in there, but I think it was a close cousin of cement. The movie itself was amazing, of course. Just knowin...

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:    And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest! Duncan crashed over the weekend. The paralysis in his forelegs (caused by some sort of damage to his spinal cord) rapidly spread to his rear legs as well. By this morning, he could no longer walk at all and was completely miserable. The nerve damage was progressive and irreversible. We had planned to run some tests this morning but once Duncan took this tragic turn over the weekend, the tests became a moot point. Dr. B called me with the bad news. The decision to euthanize Duncan was devastating but also clear-cut. Dogs typically do fine with three legs. Some even do fine with two (through the use of doggie wheelchairs). But no working limbs at all? That one's a deal-breaker. And so it was that I left work and headed to the clinic to say good bye to Dunk. Nearly 900 dogs have passed through our rescue. There were just four dogs that I gave some serious considerati...

I am sorry to report that my foster boy, Duncan, has taken a nosedive. Duncan (AKA Dunk, Dunkie, Ho-Dunk-Po-Dunk, Ba-Dunk-a-Dunk) came into rescue as a stray. His right foreleg did not (and does not) work.  Other than that, he seemed to be okay. The challenge with a stray is that I don't know his true age and I don't know what his "normal" is. He's never been a big eater (at least not in the three weeks he's been with us). He's not terribly active. However, Duncan manages to get around pretty well and seems like a pretty happy guy. I've been very taken with him - his big googly eyes just make my heart go all gooey.  The young, healthy dogs are easy to place, easy to let go of. The broken ones . . . well, not so much. The more I have to invest of myself, the harder it is. In the past few days, Duncan has not been himself, whatever "himself" is. He's been stumbling a lot and has been hesitant to get up and move around. He just picks a...

It's true. I have another blog. It's set to private, though, so no one can see it but moi.  I am just trying to work out some stuff and the writer in me is compelled to tackle that challenge via the written word. However, I am not comfortable sharing it and so, it stays private for now.  Hey, it's cheaper than therapy, right? I haven't been posting much on this blog because, well, it's January. I think we can all agree that January does not have much to brag about. At work, I don't have another holiday until May. The days are pretty grey. And long. And hum-drum. While we wait patiently for spring, the kid has decided that it's high time we start talking about her birthday (which is 3 1/2 months away).  She's already working on the list of kids she wants to invite to her birthday party. Oh, how it annoys her that she has to suffer through her dad's birthday (in January) and mine (in February) before we can fully focus on the most important birth of ...

When I was a freshman at Texas A&M at Galveston, I scarcely ate for the first day or two because I was too scared to find the student union on my own. I just hung out in my dorm room, eating snacks from a vending machine. I've always been a little bit fearful about meeting new people and encountering new situations, and I'm not what you'd call a great conversationalist.  To this day, if I'm not sure how to keep a conversation going (or how to end it gracefully), I sometimes just look down at the floor, wander away, and hope the other person is not offended. Today, 26 years later, I'm slightly less introverted than I was then. Having a career that requires me to work directly with clients has helped a lot. Plus, now that I'm middle-aged, I simply care less about what other people think. If you dropped me off on that college campus today, I would loudly proclaim my hunger and then ask for directions to the cafeteria. No one would hear the end of it until I h...

I've now been a rescue volunteer for 15 years. That seems crazy, doesn't it? I think all rescue people are probably a little nutty. I mean, I suppose one must have to be a little off to take in dogs that strangers have abandoned and then let them wreck your house (the dogs, not the strangers).  When I die, if no one can think of anything to say about me except, "well, she did save a few dogs" . . . well, I'm okay with that scenario. I'd prefer that they remember my rescue work instead of my horrible singing voice, questionable driving skills, and iffy fashion choices. I picked up a new foster dog on Saturday. He was a stray so he needed a name; the kid named him Duncan. I'm embarrassed to tell you where she got that name. If you have a kid in your house who plays Minecraft, you may be familiar with a dude named Stampy Longnose. Stampy has made something like 45,654,870 Minecraft videos. Anyway, Stampy has a dog named Duncan. A make-believe dog, I mean. ...