-Steve Jobs

I’ve always liked the word, “dogma”, because it has the word, “dog”, in it.  I’m an animal lover and I gravitate toward animal lover words.  This is one of them.  I never really knew what that word meant; actually, I never bothered to look it up until I heard Steve give it that slight definition. I also like the word, “catastrophe” and Kitty Q lives up to that definition daily.

Here’s a little word story about “dogma” that I found when looking it up:

Word Story
At the turn of the 17th century, dogma entered English from the Latin term meaning “philosophical tenet.” The Greek word from which it is borrowed means “that which one thinks is true,” and comes ultimately from the Greek dokein  which means “to seem good” or “think.”
The origin of the word dogma  acts as a reminder to English speakers that now-established principals and doctrines were once simply thoughts and opinions of ordinary people that gained popularity and eventually found their way into the universal consciousness of society. 20th century American academic and aphorist Mason Cooley concisely observed that “Under attack, sentiments harden into dogma,” suggesting that dogma is spawned as a defensive act. This idea implies that for every dogma that exists, there is a counter dogma. With so many “truths” out there, there is sure to be a dogma to conveniently fit every set of beliefs.

I hate being on the defensive but I will recognize that this is truly what happens when we stand in the results of other people’s thinking/beliefs/unified principles.  I have my own unified principles and they rarely waver.  Oh, sure, I can give and take within compromises but, as truth resonates so do the challenges in life’s daily bread.

“Every day is a winding road… I get little bit closer… Every day is a faded sign… I get a little bit closer to feelin’ fine…”

-Sheryl Crow

Whether it’s politicians, bosses, spouses, parents, kids, the po-po, religious leaders (I use the term, “leaders” loosely), or rock stars… We are all standing in the results of someone else’s thinking in one way or another. This is why I sometimes feel like I’m screaming at the top of my lungs to hear my own inner voice.  This is also why I have over 4, 000 songs on my iPod and employ them loudly and generously during my daily commuting.

The whole, parenthetical quote from Steve Jobs goes like this:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

There’s a grammatical error in there and I soooo want to fix it.  My inner voice won’t let me.  It’s a quote, for God’s sake; leave that shit alone.  But I can never just leave well enough alone now, can I?  Nope.  I always see stuff and want to fix it.  That’s just me and, even though that IS me, I still want to fix it.  I’m a fixer.  It is hard work and I seem to grind my fingers and mind to the bone with my constant, incessant, strategically looking for solutions bullshit. It is break time: sing songs loudly, pound the drum slowly, beat the heart madly.

So, I resolve to take my dogma from my dogs: I will live a simple life and revel in simplified solutions and concern myself with nothing more than a whiff of the wind, a good meal, a long, cool drink of water, and love as unconditionally as possible.  I refuse, however, to concern myself with the cat’s butt.  I have my limits.

My own inner voice tells me to live in love and kindness and truths that flow through me as naturally as pork chops and applesauce.  My own inner voice wants to finish that Sheryl Crow song:

” I’ve been swimming in a sea of anarchy
I’ve been living on coffee and nicotine
I’ve been wondering if all the things I’ve seen
Were ever real, were ever really happening”

‘Cause every day is a winding road and, while I get a little bit closer, my Dogma ate your Karma, dude.

There ya go.  Find your own slogan(s) and roll wid it.

Life is good.  Life is grand.  Life will go on… and “…death is the destination we all share… Death is very likely the single best invention of Life.  It is Life’s change agent…”

May we all die a thousand deaths while clearing out the old to make ready for the new.

I humbly accept.

Spotty.

Anyway, when I was a kid, we used to go to what we called, “Cobb Mountain in Pine County” for our summer vacations.  As an adult, I’ve found out that it’s not actually called Cobb Mountain in Pine County; it’s Cobb Mountain in LAKE County.  The name of the place we stayed was Pine Grove Camping Resort.  I guess it’s kinda like when you’re little and you call your friends by their first and last name and sometimes you get that a little mixed-up once you’re over 40.  Or so I’ve been told…

The first time we arrived on Cobb Mountain in Pine County, it was dark, really dark, and late by our standards, probably around 8-9PM, and we were tired, cranky, and sick from the smell of eating Cheez-it’s.  Anytime one of us would feel a little car sick my mom would break out the Cheez-it’s.  To this day I can’t stand the smell of someone else eating those things; makes me woozy.  My dad-the-cop, Mr. Drivewithbothfeet, pushed his phallic, all-engine-no-backseat, Oldsmobile Tornado to the limit up that curvy mountain road to the point that all of us felt like we were astronauts without the advantage of full-body seatbelts and the disadvantage of slippery, leather seats.  I’m pretty sure this is how I first learned to surf.

Our friends were already set-up in a cabin and getting ready to go to sleep.  We shared beds with the kids and the adults, well, I don’t really know what happened to them but I think it involved cocktails.  I’m guessing our arrival was an impromptu thing and we didn’t have a cabin yet but they all just said, “Hey, that’s okay.  Just stay with us!”  That’s how it felt to this 9 year old tomboy who was itchin’ for a summer excursion.

The beds had been well used as our neighbor-friends had been flopped into them for a week prior to our arrival.  The sheets were covered in sand/dirt and smelled like musty, swampy-kid. There were two swimming pools, chlorinated and not (creek water!), the “crick” and lots of hills and forest and fields to run in.  Most kids didn’t even bother showering.  They’d simply go swimming in the pool and that was enough to both clean-ya and turn your hair green.  I had a lot of trouble sleeping that first night because, princess and the pea that I am, I just could not get comfortable.  I could feel every grain of sand, every bit of dirt, and a creepy, stinky, night-air moistness on those sheets.  It was the kind of thing that never allowed the bed to get warm as the itchy wool blankets simply held the moisture in.  As soon as the sun went down on the mountain, the shadows creeped with red-eyed critters and the cold, clammy feel of those sheets was almost unbearable.  I slept in fits.

The next day, I was up with the sun and out exploring long before the snore wore off the cocktail-spent parents.  I ran into Stevie, the boy who lived down the street from us, and he was holding a water snake in his hands.  I remember he was showing off how he caught it when it suddenly bit him on his index finger.  It hung there like a viper and he screamed and swung his arm around in an attempt to shake it free.  It would not let go until finally, I hit it with a stick.  Stevie was crying and bleeding a little from the tiny puncture wounds in his finger.  He took off back to the cabin to rudely awaken his cocktail-sodden parents.  I was more worried about the snake and went to check on it.  It had slithered away, shaken but not really hurt, and was hiding under a log.  I felt bad and thought all the other snakes knew I’d hit it with a stick so I’d best watch my feet for the rest of the day.  Even as a kid… I was unnaturally superstitious.

It’s so funny what you remember from when you were a kid.  I don’t remember eating.  As an adult, almost all of my adventures involve some kind of elaborate meal and I remember that quite readily: where I went, what I had, the server, how much I spent, etc…  Memories of eating when I was a kid-not so much but I do remember the barbecues and eating things roasted over an open fire.  As far as breakfast, or any other regular ol’ meal, I don’t remember a danged thing.  I do, however, remember always feeling hungry.  Adventure, the mountain air, and swimming all day will do that to ya.  And here’s another thing: graham crackers.  They were always so good when I was a kid but now?  They taste like cardboard to me.  What’s up with that?

Later that day, I had my first introduction to “The Cold Pool.”  There was a huge, chlorinated, L-shaped swimming pool at this resort.  There was also a “baby pool” which no self-respecting kid would be caught in and where I re-confirmed that poop does indeed float.  The Cold Pool was off to the side and had cold, icy-cold, creek water pumped into it.  It also had water snakes, centipedes, spiders, moss growing on its bottom and sides, and slippery stairs.  *shudders*

Okay, so, the thing to do was to swim in the regular pool, where the water was the temperature of bathwater, then go jump in the cold pool for a refreshing, delightful, and totally jarring experience.  No one told me about the critters.  It was a very scary proposition as you couldn’t see the bottom of the pool and everyone knew it was icy-cold and more of a dare than a swimming experience.

The day my friends and I decided to jump into the Cold Pool was the same day that the boys had been collecting water snakes in buckets all morning. Us girls, on a dare from the boys, pulled ourselves out of the warmth of the bathwater, ran to the Cold Pool, and jumped in. As we were swimming around, feeling the icy-cold creek water in our bones, the boys dumped at least four buckets filled with water snakes into the pool.  Our screaming and squealing could be heard throughout the resort, causing parents and lifeguards to come running to our aid.  We could not get out of that water snake swirling pool fast enough.  The boys stood in the shade of an oak tree, pointing at us and laughing their asses off.  The lifeguards saw them and ran after them.  They scattered to the hills but were eventually caught and banned from the pool for the rest day.  That’s it; one day.

I remember plunging into the pool, coming up for air, and then watching some boy dump something in a bucket into the pool.  I had no idea what it was until, suddenly, I saw squiggly-swimming water snakes headed straight toward me!  I think I drank a gallon of water while screaming and swimming as fast as I could to the edge of the pool.  I was up and out of the water in what seemed like a giant, mermaid, fishtail stroke and turned to watch the mayhem.  There were at least 8-10 head-bobbing girls trying frantically to get out of the snake-infested waters.  To this day… it gives me the creeps and makes me laugh out loud.  It was funny but not.  Sometimes, I have dreams about it and I wake up shivering cold or shivering freaked-out. 

That kind of shit stays with you.

Stories like these make me wonder what the kids of today will remember in the dreams from their childhoods.  Most of the stuff kids do these days is play Nintendo, watch TV, and play more Nintendo.  There’s not much imagination in that and certainly doesn’t make for a good story.  I remember buying a bunch of camping equipment but we could never bring ourselves to actually do it because we had one bed-wetter, one fidgety-fitful-kid, and one autistic-never-know-how-he-would-react kid.  Being stuck in a tent with these kids was never my idea of a “vacation.”  There was no relaxin’ in that situation but I guess that’s just part of it, eh?

So, God bless my parents for braving it, even if it was in cabins and they were juicing it up with the neighbors while we ran all over the mountainside. 

And jumping into pools filled with water snakes…!

by what happens to me,

I refuse

 to be reduced by it.”

“Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.”

 ”History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again”

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. “

.

The more I read, the more convinced I’m becoming…

I am reading that Buddhist teachings apply to everyday living as well as intimate relationships. Indeed, there is no separation between the awareness of how we breathe, think, talk, eat, walk, rest, work, play and the awareness of how we relate to others and to all sentient life.  We are all a little *touched*.

 *As we team to bring attention to whatever we are doing, we find that all of life is a form of meditation.*

I took that directly out of the book.  There is simply the experience of the moment, and our task on the spiritual path is to be engaged fully in whatever is happening right now, without judgment or expectations.

That is one huge, freakin’ meditation.

*We come to realize that happiness, pain, sadness, and joy are the passing winds of our ever-changing experience, closely aligned with our identification with our mind and thoughts. As our mind becomes quieter, we are more able to attune to the present moment, which allows us to see into the heart of things. We come to accept that for everyone, life is unpredictable, difficult, and wondrous. This, in turn, allows us to cherish, forgive, and love on this imperfect human path.*

Huh.

I get that Buddhism is more about experience than beliefs. There is no concept of a supreme God –no father, mother, or unseen being out there, guiding us, controlling us, comforting us, or giving us a hand to hold. There is also no one judging us, or telling us we are right or wrong. Rather, there is refuge in the teachings, and the support of our community of like-minded brothers and sisters. We gauge the clarity and goodness of our actions through attunement to our heart and mind, asking if we are being guided by kindness and compassion in all things.

I just read in these teachings that couples are full and equal partners on the path of awakening, joining together, learning from each other, yet each on our own journey. Buddhism embraces the belief that all life is sacred and interconnected. That underneath surface behaviors and thoughts lays the essence of being, a unifying force that flows through all of us. I so believe this… for better or worse.

As a recovering Catholic, I really like that Buddhism has no concept of sin. Rather it embraces the belief that we harm others out of our own unconsciousness or ignorance. If we were fully awake we would experience that to harm another is to harm ourselves, and that to harm ourselves is to harm another. There is no separation. As we come to fully understand this, we become less reactive to others and respond without fear or malice in our hearts. In these paraphrasing, I find comfort versus guilt.  I sometimes berate myself and think I should be smarter than that but I concede I am not.  To me, it seems like that’s a big step toward forgiveness and the ability to move on.

 Emptiness is form, form is emptiness: we are all connected

This concept, which lies at the heart of Buddhism, asserts that everything is made of emptiness. Said another way, there is a unifying energy that underlies all life. At our deepest level, we are essence — the universal I Am. I so relate to this but we also live in a physical body and have a set of beliefs, values, and expectations that we have adopted. Unfortunately, we often identify with these beliefs to the exclusion of experiencing our essential nature which some people may call Source, God, Spirit, All That Is, or Essence.

To be at peace with ourselves and to create intimacy, we need to connect with our deepest essence and realize we existed prior to all these learned thoughts, habits, and beliefs we adopted. If we peel back the thoughts and perceptions we have learned and try to find something solid to identify with that is uniquely who we are, something that goes beyond conditioning, we find that everything dissolves and we drop into essence. There is simply nothing solid we can adhere to that defines who we are. This is frightening and freeing — frightening to our mind and ego, freeing to our heart which wants to experience love.

Paradoxically, it is through this emptiness that we find our wholeness and experience love, because there is nothing in the way. We are completely unified.

I get it: God (whatever) is love.  Those sayings of, “Let go and let God” make sense from this perspective even though I have no idea what “God” is or how to define that exactly.

We can extend this idea of unity to everything in our daily lives. In his commentaries on The Heart of Understanding, Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “Everything contains everything else.” He uses the phrase “inter-are.” We are the clouds, the water, the forest, and the earth that is contained in the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink. We also are permeated by the vibration of touch, voice, laughter, kisses, smiles, frowns, etc…

Everything becomes a form of energy, moving and shifting within us and between us. It is only an illusion that we are separate. As we become conscious of the deep level of “inter-being” with all people, we become exquisitely aware of the importance of being mindful of our behavior and words.

The four noble truths:

*These truths show how we create our own suffering through our attachments, expectations, and demands that people and situations be different than they are. By examining our attachments, we see the numerous ways in which we try to control others instead of accepting them as they are. *

The first noble truth is that suffering is inherent to life.

The second noble truth asserts that we suffer because of our attachments — our craving, clinging, and demanding.

The third noble truth is that Nirvana — equanimity, peace, and cessation of craving is possible and available to all when we cease our attachments.

The fourth noble truth is that there is an eightfold path that leads to being free of attachments. They often are called the signposts to being on the path. They include Right Understanding, Right Aspiration, Right Action, Right Speech, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Concentration, and Right Mindfulness.  

I have learned that when someone appeared not to like me, it meant they were attached to my being different, not that I was bad. Similarly, I discovered that when I felt impatient or angry, this reflected my attachment to someone behaving differently. This was oh-so-very-hard for me to accept on so many levels but I truly feel the truth that lies beneath it.

I learned that my conditioning and expectations created my turmoil, not the words or actions of the other person.

The belief that we do harm out of ignorance doesn’t take away our responsibility for our actions but it suggests that we might better explore the pain or needs beneath our behavior rather than judging ourselves harshly or sinking into shame. This awareness is a key to changing relationships because it removes all levels of blame and shame and helps to realize that everyone is just doing what they are conditioned to do.   As a *pick myself up by my bootstraps kinda gal* I would have called bullshit on this but I see the truth in it.

To love better and feet more openhearted and unified with others, I’ve started to notice my own attachments to thoughts and behaviors. Whenever agitated, upset, angry, mad, or hurt, I find I have an attachment to something being different than it is or I’m simply afraid of the outcome. I am resisting the “what is” of the moment. I realize this as creating my own emotional state.

I remember learning about how we attach things like validations, praise, affirmations, etc… to the things that happen within our lives.  I was at some stupid Forum thingy and the gist of it was that we form our emotions around the things that happen based on how we learned to deal with them as children.  It felt like a crock of shit, at the time, but it stayed with me for some reason.

What I learned was that we decide what those emotions will be, based on our history with the person(s) and how we’ve reacted in the past during the formation of our emotional selves.  I took this as meaning of our emotional intelligence through learned behaviors. 

I learned that no one has the power to make me feel anything; I decide, coherently or incoherently, how to feel.  I walked around for days saying things like, “You don’t have that kind of power.”  Or, “I can’t make you feel anything you don’t want to feel.  I don’t have that kind of power.”  I guess those were my baby steps toward personal accountability though they were rudimentary of thought and feelings.

I’ve learned that, as I loosen my attachments to those kinds of things, my mind will actually quiet down and I feel more attuned to others; the attachments don’t disappear, but I begin to see them for what they are — the chattering of a conditioned mind. When I actually step back and ask, “Now what am I demanding that’s making me so upset?” I become witness to the unfolding drama of my life. I start to see it as a passing show; kind of like watching a movie. I am in it but not of it.

Let me say that again: I am in it but not of it.

Sometimes, I think I would be much better off if I just stood in the fact that it’s just none of my damned business what someone else thinks of me.

“It’s a habit of yours to walk slowly
you hold a grudge for years
with such heaviness, how can you be modest?
With such attachments, do you expect to arrive anywhere?”
-Rumi, “Bismillah”

Experiencing lovingkindness.

My religion is kindness. -Dalai Lama

Wishing: in gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease…
Let none, through anger of ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
So with a boundless heart
should one cherish all living beings.
-Buddha

I truly believe that, when two people fully open their hearts, wanting only the best for each other, they ease through the boundaries of their separateness. I believe this is the essence of lovingkindness as the Dalai Lama so eloquently states.

I just read that the foundation of lovingkindness is bringing an unconditional friendliness and acceptance to ourselves. We realize that everything is part of our nature and there is nothing to reject.  Man, that’s hard to remember and practice on a daily basis.

Kahlil Gibran (one of my favs) writes in The Prophet:

 ”In our giant self lies our goodness, and that goodness is in all of us.  Lovingkindness is like bringing a vast embrace to all we are and feeling the radiance at the center of our being.”

According to what I just read, it is from this place of self-acceptance and expansiveness that we feel steady, natural, and unafraid. When lovingkindness permeates our being, we are so transparent and at ease within ourselves that anger and hostility have no place to take root inside. Once we experience the wonderful expansiveness of lovingkindness, we become highly attuned to the constricting nature of holding on to grief, anger, hurt, loss, etc…  This resonates with me and sets calm upon me but it doesn’t seem to last because of that old conditioning.  I’m workin’ on it!

I believe that one step toward experiencing lovingkindness comes from immersing myself in my own life, following my heart and giving fully to whatever called to do. (Hello: Pisces and giving in nature does not have to be a bad thing!!)  In doing this, I feel it allows me to cheer completely for others as they come into their power and find their path. I see this in my management style on a daily basis.  If I stand in the shadows of my life, shrinking from the vast possibilities before me, I find myself at times uncomfortable around people who fully explore their own potential.  You know, like, say, Oprah.  Ha! 

I stand in awe as if I don’t deserve any more than what they have achieved or what they stand in.  Then I realize I am making comparisons which is constricting.  God… the constant reminders!!   And then I realize I need to cheer for me as much as I cheer for others in my life.  I will, and I know I do this, expect so much from others that I will stand in disappoint which can be cause to ruin a perfectly good relationship.

Physician: heal thyself and…. For God’s sake… read more Buddhist traits!!

And there I stand, on this fine Saturday, reading, musing, absorbing, immersing, and totally in my head as I watch the snow melt in the sunshine of another beautiful day.

Reminders are all around me in appreciation of this life’s’ journey.  There is no map, no secret corridor to happiness yet there is love that I cannot deny.

I’m gonna go immerse myself in it.

Peace.

I am not afraid of loving, I am afraid of forgetting I loved

and so I leave my naked body to the evenings, to the

breeze of a September night not too far away from winter

leave my kisses to the yellow and red butterflies

to allow them to fly in my absence

leave my passionate poems to the rivers

so that they could recite them to passers-by

leave  my scent to old lovers

leave my fantasies to those I saw once

leave my secrets in between the pages of books

leave the pavilions of laughter

and weeping pavilions side by side

leave all the blooming trees to my dreams

so that they can remember that happiness

is in the legs of nature, that silence can be as painful

as love, that love smiles but is never satisfied,

is happy but never for too long, like the stranger

in your bed who speaks to you as if she knew you, loved you

knowing she will never see you

and who are we after lovemaking, after every lover?

Are we still afraid of what love might mean to us?

I speak of we for those who feel the way I do

I do believe I must leave everything of me to someone, to someplace

so that they could remember to me

…

I walked around for a week exclaiming, “Can you FEEL that humidity?  MMMmmm-Mmmm.  Can you feel that?”  Now that I’m back in The Burque’, I’m walking around complaining, “Good Lord it’s dry here!!” and then I zap myself on a dog, or a doorknob, or someone’s lips.  Kissing is dangerous in the Desert Southwest.  In fact, touching anything is dangerous.  One Spark; One Love; One big fat ZAP!

This morning we were roused by the usual (Charlie running across our bladders.) and lazily filed into the kitchen for breakfast.  I made toast and Cream of Wheat.  I made a point of talking about how much iron is in the cereal and my little Iron Men ate it all up.  I told them it was good for them and would help them get their chores done quickly. 

Dead Silence.  The “C” word works every time.

Then the following conversation ensued:

Gabriel: “Shawn’s been telling an awful lot of blonde jokes, Miss Natalie.”  (He’s always trying to get Shawn in trouble.)

Shawn: “I have NOT!  Miss Natalie?  Gabriel’s lying. He’s the one who’s been telling blonde jokes!” (Always in competition with his brother even if it means getting into more trouble.  Not the brightest box of peroxide on the shelf.)

Me: “Yes you have, Shawn.  But they’ve been pretty funny. It’s cool.  You’re not hurtin’ my feelings.”

Shawn: “Yeah, but Gabriel’s been telling blonde jokes, too.”

Gabriel: “No, Shawn; I AM the blonde joke.”  (Delivered in a perfect deadpan tone.)

Angela and I burst out laughing because, you see, this is so very true.  He IS the blonde of the group.  However, he IS a Smart Blonde.  Charlie is a Smart Blonde, too.  They make the perfect dynamic duo.

The boys are now doing their chores and to illustrate his Smart Blonde mentality, Gabriel has devised a little game.  He calls it Speed Sweeping.  He bet his brothers that one of them was faster than the other at sweeping up the leaves.  His brothers are heavily engaged in a contest while Gabriel has retired to the restroom.  (The best legitimate excuse for sitting and waiting it out.)

I may just hire that kid….

Hahahaha!

Yep, Situational Leadership at its finest.

My little Smart Blondes:

Not until March.

That’s my prediction.

After a long, long, long day of (feeling like) not getting anything done, I decided to stop at Albertson’s and pick up a few groceries.  I am a total glutton for punishment.  I went in for cat food and milk and came out with Lucky Charms, Key Lime pie, bananas, and a whole bunch of other crap.  I was hungry and annoyed to the tune of $95 bucks.

I’d parked next to a big-ass, bright yellow Hummer.  It was parked askew and I’m pretty sure the owner didn’t give a damn because he drives a big-ass-look-at-me-bright-yellow-Hummer.  This was definitely someone from the Entitlement Group of NIMBY IDon’t Give a Damn about You Unethical Barely Human Beings.  Don’t ask me how I know these things… I just do… It’s part of my Piscean charm.

What happened next confirmed everything.

It turns out it was a family of EGONIMBYIDGADAYUBHB’s.  I loaded my groceries into the car and then attempted to get in.  Suddenly, their passenger door swung open and just about hit my car!  I caught it before impact and glared at the woman glaring at my hand on her precious bright-yellow-obnoxious-Hummer.

No words exchanged between us; just glares from two sides of the coin. 

I pushed the door away from my car and said, “Excuse ME!”  She just glared and shut the door.  I then got into my vehicle and attempted to back up.  She opened the back passenger door and grabbed a small child by his upper arm and lifted him out of the bright-yellow-monstrosity.  If not for the smallness of his size, I swear she would have broken that arm considering the way she jerked him up and out of the back seat.

As I was backing up, I observed her pulling the little ones pants down and could hear her shouting, “PEE!  NOW! ” I then saw a teeny-tiny stream of yellow squirt onto the chrome step under the big-ass-bright-yellow Hummer.  “NOT ON THE STEP, YOU IDIOT!”

This…to a three year old… Just perpetuating the dream, I guess.  Teaching her children well… *drips sarcasm*

I rolled down my passenger window and glared at her.  She turned around, saw me, and said, “WHAT?”  I just shook my head and drove off.  I looked into my rearview mirror and saw her flip me off.  What a charming member of humanity, well, no, member of EGONIMBYIDGADAYUBHB.  Probably voted for Sarah Palin (and barely knows who John McCain is…) ‘cause she’s purty.  Not that I’m profiling, or anything.  *drips more sarcasm*

People… Never cease to amaze me.  And… I gotta go with my gut more often and chose better parking spaces!!

Welcome Charlie.  Lulu was very, very lonely and bugging me to death so…

I went out and found her a new friend.

He’s quite the character but loves Lulu to death and she really, really likes him, too.  And I can actually rest when I come home versus all that walking, talking, wrestling, playing ball, and entertaining of pets.

He’s a lithe, little thing but fierce when he wants to be.  I found him on Craigslist.  A woman was trying to re-home him because she had too many kids, two cats, a husband, a job, and Charlie was just too much for her.  He has some manners and we are working on that daily.  He sneaks into my bed at night and I don’t even know he’s there.  Except for the hair.  *sigh*  He and Kitty Q are working out their relationship: he chases, Kitty Q hisses and scratches.  This morning, however, I caught Q trying to rub on him.  Uh huh. Coupla tough guys… my patootie.

By Day 3 he was *Home* and acted like he’s lived here forever.

And that’s what it will be…

Forever.

I heart Charlie.

I had a little cold and was getting over it but then came the controlled burn.  The city of Santa Fe has been covered in smoke for a week.  Wednesday was the worst day and I’ve been hacking up a lung since.

The President was in ABQ this week.  No biggie; didn’t have any effect on me. The Balloon Fiesta started this week and more people were worried about the effect on traffic, etc… That didn’t happen. The Vice President, however, caused the freeways (both ways!) to be shut down while he toodled around town.  I’d just worked another 12 hour day and was driving home and just barely got into Albuquerque when we all just… stopped.  I sat there for almost 35 minutes just… stopped.  I didn’t know what was causing the stoppage but, once I finally got home and found out, I was hoppin’ mad.

Almost makes ya wanna vote Republican.

Almost.

I’ve been spending more and more time with Angela and the boys.  There is cereal in my pantry, once again, and I’m going through milk like crazy.  Such as it is… This morning I got up and made a bee-line for the box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, poured it in the bowl, and added milk.  As soon as the milk hit the bowl, something odd popped up to the top and began moving around.  It was a strange looking little grasshopper-thingy.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  It looked kinda mid-western-corn-ish.  Creeped me out and made me want to call the *800* number.  They are only available Monday-Friday.  The weekends are reserved for TV commercials and selling crap to kids in anticipation of Christmas.

I caught the bug and put it in a baggy and tossed it with the entire (new!) box of cereal.  Then I dumped the cereal and milk over the back fence into the arroyo.  My garbage disposal isn’t working.  Well, no, wait; my garbage disposal works but the electrical plug doesn’t.  What a sudden and most inconvenient dealio.

Ever since the Bo debacle, I’ve had bugs coming into the house. 

*sigh*

 The Bo Debacle.

He was attacked through the fence by the (new!) Pitbull next door.  His ear was torn off, he had multiple puncture wounds on his face/neck, and he was just crazy-nuts.  It wasn’t the Pit’s fault.  Bo had gotten crazier and crazier over the last several months and he actually went after her.  He’s the one that tore up the fence.  He’s the one that stuck his head through and started the fight.  It was awful.

I came home after a particularly long work day and found my newly painted walls and freshly cleaned carpets/furniture absolutely covered in blood.  I had no idea what had happened.  I thought Bo killed the cat (no lost love there) and drug him around the house.  It was like a scene out of CSI as there was, and I kid you not, blood spatters on every wall, droplets of blood all over the floors, and long, blood-smeared trails throughout the house.

Then I saw Bo, with his head covered in blood, his little chest caked in dirt and dried blood, and his paws looking raw and bloodied.  The long, blood-smeared trails on the carpeting were from him rubbing his head on the floor.  The spatters were from him shaking his head.  It was on my walls, my pots and pans, my couches, my TV, my everything.

I walked into a scene from a nightmare and had no idea what to do next.  I called Angela and she came right over.  I was worried that the scene would really disturb the boys and it did.  I put Bo in the sink and gently cleaned him.  Angela started on the carpets.  It was overwhelming.  I called my neighbors and they came over and saw the damage.  They were very apologetic.  We had just talked about fixing the fence and I’d bought some lumber and other materials but we just hadn’t gotten to it yet.  

This is when I started to go into breakdown.  I just couldn’t believe what was happening and the amount of blood in/on my house.  Angela and the boys left (it was just too much) and there I was, standing in the midst of chaos.  The doorbell rang and my neighbor was standing there with a Rug Doctor.

Thank God someone took control because all I could do was sob.  He and his wife came over and we cleaned my house until one in the morning.  They were very sweet to do that and I don’t know what I would have done if they hadn’t.  They felt bad because it was their pit that caused the damage to Bo but, really, the dogs were just being dogs (although Bo is/was crazy) and we bonded over the whole experience.

The next day I put Bo to sleep.  It was time. 

He had gotten out over the Fourth of July weekend and Mojo followed him.  Someone took Mojo and I haven’t been able to find him since.  (I’m pretty sure my asshole neighbor took him and sold him.) I’ve been heartbroken.  Then Bo kept getting out.  Daily.  He was running around the neighborhood and being just nuts.  So, I said goodbye to him and took him to the shelter.  That was really hard.  I hoped he would get adopted.  He spent 12 days in the shelter and did get adopted.  Happy ending, right?  Not so much.  A little over three weeks later, I was taking the train to work and checking Craigslist to see if anyone found Mojo, and there was Bo; “Found Dog.” 

*sigh*

So, I went and got him and brought him home.  He was covered in ticks, really, really thin, and totally out of it. He didn’t even recognize me at first.  It had been a terrible experience for him.  I felt so bad.  So, Bo was back home and I nursed him back to good health.  But he was still crazy and getting nuttier and nuttier.  He started nipping at the boys and fighting with Lulu.  I think there was something seriously wrong with him.  He may have been hit by a car, who knows, but he wasn’t the sweet boy I knew anymore.  Then, after tearing up the fence and the bloody carnage episode, I knew he would just continue to get worse and would eventually get killed/hurt and, well, that’s no way to go.

I fed him whatever he wanted, took him to the park and let him loose, and then we drove over to the veterinary office.  She slipped him a mickey to keep him chill. I loved him up, held him, and gently put him to sleep.  He had a good life with me and the last two years have been his best.  In his previous life, he was beaten and yelled at and generally abused and neglected.  I’m glad I could give him that and, while I miss his sweetness, I do not miss his crazy.

*sigh*

It’s been a rough couple of weeks.

I’m still finding blood spatter.  Most of it came up but it covered just about everything so I guess the bugs are finding what’s left.  Gross.  Really Gross.

I’ll be spraying and cleaning for weeks.

It’s quieter now.  The Balloon Fiesta has started and Bo used to go nuts over the sounds of the balloons overhead.  Lulu doesn’t even notice it.  The cat knows Bo is gone for good because he’s actually started to sit with me on the couch.  He never did that when Bo was here.  It’s amazing how much the energy changes when one thing is no longer there.

Lulu is lonely and driving me bonkers.  I’m just not ready for anymore animals.  One dog and one cat is fine for now.  I may eventually get another dog as a companion for Lulu but not now.  We’ve all got too much going on to start with another dog and that wouldn’t be fair.

Life goes on…

In Memoriam.

First of all, the most interesting things I see are usually either just coming into or just going out of Santa Fe.  The most interesting things are usually things on the fringe on the fringes of the city.  I remember that people I know in Albuquerque used to say, “If you want to drop off the planet, you’ll land in Santa Fe.”  There’s a lot of oogly-boogly stuff going on up there but it’s interesting, at the very least, and certainly more entertaining than most things I see in Albuquerque.

Last week I saw two guys hitchhiking.  They wanted to get to Las Cruces.  Both were wearing brightly colored Tams, army jackets, dirty, weathered jeans, Chuck Taylor’s, and wildly-colored scarves draped around their necks.  They both had long dreadlocks and scruffy beards.  They each had over-filled backpacks.  One of the backpacks, I swear, had a recorder sticking out of the top (I mean, really, who plays the recorder anymore?) and Tibetan prayer beads hung on what looked like a cell phone cover.  The other guy had a guitar strapped to his back that looked uncomfortable because I think his hair was stuck in the tuning nuts.

I was stopped at a stoplight and they were walking backwards, not yet to the corner, trying to catch the eye of any driver who might possibly pick them up.  When they walked by my car, I smiled at them and they turned their thumbs up from their working sideways position.  Oh, yeah; thumbs up!

And then I smelled them…

It was a mixture of very strong patchouli, sweat, cigarettes, and skunk weed.

Whoooooo-Weeeeeee-Baaaabyyyyy!

Really, though, the weirdest thing was that both of them were wearing army jackets.  They kind of looked like two, single white males, in copycat uniforms who got out of the service and went crazy by going in the absolute opposite direction of their previous uniformities. 

In reality, they were just two dudes lookin’ for a ride after spending a little time in The City Different.  I never see hitchhikers in Albuquerque.

Only in Santa Fe.

Then…

Just before crawling up La Bajada Hill, I saw a guy in a truck, hauling a horse trailer, pull over and unload his horse.  The horse backed out, stomped around on the side of the road, took a big poop and a pee, and then loaded back into the trailer.

When you’ve gotta go; you’ve gotta go.

They caught up to me somewhere around Bernalillo and both had funny-looking, horsey grins.

Four days after I purchased my new car, at 6:10AM in the morning, the dude in the big white truck in front of me, appeared to be falling asleep at the wheel.  I honked and flashed my lights.  I was trying to save a life, people…

How did he repay me?  He swerved onto the median and kicked up a shitload of gravel.  Right onto my new car.  I mean, it was like a hail storm only louder and more menacing.

I was so mad that I lost my cool and zoom-zoomed up next to him and gave him the finger, called him an idiot (and a few other choice words) and then zoom-zoomed past him.  I swore all the way up the hill.  I was so mad I threw myself into a hot flash.

That woke me up more than ten cups of coffee but had the same, mellifluous effect: nuthin’ like havin’ to pee only twenty minutes into your commute and at least twenty more minutes to the next pit stop.

I’m learning a lot along the way…

1.  Drink your coffee while on the road and not before.
2. Stay back at least 144 feet in case some guy sprays you with gravel.
3. Watch the fastest cars for when they brake: there will always be a state trooper parked in waiting within 5 seconds of the flash.
4. Don’t have your windows down at stop lights.
5. Even horses have to stop ‘n go.
6. I have no idea how that cowboy knew to stop for his horse and, by golly, I wanna know how he knew.

The stories get better from here but that’s a start.