IT IS NOT A STRAY

I had two very different stories rolling around in my brain when I sat down to write today. I’m choosing the less angsty one. Also, I’m too tired dig too deep into what patriotism means to me in this current environment. So here is the second story which sort of explains why I’m too tired to do any deep digging.

We knew something has been coming into the house at night or attempting to because most nights we close the kitchen pet door. We’ve just gotten used to the idea of letting the cat fend for himself at night, but there have been a few nights when we’ve forgotten to close the door. Josephine knows when it is not the cat. She just knows. I mean, she’s a barker. That’s what Schnauzers do, but she reserves her barks for outside. Something is seriously off if she barks in the house. Every time she’s gotten out of bed in the crazy morning hours to bark at the bedroom door, I’ve scooped her up and placed her the bed with a firm ‘wait’. Then I quietly open the door to go investigate and every time, the coast has been clear with the dog door in place. Then I open the bedroom door and Josephine tears out of the room, snarling, grunting and barking through the dining room and kitchen and out to the backyard.

I never see anything. It is all just an illusion or an idea of something, a presence and I kind of feel like I’m going crazy.

Chris, Amy and I decided for our last year in undergrad to move out of the dorms and get an apartment together. We searched relentless for an apartment and finally landed the top floor of a house that had been converted into apartments. It was a total dump and landlord was reluctant to rent to college students. I think the only reason we got the place was because Amy walked into the office with a check for a down deposit before the landlord could could change his mind. Good lord, the work we put into that place. All the cleaning and painting, but it was ours. We bought groceries and cooked meals. We hosted so many breakfast for dinner nights.

Then the mice came.

So many mice.

It started out small, a loaf of bread with teeth marks puncturing the bag. Then we found mouse droppings on a can of soup. Every time we found evidence, we’d clean out the pantry, set traps and then buy new groceries. But things escalated and we’d find the evidence of mice in more than just a loaf of bread or on a can of soup. We threw everything away, completely emptied the pantry and started eating out for all of our meals. Chris kind of snapped when reached this point. There was one evening when we had just emptied four mouse traps. Chris reset them and then we started putting our shoes to go out for pizza. I hadn’t even gotten my laces tied before we heard the snaps of all four traps going off. Chris built a maze out of cardboard and he’d sit in wait for mouse to come out and get trapped in the maze. Then he’d use a can of hairspray and a lighter to make a flame thrower. I don’t know what the result of this was. I did wake up one night to the sounds of him beating a mouse to death with a dustpan.

Shit got dark.

We did eventually manage to rid ourselves of the mice and our lives returned to normal. Breakfast for Dinner night came back, but I have trauma. I don’t just obsess about mice. If I wake up with a bug bite, I immediately start questioning. Is it bedbugs? Fleas? Both? Do I need to clean my house with fire? If I see one mouse, I am one hundred percent convinced that somewhere in the walls or attic of my house there is a whole cast of mice from Ratatouille living it up. So this thing with the our early morning visitor/s is just kindling for my panic fire. We’d finally settled on the idea that we had a stray cat sneaking in to eat the cat food and I was okay with that. Then, at 5:00 Tuesday morning when Josephine barked at the bedroom door and we went through our usual routine, during my initial scan of the dining room, I saw it. There he was, a small raccoon sitting on the bench, inches away from the cat food bowl. I looked towards the kitchen door and sure enough, the pet door had been left open. I looked at him and said “Okay…you have to leave now.” Then he looked at me in a way that said “Are you sure?” I nodded my head and said “Yeah. You need to go.” And he left.

At least I thought he left.

Instead, he and a friend scurried up the wall and tucked themselves into the corner near the garage door. So when I thought it was clear and I let Josephine out, she went straight to that garage corner and started barking her little head off. Getting them out of the garage was not easy. I had to wake up Michael, but did manage to spook one of them out by opening the garage door. The second one, the one who was all “you sure I have to go?”, that one had to be shot four times with the garden hose before agreeing to leave the garage. I guess I kind of feel some relief now that I know what has been coming into the house. They’ve been really nice and polite for raccoons. They haven’t gotten into the garbage or tried opening the fridge. They haven’t pooped in the house. Really, the only evidence they leave behind is an empty cat food bowl. The one I had a conversation with is actually really cute.

EXCEPT THEY ARE WILD ANIMALS!

We’re back to square one, spraying the yard with fox urine and setting the trap. We caught a possum in that trap last nigh/this morning. I have an unopened Costco sized container of fox pee crystals and my next plan of attack is to leave large piles of it around all of the doors. I’m waiting to do this until the night before we leave for vacation to maximize the repellent. If this doesn’t work, well…I guess we have new pets.

Maybe I’ll call them Flim and Flam.

PANDEMIC

12/52

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When I left work on Friday, I headed straight to Aldi to get a jump start on my grocery shopping for the weekend. I had seen pictures of cleaned out stores, but I still was not all that concerned. Aldi was busy, but no more than usual for Friday evening. It did have a look of being marauded. If you needed bread or mushrooms or mac-n-cheese, you were not going to find it here. The canned goods isle was also slim pickings. I still managed to get most of the things on my list that usually comes from Aldi (our groceries are split between Aldi and Trader Joe’s). I made it to check out, got all of my things on the conveyor and then reached into my coat pocket for my wallet. Which was not there. I distinctly remember taking my wallet out of my bag and placing into the inside of my coat pocket. So this meant that my wallet had fallen out somewhere in the store.

My heart racing, I ran back to produce and the grapes. I had bent over to collect grapes that had fallen out of the packaging. That’s where my wallet had to have fallen out. I started lifting up crates of grapes and then I yelled “Has anyone seen a wallet!”. I heard someone gasp and say “oh no.” Then I ran back to check out where the cashier had just finished ringing up my items. By this time I was pretty frantic. I looked at her and said “I don’t have my wallet!” She rolled her eyes and sighed. Then she called a manager to come do an override. As she was doing this, the (very) young security guard walked up to me and said “Mam, what is your name?” I gave him all the names that people call me. Then he very seriously said “Mam. We have your wallet.” Then I turned into June Caprice reenacting any one of her damsel in distress scenes. Groceries paid for, I headed home to eat a gummy and stress clean the house. The next morning, I got back from finishing up the grocery shopping to find an envelope with only my last name written across it. I opened it to find my driver’s license and a note from the young security guard. He had removed my license to find out who the wallet belonged to, but had forgotten to put it back. He had hand delivered it to our home. An hour later, I was at the bank finishing up a refinance that required proof of identification. Reaching into my wallet and not finding my license there would have put a real wrench in things. We left the bank, bought a gift card and a thank you note which I hand delivered to that security guard.

I feel like I am standing in the middle of a frozen pond watching the ice break all around me. Meanwhile I’m standing on my own patch of ice, just floating along and pretending that everything is normal and okay. I am a scientist and I am not too concerned for myself in regards to the coronavirus. I am also not inclined to panic under such circumstances. Yet, seeing the state of the grocery stores followed with standing in the longest line at MicroCenter to buy an external hard drive, one can’t help but feel a little bit anxious right now. At some point during the day on Saturday, I realized that it would have been Chris and mine’s twenty second wedding anniversary. I laughed to myself and asked Chris “where do you think we would have gone this year?” As usual, there was no response. I irrationally think about how some events in this timeline would not happen if Chris were still living. Trump. Disney owning Star Wars and Marvel. The Tesla truck. The coronavirus.

Timelines are built on quicksand.

We have food. And toilet paper. My computer has been cleaned up and photos moved off of the hard drive so that if I have to work from home, my computer is ready. Right now, my little patch of ice is intact and we’re floating along.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Half

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Tuesday evening, I started to feel really anxious about a lot of things. I wasn’t sure if we had enough money to cover Josephine’s vet visit on Thursday. I didn’t know what to do about Easter. Michael’s scooter is in the shop and the repairs have him questioning putting money into this one when he really wants a scooter with a bigger engine. We were sitting on the couch talking about all of these things when I said “I’m feeling extremely anxious.” Michael then asked me if I wanted a Xanex. I told him ‘no’ because I can never get out of bed the day after taking half of one of those things. I wonder if I could just lick a Xanex.

Then Wednesday night, Josephine started vomiting and I was up every other hour with her cleaning up dog puke and letting her outside. The vet appointment for Thursday was for her vaccinations. Instead, she ended up getting a shot of anti-nausea medication and some pills. As of this morning, she was still moping around, drinking very little and not eating. If she’s not any better by the time I get home this evening, I am taking her back to the vet for some intravenous fluids. Her long hair doesn’t help matters because it just makes her look even more sad. She can’t get a haircut until she gets her rabies shot. She can’t get a rabies shot until she’s been off the meds for at least a week. Scheduling for all of these things is making me break out in hives.

And I am still incredibly worried about Josephine.

I have to keep reminding myself that Josephine has done this before. Hemorrhagic gastroenteritis (sounds way worse than it is) is common in miniature schnauzers and usually caused from a bacterial infection of some sort. She ate something gross in the backyard like a dead mouse or dead bird. We just need to be patient and give her a couple of days. I know this, but there’s always that what if part that makes me scared. I have my own fair share of what-if-this-is-worse-then-we-originally-thought moments that turned into not so much a what if as a most definite. Of course my first reaction is to panic, but for some reason, this time around feels worse than usual. I feel like Josephine is more sick this time around, at least she looks and acts more sickly then she ever has before. I feel like I’m more anxious about all of it this time around. I’m on the edge of tears constantly, like the structural integrity of my tear damn is compromised and any minute we are going to witness a catastrophic break.

So where is the silver lining in all of this? Where is the gratitude for this week?

This is definitely a week for digging down deep to find those things. First of all, the vet was not too concerned. She was very relaxed and I felt like she did a thorough exam and took in all of the information that I gave her. Dehydration is an issue, but I can take her in for this if I feel like she needs it. Not every thing has to end in worst case scenario. Let me repeat that. Not everything has to end in worst case scenario. In fact, that statement feels so important to me right now that I might even write on my arm with a sharpie. By the time that sharpie wears off, Josephine will be back to her usual self. That twisting sock feeling in the pit of my stomach will have eased. We can resume our regularly scheduled show.

PEEK-A-BOO

Same but different

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I’ve been reduced to tears of anger, frustration and fear three times this week and it’s only Wednesday. Part of it’s been the election. Part of it has to do with work stuff (the first rule of blog club is to never blog about work). Some of it has to do with holding onto things I need to say but I’m afraid to say because I’m a big chicken. A tiny bit of it is me just feeling sorry for myself. An even smaller bit of that is my disappointment over the ending of the most recent episode of the Walking Dead (WHY DO WE STILL WATCH THIS?!?!). There’s an 80% chance that it is going to snow here tomorrow and I’ve just about got a hole dug out for me to be burry my head in it.

I feel like all the good parts of me have dropped off the planet. My writing is sparse and full of complaints and gripes. My photos are forced and unimagined. My yoga classes are uninspired and meh. I feel like shutting down here until the end of the year. We saw our first Christmas themed advertisement last night and Michael and I both booed the TV. Michael has already started asking me about what I want to do for my birthday in January and I almost told him to just fuck off. I can’t plan that far ahead. I can’t really plan ten minutes ahead right now. We’re lucky that I make up the menu for the week on Thursdays. It’s the reason we have food for this week and meals I don’t have to think about. We’re spending Thanksgiving with friends at a cabin in the woods in California. In my head, I’m already eating an Ike’s sandwich and taking long walks in woods of tall trees. I’m photographing the fog that rolls into Tomales Bay and looking for giant slugs.

Maybe this is where I’ll find those missing good parts of myself.

I’m not giving up completely for the rest of the year. I’ll be around only because I know that writing here keeps me somewhat sane.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Shadows

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I've been fighting a patch of poison ivy on the inside of my left elbow for three weeks. I didn't think it was poison ivy because I hadn't done any actual yard work in ages. I did wrap my arm around a few trees while hanging lights on our camping trip. I assumed they were oak mite bites. This is the Fall time pest that usually attacks me, except the usual remedies that work on oak mites was not working on my elbow. I haven't really slept that well for the last two weeks. I just lay there, scratching. We were in IKEA on Sunday and I walked up to Michael as he was waiting in line at Smaland to retrieve the Cabbage. I pulled up my sleeve and started scratching away and he grabbed my wrist, yanking my arm out and said "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOURSELF?" This caught the attention of the woman standing next to us who was also waiting to collect a child. She leaned over my shoulder to get a closer look as Michael said "you need to go the doctor. That woman thinks so too." 

I turned to look at the woman who was making a face at my arm. She told us she was a nurse and that, yeah...I should go to the doctor. I went to the doctor on Monday and got a steroid shot, which is a first. Usually they give me the pill pack. The first thing I noticed was not an ease in the itchiness, but extreme anxiety. I have been anxious about ALL. OF. THE. THINGS. this week. I have just sat at my desk tapping my feet with anxiety. I even started picking at the skin on my thumb, something I haven't done since I stopped playing my cello. I was fretting about how we were going to pay bills and where we were going to live when the sea levels rise and the two bags of donation clothes that I have yet to donate. Speaking of donations, I was also having anxiety about not being able to give enough money to help all of the hurricane people and the refugees in Syria. Because I'm broke. And holy crap, the lights in Suzanne's lantern will not turn off.

Michael and I had a come to Jesus talk about finances where we came up with a plan to fix the debt hole we've slowly been digging. Then I had a really good talk with my therapist and Thursday morning, I woke up to discover that my anxiety had been replaced with a case of hyperactivity. I danced around in my underwear while getting ready for work, listening to an Arcade Fire inspired radio station. I hit my 10,000 steps early in the day and did six miles in way less time than what I usually do on the bicycle. Then, a coworker asked me if I liked Arcade Fire and I rambled on and on about all the songs she should listen to and oh my god, how did she know I had been listening to that station all day!!!? Today, my arm hardly itches at all and my hyperactivity level is down to about that of a squirrel who is fully prepared for winter: still a little edgy, but not panicking. 

One of the things I talked about with my therapist this week was on the list of things that make me anxious. This would be time. In all aspects. I get anxious about being late. I get anxious about not having enough time. And mostly, I get frustrated in not having the time to do the things I want to do in a day. I told her about how I have lost my meditation practice and that I have half finished writing projects that I want to work on but can't seem to get my time managed appropriately to do those things. She knows that I get on my yoga mat every day and she asked me if I take a moment during my practice to be grateful for being on my mat. I told her that I always ended my practice with a moment of gratitude for the time I spent in my practice. She said that little moments of gratitude like that are like little pats on the back. It's like telling yourself 'good job!' What if I applied a moment of gratitude into those moments just when I sit down to work on something? Whatever that something might be. I am thankful to be sitting down for meditation today. I am thankful for this thirty minutes of writing time. That sort of thing, but to not limit gratitude to tasks you are attempting. Be grateful for the things I did accomplish.

I am thankful for the tasks I have accomplished at work this week. I am thankful for small tasks I have accomplished at home this week. I am thankful for a new perspective on my gratitude practice. I am thankful this poison ivy is mostly gone. I am thankful for you.

(This post is so long! Can you tell I'm on drugs!??!)