M.O.

January 26th, 2012

My super-friend at the shelter and I were having an email conversation after my meltdown on Sunday, and she said, “I don’t think you’re irrational. I think you’re angry. I wish more people were angry and we could channel it, make it into something productive.” And something in my brain went ding. My modus operandi when I’m angry is to seethe, stew, cast aspersions onto everyone (including myself), and curse the world.

But, by design, anger is a motivating emotion—it can drive us to action; that action can be harmful or productive. Like my friend said, we just have to channel it in a positive direction.

I wondered, what productive actions can I take? My thoughts jumped to this Facebook note from the Coalition to Unchain Dogs, which is enormously powerful (the note and the organization). But I immediately got overwhelmed thinking about “the hard work of relationship building and education”. Made me want to stand in the middle of the living room with my hands on my face, which is my modus operandi when I’m overwhelmed.

I backed up. If I wasn’t emotionally equipped to build relationships and educate people right at this moment, what could I do? I follow Carolina Care Bullies on Facebook. A few days ago, I saw that they had pulled a blue and white pit from a shelter but had to leave her sister behind because they didn’t have a foster family for her.

And I fretted, ate compulsively, and scratched at my face, which is my modus operandi when I’m nervous. Three dogs is so many dogs. What if she didn’t get adopted? What if she didn’t get along with Redford or Violet? Could I afford it?

Then I thought about my friend Kate K. Every year, she makes the same New Year’s Resolution: Say yes.

So I said yes.

I'm picking Buffy up on Saturday.

Maybe that can be my new modus operandi: Say yes, and see what happens.

Posted in Animules, Call Me Crazy, First-World Problems | 4 Comments »

Irrational

January 23rd, 2012

So I was pretty hysterical last night when I wrote the last post, and I woke up in the middle of the night several times with half-thoughts that I wanted to get out there.

First, the title “No Reason” was supposed to reflect my state of mind, not the shelter’s motivations. Yes, I am mad at them, but as a third grader is at the nurse who gives him a shot: reasonable enough to understand why it’s happening but still angry about it and misdirecting that anger at the messenger.

My anger should really be directed at the stupid fuck who (most likely) bought the dog and then didn’t parent him and then decided even not-parenting him was too much trouble and put him out on the street. And the stupid fuck before him who didn’t spay and neuter the parent-dogs.

And, I’m very thankful. Thankful to the shelter for taking on this Herculean task of maintaining a reasonable pet population. I also know that the pit bulls they send into the community have to be ambassadors for the breed and that DW might have been detrimental to the cause of bully compassion.

I’m also so grateful for my friend who works at APS who (though she doesn’t even work on that side of the business) kept me apprised of the situation, who fought for me and DW , and who went over to be with him in his final moments, a task I’m not sure I would’ve done had our situations been reversed.

Posted in Animules | 3 Comments »

No Reason

January 22nd, 2012

Two weeks ago, I had the kids write short autobiographies. I told them that they should include some of their strengths and accomplishments but that readers also want to hear their struggles, challenges, flaws. “That’s what people can relate to,” I said. As usual, I wrote a piece to use as an example. One of my struggles is I get overly sentimental about dogs, I wrote. I explained how I feel really sad when I hear about dogs being hurt or put to sleep.

One of my students piped up, “That’s what they do at the shelter. They be killing dogs for no reason.”

I practically leapt at her. “The Durham shelter takes in over 6,000 animals every year, and fewer than 1,500 get adopted. What are they supposed to do with the rest? How are they supposed to take care of them? They do the best they can. They put down the ones that can’t be adopted. Not for ‘no reason’.”

On Thursday, my girl inside Durham APS called because she had the whole story on DW. He had shown a lot of problems in the temperament testing: along with the barrier aggression, wildness, excitability, difficulty following commands. They said he would have to go to a one-dog family, but with the heartworm diagnosis, they weren’t going to keep him around long.

He needed someone to walk into the shelter and say, “I have no dogs right now, and what I’m looking for is a black pit bull, preferably with issues. Behavioral and medical, if possible.” No one did.

I asked them to reconsider; could I please foster him? They said no.

On Friday afternoon, they put DW to sleep.

I was headed out of town with some girlfriends for the weekend, so I swallowed hard and wiped my eyes. I went and lifted heavy things over my head at the gym, and then I put my emotions in a box and locked it in my house here in Durham. My friends and I drove up to my childhood home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We tried on my high school prom dresses, ate Mud Pie at Pepper’s, giggled at gaudy things in the antique mall on King Street, and hiked the Boone Fork Trail.

Then I came home, and when I unlocked the door, the box expoded open.

They killed my boy. Not for no reason. For lots of reasons. I know there were lots of reasons. And I know they know so much better than I do about these things, but I loved him. For lots of reasons.

I’m so sad.

I’m so mad. At them. At myself.

I can’t believe he’s dead, and I can’t stop hugging Redford and Violet, and I can’t, can’t, can’t get the lid back on the box.

Posted in Animules, Learnin' 'Em Kids | 6 Comments »

:(

January 18th, 2012

What’s Making Me Sad:

DW’s foster situation is not working out. Apparently, he’s shown some “barrier aggression”. “What does that mean? Fence? Crate?” I asked my girl inside.

“Yes, something like that, but they didn’t tell me exactly what,” she told me. He stayed in the crate at my house just fine. I wonder what happened. Can spending a couple weeks in a cage at the shelter made a dog squirrelly?

Also, he has heartworm. Treatable, but expensive.

So many strikes. I hope it’s not too many to get him adopted, but I have a bad feeling that it is.

Posted in Animules, First-World Problems | 2 Comments »

Phonemic Awareness

January 17th, 2012

Me: (pointing at a word on his paper, “suselieng”) What’s that spell?

Student: Um… (can’t read it himself, tracks back a bit)… sibling.

Me: What vowel sound do you hear in “sib”?

Student: …

Me: How would you spell “sib”?

Student: …

Me: How would you spell “pin”?

Student: P-E-N.

Me: No, “pin”, not “pen”. How about “pit”?

Student: P-…I?-T.

Me: Perfect. So how would you spell “sib”?

Student: S-…I?…

Me: (making a /b/ sound)

Student: T?

This is a sixth grader whose mother had him removed from special ed services this year.

Posted in Learnin' 'Em Kids | 2 Comments »

They Have a Dream

January 16th, 2012

Last week, I showed all my sixth graders Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. We discussed its historical context and the impact it had on the Civil Rights Movement in this country. I gave them the assignment to write their own “Dream Statements”, a few of which were chosen to be read at our awards ceremony for last quarter. Some of the kids wrote deep and moving pieces about domestic tranquility and global change. Some of them wrote the following, which are profound in their own way. [Vocabulary words are in all-caps. I didn't tell them to include them, but I'm glad they did. Though I need to review a little bit with Tobias.]

Cayla: I have a dream for the world to meet people not judge a color by it’s book.

Bongani: I wish I could meet Obama not with his bodyguard like I really want to touch with the bodyguard touch me or stuff. [My family] will like nobody to get sick no more. We will except for me no more baby.

Hillary: …without bullys and fighting i wouldn’t be all shy. This would allow more HARMONIOUS work to happen! It would make me ECSTATIC!

Callie: As a country we need to decrease our death average. I don’t necessarily want everyone to have peace with each other because of course we’d all collapse but at least of whos life your taking away, or who your harming. Think about all the pros and cons, or just dont do it.

Layla: My biggest dream is there to be less crazy people, and what I mean by that is teens and school shootings, parents hanging and raping and droping babys off of briges.

Gabby: I do not be jugged by my hair.

Brandon: …in my dream, everybody puts a weapon into a spaceship and it goes toward the sun, and it just disintegrates because it gets so hot.

Nelson: Since I started 6 grade I want to be somewhere around Americas crime rates. Just something that will help the nation incredibly…I want them to decrease not increase. Less people are getting kilt, less drugs sneaked around in our nation.

Siarra: I dream too, that my New born nethew is going to grow up healthy, safe, and Atheletic.

Jay: I will have enoght money to buy a ferreri. but befor that happens I half to go to a good collidg.

Kalim: When I grow up I want to be a good Basketball player because you can Learn a Lot from Like Hit three Point, Layup and Free thorw I aslo want to Past collge so I can g a Degree

Tobias: I have a dream that I am very successful in life. Three of those things are get into a good college and be SCHOLAR[L]Y. Also [for my family to] follow there dreams and be successful and have a AMIABLE life.

Jeremiah: I Have a other dream that people [don't] call me mexican when Im not…I want my family to stop getting in my bisness my love bisness too.

 

Posted in Learnin' 'Em Kids | 3 Comments »

DW Update

January 14th, 2012

My girl inside has been sending me reports about DW. First thing, she told the front desk people and the vet techs at the shelter to keep an eye on him because he was special, and they were like, “Everyone says that about every dog.”

They put him in a cage for the requisite five days to give the owner a chance to claim him and then spent more than a week doing tests of various sorts: heartworm, temperament, whatnot.

Another friend of mine who has been considering adopting a dog went in to see him earlier this week. He wasn’t done with all his tests at that point, so he couldn’t play, but she saw how cute and lovey he was. Her concern: “I’m not sure his head will fit through all the doors at my house.”

On Thursday, APS of Durham dubbed him Grayson—come on, he’s not an English lord, for Christ’s sake—but whatever, they posted him on the Adoptable Dogs page! Which I may or may not have visited every other hour.

Then last night he was gone. I looked and looked, but I couldn’t find him. At shelters, Friday is often kill day. I frantically emailed my friend: Where did he go?

She said she didn’t know but got on the horn this morning to find out.

What’s Making Me Happy: One of those vet techs found my little guy irresistible and pulled him from the shelter to foster him until he gets a fur-ever home.

Posted in Animules, What's Making Me Happy | 4 Comments »

Lucky in Love

January 11th, 2012

The fortune-cookie fortune that rides around in my wallet, occluding my face on my driver’s license photo, says, “Look for the dream that keeps coming back. It is your destiny.” I think I put it there two years ago.

The Independent Weekly ran this horoscope for me a while back:

Even if you’re not sick, you need some medicine. What kind of medicine? The kind that can transform what’s pretty good about your life into something that’s really great; the kind that will super-animate your merely average efforts and blast you free of any lackadaisical attitudes you’ve come to accept as reasonable. This medicine won’t come in the form of a pill or a potion, but rather will be produced by your own body if and when you slip away from your comfort zone and go out to play in the frontier. Be your own doctor, Libra. Break your own trance. Crack your own code. Escape your own mind games.

It’s been on my fridge since May 2008. I moved last year; it must’ve come with me from Hillsborough. I don’t know—sometimes these newsprint divinations, these cookie runes, they speak to me, and I just hang on to them.

As I was tidying up the other day, I found a fortune on a very dusty dresser that said, “You will be lucky in love.”

And I scoffed. I did.

I said something like, “Psh.”

Being 36 and single in this society makes one feel decidedly unlucky in love.

But I really am trying to be more thankful these days, so I thought, OK, what if I take romantic love out of the picture? If I take romantic love out of the picture, I’m a leprechaun-rabbit’s-foot-four-leaf-clover-heads-up-penny in love.

See, there’s my family: my dad, who is my greatest advocate (and provides much amusement); my mom, the offerer of sage advice, even if she doesn’t remember giving it;  my sister/best friend; my brother-in-law, of the Magic Lawnmower Sauce and other timely rescues; my brother, the shifter of paradigms; my sister-in-law, an unsuspecting classmate at Carolina who I badgered for seven years to marry my brother before she finally gave up and did (I must tell that story sometime);  and their progeny, including a nephew I got for Christmas! (When I told a co-worker that, he did a double-take. He thought I said I got an Eff You for Christmas.)

And then my friends, who make every day awesome, who inspire me and make me laugh, who know better than me, who let me stay at their houses even though I can be a disaster of a house-guest, who do silly things with me, who like me despite my being self-absorbed, impatient, and mean-spirited. …I could link/name-check all day. If I didn’t link to you, I’m thinking of you, and if I haven’t yet written about you, there’s a very good chance I just haven’t figured out how to express how dope I think you are. Man, I love you fuckers.

And of course, two of my very favorite people, Violet and Redford, who I love so much it sometimes startles me.

I’m pretty sure all these people and dogs love me back in equal measure, but even if that ain’t the case, I suppose I’m lucky in love regardless.

Lucky in love. Lucky to love. Same difference.

Posted in Animules, Datin', Fambly, First-World Problems | 6 Comments »

WMMH

January 9th, 2012

I sometimes listen to NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, and the panel ends the show each week with a round of What’s Making Us Happy. As you can probably intuit from the title, they go around the table and name a thing or two (usually a TV show or concert tour or something) that’s giving their lives a little bit of joy. I’ve had some anxiety and depression and overwhelm in the last week (ran out of one of my amino acids; also, I prefer not working to working, but my job preferred that I go back to work), so I thought I’d try to psych myself out of it by accentuating the positive. Who knows? This might become a regular feature.

Here’s What’s Making Me Happy:

I’m doing really great on my New Year’s resolutions.

To wit, my friend invited me to go shopping (thanks, Michelle!), and I have worn actual clothes when I wanted to wear actual sweats several times. I even took two pairs of pants to a tailor to get them hemmed. That’s, like, some Carrie Bradshaw stuff.

I’ve flossed a time or two and made my bed daily.

I’ve engaged in no Facebook debates. Indeed, I’ve expressed nary a political leaning nor a religious dubiety, even though I wanted to post this cartoon real bad when I saw it:

I repeated things to myself that I said to the beasts (even though it feels embarrassing to say, “I love you, Violet… I also love myself,” even when alone in my house).

I went on a first date with a man and scheduled another with a different man, though the latter had to be postponed. Due to a sick kid. I’m probably going to be a stepmom.

Most importantly, I very much reduced my intake of refined sugar. I had some chocolate mousse on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and a piece of cake and two cookies on Saturday. I didn’t wait until after 7:00pm that day, though. But considering that I got the piece of cake at noon and waited until 4:53 to eat it, I’m calling it a victory. In addition, Sunday included French toast with syrup, which kind of fits in the dessert category, but, really, what’s a brunch buffet without the French toast course?

(Again, this might sound like a lot of sugar to you, but I assure you, for me, it’s a smidgeon.)

Naturally, the glutenful weekend, together with my job preferring that I get up at the ludicrous hour of 6:00am, has made me one sleepy girl today. But that’s not what we were talking about. We were talking about What’s Making Me Happy.

Now. Let’s talk about What’s Making You Happy.

Posted in Animules, Datin', Gluten Freek, Learnin' 'Em Kids, Random | 9 Comments »

Bona Fide Southerner

January 5th, 2012

You know, I was born here. In North Cackalacky. I was born here and raised here. My mailing address was a rural route and box number (until high school when they changed it all for 911 purposes…and even then it became Old Highway 421—is there a redder-neck-sounding road?). I went to Carolina. I hated Dook with an appropriate passion.

But I always felt a little like a fraud. My parents were Yankees. I had been to Bulgaria by the time I was six. My family was not Southern Baptist. I’ve still never shot a gun.

So I’m pleased to tell you, I cooked collard greens in pork fat for breakfast this morning.

Where do I go to pick up my ID card?

Posted in Cookin', Fambly | 8 Comments »

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