You know, our kids learn stuff in crazy ways. And sometimes, life just hands us a very effective teaching tool. Now, “That’s not fair!!!” happens to be one of the most annoying sentences in the English language, at least in my viewpoint. And as you have probably guessed, I have one child who says that in response to every suggestion, directive, or instruction he receives. Last night, he was playing xbox with his sibs, and I told him he needed to let someone else have a turn. And he said….yep, you got it…..”That’s not fair!”

So, I walked over to him, and I said, “Son, this weekend, for my BIRTHDAY, I went out and got a dog that was supposed to be my friend for the next fifteen years.” His mouth dropped open, but I kept on talking. “Now there is a very real possibility that dog may die, and have you ever once seen me stomp my foot and say ‘that’s not fair!’ ” He nodded no. And I continued, “That’s because saying ‘That’s not fair!’ doesn’t change anything and it just makes people think you are a whiner. Sometimes crap just happens and you have to deal with it and move on.”

Did it work? Maybe, because later in the evening, I heard him say, “That’s not……” Nothing, he stopped.

There ya go, better than a Barney video off Netflix, and no vga to hdmi cables required. As for MAB, we are entering day 6 of parvo, and he’s still wagging his tail. It gives me hope that I will eventually need a category called “Cass has a dog.”

So, I went to see My Awesome Boyfriend today. He looked at me and accepted a few pets. The he walked about 18 inches away, turned his back on me and laid down. I’m not sure if he’s angry with me for “leaving” him, or simply ready to die and be done with it. I’m hoping it’s anger, because that’s a powerful emotion, and maybe it will make him hang on. I didn’t let it stop me, in any case. I just moved over to where he was and petted and talked to him some more. He was alert to the sounds in the hallway, and he looked at me a few more times, but his wag is just gone. It’s sad.

By the way, have you ever been out for a walk in the woods and come across some rotten meat? Maybe on a hot day? With maggots all over it? That’s how my dog smells right now. And that’s how my hands smell, even though I have washed them about five times since I touched him.

Who says I can’t still paint an awesome word picture?

I am not quite ready to break out the macanudo cigars yet, but I am tentatively hopeful about My Awesome Boyfriend. His white blood cell count is good, he is quiet but alert, and “certainly still in the game.” That is, he isn’t any worse, and every day he makes it increases the likelihood that he will make it. With parvo, it is usually dehydration and secondary infection that does a dog in, and not the virus itself. With those issues taken care of, it becomes a waiting game.

I have pooper scooped the yard this morning, and today I will bleach the house. It needed/needs to be done anyway, but I mind it less if I think about it as getting ready for him to come home.

Very soon, I hope to be writing stuff about how we went fishing and camping and played with toys. I’m looking into puppy obedience classes and such, and making a list of doggie supplies that I need to buy or replace. I better start with a collar and leash, because I threw that and his harness away after the nurse said “be sure and wash that real well.” I figured that it was better not to take the risk that another dog might one day be infected because I wanted to save a few bucks on new gear.

So, this post was supposed to be all about my new dog. But I am not going to tell you about him now, because my dog has parvo. And if he doesn’t make it, I don’t want this post here to remind me.

Oh, that’s crap. I love this dog. He deserves better than that. He is an awesome dog. See?

I picked him out Friday afternoon from one of the local Animal Control shelters. He is an Australian Shepherd mix, about 6 months old. He was picked up by the side of the road on the 19th. He is emaciated: 19 inches at the shoulders, 30 inches from the tip of the nose to the base of his tail, and only 17.8 pounds. He has pinworms, ringworms, and roundworms. And even with all of that AND the parvo, the dog is so on his game that we were house training (and my version of house training means “pee/poop on command”), crate training and leash training.

He submitted to a bath as soon as I got him home, and laid meekly in my lap while I trimmed AND filed his nails. He is an awesome dog, and his name is My Awesome Boyfriend, because he gave me kisses and a present on our first date. The present was a pile of parvo-laden, worm-filled poop, but it was a present!

I’ve been wanting an Aussie since I worked with them in rescue, so about 12 years, maybe a bit longer. I refuse to believe that fate would finally allow me to have the dog of my dreams just to let him die on me. Three days of My Awesome Boyfriend is not enough; I signed up for the full fifteen year hitch.

But this very minute, the weight on my heart is about as heavy as your average undermount sink.

the whole night through…. Do you remember that song? That was me last night. The stuffy yet runny nose, the Listerine and shower cap on my head and a generally anxious state of mind combined to keep me up way past my normal bedtime. As a result, I am very tired today. I totally see a nap in my future. But first I have to do a little blogging about cabin furniture.

And if I wasn’t a complete heathen, I would probably wait until my bedding had dried, but…I’m not sure I can hold out that long.

So, my cousin (who gets occasional excerpts from my writing) asked me last night if it bothered me to put all my inner thoughts down on paper. She said it just seemed so “naked”. Well, I explained to her that those weren’t all my inner thoughts, that I got to pick and choose which ones to put down, and so it was okay. But this morning, my 6 year old, who can now read just about anything, walked up to my desk and started reading my list of stuff I plan to write about. “Coffee, hair, sex, bike ride….” Oops. Yeah. That wasn’t so okay. Not because it bothers me for her to be able to read the word sex, or that I mind if she knows my thoughts occasionally wonder in that direction. No, the problem is that the list of stuff I plan to write about is very, very naked. It is in the writing that I dress it and ready it for presentation.

Note to self: Keep your notes hidden, cause they are the naked.

So, today, I wrote my three morning pages as usual. And as has become my norm lately, they dragged on and on as I kept half an eye on the internet and half an eye on a conversation with a friend and half an eye on my two baby girls, which left only half an eye for the pages. And near the end, I realized that what my cousin had been saying to me for the past few months was true. I am a writer. I draw pictures with words. It’s what I do. The writing isn’t what I am doing while I wait for my real calling to show up, the writing is the calling.

So, with that in mind, I made up my mind to sit down and just write for 2 hours. Not write to a handed-to-me topic, not try to fit a link in to make a quick 5 bucks, but just write. And I turned out ELEVEN pages in about an hour and 40 minutes. Eleven pages people. About four of those pages were notes on the writing process itself, but the rest was essay material, and better than the average hydroxycut reviews out there. Wow. What could I accomplish if I set aside two hours everyday just to write? No internet, no telephone, just me and the writing? And coffee of course. I am not sure, but I do plan to find out.

Here’s the rub. In order to share all that with anyone, I have to put it in print. I can’t turn in a handwritten manuscript. The blog does not accept paper and ink posts. So eventually I need to have enough self discipline to sit at this keyboard and use it ONLY for writing. For now, I will stick with developing the self discipline to just shut the cover. It’s a beginning, right? And if I can do it for the remaining days of October, I ought to be good and primed when NaNoWriMo starts on November 1st.

No, I’m not going to the straight jacket place, but I am committing to something here. This year, I’m doing NaNoWriMo. One of my daughters asked me to do it with her, and after years of ignoring the whole concept, I decided to go ahead. And write after I decided that, while I was writing my Morning Pages, the idea sprang forth pretty much fully formed. All that’s missing are the details, which I plan to outline in this:

Since my work schedule has picked up again, and I already had so much free time to begin with, I expect this exercise to be just as effective as any Brazilian diet pill. Well, combined with the extra coffee I’ll be drinking. Reckon I better stock up on the Folgers Black Silk the next time I’m at the store.

Speaking of which, I went grocery shopping yesterday. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It was actually FUN to walk up and down the aisles and make choices. Of course, I came home and got sick right after that: fever, sore throat, cough. But other than that, it was great!

By the way, I am still looking for a platform to do my writing. I’d prefer a dated journal type page if you know of one. If not, Open Office will have to suffice. Not sure I want to do a whole new blog thing for that, although, Lord knows, WP and I are like bestest buddies and such.

You know, I came here and I was going to write about some substantial stuff today. Not as weighty as rv financing perhaps, but some stuff I have discovered while writing my morning pages over these past several weeks. By the way, if you aren’t doing them, I can’t recommend them highly enough. Lots of good processing there.

Anyway, instead, by the time I got to this screen, I realized the air pressure must already be dropping due to Earl, because I am suddenly very sleepy. I’ve had my full quota of coffee, and I have no other explanation for my sleepiness, so that must be it.

Those of you who live in a hurricane prone area will already know what I am talking about, but for the rest of you…..it feels different when we get a storm. Even before it hits, when it is still hours away, it becomes very quiet. You go outside and the normal little sounds are gone. I was in the yard this morning, and a drink fizzing beside me sounded like running water. Everything is just tamped down. And it’s very still. Even when the wind blows, underneath is a stillness. The sky is blue enough to look at, but the air tastes gunmetal grey. And sometime, usually in the middle of the night, so that you wake up surprised, chaos begins.