Resolutions, Retrospectives and When's Season 4 of Homeland

When I was younger, every year around this time of year I would write out my New Year's Resolutions. When it seemed that each year I wrote out the same resolutions without realizing it, I stopped doing resolutions.

Then came the retrospectives. Seems that when you no longer take even your own resolutions seriously, you turn to a retrospective. A retrospective is basically looking back on the year and recapping this on Facebook for everyone to see how truly boring, pathetic and unfocused your year was, having lived that year without any resolutions, I might add. I have a hard time recapping my day, so I could never do this for a full year. No matter how entertaining these are, my mind wanders before I finish reading the first line.

Come to think of it,  my lack of focus has starred in some of my resolutions in years past. I once worked for a guy who had a plaque in his office that simply said "FOCUS." This was before the Successories posters depicting a super athlete kicking a soccer ball with the word "Focus" boldly typed beneath his torso as if it is holding him up mid-air. I admired that plaque until Bob fired me. The reason was that he sold his bread and butter product line to a company in Florida, yet my gut told me it was because I told him we shouldn't piss off a single-sourced supplier without a backup plan. He didn't take kindly to being told how to temper his rage at a supplier for a mistake he himself had made, I suppose.

Oh yeah, back to focus. I've been reading articles, essays and books on running and it seems that focus plays a central role. The tedium of running can often be a problem, even for the most experienced runner. When runners focus on their body, their breath, their stride and how they feel during the run instead of trying to follow other runners, pace themselves with a watch or use other mental tricks and distractions, they finish faster. While I might feel that my distractions keep me going, it turns out that my thoughts of a post-run treat to reward myself are actually not helping. All too often I end up skipping the run and just going straight for the treat.

The same advice can be said of living life. When we are not truly present, when we are focused on the past, the future, or any of the numerous distractions now available, it is hard to be happy. Period.

So, all this time writing I have really only wanted to figure out a way to ask what is on my single-tracked mind: When does Season 4 of Homeland start and did Brody really die?

But, for now, I leave you with only a quote from my favorite runner/author extraordinaire Dr. George Sheehan:
           "The runner lives in an eternal present."
Dr. Sheehan - On Running, 1975

So, my wish for everyone in 2014: May we all live in an eternal present.

Quote is from The Essential Sheehan: A Lifetime of Running Wisdom From the Legendary Dr. George Sheehan

http://www.amazon.com/The-Essential-Sheehan-Lifetime-Legendary/dp/1609619323

Time As An Ingredient

The ingredients for making bread are simple: flour, water, salt and yeast. What is missing from the list, of course, is the correct proportions. In life we strive for the right proportions of work and life, diet and exercise, family and friends and even rest and excitement. The list goes on. While we may never achieve a perfect balance with most things in life, achieving a satisfactory one is often better. A perfect balance is upset too easily. However, one that is satisfactory can sustain changes and fluctuations.

Just like with different recipes and types of breads, different times in our lives often require different proportions of things and priorities. Sometimes family requires more than we can give, so other things in life must shift and give, pull, stretch and even break, much like a pizza dough being forced to conform to the pan. We patch up the tear and move on. A loving family will stretch and move with you, sensing when you are stretched too thin.

A good friend of mine recently asked others on Facebook what their favorite Christmas gifts were. Time and again the answers tended to be simple, thoughtful gifts, often ones that included the giving of someone's time more than anything.

In the book called Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza by Ken Forkish, the author states that the most important ingredient in making bread is time. David, my husband, has been dabbling in dough recently and having read this, commented on the perfect simplicity of this adage. I took it and like a child with a new toy tore through life fitting it to everything else imaginable. The ways in which time is a critical ingredient are infinite. From good cooking to exercise and losing weight, to developing careers and nurturing hobbies, to making and keeping friends, to enjoying art and even learning a language.

Unfortunately, some of these things often come hard to me. When I cook, I tend to rush things. In my mind, instead of the slow sautéing of onions on low heat I mistakenly think high heat will deliver quicker results. This only causes the poor onions to burn or dry out too quickly.

Losing weight and exercise require a devotion of time. Careers are never made over night. Not taking time to listen and understand a good friend is a missed opportunity, one we may never get back. Most important, though, is family. We don't get to choose our family, but like the ingredients in bread, they are what they are, tried and true. While brothers and sisters, mothers and daughters and fathers and sons are as different as there are types and varieties of bread, they are all still family. Family members need our love, support, honesty and humor. Without each of these in the right proportions, we are merely mixing dry ingredients together which will never bond, ferment or rise.

Bread making gets kinda messy and so can family life. Sometimes we need to be brutally honest and sometimes we need our siblings to help us laugh, even at ourselves. There are times when the dough in making bread is fragile and must be treated gently. But then, once it is baked, the loaves are hearty, crusty and full of flavor. Even with bread making, you can't always control all the variables. Temperatures get hot.

Just remember. Time is the most important ingredient. The other good thing about family, as with making bread, is that you don't just get one chance to make it right. Tomorrow is always another day.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/160774273X/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=32011917036&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18657514691178818492&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=t&ref=pd_sl_1quufu13ag_b

Walkabout

Our dog Sophie sleepwalks. Once Sophie is down for the night, she is very difficult to wake up. So we were surprised to see her one night getting up from the big dog pillow bed she sleeps on to pace around the living room a couple times. Before she went back to bed she stopped to put her nose next to David on the futon. Finally, she would return to her corner and plop back down on her bed. When we went over to check on her, she was fast asleep and couldn't be roused. Since we also noticed that she sleeps at times with her eyes open, we believe this little stroll around the living room was really sleepwalking.  

Sophie's sleepwalking made me recall my own sleepwalking. When I was In college I woke myself up in the middle of the night trying to pull the mattress off my bed. The sheer effort of this task woke me up. Thankfully, I hadn't woken my roommate up since this would have been embarrassing to admit during my first week on campus my freshman year. As far as I knew, I hadn't done any sleepwalking since my ninth birthday.

I am amused that in this strange way our dog would take after me. I know that dogs can pick up the fears and anxieties from their owners, but sleepwalking seemed to be a stretch. In fact, it seems that I pick up emotions from Sophie more often than the other way around. After playing with Sophie or just petting her I am more relaxed and at peace. So, I figure it is either one of those strange coincidences that she sleepwalks or perhaps this is a more common occurrence among dogs than I had realized.

Curious to find out more, I read up on sleepwalking. First, as could be imagined, sleepwalking occurs most typically during stressful times. I don't recall if we had had an Obedience Class with Sophie during the day before or not, but that would have done it for me.

When I was nine years old, I remember sleepwalking the night I had a slumber party with four or so friends over. I really didn't have many friends and the sleep over involved a bit of risk taking on my part. My friends and I slept on the floor of our TV room with a pile of blankets and pillows. Evidently some time after I had fallen asleep, I abruptly stood up, pulled off one of the blankets and started to leave the room with the blanket. The other girls who were still awake asked me where I was going. They assumed that I was angry at them because I only mumbled something and walked out to sleep elsewhere. I awoke the next morning bewildered to find myself in our formal living room, not knowing where I was or how I had gotten there. The other girls remembered my sleepwalking very clearly.

I was also curious about sleeping with one's eyes open which I discovered is called nocturnal lagophthalmos. In our townhome, my husband and I used to sleep in a large bedroom with a vaulted ceiling. For lack of a better spot, we assembled a weight machine in one corner of the bedroom. I hated having this thing in our bedroom because in the middle of the night I would fixate on this and only as I gradually woke up enough would it occur to me that it was our weight machine and not some horrible creature I needed to keep my eye on. Of course, this really wouldn't be a problem if I didn't sleep with my eyes open at times. The explanation of this phenomenon doesn't seem to fit, attributing it to an inability to fully close one's eyes during sleep. It isn't that I can't, it is more that I just don't. Or perhaps I was actually not really asleep, but yet also not really awake - sort of in the same state that Sophie is in when she does her little walkabout.

According to Wikipedia, a walkabout is a rite of passage during which the Australian Aborigines male "would undergo a journey...and live in the wilderness for a period as long as six months" retracing the paths or "songlines" that their ancestors had taken. To the Aborigines everything is expressed through songs, gestures and words.

I happened upon a blog posting by Betsy Lewis for a Walkabout Woman Project where she invites other women "to explore living their longings." see http://thewalkaboutwoman.com. Days away from turning 53, a rather insignificant age, other than just being "old," I decided to take inspiration from little Sophie, the Aboriginals and the blogger. This will be my walkabout year, only my eyes will be open. Just as the Aboriginal makes the world exist by singing it, I will make my world exist by writing about it.

Something to Fall Back On

From a pretty young age, I wanted to be a writer. Once I became relatively good as a French horn player, I decided I wanted to be a musician, as well. My brothers and I were always told that we needed something to fall back on rather than pursue a career in art, music or writing. Go ahead and take the art classes, the music classes and write stories. But, more importantly, learn a trade, a skill, or pick a profession where you had something to fall back on. This has been the same advice given to countless teenagers starting out in life.

In college, I took classes for both music and English with a focus on education. I would become a teacher. That was my fall back career. During my senior year in college, I realized that I would not be able to graduate with my class and still receive the teaching certification because I hadn't completed enough credits to take a full quarter off to do the required student teaching. I also hadn't planned where my student teaching would even be or where I would live if it wasn't there in Greeley, Colorado where I attended school. I also realized that it was more important to me to graduate at the designated time, meaning in exactly four years, than to get the degree and the credentials to teach.

Of course, ever since I had made a girl cry during my teacher aiding experience I was shaken over not having either the rapport or the authority over the students I thought I would have. In the end, I easily sacrificed the teaching credential for a straight Bachelor of Art degree and graduated in June four years after starting college. I figured I would pick up the certification requirements later and even thought seriously about getting an advanced degree in order to teach college level students.

On the one hand, I disagree with the advice given to every young adult that they need a college degree regardless of the career they choose. Paying for a college education today is certainly not a small thing. Unless you have a career that requires a college education, the burden of the debt from student loans simply does not make sense. Having a college education also does not mean that you will instantly be qualified for any job you choose. I have seen far too many times where people have earned degrees and have no experience and become over-qualified for the job they are doing and yet still under-qualified for the job they want. On the other hand, I know that in the career I ended up pursuing not having a degree would have greatly reduced my salary potential.

I often think of career choices as each being ladders. For some career choices, a higher education is required in order to ascend the ladder. But the lower rungs on that ladder usually require related work experience. If you want to switch ladders, there are some careers that are similar enough that the experience you get from the one ladder can help you branch off into a different one. Many others, though, require both the experience and associated degree from the same ladder. Getting experience without the degree won't help you ascend the ladder and getting the degree without the experience also won't help.

Recently, I wondered what would have happened if I had just started writing and not worried about the career part of that equation. While I don't regret not becoming a teacher, I do wonder if all the while I pursued the degrees, certifications and work experience, I was simply avoiding the hard work of sitting down to write rather than establishing that "something" to fall back on. Of course, I will never know the answer and any advice I might have to give others is far too dependent on the individual and personal life circumstances to be of any use to someone else. I do know that, now at the age of 53, I have that "something" to fall back on pretty well established and have just started to do the things that bring me the most joy in life. My only advice to others is to not postpone doing the thing you love in pursuit of the thing you simply need to do.

Thundershirts and World Peace

At seven months now, an update on Sophie is in order. Dogs reach adulthood at different ages based on their breed. At seven months, Sophie, a terrier Beagle mix, has clearly entered adolescence, which similar to human adolescence is marked by limit-testing and rule breaking. Things that Sophie had learned as a young puppy seem to be conveniently forgotten. We see this teenage rebellion mostly in the house when she attempts to push boundaries we have set for her. Sneaking up onto the couch is our current challenge. More on that another time.

However, there are some things that we have never moved past puppy phase on. Outside on a walk with every imaginable distraction, (e.g. other dogs, birds, squirrels, blowing leaves or an interesting piece of tar on the road), if Sophie isn't trying to break free, she fixates on the distraction until she bumps into the back of my legs. This rubber necking, pulling and jumping at every variety of moving object varies from day to day, but has sadly been fairly consistent. We see other puppies and their human parents walking and are jealous of their low energy, stress-free walks.

To combat Sophie's distraction problem, we have tried several solutions, each with varying degrees of success, but nothing that closes the gap completely. The first strategy was to enroll in obedience training. This was good, but not good enough. The little spray bottle which I wrote about previously was also a big improvement for big distractions.

We then tried a harness that hooks the leash at her chest. Why this works, I don't completely understand. But the idea behind the harness is that it eliminates a natural tendency for dogs to pull when tension is placed on their back and neck. Perhaps we humans would be the same way if someone pulled at our necks, I don't know. While there was great improvement with the harness, it still was not nearly enough. Next, was the gentle leader collar which has a nose loop that fits loosely around the muzzle. With the smallest gesture to direct her, she is under far better control. Still, walking past a big distraction like another dog still leads to a bit of jumping or prancing around, so again it isn't perfect. If we revert back to a leash around the collar we quickly regret it with her hard leaning and pulling when she wants to go somewhere different than where we want to go.

Now, we do understand she is still a puppy and some things will be solved only through time. Yet, seeing other dogs the same age remain calm and attentive causes us to puzzle over what goes on in our little Sophie's head that is so vastly different. We don't want to assume that these behaviors will disappear and then discover too late the things we should have been doing all along.

With the weather growing colder in Minnesota we decided to try out a doggie jacket to keep her warm since Sophie is a short-haired coat breed. When we put it on her she looked up at us and didn't move. We watched her and waited. She watched us and waited, not moving an inch. The change in her demeanor was instantaneous. Although calm, she also wouldn't sit or lie down and seemed almost catatonic even though the jacket didn't constrain her movements whatsoever.

I spent nearly an hour trying to get her to just sit, a command she knew from almost day one as a puppy. She would simply stand looking patiently at me as I repeated the verbal sit command and hand signal, or tried to lure her with treats of all varieties, all to no avail. Jacket on, no sit. Jacket off, perfect sit.

When I tried going for a walk with her jacket on, she would walk a couple feet and then stop. Even with a tug, she wouldn't budge. This was what she had done early on as a puppy. Finally, puzzled and defeated I turned around and headed back home. I found it interesting that she walked just fine in this direction. It was a little like overshooting the target. Calm, I wanted. Comatose, not so much.

After returning that to the store, we decided to try the ThunderShirt, which is a lightweight sweater that fits around her chest from her neck down her back. It advertises calming dogs who have fear of thunder, but also a myriad of other issues, like leash pulling and car anxiety. The man at the checkout told me he was optimistic. He told me that a couple hours before a thunderstorm, just put the Thundershirt on her. Dogs sense storms much earlier than we do, he informed me. I said nothing. It is November in Minnesota and we aren't likely to get thunderstorms any time soon, so not quite sure why he thought we were buying this for thunder exactly. But, he was optimistic and so were we, but obviously for different reasons.

The Thundershirt is based on research done by Temple Grandin, the renowned doctor of animal science who studied sensory processing in animals and applied her theories to induce a calming effect on humans, particularly those suffering from autism, panic and anxiety disorders. She herself has autism and based much of her research on her own experiences.

Once home from the store, we were anxious to try out our new purchase. Very quickly we had the verdict. Sweater on, little Sophie is calm, transformed into an attentive and obedient dog who mostly walks by my side looking up at me during our walks. I don't know exactly what goes on in her little head now, but how she sees the world when wearing this sweater has been transformed. If only there were a magic sweater for humans that could transform people's view of the world by putting this on. If it calms anxieties, general fearfulness and reactivity in dogs, why not something for humans. Why, we could send truckloads of human Thundershirts to the Middle East. That little piece of fabric might actually finally lead to world peace.

Neither this nor that

It is easy to get caught up in black or white thinking.  How quickly we decide that someone is either nice or mean, good or bad, right or wrong. And, many times we apply the same judgements to ourselves. I'm a good mom or I am a bad speller. Often we never question labels we give ourselves even years after they no longer apply. Yet, ironically when others attempt to pigeon hole us into one category or another we reject this notion vehemently.

It becomes amusing to watch the shape shifting and pretzel twisting we do when others try to label us. You're so lucky, someone tells me. Yes, I am lucky, but luck alone wouldn't have gotten me where I am today. You work so hard. Yes, but I am also lucky. You're such a calm person, people tell me. I let this one go even though my hands are cold and clammy. We simply do not want to be labeled and put on the shelf as if there is no more to us than our labels.

So, why wouldn't labels be good? After all, they save us a lot of time. We feel comfortable when we have put a label on something. We no longer need to expend energy thinking about it. Yet, with labels it is easy to slip into thinking in terms of extremes. There is little room for ambiguity once something has a label. Often, the problem occurs when we realize that our label doesn't work any more. Then, we become even more angry when the person we labeled as being on our side speaks up against us. We feel betrayed.

In the Woody Allen movie Stardust Memories the studio heads change the ending of  Sandy Bates' movie, the character played by Woody Allen. Instead of ending up in a garbage heap, the characters end up in "jazz heaven." One studio head says, "I thought you'd like it, Sandy. You love jazz." Absurd, but true.

It's never that we want to experience a single pole of anything: routine and no variety, all freedom and no structure, asserting our will and never respecting the will of others. We want perfection, but we need to remember we are human. And, sometimes what worked for us yesterday no longer works for us today. It's like the joke on comedy shows, where the good news that someone just got married is really bad news because she's ugly, which is really good news because she is rich.

In the end, it all really just depends. In order to not fall into the trap of labeling and missing out on what's real in life we need to stay awake. Be in the moment. Expend the extra calories of brain power needed to not only allow but to discern the shades of gray in our lives.  And I don't mean the fifty shades you might read about. When we find ourselves dismissing what someone is saying because they fit a certain label of ours, stop and listen. We might be surprised. And, just know that we are never only one thing or another. We are complex pretzel twists of people that come in all sorts of shapes and sizes where no two are ever exactly alike. We are neither simply this nor that. True that.

A Place Untouched

Growing up I would watch my grandfather play the accordion, intermixed with spitting his chewing tobacco into a can next to him. Not only did he have a good ear for music, thankfully he also had pretty good aim. When grandpa finished playing, he always broke out into a big toothy smile that sometimes revealed traces of tobacco leaves still lingering between his teeth. I have a picture of me somewhere being hugged by my grandpa where I am visibly pulling away, not wanting to be so close to the source of that nasty juice. When Grandpa finished playing, his laughter was so contagious it made everyone laugh. Years later, I realized that my dad punctuated the end of his playing with the same hearty laugh and self-conscious grin.

The last time I saw my dad, it was at the assisted living in Durand. The next day, Jim, my older brother by a year and a half, and Marianne, the caretaker from the assisted living, would be driving Dad across several states down to Indiana to a nursing home. It was a difficult decision to move him to a nursing home, but unfortunately Dad had become too much to handle at the assisted living.

We had a going away party for Dad, although he never quite understood what the occasion was. With a full audience including two of his four kids and spouses, several of his sisters, of which he had seven, and a few of my cousins who lived nearby who managed to get away for the day, Dad was able to play things on the accordion no one even knew he remembered.

Earlier, he had been unintelligible. He mumbled something about some contraption that he described more with his hands than his jumbled words. Every time he came over, he tried to describe this to me. It seemed to hold such significance to him, but I was clueless as to what he was even remotely talking about. I smiled back at him because he was so intent on me knowing about this thing. At some point he just looked at me and laughed, as though I was in on the joke. But, despite his inability to communicate verbally with people, there was much communicated in his smiling eyes that day. And, his love for humor was still razor sharp with his rapid fire banter with Marianne.

As he played for us, his fingers just moved of their own accord, playing from a place in his memory still untouched. At times he wouldn't get through the song all the way or the song would merge into a different song. But, the music he played was beautiful and lifted our spirits. I knew this would be the last time I would see my dad.

Just as he finished playing the accordion, he caught my eye and laughed just like Grandpa used to. The twinkle in his eye and the bounce of his laughter was akin to the one you might catch Santa doing if you caught him before he snuck back up the chimney. This memory was my own little present that would last the rest of my lifetime.

Revelations

One of the most frightening moments of my life was when I thought an intruder had broken into my apartment. I was alone in my apartment in Southern California. It was well after midnight when I heard a glass break in my kitchen. With little furniture to my name, I had been sleeping on a borrowed futon in my living room, which was only a few feet away from the tiny kitchen. With a door in the kitchen leading out to an outside stairway, an intruder, especially in the San Fernando valley, was a very real possibility.

Realizing I had but a few seconds to deter a possible intruder, I yelled something probably unintelligible at the time, like "Get the fuck out of here, I'm calling the police." Okay, so maybe it was intelligible, even to my neighbors across the hallway and below me. But then there was silence. Nothing. After I got up the nerve to move, I found that somehow, a glass had floated across a dry tile countertop on some sort of air bubble and slipped to the floor. Or, an alternate theory is that perhaps a truck rumbling by jostled it just enough to fall off the counter. Either way, I will never know. That night, the possibility of someone violating the intimate space that my apartment represented was a turning point, although not a conscious one at the time.

Sometime later, I decided quite firmly that I was leaving California and would be heading where exactly, I didn't know. I told David, my boyfriend at the time of my plans. Now as my husband, he remembers little of this today. I think he thought it was an empty threat, a pipe dream, another story I told myself. I began my preparations to leave by sorting through my possessions to see what I could get rid of to lighten my load.

Not long after this, on a typical scorching day in the valley, I remember standing in back of my apartment building by the dumpsters. In the empty alley, the pavement radiated heat. Everything around me was dry as baked sand. I held a box of books that the used bookstore wouldn't take. I couldn't bear to put the books in the trash, so instead set the box down on the asphalt next to the trash. I knew it would be taken by someone before the trash pickup would come.

One of those books was my Bible. It was a red King James version of the Bible that had my name embossed on it. The name Betty was a name I had dropped sometime during my sophomore year in college and had switched to the more formal name of Elizabeth. The Bible represented an anchor to the past, to things that had been important to me that no longer served me. It was important to let this go. I realized even at the time that it seemed hypocritical to not want to throw the Bible in the trash if it no longer had meaning for me. I thought that someone else might see the Bible as a good find and would receive some comfort from it. But, I also felt the same way about the other books, as well. So, not thinking much more about it, I set the box down and walked away, taking only my memories with me.

When I was in high school in Lyons, Colorado my parents had made a promise to me. This promise came mostly from my step-mother. If I read the Bible three times from cover to cover they would buy me a French horn. A French horn represented my future. I had planned to continue in music, become a music teacher. This future was hardly possible without an instrument of my own, which I would soon be without once I graduated.

As I progressed through my reading, I would announce to my parents, typically at dinner time, where I was in my reading. Proverbs, Isaiah, Song of Solomon, and finally into the New Testament with Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. Then picking up the pace, I would quickly read through to the last book, Revelation. I ponder now how ironical this is, but when I finished reading the Bible for the third time over a year and a half later, it never occurred to me that neither my step-mom nor my father would remember this promise. My personal revelation was two years in coming. Honesty, truth and any other manner of virtue was of little consequence to them. The Bible promise was to them much like encouraging a little girl to "make your wish" before blowing out the birthday candles. Yeah, whatever, just blow the fucking candles out.

Friday the 13th

I am not a superstitious person. Friday the 13th used to even be a lucky day for me. This last Friday, September 13th, I had planned to work from home. That is, until I realized that a vendor conference call was to be an in-person meeting. But, driving the 6 miles to get to work was no big deal. Besides, I figured I now could pick up chocolate chip muffins for the weekend baked fresh every morning in the cafe at work. These muffins are worth the drive.

I had driven barely a mile down the road before I had to pull over, shut off my ignition, get my license out and turn the blaring radio off. I've often wondered why drivers can't somehow get credit for driving within the speed limit 98% of the time. It doesn't seem fair that the "only" time I speed I would get pulled over. These are the silly thoughts that run through my head as I wait for the police officer to approach my vehicle.

Others have described to me how they were able to get out of a ticket by the story they tell or the explanation they give. I don't know how they do it because all I managed to say in the five minutes it took to issue the citation was "Yes, sir. No, sir, and thank you, sir." 

I mourned my lack of second thoughts over speeding that morning. Second thoughts are often our best friend. Just not this morning. After I carefully signaled to get back onto the road, it was then that I realized it was Friday the 13th. For some silly reason this fact raised my spirits, as if I somehow had less responsibility for speeding.

So even though I figured my two chocolate chip muffins were now $100 a piece, I still know I got off easy. I'm guessing my idea of having a rewards card for good driving probably won't catch on. It only takes one time for something truly bad to happen and the true reward for good driving is really to be left alone and with a little luck, left alive.

Or, better yet. Next Friday the 13th I'll just work from home like I had planned.

Don't Worry, Be Happy

     I have a sudden fear that we are doing it all wrong. Our puppy is going to turn into the jumping, tearing out the stuffings of our furniture kind of dog. It is as if this would happen overnight. I quickly realize this is a ridiculous thought as I watch her cute green eyes stare up at me as I get her to sit and then sit "up" - which is really a beg position. But as my fears subside, I wonder at what thoughts terrify parents in the middle of the night.
     David and I spend relatively few hours every day with our puppy. We let her out in the morning and trust the invisible fence and the collar to keep her within the acceptable boundaries. We feed her three times a day, as she is still a puppy. We play with her, spend time training her and walk her a couple times a day. We take her to puppy or obedience class on Saturdays. Sometimes we take her to a park for a longer walk on the trails. She spends a lot of time chewing, playing with a toy, sleeping and when she sits out on our back deck in the sun just looking around at the sights and sounds of the world around her. She is a pretty low maintenance puppy. For as much time as it may seem to us that we spend with Sophie, I am sure that if we were to do this with a child we would likely be in jail.
     The things that can go wrong with a puppy sometimes loom large. Watching The Dog Whisperer reminds us that dogs are animals, not our children. It isn't always easy to correlate the beginning of a bad behavior with the long term result, which is why the worry in the middle of the night takes hold. But there are always first signs. A dog's fixation on a car passing before deciding to chase after it, a lip curl and quiver before deciding to snarl and bite someone and chewing the stuffing out of a sofa doesn't start with her ignoring it.
     Interesting enough, many of the things we practice with puppies also applies to kids. To get a child to follow your directions, you first need to get his or her attention. Once you have that down, you need to show them what to do. The less talking the better. The same applies to the dog. Sometimes when Sophie doesn't know what she needs, she acts out. She will pull her bedding apart when she needs to take a nap. When we tell her take a nap, only after she settles does she realize how tired she is. Kids may not realize that they crave discipline because this is a way of us telling them how much we care about their well-being. When we ignore this, they push the boundaries.
     When I was a teenager my father became easy on us kids after my mom died and he remarried. Rather than this be a good thing it made me crave rules, boundaries and limitations, once again quoting Caesar Millan. My father didn't do this because he didn't care or didn't love us. On the contrary, he felt guilty that he should add to the injustice of us losing our mother. The same thing occurs with dog owners. A dog has a bad encounter, faces some sort of illness or injury and the owner out of guilt and sadness fails to pay attention to what is needed.
     Never yell or lose your temper, never allow yourself to be softer than what the situation requires, never engage in a power struggle, pay attention rather than always give attention. Don't worry, be happy.

Moving On

      There is something rather comforting about moving on. Even the words "moving on" give me a sense of closure, of resolution even. Last week, yet another of my coworkers announced that he was moving on and his last day would be whenever. Honestly, after hearing the words “moving on” any more I don’t even listen for when their last day will be. For over two years my company has churned out many good people from its ranks, so many in fact that I am sometimes puzzled to still see a full parking lot. But, new people seem to start with almost as much frequency as the people leaving.
      The reasons for the high turnover at my company are numerous and for someone else or even some other time this might be worth reflection. My pondering at the moment is far more self-centered. Each and every time I hear these words I go sulking back to my desk and, for the fiftieth time this year, I reconsider my own employment. "Why am I still here?" I mouth the words staring at my computer screen.
     Not to get too philosophical and all, but at a certain age it seems that many of us realize that the pursuit of the perfect job is pure fantasy. When I was growing up, I saw my dad get stuck in inaction over and over - both with jobs and with relationships. He settled for things I knew there was no way I would tolerate when I became an adult. From this experience, it seemed that one of the rules I made for myself was that I would never simply accept a bad situation. If I had the power to change something, I would. I would never just settle. But, no matter how well this rule had served me in the past, I needed to know if it continued to serve me today.
     Fast forward several decades later, I find that I no longer know what a bad situation really is. This rule had translated into me being one of the first to leave a company at the first sign of trouble. I moved myself and my husband a thousand miles for a job that I ended up hating because I worried that otherwise I would be forced to settle for something less. Sometimes, I did make the right decision by following my rule and sometimes I know I made the wrong decision.
     The phrase “moving on” often implies that someone has either given up a fight or has found some other thing with higher value or fulfillment to pursue. It can also mean leaving behind a failure of sorts. What I didn't feel comfortable with any more was that it didn't seem to be a real choice that I was making. I didn't want to stay just because in the past I would flee. I also didn't want to not stay just because I was afraid I was being reactive.
     The question that stuck in my mind was if just because things were difficult, was that all I had in me? Rather than change the job it seemed that I really needed to change myself. I realized that I actually liked my job just fine when I wasn't distracted by the noise around me or the noise in my own head.
     My moving on was really the opposite of moving on for my former coworkers. I needed to move on and move away from this perpetual need for change just for the sake of it and actually commit to staying.
     Insight does not always lead to people doing things differently, as Freud pointed out, I believe. The dawning of light does not always lead to deliverance. So with that in mind, I have decided to still my perpetual desire to move on and to basically just suck it up.

Keep Calm and Carry On

  I found an amazing secret on the internet and no, it wasn't how to save money on car insurance or make millions working from home. In my first post I told of how my husband and I had left Purgatory Park not exactly excited to go back any time soon. We had taken our 19 week old puppy for a mile long trail walk around the park. After what seemed to be a great start, little Sophie decided for no apparent reason that it was now time to reverse roles. It was her turn to hold the leash.
     The little whirling dervish would bite the leash, jump up, spin around and even growl at us. When she gets like this there is no turning back and no going forward. Should you choose not to participate, she will stand there chomping on whatever part of the leash she can get her mouth on until something more interesting grabs her attention. And that is usually not any better.
     Yeah, I know - she is just a puppy. She just wants to play. But just like with children there is a time and a place and the far side of Purgatory Park was not it as far as we were concerned.
     Not being ones to give up so easily, we took Sophie to Purgatory Park the next day. This time we were armed with not only the usual items such as treats, poopy bags, raw hides and a little dish of water for Sophie after our walk, but now we brought our secret weapon. And, yes. I had seen this in a YouTube video.
     Our secret weapon? A tiny little spray bottle. This little bottle was one I would spritz my curly hair with to get it under control. Would this also work to get Sophie under control? And, no. It wasn't filled with ammonia, lemon juice or bitter apple spray.  Just plain water. The tiny spray bottle didn't even shoot water out in a stream. It only produced a tiny mist of water. It was more like a breath spray, kinda like the one in Dumb and Dumber, if you remember that scene from the movie.
     Amazingly enough, this little spritz was enough to get Sophie's attention. You really have to get up close to her and spritz her. But that little spritz was all it took. She would shake the water off and all jumping would stop. One little spritz and little Sophie would keep calm and carry on.
    Our stressful, difficult and even troubling walks were transformed to peacetime bliss. It didn't take a high-tech training collar that teaches a dog obedience through warning tones and little jolts to correct the most offensive behavior. It also wasn't expensive obedience lessons that did the trick. All it took was a spritz.

      Now, if we could only use this technique on annoying people we might really be on to something.

A Simple Brunch

     A week or so ago I met a friend for brunch at a local restaurant. It seemed to be a perfect Sunday for a brunch. When my friend picked the restaurant, I found myself already feeling disappointed. The restaurant name was reminiscent of what you might think the Republic of China might name their department of agriculture: Peoples Organic.
   The restaurant advertised "the simplicity of nutritious and organic food, pure water and healthy beverages." First off, I am unconvinced that simplicity translates to good food. And the pure water advertisement actually made me crack a smile. Only in America, spoiled by our vast varieties of waters fortified with vitamins and every imaginable flavor, would "pure water" be its own advertisement. It felt like an episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit where they served up tap water labeled with some exotic name. The patrons raved about it afterwards not knowing they had been had. But, I didn't want to prejudge what could be a delightful experience.
     The testing of pesticides found in apples is a good example. While apples appear to be a big offender, the USDA reports that a single apple out of over seven hundred tested may contain residue above EPA tolerance levels - and by only a tiny 2.4 parts per million. (For more, see www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/04/dangerous-demonization-our-food/). Given this statistic, I don't know about you, but my chances of dying from something other than pesticides seems considerably higher. Pesticides on my washed apples will not be the thing that keeps me up at night.
     Do I think agriculture can continue to improve? Absolutely. But any improvement is just that - an improvement, not a reason to found a religion or a political party. Each improvement has to meet the cost vs. benefit principle. In my mind, much of the craze over organics is still too much cost without a whole lot of benefit. If organics truly tasted better, even that would have tipped the scale for me. But, really they don't.
     But, anyway - back to the restaurant. I perused the menu and was intrigued by the section for "Sustainable Soups We Love" and "Earthbound Salads." But, I resisted rolling my eyes and settled on a Ham & Gruyere Biscuit sandwich and coffee. As I waited for my selection, I was entertained by a foursome with nose rings, purple hair and active acne. A little piece of Portlandia here in Minnesota. Seated across from the highly sought after restroom, I realized more than a few patrons appeared to be pregnant. I reasoned that the vegan, vegetarian, gluten free and locally grown menu options must be the draw.
      My worry that the coffee would be some organic metallic tasting bitter brew proved needless. And despite the pretentious menu descriptions and near-religious celebration of organics, the coffee was a good strong French roast and my sandwich was fantastic. Although this was not enough to convince me to buy free range chickens, stone ground mustard or even the grass fed bison, simplicity, it seems, did win the day.

Our Little Sophie

   David and I have had our little Sophie girl for seven weeks now. Sophie is a rescue dog, a Boston terrier, Beagle mix puppy we adopted in mid-July. She weighed all of 12 pounds when we adopted her. Now she weighs 29 pounds and we still have no idea how big she will get. She is now 18 weeks old and has a few months to go before she will be at her full size.

     I guess we are pretty committed now. We have invested in an invisible fence, vet visits, shots to prevent all sorts of ailments, puppy training classes, four crates of increasingly larger sizes, bulk dog food and treats of many flavors, harnesses, leashes, collars, dog shampoo, squeaky toys, cushions, blanket, doggie doorbell and boxes of poopy bags. We have yet to invest in the doggie sweater.
     Yesterday, David and I took Sophie to Purgatory Park nearby for a walk and a visit to the dog park.  Not quite knowing where it was, we started off in the opposite direction of the doggie park, but little Sophie walked like such a big girl she made us proud. Even passing a few strangers she was hardly bothered and "heeled" as they say, right next to us. Then, for what seemed to be no apparent reason the Tasmanian devil appears. She tries biting the leash, jumping up and growling. We alternately try ignoring her, holding the leash firm and turning away, scolding her, letting her sniff and maybe do a big doodie, or try correcting her somehow. Whatever we do seems to have no effect, or just makes the behavior worse. Purgatory, it seems was well named. Once committed on the far side of the trail there is no short-cut back to the car.
     This out of control puppi-ness is the reason for the harness, for the invisible fence and for the chain section on her leash. Sure, puppies will be puppies, but it is hard to figure out why she can be a little prize show girl one second and a jumping, pulling, barking, biting maniac the next. And, if the bad puppy behavior isn't bad enough David and I get into the puppy parenting method discussion and ensuing disagreement over whether you correct a puppy sometimes, never, correct her consistently, or whether we even correct her at all.
     I must be a perfectionist, because for the most part we have an amazing, smart and well-mannered puppy. She will sit, come, lie down, fetch, wait, and maybe once in a while "leave it." But after never having kids, hardly even having been around kids, the illogical and random behavior of little Sophie is a real challenge for me. Her sudden stubbornness and willfulness challenges my belief that we are "pack leaders" according to Cesar Millan. I fear we repeat the same episodes of the Dog Whisperer we just watched, and not in a good way.
     At one point, well after she had morphed from our little Sophie girl to wild beast from the animal kingdom, I tried to get her to just sit or even "look at me" which often helps her return to us from the wild. In doing this, I accidentally unhooked her chain. She bounded after a woman who had just passed us talking on her cell phone. Sophie danced and pranced around the poor woman, desperately wanting to be petted and played with.  The woman at least was not angry or fearful. She was just amused at the puppy's fixation with her and told her friend on the phone about this little puppy who was now following her.
    Returning to the car and her crate in the back seat, Sophie settles quickly and chews quietly on her rawhide. Exhausted now, she will go down for her nap quickly when we get home. The good news is that puppies really do sleep a lot. And, when she wakes, she will once again be our little angel, the cuddly, snuggling little sleepy puppy who wags her tail and gives us little kisses. We love our Sophie girl, our little angel - at least until the next walk around Purgatory Park.