Oil can

I have a dog with a squeak. Oddly enough, it is worse when he is crated and seems to be exacerbated by his barking. Bark, bark, squeak, squeeeeek, squeeeeeeeeeek.

Since we can't figure out where to oil him, we have been generally squirting him with a water bottle. It works in the short run, but next think I know, we get the bark, bark, squeeeeeek, squeeeeeeeeeeeeeek, squeak again. He squeaks when he is hungry; he squeaks when he wants out; he squeaks when he wants attention or water.

For a dog who is such a bruiser, the squeaking is a bit disconcerting. However, it does appear to be his nature. This same dog, called by the nickname Nene, or baby in Spanish, had to go to the vet for stitches on his eyelid because he got into an altercation with Dirty Harry, our other dog. When I took Nene to the vet to get the stitches removed, the vet stuck his face right by the dog's eye, magnifying glasses in place, and removed the sutures. The entire time the vet is saying, "Yes, I know, you're just a big baby," I am envisioning those long pearly white canines slashing the vet's face to ribbons. However, when the vet finished the procedure, he mopped up a puddle--Nene, the bruiser, had wet on the floor from fear.

Is all that toughness potential I see in Nene really an illusion? Is Nene, who looks like he could and would take on anyone or anything, really just a squeakbox who wags all the time; as his nickname says, is he a baby?

Or is it like the characters in the Wizard of Oz--he doesn't see himself as he really is, and he won't until he is tested.

Plumb passionate

In keeping with the previously mentioned holiday tradition around here, this Valentine's Day, we are doing plumbing repairs under the kitchen sink. It all started when I noticed a wet spot on the floor of the cupboard. I reached up to touch the pipe, and my finger went right through the elbow.

EG got under there to find that there was a four inch gap between the drain and the remainder of the drain pipe, a plumbing job which was obviously completed by my father when he was in the later stages of his dementia.

We celebrated our holiday by taking two trips to Home Depot and one trip to the hardware store at the county seat.

According to the web site, this guy is "well tooled." It figures. I think the new Valentine's gift trend is going to be PVC from now on.

Dreaming of chocolate...

I gave up candy, and especially chocolate, for Lent, along with cakes and cookies and pastries.

What, exactly, was I thinking? Dreams of dark chocolate, creamy frosting, and crispy rice bars have taken over my night life. I have already informed the kids that I will be eating sweet rolls and chocolate bars for Easter breakfast.

Which led me to wonder: where do we get this tradition of giving up something for Lent? After investigation, I found that "giving something up" is more of a Catholic tradition, and that this freeing us of things is supposed to bring us back to purity and simplicity.

What is not pure is my interrupted sleep from dreaming about things like this cake, and the whole situation is far from simple. So I wonder about the spiritual lesson which is in store for me over the next 35, or so, days.

Grieving

I have been giving some thought to grieving lately.

In the spring of 2006, we left our church because of questions about the handling of parish funds and the resulting hard feelings and ugliness (I was on council and supported the investigation, but it didn't make things any easier); the kids' school, which was affiliated with the church, closed; one of my uncles died of cancer, and the other, a very vital person, died in a house fire; my old dog's hips were getting worse, and he would get down and be unable to get up, so I made the choice to have him put to sleep. That May, my father died, in June my mother moved into an apartment, only to decline to the point where she moved into a nursing home in August. In July, we moved from our little house, leaving our friends and much-loved neighbors, to this house; our neighbors here are aloof or in the event on one, obnoxious and nosy.

Needless to say, I didn't have much time to process one event before the next one hit us. Now, nearly two years later, I'll be going along fine, only to have one of the events sneak up behind me and smack me in the head, saddening me.

People say that God doesn't give us any more than we can handle, but I disagree. If we had only what we could handle, why would we depend on each other, never mind on God. I guess I am a hard case--I had to be given a lot of hard challenges at once.

Yesterday we went to the West Side Market in Cleveland. It is on the near west side, in a neighborhood called Ohio City, a quaint area which has become what most people called "gentrified." While there is an open air produce market in the summer, the market's meat and bakery stalls are indoors year round.

http://realneo.us/page/realneo-knows-and-loves-west-side-market-best-in-world

Pictures cannot capture the color, motion, and energy of this place, the small details which have to be experienced first-hand. Even something as simple as crossing the alleyway between the meat/bakery section and the produce is a sensory orgy, discarded smashed tomatoes lying in the snow, the smell of diesel exhaust in the lake scented air, the rattling of bags and squeaking of shopping carts, and the neighborhood ladies mingling with the suburbanites and chivvying the vendors.

Plus, the good looking young men who work in the booths truly understand that flirting oh-so-slightly with the fifty year old ladies is good for business, not to mention this lady's morale. And a lady who smiles at the vendor has a better chance of getting the pick of the produce.

Years ago, my father worked at the Terminal Tower in downtown Cleveland, and nearby was the Central Market, which was not nearly as well-known or large as the West Side Market. However, every year, my father would find some exotic produce for our Christmas stockings: pomegranates, star fruit, Clementines. And he made sure we had the opportunity to experience the markets, which were so much of the Cleveland tradition. Nowadays, the West Side Market has pasta, herbs, and more upscale offerings, such as artisan breads, bison meat and exotic cheeses, but the tradition is still there. Part of the fun is seeing what is available at a good price. And, of course, flirting with the vendors.

Sick of being sick

I don't do "sick" well. I believe it is because I don't do enforced stillness well, either, unless my brain is firing on all eight cylinders and I am concentrating on something.

A friend who is a physician once said that, when I die, the funeral home people will have to tell me, "Lie down! We're putting the lid on your coffin now. No, lie DOWN!"

Anyway, I called off work today because I have this beastly cold and am a real germ spreader. So there I sat, grading my online course, checking the email, attempting to watch daytime television, which is a really depressing medium with no redeeming value, and longing for spring.

I do know that I drive myself too hard, although I have gotten wiser as I have gotten older. I used to work NO MATTER WHAT, pushing myself despite developing pneumonia or acute gastroenteritis, going to my job despite symptoms I might be having telling me to do otherwise. Instead of forcing myself to perform my duties until I pass out and end up in the emergency room, which was a biennial occurence, I now allow myself to be sick for a day or two, no matter how depressing it is. I also schedule "pajama days," where we have enforced downtime as a family and do very little except hang out together and vegetate.

However, too much more of "my best friend's father is my social worker's cousin's ex-wife's sister's baby's daddy and is taking a DNA test to prove it," and I might end up in intensive care.

Stupid Cupid

All my life, from middle school on up, I missed out on romance. I didn't have a boyfriend the entire time I was in public school. There were several reasons for this--a job, lack of maturity, and a long, long list of requirements for a potential mate including dark curly hair and brown eyes.

My relatives would ask me at every family function, "So, do you have a boyfriend yet?" No.

When I went to college, I had reduced my list somewhat, but still restricted men by their job or career, their height, their level of intelligence, whether they were accepting of other people and cultures, and whether they had strong family values.

My relatives would see me and hurry to ask me, "So, do you have a boyfriend YET?" No.

Then my younger sister got married. I really had been whittling down my requirements, becoming willing to settle for someone who was anywhere over my height with good family values and a good job; I awarded bonus points if he was an interesting conversationalist.

At my sister's reception, I was asked, "So, do YOU have a boyfriend yet?" Still no.

By the time I got to graduate school, my relatives started asking in an alarmed tone of voice, "So do you have a BOYFRIEND yet?" and my list had been reduced to the point where I would have accepted a monosyllabic misogynistic midget, as long as he was male.

Finally, once I gave up completely, I met EG. While he has absolutely none of the requirements from my original list, he does have the one quality on which I based my later search for a life partner--he is a good husband: faithful, supportive, and honest, and he wants me to be happy.

We dated briefly before getting married, and I had one lush and wonderful Valentines Day celebration in there. Once we said, "I do", I realized that it obviously meant "I do hereby no longer have to buy cards and flowers and remember romantic days." I was disappointed at first. And to make things worse, I worked with a woman whose husband did wonderfully spontaneous and romantic things like fill her car with balloons, send flowers, and whisk her away for a surprise weekend, arranging everything, including child care and packing clothes. The two of them moved into a beautiful home, and they had an apparently easy, lovely, stress-free life. I wondered what I was doing wrong.

Suddenly, my co-worker andher husband were selling the dream home and getting a divorce.

So while I don't get balloons or flowers, EG tells me how much he loves me every day by warming my car up in the morning, getting up with sick kids so I can sleep in, putting gas in the car if he is out and notices it is low, digging up the opening to the septic tank, finishing a load of laundry when I am distracted, and vacuuming without being asked. He will also take all three kids to run an errand so I can have some time alone, even if it is with three Labs.

So, to those of you who never got much romance yet, hold on and keep an open mind.