clover

Here's a picture of our doggie, Clover. She's sick with cancer and probably won't live more than a few more days. She's been down for a few weeks now, and it took about 2 weeks of testing and medication attempts before she was diagnosed. Each day she has less energy, but her sweet disposition is still with her. She doesn't appear to be in any pain and she's still eating. Mostly she just sleeps, but when she's awake she's very alert. Mainly, she is just slowing down and I guess she'll continue until she just stops. She's taken a lot of pleasure in sitting on the front porch and walking around the yard without her leash (usually forbidden because she runs off).

Clover is a well-traveled dog. She's been to Florida, the mountains and Wyoming. She has traveled across the country in a truck. Her bed always traveled with her and she has slept in the camper with us since she was a pup. She's been a great watch dog, reminding me of "Nanna" from Peter Pan. She's never bitten anyone, but she would sure make you think she was going to. Especially if you were the UPS guy. More than one stranger has held the door closed to make sure she didn't go through it. I've felt safer since we've had her, especially at night. She has her own bed, but when no one watched her, she always creeped up onto the couch. We finally gave up and bought her a bed that fits on the couch and now it is her couch. She tolerates other people sitting on her couch, but only until she's ready to go to bed. Then she stands and stares and yips until the person moves over for her.

Clover really belongs to our youngest daughter. She was a rescued dog from a pound in another county. They found her at a dump. She was about 5 months old when we got her. She was thin and sickly looking, but actually she was just a worn out puppy. By the next day, she was her happy self. She was a mediocre student at discipline, but only because we were half-hearted mediocre teachers. She's been an important part of our family for 8 years now and we'll all miss her terribly.

mellow or not?

I used to think that I was getting more mellow, and in some ways, I am, as I age. I'm less self-conscious, less critical of myself and other people, more forgiving and I sweat the little stuff a little less. Sometimes. And then, I think that I am more combative than I used to be because I just have to speak out when I think things are wrong. I do practice holding my tongue more, but I'm not really sure that it's a good thing. I don't know if this is mid-life angst, or just me. For example, yesterday at work I said that I would be glad when the news stopped talking about a certain local news story they've been reporting on for weeks. A woman I barely know and who seldom speaks at all, become very passionate and held what I thought was a pretty uninformed and indefensible position. I was surprised at her indignation on the issue. I wasn't disturbed by the story as much as bored and tired of hearing it beat into the ground. But, as I opened my mouth to state an opposing position, I glanced at the paper in front of me at my horoscope, which said I should not engage in arguments. I didn't. I closed my mouth and didn't say another word about it. It was a good move because nothing I said would have made a difference to someone who held a position so strongly.

But, when I think someone is being unfair, toward me or anyone else, it is really hard for me to hold my tongue. Really hard. I try to make sure that I have a vested interest before I speak up, and not get into territory that is none of my business, but I don't think I'm always successful. That can be pretty obnoxious, I think and maybe I should reel it in a little. But I can't anymore. It's like I'm out of control. I have to speak up or I don't know what will happen. It's a mission to set things right and leave the world a little better. But, it has it's price. I ruminate and spend too much time sweating the small stuff. Back to step one. So, maybe it's not age, just me after all.

But somewhere out there the sumbitches better straighten up!

I hate to sleep

Have I mentioned this? I hate to go to sleep. I fight it like a little child. I want to stay up. There are too many things to do like crocheting, reading, watching TV, blogging, thinking, going places, playing Roof Rats, talking, sudoku.....it's a long list. I don't want to miss anything. I don't want to waste time sleeping. I'm not manic or anything, it's a conscious choice. I can fight sleep for really long periods of time. Routinely through the week I only get about 5-6 hrs of sleep. I have to get up early every Wednesday, so it's a 4-5 hr night for me, it looks like. If I didn't have to work, I'd stay up all night every chance I got, sleep all morning and then wonder where the day went. But it's not just that I like nighttime and being a night person...it's having more hours in my day to do the things I want to do. It's the 'go' gene I think in a different form. I just want to go and go and go. Right now, if I wasn't sleepy and if I didn't have to get up early tomorrow, I'd get in my car, drive to Sonic and get something to drink like a rootbeer (only they aren't open at 2am), then I'd go find a relatively safe place near a train track and I'd watch trains and listen to the scanner. Really. I did that this afternoon and it was fun. I only came home because I was hungry and it got dark. I'm ready for more, except I AM sleepy. It doesn't take much to entertain me.

3:10 to Yuma

Picture from the beach at Tybee Island.

We watched "3:10 To Yuma" last weekend and it was really good. Probably everyone who is likely to see it has already seen it, so this isn't exactly a timely review, but whatever. Russell Crowe is hot hot hot. He's the baddest bad boy in a long time, on and off the screen. The movie is really interesting and addresses honor among thieves in some of it's themes. I don't recall ever seeing the original movie, but now I'd really like to. I lived in Yuma, AZ as a kid for several years. The only sort of tourist attraction there is the territorial prison. When I was a kid, it was pretty rustic, deteriorating and lacked much historical accuracy. It was privately owned and included a mummy (which turned out to be made of plaster and is now billed as an attraction in another part of AZ) and tiny fleas dressed up in people clothes such as wedding dresses and tuxes. The fleas were under glass and up at the front of the museum and a real highlight for kids. We took field trips to the museum every year. Yuma was not a big town then, and the museum was only about 3 blocks from my elementary school, and 6 blocks from my house, but it was a field trip, nonetheless. Nowadays, the prison museum is lacking the sleazey, decaying character it had in the 60's. It is owned by the state of AZ and it has brochures that don't include fake mummy pictures or fleas. It's sterile looking but at least now the inside part is air-conditioned. When I was a kid, they just left the door open all the time. I remember seeing the individual cave-like cells with clawed out semi-circles where the prisoners had tried to escape. There were also metal clamps and chains where prisoners were chained down, and a hole in the top of the cell where supposedly the rattlesnakes were dropped down on the prisoners. I don't know if that part was true, or part of the made up lore of the place, but it was fascinating for kids. I still have vivid mental images of those baked clay cells. If Russell Crowe had been there it would have been a different place. Did I mention how hot he is?

ethnic foods

In the last 24 hours I've eaten Italian, Japanese, Mediterranean and Cuban food. It was all good, especially the Mediterranean and Japanese (sushi). I can remember when we didn't have all those choices here and it still makes me feel sophisticated to know a little bit about some of the choices available, even though my knowledge is very limited in most of those areas. For some reason, I am insanely drawn to hummus. Any kind, any flavoring. The kind I had tonight was about the best I've ever had. It had these little speckles of purple stuff sprinkled on it, and when I asked our waitress (who was of unknown heritage but very brown and heavily accented) what it was, she just shrugged and said it was Mediterranean seasoning. Wisht I had me some of that, whatever it is. It tasted slightly peppery.

Atlanta tornado

This is a picture from downtown Atlanta. The tall round building in the middle of the picture is the Westin Peachtree Plaze hotel. You can see all the windows that were blown out. This pic was taken about 6 days after the tornado last month. Several other buildings were also hard hit and lost windows. As we were driving through Cabbagetown district, a huge piece of roof was dangling from the power line over our heads. Traffic was awful because so many streets were closed. It took us a long time to get through town.