Reflections on a year I was grateful to see go

Well, hello, there!  I said I’d be back in the new year, and here I am.  I missed you!  But I also spent the last couple of weeks masquerading as a slightly insane petsitter.  Slightly insane only because I think sane petsitters occasionally say no to jobs so that they can occasionally care for their own pets; I, on the other hand, had up to 13 jobs in one day.  Thank you a billion times over to my beautiful wife for taking care of our own beasts!

I both love and hate year-in-reviews; sometimes I find it really boring to read about other people’s years, but really, if you find this boring? Skip it.  Because when it’s not boring it’s really interesting, so I’m banking on everyone loving my version of a year in review.  It’s a bit more of a reflection than review, but that’s what you get. Ready? Let’s go.

Our 2010 year started off with us screwing up a dinner party.  Seriously.  We thought we were being invited to just a “let’s all hang out, it’ll be fun!” party and we showed up 2 hours after it started.  Um, fashionably late for a regular old party, right? Yeah, well, as I mentioned – it was a dinner party.  Being 2 hours late is very, very bad.

I tell you this because, in retrospect, it seems like an appropriate beginning to the year that 2010 was.

In 2010, we had in our lives or in the lives of people we’re very close to a birth, a death, jobs lost, new jobs started, a separation, a wedding, we moved, we got a kitten, we lost our kitten, and we each turned another year older.  That last part is just how things work.  Other notable things: I started blogging, I started classes, I dropped classes, I got rejected by roller derby (twice!), our dog bit someone, I changed my life plan, we changed our last name, we merged our finances, and – yes, I already mentioned the wedding, but it feels worth mentioning again – we’re married now.

yes, I know you've seen this picture before... but it is one of my ALL TIME FAVORITES. So here it is again. Enjoy, because it's beautiful.

What I mean to say is that 2010 was a really big year, and I am really grateful that it’s over.  When the clock struck midnight and our little group of friends yelled “Happy New Year!” I felt this sudden and huge wave of relief.  Really, that’s sort of silly: who knows what 2011 brings?  Maybe more stressors, different stressors.  But I find a lot of hope in this: we made it through this last year, and we did a really good job.  The chances of all of these things happening in the same year again are probably not very high, but, regardless, I know we can handle it.

Being engaged and then married has been an enormous blessing throughout all of this.  When things get hard, I know that there’s someone by my side, someone on my team; even when we’re having a rough time in our relationship, we’re in it for the long haul.

So here’s to 2011, with hope that it is full of love and new beginnings and is only somewhat eventful.  Happy New Year, you guys.

The End/I’m always covered in fur

So my last day of work was last Friday and for some reason I expected some downtime.  Did I already talk about this?  It’s all sort of a whirlwind of craziness.  The plus side is that I do need to eat but I don’t have time to shop, so tonight I threw a bunch of ingredients we had around the house (canned beans, frozen veggies, soy “hamburger”, some herbs) into our slow cooker and things smell delicious.  Sadly, it still needs another 20 minutes to cook slowly, so I thought I’d pop in and say Hello! I’m not missing!  I am just, once again, terribly (wonderfully?) covered in other people’s cats.

us, covered in our own animals. I promise these are our only cats. We are not crazy cat ladies... though I think becoming a crazy dog lady is not a bad goal.

Also sadly, it seems that this trend of being covered in other people’s pets (or feeding and cleaning up after other people’s pets) will continue for the rest of 2010, and I am not going to have the time I would like to dedicate to thoughtful blogging.  Lucky for me, many of you have time off of work and so will not be hoping my blog has new content so that you can procrastinate.

So, my friends, here’s to the new year a few days early!  Thank you to my faithful readers; even though I don’t know who most of you are, I appreciate knowing that you’re out there reading.  And thank you to the regular commenters for helping me feel like I’m saying something worth saying.  Lastly, thank you to those of you who have approached me in person or emailed to say you like what’s happening over here: it always seems to come when I need it most.  You all make this worth doing.

Happy New Year!  And Merry Christmas, if that’s your thing, and also happy birthday to me, my wife, and my dad.  See you next year!  No, seriously, I’ll be back in full swing 1/1/11.  Hooray!

Cheers,

Bird

My Pre-furred State of Being

I have spent my entire life wanting to be a veterinarian when I grow up.  I think there was a month or two when I was about thirteen or fourteen when I was really active in my church, and for those two months I considered that maybe I wanted to be a UU minister.  Well, when that month or two was over, I was back to wanting to be a vet.

 

again, me in my Preferred State of Being: covered in dogs

I started working at a local vet clinic when I was fifteen, and never really stopped after that.  In high school I went abroad for six months and obviously could not keep my job while I was on the other side of the world, but no worries!  I found a Clinica Veterinaria where I happily worked every Saturday morning.  When I returned to the states, it was back to work at the hospital, and after not working with animals for one measly semester in college, I never took a break again until my first real-life job.  I decided to take a break from veterinary medicine and try something a little more human oriented.  I thought maybe animals weren’t my thing anymore… after a year and a half of rape crisis work, I went back to the dogs (and cats and rats and bunnies and birds… you get the idea).

 

Me in Chile circa 2002. No, I didn't medically treat these llamas, but I may have tried to hug them.

The big thing that I didn’t do in all of this time was actually finish my classes to apply to vet school.  Every year I have said, “This year I’ll finally take X so that I can get my application in for next fall,” and every year something comes up: I don’t have the time, I don’t have the money, I refuse to skip my honeymoon so I can take the first Organic Chem exam.  Not the worst excuses, but finally I realized something.

I don’t think I want to be a vet.

That said, I do (of course!) still appreciate a face-in-cat situation. Even if the cat is slightly perturbed.

A couple of weeks ago, I was preparing to leave my job at the cat clinic and wondering what would come next.  I put together a list of the things I have loved about all of the veterinary medicine work I have done in the last almost-11 years (seriously, almost 11 years? Crazy!):

1. Working with people and animals. One or the other doesn’t quite cut it for me.
2. Troubleshooting with people about their animals, a la, How can we get your cat to take its pill? How can we help you transition a new pet into the house? How can we get your cat more active or your dog more engaged? etc)
3. Working with the same people over time, and getting to know clients. I love recognizing people when they come in; I love that they know me by name and that I know them well enough to stop and say hello around town.

The thing I realized is that none of this is specific to medicine. So… here goes something else?  Monday was my first day of officially no longer having a full time job.  Of course, I still got up at 6:30, dropped my wife off at the bus, took the dog for a run through the woods, and then went to my volunteer position at a wildlife sanctuary.  As I pulled up to my driveway after all of that, I glanced up and there was a bald eagle flying over our house.

(this is not the actual eagle, but this is what it actually looked like)

I’m seeing hope around every corner.  Here I am, knowing that I’m on the edge of something big, and feeling like I’m waiting for it to materialize in front of me.  I have a petsitting business and a domain name – could I someday expand this to a training/behavior business?  Do I go back to school for something awesome?  Does someone reading this know exactly what all the signs point to?

The Short Version

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I’m really busy, and I’m really enjoying being really busy.  That said, it’s sort of a fuzzy gray area between, “Whee! Really busy is fun and exhilarating! I love puppies and kitties and cookies and I’m so busy I don’t even notice the huge mess that has taken over our house!” and “AHH NOTHING WILL EVER GET DONE.”  The first one should be said like I’m the simple dog, and the second like I’m the helper dog.

(click image for source)

The exciting thing that’s happening is that I am figuring out, slowly but surely, what I want to do with my life and where to direct my time and energy once this over-employed insanity becomes under-employed insanity.  I’m feeling hopeful and inspired, but I still don’t have the answers I want.  It’s a process, I suppose.

In the meantime, I started blogging every day for NaBloPoMo, and I haven’t really stopped.  It’s sort of like exercising: sometimes it’s hard to just do it, but the endorphins make it worth it.  And by endorphins, I mean comments and emails that you guys send me… thanks for all your support and awesomeoness.  BUT! The helper dog in me has decided that getting up early or staying up late to write is not necessarily healthy anymore, so I’m cutting back – no more weekend posts.

I don’t know if you all have seen Avenue Q – if you haven’t, do it! Go see it! It’s like Rent but with puppets. And funnier. – but there’s a song that’s been going through my head, with slightly modified lyrics:

My version goes, “It’s a fine, fine line between insanity and alive…”

Finally, goats! Because it’s Thursday, and that means it’s almost Friday.  Hooray!

best. honeymoon. ever.

What are you doing this weekend?  Where is your happy place?  Will you still be here when regular Bird who has slept a regular amount on a regular basis comes back?  Please say yes.

Dearest Crate, I love you so.

I love – love! – Daphne’s crate.  While she came to me with a boatload of issues, probably from having never been actually *walked* on a leash as a puppy, she did come to me crate trained, and while I think the family that ruined her puppyhood kind of sucked (because of how much they fail at her puppyhood), I am so, so grateful that Daphne already liked her crate.

From liking her crate, it didn’t take much to make her love it, and it was the easiest command to teach.  I would put her in there, close the door, and give her treats, and then let her out as soon as she was done.  When I left for work, I put her in the crate and tossed the treats into different corners so that she was too busy looking for deliciousness to notice I was leaving.  When we were hanging out at home I’d toss a treat in the back, say “crate” and repeat.

Sometimes we hang out with her in the crate. Um, everyone does that, right?

Crates tell dogs what they are supposed to be doing; they give dogs a place to feel safe and secure.  Daphne knows that crate time is nap time.  And, because she’s super smart, she knows that she stays in her crate when we leave for work… and every day as we pack up our bags she goes in and looks at us: “Mama, are you going to close the door? It’s time for me to sleep in my crate.”  We don’t have to worry about her getting into the litter boxes or getting bored and chewing on stuff or remembering that I left treats in my vest pocket and getting rid of them for me.  She would probably be fine outside the crate – but why bother? She loves it and we love in.  In fact, when I’m home alone and try to get her to sleep with me… she’ll stick around for about 10 minutes before hopping off the bed and going to sleep in her crate.

Why am I telling you?  Because last night I realized how much I love the crate.  And sad things happened.

See, yesterday morning, one of Turtle’s friends called and needed us to take her dog for a week or two.  We said yes because I love dogs and Turtle wanted to help.  This dog is a 1ish year old chihuahua mixed with insane energy dog, and looks like a miniature Daphne.  He has had almost no training – he can sit about 50-75% of the time when you ask.  So he came over last night and all went well for the first little while.  He played with the dogs, the cats hid; we went for a walk.  And then I put everyone in their crates so we could have some quiet time.

this is sort of what the playing looked like. different puppy, though.

With poor Rascal, crate time does not equal quiet time.  It equals THE LOUDEST TIME THERE EVER WAS.  We moved his crate next to Daph’s, hoping that seeing her be calm and quiet would calm him – instead she started whining and barking, too.  What are we upset about? I don’t know but I am upset too! Let’s tell the world how upset we are! EuLALia!

So then! Then we put him in the study with the lights off and the door closed, all “Hey dog! It’s bed time! Sleeping happens now!”  Well, it got worse.

tired and sad

Long story a little shortened down for you, we ended up driving to meet the friend’s dad at a Dunkin Donuts for a puppy handoff, and we feel awful about it.  I was so excited to be the magical dog trainer who taught the dog to calm down and helped him learn the world is a good place – and Turtle was excited to help her friend in such a big way. But the other side of it is that we live in an apartment, and we can’t have dogs barking all night – not to mention we had been planning on getting some sleep.  The other part of the apartment thing is that we are allowed to have a dog and two cats… not three dogs and two cats.  Sigh.

What is your most valued dog command/trick?  Do you crate train? Have I convinced you to crate train yet? DO IT. Do it. It’s fun.

The Thrill of the Chaos

Some people enjoy the Thrill of the Hunt or the Thrill of the Chase… it seems, my friends, that I enjoy the Thrill of Being Ridiculously Busy.

though I am capable of relaxing! see??

Since I’m leaving my job in less than two weeks, and I know it might take me a long time to find another job, I decided to start stocking up on money-making activities here and there.  I mentioned I was looking for something extra and a friend called me when her company needed some data entry done; I put up my petsitting cards at a local petstore (guys, I know it’s owned by PetCo, but I love UnLeashed – such a good petstore!) and now I’m walking and doing some positive-reinforcement training with a puppy in town on top of my regular clients; I stopped in at my favorite cookie-only bakery (okay, so there’s only one of those I know of, but it would be my favorite even if it wasn’t the only one) to buy cookies and on a whim asked if they were hiring – now I’m working there a few hours a week.

sky's the limit on insanity!

So I’m basically working four jobs through Christmas, and yes, I am a little bit stressed out, but also – I feel SO GOOD.  Every free moment is a moment I could do something with.  Quick! I have five minutes while the water boils for tea! Time to make that Christmas ornament I’ve been putting off! Okay, here’s another ten minutes before I have to leave: I’ll put tape on the windows and put the plastic up in a few days when I have fifteen minutes to spare.  I am getting an absolute thrill from being so damn busy.

At the end of the day, I am exhausted and usually either asleep or incredibly grumpy (sorry Wife!) by 9:30 at night, but I also feel so productive.  Maybe I don’t have a Thing, but maybe my Thing is trying to keep my head up without losing my shit.  In a good way.

It's all a delicate balance, sort of like a giant chess game. Like THIS giant chess game.

Are you someone who prefers to be busy than, you know, relaxed?  What do you do when you have too much time on your hands?  Does anyone besides somewhat crazy me ever actually feel like they have too much time on their hands?

Happy Tuesday, everyone!  Hopefully my posts don’t start sounding a little manic as these jobs pick up… please tell me if they do.  Or just sit in the corner being quietly entertained by me, and occasionally check in with my wife to make sure she’s doing alright.

*All photos from our Awesome  Honeymoon, which I may or may not someday get around to telling you about.  Er, about which I may or may not someday getting around to telling you. Yeah.

Fixing Everything for Everyone… or Not.

If you read any blogs besides this one, you’ve probably noticed the Reverb10 trend.  Basically, it’s a daily prompt to help us “reflect on your year and manifest what’s next.”  Quite frankly, the prompts have not inspired me much: I don’t really have or care to have one word that describes this or next year; I don’t want to narrow “feeling alive” down to one moment.  But this morning I have a lot to do, like finally put plastic over the windows and finish making an ornament I’ve been working on for a week, and, being who I am, this means I am doing pretty much everything other than those things. Like checking out reverb10.

Today’s prompt struck me, because I really do have an answer to it, and it’s an answer I’ve been putting a lot of energy into.

Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

Letting go: look, Ma, no hands!

I’ve spent a lot of time in my life trying to make things better for other people.  It’s my goal at work: improve their experience (“Sorry for the wait, help yourself to coffee and tea! Oh, your cat is SO CUTE, cutest cat ever!”), validate their feelings (“Only you know what’s best for your cat, you’re making the best decision…”); I did similar work at the rape crisis center, and that’s the important part of the work I do now.  But it extends beyond that, and it got bigger in the context of planning our wedding.  It became “Our wedding is important for everyone, not just us, and it has to be perfect!” Always in the back of my mind was “we have to make this look like a *real* wedding so that my family who may not be supportive of my Gay Wedding will still see that it’s a Real Wedding.”

a real(ly heavy) wedding dress, totally inappropriate for wearing in a canoe

Over the course of all of it, I realized that the wedding is about other people in a lot of ways, but it is also more about us.  It is about us becoming our own family, and it is about planning something really big together for the first time. In the end, it did look like a Real Wedding (and it was a real wedding!), but each element had been picked out because it was meaningful for us, not because we thought it would look good to other people.

What I’ve started to let go of this year is trying to live my life for other people.  I am realizing that I can love and support other people, but that I have to be more honest with myself and in my relationship.  This is not a Veruca Salt declaration; it is not all about me.  But my life is also not about everyone else, and that is what I am letting go of.

My family has been going through some tough stuff recently, and I have been trying my best to be there for everyone all the time, to be strong and supportive and assure everyone that everything is fine.  And then yesterday I was walking with Turtle, and something just sort of clicked. I said, “You know, as much as I want to fix everything for everyone, I can’t fix it, and it’s not my job to fix it.  It’s my job to be here and let them know that I love them, and let them know that I am here for them.”  And she agreed that I am doing that job pretty damn well.  It doesn’t stop my desire to fix the world, but it makes it a little easier to accept when I can’t.

my closest, awesomest support system: sister and wife

Forget whether or not you’re doing this reverb10 thing: is there something that you’re letting go of or trying to change in yourself?  And if you hate that question, here’s another for you: how do you find the boundaries between being supportive and taking care of your self?

David’s Bridal: the Final Battle

Yesterday was my scheduled Dress Pickup, Take 2.  Not sure if you read or remember the first part of this story, but here’s what you should take away from the whole thing: “dress pickup” means “dress fitting and maybe dress taking-home if it fits the way we said we’d make it fit, but we might not have made it fit right, so it may just be another fitting.” Just fyi.

Brief review of our last visit: my dress was so tight around the ribs that I could barely breathe, and I was still sore the next morning from trying it on the night before.  They gave me a hard time about letting it out.

I showed up this time prepared for battle.  A small part of me hoped that it *wouldn’t* fit so I could just ask for my money back, make some loud complaints, and then wear my suit.  We arrived and – shockingly (sarcasm) – couldn’t find someone to help us for our appointment.  Finally we went into the room where they actually do the sewing, announced ourselves, and someone brought me my dress.  With the wrong name on it, but it was my dress.  Way to show your customer service and organizational skills off, David’s.

I put the dress on, and… it fits.  It’s comfortable.  I look pretty. Turtle is pleased and obviously relieved that I am not about to throw a fit in the bridal salon.  Part of my throwing a fit plan was to tell all the shoppers there how horrible our experience had been.  Anyway: Turtle, relieved, moving on.

So I turn to go back into the fitting room to undress and I see: the hem is uneven.

Seriously, David’s?  I mean, I am no master tailor, and I’m not even sure how to use a sewing machine.  I tried once and failed.  But I do know that a hem is one of the simplest things to do.  The nice lady at our local place hemmed my pants perfectly in five minutes after only pinning one side of one leg – you, DB’s, pinned around the entire bottom of the dress and still one side was an inch longer than the other.

On the upside, they fixed it within half an hour.  The back still looks a wee bit uneven to me, but I’m not dealing with them anymore.

In the meantime, Turtle found her dress.  The second batch of J. Crew dresses arrived.

these dresses came in smaller boxes and pretty little bags. excitement!

folded all pretty and mysteriously...

She tried the first one on, and it was pretty.  I’m not quite sure what to do with the funny sash thing coming down the front.

pretty lady!!

She hemmed, she hawed, she thought maybe this was the dress.  I thought it was pretty, if a little toga-like.

And then, you guys – she tried the second one on.  And we were sort of, well, floored.  It was beautiful.  She was beautiful in it.  I might have gotten a little teary, and she stood there quietly for a minute and then said something like, “I think this is it.”

We took it to a tailor on Saturday and we’re picking it up this week. All so much easier than anything we did before this.

My pretty lady won’t let me show you a picture of her in her for real dress, but here’s the stupid uncomfy one from David’s – not sure if we’re selling it or doing some sort of giveaway (but if you know someone who’s interested, they should get in touch with us!):

after seeing her real dress, it's so clear that this was not the right dress... boo our decision making skills sometimes!

us, in the dresses that we're *not* wearing!

Did you get it right the first time? Are you dying to see how pretty she is in her real dress?  Don’t worry, you only have to wait 10 more days until someone somewhere posts a picture of us GETTING MARRIED. IN TEN DAYS (according to my countdown). omg.

In the meantime: just keep breathing, just keep breathing.

How are you staying sane?

Managing the Muck

Tonight we were driving and all I could talk about was stupid stuff we have to do.  We have to call the car insurance guy, we have to find songs for the wedding, we have to pay bills, we have to figure out how the hell we’re going to actually combine all our money, we have to practice signing our new last name… so many things! None of which can be accomplished in the car.  And Turtle was like, “Why are we talking about this now instead of when we can do something about it?!”

And here’s the answer: because all these ideas are like funny little creatures just pinging around in my brain, leaping and flying and somersaulting around in my head, and I can never wrangle them still enough to deal with them when there’s actual time to do it.  Stupid little Animal-thoughts. Calm the f down!

So the pinging Animal-thoughts are the reason I haven’t been here; somehow it seems luxurious to write about whatever I feel like writing about when I have ten million A-ts to deal with, not to mention the actual animals in my life who are always desperately needing something like a lap or someone with whom to run in circles.  The beasts, they ask a lot of me.

clearly high-maintenance

In the meantime, here is what I have been thinking about: how marriage changes things.

Marriage, I think, throws you into the muck of things, when the muck is the other person’s family.  When you’re dating someone, their family is on the other side of them – you are connected to them on one side, there they are in the middle, and their family is on the other side.  You know their family; maybe you are even close to their family.  But you are not a part of their family.

silly family

And obviously marriage changes that.  I mean, duh, of course marriage changes that.  But suddenly you are spending time with their family on your own.  Suddenly when there’s a family fight, you are allowed to be there, and maybe it’s awkward and it’s probably uncomfortable, but you are a part of it.

Both of our families have family muck, muck that I won’t write about here; but what I’ve realized in the past few months is how in it we are, that the muck is a big part of what we’re signing up for.  Hello, Muck, I’m Bird, and I am here for the long haul.

All kinds of wedding things have been happening recently: we are getting RSVPs, we have both of our wedding rings all shiny and engraved and in our possession, I have my suit (though I have yet to try it on) and just today bought a shirt to wear with it. Turtle is still dress-less, so we’ll see what happens with that.

Funny story, though: I just don’t care enough to write about it. I’m sorry? Maybe “I don’t care enough” is the wrong way to say it; maybe I’m just trying to survive these last three weeks of planning and the writing needs to be about something I can really invest in? I’m not sure.  But this is what I am holding onto:

Three weeks from today, we will stand in front of our family and friends and declare ourselves family.  In the meantime, we will wade through the muck, we will hold each other up, we will get each other to work and help each other fill out applications and take turns cleaning up Beast poop.  And in three weeks and a day, well, we will be married, and we will be doing similar things, and hopefully we will still be riding the high that being surrounded by people who love you brings.

For now, I try to remind Turtle that I am grateful for all the muck-wading she is doing and that I am prepared for any muck-wading she needs from me; for now, I try to remember that the hair flower doesn’t matter, while balancing the idea that I really, really want a hair flower; for now, I am trying to be grateful for where I am, while I’m here.

I have no intriguing questions for the end of this post, but I do want to say that I’ve missed writing, and I miss all your responses to what I write.  So say hello, if you have a minute, and tell me the things that you’re trying to hold onto, trying to savor, or can’t wait to be done with. Or both.

Oh so wrong but oh so right

Oh, hi there!

You might have noticed I disappeared for a few days.  This can be chalked up to the facts that 1. we went away for the weekend (and had a wonderful, wonderful time, thanks to my amazing extended family) and 2. things kind of suck, and rather than writing, I am trying not to lose my sh*t.

Sad, but notable, note: I’m sure this is not the first time I’ve written that.

So, my friends, do not expect a wedding update right now, but rather some classy complaining. Maybe just plain old normal complaining. Here’s what’s been happening:

• Plans we had made around our wedding are, for various reasons we are still trying to parse out, not working out. These are conversations we’re trying to have right now, so I’m not going to say much about them here. Let it suffice to say that last week’s guest post skims the surface.
  

  me: tell me what to do about everything that's happening! turtle: *this picture*

• I posted that post on Friday, got ready for work, ran out the door, and drove about 75 feet down the road when my car smashed into another car.  We live on a nice, quiet street that is intersected by two other nice, quiet streets, and – funny story! – there are no stop signs on any of the corners.  Yes, my friends, that is 8 separate corners that do not have stop signs. Woo hoo.  As soon as I finish writing this, I’m off to get my car looked at by the fancy insurance people.  Let’s just say this was inconvenient.  My awesome dad lent us his car for the weekend so we could go to New York and visit my family…
  

  pieces of my car, police car looking on

• … where my awesome dog bit someone. I’ve written a bit before about Daphne, and how she has some behavior issues that we’ve been working on with her, and how she was never socialized quite right.  Yes, once she bit another dog, and yes, it broke the skin, but it really was provoked. I would have bitten the other dog, too, if I could have gotten away with it.  But this time… well, this time the kid deigned to walk by my dog.  I’m sure it’s all more complicated than that – in fact, I know it is – but that’s what it looked like.  Luckily, she only tore his clothes, did not break the skin, and I apparently handled it well.  So, here’s what you do if your dog bites a kid: yank the dog off the kid, hand her off to someone who can handle her, make sure the kid is ok, go talk to the kid’s mother, and then burst into tears because you thought you were fixing your dog and then she went and f*cked it all up.  Everyone was very forgiving. I might start slipping St. John’s Wort into Daph’s treats… just take the edge off, you know?
  

  this face would never bite anyone! um... right? right!? wrong.

• I went to breakfast with some of the Bees on Monday morning, and talked about all the stupid stuff that’s going on, and they all told me they hoped my week would get better, and I said, “Thanks, but it really can only get better from here!” And then I went out to my car, where I had just gotten a parking ticket. Big sigh. Got in the car, made a U-turn to go back home, and promptly got pulled over.
  

  well, fancy seeing you again!

I am, surprisingly enough, doing pretty well dealing with all this, if I may say so myself.  I haven’t fallen apart into a teary mess more than twice, and that’s pretty good for me.  Our wedding planning is still going on, and I am only more excited to marry the wonderful woman who has been by my side through all this other crap.  A surprising number of people have appeared in my life to tell me how wonderful I am and how well I’m handling things.  So, thanks, World, for reminding me that things are going right, too.

What good things are happening soon for you?  Anyone else with a craptastic series of events?  In the grand scheme of things, these aren’t the worst… and, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, happy updates coming soon to a Roughit blog near you.