Oh gentle night

With gentle sighs and clink of tags
the dogs remind me
that I am safe
in the night
behind a wall of woof

I just became aware that they are making a movie based on Abigail Thomas's memoir "A Three Dog Life." Another poet named Vicki Hearne and her book "Adam's Task: Calling Animals By Name" came to embody the decade of my 20s. Now Abigail's book, read while I was recovering from my pelvic floor reconstruction in 2009 has become a kind of embodiment of my 40s. My husband is quite alive and functional, never fear. But Abigail's account of rebuilding her life after her husband's accident resonated with me as I was struggling with chronic illness and working to recover my life after repeated surgeries.

For me, there is a kind of simplicity in living life with in the short time frame of a dog's life. It effects everything about my life. How I travel, who has keys to my house, how I vacation and what I do for a living are all colored by my furry companions.

I know this is not the life many would choose. But that is okay by me.

I am myself, completed by dogs.

This is my life. A life with dogs. A three dog life.

Flowers from the warm season

You might not know this about me, but I love flowers. Because I changed phones recently I had the occasion to look back at all the photos I had shot with the old phone. I am like a "birder," only of flowers. Here's some I have shot over the last few months, from now back towards spring:

Oops, Capt Kirk snuck in there

Random thoughts, I have these every so often

Much like paddling, walking my dogs leads me down a contemplative path. I often ponder unanswerable questions when in the company of my dogs.

Such as:
-I recently saw a meme going around that said "Dog is Love." But I had also seen earlier a meme that said "God is Love." And also a bumper sticker "Love is God" So, let me see if I get this straight: if God equals Love and Love equals Dog, then Dog = Love which = God. Dog is God. No wonder they are have the same three letters arranged front to back, in reverse. And then I started thinking "ah, so if Dog is an embodiment of God then what is the Dog Star? An embodiment of God in a star? Or is it that all dogs are stars....?" "Oh, all dogs go to Heaven, of course!"

-The leash ties us together. It protects our dogs from injury and protects we humans' hearts from trauma too. All hail the leash!

-I know that dogs view their poop as much as we people view calling cards. I wonder what they think when I remove their "calling cards?" My female dog always looks away, as though she is embarrassed.

-While picking up poo this morning I discover my female dog still has soft stools. I am stumped. We have tried everything from home made food to voodoo, and nothing seems to help. I blame the chronic soft stools on the numerous antibiotics she received during the 18 months she struggled to recover from a brutal bone infection.

Following the last round of voodoo, actually homeopathic remedies, she finally overcame the infection. She walks without a limp and no longer has a swollen leg with a draining tract. A human would have sunk into such depression, having a swollen arm with pus draining from it for 18 months. So we forgave Kona her terrible attitude during those long months. She became our horrible baby, a snarling growling grumpuss, needing love and tender care.

-The local foxes and possibly coyotes poop at the end of driveways and sometimes on side walks. I know this is their way of marking territory. Leaving calling cards. But one must be awake to avoid stepping in their "calling cards" at dusk or dawn. And I sometimes shamble around the block like a zombie at dawn, propelled by my grip on the leash, the gentle tug of the dog at the other end. You can see where this is headed, right...?

-My dogs will never "dump" me, unlike my human friends. And so I ponder, having just had a friend leave my life with many unanswered questions, My husband says I attract flawed people. If so, then it is because I am tolerant of human defects, living in a glass house and all. I am so aware that I am no paragon of human perfection. "Flawed" is just another way to say "perfectly human."

husband covered in beasts

-It is almost fall again. Autumn used to be my favorite time of year. Now I dread its arrival, remembering past years. This fall I will not stop paddling, having graduated to the dry suit crowd. I am enrolled at a yoga studio to help me stay active and focused. I am also thinking of having a frank discussion with my gp, just to see if he has anything to suggest. That is, anything besides decamping to Florida for the main part of the dreary season.

Old Dogs Go

Old dogs go
before you know it
walking home

I am just now beginning to mourn Trinity's death. It happened so swiftly I guess I didn't have time to really understand what I was losing. The part I hate most is that she lived her last year with my mom, as she and Kona just could not get along. She liked living with my mom, I think, so that part was good. But not being there for her as she entered her twilight year, that was bad, and unforgivable.

Buckaroo Banzai & Trinity wait to get in. My "2nd set of dogs," both gone now.

Loki-Bob loved Trinity. She was "his" dog.

Busy Bee also loved Trinity. He often sought her out, to nap next to her.

Trinity meets our boys. She *loved* black dogs. She thought all black male dogs were "sexy," and she never met one she didn't like, including our boys.

She's not sure she's liking the camera so close to her face.

She would play with Loki-Bob, tickling and licking him. Here he's just a baby and she was giving him heck.

This is a song that I wrote in 1996. I revised it in 2003, after I had lost my "first set of dogs." My beloved girls: Miss Occelatum Bottom (Ozzy), Crocodile (the Croco-Stimpy), and Pinkie Lou (my Brave Heart), passed away over a few years period;  a very dark time in my life. Sometimes, looking back, I wonder that I survived it.

I don't have any digital photos from that time. Eventually I'll scan some photos and get them up.

So here's that song, minus the pro-tabs. I realized how prophetic it was of me to write this while they were alive and still healthy:

He asks "are you alone tonite?"
I say "yeah, but it's all right,
Those dogs take up all the room
in my bed, late every night."

Gone for a walk, just those dogs and me
gone down the path they've slipped their leads
gone for a walk those dogs and me
those dogs are running free

walkin' the woods you keep comin to mind
I saw a dead oak covered in vines
in the dark leaves I read the signs
in the shadows a forest in every tree

Gone for a walk, just those dogs and me
...

Below, a link to a moving poem about Jimmy Stewart's own lost dog:
Jimmy Stewart on his dog Beau

There is heartbreaking sobbing coming from an exam room

When any client says goodbye to their beloved pet it is a sad thing. Some clients bring family, some come alone. We offer hugs, condolences, and reassurance that they are doing the right thing. But still, it is very hard. As veterinary staff and doctors know, we are called upon every day, every moment, to extend compassion not just to animals, but to people as well. One of my coworkers told me that I was suffering from compassion burnout right before I left for vacation 12 days ago. I needed that time in the Keys. I really really did.

At work a couple of weeks ago one of the practice owners received a message from a past client demanding that the doctor return their call. This person refused to give even the briefest hint to the receptionist taking the message. Normally, one can't just call a doctor's office and get a doctor on the phone. Try it; see how far you get. But in this case it was a new receptionist, a kind person perhaps a bit easily bullied.

No one wanted to return this client's call. This is a client whose name is bandied about rather like Freddy Krueger's; a name used to incite fear and loathing in any staff member who has had the misfortune of dealing with them.

Alas, it turned out that "Freddy" was calling in hopes of his pet seen for free or nearly for free. Freddy reasoned that we had been seeing him for a "long time," and perhaps he felt we owed it to him. In this situation it came down to this: this person had been merciless with our staff and doctors over the years, a real genuine bully. Because of this behavior they had zero compassion in the "compassion bank." Their expectation of free service was a bit humorous to us.

None the less I was bothered by the episode and the next day I asked one of the practice owners if we should go ahead and see the pet for free? If maybe, just maybe, it was the "right" thing to do? She said "Right? As in 'right' when you reach the Pearly Gates?" I replied "yes" and gave my reasoning. She was not convinced in either direction. So I was left with a question unanswered.

After the incident I left on vacation. In quiet moments I re-visited this episode and the fact that I felt I had failed to be compassionate. Or, on more reflection, is my definition of compassion skewed? Does compassion equal "free service?" I did come to the conclusion that I should offer compassion equally to all. It is not my place to judge whether a person is worthy of compassion or not. "I will offer compassion, I will turn away fear," is my mantra during meditation. And yet I feel I failed some how.

I wish I could say this story has a happy ending. But at this time we do not know what will happen. There may be no happy ending.

Been thinking about my friend Pat

Bear with me while I wander about my neural synopses for a  moment.

And so my friend Pat has been on my mind a lot. I found him dead from a heart attack the morning of September 22, 2010. He was laying face down in his backyard. I still see his body when I close my eyes sometimes, just in a flash, a beautiful fall day but the harsh sunlight falling on him, unfiltered by the large oaks on the edge of his yard... While the event was unfolding I kept thinking "this isn't real," and the memory of finding him still feels unreal to me. It plays out like a film. Someone else's memory.

I wrote this last year: "I can sometimes be found working at a vet hospital. It's not a "calling" or a "vocation," it's more like an unpleasant pastime that pays the bills. Please don't get me wrong, I love working with animals." The first part of this statement was an untruth, not real, born out of a desire to distance myself from my real life. One must accept that sometimes the truth of what I do for a living haunts me; is so painful I must create distance to avoid losing my fruit completely.

What I do to earn money is, in fact, a vocation, one that I am as dedicated to as some priests are to their chosen religion. One of the doctors I worked with in the past said once that, should anyone question her religion, that she would say seriously with a straight face "I worship the cat." I thought she was being a bit kooky, but now I believe she was on to something.

I don't worship the cat but I do honor the relationship we have with our pets as though it is my religion. It is the single driving force that keeps me working in field of veterinary medicine. The reason I keep returning to this and to the thoughts of Pat is this: Pat LOVED cats and so it naturally combines with this second thought about something I read recently; that a satisfying way to honor a deceased loved one is to strive to be more like them. To find the best part of that person, the part we found most good, and work to display that same goodness.

My friend Pat would help anyone he knew out. He lived to help, I truly think it's what he enjoyed most about life; being needed. And he was so needed, but I never told him so. If there are two things I learned about losing him the first is: the next time someone tells me something is killing them more than once, I am going to take that thing away from them. In Pat's case it was a total re-do of his roof, he stripped it down to the studs and was rebuilding it. But the project just kept taking longer and longer, it stretched into 6 months and he kept telling me "this roof is gonna kill me, kiddo," and I guess it did. The other thing I learned is that I am very bad at telling people how important they are to me, and that I can fix.

This morning I hugged my husband and told him sincerely how very much I love him and how very lucky I feel.

Today would be Pat's birthday. I do believe that Pat remains, in some part, Pat, even on the other side. It is not necessary to be incarnate in order to be one's self. I do believe. So, in Pat's honor I will stroke the office cat even longer today, and I will truly endeavor to be a better person, more like Pat. I will make myself more available to people in need, in order to offer help.

As I collected Pat's cats and found them homes, and helped his distant family manage the details, I said to several people "Pat called in every favor I owed him." I believe those two weeks after his death took several years off the length of my life. But I am truly grateful that I was there to help Pat when he needed me. And that's part of honoring him; that I was there to help, and was needed.

I love you Pat, where ever you are. Happy Birthday.

Catching up

So I guess keeping up with a blog isn't as easy as I supposed it would be. I have less trouble keeping up with my tumblr blog as it contains mainly just photos and very few words. That blog is really dedicated to art and so I tend to only post stuff I have just made or good pictures I've taken.

Let's see, last time I was here I talked about a bike ride. Since then I have paddled a bunch. The water has warmed up nicely and I am able to sit in my boat comfortably for about two hours at a time. At about the two hour mark I start needing a stretch. After a little stretching and walking around I can paddle some more. But I'm afraid the days of sitting in my boat for hours on end might be drawing to a close. As I said in an email to a kayak instructor I have great respect for, "Sucks getting old. Youth is wasted on the young. And one last cliche, if only I'd known then what I know now I would have done it all differently". To which he replied, in kind with cliche, "fight the good fight, never surrender."

Words to live by sir.

Some pictures. Work, play, love:

Jojo Bob, our office mate, creating a work stoppage allowing me to stretch and laugh

gathering for a Full Moon Paddle 4-26-13

Pulling away from Bull Run Marina as dusk falls

Taking photos with available light from a moving kayak  isn't ever easy 

Just as the moon clears the tree line

Happy Hour Paddle 4-24-13

Sculls everywhere, river right river left...5-3-13

Becky's fabulous new (to her) boat 5-3-13

5-5-13 Paddlers at Jug Bay on the Patuxent

I always love wandering back into the log jams and strainers of the western branch of the Pax

Going just a little bit further

Our furry "love children." Such it is with empty-nesters in our country. Work, play, and love.