"Save Bill and Buck" Manatee County wants them dead (Thursday 3-27-14)

I found this posted this morning on facebook:

"Status Update

By Save Buck & Bill from being killed

Due to the untimely filing by attorney Thomas Ostrander, of the petition to the second district court of appeals, Manatee County is upholding it's decision to murder Buck and Bill.

They are siting that because it wasn't filed on time, thus not abiding by the law, this is a good reason to kill the dogs.

Anyone in the area, please go to the shelter as Karen need all the support she can get."

http://www.examiner.com/article/buck-and-bill-two-dogs-sentenced-to-die-manatee-county

For an entire year I have followed this case. The owner's entire last year has been spent driving 200 miles each way as often as possible to visit her pups in jail. She is limited to 1/2 hour visits. Karen's last memories of her dogs will be like the above pictures, living in a cramped cold dirty concrete prison.

You see, I own Aussies. I own Aussies just like her. They are my heart children. I don't know that I would be able to pick myself up off the floor if this happened to me.

Kona and Torvald

Professor Jones, Indiana!

I think Bill and Buck may die today. And I can't get there. I wish I could. I've tried to help, sent money and prayers. I never pray. I don't believe God works that way. But in this one case I broke my usual mode of operation and asked the universe for help. I really did. I have poured a huge amount of positive energy into this, someone else's struggle against injustice and inequality. I've sent her my lunch money over and over to help in some small way defray the attorneys' fees. And all for naught? Really?

I am just heart broken for Karen. She could be me. I could be her. If they are to die, I fear I can't help her anymore. She's going into territory I've only had nightmares about. It is hard enough to lose your companion to age, disease, accident. But to lose your buddies through human incompetence? Through unequal application of poorly written standards and laws?

The death warrants are typed up and signed for yesterday (3/26) but they had hand written over them today's date. Today they die, "before 11:59 pm." She will be allowed "no more than 1/2 hour" with them before they are euthanized. She is not allowed to take any photographs or make any recordings, or even conference call with any of her friends and supports as this goes down. 

I know they are "just dogs" and really nothing but property in the eyes of the law. They have no more value than a flat screen tv. A friend's dad just died tonight. And another friend has had both parents in the hospital doing poorly. When I weigh these things in my mind I understand that the unjust death of a pair of dogs does not hold the same weight as these human examples.

 And yet I know that to have a dog (or cat), to be privileged to experience their love, is so special and has such a high emotional value, that really only having and loving a child compares. Human lives are so long and our companion animals so short. Baring an accident, my son and I will enjoy another 1/2 century (!) with each other. My dogs will be gone in a decade or less. It is this fleeting joy that raises the emotional stakes of risking love. You know they will be gone so soon.

To love is to lose, this is what I've learned.

Shame on Manatee County, Florida. Shame on the officials and county employees who have lied, and told wild tales that have no factual basis. The death of these dogs suits their own private agendas. They just want to make sure their own incompetence is not revealed, and the potential profit achieved. After all, now these dead dogs can be labelled "vicious and euthanized." Maybe the suing family will choke on their profit.

Shame on you, Manatee County. Shame on you. Oh, and by the way, my husband and I won't be moving to your lovely state after all. Too backwards. Not that you care, not that your state cares one wit about anything but money. You've really out done yourselves. Good job, guys.

It is as though someone declared "the wind has died"

 The very foundations of our world are shaken.

As you can see from my last entry on the 21st, I was fighting off the SAD (seasonal depression) pretty well. I had an uptick and was starting to feel a bit better. I was in a happier place, the weather was warmer and the sky bluer last week.

Mid-week I changed from Celebrex back to my old anti inflammatory Voltaren and my hands and shoulders felt so much better! This gave me a few better nights sleep. I started have some digestive issues on Friday and by Saturday had a full-blown "episode." (you don't want the details)  Hmm, thinking back, I hadn't had an "episode" since switching to the less-effective Celebrex. Needless to say I had to cancel on paddling with my friends that afternoon and barely made it to have dinner with my Ladies of Anglesey friends.

Dinner started with appetizers and drinks in the crowded bar at the DogsfishHead. All was well, and fun, until... Mikele got a call from her brother that our dear friend Shaitan (Greg) had been found not breathing right after he walked off the tourney field. This was a slow-moving disaster, each call, updating for the worse. He was declared dead at the hospital. We toasted his life and decided to skip dinner and walk home to Amy and Scot's house to talk.

That's Shaitan with red and black braids on his helm. credit bogpages.com

I met Shaitan when I was 16 and he was 19. He beat me up in Dagorhir (foam-fighting). He used to spy on me in camp and try to catch me naked. One time he flipped the shower tent door open on me, another time I caught him with his face pressed up against the mesh window of my tent, just as I took my clothes off. He teased me, and flirted with me, and hugged me. He was a force of nature, a satyr, a wood-land spirit, a Coyote.

I am having a really hard time. I am looking at photos of Shaitan and will post some but besides that, I don't know that I can say anymore. I am struggling not to just cry and cry.

Young Shaitan in the middle

Shaitan and Maegor, two of my favorite Tarns. We were young and invincible then.

This is the Greg I didn't know. The community activist, organizer, and all-around-good neighbor. But I'm not surprised at all. He was that kind of guy. Credit Julia 

I don't know who shot this but this was taken earlier in the day, on the day he died

Let Dennis Powers speak for me:

"All battle long I was killing a lot of people on his side and Shaitan was killing a lot of people on my side, but we had not yet (as far as I can remember) faced off against each other, after the last field battle he looks at me and said " you and I are gonna have to go" . Big shield charge into each other, threw a bunch of shots, before long neither of us had weapons or shields, whether we stripped them from each other or discarded them because it got too tight and they weren't doing enough damage, I don't recall . It ended with me having him in a choke hold and him elbowing me in the ribs trying to get loose. The elbows hurt so I dug the choke in a little tighter each time he hit me with one. I wasn't going to let go of the choke and he wasn't gonna stop throwing elbows. Then I foot sweep him and took him to the ground and we grappled around in the dirt a little while. When we heard the woods battle start we disengaged, picked up our weapons and shields and headed off into the woods looking for our respective teams with out a word being said. That was how I met Shaitan. That battle was almost 30 years ago now. We've fought with and against each other many, many, times in the decades since that battle when we were both oh so young. Had a lot of drinks and a lot of gambling , and various other shenanigans. He was my friend and a man I truly respected. That I wont see him again until I cross over that bridge is something I'm trying to wrap my brain around.-------Handrik of Anglesey."



I remember:

bogpages.com Thank you Tim, for providing photos of my memories

We 11 Concusare, Anglesey and Head Clan variously drove and flew to Gulf Wars in 2000. We didn't really coordinate with any other clans, we just wanted to spend time with Crinan, who was coming from Arizona. Llyr and I arrived first, staked camp, and went for a stroll. Lo-and-behold what do we spy but clearly a Tuchux Lodge in a small clearing all by itself?! No, shit, there we were!
We walked up and Llyr shouted "Hail to the lodge" and a voice answered "Enter!"
And there was Shaitan, sitting in a chair at the back of the lodge, looking for all the world like a king of old.
I said "I didn't know you were coming!"
and he said "I didn't know you were coming. We thought we'd be here alone!"
Then I said "but you looked like you were waiting for someone?"
and he said "Well, you know, if I build it, they will come."

In one of the field battles that week we 13, including Shaitan and Kai, ranged far to the left flank of the army and we saw a force of about 250 heading down the field to the far left for a break in the brush and trees at the very lowest corner of the field. It was just wide enough for about 6 or 8 fighters abreast. Shaitan pointed it out and lead us straight down at a full run and into the hole. We held that fucking breach, just 13 of us, and this one lone wolf we'd picked up. We broke that army on the Dog Pound. I remember when the flood of fighters slowed to a trickle and then there were just a handful, and then there was no one facing us. The horn blew and all these dudes came back and shook our hands. We were the Gods of War and Shaitan lead us there.

Us gathering on the field, Shaitan and Kai with us.
 bogpages.com

And I'm going to cry some more.

I learned after 9/11 not to look at stuff about the disaster on the tv too much, added to the whole PTSD experience. So I think I will be taking a break from facebook for the same reason. I will miss the updates and notices and the two or three friends who joined facebook simply because Shaitan's death shook them to the core as well.

But I have to step away to protect my self. I have work to do, a pile of files to audit. I have photos to edit, dogs to walk, a dirty house to clean, and blogs to read and write.

But all I can do is stare into the distance. Or cry, or lay in my bed and snuggle my cat.

This really sucks.

thoughts on a lost friend

I am working on the trip pics, never fear, installment number two will likely post during our incoming "blizzard."

I have had a lot of time to think. Water time elicits deep thinking.

I had once had a best friend; many-years best friend. I put up with her bad side as I truly enjoyed her good side. I imagined she felt the same way about me. But actually, it turned out that I was wrong. When she dumped me with no warning nor explanation I was shocked. Really truly deeply shocked and heart broken. I have never felt such grief. It is a grief made real to me on a work-a-day basis.

Never make friends in the work place is a take-away from this episode.

Another take-away is that I have begun to make better personal relationship choices. I think I was very accepting, far too much so, of my friends' and their personality defects. I can think of 5, 10, people with whom I would not now chose to be around. In fact, most of those people I do in fact now avoid. They are part and parcel of why I dislike being around my old reenactment group. Don't get me wrong, there are many good and fine people in that crowd, and some I really really like. However, I chose not to expose myself to the toxic amongst them, and this means I see the whole crowd less. But so it must be.

I feel like I have some real genuine quality friends now. When one of them hurts my feelings or does something I think is not quite right, I am comfortable discussing it with them. And they feel the same about me. It is a comfort to know that if I ruffle feathers or hurt feelings then that person will feel secure enough to discuss it and work it out.

Grown up, grown old? Or grown wise? I chose to be young, and wise. It's a good place.

Canes as fashion accessories

I need a cane. I can't walk very well anymore. This is a tragedy. Ok, a personal tragedy, not like an-epic-tsunami-that-ate-Japan-tragedy, more like a well-this-sucks tragedy. It's no big deal to anyone except myself, maybe my family, and on a more limited basis, my co-workers and clients.

Luckily, I don't think it will affect my kayaking friends at all. They don't give a damn whether I can walk as long as I can paddle, and perform an adequate self-rescue. And of course, lift a beer at the end of the day. They won't help me with that. We are a self-sufficient crowd when it comes to consumables.

I can still get my boats out of the garage and on to my newly christened "handicapped accessible Thule Hullavator" installed on my Outback. I can still walk a few steps with my boat. So I can still paddle, which is of the most importance for my quality of life. Because, let's be honest, when I can't paddle anymore I am hanging this crap up.

Walking any distance early in the morning, is possible. I typically walk with my dogs a couple of miles near dawn. Towards the end of the second mile I begin to limp. By noon I can barely walk down the hall at the clinic to the staff area in the back of the facility. Both my hips are uncooperative. Lately both legs are just in knots, like cramps but less painful, really stiff.

I am seeing a chiropractor my orthopedic surgeon recommended. He is trying myofacial release from my knees through the hip areas. It's really painful, and I wasn't really seeing any improvement until this week. This week on Wednesday I felt great, before my appointment. After my appointment, maybe less so. And then I missed my Friday appointment. It's getting hard to drive an hour, get an hour long treatment and then drive an hour back, three times a week. I think I'm going to scale back to just Mondays and Fridays.

When I saw my surgeon on Monday, after another session with the "mangler," he said my hips had the best rotation they've had since he's been caring for me (over a year). Man, I have two different dudes regularly groping me in the hip area, and both are swell to look at, might I add. And then I get home and am too exhausted to function, aka: take care of the hubby. Sad.

So I ordered my first cane. Hopefully not one of a series. But if I do need more than one I am getting this one next: http://www.fashionablecanes.com/3456.html
Don't worry, it's work safe and all. Just a carbon fiber cane with FLAMES!!! Did I say that with enough emphasis? FLAMES MOFOS!! Because it's so hot it's on fire! Yeah. Plus, it folds so it will be easy to store on the deck of my boat. I think I'll make a little padded bag for it to protect it if I flip and have to slide the boat over my buddy's deck to dump the water before I slither back in. Also, I think it will be fun at work. I can accidentally crush coworkers' toes with it. Oops, did I say that out loud? Yeah.

Let me leave you with some recent photos:

Water lily on the Mattawoman

Cool little catamaran leaving the canal in Avon NC

My Kona Bee

Kat on the Mattawoman

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.

More surgery. Yay.

Talked to the surgeon, that's that, my right labrum has a full-thickness tear. It's as shredded as the other was before surgery. I also picked up a good case of bilateral bursitis as well, just to mix things up. No wonder nothing feels right down there. More surgery. Great. Can you hear the lack of enthusiasm just dripping?

As you might imagine, I am having a really tough time holding it together now. Things like paddling trips and bike rides are high points in an otherwise miserable pain-soaked existence. I am even having a hard time finding funny cat memes to post on my employer's facebook page, which I maintain as part of my job. I think my sense of humor crawled out back and died. It's rotting away in the mulch pile with the summer grass clippings as I type.

None the less, I am digging around for something funny to say. Oh, hey! The Lorax quit drinking around Christmas. He hasn't slept well in years and I swear a couple of drinks will give me insomnia. So he stopped and actually started sleeping better. Anyway, we were at our outdoor club's happy hour and he told the waitress not to bring him a beer. So she didn't. Later he ordered one and she said "oh, have you quit quitting already?" with a big smile. And it was funny. Yeah, okay, that was a stretch. Maybe I'll come up with something funny later.

Thanks giving and all of that

Sometimes you have to say goodbye. And it sucks.

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 people, not so much. I am lucky in that I am still employed despite the truly atrocious economy. And that I am employed despite being a middle-aged plump female of middling health.

Don't laugh, you have no idea how lucky I am. Or maybe you do? Maybe your Aunt Edna lost her job when her company office downsized and she can't get re-employed to save her life. Now she's living in her geriatric parents' sun room, working at Walmart part-time just to pay for her car note and food. This is, all kidding aside, exactly the fate of many 40 & 50-something aged gals.

The incoming young people, fresh faced and right out of college, look so much more appealing to the HR department. I know, I AM the HR department at my place of employ. And it's not like I am some lecherous creep. I just foresee less management problems with the younger crowd. Although, come to think of it, one of my teenaged coworkers called me at 9:45 last night, waking me from a sound sleep. She wanted to discuss more hours. Believe me, calling me at that hour is a sure way to get me to agree to anything just to get you off my phone. She's not stupid, that one.

But in the end, even despite the "Gen Y" peculiarities, I am saying I wouldn't hire myself, if there were a younger option.

Because I am still recovering from one surgery and getting ready for another I have a lot of time to think. I am thinking about where my life is going. And whether that's where I want to go. Do I really want to "keep fighting the good fight" with my clinic? Or would I rather be painting and starving? The painting and starving options might not be as bad as it seems. I need to lose some weight, and I need to get these ideas up on canvas so I can move on to other ideas. And make those happen next. Also, I need time to focus on getting healthy and stronger. I don't have much time between work & home duties.

My chiropractor said it would be a full-time job to fully recover in a year's time. He wants me to cook all this special food, and eat a very "clean" diet. Then, walk 4 plus miles a day, and fit in all the exercises both he and the physical therapist have prescribed. And resume cycling, etc.

And where does that leave me-time? Me as in painting, and knitting, braiding, sewing, making...? I am not getting any less tired, that's for sure. So here's my Sunday after Turkey Day blog. Lamentable as always, an Eyore for sure. And on that sad note, a last photo taken by me of one of my all time favorite patients:

Good bye Max. We will never forget you.

The Lorax is tired...

He announced the other day that he "is done with Meetup." He says he will still paddle with me, hike with me, but he is tired of the newbies that show up on our paddles. During the winter he was tired of the young and out of shape hikers that showed up on our hikes. This is the "thing" about Meetup.

If you don't know about Meetup, go find out; especially if you are bored, bike or paddle alone, and wish you had some one to go with. Meetup isn't about dating, or at least it wasn't designed that way. It is about going out in the real world and doing "stuff" with others.

So I have a Meetup group, I am the Organizer, the website is paid for by me and I design most of the outings. This is my third year organizing. I don't mind the newbies at all. Generally, they pay attention and don't show up on tough stuff they shouldn't have gone on in the first place. But once every 3rd or 4th event, we will get someone who didn't read the description all the way, or who just didn't care.

I get that it is a pain in the neck to have to shepherd slow paddlers or hikers. I, myself, have been guilty of showing up on another group's bike ride and been over-matched by the hilly terrain; unprepared. The thing about that ride was there were a few other cyclists who were over baked as well so we were the "red lantern" at the tail end of 40 riders. While I shared my shame with several others, I lived, they lived, the Organizer didn't strangle us because there'd be too many bodies to hide.

My last two events went off great. My friend Kat came out and the three of us paddled the wildlife reserves off Leesylvania State Park two weekends ago. The water was a choppy and filled with big, slapping waves. We had gusts of wind as well. She is a very skilled paddler, and we had a wonderful paddle back in the fingers of marsh land edging the Potomac:

And then Kat, who owns the orange boat in the back ground tried out my boat, in the fore ground:

Mine and Kat's boats on the beach at Leesylvania

   
She didn't enjoy it. The cockpit fits her great but the boat is a tricksy little vixen. My last  sea           kayak, a Necky Eliza, I call my "dragon boat" because it always seemed like she was ready to bite me. It challenged me to rise to a new level as a paddler. I learned to control the boat with my hips and pay much more attention to my body language. I dearly love that boat but its tight cockpit puts pressure on my (old fart) legs, so sadly will part with it soon. I am having a really hard time letting it go. It handles nicely in chop and big water as well as paddling smoothly and tracking cleanly through calm quiet water as well.


  

credit: Kat 2012

Last weekend we paddled the Potomac above the city (WDC). We put in at Algonkian Regional Park. We had paddled past this park numerous times but never put in there before. The boat ramp is wide and shallow, although concrete, which can be tough on boat bottoms. The river is quite filled with non-native flora at this time of year.

We spotted bald eagles, great blue herons, and snowy egrets a plenty. It was a peaceful paddle and we stopped on a pebble beach on an island that has primitive camping spots on it. I snapped the above pic while leaving the island to show the trail through the "sea grass."

We had a brand new paddler show up on his "maiden voyage" with his new boat. This is a good location for a new paddler as the flora keeps the power boats to nearly none and the river is wide and flat here. We all enjoyed ourselves.

So the husband doesn't like Meetup. I still do. Now, if he would just make some outrageous proclamation about it, the whole thing will turn funny. Funny is where it's at!