it's been a while, and i've been avoiding my blog for reasons unknown. back in 2013, when i reserved the page, i had such glorious hopes for what it would become. why it didn't, i haven't a clue.
i'm in my final semester at university, and blogging has been a weekly focal point in one class, and is the final project in another. writing every week about predetermined topics and seeing the grades i've been receiving has peaked my interest in returning to the blogosphere.
this week in one of my classes we're blog-centric and studying feminists who have taken to blogs to give a voice to themselves or their communities or to budding feminists around the world.
i don't know that i could be that person. i don't know that i WANT to be that person. i'm nobody's lighthouse in a storm, and if i am, we're both fucked, just so you know.
but here's what i DO want. i want to talk, and i want to rant and i want to not care about who's feelings i might be stepping on in the process. even if those feelings are my own.
i want to be drunk on literature and wine and stumble over the words i want to share. i want to be complete in me.
meanwhile, i want to post pictures of my pets and my flowers. i'll tell you what brings them together when i'm done.
let's start with Mia. Mia is a chihuahua and she'll be 12 this may. she's a rescue, and may will also be our two-year anniversary. Mia came to me at a time when i was unemployed. i'd sent out resumes to everyone i could think of in my line of work and everyone else i thought would give me a chance. i'd had nothing but dead ends and i was living on aldi chicken nuggets and refried beans so i could make my car payment. i'd applied for help through united way and (this is a true story) been rejected because i was just myself. when i asked "so i should call back when i'm pregnant?" the response was (and this is STILL a TRUE STORY) "well, it certainly would help."
(...childish side note: the company i work for does a yearly donation campaign for united way. i refuse to contribute. if i had the resources, i would help young, child-free, single women like myself that the rest of society constantly shits on because a) they misinterpret single life as an orgy of waste and b) they think we don't count because we haven't contributed to the overpopulation of the world because we're busy being in love with ourselves)
a friend posted on facebook that the
kansas humane society was adopting out senior dogs for free on a certain weekend. i clicked on the list of available dogs and saw Mia. my heart raced. she was ADORABLE! i told myself "you can't afford to feed yourself and make your car payments, you canNOT in good conscience bring a defenseless animal into this!"
the sunday that ended the free adoptions, 30 minutes before the shelter closed, i clicked on the link again. Mia was the ONLY dog left. curiosity got the best of me. i picked up the phone (the bill payment was a week late) and called the shelter. what was wrong with her? did she not like children? was she aggressive? was she not housetrained? here was the answer: "She's old and she's missing a lot of teeth, i think people are just scared to take a chance on her, they think they're getting a dog who's already dying."
now. i have all my teeth. but no one was willing to take a chance on me. i was drowning in a sea of debt obligation and no one had a hand to hold out. i felt old. i felt washed up. i felt like no one wanted to employ an already dying human.
"i'll take a chance on her, can i come see her?" i gripped the phone, locked in strong decision i'd never felt before.
"ma'am, if you tell me you're on your way out the door, we'll stay open late for you."
"i'm on my way out the door."
"Mia will be waiting for you."
i had been baking cheap breaded fishsticks of death in the oven when i called. i thankfully remembered to pull them out, and drove my car to the shelter with the fuel light blinking, reminding me i couldn't go ANYWHERE ELSE for the next two days until my unemployment check came through, allowing me to stick a tenner in my tank.
the shelter kept to their word. they were waiting for me when i pulled up. they took me outside to a visiting area and brought this little ball of chocolate and tan love outside. she ran right up to me, jumped on my lap, licked my nose, jumped down, and ran over to the gate, staring out into the parking lot, then looked back at me as if to say "well, are you COMING?"
it was love at first sight. i had a few dollars on me to buy her a collar and a leash, and i splurged on excess: a tiny green frog that said "ribbit, ribbit-ribbit" when you pushed it's belly.
Mia became my security blanket, just as the frog was hers while she figured out the workings of her new forever home. i cannot tell you how many times that 8-pound dog let me hold her while she licked away my tears after the weeks stretched on with no new job prospects. in many ways, Mia saved me from the destruction the world seemed hell-bent on putting me through. this is a snapshot i took of her tonight, with her frog. she's gotten to old to be interested in toys, but i still remember when we were all new to each other, figuring each other out and learning the little things we would come to love about each other years later. she's my mia muppet, and i'm thankful she helped give me hope. even when i was eating bologna sandwiches and dry toast, she had three square meals a day. she got her shots, she got her heartworm and flea/tick medication, she got her nails trimmed, she was cared for. and to this day, if an emergency bill comes due, she never knows it, because she's the first to be taken care of:
Mia was my confidant while i was unemployed, and she was the first to celebrate with me when i started my new job. after almost two years, i had built up enough security to apply - and qualify for - a mortgage loan to purchase a home for me and her. a realtor friend and i looked at 32 houses in a month. the 31st house we saw was on October 31, 2013. halloween has always been a favorite holiday of mine. the only reason we looked at house 32 was because we'd already made an appointment to see it. but i knew: house 31 was GOING to be mine. we were the 2nd people to see it on the 2nd day it had been on the market, and when i learned someone else had seen it, we went in with an aggressive offer a few grand over sales price. i won the bidding war: the house would be ours. we moved in the week before the thanksgiving holiday, and the two of us, chichi and me-me, lived in peace.
shortly after i moved in, i received a text message from a friend: would i be interested in taking custody of her son's bearded dragon? as her son had gotten older, he'd become quite involved (and damn good at) speed skating, and his competitions were taking him across state lines and filling his spare moments with training. he was also running cross country. and he rode horses. he didn't feel his 3-year old beardie, Sam, was getting the attention he deserved. as Sam's pet-sitter over the last few years, i was offered the chance to become his forever home. i accepted, and Sam moved in:
what an adjustment to going from creepy-crawly free (and proud!) to having WORMS in the house! but Sam is my bud, and he fit into the misfit crew well. even mia was curious and eager to welcome him to our home:
and so our duet became a motley trio. and we were happy. in february, on valentine's day, the kansas humane society was once again offering a special: $50 adoption fees for dogs 6 months and older. i had my eye on a male chihuahua, about a year old, who was very similar in markings to my muppet. he was walked out the door as i was on my way in. i'd left work early and driven out of my way, i was going to see who else was available. after cruising the dogs in their viewing areas for a little over an hour while i waited for my turn, signaled by a buzzer that made me feel like i was waiting for a table at a restaurant, i was finally let into a back room. i was allowed to see two dogs. the first one was a pitbull mix whose name i can't even remember, but she was an adorable dog. she was more interested in who was on the OTHER side of the door when they walked by than me, though. she was adopted that weekend, so i'm not sorry i asked to see option number two: Pooch, a 1-year, 2-month old chiweenee (dachschund/chihuahua mix). they brought him in to see me, and i sat still in a chair, letting him discover me. we chatted for a bit, jogged a few laps around the room, and then i sat down. he crawled into my lap and looked at me with Cleopatra eyelined chocolate brown liquid eyes, settling in to have his belly rubbed. he didn't care about anything going on around us, he was tummy-stroking focused. when the shelter worker came in, he didn't even hear the door open. i'd found my match, and i snapped a quick photo before we left the room so i could document where he'd come from and where we'd go:
Mia had some space issues when we first walked through the door, but that quickly dissipated as Pooch won her over just as he had me. sometimes rambunctious and always out for a good time, he quickly blended our trio to a quartet. i've learned with a younger dog that harnesses and walks are important. attention is important. tennis balls thrown across the yard are definitely important.
whimzees are important when i need to get homework done. and toys, especially those with squeakers or those worthy of tug-of-war, are VERY important. i've also learned that if i ever take a trip to the beach, Pooch will protect me from any rabid sea-faring animal, so long as there's a squeaker in it's head:
spring is on its way, and with it me, Mia, Sam and Pooch have all been having a touch of spring fever. last weekend i had an uncontrollable urge to get my hands dirty. i needed to plant, i needed to feel nurturing, i needed to be out in the sun. after three stops at stores with NOTHING, i stumbled across the "distressed" rack and Lowe's. six-packs of plants for a dollar. i felt like i was robbing a store. i picked up a huge bag of potting soil and 9 flats of plants that needed to see a psychiatrist. the end result:
hardly my idea of plants on the brink of death.
but i started thinking about life and its funny ways. i started the story of this blog as someone who was washed up, second-hand, unemployable. i ended it with a house, i kept my car, i have a job, and i've adopted others along the way. what joins us all together is this: nobody else wanted us. and we found each other. and we recognized the value we each had and what we could share with one another. if anyone had told me three years ago that two dogs and a lizard would steal my heart, i would have told them that would only happen in a drunken dream. now try to take any of my animals away and see what i do to you. i can't imagine life without them. maybe they weren't perfect in someone else's eyes, or maybe they weren't getting the attention they needed, or maybe they'd just been abandoned. they have value with me, and i have value because of them. so what if a plant has a few withered petals? doesn't mean it can't survive the storm.
we're all surviving the storm together, we're all growing and blooming and shedding what was behind us, looking forward to our futures that we face a little easier because we have each other. we are all warm and fed and we know we have each other every day.
so fucking what if it's not always paradise. so fucking what if it gets hard. it's fucking well survivable. we've all proven that to ourselves and each other. and we're building a life that was made to last because of it.
