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The Old Chow is gone across the Rainbow Bridge. When the vet got here, Genghis didn't even stir, and when the vet held his hand down for the dog to smell, there was no response. The vet said it looked like he'd stroked out in the last couple of days/weeks.
After this, I got in the car and drove to San Antonio, to attend San Japan Mach 5. A fun con, even tho I'm not an anime fan. So why were you at an anime con, if you don't like anime? "Chaperoning" a young woman who's mother didn't want her to be in San Antonio alone. Now that W is old enough, we can start going to cons a bit more. As a drama person, I love to dress up for con.
We'll be doing ComicCon in October, W about had an out of body experience when he found out the 501st (Vader's Fist) was going to be there, so he's opted for a stormtrooper costume. S and I have decided to go Steampunk. We went back and forth between Egyptian explorer and airship pirates. Airship pirates won. So now to start hitting the thrift shops, got the sewing machine all set up and ready to go. S has said I need to be captain (No argument here!), he's looking at pilot. I have a couple of pieces of clothing already that will work, just have to add to them. Stay tuned for pics and updates!
I don't know of anyone who is fond of waiting, especially waiting for something bad. We are waiting, waiting until Friday morning, when my old Chow dog has his last meeting with the vet.
Genghis has been with me through a lot. I got him in the early summer of 1999, and fuzzy waddling little poof of hair. (Along with his brother, who later disappeared during an escape from the yard.) Our son was 3 at the time, and he fell in love with the pups. Genghis has been with us through alot.
We've known this day was coming for a while now. Genghis has a birth defect of his hips, and as he has grown older, it has become harder and harder for him to get up, often his hips will lock out of place, with the legs crossed, and I have to put them back in place so he can walk. The vet thinks he has been suffereing mini strokes for awhile as well. He knows me, but he is in a huge amount of pain, often growling and snapping with we try to handle or even pet him.
Every pet owner has been through this struggle, the decision to put an elderly animal to sleep. People say all the well meaning things, like "It's for the best", "he's in pain, just let him go", and the all time doozy "It's the humane thing to do". Really? It is really the humane thing to do, kill an animal who remembers no home but yours? They say the dog is the only animal that will lick the hand of its killer. I've been told that keeping an ailing oldster alive is just selfish, but when Genghis drags himself through the house looking for me, or I watch him still being able to eat, and wag his tail just a little when he sees me, I second guess my decision. Am I doing this because it's the right thing to do, or because I can no longer stand to see him falling and being in pain? Is it really the right thing for him, or for myself?
Last year I was struggling to explain to someone why I wasn't able to go out with them, and a few days later I ran across this article. It explained exactly what I go through on a daily basis.
I contracted mono my freshman year in high school, like most of the drama department. All but me completely recovered. I didn't have a clue why I kept feeling bad for months to years afterwards. My mother, who didn't even take me to the doc until I was almost too weak to walk, would tell me that nothing was wrong with me, that I was just lazy. I left home and went to college, got married, and still didn't feel completely 'right'. I could remember what I'd felt like before age 14, and I knew something wasn't kosher. My ex mother-in-law worked at a medical clinic, and she urged me to see the specialist. It was he who pronounced "You have what we call Epstein-Barr Syndrome." When he described the symptoms, and what to expect, I thought to myself "No, he must be mistaken, I don't have a chronic debilitating condition! I can't!" I was in denial for many years after that.
My oldest sister 'P' has always known something wasn't quite right with me after the mono. She never made me feel bad for not being able to hold a job for any length of time (Partially EBS, partially being an Aspie, but that is for another post.), or be able to do much around the house. She always supported me emotionally when I would have a really bad 'spoonless day', as I now call it. If it wasn't for her, I probably would have killed myself years ago from the depression and the way everyone else treated me. It was P who finally convinced me a couple of years ago that I was not "all right", and would never be. I mean, I knew, but I was still in denial, even after all this time. After I read the Spoon Theory, it all made sense. I know that sounds silly, to have lived with something like this all my adult life, and just now really finding out how to deal with it.
Some days, like today, my spoons are nearly gone when I wake up in the morning. I'm having to deal with an old dog that will be euthanized at some point this week, and the stress of taking a trip where I have to drive in San Antonio (the horror!), and go to one of the biggest anime cons in the country. (I'm 'chaperoning' a young woman, her mother did not want her to go alone, and I am an experienced con-goer.) The amount of people there will totally suck, and the distances I will have to walk even more so. But I slog onward, knowing that some day, maybe soon, I won't be able to do these things at all any more, and I need to enjoy them as much as I can now.
So onward and upward, damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead! I might be slow, but I'm not down yet.
It's that time again, the end of summer, which means shopping for school supplies. I love the old Staples commercial ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcYbo7pjto ).
Unfortunately, this time of year also makes me totally pissed off. My ex makes 66K a year, yet pays a pitiful $300 a month in child support. And no alimnony, even though we were married 20 years. He also extorted 10K out of me for the house, which he was not entitled to, since he didn't do a damn thing except sleep around with multiple women (Think Don Draper!) while the house deteriorated from lack of repairs. And the asshole refuses to buy W any school supplies or clothes. I was informed by his (And I use the term VERY loosely) wife that $300 a month is MORE than enough to cover not only W's expenses like food, shelter, etc., but also school suppiles and clothes. Now, you fucking tell me that $300 is enough to take care of a teenager, with all their needs. Hell, $300 isn't even enough to cover his food!
The ex's step-daughters, however, get royal treatment. Clothes, new computers, whatever they want. And where is these girls' biological father, you ask? Last I heard from his ex wife, a homeless drug addict. So my son gets shuffled to the side so these little twats can be on the HS flag corps to the tune of THOUSANDS of dollars a year. When something of theirs breaks, the 'parents' take my son's things to give to the girls.
So here I am, making $5K a year, expected to take care of everything monetarily, yet I STILL have to send my poor son over there to be humilated and emotionally abused. Why don't I take the case to the AG? Because any time we try something like raisng the child support, the ex takes it out on W. W asked to leave it alone, because of what his biofather does to him afterwards. So I have struggled for 10 years to keep my child clothed, sheltered and fed. Money for college? Yea, right. The only reason my son even has health insurance is the law insists.
One of my sisters tells me I should just let it go. Not this time. But there are big changes coming soon, that are going to knock that asshole's dick in the dirt, and I will enjoy every fucking minute of it. He still acts like W is 7 years old, and has NO idea that W has a mind and a will of his own. I just hope I'm there to see that asshole's face when he realizes it!
Well, I have been gone a loooong time, and it wasn't until my one follower. (Thanks R!) poked me in the butt about writing again.
Things have changed quite a bit since the last time I posted. Both parents are now gone, I have left the music business to return to my first love and my passion, cooking. I opened a bakery/personal chef business again in 2011, and am now in my second year.
The Homestead has undergone even more changes, and with the state of the country right now, I am looking at getting chickens or maybe ducks and quail again. With the government cornering the market on stupid lately when it comes to food and biofuel production, it seems the anarchists are being proved right more and more. That a scary thought! When the whole fluoride thing came out last year, I thought "Well, they got ONE right." Little did I know that with the Internet, more and more government coverups and conspiracies (If you don't think there are any, go stick your head back in the sand, and wait for them to come take you to Gitmo.) would be coming to light.
One really troubling thing right now is the whole war on marijuana. I'm not going to claim that this one plant is the miracle cure-all as some have been, (No Tommy Chong, I am not going to believe hemp oil cured your cancer until I see actual medical reports, glad you are feeling better tho!) but it DOES help a host of medical problems. I have seen first hand how it helps stomach issues, eases arthritis, relieves some side effects from severe medical procedures, works as Xanex for those of us spun a bit too tight (Have you ever heard of/seen a stoner beat up a guy in a bar? No, of course you haven't.) and a host of other things. And because of the logging industry and Big Pharma lobbyists, this PLANT is kept illegal. The government claims it has no medical value, so is classed with street drugs like crack and heroin. And yet, within days of the raids beginning on the medical despensaries in California (Really Obama, you couldn't even keep your word on this one???), the U.S. government applied for a patent on "Sativex", a drug distilled from marijuana. But I thought it had NO medical applications? Uh huh. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck......
Alright, back to the kitchen for me, and I promise there will be many more caffine fueled thoughts and rants posted soon!
I have pretty much let the blogs go this last year, due to dying father, starting a new business, an AS son starting high school, and the pressures involved with them. But after being flamed on a FA blog site, I felt like it was time to come off the mountain and reassert myself in cyberspace.
Why is it that people online think that they can post any damn thing they like, whether or not it is appropriate? Is this something they would have the balls to say to your face in person? Probably not. The FA (fat acceptance) groups are no different. After posting a comment on a FA blog, I was flamed mightily by someone who was new to the group, and I think she totally overstepped herself. I find myself becoming disillusioned by the FA community for many reasons. I understand that everyone is different. I get it. Being severe Asperger's Syndrome myself, I'm different from those non-AS (neuro-typical) people. I have a different thought process, certainly different morals and ethics, than most other people. I do not have an eating disorder. I just love food, and eat too much of it. When I stop doing that, and take moderate exercise, I lose weight. I do feel lucky that I don't have the problems some others face where their own bodies work against them, and they are unable to lose weight w/o extreme measures. Should I mention this on any FA blogs or sites, I would be flamed out out of existence. Every time someone mentions anything to do with actually losing weight, the FA people scream like panthers, some claiming that certain words 'trigger' their eating disorder, so these things should never be mentioned in their vicinity.
I am absolutely not denying that there are real eating disorders out there. I have met people with true eating disorders. I have, however, met many, many more people who claim they have it, and are just lazy slugs who would rather whine about how no one accepts their fat, while stuffing a double cheeseburger, fries and a shake into their mouth. Other than the nasty brat name calling when I was a kid, I have never experienced the things that the FA community claims happens to them (Let me just state yet again that I am not calling all FA people liars. Just some of them.) I have never had anyone refuse to make eye contact with me. I have never been hassled on a plane because I'm fat. I have never been ignored in a store by a clerk. But then, I'm not a whiny titty baby. If a clerk ignores me, I call them on it. But then, I'm not a victim. I don't go around saying how it's all society's fault that I am not accepted. Bah, humbug.
I learned long ago after a lifelong butting of heads with my parents that you will never change someones mind when it's made up. You will only be able to change someones mind who is open to it, and maybe on the fence about a subject. (And I include myself in this too, as I am a person.) I would rather just ignore the ignorant, and use my energy and time on something worthwhile. Yes, yes, I know the famous poem, First They Came..., written by Martin Niemoller in 1955. Activism isn't changing the way someone thinks, the ones that work are the ones who overwhelm their opponents with sheer numbers. Those people you think you changed their minds, are simply giving in. Does that make it any less effective? I can't say. I do know however, that I do not have the time, energy or interest in being one.
So, it's been forever since I posted something on any blog, having been sucked into Facebook. And then there is the studio....oh, you don't know about that. After a long thought process about what I wanted 'to do' when i grew up, i decided I don't want to grow up, so I decided to go into the music business, and am now the proud owner of a (small!) recording studio. Most of my time is spent there, so I have little time to blog, altho I will try to remember to post on occasion!
