Finnegan.

I just couldn't do it yesterday - it was too sudden, too soon, too much.  And after the awful start to the morning, he seemed okay after we got home.  Sort of. I felt rushed. The girls needed time to comprehend what was happening.  I needed time to love on him just a little bit more.

The dog who had barely eaten in two days wolfed down the T-bone I grilled him, and gnawed on the bone off and on throughout the evening.  Mostly he just lay on the pillows and blankets and yoga mats I'd laid out in the living room for him, breathing in a way that didn't quite sound right to me - too shallow, too raspy? - his body trembling the slightest bit with each rise and fall of his chest.  We picked the girls up early and explained as best we could what was happening.  I think they get it; we're reminding them to talk and ask questions and that it's okay to be happy and sad at the exact same time.  When the sun came out, we all went out to the front yard and he meandered and sniffed and then went to lay under a tree.  That was his favorite tree back in the day, back before we had a fence and he always went outside to the front yard on a tie-out - he liked to lay there and smell the air and watch the world go by.  Friends came by to love on him one last time, to tell him what a good boy he's been - and to love on us, because they know how awful this is.

Eventually he decided he was ready for bed, I guess, and he went and lay in the middle of the floor in the girls' room.  He would move from side to side, but was not interested in getting up for any reason for the rest of the night.  We talked about how it would maybe be better if he just went to sleep and didn't wake up.  Jimi and I stayed up listening to folk music that somehow was all about losing people you love and reminisced about our lives with him - all the crazy antics that drove us crazy and infuriated us back then - things we wish he could do again.

He had terrible separation anxiety in the beginning.  He bent the bars of his kennel trying to escape it.  He destroyed all of the blinds in our houses - the one we lived in when we got him, and the one we moved into the next year - trying to get to us when we'd leave for work.  We took the best walks through the parks together, and he scared the kids because of his one blue eye and one brown eye.  "Ghost eye," Jimi called it.  He was always sweet and dopey, though.  He was always the best boy.

He loved to explore, and I spent the first 4 years in this house chasing him through the neighborhood when he'd escape through a hole in the fence; once, there was a foot of snow on the ground and I was in slippers, until I lost a slipper.  Then I was just in one slipper.  Fucking dog.  When we'd go to camp, I'd irritate the shit out of Karen because I was constantly yelling "FIIINN - AAAA - GAAANNN!", trying to find him after he'd wander off into the cornfield or around the corner to someone else's camp over and over again, coming back covered in something stinky and gross more often than not.  Using a tie-out was a pain in the ass out there - he'd get wrapped around stuff or tangled up, and besides, what dog wants to be tied up out in the woods?  

He loved to be with us.  If we weren't here, he loved to be with our things.  At first, when he was little, he'd love our things too much with his mouth - we lost a lot of shoes.  Eventually, he just wanted to lay with our things.  He'd make a pile, in the middle of our bed, of shoes and shirt that we'd worn most recently, and then he'd lay there.  All day.  Waiting for us to come home and scold him for making a pile of our things in the middle of our bed again.  Nah, we never really scolded him for that - we'd scold him for the shoe he'd destroyed or the harness he'd cut through again with his scissor-like teeth or the bag of bread he'd shredded and eaten while laying on a pile of our things in the middle of our bed.

When G was born, we sent the little cap they first put on her head home with Stacy, who was keeping Finn for us.  She gave it to him, and says he carried it around with him everywhere for the next few days, whimpering.  When we came home, he watched over her constantly.  When I'd sit in my spot on the couch and nurse her, he was there, right there next to us, with his head next to hers.  He showed extraordinary patience with both of the girls, and was almost always exceedingly gentle with them.  (He nipped at G one time, but she deserved it.  We used it as a teaching moment to remind her to be kind to her puppy brother.)

He did an awesome job keeping our floors crumb-free, though he did contribute what I feel is probably more than his fair share of mess in the form of hairs shed.

He was the best boy.

I slept in the girls' room, so I could be close to him, in case he needed anything in the middle of the night.  He didn't.

We got up late today, just before 7.  G turned the light on and told him good morning and kissed his head - he thumped his tail a few times.  I gave him a few minutes to wake up, then asked if he wanted to go outside.  He got right up and headed for the door, more steady on his feet than he seemed yesterday.  He went straight out the door, down the steps, into the yard.  He peed, sniffed around a bit.  Stood, sniffed the air.  Then he came up the stairs and stopped, stood for a moment, then his back end started to wobble and he fell over on his side.  I caught him and helped him down.  He was panting, but not too heavily.  He lay there for a few minutes before he was able to get up again, but he made it back inside on his own and lay down on his bed.  He drank some water, seemed okay.  Just okay.  It was so obviously time.

We had to wait for the vet's office to open at 9.  I cooked him another steak and he ate the parts I'd cut from the bone, but didn't have any interest in the bone itself.  He drank some more water, rested his head.

I pulled the girls together and explained again what was going to happen.  I told them to go tell him they love him, that he's been a great puppy brother.  "Goodbye?" Geneva asked.  "Yes, baby, goodbye," I answered.

We'd talked about taking the girls with us, about having someone keep them both, or just Cora, but in the end, I decided I wanted to do this on my own.  The vet's office has tiny examining rooms, for one thing.  And the chaos - I just wanted my boy to be able to go in peace, and when we come as a group we bring the chaos.  Usually it's fine - this wasn't one of those situations, though.  So Jimi said his goodbyes, the girls gave their last kisses and hugs and belly rubs, and I asked, "Hey Finn, wanna go for a ride?"  He perked up, ears alert, and got up.  He trotted across the living room, down the short hall, through the dining room and kitchen.  He hesitated at the steps, but only for a moment, then he was down them, through the gate, sniffing in the yard.  He didn't try to jump into the car, but he was waiting patiently for me to lift him into it.  I opened all of the windows and we drove the short drive.  There were lots of people in the small office already - I'd left him in the car to let them know we were here.  After checking in, I went back out and let him down onto the ground to sniff - there are great smells for a dog in the parking lot of a vet's office, I imagine, and that's before you factor in the chicken place next door.

When they were ready for us, I carried him into the small room.  They lifted him onto the table.  I held his face and looked into his eyes and told him how much we loved him, how he's the best boy, how thankful we were that he was part of our family.  It felt like he understood.  He was not scared, he was not panicked, he was not stressed.  As the medicine took effect, he lay down on the table, into my arms, and breathed a few last deep breaths, and then he was still.  It was done.  And it felt okay.  Deeply sad, but okay.

That's how I feel.  Deeply sad, but okay.

I'll miss that good boy.  He was the sweetest boy.

I'm going to do this regularly again one day i swear...

I saw friends last night I hadn't seen since before I was a mom.  I met people with whom I've run in the same social circles for years, but had never had an opportunity to get to know.  I watched as this group of intelligent, giving, wonderful people formed a circle of lawn chairs in my backyard and shared stories and laughter - and it made my heart grow three sizes and reminded me of how lucky I am to know such awesome people.

The occasion was a birthday gathering for a dear friend - she wanted the night to be full of her closest and most beloved, so I let her handle the inviting and Jimi and I took care of the rest.  I made a chicken shawarma that was out of this world (thanks NYT!), and Jimi spent all day smoking a pork shoulder.  The food was yummy.  And somehow, we've ended up with way more alcohol than we began the night with - good or bad, that will be determined. The guest of honor cried happy tears and rapped to Biggie Smalls; I call that a fucking win.

I loved it so much I've decided I'm going to make it a weekly thing.  Starting next week, I'm going to invite all of my friends to my house each Monday night - open house style - come and go as you please, bring something or have whatever we're having - bring the kids and let's throw them upstairs or in the back yard to play while the grownups talk and drink and whatever...fill our buckets, our cups, our mental health meters.  It's so fucking hard these days to just exist.  Last night, the conversations I had, remind me that IT'S NOT JUST ME.  We are all fighting the same fight, struggling in the same ways.  Well, we're not, but we are.  You know?  You know what I mean.  And being with people who tell us it's okay, that we're not alone, that we have people in the world who love us and support us even when shit gets hard, well, that's super important.  And despite the fact that we're living in a technologically advanced age of social media and oversaturation connection with every detail of each others lives at our fingertips - I think a lot of us are feeling really lonely and isolated.  Talking to my friends in person, seeing them in person, hugging their necks in person - it makes ME feel better.  and I'm guessing IT'S NOT JUST ME.  

The girls stayed at Dot's last night, and since my house is "company clean" today, I decided I had time to take the girls somewhere fun after I picked them up.  We got bathing suits on and headed up to Iroquois Park - we go there a lot, but it's a special treat for them to get to play in the spray pad water thingy.  When we pulled up, I noticed two young black men getting out of a car two spots from us, and a family of white people getting out of a car across the parking lot.  The older man of the white family met the older of the black men halfway between their cars in the middle of the lot and shook hands - somehow I gathered that the white family was looking to buy the car the black men were driving.  I got the girls out of their car seats and set them free - as I was walking to catch up with them, I noticed the family walking around the car, as if inspecting it.  I peripherally noticed when it drove off, as if someone was taking it for a test drive.  I thought one of the black men stayed behind.  I thought, "Yeah, that makes sense, if you're meeting someone in a park to buy a car, take a second with you, and leave someone behind to assure everyone everything is legit."

I walked around the playground as the girls played in the water - I was trying to get steps in.  I was hung over and not hydrated enough to try to do any real cardio today, but I could get some steps in walking circles around my kids, like the helicopter mom that I am.

I don't know how long it had been since we showed up since someone drove off with the car for a test drive, but on one trip around the playground, I saw a woman coming up the sidewalk in front of the park, and she seemed to be yelling, and crying...I was confused, was I hearing what I thought I was hearing?  My girls were squealing and yelling - I couldn't be sure, but it sure looked like this woman was crying and screaming...and then her people, the family, were running toward her, and I'd walked closer and could hear her saying "...told me to go around the circle one more time and that noise would stop...put a gun to my head....took my purse..."  oh no oh no oh no...

She'd been robbed, at gunpoint, by the two black men who'd posed as people selling a car.

I fucking hate people.

The older white man, the one I'd assumed was the father, he looked to be in shock, stunned.  The mother-lady, she was calling 911.  The woman who'd been robbed, she looked to be in her 30s somewhere, she just stood there, sobbing, trying to hug herself and gasp out the story.  No one hugged her.  No one was hugging her.  That still really bothers me.  I just wanted to go and hug her, but G was suddenly by my side, asking why that woman was crying, asking what was wrong, and I led her away trying to explain in 5 year old terms what had happened and that everything is fine and she shouldn't be scared even though I was shaking with adrenaline and rage and fear and the urge to scoop my babies up and run even though the rational part of my brain said "they've gotten what they were after, the police will be here in a moment, they're not coming back, the girls are safe."  The feeling of violation, the audacity, was so strong, despite that this was a situation that didn't happen to me, that didn't harm mine.  With the family, there was a 13ish year old girl, and a 9ish year old boy - the girl was so sad and scared - her pale face was red from crying.  The boy seemed to be in shock.  Ugh.

I'm so angry.  That poor woman, who probably just needed a good reliable cheap car to get her to work, she's been traumatized for life.  Her family has been traumatized.  Those kids...  And now they all have a story to help endorse and perpetuate the tale of evil black men in our society.

And those black men.  What were they thinking in those moments when they first met that family?  I'm so glad she brought her family with her.  What situation made them so desperate for a little cash that this was the best plan they had?  The forethought and premeditation and trickery that went into it - it makes me sick.   What made them so desperate?  Part of me hopes they have some dire circumstance that lead to this, because alternately...  well, I like to try to not think about the part of the world where people do this sort of shit just because.

I started wrangling the girls to go home shortly after the first police car showed up.  I generally don't like to hang where there are police anyhow, but I was so skeeved out, so uncomfortable, so uneasy, I just wanted to get my kids home to where I knew we were all safe.

This all happened hours ago.  I'm still struggling with it mentally a bit.  It's a fucked up thing to witness, the immediate aftermath of a trauma like that.  I'm so sad for that woman, that family.  I'm so sad for those men, and angry with them too.  Goddammit.  And I'm angry with our society, with our reality, that makes it easier for people to make money doing horrible things than to make money doing noble things.

*******************************************************************************

I discovered this morning that  blogger I'd loved forever, who stopped blogging a while ago, stopped blogging basically because her life went to shit.  All of the things in her world that looked really awesome from the outside were crap on the inside and exploded in a bad way.  It made me really sad for her.  I think a lot of the time people only ever want to tell the good part of the story, the happy ending, the silver lining. I keep finding, over and over again, that the best part of the story is the part that makes you cringe when you tell it, the part that you think makes you look the worst, the part that hurts the most.  Those words, they're the ones that heal, the ones that resonate, because they're the ones spoken with the most truth.

I can do hard things.

This week was hard, but I've survived it, apparently.  It's not the hardest thing I've ever done, I don't think, but maybe top 10?  Definitely Top 10 Most Stressful Week.

I've ignored the internet and news for days and days.  I've snuck peeks, and immediately regretted it. My little bubble, my safe place, it got real scary for a moment, and I was glad I hadn't been keeping up.  There were rallies everywhere today, and I should've been there - I'd even half-heartedly asked Jimi last week, after sneaking a peek, if he wanted to try to go to DC.  Fuck.  Maybe that's what cursed this week - the last time we tried to go to DC, we ALL got sick.  This time it was just Jimi, but damn, what a doosie.   I'm disappointed in myself and ashamed that I didn't make it out today, that I didn't put my own shit aside for a moment to do what I know we have to do in this moment, as Americans.  I don't even have any money I could throw at it right now, to help assuage my guilt. 

Can I mention again - just be patient with me - how thankful I am for this life?  For our Village?  For the privileges with which we've been so blessed?  And I am so very humbled - what makes us so special?  Why isn't everyone able to have this same experience when shit goes bad? 

I'm not trying to be cryptic: my sweet husband has been in the hospital since Thursday, and it's been a little stressful.  Scary.

For some reason the fact that our yard hadn't been cut in weeks - because of his finger injury, and then the rain, and then because it's apparently hard as shit to find people to take cash money for actual work - was causing me SERIOUS anxiety, because I guess I had nothing better to focus my energy on?  (Because I like to make passive aggressive points as often as possible:  The dudes who showed up at my house at 5 o'clock this afternoon after getting a call at 3 pm on the Saturday before the 4th of July in 98degree weather?  Hispanic.  Did a fantastic job in just over an hour that would've taken me at least 4 hours.  I paid them enough that they each got an extra $20 on top of the rate they quoted me, because they saved my MFn sanity. They tried to give me the extra $$ back.  The two white guys I'd booked previously both ghosted me.  I'm so excited to tell all my friends about how fabulous these guys are - I'll post their business card later.) 

I wasn't going to write a novel tonight, but I guess I am.  Pull up a chair.

We are so lucky to have the friends and family we have.  The offers of help and support that have poured in are overwhelming and I feel unworthy.  I'm so thankful to have so many people willing to lend a hand.  It's really really hard for me to ask for help, to risk inconveniencing anyone.  (Even thought sometimes I feel like I only call my poor sweet Momma when I need a babysitter!)  I don't have the words to say how much it means to know so many people are willing to help out, to support our family. 

I've been really down on the state of our nation, in case you haven't noticed.  I'm eternally optimistic, but goshdang it's getting harder and harder.  But for all the wrongs I see, we really are so very lucky to be here, of all places.  Aren't we?  I want to feel this unabashedly, but then I realize my awe at seeing my sick husband surrounded by the best technology and most well-trained medical professionals is still obtained with a badge of privilege that is not available to everyone.  I remember that in other parts of the world people don't even have clean water, much less portable X-ray machines.  (Do they have X-ray machines in Flint, MI?) 

But we, Jimi and I, we have access to these things - portable X-ray machines and potable water.  He was surrounded by doctors and nurses and aides and medicines and technology all dedicated to making him well.  And he will be well again.  And we can afford this emergency room visit that resulted in a 4 day hospital stay with a private room and round-the-clock care and meals and cable television and air conditioning and a fabulous view, because we are gainfully employed in jobs that offer a comfortable annual salary with reasonably affordable medical benefits and vacation days and holiday pay.  And we each only have to work one job to live this American dream.  We are the best case scenario for your average middle class family, I think. 

Then I mentally poll my friends list - how many of you fit that same description?  What makes us so special? 

I just want to be thankful for what I have.  It doesn't feel right, though, to have all of this when I know that it's not the same for everyone. 

Moving on...

Need to get the post with the word "Fuck" in the title, twice, off the top of the page, perhaps.  As good a reason as any to write something down, huh?

It's 7:30 a.m. on Friday May 25, 2018.  I've taken the day off as a little mental health gift to myself.  I'm going to spend my day working for my family, and for myself.  Here in a minute I'm going to go take Finn for a walk around the block - Jimi and I were watching Versailles last night and I skipped his walk and so I will make up for it today.  It's really nice outside right now, about 60 degrees.  When we get back, I'm going to mow the yard, front and back.  Then I'm going to take a shower, clean the bathroom, and fold laundry while watching a documentary of some sort or another.  Or maybe Orange is the New Black. I'm going to read on the front porch for an hour, then do yoga in the sunshine.  I'll clean the kitchen while I listen to the last episode of Seeing White, the most amazingly eye-opening piece of education I've ever experienced on the topic of race and what it really means to be white.  (You should check it out - seriously.  It should be required listening for every American.)  I'm going to reorganize my pantry today and get my dining room straight.  I'm going to condense all the cardboard amazon and diaper and toilet paper boxes and get them ready for recycling.  For dinner, I'm making, per Geneva's request, tuna casserole, with peas and lots of extra love.

Once these chores are finished, these tasks accomplished, my house will be ready for a 3-day weekend of playing and fun, not cleaning and straightening.  I'll be refreshed and ready to enjoy my favorite people.  I'm so excited!

Okay, I'm 10 minutes behind schedule already.  Typical.  At least I'm my own boss today.  :)

Happy Friday y'all!

Fuck right the fuck off.

“I have a different opinion and your opinion is making me uncomfortable so please stop talking about it.  I can’t listen to you have a conversation that doesn’t involve me without becoming offended and insisting you shut down your conversation.”

But liberals are the sensitive ones; liberals are the snowflakes