Shelbe

“To own a dog is to know that one day, you will cry.” I read that quote once a long time ago and it describes perfectly the day I’ve just had. I don’t remember who said it, so I don’t know whom to give credit for it, but the truth in those few words hit me hard and often all day today.

For the last week or so Shelbe’s energy levels have been dropping and her appetite coming and going. Then on Sunday she stopped eating altogether and I noticed her breathing getting heavier. I took her to the vet on Monday and she spent the remainder of the week there. Her pancreas had basically shut down and her body was starting to get thrown out of whack because of it. The vet called me this morning and told me the situation, and I made The Decision. I scheduled the appointment later in the afternoon, and then went to be with her at the end.

After all she’s been through in the last two years I knew this time was coming, but that didn’t make any of it easier. But once they brought her into the room I knew The Decision was the right one. Her breathing was very labored and wheezing, and she barely had enough energy to hold up her head. I could tell she didn’t really know where she was or what was going on, but there was a glint of recognition in her eyes when she saw me, and I knew that she realized I was there with her. She laid her head in my hands and I scratched that special spot on her ear until she breathed out for the final time.



There have been a number of nicknames I’ve given Shelbe over the last decade (Shelbster, Shelbe-Dog, Baby Doll, Pretty Girl, Shelllbeee [said in a high-pitched droning voice], Shelbe-Lynn, Lil' Miss Shelbe-Dog, just to name a few), but the one I liked and used the most often was “Shelbe-Dog”. It rolled off the tongue easily and it always sent her tail into a wagging frenzy.

Thank you Shelbe-Dog, for the 10 years of life that you gracefully shared with me. Thank you for showing me the true meaning of unconditional love and happiness every day when I walked in the front door. Thank you for listening patiently to my rants, for making me laugh when I needed it, and for catching my tears without judgment when they fell.

Good night Shelbe-Dog. I’m going to miss you.
March 7, 1998 - August 14, 2008

An Anniversary, of Sorts

6 months ago today I was in the hospital. I was spending my 2nd evening there after being admitted hurriedly following a visit to the cardiologist for chest pains. I’d spent that day and the afternoon before speaking to numerous doctors, having all kinds of tests done, and eating some rather bland food (low salt, low fat). After all the doc conversations and tests, a diagnosis was reached and I was to be sent home the following day so we could start putting the plans to fix things into motion. Things like angioplasties & stents, MRIs & CAT scans, aneurysms & occluded arteries. And of course the possibility of more serious surgeries later in life when things get worse, which inevitably for me they will. And a lot of what was decided has already happened in the 6 months since then.

I’d like to say I lay there that night pondering deep meaningful things like life, health, and family. You know, the types of things you’re supposed to contemplate when a life-altering event happens and you come face-to-face with your own mortality. But I just don’t think like that, and don’t remember ever thinking that way. I spend my time disconnected from reality and everyone around me. It’s like I’m slightly out of phase with the rest of the world. Things happen to my body and in my life, but I’m not really there feeling any of it.

So instead of meditating on life and its meanings, I lay there with my mind a blank. I didn’t set new goals for myself and start myself down a path of renewed spirits, I was frustrated by the poor sound quality of the TV speakers in the room and pissed that there was nothing good to watch on a Friday night.

And here I sit half a year later on another Friday night. There’s still nothing good to watch on TV and I’m still floating around aimlessly as life happens to everyone else.

At least the sound quality’s a bit better though.

39

I've been 39 for a couple of days now and can't say I feel any changes from being 38. 'Course it doesn't usually sink in that I've had a birthday until the first time I have to answer the "How old are you?" question. And I've done this enough times to know that you don't magically feel differently just because a particular day of the year came and went.

At least not after you pass 25 or so. Younger than that and each birthday seems special somehow. I think it's because there are so many milestones when you're younger: starting school, hitting double digits, becoming a teenager, driving, high school, etc. After you hit 25 the only thing that's left is just endless years of aging; all the fun stuff's already happened. At least from the perspective of someone under 25, obviously.

I suppose I need to make this year memorable somehow though, as it's my final year in my 30's. I'll see what I can come up with.

Things I've done

I don't really have much going on right now and not a lot to talk about. So here's a list of stuff I saw on another blog.

In bold are things that I've done.
In italics are things I want to do.

1. Bought everyone in the pub/bar a drink
2. Climbed a mountain
3. Held a tarantula
4. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
5. Been in love
6. Broken someone's heart
7. Had my heart broken
8. Done a striptease
9. Bungee jumped
10. Watched a lightning storm at sea
11. Stayed up all night long, and watched the sun rise
12. Seen the Northern Lights
13. Gone to a huge sports game
14. Grown and eaten my own vegetables
15. Slept under the stars
16. Changed a baby's diaper
17. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
18. Watched a meteor shower
19. Gotten drunk on champagne
20. Given money to charity
21. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
22. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
23. Had a food fight
24. Bet on a winning horse
25. Taken a sick day when I wasn't ill
26. Had a snowball fight
27. Photocopied my butt or any other intimate body part
28. Held a lamb
29. Gone skinny dipping
30. Taken an ice cold shower
31. Seen a total eclipse
32. Ridden a roller coaster
33. Hit a home run
34. Been arrested
35. Visited all 50 states
36. Taken care of someone who was shit faced
37. Stolen a street/highway sign
38. Backpacked in Europe
39. Taken a road-trip
40. Taken a midnight walk on the beach
41. Gone sky diving
42. Milked a cow
43. Alphabetized my records/CDs
44. Sung karaoke
45. Lounged around in bed all day
46. Gone scuba diving
47. Danced in the rain
48. Gone to a drive-in theater
49. Started a business
50. Gotten married
51. Been in a movie
52. Crashed a party
53. Gotten divorced
54. Had sex at the office
55. Made cookies from scratch
56. Gotten a tattoo
57. Been on television
58. Had sex a public place
59. Got so drunk I don't remember anything
60. Recorded music
61. Had a one-night stand
62. Bought a house
63. Shaved or waxed off my pubic hair
64. Been on a cruise ship
65. Spoken more than one language fluently
66. Bounced a check
67. Called or written my Congressperson
68. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
69. Sung loudly by myself in the car
70. Written articles for a large publication
71. Piloted an airplane
72. Helped an animal give birth
73. Been fired or laid off from a job
74. Won money on a TV game show
75. Broken a bone
76. Ridden a motorcycle
77. Had a body part below the neck pierced
78. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
79. Ridden a horse
80. Had major surgery
81. Had sex on a moving train
82. Slept through an entire flight: takeoff, flight, and landing
83. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
84. Visited all 7 continents
85. Eaten sushi
86. Had my picture in the newspaper
87. Parasailed
88. Changed my name
89. Dyed my hair
90. Been a DJ

Blackberry Winter

The blackberries are starting to bloom again. And conveniently we're getting a nice little cold snap rolling through the area. It's dipping into the mid 40s this evening and low 40s tomorrow, which is a bit chilly for us this time of year. Especially since we've had a few weeks of temps in the 50s and 60s at night already.



This is what my granny always referred to as Blackberry Winter. Every year around the early part of May, the blackberry bushes start to bloom and we get a final bout of chilly weather before the temperatures begin to stay warmer at night. It usually happens after a few weeks of mild weather and the trees have started budding. She'd say it in that matter-of-fact tone that grandparents have when they're passing on ancient wisdom from generations before, and then give a little nod of her head. "It must be Blackberry Winter. It'll get warm and stay warm now."

It meant that the woods around my grandparents' house were soon to transform into a sea of white blossoms for the next few weeks. And then in a few months time, a gaggle of grandkids would be stomping through the trees towards Blackberry Kingdom and Blackberry Palace (our nicknames for the two huge patches of blackberry bushes near their house) to pick bowl after bowl of fresh berries for use in granny's homemade blackberry pies.

It's not foolproof weather prediction, obviously, and I never quite acquired a taste for blackberries or her blackberry pies (although everyone else in the family raved over them). But it did make me like this time of the year. The cold weather and long winter nights are finally over. Things will get warmer now.

Nostalgia

Came across this clip on Youtube a couple weeks ago and I keep going back and watching it every few days. I spent every Saturday morning glued to the television beside my brother and sister watching cartoons, and this was my all-time favorite. Still is.



My brother got me a Superfriends t-shirt for the December Holidays, and I absolutely love it. I 'm afraid to wear it because I know I'll spill something on it within a few seconds of putting it on.

Anger Holes

I was just on the phone with a customer service rep. One of those people you call and have to rattle off a 10-digit account number, a phone number, address, cock size, and last 4 of your social to “for confirmation” that I am who I was claiming to be. The call didn’t go too well since I was complaining to them about my service, and instead of listening to what I was trying to say they were very good at parroting obscure lines from their EULA back to me. While I was right about what I was saying, the whole situation was completely my fault as I did something a few weeks ago that led to today’s problem.

The customer service and what happened to cause it isn’t really important though. The big problem here is that it made me angry. I was in a blind, seething rage. My face and upper body turned red from the blood pumping so hard (I was literally “seeing red”); my hands and voice were shaking with anger; I even started sweating and could feel the heat pouring off my face. All over a situation that wasn’t really important to begin with and in the end, was my fault and not the poor customer service person unlucky enough to answer my call.

I’ve always had a bad temper though; it runs in the family. My brother and sister have bad ones too, and both my parents’ tempers are legendary. One of the few images that I can clearly recall from growing up is of my father hurling a skateboard out a 2nd floor window because he was mad at us kids. It’s among the scariest (and saddest) memories of my childhood. Yet here I am 25 years later doing the same thing…losing my temper at the drop of a hat over piddling little things. I didn’t toss anything out the window, but I probably would have if I’d thought of it.

It’s not something I’m proud of and I know I’m as much to blame as any genetic inclination that may factor into the deal. I’ve never been good at dealing with my emotions. As a child I felt everything acutely. Emotions were physical presences for me, they came from my core and I could feel them pulsing inside as they bubbled to the surface. But as I got older and and my emotions started getting stronger, I ran from what I was feeling. Instead of dealing with it and allowing myself to grow through the pain and disillusionment, I locked my emotions away and began isolating myself from everyone and everything around me. I put up my shields and built my barriers, then quietly found a nice dark corner and settled in. I’ve been doing it for so long that there are times when I don’t know if I can feel anything anymore. Not much seems like it’s really happening; whole weeks go by with me on auto-pilot just going through the motions.

But every now and then that all-powerful rage comes blasting through my defenses. And while I know it’s not a good thing to have all that anger bottled up inside or have it explode out of me like it did earlier on the phone…maybe, just maybe, the hole it blew through my walls will stay open this time and some of my other emotions will come out. Perhaps I should tear down a few of them this time and move a little closer. It would be nice to feel something real again.

Sunday Dinner

Making a huge meal for dinner (lunch) on Sundays was always a tradition in my family when I was growing up. Granny would start cooking early in the morning and by the time church was out there wasn't a spot on any counter top or table that didn't have some kind of food on it. And we're talking real food too, all of it made from scratch...fried chicken, corn bread, beans, biscuits, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, cakes, pies, and wonderfully over-sweetened iced tea (with saccharin!) to wash it all down.

And the people came. At least a dozen or more every Sunday. When you have as large a family as we had it's hard not to draw a crowd when everyone knew Granny was in the kitchen (dad has 4 sisters & 3 brothers, mom has 7 sisters). Imagine being 5-8 years old, having a half dozen or more cousins your age around every weekend, and all of you being hopped up on sugar and greasy food and then let loose in a yard surrounded by woods and pastures. It was heaven.

Of course things change, families grow up and drift apart, and those afternoons of running and playing for hours on end get filed away as fond memories. But there's always been something about having a big meal on Sundays that's stuck with me. I love to cook, but being single and living alone makes cooking a real meal for 1 person something of a bother at times. So odds are when I do cook something substantial it's usually going to happen on Sunday. That gives me leftovers for most of the work week, I have all day to cook it, and it lets me flashback to the days spent in Granny's kitchen eating all that wonderful food.

Last week was Chicken Tetrazzini from a recipe I found at the Food Network's site (here's a pic). This week I decided to get back to my roots and made a big pot of pinto beans, baked some corn bread (from scratch), and had some boiled cabbage. I found some uncured bacon that had no added nitrates or nitrites and about half the sodium of regular bacon, so I used that to season both the beans and the cabbage.

Very tasty.

Home?

I have now lived in Asheville longer than I've ever lived anywhere else in my life. I moved here at the end of February, 2000 so that puts me at 8 years now in the "Land of the Sky". Eight years seems like a long time to be in one place for me, but I know people who have lived in the same area their entire lives so like everything else, it's all relative.

Stevenson, Alabama: 6 years
Maumee, Ohio: 4 years
George Hildebran, North Carolina: 8 years
Raleigh, North Carolina: 7 years
Boone, North Carolina: 5 years
Asheville, North Carolina: 8 years and counting

I like it here and don't particularly want to go anywhere else but I've never stayed in one place longer than this and I'm feeling a bit trapped. My life so far has been one move after another; settling into a place for a while but eventually packing everything up and moving on to the next place.

Is it time for me to stop and try to build a life here, or do I do the gypsy thing and start over again somewhere else?

New Year

Well, 2008 is finally here. Time to start a couple more balls rolling and let them build up the momentum they'll need to get things done.

Spent New Year's Eve by myself this year (by choice). Just wanted to be alone this year and not have to go anywhere or do anything or deal with anyone. Plus I don't think the Shelbster has a lot of time left so I don't want to put her under any more stress than I have to right now. I may be mistaken about that (and I hope I am) but there's no point putting her through the added hardship unless I have no other choice.

Today I thought a lot about another NYE that I spent alone. It was 16 years ago, 1991 was coming to an end, and I was getting ready to flounder through my final attempted semester at college before finally throwing in the towel. All of my friends at the time had either already graduated or would be graduating in a few short months and they had planned a night on the town of dancing, drinking, and partying to celebrate the coming of 1992 and their final semester of school. When I found out about the festivities, and that they didn't want me to go along with them, I was devastated. So instead of sitting at home alone and having to deal with my emotions I went to a midnight showing of the latest movie release: "Hook". Not the best movie in the world by far, but it gave my mind something else to focus on as the year rolled over and helped the night ease by. My relationships with them changed a lot after that and I started down a different path shortly afterwards. "Hook" still has a special meaning for me today because of that night though.

I'm not feeling the same things as I spend NYE by myself tonight, but I catch myself thinking of that particular night quite a bit this time of year and thought about it a lot today. Things have changed in 16 years and it's good to remember times like those from a different perspective. It was one of my low times from an emotional standpoint, but if it hadn't happened then I'd be a completely different person today. Besides, I have some big things in store for this coming year. 2008 could very well be a pretty good year for me; no need to dwell too much on the past when it's time to keep plowing ahead.

Dream TV

Odd dreams last night. I only remember flashes from one of them but feel like I had an entire night full of dreaming. I was watching a newscast and the reporter on the screen was a guy I knew growing up. I met him in the 6th grade and hung out with him on and off throughout school and a bit in college, but then we went separate ways and I haven't seen him in almost 20 years. But there he was on my dream television reporting the news. He was older and had a goatee, but there was no doubt who it was. I don't remember what he was reporting on, but the scene went black, I had a brief flash of how I remembered him looking two decades ago, then the dream ended. A few months back I had a similar dream with him in it. I don't remember the details but it was along the same lines as this one: a brief flash of a scene with him in it and then nothing. I wonder what my mind's trying to tell me.

I also woke up with an old song running through my head. I wish I'd written down the name of it because I can't even begin to recall what it is now. I know it was old, as in black & white TV era kind of old. Maybe a commercial jingle from the 50s or 60s? Apparently I was running a TV kind of theme to my dreams last night.

On Second Thought

Looking back over the choices I've made over the last few years I've discovered that I'm a Plan B kind of person. It's not that my initial plans always suck, but my second ideas tend to be much better (at least in my mind) and are generally the ones I end up going with. And I don't mean Plan B as in a backup plan or the very next thought I have after the initial idea strikes me. It's more along these lines:

• I decide on a course of action
• I start putting it into motion
• I discover a different way to achieve the same (or almost the same) goal, or find a completely different idea along the way
  
• I abandon the first idea and go with the new one.

Almost 8 years ago I had the chance to essentially start my life over again. I won't go into the details but I found myself in the position to change location, start on a new career path, and get myself moving in a different direction. The initial plan was to move to Raleigh, find a job, and get myself back into NC State and complete a degree program. In the beginning everything was going according to schedule. I'd managed to make it to Raleigh and start hunting for an apartment and searching through the Want Ads for a job. But none of it "felt" right. I was back in Raleigh; I was looking in all the right places for apartments; I had gone by State and was stoked to get back into school; yet I felt like none of it was what I should be doing.

I was staying with my sister in Greenville and driving to Raleigh every day checking into things. I'd done this all week and hadn't found anything I wanted to settle with, so I decided to stop in and visit some old friends who had moved back to Raleigh a few years before. And over the course of one evening there I'd completely changed my direction. Instead of Raleigh, I was now moving to Asheville. The other parts of the original plan were still in place in some fashion, but the location had changed. And it all felt right. Welcome to Plan B.

Flash forward seven and a half years and I'm still in Asheville. I know I'm a completely different person than I would have been if I'd kept going the other way. I would have had a different job and different friends, and would have had vastly different experiences. But I chose to come here and have all of those experiences in Asheville instead and I don't regret a second of it. February of next year will be the 8-year anniversary of the move here and will be a milestone of sorts for me. I will have spent more time here than any other place I've ever lived. Even counting childhood. There's something about Asheville and the North Carolina Mountains that draws me in and makes me want to stay. Plan B is working out pretty well.

Addictions

Had a pretty busy day yesterday. Work was fairly steady all day and I did some running around afterwards that put it around 7:00 before I got home last night. Not late by normal standards but for us hermits that might as well have been midnight. It's good for me though and helps break up my afternoon routine during the week.

When I did get home I decided not to turn on the computer. At all. If getting home at 7:00 was enough to disrupt my schedule, having no internet crashed my entire world. I know I'm addicted to being online, but you never really know how strong an Addiction is until you go cold turkey. I found myself having the same kinds of thoughts and anxieties as I did when I quit smoking cigarettes. Granted they were nowhere near as intense as the nicotine jitters, but it was a little disturbing to have them nonetheless.

It was pretty interesting once I realized what was going on though. The Addicted part of my mind kept trying to trick me into breaking...surely I could just log in long enough to check my email and nothing else, or I could come here and blog for a few minutes and then walk away, and the patented stand-by argument I use for everything: why am I doing this today; try this cold turkey thing tomorrow instead. I knew how to shut that part of the Addiction down since I've gone through it with nicotine but it was still a persistent little presence that kept popping into my head all evening.

Instead, I watched TV all night. Not much of an improvement since I basically replaced a computer screen with a television screen but it's at least a step in the right direction. I know I'm not going to be able to completely get away from being online (and I wasn't trying to by disconnecting last night) but I've got to learn to take it in smaller doses and stop letting it be where I spend the majority of my time. If I really want to re-join society and take command of my life I've got to control this.

Of Raccoons & Fast Food

I had my first sighting of a live raccoon "in the wild" this afternoon. I was over at the Smith's pet sitting and had stepped out into their back yard, heard this weird whining/grunting kind of sound, and saw this guy. He climbed up the tree as soon as he saw me and stayed there long enough for me to run grab the camera and snap a shot. I was a little concerned about him since I'd had a nice conversation with the Smiths before they left on vacation about rabid animals and a black bear that's hanging around nearby. Rocky scampered down the tree and ran off pretty quickly after he posed for the picture though so I don't think he was rabid. Still, a close call...I almost died.

A few days ago I was sitting in the drive-thru of Hardee's staring at the interstate exit nearby, and had a flashback of sorts to childhood. Back in the 80's, we used to drive through this area of the state on our way to my grandparents' house in Alabama and would often use this exit as a pit stop on our way to, and back from their place. There's a McDonald's, Shoney's, and a Waffle House here, along with several gas stations, so it's a good place to stop on your way through the mountains. Little did I know that I'd be living off this very exit 20 odd years later, but that's a topic for another time.

I remembered sitting at one of the places we'd stopped at on a trip through as a kid, and staring at the interstate like I was doing now and having the same thoughts. I watched all the cars zipping by, noticed the people around at the restaurant and the exit, and wondered about who all these people around me were. I thought about the thousands of decisions and circumstances that had to occur in all of our lives to bring us together at this one particular point on the road at this instant in time. For a few brief moments all of our lives were connected to this one tiny little spot in the world. It made me realize how intricate life is and how all of us are connected to each other in some fashion, even if it's only for a few seconds as we pass each other on the road heading in opposite directions. It doesn't matter who we are, where we're heading, or what we're doing at the time; our lives all touch each other in some way.

Then I took my Hot Ham 'n Cheese combo (with a coke) and went home.

Camping

I survived my first solo camping trip last night (solo human anyway, the dog was there). I've been wanting to do that for a year or so now, and finally made myself go ahead and do it. Even so, I put off heading out until later in the afternoon and the site I had planned on using was already full of people. I ended up driving a few miles further down the road and found an empty spot. I'm kind of glad I didn't stay at the original place as the new one I found was more open and private. The site was off an NC Forestry Service dirt road named Cathey's Creek Road. It's located in the Pisgah National Forest and the area is packed with hiking trails and waterfalls.

The experience wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. Not that I expected it to be bad or anything, I was just a bit apprehensive about spending the night by myself in the woods and was pleasantly surprised by how good it made me feel. It was a bit chillier than I expected but overall it was pretty fun. Granted, if the dog hadn't been there I doubt I'd have slept more than a few minutes at a time. The mind tends to wander off pretty quickly when you're alone in a pitch black tent in the middle of the woods. And trust me, my mind can wander into some very freaky places if I let it. There were quite a few times when various serial killers, bears, and Eastern Puma were going to suddenly tear into the tent and torture, maul, and/or eat me. And don't even get me started on what was going to crawl up out of the stream and, finding a colorful tent in its favorite napping spot, would tear me apart in a limb ripping rage. But once I reconciled myself to the fact that Shelbe would probably hear anything coming up on us quite a bit sooner than I ever would, I managed to fall asleep.

I'll definitely be doing it again soon and I'll plan things out a bit better beforehand. For one, a nice warm blanket will accompany me next time and not just jeans and a sweatshirt (yeah, I had the sleeping bag for warmth, but Shelbe claimed that as soon as she stepped into the tent so I had to "share" it with her...not going to kick the poor dog off the only soft, warm thing available to sleep on after all) . Plus I'll need to replace one of the tent poles since I managed to snap it when I was packing up camp.

All in all, a very good experience for me and I'm glad I did it.

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As this is my first post, the links to right will point you to my pics page on Flickr and to my Video page at YouTube.