Everyone Knows Top Lockers Are The Best

    It should have been a pretty good sign to me that something was seriously wrong with my priorities as my daughter and I rolled up into the school parking lot on a Saturday in August to carpet and wallpaper her locker.  I was comforted to know I wasn't the only mom there rigging up lighting and shelving systems.  I knew we had crossed a line somewhere, but the smiles on our daughter's faces made it all worthwhile.   There is some kind of social status associated with having a top locker and my 4' 5" child had managed to win the luck of the draw.  It was difficult installing the tiny motion sensor lamp at the top of the locker and a set of scaffolding would have come in quite handy, but I knew that might have labeled me as "the mom who went too far."  I settled for standing on top of a stack of copy paper while we measured, papered, and completed our interior decorating.  I'm not sure that my first apartment looked quite as good!   Half way into the project we realized that there was simply no room for books and school supplies and wondered if we could rent the locker next to us.   Something told me that the answer to that question would be a clear "no."   My daughter decided she could just carry her books from class to class, thus defeating the entire reason for having a locker, but.... who could mess up a small studio locker such as this!
  
    I have to admit that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and there must be some kind of genetic imbalance that causes us to do these things. When my son was in fourth grade, he was running a small illegal vending operation out of his locker.  I was so proud!  He found a tiny vending machine that happened to fit inside of his locker and he sold candy bars and chocolates for bargain prices.   He, too, opted to tote his books around on his back so that he could collect his profits each day from his tiny snack bar.  It was the motion sensor light that got him in trouble when it came on one dark night as the janitor passed by. Much to his surprise, the janitor used his master key to open the locker only to find that it was not a bomb, but a brilliant small business venture operated by a ten year old boy.  The light and the vending operation were quickly removed and the books were returned to their rightful place.

   We have always had this problem of using lockers for inappropriate purposes, but prime real estate is prime real estate and when you have a top locker, it just can't be wasted on school books and binders. Of course, the problem we have with school supplies is the large amount we have to be stored.  My daughter treats the school supply list like a lost book of the Bible and takes it quite seriously. We are not allowed to deviate from it and must procure every item listed, no matter if it fails to pass the common sense test.  This year, all seven teachers listed the need for two boxes of 48 pencils.  I realize they simply want to make sure students have enough pencils to get through the day, but we were not going to leave the store without 14 boxes of 48 pencils.  We now own 672 pencils.  The same rule applied for each item listed and after I spent $200 on school supplies for one child, it became quite apparent that she would also need a small pack-mule to carry all of these items.  We also have 120 colored pencils, 64 markers, five packs of Sharpies,  7 two inch binders that total a width larger than her locker, gym clothes, sack lunch and more.  I need to rent out an entire bay of lockers to accommodate all of these supplies. I know that after the first few days she'll consolidate everything into one large binder and she'll scrap the six hundred pencils for two cool mechanical pencils that can only be found at some gas station two hours away where her friend got hers.   The true cost of school supplies should be around $30 and does not include self contained lighting systems, enough pencils to supply a small mission school or wall to wall carpet.  If this madness continues, we may find we have to live in that top locker.

It's All About Family

Family roots are important to me and for the past year I have spent $19.99 a month on ancestry.com tracing our lineage back to the year 254 A.D.  It was exciting to find that I am the 23rd great-granddaughter of Dagobert, King of the Franks. Unfortunately I discovered that I am not the granddaughter of the Queen of Franks, but rather the King's mistress that lived down the way. I have my grandfather's eyes, but not his wife's. As I dug deeper, I found that I have roots tying back to the Visigoths that challenged the Roman Empire. It goes without saying that they were not successful. That would be like Fiji declaring war on the United States.  Not a wise strategic move. My 53rd fur wearing, sword swinging, great grandpappy was replaced by a boy king from the same tribe, probably one night over roasted boar at the community table.  "Really Aoric, could you not see that we were outnumbered? Let's get Mikey to rule...   He'll do it."    I guess bloodline wasn't the determining factor for reign, but rather who was smart enough to get in and out of Rome with few casualties and perhaps a couple of souvenirs from the Colosseum.

After I traced back 58 generations, I wanted to see what my heritage looked like on paper and found that you must spend another $129 for the Family Tree Maker software that uploads your data and puts it in nice little charts.   As I printed my pedigree, I discovered two of me coming from different branches of my tree.   Immediate panic set in as I realized there may be a mistake and perhaps I wasn't the daughter of a king.  I checked my notes and found that people must have been lonely around 1200 A.D. as they traded old wives for new ones.  I can only assume the village was small  and there were few women to choose from because my grandmother of many years ago was also my aunt.  If they had only known that this would mess up my Family Tree maker template and create a division in my tree that would take me months to straighten out.   God knew what he was doing when he said not to be adulteress.  It would later require additional html code to plot my lineage.  Selfish lovers!    I was starting to see a pattern of fighting on the wrong side and sleeping in the wrong bed.  I moved back to modern times where multiple spouses weren't common and the branches of my tree weren't uncomfortably close to one another.

While I know it is not a normal reaction, I was deeply saddened when I ran across a newspaper article describing how my great, great grandfather had hung himself in jail after wielding an axe at his family in a drunken bout of rage at the turn of the century.   I had never heard this story before and wondered if  some things so filled with sadness should just remain buried away.   I felt bad for this man whom I know possessed my DNA.   He was a German immigrant with thirteen children who worked in the brickyards of the north.  His final words to the jail keeper, just hours before his death, were spoken in fluent German.... "I can take no more..."     My heart skipped a beat and I felt a loss for a man and his family that I never knew.... a man that is responsible for my being here today.   While generations come and go, happiness and pain are common threads that run deep in all families.

A litmus test of mine that I run regularly with my children is to ask them how they will describe their childhood once they are grown and I am gone.  I want to make sure their story is true and wonderful and involves no swinging axes or battle insertions on the wrong country.  It should be about happiness, good books, silly tea parties with funny hats, competitive sports, family cookouts, bedtime prayers and more.  It is my hope that the branches to come on my family tree grow in the right direction and connect to media uploads of well families and good stories.   Perhaps one day my 33rd great granddaughter will find me and say, "Wow - my grandmother loved life - Check out that cool hat."

Sweet Cheeks and Petunias

    Our latest edition, that came to be with us for a very short time, was a tiny bunny who lost his mother.  He was very weak upon arrival to our house and we placed him in a warm and cozy hamster cage.  He wasn't any bigger than a mouse.  My daughter, who keeps a supply of excellent pet names ready for use, promptly, without any second thought, named him Sweet Cheeks.  I prepared her for the possibility that Sweet Cheeks may not make it, but we gave it our best shot.   We lined his cage with grass, gave him goat milk from a bottle (because I'm the only one in the neighborhood who has a goat milk dealer on speed dial) and made him comfy.   As nighttime fell, Sweet Cheeks left this world.  A small funeral is planned for today. This won't be our first and won't be our last of backyard services.  I  should probably start making where all of these past critters have been buried before we dig in the wrong spot one day.   Somewhere out there are a series of cats, dogs, hamsters, goldfish from the fair, squirrels and two pet birds.

    As my daughter cried for a pet she had no more than an afternoon attachment to, I encouraged her to find something else to do.  Unbeknownst to me, my child was a virtual gardener and was planting, caring for and picking the most beautiful flowers I had ever seen.  I watched as she clicked a button and rain fell across her iPad onto tiny seeds that soon sprouted into beautiful flowers.  They swayed as if some mythical iBreeze was flowing through the monitor.  You could hear the crickets singing as dusk fell on her little garden.  I'm certain there was now a tiny bunny living there amongst her flowers.  It was pleasing.  It was satisfying.  It was anything but real.

    If  I were the software designer, I would have incorporated the truths of having a garden into my computer coding.  I think, when you wake in the morning to go look at your tiny bluebells opening to take in the morning dew, you should find a large dog lying in your flower bed gnawing the head off of a Halloween scarecrow that he must have stolen out of someone's garage.   There would be tiny plantings pulled up by the root, hanging from the dog's mouth and dirt all over his head.  That basket of petunias, that you had just planted and cared for, would simply be gone without explanation.  There would be no signs of the flowers or the basket.  Knowing full well that it defied physical law for the dog to ingest the entire basket of flowers, you had to wonder exactly where it had gone and how.  That one Gerber daisy that your child loved would be broken off at the stem where the crazed dog had trampled it.  There would be no cool breeze blowing in across the garden, but a stifling summer heat and stillness that would wilt the strongest of flowers.  When it came time to water your beauties, you would find that the garden hose was missing from the spigot because your husband had gathered all of the hoses and hooked them together into a 300 foot long connection to water his own garden that was being eaten by woodland critters quicker than he could harvest.   If you could find a bucket to retrieve some water for your garden, there would be a fresh litter of kittens living in it.  The flowers would never stand a chance.

Luckily, we do not live in a virtual world.  My garden may be dried up and beaten down, but a lot of happy animals have traveled through it. All things injured or abandoned pass right by the landscaped homes down the street and make their way to my back door.  My children know how to provide first aid and love without question.  They know how fragile life can be for plants, animals and our hearts.   This is the real world.

The Puppy Bus -Part II

Under cloak of darkness, we gathered in the back yard to transfer Midnight, the last of our puppies, from our yard to the back of an SUV that would take him to The Puppy Bus.  The bus would leave at 7:00 a.m. and we were an hour away from the bus stop.  We wanted to make sure he got a good seat as he traveled all the way to New England. Nobody wants the seat behind the lady with the big hat for 16 hours.   Hopefully all of his traveling companions would be laying down enjoying their ride, rather than sporting a tall hat.   Although images of Dr. Suess's "Go Dogs Go" make me think otherwise.   The bus is clean and and organized.  It is heated and cooled for the comfort of the orphaned dogs that have been rescued and are now ready for adoption.  A foster family awaits the arrival of these puppies and hopefully will find them loving homes.   I hated to see Midnight go, but I hated to see him stay.     He needs someone that can give love to this energetic little puppy that only wants to jump up for love and attention.   He's a good dog, but he needs attention that I simply could not afford him.  I already have a small menagerie of animals to care for.   I admire the people on both on ends of The Puppy Bus run.  They are kind people who work hard to place lost animals in good homes.  No money was ever exchanged.  I had to provide shots and neutering, but that requirement is quite necessary.  This mission of kindness exists purely to care for dogs in need.  As Midnight headed north I whispered a prayer that he have a safe journey and that no one ever abandon their pregnant dog at my house again.

The Puppy Bus

The term "Puppy Bus" conjures up awful thoughts of a large worn out bus traveling at ridiculous speeds, full of unwanted puppies, headed for the island of misfit toys or someplace worse.  I have to admit, though, that it is anything but that.  The first time I heard this term was when I asked my neighbor to help me find a home for a puppy I had.  It was never my intention to raise puppies but after a pregnant dog was abandoned at our our home, puppies found their way into our hearts. The puppy bus was a good mechanism for the last puppy to make his way home.

We had given shelter to a friend who was down on his luck.  He arrived with his suitcase and his dog.  Unfortunately, our friend left, but the dog didn't.   She stayed with us as we all hoped her master would return for her.  Nobody knew she was pregnant until the day we came home to discover seven puppies in the yard.  "Were we blind?" I had to think to myself.  How did we miss this????  We are now down to one last puppy who desperately needs a home with a yard and kids and bacon flavored treats at the end of the day.  I advertised him on Facebook to my 268 friends and their kids and found that my friend count instantly dropped as I was being deleted left and right.

I tried an online Pet Finding service and was inundated with disturbing messages from people assuring me that ..."God will bless me" and that "...their daughter was waiting to hold my adorable pet who would surely help her heal after the tragedy. " The messages all seemed rather generic as if it didn't matter if my "adorable pet" was a dog or a cat or two headed newt.  While I admit that I would like to see the look on their daughter's face as she took hold of the two headed newt, I felt certain this would never come to fruition.  I know that there is no daughter and the only tragedy is the dog fighting ring or snake food pit that they failed to mention.  These people scare me.

Luckily, I have a neighbor who has dedicated her life to rescuing dogs.  She works with a rescue group out of New England and through her connections she has found my dog a possible adoptive family.  To get there... he will board The Puppy Bus.  He will simply need his second set of shots, to be neutered and possibly get a mani/pedi before he is in with the "in" crowd and allowed passage on The Puppy Bus.  While not a carrier found on Travelocity, it seems that this Mystery Machine Animal Carrier comes through every other Friday and takes puppies north to a new life.  I instantly envisioned The Green Mile or a long ride down death row to a pound somewhere, but my friend assures me that this is a reputable service that screens applicants and places dogs in loving homes.

Every day on my way to work I pass the Tyson Chicken truck and look into the eyes of chickens bound for their demise. I can only pray that the Chicken Truck is nothing like The Puppy Bus.  My puppy is a beautiful little boy that can never have the look in his eyes as a Tyson Chicken.    While I know this is the right thing to do and I trust my friend 100%, images of Rudolph's journey to the island of misfit toys fill my mind.  That and that weird little elf that wanted to be a dentist.  Between the pet finder messages, terrified chicken eyes and the cast out boy dentist, my mind is filled with scary thoughts that could impact on my little puppy.  All this convinces me more and more that I need to take to the mountains and build a hideaway like The Wilderness Family because people just frighten me at times.  I could have all the pets I want there and my little black puppy, Midnight, would have a good home. Of course, I could never catch and kill my own food so I would die out there in the Wilderness with my Foxfire books and failed attempt at building a shelter for all of us.  It is because of such that I will delete those crazy people's email, place faith in The Puppy Bus, and find a new route to work that is far away from the Tyson plant.   I have to trust that Midnight will board The Puppy Bus and have a pleasant journey to northern lands where he will be met with hugs and kisses from a real child waiting for "my adorable pet."

   

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie - Unless They Have Deep Sleep Disorder

    You should not let sleeping dogs lie when they choose inappropriate places to do their napping.  Our latest edition, Riley, a small puppy, turned out by its mother, has come to know the comforts and security of being cared for like a newborn baby.  He was bottle fed and sleeps on a bed of plush cotton with a tiny stuffed animal that looks just like his mother. When Riley sleeps, he enters some kind of deep R.E.M. sleep that nothing can wake him from.  You can poke him, pick him up, even dress him in tiny Build-A-Bear clothing and he will never wake.  When he finally does come to, he loves to be outdoors running and playing. The problem is, Riley is the runt of the litter and tires easily.  After a few minutes of terrorizing the cats and scratching around in the flower beds, he finds a cool place to nap.... usually behind my tires and enters his deep comatose like sleep.

    Before I drive, I always honk the horn several times, alerting the cats sleeping inside my engine and any small children who might be standing behind my car.  I normally walk around, checking behind each tire, but on this particular day, I was in a hurry.  I made the horn wail for a ridiculous amount of time, sure to scare off any sleeping critters in or around my vehicle.  I preface this by saying that it is bad to run over your own dog, but to do it twice is much worse.   I began backing out of the drive when I heard the most horrible yelping.  I knew what had happened and feared that I was on top off the dog, so I put the car in forward and pulled back over the poor thing.  More yelping ensued and as I put the car in reverse to get off of him again, I realized that this may be a vicious cycle that would never end and I should probably park the car and assess the damage.  Scared to look and traumatized by the screams from my child and the yelps from my dog, I ran around the car only to find my little dog staring up at me with a look of dismay. There seemed to be no real damage.  There was no blood or brains or any of the other things I suspected I would find.  The dog had urinated on itself, but I would too if a large SUV was coming over the top of me... twice.   I scooped up the dog and carried him to his bed of fluff and laid him down gently.   I had taken that CPR course at work and knew that his vitals signs would be off the chart if there was bad damage.  His heart wasn't racing.  He appeared to be in no pain and he wasn't shying away from me.  I quickly told him it was the cat that was driving the car so not to destroy the caregiving image he has me associated with.
  
    A few hours later, I discovered the leg that wouldn't work and decided to go to the Emergency Vet.  That was my first mistake.  Upon arrival, I was greeted by a nurse who handed me a pamphlet on the costs associated with being hit by a car.  A small red flag went up in my mind.  While waiting in the tiny sterile room with my dog who still appeared to be in no pain, I noticed a sign on the wall that encouraged patients to use the office phones to contact friends and relatives who could call in credit card numbers to help finance my pet's emergency care.  Hmmmm... Flag #2 had now popped up.  The vet arrived and looked my dog over.  He talked about free flowing abdominal fluids and hidden injuries and I explained that the dog had not actually been hit by a car flying down the street, but had simply been run over... by me.... twice.   There was no blunt force trauma.  The vet left and in came a financial counselor.  I should have left then, but no... I stayed for more.   He walks over to a large write and wipe board and begins creating a visual diagram of all of the required treatments and associated cost estimates.  It began with Pain Medicine - $50 - $75. X-rays came after that for $200.   After we flew through anesthesia, surgery, physical therapy and life coaches, I screamed that he had to stop before my head exploded.  The obvious question had to be asked... how can you even talk to me about surgery when you don't even know what is wrong with the dog.  They were preparing me, he told me.  I suggested a better method and asked that we just X-ray the dog and then map out a course of action.  "Not without pain medicine," I was told.   I dismissed my Pet Loan Officer and asked to talk to the vet.  I voiced my great dissatisfaction with this plan and even went so far as to challenge the ethics of drugging an animal or person when there is no sign of pain.   I would like to point out that challenging a doctor's ethics is never a good thing to do.  I lost the debate, my dog got Toradal and I now own a series of expensive X-rays of my dog in various disturbing positions.... running, sitting, spread out like a hog on a spit and more.   I believe my dog may be flipping me off in one of those photos.   I'm sure that was a humorous Vet joke because of my ethics comment.  

    An hour and a half later,  I received the news that my dog had a hairline fracture and we would splint him and place a large funnel on his head. Having a basic understanding of the healing process, hairline fractures in young bones and that fact that neither my husband, nor the three dogs waiting at home, would ever accept a funnel headed Spaniel.  I opted to take our drugs and take the dog home to heal without the splint or funnel that would be more traumatizing than the tiny crack in the dog's leg. The dog was stoned on narcotics at this point and was weaker now than when I brought the happy puppy in.   $240 later, we left with a drunk dog in a box exploding body fluids in the back seat of my SUV. It was the longest 45 minute ride home I have ever made.  My daughter and I were hanging our heads out of the windows, ironically, like dogs, trying to escape the odor coming from my stoned dog passed out in the back seat.

    A week passed and the leg began healing nicely.  The dog is getting around great and will continue to heal with no narcotics or funnel hats.   I walk a little slower around the car now, checking for sleeping dogs or tails poking out of the engine and hope nobody is napping in places they shouldn't be. It is critically important that I not run over another animal, because they will never let me back in the Emergency Vet Clinic.

Shark Boy

If something amazing and truly worthy of a photo opportunity occurs, I am usually the one who has just turned their head for a split second, missing everything, only to hear the "oohs" and "aaahhhs" of my family reveling in what they just witnessed. I've missed goals, perfect landings, certificates of award from the President printed on colored card stock, and a series of other special events moms are supposed to be clicking their cameras on.  My timing is off by just a millisecond and the world can change in that tiny moment of time.  I'm certain if an alien invasion ever occurs, I will be head down, rifling through a box of popcorn or digging under my chair for someone's lost shoe.   I will miss the introduction to the new life form and have to ask them to kindly recreate the scene so I can capture it on my Handycam.

While at the beach this week, Shark boy, in the above photo, was moving in on my territory with his cute smile, foreign accent and eye for my girls.   Of all moves intended to impress a couple of young girls, I would have never expected him to reach down into the Atlantic waters around their feet and whisk out a baby shark, as if he does this everyday.  I was, of course, rifling though my bag of multi-SPF lotions and sunblock, digging for a tissue to keep the sand out of my Pina Colada, when I heard those familiar "ooohss" and "ahhhhs."  What had I missed... again?! I, instinctively, grabbed for the camera, still unaware if it was an alien takeover or just a good hair moment that needed to be photographed.  I knew it was something cool, though.  And there, as I looked up with a Pina Colada milk mustache, is Shark boy with tiny shark in hand.  The girls' shoulders instantly drew forward in some genetically instinctive act of coyness like Wally Cleaver's girlfriend when he donned his argyle sweater.  They oohed and ahhed and giggled as waves of doubt washed over me and Shark boy's self confidence beamed like a beacon from a lighthouse. Surely, that boy didn't just grab a live shark, I thought.  In yet another act of greatness, he gently places the tiny man eating sea critter back into the waters to swim away, showing his sensitive animal activist side.  I managed to pull myself up from my beach chair that was already six inches deep into the wet sand and walked up to this trio of kids.  Like an investigator, I questioned him on how this happened. People just don't reach into the water and pull out live fish unless you live on the Blue Lagoon and are working a movie set.  With excellent manners and a boyish foreign accent, Shark Boy offers to go grab another shark for me to see.  I knew the sun was hot and the rum had been flowing straight from my blender to my beachy little spot by the shore, but I was keenly aware that this was not normal.  The three ran back into the sea.  The girls normally scream when seaweed touches their feet, but now they were knee deep with this mystery boy walking with the sharks, safeguarded by his aura of self esteem.  It was a scary glimpse of the future, filled with ooohhs and ahhhs that I know will never be intended for me to capture on film. It took only moments and they returned from the sea with yet another baby shark in hand.  The girls giggled, the boy beamed and my older son was googling away, researching Shark boy on the Internet to determine his actual name, Facebook profile, age and political affiliation.  We all petted the little shark,  snapped a few photos and then released him back into the waters to rejoin his family of killers.  I took another sip of my sandy Colada, whispered a little prayer that the sharks will always stay far away from my girls, and took my place back in the sand next to my son.  As I closed my eyes in the summer sun, I heard the familiar "ping" sound of an email being sent.   Pictures of sharks and pretty girls were being uploaded and sent across country.  I found out later that one additional message went out from the shoreline.... a simple and easy to understand message from my son to Shark boy that simply said, "They're 12."    We did not see him after that, but pictures will last forever.