Do you ever reach an age, a maturity, where that is not your relflex to a rude and unnecessary comment/email/twitter?

I am…hoping?  Dreaming?  Nay, DEMANDING that 2010 be better than 2009.

That’s pretty much my answer to everything these days.

I started to login to write and then thought, “Does anyone even read here anymore?”  Then I remembered that handy sitemeter thingy I so dearly loved three years ago.  And yes.  Four people do still read here.  Assuming two of you are not exes who can get facebook updates on my current mental and Mafia Wars status, I figured I’d stop by.

I also figured with several posts about my grandparents, I’d pop back in here before that one really sad post.  Grandma’s health is deteriorating.  She could live a few more years and I’m not trying to shovel any dirt on her, but my grandparents were so active.  Two or three foreign trips a year.  Dinner out at least twice a week.  Houses in three different states for different seasons and connections.  Now if my grandmother gets “off campus” (the hip way to refer to leaving the retirement home grounds), it’s a major occassion.

I know she thinks life is pale and stupid without my grandfather.  That’s just not the kind of person who is looking to stretch her minutes here.  I don’t blame her, and I know she finds joy where and when she can.  I hope to be a help in this final journey of her life, as she was such a help in mine.

Tom and I are inching along.  In a few months, I will have been married to him longer than my first husband.  I still feel that tug.  I am not cut out for this marriage crap.  But he is still the king of awesome and inappropriateness and putting up with my sorry ass.  So I guess I’ll keep him around.

The sanctuary…has been through many changes.  And is continuing to change.  Something I love telling guests is how we never feel we’ve got it perfect - we’ll always searching for ways to make the lives of the animals better.  So, when you say shit like that you kinda have to shut your mouth when change occurs.  They are for the best, but damn do the growing pains hurt.

For me specifically, I feel comfortable enough to say that the IT portion of my position has grown and pushed every limit of my knowledge.  It’s difficult to balance it with animal care, volunteer coordinating, and the other more mundane aspects of my paycheck.  Some days I feel like nothing more than a gopher.  Some days I feel like a queen.  And some days I feel like a failure.

Today, I felt like a failure.  So I’m shooting for at least gopher tomorrow.  Sometimes, it’s all you can do.

I told my grandmother that we were proud new parents of a bread maker.  (Stretching the not-having-a-baby-but-look-at-the-other-cute-things-we-have-in-our-life gig a little far?  Maybe.)

I remember my grandmother making bread from scratch all summer long.  Only raisin bread.  I got to help put in the raisins.  Grandpa said the storebought kind didn’t have enough raisins.  She never made any other kind of bread, just raisin bread.

“A bread maker?  How nice.  I used to make your grandfather spice bread.”

“Yes, raisin bread.  With extra raisins.”

She shook her head, “Nooo…” slowly, like she was letting me down gently, “He didn’t like it with cinnamon…he wanted some other spice…cumin!  That’s it.  I made it with cumin.”

This conversation haunts me.

Am I remembering wrong?  Can I have such strong, specific feelings that are completely made up?

Can she be wrong?  Has all her joking about being an old woman finally come to pass?

Or worst, are we both right?  Is she thinking of a different time, a different bread.  If so, I’m missing out on one more story to cling to when she’s gone.

Holy Fuck, life has been rough.  Inappropriate, excessive swearing rough.

And then of course, we still have our house, can afford to stay in it, do not have to give our animals up because we can’t buy food, and loosely-speaking, still have our health.

Still.

I’ve been very unhappy with my schedule lately.  Doesn’t shock a lot of people.  10-14 hour days?  6-7 days a week?  How can you not love it?

Well, I do.  Usually.  I love feeling like I’m making a difference and getting dirty (and bloody) and being part of a solution.  I love helping people and animals and most days I feel like I’ve done both.

Lately though, Tom’s schedule has been just as much shit as mine - including shift work which means I end up not sleeping a full night either.  And our animal woes have not stopped.  Three, THREE, urinary tract infections.  One on a cat who’s been surgically altered to have much less tract to resolve this exact kind of thing.  One a cat who has to be sedated for the most simple of exams.  (The last is just on a plain ole regular cat.  Albeit a fat, old, and needy one.)

I’ve been really wishing I had a more 9-to-5 deal, so I could do a better job taking care of everyone.  And maybe some weekends off to catch up on everything else.

The thing is, I really hate wishing that.  I am not made to be selfish and me, me, me.  It pisses me off.  And I’m horrible at it.  My boss has even less time off than me - how do you ask for more?

I really hope this is a phase.  I really hope we get a handle on our pet and personal life and I go back to feeling gunho about my schedule.

That’s how old I turned this past Saturday.

I took the day off from work.  Not something I realize most people have to think about on a Saturday.

I went to the dump, sephora, a massage, and ending the night watching Saturday night reruns while my husband slept.

On Sunday, we spend off to Gainesville to spend just 15 minutes more time with my grandmother than we actually spent on the road.

Laptop sent away.  Back now, can you tell?

Cat pee on kitchen counter.  (please repeat in between every other line)

Pot Rack installed.

New Sneakers.

Painful ankle.  Still.

Flu.  Worst 24-hour shit I’ve had in a long time.

Track lighting installed.

Cat pee on bedroom carpet.

New kitten.

Vet visits.

Resorting to facebook for social life.

Resorting to sent email folder to remember the week.

More Vet visits.

Roof fixed!  Yes?  For reals this time?

Waiting for rain.

Waiting for a break.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Waiting for more.

The snafu I walked into this morning was my fault. Totally. It might have been less of one had boss #1 remembered a few discussions, or boss #2 hadn’t known why I ditched out yesterday. No one likes a reminder that work is not your number one priority. (Although he has often chided me for making it such a high priority when I’ve pulled a 24-hour shift. You can please some of the people all of the…)

I hate that I enjoy my job so much that I want to cry over this. I let people down. I was let down.

The thing that I don’t get is that both #1 and #2 always comment on how I got dumped with too much work, too many important tasks, and that I’ve done a kick ass job considering. I’ve been in meetings where I represent half of the dozen interfaces discussed. (Other people = one or two)

Are the mistakes I make an outcome of just being overworked? Am I multitasking to a point that to err is human? Or is there something flawed in my approach that allows for these slip-ups?

I guess I’m down because I want to do a kick ass job. No qualifier or explanation needed.

It rained all last night. I love this weather. I used to go to pass-a-grille and walk the entire length – from the “To Public Beach” sign, to the concrete pier that the fisherman use – during downpours.

I’ve huddled against someone on that pier during a hurricane who turned out not to do it for me. I walked hand-in-hand over that sand with someone who didn’t want the date to end after dinner-and-a-movie (and we still ended up back at my place, watching “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”), but turned out not to want to do it for me.

I drove to that beach with W only to not get out the car, taking advantage of the mood thunderstorms put me in.

But mostly, I remember Monica. Junior year. No boys (er, for the most part). Our own apartment. Mornings of cappaccino and grapefruit halves. Nights of sand, seashells, and rain.

2009 Progress Update

I skipped around my folder a bit.  I didn’t neccesarily want to choose items to share in chronological order.  It would seem like I’m telling a story.  And I’m not, at least not to my knowledge.

The first part, the job part, hits home because I feel a sprained my ankle in part due to over-working.  (I deleted “being over worked” because that implies someone other than myself put the heavy on me.)  So, obviously I’m very much the same.

The last part, the beach and men and Monica part…I haven’t had many close female friends in my life.  Or close friends period.  The sprained ankle brings it out in me as well - I can’t stand the incessant questions regarding my health from collegues and volunteers.

I always thought I was good about being friends and keeping in touch with people.  But they have babies and I have jobs and here we are.  Or, here I am.  We implies the babies and the jobs didn’t change anything.  And they did.  They always do.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the amout of time I spend at the sanctuary precludes much of a social life.

That includes a religous social life.

Today was the first day since I sprained my ankle I resumed even semi-normal animal care activities.  As it was my Sundy to coordinate the volunteers, I was head honcho.  No one could tell me no.  So I gimped around 6 cages, filled water bowls, picked up extra meat, picked up the result of not-extra meat, and cared for the animals.

This is the best fucking day I’ve had in so fucking long.

I have mentioned to friends here or there that I believe to some extent I am completing a higher power’s will by caring for these animals.  What I don’t think I mention is why I feel that way.  That the fulfillment I get from dirty legs and latex gloves is something I can only hope for others.

Thank God.

Apparently, I came close to making all my 2008 resolutions a reality.

1)  Do not move.  Check.  Still in condo.  And it appears that may be what’s in store for 2009 as well.  Thank God we can still afford this place.  Now if only we could get rid of the pee smell in the bedroom and study, fix the roof and ceiling, and perhaps own more items than animals…

2)  Change part-time life to full-time life.  Technically, I believe I still have to bring out a flow chart to explain my daily doings.  But at least I do them all in the same place!  I honestly cannot remember when I wrote that if I had an inkling that the position at the sanctuary was going to be in the offering.  If not, I am pretty sure my itchiness had much to do with how I struggled to find meaningful classes as a part-time student.    You may or may not have noticed, but I haven’t returned to classes.  If I do, it will be very easy online courses just to keep me in the student loop.  I still feel I am learning and accomplishing enough at the sanctuary to keep me intellectually on my toes.

3)  The better health, no dead pets, and passport usage hopes did not really come to fruition in 08.  I think overall I was not as sick, but my weight still teeters on uncomfortable and that is very evident as I am nursing a sprained ankle and notice each ounce I must shift from place to place.  Then of course not only did we lose Roark, but Spike and Lady had very expensive, dangerous ailments as well.  Perhaps my 2009 wishes should be for better health for every living being in this condo - pee and all.

While the passport remained in my dresser drawer, we did manage to travel to places in the US we had never been.  I’ll take partial credit on that one.

And my one real resolution of recycling more was a whopping, annoying, success.  I would say that no glass, metal, or plastic that can be recycled at our local centers has been thrown out this year.  Almost all paper as well - including food boxes, little scraps of receipts, etc.  We got so good at using canvas bags for groceries that I started pillaging my less-green friends plastic bag stashes so we could clean the litter boxes.  And then I took it one step further - we now make such an effort to save extra plastic bags (from tortillas, bread, internal packaging of small boxed goods) that we no longer need to beg plastic from anyone.

And yes, it is annoying.  As in, I am annoying.  You cannot recycle that much stuff without becoming a hippie tree hugger.  I also encourage recycling at work - to the point that volunteers know to stuff cardboard in my trunk - and it’s always dangerous to get that label at work.  People will actually scan my face quickly before slowly motioning towards a trash can with some item.  Just in case I’d like to karate chop them for not reusing that paper towel a third time.

Despite the annoyance, I do hope to continue this trend in 2009.  Specifically, I think we could greatly reduce our electricy and water usage.  These are going to be the biggies for me - I love a well-lit house and a nice hot bath.  But since these energy savings also should translate to real savings, perhaps I can find incentive there.

Lastly…and the whole point of the title of this post…just this week I found a deal on a new laptop I couldn’t turn down.  I’m writing from my brand new Sony Vaio (my old laptop was a Sony as well - I like them).  It has a built-in web camera that I am sure I will use for your amusement and my embarrassment some time in the near future.

In transferring files over so that I may donate my old laptop to the sanctuary, I’ve been hit once again with how much I’ve written in the past that I’ve never polished and posted.  Since it’s quite obvious I’m never going to post my current circumstances with any regularity, I thought I might start dredging some of the old stuff up.

2009…what better time to write about 2004?