Not as bad as it seems...

For all my complaining, recent and otherwise, it's not as bad as it seems. Yes, I have my ups and downs, but both valleys and mountains have their own kind of beauty and can be appreciated.

I remember moving from the Puget Sound area of Washington (Lynnwood to be exact) to Walla Walla, WA right before I started junior high. I fell asleep before we had cleared Snoqualamie pass and woke up outside of Tri-Cities, WA. The scenery had gone from green, lush, and salty ocean air to brown, dry, and arid. I had a mental freak out and couldn't understand why my parents had moved the family across the state from a seeming Eden-like flourishing green-ness to a barren wasteland. To my young eyes everything around me was dead. I soon came to realize that the farmland around me wasn't lifeless, but had matured and was ready for harvest. The initially perceived "dead plants" were actually fields of wheat. Now I can recognize the lushness of both kinds of scenery. Each is equally beautiful in my eyes and each serves a different purpose.

The same can be said about life. Balance. Yin and Yang. Dichotomies. Binaries. Everything has a counterbalance that is essential to truly understand and appreciate the other. I can't be truly happy without going through and understanding pain. I don't appreciate a good student paper until I read a bad one. Recognizing the beauty of the ocean and a desert only comes when you realize the necessity of the other.

Maybe I've waxed poetic right now...and yes, maybe I'm avoiding grading, but it's all true. I need to have the hard times, moments when I want to give up and quit, pain, confusion, anger, hurt, frustration, and other emotions I have been feeling lately, in order to appreciate the other things. Friends who have encouraged me, family who have lifted my spirits, the kindness of strangers, love from all, and the reassurance from those who are willing to kick the butt of those that hurt me. It's nice to know someone has your back.

So thank you for your comments, encouragement, and love -- vocal or silent. It's felt and appreciated.

Crisis averted, but now it's getting kind of weird.

Let me just start this post off by saying how the only way I remember how to spell weird is that it's spelling is weird. You remember the whole "I before E, except after C" sing-song we learned in elementary school? Yea, weird is the exception. I think it's because of this anomaly that I like the word weird so much.

Alright. And on to other things!

Crisis averted. As you can tell, I did not quit humanity and decided to stick it out...for at least three more weeks until Winter Break. I slept for a whole four hours last night and feel much better. -sigh- That's just sad. At this point I'm just grinning and bearing it.

And this morning I had a lovely little stalker-ish email message that said "Redbox misses you!" Um, stop following my every rental movements. I'm sorry Redbox, but you don't always have all the new releases I want to see so, yes, I go old school and go to a video rental store sometimes. Also, I have Netflix, so sometimes I just watch stuff online or get it mailed to me. And then again, I'm a stressed out student, so I don't have an over abundance of free time on my hands to watch movies. So stop stalking me and get your own life you inanimate, technological object! Stop trying to wield your thing-power over me!

...aaaaaand, I'm back!

I Quit!

Today has been just one of those days where I want to quit.

Quit school. Quit teaching. Quit being nice. Quit the human race and just go live by myself in the middle of nowhere.

If anyone else criticizes me, hurts my feelings, or pisses me off I may just break.

Thank goodness there are only three more weeks of school (two of which I teach) and then the holiday break. I can't handle any more griping, complaining, or erratic and unreasonable behavior.

I've never been a quitter, but I think I'm on the precipice.

I think I need to go to bed and hope tomorrow is better.

Well, THAT was Unexpected

Before I moved away from Walla Walla (okay, it was over a decade ago...wow, I'm getting old!), I was house sitting for a lot of people. I'd live in their house for a week or more, water plants, watch pets if needed, pick up mail and newspapers, etc...And I LOVED it! It's kind of like going to a hotel for awhile because it isn't your place and you sleep in different beds and such. But it's actually better than a hotel because I got paid for doing it.

Really? I mean, you're paying me to not have to live in a house with two younger sisters for a week. Alright!

I hadn't done any real house sitting since (we won't count the 6 months I stayed in the "snowbirds" house while they were in Arizona when I first moved to Lewiston. Yes, it was in the Country Club area, but I paid them rent (basically to cover utilities and such)...so it doesn't really count), so when a friend from Lewiston hooked me up with some friends in Moscow needing someone to house and dog sit for them I was all in. I mean, I've been having issues with a roommate and I knew I was going to have a lot on my plate that week. I met with them twice (with Sage in tow to make sure she got along with the dogs) and everything was great. They cautioned me that they didn't have television, which was FABULOUS for me because I had final papers to draft up and major student papers to grade, so I didn't need the distraction.

So they left on Sunday and on Tuesday afternoon I was in the vet's office with one of the dogs. Um, yeah. That wasn't a fun call to make. They were in New York and I was in Idaho and their nine year old dog was lethargic, not eating, had labored breathing and other health problems. I got in for their earliest open appointment at 3:10pm and two hours later the vet came back and told me the dog died.

WHAT!?!?

Apparently the dog had had cancer and when I brought him (Mickey) in, his organs were shutting down. The owners hadn't known about the cancer so it was completely unexpected. I'm lucky I didn't have to tell the owners about their beloved dog's death, the vet had been in phone contact with them about what they were doing and such and had broken the news. So I went in with a dog and left empty handed. (FYI-this is not a picture of the actual dog. I'm not that insensitive, but it's what he looked like.)

Seriously, THAT wasn't what I was expected. I thought maybe a prescription and surgery at the worst, but not death! So the owners were worried about how I was feeling and I was worried about how they were feeling. It was a lot of mutual "I'm sorry's" going on in the subsequent phone calls...pretty much every day of their vacation because there was still one more dog at home alive. Trust me. If Emmy (the dog) would have allowed it, I would have wrapped her in bubble wrap and not allowed her to move a muscle. I didn't want two pet deaths on my hands!

Luckily we all made it through the rest of the break alive...even the owners who had a treacherous ice/snow drive back from the Spokane airport, and the mutual commiseration talk cycled through again when they got home.

How do I feel? Honestly, I was feeling sooooooo sorry for the owners because I know how I would feel if that had happened to Sage while I was gone. I would be heartbroken, guilty, and worried about the person watching my dog too. I felt bad, but I also realize death is a natural part of life and this was a completely fluke accident. No one could have planned the timing, especially without knowing the dog's health. I'm just sorry the owners weren't in town and now they'll have guilt. Luckily the dog spent all but the last two hours of his life at home with his other dog, so there's that.

I don't know...I think I'm still a bit in shock and awe, but I'll be fine. We'll see if they ask me to dog sit again in the future. That'll be the real test.

Fireplaces, Blizzard Warnings, and a Good Book

There's something festive about sitting by a fire. The constant exchange of colors -- from yellow, to orange, to red, to blue, to yellow again -- and the warmth that emanates from it. Couple that with the blizzard warning we had last night and the approximately 8-10 inches of snow I woke up to this morning, and it feelsm more like Christmas than Thanksgiving. Memories of spiced apple cider, the smell of mom's cornbread stuffing filling the house, and a puzzle everyone frantically works at trying to complete before gathered family disperse back to their respective homes, capture my imagination and mind.

This Thanksgiving won't be like those of yore (yep, I used that word), but has followed a pattern similar to thsoe of recent years. A week filled with frantically grading or writing papers, probably dinner at my local Denny's or Shari's (I wish this was the first time I ate at one of these places for a holiday, but I'd be lying to you) with a roommate -- we had other plans, but things change -- and a trip to a movie theatre for one of the newest releases.

Perhaps that all sounds a little dismal, but I'm alright with it. Sometimes your desires have to be prioritized and put on hold in order to accomplish those that rank of higher importance. I will finish my masters if it kills me; and some days I think it will. And I will sacrifice a Thanksgiving meal so I can better appreciate the upcoming Christmas holiday stress free and paper free.

In the mean time I will get back to basking in the warmth of the fire as I watch dogs snooze in front of it. Unfortunately, instead of reading from my book pile of "to be reads", I'll be reading a book about rhetoric, or materialism, or technology, or all of them. -sigh-

C'mon Christmas!