Lethargic? Bummed? Do Something Different

I was in a blue mood for days. I was cranky and tired. I’d never recovered from getting up at 4:00 AM in order to get my relatives to their plane on time, early one weekend morning. It wasn't just that. I was under so much stress—a litany too long to start, much less finish. Then there was the 100-degree weather in the State Capital, and, at the time, California’s energy crisis, the incentive for keeping the air conditioning at minimum to avoid paying maximum electricity bills.

I was in such a funk, I could barely work, and I even admitted it to myself and most of the people around me. I began to discover that two of my other workmates in our row on Dilbert Avenue had also taken a deep physical and emotional dive. I began to wonder if we had sick building syndrome in Sacramento’s newest skyscraper. We had malaise, tummy trouble … a lethargic bunch that didn’t have the energy to give a hoot. (Talk about an energy crisis!)

When I got off the train in my hot, but achingly familiar suburb, I did something different for a change—something other than going straight home. I was almost out of gas, and I knew I’d be pushing it if I didn’t roll over the tracks the half-block to the nearest Quick Stop. While I was at it, I figured I’d roll another few blocks down to the grocery store, knowing I was also on my last grain of dishwasher detergent. And I had let my wallet bleed down to a little loose change. I needed a rendezvous with a money machine. It was too hot to go back out. I figured if I could just stand it for another half-hour, I’d be home free without fear of running out of anything essential—gas, money, or clean dishes. No more icky, sticky heat till the next day.

This simple act of doing something out of routine was my salvation. I really got into grocery shopping. I don’t think of myself as a person who gets into ruts, but I was coming to the realization that I might even be in a ditch.

In the past few years, I have had more than one occasion to rediscover how much I am wed to ritual, and how much any break in my routine leaves me crabby and out of sorts. And I am married to someone just as bad, if not worse …

… and we lived for eleven years with a dog worse than both of us put together. If I missed his walk by five minutes or his tuck-in ceremony by a nose, Bear was all over me, letting me know that his internal alarm clock was blaring. We chuckled all the time about our creature of habit.

The routines and rituals of daily living are a delicious comfort, but too much comfort leads to couch potatoes and prehistoric disease (dragon tail). Depression is another name for a rut, a ditch, a downer. No matter what you call it; you have dug yourself too deeply into the mire of life, going back and forth over the same spot, over and over again.

Give up, get up, and do something different! Do something that goes forward. Do anything but cover the same ground that’s wearing you thin and thickening like quicksand all around you.

How do you think of something different to do, when you can’t even create the spark to jump start your own life? If you can’t think of something different right away—at least do something out of order. Eat dessert first. Sleep with your clothes on. Read the newspaper instead of watching the news, or put yourself on a news diet for the night. (You’ll be amazed to learn that we can live without headlines!) . Skip your usual TV show and listen to the radio—or channel surf and randomly choose a program that’s the same number of clicks as the day of the month you were born.

Juxtaposition … the unexpected … random acts of kindness or disorder … they are rut busters.

When it comes to chasing away the blues—maybe, like I did, on the way to the ATM machine— you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find out that a little change is all it takes.

The Power of Positive Puppy

When my beloved and I first got together in early 1997, he was living in Dallas. I lived in Sacramento. He had recently lost his job in a layoff due to a company downsizing. He was single—never married. He lived on a little manmade lake in the suburbs where his only pets were the ducks and other wildlife, except for his next-door neighbor, a Jack Russell Terrier.

It didn’t take more than a couple visits for us both to agree where our relationship was headed—a merger. That’s why I almost died when he called and told me that he missed me so much between visits, he just had to get a puppy.

What was he thinking? I had two cats! How would this ever work?

Even though I was raised with dogs, primarily boxers and one pansy poodle, I had converted to cats in early adulthood and never looked back. It wasn’t that I didn’t like dogs. I just found cats and their independent qualities and easy care fit my lifestyle better than being tied down to a needy dog. Especially as puppies, they were hard work and demanded constant attention.

However, once I saw a picture of that cute little Yellow Lab, I knew I’d just have to work it out. I was sucked right into the puppy vortex. (Look at this picture and tell me, could you have resisted Baby Bear?) Besides, how could I deny Tim companionship when I was over 1700 miles away and could only see him every couple of months. We had agreed to let our relationship develop in its own natural timing. Tim knew I wasn’t interested in an extended long-distance relationship, but I wasn’t pushing to move in together tomorrow, either. Tons of decisions had to precede that, including the toughest one of all: Which one of us would uproot and relocate?

The merger happened much sooner than we expected while sipping a tropical drink at a riverside restaurant in Sacramento. Tim had just come out for my father’s funeral, only three months after we had first gotten together in Dallas.

“I think I’m ready to move out here to be with you,” he said. “I can look for a job here just as easily as there. Besides, I don’t think you’d be happy in the Bible Belt.”

I was stunned. Later, he told me he was as surprised as I was. He had no idea that he felt that way—that he had already decided—until the words came tumbling out of his mouth.

Once that happy bomb was dropped on both of us, our lives were afire with more frequent calls and constant efforts to figure out the logistics of the move. He’d arrange to have a friend watch his house till he was ready to put it on the market. I’d take vacation and fly to Dallas the week before Memorial Day. We’d transport clothes and anything else we could fit into his car besides the puppy, then make our way to Sacramento in 500-600 mile increments—not pushing it—stopping frequently for puppy pit stops, staying overnight at the end of each of the three days it would take for the trek at that pace.

I’d like to say our trip was unremarkable, but we’ll never forget how miserable we were pushed all the way forward in our tight quarters in the front seat of Tim’s sporty Toyota Celica. Bear lounged in the back, seats down, in his huge crate, inverted to resemble a laundry basket and upsized for his ultimate growth. He took up a lot of space, a life-long quality. This scene also spoke volumes about who would be the center of attention in our family.

Bear’s happy, wagtail personality gave us all kinds of laughs along the way, especially his candid customer feedback at the Holiday Inn, where he entered the room, took one look, and pooped in the hallway. I had painstakingly researched dog-friendly accommodations. We’d tie him to a tree or fence near the pool while we’d try to work out our body cramps with a swim. People pushing 50 aren’t made for long drives with or without exuberant puppies. The worst part was eating fast food all day. Since we couldn’t leave Bear in the car alone in the hot weather, the drive-through was a must. The last night we actually got to visit a park and let him run around a little, and we felt comfortable to leave him in our room long enough to duck out for some real food before blimping out into something from Supersize Me.

Once settled in Sac and recovered from freaked-out cats, the real fun began. (Darrin hid for two days, making me question my new life decision seriously.) Bear developed an unholy love for his new mother, barked and got all agitated if Tim and I even so much as embraced. Our poochie pervert was wont to dig my underwear out of the laundry basket. One day he started tossing around a pair of panties then catching them in his mouth. After one of the tosses, the undies landed on his head over one eye. He looked just like a lecherous pirate. We laughed at that sight for years.

Bear redesigned my Birkenstocks with a scalloped edge I did not appreciate. Although it was already broken down and desperately needed replacement, he chewed through the fence and infuriated my landlord. But these were tiny, minor puppy indiscretions. He was wired, a dog that seemed to be bouncing on pogo sticks instead of paws. People with Labs would look at us with pity and announce that they rarely settle down till they’re five or six. We would lock eyes and telegraph a silent scream to each other. We were sure we’d never last that long.

But last we did, through an array of puppy and people problems way too long to list. Tim had health problems that taxed us for years and impacted many areas of our life together until they finally took a turn for the better. Bear had all kinds of challenges—hip dysplasia, which meant rigorous efforts to prevent future arthritis—Vitamin C and more Glucosamine and Chontroitin than we consumed as we approached senior status, then exceeded it. There were the intractable skin rashes and all kinds of salves, shampoos, and daily doses of antihistamines. He’d break out in terrible skin eruptions and his itching drove us all crazy.

He was expensive. (Who knew there was such a thing as a doggy dermatologist?) It was very difficult to find competent pet sitters and go anywhere overnight given his regime. It only got worse when he was diagnosed with Cushing’s disease at age 10. The symptoms were excessive thirst, drinking, and peeing often. His tendency to eat everything in sight worsened.

Cushing’s is a production of excess adrenal hormone. In Bear’s case, it was almost certainly caused by a benign pituitary tumor. The excess cortisol pumped by the adrenals had an upside. It was like giving him steroids for his bad hips. That’s why we decided not to treat him and to let nature take its course. The treatment is drastic—highly monitored doses of a DDT derivative to shrink the tumor. The amount has to be just right and requires five days of watching your dog like a hawk for changes in his appetite that signal he’s had just enough of the “poison” to help and not harm him. The treatment and monitoring cost several thousand of dollars and the maintenance dose of the drug is over $100 per month.

We had just spend nearly $3000 on an operation for Darrin, but I was ready to go for it until Tim reminded me that Bear’s hips were getting worse and the Cushing’s helped alleviate his growing discomfort and difficulty walking to a great extent. He wanted to go for quality, not quantity of life. Because Bear was originally his dog, I felt Tim’s opinion ruled, but it ultimately made sense to me, too. Later, two different vets said they’d probably have done the same thing. One told us she knew people who got all excited that there was a treatment for this disease, primarily of older dogs. They’d put out all that cash and hopefulness, only to have to put down their pooch six months later because of painful arthritis. We had to take into consideration all of Bear’s health issues.

Our boy’s last year was tough on all of us, although he kept his usual good humor nearly to the end. As is often typical in both animals and people, he had a last hurrah. His condition improved so much around his 11th birthday, we wondered if we were being pessimistic about the end being near. Sadly, it was only three days later, and it was not pretty. In a way, that was a blessing, because there was no question about what we had to do and its urgency.

It is difficult to let go of the glue in your family, the dog with a smile, the canine cheerleader whose goofiness brought sunshine to every dark day. He loved when I tucked him into his crate at night. He still slept in it in our bedroom—his one constant, his “blankie” or recreated womb—until his last year or two. Then he finally preferred to sleep near the foot of our bed. He’d run to the bedroom, and wait for his last biscuit (cookie) after his pills, and, of course, a goodnight kiss from Mom. We had this tender ritual we began when he was still a puppy. We borrowed it from the Waltons. We always said, “Nite-nite, Sweet Bear.” Tim and I nite-nite-sweeted each other and all the cats as well. I made up a song that was part of Bear’s routine. I sang it to the tune of Rock-a-bye Baby:

Nite-nite, Sweet Beary
In your soft crate
Mommy will tuck you
She won’t be late.
Gallop to Dreamland
Pills, cookie, kiss.
Isn’t it heaven,
Nite-nite like this?
(Spoken) Nite-nite, Sweet Bear.

I sang his song one last time on January 15, 2008 when the vet on duty sent him to Dreamland and Heaven for good. My heart was breaking to put him down so soon after losing Darrin only two months earlier, but one thing is true. Our four fur sons, including the two we have lost, will always be our family. They are the hub of the home we created together, whether they are with us in body or only in spirit.

No matter how many new four-legged bundles of love join our family in the future, there was only one dog for us in the whole world at a time in our lives riddled with stress and turmoil. His needs brought us out of our self-absorption. Bear was the greatest gift my husband ever gave me—the one I thought I didn’t need.

The power of positive puppy brought us joy every day, no matter what was going on. Just thinking of Bear always will.

It Runs Downhill

Note: And now for something completely different—a new blog template for 2008! Let’s start the New Year off right with a laugh and one of the kind of pet pieces you’ll find in HOT FLASHBACKS, COOL INSIGHTS—the book. Here’s Bear in his “Groucho Barks” get-up. This is his alter ego to King of the Hill.


I learned the expression shit runs downhill when I worked for the government. It refers to unpleasant duties passed on to underlings by superiors—or the results of their bad decisions, a stinking pile some poor stooge is forced to clean up. Aside from the bureaucrazy, I’m sure it runs downhill in any big organization. And there are no handy little pick-up bags in a dispenser, like at the Dog Park, vet, or pet store.

Once I retired from government service, it still ran downhill for me. Only now, it’s literal—in my own back yard. Big, steaming links of it. My goofy Yellow Lab drops them daily. I just watch ‘em roll. He likes to pee downhill, too, even if he wets his front paws in the process. What a doofus.

Bear has never been the brightest star in the constellation–although no one who has ever met him would deny–he’s one of the most loveable. Our home is twelve feet above the ground below, the fertile flood plane of a year-round creek. We have dirt and ground rock steps that take both people and pets to the lower level. But Bear still prefers to take the hills directly. Even though illness has made his legs weak, he still shuffles his way down, like an old man on a mission. First, he stops to break wind and enhance the beauty of the hillside with his decorations.

I think I am missing a business opportunity here. With two decks off my house, I could invite spectators to bet on the Dog Do Daily. We could number the rolls and bet on which one comes to a stop first. This would also give me greater incentive to clean up more often. I get busy, and it piles up. Since I know my Inner Monk would never let me put little numbers on the sides of them like baby horse blankets for wagering purposes, I’d have to stick with the daily half dozen—a small enough number to site and track. (Number One is by the tree stump; the Number Two #2 is located by the pile of leaves, etc.) More than that would confuse me or I’d run out of landmarks. And once they’re dried up, the things don’t roll worth a nickel. Who could make any money off that kind of small change?

I am an altruistic person. I believe in sharing, whether it’s time, talent, or yucks. How can I keep a daily spectacle like this to myself? Even if you wish I would have?

I know there is a lesson here. I’m supposed to have the insight edge. Here’s what I think:

My dog is the only one who has his shit together. You let it roll, you take a stroll, and if you act stupid enough, your mom—or some other nurture nut—will clean it up for you. Now you know why one of his nicknames is Poopy Dog. Besides, it takes two to tangle, as my Mom used to say. It gives us overly responsible types something to do-do.

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The Big Six-Oh: A Lot to Crone About

Dear Readers,

I’ve been on vacation from the blogosphere for some celebrations—a big milestone birthday for both my husband and me (born 10 days apart) and our recent “church wedding.” Last year I returned to the faith of my childhood, and we had our marriage blessed after nine years--the sacrament in Sacramento. This was written on my 60th birthday—September 22, 2007.

Blessings All,
Joyce

I am the world’s greatest birthday enthusiast. My mom was good at remembering birthdays; we always celebrated them in a big way; and when I meet people who don’t whoop it up with joy or relief that they’ve made it through another trip around the Sun, I think they’re culturally deprived—or depressed.

After studying and practicing astrology for many years, I got even better at remembering them. Birth charts start with the exact date, time, and place of birth, forming your individual horoscope. Once I ever set eyes on that round wheel and its starting date, it was a piece of cake to memorize someone’s Sun Sign. Once I knew that, I’d have it narrowed down to the few weeks when their birthday had to occur. Nailing the exact day was easy, once I was in the neighborhood of their potential calendar squares. (How dated and boomer of me! I admit: I still prefer paper calendars with their tidy cells, even though I use electronic ones, too.)

That said, as my Big Six-Oh approached, I knew something was “off” as I did not have my usual yen for partying with my overgrown Child Within. As the daughter of a self-proclaimed culture maven, I knew it wasn’t losing my taste for the art of birthday celebrations, especially the butter cream frosting. I’d never give up my annual birthday wish while blowing out the candles. I’d feel naked in my personal new year without it, and to miss it would feel like bad juju—a superstition defied, like stepping on the sidewalk cracks. What would happen to my mother?

Only in this case, my moms—both of them (birth and adoptive) are gone. What bad luck or blues was I avoiding when, for the first time in my life, I had no spark about celebrating my birthday? The Big Six-Oh? For our 50th birthdays, my honey and I had a joint bash in a park that even our dog attended. It was great, and I had no qualms about stepping into that big number—just the dog’s Number Two.

I wasn’t too far off when I let my 60th birthday thoughts carry me to Step on the crack and you’ll break your mother’s back. What a weird, boomerlet ditty. We’d say it whether walking on the sidewalk or playing hopscotch.

The cracks I am afraid to step on are my own wrinkles, and the mom I’ve been trying to save is my own mother stage of life. Of the three classical stages of a woman’s life—maiden, mother, and crone—it was time to crone me queen of a new era in my own existence in a culture that hates aging.

I am a consummate mother, even though I have never had children, at least not the two-legged variety. (I’ve had four leggers “aglore” as my mom used to say.) Remember those old boxes at amusement parks where you grip a handle and, supposedly, it registers on a chart from cold fish to torrid how hot you are as a lover? Well, if there were one of those that measured your juice for nurturing, I’d break the glass.

In Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights (HFCI) I talk a lot about how I had to find a place to put all that maternal love, and one place I have put it with all my might is into my pets. Two of my four are ill and probably not long for this world. My cat Darrin, in particular, is the child who holds without reservation my enormous load of love. He can’t get enough of it. When I think about losing him, I can’t breathe. I sometimes fear I will actually die. It seems cruel, on so many levels, that the one I’m most bonded to is the one I will probably lose first.

Yet, I also know this is an endbeginning. I picked up this wonderful term in an article in Yoga Journal some time ago. If I had human children, I’d be a grandmother now, maybe even a great-grandma—long past the mother stage of life. It’s time to let go of mother as my innermost source of fulfillment. It’s time to embrace being a sage and crone.

When old parts of us die, the loss is profound, especially when we have put so much energy into them. Darrin is my love teacher, and he is teaching me that I have to let go to embrace the next phase, where I give what I have learned back to the world--where being mom is not my juice.

I don’t blame myself for not being up for a big birthday celebration. This kind of transition is big. It asks me to mourn before I dance. Every atom of my being has been poured into an extended mother phase of life. Take that away, and what do I do? How do I do it? Will I ever feel completely connected again?

But soon, I will dance. My gift to myself, belatedly, will be a croning ceremony. It’s time. Here I will mark the passage from the maiden to crone phase of life (long overdue), and my close friends will do various rituals to mark the change, including wrapping me for the first time in my Sage Shawl. It is literally sage green and gold, a 60th birthday gift from another friend, and a symbol of this stage of life and its cool insights, our reward for living life fully while paying close attention to the results of actions and interactions.

The concepts in HFCI help us embrace this phase of our lives in a dazzling way. The power of so many women stepping up as teachers and mentors boggles the imagination. The things boomer women could do with their collective wisdom in service, now that we have no kids to rear and barely give a damn what others think of us.

But stuffing emotions is unhealthy, even dangerous. So give motherhood, your youth, your cute bod, and your flawless complexion its proper funeral. Stay as lively and good-looking as you can, recognizing your wow now comes mostly from the inside out—the only kind of beauty that never fades.

Then go out and dance on the grave of all those losses. Soon you’ll be singing, because truly, in the great Grand Scheme, the best was saved for last when it comes to what life has to offer.

Cool Mini-Flashes

While most of my Hot Flashbacks and Cool Insights take at least a chapter to build up a string of experiences to synthesis, here are some nuggets I call mini-flashes, single insights or moments of aha gleaned from the longer Hot Flashbacks tales with their chapter names noted. Enjoy!

"Once a Catholic, always a Catholic,” the nuns used to singsong. I
always thought this litany was pure religious propaganda. Except it turns
out to be true. I don’t even bother to say ex-Catholic anymore. Doesn’t
matter if you don’t practice it. It’s still your orientation, like
sexuality—something you can’t help. A friend recently said, “It’s in
your genes.” I believe Catholicism runs that deep. Someday, I fully
expect someone will discover a DNA marker for it.

--Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary

When we were barely teenagers, my first boyfriend Tommy Shire and I used to meet while I walked our boxer dogs, Duchess and Lady, in the weedy vacant lot next to our suburban Chicago townhouse. We’d steal kisses between dog droppings. Little did I know at the tender age of twelve how much that scene symbolized life.

– That Doggone Hit Parade


The first time I heard the odd expression “golden handcuffs,” I could not get over how well it described my career in government. I had not considered seriously; I had been abducted by benefits and was being held hostage by my own need for comfort and security. What’s worse for my colleagues and me and anyone seduced by these goodies, whatever their job: We all suffered from Stockholm Syndrome, falling in love with our captors—ourselves and our own bullshit.

--Golden Handcuffs


The Twenty-Third Psalm has always been one of my favorite prayers, even though it’s mostly said at funerals. I used to consider this morbid till I got old enough to realize how fragile we are as humans--how much we live at death’s door at all times. That’s why I love that prayer, especially the line: Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.

As you get older, the Shadow gets thicker. It goes from partly cloudy to seriously overcast, the closer you inch to the unknown finish line of life. There are only two ways you can deal with this fact. You can be bummed out or you can do what you did when you were a kid—get your thrills off living on the edge.

--Valley Girl

I am convinced that even the horniest people on earth cannot spend more than five to ten percent of their relationship in bed over the long haul. We have to make a living, raise children, pursue our interests. Since the vast majority of a relationship happens outside the bedroom, how can we expect to form a sound one when it starts there …and we never really want to get out of bed?

--Where Are My Keys? I Need a Sex Drive!

That boom in our name: It can do more than blast through the old way of aging that gives up and gives out. It can be the blast of reality, a fiery sword of truth that mediates between these conservative (‘50s) and rebellious decades of our youth (‘60s/’70s) and these extremes within ourselves. What makes us so special is our wiring to be weavers of wholeness within—and within today’s world.

--Sixties Reprised