Friday, December 31, 2010

New Years Blah Blah Blah

Tonight is New Year's Eve, officially the worst holiday ever.  The only positive memories I have of this day are from my tween years, before the adult illusions of a spectacular evening had set in. My sister and I would go to my grandma's house and enjoy a corny evening of Dick Clark, make party hats out of tin foil, and if we were lucky, get a shot of Grandma's homemade kalua. In our hearts we knew we were just biding our time until the really fun years would begin.
From that point on, New Year's Eve has always been a holiday of great disappointment; of nothing to do, of reservations forgotten, of wrong shoes and wrong dresses in awkwardly wrong evenings.  Nothing has ever been as magical as a movie.  By this point in my life, I realize that I avoid celebrating New Year's at all.  I hate resolutions because I never keep them, I hate having any kind of expectations for an evening, because I'm always disappointed. Okay, I'll admit that celebrating 2000 nine hours ahead of my fear-mongering countrymen was somewhat enjoyable.  When I could call my mom after midnight and say "see mom, the phones are still working," it was a pretty satisfying moment.  But then my husband insisted on going to downtown Nantes to watch fireworks or something festive and cold, and I just wanted to snuggle up with my baby in my jammies and celebrate by mentally savoring my life.
I'm so thankful. I want to expect nothing and be thankful for everything. Tonight I danced with my kids in the kitchen to the Black Eyed Peas, drank champagne in the crystal flutes from my wedding, played wii in my Christmas jammies with my baby on my lap and my new dog at my feet.  It's 10 o'clock and I'm not staying up until midnight. Good night 2010.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Little Orphan Annie

When you meet a child who is homeless or severely neglected, they often have a very un-childlike quality about them.  They are somber little adults, with big adult thoughts of survival and mortality in their heads.  When I adopted Belle, a seven month-old puppy from the pound, I was expecting a fair amount of puppy behavior like chewing, and romping.  After now three days of care, play and good food, she is finally starting to behave a little like the child she is and actually playing with her toys.  She was so mellow that first night that I was actually starting to worry about her health, and now seeing her grab one of my bras and wrestle it to the ground like the beast that it is, I'm relieved.  She is so thin that her hip bones and should blades stick out through her fur.  This mama started feeding her pretty aggressively from the moment she crossed our threshold, and paid the price in piles of steamy badness in my living room.  I think we've got the food and poop situation under control now, and she is about the sweetest, dreamiest dog I've ever met.  Who could have not wanted this being?  Why would anyone neglect and abandon this amazing, sweet, intelligent dog.  All I know is I'm glad she's now ours, steamy piles, chewed bras and all.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

A Face Only a Mama Could Love

Here she is folks, my new baby. This isn't the one I posted a picture of yesterday...  I drove 30 minutes tonight to see her with my children, the empty tank light taunting me and the rush hour traffic encroaching upon me.  When we arrived, they told me she couldn't be seen because she had just returned from the vet where she spent the night after being spayed.  I was fairly persistent, and they let me go out to the kennels to look at her.  After passing ten anxious, barking, crazy pitbull terriers, there was Bell, anxiously barking and running all over her kennel.  We went back in and asked again if we could just pet her, we had driven 30 minutes to see her.  Finally, a nice young man relented and walked us out there, explaining that she was very thin and very neglected and really needed a good home.  I could tell that she had a bond with the guy, as she kept hiding under his arm and leaning against him.  When she saw that I was on her side, she leaned into me to, craving protection.  Her face is wirey, but her body is soft and fluffy.  Her big feet reveal another facet of her genetic makeup beyond terrier and spaniel.  I think we're going to have a sort of big dog on our hands, but a gentle, sweet one. She still needs to rest up from her surgery and finish her medication, but in a few days she'll be home with us. Thank you, Petfinder.com for making a great way to match animals with their people.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Doggy Jail

This is my current obsession.  Not this particular dog, but finding a dog to adopt for Christmas.  This little guy is named Lenny, and I just saw him on Petfinder this morning.  Is he the cutest thing ever?  I say obsession because when I decide to do something, it sort of consumes me.  Only the enjoyable things.  I'm sure my husband wishes that house cleaning consumed me, but alas, notsomuch.
On Saturday we met a sweet dog at Petco named Louie, a short fat rat terrier who wanted to play with my kids so badly he was going nuts.  When we went to the shelter to see him again, he was all over the place, and so hyper I didn't think I could manage him.  That same day I met Rudi, a gorgeous little Japanese Chin, who was mellow and delicate, and let me walk him around the yard---but what would my bruiser toddler do to delicate Rudi?  Another neighboring shelter has some puppies that just arrived, so I made myself read about life with a puppy to see if that is even something I can fathom right now.  I have been trolling Craigslist for dogs, and almost drove 2 hours away yesterday to rescue a gorgeous untrained golden retriever .
Why am I even contemplating another responsibility so badly right now?  It almost feels like a cosmic overthrowing of my better judgement. There is an animal that needs us this Christmas, and I need to find him.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Laughing is my Favorite

Sometimes I get very discouraged by the group of people I'm affiliated with---and we're not just affiliated; if you're a Christian, no matter the denomination, you are my brother or sister in Christ.  We're spending ETERNITY together.  I'll be honest, there are many Christians that I hope are busy enjoying a different part of heaven when I get there, because they bum me out.  My passion for my people has recently be reignited by a guy I've never met nor side hugged and a great little book and blog called Stuff Christians Like.  Jon Acuff, your musings tickle my funny bone like nothing has in a very long time, and I really needed it during an election year.
Why do we take ourselves so seriously?  We are a strange bunch.  Admitting this doesn't make God any less amazing or loving; it is really more amazing that he still loves us despite our shenanigans.  I'd like to pick out a couple of examples from the book, but for some reason the intense humor gets lost in translation. This weekend my husband and I were giggling at the Ninjas, Half and Halves, and Pound Cakes at our worship service and counting how many times God's favorite word was used in prayer. You just have to check it out for yourself.   

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Wanderlust


Back in 1987, which feels like both yesterday and another lifetime altogether, I spent a year abroad in Belgium as a foreign exchange student.  Something took hold of me a few years before, when I was pretty deeply entrenched in teen angst and rebellion, a wanderlust that I have been unable to shake even to this day.  I had always been one of those people who wanted to be somewhere else, live a different life, experience something entirely new.  How many middle schoolers beg their mothers to move to another city?  Well that was me, and by 15 I had just enough French under my belt at school to know that I was wired for languages---I wanted to travel the globe.  Belgium was my first taste of the expatriate experience. It was both a transformational trial by fire and a gift.  Belgium stripped away my persona and its costume and left me to search for true identity and meaning.



Here is what I love the most about the interweb.  I have started to craft a memoir about my year in Belgium, and I can look up pictures to jog my memory.  This is Tavier, the first village I lived in.  How far away from high desert Nevada could you get?  Within the first few days, I had already attended a wedding reception inside the walls of a centuries old dairy and eaten Saturday supper with a group of the villagers.  It was an amazing year. My sister joked that I am trying to single-handedly destroy the foreign exchange program when I told her a couple of the things that happened to me that year. I guess it's weird that there are things I've never told anyone--not her, not my parents or my husband even. As I think about it, I believe that I returned home so entirely different that I had to work really hard to pretend I was still the same.  But I never was.  I was totally "Exchanged".