A Transition - No Pithy Phrase Is Moving

So a couple of years ago I started a blog on Wordpress for writing, because Wordpress has more up to date functionality and is in many ways easier to use.

I intended to use that one for "professional" writing things and this one for personal, but in the last two years I've discovered a couple of things.

1) I don't do well at "professional" website writing...it ends up way too generic and I feel like it's boring, therefore it's probably pretty boring to read. Gross. No.

2) I'm too old and busy to hide the freak flag. Fuck that.

I exported all of THIS blog this afternoon and uploaded it to my other one, which will be quickly renamed No Pithy Phrase as well, but the address is way easier: http://jessicasettergren.com.

This is my last post on Blogger, so if you follow me here and want to keep up with my weirdo blog stuff, please come on over to the insanity at the new address. If you've had enough, hey, I totally get it and thanks for playing.

I'll likely leave this site as is for a while and I haven't deleted any of the content, just migrated it over.

The End of the Red Devil and Other Random Events

A couple of weeks ago I had the last infusion of AC and last week I started my 12 weeks of Taxol. Doxorubicin (the A of the AC...don't ask me why, medical jargon makes zero sense to me most of the time) is the one often called the Red Devil, because it has dangerous side effects and has to be administered by the nurse directly into the port, vs through an IV drip. I'm thoroughly happy to be done with them: the last recovery period was longest so far (I wasn't well from Friday after chemo through Thursday the following week). 

But I had a week in between and I almost felt like a normal human for a bit! Took my little bald brainpan on holiday over Valentine's day to Duluth. I took pictures of the lake for the Banshee book, toured Glensheen for the first time (yes, I know...I grew up in Duluth and should've been there a lot over the years, but I never made it), had a margarita. The updates about the Banshee book will likely end up on my other blog, since it's writing related, but suffice to say I found an excellent book on the hauntings of Lake Superior, which included some Anishinaabe stories suspiciously close to dryads and mermaids. I am STOKED: I don't even have to explain in the novel why there are supernatural things living in/around the lake...they were already there. Mwahahaha. 

Yes, I'm a wild and exciting person.

Then I got ready for my last 3 months of chemo. So this stuff isn't supposed to be as bad: it's a lower dosage, the side effects don't generally include nausea, and over the next month or two I'm supposed to actually feel better as the AC effects wear off completely. Of course, Taxol has its own set of indignities. 

1) I have to take 5 steroid pills 12 hours before treatment, and 5 MORE 6 hours before, because there can be unpleasant side effects during infusion. If you don't know, that's a buttload of steroids. Turns out I have no problem sleeping with all those steroids overnight, but I may need to pull out my stupid scuba snorkel. Night sweats are no joke, and if THAT'S what hot flashes are like I might as well just invest in a swimming pool bed now. What the actual hell. Luckily I only have to do this on the night before/day of treatment. Last week my Nurse Practitioner at Oncology said I'm not allowed to have my IV outside in my underwear. Mean. 

On the other hand, I AM MOTIVATED this morning.

2) The nurses give you a big dose of Benadryl as one of the pre-infusion meds. Benadryl makes me sleepy. This is important: 

3) They also put a customer-service bell (the sort you'd see on a store counter) to hit if I start to feel any sort of weirdness during my IV drip. Remember how they gave me a big dose of knock-out-allergy-med first? So...hopefully if I'm asleep and my face swells up whomever is with me can hit the bell. 

4) Turns out muscle aches are the most painful side effect this time (well, so far). The rest of the neuropathy (tingling and numbness in hands/feet) is cumulative...I hope the muscle/joint aches aren't, because Thursday last week I couldn't really get out of bed or sleep well: too many evil chemo-trolls beating my legs with big sticks. 

5) Unfortunately, I continue to be a fucking weirdo with chemo. I felt mostly fine over the weekend, much better than I did the weekend after AC treatments, but Friday night while at a friend's for dinner I had some sort of weird pass-out-type episodes, the second of which had me waking up on their kitchen floor with upset people and dogs and a 911 call. Yeah. I made it to 42 before I had to be carried out of someone's house by paramedics and cops (good for them for not dropping my big ass) and take a ridiculously expensive ride in an ambulance. 100% do not recommend. Especially since the ER said all my tests are fine and they have no idea why it happened (and therefore, I have no way to know if it'll happen again). 

I'm fine now, there were a couple of warning signs I'm watching out for, and I have an appointment with Oncology before treatment today to find out if anything changes, but I'd like to say THIS WAS NOT ON THE GODDAMNED LIST OF SIDE EFFECTS. What the hell...somebody tell my brainpan that I'm supposed to follow the damn program like every other good little breast cancer patient. No more new bullshit: I have books to finish. 

It's awfully hot in here...can I do treatment in my underwear in the parking lot today? 

Round 3 - Naps and Emergency Rooms and Where's My Bubble.

I haven't been around much since the holidays. To be fair, I haven't been around much in real life, either. But since people are starting to ask, I thought I'd give an update (because honestly, I'm fucking tired and I don't respond to most calls or texts or messages with anything but "ok" right now). This post is not edited for grossness: feel free to stop here with the assurance that after round 4 I should be feeling more like a human AND be less dangerously immuno-compromised.

So I've been sick with some ridiculously stupid virus since December 12th. Normal people get a cold, maybe if they're like me they get a little bronchitis afterward that hangs on an extra week or two, and move on. That is not what happened with me.

The current drug cocktail of chemo is the harsh sort: it attacks fast growing cells in the body. Let's define fast growing cells: hair. Nails. White blood cells (the little army of infection and virus killers that float along with your blood). So...the super fun poisoning I'm voluntarily doing to my body is effectively killing off my immune system each round, and each round is progressively worse. What does that mean?

Normal people have a white blood cell count of about 11,000. My white blood cell count yesterday was 800. For reference, I have to have a count of 5400 or higher to have treatment. To be fair, this wouldn't be something I'd notice other than being really fucking tired if they didn't take my blood every time I go to an appointment at Oncology. They're nice vampires, at least. Ultimately, this means 1) I can't see anyone who has even been EXPOSED to any illness. All you folk with adorable little germ spreaders at home are off limits until I'm done with round 4. 2) A fever or chills sends me immediately to the emergency room, do not pass go, do not (as I discovered a couple of weeks ago when the UC nurse said OH NO, we aren't handling that here, go to the ER right now) head to urgent care. 3) I'm tired. Like, nap after I take a shower because it takes too much energy tired, all the time. 

By the weekend after chemo my body is at it's lowest point immunity-wise. By the weekend before the next treatment (that'd be this coming Saturday/Sunday, for those of you keeping count) it's back up to acceptable levels again, thanks to the Neulasta shot I get right along with chemo. Neulasta makes my bones go into PRODUCE ALL THE WHITE BLOOD CELLS RIGHT NOW overdrive, which makes my legs/hips/chest ache, but hey, bone marrow is a good thing. The weekend after chemo is the worst: I'm sick, exhausted, have no appetite, and generally just trying to get through the day. And my feet are sore, like standing on concrete for 15 hours each day sore, for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON AT ALL. It's utterly ridiculous, and terribly annoying.

On top of all of this, MY cold turned into lying in bed for three days unable to move other than to the bathroom to be sick, followed by a super fun round of bronchitis which also makes me sick, followed most recently by a nasty sinus infection which ALSO makes me sick. Feel free to read sick as vomiting until I'd rather just die, thanks. Unfortunately, it's not chemo-related and anti-nausea meds don't work. A couple of weeks ago I went to the ER because I got so violently ill I scraped up my esophagus and was throwing up blood. FUN. Interestingly, walking into the ER and saying "I'm on chemo and I'm throwing up blood" gets you a room pretty much immediately. I don't recommend. I've lost 30 pounds since December 16th when chemo started. I got a very soft-spoken reprimand from the nutritionist at Oncology today for not having enough calories and I'm told I'm not spoda lose any more weight, please, until treatment is over (1 more round of this, 12 weeks of the next drug...so May). I take more pills in the morning than Grandma right now, and thank all the gods for antibiotics that kill sinus infections.

Honestly, I've been LUCKY with all of this. I don't have many of the most common awful side effects, and if I hadn't had the death-cold that lasted all the way through I likely would've been mostly ok. But there you go: lost my hair (kept my eyebrows so far: WOOT!), spent the last month on the couch or in bed or throwing up and yell/crying FUCK YOU in the bathroom a lot, watched too much TV, hid from everyone (including my niece and nephews) because I'm now a bubble-girl germaphobe who does NOT want to end up in the hospital.

But I'm almost done: next Monday is round 4 of 4 for the AC, and then I have a three week break to get my shit together before I start the 12 weeklies. Rumor has it the Taxil is easier on the body overall than the AC I'm on now. I'm hoping I can go back to work in March when that treatment starts, because the side effects are WAY less harsh and I should be more energetic. Taxil also doesn't kill off my immunity, which means I won't be banned from public places or groups anymore...which means I'll likely be more interested in visitors.

Cancer sucks. Intentionally poisoning my body now that the cancer's gone in hopes it doesn't come back also sucks. I'm supported where I need it, and if I don't answer you directly please don't take it personally. I'm probably napping again.

A Booby Prize

Wednesday was a day of doctors. I suppose I should be getting used to that, but so far I haven't. My surgical follow up was exactly as planned, except for getting a LOOK and a very snarky "and now you're sore, AREN'T YOU" comment from the surgeon for shoveling that morning. Yeah yeah. Lesson learned. Sadly, even though I'm healing fine and all my franken-ness is now stitch-free, the inside isn't fully healed (hence the chastisement for shoveling, because heavy lifting/labor could tear scar tissue and cause issues). Therefore, he said wait until after the new year to go back to kickboxing. This was Wednesday morning, before that last test came back and before I met my Oncologist. We'll get back to that in a minute.

Related: a friend of mine apparently objects to "Frankenboob" not because it's rude, nor because it's inaccurate (after all, Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster), but because it does't "roll off the tongue in a poetic way". I have the best mental image of him testing, out loud, each different technical and slang term for every part of a breast to find the right combo(he assures me that's exactly what happened while stuck in traffic the other day). "Frankenboob" will now be "Frankenknocker". FK for short, which works for me on multiple levels. 

It DOES sounds more lyrical. I have no argument.

Wednesday afternoon I met my team at MN Oncology. It's ridiculous that FK has a team.

My Oncologist is also very kind and direct, a quality I appreciate since she had less than stellar news. The two tumors I had removed were sent to a lab in California for something called an Oncotype test. Essentially it's a genetic test done on the tumor itself, which is then plugged into a statistical database that's been built over however many decades of cancer research of my particular type to spit out a percentage of likelihood my cancer would come back anywhere in the body. The tumor originally found on my mammogram isn't a big deal: it's grade 1 (slow growing, not aggressive). That littler one though, that's the mean one. Grade 3 is more aggressive: my risk factor is too high.

So. I will have a port put into my chest sometime next week and get an electrocardiogram on my heart sometime in the next two weeks (did you know one of the awesome side effects for chemo can be heart damage? I didn't either.) and on the 16th I'll start five months of chemo (assuming, of course, that everything goes according to plan, which honestly hasn't happened since I went in for a routine mammogram). Radiation will start after chemo. There isn't currently any detectable cancer in my body, just to be clear: the intent of this round of treatment is to kill anything that's too small to detect so it doesn't come back anywhere else (that's what metastatic means - breast cancer with a wandering streak).

There's a door prize for getting told you're starting chemo in a couple of weeks. A nurse's assistant came in to give me a large 3 ring binder full of information, a nice clear list of which drugs are administered when, the side effects, and when I should call the office if side effects are bad. Along with the binder she awkwardly handed me a thermometer, like she KNEW it's ridiculous. But since three different kinds of fun poison will be dribbled in the port (each session will be a couple hours) and the drugs will kill off good cells and bad ones, my immune system will be sad and slow. Monitoring for fever will be a thing, and apparently adults don't usually have a thermometer at home, so they give everyone one when treatment starts.

Aren't I just a barrel of fun these days? Yeah, I think so too.

Kickboxing is off until next fall at the earliest (I've sadly already texted the head instructor in Burnsville to ask if we can put my membership on hold or if I should just start over, because it's too expensive to just let it sit and bill every month for that long). Honestly I'm pretty pissed about that.

I won't be able to shovel my own driveway this winter after all (looking into snow removal services now). I'm pissed about that too, for the expense and the inconvenience. However, I may not be so pissed about it when I don't have to bundle up and slide down my driveway. We'll see.

The rest I don't know about yet. Not everyone has the same side effects, but I plan for the worst and hope for better. Christmas/Yule stuff will depend entirely on how I react to treatment, which is every other week starting the 16th for two months, then weekly for three more months.

The big question here is will I rock the Telly Savalas look, or will I wig out...I don't know that yet either.

I suppose I could cancel the appointment I have for a haircut in December, though.

Tiny Indignities: Brought to You by Frankenboob

First, thank you. To everyone who has been so damn supportive and kind (and patient!) please know I appreciate it all.

Second, I'm ok. My awesome surgeon (who was VERY excited and happy in the pre-op room...something that I considered weird until I realized I WANT a surgeon who's passionate about his job) got it all. Both Francis and his sidekick have clear margins, which means the cancer hasn't spread outside the bits he cut out. My lymph node was also clear, which is a huge deal. Early detection, people. I'm a lucky girl.

Things are healing, I'm down to very occasional ice packs and ibuprofen, and I still can't do a hell of a lot (which makes me look at my kickboxing/MMA uniform bag AND, oddly enough, the remaining leaves in the back yard, with great sadness). I still don't know for certain about chemo. I don't see anyone for radiation until next Tuesday, so I don't exactly know when that'll start, but I suspect not until all my stitches are dissolved.

Tomorrow is my 2 week surgical follow up, although technically yesterday was the actual 2 week mark. Tomorrow is also my Oncology consult, because one of the door prizes for cancer is getting your very own specialty doc for pretty much forever.

I'm going through the intake paperwork for the Oncologist and am struck by the frank end-of-life preference questions.  Is it important to me to be able to feed myself. Is it important to me that my doctor tell me when I'll die. Is it important for me to not be a burden on my family/loved ones. Yeah. Morbid, I know, but here's the deal: Cancer is a disease that just progressively strips a person's dignity away, little bites at a time. I have a few (since the MRI boob-box debacle):

1. For a few hours on surgery day I was a radioactive superhero. Or at least Frankenboob was. Maybe not a superhero...could be the Hulk.Anyway.  I'm not as well read on gamma rays vs radioactive isotopes or whatever the hell was in those two little alien tracking devices the inserted into my breast that morning. All I know is after each one the nurse had to run a Geiger counter or something over me,which screamed (not me, the instrument) in the appropriate places. So I'm lying on a hospital bed in a darkened room with one boob just hanging out in the air for the doctor, nurse, and ultrasound tech (after he's stuck a needle in there twice...yep, I watched on the ultrasound machine) and the nurse had to wave a screaming wand over it. I mean, what better way to start my day?
2. After pre-op excitement (including yet another nurse who can't find my veins, resulting in multiple sticks and a delay in letting my peeps into the pre-op room to hang until I went to the OR), a 10 year old anesthesiologist stopped by. Doogie Howser is alive and administering Propofol and Fentanyl, you guys, and clearly I'm old. But hey, I got to walk in my breezy backless surgery gown and hot purple socks to the OR! 
3. Sorry kids, I didn't do or say anything weird in recovery that I know of. And the nurse isn't telling. She did say I have pretty eyes. I think. I was busy being proud I didn't have any pee-my-pants accidents in surgery (yes I'm certain: I had underwear on through surgery and they were still there when I got out). 
4. It took me three days (probably until the Propofol was mostly worn off) to realize SOMEONE had to hold me up in and wrap the mile long ace bandage around my boobs. I'm sure that was SUPER fun. I wonder if they dropped me...my feet hung off the table in the operating room, and that table isn't very wide.
5. I can't wear deodorant until the stitches in my armpit have fully dissolved and the steri strips fall off and the doctor says it's ok. 
1. Related: I have discovered that I am not a hippie. I would like my razor and deodorant back immediately, please. (Good Goddess, please for the sake of all our noses...give me back my deodorant.)
6. Hydrocodone prescriptions (that's Vicodin, if you aren't up on your opioid addiction literature) come with a stool softener. I'm suddenly 8,000 years old. 
7. Hydrocodone prescriptions apparently also come with a warning letter from the pharmacy. It arrived, detailing the "dangers of opioids" TWO WEEKS after I was done with the prescription. Helpful. 
8. Side effects of future treatments will be...well, they should be less awful than chemo, but less fun than getting a cavity drilled. 

We'll see after tomorrow...because maybe the biggest indignity is not knowing. Everything happens in increments, so there's an overall grieving process of what life was going to be like BC (before cancer) vs what it will be like AC (after cancer), PLUS a series of small stabs of worry every time a new test is run "just to confirm". My recent history with "just to confirm nothing's wrong" tests hasn't been great. 

I've filled out the Oncology form. I'm ready for tomorrow's appointments...dear MN: please go for the 1" snowfall tonight, not the 78" option, ok? I don't want to leave at 6am for my 9:30am appointment...and I need my surgeon to say I can deodorize again. 

Also, since I included boobs AND drugs in this post, HI NSA! 

Ragnar the Destroyer*

*primarily of walls, yards, and carpet

For all things there is a season. A time to sow, a time to reap...

A time to attempt to rip small furry rodents into small pieces, pick fights with the neighbor's German Shepherd, and a time to howl.

Welcome to teenage doghood, where it's not the hormones that cause a pet parent to contemplate murder daily, but the instinctual need to define and defend the furry male territory. If you've never experienced teenage doghood stupidity, let me give you some examples.

• Idiot Puppy will sit nicely when the truck he recognizes enters the parking lot, but when the other German Shepherd gets out he will instantly Cujo out: full hackles, teeth bared, growling lunging in all the ways that would get him kicked directly out of daycare if he pulled that bullshit THERE. 
• Conveniently for all involved, GS is older and wiser and terribly sweet. He generally looks at me when Ragnar gets growly with a pained "children, amIright" attitude, and never ever responds negatively. Interestingly, he still comes over cheerfully to say hello every time he's allowed, which is often since his parents also recognize the "BUT I'M A BIG DOG YOU CAN'T BE ON MY GRASS WITHOUT PERMISSION" cockiness. 
• IP also sits at the back door and slobber-growls when he sees the GS's TRUCK parked across the lot. This is a new development since the snow melted, prior to which his view was blocked. It's annoying at 7am. He's been warned, by both me and fAngus. 
• fAngus's warnings generally come with a cat-paw-slap to Ragnar's face or a nip on the ear. Mine do not. 
• Apparently he occasionally channels Chewy, because the leaves are dangerous and must be announced when it's windy. Birds on the back step, however, are beneath his interest. 
• Birds are NOT beneath fAngus's interest. Particularly on the back patio. It's possible this was a consideration when a certain evil me set out birdseed on the grill this spring. 
• Mwahahahahaha
• IP has taken to getting between me and others in a protective manner I find amusing and helpful until he trips me or inappropriately shows teeth/growls at someone when I don't have an adverse response. 
• We're working on that, since big black dogs with giant teeth generally cause problems if they're not behaving in public places. And I dislike getting tripped while we're walking...or any other time. 
• It's worth mentioning again: not only does he behave well in daycare/boarding/dog park (except for going in the goddamnedishymuddypond without permission) and is a total social butterfly to everyone there, he ADORES the next door neighbors' new mop puppies. 
• I don't know what they are, but they weigh all of a couple pounds and are the size of my unused-running shoes, and Ragnar LOVES them. 
• Related: the bloodhound heritage is real, and loud. The other day we were sniffing the backyard (by "we" I mean I surfed Facebook for forever while Ragnar went over every centimeter of our shared yard-space with his nose in the dirt) and the neighbor girls brought the new moppies out. They were in the front yard.  Ragnar desperately wanted to go to the front, and when I said no he sat down, raised his nose to the sky, closed his eyes, and howled the most mournful sad and FUCKING PATHETIC ATTEMPT AT MANIPULATION OF MY EMOTIONS possible. My dog told on me to the entire damn neighborhood and the gods, because I'm a mean bitch who wouldn't let him sniff puppies. 
• Yes, it worked. Goddammit. 
• Sorry moppies, for the teenage puppy slobber. 
• All the neighbors think my dog is hilarious and cute. fAngus and I are the only ones who are less than amused at the squirrel-chasing, bunny sniffing, yard digging, wall eating, adorably snuggly teenager who has zero impulse control and a whole lot of unearned swagger. 
• To date, he's been unable to capture the elusive yard bunnies OR grey squirrels, both of whom are often spotted taunting him but fast enough to escape to the trees (up or under, depending on skill). I'm thankful for that: I give him de-worm pills and stuff, but I don't want to add any sort of small furry prey animals to my "Things Ragnar Ate" list. fAngus would have to kick his ass, since I won't let him hunt either. 

In all fairness to Ragnar's Destroyer of Walls moniker, the 3 holes he originally ate during his pica stage haven't increased in size or number for at least six months. I'm cautiously optimistic that it's time to fix the walls and maybe even get someone to paint. 

He is still occasionally the Destroyer of Carpet, which does not impress me at all and let me just say I've tried every product on the damn market and NOTHING is up to the challenge of a 75lb dog's pee. I hates it, precious, but I'm afraid of replacing the carpet AND I'm afraid if I don't he'll never stop. 

I think he'd happily destroy more of the yard if I let him. Because...dogs. 

It's a Mew Year

Not long ago I decided it's not fair that Ragnar steals all Angus's toys for the sweet sweet catnip high he finds inside. Puppies: utterly certain everything within their sniff or pee range is THEIRS, and damn anyone* else's prior claim.

Also puppies: unaffected by catnip yet rudely ensure the cat can't get high out of sheer spite. 

Anyway, since poor giant fAngus keeps getting his nip-stuffed-mouse-toys stolen, I decided to get him one of those feather-doodads-on-a-stick toys. Something that requires human intervention, and thusly a break from Ragnar pinning him down and stealing from him like a schoolyard bully. One hopes.

In practice, this has turned into an epic war that brings out a growly BattleCat.

Ragnar can hear that cat having fun from anywhere in my house. He can be dead asleep on the couch in the living room and hear fAngus start to run/jump after his featherless toy.

Featherless because, of course, it took all of 15 seconds for both sets of predatory teeth to rip off the bird-parts, leaving only the weird wiry springs behind. Bird parts have become extremely appealing to fAngus of late: there are winter birds (chickadees, mostly) who strut their cocky little selves back and forth across the step and patio on the other side of the glass. More than once I've come home to a cat-pancake staring intently though the glass, the end of his tail a frantic whip. If you've never served a cat before, you should know they don't just meow: they also growl and make this fucked up chittering noise that's almost a squirrel impression, particularly when they're wound up for hunting and can't make a kill. Domesticated my ass.

Anyway, fAngus chases and jumps and does all the normal cat things for this stupid elastic thingy on a stick, and Ragnar comes a-RUNNIN up the stairs. No one has any fun in this house without puppy involvement, dammit!

Well, nearly no one.

fAngus usually plays well with Ragnar: when the puppy gets too rough he holds his own and they both cry, and I consider that a draw. He often just sighs and lets the puppy steal toys from him, because it's likely not worth the effort to get something back when it's soaked in stinky dog drool anyway. But when makes his kill my tolerant little monster becomes the crabby big cat he's sure he can be. He holds the brightly colored wiry elastic in his mouth like some sad dead fairy, lays his ears flat against his head, and growls at the dog. Ragnar, understandably taken aback (Well, the first time. Since then he provokes on purpose.), carefully puts his nose nearer the prize, and fAngus swipes claws out in a full "I WILL KILL YOU THIS IS MINE" snout attack. The resulting thwap/yelp probably shouldn't be funny.

It is.

At this point it's hard to keep hold of the stick while laughing so hard, and they continue to fight, so I let go. fAngus runs off dragging the stick behind him to hide his kill, and all is well for the afternoon, right? Sigh.

So...it turns out my cat is more devious than I'd given him credit for, and I'm sure I'll pay for that. Today Ragnar is at daycare playing with others more appropriate for his 70lb bouncing. Angus brought the stick toy into the office and dropped it at my feet, sat down, looked up at me, and meowed very politely. "I would like to hunt, please."

I ignored him.

He moved closer and meowed again, with a question mark at the end. "Please will you play?"

He waited another two seconds and MEOWED. "Let me rephrase. YOU WILL FUCKING BE PREY NOW."

He chased a stupid elastic doohickey on a stick until he was happily panting, but when he caught it, he looked at me and growled. REALLY growled. "LET. GO."  So I did, because I was fascinated at this turn of events.He dragged his kill out to another room and I went back to work.

Fifteen minutes later, no longer panting like the fat boy he is, he happily trots into the room, tail high in pride and still holding the toy in his teeth, and drops the stick at my feet. And sits down. And meows. Rinse, wash, repeat until he was finally ready to nap, but you know, he growls every time he catches that thing now and drags it away to wherever he thinks his stash belongs. I can't find it: the stick is currently missing. I suppose he'll bring it back when he's ready. Goddess help me if he actually finds a mouse, bird, or fairy in my house. I suppose the smell would help me find his cache.

I don't THINK he can drag Ragnar around if he manages to pull an alien facehugger move that causes real damage...honestly I'm not sure of that.

fAngus proved to me today he knows full well this is a game, he knows exactly how to get me to play prey with him, and goddammit if he can't go outside and hunt real creatures he's GOING to get to hunt and kill things in the house at his leisure, thank you very much.

I've made peace with the likelihood that fAngus will eat me if I die home alone.

Pets: Not for the Faint-Hearted

I've held a lot of this in for a year, and this is NOT a pleasant or easy read. It is not funny, and there is detail I'm not sorry about sharing but isn't fun. This is your warning.

Today is the one year anniversary of Chewy's death.

That's a kind way of saying it: a euphemism, really, because Chewy didn't die naturally or in an accident. Chewy died because I made the decision to kill him, and I think I'll carry guilt for the rest of my life.

The time came for Thor in December 2016, and with him I waited too long. He'd been declining with cancer for a while, and by the time we brought him in there really was no choice. He was so ready to go the last few days he just slept with his head on my lap, asking for help. When the vet came in he sighed heavily with obvious relief, licked my hand to say goodbye, and relaxed. He was asleep in seconds and gone in less than a minute. I promised myself I wouldn't make any other pets suffer on my selfish behalf when it's time, because his last couple of weeks were miserable for him, and it was purely due to my inability to say goodbye.

A year later, in 2017, Chewy wasn't ready. His back legs mostly didn't work anymore (I had to use a towel-sling to get him outside to go potty), his voice had mostly given out, but overall he was pretty alert and perky, if immobile. As fall set in, though, he was starting to falter and his joints hurt some. He fell down the stairs almost daily: he'd try his damnedest to climb up to sleep in my office while I worked: it usually took a couple of tries and sometimes my help. I'd hear him thump his way back down, his back legs having failed him again, his poor belly and chin smacking each step down to the landing. It hurt: he'd lie there and pant for a long time before trying again. And he'd still try again EVERY GODDAMNED TIME. I tried to work from the living room as much as I could, but it wasn't enough.

Still, on his last day the weather was gorgeous (much like today...thanks dude) and he spent a long while standing or lying in the grass barking at things in the neighborhood. Just randomly joyfully barking, as though not a damn thing was wrong at all. He had cheeseburgers for lunch, as much puppy ice cream as he wanted, and napped in the sun with the kitten for a while before I took him in. The whole day I second guessed myself, because this was my dog again. he had a great day. He wasn't ready to go.

I made the decision to put him down before the deep cold hit his joints, before the trips down the stairs broke his neck, before he got stuck in the snow or ice just trying to go potty in the winter. I made the decision to kill my dog before he was emotionally ready to go, because I didn't want him to experience the decline I saw in Thor and have a miserable ending. I wanted him to go out when he'd had a good day. I'll never be sure that was the right thing to do. I played god and killed my pet before Death came for him.

He was 130lbs at the end: I couldn't pick him up. The day I brought him to the vet, I had to have help lifting him in and use a sling to bring him into the office. And he was so goddamned happy and cheerful, saying hi to everyone like normal.

When we took Thor in, my vet gave me the reality of faces of euthanasia. In Thor's case, we were lucky: everything went quietly and easily because he was so ready to go, but there are many variations of death, and luckily he'd told me other possible outcomes.

When the techs put Chewy's IV in, he wiggled and they'd missed the vein, so the sedative didn't work. He struggled to get up. They had to re-do the IV and the sedative. He watched me as it finally kicked in, obviously wondering what the fuck was going on here, and struggled more until his eyes half closed and his tongue stuck out of his mouth on the exam room's floor. He was too big for the blanket they put down, you see, and he couldn't relax enough to lay his head in my lap. I petted and talked to him without stopping, reassuring him and staying calm as my vet administered Pepto-pink death through a hypodermic into my dog's front leg.

I'll never use Pepto again.

Chewy struggled, flailed, drooled, twitched, and desperately tried to lift his head even mostly sedated as the drug reached his heart. He didn't go easily: he fought like a goddamned warrior right up until the end.

He wasn't ready. And even though a cold analytical view of his status and the immediate future of suffering still has me falling on the side that i did what was best for him, it doesn't FEEL like I did what was best for him.

And that's why pet stewardship is both awesome and fucking awful. You are their god. They are a part of your universe, but you are ALL of theirs, and it's the human's responsibility not only to do what's right and necessary no matter how awful it is (even when it sticks with you forever), but also to BE THERE for it.

There's an article going around in social media about a vet's take on owners who leave their pets alone to die. I get that it's awful and hard: I've seen both sides of the process and it's not always easy. I get that if you have a backup or truly can't control your grief, it's better to leave than stress them out more. But ultimately, I firmly believe you are the adult. You are the human, and taking on that life means you are responsible for it through to the end.

You suck it up and stay with them (and stay calm) because it's not about YOU. Comforting a loved one as they die is an act of compassion and love, and pets deserve that honor after dedicating their lives to you. It sucks. It's terrible, and exhausting, and it's really fucking hard to not start bawling when they're going, whether Death comes easy or not. It's also part of the gig. I get there by remembering advice I'd been given years ago, when I struggled with a different situation that threatened to overwhelm my ability to be present for someone else's crisis: stay in the love.

Focus on THEM: focus all your love and energy and comfort and petting and gratitude for their time with you on them.

Leaving this world showered in affection and reassurance and comfort from the person/people at the center of your universe can't be a bad thing: if that's all you can give your pets that's enough, even when their end comes before they're ready. After they're gone, by all means fall apart. I did.

I did today as I wrote this, because October is a time of endings and I'll remember his last day until I see him again. Han asked me recently where dogs go when they die, and can we visit them, and will we see them again (Evil piped in and said Heaven is another planet). Nothing like a 6 year old's perfectly reasonable questions (WHY DO I GET THEM? I'm the AUNT!) to get a girl thinking about what my boys are doing in their afterlives. I presume bunny-chasing and barking are high on the list.

I miss Thor and Chewy as horrendously as I am eternally grateful for my current furry monsters.
And someday I'll do this dance again. A long, long time from now.

Book Review: Picture Perfect Cowboy by Tiffany Reisz

Retired bull rider Jason Waters is about as tightly wound and uncomfortable as a cowboy can be. He fits every surface assumption about a rodeo athlete more accustomed to thousand pound pissed off animals than people: lean, quiet, calm, conservative, and unfailingly polite. Unfortunately for Jason (and luckily for us), a promise to a fellow rodeo buddy puts Jason in the position of posing naked for a hot-rodeo-boys calendar: a calendar Simone Levine is shooting. Simone's unique combination of artistic mischief and harmlessness cuts through the Jason's polite shield, and he unexpectedly reveals a secret he's carried for years. And so they begin with a nude photo shoot and a naked confession.

One of my favorite things about Tiffany Reisz's work is the way she takes a familiar romance novel premise and twists it down excellently unexpected paths. Picture Perfect Cowboy occurs in the Original Sinners universe, which generally guarantees a certain level of character depth (oh yes, that pun is intended) as well as varying levels of smut. This story doesn't disappoint, as it turns out Jason is terrified his own predilections make him a terrible and depraved man. Simone, on the other hand, is an occasional professional at King's NY club and a personal friend of Mistress Nora. Who better to help Jason  relax and be who he is, by proving that a little depravity doesn't make him a bad guy?

Again, the romance theme of the "good woman is all a rake needs to be reformed" is revised to a more modern and entertainingly smutty adventure. Reisz doesn't skimp on the varying erotic scenes. True to form, some are pure sexiness while some skate the edge of downright uncomfortable, and there's really no predicting which scenes will have either effect on any reader. If you aren't an expert on spanking after this, you weren't paying attention.

What's really interesting in this story is Jason's evolution, both in emotional growth and technical skill. I love that Reisz always delves into the how/why of a character's kinks, and though some of the motivating factors can be judged as awful (through no fault of Jason's own), the end result is an acceptance without judgment of his needs as an adult. Simone (with a little help from Nora and Soren) actively encourages Jason to accept himself and navigate the twisty ethical and emotional effects of desires he's been ashamed of as morally terrible due to his upbringing.

In addition to his internal struggle, relationship conflicts arise as outside parties are introduced to Jason and Simone's private world, and the vast lifestyle differences between a Kentucky horse rancher and a New York professional kinkster interfere. Picture Perfect Cowboy is a lot of relationship packed into a pretty short package. Tiffany Reisz covers both traditional romance novel issues as well as BDSM kink with the same excellent style in the other Sinners books.

My only complaint is the traditional market length of this story necessarily leaves little room for more, and I wanted more. The best possible danger of writing is convincing readers the characters are real people you want to hang out with: this is an absolute success. I hope this becomes a bit of a series since at least one other character has some clear Sinner potential, because I thoroughly enjoyed Simone and Jason's love story. Also, I'm not going to lie, I'd love to find out how Jason and Griffin get along.

Picture Perfect Cowboy by Tiffany Reisz is available on November 5th in hardcover and ebook from 8th Circle Press.
Picture Perfect Cowboy on Amazon

Make America Educated Again

I'm not sure how to title this post, because the utter stupidity of the conversation that sparked it annoyed me so much I needed a couple of days to decide how to approach the subject.

Two days ago Minnesota held Primary Elections. I was outside letting Ragnar snuffle around instead of doing the business he was supposed to be doing, and my neighbor walked by. I've talked about her before, and to be fair we mostly get along. But Tuesday she received a real response from me, because her self-absorbed stupid was just amazing.

She started the conversation by complaining that our property taxes will go up again because my city had "yet another stupid school levy pass".

Ok, I was confused at the bitter snarky tone. "Why is that a problem? Good schools mean good neighborhoods which mean good housing prices and upkeep." I honestly think she expected me, a single woman with no kids, to actually agree with her. Instead I continued, "I don't have kids but I WANT good schools, so I'm happy to pay the levies...a good school system makes the whole city better to live in."

Selfish to the core, she immediately changed tactics, because ultimately her fussing is purely based on "I don't have kids in school, why should I have to pay" which I find to be an underlying formula based on self-absorbed myopia among many MAGA folks: "I don't have/do x, so I shouldn't have to pay for y." Yeah. I'll get to that idiot argument in a minute. Her argument changed to "well it all goes into teacher pensions anyway, none of the kids see any of that money."

OH MY FUCKING GODDESS, YOU SELFISH IDIOT.

I didn't say it out loud. I so wanted to. Instead I said, calmly, "So...teachers already don't get paid enough for what they're doing, and you begrudge them a decent pension after they spend decades putting their own money toward underfunded school supplies and work ridiculous numbers of hours for ridiculously low pay to educate the people who will eventually run the nursing home you end up in? I disagree."

She flounced (as well as a 70 year old cranky old bat can flounce, anyway) with the following parting shot: "Nobody paid for MY pension and I never made enough money. Why should I pay for them?" Can you hear the nasty combination of whine and bitterness in her tone? I did. Ugh. Then she slammed the door, thus endeth her proclamation.

So, as amusing and idiotic as she is, the whole conversation disturbs the crap out of me, particularly in this current political climate and with an a-hole like Betsy Davros at the helm of national education directives. Let's remember what the difference is between SOCIALISM and SOCIETY is, shall we, because there seems to be some serious confusion regarding freedom, socialism, education, and the benefits/responsibilities of living in a society by a whole fuckload of selfish asshats since the idiot cheeto came to power.

• If you drive on roads, YOU BENEFIT FROM SOCIETY. 
• If you get city water/sewer service to your house, YOU BENEFIT FROM SOCIETY. 
• If your public education is decent, your neighborhood is more desirable. 
• If your neighborhood is more desirable, your housing prices rise (including the value of your own property, which is essentially an investment of many folks' personal wealth) and those who buy into the neighborhood tend to take care of their property, and YOU BENEFIT FROM SOCIETY. 
• If your home is on fire and you call the fire department, YOU BENEFIT FROM SOCIETY. 
• If you have need to call 911 for cops or paramedics, YOU BENEFIT FROM SOCIETY. 

If you can read, you can learn to understand the laws (you know, laws enacted by society?). If you can understand the laws, you can support or dissent. If you can disagree with a law you understand, you can discuss with others and potentially change the law. Freedom requires participation, which in our country usually requires at least a base level of education. Otherwise, you are just going along with what others impose upon you and your say is silenced.

• Just for the record - SOCIALISM is defined as follows: a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

Services society has agreed to pay for so we can use them and share the cost, like roads or fire departments, are not socialism. They are the result of participating in a community, which has zero difference from community-assisted barn raising or volunteering to trade harvest help a hundred years ago. I'm convinced that some of these folks who think in a selfish and short sighted way about education, health services, etc. must have had a seriously sub-par education. All the more reason to improve our schools. 

Here's the thing - education is one of the essential areas where anyone not in the 1% of wealth can be kept under control by that same 1%. If you are uneducated (by choice or by lack of resource availability) you are easy to keep down because you're too busy trying to survive on low wages, bad benefits (or none, including health insurance), and all the downstream ramifications. Education is a basic stepping stone to an fairer and more equal society where the majority of folks have at least a SHOT at that elusive "something better" this country is founded on. 

An uneducated populace allows propaganda and fear to rule their lives, and we get shit like the Inquisition. WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT ANOTHER INQUISITION?

The tricky part of society's services that offer a CHANCE at more equality is that nothing is guaranteed. Just because the opportunity is there doesn't mean everyone takes it, and if we're all honest luck does have some say in success, but the simple availability of basic education is one of the services differentiating a successful functioning society and serfdom. 

The kicker, the lesson so many seem to forget after 9th grade civics, is if you are going to benefit from society you are also responsible to it. If you participate in life, you are responsible for making the environment in which you live the way it is (good or bad). I think people who recognize this responsibility make some effort to make things better, because bitching and complaining is a downward spiral. It doesn't have to be a grand gesture or a full time job: it can be as simple as recognizing that only shitty selfish assholes take without ever giving back and bitch about things like taxes for the roads they use, the emergency services they might need, the medicare they inevitably complained about paying into but then use at retirement (like my neighbor), or the free education that benefits all of us (even those who can't afford private school) just by being available. 

It can be as simple as voting: exercising the right and responsibility to participate in decisions that affect your environment. 

I want the environment I live in to be full of educated people who make decisions based on something more substantial than propaganda. I think those who do the teaching need to be excellently educated themselves, and compensated well for their particular skill set (good teachers are a combination of motivator, multi-subject expert, public speaker, counselor, cat-wrangler, and magician...I decidedly do NOT have that particular set of skills). 

So yeah, I'm good with a school levy that provides better education and better educators with well funded programs. AND pensions. Bring on the smart populace. 

End rant. 

Book Review: Circe by Madeline Miller

I have some educational background in mythology, so I'll usually give anything Illiad or Odyssey themed a chance. I'm a fan of Greek myths because they're so varied: Greek deities of all levels are a tapestry of virtues and flaws that more accurately reflect the capriciousness of an immortal being's attention to humans. I also (right or wrong) tend toward being a terrible book snob, and I know it. My reading list is long, and I'm picky, so I don't waste time anymore on books that don't meet high expectations right away. If I'm not hooked by the end of the second chapter, I will have zero remorse about setting a book aside and moving on. Circe hooked me on page one.

If you don't recall the backstory, Circe is the sorceress on an island in the Aegean who turns Odysseus' men to pigs and has a year-long affair with the Greek hero before sending him back to Ithaca. Retellings the Odysseus myth vary in the treatment of Circe: sometimes she's a benevolent  being who treats his men unfairly and is convinced to be nice by falling in love with the hero. Sometimes she's a wicked and powerful witch, terrifying in her malicious treatment of men after gaining a reputation of turning them into pigs, until Odysseus "tames" her. 

Miller's retelling is the biography of a minor goddess, daughter of Helios (the Titan who is literally the sun in the sky) and one of Oceanus's (Titan of...you guessed it, the Ocean) daughters, a nymph. In this version, Circe is the unremarkable and emotionally abused sibling of her sister and two brothers, all of whom go on to do relatively famous deeds. Circe is portrayed as being too naive and too trusting of her family, and is abused for having zero power. Even her voice is considered horrid; she's often told to be quiet because of the tonal quality. Her voice sounds more human than immortal, and it's grating to immortal ears. In every way, Circe's "childhood", or perhaps more accurately her first few hundred years, is an exercise in making her as invisible as possible.

It is in her loneliness that she turns to the friendship of a mortal sailor. She falls in love and wants to find a way to stay together, and turns to forbidden secret herbs rumored to be magic. The resulting mess reveals her for what she is: a witch. A woman without specific magical powers who can gain non-divine power through knowledge, learning, and herbs provided by Gaia herself. Being neither Titan nor Olympian in her power, Circe is considered an unknown, and therefore a threat, by Zeus. When she publicly admits her witchcraft and abilities, she becomes the witch scapegoat: banished forever to her island while her siblings, who posses the same powers, become famous in their own ways.

Madeline Miller does an excellent job of creating a general attitude of casual dismissal of humanity by the the Olympians, Titans, and other immortals. They are as capricious, selfish, and callous as one might think a being who becomes bored over millennia could be. Circe, then, is set up from the beginning as an outsider simply by carrying something the rest of her family don't have at all: an air of humanity. I love this character. I love that over the course of the book she experiences every human emotion a woman can feel and learns to exert her independence and power for herself as she grows. Circe is not a fully formed "perfect" being like the rest of the immortals: she learns, suffers, and grows over time. She is not content to just be the mousy outcast her family of origin paint her to be. 

Circe's circumstances aren't those of the mythic hero, out of touch with the reader's experience: she yearns for companionship, love, family, and friendship. Yet because she's immortal, she also touches other myths both surrounding the fall of Troy, Daedalus and Icarus, Scylla and Charybdis, the Golden Fleece, the Minotaur, and many others. Even in her isolation, Circe's world has a vastness beyond her little island and helps the reader with some sense of time. News of the world is cleverly brought to Circe via an ongoing casual affair with Hermes, the Messenger God who stops in occasionally for a gossip-and-sex visit.

Miller's writing is utterly enjoyable. She's lyrical in a way that ties Circe to the feel of other Greek myths. In relating the death of Daedalus, Circe says:  "I had no right to claim him, I knew it. But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me." (Circe, Hachette Books, 2018) Every time I read that line, I get goosebumps. That's a rare thing for me, and I love Madeline Miller for it.

The Odysseus tale occurs about midway through the book, which is fitting considering her year with him is only a blip in an eternity for Circe. That year has lasting consequences, however, and some interesting twists as time passes. Miller's portrayal of the sailors, Odysseus, and their relationship is so much more human than the myth. It's wonderful, and it sets the stage for the final third of the story with multiple threads that tie together later.

You'd think covering so long a life would become tedious, but Circe's journey from the outcast nymph to powerful sorceress to...well, without spoilers I can say the satisfying resolution of her tale... is absolutely captivating. I was engrossed. I'll re-read this often.

Living Up to Viking Stereotypes

This is obviously my fault. I'm the idiot who chose a Viking legend as the appropriate name for my puppy. Yes, I know there has been WAY more important world events lately, but I'm not a news source, and I'm tired of death, so this post is focused on destruction instead.

Things Ragnar Ate: 

• The heel of the only pair of tall boots I own that actually fit my calves. Because he's an asshole who has no respect for my wardrobe. 
• Two packages of incense. Luckily for him, it wasn't the expensive incense: it was the single-use sticks. I expect his poop to smell like recycled lavender for a while. Does that mean cleaning up after him will make me sleepy? 
• A ruler. Yeah. A wooden ruler with a fucking metal edge, which I managed to get away from him before he cut anything but after he lost another tooth. 
• The carpet. There are so many carpet munching comments to be had here...at least if he's going to do the viking stereotype he's choosing the right activity? 
• The wall. The WALL. HE ATE THE MOTHERFUCKING WALL. He picked at the edge of a patch until he could get his little needley white puppy teeth on it, and pulled it off the goddamned wall. I actually have nothing funny to say about this, because it's just infuriating. Related: does anyone know a good sheetrock person? 
• Angus. In neither an inappropriate cat / carpet euphemistic way (gross) OR a deathly way. Let me explain. 

So here's how the daily fights in my house break down. Ragnar gets all worked up with UBER PUPPY ENERGY and starts chasing Angus. 

Angus, being stubbornly convinced he's the biggest badass in the house, swats at puppy snout instead of running. Inevitably, this results in Ragnar grabbing the big black puffball cat's lemur-ish tail and attempting to drag him down the hallway. Have you ever heard a cat so pissed off he suddenly morphs into the Alien facehugger? Because that's what he doe: he wraps that lemur tail around the back of the puppy's head and latches onto his face with all four sets of claws. Instead of the creepy throat-egg thing, he just grabs Ragnar's ear in his formidable no-longer-kitten jaws and bites HARD. 

Scream-whining ensues, and Angus rides a bucking puppy through the entire household, doubling down in his grip with both claws and teeth until Ragnar cries uncle. They separate for a few minutes, then Ragnar sniffs kitten belly, Angus licks Ragnar's forehead, and they snuggle until the WILD PUPPY ENERGY starts the whole rigmarole over. 

Ragnar Lodbrok would undoubtedly be proud of my puppy's penchant for destruction. 

Welcome to Things Ragnar Ate

I'm starting a new label today for the 3.5 month old Shepherd/Bloodhound puppy currently wreaking havoc in my household.

ThingsRagnarAte.

This will go along with the upcoming tales of Angus the Cat's interactions with me (the Evil Overlord keeping him cat-ptive), labeled EvilOverlordIsn'tDeadYet.

So, in the last few weeks, Ragnar ate:

• Seven socks, previously worn
• More underwear than I care to think about, all of which is now in the laundry
• Angus's tail hair (the odds were not in Ragnar's favor that day)
• One PS4 controller
• One PS4 controller charging cable
• Two iphone/ipad charging cables
• Two platform/spike heeled shoes. FROM DIFFERENT PAIRS. 
• Last night he found the mate to one of them, so technically he's now eaten the heels of two leather spike heeled boots and the buckle strap of one leather platform Mary Jane. 
• ALL the rabbit poop he can find
• outside, in case people are actually wondering why the fuck I have rabbit poop in my house. I don't. I'm not a perfect housekeeper, but that's just silly. 
• The Joy of Cooking (book jacket only - the book itself has fang marks without any permanent damage).
• bull penises, which are cleverly called "bull pizzle*" as the ingredient on a "bully stick" from PetSmart. 
• PIZZLE? REALLY? If you're going to offer cow tracheae, pig ears, and bull penii** as dog treats, have the balls to say what they really are. (Balls, as in testicles from any animal, not found in the treat isle at PetSmart). 
• Packing tape.
• Scotch tape dispenser. 
• Toilet paper holder
• Toilet paper
• Cat toys
• Dried minnows 
• cat treats...just as gross as dog treats
• The end of the wooden dowel used to keep the sliding patio door locked. 
• Resulting in a FANTASTIC episode of FIGHT THE PUPPY TO GET THE SLIVER OUT OF HIS GUMS WITHOUT GOING TO THE VET. 
• One older puppy's throat fur
• throat and both puppies unharmed during the play resulting in blond fur in Ragnar's mouth
• Mashed potatoes
• Ben, I'm looking at YOU
• Cheese-its
• all my fault...I was out of appropriate training treats
• Three magazines
• Wrapping and packaging paper from multiple presents
• One poor Nutcracker Christmas ornament, who now stares offendedly from the tree with a dogspit hairdo and new dents in his fancy wooden outfit. 

*Spellchecker refuses to accept "pizzle" as a word. Me too, spellcheck, me too. 

**I don't care what the dictionary says: the plural of "penis" sounds infinitely better as "penii" than "penises". Penii is far more commanding and and serious. Penises sounds like some sort of fucked up floppy toy...which brings us back to bull penis dog chews. 

The 17 Year Old Unsolved Mystery of Russell Crowe.

The turn of the millennium had a couple big milestones for me. I graduated college in 1999, and my first real adventures happened in 2000. I moved away from home over New Year's weekend. (Yeah, I  know a lot of peeps move when they GO to college, but I LIKED my hometown and never wanted to move away. Alas, bills require jobs, and jobs for an English and History major were scarce there, so off to the city I went.) I spent that first year living at my grandparent's house - which is relevant to this post.

For a "yay you made it through college and are officially adulting" I was lucky enough to receive help to buy a car or go on a trip. 

Fuck cars. I went to Ireland. I was all of twenty-one. 

No FB, no texting, no affordable international cell phone plans. I chuckle at the helicopter parents now who have to hear from their traveling college students regularly: I left Minnesota on a Thursday night, flew from here to Chicago and from Chicago to London. This was my first trip out of the country, and I went alone. I didn't meet my tour group (Contiki Tours, who are still in business and run fabulous tours for 18-35 year-olds) until I got settled in my hotel in London on Friday night. 

I didn't have an opportunity to email or call my parental units 'til Wednesday that week. On that tour, I may or may not have had a fling with the Scottish driver (who was twenty years older than me but OH MY GOD that accent) and made a couple of Australian friends. After all, I was one of three Americans on the tour: everyone else was Aussie or NZ. 

I'm still friends with one of the guys I met from Melbourne, Australia. He visited twice in those first few years, and we had pretty regular contact for a while. To this day, we trade pics of our families and news once or twice a year. 

All of this is relevant, because I STILL suspect he's the culprit. 

2000 was also the year Gladiator came out. I saw it right after I came back from Ireland in May, and fell utterly in love with Russell Crowe. I have no regrets regarding my unrequited devotion. 

So, recall that I was living with my grandparents, and fast forward a couple of months, when a random envelope showed up in the mailbox. 

Note Return Address Area has NONE. 

 So, clearly this wasn't SENT to me. It was left in the mailbox by some weirdo. I don't recognize the handwriting.

WHERE THE FUCK IS THE POSTAGE?  

Return address. In case I didn't tape it back together well enough, that say NSW (New South Wales) Australia.
NSW Australia is where RC is from.
This is a lot of effort to screw with my brainpan. 

Indeed. 

THERE IS NO APPROPRIATE CAPTION FOR THIS...
Except YUM.

So, 17 years later I'm cleaning out papers and find this envelope, still never claimed by Cameron or my parents or anyone else. 

But SOMEBODY dropped Russell Crowe in my mailbox, and it wasn't a benevolent mail fairy carrying around an unpostaged Maximus. 

If anyone wants to claim this one, feel free...I still want to know. 

Cameron, I still think it was you colluding with some family member. And I'll miss you terribly when I'm on an other tour in Ireland next May. 

If anyone wants to send Maximus to my house now...hey, I still hold that particular crush right along with Gerard Butler and The Rock. 

Lo There.

Thank you Chewy, for spending most of your life here with us. We were lucky.  

When you see Thor, tell him I miss him, too. 

Opening a Memory Box in My Brain.

Yesterday I visited the house I grew up in for the first time in a decade. Ten years ago, my parents moved to California for work adventures and rented out the 40-some acre hobby farm. Now, they're getting it ready to sell and I had a chance to poke around rooms I lived in from nine to nineteen. None of these memories are related - they all struck in random pictures from the dusty trunks in the attic of my head.

And as I drove down the back-roads in the country from my grandma's house to my old place, memories bounced around behind my eyeballs - some sort of washing over in a quick flash, some giving a hard Junebug-on-the-windshield smack to my brain.

The house my best friend lived in on Martin road, where I spent long Friday nights with her plotting futures. We went to prom with our boyfriends as a double date - that was the time I lost the $100 bill down the front of my dress (people, this is the shit that happens when I foolishly attempt to be sexy or flirtatious, seriously) and royally pissed off my boyfriend. Rightly so, really. She and I are friends on Facebook now, and it seems like life went a lot like the intended plan for her, which is awesome. My path has twisted and turned so often I can't even remember what I wanted during those long conversations. Funny how that works.

I passed that spot on the two lane road in the country where my little Mazda 323 hit a patch of slush on my way to work in the mall. I was seventeen. I think I spun a total of three and a half times that day, somehow managed to stay in the center of the road instead of flying off into the ditch, and ended up facing the right way in the wrong lane. I remember the exhilaration and fear, and giggling as I moved over into my own lane and went off to work. Pretty sure I never told my parents THAT one.

My high school boyfriend's house, still standing back in the trees behind the wooden privacy fence, although the bar across the road is gone and a new stop sign has been added on the corner. His parents were always home when I spent time there.

His parents had very different rules for their son than mine had for their daughter, and some kisses will never be told.

I had a 10:30 curfew in high school. I'd leave his house frantically at 10:20 for the fifteen minute drive home and speed the whole way, usually getting there a minute or two late.

I can still be made late by a romantic relationship. I'm still not sorry.

The road I lived on clearly hasn't been resurfaced since long before I moved away. The houses along the way are the same. The eagles still hang out in the treeline fifty yards back from the road, watching for anything hit by the speeders going over fifty-five. The one on the road as I passed gave me a distinct LOOK before lazily spreading an impressively terrifying wingspan and flying out of the way of my truck. I'm glad I wasn't on a bike.

The fence is down. The front pastures where first Kalli, then later Shadow, met me at the corner when the bus dropped me off after school are mostly gone. Only the line of mowed lawn versus thigh-high grasses marks the place the fence once kept our horses contained. The river, once easily visible where it splits one of the pastures, is lined by tall bushes and overgrowth without the herd keeping the space cleaned out. I used to drop my bookbag, duck under the fence, and jump on for a quick ride before going in the house, or go stick my feet in the cold water where it ran fast enough over the rocks to discourage leeches, and hang out with the herd for a while. Some days I'd just race Shadow from the end of the driveway to the gate. I always lost, but he's do an extra lap just for fun, and I could watch him run in joy forever. My big grey gelding who hated to walk when dancing or galloping was so much more fun. I wonder if he was happy with the three little girls who took over his care when I moved to the city and sold him to another family. I hope they spoiled him rotten while he lived.

The big wooden fence along the road is down, too. Even the area in the other pasture, where I watched a moose step over the five foot fence like it was a minor bump in the road.

The back was no different - fencing all down, burrs growing where no herds keep the overgrowth under control.

The arena where Shadow and I practiced dressage, the bit of barbed wire where I got the scar on my thigh when I was eleven, the gates I could open from horseback...they're all down, hidden in the tall grass as traps for the unwary.

I didn't even bother with the barn. Judging by the state of the garage and house, I think seeing the place I spent the most time outside of my own room in the same condition would just make me sad.

The house is...well, let's say a decade of renters has not been kind to the house, who now looks more like a decrepit, sad, toothless creature too far gone to help. I remember working with Dad to put the addition on the back, the room where we celebrated Christmas for years before they moved. I remember the spring I graduated from high school was when we renovated the bedrooms, the bathrooms, and the kitchen. I lived for a couple of months in a old camper in the driveway while my room was under construction. I used to bitch that I'd only get a fancy new room with NEW CARPET for a little while (turned out to be a year before I moved out), and that my parents installed a dishwasher right as I'd be leaving so my sisters wouldn't have to hand-wash on their chore night. Oh the unfairness of it all!

The carpet in my old room is the same deep blue, underneath all the stains. I used to sleep under the once-new window and have nightmares that Freddy Kruger could get into my room through that first floor slider. I probably shouldn't have watched late night tv back when Friday the 13th was an actual show...good imagination.

I don't remember my bedroom being quite so small, but then I was smaller when I lived in it, so I suppose time and distance play tricks on spatial relations.

I miss being able to smell horses and river when I slept with the window open. I miss going out in the cold dark winter nights to look for northern lights above the hill. I miss how quiet it is, living where there is no major freeway or busy city street or airport flight patterns all within earshot.

Part of me is sickly happy the house and buildings are in their current condition - I think it might be harder to imagine selling the place to a new family if it looked as it did when my parents moved out. And maybe someday I'll be lucky enough to again live where I don't share walls or yard-visibility with my neighbors, where I don't have to leash my dog and I can have horses in a pasture. We'll see.

Dear Death: I See You Here

This is not a funny post. Today was a bad day. My vet told me to do a good day/bad day jar for a couple of weeks, but I don't really need it.

Death is stalking my household.

Thanatos waits patiently in the shadowed corners of my living room while we watch movies and bark quietly at neighborhood kids or invisible monsters in the back yard. Badb is hanging out cross-legged on the floor under a desk in my office, casually flipping through books in my library, content but staying close.

If I'm lucky. Persephone is working on a new spot with Thor: one with enough toys that they can steal from each other again.

I know the sensation of Death lingering in my house. I've done this already.

We are getting to the point that "tired" is more than just sleeping between meals and an exhausting barking session. It's a look in the eyes, a distinct need for comfort that forces failing legs to keep trying to push 110lbs up the stairs so he can sleep near a person. It's the sad expression when I pick up the leash, and half-hearted attempt to get up only to lie next to the open door, because the urge to pee isn't strong enough to bother going out even though it's been nearly 12 hours.

He's not ready, but I think we're within a week or two now. Taking responsibility for another living creature is a double edged razor. The vet says the timing is up to me. What that really means is I'm no longer monitoring and caring for Chewy to provide him with quality of life, but quality of death. Some would argue there are many reasons to make that choice on his behalf - send him on before he suffers, the expense involved in waiting, the disruption to my life, moving on.

Responsibility is a heavy burden because it's SUPPOSED to be heavy. Who the hell am I to determine how much of his life to cut off? People who bring up the expense involved are talking a bout the vet bills, the pills, the time involved in waiting for him to struggle back inside twice a day. But the real expense is the waiting, the burden of choosing when to invite Death formally instead of letting her hang out, because at some point the suffering is just enough. But I am only a caretaker: Chewy will let me know when he hits that point. Thor did.

We, people, humans, are so afraid of Death visiting that we'll do damn near anything to avoid it. Dogs are different. They'll fight to survive until it's time, and when it's time they're just...ready. They've done their jobs here, they've loved and protected and forgiven, and they let you know they're ok.

My vet is truly a fantastic man. When we let Thor go, he warned me what might happen - convulsions, bodily fluids, scary and awful struggling against the soul slipping from the body. He told me so I wouldn't be surprised, so I could stay in the room and be a comfort instead of a basket case. NONE of that happened with him - in fact, he give a little sigh of relief and just slipped off his body like an uncomfortable jacket that's gotten too tight.

I want that for Chewy, too. I want an easy death that relieves him from his broken down body and gives him freedom to bark at ALL THE THINGS. I want Thanatos to give him quiet sleep, and Badb to take him on a long, leisurely walk. There's always the chance that won't happen, that his passing will be somehow scarring. I hope not.

I suppose I'll find out in the next couple of weeks, because I know this countdown.

He stole a loaf of bread today while I got coffee. He was so proud of reaching it I can't even be all that mad, even though it was MINE MINE MINE. Cheeseburgers and treats will be the order of the days ahead, and a lot of sitting in the grass so he can just hang out and do what he loves best - watching over the neighborhood. Until it's time to stop.

Yes, I could say Tuesday is the day and we could be done and save me the emotional stress of Death becoming my temporary roommate. But that's not my job here. I'm not afraid to wait with him. I'm not afraid to make the decision or lie with him on the floor in the vet's office, or let him go.

When it's time, I will ask Death to walk my dog gently, and kindly request no more visits for a long while. Until then, we're sitting in companionable quiet, listening to Chewy's quiet breathing while he dreams.

The Red: An Erotic Fantasy by Tiffany Reisz (Spoiler-Free Review)

"Art should be dangerous, you know. It should say something to society that society doesn't want to hear. Do you know what the opposite of art is? Propaganda." -  The Red

This review is safe for work. The book isn't.

Mona Lisa St. James made a deathbed promise to her mother, vowing to keep their struggling little art gallery open "at all costs." Months later, she's about to fail the promise and just desperate enough to take up the mysterious Malcolm's (no last name) shockingly straightforward offer: become his, on demand, for the next twelve months and make enough money to save her business. Over the next year, Mona finds out the exact cost of keeping that promise, in explicit detail, and discovers some fascinating secrets about her odd lover and his artwork-themed demands.

I often recommend Ms. Reisz's novels because she doesn't write simple smut (that's right: she writes complicated smut), or syrupy romance, and The Red lives up to my expectations. I love Reisz's work for the depth of character and fascinating navigation through complicated and taboo sexual situations. The underpinnings of the story is an exploration of Mona's value, of her own sense of self-worth that becomes stronger and more pronounced as her boundaries are pushed, and her discovery of what she really wants. It's downright voyeuristically compelling, watching Mona's thoughts and actions evolve with each new level of debauchery.

Oh my God, the debauchery. Make no mistake: this is definitely a Tiffany Reisz erotic novel.
WOW. ZA.

Seriously well written, unapologetic lust exists between those covers. I tossed sleep aside to finish it in a night, and this book is worth it, although I may never look at a bottle of water the same way again. From an erotica perspective, The Red has at least one kink that will appeal to you and at least one that will make you terribly uncomfortable. I know what you're thinking, and I definitely don't mean the "blushing and you hope no one notices because WHY are you reading this in public" sort of uncomfortable.

I mean the uncomfortable where you're certain this particular kink shouldn't be so arousing because it's so dirty, but you're turned on anyway. You'll think about it for days afterward and read it again, and you'll want to recommend it to friends but worry they'll figure out that scene worked for you. THAT sort of uncomfortable.

Of course, part of the fun of reading The Red is discovering which encounters fall under which category for you.

The Red is a standalone novel, available on July 11th, 2017 in paperback and e-formats (Kindle is available for pre-order). If you enjoyed her Original Sinners series I don't have to recommend this one, because you already know exactly why you'll love this book. If you're new to Ms. Reisz's work, I highly recommend picking up The Red as soon as you can: it's an excellent mix of erotica and dominant/submissive dynamics, with a hint of the supernatural for flavor.

The Red is definitely exactly the right sort of dangerous art.

How To Get Out of Babysitting: 101

Actual conversation with my sister (Han and Evil's mom) via text message. Of course I could've just posted the screenshot, but then anonymity for both my sister and Han would be lost. Plus, I MUST fix some of the text shorthand, because I'm a nerd and it drives me nuts how people don't spell out actual words in text.

I know, I know: emojis and shorthand are their own languages now...isn't it interesting how the modern equivalent of Egyptian Hieroglyphs are coming back as a real language through texting?

Um. Anyway...conversation as follows (edited only for privacy and incomplete words. I left the punctuation, because it makes me chuckle to imagine the over-enthusiasm).

S: Han's Actual Name Han asked me at dinner how the babies are going to get out of my belly.......

Me: You didn't show him Alien, did you?

Me: I'm no expert, but showing a 4 year old to explain birth might be bad parenting. Just sayin.

Me: Go with Aliens instead. Better movie all around. 

S: Heehee...I said we'd go to the hospital and the doc would help get them out. Then I changed the subject and said 'guess what!!! Grandpa is going to stay with you while we're at the hospital!!!!!'

S: oh good lord Jess, maybe you shouldn't babysit...*

Yeah. I babysit the kids a lot. They're my favorite. I'm pretty sure when the twins come I won't be allowed to touch them at all if Han and Evil are around.

Also, four kids under 5 all in one suburban house?

If you were wondering when the apocalypse starts, I'm pretty sure she's due sometime in March.

*As it turns out, not actually a deterrent from babysitting. Neither is giving the kiddos cherry popsicles so they look like little vampires.

I need a weekend from my weekend.

I'm supposed to be working on a couple of book reviews today, and I'm fairly distracted. The writing conference yesterday was both awesomely educational and horribly disheartening, and while I have some helpful suggestions from an agent, working on non-fic is easier today. Therefore, tying up some loose ends and finding some ideas to pitch to magazines is on the docket, which means looking through the notes on my phone. I swear that's not a non-sequitur: smartphones are both awesome and dangerous for someone who has random ideas and conversations, because sometimes I go back and wonder what the hell I wanted to remember. 

So, because a glance of notes in my phone made me chuckle (titles only): 

"Hey! Don't knock Boones Farm. When you're poor in high school that's all you can afford." Said at a family gathering recently by one of my relatives who would never have admitted to drinking in high school when I was a teenager. Of course, that not only means she's always been fun and trouble, but also that I'm old.  

Quilters Dark Web: assassination orders, prohibited patterns, quilting a hellmouth portal... Oh yeah, there's a story in this. It's in my "pending attention" list. 

Lickubus - like succubus/incubus who snacks I have no appropriate explanation for this. Some of my conversations are astounding. 

Crotchless snowpants Came from the same convo as Lickubus. I wish I could remember if the two were related or some sort of weird progression...because I feel like a "bus" of any sort would be ALL ABOUT crotchless snowpants. 

"The Freckly Princess" by Godfried Bomans I'm bummed to discover I can't find this in English. I keep random books/authors in a list on my notes, so I don't lose them when I'm hanging out at Barnes & Noble. 

Dad's sloppy joes recipe Oh yeah!! YUM! DAd's secret to delicious Sloppy Joes is a can of Campbells Chicken Gumbo soup instead of anything ishy like Manwich. Ketchupy Joes and meat loaf make me gag: this is so much better. 

"Ta to cuid anois" = you're hers now Yeah. Not sure if that was kept as a threat or promise. Thanks, iphone. 

EvilRocks! Truth. Not sure why that's in my notes, but it's completely true. She DOES rock. And lately, she'd respond with "Yupper!"

Mt. Hekla in Iceland: gateway to hell Well, either that's part of the to-see list or a story location. Let's go with both. 

I have no decent explanation for any of this, except that my brain is a weird one; luckily so are the brains of my closest friends and family.