Cordelia's Mom, Still

Puppy Love at the SPCA

Posted on February 23, 2014 by cordeliasmom2012

I held out as long as I could. In this case, it wasn’t very long at all.

After our second dog died in January, I simply found the house too empty. After all, the other dog died last year, the last gerbil died last year, and my youngest child moved out on her own last year.

After only a few weeks, I needed a dog in the house. I started dropping hints to the husband, who was adamant that no way would we get another one. I didn’t much care what he said – I kept searching the SPCA website.

Last week, the SPCA posted pictures of some adorable young dogs, and I upped my campaign, finally ending with,

“If we’re staying in this house, we’re getting another dog. If we’re not getting another dog, then we’re selling the house and moving into a 55+ apartment. “

Hubby opted for the apartment.

Ok, so I pretty much let it go. I prefer my house, dog-less or otherwise.

But then, the SPCA posted puppy pictures – 6-month-old “hound/shepherd mix.” In our usual mid-morning telephone conversation (we both work), I idly mentioned seeing those photos and that it was too bad we were going into an apartment and couldn’t get one of those puppies.

A few minutes later, I received a text message: “Send me those puppy pictures.”

Now, we all know that when the SPCA gets puppies in, they get adopted really fast. On the spur of the moment, hubby and I agreed to meet at the SPCA and “just take a look.” Need I mention how fast I drove?

But before I left, I called the SPCA to verify the pups were still there and to find out if we were in their records from when we adopted our Morgan 13 years ago. The receptionist looked up my name and said, with a chill in her voice: “I see you surrendered a guinea pig?”

I patiently explained to her that, no, the guinea pig had died of old age at home, and I merely brought him in to be properly cremated, rather than simply bury him in our back yard where the dogs could dig him up. I then asked her to look up my husband’s name, and won’t wonders never cease, we were still on record. Thus saving us from having to fill out new paperwork if we wished to adopt.

Well, wouldn’t you know it – the pups, while absolutely gorgeous, turned out to be the size of ponies, and we didn’t want a dog that would top out at more than 50 lbs., having realized after our 90-lb German Shepherd that too large a dog might be too much now that we are older.

At that point, I figured I wasn’t meant to get a puppy after all.

But then, hubby began dropping hints that he might want another purebred German Shepherd, so a couple of days later I started calling breeders. No one had litters coming up, and the price ($1,000.00 or more) would really be pushing that household budget. What would happen if we paid that much for a dog and then had some major household emergency?

Just as I got off the phone with the last breeder, I glanced again at the SPCA web page – at that very moment, new puppy info was posted: 4-month-old “mixed German Shepherd” puppies! I called the husband, resulting in my leaving work immediately for an early lunch.

There were 4 puppies- 3 girls, 1 boy. In the 20 minutes it took me to get to the SPCA, one of the girls had already been adopted and was awaiting pick-up, and she was breathtakingly beautiful. The other pups were no slouches, either. I had my eye on the boy, and called my hubby – we had already agreed that I could make a decision if the size and breed were right, but I wanted to just touch base. You do that if you’re married, and especially if the hubby will ultimately be the one walking and picking up after the 50+-lb dog.

I had to walk outside to get good reception. And wouldn’t you know it – by the time I walked back in, another couple were in the process of adopting my little boy! The wife gave me that “Stay away from my dog” stare. Damn!

There were still 2 girls left, so I had the smaller one taken into a room where I could play with her, and where I could call hubby again. The intention was that if I didn’t like this one, I could then look at the remaining unadopted puppy.

But even while I was playing with my possible new puppy, a young man kept walking past the glass wall of the room where I was and eyeing the puppy I was playing with. He even went so far as to tap the glass and wave to the puppy. I now understood that evil stare from that other lady. I knew if I let “my” puppy out of my hands to check out her sister, both puppies would be adopted before I could say boo. So with my husband’s phone permission (sounds a little dirty, doesn’t it?), I paid to have a hold put on my new puppy so that hubby could come after work to see her for himself.

Good thing, too, ’cause while I was playing with my soon-to-be-adopted puppy, her sister was being adopted. I could have lost both dogs in the blink of an eye. Potential puppy owners are more aggressive than the dogs they’re adopting.

After work, my husband and I met at the SPCA again, and I was really worried he would hate the puppy. She is more Golden Retriever than German Shepherd, and she is slightly larger than we wanted – probably will top out at about 60 lbs. The puppy was brought into the viewing room, and seemed more hesitant than she was earlier, possibly because she had just spent the last 15 minutes puppy fighting with her sister. She whimpered when she saw her sister being taken down the hall.

But then, she came over and curled up against me, with her head near my heart – and when my husband spoke to her, she wagged her little tail just enough.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Cody at the SPCA

Meet Cody – the Golden-Shepherd. Never thought I’d wind up with a “designer breed”!

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I love to hear from my readers. You may comment on this post, comment on my Facebook page, or email me at cordeliasmom2012@yahoo.com

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Images by: Joey Rozier/mrjoro, and hugovk, and Cordelia’s Mom, respectively

Posted in Pets, Relationships, That's Life | Tagged Cody, dog, dogs, puppies, puppy, SPCA | 34 Comments

My Rules vs. The Neighbors’ Rules

Posted on February 20, 2014 by cordeliasmom2012

We all have rules we like to live by and hopefully they coincide with how others wish to live. Every community has its own local laws by which its citizens are [allegedly] bound.

On my street, however, it seems I’m the only one bound by ANYTHING. I go to work every day, pay my taxes, and try not to irritate those around me. Not true of everyone else, apparently.

Here are some of my neighbors’ rules. – bear in mind while reading them that I live in a decent suburban neighborhood:

The doggie leash law applies only to people who don’t have dogs. I actually had a neighbor tell me that the leash law did not apply to her because she had a SMALL dog. I checked the local statutes, and size of the animal is never once mentioned.

Mufflers are for other people’s cars. At least two of my neighbors have cars so loud it nearly causes a heart attack when they start up, and then they leave the vehicles running in the driveway for an extended period of time. Again, there are local, and maybe even state, laws regulating how loud a vehicle can be – but, of course, laws of any kind simply don’t apply to my neighbors.

Kids are to be heard, and heard, and HEARD – for at least 12 hours on any non-school day, no matter the weather, both in daylight and at night time. And, of course, there are to be NO ADULTS anywhere near the shrieking little princes and princesses. The adults are much too busy smoking cigarettes, drinking beer and watching TV, or leaving the kids alone while the adults run to the store for more cigarettes and beer.

There must be a trampoline in the yard, preferably right next to my fence. That way, I can be treated not only to the additional constant shrieking – and occasional crying when someone gets hurt – I can also experience the very real fear that the already-shaky fence will be knocked over when someone flies off the trampoline. And, of course, adults are not allowed to keep an eye on the kids.

No local laws concerning supervision of minors applies to the neighbors. I once had a neighbor whose 8-year-old son was a latchkey kid. While that is not allowed under local law, and of course it’s really not a great idea anyway, I tried to mind my own business. Until my husband came home early one day and discovered the little darling building a fire UNDER THE GAS METER at the neighbor’s house. The gas meter is all of about 10 feet from the side of our house. Police were called, and step-mommy had to come home and take charge.

While open fires may be prohibited by the fire code, that code does not apply to the neighbors. And, of course, said fires must be located in such a way that all the smoke therefrom flows directly into my house, thereby preventing me from opening any windows during spring, summer and fall.

If the neighbors have a pool, it must leak into my yard every, single year. Now, I have several neighbors with above-ground pools, and not all of them leak since some neighbors are actually considerate of others. However, at least two of my neighbors have consistently flooded my yard. Every year I have words with those neighbors, and every year they promise it will never happen again. Of course, neighbors LIE.

If pool water flooding my yard isn’t enough of an annoyance, then the neighbors must build an ICE RINK in the winter. Of course, the ice rink must be a slap-up job made with plywood and plastic, so that when filling it, nearly all the water floods into my yard, where it then freezes over, making it impossible for me to let my own dog (when I still had one), myself, or my family into the back yard. And of course, come warmer weather, the ice in the rink must melt and drain directly into my yard.

Local laws concerning flooding of other people’s property or noxious odors encroaching on other people’s property simply do not apply to the neighbors. See above.

I don’t want to leave you with the impression that I can’t get along with ANYONE – it’s just that I seem to have had more than my share of bad neighbors. This was brought home to me once when we were renting an apartment, and the obnoxious upstairs neighbor moved out – great relief to us! But several months later, we moved into a larger townhouse down the road – and guess who our new next-door neighbor turned out to be? Yep, the obnoxious former upstairs neighbor! At that point, I just figured God had it in for me somehow.

***

But there have been some wonderful people living near us.

There was the lady in the apartment next door who helped keep me calm while awaiting arrival of the police officer who could jimmy my apartment door and let me back in because I HAD LOCKED MYSELF OUTSIDE WITH THE BABY INSIDE when I stepped into the hallway to check the mail.

Years later, there was the elderly lady across the street that everyone loved, and who had no problem with one of my children running across to use her bathroom when ours was occupied by a family member who was having a “problem” (fortunately, that only happened once).

During Buffalo’s October Storm, when we were without power for a more than a week, there was a neighbor who willingly drove to the “nearest” functioning gas station to pick up gas for everyone’s generators. And this was a neighbor we weren’t particularly chummy with.

And of course, there are those neighbors who often help us out with snow removal during bad-ass WNY winters.

How about you, folks? Want to share your good neighbor/bad neighbor stories? Let me know – if they’re especially amusing or enlightening, I’ll be glad to post them.

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I love to hear from my readers. You may comment on this post, comment on my Facebook page, or email me at: cordeliasmom2012@yahoo.com

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Images by: Antti-Jussi Koralainen/dareppi, and One Way Stock, and Jennifer Rafieyan, respectively.

Posted in Relationships, That's Life | Tagged annoying people, bad neighbors, good neighbors, neighbors, rules | 21 Comments

More Lessons From the Land of Kickstarter

Posted on February 15, 2014 by cordeliasmom2012

Ever wonder how kickstarting works? I did. This lady’s artwork is awesome – check out her blog for both the panda and non-panda images. I especially like her paintings of “stuff” – one of which (“Nothing Overlooked”) she allowed me to use for my blog earlier this month.

Nothing Overlooked

Well, if you haven’t heard already, I am just over 48 hours into my thirdKickstarter project. I’m ready to publish my Pandum-Opus, Pandamorphosisat long last. This is a project I’ve been working on, off and on, for over four years, several of those years quite intensely. At last I think it’s ready, and apparently other people do too.

I decided to take a gamble this time, after listening to webinars, reading articles, and masterminding several other projects for some of the other Whidbey Island creatives, and only run my campaign for 16 days. (Cutting out the deadly second/third week lull.)

Pandas are yearning to spring forth!

Here’s some of what I learned from all these experiences, especially regarding the “crowd” from whom you are trying to get funding:

1. Be prepared. And by that I mean, don’t just start trying to make new friends in the week before your…

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Posted in That's Life | Tagged Anne Belov, Kickstarter, pandas | Leave a comment

The Day I Left My Husband

Posted on February 13, 2014 by cordeliasmom2012

The following was originally posted on Cordelia Calls It Quits and is reprinted here with Kelly Gurnett’s permission. I thought my new readers might enjoy it as much as those did who read it last year:

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THE DAY I LEFT MY HUSBAND

(An Unconventional Valentine’s Lesson)

Let me preface this post by saying that my husband and I have been together for more than 30 years and are closer now than ever. We have literally been through “for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.” My heart still skips a beat whenever he walks into a room unexpectedly. (Although if anyone tells him I said that, I will track that person down and yank out his or her tongue—there is enough male ego in my house already!).

But every marriage has its rough spots.

This is a story about one of ours, and what I came to learn from it.

The Build Up

Three young children, two busy jobs, working different shifts so as to avoid daycare…My in-laws (especially my mother-in-law) helped out during that crucial period between shifts when neither of us could watch the kids. Things were tight financially, but we were getting by. In fact, I had recently managed to buy my very own car in my very own name, thereby giving me an independence I never had before. I was making the bulk of the money, working 40+ hours a week as a legal secretary in a large law firm downtown.

I would come home exhausted and cranky. My kids had spent the day with either Dad or Grandma, both of whom they LOVED and both of whom (in my own mind) were much better at parenting than I was. I began to wonder how I ever got into this life (heck, I didn’t even like kids, at least not other peoples’ kids). My husband and I were going through a tough period, with lots of sniping and bickering (probably mostly my fault, in hindsight).

It didn’t help that Grandma would come to our house and clean it from top to bottom, sometimes even doing things like cleaning the baseboards behind the furniture. I felt like a piss-poor homemaker as well as a piss-poor mother. (It was years later that I finally realized Grandma was doing all that not to show me how bad my housekeeping was, but because she had herself been a divorced mother raising three kids and truly understood how hard it was. She was trying to help me out!)

The Break Up

It was a week or so before Thanksgiving. Stress levels were extremely high at our house. I don’t even remember, now, what the fight was about. (“Why did you…” / “I didn’t.” / “You DID.” / “I didn’t—YOU did—why did you…”)

Somehow we usually managed to keep our fights under control until after the kids were in bed, which made for some late evenings. This particular night, I had finally had ENOUGH. I didn’t need him, I didn’t need those three ungrateful brats (apologies, girls; of course I didn’t mean it), and I sure as hell did not need my husband’s mother interfering in my life. And I had my very own car in my very own name, so I didn’t HAVE to stay!

This was November in Buffalo, New York. Perhaps if the car hadn’t been parked in the garage and I would have had to brush the snow off it, I would have had time to cool off and re-think the situation. But it was kept in the garage, and our suburb was very good at keeping the streets clear of snow and ice.

So off I went.

I had no extra money and no credit cards, so I couldn’t go to a motel. My thought was that I would drive into my downtown office, where one of the partners had a couch. I would snooze on the couch until morning, get up before anyone else arrived, work a normal day, and then decide what I was going to do with my new freedom and my new life.

Even though I had grown up in Western New York, my winter driving skills were not 100%. (Did I mention that this was my very first car in my very own name?) While my suburb did a great job at snow removal, the city was a different story. Crossing the city line, I began to slip and slide a little, but I was DETERMINED.

I entered the infamous “S” curves—a twisty, bendy series of road that’s risky even in the best weather. There wasn’t a plow in sight, snow was accumulating on the roadway, and visibility was limited to the path cut by my own low-beam headlights (at least I knew enough not to use high beams in a snowstorm). My car skidded and did a 360° (no ABS or traction control back then). Fortunately, in the wee hours of the morning on a weeknight, no one else was silly enough to be heading into the city in a snow storm.

I got control, got through the curves, and pulled into the first parking lot I saw (just happened to be a liquor store—probably shoulda just stayed there for the night!). I sat, waiting for my nerves to calm and mulling over my situation.

So, which way do I go: forward or back? Totally new life, or repair the old life?

Thoughts flashed through my mind:

I almost DIED back there! My kids are little still and need their mommy. Is my husband really the right person to explain menstruation to three young females? I think not.

Just about then, a plow made its way past the parking lot, heading north to my suburb. (Trying to tell me something there, God?) I pulled out and followed the plow back through the “S” curves and back to the ’burbs.

We didn’t have cell phones then, so I pulled into another parking lot where there was a pay phone (anyone else remember those?). The conversation went something like this:

ME: I’m heading home. I’ll be there in a few minutes.

HIM: I’m not sure want you to come home

ME: Oh?

HIM: After you left, I called my mother.

ME: And?

HIM: She says I’m better off without you.

ME: Oooooh-kaaaay ….

HIM: But then I called YOUR mother.

ME: And?

HIM: She laughed and said you’re probably just blowing off steam. And she’ll call me if you turn up at her house.

Silence, while we both think about all of this. Finally:

ME: So, can I come home?

HIM: I guess.

The Re-Build

After making up that night, we never discussed The Incident. While we still had the usual marital spats, they no longer had the same sting. We both knew that if the situation ever got beyond our control, one of us might actually leave! And neither of us wanted that.

Our fights became spats, spats became disputes, disputes eventually became discussions. Sure, even after 30 years, we still occasionally snipe at each other, but it’s half-hearted, usually accompanied by one of those sly “gotcha” smiles, and almost always short-term.

The Moral

If there’s a lesson to be learned from this story, it is this: Relationships are hard! Whether they’re with spouses, children, in-laws, relatives, friends, coworkers, neighbors (did I leave anyone out?), you can never really know another person’s mind, and your view of another person is always colored by that secret place in your own mind that you tell no one else about.

All you can do is try your best to understand where someone else is coming from.

And talking things out is VITAL. So many times I have made a judgment call about another person, only to find out after talking to that person that he or she is not really all that different from me.

Yes, relationships need work if they are going to last—and relationships with loved ones often need more work than most. But, what I learned that snowy November night was that when all is said and done, it’s worth it.

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Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! If you have a significant other, give him or her a hug from me.

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I love to hear from my readers. You may comment on this post, comment on my Facebook page, or email me at: cordeliasmom2012@yahoo.com

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Images by: Alex R. Dixon, and Nicolas Raymond/Free Grunge Textures, and Loralen Li, and Kelly Teague/Jinx!, respectively.