I no longer listen to what people say, I just watch what they do. Behavior never lies.
Winston Churchill
And it’s done! I filed for divorce today. It was a mixed bag of emotions; there was a lingering sentiment and wistful reminiscing about the life I had, but those feelings were buttressed up against the excitement and anticipation about the life I’m going to have.
There’s not much more I have to say about today.
… When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
Dylan Thomas “And Death Shall Have No Dominion”
They shall have stars at elbow and foot
One year ago today was one of the hardest days of my life. June 20, 2018, was the day I had to say goodbye to a little black Pug that my ex and I had rescued back in 2010. Looking back, I had no idea how this little girl, weighing in at around 24 lbs., who constantly wheezed, snorted, and farted because the Pug breed is brachycephalic, a fancy word for saying they have short snouts, would come steal my heart.
Ms. Pickles was going in for a routine teeth cleaning, but the intubation tube irritated her trachea causing it to swell and not allowing Pickles to breath when the tube was removed. I was in Moses Lake when I got the call that Pickles was unable to breath without being intubated. I dropped everything and left work and drove the 2 1/2 hours to Winthrop to the veterinary clinic where I was able to say my goodbyes and hold my little girl while she was put to sleep. Me ex and I took her home and buried her in our back yard.
Fast forward to today. So much has changed over the last 365 days, but my love for my little girl has not waned and the hole her passing has left in my heart is still there and will probably always be there. There are times in our lives that we have dogs and then are times when we have a “dog”. Ms. Pickles was definitely the latter. She had so much personality and character; it was like having a two-year old around. She was also a stinker and moody, again just like a two-year old, but I loved her to bits.
To my little Miss Pickles, you passed over the rainbow bridge a year ago today, but there are those still here on this mortal coil that love and miss you. It was a blessing to have you in my life and it is my hope that one day we will be reunited and you’ll take your place on the left armrest.
So…yeah…I bought a new car, a 2019 Subaru Crosstrek Limited. I had been working with a couple of dealerships here in Washington State, but ended up buying my car from a dealership in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and took delivery last night around 7:00 PM. The GM was good enough to meet me halfway in Davenport, cutting my drive time down by half since I was coming from an all day training in Wenatchee.
I hadn’t planned on buying a new car, but circumstances made it more attractive to buy a new car rather than pony up $10K for the car I had been driving – not to mention having the additional privilege of paying another $1K to have the title transfered to my name.
In the light of eternity.
In lucem aeternitatis.
I’ll be 50 in less than two months and in less than two weeks I’ll be completely moved out of what has been my home for the past five years.
I never conceived that my 10-year relationship would end essentially via stream-of-consciousness, rambling text messages two months ago, or that the person who meant more to me than anyone else in the world would sit across from me at our dining table, and tell me on a late Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago that he hadn’t been in love with me for years.
My question is, “why did he stay with me?” We both know the reasons why; he needed me to gain legal entry into this country and once he got his 10-year Green Card, he couldn’t even wait a month to break-up with me. I know that this was a blessing in disguise; I am so much better off not having a person like him in my life. A friend of mine told me that all you need to know about a person’s character is by what they do when they have the means and the mode to do something to another person and they do it. That was exactly what happened to me.
I’m not going to dwell on this person, or the life we shared; suffice it to say this has been a learning experience for me and I will spend this time focusing on myself and fashioning the life I want to live.
This coming Friday I will file for divorce. I’ll spend this weekend packing up and staging my belongings for the moving truck in July, and hopefully, I’ll be able to close this chapter on my life soon.
(v.) to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague desination.
It’s been well over six months since my last post. This site was intended to be the anchor for me to continue my web development lessons, but alas, life found a way to distract me, and, once again, I’ll slowly attempt to carve out a sliver of time from each day to “journal”.
2018 Turned out to be a year of loss. Tiago and I said goodby to two of our fur-children, Pickles, our black Pug, and Little Miss, our black Brussels Griffon. Pickles we got from a friend of my cousin, and Little Miss I got back in July of ’09, about four months before I met my future husband. I also lost my Aunt, albeit she passed on New Year’s day, she’d suffered a heart attack (or stroke) on Christmas day. I wasn’t close to her, we had a falling out back in ’91 and I had only seen her once in the course of the last 28 years, but I have fond memories from my childhood when I used to stay at her place when I went to St. Mary’s Indian Mission outside of Omak back in ’76 and ’77. She had a lot of anger in this life and I hope she finds peace in the next.
I’ll attempt to be more prolific in posting; I need to dedicate more time to my web ed and keeping a WordPress page seems to be one of the best avenues with which to hone one’s skills. Hopefully, 2019 was be a banquet year for self rumination. 😉
The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention – John Burroughs
You know when you don’t have a Pug around anymore. There’s a quiet unease from the absence of their labored breathing, their snorts, their sneezes, their farts, and the clacking sound their claws make from their peculiar gait. Something had to be done.
Along came a breeder in Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho, who just so happened to have a litter of Pug puppies ready for their new homes and one of their Pugs was a black female.
I told Tiago that I was taking my mom to Spokane for a doctor’s appointment, but instead dad and I drove the 4 hours to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to pick up the newest addition to our family.
I was a little worried about how Tiago would react; he was adamant that we wait a couple of years before getting another Pug. I disagreed and felt that we needed a little Pug ASAP. Not in the hopes of replacing what we had with Ms. Pickles, but because we’ve been a Pug family and we needed to remain a Pug family. In order to do that, one needs to have a Pug. Common sense to me. Thank God, it wasn’t too hard of a sell for my spouse.
Now’s the slow process of adapting to life with a puppy. We just got done with Django’s first year and that was challenging, especially for our shoes! This little girl’s not going to be any exception; she has razor sharp teeth and knows how to use them. She’s got a great personality and seems to have fit in with our “pack” seamlessly.
Last Wednesday, June 20, 2018, our little Pug, Ms. Pickles, had to be put down due to complications from a routine teeth cleaning. This came as a complete shock to both myself and Tiago and we’re learning to navigate our way without our little girl.
Even though we still have four dogs, there are dogs and then their are “dogs”. Pickles was in the latter category. She was a force unto herself and when she came into our lives back on December 10, 2010, we had no idea what we were getting into.
Tiago and I moved from Seattle to the Methow Valley on Halloween day 2010. We moved into a house in Carlton and slowly began to fashion a life for ourselves. My cousin, Marie, told us about a Pug that needed a good home. Apparently, this Pug was a real terror; she was an alpha and couldn’t get along with other dogs and the owner couldn’t keep her. We said we’d take her and drove over to Omak to meet the guy that had her.
This is the first picture we took of Ms. Pickles on the ride home after picking her up. She immediately fell asleep on my lap. Tiago and I were a little taken aback by how noisy she was. Pugs are a brachycephalic, short-nosed breed, and often have breathing problems. Pickles had more problems than most since her face was far more “flat” than most Pugs. That first night we couldn’t sleep because of all the noise she made. Gradually, we became unaware of how noisy she was and we settled into life with a Pug – Pug owners will know what we mean.
Pickles was an extremely smart dog. She was also very stubborn as well as demanding. You couldn’t sit down without her demanding to be right next to you, or on you, you had to simply give in and let her do what she wanted.
Ms. Pickles was with us for 7 1/2 years, the entire time we’ve lived in the Methow. She was with us when we moved from Carlton to Edelweiss and lived there for three years and she was with us when we bought our house in Winthrop and moved in the late summer of 2014.
There was a rhythm to our life. Get up, let the dogs out to go potty, go to work, come home and enjoy our time with the menagerie, go to bed, repeat. Our our fur-kids, but especially Pickles, had to be right next to her humans AT ALL TIMES.
Pickles was always a grump getting up in the mornings and often had to be taken out of her kennel to to potty.
Often times, the first thing she would do is drink some water.
Ms. Pickles was a very affectionate dog; she gave us so much love and we loved her in return. I’m thankful that for the years she was in our lives we did our best to give her a good home.
We were fortunate enough to both be there when Ms. Pickles left us, but it was one the hardest days of our lives. Ms. Pickles, wherever you are, thank you for being a part of my life; you brought me so much happiness and joy that I wouldn’t trade anything for and I will always love you. XOXO
I just learned that someone who was an important part of my life back in the late ’90s died last January. Even though it’s been close to 19 years since I last saw him, he always made me smile and I considered him a friend.
When I first me Stephen Bertrand Kittrell (1956-2018) he lived in a one-bedroom apartment a block off Alki in Seattle. We met at a coffee shop called “My Friends” back in 1995 and became fast friends. What I remember most about Steve was his rapier (and often vicious) wit and humor. When I came to his small apartment for the first time it was decked out in antiques and artwork hinting at a privileged upbringing, which he said he had. Steve said his family had fallen on hard times after the oil crash hit Texas hardest in the ’80s and these were all the possessions he had from his past life. One thing I remember in particular was a large pastel drawing that hung in his dining room/living room; it was a portrait of Marie Antoinette dressed as the goddess Athena…or Diana, I can’t remember. Steve claimed this picture once hung in Versailles.
Steve died in hospice care on January 31, 2018. I Googled his name and what I found was his last years were that of a troubled man. I don’t know what happened to Steve. I don’t know if he hurt those he loved. I knew Steve struggled with addiction back in the ’90s and that was one of the reasons we grew apart.
What I remember most about Steve was his charm, his self-depracting humor, and a marrow-deep sadness he hid well most of the time. We were friends for many years and as I got to know Steve I also was privileged to see his vulnerable side and he was a man that battled a lot of demons and who had endured a lot of grief.
Steve loved the over-the-top love tragedies of operas like La Traviatta and La Bohème and there was a book that he loved to quote ALL the time, so much so, that I can almost recite verbatim one passage in particular over 20 years later:
“It’s a bright, sunny day in Dallas and I’m happy to be wearing my pink Channel suit and matching pill box hat. I pause for a moment to put on my kid skin gloves to protect my hands from the thorns on these beautiful red roses. But we better hurry, we don’t want to be late, we have a date with destiny.”
Steve, my friend, whereever you are, thank you for your friendship and I hope you and the man you loved are together again and the difficulties you endured in this life have been washed away. You were always the consummate gentleman with me.
Boo and I got up early today to drive up and hike Maple Pass. The hike was just shy of 9 miles, but it’s one of the most spectacular hikes one can undertake.
There was a lot of snow at the top of the summit. I think we’ll wait another month before hiking it again.
What a weekend! Boo and I met our friends Mark and Gary in Vancouver, British Columbia, for the weekend. We booked a room at the Skwachàys Lodge. It’s an aboriginal arts hotel skirting in old town Vancouver. While the neighborhood itself was less than desirable, we enjoyed out stay. My only real criticism about the hotel was that it’s actually a mixed-used building; several of the floors are apartments and only a couple floors appear to be reserved as “hotel” rooms.
Gastown was only a block away and we ended up taking a nice stroll through the neighborhood, stopping at a French bistro for drinks and hors d’oeuvres.
After a wonderful evening out with our friends, we embarked to Point Grey to go to the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology. Anyone that knows me knows that I’m a HUGE Northwest Coast Indian art buff. We have two serigraphs by Bill Reid and one by Susan Point (both artists’ works were prominently displayed at the museum).
The museum also had an exhibit on South American artifacts. I had Tiago pose in front of a feather headdress – who knows, perhaps one of his predecessors in the Brazilian Amazon wore something similar. 😉
We finished our exploration with a little siesta in the hammock display.
