Snapshot

The kids next door are playing out back with open hearted sincerity, literally choking on their laughter as they run in clumsy loops. There is pride in the laughter too; a certain self-satifaction at having mastered humor, junior class. Their jib jabber is guaranteed inscrutable to anyone over 4 feet. 

I can’t see them from inside where I’m cleaning the kitchen, but I hear it when their laughter turns into a group cheer. “FLUPPY!!!!!” they shriek and I peer out the window to see Fluppy happily standing up against the chain link to say hi. We periodically hand boxes of treats over the fence so the kids can throw them to the dogs when they’re out there. It’s become impossible to tell whether the kids are more enamoured of the dogs or the dogs of the kids. This feels right, almost prehistorically so.

Fluppy comes loping back into the kitchen. I toss her a treat from the jar. The kitchen’s clean; time to move on to the rest of the house. 

Somewhere outside Manhattan, Kansas

We are hip deep in Heartworm Treatment Territory at 504 Sheraton these days, and lo, they are long days. June 27th cannot come soon enough.  Keeping a young dog on “bed rest” for 10 weeks is the experiential equvalent of driving across the entire state of Kansas with a three year old child strapped in the back seat. THERE IS NO WINNING. There is only surviving.

Things Columbo likes to do:

• run
• jump*
• gambol
• wrestle
• monitor the fenceline for intruders
• bark at shit
• eat (anything)

Things Columbo is allowed to do:

• eat (dog food)
• sleep

It is a festival of FAIL at our house these days, and there’s really not that much we can do about it. Lord knows I’d be gnawing on the upholstery too if I had no forebrain and was being kept indoors 23 1/2 hours a day, every day.

So far he’s done very little actual damage - lucky for us he seems to enjoy gumming more than ripping and shredding. 

 

 

*Columbo is a boxer mix, and he jumps up and down JUST LIKE THIS:

 

 

 

 

 

Free Booze and Cookies? Sign me up!

Thanks for all the comments on yesterday’s post. What I got from that overall is that, if I play my cards right, I can actually get free booze and cookies just for donating money that I wanted to donate anyway. You guys are smart!

Seriously, though, that post was not there to activate any sort of comparisoning or guilt complexing. I spend 99.99% of the money I have access to on me, me, me. I buy shit don’t need all the time just because it makes me happy, and I’m not going to apologize for putting my own happiness first - I’m a better person when I’m happy. Better as in able to give without feeling superior to other people or sorry for myself.  My secret hope is that I will be able to hang on to the happiness and give up more of the stuff, but who the Hell knows if I’ll get there.

So how do you decide who to donate to?

As we’ve grown older and hopefully wiser, Cristian and I have made it more of a priority to live in accordance with certain principles that we’ve identified as important to us.  We noticed an increase in these types of concerns around about the time we moved in together - who knows why, in his case I think most of the time he’s either trying to save money or show me up, but I can’t really SAY that when he’s arguing passionately to turn the thermostat up to 82 for the summer*.

There’s an interesting essay here that touches on the point that loving another person intimately should also affirm or awaken a more general “love for humanity” within each partner. I do think that, for me, this is definitely a major factor in my new willingness - eagerness - to give.   I am literally the very, very last person on Earth who can claim love for the masses - and if you doubt that, please let me know and I’ll invite you along on my morning commute - but I do feel rich enough right now, in all senses of the word, to want to live well, to live more lightly on the planet and to provide assistance and support to people who need it**.

But. We don’t make THAT much money. Ideally, we’d tithe 10% of our total income, but right now we can barely do 5. And who the Hell do we give it to? Conversation at our house last night was just ABSURD:

Cristian: There’s Safeplace. We could always give to them.

Dana: Yeah, but it’s easy for battered women to attract money***. Maybe we should do Planned Parenthood, since they’re more controversial?

Cristian: Planned Parenthood’s a good one.

Dana: Yeah, and birth control has gotten more expensive for them, I think I read that somewhere…

Cristian: But if that’s our health donation, maybe I would rather have it go to an international org?

Dana: Good point, good point.

Cristian: Like Doctors Without Borders?

Dana: Oh my God, that’s a really good one. That’s so important.

Cristian: But Planned Parenthood is important too.

Dana: Oh, and I wanted to mention the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. They’re incredible, what they’ve accomplished, and it would make me happy to do something on behalf of Dad.

Cristian: Uuuuuhhhhh. This is impossible.

Dana:  Either honor Dad and fight a cancer that eats you up from inside your own bones, or support doctors who are flying in to provide medical care to people in war torn countries…..which, I have to say, Dad would not be against.

Cristian: Should we wait on this one, try to move on?

Dana: Maybe Planned Parenthood could go under….environmental? Since they’re, uh, helping control the birth rate?

Cristian: No, no, we already decided that one. We’re doing American Farmland Trust.

Dana: We did?

Cristian: I thought we did.

 

So, I am turning to my readers. How do you decide who to donate to? Do you donate just a little to a lot of places? A lot to one or two? Wait until you’re asked by friends or family doing fundraisers? Advice, suggestions, feedback welcome.

 

*We settled on 80.  I suspect that’s what he was going for in the first place, but  I will overlook the deliberate manipulation and instead focus on how hard he has to strategize and work for the compromise…..

**I sound like Pollyanna’s codependent sister here, right? I have a lot of friends and coworkers who did not need to land a good boyfriend/girlfriend to become mindful of their place on the planet, and they have my respect and admiration. And I know a lot of people in relationships who don’t worry about the welfare of the rest of humanity - they take good care of each other, and that’s enough. They have my respect and admiration, too. The take away for me is that, for the first time, it’s pretty painless to give my time and money away.  Thanks to my relationship with Cristian, I  can act out of a place of love, not guilt. In my opinion, guilt is never a reason to ever do anything, unless you’re making specifics amends to a specific person.

***Now I sound like Pollyanna’s cynical bitch of an Aunt. I worked for a domestic violence shelter back in the day. They do need money, but the creepy, creepy truth is, a beaten woman attracts more sympathy than a poor one. Draw whatever cultural meaning you may……………….

Rest in Peace, Mildred Loving

“Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”

 

If it hadn’t been for the dedication of people like the Lovings, relationships like Cristian’s and mine would face the level of disrespect and harrassment that queers of all stripes face right now. I do believe that someday,  under our Constitution, the freedom to marry or not marry any person, regardless of gender, will reside with the individual, beyond the infringement of the State. 

 

 

He’s Got Bette Davis Eyes

 

Whoa, Nellie

For All The Ladies In The World

I see it as a long term investment

Cristian: Dana, what is this?

Dana: Oh. Um. Yeah, that’s like a treat thing I got for the dogs.

Cristian: It looks like a can of Easy Cheese.

Dana: Well, it’s the same idea.

Cristian: Except it says “Liver Pate” on the side.

Dana: Well, yeah, the guy at the store said that was the flavor his dogs like best.

Cristian: How much did this cost?

Dana: Before I tell you, can I please explain how it relates to my dog training philosophy?

Cristian: No, seriously, how much did it cost?

Dana: See, I want to teach Columbo what he can and can’t chew on, and so the things I give him to chew on need to be really, really exciting and yummy so that he’s rewarded for using them.

Cristian: How much did it cost?

Dana: We’ll save money in the long run when he doesn’t eat our shoes!!!!!

Cristian: You scraped the price tag off on purpose, didn’t you?

Dana: Ok, Ok. Ten dollars.

Cristian: Ten dollars?! 

Dana:  You only need a teaspoon at a time!! It’s good for his coat!

Cristian: We’re eating rice and beans and the dogs are eating liver pate.

Dana: That’s only sort of true.

The Malan-Villalobos Home for Needy Pets

Sorry for not posting for so long.

I’ve been embroiled in this dear-God-I’m-becoming-one-of-those-kinds-of-people dog rescue situation, and I didn’t want to post until I was certain of the outcome.

Long story short:

1. Cristian and I decide to take Fluppy for an evening stroll.
2. A sad, sad man stops us as we’re walking and asks if we’ve seen his lost dog. He has a flyer with her name and picture on it. He is so, so sad.  We solemnly promise to keep a lookout. I clutch Fluppy’s leash just a little bit tighter.
3. 20 seconds after the man drives off, a dog runs across the street ahead of us.  This dog looks a lot like the dog on the flyer. A whole Hell of a lot. “Belle!” we call, giddy with do-goodery, “Belle, come here!” 
4. The dog runs right over, thrilled to be greeted in a friendly fashion.
5. Upon inspection, there is no way this dog is Belle.
6. I mean, he has giant testicles, for one thing.
7. What we’ve done is, we’ve called a stray dog over to us. A needy, skinny mutt. With mangy fur.
8. At least he’s friendly.  He practically tap dances alongside as we make our way back home.
9. We lure him into our backyard and close up the gate. Fluppy is pretty much OMGWTF at this point.  She wants us to know that she can tap dance too, that she is the Ann Miller of tap dancing dogs, that there is no way we could ever do any better.
10. A heartfelt conversation is had between the primates of the household. The primates decide to take Lil NoName into Austin’s animal shelter, and adopt him only if it comes down to either us or the executioner’s chair.
11. A week passes. NoName has oodles of charm and a handsome mug, but so do 300 other dogs at the pound.
12. Perhaps his complicating medical factors are what turn potential adopters away? He has heartworms, mange, and a respiratory infection.
13. No one else steps up to bat, so Cristian goes off to the shelter to bail sweet lil NoName out, while I work overtime in anticipation of some hefty vet bills.
14. NoName is NoName no more.  Columbo Malan Villalobos becomes the fifth, and final, resident at 504 Sheraton Ave.

How do we get ourselves into these situations? Picture to come, I promise.