Saturday Was a Bad, Bad Day

I don't know how to say this.

I guess l'll start by telling what happened.

Sophia bit one of our new neighbors. Hard. Hard enough to break skin on the back of her thigh and on her right hand.

It scared the shit out of her. And us.

Becky, this new neighbor, has been amazingly understanding and gracious. Thankfully she's a dog lover. But she did have to report the dog bite to the local authorities, and rightly so.

The upshot of all of this is that the sheriff's office and the veterinarian who we had to take Sophia to be examined by both recommended that we put Sophia to sleep.

The ASPCA won't take her because of her age and this biting incident.

We can't place her with anyone else because, honestly, most of you know her history, if she wasn't going to be able to make it with us, she is not going to be able to make it with anyone else.

And to be perfectly honest? She's getting old, she's getting edgier, and while we believe in our hearts that she would never inflict severe damage on anyone, we don't KNOW that for sure.

We are going to be having too many children in this house. People and kids walk through our property on a regular basis to get from one subdivision to the next. We can't take any more chances.

We have to put her down.

This is very hard. Looking her in her eyes makes me weep. I try to console myself by saying that we're freeing her to go on to the next good thing in her existence.

After all we've been through together, I hate that it's come to this.

Please send our Sophia Fish good wishes

Friends in the City

Went to see 'Sex in the City' tonight with the hilarious woman, Amy, I
met at one of the business mixers and some of her neighbor friends.

They were all very nice, I really like Amy a lot, but they just
weren't you guys. Tonight was the first time I asked myself if we've
made some huge mistake by moving out here. The feeling of missing you
all is very visceral right this moment.

I miss our shorthand, I miss swearing like a truck driver, I miss our
culture of closeness and laughter. I miss us meeting for Thai,
Japanese, Italian, Korean, French, Vegan, Southern food.

I miss drinking in our backyard. I miss watching Max run away from all
of you when I wanted him to hug you ( ok, he does that here, too), I
miss him having the opportunity to see you all so often, all of you,
the best representations of what I know good people to be.

I really miss you my friends in the city.

Lordy. This blows.

A Night Without McNulty

It's actually two, and I'm like one of the addicts on the show jonesing for more.

It's official. I'm hooked on The Wire.

Robert and I decided to forego getting satellite or cable out here and decided to go with Netflix so we watch what we actually really want to watch instead of remote surfing endlessly.

The Wire was one of the first shows we wanted to see because we'd heard so much about it... and we're really enjoying it.

My goodness, that Dominic West is some kind of HOT! I didn't used to think so, when I saw him in 28 Days and then that Julianne Moore movie that was so completely stupid and forgettable that I can't even remember the name of it, nor be bothered to look it up, he was just kind of scuzzy. But he's delicious in The Wire. Sigh. More McNulty tomorrow night.

Okay, back to reality... this is for Tobes especially since she asked for more frequent posts. : )

This week has been a lot of going to Chicago, which makes me feel slightly ill every time I get in the car what with the cost of gasoline. I want to take the train more often, but since time is so much of the essence for me, I've got to try to make my trips as quickly as I can. Thus the driving. Blech.

On the brighter side. At least I've got stuff to audition for... I just need to book one of these bad boys... gotta keep the insurance comin' in!

Our house is almost done. And I swear, when it is, I'm going to post a lovely video tour so everyone can see it. Robert's almost finished the floor trim and then we have to do the kitchen backsplash, and then we're finito!

Max spent his first night over at his cousins' home in Madison last night. Little booger. He is getting so dang big... As soon as I download the pictures from my phone I'll post some... he wants to grow his hair long like a girl's he says.

I told him to go for it. I warned him that some people might mistake him for a girl, and that a few ignorant people might even go so far as to make fun of him for it, and he was cool with that. I don't worry about him caring about what other people think. That kid's got a mind of his own and he is not afraid of letting everyone know how he feels... wonder where he got that from?

Robert just pulled into the garage with the monkeys, gonna jump before they start flinging poo. Love you guys!

My Favorite Book

... is usually the one I'm reading right now. Although I should say, more accurately since this is the case, the one I just finished reading.

Let me just say this. Holy Christ. Cormac McCarthy is a fucking genius.

I got The Road from the library yesterday... I'd forgotten my list of books to read at home, so I got on the net to find Pulitzer Prize-winning books (it's a goal of mine to read everything winning that prize for fiction), and the first novel the library actually had was that one.

Lucky me.

A lot of the time lately I've been wondering if I've become too jaded with reading or desensitized to fiction somehow, like people say can happen if you are exposed to too much violence. I thought perhaps I've been expecting too much from my books. For example, a lot of what I've read lately starts out amazingly, but then peters out towards the end. Or, I find a book is good, but ultimately I want MORE.

Well, I got MORE with The Road.

This book is an amazing exploration of love, living, and dying. McCarthy's language is perfectly concise, not one single extraneous word, and he manages to jam-pack this brevity with breath-taking suspense, aching existentialism, and ultimately, unquenchable hope.

If you're a parent and you pick up this book, give yourself time and space to process it. It will break your heart. If you're not a parent and you pick up this book, give yourself time and space to process it. It will break your heart.

The Road is spectacular.

"F" the Tornado

Yup. Got another one for the annals of the Douglas/ Jarzen quest for sweet slumber.

Many of you already know about what happened when we experienced the Northridge earthquake in '94. (God, I feel like a toothless gramma talking about way back when) Anyways, for those of you less familiar, basically after the really big one hit, Robert and I figured that it couldn't have been that bad, so we unplugged our phone in anticipation of all the calls we expected to get, and concluded that all those concerned about us would see on the news that it was no big deal. And then we promptly went back to bed and slept through all the subsequent after-shocks, our unplugged phone causing no end of consternation to our loved ones who worried about our stupid asses.

Well, today, after a yummy thai lunch and a fruitless quest to find tomato cages at Menard's, we came home, and surprise, surprise, decided it was an excellent time to take a nap. (The kids are at my parents' place for the night) After I put in my earplugs (still haven't gotten used to sleeping without them after all of Max's nighttime noisiness) I registered some sound and looked over at Robert who'd sat up to listen more closely. He looked like the Victrola dog. (I realize that I have dated myself yet again)

On the verge of embracing blessed sleep, I told him it was just trucks across the way doing construction at our neighbor's house. Robert said something, but I ignored him completely, figuring if it was important, he'd tell me after I'd woken up.

About a half hour later, I woke up refreshed when Robert got out of bed. As I pulled out my ear stoppers, the sound started up again, and I realized the air raid sirens were sounding. I turned to Robert, and said, "Holy shit! Those are tornado warnings!!!" He said, "I thought so, but you seemed so sure, I thought you knew what you were talking about."

Allow me to take a moment and say that NEVER in the 16 years that I grew up in Wisconsin were the warning sirens EVER activated in this area. I really never expected to hear them.

Needless to say we high-tailed it down to the basement where I called my parents to make sure that they were okay and that they and the kids were downstairs, where, of course, they were.

We're listening to the news in the background and roofs are being torn off of buildings and they're telling a town about 20 miles north of us to get the hell out of Dodge. Winds are at 80 mph and there have been tornado touch-downs.

Let this stand as a warning. Don't try to get between me and my sleep. I've defied earthquakes and tornadoes, and I'll ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz