At dawn I will be victorious

Today, I was going to blog about how much I hate myself. I was going to tell you that I hate myself so much that even blogging is impossible because to take the time to type a blog post requires that you like what you're writing (and yourself) even a little.

Then I read about Luciano Pavarotti's death. I knew he was sick and I knew he would die soon but it doesn't make it less sad.

I can put Nessun Dorma on repeat and listen to it a thousand times and STILL get chills when I hear his voice.

So, I'm bummed today.

What is the What?

I finished What is the What by Dave Eggers last night.

I am a big Dave Eggers fan. I make it a point to buy every book he writes so out of obligation, I picked up What is the What right after it was released. I had no idea what it was about but Eggers wrote it so I had to read it.

I was unprepared for what I learned. At times it became so painful for me that I had to put it down and move on to something else.
I came back to it Tuesday night and couldn't put it down.

From Amazon:

Valentino Achak Deng, real-life hero of this engrossing epic, was a refugee from the Sudanese civil war-the bloodbath before the current Darfur bloodbath-of the 1980s and 90s. In this fictionalized memoir, Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) makes him an icon of globalization. Separated from his family when Arab militia destroy his village, Valentino joins thousands of other "Lost Boys," beset by starvation, thirst and man-eating lions on their march to squalid refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, where Valentino pieces together a new life. He eventually reaches America, but finds his quest for safety, community and fulfillment in many ways even more difficult there than in the camps: he recalls, for instance, being robbed, beaten and held captive in his Atlanta apartment.

This guy was 6 years old when his village was attacked and he and thousands of other boys walked first to Ethiopia, then to Kenya.
What were you doing when you were six? Did you watch your friends and family die? Did you witness boys being eaten by lions or shot down by military helicopters. How about watching friends collapse from starvation, dehydration and disease?
Yeah, me neither.

You'd think that was enough but he grows up in a refugee camp where food was scarce, clothes were more valuable than gold and your safety wasn't guaranteed.
I thought it would be a happy ending in America, but here, he is victimized by a system who believes he is invisible and criminals who see him as an easy target.
It's almost too much to take but Valentino doesn't lose hope for long and somehow finds the strength to not only survive but to succeed and he shames me.

Seriously, read this book.....Cuz I told you so!

Crashing Memories

Tomorrow will be one year since Crash died. It seems like I've been without him a million years now.
I still miss him so much and think about him every single day.
I'm starting to get used to just having the two dogs but every so often I slip up and call one of them Crash and that makes me sad.

I sometimes say to myself "I wish he were still here." but I have to add to it, "I wish he were still here and healthy." He was sick for so long that I'd never wish for him to go through all of that again.
When he was healthy he was SO much fun.
Zoe is a very hyper, crazy dog but Crash was more laid back and more in tune with me.
He loved squeak toys. He's the only one that would play with them so every year at Christmas I got him one or two.
He would play with it for a while and then move on to another toy.
There is still a basket full of them in my living room. I can't bear to part with them yet.
He had two or three favorite toys; a red squeaky bone that my friend David brought when he came to visit 7 years ago, a purple tiny football with that sherpa/wool stuff wrapped around it and a really soft squeaky spider.
I discovered that Crash would fetch his toy exactly 5 times. After the fifth time, he wouldn't go after it. He'd look at you and go, "Ok, this isn't fun anymore."
No one would believe me that it was exactly five throws until David was here and he tested it out every single day for 3 or 4 days.

Crash also let you know he was out of water or food by flipping his bowl over. None of the other dogs would do this but Crash would sniff the bowl then take his paw and flip it.
It was really infuriating when the bowl wasn't completely empty.

Long before Piper came into our lives, Zoe and Crash stayed at my parents' house while I was at work.
Every morning, I would drive them to Mom and Dad's and every evening, I would pick them up.
Because of that, Mom and Dad became very close to them. My dad spoiled Crash horribly!
Crash would jump into my dad's recliner, climb into his arms and flip over on his back. Dad would hold him and rock him like a baby for hours.
I've never seen a dog who could sleep as long as Crash and he did a LOT of sleeping in my dad's arms.

One of my mom's favorite memories was when I brought Crash over to my sister's house for some family gathering. We were late so everyone was already there. We walked into a house full of people and for some reason, everyone was sitting either on the floor or on the couches.
Crash looked around and suddenly he spotted my mother. He picked her out of the crowd and RAN as hard as he could and jumped in her lap. She said that made her feel so special.

Later that same evening, he discovered my sister's dog's toy and he started playing with it.
He took turns taking it to different family members and letting them throw it.
He stopped at five.

Crash would also do what's called a "bichon blitz". This means, when the moment struck him, he would run like crazy through the house, stopping to lay his front paws on the floor with his back end up in the air and bark at the other dogs or imaginary foes.
And for some reason, Crash loved the bathtub. When he was in a blitzing mood..he would hop into the tub and run around in circles barking his head off.
I laughed each and every single time I saw him do that.
It never made any sense but maybe he just liked making me laugh.

I loved that I could take Crash anywhere. He was always well-mannered and usually just sat in my lap and took in the scenery.
Zoe is too hyper and Piper is too damn scared of everything.

I miss how soft his fur was...like cotton and I even miss his bad breath and the way he'd lick you RIGHT in the mouth when you weren't paying attention.

For Christmas last year, Lon bought me a James Avery dog bone charm and had "Crash" engraved on it.
I cried when I opened it and then it made HER cry.
It's my favorite charm and I love looking at it and remembering.

I don't know why I'm writing all of this. I guess I didn't want to write about his death anymore...I just wanted to remember how he lived.

Stardust

This would have been a quick read had I spent more time with it. In any case, I finally finished it today.
It was a fun fairy tale. I have to keep reminding myself: Fairy Tale.
The end was this weird rush of information to hurry and tie up all the loose ends. That kind of annoys me with some books but I overlook it in Stardust because of its (again) fairy tale/children's story qualities. (With the semi-graphic sex scene, I probably wouldn't recommend it to children, however.)

I would recommend it if you like fun stories.
I'll be interested to see the movie now.

Book Blogging

I've become obsessed with reading book blogs. That's all I've done for the last two days.

I came across this meme and thought it would be fun.
Feel free to steal it.

Look at the list of books below: * Bold the ones you’ve read * Mark in blue the ones you want to read * Cross out the ones that you wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole (or use red coloring) * Finally, italicize the ones you've never heard of. *

1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible (some/most but not all)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

I'm not going to cross anything off because when it comes to books, I never say never.

Where in the world am I?

So...you may have noticed I haven't been around much.
You may not have noticed at all.

I took a week of vacation to do some serious spring cleaning. I planned on cleaning out a scary closet, rearranging furniture, totally clean out my kitchen, getting rid of things I never use. I was going to shampoo the carpet, even.
How much of this did I get done?
I cleaned out half of the scary closet.
My week didn't turn out entirely like I planned. In fact, it was a nightmarish week.
I started out the weekend with helping my sister and her family move into their new house.
They built this beautiful home on the water (on a canal, really) and I helped organize boxes, unpack, etc.
On Monday, I went shopping for my cleaning supplies and garbage bags and got a new cell phone.

Tuesday, I started cleaning. I tackled that scary closet like there was no tomorrow.
I threw EVERYTHING away. Bags and bags and boxes and boxes of crap went down to the dumpster.
Let me just mention that I live on the second floor so each trip to the dumpster involved a flight of stairs. Let me also mention that it was 105 degrees...not including the heat index. (My sister's outside thermometer measured the heat index at 120 on that day.)

By 4pm, I was exhausted and disgustingly sweaty. I decided that was enough for the day so I showered and went over to visit my sister.
I woke up Wednesday and I couldn't move my neck. I guess with all that heavy lifting I pulled something.
I couldn't pick anything up or bend over without being in pain so I declared it laundry day.
I had bedding and old clothes that needed to be washed before it was donated.
Wednesday was also the day that the media descended on us. There was a terrible tropical storm headed our way. "Run for your lives!!!", they said.
My best friend was out of town and I was taking care of her pets. Her dogs were outside in their dog run and I was worried about them being in the storm so I called her and we devised a plan to get them inside and puppy proof the house. I made 4 or 5 trips to her house that day.
Typically, the storm didn't hit us. After the rains cycled through, life went back to normal.
Thursday, I tried to clean but my vacuum cleaner broke. By this time, I was fed up. Obviously, I wasn't going to get anything done and my vacation week was almost up. Screw spring cleaning!
I took the vacuum in for repair on Friday and spent the rest of the day driving around getting my expired license tag renewed and looking for a place to renew my expired inspection sticker.
Everyone was either SUPER busy or closed. Since when do inspection places close on Fridays?
Now, on Saturday is when my VACATION week gets nightmarish.
The vacuum repairman called that morning to tell me it was ready and that he closes early on Saturdays.
It was pouring down rain but I wanted to at least vacuum this weekend and I needed to check on my friend's dogs.
I threw on some clothes and my flip flops and left my apartment in the rain.
On the very first stair step, my feet slipped out from under me and it was as if the rest of it happened in slow motion. Suddenly, I was in the air. I had time to think "Oh shit. I hope no one sees this!" before I hit the second or third step. I must have thrown my arms out to catch myself but I just kept going. I hit two or three steps before I finally stopped.
The first thing I noticed was that my right thumb really hurt.
The second thing I noticed was that my ass was wet.
THEN I checked to see if anyone had seen this debacle. I looked around and miraculously, I was the only one outside.
I got up and walked the rest of the way down and got in my car like nothing happened.
When the horror of the moment started wearing off I realized I hurt in many different places.
My thumb was already started to swell and I realized I had a knot on the back of my calf from where I must have hit one of the steps. Of course, my ass was hurting pretty good, too.
Like a freaking trooper, I picked up my vacuum and headed to Lon's house to check on her pets.
Keep in mind that it was still raining. Mother Nature didn't stop her deluge just because I was in pain.
I guess I was in a bit of a hurry because the first step I took on Lon's porch had my foot slipping out from under me again and yes....yes ladies and gentlemen, I fell...AGAIN.
This time I fell on my right knee, bending my toe and smashing it into the hard concrete.
My arms instinctively flailed out to catch me but instead I scraped my hand across her brick and instantly, I started dripping blood everywhere.
I actually yelled out "Mother of GOD!!!!". How could this keep happening?
I realized then that it was my shoes. My $3.50 Old Navy rubber flip flops!
I got inside, grabbed a paper towel to staunch the blood flow, fed the dogs, bird and the fish and got the hell out of there.
I went home, took a shower and went back to bed and stayed there all freaking day.
It was just too dangerous for me to go out.

Today, I'm in terrible pain. I must have jarred my back and neck pretty well because I'm in pain from my toes to the top of my head. I am bruised all over my body and I broke my right big toenail and messed up my new pedicure.
In short, I am a fucked-up mess.

I can't tell you how glad I am to be back at work today.
I need a vacation from my vacation.

Hurricane Schmurricane

I guess it was about Wednesday or Thursday when the media started talking about Hurricane Dean.
They were predicting it hitting the Texas coast by Tuesday at a Category 4 or 5.
I checked the NOAA website and the "cone of doom" did include Texas but it was just too far out to know.
That doesn't matter to our local media. They screamed out their usual "We're all gonna die!" and got the local governments all worked up. The mayor of Galveston held a press conference and the smaller city governments were meeting to devise evacuation plans.
I was just sitting at home, shaking my head. This is all so ridiculous.

I evacuated for Rita two years ago and I swore then that I wouldn't do it again.
I wasn't going to leave for Dean and better yet, Dean wasn't coming here!

On Thursday, there wasn't a piece of plywood to be found in Galveston County. I passed truck after truck full of plywood.
I went to the grocery store on Friday and people were racing through grabbing case after case of water and canned goods.
I bought a 24 pack of water, not because I was stocking up, but because I was out of bottled water at home.
The cashier saw it and said "Only one?". I said "Yeah. I'm not stocking up. As a matter of fact," I jabbed my finger in his direction, "I'm boycotting this hurricane. I'm not going to fall for the media scare tactics. This hurricane isn't coming and I'm not even going to prepare for it!"
I realized that I sounded nuts but it was too late. The words were already out of my mouth and the 16 year old kid was staring at me like I had two heads.

I don't care because, guess what? I was right. Take a look at Dean.

Now, what are all these people going to do with their plywood and water?