Valentine

Last night we had to unexpectedly put our beloved goofy dog Valentine to sleep. The night before last, I was up most of the night with her, but she wasn't in pain -- just acting weird and restless. Early Friday morning, I had to take Henry to get his wisdom teeth removed, and when we got home in the afternoon, Valentine was still acting weird, and her stomach was distended. I took her to the vet in the early evening and learned that her stomach had twisted or turned or distended, that surgery might be the only option with little guarantee that she'd make it through. It was so shocking and fast. I called Oliver, and he came over to the vet's office to be with her. She was really Oliver's dog. He was barely three years old when we got her.

We are so very sad.

We got Valentine as a puppy when she was six months old. She was fourteen in April and lived a long, extremely healthy life. She might have been the happiest, goofiest dog in the universe. We called her a love whore. Everyone who met her would say, "Valentine really loves me!" We didn't have the heart to tell them that she really loved everyone. She loved the Oliver the most, though.

Not much more to say than that. Or this:

Happy 420 Day and Tales from the Vet

I've been talking about marijuana/cannabis for well over five years now, right here on the old a moon, worn as if it had been a shell. If you go over to the Looking for Something? search bar on the right-hand side of the blog and put in the words medical marijuana, cannabis, you'll pull up posts from 2008, even, when I first started reading about marijuana and pondered smoking it myself and blowing it in Sophie's face. There are posts documenting my walks up and down Melrose Avenue, looking for a pot doc to give me a medical marijuana card, posts documenting my resignation at being on a waiting list for Charlotte's Web, posts about my jubilation coming off the waiting list (one of the first 20 or so in California back in 2013), posts about our great gratitude for its success in giving Sophie the first real seizure relief in her life and, of course, numerous posts where I wrote -- or rather ranted -- against and about The Powers That Be in all the shapes they took, whether it was a doctor, a head of a non-profit foundation, a pharmaceutical company, a legislator -- even a relative or two -- who basically threw obstacles in our (and many other families') path.

Take a moment, if you have one, and put those words in the search bar just for me.

If you don't have a moment or are tired of me, please at least read the two links below, one a blog post from four years ago and the other an article that appeared in an investor paper this week.

Fight the Power.

GW Pharma Spikes on Likelihood FDA Will OK Cannabis-Based Med

I'm only saying this because it seems like not a single moment goes by in the day that I don't run across something cannabis/marijuana related, and it's all about the tide turning, the evolution of seemingly intractable folks in power, the swaying of public opinion and on and on and it just makes me feel all -- I don't know -- sad? Angry? Bitter?

Yesterday, I watched a bit of a live Facebook thing with old Bernie Sanders and young Cory Booker, touting some bill that is being introduced to Congress, and while I deeply admire Senator Booker for his progressive views, his eloquence and general decency,  I'm cognizant of his formidable obeisance to Big Pharma and it just makes me -- well -- sad. Angry. Bitter. I don't have anything to say about Senator Sanders, other than he appears to be still working doggedly for the people which is a good thing, but I'm tired of the dogged white man thing, and I'm not sorry about that, especially given the racial component of the whole marijuana legalization thing but that's a whole other story.

In the end, it's all about the money, isn't it?

What do I know? Not shit, apparently.

Scratch that whole post up there.

Read this article, now.

Let me tell you about what happened at the vet the other day when I brought our 14 year old poodle Valentine in for a general check-up. Valentine is still remarkably perky despite her many years, but she clearly suffers from arthritis and has lately also been needing to go outside about a million times a night and seems -- overall -- confused, as well as deaf as what do they say -- a post.

I am decidedly and unashamedly not a dog-lover, although I do have a great fondness for Valentine, and so after putting off the whole take her to a vet and spend about a gazillion dollars, I did bring her in. The vet said that she should probably go on an anti-inflammatory for her joints and that this might cause some side effects like diarrhea and vomiting and would cost about a million dollars, in addition to the $450 blood work and urinalysis that she'd already done and I felt like I might cry there in the smelly room with cat hair floating around and the kind vet assistant smiling benignly -- cry there not for the poor dog but for my old caregiver self who really just can't handle any more side effects of drugs so I said, brightly, What about CBD oil? It's a potent anti-inflammatory! And she said, Well, you know, it's a Schedule One narcotic, so I can't say anything about it, and we need more studies done, so I ran out of the room, pushing the benign assistant aside, dragging Valentine behind me on her purple leash out into the sparkling yellow Los Angeles light and just ahead of a dark cloud that opened up raining diarrhea and vomit all over the vet office.

The Things We Carry

The view of the aftermath of the SpaceX launch last night

We carry empty syringes, sticky acrid sweet on our fingers later brushed on lips, inadvertent reminders, the yellow-gray soaked-through diaper balled up, the navy blue sleep pants with the red stripe at the cuffs, soaked in the seat, the home-stitched sheet-covered pad that she lay on, her socks and the sippee cup of juice left at the bedside. We carry these things down the hall, through a life, to let them go, but first we veer off into the bedroom and open the back door where the dog has been scratching and barking impatient to get back inside








The Coming of Light

Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow's dust flares into breath.

Mark Strand

Sparing the Rod, Not Spoiling the Child, Getting Rich***

We have a dog and her name is Valentine. She was named Valentine after the patron saint of epilepsy, and she was supposed to be a therapy dog for Sophie but is now just a regular old family dog. She is a Standard Poodle and is as goofy and chirpy and bouncy in this, her eleventh year, as she was when we got her at seven months. Feeding her daily and giving her fresh water is the responsibility of The Brothers, and years ago when they were still Young Lads, when they bickered too much about who had done it yesterday, etc., I instituted a system of odd and even days. Since Oliver was born on an even day and Henry an odd one, it works out beautifully (except, of course, for the occasional months with 31 days), and you'd think that would be all taken care of, right?

Wrong.

The Brothers, no longer Young Lads, don't feed the dog unless I remind them, and this is really getting on my nerves. That photo was taken when I realized that the dog dishes were dry and empty at 10:00 at night, so out of pity and responsibility for this creature in our home, I fed her and then spared the rod but didn't spoil the child.

The new rule is this:

Every day that goes by that I have to either remind you to feed Valentine on your day or you forget, I get $1. I will collect this money at the end of each week. We're starting today. You each owe me $1.








***The getting rich part involves another rule whereby I collect $5 if I hear a curse word (other than if one is seriously injured with blood spurting or bones sticking through clothing or one is talking to an insurance company clerk) or see any rude hand and finger gestures (other than those directed in service to #don'tstarepaparazzi). We part time working, stay at home mothers and caregivers have creative ways to make money while we polish our toenails and eat bonbons on pink linen sheets.

Darkest Hour Before Dawn Thoughts

The g-d dog woke me up again this morning, her nails clicking on the floor back and forth up and down the hallway, needing to go out. She needed to go out to eat grass and retch which was after she had thrown up on the floor at the foot of my bed. I let her out into the honeymoon-lit back yard and then I let her in, closed the door of my bedroom and pushed the wicker hamper in front of it so that she couldn't push the door open and back in. Perhaps as a punishment for my lack of compassion, for my un-dog-loverness, I was unable to go back to sleep and lay on my back for what seemed like hours having the darkest hour before dawn thoughts of loneliness and despair, and then the mediocre thoughts of the awake too early in the morning women. I wonder if Henry will have sex too early? My god, they never gave me a copy of Sophie's IEP before school let out! Should I email that director of the SPED office right now to ask him what the hell? What the hell, anyway? I read a Lydia Davis short story. It was 4 am and then 5am. I served my time, fell back asleep.

Sunday

I have that something in the back of my throat and my head, that fuzzy ache that I would deny. Coffee and an Advil,  the blue sky and violent pink of the bougainvillea, the bird racket conspire. Last night I dreamt (humor the telling) of New York City, of a taxi ride so far uptown that the streets were deserted, newspaper blowing, cold tinny air and my old friend's (my oldest friend's) dark apartment building that I found myself in front of without purse or keys, the people milling in the lobby, opening and closing the door of the vestibule yet I wouldn't sneak in, wouldn't slip through the door on someone's heels as it opened or closed, stifling my panic on where I would go and how I would ever leave.

The dog's devoted gaze and my own dismissal.

The charade of intention.

The relentless desire to flee.

Insanity from the Past and Some Things Never Change Except, Perhaps, Seizures

Christmas, 2004

I'm cleaning and organizing today like a madwoman. Oliver is feeling under the weather, so after plying him with homemade soup and juice, I've let him vegetate in front of the television, gone through all the books and crap in my bedroom/office and tried to make sense of the universe. In going through some papers, I came upon this beginnings of an essay, written on October 3, 2004. I believe it was a writing workshop essay, the result of the prompt Write yourself through a difficult situation. 

Ten years later, I think it might provide some hilarity on your otherwise humdrum Wednesday. Feel free to laugh AT and with me.

I am walking our new puppy, Valentine, around the block. I'm training her to be an assistance dog, and said matter-of-factly, this sounds like an amazing idea. However, the training will take two years -- two years of driving to San Diego and back three times a month. I have a nine year old daughter with severe handicaps, a six year old son who has just begun kindergarten, and a three year old son who is currently raging through life.

Now I have a dog.

I was never a dog person; in fact, it's something about which I've always felt guilty. Because I don't get all warm when I see a dog or enjoy talking about dog antics or even like petting a panting, squirming dog, I somehow have a character flaw. Isn't there a saying, "Never trust a person who doesn't like animals?" But I have a dog, now, and I tell myself that the end -- a devoted animal who will sleep with Sophie and alert me when she has seizures -- will be well worth the conflicted feelings. As I walk her around the block, I'm thinking "is this 'a difficult situation' to write through?" How do I write through this as a difficult situation?

When I get back to the house, I go into Sophie's room. My husband Michael is sleeping soundly next to her. He has served the assistance dog role now for over five years because I am a psychotic wreck in the night. She is sitting up in bed, cross-legged in the corner. Sophie's bed is a mattress and box-spring on the floor and she sleeps against the wall. I unfold her legs and pull her to the edge of the bed, to make it easier to slip her pajama bottoms off and change her diaper. She is always soaked in the morning. She is nine and a half years old. Is this a difficult situation?

Michael, who on school days is aggravatingly slow, has practically leaped out of bed and is now very busy getting ready to rush off to work. It's a Sunday, and he hasn't had a day off in over a week. He's a chef and he has to go. I am angry and the day looms ahead of me empty in its Sundayness. 

The writing ends abruptly there but prompted me to search for the following photo of Sophie, the dog and me, dressed in pink poodle skirts for a Halloween extravaganza in San Diego, a required event for Dog Assistance Training. Please feel free to laugh AT me (especially my hideous, hideous hair) and WITH me. What the hell was I thinking?

Postscript:

Ha Ha Ha Ha! The assistance dog became the family dog after four months of me ferrying myself and my three young children and THE DOG down to San Diego for a three times a month 6 hour training session. Don't ask me how I managed to do this for four months.  Evidently, I lost my mind which included shearing off my hair and wearing poodle skirts. I couldn't handle being the Alpha Dog and soon allowed Valentine to run around willy nilly with my little boys. Today, I'm still out of my mind, but my hair is longer, I wear only jeans and long-sleeved tee-shirts and, occasionally, a burka. Valentine is still adorable, but she sure as hell is not a seizure dog and provides basically no services other than unbridled enthusiasm and an annoying, insatiable need to be loved. Henry is now fifteen years old and well out of kindergarten, impossibly handsome and still the sweetest person on the planet. Oliver is now twelve years old, home-schooled and still raging through life. Michael, or The Husband, still sleeps with Sophie and works all the time. Now eighteen years old, Sophie still sits cross-legged on the bed and needs to be changed. Up until two weeks ago, she still had seizures every day, all day.

As of today, she's two weeks seizure free.

 

Scenes from a party

We had a small family party last night. There was soup, bread, cheese and cookies.

There was a bar.

There were teenagers drinking. (not alcohol)

We went caroling.

My friend J wore  a coat that looked like it had been made from our dog, Valentine. (but it wasn't)

So much fun. I love my friends and family.

Shiny Bits

Today on my walk I listened to the writer David Gilbert talk to Terri Gross of Fresh Air, and at some point he answered a question about writing and creativity, explained that his best are the shiny bits. The Dog and I walked through the fancy neighborhood adjacent to ours, past mansions and bougainvillea, film production trucks and nannies pushing baby carriages. It's sunny here, as usual, and not too hot. The sky is blue, as usual, birds sing and crows caw. I could hear it all through the voices in my ears, even the chink of a hammer on metal, the rev up of a motorcycle behind a hedge. The Dog looked for other creatures, sniffing along familiar paths, but we were both spooked when a beast hurtled itself against a wooden door to our right, the thud so loud the wood seemed to buckle. Jesus Christ! I said and yanked The Dog away, picked up my pace, my ears turned away from the rough barking and back to Terri and David. A block later, The Dog lunged again, I looked up and into the incline of a driveway where, at the top, stood a dog muzzled in black leather, his body wrapped in leather and chains, a ripped-up frisbee hanging from his mouth, the canine equivalent of a bouncer at an S&M bar in Hollywood. I thought about yesterday, the shiny bits. I took Sophie for a brief visit with the gynecologist that prescribes progesterone for her. I left the wheelchair in the car and walked Sophie in. I was optimistic. We waited for nearly an hour before we saw the doctor in her tiny examining room. I held Sophie awkwardly in my lap, her legs whipped up into a cross-legged position. The Gynecologist and I talked about hormones and bloodwork. We talked about medical marijuana. Sophie had a seizure, a huge seizure, and I contained it and her, still on my lap, the jerking, the drooling, the banging. The Gynecologist had tears in her eyes. She waited and offered to help. She said I don't know how you do it. I laughed with rue, squared my shoulders, relied on my physical strength. When Sophie recovered, we left the office and walked back out into the Santa Monica afternoon, the air shiny bitten by sun. I cried all the way home.

The Highway to Hell

William Blake (1757-1827)

But, sooner or later, what American society has told him he can do, what it has now made possible, is that George Zimmerman can load his piece, tuck it into the back of his pants, climb into his SUV, and cruise the rainy streets of Sanford in the night, all of his senses a'tingle, all his instincts honed, on the lookout with his hunter's eye for assholes and fucking punks. There's one down the block. What the hell's he doing here? Asshole. Fucking punk. Better pull over and check this out.

from What George Zimmerman Can Do Now by Charles P. Pierce****

So, last night. Henry, Oliver and I walked Valentine over to a friend's house as the sun was setting. We hung out for a while and then walked home. On the long stretch of La Brea, on a Sunday night, there were the usual cars, people walking out of restaurants, buses stopping to pick up lone people at bus-stops. We walked by several homeless camps, sleeping bags laid out, a shopping cart piled to the brim with what looked like crap but was probably essential. I yelled at the boys to slow down on their skateboards, to watch the edge of the street, to not get too far ahead of me. At Wilshire and La Brea we waited for a light and then walked through. We heard sirens in the distance, but we always hear sirens in the distance. This is Los Angeles, home to millions. And then they came. The sirens grew louder, and then they stopped. A police car raced by us, and then another. No more sirens, but lights flashed. Oliver yelled, Look how many! and we turned around as more cars raced by us, three, four, ten, twenty, forty, fifty. Look! Maybe that's an Undercover one! Oliver yelled as a huge black sedan, flanked by police rushed by. We stood there and watched them. We watched like we were at a tennis match, our heads back and forth. There was very little sound, except for the whoosh (the ball hits the racket, the player grunts). Where are they going? Henry asked. Oliver, being Oliver, yelled, They're on the highway to hell. When no more came we continued our way north, to home. We learned that there were protests in Hollywood, that marchers were heading north. We learned that earlier in the day, the police in tactical gear had been shooting beanbags at protesters that had gotten violent in the Crenshaw district, less than three miles from my home. My sons' friends who live in that district posted Instagram photos of events unfolding in their neighborhood. Nothing substantial did happen, but we saw it about to happen and we saw the response and it was silent and methodical and very, very powerful.

I wondered how, if I were caught up in an angry mob, I would convey my solidarity with the protesters. How I could possibly convey my feelings of shame about the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman verdict. How I could possibly convey my conviction that violence is never right. I am white. I am privileged, as are my sons, my daughter, and my husband. How could I convey these convictions without seeming like I have them out of fear or self-preservation?

Here's the thing. This culture of violence, of guns, of those who think people kill people and not guns, who believe that their liberty and freedom is at risk unless they can kill, or have the option to kill, is madness. It's insane madness. It's the highway to hell.




****Read that whole article by Pierce that I quoted from above. It'll knock you off your perch to the floor.

Things the Dog Remembers

You're just a party girl who happens to be smart and very pretty, he lifted her ear and whispered, his breath hot. A real female always wears perfume, he told her as she walked down the stairs, her nails clicking on the fake Mexican tile. You need to suffer in order to feel real, he said, closed the book he was reading and insisted that she put on the collar and the leash and stay by his side. You wouldn't know how to be without them, the old doctor said and patted her head.

After the seizure in the grass

Still Life with Helmet and Dog

It's still, life. It's still life.

The whole feast

I woke this morning at around 6:30, and in lieu of entertaining too-early thoughts, I finished Toni Morrison's book Home, which like all of Morrison's books is quietly lyrical when it isn't shocking, and when I put it back down beside my bed, I lay back and fell asleep in the grey light and dreamed of a baby, nursing at my breast and then I woke to blue sky and an implacable sun. The weather today is, again, astonishing, warmer than usual and knowing I'll offend, I feel annoyed by the pressure to enjoy it when I actually would rather sit inside and start up another book. Oliver is playing with the dog in the hallway, making her bark, she's a circus dog, he says when Henry shouts Stop wrapping that belt around her! and I tell them both to go outside for god's sake! and Michael feeds sauteed apples and waffles to Sophie. We are a fortunate bunch, I'd wager, the sun perpetual if weary, the books stacked up no matter, the dog a prancer, the whole feast.

Pretty

Crazy

That's all I've got, folks.

Black spiders on white door with white dog

Halloween tchotchke hell abounds.

When the bus comes

All photos taken by Oliver