No More Mean Mommy

It has been a very trying few days. Work is really busy and my stress level has been on a steady rise, until last night when it snapped. Roxy jumped up on me one more time and I came unglued - called her every name in the book and chased her outside. Then about the time I got my breath back and let her back in, she picked a fight with Kobi. Snarling, barking, lunging. Little dog versus big dog. This time I really lost it. I got one of Grayson's crocks and started chasing Roxy around, smacking her with it. On videotape it might be funny in retrospect, if you couldn't see the pitiful look on her face. Her tail tucked under and her head down like a .... well, like a beaten dog. Boy, THAT made me feel good about myself. So I dropped the shoe and sat down on the floor and took her head in my lap and apologized. She just looked up at me with those brown eyes, the tip of her tail quivering, waiting for me to hit her again.

Sometimes I'm such a beast.

We were supposed to have B over for dinner last night but I called and bowed out on the grounds that I would not make good company and would probably pick a fight. Seems like I need to decompress a little bit. Or maybe just take things a little less seriously.

So I'm going to make an effort over the next several days to take note of the upbeat, the funny and the irreverent. Life is not really all that serious all the time.

Like Grayson's current obsession with Youtube videos. His friend introduced him to them, and now it's all he can think about. This one in particular:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QwZqbLpVlM&feature=related

He knows every word and quotes it verbatim over and over and over again: while I'm trying to get him to eat his breakfast, while he's getting dressed, while I'm hustling him into his shoes, his coat, his backpack... all the way to school. It's like a neverending loop. I'm going to have tiny little teeth like an Eskimo woman from grinding them together trying to keep myself from telling him to stop!

It's cute, though. He cracks himself up with every other line, so half the time you can't understand what he's saying, even if you are familiar with the video.

On goldfish and lessons about dying

Well, despite my best efforts, Grayson’s goldfish, Lenny, Zach and Speckles, all expired this week. Zach died mid-week, Lenny yesterday afternoon, and Speckles went to the great aquarium in the sky only this morning. Grayson is with my folks at the lake, and so is – at present – blissfully ignorant of these latest two deaths. Lenny will be a particularly hard blow. We’ve had Lenny for more than a year.

The truth is, this is the second time Lenny has died. Lenny… the first and original Lenny… died when we made the move to the apartment. The change to a new tank got him. But under the stressful circumstances at the time, I just couldn’t bear to tell Grayson that, on top of everything else, his fish had died… so I scurried to the pet store and picked up a lookalike, which I installed in Lenny’s tank before Grayson got home from school.

This time I’m not sure how to handle it. I would love to be able to find another Lenny, another Speckles, and protect him again from the loss of his pets. But I don’t think I can this time. He knew the fish were ill, and though we were doing massive water changes, adding salt, and hoping for the best… it didn’t look good for them. And I don’t think I have time to correct the water problems we were having in time to make a healthy home for a new Lenny. So when he gets home on Sunday, I will have to tell him. This after I spent $30 on Thursday buying water test strips and a goldfish book, trying desperately to save these 38 cent fish.

Today, insanely, I will go back to the fish store and buy a new filter for the tank, and then replace all the water and set it up so it can be clean and safe and ready to receive the next pair of fish. Because I know that, though it will break his heart to learn of Lenny’s death… and he’ll cry and break MY heart… when the tears are dried, he’ll want to get a new fish. This is how we got ourselves into this problem to begin with. Lenny’s long time companion, Popeye, died a couple of weeks ago. And Grayson cried, and then after a few days he wanted a new friend for Lenny. I guess in the process of adding new fish, I tipped the delicate scales of biological balance in the tank, and everything went to hell.

Pets are a constant reminder of the fragility and impermanence of life. I suppose this is a good thing, in a way. Pets die and kids begin to understand that everyone dies, even those we love. Even ourselves. We have seen many dogs, cats, butterflies, tadpoles, turtles ducks and fish pass on to other, unknown dimensions. It is never easy. But maybe it is okay. Someday he will lose a person he loves dearly. Someday – god willing – he will lose us. I say god willing because the reverse is unthinkable, unbearable.

Meanwhile, I bravely (if perhaps foolishly) continue to populate our lives with animals. Our current count is three dogs, one bearded dragon who continues to eat me out of house and home, and anywhere up to 100 crickets at a time (though perhaps they don’t count because they are so fleeting).


At least Mambo is thriving. He’s getting pretty big, though I know he’s barely an adolescent, and has a lot of growing still to do. You can see from these pictures the rate at which is getting bigger. I think he’s quite handsome… with his orange and brown stripes and his bright orange eyes. He’s very alert when he wants to be, and can be so still you would think he was stuffed if you didn’t know better. Grayson continues to take an interest in him, which makes me glad. I was afraid he would be a passing fancy. But G takes him out and holds him every evening, and I admit it’s fun to watch him catch and eat his crickets. He’s quite the predator.

Roxy is still nuts, but she’s a sweet sort of nuts. I have just resigned myself to a certain amount of mess and damage for as long as she’s with us. I’ll try to keep it in check, and then just pay for repairs when she’s gone. I’ll have to replace three screens and possibly a door. And I’ll have to sand down and refinish a windowsill and the door frame to Grayson’s room. But every time I get an email from Roxy’s human mom, it is so full of gratitude that I can’t be irritated by it.

Roxy has adopted a blanket as her own recently, and she drags it around like Linus. When she goes outside, she drags it out, if I don’t get to her and snatch it away in time. She lies on the floor with it, gradually chewing it to bits. She carries it from room to room and teases the other dogs into tug-of-war matches with it. It’s pretty sweet, actually. Even though I am obliged to go around every day and pick up the bits she has chewed off of it.

Rain today. It’s a great excuse to sit inside and veg out. Work has been crazy busy. I’ve suddenly been put in charge of Corporate Sponsorship… an area in which I have no experience whatever. We are up to our ears in projects and deadlines, as well. Newsletter stories, annual report, grant budgets, advertisements, promotional partnerships, design projects, and now a formal presentation to give to the entire staff about what we’ve been doing over the past year. Oh, and annual performance reviews due next week. But today it is raining and I have a fresh pot of very black coffee. The dogs are snoozing comfortably on the sofas and carpet around me. Mambo’s in his vivarium, and all is right with the world.

Back to the Real World

It's Friday. I've been back at work for a week. Just now able to lift my head up enough to think.

Generally, January is a slow month. Everyone is coming down off the holiday high, and things haven't ramped up yet for the spring semester, so it's usually a good slow time to get some filing done, make plans for the months ahead, and ease into working full-tilt again. But not this year. This year we are balls-to-the-wall from the first day back. Not sure what the difference is, but there's a definite difference.

We've also been handed a new project. By "we," I mean my tiny department of two people. We have recently been put in charge of Corporate Sponsorships.

The museum recently lost its so-called Development Officer. I say "so-called" because she was obliged to wear many hats, and though her title was Development, it ended up not being her primary focus. Anyway, in her absence, bits of her former job have been farmed out, and lucky us, we got Corporate Sponsors. Now I have not a clue about corporate sponsorships. I have no development experience or training outside of the annual visit to the Oklahoman and Cox Media for media sponsorships of special exhibitions. I've never had to go in and ask anyone for money before. So I'll be learning a few things this year. I'm a little queasy about it, but also a little excited. It's good to learn new things, take on new projects ... and things were getting a bit stale. So... off we go, into the great unknown wastelands of corporate fundraising. I'll keep you posted.

It was a real relief to get back to work. The holidays were lovely... all that unexpected snow on Christmas Eve, and the subsequent long lazy week during which Grayson was with his dad in OKC and I had the days and nights all to myself. I read books, cooked, futzed around. But after a few days of that, I begin to get a bit bored and then I tend to get depressed, so it was good to get back in the saddle again.

Trying to make good on my New Year's resolutions to Do Everything Right. I managed to get Grayson to school on time every day this week. We went through the school lunch calendar together and marked the days on which he will want me to pack a lunch for him. I started a diet last Saturday and have maintained it all week, with the help of a little iPhone app called "Lose It". Sadly, I have no scale, so I have no idea if I've lost any weight or not. We'll go ahead and believe that I have. When I buy a scale I'll let you know.

Also this week I went to the first in a series of workshops called DivorceCare. It's a 13 week program put on by the First Baptist Church in Moore. I was apprehensive that it might be way too God-Squad for me, and promised myself that the first time I was asked to accept Jesus as my personal Savior I was out the door. But it wasn't too bad in that direction. There was some talk about putting God at the center and maintaining your "Moral Values" during the rocky times just after your divorce. Advice sadly received waaaaaay too late in my case.... But the people leading the program are not too preachy, and it seems like there are a lot of decent people in the group, so I'll go back for a second round.

If nothing else it was some comfort to see that there are so many who are also dealing with post-divorce issues. Some of them in a lot worse shape than me. After a year, I am way better than I was. I'm better now even than I was three months ago, though I know I have plenty of issues still. Sometimes it's just hard to throw off that victim mentality, to get over feeling unlovable. Grayson brought home his new digital camera from his dad's last weekend and when I went through and looked at the pictures, there was a photo of my ex with his girlfriend. She's got to be under 30... blonde, pretty, bland-looking. I just felt old and fat and ugly and rejected. I was useless for the rest of the day, in spite of all the little pep talks I gave myself about how funny and smart and interesting I am. So I'm not out of the woods yet. But there are people in that divorce group who have been divorced for three to five years and are still struggling. I don't see me being in that group two years from now. I know I'm more resilient than that.

Incidentally, earlier this week I got an email from G telling me that he had broken up with her. She was "extremely selfish, needy and insecure" and also that she didn't know how to relate to Grayson. How could anyone not relate to Grayson? He's the world's most approachable, sweet and friendly kid! Can't say I'm sorry they broke up.

Whoops, See what I mean? Issues. Sheesh.