A while back, I posted a blog post about a dog my daughter and her friend found outside and took to the pound. You can read that here, if you’re interested. The reason for this blog post is to update you all on Brew and to put out a special request.
First, let me tell you a little about Brew.
The animal shelter was able to get contact with the original owners, Brew’s family, and sadly, they decided they did not want him. They were even told he was going to be killed if they didn’t come and get him, and they chose not to come and get him. I do not understand this mentality at all. Remember, Pets are Not Disposable!
So we rescued Brew. We picked him up from the pound the day he was available to be released. He has been neutered. He’s had all his shots. He is two years old, weighs about 40-45 pounds, and is a light grey with brownish swirls. He is a lab/chow mix. He has purple markings on his tongue, kind of marbleized, and he has chow-chow eyes. He has a lab face, mostly a lab’s body, but his hair has some places that are thicker, more like the chow-chow. He is not, however, a chow-chow. He is more lab in appearance.
He is super duper sweet. I mean, he doesn’t really bark, he doesn’t howl outside. He’s completely potty trained, hasn’t marked or missed a single time. He comes in and out of the house. He asks permission to get on furniture. He is super gentle when taking treats from your hand. He likes to lay his head in your lap. He loves to be petted, but he’s not pushy about it. He’s calm when people knock on the door or ring the bell, and he’s awesome with strangers. He is gentle and careful with the cat and he seems fascinated by the little dog Scruffy (who only weighs five pounds.)
He’s about as sweet as a dog can be.
Until my Jake walks in the room…. Read the rest of this entry »
So the bucket list is supposed to be that list of things you want to do before you kick the bucket. There’s a concept for the bucket list I don’t like: the ‘kick the bucket’ part. I mean, after 
all, shouldn’t we be focusing on things we want to do while we’re still alive instead of focusing on what we want to do before we die? It might seem like a bit of semantic debate, but to me, it makes a difference. I don’t want to focus on doing all these things if dying is the goal. I want to live and do these things and keep adding to my list. I mean, if my bucket list always stays full, then I can never die, right?
I have often said that I could not possibly die while in the middle of writing one of my novels, and since I always keep at least two novels in the works at all times, I think it’s likely I’m going to live forever. Health problems be damned. I’m immortal! Read the rest of this entry »
A few years ago (like, oh, I dunno, fifteen years ago or something, but when you start getting old, that’s a ‘few’, really, it is) I worked as a crisis hotline volunteer for the Odessa Rape Crisis Center. In order to do that volunteer job, I had to go through a 6-week training class they offered, with a big notebook full of information and such. During that training, we were taught how to answer the phones, how to talk to rape victims and what to do in emergency situations. We had notebooks and classes and we did scenarios and pretended to be callers and phone operators and all that stuff.
I don’t honestly remember much about the entire training, but there was one part that really stuck with me. They had a girl who was working as a rape crisis advocate at the time come in and talk to us. She stood at the front of the room and told us that she was a rape survivor. She talked about how she had felt, how depressed she got, and how in the middle of the night one night she called the rape crisis center and how helpful they were to her. When she finally was able to move past her trauma, she decided to volunteer too, because she wanted to give back to someone else what the center had given to her.
What she said to us was that she knew she was going to be okay when she went to her counselor and said, “Guess what, Nancy? I shaved my legs today!” Read the rest of this entry »
I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t do illegal drugs. I don’t party. I don’t sleep around. I’m faithful and true to those I love. I don’t tell lies unless the truth would needlessly hurt someone, and ‘needlessly’ is the operative word there.
A few years ago, my little brother–who isn’t really my little brother, but that’s a story for another post–he told me that I should get out of the house more often. He said, “Normal people go out and do things.”
I said, “I”d rather be writing.”
There is no truer statement for me than that: I’d rather be writing.
He said, “But that’s not normal.”
I replied, “I never claimed to be normal.” Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday, my daughter found a dog outside, a lab mix, with pretty eyes, light chocolate color. He was sweet as could be, but had no collar, no tags. She went around the neighborhood and when nobody claimed him, thinking she was doing the right thing, she took him to the local animal shelter run by the city. When I finally made it home from the Social Security appointment, I told her all the reasons why that was the wrong thing to do, and I was nearly in tears over it, but we decided we’d call the pound first thing in the morning and see what was up.
Well, turns out, the dog was chipped. They traced the chip back to a vet in Louisiana, and everyone knew who the dog was, but the vet himself refused to give out the owner’s name or information. Now, we live in Texas, near Houston, and Texas law is a bit different than LA law. Our animal control officers are certified peace officers, and interfering with their doing their job can be illegal. It also seems the vet is somehow familially related to the owner of the dog. We think there’s a family saga going on here, and we really don’t care or want to be any part of it.
The point is, we told the pound that we want the dog if no one claims him in time.
Why do we want the dog when we already have plenty of animals as it is? Because, the shelter is full, and because this dog is an out of state dog, he has a death sentence. He would be ineligible to be put into the adoption program, and in five days, he would have been put to sleep.
The officer at the shelter was so happy and so grateful and so excited that we said we wanted him, because she said he’s a sweet baby and he doesn’t deserve this fate just because there’s family drama going on.
The dog’s name is Brew. We have to leave him there, by law, until Tuesday, and they will continue to try to get his real owner, but if they can’t, on Tuesday, Brew becomes ours. Of course, we’ll foster him for now, so that if the original owner does want him and will pay our costs to adopt him, we will definitely give Brew back to his people.
Here’s a picture of Brew:
Now, here’s the thing. It’s going to cost $75 to adopt Brew, and we have to get his neutered (if he’s not already) and get his shots, but if his people see this blog by some strange chance, we will let you have him back and if you need to make payments on the cost to pay us back, we’ll work that out too. We just want Brew to have a good home again, to be with the people he loves.
SHELTERS ARE AT CAPACITY
The reason the lady at the shelter was so ecstatic when we called was because the shelter is OVER capacity. She’s even had to take some animals home personally, and that’s not good. Since Brew is an out-of-state dog, he wouldn’t be eligible for adoption, and that means if the owner can’t get him in five days, he dies…
… this is not Brew’s fault.
He doesn’t deserve to die. No animal deserves this, just because animal owners aren’t responsible.
Animals are not disposable.
Please, spay or neuter your pets, don’t buy animals from puppy mills. Rescue your next pet, save them from a pound, from death. Save them. The best dogs I’ve ever had were all mutts, rescue dogs, and some of the worst behaved dogs I’ve ever known were purebreds. How much a dog costs doesn’t have anything to do with his or her capacity to love and be a member of your family.
So I know people want puppies, but sweet adult dogs need love too, and they can be some of the most loyal animals ever.
Please, if you’re considering a pet, go to your local animal shelter first. Look there, save a dog or a cat from death, give them a home, be their hero… don’t let one more animal die senselessly.
Lastly, if you happen to live in the League City, Houston, Galveston area and you have a chocolate-ish lab mix named Brew who has a chip from a Louisiana vet, we have your dog… if the shelter doesn’t hear from you by Tuesday, we’ll be bringing Brew home, where we will keep him for a time until we decide if we’re going to make him part of our family or find him a lovely family of his own. If we hear from you first, we’ll happily, with gratitude and joy, give Brew back to his people.
Love and puppy kisses,
Michy
Carnival Cruise Lines Can Suck My Big Toe
So, the first thing that happened, and I’ll be writing more about this in the future, Carnival Cruise Lines decided that my bilateral massive multiple pulmonary embolisms and the both extremity cellulitis infection that left me with open wounds and abscesses on both legs was not ‘worthy’ of being given an exception for cruise reimbursement. We asked not for our money back on the cruise, but rather, we asked that they simply give us a credit for the cruise–for which they were, by one of their own employee’s admissions–able to rebook our cabin. We intended to use the credit on a future cruise, during which we would have spent more money than the credit we had with them. But Carnival Cruises decided we were not important enough as a customer to keep our business and held firmly to their ‘contracted’ agreement, and refused to refund or credit us any money in their special ‘consideration’ department.
Well, let me tell you what that means for me: I will never, EVER cruise with Carnival again. I also intend to make sure everyone I know hears just how ‘unvaluable’ Carnival thinks its customers are. We lost $2000 during a time when because of the health problems we could have really used that money and we never even asked for it back – we just wanted a credit so we could take a cruise at a later date when my wounds had healed and I had recovered some. I could have really used the vacation.
I hear Disney cruises out of Port Galveston too, as do Norwegian and one other line. When we’re ready to cruise later in the year, anyone but Carnival will get my business. If you plan on cruising, keep in mind Carnival will provide you with the best customer service as long as they are still trying to get your money. Once you’ve parted with your money though, they took weeks to even answer my request and then very blanketly denied the special consideration with absolutely zero explanation other than they didn’t want to honor our request, so sorry, buy trip insurance next time. Well, if anyone had offered us trip insurance, perhaps we would have. Read the rest of this entry »
I mentioned I would post the results of my sleep study the other day too, and I never did do that.
So here’s what the doc said on the sleep study:
I have mild to moderate sleep apnea, with about 30 apnea episodes over an almost eight hour sleep period. However, I had nearly 80 hypopnea episodes over that same period, meaning about 50 of the hypoxic times had nothing to do with obstruction or apnea, but rather, with an underlying pulmonary condition that should be ‘correlated clinically’.
Around 10pm, about an hour into my sleep cycle, I dropped sats to 85 and stayed there for five minutes. The protocol is to start oxygen if that happens, so he started me on one liter per minute, but it only came up to 86, then moved me to 2 liters per minute, and even then, I spent over 90% of the night with my sats below 90%. Remember, now, anything below 92% can cause organ failure or damage.
So yes, I have a sleep disorder, based on a pulmonary condition, but we don’t know what that is yet… or at least, they didn’t. We kinda do. Read the rest of this entry »
…Sigh.
So here I go again, talking about whiny complainy things. I want you all to know, I’m really not that big of a whiny complainy person in real life. I suppose, in part, the reason I whine and complain so much in my writing is because that allows me to NOT whine and complain in real life. For the most part, I’m tough. I’m strong, really… actually, I guess I really am. I mean, you guys tell me that all the time, but yeah, I guess maybe I am. I try to be, anyway. I don’t always feel that way though.
DOGS ARE AWESOME!
I spent much of this morning with my head buried in my dog’s neck, while he sniffed and licked my ears. I love my dog. I love dogs in general. I think puppies are the best, and my Jake is a good 85-pound, three year old puppy boy. He’s a great dog. He’s the best dog I’ve ever had, and I’ve had some really good dogs too. I love him. When I’m down, he knows. He learned early on to be ‘gentle’ with mama, so when he comes up to me, he doesn’t jump up on me like he does everyone else, but rather, jumps ‘next’ to me. When in bed, he doesn’t come running and p9ounce on top of me like he does everyone else. He gently comes and sits next to me, then slides onto my chest and eats my face, nose and all. He licks tears when I’m sad. I am very grateful for my dog.
Yesterday morning, I spent most of the morning in tears. A couple of days before that, I was angry. Today, I’m a little numb, sort of depressed, just not myself. Read the rest of this entry »
(Excerpted from The Path, by Michelle Devon, Copyright 2006)
While at the grocery store, in line in front of me was a very attractive woman, who looked as though she had been crying, and on the conveyor belt in front of her was a 1/2 gallon of ice cream, Soap Opera Digest and TV Guide. She reached over and picked up a pack of gum as an afterthought and that’s when I could see how very sad she appeared. I overhead her talking on her cell phone to a friend about how she and her boyfriend had just broken up.
I have a friend who cannot find anything in her life to bring her pleasure unless she has a love interest in her life, but then none of them ever seem to work out quite the way she wants. She gets very down on herself when each new relationship fails.
In fact, most of my single friends seem to always be on the make, looking for the next ‘The One’ with whom to share their life. They usually end up disappointed with each new venture into the relationship pool. I know a few people who are so afraid of being alone with themselves that they move from one relationship to another, never truly investing anything of their true selves into the relationship, and finding someone to move on to before they risk the chance of ending up alone.
When you don’t like yourself, it’s hard to be alone with yourself, isn’t it?
I played that game too for awhile, going swimming in the deep end of the relationship pool, looking for something outside of myself to make me ‘complete’ or ‘happy’, only to be disappointed time and again when I could not find it. Perhaps that’s why, even though I’ve had the opportunity in the past to marry, and even though I’ve had some serious relationships, I never quite allowed myself to fully commit to a relationship before now. I think I have finally figured it all out, at least for me.
I know, beyond a shadow of any doubt, no matter what happens in my life, in my love relationships, even if I end up completely single, I will never be that woman at the grocery store buying ice cream to drown my sorrows, waiting for the next ‘The One” to come along.
Why? Let me see if I can explain it to you.
From a very young age, I spent my life trying hard to please other people. What others thought of me was important, and my self worth came from other’s opinions. It shouldn’t be this way, but I know this is how I lived my life for many years, starting with my parents, then my friends, and then working my way through all my adult relationships.
I found myself, when alone, once I’d dealt with the loss of a relationship, truly liking who I was, where I was heading, and what I was doing.
At the core of who I am, I am strong, confident, secure in myself. But then the next love interest would come along. He would like what he saw in me, the strength, the confidence, the security. As soon as we would become a couple, for whatever reason, I tossed all of that aside to be what they wanted me to be.
No, that’s not accurate. The core of who I am was tossed aside to be what I thought he wanted me to be, and not necessarily what he actually wanted. I tried my best to always do or be what I thought the other wanted, so much so that I would often lose my own identity in the process. Then when I discovered I was not successful in being what I thought he wanted, I would take a hit to myself worth. I would let that ‘failure’ affect my image of myself. I’d shut down emotionally, completely.
Then, when someone would tell me they loved me, I could easily disregard that. I would not, could not believe it, or truly feel it in my soul, because I would always know inside of me that if they only knew the real me, they wouldn’t love me.
Yet, I could never show the real me, because to do so would mean to put myself at risk of being rejected, not for who he thought I was, but for who I truly am.
I don’t think I could have handled that rejection of the core of who I am, so a part of who I am had always been locked away, kept safe from the danger of being rejected, and I refused to truly ‘be myself’ with anyone.
Until an event in my life changed all that and put a lot of things into perspective for me… one of those life altering, pivotal moments that come very few times in a lifetime, the kind that really makes you open your eyes and take stock of not only where you have been, but also where you are and where you are going.
Somewhere in that soul searching, pivotal moment, I found myself. I was locked away somewhere I thought was safe, somewhere deep inside of me, hidden even from my own probing. When I allowed ‘me’ to meet myself again, for the first time in a long time, I realized, “Hey, I like who I am… not who I want others to think I am, not how someone else sees me, not what anyone else wants, but the core of who I am. I like myself!”
I’ve always liked me, at the core, but I haven’t always been able to bring that out and just be myself with others.
Now that I’ve learned to do that, to open myself up and share the core of who I am with others, I am happy. And now, if someone says they love me, I can know that it is truly me they love and not this image of myself I portrayed while the real me was locked deep inside.
And if someone doesn’t like me, then I simply dismiss that as the incompatibility that it is, knowing that my self worth is still in tact, because my self worth comes from inside of me, and not from anything outside.
Yes, once a met myself, hidden away in the dark for so long, I learned that I do like me. There’s so much I wanted to do and have for myself that I am no longer willing to give up or change for someone else. I realize now that anyone who truly loves me and wants to be a part of my life would never ask me to change who I am, neither would they expect me to be something I am not simply to please them.
And that, my dear friends, is what I realized is missing in so many people’s lives—that feeling of truly being content and dare I say even happy with who you are.
Only when you are okay with who you are and truly happy with your life can you possibly hope to share that with someone else and find happiness together when you finally take a dive into the deep end of the relationship pool with another. In fact, no one can truly love you, completely, the way you deserve to be loved unless you can love yourself first, because otherwise, you’ll never understand and fully appreciate the depth of the love that can be shared, because you’ll always think in the back of your mind, “If they only knew the real me…”
If you are one of the lucky ones, then you are a person who knows your own worth and loves and respects yourself as much as you do your partner. If you don’t have a partner, and you truly love yourself, then you will be happy, even if there is no love interest in your life.
But for the rare few who can have both—love for yourself and the love of and for another—then you are truly blessed.
There’s been a shift in my life, and I can honestly say that I am happy, with myself, with my relationships, with my family, with my career—just happy in general. That doesn’t mean things are perfect in my life, far from it. I wouldn’t want it to be perfect, because I love the challenge and sometimes love the fight, but behind everything, there is this feeling of knowing I am finally moving in the right direction. My attitude is positive, my outlook is optimistic, and I’m having fun doing the most ordinary things… why?
Because I’m okay with me!
It’s contagious too, infectious even. When I am happy, it seems everyone around me is in a better mood. Not just from those closest to me, but everyone I touch during a day. The service I’ve received at stores and restaurants has been exceptional. Everyone around me seems to smile and be kind.
Before I met myself again, I had moments of happiness that appeared similar to this type of contentment, but behind it all, I wondered how long it would last—waiting for the ball to drop, and everything to fall apart again. Once I was reacquainted with myself, somehow, I know this time it is different, because I am different.
I am me again. And I like myself.
I create my own reality. I am the master of my own destiny. No one and nothing can change my mood, attitude, emotions, thoughts, feelings or opinions without my express permission to do so. I will never allow anyone else to have that much control over me again. I share myself now rather than give myself up to another. You see, it’s not about controlling others, because you never will control someone else completely. It’s not about someone else being in control of you either.
It’s all about being in control of yourself, self aware, and not allowing anyone else to influence you or cause you to change who you are. No one can make you feel anything you don’t allow.
You choose. It’s that simple. You call the shots.
If there’s one thing I own, one thing that is truly mine that no one can take from me or change, it is what I choose to feel inside of me. I’m fortunate enough to have people in my life now who understand and respect that, but it hasn’t always been this way. I learned also through this process that I get to choose who is and is not in my life too.
When is the last time you met yourself, truly sat down and had a good, long, hard look at who you really are?
Why don’t you do that now? Find yourself, meet yourself, talk to yourself, and learn to truly love you for who you are.
Don’t look at who influences you. Don’t look at how others expect to see you. Look at the core of who you are and fall in love with yourself.
Then, when you do, think about the people you love in your life. What would you want for them? The very best, right? Well, when you love yourself, you should only want the very best for you too. In each new venture, each new friendship, each new relationship, look at it as though you are outside of yourself and ask, “If this were happening to someone I love, would I want this for them?” If you love yourself, then you would treat yourself with the same respect and admiration you would another whom you loved.
After all, you deserve that.
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(Just a little something I wrote a while back for a quick impromptu contest that I did not win. It was written to a theme… just thought I’d share it here, for no reason whatsoever.)
“Mandy, put your bag there on the couch,” Sheila said. “Let’s get the stuff ready while we wait for Leeza. This is going to be so cool!”
The girls giggled and walked to the kitchen. Just when they made it to the table, the doorbell rang. “That’s Leeza,” Sheila squealed. “You get the stuff, and I’ll go let her in.”
After their greetings, Mandy said to Leeza, “So… did you bring the book?”
Leeza giggled and patted her backpack. “Right here.”
“Dig it out!” Sheila exclaimed.
From her backpack, Leeza retrieved a well-worn, large, obviously old leather-bound book. Leeza handled it with great care, placing it on the kitchen table and running a reverent hand over the tooled cover. “I can’t believe your grandmother let you take her great grandmother’s book out of the house!”
“Well…” Leeza drawled.
“Shut up! You mean, you stole it?” Mandy asked.
“I didn’t steal it, exactly. I ‘borrowed’ it.”
The girls laughed. Leeza carefully slid a finger between the pages of the thick volume and opened the brittle, yellowing pages to the center of the book. The three girls hovered over the book in silence, looking at the drawings on the pages before them.
“What’s that?” Mandy said, pointing to a black ink drawing with one hand, while holding a package from the cabinet in her other hand.
“That’s a black-pot cauldron,” Leeza answered.
“You’re joking? A cauldron? My mom said the cronies used to use those, but I thought it was one of those stories adults tell about how hard things were when they were kids.”
“Nope,” Leeza replied, “they were real. I saw one once, in like a museum or something.”
“What’s that say next to the picture?” Mandy asked, pointing at the book.
“It says, ‘Cast iron cauldron pots eventually become blackened and warped from use over open fire pits, but when properly cared for, will provide years of delicious concoctions, not to mention being the perfect tool for brewing potions and medicines.’”
“Cool. What else is in the book?” Mandy asked her friend.
Leeza slid her finger gingerly between the stiff pages and turned toward the back of the book. “There’s something looks like a journal and then of course the recipes back here, handwritten.”
At the table, Leeza said, “Listen to this journal entry: ‘Movement caught my eye while working on the potions for healing tonight. Maybe it was just the multi-colored leaves being blown about by the wind. It’s cold in here, with the wind coming through the cracked window, even with the fire. This brew will warm me up, soon enough. I keep hearing noises outside though. I don’t know why, but I’m scared.’
“Sounds like she was making something in one of those cauldron thingies, doesn’t it? I wonder why she was scared.”
“What’s that?” Sheila asked, staring over Leeza’s shoulder, pointing at the facing page.
“Looks like a recipe,” Mandy responded.
“It’s for a potion,” Leeza replied. “Look at that, it’s a… it’s a beauty potion, it seems, to keep you young and…” Leeza snorted, laughing.
“What?” Mandy and Sheila both laughed in unison.
“Look!” she replied. “It’s a potion for removing moles!”
“Like the animals?” Mandy asked.
“No, like witch’s moles. You know, the old stereotype about us witches all having moles,” Leeza replied, still laughing.
“I guess a lot has changed. Kind of like the witch’s handbooks now don’t have love potions anymore.” Mandy paused, remembering why they were gathering together in the first place, and then she continued. “So, is the recipe for the love potion in this old book or not?”
Flipping pages, Leeza said, “It’s here. I wouldn’t have taken the book if it wasn’t.”
Squinting at one of the potion recipes, Sheila said, “All right, we need to get to business. Just look at these ingredients, though: tail of frog, eye of newt, hair of a black rat.”
“What’s so strange about those?” Mandy said, opening a package on the counter.
Sheila shrugged. “Nothing, but she wrote here, ‘The fourth ingredient will be harder to find….’”
“What’s the fourth ingredient?”
Leeza shrugged. “The handwriting trails off, here, like she didn’t get to finish. I wonder what happened?”
“What’s that? Those instructions, there?” Sheila asked, pointing.
“That’s what’s so funny about this. Check it out. Those,” she said pointing at the bottom of the page, “are instructions on how to find all the ingredients and where, like by the pound in the foothills, and in the caves up on the ridge.”
“You’re joking?” Mandy said, “You mean, they really hunted for those things themselves? Man, things really have changed, haven’t they?”
Leeza interrupted with, “Sheila, you want Top Ramen Eye of Newt or the Orville Redenbacher’s microwave bat wing first?” she asked, holding up two items.
Sheila stood from the table and walked to the cabinet to look for herself. “Actually, I think Mom bought some of those instant toadstool mixes, just add water. Maybe we should make hot water first.”
“I’m sure glad we live in this century,” Leeza said, and the other girls all concurred and set about working on their potion.
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