here's what we all know from experience:

people who never stop complaining can make you crazy.  here's what maybe we don't know:  people who never stop complaining can make you dumb.

wellthinkaboudit!  it makes sense...explains a lot.

i wouldn't have chosen to be in the test group for this particular study, but it's interesting, what they found.  apparently brain chemistry actually changes when a person is exposed to too much negative talk.  the decrease of certain natural enzymes leads to negativity, depression, anger and ultimately to stupidity.  OMG!  Stop watching Fox right now!!  Stop watching network TV all together cause the news is always bad and the reality shows are worse.  Stay away from AOL, too, unless you just have to hear it one more time how some actress fell down drunk and slipped a mammary or how one crack addicted man ate an entire pizza by himself without sharing.  A healthy alternative is to watch cartoons.  I recommend the series "Peep" which is insanely wonderful, as well as "Roly Poly Oly" and "Kipper the Dog".  For movies, try Disney classics like "Jungle Book".  Sing along whenever possible.

but i digress.  i think what they missed in that study is that negativity is also addictive.  for some folks, once they've had that first hit of adrenalin that comes with reliving an offense, they just can't stop without reliving all the bad they've got.  depending on age and how well they've kept score, all they've got can be a lot.  my mom, for example,...lotta years, meticulous score card.  as she talks, i fantasize just slowly standing up and then running as hard and fast as i can, straight into the wall.

i am aware that i feel all kinds of negative by the end of a 2 day visit with her.  that's why i drive 10 hours each way, instead of flying.  i don't want to get home before i've recovered and it never fails that there's something along the way to distract me, something in nature that serves as a defrag for all the static i've absorbed.  at various times, it's been a starving stray by the side of the road that i've tried to catch or at least to feed and then to pray for, the rest of the way home.  and more than once i've had a hawk swoop low and close across my line of sight, raising my spirit as it lifts toward heaven.

often, the dogs at the shelter do that for me, as well.  i went in today with a accumulation of small irritations and though i wasn't doing it out loud, inside my head i was starting to whine. my phone's lost and my basement's wet, how bad will it get?  how bad will it get?  even as i walked the dogs, i was stuck in the frustration/self-pity conversation.  what brought me back to the moment was a medium sized shepherd mix named Arizona, who cowered at the back of the kennel, flinching as i reached for her and then crouching through the lobby but who, when we'd been outside for a while, walking in the rain, through the tall grass, suddenly started hopping with joy.  she'd prance a few steps, pause to look back at me to see if it was ok and then spring forward like a bunny - all 4 feet in the air.  At one point, she did 3 bunny hops in a row and i can't tell you how good it made me feel...how i laughed out loud and how much i wanted to hop right along with her, for the sheer silliness of it.

maybe i'll do that next time...cause hopping will be good for me as cardiovascular training, cause it might entertain passing motorists and also cause i'm pretty sure that if they did a study, they'd find that a little bit of silly is the perfect antidote to a lot of whine.

I was havin a little dry spell there...

unable to share my thoughts with you because i was pretty much unable to have any, past some complicated personal stuff.  and i can't promise i'll be back tomorrow but tonight, i thought i'd catch you up on doggie developments right after i say thanks for putting up with my ramblings about my mother and world peace.

the pups, raleigh and ember, have each been adopted by adoring families. corabelle, meantime, has been spayed and she came through the surgery just fine but she's having trouble adjusting to her babies being gone.  it's wrenching to see her continue to search for them.  the sound of coyote pups in the nearby woods set her off the other night and i'm still sweeping up pieces of the back door she shredded, trying to get outside.

i'll be honest, my first reaction to seeing the destruction, which also included several window screens and a variety of rugs, was to say "that's it.  i can't have this dog in my house."  i notified the shelter that i would have to either return her or take her to another foster home.  but after i burned out with whining and cussing, i had a think.  and what i thought was this:  i've taken away her babies.  she has no way of understanding why that happened.  she just knows they're gone and she's crazy with grief.

when you consider the stuff we do to the animals in our care, even when it's for their welfare, it's remarkable that they're able to forgive us.  i was focused on weaning the pups and making them available for adoption while they still had the advantage of being irresistibly adorable.  the fact is that the older they get, the harder it is to find them homes and here i was with all my personal issues cranking up and it felt increasingly important to find placements for raleigh and ember.  i was doing what i needed to do and trying not to think too much about the parts i couldn't change...like how it might feel to cora.

a while back i wrote about her being a good mom.  turns out, she was a much more dedicated mother than i gave her credit for being.  turns out, she loved her babies intensely and with her entire being and it hurts my heart to see how she's suffering.  so i'll get the doors fixed and the rugs cleaned and i'll keep cora with me for as long as it takes to find her the right home.  she really is a good, sweet dog and what's making her act so desperate is not who she is but what i've done to her.

Florida

is not one of my favorite places.  i'm more a temperate weather, non man-eating-alligator-in-your-kiddie-pool kind of person.

i recently returned from my second trip to the sunshine state in 3 weeks.  I have an ailing brother and an 89 year old mother living there and as you might imagine, things are getting complicated.  my mom lives alone, by her own choice, in a too big house with too many maintenance issues and too much yard to care for.  what was reaffirmed for me on this last visit was that i am powerless to affect that.  it's well past time for her to make some changes but it isn't going to happen so i am left with the prospect of more and frequent trips with the inevitable collapse of her shakey independence.

driving home, i searched the radio for distraction and stumbled on the Ted Talks hour on public radio.  they were featuring innovative thinkers on the topic of education.  one of the speakers was a man named John Hunter, who teaches 3rd grade in Charlottesville Va. and who has created "The World Peace Game".

what he does is remarkable.  in the game, which he's been teaching for 30 years, his kids assume positions of political power, representing various countries, and they're presented with some complex and interconnected, real time, real world problems.   as he says proudly, various classes have solved the global warming crisis in 5 days or less.  they have all the choices that are available, theoretically anyway, to the rest of us....declare war...send aid...unite for a common cause.  what they don't have are the limitations of hard-wired "impossibles".  and they're not hog-tied by looming prospects of re-election time.  they're free to imagine possibilities. the game is won when all the problems have been solved and, at the same time, every country is better off financially than they were at the beginning of the game.

i'm not doing it justice and i urge you to google the actual talk.  what struck me and the reason i'm bringing it up, is that the Mr. Hunter's ultimate goal with this game is to teach compassion.  his hope is that by the end, the kids have realized that they're responsible for more than their own territories...that they're responsible for the fate of humankind.  and the beauty is that, given a free hand in working out the issues, they seem to naturally come to that.

i'm reaching here, to connect this to my recent experience in Florida.  it hasn't come clear, yet, but i know it has everything to do with the compassion piece.
it's easy to look at my mom and call her the problem.  she's a difficult person and her behaviors have a huge impact on any well intentioned folks who try to help.  but in a world of more highly functioning, fast moving, clear headed powerful younger people, each with their own agenda, about all she has to hold up in her own defense is a refusal to cooperate and she does that with no pretense of being a nice old lady.  she's in your face and fighting mad, all the time.  friends fall away.  pretty soon its only the morally obliged who show up to try again.

so if my mom was a country, she'd be a dangerous one and a threat to world peace.  Mr. Hunter told the story of a little girl who was the defense minister of a small, impoverished nation.  She shocked the room by unexpectedly and unprovoked declaring war on a larger nation next to hers.  Against all protests, she fought and won by surrounding and immobilizing their army in a surprise attack.  It was only revealed later that the larger forces in question had been planning a global war, whereby they would take control, not just her country but of everyone else's as well.  The little girl had been watching and reading the signs of coming aggression and she'd preempted it, essentially saving the world.

wow.  talk about your lessons.  it involves personal and collective sacrifice and an incredible level of confidence.  it scares me cause it challenges my own absolute beliefs about the morality of war.  and on a smaller scale, it challenges my obligations with regard to that dangerous territory i call my mom.  she's still driving.  that alone makes her a threat to the rest of the world and to herself.
at what point do i step in, surround and immobilize her to prevent something bad from happening?  what's the compassionate choice?  i dunno.

i dunno.

Back to dogs.

Ember

when last we met, that i wasn't on some tear about my cell phone or my frustration with the fact that i've suddenly gotten old and still haven't done anything with my life, the pups were just learning to stand and walk, dragging their little tails on the floor for balance.  i meant to take piles of photos but of course i was pretty much too exhausted, what with all the energy that aging consumes. this is all i have:

Ember and Raleigh

Raleligh

Momdog Corabelle

perspective

socializing the puppies is on my agenda this week, so i've been taking them out on the lawn to meet the pack.  i've kept the interactions brief till now, partly because Corabelle gets very agitated when i take them and partly just to insure that each meeting is a positive one - getting them the heck outa there before max and ellie start to get jealous.  this was the first day i actually let one of them run around with us while the other stayed back with mom to keep her distracted.

Raleigh toddled along behind me, wagging his little tail, pausing as each of the pack came over to check him out.  pretty soon the rottencockers got bored and ran off but uber mom maggie was rapt.  she sniffed.  she licked the pup's head. nudged his belly with her nose.  then she lay down and used a curled paw to pull him toward her.  he obliged briefly before waddling away.  finally she dropped, belly up, legs spread, head back in an apparently irresistible invitation.  Raleigh climbed onto her neck, falling from side to side and struggling back.  he licked her mouth, bit her cheek.   eyes softly closed, she remained still.

i don't know if all mom dogs respond that way to random puppies.  i have my doubts, but maybe.  maggie's pups were adopted away back in June so perhaps her memories are fresh enough to influence her behavior toward these little ones.  but i think there's more to it than that.  i think that like people, dogs are individual and distinct.  some are born to run and play, to hunt or herd or protect. some are more people oriented and some just want to be with other dogs.  there are those born more needy and others, like our maggie, more nurturing. she was in a state of unmistakable bliss with a puppy flopping around, slobbering on her face.

when he got tired and refused to walk, i carried Raleigh back to the pen with Maggie close alongside, jumping up from time to time, touching noses with him. i understood she wanted him back.  from the depths of my heart, i understood.

Medicare looms

in my future.  oy.  i mean like this week, i officially become a crone.

that's not a bad thing, though from time to time when i'm surprised by my own reflection, it's a shocker.  man.  i look like i've taken a beating.  somehow, i'm never prepared for the reality.

so this is the big plateau.  the point in life where you look around and assess.
and i have to say, things haven't turned out like i expected.  i'm not a ballerina or a veterinarian.  i'm not happily married (or unhappily for that matter, thanks be to heaven).  i'm not zen.  i haven't achieved enlightenment or dedicated my life to a noble cause.  i've just muddled.  that feels disappointing.  but here's the thing...i have learned some stuff and it's mostly about values.  there's beauty in letting go of what i wanted, so that i can appreciate what i have.

i apparently will not change the world, save the wolves or the polar bears or democracy from some sad fate, no matter who's elected next.  what's playing out on the planet environmentally, economically and politically is an overwhelming drama that i can't fix.  i'm not indifferent or disconnected but even as i do the small things that i can to affect change, i'm not expecting that my answer is the only one or the most perfect choice or that any one other person has the combination of vision and power to correct our course.

Bill Gates recently sponsored a competition to find the next great innovation in toilet design.  that's kind of quirky, i thought.  but as i followed the story, i came to appreciate the implications.  you'd be surprised at the number of folks around the world working on the question of disposal and at the variety of their solutions. the innovations ranged from improved latrine systems to complicated sewage treatment models.  the big cash prize went to the solar powered electric toilet that cleans the water and composts waste.  perhaps the greatest thing about it is that if that design or some of the others can be made affordable, they could change things globally.  solve sanitation and health issues in disadvantaged countries as well as  right here at home, where we've yet to feel the full impact of a wide-spread, disastrous drought.

not any one person has the combination of vision and power to correct our global course.  there's no use dividing into tribes and warring against each other, passing the hot potato from hand to hand.  nobody wins when we're divided, wasting our energies on whose team will get the flag rather than on the real question, which is no longer how can we make life better but how can we sustain it, in the face of diminishing resources and crumbling economies, world wide.  we can't afford to waste any more time on the vanity of our own reflections.  what's called for is the letting go of ideologies for the sake of cooperation and mutual support around reasonable solutions to real life issues.  let's take care of all of us, not just some.

let's build a better toilet.

no cell phone...

it's been three full days without one and the experience has some things in common with going on retreat.  i'm not talking, texting and checking email through the day, though if you ask my awesome friends, they'd say i never do that, anyway.  i'm scolded, regularly and appropriately, for my response delays.

hermetic by nature, i also have a very high klutz quotient so verbal communication can get stressful.  it takes a lot of mental energy for me to make words come out of my mouth.  that's why i walk dogs.  they don't require a lot of talking.  that's why i write.  i can blurt all over the page and then take it back before anybody knows.

one time i got an owl stuck on my finger.  it's a long story but for my purposes here, i'll just say that first of all, i don't recommend it and secondly, that on the way to the hospital, bird on hand, i called the insurance company for permission to go to the ER.  that was 10 years ago and i could call them today and whoever answered the phone would ask, in a tone of voice i recognize from childhood, what is it this time?  they say to me, remember when you got the owl stuck on your finger?  like i could forget.  like, when are these people going to retire?

see?  right there's a call i sort of wish i'd never made...something i said that i'm wishing i never had...haunting me a decade later.

so it makes sense that i have a love/hate relationship with my cell phone.  the hate part plays out in the variety and frequency with which i regularly lose and destroy them.   i've slammed them in car doors, dropped and run over them and we all know they don't float.  i've found them in the freezer, the chicken shed and next to the melons at the grocery store.  i need a child-proof, inflatable phone on a stretchy cord.

or maybe i need a keeper.  someone to follow me around with my phone and my car keys and my glasses.  and my wallet.  but not my pen.

i never lose my pen.

awesome friends...

i got 'em.   not that i deserve them.

i'm reluctant to share something complimentary about myself.  you might think i'm gettin' the big head.  but i'm moved to do it because of what this says so eloquently about the gift of giving.

DogDays,

I'm happy to see you are sticking with the shelter .

I commented on you general glow at lunch last week .

It's still hard to pin point [ the glow ] , but it went deeper than  
your healthy tan .

There must be something that comes alive in all of us when we help  
others .

Some all healing alinement of  our very essence must happen that makes  
things right .

So right that even though everything  is not perfect it's still right .

Such is the power of helping all things great & small .

I think you clearly made the right choice .

Let your little light shine  let it shine  let it shine  let it  
shine  !!

S

Thank you, S, for this beautiful gift.