Tally

If you know me at all, you know that I am a dog person.  My parents raised and showed dogs as far back as I can remember.  I have already written about Terry, our Airedale and the first dog I can remember, who taught me how to read.  Then there was Jack, our Dalmation, and a lot of Miniature Schnauzers.  The first Miniature Schnauzer puppy we purchased, when I was five, attached herself to me and thus became mine.  I'm sure it was because, the first night we had her at home, I somehow made her cry.  Everyone else in the family yelled at me, and I felt like the world had ended.   I ran up to my room and didn't come down until the next day.  From that time on, that dog rarely left my side.  I even showed her to her CD title!

This blog was not supposed to be about me as a kid, but about Tally, a Pekingese who now lives with Den and me.  Tally was a rescue Pekingese, and we adopted her because Tater (the other Pekingese) was such a cute and funny little guy.  Tally had a bad eye when we got her, and had to make several trips to the vet's office for treatment and watching.  A week ago Tally's good eye went bad.  It just seemed like it imploded.  Emergency trip to the vet's.  This time, they said we had to take her to a dog ophthalmologist if we wanted to save her eye.

Here we are a week later.  She has had surgery on her eye and is now trying to see through part of a pig's intestine.  The ophthalmologist said she put everything in the eye back together -- the cornea, iris, and whatever else is there -- and sewed a patch made from pig intestine over the top to hold it all in place until it heals.  It looks horrible!  But she can actually see a little, so it's worth it.

Now comes the hard part for us.  We have to keep Tally calm and quiet for the next two or three weeks so she doesn't tear loose any of the stitches.  She can't play with Tater or her toys; no walks through the neighborhood, no glimpses of the neighbor dogs.  She can only go out into the back yard on a leash for short periods.  She has to wear an e-collar, and has so many medicines that I had to make a chart on a spreadsheet to know when to give her what.

I think that we were meant to be Tally's family.  She was a throwaway dog that had five different homes before she was a year old.  Her right eye had ruptured and had become infected before anyone could or would take care of it.  Now we have her, and we have her for life.  She is such a sweet little dog, and she deserves to have a forever home.  With a little luck, she will be able to see a bit and enjoy life.

Perfection or Failure

One of the numerous problems I have, and have always had, is that I expect everything I do to be perfect.  If it isn't, then, by definition, I have failed.  I know I am not perfect, not even close, but I cannot get it out of my head that the things I try to do have to be absolutely right.

The latest example of this is knitting.  I am attempting to learn how to knit and crochet, and right now I am working on a knitted vest.  It goes without saying that I have made a lot of errors while knitting the back of the vest, but my sister has helped me to make it come out right.  Now I am working on the front.  The left front actually came out well, but the right front -- not so much.  I know I can do it, but I know there will be mistakes and that I will have to live with them.

This may seem trivial to someone else, but it is just an extension of how I have always felt.  I have always been competitive, but it has been just recently that I have realized it.  How could I have not seen this before?  Looking back, I now realize that this competitiveness drove me to make a lot of the choices I made as far back as high school, and maybe even before that.

On the other hand, being competitive, and having to be correct, may have helped in making me as successful as I was in my career.  This late in life, however, I don't care about being the best at something, and I'm trying not to get too upset if what I do isn't perfect, I just want to enjoy life.  Maybe I'll even finish the quilt my grandmother started 70 years ago.

HealthCare III

There has been a lot of discussion and disagreement with the health care bill; which, by the way, I hope is just a first step in the process of nationalizing it.  A lot of people disagree with me and think I am either crazy or stupid.  I have to admit that most of the people who have spoken to me about this and feel this way are family.  Others are probably too polite to criticize so harshly.

We all know that the cost of health care for Americans is inching, no galloping, higher.  And along with the rising cost of health care goes the cost of insurance to help pay for health care.  Many lower and middle income people are being squeezed out from being able to afford medical care of any type.  I believe we, as a country, cannot afford to let any segment of our population fall through the health care cracks.  We need to take care of our own.

We cannot leave this care in the hands of big business and the insurance companies; they don't exactly have a history of helping the underdog, or compassion for anything but the bottom line.

The United States has made tremendous changes over the last 234 years.  Our founding fathers intentionally made the Constitution a bit vague.  They knew the country would grow; but they had no idea how much, or what changes in technology would evolve.  When this country declared its independence, the population was small.    Families helped each other out; everyone knew his neighbor and offered what help they could when times were hard.  The citizens took care of friends and neighbors.  Today, very few of us even know who are neighbors are.  It is a dog-eat-dog world and every man and woman must care for him or herself.

Yet we still live in the United States, the most blessed nation in the world (at least most of its citizens think so).  We must take care of our own.  If we individually don't know our neighbors and don't help to take care of them, we have no choice but to appoint the government as caretaker.

I am not ignorant of the fact that our government seems to make a muddle of a lot of programs it is responsible for, but I think it is up to us, the people of the US, to elect the right people and make our voices known that we think the government should and will be held accountable.  We deserve the best government possible, but we also have to be the best overseers we can be.  This does not mean listening to talk show hosts who try to tear the government down without offering suggestions for making it better.  This is not condoning violent protest.  We need to know what our representative is doing, and he or she needs to know we are watching.

Could the nationalization of health care be the beginning of the citizens actually overseeing what the government does so that it will do it right?  After all, we have a government of the people and for the people.

Health Care II

Health care should be the same for everyone, rich or poor, connected or not.   We finally have a health care bill, and politicians are getting threats, and worse, for voting yea or nay.  What kind of country is this, that people are so full of hate they have to hurt someone for trying to do something right?  I do agree that this bill is not as good as it should be, but at least we can now see how change does or doesn't affect our lives.  I hope this is the first reform of many.  But the reaction of some is very scary; and very stupid and hateful on their part.

It seems to me that health care should be taken out of the realm of for profit insurance companies.  After all, these companies are in business to make a profit, to support themselves and their employees.  If the are unable to do so, they will simply close their doors; and then there will be less competition for each citizen's dollar.  Granted, I do not like insurance companies and think they make obscene amounts of profit, but I think their public images would immediately improve if they got out of the health care business.

Because health care is a people intensive occupation, and huge amounts of money are needed for research and development, and because there are endless tests, procedures, and more tests now available, I believe it should be taken out of the private sector and administered by the government.  At this point, I am not sure how the drug companies would fit in here; my inclination right now is that they should continue as they are, but with more impartiality in the testing they do.  I realize the government has a not-so-stellar reputation when it comes to running programs, but it can't do any worse than the insurance companies have done.  And when I say that everyone should have the same health care, I mean everyone, from the President of the United States, our congress people on down to the poorest of citizens.  I don't know if this would work in practice, but I am sure it can't be any worse, or any more expensive, than what we have now.

Mothers and Daughters

For most of my life, I thought that my relationship with my mother was unique, an aberration from the norm, and have felt very guilty because of it.  I was sure it was my fault.  Everyone I knew seemed to have such a perfect mother-daughter relationship.  Their mothers were often their best friends.  Mine never was.

Then I read the book Mean Mothers by Peg Streep.  I now realize that I am not the only person who had a less than perfect relationship with her mother.  I also realize that I did not have as awful a relationship as I had once thought.  It is true that she never told me she loved me, and that I never had enough nerve to ask if she did, but I now believe that was just how she was.  The family she grew up in was not very demonstrative, and I don't think it was unique, especially during the first half of the the 20th century.  It was just that everyone  was very private.  I never even knew that my mother had a half brother until just a few years ago.  I probably wouldn't have known then if Mom hadn't let it slip out.  I can't even remember what we were talking about, probably because my thoughts stopped when she mentioned her half brother.  I still don't know what his name was, or where he lived, or if I have any unknown cousins; and I will probably never know.

I had always envied some of my friends because they were really close with their moms, and could tell them everything.  My conversations with my mother were usually limited to how well I did in school, or where I might be going that night.  When I turned down a scholarship to get married, I never knew if she was disappointed in me or glad that I would be out of the house.

Now I realize that she kept things inside that bothered her or even that might have made her happy.  I now know where I get the tendency to keep my thoughts to myself, and why it is so hard for me to open up to friends, even if I know those friends want only what's best for me.  It has been a long struggle, but I think that I am finally coming to terms with who she was and our less than perfect  relationship.  And, yes, I finally realize that she was not one of the mean mothers in the book of the same name.

Favorite Month -- February

After a lot of thought, I have decided that February is at least my second favorite month and possibly the first.  July has always been tops as my favorite time of year because it has lots of warm weather and sunshine.  Beach weather.  Now that I am old, beach weather is not so important.  In fact, it gets harder and harder to sunbathe; it feels much too warm, especially when a hot flash hits.

So February has at least moved into a tie for first place as my favorite month.  The days are getting longer, the sun is out a lot, and there is usually still snow on the ground.  This means that I can go cross country skiing a few times during February.  I was not able to ski two years ago when I broke my wrist, and last year didn't work out well.  But this year, February has been so gorgeous that I've had to go to the south side of the Girdled Road metroparks to ski.  There is usually a track set, even though people and dogs walk through it.  There are not very many people in the woods on these cold, snowy days and it is absolutely beautiful with the sun shining.

It's true that the older I get, the less fast I am able to go (and less steady, too), but that doesn't seem to matter.  I do believe the hills get bigger and steeper the older I get; but I still love the feeling, however slow, of effortlessly (almost) gliding through the woods.  Thank you, Ginny.

Evolution

Ever notice how young people rarely talk on the phone anymore?  They almost always text, or at least the ones I am around, do.  Cell phones seem to be less for talking to one another than for sending text messages, taking and sending photos, surfing the web, and playing games.  Do young people ever write letters, or even send emails?  Not the ones I know.  They tweet, or comment on their friends' Facebook pages, or text using their cells.

Is this a giant leap forward in the evolution of humankind?  Are humans adapting to keep up with technology?  Is the attention span of a young person shortened so he or she doesn't get left behind as technology moves ahead by leaps and bounds?  Which came first -- technology or the evolving brain?

Also, people don't seem to be as social as they once were.  If we have jobs, we are usually on call 24/7.  Not many have an actual 9 to 5 job anymore.  Technology never lets us turn off.  Even if we are on a beach in the Caribbean, we can still be involved in decisions at the job.  This naturally gives us less time get to know one another; so here, too, decisions must be made quickly.

Today's young people have to be able to keep up with what can be lightening fast changes, not only in the world of work, but also socially.  I think they are missing out on some of the best parts of being human -- the slow development of a relationship; the time it takes to really get to know another person.