Tag: frustration

An Abusive Relationship

“Are you in an abusive relationship?”  the Emergency Room admitting clerk softly asked me looking me straight in the eye, watching my reaction carefully.

Mitch was sitting behind her across from me oblivious to the question.  Did he know how lucky he is I like him?  With just a slight change in my expression or lifted eyebrows not to mention if I had burst into tears, it would have been a long time before Mitch saw the light of day again.  I was sitting in the Emergency Room admitting office with the two bones at the end of the middle finger on my left hand jutting at an odd angle for the second time in a three month period for the same injury. Maybe that was why she asked, or maybe it is standard procedure to ask every woman that comes to the emergency room with an injury.

Absolutely I was in an abusive relationship, but the abuser was me not Mitch.  I am the clumsiest the person I know.  I find new ways to cut, burn or bruise myself every day.  I walk into walls, miss doorways and trip over my own two feet.  Mitch is always amazed at the unique and seemly innocuous items that have the ability to draw blood on me.

This time I had been doing yard work while Mitch was working on one of the cars.  I walked into the garage to get my garden cart and noticed a spider walking across the top of the cart.  I hate bugs, spiders in particular and usually scream loudly and flee the immediate area as quickly as I can, knowing that they will hunt me down and eat me if given the chance.  But on this day, I was wearing gloves making me invincible, or so I thought.  I wanted my cart and here was this gigantic menace keeping me from my cart.  Mitch was under the car so he was no help, I would just have to confront the monster myself.  As the spider walked nonchalantly the top of the cart toward the edge to disappear and prepare for a sneak attack I decided to swat him with my gloved hand.  I swung my hand down with such force to annihilate the beast and caught the top edge of the cart causing the first two bones on my middle finger to dislocate and jut up on top of the third bone and knuckle of the finger. 

As usual I starting crying like a baby, causing Mitch to come up from under the car to see what I had done to myself again.  He offered to pull the bones back into place for me.  Are you kidding me?  I told him I wanted to go to the emergency room and I wanted him to take me.

He looked at me and said, “I am right in the middle of fixing the exhaust on the car, can’t you drive yourself?”

“Fine I’ll just walk then, don’t worry about me.  I’ll be fine, I can take care of myself.”  I wanted some sympathy and wasn’t getting it.

He dropped his tool on the floor and said, “Fine let’s go.”

I wanted to get cleaned up first because I was filthy and sweaty from the yard work but “No!” Mitch said that if he had to go dirty so did I.  No fair.  So here I sat sweaty with dirt and grass stains on my clothes sitting in the emergency room waiting for a shot to numb my hand and have a trained professional jerk my finger back in place.

AJ How Could You?

This day started very early as all Sundays do.  We get up at 2:30 in the morning because Sunday is Mitch’s Monday and has to be at work at 4:30 in the morning.  I get up with him, feed the dogs, fix breakfast and take him to work. We started this routine years ago when we worked different schedules and this was the best way to get to spend as much time together as we could, snippets of time.  It has worked for us mainly because we like each other.  We like to spend our free time together.  Odd I know.  Anyway, I dropped him off at work came home and took the dogs for a nice long walk.  That’s one of the bonuses of Sunday, I don’t have to go to work so the dogs and I get to take a really long walk very early before anyone else is up.  It’s quiet and the only things I run into in the morning is deer and small critters.

After the walk, we curled up on the bed and the dogs napped while I read the newspaper and enjoyed my morning coffee.  The day looked like it would turn out nice, no storms as the weather service predicted.  I decided that we should go to the lawn and garden store and buy some herbs to pot.  I like to grow herbs and dry them.  It has worked out well so I decided to branch out and add more variety to the mix.  I take the dogs with me for company and they wait in the car barking and scaring anyone who walks past the car.  Plus when they are with me then they’re not getting into trouble at home.  Bonus.

I potted the herbs I bought and decided to plant the five pepper plants I bought too.  I thought that I would wait another week on the tomato plants but saw a Poblano pepper plant and haven’t tried that variety before so I snagged it.  Plus four more red pepper plants, I couldn’t help myself. 

The dogs were just hanging out sniffing stuff while I planted the pepper plants, I looked up and noticed no AJ.  He had wandered off.  I looked around to make sure he hadn’t gone over to the neighbors to poop in their yard, no sign of him there.  I looked up the hill and spotted him up under the Cedar tree. I called him to come down to me and as he got close I was sorry I had called him.  He stunk to high heaven.  He had dropped his head into something and mashed it all over his neck and side of his face.  Now I had to stop what I was doing, take AJ to the basement garage and bathe him.  And of course I had just put Frontline on the dogs this morning.  AJ how could you?  You’re supposed to be the good dog.

One Week and No Shopping

It’s been a week now and no more shopping in the kitchen while we’re not home.  Fresh batteries make all the difference in the world.  That and moving the transmitter closer to the entryway hall.  Evidently  someone or some ones got shocked and got the hint.  Stay out!   Now Orso and AJ wait to be invited into the kitchen.  Maybe I should feel guilty, but I don’t.  It’s not that I enjoy their pain, in fact I can’t stand see any of them get shocked, but lord I am so tired of cleaning up after the mayhem and destruction or re-purchasing things that have been broken when they get bored. 

Does that make me a bad pet owner?  Maybe, but I like to think that this was the best decision we could make under the circumstances.  We can’t afford to take them to doggie daycare four to five days a week.  Crating didn’t work for AJ, he just destroyed crates, both the metal and the plastic airline crates.  A dog isn’t much of a watch dog in a crate anyway.  He can bark, but little else.  I don’t think Cesar Milan would come to our home.  Our problem isn’t television viewing worthy.  How would he even correct the problem?  We could set up webcams to see who the culprit(s) might be.  Then what, hide in the bathroom off the kitchen to wait for the culprit to come shopping, then jump out and issue a correction?  My luck Cesar would jump out to catch the dog or dogs in the act, startle them so badly they attack him and we get sued.  Now that would be television viewing worthy, us in court.

It is really maddening  because when we’re home everything is wonderful.  It’s like having three large rugs that occasionally change location on the floor.  I keep the television on when I leave so they hear human voices and don’t feel alone.  Maybe that’s the problem, I have the wrong channel on.  We just don’t know what gets them going and when.  Is it right after I leave, sometime in the middle or right before I get home?  I guess we really should set up a webcam, if for nothing else than the entertainment value.  I could upload the antics on You Tube then everyone could feel my pain.

Time Out For Charlie

We abdicated a good night’s sleep in our bed ten years ago when Mitch said, “If that’s the worst thing AJ does, I can live with him sleeping in bed with us.”  This was in response to AJ sneaking in bed with Mitch after I left for work in the mornings.  Now every night it’s a race to claim the best spot and still have the ability to move my legs during the night.  I’m a light restless sleeper, while Mitch sleeps like the dead.  In order for me to get some semblance of a good night’s sleep, we try to position the dogs thusly, Orso at Mitch’s feet because of his size and sleeping like the dead too.  Most nights AJ will opt for the sleep ball next to my side of the bed, unless it thunders, then he has to sleep against me, panting and shaking so bad it’s like sleeping in one of those vibrating beds.  Charlie starts off at the foot of the bed on my side until Mitch drags him closer to him, so that I have leg room.  Mitch is very thoughtful giving me more of the bed, I think this is to minimize me being cranky the next day.

Last night though Charlie decided he didn’t want to move from my feet.  Coaxing him wasn’t working for Mitch so he tried grabbing Charlie’s chest and pulling the dog toward him.  Charlie responded by growling at Mitch.  Big mistake.  In order to show who was alpha (with thumbs) and who wasn’t, Mitch made Charlie get off the bed.  Charlie defiant as ever walked around to my side of the bed jumped back up but as a conciliatory move he moved a bit closer to Mitch or he was planning to eat Mitch in his sleep, I’m not sure which.  Well once Mitch had set the bar, he couldn’t back down and let Charlie sleep on the bed, so Mitch got out of bed walked around to the end of the bed and grabbed his collar to pull him off the bed.  Charlie, defiant and psycho stupidly growled again, this time baring his teeth getting into the challenging behavior thinking he was going show Mitch who was who.  That display of defiance bought Charlie a time out in the bathroom with the door closed.

During the clash of wills, AJ slept in the sleep ball unconcerned, more dog food for him if Mitch killed Charlie and Orso laid in bed watching staying very still to avoid any fallout.  After about fifteen minutes Charlie whined, Mitch looked at me and I said, “You have to go get him not me, otherwise it will undo you establishing yourself as the alpha male.  Mitch let him out and made him lay down on the floor as punishment.  After an eternity for Charlie, 3 minutes, Mitch called him up in bed.  Charlie came and laid down in the middle of the bed close to Mitch and was very contrite.  I still think he wants to eat Mitch while he’s sleeping.

It’s Them or Me

It’s them or me, and my money is on me. I’m the one with the opposable thumbs. I have the power to reason through a problem. I have tenacity. I also have osteoporosis. I was diagnosed in the fall of last year. Me with osteoporosis, no way. I’ve taken calcium religiously for decades. I was devastated when I found out. I’ve always thought that I was unbreakable. No matter how many times the dogs knocked me down; (and they knocked me down a lot) I would get right back up with nothing more than a few bruise to show for it.  Well there was that one time I tripped over the dogs on a walk and tore the cartilage in my knee.  Mitch had to walk home get the El Camino then come back and get me sitting on the side of the road.  Not now.  I have 5% bone loss, which I was told is significant bone loss. So now I’m taking my weekly dose of Fosamax and have realized that I’m quite breakable.  I’m now afraid of falling and breaking something.  I don’t like feeling this way.  I don’t like fear. 

I’ve not taken the lunging or the yanking the dogs do while walking seriously until now.  It’s been a source of entertainment and fodder for my stories.  But now I’ve realized that together the three dogs are much bigger and stronger than me.  I was five foot two before osteoporosis and losing a half inch, which makes me a great boat anchor dragging behind the leashes, but little more than that if the three choose to charge after the object of their interest. 

Basically they’re good dogs, fairly well behaved, but tend to feed off of each other’s emotions.  If one gets excited about seeing someone, the other two join in and I can’t hold them back.  Not anymore.  So now the serious training begins.  I know labs are hardheaded and stubborn, Orso especially seems awfully thick at times, brilliant other times.  We call him “Box of Rocks”.  Charlie is just hardheaded and willful.  When it comes to a battle of the wills, he will not budge one iota.  The thought of violence is often considered with him.  AJ is soft and submissive, but when no one expects it, he will instigate trouble then stand back and let the other two get yelled at.  Sneaky.

Training three dogs at once is a challenge.  One at a time would be easier, but I don’t have the time to work with each dog individually.  So three at a time is our only option.  I’ve given Mitch the ultimatum, “It’s either they get trained to exhibit patience and not lunge or we can’t have the dogs”.  And I have no intention of not having the dogs.

So it’s them or me.  Bet on me.

Look Ma No Cavities

Charlie came through the dental cleaning with flying colors.  No cavities, just one cracked tooth, but our vet said it still looked healthy so he left it in.  He came out to greet me with a total lack of manners.  He jumped up on the counter pretty clumsily, still suffering from the effects of the anesthesia.  Charlie looked a little loopy, his eyes drooped slightly, but he was happy to see me, all was forgiven. 

I went to pick him up on my way home from work, so I was driving my car, a Pontiac Firebird, which normally none of the dogs get to ride in.  Besides no room for a dog, I like driving in a car with no dog hair swirling around my face, or leaving a dog hair contrail when I drive with the top down.  I put Charlie in the car hoping he’d climb in the back and lay down.  No, he wanted to hang out in my lap.  I had to remind him that he was a sixty five pound dog, not a yorkie.   

We got home just in time for dinner.  Charlie rushed into the kitchen and drank water like he’d been lost in the desert for a week.  Poor baby.  As I dragged out the dog food buckets and dog bowls, Charlie looked at me with a skeptical look, wondering if he was really going to get fed or if I was just torturing him.  He ate with gusto, as always. 

At bedtime, Charlie climbed into his round bed, snuggled down and slept like a rock all night.  All is right with the world, again.

Not A Happy Camper

Charlie is not happy with us this morning.  He didn’t get his breakfast this morning.  No carrots as treats, no fruit after our breakfast and no water.  No, we’ve not decided to save money by rotating starving a different dog each day.  Even though it may come to that if gas prices keep going up.  No, Charlie has an appointment with the vet to get his teeth cleaned this morning, so it was no food or water after midnight for Charlie.

Which sucks for us, because even though we know why he can’t have anything while the other two get to dine sumptuously on Science Diet dog food, all the water they want and the exotic carrots they devour as treats, try explaining that to a dog.  All Charlie understands is that while AJ and Orso were eating breakfast this morning, he was locked up in the bathroom with Mitch.  Some consolation prize for a hungry dog.  I could hear the angry yelps all the way from the other side of the house behind the closed doors.

The look on his face after coming back from our walk was scary when no carrots were handed out to any of the dogs.  The other two kept looking at each other then at me wondering what was up too.  But I figured it would be truly cruel to pass out treats to two and not Charlie.  It was a challenge putting the water bucket down on the floor for AJ and standing guard, hovering over the water bowl until he was finished so Charlie wouldn’t try to drink any.  After watching with a hurt look on his face, Charlie finally left the kitchen and lay down in the dining room, waiting to be forgiven for whatever he did wrong and finally get to eat.

After our breakfast was over and no one got any pineapple chunks as is the usual custom, we have labs and they eat anything, remember, Charlie gave me one last hurt look of self pity and stomped off to the bedroom.  There he curled up into a tight little ball and refused to lift his head to look at me when I tried to pet him and explain once again why he couldn’t have anything to eat or drink.  I know he doesn’t understand me or care, all he knows is that I won’t feed him.  So of course now I feel terribly guilty even though as a human being with opposable thumbs, I know that what we’re doing is the best for him.  It doesn’t help though does it? 

When I left to go to work, Charlie still refused to look at me, curled in that tight ball.  I had no idea that dogs pout.  Who knew?

I’m Mad as Hell…I Just Don’t Get It

I don’t get it.  Right now I’m so mad and frustrated I’m not even sure how to write what I want to say.  I just heard on the news that there is a bill in Missouri to make it legal to shoot mountain lions.  Just because.  Now granted I haven’t read the entire bill, but there is already a law making it only legal to kill a mountain lion if it is threatening you or your livestock.  I don’t need a law for that.  Common sense says that if something, man or animal, is threatening me or my family (dogs included), I have no qualms about killing the threat.  But to just kill something for giggles and grins is totally repugnant to me. 

Why do we do this?  We build and destroy the habitat of wildlife and are then outraged when the deer eat our hostas, the raccoons tear up our trash and there are mountain lions walking through our backyard.    Why are we so myopic that the world is all about us?  I’m not a total tree hugger, but my god when do we stop and start being the caretakers and good stewards of this world?

Okay, I’ll come down off my soapbox, but I’m still pissed as hell.  I just don’t get it.

I Got Rhythm – Not!

When I was supposed to be concentrating on my breathing and clearing my thoughts in yoga class, I started thinking about my performance or lack there of, at my last Zumba class.  I was thinking about Zumba class partially because it was on my mind and partially because I don’t dare totally relax in the breathing exercise for fear of falling asleep.  Mitch swears that I snore and even though I know I don’t snore, God forbid some fluke accident and I did maybe snore, I would be mortified.  And that would be the end of yoga.  Yoga classes twice a week and Zumba class once a week are my most recent attempt to get back in some semblance of shape.  I really love yoga class and the way I feel since starting the class last summer.  I can do a tripod again, something I hadn’t been able to do for decades.  I can’t remember the yoga name for it, but we called it a tripod in school.  A tripod is where you are on your hands and knees.  You lower your head to the mat between your hands, with your arms bent at a right angle, then bring your knees up and place them on your bent arms and balance yourself on your head and hands.  When you get really good, you can move up to a headstand, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.  Since I’ve had such great success doing yoga, I figured I’d branch out and take more challenging classes, like Zumba.  Yeah right.

I’ve had two classes so far, the first with two other women and the second was just me alone with the instructor.  I really like my instructor.  She is the sweetest person.  Young in shape and she says positive things to me.  I stood behind her off to the side so that I could watch her and myself in the mirror.  Big mistake!  I should have just watched her and not me.  Her moves were fluid and in perfect rhythm to the music, while I was stiff, graceless and behind on every move.  She would signal the upcoming move but half the time I was going the wrong direction, doing the move backwards, sideways or not at all.  Basically I suck at Zumba.  Maybe I was wearing the wrong clothes.  A baggy t-shirt and sweats are not especially sexy or hot looking when trying to dance to sultry Latin tunes.  Even the creepy old guy that came to gawk in the doorway took one look at me and ran screaming into the street.

Halfway through the class, as I was sucking air, sweating like a racehorse and becoming even more wooden in my moves, it dawned on me, maybe I should take up kickboxing.  I don’t have to be able to sway my hips in a sexy manner when doing a roundhouse kick.  I think I can do tough, because fluid and rhythm are definitely not in my body’s vocabulary.

Learning Something New

This year on the annual “Great Pheasant Hunt” the weather was more cooperative.  Saturday was sunny and chilly around 38 degrees to start the day.  Too windy, with sustained winds around 20 miles an hour, but it was dry, no rain or snow.  Not too bad all things considered.  AJ and Charlie were beside themselves with energy and excitement for the upcoming event.  Orso was just along for the ride, as usual.  No interest in hunting, just happy to be with us. 

Even though we’ve been pheasant hunting for decades, Mitch for almost five decades and me for twelve years, every year we either learn something new or a better way to prepare for hunting.  Because we don’t get the opportunity to go hunting as often as we would like nor do we work the dogs as much as they need to stay at the top of their game, the first day has always been very chaotic.  The dogs have so much pent up excitement at finally being able to do the one thing they were bred for, hunt birds.

Fifteen minutes into our first morning, we always tell each other that next year we need to come up a day earlier than everyone else to wear the dogs out a bit and never do.  This year was no different, but now we’ve added a twist, next year we plan on getting set up about an hour before the others and work the dogs away from where we plan on hunting, so as not to chase off any pheasant that may be loitering in the area.  We definitely don’t need any more handicaps. 

This brilliant idea came to me watching the dogs the second morning totally out of control running through six foot plus tall dense prairie grass, losing sight of them almost immediately.  I stomped down the hill and up to Mitch, poor unsuspecting soul, and said, “I have a thought.  This area is too hard to manage the dogs with all of this energy.  We need to slow them down.  I think that we should take them across the draw to the open hilly field and run them to burn off some of their exuberance.  What do you think?”

Mitch was experiencing as much frustration as I was and quickly agreed.  We both knew that there were birds laying low in dense grasses and didn’t want the dogs to scatter them.  So we called everyone out of the prairie grass, called the dogs and regrouped.  As expected one was missing.  AJ was nowhere to be found.  I told Mitch to hold on to both Charlie and Orso while I tromped off to find AJ.  Orso, thinking he was going to miss something immediately started wailing so I told Mitch to let him come with me.  I found AJ heading back to the cars having lost us.  After getting all of us together, Mitch explained our plan and off we headed across the electric fence that we always forget to unplug until one of us remembers the hard way.  Everyone else that hasn’t touched the fence yet laughs at the victim, really glad it wasn’t them. 

Even though it was only 40 degrees, the dogs found the pond at the bottom of the dam a refreshing swim.  Brrr.  Hydrated and renewed, the dogs bolted off up the open ground.  We started yelling, “Whoa!” as soon either Charlie or AJ got too far ahead of us.  The plan was to keep both of them working close to us.  Orso wasn’t a problem never straying too far ahead, as I constantly clomped him in the jaw with my heel.  He prefers to let me clear a path, less effort on his part. 

After walking and working the dogs from one end of Todd’s land to other, we succeeded in taking some of the out of control excitement out of them.  We decided it was time to head back to the tall prairie grass and give it a thorough sniffing.  The dogs worked wonderfully and rewarded us with two more birds.

Who says you can’t teach old dogs new tricks?