 How long did it take for this tree to grow around this pole? It literally just hit me, with one month to go. We’re not coming up on a new year, we’re coming up on a new decade!
A bit poleaxed by this. How did this happen? Where did the time go? Am I going to be feeling this same way ten years from now, when I am... *gulp*... 54? Here I had just been worrying whether I would finish all my resolutions for 2019, and suddenly I’m snapped into a whole next-level perspective. I spent my twenties being broke, big-time broke, but I somehow managed to finish out that decade of my life with a college degree and a driver’s license. (And a divorce but who’s counting) Then I spent most of my thirties with my husband. That was an extremely dramatic change from the previous decade of my life. In fact it is helping with this time-shock that I am feeling right now, to think of when he entered my life and the fantastic contrast between His Time and any Time Before. We often say, “I can barely remember what it was like before you came along,” (to our phones) and it feels very true. Now let’s compare 2009 to 2019. No smartphone Um... what else? 2009 was the year I got married again. There probably won’t be as dramatic a change in my life again, unless we get a grandkid (?) or until we retire. That part of things feels solved. For someone who is single, I would say, don’t worry. I hope you always feel that being single is better than being with the wrong person, or being with someone for the wrong reasons. Marriage is either the best thing to ever happen to you, or the worst... I continue to not own a home. I’ve never bought a house or owned property, and I wonder if I ever will. We’ve moved [counting] eight times since 2009! We’ve also traveled to nine countries together. That part is starting to feel pretty standard. For those who have lived in only one home in the past decade, take a moment to consider that in the context of someone who moves a lot. Not only do we not own a home, we also don’t own a vehicle. I sold my car shortly after we started dating, and my husband’s pickup died somewhere past 200,000 miles. Then we had a compact car for a while, but it was recalled and we elected not to replace it. That’s something to consider in a ten-year context as well: your main form of transportation. Ten years ago, I still had a student loan, we were paying for our wedding, and my husband was still paying both alimony and child support. Fast forward to today and we’re debt-free, living in a completely different financial world. (Saving half your income will do that). Ten years is an ideal block of time to consider your finances. Are you on track to be free of any financial burdens that you have today? Or, realistically, are you going to continue to spend beyond your means, like most people, and find any thoughts of money and debt scary or depressing? (There’s still time) Ten years ago, we lived in a suburban house that was roughly 1800 square feet. We had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a yard, and a two-car garage with loft storage. We had two couches and two dining tables. Now we live in a 650-square-foot apartment. We’ve been sub-900-square-feet for the past five years, tiny house territory. We got rid of easily 80% of everything we owned, possibly more like 90%. While it seems weird to imagine having all that stuff again, and I strongly doubt we ever will, we will probably expand into a bit bigger home again within the next decade, more for the yard and a possible guest room than anything else. Also because tiny homes are harder to find! Ten years ago, my husband was at the same job he’d held for the previous ten years and he thought he would be there at least until his kid finished high school. We had no inkling whatsoever of the direction his career would go only two years later. He’s been sent around the world and he’s working on his fourth patent. He went from a shared cubicle quad to a private office with a door. Me? I went from a basic secretarial role to whatever the heck you call what I do these days. International woman of mystery. Ten years can be a very, very long time on a career trajectory. Ten years ago, I was unfit, a lifelong non-athlete, homebody, and shy person. Somehow in the past decade I’ve run a marathon, become a Distinguished Toastmaster, self-published a book, visited four continents, climbed a rope, done standup comedy, jumped over open flames, and otherwise completely shocked myself. I’ve also been bit by a fire ant and gotten into the stinging nettles, sing Hey for a life of adventure... In 1999, I wore a size 14. In 2009 I wore a size six. In 2019 I wear a size two. Twenty years ago I was a chronically ill, overweight young woman with a brunette pixie cut. Now, weirdly, I am a thin middle-aged lady with long blonde hair, boxing gloves, and a collection of adventure race medals. I look like a completely different person, I have a different name, I live 1000 miles away from where I started, and the only thing I really have in common with myself is my reading habit. Who am I?? Ten years ago, we had our pets, Spike and Noelle, and we were afraid to leave them alone in a room together for even ten seconds. Today, not only is it amazing and a little tearjerking to think they are both still here, but their decade of friendship is something beautiful to behold. He finally let her snuggle him for a couple of minutes the other day, fluffy breast puffed up against his side. We never had anything to be afraid of, other than the day they say goodbye. Whatever else ever happens in our lives together, we’ve had eleven years of the Spike and Noelie Show; we’ve loved them always. Heaven will be the two of them napping side by side forevermore. Ten years ago, and certainly twenty years ago, I could not have imagined anything about my life today. Not where I lived how I look or my social life or how I spend my time, certainly not the technical innovations that are an ordinary part of my day. Only the love in my heart for my man, my little animals, and my family, that’s all I seem to carry. What will happen in the next ten years? Where will we be and what will we be doing? Who will still be here and who will not? Will we have said everything we should have said to them? Will we do everything we’ve intended to do, or will we do more, or will we squander the days and years? We’ll burn through them one way or another, so let us burn through them lovingly and with all our hearts.  We still haven’t told her Six weeks to live, that’s what the vet told us. He was in one room and we were in another, having a surgical consult for our 10-year-old dog. After absorbing all the information and asking a lot of questions, we wept on each other and then declined treatment.
A year later, he’s still here. There are few emotional moments as difficult as saying goodbye to a beloved pet. Our love for them is uncomplicated and pure in a way that it rarely or never is for the humans in our lives. This is why sitting in a veterinary office can lead us to make decisions that can ultimately be bad for the animal and bad for us as well. It helps when we can set ourselves some guidelines in advance. It sucks, but animals have lifespans. Most of them are shorter than ours. We love them, and then they get old and die on us. It’s desperately unfair. Why can’t a dog live as long as a horse? Why can’t a cat live as long as a parrot? Our parrot helped raise this dog, Spike, from a 10-week-old puppy. Now she’s still swinging upside down by two toes and singing to Lady Gaga while he’s a stiff old elderly dog. She’s 21 and she could probably outlive five consecutive dogs during her natural lifespan. It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair, and yet that’s part of my attraction to parrots. Long life and few health problems. Comparing one phylum to another isn’t useful in this context, though. What I am going to offer is a comparison between two dog-loving families faced with similar veterinary issues, what they decided, and how it turned out. First I’ll offer the test case, and then I’ll offer details about Spike’s situation. I met a woman at a party. She had a lot on her mind. Her household was broke, she was unemployed, and she couldn’t afford the special high-end groceries she needed for her diet. I used to work in social services, so when I hear “can’t afford groceries” I get into “feed this family” mode and start offering options. Then I found that the family was broke partly because they had recently spent over $20,000 on cancer treatments for their dog. Wow! I didn’t meet the dog in question, and we’re not in touch, so I have no idea how this looks a year down the road. The story was that the treatments worked and the dog was cancer-free a year later. The woman at the party didn’t seem to have made the connection between struggling with grocery money and paying the extra vet bills. This stuck in my mind because only a couple of weeks later, we found out that our own dog had a liver tumor. Here’s the backstory. Our dog was diagnosed with Addison’s disease when he was two years old. He hadn’t eaten in over 24 hours and he lay in his bed, shaking. I got down on the floor with him and held him all night, certain this pup was going to die. Took him to the vet and found out he has this genetic endocrine disorder which is so serious that most people choose to euthanize rather than try to treat it. We decided to give him the pills and keep him around. A few years later, that medication quit working on him and we thought he was going to die again, but he responded to a different drug. Now he goes in every month for a shot, and the few days at the end of the cycle, he tends to be shaky and ill. Tough life for a little dog. Then there was the time he hurt his neck from shaking his toys so much. The vet advised a spinal tap and a long list of other treatments to find out what was wrong. He didn’t do well on the pain medication and quit eating again, and once again we were sure our expensive little dog wasn’t going to make it. We took him off the pain meds and I was able to coax him back into eating solid food by pretending I couldn’t stop dropping bits of my lunch on the floor. By the time we made it to the Liver Tumor point on the timeline, we had been through a lot as a mixed-species family. Spike had been on countless prescriptions and was on a first-name basis with literally every single employee at no fewer than four clinics. He was a canine celebrity, The Addisonian Dog Who Lived. “Personality plus,” they call him, a great dog with a loving home... and poor health. It’s like this. 20% of the time, he’s happy and hilarious. He jumps three feet straight off the ground, chases his tail, and does a dozen circus tricks. 20% of the time, he’s curled up in a ball feeling sick and refusing food. The middle 60%, he’s like any other dog, hanging around sleeping or scratching his ear or following us from room to room. We’ve known for a long time that Spike probably wasn’t going to get the advanced life span of some dogs. We’ve known for most of his life that his genetic condition would eventually progress to the point that it was untreatable. We had to make the decision early on that when he started suffering more and life was no longer fun for him, we would do the right thing. Then my mother-in-law died of cancer, her fifth recurrence. When we decided to decline treatment for Spike’s liver tumor, this was why. My husband couldn’t put his dog through cancer treatment because he saw what it did to his mom. She was a human who could communicate and sign her own forms. Our dog could never possibly understand what was happening to him, what we were doing to him. We knew he might die during the exploratory surgery, much less during radiation and chemo. All that just to buy him another year, a year of constant pain and fear and confusion? And then what? The same choices again, only with an older dog? When we declined treatment, the $9100 bill for the exploratory surgery was a factor, sure. It should be for most families. We have an adult child. What if *she* needed help with that kind of money but we had already spent it on our pet? What if one of *us* got cancer? Wouldn’t it be nice if veterinary care came free of charge, no matter the animal. Wouldn’t it be nice if they lived forever. Sure, that would be great, but we don’t expect anyone else to work for free, so why veterinarians? The “cost” isn’t a financial cost, though, as much as it is a cost of pain and confusion and dread for the animal. They hate it there, we know that, and when we bring them in it’s often more about postponing our own pain than theirs. What happened with our dog’s liver tumor, a year after declining treatment? Fair question. It got larger and he developed a second tumor, in his lung this time. He’s still here, though. With the benefit of hindsight, we can say that treating our dog for the liver tumor/possible cancer would not have been a good idea. He got this second tumor anyway, and the treatment for the first tumor could not have prevented it. We would easily have spent twenty thousand dollars treating our dog, who is now eleven and a half, and for what? In the year that we didn’t have to buy him, the bonus year, he’s had a lot of terrible days. He’s also had some great days, where he was so happy and energetic that we just looked at each other with our mouths hanging open. This dog! His vets (he knows the whole team) have no explanation for why he is still alive. We know his day must be coming any time now, and we have the number to call to help his crossing over the rainbow bridge. We’ll do the right thing for him, no question, but why rush when he still wants to jump and play and do tricks? Did that other family do the right thing by spending $20,000 on cancer treatments for their dog, at the expense of their own grocery budget? They seemed happy about it, and it isn’t for me to judge. Did my husband and I do the right thing by declining treatment for our own dog, partly because we knew it would cost $20,000? Not everyone would agree, and it probably isn’t fair to include the results, because if he had only lived for a month we might have seemed callous and cruel. We made the choice we did because we felt that it was too much to ask of our dog to tolerate a year of cancer treatments. We also made this choice because spending that kind of money on a ten-year-old dog did not make sense in a broader moral context. If we were going to spend $20,000, why not put it toward a human’s cancer treatment instead? We’ll say goodbye to our dog sometime soon. We won’t wait for the obvious last day. We’ll make it a party, so his friends can say goodbye too. He can have party foods, even the naughty stuff if he wants it, like fried chicken and chocolate and grapes. We’ll let him go, and it will crush us. But we knew, even when we first held him and he would fit in one hand, we knew he would. We knew that we would love him and he would break our hearts, because we are immortals compared to his kind. We choose this love because it burns so hot, an enormous love for a short life.  How many toes does he even have? Running is my dog Spike’s favorite thing ever. He likes it even more than BALL. One day, he went for a six-mile run with my husband while I was at a baby shower. I got ready for my own run. Spike was eating. I went to slip out the door, visibly wearing running clothes and shoes. Spike saw me, spit his mouthful of dog kibble back into his bowl, and sprinted to the door. He’d rather run than eat, even though he’d already put in significant mileage that day. He’d like to go everywhere we do. I try to remember that while I’m wearing shoes, my dog is barefoot all the time.
I get where he’s coming from. I hate wearing shoes. I especially hate running shoes; I almost always think they’re hideous. Inevitably, when I go to replace my last worn-out pair, I think the new ones are even uglier than the ones I already have. The pair that fit me best and feel the best on my feet are usually my least favorite colorway out of the whole range. I buy one brand that has colors I like okay, but they’re something of a discount brand and aren’t really good for actually running. Just comfy walking shoes. If I’m not going outside for some reason, I’m barefoot at home. I’m even barefoot when it’s cold outside, which drives my mom nuts. “Aren’t you cold?” Well, sure, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do something so foolish as to wear shoes! The thing about being barefoot all the time is that it leads to certain choices instead of others. When I’m barefoot all the time, it doesn’t make as much of a difference whether I get dressed or just hang around in my pajamas. Obviously I’m not going anywhere outside. If I’m not going anywhere, why should I get dressed? This can lead to a blending of morning into late afternoon. If you have the luxury of setting your own schedule, it’s more common for huge chunks of the day to somehow disappear than to suddenly start getting important tasks done at 5:30 AM. When I’m barefoot all the time, I’m going to put off doing certain things until it’s shoe time. This means stuff like taking out the trash, dropping off donation bags, running errands, or even buying groceries is going to wait until later. In fall and winter, daylight can disappear before you even realize that most of the day is gone. Sometimes today turns into tomorrow, or the next day, or never. Without shoes, I’m unlikely to do yard work, replace outdoor lightbulbs, or even so much as sweep the porch. Months can pass this way. When I’m barefoot all the time, how simple it is to tuck my feet up under me and snuggle into a blanket. Putting my shoes on entails bathing and getting dressed first. That has this whole domino effect of officially starting my day, doesn’t it? Doesn’t that trigger my to-do list? Can’t I just wait another hour and do it later? It’s true that I hate shoes. I hate wearing anything on my feet if I don’t have to. It’s also true that going barefoot all the time means I can’t do other things that I love. I’m not backpacking barefoot, I’m not running barefoot, I’m not even going to the library or a bookstore barefoot. My comfort level with hanging around barefoot is a tendency that I don’t feel great indulging. Wearing shoes doesn’t come naturally to me - or to anyone. They’re artificial instruments of civilization, not body parts. Wearing shoes does, though, assist me in my bias toward action. Wearing shoes makes me more active in every way. Wearing shoes helps me get more done and leads me to use my body more. I think about my dog Spike and his feet when we run together. One night, he picked up three goat head thorns. They were rammed into the fleshy pads of one paw. Did he cry out? No. Did he ask to stop? No. He just limped a bit until my husband noticed and picked him up. Spike loves running so much that he’ll do it on hot asphalt, on gravel, in mud, and even when he has spiny thorns stabbing between his little toes. We built up Spike’s feet gradually. When we started running as a pack, I could barely do a third of a mile. We added a tenth of a mile every couple of days. It was three weeks before we were running a mile at a stretch, and I think it took two years before we got to the six-mile mark. Our little 23-pound dog was there for almost every step. Running is his passion. It’s the time he feels most like himself. Because we started out with such short distances, and because we added time and distance so slowly, Spike’s footpads got tough and thick. It helps his nails to stay naturally short and he doesn’t have to go through the trauma of having the groomer trim them. He can run in his full glory, barefoot all the time. Thinking about my little doggy helps to make me more action-oriented. I need to pause a few times a day to take him out. I would never want him to suffer, not with thorns in his paw and not with unanswered biological needs. I’m sure that if we ever put him in shoes, he’d hate wearing them as much as I hate shoes myself. For him, I wear them more often. At least one of us gets to run wild and free, barefoot all the time.  Not exaggerating: it took literally eighty attempts to get this shot Have you met my cuppycake? Her name is Noelie and she is extremely gray and fluffy and she has golden eyes and she loves to kiss everything and everyone and climb on the dog. I love her. I mean, you think you love your pet, but no way do you love your animals as much as I love Noelle. It is this love that we should feel toward our treasured goals.
Goal love / pet love comparison chart: Would do anything for her Think about her all day, every day Make all my plans based around her needs Talk about her constantly Keep a million pictures and videos of her on my phone Work her into every conversation Expect everyone to love her as much as I do, and if they don't, it's their loss Sometimes people are afraid of her and I can't figure out why Money is no object - whatever she needs, she gets Don't really care when she chews up my stuff Sometimes she is loud and demanding but I love her anyway When other people fall in love with her, we become instant best friends There is no reason why everyone couldn't have a cuppycake just like mine In fact, I highly recommend it Substitute 'her' and 'she' with 'my goal' and see if it still works. Goals are BS, really. A goal is a simple, small, bite-size step toward a consuming vision. Unfortunately, we are often quite dumb when we choose goals. We make public proclamations that we are committing to goals we don't really like or want. We choose goals based on what we think we should do. When the goal is true, when the goal is just a minor, obvious obstacle between you and the vision, "should" doesn't matter. Sometimes the vision requires things we "shouldn't" do. According to naysayers, we shouldn't do anything other than complain, consume mass entertainment, and sit on our butts. These are some things I've done in service of my larger goals: Sleep on the floor Sleep in my car Run in the snow, rain, and hail Carry fifty pounds on my back Limp for eight miles Climb 3300 feet Eat when I wasn't hungry Delay meals until my hands shook Keep going despite an open wound Work through a four-day migraine Cry in the elevator, then wipe my eyes and go back to work Give away all my stuff Kick a 50-pound suitcase with a broken handle through two airport terminals Get inoculated Scrub toilets and change diapers Pay money I didn't want to spend Take orders from mean people I didn't like Work all night (many times) Work in a tent Work on a plane Work in a hotel Work through meals Work with four devices open Quit doing things I enjoyed to free up time for my goal When my goal is my cherished fluffy little pet, it's worth it. When I really want something to happen, when I really really want something I can't just buy at a store, which is almost everything worth having, then I'll do what it takes. No question. On the other hand, when my "goal" is a pseudo-goal that I actually hate, then nothing can get me moving on it. I never lost weight when I had contempt for fit, attractive, or fashionable people, but I did it almost instantly when I decided to run the marathon. I never had any money when I had contempt for wealthy people, but it was fairly straightforward when I developed a burning desire to be independent. I could never get organized when I associated it with criticism and perfectionism, but I did it quickly when I realized it would help me accomplish awesome things like traveling the world. The difference there is that I moved toward something I saw as attractive, exciting, and much better than where I was when I started. Just like most people will move quickly toward a tray of free pastries, a goal should be shiny, sweet, and delicious to you. Whereas, when a goal is distasteful, onerous, or irrelevant, "trying" is failing. It's the difference between cuddling my cute little cuppycake, or pet-sitting someone's obnoxious, spoiled little monster. No thanks. You can't wait until it's gone, and many people choose goals that they secretly wish would run away. There are tradeoffs. One goal is often mutually exclusive with another goal, just as my cuppycake keeps me from having a cat. A goal sometimes requires its own living standards, just as not everyone will rent to us or give us a hotel room due to our menagerie. A goal sometimes comes with a surprisingly large number of unwieldy accessories, and you know what I mean if you've ever cleaned a birdcage. When your goal is your true heart's delight, you take it in stride. I have pets because I can't help myself. I'm smitten. The times when I haven't had pets, part of me has been empty and listless. It's the same with goals. They show up and we're helpless, hopeless, willing slaves of our own dreams. We're never the same afterward. They make our lives and our hearts bigger. Get one, go nuts, dote on it, and love it and squeeze it until it squeaks.  This is why we talk about going on foot. As I write this, over 180,000 people have been evacuated from the path of the crumbling Orville Dam. We lived near there just a few years ago. Whenever something like this happens, I pause and reevaluate how well prepared my household is in case of disaster. It's a civic duty. At minimum, we should avoid adding to the workload of first responders. Stay out of their way and don't create extra problems. Ideally, we should be self-sufficient and able to take care of ourselves. Under the right circumstances it would be good to be able to pitch in and help others. There are a lot of homebound people out there who could use an extra hand. Nobody left behind. A thirty-foot wall of water is a clear villain against which we can all unite.
This is the purpose of being organized. It means you have your head on straight and you can survive an emergency. It truly doesn't matter how color-coordinated your spices are and whether you've alphabetized your socks yet. When crisis strikes you need to be able to get out the door. My people are fantastic about worrying. They have a comprehensive anxiety plan, a worry and concern and stress for every situation. What they're not so fantastic about is forming realistic strategies. I have read run-on paragraphs about all the material objects a person genuinely believes she can rescue in the event of disaster. Like, you really think you can save forty photo albums when your house is on fire? Emergency responders die due to harebrained ideas like this. Take this moment to pause, breathe in, and accept that only living beings can and should be evacuated. Not a bunch of bric-a-brac. Stuff is just stuff. No object should ever be rated above a human being, and probably not above an animal either. Get yourself out, get your children out, get your pets out, and check on your neighbors. Then you're done. I talked to a woman once who had to negotiate to bypass a police barricade to get to her house during a wildfire. She could see the flames from her driveway. She was trying to talk to her husband on her cellphone while loading her frantic, terrified dogs into the Jeep. Trying to decide which papers to go after. It took only about a minute to realize that she had barely enough time to flee for their lives. Papers can be replaced, people can't. She was in and out in five minutes, no papers, but at least she had the dogs. That is the appropriate response. Ellen Ripley took the cat when she was fleeing the Alien, but she didn't try to bring a photo album or her childhood teddy bear. Be like Ripley. All that being said, a dam is a metaphor. A dam is a physical structure, a bulwark against certain types of disaster. It controls floods. You can use physical objects to protect against certain types of disaster, also. What I have in mind is a Go Bag. This is something you can set up in twenty minutes and inspect for five minutes every month. When the time comes, you can grab your Go Bag and... GO. You need to have an emergency plan for everyone in your household. Where do you meet? Where do you meet if that place is flooded or on fire? What's your fallback plan if cell phones aren't getting through and you can't communicate? If you've ever been separated in a casino or at the mall, you have a tiny taste of what this could be like. TALK IT OUT. Do not procrastinate on an emergency plan. You can procrastinate on alphabetizing your socks or going to the gym, but don't [censored] around with your disaster planning. My Go Bag includes a Sharpie marker, some index cards, and masking tape. This is so I can leave messages at and near the house if need be. One of the things I check when I get my monthly 'emergency kit inspection' reminder is that this Sharpie has fresh ink. I have a sheaf of backup documents in case my ID gets lost. Page of emergency contact phone numbers, because I haven't memorized one since the early Nineties. Color copies of my passport, driver's license, health insurance, AAA card, advance health care directive, and the 800-number to call in case it's time to donate my body to science. Copy of our marriage license. It took me 15 minutes to figure out what I needed, and about 60 cents to make photocopies of it at the public library. What else is in there? Old, faded casual clothes that I don't care if I lose. (Two t-shirts, a pair of shorts, a pair of jeans, a zippered sweatshirt, old sneakers, socks, bras, and underwear). My travel shower kit. Sun block. Hand sanitizer. First aid kit on top. A little cash in small bills. Spare ATM card. Solar charger and adapter for my phone. Three water bottles, one with a built-in filter, two that I keep filled and freshen up every couple of weeks. It would be super annoying and disappointing if someone took this bag, but there's nothing in there I couldn't live without. Or... Hmm. My husband's Go Bag is his work backpack. Change of shoes, some cash in small bills, a snack. Photocopies of the same relevant documents that I have. His actual wallet, phone, and glasses. There's a third bag that we call the Pet Bag. It has some styptic gel with a topical anesthetic in case one of them gets hurt. (Works on people too). It has their nail trimmers. It has at least four days' worth of kibble for each of them. They can both eat what we eat, but it seems expedient to have food for them that humans wouldn't really want. Extra water bottle. The Pet Bag has small food and water bowls, and poo bags. This bag goes with us on road trips and we are in and out of it all the time. They wear their ID; he has a rabies tag on his collar and she has a closed ring leg band. This is the scenario: I'm on foot, with my Go Bag on my back, the Pet Bag slung over one shoulder, a leash in one hand and a parrot carrier in the other. The bags weigh in at 19 pounds, nearly half my full expedition pack weight. I'm walking about one mile an hour. WHERE would I put a photo album or any other sentimental objects? Balanced on my head? Floating in the air in my thought bubble? (Answer: I've already scanned them and saved them in cloud storage). The main goal of the Go Bag is to get us to an emergency shelter. Hopefully we will never be in that situation; hopefully, if we do have to evacuate, we can use passable roads and go to our Plan A backup destination, which is not in our geographical region. Evacuations happen, though. My husband had to leave town after the Northridge Earthquake. We've known other people who had to evacuate due to wildfire, flood, and landslide. In my family tree are people who had to live in Golden Gate Park after the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. It happens. We want to be around afterward and live to tell the tale. I feel it would be unfair not to mention this topic, so: Cardio. If someone screams RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! I pray that you can. A mudslide does not care about body shaming. A thirty-foot wall of floodwater does not care about body shaming. A wildfire coming up your street does not care about body shaming. Reality is judging you. Disaster is not a respecter of persons. Know how fast you can run and how much you can carry. If you can't do it for yourself, do it for your kids, and if you don't have kids, do it for your pets. If you can't do it for any of those reasons, do it for the exhausted emergency responders. Don't say nobody told you. You've been told. We do our best to cope when the world gets weird. We try to keep disaster at bay, just as we try to dam the floodwaters. It's unfair and inconvenient, but it happens. Stuff goes wrong. Usually it does it in the middle of the night, when we're barefoot and disoriented. Preparing for the worst is morbid and depressing, but not nearly as much as the alternatives. Let it serve as a memento mori, the purpose of which is to remind us to make the most of today. Say "I love you" while we can. Appreciate what we have while we still have it. If we're fortunate, we'll never need our emergency preparations, and we can wink at ourselves and laugh a little at how silly we've been.  I couldn't make it through this book. By the halfway mark, I had to put it away so that I could make my own art! Then, of course, I went right back to reading, because I couldn't get enough of Danielle Krysa. I loved this book so much that I'm completely freaking out. Your Inner Critic is a Big Jerk, and mine is too. Anyone who is anyone will get something out of this book. You don't have to be an artist. This needs to be said, because without the disclaimer, some of us will feel that we aren't allowed to read it. That's for Real Artists (TM). Not the likes of me. My constant yearning to look at art, read art books, buy or touch art supplies and materials, and hang out with Real Artists (TM) in no way indicates that there might be a shadow artist inside of me. Nuh-uh. Every time I ever tried to sign up for an art class, it was full. I haven't had any formal training in visual arts or design since grade school. Perhaps this has helped me, because I've always thought my bad art was hilarious. I used to have a lovely roommate who had an MFA and had sold illustrations to national magazines. I showed her a sketch once and she literally laughed until she cried. I knew my drawing was naive and untutored, and I also knew that I have a certain gift for comedy, so this was a great result! I "can't" draw, just as I "can't" sing, but that doesn't stop me from drawing or singing when I feel the urge. If anything, it's a great way to troll my critics. Oh, does this bother you?? Perhaps I'll do it LOUDER! (That, by the way, is the philosophy of my parrot when she feels she isn't getting enough attention). Do what you want. It's harmless. Nobody but you knows a dang thing about your personal style. You are the authority on your own gift. Initiative comes from inside you, and the art wants to get out and live its life. Just let it out. You don't have to show it to anyone, or share it with anyone, or try to make money from it, and contrariwise, you have all the authority you need to put it on a billboard, declaim it from a megaphone, or put a ten million dollar price tag on it. There will always be a critic, just as there will always be a barking dog. If you can get criticized by random strangers just for existing within their field of awareness, might as well bring some of your work along, too. I made this piece on my iPad with my index finger. I've never used it for that purpose before. (Either the device or the finger). I've also never done a work in color. It's a portrait from memory of my little cuppycake, who was unable to pose for me because she sleeps twelve hours a night. Noelie. I'm going to show it to her, and if past behavior is any indication, she'll kiss it with her beak. It's a work born of inspiration and true love, and it sucks, but I find it charming and I'll most likely do more. If you don't like it, blame it on Danielle Krysa and her partner-in-crime, illustrator Martha Rich.   Spike heard that his sister got to do a guest post about the philosophy of a parrot. Everyone knows that dogs are better than birds. Dogs have been man's best friend for at least 15,000 years, and parrots aren't even domesticated. Every dog has his day, and here is Spike's worldly wisdom.
Wag your tail, even if your tail is just a nub. Wake up early and chase your tail before breakfast. Drink lots and lots of water. There is never a bad time for a nap. Go for a walk every day, and if you can't, just jump three to five feet straight up until you've had enough. Every time someone puts food or water in your dish, rush straight outside and do a couple of laps around the yard. Do it again when your sister gets her dishes filled just to be on the safe side. When you chase your tail, make sure to stop and go the other way or you'll turn into a corkscrew. Greet people effusively every time they come home. You can hear everything in the world if you listen hard enough. Sniff flowers. Gender isn't everything. I'm an N for Neuter and Sissy is a U for Undetermined. Defy categories. There are over two hundred breeds of dogs, and that means at least one for everyone! Bark at the mailman or he might get inside. Ball. BALL. BALL! Vigilance! Do a perimeter check of the yard and each room every day. Ask nicely and you might get a belly rub. Don't leave perfectly good food on the floor. Conserve water and don't bathe unless ordered. Get your shots. Roll in the grass. Every now and then, run with your leash off. Carry your ID everywhere you go. It's good to get back to the garden and get your paws in some nicely turned soil. Nice dogs usually have nice humans. I don't know. Am I a good boy? Chocolate is actually bad for you. Insects are high in protein. Snuggle. Snuggle in groups. Stuffed animals have an expiration date. If you want to make new friends, bring them a ball and put it in their lap. Appreciate delightful fragrances, or any kind of fragrance, really. Who says an old dog can't learn new tricks? If you're good enough, you might get a cookie.  Noelie is an African Gray Parrot. She's just had her eighteenth hatch day. She'd like to share some of her worldly wisdom.
She was born and she also hatched. She's entered this world two different ways, and she sees things we don't see. Hatching out of an egg takes a lot of work. Have you ever spent that long doing anything that difficult? Sleep twelve hours a night. It will give you a sweet disposition and a glossy red tail. Nothing interesting happens after the sun goes down, anyway. Eat your vegetables, if you're lucky enough to get them. Zucchini! Kale! Green beans! Collard greens! Chard! Cucumber! Cabbage! Cauliflower! Broccoli! Bell pepper! LETTUCE! Hang upside down at least ten percent of every day. Stressed out? Chew on a block of wood, punch a bell with your face, or shred something. Say "WHEW!" and pump your fist. Start a hobby, such as chewing shoelaces, chewing wicker, or chewing library books. Gratitude is happiness. Kiss your friends. Kiss the dog. Kiss babies. Kiss your toys. Kiss your water bowl. Kiss your foot. Kiss the wall. Go outside and enjoy the garden whenever you can. Look at the sky. There might be another bird up there, or an airplane. We live in a 360-degree world and you should take the time to notice all of it. Eat until you're satisfied, and then throw the rest at the wall. Never miss an opportunity to play on a swing. Note to self: get more paracord. Take time to eat the roses. You may walk slowly and run crooked, but if you can stand on one foot for an hour and lift your foot to your head, let them laugh. Grooming is a top priority. Every feather, every day. Chew your foot scales until they are presentable. A world with SHOWER TIME is a perfect world. Make new friends. They might be willing to scratch your head. Watermelon keeps your tail red. It's never too late to learn a foreign language, such as Sparrow or Starling. About ten percent of the people who meet you may find you intimidating or scary. Don't mind them; it's their loss. Music is everything, everything. Sing when you feel like it, and if anyone complains, sing louder! Meowing is funny. Plan to live a very long life in case you actually do. What if you lived to be 119? I might! They're not looking at you, they're looking at me. Because I'm GORGEOUS, darling.  We entered in solemnity, already knowing there was nothing we could do. The poor little thing was on life support, hanging on just long enough to say goodbye. We're all at that age when we've lost family and close friends. In some ways, losing a pet is harder. There are no complications or communication breakdowns. There's just this warm little ball of unconditional love. We sometimes have more years of memories with a pet than we had with our family of origin. We grow up with them, relocate with them, cry on them, take naps with them, share meals with them - and then, suddenly, they're frail. They go gray around the muzzle. They move slowly with the rickety gait of age. They quit eating. It's time to go. We really want to hang on one more year, but it's time to go.
Sitting in the waiting room of a veterinary hospital, it's impossible to avoid thinking of all the pets you've lost over the years. Phoebe, who would whisper "Give me a kiss, give me a kiss" and say "Bye bye" when she rode in the carrier. Rita, who would climb up her ladder, and then turn around and climb down on the underside, upside down and backward. Mr. Puffy, who finally learned to fly at age twelve, and spoke at fifteen. He asked for: "Oatmeal." I thought of Spike, with his early diagnosis of Addison's disease, and how he was only two when I sat vigil with him, sure he wasn't going to make it until morning. He's still with us at eight, but we've been sure we were going to lose him half a dozen times. He's spent more time with doctors over the last five years than the two of us humans combined. This time I wasn't there for one of my own, but I knew what my friend was going through, hamstrung by grief and shock. We try to hold back and not love them so much, so it won't hurt so bad when they go. We can't help it. They love us with such a pure devotion. That's why they're here: to teach us how to love properly, with full abandon and bursting hearts. To greet each other joyously, to trust completely, to forgive effortlessly. Perfect acceptance, perfect friendship, perfect love. They don't understand how to criticize, judge, or blame. They also don't understand anything about veterinary medicine. They live in a world of scents and smells more profound than anything we can imagine. All they know is that they're in a weird, antiseptic world of fear, pain, and confusion. They're poked and prodded and assaulted with pills. They're locked in cages. They hear the cries of other frightened, sick animals. They're already ill, and now we ask this of them. It's not too much - they'd die for us if we said the word - but it is a challenging request. Please forget everything that happens to you in here. I just want you to get better and hang on one more year, one more year. I understood the dynamics when I began to tune in to the conversation of a married couple on the other side of the room. They were about a decade older than me. I gathered that they were the companions of the standard poodle down the hall. Whenever the door opened, I could see him, mouth slack with pain and stress. The couple were discussing the prognosis and the cost of the procedure. What would they tell the kids? Despite the sensitivity of the topic and the lateness of the hour, they sounded like they were maintaining rationality. The upshot was this: the dog needed major surgery, but he was elderly and could only expect, at most, another couple of years of a natural lifespan. He had already had an expensive treatment that had not helped. The surgery might not work, and he might not survive the procedure. My antennae went up when the dollar figure came up, because it matched what I still owe on my student loan. Six thousand dollars. Ooof, I thought, that'll leave a mark. Enough to contribute to an IRA for the year. Enough to cover their high schooler's college tuition for a term (maybe). Enough to bring home another dog (after some time had passed) and leave a hefty donation to the animal shelter. Enough for an older used car. Enough for the entire family to live off for a couple of months. How many malaria nets it might buy, I can only guess. This is middle age. You wade through grief after sorrow after devastation after loss. You keep your family together. You keep going to work. You think about the price tag of everything, because old age and frailty are coming your way soon enough - if you're lucky. You may wind up caring for your own parents before your kids are out of the nest. I felt for that couple. I almost wanted to offer my condolences, but I didn't want to make them uncomfortable. These matters are private, even if they must be discussed in a small room with an audience. Sad as it was, I felt they were making the right choice, for themselves and for their family. The surgery was too expensive, the poor furry fellow might not survive, he couldn't possibly comprehend the fear or physical agony, and they had children to support. They went ahead with the surgery. Something shrank inside me. Oh, no. Oh dear. They had made a major emotional decision at midnight on a work night. It might take them years to pay for it. Their beloved dog may have crossed the Rainbow Bridge long before they saw the last of the bills. At the next crisis, their position might be that much more precarious, forcing them into options they never would have faced otherwise. The door opened again, and I saw another glimpse of the poodle's face. He was the picture of misery. He couldn't get comfortable either standing or lying down. He didn't get a say in this. He'd do what was asked of him for his entire life, which was to be there for his human family, until he could keep going no longer. I hoped he made it through the procedure and that his recovery wasn't too hard on him. Very few happy things happen in a veterinary hospital. At best, all that happens is that the animal has to stand on a slippery metal table, suffer some confusing indignities like the thermometer, and get stuck with booster shot needles. At worst, there is pain, fear, sadness, and the longing to turn back the clock. I loved you so much when you were tiny. How could you let this happen to you? Why is your lifespan so short? Please don't say goodbye. Oh, not tonight. Just one more year. One more year. It takes courage to let go. Nothing like the courage they show, hanging on just to please us, even when they can't eat. Even when they can't walk. Even when they can't stand up anymore. They've always been there for us, and when they finally need us to be there for them, to stand up for them and do what's right, we balk. We look at life without them and we are seized by cowardice. I can't do this without you. I can't go home and look at your bed and your empty bowl. I can't walk in my front door, knowing you won't be there waiting for me. I remember collapsing at my own front door with the key still in my hand, weeping on my knees for the one who wasn't there. Crying into the carpet, Oh my baby, why, why? To enter the Temple of Sadness is to lose a piece of your heart. There is no earthly way to get out of there unscathed. They mop the floors with bitter tears. The only way is to somehow try to prepare yourself well in advance. Look into that sweet little face and remember, You are only here for a short time. We will love each other well. We will mark each other's hearts. We will bring something higher and better into this world. Then, before we know it, the time will be up. You couldn't pace yourself. You fit three human lifetimes into one, with triple the love, triple the bravery, triple the joy and gratitude. Now it's your time. Thank you for being my friend. Now it's time to say goodbye. See you on the other side.  Euphemisms can be fun. In our household, an “opportunity to succeed” is the term for when the parrot needs a potty break. That’s about once every ten minutes. Not to get too graphic, but if she’s sitting with you and you’re wearing something labeled “dry clean only,” don’t startle her. Aside from her role as catalyst of many wardrobe changes, some due to flinging food or snagging with her nails, she’s a delightful companion. Part of it is her sweet nature. Part of it is that we’ve set up her environment in a way that makes it easy to live with her. This is where pet training can teach us a lot about habit formation.
I’ve always been described as “good with animals.” My husband is more like Dr. Doolittle. When we got married, our pets got married, too, in their own way. The 18-year-old Noelle and 8-year-old Spike treat each other much as you’d expect a human teenage girl with a decade-younger little brother to treat each other. They share food and toys, they try to get each other into trouble, they annoy each other sometimes, they ignore each other most of the time, and occasionally we catch them being affectionate when they think nobody is looking. He licks her on the beak and she touches his snout and makes smooch sounds. Why does this work? Why can our ¾-lb bird climb on our vigilant 21-lb terrier, with her terrible scratchy talons, and not get bit or shaken to death? How have they managed to live together for 7 years without injuring each other? That’s a story in itself. The keys are that we respect their natures and their biological needs, that we create a living environment that makes it easy for them, and that we’ve introduced changes very gradually. We supervised them extremely closely. We didn’t leave them alone in a room together for years. Plenty of dogs and parrots bite, ruin furniture, bark or scream monotonously, and are aggressive toward humans and other animals. Ours are nice because we set them up to be nice. We give them that “opportunity to succeed.” What does this have to do with humans? First, when we want to change our habits, it helps to do at least a bit of research in psychology. We have to understand what tends to work for our breed and what tends not to work. Going back to the pet training example, birds are flock animals and dogs are pack animals. They both have an inherent need to understand where they fit in the “pecking order” and who is the alpha of the group. (NB: a human, not a pet!) We established very firmly, when he was only 10 weeks old, that Spike is “gamma dog” and he has to let the bird boss him around. She bribes him with food rewards, reinforcing the relationship. When we want to change our habits, we need to know how habits work, and we also need to pay attention to our social surroundings. Is there someone in the pack who is going to throw us treats? Are someone else’s rules influencing our behavior? The physical home environment is paramount, both for habit change and for pet training. We have clearly defined areas where our pets are allowed to relax and be themselves. They each have a private sleep area (crate for him, cage for her). She has plenty of things she is allowed to use for her biological need to chew. They have their own toys, their own food, and their own water bowls, although sometimes she drinks out of his. He has a special blanket and a couch he’s allowed to sit on. This helps assuage his hurt feelings due to being banned from our bed. In the human parts of the house, we have designated areas for our stuff and our activities. I set up the medicine cabinet so that just glancing at what is in there reminds me to floss at night and put on sunblock in the morning. I set up the fridge so that the vegetables are at eye level. We keep our desks, table, and kitchen counters clear so they’re always ready to use for their intended purpose. Keeping the house clutter-free also makes it easier to do housework; research shows a cluttered house takes 40% longer to clean. That’s a big deal when you have as many loose feathers, dog hairs, shredded bits of plywood, and muddy paw prints coming through as we do. A schedule is helpful. Getting enough rest is a big deal for all of us. Noelle beeps if she’s under her cover too late in the morning. Then she starts imitating the travel alarm clock. Then she starts imitating the backup alarm of a garbage truck. At this point, the dog starts howling, rather than simply running out of the room. Next, they both get louder. Birds need about 12 hours of sleep a night, and a sleep-deprived bird is a crabby, biting sort of a bird. Mealtimes are the other major one. If any member of the house is eating, the other three expect to get a bite also. It makes life easier when we all eat together. If there is any single thing that makes habit change easier, it is letting the schedule pull you through the day. The important thing is to move from one activity to another without pausing to decide whether to do it or not. Do one thing, then the next thing, then the next thing. Stop to think and make decisions later in the day or evening, when most of the mandatory activities of the day are done. The fascinating thing about living with animals is that they have their own interior agendas. The dog has developed a thing lately of jumping up around 9:30 PM, standing on his hind legs to sniff at his leash, and barking at us and the front door. That’s not walking time, but for some reason, he feels this sudden interest in the leash and the door. It’s interesting to see when either of them decides to play with toys, stretch, or ask for attention. They definitely never let us forget munch time. What they don’t do is worry the way humans do. As far as we know, they spend zero time wondering what other people or animals think of them, stewing over old grudges, or browbeating themselves for their flaws. Noelle picks her nose with her toe and Spike licks his nether regions. They both have pretty high self-esteem. Whenever she sees her reflection in the mirror, she leans forward to kiss herself. When we call him “good boy” he actually believes it. One of the things about training pets is that we have rules. They can only understand what we want from them if we’re very clear about what exactly we want, if we communicate it in a way they can understand, and if we’re really, really, really consistent. It doesn’t help when Mother has one set of rules and Dad has a conflicting set of rules. We don’t steal food off someone else’s plate. We don’t grab people with our face. We don’t jump up. When we misbehave, we are instantly corrected and removed. There is a constant expectation that we will behave in certain ways, which are positively reinforced with affection and soothing words. We know what can be expected of us, given our inherent tendencies, and most of the time, we’re allowed to do what comes naturally. Pets lack the skills to survive in the wild. Our dog is a 20th-century breed, and he may even lack the physical ability to survive in the wild. It’s our job to look after them. We have to take care not to overfeed them or give them inappropriate foods, because they don’t know how to say no. They can’t read health articles or have a conversation with their vet about fatty liver disease. They aren’t moral agents; in a very real way, they can’t make decisions. (We have to remember this when the bird chews foam from the underside of the ottoman, and the dog keeps digging up my basil seedlings). We read that fat people have fat pets. We’ve lost 100 pounds between us, so we have to watch our tendency to be “feeders” and find amusement in giving our animals lots of yummy treats. We also have to recognize our tendency to give ourselves lots of yummy treats. Caring for them has almost all of the same requirements as caring for ourselves. As they’ve both put on extra grams (or pounds) and we’ve been chewed out by the vet, the solution has been to switch to “weight management” chow and measure scoops of food at each meal. Same for us. When we don’t want our animals to chew something up, we keep it out of reach. When we catch them doing something dangerous, we rush to their rescue and then make sure the dangerous thing can’t happen again. When they do something naughty, we correct them, as many times as it takes. We feed them what is healthy for them and restrict things they shouldn’t have. (Avocado could kill her; a lot of things are toxic for him, like raisins or tomatoes). We set them up so that they follow a natural rhythm of life every day, with plenty of time for rest, play, grooming, exercise, and affection. They enjoy simple things much more than we do, and that helps us feel like shower time or shoelaces are more interesting than we would otherwise notice. We have a lot to learn from animals. They never overthink anything. They both fulfill their complete agenda every day, from grooming to napping to shredding things to exercising, whether that means chasing one’s tail or hanging upside down and face-punching a bell. They seem reasonably satisfied to eat the same number of calories every day. They both place a high priority on cuddle time. They don’t keep clutter, they don’t over-pack, they don’t berate themselves for lacking willpower or motivation, they’re ready to go when it’s time to go somewhere. They have no body image issues, even though her wings are trimmed and his tail was docked in puppyhood. They both walk around shamelessly naked. They are utterly perfect, each in their own way, a clearly recognizable African Gray Parrot and a classic American Rat Terrier. They lead successful lives. Perhaps it’s from training pets that I have developed a comfort level with using behavioral psychology on myself. It’s pretty easy and straightforward for me to adopt new habits. I recognize that I have an innate drive to do both positive and negative things, and that I have to incentivize the right impulses and repress the undesired ones. I can’t let my parrot destroy people’s earrings, I can’t let my dog chase the mailman, and I can’t let myself do things like procrastinating on my taxes. I have to respect my biological needs for sleep, water, and appropriate foods, because if I treated my pets as badly as I might treat myself, I’d be cited for animal abuse. I don’t expect my critters to learn new tricks on the first attempt, and I teach myself to do new things the same way: patiently, slowly, incrementally. The best trick I could ever learn is to love the way they do, fully and unconditionally. |
AuthorI've been working with chronic disorganization, squalor, and hoarding for over 20 years. I'm also a marathon runner who was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and thyroid disease 17 years ago. Archives
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