Sam .. the first of many I am sure

As I type this tonight, my beloved beagle is at my feet. Curled up on a red fleece blanked put under my desk just for him. Every night when I check my email, farm on facebook and generally peruse the wonder that is the Internet, Sam is there. Snoring away, making little beagle sleeping noises.

Sam did not start out as my dog. No, we only met a few years ago (incidentally, that coincides with me meeting Grant). Grant got Sam as a puppy and raised him to be his bird dog. According to Grant, Sam loved being a bird dog until he got a mouth infection and was forced into retirement. Which, by the way, suits him well.

I met Sam the first time I went to Grant's house and it was love at first sight. I had a beagle for about 2 days when I was 5, but she nipped me on the nose and my parents gave her away. I always wanted another one and, as luck would have it, one fell into my lap.

From then on whenever Grant came to visit, Sam would come with him. Whenever I was down visiting, I had Sam with me, much to the chagrin of his then-roommate (not a dog lover by any stretch of the imagination).

Fast forward a year or so and Grant and I are living together. Sam has become my constant companion and I am rarely without him. He sleeps in bed next to me at night and on weekends can be found riding shotgun and going through the drive-thru at McDonald's for ice cream. He is more my dog now that Grant's. Not that he minds because what makes me happy makes him happy. Sam sits in my lap every night, he was sitting in the kitchen when we got engaged. Every time I am sick, he curls up next to me and won't let me out of his sight.

We have a new house now, one with a second story. Sam, being 13, has some trouble with the stairs, but still refuses to let me out of his sight. If I go upstairs, even for a minute, he follows me. Although he is on to me now and sometimes only goes up halfway until he is sure I am going to stay awhile.

A few months ago, Sam started coughing. I noticed his glands were a little swollen so I took him to the vet. She diagnosed him with allergies and when I asked for a chest X-ray told me it was unnecessary. She noticed some growths on his belly and asked me to bring him back for a checkup. I did, and she decided he had skin cancer from sunning his belly. Totally a beagle thing. She did an X-ray, but only of his belly. She still did not think he needed one of his chest -- it was just allergies after all. She operated on him and removed a tumor from his belly, reminding me to give him his allergy pills so he didn't cough and tear his stitches.

Fast forward 10 days and we are back at the vet for stitch removal. I am still asking her to check his glands (still swollen) and his cough. Nope, allergies. I start calling her office and the staff says the same thing -- and they are rude. I started searching for a new vet as his cough got worse. Finally I found one I liked and took my darling beagle in, terrified that he had bronchitis.

As I sat in the exam room waiting for him to be X-rayed I prayed to God to let him be alright. To not be sick. I prayed as hard as I could that he would just have a cough. I tried not to think about the fact that his glands were swollen and the doctor could not hear his heart beat because his lungs were so noisy. I sat in that room for 45 minutes praying that my baby would be OK and that I had not spent too much time trying to get Dr. Park to listen to me.

Sadly, Dr. Thompson told me that Sam has cancer. Specifically, he has lymphoma. He has 8 tumors on his lymph nodes, which on dogs are in their throat. That is why he is coughing. That is why his breath was sounding labored. I asked him how this happened, how this was missed and he had nothing to tell me other than it shouldn't have been.

So now we are going to see a veterinary oncologist to see if there is anything we can do. We are not going to go to extraordinary measures for him -- we just want to keep him comfortable and happy for as long as we can.

I am heartbroken. Devastated. I can't look at him or think of him without crying. I am hoping that, writing being as therapeutic as it is for me, blogging about this will keep me sane. I am going to chronicle our journey in the hopes that it brings to light the fact that vets, even with all of their schooling, should listen to their patients. Sometimes, even a dog mother's intuition is better than all the schooling in the world.

That being said, I am going to fight for Sam and do everything I can to make him feel better. I am also going to do everything I can to make sure EVERYONE knows that Dr. Park at Sun Ranch Pet Hospital in Los Lunas does not listen to her clients, works on her own agenda, allows her staff to be rude to her clients and does not know that swollen glands and a cough are NEVER symptoms of canine allergies. I have a vendetta and I WILL do all I can to make her malpractice and lack of compassion known.

Ode to my previous post

So I have some regret for that last post. Instead of explaining to people why I have been distant and depressed lately, it turned into a rant against someone who is currently defenseless. That is the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to explain why I am hurting so much right now, not put words in cyberspace that could somehow hurt someone else. Yes, I am hurt by the way I was treated. Yes, there are now scars that will not go away. Yes, I have been embittered toward someone I once loved. And yes, I have reached a point in my life where I can no longer deal with the baggage that comes with being this person's friend. But that does not, under any circumstances mean I wish to hurt him. He has done that himself.

I was talking to my wonderful, understanding and supportive husband tonight about the dinner we are having with him and his parents on Tuesday. I am nervous about it and I am not sure why. It is going to be hard to see him, yes, but I think the real reason is that I no longer have anything to say to him. The only words I have are ones that can hurt and I will not stoop to that level. I am a better person than that.

I know what I hope to hear; two words that I deserve but have never gotten: Thank You. Thank you for being there when no one else was. Thank you for picking up the pieces every time another chunk of my life fell apart. Thank you for not giving up on me and thank you for taking the shit I handed you over and over. Thank you for rescuing my belongings from the junkyard. Thank you for rescuing my cat from the shelter. And thank your husband for letting you help me when he had every right to put his foot down and say, "No, you have done enough. Your debt is paid." I just want to hear that the last few years of my life did not go un-noticed by the person I spent them helping. However, I doubt I will ever get that.

Sadly, the thought that this is the last time I am going to see him does not make me sad. Instead I feel relief. Relief knowing I will not have to worry that every time I hear about a drunk driver killing someone it is him and relief of not worrying that every drunk driving crash is him. Relief knowing that I will not be the person that walks into his apartment and finds him dead of alcohol poisoning and relief that I can finally close the book on that chapter of my life. I no longer feel love for this person, instead I feel sorry for him and the family that is going to try and put him back together. I feel relief that I am no longer that person. It is sad, but the part of my heart that used to love him has frozen over and will not be thawed.

I am still angry, but I think I am mostly angry with a person that does not exist anymore. Alcoholism steals people away and leaves strangers in their place. Sometimes they are really good replicas, but they are never the same person. The person I loved is gone just as much as if he had died. He no longer exists because alcohol has stolen who he was and replaced him with someone that looks and talks like him, but acts like a stranger. You would think, having had issues with alcohol, I would have recognized that. But we always like to see people in the best possible light. I looked past the problem and hoped to see a bright future -- I had telescopic rose colored glasses!

At any rate, that is what I have to say on that. I am going to remove my previous post and lock it away somewhere. I truly hope and pray that the person who used to be my friend is freed from the cage alcoholism has placed him in and can one day have as bright a future as he deserves.

Insomnia

I always have insomnia before I do something exciting. This seems to double when exciting is coupled with new. Therefore, I expect tonight to be tripled, since we are adding BIG.

Tomorrow, G and I start (and hopefully finish!) moving into our new house. Big, new and exciting! I am not going to sleep a wink tonight!

So I thought I would write a little catch-you-up blog.

The wedding was perfect. After throwing the smack-down on the owner of the B&B a couple times, everything went just as I had imagined and planned. The tables were perfect, the music was perfect, I looked STUNNING (hey, I did) and everything went as planned. Except for Melanie (http://thereisnofairysection.blogspot.com/2009/05/week-of-firsts-or-hoochie-dancing-is.html for that story). But that was at the end of the party. And now she has a good story and better drugs.

I loved the wedding . I just can't get over how wonderful it was to see most of our friends and family together. I even had family come in from Connecticut -- that was the best present we got. I miss them so much so having them at the wedding was a great treat. Now Chris and Debbie just need to set a date so I can return the favor!!!!!

After the wedding it was on to Puerto Rico! G took his Xanex like a good boy and was a dream to fly with. The last flight we took together I told him he had to get something or I would be the only one going to all the fun places -- he could only travel to places we could drive to. Funny thing about PR -- no bridge to get you there! So Mindy gave him the happy pills!

PR was AMAZING. I ate my way through San Juan though, so back to the gym next week! Mofongo is to DIE for -- mashed plantains made into a bowl that holds seafood? Sign me up! Oh, and to wash it down? Why, pina coladas of course! We also took a zip line through the canopy of a rain forest -- that was amazing. It was like being a bird and flying through the forest. I loved it -- G thought he was going to hate it but ended up having a great time!!!!

Aside from that, shopping and sightseeing were the main focus -- no sales tax made me happy and a trip to the Bacardi plant made us BOTH happy! (We now have enough rum to keep a small army VERY happy.)

I will be posting pictures as soon as I unpack the camera ...

And now, tomorrow, we are moving into our own home. OUR OWN HOME!!!!! Can you believe it? It does not quite seem real. G has spent the week dog-proofing the fence and I have been packing the house. I am sure it will all sink in tomorrow at this time as I unpack every single box. I don't know what it is -- I have to unpack as soon as I move. I can't stand having boxes that are not unpacked! Although some will have to stay packed until I find someone that wants all my old stuff (wedding presents ROCK!). It is so exciting to think that we will be paying our own mortgage from now on instead of lining someone else's pockets. I have rented since I got out of college, and now I get to live in my own house. It is overwhelmingly exciting!!!!!!!

So exciting that, although I am headed to bed, I am sure I will be designing schemes for each room all night instead of sleeping! Anyone up for painting???

A rant (no raves though)

I work in corporate America. A big company, complete with vice-presidents of very important things, runs my life. They dictate what time I get up, when I take my lunch (even where I go for lunch if you consider the fact that the places I can go and the things I can do are limited to places I can get to and back from in the allotted hour I get) and when I go home. I work in a cubicle, (ugh) which is not something ever thought I wanted to do or would end up doing, surrounded by the odds and ends I have collected from my past jobs. I am in a fishbowl, along with the other 60 or so people I work with. A whole bunch of guppies in a fishbowl. Literally, since the office is windows all across the front and one of the sides.

Now, there are some advantages to corporate America and doing a job that is the same as the other 60 people in the room. Chances are that, if you are sick, the job will still get done. I get a pretty hefty discount on my cell phone bill and I have pretty damn good health insurance (except for the stupid new vision, but that is another story). I get to work with a lot of different types of people and there is usually someone to pick up the slack if something happens and you have to leave.

Of course, with advantages, there are the disadvantages. (DISCLAIMER: I have not heard this with my own ears, but have heard it from a few different people in the office. That fact alone -- even if the following is gossip -- makes this disheartening. What kind of place do I work at if people will spread untrue and demoralizing things like this?) Like the fact that the person that is in charge of Albuquerque Editorial thinks we are all expendable. Really. He has been overheard saying it. That the editors are replaceable. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't like being thought of as replaceable. Makes me nervous. Especially in light of the fact that a month ago, there were some pretty major layoffs that came as a shock to almost everyone in editorial. And that is scary. I am pretty sure my job is safe, but, truth be told, story counts are down (300% from last year was a number I heard thrown around this week) and that is scary as hell.

So, along with all of the other things I have going on in my life, I have realized that I am not happy at my job anymore. When I first started there, I loved it. I loved working with words all day long and I loved the corporate culture. Unfortunately, the way the company is run has changed and the way employees are treated has changed. Example: when I started, they encouraged us to "up-sell" clients to other products, but didn't really push it. In fact, when I interviewed and was told about "distribution counseling" I was told it was just that -- I was not expected to be a salesperson. Now? We have quotas we have to meet for attempting to up-sell clients. I am not a salesperson -- if I wanted to do that, I would work at the Gap. What I want to do is work with words. And people -- I really miss working with people. Yes, I work with people, but they are the same people I see every day. I miss seeing and talking to new and different people everyday. And I miss building relationships with my customers. I really miss that -- the human element that I have had at all my other jobs.

I am so frustrated that I can't seem to find what I want to do. And I am ashamed that one of the things I REALLY want to do is be an administrative assistant somewhere -- that was my favorite job I have had. After all this time and soul searching, I want to be a receptionist? I have a degree. I am incredibly smart. I write well and graduated college with honors. And all I want to do is answer phones and book travel? I am ashamed of that.

And the other thing? I want to bake. Cookies, cupcakes, birthday cakes, pastries, pies, tarts, bread, brownies, bars, you name it, I want to bake it and sell it. I want to spend my days up to my elbows in flour in my red apron. I want to greet customers with a smile and a sample of whatever goody I am serving that day. I want to come around a counter wiping my hands on a towel and greet them by name. I want to be "the place" to get your birthday cake. And I want to have people write me notes thanking me for making their day special. When people say "Oh, let's go out for dessert," I want the place they are thinking of to be me.

Have you noticed that none of these things are remotely related to what I do now? How they have nothing to do with what I have a degree in? That is what this job has done for (to?) me. I am under so much stress and pressure at work that it has taken my love of writing from me. I am sure this is temporary, but still. Something that used to bring me so much joy now just feels like and extension of work. I would love to be able to edit on my own terms, but I do not like having the stress of an error rate and a pitch/sell quote I have to meet. And I would love to write for a magazine or something of that ilk that I could do from home. But I am just feeling so disenchanted with my work right now -- that makes it a little hard to get up in the morning, you know?

Maybe after the wedding and after the house closes, I can do something about this ... maybe I will get some clarity. All I know right now is that I just want to get moved and work on my license. I want the wedding and all the stress to be over and just get on with my life. But that is another blog ... probably one with a lot of capital letters and swear words ...

What? It's April? When did that happen??????

I woke up this morning, grabbed my blanket and headed into my office to check my email, fill out some paperwork and just generally enjoy my quiet time whil G sleeps in. As with most brides-to-be, I am a card-carrying member of theknot.com. What is that, you might ask. It is EVIL!!!!!! It is a site that purports to "help" you plan your wedding with photos of gowns you can only wear if you are a size -0, cakes that are taller than you and cost more than your HOUSE and a checklist that details everything you need to do leading up to the big day.

Oh, you might say, a checklist. That sounds very helpful. That must take a lot of stress out of the plannins since they have it right there for you. Great! HA!!!! That is what I thought too! Actaully, the checklist is the DEVIL!!!!!! THE DEVIL!!!! SATAN!!!! LUCIFER!!!!! Whatever you would like to call that particular entity, that checklist is IT!!!!!

See, the checklist is set up so it shows you the tasks you have to do for the up-coming month. To theknot, a month is from the date you are looking at it to that same date a month from now. And somewhere in its little coding brain, it has a timer. A TIMER. So that it can tell you what you are late getting done. And when it finds that, it puts an exclamation point next to it. So if you have not done several things it thinks you should have, you end up with a whole little column of them! It is AWFUL!

theknot.com is not a wedding planning website, it is a wedding GUILT website! And I am completely addicted.

Now, I have to go spend an hour on the elliptcal -- I have been eating like a pig.

Seriously? You're a Manager???

If there is one thing I cannot handle, it is bad customer service. I am talking about that customer service that makes you leave the store swearing you will never darken its door again. The kind that makes you go home and bitch about it for an hour over a glass of wine. The kind that makes you call the manager the next day just to bitch about it some more.

I recently discovered that you can upload photos to Walgreens.com and have them printed at the store. You can pick them up about an hour and a half later and you don't have to dick around with your printer or waste your ink! Hallelujah! I thought this was going to change my life. All of a sudden I could have all the pictures I wanted and not have to force feed my printer the photo paper and watch as the expensive cartridges slowly drained of their ink. It was going to be GREAT! And there is a Walgreens not five minutes from my house! Yea!!!!! Or so I thought...

So on Wednesday night I happily registered my username and password, gleefully chose my Walgreens (on the corner of Camelot and Highway 6) and uploaded my chosen photos. The next day I was going to be able to put together a photo album for G's grandmother and not have to think about her Christmas present any longer (she just got back from Texas where she spent Christmas -- I'm not that lazy). I selected the print size and hit the order button. I checked my email, there was a note there telling me my prints would be ready and waiting for me when I got off work the next day. Yea!!!!

I walked in the next day and picked up my photos. I had uploaded 57, the envelope said 57 -- I paid my bill and walked out of the store congratulating myself on making my life a whole lot easier! And more photo-filled!

Later that evening I settled into my chair with my glass of wine, my envelope of photos and the fabulous album I had purchased for Mimi. I flipped on Grey's Anatomy and started putting them in. I finished in record time -- and realized that there did not seem to be 57 photos. I did 2 quick counts and, what do you know, there were 39! What? I knew there had to be a simple explanation for the discrepancy and dialed the Walgreens. Well, 3 transfers (one to makeup and 2 to the pharmacy) and a demand to speak to a manager NOW I finally got the photo department. And the same woman who had helped me earlier. I told her my issue and asked where the rest of my photos were. I was then informed that, for whatever reason, they had not been printed. I asked her if they would be ready later tonight and, to my surprise, she told me she was getting off and couldn't do it. I asked to speak to the manager and he gave me the runaround too! He told me it would be a stretch to get them out since the photo machine had been turned off for the night (at 8? When the store closes at 10?) and it would be an inconvenience to turn it back on. I then gave him the choice -- print them tonight and I will pick them up, or print them tomorrow and I will pick them up and he could refund my money. He hemmed and hawed some more and told me how difficult it would be to fulfill my order that night and finally agreed to give me a refund the next day.


So I put the whole incident out of my mind, convinced that my order would be ready the next day -- that this manager was going to fix it all and it would be fine. I walked into the store and asked for the manager. He came right away and handed me a stack of pictures. I proceeded to count them -- there were 52. I asked about them, he said "Which ones are missing?" Really? I am supposed to have a catalog of the photos I uploaded in my head? "Check my order, I returned. "All the information you need should be there." He proceeds to stack them in order according to the numbers on the back -- twice. Then he discovers a stack of photos nearby -- yep -- the missing photos ... I thought. It was almost all of them. Minus 1. He finally figured out which one was missing and tried to print it. And tried. And tried.

He finally asked the 16 year old kid working to print it while he refunded my money. The kid takes one look at the machine and says, "Mr. Lucas, you have the wrong paper in here." The kid gets the paper changed and photo printed. I take my photos, assuming they are correct, and leave. After wasting a half an hour there. And dealing with an idiot of a manager. Seriously -- getting the order wrong again? Shouldn't he have counted them BEFORE I got there?

So I get home, take a shot and eat my dinner. I settle into my chair and get ready to put everything together. I take out the photos and realize there is, again, something wrong. Now the photos are HUGE compared to the original batch and that people's heads and bodies are cut off. I call the store, AGAIN and talk to the sweet kid that printed the photos for me a minute ago. I ask him to make sure the manager the next day calls me as soon as he gets in.

One drink, a sleeping pill and 10 hours later, the phone rings and I tell the whole sordid story to the morning manager at the store. He actually seems to have his head on straight -- at last! He is very sympathetic and tells me he will personally print my order and call me when it is ready. A few hours later he does and I FINALLY pick up the correct order. Then he tells me I no longer have to worry about Mr. Lucas as he isn't at that store any longer. And that he will have a word with Paula who should have reprinted the order Thursday night to begin with. Then he tells me the kicker -- she is the manager of the photo department. WHAT???????

Seriously. She's a manager? I would apply there, but I think I am over-qualified.

Randomness (Part 1)

I have so many thoughts running around in my head right now, I barely know where to start! The wedding is four and a half months away and, although I have gotten a lot done, I feel like I still have so much left to do. I realized tonight that I need to find a cake topper, which reminded me that I needed to buy the things to make the card box. So I went on over to eBay only to find that the item I wanted to get was no where to be found. CRAP! That is my mission tomorrow if the wire is not too busy. Find the balloon net and the "basket" to make the box out of. And see if I can find the "Going to the Chapel" or "Dunk and Dash" Sky Bound Balloons.

G was sick this week so I treated myself to a movie one night when he went to bed at 7. I LOVE Digital on Demand! I decided to rent "The Women" and see how it compared to the original. I was pleasantly surprised. I worried that they were going to try and remake the original with better lighting and clothes, but instead they took the original concept and altered it to fit the current time period. I could see remnants of the original (the storyline was essentially the same) but I loved the updates they gave the story and the women. I need to find out if they stayed true to the concept of using all women with one exception in the cast. In the original, even the animals on the farm were women! I loved the remake -- something that rarely happens for me!

Well, the cat is sleeping on my feet, the beagle is snoring, G is in bed and I am starting to yawn -- I guess that is a sign that I better pay the sandman a visit.....