Adopting a dog, or how to feel like an ax murderer

My daughter wants a toy dog. A purse dog.  One of those tiny little fashion accessories of overindulged women.  And I'm trying to help her get it.  I understand, she wants a baby, something she can pour her love into.  She's too old for dolls and too young for a child of her own.  I want my kid to be happy so I'm trying to help her.

So that's where we are at.  We've done months of research, found the perfect breed. An affenpinscher, god I hope they are as perfect as they sound, happy and busy and not totally neurotic yappy shits.  The problem, there are not a lot of them out there.

Yep, we've picked a rare breed of oversized rat.  It sounds like the best fit for our family but there aren't a lot of them out there to get.

Which leads to the writing the breeders to see if they have puppies.

Which leads to the questions.

Am I a good person?

Well yeah I try. 

Good enough for their little puppy princess?   I've got breeders who are telling me they won't sell a dog till it's 6 months old!!! I've got other breeders who as soon as I tell them I have 3 dogs and 3 cats tell me that my house is too busy so they won't sell to me.

I am not looking to steal their fucking dog.  For a mere $2000 they might sell me a 6 month old dog if I am good enough.

I'm not sure I'm ever going to be good enough.

I have three mutts I love. I would love to find a fourth mutt, something with a chichuahua dad but it's mom's personality, something small enough for my daughter to carry around, something where I didn't have to be quizzed about how good of a dog owner I'm going to be, some dog that was just lucky to find a home like mine.

FUCK IT, I don't want to be made to feel like a criminal because I want to BUY a puppy off you.

Get a fucking grip.  I get it, you want your dogs to have good homes (if you are a decent human being at all) but treating your prospective buyers like they are ax murderers just because they want one of your dogs is INSANE.

I am not trying to buy a dog in a pet shop. I have done months of research, I've got other pets I keep alive quite sucessfully, I don't want to get a dog because it's cute, I want to pay good money to a reputable breeder because they breed healthy dogs that aren't inbred and ill.  I'm not even looking to buy it just before Christmas and return it in Feb when it chews up the furniture.

I realize there are bad dog owners out there, but I would be grilled less if I wanted to adopt a child.

Seriously this world is a weird whacked out place and I'm not sure that pure bred purse dog people are ever going to like me well enough to give me one of their precious babies.

Quitting Drinking

I think I'm going to stop drinking.

Now if many people said this it would be news, it would be a good thing, it would be a difficult decision based on careful consideration of the health risks of drinking and the problems associated to alcoholism.  For me it's not so interesting.

In fact I say I think I'm going to stop drinking when I haven't had a drink in 6 months, maybe more.

I don't drink often, it's just not who I am or something I enjoy.  When I order a mojito at work to "drink" with my clients my employees know to bring me a mint lemonade totally devoid of even a hint of rum.  Drinking is for people who want to lose control, who want to be wild, who want to forget or become someone else.

I hate losing control.  I don't get wild (liquor me up all you want and I still don't dance on tables  --believe me people have tried. I'm just not that fun, there is no wild party girl inside my stolid exterior just waiting for a couple shots of tequila to come out.)  In fact I don't forget anything I do when I'm drunk, I find my clumsiness while inebriated embarrassing (go back to that I don't like to lose control thing) and I find it embarrassing to remember how inebriated I was and how clumsy. 
When I get drunk there is no wild dancing on the tables, instead I lose my motor skills, my gross ones first and things like walking become more challenging (dancing however is easier because I lose the ability to keep myself still and wobbling is more natural).  Then of course I slur my words and finally I fall over, a lot. There is the possibility that  later puking or diarrhea may follow.  None of this adds up to enjoying alcohol.

If I stop drinking all this means is that I'm done.  Done with trying to fit in with a culture of social events held over a bottle of migraine inducing wine, done with trying to use tequila to tolerate bad music long enough that I can say I went out.  Done with going out.  Done with trying to be like everyone else.

I don't know that I should quit this easily.

This is why I think I might quit drinking.  Maybe, or maybe I should be like the alcoholic who says they will quit tomorrow not really make the decision.  Maybe I should just maybe quit tomorrow, just keep going as I am without really committing.  And maybe one day I'll say wow it's been 2 years since I had a drink, or maybe this holiday season I'll down a couple of drinks and try to fit in one more time.

Business women

Hitchhiking is one of the three most common ways for Costa Rican's to get around. The first is the bus, which is like most bus systems in the world rather less convenient and reliable than one would wish. The second form of transport is the foot, either by bike or walking (a real Costa Rican never runs, never ever runs. Anyone seen running for exercise is obviously of a social class so far removed from the Costa Rican farmers whose daughters are waitresses in hotels as to come from a completely different universe. Running is only done by the young at play, by the youths on the soccer field, by the men escaping the bull in the bull ring, and possibly but not definitely if your house is on fire.) The third form of transport is by thumb. And when I have a long trip I usually pick up one or two hitchhikers.

Normally I pick up women with children, occasionally I pick up women with work, laundry they are taking home, food they are carrying on their heads to sell. I don't pick up single men as a rule, but I will pick up fathers with their children, or family groups, or groups of school kids trying to get back home from high school.

I don't pick up whores. I figure they have their thumb out not just looking for a ride but looking to ride someone and since I have no use for them, I figure they have no use for me. The woman was standing on my corner so I stopped, it wasn't where the whores stand, on the crossroad to Tamarindo looking for Johns. I asked her where she was going, she said Santa Cruz, so I told her to hop in.

Just by looking I couldn't have know either her age or occupation. Except for her permanently removed and redrawn eyebrows she didn't look much different than any other woman. A little darker, possibly from the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. I figured she was probably a waitress. So I asked her where she worked. She replied "Tamarindo" not the name of a hotel or restaurant. "How's business been?" I asked "Has the economy affected you?"

"Yes" she replied "There aren't as many tourists as there used to be. Where do you work?"

"I work in a hotel in Brasilito. How long have you worked in Tamarindo?"

"I've been in Costa Rica eleven years"

"Oh, where did you come from?"

She started to tell me her history. She was from Dominican Republic, which explained her accent which I found difficult and kept using the Tu form of the word you. Costa Rican's never use Tu, it's the more familiar word and they only use it with family or children, I'd never bothered to learn it because there were enough verb forms without having to learn one that I'd only need if I had a lover. I knew every word you needed to rent a room to someone in Spanish, but I couldn't begin to tell you how to say "I think you're cute, let's kiss or just fuck" after all this just wasn't vocabulary I was ever going to need.

When I couldn't understand her she'd switch to English. She spoke it in a deep thick voice, both sexy and almost incomprehensible, and I wanted to practise my Spanish so I'd switch back to Spanish. "This should be a better year business wise" I said, she responded in the affirmative. "Last year was really hard, no tourists, no business, lots of people out of work."

"You married?" she asked.

"Nope, just me. I have to make all the money for my kids, and pay all the bills."

"When I was married" she replied "I would come home and there would be no food on the table to feed my kid. My husband would spend it all and we had nothing. Now that I'm not it's better." I nodded in affirmation. "Now I have a boyfriend 10 days, he comes he buys me lots of clothes, he gives me $3000, and it's time for a new boyfriend."

Three thousand bucks! Fuck me. Here I was trying to give it away to no avail and here she was getting paid $300/day. I was definitely in the wrong line of business. I looked at her a little more closely. Nice body but nothing unusual, pretty but not remarkable. She was missing the hard look that I usually saw in whores, her face still looked open and innocent.

"I'm 39" she said seeing me looking at her.

"39! You don't look more than 30" I said, and I meant it. Her rich dark skin had no lines, no signs of stress or worry crossed her face. I thought of all the ugly lines of frustration forming on my own face. My fingers unconsciously reached up to massage the frown lines near my eyebrows. Perhaps that's all I needed to relieve my stress, regular sex and extra money. I definitely was in the wrong business.

"Yes 39, my son he's grown now. Lives in Dominican. I work here 4 months, I go home 4 months."

"Sounds like a good life." I responded and it did. I'd love to live here in 4 month stretches. Spend 4 months in paradise, then leave and enjoy civilization, visit my friends, see a movie, buy some clothes, go to a mall.

Malls are not something I ever appreciated when I lived in Los Angeles. I rarely went, a year stretch could go by without actually entering a mall. Now I love them. Things everywhere, and all of it available, and people walking around eating greasy food, chatting in a language I can eavesdrop in, the air is refrigerated and the sheer artificiality is a wonder. When I shop here it is not a matter of buying what I want at a good price, it is a matter of finding a store that has something similar to what I want at whatever price they want to ask for it. Christmas shopping must be done in November, because in October the stores don't have any stock and by December everything they brought in for the holidays will be gone. I missed out on the window for a trampoline, and my kids have been waiting 3 months for the store to have another one in stock so they can get the Christmas present that their grandmother paid for.

"Yes it is a good life" she responded. Possibly not "pura vida" the Costa Rican expression for everything, an expression that translates to "pure life" I'm not sure you could, even in Spanish describe being a whore as pura vida. "The men are very nice to me, lots of nice clothes (she pointed at her burnt orange yoga pants and white tank top). My boyfriends are usually a little older, and so much nicer than Latinos. You marry a Latino you come home with your pay check and he spends it on himself. You have a boyfriend?"

"No"

"But the Costa Rican men like Gringas."

"Yes, but I don't want to have a boyfriend who wants me just because I have some money. I don't want to have to pay." I hoped I hadn't offended her, but she just nodded her head. She understood, men should pay for sex in one form or another, but women really would prefer to be paid.

"This year will be a better year for your business and mine" she said as she exited the car.  I told her I hoped so.

But Why Mom?

 "But why mom?" It was a common refrain. We'd been on the road for a week and there was still two weeks ahead of us before we'd reach Costa Rica. Sure today we were parked, at a beautiful beach in Mexico but tomorrow we'd be leaving again for another 12 plus hours of driving on narrow coast roads. After two days on the road my oldest had had enough of the whole trip, she hadn't wanted to come before they started and she'd made that clear but I'd talked her into it. "I mean why couldn't we fly like everyone else?"

"Because we aren't like everyone else."

"I want to be like everyone else. Why do you have to do this to me? Why can't we live in the same house, in the same country just like everyone else?" These weren't new questions and since my previous answers of "Because we can't", "Because this was the easiest way to bring the cats, dogs and stuff" or the standard "It'll be fine dear" weren't going to work this time I knew I needed a new answer before the rest of the day's driving was conducted in angry silence.

"Sorry baby, I can't help it. I need to do this. We have to move and we don't do things like everyone else does them. I'm sorry sweetie but you come from a long line of non-conformists."

"What?" snarled the 9 year old not ready to be placated by a word she didn't know.

"Conformity is where everything is the same. You know like when you make cookies and they are all the same shape and size, they conform to what you want them to be. Well non-conformity is where you are different than everyone else. Where you don't try to do things the same as everyone else, where you don't try to be the same as everyone else."
 
She thought momentarily, then nodded a serious nod. "Yep I get it, like Grandma and you being nuts."

Trust my daughter. Well it wasn't like she wasn't right, and I'd never discouraged her from being truthful, even painfully truthful. "Well maybe but actually it's bigger than all that." I motioned her to come and we walked out into the setting sun. Molly the over sized puppy followed us and so did Lisa my watchful shadow. "Come on."

I wanted to be able to talk to her in private, without her sister interrupting, without my parents butting in. It seemed like she and I never had enough time together these days and when we were together we seemed to rub up against each other rather than just talk. Every conversation seemed to become an argument and every discussion a screaming match. She was growing up and growing away and although I was happy to see her grow up I still wanted to keep my little girl as long as I could. I put an arm around her shoulder. It was strange that I could do this now, it wasn't that long ago when if I wanted to be close to her I would just pick her up and carry her but she was too big for that now. She was up to my chin now and measuring herself against me whenever she had a chance just waiting for the day when she lined herself up against me and was bigger than me.

We sat down on the sand and watched the sunset to the right of us while the lights of Acapulco lit up to our left, like a big star was burning out and small stars were fighting to fill the void it had left. The dogs ran around like crazy while the waves crashed in front of us with ceaseless fury and our dogs ran like puppies chasing each other up and down the sand. We sat on the sand facing the pounding ocean the sand was still warm beneath us letting out the heat it had accumulated during the day. And I started to talk, slowly, she'd heard some of these stories, but never like this, never in context.

"I can only tell you about the non-conformists you came from my love as far back as the stories I know, so only as far back as your great-great grandparents, they were all a little crazy.

"Jeannie McPherson was my great grandmother, your great-great Grandmother, Grandma Cherry's grandma and when I was young, a baby, I don't remember it but I have a photo of it, she met me and held me in her arms. 

"She was born in Scotland, in the highlands, and the story goes that she fell in love with Thomas Hunter. Now Thomas was a lowland Scott, from the flat lands of Scotland and her family did not approve of him. He had no money and no position. So he left Scotland to make money and a future in New Zealand. A few months later he sent her a letter to tell him where to meet her and Jeannie McPherson said goodbye to her family and friends. 

"She sailed all the way to New Zealand to meet her love. Now in those days sailing to New Zealand was a long and dangerous trip, much more dangerous that just driving through Central America, it took six months. Some of the boats never arrived and were lost in storms at sea, there were outbreaks of diseases on board, people were born and people died while the boats slowly creaked their way down to New Zealand. And once you were there there was no turning back and changing your mind, the trip back was much worse, you had to go around the notorious Cape of Good Hope where many many boats were destroyed every year in storms.

"Now Jeannie knew all this. She knew that she was saying goodbye to her family forever, that she was going all the way to the end of the world to meet up with a man in a strange country where, at that time, the natives were still dangerous. And she did it, on her own she was 18 years old.

"Now obviously Jeannie was a tough chick right from the beginning and not one that followed like a sheep and did what other people were doing just because they were doing it. She had only one child who survived, grandma Cherry's father, Donald McPherson Hunter, and I believe he was always just a little scared of his mother. She was a tiny little thing but when she said that was the way it was going to be God help anyone who tried to stop her.

"When she was 80 the town decided to plant palm trees down both sides of the main entrance to town. They planted one right outside her house and she decided she didn't like it, it blocked her sun. So she picked up her ax and she went and cut it down. The town came and replanted another one, so she cut that down too. After that the town waited, they waited for her to die. But she didn't hurry in order to make it easier for them, she finally died at 96, and to this day when you drive down that main street one of the palm trees is much smaller the others."
 
She nodded, she'd heard that story enough times it was part of family legend. "Yeah so Grandma comes from crazy old people, that makes sense, so..."

"So it's not just Grandma's family. The last time I was in New Zealand I spoke to my Uncle Peter, he was telling me about grandad Ed's grandfather. Your great-great granddad. He had three sons, the youngest one Kenneth grew up and married your great-grandma Eve but Kenneth was born in England. When he was two years old his father sold everything and moved his family from their farm in England. Uncle Peter's been doing all the research but he had a nice farm in Devon, a good life. Peter even found a record of all the things he sold when he left England. You know how we sold all our things when we left LA?"

"Yep, even my bike."

"Well 100 years earlier your ancestor was doing the same thing. He had a big auction, there was a list of all the items and they were all auctioned off. He even owned two cameras which were both auctioned off, so we know he must have had some money back in those days because a camera was an expensive item. There's a photo that survives of the house, your great-grandfather called it the manor house, but it wasn't really a manor house, just a farm house but he told everyone differently. Anyway his life was good in England he'd just gotten this farm, he was doing fine, yet for no reason my Uncle Peter can understand he sold up everything and moved to New Zealand.

"The farm they moved to in New Zealand was nothing but a patch of bush, that's what they call the jungle there. My great-grandma lived in a tent with a baby for two years while her husband cleared enough land to start farming."

"What's cleared?"

"Cutting it clear of plants, you know like with a machete." It must have been hard hard work I thought to myself. The New Zealand bush is thick, dense with vines and ferns. 

"Anyway she lived in a leaking tent in the middle of the mud while he tried to get the farm going. In the end he never made any real money in New Zealand, he finally gave up farming and gave the land to his son. Uncle Peter told me that all his life he was poor and everything he turned his hand to went wrong. The best his life ever was was in England, he had money and his own home and a lovely farm and he just gave it all away."

Her anger started to bubble "Yeah and we had it good when we had our house on Colfax, and now...."

"I'm not saying that I did the right thing Julie. I don't know if I did or not, only time will answer that question. But what is done is done and I do understand at least a little better than Uncle Peter why he dragged his family half way round the world only to lose everything and fail. Sometimes the answer is not whether you won or lost at the game but rather whether you played the game or just sat in the sidelines."

The sun was completely gone now and the moon rose slowly up over the grey crashing waves.

"The point I'm trying to make my darling is that you come from a long line of adventurers. All of them got to New Zealand because they felt the need to try new things. They all abandoned their friends, their loved ones and set off to try to make a better life for themselves and their children. And that is all I am trying to do for you. History will tell us whether I did the right thing or not but for now see if you can just accept. I am who I am, I love you and want what is best for you. If none of your ancestors had been non-conformists who tried to make their own path then they would never have made it to Canada only to suffer through the winters in an attempt for a better life, or to New Zealand on the far reaches of the globe. Why did they do it, for the same reasons I believe that I do. Because they had to."

I put my arm around her. "One day you'll tell about this trip to your children."

"I'll tell them it sucked..."

"Of course you will my dear, but at least you'll have a story to tell."
 

Waiting for the Tsunami

http://youtu.be/Bom0HVkflWY

The Quiet Crash

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

A better question might be if a tree falls in a forest could anyone hear it if they tried?  I’d never seen or heard a tree fall naturally before I moved to Costa Rica.  I’d seen a few taken down, a noisy affair with men, ropes and chainsaws and finally a cracking boom as the tree loses it’s ability to stand and falls groaning to the ground.

About a year ago a tree feel at our hotel.  It was windy and raining and we were busy sweeping water out of the restaurant when it went. We didn't hear it over the rain and the wind, we saw it. Tipping slowly, time standing still as it feel down, down, away from us, too quickly to be scared it fell into the empty courtyard filling the whole thing. It was a big tree, maybe 50 feet tall big enough to have killed at least me and my employee if it had decided to fall in the direction of the wind, but it didn't fall in the direction of the wind, it fell gracefully, sideways in to the courtyard filling the entire courtyard with trunk and branches, bending the frames that hold our laundry lines, breaking off the banana palms, falling the only way it could to cause no serious damage, to cause no real harm at all.

Trees fall in Costa Rica. I'd been told that and seen it often enough on the roads.  The soil's goodness is only in the top layer in the tropics so the towering lush giants have a shallow root system. Even wet soil can make them fall.  I was just lucky I hadn't been under this one when it fell.

I was in the shower a couple months ago when I heard the sound, on a clear night almost windless I heard it.  Like the wind sighing, the tree heaved out it’s last breath and fell softly in the corner of my yard.  We found it the next day on it’s side, a broken bird nest in its branches, green leaves still looking for the sun. It took me while to get someone in to cut it up, it wasn't hurting anyone just lying there, slowly losing the green, slowly dying because of it’s lack of connection to the soil.

The last tree that fell was one of my mango trees. I love my mango trees, all 15 of them, 60 or 70 years old they tower over my yard filled with fruit and animals.  And then one just let go.  Just exhaled it’s way to the ground, a 70 foot tree fell without anyone noticing, without anyone hearing it’s death grasp, it’s final sigh.  And there it lies on it’s side in my yard.

Squirrels still run through it’s branches, some of it’s roots are still in the ground and most of it’s leaves are still green. I wonder if it will still flower, still try to fruit with only a tentative grasp to the earth and water it needs. In some ways the garden looks better for the lack of the tree.  The sun shines through now and the grass is growing green and thick.  The tree sideways leaning on other plants still looks alive despite it’s roots in the air and I wonder how long it will live like this.

I think perhaps the US economy, the US we know, the powerhouse of production, the Empire of Idealists is like that tree.  Perhaps it has already fallen.  We may not have heard it fall but it doesn't mean it is still standing.  Maybe we are just like the squirrels scurrying around anxious with a sense that everything is not quite right.  Maybe the next generation will not know the tree was ever standing, they will be born believing the ground should be that close, not knowing of the former glory of their tree.  Perhaps I am already that squirrel of the second generation.  I am filled with a sense of foreboding about the welfare of my world, it seems like we used to be closer to heaven than we are right now, but I’m not sure.  After all the leaves on my tree are still green, maybe there are less leaves than there were, maybe the whole tree has been uprooted and maybe there will be no fruit this season and we will all have to scurry even more to make ends meet.  Or maybe everything is fine, maybe everything is as it has always been and I am neglecting to look up to see that leafless sky above me is blue.

Another night in Paradise

I was visiting my grandmother when the phone rang, one of the last times I did before she moved in with my aunt and then into the home.  She picked it up the way she always did, not hello, or hi but “YES” in a voice more abrupt than any I heard from her in a conversation.  When she was done she hung up as she always did, no goodbye, or bye or sign off of any type the receiver was merely placed down carefully on the large dial phone.

“I’m going to need help” she said and we headed off together over her lawn.  We walked across the lawn that had shrunk over the years to the block of flats behind her house.  She pushed the door open and we found the occupant laying still, the phone still in her hand. 

She looked up and smiled at us.  “Thank you Edna” she said the smile never reaching her eyes.

“Are you ok” asked my Nana “Anything broken?”

”I don’t think so, I just fell again.”

My nana reached down to help her up and I did what I could to help.   She was thin and frail in the way that only small sick children and the very old are. I stood by unable to comment, feeling out of place.

”Are you sure you’re alright?” my Nana repeated. 

”Yes, I was over in the kitchen” she pointed to the other end of the flat “and then I just got spinney and toppled over.”

“This is dangerous Gladys, you can’t be alone.”

”I called my son, he’s coming over.”

”How did you get to the phone?” My Nana had that voice, the one you reserve for the incompetent, the immature or the old.

“I dragged myself over.  It’s ok Edna. I’ll be fine.  I’ll just sit here the phone and wait for Harold, he’ll be her soon.”

”Are you sure Gladys?”


”Yes, thank you.  I’m not going to get up.”

”All right. I’m going head off now; if you need me pick up the phone.”

”Yes Edna”

I followed my Nana back towards her house with a new respect.  My grandma wasn’t as old as I had always believed; she was the one who had to rescue her neighbours.  “Does this happen often?”  I asked looking for something to say, a way to break the silence that always seemed to surround this stranger I had known my whole life.

“Yes” she offered the monosyllable.

“That’s not good”

“She shouldn’t be alone.” And we walked back to my grandmother’s house where she had lived alone for 10 years since the death of my grandfather.

I was getting the kids to bed, late but that’s how it is right after the school holidays.  We were all in the bath and I realized it was 9 already so we all jumped out.  I wrapped a towel around the youngest, threw another at the oldest and grabbed another off the shelf for myself.  It was one of those routine moments where you don’t pay attention to what you are doing, you just go through the movements like you have a million times before, at least until the burning pain hit me.

I yelled for my oldest.  She saw it first, walking out of the folds of my fallen towel, a two inch black female scorpion.  I took a bottle of conditioner and began to beat it, it moved slower, still alive, still wriggling its tail around.  Undulating shafts of pain radiated out into my back.  Julie ran to the kitchen and grabbed the tongs.  I lifted the scorpion into the toilet and flushed her flaying body down into the septic system. 

”Where did she go” asked my baby.

"Out to the garden.”

”Will she bite me when I go out there?”

”No baby.”

I still wanted to scream.  All I could think was it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, oh god, it hurts…

“Go get dressed baby and get in bed.”

I hauled myself out to the sofa and lay down waiting for the pain to fade but it just continued spreading, its fingers seeking out into my body.  After a half hour I put some ice on it, just in case the pain would ease.  The kids weren’t asleep and I didn’t care.  Julie looked at my back.

”It didn’t look like that when I got stung.”

”How does it look?”

“All red and swollen.”

It was at this point I realized I couldn’t feel my lips, or tongue.  It was like Novocain wearing off.  And with the numbness came the fear. My kid had never complained of a numb mouth.    I went to the phone and rang the doctor.

“It sounds like you are having an allergic reaction to the scorpion” he said.

“OK.”  The panic was growing while the pain continued to spread.

”You can drive?”

”Yes”

”Come to the clinic in 20 minutes, the ambulance driver is there, he can give you the shot.”

I dressed the kids and myself and started to drive.  My hands were numb now, a tingling kind of numb which we call numb but I could still feel them, pin prickles of sensation shot through them, while the pain in my back had eased to a constant burning ache.  When I reached the doctor I was beginning to lose sensation in my feet and my nose.

I lay down, pulled down trousers and while my kids looked a new pain shot through my buttocks as the needle was injected.  “You’ll be fine in half an hour, but the shot will make you sleepy” the EMT assured me in Spanish.

I paid the bill and drove my kids home.  I put them to bed and lay down with them and lost consciousness.  An hour later I awoke gasping, my throat was swollen and I felt awful.  I staggered to the phone and called the doctor again.  “I can’t feel my legs at all, I can barely walk.  My throat feels all swollen”

“It’s from the scorpion, it could last all night.  Are you having trouble breathing?”

”What do you do?”

”Well if you can’t breath we would send the ambulance and take you to the hospital.”

I could just see it, my kids woken from their sleep. I had no one to look after them; they would watch while the EMT cut my throat open, placed a tube and took me away.  I couldn’t do that to them.  I was still breathing; I could still talk to the doctor, right?  I could call if it got worse.

“Ok”

”Call if you have trouble breathing.”

I lay in front of the television waiting for the pain to end, waiting for the numbness to wear off. The swelling of my throat seemed to spread into my neck and I found myself mouth open gasping.    Don’t panic I told myself.  Don’t panic.  This will pass, I will be ok, I am not going to need to go to the hospital.  Don’t panic.  I started to practice my yoga breathing, through my nose, slow and deep.  It’s like an asthma attack I realized, just breath, breath. The air seemed to be going in fine so long as I didn’t use my mouth.

I thought about calling the doctor again, but I couldn’t walk to the phone and what could he do but sent the ambulance and take me away.  My kids needed me and there was no-one else to be there with them.  I felt so alone.

The attack passed, my throat opened and I breathed.  Don’t panic, you will be ok, it will be ok.  This will pass, by morning I’ll be fine.

I forced myself to stay awake, to concentrate on my breathing, to get through the night to make sure I was still breathing.  Yoga may have saved my life, focus on the breath, don’t panic, it will be ok, and as the night went on the attacks came. My throat would close, you won’t die, I told myself; force the air in, through the nose down into the belly.  Think about it, every breath a conscious effort.

I might die.  Don’t think about it.  You can always call the ambulance.  But what about the kids?  Don’t think about it.  Breathe.  Breathe.  In, out.  DON'T PANIC. You will survive.  It will pass the night will end, you will be able to breath again without effort, you will feel your feet again, your tongue, mouth, hands.  All swollen with insensitivity.   If forced myself to stay awake about 3 am I could feel my hands and feet again and I thought I would be ok, so I went to bed.

And as I lay in my bed trying to calm my shivering nerves, my suppressed sense of panic.  I knew I could have died.  I knew I had never come closer.  I realized I had probably been stupid and should probably have been in the hospital for the last four hours.  But I was alone, and without me my kids would be alone.  And I wondered if we die alone or if we die because we are alone.

Wishing for Old Faithful

I was in the restroom at the Old Faithful Inn, the only hotel I have ever wanted to stay in,in my life.  It is a beautiful building, the inside looks like it is made with driftwood, four stories of mezzanines looking down onto a huge stone fireplace in the lobby.  I wanted to move in there, spend winter nights curled up near the fire with a book, summer days out on the patio overlooking Old Faithful.

 I washed my hands quickly and waited for my girls to be done.  The youngest would have to be held up of course to get her hands washed, the oldest wouldn't need me at all but waiting for them was something I always do. An elderly woman was behind me.  She was unsteady on her feet and I knew that outside the middle aged woman standing with the wheelchair was probably waiting for her. “I’m from Texas” the conversation began, tourists on vacation always ready to chat to a stranger.  “Have you been here before” “Oh yes indeed” The elderly woman replied “This is my third time.  I was here for my honeymoon you know and now we’re celebrating our 60th wedding anniversary.”

I looked over to my sister-in-law (at least until the divorce is through) and travelling companion.  She was waiting for her own daughters.  And in her eyes I saw what was happening in my own.  Tears were welling up and she grabbed a paper towel and ran for the door. Taking one look back at the happy old woman I did the same.  My baby would have to wash her hands on her own. Because the truth is I wanted to come back to this hotel one day, but not alone and in my sister in law's face I saw the truth. Single motherhood has become the only thing we know.  Being alone seems to be the only way we know how to live.  Fitting a man into our lives would only cut down on the time our children – products of abandonment – need so badly.  Going out on a date seems are far removed from my sphere of possibilities as winning the lotto or moving to Mars.  I can’t see any way I can have a relationship until my children are grown. 

I dried my eyes and went back into the bathroom as the old lady was helped into her wheelchair by her family.  Katherine was bouncing up and down trying to keep the motion detector to run the water so she could get the soap off her hands.  I turned it on for her and she washed her hands then shot her arms around me for a quick wet, hand drying hug. I was on my way over the Rockies when I thought my car was breaking.  My father had told me about this hill but I’d filed it and forgotten it.  It looked like I was heading downhill but the engine was slowing down and I was going to stall.  Then I remembered what he had said.  In the Rockies there is a hill, it’s an optical illusion, you think you are going downhill but you are really going uphill.  So I dropped into a lower gear and the car started to climb up the hill.  And sometimes life is like that.  You think you’re doing fine, that you’re coasting downhill when suddenly you realize you’re not.  You need to switch gear and keep going no matter how hard it is.  And sometimes you need to remind yourself that although this was not how you imagined it would be, that this is not the life you thought you would lead or anything that you planned out so carefully that perhaps this is the path you are meant to be on. 

The Tale of the Toaster

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present for your pleasure a story of good versus evil, an epic tale of adversity and the struggles against oppression. 
I call this story
 
The tale of the Toaster.
 
It began innocently enough in late December in that time shortly after Christmas when all the stores in Costa Rica are empty of sale able goods.  After looking in four or five stores for the object of my desires I finally found what I needed in Liberia, the city a mere hour and a half away.  Miraculously they had the object I sought, a double toaster.
 
Not a single toaster for that would not do for the job at hand.  We needed to make toast for the restaurant for breakfast and only a double toaster, white shiny and clean could possibly help us now.  Our last one had broken and we were having to toast bread on the grill.

I placed my order and waited patiently for the only one in the store (the demonstration model) to be boxed and delivered for me.  This was done in record Costa Rica time, about 25 minutes while my family sat in the car outside and ran the motor and the AC.  And for a mere $50 I walked out half an hour later toaster in hand ready to make toast.  Toast, not a difficult thing, not a complicated process.  Slightly burning bread on both sides in order to enhance the experience has been done since people had bread and a fire, it should not be that hard.  It should not.  This I have told myself many many times.
 
I believe the level of a society could be accurately measured by how toast is made.  Slipping back to doing it on the grill was definitely a regression but now we were equipped with one white, household, black and decker, double toaster.  FOR FIFTY DOLLARS.  Knowing I could get the equivalent at Walmart for $7 if I was in the United States assured me I was in a third world country.  I delivered it to the kitchen and went back to my life without a second thought as to how one toaster can alter the universe.
 
Two weeks later I went into the kitchen, put in the bread, pushed down the button and nothing.  The toast sprang back up, the toaster wouldn't toast on one side of the toaster.  Two weeks!  Two weeks it had taken.  I boxed up my still pretty white toaster and drove to the nearest store, 1 hour on a bad dirt road away in Santa Cruz.
 
And there I presented the toaster, the receipt the evidence of my purchase. I was told by the thin and relatively tall Tico boy in the uniform of the store that they would have to send it in for repairs.  For my toaster he gave me a copy of the receipt and on it he wrote "In for repairs" and signed it.
 
I walked through the aisles and found the my $50 toaster was now selling for $40.  I walked out resigned and prepared to return 2 weeks later when they said my toaster would be ready.
 
Two weeks later I returned and was told my toaster wasn't ready yet.
 
Two weeks after that I returned and was told my toaster wasn't ready yet.
 
Two weeks after that I returned and was told my toaster wasn't ready yet.
 
Are you starting to see a pattern here.
 
Two weeks later I returned and was told that they couldn't repair my toaster.
 
Well of course not. Now I understand something of toaster repair.  Back in the days when I was young and lived in New Zealand my grandfather was a specialist toaster repairer.  Toasters were expensive and New Zealand as a society had not yet reached the level of development that there were two toasters in every house and you could throw one out if it broke.  No toasters were expensive and in my house there were four, one that worked and the other three which were nothing but skeletons kept to take parts from for the one working toaster.

When we went to the beach house there were no such modern conveniences, the toaster there was a four sided metal frame where four pieces of bread were leaned together over a stove element and when smoke issued from one side (or preferably just before) the bread was turned over manually much to the chagrin of your scorched fingers.

Toasters are simple devices, two elements per piece of bread, made up of small wires that get hot when electricity is sent through them.  They heat unless the wire is broken in some place.  Then two spring loaded bread holders connected to a basic timer.  Nothing to it really.  I just had a broken spring, of course they couldn't fix it.  Modern toasters are not made to be fixed, like everything else in our disposable culture they are made to cost $7 and be thrown in one of the man-made wastelands we call trash dumps.
 
However this was good news.  They couldn't repair it.  They would give me a new toaster.  This was great news.  The last four items I'd bought, then brought back to be repaired had been returned to me after the repair still not functioning.  They didn't know how to repair anything, and nothing was made to be repaired anyway.  I would have a new toaster!!!
 
As soon as I gave them the receipt.
 
I didn't have it on me.  I drove home.
 
Two weeks later I was in Santa Cruz papers in hand.  I went and sat for an hour while the man who was supposed to be back from lunch at one showed up at 2:30.  I sat while he looked at my papers. 
 
His muchacho started to box up my new toaster.  I could smell the blackened bread already. But no.
 
Like any good story just when the hero looks like he's going to get the prize something must happen.  For Odysseus it was the storm, then he was attacked, then there were the lotus flowers, the cyclops, then he lost his wind, then the giants attacked them, then Circe kept him for a year, then they had to travel to Hades, then the Sirens tried to sing them to death, then the monster and the whirlpool, then they killed the sun god's cattle and Zeus zapped the ship, then Calypso kept him as her lover for seven years (first Circe then Calypso, he must have been a hottie).  Of course Odysseus was only trying to get home, I was trying to do something much more difficult I was attempting to make cold bread warm, slightly crunchy and do it four slices at a time.
 
I was told by the man now cast as the villain of this melodrama, Edwin, that I needed the Original receipt. 
 
To which I responded but you took it when I turned in the toaster.
 
He responded that he needed the original.
 
I pointed to the signature on the photocopy.  "This is one of your employees" I said.
 
He walked off to ask the other guy whose signature it was.
 
Guy 2, the comic relief for want of someone else said "I don't know."
 
Edwin proceeded to tell me that None of his employees had signed the paper, that I was trying to defraud them.
 
FOR A TOASTER?
 
Mr Comic Relief now walked over, opened the repair book, found my toaster, found the same signature on the sheet saying they had received the toaster.  Now if that isn't funny I don't know what is.

I asked Edwin as politely as I could to give me a new toaster, that the paper said he had it, that I did not have the original receipt that I had swapped it for this signed photocopy.
 
Edwin told me he wouldn't.
 
I told him to give me back my broken toaster.
 
He said he couldn't.
 
I started to yell in Spanish.  This was a first for me.
 
I screamed for him to write down his name, the name of his boss and the number of the head office. 
 
He did and I drove back home another hour.
 
Back at my office my manager rang the head office and was told that since the name of my company rather than me was on the receipt I would have to to back to Santa Cruz with the legal documents of my corporation proving I was in charge of the corporation.
 
Well yeah obviously, I had only been five times to collect my toaster.  Of course they didn't know me, I mean who was I really?
 
I arrived at 11:30 to be told the man I had to speak to, Edwin the dark and evil villain was in fact at lunch and would be back by about 2:30.  At least they were honest about that this time. After all the first time they had told me he would be back from lunch any minute, that's why I'd sat for an hour in front of his desk waiting for him.
 
To note by looking at his desk you would never think that he was in league with the devil, there is nothing to indicate it, just the usual Catholic prayer poster, a computer, a pile of papers, files, no pens evident.  One would think the anti-christ would have a more interesting desk, but no. At least Circe and the Sirens were beautiful... but the bland looking man I was supposed to wait for again was nothing much to look at.
 
I told his staff that this was craziness, that I wanted my toaster back, that they had stolen it from me.  I couldn't wait, literally couldn't, I had to collect my kids from school at 3 and it was an hour drive home.
 
So I left.  Without toaster, without hope.
 
I may return.  It took Odysseus 10 years but I'm not sure I will. Did I triumph?  No, evil won but why not after all it's only a fucking toaster.

The Dating Game

A strange thing happened on my trip past forty. I fell in love, and someone fell in love with me. Now neither of these things had ever occurred before. (Alright that's not exactly true, when I was 16 I had a job working in a file room, the 20 year old mentally handicapped boy who worked there too decided he loved me and bought me an engagement ring, but that's another story.) So I get to 40 without ever being in love, or having someone love me.

Of course all things being as they are, the person I love is not the same person who loves me.

There's a terrible 70's song that keeps playing on the radio down here, the chorus goes “Are you going to stay with the one who loves you or are you going back to the one you love?” Seemed like a simple enough question. Obviously my logical mind always said that I'd be better off with someone who loved me and treated me well than with someone who didn't love me.

Of course my logical mind had never actually been in love.

And when I fell in love for the first time naturally I fell in love with someone completely wrong. I couldn't fall in love with a nice guy, oh no, apparently that's just not going to float my boat. I feel in love with someone incapable of love because he's an alcoholic. I mean he says he loves me but when it comes right down to it I am somewhere down the list below his motorcycle and a bottle of rum. He's never going to change his life to suit me, or be the man I want and need him to be. I know this. My logical mind knows this.

Bachelor number two ladies and gentlemen is a nice guy. The kind of guy I would tell my girlfriends to date, sweet, ready to commit, ready to make sacrifices to be with you, ready to change himself to whatever you want. And I can't bring myself to want him, not at all, not even a little. I mean, I'd like to, it would make things easier, it would make my parents happy. This is the kind of guy you bring home to your family as opposed to bachelor number one who's the kind of guy you don't even want your friends to know you're seeing.

When I came back this time I was done. The man I love called me drunk, instead of welcoming me home and asking me out he asked me for a job. And instead of telling me he loved me he told me that I wasn't a professional because I wouldn't give him one.

I was done. So done.

I'd been treated well and now this. I didn't want it. I felt the spark die in my soul. And then it was gone. Nothing. The nothing I'd wished for for so long. And I felt a deep sadness that it was over and a sense of relief that it was. I felt betrayed by love, betrayed by my own fickle heart for loving the wrong person and sadness that one day I would forget what love had felt like. Seven years of being alone, seven years of wanting to be with someone and now I had two options and I didn't want either.

Because my heart had discovered that there is a third option, you don't have to go back to the one who loves you, or go back to the one you love, you can just realize that it's ok to be alone. That you don't really need either. Seven years of being alone and now I realize how damn good I've become at it. I like my life the way it is, I like things the way I like them, I don't need some man to mess things up.

So thinking I emailed Mr Loves Me Desparately that I didn't love him, could never love him and he should just forget it. Then the guy I used to love texted me twice, that he loved me, that he would always love me. And I only hope that my resolution holds. My life is good. It's ok to be alone. It's ok to be done with me for 5-20 – 100 years. It's ok to let love die, and it's ok to stop looking for someone else to complete you. Because in the end I don't need anyone else.

Family Ties

My grandmother told me that her proudest achievement was that her four children all still spoke to each other. At 19 I thought it was sad that a life of 80 plus years had borne so few fruits and that she did not have other interests or occupations and that she thought her children still talking to each other was an achievement. At 40 plus and the mother of two I realize how much my grandmother achieved.

My youngest daughter comes home on Saturday, she's been gone four months. She's 9 and she's been with her grandparents. My oldest daughter at almost 14 said to me yesterday that “She'd forgotten she had a sister.” At almost 14 she's too self obsessed to be worried much about anyone else, she's too wrapped up in her boyfriend to notice the lack of her only sibling. All she remembers about her sister is that her sister makes her crazy.

I still talk to my siblings. Text messages of jokes mostly with my brother, because when I am visiting and we are in the same house we have nothing to say to each other. As the older sister I want to boss him around and shake him and get him to live his life better. He wants me to leave him alone. I email with my sister, long emails full of nothing, actual conversations are years apart but at least now with the internet we correspond. It's better than it's been, sometimes all I remember is that my sister made me crazy, and sometimes it's years of silence before we speak again. As the older sister I still want to tell her what to do, as an adult I know I can't. Silence fills the holes that fighting would have filled when we were younger.

My father still talks to his brothers and sister. They still visit with each other, less and less as years go on and they have their own extended families to visit with. They are very different people and I don't know that anyone particularly enjoys the visits or the conversations, but we are family. Family, the only people who remember who you were, even when you forget. My uncle emails me for updates on my family, my parents don't email so it's up to me to keep up the correspondence. Communication has changed, and with it families too. You may never speak to your brother again, but he'll stay your facebook friend.

Every year my grandmother would do Christmas and all the family would come. Once a year no matter what else was going on in their lives everyone would drop everything and come together for Christmas. One year of my 12 cousins only 4 came for Christmas, the rest were spread all over the world living lives in different places. I remember the look of sadness on my grandmother's face. But she should be proud, she's been gone 12 years and yet her children still talk, her grandchildren still talk, still facebook, still email. She built bonds between us all that time has depleted but not erased. Her achievement still stands, a testimony to her love and dedication to her family.

Nana I miss you.