Now Here’s Something Interesting

According to this New York Times Interactive whatever-it-is, white, women, aged 24-44, college educated have an unemployment rate of 3.6% compared to 8.6% for all people. I wonder how accurate these numbers are as my library goes into yet another round of cuts, 30% to be exact, rather than the previously identified 7.5%.

My Life as a Johnny Cash Song

I love the Man in Black. I just never thought my life would be one of his songs. I have been trying to pinpoint when things started to go south. My guess is 2007. I had the prospect of a trip to Africa to keep me distracted but I did start to notice in 2008. It wasn’t until I returned that the slide into a JC song got real. That’s when the shit approached the fan, pardon my French. Here’s why. After months of stress, layoff rumors and multiple interviews with no offers, I did get laid off, managing to keep my job only because people I liked and respected left for greener pastures. My business fell off a cliff. I had financial woes. I was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease. I decided to sell my house. My dad died. My dog died. My house sold and now I have <shudder> to move. And I ain’t got no man. OK, that last part is the last thing on my mind right now but, hey, that’s life in a JC song. At least I never picked cotton or shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

Farewell to My Pal

My pal DOG is gone. He did, in fact, have his opposite-of-birthday one week ago. I haven’t been able to think about posting anything sooner. It’s been a tough week since. Not only because I miss him but I’ve had an upswing in vertigo attacks (yet another post) that have kept me from doing anything but the essentials.

I bought him a t-bone steak the night before and cooked it for him rare with butter. He really enjoyed it and the bone, too. I had to lock Ruby out of the room while he ate. I caught her once chewing on the bone which she’d stolen from him. “Ruby, did you steal DOG’s last meal?” I saved a small bit for him for the morning. Then I held him on the couch while I sipped my coffee and cried.

I took him to Christown Animal Hospital. They were very compassionate but matter-of-fact. I needed them to be that way. I was holding together by a thread as it was. They let me stay with him. I won’t describe it except to say it was over quickly and I wouldn’t have missed one minute of it.

I made a short video of him using Animoto. I’m not done with it. I hope to get more photos from my brother and sister. I also have some video to add. You’ll have to forgive me for making the maudlin choice of “Amazing Grace” for the soundtrack. I really love that song. Plus, it’s sad anyway so why not go for it?

My sister and I agreed that he would be creamated. At first she wanted me to bring him home to Idaho for burial but we nixed that idea pretty quick. I just couldn’t see driving 14 hours with a dead DOG in the trunk. Too weird. I will pick up his ashes next week.

The dog was a gift and I miss him.

DOG’s Opposite-of-Birthday

DOG’s opposite-of-birthday is tomorrow morning. That’s all I can bear to call it, the opposite of his birthday. We don’t actually know when his birthday is. His age is hovering around 17. As near as my sister and I figure, he adopted her in 1995. It might even have been 1994 and he wasn’t a puppy then. G. figures he was about five years old but if that’s true he’s older than my calculation. In the end it doesn’t make a difference. He’s failing, confused, unable to sit or walk well and poops in the house nearly exclusively. This last bit is proof that he’s not in there anymore. Still, making the appointment was one of the strangest things I’ve ever had to do. I’ve known this decision was coming for a while and I’ve been unable to make the call until now. I’m planning to make a memorial video so if anyone has pictures of him, send them my way.

Hands Off in the Library

Today on the desk, DW caught a masterbator. Sort of. The kid on the PC next to the monkey spanker actually noticed first. The kid convinced a friend to go get one of us (DW was the lucky one and I am so jealous). He didn’t say anything, didn’t even look up. Just said he needed help and pointed to a Word document where he had typed, “That guy is jacking off.” DW was confused. Everything was spelled right. Maybe the kid had stepped away from his PC without locking it and one of his friends typed up an inappropriate message. Finally the kid typed an arrow next to the sentence and said, “Now do you see the problem?” Finally DW caught the drift and called the guards. The chicken choker CLAIMED he was itching his leg. I love this job.

Vampire Reading Room

There’s a funny sign floating around in library circles that says something like, “Welcome to the vampire reading room, formerly the teen area.” It seems like every third patron (teen or otherwise) comes in looking for Twilight (funny review of the series, just so you don’t have to read any of those peices of crap). But every fourth patron, behind the second wanting manga and the first wanting books from a reading list, asks for fantasy.

Book List

As of 09/12/2009:

• The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen. After the first chapter, I thought maybe I wouldn’t make it through this book. Yet another parallel theme seems to be me picking up books that feature female characters so mealy mouthed (what does that phrase even mean?) that I can’t believe they even got their own stories. OK, so before this book they’ve mainly been manga and the characters are Japanese and everyone knows the Japanese rarely grow ballbusters. But still. So anyway, I loved this book. In fact, there is one little line in there that just kicked me in the solar plexus. Is that a real place or is it like the gullet, not really a body part?
• Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede. Teen. I read it mainly to have another book in the genre to recommend. It was cute and I did like the princess’ gumption. And it was short. I liked that.
• Voodoo Season by Jewell Parker Rhodes. I am reading themes in parallel. Beside zombies, there is New Orleans. This book started strong. I liked the character, the city is a well described character and the magic wasn’t too over-the-top. Then the story crashed off course. I HATE when characters run willy-nilly into situations where you just know they are out-gunned, out-classed, out-magiked. I mean, if I have just learned that I am probably the descendent of Marie Laveau and I inherited her abilities and I go to confront the bad guy, don’t you think I’d learn a few tricks first? Come on.
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance — Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem by Seth Grahame-Smith. How many ways did I love this book? At least three. It’s the same basic story as the original but with an overlay of zombies. Elizabeth and her sisters are also Shoalin-trained zombie warriors. Instead of wanting to cut Mr. Darcy with words, Elizabeth wants to behead him and hold his still-beating heart in her hands. And the book is illustrated! I knew I’d love it when the first illustration caption, helpfully placed just inside the front cover, said, “And the guests unfortunate enough to be too near the window were devoured.”
• Hot Gimmick Vol. 2 by Miki Aihara. Manga. Heroine still meek. Most of sass is inside her own head. Still, it gives me something to read during slow times on the desk.

Heard (and Seen) at Work

Been a while since I posted funny/disgusting things said and done by the teens at my library. Here are two little nuggets.

• “What would Jesus do?” Uttered by a boy playing Super Smash Brothers.
• Nose picking and consuming by a girl of about 16 with a name that means desire in French. Bit of a misnomer, that.

Book List

As of 09/12/2009:

• Hot Gimmick Vol. 1 by Miki Aihara – Not the most original art style. Good story but the heroine is so meek I want to slap her and kick the bully in the nuts.
• Skin Trade by Laurell K. Hamilton – Less sex than the last several books. I can remember being annoyed by Anita’s prudishness in the beginning of the series. Lately I’ve been wishing that Anita didn’t go from one extreme to the other. This ardeur business is getting way past tiresome and seems just an excuse to have sex with random vampire and were strippers. Some of this book was repetitive. Could have done without the single sex scene. This book could have simply concentrated on the case. I mean, a vampire serial killer sends you the head of the previous vampire hunter and you’re off having sex with characters from six books back because they are there and one of them can fly? Still, I keep reading these books because I can’t help but like them. And I waited since May for this book to come off hold.
• Breathers: a zombie’s lament by S. G. Browne – I’m on a zombie reading spree right now. This book is extremely dark and twisted. Excellent.
• Escape from “special” by Melissa Lasko-Gross – The best graphic novels are like this one. I loved the childish confusion. Mine was the same. Luckily for my mom I was a different type of child. There were some laugh-out-loud moments.
• Nana. Vol. 4 by Ai Yazawa – The library skips volumes. Luckily our teen volunteer told me about mangafox.com. I can read the volumes in order. Yes!

Serious DOG Thoughts

Just got finished listening to last week’s NPR Fresh Air Dog Week. A vet in California wrote a book about advocating for your pet’s health. She talked about the difficulty in making a decision to euthanize an old or sick pet. She says the most common question is, “Is my pet in pain?” And that is not always the place to start. She likened it to a person having the flu. You are not in pain but you feel like crap. In other words, you can make a decision based on more than just if your pet is in searing pain. I’m paraphrasing here.

I’m in to this because it’s becoming time, maybe past time, to make a decision about DOG. I had hoped he’d go naturally but I get the sense he’s waiting for me to do something. One of the recommendations from the good vet is that you get down and look your pet directly in the eye. Despite the fact that the dog can’t hear, can’t see well and seems to have lost his sense of smell he’s still in there.

I don’t think he’s in pain exactly. But he is having a hard time getting up and down. He paces for ages before lying down and never sits anymore. He’s either bolt upright or supine. No in between. He’s very shaky on his feet. The slight (very slight, maybe 3”) elevation into the laundry room requires a hop to navigate. Same with making it over the door sill which is less than 2 inches. He often runs his hind quarters into the door jam because apparently it’s too taxing having to hop over the rise AND THEN go over the door jam. He must be exhausted because he’s been peeing and pooping (when not pooping on the floor, which we’ll get to in a minute) directly on the patio. I’m pretty sure his sense of smell is gone which would once have stopped him from stepping in his own urine. Or sleeping on a piece of his own poo, which he did three nights ago. I’m tired of him crapping on the carpet. He’s banned from parts of the house with carpet because I’m trying to keep it somewhat clean while the house sells. He now has to sleep in the office on his big pillow.

It’s starting to change how I feel about him. And I feel guilty that part of the consideration here is for me and my ease. I’m just plain sick of cleaning up his bodily fluids every day. Let’s not even talk about the bile I find sometimes because he’s still eating grass. Of course he waits until he’s inside to hurl it back up.

Despite all this, he deserves all my hand-wringing and more. He’s a great old dude.