The Holidays Can Be Rough

At this time, 14 years ago, I was busy helping my Christmas gift adjust to life in his new household. I was 15 years old, and I'd wanted a dog for years. My parents struck me a bargain: if I helped build a new backyard fence, I could get a dog for Christmas. I duly bought all the books you could imagine on dog breeds, and eventually settled on a labrador retriever.

On Dec. 23, 1997, I found the dog who would become Major Tom Shadowmaker amongst a rambunctious pile of puppies just outside of Henrietta, Texas. He was purebred from a line of champion hunters, and his breeder was visibly upset when he learned that my dog - as yet unnamed - would not be raised to hunt. He saw how much I adored the dog, however, and so I took him home with me.

I felt incredibly guilty as I held the puppy in my lap for the two hour drive back home. I didn't feel guilty because my puppy wouldn't be raised a hunter, though, but because none of the names I'd previously thought of for him seemed to suit. I had thought of Asta (after Nick and Nora's dog), and Tree (I hoped to condition him to bark when called). Neither of the names fit the bundle of black fur in my lap, however, and I felt awful.

My father, who had taken me on the trek to find my Christmas gift, kindly allowed me to control the radio, and while we listened, the Peter Schilling song "Starship to Major Tom" came on. I looked at the puppy, and decided that he looked like a Major Tom. And thus World War I's noblest flying ace was born.

The name Shadowmaker came from his parents: Blackshadow and Widowmaker.

I spent the first three nights sleeping on the floor with Major Tom (known around the house simply as Major, or when in trouble, Young Man). After a while, he became accustomed to sleeping on his bed in the corner of my bedroom, and there he stayed for the next three years.

When I was 17, I was diagnosed with leukemia, and was thereafter home-schooled because my immune system was too weak to allow me to go to school. Major Tom was at home with me every day. As soon as I got sick, he seemed to sense that something was wrong, and his boisterous puppy days ended. He calmed down, and followed me around the house or, when I was in bed recovering from chemotherapy, sat alertly by my bed, watching to make sure I was okay.

I left for college at the age of 18, but Major stayed behind with my parents. I visited every weekend, and played with him and loved him as much as I could. He never failed to wag his tail when I came home, to leap into the air to show his happiness at my return, and it stung my heart every time he realized I was leaving again.

When I moved into an apartment complex that allowed large dogs, I tried to take Major with me. After a few fraught hours, during which he marked practically everything I owned and never ceased hyperventilating, despite sedation, I took him home to my parents, where he calmed down. Apparently, labs don't like change in their environment (which we rediscovered every time my parents rearranged their living room furniture).

Until Major was about 12 years old, he constantly amazed people with how youthful and energetic he was (I chalk this up to our allowing him to lick our ice cream bowls, but I could be wrong). When I took him to a new vet for the first time and informed the vet tech that Major was 12 years old, the tech looked at me and asked, "Are you sure?" A quick glance at Major's medical history reassured him, at which point he announced that Major was the healthiest, most energetic 12 year old dog he'd ever seen.

After that visit, however, Major began to go downhill, healthwise. He developed a series of fatty tumors, one of which couldn't be surgically removed because of its location, and that eventually grew to impede his movement in the last months of his life. He developed arthritis in his back hips from all of that jumping as a puppy, and he sounded, my mother said, like an obscene phone caller when he got excited, breathing heavily, raspily for several minutes after a new person arrived.

I came home for Christmas, this year, knowing that Major Tom wasn't long for this world. He could hardly walk, and he'd lost a lot of weight. Too much weight. I could see his ribs for the first time since his youthful days as a lean, mean, leaping machine. He had also lost control of himself, and we could no longer control him, either: deaf and blind, he would run off if we let him into the front yard, something he hadn't done for years.

He was constantly in pain, and it showed. So, after 14 years of companionship from the gentlest dog I've ever encountered, from the most loving animal I've ever met, I had to put him down.

I spent a long time, the evening before it happened, telling him how much I loved him, how much I would miss him, and what a wonderful dog he was. I told him about where he was going: a place where he could have whole bowls of ice cream, instead of just the dregs, and could run and swim, and wouldn't hurt any more.

My parents and I took him to the vet on December 21, 2011, and we stayed with him while the fatal dose of anesthesia was administered; I didn't want him to be alone, with people he didn't know, when he died.

Prior to that, while he lay sedated on the floor next to the examination table, I crouched next to him and told him I loved him, and what a good dog he'd been. I told him how special he was to me, and that he was the best dog there ever was. It was 13 years and 363 days since he'd first entered my life as a muddy, face-licking puppy.

Now, I catch myself doing things I did for years for Major Tom's benefit: leaving the door to my bedroom open so he can come in during the night time if he wants to, or feeling guilty about leaving the house for the afternoon, because he'll be alone. And then I remember that he's not here. I still expect to see him, lying in his observationally advantageous position in the corner of the living room - where the carpet is stained from his constant habitation.

But I'll never see him again. And it hurts.

I miss you, Major Tom Shadowmaker.

Sounds of Silence

I haven't been writing much.

I know, I'm a bad blogger.

I also haven't been reading the blogs I usually check on a daily basis, because... well, I forget. And too much computer time gives me a headache, whether I'm lying in bed or not.

Why haven't I been writing?

Well, there's not a whole heck of a lot going on, these days. I write, I run one or two errands each day, I get myself lunch, sometimes (but other times it's cereal for me), and then I scratch good old Major Tom (who is very lazy, this winter, and is almost constantly lying on his bed in the living room).

I don't want to blog constantly about my health problems, although this space has sort of become a clearinghouse for 'what's wrong with me today.' I feel kind of whiny when all I blog about is my health, and I'm sure it's not very interesting, and is possibly distressing, and the last thing I want to have in my already super-guilt-riddled-for-no-good-reason mind is the added guilt of causing my readers - who are mostly family and friends, and a couple of people of whom I have no knowledge (Bangladesh, what up?) - to worry about me.

Example of guilt-ridden Ms. Strainedconsciousness: A couple of years ago, a harmless garter snake was on my parents' back patio. I flipped out and killed it, and it took longer than I'd thought it would to actually kill the thing. I've felt awful about it ever since for depriving the harmless little snake of its life.

A couple of days ago, there was a snake in my parents' kitchen (um, I'm living with the folks, since I can't really take care of myself right now. I'm a toddler all over again... but a toddler who's paying rent on an unused apartment). Instead of killing it and smushing its little serpentine brains out, I put on garden gloves and carried it outside, flinging it into the yard to go about its happy little life.

The snake was maybe 5 inches long, cold (so lethargic, kind of like Major Tom), black, and had a slightly triangular head.

It was a baby water moccasin.

Guess what? I didn't kill it. +5 points for me. It's a water moccasin and might 1) re-enter our home at some point and kill us all in the night and/or cause abject terror; 2) it could kill Major Tom while he's in the backyard "powdering his nose." So -475 points.

More guilt. It's an issue. And occasionally, someone will chide me for feeling so damn guilty all the time and... then I feel guilty about feeling guilty.

Vicious cycle, people. Vicious cycle.

Almost as vicious as a water moccasin a.k.a. cottonmouth. But not nearly as deadly.

All Operators are Busy

At least, I'm busy.

I woke up at 8:00 a.m., startling Major Tom, who stared at me groggily and grumbled at me for waking him up (he's a grumpy old man). I dressed, and drove to Dallas, swinging by Starbucks for a cup of coffee and an apple fritter en route. And I filled up my car with gas. And got it washed.

All before 9:30 a.m., baby. That's right: I'm productive!

I got to my apartment and began straightening up, putting things away. I ironed some pants (I loathe this chore, above all others), reupholstered an ottoman, the usual.

Yup, I now have an ottoman - okay, it's a repurposed vanity stool - that was once upholstered in goldenrod cotton damask, and is now covered in lovely saffron silk. It is currently in my living room, where it holds a metal tray, upon which I can rest a drink when I'm lying on the sofa, watching a movie.

I picked up my lampshades - the ones my mother bought me for my birthday - and squealed with delight when I removed their cellophane wrappers.

The carpet cleaning guys returned my rug, unrolled it, and put my furniture back where it belongs. I then put my lamps on their beautiful chinoiserie tables, with their pretty new lampshades, and oohed and aahed at the results. And decided I need to rehang some pictures, but that can wait until my mother returns from her vacation.

I washed clothes. I washed miniscule loads of clothes. As in, two pairs of jeans, or the equivalent of two pairs of jeans in underwear and T-shirts.

Guess what? There's something wrong with my washing machine. It is still jumping and rotating like a teeny-bopper at a sock-hop, so I emailed my apartment complex about it. And asked them to please tack my carpet back down in my bedroom and replace the porch lightbulb, while they're at it.

I updated my apartment inventory (the spreadsheet of everything I own) and documented the contents of my humble abode with a camera, then printed out the pictures and put them in my firesafe.

And then, I went shopping.

It's been a rough couple of weeks for Ms. Strainedconsciousness, and my oh-so-generous mother left me a little cash gift tucked inside a Halloween card before she hightailed it to Santa Fe for her birthday. The card read "Do something fun!"

There hasn't been enough fun for me, lately.

So I went to Northpark and bought a couple of shirts - within the defined color spectrum - and some new jewelry. The shirts set me back $20 each, and the jewelry was $45 for both a necklace and a cocktail ring.

The cocktail ring has an enormous cognac-colored gemstone, and it will look ravishing with my steel-toed boots.

Ha. Haha.

I've discovered that, in addition to not being able to carry heavy purses, wearing heavy necklaces gives me a headache. So I bought a lightweight necklace in matte gold (I don't look all that great in super shiny gold).

I filed some more paperwork. I paid my rent. I put stuff away.

I calculated the taxes I will either owe or be refunded, depending on how the IRS calculator works. I'll either owe $415, or get back $2,000. I'm hoping it's the latter. I can't tell if their calculator defines "federal income tax" as including the social security and medicare taxes, or if it's just the federal income tax. I guess I'll find out in January.

I was productive. It felt good to be productive.

Ahhhhh! That's Better!

I am almost feeling back to my old self, health-wise. It's amazing, the recovery I've made since changing my posture at the office (and, just now, in my beautiful but ergonomically deadly chrome and leather chair in my bedroom). Who would have known that a little thing like sitting up straight could completely alter your physical well-being?

Okay, so my parents did, as they've always encouraged me to sit up straight, but at the office, when I sit for 8 hours straight (unless I have the pleasure of standing around on the jobsite for several hours being ogled by construction workers), it's difficult to maintain that upright posture so prized by Victorian ladies. Difficult unless you have the proper chair, that is.

In my newly feeling better state, I have accomplished a bunch of things, as you might have noticed from the two previous blog posts. I was not, dear reader, finished just yet.

Oh, no. No, I was not finished. (Rubs hands together and looks shifty).

Last night, after returning from a bonding session with Major Tom (read: scratching his ears and feeding him), I decided to rearrange one of my bookshelves. It's adjacent to the console table that holds my TV, and was the destined destination for my brand spanking new DVD player.

A word about boring DVD players (as opposed to Blu-Ray players, etc., which are exciting beyond measure according to the salesman who doesn't seem to care that I watch a DVD maybe once in a blue moon): they're much cheaper and much much smaller than they were when I bought my first one (may it rest in peace).

I think I'm getting carried away with parentheses.

The John Derian boxes were actually purchased to provide a nice little plinth for my DVD player, in addition to more places to stash the odds and ends that don't really belong anywhere else. They sit in a place of pride, anchoring one end of the bookshelf.

I then did something I never thought I would do, after removing all the books from the shelf. Bear in mind that these were mostly large art and architecture monographs, so the exercise I got performing this task was considerable. And exhausting.

Back to the thing I never thought I would do: I organized the books by color.

I know! IknowIknowIknow! I've seen it done in magazines and it always struck me that those people must not access their books very often if they organized them by color. Really, if you're going to jumble all your nonfiction and fiction and anthologies and art books together, how can you ever find anything?

I was at least methodical about it. Only my architecture and art books are arranged by color, with the black books together, the cream and white and yellow books together, and the blue books together. I did not realize, until Sunday night, just how many of my architecture books had blue spines.

I also realized that adding the boxes and DVD player left less room for the books. Hmmmm... So they are stacked, and a few of the books that are less attractive and not art/architecture are stacked behind the few modern fiction works that inhabit a shelf, in exile from their counterparts across the room.

I managed to keep my cigar boxes (thanks, Dad!) on display, as they create nice level changes for the books (red cigar box with blue-green books on top = graphically pleasing), and my favorite photograph - my paternal grandmother with a Christmas bow on her head and a look that say "What? Do you have a problem with this?" on her face - is front and center: it speaks volumes about her understated sense of humor.

On another note, while attempting to email the images from this post to myself, I accidentally sent them to an email address one number away from mine. I wonder if I'll get a response?

Time to Get Envious

In my efforts to increase my level of healthiness, I decided it would behoove me to get a massage.

Ahem.

My muscles are all knotted up in my back, at present, so I called one of the Massage Envy outlets near my house to set up an appointment.

No one answered the phone. I left a message. No one called back.

Apparently, that particular outlet does not need customers.

After Mrs. Robinson went to the Massage Envy at the West Village and raved about the experience, I decided to give it a shot. I called that one and they answered on the first ring, booked my appointment ASAP, and I had my first appointment on Wednesday.

Oh, Dear Reader, it was wonderful.

For 1/2 the price that the Gorg at Nordstrom charged, I had a one hour massage. And because it was 1/2 the price the Gorg charged, I was able to book another one for next week.

Hopefully, these things are tax deductible for medical expenses (maybe if my neurologist writes me a prescription...) but regardless, the first one helped my mental well-being. And I adored my therapist, with whom I formed a bond based on our mutual love of black labs and the 80s.

I thought she was going to hug me when she found out I had a black lab named Major Tom. Seriously.

And she used to do massage therapy at Children's Medical Center for kids who had cancer, so when she found out (from my medical history) that I'd had leukemia, she just about started crying and proclaimed I was a "miracle."

I'm not going to go that far, but I think I'm alright. Major Tom is currently dancing around at my side, and he seems to think I'm pretty spiffy, too.

I ended up joining their fancy membership thingy, because I did a quick calculation on how much money it costs without the membership vs. joining, and I think in the long run it will save me money, since ideally, I will be getting a massage every month.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand Major Tom Shadowmaker just figured out it's raining. If you'll excuse me, I have a neurotic World War I flying ace to console (I think it's shellshock that causes him to get this way when it thunders). Man, Snoopy never freaked out like this...

Pacman the Slave Driver

My 1/2-day in the office, 1/2-day at home arrangement is working well, right now. After next week, I hope to be back full-time.

As it it, I worked more hours this week than anyone expected, including Pacman. I offered on Friday to come in Saturday to help him meet a deadline, and he accepted. I showed up a little bit later than planned, but I stayed later than he did, too, to make up for it. Four hours in the office on Saturday is considered downright abusive in our office, where it's A-OK to not work a full 40 hour week: as long as it's somewhere between 35 and 40, you're golden.

And then, Sunday, I showed up to work more overtime without telling him. He was very surprised (even more so, since I looked nicer than I did on Saturday. I pre-gamed by having brunch with the parents).

I took work home with me, too, and completed about an hour of it, once you discount the internet surfing that occurred. Regardless, I finished what I needed to do, so we're that much closer to Issue for Permit set of construction drawings Monday.

After feeling useless and like a drain on the company's resources (hello, insurance, how are you? No, no, I'm not working, this month, I'm lying in bed, scratching Major Tom, and eating ice cream... but it's all because of the chair, so whatever) I feel like I redeemed myself a bit.

Added bonus: This good posture thing is habit-forming. I find myself standing up straighter all the time, even at the grocery store, which makes me feel much more confident. Like I need more confidence. Seriously. Next thing you know, I'll have to get my skull trepanned lest the size of my ego cause a pressure build-up leading to brain damage.

Just one more medical adventure to look forward to!

Running Hither and Thither

I spent most of my day running around like a headless chicken. This, in itself, is no different from how I usually spend my weekends, except for the amount of money spent.

My first task was to knock out Father's Day gifts, which I did with great elan. I wandered around Northpark for a while afterward, looking for clothes for myself, hoping I might catch some great deals, or see something I didn't see two weekends ago when I went clothes shopping (with limited success).

No dice. I have apparently exhausted my options for the current buying cycle and for my budget at Northpark Mall.

What to do? My wardrobe is still in a parlous state, so I decided to do the only thing I could think of doing: make the lengthy trek to Allen and brave the crowds at the outlet mall.

Outlet malls hold all the appeal to me that theme parks do: Jostling around with the unwashed masses, picking through clothes that were picked over in stores previously, and have been picked over again in their Outlet incarnation. The idea holds little charm for me. But my good old standbys had failed me, so I was desperate.

I hit the BCBG outlet first, to no avail. Even at "outlet" prices, and on sale on top of that, their clothes were still overpriced. Waaaaaaaaay overpriced. I almost wonder if they didn't mark them up before "marking them down." Or maybe I just always buy clothes at their regular retail stores when they're on superduper sale, so I've forgotten how much they cost.

After leaving BCBG, I walked halfway across the stupid mall to the J. Crew outlet. I found two shells and a cardigan and called it a day. The shells are both neutral - grey and beige - but are out of a crinkly silk fabric. They'll work well with multiple cardigan/jacket combinations, and aren't so ridiculously bare that I couldn't take off the cardigan if I was stuck on a construction site for three hours.

Granted, I'd be sunburned on that construction site, but that's neither here nor there.

The cardigan is basic black. I almost grabbed a black and white horizontal striped cardigan, then remembered that I already have one.

I have a thing for stripes, okay?

After leaving the Outlet Mall from Hades, I decided to go get a pedicure at the cheapo nail place near my parents' house. It was totally worth it, and my nails are now pretty and shiny and coated with a slick of metallic beige polish. The leg massage was better than usual, as was the foot massage.

And then, I reasoned, I might as well just go to my parents' house, even though I knew they weren't there for the afternoon. I wanted to hang out with my dog for a while.

What up, Dog?

Major Tom (yes, that is my dog's real name, not his nom d'usage for the blog - I don't think he'll complain about being outed) was overjoyed to see me, even more so when I left to get barbecue for dinner and let him have some of the pulled pork I didn't eat. I scratched him for almost the entire 5 1/2 hours I was with him - except for while eating, and of course when I went to get the food - and my fingers are sore, now.

And en route to my apartment, after abandoning my dear old dog, I freaked out. Because my car is really bouncy when I drive it. Which makes me think it might need new shocks and/or struts. So maybe I shouldn't have gone to J. Crew after all... Oh well, that's why they make their clothes Final Sale I guess! Oh, darn...