Real Life

Before August 29th, 2005, if someone asked me what I immediately thought of when I heard the name Katrina, I would reference the Walt Disney animated short film, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and say that the name always made me think of Katrina Van Tassel, daughter of the wealthy Baltus Van Tassel.  Following the hurricane, for the next five years I would immediately reference Hurricane Katrina upon hearing that name.

I've noticed lately that I've started thinking about Katrina Van Tassel again.  I think that's a good sign.

In four days it will be the 6th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and we presently have Hurricane Irene bearing down on the eastern coast of the United States, expected to make landfall in North Carolina.  I sincerely hope no serious damage results and nobody is harmed by the hurricane or its aftermath, in North Carolina or anywhere in range of Irene.  To those of you in this region, my heart goes out to you and I hope you and your loved ones remain safe.

I still get depressed.  I used to tell ghost stories for a living, and I did it well.  Well enough to support a family, and live in the old French Quarter of New Orleans (albeit sans automobile).  Well enough to live where walking out the front gate would lead to Royal Street, where a jazz parade might be passing by.  Where down the street one could find an old French patisserie, a cafe or a famous bar.  Where further down musicians might be performing on the corner, where people dressed up like statues would be posing, and nobody worried too much about how you looked or the way you chose to dress as you wandered through the streets.

Where I used to be easily recognized by a fairly significant number of locals.  Would they still easily recognize me today?  I'm not so sure.

But overall...life is good.  I can easily acknowledge that now, and feel it.  I used to talk about how lucky we all were to have survived the entire ordeal.

I shop frequently for groceries at Meijer - and they have two types of self-checkout lanes.  The first type I only use when I'm getting a few things to purchase because there is a 12 item limit (although I've gone over that limit by a few items here and there when it's not very busy).  The second type is like a typical checkout lane, except you scan everything yourself and send it down the belt toward the bagging section.

Occasionally I've been helped out by Meijer staff who bag up most of my groceries for me, making it relatively simple to pay for my product and get out of the way of the next shopper.  That's not always the case, however. If I am waiting for a self-checkout lane to open up (which is unusual, because I typically just go to a regular lane with a cashier if no self-checkout lanes are available - you don't save any time waiting for one to open up) I try to give the customer ahead of me time to package up their groceries and to get everything into their cart before I start ringing my groceries up.

I seem to be an anomaly. I cannot count the number of times I have been just starting to bag up my groceries and the next customer immediately starts ringing up their groceries and sending them down the belt to mix into my groceries.  If you are one of those customers, let me assure you this pisses me off.

The good news is Meijer provides a divider in the bagging section of the lane to prevent the groceries from getting mixed up - but most of the time the next customer is so eager to get started they don't give me a chance to even put the divider in place before they start sending their crap down the belt.

Look - I hate grocery shopping.  I understand the desire to just be done with it and I would love to go back to my old system of shopping for 10-15 minutes every other night while living in the French Quarter of New Orleans, followed with a short walk home carrying the groceries in a few bags.  I hate having to drive to a supermarket, load up a week's worth of groceries into a heavy cart and having to spend anywhere from 1-2 hours shopping before I get to go home.

We're all in the same boat - let's try not to make the experience that much more annoying for the person trying to bag up their own groceries in their self-checkout lane. So please, for the love of God, if you are waiting for a self-checkout lane to open up, DO US ALL a favor and PLEASE give us a chance to bag our groceries before you start behaving like a self-centered bastard.

At the end of last year I received an interesting e-mail message from the host of the Moebanshee's Lair internet radio show.  She had found me in this video when researching the LaLaurie mansion and invited me to be a guest on her show.  

During the broadcast we discussed my experiences during and following Hurricane Katrina while Brigitte listened to the show while chatting on the radio website with other listeners. We were invited back to the show to discuss our experiences in greater detail on April 6th, and the above link is a podcast of the show itself.  It's roughly two hours in duration, with music breaks every thirty minutes.

You can listen to Moebanshee's Lair every Tuesday evening from 10pm-Midnight EST at http://www.gameconradio.com, and you can also listen to podcasts of her shows here. Below is the podcast from this same internet radio show about the LaLaurie Mansion, otherwise known as the most haunted building in the city of New Orleans. We were invited to participate in the Hurricane Katrina show immediately following this one:

As usual, we are not being told the truth by our media regarding the Somalia pirate situation.  And as someone who holds the truth of piracy rather close to my heart, I in particular feel for the men of Somalia who are basically doing the only thing they can to try to protect their land, their loved ones and themselves.

Here's the article I finally got a chance to read this morning.  Brigitte told me about it last night, and I spent a few hours last night reinstalling my copy of Sid Meier's Pirates - Live the Life, because although technology has improved things since the "golden age of Piracy" there are still core similarities between what was going on then and now.  History is repeating itself as we spiral down to the end-time of our program.

http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2009/04/17/somalia-you-are-being-lied-to-a...

So Brigitte pointed out that I have this serious problem of just spastically doing something.  Case in point - when I was in High School, the only extra-curricular activity I participated in yearly that was directly tied to the school was the Ski Club.  Skiing was great and all, but after a couple years of it I got bored and wanted to learn how to snowboard.

Being in a family of eight with a mom and stepdad on teacher's income meant that I generally didn't get new things that were expensive.  My violin was given to us by my Aunt & Uncle, they had found it in their attic when they moved into their house and nobody in their family played.  My skis were second-hand, as were my boots and poles, although I did have a new ski bag to carry them in.  And when I asked for a snowboard, I got an early generation Burton, almost identical to the one in this photo, although with better boot bindings that would actually keep the board attached to my feet.

As far as lessons were concerned - well to be honest I didn't want to pay for lessons out of my pocket, and I didn't want to ask my parents to pay for lessons.  I had already started to build a rather fragile ego, and for some reason I just couldn't see myself taking snowboarding lessons, especially when I had found the ski lessons somewhat humiliating - being forced to go on a bunny hill while your friends who had parents that had already introduced them to skiing at a much younger age are going all over the mountain didn't help much.

So I set out to teach myself how to snowboard.  Bear in mind I had no computer at home, no internet access, and the public library had no books on snowboarding.  I had no friends who knew how to snowboard.  The only information I had was the basics of skiing, and the basics of skateboarding (at which, I am sad to admit, I am terrible).

So I swallowed my ego a little bit and trekked up the bunny hill on foot, attached the board to my feet, and made an attempt to go down without serious injury.  I fell immediately.  I got back up again.  I fell again.  I got back up again, and made it a little distance, and then fell down.  Hard.  Ouch.  This was sucking bigtime, but at least nobody I knew was watching me and laughing - as far as I know anyway.

So I kept it up for the rest of the night of that particular trip to the mountain until it was time to go.  And when I was done I had figured out one very vital thing that every snowboarder must learn before anything else.  I learned how to fall down without seriously injuring myself.  I learned how to put most of the energy of a fall into the board, making the actual landing of my hands and body very light by comparison.  Once I figured that out, the rest came easy, because I no longer had the fear of serious critical hospitalizing injury.

The next ski trip I went down the mountain face, and before the night was through I had travelled to the summit of the mountain.  I made a bit of an ass of myself in my attempts to figure out how to get off a lift designed for skiers with only one foot attached to my snowboard, but I managed to not knock anybody else over in the process, which was important.  And ultimately, I enjoyed my early generation Burton snowboard which would now be forbidden from being used on the mountain due to the danger of using such outdated equipment around others - you know how that goes.  But I liked it much better than skiing.  I think part of it was because I had a better sense of satisfaction from having taught myself how to do something that most people would take lessons to learn.  I never became a master snowboarder, and I never figured out how to snowboard on a half-pipe, but it was fun nonetheless.

So yeah - that's my mentality toward things I don't know how to do that I have determined to do.  I just do them, feet first, and try to figure out how to fall with minimal damage.

But I might save myself some of the pain of learning with some research.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-gi...

We already knew this, here at Fated to End, but it's nice when someone presents proof of what we already knew.

Well lets see where to start eh? I have many many things to do today, working out being number one priority on my list because of my 20lb weight gain and my stiff c.p.  My size six is slowly becoming uncomfortable. :(   Okay now that I got that off of my mind.... well see I'm hoping that by the time that I'm done typing this I will feel more awake from the coffee, hence hoping the desire to work out will spring me.  I get very depressed and bitter and mean when i don't work out and well y'all I haven't worked out but once in the past six months. :(

Okay now on to the dogs.

We currently have three dogs in the house.  Guinness whom you all know by now or at least you know his story.  Snickers, who is our neighbors dog down the street and Samantha the new puppy. 

Our neighbor was getting a pool put in on the 19th of May so we were watching Snickers.  Snickers is an outside dog and our neighbor was and is worried about Snickers chewing up the pool pump etc.  I can see her worry.  Snickers chewed up her hose outside so there is a great possibility that she will in fact eat the pump etc. This would be bad. 

So Snickers is here with us.  Now Matty quickly became fond of her which is VERY RARE for Mat.  Let me repeat that again, that is VERY RARE for Mat to like a dog so quickly.  Offhandedly Mat made a comment about how Snickers could stay with us indefinitely and that's when our neighbor came up with a thought.  She knew how badly I wanted a second dog, a good family dog/guard dog and she asked us if we would like to have Snickers for a week to try it out and see if she might be the dog for us.  Mat was thrilled believe this or not.  I know it sounds weird eh, Mat actually liking a dog other than Guinness.  With having Guinness another dog has big paws to fill due to Guinness being exceptionally well behaved.  So this makes mat very, what's the word picky.  I don't blame him.  We've had a couple of attempts at dogs since Guinness became a part of the family, and well they failed.  It's hard to take care of and train an already out of new puppy hood dog when you have your own little pookas who need you first and foremost.

So, with the other two dogs we've had since Guinness (as I stated what a shock to see mat like this girl dog.)  Snickers was happy to know that Matty liked her and she tried to be the best cutest little dog in the first few days here.  She listened to everything Matty told her.  WOW! I mean she was like so well behaved.  Then, I dunno what happened, she got used to us lol.  She started running off out the door and Matty would have to chase her around the neighborhood.  Dang, suck, but truthfully most dogs do that.  Even Lucky, our other neighbors beautiful red golden retriever is showing that he can be stubborn and do what he wants.  Now Lucky, he's the best behaved dog in the neighborhood.  Though since we've had two females here he has started to take to not listening to his owner, that's an uh oh. 

Well, back to Snickers.  She's a Boxer, Beagle Mix if you were wondering and she is Brindle in color. [img_assist|nid=212|title=Snickers look A Like|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=100|height=75] She's darn cute.  She's three years old and as were learning, bi-polar lol.  Well, I decided one night that I had to test Snickers food aggression with humans due to the fact that Elish is used to playing in Guinness's water dish and food bowel when he is and isn't eating his food.  We already knew that she had aggression with eating around other dogs, and over here she liked to guard the room that the food bowel was in.  So one night there's Elish playing with a toy dinosaur in Snickers food dish while Snickers was out with Mat, I thought uh oh, I better test this when she comes back.  When she came back there were some food pellets on the floor beside her dish so as she was eating I would put one pellet after another in her dish as this is quite tame compared to what Elish can do around dogs while they're eating.  As my dumb luck would have it Snickers growled the snappiest scariest growl as she simultaneously took my hand into her mouth and bit me.  BUT here's the kicker, she bit so very gentle as to not draw blood but she held my hand there locked with much pressure as she growl.  Well immediately after I was done shaking I turned to Google to search for dog food aggression and how to change it. I found several sites regarding trying to feed the dog from your hands and skip the bowls all together so that the dog understands that YOU are the one who feeds it and that my hand is not something to be threatened by. So I did this, boy was I scared as heck too.  But it worked!  So this is how I continued to feed her unless she was outside.  We had to put her outside for a while because she "attacked" Alexander.  The classic issue where dog is stupid and cat is PMS like and the dog just doesn't know how to stay out of the cat's face despite all the warnings the cat has given the dog.  So on the last warning from Alexander to Snickers, Which was Alexander pawing with that quick boxer like punch and hissing Snickers took Alexander down with the same if not worse scary growling and barking type fierceness she had done to my hand with the food bowl issue.  So we didn't know what to do.  We put her outside for a while.  We were still in the try her for a week phase.  I'm so glad my neighbor came up with that idea as opposed to Mat just saying we'll take her for sure on the spot. My neighbor, she's a real smart and level headed woman who I regard very highly so I'm glad she was thinking ahead.

So here we are, Mat's sad that Snickers isn't being as well behaved as when we first had her in the house because he liked her so much.   

In the meantime I start looking for puppies again because  I really really want a second dog and I'm apprehensive about Elish being around Snickers eating.  See Guinness likes to leave his food dish with food in it throughout the day.  We feed him twice, once in the A.M and once in the P.M. and in-between that time Elish will go play in his food dishes.  As we were learning Snickers would go to Guinness dish as well through the day and snap at Guinness if he came near it.  Hence the apprehensiveness with Elish.  The what if's were creeping in.  What if I was helping Autumn with something or Willow in the other room and Elish went to play in Guinness's food dish while Snickers just happened to be there.  See my worry?

Well, dang suck right.  I really felt bad for Mat because this is like the sixteenth gazillionth time he has really liked an animal and it just went foobar.  Is the poor guy jinxed?  :(

So dumb ass me, I look one morning at craigs list, while mind you I haven't told my dear friend and neighbor any of this about Snickers yet because I didn't want to tell her over the phone and the last long conversation we had had, Snickers was doing awesome.

So there I am on craigs list and the first puppy I see looks like a German Shepherd mix and I am like wow just want I want.  So Matty is in the bathroom letting some kids off at the pool while I'm Google searching lab Shepherd mix puppy images to verify the markings the look etc.  Then it hit's me, the ad said lab mix right?  Well, I thought heck a Rottweiler and Shepherd really have the same markings in the front just a different build as they grow older.  So I started the search on Rott Lab puppy mixes.  I just couldn't tell for sure what she was.

So I call the number listed on the ad.  A very nice woman answers the phone and tells me that she's a lab Rott mix and that they are moving into a new home and cannot keep her.  So we call her and mat agrees to go out and see her because he knows that I've been longing for a puppy that I can train for some time now. 

Well we get there finally after getting lost. LOVE you Mat :P  The dog is super freakin cute, not just cute beautiful with HUGE paws.  She's chocolate and tan with green eyes.  Typical Rott/Shepherd pattern. [img_assist|nid=211|title=Samantha|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=100|height=75]

Well as we're there the owner is telling us about the dog.  Though she's speaking in a very rapid I've had too much coffee and I'm nervous type pattern.  She tells us that the dog is great with kids, she's house trained (that she's only had one pee pee accident in the house since they've owned her and none since.) She loves other dogs, apparently their neighbor has two golden retrievers and Samantha (previously Karmen) loved playing with them.  She understands how to stay in the yard and come back to you when called back if she wanders to far.  She jumps up on you when she gets excited however she understands her limits with jumping near or on little children.  SO great right!!! Wow so freakin cute. Well that's when I notice that it looks like she's been bit on her ear by another animal.  So I ask, " Was she bit?"  The previous owner seems off guard by this and that's when she rolls into this huge long story about the dogs skin allergies.  The owner  said that one night the dog was out to go poo in the backyard and when she came back in she was itching like mad and also itching like mad the entire night.  Well the owner ended up taking the dog to the vet and thus began her first round of visits.  The owner tried to explain to us that the vet was trying to put the dog on a different brand of food to see if that was causing the issue.  (Let me just interject here that one night spent with the dog and I believe I have the answer based on my own personal and up close experience with itchiness at the odd hours of night all over the body.) None the less I tried to call her previous vet to get her records, however there is a privacy act so I had to try and contact the previous owner to ask her to call the vet to release the records to me so that I can tell her vet that it's okay to release the records to my vet. Bureaucracy at work for you.  Okay, so I find out finally from her vet that (Karmen) SAMANTHA has had a scraping done which showed up negative under the microscope for Scabies however I believe this poor dog truly has mange. Which case of it I'm not quite sure yet.  From what I understand it is quite hard to actually get the mange mite under the scope so most scrapings come out negative.  Mange link here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mange

I have been glued to the net when possible searching up and down from left to right and everywhere in-between about dogs and itching.  I truly hope that it is something that we can easily take care of.  It turns out that I found out from the previous vet that this poor pup has been on different rounds of this and that antibiotic and drug to try to alleviate this condition. NOTICE though that the vet totally skipped out on treating her for mange!  So as luck would have it and the I ching told me 8 months ago that in the eighth month there would be great evil.  Well it's the eighth month since the reading and man this surely would be a great evil. In biblical text this would constitute a nice plague on this poor animal.

So, I must never under estimate the power of the Creator and I'm praying that this stops. That this poor itchy dog will be healed.

We gave her a borax and hydrogen peroxide bath last night.  I applied Neem oil today.  The reason why I believe it to be mange is because it is worse at night.

If you are wondering where the previous owner got the dog, it was from an Amish farm. Cool, I can dig the Amish seriously, though I think they need to stop driving cars and go back to things old school. 

As for things with Snickers, this little three year old ball of energy has me seriously confused.  Snickers is the Beagal Boxer mix.  The past few days she has been tied out on the lead during the day and little Samantha has been playing with her as well as eating from Snickers dog dish. WTF ?  Snickers does not get aggressive with the puppy when she's on the lead, but yet when Snickers is eating indoors she snaps and growls at the puppy.  However I read on the net that aside from hand feeding Snickers I should also not keep the dogs separated when they are eating that by eating together they will soon learn to react and act the way Guinness does around food, which is, well you all know, he doesn't care what goes on near his food dish, chews or toys.  Yet I read some other articles on the net that suggest against feeding together so who really knows???????

Sigh~

Anyway We bring Snickers in at night and she sleeps on a little bed at the end of our bed.  Snickers is in here now and all the dogs seem to be doing well together, Snickers is truly enjoying Samantha!!!!

Now if I can just get to the root of Samantha's itching and I pray to the creator that it is not the contagious mange and if it is truly a food allergy then I want to start feeding her chicken and a raw food dog diet.

Also as the Universe would have it, I was looking up pictures of German Shepherds to compare and contrast Samantha's markings today so i could show you what she looked like then I  remembered to get her picture off of craigs list  when i found this :

http://limaohio.craigslist.org/pet/662266973.html

Well My neighbor Brendan is here so I'm getting off the net.  Brendan is my friend's son. My friend actually that i grew up with here in this neighborhood. She's moved around as well as myself and now we're both back here with our families.  Odd how that works out eh? Brendan and Zach own Snickers.

Ohhhhh also before I forget the coolest thing, I love Brendan and Zach, they always want to help out around here, Brendan brought over a cool pillow that he made for us last night.  A family pillow with our initials on it!!!!! SWEEET!