A new home for my old pooch

Greetings faithful readers,

i realized in re-reading the last posting that i’d mentioned “preparing a petition” without clarifying what it was about exactly. So a little history.

On Oct. 20 i asked the Heartwood Operations Committee if i could bring Sandy to live with me. In spite of the fact that other staff have dogs living here, and that Sandy and i have been together for ten years now, and that she is sweet and gentle (etc., etc.) they said no.

On Nov. 8 i brought her anyway, since i was convinced that she had begun her decline toward death. (She recovered shortly after being re-united with me on a daily basis, which i attribute to separation-depression.)

On Dec. 1, the Ops Cmte re-addressed the issue, and this time said that i would be fired unless Sandy were removed from the property within 3 days.

i went through a lot of emotional turmoil and shed quite a few tears in the days that followed, but the abridged version of the tale (very uncharacteristic of me, isn’t it!) is that i found a suh-WEET home for her, on an adjacent property that is only about a ten-minute walk from my room! It’s a bit of an inconvenience, and i miss going back to my room and not finding Sandy waiting for me.

But forced to choose between my dog and my job/life here, i’m immensely relieved and thankful that Spirit manifested for me this beautiful little cabin, tucked away in the woods on the edge of a pond, inhabited by 3 gals – a German who just graduated with me named Christina; another recent grad named Stephanie, and a current student named Mel – who are all dog-lovers (one who used to work in a pound).

That old saying about having your cake and eating it too {which when you think about it, does NOT make any sense whatsoever, since what good is having a piece of cake if you're not planning on eating it?} certainly applies here.

A couple of times recently i’ve been moved to tears, this time of joy, when i’ve stopped to consider how blessed i am to have had this situation materialize. And it’s helping me to move past the bitterness and anger i’ve felt toward members of the Ops Committee.

A reminder that when Life throws you lemons, you do your best to make lemonade! Look for the lesson(s) to be learned. Allow your emotions (even the so-called “negative” ones like anger, sadness and depression) to express themselves, for a while, but don’t be ruled by them. And always trust that Spirit has your best interests at heart. i believe it's important to believe that however. The abundance of the universe is there for us if we trust that what we need will come to us when we need it. This is what i’ve been reminded of, yet again.

i followed the banning of Sandy from campus with three days of silence, concluded yesterday. i was just so tired of talking about me and my dog, and so tired of fighting what was so obviously an injustice, that it felt good just to communicate with my eyes or eye-brows (hello! what’s up?), or my arms (a hug or a shrug). It wasn’t a pure silence, as there were times i needed to answer the phone, or answer questions that customers posed. And i did speak with Gunner when i went down to his trailer in the evenings; he’s a neighbor a bit further down the hill who took Sandy in from this past Monday morning through Wednesday, when i learned that the girls in the cabin were willing to provide shelter to my Miss Pooch. Christina even went down to pick her up from Gunner's place Wed. afternoon, as i had a full day of work scheduled.

In other news ... Sandy got sprayed by a skunk yesterday, for the first time! She has made friends with a husky named Lupino -- Ital. for little wolf -- [who is owned by Basil, a Kurt Russell-look-alike (who i think i’ve mentioned here previously) who’s now dating Liz (the gal who helped me to overcome a lot of my fear of diving this summer)], who is pretty much checking out what’s going on all over the mountain throughout the day. So Sandy and Lupino were apparently playing together when this skunk ambled along. Christina said that Sandy was only about 2 feet (2/3 meter) away when the skunk let it fly!

The stink was not as bad as i’d feared it would be, and Jim Ruggles in Maintenance let me have a can of tomato paste and some skunk-stink removal product which i ended up not using since the tomato paste was so effective. Sandy’s got a pink collar now since all of the tomato didn’t rinse out in the shower last night, but she’s basically smelling like her old self again.

Hey, you all remember that hunky farm boy from Iowa, Sky? … let's just call him the H.F.B. for short from now on … We’ve been in touch a few times since he left the mountain and he mentioned recently having had a phone interview with a Heartwood enrollment counselor and has been accepted for the Holistic Health Practitioner program beginning in February: woo-hoo!

So yo HFB, if you’re able to surf the ‘net from on-board your boat, you should know that it looks like i’m gonna need your help to improve on my Thai massage skills after all. i’d asked Hope (one of my two remaining Work/Study classmates) if she wanted to work with me, and although she said yes, she still hasn’t followed up with letting me know what times would be good for her to practice. And i’ve kind of felt like i’m doing all the work to make it happen. Anyway, hope you won’t mind being my Thai-massage dummy .. um, sorry: "table-angel" .. oops, no table involved for Thai, so how about "mat angel"? .. for a few practice sessions after you get settled in here.

Blog Bulletin
You may have noticed it's gotten harder for me to keep up with weekly postings. And now that my life seems to be settling down with the onset of a weekly 9-5 routine, i’m not expecting to have as many developments to report. So effective immediately, i will be changing to a twice-monthly posting, on the 1^st and 3^rd Tuesdays, next posting Dec. 20. The new format is meant to remind you of this change in frequency. i expect to write less about things that happened, and more about things i'm feeling and learning. Stay tuned.

Members of the Faithful Readership are encouraged, as always, to reassure the author that he does not post these words for naught, and to share their own tales, tattles, titillations, tribulations, treasures and tidbits of the big and the small things going on in their lives.

Holiday gift-giving question
If you had the money to give friends a subscription to the magazine of your choice, which one would it be, and why? Post your answers as a comment at the end of this blog.

Bye for now, love to you all, lose hope not one bit, my prayers are with you. Peace out, and to all a good night .. big love, doug t.