Rescue

(copyright someone else)
Unlike most days at Rainbow Bridge, this day dawned cold and gray, damp as a swamp and as dismal as could be imagined. All of the recent arrivals had no idea what to think, as they had never experienced a day like this before. But the animals who had been waiting for their beloved people knew exactly what was going on and started to gather at the pathway leading to The Bridge to watch.

It wasn't long before an elderly animal came into view, head hung low and tail dragging. The other animals, the ones who had been there for a while, knew what his story was right away, for they had seen this happen far too often.

He approached slowly, obviously in great emotional pain, but with no sign of injury or illness. Unlike all of the other animals waiting at The Bridge, this animal had not been restored to youth and made healthy and vigorous again. As he walked toward The Bridge, he watched all of the other animals watching him. He knew he was out of place here and the sooner he could cross over, the happier he would be.

But, alas, as he approached The Bridge, his way was barred by the appearance of an Angel who apologized, but told him that he would not be able to pass. Only those animals who were with their people could pass over Rainbow Bridge. With no place else to turn to, the elderly animal turned towards the fields before The Bridge and saw a group of other animals like himself, also elderly and infirm.

They weren't playing, but rather simply lying on the green grass, forlornly staring out at the pathway leading to The Bridge. And so, he took his place among them, watching the pathway and waiting.

One of the newest arrivals at The Bridge didn't understand what he had just witnessed and asked one of the animals that had been there for a while to explain it to him.

"You see, that poor animal was a rescue. He was turned in to rescue just as you see him now, an older animal with his fur graying and his eyes clouding. He never made it out of rescue and passed on with only the love of his rescuer to comfort him as he left his earthly existence. Because he had no family to give his love to, he has no one to escort him across The Bridge."

The first animal thought about this for a minute and then asked, "So what will happen now?" As he was about to receive his answer, the clouds suddenly parted and the gloom lifted. Approaching The Bridge could be seen a single person and among the older animals, a whole group was suddenly bathed in a golden light and they were all young and healthy again, just as they were in the prime of life.

"Watch, and see.", said the second animal. A second group of animals from those waiting came to the pathway and bowed low as the person neared. At each bowed head, the person offered a pat on the head or a scratch behind the ears. The newly restored animals fell into line and followed him towards The Bridge. They all crossed The Bridge together.

"What happened?"

"That was a rescuer. The animals you saw bowing in respect were those who found new homes because of his work. They will cross when their new families arrive. Those you saw restored were those who never found homes. When a rescuer arrives, they are allowed to perform one, final act of rescue. They are allowed to escort those poor animals that they couldn't place on earth across The Rainbow Bridge."
(/copyright)

As much as I dislike the trite little godly things people email to each other, this one makes me cry.

Mishmash

I am so full of conflicting sensations and emotions right now. Maybe I just need more sleep. Maybe I just need Sunday to be over with, though I'm really in no big hurry for it to be Monday. I'm stressed because in eight days, I either pass or fail. On the other hand, I was reminded of how beautiful and calm winter in New England is. And I'm stressed because someone who hurt me is happy. I wish I could get rid of grudges.

Could It Be I'm Haunted?

I hate my mind. I don't know if it's something missing or something extra that makes me feel the way I do, but it hurts, it burns, it twists like a spiny serpent inside of me and makes me want to dig it out with scissors or a chisel. It's a parasite or a splinter, a foreign body that my traitorous immune system recognizes as part of me. Doctors don't understand. They ply me with sedatives for the beast, so it doesn't wriggle and rip me apart, but it is still there. I feel its weight and mass and still it breathes within me. No one understands the pain of just knowing that it will turn over again, cut me where no one can see the blood, draw pain from somewhere that doesn't exist. A hundred years ago, maybe someone would have called out a priest to exorcise this demonic creature. It wouldn't have worked, since my demons don't come from hell but from my head.

Listening to "Best I Ever Had" by Vertical Horizon...I've listened to the lyrics before, but they never made so much sense as today. "I don't want you back, you're just the best I ever had." I want to tell him that, but I can't. I can't tell him that I wish I hadn't left. I know I couldn't have made things work, but I still miss him so much it hurts. It's one of my demons, a little imp that second guesses me and tells me that everything I did was a mistake. It tells me that there was love there, which there was, but neglects to mention all the things that were wrong. I know this demon well, and still his tricks give me pause. He even makes me question the one before, the one who lied and cheated and hurt me more than everyone else put together.

According to the book jacket I just read, Robert A. Heinlein was 32 when he began writing science fiction. I am 28 and a half as of yesterday. Does this mean there is still hope for me to accomplish something meaningful before I die? Back, demon!

Lonliness [sic]

FOR SALE: Loneliness. All offers considered.
Though you might find that your inquiry will make it hard to locate the item in question. Or so I hope.

Stream of Unconsciousness

More and more, I find myself taking the trek through the woods to the shores of the River Lethe and wondering what the water tastes like. Only the fractured reflections of those who rely on me keep me from cupping my hands and finding out. Sometimes I really don't understand why I bother. Today, driving by the streams and ponds so recently flooded, I felt the urge to go swimming and see if hypothermia really is a reasonably painless way to go. Better than burning, I imagine, or living a long, long life.

It gets dark too early, out here in the woods, especially when it's drizzling steadily as it is right now. It really isn't the right prescription for a moody depressive. Everything closes in on me, the branches reaching down to brush cold, wet leaves against my face. There's no way to make my house bright enough, no matter how many lights I turn on. It makes me want to start a fire, right in the center of my living room. Think those floorboards would burn? That'd teach my downstairs neighbor to hang pictures at 4am. Have some flaming timbers, motherfucker!

My Own Best Friend

I'm always honest with people when starting a relationship. Painfully honest, really. It's so much harder to respect someone in the morning when, going for a quick glass of OJ, you notice antipsychotics on the fridge. It'd be kind of a shock, no? So anyone I'm dating gets the whole "I'm crazy, watch the fuck out. No really" lecture. While I'm not on antipsychotics (yet), I am on more than one antidepressant. That's a pretty big bag of crazy to most people. And no, those don't keep me from being a moody bitch. God help you all if I'm dieting or Aunt Flo is visiting. This one is pretty serious, and people all think they can handle it. Boyfriend #1 couldn't handle it, though in all fairness, we weren't aware of the crazy at the beginning, so I couldn't really warn him. Boyfriend #2 really couldn't handle it, and ran away screaming before too long. He came back, after the advent of pharmaceutical intervention, but then the antisocial part came along.
Yup. Antisocial. Hard to believe of a mostly-anonymous internet writer, huh? I do ok from time to time, but without my own space with locking doors and much insulation from the outer world, I can freak out pretty hardcore. Sometimes I even have to kick the dogs out of the room. This is a tendency that gives relationships a pretty grim prognosis. "I love you, really I do, but I hate your fucking guts right now and if you don't get out of my sight I'm going to vomit and kick you in the nads." Why doesn't Hallmark make cards like that? I'd spring for a $2.99 piece of paper if it would say that for me. Better yet would be a clown-o-gram with a twenty-pound sledgehammer, but I value my freedom. Getting sent down the river for conspiracy to commit murder is a pretty pussy way to go. If I'm gonna pay the price, you'd better bet I'll have the blood spatter evidence to show for it.
Blind dates also get the "I'm fat and ugly and have a horrible self-image" lecture as well. People pay about as much attention to that warning as they do to the copyright protection warning at the beginning of a dvd. They never understand how crippling low self esteem can be. Most either don't know the pain of being endlessly teased in school, or have long since forgotten all about it.
After all of that, you'd think they'd feel comfortable with me, comfortable enough to give me the fine print. Like "I'm still technically married" or "I will hug you and squeeze you and call you George...and leave your broken body in the haystack." People should come with a surgeon general's cautionary statement. WARNING: Dating this person can result in rash, loss of personal property, and the distinct desire to claw one's own eyes out. Yeah, that'd do it for me.

Sit, Ubu, Sit

I am having a hard time believing that it's possible to find a well-behaved Basenji without the help of a taxidermist. Now, before anyone crawls up my butt about animal rights or whatever...look up the word "hyperbole" and leave me alone. Bella is a Basenji. This alone would have been enough to scare off a smarter woman. I did the research before I went to meet her. I decided before I met her that a Basenji wasn't for me. I was responsible enough to know that I couldn't handle such a high energy breed of dog. But when I saw her frantic little face, her sad life tied up all alone out in the cold, all reason left my head. She went right in my car and changed my life. And not all for the better, obviously.
I'm no hero (duh). I rescued her for selfish reasons. She's cute, the right size, and the right price. Her 16 year old owner was a walking stereotype of inner-city poverty and ignorance. The dog was outside because she "couldn't" be housetrained and wouldn't get along with their old cocker spaniel. So, why didn't they just take her back to the pound where they got her? Good question, and I imagine the answer is money. They wouldn't have gotten their money back, so they tried to get it out of me. I ended up paying them a hundred bucks, since they would take no less, then spent over $500 on her for the veterinary care they should have paid for long before I came along. Bella wasn't spayed, vaccinated, or on heartworm preventative. This amount of neglect is criminal.
So, yeah, the dog couldn't be housebroken. After a year of not being taught, it took a full year of trying and pleading and crying and threatening before we found success. She comes to work with me every day, with her big brother Frodo, and all of a sudden had no more accidents. Then again, the end of accidents also coincided with the end of my last relationship, as it was. Seeing as a lot of her accidents happened when I was paying more attention to a boyfriend than to her, maybe it was motivated by jealousy. She certainly peed on the bed a lot. Bella has decreed that I must be single. S'ok by me for now.
But still, she comes to work with me. Not such a big deal to begin with. She'd stand on the front seat and watch the world go by. As time went on, though, she decided she had to stand on my lap, then she had to bounce back and forth from front seat to back seat until her leash was so tangled she could barely move. When I had had enough of that and macguyvered a seatbelt for her, she cried and whined and scratched at me until I could barely stand it. Just yesterday, I cleaned out the cargo area of my hatchback and they rode in there. She is no longer free to move about the cabin, but her seat is not quite in the upright and locked position. Just this afternoon, she figured out she could still jump over the back seat, nevermind that it leaves her strangling against the leash. I can't EVER leave her unleashed in the car, since she plays racehorse out of the gates as soon as I open a door. There is something even worse than the jumping. It started with a little whine, then ramped up to a yodel, then a frantic howl, then an ear-splitting, chattering, persistent scream. By the end of a 7 mile drive, my jaw was killing me from clenching my teeth all the way home. My throat was raw from screaming when I had had enough.
Bella is capable of making me feel like a failure in any situation. She pulls the leash out of my hand and runs into traffic. She pees on my bed. She howls and screams and jumps up on people and scratches. Why do I keep this dog? Only Basenji people and rescue people would understand.