Rachael

But I’ve told you that before. It’s still true. And oh, my god, the comment about drawing a picture of the person you’re having the problem with, then burning it over the toilet and then peeing on it? I don’t have a person THAT bad in my life, maybe I never have. Hopefully I never will. Asshat HOA Member isn’t even that bad. But I can imagine that if he were, BOY, would that help.

Also, driving home yesterday morning after work, thinking about the things I hear at work, after hearing a coworker attempt CPR on a 6-year old for three minutes, seeing my coworker’s face after that call (he has kids — those calls have to be harder on parents than on me, and I HATE them), yeah, my problems are so minuscule. I’ll take care of what I have to do for the association, and HOA-guy will, too. Eventually. One way or another.

So. The question I asked about turning off those arguments in your head, the ones you know you should let go, but just can’t? Those ones you keep fighting and rehearsing and scripting?

Things that worked yesterday:
* Perspective. Yeah, duh, but think about 25 million dead in 25 years from AIDS. You feel a little dumb after that, worrying about your rental property. Sheesh. (Also? That’s so scary and bad and wrong and horrible and OHMYGOD. But you know the numbers, I know you do.)
* A gin and tonic at 7am on the porch swing. (They’re GOOD in the morning, and you still get that morning bad-girl thrill even if you’ve been working all night and you’ve been awake since 2pm the day before.)
* Hugging the wife.
* Hugging the new dog. Bigger dogs are so GOOD to hug. Who knew?
* Sleep.
* Y’all.

Mwah.

    Starfish! Dead!

Hello. My name is Annoyed. There is really only one thing bugging me, but it’s a good one, and I can’t seem to let it go.

Briefly, because the long story is just too tedious: There’s a member of my 4-member home-owner’s association (at the condo, which we still have) who is an ass. He hasn’t paid back dues in more than a year. He’s demanding the roof and his bathroom be fixed before he pays dues (he says his bathroom is in this state due to the roof leaking, me, I’m not so sure). We say he needs to pay dues, and then the HOA will happily fix everything that needs to be done, as long as its an HOA problem. We all want our property to appreciate, that’s not at issue. We just need money to fix things, dude.

What’s at issue is that he’s an ASS. Seriously. It would be so easily resolved if he would just grow up and quit sending stupid emails. It would be even better if he would write and say, "I’m sorry for being such a problem. I’m going to eat crayons now." Yes, that would be good.

See? I’m venting HERE and not in an email to the other members. Oh, this could be fun. Wait, here’s what I WOULD write:

No, hold on a second. I started to write that out, and I didn’t like where I was going or how it was making my head feel, so I erased it. HE’S the one shouting, I can be the cool one here. I just hate the mind-arguments I have with people like him. Driving home this morning, I thought of about fifteen stunning things I could say to him that would drive home to him just how stooopid he is, and how he should do the right thing, and then my brain would spin and I would imagine the next thing he might say, and what I would say, and and and. I got up after five hours sleep, knowing that once my brain started arguing with him, I wouldn’t get any more rest.

Now, when it comes down to him, he’s not a threat. I don’t think it will go to legal action. I don’t think he could manage that — he hasn’t managed to put up a mailbox that he promised to put up last year. And I’m not really sure what he could sue us for, since he’s been the one stopping the HOA from taking any positive action. If he did, however, we’d just sue him right back for HOA dues.

Do you have ANY idea how much I don’t want to deal with this? (Oh, yeah, the escrow on the sale fell through, and we’re just going to rent out the place. Thus, having to deal with HOA crap again.)

But the mind-chatter, the mental anger and frustration. How do you turn that off? That’s my real question. I know with my logical mind that this is not a big deal — he just needs to pay his dues, and the HOA needs to decide who to hire to fix the roof and any resulting rain damage. It’s hard just having only four members, you know? Two are sane, one is an ASS, and one just moved in this week and will be entirely confused by old matters and frictions. Poor him.

I have to just let it go. I can’t do anything right now. I’m at work. I can’t do anything tomorrow, since I just need to sleep because I’m coming back in for an extra long shift tomorrow afternoon. Then I can’t do anything because it’s the weekend. So I should let it go. Stop thinking. Stop obsessing. Stop picking apart his crazy email, ridiculing spelling errors and lapses in logic.

Grrr.

But there aren’t many things that make me feel like this, and that’s a blessing. And I have a wonderful new dog at home that I miss like crazy. And a girl that I miss even more who’s seeing Hank III in the city tonight. So, with your permission and encouragement, I Won’t Worry Anymore.

Our new Clara is fitting in wonderfully. She requires massive amounts of chewy things and treats and hugs and loves, and the remainder of the same falls on the shorter, lower heads of Harriet and Miss Idaho so I am a new superhero. Lala actually has to hand out small gold bars when she gets home now, just so they lick her fingers again.

I spent the afternoon making the sunporch into a Clara-proof room. This is after last night’s escape: The crate! Rachael didn’t latch the top latch right, because she has an IQ less than 197! Go, go, GO! I woke up, very sleepy, thinking that the cats were playing awfully loudly for cats, even for cats with extra toes. When I went out of the bedroom, I found Clara streaking by, naked, waving her top a-la-spring-break-in-Cabo, leaving poop in the hallway and Lala’s gnawed slipper on the couch. She’s a chewer. So the sunporch is now Chew Central. She has plastic furniture and thriftstore blankets which she LOVES to chew (all dogs were interested — must have been a doggy house — I considered washing them and then thought, Why?). The room is littered with bones and antlers and cute little starfish which must DIE!

Also, the internets are out here, so that’s where I am tonight. She’s snoring at my feet. I love her.

Also: You must go read Miss Doxie’s new children’s book about naughty dogs. It is to kvell. Go now. Mwah.

Yes, Lala knows. She was there when I decided I needed more. A wife was just not enough. I needed another girl to love.

Meet Clara:

Oh, my god. I’m head over heels.

So here’s how it went down: Ever since we moved here, I’d been thinking about getting a dog for me. I have Harriet and Miss Idaho, of course, and they love me, but their little heads explode when Lala comes home, and I love how she looks at them, and I wanted that. Plus, I wanted a tall dog, one I could run with. Harriet hates running when it’s not in order to catch a squirrel.

So last week, we decided it was time. By that I mean I decided, and Lala was very good to me about it. I went out looking, ending up visiting five shelters in three cities. One pup, a cattledog named Darby spoke to me, and I adored him, but he thought Miss Idaho was prey when we introduced them at the shelter, and that’s not cool. She’s not even much of an appetizer, you know? Quick snack, and that’s all. Not worth it.

We met Clara at the Oakland SPCA, a wonderful, wonderful place. Clean, well-run, nicest people in the world working there. We met her, petted her, liked her, played with her, and left her to go look at another place. After we left, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. It was weird. And then when I decided suddenly and irrevocably that she was the one for me, I was terrified that by the time I got back to the shelter, she’d be gone (she’d only been on the market there for one day, yesterday, and another family had been interested in her). I dropped Lala at home and drove hell for leather to the shelter where I picked up my dog.

She’s perfect, by the way. You know why? Let me list the ways:

*   She’s a border collie, a sheepherder. You know me and sheep. (Mom, I bet you had dogs just like her on the sheep farm growing up, right?) (No, I know I don’t need sheep. Not really.)

*   She doesn’t bark, even when Harriet and Miss Idaho are going crazy right next to her, barking at people on the sidewalk.

*   She isn’t scared of any noises, not even the vacuum cleaner.

*   She’s soft and long-haired, and doesn’t mind brushing.

*   She rides in the car with the top down and smiles at things, but doesn’t freak out. Just sits and smiles.

*   She’s the best walker ever, neither pulling nor hanging back, just walking next to me and nudging my hand with her head every once in a while. Oh! That must be herding! Cool.

Those are the pros. The cons are few: She splashes a lot when she drinks. She poops BIG. Damn big. I was used to little dogs, I suppose (Clara’s 48 pounds and a year and a half — won’t get much bigger). She’s super energetic and would be a chewer if we let her. But she’s being crate trained which she already seems to like, and she has plenty of toys to throw in the air and catch. Which she does. Because she’s CUTE.

Her name: Colleen, the nicest SPCA worker ever, named her Claire after her sister because of her sweetness. MY sister Christy came over last night and said "Clara" which I liked even more. Then Lala came home and said "Clarabell" which is her professional dancer name, which suits her down to the ground.

More pics you say? Well, all right! This is coming home yesterday. Can you tell we’re happy?

These are from our first real walk today, up in the national forest which is 5 minutes away from our Oakland home:

    Harriet leads the way.

    Miss Idaho at my heels, as usual.

    It’s gorgeous out here. And we only met one jogger and one horse-mounted patrol.

    I liked ’em.

    We rest a moment.

    Harriet continues to blaze the trail for us.

    A matched set! We finally have stackables!

    Harriet and Clara even like riding in the backseat together.

    At home, with her favorite toy. (Leash on; we’re doing the umbilical thing for a couple of weeks.)

    I’m in love.

am I tired.

First week back on midnights. It ain’t easy. Just finishing my week up — it’s 0519hrs and I’m off in 41 minutes. I will go home and nap. I will hope that the house is cool. Yesterday afternoon, when I just couldn’t sleep due to the neighbor’s dog and the other neighbor’s power washing and the other neighbor’s effing smooth jazz, for the love of gawd, I got up and MAN, was I grumpy. It was hot, I was hot, all was hot. Then I dropped an entire cup of hot coffee on the bathroom floor, breaking the cup in the process. I was a mental case.

Then I went to work, and an hour later called Lala and apologized for being a mental case. I said I felt better and I didn’t know why. She asked if I were in air conditioning. I realized that yes, I was, and yes, I was human again.

Fans are good. Air conditioners are better. We may have to get a little one someday, just for our room. Hopefully a REALLY loud one to drown out effing Kenny G. I mean, it’s good it’s not loud rap. But Sade at 150 decibels from TWO HOUSES AWAY coming through the walls and through my earplugs really blows.

But like I said, almost the weekend. The Whoreshoes are playing tonight! I plan on going, and I know there will be knitters there, but please forgive me if I flake at the last minute. Haven’t quite decided yet, but a night in and quiet would be good for me, I think. As would hanging out with my rockstar wife. Decisions….

It just so happened that we noticed they were both wearing hoodies….