Left Brain and the Menagerie...or...What's new? Pussycat?

Left Brain often blogs about the menagerie that lives with us, so I thought I’d go for something somewhat the same. 

I decided to blog about Left Brain and his love of the menagerie!

Left Brain was raised in a home with no animals.  Oh, he says they got a dog they kept out in the yard once he was grown and had moved on, but his childhood years were bereft of the fun pets can and do provide.

Because of this, Left Brain tends to be both amused and amazed at what he learns as we go along.

When I entered Left Brain’s world, I came into it with one dog.  Sherman.  Sherman is a bulldog and if you know bulldogs you know they can be stubborn.  Sherman is not so very stubborn, what he tends to be is aloof.  All other quadrupeds are beneath him in his humble estimation.  He often wins “best behaved” at dog events.  When Left Brain first met Sherman, Sherman was just out of his puppyhood.  This meant that Sherman loved to play.  Left Brain did too.  They played fetch for hours and to hear Left Brain’s laughter at this dog made my heart light.

Sherman, however, is very much a mama’s boy.  He loves Left Brain, loves him a great deal, but soon came Left Brain’s dog of a lifetime. 

We decided Sherman was too much alone with both of us working.  Sherman then gained a bulldog brother by the name of Custer.  Custer it turns out decided he was owned by Left  Brain and that he owned Left Brain, right back.

When Custer arrived he was 11 months old with a horrid case of mange and the name of Fat Man.  Left Brain had always wanted to name our first dog together Custer.  It turns out we did change his name to Custer, but Custer is NOT in any way, shape or form, my dog.

Custer is a perpetual 2 year old bulldog due to brain damage as a result of the severe beatings he suffered at the hands of his previous owners.  He bonded so firmly with his master that his master cannot go to the bathroom without either finding him sitting atop his underwear as he uses the toilet or woeful sighs or protestations from Custer if he is shut out of the room.  He is Left Brain’s shadow. 

Many fights have started between “the boys” as they have come to be called because Left Brain is owned by Custer.  If Sherman gets too close or gets too much attention, Custer lets it be known that he is unhappy.  Sherman stands his ground however with an air of, “I was here before you and I know I am going nowhere, keep this up and you may.”

Left Brain’s joy with the boys is something I wish I could document on film.  He often says “they are the best toys I have ever received,” but I know they are one of his greatest gifts as well.

His laughter as he watches Custer retrieve a ball, his little wobble bulldog butt swaying (Left Brain says Custer has the best male keister in the house) or his laughter at the facial expressions (“I wish I had a camera to get a picture of that).  It doesn’t matter much to me what it is but watching his joy in his very first true pets makes me so happy.

Left Brain tends to look to me for guidance on the boys.  The to-do’s and the what not to-do’s, but the truth of the matter is, he is great with them.  My only complaint is his need to ask others if they want to pet the boys.  Typically if people want to pet a dog, they will ask.  Left  Brain is so proud of them though and we’ve been asked so much about them that when he sees someone staring, he asks.  This then obliges the person to either pet them or answer.  As complaints go, this is a MINOR one.

Left Brain glows while telling people about their history, about their health, about their patience and kindness, because, yes…they are kind.  He is so concerned for their health issues.  He’s always the one that takes them out, he feeds them, he bathes them, but more than that, he loves them.  He’s delightful to watch with them and it makes me sense what a good dad he would have been.  I see that in his interaction with my grandchildren as well.

Because of who and what I am we’ve also adopted briefly a few wild things.  Just recently we had a robin build a nest and lay 4 eggs which all hatched.  His inclination was to keep pulling her nest making materials out of the window she used, but I asked him to let it stay.  We named the mama bird Edna and got to watch those eggs proceed to becoming ugly little hatchlings and then little robins.  I think he actually got more joy in MY joy of Edna and her eggs than anything else, but that is ok too.  He’s longsuffering is that man.

The other day he came home from work to find a terrapin trying to make his way into our home through (or more appropriately UNDER) our front door.  He caught him for me so that I could see him.  See…he’s becoming accustomed to my animal love and need of nature too.  Showing him a deer outside the window, or anything like that makes him happy.  Our  move to Michigan and a more natural setting has made him happier.  I love this.

Recently we bought a new home.  The elderly lady that lived there left in the winters for Florida and subsequently mice moved in.  She had an exterminator out as part of our contract and I feel comfortable with that, but a country home is subject to mice unless one has a good mouser, in this country girl’s opinion.  Even our inspector and Realtor said “you will get a cat won’t you?”  To that I said “YES!” and began the great mouser hunt.  Research showed that Manx cats were the mouser of choice, so I found a Manx kitten and added him to the mix.

Left Brain not only had never had a kitten or cat before he is allergic, but only if he touches them.  The plan was to get a kitten and he would not touch it, perhaps hold it on a towel and wash his hands after he held it, etc.  We named the kitten Bupkes as it cost us nothing.

Bupkes is a little brute of a kitten.  He loves to attack.  He is living up to the hype of mouser by showing us he can kill anything, even our feet.  Left Brain lasted 48 hours before he succumbed to kitten charm.  Bupkes amazes him.  Bupkes cracks him up.  Bupkes loves to play with him, lay atop him and purr loudly enough that even hard of hearing Left Brain can hear him.  Bupkes will grow up into a fine mouser, that’s obvious, but what else he will grow up to be is a cat very much admired by Left Brain. 

As I watch Left Brain, a man born into a home with no pets, become accustomed to a house full of them, I admire him.  Watching him laugh, shake his head at their antics and listen to his questions on our little menagerie brings me happiness, because I can see his clearly.

The Role of a Lifetime...be sure you are not just playing a part!

I love my family; my immediate family as well as my extended family.  I cannot say I love them all as I have one aunt (by marriage) and her two children who are truly distasteful to me - and yet also amuse me.  I don’t go around making a big deal of my dislike of their imperious nature, but let us just say they are no longer part of my life and I don’t miss them whatsoever.

People in families are assigned roles.  This is a pretty well-known truth.  I think the issues start when someone within the family decides the role they have been assigned is not the role they want to play.  The hue and cry from the rest of the cast is sometimes deafening and often, unfortunately, hurtful.

I am the eldest.  As such, I got a lot more responsibility earlier on than did my sisters.  When our mother would go to work she would often inform me that if something went wrong (we had a short time between the time our mother left for work and our father came home) I would be held responsible.  A lot to take on for a person whose next sibling was a whopping 14 months younger. 

I was neither my father nor my mother’s favorite.  Dad loved me, of this I am sure…but his eyes literally smiled when he looked at his second born.  She looked like him and was meek and quiet.  He was in love.  Mom, well Mom had a favorite and an un-favorite.  Mom loved her baby girl.   I can say that without doubt.  Mom’s feelings toward me were a bit more ambiguous.

As I grew I started to see my role more clearly defined.  I wanted to go to college, but that wasn't part of the plot.  I actually asked about it and was told no.  Years later when I was in my 50’s I mentioned this at a family dinner when we were all talking about what we wished we had done as young people.  My mother, always positive, told me what a waste that would have been as I (in her view of my role) would never have succeeded with anything so academic.  So, I did what my role required I would.  Got out of high school, went to work, married and had two children.

My role followed the plot assigned.  For 32 years I lived my part.  Hating a great deal of it later, some of the acts more awful to me than others, with acts of sweetness intertwined.  I was so fearful of stepping out of the role that had become a stereotype of what my family saw me as.  I needed to go.  Things had become unbearable for me, but I stayed, and I stayed for two reasons; fear and my assigned role.

My head and heart raced when I’d think of stepping out of my role.  It is almost a type of Stockholm Syndrome.  I had lived for everyone else.  I was a darn good actress.  I made them all think I loved the role. 

There came a time, however, when it was enough.  I took a very deep breath, understanding that this step outside my preordained life was the equivalent of jumping into a sea of alligators, and leaped.  That leap changed everything, just as I knew it would.

In that leap I went from being the elder sister, personality much like her father, who said what she thought but loved you fiercely to the proverbial black sheep.  Because of the why I left my role, I felt the need to protect those that I loved (often to my own detriment) as well as myself.

 I am most fortunate in my cousins.  I have cousins by the dozens actually (not an overstatement).  If you take out the two from the aforementioned aunt that I could give a rat’s patoot about, and one that decided to take what she THOUGHT she knew about my situation and make it a gossip-fest, to the person, my cousins supported me and loved me.  I didn't feel judgment from my cousins.  I felt acceptance and much warm, happy “you belong to us” love.  My role hadn't changed with them…my circumstances had.  How that warms me to this day to think about.

Aunts and uncles were a mixed bag.  My father’s family was especially wonderful.  They loved me regardless.  They loved me because I was theirs.  My one aunt would call and call me "little one," and "baby girl," which for some reason filled me with joy through and through.  Her comment of “you will always be our darling girl, we love you simply because you are,” was something I took with me through many dark days.  Each aunt in that family let me know in no uncertain terms…whatever caused me to leave the role assigned didn't matter, my happiness did.

To be perfectly honest, most of my mother’s family was loving and kind too.  One thing I've learned, you can’t let the actions of others, or even their words have much merit when their only purpose is to be gossipy or hurtful.  A couple individuals judged too quickly and too harshly and when the script of the why I left the role was read, they felt badly.  It really didn't matter to me as much as it once had, for once you step outside your role…and hold fast to the role you know is best for you, you realize something.  You realize that at the end of the day, only one person can make you happy.  YOU. 

My immediate family was confused by all the changes in the role, and the leap I had made, but fairly supportive.  In fact, I only had one person who was toxic to and for me.  Not only did this person spin the wheel of condemnation and find me and my new role wanting, but toxic to their family.  Because of this, this person and their opinion will never matter to me again.  I am secure enough to realize I do not need, and in fact am harmed by, people of this ilk.  I will be civil only because it makes those I love more than air comfortable, were it just this person I would cut them utterly from my life.

My new role is ever changing.  It is one that always has me looking forward with hope and joy, and expecting change.  Different doesn't have to mean bad, or hard…it merely has to mean different.  Different can mean positive things as well.  We’d all do well to remember that. 

Changing your role is not a bad thing.  It is decisive to be sure, but more than anything it is a growing … freeing thing.  It has me realizing how much I could have made things different, had I the strength to have stepped out of the role earlier.  There is no sadness in that thought, just joy in the fact that I finally obtained whatever it was that allowed me (maybe determination) to do so.

Yes, leaving your assigned role is like jumping into a sea of alligators.  The alligators aren't going to be happy you decided to do so, and some will want to devour you.

However...

That leap into a sea of alligators has taught me so much.  It has taught me that I am stronger than I thought.  It taught me that those that love you, should love you no matter what, and should run TO you rather than from you.  It has taught me while wrestling alligators is ugly business rife with pain and stink, it also shows you what you are made of and the value of those that truly have your back!

The fact is this, changing from a role assigned by family, faith and others to the role God made you to have is positive thing.  Doing this has taught me that what matters is that I have only one life to live, this is no dress rehearsal, so find your own role, or make one for yourself…be yourself!

One day my play will have had, if I am lucky, a long run, and its season will be over.  I want as that time nears to be able to sit back and read the reviews of it in my mind.  My review, after all, is the one that matters most.  In some respects, it is the only one that matters.  The scene titles will be many and varied and all my own.  The role I played would be not a performance, it will be me.  All me, all the time!  Nothing saccharine, nothing fake or false, an open book and the star of the show will have had the role…of her lifetime! 

On the Move!

Buying a new home is rife with all sorts of emotional drain!  Both good and bad.

Left Brain and I are currently in the process of purchasing a home in my home county. YAY!

I have lived most of my life in this county and know it like the back of my hand.  I love the rural life.  When I left this county I moved into a place with a friend that was crowded and close and I knew then that I could adapt.  I do like that about myself, but what I also found was that, while all the neighbors were kind and friendly, they were too close.

I then moved in with Left Brain in a big, beautiful home in a subdivision of sorts, but still, the nosy neighbor behind us was often found looking out her slider door doing a little recon for Left Brain’s ex-wife.  No thanks.  My contrarian ways wanted me to “give them something to talk about,” and had my friends been closer, we would have!

We next moved into an even closer neighborhood, but in all honesty, I loved that little house and I loved the neighbors.  ALL of them keepers.  That makes a difference, let me tell you, the neighbors.  I was sad to say goodbye to them.  I still think of them.

We sold that house so quickly that in our move back to my home state we had to rent a condo for 12 months to accommodate all our stuff (note to Left Brain, notice the use of OUR and STUFF, as opposed to Left Brain’s junk) and our dogs.  I like the condo.  Except for the kitchen which is way too small…it is open and airy and other than the crazy guy that walks in the road looking for cigarette butts to collect and roll his own, and his dog hating mother, the neighbors are pretty cool.  It is a dog place so most people are indeed dog lovers.

That year is coming to end so off we go to find a house.  Since my place of employment is a horrible drive (not in distance but in traffic) we had thought to get me closer to work.  We started out looking in places we knew we could afford and quickly found … for the money we had to spend, the houses were old, small and not in neighborhoods we liked.

And what is it with people?  When I put our home up for sale, you could have gone in and come out of it with a bleach high (I clean with bleach).  Those floors were super clean and everything was in its place. 

These houses…not so much.

Some had black mold, some had addition after addition with ceiling leaks in the places where old joined with new.  Some were terribly small and we’d have had to knock out walls to accommodate our king sized bed.

One house stands out as the all-time winner for ICK factor.  We walk in to be met by three large cats.  These cats had peed on the hardwood, you could see the stains…but when we got upstairs, we see one of the largest Rubbermaid bins I've ever seen, with 1 foot of litter in it.  Seems the family just cleaned out the cat, erm…solid waste (OK cat turds) and just dumped new litter over the wet …when their eyebrows singed.  It was a cat waste trough!

My friend informed me we’d know when we found our house, that we’d walk in and the house would tell us.  She was right.  Deciding that it may be better to make that horrid drive if I get to come home to a mini-paradise was easy.  I believe (at this point) I will be happier making the drive and living where I am happy and safe as opposed to living where I am not happy, nor particularly safe, while having a 20 minute easy commute. 

We're house hunting.  Love where you live, or love your commute is a concern, but the biggest concern is the emotional drain of buying a home.

Paperwork and then more paperwork, fear that it won’t go through, dread that something will go wrong, all of the things one needs to buy for their new home.  It is a lot to take on.

I understand the need for mortgage places to do it this, however.  After the Clinton years of EVERYONE deserves a home (sounds kind of like EVERYONE deserves healthcare that is being preached now, wonder if the outcome will be the same) and the plethora of foreclosures that followed it is a must.  It is a painful look at your financials though. 

With both of us just starting out together after long marriages and divorce we find ourselves in our 50s with the prospect of not having a home paid off by the time we are super aged.  Yep, that’s a huge scary thing for me.  My health isn't conducive to working until I’m 80.

I can clearly see the financial pluses to home ownership, but I see a huge savings hit we are taking too.  (see that ying and yang?)  I see the benefit in equity and I see the benefit in owning something of your own (does one truly own a home while still managing a mortgage though)  you know what I  mean.  I feel like this place will bring us both much joy.  And that lifts me.

So yep, the new Realtor told us to trust her.  We did.  We found a forever home.  One we can live happily in as age advances.  Everything on one floor, low maintenance exterior, acreage… and a LAKE! 

But I think what I've learned from all of the above is this…

Worrying about what you can’t control will kill you AFTER it robs you of joy. 

If you don’t take a step of faith, realizing your God is bigger than anything life can toss at you, you’ll regret it or learn to live with less joy and hope.

Mortgage companies should put out a brochure that basically says, “we will make your life a living Hades for 1 month and then we will own your soul for 30 years.

But more than anything else, I've learned that life is truly a ride of ups and downs.  Drops and rebounds.  What is important is to learn from all of that, and to learn it alongside someone worth learning it all with.  Someone who will laugh at you and with you for your sillinesses, who will calm you when the frets take over, who will remind you that letting go and letting God is the only way to travel.

Thank you Left Brain for putting up with me and for riding alongside.  Our little house on the dirt road, with a lake behind it and trees in front will be a place we grow older…and happier together.