I don't run for trains

     I don’t run for trains. I used to, when I was younger. I used to be perpetually early to appointments, meetings, dates, you name it. The pace of daily life where I grew up in New York meant that getting somewhere was half of what you did on any given day. I didn’t learn to drive until I was 27 because I didn’t have to living in the metro area of New York City. My walking skills, knowledge of train and bus schedules, subway routes and the like were all I needed to get me to the next event in my life. 

     And then things fell apart. It started with a nagging feeling that the life experiences I was having were, somehow, duplicates of things I had already done. The shine of youth began its dulling. The shine of my marriage dulled, too. I began freelancing and the constant running from job to job. Keeping up with appointments, assignments and computer updates became my life. Staying “ahead of the curve” culturally, technically, visually, financially was my purpose and it made me exhausted. I became tired of everything and yet I pushed and pushed and kept telling myself, “ Don’t drop the ball, Cindi! Don’t drop the ball!” as I ran down the steps of the subway on 14th street. I could hear the screech of metal on metal of the incoming L train and didn’t want to miss the train so I could get home and sit with my cats, eat a box of soft, chocolate chip Entemann’s cookies and just relax in my small space. Rushing to relax. After 30+ years, that became my existence, rushing, rushing, rushing so I could escape to my apartment hole and rest. Some life.

     One day, for no particular reason, it hit me when I was rushing to make the connection of the G to the L train at Metropolitan station on my way to work, shuffling quickly with all the other commuters, caught up in the lemming rush. “Hey, there’s another train coming. What’s the rush?” I stepped aside and let the others pass me. You know what? There was. There was another train and I still made it to work. Not only that, I still got my work done on time when I did get to the office. Nothing bad happened. Nobody died, tragedy was averted, I still ate lunch that day and my cats were still at home waiting to be fed. Life moved on.

     I had my epiphany about time and the perception of time. (What exactly is time anyway? We don’t really understand that one.) I stopped running for trains. I stopped rushing to get all my presents before Christmas Day, as if they became less thoughtful after the 25th or more thoughtful before then. I stopped paying attention to media culture, which wasn’t conducive to my career being in advertising-related graphic design. I stopped fretting about missed birthday cards and not getting to the coffee shop before the afternoon rush. If it was crowded, I could pass. I could make coffee at home. I slowed down in New York City. I stopped worrying about not saying all the right things, not reading all the latest articles, not knowing all the latest gossip about modern culture. I actually read the tacky subway adverts, the flyers flopping on the posts, the faded graffiti on the benches. Some of it was funny. Some of it made me wonder, “Do people actually buy this stuff?” I began to observe again, wonder about things and think. It felt good and it was part of the path that led me out of New York City and into the woods of Eastern Kentucky.

     I’ve changed my time references, slowly. Instead of these artificial schedules of what’s hot, what’s not, is Congress in session or out? (and does it really matter anymore?), is this topic “trending?” (oh, how I loathe that word), Black Friday and Christmas shopping season and did I get all my work up on Etsy? Are there any other social media outlets that I simply must be involved with?  Am I getting page views? What about search engine optimization? Instead of all that, I now try to work on schedules of seasons, what to plant and when. Is my clay dry enough to fire? Have I completed my thought? Does this work for me?

     I’m reading a book about mushrooms now, the flowers of fungus. Mysterious mushrooms and the lifecycle of fungi. Fascinating stuff. It’s what makes the forest smell so good. It’s bigger than us, you know, fungus, all around us, millions of spores. True. You never think about that kind of thing when you’re running for trains.

12 oz.

Stoneware Cup in Ivory and Blues, $22

Today... well, today seemed like one of those days where you need to climb Mt. Everest but you can't seem to get anywhere because you're running on a hamster wheel instead of a linear path. I have about six different projects going on in the studio and a few home projects on top of them. I'm trying to keep the juggling act going all day long and some days, like today, I wonder, "Have I accomplished anything?" Mind you, from experience I know that sometimes in the midst of what seems like utter chaos, things are moving forward even if you can't see it, measure it or sense it. Still, I do have this desire to imbibe in some red wine when I encounter days like this and my new stoneware cups always make me think of a big hearty cup of wine (Or mead. I've never had mead. Wonder what it's like?). Since these babies can hold approximately 12 ounce or more of a liquid, that's almost 2 glasses of wine! Anyway, I finally got all my pix of the stoneware cups taken, the measurements written down and my boilerplate for the style of cups saved to a text file for some cutting and pasting over the next few days so yay for me!

Stoneware Cup in Ivory and Brown, $22

     Finally got the last of my slab vases slipped, dried and ready for bisque. Some have the styling that I've done on my neolithic horse cups from earlier in the year. I'm trying to sneak in this bisque before I get back to glazing the rest of my teapots and creamer/sugar jar sets. There is a salt firing coming up at EKU and I'd like to get some of the additional cups, vases and pitchers ready for that firing. Unfortunately, I won't get my neolithic horse cups done before the Richmond Pottery Festival which is coming up on Sept. 10 and 11th but they will be ready for Christmas inventory. Included in the group are some new designs of Buddha on the cups. Hope they come out. I may work on some more for an upcoming anagama firing that is slated to happen, tentatively, for October or November. The colder the better.
     Did I mention I'm working on some new sculptures?
     So in the mean time, since I haven't got enough to do in clay, I'm also working on additional gourd pins and pendants with a few pendant experiments in porcelain. Making them keeps me entertained but here's the thing, I'm considering a redesign of my Etsy site that splits my clay work from my gourd work. I love working in both mediums but as an Etsy shop, I think they have different audiences. Question is: what do I call a new shop if I do this and how much extra work am I making for myself? Is this a recipe for a marketing nightmare or am I paving the way for a smoother ride in the future?
      Somewhere this will pay off but today, it just seemed like chaos. I will post some shots of the progress in the next few days, loaded kiln, boxes of pots to be glazed, pins in progress and what have you. And in the midst of this, the animals howl and call for attention and food. My poor little Ruby has a crack in her hoof with a likely abscess. It means daily treatment of standing her foot in a bucket of water and epsom salts for as long as we both can stand it and then some medicine on the funky part of her sole. Although today, I almost thought it looked like her abscess might be breaking out which would be awesome.
     Tonight, no wine because its too late in the evening (would be a terrible waste of a nice red wine this late in the day) but a nice cup of darjeeling suits me just fine... 

What's your routine?

The Co-Dependent Seeker, (right foreground on stand) Dogwood Art Festival 2011, Knoxville, TN

I love variety but I also need structure. Even when I'm feeling spontaneous and about to burst from boredom, I still gravitate towards some kind of sameness within the madness. This year is my first year after school that I've dedicated myself to my work as a professional. What kind of routine am I developing so far?
     I've had only a couple of shows, the Dogwood Art Festival this past April in Knoxville, TN and this upcoming one in Stockton, CA at the LH Horton Gallery at San Joaquin Delta College. I've also gotten a small presence on Etsy and I'm getting ready to do my first glaze firing in my kiln plus a salt firing at EKU in a couple of weeks. After that, I'll be participating in the Richmond Pottery Festival in Richmond, KY again this year. Things are picking up slowly yet I still get frustrated by the pace of my progress. Should I be? I mean really much of this has been about getting used to the routine of being a full-time artist and artisan. Thinking about all the parts needed makes me dizzy and overwhelmed when I list the ones that come to me off the top of my head, inspiration, incubation, designing, making, glazing, firing, cutting, turning, gluing, constructing, finishing, cleaning, mixing, researching, connecting, blogging, tweeting, marketing, learning, bookkeeping, accounting, strategizing and finding time to do the household things in between all that and not feel neglectful, guilty and absent. So, in retrospect, so far, I'm realizing that I've been adding each piece this year as I get more comfortable with all of it and I slide into a routine of my own. That may leave me the opportunity next year to add more applications to shows, add more inventory, add more marketing, add more festivals and outlets for my work to be seen.

Upcoming show, Stockton, CA; Grounded Flight

I dunno. It still overwhelms me but I suppose that's why wine and coffee exist.
     Having said all that, I do try to add things into my daily routine that keep me feeling focused and energized. What are the kinds of things that people do, independent professionals, to keep them steady on the forward track?
     For me, my day starts early in the morning, feeding the animals. In many ways, the fact that they need food each morning and that they rely on me to give it to them keeps me disciplined and gets me out of bed. Otherwise, I can comfortable see having days where I negotiate with myself that I don't really need to get out of bed...not today. So chalk one up for cats, dogs and horses!

Possum

     After that, it's the oatmeal and double cappuccino hit for breakfast followed by computer time to check the news, correspond, blog, tweet, list new items, do bookkeeping, shipping and any other office work. I give myself about 2 hours between 7:15 to about 9:15 for all of that and then it's out to the studio to figure out what happens first out there.
     When I do get out to the studio (followed by some of my dogs and cats who love to come in and sleep while I work) the radio goes on first. Every once in a while I find it necessary to have quiet, nature quiet, to gather my energy and focus, but for the most part, I like to have something on in the background and my taste varies from day to day between classical, opera, Bollywood, blues, independent rock, and old soul and R&B. If I could find even more eclectic music from around the world like traditional Tibetan, Indonesian, Japanese, you name it, that would be terrific but for now, Aretha Franklin is helping things along.
     I'll work for hours until mid-day and lunch, go back to the house for food and maybe to fuss with the horses, check email, Etsy and so on, and then back out to the studio until my husband gets home. When he does, I usually quit for the day so I can spend some time with him. He works weird hours so I take what I can get. Dinner, relax and then in the evening, after my husband goes off to bed, three times a week, I'm doing yoga and taking time to meditate for a few minutes. Getting back into yoga has been such a boost to my discipline. I'm terrible when it comes to sticking to any kind of physical routine but for some reason, even if I'm not so sure I want to do yoga that evening, a few warm up poses and I find myself pushing and challenging myself and before I know it, another yoga hour has passed. By then, I'll either wrap up my day with final emails or Etsy work, maybe another short stint in the studio and then usually, a list of what I need to remember to do the next day.
     And then I do it all over again.
     Yup, looking back so far, I think I'm chugging right along. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

Nodes

My ex husband and I used to discuss this phenomenon, the idea of "nodes" in road traffic. Waves travel in nodes, a trough and a peak. Bunch a few of them together and when they climb all over each other, the wave can get bigger or the waves bunch together. I've experienced this at the beach as waves pile on each other, one after another and then it seems they all group as one big wave or wide push of water and then whoooosh! It knocks you over with a long sweep and then all is quieter as the water recedes into it's regular rhythm until maybe a boat motors by, adding waves to the waves and you get another crowd of energy. We used to wonder about interstate traffic. Why do you get congestion when there is no accident to speak of, just volume, when theoretically, everyone is traveling the same speed and using the proper signals and turn lanes? How come, when travelling on the interstate, you get times when you're stuck in the middle lane with people coming up around you from both sides and yet other times, it's empty in front of you and behind you? So we theorized that the traffic worked in nodes. Sometimes, due to a collection of small factors, those small factors pile up and suddenly, you're in a crowd on an otherwise empty interstate.

I have concluded that life events also work out that way from time to time. Since I put my dog down, I feel like I've hit a node of "things that are a pain in the ass." Of course, it's not "All Bad" so there's always a little positive to balance things out, however, I feel like I'm in the midst of a bad node. After the euthanasia, I messed up not one but two orders from my Etsy site out of sheer distraction and grief. Silver lining? The customers involved are fantastic and it is slowly getting squared away. During this time, I had to take a trip back to NY to see the folks who are getting older. Old. They are old. They need assistance but are reluctant. Dad is still driving but shouldn't be. Oh boy. It's always good to go back to see friends in NY but the trip was so short in relation to people I'd love to have seen and places I'd love to have visited. Then comes the bill and we spend way more than we expect. Okay, let me think about that. We always spend way more than we expect so maybe our expectations are consistently false expectations. I mean, really? Go back to NY and spend only $300? Who am I kidding? Gas alone costs that much. So the trip was good and yet stressful. The Etsy is good and yet stressful. I'm home, all will even out, yes?

Not quite, still in the node, apparently. I'm at home, all ready to tackle my work again, fresh start, new energy and... laptop crashes with all my work on it. And all my photos from NY. Bad crash. BAD. Hanging blue screen. No response. Have I backed up? Do you really need to ask that question? I wouldn't be writing this blog post if I had. Okay, more money out the door, money we don't have but IT'S AN INVESTMENT, right? Get the hard drive, plug in the firewire, get set to copy files and... can't get the files to show on the hard drive. In single user mode I'm getting i/o errors. I'm afraid to run disk utility and repair because I know what it's going to say so all I want to do is back up what I have so I can erase and reformat the drive. So here's the kicker: I can't get the back up to work. Not even manually dragging files across the network using the laptop in hard drive mode with a firewire connection. I'm speechless with frustration.

It's hot, humid, bad heat wave. Little things need to be attended to on the farm and the heat makes it difficult not to mention the time that computer issues eat up so, I find I am in a node. With all nodes, they eventually run out of energy and flatten out so while I am stressed, I also know this can't go on indefinitely. Still, it does make me tired. Silver lining? I am backing up my desktop computer finally!

I think this is why drinking becomes popular.

My studio, she's esploded!

My life, currently.

After putting my dog down, I gave myself the time and space to grieve and just let whatever happened, happen. Part stillness, part crying, part meditating, part distracting myself with silliness, part working and eventually I find I can reflect and find some calm space for myself. Most of my method has centered around getting back to work and immersing myself in my art again.
     And so, off to the studio and into the midst of the projects I put aside while I wrestled with the decision about Diva. Initially, I didn't concern myself with the mess or what I should have been doing first, I just sat down and worked on the thing in front of me and committed to completing it. When I was done with that piece, I moved onto the next one and finished that. Moved onto the next and finished that. And so on.* However, today I looked around my studio and realized I'd hit a messy fork in the road, a clog in the creative artery, a dip in the smooth ride. Projects piled on projects, glaze containers stacked on each other, kiln shelves ready to be used, greenware in one container, bisqueware in another but needing to be cleaned and dried, gourd badges half done, open notebooks with notes and sketches scattered, loose leaf paper with lists lying about (You know things are bad when loose leaf paper makes an appearance) and barely room to move. It's gotten so bad, in order to do anything, I have to move things around like those little tile finger games with the one square missing, just to make the space to work.
     This happens to me from time to time and the cacophony of stuff and ideas racing around saps my creative energy and can get me depressed to the point where I become unproductive and inefficient - at least as far as I'm concerned. With all the emotion surrounding Diva dying, no sense exacerbating things. There's happy chaos, which is just fine, and then there is chaos chaos=bad. So I'm taking a break until mid-July to clean, straighten, reorganize and prioritize what's going on in my creative corner. And then we're ready for the second half of the year!

*(hat tip to Vonnegut)

First dog, Good dog!

Diva - Nov 1999—June 2011

First of all, thanks to everyone who contributed in money and/or kind words when Diva broke her leg. The leg healed fine but somewhere about two weeks ago, she developed a lump on the front of the shoulder of the broken leg that we thought, at first, was the bone calcifying. Turns out, it was cancer. Within the space of two weeks, the tumor became so enormous, Diva stopped walking on her leg completely. In the last three to four days, it got to the point where she could barely walk at all. In addition, all the other little doggie lumps on her that she's had for years, they, too, started to enlarge. So, this afternoon, we helped her leapfrog over the rest of the pain and misery and run to Doggie Heaven (and all the rest of the animals!).

Thanks to my vet, LW, for being so practical and honest about everything and helping us with this. Thanks also, to my friend, Robbin for letting Maggie and Pooch have their illicit fling nearly twelve years ago and produce the litter that included a brown puppy with long white evening gloves on her front legs. Out of the eight to ten puppies in that litter, Robbin encouraged me to take one home. "You need a dog," she told me. I had picked out a brown and white patched puppy but it was shy and avoided me. And where ever I walked in her barn, this one brown puppy with long white legs kept escaping her pen following me around the barn. I thought, "She's picking me, better go with mother nature's intuition." "Aw, you picked the prettiest one!" Robbin protested.  I offered to give her back but Robbin said no. So she came home with me and howled outside the bathroom window when I was taking a shower, lamenting our separation. She sang beautifully. She demanded attention. She became Diva.

First dog!

Diva was my very first dog. Growing up in an apartment north of NYC, Mom wouldn't let us have a dog so we always had cats. One after the other. Until Butch, the last one and she lasted 19 years. There's the story that my older siblings wanted a dog so badly that when Mom told them they'd be getting a special Christmas present in 1962, they were certain it was a puppy. Imagine their disappointment when I showed up.

Leader dog.

She's had twelve fun years on Sand Hill, chasing rabbits, and unfortunately, catching and eating them as well, along with groundhogs, possum and other small critters strategically deposited in the yard so we would not miss the latest bounty and gift. She would always sit proudly nearby, not touching it and making sure neither Maxx nor Sport touched it either. Then, she would let it rot, cook, dehydrate, you name it, and eventually ingest it, confirming that specialized dog food is a marketing ploy aimed at the owners and not the dogs. Diva enjoyed eating anything, no matter how putrid, and took anything from my hand, she trusted me so much, she was swallowing before the food even hit her mouth. She brought home many presents from neighbors' garbage and supplemented her meals with whatever trash can or dumpster she could get into. To the unknown neighbors/contributors, I apologize. But she sure enjoyed it and, I'm sure, thanked you again and again!

Happy dog!

Opposite dog.

Diva defined "dog" for me, being the first. I love Sport and Maxx, too, for lovable canine qualities, but Diva will always hold a special place in my heart because she was my first doggie love. 

Love for everyone!

I was hoping the leg break would leave her gimpy but at least, give her another year of sun and rolling around on her back. Not to be. The leg break definitely happened due to some trauma; the bruising around the ulna joint was testament to that, but did the cancer weaken a bone that otherwise would not have broken? Did the break, trauma, subsequent surgery and recovery kick-start and accelerate the cancer lurking in her body? Can't really say and ultimately, it doesn't matter.

One last slurp!

I've cried my eyes out this past week, knowing what was coming. As a pet owner, I feel total responsibility for their care and well-being. Because I could not stop the cancer's progression, the only thing I could do was help her transition more quickly and avoid the deterioration and progressing pain. In some ways, I guess I kept wishing she would just be stiff as a board when I woke up. I think I could have handled that better. Now we have buried treasure in our yard, $700 in titanium parts in a dog's leg. (Can we recycle this thing??) We also have years of doggie love and kisses and lots of memories. She has altered my experience of the world and that's the best part of all.

There is a poem that we used to send in a sympathy card to clients at the vet clinic where I used to work years ago, called "The Rainbow Bridge." Google it, I can't bear to post the link. My friend, Tammy, who worked with me, asked, "Have you ever read it? Read it," and handed it to me. I had to turn away and walk into the next room to finish reading the poem after two lines because I started bawling my eyes out. It gets so bad for me that even saying "The Rainbow Bridge" gets me choked up. It's such a sappy, happy fantasy of losing an animal friend and the hope that they'll be fine and you'll see them again but it works on every emotion I've got. So you'll have to find it on your own. I have decided, though, that, as an atheist with a general buddhist philosphy, I have no need for heaven or hell, god or gods. Having said that, if I was made to pick a fantasy belief system and a final destination when I die, I've decided I'm going across the Rainbow Bridge to Animal Heaven. Much more fun there.

That's all, folks!

Animal Farm: Diva, Recovering

Pet me.

Well, she's getting better...slowly. Thanks to wonderful friends, family and total strangers, I've raised a little less than half of her surgery bill which is fabulous. I hope the longer term pay-off will be increasing sales.
     But back to Diva. She's gotten verrrry comfortable being indoors. In fact, I think she's beginning to prefer it. Food is brought to her, she's shuttled on and off the porch, she sleeps at the edge of our bed. How will I be certain that after 8 weeks, she won't be faking an injury just to stay inside? The biggest problem we have now, aside from her weight which is killing my back, is that she pants incessantly in the evening at times. I'm guessing it's either pain from healing or she's hot since she's still got a lot of her winter coat and it's suddenly become summer in Kentucky this week. Sometimes, it's also just needing to go outside. Regardless, it's loud enough to wake the dead. But other than that she's doing well and gets lots of hugs and pats and love in general.
     I take her back for a check up in about a week. In the mean time, I must make more pots so this week is filled with the unglamorous task of spreading out wet clay to reclaim and wedge into workable balls of clay for the wheel. At least the kiln is finally hooked up. Now, if I could only figure out how this old model works...

Dumb Dog

Tea Horse Studio, Horse Cup, $22

Update on the dog situation. Diva is recovering but my back is killing me. Lifting 70 lbs up and down the porch steps so she can pee is making my lower back unhappy. I know, I know, use your legs, not your back! But trust me, even with the deep knee bend technique, it's still a strain for me.
    As for Diva, herself, she's laying low now because last week, only a little over a week since she broke her leg, she over did it and not only jumped off the porch before I could stop her and lift her off, she came running to see me at one point during the day, bounding down the sidewalk, hop, hop, step, hop, hop, step, tail wagging, butt wiggling... it made me wince. And the next day she lay still panting heavily because we went through all the pain killer so stupid dog, stop running and jumping!
   In the mean time, I'm making sales on Etsy and will be listing more items in the near future to replace the ones sold. I am humbled and grateful, as always, for the purchases, as they will go a long way towards paying the bill for Diva's surgery. I should also be able to squeeze out some funds for additional investment into the studio. We are working on getting the kiln hooked up this week so testing will begin shortly. Woo! I'll try to get a picture of the limping fool up shortly.

Animal Farm: Diva and the Cone of Shame

"I thought you loved me?"

It was inevitable. All dogs have OCD when it comes to licking stitches and Diva is no exception. So off to the vet I went, yesterday, on a quest for a Cone of Shame. She looks pathetic and she knows it, that's the saddest part. I was discussing her injury with my friend, Sandy, yesterday. She suggested that Diva may have actually gotten kicked by one of the horses and not run over at all considering the lack of road injuries, cuts, scratches and the like. And in thinking about it and discussing it with the husband, we're inclined to accept that explanation. She may have gotten trapped in a stall with one of my horses and in the process of trying to get out, got kicked, cracked the bone and then tried to squeeze out through the gate, displacing the bone. Possible. But the reality is we'll never know. What I do know is I need to protect my $1,000 investment and she better stop licking her damn scar.
     I have sold more items from Etsy and this pleases me and my new credit card bill. I have more items to add in the coming weeks.

Animal Farm: Diva, Post-op

Bruising is evident towards the point of her shoulder.

If Diva's 12, for her weight and size, that makes her older than me by about 25 years. So breaking her leg and recovering is quite the trauma but she's a tough old broad.  She came home today and is pooped. I don't blame her. But then I get to thinking, if I was 75-80, would I be playing in traffic? Dogs live a different life, indeed.

Tea Horse Studio: Animal Farm [Diva]

Diva Dog

My farm, where my studio is located, is home to my family of animals. I started out with the four cats, Stalin, Kool Mo Dee, Ariel and Murray and now only Murray, the cat with eyebrows, is left out of the original Gang of Four. Over the years I've lived here, besides the husband and stepson, I've added several cats, some who made it (Possum, Nietzsche, Izzy], some who met an early demise [R.I.P Chief], four to five dogs and two horses, including Three Wishes aka Tee, Tee Bear and Mr. Tee. My first dog was Diva. I got her as a puppy. I would say I picked her out but she picked me out. Followed me around the barn even though I had my eye on another puppy. She's been a wonderful dog for about 11 years so far. She's tolerated Sport and puts up with Maxx, attempting to play with him until she can't deal with him anymore and she whips his butt into submission, even with her hip dysplasia.

     Diva, it seems, got hit by a car yesterday, and suffered a bad break in her front, left, upper femur. I had three options, amputation, surgery or euthanasia. Amputation was out of the question since she has hip dysplasia and uses her front end as her primary muscle group. Her back end kinda hippity-hops along like a rudder when she moves. And as bad as the break is, I just wasn't ready to say good-bye to her this way at this moment. The surgery is about $1,000 to put in a rod and plate and screws. Ouch, double-ouch and pass the ammonia. Time to make more pots and gourd badges.
     I found her lying on the front lawn last night while it was still light.  When I came out, she attempted to get up, very slowly. "You old dog," I called out to her. But as she turned around, her left leg was hanging low, paw curled, bearing no weight. Good lord, I thought, what has she done now? I thought it was her paw or lower leg so I bandaged it until I could get her to a vet but as I was letting the paw down across her chest, she yelped and that's when I realized it was her shoulder, or what I thought was her shoulder. I thought, maybe, she had dislocated it while playing with Maxx. She had no other marks on her, no scratches, no cuts, no road rash.
      I brought her to a vet in Richmond this morning, to get x-rays. My biggest worry: how to get her into the car? She's not a little dog, about 65-70 lbs., and I knew moving her could cause her so much more pain. When I went out of the house in the morning, she was in her dog house, waiting for me. I looked at her and said, "Diva, honey, we gotta figure out how to get you into the car today. You hang here while I make some calls." I know it sounds weird but I truly believe when you bond with an animal, in times of stress and pain, they know and you know. You both understand what has to be done and you help each other out. I think that's why service animals work well when a good match is made. Anyway, I went back into the house and spoke to the vet who said, "Find a way to get her into the car and then call us when you're on the way." So it was up to me, one way or another, to get her into the car. I walked out the back to her doghouse and she was gone. Huh? I went around to the front porch and there she was, on the porch, on the cushion on the porch, laying on her bad side. She had dragged herself around the house and up the two steps to the porch. She must have been in tremendous pain. I looked at the porch height. I looked at the bumper height of the hatchback of my Subaru. Same height. I backed the car up, over the lawn with the hatch up and lightly touched the bumper to the porch. Level. I dragged the cushion with Diva on it over to the car and I'll be damned if she didn't lay perfectly still until we got to the back of the car where she hoisted herself up until I could lift her across the threshold and into the back. She laid down, panting from the pain. It was as if she understood the dilemma we we're in so she said, "I'll get on the porch and meet you halfway."
     Some friends and family say they would have put her down, including my husband, but Diva is my first dog, ever. Growing up in an apartment in lower Westchester County, it was cats, fish or birds - no dogs. She is my special girl. Maybe if I had had dogs all my life I'd have opted to let her go but I still don't think so. Not after she showed such understanding and courage. I owed her that. I'm not happy about the expense and perhaps if she had been in worse shape, bleeding, in shock, multiple fractures, I would have made another decision but that wasn't the case. Surgery is tomorrow, assuming all goes well, she comes home Wednesday, gimpier than before but still my Diva.

Heart with Wings

I've added new gourd badges to the Etsy site. I'm making more. I'm attending a salt firing this week; making more cups and pots. I've got a fire lit under my ass to take care of the family I love, including the furry ones. I can't move fast enough.