Puppy Love

My dog Sophie had puppies back on December 29th - seven of them! The first month she was pregnant we thought she was just getting fat, but by the second month you could feel the tell-tale kick of little puppy feet. By the time she gave birth, her belly was just about dragging the ground. She's a mini-dachshund so her nursing puppies are getting so big they're almost swamping their poor momma.

 Aren't they cute? We're still not sure who he daddy is, but they look suspiciously a lot like our standard dachshund, Buford. Even though he's fixed, he got a lot of action when Sophie was in heat. Yes, dogs who are fixed can still do it. I just can't believe he fathered the pups!

Anyway, they're all spoken for so far, so at least Sophie's foray into motherhood will make a lot of people happy. But this will definitely be the only batch of puppiness we'll be spreading around the world. Miss Sophie is getting fixed as soon as we can get her done.

Wake-up call

Apparently, I've been sleep walking for a while. Figuratively speaking. Sequestered in a cocoon of self pity, wallowing in guilt and doubt and remorse with a walloping dollop of stagnation thrown in for good measure. And it's getting a little late to keep wasting time.

My 15 year-old daughter parroted back to me something I've thrown out as a "joke" quite a bit lately. And for the first time, I heard myself. And it woke me up a little.

I made a drastic decision over two years ago. In a very uncharacteristic move, for me, I threw caution to the wind and decided it would be better for me - and for my kids - to live honestly and true to myself. So I jumped off a cliff and took them with me. It was my attempt to finally stop trying to live up to what I thought other people expected of me and figure out what I expected of myself. A year later, I married a wonderful man and started a new life. But not really.

I haven't moved forward at all since then. Time has, though. It swirls around my ankles and rushes past me while I stand still.

Poor me, I can't finish a book. Poor me, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Poor me, I can't let go of grief and the past. What a load of crap.

I'm alive and healthy and intelligent.

Let's see if I can stay awake.

Not bad for 44

Christmas was nice, New Year's Day was uneventful, my birthday was... well it was there, wasn't it? The best part was getting birthday hugs from my kids and buying myself a Nora Roberts' novel I wanted and the movie "The First Wives Club." Except when I watched the movie, I realized their ages were supposed to be around 46! I just turned 44. It is not possible that those women are my age.

I realized recently, in all my agonizing, mid-life self-examination, that I am the Forrest Gump of jobs. It's true. Following is the list of jobs I have held, to my best recollection, in the order I held them:

1. Jack-in-the-Box cashier
2. Telephone solicitor for home improvement company
3. Kinney's Shoe Store salesperson
4. Stay-at-home-mom
5. Video store clerk, then manager
6. Chiropractic assistant
7. Perfume salesperson
8. Administrative assistant for business management firm
9. Receptionist for labor law firm
10. Secretary/receptionist/adm. assistant for temp company
11. Adm. assistant/office manager for Japanese trading company
12. Bally's health club salesperson/trainer
13. Clinique counter manager
14. Stay at home mom again
15. Minister
16. Newspaper reporter
17. Radio announcer/news reporter/commercial writer/adm. assistant
18. Magazine writer
19. Magazine ad salesperson
20. Magazine publisher/editor
21. Walgreen's beauty adviser
22. Marketing director for a nursing home
23. Substitute teacher

Each job was a universe all its own with its own peculiar inhabitants. A cast of characters who became familiar to me, important to me. People I thought would always be in my life. Some still are, most aren't.

If variety is the spice of life, then I'm cayenne pepper.