Wy? Cuz.

We went and saw Wynonna Judd right before we left for a family reunion, of sorts, in Vegas. I have followed Wy since she was singin' with momma. And I became a rabid fan when she went solo. I have all her 'albums' (cuz I'm old) and love them all. Even the Jesus-y ones.

I'm embarrassed to admit that, when she asked who hadn't seen her live, I was one of the hands raised. I don't know why I hadn't. I just figured a big ol' lezzy in the middle of ten gallon hats and platter sized belt buckles might make me itchy that there was a lynchin' bout to happen. But after seeing the amount of 'family' in the audience, I shouldn't have worried.

My secret lust is Wy is one of us. I mean, come on....the guys she picks? Her horrible luck in love? The motorcycles? The rockin' guitar licks? Her affinity to Elvis? Her one attempt to get on an Olivia Cruise to perform? (thanks Christian, conservative fan base for screwing THAT up!)

I gotta say, if you were to line up the columns for probabilities, she would race to the top.

As soon as she stepped on the stage...her presence, her beauty, her wink and crooked grin....sigh....I was in LOVE!!! I mean I love her....I've always loved her. But holy crap! Her swagger and strut on stage and that voice? My heart melted into my panties!

I was deep in a lustful state of lustiness when she dusted off one of her top tens: She is His Only Need.

There I was, at a table, in a showroom in an Indian casino, at a table with six strangers, bawling my eyes out. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that song. It's from her first album, so it's played a lot over the years. And while it would often cause a lump in my throat, this time...this time it was the life of my dad put to music.

There was nowhere in the song to pull out. Every turn of phrase pulled at my heart. Every image her throaty growl produced, took me to a picture in my family album. So I let the tears flow. I let the sadness wrap around me. I did the one thing everyone hates: cried my eyes blind in public.

I never know where my dad will pop up these days. I will say it's always unexpected and there are just never enough kleenex around.

What's in a name?

Death.

You know it's coming. We are all gonna die. Like flowers wilt. Like balloons deflate. Like a clock stops ticking. Everything has its cycle.

When it comes, everyone deals in a different way. I really, REALLY wanted to get shit faced and numb out. But I couldn't. I just couldn't bring myself to making the moment go away through liquid drowning. I had to be aware to tend to the faces that looked with pity upon me.

There are those who deal with life through a haze of alcohol...

A slurred voice called out to me across the patio table, "Cabreena...I wanna know shumthin...Now....I know that...um...you know....he wash....um.....well....hesh Allison's biological dad. But being he wash your shtep fath...hic...father.....do you shthink the losh...excuse me...the L-O-S-S is the sssssame?"

I've never wanted to reach out and strangle someone, till their wine soaked eyeballs popped out of there head, so badly.

"Yes."

My response split the silence that followed the intake of air around the large table we were sitting at. Everyone, aghast at the question posed to me. I stood up from my chair and walked from the patio to the house. Calming the rage inside.

Grumpy Old Men and Weepy Young Women

I was feeling a lil lost today, so I asked my girl if she would meet me for lunch. I thought a lil time out of the office, where not much is going on, would clear my brain and blow the memory playback out like dusty cobwebs when a door is opened.

We were sitting in a bright, sunny table near the window. I looked up to notice a gentleman well into his 80's. He shuffled alone into the dining room and sat at a table where I could see him just over LTR's shoulder.

A panini and a bowl of soup, the tray in his hands, shook a lil as it lowered to the table. He plopped into his seat and removed his baseball cap, the name "Lucy" embroidered into the front. He placed it on the table across from him, the name facing him.

Now, I'm a creative type with an imagination that takes me all over the place. One of my favorite games to play, with my pal Mae, was to make up stories of folks in cars next to us or walking by. When I saw him, I got this image in my head that his late wife was Lucy and the hat at the place across from him was a place marker that she was there at lunch.

After filling my head with that... my own sandwich had a hard time making its way around the lump in my throat.

The table next to us was filled with college girls, full of life and wide eyes of what the world looks like to them. The old man, his eyes clouded with age and knowing all to well what the world holds, scanned the room them started in on his meal.

I couldn't help looking over, like a TV in a sports bar, my eyes continued to look at his hunched figure; a slurp of soup, a nibble of panini. I fought the urge to ask him if we could join him.

"He's probably the biggest grump ever." I thought to myself. "He'd probably tell us to buzz off and stop pestering him."

Then I started thinking....my dad will never get to that age. But my mom, god willing, will have a long life. How many tables-for-one are in her future? My mom LOVES to go out to eat. Will she stop doing that, when it's just her?

Can you sit across from an empty chair and feel like you can face another day? No conversation over the meal, no one to offer a bite to taste and trade, or no one arguing who will pick-up the check.

It was everything I could do to keep myself from turning in my seat or staring out the window, so I didn't have to look at him. The raw emotions and helpless feelings rising to the top. I couldn't help him and I couldn't save my dad and I'm 3000 miles away from comforting my mother.

By the time he was done with his meal, he had kicked back in his seat, taken out a cell phone and some paper work and was conducting business of some sort. He sucked his teeth in satisfaction, as he talked to someone on the phone. His laid back air seemed more normal of a business man and less a helpless old man.

I relaxed in my seat a bit. The girls, giggled and picked up their things to go. The old guy gave them a quick look. His "maleness" still alive at his age.

As we left, I didn't even look back at him. Satisfied that he was fine and it was just my overactive imagination. Maybe the hat said "Lucky" and his only chance to get away from his harpy wife was to go grab lunch once and awhile by himself.

Who knows. There isn't much in my daily life that doesn't set me off on a path of emotions. I guess it's just something I need to get use too. Like my mom and a table for one.

Like sands through the hour glass.....

After you lose your dad, the strangest things will set you off.

I went to my girlfriend's first volleyball game of the season. It's at a local bar that has two sand v-ball courts. The wind was icy cold and I wasn't envying them at all for having to play in the wet, chilly sand. I was sure there would be blue toes before the first match was through.

There was a table near their court that the sun was shining on. I decided that might be my only hope for warmth. I parked it on the attached, metal seat and dug the soles of my sneakers into the sand. The familiar give, even as fine and wet as it was, sent me hurtling into a maelstrom of sadness.

I was 3000 miles from the beach I use to go to growing up. In times of stress or contemplation I would walk out and plop down into the cool, coarse sand of the west coast. The sun, extinguishing in the Pacific. The sky painted with brush strokes of oranges and pinks.

The beach was my 'happy place'. It's where I would go to work my shit out. I got a LOT of shit right now. And being in that v-ball court, so far from home, only exacerbated my woes into a giant hill of shit. I held back the welling tears that threatened to spill over. I could always blame it on the wind, kicking sand up.

You would think that there is nothing worse than suddenly losing your dad. But you know what's worse....walking away from your hurting family to get on a plane. Knowing that you're not going to be able to make a drive to see them next weekend.

Oh no......if I want to get to my family, it's a 7 hour plane ride and at least $400 every time I have the urge to visit. And don't forget I'm completely ham stringed by vacation days. There are only so many. I can't just take off "unpaid". I have to have time allotted.

Did I mention I was an artist with an out of work writer for a girlfriend?

Ya...Rockefeller we ain't.

For as long as I can remember, I wake up every morning, a sheen of sweat on my back, fighting through a dream of frustration and anger. Now I'm living the frustration of being held back from those that need me, from those I want to be with right now.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

I'm hoping that's true with my faithful blog readers.

And I'm hoping that's true of my father. I had to rush to his side April 10th before he slipped away from us.

While I'm not quite ready to put it into words, I just wanted to let you all know...I'm here. With a bandage on my heart and a headfull of questions.

But I'm here.

And when I'm ready to put the words into cyberspace....I know you will be here, to read them.

All things must come to an end.

When we got our puppy, Roxy, I would take her to the end of our block to a small park. In that park was a fenced little league field that was perfect for a new puppy to run.

Roxy LOVES to run! You know canine happiness when you see her lower her head and kick her feet in a blur across a field of green. Her tongue hanging from the side of her mouth, brilliant pink against her black and tan coat. A look in her eye that is sheer joy, tapping into something primal.

As we played a trio of folks found us and started to come early on the weekends to socialize our pooches and give them an hour of exercise. Cooper's mom, Seamus' dad and Spike's mom. (cuz you don't know people's names until MUCH later)

That was six years ago. In those six years we held PPD (puppy play date) in a few locations. It was like a puppy rave; messages going out where to meet from one weekend to the next. Wherever we went, we were diligent about cleaning up and minding our dogs.

The newest installment of PPD is close to 20 dogs, sometimes. The people that come there are more interested in the coffee they sip and the neighborhood gossip that flows. Dogs escape out and wander to the trash across the road, take dumps that go unnoticed and therefore un-scooped, or attack other peoples dogs.

And while all of those problems make me bristle with anger...it's the last one that has sent me packing from the 'pack' I originated.

Roxy was attacked twice by a husky while it's owner just stood there, with the other 'old coots', hands in pockets, jawing about this and that, letting everyone else mind their dogs.

I don't know if I ever used this blog to tell the story of the Good Dog Park where Roxy, as a small puppy, was attacked by two pit bulls and a greatdane. I had to reach in and pull her out of the pile, punching pit bulls in the head to get to her. When she emerged, and I started yelling at the owners of the other dogs, another woman noticed my hand, red with blood. My instant panic was that Roxy, with her black coat, had been injured, and I couldn't see it. I ran her, shaking and practically wrapped around my neck in shock, to the car and carefully checked her out....she was fine. It seemed it was me bleeding! My finger had been ripped open while trying to get to her.

We never went back again.

I'm not saying Roxy is an angel.....she lets the other dogs know she's there for an hour of fetch. It's her ball and her terms and if you know what's good for you - keep a wide berth. So when the new husky came up, she let him know this was her gig and she was top bitch. Instead of scurrying away, like most, the husky came back. This time the two clashed. I yelled at her to stop, she paused, the husky came at her again.

There were two things wrong with this: #1 the owner of the husky never once bothered to come over and pull his dog off. #2 the owner of the husky insists on keeping a 40 foot lead on the dog, which was wrapping around Roxy's neck as they went Cujo on each other.

If the husky didn't bite her, he might just break her neck with the lead.'

I let it go and almost forgot about it, till the husky came back after a short absence of a few weeks. As soon as the husky got wind of Roxy....it was on again. Again I got Roxy to pause and start to walk away and the husky, once again, came at her.

I went to grab the husky, boiling anger taking over. Others standing around started yelling for the dogs to stop. The owner, still standing in his lil clique, oblivious. The lead wrapped around my feet and around Roxy, tangling as the dogs wrestled. I used my 'demon' voice, a loud, guttural blast, that got the owners attention.

He came running, arm flailing. He scolded the husky like a new age mom, telling a kid he would be on the naughty mat till he could figure out what he did wrong. I picked up Roxy's ball and started to walk to the gate.

"No.....no....I'll go." said the husky's dad.

"Eeeeeeyaaaaa.....I'll go." I said. "I have an appointment with a client this morning anyway."

And that was it. A six year tradition, gone in the snap of a jaw and the sear of rope burn from the lead.

ink you stink

When I shaved my head the first time, for kids cancer, I thought I would celebrate by getting a tattoo of a shamrock of the Celtic knot kind. Alas...I dragged my feet and never went to get it.

Then my pal Jenna brought up that she wanted a tatt, turning 50, it would be her permanent milestone. Excitedly I said I would like to honor my own promise and get one after this St. Baldrick's, "Why don't you wait till you shave your head with me, then we will both go and get a tattoo!"

Marvelous plan.

I had found a different shamrock, a lil less detailed and a lil more tribal and I loved it. So did Jenna. So did LTR. Three leaves - three pals - marking a moment in our lives.

It all worked out quite nice. It was a bit more painful than the last. But the last was 13 years ago and it's the "kind of pain you forget", and I have to agree. But 15-20 minutes later, I was a marked woman with a $32,000 tattoo (if you total both times I shaved my head) at my collar line.

"Put A&D ointment on it 5-6 times a day. Take off the gauze and let it breath. Keep it out of the hot shower stream.......blah blah blah.

The 3 inked women stopped at the local Rite-Aide on the way home to get ointment. We found the generic brand of what we thought was the right stuff. We sat around the dinner table, drinking wine and sharing pain levels, as all of us had a different location marked that day.

Next day, at work, armed with my ointment, I started smearing. Then the itching began. Then the rash developed. Then my lymph node popped out of my neck like a T-day turkey timer! That doesn't happen very often, but when it does...there is infection in my body. It didn't take a medical degree to figure out where it entered my body.

A couple nights later, I stood talking to a friend in the mall, my collar rubbing on my weepy tatt, the itching searing down my back. I felt like a crazed junkie, bugs crawling down my shirt, twitching and adjusting my collar, seeking relief.

The next morning the redness around the tattoo spread out to a bumpy, burning halo of unhappy skin!

"Dry it out with alcohol." my tattooist suggested.

"Looks like shingles." my chiropractor mused.

"Have you had chicken pox?" a co-worker volunteered.

"Oh dude! That's not cool." a close friend helpfully suggested.

Cortisone, Benedryl, alcohol swabs and gauze the size of beach towels...I type to you, shifting and squirming in my chair, begging for relief.

"Don't swear, don't drink, don't lie and never get a tattoo."......Mom is always right.

Oops, I did it again.

Two years ago I shaved my head for kids cancer. I was the only woman on a male team. It was very moving to sheer my locks of vanity in-front of a packed house.

This time 10 women banded together to all shave for the same event. Plus we made our goal of $20,000 in the last few minutes before we took the stage.

It was incredible. It's one of those moments that you put a pin into and always comeback to it. Not like some memories that have that shity post-it-note glue on them, that dries, and the note falls behind the desk. Those memories are sleeping with the dust bunnies.

It's the kind of memory that stirs your emotions and warms your heart. It keeps the recall embers burning so that it's always fresh when you want to revisit.

The crowd seemed to love the idea of an all female team. When we stood outside to take picture, folks honked and waved as we assembled on a street corner outside the pub.

As I travel around town, I'm greeted with, "I know where you were this weekend." Folks 'in the know' are more then ready to point out my lack of hair.

It's cold without hair! But it's too much a badge of courage to cover with a cap.

Someone said only 50 women out of 400+ participants shaved. We were 10 of them. I feel pretty durn good about that. I'm pretty durn proud of those 10 women as well.

I think this is the last shave for me. I mean, how do you one-up an all girl shave team. And as they say in Gypsy, "Ya gotta have a gimmick." Now maybe it's time to warm my heart with giving, instead of trying to keep my head warm after shaving.

Jouney to the center of the backyard

I've had a number of dogs in my day. Roxy is the first one I've had on the East Coast. There's something we have here, that I didn't have on the Left Coast - winter. With winter comes snow. Snow covers a lot of things. One of the main things is poop.

Yes...I said it...poop. Lots and lots of it. If your squeamish, you might want to stop here. I'm going to talk a LOT about it. Hell...I'm going to even sing about it.

While it's covered in pretty white stuff, it is easy to forget that down below, is a layer so unholy, that it would give you nightmares.

The first winter we had Roxy, and mind you she was yet a pup, it was shocking. Even more shocked was LTR who had a life time of litter pans and never had to deal with puppy poops. I was of the mind to celebrate and say, "Cool! I don't have to pick anything up all winter!"

It was anything BUT cool when winter went away.

I handed LTR a plastic grocery bag, tiptoed out into the ungodly mess and started to poop-scoop. LTR hung with me for maybe the first, full bag. When the second bag started to fill up I noticed a strange green hue creeping up around her cheeks. As I heaped a hearty scoop into the bag, she turned tail and was nothing more than a cartoon puff of smoke with bobby pins spinning in the air.

And I was alone.....in a wasteland of waste.

Over the years I learned from that experience. For starters, don't count on LTR to help with the winter clean up. More importantly; work in layers.

As the snow starts to melt and the levels start to shrink, you see on the horizon, lil zombie turds rising from the snow. Get out there and SCOOP! Scoop like your life depended on it.

You don't want to wait till the snow is gone and the Baby Ruth's have thawed. It's not going to help you in the picking up process. Turds on ice is the only way to scoop.

After you get used to this horrific part of spring, I find myself trying to look at the positive, such as: this year I found, in a perfectly flattened dropping, a preserved squirrel's paw print. I wondered if the squirrel, after stepping in it, looked at his paw and said in a Alvin the Chipmunk voice, "Ah shit!"

There was evidence of the Xmas M&M fiasco, where we dropped them and Roxy sucked them up faster than we could get our hands on them. What laid before me was filled with red and green polka dots.

I also like to hum while scooping, it seems to distract from the horrors I see before me. Often times changing the lyrics to fit the occasion. Of course show tunes are my favorite.

South Pacific

I'm gonna wash that poop right out of my shoe

I'm gonna wash that poop right out of my shoe

I'm gonna wash that poop right out of my shoe

Or throw it right away

Or some Guys and Dolls

Scooping turds it is so laaaaame

Nothing is so absurd

That stupid dog she is to blaaaame

For this scooping is such a pain

Or my favorite...Oklahoma

I'm just a turd that can't stay low

I always rise to the top

I should stay just un-der the snow

But as it melts I go 'pop'!

Sigh...when faced with a messy job, I try to make the best of it, what can I say?

Oh the nerve!

I've been bad about keeping up regular appointments with my chiropractor. What does that mean? Well, when she moves stuff after they have been in the wrong position for so long, they end up moving back, and not in a good way.

This time around, they moved so that it must have pinched a nerve in my back. I've never had a pinched nerve. (and mind you I'm self diagnosing till I get to my appointment in 20 min)

Lets see if I can do it justice: It feels like there is a carving knife jammed just to the left of my tailbone. And some invisible Gnome is pounding it in with a mallet.

Otherwise, it's fine.

But knowing that the knife could plunge into me at any moment, makes me move like a 90 year old woman. Washing my hands this morning was like Tai Chi: I moved slowly, tilting to the left, dipping one hand into the stream, then following with the right, rotating the left up and out. It was quite beautiful, except for the excruciating pain.

I'm ok sitting, till I have to get up.

I can actually lift my legs up and stand on one at a time, but I can't lean left or right when they are both on the ground.

I can sit on the couch and lean all the way forward, but once I start to lean back, tears well up in my eyes.

There might be issues with me marching in the local St. Paddy's parade this weekend.

YA THINK???

I've found that, as you get older, more things happen to you that keep you from doing things you use to do. You don't want to admit it, but ya just don't get around like ya use too.

I guess things could be worse, the knife could be in my back...that's a whole nother problem, indeed.

Due Process? I say shoot 'um!

So this scumbag, sex offender in San Diego snatched a beautiful, vibrant girl in a park, and now she's gone. Only god knows where she is, or what she's gone through. Or if she is alive.

And it seems this piece of shit has been linked to a previous case as well.

When are we going to stop letting these worthless, meat bags out of jail? If you are a sex offender, you are in jail for life. I don't care what level you are. If you are a proven sex offender, rot...rot down to your bones in a dank cell where rats won't even gnaw on your filthy soul.

Why can't these people control themselves? It's a mental disorder that can't be cured.

I'll tell ya what...nothing makes me want to don a mask and become a vigilante more than sex offenders. I'll pass out some justice. Just give me a lead pipe and a locked room. I'll show them a 'whacking off' they won't walk away from.

God forbid if anyone ever tried to do anything to me....it would be the last thing they remembered.

These people make me sick....sick! Stay at home and look at your freaky porn and stay away from people. You have NO right to touch another human. What am I saying.....You don't have a right to breath on this earth!

My hope is, when they get this guy, guilty and locked up, he never gets out. And some guy named Bubba learns him what it's like to be held down and given a size 7 poop-shoot. I hope he spends every day in jail screaming for his life. I hope he ends up in the medical bay every week, sewing him up, so someone else can split him in half again.

But ya know what....he'll be out on a technicality. Or cuz his parents have money. Or cuz the judge is having on off day. Or that whole good behavior thing. Cuz even mentally damaged folks can behave themselves from time to time.

And he will find himself another house, next to a park, where he can sit on his front porch and pick out his next victim. Like a fresh pile of farm grown tomatoes.....so ripe for the picking.

I pray it's not from your garden.