Whole30 Day 5. I Don't Wanna Taco Bout It.

Day five is in the books.  This day was interminable, and I was hungry a lot.  Well, maybe I wasn't hungry so much as missing my dear friends muffin and donut.  Sigh.  It's so hard to say goodbye to your friends.

I just finished dinner. It was a surprisingly delicious taco salad.  I used a seasoning recipe that my friend Shelli shared with me from Danielle Walker's Against All Grain cookbook.  It was a good seasoning mix, and I felt very satisfied for the first time since breakfast.  The salad included the ground taco beef, avocado, pico de gallo, lettuce, and chopped olives.  I would eat this again, which is a good thing because I have two more salads worth of taco meat to use.  

The middle part of my day wasn't the most amazing.  I had meetings in Tucson and Phoenix today, which meant I had to pick the lunch place wisely and also pack snacks.  I was with a coworker and one of our consultants all day, and the lunch options were a basic American fare brew pub, PF Chang's, or a Japanese steakhouse.  Since PF Chang's and Japanese food are all soy covered in soy with a side of soy (which I can't eat during this month), I requested the first option, BJ's Brewpub.

Here's the trick about eating out.  People love to put cheese on things.  They also love to mix cheese into things.  And once they've put tons of cheese on and in things, they like top it with some kind of bread product.

I took me a long time to figure out what to order that had the least modifications and the least likely chance of it being screwed up.  "Hamburger, no cheese, no bun. Did I mention no cheese? Great.  Beet, arugula salad, no goat cheese.  No french fries." Lunch was fine, and I am going to guess that the vinaigrette wasn't totally Whole30 kosher. I'm just impressed I didn't also order the cookie, ice cream sundae.

My main snack was a baggie of pumpkin seeds which helped take the edge off until my coworker decided that on the way back from Phoenix we would stop at Culver's for a bathroom break and an ice cream treat for him.  He hesitated for a moment, but I told him I would be fine with it.  I can do this!!! I can do this?  For those of you that don't know what Culver's is, it is a fast-food chain of crack houses, and the drugs they peddle are homemade custard desserts and burgers cooked in butter.  I got a bottle of water.  He ordered a chocolate, vanilla turtle sundae with pecans, chocolate sauce, and caramel sauce.  It smelled like heaven with a cherry on top.  Literally.  There was a plastic cup of heaven and a cherry rested right on the top.  Right then and there I decided I was eating my emergency snack when we got back in the car, a date and cashew bar.  Somehow it just wasn't the same.

He dropped me back at my car in Tucson, and I went to Sprouts for some quick grocery shopping on my way home.  They sell bulk candies and chocolates at Sprouts.  They have baked goods.  They have bread. I was so painfully tempted, so I ate a banana on my way home.

I found a reserve of motivation tonight to stay strong and resist the sugar dragon.  After I fed Taz and the cats and made my taco meat and put together a salad for dinner, I went to change into some comfortable pants.  "Yes. Finally! It's Friday, my day is over, my dinner is almost ready, and I'm fixing to relax."

It's starting to get pretty hot here now, so I just recently got out my capris and shorts from storage.  I grabbed a pair of capris to put on ,and they were a little tighter than last summer.  Let me be clear.  Last summer they were a tad baggy, and now my comfortable, fat girl, baggy capri pants were a little snug.  Snug as in not baggy as in "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Proof that I gained weight this winter!" Like I needed more proof of that.

Being plump/fat/fluffy/chubby/chunky is a constant struggle of fitting into things and into places and spaces.  It's a constant awareness of things being big enough for you or you being too big for them and a fear that you won't fit because you've exceeded the norms of whatever size is deemed acceptable. Not fitting is less common for me than the pervasive fear of not fitting, but the fear of not fitting exists all the time in hundreds of situations. The fear is like a constant hum in the background waiting to rear its ugly head when you are confronted with some situation.   

I went on a work tour recently with 15 or more people that I was overseeing, and the place we were touring gave out these paper coveralls that everyone had to wear.  "Oh, you give out coveralls now? You didn't do that when I was here last year" (or I would never have some back because WHAT IF I DON"T FIT!!!!!???????)  Thank goodness I fit into the big boy size.  Imagine being with a group and not fitting.  There's no hiding from that.

Airplane seats and seat belts.  I have a nightmare about not fitting into the seat belt.  I was on a plane once, and it was close.  I had to squeeze a bit.  I almost had to ask for the extender, and something in my mind would break if I had to ask for the extender.  There is nothing wrong with needing the extender, but there's some line in my mind that I don't want to cross over.  I have a dear friend who told me about one flight she had to ask for one, and she cried.  I understood why, even though I think she's beautiful and shouldn't give a shit about needing an extender.  I exist in such a double standard.  Things are acceptable and fine for friends, but I condemn myself for the same thing. 

Roller-coasters.  I haven't been to a theme park in years.  I just haven't had the opportunity or desire, but I've read horror stories of people being too fat to fit in a ride.  The thought of going makes me nervous, dreading a possibility that I wouldn't fit. I remember being younger (and significantly smaller than I am now), and I still got nervous on a ride when the operator went to lock in the safety bar.  Would it close, or was I too heavy?

High school tennis team.  I loved playing tennis.  I still do, but I also hated dealing with uniforms for our matches. I remember being so nervous when it came time to give our sizes to get uniforms. Would the largest sizes they offered be big enough for me?  When the school ordered uniforms, would they have sweats and tennis skirts that would fit me? Thankfully we found some decent skirts, but the standard issue missy sweats weren't going to cut it.

Dance recitals.  I was in a dance class from elementary school into middle school.  Each year, at the end of the class, we had a dance recital.  The teacher would measure us and order us these fancy costumes for our recital, and I was always worried my costume wouldn't fit or that I would have a different costume because he had to order a bigger kid one instead of a regular one.  I hated being measured and the look on his face as he wrote down my measurements.  I thought, "Oh no!!! Now he knows I'm chubby!" Because before he measured me he clearly couldn't see I was fat?  Really?  Do you know how terrible it is to stick out at that age?  From the beginning of dance classes until the very end of the year, I worried about the moment when we would have to order those stupid costumes.  I wasted all kinds of time dreading that instead of just enjoying class. 

There have also been activities I've done on vacations in past years or that I've wanted to do, like hang gliding or zip lining, and there are weight limits on these activities.  For whatever crazy reason, I've always been kind of close to the weight limit of different activities like this when I've signed up for them over the years.  Then I spend the weeks and days before said activity being insanely crazed about what I eat and my weight because I don't want to show up and be turned away because I'm chubbier than their chub-quotient.  I don't enjoy any time up until then because I'm worried about fitting.   

How exhausting to have this stupid, pointless anxiety.  I don't even begin to touch on clothes and clothes shopping. That's a story for another blog.  On that note, I'm going to change out of my "comfortable" capris and into my stretchy pj's. Have a great night everyone. Tomorrow I'm getting a 90 minute massage!  

Whole30 Day 3 and 4. More Things Wrapped in Lettuce and Fajitas on Top of Fajitas

Sorry I missed day 3. Things were busy, and by the time I finished dinner and clean-up, I was exhausted.  I know its' hard to get through the day without hearing that I ate chicken again.  sigh... I'll try to be better. It turns out that avoiding all the foods you love and miss is an exhausting full-time job, and I already work, so it's like I have two jobs at the same time now!

Food choices were ok for both days.  I think I ate too much yesterday, and by "think" I mean I ate way too much yesterday.  We had fajitas at a work meeting, and I might have had two helpings for lunch and a fajita mid-afternoon snack.  I also had a bunch of pumpkin seeds and a date bar and more pumpkin seeds.  All the foods were compliant with the Whole30. There were just too many foods. 

Today I had the last helping of my favorite half-runner green beans and some baked chicken for lunch.  Between lunch and dinner, I had a 5:00 pm meeting about some road projects. I ate a snack before I went, but it wasn't enough to stop the "Time for Dinner" train.  My body was hungry! My mind was hungry!  My soul was hungry!  And to top it off, those bastards had a huge variety of delicious-smelling cookies for meeting attendees. How did they know I had been craving sweet, bready yum yums all afternoon? I really wanted a donut or a cinnamon role or a cookie or all of the above, and then I get to this meeting to find the cookies taunting me.  "What if I have just one? I'm so hungry.  Just one cookie."  It was hard to talk myself down.  I was talking to a friend after the meeting, and I caught myself staring at his mouth as he ate a cookie with m&m's in it.  He's lucky I didn't snatch the cookie out of his hand. 

Hungry, tired, and turning into a serious Grumplestiltskin, I headed home and managed to not detour to Panda Express for something easy and full of soy sauce, which is a huge no no.  I made my own fajitas tonight and ate them in a lettuce wrap.  I'm getting into the lettuce wrap zone.  It satisfies the need for something like a burrito.  After gorging on fajitas yesterday and making more today, I think I've satisfied the fajita desire for a few weeks. 

I did learn one interesting thing yesterday.  For dinner (yes, I still ate dinner even though I had 400 helpings of fajitas at work) I sauteed some spinach with chicken. On the spinach I used coconut aminos instead of soy sauce.  It turns out I don't like coconut aminos.  Gross.  It was like eating soy sauce's crack head cousin.  Lesson learned.  Avoid the crack head cousin.

Now I have one of those annoying eyelid twitches happening. I think it's my body's way of telling me I need to bake a cake.  After I bake the cake, I need to eat the whole cake.  That's my "Eat a Huge Cake" eye twitch.  What's that you say? My eye is twitching because I'm tired and stressed? Oh.  So I'm not supposed to bake and eat an entire cake?  Are you sure?  It would be a carrot cake with walnuts.  Still no cake? Really? Crap.  I guess I should just brush my teeth and go to bed, but that doesn't mean I don't still want a cake and some donuts with a side of cookies.    

Tomorrow I have an early meeting in Tucson and a mid-day meeting in Phoenix that includes a scheduled lunch in between the two.  I suggested the place that wasn't PF Changs or the japanese steak house because everything in those places is soy covered soy.  I have snacks packed in my bag, and my goal is to order a salad or a burger with no bun and a salad on the side.  Wish me luck. 

Whole30 Day 2. Invasion of the Swimsuits

Today was a fairly decent Whole30 day.  We had a big work meeting with a catered lunch.  I had delicious steak, steamed broccoli and cauliflower, guacamole, and salsa.  I knew what we were having and could plan accordingly.  For dinner I had more of the tuna salad and lettuce wraps.  I'm definitely keeping that in the rotation.  So, all in all, the world was graced with a successful day in the eating department.

Today I also received a shipment of new swimsuits. A couple of my old suits died, so I was excited for the excuse to splurge on some new ones.  It's a fact that I love a swimsuit.  After new socks, swimsuits are my favorite purchase. They are comfortable, they remind me of vacation and, most importantly, they remind me of swimming.  I tried them on with Taz as my audience.  He's great because he's not very judgmental.  He's a dog, so he's just concerned about when I'm going to feed him and rub his ears.  He doesn't care that my gut sticks out in the bathing suit.  He thinks it's stupid that I try them on at all.  He's more of a "go for it" kind of guy.

I put the first suit on, and I loved the color.  I felt fun and swimmy and ready to hit the beach or the pool or the lake or anything else I could hit with some water and some swimming.  Then I looked in the mirror, and my external vision crushed the mental image I had of myself. It's like a huge boulder bounded down my mental mountain and flattened entire villages of joy, happiness, and confidence. 

I hate when that happens.  I will be walking along, having a perfectly great day.  In my head I'm looking cool, I'm feeling great, nothing can stop me as I breeze along like Mary Tyler Moore conquering the big city. "Girl, I look SO adorable.  I have reached the nirvana of external representation of my internal coolness.  I can't be stopped."

Then, at some point during the day, I'll catch my reflection in a mirror or a window, and that vision I had in my head will die a swift, agonizing death.  Gone is the cute, carefree, put-together look. Gone is the confident, happy-go-lucky Allison.  She has been replaced by the sad, frumpy, blah, loser Allison. Loser Allison is a real drag.  "Seriously? How have all my a-hole friends been letting me walk around like this ALL day? Sheesh. And my hair? Is that really how my hair looks? And where did the fat arm come from? Freaking fat arm! NOOOOO! Why did I even try when there's frump and bad hair and the fat arm?" 

After my initial swimsuit disappointment, I forged ahead and tried on the next suit while mentally adjusting my expectations when I looked in the mirror.  Does it cover the ta-tas? Great.  Does it make my butt look big?  Hahahahaha. Kidding. Of COURSE it makes my butt look big. Does it at least look somewhat presentable for public viewing? Yes. Do I like the color? Great color. OK.  I'll live with it. 

I'm lucky that I love swimming.  Well, I love bobbing around in the water and doing handstands and floating around.  Being in and near the water is one of my favorite things.  That's probably partially because fat floats so well.  I'm like a talking buoy.  You could drop me in the ocean, and I could help guide ships to harbor. 

My love of swimming and water far outweigh my aversion to being seen in public in a bathing suit.  For someone so chunky, I sure do wear a swimsuit a lot. Sure, I have moments like I described above, but I try to push ahead.  I have lots of moments where I also feel cute and fun and happy in a bathing suit because that means I am near water. So it's not all Loser Allison.  Sometimes it's Happy Fun Swim Time Allison. 

I've read that swimming is great exercise for all fitness levels.  The heavier you are (to a point) the easier swimming is because you are buoyant.  The more fit you become, the harder swimming gets because muscle doesn't float like fat.  It's brilliant.  The difficulty level increases to match your level of fitness.  How cool is that?  I started swimming laps a couple of years ago to push myself to do something besides bobbing around and practicing the perfect handstand, and I found that I liked swimming laps, too. I was good at it.  It was an exercise I could be decent at even though I wasn't the skinniest or most fit person on the planet. An added bonus is you don't sweat while swimming. That's important when you live in a desert. I also like the hot tub I reward myself with after swimming laps.  It makes me feel like those Olympic divers that immediately climb out of the pool and into the hot tub to wait on their scores.  I'm part of the athletic elite! 

Part of my May challenge is to get back into swimming at least three times a week and pushing myself to get in race shape for a swim in the fall. The weirdest thing when I did the Whole30 before was that after about 1 week, I noticed that my speed and endurance increased significantly. It was like a light switch turned on, and VOILA! I was a swimming machine.  I'm looking forward to that change again.  Look out world.  It's swimsuit season. 



 

Whole Lotta Whole30

I have been battling with the scale for the last several months. Well, that's not exactly true.  I've been battling with the scale since September 28, 1975, also known as the day I was born. I'm only slightly exaggerating.  I remember being a little, little kid (in age, not size evidently) and my brothers teasing me that I had a double chin.  "What's a double chin? Oh, it's my chin?"  Devastation. It was my first memory of ever being aware that I was chubby.  Was I 6? Maybe 7?  Whatever age I was, it was the point in life where I started thinking I was different.

Getting back to the point, it seems that I've been struggling even more lately.  I have lost the same 5 pound at least 10 times. Hooray! I've lost 50 pounds! Oh wait...I still weigh the same.  BUMMER.  I also have a gut.  You heard me.  I have a G.U.T.  Who the heck has a gut besides old men who still insist on wearing size 32 pants when clearly that tool shed needs a size 40+?  A few years ago, I was at my lowest weight as an adult.  I was wearing a size 16 jean, and I was feeling pretty darn good.  Needless to say, I'm not wearing a size 16 anymore.  That ship sailed, and my pants are big enough to catch the wind and propel us into the horizon.  Sonofabitch. 

My best friend from high school and perhaps the one person who understands the struggle with weight loss and the fattyboombalatte syndrome has been doing really great in the weight loss department lately.  We were talking the other week, and we talked about our current weights.  Hers was significantly lower than her all-time highest (and significantly lower than mine), which made me super happy for her.  When I mentioned my latest weigh in, she was nice enough to say, "Well, you are a few inches taller than me..."  Sigh. 

Here's the messed up thing, though.  At the same time that I was happy for her, it also made me feel really crummy.  We have always been around the same size, or at least in the same neighborhood.  Sometimes I weighed less, sometimes she did, but even in this leapfrog dance we did, we were always close.  Now I felt like I was being left behind.  I secretly wanted to sneak into her house and replace all her food with Dingdongs and Ho Ho's and all the other Dirty Debbies I could find so she could stay fat like me.  "Get back here you skinny hussie! If I weren't so fat, I would chase you down and drag you back to Fat Village with me, and we will be fattyboombalattes together."  See.  I told you it was messed up.  I'm not proud.  Sorry, buddy.  I would never really stock your house with snack cakes and bricks of lard.  I promise. 

We used to do this really crazy thing where we would see a fat person on television or in real life, and one of us would say, "Am I as fat as her?" 

"No! No way! You're way skinnier than that person. Don't even think you're in the same neighborhood as that person." 

"Phew..Thank goodness." 

Comparing yourself to someone else to see how you measure up doesn't really do much, realistically.  It's all about how chubby you feel in your mind, and in my mind, I feel like the chubbiest person you know. Secretly wanting to keep your friends fat so you aren't fat alone also doesn't help.  So, I'm starting the Whole30 again today.  I feel better when I follow the Whole30.  I'm more active. My mood is better.  I plan my meals and stick to the plan better than when I'm doing the "Whatever, I'll figure out something to eat today" plan.  When I do the "Whatever" plan, I usually end up eating a really healthy breakfast and then 5 million donuts throughout the day and some sauteed kale for dinner.  And I wonder why I lose the same 5 pounds over and over again.....

So, today is Day 1 of the Whole30. For dinner I had tuna salad lettuce wraps, some sauteed cauliflower, and a couple of olives.  I am also cooking a whole chicken to have a protein for meals for a few days this week.  Here we go.  And if you wake up to find a thousand snack cakes stashed around your kitchen, I swear it wasn't me trying to sabotage your diet and make you fat too. 

Dumpsters Are a Girl's Best Friend

The person that said "diamonds are a girl's best friend" was smoking crack.  Diamonds are over-hyped, overpriced stones that don't do anything but sit on your finger or your ear or your neck.  Nope.  You can keep your diamonds. (unless it's one of those huge diamonds that I'm going to find at the dig-your-own diamond park in Arkansas, a diamond that's so rare and beautiful that I'll be rich for the rest of my days.)

Dumpsters, on the other hand, are the unsung heroes of the modern world.  Dumpsters do so much.

1. Dumpsters give you hope when the darkness of packing and home repair projects seems never-ending.
2. Dumpsters are a convenient place to throw away cumbersome items like a gas stove/pack rat den of iniquity that has been sitting in your garage since the day you moved into the house you never should have purchased because who the hell wants to own a house anyway...clearly not me.  Thanks.
3. Dumpsters give you the freedom to say goodbye to those ill-fitting, spider-encrusted rubber shoes that have been sitting on your front porch for three years because you put them on once, they made your feet sweat, and they were too tight on your fat calf because come on...who buys rubber shoes at Nordstrum rack besides skinny models who use them in photo shoots of playfully stomping through puddles in the rain with their perfect dogs and their rugged yet sensitive model boyfriends?
4. Dumpsters accept your dry-rotted garden hoses with no judgment about how many times you stepped over that hose and didn't stop to pick it up, turn on the faucet, and water the plants in your yard that were left to shrivel up and die in the Arizona sun.  No...a dumpster doesn't whisper "Plant killer" as you throw that hose away.  The dumpster understands.
5. Dumpsters are a vital component of my anger management program.  When I'm feeling angry, I manage it by spending an hour throwing things into the dumpster.  Broken glass? Dumpster doesn't mind.  Broken dreams? Throw them to the understanding dumpster.  
6. Who are we fooling? I could go on and on and on into infinity.  Dumpsters are my spirit animal in 2016.  They helped me find the way!!!!!!!

Are you rushing out to rent your own little slice of heaven yet?  If so, I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

I have about 2 more weeks of work at my house, and then that baby is going on the market. She's going to be beautiful.  New paint job inside and out, a total face life inside and out, new flooring, trees trimmed and cut back, and a sparkling, cleaned out garage....something the former owners didn't see fit to leave me.  Yes, I still curse them on a regular basis, but I enjoyed throwing away all the stuff they left in my garage.  Anger management.

It might look close to full, but there's tons more room left! 

It Starts with a Dust Mop

There are people at my house today.  It's super-exciting because they are cleaning.  Imagine that! A clean house!  I imagine that when I get home things will actually sparkle and that there will be a little "ding" of sparkle, just like in a commercial or movie.  (cue sparkling sound effect) They are dusting and vacuuming and mopping and cleaning the years of dog drool marks off the walls and cleaning the windows and and and and YAY!

I have been wanting a deep clean of my house for a long time now, but I've always been reluctant to have someone come to my house.  I started to do it after the dogs passed away, but I got sidetracked by watching television, reading, organizing my socks, watching cricket rodeo reruns, clipping my toenails, and just about anything else that would come along preventing me from the deep clean.

Then I adopted Taz.  How could I get someone to clean my house now? What would Taz think? Who are these strangers that want to see my home? Could I trust them in the house with my dog and my entire life?

Which leads us to today.  The couple that I hired was recommended by my dog's grandparents/my friends Sara and Barry in Green Valley. They can't say enough good things about this dynamic cleaning duo, and in addition to cleaning, they also do handy work.  Today I'll go home to a new light switch, a new light fixture in the laundry room, and no dust.

While I'm beyond excited about the clean house part, there is a part of me deep down that is a little freaked out about someone being at my house...with Taz.  It's like a little room of doubt and panic in my brain, and if you open the door, you see all kinds of crazy things going on like monkeys on bikes clubbing seals to death, and clowns doing evil clown things, and robbers dressed in black and white striped shirts riffling through my sanity.

Of course before I left the house this morning, I told my new friends all the rules a few hundred times.  "There are a few things you guys should know.  No Taz in the backyard alone, no Taz in the front yard ever without his leash, no Taz alone outside, did I mention that? Oh, and Taz doesn't get to go outside by himself, even the backyard with the fence because he can't go outside alone, and please don't burn my house down or rob me blind.  And if you do, make sure Taz is taken care of until I return to the smoldering pile of rubble that was my home.  Thanks. I appreciate it."

That about covers it, except I didn't really mention the robbing and burning the house down parts to them.  I figure if someone is on the fence about robbing you or burning your house down, then mentioning those things to them will only piss them off because I am in some way accusing them of being house-burning robbers.  "Well, that crazy hussy! She accused us of being thieving home-destroyers?  You find the valuables, I'll go fill the gas can. We'll show her!"

Let's close the door on that mental panic-room, shall we?  I know things are going to be fine.  The house is going to look great.  They are going to fix a few things, and I'll be so glad they came over. That's just one more step in the process of getting my house in order to sell!  Woohoo!

Reading Books on a Plane that Make You Sob a Little

I left New York today after 10 really fun days in New England with one of my best friends on the planet.  It was a great trip, and we saw tons of beautiful sights, even if we didn't get to see a moose.  Nothing in life is perfect, and if the worst thing that happens to me this month is not seeing a moose, I'll take it.  This trip was designed to be a nice retreat and chance to get away from stress and sadness and worry for both of us. 

When planning the trip, I also decided to take a few extra days for myself and stop off in New Orleans on my way back to Arizona.  I'm here now, as a matter of fact.  It's 9:30 pm, and I'm relaxing in my room in my pajamas.  I just finished reading the most incredible book, Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley.

Because I'm an idiot and wasn't thinking clearly, I started reading this book today, at La Guardia Airport.  I guess I didn't really think too much about what it would be about.  I just read, "Lily and the Octopus is the dog book you must read this summer..."  Maybe it was also the right time for me to finally read this book.  Maybe it was what I needed to read at the moment.  This book was really memorable and life-changing.

A little background for those of you that may have missed the incredible hurricane of sorrow that swept through Mooreville this past year (warning...it's long):

In August of 2015, I landed at the airport, headed home from a trip, when I received a phone call that Craig, my 12 year old Boston terrier was missing.  He was there that morning, and then he was gone.  I got home that night, and with the help of friends, I found him dead in the desert outside our fence.  He was old, and I knew he was getting sicker.  I didn't anticipate him sneaking out of the yard to die.  Sometimes dogs know it's their time, and I truly believe he knew it was his time.  Losing Craig was devastating.  I could write 10,000,000 words on how it hurt and how I felt guilty that I wasn't there.  He was fine when I left town.  He was gone when I got back.  He chose his own way to go, and my heart was broken to put it mildly.

That left me with Booney, Myrtle, and Gigi, my three big dogs.  Myrtle had been with me the longest, followed by Booney and then Gigi.  Craig had been the newest addition to the crew just a year before.  I knew we were all going to be fine.  I hoped we were all going to be fine.  Well, I knew the dogs would be ok.  I would get through losing Craig, and we continued on with our routine at the house.  I was lucky to have them.  They loved me through being sad, and they helped me remember what loving was despite being sad. 

That Thanksgiving, three months later, I went home for visit.  On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I left for the airport to fly home.  Right before I boarded the plane, I learned my dad had a heart attack in the span of time that I had left him and driven to Charlotte Airport.  My brother, Jerome, said he was ok, he was airlifted to a bigger hospital, he was stable.  Not knowing what to do, I got on the plane anyway and flew back to Arizona. I FLEW BACK TO ARIZONA!  Seriously?  10,000,000 words on sadness and guilt and fear and sorrow....

I told myself that If I needed to, I would turn around and fly back to Virginia again the very next day.  I ended up flying back a couple of weeks later because we had worked out a schedule where my brothers and I took turns being at home with Dad right after the heart attack.  I flew home for about two weeks before Christmas to relieve one brother, and after me, another brother stepped in.

Thank goodness dad is doing great now and feeling so much better.  It's true he's feeling better, yet I also feel the need to type here it like it's some kind of magical spell...that I make it more true simply by typing it.  It has been a series of scary months as he and his doctors figure out his medicines. I can only imagine how stressful and scary it has been for him, knowing how it has been for me and my brothers, and we aren't the ones living with it!  

I had been back in Arizona for a couple of days in December after being with my dad, when one morning, Myrtle started coughing.  I took her to the vet, and we started her on medicine to treat what we hoped was irritation from stomach upset maybe...hopefully...please.  Please let this be nothing serious! 

Unfortunately, after a few days, it wasn't getting better.  It was getting worse. On a Saturday (the worst stuff always seems to happen on the damned weekend), I loaded her up and took her to the emergency hospital where they discovered fluid in her chest cavity from some unknown source.  They drained the fluid off, ran some tests, and sent us home until we knew more.

The very next day, a Sunday, Booney stood up from the couch and started weaving back and forth.  I called my friend Cassie who said to check his gums.  They were completely white.  I had never thought to check someone's gums, and seeing his the color of paper was alarmingly clear that something was wrong.  I somehow managed to get him in the car despite the fact that he collapsed on the living room floor, and I rushed him an hour up to the same emergency vet in Tucson that had just taken care of Myrtle the day before. 

He had a blood transfusion, and they found a huge mass on his spleen, most likely hemangiocarcoma.  WHAT?  He could either have an invasive operation, remove his spleen, and still die in a few months anyway because the cancer most likely would already have spread, or I could take him home, make him comfortable and wait for the next big bleed from his tumor, which could happen in days, weeks, or months.

He spent a couple of days in the hospital, and I brought him home to enjoy his last weeks with his family.  He wouldn't eat for several days, and I kept looking at him like, "What's happening now? Is it time? Will you survive the day? The week?"  I kept thinking if he wanted to eat, I would know he was going to be ok, but for the first few days out of the hospital, he didn't want anything to do with food.  I was worried about him, trying to figure out Myrtle's situation, and also taking care of Gigi. 

Later that week, we learned that Myrtle also had the same illness, hemangiocarcoma, but the tumor was surrounding her heart.  That's what caused the fluid in her chest cavity, and what had started to cause edema throughout her body.

I said goodbye to Myrtle first.  She had been overnight at the vet in Tucson to remove more fluid and to be there bright and early for the test that ultimately revealed her tumor.  I drove back up and spent time talking to her, petting her, and letting her go. 

Booney was ok for another three weeks or so.  One night I heard him cry out in discomfort.  He grew restless.  By 4 am, we were fully awake, and I knew that the day had come to say goodbye to him, too.  He had managed to go outside into the yard. I put on clothes, and fed Gigi knowing we would be gone for a while....that I would be gone for a while.

I went to try and get Booney into the car, but he wouldn't move.  I called my friend Sean at 5:00 am to help me get Booney into car.  I couldn't speak when Sean answered the phone.  I could only sob. A good friend is someone who wakes up out of a dead sleep, drives to your house, and helps you load your dying dog into the car after you call sobbing.  That kindness and many others from friends over the course of this time period are burned into my memory, and I will be forever grateful.

I remember thinking as we drove to Tucson that it was a full moon, and that the moon was following us all the way there, staying right by our side.  I took pictures of that moon with my cell phone.  It moved as fast as we did, speeding to Tucson.  

With Craig, Myrtle, and Booney gone, that left me and Gigi, my sweet Gigi Bean.  When I adopted her, I always thought I would have to say goodbye to her first.  She had bad hips, bad elbows, and a degenerative condition that would eventually make it impossible for her to walk.  Gigi had been holding steady, though, and had been getting around ok.

The first sign that something was wrong was the day I had to say goodbye to Booney.  When I got home late that morning from the vet hospital, Gigi was in the yard barking.  She had gone out the dog door, and she was stuck in the yard.  I went to see what was happening, and she couldn't stand up.  I lifted her back end, helped her walk inside, and massaged her hips and legs.  "She's just upset about Booney.  She's just upset that she saw me load him in the car this morning in a hysterical mess. That's it.  She just got cold sitting outside waiting on me to bring him home. That's why she couldn't get up."

That week, I bought her a Help-em-up harness.  It has handles on the front and back to make it easy to life a dog up and help them walk. I put the harness on her, but she was still walking and getting around mostly on her own.  My friends Cassie, Beata, and Michele came to visit from Phoenix.  They got to meet Gigi and also make sure I wasn't a total emotional disaster after everything that had happened.  I joked that it was a suicide watch, but I do think people were worried.  It had been a rough few months.  We all had a good visit, and I almost felt like a normal person.  Gigi loved all the attention from her fan club. That made me happy to see. 

We had several normal days, weeks, hours.  Gigi loved all the undivided attention.  I would spend evenings sitting on the floor with her, sharing an electric blanket.  I would massage her muscles and talk to her.  Then it happened again....I came home from work one day, and Gigi was out in the yard barking.  I went to check on her, and she couldn't get her back legs to work.  I got her up and into the house.  She was shaking and scared and panting.

We went to our local vet.  It was all happening so quickly.  It was bad news.  Her nerves were not firing, which is what happens with a degenerative condition.  Her brain would say stand up, and her legs wouldn't get the message all the time. It was like a short circuit that works sometimes, for a while, but keeps getting worse and worse.  Just like that....a few weeks after saying goodbye to Myrtle and Booney, I had to make the decision to say goodbye to Gigi too.  Over the course of several days, she worsened considerably.  This was it, the moment I knew would happen with Gigi but that I somehow convinced myself would happen many months or years later. 

Our vet, Daniel Horton, always says that dogs with mobility issues are the worst to have to euthanize.  They are there mentally...100 percent good.  100 percent living life...they just have a bum wheel, or in Gigi's case, four bum wheels. 

We woke up early on a Saturday.  Dr. Horton was open that day and was going to see us through the process.  Saying goodbye to Booney and Myrtle had been with the vets at the emergency hospital.  I didn't know them or the staff.  While they were nice and professional and caring, it wasn't the same as going to the place where the staff had become my friends....part of my family in a lot of ways.  They knew me and my dogs better than a lot of other people.  I was glad that with Gigi we would be surrounded by friends.

I was doing almost all of the walking for Gigi's back end now by holding the harness to keep her up.  Her poor elbows in the front were struggling, but she was getting around enough to go outside and sit in the driveway with me one last time.  She smiled and wagged her tail.  We took our time.  I loaded her into the car, and we headed to see Dr. Horton.

Was this really happening?  Again?  Poor Gigi had an accident on herself on the way to the vet.  She never had accidents, and I could tell this really distressed her.  When we arrived, I got her out of the car and wanted to clean her up before taking her inside.  No dog of mine was going to die with poop on their back legs! No way.  Gigi was too good for that.

As I was struggling to hold her up, rinse her off, and get her cleaned up, I looked up in the parking lot to see my friend Cassie pulling in.  She had gotten up super early to make the three hour drive from Phoenix to be there with us. I am so thankful that she was there.  I had done this twice already by myself, mostly because I didn't want to ask someone else to have to be there for something so sad and so private and difficult.  Having Cassie show up in that moment, when I was struggling to keep it together, really made a huge difference.

We sat in the room at the vet office for a long time with Gigi.  Dr. Horton sat with us too and talked to Gigi.  He had been her doctor and friend for years.  She was happy because she loved everyone there.  We talked to her and rubber her ears and her belly.  Dr. Horton gave her a sedative, and we spent a long time with her as she relaxed and feel asleep.  Then he gave her the second shot, and she was gone.  They were all gone, and I was broken. 

At that point, a huge part of my brain and my heart simply shut down.  The list of sadness was too long.  My dad, my dogs, where did it end?  I was numb most of the time and still am in somewhat of a state of shock.  I am still processing the grief in little pieces....manageable chunks of sadness.  In the meantime, there have been other things piled on to the list....worry about family members, a broken heart, things that just keep adding up on the tab of sadness.  Through the worst of this, over the winter and early spring, I made myself sick with worry and sadness....I had mysterious stomach problems and chest pains and panic attacks.  I had never had a panic attack before I was 39.  All of a sudden, I was having them all the time.  At first I didn't know what they were.  I just thought I was dying.  It was somewhat of a relief to learn it was just a panic attack, to learn that I was just crazy and perhaps losing my mind instead of dying. 

It took months, but I'm starting to feel physically normal.  I'm starting to feel things again, too.  I'm less numb.   I adopted Taz, a Boston terrier who is really a great dog, and he's helping me do whatever it is people do as they survive sadness.  Get past it? Not really.  Learn to live with it?  Not exactly right either.  He makes it ok to love someone again, and that's healing.  He loves to sleep under the covers next to me, and he makes me laugh a lot.  I'm lucky to have him.

And then I planned this trip with my friend to New England because we always have great trips together, and we both needed this break from the stresses and sadness that had piled up in our lives.  And I thought it would be nice to have a few days on the back end of the trip where I went somewhere random and tried to reconnect with myself a little bit.  And then I started reading Lily and the Octopus on the plane to New Orleans, and I would put down the book several times during the flight because I would be reading and crying and probably freaking out the people around me.

About 50 pages from the end, I had to stop reading on the plane because I knew I wouldn't be able to stop crying after a certain point.  I saved the ending for the privacy of my hotel room.  Who would have thought that on my way to a few days of reconnecting with myself, that what I started reading was in a lot of ways the story of my life and what it means to be living on pause, to confront grief, to know love, to figure out how to live?  Throughout the whole book, I read things that were true and real and made sense, even though it's a work of fiction.

Aside from the emotional connection I feel with the book, it's also a wonderfully written book.  It is imaginative and magical.  The writing is interesting, and the story is engaging.  In short, it's a really great book that people should read.  I'm glad the book found me when it did.  Thank you to the author, Steven Rowley, for writing such a beautiful book.