Illiterations: Laughing At My Own Expense

Rescue is not for the faint of heart. I think a lot of people wander into rescuing by just rescuing one animal.  And perhaps they do it really well. Or perhaps they do it dismally.  When it's just one animal nobody ever really knows what you did. But try to become somebody who is rescuing or attempting to rescue many animals. Try to be somebody who is spreading the word to the community about your efforts so that more animals might be helped. Imagine just as you're finally reaching out to the world that you're helping animals, somebody claims you're doing the opposite.  Perhaps they claim you're abusing the animals.  Perhaps they claim that you are ignorant and don't know what you're doing, or they say you have no idea how to run a rescue. I personally briefly attempted to be in the position helping very young newborn horses by providing a place for them to be delivered as an alternative to their wholesale slaughter. I spent more than two years of my life tr...

So much like a tub of beautiful, fresh-from-the-cow milk, the sweetest, richest, things eventually surface if they are left alone to process. This can be said for cheese and wine and compost piles... And sometimes it can be said about relationships. Anybody who's been reading this blog knows that I have been head over heels about a certain person for over a year. But sometimes even in the heat of passion and love there's an up-shift, and things get even more amazing and better. Such is the case with myself and my man. I think some people who read this blog think that I should share his name. I've come close. But he is a very private person and so I am continuing to respect his desires in that regard. Back to my topic at hand.  Maybe it's just the relaxing of long-term pressure and obligation. He recently, in fact, JUST, retired from his day job. The immediate and amazing impact of the freedom that this seems to have brought him has almost left me speechless. It's as...

My friend Shara put it most eloquently when she pointed out to me something I couldn't articulate for myself.  She said, "women are hardwired to hone in on safe spaces and safety." And she and I have compared notes and we both agree that in our earlier lives before a certain thing happened to each of us that we both went through life feeling safe. We both thought we had it handled and that we were tough enough to stick up for ourselves. We probably weren't wrong for the most part. But for me, on July 4th 2023, in Tahoe Keys, South Lake Tahoe, in the parking lot of the condos, the idea of feeling safe came into clearer focus for me. On that night after the fireworks show had ended and I had dropped my friends off in the parking lot of their condo I was assaulted by a stranger. How we ended up in contact with each other is relatively unimportant. Nonetheless, understanding that most people would like context, I will share some detail. The parking lot where I dropped off...

Almost all the time, we function together and interact together so smoothly we are seamless. We get each other. We finish each other's sentences. Smooth as silk. I don't love the moments when we are suddenly out of step with each other. Those are monumental moments. They always are every time. But I have learned that the pain of those moments --which is like giving birth, it is often so difficult--leads us to a new plateau. It never fails. The most monumental and most painful moments between us seem to lead us to even deeper closeness after we process the moment and move forward. And after each of those instances which are not common but also not non-existent, we have these absolutely blissful weeks of synchronicity and finishing each other's sentences and inside jokes that transcend previous versions of the same. I love it; I love all of it.  I understand that this is what it feels like to fall in love and become one with the person that you love. It's been so long sin...