Happiness is....

....a new beginning. Yesterday's events were quite exciting. Many of us gathered around a TV at work. There was a lot of excitement in the room, a lot of hope and a lot of pride. People even stood when the national anthem was played on TV! The new President has a tough job ahead of him, but I think he can do it. He has inspired people. I think we have turned the corner as a nation and that makes me happy indeed.

Counting down the hours

I've waited 8 long years for this! I know, some people have waited a lifetime. For me, today is only partly about the excitement of an Obama presidency. A big part of it is being rid of the Shrub-in-Chief. Once again, we will have a president that we can look up to. He can speak English properly and in complete sentences. We'll have a president that is not a puppet for other forces. We'll have a president in whom we can be proud. God Bless America and God Bless Barack Obama.

Favorite Photos?

None today. Two reasons. One, I didn't take any new photos this week - too busy at work - so I was just going to post oldies. Two, how could any photo I post beat the ones we saw on TV yesterday and in the newspaper this morning of the plane that ditched in the Hudson River. Amazing. A was not on duty, but I'm sure we'll be hearing lots of stories from his co-workers who were and who responded. Not only is this the exact kind of thing they do, it occurred mere blocks from their firehouse. The pilot deserves some kind of award. What he did was tremendous. He saved those people. Just tremendous. And then the ferry boat captains - from what I heard last night, they have no obligation, other than a moral one, to respond to such an incident. But they were the first ones there, hauling people out of the water, warming them up, bringing them to dry land. There was some kind of divine intervention there yesterday. But there were also New Yorkers who saw people in crisis and acted. If you live around here, you know not to believe that stereotype of New Yorkers as cold and too busy to help others. You know.

Happiness is...

....getting the cash to balance. If you were an accountant, you would understand. Sometimes it's just two stupid little errors that you keep overlooking because you're looking for only one. I've got two for today....

Happiness will be.....
.....when a certain former board member moves away for good. He'll be gone for two months soon, but I want him to leave, leave, leave and never return. He's a power hungry mean old man and he's not making my life miserable, but he's doing it to another department head, who in turn gets grumpy with me. So go away! Find a new little hovel and leave us alone!

Mondays

I really don't like Mondays. Unless it's a holiday. Getting up after the weekend is so hard. It doesn't help when the dog gets me up 3 times during the night. Then - when the alarm clock goes off, he's still snoozing. It doesn't help when I'm in a semi-depression because the Giants lost to the Iggles. I'll be rooting for Arizona on Sunday!

It's been kind of amusing to watch Boomer try to navigate the snow this weekend. We had sleet after the snow, so there's a crust on it. It's not enough to hold his weight, so he breaks through and slides around a little. He does love the snow though. He had fun going out on Saturday during the storm. He would run around the yard - just prancing through the snow. He really likes it! He's doing pretty well with the cone. He hasn't tried to take it off and he's navigating rather well with it on. A thinks he's even learned to use it to nudge us. The kind of sad thing is he can't really play with it on. He has trouble picking up his toys with it on. I feel bad for the little guy. He's even being pretty good about letting us put the drops in his eyes.

Boomer has a boo boo & other stuff

Boomer has a scratched cornea. He has to wear a cone to keep him from scratching at it. Being a loving doggie mommy, I took pictures of him in his cone. He's very good at looking pathetic. He is kind of pathetic. He's gotten better maneuvering with it on, but it's difficult. I feel bad for my poor puppy dog. So - here are some pictures of the Boom Doggie and his boo boo.

On another note - I talked to my mother today. She knows about the e-mail argument I had with my sister. She read all the e-mails. Obviously my sister showed them to her. How that came about, I don't quite know, but I'm pretty pissed about it. My mother says she was crying, so I don't know if that led to her showing my mother the e-mails or if she just went to my mother with them. Either way - your 40 years old, don't run to Mommy when you have a fight with someone. Grow up.

My mother is not taking sides. She says we both said things we should not have. Well, I told her that I didn't regret saying what I did to my sister, that it was time she took responsibility for her actions, that she didn't get a pass because she's in a bad spot in her life. In fact, I told her that I thought one of my sister's problems was that we always ignored that kind of stuff and picked up her messes for her - and she never had to do it on her own. I also told her that, had my sister simply apologized for her inconsiderate actions, it would not have escalated as it had. That's when I got criticized for being nasty in my first e-mail. It was definitely sarcastic. I still don't see it as nasty though. So, I'm upset. I have to admit that I don't like being told by my mother that I was wrong in any way. I did not expect her to be taking my side, but I didn't expect to be told I had done anything wrong. Guess that's a little part of me that hasn't grown up! In the end though, my sister should not have shown my mother the e-mails. The incident was between the two of us. I'm really pissed that she brought my mother into it. I don't know where this goes from here. As far as I'm concerned, the argument is over. I doubt though that there will be much, if any, communication between us for a while. She is still acting like a teenager. I posted some Christmas pictures on facebook and tagged her in some. She removed the tags. Now how childish can we get! The bottom line is - she did something wrong, got called on it and couldn't handle that, so she tried to make it about someone else and I wouldn't accept that. I don't intend to turn back from this course. I don't think I do her or anyone else any favors if I do. You know - so often she wants things to be all about her - even my wedding was something she tried to make about her. Well - this time it really all about her - and she wants it to be anything but. And she just doesn't get it. I hope someday she does or she'll never get her act together.

Friday Photos

We stopped at Niagara Falls on our way back from Toronto. Here are some pictures.

Today I learned about...

...the Erie Canal. Okay - this is kind of part of my new year's resolution. I'm trying to learn new things - broaden my mind. So, last weekend we went to Toronto. I knew New York was a big state - but I really didn't have any measure of how big until we were driving from one end to the other. While on the way, we went through the Erie Canal area and I realized that I knew next to nothing about the Erie Canal. But that's changing. I thought it connected Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. Boy was I wrong. It starts at the Hudson River. It was known as Clinton's Folly - after the Governor of New York that proposed its construction. It was originally only 4 feet deep. It's now between 12 and 23 feet deep. It's over 360 miles long. It opened up the interior of the US for settlement. It cost over $7 million to build back in the early 1800s and the investment paid off in 10 years! Wow! I'll bet modern day infrastructure projects don't pay off that fast. The canal towpath was on the Underground Railroad! Lake Erie is 570 feet higher than the Hudson in Albany and today there are 57 locks on the canal. I would like to take a boat trip, starting down here near NYC, going up the Hudson, across the Erie Canal to Lake Erie someday.

Happiness is....

....a UCONN win in the International Bowl! We had a good time in Toronto - despite my nasty cold. The first half of the game was a little scary for UCONN fans, but they came through in the second half and won! UCONN! UCONN! UCONN!

Friday Photos

Some Christmas pictures...
There's Boomer and his "cousins", A & Boomer, my cousins with A in their kitchen, my mom & her sister and lastly me, with a couple of the other guests at my cousin's home for Christmas dinner. The silly hats are an Irish thing. We all had crackers with hats, toys and silly questions.

Happiness is....

sometimes not found in our short-term activities, but in the long-term. Does that make sense to you? What I mean is that sometimes the actions you take today are not happy ones, but they are necessary for you to be happy in the long run. Say you are in a bad relationship. Leaving that relationship has to be hard and painful, but you know that the only way to be happy in the long run is to make the hard choice now. Like quitting smoking - it's so hard to do, but you know that the payoff is worth it. For me, recently, it was making the decision to not just gloss over my younger sister's bad behavior once again, but instead to say something to her and not back down. It was difficult. I was sick to my stomach about it and lost sleep, but I felt I had to finally say something or I was just enabling her to continue on her merry way. I hope that there will be a happy result in the future because I decide to take a stand - and will continue to take that stand with her. It can be so hard with anything - job changes, moving, relationships - to slog through the tough stuff - but you have to do it when the ultimate result is long-term happiness.

The Holiday is Over

Yeah. It was a good holiday, but now things have gone sour. My sister's dog was not well behaved while here. To start with, I never should have agreed to let her leave him here while she stayed in the city with friends. She doesn't discipline her dog much. He's allowed on the furniture in her home - well now it's in my mother's home. We don't allow dogs on the furniture here. Try telling a little cocker spaniel that. He doesn't like that. In fact, if you try to remove him from the furniture, he'll try to bite you. Fun stuff. And he table surfs. Last year, at Thanksgiving at my mom's, he grabbed some really expensive pate that my cousin had brought. My sister didn't really take that behavior seriously. We had to put all the food in the center of the table on Thursday and then shove all the chairs in so that he couldn't get up on the table. He tried though. The topper came on Friday when she left his filled poopie bags on the concrete in front of the garbage bins. Did not put them in, left them in front. What's up with that? Did not call or leave a note to say "hey, didn't know where to put the poopie bags" just left them there. See - that's just a perfect picture of what my sister's life has been like - someone else is always there to pick up her mess.
So, I sent her a sarcastic e-mail asking if she just had bad aim or if she didn't think the garbage was the right place for poopie bags. First I get a "sorry, someone else left one of his poopie bags there, so I thought that was the right place" huh? Then I get an e-mail saying "why did you have to be so nasty about it?....Clearly you and A were annoyed to have him at your house." So - I responded. Well - we're now having a war of e-mails. The bottom line is that my sister is not a responsible dog owner. In fact, she's pretty much not responsible at all. She doesn't think things through. There is a reason, beyond the economy, why she is unemployed and living with her mother at age 39. She doesn't understand the concept of a budget. She doesn't plan period. Oh - and she blames that on the fact that when she was young, our father died and our mother "was dying". Okay - Mom had cancer, but was never told she was going to die, never was I ever told that my mother came close to dying. And - oh by the way - she's been clean for almost 30 years. I think it's time for little sister to get over it. And yes, daddy died when she was young. It happened. You can't undo it. You can only live with it, deal with it, cope with the reality you were dealt. You can't use it as a crutch for the rest of your life.
So - back to the e-mail war. I told my sister that she needed to get her dog to behave better, that it wasn't the responsibility of the hosts in any home she visits to keep her dog off the furniture and to keep him away from the food serving area. Well - how dare I! It is not my place to say anything about how he behaves when he is elsewhere - only in my home. Yup - not my problem - that's her problem and the problem of whoever she is visiting. Oh - and I shouldn't have dumped on her when she doesn't have a job, had to move in with mom, etc. Yup - should let her skate, let her make our frustrations with her dogs behavior not about him being a bad dog, it's all about A & I being mean people. Oh - and A& I are obsessed with Boomer's behavior. Uh - just trying to be responsible dog owners - like we don't want Boomer biting anyone or destroying their furniture.
It's always about someone else with her - never about her. Back to the bit about she just doesn't think - Thanksgiving weekend, she was moving from NYC to my mom's. My older sister agreed to front her the cost of moving. Well, first thing, she never discussed with older sister how exactly she was going to arrange to pay the movers. Not until the day of the move. It's not as though older sister was going to be only 5 minutes away and could just run over with a check. Last year around the same time, younger sister was unemployed and put off looking for cheaper apartments until it was too late for her to move, she had no choice but to renew her expensive mid-town Manhattan apartment. One of the issues that caused her to lose the job before this one was her desire for too much time off. She wanted to go to the Cape practically every weekend. It was her "respite" and she just had to go. New in a job, she took much more than 2 weeks vacation, which was what she was allotted, so some of it was unpaid. What does that say to the boss?
Okay - I should stop ranting. I'm just at a point where I'm really pissed. She is not responsible with her dog - with anything. I pointed out to her that she needed to be more responsible with the dog and she's turned it around to how horrible I am. I don't know where the end will be. Will it be the next time someone tries to get him off their furniture and he's successful with the biting attempt? Will she be responsible then? Will it be when he ruins a dinner party by getting on the table and eating the food? Will she be responsible then? And we're only talking about being responsible for the dog, not her life. Or will it be when she's letting him run around off his leash outside and he gets hit by a car? Will she start being responsible then? When do I stop being the ogre in her eyes? Will she still be in this mode over the summer when A & I go up to the Cape for vacation? When does she open her eyes and realize that it is really about her, no one else and it is up to her to make some changes?

Time for a Boomer post

I love my dog. He provides us love and entertainment. It's been fun watching him navigate the snow this weekend. Watching him prance through the new snow was fun. Now that it's been beaten down into paths, he follows them carefully. He's just too cute. We had guests for dinner Saturday night. Boomer was in doggie heaven. He was getting loving from all angles. He was so well behaved too. I was very proud of him. Our guests got a laugh when Boomer put himself to bed around 10:30. He's got such a personality. It will be fun tomorrow when my sister arrives with her dog. It will be madness on Thursday when A's brother and SIL arrive with theirs!

Friday Photos

These are some shots of our tree, some of my favorite ornaments and, of course, a shot of Boomer the Christmas dog.

Happiness is....

....having your own spot. Do you have a favorite spot where you curl up to read a book or settle in to knit? I'll bet we all have them. Mine is the left side of the love seat in our living room. A's seems to be the couch. Even Boomer has a spot - actually more than one. Downstairs, he has a rug by the back door that is his spot. On the third floor, we have a blanket on the floor that is his spot. I am planning on going back to one of my old favorite spots - my grandfather's chair. Pop Pop had this great old easy chair with a hassock - it's older than me, so it must be an antique now. I kind of scammed possession of it years ago. As kids, we used to fight over who got to sit in it. Now, it's mine. It's up on our third floor, just itching for me to use it again. I think I need to do that. There's a spring in it that makes a noise when you sit just so. That sound is a memory from childhood that when I hear it, just brings warm, fuzzy feelings. Definitely need to get back into using that chair. It's part of my history. Some day, I'll pass it on to one of my cousins' children, so that they too can enjoy it, hear that spring twang and feel happy.

Some days - it's just WHAM

Some days, just when I think I'm doing okay with the whole childless future - WHAM. I don't always understand why it hits when it does. Today was the Christmas party at A's firehouse. I know darn well this is something focused on the kids. But I figured I would be fine. I know most of the wives now and they are all so nice. It's completely unlike his old firehouse. I just wasn't prepared though. While at the party, I found out that one of the other wives was expecting twins. I'm happy for them. They had previously suffered a loss and they are such a nice couple - this is great for them. I think it just hit me that I'll never have a place in that world. I have a good life. I'm doing okay with working on being happy and finding the good in our childless future, but there will always be a sadness in my heart. Some days it pops up when I'm not prepared for it and today was one of those days.

It didn't help today that I felt kind of annoyed about Christmas arrangements. We - that is A and I - were invited to go to my cousin's house for Christmas. That's where we are going. The last two years, I did Christmas dinner at our house. And that's I - not we - as A has had to work the last two Christmases. Today, his mother called to discuss how we are going to spend time with his family for Christmas. They are all coming here on Christmas day. I'm feeling resentful. How has it become our responsibility all the time? Well - because my BIL and his wife don't help. She has to go to her family every year in New Jersey, so we are a convenient stopover for them on their way home. I'm also kind of stuck with my family. They understandably want to come home to CT each year to spend the holiday with aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and cousins. Only problem is that I'm the only one who has a house in the area. So, if we wanted to go to A's parents home in Eastern CT or his brother's home in Maine, I'm kind of stuck because of my family. So I'm being pissy today because I feel like it's not fair.

Friday Photos

Once again, Boomer is the star of our Christmas cards. The first picture was the winner, the rest are just for fun.

Happiness is...

...a good butt scratch. Okay - it's not really a butt scratch, but it's close. The dog positively loves to have the area right above and to the sides of his tail scratched. He dances when you do it. It's the cutest damn thing. Clearly, he's found happiness in those moments - nirvana even. He also loves a good belly rub and chin scratch and the old behind his ears scratch - but he doesn't dance for those. Just the butt scratch.

Folding Laundry - a Revelation

Yeah - a revelation. Seriously. I was folding laundry yesterday with A. While we were doing it, I realized that he folds up socks differently from the way I do it. I've long known that he folds shirts differently. It made me think that marriage is not just combining of lives, it's combining of the way you do things. It's an area where you can change, grow, teach or be stubborn. We all grow up learning to do things from our parents. A learned one way to fold a shirt, I learned another. He puts the toilet paper on a different way - I'm an underroll person, he's an overroll. We make beds differently, fold things differently, cook differently - all sorts of things. Some areas we've kind of melded. More often than not, I'll fold shirts his way. But I still do the toilet paper my way. It's just kind of interesting to me - all the little things that we learn and how they are part of the constant compromise of marriage.

Friday Photos

Just a few pictures - Boomer trying out his new coat and his Santa hat. The table loaded with china and crystal for Thanksgiving dinner. And Boomer guarding the table!