Chancey’s Obsession

Chancey, a Scottish Terrier, is the latest addition to our four-legged fur family. I dog-napped him this past summer while visiting a friend down in New London, Connecticut. She was dog-sitting him for a week while his family (who didn’t want a dog in the first place but their daughter did) were on a business trip.

At the age of two: Chancey hated being leash walked so he pulled a lot; he had a great fear of anything with wheels on it; he didn’t know any basic dog commands (sit, stay and go do a doggie commercial and bring home mega bucks!) nor was he potty trained. With that said, I wanted a better life for him. So I brought him home. Which made him dog number three in our tiny little house (1097 sq. feet) on a heavily trafficked road with no fenced-in yard. What was I thinking?

I learned quickly that I was in way over my head. The first episode happened when I took all three dogs to the dog park (read a Fast Eddies’ story for a better description of the park). I had Chancey on a leash but he was pulling so hard I let him off, a very stupid move on my part. Everything was fine until we met up with several groups of dogs. With all the doggy greetings involved, (barking, sniffing butts and a little bit of growing) he quickly walked off with another group. By the time I got my wits about me and had the other two dogs under control, I realized that I was missing the newest addition. Yikes! I walked around yelling for him but no luck. I took Chloe and Fast Eddie back to the Jeep and went searching for him.

I was running around asking the other dog owners walking their dogs if they had seen him. No luck! Finally, a woman with her own three dogs shows up with Chancey in tow. Yea!!

Episode #2 – I didn’t have a tight hold on him while transporting him from the Jeep onto the kitchen porch. He quickly took off and headed East on Rt. 66 while walking down the middle of the road using the yellow lines as a guide. With four knee surgeries, it is hard for me to move quickly much less run but run I did, and I scooped him up.

Episode #3 – We are back at the park and I’ve now learned to keep him on leash and use the Gentle Leader that our friend had given us which I wasn’t using until then. It was just the ticket when it came to keeping him from pulling and under control. We finished our morning walk and headed back to the Jeep. Both Fast Eddie and Chancey needed help getting up into the back. So I lifted Eddie up first and took off his leash while holding onto Chancey’s. Then it was Chancey’s turn. My big mistake was removing the leash before lifting him up into the Jeep and he took off. I went running after him leaving Chloe outside the Jeep with a fellow dog walker and Eddie in the Jeep. Right next to the parking lot is a large community garden which was in full bloom in late July. Well I couldn’t see him since he was so close to the ground. He evidently returned to the parking lot where we were re-united.

Episode #4 – A friend of ours came over for dinner this past Fall. We were using a baby gate out on the kitchen porch to keep the dogs contained and off of Rt. 66! In letting our friend onto the porch I created a small opening that Chancey used for his escape. I’m screaming for him to stop while I’m doing my version of jogging to catch up with him. Off he goes again heading East on Rt. 66! Now he’s a black dog and the light was fading, it was hard for me to see him much less for on-coming traffic. Off course, a woman waving her arms does make traffic slow down a bit. The first driver stopped but the truck behind her moved around her and was heading directly toward Chancey and the driver didn’t see him in the road. At this point, I felt something moving quickly to my left. It was Mary madly running. She hasn’t had any knee surgeries yet so she’s still able to sprint. She had heard my screams from the back of the house and knew it had to do with one of the dogs. She finally reached Chancey before the truck ran him over and gave him a talking to!

Episode #5 –Mary and Lisa (our friend from Hawaii) had just gone shopping for our Christmas dinner and were unloading the groceries with Chancey jumping up and down on the porch. He was so excited that they had come home. Seeing the opportunity to make a run for it, he did. Both Mary and Lisa ran yelling and screaming as he again headed East on Rt. 66. This time is was light enough for traffic to see him. Traffic came to an abrupt halt. Coming from the East was a large truck, the driver made a quick decision and turned his vehicle so that it blocked the road. And, a pick-up truck coming from the West stopped traffic from that direction. Yea, another possible disaster averted!

We’ve come to the conclusion that Chancey thinks he’s “Toto from the Wizard of Oz.” He is a small terrier like the original Toto was. He hails from Kansas and he is always searching for that elusive yellow brick road like so many of us are!

Sharon’s Life, Episode 1

I’m still figuring out the logistics of writing a blog on a daily or weekly basis to keep my one and only fan, Susan in Maryland, HAPPY. So...I’m going to try something new to keep me inspired. I’m calling it “Sharon’s Life” which goes into detail about how out of control my life is. I won't write everyday but then depending on what is going on with me, I might.

I’ve been told by many people that my life is very complicated. Thanks! I already knew that! Almost everything that I ever wanted has not come easily to me. Unfortunately, most of my life has been a struggle. Hey, I have three ex-husbands, do I have to say anymore?

December 16th, 2008:
3:00 p.m. – My cell phone rings, and it's our security company that protects our home from thieves and fire. The fire alarm has gone off and no one is responding to their call so they contacted the Northampton Fire Department to check it out. Now I’m sitting at my desk at Smith College and all I can think is “What do they expect me to do from here?” In the meanwhile, for all I know all of my loved ones are burning up! It seems that Mary was on the phone with Lisa’s real estate agent, while Lisa was cooking up another wonderful Italian meal, when the alarm went off. Because Mary was on the phone, the security's dispatch center call went directly to voice mail. Not good! Then Mary couldn’t find their number to call in the false alarm so she had to put on her shoes and run outside to look at the sign to get the 800 number. Do you get the idea why I believe my life has sitcom potential?

7:20 p.m. – Mary and Lisa (our wonderful house guest who is staying with us until the closing on her townhouse) are getting ready to head out to St. John’s Episcopal Church to help with the Midnight Breakfast Feast for Smith College students. It is held twice a year during finals. I would have liked to have gone, but my knee is all messed up, due to falling on wet leaves and pine needles at Smith in early December (That is another story in itself!). So off they went for their two-hour shift.

8:35 p.m. – The home phone rings and it is Lisa’s attorney calling from Hawaii with news about her impending divorce. The attorney won’t tell me anything but I did try. So I called Mary but no luck. She and Lisa were in the bowels of St. John’s and there isn’t any reception down where they are serving the breakfast. I figure no big deal because they would be back around 9:30 p.m.

9:45 p.m. – The attorney calls again and gives me his cell phone number and we chat some more. How much is this costing Lisa? It seems every time she has spoken to him he charges her another $500. I can’t image what he will charge her for talking to me instead.

10:15 p.m. – Where in the dickens are they? In the meanwhile, I’m starting the great hunt for my cell phone in case Mary had left a message on that instead of calling the house.

10:45 p.m. – Still nothing from the missing troops! Plus my cell phone has mysteriously vanished. What makes this rather awkward is that I’m responsible for a shuttle bus full of Smith students heading out to Bradley Airport for Winter Break at 4:00 a.m. and it is starting to snow, a lot. If the storm gets really bad, the bus company might call to tell me that can't make it due to the weather. And did I give them my home number? Of course, not!

11:05 p.m. – I finally gave in and called Public Safety at Smith College. Calling them means I would have to confess to another air-head moment, which unfortunately they have witnessed many times, but I had no choice. I needed that damn phone! By the way, I call Public Safety a lot due to my position as Van Coordinator for nine vans for the Student Government Association. They agreed go over to my office to search for the phone and if found, would give it to Mary, only if, she provides ID. That could be a problem, since I’m not sure if she was carrying any ID! In the meanwhile, Mary is still not answering her cell phone and I don’t want her to head home in the snow and have to circle back because I misplaced my cell phone for the 100th time!

11:35 p.m. – Mary finally calls and heads over to the Campus Center to get my phone, with proof of who she is! Awesome!

11:50 p.m. – They finally arrived home after their “two-hour shift” at St. John’s. It seems that Lisa ended up having more fun than she expected so she was willing to stay longer.

December 17th, 2008:
12:10 a.m. – Lisa reaches her attorney. Her divorce is final! Yea, now she can move on to the next part of her life.

12:20 a.m. – It is still snowing and I’m now worried that the bus company may not have my number after all. So...I decide to meet the bus at 3:30 a.m. Someone has to be there for the students if the bus doesn't show up, so I elected myself!

1:05 a.m. – The rest of the household settles down for the night. That consists of: Mary; Lisa; Chloe (our Diva dog); Fast Eddie (there are previous stories on him!); Chancey (our latest addition to our dog family) and Justice, Lisa’s African Gray parrot who is handicapped. My home life is a zoo!

2:05 a.m. – I finish up my latest novel by James Patterson that I had started earlier in the evening. Hey, I had to do something to keep me occupied in between all the drama! At this point, I decide to stay up.

2:45 a.m. – I go out to clear off the snow. Yikes, there is a lot and it is still coming down!

3:15 a.m. – I’m sitting in my car, reading another James Patterson book until the bus appears!

3:35 a.m. – Yea, it has arrived!

4:01 a.m. – The bus is fully loaded and heading off to Bradley Airport! And I head home to get a little shut eye before another crazy day begins!

More Eddie Adventures!

Of Fast Eddie’s nine emergency visits so far, three have been related to cuts to his paws while running off leash at the Old Hospital Grounds here in Northampton. The first one was rather minor he cut himself running on an icy path. I had no idea that dogs can get injured on ice obviously I haven’t had any Iditarod experience with dogs in icy conditions. That incident resulted in a couple of stitches and no park visits for a week.

The next one was a little bit more serious. Eddie was running around at the park and went into the woods where he sliced open the toe pad of his paw. With several stitches and orders to keep him from jumping or running around for two weeks, we went home. The vet’s concern was if this didn’t heal properly, his toe pad might have to be removed. We knew we couldn’t keep him from not being a Mexican jumping bean, but we did try. With that said, several days later he leaped off of the three-foot high retaining wall in our backyard and split open the stitches. In spite of his dare devil leap, his toe pad finally healed but it is now a very odd shape. Well, there goes the idea of using Eddie as a paw model to pay off his vet expenses!

The most expensive incident so far, again at the park, and with seconds to go before getting Eddie back into the car, he ran off into the woods and came out bleeding. Poor Mary brought him home and wanted to wash all the blood off of him. I took one look and knew that he had cut tendons. We quickly headed up (on a Sunday morning, no less) to the Veterinary Emergency & Specialty Hospital in South Deerfield near Yankee Candle.

The vet on duty knew Fast Eddie from previous park experiences. She’s the one that called Mary’s ex-partner who works at the hospital to get Mary’s cell phone number when she found Eddie running around at the park with no adult supervision. At the time, Mary was madly searching for the elusive Eddie at the park. Dr. Losert also knew of some of Eddie’s previous exploits with the snake (last blog) and mouse (that will be explained in a future episode).

Well, the diagnosis was that his tendon had been cut, probably from a broken bottle of which many litter the woods. Thank you, you moonlight booze-hounds for throwing your bottles around and leaving dangerous broken glass that can injure animals! He had minor surgery with internal and external stitches needed to repair the damage. They wrapped him in a huge cast-like bandage with splints to protect his limb. Dr. Losert cleverly created a pumpkin “iron-on patch” for the bandage since it was so close to Halloween.

We were told he had to wear a cone (Elizabethan collar) for his entire recovery period of four weeks or more, and he would need to get the bandage changed on a weekly basis with our local vet. And thus began the tug of war with his bandage. Eddie and Chancey (our third dog) love to play tug of war, but this was the first time Eddie could do it all by himself.

So he just kept pulling and chewing on his bandage which resulted in a total of eight bandages! Oh, did I mention that at some point he broke the splints and had to get them replaced too. Isn’t he special!

The idea that one could keep Eddie from doing something he‘s not suppose to do is rather humorous. That boy lives to chew and destroy. It’s his mission in life…one he does quite well.

Eddie is still recovering even though the splints and bandages are now off. He still favors the leg and when outside hops around on three legs. Once he’s fully recovered he will return to his daily walks at the park but on a leash. His days of running off leash with wild abandonment are over and will just be a distant memory...for Eddie!

Fast Eddies' Most Expensive Vet Visit So Far....

Are you wondering why Fast Eddie has an orange bandage on? Well....stay tune for the details about his latest injury and what it did to our checkbook balance!

I am in the process of writing part two of "The Lastest Adventures of Fast Eddie," but I wanted everyone who regularly checks my blog to know that it is in the works and will be posted soon!

Happy Holidays,
Sharon

I’m in love with a brown-eyed male…don’t tell my partner!

I’ve always been a sucker for males with brown eyes. From the moment I laid eyes on him, this one really got my heart pounding! His name is Fast Eddie and this is his story.

In December of 2006, Eddie came to us from Ohio, already named, at the age of nine weeks. He was so adorable as all baby Puggles are. A Puggle is considered a “Designer Dog.” This is when you take two purebred dogs of different breeds, in this case a male Pug and a female Beagle, and the final result is a “Puggle.” Back when I was a kid, the result of this type of doggie bonding was called a “mutt.” My, how times have changed!

Two days after we picked up Eddie at Bradley Airport in Connecticut, a friend came over for dinner. After just a few minutes of watching him, she announced that he shall be called “Fast Eddie” and the name stuck.

Whenever we take Fast Eddie out, especially when he was a puppy, but even now, grown men go crazy over him. They coo at him, they giggle, they rub his head, and they wave at him as we go driving around town, his head hanging out the window. My partner suggested that we hire him out to women looking for men. He is a guy magnet. The bottom line is wherever Fast Eddie goes, people smile…especially at our local veterinary clinic!

Our vets should name a wing after him what with nine emergency visits in a 23-month period. Yes folks, you heard it here first: nine emergency visits! Whenever we call, the first thing they say is “how soon can you get him here?” The rare times it hasn’t been an emergency, they end up being so relieved because they too have fallen under his spell.

Near where we live is an area called “The Old Hospital Grounds” which was a former state mental hospital. On the trails that wind through the property, depending on the season, one can find joggers, riders on horses, cross-country skiers and folks walking their dogs, mostly off leash. That’s where Chloe, our diva dog, and Eddie run loose to their heart’s content.

The first major emergency visit happened in April of 2007 when he was a little over seven months old. I am in the habit of walking them at the park before I goto work. So it was about 6:30 in the morning and I had Fast Eddie off leash (mistake #1 of the morning), when he ran under a bush and immediately started chewing on something. It looked to me like a round circle of branches, but it was too pliable. Then I looked again. Oh my gosh, it was a snake! I couldn’t get near him without him running further into the brush. I was yelling at him to drop it and he just looked at me with those adorable brown eyes. At that point, he folded the circle of snake in half and swallowed it whole! There he sat, so proud of himself with a little tip of the snake’s tail hanging out of his mouth. He then swallowed the tail and promptly did a belch that would make any man proud!

I panicked. I called the emergency veterinarian hospital. They told me I had a 20-minute window in which to give him a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide so that he would regurgitate the snake. They also mentioned that I should run him around in the backyard so that it would shake up the peroxide in his tummy. Personally, I wanted to grip him by his little shoulders and shake him silly. I drove home in record time and poured a tablespoon of peroxide down him. I then let him out back in our un-fenced yard (mistake #2 of the morning), where he ran wild while I chased him all over the place. During this chase, he ate dog poop and some day lily stems (which are extremely poisonous to dogs).

At this point, I was ready to strangle him, but I hauled him inside and put him in his dog crate. Within minutes his eyes got really huge and he threw up both the snake and day lilies all covered in poop! Thank goodness for gallon size zip-lock baggies and paper plates. I used two paper plates and scooped up the mess and sealed the paper plates inside the baggie. By then, it was close enough to 8 a.m. that I decided to take him to our local vets. When I called en route to tell Devon of our unexpected visit, she just couldn’t believe that Fast Eddie had eaten a snake. Remember, this was only the first emergency visit and after awhile, nothing surprised them when it came to Fast Eddie and his exploits.

On examining the mess in the zip-lock baggie, (I could so hug the person who invented plastic bags), the vet determined that the snake was frozen. Even though it was April 25th, we had just had a cold snap. This is New England after all! The vet tech washed off the snake so they could identify whether it was poisonous or not. It wasn’t, thank goodness! Also, they wanted to see how long it was, and that required defrosting! I’d like to point out that at the time of this incident, Eddie measured 17 inches from his neck to his tail. And, the snake measured 18 ½ inches with a missing head! By the way, the snake’s head never did show up.

That’s emergency visit number one from our brown-eyed clown. Watch this space for more of the adventures of Fast Eddie.

Other’s Obsession with My Hair…Including my Own

Ex-husband #2, while he was married to me, felt that it was his mission in life to continue Mother’s legacy regarding my hair and its imperfections. In the dozen years we were together, I had more than that amount of different hairstyles and not all were my choice. It was never curly or wavy enough nor was it ever long enough to suit his tastes.

One of his favorite choices made me look like a damn poodle! It was extremely curly on top and straight on the sides. Yuck! One time I tried one of those zigzag hair bands. I showed up to pick him up and in front of a group he said, “What did you do to your hair?” Absolutely nothing, thank you. You could tell by his inflection that I hadn’t towed the line as was expected of me.

In my experience with the dynamics of a relationship, I’ve noticed that when a relationship is doing badly, one side can withhold what the other so desperately wants. In our case, one of the many things he wanted me to have (the list was endless) was long hair and I just kept cutting it. Ear length, chin length, whatever, as soon as it started growing I had it chopped off. When we separated, I started growing my hair and by the time our divorce was final it had grown out nicely. Yes, he did comment on it. By the way, his favorite hairstyles were the ones that required hours of effort on my part, electric curlers every morning, hair products and a body wave every three months.

Now for reasons that are unclear to me, I’ve longed to be a redhead for years. I had several hair stylists tell me that I had the skin coloring and eyes to carry it off. Well… for my 43rd birthday, I had my hair color professionally changed. I loved it! I spent 11 years as a redhead and most of the time, folks thought it was my natural color. Even my GYN thought so and she should’ve known better!

All good things come to an end. Last fall, I started reading articles about how “gray” is the new color for woman in their fifties. I decided I’d go to my natural hair color, whatever that was, with a lot of natural gray as highlights. So I went to my favorite hair stylist of the moment. By the way, in the four years I’ve lived in Northampton, I’ve gone through six hair guru’s before I found my present one! I was never happy with the coloring job, or the hair cut or whatever. Because I never do anything half-way, I decided that I didn’t want to go through the process of growing out the color. So she used a number 4 electric razor blade on my hair. Yep, not quite a cue ball, but close.

The majority of folks in Northampton and at Smith College liked it. They marveled at what a nice shaped head I have. That was a big gamble I took, because really who knows what kind of shaped head one has until you have no hair to hide under any longer. The ones who didn’t like my new look either said so, or just ignored the fact that there were babies out there that had more hair than I did.

Ironic isn’t it? Fifty-two years after my mother shaved my head, I go do it. The difference this time was that it was my choice. It wasn’t forced onto me by someone elses desire for perfection.

My Mother’s Obsession with My Hair!

My mother had many obsessions and one of them was about my hair. It never looked like the Shirley Temple image she had in her mind. It all started out innocently enough when I was 18-months old. We were living on a military base on the island of Okinawa where my father was stationed. It was very windy and, at the time, I had baby-fine curly hair. It was always getting tangled, so one day my mother couldn’t take my wiggling and crying any longer from the comb getting stuck in the knots in my hair, so she just shaved my head. Oh, yes she did! So there I was at 18 months - bald. Hair grows back, so what’s the big deal you ask? Well, it grew back very thick and very straight! God forbid! And that was the beginning of her obsession with my hair.

So starting at around the age of two, (remember my hair had to grow back first), I got the first of many perms I would have over my lifetime. One of my first memories was sitting in the Beauty Salon chair on a stack of telephone books trying not to fall out of the chair. I truly believe this is where my fear of heights came from. It was so far down to the floor and I could have gotten really hurt. If I had fallen, it wouldn’t have concerned my mother, as long as my hair came out curly. Also, I distinctly remember the strong smell of the perm and how my eyes always watered during the process.

I was blessed with extremely thick hair and the perms I received didn’t always react well to that. Our hair dresser at the time just didn’t know how to handle it. So my mother started taking me to the men’s Barber Shop on the base. One of the first pictures taken of me when we came back to the States was of a little white girl with an Afro! That and my speaking a mix-mash of English and Japanese was not well received back in 1958! Oh the traumas I went through as a young child!

Now both my parents lived through the Great Depression and were scarred for life because of that. So when we came back to the States, they continued to both work and save money so we wouldn’t end up in Debtors’ Prison. My mother was a Civil-Service Nurse (she worked at the clinic on base) and my father was a Chief-Master Sergeant stationed at Lincoln Air Force in Lincoln, Nebraska.

So one of their money-saving ideas was for my mother to start perming my hair at home. Impending disaster! She left the solution on way too long which resulted in huge clumps of my hair falling out. On top of this, I was growing like a weed and they weren’t replacing any of my dresses. During the late 50’s, no decent little girl wore pants! So there I was looking like Little Orphan Annie, (this must be where my obsession with red hair began) with dresses hitting above my knees, which was not fashionable back then, and very, very frizzy hair with clumps of it missing. Oh what a sight I was!

Fast forward to the late 60’s, when the Beatles (the band, not the bug) and flower children were having their moment in history with their very straight, long hair. Yep, for a brief while, Mother left the perm obsession and went to the straight-hair obsession. Which was fine with me. I learned to blow dry my hair using one of those domed hair dryers designed for home use. It looked like a huge blue helmet! I flipped back the arm that connected the dome to the electrical unit and made my own blow dryer. It wasn’t very small, nor very portable, but it worked!

Now I always tried to be a good, little girl and live the way my mother wanted me to (which is how I developed all of my neuroses and obsessions that I have had to battle with over the years). Ah, think of all the future blog postings you will get to read!

One of the many rebellions I went through with my mother when I was a teenager was over my hair. Go figure. In the fall of 1971, I decided I wanted to wear my hair in a Gypsy Shag which was all the rage back then. My mother would not even consider that as an option for me. So one day I snuck off to downtown Lincoln, Nebraska. Thank goodness for the bus system! I went to Swanson’s, which at the time was a very swanky clothing store in town with a salon and had my hair cut. I remember coming home and yelling for my mother from the first-floor landing that I had a surprise for her. She flipped! Oh my gosh, she laid an egg, she was so upset! She never forgave me for going against her wishes. Years later she would always shudder at the mere mention of the Gypsy Shag hair episode.

As the years flew by I found other ways to upset my mother, dating older men, staying out until the wee hours and divorcing at the young age of 25 (marriage #1) and so forth. But it seemed one of our favorite past times over the years was always arguments about my hair. To remove myself from my mother’s interference, I moved from Denver and eventually ended up in Virginia. She hated to travel, so I felt safe living in Virginia.

But like the good girl that I tried to be for her sake, I went back to Denver every six months and stayed for a week of fun and hell. Now let me tell you, for me to get from Northern Virginia (I was working in D.C. at the time) to Denver took hours by plane plus travel time to and from the airports. So there I’d be, landing at Mother’s doorstep around 11:00 p.m. (which would be 1:00 a.m. back East) after getting up at 5:30 a.m. And the very first words that came out of her mouth after having not seen me for six months was, “Oh Sharon Elaine, your hair looks just terrible!” Thanks, Mom. I needed to hear that after traveling many hours to see you. But unfortunately, I just could never please that woman no matter how much I tried and especially when it came to my hair.

What is Family?

fam′ i-ly n. the members of one’s household; close relatives; a social unit, such as a tribe; a related group, as of certain plants or animals (from Webster’s Pocket Dictionary, 2002 Edition)

Since I was a small child of six or seven, I have been on the hunt for a family to belong to. Yes, I had two people in my life, which I called Mommy and Daddy, but we were not a “family.” We were three humans under the same roof and that remained that way until my father died when I was 17. Life improved somewhat, but in my eyes, the two of us did not constitute a “family.”

My vision of a family was a group consisting of: parents, grandparents, siblings and their girlfriends or boyfriends, aunts, uncles, multiple dogs, and a picket fence. Events such as: births, christenings, weddings, funerals, family reunions, and celebrating the holidays with huge dinners and lots of presents, were part of the picture.

This was not true in my case. It was always just the three of us celebrating Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. We never invited anyone over for the holidays, nor did we go to any relatives’ houses to celebrate. When I asked, “why?”, I was told that Daddy’s relatives lived in Philly, which was too far away to visit. And since we never visited them or they us, I thought that the East Coast had to be another planet, far, far away from Nebraska where we lived. Plus my parents were in their late thirties when they had me, so I only once met one grandmother, the one in Philly. The rest had died many years before.

When I was attending the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, I latched on to anyone who would invite me to their houses for the holidays. I was never happier, even though I wasn’t part of their family. It was always such a wonderful time plus great food to boot!

In my mid-twenties I got married (he was husband 1 & 2) and thought, finally I’m in a family. No such luck. I just didn’t fit in with their lifestyle. They were my first experience of what “a dysfunctional family” truly means. Husbands 3 & 4’s families were much better, but I had no history with them prior to meeting their sons, so it still didn’t feel right on either side.

So when ML came into my life, I thought bingo! I knew her family and they knew me because I was working with a family member, so instant family! How lucky could I get? Unfortunately, due to family unrest, over 90% of her family decided not to have any contact with us. We both were sad over their decision, but we moved on and created our own family.

Our family consists of three four-legged fur children (Chloe, Fast Eddie and Champ) and some really amazing friends and of course, we have each other. What more could one ask for? Finally, after all these years I got my wish. Last Thanksgiving, we had 13 people sitting around our table creating memories and having a great time to boot. Life is good!

I Feel Like a Lost a Very Dear Friend…. in Randy Pausch’s Passing

I knew the day would eventually come, but I was still hoping for many more web entries from Randy. For months, I checked his homepage daily at http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/news/ to see what he had written and how he was holding up. But on July 25, 2008, I went out to his site to find that after a 22-month heroic fight with incurable pancreatic cancer, he had died. (My father died of the same in 1971).

He surfaced onto the public radar back in September 2007 when, as a Carnegie Mellon University Professor, he gave his “last lecture.” His lecture was viewed by millions on YouTube. He became an overnight sensation due to his positive attitude about living life and his words of sage advice. My two favorite’s are, “You can't control the cards you're dealt, just how you play the hand" and “Brick walls are there for a reason. They give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”

These days, you hear a lot about “The Secret” and how it has changed the lives of many. Well for me it was “The Last Lecture” that changed my life for the better and gave me much-needed hope. I would not have created this blog if it hadn’t been for Randy. And, by doing so, I was able to reach one of my life-long goals of having my writing published and read by others.

Tonight (July 29, 2008) ABC News will air a special at 10 p.m./9 central covering Randy and his life. If you want to see a man that has left a remarkable legacy and became a hero for the 21st century, watch it. If you don’t have the opportunity to see it, then read his book “The Last Lecture” or view his last lecture on YouTube. You won’t be disappointed.

I will miss you Randy. You touched so many lives and made such a difference for so many, especially to me.

Coming out of the closet...at age 49!

If asked what my dream house would look like, one of the very basic requirements it would have would be a huge walk-in closet. I love to organize and I like every piece of clothing, purses, scarves and shoes to have their very own cubbies. My last house in Virginia had such a closet. It had space for hanging clothes, shelves to hold clothes, a storage area off of that, area plus more hanging space for clothes. It was that area that I turned into a small private office. That was some closet! I loved hanging out in there. What privacy and solitude.

Up to that point in my life, I thought of closets as places to store things in and not a place to come out of. But come out I did….because at age 49, I realized I was gay and had been all of my life. It was a real shock to me since I had been dating men since I was 19. Plus, I had two ex-husbands and was married at the time to future ex-husband number three.

Let me tell you, coming out in Northern Virginia was quite an experience. I had people tell me it was a phase that I would soon tire of and that I was acting out to get attention. And the way they described my coming out was, “Sharon? She changed horses in mid-stream,” or “ Sharon ’s going through a mid-life crisis, probably due to menopause.” Oh please! What can’t be blamed on menopause?

The reason I came out was because I finally met a person who treated me as the wonderful, loving, funny, attractive, creative creature that I am. She didn’t try to mold me into someone I wasn’t and she understood what made me tick. The men in my life were always demanding me to be someone I wasn’t. To them I wasn’t thin enough, pretty enough, not well educated nor well-behaved enough and so forth. Also, I did not have breasts large enough for their liking! All I ever wanted from a man was to be appreciated for who I was and not for what they demanded me to be.

During my years married to men, I read a lot of romantic novels to keep me content and in my place. The plot line was always the same: the heroine would find a man who immensely annoyed her, but due to a maze of inspired-by-evil events, he rescues her. At the end of the story, he becomes her prince charming and they live happily ever after. Unfortunately, in real life, as we all know, it isn’t that simple. After four marriages (I married the first guy twice) you would have thought I would’ve figured out there was a problem. The problem was….I was gay and I couldn’t be someone I wasn’t and never would be. Once I had that epiphany, my life changed for the better.

Being a Lesbian at any age isn’t easy nor is it without its trauma-filled moments. Try getting a divorce in a white, male, Republican, Southern Baptist state because you are no longer interested in the male sex. A big oops! One finds out very quickly who really are the open-minded liberals among us and also, the ones who pretend to be….and never were. Another one of life’s lessons learned, that after years of filling up one’s closet with stuff so that you can hide from the world about who you really are, it gets so crowded in there that you have to come out, just to be able to breathe and be your true self!

What is Compassion?

From the Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, the definition is “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” That sounds like someone spent many years in therapy to come up with that one!

Compassion comes out of personal pain and frustration. If you were one of the lucky ones who always got a date for the prom, how would you be able to understand the pain of never being asked? Well, for some folks it comes naturally. They “get it” without living that moment of pain or frustration. For others, they never “get it” and this is what I am writing about today.

Barbara Sher uses a term, “infant narcissist.” When we are born, we are all one of these. As a child, all our needs are taken care of, we are dependent on adults for our survival, but as we grow, we move past that. Our need for connection plays a part in caring and wanting to help others, meaning, it isn’t all about us. But when it is “all about us”, that mind set becomes the breeding ground for spoiled children or future Divas. We’ve all known or have met a person (someone like me) who just doesn’t understand that everyone else’s life doesn’t revolve around theirs, the narcissist. The narcissist lacks the compassion to understand that we all need understanding from one another.

In essence, we should be grateful for all the pain and frustration we’ve gone through in our lives. Because of it, it gives us a connection with our fellow creatures. Compassion equals connection, and without it, we can’t be the caring human beings that most of us strive to be.

A good friend of mine ended our long-term friendship because, according to her, I had changed too much from who I was when we first met. Of course, my coming out of the closet at the age of 49 didn’t help matters any! I wrote, “As you are aware, I didn’t always approve of some of your actions during your divorce crisis, but I comforted you during those times and I never walked away from you. It really hurt that you weren’t there for me or even tried to understand what I was going through.”

Until recently, I couldn’t put a finger on what it was that upset me so about this whole situation. And then it dawned on me. It was her lack of compassion for my life choices that created the unhappiness in our friendship. Prior to her decision to break off our friendship, I had spent too many hours talking to my therapist and friends about this situation. They all said “Break it off. If she can’t be there for you, especially when you’ve been there for her, why would you want to keep the friendship going?” I kept saying that it was our years of history together which was an important connection for me. And, I also blamed my coming out of the closet as the cause because it didn’t mesh with any of her personal and religious beliefs.

But what really caused the end, was the lack of any type of compassion from her. Her life has always been very structured with only black and white moments. Anything that doesn’t fit in that mode was rejected or thrown out. She had people around her that help her with her life. It had given her a sense of entitlement in which her world is the revolving force that keeps others in that same sphere. She never grew past that infant mentality that she is to be served instead of helping and being there for others.

I’ve made many mistakes in my life, and I’ve hurt a lot of people in the process much to my regret. When I did, it was because I lacked the compassion to understand the harm I was causing them. As I progress in my journey to understand what kind of person I am, my one hope is that I become a more compassionate and understanding soul which will be hard to do when one is a Diva!

I can't believe I created my own blog...how awesome!

This is just amazing...much easier to create than figuring out how to load music on to my new iPod shuffle! I have always wanted to write and be published. Now that I have made that goal, let's see what I can do and if anyone is interested in what I have to say.