Here is a dilemma. A couple days ago I read this on Facebook: "Tips is in need of a home.....We are here to help, all others will be deleted and banned.....We adopted 16 yr old Tula 10 yrs ago. She is a beautiful tiger striped cat with a very calm and timid personality. We are moving to SC this summer and there is no way we can bring her.. I'm looking for her to be the only pet as she deserves special attention in her late years. She has early stage of kidney disease with no meds required right now. Her numbers actually improved from last May. We will miss her terribly if we find good home , but believe it's in her best interest."

It is from Steve Caporizzo pet connection, he is a weatherman for the local ABC affiliate and an animal advocate. His page occasionally spins out of control, with followers judging and harshly criticizing pet owners who are seeking to re-home a pet. Sometimes the object of condemnation asks for the post to be deleted and takes drastic action with the unwanted animal. (Taking it to shelter, euthanasia…or maybe dropping it along the road*, choking it to death*…) The post quoted above would be a classic example. Steve deletes and bans anyone who comments negatively, and puts up a scolding post when it happens. He believes such dialogue does not help the needy animal, and of course he is correct. I don't join in because I can't stand the drama and also respect the page host's wishes. I really, really appreciate moderators who reduce or eliminate animosity in comments and try to facilitate a kind community. However, I also believe behavior such as the above quoted text deserves to be called out as unacceptable, immoral, and abusive, rather than normalized or condoned with a shrug that all is relative.

So here's my dilemma. Not whether to join or start a slugfest (I wouldn't, and it would get me banned anyway) but whether to unfollow Steve? I hate to do that, as I might be able to help someday (and in 1995, I adopted Rudy - a MHHS puppy who was on Pet Connection), but reading such posts greatly upsets me. The subject isn't of the "just scroll by" variety. It hurts me to know that such people are out there. At least I can share this here! Well -- move to SC, lowlife. NY surely doesn't need you.

Unrelated, except in the appalling behavior category: The media continues to hound the governor. I believe it is because of his requirement for police to create a plan by April. That lobby has risen up and will do whatever they can to try to bring him down.

 *Kidding, sort of

 

I have written little here about this or anything else lately, because "this" + work + personal matters are all-consuming. "This" is the fight to save our local Stewart's shop. I learned on October 8 that the company planned to shutter store #138 forever at the end of October (later discovered the actual date to be 10/26). Apparently they associates were informed 10/1 or so. It wasn't a very public announcement, the way opening a new or remodeled store is. I suppose someone at the Saratoga headquarters is aware that closing a 40 year old store will be unpopular. A resourceful volunteer started a petition, which is how I found out. 

This is a devastating loss to the village, and as a loyal customer, it it heart-breaking personally as well. So I switched into high gear, making this effort my #1 priority. I've been sending facebook messages and then writing letters to the company, targeting politicians in person and electronically, making phone calls, preparing packets for the media, sending tweets #saveourcastletonstewarts , creating fliers that have been handed out by foot patrol, and establishing a facebook group called Friends of Castleton Stewart's. The story has now been picked up by the Times Union and YNN. We are having our second rally at the store tomorrow.

So far the response from everyone except Stewart's has been enthusiastic. The company has relied on boilerplate (with the same typo, lol -- sloppy, sloppy, sloppy). If these efforts don't work, we will switch into chain-wide boycott mode. It will be hard, but I know I can get it going. But we are not there yet, and won't be for eight days. Wish us luck!

Yesterday we went to Litchfield, CT for a second birthday celebration for our grandnephew (& Godson).

On the way down, we stopped at the Fuel Coffee Shop in Great Barrington, MA. I had the most delicious scone! I remembered (sadly) that the last time I was in Great Barrington was when Rudy was dying -- he was receiving Vitamin C treatments and we had to leave him at our vet in Ancramdale for a couple hours for the infusion.

They had about a half dozen recycled designer fashions on display such as this one, very clever!

Bob gave Nolan his vintage ~45-year old Tyco HO electric train set that we have been storing for about 30 years. It's mint, he even saved the instructions.

 They live on the campus of the Forman School.

On the way back we stopped at The Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, which is fairly close to home. It was packed with skiers, even more so because of the President's Day three-day weekend, I suspect. All in all, it was a really nice day.

Unrelated: we watched the movie Flight. Spoiler alert! It was a good movie, but very different than I was expecting. The ending seemed off to me, so much so that I googled to see if there was an alternative ending, if perhaps with advance screening it was determined that audiences really didn't like the ending at all and so a slightly more crowd-pleasing one was tacked on instead. I discovered that my sense of the ending being "off" is not uncommon, but I did not find anyone else who also perceived the ending I predicted. Most of the others who had issue with the ending wanted Denzel's character to either walk away a hero, or felt the alcoholism angle was over-played, or the girlfriend subplot was pointless. They felt the direcotr or writer had painted themselves into the corner and may have had no choice but to end it in such an unsatisfying way.

My POV is very different. I think everything after finding him passed out in the hotel was a Hollywood re-write. I believe he was either dead, or would have died shortly afterwards in the hospital. The entire movie had so many religious overtones and a general theme of death, from his crashing near a church, to meeting the cancer patient and heroin addict in the hospital, to the co-pilot and his wife. I have a hunch that he would have been exonerated at the hearing posthumously, but the ending of him dying from alcohol poisoning and drug overdose without eventually shaping up, taking responsibility and making a Denzel speech was not acceptable. So the ridiculous closing scenes in the hotel with John Goodman, at the hearing and in the jail were tacked on. Audiences don't like it much, but it's cheerier than the much more logical one I've described.

I have written many times before that only a handful of the students I have in my classes are unethical -- or slackers. Unfortunately those two groups take an enormous amount of energy and too often overshadow the remaining students, most of whom are perfectly capable. And then there are a small number, though larger than the slackers and cheaters, who are truly wonderful. I shared my recent situation with my students yesterday, and also met with the three who will be handling my classes next week. Many well-wishes, and the three who will be substitutes are excited by the prospect. One student even stopped me after class to tell me that his mom had a brain tumor removed eight years ago, she is perfectly fine and he knows my father will be too. What amazing young people! It gives me hope for the future.

My I hate September theme: Forgot to mention last post that 9/25 was the 7th anniversary of Rudy's death. RIP, Mr. Wuj. Miss you.

 JES asks:

I am interested in why you blog, and why I (and the other writers on the websites I administer) should continue to do so, especially if our online neighborhood becomes increasingly polluted and/or pedestrian, which seems to be the case. Care to share?

 I think it always good to do some reflecting on "why" whether it is about blogging or anything else in life. I won't expand upon my comment at the linked post, but it got me thinking about what my pre-blogging journal was like.

Here's a sample, dated October 10, 1996: I don't know whether Rudy loves computer diskettes, or hates them. I do believe he has diskette radar, though. Last spring he chewed up several which belonged to my husband. One contained both the text and data analysis for his thesis. I awakened on a Saturday morning to pieces of diskettes scattered all over the bed. Bob is generally as easy-going as the day is long, but at that moment, he looked as if he would like to murder someone. Me, I think. Under normal circumstances I would have found it amusing, but since Bob didn't snap out of it for the entire day, I thought it best not to laugh. Then, a couple of weeks ago, Rudy got one of my disks. It contained a lot of personal writing, my resume, a few history term papers, invoices from my computer business, etc. Rudy matters more to me than any computer disk, so I wasn't too upset. And it made me think about technology, and how if it had been paper he couldn't have destroyed that many documents in just a couple of minutes. I can hear the whiny voice of some computer nerd saying, "none of this would have happened if you had only backed up your files."

Added July 2012: diskettes, CD Roms, zip drives, flash drives were not much improvement over ephemera. The 'net has trumped them all.

I have fun speculating about (fixating on?*) being labeled "weird" and decided a long time ago that it relates to three things: 1) saying atypical things in class 2) limping / walking with a cane and 3) my fingernails.

About #3, they are extremely long right now. I know I have to cut them. It's time consuming to do it and I really don't like to do it. I thought I would take a picture of them first.

I was surprised to notice the scar on my hand. I don't think about the twin scars on my left hand and wrist any more. Here I am nearly fourteen years ago fretting that my dreams of a career as a hand model were over:

We briefly had a camper in Samsonville before our house was built and that's where these two photos were taken. I didn't like it much and we didn't keep it long -- the first night we stayed there, I cut my hand on a falling light fixture, and when I was at the ER having it stitched, Rudy destroyed the screens and jumped out of the window. He was wildly running around the yard when we got home. Thankfully he didn't run off, that would have made a bad night much worse.

Unrelated: I had a lovely dream about Sophie last night. That's the second one. Disappointing to wake up and have her not here.

*Now you know why I avoid checking RMP.

For the past couple of months, I get about 10 of these spams a day. In my work account, I get several spams of this flavor per day. I can't believe that people fall for stuff like this, but then long ago I knew this guy so it's definitely true that people are gullible. Scum prey upon the desperate and the vain. So why me? :-)

Six years ago today my beloved Rudy died. It was a Sunday that year too. Something I forgot to mention two weeks ago yesterday is that September 10 was the 16th anniversary of Howie's death. Also a Sunday that year. Not that I forgot the anniversary, I just didn't record it here, in my litany of September sadness.

On the subject of the animals, Bob is taking Sophie to the "salon" to get her nails "done" this morning. That's what we call it. She won't allow us anywhere near her with nail clippers, and even barks at Bob when he gets out the clippers to cut his own (mine are long and a file is the only device needed routinely; she doesn't seem to notice). It's their private time, and afterwards he will take her out to breakfast. Sam will stay here with me. He'll freak out, which is why most of the time, I go along and take him too. We wait in the car. This is maybe the second time since Bob's surgeries that he has taken Sophie alone, not so much because of Sam but because he can't lift her into the Mariner (or before that, the truck) but yesterday he got the car serviced so he wants to use it and she can hop into that unassisted. Which reminds me, my next task, now that the computer is fixed and the telephone sorted out, is to get Ford to replace the grill on our Lincoln, which I believe is defective.

But first, I have to get caught up on work. Three days of computer tinkering have put me seriously behind!

Today would have been Rudy's 16th birthday. I didn't expect him to live to be 16, of course, although I have had one dog, Penny, who did. I still miss him and think of him often. I love all my dogs (and cats, and other pets) but Rudy was extra special, handsome on the inside and out. I was so proud that he was my dog. Happy Birthday my angel Mr. Wuj.

Today is also the 29th anniversary of Don's death. He was a close friend from college who commited suicide the day before my 21st birthday. Have I said recently that I don't like September?

Switching gears, we're off to Samsonville. Closing the pool - a task that marks the end of summer. My garden is still producing, but the plants are starting to wind down. After the past couple of two dog nights I've nervously checked in the morning to see if there had been a killing frost, and was happily surprised to see my friends all standing. I risked it, didn't want to harvest the basil, eggplant, green tomatoes and still-growing cucumbers yet. Also I still get to enjoy the more delicate flowers. So far, so good. If they make it to tomorrow it looks like they're safe for several days. Fingers crossed!

My cold is somewhat better again and I cooked until late last night. I'd recruited Bob to help earlier in the week and he came through on his promise. So we have big pans of parmesan all ready to serve on pool closing day...which coincidentally is my birthday and will usher in fifty. I think everyone is confounded that this is how I am celebrating! It isn't that I mind aging. Like Elwyn, I don't have a birthday - or week - I have a birth month! Maybe September '11 won't be so bad.

Rudy would be 15 today if he was still here, but on the 25th, he will have been gone five years. Still hard to believe.

Rudy is the only pet I've had where I knew the actual birth date. He was born at the shelter, his mother had been found as a pregnant stray. I always loved that his birthday was the day before mine.

In 1982 a dear friend committed suicide on this date. Having my birthday be the next day after that tragedy exacerbated the feeling for years. Rudy being born made the date stand out in a good way again. I always showered him with attention, gifts, treats. He was so special.

Needless to say, 9/17 has become melancholy again, or maybe that should be bittersweet. Enough time has passed in both cases that the memories have that golden glow, even if it is tinged with sadness.

Yay! Rudy was on Pet Connection in 1995.

Four years ago today, Mr. Wuj left us. It still miss him, and think of him on a daily basis. He would be 14 if he was living, and given his lifelong youthful looks and activity level, I thought he would easily live until age 14, so I'd still have him if that had been true.

I'm sick! I came down with what I thought were seasonal allergies on Wednesday, but at this point I think it is a mild cold. It isn't any surprise because the students are all coughing and sneezing up a storm. I'm really careful around them but I still must have caught something. It isn't the flu, I don't have a temperature and it only involves my nose and sinuses. We have 31 suspected cases of flu on campus so far, but none confirmed. RPI has 5 confirmed. Anyway, I hope I don't give it to Bob. He isn't concerned. I'm not coughing really so maybe if he does catch it, it won't impact his stomach at all.

9/11. Hard to believe it has been eight years. It seems like 20; at other times, it seems like 1.

Yesterday I was remembering that it was the 14th anniversary of Howie's death. Howzerdo. That was his nickname, and now it is my Internet identity. Because on the Internet, no-one knows you're a dog. Howie didn't know he was a dog. I've never had a dog that loved me so much. He was a one person dog, and didn't care much for other people.

September is a month of birthdays for me, also a month of sad anniversaries. Mimmie's birthday was 9/13. Mine is 9/18. Rudy's was 9/17, the day Don died. Rudy died in September, too. Mimmie's birthday is also the two year anniversary of the day I found Ande, who loves me almost as much as Howie did. But he likes other people too. And he's a cat.

Classes zip along. Again this semester, we have been asked to plan what we will do in the event classes have to be suspended because of the swine flu.

Rudy would have been 13 today. I thought I would still have him, instead next week he will be gone 3 years. Sniff. Happy birthday, Mr. Wuj.

Something I forgot to mention in my earlier post was that the past two times we've visited the vet, she has said, "you just have to get another Rudy." She's saying that not only because our Rudy was so great, but because it was clever and funny to have a dog named Rudy, given my last name. I think she hoped that we'd give Ande the name Rudy. She probably understood that it was too soon when we got Sam, and also that he'd already been named and we didn't want to change it. But with Ande - why it is two years later, he isn't the same species and we had free choice of names. So why not?

Last time we were there, I just chuckled and didn't respond. But this time, I said, "there will never be another Rudy." That is the simple truth. Yes, back in 1995 when I got Rudy I did name him after "the" Rudy. It was a lot more obscure to everyone except New Yorkers. But I'd watched Rudy's career for a long time. Now, he's running for president. 9/11 happened, and the name recognition is huge. I guess it may seem like even better timing, to give a pet his name, again, given my last name.

None of which matters. I still watch "the" Rudy's career. And I'm still glad I honored him by naming "my" wonderful, handsome Rudy after him. But I don't give pets the same name, even if one could argue that it would be an honor. There never will be another Heidi. Or Howie. Or Penny. Or Hobo. Or Mr. Wuj. Enough said (sniff).

I've been meaning to link to two stories from the Times Union. First, from July 4, these three essays on what it means to be an American. Impressive writing, especially considering they are kids. I am using the piece in my class, since right now we are discussing the meaning of culture.

Then, this bittersweet essay. Sniff. Reminds me of all the dogs I love (Sophie, Sam), and have loved (there have been so many! Rudy, Penny, Howie, Hobo, Pud, Pepe, Duke, et al) but especially Howie, since he was half-Schnauzer, lived to be 15, and he was the first dog I got after moving away from home.

Unrelated, but something that occupied some time this week: last week we had a terrific thunderstorm that must have struck near my house in Samsonville. It zapped my mother's ethernet card, and she thought it killed her monitor too. She was unhappy with using her old spare, so I got her a "new" one (really it is used, but it is a decent 17" Dell, amazing how cheap they are). When I was there last weekend, I replaced the NIC in her computer, and discovered that her monitor is fine (luckily my nephew needs the used monitor I bought), but that the lightening also burned out my ethernet and on board video, and it ruined two of the ports on my router. It's an old machine, but since I have a wireless laptop and the desktop is for light use only, I didn't want to buy an entirely new computer. So I took the CPU back to Castleton, and earlier this week I replaced the NIC and video card. Luckily, that worked, since I hated the idea of spending too much on that old machine. I also learned that the router is still under warranty, so I will be able to get a replacement. Luckily the wireless and two remaining ports are working, so we are still in business there. We both had surge protectors, but they aren't foolproof, so from now on my mother will unplug everything when there is a storm.

Here’s something that sparked my interest. Certainly the Ladies in White have a clever business idea. I dreamed up this business (although I’d never actually do it), so I understand seeing an opportunity to exploit the way our society handles death. But after reading the article, I am left wondering why this market even exists. Must we subcontract everything in our lives? As I mention in the linked post, I’ve heard from florists that on Mother’s Day, they get a lot of orders that are delivered to cemeteries. These customers don’t actually visit the cemetery. I’m not passing judgment on whether people should visit cemeteries, but why are they bothering to have flowers delivered?

I do know a few people whose ashes have been sprinkled in a wilderness area, scattered into a body of water, thrown out of a plane, or sadly, misplaced (to maybe wind up in a landfill). However, most people I know who choose to be cremated have friends or relatives who either 1) keep the ashes in a decorative container in a bookcase or on a fireplace mantle; 2) bury the ashes in the yard and plant a tree; or 3) buy a cemetery plot for the ashes (actually two cremains will fit in one standard grave) and put up a monument.

As it happens, I do visit cemeteries, including some where no family or friends are buried. I have always loved cemeteries. Many are so beautiful. I’m a trustee for Mt. Pleasant Rural Cemetery, and Mountain View Cemetery is behind my Castleton house and that was Rudy’s favorite place for a walk. My brother lives next door to Bushkill Cemetery, and a little section containing Ashokan Reservoir removals borders his house. As a history buff, I believe the cemetery plus monument route is the best, regardless of whether the grave contains cremains, or remains.

An aside, Ladies in White reminds me of this.

Howie knew "speak" and other tricks. Penny never cared to learn any, since she always got a treat when Howie performed. I taught Rudy tricks as well. His favorite was "speak." Sophie would get her reward when Rudy did the requested act, but she too had no patience for formal learning - although she wasn't as nice about it as Penny was. Sophie let us know in no uncertain terms to stop that foolishness. So now we are trying to teach Sam the repertoire. He is still so babyish, even as he gets near to two years old, and so far we haven't had any luck. The other day, as Bob was trying to teach him "speak," Sophie was there, perched on the stairs, waiting for her treat. Finally, when Bob said "speak," she let out a little woof. Both of us were shocked! She learned just from watching Rudy all these years, but would never show us what she knew until now. I guess Sam's resistance has been frustrating, and so she decided it was time to step up. We've tested her several times at this point, and she does it every time. So precious.

I know being 45 and childfree raises suspicion of being a kid hater, so I hesitate to write this! But this is one of those days when I am tempted to open a window and yell. A group of kids often rides downhill in the neighbor's yard after school when it is a nice day, and there is enough snow. The hill behind our houses is perfect for sleigh riding. Whatever dogs I have had, this results in nonstop watching out the window, while barking. Howie, Penny, Rudy, Sophie, Sam: two dogs barking at once, without missing a beat. It drives me insane. What compounds the irritation is that these kids don't even live in one of the houses on our hill. The neighbor does have a grandson, but it isn't him. These kids are much older. I know the kids are having fun; sledding was something I loved to do, also. But Daylight Savings Time means that there is another hour of daylight while there still is snow this year!

Classes started yesterday. I was feeling very "blah," mostly because I was tired. My owl tendencies resurface when I don't have to go to campus for a long stretch, and I find myself staying up way too late, reading. So I'll have to stop now that I'm back on a schedule.

To combat the "blah," I wore a suit yesterday. That is something I have not done since my days in administration. It didn't do much to perk me up, but I think it got students' attention. The two classes I had seemed OK, hard to tell this early.

For the evening class, there was a typo on the schedule. It said "ED" instead of "ES," meaning that the class was in Earth Science, when I thought it was in Education (my building). So I was about 15 minutes late! Once I figured out the mistake, I thought Earth Science was only two buildings away, but when I arrived...it turned out to by Physics. Turns out that Earth Science is across campus. I didn't take my coat, so I had to use the tunnels to get there, something I usually avoid. Hopefully my blah + suit + lateness won't cause the students to drop!

We got a little snow today. This usually wouldn't be worth mentioning, but it has been a snowless winter. As always, it reminded me of Rudy. I imagined him dashing outside to roll in it. I have been thinking a melancholy thought: that the lack of snow this winter and last is because he isn't here to enjoy it.