Rescue a dog and watch them crawl right into your heart
I am by no means an animal activist. I enjoy eating a big old chunk of cow in burger or steak form. I set out traps for mice for their destruction, not the catch and release method.
I try to teach my dogs they are not humans and I am in charge, a lesson they have yet to learn.
But I do have a soft spot for some animals; especially those four-legged critters that pitifully watch me leave each day and pop their heads up at the window to happily see me return. If only they could keep more of their hair on their bodies and less on my carpet, clothes and furniture — that would make me happy.
So, yeah, I like dogs.
Recently, I have been following some stories of people who have adopted, or should I say rescued, dogs that have completely warmed their hearts. It has made me even more aware of the importance of taking in a dog from a shelter and the love they give.
Here are a few of their stories. (Why did I hear the “Law & Order tone in my head as I typed that?)
By chance, I ran across Prospect the Dog on Facebook. Prospect was abandoned near a trucking company in the Midwest. Ed the Chauffeur, as his owner is now known, had never thought about having a pet but when he visited the business and Prospect ran out from behind a desk he was hooked.
They now travel around the country posting photos and blogging at www.k9roadtrip.com. Prospect travels the country to help other rescue dog and shelter organizations. As of February he has logged 45,000 miles and visited more than 10 states.
That dog gets around.
When researching a bit about Ryan Reynolds to write a review on “Green Lantern” I discovered his chance encounter with a rescue dog.
People magazine reported that he told ABC News he was looking for a dog for a friend when another dog caught his eye. The dog was staring at Reynolds. He leaned down to whisper “Hey, let’s get the [heck] out of here.”
Baxter jumped up as if he understood Reynolds and has been with the “Sexiest Man Alive” ever since.
Locally the plight of Franklin the Pug got some attention when he was featured in The News-Enterprise. Paralysis in his back legs doesn’t slow him down and his owner is on a quest to get him walking again. After Franklin was hit by three cars, the source of his paralysis, his owner abandoned him.
I recently interviewed another person with a dog named Sadie. Sadie’s back legs are paralyzed but she still tries to protect her family by barking from behind a counter to make sure people know she’s there to protect them. Sadie was adopted from an animal shelter.
Rescue dogs sometimes have a heartbreaking story from their past, sometimes are unwanted and sometimes just fell into bad luck when their owners could no longer keep them. Because of this they make amazing pets that have an enduring way of responding to the people who have rescued them.
Of my two dogs, Duke, is a rescue of sorts. He was left at my brother’s vet clinic and after being there a while found his way to my house. He loves people and thinks everyone’s purpose in life is to adore him.
I purchased Boo but I’m pretty sure if I had not bought him he would have wound up a rescue dog as well because there is no one else on this planet who would have put up with some of his shenanigans. So, if I hadn’t got him as a puppy he would have probably wound up at my house anyway.
I guess the moral to this story is adopt a shelter dog and enjoy the ride. And you might want to get a lint roller while you’re at it for all the pet hair.
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/content/rescue-dog-and-watch-them-crawl-right-your-heart
Monday, July 11, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
This week's column:
This week I saw a report on “Good Morning America” on body image. It wasn’t through the eyes of a 30-year-old woman or even a teenager.
The story was about a 6-year-old who is already obsessed about her body image. What is frightening is that this was not a unique situation.
GMA reported that a 2009 University of Central Florida study found that nearly half of the 3- to 6-year-old participants said they worried about being fat. This is not about a healthy weight or keeping fit. This is about how they look.
To me, this is sad. Our society has become so obsessed with body image that anything resembling a healthy lifestyle has gone completely out the window and another situation has occurred.
If a girl begins developing a poor self-image at the age of three, what is the hope that she will have a healthy view of herself at 20 or 30? A lifelong discipline of low self-esteem and self-loathing is created.
There is a difference between a healthy body and your body image. A healthy body is linked to a good diet and proper exercise, not your waist size. A poor body image can not only lead to unhealthy practices to keep a certain look but can also lead to mental health problems where a girl associates her self-worth to her perception of what she sees in the mirror every day.
Part of the problem is the women the media throw in girls' faces to define what is beautiful. These are usually overly thin actresses or models who boys seem to adore. Older girls see who their favorite heart throb is currently dating and will go to extremes to look like them.
The GMA report also gave another culprit to the problem. Moms, obsessed with their own self-image, who are always talking about hitting the gym to be thin or dieting.
As a society it’s time to draw the line somewhere. Preschool and elementary age little girls should be having tea parties and playing, now worrying if the pretend tea they are serving will make them fat.
Developing an obsession about the outer persona at such a young age is far from healthy. It doesn’t lead to empowerment and it certainly doesn’t lead to a healthy lifestyle. It can lead to a life of depression and unhealthy eating habits or disorders.
To empower the next generation of women, let’s not enslave them to what an unchecked media says is beautiful. Let’s raise them up healthy and happy with who they are as a person and not how they look.
Societal definitions of what is beautiful change throughout time. In an age when size 2 or 4 seem to be desired, remember that at one time society considered a bit of a curve attractive. Marilyn Monroe’s dress sizes varied from 8 to 12 and men adored her. Rita Hayworth was also adored and she had a few curves herself.
My point in mentioning those two Hollywood divas is to remember that definitions of beautiful change throughout time and a young girl should not base her self-view based on distorted societal norms.
Be healthy, yes. But remember thin does not always equal healthy and it’s about how your body is functioning on the inside and not what it looks like on the outside that defines healthy. Just as it is not healthy to become obese, it’s equally unhealthy to obsess about being thin.
It’s time to raise up a generation of women who have pride in themselves for their accomplishments, inward beauty and character rather than what they look like.
The ever-classy Audrey Hepburn might have said it best.
“The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. True beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It's the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows and the beauty of a woman only grows with passing years."
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/content/6-years-old-too-young-worry-about-looks
The story was about a 6-year-old who is already obsessed about her body image. What is frightening is that this was not a unique situation.
GMA reported that a 2009 University of Central Florida study found that nearly half of the 3- to 6-year-old participants said they worried about being fat. This is not about a healthy weight or keeping fit. This is about how they look.
To me, this is sad. Our society has become so obsessed with body image that anything resembling a healthy lifestyle has gone completely out the window and another situation has occurred.
If a girl begins developing a poor self-image at the age of three, what is the hope that she will have a healthy view of herself at 20 or 30? A lifelong discipline of low self-esteem and self-loathing is created.
There is a difference between a healthy body and your body image. A healthy body is linked to a good diet and proper exercise, not your waist size. A poor body image can not only lead to unhealthy practices to keep a certain look but can also lead to mental health problems where a girl associates her self-worth to her perception of what she sees in the mirror every day.
Part of the problem is the women the media throw in girls' faces to define what is beautiful. These are usually overly thin actresses or models who boys seem to adore. Older girls see who their favorite heart throb is currently dating and will go to extremes to look like them.
The GMA report also gave another culprit to the problem. Moms, obsessed with their own self-image, who are always talking about hitting the gym to be thin or dieting.
As a society it’s time to draw the line somewhere. Preschool and elementary age little girls should be having tea parties and playing, now worrying if the pretend tea they are serving will make them fat.
Developing an obsession about the outer persona at such a young age is far from healthy. It doesn’t lead to empowerment and it certainly doesn’t lead to a healthy lifestyle. It can lead to a life of depression and unhealthy eating habits or disorders.
To empower the next generation of women, let’s not enslave them to what an unchecked media says is beautiful. Let’s raise them up healthy and happy with who they are as a person and not how they look.
Societal definitions of what is beautiful change throughout time. In an age when size 2 or 4 seem to be desired, remember that at one time society considered a bit of a curve attractive. Marilyn Monroe’s dress sizes varied from 8 to 12 and men adored her. Rita Hayworth was also adored and she had a few curves herself.
My point in mentioning those two Hollywood divas is to remember that definitions of beautiful change throughout time and a young girl should not base her self-view based on distorted societal norms.
Be healthy, yes. But remember thin does not always equal healthy and it’s about how your body is functioning on the inside and not what it looks like on the outside that defines healthy. Just as it is not healthy to become obese, it’s equally unhealthy to obsess about being thin.
It’s time to raise up a generation of women who have pride in themselves for their accomplishments, inward beauty and character rather than what they look like.
The ever-classy Audrey Hepburn might have said it best.
“The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. True beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It's the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows and the beauty of a woman only grows with passing years."
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/content/6-years-old-too-young-worry-about-looks
Thursday, June 9, 2011
This Week's Column:
Giving up the fear
Everyone is afraid of something. But sometimes what we fear is a bit silly. Anyone agree?
For example, one of my biggest fears is waking up in the middle of a surgery. In reality, what is the likelihood that will actually happen, especially when I’ve only had one surgery during my entire life?
Marionettes also freak me out. They’re just creepy.
Some people are afraid of sharks, which is especially silly if they don’t live by an ocean. Sharks in the ocean, OK, real fear. Sharks inland, not so much.
Some people are afraid of certain numbers. And clowns, who isn’t afraid of clowns?
People like TV’s Monk are afraid of germs.
How many of us are afraid of spiders? When you look at how small the arachnids are related to the size of a human and our ability to smash them, that fear is a bit crazy, too.
Crazy fears like this can often consume people's lives.
But recently I read about real fear. It was a situation I cannot imagine someone living through and I shivered thinking about it.
I was reading Jaycee Dugard’s statement from the trial against her captors. How this young women, kidnapped at age 11, survived 18 years of this torment still impresses me.
She was held captive in a dirty tent in the back yard where she was psychologically manipulated and repeatedly rapped by her captor, Phillip Garrido, eventually leading to a very young Dugard having two children by this man. She had the first child when she was only 14.
How could an 11-year-old even begin to process what was happening to her, or could she?
Equally scary were the times this situation was overlooked by authorities who could have gotten her out of this mess sooner.
To me this is real fear, something extremely horrible. How many times do we — and I include myself in this — overreact to silly fears and frustrations when real horrors are going on in the world, sometimes right under our noses.
She was an 11-year-old girl who for years was paralyzed to change her outcome, surviving horrors none of us want to face. This is a situation much more frightening than a spider, clowns or sharks.
It just serves as a reality check or a check of our reality, whichever is more fitting.
How silly is it of me to be afraid of marionettes when there are people being abused, when children are starving and when nations live in fear of their oppressive governments?
Fear and worry of the little things are often what distract us from hurts and pains that people experience all around us. When we can’t get passed our fear of the irrational, how can we deal with the reality of a friend who’s battling cancer, a child being abused or a family mourning the loss of a soldier?
It reminds me to stop focusing on my selfish irrational fears in life and think about real things people are going trough and the real fears they face. At least I hope I will remember that.
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/content/giving-fear
Everyone is afraid of something. But sometimes what we fear is a bit silly. Anyone agree?
For example, one of my biggest fears is waking up in the middle of a surgery. In reality, what is the likelihood that will actually happen, especially when I’ve only had one surgery during my entire life?
Marionettes also freak me out. They’re just creepy.
Some people are afraid of sharks, which is especially silly if they don’t live by an ocean. Sharks in the ocean, OK, real fear. Sharks inland, not so much.
Some people are afraid of certain numbers. And clowns, who isn’t afraid of clowns?
People like TV’s Monk are afraid of germs.
How many of us are afraid of spiders? When you look at how small the arachnids are related to the size of a human and our ability to smash them, that fear is a bit crazy, too.
Crazy fears like this can often consume people's lives.
But recently I read about real fear. It was a situation I cannot imagine someone living through and I shivered thinking about it.
I was reading Jaycee Dugard’s statement from the trial against her captors. How this young women, kidnapped at age 11, survived 18 years of this torment still impresses me.
She was held captive in a dirty tent in the back yard where she was psychologically manipulated and repeatedly rapped by her captor, Phillip Garrido, eventually leading to a very young Dugard having two children by this man. She had the first child when she was only 14.
How could an 11-year-old even begin to process what was happening to her, or could she?
Equally scary were the times this situation was overlooked by authorities who could have gotten her out of this mess sooner.
To me this is real fear, something extremely horrible. How many times do we — and I include myself in this — overreact to silly fears and frustrations when real horrors are going on in the world, sometimes right under our noses.
She was an 11-year-old girl who for years was paralyzed to change her outcome, surviving horrors none of us want to face. This is a situation much more frightening than a spider, clowns or sharks.
It just serves as a reality check or a check of our reality, whichever is more fitting.
How silly is it of me to be afraid of marionettes when there are people being abused, when children are starving and when nations live in fear of their oppressive governments?
Fear and worry of the little things are often what distract us from hurts and pains that people experience all around us. When we can’t get passed our fear of the irrational, how can we deal with the reality of a friend who’s battling cancer, a child being abused or a family mourning the loss of a soldier?
It reminds me to stop focusing on my selfish irrational fears in life and think about real things people are going trough and the real fears they face. At least I hope I will remember that.
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/content/giving-fear
Sunday, May 29, 2011
This week's column
Warning: Read at your own risk, a reality of aging may follow
I was living my life, oblivious to a reality I didn’t want to face. I went through daily life happily in the dark about a milestone that was happening without my knowledge.
This was until this season’s “Dancing with the Stars” and my friend Madge posted a fact I would have rather not known as her Facebook status.
In November, Ralph Macchio turns 50. What? It can’t be.
Then the reality set in. It was undeniable. The people in the posters lining my walls in the 1980s are now getting old.
I tried really hard to deny it and then I did the unthinkable. I went to the cursed Google, the source for the world’s useless knowledge. Google confirmed not only will Macchio be 50 but next month Michael J. Fox turns 50.
“Gasp,” I thought. “It can’t be.”
The posters of these two young men at the time, papered my walls. Forget Bieber and Pattinson of today, Macchio and Fox were two of the heartthrobs of my day.
I was first introduced to Macchio in “The Outsiders.” Ah, the classic tale of the greasers and soces with the heart stabbing ending with the death of my favorite star. Then, oh yes, then he was “The Karate Kid.” Twice we got to see Daniel-san beat the odds and use the famous karate crane move. I have to confess I tried the move several times and in my clumsiness the attempts resulted in many bruises.
Like many of the teens today watching some modern heartthrob, I would watch anything Macchio was in including “Teachers” and “Crossroads.” Years later he appeared in “My Cousin Vinny” and then he kind of dropped out of sight until DWTS.
Through DWTS we saw him complain every week of knee problems and back aches associated with his age.
Then there was Fox. While I watched him on “Family Ties” he showed up on my wall after he appeared as Marty McFly in the “Back to the Future” series. I wasted a lot of time watching many of his movies that followed as well. Yes, even “Teen Wolf,” which I think I at one time owned on VHS.
The same friend who keeps letting me know which stars are hitting the half century mark sent me a link that read “40 things that will make you feel old.” Yes they made me feel old. It included statements like what the kids on shows 20 years ago look like now and how old the guys in all the boy bands are now. Not funny Madge, not funny at all.
So yes, as I celebrated a birthday last week, and no it wasn’t one of the big ones, I thought about how things, including myself, are growing old.
In the words of the great Bilbo Baggins, “I’m old … I know I don’t look it, but I’m beginning to feel it in my heart.”
Another friend posted on Facebook that “Top Gun” was released 25 years ago. Where did the time go? And someone tell me why music from the 1980s is now playing on oldies stations.
What blows my mind most is it will be time for a 20 year high school reunion next year. Really? Seriously? I feel a bit faint.
There’s one solace to this aging story. When I was discussing all the heartthrobs turning 50 a coworker asked, “What about Kirk Cameron?” Don’t worry, Mike, from “Growing Pains,” is not quite as bad. He’s only 40.
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/content/warning-read-your-own-risk-reality-aging-may-follow
I was living my life, oblivious to a reality I didn’t want to face. I went through daily life happily in the dark about a milestone that was happening without my knowledge.
This was until this season’s “Dancing with the Stars” and my friend Madge posted a fact I would have rather not known as her Facebook status.
In November, Ralph Macchio turns 50. What? It can’t be.
Then the reality set in. It was undeniable. The people in the posters lining my walls in the 1980s are now getting old.
I tried really hard to deny it and then I did the unthinkable. I went to the cursed Google, the source for the world’s useless knowledge. Google confirmed not only will Macchio be 50 but next month Michael J. Fox turns 50.
“Gasp,” I thought. “It can’t be.”
The posters of these two young men at the time, papered my walls. Forget Bieber and Pattinson of today, Macchio and Fox were two of the heartthrobs of my day.
I was first introduced to Macchio in “The Outsiders.” Ah, the classic tale of the greasers and soces with the heart stabbing ending with the death of my favorite star. Then, oh yes, then he was “The Karate Kid.” Twice we got to see Daniel-san beat the odds and use the famous karate crane move. I have to confess I tried the move several times and in my clumsiness the attempts resulted in many bruises.
Like many of the teens today watching some modern heartthrob, I would watch anything Macchio was in including “Teachers” and “Crossroads.” Years later he appeared in “My Cousin Vinny” and then he kind of dropped out of sight until DWTS.
Through DWTS we saw him complain every week of knee problems and back aches associated with his age.
Then there was Fox. While I watched him on “Family Ties” he showed up on my wall after he appeared as Marty McFly in the “Back to the Future” series. I wasted a lot of time watching many of his movies that followed as well. Yes, even “Teen Wolf,” which I think I at one time owned on VHS.
The same friend who keeps letting me know which stars are hitting the half century mark sent me a link that read “40 things that will make you feel old.” Yes they made me feel old. It included statements like what the kids on shows 20 years ago look like now and how old the guys in all the boy bands are now. Not funny Madge, not funny at all.
So yes, as I celebrated a birthday last week, and no it wasn’t one of the big ones, I thought about how things, including myself, are growing old.
In the words of the great Bilbo Baggins, “I’m old … I know I don’t look it, but I’m beginning to feel it in my heart.”
Another friend posted on Facebook that “Top Gun” was released 25 years ago. Where did the time go? And someone tell me why music from the 1980s is now playing on oldies stations.
What blows my mind most is it will be time for a 20 year high school reunion next year. Really? Seriously? I feel a bit faint.
There’s one solace to this aging story. When I was discussing all the heartthrobs turning 50 a coworker asked, “What about Kirk Cameron?” Don’t worry, Mike, from “Growing Pains,” is not quite as bad. He’s only 40.
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/content/warning-read-your-own-risk-reality-aging-may-follow
Thursday, May 12, 2011
This Week's Column
Redbox killed the video store
Driving on Dixie the other day, I realized another part of my childhood disappeared.
I heard about this kind of thing from my parents. They would lament about the disappearance of record stores and turntables. The “good old days,” you might say.
My lament is the death of the video rental store. Redbox and Netflix might be to blame for this.
As I was driving, I saw an empty and stripped Blockbuster store. Vacant shelves were all that remained in the darkened store. It was the last hold out in Elizabethtown. Hollywood Video and Movie Warehouse both already disappeared.
It made me kind of sad. Without a drive outside of Elizabethtown, I can’t just walk into a video store and rent a movie. Now I have to wait for it to come to a Redbox or arrive via mail.
Gone are the days of just walking in a store and picking up a movie. You might say Internet rental is the answer. It is if you don’t have to wait ten hours for it to download. Not everyone has one of those devices to rent them straight from the TV either.
But I guess it’s just the generation I grew up in. I remember the beginnings of video stores. I go all the way back to the Betamax and VHS.
Before this time, if you wanted to watch a movie again, you either had to wait for it to re-release in the theaters or be shown on television. Instant access to films was unheard of. This might blow some of the young folk’s minds.
I can remember a time when my family didn’t have a VCR. We would go to my cousins’ house to watch movies on their BetaMax machine.My family’s first VCR came around Christmas sometime in the 1980s. It loaded from the top and seemed almost robotic. We thought it was very cool. It had a remote, too. It was attached by a wire to the VCR.
I can even remember the first movies we rented: “The Right Stuff,” an old John Wayne collection and “The Ice Pirates.” Don’t waste your time watching that last one, it’s a running joke in my family. If someone says a movie is bad, we will ask, “Is it as bad as ‘The Ice Pirates’?”
The trip to the video store was different, too. You would take an empty box off the shelf and take it to the counter where they would rummage through drawers and shelves to find the video. They usually handed it to you in an ugly plain case, the cover boxes with the film artwork on the outside were only for the shelves.
I think I still have some of the VHS tapes of films bought at some of these stores. I remember getting excited to pre-order “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and “E.T.”
But now it’s just another thing of the past. BetaMax and VHS have given way to DVDs just as DVDs will soon give way to Blu-ray and soon online access will get rid of that, too.
When things like this happen, when records turned into 8-tracks and cassettes in my parent’s generation and when Redbox killed the video store in mine, you feel a bit of nostalgia for the past.
Even though, in most cases, the new things bring improvement of the old, the old still lingers in your memory, creating a fondness for the things of the past.
I will miss the video store, especially because I don’t have cable and my internet downloads films slowly. I will miss buying the previously viewed movies at a cheaper cost. I will miss walking through the store and browsing all the movies, carefully choosing which one I want. If I’m suddenly in the mood to see an old classic I don’t own in my collection, I can no longer head to the video store and rent it.I wonder what will go by the wayside next.
I guess it’s time to upgrade my technology before I’m completely out of entertainment options.
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/content/redbox-killed-video-store
Driving on Dixie the other day, I realized another part of my childhood disappeared.
I heard about this kind of thing from my parents. They would lament about the disappearance of record stores and turntables. The “good old days,” you might say.
My lament is the death of the video rental store. Redbox and Netflix might be to blame for this.
As I was driving, I saw an empty and stripped Blockbuster store. Vacant shelves were all that remained in the darkened store. It was the last hold out in Elizabethtown. Hollywood Video and Movie Warehouse both already disappeared.
It made me kind of sad. Without a drive outside of Elizabethtown, I can’t just walk into a video store and rent a movie. Now I have to wait for it to come to a Redbox or arrive via mail.
Gone are the days of just walking in a store and picking up a movie. You might say Internet rental is the answer. It is if you don’t have to wait ten hours for it to download. Not everyone has one of those devices to rent them straight from the TV either.
But I guess it’s just the generation I grew up in. I remember the beginnings of video stores. I go all the way back to the Betamax and VHS.
Before this time, if you wanted to watch a movie again, you either had to wait for it to re-release in the theaters or be shown on television. Instant access to films was unheard of. This might blow some of the young folk’s minds.
I can remember a time when my family didn’t have a VCR. We would go to my cousins’ house to watch movies on their BetaMax machine.My family’s first VCR came around Christmas sometime in the 1980s. It loaded from the top and seemed almost robotic. We thought it was very cool. It had a remote, too. It was attached by a wire to the VCR.
I can even remember the first movies we rented: “The Right Stuff,” an old John Wayne collection and “The Ice Pirates.” Don’t waste your time watching that last one, it’s a running joke in my family. If someone says a movie is bad, we will ask, “Is it as bad as ‘The Ice Pirates’?”
The trip to the video store was different, too. You would take an empty box off the shelf and take it to the counter where they would rummage through drawers and shelves to find the video. They usually handed it to you in an ugly plain case, the cover boxes with the film artwork on the outside were only for the shelves.
I think I still have some of the VHS tapes of films bought at some of these stores. I remember getting excited to pre-order “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and “E.T.”
But now it’s just another thing of the past. BetaMax and VHS have given way to DVDs just as DVDs will soon give way to Blu-ray and soon online access will get rid of that, too.
When things like this happen, when records turned into 8-tracks and cassettes in my parent’s generation and when Redbox killed the video store in mine, you feel a bit of nostalgia for the past.
Even though, in most cases, the new things bring improvement of the old, the old still lingers in your memory, creating a fondness for the things of the past.
I will miss the video store, especially because I don’t have cable and my internet downloads films slowly. I will miss buying the previously viewed movies at a cheaper cost. I will miss walking through the store and browsing all the movies, carefully choosing which one I want. If I’m suddenly in the mood to see an old classic I don’t own in my collection, I can no longer head to the video store and rent it.I wonder what will go by the wayside next.
I guess it’s time to upgrade my technology before I’m completely out of entertainment options.
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/content/redbox-killed-video-store
Thursday, April 28, 2011
This Week's Column
One freaked out CorgiThe past couple weeks were full of storms and have left me with little sleep. Not because they wake me up, I find sleeping through stormy weather quite soothing.
My lack of sleep is because, for some reason, Duke the Corgi suddenly has become scared of storms. Furthermore he believes when he is scared I have to be awake. Boo, my Chocolate Lab, is quite annoyed by this as he grumbles at Duke and then flops back asleep.
I’m not sure where this new fear of storms came from, but the lack of sleep is beginning to wear on me.
I discovered over the stormy weekend he can now sense when a storm is coming. His heightened canine senses can tell me when a storm is coming before I even hear the thunder. I know this because the poor little thing freaks out.
When the storms rolled in Saturday, he started whining and wouldn’t leave my side. I almost tripped over him several times. I would sit down on the couch and he would run as fast as his little legs could take him to the couch and sit next to me shaking, trying to sit as close to me as possible.
After hearing the tornado warning on television I opened my basement door in case we had to go down in a hurry. Duke didn’t wait for that. I noticed I hadn’t tripped over him for a while and found him sitting in the basement. I called for him, and he wouldn’t leave the basement. He stayed there until the storm rolled through and he was happy.
This would have been fine and dandy if he hadn’t sat right in the middle of a puddle of water that had settled in my basement, tracking said water throughout my house when he emerged from his safe zone.
The worst is at night. The little booger wakes me up and makes me stay awake until the storm has passed and he feels safe again. Early Monday morning I was woken by his barking. It’s kind of funny. It’s almost as if he’s whispering at first but then when I don’t wake and immediately give him attention he gets louder.
Each time it storms, I roll over to the Corgi who is crying in my ear and pat him on the head and say a little “it’s OK, boy” and roll over to try to go back to sleep. This does not satisfy his majesty so he usually starts crawling all over me until I give him satisfactory attention. Again, Boo will grumble and then go back to sleep, annoyed.
Usually, this is the routine during any storm. That morning in particular he added a new part to the routine. He hid under the covers.
I was slightly relieved because I thought maybe if he can hide under the covers he’ll be OK and won’t need me to be awake. Sadly, that was not the case. He would hide and then emerge to make sure I was awake and if I wasn’t he’d wake me up again.
While dogs can often sense things that humans cannot I will never be able to tell if Duke is trying to alert me to danger because he does this with any rumble of thunder, not just the dangerous storms.
So, the past couple weeks I’ve been dealing with a freaked out Corgi. I placate his nervous moments and then tiredly go throughout my day with lots of coffee and little sleep the night before.
I can understand when people have to do this for their children, but Duke is a dog. I try to remind him of that fact, but I’m not sure it’s sinking in.
With more spring storms to come, I will expect many more restless nights ahead. Maybe he’ll get over his fear as quickly as he developed it. Probably not. Boo and I will just have to learn to tolerate him.
My lack of sleep is because, for some reason, Duke the Corgi suddenly has become scared of storms. Furthermore he believes when he is scared I have to be awake. Boo, my Chocolate Lab, is quite annoyed by this as he grumbles at Duke and then flops back asleep.
I’m not sure where this new fear of storms came from, but the lack of sleep is beginning to wear on me.
I discovered over the stormy weekend he can now sense when a storm is coming. His heightened canine senses can tell me when a storm is coming before I even hear the thunder. I know this because the poor little thing freaks out.
When the storms rolled in Saturday, he started whining and wouldn’t leave my side. I almost tripped over him several times. I would sit down on the couch and he would run as fast as his little legs could take him to the couch and sit next to me shaking, trying to sit as close to me as possible.
After hearing the tornado warning on television I opened my basement door in case we had to go down in a hurry. Duke didn’t wait for that. I noticed I hadn’t tripped over him for a while and found him sitting in the basement. I called for him, and he wouldn’t leave the basement. He stayed there until the storm rolled through and he was happy.
This would have been fine and dandy if he hadn’t sat right in the middle of a puddle of water that had settled in my basement, tracking said water throughout my house when he emerged from his safe zone.
The worst is at night. The little booger wakes me up and makes me stay awake until the storm has passed and he feels safe again. Early Monday morning I was woken by his barking. It’s kind of funny. It’s almost as if he’s whispering at first but then when I don’t wake and immediately give him attention he gets louder.
Each time it storms, I roll over to the Corgi who is crying in my ear and pat him on the head and say a little “it’s OK, boy” and roll over to try to go back to sleep. This does not satisfy his majesty so he usually starts crawling all over me until I give him satisfactory attention. Again, Boo will grumble and then go back to sleep, annoyed.
Usually, this is the routine during any storm. That morning in particular he added a new part to the routine. He hid under the covers.
I was slightly relieved because I thought maybe if he can hide under the covers he’ll be OK and won’t need me to be awake. Sadly, that was not the case. He would hide and then emerge to make sure I was awake and if I wasn’t he’d wake me up again.
While dogs can often sense things that humans cannot I will never be able to tell if Duke is trying to alert me to danger because he does this with any rumble of thunder, not just the dangerous storms.
So, the past couple weeks I’ve been dealing with a freaked out Corgi. I placate his nervous moments and then tiredly go throughout my day with lots of coffee and little sleep the night before.
I can understand when people have to do this for their children, but Duke is a dog. I try to remind him of that fact, but I’m not sure it’s sinking in.
With more spring storms to come, I will expect many more restless nights ahead. Maybe he’ll get over his fear as quickly as he developed it. Probably not. Boo and I will just have to learn to tolerate him.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
This week's column
Heroes, we can’t help but like them. They can do things that go beyond human expectations. The onslaught of comic book hero movies hitting theaters this summer makes me wonder why we like these characters and, for that matter, who was my favorite superhero growing up. Comic book heroes have been around for a while, but does today’s society latch on to them because it is searching for heroes? When my parents were younger, astronauts were going to the moon for the first time, the cowboys on TV didn’t have shady real-life personas and athletes really were athletes without medicinal assistance. Today, unfortunately, if any supposed “hero” makes his or her way to the public eye the premier is quickly followed by a major crash from the pedestal. And movie superheroes really don’t do much better. They all seem to have a bit of an anti-hero edge to their heroic endeavors. But back to my original question, why do we like superheroes? Maybe it’s because they often come from other planets as Superman did. Or is it because, like Batman and Iron Man, they are ordinary people who find ways to make themselves super? Maybe it’s that an ordinary student can be bitten by spider and suddenly become superhuman. And let’s not forget “The Greatest American Hero,” or at least, we can’t forget the song. “Believe it or not I’m walking on air/I never thought I could feel so free-ee-ee/flying away on a wing and a prayer/Who could it be?/Believe it or not it’s just me.” Sadly, I didn’t even have to look up the lyrics on that one. Regardless, I think we all have our favorites. My brother’s were the man of steel and a masked cowboy. Growing up he loved Superman. He might have even had a pair of Superman Underoos. Anybody else remember Underoos? But I think the Lone Ranger was his all-time favorite. He’s still a big fan of Westerns today. I remember when we took him to see the 1981 film version. He was one excited 4-year-old. Dressed in his cowboy hat and six-shooter on his belt, he sat wide-eyed and excited when the lone crusader turned around with his mask on and the iconic music played in the background. But for me, my hero drove an invisible jet, had a lasso of truth, could deflect bullets with her golden bracelets and had some killer boots. That’s right, Wonder Woman. Imagine 6-year-old little Becca spinning like crazy to turn into Wonder Woman just like Lynda Carter did on the show. This is how it usually went down. I had a specific outfit to wear as her alter ego Diana Prince. It was a plaid skirt with a ruffled blouse, like many outfits I saw her wear on the show. With my hair pulled back and wearing glasses I began my transformation. I would begin to spin and under my outfit I had blue shorts and a red top. I would also wear my mom’s boots which were way too big and hit me above the knees. Then there were the bracelets: the biggest I could find in my mom’s jewelry box. When my hair came out of the pony tail I would put on either a headband or tiara. Also included in the outfit was one of those 1970s-style gold rope ties that would go around the olive green curtains in the living room, for the lasso. I should also tell you this all happened while I was still spinning, creating a very dizzy Wonder Woman when it was all complete. After the transformation was complete I was then ready to hop in my invisible jet and fight the evildoers … often with the Lone Ranger by my side. So yes, I’m a sucker for a good superhero story as well. I’m excited about “Thor,” “Captain America,” a new X-Men flick this summer and the promise of a Justice League and Avengers film in the future. And let’s not forget a new Lone Ranger movie next year. I’m not sure if I’ll ever find the true answer of why we like these films, other than the coolness factor, but I like that kids can still dream of knights, cowboys and caped crusaders. C.S. Lewis may have said it best. “Since it is so likely that (children) will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.” http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/content/reflecting-childhood-superheroes
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