Previous post on this topic: How to be overweight When one suddenly becomes chubby after being not-chubby all one's life, one might do the following: 1. One might hate how tight everything fits. 2. One might hate buying new clothes, which is not fun if the reason is...
I understand that all dogs have different levels of tolerance for close human contact. Ozzie seems to have no limit. He lets me lie on top of him like this for quite a while. He lets me use him as a leg rest (when we lie on the futon sofa) for hours. I also understand...
Several months ago National Public Radio did a story on how divided our country has become socially and politically. The story described the way Americans lived in centuries past: more towns where rich and poor attended the same church, more daily interaction between...
I wish my problem were sleep walking or talking in my sleep. Instead, in the past few months, I've developed the behavior of waking up in the middle of the night screaming. Yes, I wake up at the top of a piercing shriek, with my mouth wide open and a light sweat...
Bob: Honey, there were a lot of idiots on the road tonight. Me: Really? You know, when I drive I never notice people acting like idiots. Pause. Me: Oh. I guess that means it's me. Bob said nothing and kept his eyes on his shoes.
I enjoyed much of my Labor Day weekend, but not all of it. Saturday was nice, but on Sunday Ozzie developed a fear of the back of our building. Apparently there was evil outside our back door and he would bark himself into a frenzy over it. He's usually a silent dog,...
I said, "Hey, Bob. It's time for back-to-school shopping and we still don't have kids." Bob replied, "Okay, good. Let's keep it that way." "Okay."
After the dog exploded in several puddles of diarrhea on the afternoon of Thursday, June 21st, I had a bad night, followed by a bad day of wondering why I'd ever agreed to get a dog. That Friday night I had a birthday party to go to. I warned the dog to keep it...
This is as close as Ozzie gets to what some dog lovers call a "smile." Usually he has a very serious face with an intense, dark stare, but that's okay because so do I. On July 4th we alternated staying in our air conditioned living room with sitting outside. Yes, the...
After decades of working through depression, personal issues and unhealthy relationships -- with people and with food -- I feel like I've come out on the other end. (See my previous post for one version of a summary of those years.) Now most days I'm in a remarkably...
My parents, my father's parents and I were born in the U.S; my mother's parents and my dad's grandparents were born in Mexico. I was raised in the very homogeneous Walnut Creek, California in the 1970s and '80s when it was very Anglo and middle class. There were...
I will not comment on this topic here, but encourage you to read about it on The Spinsterlicious Life blog. The Spinsterlicious Life discusses topics that don't get a lot of airplay at social gatherings and happy hours, such as why a woman might not want children or...
[Does this photo look like cruelty to you? It does to me.] As a new dog owner, I'm irritated by people treating their dogs like humans. American pet owners like to call our animals our "best friends" or the person we can always "talk to." But while you can talk to an...
Although it was rough at first -- very rough -- I have come to accept and feel affection for our shelter pitbull mix, Ozzie. He's cute and has turned out to be a great learner. Combine this with a woman who tends to be a diligent student and strict master and we've...
If I'd known that getting a dog would cause some people to call me its "mom," I would have hesitated even more than I did. If I had wanted to be a "mom" I would have either given birth to or adopted a child. I didn't do either of those things and I prefer not to be...