your vote vs. the courts

Why is it that the Republicans are all up in arms about the courts over-ruling state votes on gay marriage, that the courts should not be able to override the vote of the people, this is what I keep hearing them say on the radio. That the people have spoken and the courts should not have the power to override that vote. Now, correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that EXACTLY how GW got in to office? How come no one is pointing this out to them when they say these things in public, to the interviewers, on radio and TV and in the press? Seems elementary to me...

Oh my God, I won!

Ok, background. My english 1A teacher encouraged me to enter an essay contest(I have returned to school after 20 years). I had written an essay assignment about the ratty collars I keep around the house to use on my foster dogs. He felt it was good enough to submit, so I did. The deadline for announcing the winners came and went without me hearing anything, so I figured oh well. It was the first essay I'd written in like 20 years and the only writing contest I'd ever entered so what did I expect anyway. Got a call last night, I am one of the top 4 honors winners. So, encouraged by my friend Julie (No Fancy Name) I am posting the essay in my blog.


Collars and Tags

This worn, dirty collar with its dull, scratched brass tag represents atonement. I’m not sure what I’m striving for is technically a past sin, but to my way of thinking it represents something I need to set right.

Four years ago I started volunteering for a local animal rescue. My work with rescue dogs (homeless dogs in search of a new family) is at least in part to make up for my work at animal shelters. In this time, I have fostered and found homes for nearly 60 dogs and 4 cats. Each one of these animals has stayed in my home until the rescue could find it the right home. If we were wrong, they would come back to our homes. I recycle my old collars and I recycle the unwanted puppies and dogs. Dogs that I foster wear the recycled collars and tags while they are waiting for their permanent homes, for a family to value them more than the last family did. They are the ones that have been cast off by their owners. I want to give these little guys a second chance. A chance that perhaps thousands of other animals didn’t get, because at the shelter I was doing my job. I did a very good job, even from their perspective. You could say, most importantly from their perspective. Each one got a hug and an apology because I truly felt sorry that they ended up with me instead of a cozy spot by the fire. I truly felt it was my responsibility to make it as quick and painless as possible, emotionally as well as physically. There was surely enough fear and confusion in their eyes without me adding to it.

This second chance is one the shelters had even said no to. These are the puppies and dogs that are too shy, too timid, too old, or not socialized well enough. They are the ones that approach slowly or not at all. They sit at the backs of their cages; too afraid to take a chance on those of us who walk by and stare in through the bars. They have been hurt before either by human actions or inaction, and they simply cannot muster the nerve to try again. By these very acts of self-preservation they show themselves to be unsuitable for adoption, and so they are marked for euthanasia. Euthanasia is supposed to provide a humane death. I suppose next to starving to death or bleeding to death, it is more humane. They will be put to sleep (that’s what euthanasia is called in the companion animal trade) if a rescue group doesn’t come along with a little space to give them a second chance.

When I worked for the Humane Society, everyone in the kennels was required to work one day per week in euthanasia. In that one day, you had to put to sleep about 200 cats, 50 to 75 dogs, and various rabbits, chickens and wildlife. There would be good days, when the numbers were lower, but for the most part you averaged 300 animals in a day. If you worked just one day per week in euthanasia like they required, that came out to 1200 animals a month, or over 14,000 animals a year for just one team of two people. Many weeks I worked 2 and 3 days in there because the supervisor thought that my partner and I were the best at what we did. We took it personally. We interacted with each animal. We were fast and efficient, and ultimately humane in our actions and deeds. We felt we owed it to those animals to be in there as long as we could stand it. In some cases we were the most peace that poor animal had known in its short, painful life. You knew that the most peace they felt was being put to sleep by someone that would hold them tight, give them a hug and speak gently to them as they fell asleep, as though each one was our beloved pet. Eventually you run out of tears, but you don’t run out of the feelings.
I did society's dirty work as long as I could. One day I walked away and never went back. Don’t misunderstand me. I regret that what I did before had to be done, but I do not regret that I had to do it. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else. Although it was an unpleasant thing to have to do—to say the least—I still feel that I gave each one of them more of myself than someone else might have. I simply ran out of the part of me that could keep it in perspective, or that could argue the good side of what I was doing.

I know for sure it will never leave me. Twenty years later it sits on the horizon like a black cloud just waiting to roll in with its storm. This time, I make my trips back to the shelter for a different reason. I go in and find some poor little pup, huddled in the back of one of the cages just waiting for something to make its nightmare disappear, and I scoop it up and take it home. We work on the basics, which includes helping it feel OK being held, petted, brushed, fed and being inside the house. It takes such a small amount of positive interaction to start turning the little guys around, developing some security and confidence. Pretty soon you can’t get them to stop climbing on you, running after you, licking your face and “asking” for playtime. It’s amazing how forgiving their little hearts can be. I have helped make the nightmare go away for them, and they for me. Each time I can take one of these little guys and make it OK for them, find them a good home and promise to be there for them if they need me, I atone just a little bit for the darkness in the past. They go on to a new home, with a new collar and tag while I recycle the old one for the next recycled dog. In some way I have tipped the scales a bit closer to in balance.

personal space, please.

I don't get it. I used to think personal space was a universal, human thing. We all had our "bubble" about arms length around us where others did not tread unless invited. Those close to us could get a bit closer, like whisper close, and then the real close was reserved for very special few. Later, as I spent part of my life in lines in the SF Bay Area it seemed that my space was getting crowded more often. Mostly it seemed to be little asian women that didn't speak english. Given that they were new to America, I decided personal space was an American or European thing and adjusted myself to try to not get too irritable. Maybe it isn't a human thing, maybe it's a cultural thing. You can't be upset with someone if they don't know. Still freaked out and feel imposed upon yes, but that's my thing not theirs.

This theory has eroded over time. I now have no idea where I ever got the idea we were entitled to personal space because any time I'm in public someone invades it. Clearly I was mistaken, I could have SWORN I heard about it in school but I must have imagined it. Yesterday I was nearly speechless. I couldn't say what I wanted to say but I did manage to choke out "excuse me" in my state of disbelief. I was standing in line to order lunch, leaving the required space in front of me so as not to crowd the person ahead of me in line, when I felt someone brushing up against my back. I shifted a little but did not move forward because that would 1. crowd the person in front of me and 2. take up my own breathing room in front. Then I feel someone actually step up in place behind me, front against my back, as though to whisper in my ear from behind - "whisper close" but I had not brought a friend with me to lunch. After I pulled myself together and verified they weren't going to shift back out of position I turned my head, because that was all I could turn without being intimate, and said "excuse me?!"(there is no way to accurately convey my tone with simple punctuation) and the grey haired woman said "oh I'm sorry" like she didn't even realize she had nearly morphed in to my place in line.

I am still trying to figure out if I am over sensitive, they have no boundaries what so ever, or I am actually invisible and it has nothing to do with personal space. There is evidence to support that theory as well but that would be another time and another story...

political emails

I am very disturbed by people sending me their political emails. Not the random "support our candidate" emails but the ones from friends and associates that feel compelled to include me in their email list and forward me things like what a wonderful job GW is doing and how under appreciated he is. I do not send them emails asking them to support views I know are not theirs, I do not send them emails that I find humorous based on my political views, that I know would offend them. I don't get up on my political soapbox and preach to them, why must they feel compelled to preach at me? I know it might be important to try to change some peoples minds, but you don't do that by forwarding aggressive emails, you do that by sending factual emails if you must send emails. Personally I only forward those things on to like minded individuals. I'm not big on political confrontation.

Obviously I just got an email. It was forwarded to me by someone I like, however I know our views are very different. I don't send her emails pointing out how lame our current president is, how corrupt he is, how inept he is. I do not feel like I should have to get emails going on about how we should be behind GW in the war in Iraq regardless of the reasons he gave for getting us there, an email that goes on about how Michael Moore's documentary has been all but disproved by the 9/11 committee - hello, what report did you read!? And, I do not like being treated like sheep. If Bush wanted a war in Iraq over the way Saddam was treating the citizens then I may well have signed on for that(although since he didn't give two sh!ts about California during our energy crisis I'm not out of reasons to not support him either). But you don't get to play that card AFTER you drove us to war using the 9/11 conspiracy theory. And another thing, just how does presenting the images of completely anonymous flagged draped coffins returning from Iraq invade privacy? We do not know what individuals are in them and we are not invading a private family service. It is not an invasion of any privacy, it is this administrations way of keeping a human face off of the hard numbers of US soldiers deaths.

Just once I would like to see some more people think for themselves rather than spouting the party line. Do you honestly think GW is doing a good job? Were you living in the same state as me? The same country? How many people do you know that have the same job they did 3 years ago? Are you not hearing more about the whole energy crisis manipulation that GW's buddies ran on us? I would like all of the Republicans that are supporting Bush to ask themselves what they are first, an American or a Republican? Personally I am first an American, second a Californian and third sick and tired of being lied to and manipulated by politicians, be they whatever party. Engage your brains people, open your eyes, hell if necessary ask yourself what you'd feel if he were a Democrat - maybe then you'd give yourselves an honest answer.

oh where has she gone?

I volunteer with a non-profit animal rescue. I foster dogs, I am on the board, I maintain the website, and with the leaving of our Treasurer (sometimes referred to as our "treasure") for the Lone Star State I am now the new best friend of the Dog Team Leader. Don't get me wrong, I like her a lot and couldn't do half the fostering she does/has done, but where oh where has my "treasure" gone? I kid you not, I had 5 calls in a 6 hour period yesterday. It got to the point where I yelled "not again" when the phone rang before I even looked at the caller ID. Granted, I had a major headache and was also trying to study for a midterm the next day, but still. I don't know if our "treasure" actually got all those calls or if it's just that now I get her half as well. Either way, I think her husband should quit that job and they should get their little butts back where they belong, where they were doing some good, where they were making a difference in our lives. Got to go, the phones ringing...