The House of Flying Monkeys

You thought there’d be something else here didn’t you?  Maybe Bigfoot?  Well, no, there’s not.  All there is is this note, telling you yet again that we’re still gone.  Yep.  Told you.  Not here.  In the wilds of Wisconsin, probably looking at a moose or something.  Or maybe even Bigfoot, but I won’t be telling you about it until Monday.  When we get back.

Anyway, since you’re a glutton for punishment, here’s something for my amusement…

Okay, so I told you already that we were gone.  And yet, here you are, back again, just checking to see if we snuck back or something, right?  I’m feeling the love, really, or the fact that you’re stalking me… they feel the same sometimes. 

But, really truly, there’s nothing to see here.  So since it’s our nation’s birthday, might I suggest that you consider getting off the intertubz, going outside and eating a hot dog, and at least considering freedom for a moment or two.  Because restraining orders can take that away you know.   And yes, I know, freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, but let’s not push that too far. 

Anyway, since you’ve gone to all the trouble of coming here and everything, I figured I could get all patriotic and cheesy and share this with you.  I’m sure you agree that this guy really has a thing for cutting the cheese, yes?  

Okay, Happy Fourth, now alla you peasants get offa da lawn!

Yep, we’re gone.  There’ll be more later.  But for now, we’re gone.  Nothing to see here.  Move along.

Okay, I’m not going away mad, I’m just going away.  For a few days.  To say goodbye to my Aunt.  We’re going to the middle of Wisconsin, about 80 miles northwest of Green Bay, to a little town by the name of Amherst, WI.  We’re planning on eating a Chicago Hot Dog, a Wisconsin Brat, and maybe even getting a Fish Fry in for good measure.  Oh and I’m sure we’ll eat some cheese… since that’s the official food of Wisconsin.  But before we can do all that, we’ve got a fifteen hour drive tomorrow and that means I’ve got to get in bed.  You know, because 3 am comes awfully early… like before God gets up I think.  As for my communication level, I’m not sure that I’ll even be twittering.  Oh heck, who am I trying to kid with that one?  I twitter just like I breathe - a lot.  But don’t expect much else, I’ll update if I can but no promises.  For sure I’ll be back on Monday with tales many and large.   Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m still trying to find a totebag that will fit all the souvenirs.  We’re planning on bringing home a cheesehead or two, a couple of Favre jerseys for the dogs, something cool and neat-o for Miss C, oh and a Waupaca Wool Sweater for the Bob.  Yep, in fact that’s the most important souvenir we’re after.  Because, according to the Bob, they make them at the foundry in Waupaca, even though I thought they made manhole covers.  Apparently I was wrong, silly me!  Anyway, I just hope they have his size in a pretty color! Maybe even pink! ;->

KTHXCYABAI!

Okay, so last week, you know, when we thought we were going camping for the weekend, I noticed that my dogs were out of Canine Advantix. So, since we were going to the woods, and since I’m allergic to fleas and not welcoming to ticks, I put this on the “To Buy” list when I went to PetsMart for dog food. Thi Thi was with me on that trip and we went together back to the Flea Treatments to check out what they had. Because, in the past, I had used Biospot with the same success as the prescription products, I decided to shop around and check out the other products available. You know, because we’re trying to cut back anywhere we can. After reading every label back there, we both decided to try the Sargent’s Sentry Pro XFC on our furry family members. Because, you know, it supposedly did everything that Advantix did, for a lot less money! Now, mind you, I am a very conscientious pet owner. In fact, most everybody familiar with my pet-rearing standards would tell you that I am almost obsessive about my canine kids. I go so far as to interview kennels, I have my pets on extremely high quality food, they don’t eat very much human food at all, I carry pet health insurance, and they are on a first-name basis with our Vet because they are in there every time I see anything unusual going on at all. In short, I chose to add these animals to our home and I feel it is my responsibility to do everything in my power to make sure that they are kept healthy and happy for their entire lives. However, today I am regretting greatly the fact that I purchased this product and really doubting myself for not first investigating this product more thoroughly prior to applying it to the dogs. Because today I was very surprised to learn that a company like Sargeant’s (a very old and well-respected pet care brand) apparently does not share my same focus on pet healthcare. Why do I say that? Well, because that new flea and tick treatment? That Sentry Pro XFC? Yeah, that stuff is horrible. In fact, in the last 24 hours we’ve figured out that this seemingly helpful product has poisoned two dogs in my and my sister’s collective households. The smallest- their Angel- was seriously affected, and the medium-sized one - our Lulu - is still dealing with the aftereffects from exposure to this product. To the point, this product is a topical poison. In fact, one of the active ingredients in this product is the same insecticide that is used in some Ant Killers. According to this site (and others) on the web, there have been dogs getting sick from this product for over two years. Further, even though Sargeant’s has been made aware of the risks and the illnesses, they are still selling this horrible product. I’m quite sure that any attorney would agree that this kind of disregard for pet health is tantamount to reckless endangerment - for animals and humans. Why humans? Well, because Bub also got a topical rash on Friday evening after spending some time playing with Lulu and her poison back stripe. So, yeah, it’s extremely dangerous for us too. Now why would it be considered okay for animals?

To recap what we’ve collectively dealt with so far, from Thursday night until today, Lulu’s personality has completely changed. She has been jumping, spasming, biting at imaginary things, licking at the air, and has been much more aggressive than I’ve ever seen her in her entire life. Also, we had some drooling over the weekend as well as obsessive licking and she’s drinking a huge amount of water. To be sure, since she was groomed on Monday she has settled down some, but we’re still seeing some after-effects and I’m taking her to the vet just in case. Now, as for Mabel, so far so good. But you have to keep in mind that Mabel is a much larger dog than Angel and Lulu, so it would take much more exposure to this poison over a much longer period of time in order for us to see any of the same effects with her. As for Angel’s side effects, you can read all about them here.

To be very clear, I am mad as hell over this. Shame on you Sargeant’s Pet Care for endangering my pets!!! These are expensive dogs that we share our lives with. We have made a large investment in them, their health, and their comfort. We have done everything we can to ensure that their lives are as long as possible and as good as they can be. WE do not unnecessarily expose them to toxic chemicals, and we very naively trusted the companies who provide us with pet care products to do the same. To find out that yet another company is not is sad. To confirm that your only focus is on the business of making as much money as possible, no matter how many pets are harmed while you do that is criminal. Simply criminal. I know I might sound obsessive here, but honestly, I cannot lab test every item that I use for or on my dogs. However, I’m not sure that there’s any other way to prevent somebody else’s shoddy production and poor product testing from killing our furry family members.

Please be aware of this product and the lack of regard that the Sargeant’s petcare family has for the health of your pet. Hopefully all of our furry kids will be okay, but you can be sure that if they are not then there will be answers sought from somebody, somewhere at the Sargeant’s company. Both my husband and I, as well as our pets, deserve to know why a large company felt it was acceptable to poison animals with a product that they require in order to live in comfort and without the risk of Heartworm disease from Mosquito bites. Do yourself a favor and check your pets, remember that almost all of the flea prevention products on the market today are basically insecticide that you are applying to your dog or cat’s skin. It does absorb into their bodies, that’s how it kills fleas and ticks. It is dangerous after enough usages. Think about that. And remember that if the product is that dangerous to your animal, then what could it do to the humans in your home if they were to be accidentally exposed to it too? The lives you save could be your own.

As my Thi Thi noted, apparently our family is now doing our own immediate circle reunions at funerals.  What a thing to wait for, right?  You’d think we could fit it in somewhere else, but because of the distance between us all it’s pretty hard to arrange.  And now that all of us have families and responsibilities and work, that just makes it harder.  But another thing struck me as odd about this.  Just a generation ago you had the wedding reunions and then you had the funeral reunions.  That used to be the order of life.  That’s how it was for my Mom’s family anyway.  So, intrigued by this realization, I sat down and started doing the math, and I realized that my family- my first cousins and my sister and I combined- have proven a statistic in the US that we read about all the time.  Yes, we are proof- as if you needed it- that people are putting off having kids until much later in life.  Because after looking over the lists, I determined that the youngest of my generation is now almost 40, but none of the next generation has turned 21.  Nobody in my generation has any babies left at home, but our kids now range in age from 9 to 20ish.  So, I guess we’ll be doing the Wedding Reunions in a few years, but meanwhile our Funeral reunions will continue.  And, yes, they are sad occasions, but we’ve had quite a few and we do them like only the Irish can.  We make the best of a bad situation and remember our lost while we still live. 

So this weekend we’ll gather together up in Wisconsin to honor the memory of one of our most fun-loving, most irreverent, and best-loved members.  The usual honors and rituals are planned, but undoubtedly we’ll spend most of the time together catching up with each other, remembering all the memories we shared as children, and again our kids will hear all the old stories.  And for the kids, that is the strangest part.  Because they see us as very old adults who couldn’t possibly have ever had any fun but when they hear all our stories they see that once upon a time, a long time ago, we too were just a bunch of kids.  Laughing, playing, loving children.  Now we’re separated by miles and years, but we’re still cousins, we’re still family.  And sometimes we’re still those same kids.  But, most importantly, just like it was when we were kids, if one of us is in need, the others will be there.  I hope all of our kids have cousins like that.  They really make life more complete.

So, in a way, the gathering of our clan to mark the sad loss of Aunt Witch is actually- in some strange way- a life affirming event for us - the living.  It’s a rare occasion for us to remember where we came from, who we are, and that we are still that most important of things - a family.   We’ll laugh and we’ll cry, and we’ll remember our collective history, a history we share only because we are family.     

Cupcake research going on today, for medicinal purposes only of course.  Yes, I know, I tried the baby cupcake versions at Magpie’s Monthly Preview yesterday, but that wasn’t nearly enough of the creamy goodness.  Oh hells noe!  Two baby cupcakes are never enough, in fact they don’t even start putting a dent in my current psychosis level, what with PMS and feeling like emotional roadkill both going on, at once.  And that’s about it right now, so hide all the firearms.  It’s mood swings like this, in fact, that make carry permits a dangerous thing.  Because of my extremely volatile state of mind right now, I would go so far as to suggest that the city close all roads into Island Home, evacuate the neighbors, and seal Casa de BobMissy under the Springfield bubble.  Um yeah.  So, for the sake of western civilization, for the immediate future I would advise you all to just throw chocolate and cupcakes at me and run.  Because today I’m pre-diva cup, and the best description of my mood is… well, it’s pretty undescribable.  Bad isn’t enough.  A bear with a sore head doesn’t even touch it.  A more apt description would be a psychotic relocated bear, armed with a bazooka, and a long list of people who drove the truck that took him to his new home.  Yeah, that’s closer, but still not quite descriptive enough. 

So, anyway, after I tasted the two little bitty sized treats, I bought a six-pack of the Super Deluxe flavors.  Yeah, I did.  Because I deserve a cupcake damnit, and nobody, not even Chuck Norris can stop me right now.  So, anyway, the flavors o’ July are: Black Forest Cake, Bananarama, and Lemon Blueberry.  And I’m really quandried over these.  Can’t decide which one’s the best.  It’s between Black Forest and Bananarama… Lemon Blueberry is a little eh for me.  Not on my second or third fave list even.  But the other two?  Very good.  Oh, none of them will ever overtake Chocolate Hazelnut, not ever.  Those taste like Ferrero Rocher with no crunchy shell.  And the Key Lime Pie?  That was amazing too.  But these two this month are very good.  And I’m thinking Bananarama, even without the chocolate cake, is going to end up being my fave.  There’s just something about a Banana Split in a cake form that you can’t turn down.  MMMMMMM! 

Wait, did I type Banana Split?  Banana Split for real?  Hey, there’s an idea!  Maybe I can get a pass to leave the bubble and go get ice cream?  Ice Cream would be good… ice cream is our friend! Hey, Marble Slab, if you’re reading this, watch out!  I’m heading your way!  I have a credit card and I’m in a bad mood, so put extra hot fudge and nuts on there please, and don’t forget the whipped cream and cherry!  I’ll bring the cupcakes!

I might survive this after all.

Well, it’s grief and grieving week here at "the house", I guess.  I know, it’s okay, you can take a pass if you just can’t take anymore maudlin.  I understand.  Death does this to me though, especially when it happens to people I love and care about.  Can’t imagine why?  Can you?  Um yeah.  Figured you might sort that one out pretty fast.  Yeah.  Anyway,   just like us, other peeps out on the intarnetz just had a weekend like we had.  I guess that’s the beauty of the online world.  No matter how fracked up your life is, somebody else either has the same thing going on or somebody else has it worse.  So, today, as I was sorting through the old feedreader, I found that That Chick Over There wrote a beautiful post about the challenge of reducing a person’s life down to a 2 X 2 obituary. 

Having had the honor of doing exactly that for EB, I can tell you from experience that the act of doing that task for someone you love is one of the hardest things you will ever do.  When EB died, I wrote all of the various obituaries that were printed for him.  I remember sitting with my laptop, on the cold Marble floor of my bathroom, in the middle of that first long night alone and writing and re-writing and re-writing, trying (and failing) to capture the essence of a life well-lived.  And making sure that my labor of love and grief would fit into a space that was far smaller than the great American novel and was costing me far more than I could buy a novel for, even if it wasn’t eligible for the members discount at Barnes & Noble.  Of course, because I do write, I would not co-opt that labor of love out to anyone else.  After all, I knew him best, and it was my place to write this final tribute to him and share the life we lived and he lived before I came into his life.   But I have to tell you that finishing that printed goodbye was truly the hardest thing I had to do for him during that first nightmarish 24 hours after he died.  I mean, really, think about what a task it is to sum up an entire life into a few sentences.  I’m pretty sure I could have done upside-down Sudoku with a blindfold with more grace and ease (and a lot less re-writes and do-overs!).  But when I finished that final paen to the man I loved more than I loved myself it was actually cathartic.  After writing those words over and over, I knew in my heart and in my mind that he was gone.  And I also knew that I had taken my first babysteps on that single width path through the forest of loss and widowhood.  The first hopscotch jump on the grid of grief - Denial - was over.  I was alone and I knew that, he was gone.

Knowing what to write there was the hard part.  How could I tell about his love for a good cigar, a cold beer, and his fondness for spending a quiet moment in the sun listening to Stevie Ray Vaughn?  How could I share his wicked sense of humor, or his sly smile when (rarely) he managed to get something over on me?  Who would know from my words who he really was? That is, other than the husband of M, the son of E & R, the brother of J, J, & C, and the Uncle of C., V., and K.  But those are just statistics, and as we all know, statistics don’t even begin to tell who we are, down deep, below the surface.  But that’s what he started from and I told that story because that’s what people are comfortable with.  But in my heart I wrote another story.  The story of the man I loved, and the story of our life, interrupted.  And my version was much better than the cold, plain statistics of his life and origins.  My story gave credit to the people who truly made him who he was.  To him for having the courage and drive to go so very far from where he started.  My story told of the trials and the successes that we shared.  And, even though I’m more than a little biased, I know that my story would win a prize, but nobody will ever get read it.  You see, it’s our story and it’s written on my heart.  And as the years pass and my life goes on, that story becomes more of my past and less of my present, but it’s still there.  Just like he is.  A reassuring part of my life that helps to tell everybody exactly who I am too.

As I write this, I am thinking of my Uncle and my cousins because they are now in the process of doing this same sad task for my Aunt.  And I know that they too are dealing with the impossibility of putting into words what a unique, treasured and well-loved person my Aunt H really was.  My other cousins have already done it for Aunt B., Uncle J., and for Uncle E.  They all know that pain already.  That overwhelming realization that you cannot capture who a person really was in 200 words or less.  All you can give are the cold hard facts.  And there’s so much more to all of us than just the facts.  But that’s all they can say.  Then they will leave it to themselves and us to write her back story.   Everybody she touched in her life will remember her, that person that they loved and lost, in their own way.  And then her family will of the magical way that the dead live on, in the stories and memories of their life that other people tell and re-tell about them.  The stories of her (and of all the dead) that other people have written on their hearts.  I’ve written a few of those on my heart already.  There are more to come.  And one day my story will be written like that.  And I only hope that everyone who loves me will say that mine was "a life well-lived".  But now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go.  I’ve got some living to do, while I still can.  More stories to write.  And I would suggest that all of you do the same.  Always remember, you can’t change the facts, but you can completely rewrite the back story, but only if you really live.

For those who don’t know yet, my Aunt Witch - Helen Bray to the rest of the world - died this morning at 6:45 cst in Marquette, MI.  As a lot of you already know from my twittering and short blogging, she collapsed on Thursday afternoon in the Grocery store, of a massive heart attack.  She was airlifted from Iron River to the medical center in Marquette and she never regained consciousness after her collapse.  After the family was apprised of the poor prognosis for her condition they removed life support yesterday.  However, Aunt Witch has always been in charge of everything, and apparently that control extended to her death.  Despite her Doctor’s dire predictions and against all odds, she lived on without life support for an additional 18 hours but she left us this morning to go to a better place. 

I really can’t write too much about this yet, but suffice to say that it’s been a very hard three days for all of us.  I can’t even imagine how hard it was for her family- my Uncle and cousins.  I feel for them especially.  I wish I could put into words how special she was, how alive, how unique.  But I can’t.  All I can say is that I miss her.  There’s a hole in my heart that’s shaped just like her.  There’s another tiny crack where my heart is breaking today for them, for me, and for her.  I loved her, but so did everyone.  She was truly one of a kind and they didn’t make many of them.  Our family only got the one, and now she’s gone.  Say a little prayer for us today.  Our lives are going on but it’s not quite the same.  One of our “Hens” is gone and although we are the better for knowing and loving her, we are much less complete for losing her. 

Life moves so fast, and then it’s gone.  She’s gone.  And I for one am glad for the clouds and gray today because they match my heart.  And the rain falls softly, just like my tears.  But I don’t cry for her, oh no.  I cry for us, because we didn’t get enough time with her, we’ve lost her quick smile and biting humor, and most importantly we’ve lost her love.  We needed that.  But it’s gone.  She’s gone.  And we didn’t even get to say goodbye. So I guess this is that goodbye.  That sad farewell.  You know we’ll always remember you.   You’re the next charm on our bracelet - an Angel - so you can keep watch over us all.  Even if you will be the snarkiest, most sarcastic Angel of all.  But, really, I’m sure God doesn’t mind.  After all, he made you like that, it’s his own fault.  In the end, I only hope that at the end of my days I am known as you are known today - a good woman, a strong woman, who loved everyone in her world with all of her heart.  It’s all I can hope for, really, to be like you.  In fact, it’s all any of us can hope for.  That we carry on a family tradition.  Women like you are what we come from.  It’s what we are, down deep, underneath it all.  Thanks for loving us.  We’ll pass that love on, and be for some child in our world what you were for us - a smile, a hug, love. 

RIP

Helen Franklin Bray - 1940 to 2008

Good Women

May we be them, may we know them, may we raise them.

“Uga VI was a damn good mascot and a damn good dog,” said Evans.