Birthday Presents to Self

RantWoman’s birthday is in July.  RantWoman realizes it is possibly childish still to feel entitled to birthday presents in OCTOBER. Cope! Feel free to hold in Light and scroll to some other flavor of content.

 

Late-breaking news: part of RantWoman’s birthday present to herself is to name the following points:

 

--RantWoman is not just going on and on about pets and Little Sister’s household to be self-indulgent. RantWoman sees patterns and needs to test the patterns various ways.

 

--It’s October. A whole bunch of ghosts are muddling back and forth between worlds. Cope.

 

--Little Sister tells the whole bus her life when it suits her. Rant Woman rides some of the same bus routes and sees this. RantWoman also sees a lot of the crap that happens to Little Sister and her wheelchair on the bus. RantWoman sometimes more hears than sees: RantWoman lives earlier on shared routes than Little Sister and counts herself luck sometimes to get a seat facing forward out of the “courtesy area” with all the wheelchairs and shopping cart s and…

                Anyway, Little Sister who tells the whole bus her life recently told RantWoman to shut up in a way that only confirmed RantWoman’s concerns for RantMom and less so for Irrepressible Nephew and his dad. Then there would be echoes of moments from teenage RantFamily years when people not talking about big things was damaging to everyone. SOME circumstances are different and there Is this sister dance: RantWoman can see that about SOME things Little Sister is trying to do things really differently than the RantParents did. But for other points, NOT SO MUCH. So think of this long verbose exercise as RantWoman being true to her Ligh, refusing to shut up and, before she hands it off to God, trying at least to be sparklingly clear about what all she is handing off to God.

 

--A few things recently have caused RantWoman to reflect on the flow of things being VERY out of control medically and otherwise for Little Sister. Some of this RantWoman has been around to watch and that has been really, really hard sometimes. Some of the time RantWoman has also had really intense things going on and has not really asserted that around Little Sister. Now, thanks to LOTS of people including RantMom, brother in Law and sundry medical and mental health professionals, things being MUCH better but still very fragile. Plus Irrepressible Nephew is a TEENAGER and his father is approximately as much at sea as ever.

 

--Little Sister and RantWoman have this together / pull apart thing going on. We have had it our whole lives. Ask either of us about sharing a bedroom, or not, both when we had to and when we did not have to. As adults, we seem at times to magically summon parts of each other’s lives that we might rather not have to pull out and look over at any particular moment. More lurid details available but pets are probably sufficient for now.

 

--Little Sister recently had (ANOTHER) surgery, this time for rotator cuff issues. This surgery is not as intense as several things that have happened to Little Sister, but the surgery and recovery involve some specific points of concern at least in terms of what RantWoman observes.

 

--Little Sister shares with RantWoman various points of concern about Irrepressible Nephew and some of the circumstances he hangs out in, not to mention the dreaded topic of SCHOOL. Little Sister is the Mom, and Little Sister seems to be impervious to information RantWoman acquires in the course of her own activity. RantWoman does not necessarily care whether the info gets used but does think listening would be a really good place to start.

 

--Both Little Sister and RantMom are sharing with RantWoman concerning points and indications that a particular situation has some points of strain.  RantWoman is doing the best she can to encourage RantMom to speak in appropriate channels, but RantMom currently sounds so cowed and frantic about a couple topics that RantWoman figures she will keep doing the same “things are working fine, fine, fine” thing she is really good at. Plus Little Sister is actually WAY better at some forms of help such as helping RantMom navigate health care than RantWoman is. Would RantMom be any good at calling in reinforcements? Ummm, she has a computer god godsend from her church, who helps a lot on that front but…

 

--RantWoman’s life currently abounds with people blithely stepping on all sorts of RantWoman emotional landmines by exhibiting exactly the same behaviors that put the landmines there in the first place. Often enough it is entirely reasonable to ask people to STOP the behaviors. Hold that point in the Light.

 

Now, time for some Pet Matter

This year, RantWoman’s birthday brought tidings other than the unmitigated appreciation to which RantWoman feels entitled. RantWoman thanks readers in advance for bearing with the whole telenovela segment; RantWoman also blesses anyone who thinks they should just go watch something written by professional writers. RantWoman promises no commercials at least!

 

First, even though it was RantWoman’s birthday, Little Sister took up much of the family communications energy. Little Sister got released from the hospital after her latest adverse interaction with gravity. Coming home entailed much conversation about new and old hospital bed, new an old wheelchair, sundry other details RantWoman may decide to massage separately. Whine.

 

Second, Mr. Nasturtiums in Salad Friend, aka Trombone and Deliberately Mismatched Socks Friend picked RantWoman’s birthday to decamp to other realms. RantWoman does not want to hold spirits in this realm a second longer than they are supposed to be here, but this Friend’s departure is not the sort of present RantWoman would have asked for.

 

An actual present from RantMom came weeks later.

 

This post is RantWoman’s present to herself. Please hold the need to do that in the Light along with the entire cast of telenovela figures.

 

RantWoman hereby acknowledges both gratitudes and rather pointed birthday presents to self in the form of telling history from RantWoman’s point of view in HOPES of getting to points that RantWoman can deliver unto Little Sister whether or not Little Sister will…

 

First gratitudes in the form of appreciating RantMom’s interactions with mail order.

 

--At Christmas RantMom gave RantWoman the most wonderful muzzy 100% acrylic sweater. RantWoman would be predisposed not to be crazy about acrylic but RantMom did not pretend it was anything else. The color is lovely and unobtrusive. The sweater is soft and roomy with sleeves that are long enough. RantWoman has been completely charmed. RantWoman has been completely charmed even though the buttons have one by one been losing their matching fabric button covers. RantWoman actually does not really care whether the buttons are self fabric or the white under structure; it’s having some of each that screams low-end mail order in a way that RantWoman has decided not even to apologize for. Thanks you RantMom.

 

RantMom did equally well at RantWoman’s birthday. RantMom asked. RantWoman conceded that some of her sleepwear is too far along the road to rags even for RantWoman. RantWoman said Sleep wear, same mail order as everyone goes to. RantMom SCORED, new sleepwear that both is longer and has sleeves that are long enough for RantWoman. So thanks you again RantMom!

 

Now, in flagrant display of wretched excess, RantWoman’s gift to herself

 

Awhile ago RantWoman penned the following reflection about a civic festivity that occurred on RantWoman’s birthday this year.

http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2014/07/kittyhall-thank-you-letter-and-morality.html

At the time, even though a whole giant parade of other Little Sister pet sagas showed up, RantWoman decided that talking only about cats and hamsterama would be enough. RantWoman’s birthday present to herself is to give into the temptation to go on at even greater length. Think of this post as an invitation to bingewatch the whole saga. Again, no commercials at least.

 

In between the Queen of Meow and her brother and the matter of hamstrama and also therafter, among the pet moments in Little Sister’s household:

 

--101 Dalmatians returned to the silver screen. Little Sister and her Husband wer e enchanted with Dalmatians. First came Delila, then awhile later Samson. Samson turned out to be deaf and went back to the breeder to be replaced by Nerón. Somewhere in here Little Sister nad Husband moved to a real house with a yard. Then dogs became adult and somehow Husband also thought they needed a Rottweiler.

Muñeca the already adult Rottweiler, aka Muñeca the Rottweiler lapdog,  came to live with the Dalmatians, about the time Delila also had puppies or maybe a little before. Little Sister realized belatedly that three adult dogs and a litter of puppies was Just TOO MUCH. At the time RantBrother was living in the basement of RantWoman and Ferrener Husband’s abode. RantBrother expressed interest in adopting Muñeca; RantWoman, aka Sucker Landlady agreed even though that meant that some of the time the Rottweiler lapdog might be on a long leash outdoors.

The dog really was a sweetheart about that and also about visitationsfrom the Queen of Meow who would sometimes lurk in the dog’s vicinity but just out of reach of the long chain. At numerous points, RantWoman found herself very grateful that brother and Rottweiler had each other; for various difficult reasons RantWoman does not want to comment further about Muñeca and RantBrother.

 

Back to Little Sister: RantWoman recalls considerable murkiness about training of puppies and new homes before Little Sister and husband hightailed it off to Guatemala. This narrative I only about pets, not about everything that happened between that trip to Guatemala, returns to Seattle and for Husband back to Guatemala and finally back to Seattle, and current pet matters so fast forward:

 

Little Sister and Nephew’s Father conceived nephew. Then Father went back to Guatemala and Little Sister was a single mom living in places where pets were not feasible for a couple years, like maybe 4+.

 

Cue the goldfish and a very exuberant preschooler. Bless the souls of several goldfish who gave their lives teaching Irrepressible Nephew  that goldfish really do not like to be petted, no matter how much Irrepressible Nephew liked to try to pet them. At some point Irrepressible Nephew developed interest in and capacity for more appropriate pet maintenance. Irrepressible Nephew is also really persistent in his desires; RantWoman would also say his mother finds it easy to go overboard anyway.

 

As much of the roster as RantWoman remembers:

Goldfish,

 Some other kind of fish

 Some saltwater fish in a separate vessel

 An ant farm

 A fire belly toad contributed by one of Little Sister’s caregivers who thought another cage was exactly what a household already full of trip and fall hazards needed!

 Some frogs

 Two guinea pigs, one of whom RantWoman thinks may still be resident. The guinea pig eats kale; sometimes the nephew does too. The guinea pig also bears with more petting than goldfish would.

 The hamster population explosion that starred in the hamsterama blog post above

 Some axolotls who may still be resident

 

Two ball pythons that abruptly had to be given away as wild animals

 Frozen mice to feed the ball pythons, technically dead so not pets but part of the pet circus.

 Two bearded dragons

 Some crested geckos that also eventually found new homes after Little Sister’s housing agency reminded Little Sister that the number of pet habitats far exceeded the number permitted on their lease. That reminder arrived awhile ago and RantWoman is unsure which 5 containers plus Wonder Chihuahua now reside at Little Sister’s house.

 Various things above eat crickets so the menagerie also includes crickets to feed them.

 Something above ate a particular breed of presumably delectable high-protein cockroaches. One day on the Sunday bus road to religion, Irrepressible Nephew informed RantWoman that the cockroaches were fit to feed the President! Please note: no one has any intention of getting close enough to the President to offer him cockroaches, but should he be interested…

 

Remember the dog Little Sister wanted to adopt after the Hamsterama episode? Hamsterama meant that instead of getting a dog at the Animal Shelter, Little Sister and her family got Wonder Chihuahua the Therapeutic canine presence from Craigslist. Some medical or mental health professional has certified that a dog would be a Therapeutic Canine Presence. This which is why Wonder Chihuahua got to join the household despite the no dogs clause in the family’s lease.

RantWoman is sort of a sorehead about many things to do with service dogs. Currently RantWoman tries to avoid too many opportunities to bite her tongue in public. Wonder Chihuahua and his boy have charmed RantMom sufficiently that when Nephew overnights with Grandma or when RantMom gets her children together to feed them, Wonder Chihuahua usually comes along. Even RantWoman admits he is an engaging beast. Plus he takes up a lot less space than two Dalmatians and a Rottweiler. Also, the need to walk the hound is sometimes an excellent defuser for various flavors of tensions that boil up from nuclear family interactions.

 

Care of the menagerie, even the comparatively constrained menagerie currently resient consumes LOTS of family energy.

 Irrepressible Nephew and his father do bilingual pet care and two-way vocabulary acquisition. Nephew’s father also helps hold the line about No New Pets or NoNew Pets without proper ways to care for them or … RantWoman considers this pattern much more positive than other patterns that make her regularly want to mumble phrases like “bilingual social worker” an Bicultural parenting support. Enough said for now.

 

Irrepressible Nephew and Little Sister and sometimes nephew’s father spend a lot of time going to an from to pet stores for crickets. The family are good customers. Little Sister an Irrepressible Nephew are good at schmoozing up the staff so that extra crickets or opportunities to display one of the lizards come along from time to time. One of the standard particularly low-cost cricket selling destinations also offers Irrepressible Nephew a work opportunity to clean their salt water tanks in exchange for pieces of coral.

 

That’s the up side. The downside: the cheap cricket store is two bus rides from home and one is a suburban express. Irrepressible is (RantWoman editorializing: FINALLY) learning to do single route rides but the cricket and coral store is too far to send him alone. Little Sister an Irrepressible Nephew spend a lot of Saturdays on expeditions to the pet store. Lately Little Sister has been laid up after (ANOTHER) surgery so RantMom has been helping facilitate these journeys.

 

Please bear with another RantWoman is a sorehead digression. RantWoman used to work nearby and also knows that there is a big ugly high-traffic, serious pedestrian challenge intersection between the Park and Ride where the bus stops and the pet store. Irrepressible Nephew probably finds it easy to cross. Little Sister fights off every RantWoman effort to ensure that she and her wheelchair can be seen in traffic. She’s a grownup. Grumble.

 

And then there is RantMom. RantMom has a hearing loss that is getting really frustrating, especially in traffic. RantMom has eye issues that she takes care of with serious wraparound shades. These give her a certain Speed Racer look, but RantWoman is not prepared to evaluate how they affect her interactions with traffic. RantMom recently was complaining about a short pedestrian signal. And about telling irrepressible Nephew just to go ahead!

 

Time running out on this telenovela segment. What would RantWoman like to happen at least about the pet store expeditions?

 

--Could Brother in Law be the chaperone? Do not get RantWoman started about Little Sister’s household bus issues.

 --RantWoman will if given a chance speak to Nephew: Look, keep an eye on Grandma about that ugly intersection, PLEASE.

 

--Could Irrepressible Nephew get crickets closer even though they are more expensive for awhile. RantWoman would be happy to rant about the value of people’s time but the list of rant options is already too long.

 

--Could we just point out that ONE difference between Auntie and Grandma is what the tyke will get away with?

 

--RantWoman could just STFU. Look if RantWoman were succeeding about that, there would be no need for the blog. Please if you have made it this far, just hold the problem in the Light.