Ten Things Tuesday

1. Started my new teaching gig and I love it! Ok, got some work to do to get these kids to relax and be a little less reticent when it comes to sharing and critiquing, but we have time.  Like, 16 weeks.
2. I came home with a writing sample from each student, so I can [...]

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Let it not be bedbugs

Today I am having some difficulty focusing on my lesson plans for my college comp classes I begin teaching this week.
I’m trying not to scratch holes in my body, like I did to mosquito bites when I was a kid.
Something’s eating me at night. I’ve been getting bitten on and off for 6 weeks.
Having done [...]

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From purity rings to the shoe conversation

When I was about 16, my mother brought my twin sister and me into the kitchen and showed us the drawer in the counter that she had filled with condoms. We were to use them, to be safe and sensible, and to know that we knew we could come to her with any questions [...]

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Ten Things Random Tuesday

1. Do you have a sick book? You know, the book that unflaggingly buoys your fevered mind or achey body as you lie there, feeling pathetic in bed? I have several, but this time, I reached for one of my all time favorites, Sunshine, by Robin McKinley, because its witty and inventive conversational style completely [...]

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Brief and lovely family reunion

After a long drive from Ottawa yesterday, we’re home.  Seeing the kids was incredible and I’m happy to report that despite the constantly psychotic sunny/rainy/windy/cloudy weather extravaganza they are also experiencing 9 hours away, they have been having a great summer. And, they’ve grown in the three weeks it had been since they’d stood next [...]

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Going North to see my babies

Nope, they’re not babies, but I need to squish them. Nibble a little. Get regaled with camp stories, eye rolls, pleas for protein that is NOT chicken, and other good food. Let them shower in actual consistently hot water and sleep in a real bed with no mosquito netting.
We spoke to the girls last night [...]

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Rest in Peace, my friend

(image credit)
Shem is at peace.
Last night when my husband came home from work earlier than he was supposed to, Shem gathered strength and managed, despite being incapable of walking,  to get off his pillows and out of his crate to greet him. Bob gathered Shem onto his lap and then sat stroking him for about [...]

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Sad Things Tuesday

Last evening, it became increasingly apparent that Shem had reached the point where any further efforts to bring him back from the brink were moot. The decline we’ve seen in the last 24 hours is dramatic.  Aside from refusing to drink, or eat, he avoids the bathroom where Bob had been force feeding him, and [...]

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Fighting for Shem

So we spoke to a holistic vet (she isn’t taking new patients) around here – she only called Bob back this morning ( after receiving the detailed medical file yesterday and a request for a consultation) because a colleague of Bob’s just happened to have brought her dog to this DVM at 8, who asked [...]

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Thursday, and all is wellish

This is what the sky looked like when we brought Shem home from the hospital last Friday, turbulent and dramatic, intense and colorful, menacing and real.  When the sun shines, Shem prefers to be outside. He is, after all, a desert dog, a Kelev C’Naani, or Canaan, and his nature is to crave the heat [...]

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