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Playing our song

[Video link to 4th Mvmt in bio. I like this particular video because the conductor speaks to me and they include captions on the words of the poem, “Ode to Joy”]. Music is a faith that lives and moves us. Sometimes listening to certain pieces at the right time, I can know love breathing inside… Read More Playing our song

September 2, 2019 Amy PallesonLeave a comment

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Just a typical visit with former shelter kitty, George, who is so loving and sweet that I can’t help but dress like him. He’s my hero. #calneva adoptdontshop #sheltercat #saltlakecity

A certain amount of anxiety is normal over the course of a human life and with what I do for a living, I see it a lot. For it is normal and expected to feel anxiety when you are leaving the comfort zone of your pets and your home. Additionally, I’m personally quite familiar with anxiety because people close to me have to live with it to where they could have easily become a tragic statistic had we not gotten them treatment. Mental health treatment is often woefully misunderstood when in reality it’s an aspect of functioning in which our overall health can come to be significantly better than what we’ve “settled for.” Because we often don’t even realize that to cope with our daily life—our feelings, our baseline anxieties and other experiences—we often settle for unhealthy coping skills which can lead to serious problems, dysfunctional Interactions with self/others, depression and just plain malaise. Anyways, I’m bringing this up because I’m noticing some of this behavior in people whose animals I’ve been tending for many years. And its frankly getting awkward. I understand anxiety and it doesn’t faze me because it’s normal and I don’t have a thin skin BUT I’ve been getting into text sessions with a few people that have made me want to put this out there. Yesterday for instance, I moved the litter box out of that flooding bathroom—asking beforehand where I should move it because another text session with her made me very concerned—only to be questioned on why I did that even though she told me 10 min before where to move it. A few days before, the same person told me I should offer medical exams to be a better business because her cat could die if it got a urinary blockage; I told her I’m not qualified to diagnose and would instead take him to the ER if he was showing the signs, which is when she googled about blockages, and after realizing I’d have to take him to the vet anyways if I suspected one, told me her cat had never actually had one. Two examples in one family but a very good indication of how far it can go. The thing about anxiety is that the one enduring it can be a wonderful person but because they can’t see through their...

Pro Tip: If you ever have a choice between standing on a ladder and taking two screws out for a heavy panel sodden with 2 gallons of water from a busted valve or standing under that panel and holding aloft the two trash cans that along with your head, clothes, body and shoes will catch the water as it drips off of the ceiling panel, choose “ladder”. [This is not my first time experiencing walking into a house and being triggered by the unmistakable and very unwanted sound of dripping water. The first time was in 2012, and I walked in on a refrigerator line that had busted on a split level home where my first view as I walked in was the waterfall that had been cascading down into the finished basement making little tide pools of water surrounding all of their stuff. Then after getting the water shut off, I carried out all the stuff I could to their covered patio to try to save it because the families insurance company couldn’t get a crew in there until the next day] EDIT: this is the home of a family I’m sitting for currently and we caught it before it became a crisis. If I had arrived an hour later, it would’ve been a huge problem so: shout out to good timing. Also, the building manager had just left for the day (I saw him in his office on my way up to the condo( he was gone 5 minutes later; found/called his phone number and v/m wasn’t set up—grrr) but the family had another number and the building repair person was still at work so as far as crises go, it really kind of wasn’t.

Pic 1: All I was trying to do was make a sound with my mouth to get Penny (backseat) to look at the camera so I think this proves that not only is God a comedian but also very possibly a dog. #saltlakecity (Mildred and Penny)

“A box is missing? Weird. What does it look like?” #saltlakecity (Indy Is my ex-husband’s dog who stayed with us for six months in 2012 while he went to officer training back East and he was still a puppy and chased our cats and it was stressful and the whole thing but this same sweet German Shepherd now moves his way into middle/old age so next time your dog misbehaves—having perhaps what we humorously called here “a cardboard party”—maybe try to embrace the chaos as a sign of their inescapable enthusiasm that can redefine our whole perspective on life. Because I actually just found this picture on my daughters old computer and remembering the stress of that day and knowing he’s the same sweet guy who tries and makes mistakes (just like all of us) made me see that sometimes what feels like chaos are the temporary and unimportant things loudly up in our face that challenge us to keep a clearer sight so as to bear witness to a creature who isn’t yet aware that cardboard doesn’t taste like chicken)

“I’m concerned about this clique you’re in with the vet. She says ‘Ginger needs to go on a diet’ and you just jump, like it’s all you can think about. Like you’ve got absolutely no self-respect.” #saltlakecity (Ginger is committed to obesity to where it’s almost inspiring. EDIT; Sorry, I had to write more of course: Ginger is obviously very sweet and loving but there is a little bit of mafia in there and she knows how to get things done. The other afternoon, autumn had clearly descended and I hadn’t brought a coat so when we went in her backyard, it was Ginger, myself, my favorite sweater that I recently managed to save from my cats’ barf [Nice try, guys] and a lot of miserable cold raininess. And when Ginger really wants a treat, she will refuse to leave my side and that’s what she was doing so I took one for the team and walked out from under the patio overhang into the wet grass and rain to try to lure her out to go potty. And she followed me partway, while I continued on to a tree for some cover and there we remained—me under a dripping tree and her having cast aside any requirement to stay dry and parking herself right in the middle of the uncovered lawn—in what was essentially a standoff. Because she just sat there, in the middle of the lawn—not going pee, unbothered by the rain—and both of us knew that if I made one step towards her/the house/the dry patio, she’d turn around and truck it to the door to go inside for her treat. And so while my canvas shoes got soaked and my not-thick-enough sweater got wet, she sat there in the rain and looked around with a face like you see here, as if saying “had enough yet? Because I could literally do this all day” at which point, I made my move to go in the house and get her a treat.)

[I don’t indulge in subjecting this account to the writing of my other but today I will make an exception in honor of the history we all share. Pic of myself on the Empire State Building, 12/1999, newspaper pics from 9/12/2001, purchased in Reno] Eighteen years ago to the day, my ex-h, James, and I were in Reno. We’d driven the 8 hours with our then-2 year and 10 month old daughters, Julia and Livy, to combine James’ business trip with a visit with my mom, who’d driven from California to meet us. Courtesy of my sleepless daughters, we were awake early that morning in our Nugget hotel room with the TV on, and when the South Tower started crumbling it looked—at first--like an innocent puff of dust from one small area high-up. And I can remember thinking the very same thing that Katie Couric(?) was saying: What is that? “What is that?” And by the end of that day, America knew what it was and we huddled around collective vulnerabilities, humbled by a hatred wherein lives were erased because of the invented reality of zealotry. That day in Reno, my daughters played at a park that had well-tended equipment placed in a garden setting with those little animals on springs that go back and forth and that spinny thing where you sit on a platform and hold onto bars to revolve into sickness. And while my daughters smiled and laughed, mom and I straddled the two incompatible worlds of children squealing from idyllic fun and people holding hands as they jumped to their deaths, and when we returned home to Salt Lake City the next day, I held Livy in her bedroom in the calm of night, crying quietly as I rocked her from the grief of knowing the world we’d all just relinquished. But even from darkness there does yet come light. For into 18 years flew wisdom. That people died that day comforting each other, that heroes ran up endless staircases they could barely even see to save the lives of strangers, and that human beings perished in a field in PA because they offered their own life to try save others from harm. And that grief and hate could write such stories of humans living ideals far above what any of us might believe we’re capable of allows us to...

Ladybugs. (Our LadyBug and her ladybug) [Not a day goes by that my daughters and I don’t experience the sense of completion and home as a result of our ‘Bug’s March adoption. These pics were taken yesterday afternoon and I could share way too many more to even be interesting to anyone but I don’t have the extra lifetime or so to offer the searching of the 33,000 pics on my phone since they aren’t organized (so may the universal benevolence that steps in to assist charmingly-eccentric(?) souls who are out.of.freaking.control as diagnosed via camera app do its thing—anyone? anyone?). And anyways like Livy (aka, Olivia, my youngest) said yesterday, the second pic with her teeth showing is like her school picture—where they say smile and of course you do because they’ve got those big lights poised like weaponry—so in essence I’m sharing exactly what needs to be shared with the world to be considered a responsible grandparent and also: “yes; she had a good first day; thank you for asking.” But really: this dog is smart—picks up on cues; integrates her behavior in response to our human-centric schedules, demands, feelings, etc—and sweet and the love we feel and see back from her is a palpable entity that I’m not sure I’ve ever been aware enough to see elsewhere. And perhaps that’s because Lady is technically Julia’s dog (my oldest) so I’m watching the experience relatively free of the responsibility and can lean into it differently but regardless, I offer my sincerest gratitude to @rescuerovers for saving this girl from the streets and offering her back to humanity. She is a gift we open daily (not coincidentally of course at the same time as the Camera app) and without you, she’d be just another nameless death. Many thanks in fact to all who work in rescue. While such endeavors are often the baring of the soul into the deepest of all griefs it is also the most intense love anyone could offer. And for that, may we all honor you. For YOU are the gentle heart that is showing a new world how to beat]. #saltlakecity @rescuerovers

“And we had to have a reality check because they got irritated when I woke them up in the middle of the night to feed me so I was like ‘guys, just stop for a second and listen to what you’ve become.’” [ALT CAPTION couldn’t decide; shorter always seems better but not always: “And they got irritated I had to wake them up in the middle of the night so I was like ‘guys, maybe you should stop and listen to what you’ve become’”. ‘Cause while I don’t personally take the high road, I know a lot of folks who’d be better people if they did. Like: A LOT.”] #saltlakecity (Midnight)

“Our lesson today is: You’ve got to make healthy choices. Like when you see an orange-buff cat, you can either make space for yourself—right there, like right in their damn face—or spend the days barfing in your own mouth from their insufferable sanctimony.” #saltlakecity (in the foreground is Trouble who is kind of a scene stealer and in the background is Jazzy; When Jazzy was receiving across-room adoration from me this morning, I think Trouble was kind of feeling that being born an orange/buff cat was quite enough adoration for one lifetime because he moved into this position and started cleaning)

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