Pound Pup

There are three dogs in this home. Their origin stories all sad, but they seem quite happy now. The latest addition went straight from the pound to the vet and then came home, last Thursday. Completely unexpected. I didn't feel overwhelmed the way I usually do when I adopt a pup. Maybe because this time I have all she needed and didn't have to make any purchases. She sleeps a lot and needs to sleep a lot torecover from what looks like a rough life. She was shaking so badly at the pound that I thought she was having a seizure.

 
I assumed she was tagged by one of the rescue groups in town because she was a surrender. As it turned out, the rescue groups didn't want her. That was the second I felt incredible sadness and decided to take her. She looked so bad and sick already and the hot days were not going to bring her any closer to health. She would fail to thrive and be euthanized at 4 years old. If she was going to die, I wanted her to pass away loved. I took a chance on her, hoping she was healthy enough to recover.

 
Her ears were shredded and filthy. The vet said she had an ear infection and after two weeks of medications, she would be just fine. Otherwise, the complete blood panel, x-ray and parasite work up came back great. She will be spayed once she is declared completely healed.

 
I wanted to get her groomed right away but was advised to wait. She was sprayed with Febreze and you could see where patches of fur were cut out, possibly how her ears were cut. She is in pain, can't touch her ear. I hope it all heals up soon. She's incredibly sweet and loving. The other two dogs want to play and meet her, however, with her raggedy ears, and tender spots, not a good idea. This will need to be slow. She was being bitten by the dog in the home. Apparently, many dogs. She would then run away and the owner became tired of that and surrendered her. Also, gave her up when she looked so ill.

 
So for whatever reason on that Thursday morning, we set out on errands but I kept getting pulled to go to the pound. I didn't want a dog so I ignored the nagging feeling. Then as the day continued, I thought, what is the harm if I don't want another dog. Just take a look. Maybe it was a telepathically broadcasted S.O.S, and I tuned into that frequency and couldn't turn it off.

New Year

This will mark my 22nd year as a blogger. Though I am not posting nearly as regularly, I am still here. Late last month, the blog was reported for not following community guidelines. The usual suspects appeared in my mind's eye. However, photos, music, and whatever else had been included in the blog for 21 years without issue, which could be a reason for suspension, were removed. The blog was restored within 12 hours of review. 

I did remove Robert Frank. U.S. 90 En Route to Del Rio, Texas. 1955, but asking my daughter to sketch it out for me instead. My daughter and I created paper bag masks inspired by Saul Steinberg, this summer. While this mask was not a favorite of mine, it does seem to capture the spirit of this year, thus far. I decided to use it for now. This project reminded me of the year we created puppets based on the one Paul Klee created for his son. We still have them and the desire to make more again soon. My child's drawings from the time also reminded me of Klee's work.

I encourage art projects of all kinds this year. May it be productive for you, one way or another.

Missing: Dogs in Space OST Cassette Tape

 My daughter discovered the tape recorder, my old cassette collection and the joys of making her own mixtape. I had a box with all the special and most valued cassettes: Dogs In Space and Yoko Ono were in this box. The box went missing. The other night I thought of when this could have happened. After divorce #1, #2 or #3.... each time I lost more of my things. Some I would miss like the cobalt blue candle holders I bought at BookPeople with my first paycheck from there. I lost records, CDs, books and DVDs, once gifted to me by spouses, but taken back in divorces. I probably would have purged  most of these things anyway, as every few years I collect a box of possessions that no longer serve me and leave them at the back door of a thrift store. 

 That was not the case with this box of cassette tapes. I purchased them all myself, for myself, little sacred boxes of music. To this day I still love the Dogs in Space OST and Yoko Ono. I thought of a woman I met in NYC and how we became friends and she once visited me in Austin. She was cool and I loved what we found to talk about and her view on things. She also had a connection to Dogs in Space. The person I was married to at the time objected to her visit and left the home to stay with his parents. He enjoyed staying with his parents so I didn’t think this was an inconvenience. I was pleased when she wanted to stay a few more days. I had to go to work but took off after lunch so we could do fun things like lunch at the French restaurant. The person I was married to didn’t return until she returned to NYC. Soon after that he asked for a divorce. When I contacted my friend about our divorce, she never responded. It hurt and made me angry not hearing from her all those days, through the tears, packing up, moving out. I lost her friendship in the whole thing, and that was both sad and weird. The soon to be ex-husband didn't care for her and listed her stay as one of his grievances against me. I wondered if she had called the landline and he was rude.  I have never regretted having her over, though it was annoying defending someone who had just ghosted me. Sisters before misters.

So the other night, when I couldn't sleep,  I wondered if maybe I gifted that cassette tape to her and forgot. In any case, it has been almost twenty years and I hope she is the one who has it. It was a fun visit and sweet friendship until then. I hate that what came up in my life caused my relationship with her to end. It was like carrying a stack of things out of the house, or placing boxes on the ground to load into the trunk of a car, something fell, I didn't see it, something was left behind, I didn't notice at the time. Later, once arriving at a safe place, once unpacking, never found again. I wonder where that box went, I wonder where a lot of things went, how they were lost, left behind, overlooked. I wish I knew how I offended her. I wonder how she is doing. Where did that relationship go?

The Dinette Set

My daughter and I removed the 1950s, blue Formica top table with chrome sides and legs from my grandmother's house.  My grandmother has always referred to it as "the dinette set". My grandmother is not dead, she is 96 and very much alive. She said I could have the table and the four chairs. It is the little table that sat in her turquoise kitchen throughout my childhood. It is the table I sat at to eat the rice pudding my grandfather made for us, and the atole with a giant cinnamon stick my grandmother would make for me. The weekends back then would bring a 1950s Mamie Pink Rubbermaid container filled with cold potato salad and a pitcher of Lipton Instant Tea with a plate of Shake-N-Bake, white rice and broccoli. A very out of the ordinary dish at my grandmother's house as she made traditional Mexican food just every day. I always loved this table and it's place in my grandparent's orderly home and turquoise kitchen with the impeccably clean floor. There was a place for everything and she'd move across the room cooking, cleaning as she went along, drying and putting things right back in the drawers, trays and cupboards where they "lived". After a meal my grandfather would wash the dishes or dry while she washed. I saw my grandmother clean the sides and legs of the table a few times, early on a Saturday morning while Tradio played on their radio and the house smelled strongly of Pine-O-Pine.

It was sometime during college that the table disappeared from her kitchen. In it's place was a round wooden table and four chairs. Upon seeing this for the first time I immediately panicked and asked where the table was. In Austin I saw these things sell for up to $500 and my grandmother was known to suddenly part with longtime pieces of furniture or tschoskes in her home. She  would buy furniture, my grandfather would restore it and they'd sell it for much higher prices. They also sold various vintage items they would come across at garage sales. This side hustle went on for twenty years and proved to be so lucrative they had to start paying taxes. So I was afraid the table had left the house and taken all the dreams I had for it, which was to bring it to Austin with me and set it up in my own kitchen. I never got to do that, however, I did own a red Formica metal table..

I found the table in the salesroom with some boxes on it and the chairs tucked neatly under it. I asked why it was there and my grandmother just mumbled something, ignoring my question. I remember saying, "Don't sell it, Granmo!" and there was mumbling, but my grandfather smiled and said , "We won't sell it, mija".  And they never did, it sat in that room with the boxes on it until I removed it from their house just the other day. It was easy, the table is light, we carried it out without issue, as it fit neatly through all the doors. I placed it in my truck and told August to always own a truck. "Look at what I have been able to do these past several years with all our moves and in and out of storage, always have a truck so you can get it all done right away and not have to rent a truck or ask someone."

I cleaned the table in the garage and brought her into the house, placed  her on a newly cleaned floor and now... I need to clean the chairs. It feels weird. This table has not been out of my grandmother's house since 1950, 1952. It knows all my dad's breakfast's, all the arguments, all their friends and gossip over coffee, all my childhood chatter over sherbet ice cream. My grandmother loved that table because she didn't place it in the room in the back of the house where things usually went. Everything back there was ruined when the roof suffered storm damage and then a family of racoons moved in. Nothing in there was salvageable and I watched it all get thrown into a large truck and hauled away. She loved that table because it was one of the first pieces of furniture they bought and because it was never sold. Their first living room chairs were sold, their first tv stand was sold, their first stereo console with 8 track player was sold.

My daughter and I will have our Thanksgiving dinner on the table this year. Currently looking for the right tablecloth for the occasion. The table looks so cute and petite in my kitchen. I still can't believe I removed it from my grandmother's house, so weird. Upon it I have paced a soul and memories and think of the life it has had. I guess I am letting it get use to its surroundings before I begin using it. My kid walked in tonight and said, "It's happy here and starting to feel loved and wanted again." 

Mindful Ephemera

 My daughter will soon be taller than I am and what a strange feeling that will be. Everything I go through as a mother with her is as a first time mother. I will always be a first time mother. Today I opened a box and out fell the papers and photos from six years ago. There were birthday cards and art work. I remembered how in those last days in Austin, I collected what was left of her birthday last. We moved out in May. In the box I threw in school work that was returned at the end of the year, a drawing, the Mother's Day cards, my birthday cards. It all came tumbling out at me, dragging me back to those days and weeks before we left.

Once in Del Rio, the box remained unopened as I knew what the contents were. Then we moved into the home we are in now and I placed the box on a high shelf in the closet in what is now a classroom for remote schooling. The years passed, six years passed and I forgot what was in the box and opened it today. Suddenly I couldn't imagine six years passing, I was back in 2018. I was remembering the garden we kept at the community garden, her tiny voice coming from small lungs. How she kept a baby voice for a really long time, until she had that growth spurt in May of 2023. I thought about a lot of things. 

As I went through the box I realized I couldn't keep everything. How I have wanted to keep a bank box for every year but that is impossible. So I picked out and curated a nice representation of August, age six, in those weeks just before we left Austin. I have the other bank boxes in my mind. 

On friends...

When your child has no siblings, it's important to have a nice set of friends to play with. We have managed to meet wonderful parents and their awesome children in town. It's not something I take for granted. This doesn't just happen and it doesn't just happen anywhere. Meeting new people is difficult after a certain age. Finding people you genuinely like and enjoy spending time with, like minded adults that you connect with.

When August was much tinier, I found myself in isolated, small towns that didn't have much to offer children or their parents. I didn't meet anyone. We had these long and quiet days together, and I welcomed them. I enjoyed my one on one time with my brand new little girl. When I craved contact with other women and found that keeping in touch online was really all I needed at the time. I'm very much an introvert. However, since she was two years old I noticed that my child really enjoyed the company of others and I was happy to be in Austin once again.