My bro with his dog, my sister with Rusty and my mom back there with Fuzzy who is trying to keep up in her older age

Yesterday I went out to a beautiful house by the ocean that is filled with life in many forms. My purpose there? To meet a family of six: four four-legged friends, a winged family member and a two-legged individual. I’ll be doing some petsitting for them and wanted to meet everyone and make sure that it would be a good match. It absolutely was. I already feel like I fit in with the family, a second caretaker to help out as needed but also a new friend. I’m sure there were many reasons that it was the right match but what really resonated with me was the uncanny resemblance that the two dogs of the family bear to the two dogs that I left behind when I moved here to the city 6 years ago.

First, why I petsit

Rusty, my Little Man

I’ve probably mentioned here a few times that I petsit on occasion. (I know that on my crochet blog I’ve shared photos of Betty, the cockapoo I watch, when I’ve crocheted clothing for her during my stays at her house.) I petsit in part for extra cash but that’s not the main reason that I do it. The real reason is because I really miss having pets in my life. I grew up in a family that always had more than one furry friend in the house at a time. I carried on that tradition myself when I moved out of my parents’ home, taking our young puppy Fuzzy and a newborn pup Rusty to my new home across town.

When I moved to San Francisco, there was just no way that I could bring them along. They were used to having huge yards with lots of space to roam. It wouldn’t have been fair to put them into an apartment even if I could find an apartment that would take me, my roommate and the two dogs and still be affordable for me as a young freelancer. So they stayed behind with Mom and Dad and I visit a few times a year.

Fuzzy with her “I didn’t do anything” look

Moving here was the first time that I didn’t have pets to care for. It was sad and lonely in some ways and really liberating in other ways. I hadn’t realized how much care and attention pets need until I didn’t have them anymore. It provided a great opportunity to really focus on myself and my needs and that has been beneficial. Now that I’ve done that for awhile, I’d like the responsibility of a pet again. (What I really want is a Shiba Inu puppy, after having fallen in love with one my brother was petsitting a few years ago.) But the apartment I am in (which I love for many reasons) doesn’t allow pets so that’s going to have to wait until I move again.

And that’s why I petsit. I get to enjoy the joy and responsibility and companionship of a few good furry friends again. And having learned how much of a responsibility a pet is, I am also happy that I am able to give someone else the chance to get away and focus on themselves now and then while knowing that their pets are in good hands.

Now, about Rusty and Fuzzy

We had a lot of dogs in my childhood, including Playful who was our wonderful Australian Shepherd that we had for the entirety of my childhood. But Rusty and Fuzzy were special because they were mine, not the family’s. I didn’t realize until I had them what unique personalities pets have and what an interesting dynamic can develop between two pets in the same family. There had always been the five of us humans in the house plus a couple of dogs and some cats and some other creatures and I was a kid the entire time so I didn’t really see any relationships that might have developed. The dogs were our friends, but I didn’t really think about their personalities much. Rusty and Fuzzy changed that, in part because I was alone with the two of them and in part because they had such intense, defined, curious personalities.

Fuzzy as a puppy

Fuzzy was my smart dog (despite her silly name which I have to blame on being young when we named her). She’s a big black lab/ chow mix with cute white paws and an intelligence that was usually fascinating and sometimes annoying. Annoying like the time when I realized that the reason Rusty was so skinny was because Fuzzy had figured out how to drag his dish and hers to the same spot and surround them both with her arms so that he couldn’t eat. Annoying like the long period of time when I kept trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with her leg only to eventually realize that she was faking a limp to get sympathy and special treatment. I kid you not. She even did something similar recently, at fifteen years of age. My mom and sister took the family’s other dog for a walk and Fuzzy isn’t in any shape to go anymore so she moped around the house while they got ready, acting bedraggled and huffing and puffing and on the verge of death. Then while they were gone she managed to sneak into my sister’s backpack and steal some food that she found in there, happily munching away at it with no breathing problems in sight when they returned. That’s my dog.

Rusty as a puppy

Rusty was my little cutie pie. He was adorable and lovable and fun. As he grew older, I called him my Little Man, because he got this regal older man look and yet somehow retained this little puppy attitude at the same time. I loved Rusty but there’s no nice way of putting it … he was dumb. Dopey is the word I usually use because he had these huge paws that he never quite grew into so he was a bit gangly. But not the brightest crayon in the box. Fuzzy would always figure out how to do things and he would always follow along after her, often not in the smartest way. Like how Fuzzy learned how to hook her paw’s nail into the screen door and open it so that she could come in and out from the front yard and Rusty eventually, after a long time, figured out that he could also get in that way but only by running full force into the door and butting it with his hard head so that it would spring open and he could dash in before it closed again. Ah, Rusty. It was a good thing, sometimes, that he was as dumb as he was. That dog could jump higher than any circus dog and if he had been any brighter then he might have figured out that if he moved up and over, instead of just up, he could easily jump the small fence that kept them in the yard. Luckily, he was never quite bright enough to get that idea and Fuzzy’s hip problems meant that she couldn’t do it to show him.

Oh Rusty. All of our girl dogs were spayed but Rusty was never neutered. He was forever trying to get into Fuzzy’s pants and she never let him. So he was super excited in his old age when my brother’s two girl dogs moved in for awhile. He immediately began trying to get some action. Sadly, my wonderful dumb little dog, did not know that the girl’s head is not what he was supposed to be aiming for.

The dynamic between them was always fun to see. Rusty brought out the fun side of Fuzzy. I don’t think that she would have been nearly so playful if it had just been me and her that moved out together, especially as she got older and the pain in her body got worse. But Rusty endlessly demanded that she play with him. And she did, until she’d get tired of his antics and warn him away and he’d get that “aw shucks” look and wander off until it was time to persistently return to get her attention again.

Rusty died last year, suddenly, without warning. I was shocked. Although in a way I’m kind of happy for him because if there’s any good way to go then it’s running around happily to the very moment when you suddenly aren’t anymore. I’ve been surprised that Fuzzy hasn’t succumbed to the same fate. As they got older, I always wondered how one would live without the other. She’s hanging in there, doing her own thing.

Old Memories, New Dogs

From the scrapbook: Fuzzy half-shaved after a surgery and Rusty ready to play

I think about Rusty and Fuzzy every now and then but I hadn’t thought about them this deeply until yesterday when I met these new dogs. They aren’t quite the same breed, but they are so similar to Rusty and Fuzzy in so many ways. The girl is a larger, black dog with white paws (like Fuzzy has) and hip problems (like Fuzzy has) and a loving face (like Fuzzy) and a smart mind (like Fuzzy). The boy is a smaller brown dog (like Rusty) with an adorable face that is half pup/ half old man (like Rusty) and this great lap dog attitude (like Rusty) but maybe not the smartest cupcake in the batch (aw, like Rusty). The boy could probably run and play endlessly but is held back a little bit by the girl’s handicaps; the girl benefits from pushing herself a little bit to keep up with the boy and get extra joy out of life.

Of course, there are differences between these dogs and my dogs, since each pet is unique and each set of animal dynamics is unique. Rusty was always my jealous dog. For all thirteen years of his life I couldn’t have a single moment with Fuzzy without Rusty coming in and sticking his nose in my face and his paw on my hand. I’ve only just met these new dogs so it’s hard to tell but I think if either of the two is jealous in this pair it’s the girl and it’s more because she sees the boy as “her baby” than because she needs the human attention desperately herself.

Fuzzy hogging a huge bone, circa 1999

And I’m sure that they have little quirks of their own that I’ll see as time goes on that are different from my dogs’ little quirks. Like how most people wouldn’t know that Fuzzy, my huge independent dog who rarely wanted me for much, would cower right on top of me in bed anytime there was a thunderstorm. It didn’t matter how old she got, how many storms she’d seen or how large of a space there was on the bed … she would run in, dig her way under the blanket and be right up on top of me until the storm ended. Recently we realized that her hearing is really going because there was a storm in Tucson and she didn’t notice.

As a petsitter, I obviously won’t know nearly as much about these new pets as I knew about mine living with them day in and day out. But I can tell that they have these wonderful personalities and it will be so fun to learn more about them and watch them grow and get to be a small part of their lives. I look forward to it all.

(And by the way, the family also has a beautiful bird and two gorgeous cats. I won’t go into all that right now but let me say that I’ve never met a Burmese cat before and I am now sold on the idea that if I ever get a cat again it’s going to be a Burmese! Oh and the human in their family is wonderful and warm, too.)

Tags: dogs, family, pets

It’s Friday morning. My sister is sleeping. The coffee is brewing. The house is still. And I haven’t quite gotten started on anything work-related for the day (minus a few Tweets and a glance at email). I thought I’d sit down and jot a few thoughts down before the day gets too involved.

Having My Sister Here

It’s been wonderful having my sister here all week. I have lived alone for a long time (most of my adult life) and I’m used to it and comfortable with it and usually prefer it but there are perks to have someone around. My sister is an easy person to have around because she’s just as comfortable doing her own thing as doing stuff with me or even helping around the house. She loves to cook, and I really don’t, so we’ve had some nice cute meals. Last night was a simple dish of chicken and broccoli and mashed potatoes but the chicken was marinated uniquely and the broccoli had a great lemon flavor to it and we ate it all in front of the fireplace with screwdrivers, which made for a lovely little break in the evening. One of my goals for this year is to get outside and go for a walk each and every day and she motivated me to go do that yesterday when I didn’t really want to. So all in all, it’s really terrific having her here and I’m going to be a little bummed to see her return home next week.

Extrovert / Introvert

That said, life feels really busy when other people are around. Most of the people who know me assume that I’m an extrovert. I’m friendly and easy to get to know and probably a little too loud, comfortable meeting new people and love sharing stories. However, the truth is that when it gets down to the core definitions, I’m probably an introvert. I do love getting out and meeting new people but being around people tends to sap my energy. Not entirely. It energizes me for a brief period of time but then I hit a wall and after that it tends to drain me. It’s bizarre and I can’t quite explain it but I truly get tired being around people too much. I don’t even have to be actively doing much with them; just being out amongst them makes me exhausted somehow. I need time to just be by myself and recuperate and rejuvenate to bring my best self back to the party so to speak. So, I’ve loved having my sister here and I truly loved the two weeks before that when I was with my brother in LA but there’s a part of me that feels so exhausted from interacting with them everyday even though they’re my closest friends and the easiest people in the world to interact with. I feel a little rushed somehow and I have to admit that as much as I think I’ll be lonely after my sister leaves, I’m also kind of looking forward to the relaxation of just being by myself.

What Will This Mean for Dating?

I can’t help but wonder what this whole situation of not wanting to be with people every day is going to ultimately mean for my romantic life. In July a relationship of four and a half years ended. I loved that man. Truth be told, I still do. But I’m slowly starting to accept that it’s over and beginning to at least get curious about starting to date again. I think the most important thing for all relationships is for each person to know themselves well enough to know what they truly want and to be able to honestly articulate that to the other person. And that’s where I get stuck because I’m not one hundred percent sure of what I want.

Part of the reason that my last relationship worked so well for so long is because we didn’t move in together. We gave each other a lot of space. I liked that. I like that when we were together we were truly present with one another. We knew each other well enough that there was a lot of domestic comfort … being there for each other during illness and injuries, making meals, watching TV … and yet there was a lot of surprise and not a lot of hassle over domestic things because we had our own spaces. Ultimately, though, I wanted a bit more of a shared life than my partner did. It was a little toooo separate.

And that’s where I get stuck. Because I do like having someone around to wake up with and do random things with. But then that also exhausts me and even irritates me in a way. I like falling asleep with someone but the idea of sleeping a foot away from someone every day for the rest of my life sounds terrible. So I guess I want some happy medium. Honestly, I’ve always kind of thought the Frida Kahlo/ Diego Rivera house setup would work for me … basically living next door to each other in separate houses with some common areas. But how many people want that in modern life not to mention in a city as expensive to live alone in as San Francisco?

I don’t think I have to solve this today but it’s on my mind a bit right now as I begin to consider dating again and am dealing with the pros and cons of having someone around every day.

Tags: dating thoughts, friday morning, random thoughts

E is for excuses … and how I’m not going to make any for missing yesterday’s post in the A-Z blogging challenge! I knew it’d be tough to blog here daily this month and I still wanted to take on the challenge. When you fall you gotta get back up again so moving on …

F is for female friendships …

For today’s prompt I really just want to make a book recommendation. The book is The Twisted Sisterhood: Unraveling the Dark Legacy of Female Friendships by Kelly Valen. It discusses the difficulties that many women have with making and keeping female friends. but very clearly acknowledges the benefits of those friendships in our lives once we have resolved some of those issues for ourselves.

I have definitely struggled with female friendships in the past. Girls are cliquey. The experiences we have with girlfriends in our formative years always have some rough patches. Combine that with the difficulties we have in our relationships with our mothers and sisters and you’ve got a situation in which it is difficult to openly trust entering into friendships with other women.

However some of my best friends are female and the struggles have more or less gone away as I’ve gotten older. I think it’s an important topic for women to look at and the book definitely covers it way better than I can so I’d recommend it to others for sure.

Tags: a-z blogging challenge, friendships

Rape-aXe is a product that is designed to help prevent women from being raped. It is also designed to assist in catching rapists. But is it the right product for most women? There’s some controversy about it but it probably has a place in the world.

Some information about Rape-aXe:

• It’s a female condom. It is inserted much in the same way that a tampon is inserted. Inside of it, however, is a barbed-wire style device that will latch on to a male who tries to penetrate the woman wearing it.
• The barbed wire device is designed so that it can only be removed by the help of a doctor. This means that men who have attempted to rape a woman are more likely to be caught since they’ll have to seek medical assistance.
• The device helps to prevent STDs and HIV contracted from rape.
• The initial shock of the situation could give women a chance to get away from their attackers. This may buy them the time they need to escape even if the attacker isn’t caught.

Tags: anti-rape condom, female condom, smart sex

I used to feel a big sense of obligation to make/buy Christmas presents for a lot of the people in my life. It wasn’t that I felt that I was obligated by them. It was that I obligated myself because I wanted these people to know that they were in my thoughts all year long. While I think it’s great to give gifts to recognize the importance of people in our lives, I’ve long since stopped feeling obligated to give anything to anyone.

What I’ve learned over the years is that it’s totally okay if your Christmas gifts aren’t ready by Christmas or if you don’t even give something to someone special after all. Although there are some people in our lives who may feel huffy puffy and hurt that we don’t give them something at the holidays, the people who really know us know that this is nothing to be hurt by. We make sure to give them gifts all year long and de-emphasize the importance of giving on Christmas.

I am actually planning to make a few things for people for the holidays this year. It works out well for me that some projects that I’m wrapping up at the end of the year were intended for certain people in my life. I’ll get out the wrapping paper and have these things ready to go under their tree. However there are some other people I’d kind of like to give gifts to but who I won’t have anything ready for before the holidays arrive. I’ll get something to them when I get the chance.

The trick here is to give yourself permission to not be obligated to give gifts to anyone. It’s to have a talk with yourself about how it’s okay not to give a gift to someone if you don’t have something picked out and ready yet. It’s to remind yourself that the holidays should be more about spending time together and saying the kind things that you want a gift to say than about actually giving a gift to someone. It’s about letting yourself be okay with just receiving gifts from someone graciously if they’ve gotten something for you and you don’t have something ready for them.

A no-obligation Christmas isn’t about being stingy. It isn’t about ignoring the holidays. It isn’t about getting without giving. Instead it’s about putting yourself first and letting yourself know that it’s okay not to give something to everyone on your list right now. You’ll get to them. You’ll let them know that you care about them. It’s okay.

Happy holiday season! Be kind to yourself this month!

Tags: be kind to yourself, christmas, holidays, no obligation christmas

Today’s question of the week is inspired by a book that I recently read. It’s called The Secret Currency of Love: The Unabashed Truth About Women, Money, and Relationships. It’s a fascinating anthology from women authors about the different methods they have of handling money in their marriages. The stories there run the gamut from women who keep their bank accounts entirely separate from their husbands and split all bills down the middle to women who let their husbands deal with the entire financial realm of their relationships and don’t even know what their household income is.

So, today’s question of the week is:

How do you deal with money in your relationship with your spouse or significant other?

I currently don’t live with the man that I’m dating so it’s easy for us to keep our money separate. When we go out on dates, he either pays for the date or we split it. We haven’t discussed it in too much detail but I think we’re both comfortable with this arrangement. When we’ve gone on vacations then we’ve split the costs in half, more or less, although we’re not strict about keeping tabs on who owes what. We just kind of naturally take turns paying for the bill on a trip. At holidays, we tend to buy each other small gifts and don’t spend a lot of money on each other. I’m not honestly sure how all of this would change if it came to the point where we were living together so I’d love to hear how other people are doing it. Leave your answers in the comments.

Tags: money, money and relationships, question of the week

I recently picked up an interetsing non-fiction book from the library. It’s called The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy Is As Necessary As Love and Sex. As you can tell from title, it explores the idea that we have to have jealousy in our human lives. This is unique from most views on jealousy since the general thought on the topic is that jealousy is a bad thing and we need to expunge it from our personalities.

The book presents theories as to why jealousy exists. These theories are mostly rooted in the science of evolution. There have been reasons over time that it made sense to be jealous in order to protect our species. A very abbreviated version of the general theory of the book is that jealousy in the past may have prevented or deterred infidelity which increased the likelihood of successful mating and therefore the reproduction of the species.

The book points to numerous examples of this over time and suggests that this jealousy is ingrained into us at a biological / evolutionary level. It’s an interesting idea. The book takes us through a scientific exploration of what jealousy is, how it manifests itself today and what conclusions we can draw about this emotion. And it reveals the idea that jealousy does have an important place in our emotional lives even though we sometimes deny its validity.

The book can get very academic at times. It cites a lot of studies and statistics which I admittedly sometimes skimmed over because they were excessive. However, it also provides some really interesting information from a scientific perspective. It also provides neat facts about jealousy in different cultures. (I laughed aloud at the description of how Samoan women have been known to approach a woman who has had an affair with her husband and to bite her on the nose to reduce her attractiveness.) Worth taking a gander at if you’re interested in human emotion and relationships.

Tags: book recommendatino, book review, books, jealousy book, kathryn vercillo, reading

Parents today have to worry about how their teens and tweens are going to be using modern technology. Learning to monitor their kids’ social networking sites and to make sure that they don’t get addicted to computer games is all a part of being a parent in modern society. Mobile phones are another thing that parents have to monitor and worry about.

The most common problems that parents face when it comes to kids and cell phones are:

• The fight over when to get one. A lot of kids start to want their own cell phone when they’re still in elementary school. Parents have to decide when they think it’s best to make this move.
• Excessive use of the cell phone. Parents may be upset by huge cell phone bills caused by kids who go over their minutes. Alternatively, they may just not want their kids on the phone as much as they are.
• Text message threats. Bullying via text message is an increasing problem among teens and tweens. Parents have to worry about their kids bullying others or becoming a victim of this type of bullying.
• Teen sexting. Kids who engage in teen sexting may not only be putting themselves at risk in their relationships but may actually be breaking the law.

What is interesting to note about these common problems is that they aren’t that different from what parents and their kids have been battling over for ages. Parents have to figure out how to set limits, monitor their kids’ behavior towards others and allow their kids to grow into sexual adults. The technology may be different from the past but the battles are the same.

Tags: cell phones, kathryn vercillo, most common cell phone problems for parents, Parenting, Technology, teens and cell phones

It’s amazing how many marriages end because the two people involved in them can’t reconcile their financial differences. It’s sad that money comes between us and our lovers so often, isn’t it? So how do we stop fighting about money.

Here are some of the tips that I think make sense:

• Deal with your emotions surrounding money. People fight about money because they have all kinds of money emotions. Issues related to fear, power and control dominate people’s money conversations. If you learn to deal with your money emotions and to keep them out of your financial talks, you’ll fight a lot less with your partner.
• Create a plan for handling money in your home. It’s not easy to come up with money solutions that work in your home. You need to consider who will pay the bills and how, which purchases need to be discussed in advance and which don’t and what your long-term savings goals are. This is tough. But if you create a plan, you’ll have something to work with and won’t fight as much anymore.
• Pick a date to deal with money. You don’t have to fight about money every day of the month. Pick one date (perhaps when rent is due) to deal with your money problems. Commit to solving them on that date. Then put the rest on the back burner until the next month and just enjoy your spouse without money being an issue.

I think we just need to start being more responsible and more respectful in our conversations about money and we’d have a lot fewer fights about it!

Tags: fighting about money, kathryn vercillo, marriage, money, money fighting, Relationships, stop fighting about money, talking about money

I love going on cheap dates. Don’t get me wrong – I can get all glammed up and go out for an expensive night on the town as well. But I tend to think that inexpensive dates are a lot more fun. You’re more relaxed on them. And you usually end up doing things that are more creative than you do when you spend a lot of money on traditional dates.

I happen to think that summer is the ideal time for romantic cheap dates. Part of that has to do with the great weather that most places have during the summer (something that’s not necessarily true where I live in San Francisco but can be found nearby). And it also has to do with the fact that there are so many great cheap events in summer that don’t necessarily happen the rest of the year.

Last weekend I got to enjoy a series of activities that made for great cheap dates. I actually went with the guy I’m dating as well as with some friends so it wasn’t uber-romantic but the activities we enjoyed were perfect examples of great cheap dates. Those activities were:

• A short inexpensive road trip. We piled into a car and listened to the radio and laughed about crazy sights in small towns along the road.
• Lunch in Old Town. We stopped in Old Town Sacramento and got a cheap lunch then just did some windowshopping and photo-taking.
• Antique browsing. I admit it – I love looking at old junk in cheap antique stores. I ended up buying a great colorful pitcher and glasses set for $15 but I would’ve been happy just looking too.
• Art gallery reception. We ended up in the small town of Marysville. There was an art and literary opening reception there. It was themed around the 1970′s and seeing the dressed-up people was great. Plus there was free wine and food.
• Farmers’ Market. There was a Farmer’s Market going on so we got some great inexpensive fruit and walked around people-watching.
• Carnival. It doesn’t cost much to play a game of throwing the darts at the balloons but it sure was fun.
• Spent the day at a river. The main purpose of the trip was to spend a day at the river up there. We floated down natural rock water slides, ate a picnic lunch, swam in too-cold water and had a really great time.

All of these things are cheap and there were fun and I’m looking forward to the rest of the summer’s adventures!

Tags: cheap dates, dating, frugal dates, kathryn vercillo, Personal Finance, Relationships, romance