You know, this post has been a long time coming. Many times, I’ve thought about posting this, after reading about some especially heinous crime perpetrated against a child by its mother’s boyfriend. Heaven knows, and sadly, there have been way more opportunities for that than I would like.

And to some extent, maybe I can understand what drove these women to choose men who are likely to do something like this. I’ve been of the mindset, long ago, that I am nothing without a man. If a man wants me, loves me, then AND ONLY THEN, am I worthy of love. And in some cases (not mine, fortunately), any old man will do. In all of the cases outlined below, these men had criminal records, which these women either failed to check out or ignored. In some cases, they only knew these men briefly. In one case, a mother of a special needs child decided her sexual needs overrode her duty to protect her children. The mind reels.

I’m not a mother, I’ve never given birth, I have no children, and live a CFC lifestyle. It’s not that I don’t like children, I just like them better when they’re not around. I love well-behaved, neat, clean, polite children. Unfortunately, there are too few of those in the world. But no child, no matter how much of a brat he or she might be, deserves to be beaten, and especially not beaten to death. That sentiment goes beyond one a parent would have, but is from the standpoint of a human being. Killing is wrong, and you don’t have to be a religious fanatic to comprehend that. And why some of these mothers aren’t behind bars, rotting in prison next to their ill-chosen boyfriends, is beyond me. In some cases, they are just as culpable as the one who actually caused the child’s death.

• #TropicalStormDon will miss Houston by a country mile. But Corpus Christi, watch out! #
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• #followfriday #lawyers @rickhorowitz @paulbkennedy @geeklawyer @dtoddsmith @guntrustlawyer @bobambrogi #
• Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it. — Emily Dickinson #
• Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard. ~ Anne Sexton #
• I want to become acutely aware of all I've taken for granted. ~ Sylvia Plath @Burek @talcoyote #
• Kiss me and you'll know how important I am. ~ Sylvia Plath #
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• RT @Burek Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy. ~ Lao Tzu #
• #imisswhen televison actually signed off for a few hours each day and you stared at a test pattern. #insomniac #
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• #TheBestSound Coffee percolating in the morning (or at any time). #
• #TheBestSound Chat notification that my best friend is beeping in. #
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• To use a veterinary reference, I say spay the bitch. http://t.co/Dojnvjk #
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• I'm going to need more than 140 chars. if I'm going to bitch about the #lawyers I work with. Just sayin. #

1. Enjoy the simple things in life. Yeah, like batting a paper wad around my office when a perfectly good plush cat toy that I spent upwards of $5 for at the pet store languishes, ignored.
2. It’s never too early to eat breakfast! Nope. We never say “no” to a good meal. That’s one rule I can really wrap my head around! Heading down to breakfast as soon as I hit “Publish” on this post, as a matter of fact!
3. Sleeping on your back with your legs in the air might not be lady-like (but he’s a guy, so who cares?), but it sure makes for some restful sleep.
4. Play fighting is good exercise and a great way to bond with your opponent. (And if you’re lucky, you get a cat treat afterward.)
5. Who doesn’t enjoy a small bowl of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream on a hot summer day?
6. I can help my human with the housework by banking off the threshold to the kitchen and sliding across the tile floor on my belly. Well at least a foot-wide swath of the kitchen floor is now clean. (And I do this on the living room floor too!)

The World According to Duncan

• Odd that #amywinehouse website now forwards to a Facebook page. I remember visiting the website during her Belgrade "concert." #
• Karma's a bitch. #winehouse http://cot.ag/qCj2LF #
• There is some serious tomfuckery going on all over the world. To that I say: Stop it. Stop it right now. #
• Ever have someone tell you NOT to be angry? That just makes it worse. And if I wasn't mad before I sure am now! #
• How Big Law leverages Twitter: http://t.co/wSl7b0z #
• {rimshot} RT @thatgerhard A web developer walked into a bar. But quickly left when he saw the table layout. #
• Making a donut run to Mary's on the Gulf Freeway. Heaven! #houstoneats #
• #lifewaseasybefore … we met … #
• Justice isn't topless; just blind. http://t.co/7Q1cEup #
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• #Lawyers do you love your #ipads http://t.co/9danYyC #
• "The trouble with a mask is it never changes." — Charles Bukowski #
• #1waytopissmeoff Treat me like an idiot (lawyers I work for) after I've just corrected your grammar and spelling. #
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• "In the morning it was morning and I was still alive." ~~ Charles Bukowski. Morning, everyone! #
• In a nutshell: RT@NikiBGD [W]here #G isn't like #FB Don't look for family & friends, but rather people who share your interests. #

Big Heart

A poem by Anne Sexton

Big heart,
wide as a watermelon,
but wise as birth,
there is so much abundance
in the people I have
and all in their short lives
give to me repeatedly,
in the way the sea
places its many fingers on the shore,
again and again
and they know me,
they help me unravel,
they listen with ears made of conch shells,
they speak back with the wine of the best region.
They are my staff.
They comfort me.

They hear how
the artery of my soul has been severed
and soul is spurting out upon them,
bleeding on them,
messing up their clothes,
dirtying their shoes.
And God is filling me,
though there are times of doubt
as hollow as the Grand Canyon,
still God is filling me.
He is giving me the thoughts of dogs,
the spider in its intricate web,
the sun
in all its amazement,
and a slain ram
that is the glory,
the mystery of great cost,
and my heart,
which is very big,
I promise it is very large,
a monster of sorts,
takes it all in--
all in comes the fury of love. 

In a conversation with Robo today, I was reminded of how badly an office birthday party went some years ago. I was working at a law firm in San Antonio at the time, for a female partner who had a reputation of being a real perfectionist and a task master, both with her staff (me) and the attorneys she worked with. (Okay, when they hired me, they told me I’d be working for the “firm bitch.” — but it ends up nothing was farther from the truth.)

We were working on a case with the hospital district who was defending a sex discrimination lawsuit by a nurse. Our defense was that the nurse was a certified nut job. We even tried to claim she had Munchausen’s Syndrome. In examining her medical and personnel records, it was discovered that she, too, was born on July 13. And since her case bore so much resemblance to the case of Genene Jones, the infamous Baby Death Nurse of South Texas, I soon discovered that Genene also shared a birthday with me and our mischievous plaintiff, July 13.

My boss, not being someone generally taken with mirth or game-playing had decided to go out on a limb for me that year. She had the bakery inscribe the following words on my birthday cake:

Happy birthday, Joni, Genene and [Plaintiff's first name]

And left the cake in the office kitchen. Whereupon it was discovered by a quite naive, but well-meaning young female associate, Kathleen. Kathleen lifted the lid of the box, saw the message and freaked out. She told the other associate with her that if my boss saw that, she would be livid. The bakery had obviously made a huge mistake. This cannot be countenanced. So Kathleen, well-meaning and misguided soul that she was, grabbed the nearest butter knife and began performing surgery on the cake. She ever so carefully removed the two offending names. She did such a good job that if I hadn’t seen the original text with my own eyes, I’d be hard-pressed to believe it was ever there. When she was done, the cake read:

Happy Birthday, Joni

Clearly, now all is right with the universe. Until my boss came in, of course, saw what Kathleen had done, shrieked in horror, and slapped the knife out of Kathleen’s hand. Me? I just smiled and shook my head and told Kathleen, “See? You lawyers can’t pass by anything without REVISING IT!”

Despite the cake SNAFU, a good time was had by all.

Happy birthday to me!

Phrase: “I’m going fishing.”

Definition: “I’m going to drink myself dangerously stupid, and stand by a lake with a stick in my hand, while the fish swim by in complete safety.”

Phrase: “It’s a guy thing.”

Definition: “There is no rational thought pattern connected with it, and you have no chance at all of making it logical.”

Phrase: “Can I help with dinner?”

Definition: “Why isn’t it already on the table?”

Phrase: “Uh huh,” “Sure, honey,” “Yes, dear.”

Definition: Absolutely nothing. They are conditioned responses.

Phrase: “It would take too long to explain.”

Definition: “I have no idea how it works.”

Phrase: “We’re going to be late.”

Definition: “Now I have a legitimate excuse to drive like a maniac.”

Phrase: “I was listening to you. It’s just that I have things on my mind.”

Definition: “I was wondering if that red-head over there is wearing a bra.”

Phrase: “Take a break, honey, you’re working too hard.”

Definition: “I can’t hear the game over the vacuum cleaner.”

Phrase: “That’s women’s work.”

Definition: “It’s difficult, dirty, and thankless.”

Phrase: “You know how bad my memory is.”

Definition: “I remember the theme song to ‘F Troop’, the address of the first girl I ever kissed and the Vehicle Identification Numbers of every car I’ve ever owned, but I forgot your birthday.”

Phrase: “I was just thinking about you, and got you these roses.”

Definition: “The girl selling them on the corner was a real babe.”

Phrase: “Hey, I’ve got my reasons for what I’m doing.”

Definition: “And I sure hope I think of some pretty soon.”

Phrase: “I can’t find it.”

Definition: “It didn’t fall into my outstretched hands, so I’m completely clueless.”

Phrase: “What did I do this time?”

Definition: “What did you catch me at?”

Phrase: “I heard you.”

Definition: “I haven’t the foggiest clue what you just said, and am hoping desperately that I can fake it well enough so that you don’t spend the next three days yelling at me.”

Phrase: “You know I could never love anyone else.”

Definition: “I am used to the way you yell at me, and realize it could be worse.”

Phrase: “You look terrific.”

Definition: “Oh, God, please don’t try on one more outfit. I’m starving.”

Phrase: “I’m not lost. I know exactly where we are.”

Definition: “No one will ever see us alive again.”

Phrase: “We share the housework.”

Definition: “I make the messes, she cleans them up.”

Everyone who knows me knows I’m no Audrey Hepburn, not by a long stretch. But I think I’m cute enough. Okay, so I’m fat. But I am not so fat that I get winded climbing the stairs to my office. I still have girly curves. And I haven’t had to be cut out of my house and taken to the hospital on a flatbed.

The other alternative? A human clothes hanger. And somehow, that’s OKAY with the media. It’s okay to fill the heads of impressionable and sensitive young girls with the notion that fat is bad and thin is good; the thinner, the better. The fact of the matter is that sex and sexy sells. It sells car, beer, bras, panties, pretzels, just about anything you can put a price on can be sold to someone just by parading a scantily clad model in front of it or draping her over it.

It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.
 
Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.
 
Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.
 
Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you'll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you'll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.

There is a flower within my heart, // Daisy, Daisy, // Planted one day by a glancing dart, // Planted by Daisy Bell…

~~ “Daisy Bell,” Harry Dacre (1892)

As most of you who know me know, I lost my sweet old orange tabby, Sunny, in January 2010, to HCM. It took me over a year to get over his loss. I finally was able, after two “misfires” to find the “purrfect” cat, a sweet moggie named Daisy whom I adopted from the Montgomery County Animal Shelter on May 10. Things were going swimmingly even though it seemed like she was the most finicky eater on the planet. There was never that problem with my other cats, Sunny or Simon, my Maine Coon. Both had healthy appetites. In fact those two ate like truck drivers.

So when she didn’t seem to live and die by the food dish, I didn’t think anything of it. I thought, well, she’s a girl, maybe she’s just a dainty eater. But last Tuesday, she started throwing up and became quite listless. I took her to the vet the next day who ran some bloodwork on her. It turns out she was in liver failure. Her BUN and creatinine were through the roof, many many times their normal values. The vet explained she was living on her fat reserves and that explained the more than two pound weight loss from her original checkup on May 20 to this day (June 22).

The vet gave me some anti-nausea tablets, an appetite stimulant, some yummy food and some syringes. We tried valiantly, she and I. Me to get the food and pills down her throat, and she to try to keep them down without throwing up. But that didn’t seem to be happening and she quickly withdrew and stopped hanging out in her usual spots, the two sunny windowsills in my office. She also stopped coming downstairs when she heard me coming home at night. I’d go upstairs and find her in my half bath upstairs, next to the toilet. I kept water in several places for her, and she was drinking. But she simply couldn’t keep food or pills down.

I went back to the vet and picked up some injectible anti-nausea medication and started giving her that, but that didn’t work either. The mere act of me picking her up and trying to hold her brought on waves of nausea. This is no live for her or me. So, this past Thursday I took her back to the vet for one last round of x-rays and a sonogram. Because I wanted to know if there was anything that we could possibly do, if there was any obstruction somewhere, anywhere, along her plumbing that would cause her problems. They seemed to come on so suddenly. But alas, the tests showed nothing.

I made the decision that morning to end her suffering. She deserved better than the last 10 days she’d been having. So I stayed with her to the end. We had about 30 minutes of painfree time together, me kissing the top of her head and calling her my sweet chola girl and telling her what a sweet and beautiful cat she was and how much I would miss her and she, finally able to relax and be herself, purring and looking up at me with that sweet expression of hers. And she enjoyed those last chin scratches I gave her. Then the vet administered the final shot and in about five more minutes she had crossed over the Rainbow Bridge. As a FB friend said, I hope she’s chasing moths and butterflies there with Sunny and Simon.

I didn’t have her long, but I loved her so much. She was a very special cat to me because she taught me something very important: That I could love another creature after Sunny. But also that my heart was just as easily broken now as it was then.

I don’t know if I will get another cat. I know I won’t any time soon. I still miss her and still cry when I think about how shortchanged we both were. So enjoy these photos that I was able to snap of Daisy in those happy first few weeks.

Daisy, my chola girl (2007-2011)