The Breadbin

and when there was a Tux
he loved his Mommy and his...Mommy and his Mommy too...
...he also loved the Daddy
and the Mark
and the Bubble-cat
(and his Peach)
and his Cheese
and his Biscuits
and Car-Rides
and Timmy-Treats
and...)

so many people and things our Tux loved.
And we loved him.

God, we loved our Tux.

_____________________

He would have been killed if we hadn't taken him.

That's the thing I try to keep top of mind as Mommy takes him on his last Car-Ride today. (Mommy and Tux came to pick up the Daddy at work, as well...two Car-Rides in one day!)

He would have been killed if we hadn't taken him: they made that quite clear to us at the Humane Society, where he'd languished for almost two of his six months waiting for someone who could deal with his separation anxiety. I was a bit reticent on that, but they kept giving us things...snacks, a leash, I get it, we're this dog's last hope.

Ours, too, in a way. We had been denied children not long before Tux joined our fami…

I really need to get to Grand River Unitarian Congregation more often.  
I don't know how many times I've been since July. Not near enough. Despite my comfort in the place, there always seems to be some reason not to go. Groceries need bought, and Sunday morning seems to be the most convenient time to get them. The sermon topic for the week doesn't appeal (and c'mon, Ken, the whole place is about opening your mind and heart, who knows what you're missing out on?) Or just the thought of the 100-minute commute each way is a turn-off.
Eva drove me this morning, which saved over an hour of that commute. I wasn't going to miss a sermon topic like "Love and the World's Religions". 
I'm not going to lie and say the entire service spoke to me. The story for the children this week -- this one -- is, while very touching, also distinctly disturbing. What kind of mother creeps into her adult son's bedroom to recite the ritual poem to him as he sleeps?…

So you think you might be polyamorous.

It's a scary thought, isn't it? At first, it can feel like you're going insane, literally splitting in half. How can you have such deep, committed feelings for two people at once?  Society has told you since you were tiny that this is impossible. One of the loves is obviously not real. Hard to tell which one it is. Maybe it's the new one: "it's just a crush", you rationalize, even as you find yourself thinking thoughts not just carnal but alarmingly domestic about him or her. Not just sleeping with, but actually sleeping with, and waking up next to, and sharing household tasks, and you already have someone you do that with, happily, and so...

Or maybe it's the established partnership. There must be something profoundly wrong with it if you're thinking such thoughts about another, right? You thought you had found The One. Damn those other numbers coming along to invalidate The One.

Either, or. Either, or. Must…

You're free to disagree: this post may, in fact, bore the pants off you.

It's Family Day weekend in Ontario. They created Family Day a few years back mostly, it seems, to break up the long run between Christmas and Easter.

I have this weekend off. I asked to be scheduled on Monday--time and a half at Walmart is still less than regular time at Sobeys, and the money is welcome--but they didn't oblige me. Which doesn't bother me overmuch: I don't get three days off in a row very often, and even more rarely do I get to share them with Eva.

So we started this morning with a trip to the St. Jacobs Farmer's Market, which is about a four minute drive from home. I tend to question just what a huge tourist attraction this place is -- there are actually two hotels adjacent to serve all the people coming from cities with farmer's markets of their own. But each time I go there, I'm wowed by the scale of the place and the vast selection of delicious foodstuffs, craft…

Administrivia  first: I must apologize for the really bitchy tone of my last few posts. It is not an excuse, but an explanation: our Sleep Number bed has stopped providing anything like "sleep" and so its nights were numbered. Rated for 18 years. It lasted a little over half that.
I have been tired the last little while. Fatigue is a common complaint of mine, but this has been something altogether different. I adapted enough to function, but my customary calmness and warmth has been in regrettably short supply.
We have a new bed again now. We're down to a queen again, which opens up some space in our bedroom; more importantly, we have an extra-firm mattress for durability topped by six inches of memory foam for comfort. I'm sore in different places this morning, but a good deal less tired. Normal personality reboot continues apace. I am sorry to all those I have pissed on in my pissed off state.

_________________________


To those people who believe Valentine's Da…

Grrrrr.

THIS right here is why I am not a Christian.


Well, to be fair, there are other reasons. Lots of them:

the superiority complex Christianity has over other religions (and often, other sects of itself!) Hell. Sorry, doesn't exist as anything other than a tool to enforce obeisance. Institutionalized racism, sexism, homophobia, and a whole lot else -- and yes, there are 'liberal' denominations and churches, but they're looked down upon by the 'true believers'have you actually read your Bible? There's no better argument for atheism, or at least nonbelief in the God being peddled within, than a good thorough reading of Christianity's "hole-y" text. It starts right in Genesis with multiple Gods doing the creating (well, there's two different creation myths); the OT God is so clearly human it's a farce. Jealous, judgemental, capricious, and not to put too fine a point on it, a POINTLESSLY violent being. The NT is not much better: the Gos…

I feel good.

Very good, actually. Not the kind of ersatz mania I used to be prone to, but a sense of calmness and peace that only grows as time progresses.  A falling-together. A "trust the process, embrace the journey" mindset that has eluded me for most, perhaps all, of my life.

And I find it difficult to talk about.

Not just because some of it is profoundly personal. I feel the need to suppress the expression of my happiness because at every turn I am confronted with people who are anything BUT happy. Relationships in turmoil, friends hurting in ways so deep I can hardly fathom their suffering, to say nothing of the deeply unsettling state of the world, a state that seems to be worsening with every passing minute.

"Shared pain is lessened and shared happiness increases"...you've read it enough from me that you must be sick of it by now. (I'd highly encourage those of my readers who are human beings to seek out and treasure the source of Callahan's La…