Have I mentioned we’re in dog training- again? This is method number, um…four…for dealing with leash aggression. I’ve now officially paid through my nose (that might account for its size and shape) in an effort to make my dog happy to see other dogs when we’re out on a leash. So far? Not working. This latest round of training is GUARANTEED!! They will work with my dog for years if necessary to solve this or any other problem. And no, it’s not the people who wanted me to just bark at my dog. The trainer is coming to visit us at our house tonight since Gabe does GREAT with them at their house but really, really LOUSY at home with me (despite me doing supposedly all the right things). We.Shall.See.

Last night we went to the dog park. I know, I know, I said I wasn’t going there anymore but it just calls to me and I feel the need to go let my dog run free for an hour. We went. I tried to practice training while we were there (good place to work with distractions) and he basically ignored me until he got too tired to play with the puppies and then he just followed me around reluctantly.

Why do I obsess about this dog? Why do I care if he eats a rottie when we go for a walk? Does it matter if my neighbors, whom I never see anyways, think I have the meanest dog on the block even when he’s a silly little pussy cat? Um, apparently that’s a ‘yes’.

Before we got Gabe I did a LOT of research on dogs. I had originally had my heart set on a golden retriever but when I ended up in a condo without my own yard I just didn’t think that was fair to a retriever. I didn’t whimsically pick out a mastiff. I didn’t just get him because he’s a novelty or because I wanted a big, scary dog. Quite the contrary. I picked him because the breed matched many of the things we wanted from a dog: they are generally lazy, they don’t need a tremendous amount of exercise. They are quiet, usually non-barkers, using their size to intimidate, not their voice. They are great with kids and cats and other dogs. They are trainable. They are low-maintenance dogs (not a lot of grooming). If you can put up with a little slobber (there’s always a downside) what’s not to love?

If you saw us walking around the block, you would see an owner walking her ginormous dog. He doesn’t walk me. He doesn’t pull on the leash. He will sit when I tell him to. He sits before we cross the street. He will stay and I can walk away and after some time call him to come and he’ll run over to me and sit down again. I can even have him lay down in the grass if necessary and he’ll just relax and roll around and wait for us to move again. My neighbors are all being pulled along by their dogs (big or small), their dogs are barking and yipping all the time and if you go to pet their dog, it will jump on you. In comparison, I have a GREAT, well-trained, well-behaved dog. But if you happen to be walking a dog, GOD HELP US ALL.

Somehow, with this leash aggression, I feel like I was sold a lemon. I feel like I was duped. NO WHERE in any of the reading that I did, did anyone mention leash aggression. Now, let me say, leash aggression is not limited to one breed or another. Many dogs are aggressive towards other dogs on a leash, but when they only weigh 20 pounds, you give a little pull on the leash and drag them along behind you if necessary. With 200 pounds of force, I don’t have that option. He HAS to get over this aggression.

So, I feel like I’ve somehow failed in the pet ownership department. My very cool, perfect-for-us dog, well, isn’t perfect for us right now. I have to be able to walk him on a leash. There is no other option.

So the trainer is coming tonight. I’m hoping some of the neighbors are out with their dogs so we can truly practice and not just go through the motions. I need the trainer to see exactly how Gabe reacts to the dogs and to teach me exactly how to make him STOP.

Plan B is to move out to the country.

I have to admit, it’s sounding better and better all the time.

Today I have been divorced for officially five years. Here are the top five things I enjoy about being single again.

1. I never have to compromise.
2. The sense of accomplishment that comes with being a working parent, owning a home, making a car payment, paying the bills, saving for college and retirement, etc.
3. All the quality one-on-one time I have with LM.
4. Exclusively visiting my family on holidays.
5. My dog. (my ex doesn’t like dogs, doesn’t like big dogs, doesn’t like big drooly dogs!!)

Today also marks thirteen years since I graduated from college. If I could go back, here are thirteen things I would do differently:

1. Let my freshman year roommate date my ex husband instead of me (ooh, this idea just makes me laugh and smile!!)
2. Spend more time cultivating a social life and less time studying (it’s okay Dad, the 4.0 in my major hasn’t gotten me anywhere).
3. Choose a different major. (Mine was Elementary Education.)
4. Join a sorority.
5. Taken advantage of the opportunity to study abroad for a trimester.
6. Never sign up for Econ, Stats and Accounting all in the same trimester.
7. Make more 3am runs to Five Points Bakery.
8. Gone to a state school (read that: no student loans to pay off for years and years.)
9. Asked out the one guy I had a crush on during that time.
10. Spent my summers and breaks working in jobs/internships that would introduce me to potential career options instead of just trying to make as much money as possible.
11. Spend more weekends (and summers) at home with my mom.
12. I loved being an R.A., but I missed having roommates.
13. Not been such a goodie-two-shoes.

In honor of what would have been my thirteenth wedding anniversary today, I give to you my list of the 13 best things about being married:

1. Even when we had no plans, I still had someone to do nothing with.
2. Grocery shopping, carrying in the bags and putting away the food was a group effort.
3. Sometimes, if I didn’t take out the trash, he would.
4. Adult conversation on a daily basis.
5. His family lived in England which meant they paid for us to visit!
6. Riding in the passenger seat.
7. He cleaned out the cat box.
8. Cooking for three.
9. Silly little acts of kindness. J would buy a body wash that he thought I’d like, or my favorite snack food, ‘just cause’.
10. At church, at the movies, or out to eat, there was always someone sitting next to me.
11. Having someone who took my side when I thought my friends/family/co-workers were being unfair.
12. Being a stay at home mom.
13. Sharing cute LM moments together.

I’ve wanted a ceiling fan in my bedroom for well over a year now. I kept holding out, telling myself I would buy one when I knew that family was coming for a visit (read that: suckers!) and could help me hang it. Turns out, they caught drift of this memo and have put off trips to my house until they are certain all household “honey-do” projects are done. I succumbed. I bought a fan on sale a week ago and vowed that LM and I would hang it together. Somehow. With lots of help from the directions.

And I did. I got it out of the box on Sunday morning and started working through it piece by piece. The wiring was already present in the ceiling or I would never have attempted to hang a fan, but that didn’t make the task any less daunting to me. The directions were fairly easy to follow and all the parts seemed to be present. I did have to make a run to Sears hardware for a different screw than the one that came with the fan, however, as the posts that were already in place in my ceiling had a different thread width than the ones that came with the fan. My conversation with the strange old man at Sears went like this:

Me: Hi. I am hanging a ceiling fan and the screws that came with the fan…
Old Sears Guy: we don’t sell ceiling fans anymore.
Me: No, I know, I have the fan. What I need are these screws. See, the ones that came with the fan…
OSG: we don’t sell the fans and we don’t sell the fan parts anymore, either.
Me: No, I know, I don’t need a fan or a fan part. It’s just that these screws…
OSG: Nope, we don’t have the replacement parts for any fan.
Me: I know. You don’t sell fans, and you don’t sell parts for fans, but do you indeed sell SCREWS?!
OSG: why, yes, of course we sell screws…

Yeah, it got worse from there, too. But I did get the screws that I needed and made them work.

LM came in just in time to help with the parts that required three hands. We both balanced on the foot of my bed as I tried to hold 40 pounds above my head with my left hand and position a tiny screw in a tiny hole that I could not see with my right (a task I did not master during my brief stint in the circus. I jest.) There was cursing, there was sweating there were moments when I wanted to throw the fan out the window, but I prevailed.

The entire unit was hung, all pieces were used and it even looks like the picture on the box.

We turned the electricity back on, flipped the light switch, pulled the chains and voila! The fan works. The light, however, does not. The wiring for the fan portion was actually rather involved (read that: I had to call Bear for advice on a couple of the green colored wires). The wiring for the light portion was simple: plug two plug halves together matching the letters and colors on each side of the plug. We did. We double checked. But it doesn’t work. We even tested the bulbs. Fixing the light will have to wait for another day when my patience has been restored.

I learned several things during this process but I will share the most important learning lesson: As a parent, I have failed to teach my child of his Most Important Role when I am tackling household projects: to get me an ice cold Pepsi-Cola in a glass with several cubes of ice.

In the midst of cursing and sweating and fighting back the urge to stomp the fan I realized I.WAS.THIRSTY. As a child, when Dad was in the woodshop or when he was mowing the yard or when he was sleeping through, I mean watching, a baseball game, it was my duty to get him an ice-cold Pepsi-Cola in a glass with several ice cubes. This was MY JOB.

Somehow I have failed to teach this Very.Important.Job to LM. He didn’t know that he was supposed to get me a Pepsi. He didn’t know to put some ice in a glass and bring me a drink. He didn’t know that when I started to use words like “hell” and “damn” that he should calmly go get me a refill and offer me a refreshing drink while I tried to figure out how to hang the blasted fan. It’s what we did growing up. He just didn’t know. Because I had failed to teach him.

Forgive me for overlooking this important lesson, Dad. Before I send LM to your house for a month this summer I will teach him the importance of an ice cold Pepsi. I will teach him that it must be poured in a glass. And that he should not underestimate the amount of ice that is necessary for the job. I will stress the importance of rushing a Pepsi to anyone who is currently swearing or slamming materials or shouting at no one in particular. We will practice until his pouring technique is perfected. I still have several projects to go before summer. He might not get it mastered when I try to fix the vertical blinds that will.not.turn. But surely by the time we get to painting the stairwell he will have the skill mastered and will be better prepared for his time at your house!

Next in the series of Life Lessons to Teach Your Children (according to my dad) will be: How to Easily Manage Everyday Tasks with the Use of One Notecard in Your Front Shirt Pocket.

Stay Tuned!

Centering

Diving In

Bringing Up the Walls

A Baker’s Dozen

Glazing

(notice the glaze doesn’t look anything like the finished colors –

makes it more interesting that way!)

Finished Pots

(One of my favorites)

This is how NOT to make a pot. It started to torque and wreck and I just decided to fire and glaze it anyways. A “creative mistake” perhaps.

A Perfect “10”

The Boys

What Form!

LM and his Best Friend “W”

The Trumpet Player

Concentrating

Looking for Mom and Dad

(It was a great first concert!!)

Last night I went to pottery class to pick up my finished pots. Charlie and his daughter were both there and as we waited for our instructor to arrive we both gazed anxiously into the kiln. It was evident that a pot had melted (which struck us as odd at this point in the firings) and we both prayed that it didn’t affect any of our other pieces. (I should say, Charlie prayed and paced and worried and stressed and I just casually hoped it hadn’t hurt anything but for all I knew it was my pot that had melted!) As it turns out, for all the times Charlie came in on his own, one of those times he used a low-fire clay and it melted during the high-fire firing. I was much relieved that it wasn’t one of mine because it had adhered to one of his nicer pots and run over onto three of his others. WHEW!!

Charlie had 12 pieces that he had made. By my standards they were beautiful. Some of the bowls were truly amazing to me. From big to small he really showed his abilities. The glaze on several of them was particularly stunning as well. Charlie, however, was so struck by the melted pot and the glaze on a few of his pieces that didn’t fire well that he was solemn and quiet and withdrawn while we excitedly looked over the pieces and I packed mine up to take home. Charlie went on and on about how this or that one was supposed to be a gift, or about how he had created that one on a particularly bad day (he’s going through a divorce) and had wanted it to be symbolic of his recovery. He was really emotionally tied to these pieces and heartbroken when they weren’t what he had imagined them to be.

I stopped packing and told Charlie how envious I was of his abilities. How beautiful his bowls were. I picked up a couple and made specific comments on each. I told him how proud he should be of the pieces he was taking home. That part of the enjoying each piece is knowing the risks that you take when you create and fire them. When they turn out well, it’s almost as much out of your control as anything. Although one of his deep plates wasn’t useable for food (because of cracked glazing) it would make a beautiful bowl to force bulbs in. I told him so. He gave me the plate. I gave it back. I complimented him on it’s beauty even if it wasn’t useable in the way he had intentioned.

He would hear none of this.

We finally just tried to change the subject. Charlie asked if I would be taking the class again. I (again) reiterated that it was too costly for me to repeat at this time and that if I chose to spend money on a hobby, I’d probably invest it in a class of a different theme. Photography, perhaps. Maybe sketching. Something new to try. He was forlorn. Truly. Our instructor shared that she wasn’t sure when another class would be offered. This studio really needs a class of at least 5 or 6 to make it worthwhile and so far they just don’t have that interest.

Charlie was devastated. He NEEDS this, he said. He just finally got back to doing pottery after 29 years and with all that’s going on in his life he NEEDS this. Our teacher tried to suggest other ways to enjoy the hobby without having to be at this studio – ways to create at home and just pay for firing time in the kiln. He was broke, he said, as it is he’s scrounging for food money. He went on and on as if someone had just told him his own mother was dying.

The entire time this is going on, his daughter sat at the table right next to her dad. She is LM’s age and attends the same school. She had made a cookie-jar bear that had turned out very well. My heart just went out to her as she listened with a burdened heart to all that her dad was laying out on the table.

Charlie spent hours and hours in the studio. He molded pot after pot after pot. He threw away more forms than he kept. He worked them for hours at a time until he was as satisfied as he could get. In glazing even, he was meticulous about what and where and how much and just which color balance he wanted. All this time, his heavy heart has been pouring itself into clay when his daughter is sitting right next to him. She needs his time, his attention and his love. She needs to be molded and formed, taught and guided. She is going through a transition as well and needs to know that she is safe and beautiful and adored. At some point, I hope Charlie will lift his eyes from the pottery wheel and see the beautiful, freckled face of his daughter standing there, waiting to love him.

I learned a lot during this class. A little bit was even about clay.

If you have not yet seen Sarah Maclachlan’s video for “World on Fire” do so as soon as you possibly can. It says more than I can convey. There is a part in all of this that we can choose to play.