Thirtysomething? I wish.

Because I have had much time to spend waisting since this month began, I decided to indulge and pop in the first DVD of the first season of "Thirtysomething", a show that I absolutely loved back in the day.  These people seemed so cool, so happening, and I wanted to be like them when I grew up.  I wanted to be in their circle.  Hope and Michael with their newly bought old house and all of its problems, and their new baby and all the stresses being new parents were causing.  Elliot and Nancy with their marital problems, Nancy starting a career late in life, then dealing with and beating cancer.  Cool single gals Ellen with her city-hall job and men trouble, and Melissa with her very hip photography business and loft.  Gary, the beautifully bearded unable-to-commit college English professor, who I was totally in love with and had to deal with some real issues when they killed him off the show.  The show ran from '89 to '91, which means I was early 20's, newly married and full of hope and possibilities for the future.

Well, ahem, let's just say that the best laid plans of mice and men.....   But I caught this show every week for as long as it ran.  I even taped them and kept watching them for a couple of years after it went away, I missed my older friends so much.  By then the reality of my real life had taken hold.  I forgot about the show after that, until the age of TV shows coming out on DVD arrived.  It took a really long time for thirtysomething to get released, something about getting permission from musical artists whose songs were featured on the show, among other problems.  I believe the first season is the only one you can buy.  The remaining seasons are available for download only.  

So about halfway through the season, I had to admit to myself a few things.  First of all, these people did ALOT of whining.  I didn't really notice this the first run.  It almost caused me to not make it through, but the whining seemed to dissapate as the season went on.  Someone must have complained and writing was adjusted.  The second thing I noticed was how much more I was relating to some of their problems, which even though seemed serious back then were now hitting home much more than they did when I was childless all those years ago.  Never having enough "me" time once you have kids, and trying to balance a job with raising a child.  Not so glamorous to watch now.

But the biggest and scariest thing that smacked me in the face, though, was that this time in my life, this time I aspired to with goals and dreams, has gone right by.  I am OLDER than these people now.  How on earth has this happened?!?!?!?!?!?!?  I have missed my chance to have this close enclave of friends with whom I do everything with, people I can turn to in times of crisis, people we invite over to watch the Superbowl or the Academy Awards.  It just never happened that way.  It started to make me sad and feel like my life was missing something.  Where have I gone wrong?

But then I had to pause and regroup.  For the most part, we hang out with the four of us, or larger family units.  Every once in awhile we go out with another couple.  My close friends that I have are my girlfriends from high school, who have seen me through the thick and thin times of life.  I also have my cousin that I've reconnected with over the last few years, neighbors, friends I've made in book club, plus a few new people that have come into my life through my hubby.  And I realized that that's much more than many people have.  So it doesn't look like the polished, witty and never ending cool group from the show.  It's all good.  Besides, it was a television show, and no matter how many true-to-life serious subjects they managed to throw in, it was not reality.  

So finally, the thing that also made me feel better is to see some of these pics below.  It's the cast from a few years ago, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the show.  They are fiftysomethings now, and have mostly aged well - just like us, don't you think?

Sick of being sick

I went to the doctor today.  I officially have topped my previous records, with five, that's right FIVE rounds of sinus infections that morphed into bronchitis this Fall/Winter.  Plus a lovely round of flu right after the holidays.  It seems like I have been sick much more than I have been well since September.  The instances not only have become more frequent, but they are becoming stronger and kicking my booty more.  I've had fever with three rounds, whereas I seldom had fever with it before this year.  And once the coughing starts, (and it always starts), it's worse also than ever before.  I've spent days in bed this year.

All of this is scaring me a little.  My family doctor has done all he can do.  I'm on two different nasal sprays, an antihistamine, diligent about using my sinus rinse twice a day (more when I get sick), and sometimes Robitussin and a decongestent too.  Nothing is working.  When I was seeing an allergist, he referred me to an EENT doctor who screened me for the balloon sinus surgery, and determined I wasn't a candidate for that to help.  I was then tested by my allergist and told my two biggest concerns are DUST (which I've become highly allergic to), and dog hair, which I'm sort of allergic to.  Nothing else scored too serious.  The allergist then said that shots were my only other possible answer, but there's no guarantee there, and frankly we really couldn't afford them (now or then).  I decided at the time to just deal with the infections, because they weren't that bad.  Now they are.  And, friends, here we are in Texas, land of dust for a couple of years now, and only planning to get dustier.  What the heck am I going to do?  Our talks about moving to a wetter climate that were at one time joking around sound a bit more serious now.

I don't remember the last time I went outside to play with the boys.  My walks with Tucker have become so infrequent that he doesn't even look and me and wag his tail when I go get my shoes.  He still tries with Jav, though.  I love being outside in all kinds of weather, and I have become a recluse.  I feel like my quality of life has now been affected BIG TIME and I'm going to have to do something about it.  I've been reading those stories about China's poor air quality, and seeing all the people in Beijing walking around in their masks and mini oxygen tanks, and I'm starting to wonder if I should try it and see it it helps.  Everyone who sees me out walking the dog will think I have TB or something, but I'm starting not to care.

I have made an appiontment (at my father's gentle and caring pushing) with a new EENT doctor that he respects and hopes can help me.  Good Lord, I hope he can help me.  My appointment is Thursday.  More to come.

IEAS - Our magical day

The International Exotic Animal Sanctuary is a place I first heard about back in 1998.  I was dating someone who lived in a town nearby where the place is located.  It was established in 1988 as a home for big and small cats who came to them for a variety of reasons.  (We would find out more about these reasons on our tour).  We never ended up checking the place out, even though it was closer than we ever imagined to where he lived. Fast forward to about two years ago, when my friend Christi started sharing pics from their Facebook page.  Now the place had added bears and a few other exotic animals, and the pictures were delightful.  I finally "liked" them too, and realized I HAD to take a trip to see the place in person.  But kids had to be at least 7 to go on the tour.  Sighs and more waiting.  Gabriel turned 7 last year, and then the perfect opportunity:  I took my neice to see The Nutcracker for her Christmas present and needed somewhere special to take my nephew.  IEAS, here we come!!!!

We waited until a weekend in January, after all the holiday hullabulloo.  I drove Cade and Gabriel to Rhome, TX on a beautiful warmish and brightly sunny day.  I signed us in, and our other tourmates arrived.  A mother and daughter and a couple in their 60's.  That was it!  You are expected to make a donation if possible to take the tour.  As our guide, a female volunteer of 10 years, told us the rules, I had a little pang of worry about having Gabriel with me.  She told us to always follow her directions, there might be some habitats we would have to keep walking by based on the animals behavior.  No squatting down to take pictures, because the smaller you are, the more you resemble prey to these animals.  Here's my smallish 7-year-old looking up at me, and I realized he will look like a giant pork chop to most of them.  But I shook this off when I heard their safety record (NO animal attacks, EVER), and the various things they have in place in case of an attack:  fire extinguishers located all throughout the grounds to spray in an animal's face, and safe houses scattered everywhere for tour members in case of an escape during a tour.  But I did stress to G the importance of remembering no yelling or loud noises, no running or squatting down, and no getting off the path.  

Our guide opened the main gate and we all tensed up, immediately looking around for some life.  Imagine our delight when this energetic guy, Popeye the lemur, bounded out of his house to sprawl on the fence and tell us hello!  He LOVES people and tours, and about halfway through ours we heard him calling out for us to come back and see him some more, which we did on our way out.  He is a wonderful ice-breaker and eased the tension.  The guide said they think he needs a companion lemur for company!

The next habitat held Saber, a young white tiger who came to them mid-year last year.  She told us Saber was still a bit uneasy around tours and we needed to keep walking all the way around his area without stopping.  Cade and I still took pics while we were walking by.  Saber really made an impact on Cade, and he bought a framed picture of him to put up in his room for his souvenier.

These guys are hard to see, but they are Coatimundis, coatis for short (pronounced "kwa-tees").  They just acquired their second one last year.  Their names are Mork and Mindy, and they are native to Central and South America and closely related to raccoons.  They have an anteater type nose that will tilt 60 degrees up when they get a drink of water.  

This cute girl is Chewy, a grizzly cub that just this month turned a year old.  She just came also last year and is spirited and full of life.  She watched us and seemed to want to get our attention (as if she had to try!),  She played with her Christmas tree and balls, and stole all of our hearts.  Especially Gabriel's, who ended up getting a stuffed grizzly for his souvenier that he named Chewy.  

At this point we also saw our first Bengal tiger, but I could never get a good shot of her.  Most of their big cats are elderly when they get them and have developed arthritis and other bone or joint problems.  Their habitats are purposely not very big so they won't walk or run very far.  

We entered into the main bear area through some large gates and were told that it is a myth that bears hibernate in the winter.  There are some true hibernating species, where they actually sleep all winter, but bears are not one of them.  They actually go into a state of "torpor", their metabolism slows, they sleep 1-2 days at a time, and eat less.  But they come out to enjoy warm, sunny days and our guide had hope we would see some out and about enjoying the sun.

And she was right!  There was this guy in the tree. one lounging on her back with one eye open watching us, and another HUGE black bear lumbering along the fence line too far away for a picture.  Our guide told us that black bears actually come in a variety of colors, including cinammon, which made us wonder how you tell the difference between brown and black bears.  These were bears that have been at the sanctuary awhile.  While we were walking past, we noticed a small domestic cat walking around inside the bear habitat.  Our guide said that since the bears are well fed they don't pay any attention to her.  

It was then that our guide told us the story, and proudly showed us the new habitat, for their 11 newest bear members.  These bears had been living in South Carolina as a road side attraction.  They lived in small concrete pits, having just enough room to pace back and forth, never aloud to leave the pits.  Their only taste of outdoors was a small circle at the top of their pit where people would pay to throw food down to them.  IEAS and many animal groups pulled together for years and finally won custody of the bears last June, but they only had 90 days to build a habitat.  An anonymous donor from California, who had been trying to free the bears for years also, gave them $450,000.  They had a crew working round the clock and finished it in 75 days.  Each bear now has a living area with a man-made den, feeding area and water tub (for those brutal Texas summer days), along with an acre of land to explore.  How wonderful is that?  Some of them have had a hard time getting used to the freedom, and still pace back and forth when they get agitated.  But IEAS recently shared some video on Facebook of two of the bears who had no trouble adjusting to this new life, one of which had her instincts pop in and dug out her first den herself this past fall.  I didn't take pics during this time.  I was pretty overwhelmed about hearing that story and just wanted to enjoy seeing those bears living happier lives.

When an animal arrives at the sanctuary, most of the time he or she isn't too fond of humans (with good reason).  We heard some terrible stories about how some residents got there.  There was the tiger that got left in a garage with no food or water when his owner had to move and had no papers for the animal.   There was a circus who had come through a nearby town, called IEAS and said if they didn't take their white tiger that day (he had recently stopped performing for the crowds), they were going to shoot him and make him into a rug.  There was the lioness who as a cub was living with a family with small children.  When the mom next door found out, she took it upon herself not to call authorities, but to shoot the animal herself!  Luckily she was a bad shot and the lioness only lost a toe.  The tour makes you realize both the worst and best human qualities, because with every horror story she told us, she also had one about people donating money or time to the sanctuary, or about local businesses like Walmart and Kroger donating all kinds of food every single day.  Also, on staff is an animal behaviorist who has developed an Emotional Enrichment program for each animal based on their history.  The volunteers help, by just sitting with and talking and reading to their animal.  They spend time with them weekly, until the animal begins to trust humans again.

  

My cute tourmates.

This is Shauna, the lioness who got her toe shot off.  She is much older now, but still playful.  Shauna is also the only animal who tidies up her area every day, gathering up all her toys and placing them in the corner.  

Sapphire, the female cougar.  Look at those muscles!  Mountain lions, cougars and pumas are all the same animal, just called different things based on where you live in the country. 

THIS handsome face is really the reason I finally made myself see the place in person, along with the Cade reason.  This is Odin, newly arrived member.  These pics were taken 3 - 4 months ago.  He and Saber, the white tiger, arrived together at IEAS from Florida, where it is legal to keep cubs for photo shoots with people until they turn six months old.  IEAS is fighting to get that law changed, needless to say.  But there is something about this face that just charmed me.  I knew I had to see him in person.   When we signed in we were asked if we had a favorite, and I said that even though they are all special, I really liked Odin.  They replied that he has become very popular.  Easy to see why!

So this was Odin on our tour.  He has doubled in size already since arriving.  He LOVES tours and poses like this all the time.  He had a mentor, an older male lion named Ron whose habitat was next door, teaching him how to be a lion.  But sadly, Ron just passed away the week before our tour.  So Odin is the only male lion now.  His mane is starting to come in.  I can't wait to watch him grow up!

This is also hard to see, but there is a white tiger at the corner of her habitat.  Her name is Karen, and when we were done taking pics of Odin the guide said that Karen was stalking us.  Huh?  And to go ahead and walk over, but if she got up and started pacing we would have to move on.  Well, I got one picture and then Gabriel and I sashayed on out of the way.  "Stalking" is not a good word to hear while walking by with my little pork chop.  She never moved, by the way, which somehow made me more uneasy.

We learned some heartbreaking things about white tigers.  None of them are pure bred, the original white tiger was a pure white Bengal  with no stripes that was bred with a Siberian tiger in India.  All white tigers are related.  The white fur is a double recessive gene, which will only come out by inbreeding, brother with sister or father to daughter etc.   When the cubs are born, they are very rarely white, and they all have several sad side effects from the inbreeding:  crossed eyes, cleft palates, club feet, spinal deformities, and defective organs, including congenital heart disease.  The cubs without white fur are "throw aways", having all the defects but not the money-making ability of white fur.  So, so sad.  There is a ban on breeding them now, but of course greedy people still try to do it.  

The Director and Curator of IEAS are married, and live on site with their small son and a dog in a heavily fenced in area right at the front of the property.  I would be more than a bit nervous raising a child in this environment, but like I said they seem to really have the safety thing down (but still, you never know).   The staff is composed of volunteers and 8 interns who also live in barracks onsite.  They are one of the few places that offer food and rooms, and even cars to the interns.  Every time there is an intern opening they receive over 200 applications!  They come from all over the country, and there was a current intern from Finland.  There is a big map posted that shows where all their interns have gone on to work.  Apparantly it is a really good place to have on your resume, since they are accredited by the AZA (Association of  Zoos and Aquariums).  They also have a full-time vet on staff and a quarantine area for new animals and for the animals that get sick.  They had 8 tigers in the quarantine area the day of our tour.  

We were shown the kitchens on our tour, which was really cool.  They have everyone's diet carefully written out on a huge dry-erase board, complete with measurements and supplements.  As I mentioned before, Walmart, Kroger, and a produce market nearby donate all their unsold fruit, vegetables, meat and sweet breads (for the bears).  I was pleasantly surprised by this.  Also by each cats' name is written either B or NB, which puzzled me.  Then our guide pointed out some very bent stainless steel bowls with teeth marks through them that they keep to show tours.  Some cats are B (food in bowl), and the ones who demolished their bowls the first time they were served are NB and get their food dumped on the ground.

The biggest surprise of my day came when we walked up to Noel's habitat.  He is a Siberian tiger that has been with IEAS for almost 20 years, coming to them during Christmas time in 1995.  Hence his name.  The pics above were some I pulled from their website.  I don't remember seeing him before our tour day.

The guide said he usually stays in his den and doesn't come out for tours very often.  But here he came, and plopped down right next to the fence for a photo-op!  He is majestic, to say the least.  And has a playful side about him.  There is a dead tree stretched horizontally across his area and he loves to straddle it, lounging in the sun.  That is personality!   I'm seriously considering a one-day adoption of him, so I can go and sit with him during Emotional Enrichment time.

What an amazing day, and what an amazing place.  I can't wait to go back.  Sadly we can't take Jojo for a few more years, but I'm ok with that.  I was really nervous a couple of times even with Gabriel.  If Joel had been with us I would have ended up in the hospital!  I totally understand that rule.  We want to go back in early summer and take my parents.  I think we will turn it into a Father's Day celebration.

Loss of innocence

Gabriel watched his first EVER PG-13 movie on New Year's Eve with us.  Jurassic Park proved to be a really good choice for this, since he only wanted to cover up his eyes once or twice during the movie.  He asked questions, and seemed ok with even the scarier parts.  I stil get chills during that kitchen scene when those raptors are hunting the kids.  It's just plain scary!!!

He came home from school yesterday and excitedly told me that a classmate of his told him that The Amazing Spiderman 2 is coming out, and I said, "But you haven't seen the first one.", and he sadly shook his head, "Nope".  I think he is ready to start watching some superhero movies, as long as one of us watches with him in case he has questions.  Our problem is that Joel wants to do everything Ba-Ba does.  We lucked out on NYE.  We watched The Muppet Movie first, and Joel fell asleep within minutes of Jurassic Park starting.  I know we could just tell Jojo he has to go to bed and Gabriel can stay up.  But that is easier said than done.  I think we'd have a hard time getting him to stay in bed, and I really don't want to get into a power struggle with that one.  It's not a safe bet that I will win.  So we're considering doing this double feature method more often.  I don't even know if G is interested in seeing The Avengers or Batman or any of those movies, but I hate the thought of his friends at school all talking about them and he has no idea what they're talking about.  Why this bothers me I have no idea.  I vowed I would never succumb to parental or friend peer pressure.  But bother me it does, a little.

I know we have sheltered Gabriel somewhat up to this point.  He still doesn't watch TV with commercials.  We don't ever watch the news, so he has no "bigger picture" of what goes on in the world.  I don't want to scare him half to death, but I do think it's time to let him know there are some sad and sometimes scary things that happen in the world.  And we can talk about them.  But once again, I run into the Jojo problem - I don't think he is ready to see a newscast, the way they are filled with pretty horrific stuff these days.  Maybe Joel can have his Ipad time in the other room while Gabriel and I watch, or something.

It freaks me out how mature and big this boy is getting.  But look at that face.  That face is so sweet and innocent.  I don't want to mess that up!

Wall-E

Anyone who knows me knows that I will go on and on about why I love the Pixar films.  They tell great stories with great characters, but there is always so much going on beneath the surface of the film that I must have several viewings before all the layers begin to show themselves.

When WALL-E came out in 2008 I had little interest.  I knew it had something to do with robots, which to me meant futuristic, which meant I did not think it was for me.  But then we bought the boys a used copy in 2012.  Even then it took them watching it a couple of times before my interest peaked and I sat down to watch the whole thing.

First impression was, "Wow!  This is environmental and totally up my alley!", and "What a charming love story between WALL-E and Eve, ",  charmed as I was by the sweet homage to movie musicals with songs from Hello, Dolly!".  I couldn't believe it had not been on my radar.  I felt like the movie was made just for me, even down to the Peter Gabriel closing credits song.

But then I watched a couple of more times.  And some of the movie's other true-to-life layers hit me:  How corporate sponsorship is taking over EVERYTHING, and the way advertising tries to shove stuff down your throat that you don't really need, and the black humor about The Carts the humans travel around in, and being too out of shape to get themselves back in one if they happen to fall out.  Have you seen how many real life Wal Mart customers use those carts?

Then a few more viewings and the true poetry of WALL-E showed itself.  When the current captain of the ginormous spaceship that all humans have been living on for 800+ years is shown the pictures of Earth, something awakens in him.  Perhaps it is a connection to that soil we also call "earth".  Perhaps it is a longing to breath fresh air created by plants that have grown tall in the warm sun.  But the MOST poignant moment in the movie is when the captain is told (by an evil robot) that the only way humans can survive is if they stay on the ship.  He yells, "But I don't want to survive.  I want to LIVE!!!!!"   To me, there is nothing so inherently human as that will, that shear force that drives us to do almost inhuman things to keep going.

I am big believer in science and fact.  I question things I learned about the creation of earth and most other stories from the Bible.  There are scientific reasons behind the things once thought of as miracles.  But just because I am a big believer of science, that doesn't mean I have stopped believing in some type of higher power.  There are two things that keep me believing in God as creator of miracles:  The miracle of our beautiful planet, and that unstoppable drive of the human heart.  There is no way that human feature is not God-given, when you consider what we are made out of and where we have evolved from.

The last time I watched WALL-E I caught the very end of the movie for the first time, right before those credits roll.  The love song from "Hello, Dolly!" is just playing away, and I guess with my previous viewings I had already hopped up to do something else, assuming that the song is playing for WALL-E and Eve, finally together.  But no.  The people are all coming out of the ship, breathing the fresh air for the first time in their lives, and the camera pans out farther and farther, until all we see is our little planet.  Our beautiful blue Earth, in all of its diverse, life-giving glory.  That's the real love story in WALL-E.  The one between we humans and our miraculous planet that keeps us alive.  And when I think about all of the things, all of the science, that had to come together to give us this gift, my belief in God as protector, as creator of miracles, just swells out of me.

Joel is 4!

2nd-born kids have it easy for some things, tough for others.  2nd-born kids born close to Christmas have the handicap of parents that have run out of money after the school year has started, Gabriel's birthday, halloween, and early Christmas shopping.  Joel really doesn't have any friends his own age yet (except for Jaxon at school, and honestly I do NOT like his parents one bit - how selfish!)

So, when Joel's birthday rolls around, we struggle to think of something special to do for him without spending a boat load of money.  On his actual birthday we went to see "Frozen" at a Movie Grill place where we could eat and watch the movie.  Jojo thought that was pretty cool!  Instead of a party, we decided to take Joel, G, and cousins to Lego Land for an afternoon, then meet back up at our house with grandparents, aunts and uncles for pizza and cake.  One cool thing about Jav's sister getting married is that Joel and Gabriel now have two more cousins - Lizzie and Grace.  Lizzie just turned 12 and loves doing stuff with the boys.  Grace is a senior this year so we don't get to see as much of her.

The weekend we planned for was the 1st full weekend in December, since Thanksgiving fell so late in November this year.  Well, Mother Nature had other ideas.  The ice started falling, and falling, and falling, and the temps kept dropping, and dropping and dropping.  I had ordered the tickets ahead of time, and called in a panic to find out what their policy was in an ice storm.  I found out we had 14 days to use the tickets, thank God!  

So we moved the party out a week, and things started to fall apart again.  My brother was supposed to go to Lego land with us, but he was on call for work and had to be near a computer, so was out for the entire thing.  Cade was supposed to be with his mom the weekend of Ice Storm Zero, so was spending it with her - he was out too.  Then both grandmothers got sick, and at that point we decided to cancel the pizza and cake party afterwards.  We went to Lego Land with Macy and Aunt April, and met Aunt Sandy and Lizzie there.  Grapevine Mills Mall was an absolute zoo since no one had been able to get out to shop the weekend before, but we were prepared for that.  Lego Land was a blast!  Jojo was on sensory overload and just ran from place to place in wide-eyed wonder.  He even rode the bicycle ride, which I never thought he would do because he seemed afraid of heights.

We went home and Macy spent the night, and it was very special to have her with us for our much smaller pizza and cake party.  After he opened his presents, Jojo started a war with the party favors and we all had a silly, good time!  Even though I had felt really bad for him the way the plans fell apart, I have to say he didn't seem to notice.  It was a special day and he had a blast, which I'm very glad about.

Seeing "Frozen" and waiting for pizza.

The first ice cream cake.  

Lizzie and Macy racing the cars they built.  These two bonded at Lego Land!

Jojo and daddy on the bicycle ride!

Ice cream cake number two.   You can never have enough!!

Happy Birthday Jojo!  Wow - you're 4!!

Gabriel's 7th Birthday

I have really fallen behind on the blog posts.  I think my resolution this year (I don't usually make them) will be to post at least once a week.  

In September, we had a shindig at the house for Gabriel.  A Peanuts-themed party with a bouncy house in the backyard.  We had invited his whole class for the first time.  We had a little RSVP problem, and then it started raining an hour before the party.  And continued to rain until after everyone went home.  We at least took comfort in the fact that the kids would be dry in the bouncy house.  But it had a leak.  Party absolutely ruined, we thought.  But 4 kids showed up from his class, along with our old neighborhood friends and cousins, of course.  

And we forgot something.  Adults think getting wet is an icky problem.  Kids think getting wet is FUN.  At one point all the water that had pooled on top suddenly let loose inside and all the kids were dancing around in it.  It reminded me of one of those over-the-top nightclubs in Ibiza or somewhere where they would all of a sudden drop tons of water or foam on everyone dancing and they'd go nuts.  It was hilarious.  Gabriel had an absolute wet, soggy blast.  

I had so much food leftover we ate little appetizer-type food for dinner for a week.  

We're all crowded on the back porch trying to stay dry for cake.

Gabriel and his best friend, Kalilah.

Before and after of the poor pinata!  Cade took a few whacks after everyone else had some turns and did it in.

After all the guests went home, we were watching G open his gifts, and we heard a strange smacking sound.  Tucker was standing up on the table licking the icing border of what was left of the cake.  Yuck!