Lizard euthanasia....

If you've been following my blog, you know that I have a problem with animals.

I love having pets. Whenever someone is trying to give away an unwanted animal, they always call me first, knowing that I am an animal lover (read: sucker).

I remember once being saddled with a Siamese cat that my aunt claimed was just a wonderful pet, but she could no longer keep it. Said cat spent two days huddled behind our guest room toilet, hissing and swiping, claws fully extended, at anyone who tried to coax her out to eat or use the kitty box.

"Get rid of that damn cat," was all Steve said. Feeling grateful for his intervention, I did just that.

Little animals are another story. So is having a classroom of my own. See, there I can indulge myself. Frogs, turtles, guinea pigs and lizards have all shared their lives with me and my preschool counterparts.

Our last little pet was a spotted leopard gecko named, of all things, Sunnie-Lovie. If you don't want names like that, never ask a 4 year old little girl for suggestions.

Anyway, Sunnie-Lovie was a good pet. She (I am assuming she was a she, given that I don't know how to determine the gender of lizards) spent her many years with us asleep on her heated rock. Other than that, her sole source of exercise was chasing crickets, and swallowing them whole as they continued to wriggle.

That my students absolutely loved lizard feeding time is a good indicator of true human nature. They would gather around the tank and actually cheer for Sunnie-Lovie to devour another living creature.

There were, of course, a few kids who would always steadfastly encourage the cricket but, really, they were in the minority.

But, I digress.

Lizards never stop growing, and part of the process is shedding their skins every few weeks. Sunnie-Lovie was a champion shedder. Even more fascinating was the fact that she would eat the skin as it fell off her body. Hey, this is a survival tactic, not something designed to make humans cringe.

But last summer, Sunnie-Lovie suffered several incomplete sheds. Each time she shed, a little bit of skin was left around her eyes. Because I did not address it promptly, this left Sunnie-Lovie blind.

After a while, she stopped eating. Because it was summer and I wasn't in my classroom everyday, I didn't notice until it was too late to do anything for her.

I tried to moisten her eyes with water drops and encourage the skin to come off. I tried to hand feed her - all to no avail.

Finally, my little lizard heart breaking, I decided that it would be best for Sunnie-Lovie to be put out of her misery.

Now, I was the kid who always sobbed when, in the Western, the horse had to be shot. I suffer emotional breakdowns during those ASPCA ads showing rescued dogs and cats and featuring Sarah McLachlan singing mournful tunes and encouraging people to donate wads of money to feed and shelter helpless animals. Really, I can't stand it. Without Steve, I'd be donating hundreds per month to this organization, and probably fostering dogs, cats, horses and goats.

But, I digress again.

Anyway, faced with Sunnie-Lovie's necessary demise, I considered my options. Really, what could I do? Squash her little neck? I briefly considered this, but it was just too much.

I finally hit upon the ideal solution - I would set Sunnie-Lovie free. Our school is surrounded by a wooded area, and predators like hawks, snapping turtles, weasels and other carnivores abound. Surely one of them would take care of this for me.

So, gathering my courage, I carried Sunnie-Lovie outside to meet her maker. I gently said goodbye, wiped my tears, and went back into the school, hoping that her end would be quick and painless.

Hours later, when I had recovered my wits and come to grips with the inevitable, my business partner arrived at school. We chatted for a little while, discussing things both personal and professional. As I was about to get back to work, she said:

Did you know your lizard is out on the sidewalk?

Damn.

Someone's in the kitchen....

Among my many domestic weaknesses is my disdain for baking. It's boring. It's messy. It requires a precision that does not in any way come naturally to me.

My mom is, and her mom was, a wonderful baker. Both of my brothers have the baking gene as well. Many a holiday has been devoted to bake-offs (which is really a more polite way to say pissing contests) between my brothers:

Brother #1 - I'm making apple pie for Thanksgiving.

Brother #2 - I'm making caramel apple pie for Thanksgiving.

Brother # 1 - Oh yeah? I'm making caramel/apple/pecan pie for Thanksgiving.

Brother # 2 - Well, I'm making caramel/apple/pecan/chocolate pie for Thanksgiving. And it will weigh 5.7 pounds.

It is worth noting that this past Thanksgiving, we managed to have one pie per person. One whole pie for each person. Someone needs to stop this, and soon.

Even Steve and Kelsey are great at baking. Steve's cookies always come out perfectly, and never mind the fact that when Kelsey bakes, batter ends up on the ceiling (honestly, HOW does she do that?) She always turns out delicious things. She made a pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving that I could have devoured single handedly had someone else not gotten there first.

As a child, I remember my mom and my brothers in the kitchen, happily baking cookies or, her specialty, chocolate eclairs. (I have never tasted another chocolate eclair like my mom's - and believe me, I've tried them all.)

Because I was a rather cantankerous and contrary child, and, really, a miserable teenager, I'm sure I made a conscious decision to NOT learn how to bake. And, by golly, I've stuck with it over the years.

But I do make an exception once per year. Every Christmas Eve, I bake an apple pie to take to my sister-in-law's Christmas dinner. I have, if I do say so myself, become a family celebrity because of my apple pie. Well, OK, maybe I am just dreaming this last part. But still.

Here's the thing - I hate peeling apples. I hate it so much, in fact, that when the kids were small, I would convince them that peeling apples was about as much fun as a kid could have. "Family baking project," I would proclaim. "Let's go get all those apples peeled."

Until they reached the age of reason, they fell for it. After that, I would resort to bribery.

Then, I found the world's greatest invention - the Apple Peeler/Corer/Slicer.

The APCS looks a bit like a piece of medieval medical equipment, but boy, does it work. By shoving the apple onto what resembles a corkscrew and turning a lever, this little goody peels, cores and slices in a matter of seconds. It has made my annual foray into baking almost enjoyable.

So, this morning I set out to bake my famous pie. The APCS did its wonders. Pillsbury provided the crusts (you didn't really think I'd make my own, did you?) I was almost happy as I worked. Steve put on Christmas music and I hummed along. I fell into a little daydream.

Sometimes, when I am in the kitchen, I pretend I am Ina Garten.

You know Ina, right? The Barefoot Contessa? She has a cooking show that is filmed, I think, in her Hamptons kitchen. She buys her ingredients at cute little food boutiques and prepares picnics for the beach. Her husband Jeffrey (who I think may be gay, but Ina doesn't know it) gets to eat all of her products.

Ina's voice is like liquid valium. Just listening to her for half an hour soothes me in a way that, otherwise, could probably only be obtained illegally. I love Ina.

So, pretending to be Ina makes time in the kitchen go faster. It also helps to pretend that the production staff will be cleaning up all of the dirty dishes.

Of course, Ina doesn't usually bake in a pink bathrobe. And she doesn't have 65 pounds of canine eating machine weaving in and out of her legs, waiting for scraps to fall. (Toby does like apple cores, by the way. I just found that out.)

No, Ina doesn't face this stuff. She'd have Jeffrey take the dog for a walk down to the cute little New England town she calls home. But this morning, I did.

So anyway, in my most soothing Ina voice, I ordered Toby out of the kitchen and had him lay down in the family room. He gave me his best broken-hearted dog gaze, but did manage to stay away until I had finished the pie (which was gorgeous, by the way) and set it on the counter while the oven finished heating.

Then, I went to take out the garbage.

Coming back into the kitchen, I was greeted with the sight of Toby, front paws on the counter, fully extended, getting ready to lick the Christmas pie. Luckily, I caught him in time.

Besides, I'm sure 45 minutes in a 350 degree oven will kill most of the dog saliva he left behind, eh?

Aging gracefully...

I have this fear that I will someday end up like those crazy cat ladies on Hoarders. However, I'll be a crazy guinea pig lady. Somehow, I'll acquire 50 or 60 guinea pigs who will procreate like mad because I'll have forgotten how to look up the "Guinea Pig Sexing" website and I'll mix boys and girls. Baby guinea pigs will take over the house. I won't have any food, just 50 pound bags of guinea pig cereal. Probably, when the TV show producers come to film my episode, they'll uncover several guinea pig carcasses under the sofa. When they find the sofa.

Anyway, this is my fear. I am hopeful that Steve and the kids will find enough kindness in their hearts to stop this from happening and have me locked away instead.

Since I have been thinking about aging, I thought I might let you in on my master plan to age gracefully. Step one of the master plan is to embrace the silver (OK - gray) hair that I've been sprouting around the temples and above the forehead for the last several years.

(I must digress and say that my 70 year old mom has not one gray hair. Seems I did not inherit this genetic trait.)

For several years now, I've been faithfully trudging to the salon every six weeks for my dose of hair color. I like going to the salon. It smells good, and the stylists give a great neck massage before they work on your hair. They also give you coffee and trail mix, and ask nice questions like "would you like more coffee or trail mix?" This is pampering beyond what I am used to.

A few months ago, however, I decided that a) coloring my hair was really pretty expensive and b) because I fancy myself a non-conformist, I would instead grow out my gray and show the world that it's ok to get old. So there.

So I moved into what I considered the "gray hair" portion of my life. I told myself that my gray hair was a symbol of the wisdom I had accumulated. I told myself that I wasn't fooling anyone, so why keep spending several hundred dollars a year to pretend that I wasn't my own age.

Then, one day, I happened to catch a glance of myself in the mirror when I didn't expect to. I was horrified to see the crazy guinea pig lady peering back at me. "Just go on over to Petco and get all of their guinea pigs," she seemed to be whispering. "And don't forget that 50 pound bag of food."

I immediately phoned my stylist and asked to book a cut and color as SOON AS POSSIBLE. Heck, I would have driven to salon in my pajamas if they'd been able to take me that very minute.

The result is a nice, warm chestnut hair color with no trace of gray. I was brave for a while, but frankly, I don't want to see that nutty lady for at least another 20 years.

"Isn't coloring your hair fun?" my twenty-something stylist asked as she was cutting my bangs.

You have no idea, I thought.

The first seven.....

My husband has a marvelous marriage formula.

It goes like this:

The first seven years of marriage should be endured. Then they should be forgotten and discarded as if they never happened.

We married straight out of college. I was all of 22 years old, he had just turned 25. When I look back on us, I am amazed that we could actually pull off seven years.

What did we know then about choosing a life partner? What could any 22 year old know about choosing a life partner?

We had fun together. We liked the same music and he had a great stereo. He was pretty smart and very cute.

Of course, as a 22 year old, this was enough to convince me that I was meant to spend the rest of my life with him. So we got married. We did have a great wedding.

But a college romance and an engagement ring did nothing to prepare us for constructing a way to live together. We were so young and so immature, and both so convinced that personal happiness was the magic elixir the other person was supposed to provide.

Needless to say, we constantly failed each other, because we constantly missed the point. We argued. We endured prolonged and heavy silences. We waited for the other person to change.

To make a long story short, it took us about seven years to each realize, independent of the other, that we could only change ourselves.

We'd had our first child by this time, and things started to click into place. We became committed to something bigger than our own little selves and we grew up.

We'll celebrate our 29th anniversary this summer. I cringe sometimes thinking about our early history together. We both wanted so much and gave so little. I'm so glad that we persisted, so gratified that we didn't give up after the first seven. And besides, he's still pretty cute.

And I'm not even dead yet....

My very favorite preschool quote is this:

Miss Laura, my grandpa is 56 years old and he's not even dead yet.

This does, of course, fill me with hope that I just may have more than six years left on the clock. To be 56 and not even dead yet - that's heady stuff.

But, just in case my time is limited, I'd best start working on my bucket list. To date, it contains:

Have grandchildren. Of course, this is highly dependent upon my offspring, and their life choices. So, at this point, it's just a pipe dream. My kids need to learn to feed themselves before they take responsibility for another life. But really? I can't wait to have little ones around the house again. Besides, they make such cool baby accessories these days.

Fly on a big airplane over the ocean. Most people who know me are aware of my terror of flying. I'm talking full-fledged panic attacks. Just ask anyone who has flown with me and you'll hear the sordid tales of my fingernails dug into my traveling companion's forearm. However, knowing I may only have six years left has increased my longing for Italy, for Paris, for Scotland, for Hawaii. These, as I am often reminded, are destinations to which it is impossible to drive the Honda mini-van. Damn.

Finish my novel. I got about 11,000 words written in November for NaNoWriMo. Some of them are not too bad. Some of them I would just rather not acknowledge. Still, the process was joyful and I am not happy that I allowed myself to get side-tracked.


Clean out the basement store room. OK, not such a life goal, but I did tell Steve that I was going to do it last weekend.