It's been a long six months of waking the RLA up in the middle of the night to say "I want a PUPPY". Or, in the middle of a conversation about something, anything else, asking "Can I have a puppy?" Sometimes I've even chanted it, like Bart Simpson asking "Are we there yet?"
But the universe unfolds the way the universe will unfold, and so, on my birthday I received an e-mail from a breeder who had no puppies, but had found one up in Port St. Lucie that she thought was a good, sound little girl.

A couple of phone calls later and the force of nature that is your narrator had made arrangements with the breeder, and finally broken down the RLA's resistance.

I present to you the newest member of the Shoes family: Miss Josephine Baker, or as she has now figured out, and comes to: JoJo.

It's occured to me, as I sift through the detritus of my home studio, that I really don't have to go back to work as a corporate art hack. I could change careers. No, really, I could.
The question, of course, is what should I be now that I have ostensibly grown up.

On the one hand, I'd like to be paid to be a smart ass. That means either doing stand up, or comedy writing, or taking over as the new, female, emergency back up Dave Barry. (Which I fully feel capable of doing.) I could sell my manuscript (finally). I could try to parlay this blog into a money making enterprise.

On the other hand, I would just adore going back to school to become a chef. I would not adore the long hours and back breaking work involved to become the oldest sous-chef in the worst diner in Miami.

On still another hand, I really would love to lock myself away in my studio and just sew and bead and make things. I don't even mind selling the things I make. Unlike the RLA, by the time I finish a piece of artwork, I don't want to live with it, I want it out of the house, preferably forever.

On yet another hand, maybe I should just get a part-time job at a Starbucks or Borders... you know, something where I could go to work and never have to engage my brain at all. The only down side I can see to one of those jobs is dealing with the public, and I hate the public. I'm not even too keen on people.

So maybe I should go to work as a vetrinary assistant, and make minimum wage, and swab dog poop for a living. Or not.

I dunno. Maybe I'll just float along in an undecided fugue state until something falls in my lap.

I'm officially old today.

Or not.

My mother, who is eighty-six, insists, when asked, that she is maybe twenty-one. This gives creedence to the quote by the immortal Satchel Paige, who once said "How old would you be, if you didn't know how old you was?"
Tonight, somewhere around 8:32EST, the earth and I on it, will hit the point where fifty years ago, I made my entrance.

The RLA, the noble dog Nails, Ming the Merciless Siamese, and even the koi, have been doting on me all day. So far I've raked in some heavy-duty love and no small piles of gifts.

I am not one of those folks who, when presented with an opportunity for gifts, demures and says I need nothing, I want nothing. Not this bitch. No sir. When there are presents to be had, I, like the Shrub his ownself, says "Bring it on."

They are indeed being brung. I have new fuzzy bunny slippers. I have a pair of truly lovely pink yard flamingos. I am wearing an amazing new necklace featuring a carved bone mermaid and turquoise.

My girl cousin who sends me so many jokes and political satire, sent a set of Kate Spade martini glasses. (Said girl cousin does know your author, does she not?) My sisterfriendgirl made me the most beeyooteeful quilt in pinks and greens and blacks and I've already taken a nap under it, so there.

Nope. As much as I may joke and complain about turning fifty, it beats the fucking alternative, and I can give you a list without even having to think hard, of all my friends who never made it this far. Cancer and AIDS, primarily. Leapin' made it to 52, and then went down in chopper over the Gulf of Bahrain. Gary finally got a job with insurance, and so went to see about that bothersome hemorhoid, only to be told it was colon cancer, and he was gone six months later.

Me? I'm older than I ever expected to be, and still not quite grown up. The cocktail party the RLA is throwing for me has a mermaid theme. I'm off to string up crepe paper garlands, and rearrange the shells and fishnets. Don't wait up, but maybe there will be photos tomorrow.

Home is where... Or maybe, home is where?

Yesterday I brought my mother home to Miami, a place she's never lived. I put her in a private home that is also an Alzheimer's residence. As I've mentioned, it's only three blocks from my own home. That home being where I hang my hat, where my heart is, where the pets are, where my books and studio are.
In choosing things to bring to make my mother's room her home, I brought the id badge from the library, where she had been a volunteer for more than forty years, as well as the plaque they gave her last year when she finally had to stop.

I brought a cross-stitch she'd made of Newport, R.I., her home town. A framed photo of the store her father and she opened in 1936. Photos of her and my father, a pin cushion I'd made for her in her favorite color. I brought her favorite stuffed animal. I brought a lap blanket that she'd bought in Norway back in the 70s: it's shades of orange and rust and brown, and she used to nap under it on the living room couch.

I brought her close to me. Like so much else this crappy, crappy year, this has been so hard. So difficult to navigate emotionally.

Home is where I can bury myself under my own blankets, and not come out until 2005.

I received another check from the hospital yesterday. It seems that despite the conditions of the letter of separation, the hospital has cut the checks for my sick leave and vacation payouts already.

They were supposed to be cut after the last regular severance check, which would have put them into next year. Better for me to get that lump sum next year, when my employment status, and tax status is so tentative.

Better for the institution to pay the debt in this tax year.
So it's a win-win. They can screw my tax status by paying me, thereby inflicting yet another insult or injury, and at the same time, benefit their own bottom line.

Oh, please. I know it isn't personal. It is a global disdain for workers' well being.

On another note, I am stalling as hard as I can, because today is the day I go get my mother and install her in her new Alzheimer's home.

I've been having nightmares all week. I know this is the best, if not the only possible course of action, but that doesn't make it any easier.

Last night I dreamt that I had these red, crusty, ring-worm type sores on my ear lobe, and my shoulder. Only they weren't whole rings, they were horseshoe-shaped, and the center was black and sort of leathery. Truly disgusting.

I'm not suffering from suppressed guilt, am I?

Fuck.

As I was trying to wedge my little VW into half a parking space with the word COMPACT painted in it, I'm guessing that here in Miami it means anything smaller than the full-sized Hummer.
On my left, filling every inch of width between the yellow lines, was a full-sized Land Rover. It was suitably ostentatious, with a name plate on the back that indicated this was no run of the mill, ordinary Land Rover, but an exclusive, distinguished, limited edition Westminster, or Buckminster or some other la-di-da-minster varient.

I was really impressed, and did my best to impress the edge of my driver's side door into their passenger door.

On the other side, taking up two spaces, straddling that little yellow bumper with the words "Compact Only" was some flare-sided pick-em-up truck.

Once I squeezed out, and got into the book store, I had a short dialogue with the clerk, explaining why I didn't think that buying a discount card was any deal. He kept telling me that it would pay for itself in no time. I kept telling him that it was the principle of paying to get a discount that annoyed me, and I didn't care how fast it paid for itself, I wanted them to give me an incentive, not make me pay for it. He didn't get it, he just kept shaking his head and telling me it pays for itself.

No. It doesn't. I pay for it. Give it to me free, and then it'll be worth it.

The woman behind me was sighing in exasperation with my bull-headedness, so I slouched off, and tried to chip the paint on the Range Rover again as I crawled into my tiny, little, used, economical car.

I clearly don't belong here.