28 November 2006

Profile

he looked the same tonight
when I got home from work, tired
from a long day of problems
psychosis
target languages and long training sessions

he looked the same as this morning
when I left him in his crate
settling in for a day of napping
a day of not caring
making a nest of comforters to comfort his tired body

he looked the same when I got home
after getting the news
after knowing that the knot on his head
the bulge just behind his left ear may kill him
he looked the same

don't know what I expected
thought about him all day long
thought about not having him around
thought about not having done enough
not having loved him enough
not having worked hard enough
not having enough money to save him

he looked the same to me
he looked up to me
I let him down

promised to keep him safe and warm
promised to keep him fed and dry
promised to protect him, but the enemy came anyway
the silent enemy
the enemy that will take my boy from me
the enemy that will take my heart from me
piece by piece until it's gone

I'd just gotten it back.

he looks the same to me still
curled on my bed
wound into my heart

he looks the same to me

-N, 28 November 2006

27 November 2006

The incredible lightness of being...35


Early Chopsticks
Originally uploaded by NanLassiter.

Happy birthday to me, hey?

My birthday started with a whining dog scratching on the throw rug in the bedroom for me to get up. I then had a birthday feast of 3lbs of raw turkey...but decided to give that to the dogs and just have a cup of tea instead. Am currently stalling getting ready for work by blogging.

I thought 35 would be awful but in truth it's no different than yesterday when I was 34.

In the past 35 years I have:

Visited New York City, Los Angeles, Denver (the airport), Chicago, Boston, Charlotte, Washington DC, Nashville, Knoxville, Atlanta (duh), London, Calais (the ferry terminal), and Edinburgh.

Walked to the Greenwich Observatory.

Gotten lost in a foreign country and found my way home.

Been adopted by five magnificent greyhounds.

Had my heart broken a zillion times.

Been married, separated, and soon will be divorced.

Fallen in love a zillion times.

Met some of the most incredible people and am lucky to call them friends.

Been loved, annoyed, and cared for by three wonderful feline roommates.

Found strength I didn't know was there in the face of lymphangectasia (BoBo), lumbrosacral stenosis (Lizzard), and possibly cancer (Profile) in my greyhounds.

Been diagnosed with BPPV and spent several weeks walking on a trampoline.

Moved from Georgia to Tennessee to Georgia to West Virginia to Georgia to South Carolina to Alabama. I'm hoping the next move will put me back in Georgia since I seem to have skipped it this last time.


wistful
All that...and that's certainly not all...and I'm only just getting started.

21 November 2006

Whilst I Should be Sleeping

I am instead still awake...but I made a miraculous and heart wrenching discovery tonight. As I was surfing about on the internet to wind down from my near 12 hour day at work, I came across a website for a pub in West Yorkshire called The Grouse Inn. The photo of the inn on the page jumped out at me and slapped me across the face in a You've Been There Before kind of way...could that be the same pub where my family ate lunch 11 years ago and watched some Morris Dancers perform out in the parking lot after? Did I just happen to come across the same place on the internet?
I decided to find out and hurriedly took all the wee vid-cam tapes to the den to try them in the VCR. I was sure that one of them would be our trip to England in 1995 (since I couldn't lay my hands on my copy of the VHS copy right at that very moment). The first one I put in wasn't of England at all, but a recording of my presentation about greyhounds for the retired crowd at Daddy's church in Marietta, GA. Before I could really even take a deep breath, my Lizzard strolled across my TV screen.

Of course, being the strong and independent woman I am, my reaction was absolutely normal and expected. I sucked in my breath because at that moment I think everything just kinda stopped. When things/the world/my universe started back up again, I was sobbing and smiling. I had almost forgotten her stilted gait due to LS/DM, arthritis, and poor vision. Nearly gone from my memory was the way she would stretch out into a playbow before plopping down into the sphinx position.

And there she was, in second-gen VHS choppy and slightly blurry technicolor...and I haven't seen anything that beautiful in a long time.

Miss you MommaDawg. Every Day.

20 November 2006

Happy Monday


Daisy
Originally uploaded by NanLassiter.

This picture, taken probably two years ago now, is one of my favourites of Daiz. She looks like such a happy puppy. I need some of that happy for today. How do you get going on bleary Monday mornings?

17 November 2006

No real excuse...

I'm just a bad friend. This month two people very important to me had birthdays, and I missed both of them. Amy's birthday was November 4th and Liz's was YESTERDAY. I even made a comment to someone about yesterday being the 16th, and I couldn't quite put two and two together and come up with anything but dead air. To both of you, I am sorry.

Amy and I have known each other (technically) since the 7th grade when we met at Camp Glisson in Dahlonega, GA. We met at the same camp again as seniors in high school, then again as roommates in college our freshman year. We soon discovered, as many close friends do, that we were not only not well suited as roommates...we might actually be ANTI-suited to be roommates. Luckily we moved out of each other's hair (though hers was quite a bit taller than mine back in 1989/90) and remained friends. Amy is the kind of friend that drives to your house in another state in the middle of the night because you've just broken up with your boyfriend and call her, wailing into the phone that your life is over. I have lived just down the road from her for the eight years I lived in South Carolina, and it's a bit odd to know now that she is two states away.

She's still closer than Liz, who is about three thousand miles away in London. Liz and I met at Young Harris College and while we never roomed together, we were still fast friends. There are lots of stories that I could tell here that I won't to protect the innocent and the guilty. One month before her birthday, Liz gave me the gift of introducing me to a new friend and has really been a support to me in my moving out on my own, pursuing divorce, etc. I didn't quite move as far away from my ex as she did, but a lot of our situations were similar and she has been a voice of reason for me lately.

So...the dogs ate my calendar? Nope. Ummmm...we had an F2 tornado in Montgomery on Wednesday that scored a direct hit two miles from my house? Don't think so.

My pennance? I got bitten by a spider or something this morning that made my right hand swell up and I'm typing this whole thing with my left hand. Nah, not really enough.

I love you two. Much hugs and belated birthday wishes. Feel free to forget my birthday on the 27th...Miss you bunches.

N

12 November 2006

Where's Waldo? errr...Nancy...

I'm still here, though I admit I'm finding few things to write about for Brave Lettuce these days. I guess I'm finally seeing the benefits to keeping some bits of my life personal, and learning that not everyone wants to know each time I break a fingernail or how often my Profile takes to spinning like a top in the living room.

I would like to say that in the two months I've lived here I've settled into life in Montgomery, but that isn't true. The longer I'm here, the more I long for a life that is settled and permanent...the kind of life that I thought I'd be living when I thought about my future back in the day, when I was in my 20s. I guess no one's life turns out like they plan it, and everyone has static now and then.

But lest you think that I'm sinking back down off that proverbial plateau again, there are some quite positive things happening in my life. I have a meeting (via telephone) on Friday of this week with Scott and a lawyer, so finally we can get this divorce thing on the docket and moving toward resolution. I don't quite know what to think about it really. I'm not sad, as in I'd like to remain married to Scott, I'm sort of in disbelief I suppose. I'm having some of the same feelings as before when we first decided on divorce...this sort of thing doesn't happen to me and I'm going to be a divorced woman and all that. But really...it's almost more unreal because it doesn't seem necessary. Scott and I have lived apart far longer than the mere year we've physically lived apart, so in a way it feels as though we're already over and done with everything. I don't know...I suppose we'll see what happens on Friday.

The other good thing is that I've gained a very wonderful friend. Although I haven't yet met him in person, he comes very highly recommended by a dear friend of mine and from his emails and our phone calls she was spot on in her description. The only snag is that he lives around 3,000 miles away from me in the UK...but that hardly matters these days, does it? The world is a much smaller place than it used to be, and all I really care about is how I am currently sporting a silly grin and can't seem to speak about him without my face lighting up like a Christmas tree (or so I'm told). He's a charming, wonderful, amazing man, and he thinks that I'm special as well. We'll see...I'm a guarded hopeful at this point.

Off to continue cleaning the house and finishing laundry. "Mah Sistahs" are coming to visit this coming Friday and I can't wait. The world is a smaller place, to be sure, but sometimes even the gap between me and them in NC or me and my family in GA seems insurmountable. I am trying to learn some patience and acceptance. Trying. We'll see how that works out...

Music Monday: Sweet Lark...I mean, Melissa

Yeah, so today's song is speaking to my current #WIP but only in the eyes of the male MC I think. But at the same time, it is a call bac...