Silver-lined Excrement

My mom and stepfather are in Hawaii right now.

I'm so jealous.
I get emails from my mom talking about all the whales they're seeing.
The only whale I've seen in real life was Shamu at Sea World.
My mom takes fabulous photos, so I can't wait to see her pictures.

I digress.

While my mom is in Hawaii, her 13-year-old black Labrador, Seamus, is staying with us.






13 is really old for a Lab.
Seamus is an old man dog.
He has a gray muzzle, it's getting harder for him to see or smell, and he has trouble getting up and down.

And...wait for it...

he has trouble keeping poop in.

That's right, it just randomly pops out.

I warned the whole family to keep an eye out for poop.
And every day I've found some here or there.






Well, then we come to yesterday. I'm getting ready for work (at my new job!), and my dad calls me to his part of the house. He says he needs my opinion.

huh. That's unusual.
Does he want advice on what to wear?
His vision is bad.

Well, turns out, he wasn't sure what the big mess was on the carpet outside his room.
The mess that was smushed and tracked everywhere.

I gave my opinion.
"That's not mud, Dad."

I'm sure you've guessed by now, Seamus had struck again.

Texas Homeboy ended up on his hands and knees cleaning up miles of poop out of the carpet, while I finished getting ready for work.

Before I left, my dad said to me, "You know, there's a silver lining."
me: "Oh, really? What's that? (as the smell of poop permeated the entire household)"
Dad: "It could have been MY poop."

Oh. huh. He has a point.

And then, he took it too far...
Dad: "I bet my poop smells better."

Thanks, Dad.





That was the silver lining yesterday.


Do you look for silver linings in your bad situations?

Want to share one?

Where's the damn Yellow Brick Road?

What do you see in this ink blot?

I see two hunchbacked monsters without hearts, wrapped in shrouds, trying to yell at each other, like a creepy staring contest with yelling involved.

Is that what you see?
Are you as messed up as I am?

I've shared with you before that I'm starting therapy...
because I'm a mess and my marriage is a mess.
And not the easy kind of mess a Clorax Easy Wipe can soak up in 10 seconds.
Nope, it's a certified, complicated, dog-threw-up-combined-with-honey-and-flour-in-the-carpet kind of mess.

I had a great therapist back in Austin. Joel was my buddy, my confidant, and he knew how to keep it real. But, here north of Dallas I don't have a Joel, so I had to pick a newbie. And the guy I saw last week? I don't think he's the right therapist for me.

He wanted to talk about my childhood. I wanted to talk about my present.
He wanted me to look for the answer in my heart. I wanted to bash him over the head with his.

I don't think therapy should be a guessing game. When I'm ending most of my sentences as a question, that's not a good sign.

He told me to look deep inside me for the answer.
Damn it, if I could have done that, I would have, on my own without paying a fortune to do it in front of an audience.
I can't find the answer to my problems, the miraculous path I need to follow.


Follow the Yellow-Bricked Road.
Follow the Yellow-Bricked Road.
Follow, Follow, Follow, Follow,
Follow the Yellow-Bricked Road.

If only it were that easy!!

I'm screwed up! You're supposed to help fix me...not make me keep looking for non-existent, deep down (around my spleen maybe?) guiding feelings.

It was frustrating. I don't think we were on the same page.

(I think I'm going to regret sharing this much when I wake up Wednesday.)

This isn't your "what I'm thankful for" day-before-Thanksgiving post.
Don't get me wrong.
I'm thankful for a lot of things, but my life is a mess currently, and it's hard to see past that.
I'm not sure how to get back on track.
What I do know is that writing is a lifeline for me.
Blogging the same.



So I'm hanging on by my non-existent fingernails from the edge of a steep cliff staring at the alligators down below and hoping that I can somehow save myself.
I don't want someone else to save me...
but I might need a lifeline thrown...or a phone a friend...


You know, I feel better now, after vomiting my feelings onto the page.
I hope you don't feel worse now.
Sorry.

Thanks for listening.

What did you see in the ink blot?
What's at the end of your yellow-brick road?