Because You Love Them.

I was talking last night with a friend from school about the latest litter of Pixelkittens. That's right, Pixel the slut went and got herself knocked up, and gave birth on the haystack two days before Marilyn was going to go ahead and get her fixed.

We weren't sure how far along she was, and seeing as how she usually spends the better part of pregnancy looking like she swallowed a grapefruit, her size was no indication when she finally showed herself at the barn.

She had six kittens. She's down to three. Its tough, but I expected it. It was a big litter for her and two of them were pretty small and weak from the start. The latest tiny body was because of a respiratory bug that all of them have had. For the three strong ones, it's nothing more than a case of the snuffles... but this one just couldn't handle it.

The conversation last night though, got into nursing animals and how much work it is. A dog that's been hit by a car can't tell you where it hurts. An emaciated kitten can't squeak loud enough for you to hear it across the room. A barn owl with a broken wing will take your finger off when all you're trying to do is get it to someone who can help. And let me tell you, those talons aren't just for show. A tip if you ever have to rescue an injured predatory bird... cover it's head first, and then give it something to hang on to with those talons. Even a ball of towel, or a coat sleeve, will give it a sense of security (and it will be so busy hanging on to its "perch" that it won't try to hang on to you) but make sure it's nothing you mind having holes in. A stout stick is best of all, really.

I've bottle raised a lot of critters, and lost even more. When I was a little girl I was constantly bringing home orphans, kittens, sparrows, even a litter of field mice once. I couldn't stand to see a critter in pain. The Farmparents were kind enough to help me do what I could, and to let me learn the hard way that sometimes, it's kinder to just help them along.

After a while, it became clear that I have a certain talent for helping animals. People started bringing me strays that were hurt, more orphans. Even Farmdad brought home a dog that was hit by a car, and caught a duck in a ditch for me.

And small animals aren't the only ones. The first calf I bottle raised was a feedlot calf that the Farmparents brought home. She came out of the finishing pens, which meant that her mother had been pumped full of so many hormones and drugs it was a miracle she was even born, let alone that she survived her first twenty four hours. Her eyes were a milky blue all over, and she was tiny, way too small for what she should be. One eye eventually broke down and became a bumpy white mass, glaring from her head and completely useless. We think she could see shadows from the other eye, in spite of the fact that she had no pupil, she could find things in the yard if they were big and solid enough.

I, and our cocker spaniel, nursed her into a big healthy calf, when the experienced feedlot cowboys had refused to try to save her. She thought she was a dog. Her favorite food was hamburger pizza, which she would steal from the scrap dishes we would set out for the dogs. Her favorite toy was an old traffic cone, which she could find unerringly every time.

The winter of '06 was hard, hard on the cows and hard on us. We couldn't keep calves alive, they'd be up and sucking one day, and lay down on wet ground (there wasn't any dry ground) and snow that night, and freeze to death.

Two of them, we got to before they died. Two. Out of forty born. We lost just under half our calf crop that year.

The first one was born on a bitterly cold day. His mom had cleaned him up, but the ground he was lying on was frozen, and his body temp had dropped to the point that he couldn't even shiver. We loaded him up in the cab of the pickup when we found him, with the heater on full blast and Farmmom and I rubbing his skin vigorously. When he started being more alert, we got him out and on his feet, and tried to put him back on his momma, but she had given up on him. She wouldn't have anything to do with him. So, in to town he came.

Twenty four hours later, after twelve hours of laboriously struggling to get a couple of swallows down his throat at a time every half hour, and twelve hours of feeding him every two hours when he got enough energy to suck, I was pretty happy about his chances. He was a victory.

Farmmom called another day. "Hey Kiddo, we're bringing you another baby. Better go down and get some colostrum and get it started, this one is in bad shape. "

"Worse than the last one?"

"Yeah. She's big but I think she's got some deformity in her mouth, and she's barely staying with us."

When they rolled up I had the old glass 7-up bottle full of colostrum mix and topped with a lamb nipple. When they haven't figured out how to suck yet, it's easier to fit your finger in their mouth to work the nipple if you use the lamb nipple.

I met them at the garage door, Farmdad carrying a big lanky heifer calf, her black coat plastered to her. He laid her down on the old carpet we'd put down for the first calf and I started working. She was cold, and still soaked with the fluids from the womb. The cow hadn't even tried to clean her up. Sometimes they just know. She was still breathing, though, and she made feeble protests when I pinched her, so I had hopes. If they're still with it enough to get pissed off, there's a good chance that they're gonna hang on.

I checked her mouth to make sure there wasn't part of a mucus plug before I started trying to feed her, and I saw that her lower jaw jutted forward, longer than her upper. Her teeth still connected with her palate though, so she wasn't too deformed to graze. Her tongue was stiff, and still had the cone shape that they're born with. Usually the tongue relaxes by the time they get on their feet, but while they're in the womb it's a plug, conforming to the whole mouth.

I hoped that it was the cold keeping the tongue from relaxing. If it wasn't, she'd never be able to suck.

I struggled with her for hours, propping her up to squirt warm milk in her mouth, scrubbing her roughly with an old towel to dry her off, talking to her constantly. I alternate between gentle reassurances and angry smack talk, most of the time. It's just stimulation for them, one way or another. Whenever I wasn't propping her up, though, she was flat out on her side, staring vacantly.

I thought she had a chance, when she started trying to suck. Her tongue still hadn't relaxed, but she was still very cold. I held on to hope with both hands, because without hope, I'd just give up and she wouldn't have any chance. I stared desperately at the other calf, curled up near her and watching me curiously as I rubbed on her and pounded her ribs, pinched her and called her baby. He was a victory. He proved that I wasn't completely incompetent, a feeling that often overtakes me when I'm struggling to help a critter and I reach the point where I just don't know what else to do.

Around eleven that night, I went back out to try to get just a couple more ounces down her. When they're newborns, it's amazing what just a tiny amount of sustenance can do. Just a few drops of condensed milk, with honey for quick energy, can revive a starving kitten enough for it to suck ten minutes later, and get a full belly. An ounce or two at a time for a weak calf can bring it back from the brink.

She wasn't breathing. Her tongue had never flattened out. She lay there, flat on her side, staring. Her jaw was open and her conical tongue lay on the carpet. I was sore from wrestling her and the other calf around for feedings, I was emotionally exhausted from pouring myself into the effort to save her.

I'd fallen in love the first time I tried to feed her. You have to, if you're going to save them. You don't get up every two hours all night to feed something because it's for sale. You don't shove your hand in the same mouth with sharp teeth and a tongue that will give you painful carpet burns because it's your job. Not and save the ones that really need you. The ones that everyone else would give up on, you struggle with, and for, because you love them. You don't look at them and see another pet cat, or dog, sparrow to sing, raccoon to rifle through the trash or future hamburger or cow to make more walking steaks.

You look at them, and you see something that is completely helpless. Something that, in the case of domestic animals, has been bred into putting its trust in man kind, that you have a responsibility, a duty to. It takes only an instant for you to fall in love. It takes only one trusting look, or a feeble suck on your finger, or a weak kick in response to pain. That one instant reaches deep inside you and that animal ceases to be "the calf," or "the kitten," and becomes, simply, "mine."

Mine. My child, my pet, my pain. Pain in the back and the arms, pain in scratches and bites and knees. But Mine.

My responsibility, my duty. And sometimes that duty is more than just doing everything you can to save them. Sometimes that duty is making sure that the end is as easy as possible for them, because there is nothing else you can do. Sometimes it's ending it yourself, rather than letting them suffer.

All the failures, the ones I couldn't save, they haunt me sometimes. But the memories of the ones I did save are there to balance it out. Kittens play fighting and rolling through the kitchen in a fluffy ball, calves in the yard in blatant defiance of city ordinance chasing me back and forth and head butting playfully at me, or just making it to the vet's office and hearing "He's got a chance."

"At least he/she died warm, with a full belly, and comforted." The Farmparents have said that to me dozens of times as I sat crying, holding tiny bodies that were stiff and cold, or still warm and flopping loosely, or with my hand on the side of the motionless body of one that's too big for me to hold. It's a mantra.

Sometimes it's just "At least I tried."

Admissions

I'm a fairly self-contained person, when it comes to negative emotions. I'm not really sure why, I can't point to anything in my life and say "that made me this way." But there it is, when I feel like emotional crap, I tend to shut the emotional part off and just get through the day.

That fact has been an asset, and a hindrance.

All through my great grandmother's illness, from the day she fell on her way back from the mailbox and shattered her kneecap all the way to the night she died, and her funeral, I was able to step back from the emotions and do what I needed to do, and the things that no one else could bring themselves to do.

On the other hand, when I was sunk in depression after breaking up with the boyfriend in the previous story, I got so used to shutting my emotions off that I didn't even realize how depressed I was until I tried to quit smoking and my doctor put me on anti-depressants to help with the emotional part of the quitting process. I've been trying to actually deal with the things that I used to shove aside, whenever possible, since then. I spent nearly a year pretty much on auto pilot, and once I broke out of it, I didn't like it.

In the same vein, I'm just beginning to realize exactly how sensitive I had become about my teeth. I realized this when I was talking to the girl that has been my best friend since second grade last night about this whole thing, and she was surprised at certain things that I finally admitted.

As many of you can probably imagine, considering the information I've shared about it so far, my teeth were in pretty bad shape. I'm still embarrassed to admit how bad they looked, but I haven't knowingly allowed a photograph to be taken of me in which I was smiling for... shit... five years, maybe more.

There were very few people that I could look in the face when I smiled, and most of them were close family members. The girl I mentioned was one of them, so maybe that's why she didn't realize....

I myself hadn't realized how ingrained it had become to look away from someone, or look down, or put a hand over my mouth when I smiled, until it wasn't an issue anymore. Or, anyway, until I thought it wouldn't be an issue anymore... there's a whole new set of issues now, but that comes later.

Farmmom, bless her heart, said it trying to make me feel better when I was stumbling around the Old Homestead drugged out of my ever lovin mind and muttering incoherently.

"Well, baby, you can smile now."

I think she has understood me best all my life, and I am so thankful for that, I can't even think of a way to say it. She brought it into the light so that I could start dealing with it.

See, I wasn't just self-conscious about my teeth. I'd been told for so many years by so many different dentists that it was because I didn't brush enough, or didn't floss, or because I ate sweets or a dozen other things, that while I knew that I was doing the right things regardless of what they said I still felt responsible for it. And that was only reinforced over the years as the looks from people got progressively more disgusted, in spite of my brushing my teeth so hard my gums bled.

It all collaborated to make me into a person who couldn't smile at herself in the mirror without being disgusted.

And I shoved it aside and ignored it. It was easy to make it believable, as far as being "pretty" is concerned... you know, makeup, hair perfect, all that crap... I could care less most of the time. Oh, I clean up once in a while when I'm going out, but day to day I dress for function, and if my t-shirt is baggy, that just means it's comfy. If it's stained, well, I don't have to worry about getting it dirty at the barn. Pony tails are my friend because they keep my hair the hell out of my way.

My friend commented last night, when we were talking about how paranoid I am about anyone seeing me without the denture, "Well, dude, it's you. It bothers you now, but eventually it'll just be a part of you and you'll give a crap less."

She was shocked when I disagreed.

I started off at a disadvantage in the teeth department. There's bad genes on both sides of the Farm Family, and I got a good dose, to the extent that I was in junior high when I had my first root canal. A tooth had grown in hollow, and had managed to get an infection.

After that, they just got worse. It wasn't a fast downhill slide until the last several years, but it was entirely too fast for me.

And now, I have a denture. Before I had it done I thought about not telling anyone exactly what I was getting done, but logic reasserted itself and I realized that there was no way on earth that I could pass it off as anything but what it was. So, I could pretend it wasn't happening, and let the pissants snicker behind my back, or I could own up to it.

It was a closer decision than I like to admit, in spite of my general lack of giving a shit about what the general populace thinks about my personal habits for the most part. I can hold my head high, look someone in the eye and return fire when they're talking smack about my wardrobe, my weight, or my choice of friends, but one glimmer of "eww" in their eyes when I smiled and I would just collapse in upon myself. My eyes would glue themselves to the ground and I wouldn't look up until the conversation was over.

Because I couldn't blame them. I felt the same way.

Then, over spring break, the teeth came out and the denture went in. Everyone kept telling me that it was for the best and it would be so much better now, and all kinds of other platitudes. Don't get me wrong I love my family and I know they meant the best, but I was wrestling with the fact that I had no choice but the denture at age 23. Mamaw got hers at 19, but that's meaningless to me. I've never known her with any other smile than the one she's got now. That's just her, and this wasn't me. It was a major change in my life.

I didn't tell anyone about this internal struggle, of course. Oh, Farmmom and I talked about it a little bit, but it was never really in depth. The rest of them, this blog is the first they'll hear about it, for the most part. Sorry guys, it's just easier when I have time to compose my thoughts and explain things all at once, and text gives it a step of distance.

So, everyone was trying to make me feel better and for the most part I had the same kind of feelings I had when my great grandma died. I just got sick of hearing it. I wasn't ready to deal with it yet. It was an image issue and trust me, for the first week after they pulled the teeth, I did not feel any better about my image. I looked like someone had slapped me in the mouth with a two by four, and I felt like death warmed over between the drugs and the amount of blood I was swallowing. I couldn't eat, I was pale, I didn't have the energy to stay awake long enough to wash my hair so it was disgusting.

Then I went back to classes.

And the first thing out of everyone's mouth was, "Smile!"

Which, when you're struggling with issues about your teeth, the fact that you've just had fifteen of them pulled, and gotten a denture that is both too perfect and just a tiny bit off to possibly be real, sounds like "Hey! Nasty Smile Girl! Show me your fake teeth!"

Sparky nearly got his head taken off when he asked me to smile at him, and he was one of the kindest about it.

Honestly, I'm coming to terms with it, slowly. It helps that I'll be able to design my permanent how I want, so that I can feel like it will pass the test for looking real. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel on that part.

But every morning when I'm getting ready for class, I have to practice smiling in the mirror. I can't remember how to do it without trying to hide my teeth. I catch myself looking away from the people I'm talking to when I'm telling a funny story.

I have to relearn a lot of things. And the process isn't helped when everyone stares at my mouth every time I open it. Eventually I, and they, will get past that. Until then, I get to struggle with the dual issues of feeling self-conscious about my teeth and getting pissed off at myself for being self-conscious.

It's a tough row, but it's gotta get hoed, one way or another. I'll get there. Maybe admitting it here will help. At the least it has made me think about things in an organized fashion instead of just reacting to them.

Wow... Flashback

I'm sitting here listening to the country station on my TV, and they're playing some older songs that I haven't heard in a while.

Right now, Dixie Chicks's Travelin' Soldier is playing.

Ok I should probably clear something up, now that I think of it. I have what some have called a defect... I have a thing for military men. It goes a bit above and beyond the usual "ooo uniform" bit, really, but I have come to terms with that fact and have, to a certain extent, reined myself in.

My first really serious boyfriend was in the Navy. I was nineteen and he looked so nummy in his dress whites... It's such a cheesy story.

We met at the County Pageant dance, he was the escort for one of my best friends, who happened to be competing for the county beauty queen that year. She introduced us, and to this day I maintain that she just wanted another "Navy girlfriend" to hang out with. Her boyfriend (now her husband) is a Navy man too. Anyway, she had to go change her clothes and she told me to entertain him while she was gone.

That night the three of us crashed out on my parents couch watching movies in a big people pile. The next night he and I crashed out on my parents couch watching movies in a small pile. And the next night.

We spent a week together, and when his leave was up and he had to go back to Norfolk, we emailed every day. By the time he got leave again seven months later and came home to surprise his parents for their anniversary we were signing the emails "I Love You" and I was sure he was Mr. Right.

I lost my virginity in a hotel room in Denver the night I picked him up from the airport. Yes, I was still a virgin at 19. You'd understand if you met the guys I grew up around.

Anyway, things kept on progressing, and he got out of the Navy a couple of months later. A week before his discharge I flew to Virginia to drive back with him, and I had a blast hanging with his buddies. We went to Paramount's King's Dominion on Mother's day, and I called Farmmom from a payphone while he and his buddy Boozer were going on a ride that I wasn't interested in.

Of course, Virginia is also where it all started to unravel. I was working construction by then and I had told him about a lot of the close calls I had, just blowing off steam mostly. Well, we were sitting down to dinner with one of his friends one night and the friend asked me what I did. When I told him, my boyfriend simply stated "But she'll be getting a different job, that one is too dangerous."

On another occasion, while we were bsing with his friends, they got on the subject of the nuclear ships and how the Navy had done a study that showed that men who served on nuclear powered ships were more likely to have girl babies than boys. He looked at me and said "So we're probably going to have girls, honey." I choked on my drink and said "I wasn't aware that kids were on the table!"

Well we had a big fight on the way back over something stupid, and when we got home he decided that he'd rather spend his time hanging out with my friend (who I introduced to him as my "Other Brother, B") with another girl.

I found out and B begged me not to kill him because he was hoping that I'd just give up on the boyfriend and he wouldn't have to be the one tell me. Well, the boyfriend had brought me a jewelery set from Dubai, and I wore the ring that came with it all the time. That is, I wore it after I found a jeweler that would resize it for me, since the gold was purer than they ever use here, most jewelers refused to touch it.

I took it off that night, put it back in the box, and had B drive me to the boyfriends house... where I proceeded to throw it at his head. I was... ahem... a little upset.

Thank god for my friends, I was surrounded by guys and none of them knew how to deal with me crying, because they had never seen me cry before. N finally managed to make me laugh by leading with "hey, now that you're single," and spouting the world's cheesiest pick up lines.

That whole thing really messed with my head though, for a long time. Especially when I found out that he had turned around and given the jewelery that I had... ahem... returned to him... to the girl he cheated on me with. A year later, nearly to the day, they were married.

Anyway, that song is the one I would listen to when I was feeling sad over his being so far away when he was deployed, and it's been a long time since I've listened to it, so it gave me a hell of a flashback. That song and Brad Paisley's "Little Moments" will always remind me of him, and that time in my life.

I have, thankfully, reached the point where I can look back on that time without much bitterness, and be glad of the experiences that I gained because of him. I took my first commercial flight, saw the ocean for the first time, toured the USS Enterprise, and visited Churchill Downs (where he was bored out of his mind while I soaked in the Kentucky Derby Museum, and the backside tour, and the day's races) because of him. I had my heart broken for the first time, because of him, and I learned that it doesn't last forever. I learned that I can actually cuss bad enough to make a sailor blush, too.

Most of all I learned that regardless of how bad it is at the time, there's always something to be gained, whether it's knowledge, or just the experiences.

He's not the only military man my hormones have gone nuts over either. There's been a National Guardsman, two Army guys, a Marine, and a guy in the Air Force. I'm not biased, as long as they have a dress uniform and wear it well, I'll start drooling.

Sad, isn't it?

"Whatever you decide to do with your life...."

"Don't stop writing. There are two people in that class that have that extra flavor that makes a great writer, and you're one of them."

Hell of a compliment from my Creative Writing teacher. I had to drop off copies of my fiction paper (a chunk of Jane, not even a full chapter, and it still went about double the upper word count guideline) for tomorrow's class, since I'll be at the dentist's instead of in class. I also gave her the writing exercise that we were supposed to read tomorrow, so that she can share it with everyone. That's another compliment... we were given a scenario in which four friends, two couples, are having dinner. Shrimp is passed, two people take some, leaving none for the end of the pass-along chain, who says she didn't want any anyway.

The kicker is that there are various complications to this scene, and we had to write them in as subtext. The prompt came out of the book and there was a list of complications, but not enough for the whole class, so I got to make up my own. I gave one of the men explosive diarrhea from his buddy's wife's cooking.

Meanwhile, back at the conversation we were having, she was telling me that I needed to continue with a writing group after this class was over. I just threw up my arms and said "This is BFE. There aren't any." Of course, I was wrong about that, there is a writing group here, but it's very Christian. I smarted off that we should start our own writing group, and she thought it was actually a good idea. So, once the semester is over, I may continue to work with my creative writing instructor and have an actual writing group.

But I'm feeling pretty danged good about my writing about now. Speaking of Jane... I'm still working on Chapter Three, guys. It's just not cooperating with me, and the dialogue is feeling extremely forced. I may take the laptop tomorrow and work on it some more, since I told Traci (my creative writing instructor) about the premise of the book and the troubles I was having with the third chapter, and she was interested in seeing how I worked it out. Not to mention that as much of Jane as I have done at the time, and a synopsis of the entire book, will be my final project for the semester, and I'd like to have a sizeable chunk to hand in. But I haven't forgotten about Jane, she's still poking at me and letting me know that she's waiting.

And there are two stories for me to read and write responses on waiting, too, and I promised I'd have them to her by Friday, so I'd better get on it.....

Fantasy Rodeo

I bought a fantasy rodeo team yesterday. It was just ten bucks, and if I picked the right people, I get tickets to the last three rounds of the National Finals Rodeo.

The whole point is to pick the people that you think will get the most points, all together. Since the official season spans the semesters, I picked people who already had points. Plus E. I can bug him that he has to get some points so that I can go to NFR.

We'll see. Once the fantasy rodeo team fundraising drive is over I can check on their progress on the college's website. I have a whole new reason to cheer the rodeo team (or... parts of it) on!

"Let's Elope to Mexico."

A close friend of mine said that to me last night. Ya'll may remember me talking about my friend D.

Weeellll... D got himself in a bit of trouble a while back, and his due to society is ten days in jail. Thanks to his dad he gets to serve them here instead of where it happened, I'm not really sure why he had such a problem with the other place.

But, he went in last night at eight. Before that, he was hanging out with me. And twitching.

I completely understand his nerves, but at the same time, I got a lot of amusement out of it.

Anyway, he suggested that we elope to Mexico.

"Farmmom might have a problem with that."

"Hell, we can have her come too."

"You want to elope with my mother?"

"Um... no... but... I like your mom.... I mean... she's cool...."

"I don't have that much gas."

"I've got money, we can make it."

"You want to run away to Mexico over ten days in jail."

"Well, I guess not."

"Oh come on, D, cheer up, it's not so bad. What can I do to make you relax?"

"How about sex?"

We got him delivered to jail safe and sound, and on time. Although, we wondered if they were going to take him, for a bit. They had a little trouble finding his paperwork and he had to call his brother and tell him "They won't let me in jail!"

After they found the paperwork, the jailer was leading him around to the salley port and intake, and carrying a pair of cuffs, and commented "I'll wait to put these on you, she doesn't need to see that," mistaking me for D's girlfriend.

My response? "Oh come on, that's just kinky!" Which got odd looks from the jailer and D rolling his eyes at me. I even managed a couple of sniffles when I hugged him goodbye. Which I of course waited to do until he was already cuffed. Where's the fun in hauling your friend to jail if you don't get to play up the drama?

I'll be going down for visitation in a bit, and taking him his phone list that he forgot here, as well as the numbers for the phone card I bought for him today so that he can call people. I haven't decided yet if I want to get all tarted up for it or not.

Maybe I'll try to find a sombrero...

Home

Well, I'm back at the apartment, back to class tomorrow morning. Diving in head first, too, with Monkey and two of E's horses (one of them being Etta... he won't have anyone but me take care of her if he can help it, he's grown fond of her) to take care of. I don't plan to ride tomorrow, but maybe Saturday or Sunday I'll get back in the saddle.

Last night I actually managed to eat a meal, keilbasa and mac and cheese. Once I skinned the keilbasa, that is. Still, meat is good.

I'm going to make some tuna helper here in a bit.

I've graduated to grownup food, and I've graduated to staying all by myself. I feel like a big kid now!

It's amazing how things like this can make you feel three freaking years old again. I love my family and I could never have made it through this without them (for one thing I wouldn't have remembered to eat for the first two days if it hadn't been for Farmmom) but I am glad to be back at the apartment.

I'm still craving chicken fried steak though. Soon as I think I can eat it I'm hitting the old homestead and begging Farmmom to make it for me. Pleading. Crying, if I have to.

I Wants It.