Roller Puppy

I wrote an amazing blog post last night...and then I forgot to save it because I couldn't figure out how to load the video. Basically it went something like this...

What a better way to spend a Monday night and a loooooooooong and sleepy day of school all day loooong. Homework shomework.

We have been taking Wunbi to this place called Murry Park at least once, sometimes twice a week to try to socialize her. There are a gazillion things for her to discover, roller bladers, cyclists, runners, walkers, kids, walkers, a dog park a a big dam bridge. Wunbi can't go in the dog park yet, it's too scary for her. She has met an armadillo, walked across and swam in the Arkansas River, and discovered that roller bladers and skateboarder are the most scary things in the world. I'd like to think that her socialization is working. The first time I wore my Heely's a while ago she was terrified. She ran and hid and jumped on high things to be safe. So last night when I put them on she just wanted to play with them. I even let her give them a try.

The video is a bit long but you have to watch the whole thing to see Wunbi's shot at Heely's.

Funny Arkansas story of the day. I was in Pine Bluff for my practicum project today. It's a sad sad town. Rated by Forbes as the third most impoverished city in the US a couple of years ago. Poverty is one of those things you just don't get until you see it. Anywho that part isn't funny. What is funny is the whole bloody town smelled like sausage. Yes that's right sausage with a hint of dirty lake and those weird smelling trees in blooming time. No offense to the Bluff but if the town smells like that I don't blame people for moving out. On another weird Bluff note, on the way to the college down there we passed a restaurant/store sign-Pork Butts 1.49. WTF??? Who is going to buy Pork Butt???

Life is tough in the Bluff and I'll leave you with that.

Coming up..the naming the house contest.

back to life, back to reality, back to the here and now

Hello friends and family. It’s been a long time since we’ve wrote a blog and now that we’ve returned from many long hours of driving through nothing more than desolate landscape, we are excited to say that we have arrived to our Little Rock home. After twenty-three hours in a car one might think that sitting, relaxing, and rejuvenating is the farthest from the most desirable activity. But, we’ve been doing much of just that. Oddly enough, I (Jamie speaking) have had plenty on my mind and many plans to accomplish all kinds of lovely homemaker types of things yet I've found the comfort of a cozy bed all too perfect. Especially considering that our heater was broken when we first arrived. The thermostat was off the charts and I’m guessing it was close to 30 degrees in our house. Needless to say, we spent much of our first day cuddled in bed as we waited for the repair man to fix the central heating system which is apparently located in our back yard.

Anyhoo, Heidi and I have recently noticed that the two scars on Wunbi's snout have dramatically increased in size.



Day we adopted Wunbi


Wunbi during Christmas break.

We found this letter by Wunbi's bed...


Dear People,

I recently found out I have hair filled cysts on my little snout/face. The amazing vet here in Little Rock says he will take them off for a small fee. As poor grad students, my parents, Jamie and Heidi, are trying to raise the funds to help me fit in with the other dogs at the dog park. I am feeling ostracized and now they are starting to really bug me, the hairs in my snout that is. Let my parents know if you can help my cause.

Love, Wunbi

Our poor little puppy has been scratching her face for the last couple weeks until it is bloody. Where she scratches most, there is a hole that is noticeably growing hair. The vet says that cysts like hers are most common on bigger dogs and that it is a fairly simply surgery. If anyone wants to help Wunbi feel a little more like all the other dogs, any little bit of cash helps.

Love,

US

P.S. As part of my New Years resolution, I plan to be a much better blogger. So, keep visiting!

Sad day

I had to get an Arkansas Drivers license. I'm very sad about it. That is all.

Arkansas story of the day:
This is how people in Arkansas talk. "ON tomorrow we won't have class"
haha. well ON two weeks I will be home, yay!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well 1 paper down, 5 to go and a final to study for. t minus 8 days and counting. "gulp"

Uncle Mike: The Sequel

I blame it all on the cute little puppies the neighbor had in her backyard for all of two or three days. Zada loved those little guys and wanted nothing more than to shower them with her love and affection. They were cute I don’t blame her. One little gray pitbull a little stocky guy and a black and white one that was a bit more timid. Even Wunbi started to like them. Zada was really protective and would push Wunbi away if she got too close to them, so Wunbi would sneak over there when Zada wasn’t around. Finally, Zada wanted over there so bad that she started trying to climb the fence. We laughed and thought there was no way. About five minutes later she was over the fence (if you could really call it a fence). Jamie hopped over and got her. All she wanted to do was play with her puppies. The next day the puppies were gone, I’m hoping not to a dog fighting ring (they are pretty big here). Unfortunately for us, Zada decided to keep hoping over the fence, she found a rawhide over there and just had to have it. It would be 5 minutes after she had gone outside and we would be wondering where she was and sure enough she would be over in the neighbor’s yard chewing a bone under their boat. We’d go get her throw her over the fence and repeat…

Well that is where it started. Where it ended was with Uncle Mike. A couple nights ago Zada was freaking out about her dog house and trying to dig under it. I moved it, that didn’t help. I turned it on its side, that didn’t help. Her anxiety ridden self just couldn’t let it go. I let her out and went to do some cleaning. All of a sudden Jamie was banging on the front door. Zada had jumped the fence and got Uncle Mike. His already barely functioning back legs were now not functioning at all. He crawled along the ground finally resting in our front yard and then at the corner of the road. We tried calling animal services to come get him but of course it was Sunday so people don’t work or provide services of any kind. We called an animal hospital, they said to bring him in and pay to have him euthanized. Not the ideal situation for grad students that have no way of transporting a dying feral cat. Our neighbor Katie came home who loves Uncle Mike, yes one of the many people who love him and yet want him to live at our house. She was really upset and said she’d take him to the hospital. I was inside the whole time so I am not sure on all the details. Jamie can fill in if she wants. From my understanding more people stopped, were heartbroken and all the neighbors who didn’t care enough to take him in wanted to help him go out. STRANGE! One person even said they had to call someone to come and say good-bye to him since he was really THEIR cat. Holy Arkansas is so bizarre. Jamie said um no, if they didn’t care enough to take him with them they don’t need to come say good-bye. I’m not sure what happened after that and don’t want to know but Uncle Mike is out of his very apparent pain and misery. I feel bad. Some of the neighbors were just sobbing about it. But we tried to warn them. A cat living on our porch, with our dogs, just wasn’t a good fit. Next time I move somewhere and there is a feral cat living there that somehow has precedence over us…I will go ahead and call animal control to prevent such bizarre events.

To top of the weekend Wunbi is really sick. She threw up again and again and again. It was awful. She stopped eating and would barely drink until last night. We took her to the vet today and they said she had LOTS of bacteria in her system and they wanted to keep her overnight. Sad day and hard decision to make. She snuggled up to us when we went to tell her goodbye and was so sad. I hope she just fell asleep and is feeling a million times better in the morning.

On a happier note we just bought a new garbage can and a rolling pin!!!! YAY!! It’s the little things.

Lost in a moment.

Sometimes I get lost in a moment, lost inside myself, lost in my head, lost but without clear thoughts or feelings. I remember the way it felt to be consumed by a sunset. I would watch the sun move smoothly behind the Wellsville Mountains, the colors would change instantly, and I could feel the beauty. Those radiant colors were more than just pink, orange, and yellow. They were peaceful, liberating, comforting, and calming. Even in the coldest of months, the sunset was warm and inviting. I was lost there in that moment each and every day because I allowed myself to be taken away by a moment.

Tonight, I sat on my front porch. The air was crisp but reassuring and life was still. I could hear the buzz of a busy highway somewhere in the distance, chirping insects, and a soft breeze. I looked into the night sky. Though cloudless, the stars seemed too dim to make out a constellation. I ached to see the stars.

I remember when Heidi and I were first dating, we walked up the hill behind her dad’s house because I wanted to see the sunset and still a moment with her alone. We sat there atop the mountain overlooking the valley and talked about everything and nothing. As we watched the sun set, the moon rose and the stars peeked through the deep midnight blue sky. It was gorgeous. We talked about the kind of moons that Heidi finds attractive. No to slivery, not too fat, it has to be a perfect crescent moon or completely full.

I miss it. I miss the mountains and the way the sunset seemed to sing just for me. It was tranquil. It was beautiful. It was home.

I realized tonight that even though our lives are filled with classes, readings, papers, presentations, lectures, speakers, cleaning the house, taking care of the dogs, and all the other responsibilities of life, I still need my precious moments that I can feel and just be. I want to just be. I want for a moment to not think and not care. I want to be washed over by the colors in a Utah sunset. I want to bathe in the moment. I'm aching to be lost in a moment!

Uncle Mike the Cat

I took some photos the other day to share with the fam.


I straightened my hair oh just a few hours before this photo. And I just ask myself why? I knew before I came here I would hate the humidity and that it would do unhappy things for my hair. I just wish there was something I could do to make it better. It’s too short to pull up. Too long to do nothing. On a happy note we met a girl at Starbucks that had a similar hairstyle and asked for her hair stylist’s number. I think I will make an appointment tomorrow and then try to grow it out a bit. Cause this just isn’t cute.



I talked to some of you but I must have had some serious stress going on cause a blood vessel in my eye burst. This is about day 4 of the healing process I believe. Jamie was pretty worried. After I had a migraine for about 4 days I was also a little worried. No worries now though, the headache and the spreading of the blood through the eye are both gone. Yay!

Things are getting easier and harder at the same time if that is possible. We miss everyone so much, and Utah and the mountains, even just not knowing other gay people has been a huge awakening. I miss Equality Utah even though we were never as involved as I would have liked. I have taken a personal vow to be more involved if we move back. I feel like we took a lot of that for granted and now it’s like we are all alone in the world with no no gay rights political group caring about our rights. Strange very strange. I never thought I would care about being around other gay people but wherever we end up will definitely have to have a strong gay community, for us and our kids.

And now onto the anticipated story of uncle mike the cat. I think one of the first things many of our new neighbors informed of us was that the house we moved into came with a cat. His name is uncle mike, his back legs don’t work right (they think he was in a car accident) he lives under the porch and oh he gets fed on your porch so make sure you feed him. What the??? We don’t want a cat, they stink, they cost money that as grad students we don’t have, and our dogs, especially Zada go crazy and want to eat cats. Definitely not something we want to take on. We talked about it and decided we didn’t want to take on. But the neighbors: even the girl who lived at our house for a couple of months and trashed and left it disgusting came over to say she’d feed it but would feel weird creeping on our porch every day to set out food so we should just do it, LOVE LOVE LOVE the cat. He is like the neighborhood mascot. But NO ONE has offered to put his bowls on THEIR porch. Very odd in my mind. They all expect us to take care of him and they give off the vibe that if we don’t something is wrong with us. The cat hates people and runs away when anyone is around; he looks like he is in pain and the porch and front of our house stink like well cat! Mary the 60 or 70 year old party animal but sweet lady across the street said she buy the food and feed him but I just don’t want the cat under my porch, it’s gross. Why oh why does everyone think we should take care of it? Only in Arkansas.

A heritage I hate

I’m learning, learning, and learning. I’m learning the ins and outs of myself, some things I like and other things I’m ready to get rid of. In my classes, my internship, and on the streets I’m learning about the realities of racism and the giant effect it has on this little city. It’s a whole new world in the South. I wouldn’t say I didn’t know that racism existed. Of course it does. I just didn’t deal with it on a day to day basis. I didn’t have to think about it because I lived in a city of mostly white people. I never thought of myself as a white girl, a white woman, or a white anything. I was just Jamie. I don’t mind really. It’s just different and somewhat odd for me to think about.

A couple days after we moved here I was cleaning out the Penski truck when I saw two boys walking down the street. One of the boys was on a skate board and the other was walking next to him. As they were getting closer to the truck I could hear them talking about riding the skate board down the truck’s ramp. They were talking back and forth and probably didn’t think I could hear. One boy said, “Oh there’s a lady in that truck, think she’ll let us ride that ramp?” The other responded, “No way, she a white lady. She not gonna let you.”

My first thought was, I’m white…I’ve never identified as a white woman before. My second thought was, What does being white have anything to do with whether or not I would let them ride down the ramp? Soon the boys were at the truck.

“What’s go’n on boys?”
“Who truck is this?”
“It’s a Penski truck.”
“Who Penski?”
“Penski is a company, I’m just renting the truck to move in.”
“Oh. That ramp…”
“You wanna ride down it?”
“Oh yes ma’am, I didn’t think you would let me!”

Later that day, the boys brought back some friend to the house and asked for water. I gave them all bottled water from the freezer. They thought that was pretty cool and now I’m the water lady. It’s cute.

The reason I tell this story is because now I think about myself as a white girl/woman all the time. I think about how my whiteness affects people around me. I wonder what they think of me, how they view me, how I portray myself. It’s all very exhausting really. More importantly, I think about how my clients (90% African American young men) may react to me. I don’t want to be just another white lady who can’t relate to them, or who judges them, or who “will not let them ride down a silly ramp.”

On a less cute note, Heidi and I were in K-mart when something strange happened. Heidi was in a different part of the store and I was looking at bags for school. Not far behind me I heard a girl’s voice call out something. Naturally, I looked behind for a brief second and then back to my shopping. Out of nowhere, the girl says, “I wasn’t talk’n to you white bitch, I was talk’n to my girl!” Wow, that’s a lot of anger right. That’s a lot of anger that most likely comes from years and years of hatred. I was sad, not for me but for all the people that have experienced such hatred, who have grown up with that kind of hatred, and subjected to discrimination and racism their whole lives.

In the past couple weeks I’ve learned more about racisms than I ever would have in Utah. In class we have just touched on the history of the enslavement, segregation, oppression, and discrimination. Our nation’s history is embarrassing and disgusting all at the same time.

Thomas Jefferson wrote the famous phrase, “All men are created equally…” But he enslaved 650 men and women. He was one of the great leaders in justifying slavery and the oppression of all the minorities in early America. How is he honored in history? I will never understand. American’s history honestly makes me sick.

With that in mind, I’m white. In the south, white people owned slaves. I’m white. In the south, white people fought for the “right” to own slaves in the civil war. I’m white. In the south, people still fly the confederate flag proudly. I’m white. In the south, white people are rich while the majority of the black population is poor. I’m white. In the south, I’m white. In the south, I represent the ugliest part of our nation’s history. It's a heritage I HATE! I hate hate. I hate that there is so much hate. I hate that hate is taught to young kids. I hate that hate is so pervasive. I hate that hate is even real. I'm angry with the white people who think they are so much better than every other race . I'm angry with racism! I'm angry that I'm a little white girl just barely learning the realities of the world I live in when I was tough my whole life to honor the founding fathers of America as if they were some type of hero. Tell the next black man or woman you see to honor the men who justified enslaving humans, who owned human, who treated humans like animals...

I'm white. It's a heritage I hate.

Jamie