A Reluctant Lesson in... Technology?

As I often do these days without the structure of a day job, I spent way too long on Facebook this morning, conversing with several friends in Highlands County, FL.

For a variety of reasons, many of them are able to live relative lives of leisure as compared with the hustle and bustle of a big city.  Let's face it - life just moves at a slower pace back there, which I often catch myself missing.

Around 10 a.m., Jack came to me and started whimpering.  I honestly think he might have somehow read my mind, because I was having a conversation with a FL friend that made me think about my and Jack's daily walk.

I let him outside so that I could get dressed for the walk in the normal-for-this-time-of-year (unpredictable and constantly changing) St. Louis weather.  It's hard to dress even simply with a 48-pound dog jumping all over you.

I couldn't even check the forecast online and get dressed in layers deemed appropriate, including shoes and socks, before he started barking frantically "I Want Inside NOW!"

I finally finished getting enough clothing on to go let him in.  It was raining and he was wet!

At this point, much as Jack could have used the walk (especially with his recent weight gain noted at yesterday's vet visit), I decided I needed to walk alone on the treadmill in the basement.

Let me start by saying that Stu is nothing short of a genius and a very loving husband. He has set up for me the most wonderful exercise room, complete with treadmill, fan to cool, and technology to entertain.  The "technology to entertain" this morning proved a bit confounding to my imperfect self.

I'm still not sure if it was the order in which I did things or just technological barriers to “stealing TV shows” - which I was not trying to do - but I never anticipated this level of challenge, which actually took longer than the walking itself of 1.3 miles (the distance around Lake Verona).

Along with our subscription to DirecTV (and two paid DVRs) Stu got some software which allows you to watch the shows you have recorded on a DVR, which is connected to your home computer network, on your computer.

Stu's laptop, which normally sits on a desk/tray on his bed in his bedroom (a.k.a. his "office"), is the combination of newest and most portable computer we own.  It's also the only one of our three computers which can connect to a modern flat screen TV (which we bought in early 2010 for our FL bed and breakfast) via an HDMI cable. 

Since Stu was gone shopping for groceries and hardware necessities, I decided I would grab his laptop and borrow it for the treadmill before he got back, and hopefully leave it in a way that he wouldn't even know I had borrowed it.

I unplugged the electrical cord and carried it and the laptop, with the mouse and mouse pad, downstairs.  After connecting the laptop up to the downstairs outlet, a network signal extender, and the HDMI cable already attached to the TV set hanging on the wall, I went to turn on the TV with the remote.

The TV would not respond, and I assumed that the batteries in the remote had died.  After all, these were probably the original batteries that were in the remote when we bought the TV, even though the actual TV remote was rarely used since we had DirecTV (and remotes) in all the guest rooms.

I reinforced my original assumption by pulling out and discarding the two AA batteries, clearly labeled with a foreign name.  Let's get some good old American batteries – Eveready (headquartered in St. Louis, by the way) - that we know are relatively new (checked the date printed on them).

Still no response, and then I realized the error was human (never assume because you make an... you know the rest).  Murphy's Law says (or should say) that the appliance always works better WHEN YOU PLUG IT IN.  Duh!

OK, with the TV and the laptop both receiving electricity, the Windows Desktop was clearly visible on the large Visio TV screen.

At this point, according to repeated error messages, the DirecTV software seemed to think I was trying to use more than one monitor at a time (the laptop AND the TV set). I closed the laptop lid to turn off one of the two monitors.

I restarted both the computer and the software several times without success. I finally figured, "_____ this, I'm spending more time on the _____ technology than I will be able to spend on the _____ workout."  You can fill in the blanks with your own expletives of choice.

At this point, the TV was displaying Stu's desktop with a window where DirecTV was trying to download software, as shown in the illustration at the top of this blog.  It gave me something to look at, anyway, for the duration of my walk, along with comparing current weather conditions between Avon Park, FL and Bridgeton, MO.

Also in our basement fitness room is an old combination CD player/AM-FM radio/receiver, circa 2003, which Stu has also somehow gotten connected to the TV.  

This device is still amazingly complex if you have neither the original manual nor the brain of a 20-year-old.  Its purpose in this equation is to allow me to listen with headphones to the TV while walking on the noisy treadmill, and it has its own remote to control volume while walking.

My thought process at this point was something like, OK, I can stand to walk without TV, but please let me have music or talk radio, because I don't even have the dog or my neighborhood to entertain me today.  Yes, I am spoiled!

It took me an amazingly long time to figure out how to get the radio part of this device tuned to something besides 730 AM, which is great for Barry Foster on WWTK in Florida, but yields nothing but static in a basement in Bridgeton, MO.

There were so many buttons, all of them doing at least double if not triple duty, that even with my new magic bifocals, my old not-so-magic brain wasn't doing so well.

After way too much struggling for a woman who is trying to make a living in technology, I managed to get pre-set buttons number 5, 7 and 8 (or some such thing) set to Y-98, Brew 100.3, and KWMU St. Louis Public Radio.

And so I walked to some very new music, some old rock and roll, and some talk radio.  All were interesting for their own reasons.  

I had to resist the temptation during the fast tunes to adjust treadmill speed to anything like my former peak walking speed (when I was 30 and weighed 115 lbs.), but I did indulge myself in setting it to somewhere near the music tempo when it was less than about 3.5 mi/hr.  

Jack was patiently waiting for me at the top of the steps when I finished my solo workout.  Between a fear of our 2007 basement in Creve Coeur, MO, and being trained not to go upstairs to the guest rooms at Lake Verona Lodge Bed and Breakfast, I guess he hadn't felt compelled to follow me if it meant stairs.

I went to let him outside again, and saw that it was no longer raining.  This prompted a lengthy string of apologies from me to the dog.  Surely by now he knows Mommy is crazy, but he still loves me.  And that's why dogs are much better than technology.  The End.

Living Life In Color

Today was another great day for a walk around the subdivision.  It was actually a little bit chilly when Jack and I started out, and it was already late (close to 10 a.m.), but I was happy in my shorts and t-shirt.  I had to wonder what the older couple who walked by wearing jeans and fleece jackets thought, but they didn't seem to notice, and that's just fine.

Living in the moment means you enjoy today without dwelling on the future.  I'm getting better at doing just that.  When you worry about winter cold and ice, you miss the beauty of autumn, and I think I missed MANY autumns in just that way before moving to Florida.

I do, however, find myself hunting for clues of the impending color show that we will soon have in this area.  And I did find one which I captured on my phone and am sharing here.  At first I thought it might just be those berries, or some dead leaves, so I literally crossed the street to get a closer look.  No doubt about it - the magic has begun.

I have always loved diverse colors.  As a child, one of my favorite things in the world was the fireworks at 4th of July.  My dad used to always take me to see a display somewhere in the area that wasn't too crowded.  

Dad knew I loved the sights and sounds of fireworks displays (except the really loud bombs) and parades (even though the drums made my tummy feel funny).  I never knew how much he hated crowds and traffic when I was young, and I have to give him a lot of credit for that.

This past summer, for the 3rd straight year, I had the best seat in the house for a really spectacular fireworks display over Lake Verona in Avon Park, Florida.  Who can complain about sitting in a lawn chair in your own driveway watching the most AMAZING colors right over your head, and yet being able to hear the cheers from the more crowded viewing points all around the lake?  No matter how depressed you might be, you can't help yourself from being in awe at a moment like that.  I loved it.

I always thought I would love living somewhere where I didn't have to deal with ice and snow.  At first, I did, just because it was DIFFERENT.  But I sure learned a lot about myself in the last three years or so.  Always green can be boring.  Always either hot or hotter can be boring and quite uncomfortable for a woman with hot flashes.  Always anything is never different.  

I'm not sure the editing police will like that last sentence above, but I do.  And it's my blog.

Different is good.  Different means change.  Change means growth and adaptation.  These are the things that keep us young.  I don't want to ever get old in my mind.  I know my body will get old and already has its limitations, but rather than brace myself against those and other changes, I'm going to try something different.

I leave you with a quote from one of my all time favorite vocal groups, Carpenters, from their song "It's Going To Take Some Time."

But like the young trees in the wintertime, I'll learn how to bend.

Thoughts While Walking

I do some of my best thinking while my feet are moving.  Therefore, my daily walk of 1.2 miles has provided me with a lot of interesting ideas.  Here are a few of those thoughts on several topics.

On Walking

While I was unemployed in Florida, I always needed to walk “first thing in the morning” unless I wanted to be really hot, especially in the summer.  

Not that I intend to remain unemployed for any length of time here in Missouri – because I do not – but on a positive note, here I can walk any time of day, even later after it has warmed up to a tolerable temperature.  

I love walking in the brisk cool air of autumn.  Year round, ideally, I will only need to use the treadmill on icy, snowy or rainy days as long as the temperature stays above freezing.

On dry pavement, my biggest hazard walking here in MO are those little landmines that fall off the Sweetgum trees – and I watch carefully for those after once falling on one in 2008.

On Honesty, Job Hunting and Social Media

I have always prided myself on being a very honest person, but I have been told that my level of honesty can hurt me while job hunting.  

I agree that over-sharing or venting on Facebook, or (God forbid) discussing politics or even showing a political bias on Facebook can certainly hurt my chances at a good job.  But I draw the line at dishonesty. 

Here’s the thing.  Most real facts about me are not that hard to find out.  While I don’t wear my age tattooed on my forehead, it is a matter of public record, and I really don’t work that hard to hide it, either.  

My mother actually had an incorrect year of birth – one year later than truth - on her driver’s license in an attempt to look younger than my father (she wasn’t, but she was only 6 months older than him, which in my mind isn’t a big deal).  

OK, to be fair, I must admit that my last MO driver’s license listed my weight at 150.  The truth is it’s higher than that at the present, and has been for years.  

The woman at the license bureau, who was able to call up my old MO information in her computer, said she’d leave it at 150.  However, she went ahead and updated my husband’s new license to his actual stated weight.  

What’s the difference there?  Maybe men prefer accuracy while women prefer a soft focus?  Hmmm. 

This morning I reviewed my Facebook “Timeline” (and yes, I hate it too, but we won’t go into that here) from the perspective of an anonymous public person.  

I didn’t see anything I needed to delete, and that’s a good thing.  Anyone who wants to read all that will be seeing the “real” me, and I’m fine with that.  

Everyone with whom I have interviewed or spoken regarding a position to date has received the truth.  Yes, it’s a positive slanting, somewhat edited version of the truth, but it’s as honest as I can be.  

I hate even telling the tiniest lie when I don’t have to.  There are two reasons for that.  First, I can’t keep my story straight if I lie, and I don’t want to have to be sure every resume I ever posted has the exact same information.  

Second, I have one of those expressive faces that would probably display “SHE’S LYING” in large scrolling letters across my forehead if I did. 

I still believe honesty is the best policy.  An employer who is the best fit for me will appreciate this, as have others in the past.

On Big City versus Small Town Culture

I’m sure there are those native St. Louisans who believe that St. Louis is a small town at heart, and there is some truth in that.  But when you have actually lived in a really small town like Avon Park, Florida, the cultural differences are very apparent and it's good to respect them. 

While walking Jack in Avon Park, there were two main groupings of other pedestrians we would encounter.   The first group were those afraid of dogs.  Those people would literally cross the street to avoid Jack in many cases, even if they would wave hello or shout “Good Morning”.  

I learned the value of short-leashing him quickly if they chose to share the sidewalk, or even moving over to the grass with him short-leashed so they could pass without fear. 

The second group in Avon Park were the friendly folk.  These included locals and tourists of all ages, ethnic groups, and income levels.  

Walking around Lake Verona on the selected streets with sidewalks was a very common thing, and that’s where you would always see pedestrians.  Most would smile and say at least “Good Morning.”  Many others would literally stop and have a conversation with me and pet Jack. 

Here in Bridgeton in my little subdivision, there seems to be a good mix of younger working people and retirees.  Every last property is well kept up even though I don’t see many people on my walk.  

Those pedestrians that I do meet do not always volunteer a greeting of any sort.  And that’s OK.  

People are busy and sometimes shy.  I myself have not always volunteered greetings while walking unless the other person is directly in my path, depending on my mood.  

And it’s not a small town.  I can respect that difference even as I am sensitive to it.  There are plenty of people even here who will chat for a moment, and as long as I have the time to do so, I enjoy that.

Conclusion

It’s great to be able to walk 1.2 miles every day and have my time to think about so many things and get my thoughts organized, whether or not I choose to put them down on paper.  

Many of my daily thoughts are related to organizing my life and my job search, and that’s not mostly blog-worthy stuff for anyone who isn’t very much like me in age, interests and profession.  

But I do enjoy sharing some thoughts with others, and I hope you enjoy it, too. 

Post Script While Publishing

I normally compose in Microsoft Word, and sometime between my last blog and this one, they have completely revamped the Blogger editor.  

I think it will save time next time if I actually do my composing on their editor and then cut and paste a text version into Word to save it afterwards.  It's either that, or fight with the HTML code to get it formatted the way I want it.  

Come to think of it, maybe it's not such a bad thing to get very familiar with HTML code again.  :)

That Which Does Not Kill Us...

Finish this sentence: That which does not kill us…

There are lots of alternative endings, I’m sure, but rather than go for the cheap laugh, I will go with the standard …makes us stronger.

I’ve been hearing this line in my head a lot lately and thinking about my life: what it once was, what it is now, and what I hope to have it become. I have to believe, if nothing else, that after this entire adventure, I’m a lot stronger. I would like to add happier to that list as well, and I might as well throw in wealthier. What the heck, if you’re going to dream, dream big – right?

Here’s my life as it once was, circa 2006. I was making a great income, and so was my husband. We had a really nice house, actually two of them, one of which was paid off and was primarily a weekend getaway out at his work property. We had every imaginable toy that either of us could possibly want. We were able to have Stu’s father, Alex, move in with us and have two rooms of his very own in our large home without being cramped ourselves. Between his money and ours, the three of us were able to eat out at restaurants almost every night. Both boys were safely in school and not living with us full time, so our only concerns were taking care of Alex and ourselves, other than our jobs. We had health insurance that would cover any and all doctor visits with just a tiny co-pay.

Was I happy? Well, oddly, not the way I should have been. I didn’t really love my job at all, and it was quite stressful sometimes. Stu’s job was stressful to him as well, and we both occasionally brought that stress home to each other and to Alex. Everything seemed more difficult than it should have been, and there never seemed to be enough time or energy to get everything done that needed doing. We were both overweight and out of shape, and we weren’t really taking the time or energy we needed to devote to each other and our marriage. We had two dogs that we loved and two cats that we also loved, but who were beginning to use random areas throughout the house in place of their litter boxes and making the whole place smell awful.

No, when you exclude the income, the toys, the health insurance, I can say with some assurance that I was NOT happy. But I certainly didn’t have the time to think about why I wasn’t happy or what I could or should do about it. I didn’t even have (or make) the time to write a blog like this one to share my thoughts with others who care. I hadn’t flexed any creative muscles in so many years, with my computer programming jobs, that I probably couldn’t have constructed these sentences with any sense of flow or continuity. I was dead inside. My idea of leisure time included hours on end of playing computer games or watching TV with Stu and snacking while doing so.

So fast forward a little bit. In September of 2007 I received notice that my job was going away effective the following February 1. Was I happy then? Of course not, because I knew it meant job hunting again, although I might get a little time off between jobs as usual. I was also worried about our financial future. The first bill for COBRA health insurance after the job ended would nearly send me through the roof, even though I didn’t know that yet. I didn’t think we could live comfortably on just the one income (Stu’s). Little did I know what else was coming.

I got a new job in April of 2008 as a temporary system analyst at a health care company very near my home. Was I happy then? Happy to have a paycheck, yes. Happy to be back into the grind of daily working and office politics, a resounding NO. Much as I liked my coworkers, the actual work I was doing at that job for about the first six weeks was very tedious and boring, since it involved mostly correction of a huge volume of system errors on a new system (package software) that wasn’t working very well. The good news for me, if I wasn’t happy, would be that that job would only last 11 weeks altogether anyway, before company management decreed that almost all temporary employees must be cut loose.

I therefore had my free time back in July, 2008. Was I happy then? You’ve got to be kidding! The worry of applying for unemployment again and trying to job hunt, which I hated to begin with, plus the financial worries of being back to that one measly income between us again. After a very unsuccessful job hunt for many months, I fell into a deep depression.

In February of 2009, I started a very intensive (and expensive) training course to learn Microsoft .NET technology in order to get a programming job again in a job market where mainframes had all but left the planet (all the jobs had definitely left the USA by this time). Was I happy then? Of course not. The course material was difficult and I was the oldest one in the class. In March of 2009, Stu lost his job and we officially became a zero-income family, putting even more pressure on me to succeed. I won’t even bother to ask the question any more; you know the answer now.

Hired for a new job in May of 2009. Fired from that job in July of 2009 for reasons that I now believe were related to personality rather than job performance. Another deep depression. Stu suggesting we should buy and run a business together. My random comment about a bed and breakfast while baking cookies. Stu finding a business and us buying it without doing our homework. Us finding out the business wasn’t all that the con artist former owners made it out to be. Us spending most of our retirement money before finding that out. Us also losing my COBRA health insurance by moving to another state. How many times can you say “not happy?”

Fast forward to January, 2012. Still a zero-income family to speak of, but my priorities have completely changed. I would be very happy with a total annual income of one-half of Stu’s former salary for the two of us to live on. I have all the time I want and need to pursue my creative endeavors. I live in a small town in a beautiful tropical state, in a county where everyone seems to know each other by name, and most of them are really nice. I get to wear shorts and t-shirts in January, and year-round. No stressful job, no dressing up, no office politics. My marriage is very happy, and we just added a second dog to our family. We have enough savings to keep us afloat for a while, and I have already decided I will NOT return to anything related to computer programming, which is good considering the nearest jobs of that type are 50 miles away.

Am I happy now? Yeah, I think I am. And I KNOW I’m a whole lot STRONGER.

My Unlikely Addiction

Everyone knows that shuffleboard is for old people, right? You have to live in a retirement home to even begin to enjoy this silly and simple “sport” that involves pushing a disc, right?
WRONG! Either that, or I am old before my time, because I, age 53, am seriously addicted to this game.

It all started with moving to Florida, land of many retirees. We moved here to purchase and run a business, and early on we found ourselves with some amount of “spare time” that could be filled with recreation. Right up the street from us, at 109 E. Main Street (across the street from City Hall at 110 E. Main), was a facility that fascinated Stu, despite its sign reading “Avon Park Senior Activities Center,” because of its many visible shuffleboard courts. Upon inquiry, Stu discovered that the club is open to any adult of age 18 or older, although there aren’t currently many members under age 60.

Stu and I had some familiarity with shuffleboard in its court format, having once been members of the Jewish Community Centers Association, or J.C.C.A., back in St. Louis. The JCCA, or “the J” for short, is an organization similar to the YMCA (which started originally as the “Young Men’s Christian Association). They had these cryptic courts with the numbers on them that kind of looked like hopscotch. In fact, at least one year that Stu participated as a “youngster” (50+) in the St. Louis Senior Olympics at the “J”, he participated in the shuffleboard event there. He remembers that he didn’t do particularly well in that event and now he knows why-- it’s not as easy as it looks.

Shuffleboard courts are fairly rare in St. Louis, MO, at least to the degree that we were not aware of any shuffleboard CLUBS existing there during our residence. In Florida, however, shuffleboard is a VERY popular sport which many of its devotees take quite seriously. And there is good reason for this. As we grew to learn the sport, we found a great deal of mental strategy involved in being competitive at shuffleboard. Rather than a simple game where you try to shove discs into areas for score, shuffleboard turns out to be more like a cross between billiards and chess when you really start to learn the game.

Stu joined the Avon Park club in January of 2010, just one month after we moved to Avon Park, and quickly fell in love with the game. He convinced me to join shortly thereafter since it was amazingly inexpensive for a yearly membership that allowed unlimited play. He felt it would be something fun that we could do together, but he had no idea how addicted to it I would become.

The Avon Park club has what are called “scrambles” three times a week during winter season: 8:50 a.m. on Wednesdays (singles 16-frame), 8:50 a.m. on Saturdays (doubles 16-frame) and 1:00 p.m. on Sundays (doubles 12-frame, with ice cream and sometimes bingo thereafter). These are very informal sessions where you draw a disc from a bag indicating at which position you will play, either Head or Foot of a numbered court and a color, either Yellow or Black indicating the four discs you will use. You wind up playing against a variety of other people and in so doing, get to know them pretty well. We have met some of our closest friends in the area this way.

There are varying levels of expertise represented at the Avon Park shuffleboard club and at the Sebring Recreation Club, which are both part of Florida’s Central District. A Pro, or professional player, is someone who has placed 1st through 4th, or gotten a “point” as it’s also called, in 10 different district, state or national tournaments. Probably close to half of the players with whom we scramble several times a week are pros. There are levels of amateurs below pro, and our club even boasts at least one Hall of Fame pro, which I am told requires 100 points to achieve.

I played in my first all-amateur tournament this past Monday, partnering with Stu. Unfortunately for Stu, we not only did not place, but we lost four games in a row taking us completely out of the tournament quickly. On Thursday, Stu played in a Pro-Am mixed tournament, partnered with a pro named Esther, and they won their first four matches (8 games straight) to go into the finals. They not only placed, but won 2nd in that tournament. Stu is now up to two points of the 10 required to go pro.

I don’t see myself getting any points any time soon, but I certainly do love the game enough that it’s one of the main reasons I would be reluctant to move out of Florida. I know that some of the far northern states such as Ohio and Michigan (you know, the states whether the majority of snowbirds, or winter-only Florida residents, reside during the summer) have their own shuffleboard organizations, but if we were to move back to Missouri, I don’t believe there is a shuffleboard organization there.

While living in Florida, if I did get a regular office job, I could still shuffle on weekends, but as it is, I get to shuffle three to four times a week right up the street. Tomorrow I hope to participate in the all-day Monday mini-tournament. There is a small entry fee that goes into a pot to be divided among those who place. I don’t expect to place even in a mini at present, but if I keep practicing, someday I will do so; maybe even before I reach actual retirement age!

Better Living Through Chemistry

There are many people in this country that are not convinced that mental illness is a real, physical disability, which in many cases is very successfully treated by medication. I run into folks like this all the time. And frankly, I envy them their lack of hands-on experience in this area.

I am a survivor of what is often jokingly referred to as a dysfunctional family. My parents did the best they could do raising me, given the hand they were individually dealt in life. But my mother was seriously mentally ill, as were probably many of her ancestors before her, with what was then called Manic-Depressive Illness and is now known as Bipolar Disease. It affected her behavior in some pretty scary and unpredictable ways. I can honestly say that there were days I came home from school and put my key in the front door not knowing whether I was going to be offered some homemade hot chocolate or grabbed by the hair and screamed at about missing spots in whatever had been my assigned house cleaning chore the prior day.

There were at least as many good memories as bad ones for me, though; probably more good than bad, since apparently I tend to completely block out really bad events in my early life. But I digress.

Mom was a very tortured soul; in addition to her wild mood swings, she was addicted to cigarettes and to some degree to alcohol, the second being mostly in the form of self-medicating. From the 1950s, when my parents married, until the 1980s there were very few options for medications for mood leveling. My mother was under the care of three or four different psychiatrists during my early childhood before she found one that was really good.

There is apparently a very strong hereditary component to mental illness, as with so many other unfortunate traits (such as my late father’s poor distance vision and inability to play well with bifocal lenses). My only sister and I both suffer from some fairly severe mental illness and have since adolescence. In her case, she drew the shorter straw and got the full-blown bipolar nightmare. In my case, I lucked out with mere chronic depression – lows without euphoric highs.

I was able to be mostly functional despite my blackest depressions throughout my school years and into my working life. I rarely missed a day of work, although I’m sure some of my coworkers were less than enchanted with my tendency to complain about everything and turn my own life into the saddest story ever told. I was even able to get married and keep up some pretense of a successful romantic relationship for over 4 years in my late 20s and early 30s – but only my ex-husband knows the real truth. There’s a reason we didn’t stay married, and at least 50% of that was my moods. The other 50% was his moods; but that’s another whole story.

Sometime in my mid-30s, after my divorce in 1992 and the untimely death of my dear father in 1993, I was first introduced to an anti-depressant called Zoloft. This was not inexpensive, but my psychiatrist (who was also my mother’s excellent psychiatrist that did as well with her as anyone could) felt convinced that it would benefit me and help get my life back on track. Not that my life was all that far off track; I had a very successful career of over ten years working as a mainframe programmer and always got good reviews. Beneath the surface, however, was a lonely woman full of grief, self-doubt, and an endless supply of complaints to whoever would listen.

The Zoloft made a night and day difference in my behavior to those who were close enough to observe this difference. My mother and my best friend, who comprised my primary emotional support system at this time, were delighted in the change, as was I. Honestly, the medicine felt to me like being able to run and move freely in the fresh air and blue skies, after years of swimming through black water every day.

Variations on a mix of Zoloft and a later drug, Wellbutrin, were able to keep me well in the “normal” mood range for well over ten years, during which time I was able to handle the death of my mother in 1998 and actually meet a man shortly before that who was to become my second husband. I was also able to continue to excel in my career, even as I had doubts about whether I wanted to remain employed in the corporate world for life. Even after loss of my former livelihood and the move to Florida to buy a business that later turned out to be the worst investment of our lives, I remained optimistic.

However, after everything that has happened to us after buying this business, it’s not unexpected that the depression might return. I had known that in times of true life difficulty, sometimes these medications lose their effectiveness and require change or supplementation. With some urging from a great counselor here in town, who has helped me through a real crisis and been kind with the financial side as well, I made an appointment to see a psychiatrist in Lakeland, about 50 miles from here, in order to get on a new medication called Abilify. I knew it was a long drive, and I also knew that it was not going to be cheap – a serious consideration when one has no income at present like myself.

I have been on the new drug for about 10 days now, and I can already say that the visit to the psychiatrist was the best couple hundred bucks I have spent in a long time. So, Merry Christmas, everyone – I’m back among the emotional living this year.

The Almost Perfect Dog

After closing our bed and breakfast business, my husband and I decided that now would be the perfect time to adopt a second dog. We have been a two-dog family several times before, and always really enjoyed watching the dogs interact with each other. Now that we didn’t have people coming and going through our house, we decided it would be great to have a playmate for Jack, our greyhound/border collie/black lab mix, to run and play with him in our oversized fenced lot. We agreed it should be a young female who could bond with me the way Jack has bonded with Stu (he’s definitely a “daddy’s dog”).

Stu used the internet to review thousands of photos and descriptions, from many sources, of dogs available for adoption throughout Florida. He considered the necessary combination of size and weight (to run and play with Jack), gender (female), age (preferably housetrained but not much more than a year old), and personality, before emailing a select few of these for my review.

One of the dogs, Annie, captured my heart very quickly from the photo and description. She was a 45-pound border collie mix who loved to run, and her half-black-half-white face looked like a little harlequin and made me smile. With her mostly black coloring accented with white, she was also color-coordinated with Jack – a plus, although not a requirement.

I filled out an online application for adoption to at least get to meet Annie. Stu and I were certainly willing to drive to Bradenton to see her, which is just over one hour from our home. Within a day, Annie’s foster mother had called me and we had talked. Everything she said about Annie sounded perfect, and she offered to bring Annie to our house since they were with their dogs on the east coast and would be driving through this area anyway.

When the family brought Annie to our home, she was released into our large fenced yard and immediately began running and playing actively with Jack as if they were old friends. Their interaction was peaceful, since she was a little shy and willing to accept his “alpha dog” status immediately. And he was willing to let her get in his round plastic wading pool, of which he is normally very possessive. Annie was also very affectionate to both of us almost immediately, and of course I fell in love with her almost at first touch. The foster mother said she would leave Annie with us and if everything worked out would mail us the paperwork for completion. This was an act of trust that we appreciated.

The next two days were fun but crazy as we helped Annie acclimate to our routine. She was a little hesitant to eat her meals, and we had to put her and her food bowl in a closed room away from Jack to ensure that he would not scarf it down before she could touch it. She also seemed to have a great desire to be outdoors all the time; she would sit under the palm tree and gaze out at the lake as if she wanted to be out there herself. She had a quiet wistfulness about her behavior that touched me, and to which I could relate. And the interaction between the two dogs got better all the time, with Annie starting to assert herself a little bit. They provided such exercise and joy for each other in our large yard, and it was a delight to see.

The morning of the third day, I awoke to find that Stu had left both dogs outside in the yard for nearly an hour. We had been warned by the foster family that Annie had escaped several times from their makeshift yard fence, but that she had always returned home. The foster mother had looked at our professionally-installed 4-foot chain link fence and agreed that this should not be a problem, but we were all aware of the superior intelligence of dogs with border collie genes, so we were keeping watch.

Imagine my surprise (and Stu’s) to discover that Annie was walking around the OUTSIDE of the fenced yard, heading directly for busy Main Street on the side street. In fact, a car turning on to the side street literally had to stop mid-turn to avoid hitting her. We quickly went to the front of the house and coaxed her to us on the front porch and back inside the house.

Stu immediately went outside to begin his detective effort to find the weak place in the fence which had allowed Annie to escape. A few minutes later, he beckoned me outside where we could see a white lawn chair up against the fence with muddy paw prints on the seat and going up the back.

After carefully considering the situation, we knew we would need to send her back, despite the fact that she had bonded with me, with Stu and with Jack – and of course, we with her as well. An escape onto Main Street with its constant and often speeding traffic could be an immediate death sentence for a dog. When we are driving, we dislike having to watch constantly for a couple of small strays that always seem to be on the roads around here, so we would never wish that on other drivers. But worst of all, we knew that Jack was apt to learn habits from other dogs, and having another dog teach Jack to escape would risk his life as well. Jack is the best dog either of us has ever owned in our lives, and is so precious to us that we could not take that risk.

We contacted the former foster mother, who agreed to drive to us the next day and retrieve Annie. We’re certain she will find her a good home, since she was such a darling and mostly well behaved young dog. And some lucky family will get a great, affectionate, smart, active young dog in Annie.

While this story had a somewhat sad ending for me personally, it could have been a lot sadder had either dog been hit by a car. And we have decided that we will remain a one-dog family until such time as we can sell this big house on Main Street and move into a smaller house better suited for two adults. The new house, however, must have a decent sized fenced yard.