This says it all....I try to live by this motto

Hidden Camera reveals the answer to the mystery of why the back door has been open every evening when we get home.  We were blaming it on Hamlet, the pig, due to his intellectual nature.  Instead, it turns out that our dumb-as-a-post Samoyed, Tundra, is an idiot savant when it comes to escaping!  This is a dog who's entire world disappears when you drape a towel over his head....

A Frapping Pig

FRAP:  Definition: Frenetic Random Activity Periods.  Which means? Anyone who has ever had a puppy will remember times when the puppy went bonkers, running around like a fiend, bouncing off of any furniture or people in its path, not hearing a word you're saying.  That's frapping.  Hamlet loves to do this after coming in from the cold....

Hamlet Grew....

Remember that little bundle of cuteness a couple of posts ago?  This is Hamlet now.  He's still a lovebug, still sleeps under the covers and still tries to be a lap pig.  He's also amazingly smart and, being smart, gets bored easily.  For some reason he has an obsession with open doors.  He must, MUST close them once he's on the other side.  Unfortunately he locked himself in the bathroom one day, resulting in this:

See the purple stuff? That's 40x concentrated dog shampoo folks. Took me an hour to clean up and there was shampoo coming from under the floorboards for weeks.  Needless to say, all doors are now closed before leaving the house!  Last week he discovered how to unlock and open the bay doors when we're gone, releasing the ecstatic hounds. Sigh...

Birds vs Christmas Trees

I saw a bird the other day that the owner said flew out of the Christmas tree and thumped to floor. Since then, every time he tried to walk, he faceplants. The first question that popped into my head was, "Christmas tree? February? Really?", but then I have to shamefully admit I've left mine up longer, loving to sit in the dark with the fire on and look at the twinkling lights. Obviously the whole tree thing went out the window when the Pig joined the family, but I digress.

I mean, you can't really blame people. Ask someone the word they first associate with 'bird' and it could very well be 'tree'. They go together like fish and water, right? Not always. Look closely at the feet of this bird. See anything? Yup, that's angel hair some people put on their trees that's wrapped around this poor guy's feet and legs, cutting off circulation and essentially hobbling the guy!
 

Luckily the owner had brought the bird in quickly enough that, once we removed the angel hair, he was able to walk again and there was no permanent damage. Whew! So, next year, when Polly makes a beeline for the Christmas tree, remember that birds and trees aren't always meant to be together!

Do you every wish you could rewind the clock?

So....I haven't really posted about this DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) yet, partly because it's difficult to talk about and partly because I haven't really accepted the reality of it.  I mean, I should.  How many people look at a journal and see that several people have written in it, all of them you, but only one handwriting is familiar?

This is a drawing a 5 year old version of me drew.  Freaked me the hell out, let me tell you.  She's the only alter that comes out almost daily at night and that I've been forced to accept to some degree.  From what others tell me, she is pleasant and kind; a good kid.  She's a helluva Lego fan.

There are other alters who can each be big pains in the ass.  It's one of these guys that got me into trouble the other day and made me miss the veterinary conference I'd been looking forward to for ages.  I'm not sure who it was yet, but I have my guesses.

People with DID often get flash backs to downright terrifying things that happened in the past; things that they don't remember.  For me, their intensity varies.  When I'm focused at work, they very rarely happen.  When I'm home or alone, they can come fast and furious.  Thursday night was one of those nights where every second thought brought me to places I'm not sure I'll ever be able to talk about.  There's a medication I take called Seroquel.  It helps to reduce or minimize the flash backs.  When it's really bad, I take two.  One of the side effects is drowsiness, which isn't a big deal if you're already headed to bed.  Unfortunately my alters tend to come out when I'm tired or my defenses are down.  Oft times I'll feel a fuzziness when one of them is pushing their way forward and if I try hard enough, I can push them back down.

For reasons yet discovered, I'm not a big fan of crowds, loud noises or bright lights, all of which are front and center during a nationwide veterinary conference.  One of my alters finagled a way out of going.  They ransacked the drug cupboard and put a big dent in what was inside.  As a result I semi-woke the next morning, slurring my words and feeling like the dog's breakfast.  I slept until 5 pm, missing everything.   I realize that they, in their way, were trying to protect me from the stresses of the conference, but upset was an understatement on my part.

I have an alter named 'Beth' who doesn't physically manifest herself, but who is always watching and keeping track of what everyone else is doing.  She'll likely snitch on whoever overdosed during my next therapy session.  Like I said, I have my guesses.


For an excellent source of information on DID, check out:

http://www.dissociative-identity-disorder.org/

Introducing Hamlet the Wonder Pig

See that little pig laying in front of the fire? That's Hamlet the micro mini pig.  Isn't he just a little bundle of porcine cuteness?  I had done my research before purchasing him, so I knew what I was getting into.  He came from his wonderful breeder already litter trained, laid on my lap while I read, slept under the covers at my feet and snarffled up salad and piggy pellet with gusto.  I took him with me to work every day so that all and sundry could meet him, hold him, ooh and ahh over him, basically socializing him to death. He quickly became the clinic mascot and was quite full of himself, as a pig with a multitude of adoring fans is wont to do.

And then he did this.  What a talented pig!  Daddy left the door to the office open for a little bit and what wonders a young pig could find there: pens and paper, memory sticks and parrot treats, wastebaskets full of surprises. What fun!  If you look closely you can see his little tail wagging in delight.  It was a harbinger of things to come.  I might have grumbled a bit and put a moratorium on open doors, but I loved him so much that I picked him up and gave him a kiss on the snout before cleaning up.  This time....

See that folks?  That was my drive in this morning.  In my neck of the woods we get WINTER not winter.  Today we held up the white flag to mother nature and said, "You win!". We were warned to stay off of the roads for fear of sliding into ditches, snowbanks, transport trucks.  You know, the usual.  Did I listen? Hell no.  My car had a mani/pedi booked with the body shop (ok, so my driveway was so icy a couple of weeks ago that I slid into our stand of Sumacs, leaving my side mirror buried in a snow drift) and I needed it back ASAP to get to a conference this weekend.

I made it to the body shop, checked in and picked up my rental; my really small, camouflage white, no snow tires, low to the ground rental. I asked the clerk why no snow tires. "Oh, they're all season." Pfftt. All season.  Maybe if you live in California.  I normally drive a RAV4.  I love my RAV.  It happily plows through drifts, mud, herds of sheep (just kidding on the last one, but it would, if I'd let it.).  In the rental I felt like I was sitting, literally, on the snow covered tarmac.  I slid into snowdrifts not once, not twice, but THREE times.  People in their vehicles equipped with SNOW TIRES plowed by me, oblivious to my obvious distress.

I wish I could get angry.  I can't.  It's a personality fault. I'm working on it.  Sitting in my godawful rental, in a snowdrift, it would have been lovely to have sworn a blue streak to release the massive tension I'd accumulated in the short time I'd driven the car from hell.  Instead, I bawled. I HATE that!  If I'm frustrated, I cry. When I should be pissed off,  I cry.  Iphone stolen? Cried. The Sumac Encounter? Cried.  I have an alter who would likely have happily taken a crowbar to the demon car and given it what for, but not me.  Like I said, working on it.

Yes, It's Been Awhile

My blogging came to an abrupt halt in 2011, not because I was tired of it, or because a patient mauled my fingers leaving me unable to type (though that's not beyond the realm of possibility), but because my life kinda went to hell in a handbasket (more on that later).

My brain went kablooey (more on that later). I bought a practice (more on that later) and I bought a pig (yup, you guessed it, more on that later).

If I tried to explain all of this in a single post, most of you would give up after paragraph 57 and never come back. Hell, most of you may never come back anyway.  That's ok, 'cause this isn't about becoming popular, making money, or going viral.  Truth is, I'm supposed to be keeping a journal because it's therapeutic (Shhhh.  If you read closely, that sentence was rife with sarcasm).  Face it folks, many of us have tried and failed at writing stuff down every day.  I know I have.  Repeatedly.  Will blogging be different? I dunno.  It will if the pig has anything to do with it.  He senses a rise in his already local popularity and will likely demand that his shenanigans be posted for all the world to read.  Pigs are funny that way (more on that later).