Week Fourty-Two: Shanta

Once upon a time, I had the best dog ever. Her name was Shanta, and she was everything from a partner in crime to a pillow. Shanta and I grew up at the same time, we spending thirteen years of our lives together. I remember when I was younger, Shanta was a staple in whatever I was doing, whether it was smashing dog treats with rocks and feeding her the mixed up powder as a gourmet doggy restaurant, or playing house in the woods with Shanta as my pet wolf, she was always there.

One year, my sister and I decided that since Shanta was a husky, it would be a brilliant idea to hitch her up to one of the sleds and have her pull us down the hill. Shanta decided that it would be the opposite of brilliant. To our dismay, she was terrified of the sled, and so ended our very short career as mushers.

In the summers, I spent hours making terrifically inedible foods from flowers and sand. Shanta, who wanted to be included, regardless of what it was we were doing, developed a habit of helping herself to whatever blossoms were designated for our colorful salads. In turn, we developed a habit of plucking rhododendron flowers and feeding them to her, in lieu of actual dog treats from the store.

As I grew older, flowers gave way to little bits of whatever food I was eating that day. Carrots and sandwich bread, egg salad and potato chips, you name it, Shanta wanted some. Everything but fruit, that is. She couldn’t stand fruit, yet she would beg for it if we had some. It never seemed to cross her mind that she didn’t, in fact, like apple cores, no matter how much fun we seemed to be having with ours.

When she lived outside, Shanta slept in the snowdrifts, nose tucked under her tail, leaving behind a little round icy divot in the flakes. During her days, she raced through the woods, catching anything foolish enough to wander into her path, and more frequently than not, devouring it. The sheer fact that she could catch birds was a testament to her speed and agility, and her area of the yard became a graveyard for small woodland creatures, while our family struggled to remove the hapless toads that hopped in her way.

Twice, we almost lost her. The first time, we could only assume that she chased after a deer and sprinted out of the range of her invisible fence. The second time, we found her (with the help of some wonderful people) three and a half hours away in Wrentham, MA. She had been hit by a car, broken her leg, and almost certainly been abducted. From that day forward, Shanta became an indoor dog. Her life and our family’s lives changed forever.

A “begging line” was established in the kitchen, and Shanta’s disgusting but well-loved toy, “hamboogie”, moved inside with us. Tina learned to tolerate the new addition, not finding much joy in having an intruder in her cat-only home, and we learned to tolerate the mountain of fluffy white hair that Shanta left wherever she went. The house was full of laughter and an enthusiastic dog. Suddenly, picking up spilled food became Shanta’s job, a job that she was all too happy to take on. I should say, she was happy to clean up everything but the fruit. Old habits die hard.

After a while, I decided that Shanta needed a voice to share her opinions about what was happening around the house, so I became her “tail-voice”, vocalizing on her behalf, and attempting to tap into what she was thinking from the look on her face. It soon became clear to everyone in the house that Shanta had very clear opinions about certain things, like perceived favoritism of the cat, certain high-pitched singers on the radio, what sort of food should be cooked for dinner, and was indefinitely puzzled by the fact that humans shed their entire coats every day, and that while her snowdrifts of hair were a source of annoyance, nobody found the fact that humans sheadded daily odd at all.

It never really occurred to me that, while I was growing and becoming older, Shanta was, too. In my mind, she was always my puppy, and I called her that, as the years past. Last April, Shanta suffered a series of seizures, and rapidly declined, dying a week later.

I miss my puppy every day. She was one of the most sweet, gentle, loving, funny creatures I have ever met, and I am immensely privileged to have spent 13 years of my life with her.

Once upon a time, I had the best dog ever. Her name was Shanta.

Week Fourty-One: NaNoWriMo Prep

Why hello again, my charming bloggians.

As you all know, November is creeping up ever faster that I thought possible. I am without a full-formed plot, without main characters, and without an outline. In addition to this, I will be teaching three days a week in November (and spending countless hours doing prepwork for the classes), attempting to keep sane, not fall behind on my BOW'11 project, and furthermore, the show that I'm in is opening the first weekend of November. It's all I can do to keep my head above water now, let alone attempt to write a book.

So now it's time for me to step back and look at my November in a realistic way. Will I be able to handle all this without going utterly bonkers? Can I take even three minutes to squeeze in another handful of words? No.

Is it madness to think that I could take on a project of this magnitude? Yes.

Will I be doing it anyway, despite my better judgement? You bet.

Am I taking on 50,000 words of a genre that I am not wildly familiar with? Indeed.

How excited am I? There are no words.

~Whimsy

P.S.
Thank you to all those who have commented. I love you all and send tons of hugs your way. I wish I had time to properly write back, but maybe in December? Thanks for sticking with me!

P.P.S. Are you NaNoing this year? What's your book about?

Week Fourty: Everything Is Happening.

Do you ever have one of those weeks where everything is happening at once? Yeah, me too.

So that's why this is just bordering on late. I've been splitting my time between teaching and prepping for 10 different classes on three different days, rehearsing for the show I'm in, trying to get ready for NaNo, still keeping up on my weekly ASL lessons, learning to roller skate for the aforementioned play, read at least a little, keep the laundry going and the house at least marginally clean.

Clearly, it's been a bit nuts over here.

Just today, I spent 2 hours at the local skating rink just practicing going around and not falling over while holing on to a stack of books. Not as easy as one would think, especially since the last time I roller skated was at my cousin's birthday party, when he turned 5 or something. (This would have made me 6 years old.) Two weeks ago, the role I was play in the show swapped from the smallest part to one of the lead roles. For this new part, I have to learn to skate. Yes, I'm trying not to kill myself.

In addition, as I mentioned before, I'm thinking about NaNo. It's looking like my novel this year will be a huge sci-fi crazy-thing, and I couldn't be happier.

Anywho, I'm getting tired (it is 1:15am, after all), so I'll let you all go.

Hoping for a better post next week,
Whimsy

Week Thirty-Nine: Unbridled Enthusiasm

There's something I've noticed, and it's become more and more blatant the more time I spend with young children*.

When young children see something that makes them happy, they show it in every molecule of their body. They see no reason to tone down the absolute joy that they feel. If something is exciting, they jump up and down, squealing with glee. When they find someone who likes the same thing that they like, it's a cause for a party.

Here's the thing. When we grow older, many, many people lose that unbridled enthusiasm. We go from showing our happiness on every inch of our bodies to hiding the fact that we're enjoying inside ourselves. At some point, it's like there's an unspoken rule that a certain amount of joy and outwardly expressed emotion that becomes uncool.

Now, pardon me, but this is where I would like to jump in. I think that the idea that we have to squelch the fact that we're happy is complete and utter bollocks. The whole "cool people don't subtly jump up and down, quietly cheering when they find the book that they wanted at the library" idea is completely absurd.

I know many, many people who have a bunch of wonderful interests, and yet, most of the time, they live in a state of restraining themselves from letting themselves really become enthusiastic about what makes them happy.

When you can't even express your joy outwardly, I think that's so very sad. Furthermore, when people do express the fact that they're excited, I've actually seen them apologize for it. Being enthusiastic is not a bad thing, people. Let's stop treating it as such.

So go ahead, enthuse about your favorite books. Spend the whole day in excited anticipation of a new episode of a TV show. Do a happy spin because you've found the exact tea you wanted at the grocery store.

Just don't let enthusiasm die out. Please. If enthusiasm dies, what a bland world we'd have.

Happy Saturday, everyone!





*And by "young children", I pretty much mean anyone from the age 6 to 11...loosely around there, at least.