Life in the Fast Lane

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. — Helen Keller

Greg and I recently moved to a new apartment in our same building. We went from the fourth floor to the second, a living-kitchen-bath room to a separate foyer, separate kitchen, and a bathroom that isn't next to the stove...higher ceilings, quiet neighbors and a lot less rent. Who could say 'no' to that? Of course, we had just moved a year prior and had not planned on going through that again for a long long time and of course I had JUST decided I was going to be a martial arts expert and thrown down cash for a month-long course...I went once.

I think it is safe to say we are finally settled. Settled enough to go about our daily lives again but not settled enough to give back one of two mail keys for our old apartment. Big Brother doesn't know we still have it. I think it's illegal but we can't depend on the forwards to find us in time for the big Publisher's Clearing House payout!

We've established some dog rules for the new pad. Stewart now has a 'Crate'...a 'Den'...a little 'Cage'. We put him in there when we leave the apartment so he won't try to hang himself from the shower curtain rod when a fire truck goes by. He got used to it pretty quickly and now he even voluntarily goes in there...I suspect just to get a treat but hey, he's a dog. If every time I washed clothes someone shoved a spoonful of ice cream in my face I'd probably show up at the laundry a lot more often. I've also established a spontaneously new-found dog rule: no dogs other than Stewart in the house. Not because I'm afraid of them or them eating our dog, but because it is flea season and I don't want their little friends eating our dog...or us for that matter. The other day an old neighbor stopped by and had 'just come from the dog run' with his big, hairy beast. We quickly came up with a poor excuse about touch-up painting or something and made the dog stay outside the front door.

That night I purchased Sergeant's flea & tick pesticide for small dogs from Duane Reade and that night I poisoned our dog. Every year I've purchased a similar product for every year I've had a pet. Fleas are bad. I learned that the hard way in a little apartment I had in LA about 15 years ago. Two cats. Two humans. Two million fleas. Never again. What really struck me about this incident was that you can do something you think of as basic housekeeping year after year and never really think about it...

...until you watch your dog behave like he has been possessed, listen to him whimper, foam at the mouth, not eat and constantly try to bite his own skin off. I think we surpassed the total amount of baths we've given him in his life time in that one evening.

I think about things like my mother smoking through both of her pregnancies; the time my girlfriend and I 'laid out' to get some sun [sans sunblock of course] in the back of our friend's pick up truck, going 90mph on a two-lane, West Texas highway; my brother taking God-knows-what in the bathroom at the club when he was a teenager...

I didn't know that part of getting older was about waking up to all the toxins of the world! I already knew my '...sigh...kids today...' music/cussing/volume ear was developing but now even more than ever my '...groan...corporations today...' eyes are stinging. I called the hotline on the back of the Sergeant's box and the operator sounded like she was helping me through building a paper airplane. CLEARLY this situation is common. There is a HOTLINE to talk you through de-poisoning your family pet. They've hired operators to deal with just that. I don't know what I'll do the first time my kid gets food poisoned. I might end up in jail.

But see.....I can't make up my mind.

There is the other side of me that wonders just what was so wrong with all those scary things we did before we knew any better? Ignorance is bliss! No helmets, no seat belts, no smoke-free airplanes!

There is a rapidly growing group that wants to take Dodge-ball out of schools. Dodge-ball is the PERFECT metaphor for life!!! I think it's great we got to practice how to get dumped, fired, robbed and laughed at with a two ounce rubber ball. How do we prepare our kids for the real world when we continually make it virtual?

[New thought: Is our world less real now that it is so virtual?]

There is an elementary school in the mid-West somewhere that has a 'no touching' policy. Kids have to 'air five' each other when they want to congratulate one another. No hugging, no pats on the back...no Patty-Cake! Doesn't that stuff backfire on us? We know the 'ol Catholic-school-girl, son-of-a-preacher syndrome. Aren't those kids going to get shipped off to High School and aren't those kids going to show up to school one day with a handgun because someone slapped them on the back the day before?

K. I'm being an alarmist. I know. I should stop all of the negative, fearful thinking. I should relax.

BUT I'M 36 AND I POISONED MY DOG!!!! I DON'T EVEN HAVE KIDS YET!!!!

[For the record, Stewart is fine. A little bald on top but we tell him it makes him look distinguished.]