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ninanevermore) wrote2009-12-26 11:53 am
ninanevermore) wrote2009-12-26 11:53 am
Entry tags:
Saturday – Fast Away the Old Year Passes (but not fast enough)
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"You know, I'm gonna stay up until midnight on New Years Eve not to see 2010 roll in," my brother-in-law told me as he nursed a beer on Christmas Day, "I just wanna see 2009 finally come to an end and be over with. This year has been lousy."
A lot of people seem to feel that way about 2009, myself included. It's not that no good things have happened this year, it's just been one of those years where the bad outweighed the good by a ten-to-one ratio. For my brother-in-law alone, it was the year a brother he didn't care much for anyway committed suicide and he had to go to Idaho to put his affairs in order, the year his wife suffered one health problem after another, the year he had to finally untangle his nursing-home-bound mother's tax problems (before her stroke she worked an independent contractor and hadn't really bothered to file like she should have) for which he continues to make monthly payments to the IRS in order to settle her account with them, and the year his dog had a stroke and died in his arms, among other things.
The dog, Dallas, was not the type of dog he would have chosen for himself. He is a big-dog type of guy, and Dallas was one of those small, fluffy Asian breeds with a flat face that I can't recall the name of right now. He was kind of a frou-frou breed, but Dallas was as tough and mean as a creature that weighs 20 pounds soaking wet can be. This was because Dallas had issues.
My brother-in-law and his wife have a daughter who I'll call Tanya. Tanya is, technically, my niece by marriage, but it's hard for me to think of her as a niece since she is only a few years younger than I am. It's easier to think of her daughters as my nieces, instead. Her oldest daughter (who is now a teenager) is from an ex boyfriend she dated in college. Her youngest, age 6, she had with her husband. A few years into her marriage she convinced her husband to let her and her oldest daughter get a puppy and he brought home Dallas. He husband is a control freak and not a person who likes animals very much, though, so Dallas did not have a happy life in his household. He was left in a cage for too long with no interaction because Tanya's husband didn't like the dog wandering loose on the carpets, so the little pooch failed to socialize well. Tanya's husband also liked to kick the little white mop across the room when he was in a sour mood. After a couple of years, Tanya asked her parents to take the dog and they agreed.
It took a few months, but my brother-in-law and his wife nursed Dallas and finally earned his trust. He loved them dearly and stuck to them like glue, sitting on their laps or curling up at their feet wherever they were in the house. He never did learn to like other people, though. When we visited the house Dallas would run to the door and stand there barking even after the door was opened and he could see who it was.
"This is my house! Mine! Don't even think of trying anything funny, you! These are my humans and I protect them!" his barks and body language proclaimed to all who entered. As small as he was, you couldn't doubt his seriousness and his willingness to fight you to the death if need be.
"Dallas, knock it off! Go to your bed!" my brother in law or his wife would order, and Dallas would go silent and march off to his bed, which was his "safe spot" and his sanctuary. The dog would not let anyone other than "his" humans touch him. I got nipped once when I absent mindedly reached down to scratch his ears in the first year they had him. For this reason I did not much care for Dallas and sometimes referred to him as "Psycho D," though never within earshot of his mistress because it upset her. Dallas didn't attack people if they didn't try to touch him, he just made sure you knew that touching him was really a bad idea. The last 7 years of the little dogs life were happy and content, though he never got over his distrust of strangers.
After listening to my brother-in-law describe the death of Dallas and tell me how hard it was to watch, I thought I'd lighten the mood and ask about his daughter in California.
"How are Tanya and the girls?" I asked.
My brother-in-law sneered. "Oh, do you mean before or after her husband beat her and Renee up and she walked out on him? Or do you mean before or after she moved in with her new boyfriend and discovered she's pregnant?" He took another swig of beer and rolled his eyes.
"Huh? He beat her up? She pregnant? It's the boyfriends, right? Not [her husband's]?"
"Yeah, it's the boyfriend's. They weren't planning on it, but it happened and I guess he's taking care of her right now."
This was a relief; I didn't want her to have any more ties to her husband than she already had. A baby with anther man, while sordid, might just be the thing to make sure she doesn't return and try to patch up a marriage that had been cracked from day one and is now broken beyond repair. I mentioned that since I'd heard about how his daughter's husband had treated Dallas, I hadn't liked him. "Nice guys don't torture puppies," I said, "That was a bad sign."
"Nope, you're right about that. They don't."
For years I'd noticed how sad Tanya looked on the rare occasions I saw her. Her face would harden when you asked about her husband (who never accompanied her to her parents house), and only soften again when she looked at her girls playing in their grandparent's yard. I got the impression that her husband was emotionally cruel and very controlling, but I hadn't heard anything about physical abuse until now.
"No, neither had we. But he hauled off and started hitting her one night, and then Renee jumped on his back and starting yelling for him to leave her mom the hell alone, so he threw her across the room and she hit the coffee table. It messed her knee up pretty bad for awhile. Tanya packed up the kids and moved out and then she met this new guy. As far as I know he's all right. We haven't met him yet."
"Wow," I said, because I couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Yeah, wow."
"I agree: 2009 needs to get the hell out of here," I told him, "It's got one week to go. Hopefully, it won't cause any more trouble in that time."
"Let's hope not, because I'm sick of it's sh#t," he said, and tipped back his bottle to finish his beer.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
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.
.
"You know, I'm gonna stay up until midnight on New Years Eve not to see 2010 roll in," my brother-in-law told me as he nursed a beer on Christmas Day, "I just wanna see 2009 finally come to an end and be over with. This year has been lousy."
A lot of people seem to feel that way about 2009, myself included. It's not that no good things have happened this year, it's just been one of those years where the bad outweighed the good by a ten-to-one ratio. For my brother-in-law alone, it was the year a brother he didn't care much for anyway committed suicide and he had to go to Idaho to put his affairs in order, the year his wife suffered one health problem after another, the year he had to finally untangle his nursing-home-bound mother's tax problems (before her stroke she worked an independent contractor and hadn't really bothered to file like she should have) for which he continues to make monthly payments to the IRS in order to settle her account with them, and the year his dog had a stroke and died in his arms, among other things.
The dog, Dallas, was not the type of dog he would have chosen for himself. He is a big-dog type of guy, and Dallas was one of those small, fluffy Asian breeds with a flat face that I can't recall the name of right now. He was kind of a frou-frou breed, but Dallas was as tough and mean as a creature that weighs 20 pounds soaking wet can be. This was because Dallas had issues.
My brother-in-law and his wife have a daughter who I'll call Tanya. Tanya is, technically, my niece by marriage, but it's hard for me to think of her as a niece since she is only a few years younger than I am. It's easier to think of her daughters as my nieces, instead. Her oldest daughter (who is now a teenager) is from an ex boyfriend she dated in college. Her youngest, age 6, she had with her husband. A few years into her marriage she convinced her husband to let her and her oldest daughter get a puppy and he brought home Dallas. He husband is a control freak and not a person who likes animals very much, though, so Dallas did not have a happy life in his household. He was left in a cage for too long with no interaction because Tanya's husband didn't like the dog wandering loose on the carpets, so the little pooch failed to socialize well. Tanya's husband also liked to kick the little white mop across the room when he was in a sour mood. After a couple of years, Tanya asked her parents to take the dog and they agreed.
It took a few months, but my brother-in-law and his wife nursed Dallas and finally earned his trust. He loved them dearly and stuck to them like glue, sitting on their laps or curling up at their feet wherever they were in the house. He never did learn to like other people, though. When we visited the house Dallas would run to the door and stand there barking even after the door was opened and he could see who it was.
"This is my house! Mine! Don't even think of trying anything funny, you! These are my humans and I protect them!" his barks and body language proclaimed to all who entered. As small as he was, you couldn't doubt his seriousness and his willingness to fight you to the death if need be.
"Dallas, knock it off! Go to your bed!" my brother in law or his wife would order, and Dallas would go silent and march off to his bed, which was his "safe spot" and his sanctuary. The dog would not let anyone other than "his" humans touch him. I got nipped once when I absent mindedly reached down to scratch his ears in the first year they had him. For this reason I did not much care for Dallas and sometimes referred to him as "Psycho D," though never within earshot of his mistress because it upset her. Dallas didn't attack people if they didn't try to touch him, he just made sure you knew that touching him was really a bad idea. The last 7 years of the little dogs life were happy and content, though he never got over his distrust of strangers.
After listening to my brother-in-law describe the death of Dallas and tell me how hard it was to watch, I thought I'd lighten the mood and ask about his daughter in California.
"How are Tanya and the girls?" I asked.
My brother-in-law sneered. "Oh, do you mean before or after her husband beat her and Renee up and she walked out on him? Or do you mean before or after she moved in with her new boyfriend and discovered she's pregnant?" He took another swig of beer and rolled his eyes.
"Huh? He beat her up? She pregnant? It's the boyfriends, right? Not [her husband's]?"
"Yeah, it's the boyfriend's. They weren't planning on it, but it happened and I guess he's taking care of her right now."
This was a relief; I didn't want her to have any more ties to her husband than she already had. A baby with anther man, while sordid, might just be the thing to make sure she doesn't return and try to patch up a marriage that had been cracked from day one and is now broken beyond repair. I mentioned that since I'd heard about how his daughter's husband had treated Dallas, I hadn't liked him. "Nice guys don't torture puppies," I said, "That was a bad sign."
"Nope, you're right about that. They don't."
For years I'd noticed how sad Tanya looked on the rare occasions I saw her. Her face would harden when you asked about her husband (who never accompanied her to her parents house), and only soften again when she looked at her girls playing in their grandparent's yard. I got the impression that her husband was emotionally cruel and very controlling, but I hadn't heard anything about physical abuse until now.
"No, neither had we. But he hauled off and started hitting her one night, and then Renee jumped on his back and starting yelling for him to leave her mom the hell alone, so he threw her across the room and she hit the coffee table. It messed her knee up pretty bad for awhile. Tanya packed up the kids and moved out and then she met this new guy. As far as I know he's all right. We haven't met him yet."
"Wow," I said, because I couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Yeah, wow."
"I agree: 2009 needs to get the hell out of here," I told him, "It's got one week to go. Hopefully, it won't cause any more trouble in that time."
"Let's hope not, because I'm sick of it's sh#t," he said, and tipped back his bottle to finish his beer.