blog news, travel

Just one month to go before it’s time to travel…

The featured photo was taken in February 2018, when we visited the Czech Republic and stumbled across a really cool Soviet era airplane museum. I trust Lufthansa will have more comfortable planes when we fly next month.

I don’t have a lot to write about this morning. Bill and I had a very nice weekend together. It’s great to have him home again. We made a video for younger daughter, and Bill talked to his mom on Skype. I talked to mine a few days ago and wished her a Happy Mother’s Day then.

I meant to watch Eurovision, since we finally got local TV, but I forgot it was on and hung out with Bill in our dining room, where we drank wine. 😉 Sweden won the contest. Maybe I’ll look for it on YouTube, but I find that Eurovision is more fun to watch live. We used to be in the habit of watching every year, even when we didn’t live in Europe. There were a couple of years we happened to be vacationing in Europe in May, when Eurovision airs.

Since today is May 15th, that means that it will soon be time for us to hop on a plane and go to Norway for a week before we get on our cruise in Sweden. Our flight to Oslo is on June 16th. I’m really looking forward to this trip, for so many reasons. If it goes well, maybe we’ll get back into traveling like we did pre-pandemic. Maybe I might even be persuaded to go back to the United States.

I find that I still love to travel, but as I get older, I don’t have the stamina I used to have. It’s too bad, since we have more money now than we did when we were younger. I just find nowadays that I value my alone time more. I think we’ll enjoy the cruise, but I also think I enjoy land based vacations more. We’ll see how we like Regent, though. It’s definitely going to be different for us.

When I told my mom about our trip, she said it sounded great… for us. I know kind of what she means. Mom is going to be 85 years old this year, and I think traveling is exhausting for her now. It’s tiring for me, and I’m only 50. But I love to see new places, try new things, eat different foods, and meet new people (within reason).

Then, after our big trip, it may be time to get a new dog… 😉

Sorry today’s post is kind of brief. I’m still kind of tired this morning. I woke up at 3:00AM and couldn’t get back to sleep. I feel drowsy as I type this, and I think I’ll probably need a nap sooner, rather than later. So, I think I’ll sign off, practice guitar, walk Noyzi, and crash for an hour or so. Maybe I’ll write more later… but I probably won’t. I need some inspiration.

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dogs, Duggars, musings, religion

Was it really God, or just dumb luck?

Happy Sunday morning, y’all. I’m not sure what we’re going to do today. I was giving some thought to going on post and seeing the rug guy, who lives in Wiesbaden, but usually sells his rugs in Stuttgart. We bought a rug three weeks ago, thinking we would replace one of the ones in the living room that Arran repeatedly peed on. But the guy didn’t have the pattern of rug we needed, and the one we ended up buying was a size too small. The rug guy is in Wiesbaden this weekend, so this would be the time to go.

It’s raining again today, though, and I’m kind of not wanting to venture out. I know I should, because I really do need to get out more. I just don’t feel like getting dressed. I’d rather hibernate with my latest book. Some travel blogger I am these days… I think COVID-19 lockdowns might have ruined my sense of adventure.

Given that it’s Sunday, I thought it might be a good time to write about today’s topic. I often see people praising God for things, claiming that God has somehow blessed or gifted them. The Duggar family is famous for claiming that God had blessed them with many children, as if they were flowers. Wonder what kind of flower Josh Duggar is…

I’ve heard Michelle Duggar say things like “Saying there are too many children is like saying there are too many flowers.” And Jim Bob says things like “Every child is a gift from God. We will keep receiving as many gifts as God wants to send us.”

And while I’m not an atheist, I do sometimes wonder, whenever I read or hear these things. Is it really God sending you gifts, blessing you, saving you, or smiling on you? Or are you just lucky, hardworking, very fertile, or shameless in your willingness to ask for a discount or a freebie?

Don’t get me wrong. I like to think that God had something to do with some of the good things I have in my life. And maybe there have been times when I console myself when things go wrong, telling myself that it was God’s will. I try to tell myself that whatever bad thing happened is just setting me up for something better in the future. But is it, though? Or what if God is actually preparing you for something worse? We all have a “time” to go, right? We all encounter a time when, even if we are true believers, God won’t save or protect us.

Life is kind of absurd. People often do whatever works for them. I look at how and where I met my husband. I never, in a million years, would have guessed we would have found each other in the way we did. It’s hard not to think there wasn’t some kind of divine hand that brought us together, or at least fate. Not only did we meet in a completely unexpected way, but we are also very compatible. It’s crazy that we get along as well as we do. We’re like puzzle pieces.

If you know me offline, you might understand why I make that statement. I have kind of an idiosyncratic personality. Some people like me. A lot of people can’t stand me… or that’s how it seems, anyway. I tend to be outspoken, and some people seem to think I’m too full of myself. Other people think I’m a silly twit. Those people don’t actually know me very well, but most of them also never gave me a chance. Maybe it’s better that way. I find that I have some friends who are genuine, rather than a lot of fake people claiming to be genuine friends.

Recently, Bill and I had a conversation about how I’d like to travel more. Maybe I’d even take trips by myself, like I used to before we were married. Bill says he’d be okay with it, but I can tell he doesn’t like the idea. Truth be told, I’d rather travel with Bill. But he has to work, and takes work trips frequently. So I stay home and tend to the house and the dog(s). Bill’s therapist recently pointed out that his relationship with me was probably the most stable one of his life. It’s understandable that Bill doesn’t want to lose me. Of course, I don’t want to lose myself, either… and sometimes I wonder if I have, when I stay home and watch life pass. Maybe he’s afraid that God wouldn’t protect me as well as he does. 😉

This morning I saw someone post about the Boston Marathon Bombing. It happened almost exactly ten years ago– on April 15, 2013. We were living in North Carolina, preparing to move to Texas for our year there. The person who posted wrote that she had run the marathon and, in spite of having a bum foot and jet lag (she’d flown over from Germany), she kept running. She finished the marathon just five minutes before the bombing occurred. If she had been any slower, she might have been injured or killed.

She praised God for protecting her. I guess I can understand that thinking. After all, Bill was in the Pentagon on 9/11, and his office had just been moved the week prior. Had it not been relocated, he probably would have died that day, and I’d be an old spinster. Was it God that protected Bill that day? Or was he just very lucky? Was God protecting the marathon runner, or did she simply avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time, like millions of other people who didn’t die that day?

And what of the people who did die or get hurt? Was God NOT protecting them? Were they being punished? Was it just their time to die? Or was it simply the work of evil people with no respect for other people’s lives?

I truly don’t know the answers. I think it’s comforting to give it up to God, but common sense tells me that’s fallacious thinking at work. I inherited my mother’s pragmatic side. When I was a child, I had a really great imagination, mainly because I spent a lot of time alone. Whenever I came up with something really silly or fantastic, my mom would laugh. I don’t know why she was like that, since she is herself a very creative and artistic person. She makes beautiful music and creates incredible works of art with her needles– knitting, needlepoint, cross-stitch, and other such things. She is also a lifelong Christian, although not a particularly devout one. She always went to church, but it was mainly because she was the church’s organist most of the time.

My dad was notably stronger in his Christian beliefs, I think… however, I think my mom is a better person than he was. Or, at least she was less abusive to me. He seemed to be more of a believer than she was, anyway… although I always suspected he used church for a social outlet and business purposes, as well as a place to show off his singing voice. He was very proud of it, and church was one place he could indulge his pride. As we know, some “Christians” don’t always really behave in a Christ-like way. Some might say that I’m not one to talk about that; but then, I don’t claim to be a super devout Christian myself.

I’m grateful when people I know manage to escape things like bombings, natural disasters, crime scenes, or other situations. I don’t know that I would necessarily credit God, though… because why would God choose certain individuals to save, while others are forsaken? And why would a loving, protective God allow such horrors to take place in the first place? Where was God when Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were making and planting their pressure cooker bombs? Where is God when anyone decides to do evil things? Why is it that God is there when someone is “saved”, but not when someone falls down the dark rabbit hole that causes them to do such awful things?

I’m sure there are devout Christians out there who can confidently answer my questions. However, I’m not sure I would be satisfied what they’d tell me. I’ve probably already considered their answers. Usually, what they say is something along the lines of “It was God’s will” or “God needed another angel” or something like that. I don’t blame them. Those thoughts are comforting. I do it myself when I lose a dog and think of them going to the Rainbow Bridge, joyfully meeting all of my other long lost animal friends.

When we lost Arran last month, I was grateful to God that he had a relatively peaceful end… and was pretty active up until the last twelve hours of his life. But maybe he was just very lucky… as were Bill and I to have him in our lives in the first place… as is Noyzi to no longer live on the streets of Pristina, but instead getting to live a cushy life in Germany with Americans. The odds were surely against Noyzi having that life, right?

Hmmm… maybe God had something to do with it, after all. Who knows?

Well, I think I’ll stop dwelling on today’s deep thoughts and move on with the day. That may simply mean retiring to my bedroom and reading more of my latest book, hoping not to fall asleep. 😉

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animals, communication, condescending twatbags, dogs, healthcare, overly helpful people, social media, Virginia

Some people have forgotten how to be civilized…

I had a couple of interesting communication related experiences yesterday. One involved an online exchange I had with a stranger. The other involved an observation I made in a matter of seconds as I passed a playground.

A few days ago, I noticed that someone on Facebook had written that they had been born just as smartphones were coming on the market. They wanted to know what life was like before smartphones were invented, as they were thinking of ditching their phone. I noticed one person wrote that we all watched a lot more television in those days, which I will agree is true.

It occurred to me, after I read that person’s post, that I spent a large portion of my life without the Internet. When I was growing up, we had to talk to each other in person. While I definitely had some uncivilized moments back in those primitive days, I also think I learned basic decorum that some people are missing in today’s hyper-connected Internet world.

We used to have to talk to each other in person, or maybe write a letter. We had no email, Facebook, or Twitter. Our circles of contacts were much smaller than they are today. Consequently, most days, we didn’t find ourselves in a pissing match with a stranger. Last night, I found myself being invited to such a match… and after it was over, my head was spinning! How did I get to this place?

Two days ago, The Atlantic shared an article titled “When Did People Start Brushing Dogs’ Teeth?“. It was an interesting piece about how, in the past, most people didn’t clean their dogs’ teeth. Nowadays, veterinarians encourage dog owners to use canine toothpaste and toothbrushes and have their dogs’ teeth professionally cleaned. The author of the article, Kelly Conaboy, married her personal experiences as a dog owner with somewhat recent history. She wrote:

The supposed ease of the finger brush is an attractive prospect for those facing both a new daily task and a new source of guilt. My friend and I both are dog guardians for the first time in our adult lives, but we agreed that, growing up, we didn’t remember being told to brush our family dogs’ teeth, nor did we remember thinking it was a task we were neglecting. We didn’t even remember ever seeing dog toothbrushes or dog toothpaste for sale. My friend looked into my eyes and asked a question I could tell she’d been mulling for some time.

“Were we always supposed to brush our dogs’ teeth?”

I grew up in the 80s, and we had dogs during that time. I don’t remember the vet ever telling us to brush our dogs’ teeth. Hell, my very first paying job was working for that very same vet. The subject never came up during that time.

Years later, when Bill and I were newly married and had moved to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, our “higher speed” Northern Virginia vet recommended dental care. Our dog at that time, Flea, really needed a dental in the worst way. We couldn’t afford to have his teeth cleaned until Bill went to Iraq, and we got a temporary boost in his pay. While Bill was deployed, I had Flea’s and his sidekick, MacGregor’s, teeth cleaned. I believe it was about $1100 for the two of them. Flea lost four teeth; they just fell out of his mouth. Miraculously, we weren’t charged for that.

Our finances are much better nowadays, so our dogs do get routine dentals done. I have tried to brush their teeth, but my dogs have never been too cooperative with that particular chore. Arran was particularly resistant to things like toenail trims and teeth brushing. Still, I can see the value in doing it regularly, if your dog will allow it. And now, dentals are a must, even though we didn’t used to do them.

Conaboy’s article is very interesting, as she explains that yes, we probably should have been brushing our dogs’ teeth all along. But, you only know what you know. As time passes, most people become more knowledgeable and wiser about things. So, if you didn’t know about the importance of doggie dentistry in the 80s, you might know now, right? Know better, do better (as much as I hate that cliche).

The Facebook reactions to that post ranged between approval and mockery. Lots of people assume canine dental hygiene is just a scam to help vets pay off their student loans. For the life of me, I can’t understand why so many people would begrudge veterinarians making money so they can pay their bills. Some people act like everyone should work for free, as they also lament communism and people expecting things “for free”. Even if doggie dentistry was a money making “scam”, why would people in a capitalist society have a problem with that? If you don’t want to get your dog’s teeth cleaned, no one is forcing you. It’s just a recommended service.

Personally, I’m a believer in doggie dentals. Noyzi had his first one last summer and is due for another. We just need to make the arrangements. Arran really needed one before he passed, but obviously, it wouldn’t have been wise to put him under anesthesia.

I decided to comment on the article. I do not think what I wrote was at all controversial.

Imagine how you’d feel if you didn’t clean your teeth. I don’t brush my dog’s teeth daily, but he gets regular dentals. It helps prevent chronic diseases and makes his breath stink less. 

They’re paying a lot more attention to horses’ teeth, too. Call it progress.

I got maybe 19 likes for my comment. Cool, huh? But then someone named Laurie wrote this seemingly snarky comment to me. And it wasn’t about canine dentals, but about my comment regarding horses.

horses get their teeth filed once a year to remove rough edges. Believe me, nobody is brushing horses’ teeth!

I was surprised by her response, because nowhere did I make a statement indicating that horses’ teeth are being brushed. I wrote that they’re “paying more attention to” them (which they are). So I responded.

I didn’t say they were brushing horses’ teeth, I said they were paying more attention to them (aka floating them).

Laurie comes back, tagging me with a link to a National Geographic article about Mongolian horse dentistry that’s been around for hundreds of years.

I probably should have just left it alone, but this is a phenomenon that genuinely puzzles me. Lately, I feel like people are just waiting for a reason to come at other people with criticism or discounting comments. I didn’t get the sense that Laurie was trying to be helpful or conversational. It felt like she was trying to pick a fight, although it’s possible that I took her comment as more aggressive than it was intended to be. So I wrote:

Is there a reason why you’re picking on me? What is so controversial about what I posted? I don’t need a link from National Geographic. It’s not that important.

Laurie wisely (or perhaps cowardly) didn’t respond again. I honestly didn’t see why she needed to confront me about my first comment regarding horse dental care. I grew up around horses, and I know for a fact that, back in the day, veterinarians didn’t routinely float their teeth unless there was a specific need for it. The procedure did exist, but it wasn’t like an appointment with the farrier every six weeks. It was only done when it was clearly necessary.

I don’t spend time with horses anymore, but I do know that nowadays, equine vets are floating a lot more teeth than they used to, just like today’s small animal vets are doing a lot more dentals. That was my point. Did Laurie miss the point? Because I never claimed anything about horses getting their teeth brushed. I even wrote that my dog doesn’t get his teeth brushed, even though I probably should see if he’ll let me do it (Arran wouldn’t, so I never got into the habit). The main idea of my comment is that companion animals need dental care, too, not that every animal should get daily tooth brushing.

Laurie probably didn’t read the article, because it’s behind a paywall. She probably also didn’t read my initial comment very carefully before she decided to respond. I took a peek at her profile. There’s a picture of her riding a horse in what appears to be three day eventing. So she’s a “horse person”. I also see that she lives in Clifton, Virginia, which is a Northern Virginia suburb. I spent several years of my life living in Northern Virginia, so I have personal experience with the stereotypical type of person who tends to live there. I’ve also been around plenty of “snotty” horse people who have more money than brains or class.

Certainly not every person from NoVA is an asshole; but there are probably a lot more assholes per capita living in that area, than there are in other places. They can’t really help it. Northern Virginia is a place where it costs a lot to live, there’s a lot of traffic, and many people have powerful jobs. Based on her profile, Laurie appears to be a “somebody”, and since she’s involved in an expensive sport in an area where it costs a lot to live, she’s probably a bit of an asshole. I don’t know for certain, of course. We’re complete strangers. There was a time when I never would have had a conversation of any kind with Laurie, unless I happened to meet her at a horse event. But, since I don’t ride horses anymore, the chances of that ever happening would be pretty slim.

For all I know, offline, Laurie is a total sweetheart, but based on our unfortunate interaction yesterday, I came away with the impression that she’s kind of a bitch. She may feel the same way about me, because I didn’t just acquiesce or ignore her when she crawled up my ass about the intricacies of equine dental care. Instead, I pointed out that I never claimed people were brushing their horses’ teeth. Then I confronted her for “picking on me”. That, in and of itself, is probably annoying to her. She probably didn’t expect me to confront her in kind about her comment. But then, I was genuinely perplexed as to why she felt the need to bust my chops about my original statement. There was nothing snarky or rude about it, yet Laurie felt compelled to issue a “gotcha”. And I, in turn, felt compelled to call her out for trying to do that.

It was a rather uncivilized and unnecessary exchange, wasn’t it? It occurred to me that Laurie wasn’t coming at me from a place of friendship or cordiality. She was wanting to issue a correction, without knowing a thing about me, and apparently, after not having read very carefully.

I understand that most people wouldn’t think twice about this interaction. Some people may be reading this thinking that I’m neurotic for taking the time to write about it. The truth is, I AM a bit neurotic. That exchange happened to hit one of my “psychological sunburns” (as the damnable Dr. Phil would put it). My whole life, people have been telling me to “shut up”, discounting my opinions or experiences, laughing at me, or otherwise trying to belittle me for just being myself. As a middle aged person, I am no longer willing to just let things go. I probably should be more laid back than I am, but ignoring these types of people, who try to make themselves feel better by crapping on me, makes me feel helpless. So now, people who do what Laurie did– especially when they’re overbearing women– tend to get the business end of my retorts.

Something similar happened the day after we lost Arran. I posted about it. A troll on RfM left me a really mean comment about Arran. I confronted the troll, and promptly got a “talking to” from “Lot’s Wife”, a poster who seems to insert herself in every controversy and offer her fifty cents. “Lot’s Wife” is a person I’ve come to really dislike, and she’s a reason why I don’t really visit RfM much anymore. She reminds me a lot of an “overly helpful” person I used to run into regularly. And now that I think about it, all women who treat me that way remind me of one of my sisters, who used to criticize me for everything from the way I look, to the way I laugh. I’m sure these types are battling their own neuroses and psychological sunburns, but then their neuroses seem to bump into mine! I guess I can, at least, turn these interactions into thoughtful blog rants, right?

The main thing is, though… most of these people probably wouldn’t behave this way offline. Or, if they did behave this way, they’d probably tone it down significantly. It’s a lot harder to be aggressive, or even assertive, to people who are staring you in the face. Laurie also probably wouldn’t have misunderstood my comment if we’d been talking to each other in person. We both would have had non-verbal cues to guide us and inform our responses. It probably wouldn’t have been nearly as negative an interaction.

I miss in person interactions with normal, nice people. It seems like the older I get, the less often I interact with actual people, rather than online profiles. And the pandemic made things worse, and eroded people’s social skills, including mine. I wrote about that last year, when Bill and I got our COVID-19 vaccine boosters and I was super cranky because we got to the site too early. I found myself feeling less “nice” when someone in person witnessed our exchange and chimed in “helpfully”. I probably wouldn’t have reacted that way in the past, when I had more practice talking to people in person.

And now… on to the observation I made while passing a German playground…

Yesterday, it was cold and sunny outside. I took Noyzi for a short walk. As I passed the little playground in our neighborhood, I happened to witness something that struck me as rather profound.

There were about two dozen little kids on the playground. I think there might have been two or three adults supervising them. A little girl, maybe four or five years old, fell down. She started crying, and didn’t immediately scramble to her feet. Instead, she laid on the ground wailing for a moment.

The adults did not come running, as they might have in the United States. Instead, another little girl, maybe the same age or a little older, came over to the kid on the ground, offered her her hand, and helped her to her feet. The first girl stopped crying and slowly got back to playing with her friends, running around the playground. The entire incident took less than a minute or two, and yet the simple civility of it blew me away on several levels.

First of all, when I was that age, I don’t remember being supervised that closely on a playground that wasn’t attached to a school. We kids would go to the playground, but there wouldn’t necessarily be any adults around to watch us. Sometimes there were, sometimes there weren’t.

Secondly, when I was a kid and something like that happened on the playground, I don’t remember other kids coming over to help the fallen kid to their feet. More often than not, they’d just stand around and laugh. I didn’t see any kids laughing at the girl who fell down, but in my day, I’m sure they would have. At least, if they were American kids. Today, an American adult supervising the children would have probably run over to the girl to see if she was alright, but in my day, we were pretty much expected to get over it by ourselves, as appears to be the case in Germany.

What the little girl did yesterday struck me as remarkably mature and civilized. I’ve noticed a lot of that kind of basic civility in Germany. Like, for instance, the time I was forced to stand on a train leaving the Frankfurt Airport while holding curry wurst. The train lurched, and I almost fell, which would have caused me to spill the snack all over the place. A German lady very calmly grabbed the curry wurst before I ended up wearing it. My first reaction was annoyance, but then I was grateful. It really was a kind and thoughtful thing to do. Her reaction was to be helpful, rather than critical or mocking. I’m sad to say, I don’t see this instinct as much among Americans, especially online.

I’ve even noticed this among Germans online. When the dog we hoped to rescue in 2020 got loose and we were trying to find him, I noticed many Germans were happily sharing our Tasso flyer. Very few were writing mean comments about how irresponsible I was after the dog escaped his pet taxi. I even got some really kind private messages from strangers that were genuinely helpful and consoling.

Conversely, I feel like Americans often just want to tear people down, especially when the other person is a stranger. Or they’re “fake nice”, as they’re ripping each other to shreds privately.

This doesn’t mean that all Germans are mature or polite. I’ve been yelled at plenty of times by Germans in person. It’s just that I’ve found that most people here seem more willing to see other perspectives and they don’t immediately react with snark or rudeness when someone has a different viewpoint. I feel like more people here are more likely to offer a hand to help someone up, rather than pointing and laughing at them. But, of course, some exceptions apply. See any story about my ex landlady. 😉

Anyway… just some deep food for thought on Wednesday, which is a light chore day for me. I guess my interaction with Laurie the veterinary dental expert is proof that virtually ANYTHING can be controversial on the Internet.

Carry on…

ETA: This morning, I woke up to find a notification from Laurie. I chose to ignore it. 😀

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blog news, travel

We are leaving town for the weekend…

I don’t have time to write a lengthy rant this morning, although I’ve already gotten into it with a couple of pro-life males today. One of them even argued that those of us who are pro-choice should not be so against their gun rights, since we are so much in favor of “murdering” defenseless embryos. This same dude compared reproductive rights to genocide, as he argued that he should be allowed to carry his guns. I’d say he’s not a mental giant… I finally had to wish him a nice day.

Bill and I are going to Stuttgart to see the dentist. Our appointments are on Monday, but we decided to just take the weekend and enjoy our old stomping grounds.

If we have decent weather, maybe we’ll even take a hike… but it looks like there’s going to be rain this weekend. No matter. We booked our favorite hotel in Stuttgart, and their best suite. So, I expect we’ll have a good time, even though we have to see the dentist and it’s possible my last remaining baby tooth will finally need to be pulled. The dentist said he wants to refill it, but it’s in pretty beat up shape. It may be time for another implant.

It’s been a weird week, anyway, without Arran around. We sure miss him.

I’ll take the laptop computer. Maybe there will be a decent rant or two from me while we’re gone.

The featured photo is a mallard I spotted yesterday on my walk with Noyzi.

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family, musings, relationships

Sometimes going ugly early works out for the best…

I have a few things on my mind this Tuesday morning, the last day of February 2023. These things are kind of loosely related to each other, but maybe I can make them fit in today’s blog post. I beg your indulgence, because I probably won’t have a second original post in me today. On the other hand, it’s only 7:30am, so who knows?

A couple of days ago, I wrote a post about how a picture of a defunct brand of beer led me to an unexpected place. That post hasn’t generated a lot of reads. At this writing, no one has commented on it. I suspect maybe one or two of the few people who read it might have quit before they got to the end. I can’t blame them for quitting. I quit things, too. Like, sometimes I’ll start watching a YouTube video and quit because something about it is annoying. Maybe the announcer isn’t human and speaks like a robot. Or the content might not be what was seemingly promised in the title.

Time is money for a lot of people. Sometimes, if a person takes too long to get to the point, the point will be missed. The receiver will stop engaging and walk away.

When a person quits too soon, they might miss out on something they might not have expected. My guess is that those who finished the post from a couple of days ago might have been surprised by the ending. The ending is not like the beginning, which was, admittedly, kind of ugly. I reread last night, wondering if I should cut some of the ugly part out. Maybe people would get the wrong idea about me. But then I decided that the ugly should stay, because it was part of the story.

Nowadays, people are so quick to dismiss others without a second thought. I think the response to the quick dismissal has been that people are more reluctant to be authentic. They’d rather quickly say what the other person wants to hear than be rejected or dismissed.

I could weigh in on the recent controversy involving cartoonist Scott Adams, who writes and illustrates a comic strip called Dilbert. I have never read that comic strip myself, so I can’t call myself one of Adams’ disappointed fans, dismayed because the cartoonist is in the news due to his recent racist tirade. I didn’t even see the rant that is getting him canceled right now. It sounds like it was pretty bad, though, and now Dilbert is being dropped by many newspapers. Maybe it’s inappropriate for Scott Adams to have platform anymore, since the job of cartoonist is one that is kind of dying. He’s been very privileged to be able to turn his talents into such a successful career.

Still, to me, it’s sad that an artist’s work is being dismissed because he said or wrote something people didn’t like. Sad that he uttered hateful, racist remarks that were hurtful to others, and sad that the backlash has been so brutally instant, seemingly without a second’s hesitation. I don’t agree with what little I’ve read about Scott Adams’ views, but I do realize that he must have done a lot right to be where he is today. Obviously, he was also very lucky. I don’t like to think that a person’s total worth is less than an unfortunate or unpleasant action. I’m sure Scott Adams, as a whole, is much better than his very offensive comments.

Since I don’t read Dilbert and know very little about Scott Adams or his political views, I think I’ll just say that I find cancel culture disturbing and kind of dystopian. Regular people can and will vote with their wallets. I think allowing them to make up their own minds is better than encouraging everyone to pick up figurative pitchforks and torches and actively seeking to kill someone’s livelihood. At the same time, I can see why some people are now completely turned off of Scott Adams. I don’t blame them.

That post that I wrote the other day, started off kind of “ugly”, because I wrote about how I got unceremoniously kicked out of my very first dorm room during my first week at college. My former roommate of just a few days, “Margaret”, went “ugly” early. At the time, it was devastating on several levels. I was brand new at Longwood, living in a room that was just as much mine as it was hers. And yet, I knew that if I tried to stand my ground, Margaret and her fraternity loving friend would make my life a living hell. So there I was, 18 years old and brand new to college, just days after arriving at Longwood, having to move to what was considered the “worst” dorm on campus.

You know what? A lot of the people I met after that move are still my friends today. That ugly, unpleasant, humiliating situation all worked out well in the end. In the long run, I was better off for moving across campus. If I had stayed in that room because it was “half mine”, it would not have been a good thing. Margaret was the type of person who would have done all she could to drive me out. Maybe I would have even ended up unhappy enough to transfer to another school , or quit altogether.

I could even say that about attending Longwood in the first place. It wasn’t my first choice college. And yet, it turned out to be a great school for me. I did very well there. I discovered talents and passions I had never explored before I went to college. I made some incredible friends. I only have a few regrets about going to my last choice school, and they are pretty minor, in the grand scheme of things.

Here’s a more recent example of this theme of “going ugly early”… Three years ago, Bill and I tried to adopt a dog from a German dog rescue. Our attempt to give a dog a new home ended in tragedy, when a disastrous string of events led to the dog escaping his transporter and getting killed on the Autobahn. That was a senseless and devastating event, and it made Bill and me feel like shit. But then, Noyzi the Kosovar street dog came into our lives and stole our hearts.

The fact that we have Noyzi doesn’t negate how awful it was that the other dog got killed thanks to the sheer negligence of the pet transporter. That was still a terrible thing. But if it hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t have our Noyzi, who reminds us every day how thrilled he is to have a home in Germany with us. Noyzi was destined to be in our family. I really think he was, especially since his rescuer, Meg, is a student of Carl Jung’s, just as Bill is. What are the odds?

And now for the last part of this post… This part might not seem like it fits very well, but I feel compelled to write about it, anyway.

I often read Lori Gottlieb’s advice column in The Atlantic. I knew who Lori Gottlieb was many years before I read her advice column. About twenty years ago, she wrote a book about her experiences with anorexia nervosa. It was titled Stick Figure. I read and reviewed that book for Epinions.com. Since then, Lori has become a therapist, and she writes articles for the magazine.

Last night, I read the following letter in Lori’s column, which caused some people to immediately react with disgust…

Dear Therapist,

When I married my husband, he had two adult children, and I had none. We both wanted to have a child together, but my husband had a vasectomy after his second child was born—too long ago to get the procedure reversed.

We didn’t want to use a sperm bank, so we asked my husband’s son to be the donor. We felt that was the best decision: Our child would have my husband’s genes, and we knew my stepson’s health, personality, and intelligence. He agreed to help.

Our daughter is 30 now. How do we tell her that her “father” is her grandfather, her “brother” is her father, her “sister” is her aunt, and her “nephew” is her half-brother?

My husband and I are anxious, confused, and worried about telling her. This is also hard on my husband, because he wants our daughter to know that he will always and forever be her father.

Thank you for any advice you have to offer.

Anonymous

Most of the people commenting were completely turned off by this scenario. I suspect most didn’t make it beyond the “ugly” headline, “Dear Therapist: My Daughter’s ‘Brother’ Is Actually Her Father”. Of course, most didn’t read further because they don’t subscribe. Plenty of people who didn’t read the letter had plenty to say about it, though. Quite a few folks were judging the letter writer for making this decision, and now being in a situation in which she was asking Lori Gottlieb for advice. After a few minutes’ thought about this situation, I came to a few conclusions.

In my opinion, it really makes no sense to be disgusted by this scenario. This woman’s daughter was born in the early 1990s. In those days, we didn’t conceive of things like Ancestry.com or 23&Me being a “thing”. Childless couples who hoped to conceive via sperm donor weren’t encouraged to know much about the donor. This couple wanted to have a child together. Using a sperm donor was probably the most expedient way for them to get what they desired.

The letter writer’s husband happened to have an adult aged son who was willing to serve as the sperm donor. Unusual? Yes. I wonder about his mother and what she might have thought about this scenario. As the stepson was an adult when he made his donation, it wouldn’t have been her business. Or, perhaps she’s dead. We don’t know. It sounds like stepmom never played a maternal role to her husband’s son, though. She sounds more like his father’s wife than his “stepmom”.

This isn’t a case of a stepmom having sex with a teenager. This situation involved sperm donation between two consenting adults who happen to know each other better than other donors and recipients might have. Would it have been better for the woman to conceive a baby with a stranger? Maybe in some people’s minds, that’s better. In my opinion, it’s not really ideal, though, because the other bio parent is much more of a mystery.

Moreover, since the letter writer’s stepson was obviously an adult when he donated sperm, stepmom could have married him, instead of his father, and had the baby the “natural” way. Far fewer people would have batted an eye at that scenario.

After thinking about this some more, I remembered a high school friend, whose mother was actually her grandmother. Her older sister was her bio mom, because she got “knocked up” in high school. Mom/grandma raised my friend instead. I pointed this out, and a woman conceded that that scenario is kind of common, but this one involving a sperm donor is somehow “different” because it was done deliberately, rather than being the result of an “accident”. I can tell you, having been an “accident”, albeit to an adult married couple, it kind of sucks.

And yet, nowadays, it’s not that uncommon for family members to do extraordinary favors for their relatives. I’ve read more than a couple of articles about mothers carrying babies for their daughters, who aren’t able to maintain pregnancies. I’ve seen sisters or cousins acting as surrogate mothers for their relatives. People often frame the women who do those kinds of favors as heroic. How is a stepson donating sperm to his father and his wife that much different? At least it doesn’t involve morning sickness.

Then I started thinking about how I would feel if I were the daughter in this case. I imagined that, for 30 years, I didn’t know the truth about my origins. I’m completely healthy and otherwise normal, except all my life, my biological father has been posing as my half brother. Now, perfect strangers on the Internet are grossed out about how I was conceived. If you think about it, that’s a lot “ickier” than the unusual circumstances of how I was conceived. Again… stepmom could have used a stranger’s sperm, and I wouldn’t know much of anything at all about my bio father. At least, in this situation, the young woman will be able to ask questions and have a chance at getting some honest answers.

Finally, I arrived at my conclusion. This situation sounds, on its surface, kind of “weird”. But, at the end of the day, what matters is that this couple desperately wanted to have a child together. They’re still married. Their daughter is still much beloved and was very much wanted. That, in my view, should be the focus. We should all be so lucky to have parents who wanted us that badly. The main idea is that this couple wanted to raise their daughter, and they chose the stepson as the donor, because they knew that he was healthy. It was a way for the father to contribute to his daughter’s genetic heritage, since he could no longer get his wife pregnant.

Instead of focusing on the “ick” factor of this situation, consider these points:

  1. Everyone involved in the donation was a consenting adult.
  2. It wasn’t a situation in which the stepmom and her stepson had a physical relationship. He simply donated sperm.
  3. Mom could have just as easily had a relationship with the stepson and gotten pregnant. No one would have cared.
  4. Mom could have used a stranger’s sperm and been faced with a lot more mystery regarding her daughter’s genetic heritage and potential medical or educational issues.
  5. They made this decision before the advent of home DNA tests and probably figured they could keep the secret forever.
  6. Thanks to reproductive technology advancements, family members are doing things that would have been unthinkable in previous generations. We’re seeing moms carrying their daughters’ children, for instance. Sperm donation, to me, is less earth shattering than being your sister’s or your daughter’s gestational carrier.
  7. THIS WAS A WANTED CHILD. Her parents love her. She’s grown up healthy, well-provided for, and very much beloved by her family. That should be more important than the source of her father’s genes. I hope the couple broke the news to her gently, and she was left realizing that her family loves her.

To sum things up… things that begin negatively or distastefully can eventually lead to things of beauty. Sometimes, when we “go ugly early”, we can end up in unexpected and amazing places. I could even say the same thing about Bill and me, and our marriage. We met under unexpected and unusual circumstances, but it all worked out beautifully. Sometimes when something starts out “ugly”, it might just be a situation in which the ugliness just needs to be chipped away from the surface and polished until it becomes something better… and beautiful, like the stone in my featured photo.

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