I was sad to hear of the untimely death of a Williamsville North High School freshman earlier this week. The freshman killed himself because he was bullied by other students about his sexual orientation. My first thought was that poor kid. Everyone's bullied, but I wonder what incident put him over the edge, and my second thought was in these modern-day times why aren't people more tolerant of homosexuals, and then I thought why aren't people more tolerant in general - why is there STILL hatred toward people of the opposite race, gender, religion, intelligence level, disabilities, etc.
My conclusion - it starts at home - around the dinner table. Kids at very young ages can sense a parent's attitude toward specific things. If the parent makes a derogatory comment about gays or against someone who's a "dork" or against a person of color, that child processes that it's ok to degrade others. Why aren't we sitting around the dinner table discussing tolerance? Why aren't we teaching our children to be a leader, not a follower? I'm not a parent yet, but I hope that I can teach my child values and to not only stand up for him or herself, but for others.
I, as many others, was the brunt of many jokes growing up. I was rail thin, had an abnormally large nose, and said some pretty dorky things. Today as a "grown up" I'm not necessarily thin, my nose is no longer abnormally large, but I still say some pretty "dorky" things. As a kid, I'd crack a joke about myself to prevent someone else from making the same joke at my expense. I then turned to making jokes about others, and although at the time I didn't think I was being mean and I certainly didn't mean it to be malicious, I shouldn't have made others laugh at someone else's expense. My thought was if I was making people laugh, they wouldn't pick on me. In retrospect, I should have stood up for others. I should have been kind to everyone. And I should have stuck up for myself, rather than showing others that I could take it when secretly I couldn't.
Today, I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I do hold some resentment for things that were said to me in high school. And although it was 10-15 years ago, and I shouldn't continue to let it bother me, I'd be lying if I said that it didn't.
I can't imagine what that poor Williamsville child was going through that day - the day he decided he couldn't take life anymore. It not only breaks my heart to think of the torment he must have felt, but also the regret that no one stood up for him. I wish someone would have told him that it gets better, and that life does not begin and end with middle or high school. It begins when you take control of your life. When you decide that you will no longer let other people's opinions bother you. The day you realize it's ok to have bad memories, but it's not ok to let it define you.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
My dog is a pica!
I've heard of dogs eating furniture, ripping apart pillows and shredding toys, but I have never experienced a dog who eats everything and anything as my Marley does. I can't take it anymore. Never in my life have I gone through so many articles of undergarments as I have in these past few months, considering ripping them apart is one of Marley's favorite past times. In fact, I hadn't noticed that several articles of clothing were missing until pieces of them showed up in her bowel movement. I learned two valuable lessons that day - nothing is safe in my house, and to keep the vet on speed dial. I have since learned that drawers need to be shut tightly and dirty laundry needs to be immediately taken to the basement to be washed as opposed to placed in the clothes hamper where apparently Marley can open the lid and get out her choice of garment.
Never in my life did I think for a second that my puppy would nuzzle her nose into my nightstand drawer to devour something that would spark a telephone call to puppy poison control, accompanied by a very uncomfortable conversation about the amount of the substance that she drank. But on Saturday morning, that's exactly what I had to do.
I can't understand why my puppy, who I love as I would my own child, would be so devious as to chow down on my new shoes, my purse, and basically anything that she can sink her teeth into and ruin.
Her favorite hideout is underneath the master bed where she knows she can stay just out of arms reach so that she can destroy my personal belongings. I guess I am lucky because she hasn't chewed any furniture...yet.... knock on wood. However, I am frustrated by my near daily findings of shredded cloth, toy stuffing cotton wads and chewed pieces of leather, including anything from baby presents to my favorite pair of pumps.
We take Marley for walks, play catch with her for hours, run laps around the house, we try anything to tire her out so that we can get some sleep. No matter how much we exhaust ourselves though she wakes up at 4 a.m. and is ready to go. We've also increased the amount of food she gets so that she isn't so ravenous that she'll eat, not just chew, my pants, shirts and undergarments. Nothing helps.
This morning, at around 1:30 a.m. Marley decided she needed to go outside, so she woke up her favorite person to pester - Mom. I took her outside to do her business, gave her a treat, and then proceeded to chase her around the house for 15 minutes trying to coax her back upstairs to bed while at the same time trying to be as quiet as a mouse so that I don't awake my sleeping husband. At 4 a.m. the routine continued. Marley woke me up so she could go outside and then hid behind the couch, so that I couldn't go back upstairs to bed. Succumbing to defeat to my 6 month old Labradoodle, I blocked off the family room with the puppy gate, grabbed a couch pillow and blanket and tried to go to sleep on the couch, only to be awoken by the sound of gnawing and licking of yet another pair of my sandals that I had just purchased to replace the last pair that she tore to shreds.
When Eric got up to get ready for work, and I told him of her tirades, he said, and I quote, "I just don't understand. I wish you had a camera, so that you could see how good she is with me." Really, I'm on 3 hours of sleep and you have the audacity to rub it in my face that my dog doesn't respect me? That deserves the husband of the year award, let me tell you.
I've paid for obedience training, I tried playing the tough guy, and I've practiced the techniques that was taught to me by the dog trainer. The problem is that while we're practicing Marley acts as though she's mastered her listening skills. She leaves the rocks alone when I tell her to "leave it." She walks nicely on a leash and even stops jumping up on me when I tell her stop. But as soon as she finds her window of opportunity- when I'm napping, in the shower or on the phone - she devices her plan of attack and sneaks away to destroy, devour and conquer.
Needless-to-say, today was not a good day.
Never in my life did I think for a second that my puppy would nuzzle her nose into my nightstand drawer to devour something that would spark a telephone call to puppy poison control, accompanied by a very uncomfortable conversation about the amount of the substance that she drank. But on Saturday morning, that's exactly what I had to do.
I can't understand why my puppy, who I love as I would my own child, would be so devious as to chow down on my new shoes, my purse, and basically anything that she can sink her teeth into and ruin.
Her favorite hideout is underneath the master bed where she knows she can stay just out of arms reach so that she can destroy my personal belongings. I guess I am lucky because she hasn't chewed any furniture...yet.... knock on wood. However, I am frustrated by my near daily findings of shredded cloth, toy stuffing cotton wads and chewed pieces of leather, including anything from baby presents to my favorite pair of pumps.
We take Marley for walks, play catch with her for hours, run laps around the house, we try anything to tire her out so that we can get some sleep. No matter how much we exhaust ourselves though she wakes up at 4 a.m. and is ready to go. We've also increased the amount of food she gets so that she isn't so ravenous that she'll eat, not just chew, my pants, shirts and undergarments. Nothing helps.
This morning, at around 1:30 a.m. Marley decided she needed to go outside, so she woke up her favorite person to pester - Mom. I took her outside to do her business, gave her a treat, and then proceeded to chase her around the house for 15 minutes trying to coax her back upstairs to bed while at the same time trying to be as quiet as a mouse so that I don't awake my sleeping husband. At 4 a.m. the routine continued. Marley woke me up so she could go outside and then hid behind the couch, so that I couldn't go back upstairs to bed. Succumbing to defeat to my 6 month old Labradoodle, I blocked off the family room with the puppy gate, grabbed a couch pillow and blanket and tried to go to sleep on the couch, only to be awoken by the sound of gnawing and licking of yet another pair of my sandals that I had just purchased to replace the last pair that she tore to shreds.
When Eric got up to get ready for work, and I told him of her tirades, he said, and I quote, "I just don't understand. I wish you had a camera, so that you could see how good she is with me." Really, I'm on 3 hours of sleep and you have the audacity to rub it in my face that my dog doesn't respect me? That deserves the husband of the year award, let me tell you.
I've paid for obedience training, I tried playing the tough guy, and I've practiced the techniques that was taught to me by the dog trainer. The problem is that while we're practicing Marley acts as though she's mastered her listening skills. She leaves the rocks alone when I tell her to "leave it." She walks nicely on a leash and even stops jumping up on me when I tell her stop. But as soon as she finds her window of opportunity- when I'm napping, in the shower or on the phone - she devices her plan of attack and sneaks away to destroy, devour and conquer.
Needless-to-say, today was not a good day.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Always remember, never forget
In 9 days, America will reflect on the 10th anniversary of the most horrific terrorist attacks in United States history. The day Osama Bin Ladin's minions carried out a series of four "suicide attacks" that left nearly 3,000 people dead and a nation heart broken.
I will never forget the morning of September 11, 2001. I was sitting in my journalism 101 class with Professor Denny Wilkins at St. Bonaventure University when Dean Coppola came to our classroom and told us all to immediately return to our dorm rooms and turn on the television. I arrived back at Shay/Loughlin just in time to see the second plane crash into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. At first I didn't know what had just unraveled on live television. As I started to process, I realized that our nation was under attack. That some sick people had flown not one, but two planes into one of New York City's most recognizable structures. As I sat glued to the television, I watched the first tower and then the second tower plummet to the ground. I watched in horror as people stranded on the top floors of the WTC buildings jumped to their deaths to escape the fury that was unfolding around them. We then listened to newscasters tell the nation that another plan had been flown into the Pentagon, and it was unclear, but it was a good possibility, that a fourth plane went down in Pennsylvania before hitting its intended target - the Capitol Building in Washington D.C.
No one was safe. Rumors spread through the dorm like wild fire that all airports were subject to terrorist attacks. I tried frantically to reach my family at home, but because everyone else in the nation was also calling their loved ones to find out if they were ok, it was hard to get through. When I finally reached my mother I sobbed into the phone. For days, weeks and months after 9/11 we mourned those who were lost in the Towers, at the Pentagon and the heroic efforts of the passengers on United Flight 93. We attended vigils in memory of those who died and those whose bodies were never recovered. We discussed the media coverage and ethics issues that were associated with the images of people falling from the sky. It's a day and a year I will never forget.
Last night, I watched a special on Ground Zero and what New York City was like on Sept. 11, 2001. I can't imagine being in the frenzy that unfolded that day. I can't imagine being a wife of one of the ill-fated passengers on any of the flights that were hijacked that day. I can't imagine being one of the New York City residents who had a loved one lost forever in the wreckage of the downed Twin Towers. I can't imagine having a loved one in The Pentagon that day and I can't imagine being one of the survivors that lived through the most horrific attack on U.S. soil.
I can't imagine how I would feel, because although I wasn't directly affected or I didn't directly lose anyone that I loved during the attacks, I am still angry that my country was attacked. And I know that I'll always remember and I'll never forget how I felt on 9/11.
I will never forget the morning of September 11, 2001. I was sitting in my journalism 101 class with Professor Denny Wilkins at St. Bonaventure University when Dean Coppola came to our classroom and told us all to immediately return to our dorm rooms and turn on the television. I arrived back at Shay/Loughlin just in time to see the second plane crash into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. At first I didn't know what had just unraveled on live television. As I started to process, I realized that our nation was under attack. That some sick people had flown not one, but two planes into one of New York City's most recognizable structures. As I sat glued to the television, I watched the first tower and then the second tower plummet to the ground. I watched in horror as people stranded on the top floors of the WTC buildings jumped to their deaths to escape the fury that was unfolding around them. We then listened to newscasters tell the nation that another plan had been flown into the Pentagon, and it was unclear, but it was a good possibility, that a fourth plane went down in Pennsylvania before hitting its intended target - the Capitol Building in Washington D.C.
No one was safe. Rumors spread through the dorm like wild fire that all airports were subject to terrorist attacks. I tried frantically to reach my family at home, but because everyone else in the nation was also calling their loved ones to find out if they were ok, it was hard to get through. When I finally reached my mother I sobbed into the phone. For days, weeks and months after 9/11 we mourned those who were lost in the Towers, at the Pentagon and the heroic efforts of the passengers on United Flight 93. We attended vigils in memory of those who died and those whose bodies were never recovered. We discussed the media coverage and ethics issues that were associated with the images of people falling from the sky. It's a day and a year I will never forget.
Last night, I watched a special on Ground Zero and what New York City was like on Sept. 11, 2001. I can't imagine being in the frenzy that unfolded that day. I can't imagine being a wife of one of the ill-fated passengers on any of the flights that were hijacked that day. I can't imagine being one of the New York City residents who had a loved one lost forever in the wreckage of the downed Twin Towers. I can't imagine having a loved one in The Pentagon that day and I can't imagine being one of the survivors that lived through the most horrific attack on U.S. soil.
I can't imagine how I would feel, because although I wasn't directly affected or I didn't directly lose anyone that I loved during the attacks, I am still angry that my country was attacked. And I know that I'll always remember and I'll never forget how I felt on 9/11.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
I don't like spiders and snakes
A few nights ago while taking Marley out for her before bed pee, I noticed a very large brown, hairy spider living in my sun room. This spider's body was the size of a nickel and had long, hairy legs. It was sitting in its funnel web in the corner just waiting for its prey. One thing that I am absolutely petrified of is spiders, and the bigger they are, the louder I scream. Naturally, I ran upstairs to wake my sleeping husband to come outside and kill this arachnid that can clearly eat me.
Reluctantly, Eric followed me outside to see what all the fuss was about. As he moved toward the tarantula-like spider, I grabbed a heavy construction boot and told him to do his manly duty and kill the sucker. Apparently, Eric has a slight fear of spiders, too, because it was too big for him to kill. As he moved the patio furniture to get an even closer look, he noticed another very large brown, hairy spider sitting in yet another funnel web waiting for its prey. As I yelled "you've got to be "explicit" kidding me," I looked up and for the first time in the many nights of taking Marley outside noticed that my sun room - the room that has become the thorn in my side - has been taken over by very large, hairy spiders. There are spiderwebs at every corner of this metal structure, which can only mean that there are many more spiders and probably different species of them to boot.
Naturally I panicked, and got on the internet to see if I could identify what type of arachnid was living in such closer corridors as me, and simultaneously immediately called my father to find out what to do. First, he told me to calm down and that these spiders would not eat me nor are they poisonous, but if they bothered me that much I could get out my vacuum cleaner and get rid of them, but he reminded me that spiders do control the mosquito and fly population so I might consider leaving them where they are and waiting for the fall when the cold weather would drive them away. Against my better judgment I decided to leave them be for now, but to use caution as I open and shut the patio door. So now, Marley is on a strict time limit. She has 5 seconds to run outside before I slam the patio door behind her. Otherwise I start to panic that one of these monsters might follow me into my family room.
Last night, as I lay my head on my pillow and shut my eyes, I sat there thinking of those spiders lurking in that little room, waiting to get a taste of me. Sure enough, about a half hour into dreamland I awoke screaming at Marley to "move, move, move," that there's a spider in the bed. I stripped the bed of the linens in search of Charlotte. To no avail, there was no spider crawling in my sheets, nor were there any waiting for me on my bedroom walls or inching its way across the rug. After some reassurance that it was only mind playing tricks on me, I finally fell asleep.
At around 6 a.m. this morning, Marley decided it was time for me to get up, because nature was calling her. As I took her to the patio door, I noticed another very large, only this time not hairy, red and white spider. She was in her web above the door preparing her meal, wrapping her prey over and over in her silk web. It was actually quite interesting to watch, but at the same time made my skin crawl all over again. I had had enough. Not only do I want that room taken down, I also want the spiders gone. I am contemplating getting a jar and coaxing them into it, so that they can be released into the woods behind my house, but now I have to find someone with enough cajones to do it. Any takers?
Reluctantly, Eric followed me outside to see what all the fuss was about. As he moved toward the tarantula-like spider, I grabbed a heavy construction boot and told him to do his manly duty and kill the sucker. Apparently, Eric has a slight fear of spiders, too, because it was too big for him to kill. As he moved the patio furniture to get an even closer look, he noticed another very large brown, hairy spider sitting in yet another funnel web waiting for its prey. As I yelled "you've got to be "explicit" kidding me," I looked up and for the first time in the many nights of taking Marley outside noticed that my sun room - the room that has become the thorn in my side - has been taken over by very large, hairy spiders. There are spiderwebs at every corner of this metal structure, which can only mean that there are many more spiders and probably different species of them to boot.
Naturally I panicked, and got on the internet to see if I could identify what type of arachnid was living in such closer corridors as me, and simultaneously immediately called my father to find out what to do. First, he told me to calm down and that these spiders would not eat me nor are they poisonous, but if they bothered me that much I could get out my vacuum cleaner and get rid of them, but he reminded me that spiders do control the mosquito and fly population so I might consider leaving them where they are and waiting for the fall when the cold weather would drive them away. Against my better judgment I decided to leave them be for now, but to use caution as I open and shut the patio door. So now, Marley is on a strict time limit. She has 5 seconds to run outside before I slam the patio door behind her. Otherwise I start to panic that one of these monsters might follow me into my family room.
Last night, as I lay my head on my pillow and shut my eyes, I sat there thinking of those spiders lurking in that little room, waiting to get a taste of me. Sure enough, about a half hour into dreamland I awoke screaming at Marley to "move, move, move," that there's a spider in the bed. I stripped the bed of the linens in search of Charlotte. To no avail, there was no spider crawling in my sheets, nor were there any waiting for me on my bedroom walls or inching its way across the rug. After some reassurance that it was only mind playing tricks on me, I finally fell asleep.
At around 6 a.m. this morning, Marley decided it was time for me to get up, because nature was calling her. As I took her to the patio door, I noticed another very large, only this time not hairy, red and white spider. She was in her web above the door preparing her meal, wrapping her prey over and over in her silk web. It was actually quite interesting to watch, but at the same time made my skin crawl all over again. I had had enough. Not only do I want that room taken down, I also want the spiders gone. I am contemplating getting a jar and coaxing them into it, so that they can be released into the woods behind my house, but now I have to find someone with enough cajones to do it. Any takers?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)