Panorama of San Bernardino

Thursday, January 16, 2025

California California

There's a Joni Mitchell song called "California" that I think I've quoted here previously. She sings, "Oh California I'm coming home". Tonight, I am not at home. I came up to the high desert house with my mother in law and my husband and three puppies in tow. We hadn't had power all week and I couldn't shiver in the dark anymore. It was a good decision. It was warm. I was able to charge my phone. The dogs were safe. We could make dinner and did. And I have an espresso maker here too. So that was good. 

Yes, the longer drive to work was hard. And I forgot my court shoes and had to buy some at Target. But all in all, it was fine. Compared to what others went through in California, it was nothing.

Then yesterday late afternoon, I'm at work in a unit meeting and see Little Mountain, which abuts my house in unincorporated San Bernardino near Devore, was on fire. I freaked out until someone informed me it was controlled. Everything was fine. But is it?

The amount of loss in California is really unfathomable. I have a few friends in Altadena that lost everything. I've heard that many of my law school colleagues lost their homes in LA and the Palisades. People have perished. Schools are gone. Animals have died. Communities have been leveled.

Where do we go from here? Will there be a mass exodus from California? I'm rethinking where to go from here. I can't do many more of these power outages and the risk of fire in my area of the wind tunnel is real. 

So I guess I should just breathe. Hold my shih tzus and family close. Help the people I can in the criminal system. Drink coffee. Lots of coffee. Just so you know it's 4:39 am. My dogs woke me at 3 am and I've been up since. 

This is my life. This is my rant. 


Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Covered in shih tzu

It's 4 am. 

No power. 

Shih tzus crying. 

Swear under my breath.

Downstairs, it's dark, cold. 

Out of their crates, 

Wrestle, pee on pads. 

Lay down on the couch,

All three pile on me. 

I'm covered in shih tzu.

Three siblings snoring. 

I'm so in love it hurts. 

Thought it would take longer.

I was wrong. 

I'm theirs.

Monday, January 6, 2025

New days

So, I've been busy, as we now have 3 puppies. It's a magical story that started off almost tragically when our two shih tzus, Merry and Pippin, were injured recently (as you know if you read the blog regularly). Merry is still recovering from hip surgery, but doing well and Pippin's broken arm is fully healed and he is zooming all over the house with his sister Princess Leia who is now affectionately known as Princess.

Princess became available after the house she was homed in didn't work out. She missed her brothers and the house's older shih tzu did not like Princess at all. She is a ball of energy and very needy so it makes sense an older dog might not adjust to her ways. So we took her in too and she is a handful who makes the already precocious Pippin even more so and they are mischievous little hobbit shih tzu trouble makers of epic proportions. Princess is so tiny that she can go under the couch and peek out to taunt Pippin.

Poor Merry has been sad in his crate desperately wanting to play, but we are being careful and cautious with any play time which is heavily monitored. Suffice to say, I've been off work but fully occupied. It feels like they are adjusting and within the next two weeks, I should be able to bring Merry back into the fold. This morning, I go back to work so we shall see how they do.

Yesterday, I did make time for brunch with my sister Annie and my friend Kim. We ended up talking for two and a half hours over cup after cup of coffee and it was a nice girl day.

I guess I'm just traveling along. It's a new year and a new day and I'm oddly hopeful. I feel optimistic. Happy new year everyone. 


Monday, December 30, 2024

Remembering

The New Year's song "Auld Lang Syne" asks whether old acquaintances should be forgotten. Maybe because I'm a memoirist, I answer this in the negative. We should remember our acquaintances from way back then and from now. It's important to honor our past and our present. 

But why you ask? It's because, or at least I would argue, that our past creates our present self. We are all a matter of then and now. I am still that little girl sitting on the roof reading a book, and yes, I'm also now a writer, and a lawyer. I contain multitudes. 

As the new year of 2025 nears, however, I'm thinking that I will look more toward the future than at the past. I just took in three new baby shih tzu puppies and they're making me remember how much growth and change matters. It's everything. We can't stay little. We have to get big and strong and the best way to do that is to challenge oneself.

So this year, the challenge for me is to look up high at the clouds and reach for the rainbows and stretch my neck to see what lies right beyond the horizon. The future is coming. And it's bright. 







Sunday, December 22, 2024

Grateful

It is 4:18 am and I am grateful. Grateful my dogs are sleeping in their crates. Grateful my husband is snoring next to me in bed.

I rarely have had time lately to truly marinate in my life. I am always on the go. But now I have some so here goes.

Life is strange. It is wonderful yes, but the highs and lows can be like living life on a roller coaster. One moment you're screaming with joy. And the next, well your stomach drops and you cover your face.

I am very lucky, some may say blessed. I have a lot. I have a life's purpose. Well, two really, law and literature. Even writing this, so early, brings me joy. That's why I do it. There's no other reason someone would write aloud to the world for more than a decade on a blog.

My sisters are also something I'm very grateful for. Through this whole ordeal, they've been very supportive. And I appreciate it. My friends have been similarly beautiful, lovely and kind. There is one person missing from the equation, but that is not my journey, that's theirs. I am just here to be me. To love my dogs. To appreciate my husband, our moms, and my sisters. Isn't that what Christmas is for?

Now if the universe would just gift me a couple more hours of sleep. I'll have all I need. 

Friday, December 20, 2024

Sitting

I'm up. Anxious. Worried, thinking what if Merry doesn't make it through the surgery? 

My twin told me a few days ago that whatever is meant to be will be. She's right. I know. 

A writer friend of mine talks about sitting in the hours. But how do you sit in time when all you can do is worry?

I've been entrusted with these small little puppies. Their lives were in my hands and the worst happened. They were hurt. I feel so much guilt and remorse for not doing better, but then I think it's okay. They will be okay. You will be okay.

Yesterday, I tried to be kind to myself. I told myself, all is good. I drank too much coffee just trying to get through my last day of work for a couple of weeks. I was anxious. 

This is just my little slip of my world. My corner I must sit in. We all have issues. Family members get hurt and sick. They age. We must deal with it. It's part of the human condition. But it's hard. 

I deal with trauma everyday at work. People incarcerated at the worst point in their lives. I always tell the people in my program that my best day is when I see my clients out of custody doing well. It happens all the time. People do better. They get better. 

I can do better, and I will. In an hour, I will drive Merry to his doctor and I will stay positive and then I will drive home and wait. 

Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Love sweet love

Yesterday, was a hard day. The wind blew over furniture that almost crushed my dogs. I turned my head for an instant. And a planter came down on them. Lifting it up, I thought they must be dead. But their little selves were there, and they were hurt, but alive. 

I panicked. I called Adrian crying and then I called my work to let them know I would be out. I called my twin sister Jackie. I told her to look up an emergency vet because my brain wasn't working.

The dogs were seriously injured I could tell. Merry was lethargic and just looked at me and put his head down. Pippin was limping. Jackie said, "Just get them to the doctor, now."

I was going to rush them to the Redlands veterinary ER, but my longtime vet answered his cell. He was in his La Verne office (he's only there sporadically as he works in Santa Monica now) and said bring them in. 

Jackie drove down to meet me at the vet. I didn't expect that. From Palm Springs to La Verne. That's being there. It was so kind. I was so hysterical that a woman prayed with me as I stood sobbing outside the vet waiting for Jackie.

It's so weird. I usually am not open with my emotions like that. But it seems the floodgates opened and I couldn't control it. I was all raw emotion. Jackie got there and comforted me. She told me it was a freak accident. I loved her for saying it.

Turns out, Merry has a broken pelvis. Pippin has a broken shoulder which will heal in his little cast wrap. They're both on opioids and crated and on Friday, Merry will have surgery to repair his hip and pelvis. He's young, and the universe willing, he should heal. But will I? 

It's 3:25 am as I write this. I slept downstairs by their crate. I check on them. I kiss them. I tell them how sorry I am this happened.

I suppose what this all taught me, if I am to find some kind of meaning here, is that life is precious. Family is everything. The worst can happen. And everything can change in a split second. But the way through it all, and what matters, is love. Just love, sweet love.