Pet Store Rat

My 15 year old daughter loves small animals. She started with a hamster. Soara and later Twitchy were the best loved hamsters ever. Most kids I know are excited with getting a new small pet but after a while they end up passing by the cage and feeding and cleaning happens only when they are seriously bugged by a parent - not so with my daughter. It was heartbreaking when, after the usual 2-3 year expected life span, she discovered them dead in their cages. They both got proper buriels.

Daughter decided a couple of years ago that she wanted to have a Rat. I had no qualms about this given her excellent track record. Many people have commented to me that if they had to come back as a rodent, they would want to be my daughter's pet.

We found a cute black and white rat which she named Kyla. Again, it was an amazing experience seeing her give so much love, care, and consistant affection to this animal. The rat was always one of the things she packed up when going to her Dad's for the weekend.

Last week, I met the kids and their father to drive them the rest of the way home with me. Daughter had Kyla in her traveling cage. Suddenly the handle broke and the cage fell to the ground. Daughter called out in surprize and picked up the cage. Kyla was jumping around wildly, all shook up. Daughter took the rat out of the cage to sooth her. Kyla was still frantic but daughter was doing her best to calm her down. I squated in the parking lot by the open door and was petting Kyla too. She finally calmed down then we noticed that she had stopped moving. Daughter fearfully said "Is she dead?" Then we both burst into tears. Kyla twitched a couple of times giving us hope. I tried to give her Reiki but it became obvious that she was gone. She died peacefully in my daughter's hands.

Daughter wanted to bury her friend in a good place. We live in an apartment and have no yard. I called em and asked if we could bury Kyla there. Of course she said yes. The hour drive to their home was hard. Tears were shed, words were spoken, anger about the accident were partailly released.

We got to em and eduardo's house. They had guests there who are friends we have in common. Eduardo dug the hole and I laid Kyla to rest. At Dauthers request, no formal words were spoken but the kind, supportive energy of the 11 people present was palpable. It felt right. I little comic relief came from the youngest one there who cautioned us to stand back as eduardo dug the hole. He said that something might jump out. When his older sister said "Nothing's going to jump out" in that voice that only older, "wiser" siblings can approximate he said "There might be a jack in the box buried there!"

Daughter now has two new white albino rats with red eyes - Hiedi and Lyra. They are getting the same loving attention. More tears have been shed over Kyla but life goes on. The pet store clerk was very happy that these creatures would go to a good home and not become feeder rats.

It's so gratifying to see how these small creatures have enhanced my daughter's life. She has learned many important lessons from loving these pets and, in a less obvious way, so have I.

The Dyke word

My great blogging friend Anne has a post about how she keeps hearing kids calling each other "fags." She speculated about how some of those boys will grow up and learn that they are gay and that this early experience will assure a least some amount of shame.

This called to mind an experiece I had in Middle school. I played basketball on the girls team. Suzie and I were the best players on the team. The boys basketball coach asked both of us the join the boys team saying we would be receiving better training and a higher level of play. I was pretty excited to be asked but was deathly afraid of what people would think of me if I did it. I knew I would be teased. I declined the offer.

Suzie, though, accepted. She was having a blast but I heard so many people calling her a dyke and other harsh things. At the time I thought I had done the right thing. I didn't have to put up with all that humiliation!

We ended up playing Varsity girls basketball together. She was on the starting team, I was on the second string. That experience on the boys team did her a lot of good. It makes me spitting nails angry now that I wasn't stong enough to go ahead and follow my heart. It's also so sad that those kids felt justified in making those terrible comments.

Self esteem doesn't run high with this age group or many others for that matter. Lashing out at others expense seems to be a way to feel good about ourselves and that's so fucked up. I want the world to change and become more accepting of the differences between us. That goes for every one - The short, tall, dark, light, gay, straight, heavy, thin, jock, geek, poor, rich, old, young, etc,etc, etc.

And guess what? I'm gay! At 46 years old I can finally say it. Hiding during Jr. high didn't keep me from being who I am. It just made me scared to admit for a long, long time.

Commercial

So last week I get a call from this guy. He's making a 30 second commercial promoting the upcoming North American Mixed Martial Arts Exposition. He's looking for volunteers to come help him with the shoot. I tried to get info from him on the type of people he's looking for or the demographic that fits his audience etc. He says he's trying to represent as many martial arts styles as possible. I told him I'd get back to him after I talked to another instructor to see if he's interested in doing this too.

Robert wanted to give it a try so last Saturday, he and I went to a local community college TV/Film stage and sat a round for a long time. There were maybe 18 people there all together and they brought us in three at a time to stand in these dramatically lit areas on a black floor. Our only instruction was to shadow box in these area as if we were warming up for a title fight.

It was pretty fun, the whole five minutes we were doing our thing. I have no idea what the finished product will look like or if Robert or I will even be included in the final cut. The director said he'd email us the air dates and channels and send a copy of the commercial to us. It was an interesting experience no matter what.