To My Ralph

Ralph. He was the love of my life. The perfect man. Always around when I wanted him there, disappearing when I didn’t. His big chestnut eyes full of adoration and love. He often waited for me at the window and showed clear excitement when he heard the tires of my car grind the gravel below our driveway. Always greeting me with a kiss and an embrace, Ralph showed me true love. The true, unconditional, undeserving friendship and companionship only a dog can offer.

Ralph. He was the love my life. And he died on Wednesday.

For those of you that know your dog as more human than animal, you’ll understand my loss. You’ll understand the apple I swallowed that remains stuck in my throat. You’ll understand the influx of tears that well in my eyes when I think about walking through the doorway to a vacancy of nails skidding across the tile floor. You’ll understand that I have, really and truly, lost someone very dear to me.

At least I was able to say goodbye – felt the life in his triangle-patch ears one last time. Gave him a kiss on his snout. Put my hand on his tummy and felt him breath soundly in and out. He didn’t know I was there – that’s the great thing about Valium – supposedly it relaxes muscles to the point where they can't seize anymore, leaving the patient in a deep, peaceful sleep. Ralph didn’t know any of us were there. But we were. All five of us. Passing around the tissue box, waiting for the vet, completely prone twenty-two tears. Even my dad, a man of great love but few words, got down on his hands on knees and said goodbye to his 10-year-long friend – the only other man who understood what it is like to live with the four women in my family.

Ralph and my dad – they shared the lazy boy, the grill, and football games. Just a bunch of guys trying to cope in a household of women.

My mom was the only person that left the room before the pink fluid flowed into Ralph’s IV. I understood. She couldn’t watch one of her kids go, you know? My dad, my two sisters and I stayed there with him. We waited until Ralph was gone, waited for the vet to say, “That’s it”, and then we left him. We left him lying on the floor in a sterile clinic room all by himself. Dead.

So here’s to you Ralph, love of my life.

Here’s to your farts that smelled like toxic stink bombs. Here’s to your sling and drool all over my freshly dry cleaned black pants. Here’s to your hugs; your mangy tennis ball; your poop-eating tendencies. Here’s to your great big barrel chest up in the air, poised for rubbing. Here’s to you being there, every day, for the last ten years. You are loved. You are missed.

It's a Bleeder

On my first date with Mitch, I ordered white wine instead of red because I didn’t want my teeth to turn crimson. On our second date, I walked from Comedy Underground in Pioneer Square to my apartment in Belltown with a red, raw foot – new shoes, no socks, huge seeping blister. On our third date, I ate only half of my rare cheese burger because I didn’t want Mitch to think that, you know, I eat.

Really, after I shake my head in shame, wondering what kind of disgust Gloria Steinem or Maureen Dowd might spit at me, I blame the movies. My friend Karen, who almost always suggests the chick flicks, croons at the perfect love moments, the oh-so-sexy morning-after hair, and the, let's be honest, blatant misrepresentations of smooth, hot, “you do it for me every time, baby,” sex.

Croon away, Karen, but just remember that in real life, people bleed.

People, of course, meaning me. Actually, my nose. Apparently, I am prone twenty-two nose bleeds.

I met Mitch on New Year’s Eve. I will tell you more about him later because, right now, it is all about me. I will say, though, he is probably the first man I might consider falling in love with. But never mind the gooshy stuff – well, ha, maybe you should mind the gooshy stuff. Gooshy? Gorey? Which word would you use to describe the complete and utter humiliation of a nose gooshing blood on the morning after the first night at your new boyfriend’s place? Let’s go with goosh.

We stayed in the night before. There was wine (red this time, don’t worry), a couch, and a movie that I do not remember. Around midnight, I started to say that I should “get going,” and we got going up to his room around 1:00. I did not sleep all that well – new house, unfamiliar but comfortable bed, someone next to me – but I managed to sleep in until 9:00 the next morning. When I woke up, I immediately dug my index fingers into the corners of my eyes, trying to remove the crust that formed from my neglected eye-make-up removal eight hours before. Then my thoughts reached for the sexy morning-after hair as my hands reached for the cow-lick above my right eye. He woke up and asked all the right questions – “How’d you sleep? Were you warm enough? Did I snore?” – and I responded in frog voice. He put his arm around me and I settled into his shoulder. Just like the movies.

Is my nose running? Why is my nose running? I don’t have a cold.

Wow, it is really running.

Shit…do I wipe it? Will that make it worse? I have to wipe it…it’s running out of control.

OH. MY. GOSH. My hands are covered in blood. SHIT.

“Oh my gosh, Mitch. My nose is bleeding.”

SHIT.

He jumps out of bed, grabs a wad of toilet paper and shoves it into my hands as I follow him into the bathroom. I yell, “Don’t look at me!” and I see him strain to keep a smile off his face. I spend the next five minutes in the bathroom trying to close the bloodgates when it comes to me. His sheets. SHIT. His sheets. They’re white.

I go back out into the bed room and the bed is made. Hmm…that was quick. Have I ever known a man that makes his bed within five minutes of getting out of it? I look at him. He is hiding a grin behind the hand that covers his mouth. I pull back the sheets.

SHIT.

Blood smears somehow managed to get on the pillows, the top sheet, and the fitted sheet. He immediately starts chiming, “It’s okay! It’s not a big deal!” and all I can think is, OH. MY. GOSH.

I asked him later that night if the stain came out (it is the least I could do after he wouldn’t let me burn the sheets and buy a new set) and he said it was completely gone. Then he started laughing and I told him it was not funny. He said he thought it was, and then it was behind us. I still experience the Cringe when I remember it, but for the most part, it is over.

But, as I told Karen (my chick-flick loving friend) on my drive home later that morning, people bleed. Thanks for reading.

The Cringe

I have come to know the Cringe well in my twenty-second year. It’s a wince. A contraction. My friends are quite familiar with the Cringeful expression and almost immediately after catching a laugh in their nasal canal, will ask which memory forged its way to the forefront of my mind. They ask “which” as opposed to “what” because, quite honestly, there are too many Cringes in the past six months to know, even remotely, which one revealed its ugly, pock-marked face.

My Cringe is unmistakable. Some individuals are blessed with the gift of disguising or controlling their Cringe. But mine, my Cringe controls me. My chin shifts about two inches up and to the left, flexing one of those major muscles in the neck, and I’m left with the sour distaste of a memory stuck and vivid in my head.

After my chin goes, my left eye immediately follows. It closes in a wink, but somehow lacks the playfully smooth execution of the commonly flirtatious gesture. No, it looks more like a small plum seed. Tight, hard, wrinkled – Cringeful. So, my chin is up and to the left, my left eye is closed, looking like a plum seed, and then my mouth succumbs. My teeth clench, of course, and my slightly parted lips provide ample view of my strained bite. Imagine the mouth of an individual biting down on a leather belt during a fleshy bullet retraction. Uncomfortable? I think so.

The Cringe. It’s bad. And although it usually lasts only a few seconds, it can overwhelm us multiples times a day. It gets us during lunch in the middle of a burger bite, at our desk while we’re writing an e-mail, on a date, or even before we enter the sweet escape of sleep. The Cringe heeds nothing and strikes fiercely, arriving completely unexpected and definitely unappreciated.

But perhaps the Cringe isn’t all bad. It motivated me to start this blog, which will no doubt be centered on experiences that awaken the Cringe. At best, the blog entries will reduce the Cringe-factor in other lives through the realization that we are all prone twenty-two embarrassment, and at worst, will simply keep my feet on the ground in sheer humility. Thanks for reading.