Change Is Hard

Today as I drove to Ann Arbor to meet a group of students studying for an upcoming midterm I saw four Canadian geese fly across the freeway. This put an instant smile on my face. I used to have this silly supersticion when I saw geese flying, if I saw six geese then everyone in my family was fine. Today there are just four of us, but we’re still tight, still together even after all we have been through. Seeing four geese flying was a good thing.

As I sat on the bus I noticed a squirrel in a crab apple tree, going out to the ends of the branches and hanging upside down, grabbing last years freeze dried crab apples for lunch. The bouncing squirrel made me smile. Bonnie hated squirrels and she’d be barking if she saw. Maybe she’s barking now.

Almost into campus the bus passed a billboard. I thought it said “Unlimited tagging” and I thought that was odd (you’d have to be an SI student to get this). But really what it said was “Unlimted TANNING.”  As I realized how consumed I am with school I laughed.

It’s good to laugh.

A woman who’s daughter and only child was killed when their car was rear ended by a semitruck last July has asked me to come speak to her daughter’s friends.  They are, of course, stunned and angry and sad all at the same time.  They want to DO something about the issues in the trucking industry that led to their friend’s death.

 I too am stunned and angry and sad all at the same time.  So of course I told her I would come speak to them.  It has now turned into something bigger, with their parents coming as well as the press.  So now I am spending more time putting together something that they can walk away with.  A take away if you will about what they can do as individuals and as a group to help fight for other people’s lives.

Sometimes I think I should just focus on this, that working on trucking issues is so much more important than going to school.  But then I think maybe someday I can use the two together to reach more people. 

Meanwhile, I work out a talk for the teenagers today.  Rehearase it in my mind and out loud (rehearsal helps embed information in long term memory; 502 lecture this week). 

I hope I don’t start to cry when I talk about Dad;  hope I can help them to cry when they talk about Janelle.  And wonder at the sense of it all.

Yesterday it began to snow early in the morning.  I went outside and noticed Bonnie’s pawprints in the yard from her many trips outside.  They were slowly filling with snow and soon would be unrecognizable.  By the end of the day it was if she had never been there.   Like foot prints on the ocean beach, nature has earased evidence of Bonnie.  But she was real, just look at the newly torn hole in my already patched together heart.

Bonnie died this afternoon.  She was the best dog.  She loved us and we loved her until the end.  She had a series of  3 small seizures beginning last night and through today. But each time she’d come out of it and wag her stubby tail and lick our hands, wondering what we were doing down on the floor with her.  Around 2:30 she ate her dinner, all of it, and licked the bowl, then went over to the carpet to roll around on her back rubbing her nose on the floor as she usually did after a meal.  But this time she went into a big seizure.  Bruce and I were right there, talking to her, petting her.  She came out of it, focused her eyes on us, and went into another seizure.  Then she just stopped breathing, probably a heart attack from the stress.  It all happened in less than 5 minutes.

We talked to her for about an hour after that, sitting on the floor and telling her we loved her, petting her, rubbing behind her ears the way she loved.  Then we called an emergency pet hospital and took her in for cremation.

We will miss her.  Tonight I made cookies for a school bakesale and she wasn’t there to snatch up anything that “happened” to fall on the floor.  I was working on homework and thought I heard her toenails on the tile floor.  Just a bit ago I could have sworn I heard her dog tags jingle. 

Last night after her first seizure, when we had all settled back into bed I talked to God.  I told Him that if it was her time, please take her.  I told Him that there were people in heaven that would be glad to see her, particularly her Grandpa Jack, Bruce’s dad, who was her best friend when he was alive.  Then I told her (she was sleeping next to the bed) that it was OK to go, I knew she was tired, and we loved her and would miss her, but it was OK to leave us. So now I hope that Jack and Bonnie are romping in the back yard of some big house, chasing rabbits and smelling mailbox posts (Bonnie, not Jack!)

She was a good girl.  She was my sweetie girl.  She had a great life, and a pretty good death.  She wasn’t afraid, she knew we were both there talking to her, she knew she didn’t go alone.  She loved us enough to make this final decision for us.  She was a very good dog.  We will miss her terribly. 

After last semester when, yes I was busy, and yes sometimes it was insane (note to self: read posts written in November to remember just how insane.) but overall I felt like I had some spare time, I decided to leap at a chance to do an internship this semester.  And to get involved in a couple of student organizations.  And to help the school look at new faculty and curriculum issues.  So OK, maybe any one of those things would have been enough. 

My internship is really interesting and corresponds with my natural interests, so it was something I actively pursued.  I work with the Ann Arbor District Library 8 hours a week doing research to help them design a delivery system to get materials out to people that can’t (or won’t) come into the library.  Eight hours doesn’t sound like so much time, but given there is no schedule and the four classes have specific assignments and midterms and papers due I am finding it difficult to set aside time to work on this each week.  I am only at the library for 4 hours a week, I have to find the other 4 hours to work on this project on my own.  Which is why I’m here at this time of night considering how much I need to get done on the project this weekend, instead of sleeping.

Remind me, when it comes time to schedule next Fall semester to volunteer for one extra thing, not three. Not that it will do any good, but remind me anyway!

This morning, after dressing in multiple layers, donning a heavy coat, hat, scarf and gloves that do not match but are warm I ventured out with the dog. It was sunny; blue skies, white snow and it didn’t feel like the -3 degrees that the weatherman said it was. Of course long johns under jeans and a turtle neck heavy sweater will do that! As the sun rose above the trees I heard a robin’s song. There is hope.

On my way into campus sitting on the bus and feeling like a stuffed sausage under all my clothes, I watch the world go by. I see several large flocks of robins on the ground along the way, and one flock in a tree, looking for all the world like red Christmas ornaments. We travel the north neighborhood and a woman gets on the bus with dreadlocks almost down to her waist, seashells and beads woven into the hair. She settles in front of me, digs in her bag and pulls out a book to read. It’s in French. A few stops later the bus is beginning to fill up. A man climbs on board juggling his backpack, his cup and a book. He settles in next to me and I squish over against the wall to give him room. He reads Proust as he sips his tea. I continue my musings and notice a bright red cardinal in the scrub along the road. More students climb aboard. The quietness of our “library bus” is shattered with talk and laughter. The languages I hear are not mine, but my place on the bus feels right. It’s another morning in the life of a lucky student. Lucky even if it is -3 degrees this morning.

I spent the weekend getting ready for two presentations I have to do this week.  Neither of them is particularly difficult or stressful, but I am obviously more worried about them then i thought I was, because I dreamed about them all night last night.

I am going to be doing a role playing exercise with a group of Detroit teenagers after school today.  I’m part of UM’s CIC group, an organization that tries to get information technology skills into communities.  The kids are doing a project that involves interviewing directors of youth organizations, and we’re giving them a chance to practice their interview skills in a safe environment first.  I’ve worked up all the logistics of the exercise, we’ll see if it works.

Tomorrow I have a presentation on the  context of a project I’m doing with another student on the Oregon State Library’s portal to the Internet for Oregon school districts.  It’s a really interesting project, but it’s a lot of work to get all the data together for this presentation.

So last night I dreamed about the Oregon project in conjunction with the Detroit project, where I was trying to teach the Detroit kids the information about the Oregon school districts internet connections.  It wasn’t going well, and my partners in the two projects, all of whom were in my dream were not much help.  The dream went on and on throughout the night, even though the dog got me up twice.  Whenever I went back to sleep, there were those kids and those school districts and those group members waiting for me.  I am exhausted!

The good news I guess is that the Detroit schools are closed today because it’s negative 8 outside this morning.  So I have another week to not worry about that presentation.  And the Oregon school district project is really looking good, thanks to my project partner.

So today maybe I can catch up on the other classes I have and enjoy looking out at the white snow and blue skies from the comfort of my living room!

The sun is coming up here, and it’s -3 degrees outside. You wouldn’t like that, but you would enjoy how beautiful everything looks with the snow, the sun and the blue skies.  You’d be going to church, reading the Sunday paper, going for your daily walk with Mom and later making a fire in the fireplace as you waited for your four children to call with birthday wishes.  So here you go, Dad.  Happy 78th birthday!  We miss you, but we know that you and Mom are still walking together.

Here are three things I am glad about from today:

1.  As I was riding the bus into campus this morning around 9:00 I thougt I saw, flying high overhead, two robins.  I just caught their rusty undersides, and I wasn’t sure they were robins, as the sun was still low and the air had that red quality about it anyway.  But a block further along there was a tree that  was just covered in roosting robins!  A whole flock of them!  I know that some robins stay around all winter, but a whole flock?  Can I hope that means spring is on the way?

2.  In my 502 lecture (Cognitive Psychology) I realized it was OK that I didn’t read chapters 2 and 3 last night. I gambled and went to sleep last night without finishing the reading assignment, but I understood the lecture without having read the material. (Does this make me a risk-loving person?)   So I am not so far behind as I might have been, nor as lost.

3.  Driving home tonight the moon came up.  Did anyone else see that big orange moon coming over the horizon about 6:00 tonight?  It lit up the snowy fields I was driving through and was just beautiful. 

So, regardless of the fact it’s only 9 degrees outside now, and the windchill is well below zero, I have three things to be glad about. 

It’s Friday night and tomorrow I don’t have to go out in the cold.    Oh wait, that makes FOUR things I’m glad about! 

Two more chapters to read on Cognitive Psychology before I sleep.  Or not.  It’s way too technical for me, causing my eyelids to close.  Psychology should be much more interesting than this!  I’m remembering when I took a similar course in undergrad more than 30 years ago.  I was surprised then that I didn’t like (or do well in) the class.  It appears nothing has changed.  Apparently the benefit of added years of experience hasn’t given me any advantage at least with this topic!