thebeckybug

SILVER, ALAMEDA

via Heather
This picture is everything I love about her perspective. I have some of her work framed in my house, as well.

Le Cage aux FollesZip Pouch

From the sea within
Etsy.com is one of my favorite places to find handmade goodness. This little satchel would provide a better place for the small items that litter the bottom of my purse.

Things haven’t been good since I graduated from college. I don’t know if it happens to everyone at that point in their life, but my life got so chaotic. I started working, and living in a town where I knew no one. I didn’t think it would be a big deal to not know anyone. The solitude of those 6 months was welcome after all that college life. Besides, I was scheduled to transfer to Austin after 6 months anyway. I know people in Austin, and a whole lot of my family lives there.

The corporate work environment was something to get used to. I gave up a lot of my individuality working in that space. I went from learning and gaining so much in college to a dead halt of waiting for orders from bosses. My whole life turned into a waiting game. I was waiting to move back to a city I loved. I was waiting to meet someone. I was waiting to establish stronger relationships with my family. I was waiting for something to do from 8-5 every day. I was waiting for the weekends to start. I was waiting to save enough money to buy my own place. With all that waiting, my patience wore thin after a while.

The waiting never paid off. Moving to Austin was a huge step in the right direction, but other things were getting worse. I was a remote employee in the company I worked for. I got to work every day, had about 2 hours of workload, and waited until 5:00 to arrive every. single. day. I was so tired of doing nothing all day that I would sleep, and not sleep as soon as I got home until it was time to start the next day. Life was dark and endless.

I finally realized that work was the reason I was feeling horrible all the time. I realized I had to get out, and I could not trust myself to function until I got out of that environment. I quit abruptly and waited for work to come my way. It came my way in the form of a small lawfirm owned by a family-friend. When that wasn’t enough, I became a nanny in the afternoons.

At this point in my life, things are good.

I love the work. I love the interaction and my daily routine. I’m a more pleasant person during and after work. I feel like I can accomplish things (hello: putting a website together!) on my free time. I rarely find myself waiting for things to happen. It’s a much better feeling.

Now I’m struggling with the goal to go BACK to school. I would like to have a job with good health benefits and retirement options. I would like a job that provides lots of interaction and free time. From what I can tell, this leads me to: teaching!

I’m so comfortably happy right now that it is difficult to move forward. I’m anxious about committing myself to MORE school for another career I may not end up liking. My routine will change! It took so long to get to this place where I feel comfortable with myself. Committing myself has never been so difficult due to the defeat I experienced with my other short-lived career. This however, is no reason to hesitate.

I want to get a move-on but I want to stay in this happy place. I want to pack up the happiness and take it with me through the rest of my life. I want to save it like twinkling fireflies in a jar. Fireflies that never fade. I’m slowly gaining this hopefulness back. It’s such a better feeling.

Get domain - check

Get webhost- check

Get blogging software- check

Get text editor - check

Get ftp program - check

Learn html - tbd

Use html - tbd

Look back and admire - tbd

Un-scramble brains -TBD!

I’m surfing the internet reading about a certain music center in Atlanta.

It’s a beautiful day and all of the doors in my little home are open.

I hear cars pass by, and then a trumpet riff. The trumpet melody slowly gets closer as I peer out the screen door, drawn like a child anticipating The Ice Cream Truck.

A single bugleboy slumps along, playing a lone parade through the neighborhood. He takes a breath. I applaud from inside. The dog starts and his barking resounds in the guitar hung on the wall.

I’ve also got this other dog, Shade. He’s a rescue pup and was so friendly (read: overexcited) to me the first day we met (and everafter amen.) When I walked up to his little enclosure in front of the petsmart, he immediately flung his body sideways at me against the little fenced barrier in order to show me his underbelly. As if to say: “I am yours, you beautiful dog-deserving woman! You look like you need a bundle of love and energy like me. See my belly, see, I am sweet and gentle, too!” We locked eyes and never looked back.

Except he’s not sweet nor ever gentle. This dog. He has claws. And oh, how those claws do come out. Maybe he thinks he can reach out to you and grab your arm with dainty little puppy fingers. Maybe he thinks his paws say “Hello sweet owner of mine. You give me everything I live for. Look at me and how cute I am, can I just ask you to pet my head, just this once? Then I promise I’ll lay down and not ask you again for the next 2 minutes.” Maybe he just doesn’t realize that he owns claws of mass destruction and instead really says, “I shall reap gardens of strawberry swollen skin with my scythe-like claws of torture” every time he reaches out.

Your dog, what a pretty dog! Your dog, he has no tail! Yes, thank you fellow dog-park goer, I never noticed that before, either. That’s amazing. How can a dog not have a tail and still be a dog, you ask? Will the world ever know?! That is so puzzling and so amazing! But it’s only amazing the first 100 times that it’s pointed out. And fellow dog-park goer, you happen to be the 1,456th person to notice the non-tail on the back of my dog, so forgive me if I don’t respond with equal amazement. Go ask the tootsie roll pop owl. He might have a better answer for you. While you’re there, ask about the butt-beard. I really want to know why there is so much hair growing on this creature’s butt.

Shade, he also barks. He barks if a ladybug lands on a window screen. How dare that ladybug come close to this house of mine. This house of mine, it’s mine! And I shall bark at you, little lady bug. I will bark at you even after you fly away or die on the screen of a heart attack from the outrageous ruckus that is my bark!

But Shade, this dog, he doesn’t bark sometimes, like when in the middle of the night your wine-rack stocked with unopened bottles of wine comes crashing down on the counter, shattering everything it comes in contact with. It will be the sound of the crash that wakes you up, not the barking. Because this crashing of glass all over the kitchen is something very little when compared to the fury that is the ladybug. So thanks Shade, thanks for not going bezerk over the crashing in the kitchen last night. I would have thought it was a burglar, or a ladybug, except that you weren’t barking. And then deeper into the middle of the night, that one time, every night, when the neighbors drove their car into their driveway, thanks for bark.bark.barking! about them. I really needed to know the neighbors came home at 3AM. Thanks for the notice Shade, but can you please just wait and tell me about it in the morning?

Really, though, Shade’s a good dog. There’s something about the excitement that takes over his whole body whenever he sees you looking at him. He gets excited when I roll over in the bed and peek one little eye open at him lying wrapped around my head on the pillow. He gets excited when I step out of the shower. He gets excited when I walk around the house. Heaven forbid I ask him if he wants to go outside. His head does this thing. This thing where it just about totters off his shoulders. First one way, and then the other. Each time he has to hold his breath. It’s like his little joyful brain fills with so many rainbows that it starts radiating out of his eyeballs. Those rainbows, they’re infectious so just pay no mind that I get kooky every time I see that bundle of love and everlasting energy that is the Shade.

A 4 yr old plays Catch Phrase in the back seat:

M4: (pushing buttons on device)

*BEEP*BEEP*BEEP*BEEP*BEEP*BEEP*BEEP* (triumphant) *DUP-DO-DAH!*

M4: I WIN! (followed by uncontrollable laughter. Commences pushing buttons on device)

*BEEP*BEEP*BEEP*BEEP*BEEP*BEEP*BEEP* (triumphant) *DUP-DO-DAH!*

M4: I WIN! (uncontrollable laughter.)

*BEEP*BEEP*BEEP*BEEP*

Catch Phrase
Pros: Entertaining, cheap, totally fun when you win every single round, don’t even have to know how to play in order win.
Cons: LOUD INCESSANT BEEPING NOISE.

Nintendo DS
Cons: Expensive, complicated, half the time doesn’t work like a kid thinks it should, cannot rig the game to win every time.
Pros: Volume adjustment knob.

A few cool people with cool websites I read regularly:

Dooce
I can relate on so many levels. By far my all time favorite and most frequently visited. She’s also got some great picture-taking abilities I am green for.

Mighty Girl
Her ability to delicately extract vignettes from her daily life is something special.

Suburban Bliss
Delightfully addictive writing. I want her design sense and ability to pull things together.

Fussy
Her narration emulates my inner-monologue so accurately, it’s scary.

The Pioneer Woman
To make up for the fact I stopped reading picture-books about cowboys a long time ago.

Only after acquiring this lovely pup did I realize I was housing a zoo. She’s the most recent and final addition to our little family (at least until I save up enough money for one of those helper monkeys.)

Meet, Kerbey Lane, sheepest of all sheep dogs:

She’s an Australian Shepherd puppy that we found through some classified ads, if my memory serves me right. We had to drive out of town to a farm and pick her out of a litter of amazing little puppies. I have to tell you, we almost picked the little black runt, but somehow ended up with Kerbey, the red merle girl pup. She was the largest one of the litter and her paws threaten eventual ginormity.

As we deliberated over a name, she sat in Carson’s lap the whole ride home, head over his shoulder, claws digging in deep. She was petrified the whole hour home. After we got her inside, she remained petrified for almost the whole night. She sat in one place, trying to take everything in, I guess. She growled at every new thing she saw, poor thing. Clearly, this dog had never been inside and had no idea what this strange planet of carpet, walls, and non-outdoors was. She loosened up after we gave her a couple shots of tequila, but still acts like a timid little country girl dog to this day. After reading up, I realize we didn’t help much by encouraging and petting her constantly.

On the car ride home, Carson and I discussed names to pass the time. After the brain-storm-turned-into-monsoon-session, we ended up with Goose. We called her Goose for about a week, and then realized we were out of our minds. We then changed her name to Kerbey (after the restaurant chain in town.) She didn’t realize the difference. Apparently it was imprinted into her soul that she must only respond to “PUPPIEEES!” That must have been the dinnertime call on the farm. The name Goose just never stuck, thank heaven. Only now, after 6 months of yelling/screaming/squawking/cussing/cooing at her, is she realizing that yes, we are in fact referring to her sheepishness when we say “KERBEEEY!”

She’s showing promise and learning how to pull her weight in the house by learning tricks.
Her current repertoire includes: sit, wait, down,up-up, kennel up, get the kitty, and army girl.

She’s got selective hearing with: no, inside, come on, sit pretty, COME HERE RIGHT NOW OR I WILL BEAT YOU, and off.

She has yet to learn: balance this on your head, stop jumping on the screen, stay off the bed, no digging, don’t chew the kitchen cabinets, don’t eat the cat food, no kitty chocolate, don’t eat the cat, stop whining already -I’ll wake up and feed you after a few more pushes of the snooze button, and stop barking.

The cutest part about her would not be that she’s got the sweetest little spots all over her face and body, not that she’s got one green and one blue eye, and not that she’s fuzzier than a chinchilla. The cutest part about her has to be that whenever she sees you, her little non-tail waggles like a little duckling tail feather threatening to fly right off her fluffy bottom.

Speaking of fluffy bottom, check out the the Herding Group Champion from this year at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Yeah, Kerbey’s butt is fluffier than that.

Here I am my loyal listeners and spammers! I have missed you, too.
I finally remembered that I have this site. After re-discovering it a some 3 years later, I was quite surprised at my ability to hack into my account via antiquated emails and logins.

Some Important Items of Business:

1. About that cat I wrote about on September 22, 2004:
She ran away, that evil thing. I had her for a few years, she even moved with me! And then she ran away. I do however keep a large zoo-like menagerie now. More on that later.

2. About that college I wrote about on September 03, 2004:
I graduated! More on that later.

3. About that living situation I wrote about on August 24, 2004:
I long for 2 rooms of my own these days. I share a room now, and live in a dark 2-room duplex. After looking around Austin for a bigger place, we’ve all decided it’s best to pay minimal rent for now and just deal with the little space we’ve been blessed with. Plus the location is stellar.

I got a kitty last weekend, absolutely adorable. Sometimes she’s a bundle of energy thats hard to control (yet very ammusing), but most of the time she’s just darling. She’s got the best temper out of any cat I’ve been aorund. I had wanted a kitty on and off my whole life ever since my first pet (calico cat nammed cutie-pie) ran away. My mom ws against it since I got a dog. But now that I’m out of the house, and the dog is staying with her to keep her company it has been on my mind to get one. A couple months ago I let go of the idea that I would have a cat (for a couple of reasons). until …
This cat showed up without a collar at my friend’s apartment. My friend was keeping the cat while hey looked for her owner but had no luck. My friend’s roommate has 2 new kittens before this one showed up, so the 2 room apartment got full very fast. Since my friend was starting to feel like the little old cat lady, and since her roommate didnt like having the extra cat around her “babies” she decided that she had to do something about it. Her option was to drop her off at the shelter. Well, I asked my friend all about the cat, you knwo her temper, behavior, bad habits, etc. and there seemed to be no problems. So I asked her if I could take her and here she is. My roommate loves her as well which I think is just wonderful.
If her owner shows up, then I would be happy to have her back to her family, but until them her name is Callie (for calico) and we’re hanging out. I’ll post a picture as soon as I get one. This weekend we’re going home and gonna show her to my mom and my dog.