Trying to breathe


July 20, 2014 :: 11:29 AM

dancers, suzy-q, 12.07.14

First, let’s get the unpleasant stuff out of the way…

I have been keeping an eye on what’s going on in Ukraine to the point where I know what’s going on over there better than I do what’s going on in my own country. (Selfishly, yes, because their joining the EU and introducing visa-free travel is important to me, assuming I can gain citizenship. Hey, at least I’m honest.)

I have to say, I’ve been blown away by Putin’s actions since February. He knew he was losing Ukraine to the West, so he wigged out and tried to distract them. Call it a simple view of a complex problem, OK? The fact that he went after an area that was where his naval base is located was pretty obvious, but didn’t seem as important as his insistence on protecting “ethnic Russians”. I’m sorry, but that’s like Ireland invading Boston to protect “ethnic Irish people”. From what I can tell, he was “leasing” the area the Russian Navy was using from the Ukrainians. If they joined the West, he might have lost that. The rest of it? Pure bullshit.

This thing with the Malaysian aeroplane being shot down? Until it is proven otherwise, I firmly believe that Russia was behind it. There’s too many coincidences, the main one being that there was a missile being fired at a plane in an area where several planes had already been attacked. Plus, it’s not like Putin hasn’t (allegedly) been behind the killing of innocent civilians to get what he wants. (“According to the theory, the bombings were a successful coup d’état organised by the FSB to bring future Russian president Vladimir Putin to power. Some of them described the bombings as typical “active measures” practised by the KGB in the past.”)

I need to stop now before I go on an incoherent rant. I can’t stand getting into political discussions because I become all passion and less fact (even if I know exactly what I’m talking about before I start.)

——

In other unpleasant news, our old man has been having problems breathing. It’s to the point where I’m cancelling plans just so I can have as much time with him as possible.

The problems are intermittent and it’s been very hard to find a pattern, but when they happen they’re fucking scary as fuck. Our vet has seen him three times, we did a trip to the Emergency Vet, and we’ve even brought him to a ‘specialist’. While they couldn’t agree on the best course of action, and were not quite sure what it was being caused by, we finally landed upon a diagnosis: laryngeal paralysis. Basically, his larynx isn’t working as well as it should be and it’s blocking his airway. Once it gets bad enough, our only option is surgery. Aussies live anywhere from 12 - 20 years depending on who you talk to, and Apache is 13. Arsey died a few days before she turned 13, so to say we’re worried is an understatement. I don’t want to subject him to surgery if we don’t have to, but I don’t want him to essentially suffocate, either.

It’s not been pleasant, to say the least.

We’ve started with little things: keeping the house cool so he doesn’t overheat and pant is the main one and seems to be working well, even though it’s 100 degrees outside and the humans are bundled up in blankets when we’re home. The other big thing we did was invest in the best vacuum we could find. I did a shit ton of research before we invested in a Dyson Animal. (We paid a metric fuck ton to get the version with all the extra attachments, too so we didn’t have any excuses not to dust.)  Arsey was allergic to pet dander (YES! She was basically allergic to herself.), so trying to keep the master bedroom spotless is a priority since that’s where a lot of the problems occur. The amount of dog dander in there is probably unhealthy… despite our best efforts, we have trouble keeping the room clean. Two dogs’ll do that to you.

To get back on topic:

After dropping $700+ on a vacuum - dude, my dad would keel over dead if he wasn’t already at the price - I was hoping it would live up to the hype. It sucked up like 10 canisters of fur and dust. Our 10+ year old Hoover used to get overheated, blocked, or otherwise useless after the first five minutes. I ran that damn thing for half an hour and the carpet probably has more shit in it, but I got grossed out. Seriously, the fur situation in the bedroom was so bad, the Wonder Hubby used to take the dog’s brush and literally brush the fur out of the carpet, just like it was the dogs’ undercoat.

We also bought a second fan for the bedroom. It seems that the combination of a VERY clean carpet, fresh sheets and the extra fan to move the air around worked well last night. He didn’t wake me up with his wheezing and the room smelled better than it had in a very long time. It wasn’t nearly as stuffy as it gets, either, so BONUS! All this to say, our life is about to become housecleaning hell, but it’s worth it. HE’S worth it.

Damn dogs and their short life expectancies.

——

In happier news, I took over 1,100 pictures at Ukie Fest last weekend.  I couldn’t get through them all, but I got a few great shots of the dancers. There was guy sitting in front of us who kept moving so I lost a bunch of shots because the camera would autofocus on him. I tried to focus the lens on one point and switch it to manual but it didn’t work well with the dancers.

I had what we jokingly called “Ukrainian-American Tourette Syndrome” - I kept yelling out the Ukrainian words that I knew. I struggled a lot and I didn’t find anyone to talk to. It was obvious we didn’t belong there - Suzy-Q is a resort and the same families have held court there for generations. I know that much from what I heard growing up… and I lost my rightful place when my mother stopped going. My proudest moment was when I bought a patch for my GORUCK Radio Ruck and the guy told me how much my purchase came to. I also said “дякую” about a thousand times. Good practice, if nothing else, for a word I struggle with. (I blame the fact that the ‘y’ is pronounced ‘oooo’ - it’s something I consistently stumble over, no matter how many fucking words it’s in.)

While I’m STILL not where I want to be with the language, I wasn’t nearly as miserable as I was in 2009. I’m making strides to regain what I lost, and I can’t be upset over that. I’m proud that I understood about half of what I heard, even if I struggle to say what’s on my mind.

——

There’s some stuff going on at work that I can’t talk about online, but it’s making me miserable, too.

I can’t escape the situation because of my position in the company, but I did discuss it with one of the people involved.

Will it change things?

I don’t know…

I going to stay with the company long enough to have them pay to get me out of the US, but once I start the Ukrainian citizenship ball rolling, I may lose that patience. That’s probably why I’m stalling on requesting the birth certificates…

Right now, I struggle to find my happy at work, and I don’t want to be unhappy there.

——

Life goes on - I’m working with Memrise, trying to stay active on italki, and failing miserably at both..

I’m writing my Drarry fan fic and while draft FIVE is still not behaving, I’m happier with this version of the characters. Are they still out of character? Yep. But they’re still close to my head canon, so I’m going with it.

Yesterday was both Benedict Cumberbatch and Jared Padalecki’s birthday. It sounds weird to say this, but both men changed my life in ways I could never have imagined. At the very least, meeting C & L at Supernatural’s BosCon got me hooked on tumblr and (re)introduced me to fan fic… which then - after travelling a very long and windy road - led to me become a ‘published’ author of Benedict Cumberbatch character focussed fiction.

It also led me to attempting GISHWHES twice. I’m forever changed by those experiences as well…

However, it’s heartwarming to be part of such wonderful fandoms. I know I’ve said this before: the SPN fandom may be as dysfunctional a family as they come, but I feel more at home with them as I had with my own family. And the Cumbercollective? Same thing. SuperLock forever, bitches!

OK… I need to stop stalling.

Off to spend time watching a bunch of language videos I bookmarked but haven’t set aside the time for. Seems like the best way to spend a Sunday…