Parker's Pad

[Parker]

I cant believe I almost forgot today was the 43rd anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. I knew there was something about today .....

Every year, I re-read info and accounts about the riots to remember the women and men who stood up to the police that night - and then came back a year later for the first ever Gay Pride March.


I posted this to my FB today:





43 years ago today - June 28, 1969 at 1:20 in the morning - the Stonewall riots occurred - when gay women and men decided enough was enough and fought back against police harassment & raids that always ended in violence. On this night, they stood up and said, "no more!"

It started when one butch dyke, while being beaten, asked the crowd, "Why dont you guys do something?"

"A scuffle broke out when a woman in handcuffs was escorted from the door of the bar to the waiting police wagon several times. She escaped repeatedly and fought with four of the police, swearing and shouting, for about ten minutes. Described as "a typical New York butch" and "a dyke—stone butch", she had been hit on the head by an officer with a billy club for, as one witness claimed, complaining that her handcuffs were too tight. Bystanders recalled that the woman, whose identity remains unknown, sparked the crowd to fight when she looked at bystanders and shouted, "Why don't you guys do something?" After an officer picked her up and heaved her into the back of the wagon, the crowd became a mob and went "berserk": "It was at that moment that the scene became explosive"."

43 years ago today, a movement started .....

[Parker]

I have really great dogs. For the most part, they are very well behaved and follow my verbal and non-verbal commands without fuss, save for the occasional stubbornness of my 15yo girl, Harley who is a dominant old bitch and the stubbornness/confusion of my little old man, Max who lived on the street for so long, some of this is hard for him to grasp. But I rarely have a problem with the puppy or my big boy not listening to me.

If I say "bedroom," they head straight for the bedroom; if I say "outside," they head outside; if I tell the boys to get their toys or if I am outside and I simply point at a toy, they grab their toys, one by one, and bring them inside.

They sit, they lay, they eat nice, they are not food or toy aggressive. They sit before eating or before being let out of confinement without my saying a word - even a friend who dog sat while I was gone for a week noticed that; she didnt have to say a thing, they just sat and waited for her.

I dont train them to do tricks though - I used to think that was cool and I still think it is fun to watch a dog doing tricks, but these are my companions, not my circus animals, so the commands they follow are just to keep them from being all rowdy and stuff.

So I've been watching this dog training show on CBS called Dogs in the City and when I watch it and see the problems with these other dogs, I realize what a great pack I have - and the only thing I would change is how they flip the fuck out when someone knocks on the door &/or comes inside:

The old girl and the puppy both bark bloody murder; my big Boxer/Pit, all 80lbs of him, tries to jump on people to give them kisses; and my little old man, Max, runs into the back yard and barks at the people in the house, endlessly.

Unfortunately, whenever I watched Cesar, I never learned anything - the only thing he would tell us, ever, is that we have -HAVE- to walk our dogs all the damn time. Well, sorry brother, but I cant do that, what else you got?

Also, whenever he did any kind of training, he was either did a bunch of stuff off camera or he was just generally very vague about what he was doing - so you didnt learn anything, you just felt like you should buy all of his books and DVDs. lol

But this Justin dude on DitC - the "Dog Guru" - doesnt just show the people with dog problems what to do, he does it on camera so we ALL get to see what to do in these situations.

One day, I finally saw a situation close to mine where the people couldnt answer the damn door because their dogs were going ape shit - so I watched what Justin did and saw that it was something I could do by myself, inside and suddenly, I felt empowered - like I could fix this issue without hiring outside help!

So, today, we did our first of many training sessions. When training, Justin likes to use deli turkey vs. dog cookies; but I wanted something uniform instead of just tearing off clumps of meat, so I thought of getting a package of pepperoni, but didnt like the idea of feeding them those spices, so I got a small package of Canadian bacon that was about the size of silver dollars.

One of the things he pointed out was that a lot of dog owners try to teach or train from a negative perspective instead of a positive one. When he asked the woman what she wanted her dogs to do when someone knocked on the door, she said what I also said, out-loud to the tv (lol), "I want them to not bark."

He said that's a negative, think of something positive - what do you what them to do? She thought about it, as did I, and no answer was forthcoming, so he suggested to have the dogs sit on the opposite side of the room as the door, leaving the space for the door to be answered and people to walk inside. Made perfect sense to me, so I decided my dogs should go to or on the couch when someone knocks on the door.

So, I started out by getting them all to sit in front of or on the couch and gave them a piece of ham. Then I walked back several feet while telling them verbally and with hand gestures to "stay." They did, so I gave them all another piece. I did this several times, moving farther and farther back each time - and even turning my back to them - and each time, I came back to give them a piece of ham.

Then I moved all the way to the door and knocked. The older dogs stayed sitting and quiet but the puppy (Jack) got up, startled and boofed. I gave him the hand gesture and verbal command to sit and stay and he did, so more ham. I did that several more times, each time knocking longer and louder and each time they didnt bark and rush the door, I gave them a piece of ham.

The puppy didnt bark after that first time until the last time because I was pounding on the door and it freaked him a little, but both times I was able to calm him down quickly and he stayed put.

This was not a bad start at all! My goal is 2-fold: I would like them to automatically go to the couch and sit on or in front of it quietly when someone knocks on the door and I would like for them to recognize the command "couch" the same way they do the commands, "bedroom" and "outside," meaning, when I say "couch," I would like for them to go to the couch and sit quietly.

If I am consistent with this training, they will eventually get it and I think we will reach our goals - because, like I said, they are great dogs.


Zeke, my 10yo, 80lb Boxer/Pit (L) and Max, my 7-ish yo 18lb Taiwan alley dog (R):



Harley, my 15yo, 45lb hound dog (L) and Jack, my 2yo, 35lb Formosan (Taiwan) Mountain Dog (R):

[Parker]

River

Standing on the riverbank
Snow falling all around me

Shadows floating overhead
Stealing the moon's bright light

I look into the darkness
Of the water

I see the reflection
Of the woman I once was

Now just a shell

Feeling the shadows recede
I look up at the full moon

Blinking the snow out of my eyes
Searching

Without hesitation
I look down into the water once more

I see the reflection
Of the woman I could be

Again

[Parker]

Born in February 1997, I met Harley about a month later at a pet store in CA - back before I knew any better about buying a dog vs. adopting a dog. She came home to live with me a month after that, when she was 8wks old.

Harley was with me through thick and thin, dozens of moves, a few girlfriends, the fostering of several other dogs, and the addition of 2 freaky little boys into our pack. Zeke came to us as a baby when Harley was 5 and she would not have any of this obnoxious little puppy who wouldnt stop trying to cuddle with her ... eventually, she gave in and accepted Zeke as her own - and last night, when Harley was laying on the floor in pain, they cuddled together again for one last time.

She became paralyzed from the waist down in 2007 - no one could figure out why or if it would be permanent, but a few months later I saw her tail wagging and a month or so after that, she was walking again - never 100%, her back legs and back gave her problems and she needed carpet or area rugs to move around, but she was my trooper .... I thought I was going to have to let her go then, but she came through it and was a happy girl for over 5 more years.

The cyst we discovered in her foot week before last became infected and while the antibiotics and anti-inflammatories helped a bit, the infection didnt seem to be getting better. She was in so much pain - which for her is saying a LOT because she has never really been affected by pain - that the tramadol, which, short of hospitalizing her and giving her morphine, was the best pain med she was going to get - and it wasnt even touching the pain.

The vet suspected that the cyst might have been malignant cancer that could be affecting the bone - which would have explained why she was in so much pain that the meds werent helping and why the infection wasnt passing.

My choices were: give these antibiotics and maybe some new ones a few more days to see if they could get the infection to dissipate, while leaving her in pain because there was nothing stronger to give her or let her go.

Watching her laying on the table, shaking from all of the pain, I decided to let her go.

I cant express my sorrow and guilt over this. She was my baby. I will miss her and love her forever.

[Parker]

I went on-line to order an urn plaque for my dog, Harley's urn and it came in the mail today (it came fast because they are here in WA). It's a little plaque for urns that cannot be engraved - it hangs on a 6" chain around the top of the urn and the chain was a bit too long, so I clipped it with a safety pin.

Anyway, it's engraved with:

Harley Bear
My Baby Girl - Always
1997 - 2012





That's her collar at the base of the urn - it's a leather, studded Harley Davidson collar that I got for her when she was like 2 years old or something - it was so her because she was a tough old dominant bitch.

[Parker]

Had a nightmare last night that we had a bad earthquake here and I was trying to get through the rubble with my 3 boys - my little old man Max was in a backpack, my big boy Zeke was on a leash, and I was having a hard time with my puppy Jack because he is afraid of everything, including his leash. I woke up afraid that I had lost him, but he was laying on the bed next to me.


I Googled dream interpretations and found a site that said the following about earthquakes:

Earthquake

To dream of an earthquake suggests that you are experiencing a major "shake-up" that is threatening your stability and foundation. The dream highlights your insecurity, fears and sense of helplessness. Is there something in your life that you feel at "fault" for?

If you find cover from the quake, you will overcome these challenges. If you become trapped or injured during the quake, you will suffer some sort of loss in your life. According to the bible, earthquakes symbolize God's anger and power.

[Parker]

This popped up on my Facebook this morning - I can only imagine the comments people left on Reddit when they saw this woman's picture .....

To me, she is inspiring & beautiful ......






After going viral on Reddit’s ‘Funny’ section for being odd-looking with facial hair, the girl above gave the following graceful and fresh response:

“Hey, guys. This is Balpreet Kaur, the girl from the picture. I actually didn’t know about this until one of my friends told on facebook. If the OP wanted a picture, they could have just asked and I could have smiled However, I’m not embarrased or even humiliated by the attention [negative and positve] that this picture is getting because, it’s who I am.

Yes, I’m a baptized Sikh woman with facial hair. Yes, I realize that my gender is often confused and I look different than most women. However, baptized Sikhs believe in the sacredness of this body - it is a gift that has been given to us by the Divine Being [which is genderless, actually] and, must keep it intact as a submission to the divine will. Just as a child doesn’t reject the gift of his/her parents, Sikhs do not reject the body that has been given to us. By crying ‘mine, mine’ and changing this body-tool, we are essentially living in ego and creating a seperateness between ourselves and the divinity within us.

By transcending societal views of beauty, I believe that I can focus more on my actions. My attitude and thoughts and actions have more value in them than my body because I recognize that this body is just going to become ash in the end, so why fuss about it? When I die, no one is going to remember what I looked like, heck, my kids will forget my voice, and slowly, all physical memory will fade away. However, my impact and legacy will remain: and, by not focusing on the physical beauty, I have time to cultivate those inner virtues and hopefully, focus my life on creating change and progress for this world in any way I can.

So, to me, my face isn’t important but the smile and the happiness that lie behind the face are. :-) So, if anyone sees me at OSU, please come up and say hello. I appreciate all of the comments here, both positive and less positive because I’ve gotten a better understanding of myself and others from this.

Also, the yoga pants are quite comfortable and the Better Together tshirt is actually from Interfaith Youth Core, an organization that focuses on storytelling and engagement between different faiths. I hope this explains everything a bit more, and I apologize for causing such confusion and uttering anything that hurt anyone.”