The Lesson About the Dog and the Lube

Last December I decided to become a Pure Romance consultant. I may have mentioned this. I may have asked all of my friends to hostess a party for me. What I haven't said is how much fun I'm having with it, how supportive everyone is, and how much I already love it. But this post isn't about that. It's much more disturbing than that.

Ruby Tuesday has always had a fascination with candy and lip gloss. She's such a girl. Even for a Boston Terrier. D can tell you how many countless times she's found a ruined, chewed-up tube of chapstick or lip gloss, guilty dog still smacking her lips in the near vicinity. My response is always "Don't leave your crap lying around where she can reach it." Because, clearly, it is never the dog's fault. 

I had a party over the weekend, with another one planned this week. So I didn't put my demo products away knowing I would be using them so soon. I went to Zumba and thought I'd leave the dogs out of their crates since I'd only be gone a couple of hours. 

Do you see what disastrous conclusion is just ahead?

Yes. Ruby Tuesday got into my demo products because they were just sitting in a bag on the floor well within the reach of her tongue.

I'm not sure what she started with. The cap of massage oil had been chewed off and dumped into the carpet. I think the mango scent was more delicious than the taste. For future product sales reference, it cleaned up nicely with no oily stain. 

She tore quite a bit into the Whipped lubricant. It's vanilla cupcake flavor, I really can't blame her.  I don't know if she had just gotten into it or got bored since it's mostly intact except for the hole near the cap and the teeth marks. I can save it for personal moisturizer use at least. 

Great Head appeared to be the favorite. She managed to chew a whole through the side of the tube and lick about two-thirds of it out. Strawberry must be her favorite. What really worried me about that one is the muscle-relaxing effect it has. I didn't even want to know what part of her might have been relaxed. Sleeping with her felt like it might be more of an adventure than I was looking for, but I was afraid to let her sleep alone in case she had any kind of toxic reaction. Which would have served her right, but still. 

Pure Romance products are not tested on animals. My dog tested them on herself without any negative side effects (other than the horrible shame treatment I gave her). However, I recommend not leaving your crap lying around where your dog can get to it. 

If you do, just do what I did. Pour yourself a glass of wine and get into a nice hot bath. With a few spritzes of Body Dew, of course. 

Topics of Conversation

Girls' road trips are always fun. There's the going somewhere, the music played loudly, food you don't normally eat, and the girl talk. W and I went on a quick road trip this weekend to our friend P's bachelorette party. Bachelorette parties provide great fodder for car conversations. These are some of the topics you may have enjoyed had you been a fly on the window.

1. The bittersweet melancholy of our children growing up.
2. Matchmaking.
3. Gossip. Of course.
4. The level of attractiveness of penises.
5. Delightfully morbid speculations on cannibalism.
6. How we would be haunted by whoever we eat.
7. Irrational yet completely normal love of cats and dogs.
8. The pitfalls of the wrong marriages.
9. The value of waxing.
10. The benefits of growing up.

Reacting to Today's Loss

I don't have anything to add fact-wise to the event that occurred at Bend High School today. I can't comment on this particular student or the parents. What I can surmise is the tremendous amount of pain that this child was in. What I can expect is that these parents are now in pain that we, especially those of us who are parents, don't want to imagine. Beyond that, I will not conjecture on the details surrounding this incident.

However, we live in a world of instant information, where everyone who thinks they know anything is willing to send it out to the ethernet without thinking about how their words will affect others. There is judgment. There is second-guessing of the school's actions. There are solutions being proposed based on anger. Anger born out of fear.

Again, I don't have those answers. But I am going to plead with you to stop. Stop and think about what you are saying. This isn't a television show. Nobody in that room today chose for this to happen to them. Nobody in that school could predict the reactions of every single person outside those walls. Please don't react with criticism but with compassion.

I have a feeling that today's tragedy will linger with me longer than most of this type. It happened at a high school in my town. So, yeah, there's that. It's close to home. But it's close to home in another way.

We think that these things can't happen to us. We think our kids are invincible to such damaging emotions and damaged psyches. But we're not. You're not. I'm not. This was D and me just a few months ago. Even knowing what she was struggling with, I never imagined that she could take her own life. Not for real. Not until she told me that she didn't feel like she could control or trust herself not to do it. I didn't want to believe it, who does? But I finally had to.

We don't want to think our kids can hurt so much. We think that buying them warm coats and feeding them pizza and going to their games and dances is enough. That's what parents do, right? Of course.

But there's more. We have to listen to them. We have to pay attention. Don't assume that sudden moodiness is just common teenage asshole behavior. It very well could be, but don't take the chance at missing something. Talk to your kids. Let them see you fail. Oh boy, that was a hard one for me, but they need to know that parents are also just people. That they don't have to live up to perfection or unrealistic expectations.

Know your child's friends. Notice when these friends change. Ask. Ask why. Ask about school and ask about activities and ask how they feel in their own skin. They want you to. They want to know that you care about more than just grades or game scores. They want to know that they're loved.

Tell them you love them. Every day. Hug them when they need it. Hug them when you need it. Hug them when it will embarrass them because they secretly love it then too.

And even if you do all of these things, and you still can't stop the pain of depression, know that you did your best. That we don't win all the battles. We just do our best. When one of us loses the battle, show up for them with love and compassion and kindness and acceptance.

Open your hearts to those affected by today's tragedy. Trust that people did their best. Be extra kind to those around you.

Tonight, hug your kids a little tighter. Feel the gratitude.