On a rare personal note...

Of all the nice things people have written to me, this is what my former husband sends along today in response to my last series of blogs. This is yet another reminder as to why I kicked him to the curb 20 years ago and why I deleted him from my subscriber's list today. I no longer suffer schmucks gladly.

Steve - "Someday you’ll find a way out of the non-stop depressing shit that goes on in your life."

My reply - "Losing birds that I’ve worked hard to recover will never be exactly uplifting, but I get the dig. Happy Holidays to you, too."

Not believing I snapped back, he rebounds by saying - "Wasn’t meant as a dig. I honestly would like to see you find happier times."

I said, - "Uh-huh…

Given that your current wife dedicated most of her life to helping people, you of all people should understand the role of caregiver. As with every other aspect of life, sometimes you’re the bug and sometimes you’re the windshield. If I’m with them during their crossing, I hold them while they die, grieve their lost life, put them in the freezer and move forward with my day. And rather than sitting with my head in a bottle of cheap vodka bemoaning another death, I have already been out chasing down a bird with a broken wing around the Canton Home Depot parking lot and dropped him off for evaluation over in Alpharetta. And in a truck that someone has so generously loaned to me while I get the next one worked out.

People have come up to me after a lecture and actually say they want to be me; how lucky I am to know so much and to be so privileged to live with animals that most people never get within a hundred feet of their entire lives. How many times have people walked up to you on the golf course and said that? See, my life isn’t so bad, after all.

You will notice that aside from Johnson the goose and the cats and my trip to the Highland Games, I don’t blog about my personal life, so you really haven’t a bloody, stinking clue as to my status, whether it’s happy or no. I would imagine however, you consider my life to be one of misery because I don’t have a lot of money in my checking account, but wealth does not necessarily a happy person make."

So there. Damn! THAT felt good.

Self portrait with Face