Since When Is Animal Cruelty Part Of Police Policy?

Posted on January 28, 2016 by DMW

What I’m about to share isn’t a new news story. It isn’t something that requires action because news of its resolution a few days ago is what made me aware of it at all. But it does require questions. Policy changes and resetting a lot of people’s minds that are made up by mass media and fear. Because when a police officer can brutally murder a dog, someone’s pet that has not harmed anyone or even caused noise complaints or property damage, and the police department says that that’s within their policy. No, I’m sorry. That is not okay.

I know what I just said probably sounds crazy to most people. How can a police officer shoot a dog FIVE times when the dog was not attacking him, and be considered innocent of animal cruelty or murder? But that’s what happened, and even more disturbing is the circumstances leading up to that shooting (which was all caught on video and used in court).

In November 2012, a neighbor, Kenny Collins, called police about an unfamiliar dog roaming his Commerce City, Colorado neighborhood. Police and Commerce City’s equivalent to an animal control officer were both dispatched to check it out. It turns out that Collins’ neighbor was dog-sitting for her cousin who was traveling to California. The woman had left the dog, Chloe, in her garage when she left to go shopping. She was certain she closed the garage, but Chloe must have tripped the sensor, opening it.

Chloe

Chloe

Collins stated that the dog did not approach him or anyone else and was not acting in an aggressive manner, not even towards the officer and animal control agent. Once they arrived on the scene, Chloe went back to the garage. You would think that this would end there. The officers would try to contact the owner of the home or wait for them, but no. If this had been the case this story would have likely had a happy ending.

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Posted in Animal Rights, community, Crime, Current Events, Family, home, News, Opinion, People, Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Lost Girl: Musings on a Former Friend

Posted on January 25, 2016 by DMW

Some people come into our lives for a short time, others longer stretches and others seemingly meant to last for the span of a lifetime. Sometimes the category someone falls into surprises us, or we simply have no idea until they’re gone, or until twenty years later, and they’re still there. When I was younger, I had the hardest time letting go of the people I shouldn’t have held onto. As if I wanted everyone to stick around for the long haul. I wasn’t some crazy stalker person, the people I’m talking about never said, “We’re over,” or anything so direct (my on/off boyfriend of six years does not count, we were all “it’s over, I mean it this time,” like every other day, but besides him this is a true statement), but if someone wasn’t treating me right, whether it was being unreliable and untrustworthy to treating me like I was less and chipping away at my self esteem to those who simply used me for things (gifts, getting close to others I was close to, my brain, because my version of helping others with homework wasn’t doing it for them, but in retrospect, it was pretty darn close). I clung to the people in my life outside of my family.

Obviously, I have since shed these people, either because I finally saw them for who they were, or in two instances simple geography (I moved across country, not because of them, but the move took care of them once and for all). But there was one friend that did not treat me badly. She did not use me, and I did not use her. We passed notes, signed up for classes together, she was my date for junior prom (as friends), I helped her through her craziest crushes, school problems and stuff in general and she was my co-conspirator for some of my craziest antics and schemes (I am so Lucy from I Love Lucy, at least I was back then). I often stayed at her house as my home was unstable at best, but also often unsafe. Her mom was like a second mom to me. We were each other’s confidants. We were friends for over seven years… And then we weren’t.

I try to go back to trace the dissolution of our relationship. Was it a choice that either of us made? Was it just luck and circumstances? Was it for the best? Would she go back and change anything? Would I? To the last question, I really don’t know. And I guess it doesn’t matter.

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Posted in Christianity, Faith, LGBT, Life, lifestyle, People, Personal, Relationships, Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Debit Card Wars

Posted on January 23, 2016 by DMW

I don’t know how other marriages work, because I’ve only had the one, but from what I can gather one person usually takes care of the financial stuff like bills. For my husband Roy and me, that responsibility falls on my shoulders. And to be clear, I don’t mind, but recently Roy has been making it difficult for me, costing me a great deal of time, forcing me to sort through an array of charges put on the wrong accounts. Oh gee… fun.

You see our finances are straight-forward enough, and I imagine our setup is similar to a lot of other two-income households. Roy is Income A and I am Income B. We both have our personal/individual accounts. Then we have a joint checking and joint savings. As much as we both joke, we don’t have a “What’s his is mine, what’s mine is mine” scenario. Roy has his own savings, checking and credit accounts as do I. And we both put the appropriate percentages of our income into the joint checking and savings accounts each month.

It’s simple really: anything for the household like groceries, household items, pet stuff, bills etc. come from the joint account. Anything personal – like if I want to get a latte somewhere or if Roy wants to eat out for lunch, as well as gifts for each other come out of our personal accounts.

But lately, Roy has been rotating cards like crazy. He’ll put joint items on his personal checking, savings and two credit accounts. He’ll put a personal purchase on the joint. It’s maddening. Because each week as I do an assessment of all the accounts and make sure everything is on the up-and-up, I see these purchases and have to tally them all up across four different accounts, and then I “refund” Roy’s personal checking the amount because he has paid what he owes the joint for that month. (I used to just have it go towards a credit for the next month, but it becomes impossible to keep up with what’s been paid and what hasn’t because he does it so darn much.)

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When Your Body Tells You

Posted on January 21, 2016 by DMW

A little while back I was plagued with a variety of symptoms that were far from life altering or even severe, but damn were they making me uncomfortable, cranky and borderline nonfunctional. I had a constant headache that would not go away, but it was not a migraine (though at times bordered on the same severity), a shunt headache, or even a sinus/pressure headache. It was simply an angry buzz. My ears were always ringing, always whooshing, my hands hurt from what felt like extremely severe arthritis, even though I don’t have arthritis, the joint pain so bad that it was difficult to sleep and would often wake me up. I also had general aches and other problems. Oh, and I couldn’t sleep because of the aches and joint pain, so after three weeks of less than six hours of sleep on average each night, I was not the nicest, most patient person. All right, I was downright snappy at times.

It took me awhile to figure out what was going on. I mean I had an inkling, okay I did know what was going on, but it was a newer problem that I was still getting used to. I have so many things – really it’s like an extensive medical resume but most things I have had decades, or at the very least years, to figure out. I know my body. I know when something is my heart. I know when it’s my kidneys. I know when it’s my shunt, or my ears (deaf here), I know when I’m simply rundown even if my body is freaking out because it doesn’t like the extra strain. I know when it’s my blood pressure. I know when it’s my stomach. I know when it’s my bones. I always know.

But in the beginning of 2014, I was diagnosed with a bone marrow disorder, and that I was still getting used to. I had figured out what would happen if I needed another blood treatment (I call them blood treatments because while a lot of it is a basic phlebotomy, I have to get things through an IV as well, and it’s not at all the same as giving blood, way more prep, much more involved, and a whole day thing) to treat this disorder.

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Posted in Health, History, Journal, Life, Medical, Personal, Relationships, Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Getting Back To Business . . . Help! Marketing 911

Posted on January 14, 2016 by DMW

This year I really want to do well in terms of work. Not just grow as a writer and get published (though hey, I want this too) or anything crazy like score a book deal that would mean I could simply write fulltime and be okay (but again, if this happens, who am I to argue?), but actually do better with the business I have built and grown. But that involves a whole bunch of stuff I A) am not any good at, B) really don’t want to do, and C) I don’t know what C is, but I worry if I still do A and B perfectly something will be missing from my formula to do well.

See, I have my own writing/editing business. While my first love and favorite kind of job has to do with book editing and coaching, I also do resumes, write cover letters, website content, professional marketing material, ghostwrite (to an extent), edit/write college/graduate school admissions essays as well as academic editing (no writing though, ethics and all) and online tutoring. So basically I cast a very large net because as a struggling writer, many times I’ll take what I can get.

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Posted in Editing, Inspiration, Journal, Life, Writers, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment