Caitlin Doughty on Talking to Your Children about Death

Caitlin Doughty, of "Ask a Mortician" fame, has some wonderful advice for talking to children about death and trauma. It's so good, in fact, that I think it's also quite sound advice for speaking to adults about death and trauma. Advice tidbit #1: be honest. Advice tidbit #2: hug them whether they like it or not. (okay maybe not so appropriate for adults or children to whom you are not a parent or guardian.)

After the breathtakingly quick succession of senseless acts of violence across the world over the past week, it's nice to hear someone who works with death daily tell you to "turn off the death porn" and discuss your feelings with a loved one.

Click through to her original post from yesterday for links to even more sound advice -- both hers and Mr. Rogers'.

The Suffering of Saint Roscoe Bueno, Martyr

Poor Mr. Coe. Saturday before last, I took him to the vet to treat a wound I found right above his tail the night before. It was a raw spot the size of a quarter, no hair on it, and Roscoe wouldn't let me or Jason inspect it or clean it. I ended up resorting to spraying it with Bactine while Jason kept him pinned down to the kitchen floor. NOT A HAPPY DOG. Frankly, I wasn't very happy, either. I was shocked, shocked, that Jason hadn't noticed it earlier during the day, and couldn't figure out how he had hurt himself. Was he injured while rough housing with Rusty?* Did he get caught up in something in the yard? Did my crazy next door neighbor sneak into the yard and do it?** I WAS A HYSTERICAL PERSON. 

At the vet's, the vet tech deduced that it was a hot spot Roscoe had created biting and scratching and chewing an itchy patch of skin (his butt). They shaved his butt and exposed an entire constellation of raw sores, scabs, and hivey, red, irritated skin. It. Was. Horrible. It looked like leper skin. It looked like meth skin. It looked like zombie skin. It was mortifying. I felt like a negligent dog owner. I communicated this to the vet tech and she told me, "Oh this is nothing! Sometimes owners don't bring their dogs in until they smell and the skin's rotting and has maggots." And I barfed and died (as I'm sure you just did, sorry).

Anyways, we're thinking that the hives were caused by an allergic reaction to a new food Roscoe had been eating for the last month. After cleaning his butt with an antiseptic solution, the vet sent us on our way with some antibiotics and antihistamines, and strict orders of: NO BITING.  Easier said than done! But that's what the cone's for...

Roscoe's only ever had to wear the cone of shame (or, in his case, the cone of paralyzing fear) once before. It was horrible then, and it's been horrible this time, too. Completely debilitating. After leaving the vet, I went out and found an inflatable collar that, though absurd and heavy, at least allows him to see where he's going and reach his food and water. It isn't as effective as the cone (he can still reach his butt if he really, really works at it), so he wears it under adult supervision only. When he's alone he's in the cone (poor dog).

Cone and inflatable collar, lots of bed rest and down time, short walks, no baths, no hikes, and, most tragically, no beach. This dog has been stoically suffering the most boring week of his life. The good news is that the medication is working its magic and his skin's looking much better. Scabby, but better. He's back to his old food and now salmon oil in the mornings as well, and I'm looking forward to having a cone/life preserver-free dog back very soon.

* We had been sitting my parents' dog Rusty for three weeks while they were away on a trip. Conveniently, they had just picked Rusty up earlier that same day.

** Though my neighbor is a pain in the ass, the idea of him sneaking onto my property to torture my dog is, in and of itself, insane. Hyperbolic histrionics on my part, clearly. (though he's horrible.)

Wintertime is for Postcards, Too

Just the front of the postcard this time. 

I'm happy that we're receiving some much-needed rain after an incredibly dry year, but it's been non-stop mist, fog, rain, storm up here the past couple of weeks. Looking at this photo of the postcard I received from Sarah T last week -- and then comparing it to other photos of postcards received over the summer -- I note the paleness of my fingers, the (perpetual) sogginess of the lawn,* the morose grey sunlight. Winter is here in all of its central coast, Wuthering Heights, doom & gloom glory --and I love it!-- but boy do we have a long winter ahead of us.

Wintertime is wonderful for its storms and winds and cold and spookiness, the move to insularity, introspection, quiet, and aloneness. But, sometimes, it becomes lonely. In a Stephen King-protagonist-isolated-in-a-snowed-in-cabin/closed-mountain-resort** kind of way.

The academic quarter has come to an end. The past couple of weeks have been long, sleep-deprived, manic and exhausting. I found this postcard in the mailbox late Thursday evening of last week, and it's been brightening up the large pile of unattended mail ever since. Thanks, Sarah T.

* The lawn has become a perpetual mushroom pit of fungal despair. I'm pulling out handfuls of mushrooms on a daily basis.

** MADNESS.