Because here is the “rest of the story.”
So. Evelyn got pregnant in mid 2022. Evelyn really wanted this baby, but the relationship with the father didn’t work out (long story; not my story to tell). So, since she was facing life as a single mom, her family offered to let her recuperate at their home.
Evelyn has two chihuahua mixes and she didn’t feel right sticking her relatives with two dogs in addition to her, so she asked me to take care of them. So far, so good.
Now, what you have to know about my lifestyle is that I walk Mila at least twice a day, usually about 20-25 minutes in the morning and about an hour in the evening (though it’s been so hot lately that I’ve been taking her out in the back yard for about 15 minutes in the evening and walking her for about an hour at night). This means that instead of getting up an hour and a half before I have to be at work, I now get up two hours before I have to be at work. I also don’t get my dinner until about an hour and a half after I get off work.
When Felicity came to stay, I shortened Mila’s evening walk, because I started walking Felicity for half an hour in the morning and in the evening, too. So now I was getting up two and a half hours before I have to be at work and still not getting my dinner until about an hour and a half after I get off work.
Add Evelyn’s dogs to the mix now. I had to get up three hours before I had to be at work, and wasn’t getting my dinner until two hours after I got off work. So on days when I worked until 7 and had to be back at 8:30, I was getting my dinner at 9 and getting up at 5:30. This really began to eat at my mental health. Just getting up at 5:30 in general began to do it.
There were other things as well. One of Evelyn’s dogs has an anxiety disorder (I think it may even be OCD) which causes her to lick at people constantly. She’s a sweet girl and I love her, but geeze.
Mila was happy to see her sisters for a couple of months, but then she wanted her momma back, dammit. She didn’t get possessive, possessive, but if one of her sisters took Mila’s usual spot, she’d be visibly unhappy with the situation.
My possession of a pit mix and having had four dogs has made me make some discoveries about my personality. I have one of the personality traits of a dog hoarder — I want to save all of the pit bulls. We have a pit bull problem in the city; about 10 or so are put down by the city every week. However, I now know that I cannot handle more than one, **maybe** two dogs.
I met with my psychiatrist about two weeks after all of my visitors went home and the first words out of her mouth, after “hello,” were “so how many dogs do you have now?”
I was so happy to tell her “One!”
Today’s Gratuitous Amazon Link is going to be Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon. Vern was raised in a religious compound. She escapes and gives birth to twins in the wilderness. Soon after this, her body starts to change. And then the people from her compound come looking for her.