Mr. Palm Tree Arse.

About 2 years ago we rescued a blonde Shih tzu out of a crack house in Hemet.  You may say that this scenario would never happen, but in fact it did.  We picked him up off of Craigslist, and a woman who urged us to come get him at 10 pm otherwise he was going to the shelter first thing in the morning, because she was moving.  So we packed up our things quickly and made the drive to the pit of hell.   We swerved through mountains, meth labs and saw a few things I'd rather not describe on our way down there but there was something that kept us going, the sweet little puppy that would've been taken to a shelter if we didn't show up.  

We pulled into the drive way and walked up the porch to a find a scary woman with pits in her face holding a mangy, fur ball.  He was so natted and covered in hair that you couldn't even see his face but he instantly hopped into our arms.  Being lil Ms. Dog whisperer, I knew instantly he wanted out of the pit of hell and quickly.   Against my better judgement I begged to use the restroom, we had been driving for almost 2 hrs and I just couldn't hold it anymore.  With must hesitance she let me into the house.  What I found was very sad, about 7 dogs, and 6 kids all of which were filthy.   The house was awful, smelled to high heaven of urine and the woman that had answered the door was screaming atrocities at everyone she passed as she lead me to the bathroom.   There was no conversation, she wanted us to take the dog and leave.   Everything I asked, she dismissed.  I noticed on my way to the bathroom that there was a large padlock on the fridge, which would explain why her kids were so thin.  It looked like a house you'd find in a sick horror film in the middle of the desert.  I was scared for these children and animals.   It was apparent she was not moving as there were no boxes, and she was twitching so badly asking for her 50 dollar dog adoption fee that I knew she must've wanted us there that night so she had money to get her fix.   There was no other reason to have someone come in such a mad rush and at such an hour.   We were idiots for putting ourselves at risk the way we did, but we were impulsive and something told me we had to go rescue this little pup.  I'm not usually one to jump to conclusions about a person without really knowing them but I knew in my gut that this situation was not an acceptable living environment for kids or animals for that matter.  I couldn't have lived with myself if I had done nothing.  These kids and pets didn't have a chance! 

We picked up Kirby and got him out of there.  I wish we could have taken the whole lot of them but we would've needed a large bus.  The next morning I took Kirby to the groomer and on my way there I made a phone call to CPS & the Humane Society.

To this day Kirby is the best dog we've ever had.   He's sweet, patient with Caleb & looks at all of us with such admiration and love.   On top of that he's the cutest dog that ever lived with a loveable palm tree tail that he wags constantly.   We call him Mr. Palm tree Arse! 

Some of the most loving creatures and people come out of desperate situations.  Life is messy, sometimes even for a dog but everyone deserves a chance.  Kirby got his and he's given us more than he knows in return.  

Ooooh the agony of being cursed with the worst feet EVER!

A blog about feet you might ask?  If you had feet like mine, you'd write about them too.
As many of you may know I work at a busy restaurant & have been doing so for almost 11 years. 11 years of standing on my feet on tile for a living, of running around like a crazed maniac to deliver drinks, food and the occasional slip on the milk or blister on the toe!  Days when I come home almost sobbing at the throbbing of my feet, and begging my dear hubby to rub them. There are days when I'm surprised to wake up and find that I still have feet.  Being 4 months pregnant & being that I work on tile floors and sometimes stand for 7 plus hours makes finding a good pair of shoes really difficult.  Let me further explain.   This might be an easier feat if I had normal... FEET!  But in fact I have super wide feet, with a very high arch, and it doesn't help that it is August and today it was 105 degrees and that makes me swell up like a puffed pastry, which makes finding comfortable shoes nearly impossible. Now,  I don't mean slightly wide/puffed up, I mean the sort of wide that would give me the ability to climb very high trees, maybe even a palm tree to grab at a coconut or two without any gear, just with feet, like a monkey.

It's gotta be the most frustrating thing ever.  So when people ask me why I don't just buy better shoes while working, I look at them with disdain.   After all, I've tried every pair of shoe on the market, from 20 dollar shoes to 200 dollar shoes to find comfortable ones.  I will forever have a love/hate relationship with shoes.   I buy pretty shoes, hoping that I can squeeze my gorilla like feet into them & then they cause me such utter pain that they wind up sitting in my closet, never to see the light of day again.   But I don't return them, because they are pretty and every 28 year old woman should be able to wear pretty shoes. I sometimes limp along with blisters on my wide toes and heels, hobbling like I have a broken leg because I'm insistent upon wearing those damn pretty shoes.

It becomes a very sad day when you find yourself browsing the 90 year old womans orthopedic shoe areas. Did I mention that before I became pregnant with Caleb I was a size 9, after my pregnancy with Caleb I'm a 10-11 in shoes.  Now if my feet grow again, I'll for sure be shopping in the walmart womens dinosaur, ugly shoe section because I won't have a choice.  After about a size 10-11 it's slim pickens for shoes, in fact most of the 'pretty shoes' don't go past size 10!  What will I do at that point?  Resort to wearing orthopedic, dinosaur shoes at age 28???

  So for this pregnancy I have purchased a pair of crocs, and a pair of birkenstocks!   Excited about his purchase?  Not really, this purchase was out of utter necessity.   If you've ever seen these shoes, you know they are they type of shoe that makes you want to throw up a little bit in your mouth, but Ohhhh sweet Jesus are they ever comfy!   Because it's summer I can get away with wearing cute, fun sandals and flip flops when I'm not working, but I know the further along into my pregnancy I get the more swollen my feet may tend to get and that's when I will have to resort to wearing the birkis & the crocs all the time.

My rant is concluded with, why the HELL can't they make cute shoes in wider, larger sizes for women that have this exact issue?  I cannot be the only one!  Or maybe I am....  *curses and runs away!*