Why People Are Scarier Than Rabies to Me.

People scare the crap out of me. Really. They do. Yes, I know I have Issues and am maybe not the easiest person on the planet to deal with (with whom. . . .). Still. I have Expectations.

For instance: I expect Medical Personnel, like, oh, you know: doctors and nurses, to know more about medical stuff than I do. Right? You'd hope, because, honeys, I have no medical training. I never went to medical school. I didn't even ever watch Doctors' Hospital on tv.

If I'm putting my health, maybe even--gasp!--my LIFE, in someone else's hands, I want those hands to have held many, many Important Tomes Related to Healthcare. And I want the person to whom those hands are attached to know way, way more than I do but--but!--be able to relay that information in an easily-understandable, lay-person-friendly manner.

So I can, you know, come home and check to see if they're right.

So my GP Doesn't Do Dog Bites, and Mendez, my OB/GYN, who checked and cleaned and bandaged the bite, doesn't keep tetanus vaccine (because, he says, how many dog bites do you think he actually treats, really? Imagine our hilarity in thinking about the likelihood of that and the possible attendant circumstances. Ho, ho. Oh, we were a jolly bunch.) He tells me to go to the health department. I call them; they won't do it if I have insurance. I could lie and tell them I don't and pay them $10, but I don't want to do that. Lying should be saved for when it's really needed because it's so much trouble. So you save it for The Big Stuff, like when the spies are trying to get you to cough up the Secret Launch Codes.

I have to use this as an example because I couldn't really think of an example of when lying would be worth the trouble. Oh, sure, if you were having A Clandestine Affair (are there any other kinds?) Or if you were some Secret Spy or had some big drug habit. Or a gambling addiction. Or were growing weed in amongst your grandmother's brussels sprouts. Then, maybe. But usually? Way, way too much trouble.

So I call Papica's office and argue with them and tell them they're not actually treating the dog bite; they're just giving a booster to one of their patients. They finally agree to give me the shot, and I go in.

You know me: I couldn't NOT ask why they don't treat dog bites. I ask the nurse, and she says it's because you have to go to the emergency room so they can start the series of injections.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Literally. Holy moly.

I try to explain to her how it works (the only time you'd start the shots immediately is if you couldn't locate the animal who bit you, or if you located it but it was dead and its brain was so severely injured that it couldn't be tested, or if it was found and was exhibiting classic signs of rabies--then they would probably rec. you start the injections even before they could euthanize the animal and remove its brain for testing. This is why, if an animal bites you, you should never shoot it in the head. Just FYI). But if, as in this case, it's an owned animal, and it's been put into quarantine, and there's little chance it has rabies, you don't start shots. You wait for the ten days. But it's virtually impossible to educate someone about something when they believe they know more about it than you do. They change the subject or backtrack or give you the look that suggests you're an idiot and just haven't figured that out yet. So I gave up.

But then she leaves and the doctor comes in. And I couldn't resist: I ask him why they Don't Do Dog Bites, and he gives me virtually the same answer. He also says they have to observe the animal for two weeks. I correct him--I know, I know: bad move--and explain, once again, how this works. When the animal is caught and identified, it's put into quarantine for 10 days. If, at the end of 10 days, it's healthy, that means you don't need shots. It doesn't mean the animal doesn't have rabies, although he probably doesn't; it means that, at the time the animal bit you, he wasn't shedding the virus through his saliva. He could still be incubating the virus, which could show up days or even months later. He could have rabies, but if he isn't shedding the virus through his saliva, something that happens rather late in the progress of the disease, then you didn't get it from his biting you. I didn't go through all of this because these were people who were shortly going to be putting a needle into me. Even I have sense enough to know when to stop.

I know this stuff because I used to give talks about rabies when I worked at Animal Control, working with the Texas Department of Health. So while I'm not up on all the latest info, I do have a pretty good understanding of the basics. Once upon a time I could quote the the first part of the dialog from the only public health video about rabies. My god, those were the dark ages: we had to use a projector. You Young People might want to ask an older beloved relative to explain "projector." Also, while you're at it, "8-track tape" and "Walkman."


Rabies is a fatal neurotrophic viral disease of the central nervous system that is transmissible to all warm-blooded animals, including humans. Hey! Pretty good!

The treatment for exposure to rabies used to be painful shots in the abdomen, something that struck fear into everyone: huge needles in your belly button! Remember hearing that? Now they're just like regular shots, given in the arm. I know this because I've had one before. No big deal (except the nurse didn't know how to give a shot and scraped the bursa in my shoulder. This would be AFTER I asked her why she was giving it so high up. She just jabbed extra hard).  

See? People scare me to death. You tell them things, and they don't believe you. Or they're offended that you told them something, and that makes them either angry or defensive or both. What you do, pretty much, is check your brain and all your life knowledge and whatever you might have learned in the course of that year you spent doing public education about rabies and talking to rooms full of county constables wearing sidearms--you check all of that at the door and put yourself into the hands of someone who maybe doesn't know all that much about this particular thing, all of this just so you can get a booster shot for a vaccine you probably don't need anyway.

It's enough to make you run screaming naked down the street. All I can say is this: The EGE and I have had enough Medical Intervention this summer to last us for several lifetimes. Sure, we're glad we have access to it and can afford it, but, man! There's only so much you can take, and the stress of not knowing if people know what they're doing is exhausting.

Yeah, yeah, I know: what I really mean is, it's exhausting being me. Pretty hard on everyone else, too. Be very, very glad you live happily far away.

Bad Dog!

So I'm walking along my usual route, walking as fast as I can, trying to get finished with the 2 miles so I can come home and take a shower, make the 1 pm conference call and the 2 pm interview, and The EGE has peeled off (he ran earlier and walks with me sometimes just for fun), and up ahead I see this dog I've never seen before racing across the street. Now, I know most of the dogs in the neighborhood. Like the Goldens who live next door to where this dog was: they're never loose. If their people are home, they have access to the house and the yard, and if the front door is open, they'll stand at the screen and see us and bark, that loud-but-hello-there! bark, and then they'll leave the front door and race up the stairs, and sometimes you can see their heads at the window on the landing, and sometimes you don't see them until they reach the upstairs window and HEYBARKBARKBARK! Or sometimes they'll race outside to the backyard to stand at the gate and BARKBARKBARK! and sound really ferocious until you say, "Hi, guys!" and then they're totally silent. They said, "HI!" and you said, "Hi," and all is well.

This dog wasn't anyone I've seen before. A white shepherd, he had a collar and was really clean, so I figured he lives indoors. He was racing back and forth wildly, the way dogs do when they're never out, trying to figure out what odor to follow first and where to pee first. He wasn't paying any attention to me at all, so I didn't think anything of it until I got near the yard where he was currently peeing (not his yard or even next door, it turns out), and he turned and trotted out to me in the street. I said, "Hey, there," because he looked as if he were coming to greet me, and then suddenly, without any warning, he growled once, bent low, and lunged at me. I was completely shocked, and I yelled--a mistake, but how could I help it?--and he bit my leg. I didn't feel his teeth but knew he'd gotten me because he yanked and I could feel the twang of it. He backed off and circled and tried to bite me again. I was yelling bloody murder and, I'm sorry to admit, cussing mightily at the top of my lungs, and all I had with me was my hat, which I took off and used to beat him in the head while calling him a wide variety of unflattering names. There were several yard men working in the neighborhood. One was half a block away, and he just stood and looked at me, even after the dog ran off and I yelled and asked if he had a cell I could use. Another guy was a couple of blocks away but could see (and, I'm sure, hear) me, and he grabbed a rake and started down the street.


I pull up my pant let and look down and get a little freaked out because it's already starting to swell from bleeding under the skin. I'm also pissed because there's blood on my white pants.

(I took these with the cell on the way to the dr's office)

A young woman drives up and rolls down her window. The dog's name is Buddy, and he's her mother's dog, and she has to go catch him, she says, before he bites someone else. She comes back later and tells me they know he bites, and how he got loose today was that he knocked her down the steps and ran out. She doesn't like him because SHE HAS A NEW BABY (and she nods to her backseat), and I'm thinking, --well, let's just not even say what I'm thinking, because my brain is still in Full-On Alert with the Bad Words Yelling Mode. So I'm not saying much but am wondering what in the world these people are thinking: an unpredictable biting big dog and a new baby.

Plus I'm trying to keep from crying. I look down at my leg, and it's got this huge knot on it, and I'm trembling and just furious: I worked a year for a vet. Never bitten. Four years for animal control. Never bitten (I was exposed to rabies and had a shot, but that wasn't a bite; that was in helping remove the head of a skunk for testing and finding out after that my glove had a hole in it and that the skunk had indeed had rabies). Two years for the SPCA. Never bitten.

I've been bitten twice by dogs, both times when the dog ran out of a yard and lunged at me in the street. Both times I cried, mostly because it's just totally unexpected. Dogs like me. I have lots of dog friends. I've known all kinds of dogs that don't like me--abused dogs, aggressive dogs, crazy dogs. But they have always told me they were going to bite me, and I knew to leave them alone. Once when I worked for the vet I was trying to clean a cage, and the dog told me he was going to bite me. I shut the door and went in and told the vet that the dog was going to bite me. He was disgusted and stomped in and yanked the cage door open and reached in to show me how to do it.

And of course the dog bit him.

Always fun to hear an avowed ultra-relgious Pillar of His Church let loose with a string of profanity. Very hard to keep a straight face when it's your boss and you warned him.

Anyway. So I had to walk home, because The EGE and I are not phone people, and so we don't carry our phones. The Nice Yard Guy (not the one who stood and watched) let me use his phone after he called the police, but The EGE didn't answer, so I walked home, and then we went to Dr. Papica's office--and I give his name here because I'm thoroughly disgusted with his office--and showed them my leg. They finally got off the phone and checked with the nurse and said, "We don't do dog bites. You'll have to go to the emergency room."

Me: "What? You're kidding."
"No, we don't do dog bites here."
Me, storming out the door, "OH, GOOD GRIEF." Fortunately, the spate of Loud White Trash Woman Cussing had passed.

The EGE is starting the truck, and I say, "Hang on." And I call Mendez, my go-to OB/GYN, and I can hear him in the background saying, "Tell her to come on over." Of course. There's a huge difference in health care depending on whether or not they have known you for 25 years.

Anyway--cutting it short here: he cleaned it, checked it, bandaged it, and called in some prescriptions for antibiotics. Two. He said that normally he wouldn't, but that because I've been sick for so long, blah, blah, blah, that "anything that can happen, will happen. To you, anyway." I would be insulted, but since he kissed my hand and gave me big sympathy (after I told him his bedside manner was totally sucky), he's forgiven. He made me laugh, and that was what I needed to quit feeling crappy:  sorry for myself with this huge throbbing knot on my leg, freaked out because the whole thing was totally unexpected and inexplicable, exhausted from the adrenaline and the drama.

Gah.

So now it's all clean and shiny and looks like this:

But I still have to make arrangements for the Animal Control officer to look at the actual bite. They went to Papica's office, where the staff told them I'd gone to the emergency room. By the time they got that figured out, I was home getting ready to do an interview. At some point I'll call them, but I think now I'll go take a nap--wonder when this napping stuff is finally going to be over already.

Well, thanks for listening. In case you don't know--and I'm sure y'all do--the re-telling of traumatic events is part of the processing process. You tell them to clarify to yourself what happened and to process them. In the larger scheme of things, a little bite on the leg is no big deal, but it's scary, and so I really do thank you for letting me tell about it.

~~XO

Podcast with Katherine Dunn

I don't even remember when I first heard about Pino the Donkey, but it's been a while. I read about how his Person, Katherine Dunn, is an artist who has done illustrations for Target, Hallmark, and Neiman Marcus, among many other clients, and how she now lives on Apifera Farm with Pino and a host of other animals and, oh, yeah, her husband, and how she helps Pino raise money for senior animals by hosting Pie Day. So I sent Pino some aprons, of course. And then I got Katherine's new book, Creative Illustration Workshop for Mixed Media Artists, and so of course I had to talk to her.


You can find her blog and photos and all the information you need to keep up to date with the adventures of both Katherine and Pino at katherinedunn.us.

The Next Big Project~~I Am SO Jazzed!

No, I didn't finish the new journal skirt. Of course not--that will take years and years. I did do this on it this week, though:

No, the next Big Project is the cool thing I told you I found last week at the antique shop. It's a slik crazy-quilt hand-embroidered smoking jacket from the 1930s:

It was marked $65, and as soon as I slipped it on, I knew we were meant for each other. But: it needs lots and lots of work. So many places have patches worn away to nothing:

So I worked on the saleswoman. Now, I do NOT haggle with artists about their work, and I don't try to get people to give me a bargain for their services. But when someone's reselling something that they didn't make, and I think they're charging maybe a little more than is necessary, then it's all fair. If I can convince them to come down on their price--like if, gee, the thing has moth holes and needs many hours of handwork to be repaired--then, yeah. If there are two of something in a store and one of them needs to be mended, I'll ask if they'll mark it down. Sometimes they won't. Sometimes they'll take off $5, which isn't worth my time. But sometimes they'll make a good deal.

She dropped the jacket down to $45. Still over my $20 self-imposed "limit," but, hey: this is one-of-a-kind. There's no way I'd make one from scratch. It has most excellent vibes. The collar is lapels are velvet. The lining is in good shape except for a few small moth holes. And getting $20 off is pretty good, in my book.

I've gone through my huge big of silk scraps and garments and yardage and picked out some pieces that aren't too blindingly bright to blend in, and now I'm going to edit a podcast and start figuring out how to handstitch new patches for this baby. Once that's done? Then I get to use my old silk floss for the stitching and then BEADS! Woohoo~~

Bryn Walker Linen Tunic: Before & After

(I put the brand in the title because it turns out there are lots of fans, and I figure they may get an idea for something they've gotten tired of. I've gotten a couple of notes, "Oh, I *love* Bryn Walker!"))

So last week I showed you the linen tunic I got at the new-to-me consignment shop, right? Just in case:

I liked it, but what you can't see in this photo is that it was a kind of pale mango-ish color. Peach-ish, maybe (here it looks fab because the sun is shining through it). Plus I HATED the neckline. I had to tug it to get it over my head, and it was just an unflattering thing. I don't like stuff up around my throat, anyway.

So Sundays are my days to make stuff all day and start new projects. I can tackle any project I want, or I can try to clear away the piddly stuff to make room for The Next Big Project. Yesterday I did the latter--I altered a bunch of stuff, ripping off collars and removing sleeves--that kind of thing.

It took me a while to suck it up and cut off the neckline, and then it took another long while to figure out what to do. Everything I've ever seen from Bryn Walker is either $98 or $189. I'm guessing this was the former. I do not know How To Sew The Real Way, so basically this was me pinning a scrap of dyed linen in place, sort of trimming it, stitching it, trimming it some more, and figuring out how to finish all the raw edges. Here's the iPhone process photo--sorry for the lousy quality, but there are few things I hate more than stopping what I'm doing to take photos. I've done that for too many how-to pieces, and it alwaysalwaysalways seems like work for which I'm somehow not getting paid.

Here's the finished piece. I overdyed it a golden yellow (before I started altering it), so now it's a lovely rich melon color. I tried to get the yellow to show just a tiny bit all the way around the neckline. I'm wearing it with one of my tanks, of which I have dozens (51--I just counted) (some bought on sale, some dyed, some from who-knows-where) in every shade of all my favorite colors. For this, I picked one that's in between the melon and the golden yellow.

 Little pockets high up on the waist.

Believe it or not, this is a size small. This stuff is oversized, and I love that. Lots of room for layering.

It was a lot of work, but it was satisfying: I set myself a problem = how to remove the neckband, lower the neckline, and finish the edge with a contrasting band. This was nothing I'd ever attempted before, and I had to figure out how to do it on my own. No googling allowed!

Next up, I'm going to show you the way-cool thing I bought at the antique store~~lots and lots of work ahead of me on this baby. XO

Journal Skirt Photos: Art Fiber Fest Road Trip 2005

In June 2005, just after we went to Austin to meet up with the WWSF, The EGE and I left on our first Big-Ass Road Trip, this one to Seattle for Art Fiber Fest and then down the west coast to Ventura, California, where I used to live, and then on to Irvine to meet Sharilyn Miller, my editor from Stampington, and then home. 17 days, 4822 miles. It seemed like a huge trip at the time.

We had no clue about the 8002-mile road trip that awaited us in 2010~~

So here is the Journal Skirt from that trip. I made the skirt beforehand and had people draw and write on it, and when we got home, I transferred photos to fabric and appliqued those, painted, stitched, embellished, etc. You'll see some familiar names and faces--look, there's Ty and Marcia!

Journal Skirt Photos: WWSF, May 2005

Here are some photos of the skirt I made when WWSF met In Real Life in Austin, Texas, in May 2005. Roz flew down from Minneapolis (and drove home with us), and Karen and her wife, Cathy, flew in from Atlanta. Lucky Wendy lives in Austin, whose motto is "Keep Austin Weird." We pretended Karen came just to see us, but it was really to meet up with Her Real Friends she's known from grade school. You can imagine the grief we gave her about that. "Oh, that's OK, just go hang out with Your Real Friends," or "Yeah, we understand, we're not Your Real Friends." It's a wonder she didn't have us killed. "Us" meaning, um, pretty much just me.

I made the skirt from a pair of 501s beforehand and took it with me. I had everyone draw something or write something. Cathy didn't want to play and asked if she couldn't just pass some legislation for us, instead, so of course we all chortled happily and wrote that on the skirt. Silly woman, like she was going to get out of it that easily. I brought the skirt home and painted it and added the photos, which I transferred to cotton, and then I stitched everything. It took forever, as you might guess. It's been washed a couple times. And worn, of course.

OK, here you go. You can click to enlarge.