apparently, my birthday is also national pit bull awareness day.  that means that i get to share my day with the newest addition to my family, rigsby.  yes, jess and i got another dog just as soon as (actually just before) we finished the fence project.  we fell in love with this pup and tried to bring her home with us as soon as possible, but williamson county animal control has tougher adoption rules for pits and pit mixes than for… anything else, really.  and, frustrating as it was, i really can’t fault ‘em for it.  pits so often get mistreated that i found myself (through the haze of “aw, dammit! i want my puppy now!!”) grudgingly admitting that it was for the best.  in my neighborhood alone, i can stand on my front porch and point out three houses that i know of where pit bulls live less than exciting lives… they are status symbols and cheap alarm systems.  not adored living companions.

now, in the interest of transparency, i have to admit: i was worried about adopting a pit-mix.  i know that the bad rap is mostly hype and poor training.  but i also know that, even among devotees, the breed is known to be strong willed, stubborn, wicked smart and strong as an ox.  they have, unless properly trained, a… tendency towards destruction of property.  so i was worried that we’d be able to handle this dog… because she’s a pit.

she HAS been more difficult to train than roxy.  but she’s so freaking smart that, once we’ve laid the groundwork of training, she’s starting to pick stuff up FAST.  maybe the fastest of any dog i’ve had the pleasure to live with.  she’s a genius… for a dog at least.

and we love her.  a lot.

this morning i read this article shared by the indomitable c.sledge.  it’s a really well written article (as one would hope from the new yorker) and compares and contrasts pro-football and dog fighting.  the descriptions of what these dogs (and dudes) go through made me sick.  the thought of any dog (or of my rigs had she been adopted by someone else) being treated that way burns in my guts.  and it’s not just the dogs – the thought of my friends or cousins or (perhaps someday) sons subjecting themselves to that kind of punishment fills me with disgust.  as someone who’s HAD a concussion and just shaken it off, i’m here to tell you that you do not need to mess with head injuries.  no blood is not equal to no foul when it comes to these things.  the thing is, people choose to do this to themselves… dogs don’t have that luxury.

and pits get the brunt of it. they’re strong, tenacious and loyal… and that means that they take the most abuse.  this is how we reward them.  it’s sickening.

i absolutely adore my little pit bull and she adores me with her whole being.  she’s sweet, funny, smart, loving, complicated, mischievous and amazing.  i can’t imagine her in a dog fighting ring.  it makes me ill.

the 24th is my birthday.  i turn 30.  for my birthday, i want you all to hug a pit bull.    it’s fun, you’ll like it.  they’re fuzzy and wiggly and they’ll like it too.

so, here’s the thing.  i’m turning 30 on the 24th.  and i’m really surprised at how that makes me feel.  i expected to either a) not care or b) be pretty distraught.  i’m neither.  and that’s weird.  honestly, had i not had so many changes and upheavals in the past two years of my life, i probably WOULD be having one of those two reactions still…

but now… now it’s just like… another milestone.  another marker of the changes in my life.  another step towards becoming who i am.  i’m surprised and excited and frightened of where i am in life right now… it’s not what i expected 30 to look like when i was 25, that’s for sure.  but then, i was pretty short-sighted back then…

ANYWAY – introspection aside, we’re going to party.  here’s the deal (i pretty much took this straight from facebook, so apologies to ya’ll who have to see it twice):

so here’s the plan in chronological order:

1) 6:00pm – dinner. somewhere. i don’t know yet. suggestions welcome.

2) 8:30pm – corn maze. yes, that’s right – corn maze. why? because i’ve never done one and there’s a really cool one in spring hill. sounds fun, right?!

3) When we’re done with that (sometime between 10 and 11pm) – drinks at the pond in franklin. funky little joint, should be fun.

So yeah, there ya go. Don’t feel like you gotta come to all the bits or none at all. Come and go as you can.

if you’re reading this then YOU ARE INVITED!  Bring friends, bring family, bring total strangers so long as they’re not jerks… there’s enough of those on the invite list already.

some random thoughts in list form…

1. it’s been 6 months since i got married.  it’s been monumental.  the single most intense growth period of my life.  more later…
2. we finished fencing in the back yard.  that was the single biggest project i’ve ever attempted.  turns out we’ve got a huge back yard.  it’s so nice to have it done now though.  the dog can run, we don’t have to take her out on a leash for her to “go out” if you catch my drift, and i can chill in the back yard with a pipe and my dog in peace.
3. like pretty much the rest of the internet, i think kanye is a douche.  that said, i’ve pretty much always thought that about the guy and this is nothing new.  are we really surprised about this?  the problem is that he’s surrounded by people who tell him “yes, you can do that.  that’s totally acceptable.  you’re a star.  you’re the king of pop.  anything you do is alright because you’re kanye.”  and you know what?  that’s not true.  not of anyone.  kanye, unless he has some sort of pants-putter-on-auto-roboto-tron, puts his pants on the same way that the rest of us do.  when you loose sight of that, you become… well, michael jackson, i guess.  musicians, performers, the so called “stars” are still just people and have no right to be asses any more than the rest of us do.  but see, that’s just how we do in nashville.  that’s why little taylor swift is a nice girl – she’s nashville.  she may write and sing vacuous teen-angst pop-country… but she knows that she’s just a kid like anyone else who just happens to be able to sing and perform.  she’s nashville.  and yes, that’s a compliment.
4. i haven’t taken many photos of late.  this is not for lack of subject matter or desire.  it’s because i told myself that i wouldn’t take more photos when i have gigs and gigs of unprocessed shots that i haven’t touched.  i’ve got tons of shots that i’ve promised people and i will be processing them soon.  “for realz” as the kids say these days…  i have to, you see because -
5. today we’re bringing home a new puppy.  and who doesn’t wanna take pictures of cute puppies?  we’ve always planned that, once the fence was complete, we’d get a second dog.  roxy needs a friend to keep her company and i just prefer to have two dogs.  i think they do best in pairs, generally.  thursday on my lunch break we went by williamson county animal control and looked at dogs and puppies.  we played with 8 or so dogs and decided that we liked 3 of them.  after work that day, i met jess and roxy back at the shelter so that we could see how the dog interacted with our possible adoptees.  we let her play with 4 dogs and she made a definite choice of which one she liked.  which is good because, apparently, jess had already gotten her heart set on one puppy in particular.  luckily that’s the one that roxy liked the best as well.  so we tried to take her home with us… and we couldn’t.  the shelter wouldn’t let us because she’s part pit bull.  apparently, you have to submit to a background, vet, and landlord check before adopting a pit bull or pit mix from the county.  that was frustrating, but i know that the rule is to protect  these dogs that are at risk of being mistreated or fought so i can’t really get upset about it.  that said, the suspense is KILLING US.  but today… today we can bring her home.  this morning she’ll be getting spayed and this afternoon, jess will pick her up and bring her home.  now we’ve just gotta figure out a name.  suggestions are more than welcome!
6. doctor who.  i’ve always liked doctor who.  the old series filled me with excitement and wonder when i was a kid.  then they brought it back and i was excited.  over the past few years i’ve watched it here and there but now we’ve got netflix and all the doctor who episodes are on instant streaming… and i love them.  they make me smile a whole lot.  if i were a screenwriter, i would dream of writing an episode of doctor who.  just about anything goes!  brilliant characters, brilliant villains, brilliant acting… brilliant show.  i need a dalek of my own for my office…
7. have you heard the new remastered beatles, records?  joy, my friends… they contain joy.  don’t get me wrong, i absolutely love the sound of the beatles on vinyl.  but the new remasters are joy in my ears.  listen to them.  buy them.  love them.
8. this:

makes me wanna pull out my old NES…

todays vocabulary via dictionary.com:

forge (verb) – to form by heating and hammering; beat into shape.

cast (verb) – to form (an object) by pouring metal, plaster, etc., in a fluid state into a mold and letting it harden.

tempering (verb) – to impart strength or toughness to (steel or cast iron) by heating and cooling.

i think about these processes a lot in terms of relationships.  i have several friends that are so close to me i think of them as family, not friends.  every one of those friendships was forged, not cast.  they didn’t just flow into place and were suddenly the correct shape and size.  they started as random lumps of ugly metal and were heated and beaten and bent and parts were hammered flat or broken off completely.  when they came out the other side, they were unrecognizable from the shapeless lumps of ore that they had been.  they were beautiful, powerful strong works of art and mastercraft.

here’s the thing, though: it’s not the forging that makes a strong and powerful tool.  sure, forged metal is stronger than cast metal.  the heating and beating process makes metal denser, removes imperfections and creates a harder product… but it’s the tempering process that makes it truly strong.  in the old days of blacksmithing, a sword or other piece of fine metalworking that needed strength was heated and cooled several times and then finally quenched in a sequence of oil, brine, and pure water in order to cool it down in such a way that it became even stronger and harder than it was when it came out of the forge for the last time.  without this cooling process or if cooled too fast, the steel becomes brittle and all you’re left with is a pile of shattered metal that you worked really hard on.  all the sweat, all the pain, all the heat, all the hard, bad, ugly part… all of it for nothing.

i think this is what Christ wants of us in our relationships.  He calls us to temper with compassion, humility and swallowing our pride enough to honestly ask for forgiveness even when we feel wronged and are in pain.

i’m trying to live that.  i want relationships that survive the forge.  i want friends of tempered steel.

look, i know alright?  i am fully aware that it’s been over a month since i posted something here.  i could hand you all sorts of excuses and reasons and rationalizations.  but i’m not going to.  there’s been so much that’s gone down since i last posted and i’m still processing.  so i’m going to be lame and hand you fine folks some filler and a promise to post more later.

illdoc on mj’s passing and hope:

oh and i promise that there will be a more substantial post soon.  real soon.  i’m just still processing through it all…

i saw this at rachelarnold and thought of you, my friends, so i had to share…

…Everybody has to change, or they expire. Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.

I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die. I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently.

-Through Painted Deserts, by Donald Miller

so many of my friends and family are going through this process or have recently.  i’m going through this myself.  there’s a saying… i say it so often that i think i might as well adopt it as my new mantra: change as a constant ensures survival.  we don’t get to choose the change that God affects in our lives.  so often we have no say whatsoever.  many times the change that comes feels like a curse wrapped in a blessing or – if we’re very lucky – the opposite.

looking at my own life and the lives of those i love i can say without reservation that this, right now, is a season of change.  not the loud, bright, feverish change of the election year and of campaign slogans… a quieter, harder, more frightening and intimate change.  this is a season of personal change and yet, the chant is the same – “yes, we can.”

…and you know what?  we really can.  we can make it through this.

there’s a very old story that i cling to in these times.  i’ve shared it with my friends and family over and over and so i’m sorry if you have to hear it again.

once a very important man named jairus came to Jesus and begged him to come heal his daughter who was very sick and Jesus went with him.  on the way to jairus’s house, Jesus drew a crowd as He usually did. the crowd pressed in on Jesus and jairus and it slowed them down.  in that crowd was a woman who had been very sick for a long time.  she pushed through the crowd and managed to touch Jesus’s robe because she knew that, if she could only touch him, she’d be healed…

if you grew up in church, you remember this story.  she was healed, not because Jesus did it consciously, but because she had absolute faith that Christ could heal her.  that’s an amazing lesson, but not the one that i carry with me.  the best part of the story comes right after that…

while Jesus was talking to this lady about her healing, one of jairus’s household came to him and told him to leave Jesus alone because, due to the delay with the crowd and the miracle that Jesus was working (and the subsequent conversation), it was too late… jairus’s daughter was already dead.  Jesus heard this and turned and looked at jairus and just said, “don’t be afraid.  only believe.”  and then he went and worked a miracle in jairus’s life.

did you get that?  Jesus looks at jairus – who had just been told that he had lost his daughter – looks him in his tear-filled eyes and says, “hey.  I’ve got this.  don’t fear.  all you have to do is believe in Me.”  in the french translation it says essentially, “do nothing except believe.”  and then Jesus went to the daughter that everyone thought was dead and brings her out walking and talking.

how often do i feel like jairus?  God’s working amazing miracles around me… He’s changing lives at what seems like a breakneck pace.  but so often i feel like he’s skipping me – like he’s putting off working in my life so that he can do awesome things in someone else’s life.  how often have i looked at God with despair and sorrow filling my eyes?

how often have i felt like i’ve run out of time for miracles?

and every time God has shown me amazing things.  every time God has worked miracles in my life.  and every time i feel like He’s looking at me with compassion-filled and slightly sad eyes and He says to me, “why are you worried again?  didn’t I tell you not to?  didn’t I tell you that all you have to do is believe in Me?  haven’t I always taken care of you?”

and every time i am ashamed because He always has…

there is so much change in my life and in the lives of the people i love right now.  i don’t know how it’s all gonna work out.  i don’t know what it’s gonna look like on the other side…

but i have to believe that God’s got this… and so i try to keep in mind that change ensures survival and that to not change is to die…

and i try to remember not to fear.  God’s got it.  He’s working miracles for me too…

well, there he is!  my new nephew!  my folks are so wiped from the experience that all the info is coming in kinda jumbled, but here’s what i’ve got from dad:

“Ginny and Jay Rosebery have a healthy baby boy! James Franklin III arrived around 11:30 last night (our time). Mother is resting, Rosie, too! James’ lungs are a little weak. The hospital staff is keeping a special eye on him, but he’s expected to be just fine. The catch weighed in at 7 lbs, 3 oz. At 20 inches, he’s a keeper! More later…”

now, lest you think i was withholding info from you, know that, though i got a call last night saying that little james had entered this world, i didn’t get that email… i got that off of the family website because, in his haste to get to work on time in his sleep deprived state, dad left me off of the email.  no hard feelings, dad… really…

it’s hard to be bitter when i still got to see a picture of my newborn nephew.  YAY!!!

if you’re the type, please keep ginny, jay and little james in your prayers.  thanks!

today my sister is going to have a son.  i just spoke with her.  she’s in the hospital hooked up to a million beeping machines.  her husband, my mother and her mother-in-law are there with her.  she’s tired.  she’s ready.  she’s in a pretty chipper mood, all things considered.  i’m so excited for her.  my baby sister is having a baby!

i inherited a niece when i got married.  i’ll have a nephew today.  in december i’ll have another neice or nephew… i guess it’s time to grow up and be an adult, huh?  that’s not scary… that’s really really exciting.

the fact that it’s exciting is a little scary though…

i love you little sis – i’m praying for you all day long!

i was going to write a post about how i feel today… but i really feel that this picture just about sums it up… i guess animals really do reflect their owners… thanks rox.

(click pic for larger version)