on the downward slide

i woke up with a headache again...it hurts just to bend over and clean up their poop. and i might joke about needing glasses but it is the life i lead that is giving me headaches almost every day.

i went to bed at 2 am worrying about the laundry i didn't get thru, i was thinking about doing the house and the barn on my own today and getting to the bank in maple ridge by 11 am. i am thinking about the appointment i have off site at 1 pm and the tour i have to give here at 1:30...and will it be clean or will it smell because i just added 6 more loads of laundry to the pile.

and when the heck is bosche going to decide if they are going to replace the washer machine cuz i don't want to go to all of the work to pull those out and move the smaller donated used ones back in if they are going to finally give us a working one sometime in the next few days.

and i am worried about sam, i think he is going to die cuz now he won't eat anymore, and what do i do? he is now 16 years old..we really upset him with the vet trip and bloodwork and do i do it again, and for what? we didn't find any real answers 4 days ago which means it is probably a combination of cardiac, cancer, and multi-system failure and he is getting so close to the end. and so i worry and i am waiting til he is ready to be euth'd but it bothers me because he did so well until the past month. like this makes a difference to anything? lucky him to be able to do well til then....he IS really old now too.

and phoebe was a bag last night and i blew my top, and i awoke at 3 am with clyde snarling on top of my head (he was sleeping and i must have moved and apparently that pissed him off) so i told him to leave because i didn't want to get bit and then it was like i had hurt him somehow...fuss, fuss, fuss, whine, whine, whine..fine you little creep, come back here.

emotionally i am tired of all the webs of implied threats that surround all rescuers every single day... do something different then someone else would or piss someone off because you tell them why and they take offence and man you are toast in a day...because people talk, and talk, and talk about rescues and who does what and how and if someone happens to agree and sometimes while they are talking about someone else, they might help you for a bit too, but it is a sharp and double edged sword and turtle gardens is getting to bleed from that one today. if people don't like you, or don't agree with you or are mad at you, for whatever reason...they won't support you and maybe they will stop someone else from supporting you too. they can destroy a reputation by just raising a doubt...and the hint of certain magical words... "in ethical rescue....the well run rescues,....in my opinion, i heard, i saw or i think"....except they , they are people who don't have a clue what it means to shelter up to 100 animals at one time because they have never ever done it so what they are saying might not be real or i should say accurate because they have no experience to what this really means. some have agendas who think respect and knowledge and power grow with the simple act of making an uneducated decree. and every time a rescue loses support because someone said something to someone else...the animals get hurt bacuase there is less help and support and that always makes me pretty darn mad. i had a volunteer that i asked not to return here tell me that she would tell everyone why...well, who's why? hers or mine? cuz mine was she caused too much upset and trouble of all of the other volunteers here including me...but her why was different, i think she felt i was mean and ungrateful, and saints was not as good as everyone thought. right now especially. turtle gardens needs all the help they can get because they are in reall need with helping all of those dogs. and all of us need help all of the time so i just wish people would be a little more careful and thoughtful before they start cutting us off at the knees. who exactly is going to help all of these animals if the rescuers get buried by gossip and ill will?

the sad truth is that people do listen and question, we hear stuff and then we start to wonder....and i, like every other rescuer, get tired of being held hostage by other peoples unhappiness and anger and i worry about how that will affect the support that all of us need.

and the biggest reason i am sliding downward is this is my last day off and the 5 on 2 off parts of my rotation kill me, and yes this is all of my own making cuz i picked this life and i am ok with that, some days, but not today and not for the next few weeks, because 5 on and 2 off are not enough for me to get thru the days.

rescue is not easy, it is not some walk in the park on a sunny day. it is hard, and endless work and wet and cold and dirty too, it is lonely, and scarey and frustrating and it is a battle on so many fronts every single day. it is about being stronger than everything around you that builds up and tries to bring you down. standing firm against it all would be easier without a headache.

venting done...feed the barn.