How Much Would You Spend To Save Your Dog?

If dogs could have singles ads, my puppy's ad would probably say...

"Hi, I'm Andromeda. I'm 5 months old and I weigh 4.2 lbs. I love snuggling, attacking stuffed animals and chasing my tail. I'm insanely cute and naughty but I'm good at acting innocent... even when I'm chewing on my mommy's shoes!"

She'd probably also have a line or two about looking for a guy that can afford pink doggie sweaters, a skull and crossbones leash and a blinged out collar.

My sons, nine year-old Mr. O and six year-old Mr. T want to spoil Andromeda non-stop. I've actually had to explain to them how $37 for a doggie sweater is not a reasonable price. --I'll admit, it was a totally cute sweater and she would've looked SO fly in it... but then I came back to earth and remembered that Andromeda's a dog, not a person. Sometimes I don't want to spend $37 on a sweater for myself so heck to the no on dropping that kind of cash on 4.2 lbs of fur.

Yeah, my boys love her so much, sometimes I think they forget that she's not human. Last night I overheard, Mr. T say, "Since mom doesn't want to get pregnant again and give us a baby sister, Andromeda will have to be our baby sister."

Uh huh, yeah. Go on ahead and run with that idea, son.

But just like baby sisters, keeping little Andromeda healthy ain't exactly cheap. The shots, the worm medicines, flea treatments, and this month we have to pay to get her fixed... yep, she's almost as expensive as a real baby sister.

But if a real baby sister broke her leg and it was going to cost $4,000 for surgery, I'd spend the money to get it fixed. Would I do the same for Andromeda? Lately I've been asking myself how much I'd spend to save her/get her healthy. I don't yet have answer.

I love her and I'd feel awful if she got seriously hurt or had some sort of illness, but I hear stories of people paying out thousands to vets and I feel very torn over the idea of spending that much money on my pet. I'm not sure where to draw the line on paying to get her healthy vs having her put down.

I know, I can't believe I'm even thinking about this, but I'm SUCH a planner and a "what if" thinker. I like to have all my bases covered before disaster strikes. I'm investigating pet insurance, but there are so many plans, I don't know which one to choose.

I've also been thinking about how folks will trick their dog out and spend tons of money on health care costs for it, and then step right over a homeless person - an actual human being. That bugs me, and I don't want to go down that road.

I'll also be the first to admit that I've never understood the dumb people in scary movies like the Amityville Horror who run back in the house to save their dog - all while the demon possessed killer is after them. I'm still on the Forget The Dog, Save The People tip. I'm sure some people think this makes me a bad person but I figure it's all about common sense and moderation.

My whole family is enjoying her cuteness and loving taking care of her, but Andromeda is totally my little baby. Nobody else in this house got up in the middle of the night with her to take her out when she was seven weeks old, so she is my baby.

Anyway, while I mull over the big picture dog healthcare questions, you are more than welcome to donate a blinged out sweater, collar or leash to her I'm One Of Those Fly Los Angeles Dogs You Love To Hate efforts because clearly, I have a daughter to dress!

No, I'm Not Nuts. I'm Just Training For The 2011 Los Angeles Marathon

Boys and Girls, Ladies and Gents, Cats and Dogs...the rumors are true.

I'm training for the 26th Los Angeles Marathon!

If you're asking yourself, um, didn't she already run a marathon? Yes, I sure did. Three to be exact.

I've run two Los Angeles Marathons and one Pasadena Marathon, and I'm gearing up for another one. In fact, I just got home from a quick 30 minute training run and now I'm all psyched and thinking about how proud my sons look when they see me running a race. And I'm thinking about what this year's medal will look like.

Go on and call me a medal whore if you want to. After all, it's true. I like the bling a whole lot, and my race completion medals DO look extra awesome hanging on the wall in my living room. Besides, I get to totally cheese for the camera after grinding out 26.2 miles. For example...

Here I am on March 21, 2010 immediately after completing the 25th Los Angeles Marathon:

Here I am on February 21, 2010 after completing the Pasadena Marathon:

And my favorite, taken two hours after completing my very first Los Angeles Marathon on May 25, 2009.

Wow, I just realized I ran THREE marathons in less than a year. I feel like hot stuff now. See, this is why I blog. And why I run. I like my pants to fit but I like my sanity even more and writing this post just reminded me that I AM SOMEBODY!

No joke, I had a momentously awful morning today. Some people drink and smoke their stress away, but I've found that the healthiest way for me to deal with stress is by running. Post run, I feel so much better and I started reminiscing about my marathon beginnings.

Back in August 2008 when I began training for my very first race, I wrote this:

"In case you don't know how far a marathon is, it's 26.2 miles. Right now, I clearly can't run that sort of distance. Well, I suppose if you light a fire under me or beat me with a stick, I'd have no choice, but you know what I mean."

Nowadays, I know I can run that distance - no fire lighting or stick beating required!

This year I have new challenges. I'm dealing with IT band issues and I'm recovering from patellar tendonitis in my left knee - which is why I came home and threw a bag of frozen veggies over it - but I'm still showing up for myself. Every training run is a new challenge, a new adventure, a new chance to say yes, I can do this distance - whether it's two miles or 26.2. Plus, I like to listen to awesome music while running because, let's face it, my club days are WAAY over.

Today's playlist heavily featured...

Sorry if I you heard my fingernails on the blackboard awful singing as I ran by your house. I was just really feeling it this morning.

I'll be heading out to Santa Monica every Saturday morning for a long run with my running club, the LA Leggers. It's not too late for you to sign up to do the Leggers program as well if you think you might want to take on the challenge. Trust me, if I can do it, you can do it.

Today was a good reminder that I just have to believe in myself and put in the work. No one else can do it for me. No one else.

Five Years Later, In Honor of New Orleans

Today makes the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina making landfall and devastating New Orleans. I feel pessimistic admitting it but I have no doubt that the exact same disaster - or a similar one- could happen again. And I have no doubt that wherever or whenever that disaster occurs, images of poor black folks on rooftops begging for help will yet again be accompanied by the unfair "looter" label.

Five years later, most people think Kanye West's most outspoken moment came at the 2009 VMA's with his evisceration of Taylor Swift. I disagree because I remember this:

I remember watching Kanye talk, watching Mike Myers' increasingly uncomfortable posture, and then feeling something I still can't name as the camera made a rapid cutaway to Chris Tucker. I remember thinking Kanye didn't have eloquence or tact at his disposal, but he was naming something real. And I remember thinking about how in the United States of America, there's a whole lot of folks that don't care about black people.

I never visited New Orleans till 2007, and during that visit, ever present in my mind was the context for why the city grew in the first place. Nowadays we don't like to talk about the role of slavery and cotton in New Orlean's population explosion, how slaves were shipped in and cotton was shipped out. We don't like to talk about the role of racism and segregation in creating the circumstances and living conditions that Hurricane Katrina embarrassingly exposed to the world. That storm and it's aftermath peeled back the veil and revealed America's disdain and disregard for the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of poor people of color.

On that first visit in March 2007, I fell in love with New Orleans. It's built on a foundation of those slaves spilled blood, those for whom the words, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity," did not apply. Yet, a spirit of perseverance, of generosity, of community, permeated the city, and as I gazed across the Ninth Ward, it wasn't hard to imagine what once was, particularly when it came to the porches. And so, on March 14, 2007, I wrote this:

Sitting on the porch is an art that's mostly been lost in Los Angeles. I don't know about your city, but in LA, I rarely see a neighborhood busybody out on her porch, surveying the going-ons of everyone and their mother.
In the past two days in New Orleans, I've fallen in love with the way folks sit out on their porches.

Porch size doesn't really matter. It only needs to be big enough for one, maybe two chairs.

I imagine that once upon a time, in an existence not so long ago, some old lady sat on this particular porch in New Orleans' Ninth Ward. She probably admired the wrought iron on her porch railing and gazed up at the proud stature of the old oak trees that once stood everywhere. She probably spoke to her neighbors and inquired about what was going on in their lives. She might have read her Bible on that porch. I'm sure she contemplated all the dreams, desires and disappointments she'd had in her youth. I'd like to think she never got to a place where she accepted that the way things were was the way it would always be.

How could our old lady have known that the levees, merely that concrete wall in the background, would be breached and her home would be destroyed? No fortune teller could have told her that the site of countless conversations and events in life would be reduced to mere remnants. What was once her home, her neighborhood, her heart, is now uninhabitable, a ghost town of epic proportions.

Imagine what you would do if your neighborhood was vibrant and thriving, bustling with both happiness and heartache, and then became this...

I'd like to think that the strength and spirit of the people who once lived in the Ninth Ward lingers even though they're gone.

It makes me wonder, how would I react in the face of such devastation, such adversity? Could I respond with such courage? Could you?

****

Today I ask myself the same questions, and today the names of Katrina's New Orleans victims were read in the Ninth Ward. Former residents remain scattered across the country, and New Orleans remains a third rail intersection of racism, gentrification, black on black crime, skin color politics, police brutality, abject poverty, low-performing schools and the all-pervasive attitude that the city is better off than it was before, which is essentially code language for "before the storm came and washed away all those black people who were ruining everything."

I'm glad people want to make change, but I readily admit my bitterness when I wish the so-called "creative class" that's now transforming New Orleans would've cared about poor black people and felt inspired enough to overhaul school systems and build new housing prior to Katrina's ravages.

I wish their current efforts didn't sometimes reek of savior mentalities and the attitude that New Orleans is a great place to experiment and learn before jetting off to Harvard for a public policy graduate degree.

Five years later, even with all the experimentation, reform and levee rebuilding, if another storm hit the city... what would happen? I don't know how much things have really changed - after all, I'm just an outside observer, but I have a feeling, that until we decide to really address those third rail issues - and the urban pathologies they breed - we'll have the same result.

To those who died in Katrina, whether in New Orleans or beyond, may you rest in peace.

Because I'm In Chicago...It's Time To Jack!

Ah, it's nice to be home. Let's take it back... waaay back! Oh this is my JAM. I'm about to go get on the EL and rock this on my iPod!

Happy Birthday To My AWESOME Sister

Happy Birthday to my awesome sister! I'm sure all her birthday wishes are going to come true... and one of them, I'm sure, is for me to dish all her secrets on my blog!

Let me tell you about my sister C-Smooth:

1) She's the most neat freak person I've ever met: C and I shared a room when we were little. Her side of the room was immaculate. My version of cleaning was shoving everything under the bed - so you can only imagine how much I drove her crazy.

Nowadays, she can get so intense with her clean-sweeping ways that I once had fun torturing her by putting a newspaper on her kitchen counter. She walked by, folded it up and put it in the trash. I surreptitiously dug it out of the trash and put it back on the counter. Next time she came thru the room, she put it back in the trash, all while carrying on a conversation. By the third time, she was all, "Didn't I already throw this away?"

2) Cast Her In Salt II: She's only 5'2" but she's can whoop your behind AND shoot a gun.

3) What A Fantastic Auntie: My boys love their Auntie C a whole lot! Every time we visit her, she does special things for them and spoils them in ways I definitely don't. They have their special cookies they make with her. They have thumb wars over who gets to snuggle with her on the couch. Oh, and this is so cool - she always remembers their birthdays and sends them little cards with cash inside. She even sends them cards at the end of the school year congratulating them on finishing successfully!

4) Readers-R-Us: She's hardcore about her books and believes in the power of libraries. She goes - and takes my nephews - every single week.

5) Green Thumb: Everybody's always wondering how she gets her tomatoes so big. She loves to garden and her tomatoes turn out marvelously every single year. Which brings us to...

6) Yes, They're Real. Hollywood, eat your heart out... and sorry, don't ask for her digits because she's been married for a looong time!

I love my sister - even when we don't always agree or see eye to eye, I love her! I would tell you more but I have to go get on a plane! Yeah, I know I'm wrong for that last one but I couldn't resist!

Happy Birthday C-Smooth!

Educational Shock And Awe

"BAM-POWWW!"? That's the detonation of the two major education bombs that got dropped on America this week.

Bomb #1: According to "Yes We Can: The 2010 Schott 50 State Report on Black Males in Public Education" only 47% of black males in America graduated from high school during the 2007-2008 school year.

If you live in New York (25% graduation rate), Philly (28%) Pinellas County, Florida (21%) or even Chicago (44%), whether or not you're the parent of a black child, you should be ready to sign up for a protest!

No joke, can somebody (like a superintendent) get fired over those numbers???

The report didn't breakdown specific data about Los Angeles, but when California, with a dismal 54% rate, doesn't look so bad, something's really wrong with education in America.

What's the solution? It's easy to think the solution is for all of us to jump ship to Vermont where 90% of their 10 black males graduate. It's even easier to think that holding individual teacher's feet to the fire and publicly outing their student's standardized test results is the answer, which leads us to...

Bomb #2: Two reporters from the Los Angeles Times, Jason Felch and Jason Song made a real "shots fired" move by getting seven years of math and English standardized test scores and then using a value added analysis method (which tracks each child's performance from year to year) to, "estimate the effectiveness of L.A. teachers - something the district could do but has not." They plan to post a searchable online database where parents (and anybody else) can look up a teacher's high stakes standardized test score results, forever marrying teacher effectiveness with those scores. You may kiss the bride!

Somebody sound the airhorns because I can't separate these two stories.

My gut reaction to Bomb #1 is that I have two black male children, and in my own family and circle of friends I've seen firsthand the effed up education offered to black boys in America - so I'm in "By Any Means Necessary" mode. That means that when I hear that the head of our local teachers union, the United Teachers of Los Angeles, is calling for the boycott of the LA Times over this story, I'm like, seriously?

Here's the thing - as a former teacher, I would have had zero problem publicizing my student achievement data for my kids in Compton, not just because I was a pretty good teacher either. We're about to start a new school year and I have zero information about what my two son's new teachers are like. What are their strengths? Their weaknesses? Do they have a history of FAILING the students in their classrooms?

Heck, I can look on Yelp and find out more information about my dentist than I can about their new teachers. Is that the way it should be?

On the other hand, no, I don't believe test scores are the end-all-be-all of evaluating teacher effectiveness. I think the Times article makes it too easy to shame and label teachers as "bad"- all the while acknowledging that a real teacher evaluation processes isn't on the table in the United States because we're too busy paying for wars and don't feel like spending money to do evaulations - and skill development for teachers - properly.

Where's the evaulation of all those pricey, craptastic professional development seminars districts pay for - that are often run by people who got into professional development because they suck as classroom teachers? Will those stop being paid for?

Where is the evaluation on the "school leaders"? You know, the principals?

The bottom line - now that it's all over the news (trust me, black people already knew this) that education is failing black kids, and now that teacher's standardized test results are going to be online - what difference will any of this make for our kids?

It's all good to have shock and awe over depressing graduation rates, and yay that I'll be able to see my boy's future teacher's test scores, but I'm all about so what, now what? What's really going to change?

A Sonnet For Lovers Separated By Time And Space

For Lovers Separated By Time And Space...

Soul of my soul bound in eternal flame

Heart of my heart beat sunrise to sunset

Immortal through time is this sacred claim

Darkness to blue hour rhythm duet

Lips on my lips embrace secrets and dreams

Hand in my hand grasping tightly pure truth

Enchant with whispers and silver moonbeams

Would that wise hands captured our fleeting youth

Skin on my skin burning fiercely and free

Gaze meeting gaze in affection sincere

Inhale my prayer exhale destiny

Purposeful clarity dissolving fear

Intently I feel you through time and space

Patiently waiting and now face to face.

*photo courtesy of Flickr user Dell's Pics