A Familiar Follow-Up

I was discussing my life and other subjects with my fabulous friend from Phoenix.  You remember her, right?  And in the course of conversation, I told her the story of Molly’s rough evening.  I told you that my friend was smart too, right?  Well, she is.  And in her smart-ness, she suggested that perhaps I was missing a personal message from Molly to me.

What do you mean?

“Well, perhaps Molly is acting as your proxy.  You know, taking messages, so that you won’t have to.”

Hmmm.  Hadn’t thought of that.

Then I thought of another beautiful spirit that had, not so long ago, suggested that Molly was my “familiar”.  A suggestion that made me giddy, to be honest.  So, yes, I agreed.  Molly is my familiar.  You can get a good feel for familiars by reading this.

So, assuming Molly’s “familiar” status, while also staying in accordance with the reasons that would cause a familiar to come into our lives (they find us more often than we find them), we can then also assume Molly’s presence in my life has many faces, many roles, including protector.

So now, Molly is a protector, a guardian angel of sorts for me.  And since she is a protector, then it’s extremely possible that Molly’s rough evening would be more accurately described as her way of taking on some bad juju in my stead.

I explained the skunk at the end of the last post, but, not looking from the viewpoint of Molly being my familiar, I neglected to look up the diarrhea part of Molly’s night.  You were hoping I would say those words in that exact order, weren’t you?  I know.  No need to thank me.

So, here’s what the other half (literally!) means, as I understand it.

This “problem”, let’s call it, can mean that you’re not digesting your reality either through fear of confronting it, or because it is wholly unacceptable to your system.

Wow.  Really?

So Molly took the skunk spray to the face, and the…well, yeah, the other end, so it was literally at both ends.  Reality not being acceptable, or fearful of that reality on one hand, and boundaries, smacking right in the face on the other.

Well.  That seems to be much more powerful than for which I initially gave the story credit.  And here I thought all I was supposed to glean was that I could still be happy under any circumstances, but thankfully my fabled friend from Phoenix opened up my eyes to something much more.

So, does this resonate for me in my life right now?  Yes.  Absolutely.  I may tell you about that another day, but not right now.

On a personal note, and I know I haven’t really done this before, but I want to tell you that I write about these things in order to help me see the world in a different way, in a way that’s more meaningful for me.  I hope that it does something like that for you too.  And I encourage you to reach out to me if you have messages from animals, or your body, and you don’t know where to go to find answers.  All of this information can be obtained by anyone.  If you look around, you can find all the things that I find, and in that regard, what I write about is nothing new or earth-shattering, but I’m always happy to help where I can.  Let me know.  I also love stories, so, please share with me if you feel so inclined.

Holy Crap! That Stinks!

Wanna hear about my night last night?  I thought you might.  You know, I really love what a great listener you are.

Yesterday was a pretty hectic day for me, which, unfortunately for Molly (my wonderful mutt!) meant that I didn’t get to be with her too much last night.

I arrived home about 9:30 in the evening, went directly upstairs to free my baby girl from the crate she stays in while I’m away.  Hopefully we won’t have to use the crate too much longer, but right now, I can’t trust her fully.  I went to see Thor one night, and thought it would be fun to see how she handled being in the house with free rein for an evening.  I’m still picking up pea-sized pillow stuffing from one of my U-shaped travel pillows that didn’t survive the night.

So, I walk up the stairs, saying my hello’s as I traverse the incline, just as I always do, walk into my room, and whoa!

Oh no, is right my friends!

Maybe it was the muddy water I caught her drinking three of four times at the dog park, I don’t really know for sure, but whatever it was, my baby was not in a good way.

She’s a smart girl though.  She at least managed to turn herself so that all her liquid-y wonder shot out the latticed front door of her crate, so most of it made it onto the floor outside her little abode.  But, believe me, there were things in places that I don’t think I’ll ever ask her how they got there.

Amazingly, except for a few tiny blots on her left ear, she had managed to somehow avoid the mess with the rest of her body.

I immediately set to work cleaning up the mess.  Took the crate outside to hose it down.  I just threw the blankets in the bottom away.  I wasn’t gonna try to wash those!  Scrubbed the floor, lit a vanilla gingerbread candle and some incense, you know, just to cover all my bases, and went to find my girl again as she meandered about the deck and yard.  I checked Molly over and over, and I took a brush to her just to be thoroughly safe.

I fed her, told her I was sorry she had to be in that position, and generally loved on her trying to regain my “good daddy” status.

Then, after all that stress, I decided I deserved a beer.

Living in the canyon affords all sorts of wildlife passing through.  Deer, bear sometimes and all sorts of little critters that Molly likes to go out and “talk” to.

Now, she is usually confined to the deck and the top yard area (the deck has stairs leading down to a lower yard), but in my haste to get everything clean and better smelling, I left the gate open to the lower yard.

Suddenly, I heard Molly down underneath the deck.  Now, you have to understand that she doesn’t like the stairs that lead down because they are the metal-grate kind of stair.  They’re hard on the feet for one, but you can also see through them, and I think that throws her off.

As I walk out on the deck to see who she has been talking to, I see a little skunk scurry out from under the deck, scamper across the yard, and hurry under the deck of the next door neighbor.

Molly!  Get up here!

She obeys, quickly navigating the steps, which she has never done before.  She runs into the house, and she starts acting as if she is going to throw up, while simultaneously wiping her paw across her nose.

That’s right.  Molly had just been hit.

I rushed her out of the house just as the smell from under the deck exploded into my olfactory chambers.

No freakin way did this just happen.  My first question was, “How the hell am I gonna sleep tonight with that smell in my room?!”

At 11:30 that night, I found myself on the way back home from the grocery store, four giant cans of tomato juice in tow, laughing at the whole thing.  I mean, what else was I going to do?

Molly is amazing.  I mentioned before that she is helping me change my life, and she is teaching me so much.

My “familiar”, as some have called her, is an extension of me in some ways.  Maybe in many ways.  But Molly’s attitude throughout was amazing.

After her initial gag reaction, she was herself.  Tail wagging, frolicking on the deck (Well, at least until I doused her in tomato juice.  She liked licking it up though!), and if you couldn’t have smelled her, you would never have known there was anything amiss in her life.

Sometimes we get hit with shit (although hopefully, not so literally), and just when we think it is all under control, something else knocks us sideways and we end up wearing the stink of it.

It happens.  But it doesn’t have to define us even if it lasts for a bit longer than we would like.

Molly’s been drenched now in Nature’s Miracle Skunk Odor Remover, and I am just waiting for it to dry fully so I can finally try shampooing it all out.  And you know what she’s doing?  Being the same loveable mutt she always is.  I can hear her now.  Unphased by all of this, she is happily chewing on one of her many bones.

Thanks again for another beautiful lesson in staying true to who we are no matter what life throws at us, Molly!  Now, I’m just looking forward to bringing her inside again!

By the way, here is what Skunk represents:  “(Boundaries) Now is the time to assert your boundaries.  Others may be taking advantage.  Demand respect and move forward at your speed.” -Animal Speak by Ted Andrews