Snicker's Journey

Last weekend, on the fourth of July, after we had begun packing the car for our once every two years family reunion... my beautiful baby girl, Snickers Olsen, a full-size dachshund, reddish brown, 15.8 pounds, collapsed.

Her rear hind legs just gave out, she began dragging herself, like a wet seal, across my carpet to the couch, as I cooed to her, to come see her mommy.

I had no clue that she had just been paralyzed with a type 2 disk degeneration. It broke my heart. We were just on our way out to finish loading our luggage into the two cars, we dropped everything to say goodbye to Snickers Olsen.

I pulled her body across mine, gently laying her down in my lap, stroking her beautiful, slightly matted fur, murmuring words of love, comfort, as I spread kisses across her face, head. Her body weight was entirely shifted onto my numb leg, which she laid on, but I could care less. The only thing in the world that mattered was my Snickers.

My dad phoned our vet friend and he told us, from the looks of it, Snickers was going to have to be put down. At 14 years of age, she was getting too old. Her body couldn't handle the enormously expensive 4,000 surgery that she might need and the fracture she sustained would most likely be too much.

We would have to say goodbye. My mom, generally insisting she doesn't love all three of our dogs, knelt down, laid her head across Snickers', kissed her forehead, tears dribbling down her cheeks. My sister screamed, ran to her bedroom, to cry in silence. My brother, Jon, mostly stoic, was clearly upset.

And my little brother, Riley, was even crying, gently petting Snickers, comforting her. We packed her into the car, with her favorite blanket, toys, in my dad's lap and transported her to the vet's office in Riverton. What seemed like an eternity, but was really twelve-to-fifteen minutes, and we arrived at the clinic.

I opened the door, hustled my dad, who bundled Snickers, into his arms, into the office, my remaining family members trailing behind us. We were a troop of solemn soldiers, preparing to pay our respects, to our fallen comrade.

We were ushered into the largest room they had, offered lukewarm, small, bottles of water. The room for being their "biggest" was small, slightly cramped. It contained a medicine cabinet, a scale to weigh dogs, a counter to lay them upon and six small chairs. Otherwise, the sparse room was decorated in cat paraphernalia.

Snickers was panting, heavily, still, clearly in a deep amount of pain. Our vet arrived, tested her, weighed her, gave her an x-ray. When he took Snickers away, in his arms, for the x-ray, I feared I would never get her back. That he was secretly signaling mom and dad, to let them know, he was gonna put Snickers down, to sleep, that there was no hope for my baby girl. My girl, who would make the angels cry at one glance at her.

Then he pronounced, a slight, trembling smile on his face, said, "the situation is optimistically hopeful. Snickers will live. Here's some medicine. You have a four week trial period. If she improves, she lives. If she doesn't..."

We shuffled out, parted ways. At home, dad said a tearful goodbye to Snick and everyone but Mom and me left for the family reunion. Snickers was the world's worst patient.

Our first day, she jumped off the bed, nearly straining her back. She couldn't potty. She couldn't do it by herself. She couldn't walk. We had to hand-feed her. She was refusing solid food, still is. We feed her medicine through peanut butter on a spoon.

I'll update more on the situation, later, but my baby is struggling.

I hope I don't have to put her down.

I love her.

She's my everything.

My sun. My moon.

There is no world without her.

I don't even want to see the sunlight, when I know, on a nice day, I can't enjoy it in the park with her. I don't want to see the day, when I know she could be walking beside me, trotting, growling, demanding, cutely, for a treat from the jerky bag in my fingers.

I would do anything to make sure she was okay, to ensure that my world remained intact, with Snickers Olsen, in my life.

Just long enough even for her to see me graduate high school.

I would give her every year I had left of my own near 18 years of life to ensure that.

I'm praying for a miracle.

---Emily

Edge of tommorrow movie review

 
Image credit: David James

Tom Cruise has outdone himself this time. In The Edge of Tomorrow, he not only managed to keep his shirt on (the entire film), but also hook us into a world that is true to it's tagline, "Live, Die, Repeat." The movie begins with Major William Cage, a coward, less than gracefully moving in the front lines to the English Channel.

But let's rewind for a brief moment and explain exactly what Cage does.

He is the slick, charming, ever-smiling UDF PR spokesman, the smoother than oil "talking head" of the United Defense Forces.  And when he charms the masses, The General (Brendan Gleeson) decides to force him into the front-lines to capture heroic footage of their spokesman.

Cruise panicking is a welcome sight, even the nervous, "I'm not a soldier" stutter is surprisingly enduring.

So Major William Cage does what all desperate, sleazy spokesman do best: he stutters nervously, in a surprising move of boldness, tries to blackmail the General.

That lands his pretty, panicked face in the front lines for the hell of it. Cruise's reaction is perfect and proves that he can definitely underplay emotion when necessary to better the script. After a few major failings, one of them being his 2013 Oblivion, a movie no one remembers, that fades just like its title.

Thrown to the wolves, he wakes up in an unknown location, uncertain of his surroundings. He's quickly treated to a rude awakening by a stern, deep fried Sergeant (Bill Paxton), labelled a deserter, handcuffed and led to his new team and a suicide mission: the J squad, the misfits of the army, who squabble and play poker. (Despite the consequences from the sergeant, such as forcing them to eat the poker cards because, "Their fate is in their own hands."

Untrained, ill suited for the job, Cruises muscular body is suited up in high tech robot armor, ready to propel strange Ailen metallic cresties away. Once he learns how to work it, that is...

Forced to confront his greatest fear, death, Cage, armed, is strapped into a plane, with the J Squad, failing to get advice on where the safety is on his suit. The plane is immediately hit, near-exploding.
Panicked, he struggles to "drop" from the plane as the rest of his J Squad is already on the ground. Seconds near death, he drops and falls into the water, right in the middle of the battle.

He wades through the battlefield, successfully evading death, even as his fat team-mate, immediately gets it. But his suit is foreign to him, he grapples with his blaster.

And after watching the glorious, Full Metal Bitch, aka the Angel of Verdun, Rita Verdanski (Emily Blunt), all muscles and business, in action, he shoots a blue creature and bites the dust.

The screen goes black almost immediately. And Cage wakes up, once more, back at the begining. What is going on here?

 Cage is forced to relieve the events of the day over and over again, video-game style, until he gets the day right, wins the war. Going through a super-cool training sequence, he repeats the day, trying to force them to realize the plane is going to be bombed, they will be immediately attacked, forced to drop down, unprepared.

Cruise, unfairly, has clearly re-lived this day, over and over again, learning new things about his team-mates to convince them to be on his side, things we never got to see. Finally, after dying more than 60 times, Cage finds Rita, shooting at all the right places, saving her life, proves that whatever blood he absorbed is now giving him the power to re-set the day, over and over.

Rita glances at him, desperate burning in her eyes and demands he find her when he wakes up. Then they both die in a fiery explosion, he is back at the beginning.

This time, he says and does all the right things, participating in training. Making a cheeky remark, he is forced to do 50 pushups, after doing 5, sees which truck she is in, rolls under it, getting run over, dying immediately.

Three more times is the charm and he rolls, perfectly, under the car and scurries onto the training grounds, dodging metal training bots about to scissor his body, finds her, doing a push-up, her body gloriously fit. Cage's eyes can't leave her and they argue, he convinces her, they begin making a plan of attack to use this power, as a team, defeat the beasties.

But first, she trains him in a very cool, combat sequence. Unfortunately, after coming so close in the battlefield, they desert the army and trek together, using a stolen car, to a farmhouse. Cruise's true emotional abilities are shown, beautifully, as he pained, begs Rita not to start the chopper. Once the engine starts, the metallic cresties show up and she dies. She never gets farther than this farmhouse.

Rita firmly, learning this knowledge, that he just wants her to survive, demands, "Why is my life so important? I'm a solider..." And ignores him, starts the engine.

Desperate, Cage dives into the action, but Rita is still dead. So when he repeats the day, again, he goes on without her.

Eventually they reach a point when they realize the monster brain is using Cage to learn how humans fit, just like Rita was chosen for. Turns out, she offered humanity at victory at Verdun, but it wasn't real for the ailens allowe dher to win to observe nad master her tactics. Once they figure this out, they recognize they must get one step ahead of the aliens and anticipate their play one move in advance, in order to make their advance towards the final battle in Paris.

  I highly recommend you watch this film. It is one of Tom Cruise's best movies. For the first time in a long time, he is not just a sexual object of women's fantasies. He is an actor who gives it his all, truly enjoys this concept of Live, Die, Repeat.

As one of the last actors of a previous era, still fighting for time on the big screen, Cruise does a fabulous job. Perhaps, this is his greatest acting up to date (despite never taking his shirt off, not once, ladies). It might never win an award, but it definitely will help the box office this June.

Edge of tomorrow receives an A-. Running time: 1 hour and 53 minutes. Pg-13

2014...Bitches!

Greetings, bitches!

I heard that off a T.V. show yesterday and it just called to me.  To anyone who still reads this blog, it's 2014 and I am back.

What has 2014 been like?

Honestly, it's a blue Thursday. I've been depressed, struggling with the ACT, I lost my best friend, J, to boys. 

And yes, I know that girls like boys and boys like girls, but when all you want is to spend a little time with her, she rejects you in favor of guys, what can you do...but feel a little bit hurt, rejected?

On a brighter note, this is my first real attempt at writing again. I've been quite struggling to read or write lately, much less get up off the couch. 

I now own two lovely, beautiful dachshunds, in addition to my dog, Snickers, also a dachshund. Their names are Peanut and Butter, they are 5 and they love me.

I am still not over this gorgeous guy I've been crushing over for a like a year now. It's inappropriate, not my place to feel this way, because of work reasons, but I do.

I'm fighting it, it's working, but its still a struggle, especially when half the time all I can do, is put my foot in my mouth, try not to stutter.

Yet, losing my best friend to a few bad boyfriends, the bottle, has made me realize that I can incorporate all this in my story, Obsessed and repurpose it like I've done for the last six years. 

Maybe 2014 is my year to shine.

Luck to all.

I will start updating this again. 

Weekly.

Live long and prosper as SPOCK would say.

Seminary: Relevant or just a damn waste of time?

I confess I am less than your...shall we say, perfect Mormon. Far from it.

I attend seminary, but only because I pretty much have no choice. No way of changing classes without parental approval, no way of leaving, because my car...is nonexistent, so I AM stuck in that building for an hour and thirty minutes of pure hell.

At least in church if you pull out your phone, you don't have belligerent teachers breathing down your neck, fanning in your face, insisting you put it away. HELLO, this isn't a real class. It never has been.

It's basically a course where teachers, who think, they are smarter than you, better than you, more religious than you, can change "students life" but really they stick their nose in your business, look down on you, discuss "morals" all while being judgmental pricks.

And this is in my opinion of "course", so no hard feelings for those religious caring folks.

But seriously, if I have "free agency" then why can't I pull out my damn phone and just use it? If I want to study chinese during "bible time" and ignore the teachers warnings, or study "serial killers and their effects on society", who is to stop me?

Seriously, this is my life and if I sound angry, belligerent and unreasonable, then "it's their fault".

I take full responsibility for wanting to pull my phone out, but who is to say that I cannot wander the halls, leave class, exit out the doors, bag in hand.

It's not like I'm out there, smoking weed, in the grass in front of the whole school. I am merely leaving a class that doesn't count for a grade that I don't feel like attending.

What do you think? Am in the red zone?

Was I wrong?

Was I angry?

Should I SUFFER for a whole year and another year in that hellish, judgemental gospel hell?

Is there a way out?

Song of the Week: Save the World by Swedish House Mafia

Ever imagined escaping, to that happy place, where you can hunch your shoulders and disappear?

Well, during school hours, I can't, so my happy place is a little modern invention we call the iPhone, which I adore, use quite frequently.

This week's amazing song, is by Swedish House Mafia, called Save the World.

Every girl or boy has imagined being a superhero once in their lifetime, no matter their age. Heck, I'm a girl and I dare to dream about being Tony-frickin'-Stark, every once in a while, because Iron-man, just plain awesome!

And he's hot, rich, and in his own words a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, who settles down with the down to earth, equally hot, lovely, Ms. Pepper Potts.

Whose life can get much better than that, not to mention a pink Iron man suit would compliment me, awesomely. But the point is, everyone dreams, everyone falls, everyone is inspired by heroes.

And in my mind, that is what this song, accomplishes. Built more for dancing, than lyrics, I enjoy the simple lyrics of two lines.

One, "It’s far from home,

It’s for the better

What we dream, it’s all that matters

We’re on our way, united."

The other? 

Line 2: " Who’s gonna save the world tonight,

Who’s gonna bring it back to life

We’re gonna make it, you and I,

We’re gonna save the world tonight."

This song reminds me, somewhat, that like this blog was made for, dreams are always capable of being achieved, that somehow, somewhere, deep down inside, we are built for dreaming, we dream, we come alive, just like Tony Stark, Clark Kent, Wonderwoman, that is inside all of us.

Xia Xia Zai-Jen, (Thank you, Goodbye),

Emily (Ou yang ha hua).

Yard Saling Tips!

Pills, pills for everyone! Just kidding, now as you all know or will know, I am an avid garage sale addict!

Me and my neighbors: Lori, Lynell, Melanie and sometimes their husband's, kids, and daughters go garage saling with us all over Utah every Saturday beginning in May to late October.

And I'm going to share our very best secrets with you, so that when you see a yard sale, you know whether to pull over or go!

Tip number 1: Bring a car with great gas mileage and plenty of seats! If your as addicted and in love as I am with sales, then you are definitely going to be hitting all the spots around the town, so make sure you got a car that doesn't have to hit every gas station in Utah to run!

Tip number 2: Always have cash on you!  You never know how much money or "dosh" you'll need, so make sure you bring your sis/bro/friend's, mutual companion's, etc. and their change jar because you might end up spending more than you originally planned!

Tip number 3: How to know whether to park and browse or speed away. You can tell if a yard sale is worth stopping for by pausing in your car and glancing discreetly at the junk spread out on the lawn. If you see baby clothes, diapers, binkies, it's probably not for you. If you see cool items you believe are worthwhile, or a DVD collection, it might be worth stopping for. But always glance before you get out, so you don't waste the gas!

Tip number 4:Keeping your passengers happy. Th ere is a century old art of "If mom's happy, everyone's happy," well the same goes for your passengers. By the middle of this trip they will have been out all around for hours, with no breakfast or caffeine in your system, so make sure you feed them a donut and provide their choice of soda, so you can stay out longer!

Tip number 5:And finally, look up on your neighborhood site for garage sales in your community or city and print 'em out. It saves a heck of a lot of time and blood and tears trying to look for things, if you have a list ready and waiting to go, so when you hop into your vehicle and drive with your friends, your not only looking awesome for saving them from driving aimlessly, but you also Are PREPARED!

Garage sale safe in May and have fun!

Yours,

Emily Lane

Getting a Job Part 1: The Phone Call

For everyone who has every applied for a job online, I'm sure you know how "fun" that is, seeing as once you find your information to put on it, you have to wait a ton of time to get what some would consider "the almighty call". 

Or as I like to call it "the phone call" that ties to my imminent soda/ high school survival. Because I need money for Doctor Pepper and it is expensive. Like 7 dollars plus tax for 20 cans that will be gone in less than a week.

So I applied for my favorite Movie Theater about ten to fifteen minutes from my house, The Megaplex.

It's really  a nice theater with comfy, cushioned seats that recline slightly back, just enough that you can enjoy the movie, as long as you sit in the backrow. Also, if no one is sitting behind you, you can rest your feet on the chair next to some poor unsuspecting bystander's head.

And their concessions, totally unreasonable in prices. But the bonus for going there and buying the 11 dollar cup plus tax? 

1 dollar drinks, with no tax! In a frickin' awesome machine that has dozens of sprite and fanta flavors ranging from regular orange or lemon lime sprite to strawberry and pina colada!

But that's beside the point. So it's Tuesday, right? I'm sitting at home, on the computer, typing up my outline for Nanowrimo and listening to my music. Mainly, Three Days Grace's new album, Transit of  Venus (which rocks by the way! My favorite songs are: Time that Remains, Give me a reason and Anonymous). 

And suddenly my mom answers her cellphone, because she insisted I put her number down cuz I'm bound to lose my cellphone. So she gets this odd look on her face, says something I can't hear and then whispers to me, "Emily, it's for you!"

I take the phone from her fingers and answer cautiously, "Hello?" 

Because I never know if I'm talking to our friend, Courtney Ricks, or one of my grandparents. 

And then I hear a woman's voice on the end of the other line, I think her name was Jeanette, say, "Is this Emily Olsen?"

"Yeah."

"This is the Megaplex. On your application you said you can work afternoon's monday to friday. Can you work Sunday's?"

"Absolutely," I replied, and I thought my heart was gonna drop to my stomach, and I was gonna keel over from a heart attack.

But this was a problem for me because every sunday I have no choice but to go to church from 11 am to 2pm.  And my parents strongly disapprove of me working Sunday's. But if I said no, then like my brother, I'd have no chance at the job.

"Could you work from the afternoons to closing time?"

"Of course."

Another problem? I get home at 2:40 from the bus, and closing time doesn't start and end until 11pm.  My parents couldn't pick me up to take me home that late every night. 

She said something I didn't hear, and then said, "We're having interviews while students are on Fallbreak. I can get you in on Monday. They're from 9-12. What would work best for you?"

"What?" I asked her. "Could you repeat that. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you."

She repeated the question and I held the phone to my chest and look at my mom, panicked. 

"What time would work best for an interview?" I practically hissed at her. 

Mom looked at me, and said, "It's your interview. You pick a time."

"But what would work best on a monday?" I implored her, desperately not wanting to keep the woman possibly becoming my future employer, waiting.

"1o?" Mom suggested.

I mouthed thanks, and hurriedly picked up the phone, my heart thundering in my chest. "Would ten am work for you?"

"How about 10:10?" the woman on the other line, suggested. 

"Sounds great."

She then proceeded to tell me where to arrive for the Megaplex to get to the interview and said, something like see you Monday.

I replied, "Thank you!" and hung up.

Now I have an interview for Monday the 15th, 10:10 pm.

Any tips or suggestions?

Yours,

Emily Lane

DONNA AND HARVEY ON SUITS. SOOO SAD.



Harvey begging Donna to do "their canopener" moment before his trial, as she makes him squirm.

Season 1, when she tells him, she gave Jessica the DA file because she cares for him.

Donna speaking about Harvey Specter, her boss.