Must love dogs … and cats, hamsters, birds, fish ….

I have always been an animal lover. Always! I have had pet dogs, cats, fish and hamsters throughout my entire life.  And I know I’ll always have some furry family member for the rest of my life.  (Yes, I  know that fish aren’t furry.  But I probably won’t have any more fish.  They are actually rather difficult to keep alive!)

It goes without saying that any guy I get involved with must love animals too!  If he has pets, that’s great, but I have enough for the both of us, so it’s ok if he’s just glomming onto my furrbabies.  I have dated guys that were “ok” with animals, but those were usually first and last dates.  They actually need to really love animals to last with me. 

What I never realized before, though, was how much someone who doesn’t have any pets will have to learn to put up with when they join my pack.  Living with animals definitely takes some getting used to. 

Mealtime becomes interesting, even if you don’t give them anything from the table.  And the guy in my life has to get used to being walked across while we sleep, as well as having three furry monsters taking up a lot of space in the bed!  And there’s the more than occasional time when my dog sneezes in his face!  She sneezes and snorts a lot!  It goes with being a Shih Tzu.

But, there are a lot of benefits to having pets.  Like the cuddles (and head butts from the kitties).  Also, getting greeted at the door after a long day of dealing with annoying human animals is one of the best things about having pets!  If you’re feeling sad, mad or anxious, the furr babies can be a fantastic distraction.  And there’s that unconditional love that they give you.  You can’t get that in the human world.  No such thing as “unconditional” for humans when it comes to love.

However, you also have to be willing to clean up after them.  This includes picking up poop and cleaning up vomit.  Yeah, not so much fun.  But still, it must be done!

And let’s not forget that there will be fur on EVERYTHING!!  I totally should buy stock in the company that makes the lint rollers!! 

Plus, dogs and cats don’t put away their toys when they are done playing with them (well, maybe that one dog that has been trained so that the owner can post the YouTube video of them cleaning up their toys, saying their prayers and tucking themselves into bed at night).  So occasionally, I will step on something that goes “squeak” or some other toy that isn’t soft and squishy (which actually hurts!!)

But that’s not as bad as when you are walking from point A to point B while at home and suddenly realize that you stepped in something that you are PRAYING is just vomit!  Seriously, would you ever think that you’d pray something is “just vomit”?  If you’re a pet owner, you probably have!  It must be hilarious to an observer to then watch me hop my way to the nearest sink to wash the offending yuckiness off! 

Thankfully, I haven’t had any guy accidentally step in something!  I don’t know for sure, but that totally could be a deal breaker for them!  For me, my deal breaker would be a guy who isn’t an animal lover!!  I wouldn’t trade my furrbabies for anything!  Not even for the hottest, most amazing guy in the world.  But, thankfully, there are plenty of hot, amazing guys out there who are animal lovers!!  Even for my three crazy ones!!

Act like an adult!

What does that mean?  Act like an adult. It’s not a very specific or detailed statement, if you ask me.  Similar statements include “Grow up”, “Act your age” and “Stop being childish”.

But I think we all know what that means, even if it’s not explicitly defined.  It means to take responsibility for yourself and for your actions/words.  It means that even though the situation may be uncomfortable, at least have the decency to treat the other person with the respect they deserve and tell them the truth!

I was speaking with a good friend of mine the other day.  She had been in a relationship with a guy for over 2 years.  And of course, over the course of the relationship, there were good times and bad times, as is always the case in any relationship.  Things recently had been fine between her and her boyfriend.  No major arguments or fights.  Nothing to suggest problems in the relationship.  But for some reason, one day out of the blue, he just disappeared! Completely stopped responding to messages she would send.  No longer taking her phone calls.  Just … gone.  My friend had been ghosted.  Perhaps the relationship wasn’t something he wanted anymore.  Perhaps he had spent time thinking this through on his own. But he never brought up any concerns or thoughts he was having with her.  He didn’t have the decency to let her know what was upsetting him.  He just decided that it was a better option to remove himself from existence in her world completely.  To not have the possibly uncomfortable conversation.  To not have to defend his feelings, if she questioned why.  In other words … not very adult-like behavior.  Maybe he just “didn’t want to deal”.  But, sorry … you’re an adult and your actions (or lack of actions) have an effect on someone else, and you owe it to that person to not act like a child!  Especially after being with that person for over 2 years!!  But even if it had been 2 months or 2 weeks, or even a date … the other person in the situation deserves to be treated with enough respect to not pull something like that!

An ex-boyfriend of mine handled ended our relationship in a different, yet also “non-adult” like way. He chose the “I’m gonna act like a complete jerk and get her to break up with me” plan of action.  It wasn’t the first time I’ve dealt with this type of childish way of handling adult situations.  It wasn’t the last time I dealt with that either.  But some guys (and girls) are just cowards when it comes to acting like an adult and actually having the decency to talk to the other person.

There are similar situations that don’t involve boyfriend/girlfriend relationships.  Like the person who pulls the “fake emergency phone call” to get out of a date or hanging out with someone.  Or they pretend they aren’t feeling well.  I guess these could work from time to time, but since we all know about how people pull this crap, it usually doesn’t work in fooling the person they are trying to ditch.  One time, I actually had some guy pull this crap on me, but the idiot didn’t realize that the volume on his phone was high enough for me to hear the other side of the conversation …

Him:            (answers the phone call he got) Hey!
Friend:        Hey, what’s up?  You said to call you right away.  You ok?
Him:            What?  When did that happen?
Friend:        Just now. You sent me that txt
Him:            OMG! Was anyone hurt?
Friend:        Huh?
Him:            Ok, yeah, of course! Absolutely! I’ll be there as fast as I can!!
Friend:        Oohhh!!  Ok, you need to get out of a date, huh?  Ok, call me when
                   you’re out of there!

Meanwhile, I’m sitting there hearing the entire conversation, and doing my best to keep my poker face.  I didn’t confront him, because honestly, I wanted to get away from him just as much at that point! I did end up sending him a txt the next day to let him know I had heard the entire conversation, and as a word of advice, he might want to lower the volume on his calls!  LOSER!!

All of these ways of handling uncomfortable situations are bad!  All of these ways will end up causing the person that is being treated with a lack of respect to not be able to look back on the time the spent with this person with anything other than regret and hostility.  Because how can you have fond feelings for someone who maybe was great towards you for a long time, when they ruin all of that by treating you so poorly in the end?

But I’ve been thinking about this, after speaking with my friend the other day.  It made me think about what she and I had both been saying.  About how her boyfriend needed to just “grow up” and “act like an adult”.  How we were both convinced that it’s immaturity that causes people to act in this “childish” and irresponsible way.  See, the thing is though, children would probably be more “adult” in these types of situations.  They are the ones that don’t have the filters that we get as we “grow up”.  They are the ones who would straight up tell you that they don’t want to be your friend.  That they don’t like you that way.  Or that they don’t want to play with you anymore and they just want to go home.  So I am changing my statement to my friend.  Her now EX boyfriends needs to start acting like a kid and say what he means!!

Let's go to the gym to .... chat?

I work out. And I actually enjoy it. I like taking zumba and kickboxing classes. I also like to lift weights and use the machines. Going to the gym isn't something I dread.

What I don't like ... when people go to the gym and spend most of the time that they are there either chatting with their friends or glued to their phones. And they do this either during the various classes, or while sitting their lazy butts on a machine so nobody else can use the machine.

Go to Starbucks or just hang out at home if that's what you plan to do! Don't hog the machines or the weights if you just want to sit there texting. And please, for the love of all that's holy, STOP THE CONSTANT CHATTER DURING THE CLASSES!!!

I came down to Florida to visit my parents and I've been using the really nice gym facilities here. I'm very impressed with their gym and all they have in there! Plus I've been going with my Mom to her zumba classes. And guess what? It's no different down here. As a matter of fact, with the older adults here, it's even worse in some senses.

In the zumba class we were taking there is this one woman who I'll call Yolanda. I seriously think this woman has dementia. She kept shouting out the entire class. Either "singing along" with the songs (that's in qoutes because she was getting all the words wrong or singing the words a second or two after they were sung by the actual singer on the song) or just shouting out nonsense. I can't fault her though. If she has dementia, it's out of her control. In fact, I applaud that she's still active and staying relatively fit! But it was rather distracting.

But the other women in the class don't seem to realize that they're in an exercise class that's meant to exercise their bodies and not their vocal chords. I heard discussions about whether they were going to the show on Saturday, what happened at their last doctor's appointment (something that's definitely TMI for an exercise class), this really great restaurant that has an amazing early bird special,  and who just arrived as a snowbird, or who had to go into the hospital or hospice.

I know that exercising is also a social activity, but when it interferes with actually exercising, then it's a problem. The one difference down here ... with the weights and machines, you don't see people sitting there texting rather than working out. As a matter of fact, very few people use the free weights at all. At least the ones that are more than 3 pounds.

So, I guess if I'm going to work out in a gym, I'm just going to have to get used to the chatter, since it's not going to get better as I get older.