Author: caitlinemccann

Spirited Away

/ caitlinemccann / 8 Comments

PetSmart is a trap that I have no desire to escape from. The journey is inevitable. I have two miniature schnauzer, Sadie and Oliver, and in the nature of living things, my dogs require food. Hunting said food down is rather simple, but the dangers of my hunt are quite different from the cave people of old. No, my dangers are cute and fluffy because when we have time to go get their kibble (which by the way is a huge bag of a specific brand to aid in small dog digestion) is invariably on the weekends. And what happens on the weekends at PetSmart? Adoption days.

It never fails. I go to that back, right wall of the PetSmart and there is a group from some organization or another with adorable dogs and cats. Ever since I was a child, I fall hopelessly in love with one of these small animals with the full knowledge that I cannot take them home. I mope for days after. Part of me still wants a life that entails the end scene of 101 Dalmatians (the live version) where Roger and Anita have a huge manse on the hill and their countryside is covered in darling, adorable dogs. I told my boyfriend that plan this afternoon and he said no as kindly as possible. It’s funny, but my mother did the same thing when I proposed the idea at the age of six. I simply think their logic is flawed. But I digress.

Today was certainly no different. I fell in love. Absolutely in love with a puppy named Spirit. She was in a small cage stacked on top of another cage, curled up on her red fleece blanket. She looked so unbelievably shy and fragile. I stuck my fingers into the cage and let her sniff, gaining her approval with a nuzzle. Her coat was mostly black with tan paws and cheeks–clearly some German Shepard in her blood. One of the volunteers, Melinda, approached and simply unlocked the cage. “Go on, pet her. You know you want to,”she said. Spirit’s tail wagged cautiously. A small part of my brain screamed IT’S A TRAP, but I can’t resist.

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If you can resist this face then you are made of sterner stuff than me.

I gently stroked that soft puppy fur but was alarmed at how thin Spirit was. I could feel the ridges of her spine as I stroked her back,so so small as she glanced up at me timidly with her brown eyes. Melinda told me Spirit was positively fat compared to when she first took her in. Melinda was fostering Spirit and told me this was her first adoption outing. She’d been feeding Spirit with a bottle, trying to put more weight on. Spirit was the runt of the litter and lost food opportunities to siblings that would push her out-of-the-way or attack. [I cannot even try to resist a runt. My dog Oliver is a runt. My dog before him, Zeke, was a runt. You want to talk about a soft spot in my heart, there it is.] I stood there petting Spirit, falling more in love by the second, my eyes welling up with tears as I listened to Melinda tell me about this little dog.

Melinda works for an amazing group called the Dent County Animal Welfare Society (DCAWS).  She told me she fosters mostly small medical needs cases like Spirit, but that’s not all that the group specializes in.DCAWS takes in homeless cats and dogs as well as rescues animals. They come to the Brentwood PetSmart in St. Louis, MO once or twice a month for adoption drives but also have a thriving online adoption program. They’ve placed animals out of state and have even found homes as far as Canada, so don’t be shy! I’m posting several links below.

Spirit completely won me over with her, well, spirit. She was so calm and loving, her tail wagging as I continued to pet her. Melinda asked if I would like to take her outside. She said Spirit hadn’t really been out in the grass and the sunshine since being fostered. At this point I was so mushy over this little dog that saying no wasn’t even a vocabulary word. Melinda warned me that I’d have to carry Spirit (oh, the hardship) because they didn’t want to overextend her. So I cuddled little Spirit close to my chest and got a leash on her. The noises of passing cars made Spirit nervous, but once I got her on the grass the noise didn’t seem to matter. She stood up for a moment, took a few steps, laid back down, and luxuriated in the feel of grass.

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Grass is good.

I could not get over how thin Spirit was. It broke my heart knowing how much care this dog needed, nay, deserved, and that I couldn’t afford to give it to her. I just kept stroking her soft fur and cooing to her about how much I would love to take her home and make her fat and happy. Spirit’s response was to roll on her back and let me rub her tummy. This is yes in the dog language if my translation is correct.

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Me and my puppy love.

Much as I would have liked to head for the hills with this little dog in my arms, I had to return her to her proper home. I’d like to think Spirit’s time in the grass did her some good though. She was already more alert and wagged her tail more readily. It pained me to put that puppy back in her cage. I have been sighing ever since. But the true point of this post is to find someone who can take care of Spirit as I cannot. Someone needs to adopt this dog and love her until she is properly pudgy. If you can’t tell, she’s incredibly lovable. I showed pictures to my boyfriend and my grandmother and both fell instantly in love. If we could take her it would be a done deal. But DCAWS has so many sweet and truly darling animals that are begging for a good home. I asked Melinda if I might take some pictures to post here just to spread the word.

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This beauty’s name is Rachel.

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The calico is Cheyenne and the grey fellow is Louie. 

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I didn’t catch his name but look how cute! 

DCAWS is based out of Salem, MO but again they have placed animals across state lines and even in Canada, so don’t let that stop you from checking them out. The best part is DCAWS is a nearly no kill shelter. They placed 906 animals last year and only euthanized one. Those statistics are pretty fabulous if you ask me. DCAWS does a lot of good in their community, and I told Melinda I would love to volunteer the next time they did a PetSmart adoption drive. So next time I’ll be part of the trap, but I won’t feel guilty if I help snare you.

Check out their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/DCAWS

And here is the link to their official site: http://www.dcaws.org/

June, July, and August

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These days, the thing that is consuming my life beyond measure is graduate school. I’ll be heading out to Chapman University at the end of the summer to begin working on my masters degree in film studies. If only it were as simple as showing up and studying. I’ve got to find an apartment, find a job, and mostly move my entire existence out of Saint Louis, Missouri and into Orange, California. It’s a hectic process, one you’ll probably be hearing a lot about in the next few weeks.

In tearing through my life here and this small house I’ve called home, I have managed to dredge up so many memories, particularly ones from high school. I’ve been thinking back to those teachers that really changed my life and helped me get to where I am now. Honestly, there were several. I was very lucky to go to Webster Groves High School. In 1999, Time Magazine put WGHS on its cover, the centerfold story describing a week at the high school. The article pegged us as the quintessential middle American high school, but if you ask any of the teachers who were there for the journalist’s interviews, the piece isn’t entirely true to the WGHS experience. My time there was served from 2004-2008, but I knew many of the teachers featured in the magazine.

I could not be more grateful to have gone to Webster Groves as a high school student. Was it perfect? God, no! High school in and of itself is a rare form of hell, a gauntlet which all teens must pass. But what makes me glad to be a Statesman (yep, that was our mascot. Top hat and a cane. Fear us.) is the opportunities I had as a student. WGHS is home to some classes that wouldn’t make the cut at most high schools. Forensic science, personal finance, psychology, Latin, creative writing, and film appreciation were all things I took in high school.

Today, it’s the last two on that list that concern me. Creative writing and film appreciation have become driving forces in my life since high school. Both were taught by one man, Mr. Leftridge. He was one of my favorite teachers. Leftridge was young, delightfully loud, with a born announcer’s voice, and blessedly quirky. He once told me there are three reasons people become teachers: June, July, and August. I can honestly say that this nutter of a man changed my life in a major way.

Poetry had been something I loved writing since about sixth grade (another fantastic teacher there, Mr. Waters), but I guess I didn’t see much of a future in being a poet at the time. Leftridge’s creative writing class drastically changed all that. Not only did he get me to value my abilities as a writer and think of myself as a poet, but he forced me to try other styles. In that class we wrote it all, we were even required to submit a weekly blog of 500 words or more. I lay this impulse to blog even now at Leftridge’s door. He also introduced me to the idea of writing a one-act play. My piece “Advising the Afterlife” about a demon and an angel fighting over a soul to fulfill their quotas has been performed twice since 2008; I started that one-act after taking his creative writing class. Me being a creative writing major in college is due in large part to Leftridge’s influence.

But it’s his film appreciation course that really did me in. Mr. Leftridge told everyone straight up that this would not be an easy A just because it involved film. Challenge accepted. And he threw down. There were weekly quizzes about the material covered, minutiae level stuff that you could not get if you didn’t study, and two big movie reviews. But I was in heaven. We started with clips of early films: Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), Alan Crosland’s The Jazz Singer (1927), and D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915). We also covered all the major genres, and worked our way up from the classics to modern day. That class was absolutely phenomenal. I got introduced to some of my favorite movies like Casablanca and Singing In the Rain. It was really the first time I thought about film and its relevance–movies as more than just a blockbuster experience. Yet, it wasn’t until college that I actually believed I could build my life around my two biggest passions, writing and film. Now, I’m going to be working towards a degree in film studies. Sometimes that still blows my mind.

I’ve had so many awe inspiring teachers and professors along the way, and will likely know more as I continue my education. But I give special credit to Mr. Leftridge for fostering my two loves in life and giving me the opportunity to experience them. If you couldn’t tell, I’m an immensely sentimental person. So as I sit here starting a new blog and headed towards a new life, I couldn’t help but think about what got me to this place. Too often we forget those teachers or professors that inspired us along the way. I sent Mr. Leftridge an email today thanking him for all that he has done. There were so many educators from WGHS in particular who helped me become me, that I don’t think it will be my last email or letter of thanks.

Blergh It’s A Blog

/ caitlinemccann / 2 Comments

I have a nasty tendency to second guess myself. I have been dithering on the subject of a blog for months. I questioned which system to use: blogspot or wordpress. Perhaps it’s a tad obvious, but I went with wordpress. I’m a bit intimidated by the system because wordpress looks so complicated, but I’m braving it. I shall dither no more! Thus, I have a blog. I talked myself into it. As fair warning, expect profanity (on occasion), wit (when I can manage it), and a mild tendency to ramble.

The other major monster I had to tackle was subject matter. What did I want to talk about? Um…everything? I suffer from what I affectionately term writer’s ADD. Poetry, film, pop culture, books, random opinions–I want to write about it all. There are always subjects that I circle back to because they’re my passions, but I didn’t want to limit myself to a single subject. So I’ll be going wherever the muse takes me. Here’s to hoping she’s a decent navigator!