The Secret Garden of forgotten birthdays

It's a bummer, forgotten birthdays are the worst, the forgotten-er feels the tremendous amount of guilt and the forgotten-nee feels the cold shoulder. Then there is that awkwardness that dwells around the whole day and even forces the meanest people to be nice for that one special day. Unfortunately I am one of those people who forgot a birthday today, it's my co-worker's birthday and i forgot it. The shame! I felt really bad since she gave me a 100 dollars for my birthday and have been so nice to me though out the year.

Can forgotten birthdays separate friendships, relationships and even family ties? Just because of that one day can it drive people apart?

From my personal experience I believe it does. I had a friend who considered me her best friend but to me she was one of those friend who I felt that only called or messaged me when she needed something from me. So when I didn't text or call on her birthday she got upset and that ended our friendship.

So in conclusion, we threw my co-worker a party in the end and she appreciated it, she didn't want one from us but it was something that we felt like we needed to do. Birthday cupcakes, tiaras and sashes were involved, she looked pretty.

The Secret Garden of customers we hate

It's unavoidable, they are everywhere and they keep coming back...

Yes, you guess it, customers - annoying, rude, arrogant customers. Age and gender doesn't matter, nor does race, height or size; they come in different forms and share the same mind crushing characteristics. They enter the "DO NOT ENTER" zones, they pull, push, fondle with things that clearly says "DO NOT TOUCH", they demand that they get their money back after opening and re-taping back their products, and they always want things to be accommodated to them.

I really feel sorry for cashiers, I swear they have it the worst because it's dealing with money. I work as a front desk clerk so I feel their pain, it's exhausting trying to deal with them. And how we deal with them is a even bigger headache, of course we can't yell at them or just bang their heads against the table, no that's unprofessional. All we can do is talk to them in a reasonable manner which is torture!

Things would be so much easier if there was a guidebook about how to handle these things, a little black book that has step by step instructions on how to talk to the patients calmly and not offending them so that they will leave immediately, how wonderful would our lives be if that existed? Unfortunately that is too good to be true and life would be drama-less if we had one of those books so that's why we have to learn to deal with these kinds of things the hard way.

One time I was working at the clinic and this woman demanded to see Rosie, for those of you who don't know Rosie is my boss/mother's dog and she is just precious. Rosie usually sleeps in her bed right next to my desk where patients are not allowed to come in. So this patient decides that she wants to pet her while she is sleeping and comes barging in to the employees only area, so I stopped her and said "I'm sorry but this is an employees only area," then she gives me the most coldest look and says " I only want to see the dog, I'm not doing anything." Usually my older sister who is more masculine handles these kinds of situations but she is in South Carolina for her training at the Army Base. So for a good 5 minutes I repeated the sentence over until she gave up and sat down. Then the next week she came back for her treatment and she does it again! Why? Why does this woman keep doing this? Honestly I don't know, but what I do know is that there are unreasonable people out there who have absolutely no common sense. We can't control the peoples' stupidity, all we can do is control ourselves and perform the appropriate actions to the customers. It's frustrating, I know, sometimes I want to slap them upside the head and most of the time I imagine that in my head and it helps me to put a smile on my face while I deal with them.

Bad customers are a pain in the neck and from personal experiences, do whatever it is that make you feel better but never NEVER use ice cream as an outlet for your feelings - they go straight to the thighs.

The Secret Garden for the love of Dogs

We all have reached a point in our lives where we love another person, cared for another person and done everything in our power to keep that person happy. It's exactly like that only it's about a dog, the big question is "Is that normal?" Honestly where do we draw the line between loving a dog and being completely obssessed about it? My dog Rosie is a tiny little shitzu and she is spoiled to the max, she has never been on a leash nor has she ever walked on a street. For her birthdays she get an overly expensive Juicy Couture doggy carrier with embedded crystals and an imitation sheep skin blanket so her precious little body won't be tossed around in the carrier.

What could possibly be the reason why people do these things? Actually better yet, why is it that my mother do these ridiculous things to the poor little dog? She needs to be freed, run wild with her tongue flapping out of her mouth and bark at helpless birds. Is it love or is it being too attached? Or even worse, believing that dumping on mountains of designer products for a dog will bring them love?

So that leads to a new question: How far will people go to keep their dogs "happy"?

I work at an acupuncture clinic so there are loads of people who adore Rosie and spoils her every time they come to the clinic for their treatment. One of our patients have brought her doggy dresses while the other brought her chopped sweet potatoes in a little container. Talk about high maintenance, Rosie DOES NOT drink warm water nor does she drink water that has been sitting out for more than 2 hours. How would she know if it's been sitting out that long, no one knows.

I swear she is not a canine, she is a reincarnation of a princess who died from having all of her excessive unnecessary objects falling on her when she opened her closet; her excessively, unnecessarily, ginormous closet.

Rosie refuses to eat eggs, shrimp, certain types of fish, soy sauce, and all cream cheeses except the vegetable garden cream cheese along with her toasted bagel. Surprisingly my mother accommodates to her ridiculous needs and spoon feeds her the food during dinner time.

I wonder how many people feel like their parents/spouses dogs have been picked over themselves because I certainly feel like that. Which makes me question the whole purpose of having a dog, isn't having a kid enough? I always thought the whole purpose of having a dog is to be a watch dog, at least I think so? Don't get me wrong I love dogs, it was my idea to get Rosie and it was my money that got her to our house. But it's gotten to he point where she has taken our fur jackets and seat cushions for her personal needs. What about my fur jacket needs?!

Maybe one day there will be a law against unfair jacket stealing for dogs.

That would be just delightful.

Live as you wish

Take a breath, stop... Hold it, count to 10, breathe out. Every time I do this I feel energized, as if that big breath of air filled up my soul and recharged it to it's normal state. Then I get to thinking, am I doing everything that I wanted to do? I'm 18 years old now, did I accomplish everything that I wanted to accomplish by the time I reached this age? And the answer is always no. This very ritual keeps me going, my own energizer bunny, the beating to my drum that motivates me to push on and on until my very last day.

Remembering my first day of American school, which was my first day of 2nd grade and I was clueless as the sheep that got separated from Mary. My first assignment was to write my name and what I want to be when I grew up, I was going to write that I wanted to be a veterinarian but instead I wrote "I want to grow up and be like my mommy." Now 10 years has passed and I'm still on that same path but is it the path that I want to take? My mother is an acupuncturist, I have been working at her clinic for about a year now and the more I think about it I don't like the environment. Dealing with the patients and doing what I do, I'm not so sure if acupuncture is the way to go for me, I mean I appreciate it and acupuncture actually does work but I don't know if that's my "dream job".

When we live do we really live to the fullest? Sometimes I say that it's because I don't have the time for it and that I don't have that kind of opportunity to go for it. We are always going to have a reason or excuse for not following our dreams and goals but it's not our environment that keeps us from breaking free, it's ourselves that's holding us back.

I love to write, I might be any good but I love it, I want to write and I want to continue writing. My life was set up for me where I didn't have a say in what college I wanted to go to or if I wanted to live in another state so I blamed my unsatisfied life on those reasons. But I realized that I have more than enough chances to do what I want to do because no one can live my life for me and the more I accepted that I gained more confidence. After telling my mother that I wanted to go to the mainland for school, of course she was against this but in the end she agreed that it would be a good experience for me to have.

How we live our life is up to us, as simple as that.

Who in the world said that we can't?