NaNoWriMo 2011 Update Week 1

Since NaNoWriMo hasn't gotten around to adding widgets that I can add to this blog that will show my word count automatically, here's an update as of November 6:

  • Total word count: 6,879
  • Days where I actually wrote something: 4 (out of 6 days)
  • Highest word count total for one day: 3,213 words (today).

I'll update again next Sunday unless NaNoWriMo gets their act together and decides to put out an official widget. :-)

Widower Wednesday: Where to Spend the Holidays

Just a reminder that the holidays will be here soon. If you have any widower-related holiday situations you’d like me to address in a Widower Wednesday column, send me an email and I’ll start posting them. Last year’s topics included Making New Holiday Traditions, How to Remember the Late Wife during the Holidays, and, Moody Holiday Widowers.

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Today I’m going to jump into one holiday topic earlier than usual because it’s already popping up on discussion boards and in my email box. The issue is how much time the widower should spend with the late wife’s family during the holidays. The situations are a little complex but here are three typical situations I’ve been seeing a lot of lately.

Situation 1: The widower has no kids or all of his kids are grown and out of the house. The widower is heading to the in-laws for the majority of the holidays and doesn’t invite the girlfriend to accompany him. When the girlfriend asks about spending time alone or with her family, widower pushes her concerns to the side and says they’ll see each other after the holidays.

My thoughts: The widower isn’t ready for a serious relationship or doesn’t consider the relationship to be on the same level as the woman he’s dating. This is a good opportunity to have a heart-to-heart talk with the widower and how you both feel about the relationship and whether or not this going to be a long term or serious deal. If you’re not on the same page, it’s a good time as any to end the relationship and move on. If the widower claims he loves and wants to spend the rest of his life with you you but insists on spending the holidays without you by his side, don’t stand around waiting for him to return. It’s time to move on.

Situation 2: The widower has minor children living at home. When the late wife was alive, it was tradition to spend the holidays with her family. Girlfriend may or may not be invited to attend. When asked to alter plans to accompany her family or her holiday traditions, the widower is resistant or hesitant to change his plans because the kids need some amount of normalcy after losing their mother.

My thoughts: One of the problems I see in long-term widower relationships is that during the first year there are issues that the girlfriend gives a pass to because. With the situation above, often I’ve seen the girlfriend not try to get to upset the first year it happens only to have the situation repeat itself again and again year after year. Instead of getting upset, this is a perfect opportunity to have conversation about holiday traditions what are the holidays going to be like next year, the year after, or five years down the road? What will happen once you’re engaged or married? Is there a concrete reason the widower won’t compromise and split time with your or your family?

The “I’m still grieving” or “I’m doing it for the kids” excuse is a cop out and a sign the widower has no backbone. Don’t fall for it. You need to figure out the real reason. Also there’s nothing wrong with him wanting to spend part of the holidays with the late wife’s family—especially if minor children are involved. However, every relationship requires some degree of compromise and if you don’t work it out early in the relationship, odds are its going keep being an issue as long as the two of you are together.

Situation 3: The girlfriend is invited to accompany him and the kids with the late wife’s family. While she doesn’t mind spending part of her holidays with them, she feels uncomfortable spending the entire holiday season with them. She wants time to get to know him and his kids better and introduce them to her family too.

My thoughts: Starting a new life often means replacing old traditions with new ones. Letting go of practices that have gone on for years can be difficult. But part of starting a new life means figuring out which ones to hold on to and which ones to replace. When I was dating Marathon Girl and our first holiday season together was approaching, we sat down decided how we wanted to spend our time during the holidays and informed my family, her family, and the late wife’s family of our plans. No one complained. A few years ago because of our growing family we altered our plans again and told my family and her family how we were spending the holidays. Again, no one complained. The result, however, has always been an enjoyable holiday season for the two of us and our children.

Ghost Pumpkins and other Random Halloween Thoughts

This Halloween season I was surprised to see that a local store selling large, white pumpkins albeit under the clever name of “ghost pumpkins.” Though I’ve seen stores selling small white pumpkins from time-to-time, this was the first times since I lived in Bulgaria that I’ve seen such big ones. (In Bulgaria, all the pumpkins are white. Orange pumpkins are unheard of.)

The kids weren’t too up on the white pumpkins so we ended up getting the traditional orange ones. Now I’m regretting that decision not to buy one. At the very least it would have been fun to harvest the seeds and grow a couple of plants next year. Besides, after looking online, white pumpkins offer some unique decorating possibilities that wouldn’t look good on orange ones.

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Speaking of Bulgaria, apparently Halloween has taken off in popularity over there. Recently I was talking to someone who just returned from there and he said that it common to see kids dress up and go around trick-or-treating and young adults attending Halloween parties. Older people still aren’t in to it. This article is a few years old but it pretty much mirrors whatI was told about Halloween in Bulgaria.

When I lived there, no one even knew what Halloween was. We started a couple of Halloween parties but the Bulgarians who did attend thought it was a silly holiday. I wish I knew what caused the popularity of it to take off. At least the kids are dressing up.

But they also do Halloween fireworks.

And have dance to traditional Bulgarian music at their Halloween parties.

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I’ll be taking Jack Sparrow, Captain Rex, a purple fairy, and a skunk out trick-or-treating tonight. I’m glad the kids are excited and the weather will be warm. Hope you all enjoy your Halloween events too.

Widower Wednesday: Listen to Your Gut

Over the weekend I got an email from a reader asking if she could write a guest Widower Wednesday column. She pitched a good idea so you’ll be seeing her post in a couple of weeks. Her email got me thinking and I’ve decided to temporarily open up my email box to queries from those who would like to contribute a WW column. It could simply be sharing your story (good or bad and what you learned from it), a guest column on a WW topic of your choice, or a response to a previous WW column I wrote. If you’re interested email me a short query and let me know what you want to share. As long as you have something worth saying, I’m happy to give you the green light to write something that will appear in a future column.

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When I was dating Jennifer (my first relationship after Krista’s death) something about the relationship never felt exactly right. I remember going home one night wondering why, among other things, that Jennifer didn’t make my heart flutter the way Krista did. But since we started dating a few months after I became a widower I ignored my feelings. I thought that my feelings would change once more time had passed and my heart had more time to heal. It wasn’t until started dating Marathon Girl that I realized that nagging feelings about Jennifer and our relationship were spot on. However, since I had never been a widower before, I made up reasons to ignore the promptings I felt every time I examined my relationship with Jennifer.

I tell this story because one of the patterns I’ve noticed in the emails I receive from GOWs and WOWs is that they often have similar gut feelings about their relationship, or at least one aspect of it, and are looking for some guidance whether or not their gut feeling is accurate. About 95 percent of the time, their gut feelings are spot on. However, because they’ve never dated a widower before they’re unsure whether or not they’re making a mountain out of a molehill or if they should even listen to their internal promptings.

A good way to figure out if there really is something behind your gut feelings is to ask yourself if you would have the same concerns if you were dating a single or divorced man. Another tip is to find a quiet spot where you can sit and think undisturbed for a period of time and run the feeling through your mind. A third way is to talk to a friend or family member whose opinion you trust and see what they have to say about your concerns. (Or These can help give you the perspective you need to decide whether there really is a problem.

So today’s recommendation is to always listen to your gut. If you feel there’s something wrong with the way the widower is treating you or the relationship in general, there’s probably is a problem. This doesn’t mean the issue can’t be resolved and solved but it does man you need to take a step back and examine the situation. In the end you’ll have to decide whether to listen to your gut, but simply ignoring it and not doing the necessary legwork to know whether or not your concern is valid is inviting disaster.

I would have saved a lot of pain and heartache for both Jennifer and myself had I listened to my gut all those years ago.  Most people have a very good sense when something isn’t right in a relationship—even if they can’t put their finger on exactly what it is. Ignore your gut feelings at your own peril.

The Ukrainian Stray Dog Problem

Apparently the Ukraine is trying to get rid of its stray dogs ahead of Euro 2012.

Animal welfare groups accuse Ukrainian authorities of using illegal and inhumane methods of killing stray dogs that cause long, agonizing deaths. They say dogs are often poisoned or injected with banned substances as officials rush to clear streets ahead of the Euro 2012 soccer championship next summer.

Euro 2012 organizers deny any involvement in a stray eradication campaign.

Full official statistics are hard to come by, but figures and estimates provided to The Associated Press by authorities in the Euro 2012 host cities of Kiev, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Lviv show more than 9,000 dogs have been put to death over the past year. Animal protection groups believe the number is far higher.

"It's a slaughterhouse," said Asya Serpinska, head of the Ukrainian Association of Animal Protection Organizations. "We are convinced that there is an unofficial order to purge Euro cities of stray animals so that, God forbid, some stray dog doesn't bite some foreigner."

Ukraine has a large stray dog population, estimated at tens of thousands in some cities. The dogs, often running in packs, can be seen on streets, in parks and even children's playgrounds. Nearly 3,000 people reported being bitten by stray dogs last year in Kiev and about 1,900 in Kharkiv, according to city officials.

On paper, officials have embraced the internationally accepted practice of sterilizing strays, then releasing them into areas where they pose no public threat, placing them in shelters or finding them homes. Sick or aggressive dogs are humanely euthanized.

But in reality, activists contend, a stray dog handled by authorities has little chance of survival. The only question, they say, is how much it will suffer before it dies. Shelters are virtually nonexistent, pet adoption unpopular and sterilization costly; most dogs are simply put down, they say.

"It's capture and kill," said John Ruane of Naturewatch, a British-based animal welfare group that monitors the situation in Ukraine. "It's just barbaric."

When I lived in Bulgaria, it wasn’t uncommon to see packs of stay dogs roaming the streets of Sofia. (It wasn’t as bad in smaller cities but still existed.) It seemed that every neighborhood had at least one or two packs of dogs that would roam the streets looking for something to eat. When I lived in an area called Lozenets, the pack lived under a balcony of a nearby apartment building. While I lived there one of the dogs gave birth to a litter of six puppies.

The dogs were anything but aggressive. If they did approach you, their heads would be down and you could tell by the skittish way they walked that they were on edge. All you had to do was raise your hand and pretend you were throwing a rock and the dogs would scatter. And they were so hungry they’d eat just about anything. Sometimes if the pack was congregating near our apartment building, we’d drop chunks of stale bread from our apartment five stories up. The dogs would woof it down like we had just thrown them pieces of raw meat. As far as I could tell, there was never any effort made by the city to round them up. Animal shelters in that part of the world were unheard of.

While I don’t know how the packs of stray dogs in the Ukraine are different than their counterparts in Bulgaria, I don’t understand why animal rights activists are upset that the dogs are being killed. While I don’t condone the inhumane methods of killing stray dogs mentioned in the article, having packs of dogs run wild on the streets isn’t good for anyone. The dogs in Sofia were filthy, disease ridden, and looked like they were constantly starving. I don’t see why they be treated any better in the Ukraine. Simply sterilizing strays and releasing them “into areas where they pose no public threat” like the animal rights activists want just stops them from reproducing. It does nothing to feed or shelter the animals. Releasing serialized animals and letting them fend for themselves doesn’t strike me as being that humane.

Sadly, like Bulgaria, it appears the stay dog problem is more of a cultural issue than anything. Unless Ukrainians are willing to invest in real animal shelters and humanly euthanize the dogs, it’s going to return and persist long after Euro 2012 is over.

Life Imitates The Third IX

From the news wires:

In the Indian state of Kerala, the Kerala Women’s Code Bill proposes imposing birth-control measures to decrease population growth. Enforcement of this bill would include fines or three months in jail for parents who have more than two children. Any additional child would not be eligible for government services such as health and education services. In addition, free and medically safe abortions and contraceptives would be provided at government facilities.

The World of The Third:

In 2065 it's illegal to have more than two children. Parents who have a third child without a proper credit face fines and jail time as well has higher taxes. Free birth control is available at all government facilities and is mandatory after the birth of a second child.

Read the first chapter.

Widower Wednesday: Widowers and Hookers

Note: As many of you know the order for personalized copies of Dating a Widower have overwhelmed supply. My latest shipment of books has finally arrived and all orders have now been fulfilled. Thanks to everyone for your patience. This time I ordered enough extra copies to meet deman for the next several weeks so if you order one, it will ship within 48 hours.

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From the email inbox comes the following:

I’ve been dating a widower for a couple months now. I recently learned that while his wife as on her deathbed he was posting online ads soliciting sex. After her death he “dated” a few high-end escorts. He said he was grieving, lonely, and didn’t want a relationship. The other day it came to my attention that during our relationship he has sought out other escorts though I don’t know if he’s met up with any. Is this normal grieving widower behavior?  He’s a great guy and very generous. I am hesitant to confront him but am very concerned for my physical health. Any ideas on how to bring this up?

No, soliciting prostitutes not normal grieving widower behavior. I know a lot of widowers and to my knowledge none of them have had to pay women for sex. They may have rushed into relationships before they were to get serious, but they weren’t out throwing money high end escorts or paying $20 street hookers on some seedy part of town either. Your BFs thing for hookers has nothing to do with grief and everything to do with sex. He’s using grief to justify his actions.

The fact that he cheated on his dying wife and might be cheating on you makes me think that this isn’t something he’s just been doing recently. He’s probably been soliciting sex a long before his wife got sick. Odds are he’ll continue to solicit sex (and probably meet up with them occasionally) even if becomes “serious” with you.  The question for you is would you tolerate this kind of behavior from a guy who was single or divorced? If not, why are you putting up with it now?

Finally, high class escorts can carry the same STDs as street hookers. By tolerating this behavior you’re putting your physical health at risk every time you sleep with him. So unless you want to get an STD, or something worse, stop sleeping with him immediately. The widower may be a great guy in lots of other ways, but is getting the latest strain of something really worth it?

So how do you broach the subject? Confront him with whatever evidence you have. Don’t beat around the bush. Just be sure your stuff is packed up ahead of time. Odds are he’ll admit his misdeeds and promise to change but all cads are good at acting contrite when necessary. You’re a queen. You can do better than someone who needs to sleep with hookers.