Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.

I'm really glad I wrote the previous entry when I did. Nathan let me know it was time on November 15th, and I was kissing his sweet head when he drew his last, peaceful doggy breath. Up until the last day, he was smiling and shadowing me, if slowly and with extra effort. In fact, he was like that until the last few hours.

Thanks for the good times, old man.

The kids were going to their dad's that night, and I let them know Nathan was probably not going to make it. So they were able to say their goodbyes, and I was able to be the grownup and make the decision to help him before he was suffering too much. Outside the vet's office, I sat with him in the car an extra moment, listening to the sublime irony of R.E.M.'s "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" playing on the radio.

My wonderful vet, Dr. Speas, stayed after office hours for us and Dan and I were both there. Anyone who's had to make that decision knows how sad and painful it is. My friends, I will not revisit that scene, because I have cried enough and I know you did too, when it was your time.

Since he's been gone, there have been a number of very interesting and serendipitous events. I'll be writing about them soon. Stay tuned and thanks to all my readers for your compassion and support.

Much love to you all.

(title quote by great American philosopher Dr. Seuss.)

In Praise of the Old Dog

Are you kidding me? Who could resist that face?

Once upon a time, there was a woman who wanted to have a baby. This proved to be a difficult thing, and when the doctors told her they couldn’t figure it out, she said to her husband:

“Well, if we can’t have a baby, can we at least get a dog?”

So with the same fervor she had once reserved for studying fertility books, she set about researching dog breeds. They wanted a big dog – her husband wanted a Boxer – but they had a small yard. One day, as she pored over her dog books, the little Corgi caught her eye.

But not the Pembroke Welsh Corgi, the more popular tan-and-white fluffball with no tail, the Queen’s dog of choice. No, she noticed the lesser-known Cardigan Welsh Corgi: larger than the Pembroke, in more colors, and sporting a splendid brush of a tail. Hm, she thought, this is a dog who thinks he is big, but has little stubby legs. Just right for our yard.

There happened to be a Cardigan breeder in a nearby town, so the man and the woman went out for a visit. As soon as she saw the sweet smiley-faced big-eared dogs, she was in love. And so, not too much later, they found themselves matched up with a little brindle boy of their very own.

They named him Nathan Junior, after her favorite movie, Raising Arizona. Nathan Junior is the name of the baby stolen by Hi and Ed when they could not have one of their own. So the name was ripe with meaning.

They loved their little Nathan Junior. He was sweet and happy and made them laugh. He came with them to parties, and their friends fawned over him, because he just had something special. People had never seen a dog quite like him: a long stout body, but with short legs and big feet, giant bat-ears crowning his head, and that thick sweep of a tail. Nathan was a show-quality dog, brindle-brown with a white ruff and beautiful symmetrical markings on his face. But they didn’t show him; he was their devoted pet.

The woman was very happy with her new companion. And then – when Nathan was just about to graduate from puppy kindergarten – she found out she was pregnant.

Now fast forward 14 years. Nathan has been by her side through not just one but three babies, all of whom he treated with patience and love. Nathan moved with the family to California, where after a time the woman and her husband divorced, and his unfaltering devotion and happy doggy smile helped her and the kids get through it. He was loved, inexplicably and for all her life, by a black cat named Alabama, until she died last August. He now has a vivacious two-year-old rescue mutt named Clementine as his constant companion.

Nathan is old now. He's hard of hearing and has cataracts. He barks a little too loudly, as if to say, “I’m still here… right?” The beautiful symmetrical markings on his face are spotted with grey hairs. The damp, leathery surface of his nose has spots that are hardened and dry.

Recently he has developed a pronounced head-tilt, which the vet says is a sign of neurological damage: maybe a stroke, a tumor, or just old age. He looks at the woman with his head cocked to almost 90 degrees. Sometimes his tongue lolls out of the side of his mouth. He can’t always get those stubby back legs underneath him without help, so sometimes he pulls himself around with his front legs, cheerfully, like it’s no big deal that he's dragging his butt. He still asks to go outside and can walk, with help, to do his business.

Now that he’s old, he sleeps a lot, but always in the room she is in. If she leaves the room for more than a few minutes, he struggles to his feet to find her. “Oh Nathan,” she coos, “you’re my little shadow. Come on, let’s go lie down in here,” and she strokes his graying hair and kisses his big ears.

And he sleeps.

The woman doesn’t know how many more days or weeks or months she will be able to look up from her writing and see him snoozing across the room. She cares for him as if he’s a beloved grandpa in hospice care. She spends extra moments beside him rubbing his tummy and thinks about the years they’ve had. She is not the same woman who cuddled a brindle pup near a whelping pad at the breeder’s home: she has lived through the bliss of her babies’ birth and the heartache of a failed marriage; moved across the country and started her life completely over, watching her fortunes rise and tumble; lost old friends and found new ones; helped her children grow into young vibrant human beings; and even found a new love.

And every day he has been there, the big-eared smiley-faced dog, wanting nothing more than her presence and a good meal and the occasional cookie. The thought of losing him lies dormant now in her mind. She knows it is coming, but she's waiting until the very last moment before she must face it. For now, he is comfortable. For now, she wants only to remember what a good dog he has been. So she writes about him now, because she doesn’t want to write after he’s gone.

And he is there, snoozing across the room, one stumpy foot twitching as he chases squirrels in dream land, one giant bat ear to the ceiling. There's an old Irish proverb that says “a dog owns nothing, yet is seldom dissatisfied.”

He owns one thing and always will. He owns my heart completely. I will love you forever, Nathan Junior, the best dog ever.

Cornerstone's Nathan Junior, eight months old, was the star of our Christmas card in 1996. 
You can see why I was so crazy about him. Look at that smile! Look at those mitts!

Class of '80 iMix

Well, I'm not through living in the past just yet. The music at our class reunion came from my own iPod; by popular demand I've published an iMix, and about 3/4ths of the songs are on here. (iTunes won't allow songs from your personal music collection to go on an iMix.) You can buy 'em or just copy the list down.

Here's the link. Boom boom... out go the lights!

Voted Most Fun to Be With

(Note: the following story is COMPLETELY fictional, and all the names have been TOTALLY changed, because why would I – a mature, responsible mother of three – ever admit to engaging in behavior of this sort?)

As the evening of our 30^th High School Reunion wore on, Paul would sidle up to one or a few of us and say, “so, ya going tagging with us tonight?” And even though most people scoffed at him and dismissed it as another one of his crackpot ideas, no one really doubted that Paul was going to follow through. That’s just Paul.

He pulled a can of red spray paint out of his car and started shaking it, the look on his face exactly like a hyperactive 8-year-old boy who is conspiring to steal all the cookies – not one cookie, all of them. Late into the night, a group of the curious congregated at one of the plastic patio tables on the outdoor deck.

“Okay. I’m gonna need three lookouts.” Paul grew more animated as he started hatching his elaborate plan. “Dan? You in? Okay, you’re one of my lookouts. Now. Here’s what we do. First we’ll drop the lookouts off and you climb up to the top of the underpass, one on each side. Got it? Okay. Okay. And we’ll need a signal.” He was pacing back and forth as he talked, swinging his arms and gesturing broadly, really putting on a show. “Right. A LOUD signal, you guys, I’m serious. I need to hear you.”

“What happens after you drop off the lookouts?” someone asked.

“Okay. Then we swing around” — he jerked his body in a 180, hands holding an invisible steering wheel – “and when everybody’s in place, I’ll jump out and do the deed. Amie, you’ll keep the car running right there. Then we’ll get the fuck outta there and swing back” – another 180 – “for the lookouts.”

He stuck his head forward as he looked at us, raising his eyebrows, looking for a sign that we understood his plan. He did not get one.

“How many people are we talking about, here?” I asked, trying to figure him out. Which was something I had never succeeded in doing since the day I met him in 9^th grade.

“Right.” He started pacing again. “Three lookouts on top. Two on the road, one for each side. Driver. Me. That’s what, eight?”

“Seven.”

“Seven. Right.” His pacing grew more energetic, almost a line dance he was doing alone. “Okay. Now, a signal. It’s got to be loud, people! Loud!” And with that he cupped his hand alongside his mouth and looked off into the distance, yowling in a booming, high-pitched voice,

“GookgookgookGOOOOOP!”

He looked back at us with that raised eyebrow again, and as a group, we collapsed in laughter. Which is, of course, Paul’s drug of choice. So he raised his hand again.

“GookgookgookGOOOOOP! GoopityGOOOP!”

The people at the other end of the patio, fifty feet away, turned to look at this 48-year-old man in an oversized tie-dyed t-shirt, hopping around like a loopy bird doing a twisted mating call. I had tears squeezing out of the corners of my eyes and bent over to try to stop laughing.

“Paul the goop-goop bird,” deadpanned Brian, sitting next to me.

“An exotic, endangered species native to West Chester, Ohio!” I sputtered.

One of the nominated lookouts told Paul there was no way he was going to yell goopity goop from the top of the West Chester Road underpass at 2 in the morning. There was agreement that the plan would have to be modified.

And so after way too much discussion, during which every single one of us wondered “would Paul notice if we just got in our car and snuck off?”, the hooligans were narrowed down to five. I was among them.

As we got ready to leave the bar, I noticed Paul had gone missing. When he returned to go over the plan, his eyes were pink.

“You’ve been smoking weed,” I said.

His Rodney Dangerfield eyes widened in mock surprise. He paused and then said, “Why on earth would you say that?”

“Because you smell like weed.”

“Oh. Well, there’s that.”

We left a small group of intrigued classmates, along with Dan, my husband, in the parking lot of the nearby Waffle House. Amie was driving, her husband Tom in front. He, along with Cam, would be the lookouts. Paul would commit the actual crime. I had the camera to document the action.

All the way there we made cracks about who would post bail if the West Chester cops came along. We even passed one on the road, so we knew they were out. As the others made jokes about a bunch of almost-fifty-year-olds getting arrested, I wondered what on earth had possessed me to come along on another one of Paul’s crazy batshit schemes, 30 years after we had graduated together. 

But that was Paul. He had always been the guy who made everyone laugh. Senior year he was voted Most Fun To Be With, probably unanimously. We were drama geeks together; sophomore year, we put on a home-grown production of “M*A*S*H”, based on the television show. Paul was the only guy who offered to play Klinger, earning him the nickname Man In A Dress for the rest of his high school career. He would drive us around in his Big Blue Boat and yell “Baja!” and swerve up onto the dirt, laughing maniacally. He became so close with my family, my mom used to call him her third son. He was like a brother to me; the little devil that sat on my shoulder and easily, confidently pushed me out of the box.

And now here we were 30 years later, me and my emotionally stunted third brother, about to perform a misdemeanor crime at the old underpass where high school kids in our hometown have been making their mark for decades.

Meanwhile back at the Waffle House, a couple of drunks pushed each other out of the door, threatening to really fuck each other up. Another guy moseyed over to Dan and Brian and introduced himself. There are two kinds of people in a Waffle House after the bars close: drunk and fighting, or drunk and friendly.

“I just ordered a giant potpourri of food in there, man,” said the drunk guy.

Brian considered the statement for a moment and decided to go ahead and take him on. “Well, you know, the word ‘potpourri’ generally refers to perfume or scented dried flowers.”

The drunk guy looked taken aback. Dan added, “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘cornucopia’.”

Drunk Guy brightened immediately. “Yeah, that’s it!” he said, and went back inside to enjoy his cornucopia of two a.m. eggs and pancakes.

There were no cars to be seen on West Chester Road. Amie pulled up right inside the tunnel and Paul yelled “go! go! go!” and we tumbled out.

Cam took the front and Tom took the back. I had the camera ready to go and as Paul got to work, I snapped away.

C. (Snap.)

L. A. S. (Snap.)

S…

“Car!” yelled Cam.

“Back in the car! Back in the car!” Paul hollered, and ran for the back seat.

“Where’s Cam?”

“I don’t know. Go! Go!” Tom and I piled in and Amie took off. The oncoming car had caught up to us by then and she pulled down a side street, turned around and went back, all of us hooting at the adrenaline rush.

Back in the tunnel we yelled for Cam, who had jumped into the bushes when the car came, and Paul shook the can.

CLASS OF

WAS HERE

I snapped away as he sprayed a huge 80 on the left side of his writing. As soon as he was done he ran for the car. Tom and I jumped in and we both said to him,

“80 CLASS OF WAS HERE? Why’d you do it like that?”

Cam hopped in and we sped off, Paul’s bizarre choice of graffiti layout left behind us. Elated and relieved, we joined our comrades in the Waffle House parking lot, shouting victory and showing the photos of the deed in progress. The five of us posed for pictures and were almost immediately exposed as criminals on Facebook via Paul’s Blackberry.

Two days later, I was safely on a plane back to the west coast. I nestled into my travel pillow and closed my eyes while Dan flipped through a magazine next to me. At the other end of the flight, my everyday life waited for me: three kids, two dogs, a too-small house, the new school year and the PTA. But at that moment, I was a fugitive from the law; seventeen again, with tales to tell of friendships old and new, bars we closed down, fireworks and riverboats. So many new memories.

You could even call it a cornucopia. 

This is a totally photoshopped image of a person who does not really exist, in front of a fictional work of vandalism. Really.

 

Happy Talk

If you ask me, there's been a little too much discord out there lately. I’ve gotten into a few too many ideological debates on Facebook (okay, even one is too many for me, really, gives me such a headache). I’ve recently received two "chain" e-mails on subjects that raise my hackles, from people who either don’t know me very well or don’t care if it raises my hackles. In the news today, there was yet another story of suicide bombers killing American soldiers, another billboard somewhere comparing Obama to Stalin and Hitler, and oh my gosh, don’t forget the oil spill in the Gulf. On top of that, it was 103 degrees in Burbank today as I ran my usual errands. And that got me to thinking.

How do we not go crazy train these days?

So here's what I did. In a fit of defiance against the barrage of bad stuff, I started thinking about the little things that make my life happy. And it’s my blog so I’m writing it all down and perhaps you, dear reader, will start to think about the good things in your life. And so, in no particular order, these are some things that make me happy:

•  Morning coffee from my French press. I’m serious, it’s the best way to make coffee. You should get one.

•  Playing peek-a-boo with other people’s babies in stores and restaurants. Especially if the parents aren’t looking. I have no qualms about making goofy faces in public, as long as it makes a baby smile.

•  Watching Dan fall asleep on the couch while we’re watching television. He’s just so darn cute. And then he wakes up with a start and says, “I’m a little tired!” like this is news. So darn cute.

•  Listening to the Classic Rewind channel on Sirius radio in my car (channel 15). I'm listening to David Lee Roth do that wild shriek in “Running With The Devil”, which transports me in time to the back of the bus in high school, where that cute but slightly dangerous senior blasted it from a tape deck. Oh, heavens, he looked just like that stoner dude Dawson from Dazed and Confused (green shirt, below). He never knew I had a crush on him. Since now I can’t even remember his name, I guess he never will.

 All right, check ya later!

•  Related: Dazed and Confused. And Grosse Pointe Blank, and The Big Lebowski, and Raising Arizona. Among some others. I like the funny movies.

•  Picking up my daughters from camp or school and Claire leaps into my arms, not caring that I now have a 48-year-old lower back. And I don’t care either. (Until later.)

•  The hummingbirds at the feeder outside my kitchen window.

•  A cool California evening spent on the back porch with the fountain on, sharing a glass of good red wine with my neighbor Irene. Or maybe one of her killer raspberry martinis. (But only one.)

•  Spending time with my new friends in the We Don’t Suck writing group. Because they are smart and talented and they think I am too. Which is awesome.

•  Sweet potato fries. Dipped in ranch dressing.

•  Reconnecting with a couple of old friends on Facebook. Especially Karen, who sent me some Skyline Chili. If you are not from Cincinnati, I’m sorry, you will not get what a big deal that is.

 

•  Speaking of Cincinnati: oh, how happy I am when the Bengals win! This, of course, is tempered by the frequency of their losses. But that’s another blog post.

•  Related: I love football. American football.

•  Related: Dhani Tackles the Globe on the Travel Channel. Best show on television. (That's super hunky Dhani over there.)

 

•  AirTalk with Larry Mantle on KPCC. Especially FilmWeek on Fridays at 11 a.m. He is the smartest guy on the radio and he talks about everything and has fascinating guests. And it’s usually not politics, but if it is, he is Switzerland, if you know what I mean. You can listen online at kpcc.org or on iTunes radio.

•  Sedona, Arizona. My favorite place. Especially hiking the Red Rocks with Dan.

•  Related: Dry saunas.

•  Volunteering in the girls’ classrooms, teaching them art through the Meet the Masters program. At the end of this past year, I received a big thank you note signed by the second graders. Kate wrote: I like you a lot. Seriously, does it get any better than that?

•  Shopping at Von’s and having my stuff rung up by Aaron, who babysits my kids. He is working his way through UCLA – working his ass off – and he is smart and kind and hard-working. Basically, the kind of young person who gives me hope for the future. So it’s always nice to see him. He always asks me how the kids are doing.

•  I love it when my son Charlie, who is 13 and pretty much wants nothing to do with me, comes out of his cave to tell me something funny that happened. He has a great smile, that kid.

•  I also love hearing him play the piano. And watching him. Makes my heart want to burst.

•  Okay, I’ll say it: I love it when the kids are with their dad for a whole week in the summer, so I can be totally self-absorbed and go shopping, and then do the annual clean-and-purge in the girls’ room. (Yes, seriously, I look forward to that. Go figure.) They have gotten into the habit of asking me, before they go to their dad’s, “what are you going to do to our room?” because one time I painted in there, one wall in bright turquoise, moved the furniture and replaced the nasty carpet, all in one week. Mostly, though, I just throw stuff out, which they don’t notice.

 •  Wimbledon. I love to watch good-looking men in tennis whites. (Or even out of their tennis whites. Oh, Rafa...) So sue me.

•  Office supplies make me happy. That’s weird. Also school supplies and new candles.

•  Wedding shows on TV. I want to work at Kleinfeld’s with Randy Fenoli. Or be David Tutera’s assistant.

•  Getting an idea for something I want to write about, then rushing home to write it, sitting on the couch with little dog Clem curled up next to me. Like right now.

I could keep going, but I only gave myself one hour to write down as many happy things as I could (and a little more time to find some pictures of the really hot ones). (Sorry, I didn't have a photo of Dan falling asleep.) Now it's your turn to write your own list. Better still, share with me in the comments section below. Please?

It will make me so happy if you do.

Things I want to know, but probably never will.

I want to know why oil companies aren’t required to have emergency shut-off mechanisms in offshore oil rigs. I am required by my insurance company to have an emergency shut-off earthquake valve on my home’s gas line. Seems like the scope of the prospective disaster should dictate the scope of preventive measures, right? Here’s a hint: the company in charge of Deepwater Horizon “objected in 2000 to a proposed requirement to use blind-shear rams, a type of blowout preventer which seals out-of-control oil wells by pinching off the pipe.” Their excuse? The rate of accidents was “approaching zero”. (Read more here.) Approaching.

I want to know why BP didn’t get out there THE INSTANT that oil rig blew to stanch the flow of spilled oil.

I want to know how many times BP can be responsible for spilling oil and killing workers without somebody going to jail. 2005: 15 dead, 170 injured in Texas. 2006: 267,000 gallons spilled in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, after ignoring warnings to check the pipeline for FOUR YEARS. Just an example.

I want to know what BP is going to do to compensate the fishermen and tourism industry for their loss of income. What are they going to do about the devastation to the ecosystem? I want to know how you put a number on the economic destruction this event has created. Did you know that BP has generously (sarcasm) offered Gulf Coast residents a $5000 payoff if they promise not to sue? Five grand? Really? From a company that earned over 70 BILLION dollars in revenue in the first quarter of 2010 alone?

I want to know if Sarah Palin and her “drill baby drill” cohorts have got their waders on yet. No, of course not. Sarah’s response to the disaster? Blame foreign oil companies. Yeah. That really helps with the clean up.

I want to know where the environmental groups are. I support Greenpeace, but I’d sure like to see them helping out instead of being indignant.

I want to know why some people are calling this “Obama’s Katrina”. How is the negligence of a money-grubbing oil corporation in the same category as negligence by Bush’s administration? Answer: it’s not. So, why, Rush?

And while I’m at it, what kind of person would actually posit that President Obama is happy about the death and destruction so he can now cancel his offshore drilling plans? Or that the explosion was the result of an evil plot by "hardcore environmentalist wackos"? Oh yeah… Rush again.

Most of all, I want to know how many people have to die (coal miners, oil rig workers, Americans with no health care), and how many people have to go bankrupt because of unscrupulous financial institutions, before Americans will realize that the unfettered greed of unregulated free-market capitalism will utterly and completely destroy this country. I’m all for responsible capitalism. I want to know what happened to the “responsible” part.

Clutter Busting

Trying to get my ducks in a row...

My first “real” job out of college was at an office supply company. This was in the mid-80s, before the days of mega office supply stores. Businesses would order their paper clips and Scotch tape and copier paper from the Boise-Cascade catalog, call it in to me, and we would deliver it the next day. It was billed if they were good customers, COD if they were not.

I grew fascinated by the seemingly endless array of doodads needed to make an office run smoothly. Clean plastic stacking shelves in so many colors. Pristine manila file folders, identified with color-coded, neatly typed labels, resting primly in proper green hanging folders inside 3-drawer, 5-drawer, or credenza style file cabinets. The huge variety of pencil cups, some with matching desk protectors. Cases and cases of 24-pin computer paper (remember dot-matrix printers? anybody?), legal or letter size.

One winter some co-workers and I earned extra money by meticulously labeling hundreds and hundreds of new file folders for a doctor’s office. They were changing to the system that’s the norm today: the first two letters of the patient’s last name on large colorful labels, with a separate sticker for the whole name. We sat in the cold warehouse with fingerless gloves and created an ordered world.

Ah, the promise of an ordered world. Now here I am, twenty some-odd years later, and I’ve just purchased yet another magazine which has filled my foolish heart with hope and desire:

“Secrets of Getting Organized!”

Oh, yes. To crack that code. Like the office supply catalog of yore, how I love the promise in those magazines: the photos of mudrooms and home offices, the memo boards decorated in rickrack, the kitchen chalkboards with “Timmy’s soccer game 9 am” written in a delicate hand. Little white wicker baskets, neatly labeled, hold the children’s SHOES, TRAINS, LEGOS. I’m not kidding, I get misty-eyed with the notion that my own home could somehow be like this.

Ask me how many books I have (in a box in the garage) on the subject of organizing. Hmmm, let’s see if I can remember. Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat? Organizing From The Inside Out. The Family Manager’s Everyday Survival Guide. (Okay, that one’s inside the house. Somewhere.) Now let’s look in the basket for magazines! Oh wait… I have to pull the dog toys out first… there you go. Storage Solutions. Better Homes and Gardens: get organized! 50+ ways to pare down, cut clutter, store more. Hey look, here’s an Oprah magazine from 2007.

Looking around the living room, where I do my writing, there is a basket of un-paired clean socks on the coffee table in front of me. Stacks of kid art poke out of the basket for the dog toys. (Oh yeah… that’s where they go.) My daughters’ laundry waits to be folded; in the meantime it rests on the back of the big chair. The Swiffer broom is, for some reason, on top of the dining room table.

Look, I’m busy, right? Who isn’t? Three kids, two dogs, and a tiny house. I’m exhausted the minute I walk in the door: it’s like there’s a vortex of disarray, threatening to suck me down in it, and I swim against its current madly and ineffectually. Last Christmas, when the kids were at their dad’s for a week, I spent the whole time cleaning and organizing the girls’ room. It’s April and you’d never know it. The cute little wicker baskets are in there; they just lie in the middle of the floor serving as houses for stuffed toys. The color-coded hangers are on the floor of the closet. The milk crate for Emma’s shoes is now a mini-bookcase that she keeps on her top bunk permanently. The shoes? Floor of the closet. Or in Claire’s milk crate. The toy chest just for dress-up clothes is now home to every Littlest Pet Shop playset that Target has to offer. Dress-up clothes?

Floor of the closet.

The girls really don’t care. They’re happy. My husband gets by, as long as the kitchen is navigable. My soon-to-be-teen son: haven’t seen him. He’s in his room until graduation, I guess.

But I continue to dream, because you have to have a dream to make it come true, right? If I just had the right baskets… if I just had those little color-coded thumbtacks…

So the lure of the Get Organized scam continues. Not long ago, I cruised the aisles of The Container Store, almost orgasmic at the possibilities. Oh, the sugar and flour canisters... a whole wall of them…

Somebody get me a cart.