R.E.M. (Reality in Every Mirror)

Sometimes these things just pop into my head and I've gotta get 'em out right away. I don't think it requires a whole lot of explanation. p.s. Hope you like the new blog layout for the new year!

 (Sung to the tune of "Losing My Religion")

Oh, life is shorter

it's shorter than I

would like to think of

the lengths that I will go to

the wrinkles 'round my eyes

oh no, I've frowned too much

I need botox

That's me in the mirror

that's me looking so tired

losing all my eyebrows

trying to pencil them in

and I don't know why they all fell out

oh no they won't grow back

I look like hell

I think it's because of thyroid

I think it's pre-menopause

I think I thought I'd never age

Every wrinkle

every crease on my face I'm

slathering with lotions

trying to keep them from view

like those airbrushed and perfect girls

in all those Olay ads

I bought it up

Consider this... consider this:

approaching half-century

Consider this pic:

I look just like my mother, frail

how could my neck look like that

crepe all around

and now I look like hell

I thought that I'd never grow old

I thought that I'd beat the odds

I'd look like twenty-six for life

But that was just a dream

that was just a dream

just a dream...

Oh well... at least I've still got my hair.

Dog Show, Part 2: Not What I Expected

This is the back end of an English Sheepdog on the way to the ring.

        Being at a dog show is not all that different from watching one on TV or watching “Best of Show”. Except that it’s real. Seriously: there are the giant puffy English Sheepdogs parading to the show ring. There are the severe women in suits and flats holding dog treats in their mouths. There are Border Collies running agility right in front of you. I don’t know, maybe I didn’t really believe dogs could do all that weaving and jumping, like it was CGI or something. In person it’s unbelievable, but you know it’s not a digital effect.

        There were vendor booths set up around the perimeter of the place, hawking goods that only crazy dog people would buy. When I saw an exercise ball for dogs I knew I was in another world. “It can be used by our four-legged friends for core strengthening, increased range of motion and flexibility, neuromuscular facilitation, sensory and perceptual stimulation, joint alignment, and balance control.” I shit you not.

        Doggy treadmills, for those days you just can’t drag yourself outside. Handcrafted sterling silver jewelry: what self-respecting breeder could resist a giant brooch showing two Great Danes in profile?

        “We’ve been specializing in Danes for over forty years,” the jewelry guy told me. Awesome.

        Huge tapestries of YOUR BREED HERE only 250 dollars. Or maybe a purse with YOUR BREED on it. Grooming tools: coat rakes, clippers, $200 shears.  Sanitary pads for your “bitch in heat”: look it up, it’s a serious term. Dog people throw the word “bitch” around no problem, like nobody uses the word to describe anything other than a female dog ready for breeding.

        Dan and I said goodbye to our Cardigan breeder friend and wandered over to the booth for the Cardigan Welsh Corgis. Every breed had a booth, and on Sunday morning there were dogs at every one. The Best in Group judging was taking place a little later and the crowds were thickening.

        At the Cardi booth, the three ladies volunteering there had four beautiful dogs (okay, maybe some were bitches, but I wasn’t going there) and lots of admirers. Cardis are the kind of dogs that make people go “Awwwww, look how cute!”  So I was busy being one of those people while Dan started chatting with one of the ladies. He told her about Nathan, and me, and how much I love the breed.

        “Here’s my Nathan,” I said, pulling some photos out of my bag.

        She clucked over him (“such a beautiful brindle boy!”) and said she was sorry, they are never with us long enough.

        “I’m Sherilyn,” she said. “I’m the head of the Cardigan Rescue here in California. You know, we have a beautiful 2-year-old boy who needs a home…”

        She pointed to a photo of a tri-colored dog with a wistful face and great big ears. The caption underneath said “Bowie 2 years Good w/other dogs”.

        Dan heard the word “rescue” and his face lit up. Sherilyn had her prey in her sights. The fish was on the hook. Time to reel him in.

        “We found him up in Atascadero, running around with an old black lab. No tags, no microchip. And he’s still got his dewclaws. Most breeders remove those early on, so we didn’t think he was from anybody we know. Nobody claimed him.”

        Dan nodded excitedly and I scowled at him. Too late. Hook in mouth.

        “He’s a wonderful dog,” she continued. “So sweet. He’s with a foster family up in Lompoc now.”

        By now Dan was holding the picture. “Is he good with kids?”

        I started to hiss at him under my breath. “Don’t do this. Don’t.”

        “Oh, he loves kids. And he’s great with other dogs. He really needs to be with a family with kids.”

        “We’ve got three! And a little dog who’s been very lonely since Nathan died.”

        Sherilyn reached for a clipboard with a xeroxed form on it. It was the application to adopt. She handed it to Dan.

        “Hold on there, cowboy.” I placed myself between the two of them. (“Excuse me just a moment, will you please?” I murmured politely over my shoulder to Sherilyn.)

        “What?” Mr. Wide-Eyed-Innocent-It’s Just-A-Piece-Of-Paper asked.

        “IT”S TOO SOON!” I said. “It’s only been a month. It’s too soon.” And besides, I have my heart set on a puppy, I didn’t say. Puppy puppy puppy.

        Sherilyn piped up behind me, driving the sale home. “I’m telling you, Bowie is a special boy. Probably the sweetest dog I’ve ever rescued. A real lover.”

        I squinched my face at Dan and whispered, “Don’t do this. Do not. I hate you for doing this.”

        But I was outnumbered.

        He’s already housebroken, they said.

        He’s neutered, chipped and has all his shots.

        He’s socialized to kids and other dogs.

        Yes, he’s a beauty.

        Yes, he’s definitely a purebred Cardigan.

        Yes, he’s a fantastic dog, but Melissa (the foster mom) already has three Corgis and a female she wants to breed.

        Also, the adoption fee is about one-third the cost of a new puppy.

        No training. No pee and poop in the house. No frayed nerves over hyper Claire being too crazy with a little pup. No AKC fees.

        Plus – and this is big –

        He’s a rescue.

        Dan is all about rescue dogs, and I’m all about Cardigans.

        We both get what we want.

        The next weekend we brought him home. He was perfect, even his name. We’d been talking about a rock star name for the next dog: Joe Strummer, maybe, or Chrissie Hynde if it was a girl. Charlie lit up when we told him it was Bowie. He loves Ziggy Stardust.

        In about 15 minutes he owned the place and won Clementine over. The kids didn’t faze him at all. He has a look in his eyes that’s part wisdom and part mischief, and when they got to be too much he just walked away. Smart. Except when it came to using the dog door; that mystified him. How does that other dog walk through that wall? I don’t get it.

        That night, I put his bed on the floor next to ours. “Here ya go, Bo,” I said, patting the cushy part.

        He looked at me, tilted his head, and then somehow with his stubby Corgi legs he leapt up onto our bed and curled up next to Dan.

        “No, no,” I said. A dog in the bed? Never. No way. That’s why we had a tall bed anyway. Plus Dan hated it when the cat (rest her soul) had slept up there. (“There’s cat hair on my pillow!”) I picked Bowie up and set him on the floor.

        Pulling a sleeping bag over to the side of the bed, I said, “Here you go. I’ll sleep with you down here tonight.” I patted the pillows. "Come on, Bo!"

        He looked at me, tilted his head, and then used my reclining body as a step to jump back up on the bed. This time, he turned around and peered at me down on the floor, his tongue hanging out, smiling.

        And now we need a bigger bed.

Bowie cuddles with the Dogwalker-In-Chief.

"Merry Christmas, Lady! Where's my cookie?"

Dog Show!

Yep, I love dogs.

I love dogs.

 

Like a lot of dog lovin’ people, I knew that I was gonna need another second dog after Nathan died. Little dog Clementine became even more neurotic in the days after his (as she undoubtedly saw it) disappearance. She started out at our house with both a cat and a dog for companionship. The cat died in August ’08, and now her dog buddy was gone. So she’s been shaking a lot more, and unfortunately her nervous peeing has increased. She needs a friend.

I especially love Cardigan Welsh Corgis.

Nathan was a purebred. Clem is a rescue mutt; Dan has a thing about rescue dogs. I’m all for it too, but I’m sorry, I’m going to need a Cardi in my life forever. Which is okay. Because I don’t ever want to have fewer than two dogs. Three would be great but we’ll need a bigger house. Oh yeah and I want a couple of cats, too.

But I digress.

I started looking for Cardi breeders out here in Southern California. Going through the CWCCA (figure it out), I found a few. Most of them did not have websites, so I clicked on the two that did. One of them had a pretty nice site, including a page for an upcoming litter. There I saw that she had posted the pedigree (the record of the dog’s bloodline) of the parents (the technical terms being “sire” and “dam”).

I couldn’t believe what I saw. The sire’s pedigree went back to Nathan’s bloodline. In fact, one of Nathan’s littermates was in there if you went back far enough.

Now what are the odds of that? Really?

I contacted the breeder and told her the whole story. We went back and forth a bit, trying to set up a visit. She lives in Ventura, not too far away. But we couldn’t get our dates right. We wanted to come up on Sunday, December 5^th, because it was a day the kids were with their dad, and I didn’t have my writing group, so Dan and I had the whole day to ourselves. (It happens occasionally.) But the breeder told me that she was showing a friend’s Cardi in the Eukanuba Dog Show in Long Beach that day.

For those of you unfamiliar with the wacky world of dog shows, the Eukanuba is pretty much the second biggest show in the U.S. after Westminster. Unlike Westminster, which is always at Madison Square Garden, its location changes each year. (Next year it’s in Orlando.)

So this huge dog show just happens to be in Southern California on the one day we have free, when we’re looking for a breeder, and it’s the day the Cardigans are being judged. Again, what are the odds?

I would like to attribute all this to an angel doggy in heaven who’s helping me move on. I really don’t know. But it’s a nice thought.

I’ve wanted to go to a dog show ever since I fell for the breed almost 15 years ago. Dan could see how excited I was; so, being a good sport, he got us to Long Beach that Sunday in plenty of time to see the little Cardis in the show ring.

I expected to have a great time, and I did. But I was not prepared for what happened that day. Stay tuned… I’ll tell you the rest of the story on Sunday.

"The corgi with a tail" - Cardigans on parade!

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.