There are a few things in life you can absolutely, without question, completely and totally rely on. Fed Ex mailing tubes top the list. No matter what you roll up and stuff inside them, you can be certain they’re going to hold their shape, keep their contents safe, and basically fulfill all the expectations the shipper had in mind. I’ve seen hundreds of them come in and out of the receiving dock over the past nearly eight years and they all look the same: Like giant generic cigarettes, safely shielding their contents from any hazards of air travel. Maybe you might have to worry, once or twice, about bubble mailers. Occasionally you might worry about the standard Fed Ex box, but never about a Fed Ex tube. I’m convinced they could replace rebar in commercial construction. That’s why I’m not quite believing I spent the majority of my work day as I did, beginning with a call this morning from the receiving dock.
“Hi, Madeleine, this is Josh in receiving. I just wanted you to know, we received a shipment for your client next week, and one of four was really damaged.”
“How damaged?”
“Well,” he said, and there was a slight pause, “it looks like a giant cigarette that somebody tried to crush out.”
“I’m on my way down to take a look, thanks.”
Before I could get my keys in hand, the call came from the client, who had received an email from Fed Ex notifying her that one of four was ‘damaged in transit’. When I described to her the condition which had just been described to me, there was a pause on her end followed by a more-than-a-little anguished shriek of, “No!” more appropriate, really, to someone witnessing a train wreck.
“Oh my god,” she said. “That’s critical to Monday’s presentation. If it’s ruined we have a big problem. Would you mind—is there any way—you could take a picture and email it to me?”
“Absolutely,” I assured her. “I’m on my way down now. I’ll send it to you.”
In about six minutes which felt like thirty minutes later (our receiving dock is basically three floors below my office, accessible through a maze of elevators and back hallways nobody truly understands except those who work here) I was in the box room and Josh was at the door. He shook his head when he saw me. “It’s pretty bad.”
Bad was an understatement.
When he retrieved it from it’s shelf in the back and held it out, all I could think was how accurate his initial description had been. It truly did look as if the Jolly Green Giant had lit a smoke, taken one drag, then crushed it angrily out and returned to planting green beans, which were much healthier. It was bent in five places, twisted in two places, and had dents and creases through everything else.
“What the hell?” Not an appropriate response by HR standards, but the only thing I could seem to get out. Unbelievable. I’d never seen anything like it.
We laid it on a table and I took a few pictures.
“Let’s keep it here,” I said, heading back to my computer to email the pictures to my client. “I’ll let you know what they decide.”
What they decided, after reviewing the two pictures I’d sent, was that as the contents were vinyl-based banners, the damage might be minimal enough that they would be serviceable on Monday. That decision held for about an hour, when another call arrived, this one asking if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, would I open the tube and take some photos of the banners, give them some idea of the banners’ condition? Six or thirty minutes later, I was back in the box room, retrieved the mangled tube, took it to the receiving office, and announced to Josh, “We need to cut it open,” feeling like a medical technician about to participate in an autopsy.
As it turned out, cutting a body open might have been easier. Scissors wouldn’t work. A Gerber failed miserably. It was only when Josh resorted to a box cutter that he made enough progress to work part of the mangled top loose, and then wrestle the whole thing apart like a badly abused tube of Pop and Fresh Dough and darned near working up a sweat in the process. Once he pulled it away, the banners retained the grisly shape of the container they’d been brutalized in.
Photo number one.
He unrolled them on the floor and we could immediately see the dents, dings, deep creases and wrinkles that rendered what had once been beautiful banners proudly honoring a major airline into useless, giant sized placemats not suitable for anything.
Photos two through five.
Those sent off to the client, I waited for a response, then decided to be a bit more proactive and contact Fed Ex myself, trying to get some explanation of what, exactly, had happened to this shipment. They were very helpful and very forthcoming in quickly informing me the tube had been “damaged in transit.”
“I understand that,” I said politely. “I’m just trying to understand exactly how.” I didn’t tell them this, but actually I wanted to know not only on my client’s behalf but on my own. I couldn’t imagine anything with the kind of power you’d need to have to make a Fed Ex tube look like this one did. They were sympathetic to my inquiry and gave a full and detailed explanation consisting simply of repeating, “It was damaged in transit.”
Well, Ok then. Thank you, customer service.
The call from the client came through a few minutes later. It was bad, they said, but they’d look at it again on arrival Monday. I assured them I’d be happy to take them to the Receiving office to take a look, and called Josh to give him the update.
“I know it’s not our fault,” I told him, “but I feel bad. I wish there was something we could do. Maybe iron them, or—“
“Madeleine, they’re vinyl,” he said, “we can’t iron them.”
Oh. Well, so much for problem solving today.
“I’d just like to know what the hell happened to them,” Josh said and I felt somewhat better that I wasn’t the only one in blatant violation of HR’s policy against the “H” word that day.
“Fed Ex said they were damaged in transit,” I explained, and he laughed.
“Like how? Did they roll the plane over it once or twice before take off? Maybe toss it into an engine for a minute?”
Either one seemed a plausible explanation, and we both agreed, we’d never seen anything like it. Which in and of itself made it notable because if you work in this industry long enough, you pretty much see everything. We’d do anything we could for the client on Monday. There wasn’t much more we could do today.
The matter put to rest, more or less, it still bothers me. Maybe because, as I said, there are a few things in life you can absolutely count on—or at least you think you can, until you find out you can’t. When you make the realization that you can’t, it’s never an easy thing. Fixed ideas can be hard to let go of and although we start the process in childhood (letting go of the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, and in one particular instance from my own childhood, The Money Tree because I always thought there was one, my mom’s standard response to a request for anything new being, “It depends on if your dad can shake the money tree hard enough”) and it’s a bit easier to let go in adulthood but still, you wind up feeling let down.
I’d never look at a Fed Ex tube the same way again, never with the full confidence that it was what it was.
I remained equally bothered in my failure to get an actual explanation for how it met its demise. This, I know, will stick with me much longer than the disappointment of discovering its fallibility. I think Josh was right, and they backed the plane over it once or twice, and I’m so convinced of this, I’m taking a Fed Ex tube home with me tonight. Before I pull into my carport, I’m laying that thing down and I’m driving over it and backing up on it at least twice.
My car’s no 737 but it’s not a compact, either. If I can do some damage, I’ll feel somewhat better.
If I can’t, I’m probably going to have more trouble sleeping than I should.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
An Alternative to Triple Shot Espressos
As I mentioned, my neighbor the Parole Officer just started a new job. She loves the fact that she’s now home by three in the afternoon, hates the fact that she’s got to be at work at four a.m. It’s not so much the getting up at the crack of dawn (and, come to think of it, the crack of about the time a lot of our other neighbors are just going to bed quite often) it’s created a huge problem with her Jack Russell, Bloss.
Bloss, much like myself and absolutely like my own dog Basil, is pretty much impossible to roust from bed prior to four in the morning. I honestly believe until an alarm clock is invented that reaches out and slaps us, this is not a situation apt to change soon. Which means my neighbor needed to devise a way to get Bloss outside at a time he would consider going outside, say…somewhere after 7:00a.m.
That’s about the time Basil’s got me outside anyway, so I said sure, why not. Walking two dogs couldn’t be much more of a challenge than walking one, and I really do like Bloss. Thrilled, my neighbor quickly had a key made for me (in hindsight, probably so quickly to insure I didn’t change my mind). I was happy to see it was cut in a nice leopard print motif that wouldn’t be confused with the many other keys I pack around, a few of which, I hate to admit, I’m a little unclear as to the use for, but convinced the moment I throw them away or take them off the key ring I’ll be disastrously locked out of, or away from, something terribly important. Now Lainie’s having a key made for me and I’ve told her I won’t accept it unless it’s either a zebra or bright pink design because this whole key management thing is getting out of control.
We started the new routine a while ago and it’s actually working out well in certain respects. For one, I tend to get up earlier, finding that if we accomplish the walking before 7:00am I’m much less apt to run into any of my neighbors outside on the exact same mission and find myself caught up in early morning conversations that frankly, take up too much of my early morning. I don’t mind chatting in the summer months. Once the temperatures drop, I pretty much have to keep moving. We’ve settled into more or less of a routine that gets us out and about at 6:45am.
I said we were out, I did not say all of us were awake. Bloss certainly wakes up at the first inhalation of outside air and the first sight of grass, trees, curbing, or anything else that needs peed upon (and it all does, in his book). Basil, being more like her person, is only half-enthusiastic about the entire project. She’ll plod along for the first five minutes, stopping only to sniff, and subsequently reject, the first five or seven patches of grass she encounters. I’d say we were usually about halfway into the route when as if on cue, they both wake up to the same level, a much higher energy level than the person at the other end of the leashes, and this is the point at which I begin to question if there isn’t an easier way to be jolted awake in the morning.
Something along the lines of a triple shot espresso.
I say jolted because there’s simply no better adjective to describe being the person on the other end of two 16’ leashes, trying to control two dogs who have suddenly decided to audition for the next Iditarod and begin training immediately. Those little push button ‘leash retractors’ you pay $16 for when you buy the ‘special leash retracting leash’? A joke. A gimmick. Guaranteed to work fine when you test them out at home, absolutely guaranteed to be useless when attached to an actual dog. Add to this the hand-eye coordination required to discern, no less than fifty times in a six minute period, just which dog has crossed which other dog’s leash, and which leash should therefore be pulled either over or under the other one to untangle the bow knot you’re inadvertently creating as you try to keep up with them and keep both leashes in your hand.
Diane, in the office next to mine, swears by early morning exercise. “You have to get your heart rate up there,” she says. “It really jump starts your day.”
She’s not kidding.
By the time we get back to the courtyard, the bowknot tamed, and Bloss returned to his person’s house and the relative comfort of her sofa, my heart rate is about up there with where it is after, say, being cut off on the freeway and nearly forced into a guard rail (which happens way too much because people in this state, I’ve decided, are simply genetically predisposed against learning how to merge into traffic).
Once Basil is settled in front of The Today Show (don’t ask. Let’s just say she likes to keep up with current events and leave it at that) and I have a few moments of undisturbed peace in a very hot shower, I’m more awake than I could be had I drank maybe two of those aforementioned espressos. Also, much as I hate to admit it, I feel pretty good. Another day, I got two dogs outside without having a heart attack.
“You’re too nice,” Diane observed, when I mentioned the new routine. “I’d tell her to take care of her own dog.”
There might be something to be said for that sentiment, but I disagree on the whole ‘too nice’ thing. I know, had the dilemma of the early morning walk evolved with the neighbor with the Great Dane, I’d have said no way, absolutely not.
I say that because I haven’t really met the Great Dane yet, and I’m only on nodding acquaintance with that neighbor. Come to think of it, I’d probably better keep it that way, at least until I get a little faster at untying bowknots.
Bloss, much like myself and absolutely like my own dog Basil, is pretty much impossible to roust from bed prior to four in the morning. I honestly believe until an alarm clock is invented that reaches out and slaps us, this is not a situation apt to change soon. Which means my neighbor needed to devise a way to get Bloss outside at a time he would consider going outside, say…somewhere after 7:00a.m.
That’s about the time Basil’s got me outside anyway, so I said sure, why not. Walking two dogs couldn’t be much more of a challenge than walking one, and I really do like Bloss. Thrilled, my neighbor quickly had a key made for me (in hindsight, probably so quickly to insure I didn’t change my mind). I was happy to see it was cut in a nice leopard print motif that wouldn’t be confused with the many other keys I pack around, a few of which, I hate to admit, I’m a little unclear as to the use for, but convinced the moment I throw them away or take them off the key ring I’ll be disastrously locked out of, or away from, something terribly important. Now Lainie’s having a key made for me and I’ve told her I won’t accept it unless it’s either a zebra or bright pink design because this whole key management thing is getting out of control.
We started the new routine a while ago and it’s actually working out well in certain respects. For one, I tend to get up earlier, finding that if we accomplish the walking before 7:00am I’m much less apt to run into any of my neighbors outside on the exact same mission and find myself caught up in early morning conversations that frankly, take up too much of my early morning. I don’t mind chatting in the summer months. Once the temperatures drop, I pretty much have to keep moving. We’ve settled into more or less of a routine that gets us out and about at 6:45am.
I said we were out, I did not say all of us were awake. Bloss certainly wakes up at the first inhalation of outside air and the first sight of grass, trees, curbing, or anything else that needs peed upon (and it all does, in his book). Basil, being more like her person, is only half-enthusiastic about the entire project. She’ll plod along for the first five minutes, stopping only to sniff, and subsequently reject, the first five or seven patches of grass she encounters. I’d say we were usually about halfway into the route when as if on cue, they both wake up to the same level, a much higher energy level than the person at the other end of the leashes, and this is the point at which I begin to question if there isn’t an easier way to be jolted awake in the morning.
Something along the lines of a triple shot espresso.
I say jolted because there’s simply no better adjective to describe being the person on the other end of two 16’ leashes, trying to control two dogs who have suddenly decided to audition for the next Iditarod and begin training immediately. Those little push button ‘leash retractors’ you pay $16 for when you buy the ‘special leash retracting leash’? A joke. A gimmick. Guaranteed to work fine when you test them out at home, absolutely guaranteed to be useless when attached to an actual dog. Add to this the hand-eye coordination required to discern, no less than fifty times in a six minute period, just which dog has crossed which other dog’s leash, and which leash should therefore be pulled either over or under the other one to untangle the bow knot you’re inadvertently creating as you try to keep up with them and keep both leashes in your hand.
Diane, in the office next to mine, swears by early morning exercise. “You have to get your heart rate up there,” she says. “It really jump starts your day.”
She’s not kidding.
By the time we get back to the courtyard, the bowknot tamed, and Bloss returned to his person’s house and the relative comfort of her sofa, my heart rate is about up there with where it is after, say, being cut off on the freeway and nearly forced into a guard rail (which happens way too much because people in this state, I’ve decided, are simply genetically predisposed against learning how to merge into traffic).
Once Basil is settled in front of The Today Show (don’t ask. Let’s just say she likes to keep up with current events and leave it at that) and I have a few moments of undisturbed peace in a very hot shower, I’m more awake than I could be had I drank maybe two of those aforementioned espressos. Also, much as I hate to admit it, I feel pretty good. Another day, I got two dogs outside without having a heart attack.
“You’re too nice,” Diane observed, when I mentioned the new routine. “I’d tell her to take care of her own dog.”
There might be something to be said for that sentiment, but I disagree on the whole ‘too nice’ thing. I know, had the dilemma of the early morning walk evolved with the neighbor with the Great Dane, I’d have said no way, absolutely not.
I say that because I haven’t really met the Great Dane yet, and I’m only on nodding acquaintance with that neighbor. Come to think of it, I’d probably better keep it that way, at least until I get a little faster at untying bowknots.
Perspective: Notes on Spaghetti and A Phone Call Gone Bad
I’ve missed her terribly.
I think I’ve said that before, and probably said it more than once since October 7th when she moved out of the condo across the hall. My Lainie. My Sit On The Front Step And Figure Out The Universe Companion, gone. In a couple of simple moves with a truck.
It hasn’t been the same without her, never mind that The Odd Girl Downstairs has been much friendlier since she left. “I always thought,” Lainie said tonight, “she wanted to be friends with us, but she’d kind of feel like she was intruding.” I digested that, because it was true. Lainie and I did have a way, maybe because we had birthdays two days apart, or maybe because we were both single women and both so damnably alike on so many subjects (usually any and all of those we gave any thought to at all) that anytime anyone encountered one of our ‘in depth discussions’ (read: nightly occurrences) on the front step, would have thought that to interrupt, to intrude, to attempt even in a small way to become a part of, would have been unthinkable.
I can’t explain that, except to say that she and I could talk about everything…even about God, if you will (and we did) and we were on the same page.
Indelibly.
“I was really bothered,” Lainie said tonight, “thinking as soon as I moved she’d try to take my place.”
“Not happening,” I said, without hesitation. True, she’s been friendlier, and we’ve even exchanged entire conversations in the evenings after work and on the odd Saturday morning. But to replace Lainie? I don’t think so.
I remember once, when Lainie had her heart broken (In hindsight, maybe it was more than once. She lived here over a year, we’re both single, and these things, these broken hearts, they happen fairly often), I was busy at the time, madly dashing off to spend time with someone I was ‘in a relationship’ (read: sharing communal emotional misdirection) with and couldn’t stop to console her. I did, however, give her my password for Netflix, two issues of Oprah, and a roll of quarters for laundry, assuring her that if she’d just hole up in her place for the weekend, watch romantic comedies on her computer until she couldn’t see straight, and read at a minimum the “Things We Love” articles in Oprah, she’d survive. I’d check on her when the weekend was over.
She survived, because she’s Lainie.
Still, I felt bad. In hindsight, I made the wrong choice and should have stayed home with her that evening. But sometimes, even a grown up, rational adult makes choices that aren’t perfect.
What was perfect was tonight. I hate to say this, but she’s been gone, as I said, nearly a month, and it’s been this long until we both found time to spend time together. Work schedules, and all that. Her schedule with Blake (he’s a keeper, I do not begrudge her that), my writer’s group and book club and need for a night alone to just hit the pillows before nine. Still. She emailed, invited me over for dinner, and to see her new place.
It’s not that much different from this one, except…well, the foyers are bigger. She doesn’t have a hallway anywhere that I could see, although the rooms are bigger, and it feels spacious. It would seem great, I thought, and tried not to laugh when she told me that even ‘great’ has its drawbacks.
The walls, apparently, are paper thin. To the point that the last time Blake visited past 10pm, one of her neighbors banged on the wall adjacent to her bedroom with a broom. I had to laugh about that. The Old Dutch Village is nothing but solid, the only irony to that being, there’s certainly not now and not for some time been a reason for it to be so solid, when it comes to my own bedroom walls. “You can hear,” she said, “out in the foyer”, and that meant even our dinner table conversation was audible to anyone lingering outside.
A definite minus, in my book and clearly in hers, but still, it was less expensive. It was home. OK, it looked different, but it looked at the same time, all Lainie. Even right down to her wooden sign over the sink, “When things get too hard to stand…kneel”, which I’ve always appreciated.
I had a remarkable dinner. Spaghetti.
The irony wasn’t lost on me, thinking of the last homemade spaghetti I made and where it finally ended up (I think, anyway) residing.
We shared a small bottle of Little Lulu Pinot Noir, and I left at 9:15.
“Text me when you get home,” she said, and I did, as soon as I leashed up Basil and got her out of the car. Basil, it should be noted, completely enjoyed the evening. She knows home when she’s standing in it, even if it isn’t the one she lives in.
“We’ll do it again,” I said, with a heartfelt hug as I left, and having received one in return, after dinner and spending a half hour or so sitting on her couch, figuring out the universe as it were as we once did on the steps.
I had barely walked in the door when I got a phone call.
I am seldom the recipient of a Drink and Dial, but tonight was the exception, and it was from Brent Babcock. My husband, circa 1991 - 2007. He was still in much pain over the loss of his twin, and even confided, “I have moments of sadness. Yeah, the last one I had, I was on a Southwest flight from Denver…I broke down and was escorted off the plane.” He laughed then, and finished, “but they were very nice about it.”
Well, yay Southwest.
I listened because that’s what friends do, and said not much. He talked about his ‘relationship’, the Norwegian woman he’d found on Match.com and had been with ‘for over a year’ but was now ‘thinking about letting go’. I didn’t’ say much about that, either, feeling my place was to be a sounding board.
Maybe there are occasions where being a friend, and an objective sounding board, are not recommended. He then said something very hurtful, and very much intended to make me angry, and strangely enough, I wasn’t angry at all. Not considering the source. Some people claim to feel loss. This man honestly has experienced that. “I’m not looking forward to my next birthday,” he said. “It will be my first without my brother.”
Because I am a human being, I didn’t really have a rejoinder.
“So what…are you mad at me?” He asked. “Have I totally pissed you off?”
“No,” I said, and then listened as he finished up with a few more things he felt might and having heard no result, he said, “Well, I only called you because I’m drunk” (which had been obvious, honestly, since I took the call).
“Well OK, then,” I said. “That’s what friends are for.”
At this point, he said he’d talk to me later and hung up on me.
Which is not, pre or post divorce, a new experience. It just felt odd, coming on the heels (and barely as I’d come in the door, to be honest) of such a perfect evening with a very good friend.
Which only made me realize, as I turned off my cell phone for the day and plugged it into the charger, that life is all about how we choose to see it.
In that moment, I chose to see it as a wonderful dinner with an incredible gift from the cosmos, a twin of me, so to speak, and a damned great friend, in the form of another single woman just going about her life. Rather in the alternative, about a call from a very unhappy and hurting man (and with good reason) who has lost his own twin, and doesn’t yet have anything else to believe in.
I think I’ve said that before, and probably said it more than once since October 7th when she moved out of the condo across the hall. My Lainie. My Sit On The Front Step And Figure Out The Universe Companion, gone. In a couple of simple moves with a truck.
It hasn’t been the same without her, never mind that The Odd Girl Downstairs has been much friendlier since she left. “I always thought,” Lainie said tonight, “she wanted to be friends with us, but she’d kind of feel like she was intruding.” I digested that, because it was true. Lainie and I did have a way, maybe because we had birthdays two days apart, or maybe because we were both single women and both so damnably alike on so many subjects (usually any and all of those we gave any thought to at all) that anytime anyone encountered one of our ‘in depth discussions’ (read: nightly occurrences) on the front step, would have thought that to interrupt, to intrude, to attempt even in a small way to become a part of, would have been unthinkable.
I can’t explain that, except to say that she and I could talk about everything…even about God, if you will (and we did) and we were on the same page.
Indelibly.
“I was really bothered,” Lainie said tonight, “thinking as soon as I moved she’d try to take my place.”
“Not happening,” I said, without hesitation. True, she’s been friendlier, and we’ve even exchanged entire conversations in the evenings after work and on the odd Saturday morning. But to replace Lainie? I don’t think so.
I remember once, when Lainie had her heart broken (In hindsight, maybe it was more than once. She lived here over a year, we’re both single, and these things, these broken hearts, they happen fairly often), I was busy at the time, madly dashing off to spend time with someone I was ‘in a relationship’ (read: sharing communal emotional misdirection) with and couldn’t stop to console her. I did, however, give her my password for Netflix, two issues of Oprah, and a roll of quarters for laundry, assuring her that if she’d just hole up in her place for the weekend, watch romantic comedies on her computer until she couldn’t see straight, and read at a minimum the “Things We Love” articles in Oprah, she’d survive. I’d check on her when the weekend was over.
She survived, because she’s Lainie.
Still, I felt bad. In hindsight, I made the wrong choice and should have stayed home with her that evening. But sometimes, even a grown up, rational adult makes choices that aren’t perfect.
What was perfect was tonight. I hate to say this, but she’s been gone, as I said, nearly a month, and it’s been this long until we both found time to spend time together. Work schedules, and all that. Her schedule with Blake (he’s a keeper, I do not begrudge her that), my writer’s group and book club and need for a night alone to just hit the pillows before nine. Still. She emailed, invited me over for dinner, and to see her new place.
It’s not that much different from this one, except…well, the foyers are bigger. She doesn’t have a hallway anywhere that I could see, although the rooms are bigger, and it feels spacious. It would seem great, I thought, and tried not to laugh when she told me that even ‘great’ has its drawbacks.
The walls, apparently, are paper thin. To the point that the last time Blake visited past 10pm, one of her neighbors banged on the wall adjacent to her bedroom with a broom. I had to laugh about that. The Old Dutch Village is nothing but solid, the only irony to that being, there’s certainly not now and not for some time been a reason for it to be so solid, when it comes to my own bedroom walls. “You can hear,” she said, “out in the foyer”, and that meant even our dinner table conversation was audible to anyone lingering outside.
A definite minus, in my book and clearly in hers, but still, it was less expensive. It was home. OK, it looked different, but it looked at the same time, all Lainie. Even right down to her wooden sign over the sink, “When things get too hard to stand…kneel”, which I’ve always appreciated.
I had a remarkable dinner. Spaghetti.
The irony wasn’t lost on me, thinking of the last homemade spaghetti I made and where it finally ended up (I think, anyway) residing.
We shared a small bottle of Little Lulu Pinot Noir, and I left at 9:15.
“Text me when you get home,” she said, and I did, as soon as I leashed up Basil and got her out of the car. Basil, it should be noted, completely enjoyed the evening. She knows home when she’s standing in it, even if it isn’t the one she lives in.
“We’ll do it again,” I said, with a heartfelt hug as I left, and having received one in return, after dinner and spending a half hour or so sitting on her couch, figuring out the universe as it were as we once did on the steps.
I had barely walked in the door when I got a phone call.
I am seldom the recipient of a Drink and Dial, but tonight was the exception, and it was from Brent Babcock. My husband, circa 1991 - 2007. He was still in much pain over the loss of his twin, and even confided, “I have moments of sadness. Yeah, the last one I had, I was on a Southwest flight from Denver…I broke down and was escorted off the plane.” He laughed then, and finished, “but they were very nice about it.”
Well, yay Southwest.
I listened because that’s what friends do, and said not much. He talked about his ‘relationship’, the Norwegian woman he’d found on Match.com and had been with ‘for over a year’ but was now ‘thinking about letting go’. I didn’t’ say much about that, either, feeling my place was to be a sounding board.
Maybe there are occasions where being a friend, and an objective sounding board, are not recommended. He then said something very hurtful, and very much intended to make me angry, and strangely enough, I wasn’t angry at all. Not considering the source. Some people claim to feel loss. This man honestly has experienced that. “I’m not looking forward to my next birthday,” he said. “It will be my first without my brother.”
Because I am a human being, I didn’t really have a rejoinder.
“So what…are you mad at me?” He asked. “Have I totally pissed you off?”
“No,” I said, and then listened as he finished up with a few more things he felt might and having heard no result, he said, “Well, I only called you because I’m drunk” (which had been obvious, honestly, since I took the call).
“Well OK, then,” I said. “That’s what friends are for.”
At this point, he said he’d talk to me later and hung up on me.
Which is not, pre or post divorce, a new experience. It just felt odd, coming on the heels (and barely as I’d come in the door, to be honest) of such a perfect evening with a very good friend.
Which only made me realize, as I turned off my cell phone for the day and plugged it into the charger, that life is all about how we choose to see it.
In that moment, I chose to see it as a wonderful dinner with an incredible gift from the cosmos, a twin of me, so to speak, and a damned great friend, in the form of another single woman just going about her life. Rather in the alternative, about a call from a very unhappy and hurting man (and with good reason) who has lost his own twin, and doesn’t yet have anything else to believe in.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
The Underrating Of Living Without A Life
I was out with a married couple on Saturday night which is always interesting for me, kind of like attending a comedy club only without having to pay anything to get in. This is especially interesting when it’s a couple I like, as I do this one. Call me easily entertained (I am), but I enjoy watching the things married people do, many of which I did at one time myself although at the time, I couldn’t appreciate the humor. For one thing, the whole ‘Let’s finish each other’s sentences’ thing, which went on well past the appetizers and into the entrée ordering. For another, the whole ‘Oh try it, you know you like it’s that started when the mind-numbing array of sauces for the filets were presented in delicate little ramekins that appeared to have been hand-carved by Norwegian elves (and considering the going rate for an entrée in that particular restaurant, probably were), which was followed quite nicely by the ‘Oh, don’t eat that, you know it’s going to upset your stomach/keep you awake tonight/make you stink like garlic and I won’t be able to stand you’s, and by the time we selected dessert the Grand Finale, (my personal favorite) had begun, the small talk interspersed with fond eye-rollings and ‘Oh, you don’t really mean that’s which go nicely with espresso and miniature pastry.
I really get a kick out of stuff like that.
Not that I mind finishing my own sentences and not that I miss rolling my eyes so much (there’s a part of me, even as a semi-reasonable adult, that still believes what my mom always said, that one of these days I’d roll them and they’d stick up there, wedged solid forever and I’d never be able to look at anyone straight in the face again) and certainly, come to think of it, not that I mind being able to order what I want, decide if I like it all by myself, and have complete freedom to pursue life, liberty, and the occasional liberal intake of garlic without comment from anyone. I just find it endearing, more or less, in married people and again, rather amusing. Especially when I like the married people and I like these two very much. They belong together and would seem strange without each other, kind of like trying to make sense of a Lifetime Television For Women movie without the benefit of microwave popcorn.
So the small talk, as I said, began, and at one point I mentioned that in all honesty, one of the highlights of my past week was that I had finally ventured into the library so conveniently located a block from my house and obtained a library card. Not that I didn’t have a library card, because I did. I just hadn’t used it in nearly eight years (never join a book club. You will only buy more books than you will ever read in a ridiculous attempt to ‘spend’ bonus points accrued never mind you only accrue more points with each purchase. It’s a vicious, endless cycle). It was apparently still active in the system (which amused me because I have no earthly idea where it is and the thought that, unbeknownst to me, it was pretty much traipsing around the county library system at will made me wonder if maybe those earrings I lost three months ago weren’t active somewhere as well), but I couldn’t simply use it. That would be too easy.
What I had to do, apparently, because I’d changed my address (this confused them) as well as my name (this threw them completely over the edge) and not used the card at all in eight years (regardless of how active it was. This appeared to make them almost angry and made me, for a moment, want to recount to them just exactly how many books I’d read in those eight years, never mind I hadn’t ‘borrowed’ a single one of them) was to set up an entirely new card. Which was easily done by showing two forms of ID, handing over $3.00, and leaning on the counter for a full fifteen minutes while the clerk ‘processed and activated’ my new card, pausing for a moment of silence (or maybe it only appeared so to me) as she deactivated my old card, sending it off into the Afterworld of library cards improperly (I knew she thought) appreciated. I couldn’t help feeling like a criminal, about to be fingerprinted and trotted before a judge.
Still, the feeling passed when I had the card in my hand, and I soon left the library with four books I really wanted to read, bypassing the magazines, movies, CDs and other miscellaneous and sundry items she assured me I could have up to thirty of at one time. I felt very good about having that library card, and I mentioned this to The Husband, seated to my right.
He shook his head. “You really,” he said, “need to consider getting a life.” He leaned forward a bit and squinted at me then, as if I was as odd and foreign as some of the sauces presented earlier. “You’re the only person I know over thirty who actually has a library card.”
I digested that, because it was probably true. Still, my only response was a shrug and a, “Well, I’m easily entertained, and I like to read,” because that was true, too. The Wife, however, took a moment to roll her eyes at him (clearly, her mother was not so much a doomsayer as mine had been) and small talk progressed to other, more exciting matters (I believe it was then that we started debating the relative merits and deterrents of several brands of cat food).
For a moment, I wanted to explain to The Husband that if having a library card meant a person didn’t have a life, then the very act of living without a life was entirely underrated. I have had a small satellite dish affixed to my building that brings me, at the push of a button, in excess of 245 channels, three of which I watch and on two of which I find anything even remotely entertaining. The last Tom Wolfe novel I read kept me entertained for days. I have purchased and either broken, misplaced, or given away, any number of items of clothing, shoes, household appliances and semi high-tech gadgets yet I have never, not once in my life, misplaced a library book. To me, losing a library book would be like losing a diamond ring, especially if it was on loan to you from someone else. There’s just something about a library book that makes it enjoyable, even if it’s not the best book you’ve ever read. It’s not yours, to begin with, and you only have it for a limited time, so there’s the whole added pressure to get it read and get it returned safely. It’s like legal shoplifting, this ability to take anything you want and then return it weeks later with no questions asked.
It’s like having access to hours of entertainment, and they cost you nothing. It’s so wonderful, really, it can make a person feel almost guilty, as if they should leave a tip or something for the library clerk on the way out (unless, of course, said clerk leaves you feeling like a criminal because you underappreciated your active card).
I thought about explaining this to The Husband, but decided against it. We’d probably just have launched into a very long, very involved conversation debating the relative pros and cons of the matter, which would have made us late for the show we were headed to, which, incidentally, featured an author whose books I truly love.
It was nice to know, even if I was the only one at the table who could truly appreciate the fact, that I’d never have to pay for those books again.
I really get a kick out of stuff like that.
Not that I mind finishing my own sentences and not that I miss rolling my eyes so much (there’s a part of me, even as a semi-reasonable adult, that still believes what my mom always said, that one of these days I’d roll them and they’d stick up there, wedged solid forever and I’d never be able to look at anyone straight in the face again) and certainly, come to think of it, not that I mind being able to order what I want, decide if I like it all by myself, and have complete freedom to pursue life, liberty, and the occasional liberal intake of garlic without comment from anyone. I just find it endearing, more or less, in married people and again, rather amusing. Especially when I like the married people and I like these two very much. They belong together and would seem strange without each other, kind of like trying to make sense of a Lifetime Television For Women movie without the benefit of microwave popcorn.
So the small talk, as I said, began, and at one point I mentioned that in all honesty, one of the highlights of my past week was that I had finally ventured into the library so conveniently located a block from my house and obtained a library card. Not that I didn’t have a library card, because I did. I just hadn’t used it in nearly eight years (never join a book club. You will only buy more books than you will ever read in a ridiculous attempt to ‘spend’ bonus points accrued never mind you only accrue more points with each purchase. It’s a vicious, endless cycle). It was apparently still active in the system (which amused me because I have no earthly idea where it is and the thought that, unbeknownst to me, it was pretty much traipsing around the county library system at will made me wonder if maybe those earrings I lost three months ago weren’t active somewhere as well), but I couldn’t simply use it. That would be too easy.
What I had to do, apparently, because I’d changed my address (this confused them) as well as my name (this threw them completely over the edge) and not used the card at all in eight years (regardless of how active it was. This appeared to make them almost angry and made me, for a moment, want to recount to them just exactly how many books I’d read in those eight years, never mind I hadn’t ‘borrowed’ a single one of them) was to set up an entirely new card. Which was easily done by showing two forms of ID, handing over $3.00, and leaning on the counter for a full fifteen minutes while the clerk ‘processed and activated’ my new card, pausing for a moment of silence (or maybe it only appeared so to me) as she deactivated my old card, sending it off into the Afterworld of library cards improperly (I knew she thought) appreciated. I couldn’t help feeling like a criminal, about to be fingerprinted and trotted before a judge.
Still, the feeling passed when I had the card in my hand, and I soon left the library with four books I really wanted to read, bypassing the magazines, movies, CDs and other miscellaneous and sundry items she assured me I could have up to thirty of at one time. I felt very good about having that library card, and I mentioned this to The Husband, seated to my right.
He shook his head. “You really,” he said, “need to consider getting a life.” He leaned forward a bit and squinted at me then, as if I was as odd and foreign as some of the sauces presented earlier. “You’re the only person I know over thirty who actually has a library card.”
I digested that, because it was probably true. Still, my only response was a shrug and a, “Well, I’m easily entertained, and I like to read,” because that was true, too. The Wife, however, took a moment to roll her eyes at him (clearly, her mother was not so much a doomsayer as mine had been) and small talk progressed to other, more exciting matters (I believe it was then that we started debating the relative merits and deterrents of several brands of cat food).
For a moment, I wanted to explain to The Husband that if having a library card meant a person didn’t have a life, then the very act of living without a life was entirely underrated. I have had a small satellite dish affixed to my building that brings me, at the push of a button, in excess of 245 channels, three of which I watch and on two of which I find anything even remotely entertaining. The last Tom Wolfe novel I read kept me entertained for days. I have purchased and either broken, misplaced, or given away, any number of items of clothing, shoes, household appliances and semi high-tech gadgets yet I have never, not once in my life, misplaced a library book. To me, losing a library book would be like losing a diamond ring, especially if it was on loan to you from someone else. There’s just something about a library book that makes it enjoyable, even if it’s not the best book you’ve ever read. It’s not yours, to begin with, and you only have it for a limited time, so there’s the whole added pressure to get it read and get it returned safely. It’s like legal shoplifting, this ability to take anything you want and then return it weeks later with no questions asked.
It’s like having access to hours of entertainment, and they cost you nothing. It’s so wonderful, really, it can make a person feel almost guilty, as if they should leave a tip or something for the library clerk on the way out (unless, of course, said clerk leaves you feeling like a criminal because you underappreciated your active card).
I thought about explaining this to The Husband, but decided against it. We’d probably just have launched into a very long, very involved conversation debating the relative pros and cons of the matter, which would have made us late for the show we were headed to, which, incidentally, featured an author whose books I truly love.
It was nice to know, even if I was the only one at the table who could truly appreciate the fact, that I’d never have to pay for those books again.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Nine To Five (Beats Five to Life) : Observations on Occupations
Sometimes something about a Sunday morning jumps out and sticks with you. Sometimes it’s a great article in the Tribune and sometimes it’s the absence of a line at the grocery store and sometimes it’s finding that long forgotten twenty in your jacket pocket when you’re sorting laundry. It’s not usually a big thing, just a little something that carries you through the day and effectively blows away that nearly unavoidable, if unspoken, feeling of ‘Well, back to it tomorrow’ that’s hovering around your head making you think about how weekends just don’t last long enough before you have to go back to work.
I had a Sunday like that yesterday. Before I go into that, I should say that I honestly and completely like my job, and would even go so far as to say I love it. When I think about what comprises my day I have to wonder if it’s even legal that I get an actual paycheck for doing it. I get to dress up. I have an excuse for those impulsive accessory and jewelry purchases (they’re work tools, we’re supposed to accessorize, it makes an impression) and I don’t have to wait for a special occasion once or twice a year to put my hair in some fancy bun that would never be at home in a cubicle in some dull, gray office. Rather than fielding such challenges all day as, say, huddling over a computer crunching numbers (I’ve done this and it’s not fun) I’m more apt to be consulting on menus, talking about décor, and taking people out to eat. Not exactly something to dislike or feel stress about, although because I am human and somewhat of a professional perfectionist and serious control freak (requisites for my field) I manage to find a way to do just that and usually on Sunday when I allow myself to muse (albeit vaguely, and in the back of my head) about the fact that the weekend isn’t lasting long enough and tomorrow I’ll have to go back to work.
Walking with Basil yesterday morning, my Sunday Something jumped out at me in the form of Claudia, my French neighbor (I could listen to her talk for hours. She could swear at someone and it would sound beautiful), who was walking her Jack Russell, Bloss, and it wasn’t long before she launched into her own tale of angst about work. Which, oddly enough, completely and totally blew mine away.
“I’m looking,” she said, “for the perfect black shirt. A dress shirt. What do you think? Where should I look?”
“Macy’s,” I said, because Macy’s has always been my answer for everything and because they’ve never let me down I assume with all confidence they’ll have just what she’s looking for. “Special occasion?”
“New office location,” she said. “I have lots of blouses, but they’re too…” she gestured vaguely at her chest in a way a person the chest belongs to can do without issue, but should a different person, say a male person, attempt would probably send him away with a bodily injury to a very private area, “revealing. I do not think it would be appropriate to be around these new inductees with my boobs hanging out.”
Inductees.
There was my something.
Just thinking about it, I was hit with a rush of appreciation for the fact that the biggest challenge on my plate in the morning, no pun intended, was finalizing a few menus and deciding whether or not there would be a dance band or a DJ for the Saturday event. You see, while those are the challenges I deal with every day (and am occasionally ridiculous enough to stress over), as a parole officer Claudia is dealing with child molesters, repeat drunk drivers, spouse abusers, rapists, your basic con men (and women) and the occasional bank robber. Listening to her talk, it seemed she had appointments with all of them, and to make it worse – no proper blouse. You’ll have to trust me on this when I say that was a real crisis.
“I have to wear a different uniform,” she went on. “These dress pants,” she said, emphasizing ‘pants’ as if she’d said ‘cholera’ or perhaps ‘the plague’. “I really need to go shopping and I just don’t want to, it’s too nice a day.”
I couldn’t have agreed more. Which is why, just then, I remembered a cream colored dress blouse with gold and black enamel buttons I hadn’t worn in months, which was probably hanging right next to a blue silk blouse I was lukewarm about at best but which would be really striking with her eyes, a red jacket, a beige jacket, and three navy blue blouses that had probably never left the hanger since taking up residence in my closet. All, I knew, would fit Claudia, and would certainly keep anything from unduly ‘hanging out’.
“You know,” I said then, “I have a few things I’d love to find a home for, work stuff that I just don’t wear,” and with that, the problem was solved (which is something else I like to do, occupational hazard, you know). So I went home and ten minutes later was standing in her living room, armload of blouses and jackets, and she was ecstatic. She loved everything.
“This is great!” she said, emerging from her bedroom with a black blouse she’d bought a few months back that just ‘didn’t fit right’ on her, a nice way of acknowledging that while I bought my blouses large, she bought hers to fit, so clearly I might enjoy this one and certainly have no fear of anything ‘hanging out’, let alone, come to think of it, being even discernible. I was equally happy with it, deciding I loved the fabric and couldn’t wait to put it on. Which I did, and wore it to dinner that night, which was another Sunday Something that jumped out at me.
While I was supposed to be listening to dinner conversation, I was really thinking, idly glancing at my shirt sleeve, that if the blouse I was wearing could talk, it could probably tell me a lot about life behind bars, how to hold up a convenience store, how to break into a house and maybe even how it was turning its life around….or trying to. My blouses, by contrast, could probably only hold forth briefly about the merits of baby carrots over newborn asparagus, and whether hollandaise was déclassé or just overdone.
I thought then, having the more exciting blouse, I’d gotten the better end of the deal, especially because I’d never been the one to actually have worn it when those conversations took place. It occurred to me that I simply couldn’t do Claudia’s job. It occurred to me that I was very glad someone else could, and it occurred to me that the next time I complained about how some people just couldn’t decide on a color scheme or decided to lose sleep over the size of a section of staging, I’d take a look at that blouse and tell myself to stop being an idiot.
I had a Sunday like that yesterday. Before I go into that, I should say that I honestly and completely like my job, and would even go so far as to say I love it. When I think about what comprises my day I have to wonder if it’s even legal that I get an actual paycheck for doing it. I get to dress up. I have an excuse for those impulsive accessory and jewelry purchases (they’re work tools, we’re supposed to accessorize, it makes an impression) and I don’t have to wait for a special occasion once or twice a year to put my hair in some fancy bun that would never be at home in a cubicle in some dull, gray office. Rather than fielding such challenges all day as, say, huddling over a computer crunching numbers (I’ve done this and it’s not fun) I’m more apt to be consulting on menus, talking about décor, and taking people out to eat. Not exactly something to dislike or feel stress about, although because I am human and somewhat of a professional perfectionist and serious control freak (requisites for my field) I manage to find a way to do just that and usually on Sunday when I allow myself to muse (albeit vaguely, and in the back of my head) about the fact that the weekend isn’t lasting long enough and tomorrow I’ll have to go back to work.
Walking with Basil yesterday morning, my Sunday Something jumped out at me in the form of Claudia, my French neighbor (I could listen to her talk for hours. She could swear at someone and it would sound beautiful), who was walking her Jack Russell, Bloss, and it wasn’t long before she launched into her own tale of angst about work. Which, oddly enough, completely and totally blew mine away.
“I’m looking,” she said, “for the perfect black shirt. A dress shirt. What do you think? Where should I look?”
“Macy’s,” I said, because Macy’s has always been my answer for everything and because they’ve never let me down I assume with all confidence they’ll have just what she’s looking for. “Special occasion?”
“New office location,” she said. “I have lots of blouses, but they’re too…” she gestured vaguely at her chest in a way a person the chest belongs to can do without issue, but should a different person, say a male person, attempt would probably send him away with a bodily injury to a very private area, “revealing. I do not think it would be appropriate to be around these new inductees with my boobs hanging out.”
Inductees.
There was my something.
Just thinking about it, I was hit with a rush of appreciation for the fact that the biggest challenge on my plate in the morning, no pun intended, was finalizing a few menus and deciding whether or not there would be a dance band or a DJ for the Saturday event. You see, while those are the challenges I deal with every day (and am occasionally ridiculous enough to stress over), as a parole officer Claudia is dealing with child molesters, repeat drunk drivers, spouse abusers, rapists, your basic con men (and women) and the occasional bank robber. Listening to her talk, it seemed she had appointments with all of them, and to make it worse – no proper blouse. You’ll have to trust me on this when I say that was a real crisis.
“I have to wear a different uniform,” she went on. “These dress pants,” she said, emphasizing ‘pants’ as if she’d said ‘cholera’ or perhaps ‘the plague’. “I really need to go shopping and I just don’t want to, it’s too nice a day.”
I couldn’t have agreed more. Which is why, just then, I remembered a cream colored dress blouse with gold and black enamel buttons I hadn’t worn in months, which was probably hanging right next to a blue silk blouse I was lukewarm about at best but which would be really striking with her eyes, a red jacket, a beige jacket, and three navy blue blouses that had probably never left the hanger since taking up residence in my closet. All, I knew, would fit Claudia, and would certainly keep anything from unduly ‘hanging out’.
“You know,” I said then, “I have a few things I’d love to find a home for, work stuff that I just don’t wear,” and with that, the problem was solved (which is something else I like to do, occupational hazard, you know). So I went home and ten minutes later was standing in her living room, armload of blouses and jackets, and she was ecstatic. She loved everything.
“This is great!” she said, emerging from her bedroom with a black blouse she’d bought a few months back that just ‘didn’t fit right’ on her, a nice way of acknowledging that while I bought my blouses large, she bought hers to fit, so clearly I might enjoy this one and certainly have no fear of anything ‘hanging out’, let alone, come to think of it, being even discernible. I was equally happy with it, deciding I loved the fabric and couldn’t wait to put it on. Which I did, and wore it to dinner that night, which was another Sunday Something that jumped out at me.
While I was supposed to be listening to dinner conversation, I was really thinking, idly glancing at my shirt sleeve, that if the blouse I was wearing could talk, it could probably tell me a lot about life behind bars, how to hold up a convenience store, how to break into a house and maybe even how it was turning its life around….or trying to. My blouses, by contrast, could probably only hold forth briefly about the merits of baby carrots over newborn asparagus, and whether hollandaise was déclassé or just overdone.
I thought then, having the more exciting blouse, I’d gotten the better end of the deal, especially because I’d never been the one to actually have worn it when those conversations took place. It occurred to me that I simply couldn’t do Claudia’s job. It occurred to me that I was very glad someone else could, and it occurred to me that the next time I complained about how some people just couldn’t decide on a color scheme or decided to lose sleep over the size of a section of staging, I’d take a look at that blouse and tell myself to stop being an idiot.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
An Open Letter To David Sedaris
Dear Mr. Sedaris,
I very seldom write actual letters to authors I enjoy (generally, I simply email them. If you don’t believe me, ask Amy Krouse Rosenthal…) but I had to write to you this morning because frankly, I’m still cracking myself up pulling one liners from your show last night and running them through my head. I assure you, it’s going to be a very long time (if ever) before I recover from “Combover Jesus”, and the coupon for two free pizzas given as a wedding gift. And while I may go happily through the rest of my life and never see an actual Kukaburra, I, like you, was forced to learn all the words to “Waltzing Matilda” in my elementary school days, and only wish I’d aspired to having the sense of humor about it that you do. My father, like yours, was often given to sauntering about the house in his boxer shorts and like you, I found this immediately relegated any authority he wielded down to nothing. He didn’t, however, have the Fraternity paddle, and never actually spanked me or laid a hand on me in his life. I think much can be explained by this but I prefer not to go into it at this time.
Anyway…lest I leave anything unmentioned, I loved…loved…loved…your ‘uneducated American’ bit about our President, Obama, and the whole African Lion thing when transposed. Likewise the Another Savy Senior Hopes Obama Loses Everything as an acronym. If it wasn’t well known until last night, it certainly is now.
I appreciated your plug for the JCC, and also, that hotel where you can do push ups in the morning because the carpet smells, if not fresh, at least not so bad that you’d swear off push ups altogether during your stay, and the whole thing about taking up swimming because ‘it’s one of the few things you can do after you quit smoking and not be thinking, ‘Gosh, this was so much better with a cigarette’. Don’t get me started, please, on the whole Zambian T-shirts with novelty sayings on them, or I may never be able to finish this cup of coffee and actually do something productive with my day.
Clearly, your sense of humor is more than slightly twisted, warped, and off the wall. Maybe that’s the reason I had such a good time, as did the people with me, one of whom is my boss. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t feel right about laughing so hard about things like…well, the whole Combover Jesus thing, in the presence of someone who’s going to, at some point, write my annual review. It was relieving to look over and see she was laughing just as hard, so thank you for that.
Ordinarily I would balk at paying $38.50 (plus a $15.00 ‘convenience fee’, as if it was so convenient for me to spend money over the Internet and go to Will Call as opposed to just showing up and buying a ticket) to listen to someone else talk, but your show has certainly set me straight. Best money I ever spent (outside of an 80% off petite suit sale at Macy’s).
Let’s be honest. You can’t put a price on a perfect evening. And that’s exactly what I had, never mind that the beginning of it was a dinner with so many courses I lost count and which, in hindsight while I thought it was wonderful and a great addition to the Many Diverse Offerings Of Salt Lake City On A Saturday Night, your ninety-minute show was the best part of the whole thing. It was late by the time I got home and I thought the smart money would be on going directly to bed, which I did. Still, even while trying to sleep, I had to recount to my dog the whole bit about how when you’re signing books and you inquire if people have children they often say, ‘my dogs are my children’ and your comment about cocker spaniels not getting up on the furniture vs. keeping sixteen year old kids out of prison and clearly, she didn’t get it, not a bit, but it entertained me to the point that it was another half hour before I could even half-drift into anything resembling sleep. Needless to say, on waking this morning I recounted the whole Duck/Turtle/Black Snake in line for something or other, and how according to you we should make the only requirement for residency in the U.S. the ability to stand in lines for eighty hours…and still, she didn’t get it.
But she was likewise very grateful her person woke up in such a good mood, and seemed so ready, so much earlier than usual on a Sunday morning, to hit the Designated Dog Area, and for that, she sends her thank you’s as well.
I very seldom write actual letters to authors I enjoy (generally, I simply email them. If you don’t believe me, ask Amy Krouse Rosenthal…) but I had to write to you this morning because frankly, I’m still cracking myself up pulling one liners from your show last night and running them through my head. I assure you, it’s going to be a very long time (if ever) before I recover from “Combover Jesus”, and the coupon for two free pizzas given as a wedding gift. And while I may go happily through the rest of my life and never see an actual Kukaburra, I, like you, was forced to learn all the words to “Waltzing Matilda” in my elementary school days, and only wish I’d aspired to having the sense of humor about it that you do. My father, like yours, was often given to sauntering about the house in his boxer shorts and like you, I found this immediately relegated any authority he wielded down to nothing. He didn’t, however, have the Fraternity paddle, and never actually spanked me or laid a hand on me in his life. I think much can be explained by this but I prefer not to go into it at this time.
Anyway…lest I leave anything unmentioned, I loved…loved…loved…your ‘uneducated American’ bit about our President, Obama, and the whole African Lion thing when transposed. Likewise the Another Savy Senior Hopes Obama Loses Everything as an acronym. If it wasn’t well known until last night, it certainly is now.
I appreciated your plug for the JCC, and also, that hotel where you can do push ups in the morning because the carpet smells, if not fresh, at least not so bad that you’d swear off push ups altogether during your stay, and the whole thing about taking up swimming because ‘it’s one of the few things you can do after you quit smoking and not be thinking, ‘Gosh, this was so much better with a cigarette’. Don’t get me started, please, on the whole Zambian T-shirts with novelty sayings on them, or I may never be able to finish this cup of coffee and actually do something productive with my day.
Clearly, your sense of humor is more than slightly twisted, warped, and off the wall. Maybe that’s the reason I had such a good time, as did the people with me, one of whom is my boss. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t feel right about laughing so hard about things like…well, the whole Combover Jesus thing, in the presence of someone who’s going to, at some point, write my annual review. It was relieving to look over and see she was laughing just as hard, so thank you for that.
Ordinarily I would balk at paying $38.50 (plus a $15.00 ‘convenience fee’, as if it was so convenient for me to spend money over the Internet and go to Will Call as opposed to just showing up and buying a ticket) to listen to someone else talk, but your show has certainly set me straight. Best money I ever spent (outside of an 80% off petite suit sale at Macy’s).
Let’s be honest. You can’t put a price on a perfect evening. And that’s exactly what I had, never mind that the beginning of it was a dinner with so many courses I lost count and which, in hindsight while I thought it was wonderful and a great addition to the Many Diverse Offerings Of Salt Lake City On A Saturday Night, your ninety-minute show was the best part of the whole thing. It was late by the time I got home and I thought the smart money would be on going directly to bed, which I did. Still, even while trying to sleep, I had to recount to my dog the whole bit about how when you’re signing books and you inquire if people have children they often say, ‘my dogs are my children’ and your comment about cocker spaniels not getting up on the furniture vs. keeping sixteen year old kids out of prison and clearly, she didn’t get it, not a bit, but it entertained me to the point that it was another half hour before I could even half-drift into anything resembling sleep. Needless to say, on waking this morning I recounted the whole Duck/Turtle/Black Snake in line for something or other, and how according to you we should make the only requirement for residency in the U.S. the ability to stand in lines for eighty hours…and still, she didn’t get it.
But she was likewise very grateful her person woke up in such a good mood, and seemed so ready, so much earlier than usual on a Sunday morning, to hit the Designated Dog Area, and for that, she sends her thank you’s as well.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Petition for Adoption: An Open Letter to Ms. Abigail Birkenhouse
Dear Ms. Birkenhouse,
Having spent an absolutely wonderful day with you and your daughter this past Saturday, I feel compelled (and as those who know me know, once I feel even remotely compelled about anything I immediately take action on it, even when such spontaneity results in disastrous consequences albeit absorbing journal entries) to write you and make my feelings known in the only way I can, which is to boil it down to its most simplistic and simply say:
Please adopt me.
Immediately, if not sooner.
My logic behind this, while it may seem convoluted, twisted, esoteric, unfounded, and everything else you’d naturally presume to emit from a native of Berkeley, is, and I give you my word on this – absolutely sound. True, I came to this conclusion after spending just one afternoon with you strolling the aisles of an antique show, spending inordinate amounts of time debating the purchase of brooches and rings and commenting on the durability of furniture made in the day when wood was wood not particleboard (read: all those old brown paper lunch bags we threw aside as kids, peanut butter on wheat bread scrunched inside, recycled endlessly and now held together with cheap staples and covered in 2 thread count fabric) and books had actual storylines and Cosmopolitan Magazine contained actual articles, articles on travel, interviews with authors, scientific musings about new medicines and not just article upon article about how to achieve orgasm with a feather duster, true, this may not seem enough time or experience together to have come to this conclusion, but trust me: It is.
You are, quite frankly, one of the most delightful women I have ever met in my life. Sitting with you at the concession stand while your daughter disappeared into the ruckus of soon-to-be-closing booths frantically hacking out last minute bargains (she’s like me, I swear. If I ever purchased a Christmas tree, it was at 11pm on Christmas Eve. I know a bargain when I see one) and listening as you shared story after story of your growing up years, and actually, all the years of your life – was like a homecoming to me. It was, actually, like sitting down with my dad, every time I ever sit down with my dad. No conversation has ever started that a story didn’t come out of it, and until that absolutely delightful afternoon, I hadn’t had that experience for a while.
Now, truly, the adoption of another child is a serious matter. You may ask yourself why you should bother.
Well, in all honesty, I’m not quite convinced, at this point, that your own daughter and I weren’t separated at birth. There’s just too many similarities. Number one, she’s as articulate as the day is long and we share the same rather if not twisted, at least extremely pliable, sense of humor. Number two, we both have more furniture and belongings than will ever fit into our respective residences and yet we will be the last people on earth to ever: a):admit to that or b): part with any of it and you have only to set our respective dogs next to each other (both rescues, need I say more?) to open yourself to the possibility that even they were probably separated at birth. Number three, we’re both more than a little independent and have the audacity to absolutely enjoy our lives.
So you see?
It’s like I’m your daughter already.
So I hope you will give this serious consideration. I have not had the wonderful opportunity of sitting down with anyone with your particular brand of humor, grace, and gift of expression since, as I said, the last time I sat down with my dad, and most certainly not since my grandmother ‘passed away’ (although she would hate that term. “I didn’t pass anything,” I can hear her saying now, just knowing I wrote that. “I died, I got cremated, and I went to live at the base of the old pine tree in the Berkeley hills, just left of center of the greenhouse, next to your grandpa, in the house we built together. And frankly, I’m just fine with that.”) and that was a huge and wonderful gift to me.
It’s something to be appreciated in life, when you have the opportunity to be around people whose company you truly enjoy, and I certainly enjoyed yours. And while I understand that, given the fact that I’m already rather grown and really don’t require adoption, this whole idea might not be feasible for you, I completely understand.
However, should you ever want to go antiquing again, or estate sale-ing, or consignment store hopping, I’m in.
With sincere thanks for a most wonderful day,
Madeleine Beringer
Having spent an absolutely wonderful day with you and your daughter this past Saturday, I feel compelled (and as those who know me know, once I feel even remotely compelled about anything I immediately take action on it, even when such spontaneity results in disastrous consequences albeit absorbing journal entries) to write you and make my feelings known in the only way I can, which is to boil it down to its most simplistic and simply say:
Please adopt me.
Immediately, if not sooner.
My logic behind this, while it may seem convoluted, twisted, esoteric, unfounded, and everything else you’d naturally presume to emit from a native of Berkeley, is, and I give you my word on this – absolutely sound. True, I came to this conclusion after spending just one afternoon with you strolling the aisles of an antique show, spending inordinate amounts of time debating the purchase of brooches and rings and commenting on the durability of furniture made in the day when wood was wood not particleboard (read: all those old brown paper lunch bags we threw aside as kids, peanut butter on wheat bread scrunched inside, recycled endlessly and now held together with cheap staples and covered in 2 thread count fabric) and books had actual storylines and Cosmopolitan Magazine contained actual articles, articles on travel, interviews with authors, scientific musings about new medicines and not just article upon article about how to achieve orgasm with a feather duster, true, this may not seem enough time or experience together to have come to this conclusion, but trust me: It is.
You are, quite frankly, one of the most delightful women I have ever met in my life. Sitting with you at the concession stand while your daughter disappeared into the ruckus of soon-to-be-closing booths frantically hacking out last minute bargains (she’s like me, I swear. If I ever purchased a Christmas tree, it was at 11pm on Christmas Eve. I know a bargain when I see one) and listening as you shared story after story of your growing up years, and actually, all the years of your life – was like a homecoming to me. It was, actually, like sitting down with my dad, every time I ever sit down with my dad. No conversation has ever started that a story didn’t come out of it, and until that absolutely delightful afternoon, I hadn’t had that experience for a while.
Now, truly, the adoption of another child is a serious matter. You may ask yourself why you should bother.
Well, in all honesty, I’m not quite convinced, at this point, that your own daughter and I weren’t separated at birth. There’s just too many similarities. Number one, she’s as articulate as the day is long and we share the same rather if not twisted, at least extremely pliable, sense of humor. Number two, we both have more furniture and belongings than will ever fit into our respective residences and yet we will be the last people on earth to ever: a):admit to that or b): part with any of it and you have only to set our respective dogs next to each other (both rescues, need I say more?) to open yourself to the possibility that even they were probably separated at birth. Number three, we’re both more than a little independent and have the audacity to absolutely enjoy our lives.
So you see?
It’s like I’m your daughter already.
So I hope you will give this serious consideration. I have not had the wonderful opportunity of sitting down with anyone with your particular brand of humor, grace, and gift of expression since, as I said, the last time I sat down with my dad, and most certainly not since my grandmother ‘passed away’ (although she would hate that term. “I didn’t pass anything,” I can hear her saying now, just knowing I wrote that. “I died, I got cremated, and I went to live at the base of the old pine tree in the Berkeley hills, just left of center of the greenhouse, next to your grandpa, in the house we built together. And frankly, I’m just fine with that.”) and that was a huge and wonderful gift to me.
It’s something to be appreciated in life, when you have the opportunity to be around people whose company you truly enjoy, and I certainly enjoyed yours. And while I understand that, given the fact that I’m already rather grown and really don’t require adoption, this whole idea might not be feasible for you, I completely understand.
However, should you ever want to go antiquing again, or estate sale-ing, or consignment store hopping, I’m in.
With sincere thanks for a most wonderful day,
Madeleine Beringer
Men Are From Mars, Women Aren’t
In the timeless and eternal struggle between men and women in trying valiantly to understand each other, to reach that point where you were both ‘on the same page’ and could be there through at least half a chapter, better women than myself have just flat given up. I take my hat off to them, for they had the right idea. I say that without, believe it or not, the lightest dollop of rancor or the slightest dash of sarcasm. I say it merely because it’s what I feel, right now. In addition, that is, to feeling relieved, relaxed, and more than slightly less overwhelmed than I felt when I was engaged in the Samsonific struggle (and I mean to reference there the battle of the biblical character, not at all the durability of a popular brand of luggage) of trying to see eye to eye with a man for more than 72 hours with any kind of consistency.
Having come to the conclusion that this whole optical symmetry thing is just not in the particular cards I was dealt nearly half a year ago, I’ve waived the white flag better women than myself have waved before me and life, for some reason I can’t fathom (or maybe I can, and that’s why I’m writing this) has settled back into a comfortable, non-upsy-downsy rhythm in which, perhaps, the greatest joy of my day is an early morning walk with my dog, but it beats the buckets out of the slept-through-the-alarm-because-I-was-trying-to-figure-out-a-man so-called sleep I had before now which left, at a minimum, me with less than stellar hair days and my dog entirely frustrated at a morning jog versus a joyous, leisurely sunrise stroll, at a maximum.
Here’s the thing – and this thing won’t make any more sense to those who read this blog (I still believe there may be some, maybe at least one, if you don’t count Sam the Mailman and my Avon Lead) than to those who don’t, but perhaps will, to anyone who’s ever been a single female engaged in a relationship that’s had more rough spots than your basic Contra Costa County roadway – but there’s a certain point you get to when you’ve said all the same things over and over again, and had all the same disagreements and make-ups, and ‘let’s put this behind us’s, and you’ve had, even more memorably, all the good times and the great times and the times when you were so happy it was like Christmas every day – and then been blindsided by something so trivial (when looked at in light of the big picture, and all that) and that thing, or things which had been completely dissected, discussed, analyzed, and ‘moved past’ totally derailed the relationship. And then the relationship came to life again, and you trusted it again….and this thing, or things, came up again…and one day, or night, or one morning commercial break during the Today Show, it finally dawned on you with all the intensity and surety of the first ear piercing clangs of the alarm clock the morning you accidentally set it an hour too early: I’m doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.
It was Albert Einstein himself who categorized that as the definition of insanity.
No dummy, Einstein. I never quite caught on to the whole E equals MC squared thing, but this….this, I get.
Sometimes the best part of life, I’m realizing, is to accept it for what it is. Having been raised in middle to upper middle class America (I had many Barbie dolls), I always believed in the ‘Happily Ever After’ thing, and I’m not saying I’m not a believer in that now. I’m just seeing, more clearly, perhaps, than I have in a long time, that it’s not always given to you in one person. Sometimes the whole ‘happily’ thing is a mishmash of many things, and many people. And sometimes – and this really clashes with the core beliefs of someone who actually watched The Wizard of Oz and believed in those red shoes – it’s OK to come that close, and yet not be quite close enough.
Men are from Mars, and Women are Not. I said that myself. It doesn’t mean you don’t love someone. It doesn’t mean you won’t always. It just means, sometimes, that you wake up and inventory your own stuff, as it were, and realize you are such good solid friends with someone you were married to for a long time, and someone else you dated for a long time, and someone else you went for coffee with but it just didn’t pan out. Not knowing if you’ll ever have that with the person you really love (but just can’t seem to get it ‘right’ with, ‘right’ being said in the same vein as what my Grandmother once told me when I used the word ‘Normal’. “Normal,” she said, “is a setting on a washing machine, period. Don’t kid yourself otherwise.”) is unsettling, but it’s not, not in reality, the end of the world.
Maybe it’s just the beginning of something. Like realizing you’re not the first one who finally became so exhausted by something that you just had to let it go. As my Conservative Ohio Matron Turned California Hippie Mother observed (ad nauseum): “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.”
And that is, I suppose, all I have to say about that…whatever it was I was saying.
Having come to the conclusion that this whole optical symmetry thing is just not in the particular cards I was dealt nearly half a year ago, I’ve waived the white flag better women than myself have waved before me and life, for some reason I can’t fathom (or maybe I can, and that’s why I’m writing this) has settled back into a comfortable, non-upsy-downsy rhythm in which, perhaps, the greatest joy of my day is an early morning walk with my dog, but it beats the buckets out of the slept-through-the-alarm-because-I-was-trying-to-figure-out-a-man so-called sleep I had before now which left, at a minimum, me with less than stellar hair days and my dog entirely frustrated at a morning jog versus a joyous, leisurely sunrise stroll, at a maximum.
Here’s the thing – and this thing won’t make any more sense to those who read this blog (I still believe there may be some, maybe at least one, if you don’t count Sam the Mailman and my Avon Lead) than to those who don’t, but perhaps will, to anyone who’s ever been a single female engaged in a relationship that’s had more rough spots than your basic Contra Costa County roadway – but there’s a certain point you get to when you’ve said all the same things over and over again, and had all the same disagreements and make-ups, and ‘let’s put this behind us’s, and you’ve had, even more memorably, all the good times and the great times and the times when you were so happy it was like Christmas every day – and then been blindsided by something so trivial (when looked at in light of the big picture, and all that) and that thing, or things which had been completely dissected, discussed, analyzed, and ‘moved past’ totally derailed the relationship. And then the relationship came to life again, and you trusted it again….and this thing, or things, came up again…and one day, or night, or one morning commercial break during the Today Show, it finally dawned on you with all the intensity and surety of the first ear piercing clangs of the alarm clock the morning you accidentally set it an hour too early: I’m doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.
It was Albert Einstein himself who categorized that as the definition of insanity.
No dummy, Einstein. I never quite caught on to the whole E equals MC squared thing, but this….this, I get.
Sometimes the best part of life, I’m realizing, is to accept it for what it is. Having been raised in middle to upper middle class America (I had many Barbie dolls), I always believed in the ‘Happily Ever After’ thing, and I’m not saying I’m not a believer in that now. I’m just seeing, more clearly, perhaps, than I have in a long time, that it’s not always given to you in one person. Sometimes the whole ‘happily’ thing is a mishmash of many things, and many people. And sometimes – and this really clashes with the core beliefs of someone who actually watched The Wizard of Oz and believed in those red shoes – it’s OK to come that close, and yet not be quite close enough.
Men are from Mars, and Women are Not. I said that myself. It doesn’t mean you don’t love someone. It doesn’t mean you won’t always. It just means, sometimes, that you wake up and inventory your own stuff, as it were, and realize you are such good solid friends with someone you were married to for a long time, and someone else you dated for a long time, and someone else you went for coffee with but it just didn’t pan out. Not knowing if you’ll ever have that with the person you really love (but just can’t seem to get it ‘right’ with, ‘right’ being said in the same vein as what my Grandmother once told me when I used the word ‘Normal’. “Normal,” she said, “is a setting on a washing machine, period. Don’t kid yourself otherwise.”) is unsettling, but it’s not, not in reality, the end of the world.
Maybe it’s just the beginning of something. Like realizing you’re not the first one who finally became so exhausted by something that you just had to let it go. As my Conservative Ohio Matron Turned California Hippie Mother observed (ad nauseum): “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.”
And that is, I suppose, all I have to say about that…whatever it was I was saying.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Remedial Survival Skills, 101: How To Survive An Earthquake When All You Really Want To Do Is Continue Shopping
Having grown up in Northern California, I’m no stranger to emergency preparedness, it’s just that having lived away from Northern California for so many years, I’m not very good at it. Well do I remember the earthquake drills in kindergarten, when we’d all dive beneath our desks to ‘duck and cover’, which come to think of it was a waste of time because those desks weren’t bolted to the floor so the more likely result had a tremor of any force hit would have been thirty or so five year olds pretty badly run over by heavy metal desks. Still, should the need arise to dive under a desk, I’m pretty sure I still could. I may not to this day know what the proper tire inflation is for my car, but I do know it’s a darned good idea to have a radio with batteries somewhere in your house at all times. Likewise with candles, waterproof matches, and some semblance of a seventy-two hour kit (My own 72 hour kit is woefully inadequate at the present time as it consists merely of a butane lighter, a pocket sized package of Kleenex, a tube of lipstick, three granola bars, an expired mascara and last month’s issue of Cosmo. I really need to do something about that). Finally, I doubt there’s been a single minute in my life that I didn’t know without having to think about it that should I ever feel the earth shake, I’d immediately stop what I was doing and go stand in a doorway.
I did very well with that at 4:45a.m. yesterday, all except for the ‘immediately’ part, mainly because what I was doing when my bed started to shake was sleeping incredibly well and having a wonderful dream that had something to do with a miscalculation on a bonus check that worked out incredibly in my favor and coincided neatly with a fabulous 75% off sale in the Petite Suit department of Macy’s. Much as I was enjoying loading an extremely large clothing rack, the increased shaking of the bed nudged awake some basic Native Californian survival instinct, and I woke up.
The sky, as much as I could see of it without benefit of contacts or eyeglasses (not much), was suitably gray, ominous, and what the heck, probably (from what I could remember from all those film strips in science class) indicative of ‘earthquake weather’. The shaking continued, and I was just about to bolt for the doorway when I realized it couldn’t be an earthquake. It couldn’t be, because both cats were sleeping soundly, undisturbed, in the midst of all of it. No animal will sleep through an earthquake. They’ll generally run and hide well before it even gets started.
There had to be another explanation, and I quickly uncovered it from beneath an extra blanket at the foot of the bed. It was Basil. Shaking uncontrollably. I immediately checked her nose and it was cold, a universal sign that told me (much faster and more infallibly than any $80 vet visit) that she wasn’t sick. Which could only mean….
The thunder and lightning weren’t two minutes behind my realization, and it was then that I realized it was no earthquake I had to survive, just another heart rending case of my best friend’s biggest fears: Thunder. Lightning. They have always set her off in shaking fits that are impossible to quell, no matter I did then what I have always done, the only thing I can think of doing, which really does tend to make her feel better. I wrapped her in the blanket, pulled her onto my lap, and hugged her until the storm passed, or at least the louder parts of it, which turned out to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 6:30a.m.
Which is fine, and it did give me a jump start to the day.
I suppose, if the weather forecast is any indication, I’ve got a lot of this to look forward to. There’s no real cure for it, unless you want to tranquilize your pet (I don’t, although I once allowed Gerdie, who’s long since gone to dog heaven, to have ½ of a light beer pre-fireworks in Colorado, when the local demonstration was set up in what appeared to be the very edge of our front lawn. She happily went to sleep before the first firecracker was lit). There are two ‘suggested remedies’ if you believe Ask The Country Vet in Country Living Magazine, and I’m not big on either of them.
The first, he said, is to play, on a daily basis, recorded storm sounds for your dog.
Gradually increase the volume until your dog becomes acclimated to these sounds and they no longer bother them. This to me sounds like cruel and unwarranted punishment. If she’s going to shake herself almost sick during an actual storm, why in the world would I want to play recorded storm sounds all day when I’m gone? That’s like saying, to train your dog not to chase cars, simply tie them down in the driveway and back over them once or twice until they get the message.
The second sounded more feasible, albeit not at 4:45 in the morning. Engage your dog, the vet writes, during these storms, in her favorite playtime activities. Reward with treats, and eventually she will associate storms with good times.
Somehow the idea of tossing stuffed animals around my place as she barked in excitement, her feet making a wonderful racket on the floor, didn’t seem like anything that would win me high marks at the next HOA meeting.
Never, under any circumstances, the vet writes, should you hold, coddle, console or otherwise be anything other than business as usual with your pet during a storm. This will only reinforce their fear. Disregard them, and act as if everything is normal.
That last darned near cost Country Living a subscriber, and convinced me The Country Vet had never shared space of any kind with a dog, and certainly not one of my Basil’s caliber. I’ll ignore her when she’s hurting when the day ever comes that she doesn’t immediately intuit when I am, and stops either crawling outright into my lap or at a minimum not letting me get too far out of her reach. The very idea is heartless.
So I will continue to coddle, console, and comfort.
At least until I can teach her how to brace herself in a doorway until the storm passes.
I did very well with that at 4:45a.m. yesterday, all except for the ‘immediately’ part, mainly because what I was doing when my bed started to shake was sleeping incredibly well and having a wonderful dream that had something to do with a miscalculation on a bonus check that worked out incredibly in my favor and coincided neatly with a fabulous 75% off sale in the Petite Suit department of Macy’s. Much as I was enjoying loading an extremely large clothing rack, the increased shaking of the bed nudged awake some basic Native Californian survival instinct, and I woke up.
The sky, as much as I could see of it without benefit of contacts or eyeglasses (not much), was suitably gray, ominous, and what the heck, probably (from what I could remember from all those film strips in science class) indicative of ‘earthquake weather’. The shaking continued, and I was just about to bolt for the doorway when I realized it couldn’t be an earthquake. It couldn’t be, because both cats were sleeping soundly, undisturbed, in the midst of all of it. No animal will sleep through an earthquake. They’ll generally run and hide well before it even gets started.
There had to be another explanation, and I quickly uncovered it from beneath an extra blanket at the foot of the bed. It was Basil. Shaking uncontrollably. I immediately checked her nose and it was cold, a universal sign that told me (much faster and more infallibly than any $80 vet visit) that she wasn’t sick. Which could only mean….
The thunder and lightning weren’t two minutes behind my realization, and it was then that I realized it was no earthquake I had to survive, just another heart rending case of my best friend’s biggest fears: Thunder. Lightning. They have always set her off in shaking fits that are impossible to quell, no matter I did then what I have always done, the only thing I can think of doing, which really does tend to make her feel better. I wrapped her in the blanket, pulled her onto my lap, and hugged her until the storm passed, or at least the louder parts of it, which turned out to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 6:30a.m.
Which is fine, and it did give me a jump start to the day.
I suppose, if the weather forecast is any indication, I’ve got a lot of this to look forward to. There’s no real cure for it, unless you want to tranquilize your pet (I don’t, although I once allowed Gerdie, who’s long since gone to dog heaven, to have ½ of a light beer pre-fireworks in Colorado, when the local demonstration was set up in what appeared to be the very edge of our front lawn. She happily went to sleep before the first firecracker was lit). There are two ‘suggested remedies’ if you believe Ask The Country Vet in Country Living Magazine, and I’m not big on either of them.
The first, he said, is to play, on a daily basis, recorded storm sounds for your dog.
Gradually increase the volume until your dog becomes acclimated to these sounds and they no longer bother them. This to me sounds like cruel and unwarranted punishment. If she’s going to shake herself almost sick during an actual storm, why in the world would I want to play recorded storm sounds all day when I’m gone? That’s like saying, to train your dog not to chase cars, simply tie them down in the driveway and back over them once or twice until they get the message.
The second sounded more feasible, albeit not at 4:45 in the morning. Engage your dog, the vet writes, during these storms, in her favorite playtime activities. Reward with treats, and eventually she will associate storms with good times.
Somehow the idea of tossing stuffed animals around my place as she barked in excitement, her feet making a wonderful racket on the floor, didn’t seem like anything that would win me high marks at the next HOA meeting.
Never, under any circumstances, the vet writes, should you hold, coddle, console or otherwise be anything other than business as usual with your pet during a storm. This will only reinforce their fear. Disregard them, and act as if everything is normal.
That last darned near cost Country Living a subscriber, and convinced me The Country Vet had never shared space of any kind with a dog, and certainly not one of my Basil’s caliber. I’ll ignore her when she’s hurting when the day ever comes that she doesn’t immediately intuit when I am, and stops either crawling outright into my lap or at a minimum not letting me get too far out of her reach. The very idea is heartless.
So I will continue to coddle, console, and comfort.
At least until I can teach her how to brace herself in a doorway until the storm passes.
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