Three years

Come Thanksgiving, I will have been in Vermont for three years. As you will recall, I decided to make a change in my life to choose health and wellbeing over the cultural and economic riches of New York City. Although I loved the city with the passion of an addict, living there was beginning to damage my health. So I packed up my belongings, my good big dogs, and my negotiated severance check and moved to Vermont.

Many people hate to move; more are afraid to try it, often because of losing friends or even of the effort required—and the risk—in making new ones. Having moved several times, I think moving or not moving is pretty much a matter of taste. There are downsides, sure, like the risk of ending up in a rigid, insular backwater like Chattanooga, but mostly it has been a lot of fun to move around and try new places, new projects, and even new people. The rule of thumb—I don’t think I made it up—is that it takes three years to feel at home in a new place.

Do you lose friends? Sure. People lose track when they don’t fall over each other every day, and some have the skills to forge new ties when the old ones fail, some care enough to do it, and some don’t. After years of living among judgmental people, I have come to believe it is mostly a matter first of skill and second of negotiated expectations.

Skill. If we are lucky, we learn the skills and techniques of friendship early before we even recognize them as such. We learn to treat each other with respect, to anticipate that another person may see the world differently, to communicate with words instead of fists and teeth, to reach out with a smile, a word, a note, even an e-mail or a blog. We learn that others cannot read our minds and that it is only the overt action that strengthens ties. The thought may count, but the act counts ten times over.

Communications theorists remind us that for a message to penetrate the bony human consciousness, it needs to be repeated several times, but somehow in dealing with our loved ones, we expect them to take our unexpressed care as a given. What’s up with that? Disinterested love is a great thing, but it is a rare experience here on earth. Not impossible, but rare. Active, committed love based on tangible interaction is a gift we can all give each other, and the key is improving our connecting skills.

Negotiated expectations. Between friends, boundaries are as important as connection mechanisms. If I don’t have space and time to myself (inside the boundaries) I don’t know who I am and what I bring to the friendship. But the drive to connect is the countervailing vector—we all want our friends to know us, to appreciate us, and to be there to share our experience. It’s our old enemies time and space that create the problem—I want to talk when you don’t, you have a problem you want to share at the same time I have my own pressing concerns.

So we build rules for our interaction, some personal guidelines (“Please don’t talk to me on Tuesdays, because I have a lot of commitments that day”), some which rise to the level of social norms, and some in the spectrum in between (“Our family doesn’t take phone calls after ten o’clock” or “Vermonters only dance with their spouses.”). We each of us get it wrong sometimes. We forget that we have to explain our personal sets of rule to new people. Blinded by our own private concerns, we blunder over the sore spots of those we love, then shake our heads as we realize we have offended.

Remember that old line, “But enough about you. Let’s talk more about me.” We all have friends who pull that nonsense from time to time, and if they are real friends we can call them on it. Sometimes. I have a friend who offended me yesterday, but the specifics don't really matter.

I try to think of what my friend N would do, N who has the greatest gift for friendship of anyone that I know. She has mastered the skills of keeping a large number of friends from childhood forward informed and connected. She has, as near as I can see, no expectations of her friends but that they talk to her from time to time, have lunch with her, spend time with her, introduce their kids to her, and make her part of their life, as time and circumstances permit. And I don’t know anyone who isn’t willing to spend time with such an interesting, well-rounded, thoughtful person. She throws the occasional dinner party, but the real effort she expends in maintaining connections is on the phone. She calls several friends a week, just to catch up. She has a deep, rich understanding of human nature, and she knows when to leave something alone.

I think N would advise me to leave yesterday's incident alone. My hurt feelings, well, those will have to be my problem. In a separete incident yesterday, I know I needed my friends. After a terrible, terrible weekend, we went to the vet who advised cortisone or a much more dramatic series of neurological evaluations and procedures. We will try the cortisone for a week, then reassess, but I have taken the extreme measures off the table. Max seems a little more cheerful this morning, possibly only from the delight of yesterday’s outing to the vet where everyone admired him and cried over him.

Forced to rely on other people yesterday—I am a very, very private person and only rely on others when circumstances force me to—I found that I have a much more robust network of friends than I had realized.

Three years. Right on schedule and just in time.

Not around much

I haven’t been blogging much. Partly it is suffering through the dark mornings and relying too much on adrenaline to get me through the busy fall meeting schedule. Partly though, it is convergence colliding with discretion.

My private life and my public life have come together to a degree that I can’t count on the anonymity I once took for granted in blogdom. Not that it was ever very hard to figure out who I am, if anyone cared to try. But now I am working on a blog for the organization where I work, and my opinions in that sphere cross over and back to and from my so-called private life.

I do want parts of my life to be private. Although I have little to hide, maybe nothing at all, I cherish a core that is all mine. These days I am working on some issues that are not for sharing, for example my old dog’s failing health. It is heart-wrenching to watch his decline, but this is one instance when writing about it does not help. Talking does help, and I try to spread it around so that I don’t unduly burden people with daily reports of woe. Nor do I even want to think about it every day; I just want to enjoy this wonderful friend as long as I can.

This is not a criticism of other approaches. We all deal with the world in the ways we can Right now I am taking time for Max.

I think I will try another crack at NaNoWriMo as well. Although I wrote myself into an inextricable plot corner last year, maybe I will do better with a different plot, something with less of my life in it. Although I think my life has been interesting, it made for a tortuous, dull novel. Better luck next time.

First snow

The quiet in the night woke me. The moon seemed extra bright. Without my glasses, I stumbled downstairs to let the dogs out. Oh, wow.

Big, sloppy clumps of snow falling from the sky, sloshing on the ground, which was already three inches deep in the stuff. Not flakes but handfuls of snow drifting silently down. We marveled for a few minutes, especially the puppy who has never experienced such a thing in her short life. “You expect me to squat in this! It’s cold.” Mystified, she jumped back on the step, then simply had to try it out again.

After sunup, the trees cracked warnings, and sure enough—as soon as the coffee was made—the power went off. It may be the first time that I have been in the house during daylight hours without power. I learned that I need to do a little more emergency planning—more candles, some way to heat a cup of water.

And I learned that although the furnace runs on oil, the blower is electric. More and more, I am glad to have my little propane stove in the living room. With the encouragement of the chimney cleaner, I am even considering burning wood in my combination furnace. After all, there is a lot of dry wood in the basement. When I learned that the This Old House plumber’s brother who burned down his house had the same furnace as mine, I thought twice about burning wood, but perhaps if I am careful not to overload it as he did…perhaps it will be an option. Certainly this is a year when we want to have a well hedged fuel portfolio.

It is funny now to look out and see the snow’s white carpet overlaid with yellow leaves. Late fall, early snow. Good thing I cleaned the garden yesterday.

Being without power was more challenging than I expected. Everywhere I turned there was something I couldn’t do. I felt like a deprived energy pig. Couldn’t cook—the stove is electric. Couldn’t do laundry, a standard weekend chore. Didn’t think it wise to clean out the refrigerator as I had planned. Couldn’t vacuum---yay!!!! (I hate vacuuming out of all proportion to the amount of time it takes.)

My big achievement for today was getting my big quilt frame reassembled for the first time since I left Brooklyn, two moves ago. Daunting undertaking though it was, it came together and now graces the living room. In many ways upstairs would have been more practical for such a bulky contraption, but Max can’t make it upstairs at all any more. We want all the time with Max we can have.

The puppy, incidentally, is enormous. Second and third time out, snow kinda grew on her. Soon she was romping and chasing the big boys, skidding down the walkway and chomping on snow.

Flat dogs

So flat. Today the sun was out, and we cleared all the stakes and plastic out of the garden. It was taxing for dogs, all that watching and stealing cucumbers and burying things and digging them up and burying them again and what is she doing with those sticks? I could not interest anyone in evening dogfood, so committed are the three to their naps.

I had a very nice nap myself, then got up and finished the broccoli surprise soup. Surprise because there it was yesterday, after the first frost and all. And again today the surprise of a previously unsuspected acorn squash. And a couple of overgrown cucumbers, but those have now been buried.

One of the reasons that I started writing Vermont Diary was to record garden events, so here is the season wrap-up.

No more yellow tomatoes, or at least not many. They are very pretty, but they don’t have enough acid for home canning. Romas are nice and the green ones keep well into the fall. The recipe of the year may well be oven dried grape tomatoes. Just cut them in half and spread them on a lightly oiled baking sheet and put into the over overnight at the lowest possible temperature, then store in the freezer They are wonderful, but I really must investigate what the energy cost adds up to.

Corn is not a good crop for my plot—too much shade and too many turkeys eating it before it has a chance to sprout.

Sunflowers are a good thing.

Pole beans did not do well. Bush beans were a triumph, and my freezer is full of them. Black eyed peas did not have enough days in the growing season. Summer savory in the bean patch definitely worth repeating.

And what’s up with the eggplant? And the peppers. I had one eggplant and one pepper all season, even though the plants were robust and healthy.

Broccoli was consistently wonderful. The plants from the local garden center were excellent, and the De Cicco ones I grew from seed were even better.

Beets were okay. I like beets but they failed to inspire. Ditto carrots and radishes. I forgot to plant parsnips.

Onions and garlic complete and dismal failure. Couldn’t even find the plants. I blame the turkeys. If you find one up here, consider it pre-seasoned.

Chard: excellent. Collards: very nice. Kale: would be nice with fewer beetles chowing down. Mustard: forgot to eat it. I always think I will eat more greens than I actually do.

The champion crop for this year, as for many years was squash. Pretty round zucchinis that went well on the grill, yellow crookneck, lovely Delicata (several still in my dining room table still life), a funky round red one, some underdeveloped Hubbards, and a few really nice acorns. And of course the seventeen pumpkins. I have made pumpkin pickles and there is pumpkin pie to come. Hooray for the pumpkin pie!

Other thoughts for next year. Mulch and mulch and more mulch. Not quite so many beans. Not quite so many tomatoes. A garden is a wonderful thing, but it doesn’t do to be completely in thrall to it and its ogre-partner the freezer. Only today have I escaped the grasp of green tomatoes. Only today am I free.

The movies

The Movies

I am watching a movie called Sullivan’s Travels with Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake. I am embarrassed that my only association with Veronica Lake is that my mother always accused me of imitating her when my hair was in my face.

“You have such a pretty face.”

The prelude to you oughtta get a better haircut. You oughta lose some weight. You oughtta oughtta oughtta. Who cares? Not me. Not any more.

Yes, I would prefer to be thirty pounds lighter, because I am now at the stage of life to fuss over health issues. Am I pre-diabetic? Well, given the genetic situation, probably. What other ills await me? Who knows?

But I digress. Veronica Lake is quite fetching in her boy’s cap. And I really enjoyed the scene in which first Joel McCrea, then Veronica Lake (oh my!) then the butler all ended up in the swimming pool.

It reminded me of a friend of mine, with whom I reveled in divorce, not that either of us was happy about our respective situations. His wife had a grim affair with her professor, my husband simply opted out, yet somehow we never were on each other’s radar screen. My beloved friend as a lover? We are far too different.

But we shared a memorable and well-remembered dinner. Four hours, or more, in the course of which we explored my unremarkable sexual and romantic history, his slightly more remarkable memories, and…yes, I mark it well…the sexual history of the waiter, more notable than any memories of us two, and isn’t that just the way of the world? Those hours in a Philadelphia restaurant, one of the Restaurant Renaissance locales, remain among my most treasures. Laughter, love and longing, all with a man never meant to be mine, but a friend forever. Nothing can take that evening from us. Nothing can take from us the lightness of love and laughter.

When it comes to real life, and it always does, you know, I rest in moments like those. I don’t mistake them for real life. No, wrong again, they are real life, but they are the truffles of life. I am grateful for these moments of grace. Every single moment.

Where do you suppose that waiter is now? Do you think he played that role more than once? Do you think his conscious mind embraces the number of sad couples--not even couples, just friends who happened to get divorced at the same time, but couples in his eyes—to whom he delivered wine and food and coffee? What a blessing to be able to serve that role! Do you think he knows? Do you think he knew then?

Perhaps it is a condition of grace that it doesn't matter at all whether it is conscious. It was a wonderful evening, even coming as it did in a sad and dreary period in my life, and I cling to that evening still.

Grace.

If a movie could capture that, well then. That would be a work of art indeed.

Play with me!

The puppy wants to play. The big dogs played hard yesterday, and Max is enjoying a snooze, while Toby rips apart one of the baby’s toys. Oh, the moans, the wails!

Yesterday, we saw one of Cassie’s littermates. I had stepped into a new quilt store looking for a rotary cutter replacement blade. I mentioned the topic currently most dear to me, and the store’s owner asked if she was as nice as the puppy in the fuel service store next door. Why yes, she is. In fact, she is little Harley’s sister.

On the sidewalk, after a few preliminaries, they rekindled the rough-and-tumble puppy play of a few weeks ago—bites and snarls that alarmed Harley’s mom. We retreated before there were too many comments about Cassie’s vicious temperament. How quickly these little dogs will have completely different lives! Cassie is not getting weekly baths, either, although we do attempt to cut toe-nails every two weeks—a battleground in itself, all wiggles and screams.

In my living room, moans and wails have given way to noisy snarls—on Toby’s part—which would be alarming if he meant them. Ah, there’s the problem. He is defending not only the plastic chew toy but also a well-aged, buried-and-dug up bone.

And now it is too quiet—a danger sign with puppies as with small children. Yesterday, I found a well shredded electrical cord dangling from a heavy lamp perched on the very edge of a table. I think I watch her every minute, and yet she managed to squeeze in enough time to do this damage, which—if the cord had been plugged in at the time—would have endangered her life as well. I don’t care about the lamp, but I do care about the puppy.

All three dogs had a big day yesterday. We did a road trip out to the building I manage, so there was a good, long car ride and a romp at the building site. Today the old boys are moving slowly, and won’t they be happy to see the girl put into her crate when it is time for me to go to work?

The photo I wish I could send you: two black dogs, viewed from the back, one large and one small, both squatting for a companionable morning pee.

Yes, Toby squats. Not sure why, but he never learned to lift his leg. Under the heading of why-are-we-having-this-conversation? file this flash of memory of a guy in Prospect Park who aggressively argued with me that Toby must be pooping unattended because he was squatting. Since I had just dropped the morning poop in the trash, I had nothing to show in our defense. And since rationality was not going to work, I could only walk away. Sometimes, there is nothing to be done in the face of mistaken belligerence.

Threats in the form of licking yet another electrical cord—this one plugged into my reading lamp—get my attention at last. Somebody is going to have to play with Cassie. It looks like I am nominated. Well, okay.

Rocks, hard places and the paths between them

Old dog Max can’t go for long walks any more. And baby Cassandra can’t go far. When October days burst forth in glorious Vermont color, we just have to be outside. We did a walk to the top of the maple grove behind the house—I was dying for a walk myself.

Damn these short days, shorter and shorter until the solstice. Understanding the solar rhythm doesn’t make it any easier to tolerate. Mornings now, the time I would most love to be afoot…those mornings are spent under that high intensity light bulb. I can do anything I want as long as I stay under there for an hour.

Today was just too spectacularly beautiful. We had to—absolutely had to—go for a walk.

As any owner of multiple dogs will tell you, getting a picture of the dogs together is one of those anthropomorphic daydreams. Dogs may love each other dearly, may romp in pairs or trios or more, but they will not be photographed in such dear aggregations.


Ta dah! The playful pair.

Ta dah! Let’s all be shepherds together.













And the ultimate troika. My three loves, captured in a single digital image. Amazing how the tiniest one is the center of the party, even as she trails the big boys. Toby already loves her as plush toy, playmate and partner in cuddles. Max is coming to recognize her qualities, or at least he has stopped snarling.




***
Postscript. Oh my goodness. She is the worst. She just peed in Max’s bed. The brat.

Things I learn from my puppy

Wear your ears a different way every day.

Jump on the big dogs every chance you get. If they bite your head, don't let it worry you.

Play like you mean it. Ditto sleep.

Sleep a lot. Cell division is serious business.

Find toys and joy in every little thing.

Simplify

My horoscope for today: You have taken on a lot of new responsibilities in recent weeks and now the planets are warning that you must not take on any more. Even a Leo has limits and you have reached yours and maybe even gone a little bit beyond them. At the moment you are just about holding things together - but don't push your luck.

Amen to that.

Sounds like a day for cleaning house, sprucing up garden, playing with dogs and not much more. I had to abandon a failed pickle project last night. It may be time to compost the rest of the tomatoes. It is certainly time to bring in hammock and outdoor chairs.

Simplify, simplify, simplify.

It’s one of those spectacular Vermont autumn days. Thick mist in the valleys, a serious nip in the air, and a forecast for foliage turning so fast you can almost watch it. I have a new puppy whose ears hourly take a different turn. And an old Toby-puppy who thinks the new one is a toy. And a very old Max-dog who needs a lot of attention.

Simplify, simplify.

I’m thinking of writing this one word above the front door of my house in a spot where I would see it every time I come downstairs.

Simplify.

Toby caves

He's playing with the evil puppy. With a deep play-bow, Toby makes himself little dog size, then scoops her up and flings her bodily across the living room rug. She picks herself up with a shake and comes back for more.

She thinks she's a big dog and she loves to play with Toby, who is--conservatively speaking--six times her size.

A smile a day

Yesterday while I was getting dressing, I heard the funniest noise, kind of a “boinggg-g-g-ga!” The puppy had found one of those door stoppers that looks like a coiled spring. It kept both of us amused for several minutes.

Cassie is a brave creature. The second night she spent with me, I heard three big thumps in the night as she fell or jumped off my bed, a rather high sleigh bed with tall headboard and footboard. This morning I decided to watch her technique. I assumed that she would have figured out how to use the siderails as a halfway stop, but no. She took a running leap and launched her tiny self over the footboard into mid-air, coming to rest with a thump on the carpet. Oh my goodness! I don’t think I can watch that again.

She has also been working on stairs. I have been walking her down, holding her little collar, to avoid a headlong slide down fifteen steep steps. But today, she marched right over to the stairs and was determined, “I can do it myself, Mom.”

The minute morsel does not have the slightest fear of the big dogs, no matter how they growl and snarl. She puts up one small paw and pats their muzzles. Toby now routinely lets her curl up with him, although he still claims all the toys are his. There was one time yesterday when I swear I thought I saw out of one corner of one eye….Toby playing with the puppy. With Max, she plays the “Hey, let’s be German Shepherds together” card, and he just looks at her: “Oh, please.”

So big

Baby Cassandra is home, and—as is the way with babies—she has changed enormously since my last visit to the breeder’s home. Somehow in the last week, the pups got longer and lankier and even more beautiful.

I picked her up yesterday. As the guy who jumped off the 50-story building opined on passing the 20th floor….so far, so good.

The 2-mile car ride home was uneventful, and after brief introductions all around, I put her in her crate for a nap and went out for half an hour’s errands. Then we all worked in the garden for awhile. Half a dozen trips to the garden and back were heavy work for an eight-week-old pup, but she loved being out with us and she slept soundly last night.

This is my first time having a pedigreed dog. All my others have been foundlings who turned up at my door. As much as I have loved them all and still love Max and Toby, I would like to avoid any repeat of the pain and expense of Max’s hip replacement. So this little girl has papers. Good genes and a good home-raised start to life—we’ll try to build on this sound foundation.

The boys are responding reasonably well. Max wants more cookies—the key to a good life in Max-world—and Toby wants to hoard the toys.

Under lights

I sit here like the plant that I am, soaking up light rays from an Ultralux UL559155, my emergency light bulb having been delivered by Fedex a couple of days ago. I feel ridiculous. And I am more than a little annoyed, and annoyed in the second degree at myself for being annoyed at physical facts that are beyond my capacity to control.

It is barely mid-September, and the light has changed dramatically in this northern clime. Days are short. Late sunrise makes it hard to squeeze in the morning walks I have come to crave, and early sunset simply startles. Where has the day gone? It is an early warning of losses to come, of snow and cold and even more darkness, all part of the cycle to be sure, so how can these changes surprise me so?

I love Vermont’s four seasons, and we have not quite left summer. True, there are orange tips on the trees, and there is sometimes a nip in the air, but mostly we bask in warm sunshine, even as we recognize these are likely the last such days. We bask, but we mourn the loss of summer, and—annoying as it is—we mourn ahead of the loss! Why can’t we enjoy these late summer days for themselves?

Part hibernation instinct, part ant-like need to prepare, part mourning, we watch these last harvest days pass in solemn review. We pack up our school bags and get back to work, feckless children turned again to our sums and sentence diagramming.

But the greatest loss is the loss of the faithless sun. The Ultralux lamp can replace its kind and gentle rays only in one spot in my house—so here I sit, constrained to this one spot, soaking up lumens and mourning the turn of the year. With all the blessings that each season brings, the loss of light is still hard to bear.

Soft between the ears

Me, not her. I don’t seem to have a thought in my brain other than attempting to get back into the swing of things and looking forward to having a new baby in the house. I am aware that puppies, like babies, are far more interesting to their parents than to anyone else, but I really, really do like her. So please bear with me.

I had to make an emergency Ultralux order a couple of days ago. I used up my full spectrum light bulb growing seedlings in the spring, and I am one of those people who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. Why does this sneak up on me every year? Wouldn’t you think I would remember what it is like? But no.

No, I wait until I am snarling at everyone I encounter. When the jerk quotient goes up….it usually means there is something wrong with me. When I start craving carbohydrates and dragging from home to work and back, accomplishing little or nothing in either place…there is something wrong with me. And it happens every September, or at least it happens here in Vermont where the days shorten so quickly and the angle of the light teases over the horizon—catch a ray, if you can! Honestly, I think I am a plant. But the light therapy works.

And a couple of hours in the sunshine playing with nine little German Shepherd puppies, that’s pretty effective, too. I annoyed them all today by cutting toenails (180!), but except for Cassie, they forgave me. First skirmish in the battle of wills.

Eighteen little ears are pointing every which way, not quite ready to stand up, but getting there.

Wild thing

The puppies are very…active. And very interested in exploring the world with their mouths. Here is mother Sadie in a rare moment tolerating tiny razor teeth near sensitive parts. She is not nursing a lot these days, but she is wary of strangers—and I still count as a stranger—near the puppies. And yes, we do expect that the babies' ears will stand up in time. What Sadie lacks in ears, though, she makes up in sweetness of temperament, and she has turned out to be a good mother.


Little Cassandra is fast distinguishing herself as a pushy girl, and in this household, we like our girls pushy. Here she has launched herself in search of thongs and toes. Personally, I have taken to wearing heavy suede Merrell pull-on shoes when I visit the puppies.





But here she is in the breeder's arms--thirty seconds of calm before she started chewing fingers and watch and every blessed thing in reach. The boys don't know what is in store for them.

Meanwhile, they are very curious when I come home smelling like puppies, and I hope this aroma gives them a hint of one small furry thing to come. Their lives are full these days, what with the flocks of turkeys everwhere and the tendency of many of Toby's favorite rocks to hop unexpectedly. Toads, doncha know?

Better now

The key to reducing angst for me is often decluttering. Get rid of all those projects that are staring expectantly. I still have hopes of finding my other boot, but I put the one in the closet—it was staring at me. I put the zucchini on the compost pile—I refuse to be cowed by zucchini. I mowed the grass and I planted some perennials I bought at a going-out-of-business sale. I put entire stacks of magazines right into the recycling pile. I stuffed the mousehole with steel wool—a temporary solution, but at least it stops Max from sitting in front of it wailing and whining.

From Mom comes the comment that from chewing shoelaces, Cassandra can be expected to move on quickly to chewing shoes—Toby will surely teach her. And Max will likely teach her his most annoying habit, asking for a cookie every single time he comes in from outdoors. I have never before replaced a dog during the failing years, but my friend Joe routinely does so. And he notes that this practice transmits bad dog habits through the generations. Is there any hope that Cassandra will not whine incessantly for cookies, bury my shoes, and bring rocks into the house?

I washed the windows—imagine! Now I can see the spectacular Vermont landscape unblurred by dog nose prints.

Seasonal turn

A vague sense of disquiet and annoyance is my constant companion these days. I can’t get my arms around what is wrong, but everything seems wrong. My house is cleaner than in months, my dogs are well behaved, and yet, something is tickling my consciousness.

I’ve tried all my usual remedies, from physical exertion to quiet meditation, from structuring my world with lists and priorities to practicing acceptance of whatever comes. Maybe I am asking too much of this seasonal transition period.

For me, this time of year has remained—long after school days were over—a season of new beginnings. Change junkie that I am, I generally rush headlong in the direction of new experience. So has something happened that makes me unwilling to go there? Or is this year’s change that nothing much will change?

I’ve been in Vermont three years now, the magic rule for how long it talkes to feel at home in a new place. I am starting to see easier friendships. I am starting to be able to have a Vermont conversation full of who is related to who and where various things “usedta be.” My health is better than in twenty years. I like my job, and I think I am good at it. I am feeling more secure about my place in this corner of the world and my ability to take care of myself here, even in the harsh winter weather that terrified me when I moved here. And yes, I did notice the irony that it was harsh Southern coastal weather that killed the most people last week.

So why the angst? I dunno. As an old boyfriend used to say, “If you don’t know what to do, sit down.” Not bad advice, but I think I will keep doing a little more peaceful, seasonal preparation—cleaning house, clearing gardens, cutting off the mouse superhighway, and getting ready to add little miss Cassandra to our household at the end of the month.

Lazy long weekend

Well, not really. More like anxious activity. Yesterday I dug the potatoes and harvested the beets, put zucchini and yet more beans in the freezer, and reorganized the freezer all the way to the bottom for good measure. I spent time online trying to figure out why my eggplants are all plants and no eggplant, likewise my peppers. But with Labor Day weekend upon us, it is all but too late. Any minute the frost will come.

Which led me to wonder, should the frost really be allowed upon the pumpkin? And what are those round baseball size squashes that start out lemon yellow and turn orange. What did I plant? And I discover once again that all my obsessive note-taking is still not enough to shed light on mystery vegetables.

It has been a whirlwind summer, and I can’t say the garden was completely successful. Beautiful eggplant plants, beautiful pepper plants, and outstanding okra plants, but only one eggplant and a few okra pods to harvest. Sturdy collards and kale, but badly chewed by Japanese beetles, which mercifully spared the still productive broccoli. I think I might have had a melon, but Toby buried it before I could get close enough to see. Lots of lovely lemon cucumbers, masses of green tomatoes, and way more zucchini and yellow squash than anyone could possibly need. I understand that some of my neighbors donate produce to the local food shelf—I wonder if it is too late to do that.

Before I hit the garden yesterday, I dropped off clothing and food at the hurricane relief site, then joined my neighbors in line to buy gas, feeling furtive and guilty for my extra two gallons for the lawnmower. There is so much to mow and trim and weed and repair to be ready for the change of season, which is first felt in increased meetings starting this week. I feel it in the need to change over to fall transitional clothing, but even more I feel it in the worry over the new hole I found in the garage wall, a veritable mouse superhighway.

Too late, frost, surfeit of vegetables, changing seasons, changing wardrobe, head off the mice….no wonder I am feeling anxious! Today, I spent the day weeding and mulching the herb garden, getting ready to pot up the rosemary and the tarragon, worrying that I am likely to kill them indoors but knowing that the harsh winter cold will surely do so. Perhaps it is time to simplify again, or at least to sort out the priorities—the things that will get done (like making room for a new puppy) versus the things that will not.

They grow up so fast

I dropped by last night to visit little Miss Cassandra and was startled by how Sunday’s little fluff balls had become Thursday’s little dogs. Still fluffy, but where Sunday’s pups were placid, last night they were romping up and down the porch, chomping on my ankles and my shoelaces. What fun!

How many dogs?

“How many dogs do you have?” is the question that carries that disapproving intonation. As a single woman, presumably, I am only entitled to one, or perhaps two, if we admit that dogs need company during the day.

I do agree that four was too many, and particularly when the fourth was the Evil Buppy, a Newfie mix with something unaccountably aggressive, a wild youngling that took on Toby and left him with gashes and rips in that startlingly fragile Rottie pelt. Toby is actually a Rottie/Shepherd cross, or so I was told by a woman outside a Chinese restaurant on Seventh Avenue in Brooklyn, and she assured me that she knew the truth of his ancestry by looking into his deep brown eyes.

The Evil Buppy, transmuted into mild Clyde, now lives with twins and their mom in Atlanta. He is an only dog, as he was always meant to be, and he guards them with a ferocity that is unknown to Newfoundlands and a gentleness unknown to the other parts of his heritage.

But two is good, and three was okay. I will soon have three dogs: Max, the 11-year-old shepherd with artificial hip, heart murmur and buoyant outlook; serious Toby, the 9-year-old Rottie/Shepherd cross; and Baby Cassandra, my first purebred German Shepherd.

So when people ask me, “How many dogs do you have?” I will reply, “Three.” I know that this number is all too temporary. I hope that Max has plenty of opportunity to teach the little girl a thing or two and to come to trust that she will be able to take care of us. I hope that she keeps Toby guessing, hopping, off balance—keeping him young for a few more years. I hope we learn again how to walk on a leash, come when called, and romp in Vermont fields. I hope I have three dogs for a long, long time.

Color me crabby

Sheesh. Why do they ask for feedback if they don’t want it? I sent back the customer comment card. No, I was not happy. If I place the call for air conditioner repair for the building I manage, I expect that I will get a call back letting me know what work was done and what followup is required. At a minimum, I expect that if I have to track down the company to find out what was done that I will get an explanation and—perhaps—an “Oh, we’re sorry. We did explain this to the person onsite, but we understand we should have called you back.” And if I have had to provide my credit card to cover payment for the work, I am all the more sensitive to wanting a followup call.

Color me crabby when I make the followup call and get attitude and huff. Surely it is not unusual that a building owner (the firm that employs me) is offsite?

So I filled out the customer satisfaction questionnaire. And I said that I expected to get a call back and I expected that if I had to make the followup call that the information would be courteously delivered. I don’t demand an apology, but I do demand courteous followup.

I believe in customer service. I give a lot of credit to vendors who attempt to improve their service levels. So when someone sends me a customer satisfaction questionnaire, I fill it out, particularly if I think there is some clear step that the vendor can take to improve their service. Seeking disconfirming information is a sign of maturity and good business practice.

But, guys, if I am not happy, you will not bully me into being happy.

It is not my fault that you had trouble finding the building—you had my phone number and could have called me, you had the address and could have used Mapquest, you could see from the exchange that my location was not the same as the building’s location. (Yes, we can still make that calculation in Vermont.) But did you call? No.

It is not my fault that you didn’t meet my expectations of getting a call back. I do expect this of vendors: if I make the service call, I expect to get a call back that the work was done and what followup is required. I accept that I have to educate vendors the first time I work with them that this is my expectation, and I accept that some will not be able to meet my expectations. And in certain fields, demand for vendors is such that I have to put up with behaviour that does not meet my expectations. This is not one of those fields.

It would not have been a deal breaker if, when I tracked you down, you had delivered the information courteously. But instead you gave me a lot of defensive guff about how you had a hard time finding the building and how 99% of your customers have the requesting party onsite. The 99% figure is suspicious, but even if it were true, I am not interested in how things are for your other customers. And if you had a hard time finding the building, why didn’t you call? We cannot take cell service for granted in Vermont, but as it happens, there is good cell service around the area where this building is located. If your service technician could call your dispatcher, certainly one of them should have been able to call me for directions. But nobody called for directions, nobody called me when the work was finished, and when I tracked down someone for information, you took out your frustration on the customer. Way to make sure I don’t want to repeat the transaction!

The vendor called me when my customer satisfaction questionnaire arrived back in their office. I took a deep breath and called back, hoping for an improved interaction, but the pseudo-apology was really just a defensive “explanation” of why they did what they did. In the end, this firm does not offer any advantage over their competitors. In fact, I have existing relationships that don’t require me to pay upfront with a credit card, but I took a chance on them in order to get a quick response. Still there are other options. Smart competitors recognize that there are always other options.

I would have been happy to give them some feedback, would have been happy to provide information rather than simply voting with my feet, which is what most unhappy customers do. I give them credit for asking for feedback, and I wish them well in the future, but I won’t be exposing myself to a repeat of this negative experience. Ironically, it was not the failure to call me that was the negative experience, it was the badly managed customer satisfaction discussion. Perhaps they will get it right with the next customer. I hope so.

Dog tails

Today I picked out my puppy. Baby Cassandra is three weeks old and weighs four pounds. It shouldn’t be possible to tell anything about her at all, but somehow both the breeder and I know she is the right puppy. Pix to come soon, but for now, enjoy this half-sibling who had the same father but a different mother.

Earlier in the day, Max went to the vet and had his mite infestation officially declared as cured. We will watch carefully for a few days as he comes off the antibiotics. For eleven-year-old dogs with artificial hips, the slightest injury can be life threatening. Puppy or no puppy, we want to keep Max around as long as he is a happy dog. And Max is generally a happy dog.

One exception this morning. Max enjoys going everywhere, even the vet, and he greeted the receptionist and the lab tech with his usual élan. But when Dr. Paula came in the room, he lay down on the floor, curled into a ball and refused even to look at her. I was surprised at this reaction until she explained that she had just come from putting down someone else’s beloved old dog. “I’m feeling a little sad,” she confided, “and you would be surprised at how some dogs pick up on that.” Surprised, no. Max has always been a intuitive creature.

We walked back out front, and Max wagged his tail and said hello to the next person through the door, all sadness evaporated from his doggy world. Toby, meanwhile, was inconsolable that we would have gone somewhere in the car—just the two of us—without him. But intuition reigns at my house. This morning I came downstairs to find my most recent knitting project wrapped up and down the stairs, Toby's commentary on the state of affairs at our house: "Puppies? We don’t need no stinking puppies..."

Seasons change

Last week there was a nip in the air, a certain aroma, and that was that….summer is on the downward slide. I remember how shocked I was last year when I realized that summer in Vermont only lasts two weeks. I’m enjoying looking back at what I wrote last year—before Vermont Diary was a blog—to see what was going on in the garden.

We are in the heyday of summer. Last week they took away dozens of large round haybales from the field across the road: first cut.

In the gardens, leaf and flower are exploding. The farmer’s markets, which just last week offered up veggie starts, now have radishes and lettuce, some broccoli and peas. My nasturtium window boxes are everything I could have wished.

And it is not a moment too soon. Last week, as I was sprucing up the house for fourth of July visitors, I stopped and sniffed. Surely not! The furnace had kicked on. After I turned the thermostat further down from its 58 degree setting, I did have to laugh. The fourth of July! Guess I should have had all the windows closed.

A friend called yesterday and said, “We need to do something fun. We probably only have this one weekend before the light changes.” Huh? When the light changes, she explained, the mood of the locals takes a turn toward winter. It ‘s still some time away, but there is wood to be gathered, houses to be painted, all the maintenance to be crammed into these few weeks of summer.

A gynecologist here in town has posters on his ceiling, a non uncommon tactic to distract patients from the indignity of drape and stirrups. His posters show a Vermont landscape in summer and in winter. It must be a standing joke—I have heard it twice last year—that the summer scene only lasts two weeks. It’s not so far from the truth.

Between July 4th (when the furnace came on) and next weekend when the light changes is only two weeks. There’s more of July to enjoy, of course, and all of August. There’s the two-week heat wave to come, and all the bounty of garden produce—the period when you have to lock your car so people don’t put zucchini in it. There is the second cut of hay, another important calendar marker.

Summer, by the way, is officially over Labor Day. It ends earlier here than in other places, but we know it is over because the Creamee stands close. The air gets nippy, and preparation for winter goes into overdrive. The constant awareness of where we are in the calendar is one of the things I love about Vermont. There is hardly ever a day that just stands still. Well, maybe for the two weeks of summer.

This morning again, I got up and closed all the windows, noticing that window and sash need a good scrubbing before winter comes. Time to close up that enormous mousehole in the room with the oil tank. Time to think about moving herbs into pots. Last chance to have a garage sale or do as Vermonters do and just put things out with a big FREE sign. Our local Senator opines that the change usually matches up with the Barton Fair—that’s the day she pulls out her flannel-lined jeans. My adaptation to this harsh climate and these dour, kind people is far from complete, but I was proud that last week I felt it for myself—the moment when the season changed.

The stars answer back

My horoscope for today seems a stellar response to my most recent rant/query:

It's okay to have a strong opinion about something but it's not okay if you come across as the kind of person who refuses to see anyone else's point of view. If you want to convince others that you know what you are talking about you must first convince them that you are not a fanatic. You won't do that by screaming and shouting.

Well, yes. But as a communications strategy, from time to time I want to say one unexpected, even outrageous thing in a meeting. And then shut up.

As a rabbit, I have to be aware that I thrive on ideas, while others may need more time to digest. As a rabbit, I have to be aware that other people may see me as flighty and disorganized. If only they knew what discipline it takes to manage in a bear's world when you are a rabbit!

Shutting up is another challenge.

More voices, more tools

You would think after seeking out so many big changes in my life, I would get used to people not believing me, people thinking I am wrong, and worse. But no.

Listening to me rant about training and infrastructure needs in the Vermont economy not long ago, a new friend looked at me and said, “You know, you are right about many things, maybe even most things. But you are Cassandra here—they will never believe you.”

Eureka! I have been looking for the perfect name for a new German Shepherd girl puppy.

Cassandra was the woman cursed by gods of old to be a prophetess, but never to be believed. What better name for a German Shepherd? If baby Cassandra (now just two weeks old, and I don’t even know which one she is) is anything like her mother or my old Max (see left in mid-lecture), she will be forever warning of aliens and axe-murderers, thieves and terrorists, all right outside that door that I am refusing to open for her. Can’t I see that she needs to investigate? Can’t I at least see that she is starving? And as for that last task—whatever I was doing—she hopes I know I did it all wrong.

Yes, living with German Shepherds should be good training for the judgments of humans. And when my ex-husband accused me of selling out on moral, ethical and spiritual levels all at once because I chose to go to business school...well that was twenty-five years ago, so you would think I would be over it. What I said to him then—more calm and clear-eyed than I can believe in retrospect—was that I didn’t see why people who had bad motives should be the only ones with the good tools. Nor did I see why people with good motives should stay out of the fray. The fray is where real decisions get made and real good gets done.

Now stop it, stop it, stop it. Okay, maybe it is just the negative voices in my head and not you, my reader, but please know I do accept the value of the meditative life. I believe that what we do every minute is homage to God. I carve out time for mindfulness, and without that meditative space, I am nothing. But for reasons I do not understand, I am also called to the fray.

I also believe in the idea that each of us is called to do some particular work in some particular place. Based on my girlhood in rural Georgia, my business training, and my two decades on Wall Street, I have views to share with Vermonters. If I could only get them to listen! Here’s what I would say, if anyone were listening, and perhaps I should just keep saying these things anyway, felling my metaphorical trees in the metaphorical forest.

The world has changed in some interesting ways. It is much more about transactions, and—because we engage with more people and travel further from our local comfort zones—less about relationships. But people crave relationship, even in business settings, and we need to learn new ways to foster connection. A series of successful transactions leads strong relationships, not the reverse.

Customers are more demanding than ever. We need to offer the best solution with the delivery that is most responsive and lowest cost and lowest risk to the customer. The customer will not trust that we can deliver until we show it.

Success in economic terms (and, I would argue, other parts of life as well) is about creating as many options as possible, then delivering with excellence.

What this new economic world requires of us is skill and will: the skill to communicate and negotiate, the skill to deliver, the will to continue building new skills, and the will to hold fast to the belief that there is always another option.

I say these same things over and over again every day in my job in economic development. Some people consider me a skilled communicator, but I know that I am impatient and that I routinely underestimate the number of times that a message must be delivered before it is really heard. Lest you think I am the only person saying these things, I refer you to this blog I discovered over the weekend: Ripples post-corporate adventures I know that it looks like arrogance when I keep saying, “No, really. I have something to say here.” But I have to keep saying it.

I have to keep saying it, because I believe that in many ways Vermonters are well equipped by temperament and tradition for this fast paced, rough and tumble global economy. Vermonters are accustomed to dealing with impossible challenges, from keeping everyone warm enough to survive harsh winters to taking on global warming, healthcare for all, genetically modified seeds, agricultural policies and other really, really big issues in Town Meeting. Vermonters are accustomed to working two or three jobs, plus odd jobs and a little sugaring on the side, to make ends meet. Vermonters are good at inventing new options. Vermonters are good at putting it all in perspective, stepping back to watch the seasons roll, bringing new days and new options to the forefront. Vermont does not have good infrastructure, but Vermont has flexibility and innovation and sheer will to create opportunities.

What Vermonters are not good at—nor are humans anywhere—is listening to input from people that have different experience to bring to the table. We’re not trying to take over, you know, we just have something to say. We accept that we will never be accepted, but please, take our ideas!

I’m not from here, but I am from a place very like here. The county in north Georgia where I learned to love rural life is in many ways—economically, demographically, and topographically—uncannily, spookily, like my new home in Vermont, so I draw the line at being called a flatlander. And the years I spent away from rural life were years in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, all great cities full of great people with lots of great ideas. If only all of us country mice and city mice could draw the magic circle wide enough to let in all the great ideas...and if we had the tools to process those good ideas effectively...then what might we all grow to be?

To get to that place, we will need to encourage more voices, more conflict, more inclusion, more tools. One of Vermont's challenges will be to get meaningful input from the business community, a group of people who do not gravitate to the public meeting, the ad hoc task force, the "visioning" and strategic planning exercise, all techniques at which Vermont excels. We are awash in non-profits in Vermont, with one for every 200 people, and we are short on business.

Why should we bother getting input from people who shy away from the processes and tools that dominate in Vermont? Because they have other, different tools. Tools that may be more effective in certain circumstances. Because the very fact that they have a different view makes their views new information and potentially valuable. There is a level at which if your view is what I expect, it is uninteresting to me. It is only if it is unexpected that it becomes information.

Please let my day be filled with people who have different views, with original and exciting visions of what Vermont--my chosen home--can become.

Random harvest

I just finished W. Dale Cramer’s Bad Ground, a nice, tight, well characterized and plotted novel set on the gritty side of Atlanta. It seems it is his second novel, so now I will go and find the first, Sutter’s Cross. Something to look forward to.

Otherwise, I am braced against the harvest. I just put six containers of vegetable broth in the freezer, and I have two new zucchini recipes to try: one a new Cabot Cheese promotional and one for chocolate zucchini cupcakes.

It’s kind of a random harvest—beans coming in faster than I can freeze them, chard, beets, broccoli almost over, tomatoes and cucumbers just starting. Oh! Surprise! I have okra coming in, too, and maybe black-eyed peas. It has been that kind of hot summer. But so far, the peppers and eggplants and melons show no more than green leafy promise.
Pumpkins abound, and squash of all varieties, some I don’t even remember planting.

But mostly, I am avoiding cutting grass. It is just way too hot.

I am holding firm to these accomplishments: trips to the dump, the grocery, the garden and the compost pile. I am luxuriating in the world of the nap, with occasional foray to novel. The dogs approve and so do I. I am supposed to be doing all manner of other things, but the work-a-day world can wait.

A day among rabbits

I don’t remember if I have blogged about rabbits and bears before, but today I spent all day with rabbits, and it is time to talk about this difference, not just a difference of style but a distinction that cries out to be made. Before I start, though, let me fend off the fire of my more judgmental critics: I am an unusual personality type, and your kneejerk assessments of my motivations are likely to be mistaken. It has taken me years to learn that what people think of me is not what I am, but what people think of me can do real harm. So please, suspend judgment to the bottom of this essay. Thank you.

I am an unlikely revolutionary, an INFP in Meyers-Briggs parlance, introverted and intuitive, feeling rather than sensing, and perceiving rather than making judgments. God alone knows how I came to be led from a small, rural county in northern Georgia to a small, rural county in northern Vermont, but I do believe that I was led from change to change and from challenge to challenge. I continue to learn what it like to live in this unlikely skin, and I continue to be surprised. For example, I recently learned that extroverts think it is okay to talk at the same time as thinking. Introverts like me find this unbelievably rude. Extroverts think I am rude because I don’t concentrate on what they are saying. Well, uh.

Personality type is one thing, and communication style is another. Several years ago, I was having a lot of trouble communicating with others in the white shoe investment bank where I worked. People didn’t get me. And I didn’t get them. So I went outside the firm—an almost inconceivable step in the insular company where I worked—and attended a seminar on Communication Strategies for Women. It helped, you know, to take the gender issue off the table. And what I learned in that seminar changed my life.

After lunch, the facilitator instructed us to self-select into one of the following four groups: Owls, Tortoises, Bears, and Rabbits. The Owl communication style is the one favored by my ex-husband. Owls prefer not to talk to anyone, preferably not ever. Owls make excellent computer programmers as long as they are not responsible for defining system function. Tortoises are masters of consensus. They talk to everyone, and on that dimension are the opposite of Owls. Bears growl: “What is the bottom line here?” Rabbits are into process. Rabbits wouldn’t know a bottom line if it bit them. Rabbits talk with their hands, are very creative, and may not be able to finish sentences. Rabbits interrupt; Bears hate interruptions.

As I sat looking over the definitions, I turned to the woman to my left and said, “I really don’t know what I am. I can be pretty decisive when I need to be, so I guess I am more of a bear.” To my everlasting astonishment, she looked me up and down and said without another thought, “Oh no, you are a Rabbit.” Together, we walked over to join the Rabbit group.

Now here is where it gets interesting. I looked across the room at my second choice, the Bears. They were all wearing black, navy or charcoal skirted suits and sensible low heel pumps (remember, this group is all women). Hair was straight, blunt cut to the chin. Jewelry and makeup were understated. They were quietly waiting for instruction from the authority figure in the room.

In contrast, the Rabbits were all wearing bright colors and had curly hair. They were all talking at the same time, and nobody seemed to mind. I thought about how I was never able to control my hair until I accepted that I need really good haircuts that work with the curl. And I looked down at my bright red blazer. And I knew, for the first time, that I was truly a rabbit. I was with my own kind for the afternoon, but most days I worked among the bears.

The first takeaway for that day was that when you attempt to communicate with someone you need to have the skills to flex to their style. If you are a rabbit talking to a Rabbit, go nuts! Never finish a sentence. Revel in process. But if you are talking to a Bear, remember that if you want your message to be heard, you will need to speak Bearish. Cut to the chase. Skip the process. Go for agreement with next steps. If you try to feed process to a Bear, you will only annoy the Bear. And you will jeopardize getting agreement with your proposition.

This changed my life. Above all, I am practical. It is important to me to get to the answer I think is right; it is not important to me how I get there (well, we are presuming a baseline of ethics, morality and good will). But do I care if my personality is propped up along the way? Not one smidgen. So I stopped having moralistic judgments about the Bears among whom I worked (it didn’t happen overnight, and it was pretty easy for me since I don’t tend to be judgmental anyway), and I was astonished to discover that if I talked like a Bear, my ideas were accepted far more readily.

The second takeaway was that if you are talking to a group, you should aim your message to the person in the group most different from you. The others will come along of their own free will.

Today, I spent all day among Rabbits, and you would think I would find it restful. Oddly, no. A native Rabbit, I have been called to spend many years among the Bears, and I have come to appreciate their unique qualities. Most of us fall somewhere on the Rabbit-Bear spectrum and somewhere on the Owl-Tortoise spectrum, and we move one direction or another depending on...well, just about everything. And so I found myself at the end of a full day’s conference on Managing Conflict in Community saying: “Conflict, what conflict? We never got to the conflict.” And also feeling mildly cheated, that we didn’t get more done, that we had so few real specific recommendations. “Where’s the bottom line?” I growled, feeling very Bearlike.

And yet. We did move toward our goal, even if we didn’t get there. It was a step forward.

The most interesting comments all day came from a woman named Susan who pulled two visual aids out of her back-friendly purse: a can of WD40 and a roll of duct tape. “When it comes to conflict management,” she opined, “we need tools. Tools for lubrication and tools for binding us together.” I spoke to her afterward, introduced myself and let her know how much I appreciated her practical advice that we need to find real tools to work our way through conflict. And when I spoke to the conference organizer, he admitted that he was hoping that the conference would make that leap to exploring tools to resolve conflict, while we spent a lot of the day in a group hug, affirming what is right about Vermont, but not making a lot of meaningful steps forward.

Now stop it, stop it, stop it. I am a Rabbit, remember. I support that affirmation is important and that process is a good thing. But I am driven to live among Bears—I honestly don’t know why, it’s not as if it is comfortable for me—and I found myself defending Bears to this group of Rabbits. Besides the disappointing lack of specific recommendations, I noticed something interesting about today’s conference: there were no Bears. Although rabbits pride themselves on their inclusiveness, there were no Bears. Well actually there were a few in the morning session, but they left.

What do I mean that there were no bears? Well, in Vermont there are regional development corporations, and I was the only RDC director in attendance. There were planning commission representatives, but we all know they are "quasi-communists," or that is how the Bears put it.

How sad it is that we all have these labels that we apply to each other—labels that allow us to believe that others’ views have less value than our own. When I walked in this morning, one well-dressed one woman was quipping to another, “Oh no, you have to go to the Economic Development session. You have to shut down all those traditional economic development types.” When she saw my face, she tried to make it a joke, but it really was not funny. I pinned on my nametag, complete with the name of my traditional economic development organization, and moved on.

As I stood talking at the end of the day to a couple of very excellent Rabbits, I realized that they had conducted a “community visioning” exercise in my town. As I inwardly wished for the earth to swallow me up, I confessed that every time they used words like “social capital” and “safe space for productive dialogue” it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I have been living among Bears. Bears have feelings, too, it turns out, and they are offended when people feel entitled to tell a store owner what kind of store they will or will not “accept.” They are offended when their (to them) rational requirements for efficiency are judged negatively. They are bemused, then offended all over again when their requests for “common” sense and “common” decency are mocked.

And you know what? After living with Bears for so many years, I am starting to get them. I am learning that Bears have skill sets--particularly in the area of conflict management--that are not intuitive to Rabbits. And yet Bears will not willingly engage with Rabbits. They vote with their feet, and we are all poorer for the lack of interchange.

That was one theme for the day.

The other was that for a conference that proposed to be about the how to work with conflict, there was surprisingly little conflict. And yet, why am I surprised? People don’t like change and they don’t like conflict. I embrace change. How else could I have come full circle from rural northern Georgia to rural northern Vermont, with some skills and capabilities to share? And I treasure conflict. That is the legacy of my New York investment bank life—a life I never knew I wanted, but that taught me so much.

Here are the few things I know about conflict:

People don’t always agree.

They often have good reasons for their viewpoints.

Pretending to agree does not work. We need to get the disagreement on the table if we ever expect to move past it.

Here are the few things I know about conflict management:

We need to accept that people will disagree. We need to avoid judging others as “bad people” or as simply misguided and uninformed if they disagree with us.

We need to conduct a respectful dialogue, but we need to avoid using the term “respectful dialogue” to shut off opposition to our views.

We need to say often and loudly “I could be wrong.” I was wrong at least twice today, not counting the times when I did not know I was wrong.

Conflict management skills exist, can be learned and can be taught (WD40 and duct tape)

Big values are in conflict:

The drive to decentralize versus the drive for cost effectiveness

The drive to make rules versus the drive toward personal freedom and personal responsibility

Today’s issues versus the issues for the long term

Once we start hitting the limits of the laws of time and space, we know we are having the right discussion.

Much conflict is subconscious, discernable only as emotion, which may be judged "inappropriate." But emotion has a message for us.

There are tools we can use, but it is important to use the right tool at the right time. WD40 is a bad tool if you are trying to get traction. Duct tape is a bad tool if you are trying to open up possibilities. We can disagree about tools and timing.

Nobody—neither native Vermonters nor flatlanders, neither rich nor poor, neither educated nor uneducated—can clam supreme knowledge of what tools to apply in what circumstance. It is important to recognize our own styles and capabilities and know what kinds of problems we are good at solving, as well as the kinds of problems where we need varied kinds of input.

Bureaucracies (state or town) tend to grow unless checked. It is important to understand how the checking process works--inevitably, it will involve conflict.

Here is what I—as a Rabbit—know about creativity:

It is all about creating options. And there is always another option.

I refuse pigeon-holes. I refuse to allow Rabbits to dominate conversations with unfair tactics. I refuse to allow Bears to opt out of important discussions.

Creativity depends on number of ideas (a Rabbit function), inclusiveness of many thinkers (Rabbits think they do this well, but they don't), and the skills to sort through ideas and move into action (really, Bears are better at this than we are). Another of the important themes for today that intrigued the Rabbits was that for successful projects, action often leads awareness (a Bear axiom). Rabbits far prefer to start with awareness, proceed into analysis...and are then paralyzed by possibility.

Disconfirming information—information that is different from what I have believed so far—is really useful to me. Therefore, I want to have the freedom to test ideas in (oh, how the term grates!) a safe space for productive dialogue, free of snap judgments of people less comfortable with conflict and ambiguity than I am.

And here is what I—as a human—believe about fundamental truth:

Once we recognize conflict, we have various approaches:

Talk the other person out of it (education? lobbying? influence?)
Trade, i.e. negotiate an equitable deal, or
Vote (one person, one vote)

Anything else is dirty politics.

It is possible--sadly, it is more often the case than not--that education, lobbying, influence, negotiation, and voting can be misused. Up to here, we have been assuming a common base of ethics, morality and good will, but that is not always what we face.

If you want to have a voice, you have to show up.

People bring their own baggage and blinders to every discussion. It takes skill as well as will to discern the issue before us, but with faith, hope and charity, we will rise to these occasions and work through conflict to new action plans that will keep Vermont the exceptional place that it is.

The great thing about Vermont is that the entire state is chock-a-block with interesting, thoughtful and principled people, who are more tolerant of differences than in most places I have lived. When I walk with Bears, I ask them to stretch to be more Rabbit-like, to claim notions like the creative economy for their own. When I spend the day with Rabbits, I ask them to reach out and include the disenfranchised, unvoiced Bears. But I deeply appreciate the richness of a state that can accomodate this variety of ways of being with a commitment to dialogue and democracy. And I appreciate the democratic traditions of Town Meeting that foster certain common skill sets that lubricate the social fabric.

Another good comment today--that democracy is a contest of wills. Let us never pretend otherwise.

Home again

With the intent of allowing myself a day to re-integrate back into the rhythms of home before facing work challenges, I came back from my mini-vacation late Saturday afternoon. In years past, it took me a solid two weeks to decompress enough for a vacation to have any real impact, so I had some misgivings about a vacation that was only three days long in its entirety. Shouldn’t I take that extra day? Force myself to have some fun?

The counterargument is for a little nesting time. Coming back from full speed entertainment mode—well, okay, so that’s not really how I vacation—into a work world that is always full speed is too abrupt for me. I need transition time. I need nesting time. I have set up my home to be a place where I recharge, and I need to take the time to soak up its blessings.

Sunday was a day for cleaning, mowing, laundry, putting chard in the freezer. All these chores require attention, but if I wanted my life to be simpler, many could be avoided. I have consciously chosen to live in a house rather than an apartment, to mow rather than pay common charges, and to garden rather than frequent farmer's markets.

Not everything got done. There always seems to be more cleaning to do, and the beans need picking again. A neighbor has offered me currants for the picking, and that didn’t get done yesterday either. But I worked steadily most of the day, taking time out to cook my favorite pizza (usually broccoli raab and black olive, but chard and black olive works nicely, too) and play with the dogs.

A lost dog has come to visit. Known for now as Fred, he is a sweet half-grown Shepherd mix. My neighbors came by to ask if he was mine, and we are working together to keep him out of the pound for a few days while looking for his lost home. He has impeccable indoor manners, but sometimes tries Toby’s patience—not the strategy to get to stay with us for long. Watching them together underscores that the next dog will likely be a female, because at age nine, Toby deserves not to have to fight to be top dog.

Today’s theme is creating space, safety and reserves for myself and for Toby and Max. For too many years, I operated at the very edge of my capabilities, always pushing for greater accomplishment. I recognize the tendency in myself to go after challenge and intellectual stimulation—life can be so very, very interesting! I am learning, still learning, to find joy in daily tasks and to see limits as something to rest against.

Table for one

Dining alone, like vacationing alone, can be a deep pleasure if approached with a joyful spirit. Today, I am continuing my birthday weekend in Montreal. It is going so well that I may make a birthday mini-vacation an annual event.


After a healthy breakfast compliments of the hotel, I visited the tiny jewel Musee de Chateau Ramezay which boasts an exquisite potager complete with espaliered apple trees. Indoor exhibits on Montreal history, domestic life, traditional architecture and furniture hit just the right note. Oh my, I keep forgetting that my taste is so French!

Now (well, not right now when I am transcribing, but then when I was actually in the restaurant) I am enjoying lunch in an excellent restaurant, L’Epicerie, too expensive for me at dinner, but lunch is in the $15-17 range (Canadian!). Long ago I learned that one secret to getting good service when you dine alone is to ask solicitously on entry, “Do you have a good spot for one for lunch?” Today, as is typically the response, the hostess looked around for a moment, then seated me facing out at a small table for two where the other seat is in the path of people entering the restaurant. The waiter is typically French, and he typically recommends a glass of wine that turns out almost to double the price of my lunch, but he is enthusiastic about the food, which is not typical at all.

The décor is stylish. Square bistro tables are topped by crisp white tablecloths and a square of white paper, accented by a galvanized tin box full of coarse salt topped by a single green apple. Chairs are dark wood, dishes are simple white china, bread is presented in white enameled tin buckets lined with linen napkins, walls are stone, and the giant chandelier overhead is made of cylinders of multi-layered chicken wire.

The food exceeds the décor in style and imagination. Butter comes in two versions, plain and with curry. The table d’hote offers a choice of soup, salad or smoked salmon appetizer. I go for the salmon, which comes with thin-sliced cucumber, thin-sliced fennel, a swirl of herbed sour cream, and a granite of tarragon. Presentation is everything: the granite comes in one of those soup spoons used in Chinese restaurants, and its herby sweetness is perfect with the salmon.

My main dish of marlin in oyster sauce comes on top of a modest bed of black rice, itself on top of a swath of pureed carrot. Glacee vegetables turn out to be tiny haricot verts and celery cut to match. At first the fish seems too big to eat and too salty, but the carrot mellows it out, and the hazelnuts and capers in the rice add a bit of welcome complexity. I eat up every bite, even cooked celery, which I usually dislike.

Watching me scribble, one of the stylish women at the next table leans over and asks, “Are you a food critic?”

“No,” I confess, and we laugh at her idea that perhaps women who dine alone should always take notes at the table, and then we laugh again when we realize that real critics will do anything to avoid being recognized. Maybe restaurant staff wouldn’t want to bet on the double bind.

And here’s dessert--$4 Canadian! Crème citron legere gelee de baume melissa. That’s a layer of gelatin flavored with lemon balm topped by a layer of light lemon cream and a layer of thinly sliced strawberries garnished with a twist of caramelized sugar and a drizzle of pureed raspberries. Like the smoked salmon appetizer, each ingredient is perfect on its own, but the combination is something completely new and wonderful.

Perhaps I will become a food critic.

Meanwhile, dinner was in Chinatown. At $8 (Canadian!) complete, rice noodles with beef, pickled vegetables, salad, an imperial roll and that nasty fish sauce hits the spot. Continuing the herb theme for the weekend, this simple Tonkinese dish was enlivened with yet another herb that I don’t believe I have ever been served—lemon verbena. I have a nice specimen in a pot in my herb garden at home.

I am learning new words this weekend. Lemon balm is baume melissa. Les orties are nettles, which I learned today are beneficial to the soil in a potager. The hostess at lunch looked it up for me--she knew the French word, but not the English equivalent. And this afternoon, I enjoyed a spirited conversation with a bookstore clerk who spoke French and a little Japanese to my English and a little French. But somehow we managed to discuss knitting—she is an expert knitter, but has never attempted socks, which I assured her are really easier than they look—and where to look for the best fabric shops. That’s tomorrow’s outing, before I head for home and garden and dogs. And the promise of a patch of black currants all mine for the picking.

It was a good birthday

Extra pats for the dogs, pick the beans and drop produce with friends—a few will even pick while I am out of town—and away!

Which direction to drive, well, it doesn’t really matter does it, as long as I go north toward my Montreal hotel room. How about this road? Driving through Hazen Notch is beautiful, as expected of those roads that are closed during winter months, but honestly—I cannot believe that Vermont has state highways that remain unpaved!

Cross the border, lunch in Sutton. I am flattered that the tourism booth staffer speaks to me in French for several minutes, before I reply, cowardly, in English, although I have understood every word. She apologizes, I explain, and we giggle as if we have shared guilty secrets. She suggests a lunch spot, and I make it there just before an ear-splitting thunderclap makes me jump and giggle again. I sit outside under cover and a canopy of hops, eating cream of tomato soup and an open-faced sandwich of smoked salmon and artichokes. I was a little wary of the raisin bread, but the lemon balm leaf on top was the perfect unexpected touch. I wonder how you say lemon balm in French?

I know I am still too tightly wrapped, because it takes too long for the coffee and check to come. So what if lunch takes two and a half hours—if I were really in vacation mode, it should not matter.

On my checklist for this brief Montreal outing is a stop at Ikea. I drive straight through gruesome traffic, but find the store and score two new $79 (Canadian!) comforters. Synthetic fiber, because we may be getting a puppy, and washable is washable is washable is virtue. There is not much else that appeals. Having successfully decluttered my life, I am not about to go back.

Time to find the hotel. Chosen for its low price with a guess as to convenience, it turns out (oh the joy!) to be on the edge of Chinatown in walking distance to Old Montreal. The room is clean, quiet and boasts a kitchenette. And this morning I find a breakfast that surpasses all my expectations, including yogurt, boiled eggs, whole grain bread for toasting, fruit and good coffee. All this and internet connections. All the comforts of home, except for my dogs, who I miss.

Last night’s dinner was at a multi-Asian restaurant ($16—Canadian!—for four courses) where I threw myself on the mercy of the waitress to tell me whether to have Thai seafood or Vietnamese seafood. She was flattered to be asked and took personal delight in my enjoyment of my meal. Or perhaps she is just a good waitress, but I took it for sincerity and will continue to do so. This charming urban exchange was followed by another in a small shop where I spent $20 (Canadian!) on preserved black beans, oyster flavor and hoisin sauce, jasmine tea and other delights.

“What you gonna do with that?” queried the grimy twenty-something Chinese man with a broad grin.

“Gonna cook,” I gave it right back. The older Chinese woman behind the cash register started to explain to him how various ingredients were used.

“You cook like that, eh?” he continued.

“Oh, yes,” I explained, deadpan. “I have to. In Vermont, we don’t have good ethnic food like you have.”

After a brief argument in which he assured me that I was wrong, that there is in Vermont at least one restaurant that sources its ingredients from that very store, and I assured him that Vermont may be a small state but it is plenty big, he relented with a grin, “Eh, at least you have some good food today!”

I knodded solemnly, asked for a lunch recommendation for the next day, and with a quick “Merci!” was on my way. A few minutes later, picking up milk in another local store, realized that I was chatting about the change in French, having dropped into it unconsciously, apparently without a trace of the morning’s shyness.

There is something about a city. The interactions are brief, pointed as to purpose, but those very limitations can bound an intensely personal exchange. It is not the layered pentimento of small town life, which has its own pleasures, but the stark, staccato abstract of barely contained chaos—different modes and places for human connection.

It was a very good day, a very good birthday.

Reluctant coach

Lately I seem to have encountered a number of people who want to be life coaches. They generally impress me as being alert, intelligent, insightful, and caring people of above average social adjustment. Occasionally, one will be a tad on the zealous side, displaying the fervor of the recently converted, but for the most part, they have definitive life skills that they would like to share with others. I am very glad these folk are in the world.

As for me, my office is intentionally client-centered. Few demands on my time can trump the needs of a person who walks into my office with an issue that has some relation to my function—employment, entrepreneurship, difficulty of finding space, conflicts with co-workers, need for training. Sometimes, I get caught up in personal tragedy less overtly linked to my role. It’s not that I mind any of it, not exactly, but the drain on my time and energy can be substantial.

I have one of those faces, you see. The kind face that somehow encourages a homeless man to walk from the far end of the subway car to talk to me, to tell me how he came to be living on the street. The open demeanor that says “Tell me all. I want to help.” A friend recently convinced me—if only for a few days—that it wasn’t that I attract people who need to talk; rather, she opined, people who need to talk will talk to everyone. It is just that I let them. Why?

I let people talk because I have a soft heart. I let them talk because they need to talk. I let people talk because occasionally I have a skill to share. I just let people talk. Sometimes they solve their own problems and thank me for it, but more often they not only don’t do what I suggest, but somehow feel driven to explain to me that I am wrong. Well, okay. I am learning not to be surprised that most people don’t really want new ideas, they just want to talk, and a non-judgmental person like me is a prize audience. I am cautious about whether or not I have skills to offer, or even whether I have adequate skills myself to deal with some of the things with which I am tasked. And I am very cautious about playing God with other lives, assuming that I know how it is to be in some of the ever so daily tragedies that play out in human lives around me. I don’t know how it is, and I don’t know what to say.

Over the last several months, I have become comfortable with taking on less. I don’t do financial models for clients—they need to have their own modeler. I don’t try to figure out clients’ accounting issues or their hiring problems or even how their website should look. Rather I refer them to the specialists—the bookkeepers and recruiters and web developers and marketing consultants and others—whatever they need to move their businesses to the next level. Perhaps I should add a category for personal coach. While it is difficult to displace a clingy client onto a professional clearly in the mental health arena, perhaps a more neutral helper will be able to take over some of the long, long hours of listening. It’s not that I don’t care, it's not that I mind, but a more specialized and well trained resource can surely do a better job than a reluctant coach.

Vacation (on exit)

Jean, over at This Too andthistoo.blogspot.com/2005/07/ouf.html evokes the panic of leaving behind that daily grind for the mandated two weeks of bliss. Whatever mind games we play inside our own heads, time marches relentlessly forward, and one day, it is time. Time to play!

A blessed break, but too loaded, too short, too… too everything. Too tired, right now, too achy, still resounding with the huge, reluctant effort of trying to take control at work, so that crises won’t erupt and make me ‘look bad’ in my absence.

I deserve to look bad. I do a really crap job of things, only just managing to hide this, thanks to a well-honed sense of what will be noticed and what won’t.

We know we need the break—heaven knows we need it badly—but stopping our frenetic forward motion is harder than it seems it ought to be. Convinced that all our little shortfalls, accumulated into dust bunnies and virtual piles of stuff in the corners, we fret that all manner of oversights will come to light while we are cavorting elsewhere. Sometimes this does happen to people—the bookkeeper who put the property tax bill in the bottom drawer because he didn’t know what to do with it comes to mind—and the fact that certain states (New York) have laws that govern certain industries (banking) and require employees to sign a statement that they have been out of the office for two full weeks a year indicates that some people think a prolonged absence from the office should be mandatory.

The theory is that a fraud scheme would be uncovered in the two weeks that the presumed perpetrator is absent from the office. Personally, I like to think that if I were inclined to commit fraud that I would be bright enough to design one that could sustain a two week hiatus, but perhaps that is overconfidence on my part.

In any case, I’m sure that really bad stuff does come to the surface in the course of many a two-week vacation. But honestly, Jean, these things tend not to happen to overly responsible people like you and me. What tends to happen to people like us is that we come back and we look at the shreds and details that cluttered up the landscape that is our desk—and we find that many of them are irrelevant. What tends to happen is that we find the courage to drop—definitively—those items that always slide to the bottom of the “to do” list right off the list. What tends to happen is that nothing falls apart, except that maybe people missed having the “go to” girl right there on the spot and maybe they value us a little more, if only for a few days.

That blessed relief is what vacation is all about.

In my over-enthusiastic, over-committed, over-responsible approach to work, I have again and again had the experience of feeling torn as I leave for weekend or longer break. Sometimes I take huge files along with me, or the laptop. Within hours the excessive sense of responsibility has evaporated, leaving all that work just sitting. Waiting. With practice, I have gotten to where I can make it wait till the Sunday night before I have to go back into the work world, and it does ease re-entry if I can do a little organizing the night before. Mondays, especially the Mondays after a vacation, are wild roller-coaster of days, but then it is all better again. Then I can feel the renewed strength and the improved perspective that is the gift of a vacation.

I’m off for a mini-vacation, myself—three days in Montreal. A tiny treat to celebrate the occasion of not being required to go look for a better paying job, a break from the fray.

Living with limits

When it comes to clothing, I am a power shopper. Given the information that management would prefer to see more formal, businesslike clothing, I spent yesterday re-engineering my wardrobe. I won’t say the transformation is complete, but I do have two closets now—one devoted to clothing that can be worn to the office (some “full business attire” consisting of suits and separates, some slightly less formal but still a step up from what I have been wearing) and one for everything else (all denim is there, along with most cotton knits, most bulky sweaters, a surprising amount of at-home lingerie and loungeware, and all the frilly and funky clothes I keep because I may want to dress up to go out someday).

The truth is that I love pretty clothes, so I have a secret discount shopping habit, which I have applied—ironically—over the last few years in systematically making my wardrobe less formal. It appeared to me that to fit in here in Vermont that I needed to be more casual, but now it appears that I have overdone the swing to the casual, and need to move back the other direction. Yesterday, I spent just under $700 and five and a half hours to score:

2 mid-weight outer jackets (for $70 for the two, I will have alternatives for most of the year)
1 suit (with pants)
3 blazers suitable for office
7 pants suitable for office (one matches a blazer I already own)
1 skirt (gray and hot pink pinstripe for $10—I couldn’t resist!)
10 shirts (most in the $7-10 range)
1 turtleneck sweater (possibly a mistake, but at $5 not a big one)
3 cardigans suitable for the less formal days in the office
3 pairs of good quality brand name shoes (Anne Klein, Born, and Capezio)
1 pair earrings
1 pair cufflinks
6 pairs of kneehighs
6 pairs of black socks (all identical because socks get eaten at my house)

I figure I still need a replacement for my winter parka, two more suits, and—when the dust settles—possibly a couple of specific fill-in pieces like a classic cream silk shirt or a pair of navy pants. It would be easier if I were less fussy about clothing, but I draw the line at frump, although I have had to relax the prohibitition against polyester, as the fabric has improved and is used more often in higher quality clothing. I almost always buy brand name clothing because it lasts longer and fits better, but occasionally I will spend up to $20 on a gamble, if I really love the piece. Like my favorite brick-red silky poly knit shirt with v-neck and four ruffles up the front—an enduring high scorer on my personal rulebook derived from all those multiple copies of What Not to Wear that people have given me.

Anyone who knows me in person may be surprised to know that I am fussy about clothing, because I am one of those people who tend to look casual no matter what I wear. It is something about my short stature, tendency to plumpness, sloped shoulders, curly hair that won’t stay combed, and a mobile face that shows everything. Over time, I have learned that I have to wear more formal clothing to get to the expected baseline than do taller, thinner, more reserved people. But that’s an easy fix, right?

It’s not really about money. It is about finding the personal style that fits, then shopping relentlessly to find clothing that really works. I don’t have the patience to shop often, so I do a couple of large shopping trips a year, then fill in gaps. I make it a policy never to buy only things that look great or that I love. Although I make mistakes sometimes, they are few and inexpensive. Since moving to Vermont, I haven’t needed to pay more than $20 for a shirt, $30 for pants, or $100 for a suit—this the impact of dramatically lower clothing prices over the last several years, as well as of my firm resolve to live within my income. It doesn’t hurt that I am handy with a needle and can make simple alterations myself or even whip up the skirt or pants that will be the perfect go-with for a purchased jacket.

Yesterday, I saw lots of jackets this year that look as if they are made out of upholstery fabric....hmmm. Maybe I will see what is in my fabric stash. As long as I don’t have to rely on my sewing skills to dress me appropriately—what frustration and anxiety that would provoke!—I can have a little fun and maybe expand my wardrobe alternatives.

One of the valuable lessons I learned in business school is that you can't optimize everything, so it is important to know what you are trying to optimize and what are the limits. The limits on my clothing adventures are a need to meet a certain appearance standard and a small budget. Within those limits, I can apply creativity, a disciplined approach, and shopping and sewing skills to optimize my wardrobe along a number of parameters--ease of getting dressed in the morning, easy care of clothing (washable, no ironing is best!), and what looks great on me. With unlimited time and money, these might seem to be much easier to optimize. My experience suggests otherwise. It can be a joy to live within limits, once we accept that they are there.