Max was a good dog

I wrote this on October 31, and then the miracle of steroids gave us another two and a half months to say goodbye. Last Friday, I took Max for his last trip to the vet, although I did not post this until later when the first wave of grief had passed. We were both surrounded by friends. Friends who talked me through a very hard decision, and friends who stayed with him to the very end, as I could not.

We are all bouncing back, although I have been surprised at the puppy’s distress. She knew him only three months, but she learned her job. Toby purely grieves, but he is eating again now. We miss Max, but we are learning new rhythms for life after Max.

I’m sorry to say that the photo I mention at the end is not available in digital form, so you will just have to imagine Max and Toby herding the border collies. But here is one of Max lecturing, his favorite pastime.

Yesterday, he had even more trouble walking than has become usual. A dozen times I had to help him stand up, and often his back legs collapsed again immediately. There was a note of panic in his whine as he struggled to pull himself forward on powerful shoulders, scrabbling for traction. We have bought a few days by putting rugs down over the slippery wood floor.

Last night, he couldn’t get up and peed in his bed. I panicked when I saw blood where he peed, and called the vet, only to call back when I realized that he had torn off one entire toenail trying to get up. How frantic do you have to be?

This morning he was quiet and regal, out for a last walk in the back yard. He reminded me that a dog who cannot bear to poop on a leash or even within view of anyone he doesn’t love really is not a dog to lie in his own waste. He wasn’t hungry, not last night and not this morning. Neither was Toby or even baby Cassie.

People always say you will know when it is time to let go. I have always believed it and lived through it with other loves, animal and human. Still, I was afraid that with my dear Max, my selfish wish to keep him with me would overwhelm my ability to see when the moment had come. This was not the hardest thing I ever had to do—those had to do with men in my life—but it was very, very hard to let Max go.

Max was a foundling. I don’t know when he was born or what happened the first nine months or so of his life. I first saw him on the Staten Island Ferry, barking his fool head off at the ferry workers who were trying to convince him that Manhattan was not the place for a puppy. He had apparently made the rounds of the ferry, bumming cookies off passengers who, soft for dogs, carried them always in their pockets. I was standing on the upper deck, wearing a purple raincoat and flirting in a half-hearted way with one of the deck hands. “I like that dog,” I said. In the way of men, he puffed out his chest and said, “I’ll get him for you.”

But I was on my way to work and the ferry had left the dock. I made arrangements with the man. Later, I cut my day short and stopped in at the ferry office to pick up my new best friend. When the deck hand slipped a rope over Max’s neck, he walked home the mile to my house like a lamb. Clearly, someone had trained and loved this dog.

The next day, he ate a sofa.

His worst prank, though, was the day he took the bag of worms I had bought for the garden and thoughtlessly left by the back door. How hard do you have to shake a bag of worms, I wondered later as I tried to re-hydrate them and scrape them off the lower cabinets on either side of my little galley kitchen, how hard do you have to fling worms to make this happen?

He wasn’t perfect. He had an unfortunately strong prey drive, which has meant the deaths of several cats including one I loved dearly. He knew it was wrong, but he truly could not help himself. “Max thinks cats are snacks,” I always used to say.

And later, when we spent hours every day in the park in Brooklyn, I often thought of writing an article about the words we say so often to our dogs that they inadvertently take on the impact of commands. For one therapist in the park, it was “Rudy, self-soothe!” For us, it was “Max, don’t lick that baby!”

It was always enthusiasm that got Max in trouble. He loved people, all people. In those early days when I used to wonder where he came from and how anyone could have given him up, we would walk the esplanade on the north shore of Staten Island. People often commented on how beautiful Max was, and occasionally he would take off, dragging me behind as he tried desperately to catch up with a black person, particularly if there was a small child or an open car door in the picture. Can’t you just imagine the young family who found themselves unable to manage a nine-month-old rowdy German Shepherd puppy, particularly if they had small children, who decided that the best solution was to drop him at the ferry where everyone knows that the guys are a soft touch for dogs?

As my brother put it on that first day, “You won’t ever go anywhere alone again, not the bathroom, not anywhere.” I haven’t. I have had more dogs—up to four—and fewer dogs—down to two. We made an unsuccessful move back South, then moved again back to Brooklyn. From there we watch the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center. We moved to Vermont, where we have all been happy, especially Max and Toby.

Toby is the dog that has loved me more dearly than I ever expect to be loved by anyone in my life. And I love Toby. But it is Max who has the first, best dog claim on my heart, stronger even than the claim of Bruno, who was my father’s dog when I was a baby and who watched over me like a guardian angel until I was eight and he was almost nine.

Max was about eleven. He had a good life. When he was four, he and Toby stayed a couple of months with my mother, who knew it would break my heart to give up my dogs while I was between houses. Grandma spoiled them both, but particularly Max who never after that could come into the house without asking for a cookie. She laughed when Toby tricked Max out of the choicest spot on her bed, and she took them both, alternately, to obedience school, chuckling when people couldn’t figure out why her big dog looked different each session. Such a big dog for such a small woman! Max did not graduate, his interest in his world overwhelming his intellect and his willingness to come when called. He knew when he disappointed anyone, but would come over and lean his head against a thigh and talk about it.

Ah yes, Max was always a talker. He would discuss, he would scold, he would lecture.
When he was five, he had a hip replacement. With a foundling German Shepherd, hips are always a concern, and both of his were so bad that the doctors had a hard time deciding which one to do. He lectured them the whole time that they put him through the tests, including one that had him walk on a floating plate. In the end, they flipped a coin, did the operation, and he was up and walking in his crate the same day. A week later when he came home, he was like a puppy again, so happy to be able to walk without pain. The doctors advised doing only one hip; with his powerful shoulders, he gets the stability of a triangle, they explained.

That operation made me decide to buy Cassandra rather than taking a risk on another foundling. Cassie will have other challenges to face, as will I. As Sir Francis Bacon put it, “He who has a wife and children has given hostages to fortune.” I’m sure he meant to include she who has dogs.

The operation also bought me six more years with Max—the Brooklyn years (“Don’t lick that baby!”) and the Vermont years. This photo is one of my favorites of Max and Toby at dog camp, relaxing after herding (yes, herding!) border collies in the Little River. Toby did most of the chasing, and Max lectured them. It was around then, sitting on that river bank, that it occurred to me that we could live in Vermont. We have all had a good time here, barking at turkeys and digging up moles, porcupines and skunks notwithstanding.

If at the end of our lives, people can say that we lived well and were good representatives of our species, well, that’s the best epitaph of all.

Max was a very good dog.

Radical redesign

Why not radically change the way you behave toward others, dear Leo? You are in the process of orienting yourself toward establishing relationships that are more fraternal, with far fewer risks involved. This wasn't the case before. When you don't try hard to seduce and impress, your audience claps louder. Haven't you noticed?

My horoscope for January 14, 2006. Sounds right. Don’t know what it means. It is probably worthwhile to stop and think about what I would be like if I were completely different.

If I could, I would be less ruled by moods.

I would be kinder to everyone. (First, I wrote “nicer” but that word has overtones of rigid, brutal social judgment to anyone from the South, intimations that you will do what is good for another person no matter the cost to yourself. I choose a different word and a different rule of life.)

I would have a stronger sense of my own right to my own world and my own decisions. (Less engagement with people who try to further their own agendas without regard for others, more workarounds.)

I would really, really forgive all the old hurts.

I would continue to ask forgiveness for all the hurts I have caused, but I would accept that forgiveness is a gift, not something I am entitled to.

I would stop reaching out to people who see me only as a role, any role. Why can't I stop? Don't I get the message?

I would simplify my life even further, getting rid of more and more excess stuff.
I would find a church again and get involved.

I would dance more.

I would take better care of myself.

Maybe I will. The thought is the first step, then comes prioritization—since I truly believe we can only work on one or two things at a time—then strategy. The queen of behavior mod and a change junkie, I can do many things, but the first step is the radical redesign.

Structured networking

A tool for all kinds of situations. Just as when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail, when you master this tool, it seems to apply everywhere. Here are the basic steps:

Figure out what you want and write a script.
Call ten people a day and ask for their help.
People will be helpful. When their advice works for you, circle back and thank them.
Offer to respond in kind.
Keep notes, keep expanding your list, keep calling.

That’s pretty much the outline. I learned to do this in the context of job hunting, under the general heading of “Looking for a job is a job.” My counselor reviewed my script, then insisted that I make those ten calls a day, which really doesn’t take very long once you have the script and a list of people to call. A shy person, I went in kicking and screaming, but I didn’t have a lot of alternatives.

I was blown away by how helpful people were, how much more helpful they wanted to be. My script wasn’t even particularly focused. It went something like this:

“Hi, I don’t know if you remember working with me on ___ project. I have been working in credit analysis—both for bond deals and bank lending for the last several years—and I am thinking that I would like to do something a little different. I like the analytical part of my job and the human interaction. I wonder if you have heard of anything that you think sounds creative and interesting, something that would use my kind of skills?”

And later in the conversation, “Can you think of anyone else that I should talk to?”

Depending on the person, I might disclose that I had just been caught in one of the waves of layoffs that battered Wall Street in the nineties, but I would note that the most important thing right now was finding the right opportunity—that I was fortunate to have a little time now to look for what I would like to do for the next few years. When I started writing the script, I was furious at the counselor. After all, the truth was that I was desperate for a new job. But by the time we polished every word of the script, I believed it. And I was able to approach the people I called without pressuring them, to assure them that I was delighted to have this opportunity to catch up with them, and that I valued their suggestions.

The hardest part of structured networking is getting your head straight in the first place. You don’t have to believe the story all day long, but you do have to believe it for the hour or so it takes to make ten calls a day. You don’t want to pressure the person in any way. You don’t want to ask for a job or an interview or even an informational interview. You just want them to apply their creative intelligence to help you expand the number and quality of opportunities available to you. You don’t, after all, want to have to rely on the dreary postings in the newspaper, and you don’t have to.

When you wrte the script—and even more when you review it with someone who can help you polish it—you will see all your secret insecurities come out.

“But people won’t want to help me.” Actually, people love to help.

“No, I mean, they won’t think my skills and talents are adequate.” Maybe, maybe not. Start with the ones you have confidence will want to help you and work up to the cold calls. You will be needing to make cold calls, and it will not kill you. It’s only ten a day.

“Ten sounds like a lot.” Okay, start with five. But the more calls you make in a day, the faster you will get to a wide variety of opportunities to change your life in a positive way. Some days you will hate to pick up the phone, just as some days are tough on any job. But now you are working for yourself and for your future. So pick a minimum number you can live with, and get moving.

“I don’t think there are any jobs out there.” Oh please. Get real. There are always jobs. If you are willing to do some networking, there are more jobs. If you are flexible enough to consider consulting and short term opportunities, worlds open up. The downside is that it may seem you are always looking for a job; the upside is that you don’t mind so much because you are always expanding your opportunities.

“I don’t know enough people to call.” Talk to everyone. The other members of the nonprofit board you serve on, the other mothers in the carpool, the soccer coach, the guy you run into at the dry cleaner, everyone you ever worked with, old school friends. You don’t know who they know until you ask them. Many, many conversations take a turn at “Well, actually, I do know this one guy who said something about….”

“I just don’t think I can do it.” Okay, so your shyness is more important to you than finding a job that makes you happy. Your choice. But do you think you could write the script? And once you do, ask yourself whether you think you can make a few calls. Make a list of who you would call if you felt strong one day. Say your spiel out loud until it doesn’t sound stupid to you any more. Then one day, you will pick up the phone and ask for help from friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and strangers. And you will be amazed that you ever let shyness get in your way.

There are a few important guidelines. Don’t whine. Don’t pressure. Do say thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your ideas. And when something pays off, call back the person who gave you the lead and say thank you again. And don’t be surprised when in a few months, your phone rings, and you hear, “Hi, I don’t know if you remember calling me…but now I am looking for some new opportunities….”

That is structured networking. I grant you that learning it is painful, but it is a skill that can be applied to all kinds of needs. Now, whenever I need anything (where to find a good puppy kindergarten, who should I ask to paint my house, what innovative programs in workforce development can we develop, what seminars would be interesting to the business community, how do other single women manage large household tasks, what can be done about an obstreperous board member, why can’t I keep staff….and so on), I just ask everyone I know until I generate a robust range of alternatives. What a difference from relying on my puny brain!

Structured networking is good, I think, for a shy person, because it gives us a controlled way to tap into the riches of the outside world. At the same time, I think it would help an extrovert to focus on the goals of interchange. By marking progress against an objective, an extrovert would be able to take that social interchange that is so easy and focus it on a desired outcome. I’m just guessing that for an extrovert, the organizational parts of the process might be harder and the calling easier.

In any case, according to my outplacement counselor, this is a technique that works for a broad range of people in all kinds of situations. After kicking, screaming, and trying it, I know it works for me. I came out of my first, supervised experience with structured networking with two exciting job offers, numerous interviews, a lot of very interesting conversations with people I didn’t know, a lot of wonderful reconnections with people I had not seen in years, and a new confidence in myself and humankind. Not bad for ten calls a day.

Who’s teaching who?

An old friend and I have started back up an e-mail correspondence just recently, and she writes happily, “

OK, bed time. We have way too much going on, and still not enough hours in the day. I hate that! I WILL write more, I promise. It's just WONDERFUL to be back in touch with you!!!!

This is a woman with the gift of being happy, married to a man with the gift of taking on the world on his own terms. Job transitions have her thinking about making some life changes, and she imagines that I have some wisdom to share. I do, but some of it gets handed back, since it came from the two of them. Since I make a habit of keeping my friends anonymous in this blog, let’s call my friend Doreen and her husband Douglas.

I met Doreen at an arts camp in Maine, a spectacularly beautiful place where I had retreated to make pots for three weeks, while she made baskets. We had a bond immediately. Neither of us, for the life of us, could fathom the intensity with which our classmates viewed the search for the perfect “vessel.” It took only a hint of the v-word to send us into giggles.

It was a period of weird and wacky life connections, too. Doreen had gone to high school in Cincinnati with a guy I was seeing at the time, and also with Sarah Jessica Parker (not that that matters to any of us but I wonder what including a celebrity name will do to my blog stats). I was taking pottery lessons from a potter who was having a feud with my pig farmer cousin in Georgia. Doreen and I took a day trip one day, and we visited a fort in Maine that is built on the identical plan of one near Savannah, where my mother grew up. Maybe that fort is a metaphor for our lives, two identical plans executed in worlds far apart. Me Southern and shy, her Jewish and bubbly.

We remarked that day on the poignancy of fortifications of such exquisite design, but both outdated by advances in armaments. The invention of spiral bores in rifles made their walls vulnerable in unforeseen ways, and they had to be abandoned. It was not, thank goodness, necessary to abandon our lives as we went back to the real world of difficult jobs.

Doreen also went back to Douglas. She had told me stories of his rather unusual approach to life, and also his zest for life. While we were potting, weaving and giggling in the woods, Douglas was on a bike tour to China. Listening Doreen talk about Douglas, it was one of the times that I recognized that when people are really in love, they see the other person as absolutely unique, as if he or she exists with an extra dimension. They even speak the name differently, with a kind of hushed expectance. It’s a dead giveaway, just as one of the ways you know that someone is checking you out is if they ask your age.

The one that really got my attention, though, was the description of Douglas recruiting a new secretary for his office. It was a tough market, it seems, and the usual routes of advertising and interviewing had not worked well. So Douglas wrote up a resume for the office and went out into the crowds at rush hour to try to get more applicants, maybe ones that were happy at their jobs and hadn’t even considered a new opportunity. What an idea! If something is not working, change the approach. Don’t settle for what you can get, change the rules. When I went back to my difficult job and difficult boss, I changed my approach. And I have remembered that lesson.

One of my favorite true stories of how people really manage life transitions—as opposed to how we all think we do it—is the story of how they decided to get married. “It was a slip of the subjunctive,” says Doreen. “One day he said to me something about when we get married and I almost dropped my teeth.” But it was too late to take it back, or he really didn’t want to, and neither did she. They were married in a garden, as Doreen put it, “of late blooming flowers.” And they were happy. She has a gift for happy, and he has the sense to organize her into his life.

A couple of years later, I saw Doreen briefly at the airport. She was on her way to Russia. She was so excited about the trip, but it was the first time she was leaving her baby son. I think it took a lot of courage to make that trip. Not long after that, Douglas and Doreen moved from the northeast to the South, a dramatic cultural change on so many levels.

And this is the woman who wants to know how I have gone about making big changes in life? I have watched her and learned from her, among others of my dear good friends. There are some specific skills I learned, too, like the value of structured networking, a lifesaver for the shy person. It gives you a tool for being outgoing when you really would rather not. And I am told that for the outgoing, it can offer a way to organize all the information that you gather without even thinking about it. Maybe I will blog about that tomorrow.

Oddly enough, Douglas’s parents live in the same retirement community near Burlington as one of my best friends. So perhaps I will have visits from Doreen and Douglas and their children to look forward to, as I also enjoy J’s visits to Vermont with his daughter and his girlfriend. I could end up with more friends in Vermont than I had in other places I lived. Ain’t life weird and grand?

Because we can

A friend of mine, lets call her Jay, asked me a question at a Christmas party, and I have been chewing on it in the background of my mind ever since. At least I guess I must have been, because I woke up yesterday, or maybe it was today, with an answer.

This question is pretty intense for a woman that I only know slightly, and with whom I don’t always feel I have much in common. I struggle not to be too casual in dress; she loves shoes and gets manicures. She is social; I’m an introvert. She has a grown son; I love my dogs. But we are both of an age, and we like each other. More than once, casual conversation has abruptly shifted, and we find we are talking about things that matter to us deeply, things that usually take a lot more care to introduce into polite conversation. Things like mental health and what it is really like to be a woman in the predominantly male world of finance and our shared love of hands on home improvement and our bemused appreciation of men.

“Why is it so hard for me?” she wants to know. This is not an insecure person, and I understand that she is not asking “Why doesn’t anyone want me?” She is bright and beautiful and funny and good company and financially secure. She is asking a different question, and I am flattered that she considers that I might know any part of an answer. The fact is I have the same question: “What is wrong with me that I think it is okay to live alone? Shouldn’t I want someone in my life? Shouldn’t I want people closer to me? Am I being too hard on the people who love me? Am I shutting out relationships that might bring joy into my life? Have I failed to grasp the tradeoff between working on a relationship and avoiding loneliness?” She is asking the question in the context of an insistent potential lover, while I am not--at least not at the moment--but I can see that my question is what has kept me in bad relationships.

Even at Christmas, I knew part of the answer. If there is no magic, if there never has been that spark of connection in the attraction to the other person, it’s not worth it. Relationships that start with magic are hard enough to navigate, and we are long past the age of arranged marriages. I am grateful that it is not now as rare for women to live alone. When I was first divorced twenty years ago, I had to work hard to accept my new state. As a good southern girl, there was very, very few single women in my extended family who weren’t perceived as having a little something wrong with them. It took a long time for me to decide I would rather have something wrong with me than stay in a bad relationship, and I have repeated that wrenching decision a few times now.

Eventually, I may get it right. It seems that the challenge of my lifetime is to learn to let go once the magic has receded. Despite my deep fears that I give up too quickly, the truth is that I give up far too slowly. Too little self respect or over-responsibility for the other person keeps me stuck until I wake up one bright morning and realize that I can just walk away. That’s what I am trying to learn. Again and again. Still.

Why do I live alone? Because I can, at least right now. I can afford my own house and I can pay my bills As life goes on, things change and I may not always have this luxurious option. I may need to have a roommate.or move to lower cost housing, maybe even give up my well loved dogs. For now, I am happy.

There are downsides to living alone. Aside from the expense, there isn’t anyone to share chores, and it often takes me a long time to figure out how to accomplish some household projects. At the end of the day, as we would say on Wall Street, it is a business decision. Do I give up what I have for a risky prospect? These kinds of decisions take analysis of pros and cons, then a leap of intuition and faith and love.

When I married at nineteen, I made that leap. It paid off big time. I had several years of joy before things changed, then a few years of struggle to accept that my world had changed. Would I make the leap again? In a heartbeat. But only if the magic is there.

I am pleased to say that one of the things I love about Vermont is that I see hints and whispers of magic everywhere. Almost everywhere I go, I meet interesting men that show real promise. Nobody yet for whom I would give up my current life….well maybe one. Or two. The riches of possibility enliven my life. And if nobody comes along, the downside is that I live alone in the luxury of my own home until old age or illness requires otherwise. The long term future I imagine is an apartment or one-room house, but as age advances, I may have to live closer to services and dogs will become increasingly problematic.

To answer Jay’s question. Why do we live alone? Because we can. Because we are financially and emotionally secure enough that we have that option.

Love thy neighbor

I love my neighbors. I really do.

Right now I particularly love the guy up the road who plows my driveway. Only last month I learned that he plows only for me and the guy on the other side of me. Still, for a guy with his own excavating business and a couple of small side jobs, you could not ask for a more committed and responsible service provider.

I am a happy customer, whose response yesterday tipped over into sheer joy and exhilaration. I have been struggling with a big pile of ice in front of my garage, and after days of shoveling and chipping, I gave up, leaving a barrier the size of three stacked speed bumps—or sleeping policemen, as they would say in Jamaica—still blocking the entrance to my garage. When I came home for the puppy’s lunchtime break from her kennel, it occurred to me that if I left the garage door open then the plow guy might be able to whack the icy barrier. Or shove it. Or something. I even thought about placing a phone call, but, as usual I got distracted.

When I came home last night—oh, joy!—it worked. There was a clean, flat surface where three policemen used to sleep. I drove my car into the garage, closed the door and called to leave a message that I am sure my neighbor and his family will giggle over. Why shouldn’t they giggle? And why shouldn’t they share my delight that I have figured out one more little thing that—with my neighbors’ help--makes winter in Vermont a little easier?

I am also pretty fond of the couple down the road who brought me the most spectacular platter of Christmas cookies that I have ever seen. Something of a cookie snob, I was impressed with the variety of shapes, the amount of detail work, and the use of real butter. We cookie snobs can tell. These are people I have met once, but in Vermont proximity can be enough to make neighbors, and thoughtful care and simple kindness are often offered without thought of return.

Yankee ingenuity

I’m trying something new. Not, you understand, because it is the New Year. I am an innovation junkie. I just love trying something new.

My friend Mary just returned from a scary surgery in which a golfball size tumor was removed from her brain, just behind the bridge of her nose. Death and blindness averted, she is enjoying the fact that her exceptional fitness has enabled her to bounce back. And to what does she attribute this exceptional fitness? Walking.

Mary walks several miles a day. I wish I could remember exactly how many, because you would be impressed. She walks in the morning, at lunchtime and in the evening. If you are in Montpelier at midday, you may see Mary logging miles. But in the morning she walks at home.

In casual conversation at some Rotary event or another, I asked Mary how she manages to fit in so much walking. I really like to walk, but when I wake up it is dark and by the time I feed dogs, sit under the therapy light, do Pilates, answer e-mail, read horoscopes, blog, make breakfast, wash and get dressed...well, not all of those even get done every morning.

“I walk at home,” says Mary.

Still not getting it, I ask another way, “But isn’t it dark?”

“No, I walk in my house,” she says. “We have TVs in the kitchen and in the living room, so I turn them on and open all the doors and I walk in a circle around and around my house. Then I turn around and walk the other way.”

“Doesn’t it wear out your floors?”

“Silly, I wear sneakers!”

Worth a try, I say. So this morning, after doing Pilates under the therapy lamp (another experiment!) I set the timer for twenty minutes and tried it. If I open the doors to the bathroom and the study (normally shut off for dog control and heat retention), then I can walk in a circle around and around my house, although I suspect that my house is somewhat smaller than Mary’s—one TV covers the territory. I have taken to recording the morning news so that I can fast forward through ads and seemingly incessant coverage of high school hockey, and now I actually feel informed about Vermont events, or as informed as Channel 3 can make me.

But back to the walking. It works great. I go around in one direction five or six times, then when I start to feel it in my hips, I go the other way. I switch the remote from hand to hand. The doggy barriers just add variety. Either I jump them or I shout “Excuse me! Excuse me!” and they comply. I add in a little bending and stretching to pick up yesterday’s dog-shredded items for more variety. Toward the end, I bend to get a pan out of the cabinet, eggs from the fridge, and lifting my knees high, keep walking back and forth, back and forth. By the time breakfast is ready, the timer goes off. Twenty minutes walking, finished!

Minor adjustments are required. I am a little worried about my living room rug, a good Oriental that is a relic of the days when I had more money, so I will put down some runners. Somewhere along the way, the puppy snagged the goats milk soap in the bathroom, from which she is normally shut out. The total schedule needs to be tightened up a bit—it is almost time to walk out the door and I still am in my jammies—but there is promise for this indoor walking.

Thanks, Mary!

Sing a song of Christmas socks

It was a good Christmas. I got a lot of socks.

We are a family of people who teach and people who make rules, all perfectly fine until you get us into a room together and we each try to bend others to our own sets of rules. Several years ago, some family members jumped onto the Christmas list bandwagon, the concept being that specifying some items as interesting would prevent horrible gifts, those well or not-so-well intentioned items that someone spends hard earned money to acquire and that subsequently clutter our houses. It is a good concept and one that sometimes even works.

Still, I don’t really approve, because I consider Christmas more than the season of stuff and more stuff. I think the heart of Christmas is considering how we can touch each other, and the Christmas list gets in the way as much as it bridges gaps.

In the end, I had no alternative but to offer up a few suggestions just to cut down the yammering. So I confessed that I like socks. I like warm socks and silly socks, slipper socks and all kinds of socks. It is hard to have too many socks or too many mittens or too many hats, because these items all disappear, even when rigorously protected from dogs who love them as chew toys.

Socks can make a fashion statement, but even people (like me) who are picky about clothes cannot be picky about socks.

The iPod was a delightful gift, all the more so because I didn’t even know I wanted one. Probably the best gift I got was my nine-year-old niece stopping in mid-unwrapping to curl up beside me and read me the book she picked out for me all on her own, and a surprisingly appropriate book at that. These were wonderful, unexpected gifts.

But I would really have been happy with socks.

There is little that I want these days, and the things I need are unromantic and unsuited to gift-giving occasions. But anyone who knows me even a little knows how little it takes to please me. Cookbooks or cooking gear—the simpler the better. Dishtowels trump the latest gadget to carve vegetables. Luxurious towels and sheets in white. And socks.

One of the best gifts I ever received was a four-pack of luxurious gray socks with blue snowflakes on them. Multiple pairs of good socks are wonderful, because when one sock gets lost or eaten, there are other matches. I loved these socks so much that I have protected them from dog mouths and I think I still have seven of the original eight socks. They are still my very favorite socks.

Home for Christmas

It was a wonderful Christmas. But then I can’t recall a bad one. Christmas always has a message for those of us who listen for it.

This year I had the quintessential holiday experience complete with small children tearing through paper in the company of lots of extended family and longtime friends. It was the kind of warm and cozy holiday experience that you see in the movies.

I love Christmas gifts, and I enjoy thinking about them and shopping through the year, but this year, for the first time in many years, I actually got a gift that far exceeded any expectations—an ipod! I would never have even thought to request such a thing, but it was exactly what I wanted. Exactly. I think the last time I got such a perfect gift was when a long departed boyfriend gave me a router so that I could dream of replicating moldings in the house I was renovating. As I recall, I burst into tears then, as I almost did again, but mostly I was just delighted. Like a kid at Christmas.

There were shadow moments, of course, including remembered and new trials of traveling by air. I have not traveled much since security measures ramped up, nor since airlines have been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, and I have mislaid some of my skills for dealing with expected travel challenges, not to mention a few new ones.

And it always makes me cock my head in confusion when the people who claim to know me well don’t understand what I do with my time if I don’t go to movies or out to eat. Readers of Vermont Diary know what I do. It is a Christmas miracle that we manage to rub along as well as we do, given that we have so little contact throughout the year and—really—so little in common. The warmth of the holiday leaves everyone saying, “Let’s keep in touch more!” Let’s hold on a little longer to the thought that it might happen.

But, gosh! It is great to be home. The South is not home to me, not any more. It is a lovely place to visit, and I particularly enjoyed morning walks in the sunshine. But I feel as strangled by expectation and unwritten rules as ever, and I am glad to be back home where life is a little slower and more deliberate, where people ask for what they need and respect your right to give or withhold according to your resources.

As someone pointed out to me when I took my puppy to work a few weeks ago, I am in danger of going native and of becoming a Vermont booster, blind to her faults. I was obscurely proud this morning to hear that there were only seven murders in the state this year, and I was absolutely delighted to arrive at the parking lot yesterday to find my car ready and running, waiting just for me. In this tourism state where I have frequently complained that service providers don’t understand the demands of travelers from New York and Boston, I was overwhelmed at this welcoming touch.

The puppy has grown. She looks about 30% bigger in just a week. So far her sitters have said she was good, but we have not yet had the full debriefing. The old boys are happy to see me, but did not panic at my absence as they sometimes have. We are all happy to be back in our morning routine of coffee and kibble, looking out at snowcapped mountains, sitting under the artificial light, and blogging.

Cooking and cleaning and catching the puppy in the act

Despite having left behind the rat race of Manhattan, I still rush through weekdays and catch up at weekend time. Saturdays are the time allotted for picking up the shreds and tatters of whatever the puppy found, and perhaps even vacuuming the living room rug. Sundays, assuming the Saturday cleaning catchup has been successful, I cook.

Today I went looking for a recipe for sweet potatoes. Last night’s frugal cooking led me to bake two large sweet potatoes along with dinner, my little nod at energy conservation. If you throw all kinds of things into the oven together (but separate), my gleeful spirit feels I have gotten the cooking of some of them for free. So in they go, potatoes and sweet potatoes, eggplant and garlic, peppers and popovers. Nobody seems to mind sharing.

But then I am indentured to vegetables, and I have to figure out what to do with them. I had just unearthed a nifty sounding recipe for sweet potato soup with lime and cilantro, when I noticed that where once there were two large tubers, now there was only one. With yesterday’s breakfast roll experience still smarting, I went looking for the puppy. Sure enough, there was half a sweet potato on the living room rug, which as all dog lovers know is the only place that messy food really tastes good.

Damn. In case you, gentle reader have not encountered this part of my personality, let me enlighten you that my language goes shockingly to hell whenever I am stressed, not that a sweet potato theft generally takes me over the edge. It is one relic of having worked with bond traders, who, no matter what anyone tells you, are not nice people, not wholesome, and not pleasant to be around. It is something of a departure that I have made such a judgment, determined as I am to see the good in everyone, even bond traders. That world is a long way from my world now, except for the occasional inappropriate expletive. Never mind.

While I was thumbing through cookbooks, a recipe card floated to the floor. Anti-chew spray, composed of equal parts of lemon juice and rubbing alcohol, with a dash of Tabasco for flavor. Now there’s a recipe with promise.

I wonder if Toby would like it sprayed on his back legs?

Meanwhile, I am continuing to clean today, having frittered away not only yesterday but also a snow day on Friday, and I want to say a word about cleaning. I don’t like it. For a variety of good reasons, I never really learned how, and I never really learned the discipline of a cleaning routine. My mother always said that a hundred years from now nobody would know if you vacuumed, but they might know what kinds of kids you raised. While I accept that she is absolutely, one hundred percent correct about that, I still bask in a clean, tastefully and sparely decorated room. My soul craves cleanliness as godliness, but my wayward being does not know how to get there as a matter of daily life.

I wish I did have the talent for creating comfort and light around me. At various times in my life, I have tried to learn the skills. Jeff Campbell of The Clean Team is one of my inspirations, at least as important to me as many skilled writers and thinkers. It was from The Clean Team I learned that even if my mother had taught me how to clean, I would have needed to learn all over again. So now, when I am moved to clean, I use Red Juice and Blue Juice. I clean sinks and bathroom fixtures with spray and cleaning cloths rather than sluicing them with water. I wash many, many things in the dishwasher—the glass parts of light fixtures, as my mother taught me, but also dustpans and the plastic head off my brooms, resting in the conviction that the dishwasher sanitizes everything.

In my own personal variation of the Clean Team’s Shmop, I clean floors with wet towels right out of the washer. Never an athletic person, I many years ago passed the milestone at which a bend to the floor is an occasion to ask oneself, “What else might I do while I am down here?” You can imagine how pleased I was to learn that one can clean floors by putting down wet towels then dancing on them, slipping around a little, then throwing them right back into the washer for another round. This kind of effort-conserving innovation makes it all much easier to have a puppy, but she does cock her head bemused when she sees me cavort across the utility room floor which she has worked so hard to make her own.

Why I got a puppy

The old boys are old, it is true, but even at age nine dogyears, Toby is strong and energetic. He has slowed down a little, but he still enjoys a run and a romp as much as anyone. Max cannot keep up, but Max is smart and self-reliant. Either he stays close to me when we are out, or he lies down in a spot where he can keep watch over his little flock of Toby and me and—most recently—the baby Cassandra. We like to go out together, at least we do when the four-legged ones can coax the two-legged one off the couch and out into the cold.

One of my personal goals is to get outdoors more and enjoy this magical place where I live. It is an irony of rural life that tied as we are to automobile transport, unless we plan for foot travel, it does not naturally happen as daily life grinds relentlessly forward. And it is a reality of life in Vermont that we must have different schedules, adapt to different rhythms as the seasons change. Walking is a delight in summer and fall, but the cold and snow of winter bring a halt to that activity.

Snowshoeing is a wonderful replacement for walking, but some adaptations are required. Compared to even the most brisk autumn hike, walking on snowshoes is hard work, although far easier than slogging through the snow would be without this inventive footgear. People from around here recommend ramping up on snowshoes, starting with the first snowfall of two or three inches so that when the snow is really deep, leg muscles are accustomed to the work and feet no longer cramp in protest at peculiar angles. Well, I forgot to do that.

Still, this morning was the right time to head out on snowshoes. The puppy has gone into a bratty phase that clearly calls for a couple of good runs a day to flatten her out. I am reminded of a year-old German Shepherd pup named Xena that Max and Toby used to play with in Prospect Park. It took Xena’s owners a good hour of hard running twice a day to turn her into a well-behaved dog appropriate for apartment life. I thought a lot about Xena when I was thinking about bringing Miss Cassandra home. A lot.

So after this morning’s antics, which I will spare you, but they involved two pairs of shoes, both old dogs’ breakfasts, my breakfast, the garbage, the clothes I wore yesterday, and the garbage again, not to mention an unauthorized flat out run all the way around the house and across the road, we went up the hill, me with my snowshoes and my dogs.

The snow is beautiful. There is no adjective that conveys what it is like. This particular storm left us with six inches of grainy, but fluffy, pure white stuff on top of another three or so inches, so the dogs are sinking in to elbow and chest. They don’t care, they just love it. Even with snowshoes, the snow is so fluffy that I sink in about six inches, so it is a serious cardio workout to get up the hill into the sugarbush.

Cassie covers four or five times the distance that Max and I do, and she is in heaven. She is covered in snow. She jumps and runs and dives, skidding along like a sea otter. She chases Toby, and he chases her, but old-dog-canny, he mostly lets her run circles around him. The two of them break trail for me, and Max follows, taking the easiest route for weary old legs. Later, he sticks close behind, sometimes walking on the backs of my snowshoes, his breath warming the backs of my knees.

Just up to the top of the hill and back, then across to the garden to throw a few snowballs, and baby Cassandra is ready for a nap. It is a great workout, with incomparable beauty and the simple joy of dogs enjoying snow. To get me out more to experience this kind of thing—that’s why I got a puppy.

Choosing the right story

As humans we are driven to connect the dots, to try to make a story from the stuff of event and experience. We choose the story that pleases us, whether one that involves a higher being directing our lives, one that puts the individual firmly in control of his or her own life, or one that takes direction only from other people. Even the view that all events are independent, random blips, that there is no story is a kind of story, just as random splashes of paint on canvas can be a kind of art.

Some of us spend much of life blissfully unaware that we are living in our own dramatic creation until something happens to jolt us out of it, perhaps an illness or a spouse who suddenly rewrites their own story line and shoves us onto a different path as well. And some of us are uncomfortably aware of how easy it is to make different stories of the same raw material.

Sometimes we change our stories at different times of life. I lived through periods when I could not see past depression, and that is a kind of sick, weary, misdirected story. It is a sad thing to believe the world is random, or worse, to believe the deck is stacked against you. I lived through periods unsure of a belief in God, then as if I had walked through a revolving door, that changed for me, although I am uncomfortably aware that for more serious and faithful souls, that gift is sometimes withdrawn. Still, faith is a gift for which I am grateful today and for as long as I have it.

It is important to have respect for our stories. We cannot force the world to live according to what we wish to see. Denial is a short term fix, although one that can appear to be a powerful cloak against truth. To those who counsel making lemonade of lemons, I say instead learn to appreciate the lemon and its meaning in your life.

I come from a line of story-telling people. Not much gets written down, at least not as far as I know, but there are many, many stories of funny, sad, hopeful, and triumphant events, all of which seem to have happened to relatives. There are a few disgraceful ones, too, but very few, because it is the way in my family to keep darkness away by pretending it is not there. And because we embrace and celebrate hope and light. I still want to write a novel called Story Wars, which would be about big battles of dark and light, alongside siblings’ battle to top each others tales.

Recently I finished reading a lovely book called Sight Hound by Pam Houston, a book I wish I had written. She does a good job of writing the same events from different perspectives, showing the stories of different people interact in specific times and places, and also how sometimes the story changes, and it is time to move on. But the real passion and brilliance of her book is in capturing what it is like to love a dog.

Each dog, she says, has something different to teach us. It is our joyful task to discern what that is. In the book, old wolfhound Dante taught his human Rae how to be loved, and young Rose is to teach her how to play, both important lessons that Rae can only learn at the appointed time in her life.

I can see the same truth in my dogs. Max has taught me dignity and self-respect, how to growl when necessary, how to flirt and how to be a little goofy. Toby has taught me what it is like to be loved completely and unconditionally. Those lessons will be with me all my life and likely long past the ends of their lives. Thinking of how much they have taught me—and at exactly the right time in my life—makes it a little easier to think of losing these old, beloved friends.

Is this view of them, this story a construct that creates meaning out of thousands of walks to the park, squabbles over kibble, and cuddles on the sofa? Yes. But it is a story in which I perceive truth, at least for now. Will I ever come to accept different story in which they are only dogs, only pets, weak substitutes for having more people in my life? I hope not. I like this version, sappy as it may appear to those who have not had the blessing of dogs in their life.

As for Miss Cassandra, I wonder what she will teach me. For now, I am enjoying watching her learn to be part of the pack and learn from the old boys what they think I will need from her in years to come.

Shepherd for a shepherd

A shoe. One of my good work shoes, actually. The edge of another shoe, the ones I wear out in the snow when it isn’t too deep.

One Christmas sock, the kind you wear, not the kind you hang.

A dishtowel. A plastic milk jug.

A bottle of Murphy’s oil soap, still with cap intact, thank goodness.

A shepherd from the nativity scene. I wonder why she picked….oh, I get it. Perhaps a little glue will save him.

This is yesterday’s list of the puppy victims. At my feet, I hear happy crunching sounds as another soda bottle gets pre-recycled.

My kind of day

A snowy Sunday. About three inches of sparkly, fluffy stuff. Dogs out to romp in the fenced yard. Clean the floors, a task best tackled without dog help.

Bake the gingersnaps I made yesterday. How will they turn out, gently hot with candied ginger, dry ginger, and black pepper, molasses mellowed? It is Maida Heatter’s favorite Christmas cookie. I cut them smaller—just over two inches—and get seven dozen from the recipe that makes three dozen of her larger rounds. Enough for my cookie swap on Tuesday. Ah, the satisfaction of an obligation met early.

Dogs in sometime during the baking. Evil puppy Cassandra helps out by stealing the wax paper that wrapped the cookie dough, the foil on which the cookies baked, and the remains of a pound cake—each shredded in its turn on the living room rug.

Dogs out for a romp. We take the “bait” from the freezer—leftover roast beef a tad too rare for me, cut into tiny cubes—and go across the road to the big field for recall work. Three dogs on leashes to get across the road, one of whom does not know how to walk on a leash. The old boys are patient, me too, and we get there. Now, sit to have your leashes released, and they are off!

The puppy still forgets sometimes to put down her front feet, so she skids in the snow, but she doesn’t care. She is as happy as happy gets. She has her favorite Toby to chase, her favorite Mom with roast beef to hand out, and she is learning to work. Working dogs really do love to work. We have a productive session, and even Toby, whose recall skills have been slipping, does well. Even with rare roast beef in my pocket, and even as deeply as Toby love me, it is hard for me to compete with frozen manure, rabbit holes and deer tracks. What a world of doggy delight!

Old dog Max keeps up and gets a little treat from time to time, just because. His medication is getting adjusted again, but he sticks close to me. We probably cover less than a quarter of the distance that the other two skim across. Another inch of snow, and this would be snowshoe depth. It’s the kind of snow that swirls around and piles up in valleys, leaving the hills all but bare.

Home again, and no, nobody wants to go back in the fenced yard. The living room stove is in all our thoughts, and we curl up for a cup of tea and to figure out how you put binding on a quilt. I even find the cool technique by which you make bias binding from a square of fabric cut, sewn, folded, cut, sewn and cut again to the perfect width and length. Math and sewing and an old movie (Adam’s Rib) all in one afternoon, how cool!

I have four more kissing balls to make for the Rotary auction. Our three-person team (one for greenery collection, one for oversight, and myself for labor) will produce eighteen hanging confections of greenery, ribbon and baubles for next week’s big fundraiser. I don’t quite have the will to pull out the greenery again today, not with my newly clean floors. The dogs are joyous when it comes to tree branches in the house, and they help spread sticks and needles all over. Instead we take a nap.

Back for Christmas!

One of my favorite Advent traditions from last year is back. It's Susan's advent calendar http://www.q-creative.com/christmas

So far, I like Rudolf best. Be sure to click on his nose. (Not sure how this will work unless you have broadband.)

Making room for Christmas

The rush and bustle to create the ultimate Christmas experience is on. Some of it is fun, particularly if we can savor the tree-cutting, decoration-hanging, cookie-baking, present-wrapping and all the layered elements that comprise our individual and family experiences of Christmas. Savoring takes time and mindfulness, and it is ever so human to layer on more and more until our overburdened spirits cry, “Stop! I need rest.”

That rest is the moment of Christmas. In that moment we give up the need to be all things to all people. We recognize our frailty as animal beings that require food and sleep. We learn that adrenaline can be a high, but it carries us to the edge of self-control, only to leave us gasping. We see that our friends and family are human, too, and that each of us does for each other what we can do, no more but also no less.

I go into the holiday season with trepidation. I love my family, but I don’t think they know me. How could they? It has been years since they spent much time with me.

I’m the weird aunt, the one who lives far away where it is cold (why would you do that?), the one who has a family of dogs rather than people, the one who used to have a high-paying job but chose a simpler life. (Do you really think it will change what kind of presents we get? Yes, it will.) A card-carrying introvert, I don’t even seem to make an effort to explain myself, not nearly enough, and I end up feeling like a wayward zoo animal taken in by a family of cartoon bears. They are charming and lovely people, and they know each other’s quirks and habits with a degree of intimacy and a level of judgment that make me shudder.

I drop literally from the sky—thanks to Jet Blue—into a swirl of human relationships that have nothing—or almost nothing—to do with me. Not having any recent data about this wayward zoo animal, my family reverts to roles, expectations and memories from many years ago. I become—whether I like it or not—the big sister away at college. I relive all the mistakes I made from ages ten to twenty, the time when my siblings were in high school or middle school, when they were first aware enough of other people to form impressions. There are some isolated memories from other periods of life, but it was those years that shaped the way we relate to each other. With limited contact in later life, we have not had much opportunity to change roles, although we are all now very different people than we were thirty years ago.

Changing roles is tough. I spoke today with a colleague who works closely with a bright, sensitive young man who has recently started living as a woman. The kind of pain that a person must experience before taking a step as dramatic as changing gender I cannot even imagine. My colleague is struggling to get his mind to accept the change, but he cares about his colleague so he will make the effort. This change is a big, outwardly visible, even shocking change in role, so it gets attention. The smaller changes in roles, in how we wish to be perceived, that we ask of our families and friends are much easier for them to overlook in the bustle of Christmas preparation.

Enforced joyousness also brings with it a heaping portion of guilt. We think of friends and family at this one time, but the rest of the year passes in a blur of work, school and other obligations. At one level, it makes me sad that of my entire extended family—brothers, sister, in-laws, nieces and nephews—only my mother and sometimes one brother make an effort to stay in touch with me. Only my mother reads my blog, although I used to send it out to everyone until I recognized this sad truth. At another level, I understand that people are busy and after they tend to relationships that are most important to them, there is not much left over.

I believe in love, and I believe that love is action, not feeling. At Christmas, I believe it is important to make an effort to keep connections alive So even though I am sorely tempted to stay at home with friends, with the comfort of old dogs and with my bright and beautiful new puppy, I will spend money I can’t afford and brave the horrors of holiday travel to visit my extended family. I will drop into a family dynamic that does not involve me, since I am only a shadow from the past, but where I am expected to play roles I no longer fit. I will experience conflict and likely tears, possibly my own, possibly tears I cause. It’s what we do at Christmas.

I made an off-hand, flippant comment to a friend that I try to make Christmas simpler every year. Reeling from a new job and a multitude of other life changes, she fired back by e-mail, “How do you do that?” It’s not easy to beat back the urge to bustle. But it is possible to give yourself permission to stop.

This year I won’t have a Christmas tree. Christmas trees and puppies and dog-sitters are not a good combination. I used to make dozens and dozens of cookies. This year I will do a cookie swap and find somewhere to give them away. I like to do my Christmas shopping during summer vacation, but this year I surprised myself by finishing my shopping and mailing all presents before December. A breakthrough! I feel so free!

I used to try to preserve traditions by doing the same things every year, but I ran out of steam. Now I save up energy for the things that matter, and I pick a different one each year. Last year it was important to me to have a Christmas tree and spend Christmas in my own home; this year I will travel, so I will cut back on other things.

Why fuss with the juggling? Why bother with any of it? Because this act of mindfully choosing to spend time together keeps alive a connection to people who are important to me and creates a channel for future connection that may become important one day in ways I cannot foresee. Choosing to spend time together for these few special days is an act of faith in family and in love. The fact that we—like millions of other families—don’t necessarily get along every minute doesn’t change anything. If we pay attention to what we are trying to do, and if we are a little lucky, we may experience a few really special moments of connection, of recognition of each other as unique and special, of mutual support. Then it is really Christmas.

The real work of Christmas is making room for the magic to happen. Even so, we can’t force it. We can only create a little stillness and wait.

Wait a minute

In New England, they say, if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute. With snow forecast for last night, I was surprised to wake to late autumn browns and grays, not a flake in sight. Hearing that the anticipated storm had dumped its load to the east, I ventured to drive to Montpelier along the pretty route, the route I dare not drive in winter weather.

Black ice and moose occur on Route 12 too often to trust to good luck, and an unfortunate encounter with one or the other could be deadly. And so I was a little daunted when a quarter of the way on my journey the morning rain turned to snow. Grateful for my new snow tires and a little wary of other drivers, I carried on, and three quarters of the way, the snow turned back to rain.

Returning home after a day of weary bureaucracy, I was sure it was warm enough to go back the same way. It really is a very beautiful drive, winding past farms, pastures, and every variation of the Gothic Revival farmhouse, all with mountain backdrop. A quarter of the way home, the rain turned to snow. I could almost swear that the same red pickup was behind me, lights on high beam to encourage me to go faster than what was quite fast enough in my view. Still, it was pretty. Three quarters of the way home, the road dropped into the valley, and there was rain again.

Most entertaining of all, as I climbed to my house on the hill, I crossed yet again—for the fifth time today—the snow line, climbing, climbing into a frosty wonderland. The dogs were joyous, jumping and romping in the snow, winding up for weekend play.

Recovery

For the longest time, Max has not been able to sit, not even for a cookie, and Max prizes cookies above all things on earth. After months of failing capacity, well, what can we expect of an eleven-year-old German Shepherd, particularly one of uncertain parentage, indeed a foundling from the Staten Island Ferry, and a foundling who now has a titanium-and-plastic replacement hip? Well.

It turns out that we may have made the ultimate mistake in geriatric care, the error of thinking that the patient was dying, when in fact he just needed a little well-placed medication. And after the prednisone has kicked in, well, surprise and a little tear from just the over-compassionate left eye….Max sat for his cookie this evening. Oh, my.

Meanwhile across town, my best friend is preparing for another round of surgery. I say she is my best friend, although I may not be hers, but it doesn’t even matter. What matters is this: tomorrow she goes in for another attempt to clean out that burst appendix and maybe to disentangle some other organs and stuff. Oh my.

I spoke to her yesterday, and she was calm. I’m sure it is not unheard of to prepare a variety of arrangements just in case. I’m absolutely positive that I would do the same in her position. But I do hope that all these preparations are unnecessary, and that I will have my friend back, smiling and laughing and playing with a new puppy in months to come. Without her, we will all be less joyous, less expansive, less….just less.

We laughed and joked yesterday about human frailties, about how most of us at heart believe we will never die. Can’t you imagine each spirit gasping at last, “Oh, gosh! I guess I wasn’t the exception!” But some of us, my friend and I among them, accept the inevitability of death and hope for a rich, full life and a timely, dignified death.

I have sent her off to the hospital with a giggle, a new book (Helen Husher’s View from Vermont, which I wish I had written), and tales of my puppy with hopes to hear of her new puppy in January. It’s all I can do.

It would annoy the dickens out of my friend, but I hope you will keep her and all of us who love her in your prayers tomorrow. Sometimes we have to trust in medical expertise and also in something more. We just have to.

Over the river and through the woods

Farm duty is hard duty, never harder than on cold winter mornings when stiff fingers struggle to strip ice off fence latches. I get glimmers of that experience when I take my herd out to the dog pen for a morning pee. First time out this morning, not too bad. It was as if the cold had startled the dog into obeying our new command, “Fence!”

The after breakfast run was another matter. To the firm command, “Fence!” Toby headed directly toward the fence, then veered left and took off through the sugarbush, followed by the puppy and the old dog who is, perhaps literally, on his last legs.

Only a week ago, the puppy was not brave enough for this venture, but time moves on, and now she follows Toby anywhere, even over to Labrador Jake’s house, which is—thank heaven—on the same side of the road. I know where they go, or at least I think I do, but this habit of bolting into the woods is not one I want Baby Cassandra to take up.

In a few minutes, Toby and Cassie were back. But old Max moves more slowly, and as he medication has been tapered over the last few days, he is losing function in his back legs. I stood shivering in the northeast wind for a few bone-chilling minutes, then decided I needed to go find him, just in case he got into trouble, but first I had to get dressed. Trailing around my neighbor’s sugarbush in deer season wearing only long underwear and a purple velvet robe with my boots—just not advisable. Not warm enough for one thing.

I need to take a lesson from all those farmers who roll out of bed and into boots and heavy clothing without even thinking. And I need to figure out how to build a chute from door to fence. It’s not as easy as you might think. When the standing seam roof looses its load, small mountains of snow accumulate. There is shoveling to consider, as well as how to maintain a pathway for the gas man. There is a reason, you know, that the fence is fifteen feet from the house.

Today I am thankful I am not a farmer. I am thankful that I work with my brain and not my hands. I am thankful for my brain. And I am oh so thankful that Toby and the puppy and old Max came back. They think it is great fun to visit Jake, as he visits them. They feel compelled to follow his scent and to overlay it. I think of how easily they could stray the other way into the road.

Life is risky. Sir Francis Bacon wrote, "He who has a wife and children has given hostages to fortune." The same is true of she who has dogs. I am thankful to have them home safe. And, Toby, I will be just as grateful--really I will--if you don't take off on heart-stopping jaunts to explore the sugarbush and visit Jake.

Sad news up hill and down

For the last three years, a local garage has taken care of my car. Referred there by a friend, I quickly got to know the owners who took me under their wing and taught me about how Vermonters interact. As time passed, I got to know more people in the shop, including the wiry man with the scraggly white Vermont beard and sweet smile who often worked on my car.

He called me sweetheart—and got away with it—and he knew a lot about a lot of things, including everything that happened on my hill. He lived further up the hill, so from time to time, Ken would give me a ride home if my car was still ailing. He told me about his beagles, and we swapped dog stories. He spoke of his wife with respect and love, even while he flirted with me in a way that said it was only in fun.

Last week, I took my car in to see what it might need and the shop owner handed it to Ken with instructions: “Do whatever you would do if it were your wife or your daughter.” My car came back with four new snow tires, an oil change, and the worrisome banging in the defroster has gone away. I felt very well cared for.

Last night, Ken died. He fell while trying to cut a branch, and died of injuries in the fall. As a young friend who had known him all her life pointed out, “It’s the way he would have wanted to go—quick and with little pain.” We all miss him very much.