Carmen

Carmen has found her forever home.  She’s a sweet, quiet, calm girl who is slowly discovering love and even a little foolishness.  We’ve had her for eight days now.  Her tail wags more, her eyes meet ours more often, and she responds to her name most of the time.  When she doesn’t, it’s probably because she has better things to do than because she doesn’t remember her name. 

All of our major worries were for naught.  She will not be eating the cats, nor are the cats broken-hearted due to the arrival of a dog.   She will not be pooping and peeing all over the house.  She will not jump on us and knock us down. 

Miss T, the resident supervisor and crab ass, has a new lease on life and seems to think that her world is right again with a dog in it.  Billy is not as sure about that, but he is confident enough to take shortcuts by walking underneath Carmen’s body. 

So far, she has only destroyed an AARP bulletin and a plastic cat ball that the cats never played with anyway.  She does collect items to take to her bed, however, and these consistently include Sheila’s bedroom slippers.  I was flattered the day she added my red ones to the pile.  She has also rounded up Sheila’s book, a wet washcloth, and all the dog toys in the toy basket to carry to one of her two beds.   Nothing chewed on so far except the aforementioned AARP bulletin and cat toy. 

Carmen’s new name (her racing name was “Where’s Rawbone”--yech) does not come from Bizet’s opera but was the name of Sheila’s late and beloved older sister.  It fits the sleek, exotic looking girl that she is.  However, I have made up a little song for her (all of The Pets always have a little song just for them), sung to the tune of  “March of the Toreadors” in Carmen:

I am a hound, a sweet greyhound/My name is Carmen and I’ll be around/I’m long and lean/just like a queen/My name is Carmen and I’ll be around!

Of Journaling, Greyhound Adoption, and Time Travel

Last week we had the pleasure of hearing Phyllis Theroux speak at the Library of Virginia, to kick off the publication of her new book The Journal Keeper.  I had read the book and was re-reading it by that time.  I have been an extremely sporadic journal keeper since college days, but I still have those pages and I treasure them, even the silly, whiny, self-absorbed ones.  One entry lets me know that at age 36 I exclaimed dramatically “I feel so terribly alone, sad, and old.”  Thirty years out, I want to put my arms around the lonely, sad young woman and sympathize, except for the “old” part about which she knew nothing.

Thankfully, by the time I had finished recording that entry, I had concluded that in comparison to some other people in my office I at least had a spark of  joie de vivre, and wrote on at some length in self-congratulation.  The great thing about a journal is that you’re allowed to be self-absorbed, and you might even be able to cheer yourself up by the end of the page.

I love reading other people’s journals and memoirs, and I can never resist at least looking at a new one in the bookstore.  If you are like that too, or think you might be, I highly recommend this book;  and if you know you will never journal but wouldn’t mind meeting someone who knows how to express many of the same inner thoughts and struggles you have, I recommend this book. 

Roger Mudd (remember him from CBS News?) introduced Ms. Theroux.  In case you thought, as I friend of mine did, that he had died, I assure you that is not the case.  He was a hoot, and entertained us with his own very first journal entry, written as a bored Private in the Korean War.  

About rescue greyhound adoption:  we are in the process.  How did it happen that two old ladies looking for an old, small dog seem to be about to adopt a young, tall greyhound fresh from the racetrack?  The story is somewhat convoluted, but it involves being at a Pet Expo a couple of weekends ago looking for the old, small dog and meeting two rescue greyhounds who cast a spell of enchantment with their angel faces and sweet ways.

As we’ve learned more about retired racing greyhounds, we continue to be enchanted as well as quite nervous about rescuing a dog of this particular breed.  We’ve always gotten dogs that we more or less put in the car and took home without a lot of forethought other than “I want a dog and this one seems to need me.”  This time is different and we are reading too many books, in my opinion.  I comfort myself with the memory of reading all the major how-to baby books before my child was born, and then pretty much never referring to them again once she made her appearance. 

And finally, about time travel.  Sheila doesn’t like science fiction or fantasy, and neither do I, although I enjoyed science fiction when I was a young teacher.  That was back in the days of Ray Bradbury and not very many other well known science fiction writers.  There was no such thing, as far as I know, as a vampire genre. 

Anyway, recently I had read a novel which I enjoyed and passed along to She, who also liked it very much.  I had gone on to read another novel by the same author, and was telling She how I didn’t care for that one and she wouldn’t either, because a major plot device was time travel.  “Oh, I wouldn’t like it,” she called out from the other room.  “I have enough trouble traveling through time myself.  I don’t need to read about it.”

Hear The Silence

This guy was resting in the snow around the corner from our house today.  It was a bright blue, sunny day and much of the snow had melted, especially from the roads and walkways.  Compared to our neighbors Up North (that’s what we Richmonders call Washington DC), we have been very lucky.

Being snowbound gives you a chance to get caught up on a lot of things that you all of a sudden don’t want to get caught up on, now that you have a chance.  Around here, we’ve kept up with things that require electrical power, just in case, but otherwise we’ve spent a lot of time reading and napping.  Very much the way things are when it isn’t snowing, now that I think about it. 

The Barnes & Noble parking lot was jammed.  I didn’t go there, but I got a good look at the cars and people as I swung by to get to Target.  All the cars were filthy-looking with road salt and all the people had desperate “My God, I’ve read everything in the house already; let me in the store!” looks on their faces.  We’re okay here for at least two more snowstorms.  We keep a huge stash of emergency books on hand and feel nervous and twitchy if the reserve stack gets too low.  Sheila even read, I swear it, The Three Musketeers this week.  She had bought a used copy of it last summer in Cincinnati at Half-Price Books.  It only has half the cover, but what’s inside has been pronounced a good read for well over 150 years. 

As for me, I’ve been re-reading all week:  Billy Collins’ poetry, Philip Gulley’s Porch Talk,  Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar in the World, and Rabbi Irwin Kula’s Yearnings:  Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life.   The poems and all of the books share at least one theme:   taking the time to listen to each other and to God.  Taking time to be silent.  Snow makes the world a lot quieter.  It’s like reverence falling from the sky. 

 

World View

I liked what Conan O’Brien said recently on his last late night show (for awhile).  He directed his remarks particularly “to the younger people,” and he said “Don’t be cynical.  Cynicism is one of my least favorite qualities, and it goes nowhere.  If you work really hard and are kind, wonderful things will happen.”  That may not really be an exact quote, but it’s pretty close.  

It’s so hard not to be cynical these days.  Sometimes I swear I will never read the newspaper again and will only watch movies or read books that have guaranteed happy endings.  I feel helpless, more than a little mystified, saddened, and frightened by what I see and hear on every side of the political spectrum.  And yes, I have become cynical about the people LBJ used to call “mah fellow Ahmuricuns.” 

We were having lunch with She’s cousins last week.  I told them about what Conan said, we all agreed about how great that was, and not five minutes later I was the first person to make a cynical statement about this nation.  We all winced.  What can we do, the four of us wondered out loud, when our world seems so out of control?  Immediately, we focused on the other thing Conan had said, about being kind.  We’re not younger people, and we’ve already worked really hard, but we could be much kinder, we all agreed.  And we’re not so far gone that we don’t believe in the power of individual kindness.  We can make a positive difference, however small, in our world.  It’s a little something we can hang our hats on. 

Today, on my beloved CBS Sunday Morning, Mo Rocca accompanied four teenagers from the Bronx to see a production of Our Town, a play (in which I once had a walk-on part) that has been in steady production for 70 years.  What would these kids from the cynical, fast-paced, often foul-mouthed I-pod/I-phone/Facebook/Twitter generation make of the message in this play, about realizing life while we live it?

The kids said something about taking the time to stop and notice the blue sky.  But is that enough, asked Mo, just to see the blue sky?  One of the young men responded, “The question isn’t whether it’s enough.  The question is, did you look up?” 

The Creepy-Crawlies

It started after I checked Facebook this morning.  She was emptying the dishwasher and I joined her in putting things away.  Cheerily, I thought, I began reporting on various recent status updates on Facebook:

Me:  Margo posted a lovely photo from the waterside on Key West.  Phoebe keeps having nightmares about spiders.

She:  Phoebe’s having nightmares about spies?  [This is such a typical hard-of-hearing interchange between two seniors, you wouldn’t believe it.]

Me:  Not spies, SPI-DERS.  That’s one thing I love about Virginia.  We don’t have many bu--

She:  Don’t even say the bug word!  Stop!  Right now!

Me:  Well, we do have nasty-looking crickets.  I always thought crickets were cute little guys named Jiminy who hung out on the hearth.

She:  Stop talking about it!  (Hurries from room.)  (Calls to me over shoulder:)  I mean it!  Next thing you know, we’ll have some giant hideous critter stalking us in the hall!

Peace was restored later in the day:

No Resolutions

Once upon a time, it was wrong to pronounce the t in often.  Once upon a time, people didn’t say oftentimes.  They just said “often,” like offen.  But that was then.  Oft-ten-times is popular now, as are books on how to be generous, how to be grateful, and how to be happy.  (Hint:  they all go together.  Often.)

Books on how to be organized have always been popular, especially around the New Year, when people often make Resolutions.  Even people like me, who do not make Resolutions, get caught up in the enthusiasm for closet cleaning, dresser drawer purging, and paperwork filing that reasserts itself at the beginning of each new year.

I cleaned out my top dresser drawer the other day.  I probably had 35 or 40 pairs of socks.  When I was a working woman, I prided myself on new, colorful, and somewhat unique socks to wear with my old lady low-heeled shoes.  Now I am retired, and on the rare occasions when I wear any socks at all, they are oftentimes my pair of lucky socks.  I don’t know why they are lucky, but they have lots of  strong colors and people seem to like them.  So I put most of the socks in a bag for the Salvation Army and only kept about 5 pair.  The next day, I had occasion to wear socks and I wore the lucky ones again.

There was also jewelry, some still in gift boxes, that I had forgotten I owned.  I usually stick with the same three or four pairs of earrings, my watch, and one bracelet.  (It’s a lucky bracelet.)  I found a backscratcher.  That might come in handy even though I haven’t used it in 5 or 6 years.  At least two dozen single buttons in their original tiny plastic bags went in the trash.  Ditto washing instructions.  I have no idea to which article of clothing the buttons or instructions belonged.  A pair of glasses without a case went in the donation bag.  I couldn’t see a thing with them on.

My dad’s wallet, flat and worn, was in the drawer.  I took it for safekeeping when he went in for surgery, and then he just never came home again.   He spent three months in and out of the hospital and a nursing home, and then he died.  In the nursing home, he asked me where his wallet was.  “I’m keeping it for you,” I said.  “It’s safe in my top drawer.”  He looked anxious.  “What?” I asked.  “How will they know,” he worried, “who I am?” 

I looked through the wallet one last time, cut up the credit and Medicare cards, and the records of his flu shots and blood pressure checks.  I kept his pilot’s license and a much-creased and tattered color photo of a P-38, the plane he flew in World War II.   I put those in a file with his name on it.  Then I put the wallet in the trash.   I don’t need it to remember who he was.

After all that, it was time for a nap.  Some day soon, I’ll get to the other 3 drawers.  Meanwhile, I’ve saved a lot of money by not getting a gym membership this year.  I think being a little more generous and a lot more grateful will make me happier.

The Annual Christmas Letter

Christmas 2009

Another year that was somehow both ten seconds long and ten years long. Another year full of life, which means tears, laughter, grief, and joy.

Sheila (mostly) and I decorated for Christmas this afternoon—much less than usual, but still the house looks sweet with little trees here and there, candles, and special ornaments. I am not baking cookies. I did try to make pralines the other day, from my mother’s recipe, but I only saw “1 tablespoon” where “5” were called for, and thus they failed. They may have become a successful vanilla ice cream topping, though. We’ll see. I made a pie with the leftover pecans, and it was the best I’ve ever tasted. We ate the whole thing within a 24 hour period. In this house, it’s called showing restraint.

We brought our sweet brown Boxer’s ashes home from the vet this morning. Pancho died December 7. A month before that, we had noticed that he was having trouble breathing, and it was discovered that he had a big tumor in front of his heart that was putting pressure on his bronchial tubes. We enjoyed all the bittersweet time with him that we were given, but we couldn’t allow him to suffer, and he was getting into serious difficulty the last weekend of his life. He would have been 10 in January. There will never be another like him.

If our hearts are broken, the cats couldn’t care less. They show no signs of missing Pancho. Both of them did act like they’d taken a nut pill the day he died. “Maybe they were celebrating,” our friend Carolyn suggested. Who knows. Anyway, Billy and Miss T should have no doubt that they are loved. If they take us for granted, that’s as it should be.

Since I wrote last year, Tara has undergone treatment for cancer in her lungs and stomach, apparently stemming from the original ovarian cancer diagnosed three years ago. On top of that, she was laid off from the part-time job she did from home, and by that time she was unable to get a teaching position at the University for the summer. Being Tara, she was able to find another job without even a break in paychecks, has taken no or very little sick time from her 4 day/week job, and is due for a major promotion in March. The latter is confidential, which is why I haven’t named her current employer. Don’t tell anyone. Oh, I forgot—it almost seems inconsequential that she was also rear-ended twice this year and had her identity stolen. To say that she’s had a very rough time of it is a ridiculous understatement, and I don’t know the half of it. Her friends, including her Rabbi and his wife, have been incredibly supportive. They love her. Her mothers know why. Her mothers also love them.

As for Sheila and me, what can I say. Same old same old, and I do mean old. We’re so damn old we laugh about it all the time. We joined a gym in April, started doing weightlifting and cardio, and eating much healthier. That lasted until sometime in September. Now we are eating pie and ice cream again and lying around napping and reading books. We have a lot of excuses. We are going to exercise and eat right again. Soon.

There were some very good things about this year. Old friendships deepened. New friends were made. We both feel that our love, our faith, and our hope have been severely tested and survived. No doubt they will be again, and yet again. In the meantime, we are really learning what it means to try to live in the moment. It means much more than we thought. We never realized that doing so could be such a gift.

I always seem to end these Christmas letters with a poem. This year I want to end with some things Sheila said that Pancho taught us: “He made everyone believe they were the only ones he loved in the world, and then he would make the next person feel they were the only one and on and on.  That's his lesson to us, his survivors.  Show your good side, be faithful, wag your tail and never refuse a hug.”

I would add to that: “When you see a patch of sunshine, lie down in it. Heave a big contented sigh. Live right now.”

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Season’s Greetings, Love and Happy New Year 2010 from Sharon, Sheila, Billy, and Miss T