*Woodchuck Relocation
*Appliance Hell Redux
*Resurrection of the I-Pod
*The Puppy in the Box Was Actually the Best Dog in the World
*Chipmunks Fly Vertically With Their Feet Down
*The Day We Watched My Hair Dry
*The Lost Dog and the Easter Egg Tree
*My Dancer
*Honey Cake Trumps Stove
*Racoons Can Swim
*Anniversary
*Last Hurrah of the Evil Thermidor
*Mikey's Last Day
*Sarah Thought Her Body Was A Rental
*Woodchuck Relocation
The other day, I was sitting on the edge of the deck just looking at the garden. All of a sudden, a big wood chuck came lumbering right by my feet. He didn’t seem to notice I was there. He passed right by me and then on under the deck. It seemed like “doot de doo, doot de doo, oh this is where I go...” I saw that he had gone into an appropriately sized gap in the fill under the deck. When I looked under the deck I saw that just opposite the entry spot was a suspicious pile of dirt and a hole. A wood chuck type hole.
I called a man who sets Have-a-Heart Traps to set one for the wood chuck. He came and initiated what I began thinking of as the “Lefkowich Family Wood Chuck Relocation Campaign.” Sure enough, a few days later, I found the wood chuck in the trap. He looked scared, of course, but also, I think disappointed that things did not work out as he planned. The trapper man said we should re-bait the trap because there could be more wood chucks doing the same thing, not just this one.
Stupidly, I agreed. This means you have a trap set up in your yard for several days with a very attractive bait from the critter point of view. And, some of these critters might not otherwise have thought to visit our yard but could now reasonably argue that they were invited.
As if on cue, the next morning, I found that we had “trapped” a small raccoon. As you recall, our issue was with one wood chuck: now we had a wood chuck and we had a raccoon. “Critter” man came and “relocated” the raccoon for us. Two days later, we found we had trapped a possum. Now we had a woodchuck, a raccoon, and a possum. We decided to let the possum go, rather than relocate him, since we didn’t recall having any issues with possum and it gets expensive having the critter man come out for the pick up. Unfortunately, the possum would not leave the cage even when sweetly invited to do so. We had to turn the trap upside down and shake hard to get him to leave. Of course after falling out of the trap, the possum ran under the deck and wouldn’t come out. He might have decided to stay in the recently relocated wood chuck’s hole.
Now we were at an important decision point. Should we rename the Lefkowich Family Wood Chuck Relocation Campaign to some other name, such as “Lefkowich Family Animals that Just Happen to Live in the Vicinity Relocation Campaign?” Or should we perhaps keep with the original plan and try to relocate another wood chuck? We decided to leave the trap baited a few more days and see what turns up. Who knows, perhaps we’ll see some other interesting animal, or perhaps, the annoying neighbor’s cat who just yesterday smashed my catmint plant all to hell. I’d love to relocate him! But, that didn't happen.
A few days later, I checked the trap and found that the possum had returned. Now we had a woodchuck, a raccoon, and the same possum as before, which really can't be counted as a second possum being as it was actually the original one. I called the critter man to relocate the possum because although we could consider it bad manners on his part to get trapped the first time, the second time around was just plain stupidity. I also asked the critter man to take his traps away. He felt we were ending the campaign prematurely but we were beginning to feel that our Woodchuck Relocation Campaign was actually the Send the Critter-Man's Kids to College Campaign in disguise. And, frankly, we'd like to find a less expensive way to identify the various critters living in our vicinity.
* Appliance Hell Redux
You may recall my story about the installation of our Jen-Aire stove. But, just in case you don’t remember, I’ll review: the installer insisted that I clear a path to our door in the middle of the winter because he was worried he would fall down. Then, despite my best efforts he did fall, after finishing the job, down the front stairs. He broke part of the old stove that left shards of glass in the lawn which I continued to find all the next spring and summer. So, I’m referring to the story about that man.
Anyhow, our third floor “through the wall” as opposed to “in the window” air conditioner, died. Well, actually, it didn’t die but began to spew black soot into the room and everyone I called refused to climb up to the third floor of the house to repair it. So, after much careful researching, we foolishly decided to buy a new unit from SEARS. So, guess who showed up to do the installation? I should have thrown him out of the house. But, no; instead I said “oh I remember you: you installed the stove and scratched up my kitchen floor because you were afraid if you used a drop cloth you would fall down.”
I must at this point ask a simple question: what mechanism is it within the human brain which causes suspension of all that is known in order to prefer the idea that somehow things have changed? Why did I think that passage of time and more experience would somehow change the SEARS installer into someone both competent, and yes, sane? Why couldn’t I just say, “oh, it’s you. Well... never mind. We didn’t want a new air conditioner installed after all? But no. That’s not what happened. Instead, I showed him up to our third floor bedroom which is where, now my story begins.
Step one as anyone knows would be to make sure the new air conditioner would fit. I asked him if he was sure it would fit. He said” I don’t know if it will fit because it’s still in the box.” Why oh why didn’t I stop everything right then and there? Step one for our man was actually to try to take out the old air conditioner. With much grunting and pantomimed heave ho-ing he tried to get it out. He stopped often and sighed, and then tried the same exact yanking motion over and over. I said, “gee, you could really use a “saws-all” here. He said nothing. I left the room being unable to continue watching all the repetition, much like a clothes dryer, but, in this case, less effective. I came back after half an hour to find him basically performing the same motions. Then he finally went downstairs to get his saws-all. After a few swipes around the air conditioner, much yanking and tugging, the thing was ready to pull out.
Well, except that it was filthy. He wondered out loud whether I didn’t have a drop cloth. As you might recall, he scratched our kitchen floor because he didn’t have a drop cloth, and I saw that deficiency had not yet been corrected. I didn’t have one but brought up some newspapers instead. Out goes the air conditioner onto the floor. Only now, it’s too heavy and he can’t move it. Plus, it might not fit around the bed. He wondered if I might move the bed? I suggested that he should hire someone to help. He said “ they would just sit around watching me work, too.” I believe the “too” in the sentence was referring, insanely, to me. But, as I am not in the habit of moving queen sized beds myself, I demurred. After much grunting and dragging, exeunt old air conditioner. He asked me to vacuum the floor for him. I said “ I’ll do it when you’re done.” I’m thinking, “when you’re done vacuuming up all the dust and dirt you created with your own heavy duty vacuum.” Oh silly me.
The next question I asked him, after noticing that his saws-all had sliced through the electrical outlet which serviced the air conditioner, was “will we have to move the electrical outlet?” “Oh no,” he says, “it will fit.” See, because if the electrical outlet needed to be moved, that would be an additional, albeit unexpected expense of this not quite fitting air conditioner which I would have liked to decide for myself whether it was worth it. I was, at this time, beginning to fantasize about filling the hole with a beautiful Pella window and purchasing a portable air conditioner instead. But that was not to be. He decided for me that the outlet wasn’t a problem.
Now on to the crucial fitting in of the air conditioner. I left the area so as to avoid being asked to perform heavy labor. I should have stayed. Suddenly, I hear a sawing noise. A lot of sawing noise. I’m thinking hopefully (where comes all this hoping?), well he had to enlarge the hole a little to fit things in. I finally came back up stairs to find that he had actually sawed quite a bit and, due to the lack of a drop cloth, there were chunks of wood, plaster, and dust all over everything. This included, the bed, pillows, blankets, furniture, virtually anything within the vicinity of the window which hadn’t been moved away which, was, of course, everything, and, as was his style, had not been covered. His tool bag was sitting on the dust covered blanket chest. With all that sawing, he had sculpted a much larger new hole in the wall. Thing was, the hole was no longer in the middle of the space, but a few inches or so off to the side. He said he was avoiding cutting a stud. I wondered, though, had he told me the air conditioner would no longer be in the center, whether I would have given a green light to more sawing? But I never had that decision to make, because he decided it would be ok. I also wondered, had he asked, if I wouldn’t have moved to at least cover up the bed and move everything that could get dusty. But, of course, then again, he decided for me that it wasn’t necessary.
Now that I had been committed to all these decisions there was just one thing to do: run. Therefore, I did not witness the final “installation tango.” This consisted of forcing the new air conditioner into the new hole and, this must have happened, although I wasn’t there to witness it: the unit was too close to the ceiling trim and would not fit flush on the wall, but it was “installed” anyway. The trim around the air conditioner was dangling, trying desperately to function as trim, about an inch away from the edge of the air conditioner, which in turn, was sticking out of the wall hole, because you see, it could not fit flush (what this means, is, that when things are in boxes you can’t know until the very end, whether they will fit). The air conditioner was plugged in, but there wasn’t room for the outlet cap so it was left off, a nice gap all around where the cover was supposed to be. When I objected to the dangling air conditioner, he told me that I was lucky the old one hadn’t fallen out because it was attached only with silicone and this one had five screws holding it in place (the wrong place). Of course, I was too tactful to mention that the old air conditioner had stayed in place for twenty five years and took a saws-all to remove, and, come to think of it, was centered on the wall and actually fit.
I also saw that he had used my home vacuum to “clean up the area.” Well, he said, “I think you need to replace the vacuum cleaner bag .” He then switches on the air conditioner and remarks on how cool it is. After he left, I realized that in addition to calling the electrician to move the outlet, a professional carpeting cleaning would be needed, and he had broken the vacuum cleaner which would now have to be repaired. Incidentally, the man wore a cloying noxious perfume which, in the final coupe de grace, hung over the room for hours, as if I needed continual reminding that my best instincts are continually clouded by the twin calamities of hope and denial.
*Resurrection of the I-Pod
Ok, so when we got back from Barcelona, my I-pod wasn't working. I don't remember dropping it (although I could have). Could it have gotten wet? In any case, it kept showing a sad face, gave me a web site to go to for help, and would not charge up. Instead, it issued a pathetic mewing sound over and over and over. Not good.
So, I went to the Apple store with my sick I-pod. They ran some type of computerized diagnostic test and solemnly informed me that it was a "hard ware" problem and could not be fixed. And it was out of warranty. They said if I bought a new one, I could turn the old one in for recycling and get a small discount for that. I took my sick IPod home. I don't really know why I took it home, except maybe I didn't want to spend the money on a new one yet. Or maybe I wanted it to be able to die at home rather than in some antiseptic Apple Store. Also, there was some wishing going on. I wished it wasn't broken.
I put the Ipod on the top of the speakers (as opposed to inserting it in the speakers--why do that? It wasn't working anyway). A few days later, I walked into the room and found my Ipod had somehow fallen off the speakers onto the hard tile floor. I picked it up and saw that it had switched on. The happy Apple sign was showing. I plunked the I-Pod into the speakers and it started to play! It was alive!!!! Did it throw itself onto the floor in some desperate move to adjust itself? I remember a similar situation happened when my Doctor fixed his year-long back problem when he rode his bicycle over a bump in the road and banged himself so hard it adjusted his spine. I don't know. Thing is, it fixed itself.
*The Puppy in the Box Was Actually the Best Dog in the World
Charlie was the best dog in the world. Even your best dog in the world didn’t compare to Charlie.
How We Got Charlie
We were at the Supermarket one day. On the way out, I noticed a large box with a sign on it: “Free Puppies.” Stu, forging ahead of me with the market basket, walked right by the box of puppies. We already had one dog, Mikey. After years of my saying “no” to requests for a dog, and then just once saying “yes” he immediately appeared in the household. Naturally, I didn't want another dog, but I did want to see what the give-away puppies looked like.
I saw there were only two puppies left from a large litter. One was in the box, and the other was small, sandy colored, and shivering in the arms of the owner. I thought he was a darling dog and looking quite scared and cold. Returning to the car, I asked Stu if he’d seen the puppies and he said “No but I want to see them too,” Without another word, he walked back over to the store. I saw him speaking with the puppy person. He pointed to the puppy in her arms. I thought he was being so perceptive, admiring the same puppy that I did. Then, I saw the puppy person give the puppy to Stu. I’m thinking, “aw, how sweet. He wants to hold the puppy.” Stu stood there for a while just holding the puppy. Then Stu turned away with the puppy still in his arms and walked toward our car. In a panic, I rolled the window down. “Stop!” I shouted. “Put that back! Put that back!” People all around were startled. They had no idea what the issue might be. Stu smiled. He walked over to the car and put the puppy in my lap. That’s how we got Charlie. And to think, the best dog in the world was the second to last to be given away.
Charlie Was My Constant Companion, My Truck Buddy, My Sentry
Charlie was happy, affectionate, expressive, funny, warm, fuzzy, sweet, and kind. He would walk over to people and rest his chin on their knee. He won over people who didn’t like dogs. Everyone liked Charlie. Charlie spent his day tracking me from room to room and outside. When we were in the yard, he was allowed to wander around off the leash. He never went very far and came back when I called. Often, he would sit by me as I worked. He was my sentry, my sweet dog. He knew how to sigh.
He was only good on the leash in obediance class and actually won the award for most improved dog. However, once we got home, and without the trappings of other dogs, people and the class, he was not interested in walking calmly by my side. He pulled hard and always seemed to know the route home however far we walked. Sometimes he would hold the leash himself and strump along as if saying "nobody ever walks the dog, nobody ever walks the dog, nobody ever walks the dog."
Charlie loved to ride in the truck with me. He loved to rest his chin on the window sill and let the breeze blow through his wiskers. His eyes would close. He was content.
Charlie was probably a dental hygeinist in his previous life
Like most dogs, Charlie enjoyed tasting people with his tongue. He especially like licking little kids because, I think, there could be crumbs there. He would do attack licks on me, knowing I didn't want him to, but needing to do so nonetheless he would flick his tongue out fast and back in before I even knew it. It is true that he liked licking teeth best of all, a bad habit, one of few. This made me think that he had been a dental hygeinist in his previous life, should there have been one.
Charlie Was a Dog of Many Fears:
Perhaps because of his unfortunate beginning, the ignominy of the free puppy box, the cold day, or just because, Charlie was a dog of many fears. The fears grew over the years and quite a list of them developed. In the beginning, Charlie was afraid of the swimming pool, specifically, of water. He would not go near the pool, and would slink into a corner if someone called to him from there. No pools for Charlie. After several years, we noticed that the fear of the pool became extended of course to baths, but also to puddles, wet spots, and water on the floor. No puddles for Charlie. He would prance around or leap over puddles on our walks and avoid wet spots on the kitchen floor.
Time passed and Charlie’s fear of wet spots evolved to a fear of shiny floors. I cannot say for certain, but I believe that in his mind, shiny floors were the same as wet floors. When we went to Jill's house to visit, he would stay on the rug by the door. It took a while for us to realize that his fear of water had extended to shiny floors, specifically Jill’s shiny floor and he would not walk there voluntarily. Under duress, he would slip, skitter, and stumble quickly across to stay with me. He looked like he was sliding over slippery ice, not a tile floor. This soon extended to all shiny floors, not just Jill's.
The shiny floor problem caused Charlie to flub an audition to be in a play at the high school. He had such an expressive face and was a funny fuzzy kind of dog. Very dynamic. We thought he would be great. Unfortunately, and we didn’t know this until it was too late: the stage floor was shiny. During his audition, Charlie skittered and slid out onto the stage and hid his face from everyone. He would not turn to face the audience not matter how many times they tried to turn him around. That was his first and only audition. Someone else got the part.
Charlie’s fear of water, puddles, and shiny floors, soon extended to rain. If he was outside when it began to rain, he would run to the door and importune to be let in. He seemed to be able to anticipate when it might rain and would get anxious, pace around, and pant. We could predict the weather based on Charlie. This behavior then extended to thunder storms which were particularly problematic. He could not be calmed no matter what we did. He suffered. We tried herbal remedies but to no avail. The fear of thunderstorms later became generalized to “weather.” Whenever there was any sound from outside from the weather, even a light breeze, he would get scared. This fear eventually extended to television shows: not just sounds, but music on a television show could set him off. Otherwise, he was calm.
At Cape Cod, Charlie always wanted to go with us on our early morning walks to the ocean. Those mornings, we had the beach to ourselves. The air was clear and the sun bright shining on the ocean. If we walked beside the ocean he would walk on the shore side. When he was little, he would chase the waves out barking wildly. When they returned he would run like mad to get away. He would exhaust himself at the beach and sleep the rest of the day. After the walk, we would return to the cabin and rinse our feet in the shower. Unfortunately for Charlie, we needed to rinse his too. He was, of course, afraid of the shower. The last summer he was there, however, he got into the ritual of the shower and would trot in and sit waiting to be rinsed off.
Charlie also became afraid of other animals. Unlike his behavior regarding the weather and the ocean, however, he often attempted to hide his fear. For example, if a cat came into our yard, or was spotted during a walk, he would assume a ferocious stance and make ready to chase. He would, on occasion, if off leash, actually run after the kitty barking vigorously. However, should the kitty stop and face him, he would pull-up short and spring backward performing a kind of reverse dance step. His body language illustrated the word, "ulp." There were humiliations, such as having to hide between my legs when a cat approached during a walk or refusing to go out at all if a particular cat was in the yard. It was a surprise, however, when we realized the fear of cats was actually part of a larger fear of horses, goats, and chickens. But he was not afraid of people. At the dog park, instead of playing with the other dogs, he would stand around with the adults.
Charlie’s Last Day
I knew Charlie was sick and wouldn’t live through it. I could tell. For the past few weeks, he had slowed way down and was sleeping a lot. He struggled to get up the stairs and often we found him at the bottom of the stairs sleeping or waiting for us to come down in the morning. He was so afraid of the veterinarian’s office but he had to spend the day at the veterinarian’s getting more tests. His friend Betsey took care of him and kept him company that day. When the doctor called and said there was nothing they could do, the liver cancer was killing him, I gave permission readily to let him go. I wanted to be with him and David and I went in the afternoon to say goodby and stay with him when he died. It was the hardest, saddest day of my entire life. The next morning when I woke up, I had large burns under my eyes.
*Chipmunks Fly Vertically With Their Feet Down
Last summer, I set up two bird feeders on a slender looped pole, about four feet away from the fence. I could see the feeders from the kitchen window. After setting them up, I ran into the house and, armed with my bird books and binoculars, I waited for the guests to arrive.
Instead of birds, however, my first visitor was a chipmunk. He leaped from the fence onto the larger of the two bird feeders (the other one is too small for him to get anything from), climbed down, and then was stuffing my precious bird seed into his cheek pouches. His face quickly grew huge, like the shape of a TV set. When I went back outside, he flattened himself against the sides of the feeder assuming the position of chipmunk pelt.
I didn't want to feed him. I moved the pole away another foot or so from the fence. I returned to my perch in the kitchen window and waited for birds. I noticed, however, the chipmunk was back on the fence. He was checking the distance to the large feeder from various vantage points. He studied and measured, ran back and forth across the top of the fence, he practiced and made ready, after several butt wiggles, crouched and then made a long and hopeful leap out to the feeder. After sailing forth, he plummeted like a stone to the ground. I noticed when chipmunks are airborne, their bodies fly vertically, feet down.
Shaken, he climbed back onto the fence and sat there the illustration of crestfallen. After a short time, he began running back and forth across the fence, re-measuring, re-estimating. I called out to him "No, chipmunk. Don't do it! Don't!" But he didn't listen to me. After carefully making ready, he leaped out once again, only to fall, once again, to the ground. He kept trying and after a while, we got used to seeing vertically oriented soaring chipmunks. The bird feeder, however, was unaffected.
*The Day We Watched My Hair Dry
To fully understand this story, it is important to realize that before 1967 or so, curly hair was considered a liability. Women spent hours of their lives working to free themselves of the evil curls and frizz. A humid day could ruin hours of preparations. But, I cannot listen to recordings of Janice Joplin, without thinking back to the winter of 1967, when I spent an afternoon watching my hair dry. Prior to that day, I tried to straighten my thick, unmanageable, frizzy, shoulder-length curls with huge orange juice can-sized rollers. I still have a rough spot under my chin from resting my roller burdened head on it when I slept. If my head fell to either side, the pain from the rollers mashing into my head would wake me.
Then a friend played me a recording of Janice Joplin and showed me her photograph. Janice Joplin did not seem to care what people thought. Her hair was amazing: a fabulous tangle --allowed to be whatever it was, to look however it would-- unaided. I wanted to feel good enough about myself to look like that and also sleep all night.
I decided to wash the hair and just let it go. I remember vividly the shock waves this plan sent among my friends in the apartment building where I lived. We all sat around listening to music and had a wonderful afternoon watching my hair dry. We oohed and aahed as it slowly dried and became thicker, fuzzy, curly, and completely tangled. I looked in the mirror and could not believe the change. If the word "big" could be used to describe hair, then, my hair was definitely big. I looked like a sphinx--a lion. A large dandelion.
Later, when I wanted to go outside, despite my freshly made self-affirmation, I tried to put a winter hat over it to smash it down--hide some of it, and found that it simply would not stay on. Every time I pushed the hat down on one side the hair bulged out the other. I felt terribly self-conscious under all that hair. I felt burdened by it. I decided I must try to keep it like that forever. And I did.
*The Lost Dog and the Easter Egg Tree
My friend Jill and I used to walk our dogs most mornings together. One day, Jill suggested we walk in the neighborhood behind an elementary school, because she was not familiar with that area and thought it might be a nice place to try. So, we drove over there and proceeded to walk our dogs. After walking for a time, we saw a small beagle running about, appearing to be without an adult, and having generally, a good time. As we got closer, we saw that he was, in fact, a puppy and did not know the rules of the road.
We were concerned about the dog, but didn’t see anyone around who might know him. As we were considering the options, a school bus came down the road. At that same moment, the dog ran back into the road in front of the bus, narrowly missing being hit. The bus stopped and I ran over and grabbed the dog’s collar. The bus driver rolled down her window and we stopped to talk. Jill explained it wasn’t our puppy. The driver said she thought she recognized him and that he lived two houses down on the right, the house with the easter egg tree in the front window. The driver also said the people were not home, as she had just seen the mom walking her daughter to school.
The bus pulled away. We went up to the front door of the house and I knocked, but of course, no one was home. I then tested the front door. It was open. So, I opened the door and told the puppy “go on home.” He gave me an odd sideways glance, but went in and I shut the door.
We continued our walk. After having gone about two blocks, Jill let out a gasp and grabbed my arm. “What if the puppy didn’t live in that house? What if the bus driver was mistaken?” The possibilities were endless: alien dog shows up in home, another dog lives there and wonders where this one came from and eats it for lunch, the family returns to find a stranger in the house... We didn’t know what to do and at this point, weren’t even sure which street the house was on.
So, we continued walking feeling less happy all the time about our act of good samaritanship. Then, we saw, way down the road, a woman walking an empty leash. Our hearts leaped. We went over to her and asked if she was looking for a little beagle. Yes, she was and she was very worried. So, then I asked “Do you by any chance live in a house with an easter egg tree in the front window,? An odd question from her view point, but necessary from mine. She said she did.
“Well,” I said, “your puppy is home.”
*My Dancer
I have a sand painting which our friend Dave picked up somewhere in the Southwest and gave to us many years ago. I have always liked the dancer. It is on a small earthy tile, about 5 by 7, and has a beige background. He is holding a feathered rattle and he has one foot up in the air. He appears to be working.
For many years, the sand painting remained unmoved on a shelf in the bookcase in the study. I noticed one day that the beige background was getting darker, perhaps dirty?? I thought maybe I should do something to protect him. So, I went out and bought a 5 by 7 plastic box frame to fit him in. It looked to be a perfect fit (as only I seem to feel free to measure purely by eye but still get it right, sometimes). I ripped the cellophane paper off the frame and also emptied it of its cardboard backing so that the dancer would fit right in.
I pushed the painting into the frame. Although the fit was quite good, it was not perfect and it looked like one of the corners wasn't quite fitting-- the other three going in perfectly well. So I pressed a little harder and got it in, although it did start to fray a bit. However, it was so tight that the four corners of the dancer did not all fit into the frame the same distance and one of the corners was kind of hanging back at the entrance, whereas the other three were in about one half inch or so. So, he was in, but crooked. I pushed again, but fearing that he would break from the stress, I decided not to push harder.
Well, he looked kind of crooked so I thought I would take him out of the frame. However, all the sides, although inside the box frame unequal distances, were equally well wedged in and I had not a bit of room around the sides to get a fingernail or anything else in to pry him out. I tried hitting the frame gently on the floor, but to no avail. So he was stuck.
Disgusted, I put him back on his shelf, and turned away to do something else. About a second later, I heard a bang. He had fallen off the shelf onto the floor. I picked him up and replaced him, but no sooner was he on the shelf he fell off again. I caught him on the way down. I put him on the shelf again, this time well tilted to keep him from falling. Actually, I found that he had to be tilted so far back, that you couldn't really see him that well any more as he was pointed almost completely upward.
A few days later, I made up a picture wall in the first floor landing of our stairs. I had enough pictures and other decorative things to fill the space, all but a nice slot, about 5 by 7 in size. I thought, "Well, wouldn't this would be a good spot for my sand painting?" I figured I could hang him there by the lip of plastic in the back of the frame which was behind the dancer, and that hanging on a nail he could be seen better than tilted back on the book shelf. So, I put my dancer up in the stairwell. He looked quite nice there.
Then, I went downstairs to hammer a few more pictures in the wall of the study, which is directly below the spot where my dancer was hanging. While hammering, I heard the loud bang that a picture makes when it falls off the wall. I went up the stairs to see what fell and found my sand painting had fallen face down on the floor. When I turned him over, I found that although he was unhurt, the plastic frame he was in had cracked clear across. In fact the whole frame came right off. I immediately took him and put him back to his spot on the book shelf where he is right now.
*Honey Cake Trumps Stove
Late one Wednesday night, I stupidly decided I still had some energy left to make the honey cakes I usually make for Yom Kippur. I started to put the batter together, and realized I was out of baking soda. So, off to the store to get it. While at the store, I figured, why not do the rest of the grocery shopping while I'm here?
Forty-five minutes later I'm back home and now it’s much later, but I continue making the cakes. I remembered that the last time I baked them they overflowed the loaf pans. Measuring the current pans, I see that they are actually too small. I went looking for larger glass ones. Deep in the recesses of the basement, I pick up a box of stuff and the bottom falls out, showering me and the floor with glass. Bottles and jars kept falling out of the box, bounced onto a shelf, and onto the floor before I could catch them. Crash crash crash. Some of the bottle glass somehow ripped a long tear in my pants and cut my leg. Now, I'm standing in glass and my leg is bleeding and no loaf pans either. I brush myself off and go back up stairs.
I finish the batter and pour it into the loaf pans (minus two cups of batter in the vain hope that less batter will overflow less). Now, I see the cakes have to bake for 70 minutes, so in the oven they go. It is now 10:45 pm (late for me). By 11:45 the kitchen is full of smoke from the overflowing honey cakes. Seems less batter caused the cakes to overflow even more than usual. The oven is a mess. I take out the pans and realize that the cake have to first cool before being in the fridge for the night. They are cooled by 1:00 am. I clean up the kitchen, shoveling burnt honey cake out the oven, wash my wounds, and head up to bed.
Next morning, I turn the oven onto self clean, because it is too dirty to use safely. In the middle of the self clean mode, there is this terrible popping sound, and then the oven completely shuts down. I call the appliance guy and several hours later, he gets the oven going. In goes the a noodle pudding I wanted to make. Twenty minutes later (it's supposed to cook for an hour) I smell smoke. The pudding is over-cooked and burnt on top. The oven appears to have gone into over-drive and is too hot. I turn it way down and put in the tsimmis (sweet potatoes and apples). In the middle of the tsimmis cooking, the oven controls shut off. I can't tell if the oven is on or off, and I can't turn the oven off either. The tsimmis never really finishes cooking and I have to put it in the microwave to get the potatoes cooked. Meanwhile, I have to shut off electricity to the stove because there is no other way to get it to turn off.
The next day, I found myself again waiting for the appliance man while the cheese cake I put together moldered in the fridge. By the way, the honey cakes, although about half their usual heft, were delicious. But they sure did a terrific job on the stove.
*Racoons Can Swim
One night, in early spring, as we were going to bed, I heard Charlie barking down stairs. Now, Charlie is not a barky kind of dog, but sometimes he winds down with a few good barks then settles in. But, that was not the case that night. Although I tried to fall asleep over the barking, this was an insistent “the dog has identified a problem” kind of barking. Stu had fallen asleep, but I lay there a while trying to ignore the noise. Finally, I got up and went down stairs.
Peering out the back door, I couldn’t see anything, but Charlie continued to bark. I opened the door and he bolted out to the back of the pool yard, barking loudly and also, letting out a gruntly kind of bark which sounded something like “the dog does all the work around here.” Well, I followed Charlie out and shortly after he got to the back of the yard, I heard a loud splash. Charlie then began running down the pool apron, barking, and looking like he was thinking about jumping in. Now, Charlie is afraid of the pool, so the fact that he was now teetering on the edge of it and might actually jump in was quite remarkable. I could make out the outline of a smallish dark thing gliding in the water. Was it a kitty? Do kitties swim that well?
I ran inside to get a flash light, but even with the light I still couldn’t tell what kind of animal it was, although it’s eyes did glow in the dark. Also, it kept disappearing under water, then reappearing at other parts of the pool like a dolphin. And, of course, Charlie was still barking. I went up to our room and woke Stu. We both went down together to see what to do. We could see that there was no easy way out for whatever it was because the pool ladders hadn't yet been put in for the summer. We didn’t want to pull whatever it was up in a net, because “it” could be fierce, and there wasn’t a board or anything around big enough to put into the pool to help out.
This situation reminded me a little of our various attempts to rid the house of errant bats. For example, we found that if you position yourself correctly, and wave bath towels in a certain pattern, you can keep a bat swooping around your bedroom, and into your face, indefinitely--something we affectionately called "bat mitten". I was also thinking about Stu’s middle of the night mouse trap attempt of some years prior. We were awakened one night by the unmistakable rustling of a mouse in our bedroom. Stu went down stairs and came back up armed with a stick and a small jar with a piece of cheese in it. In his middle of the night clarity, he set out to trap a mouse in our bedroom using the cheese inside the jar as bait. Who knows what the stick was for as I couldn't imagine he would hit the mouse with it. AFter turning off the lights, we heard a clinking sound. "Stu," I said, "wake up. I think we got the mouse." Of course, we only managed to catch our cat in the act of stealing the cheese. Given this ignominious past, would we be able to catch this new thing in our pool?
Stu got a flash light and we took a good look. It was a very large raccoon. By now, he had taken to swimming the perimeter of the pool, probably looking for a way out, without tagging up at either end. Around and around he glided, a very good swimmer actually, occasionally going under water then gliding like a pro to the surface, and also, occasionally, looking up at us as he went by. I don’t know how long we stood there mesmerized, much like watching a clothes dryer at the laundromat, but finally, a plan occurred to me: maybe he could use the pool ladder. So, Stu put the pool ladder into the pool (the deep end, far from us of course). The raccoon glided to the ladder during one of his many circuits around the pool, and slowly crept out. We could now see that actually he was fairly small, except for the tail, which dragged behind him like a big wet towel. Did he run to the bushes, slink away or hide from us? No. He knew who he was dealing with: inept trappers and a dog that only barked when he couldn't get at him and now was cowering by the back door. The raccoon shook himself off and then stood there on the pavement observing us for a while. Then he rather calmy, I thought, walked up the fence, sat at the top for a while, then disappeared.
On the way back to bed, I wondered whether the raccoon had ever gone swimming in our pool before that night.
*Anniversary
We dropped the children off at summer camp and decided to spend the rest of the day exploring the area. Camp was located outside Great Barrington, Massachusetts, a pretty town in the Berkshire Mountains and we could see that the day would be sunny and breezy-- a perfect day for a hike. We looked at the map and saw that a State Park was not far off and, knowing that State Parks usually have hiking trails, off we went.
The Park was not far away, a ten minute drive through green rolling hills and a quaint little town. Then, a long road led into the Park which was filled with lovely tall trees. A map of the Park, obtained upon entering, indicated the perfect hiking trail--around a pond. The trail looked to be about three miles--the right length for us that day.
We began our walk at a small beach where a few families had settled for the day--their children splashed and called in the water. There were also a few canoes pulled up on the beach waiting to be rented. The pond was lovely, surrounded by forest and glittering from the bright sun. The trail followed a short rise from the beach, passed a few picnic tables and then turned into the woods. After a few minutes, the woods were dense enough to muffle, and then to completely vanquish all sounds from the beach. As far as we could tell, no one else was on the trail. The quiet of the woods was only interrupted by the sounds of bugs flying by, birds, and our, at times, clumsy foot steps.
We walked the narrow path of the trail and marveled at the beautiful day, the loveliness of the woods, and our good fortune to be there together. Our marriage was 18 years old that previous May, and we still enjoyed these quiet times together. As I walked along, I thought about similar hikes we had taken, around other ponds and wondered whether that was why this one seemed so familiar. I anticipated a section of the trail were the path followed a dried streambed where we had to clamber over the rocks and another section which followed a low concrete dam where people could sit and fish. We stopped to rest for a minute and I looked around trying to remember when we might have been there before. We talked about when that could have been, certainly not in the fourteen years since our first child was born.
Then I recalled the exact circumstances of our previous visit to this very same trail. Twenty years before, I had been living in Boston with a man named Tom who had been physically abusive to me. I had been trying to leave him for a long time. Stu and I had fallen in love earlier that year, but I was still tied to this man the way abused women often are. I simply could not imagine that he would let me go free.
One day, three friends, including Stu, helped me to plan a getaway. We decided on a weekend camping trip in a park in Western Massachusetts. Tom would not be able to go on the trip because he had to work that weekend. I would then flee to the Brooklyn apartment of a friend of Stu's who would meet us at the park . I would call Tom from this safe distance and tell him the relationship was over. He would not be able to find me and make me return. The relationship would finally be over. Maybe a month or two later, or maybe longer, I could return to Boston and my new relationship with Stu.
I remember that Tom argued against my going on the camping trip saying that we should postpone it until he could also go. However, eventually he agreed and the escape from Boston occurred as planned. On the last day of the camping trip, before I made the tearful departure to Brooklyn, we decided to go for a hike around the pond. It was during the hike that Stu and I realized that our relationship was going to develop. This had happened in the same month, exactly twenty years before.
As we stood on the path, we looked back to our earlier selves and marveled at the distance traveled. Twenty years ago, we were in our early twenties. --just kids. The idea that we would marry, still be together, have two children, deliver them to camp for a month have a house in the suburbs, with a dog, cat, fish, gardens, and neighbors was unthinkable--laughable. and yet, it had happened. What monumental changes could we anticipate over the next twenty years?
Stu said we should definitely come back for the next twenty year anniversary and I agreed. In fact, now that I think about it, I vaguely remember agreeing to the same thing the last time we were there.
*Last Hurrah of the Evil Thermidor
My Thermidor stove died a while back. After several months without an oven, the appliance repair man "looking for the parts" finally had to concede that they could not be found and offered to help find me another Thermidor. "You've got to be kidding," I said. Could I really buy another one of these stoves and have it blow up after twelve years, or maybe sooner?
Instead, I went to SEARS and bought another type of downdraft stove, a Jenn Air. So, of course this is a special order and of course they promised it would be in by Christmas. Two days before, the repair guy calls (not the same guy as with the Thermidor, but worse), and says he has the stove and will deliver it, but I have to prepare a safe and clear path (no ice or snow) or he won't deliver the stove. Because, you see, he's afraid he'll fall down.
I spent several hours outside hacking away at the ice and snow and put down fifty pounds of sand. The mail man tested the path and said it worked fine. The appliance guy shows up and tests the path. It's fine. He comes in the house and tramps around all up and down the stairs checking out the installation. Then he tells me he can't actually hook up the stove today because it needs different parts to hook it up and he doesn't have them and by the way, he'll be on vacation next week so can't come until the week after. He asks “Where do you want the stove?” I said, “You’ve got to be kidding." I can see the stove on the truck as he drives away. Bye bye Jenn Air.
Two weeks later, he calls to say he'll be there by 9:00. He arrives at 10:45. But, ten minutes later, after dumping his tools all over the kitchen floor and doing nothing else, he leaves. Family emergency. Of course, I'm stuck in the house waiting for him to come back and who knows when that will be. Two hours later, he's back. He tramps in and out of the house, tracking sand all over. Pointing to the sand, which I put down to protect him from slipping, he asks "what's this stuff for: kitty litter? " He is not content to walk through the house on the path I cleared through the dining room, he goes that way and other ways too, all round about, and basically manages to track sand, snow, ice, water, and dirt everywhere. I notice he even set the stove door against the couch in the living room so to be sure to walk two times on that nice rug too. So he bangs and drags and does not set down a drop cloth to protect the wood floor because, as he says, it could cause him to trip and fall, so the floor is not only dirty, but scraped and scratched. And, by the way, he is moving the old stove out and the new one in by himself.
After much struggling and terrible scrunching sounds, he removes the Thermidor to the front porch where the evil thing promptly falls over and, suicidally, completely collapses into itself. He leaves the corpse where it fell and finishes the new stove installation. No problem. Works fine. He loads the self-mutilated Thermidor carcass onto the truck. He picks up the glass door of the stove, turns to leave, and promptly falls down the porch steps. He is unhurt, but the glass door has broken into a million pieces.
*Mikey's Last Day
I knew that our dog Mikey's time with us would be limited. If he didn't die today, it would probably be soon. Mikey was having trouble walking, he had already spent time at the animal hospital and was going to have potentially risky surgery. I did not believe that he would survive, he just seemed too sick.
I couldn't get him into the animal hospital first thing that morning, and because he couldn't walk, I asked Stu to carry him to the car before he left for work. So, now Mikey was in the car, waiting for his ride to the hospital. I didn't want to leave him alone and the appointment was over two hours away. I brought my knitting out to the car and sat with him for a while. Then I started driving and talking to Mikey.
First, I took Mikey on his favorite walk. Down the block, and around the corner by the school, then on down the next street to the Middle School. We stopped at the Middle School and parked in the lot. As I looked out on the wide, green, expanse of playing fields, trees, and track, I remembered all the wonderful walks we went on together when Mikey was young. I remembered the way he would run across the fields: flattening his sleek black body and head into one stream-lined dog, his tail a black plume, like a flag waving behind. I talked to Mikey about this memory and about the running.
We went down the street and farther down to the Avenue, where he bit someone last year and got us into trouble. Then back home, down the tree-lined street with the bungalow homes, quiet and sunny that day, not quite spring.
Next we drove down to the park, a place I wish he could have visited before. By now it was raining so we sat in the car and looked out at the fields, trees, and the kids arriving for their field trips. I talked about how sorry I was that had he have been feeling better, we might have broken the rules just once to let him run there.
Then on to the animal hospital. They could not help him there and arranged for me to take him to a special surgeon that day. This was about 45 minutes away, more riding for Mikey on his last day. But, perhaps that was fitting as he always enjoyed being in the car. By now we were joined by Sarah who wanted to come along to be with me and with Mikey on this hard day. The surgeon was so nice to us and to Mikey: hopeful about restoring him and helping us, and so we were hoping too. I knelt down on the floor to kiss Mikey goodby and to put my arms around his soft long black fur. Later, the doctor called to say that he could not help Mikey after all. We were out all this money and no dog to show for it, but the doctor was nice and cared and sent us flowers and a card, because he thought he could help, but couldn't.
So Mikey stayed sleeping , instead of waking up and coming out for a run.
What I liked about Mikey:
He was the "Prancer Dog" who, when feeling joyful would prance about, raising his front paws at the same time and rocking on his hind legs, his fur puffed out around his head and back, prancing side to side like a circus pony. He was the "Rocket Dog" running so fast we couldn't believe him, tearing around the pool yard and around and around so fast. "Keep Away Dog" who needed two sticks to play catch with, one for you and one for him. The only way to play catch with Mikey was to keep one stick, throw one stick. He would get the stick and not give it back until you showed him your stick and threw it. Then, he would throw down his stick and chase the other. It was the only way to go with Mikey. "Talker Dog." He was very demonstrative about certain things and would speak to go out (Wooooooo) and for bones (Woooooooo). He had intelligent eyes and a sensitive kindly face.
Names for Mikey: Mikey Dog, MikeKeen, MikeyJD, Jerk Dog (he was the original jerk dog), Goat dog (on account of eating our things, especially out of the trash can).
How Mikey became known as jerk dog: Early in Mikey's training, we were walking on Kenwood Avenue. Mikey spied a squirrel up in the telepnone wires, way above us. He leaped into the air for the squirrel with the leash and my arm attached. Hence, the name jerk dog.
Things Mikey ate: four kitchen chair legs and rungs, one kitchen chair string seat, the back of one of the legs of the rocking chair, four or five pairs of my shoes (including a brand new pair I bought for work but had not yet worn) flip-flops, Barbie doll shoes, any garbage, one raw chicken, one steak dinner for four, any leftovers, Davie's lunch, bread, two books, seven plastic adjustable hat bands, one felt hat, and two pairs of glasses.
Things Mikey didnt't eat: His doggie food. He would eat our food so fast it barely seemed like he chewed, swallowing was all.
People Mikey bit: one obnoxious boy, a woman runner who would not move over, a scarey older guy walking too close in the darkness, a teenage with a sack walking past the house. He would herd little children and try to nip their butts.
Mikey would eat bad things and threw them up wherever he happened to be, twice on the sun-room couch. The couch smelled for a year until we found the right deoderizing spray.
Mikey liked to poop in private. He would head for the bushes or trees to poop straining at the leash to get as far away as possible. During the Winter he would climb high snow drifts and poop on top.
He rested his chin on the window sill to look outside. He was always first out the door and first in the door. He wouldn't go upstairs unless invited. He hated baths and almost drowned in the pool twice. When he was little he would run up and down the pool apron and bark at us while we swam in the pool.
Mikey was the greeter dog. Once, when I had been away for several days, I pulled into the drive and honked the horn to let everyone know I was back. I looked and the side door opened. First, out came Sarah running to say hello. She jumped into my arms and put her arms around my neck and gave me a big hug and kiss hello. Then she stepped aside for David who had followed her out the door and who also ran up and put his arms around my shoulders and gave me a big hug and kiss hello. Then, Mikey ran out the door, ran up to me and put his paws on my shoulders. Hello Wendy, welcome home.
*Sarah Thought Her Body Was A Rental
Sarah was a feisty, redheaded, hotheaded, three year old. She was a toughie and had an independent streak. As soon as she could move, it was away. I remember the diaper receding in the distance. We felt that most of her behaviors would be useful when she grew up. In a three year old, however, it was another matter.
She didn’t seem able to go through a doorway without hitting both sides. Her knees were always scabby and she got lots of bruises. We could not slow her down. Tracking her movements through the house and in the yard was a full time job. We were glad she had a hard head because she hit it so often. One time, on the way to trying for a taste of my ice cream cone, she bonked me in the nose by mistake with her head. Her head was so hard that I saw stars!
Green Beans to the Rescue
Our first night in our new home, Sarah dove head first off our bed onto the floor. A bump immediately swelled up, and she looked somewhat like a unicorn. I called to Stu, who was downstairs. “Quick, get me some ice. Sarah hit her head.” Time passed, and then I finally heard Stu coming up the stairs. He had a package of frozen green beans in his hand. He explained that we didn’t yet have ice, only the beans, We rushed off to the emergency room. Unfortunately, the green beans had fairly well melted by the time we got there. In we walked with a crying two year old, a big bump, and one package of green beans.
Shortly after that, I had a friend over for tea and cookies. I told my friend that I felt that Sarah had calmed down quite a lot. No sooner had I said that, when we looked up to see Sarah, who had been playing quietly in the living room, drawing in green magic marker all over my grandmother’s antique arm chairs. A few days later, she got out of my sight for one second. As I chased after her, I heard a terrific banging noise, which began slowly and crescendoed over an ever- faster pace (bump-pause, bump-pause, bump, bump, bumpbumpbumpbumpitybump). I rushed over to the basement stairs. There was Sarah laying on the rug at the bottom. Her legs were up the stairs. She looked surprised. She had fallen head first on her back down the steps. The crescendo was actually Sarah gathering speed on the stairs. She was not hurt, only confused about how she happened to get there.
Spaghetti to the Rescue
One father’s day, we were at a play ground at a local elementary school. Somehow, and nobody else had ever done this, Sarah fell sideways off a sliding board, through the handles at the top. She hit the turf and was promptly knocked out. We rushed her to the hospital. She lay uncharacteristically still and did not speak or cry through the ambulance ride, the emergency room triage, several x-rays, an MRI and three consultations. Three hours later, when we got back to the exam room, the doctors said she seemed fine, but they wanted to keep her overnight for observation because she was so quiet. Sarah then spoke: “Spaghetti please. “ We took her home.
Sarah Gives Up
When she was four, she asked if she could go out and play by herself on our swing set. Since it was directly in front of a window where I was working and she promised she would only play on the swings, I agreed. It was a “trust situation.” The phone rang and I stepped away from the window to answer it. Returning with the phone to watch for Sarah, I saw that she had tried to climb the rope swing. Somehow, her foot got caught on the top rung and she had fallen head down along the swing. There she was hanging by one foot, her arms hanging down. She was limp. She was not trying to right herself. She had given up and was waiting for something.
I suggested to Sarah that she was treating her body as if it were a rental. That is, she seemed to be thinking that when she had banged the current one up enough she would be able to turn it in and get a new one. Sarah soon learned other ways to get attention, which did not involve damage to her body.
