Trading Pooches

If you visit here often, you know I share my home with two big dogs. Both of them are getting old, as I am, and mostly we like to do quiet things. Butch, my blind, mixed-breed male is the one pictured here on the sofa, his upper lip succumbing to gravitational forces and his tail tucked protectively over his private parts. Kadi is the Yellow Lab shown sleeping contentedly on the floor (at least she was sleeping until I made intrusive camera noises). I love these dogs almost as much as I love my kids and grandkids.


You might also know, if you've been here before, that I have two daughters, each of whom also has two dogs. My older daughter, Kim, is a beadmaker. She brings her dogs with her to my house five or six days a week because her glass studio is set up in my backyard shed. Winston is her little male Yorkie, shown here in the driver's seat, and Lucy is the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel stretched out tall to keep a lookout. Kim loves her dogs as much as I love mine.


Most evenings Kim waits here until her beads are ready to come out of the kiln. We often eat dinner together, almost always in front of the TV, and then it's playtime with all four dogs. I love Kim's dogs and she loves mine, but, to be honest, each of us is partial to her own set of dogs. I look forward to time at the end of the day with just Butch and Kadi, time for snuggles and belly-rubs before bedtime. Kim, naturally, prefers the company of her own two pups and can't wait to get them home and get some cuddles as they all settle in for the night.

Since each of us humans likes our own dogs best, you might think the dogs would have a similar affinity for their respective mistresses. Not so. Two of our four dogs seem quite willing to make a swap.

There are patterns to our routines, patterns the dogs know better than we do. When Kim gets ready to go home, there are certain things she does, in a certain order, that set off an unwavering chain of events.

Butch pretty much doesn't stop whatever he's doing. He's alert, and we know he's paying attention, but it's no big deal. Kim's going, she's taking the pups, they'll be back tomorrow, whatever. Butch is content.

So is Lucy. She trots with her mom to the table where the leashes are kept. She waits patiently to have hers hooked to her collar, then wraps herself and the leash around Kim's legs two or three times in her haste to leave. It's time to go, what's taking so long? Let's get this show on the road.

Kadi -- my sweet Kadi whose big yellow head is allowed to rest on my pillow -- also follows Kim to the table where the leashes are. And every single night, she pants, she barks, she tap dances from the living room to the den and back again to dance in place, right under Kim's feet, tappity-tappity-tap, woof, woof. She stares into Kim's face with raw eagerness in her eyes. Oh, please, please, please, get my leash, please, please, take me just this one time, oh, please, please, I'll be good, just let me go with you, oh, please, please, puhleeeeeeeeeeeze!

Kadi's nightly betrayal would hurt my feelings if Kim's little Winston didn't show the same kind of disloyalty to her. In fact, if we were handing out Infidelity Awards, Winston would win in both the comedy and drama categories.

Winston is a young dog. He can be leaping and bouncing with reckless abandon -- playing tug-of-war with Lucy as if he'd just consumed large quantities of sugar and caffeine -- but the instant he senses it's time to go home, he shrinks inward, trying to make himself disappear. He flattens himself and slinks along the edges of the furniture, then jumps onto the sofa and tucks himself into the crevice where my thigh meets the sofa cushion. If there isn't time to make the leap to the sofa, he hides behind my feet. Wherever he holes up, he peeks out cautiously and watches. He conceals himself in the same places night after night and still holds out hope that his mom won't find him. When she does (after we play the "where's-Winston?-I-don't-know" game for our own amusement), Kim snaps his leash to his collar and he flops flaccidly to the floor. Urged to stand, he refuses to walk and has to be dragged the first few inches. When he decides to move on his own, he assumes the body posture of an old, old man, head down, shoulders hunched, poor and dejected, without a friend in the world. I don't wanna go home. I'm too tired. I was sooo comfortable, and I don't like to ride in the car. It's too much trouble. Just leave me here, okay? You and Lucy go on without me. I'll be fine, and I'll see you tomorrow. Awwwwwwww, no, no, no! I can't believe you're making me do this. Life is soooo hard.

Fortunately, after we've dashed Kadi's and Winston's dreams once again, it's easy to win back the kind of affection a dog should have for its designated person. All it ever takes is one rawhide chew.

Into the woods

Next week will mark ten years since I moved to this house. For all those years, every time I've driven out the driveway or walked to the mailbox, I've looked into the little patch of woods across the road. You can imagine my surprise when I looked over there earlier this week and saw a house I've never seen before. I suppose it could be a new home (there's definitely a new fence around it), but it looks as if it's been there since the last century.

The house is almost invisible in the woods, its wooden frame weathered to a shade of grey that blends in seamlessly with the trunks and branches of the many trees nearby. For most of the year, I'm sure, the leafy canopies of those same trees would provide even more camouflage for the house.


New or old, it's a wonderful house. It's three stories high, with magnificent windows and a wide porch that appears to run completely around the house. It's a noble house, one with a great deal of character. It's the kind of house that isn't scary but should be haunted by gentle spirits.


The woods themselves are a bit frightening at night, but in the daytime they're comforting in their serenity. This time of year, just before the sun goes down, the light behind the trees is so spectacular it catches my breath. The sun, settling down after a hard day's work, pours its most beautiful light onto the green grass of this field, like King Midas spreading out all of his gold, the better to enjoy it.


I'll end with one final photo of the woods, this one with its own bushy-tailed surprise just to the right of dead center. This one's for Annie.

Jesus Christ -- Superstar?

I try not to write too much about religion or politics on this blog. I like to keep everybody feeling all comfy and undisturbed when they come here to read, so I don't want to stir up controversy. But my last post touched on religious issues, and one reader's comment reminded me of something else to write about before I move on to more neutral topics.

Last Saturday's post about my encounter with piped-in Christian music at the grocery store prompted The Rev. Dr. Kate to comment, in part: "I agree with your take on the whole thing - it is not appropriate to force others into a conversion experience in the dairy aisle - and I would be leery of the conversion if this is all it took!"

It was the "leery of conversion" part that grabbed me, because I've long had questions about the authenticity of my own accepting-Christ-as-my-savior experience, which happened when I was nine.

To give you an idea of my thought processes around that time, it was at the age of eight that I began to question what I heard in church. I remember sitting with my grandmother and listening to the minister say we needed to give more money to the missionaries so they could go to Africa and tell all the children there about Jesus. So far, so good; I thought the children in Africa deserved to know about Jesus. But then he said that if the missionaries didn't teach the children about Jesus, those poor children would be condemned to hell. Huh-uh, I thought, he's wrong about that. God wouldn't do that to kids who never even knew that they had to believe in Jesus.

I should also mention that I believed in Santa Claus until I was eight and refused to accept the word of other children in my class who'd told me for two years that Santa was a myth. I finally asked my mother, who admitted that the other kids were right. I still wasn't convinced. She had to do quite a bit of talking to explain why I should believe she was being truthful this time and not all those other times when she'd told me Santa was real.

These anecdotes indicate two things to me: (1) I was capable of forming my own opinions, and (2) I could be convinced to believe--and stand up for--things that were not true.

Now, fast forward to one Sunday when I was nine and an evangelist visited my Sunday School class. I don't remember one word of what he said, but I do recall that he was young and very, very handsome. He moved about as he spoke, delivering his message with fire and passion that grabbed my attention and held it. As the hour passed, my excitement rose to a level that was almost overwhelming. I experienced feelings that were powerful and exquisite, feelings I'd never had before--feelings I couldn't even begin to name. This must be it, I thought. These are the feelings that let you know it's time to give your life to Jesus.

Sunday School ended and I went to meet my mother, who worked in the church nursery. We didn't always stay for church, but I told her I needed to stay that day, and I explained why. I'd been taught in Sunday School and church that there was only one way to get into Heaven, and I wanted to lock it in.

We sat through a sermon I don't remember. At the end of it, when the preacher gave the invitation to accept Jesus and the choir sang "Just as I Am," I walked to the front of the church with a half-dozen adults. When it was my turn, the preacher asked me if I understood what it meant to accept Jesus as my savior, and I assured him I knew exactly what I was doing. The next Sunday I was baptized--the full dunking. According to the philosophy espoused at that time at the First Baptist Church, my eternal salvation was a done deal, regardless of how I lived my life from then on.

Let me mention one more time--because it's important to the whole point of this entry--that the powerful feelings I'd had as I listened to the young evangelist were new to me. I'd never felt them before...and I never felt them again, until I was 13 years old and went to my first Elvis Presley concert.

It was the fall of 1956, and my mother let me go with a friend to the Shrine Mosque to see this relatively new entertainer I'd been listening to on the radio. We sat in the second row, and, as I watched and listened to Elvis (backed up by The Jordonaires), I experienced the overpowering excitement again. This time I was in an arena where I could express what I was feeling. I worked up a sweat that plastered my hair into limp strings. I fanned myself with my program, and I laughed and cried and screamed with all the other girls. It was amazing!

It wasn't too long after the Elvis concert that I began to wonder if my soul was really safe. I knew my intentions were pure on that day when I walked to the front of the church, but how could I feel the same way about Elvis that I did about Jesus? To make matters worse, I felt that way every time I saw Elvis, and I hadn't felt that way in church again. That couldn't be right, could it?

It was several years later, after I'd learned the concept of charisma, that I realized it was the handsome young evangelist--and the passion he had for Jesus--that moved my feet down that aisle. Along with that realization came questions about the whole experience. As Dr. Kate might put it, I'm "leery of the conversion." Yes, I know some people would say that Jesus was working through that young evangelist, and those people might be right. But what if it was a case of a really good "commercial" making me want to run out and buy "the product"? There's no doubt in my mind that the charismatic young evangelist could have sold me a Happy Meal.

Today, I respect the rights of others to draw their own conclusions and follow their own beliefs, and I'd like for others to respect my rights similarly. Obviously, none of us can know for sure.

At this point in my life, I believe there's a power in the universe that's much greater than I (or any of us earthly creatures), and I choose to call that power God. I've also grown to believe that other people, in other lands, are responding to that same higher power, although they may call it/him by another name. I believe the uninformed children in Africa have just as much chance of recognizing that higher power as I do--and just as much chance of securing a place in the afterlife that many of us seek and some of us refer to as Heaven.

I hope I'm right about this. The public pronouncement I made when I was nine may have been too insubstantial to serve as a backup plan.

I have no problem with Jesus...

...but sometimes His fervent followers tick me off. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they annoy Him, too.

If I had to check a box on a form, I'd check the one next to Christian. I was brought up in the First Baptist Church in Springfield, Missouri. Some of what I heard there I believed, and some of it didn't feel right to me, so I dabbled in a few other religious denominations as I grew older. All of them were Protestant and all of them fell under the broad category of Christian. When the sermons I heard in those churches failed more often than not to jibe consistently with the God I knew in my heart, I moved on.

I may be a backslider, but the spiritual part of me feels pretty content. (These days I get my religion mostly by reading The Rev. Dr. Kate.) I do not feel the need to have my immortal soul rescued at the grocery store.

Remember when I wrote about being excited because a new supermarket was being built near my house? I was thrilled that I'd no longer have to drive five to eight miles to do my grocery shopping. The fact that I wouldn't have to navigate the parking lot and vast interior of Wal-Mart seemed like an answer to my prayers. (Yes, I pray--but generally not for things like convenient shopping.)

The new store is nice. It's ultra-clean and laid out well, and it has almost everything I need. It's a little more expensive to shop there, but the convenience makes up for it. I'm eating better, too, because shopping nearby means shopping more frequently, and that translates into more fresh foods.

After I went to the new store for the first time, I wrote this: "...all the people inside the store were smiling--especially the customers. Even me. I hadn't seen smiling grocery shoppers in a long, long time. By the time I left the store, I was humming carols right along with the piped in (piped out? to the parking lot?) music." I shopped there yesterday, but without the same pleasant experience. It was the piped-in music that changed everything for me.

I don't remember what kind of music they've played since the Christmas season. I think it was just typical elevator music, although I do remember one time recently when I was alone in the dairy aisle and the music made me feel like dancing behind my grocery cart.

Yesterday, though, the whole time I was there I listened to piped-in Christian music. It was the pleasant, easy-listening, could-be-confused-with-soft-rock kind of music, but the lyrics were all about praising and worshiping and Jesus being the answer. It wasn't the music itself that offended me but the idea that Jesus was being "sold" to me right there among the avocados and the cherry tomatoes.

If you want to talk to me about "saving" while I'm grocery shopping, tell me about coupons or two items for the price of one. Don't make me think about my afterlife while I'm trying to determine which carton of skim milk has the longest shelf life.

Now, I'm all for free speech. If you write about your religious beliefs (or political viewpoints) on your blog, I can read it--or not--and agree with it--or not. The same goes for anything you publish in your newspaper or broadcast on your television show. In those situations, I have a choice. But when you proselytize in the supermarket while I'm trying to buy enough of your goods to check one household chore off my list, I can't turn you off. My choice is either to live with it or to shop somewhere else.

I could protest, of course, but I'm trying to see both sides of the issue. I guess, if I were the storeowner, I might feel entitled to play whatever kind of music I like. As a customer, I don't like it. And I don't think Jesus ever expected to be the subject of background noise for people whose minds are on the price and freshness of boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

Treasures

I loved the time I spent with you.
You opened up your mind to me
and let me glimpse the treasures
you have hidden in your head.
I was bedazzled by the brilliance
of each precious stone you laid before me
and tantalized by the radiated glow
of all the jewels I’ve yet to discover.

I heard each word you spoke to me
and saved it like a grain of sand,
lodged deep within the oyster’s shell
to grow in time to be a pearl.

I will be richer for knowing you.
Please share your wealth with me...
and I will give you all that’s mine.


Thursday night is the absolute best night for TV. As much as I'd like to post something interesting for my readers, I can't risk missing the first results show of this season's American Idol or, even worse, a single minute of Grey's Anatomy. The easiest thing to do, I decided, was to dig deep into my old-poem stash and pull out something you haven't seen.

This one was written in 1983 in honor of the first man I'd dated in a long time who could carry on an interesting, intelligent conversation. God, that was so refreshing! We had a really nice relationship for a few months, until I met someone else, someone who was almost as good at communicating and a little more interesting to my shallow, non-thinking parts.

Anyway, it occurred to me as I reread this poem that it has a different meaning to me now. If I were to write these same words today, I'd be addressing them to you guys and gals, my blogging friends. For the many words and thoughts you've shared, I offer you my deepest thanks, my utmost appreciation, and this old poem.

I'll give you "all that's mine" a little bit at a time--but not on Thursdays, okay?

Four days' worth of not very much

My four-day weekend is almost over. It's gone by in a flash, and I don't have too much to show for it. Here's how I've passed my time:

Saturday:

• Slept late.
• Finished reading Iris Johansen's Stalemate.
• Babysat the granddogs, Lucy and Winston, while their mama worked in her studio in my backyard.
• Washed and folded four loads of laundry.
• Spent half the afternoon working through the first three lessons in a tutorial called Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0, Classroom in a Book.
• Ate something so boring I can't even remember it for dinner.
• Watched equally boring TV until bedtime.
• Started reading James Patterson's Cross.
• Oh, yeah, and read other people's blogs off and on throughout the day.

Sunday:

• Slept late again.
• Unloaded the dishwasher.
• Read the interesting parts of the newspaper (which my daughter kindly picked up from the driveway as she came over to work again).
• Babysat the granddogs again.
• Read other people's blogs and thought about answering e-mail.
• Dusted and vacuumed (which I'd intended to do on Saturday).
• Got a phone call from my boss, telling me he was on his way home from the hospital (thank goodness).*
• Showered and otherwise whipped myself into suitable shape to appear in public.
• Went to the movies with my two daughters. We saw Dreamgirls, which, if you like musicals, you might enjoy as much as we did.*
• Went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner after the movie. I had a horseradish-encrusted filet that was so good I can still remember the taste of every bite.*
• Forgot to tape the season premiere The Amazing Race. Dadgum it!
• Went to bed, read a little bit, and could not fall asleep for the life of me until after four in the morning. My legs ached (from dusting and vacuuming the entire house, standing up through a shower and primping session, and climbing stairs in the movie theater) and my brain pumped out a steady stream of thoughts and ideas that could have easily waited until morning.

Monday:

• Woke up early to let the dogs out, then went back to bed.
• Woke up again when my daughter called to say she was on her way over.
• Let my daughter and the granddogs in, then went back to bed until a little past noon.
• Read other people's blogs and considered answering e-mail.
• Scanned dozens of photos my younger daughter brought over the day before. These were pictures of her biological father (my first husband) and his siblings and ancestors. I wanted to be sure these people were included in my genealogy database in case my girls ever get interested in that kind of thing. Here's my favorite photo of the whole batch:

• Made a salmon loaf for supper--fast and relatively good.
• Talked on the phone with next-door neighbor I haven't seen for a while.
• Talked on the phone with neighbor in front of me to offer condolences after I learned (from next-door neighbor) that their little dog had died.
• Felt bummed out by those two phone calls, and wasted two mindless hours watching Wife Swap and Supernanny.
• Forgot to take the garbage to the curb because it didn't feel like Monday night.
• Went to bed and read for an hour.
• Slept eight hours of blissful, uninterrupted sleep.*

Tuesday (today, so far):

• Got up at six forty-five and stayed up (pats self on back).
• Watched the Today show in its entirety.
• Gave Butch a long belly-rub and Kadi a full-body massage.
• Read some more of my book. And some more of other people's blogs.
• Cropped and labeled all the photos I scanned on Monday.
• Talked to both daughters on the phone.
• Ate the leftover salmon loaf.
• Took ground meat out of the freezer to thaw for spaghetti sauce (which lets me put off going to the grocery store for at least one more day).
• Wrote this blog entry (while watching part of Divorce Court and part of Ellen).

Before the day is over, I'll answer those e-mails, write checks to pay a few bills, wash one more load of clothes, make and eat the spaghetti, watch American Idol and take my book to bed again.

If you're still with me, you may have noticed it would be difficult to get a good blog entry out of any single item on this list, which is why I didn't even try. These last four days have been mostly uneventful, but they've also been really, really restful. I'm feeling good!

*The best parts of the whole four days.

Snippets (blog soup)

It's some kind of a record...

...for me, at least. It's been exactly a month since I posted about cleaning my really messy house, and I've managed to maintain it in a clutter-free condition the whole time since then. Who knows? I may catch on to this strange, picking-up-after-myself concept after all.

This photo was taken right after I'd cleaned the living room. If you saw the same room now, you'd see every flat surface coated with a layer of dust, and if you tried to eat off my floor, you'd get dog hair in your mouth, but there is still no clutter. I'll dust and vacuum tomorrow.

Still on my own......

...at the office. My boss, Mr. J, is still in the hospital recovering from heart surgery. He's doing well, heartwise, but has a couple of other issues that need to be resolved before they send him home.

Today is the eighth day in a row I've spent the majority of the workday by myself. A few clients have dropped in, and an attorney who's been an invaluable resource during Mr. J's absence has checked in several times daily to answer my questions. Mostly, though, it's been really quiet. Even an introvert like me gets lonely after a while.

Speaking of hearts...

...the writers of Grey's Anatomy rip open my chest every Thursday night and play my heartstrings with the all the deftness of an inbred Appalachian on the front porch with a banjo. I laugh and I cry. I hope and I fret. I can't wait for it to begin and I don't want it to end. They're good, those writers. I know they're manipulating me, but all I want is more of it.

A good thing about living in South Louisiana...

...is that all the offices, banks, courthouses, etc., close for Mardi Gras. With President's Day on Monday and Mardi Gras on Tuesday, I'll have a four-day weekend. Tomorrow I'll dust and vacuum (as promised above) and do a little laundry. The rest of that four days is mine, mine, mine!

A bad thing about living in South Louisiana this weekend...

...is Mardi Gras traffic. From Friday through Monday, eighty percent of the cars on the road will be headed southeast of here. Bumper to bumper, as fast as they can move, they'll head in a caravan to the Big Easy, where they're hoping to find their fair share of drink and debauchery. Parades will roll, liquor will flow, music will fill the air, and the ladies(?) will expose their breasts and scream, "Throw me somethin', Mister!" in exchange for strings of plastic beads tossed from floats and balconies. All that partying, just an hour away from here! I'd go, but there's this really good book I'm reading...

On Wednesday? All those cars will be headed in the other direction. A little more slowly. Trying not to hit any bumps. Or make any noise.

The first joke I ever heard about New Orleans:

Q. Do you know how to spot a tourist in New Orleans?

A. Yeah, sure, by the chalkmark around the body.

Quite a set for a neutered dog...

Earlier this evening I sat on the recliner end of the sofa. Kadi sat erect to the left of me, leaning against the back of the sofa and leaving about a six-inch margin of bare leather at the edge of the seat. Butch passed by, sniffed to survey the situation, jumped up onto the empty seat at the other end of the sofa, then immediately turned around and carefully cat-walked, one foot in front of the other, through the narrow space around Kadi, to squeeze in, lie down, and rest his head in my lap.

I've always thought it took a lot of guts for a blind dog to leap onto a sofa. Butch is a big dog; there isn't a lot of margin for error. I thought tonight's tippy-toeing, teetering on the edge, was beyond bold. I thought he was brave. Kadi thought he was annoying.

The girls

There's no story to go along with this photo of Lucy and Kadi. It makes me smile, though, and I thought you might like it, too.

If you don't smile right away, click the photo to enlarge it and look at Lucy's little mustache. (It reminds me of Mrs. P, our next-door neighbor in New York.)

On Valentine's Day 100 years ago...

...in Marion County, Indiana, Agnes Cairn Blair married Otto J. Hofmann. The bride was 28 years old, a native of Scotland, and her 35-year-old groom had been born in Germany. For most of the rest of their lives, they lived on a farm in Kentucky.

Agnes and Otto are not my ancestors. I don't have any photos of them, and I don't know much about them. I do know they had four children together, and one of their two sons (born in Kentucky) grew up and married my mother (born in Missouri). Here's a photo of their son and my mother, taken in Texas in 1957, a few days after they met on the beach:


I think about people like Agnes and Otto and wonder about the chain of events that brought them from their native lands to the U.S. and then to a place where they eventually found each other. I wonder where I'd live today if it hadn't been for Otto and Agnes and their son, my stepfather.

If my mother hadn't married their son, I might still be in Missouri. Instead, we moved to Texas when I was a teenager. I met and married a Texas man (son of parents from Oklahoma) four years later. He and I had two beautiful daughters. That marriage didn't last, but it was in Texas that I met and married my second husband (born in Maryland), with whom we moved around the country until we landed in Louisiana.

So many people from so many places. So many miles traveled for chance meetings that sparked love and changed lives.

Otto and Agnes never knew their grandson, my brother (born in Texas to my mother and their son), and I don't know how much my brother knows about them. I think their story might be a nice one. Judging from their choice to wed on Valentine's Day, at least one of them must have had a romantic streak.

Happy Valentine's Day to the ones I love. Some of you are right here in Louisiana, nearby. Others are in Texas, California, Missouri, Minnesota, and points in between. One, a young Marine, is in Virginia. Wherever you live, you live in my heart.

This little light of mine...

When my granddaughter was little, she used to visit my apartment and play on my computer. I'd draw pictures in the Paint program, and she'd color them right on the screen. We created characters of all shapes and sizes from the selection of facial features available in another favorite program. We could play for hours that way, and even before she could read, she could navigate her way through all of her favorite programs. Nothing she tried to do was difficult enough to make her give up.


One day when she was four, I left her playing at the computer while I went to take care of (ahem) pressing business. A moment later she hollered through the wall that the mouse had quit working, and I hollered back that I'd be right there. When I went back into the computer room, I found her crawling out from under the desk. "The mouse was unplugged," she said, "but I fixed it."

She's always had that adventurous, can-do attitude, and it's made her my hero. Where I was fearful and cautious as a child, she was born ready to take on the world. Where I was tentative, she was full speed ahead.

She's all grown up now, and she still radiates light and joy. Today's her birthday. I hope she feels as special as she is.

How I fell for the puppy

This is the fourth time I've sat down tonight to try to finish writing this entry. I'm about ready to just blow it off. Interruptions, even though they are justified ones, are breaking my concentration to the point that writing anything that halfway makes sense requires more effort than I'm willing to give.

Janet's recent posts about falling in her yard, and then, the very next day, about the day her dog, Spot, came to live with her, made me remember how Butch came into our lives. I was trying to write something about how lovable he was and, at the same time, how much trouble he caused in the beginning. It was going to be sweetly sentimental and funny, too. But now? Screw it.

Here's the short version: Somebody found him wandering alone when he was no more than five weeks old (according to the vet) and gave him to us. He was a scaredy-cat puppy who stayed right on top of my feet. Twice, he tripped me, causing me to fall -- hard -- in the backyard. One of those times I fell on the concrete patio, striking my head and shoulder against the house, and ended up in the emergency room. My knee was sprained, and I had to stay off that leg for three weeks.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and tonight, if the picture will substitute for even a couple of hundred words I don't have to arrange in any kind of pleasing order, I'll be satisfied. Here's the picture:

Getting to the heart of the matter

On Monday morning my boss told me how much fun he'd had hunting with his grandson over the weekend. And then he told me how tiring it had been, how he almost didn't have enough breath or energy to walk out of the woods.

He's been hunting almost every weekend for the past couple of months, so this fatigue was unusual, and he knew it. He'd heard a friend mention that a new test, a coronary calcium screening test, had alerted him to heart problems, so he called and arranged to take the same test Monday afternoon.

Test results showed there was at least a 90-percent arterial blockage. I called the cardiologist who has been seeing him once a year since a heart attack 12 years ago and made an appointment for Thursday afternoon, the earliest they could work him in on a non-emergency basis.

Tuesday morning my boss had court. He wasn't feeling great, but court was uneventful and he returned to the office in relatively good humor. He called his nephew, a Baton Rouge physician, and told him about the results of his coronary calcium screening test. He also told his nephew that it had been years since his cardiologist had done anything on those annual visits other than listen to his chest with a stethoscope, check his blood pressure, and look at the lab reports on his cholesterol level.

Dr. Nephew said that wasn't good enough. In a matter of minutes he called back and said he had made an appointment for my boss with a better cardiologist early Wednesday morning.

The first time I saw my boss on Wednesday was when he returned to the office from seeing the new cardiologist, and he was a bundle of mixed emotions. Based on the morning's test results, they'd sent him home to pack a bag so he could check back into the hospital for a late-Wednesday-afternoon heart catheterization. That's the last time I've seen him.

The catheterization showed severe blockage that would almost certainly have resulted in a heart attack in the very near future. The new cardiologist kept him in the hospital Wednesday night and Thursday, and at 7:00 a.m. Friday morning, he underwent quadruple bypass surgery -- seven hours' worth.

Throughout this ordeal, my boss's lovely wife stayed in touch via her cell phone. Each time she'd get a medical update, she'd call and tell me, and it would then be my turn to get on the phone and relay the news to concerned friends and clients who were anxious for information. I think my boss underestimates how many friends he really has.

The surgery went very well, according to the doctors, and the next phase for my boss would be a day or two (today and tomorrow) in the intensive care unit. His wife and grown children would be able to visit him for a few minutes at a time, and they were told to expect that he'd look pretty bad.

His wife called me this morning after she went to visit him. "You wouldn't believe it," she said. "He was sitting up in the bed, talking -- saying he doesn't plan to go through anything like this again -- and they're talking about moving him out of ICU later in the day."

I am so relieved. My boss -- my good friend -- is going to be okay because he was smart enough to pay attention to the warning signs.

On a lighter note, let me tell you how this story played out on the Louisiana-small-town rumor circuit:

A very worried lady called the office yesterday afternoon and asked, "Did Mr. J have a heart attack?"

"No," I told her, and I explained the course of events to her much as I've outlined it for you above.

"Thank God!" she said. "Now, let me tell you what the rumor is. I heard from someone who said they'd heard it from a client of Mr. J's who was there when it happened. They said Mr. J and his client were in front of the judge, and Mr. J was arguing, defending his client. They said Mr. J was so worked up that he started yelling, then he grabbed his chest and fell out on the floor of the courtroom, and the paramedics had to come in and take him away in the ambulance."

I can't wait for my laid-back boss to hear this version of the story. I told it to a good friend of his who said, "Well, he may not spread this rumor himself, but if he hears it, he probably won't deny it, either."

He's going to be okay. It'll be an interesting and challenging couple of months, workwise, but it's going to be okay.

A warm story about snow

So many of my blogging buddies have been writing snow stories that I felt compelled to post one of my own out of empathy.

Just a few months after my second wedding, and even fewer months since our family had happily moved into a lovely new home in East Texas, my husband announced that he was going to take a job in Ohio, one that would last about a year. He said the pay would be good enough that he could make a lot of money in a short time, and he could fly home once every couple of months to visit.

That didn't work. We were miserable. Two months and one weekend visit later, in January of 1969, he came back to get us.

This was our first of many long-distance moves. Since it was supposed to be temporary, we boarded up our new house and traveled to Mentor-on-the-Lake, Ohio, where my husband had rented us somebody's quaint, furnished, summer cottage, not too far from the banks of Lake Erie. I still remember my first sight of the lake, frozen and covered with thick, powdery snow that reminded me of cake frosting. It was magnificent!

My older daughter was in first grade then. In Texas we'd joined a neighborhood carpool to get her to and from school. In Ohio, where my husband had to drive our only car to Cleveland to work each day, she'd have to walk to school. Fortunately, the schoolyard was less than a full block away, but she would have one street to cross. We bought heavy coats, leggings, mittens, stocking caps, etc. We registered her for school and took a couple of practice walks on the day before she was scheduled to start, to make sure she knew the way.

Morning came, and I bundled my daughter up in her new warm clothing and pointed her in the right direction. I was really nervous about sending this southern-born child out alone into the winter whiteness of Ohio, but I kept smiling for her sake. I watched from the doorway until she was out of sight, wiped away a tear as I closed the door, and turned my attention to the sweet four-year-old who was still at home with me.

No more than five minutes later, about the time I estimated my little schoolgirl should be arriving at her classroom, I heard a commotion on the front steps. I opened the door and there she was, cheeks as pink as her new snowsuit, blue eyes wide, struggling to catch her breath. "Mama," she gasped, "I just (hunhhhh) saw a dog (hunhhh) chasing (hunhhh) a rabbit!" Her smile was as big as her eyes. She'd made it all the way to school before she saw the rabbit-chase in the schoolyard, and she'd run all the way home through the snow to tell us about it.




That's when I knew this move would be an adventure for my kids. That's when I knew they'd be okay.

Scanning history (and ignoring the Super Bowl)

As part of an ongoing project, this weekend I've been scanning photos almost non-stop--five decades' worth since yesterday morning. I just finished the '90s.

What a wonderful trip down memory lane. These particular decades included the ones in which my children and grandchildren were born. As I arranged their pictures in groups on the scanner screen, I watched them grow up all over again.

I spent some time today with beloved family members who have since passed on and with others who live so far across the country I may never see them again. Every familiar face brought me joy.

I visited houses where we used to live, rooms where we shared happy times and a couple of hard ones, furniture that seemed like a good idea at the time, and a few items that have traveled with me across the miles and the years.

I sat on the Missouri grass with Wiggles, the family dog of my childhood, and on a Louisiana hearth with our '80s dog, Radar. I lingered over puppy pictures of Butch and Kadi and was reminded once again how much love they've brought into my life.

I watched fashions and hairstyles change. Automobile shapes went from boxy to aerodynamic, and bare tree branches turned green, then lost their leaves again. The photos themselves changed, too, from sepia to black and white to color, with a wide variation in quality depending on the camera and film that were used.

One more weekend should be enough to finish the scanning, then I'll begin cropping the scanned groups into individual photos, labeling each one as I go. When that's done, I'll save everything to DVDs and distribute enough copies to ensure that someone, somewhere, will have a backup copy if something should happen to the originals.

It's a laborious process, but it's a labor of love.

The truth about my trust issues

Somebody told me, a long time ago, that he thought I had trust issues. At the time I told him he was nuts. "I trust people in general," I said, "it's just you I don't trust."

Today, though, I'm thinking he may have been right. I certainly seem to be less willing to trust than ninety per cent of the folks who share the interstate with me.

I don't trust that the person in front of me won't have to slam on her brakes when she encounters an obstacle in the road, so I stay several car-lengths behind her, just in case. Most drivers, it seems, have way more trust in their hearts than I do. They have so much trust in their fellow drivers that they follow them at 70 mph with no more than one car-length in between. I used to call that stupid, but maybe it's always been trust and I just haven't recognized it.

The driver behind me today trusted me implicitly. I could tell because he talked on his cell phone as he tailgated me, obviously obliviously having the utmost confidence that I wouldn't brake suddenly. In my rearview mirror I could see his lips moving and his left hand to his ear. He must have been steering with his knees at one point, when he leaned over to his right and appeared to be adjusting his radio or something. I'm a cautious driver, but this man couldn't have known that about me. I used to call that idiotic, but it must be blind trust.

Another example: the guy in the pickup truck who floored his accelerator as he pulled away from Burger King and crossed the road right in front of me, causing me to hit my brakes so I wouldn't smash into his king cab. There was a time (yesterday, the day before, and many days before that) that I would have called that guy an effing imbecile, but that was before I was enlightened. That jerk guy trusted me. Wow!

To be honest, I'm just not that trustworthy. I wish I were a perfect driver, but because I know I'm not, I'm probably projecting my own shortcomings onto the rest of the drivers on the road. I need to be more trusting, like everybody else is.

This change might take a while. In the meantime, I hope those people aren't offended when I drive behind them and leave some space between us.

My favorite photographic mistakes...

...would surely include these.

I'm relatively new at taking pictures just for the joy of it. For every good photo I take, there are a couple of others that are deleted immediately and another dozen that I keep even though they aren't anything special. Fortunately, the camera seems to know what it's doing sometimes when the photographer doesn't.

Yesterday, for example, driving to work, I saw a hawk coasting in the wind. I grabbed my camera off the seat, put it against the windshield as I drove and snapped about five shots in the general direction of the hawk. The hawk didn't show up in a single shot, but this photo saved me from disappointment. The tint at the top of my windshield is responsible for the deep blue of the sky, but the wispy, watercolor clouds? I think Van Gogh's angel painted those.



Speaking of watercolors, that's what this next photo reminds me of. I was in the car when I took this one was, too. I had almost--but apparently not quite--stopped for a traffic light.



The next one is from our zoo trip last spring. I was trying to take a photo of a baboon sitting in his little concrete cave watching the people go by. Instead, I got a really nice closeup of a fence, with some soft baboon colors in the background.



I really like the colors of this next one. I took it through the window in my boss's office one day when it had been raining all afternoon. It was supposed to show how much water was standing in the parking lot, but I zoomed in too close and got this instead. Who knew the reflection of a dumpster would look so much better than the real thing?



When I took this one, the wind was huffing and puffing with all the force of the big, bad wolf. The action of the wind, in conjunction with my overzealous finger on the zoom button, created the waves in this photo of what I think was trees. I'll never know for sure.



The Spanish moss hanging down in this next blurry photo gives it a fantasy quality I like a lot. I think the bright colors and gentle curves would make it an appropriate illustration for a children's book. All it needs is a bunny in the foreground.



The fault of this final photo was a fast-moving peacock. I'd lined up what appeared in the viewfinder to be a good closeup, but my "model" took off running just as I pressed the button. Even in motion, these colors are beautiful.



Have I said I love my camera? Yeah, I've said that.

Fleeing feet and flying fur

We're only one month into the new year, and I'm already predicting that 2007 will be remembered as The Year That My House Fell Apart. The most recent item on a growing list is my desk (not the computer desk, the one that faces it, with my chair in the middle so I can swivel from one desk to the other).

I bought the desk about five or six years ago and assembled it myself--apparently not very well. Each side of the desk has two drawers, supported between the ends of the desk and wooden panels screwed to the desk top. Last week I opened the top left drawer and took out one item. I closed the drawer, and it immediately fell down onto the bottom drawer. I pulled both drawers out to get a closer look and found that the screws have pulled loose and are probably stripped.

I figured out a way to fix it, so on Sunday afternoon I went to The Home Depot, expecting to come home with what I needed and finish the job. Unfortunately, although the store was open, they must have had a fire drill or something, because the only employees I could find in the whole place were at the checkout registers. I put miles on my Crocs before I gave up and came on home.

All of which is just backstory for the main point of this whole entry: You'd be amazed at how fast a blind dog can move when the situation requires it.

Butch tends to "vacuum" the floor and the furniture all around me after I eat something (although I am NOT that messy). A few minutes ago I had a piece of angelfood cake right here at my computer, and I shared a couple of bites with Butch and Kadi. When the cake was gone, Butch began sniffing inch-by-inch on the floor around me. In the process, he stuck his head into the space where the missing drawers should be, hit the suspended wooden panel, and knocked the whole thing down.

I turned around as soon as I heard the crash behind me, and all I saw was Butch's blond rear-end skedaddling into the kitchen. My laughter eventually brought him back to the scene of the crime. Tail wagging, he approached the desk tentatively, and sniffed around for several minutes. He appeared to be either a) trying to figure out what had happened to make the big noise, or b) continuing his search for crumbs.

My money would be on the cake crumbs.

Too chicken to make your acquaintance

In Janet’s journal entry yesterday, she questioned the wisdom of trying to change one’s personality to achieve certain goals. That’s an issue I’ve had some experience with. As the rest of the introverts out there know, sometimes we feel pressured to be more outgoing.

I’ve struggled my whole life to be more social. I can fake it for a few hours if there’s an important enough reason to do so, but it wears me out. Socializing with family or close friends is fine. They know me well enough to understand that my being quiet is just part of my personality and doesn’t mean I’m not having fun or not feeling well. They know I’m listening, and they know that if there’s something I want to say, I’ll say it--as long as I don’t have to talk over somebody else to be heard.

Interestingly, at work or in the classroom, I’ve always had plenty to say and haven’t been the least bit shy about expressing myself. I’ve spoken in front of groups, appeared in a couple of plays, and sung solos in the school choir, all with minimal jitters. My explanation for this paradox is that those situations are all role-playing in one way or another. On the dais or on the stage, my role is clearly defined. As a worker or a student, I also know exactly what’s expected of me. Usually, if I know what’s expected, I can deliver it.

But at a party or some other kind of social gathering? When I'm there as the real me? I don’t know my lines and I have only a vague idea of my role. I expect that whatever comes out of my mouth will be the wrong thing and that all of the people I’m meeting for the first time will judge me forever based on that one event. I’ll smile and be polite, but I’ll be cautious about revealing anything about myself. It's too scary.

My heroes at social occasions are the people who introduce themselves to me, the ones who ask questions I can answer and draw me into an honest-to-goodness conversation, not just small talk. Those people make me comfortable, and I'm grateful for their presence. The sad thing is that I rarely meet the people whose company I'd enjoy most, because they're sitting quietly in a corner, too, waiting until someone approaches them.

So, getting back to the subject of trying to change one’s personality, I’ll give you an example of one time I did try:

In the late ‘80s, my job in human resources led me to become involved with a group of HR people who met regularly with the head of the local Department of Labor to discuss staffing needs, employment issues, etc. At one point I was a district chairperson of the group (not a position that was highly coveted, I assure you). This was easy for me; I knew what I was expected to do when it came to leading a meeting.

There came a time, however, when a large event was scheduled with the chairpersons of all the districts in the state and a lot of DOL bigwigs. The problem was that it was a banquet meeting, and I would be sitting with nine total strangers at a round table for nearly an hour before the meeting began. Even worse, there would be a "get-acquainted social" after the meeting.

I steeled myself for the occasion well in advance. I told myself over and over to go forth and be social, to stick out my hand, introduce myself, pay attention to people’s names, all those things that are so difficult for me. "You can do this," I said to myself. "It’ll be good for your career to get to know some of these people."

The luncheon wasn’t bad. Because of the huge floral centerpiece on the table, I really didn’t have to interact too much except with the people immediately adjacent to me. The lady on my left was part of a group of three women who came to the event together, so she had others to talk to. Fortunately, the guy on my right picked up the conversational ball and tossed it to me, and I felt fairly comfortable while we chatted and ate our lunch. Lunch, by the way, was a tasty dish containing chunks of chicken in a creamy, bright-yellow sauce.

As lunch was ending, I learned that I'd be expected to sit on the dais during the meeting. They hadn't mentioned it before because I wouldn't have to speak, but I’d be introduced. And so, for the next 45 minutes, I sat looking out at an audience of people while the Secretary of Labor and others spoke about things they hoped were important enough to justify the cost of the event. Occasionally, as they spoke, I’d catch the eye of someone in the audience, and I’d acknowledge the eye contact with my brightest smile.

The speeches ended and it was time for the social hour. My insides were trembling, but I worked that room. I made my way around, introduced myself, shook hands, and "networked" with a lot of people. Mostly I smiled--my warmest, glad-to-meet-you smile. All the people were polite and pleasant. They looked me right in the eye–-sort of--and introduced themselves back to me. To my surprise and delight, they didn’t linger and act as if they expected to chat. They moved along rather quickly. I realized, with relief, that if that's all there was to it, I could do that.

I met a lot of people in about half an hour, enough people that I felt I’d conquered the challenge. With my spirits lifted, I excused myself and made my way out of the banquet room to go back to work. Just before I left the hotel, I ducked into the restroom, then washed my hands. I touched up my lipstick and did the quick smile-in-the-mirror thing to check it.

At that moment, I had a flashback of all those people I’d smiled at from the dais and all those people I’d introduced myself to afterwards. Right then, all alone in the hotel restroom, I smiled at my reflection and saw a big chunk of chicken, coated in bright-yellow sauce, wedged between my two front teeth.

The social-networking part of me was born and died in the course of a single event. Fortunately, my sense of humor--and a deep and abiding appreciation of the absurd--lived on.

Let the sun shine...

We've had two straight days of sunshine, and it couldn't have come at a better time. Everybody I know was feeling gloomy earlier in the week, worn down by endless rain and perpetually gray skies.

I've never been a sun worshiper (too fair skinned to stay out in it long), and I've never thought I had any traces of seasonal affective disorder. But now that I've seen what a dramatic difference a couple of sunny days have made in my mood, I'm beginning to wonder. Sun, if you had feet, I'd be kissing 'em today.



This is how the woods across the street from my house looked last week:













And this is how they look today. Even the trees seem to be happier.









The dogs have noticed the difference, too. It's nice for them to be able to stay in the yard for a while and visit their dog friends in the neighbors' yards on either side of us. The well-worn paths where they meet along the fence are still muddy. Two days of sunshine haven't eliminated the task of paw-washing, but I don't mind it so much when the pups have been outside long enough to enjoy themselves--and wear themselves out a bit.

Kadi tends to scout out spots in the yard that would be called puddles if it weren't for the grass growing in them, and then she lies down in the muddy water. Her belly gets washed almost as often as her feet.

As I cleaned her off this afternoon, I found a few tiny snails clinging to her fur. This is the first time I've seen the snails this year, although I remember them well from previous wet winters. They're dark grey, almost black, and about the size of baby green peas. They obviously live in the wet grass but like to vacation on large household pets.

Thanks to the sunshine, I feel as if I've been on vacation, too. It's been wonderful to get away from that dark, rainy place where I lived just days ago.

I think my VCR is possessed

One evening shortly before Christmas, I walked into the living room and discovered that the VCR was busily recording something I knew nothing about. Based on my unfortunate history with all things mechanical and/or electronic, my first thought was that I'd done something wrong. I thought maybe I'd accidentally hit the "record" button on the remote control when I'd turned the TV on earlier. Oh, well, no harm done. I pressed the "stop" button and turned off the VCR.

A couple of days later, it happened again. That time I was watching television when I heard the VCR click on and start recording. There was no way I'd pressed "record." I had a plate in my left hand and a fork in my right, and the remote control was lying untouched on the end table.

The second time happened at approximately the same time of day as the first time did, so I considered another possibility: What if I had somehow programmed it (accidentally, of course) to record something every day at that time? If that was it, all I had to do was delete the program, and I knew how to do that. I pressed the "menu" button, then pressed the number to "review existing programs." The message on the screen told me there were no existing programs. There was nothing to delete.

But the next day? Same time? The darned thing started recording again.

I started paying attention. Every Monday through Friday--but not on weekends--the VCR turns itself on at exactly 6:00 p.m. That's 6:00 p.m. actual time; 5:59 p.m. according to the VCR clock. I don't know what time it stops because I've always turned it off manually.

It occurred to me that the VCR might be getting a signal from an outside source, a neighbor's VCR perhaps, so I conducted a little experiment. I have two more VCRs in the house, so the other day, as soon as I got home from work, I set the clocks on both of them and put in fresh tapes. At 6:00 p.m. the VCR in the living room started recording right on schedule. The other two? Nothing.

I realize that this isn't a huge problem in the total scheme of things, but it's definitely an irritant. If I record something to watch later, I don't dare rewind it unless I'm gonna watch it immediately. I learned that the hard way, after it turned itself on and recorded over most of an Ugly Betty episode I'd taped.

The otherworldly, non-programmed recording isn't the only happening with the VCR. When I watch anything I've previously recorded, or when I'm watching one channel and recording another, weird bars of seemingly random letters and symbols show up on the screen. The bars vary in length, number and position. Sometimes they appear on the VCR menu screen, too, blocking out the date or time or some other vital piece of information I need to enter.

At this point I'm out of ideas. Are there any techies out there who have a clue what might be happening here? Any exorcists?

Book Tag (it was this or several paragraphs of whining.)

Every suitable blog topic I can think of tonight deserves more energy than I have to commit to it. For some reason (days and days days of rain? things breaking around my house? a flaming canker sore in my mouth?), I'm stuck with a mild case of the blues.

It isn't helping that I'm reading a wonderfully/terribly sad book, Jacqueline Mitchard's Cage of Stars, or that one of my earliest blogger friends, Patsy, is in the hospital. And if that isn't enough reason to bring out the box of tissues, George Bush is giving his State of the Union address tonight.

At any rate, this seems like an excellent time to latch on to a meme, so I've borrowed the 123Meme from Sunflower Optimism. Here are the rules, freshly cut and pasted from Sunflower's blog:

1. Grab the closest book to you.
2. Open to page 123, look down to the 5th sentence.
3. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog.
4. Include the title and the author's name.
5. Tag 3 people.

Okie dokie, here we go:

"In this example, the Levels command was applied to just the field in the foreground.

"Checking the Preview check box displays your edits in the document window.

"Did you know?"

That stunning bit of prose was from Digital Photography: Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks, by Gregory Georges. It's a really good book for its purpose, but perhaps not suitable for this meme. It was, however, the closest book to me.

As a person who sees things in a hundred shades of grey, never in black or white, I feel free to bend the rules of this meme and get the second-closest book to me. Here I go...reaching with my left hand...reaching blindly over the wastebasket and the paper shredder and the top of one of the bookcases that surround my desk...grabbing something sight unseen...and, ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner:

Page 123, fifth, sixth and seventh sentences (Take Two):

"It was beyond cornball. 'Tell 'em to check out the tortoise-and-the-hare story. Remind 'em about the long view.'"

Those three sentences were from Joseph Finder's Company Man,
a really good read if you like suspense.

This was actually kind of fun, and I'm feeling a bit perkier now than I was when I started. I won't tag anybody, but if you want a quickie post for your own blog, help yourself to this one.


P.S. Get well, Patsy.