Kadi, you're it!

Butch tagged Creekhiker’s Mabel with the “Eight Things” meme, and Mabel, in turn, tagged Kadi. I’m glad she did, even if it means more typing for me, because Kadi keeps score of things like that.

I have to say that in all my life I’ve never personally known a nicer dog than Kadi -- “nice” in the sense of always behaving in a way designed to get in the good graces of the people around her. What’s charming about it is that the “niceness” doesn’t seem to come naturally: The girl has a couple of, shall we say, flaws. And insecurities. Still, she deserves extra points for working around the clock to be the best dog she can possibly be.

This is how I imagine Kadi would respond to the “Eight Things” meme:

EIGHT THINGS YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT ME
By Kadi

1. Everybody says what a good girl I am, and, not to be immodest, it’s true. That’s because I really like to please people. If it weren’t for the shedding thing, I’d be perfect.

2. I can’t decide if the prettiest thing about me is my freckled nose or my amber eyes. I get compliments on both of them all the time, so I don't think it's just my imagination that people like to look at me.


3. Despite my good looks, I’m older than my human “mom,” at least in terms of dog years. But it isn’t because of my age that I'm in charge of the house. On the contrary, I gained that position by virtue of my life-long, natural ability to spot anything that’s out of order and call my people's attention to it. Like yesterday, for instance. The power was out when my mom left for work, and while she was gone, the lights came back on. When she came home for lunch, I didn’t greet her the way I usually do. Instead, I hunkered down in my bed with my head scrunched down and my ears laid back, you know, just to show her I realized things weren’t as she’d left them and I was sorry. It was beyond my control, but I still wanted to be sure she knew it wasn't my fault that the lights came on.

4. I’m smarter than my brother, Butch, whom I helped raise from a pup. He knows it, too, even though he acts like he couldn’t care less. Sometimes, when Butch and I are both lying on the floor, I see him get up and move toward the sofa. He’s a little slow (because he’s blind), so I get up fast, take a shortcut, and jump up on the seat next to our mom. It‘s so funny when he finally gets there and smells me in the place where he intended to be. I sit there and look down at him and smile. Usually he just moves over to the far end of the sofa and climbs up there, but sometimes my mom makes me move instead. (She doesn’t have much of a sense of humor.)


5. I pretty much do everything I’m told to do, except sometimes, when my mom holds the door open and asks if I want to go outside, I plop down into a sitting position so she’ll know I don’t really want to go. If she insists, I do it to please her, but then I might give her a dirty look so she’ll know I’m only doing it for her. I've totally mastered the art of cross-species communication, using nothing more than body language and the expression on my face.

6. I consider Kim, Lucy and Winston as part of my immediate family, and I’m happiest when they’re all here with Mom and Butch and me. I indulge the pups by playing with them (which Butch certainly never wants to do). Plus, I get to boss them around. I’d never hurt them, of course, but I do have to head-butt them once in a while to keep them out of trouble.


7. Oh, let me tell you about this: One time when Lucy and Winston were annoying me, I made a really mean face at them, wrinkling my nose and baring my teeth. It scared them the way I wanted it to, but then, ohmigosh, I realized my mom and Kim were watching me. I hurried and smiled at Mom and Kim, like the joke was between us and I was just teasing the pups with the mean face. Whew! I don't think they caught on, but that was a close call.

8. In the past six months, I’ve finally found my voice. I used to ask nicely for treats, you know, tap-dancing around and letting out cute little “rrrowr-rrrowr” sounds, but now I go stand facing my mom and bark demandingly. Every single time I do it, she tells me, "Kadi, stop that barking!" As much as I’d like to accommodate her, the truth is, she’s quicker about getting up and getting the treats when I bark, so what's my incentive to stop it? Besides, I’m getting old. I have neither the time nor the energy to stand around and wait for some old woman to decide she’s in the mood to do something nice and give me a treat.

I really am a good dog -- almost perfect (did I mention that?) –- but this being in charge of absolutely everything is a lot of hard work. I only hope everyone understands and appreciates what I go through. Sigh.

A meme and a special guest blogger

Earlier this month Alison tagged me with a meme: "Eight things you don't know about me." Because I've been so busy with the office move (which is going extremely well, by the way) I haven't done it yet. And because it takes more brainpower than I can presently muster up to think of eight things about me that I haven't already told you, I have gratefully accepted the help of a very good friend: Butch, take it away!

EIGHT THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME
By Butch

1. I hate getting my nails cut, so I bite them to keep them from growing too long. My favorite time to do it is in the middle of the night.

2. When I’m sleeping comfortably, I don’t like to get up. Sometimes when my people call me, I pretend I don’t hear them, even if they're calling in their loud, outside voices. Then they trick me by whispering something about “ice cream” or “treat,” and I wag my tail and give myself away.


3. Sometimes I scratch inside my ear –- very carefully –- with the nails of my hind foot...and then I hold that foot up to my nose and sniff it. Mmm-mmm!

4. My fur is short, so people are always surprised to find out how soft it is. They like to rub it, and I love it when they do that.


5. I don’t watch much television, but when I hear a puppy whine or cry on TV, I sit up and pay attention until that part of the show is over.

6. I’ve been called “strange” and "weird," but I prefer to think of it as “unconventional.” Who says there’s only one right way to do something?


7. When I go to the vet’s office, I’m the star of the lobby. People always come over to ask about my eyes, then they end up petting me and talking to me. Especially the kids. I like it in the lobby, just not in that back room.

8. I like people better than I like other dogs, and I especially enjoy the company of men. Not many men come to our house, so I’m really, really happy when I get to spend some quality time with one of 'em.



I tag Spot, Mabel, Cheyenne and Ellie (or the tag team of Ellie, Duffy and Vannie), but only if their humans agree to help them type.

And the streak continues

When I reread my last entry, I realized that I forgot to tell you about a couple of other things that happened last week, both of which fit nicely into the category of "things gone wrong."

First, there was the pizza that I didn't intend to share. My plan as I cut off the first hot, cheesy slices was to have pizza for at least three meals over the next day or two. Unfortunately, while I was enjoying pizza in front of the TV, a solitary fly found its way into my home and enjoyed the other two-thirds of the pizza in the kitchen. When I spotted the fly, I didn't get the impression that it had done a quick buzz in, touch down and resume flying thing. No, it behaved as if it owned that pizza, as if it had frolicked over the melted mozzarella and hopscotched from one pepperoni slice to the next until its little fly body had contaminated every morsel.

I hated to waste the food, so I asked myself how much I'd be willing to spend not to have to eat pizza that a fly had crawled on. It turns out I was willing to pay more than the value of the remaining pizza, so I threw it out. Fly 1, Velvet 0.

***************

Another kitchen incident occurred when I carried bags of groceries into the house, setting them on the countertop and, when I ran out of room, on the glass stovetop itself. When I brought in the next bunch of bags, I smelled something funny and noticed that the stove was turned on! I must have accidentally bumped the stove handle on the front when I leaned in to set the groceries down.

The packaging on a few food items had partially melted, so it took five minutes or so to repack the items in plastic wrap, and it took another 40 minutes to scrape all the burnt plastic off my stovetop. The most embarrassing part of this tale is that it's the second time that's happened. Wouldn't you think once would have been enough?

***************

Okay, that brings us up to last weekend. I needed to be at the office at seven o'clock Saturday morning for the move, and I made it there on time despite the fact that my left rear tire blew out on the way. I heard the explosion, but the car continued to handle so well that I thought the noise must have been caused by something else. I was about four miles from the office when the tire blew, and I was only about a block away when the steering wheel began vibrating and the road noise got really loud.

***************

We were finished moving by ten a.m., and it was a good thing we finished when we did. All of us were completely drenched in sweat, literally dripping from toiling in the direct sun while the temperature reached a record-setting 104 actual degrees. Between the extreme perspiration and the toting of multiple boxes from one place to the other, I was exhausted by mid-morning.

***************

When I got home from the move, Kim was here. At one point in the early afternoon, she was in the bathroom, and I heard her say, "Oh, my gosh, you have a problem in here." My immediate thought was plumbing problems again, but no, there was a new, different kind of surprise in store for me: an ant parade, all along one wall at floor level, then up and over the shower enclosure. I picked up my camera as I went to get the bug spray.


***************

Yesterday, Sunday afternoon, I went to the office and worked for about four hours to get semi-organized. Sunday was a pretty good day, all in all. At least if anything bad happened, I haven't found out about it yet.

***************

When I got to work today, I discovered the cover of a four-foot-long fluorescent light fixture hanging suspended by one tiny clip directly over the chair where I'd spent the previous afternoon. I was tempted to think of it as one more in a long chain of recent annoyances, but I prefer to put a positive spin on it and call it a narrow escape. That way, I can believe my luck may have finally changed.

Whew! I'll sleep better now.

I miss the leisurely pace of my life...

...and I'm ready to have it back, please.

Have you noticed a correlation between having plenty to write about and not having enough time to write it, or is that just me? That's been my situation for the past two weeks, and I don't see it abating in the immediate future.

Rather than abandoning my blog entirely until things calm down, I'll post bite-sized editions of what's going on around here:

****************

The heat index reached 111 degrees today, and tomorrow and Saturday are supposed to be even hotter.

****************

Tomorrow and Saturday, coincidentally, are the days we've scheduled movers to come in and move the office furniture to a new office. We've also scheduled me to make sure the furniture gets put in the right places, everything gets moved that's supposed to be, and nothing gets thrown away that isn't supposed to be. Maybe we'll get lucky and it will rain.

****************

Other than the actual, physical moving process and the hours and hours of preparation for it, I'm excited about the changes. Instead of a general law practice, my boss will be concentrating his efforts in one specific area of the law. This opportunity came at a good time for him, and I'm delighted that he's taking me with him. I'm not sure yet how the workload will compare, but I'm confident that the chaos factor will be drastically diminished.

****************

Last week, while it was almost as hot as it is now, my air conditioner went out. I called at 7:30 a.m., and the repairman showed up at 7:30 p.m. For that 12-hour period in between, we were on standby. When he finally arrived, he didn't have the part he needed, so he scheduled someone to come out the next day.

The person who came out late on the second day replaced the bad part, and the A/C still didn't work. He said the problem was electrical, and he arranged for an electrician to come out -- but "possibly not" until the next day. In the meantime, he got the A/C working again by running a heavy-duty electrical cord from the unit in the attic down through the hall, where it hung in front of my bedroom door, then hovered over the dogs' water dish, then trailed through the bathroom door and plugged in next to my curling iron.


On the third day, the electrician arrived and replaced the bad breaker that burned up the outlet that caused the A/C transformer to blow (in the house that Jack built). Thank goodness!

****************

The moon must be in a mechanical-malfunction phase. In addition to the A/C problem, the toilet broke (the little bar-thingy that attaches to the chain inside the tank), a hard-to-reach bathroom lightbulb burned out (the last bulb of the required wattage in the house), and the batteries in my electric toothbrush died. None of these problems was hard to fix, but each required an extra trip to the store.

****************

This happened again:


There's a warning label on the can now, so I suspect I'm not the only one who's experienced this unpleasant surprise.

****************

In the past few days I've had two automated voice mail messages from a company claiming to have an urgent need to hear from a woman whose name I recognize, although I don't know her personally. To my knowledge, she's never even lived in this state, let alone at this address or telephone number. Our only connection? She married my second husband -- 25 years after I divorced him. WTF??? I wonder if the two wives he married in between us are getting messages, too.

****************

I've been trying to keep up with reading my favorite blogs, and I apologize for not leaving comments. Most of my reading is done while I'm eating breakfast or lunch, and I can't handle the fork and the keyboard at the same time. I always plan to go back later to let you know how much I appreciate and enjoy what you write, but instead, I keep falling farther (further?) behind.

I'll be thrilled when the office move is over and the household malfunctions no longer hold me hostage. Once things settle down, I think life will be even better than normal.

It's your big day, Wanda June!

Last year on this date I wrote about how important my mother’s birthday was to her. Perhaps it was the knowledge of the day’s significance that put an almost crippling pressure on me when it came time to shop for a gift for her.

I might as well admit up front that I’m not now and never have been an inspired gift giver. The intention is always there, but my desire to find The Perfect Gift festers into delays and anxiety that often lead to a down-to-the-wire, last-minute–-or even late--purchase. That, of course, undermines my confidence even further and continues the cycle.

My mother was 76 when she died. Doing the math tells me I was around for 57 of her birthdays. If you add in the Christmases and Mothers’ Days, that’s a lot of gifts. When I was a little girl, I’d spend a whole dollar to buy her nylon stockings, paperback “murder mysteries” (the dollar would buy four of them), or Evening in Paris “eau de toilette.” She always pretended to be thrilled.

As we all got older, things changed. Either my gift choices grew worse or Mother's skills at pretending deteriorated. At any rate, my gift-shopping nightmares began. I had more money and could buy nicer gifts, but almost always, when she opened them, I could tell by her face that I’d missed the mark. She’d be polite, offering thanks with a smile but without enthusiasm. “Dang!” I’d think to myself. “I’ll have to try harder next year.”

You may think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. In all the years that followed, I can only remember giving Mother one gift she really liked: the well-preserved remains of an actual blowfish, mounted on an acrylic stand. I’d never have selected that in a million years if I hadn't seen her admire it in a shop.

The blowfish was purchased in the mid-1980s. Then, in 1999, I thought I had another winner. Mother had commented a few weeks earlier that she’d like to have a nice shirt that could also be worn as a jacket. Luck was with me, and I found one I thought would be perfect. It was made of a soft, buttery yellow faux suede. The color would be beautiful on her, and the lightweight fabric felt wonderfully soft and smooth. I knew she would like it.

I traveled to Texas for the occasion and sat in my sister’s living room while Mother opened her gifts. When she unwrapped the shirt, she hesitated for a moment as she looked at it, then gave the tiniest of smiles, said, “Thank you; that’s pretty,” and laid the shirt on the coffee table.

“Well,” I thought, “I was wrong again.” I was disappointed, but I’d kind of gotten used to it through the years.

That turned out to be Mother’s last birthday. She died a few months later, and only afterward did I find out that she did like that shirt after all.

On the sad day when the family gathered in Mother's home to go through her things and pack them away so her house could be sold, one of the most difficult tasks was sorting through her clothes. Tears filled my eyes as I stood in her closet amid clothing that still smelled like her. Then I spotted that buttery yellow shirt, and in the next minute I was laughing.

On a hanger right next to the shirt I’d given her was another buttery yellow shirt, slightly older, judging by the wear, but otherwise identical. The “perfect” shirt I’d given her was so perfect she’d bought herself one before I did.

I have that shirt now. It's exactly right to wear on the first cool nights after summer ends, and I always feel connected to my mom when I wear it.

Happy Birthday, Mother! As stressful as it always was, I’d still shop for you if I could.

Over troubled waters

Thoughts and prayers go out to those affected directly and indirectly by yesterday’s tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis. I first heard the news from my uncle, a long-time St. Paul resident who called early in the evening. When I recognized his voice, I asked, casually, “How’s everything with you?”

“I’m feeling very lucky,” he replied. “I was on that bridge three hours earlier.” There but for the grace of God...

(Sis, he wanted me to pass along best regards to you. I’m doing it here, okay?)

Through the looking glass

Kim had an appointment for an eye exam last Saturday, and I tagged along. Afterwards, we stopped at the local Bennigan's for a late lunch.

As we waited for our food, we leaned against the padded backrests, sipped our cold drinks, and watched the people outside the window. There were three of them, a man and two women, all middle-aged and all well-fed. I'd describe their apparel as "bikers-go-to-the-mall-wear" -- not full-out Harley gear, but enough accessories to maintain their well-crafted image.

One woman in particular interested me. Her long hair was shoe-polish black, but as she leaned over to put something in the car, the black tresses fell apart and revealed shorter day-glo-red hair underneath. The black hair was one length, the red hair was another. I could understand black hair with red roots or streaks, but this almost looked like the black hair was a wig -- something I couldn't imagine a self-respecting biker chick wearing.

Now, let me clarify that I wasn't staring at these people, merely watching idly through the restaurant's tinted window when I tired of looking at hanging antique bicycles and washboards. If I'd been staring, I wouldn't have been so shocked when the lady with the black and red hair stepped right up to the window and positioned herself exactly between Kim's side of the booth and mine.

She leaned in really close. I thought she must have heard me call Kim's attention to her hair, and I thought maybe she was about to tell me she was going to come in and kick my butt, but then, just as my fight-or-flight juices started to churn, she reached up her arms and began patting her hair into place. We watched with relief as she tidied up her reflected self, then walked away and joined her friends.

If you've read this far, you know that this was kind of a non-event. Still, I thought it was a cautionary tale worth posting. If you're ever tempted to primp in front of a window, just remember, you might not be alone.

Bait and switch

This is how the resident peacock, Mr. Pea (named by Betty of Galla Creek), presented himself in March of this year:


Whaddaya think of that tail? Pretty impressive, isn't it? That's the tail he wore during mating season, the one he fanned out for his lady while he did his little seduction dance. It takes a lot of feathers like the one below to create a gorgeous tail like that.


Mating season obviously ended sometime after that top photo was shot, and moulting season soon followed. Lately our yard has been full of peacock feathers of all shapes and sizes, feathers such as these:


Now that he's no longer desperate to please his mate, Mr. Pea has changed into his "old-married-man" tail, the peacock equivalent of running around in his boxer shorts:


He reminds me of my first husband, who drove a candy-apple-red Ford Thunderbird at the time we got married. Even though I wasn't particularly into either sportscars or status symbols, it did strike me as odd that he traded in the Thunderbird for a pickup truck within a week after our wedding.

Birds of a feather.

Bright blue victory

Today was the day I've been waiting for, pleading for, for more than a year. I made another phone call to my garbage service company first thing this morning, told them my story yet another time. The lady I spoke with couldn't have been nicer. I crossed my fingers and felt a spark of hope.

Today turned out to be my lucky day!


See that bright blue baby in the middle? The short, squatty one? That's mine! It was waiting by the curb when I arrived home for lunch, and I couldn't be much prouder if I'd given birth to it myself. In fact, I may push it around the neighborhood to show it off.

During the entire one-year-plus that I spent without a lid on my garbage can, I felt like a second-class citizen. Ha! A few days with no can at all certainly put that inconvenience in perspective.

I appreciate those of you who offered support and suggestions (some of you on more than one occasion) for dealing with a company that didn't seem to care. Annie, who knew you were such an activist?

Here's part of Annie's comment from early this morning: "Velvet, just sent this essay as a letter to the editor of the newspaper in your fair city." Hahahaha! I'll let you know if your letter starts something interesting.

I also found a quote attributed to Winston Churchill, no doubt during a long-lasting battle with his own waste management company: “Sure I am this day we are masters of our fate, that the task which has been set before us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win, victory will not be denied us.”

Sure wish I'd had Churchill's kind of faith.

More trash talk

By actual count, there have been eight times in a year and a half of blogging that I've written an entry containing at least one reference to garbage. If I were in therapy, I'd probably want to delve into this subject to discover the source of my fixation with waste and the containers that hold it. Since I don't have a therapist, I'll go ahead and post number nine. If you stick around to read it, you may be as sick as I am.

It's been just over a year since I was so frustrated with my lidless garbage can that I considered sending a letter to the garbage man. The good news is that my son-in-law read that post, and the next time he came over, he drilled holes in the bottom of the can so the rainwater could drain out. The bad news is I never got up the nerve to send that letter. Despite several telephone calls, I've lived with that broken trashcan for another full year.

Monday night is garbage night in this neighborhood, and last Monday was the last time I had to roll that old can to the road. Sometime between last Monday and Saturday afternoon, it disappeared.

I do have a theory about this: It's only been a month since my last phone call to the garbage company to ask for a replacement. The girl who took my call said they were in the middle of an audit, so it might be a while until they could give me a new can, but she assured me she'd put my name on the list. I'm thinking that phone call got some action. The reason I think that is that my next-door neighbor got a brand new garbage can at the same time mine disappeared.

To be honest, hers was in the same shape as mine, and she needed a new can, too. I'd actually considered asking them to bring one for each of us but didn't want to complicate an issue that already seemed too difficult for their comprehension.

I'm trying to think like a garbage-can-delivery-person, so my suspicion is that he (they?) got confused upon finding two cans in my driveway. I live in a two-family home, but it isn't obvious that it's for two families. He would have encountered my beat-up, piece-of-crap can right next to my front-yard neighbor's relatively new one. Six feet away he would have spotted my next-door neighbor's can that was just as bad as mine.

"Hmm," he might have thought. "I see two cans that are ready for the trash-receptacle graveyard. Which one am I supposed to replace? And this other one here looks pretty good. Maybe we already brought a replacement and didn't pick up the old one? (Sometimes this job is really hard. If I'm gonna have to make decisions, they ought to pay me more.) Okay, I got it. I'll replace the one over here across the driveway, take both old ones in, and that'll leave one good can at each location. That ought to keep 'em off my butt."

Or not. I called today to report my missing garbage can. I explained that I'd recently requested a replacement (again) and that a brand-new can showed up next door, a few feet away from mine. The lady on the other end of the line asked one question: "When did you notice the can was missing?"

That's the question I answered: "I noticed it missing on Saturday, but it could have happened earlier in the week."

She put me on hold and came back a moment later: "No, ma'am, he said he didn't pick it up."

Oh, really? "Well, it seems like kind of a coincidence," I said, "that a brand-new can showed up at my neighbor's house exactly when her can--and mine--disappeared. I figured you guys must have delivered the new one, so that's why I assumed you also picked up the old ones."

She stuck to her guns. "Well, he said it wasn't us...but we'll go ahead and send you out a new one tomorrow anyway."

I won't hold my breath. But I am stuck holding two big bags full of trash.

UPDATED 7/24/07: As I expected, no new trash can was delivered today. Ironically, today's mail brought me a brightly colored sticker from my waste management provider -- the sticker that goes on the trash can to show the bill has been paid.

Nights when the laughter lingers

When the nights are as hot and sticky as they've been for a few weeks now, my mind and my body go different places. My body heads indoors in search of air conditioning, but my mind, triggered by the moist heat, travels across the miles and back through time to the hot, humid nights of Missouri in the late 1940s and early '50s.

.......

Wherever we walked, I could hear the lady laughing, a raucous, almost malicious cackle that simultaneously repelled and attracted me. I was afraid of her, but she fascinated me. I wanted to get closer to see her better.

The fat lady rocked from side to side as she laughed, as if she alone were privy to the funniest joke ever, and the rest of us were so stupid we wouldn't understand the joke if she told us. Her hair was unnaturally black. Her eyes were black, too, flat, empty eyes that belied the smile on her painted red lips.

My mother said my sister and I weren't old enough to visit the house where the fat lady stood on her porch and laughed at the people passing by. I pleaded. We'd be okay if Mother would go with us, I argued, but she insisted that the house was for grown-ups, not children, and led us away.

I understood that the reason the lady laughed was to get people to come closer, to lure them into her house, and I knew it cost a lot to go in there. I noticed that the adults who came out the door were laughing, but teenaged girls seemed to duck their heads and huddle closer to their boyfriends, and a couple of kids who went in with their parents came out crying. Maybe Mother was right.

At least once every summer we visited the neighborhood where the fat lady lived, more often if we went to the nearby skating rink, but it wasn't until I was twelve that Mother gave in. Our visit to the lady's house was brief. All I really remember about it now is the darkness, the spiderwebs in my face, and the fear I felt at the sudden appearance of an angry wraith who reached out as if to snatch us when we passed.

That was our one and only time inside the house. As advertised, it was indeed a fun house, but the reality of it wasn't as thrilling as the anticipation we'd felt during all the years when we weren't allowed to go inside.

Nevertheless, when I think about those summer evenings we spent at Doling Park, I remember the fun house. I remember it in the same way I remember the carousel, the bumper cars, the cotton candy -- warm, pleasant memories, but not necessarily magical ones.

The magic still belongs to the fat lady, the mechanical gypsy whose laughter reached the farthest, darkest edges of the park and the deepest recesses of a little girl's mind. More than half a century has passed since she captured my imagination. In all that time, she's never let it go.

Survivor

I've been thinking about life and its challenges and have come to the realization that CBS's hit show Survivor is a metaphor for life as I've observed it so far.

One of the first things that happens in the TV reality show is that the contestants, usually 16 or 18 of them in the beginning, are divided into two "tribes." Each tribe is given a different colored "buff" (a multi-use, tubular band of cloth) for each member to wear to distinguish themselves from the members of the other tribe. Now, these people don't know each other ahead of time, they all have different personalities, and nobody knows right off the bat which other contestants they'll like or dislike. It's just all of a sudden, "Poof! Your tribe has the green buffs, so these are the people you're supposed to hang out with, rely on, etc. Don't trust the guys and gals with the orange buffs."

In life we're born "in the buff" with different colors of skin, and skin color seems to categorize us into groups for the rest of our lives, at least in some peoples' minds. We're often taught by example that it doesn't matter if an individual has values, goals, tastes and thought processes exactly like someone of a different skin color; it's that color that matters in determining who can be trusted and who can't.

Isn't that silly? I'm glad most of us manage to dispel that myth for ourselves.

On Survivor, as in life, the ability to interact with others is of supreme importance. Some people fit in and get along; others don't. Fitting in can help contestants to advance in the TV game and in the game of life. I'm not suggesting that individuality isn't to be respected, because it is, but it can put a target on one's back unless that individual can interact successfully with others who'll form a support system. If we don't make at least minimal effort to fit in, we get voted out early.

The contestants on Survivor face challenges each week -- elaborate games or contests to win rewards or immunity from banishment. If they meet those challenges, they have a better chance of staying in the game. And what does staying in the game mean for them? Until the payoff at the very end, all it means is that they get to stay and face more challenges.

Isn't that just like life? You encounter a difficult situation, and you get through it somehow, even if you weren't sure you would. You have a brief respite, a little time to rest and reflect, and then along comes some real lulu of a problem that takes all your focus and strength to resolve. Fortunately, with each obstacle you surmount, you become stronger and more confident in your ability to handle the next problem life tosses in your lap.

In between the challenges, and depending on the outcome of them, some Survivor contestants live better than others. Some have more food and more adequate shelter, which might make them better equipped to handle the challenges -- or might make them think they can rest on their laurels. At the whim of the producers, all that can flip; the "haves" can become the "have-nots."

Life is whimsical, too. A tsunami or a hurricane, an accident or an illness, a death or a divorce -- any of those events can turn life upside down in the blink of an eye. Some people have a better chance of surviving than others, but resting on one's laurels is a sure step towards disaster.

In addition to the two major challenges featured on each episode of Survivor, there are dozens of smaller ones: loneliness, tropical heat, lack of creature comforts and hygiene products, bug bites, annoying neighbors. Those are the constants, the equivalent of real-life "daily-grind" issues. The contestants who fare best on the show don't focus much attention on every little thing that's wrong. Instead, they fix their minds on the big picture and watch for opportunities that will get them a few steps closer to their common goal: to survive until the very end of the game.

I've thought a lot about what it takes to survive in life, and, just like on TV, it appears that being the best or the brightest doesn't hold any guarantees. There seems to be one single trait that determines who will survive and who won't: fortitude. We have to "keep on keepin' on."

Of course, a lucky break every now and then is helpful, too.

Page-turners

I love books. All you have to do is slap a random bunch of pages between two covers and I’m right there, eager to open it up and discover what’s inside.

In fact, I love books so much that I’m predisposed to think any book I’m about to read is going to be a good one. Nothing pleases me more than to begin reading something that hooks me early on, engaging first my mind and then my heart until I’m entangled so deeply in the story that I almost feel I’m a part of it.

The flip side, of course, is that sometimes it takes only a few pages to dampen that initial enthusiasm. I may continue to read, hoping something better is yet to come, but my heart won’t be in it, and my mind will wander to a dozen other things. I’ll suddenly realize I can’t remember a single word of the last two pages, and I’ll feel irritated about having to reread words that didn’t hold my interest the first time.

Some books are treasures, some are a waste of my time.

It occurred to me recently that I think about people the same way I think about books. Usually, when I meet new people, my expectation is that I’ll like them. With rare exceptions, I’ll give the new person a vote of confidence and the benefit of the doubt before the first greeting is exchanged.

Most people, like most books, are pleasant enough. They may not be exciting, but they hold my attention. If somebody mentions them, I’ll remember them with a degree of fondness.

There are other people, unfortunately, who begin to disappoint me with their first words, to let me know that if I continue to “turn their pages,” all I’ll find is more of the same rudeness, ignorance, hostility and intolerance. No doubt those people have their stories, too, but I usually don’t stick around long enough to learn them.

My favorite people are the ones I feel a connection with early on, the way an especially good book engages and enthralls right from the beginning. There's an energy about them that seems to radiate an invitation: "Come with me; I’ve lots to tell you and lots to show you, and we’re going to have a good time.” People like this challenge me in the best possible way. They make me think and inspire me to feel.

People like this –- and books like this –- are my idea of classics. I know I'll gain new insights by spending time with them. Maybe I'll even discover something I never knew about myself.

Lola, laughing

Mammaw (my grandmother Lola) was born 111 years ago today. She lived to the age of 92 and made the best of every single day. When I was a child, she was my rock, my safety and consistency. Sometimes, when I wrap my arms around myself to ward off a chill, it's Mammaw's soft girth that I feel beneath my fingertips. And more and more often these days, it's her face I glimpse when I look in the mirror.

If positive outlooks could be measured, Mammaw's would have been off the scale on the high side. She saw the good in everyone she met, and her joy in being in their presence showed in her face. I know how hard she worked to keep house for a family that included four generations, but even as I remember her cooking or hanging laundry on the line, I see her smiling, her face serene and worry-free.

This photo was taken when my grandparents visited relatives on the East Coast in June 1954:

If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see Mammaw's unbridled joy at wading in the ocean, probably for the first time ever.

Approximately a year later, sometime in 1955, the broadway musical Damn Yankees introduced new song lyrics to America: "Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets." Teased about the song, Mammaw smiled and replied, "It's true. I do get whatever I want -- but I always know exactly how much I can want."

Mammaw may not have been rich in the way of worldly goods, but in choosing to be happy with whatever life served up to her, she had the world by the tail. And she offered it to all of us who loved her.

Hunters and gatherers

Of all the possible ways to categorize the humans and animals on this planet, perhaps one of the oldest is to classify them as either hunters or gatherers. In the microcosm that is my yard, there are examples of both.

I fall clearly into the gatherer category, happy to eat a can of this or a jar of that to avoid grocery shopping one more day. Kim (I'll count her because she's here almost every day) usually gathers, but sometimes she's willing to drive miles to hunt for whatever it is she craves.

Butch is a gatherer, too. He waits until I finish eating, then thoroughly sniffs the chair in which I sat and the floor all around it, vacuuming up any stray crumbs he manages to find. (Sometimes I drop crumbs on purpose, just to build his self-confidence.)

Kadi gathers to eat, but she hunts for sport -- lizards, mostly. When the back door is opened, she bursts out onto the patio and does a quick search of the patio furniture, the rain spout, the screens on the window and the door, and the cracks between the fence slats. She's done this for ten years now, but it was only last week that she caught her first lizard. She held it to the ground with her nose and watched its legs and tail wave frantically for about three seconds, then she lifted her head and let it go. Mission accomplished.


Lucy is another gatherer. She collects every single fig that falls to the ground and every one she can reach on the tree -- even the green ones. She likes to pack her mouth full of them, then flop on her belly in the grass or, better yet, bring them in the house to eat. (She's actually a little fig obsessed, if you want to know the truth. She asks to go outside at least once an hour and always heads straight for the fig tree.)


And, of course, there's this guy -- part hunter, part gatherer:


It's his hunting tendencies that worry me. Where there are hunters, there are also the hunted, and I'm beginning to feel like he's stalking us.

I turned into the driveway at lunchtime today and saw what appeared from a distance to be a pile of rags laid up against the front of my house, right next to the front door. As I grew closer, the pile of rags raised its head and looked at me. The peacock was lying on the carport floor, presumably waiting for someone to come along and feed him. I had to wait for him to get up and move before I could park my car. These are the fluffy underbelly feathers he left on the doormat:


I fed him his lunch before I fixed my own and thought that might be it for today. Nope. Just as the six o'clock news began, the neighbors' dogs started barking their distinctive "oh-no-not-that-bird-again" bark, so I looked out the front door and there he stood.

This time I picked up the camera when I went to get his trick-or-treat bag and managed to get one very short video:



I spent about ten minutes feeding my bright-blue buddy his evening meal, then stopped because something caught my eye and convinced me there's a downside to having a peacock for a friend. Here's a picture of the trunk lid of my car:

Those foreign objects laid out in a row from one side to the other? Yup! That's peacock poop. Lots of peacock poop.

Happy Birthday, America!

Holidays that fall during the middle of the work week don’t allow a lot of time for celebration, but they sure do break up the week nicely.








Kim and I started our holiday last night with "take-away" from Outback (mmm!) and a bagful of movie videos, then she and her pups spent the night. Early this morning we heard the peacock outside. Kim hadn’t seen him recently, so she jumped up, grabbed a handful of cereal and headed out to the driveway to wait for him to come down off the roof.

I watched through the glass door as the peacock ate cereal from Kim’s hand. He seemed nervous, and I brilliantly deduced that the reason was the two barking dogs behind the fence next door, plus the four dogs gnashing and growling ferociously at my feet. It occurred to me that if I’d let our dogs out into the fenced-in backyard, they could still see, but they’d be farther away from the peacock and less distracting to him.

Bad idea.

When the peacock heard the barking come suddenly from a new direction, from behind him, he panicked. He flew up straight at Kim and popped her a good hit on the arm with one of his sharp spurs or talons. In seconds he realized his error and settled back to the ground to beg for more snacks, but by that time Kim had had enough. With blood seeping out the puncture wound on her arm, she threw the rest of the cereal on the ground and hurried back inside. It was a scary moment. Fortunately, a little soapy water and peroxide seemed to take care of the damage.

Later Kim and I found ourselves laughing about the peacock incident. Of all the things we could have imagined that might happen today, it never would have occurred to us in our wildest dreams that she'd spend the morning suffering from “bird flu flew.”

Happy 4th of July! I hope you're having a great day.

Where'd the weekend go?

Despite my best intentions, I've frittered away the weekend without accomplishing anything worth scratching off my list. With the laundry done and the house cleaned earlier in the week, I had plans this weekend for major grocery shopping, extensive blog reading, and at least one substantial post of my own. Instead, I ate the last of the cereal for breakfast and the last of the frozen pizza for dinner. (The two meals were close enough together that there was no need to worry about what to have for lunch.)

I turned the dishwasher on but haven't unloaded it, so my pizza baking pan is now in the sink. I needed to shower before going to the grocery store, but I also needed a haircut. It made sense to cut my hair before the shower, and by the time I'd finished all that I'd figured out how to postpone the grocery shopping for one more day.

This morning's newspaper is still in its plastic bag, unread. In fact, the newspaper would still be in the driveway if Kim hadn't stopped by and brought it in for me. That's because I put my bathrobe back on after the shower. It was already late in the day, and there didn't seem to be much point in getting dressed since I wasn't going anywhere.

I did complete some things that were not on my list. I finished Harlan Coben's latest book, The Woods, which was a pretty good read. I snuggled on the sofa with Butch and watched old movies on TV. I started a jigsaw puzzle, something I used to enjoy and haven't done in a year or two, and worked late into the night without realizing what time it was. The puzzle beckoned to me early today and I, weak-willed, gave in. That's what happened to my Sunday.

Expert rationalizer that I am, I'm telling myself (and you, now) I must have needed some R&R time, some mind-numbing quiet activities after the stress of my own and Kadi's recent health problems. I suspect "want" is a more appropriate word than "need," but I won't examine it too closely.

For the record, Kadi is back to her wonderful, bossy-dog-in-charge self. It's as if the stroke never happened. As the vet predicted, her recovery was quick and apparently complete, and I find it amazing. I'm still watching her very closely. Last night, when I woke in the night and realized I didn't hear her snoring, I tried to see her breathing, but it was too dark. I talked to her to wake her up, just to reassure myself that she was okay. At first I felt inconsiderate for waking her from a restful sleep, but then I remembered how many times she's done it to me.

As for me, I'm feeling much, much better. There's still a little soreness in my shoulders, especially when I'm on the computer for long stretches, but the discomfort is minor at this point. The present level of pain isn't enough to stop me from doing whatever it is I need to do.

It must have been something else that stopped me this weekend. Perhaps the lead in my behind?



P.S. I just realized what the date is. Happy Birthday, Joe. I miss you guys.

Velvet's Home for the Aged and Infirm

As my own neck and shoulder pain continues to improve, our family health issues took a new direction yesterday when sweet Kadi had a stroke. She's much better today, and I'm encouraged that she'll be fine, but it was definitely a frightening experience.

Kadi had been sitting beside me on the sofa when she decided to get down. She dropped her front legs to the floor like always, but instead of pushing off the rest of the way with her back feet, her whole back end seemed to be stuck on the sofa. I could tell she was trying to move forward, but nothing was happening.

I should have recognized that that was unusual, but I still didn't suspect a problem as I helped her scoot her plump bottom onto the floor. Once on the floor, though, she fell over against the coffee table. She stood again and fell again. By that time I was on my feet, trying to figure out what was wrong with her. I moved across the room, called her to me, and watched her feet slip out from under her. Oddly, Kadi didn't seem to be in any pain or distress about the situation. Everytime she fell, she'd pick herself up and take another couple of steps, slipping and sliding all the way, until she'd eventually end up where she wanted to be.

In the meantime, I ran to get Kim, who'd arrived at my house about ten minutes earlier and was outside turning on the A/C in her studio. When Kim came inside, Kadi smiled and promptly rolled over onto her back for a belly rub.

It was about 12:15 on Saturday, the day when our regular vet's office closes at 1:00, and we live a good half hour away from there. We weren't sure we could get Kadi in the car and get there in time, so Kim got on the phone and, after way too much time on hold, got them to agree to wait while we brought Kadi in.

Kadi loves to ride in the car, and her eagerness to get to it seemed to overcome her wayward limbs. We got all 65 pounds of her loaded without too much trouble. When we arrived at the vet's office and got her out of the car, we were shocked to see her walk without much difficulty at all.

Once inside, it was a different story. Kadi wasn't falling, but her legs were still wobbly. I'd try to lead her in one direction, and she'd turn and move in a direction 90 degrees to the right. After a couple of turns like that, she was literally walking backwards down the hall to the exam room. It was weird.

As soon as we explained her symptoms to the vet, he said he suspected one of two things: a slipped disc or a stroke. Either condition, he assured us, could be managed. He checked Kadi's body, feeling all along her legs and her spine. He'd pick up one foot, then another, and watch what happened when she put them down. When Kadi put her foot down with the top of it against the floor, pads facing upward behind her, the vet said that was totally unnatural.

Next, he asked his assistant to lead Kadi down the hall while he watched. On the first try, Kadi walked as closely as possible to the wall on the right side of the hall. "She's using the wall," the assistant commented, so on the return trip she walked between Kadi and the wall. That's when it became obvious that Kadi was veering substantially off course.

The vet checked her eyes next and pointed out that they were jiggling, subtly but clearly, and not necessarily at the same time nor in the same direction. I'd been so focused on her legs that it hadn't even occurred to me to check her eyes.

After the tests were done, the vet explained that little strokes are not uncommon in older Labs and Golden Retrievers (Kadi turned 10 just over a week ago), and that the good thing about a dog's body is that it begins to repair the damage almost immediately after the stroke has occurred. He gave Kadi two shots of cortisone and gave us a bottle of cortisone tablets to give her twice a day for the next five days. He said we could expect to see improvement over the next 36 to 48 hours, but to watch her closely so she wouldn't injure herself while her body was out of control. He explained that Kadi wouldn't realize her legs weren't doing what she expected them to do. (That explains why she wasn't distressed about the repeated falls; her brain didn't register a problem.)

The vet also pointed out the positive signs: the fact that Kadi was already walking without falling, that she recognized that an open door was for walking through, that she responded excitedly to the leash and the car ride. He said she'd be better off at home than at the animal hospital as long as she continued to eat well, maintained control of her bowels and bladder, and didn't exhibit any personality changes.

If you'd seen Kadi yesterday, you wouldn't believe she could appear so normal today. Physically, she seems fine. She walks--and even runs--without difficulty, and follows the straight path of the backyard stepping stones without veering to one side or the other. She seems a little more lethargic than usual, but no more so than her lazy brother, Butch.

There have been a couple of minor incidents that make me think her brain is still misfiring a bit. Last night when I said, "Let's go to bed," Kadi ran into the living room and lay down by the coffee table. And this morning, when I asked, "Who wants to go outside?" she jumped up excitedly but ran into the bedroom. These are mistakes she's never made before.

The vet was quite optimistic about the outcome of this particular medical mishap, and I found his optimism extremely reassuring. We're supposed to call him at midday tomorrow to give him an update. So far, so good.

Is this as good as it gets?

Thank you all so much for the kind wishes and healing thoughts you've been sending my way. Today is the fourteenth straight day of this pinched-nerve thingy, and I'd hate to imagine what a miserable human being I'd have been without all the good vibes.

I spent most of last week in one of two modes: fighting back tears or under the influence. This week is better. Since Monday I've been able to go to work. My neck and shoulder have been very stiff and painful each morning, but moving around seems to loosen everything up so the afternoons haven't been too uncomfortable.

Evenings are worse. I haven't figured out yet how to get my blog fix while standing and moving around, and I'm now convinced that my computer set-up is the least ergonomically correct position in the entire house. I'm not even finished with the third paragraph of this post, and already my neck is tightening up.

Sitting still to watch TV is asking for trouble, so I've been going to bed early--yet sleep has been next to impossible. If you'd see the condition of my bedclothes each morning, you'd think there'd been some hot and heavy activity going on in that bed. You'd be right about the heavy and the activity, but there hasn't been anything hot about it. It's just been me, all by myself, rolling from right to left, tucking pillows first on this side, then on that, trying to find some position in which I could close my eyes and sleep for more than ten minutes at a stretch.

I have an appointment to go back to the doctor tomorrow. This will be the first time I've been able to see my regular doctor, and I'm hoping she'll have a trick up her sleeve or a magical potion that the others didn't think of. Right now I'm not too optimistic.

To keep you from feeling totally sorry that you came here only to be bombarded by all this negative crap, let me end by telling you about my visit to the after-hours clinic at the beginning of this entire episode. After a long wait (is that what "after hours" really means?), I got to move from the lobby to the tiny exam room, where I sat on their paper-covered table with my arms and legs wrapped around their big wastebasket. The pain pill I'd taken the night before wasn't supposed to contain opiates, but I was on the verge of vomiting to prove otherwise.

Finally, the doctor came in. He was snappily dressed, his bleached-blond hair spiked just so, and I'd bet money he hadn't celebrated his 25th birthday yet. He introduced himself by his first name and added, "I'm one of the new docs" in the same tone he must have used to work his way through med school: "Hi, I'm Steve, and I'll be your server tonight."

I'll have to give him credit for being thorough. He was clearly puzzled, but he checked all the important things to be sure I'd neither broken my neck nor had a stroke, then he seemed to settle on a muscle spasm. "Sometimes a muscle can just spasm for no reason," he explained, "like I got one once from carrying my laptop, and I carried my laptop all the time." He gave a go-figure shrug and continued, "Most of the time you can just stretch your way through it." He peeked at my chart again, then turned and looked me in the eye, screwing his face up into the most sympathetic and apologetic expression he could muster. "Unfortunately," he said, "you are sixty-four."

Thanks again for caring, folks. I appreciate all of you and will try not to grumble so much next time.

UPDATE 6/24/07: Thanks, everybody. I'm doing much better, just a little stiff and sore in the mornings now. Best of all, I'm finally sleeping again, which makes me a WHOLE lot happier.

I did get in to see my regular doctor. Based on the fact that my x-rays showed zero natural curvature to my neck--just one straight line from skull to shoulder--she's convinced the problem is all muscular. She recommended physical therapy until she remembered I don't have insurance, then she recommended a good massage therapist. I haven't done that yet, but I will soon.

As far as the young Dr. Glib is concerned, I just thought his remark was really funny in its cluelessness. I well remember being young enough to think I already knew everything I'd ever need to know. Real life will kick the baby doc in the head every now and then, just like it's done for the rest of us.

A real pain in the neck...

...and the shoulder, and the arm, and the hand.

Here's a summary of my last five days:

One tentative diagnosis of a pinched nerve;
Two doctor visits;
Three injections in my big, white hip;
Four new prescriptions;
Five days of bedrest; and
Six cervical x-rays.

It still hurts to sit in this chair, and it hurts to stretch my hands out to the keyboard, so this post will be just long enough to say a public thanks to my kids. Their support has preserved my sanity when I couldn't stand, sit or lie down in any position that wasn't painful. Thank God for my girls.

And to my fellow readers/writers, I hope to be back to see you again soon. The past five days have produced some blogworthy moments. I look forward to sharing them with you when I can comfortably sit up straight again.

In support of vigorous toweling

Something happened this morning that almost never does: Fifteen minutes before the alarm went off, I woke up on my own, feeling rested and alert. All righty, then, I thought, this is going to be a great day. I slipped on my houseshoes and kicked the morning routine into motion.

The first thing on each morning's list is to let the dogs outside. Only then can I go to the bathroom myself. I did that this morning, then washed my hands thoroughly and dried them, apparently not so thoroughly.

Next up was morning meds. I opened pill bottles and placed three little pills in my left hand, stepped up to the sink to get a small cup of water, slapped the pills into my mouth, swallowed and drank the water--and watched out of the corner of my eye as one pill, which had apparently stuck to my damp hand, fell into the sink and down the drain.

I tried peering down the drain with the flashlight but couldn't see anything other than drain sludge. There was no possible way to tell which pill was lost so I could just take a replacement. Of the three tablets, the blood pressure medication concerned me most. I know I'm not supposed to skip it, but doubling up on it isn't a good idea, either. Hmmm. What to do?

I considered my options while I brushed my teeth and finally decided to go on about my business and not worry about it. I figured if my ankles started to swell, or if everybody who came into the office ticked me off way more than usual, I'd know the blood pressure medicine was the lost pill. Fortunately, my day was quite nice.

In fact, I'd put the missing pill completely out of my mind until about half an hour ago. Following a quick supper from Taco Bell, the pill puzzle began to gradually solve itself. Now, thanks to a raging case of heartburn, I know it must have been the Prilosec that went down the drain.

It'll soon be time to go to bed. The bedtime routine calls for the nighttime meds and variations of the morning's health and hygiene activities. This time I plan to spend a little more time with the towel.

Love in a locket

This is the locket I mentioned in my last post, the one I'd stashed in a long-forgotten "safe place" and finally found, thank goodness. It's dainty, smaller than a dime, and its value is entirely sentimental.

I wasn't aware of the locket's existence until about ten years ago, when I found a small package from my mother in the mailbox. Inside the package was a tiny box, and inside the box were the locket and this folded, handwritten note:


My mother was barely 19 when I was born. If she were alive today, having had children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, I'm sure she'd be the first to tell you it isn't a good idea to let a baby chew on something small enough to be easily swallowed. Fortunately, we both survived the experience, and the tooth marks made the locket all the more precious to Mother.

It's special to me because it was special to her. First purchased 64 years ago, the locket traveled with her from Missouri to Kansas and back, then to Illinois and back, then to East Texas, where she kept it for another 40 years before she mailed it to me here in Louisiana. Here, it rested in its safe place until a week ago, when I sat on my bed, chatting with my daughter and hers, and sewed it into the lining of my granddaughter's wedding dress. The locket is her "something old" and has just been elevated to a new level of specialness.

As I write this, my granddaughter, shown laughing with me in this photo shot 23 years ago, is in Negril, Jamaica. She flew there earlier in the week, along with her fiancé, her parents, brothers, close friends, and the dress with the sewn-in locket. Today at 2:00 p.m., on a beautiful Jamaican beach, she will marry the fine young man who came into her life a couple of years ago and eased into our family as if he'd always been there. I don't know if it's possible for them to find more happiness than they've already brought to each other, but that's what I wish for them.

My granddaughter was concerned about the possibility of losing the locket, but I'm not worried at all. There are far worse places than the sands of Jamaica to end one's journeys.

Lost and found

LOST: My mind, very nearly. Work has been extraordinarily hectic. I've been arriving home physically exhausted and mentally drained. The physical tiredness is mostly centered in my neck and shoulders, the muscles I tend to clench tightly when I'm stressed. (Just FYI, I had neck-and-shoulder pain for almost the entire year of 1982. In January of '83, I broke up with my boyfriend. The pain miraculously went away about two days after he did.)

FOUND: A special locket I'd put in a "really safe place," a place so safe I couldn't remember it for several days. I'll write this weekend and tell you why it was important to find the locket.

LOST: A handful of old photos I've been trying to find for almost two years. They're some of my favorites, ones that I've pulled out and scanned to make copies for others. Unfortunately, those scans were on my last computer, the one that died, so I don't have backup copies. I usually keep my photos filed by decade, and I'd pulled some of the best ones from each file and put them all together in a folder so I could keep track of which ones I'd copied. I'm still hoping they'll turn up, but after searching for them for so long, I've run out of places to look. So far I've insisted on thinking of them as "misplaced." Now I'm beginning to move out of denial and consider the possibility that they might be lost for good. It breaks my heart.

FOUND: Two state quarters I didn't have yet. Yes, I collect them; don't ask me why. This is my ninth year of never paying for anything with exact change. Instead, I always round up to the nearest dollar, hoping each purchase will be the one that lands me a "wanted" quarter. (Let me assure any muggers reading this, you do NOT want to be hit by my very heavy purse.)

LOST: Any shred of interest I may have ever had in young, slutty, drug-or-alcohol-impaired celebrities. I will vote for whichever presidential candidate promises to banish news about Lindsay, Britney and Paris for at least a week.

FOUND: Lost, the ABC TV series that I ignored after the first episode, despite rave reviews. My daughter, a huge fan, recently acquired the first two seasons on DVD and left them here for me to watch. Initially I wasn't all that interested, but last Saturday night I settled in to try to figure out what I was missing. After a couple more episodes, I was hooked. I've already watched the entire first season and can't wait for the weekend to immerse myself in Season Two.

Kadi's step-by-step guide to a perfect day

Kadi may be getting old, but she still knows how to have a good time. She asked me to pass these tips along to all the other dogs who read this blog:

Step 1: Convince your people to fill your pool. If your cuteness isn't enough to get the job done, try some heavy panting to prey on their sympathies.










Step 2: After they've filled the pool, test the temperature of the water.












Step 3: Have yourself a little drink. After all that panting, you'll need it.












Step 4: Ease yourself gently into the water.













Step 5: Relax for approximately 45 seconds.












Step 6: Stand up and make some waves.













Step 7: Step out of the pool and shake vigorously.












Step 8: Hurl your body to the ground.













Step 9: Roll around with reckless abandon.













Step 10: Race around the yard, stopping to pee at least twice along the way (this keeps the pool sanitary).











Repeat Steps 3-10 until you (or your people) are worn out and ready for a nap.

Sneaky diva

Soooo, I was driving home from work, singing along with the car radio like all the women in my family do. The radio was turned up loud, and I was singing like I meant it -- and then I had to slow down for a stoplight. That's when I began to analyze my actions and to wonder if I'm crazy or if other people behave the same way under similar circumstances. I couldn't wait to get home and ask your opinion.

It seems that if the wheels on my car are turning, I'm quite comfortable putting my heart and soul into accompanying the music on the radio. It doesn't matter how many lanes of traffic there are or how many people might possibly see me; as long as we're all moving, everything's fine. I figure nobody will get more than a passing glance at me, and they'll forget it before they've gone another half mile.

My discomfort begins when I have to stop. That's when a driver in the next lane would have time to casually glance my way and not only notice my gigantic mouth movements but study them. That's when the self-consciousness really creeps in.

The obvious solution would be to stop singing then -- but I can't do it. I have to sing it all the way to the end, especially if it's a good song. Instead, I try to disguise the fact that I'm singing.

So far my methods of subterfuge are limited. If I'm stopped at a short light and the other traffic is only on one side of me, I can put up my hand on that side to cover my moving lips and pretend to scratch my nose or rub my eye. Unfortunately, scratching or rubbing for more than a few seconds looks almost as weird as the singing does.

A longer stop brings me to attempted ventriloquism. I had to resort to that this afternoon, and let me just note here that it's extremely unfulfilling to sing without moving my lips when a really good song demands to be belted out in a big way. The main problem is all those b, p and m sounds that get in the way.

Today, for example, I was having a wonderful time singing along with Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss to their mournful hit, "Whiskey Lullaby." As I approached the stoplight, we'd just finished the first verse and launched into the chorus. Brad and Alison continued to sing beautifully, but I, because of the cars stopped on either side of me, tried to sing without moving my lips. My version of the lyrics came out like this:

"He fut that vottle to his head and fulled the trigger
And finally drank away her nenory
Life is short vut this tine it was vigger
Than the strength he had to get uff off his knees
We found hin with his face down in the fillow
With a note that said I'll love her till I die
And when we vuried hin veneath the willow
The angels sang a whiskey lullavy."

It's a great song, but it loses a little something in the translation, don't you think? After that, I didn't really have the heart for the lovely "la-la-la" part of it.

So, my question to you is a) do you think I'm totally nuts, or b) do you have these problems, too? If you chose "b" -- and I hope at least a couple of you did -- please 'fess up and tell me whether or not you've discovered any better stealth maneuvers.

"Heeeeeere I come to save the daaaaaay..."

Half an hour before dark yesterday, I sat down to see what was on TV. Kadi lay nearby, but Butch had elected to climb onto the futon in the den rather than join us in the living room.

Just as I got comfortable, Butch began to make "grrruffff" noises, quiet little sounds that are half growl, half warning bark. After he'd done it three or four times, I could hear his feet scrambling to get off the futon, and I knew I was in trouble.

We had come back in the house less than ten minutes earlier. I knew he didn't need to go outside again. Whatever was bugging him didn't seem to be bothering Kadi, so I felt fairly sure there was no danger lurking at the back door. Nevertheless, here he came, dancing around me like a prizefighter before the first round, his ears perked up Rin Tin Tin style. "Butch," I said sharply, "go lay down." Huh-uh. Not gonna do it.

Instead he began barking louder, a desperate, high-pitched, pleading sound that fell somewhere between a whine and a bark, letting me know that his business was urgent, that life as we knew it would cease to exist if I didn't let him outside immediately. It was Butch's impersonation of Lassie's "come-quick-Timmy's-in-the-well" speech. I decided it was easier to let him out again than to try to reason with him.

When my feet hit the floor, he whirled around and ran full-speed through the house, barely missing end tables and dining room chairs, and hurtled through the back door the instant it was opened. I swear the size of his chest expanded with each step as he ran toward the back fence, barking fiercely all the way.

Fearful that he'd smack headlong into the fence, I called repeatedly for him to slow down. He didn't drop speed, but he did manage to pull himself to an abrupt stop just a few feet short of a crash. By then I could hear the distant HONK-pause-HONK-pause-HONK of a neighbor's car alarm. Evidently, that was the sound that had provoked Butch's distress. He faced the general direction of the honking sound, threw his head so far back it lifted his front feet off the ground, and gave four mighty barks in succession. Then he listened for about five seconds and did it again.

The barking continued -- four barks, listen, four more barks -- until somebody, somewhere, turned off the car alarm. As soon as the honking stopped, Butch cocked his head at various angles to listen carefully, then turned back toward the house. He seemed pleased with himself. He held his head high, did a perky little trot-step all the way back to the door, stepped inside, made his way straight to the living room and lay down to rest.

So what if he can't see? The man of the house has to step up and take charge when a situation needs correcting. Good job, Mighty Dog!