Confluence

It is a truism that no matter what is going on in our lives, “life goes on” – and that this can sometimes mean more than one thing is going on on our lives at once.  When losses meet, it can be overwhelming.  One may affect the other, and situations we might otherwise bear with dignity amplify other emotions, causing us to lose our footing.

In the past two weeks, someone I like enormously has announced plans to leave this state.  My priest has been called to work away from my church.  Two loved ones have had health setbacks, and one had surgery today; the other will have her own some time soon.  In the early hours this morning, a widely beloved person at my work died most unexpectedly.

And so, yesterday, I participated in the farewell of a woman of G-d I love very deeply indeed, which was sad enough, but it ended in the physical laying on of hands of all the congregation who were with us, in silence and in prayers offered by several, a physical matrix of human hands and love – something I have never experienced before (it was not the sort of expression the church I grew up in would have come up with).  The name of one of those I am concerned about arose in a hymn, and I lost all control.  And today I attended the impromptu memorial of a man who meant so much to so many that the CEO broke up and could not even speak at first – and, when he did, he ended our gathering by saying, “If you are having trouble today, go home.”

He happened to say this in the moment that I knew my loved one was literally in a doctor’s hands.  This person is hub of a kind of matrix, too – the hands that link together at this moment of crisis for them are hands I have held many times.

The past month or two have been a fertile time for events of great moment.  Writing, home, family, and friends – another of whom was dealt a professional blow which has ramifications across a web of relationships of it sown – great things have been afoot … and not all these great things have been good things.  My own health, my own security and peace, have remained inviolate – I am blessed beyond thanksgiving – and what I have to offer, as those around me endure and endure and endure, seems so little.

Surrounding this personal experience are the stories of secret taping of meetings at the Federal Reserve, the stabbings and beheading at a food distributor by a terminated employee, days of massive disruption of air travel because of a fire set by a suicidal employee in Chicago … war … bad economy …

I look at the strain even on those who DO have work right now, and am ever more grateful for my own.  That I work at a place which observes our humanity so overtly, so much as a community.  It’s not the first time I’ve been struck at how strongly the executives here respond to the distress of our people, and this makes me so grateful and so proud.

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Today would have been our twentieth anniversary.  When I emailed him to send many happy returns, Beloved Ex wished me "a day that sparkles and pleases" ...

He's a dork, my ex, but an unmitigated peach.  He once called me "a wonderful bag of things."



We're not divorced because he's unlovable.  I'm grateful for him.

Pets

I was just saying to my brother, Penelope looks less puppy-ish since her head isn't quite so bubble-round.
She still photographs puppy-ish, obviously.

I get this a lot.
Aww.

This is not about to be an affectionate moment ...

Gossamer has the most vivid little snot-green eyes.
My handsome little kit-kit.

Napping with his tongue sticking out.

As snuggly as they get.

Neddie

A my pets will do, Penelope has begun her collection of nicknames.  Some of the nicknames I give are just for fun.  Some are a softer thing, truly pet names, the product of the warmth of affection.

For fun, like most pathetic middle-aged women, I do baby-talk the kids.  Gossamer has a funny pronunciation, sometimes, I would have no idea how to translate into text.  Penny sometimes gets called PeNE-dopey.  Something like "pisghetti", I suppose.

But the soft nickname is Neddie, from the Ned in PeNE-dopey.


House training continues to dismay me; I have what I think is a healthy fear/dismay that I might not be the best mom she could have had.  Four days a week, I'm gone for eleven hours (and even longer), and she gets separation anxiety.  Two days this week, she eliminated in her crate, and yesterday when I came home she was simply nasty.  Had rolled in her own pee, and was sticky and stinky and utterly foul.

It's dispiriting (I imagine for us both).

But I have to remember - she has a will to please and to obey.  Her confidence is growing.  I can SEE her progress in manners (she's jumping less; and she seems not to jump on men - she isn't kissing in the face much, and I can put my face next to and in front of her head, and she doesn't go completely nuts (this does have to be timed correctly!).  She does "go" outside, and when she makes a mistake with #1 (#2 is proving a very tricky one to learn at all), it's my mistake often.  When she comes in from being a good girl, she behaves with almost comical politeness.

She's really something amazing.  My sweet - she's had a good bath, you see (and was good for that, too) - little Neddie girl.

Sid-heart-ah

The Lolly has been having a hard time lately.  It was either Sunday or Monday of the holiday weekend, a week and a half ago, she went to plop down on the carpet in the living room, and stopped in mid-motion because she appeared to be unable to move.  She looked confused and distressed - but not like she was in pain.  She looked like she could not move her legs.

I took her to the vet Friday, after an almost instantaneous recovery, and she was perky and fine the day we went.  New vet flirted with her and kept saying how healthy she was - "you're not REALLY fourteen?!" - and gave her a once over.  We did not do x-rays (pet health insurance are coming at my office; I told her I'd like to put that in force, then we would come back for more maybe), we left with a mild painkiller "just in case", some advice as to supplements which might be a good idea, and one perky dog enjoying a ride home.

Two days ago, I was working from home.  It was the day of the stupefying family news, and there's an extent to which I want to tell myself that I am going fretful-spinster-mad over my dog, in reaction to great sadness and worry.  But I have known my dog almost all of ten years now.  I know her expressions of pain, and I know her expressions of confusion.  I have some familiarity with her thresholds and tolerances.  I'm also deeply grateful for her big beating heard and beautiful sad eyes.  And I know.

Something is wrong with my girl.

Tuesday, I watched her have an apparent seizure.  She got up a little rickety, normalized, and seemed fine - if, perhaps only to my mind, the slightest bit "ginger" afterward.

Tuesday, she had a gallumphing accident while hurtling up the stairs (Siddy is like me; she doesn't really know how to do certain things slowly, deliberately, delicately.)  She stood stock still for a full minute - I ran to make sure she was okay, and just to be next to her if she decided to keep going up - and admitted defeat, turned slowly around, and went back downstairs.

She's been in pain ever since.  Yesterday morning, getting out of her bed was slow - even for her - and clearly very difficult for her.  Going for our morning walk, she was so slow and so clearly hurting, we did not even get past our own yard.  I turned her around gently, she toddled oh so carefully along behind me, and when we got to the stoop it almost defeated her.  She took those few little steps up to the house ... slowly, deliberately, delicately.  It was just heartbreaking.

I gave her the painkiller prescribed on Friday, and left her, enormously tempted to simply pull out my laptop (I'd worked from home the day before ... could have done it again ...) and not leave her.

I left her.

That has itself been getting HARDER over the past couple of months.  Siddy has always been a "Bye mom!" kind of dog - loving, and attentive, but always willing to have her alone time.  She used to always come in from the walk, take a drink perhaps, and gallumph up the stairs before I'd even said goodbye to her.  For years, "bye-bye Lolly" has been called to her from the kitchen as I go.

Not the case anymore.  She is slow to come up to the house at the end of our short morning walks, and now it makes me wonder if she's been sore and I didn't even know it.  Or just reluctant, even herself not knowing quite why.

Goodbye, for the past month or two, has been a matter of Sad Eyes in the kitchen, standing silently and watching me go.  She's my Best Monkey Ever, and I hate to leave her.  Leaving has been getting so much harder lately.

Another recent change is one so subtle only I could ever perceive it.  She's become physically sensitive in a way new and unfamiliar for such a boisterous thing - she flinches whenever I touch her on her back, and I don't touch her roughly.  I started noticing some weeks ago that when I went to hook her harness, she would jump just ever so slightly.

I've always maintained the habit, when I pet her, of showing her my hands first.  There are minor signs she was somewhat abused in the years before I adopted her, so I've always given her a visual cue when I am going to touch her, even just to pet her.  The harness, though, requires no more cue than that she approaches and sticks her nose through the opening, so she's never needed that.  Now ... I'm making sure to touch her head, pet her slowly and gently along her neck, and meet my right hand to my left in a smooth motion so she can feel me all the way and my left hand doesn't just come into contact to her surprise.

It may sound like rather a palaver, but physically of course it's just one of those tiny adjustments we sometimes make in the way we do ordinary things.  I pet her neck whenever I put the harness on anyway, and usually give her a tickle once it's fastened, so it's just a meeting of two gestures.

But all these small things.  One small sensitivity.  One small injury.  One small seizure-looking case of the shakes.  One small hesitation in the mornings, on our walks.

Two big, glossy, limpid, beautiful, sad eyeballs - staring up at me.


I am worried 'bout my girl, the Stinky Tuscadero, the Cutest of Borg, the Sidney Von Bidney Biddle Barrows, the Best Monkey Ever, my Sweet Siddy-La.  She is such a good, warm, dear thing.  She has been so HEALTHY.  Such a blessing.


Today, I carried her downstairs.  The way she got up - so stiff - I could not bring myself to even think about expecting her to walk those stairs.

Our walk was short again, and when we got home, she stopped at the stoop.  I carried her up that short little set of steps - and again, over the step at the threshold.

I tried to hold her so gently - she's not as heavy as she once was, so it was not bad - but she is so unfamiliar with being carried.  She's not a little dog.  It had to be disconcerting, even apart from her bodily pain.  But she didn't protest one bit.  Whether she understood I was trying to take care of her or not - Siddy never has fought me, really.  She hates pills, but lets me administer them.  She behaves for the vet every time.  She is docile when it comes to handling, brave and good when it comes even to unpleasant physical transactions.  She's a moderate kid, given to enjoying herself, but not hyper nor unmanageable.

She's a good old heart, and I've lived my life for a long time now in hopes I could be worthy of my dog.

I want to keep living like this - but I want her healthy, happy, *well*.

Fingers crossed I'm projecting on her - being an overly fretful spinster doggy-mommy, in reaction to other worries.  Not so sure that's a hope to bet on.  But hoping - and even praying, yes - anyway.

Passion, or Love?

Writers talk about passion all the time, and there are quite a lot who talk about love, in discussing the creation of their characters.  Working on Clovis' emotional urgency, I've been thinking about this a good deal lately.

Being a middle-aged suburban hausfrau ... Clovis has never been an avatar for me.  He's not in any way my "ideal", someone I wish I could be, nor wish I could know or be with personally.  Characters are so often an expression of desire on the part of an author (or writer or 'Nartist) they often become meaningful in a very real emotional way for their creators.

For me, the emotional power of my characters is ... very different.  Perhaps, rather than passion, what I get from the inspiration of my story or my characters, or even the setting in which they live, is ignition.  Something indeed burns - but it's not my heart, not even my sighing admiration for these people or what they do.  To this day (and I have lived with Clovis now something like seven or eight years in the making), I could not say definitively that I quite "admire" the king.

I have enormous respect for the character as he seems to me, and a deep liking born both within his story and from what I brought to telling it myself.  I am fascinated by the dynamic of his choices, his legacy, his unquestionable charisma, ambition, power, and accomplishment.  Clovis is both intimately familiar to me and still almost alarmingly alien.  There is an extent to which gaining too much affinity for the man he was (the character he is) doesn't appeal to me, as it would sink me so far into the work I'd never be able to deal with it honestly.

Finally, though "admiration" is a bit of a precious offering to put before someone as pungent and (dare I say this) frank as the old Frank.  It seems a bit twee - like leaving a frilly Valentine card for Attila the Hun.

Certainly, I don't fear my own creation.  He lit a fire in me, and I do confess a hope almost as potent as prayer I brought forth a little more than a glowing ember.  Along with the respect, the liking, comes immense gratitude as well - to have known this story, this monarch, this husband, this founder - and to have had the privilege of relaying his story.  If there is kinship at all, as an author, with the character, that is the link through which we are bound.  That I was the conduit here, that - if a subject chooses its teller, not the author in control - I should have been chosen for this story.  This fresh tale, so new for my audience - and yet so fundamentally riveting.


***


I sit here tonight, an afghan poorly bunched up behind my back, not supporting it nearly enough - and in more pain, I believe, than I've been in throughout the past month and a half - and there it is.

Ignition.  The passion of a girl who won't do pink love notes.  The inspiration of a woman who can take on a man like Clovis.

What Was With the Redheads?

Tonight on my way home from work, my back caved-in in the poorly lumbar-supported rental car seat (note to self:  tomorrow, bring some sort of a pad), I was listening for the first time to "Mothership", a Led Zeppelin double-disc I bought recently.  Zep is one of those bands I overdosed on in high school, which - apart from my ex husband's unforgettable performances of "Whole Lotta Love" (that sweet-faced blue-eyed boy would have SHOCKED my mother ...) - I pretty much never listened to again.  Over the past ten years, hearing a scrap of Zeppelin here or there might refresh for me the idea they were an amazing band, but I am slow to respond to my own musical interests, and still luddite enough I like the artifact of recorded media packaged lovingly (heh) by a record company, so it was just this past month I finally Amazon'd my way back to these guys (also on that order - Highway to Hell, and Appetite for Destruction - apparently, I was in a bit of a mood).

Anyway, so No Quarter is echoing and grinding its slow way out of the speakers, the vocals distorted almost as if by being skipped over wavelets on wide, easygoing water, and all I can think to myself is ...  "This is some trippy-assed sh*t."

It often escapes my memory, what a hippie I thought I wanted to be - at least half of me - at least at times.  But for years.  Even in college, chasing around hints of The Shifters or boys who dug the Dead for a minute, I harbored amateur boho fantasies.  But in high school, I probably came much closer.

We had these friends, TEO and I.  The one who had his own apartment in his mom and dad's house ... wait a minute.  Really - all of them did.  The one who made his own party light, hooked to his stereo, and introduced my utterly baffled fifteen-year-old self to the original Hitchhiker's tapes.  The one who played Stairway in his "dungeon" (we didn't think it whatsoever ironic his permanently-nocturnal netherworld was located at the *top* of his family's house).  The one from Cleveland, who still is perhaps the finest Southern Gentleman I've ever met.

All these guys - redheads, too.  Must've been luck - but we had quite the trifecta of sorta nerdy, sorta brilliantly creative, off-the-beaten-path friends  Party Light Douglas Adams was my best friend.  Stairway guy, though, and his Dungeon, were in a way central for all of us.  I was in awe that he could play guitar and sound like the record.  Lord, the things that awe us when we are so innocent.  (If I have no love for the girl I was at 25 ... the bursting affection I feel for fifteen-year-old me is a strange ghost of what I feel for my actual niece; I am almost *protective* of this remembered, wide-eyed, open self I once was.)

There was always a hormonal undercurrent - we were kids - but the fact was, the ways we were learning to be friends in those years was incredibly chaste.  Lying around for hours alone or in little, intimate groups, there was always flirting and excitement - but most of us really didn't act on those things back then.  We would "go to the beach" - just literally half-trip our way through the music we'd listen to, who even needed to actually do drugs.

To be sure, some of our friends were pot heads and we knew it.  We took the amusingly maternal protective attitude toward it only a very young, innocent teenage girl can, and tried to save them, or tried to just get a sort of innocent high off of being friends with real hippies.  Most of the time, these guys didn't actually do anything illicit around us.  They were sweet boys, with habits we didn't entirely share, who took in response to our own attitudes, a somewhat indulgent and incredibly gentle rebellious attitude in response.  Stairway played his guitar.  Party Light played his prodigious album collection.  Southern Gentleman drew, often on his jeans - or ours.  We'd philosophize (and relentlessly crush on Stairway's younger brother).

TEO and I would eye each other from time to time.  "We are Dungeon Women" - it was simultaneously something incredibly innocent, looking at it from thirty years onward - and, at the time, forbidden enough it was deliciously sweet.  Yeah, we weren't doing anything wrong.  But we weren't doing anything wrong in these boys' *apartments* - all alone - and we called one The Dungeon, and we knew what these kids got up to without us.

We also knew they were good guys.  The appeal wasn't Bad Boys.  The appeal was being guardian angels, perhaps saving graces, for wayward ones.  Our own parents, not entirely ignorant that we knew people who smoked pot and other such habits as would have been our own sentences of Dreadful Consequences, never quite went so far as to protect us from them.

Well, after a couple of years, I was told Party Light was no longer an acceptable companion.  But, if I am honest, I'm not sure that was connected to any specific wrongdoing on his part.  Parents are parents, time goes on, and friendships do end.  Even when you are that young.


***


Tonight, listening to the siren song of druggie music - and loving it in the most amusingly wholesome, affectionate way - I remembered how much all this had meant to me, once upon a time.  How pleasurable my high school years were, because of those friends, the right ones, the ones who ("I'm sorry, I don't understand; it's a depressed ... robot ...  ...  Um, what??") introduced me to the right things, the ones who lapsed us into altered states just with music, the ones we used to love, and gave speeches to about being good, and who sometimes didn't need their little brothers around to have us half-dazed in love just because at fifteen being in love is what you do just being out in the world.

Or, as it may be - away from the world.  Completely.  Ensconced in a Dungeon - happily.

Thanks, Given

Dad did the pecan pies.  He did mincemeat.  He made the hard sauce - his big, softly fuzzy, strong hand could whip like nobody else I've ever seen, actually.  He could whip stiff cookie dough; I never have been able (or willing) to do that.  He liked his desserts, and he LOVED the way everyone else loved them.  It won't be long before I'm thinking of dad's fudge, dad's bourbon balls.  The year he and I made mint sticks like his mother used to make, and came up with a substitute that was great, for her icing, the recipe for which we didn't find that year.  That time he and I walked up to grandma's apartment in the snow - mom and Bro being away somehow, for some reason.  Walking in the snow with dad, to grandma's little place over the hill and (I kid you not) at least BY some woods.  Where she had sweet rolls baking.  How can life ever be better - than hot sweet rolls in the snow, stolen with your dad?

At the holidays, he did dessert.  Mom always took birthday cakes (and I never even understood the idea of choosing my OWN cake - it was white cake dyed pink, iced with pink seven-minute frosting, and topped with little heart red-hots spelling out my name, or my age, or a heart) baked in heart shaped PANS I now have in my own kitchen - or no cake at all for me, young lady.  Fortunately for me:  cake was cake.  That I missed out on choosing my own mattered little, when mom made it all so "me" with the Valentine-y theme.  (No, my birthday is not on Valentine's day.  No, it will not be disclosed; for the reason that my father died on it, it's a sacred and highly secured date for me; un-share-able.)

I can HEAR dad's spoon in one of those teacups now also in my own kitchen.  Bingbingbingbingbingbingbing.  Hard sauce.  The idea was insane to me as a kid - liquor and sugar, maybe a tiny bit of butter - all creamed up and poured on mincemeat pie.  I didn't even like pecan, then.  Gimme the pumpkin, and only the pumpkin.  (Mom usually made the pumpkin.  And we never can have a slice without "that time Aunt V. made it without the sugar.")

I can hear his voice, too.  A voice Mr. X never did hear.  And it breaks my heart - still - that there are those in this world who never met my dad.  Never, ever will.

Making bourbon balls with him at *my* house.  Having Thanksgiving with him and mom, the year before that, at my bright, high, wide, beautiful de-lux apartment in the sky.

Being up with him on Christmas morning, wondering where the heck the grandchild was.  We had to WAKE her.  Weird little kid; what kid isn't up at the crack of oh-dark-thirty on Christmas morning?  The joy of all of us, sitting on the floor - the camera my brother and siser-in-law gave me (I'm still cowed) - the toys for wee-un - the BOOKS for dad.  Noise, and biscuits, and fudge, and OJ and sparkling cider and US.  All of us.  Stollen in the kitchen, Christmas music on the radio when mom started cooking in real earnest.  The sound of his snoring, maybe.  But never for very long.  My sister-in-law exclaiming something funny, from the kitchen.  My niece, walking on my back.  Her leash, everpresent.  She was a dog that year.  Drove dad a little bonkers.  Oh, but holding her on his lap.  I never saw anything warmer.  Even the fire; we always had a fire.

To the day he died, my dad still clasped my own fist inside his palm like it was a tiny little thing.  I'm no elf, but dad's warmth was the biggest thing in the world.  Beautiful.

Pecan pie.  It was  SO sweet.  A sliver of that, a sliver of mincemeat.  But give me as much pumpkin as I can get away with.  And seconds on that, too.

The big bag with wrappings, off to one side.  S-i-l separated the ribbons.  Recycle the rest, or burn it.  I can't remember Siddy being there.  Must have left her at home, out of the chaos.  Or maybe - just dad, my niece, my family were so much more important.

Thanksgiving the year after dad died - it was just me, mom, and X.  I have a photograph - or did have, once - of each of them napping on a couch in the family room.  An afghan apiece.  It was such a quiet year.  Mom decorated for Christmas with so much blue.  She'd never used blue - but needed a change.  Those ornaments - that year - still carry more in their color than their color.  They're talismanic.  Blue.

Christmas after mom remarried.  Still joyous.  Never the same.  But Sid does come.  Last year she fell in love with the concept of, and the object of, her new, soft doggy blanket.  LOVES being under a blanket.  I should get two more of them; keep them in rotation, like the rest of her bedding.  Old monkey.  Dad loved her.  She was and is such a good sitting-at-your feet dog.  She was perfect for him; he could read, and she was there.

She half killed him, of course; fur and dander.  Lung disease.  But he liked her anyway.  He made me promise never to let her get all fat.

Nine years later, she's still as beautiful, and blessedly healthy.  Good old girl.


***


It was in November we ensconced his ashes.  Back then - November was cold.  Mom and my brother and me.  Again.  Alone there.


***


I still really don't go for the pecan pie.  Nor the mincemeat.  And nobody makes hard sauce anymore.  No bingbingbingbing.  There is no dad.  Hard sauce was a Dad thing.  I don't think anyone even whips the cream at home anymore.  But it's okay.  It's always family.

I miss him rotten.  He was much to be grateful for, and he was MY daddy.  Great Christ, how blessed, to be his child.  I hope I recognize even half how fortunate I have been.  And am grateful even half enough for that.

Alone

I was thinking the other day about physical touch, and how people who aren't alone - I don't mean single people; but people who live without anyone else, period - probably have no idea what they have. Family, even friends - lovers, dorms, roommates, spouses. Humans who live with humans touch every single day. Hugs, little gestures of the hands. I watch the physical affection of my nieces and their mom, my brother ... I watch the hugs of my mom and my stepfather. I think to myself, do they have any idea what it is they have? Can they even begin to understand its treasure?

I am scarcely ever touched by a person. The people I see most are my coworkers. The dog is dear, but I don't hug my friends at work. I don't hug my neighbors. I do not see my friends to speak of. I don't even see many acquaintances, with the infrequency to which my going out has fallen.

I was looking forward to going out this weekend. To talking with people, to hugging some of them, to dancing among them, to the press of darkness and people and noise. To being outside my empty home.

And now I will not only not have that, but I will be physically constrained in a second way. Unable even to control my body in my sacred space. I don't see from here how I'll be able to comfortably go to church. I'm trapped, untouched, alone. And the simplest thing is the most powerful trial.



This isn't said in sadness nor reproach, to anyone I love who reads this. I have chosen my position.

Frankly, it has its advantages.

But I miss the simple way X used to pump the gas on a rainy day, just because. I miss my father's hard-squeezing hugs. His big, warm hands. I miss the glomming, heavy, abandoned grabs of my nieces. I miss the breath of another human being.


Still. Earlier, I was listening to the sound of my dog snoring. A more peaceful sound, in this world, I can't submit to you.

Earlier, I was sitting on my Queen's Chair, the brief patch of sunshine all around, in this beautiful house.

It may not have a population beyond me and the Siddy, but this home is such a comfortable blessing.


***


D*mned thing still has those awful stairs in the middle of it, though. Gaaaaahh.

Small Consolation

Well, re-reading that post from the last trip, it looks like I had TWO connections on the way home on that trip. Ew. This time, just one each way. And I did get aisle seats at least. Though well enough back in the row count, unfortunately.



I will not be able to stop myself looking and finding out there were direct flights, tomorrow. And I will not be able to stop KICKING MYSELF for what a moron I am, plunging in with my very hard earned money. Ack!

But: the thing is, I'm going to see Wow and Squee this summer.

That is a bunch of a lot to be excited about!

I Don't See London, But Guess What I Do See?

More readers from France than even stateside, by a margin of over 200%.

I love seeing the French landing here, even if they are bots, because I have gained THAT much of an affinity for the place, writing about their first king.

If my fifteen-year-old self only knew. In our house, "French" was a dirty word, and not because of the kiss, and NOT because of my folks. My brother and I were the anti-francophiles; surrounded by pink and green preppy girls (a large number of them named for that color green) who thought the adjective determined the Nth degree of romantic, and who thought the nation itself proceeded from the eighteenth century cartoon-like, fully formed in quisine and cigarette-hazed languid accents, defining a refinement they could scarcely even have named as such, having learned the admiration more by funnel action of the crowd than through any individual experience (... or interest). So we hated what they loved. To fully entrench the rule, it had its exception - the French marines; perhaps itself a conceit chosen less from depth of education than some known factoid or other and b*tchin' footwear or something.

If I had known then my first novel would CENTER on this center of my adoptive reverse-snobbery, I would certainly have been pretty torn. Torn asunder at the idea I really would write a book someday ... but about something I was so faux-passionately against.

It would have been worse than the knowledge that my future self would come to own a cat. (And then three.)


***


Yet, in its way, my lacking the years-deep background in adoration - er, or even deep respect, ahem - in fact served me to be a clean slate in coming to my subject. In this reverse-decision, if in nothing else, it's impossible to deny that subjects choose authors, not the other way around.

In the early days of my writing, I actually feinted a tiny bit from looking too French-loving. I would joke, "if you go back far enough, the French are German" - which isn't strictly speaking true, but which research did make at least a defensible statement to make (if not a purely nice one, born as it was out of franc-ambivalent defensiveness and denial).

But the deeper I got into my own reading (I have no honest gauge for any extent to which my WRITING has effect here), the deeper my subject's homeland and heritage got into me. The homeland he *created*. The heritage of nation which was his patrimony, and the heritage of name which lives now around the world, and has been on the throne of his country more than twenty times. And which caused me to write my book.

My people come from Europe in its many stripes, mostly the UK and Germany, but my family's name, at least so the story goes, was born in the Channel Islands, of a Norman and his love. Norman territory is so close to the seat in which my King made his start, I as a dork and a woman and a writer hear some kind of *thrum* in the juxtaposition. I don't need to count myself part of Clovis' line (it is enough joy to know one of my best friends can clearly do so), but I like the idea nonetheless - that, even if not in blood, some part of me extracts from that place that spawned my first book.

The king's name helped make what I am. I count my work a service, hoping I can claim some ghost of the same in return.


***

So hello, France. I love to see you visit.

RIP

Peace be with my friends, who are my family.

Seetheration

How I love my brother's writing.

How I *hate* to read his blog, and die of envy at what a writer he is.

Santa's Little Helper

Dad was, for years, in his baggie in a beautiful box upstairs, quiet, but generally far from me physically. When I found him his box, I kept him in the guest room for a while, afraid of knocking the lid off, and frankly not knowing where to put him. More recently, I put him in a niche in my bedroom; a quiet and fragrant spot where he would be unlikely to be disturbed.

Today I brought him down to help me decorate the tree.

I want him down here; where it is warm, where life really lives. Not to be displayed, not to be a trophy. Somewhere safe.

The bookshelves would be appropriate, but are not yet ideal to my mind. There is a drawer he could stay in, unseen, central, safe. Something like that. Ever present. As he is.

For now, he's helping deck the halls. Soon I'll know where he should stay for a while.

Just So, SO Wonderfully, Hilariously Weird, My Dog

Right now, The Lolly is in the living room ADORING her new treat - the ice cube I just dropped. She is going at it like I have handed her a turkey neck, I mean seriously. Mad for the ice - and she just came in from the COLD, which she HATES.

So weird. G-d, I love her.

She also has an absolute manic yen for vegetable oil.

In winter, when she gets dry skin, I sometimes give her a tiny bit of oil with her kibble. She goes perfectly mad with joy over canola. It is so unbelievably funny. Vegetable oil. Who knew ... ? Heh.

Who DID This to You, Siddy?

I've told the tale (among longwinded other things) of Sid's having spent well over thirty hours alone, through Hurricane Gaston, and never eliminating in the house. I have seethed in ungrateful horror at what manner of "training" must have taken place, to yield such a pitiful, painful result.

And by G-d, I love my good, good dog.



This morning, she headed downstairs ahead of me. This isn't typical, but it's nothing I worry about much. When I came down, though, I saw her water bowl was emp-oh-tee. She must've been thirsty - and I realized, even just a tiny bit of ham fat is more, to a dog. And I realized - oh, man. SALT. Aiee.

I filled her bowl again, and added even more when she drank about 2/3 of what I'd poured without even glancing at breakfast. She drank a little more.

Full on water, she never did look twice at her kibble.

And I am no fool. I had an idea what this would mean.



To her credit, wee girl *did* wee a *lot* along our walk. But I fully expected what I did find, when I came home. Well, the artifact.

I didn't expect the terrified dog.

Siddy peed on the tiny, cheap rug in my front hall, which was frankly nothing more than I expected, and hardly less than what I had earned with the sequence of salt and water. I wasn't upset with her.

Oh my heart, but she was in trembling fear.


***


Eight YEARS I have had her now. Eight years over a month ago.

But whatever the discipline she was given, so severe it held her to the point of obvious distress, and I am certain, actual pain, through that hurricane, had her SHAKING in fear. At me.

I told her it was okay, I put her harness on, I took her outside. I took the rug out, too, and rinsed it. When she saw me carrying it, she clearly understood her "crime" was clear to me too. I took it over to the hose, rinsed it off a little. I brought it back, and slung it over the rail on the back stoop.

And I sat with my poor girl, caressing her velvet ears, as she shook and shook and clearly vascillated in fear. I told her it was okay. I told her it was okay over and over and over again, and I scritched her and patted her and put my hand on her back with the same gentleness I hope she knows eight-years-well-and-deep from me by now. I bonked her head with my own. I hung out, unconcerned, watched the sky, watched her. Told her again and again it was okay.







I'll say it again.

What assholes.



And what a great dog - BEST dog - my old Siddy-La is.

I am so lucky to have her.

I sure hope she is lucky in me.

Relative to my predecessors, clearly at least she's SAFER.

But I won't relax until she's really fortunate.

Po' lil t'ing.

The E Thing

The thing about loving someone who's thousands of miles away that's strangest, and so hard to convey, is that ... of all the abundantly generous and loving people in my life, X is the one who supports me most. He never judges, though he's not uncritical in seeing me (he *is* rather wonderfully biased in how he sees me, though; and I secretly love it). He knows more about me than anyone else who's ever lived, and he *loves* what he knows. He responds with more joy to my accomplishments than anyone has since my dad died. He's far away, he's contentious, he's not an easy choice to feel what I do for. But he is more "for" me than anyone who ever lived. Even if, in practical terms, "for" can't mean "together" right now.

He is the best friend I have.

That is not a statement of the slighest sadness, nor disappointment.

The Vault That Made Me Be

My father has been dead almost eight years, and in that time he has been in a box.

Ordinarily, this would be appropriate; except that we cremated his body. And it is a small portion of his cremains I am talking about. My part of dad's ashes. And the box they are in is a jewelry box.

In a baggie.

Ziploc - though I'm not sure it isn't an off brand bag. I don't think it's even got the yellow-and-blue-make-green closing seam. It definitely doesn't have one of those newfangled hard plastic zippy-closey-handle things they do now.

So off and on, over the years, I have looked in different places to find a good place to put my piece...s, of my father.

I never liked the idea of a glass bottle. He didn't want his body viewed - though a few did go to say goodbye to him. After they had removed his eyes. His bandaged face was the last some saw of dad.

The last I saw of him was his still-warm hand, his bright wedding band, in his hospital bed. The way his hand infinitessimally contracted on mine.


***


I have looked at soapstone keepsake boxes ... carved wooden ones ... many kinds. I've talked with my brother about his carving one. I've had one friend, TT, who warmed to the idea of helping me find something. T is so lovely.



Today was simply a glorious day. This is the season my father loved best - classes underway, crisp days coming to cleanse the heat and sweat of summer - the time of year, through history, so many of us who live with seasons have chosen for reflection and renewal. Mom happened to call me, and I was excited when she wanted to go to Carytown. And in Carytown is Ten Thousand Villages. Exactly the sort of place one might find a small, lovely place ... to put one's father's ashes.


***


When I was little (... and isn't that a funny phrase, out of a middle-aged woman? I realize, those words are ones you usually hear from people under the age of ten ...), my dad used to tell us the story of how mama made him marry her.

Mama worked at a bank.

She kept a dragon in the vault.


***


The box is small and clay. The dragon is wonderful. It happens, too, that of course dragons are magic, as was my father. That dragons are often joyous, and sometimes even amusing. Sometimes quite dear.

And dragons are auspicious. They are good - and *great* - symbols.

My dad will rest guarded by a dragon. Seems right.



And now I want to dig out the book my brother gave me once. "An Instinct for Dragons."

Evenings of September

Tonight is what my father called "a soft night."

I think my dad found nights like this almost unbearably romantic.



Says someone unexpected, who hasn't seen a night like this in years: they *are*.

Pup-Head

My cousin came down here with her daughter and boyfriend a few years back, and the guy bonded with my dog in between family movements. I liked that guy, but one thing he said actually became kind of oddly special to me.

He was commenting on the striking personality of Siddy, and scritching and being nice on her, and she was loving it. He looked at me and he said, "her head still smells like a puppy."

Sid was probably eight or so by then, if not more - and she is twelve now, bless her totally-ignorant-of-chronology bones. And her head still has the sweet-ish smell of a little baby dog.

I often say my dog's got good stink; and I do actually have an affection for the warm, grassy smell of her paws in summertime (well, some summertimes; this year has been too dry for her to pick up scents in her fur), the mellow musk around her neck. But her head is remarkable. Definitely sweet. She smells like a puppy to this day.

Lolly is not my first baby-scented beastie. Ex and my first cat, Gert, had chinchilla-soft fur and a pleasant fragrance. Our big old orange boy, Byshe, smelled inexplicably of baby powder all his life. He never got into my perfumes; as far as I could tell, the whiff was somehow innate to himself - little Smike didn't share it, though they were all but littermates. I don't even smell like baby powder, not like he did.

But Lol is a special case, not least because dogs are supposed to smell like dogs, for one - and because she does have a doggy smell about her ... but her cranium's pure sweet.

She's not allowed to kiss my face, but I'm often to be found up next to hers. The little patches where she used to have a mask, stretching up from her eyes to her ears. That flat, velvety spot where she's so warm, where the muscles stretched across her skull make a little square expanse on top of her head just made for scritching and resting your face quietly next to. (She has another muscular spot, between her front legs, the front of her chest, which is one of our favorite places for me to pet her - where the fur meets in four quarters to a tiny twist in the middle of her fur. This spot is the warmest, most reassuring place in the world to put your hand. And she likes it too.)

To go along with her puppy smell, Siddy has a best friend of only three or four years old; our esteemed next-dog neighbor, Scout. Scout often reminds me of my little canine niece, the middle/furry child, the one who was replicated a few years ago, blown up a little bit, and put in the house next door. Scout and the Lolly play like rambunctious three year olds together, rampaging like fuzzy little maniacs and then flatly (quite harmoniously) ignoring each other to death. They get along perfectly, and love each other to death.

Scout keeps Lolly running, and playing - more by far tha I ever could do for her - and as a result, the tiny little creaks she was developing before regular play dates have almost entirely disappeared. She had been on punitively expensive supplements she didn't like (but was so good about eating for me, bless her), but I haven't given her one in so long I can't even remember now. She'd tripped on the steps a time or two, and showed signs of not seeing well. Now she's every bit the thumping galumpher she ever was - and though she might not spy all the cats, she sees her breakfast in the morning -and Scout - and that's what counts. We're lucky in our neighbors, and overtly grateful.


***


My dog will be thirteen in six months to the very week now.

And her head still smells like a sweet little puppy dog. Seems only fitting. That's what she'll always be.