The Dance of Joy

12-22-2016 The Dance of Joy

I had a ring side seat, so to speak, to an amazing dance performance the other night.  In fact, no one else was invited:  just me.  I stood there in my back yard and watched my Momma Dog Madeline Grace teach her oldest son, the firstborn of the litter, how to enjoy snow. 

I named him Valor at his birth because he was the first born – and to be the first at anything requires bravery (valor).  He is a strong, stocky little pup and particularly is fond of my footwear at this point.  His little puppy teeth are sharp and his cocker spaniel jaws are powerful.  But his “attack” at my feet is all done in the spirit of love and play.  I believe the French call it “joie de vivre.”  He’s got so much of it, his picture is probably next to the definition of it in the French dictionary.

The challenge with having a winter litter of puppies is they are born in the warmth of a house but by the time you need them to be going out doors to use the bathroom, it is bitter cold in the Northeast.  My backyard has winds that blow off the pastures that make it so cold!  Even during the summer I cannot sustain the average backyard gazebo because of these Nuisance Winds. 

Last Saturday I took two puppies out – my sturdy boys – and put little homemade crochet capes on them (Martha Stewart, eat your heart out) to help them be insulated a bit.  Oreo Cookie took to the snow with the curiosity of a puppy learning to smell new things.  Valor, on the other hand, hunkered down and cried.  He looked like a little guinea pig.  I scooped him up and thought, “we’ll try again another time.” 

A day later, he did better.  I think.  I think it means you are doing better when I put him out and he circled and dropped a big-boy sized poo on the frozen ground.  Perhaps our outside time graduated to two and a half minutes.

But then a couple of days later the temperature moved upwards to 32 and the winds were not as bitter.  Valor was standing at the door when I let Madeline out, and he just followed her.  For this, I thank Heavens.  That is how it is supposed to work.  He walked over to a small cache of autumn leaves and proceeded to paw and crunch at them a little bit.  I lifted him up and around to the frozen lawn.  And then the dance began.

Madeline approached him nose to nose with a nudge.  Then she backed up a foot.  He moved forward at her.  She nosed him again and moved back more quickly.  I could hear tango music that wasn’t there.  He charged at her.  She nosed once more and swirled a bit to the side, he took the bait and pushed forward.  Then, in an act that completely defied gravity, she being six times his weight ran in a circle around him and somehow flipped up in the air OVER HIM and swirled back down with great joy.  Who does this?  WHO gets to see stuff like this?  You couldn’t command it as a performance and yet here I was watching the fantastic interchange of instinct – and, I believe, canine love – give the little dog his first lesson in outdoor activities.

Then, as if the music stopped, he realized he was eight feet away from the door and his feet told his little brain:  “oh, we are so cold, very cold.”  And he whimpered.  That is my cue to enter the dance.  I scooped him up into my fleece jacket and into my face and into my embrace … and we went inside.  The curtain came down.  The performance had finished.  We re-entered the room of his squealing siblings.  And I think I got something in my eye.

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12.22.2016cma.

Redefining Creepy

12-13-2016 Redefining Creepy

The hypocrisy of the media never ceases to fascinate me.  In early October (2016) the national news outlets began running a small cache of stories related to “creepy clowns.”  They were practically ready to call out the National Guard to defend us against these villains.  They were “sighted” here and “sighted there.”  I don’t think they robbed any banks.  They just appeared (costumed young adults, no doubt) on the sides of roads and disappeared as quickly as they came.  That, in a nutshell, defines the craze:  hasty disappearance.  Three college-aged kids in Buffalo, New York, went online and apologized for making people nervous. 

Three weeks later (Halloween time), the local newspaper ran a front page story on a woman in suburbia who decorated her lawn for Halloween.  It had the usual scary fare:  caskets, cobwebs, and Count Dracula…. Or whomever.  Oh, and by the way, she included some “creepy clowns.”  She was treated as if she was a down-home artist making her much-awaited debut.  No National Guard was invited; just a veiled encouragement for people to drive by and see her creative efforts.  See what I mean about “media hypocrisy”?  If it sells their newspaper or gets hits to their website, it’s all kosher.

They say that “Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder.”  Can we say, by extension, that so is hideousness?  Five years ago I wrote some veiled sarcasm under the moniker of “ATFC:  Ask the Fat Chick.”  I basically took headlines from NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, and any other source of fodder for my literary flaming arrows.  I want to share one of those with you today as it links in nicely with our Creepy clown phenomenon: 

Dear Devoted fans of online sarcasm, wit, and commentary on life:

Interesting article in NY times about auctioning of the famous (and arguably ugly and basic) painting called, “The Scream.”

In the midst of the article they compare it to the other most recognizable creepy/ugly painting that people seem inexplicably enchanted with: Mona Lisa.  I ask you, would you let this woman babysit your kids if she lived next door?  I think not.  Is it really a woman, or a man with bad bohemian hair posing for a picture that he figures may disturb his mother and all his relatives.  And the movie about it with Julia Roberts was wasteful as well.

Regarding The Scream’s auction, ATFC wants to recommend they redistribute this incredible amount of money to the Social Security Department OR the US Deficit fund instead of adorning their Rodeo Drive mansions with grotesque (and I use this term professionally) paintings by dead guys.  Really, aren’t Monet and RC Gorman the only ones who had a good handle on how lovely life should be:  abstract beauty of lilies and flowers OR well-fed women shaped like South Western gourds contemplating the simplicity of life.  Or even GE Mullen’s clever rendering of religious art in a way that is modern, yet not smacking of any cheapening by the process.

But maybe I’m not really an art critic.  If you disagree, then file my thoughts in the file “for entertainment purposes only”

Ask the Fat Chick

Excerpts from NY Times:

“It took 12 nail-biting minutes and five eager bidders for Edvard Munch’s famed 1895 pastel of “The Scream” to sell for $119.9 million, becoming the world’s most expensive work of art ever to sell at auction.

Bidders could be heard speaking Chinese and English (and, some said, Norwegian), but the mystery winner bid over the phone, through Charles Moffett, Sotheby’s executive vice president and vice chairman of its worldwide Impressionist, modern and contemporary art department. Gasps could be heard as the bidding climbed higher and higher, until there was a pause at $99 million, prompting Tobias Meyer, the evening’s auctioneer, to smile and say, “I have all the time in the world.” When $100 million was bid, the audience began to applaud.

….

The image has been reproduced endlessly in popular culture in recent decades, becoming a universal symbol of angst and existential dread and nearly as famous as the Mona Lisa.”

(Like we need one more symbol of angst and existential dread in our world).

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Presence as the Present

 

People don’t necessarily think about doctors as philosophers.  Yet as I approached the unit desk the other day, a physician was waxing philosophical to the unit clerk-secretary about Love.  Yeah.  Really, he was.  Their starting point was the familiar holiday commentary we all make about “Christmas being too commercialized.”  Let’s face it:  we ALL say it.  Sometimes we say it right before or after we go out and buy the very presents we are protesting.  But we say it.

My mother remarked last year to me, “Well, you know it isn’t all about the presents.”  I reminded her of two things:  my birthday is Christmas Eve and I think that was God’s message to my parents that I SHOULD get presents too – and lots of them.  And also, the baby Jesus was visited by Three Wise Men bearing gifts for Him.  If they showed up empty-handed, I bet even they would have been booted out of the stable at Bethlehem.  But that’s just my take on the situation.  You know, if I was Him and all.

So, back to the doctor.  He was explaining that the most important gift we can give to someone is not something we buy or manufacture.  It is ourselves.  WE are the present.  WE are the gift.  Then he got tricky.  He asked me, the Somewhat Innocent Bystander, what the implication was for us AS the gift.  I stabbed in the dark:  “Um, that we take care of ourselves so that we can give the best gift?”  (Just to clarify:  I was not thinking of me going on a diet.  I was thinking of the Valentine’s Day card my friend and her husband sent to me one year.  On the cover was the picture of a guy holding flowers.  But he himself looked like he was a World Wrestling Federation reject.  How someone can look obnoxious  is a mystery that he achieved on that card.  It made you not want the flowers either.  As the old Arabic proverb says:  “be careful when the nose of the camel comes under the tent, pretty soon the whole camel is coming.”) 

I do think the doctor was right.  And I reserve the right to disagree with physicians in areas philosophical and theological because that is my field of expertise.  I told one of them once:  Look, I won’t take out anyone’s appendix if you agree to stop misquoting the Bible.  We chuckled.  Message delivered.

But isn’t it true that sometimes we forget the core of life is Love?  And we truly have a million and one opportunities to spread that love on a daily basis – and that doesn’t have to involve legal tender or expensive gifts.  It is the busy social worker who helps a patient just by spending extra time with her to calm her fears.  It is the friend in the lunch line that loans you a dollar when the cafeteria barons have overcharged yet again.  It is the person who picks up the pieces of your emotional system when someone has hurt you intentionally.  It is the chaplain that gives you a book to read just because he wants to be a good friend.  It is the friend who sits behind you and lets you bounce your insecurities off her to get some stable ground.  It is the sweet girl that empties your waste baskets with a smile and a cheerful hello.  All of these ways, people are showing love, giving love, giving themselves to you. 

Last night as I drove through the darkness towards the veterinarian’s office with little Bonnie, the black cocker spaniel puppy curled up in a small crate on the front seat, and as they say in baseball, “I kept up the chatter.”  She was nestled on a hot pack and traveling quite quietly.  I had the heat high in the car and my feet were starting to feel that clammy feeling in my winter boots.  But I was taking one for Team Spaniel, so I’m not complaining.  I just didn’t want her to get nervous, be nervous, or kick into the puppy crying mode.  “It’s okay, Bonnie.  We are just checking you out with the vet.  He is going to be very nice to you.  I am with you.”  No response, just two little wide eyes peeking in the dark back at me.  “Aw, honey.  Don’t worry.  Mommy is just paranoid as to why you have sniffles.  I’m here.”  Again, the quiet trust in the darkness.  (And she is perfectly healthy, per the veterinarian.)

Then it hit me.  This is what parents have done for children since the dawn of humanity.  Presence.  Soft assurance in the night.  Comfort.  “I am here with you.”  It seems to me that as long as we as humans feel we are not alone, we still retain some emotional starch in us through the most trying of times.  And the Catholic world in my head heard the familiar collecting-prayer in church:  “The Lord be with you,” says the priest to the congregation.  And they respond, “And also with you.”  These are the words of comfort in our dark night of the unknown which we call:  Life.  I’ve heard them at least 50 something times a year for the last few decades and last night in the darkness of my vehicle with my precious puppy, I finally got it:  Presence.  Divine presence.  Human presence.  Canine presence.  And that presence that each of us gives is the most tangible form of love we can offer.  “I am here with you.”

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Cma12.08.2016

My Thoughts on Fowl Play

“You have EIGHT birds?” is something I’ve heard more than once.  Well, it’s not like there are 80 of them.  Let’s be real.  And, no, they don’t fly free in the house or in the bird room.  My grandmother used to say to me, “I’m going to drive to Syracuse and open a window and let those birds out.  Maybe then you will find a husband.”  That was twenty five years ago.  Maybe she was right.  But I can tell you that I’ve never received a questionnaire from a potential date that included the question:  “Are you harboring exotic birds of any size in your apartment or home?  If so, exit questionnaire now.”

And for some reason I have tried to explain or justify to people why there are eight birds in my house.  As if I need to.  No one ever asks Holly Hobby figurine collectors why they do that.  No one asks model train enthusiasts why they spend hard earned money on things that are not even life-sized.  In fact, we call them “model” trains because the phrase “toy” trains seems to imply something we consider negative:  adults playing with wholesome things.

The other day a new friend walked into my home and almost immediately busted me verbally for having an inflatable nativity scene on my front lawn.  She called it gaudy and tacky.  Without missing a beat, I advised her that I find that scene wholesome and child-like and fun.  And then I followed with my political commentary that if everyone who gets cranked out of shape that the town, village, city, whatever doesn’t display a nativity scene would just put one in their own yard, then we wouldn’t need to have the discussion, would we?  Sheesh.

But back to the birds.  The topic is a fine example of people applying judgments based on their own preferences.  I like veal.  I like veal marsala a lot.  I like veal francaise just as well.  And if I could, I’d probably eat that once a week.  I have sat in on cafeteria lunch discussions about foods and had people react as if I was an utter barbarian for eating veal.  And I always ask them:  “what do you have against chickens?”  Think about that.  Why is it okay to eat fish, chicken, a golden arches hamburger or whatever and yet I get vilified for eating veal?  Stop anthropomorphizing animals.  It will just get you in trouble.   Again, get your eyes and hands OFF my plate, or I am not responsible for how your hand feels after I stab you with my fork.  You think I’m kidding.  Try me.

I must admit I do have a checkered past with fowl.  Most particularly, chickens and ducks shuddered at the thought of me in my childhood years.  Growing up I had access to animals that city kids would not have had:  my uncle had the family homestead of my grandparents on a few acres of land which was abutted by a murky, lagoon that we called, “The Pond.”  My mother used to call it “Murphy’s Pond,” but he already had his laws and I felt rightfully it was my pond but again that says more about me and my mentality than it does about her. 

On this pond in rural Western Massachusetts, I spent many a happy canoe ride with my uncle, siblings and cousins.  We net-captured turtles and bull frogs and snipped beautiful (albeit, stinky) water lilies for the kitchen table.  We rode the tire swing that was suspended for decades from a great oak tree.  We rode the family-shared mini bike all over hill and dale until the mothers were completely stressed out that we might be going too fast or riding too recklessly… the days before helmets and mandatory car seats.  It was idyllic.  Yet it was real.

It may not surprise those who know me personally to learn that, among the cousins, I was the one who was, shall we say, fixated upon the animals?  At lunch the other day someone, some professional adult, for some reason, asked how it was possible to catch a wild rabbit… like it was a rhetorical question answered by:  “you can’t.”  I couldn’t tip my hand, but I know how.  First, you chart the rabbit’s typical course:  if it sat in the tall grass slightly to the left of the barn and you startled it, it shot off like a rocket around the back side of the barn and zipped down into the hole at the barn’s foundation.  Well, at least that is how it works if there is no discreet blue colored bucket that had been positioned against the hole.  Have you ever seen a rabbit make a U-turn in a bucket from floor to ceiling and then ricochet outward, trying to think of its Plan B?  That’s all I can admit about that escapade.

A part of my childhood pre-occupation became a study of cause and effect in capturing wildlife.  I noted that ducks have some sort of mechanism that attracts them to pieces of stale bread.  They are truly indiscriminate when it comes to a free meal.  Also they can’t get the idea that as bread is tossed out to the pond, and the distance, say, from water to shore is incrementally decreased, eventually, they are eating at your sneaker:   which is when you reach down and grab them by their neck.  At that point, you have to move it into a football-hold-side-carry really fast before they squirt your sneakers.  This I know.  Then I ran break-neck speed with my prize honking the whole way.  I was yelling, “Uncle Johnnie, Uncle Johnnie, Uncle Johnnie I CAUGHT A DUCK!”  You’d think he would have appreciated my hunting prowess.  But, no.  In the days before ethnic sensitivity and political correctness, he yelled out, “CHRIS- THAT DUCK BELONGS TO THE PORTUGIE ACROSS THE POND!”  I hadn’t captured a wild duck?  How dumbfounding.  The duck was relieved when I returned it to the water’s edge – both she and I wiser for the escapade.  She hit that water at full throttle kind of like the cartoon characters that spin their feet in the air and make that scrambling noise.  I still get nostalgic around ducks.

And then there are chickens.  A little red hen taught me one of the most valuable principles that an adult can use in real life when dealing with disappointment.  Picture this:  A picnic table painted a strange pale greenish white.  A hen.  A pre-teenager with nothing better to do than test the aeronautical capacity of chickens.  Again, grabbing the chicken before she realized it, I jumped us up to the top of the picnic table and shot her into the air.  THUNK.  What the heck?  I tried it again and she was really, shall we say, perturbed at me?  THUNK.  Then the yelling came.  “CHRIS.  LEAVE THAT CHICKEN ALONE.”  Well, I wasn’t bothering it, per se, I was just trying to stretch its capabilities.  I mean, eagles boot their babies out of the nest at some point and they can fly, can’t they?  So, the principle is this:  there will be people in life that no matter how much we want them to “fly” in an area or ability, they just cannot do it.  Chickens are not, by the Creator’s design, able to fly.  Flutter, yes.  Fly, nope.  Their wings are too short to catch the air upon which flighted birds soar.  It is best that once we realize chickens cannot fly, that we not frustrate ourselves and the chickens by insisting we can launch them to higher things.  Just accept the limitation and appreciate what you have.  It makes for more peaceful co-existence. 

So, let’s get back to the initial question of why I have eight birds.  I think it is because I like how they sound in the morning when I am waking up.  It reminds me of what I like best about camping.  Consequently, it’s like camping in your own house with hot water shower, flush toilet, stocked refrigerator and the songs of happy birds.  There.  Are you satisfied?

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