A New Heart, a Beer Can and a Broken Flip-Flop

A New Heart, a Beer Can and a Broken Flip-Flop

There is an amazing story I heard on the radio about a cardiologist who allowed a pastor to observe a surgery he was doing on a patient.  After the doctor had done all of the technical/surgical things he had been able to do, he leaned over to the patient, a woman, and whispered to her, “Okay, I’ve done all I can do – now you have to take over, tell your heart to beat again…”   And Christian songwriter Danny Gokey took that inspiring vignette and penned these lyrics:

Tell your heart to beat again
Close your eyes and breathe it in
Let the shadows fall away
Step into the light of Grace
Yesterday's a closing door
You don't live there anymore
Say goodbye to where you've been
And tell your heart to beat again

I cannot begin to tell you what these lyrics have meant to me in the last eight months.  As some of you may know, I was the victim of a group lynching at the place where I should have been the most emotionally safe:  the church where I did part-time ministry.  I was misconstrued by one group of people, who ran to the power brokers and complained, who in turn went to the pastor, who called me into a private meeting that was not in fact private.  It was five people – two of them very angry, having already jumped to conclusions that I was a bigot.  They did not use the word, they painted the picture – and it was skewed by second and third-hand interpretations.  They did not respect me as a professional educator and minister and try to understand what I was saying to them.  They just shouted at me while the pastor sat there and let them do the dirty work. 

As my brain and emotions reeled from the treatment I was getting, I tried to re-group and figure a way that I could continue doing the job I loved under the eye of people who had stopped loving me a long time ago…. The same people who stand there week after week and sing a song that has the lyrics “all are welcome in this place.”  The hypocrisy was painful. I had presented over the past seven and a half years what I know to be the philosophy and teachings of Christ, and subsequently the interpretation of that by the Roman Catholic Church.  They on the other hand refused to listen to what our party line is, thinking somehow they can endorse something else.  Well, you can’t say you are this, and in actuality be that. 

As I left that room, I could feel my heart being rent in two inside me.  It was scary and horrible at the same time.  Some dear friends supported me, and one of them went in to the room to give them a clearer picture of what they were doing to me…. in a pretty direct and loud fashion.  And she was met with, “that wasn’t what we intended.”  As anyone who has been through this sort of experience will tell you, you cannot cross back over a bridge that has been blown up.  So I resigned.  And thereupon became, in a particular sense, “churchless.”  I still believe what I believe.  I still am who I am.  I still value what I value.  And I could not do that with that group of people watching for me to cross their own lines…. So I have been a nomad on Sunday mornings looking for a church to worship in, while at the same time, not looking to put down roots or trust too quickly that I have found my spiritual home.  My spiritual home, in fact, I carry within me. It cannot be a building or a particular group of people because I have learned that this will, in the end, fail you.  As my great grandmother once said in her broken Polish accent, “peoples is peoples.”

As I travel on Sunday mornings to find the faces of faith in a variety of different congregations, I am feeling a little better.  At times I have even been entertained or inspired by some pretty good homilies.  And other times, not so much.  I have been to multi-million dollar churches with a congregation so large they have to have four Masses to accommodate their people – and each with a different style or flavor to it.  You know, the 9:00 am has the guitar music; while the 11:00 am has the organ, etc.; the pastor and associate banter back and forth creating a friendly vibe – they keep it light.  I found a sweet little back country church where the priest actually faces the East (symbolic of waiting for Christ’s return) and consequently with his back to the congregation as he does the Eucharistic prayers.  It was like attending the Old Latin Mass, only in English, well mostly.  

I attended an evangelical Protestant church mid-winter that had a congregation of 25.  Twenty-five, period, end of sentence.  And half of them walked in 20 minutes late.  I found that kind of entertaining.  All these years I beat myself up for showing up five minutes late, like somebody cared, and half their church is late!  I liked the music; I liked the sermon, but then the next three weeks were going to be about marriage and that is kind of not on my grid right now so I continued my sojourn. 

Last week I went to a far-flung place with a big, traditional physique as far as the building goes.  The deacon gave the homily.  I just remember that he started out by saying how long some material things last, and that eventually everything gives way to time and the elements…. including us.  And he launched into making a point about us preparing for the moment of our death, when we meet our Maker.  Except he gave no practical tips, like say, pray the rosary every day or read ten minutes of the Bible every morning.  So, I just stopped listening.  This is a privilege I am allowing myself in my middle years:  if you stop being interesting or don’t get relevant within the first eight minutes, I am no longer interested.  It’s just the brain screening out the extraneous in order to last longer itself. 

At the end of the Mass, the pastor got up and said something kind about the homily the deacon gave.  He then remarked that, as the congregation was aware, he himself is a card-carrying, lifetime member of alcoholics anonymous.  (I love him for his authenticity.)  He said:  Deacon told us that a beer can left in the woods lasts about 80 years and I am pleased to report that I have just turned 81!  In other words, he outlived the beer can.  The entire congregation chuckled at that – it was great.  And I love it when a group has a sense of humor and doesn’t let their “church-iness” put a veneer on their sense of humor.  Nonetheless, I was and still am not ready to meet and greet new people.

 

I tried to slip out the side door where he was saying good morning to people.  I tried very hard to be invisible.  I don’t even know by what childish magic my brain thinks that someone in an adult body like mine can become invisible by just moving quietly around a group of people.  Well, the next thing that happened was my pretty black flip-flop with the fake diamonds on its strap just BROKE.  I could not manage to get a flat foot on the ground and did a series of awkward, Big Bird-like movements to maintain my balance and grab the flip flop without falling over on the sidewalk.  I walked back to my vehicle with the flip flop in one hand and a barefoot on the ground as well.

It is likely that my predicament was not un-noticed by the very people I was trying to skirt.  However, it is for sure and for certain that Someone Else has not left any of my predicaments and awkward scenarios unseen.  He is watching (and probably was laughing divinely) and I feel loved by Him.  That’s all that matters now.

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When Hump Day is on Thursday

When Hump Day is on Thursday

They say some things are best left to the imagination.  But I have to admit, my 30 second exposure to reality as I drove to work this morning is something that my imagination never would even conjure up.  I guess I am still getting used to living in the real country.  Permit me a digression before I really tell you what view I was treated to enroute to work.

It always –and I mean ALWAYS – irritates me when people from out of state talk about New York in terms of “the City.”  NYC is such a small –and allow me a bit of spirited derision here – miniscule, and consequently congested and overwhelming (to me), part of the interesting things about this state.  In fact, they wouldn’t even have the right to call it “The Big Apple” if it wasn’t for the fact that almost ALL of the rest of the state grows some of the greatest apples in the nation. 

Even the history buffs tell you that there was some sort of a fight when Downstate wasn’t allowed to be the Capitol of New York – Albany claimed the prize.  Although, if I had been in charge, I would have moved the Capitol to a more central location but, silly me, I think in terms of fairness for the entire state and not just for some.  At least the State Fair was put in a central location.  Someone had their adequate dose of coffee the morning that decision was made.

So all that being said, I do want to reiterate the point that a vast part of this state is incredible agricultural property:  dairy farms, horse ranches, corn fields, apple orchards and (gasp) vineyards that take your breath, if not your sobriety, away.  Frankly, there is not enough gasoline to fill a lifetime of my vehicles in order to satiate my desire to see it all.  The greatest thing that could happen to me right now would be to win a brand new vehicle with zero mileage so I could start all over in my travels to take in every borough and country lane.  And need I speak of the miles of antique stores and flea markets on Route 20 – that route cuts clean across the state and is the coolest road to drive when the leaves are changing colors in autumn!  Even up into our own forests of the Adirondack mountains, there are adorable little gift shops and corner pizza places and creeks a plenty.   And yet …

And yet when I pull out of my driveway and travel less than a mile down the street, the oddness of reality strikes me.  I glance across to my right and I see something that at first does not make sense.  I’m thinking:  “Why does that cow look awfully high up in the air?”  And as my eyes re-adjust in a split second to the entire picture, here’s what I realize.  It isn’t a cow.  It’s a bull.  And the bull is standing ON a cow, ahem, and he is quite serious.  And there are farmers in the doorway of the barn watching to make sure that the goal is achieved.  And I wonder if they laughed at the expressions on the faces of those of us who drove by and saw fifteen seconds of “Life on a Dairy Farm,” and inadvertently dropped our jaws ….

In retrospect, where did I think that pasture full of baby calves came from, anyway?  The storks are too busy delivering to the hospitals to work on the farms as well!

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A Mind is a Terrible thing to Waste

A Mind is a Terrible thing to Waste

Why is it that I can remember every stupid or ugly thing I ever said for the last few decades (at least the one I am aware of) and yet, for the life of me, I cannot find the bunch of bananas that I bought at the store last night?  I have turned this house upside down for about 20 minutes.  I have gone out and checked the car.  I have checked the garage.  I have left no cubby unexplored.  And, to quote the old song:  Yes, we have NO bananas.

I have bought bananas three times in the last three days.  I am doing a little shopping gig where I grocery shop for other people who have no transportation – due to a variety of reasons – and I have been in four different grocery stores in three days.  Three of us have purchased bananas.  Two of us are enjoying them.  But as for me, my bananas are, well, driving me bananas.

I don’t blame the dogs for things that are missing at my house.  It is not that they – well at least one of them – the very one who has her own facebook page – would not drop to the level of eating chimpanzee food.  It’s just that they are – scratch that – SHE is partial to the last three slices of bread in the bag sitting on the edge of the counter.  Other than that, she prefers bologna or peach slices to bananas.

There is no evidence that the bananas made it into the house.  I am okay if they accidentally went out with the trash this morning.  What I am NOT okay with is if I find them in the house in a few weeks or so.  You follow my train of thought on this, right?

A few weeks ago at work there was a brief conversation about forgetting things.  And I wanted to ask the person who was saying that, “I’m sorry, I can’t quite conjure up your name at this moment…”  People know who I am because not unlike the horses in the barn down the street, my name is engraved on the wall above me.  But I forget who I am occasionally too.  Twice now I have left my house keys in the door at night.  I hope I at least locked the screen door.  For moments like that, I truly thank God that I live in the country and not in the city.  I also have a 3-alarm, state-of-the-art security system second to NONE that I know of.   The alarms are quickly tripped-off, move at lightning speed, and emit toxic fumes only sometimes during the middle of the night. 

Today a funny thing happened.  You know those comic strips that are almost identical, posted side-by-side and you have to figure out what is missing in one of the pictures?  I love doing those.  I hate it, though, when I have to do it in my own backyard.  I have nothing to compare it to except what it was the last time I was paying attention.  And as previous paragraphs indicate, midlife is putting some cobwebs where hi-speed cabling used to be in my brain.  So, today, I was cleaning up the raised beds – my Martha Stewart moment right before I re-painted the bureau in the garage with ocean blue chalk paint – and hauling brush to the back of the lot and I thought, “something is really wide-open about my yard today.”  I did not have my glasses on.  I confess that at a distance “this” looks like “that.”  The other day I drove by a herd of baby cows and thought one was lying alone on its side.  Later in the week I realized it was a big log.  Love it.  Anyway, in my yard I saw something lying near my shed.  What the heck?  It was my TIRE SWING.  Branch gone.  Just the tire lying neatly on its side. 

I only have two suspects.  And one of them cleared himself already.  The other one is probably thinking, “how long until she notices it is gone?”  By my calculations, it might be three days:  Thursday, Friday, Saturday.  I hope that it got taken down because the tree limb was bad – and not that he thought I didn’t want it.  It actually reminded me of my late uncle who used to have all us cousins to his house almost every weekend of our childhood and we would blaze around the yard on a motorized mini bike or takes turns on the tire swing.  It was great fun.  And I have two young nephews who come to visit once a year and they would enjoy that tire swing.  In a way, I was handing down a legacy.  Now I just have an old tire on its side and a frayed rope.  Sigh.

Now what was my point of all this, anyway????     

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Pet Adoption in America 101 - #3 - My Bird-Brained Ideas

Pet Adoption in America 101 - #3 - My Bird-Brained Ideas

There are undercover bird police in your area.  You can giggle about that if you like, but they exist.  I will tell you how to flush them out of their coveys:  advertise that you have birds for sale, OR reach out to adopt a bird from a local shelter.  I am the voice of experience.

A few years ago I had a delightful pair of peach-faced lovebirds that I brought to New York from my visit in Arizona.  Keilah was a green male peach faced, and Lucia was a bright yellow red faced (Lutino).  They were kind enough to breed some adorable little babies that I subsequently sold for such a low cost it should have been called “a donation.”  Nonetheless, their contribution to my household, really helped me break-even on the bird seed cost for quite a few months.  And I loved those little baby birds – so darned cute! 

One day I got a call from a woman in Rochester.  She wanted to come out and visit when she was in my area.  I said, “Sure, no problem.”  I was kind of surprised when she came to my front door with a man, and a camera slung around her neck.  She asked, “I love birds, do you mind if I take pictures?”  It was a weird request to walk into someone’s house to “look” and end up taking photos.  Nowadays they probably use clandestine cell phones to shoot pictures and don’t tell you they are doing it.  I am happy to say the cages were clean…. With more than 2 birds, the phrase “clean cages” is translated into “continual vigilance.”  I could clean one cage a day at this point and run out of days before I run out of cages.  Do the math.

It was not until they pulled out of my driveway without purchasing a bird that the wheels in my brain started to turn.  Who does that?  Who goes into a stranger’s house and takes pictures of their birds?  If you want nice pictures, go online and download some.  Then it dawned on me: they were bird police.  These are people who “rescue” birds from homes they find, in their infinite wisdom, are “unfit.”  I truly don’t know how they seize birds FROM people’s homes, but I know that they DO in fact do that. 

I own a bird that was previously in Nursing Home ministry and then in a private home, and then came to live with me …. via the back of a van in Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Ah, the adventures of my younger days.  But he is a beauty.  And in order for them to release him to me, I had to practically make marriage vows regarding the care and socialization of the bird.  As far as I know he still has no complaints.  It is too bad that he himself didn’t make some vows to me like, “I will not terrorize small children who yank their hand back with my cracker still in it,” and “I will not pierce the ear of visiting guests with baseball caps on.”  I still apologize to that friend – the bird must’ve thought the red cap was a wing coming near his cage – and the rest is history:  he flew in a circle around the man, pierced his ear for free, and flew back to his cage.  Now the bird doesn’t get let out when I have visitors.  Hoo boy.

My last run-in with the Bird Police was only recently.  I will not tell you where, but I will tell you how.  Again, my previously stated premise in article 1 of this series was:  It is easier to adopt a human child from a foreign country than to adopt an animal in the United States.  Read it and tell me of any other conclusion you could draw.

I have not seen an advertisement for cockatiels in a long time –primarily because raising puppies was on the grid and I had reached capacity with the birds.  Then, my female cockatiel died and the two male birds she lived with were whistling for her for days.  Well, not continually, just during daylight hours.

So I thought I should get back into the business.  Or, more aptly, get THEM back into business.  I found it next to impossible to find the birds for sale online.  Finally, I found one in a shelter.  I initiated an email of interest.  This began a volley of voluminous emails back and forth.  Well, they’d ask one question, and I had to respond in detail. 

My first email went to a contact person, who then referred me to the Adoption Case Manager.  She questioned whether I was willing to drive to where they were to get the bird.  Given the fact that finding the bird was getting really challenging, sure, I’m willing to take a scenic two hour ride to pick it up.  Oh, by the way, did I mention an adoption fee?  Well, my mother is probably reading this so I won’t quote figures, but let’s just say it was:  less than a pet store; less than 3 digits, and a hair more than I would have charged for it if I was selling it.  But by all rights, it should have been FREE because it was, in a word, “used.”  Unknown age.  Unknown history.  Etc.  Here’s the other kicker:  the quantity of information they gather about the “adoptive pet parent” is more than you know about the bird itself.

So all the questions led to:  I need to contact your veterinarian.  My response was along the lines of, “I don’t see WHY, because I don’t vet my birds.  By the time a bird looks sick, it is already at the edge of darkness.”  I give her the phone number because I am both patient and curious.  She responds back that I have two un-spayed dogs and cats that do not have their vaccinations up to date.  Instead of asking me these questions directly, she called the Vet’s office.  Really?  And the result, which I was surprised at was that this would block the adoption process.  Yeah, are you kidding me?!

My response back was rather curt, and rather lengthy.  At that point I decided that I needed to, as the moderns say, “speak MY Truth” more than I needed to adopt this bird.  And that truth read like this:

here are my very simple explanations for my care of my animals:
> 
> My 2 Female dogs have not been spayed because I breed them.  The oldest dog was spayed upon her adoption.
> The first one, Bethany, is scheduled to be spayed on 3/11.  She had two litters.  She is 9 years old.  The second one, Madeline, is from the first litter of Bethany.  Madeline will be bred when she comes into heat.
> Because of my reputation with the people who have bought puppies from me in the past, I already have half the prospective litter sold already.  I SLEEP IN THE BASEMENT with the puppies for the first three weeks of their lives to make sure that everything is fine - I am very particular about my pets' well-being.
> The dogs are up to date on vaccinations, heartworm meds, and flea meds.
> 
> The cats are both in the house.  The one year old cat is up to date on her vaccines.  I only vaccinate my cats for rabies since they are 100% in house.
> One cat is 14 years old.  Every day left that she has is a gift.  There is no reason to put any more chemicals into her aging body for any reason - other than if she was in pain.  
> 
> It appears that the rescue would have to research me in some way to make sure I am a good provider for the animals that share my home.  I get that.  But there comes a point where it becomes just plain frustrating.
> 
> these are my simple answers.  I am educated.  I have a job.  I have animals that I care for.  I am not a hoarder or an abuser.  That's the best I can do for you.

What was the end result, you wonder?  Well, she invited me to call her at 9am the next morning to see if we could “work it out.”  I did not make the phone call.  I was just plain frustrated with the process and it had moved me into the Land of Bad Mood.  Once I get there, it is best I go home quietly and leave well enough alone.

Oh wait, I forgot the very last straw:  they asked me to take a video of the Bird Room at my house since I live too far away for them to make a “home visit.” 

So now you know why I am a tad bitter about the Rescuers and their adoptive process.  The story does not really end there, though.  It ends somewhere on the back roads of Pennsylvania with my good friend and I looking for a Bird Farm that was advertised online.  Oh, I found it.  And as she said to me as we drove home:  “It was so dirty I’m surprised you bought one of the birds.”  My thought was that if you are raising hundreds of birds, there is going to be a little bit of seed on the floor – it doesn’t really count as dirt.  (Really, the birds were all bright-eyed and healthy looking.)  

It is because of this very devil-may-care attitude I sport that my very own grandmother used to say to me, “I am going to come to your house and let the window open and all those birds go.  Maybe then you will find a husband.”  That comment always could slay me, especially since one of my friends, who has been married 30 years, STILL can’t get her husband to pick up his dirty socks off the floor.  Plus, there are no pre-dating applications that question you about your indoor livestock.  Maybe I shouldn’t let that slip out.  The bachelors may contact the rescuers and then I will be mad at EVERYBODY.

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The Touch of God

The Touch of God

Many years ago in a land far, far away, I had the Perfect Job.  It included travel to islands & amusement parks, teaching (my first love), retreats, and being around teenagers.  I was a full time youth minister.  It is only now 30 years down the road that I realize it was the Perfect Job.  And now that I have the confidence, humor, and ability to hold the attention of at least 50 kids at a time, I realize those are things I wished I had more of back then.  In other words, I wish I had the Ability and the Opportunity simultaneously …. But perhaps that is how you develop the ability, over time.

I was speaking with someone new in the ministry last week and we were talking about reading lists.  I said to her, the first book I read on the job was called, “You can sell anything by telephone.”  In fact, it was so helpful that one of my dearest friends said:  “The reason I volunteered was because Chris wouldn’t let me off the phone until I said YES.  She could sell toilet products to Eskimoes.”  Um, I think the phrase is:  “refrigerators to Eskimoes,” but hey, whatever they need, I’ll give them a call!

One of my working principles for culturing both volunteers and the teens was always this:  I will not ask you to do anything that I myself am not willing to do.  With this in mind, there were two young men that, as the time got really close to make their confirmation, reported they had not done their community service hours.  Are you kidding me?!  Why they waited that long, I will never know …. not unlike some people who would be in the Procrastinators Anonymous Club but never got around to filling out the paperwork.… So among the three of us, we decided to visit a nursing home to fulfill the hours there.  I went with the boys.  We had to come back with our rabies vaccinations, I mean, proof of TB shots, before we could start doing whatever it is that we were to do there.  I had no clue.

One man, a tall, thin, nonverbal Native American in a wheelchair, got a very big charge out of my teen Mike pushing him around the hallways.  When Mike paused to chat with me, the gentleman would make a huge pointing gesture with his arm as if to say, “Onward!”  and the pushing around continued.  I myself went into the recreation room.  My lesson for the day was there.  Except, I wasn’t the teacher; I was the student.  Apparently the Almighty gets a big charge out of role reversals and making us see things through a different person’s eyes.

Two women sat at the table with paints and projects.  Perhaps this initial vision is what turned me against nursing homes (for myself).  As an amateur painter at heart, I couldn’t imagine being old, in-bound, and given only three bad colors (think: brown, garish purple and avocado green) to paint with and crappy little pieces of children’s figurines that someone already wrecked.  That was the first impression that stuck with me:  how trapped they must feel!  Even people who aren’t artists need better colors – or at least primary colors to mix and play with.  Someday, I’ll be organizing a break-out from my nursing home to go to one of the craft stores to get real supplies!

The two ladies in front of me, however, were not really painting anymore.  No surprise there, given what I just shared with you, right?  What was most striking about them, as I stood behind listening to their conversation, was the personality difference.  It was like a lesson in spirituality:  namely, acceptance with joy brings peace.

Louise sat in the chair and forced out the bitter words, “Here I am in this place and my kids are off living their lives.  I don’t deserve this.”  She raised a fist to the sky and addressed the Almighty, “Why don’t you just kill me?!”  It was too much like someone living out the bad advice from Job’s wife in the Old Testament, “Job, look at all your suffering.  Why don’t you just curse God and die!”  I stepped back a pace, afraid the Boss would take her up on the request.  I was too young to get struck by lightning. 

She re-grouped her powers and continued, “They brought me to this place.  They took my cat <insert a lump in throat here> and put her to sleep … and then they brought me here.”  My eyes widened.  I considered my own household at the time:  if someone put my dog down … they’d need an elephant tranquilizer to get me to the nursing home.  To use the redneck expression best fitting it:  “I’d tear the place up.”  You know how our minds are:  we consider, we are horrified, we plan for the unlikely.  Nonetheless, I get slight chest pains as I type this. 

She tried for a third, brief rant:  “I hate my life.  I want to die.  I have no friends.”

What do you do with that?

And ever so sweetly and quietly, the woman who sat in the wheelchair next to her reached her hand over and placed it on Louise’s arm.  “Oh, Louise, you have me.  I am your friend.”  <excuse me I have something in my eye. >  Louise turned her weathered face to look at Suzie with her shining, yet wrinkled cheeks and silver bun of hair on her head.   “Suzie, you are a good friend.  Yes.  A good friend.” 

Suzie offered a new perspective, “Louise, we have lived our lives and now our children are trying to live theirs.  They have jobs, …. And we can be happy here.  I thank God for my life.  And I thank God for you.” 

Louise was not an immediate convert.   Yet she did soften and the comfort of her friend took on a new meaning for her:  she was no longer alone because someone dared to touch, to care, to speak.  And as for me, I drifted away …. Far, far away to another place and time and yet they live in my mind eternally as that one moment.  The poignancy of compassionate love – really, the touch of God to a human heart – and I see them again as I left them.  And then I think about the bastards that killed her cat. 

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"Hail, Mary" - it isn't just for football anymore

“Hail, Mary”        - It isn’t just for football anymore

The frankness of the priest’s prayer that Sunday morning took me aback.  He invited the congregation to pray a “Hail, Mary” for any disappointment we may feel about Summer Vacation, something to that general effect.  Seeing as it was the first week of JULY, I found that a bit premature and perhaps a bit fatalistic.  It wasn’t my home church – because I don’t have one right now – but I had met this priest when he was just out of college a couple of decades ago.  He’s not a bitter little old man.  He’s not a negative, bummer person.  He’s a younger middle-aged priest who grew up in, I suppose, a regular family and had a bit of life experience.  And I imagine what you don’t have in your OWN life experience as a priest, you must pick up a few beauties just by listening to confessions.  But I couldn’t help wondering what motivated him to say that prayer. 

The narcissistic part of me – as minuscule as it might be – excuse me while I dust my halo in case it blinded you – felt like that prayer was staged just for me.   I am choosing to see that particular moment as a tip on how to cope with the stuff that was happening both in my life and in the lives of those around me.  For instance, I know three friends who had to put their dogs “down” in the course of the last two weeks.  I have lived through that, albeit just barely, about ten years ago and it is horrible.  It’s not the how of what happens, it is that it happens and it is a grief that in my experience stood all by itself in its relentlessness that makes it almost intolerable.  So many people who walk through that end up saying, “I will never get another dog again; I just can’t go through it.”  The fact is, getting another dog may be the only thing that heals your heart in that area.  You come to the realization that the acquisition of a canine household member is as much for your own need, as it is for the dog’s.  To the point, some dog out there needs you.  And you need a dog. 

Yes.  You need the aggravation, the vet bills, the potty accidents and all that negative because what a dog brings to the table so far blows all that off the map.  On a cold winter night, a small warm body snuggles into the crook behind your knee on the couch and rests a gentle muzzle on you as you watch a movie.  Dogs don’t ask to pick the movie; they let you choose and just enjoy it.  On a sunny autumn morning when the goats are in the pasture next door and you are trying to get ready for work, a dog will jump up on the couch search the view in the backyard and then bellow:  “GOAT!  GOAT!  GOAT!” as if you didn’t remember the neighbor’s goats were out there.  Dogs provide a security force second only to Schwarznegger.  And, dogs are excellent at character analysis:  they will identify bad people within seconds; whereas the rest of us give people a bit more time to prove themselves.  My dogs have always been spot-on with their take on people.  

All that by way of saying, I have found dogs invaluable and my heart goes out to my friends that have lost theirs.  Hail Mary  ….

On a completely different level, we have lost important people in our lives – in almost every case it has been after a struggle with extensive illness.  I lost a dear friend whom has been one of my summer vacation travel companions for over a decade.  I am feeling the sadness incrementally – I watched a movie that had a Gospel choir in it the other night and remembered her funeral and how “up” it was.  I think of her when I hear good music because she loved music so much and was very accomplished with it.  I think of her as the racial tensions in this country are being stirred up by insurrectionists.  She and I had a friendship that transcended race and we always considered each other a sister.  As I plan a beach vacation for the future, my heart feels a bit sore knowing that she won’t be with us.  And the next time I cook a lobster and steam it in beer with Old Bay Seasoning, I will think of her as well.  She and I taught our other friends how to dissect a lobster to get every available piece of meat out of it.  We should have made a tutorial video.  That would have been a blast.  I have my memories, but my memories will never be enough. Hail Mary ….

And also most recently, it appears that I have become a Weather Witch.  There are Weather Witching sticks they sell at the beach – and they really DO work.  You mount them on an outside wall and the level of humidity in the air impacts which direction the wood points.  The wooden stick actually re-orients itself based on weather.  There are a few other tourist gizmo’s that do the same thing.  My personal favorite is the braided yarn with two eyes.  The directions say to hang him outside with this diagnostic:  “If I’m wet, it’s raining.  If I’m frozen, it’s cold or snowing.”  In my case, I seem to be able to detect storms coming by doing one simple thing:  I go to the beach.

Two weeks ago I drove out to a lake that was made decades ago by flooding a few towns under water.  I don’t know how that happens.  Did they tear down the houses and fill in the basements and take out swingsets and stuff?  My brain gets snagged on that piece of history every time I recall it.  There is one particular perennial that grows in my back yard which I have tried to remove not once, not twice, but three times and it keeps coming back.  If my town was flooded, that plant would come up from the bottom of the lake and take over the world.  I’m sure of it.  Nonetheless, this lake I went to is a great place to swim and I was happy to drive out for the day.  As I handed the ticket boy my entrance fee, I saw the ominous clouds forming ahead of me.  I drove forward, hoping they’d pass.  I got my suit on, set up my lawnchair and within ten minutes it POURED.  I waited it out in my vehicle and tried a second time to re-establish my beachhead.  Nothing doing.  It poured again and I said, “I give up.”  Plus, sitting on a wet beach is just kind of gross.

Yesterday, I drove up North to a state park that is a couple of hours away.  The attraction:  an Olympic sized pool, and the prospect of going into the port village afterwards and wandering around gift shops to see what I don’t need to buy.  I pulled into the state park and asked the girl at the ticket booth, “Do you think that a storm is coming this way?”  Famous last word: “Nahhh.”  I drove in, put on my suit, got into the pool and circulated about 4 minutes before the lifeguard blew the whistle to get out due to thunder.  I thought of the “Hail, Mary.”  I also thought a few other more profane utterances, but there were kids around.  I sat out under the shelter wondering if I should get into clothes and leave or wait it out.  I waited about 20 minutes and the clouds moved over and around us – not one drop of rain, mind you – but thunder three times delayed our re-entry into the pool.  I think the rule is you can enter like 20 minutes after the last thunder.  No visible lightning around but recently I read that lightning from a storm 12 miles away can strike where you are…. made me feel like a target.  Eventually, all swimmers got back in the pool and I went along with the day as planned:  nap & swim & shop & eat. 

So, as I have been told since I was a child, “Into each life a little rain must fall.”  I’m just keeping my “Hail, Mary” handy.  You can borrow it if you want.  But I still want to know what Father was thinking about.  Yikes.

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Pet Adoption in America 101 - #2 - I'm Cat-a-tonic

Pet Adoption in America 101 - #2 - I'm Cat-a-tonic

In most chain pet-stores they have a practice at the cash register of asking you if you’d like to donate to help a homeless pet.  My usual response after the sticker shock of the bill is tell them, “No.  There are quite a few of those pets living in my house – I am contributing directly to the solution.”  My response usually flies over the head of the bright-eyed, freshly tattooed PETA cashier waiting on me.  Anybody can be a protester or demonstrator when they are living at their parents’ house, right?  Every now and then one of them may say, “Ooohhh that’s nice.   So how many pets do you have?”  At present, I need to be in a DPA (Domesticated Pets Anonymous) meeting before I quote an exact figure.  The only help my Higher Power has given me with this problem is a couple of deaths in the aviary this past month.  I don’t think that’s funny and I don’t think that’s a good solution to my truly non-problematic life situation!

So let’s talk about cats.  Most people don’t have to adopt a cat.  If you live long enough, someone else’s cat will adopt you.  Really that’s how it goes.  I think that cats leave their homes because of some very deep instinct that says, “Someone else may provide me better food so I’ll just wander out and check on that.”  That’s why I don’t let my cats outside.  They don’t have that option of shopping for a new home.  Plus they have the Life of Reilly at my house and they darn well better be knowing it.  And of course, I know that they are not going to fare too well if they run into the wildlife that exists in my part of the country.  Saving myself a trip to the vet that I don’t want to make, they live inside and lounge around all day.  My next life, maybe I should come back as a cat?

No.  I think it probably stinks to be a cat.  Even though we perceive them as aloof and individualistic, they really are dependent on people once they are domesticated.  They count on us to clean their box, remember to give them food & water, and pay attention to whether or not they are truly as healthy as they fake themselves to be.  I told someone recently that birds, not unlike cats, hide their illnesses until they are just about at Death’s Doorstep.  Then, it’s up to you to figure out what the next step is.  It’s a crazy thing. 

I could say I don’t think I was born a “cat-person,” I became one out of compassion.  But then again most pickles don’t realize they were cucumbers in their previous environment.  In 1992 I was living on the edge of a city and a grey tiger kitten was roaming through the yard a few houses down.  The little girl sitting in the driveway played with it for about FIVE HOURS and then her mother took her inside and left the kitten out.  That really made me mad because now the kitten had no chance at remembering where it lived, and was all loved-up by a kid, and had to figure out what next.  Usually the tires of someone’s car are what’s next.  So I went over there, knowing nothing at all about cat care in any way, and picked the kitten up and brought it home.  Really Simba was the sort of kitten you would like to put a bonnet on and push in a baby carriage – she had such a great disposition.  When she was about two years old, I said to her, “You know, you are the perfect first cat.  You are also the perfect last cat.”

Not even two weeks later I was walking from the street to the driveway, and this adorable calico shot out from under a parked car and began doing figure-8’s around my ankles.  The perfect second cat?  I looked down and said, “So what’s your issue?”  She had come from the derelict empty house on our street – the one where the basement window was smashed out and cats came and went like cowboy’s going to the Saloon in an old west ghost town.  She meowed and continued the ankle hypnosis on me.  I looked down and said, “Well, then, come on….”  And she followed me into the house, upstairs, and went straight to the dogfood dish and ate dog food for what seemed an inestimable amount of hours. 

This new family member was of some concern to the primary cat.  And the dog was kind of stunned by the bold-faced thievery occurring at her dish.  But everyone got over it.  Even me.  I took the cat a day later to the vet’s office for a routine once-over.  The young vet took the cat from me and said, “I’m taking her in the back to test her for feline leukemia.  If she is positive I will have to put her down.”  She turned on her heel and walked out the door.  And I got teary-eyed at the prospect.  Well, 13 years later the healthy senior citizen cat is just sleeping and eating and occasionally being “charged” by the youngest dog in the house.   So as she begins to down-scale physically, I thought I should get a healthy cat in the picture.  (The first cat has been gone to Kitty Heaven over two years now.)

The run-around begins.  I have a mental picture of what I want:  a female, white, some color, short hair domestic kitten.  One shelter was so dirty that I walked through, that I could barely stand the smell.  Another shelter was difficult to find:  a non-descript brick building faded in the sun, it was probably an old armory or a school of some sort.  I never did get IN that building, but picked a cat named Priscilla from the online selection.  I called the woman in charge.  The conversation began:

Me:  “Hi.  I’m looking to adopt the cat Priscilla.”

Her:  “She isn’t ready yet.  We can’t let her go for a week.”

Me:  “Gee, that’s perfect because I will be coming back from vacation and can get her then.”

Her:  “We’ll talk to you then.”

I came back from vacation to a message on my answering machine:  “We are calling to see if you are still interested in one of our cats.  We have a great black cat here….”

HUH?  I call them:  “Hi.  You left a message about a black cat?  I was looking at Priscilla, the WHITE cat.”
“Oh, she’s been adopted out.”

Me:  “How could THAT happen?  You said she wasn’t ready to go.”

“Oh, well someone else came and took her brother Rodney so we let her go too.”

Goodbye.

I found an amazing kitten online in the Hudson area.  If they were selling her at cost for her breed, she would have been a very expensive designer cat.  They never returned my emails. 

I located a kitten in a shelter listed online.  It was a little bit further south than I wish it was, but you know how that goes.  I was a woman on a mission!  I called them on a rainy autumn Saturday and said I was coming.  I had sent my application down to the shelter via fax a week prior for the same cat.  I called them half-way there and they said, “On Saturdays we only do adoptions until 4:00 pm and we close at 4:30pm.”  I practically begged them, “Well, I am half way to you, should I turn around?  At least can I come see her?”  I pulled in the driveway to see a statue of St. Francis right in front of me.  It’s nice to know that one of Heaven’s finest “animal welfare agents” is on your side.  I checked my clock:  It was 4:28 pm.  Like a child in a candy store window, I put my hand on the glass and waved.  They let me in and told me promptly that adoptions were closed.

“Can I at least see the kitten?”

“Oh, okay.  She’s back here.”  The woman guided me through the cleanest shelter I have ever seen.  (And, sadly, I have choked my way through some very dirty ones.)  I kept walking to the pen in the back where two kittens played.  The kitten I had seen online, Sola, looked up at me as if she had detected me on radar, came right to the front of the cage and extended her paw out to me.  The woman said, “Do you want to see her?”  Sure.  She put the kitten in my arms.  Decision made.  And she says to me, “What do you think?”  I replied, “It’s a definite yes.”  She replied,  “Oh, okay.  I’ll take an extra 15 minutes and do the paperwork.”  Really.  All these commercials and spots on the evening news to place these animals and you have to coax cooperation out of the workers.  How frustrating.

Two years later, she is an incredibly beautiful white cat – seal point Siamese mix – every morning she sits on the bathroom sink and “visits” with me as I put my make up on.  And sometimes if I walk by her, she extends that paw to me just like she did when we first met.  It makes me wonder why adopters have to run the emotional gauntlet to secure this piece of happiness.

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