Last Ride

It's a cold day for a last ride.

I line the carrier with towels and a thick fleece blanket and gently lift the old cat out of his basket. I expect the usual dissent and disapproval at the confinement and the general indignity of being in a carrier, but he doesn't make a sound, not a single sound, instead sitting motionless and quiet the entire way. His silence is unbearable, far worse than any protest he could make.

I have always believed that animals, cats especially, are keenly intuitive and I can't shake the notion that he knows what is coming and is accepting it with grace and courage.

Due to a computer failure and the fact that it's their first day back after the holiday, the clinic is crowded, loud, running late and a little chaotic. A half hour passes before I can even check in but the old cat still doesn't stir or make a sound. It takes everything I have not to break down but he just watches and waits. Eventually they call his name and we make our way to an exam room, away from the commotion of the waiting room. The vet tech talks to him soothingly, strokes his roughened fur, hugs me fiercely. I give up my resolution not to cry. She sedates him, catheterizes him and wraps him in a blanket. The doctor steps in. It's very peaceful and very quick. In a matter of seconds, his heart stops and his body goes limp in my arms. I let go.

He hadn't been much to look at 15 years ago when my friend and vet brought him to me during a routine visit for another cat. She'd found him in a school parking lot, dirty, hungry, uncared for and fending for himself in a not very kind world. There was nothing special about him, he was just one more scrawny, stray black cat in need of a home.

“I'll have him neutered for you”, she'd offered, “And get him all his vaccinations. What do you think?”

“I think the last thing in the world I need is another cat,” I'd sighed, “But what the hell, if you think he'll fit in, I'll give him a try.”

And so 15 years passed. He adapted and minded his own business, got along with the dogs, never gave me a lick of trouble or worry. He was a quiet and private animal, came when he was called, sometimes slept with me but mostly not. A low key, low maintenance cat if ever there was one and there were days when I hardly knew he was here.

There won't be any days that I don't miss him.

Stand Off

If there is a heaven and if I get there, all I ask is that my animals be with me and it be warm.

It's late December and I'm a vertitable fashion statement of winter wear. Two pairs of socks,

longjohns and jeans, a flannel shirt over a heavy sweatshirt over a North Country insulated top,

a muffler wound 'round my neck and a knit cap. The thermostat is at 75, the space heater is purring steadily and I'm still cold. Not freezing cold, mind you, not even really uncomfortably cold, just somewhere down deep and fundamentally cold. My mind and body need the heat and humidity of a southern summer like an addict needs a fix. Where's a decent hot flash when you need one, I think bitterly.

I come by it honestly enough. Despite my daddy's Nova Scotian/New England roots, after about September, he was always cold. I can still see him layered up in thermals and bulky sweaters with a blanket tucked around him and sitting close to the fire. He slept in flannel pajamas over thermals and wore a snug wool hat pulled down over his ears. It took all he had to leave the house on those bitter cold winter mornings seven days a week and he quietly worried all winter long - although it never happened - that the furnace would go dry before the next oil delivery.

My mother, on the other hand, thrived on lowering the heat and repeatedly telling us both that it wasn't that cold, it was our imagination. We were being melodramatic, she liked to say, making a federal case of it, not really suffering. The house was barely 6o degrees in the dead of winter but she wasn't cold and that settled that.

“Grow up, for Christ's sake,” she sneered, “Stop being such babies!”

Over the years, the cold became a sort of symbol for all that was wrong in the family, all that was irreconcilable and angry and finally estranged. Cold vs hot became a metaphor for every raging argument and every act of verbal violence. There was to be no peacemaking. My mother won the battles for years only because of the misery we knew she would inflict on us if she lost. The cold overwhelmed and then buried us.

“Not no more,” I tell the thermostat and ease it to 78.

After a few hours of sunshine, when it warms up enough to be tolerable. I cautiously shed a layer, turn down the heat a few degrees and lower the temperature on the space heater then reverse it all shortly after the sun goes down. In between times, I trek to the home improvement store to puchase a new space heater for the office and stop at the grocery store to stock up on soup and hot chocolate. As weapons go, they may not be much but every bit of resistance I can muster helps. The cold is a determined enemy and I have no intention of fighting fair.  I won't settle for a stand off.

Making Peace

It's that time of year again and I can already feel my mind restlessly shifting into low gear.

The Christmas decorations are up downtown and my neighbors have put up their Christmas tree and frosted their windows. Coming home after dark, the whole block is ablaze with colored lights and there are Santas in hardware and grocery stores. The Salvation Army elves are ringing their bells on every corner and I can't seem to go anywhere without hearing Christmas carols. For most people I know, tis the season. For me it's a day I can stay in bed.

I don't think much of Christmas.

When I was a kid, it was about presents and all that mattered was how much you could rake in.

Later it became about shopping and spending.

Still later, it was about outdoing each other with gift giving. Family came in a distant 4^th and Christ wasn't even in the running.

And in my family, there was always the nervous anticipation of my mother's drinking herself into dizziness and the game of pretend that inevitably followed. It was Christmas so we all played - overlooking the slurred speech and the unfocused eyes, the lurching into furniture and

the final slip into a sodden, sullen sleep – even my grandmother, tight lipped and disgusted, went along. The general consensus was that it was Christmas and not worth making a scene.

The past, so I've heard said, is a place for learning not living. These are memories, I remind myself, they have no power over me. And yet they reach across time and the temptation to listen is sometimes irresistible.

So I revel in the music and bypass the rest. We all make peace with the past in our own way.

A Chore of Charity

There was a decidedly dreary aura to the Old Sailors Home and in spite of Nana's grim smile, it gave me the willies. I hung back, not wanting to climb the crumbling concrete stairs, and most certainly not wanting to pass through the shabby doors with their grimy windows and peeling paint. A half dozen old men were clustered on and around the veranda and I was certain I could already smell the mustiness and decay. I suspected one or two might already be dead and just waiting to be discovered.

My grandmother, of course, would have none of it.

“Get a move on, child,” she ordered, sharp but not really harsh, “Reckon those baskets gon' walk they's selves in alone?”

What I reckoned was that if'n one of those ancient, decrepit old men reached out a hand as I passed, it'd have dirt-rimmed talons and be likely to draw blood - just the prospect made me queasy - but there was no way to tell that to my distracted grandmother, now giving me an impatient glare and thrusting two crinkly, saran wrapped baskets into my hands.

“Go!” she admonished firmly, “I'll be right behind you.”

We'd worked on them for a week, carefully rationing out equal quantities of everything from soap to shaving cream, toothpaste and Old Spice, chocolate bars and chewing gum. The Ladies Auxillary had collected an array of everyday items - packets of coffee and sugar, nail clippers, dog eared paperbacks and puzzle books, blank postcards and ball point pens – Miz Clara had personally knitted a dozen pair of wool socks and it'd had taken a half day to sort through and clean the second hand eye glasses and magnifyers. We sat around the dining room table and divvied it all up into the twelve baskets Miz Hilda had donated, then sealed each one in saran wrap and added the bows Aunt Pearl and Aunt Vi had made from leftover Christmas ribbon. When we were done, the women drew straws to see who would make the delivery and Nana won.

“It's a chore of charity,” Aunt Vi told me as we loaded the old Lincoln, “Them that has is meant to see to them that hasn't.”

“Yes'm,” I said innocently. I had no suspicion what lay ahead or that them that hadn't would be so tragically without.

“Mind me, child!” my grandmother was saying irritably, “We ain't got all day!”

To my dismay, it was worse inside. I could feel the damp from the water stains on the walls and ceilings. I caught one sneaker on the threadbare hall rug and nearly lost my balance. The air was stale and smelled faintly like our two seater in the garage but with a healthy dose of bleach that stung my eyes and scratched at my throat. I could hear the sounds of crying and coughing and shouting. Just as I was thinking I might lose my lunch and wondering how could she have brought me to such a dreadful place, I felt my grandmother's knee in the small of my back.

“Go!” she hissed, “Eyes front! The room at the end of the hall!”

I lurched forward, past the once ornate but now cloudy mirrors, past the sea scape pictures hanging crookedly on the walls, past the row of dusty wheelchairs propped against the staircase,

past the closed doors of closed rooms on either side, and finally into the light at the end of the hall where a covey of nurses in antiseptically white uniforms and starched caps were at work.

“I declare,” one of them called out, “If it's not Miz Watson with the Canada Day baskets!”

There was something normal and reassuring in the nurses quarters, something that put some distance between them and the horrors of the rest of the place. I quickly began to feel less trapped, less at risk, and when they offered to have the remaining baskets brought in for us, I felt positively welcomed and in good hands. I was eight or nine, easily spooked by own vivid imagination but just as easily able to recover, especially when one of the nurses offered to let us leave by the back door and through the garden. The flowers were in bloom and there was a sweetness to the sea air that no house of horrors could take away.

Them as can do, has to do for them as can't. And someone has to speak up for them as have no voices. - Terry Pratchett

Killer Kitten

Cautiously scanning for any sign of the killer kitten, the old tabby slowly slinks through the bedroom and onto the loveseat in the sunroom. She settles in behind the cushions, still wary but not outright fearful, and after a minute or two of watchfulness, closes her eyes and goes to sleep, peacefully wound around the tiniest dog's warm body. Seconds later, there is a maniacal yowl followed by a vicious hiss, a yelp, and the thunder of little cat feet in flight. The killer kitten has struck again.

The tabby streaks for the kitchen with the kitten hot on her heels and I deposit the terrified tiny one on the bed and then follow, snatching my trusty fly swatter off the door handle as I pass. There's no sign of either cat in the kitchen but I can hear growling and when I follow the sound, I discover the tabby backed into a corner by the bookcase, back arched, hackles raised and outraged. The kitten is calmly watching her from a few feet away, looking as innocent as new fallen snow but betraying herself with her whiplash tail switching. She spies the fly swatter and makes a hasty retreat, just a small gray, guilty blur passing me with lightning speed and a loud, defiant meow.

The tabby recovers quickly and finds safe haven in a basket atop the refrigerator. The kitten, mean as a snake at times but not stupid, is nowhere to be found. I discover the tiny one, still trembling, hiding between the little dachshund and a nest of bed pillows. He anxiously climbs into my arms and burrows under my chin for rescue and reassurance.

To be fair, I remind myself, this is not always the way it is. She reserves her sweet side for the dogs, particularly the little dachshund, and I often find them sleeping together or grooming each other. She and the tiny one can be absolutely playful at times, mixing it up on and around the furniture until one is knocked off or they wear each other out. He yaps, she chirps, nobody is terrorized. The mean and mayhem side of her personality is aimed only at the other cats.

“You should've come with a warning label,” I tell her when she reappears, jumping into my lap and making herself comfortable.

Her only answer is a contented purr.

And though she but little, she is fierce ~ Shakespeare

Close Enough

Maybe, I told myself after I'd repeated the story to the fourth customer service specialist, maybe he meant it as a joke. I couldn't convince myself.

The previous week, I'd spent the better part of a day in a frustratingly near futile search for 9X12 presentation folders for our model portfolios and was worn down by the effort but proud of my efforts when I finally found and ordered them. They arrived promptly, as promised. They were purple, as promised and two pocketed, as promised. And they were exactly 9 and one half by 11 and one half inches in size, an essential half inch too short to accommodate our photographs.

“Will they do?” Michael asked.

“They will not!” I said testily and snatched the 'phone to begin what I suspected was going to be a long, involved and probably painful process to correct.

I was patient with the first thickly accented and casually indifferent representative.

I was reasonable with the second whose English was marginally better although her grasp of the situation was fragile.

By the third, I was starting to feel my blood beginning to boil and by the fourth, I was exasperated and angry.

“Listen and listen carefully because this is the last time I'm going to explain it,” I warned him, “You advertised these as 9X12 presentation folders. I ordered 9X12 presentation folders. You sent me 9 and one half by 11 and one half presentation folders.”

“Well, that's pretty close, don't you think?” he said and I could practically hear the snicker in his voice. I paused to let that sink in, not quite able to believe what I'd just heard. That's when I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and failed miserably.

“Seriously?” I demanded, “Is that supposed to be funny? Is that what passes for clever in customer service?

He backtracked at once, offering up a half hearted apology, an unconvincing tap dance about a listing error with Amazon, followed by the promise of a quick refund. As an afterthought, he assured me righteously, there was no need to return the wrong folders, they'd be happy to absorb the cost. Considering we were talking about a grand total of $18.11, most of which was shippping, and knowing it would be more trouble than it was worth for them to deal with a return, the offer was based on practicality and not generosity and I suspected he thought I wouldn't put it together.

Not able to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, I started to tell him how kind he was being, changed it to magnanimous, and hung up. I was hoping he'd have to look it up.

We used the purple folders but had to trim the pictures which were already cropped to the bone and we lost feet on the full length shots but it was the best we could do in the time we had left.

I mourn for the days when close enough wasn't good enough.

Poisonous People

Caught in the act of selling cigarettes they'd stolen from my mother and grandmother, both my brothers chose the hard way out and flatly denied the offense. They refused to explain the half dozen packs of Kent 100's and Parliaments found in their pockets. They couldn't account for the extra money stashed in their underwear. The fishermen witnesses who had turned them in were all lying. They hadn't done it, they each defiantly swore. Disgusted and at a loss by this cold, brazen and laughable denial, Nana confiscated every dime and grounded them for a week.

“You'll be sorry!” the older one spit in her face and my mother went white with rage. She delivered an unexpected and vicious slap that rocked him back on his heels and brought tears to his eyes.

“And you'll watch your mouth, you filthy little thief!” she snapped, “Go to your room and stay there until you're called! Both of you!”

It was a remarkably satisfying moment but I knew better than to say so and I slipped quietly out before she could notice me and redirect her anger.

The following week was surprisingly calm. There was very little discussion of the incident and in a rare show of unity, my mother and grandmother stood firm. The boys were allowed to come downstairs for meals but otherwise they stayed banished and late at night, I could hear their hushed laughter and whispered conversations through the walls. I was sure they were plotting and scheming their revenge. Amazingly enough, my grandmother and mother thought so too and after three days, they sent the younger one to a separate room. The laughter and late night conversations, now solo, continued though and on the third day, I hesitantly asked my grandmother if I could sleep downstairs. She gave me a narrow eyed, hard edged look, thought better of asking any questions and nodded. If my mother was curious about the move she never said and the dogs and I settled into the room off the kitchen for the rest of the summer. It was next to my grandmother's bedroom and that, combined with the added distance from the upstairs, made me feel marginally safer.

On the morning of the fifth day, the younger brother had had enough. He admitted the theft, made his apologies and swore he'd learned his lesson. Nana released him with a fierce warning that the next infraction would not only send him home on the first plane but that he'd never be allowed back.

“Makes no difference to me whether you're here or not,” she told him, “But I reckon you like comin' so there'll be no more trouble else this gon' be your last summer. Mind me, boy, I mean what I say. Is that understood?”

“Look at your grandmother when she's talkin' to you!” my mother said sharply, “Answer her and be polite about it!”

“Yes'm,” he mumbled and just for a moment I thought he might actually be sincere. Just for a moment he looked as if he might be about to cry but the moment evaporated as soon as I saw his eyes. A shiver went up my spine and I hurriedly snatched up my jacks, made my way to the sunporch and closed the door behind me.

Two days later, the older brother remained defiant and was sentenced to a second week of solitary. My mother, pale and shaken, managed to bargain it down to three days provided he promised to behave himself and steer clear of Nana. My grandmother, by then feeling more like a jailer than a relative, reluctantly agreed.

“Only because it's less trouble than keepin' him locked up,” she told my mother with a weary sigh, “But mark my words, Jan, the boy's a bad seed and you'd best be watchin' him like a goddam hawk or I'll be washing my hands of the both of you.”

Some of the most poisonous people come disgused as family - Anonymous

Apple, Pumpkin, Mince

Thanksgiving Day dawns clear and cold with the promise of snow. Death doesn't stop for a holiday so my daddy has already left for work by the time I wake up and my mother is in the kitchen, elbow deep into pie making - family tradition demands apple, pumpkin and mince – and my mother is hands down the best pastry baker in the family. My grandmother trusts no one else for the pies.

A bottle of cooking sherry, only partially camouflaged by the coffee pot, sits innocently on the kitchen counter but it tells me what kind of a day it's likely to be. It's just after seven in the morning and my mother is pleasantly buzzed. Remarkably, alcohol has never affected her baking skills and the pies turn out perfectly. It's more than I can say for our family holiday.

We're due at my grandmother's at noon with dinner served at two. The house smells of dinner rolls and evergreen and the table is immaculately set with her best china, her real silver, her delicate crystal glasses and a linen napkin at every place. We are fifteen this year - five in my family, my grandparents, Uncle Eddie and Aunt Helen and all six of the New York side of the family, including (to my grandmother's consternation) their tiny, sharp toothed, yappy chihuahua.

“We couldn't find a boarding place that wasn't full,” my cousin Elaine explains apologetically, “But he'll be no trouble, Alice. He's housebroken and very well behaved and doesn't shed a bit. And we brought his kennel. Just in case, naturally.”

“Naturally,” my grandmother agrees skeptically, “But if he gets underfoot.......”

“Oh, absolutely,” Elaine assures her, “We'll see to him.”

Nana doesn't look convinced - truth to tell, she looks downright skeptical - but she shrugs and lets it pass. My grandfather is less charitable, scowling at the small dog and wondering aloud if he kicks the flea bitten, little rat bastard, will he bounce. Cousin Elaine pales at this and hurriedly shuts the poor thing up in an upstairs bedroom where he eventually barks himself into exhaustion and silence.

Dinner is a tense affair with everyone save my daddy and the kids drinking too much. At one point, a quarrel breaks out between my mother and grandfather and my mother leaves the table in tears. No one gets up to follow or comfort her and no one dares chastise him. The meal ends in a bitter, stony silence and even the pies are forgotten. Nana sends one home with Uncle Eddie and Aunt Helen, one with Elaine, and one to the Armenian family next door. My grandfather falls into a drunken stupor in his reclining chair while my daddy goes back to work and everyone else lends a hand packaging leftovers and cleaning the kitchen.

At some point, it starts to snow - light flurries at first, just enough to be pretty - but when Nana checks the forecast, there's 4 to 6 inches predicted by morning. It's more than enough to panic the New York relatives into an early departure.

“Well,” my grandmother remarks more to herself than anyone else, “That's that. And we don't have to do it again until Christmas. Ain't that something to be grateful for.”

Indeed it was.

The Girl in the Red Knit Hat

For the first week, I didn't miss the girl in the red knit hat.

She was one of those anonymous figures that you saw regularly but didn't really register, not quite invisible but just a part of the landscape of the downtown bus station. It was a sad place, loud and dirty, neglected and usually smoky with exhaust fumes and diesel. It attracted the homeless and the desperate, the travelers who had no clear destination but were just looking for a way out of the city. It gave you the sense that any other place would do as long as it wasn't here. You could buy or sell drugs on the corner, stalk and rob the out-of-town gamblers who frequented the nearby casinos, or panhandle your way to a cup of coffee and a sandwich from the deli around the block. Shootings were not that uncommon and often went unreported. It wasn't a pretty or proud part of the city and no one wanted to get involved.

The girl in the red knit cap favored the corner across the street, just outside the fence of the old library building. She was tall and angular with dark, stringy hair and always carried a scarred up, old suitcase held together with rope and a ragged backpack. Often she had a guitar case slung over one scrawny shoulder and a faded Community Coffee can tied to one hip. She played for spare change and unfailingly would smile at anyone kind enough to throw a quarter or a crumpled dollar bill into the case or the coffee can. Her voice was shaky and quavery, raspy as metal on metal, but she sang nevertheless - out of tune and off key, to be sure - but never missing a lyric or a chord change. Old Baptist hymns, mostly, and some traditional twelve bar blues on her more profitable days.

It was late October when I realized I hadn't seen her in awhile, not at the bus station or on the courthouse lawn or the riverfront park. The weather had turned and as there was no sign of an Indian summer, I imagined she'd checked into one of the local shelters or boarded a Greyhound and headed farther south. New Orleans, I thought, or maybe the Florida coast, someplace where she wouldn't need a heating grate to keep warm at night.

That was a year ago and the weather has turned and turned again since then. And I still keep watch for that red knit hat.

"Everything passes, everything changes.  Even the mountains don't stand still." - Marty Rubin

12 Hours to St. John

It was 12 hours to St. John - a long and tedious drive with my grandparents, my mother, my brothers and two dogs and me all bickering every mile - Nana was in favor of spending the night at Brooks Bluff, a charming and rustic little collection of cottages off the beaten path in the Maine woods but my mother wanted to drive straight through and the feud escalated until my grandfather lost his temper and threatened to a) turn around and drive straight back or b) leave us all, dogs included, on the side of the highway.

“Oh, for Christ's sake!” he finally bellowed and slammed one meaty fist on the steering wheel, “If you don't all shut the hell up, you can damn well hitchhike for all I care! One more word is all it's going to take!”

I didn't know about anyone else but I wasn't completely sure this was an idle threat - the old man was known to be hot tempered, unpredictable and willing to cross a line to make a point – so I burrowed down with the dogs and hoped he'd forget about me. The outburst had the desired effect with my mother and grandmother withdrawing to their separate corners and the boys doing the same. The tension was heavy and oppressive but at least it was quiet.

In my family though, things were never forgiven and forgotten and having the last word might well have been an unwritten gospel. The remainder of the trip was uneventful but the sense of dread never faded. Even as we arrived on the island by dinner time the next day, I was waiting for it to spill over and drag us all under. Instead, we unpacked and made ourselve scarce, anxiously pretending that nothing was amiss. Just as we'd been taught. Just as we always did.

Also as usual, we had no company for the week that my grandfather stayed. Aunt Pearl and Aunt Vi and Miz Clara had readied the house as they always did but they were conspicuously absent. None of the local fishermen dropped off anything from their daily catches to welcome us home. No children visited. The old telephone was silent. It wasn't said outloud, of course, but we all knew the cause of this cold shoulder and knew it would pass. To the village, my mother was a middle aged good time girl, sass-mouthed and affable but with deep roots. She was well liked and popular. My island-born grandmother was respected, adored, and maybe just a little feared. She and my mother fit in. But my grandfather was seen as a contemptuous outsider, loud and boorish, with only his money to recommend him, what I once overheard Miz Hilda refer to as “Alice's unfortunate choice”.

Precisely a week later, Nana drove him to Yarmouth to catch a flight back to the States. The house she came back to was filled with food, friends, warmth and hospitality and it mostly stayed that way the remainder of the summer. Life out of the shadows became good again.

A Long Spell of Gray

After the first few days of the fog, Nana had managed to run a length of clothesline from the back door to the wood shed and convinced us it would be an adventure to fill the woodbox while holding onto the rope with one hand and not be swallowed up.

But after six days of being fog bound, even this was losing its charm and tempers were beginning to fray.

“You got stock in Nova Scotia Power and Light?” my mother snapped at me when I left the sunporch lights on overnight.

“Shut the damned back door!” my grandmother angrily hollered at her, “You weren't raised in no barn!”

And so it went. We'd worn out the dominoes, Monopoly'd ourselves into a stupor, run out of card games, re-read every precious book and written letters to everyone we knew. Nana couldn't face another minute of knitting and in a fit of temper, my mother had ripped out half of her crocheting. Driving was treacherous, we couldn't do wash, and the fog horn was on everyone's last nerve. The pale, gray fog was thick as molasses, wet and dense enough to squeeze like a sponge. It obscured the road, the driveway, the old Lincoln, even the dogs de-materialized after a few steps from the back door. We were a thoroughly unhappy and irritable bunch.

When it still hadn't cleared by the eight day, we were barely speaking and the natives were restless. The tourists had abandoned us for the clear skies of The Valley, there'd been no mail for a week, the fishermen were desperate and the factory was shut down. Only those who lived within walking distance of the church had made the perilous trek for Sunday services and while James had preached, it was only to a dozen or so good souls, some of whom were openly suspect about the fog being a visitation from the devil himself.

“It's a fog bank, for pity's sake,” James railed at them, “The good Lord doesn't send bad weather as a punishment! It will pass!”

“One can't abide such superstition and ignorance,” Miz Hilda remarked to my grandmother later, “It's a fogbank not a Biblical plague!”

It was to be a record breaking sixteen more days before I woke not hearing the fog horn, over three weeks of the precious summer season lost, and it would mean lean times for the whole village that coming fall and winter. Even so, with the return of the sun and blue sky, there was light and warmth and reconciliation. They were things to be grateful for after a long spell of gray.

Butterbean

Halloween will be the small brown dog's 15^th birthday.

I glance at her peacefully sleeping on my pillow and am amazed at how the time has flown by. She struggles with congestive heart failure these days and her coughing distresses me but she's still just as active, just as alert, and just as nimble as she ever was. It's not terribly hard to keep the thought of losing her at a safe distance. Her time is coming, I know, but it won't be today.

She was the last of a giveaway litter, a tiny bundle of brown fur with big ears and sad eyes.  I could almost hold her in the palm of my hand.

"Her mama was a Yorkie," the young man in the overalls and feed cap parked in front of the Walmart told me as he lifted her out of the milk crate, "But we ain't real sure 'bout her daddy.  Travelin' man, mos' likely."

I had both my Schipperkes then plus a houseful of cats.  Taking on a new puppy was madness on every level and I knew it - I cringed at the very thought of the housebreaking, the vet bills, the added cost of food, the responsibility, and God alone knew how the cats would take to her - but I couldn't find it in my heart to leave her.

"Tell you what," I said with a sigh, knowing I was lost but not wanting to face it directly, "If no one's taken her by the time I've finished shopping, I will."

The boy grinned and tucked her inside his jacket.

"Yes'm," he said politely, "We'll be waitin'.  If'n nobody else wants her, that is."

People still ask about her. I joke that when I run into some old photo store customer that I haven't seen in years, they don't ask how I'm doing but they always ask about Butterbean. It pleases me enormously to tell them she's still with me - a little grayer, a little pudgier, aren't we all - but very much still with me. It invariably makes them smile. They then tell me how much they miss having a real photo store in town and I force what I hope is a pleasant expression and don't remind them that if they'd supported us more, they still might. It's a stretch, of course, and not entirely fair. The digital revolution did us in every bit as much as dismal management and customers who preferred to shop at the big box stores. Adapt or perish, as the saying goes.

So Happy Birthday, little girl. You're been a comfort and a blessing and one of the best decisions I ever made. You are loved.

Breakfast Buffet

It was far too quiet at the breakfast table for anything good to be brewing. I slid into my usual place and hoped for invisibility.

My grandmother was smoking and scowling at my mother. My mother was trying to pretend she didn't notice and doing a poor job of it. Her hands shook when she raised her coffee cup and she looked haggard and sick, all the easily recognizable signs of a hangover were in place. The boys began to squabble over the jam pot and Nana snapped at them to leave the table. From her tone of voice, it was clear that she'd tolerate no argument and the boys willingly slinked off.

“I'm not hungry,” I ventured and Nana glared at me.

“Drink your juice and make yourself some toast,” she ordered, “It's window washing day and your mother is going to be no help at all.”

My mother surrendered but not peacefully.

“Mother, I'm sick!” she wailed, then slammed her coffee cup down, burst into a flood of tears and fled like a frightened rabbit. My grandmother looked disgusted but calmly lit a Kent 100 and added two tiny sacachine tablets to her coffee.

“Sick, is it,” she said clearly, spitting the words, “Goddam drunk, more's the pity. Just like your grandfather.”

So much for invisibility, I thought dimly, downing down my juice and toast in quick swallows and furiously casting about for an exit. I loved my grandmother with only a little less passion than I hated my mother but her wrath could be just as fearful. I watched her deliberately chain smoke her Kents and drum her white knuckled fingers on the table top while my mother sobbed methodically upstairs, wondering if it might just be the calm before the real storm. As soon as I was pretty sure she'd forgotten I was there, I muttered something about getting the window washing things and slipped away like a thief in the night.

In retrospect, it does seem as though there was very little love lost among the women of my family. My mother and grandmother were at each other's throats constantly with neither having much use for the New York contingent who spent much of their time sniping and bickering at us or each other or at my daddy's sisters who they saw as uniformly lower class.

And of course my headmistress Aunt Helen, who had married in, was universally and enthusiastically disliked by one and all, including - at times, at least so it seemed - her own husband. In less charitable moments, my daddy had been heard to say that her one redeeming feature was her unintentional ability to unite the family, particuarly the women, against a common enemy.

As they almost always did, Nana and my mother worked out a shaky truce by lunch and each gave me a quarter for the windows. I suspected it was more for my silence than my hard work.

Carpenter Logic

It comes as no great surprise to me that the so called “easy fix” the first plumber so tranquilly promised me last week is not to be.

“Wood's rotten,” the second one tells me with a shrug and a scowl, “You gon' need a carpenter.”

I protest mildly, explaining that the prior plumber assured me it was no more'n an hour's work, hardly anything involved, complicated or ridiculously expensive.

He gives me a sullen, blame-shifting glare and stubbornly repeats, “Gon' need a carpenter.”

Of course I am, I think dismally, why in the world would I have believed otherwise just because it was what I was told. Everybody lies, I remind myself. There's no point in losing your temper, I remind myself. It is what it is. I show the second plumber to the door and pointedly don't tell him thank you. I don't need his attitude, I tell myself, I have one of my own. When I call for the carpenter, I consider mentioning this breach of manners but then realize how futile it would be. They would apologize, assure me that he'd be talked to, and promptly do nothing whatever. Because that's how the world works these days. Rudeness and poor service are practically as fashionable as stupidity and just as ubiquitous.

It's three days and two more phone calls before the elusive carpenter calls me back. We agree on a time and day and he arrives on a frosty morning, exactly when promised. I'm marginally encouraged by this but it doesn't last after the first half hour of what can only be excavation. The noise is deafening and dollar signs are buzzing before my eyes like bees. Another half hour passes and I'm beginning to feel like a bystander at an accident scene. My stomach is in knots and I can't bear to look but I'm overwhelmed by curiosity. Too late I realize that a homeowner shouldn't have to be present for this kind of thing. When I discover there's a 4'X4' hole in the bathroom floor from which I can see clear to the grass and mud beneath the house, I hand him a latch key and issue a stern warning (“I'm leaving you with 5 cats in this house. If there are not 5 cats in this house when I get back, have no illusions – there will be blood.”) and flee to the sanctuary of the office.

By the end of the day, the bathroom is still out of order but the plumbers have come and made their repairs, the floor has been built back up and “floated”, and all 5 cats are accounted for.

The carpenter calls to tell me he'll be back in the morning to re-lay the tile and re-attach the fixtures. When I get home, I resist the urge to open the door and take a peek, trying to focus on the carpenter's cheerful reminder that it's fortunate I have a second bathroom.

You can't argue with irrefutable logic.

Middle Ground

I grew up in a loud and angry house and there isn't much that shuts me down faster than being yelled at. In the time it takes to draw a single breath, I'm suddenly a child again, with fear knots in my belly and tears at the ready. Even if the raised and angry voice isn't directed at me, all I care about is finding an exit, the quicker, the better. I despise and am shamed by my own reaction but there it is. Rome can burn, but it will burn without me.

And now we live in a loud and angry world and I feel as if I'm under assault nearly every minute of every day. Everybody's yelling and there's no escape, no shutting it out. It's like re-living the very worst days of my second marriage and I cringe to remember those hate filled shouting matches in between the silences. It's impossible to know which was more painful.

Verbal violence is a desperate creature. It grows fangs and talons and a taste for blood. It develops a will of its own. I think of it as a virus, airborne, highly contagious and eventually, all consuming.

I wonder if there isn't a middle ground, somewhere between flight and the urge to fight back, but so far I haven't found it.

Keep the Porch Light Burning

It was coming up on midnight when I made the final dog run. The night was still warm, clear and quiet with a half moon high in the sky. I locked the door behind me, stepped through the porch gate and latched it, and was about to cross the lawn when I noticed the man innocently walking down the street. He was tall and thin and not young, wearing shirt sleeves and jeans, and doing absolutely nothing wrong or threatening or even suspicious. The sudden and wholly unexpected stab of fear that went from my belly to my ankles caught me completely off guard and all rational thought deserted me. I ran for my car, slammed the door so hard it rattled and jabbed savagely at the door lock with one hand and the ignition with the other. By the time I realized that the innocent passerby had barely given me a glance, I'd fought off the panic and was feeling totally disgusted with myself.

I accept that my city has become a dangerous place to be. I understand criminals care nothing about time of day or zip codes, fences or guard dogs or even the risk of getting shot. I get that we're not protected anywhere anymore. I've gotten somewhat used to scanning crowds, paying more attention to my surroundings and taking more than the usual precautions. I don't open my door to strangers, I stay in more after dark, I watch where and when I drive. And all it gets me is an unreasonable panic attack over a stranger minding his own business on a dark street. I suspect I'd never have given him a thought as little as five years ago.

I get home and lock the door behind me, check the windows just to be sure, flick on both the front and back porch lights and settle in with the dogs. I tell myself things will look better in the morning but a part of me wonders if anything will ever be the same again.

The Night the Kitchen Caught Fire

My grandfather was an abusive, combative and ugly drunk and in ways that never made the slightest sense to me, was admired by many for it. He took inordinate pride in the fact that he could out smoke, out drink, out gamble and out philander any man alive and he liked to say so, loudly and often. What little he had to do with raising my mother was done with an iron hand and a mean mouth and every great once in awhile, I think I ought to be more charitable to her memory. And I might could if forgiveness was in my nature or if pigs could fly.

“I suppose,” my daddy once remarked to me in a rare, unguarded moment, “You could say your mother comes by it honestly.”

“Her drinking or her parenting?” I'd asked nastily and even when my daddy paled and looked so desperately hurt, I couldn't find it in my heart to take it back.

The conversation had taken place in what was left of the kitchen after my mother had spilled a glass of her favorite cooking sherry onto the broiler. It ignited a grease fire which rapidly spread to the dishtowel she was using as an oven mitt and then, when she jerked the broiler out and tossed it into the sink, to the curtains and the cabinets and the wicker baskets of paper plates she kept atop the refrigerator. Hearing my mother's helpless screams and the wild howling of the dogs brought my daddy running otherwise the whole room, maybe the whole house, would've been ablaze. He yanked open the under the sink cupboard - where the fire extinguisher should have been - only to discover several cardboard cartons of empty beer bottles, each individual bottle inexplicably wrapped in a paper towel, but no fire extinguisher.

“Holy Jesus Christ, Jeanette!” he roared and my trembling, hysterical mother, still clutching her sherry bottle, staggered and fell to her knees with a whimper.

“Wet towels!” he yelled at my brothers and me, “Now! And get her the hell out of here!”

We got the fire put out with a combination of the sink sprayer, water soaked towels and a pitcher of lemonade. The curtains, not to mention the steak on the broiler, were a total loss and the kitchen with its singed and blackened cabinets smelled of smoke for days. My mother made it halfway up the stairs before collapsing in a drunken, sodden heap and for the first and only time in my life, my daddy let her lay. Both my brothers protested, wanting to carry her the rest of the way and into her own bed but my daddy was adamant.

“Leave her be!” he told them sharply, “Let her wake up right where she is!”

The boys were shocked into silence and crept away. I was wondering when he'd discovered he had a spine and thinking it wouldn't last long.

“I have to leave this house late at night a couple of times every week to drag your grandfather's sorry ass up the stairs and into his bed,” he said and his voice was colder and harder than I'd ever heard it, “It would mean my job if I didn't but I'll be goddamned if I'll do it with your mother too!” Then he sagged against the stairway wall and finally crumpled, burying his face in his hands. “Dear God,” I heard him say, “Dear God, I can't keep this up.” It was shattering to watch. For a brief moment, the world I knew had been turned upside down. For a brief moment, my daddy and I had changed places and I had become the adult, the clear thinker, the strong one. It was beyond my understanding.

“Go to bed,” I told him, “I'll clean up.”

He raised his face, cleared his throat, distractedly brushed his hair out of his eyes and the world shifted back to its original and familiar orbit. Only not completely.

“No,” he said quietly, “Your mother caused all this. For once, she can clean it up.”

Strong words from a man who had spent his entire marriage drowning in denial, making excuses for her behavior, covering up her drinking and teaching his children to do the same, only better. I didn't doubt he was sincere, at least for the moment, but suspected he would have a change of heart in the not too distant future. He was wearied out and angry but he wouldn't stay that way. He wasn't made for hate, couldn't sustain it. I had no such difficulty. I stepped over my mother's body and left.

The Pit Bull & The Possum

As a general rule, I believe that drama is by invitation only but not always. Sometimes the stars align and wreak havoc for the sake of havoc. In Michael's world, this happens more often than with normal folk but still, now and then there are times when he's actually an innocent bystander, caught up in a mess not of his own making. Take, for example, the case of the pit bull, the possum, the purse snatcher and the police.

When I got there, the purse snatcher was long gone and the police were, somewhat listlessly, interrogating the Mexican work crew replacing the roof. Since the police spoke no Spanish and the Mexicans spoke no English, it was unclear how much actual communication was taking place but everyone was trying. By the time I got to the front porch, more drama was erupting in the backyard - Michael was yelling unintelligibly and the dogs were sounding like the hounds of hell - the cops were unmoved but the Mexicans on the roof began scrambling over the tar paper to see what the commotion was while those on the ground ran anxiously around the side of the house. Ladders tumbled over, tar spilled, and roof debris flew in every direction. All I could think of was how every second was bringing us closer to a Keystone Kops movie.

The source of the new drama was revealed quickly. The old pit bull had discovered and caught an unwary possum and Michael – clad only in his usual morning attire of white Calvin Klein briefs and flipflops and reasonably enough thinking the poor, bedraggled thing was dead – was trying to argue the dog into letting it go while the dog, slow and dull witted but lovable, was prepared to defend his prize to the death. He stood his ground while the other three danced and howled around him like dervishes. Michael finally prevailed and was attempting to simultaneously fend off the dogs and scoop the possum up with a shovel when the poor thing came back to life with a shrill, hysterical squeal. Shovel, possum, Michael, all four dogs and several Mexicans were so startled they all froze, giving the possum a window of opportunity to stagger through the latticework and reach safety. Unobstructed, he made his way to the sanctuary of under the house. I like to think he waited for cover of darkness and escaped to the vacant lot across the street but whatever his fate, he hasn't been seen since.

A Miracle in the Making

It didn't seem completely real when I learned that my cousin, Linda - for all practical purposes, the only living blood kin I have left - had been diagnosed with liver cancer. Try as I might, I couldn't get the words to make sense and when I finally did, it was too dreadful to contemplate.

While I was waiting for the initial shock to wear off and vainly searching for something comforting to tell her, she reverted (as she almost always does) to her usual resilient, reassuring, and optimistic self. She updated me about treatment options and what the doctors were and weren't recommending and complained regularly and usually sarcastically about the complexity of navigating the system. She made trip after trip from Tallahassee to Gainesville for a never ending parade of tests and bloodwork and evaluations and then more of each. I learned that radiation wasn't anyone's favorite idea, that tumor ablation wasn't likely to be successful and that she was being considered a candidate for surgery. Sometime, I think it was in June, she began easing us and herself into the prospect of a liver transplant. The words paralyzed me and though I refused to admit it and certainly never put it into words, a part of me began preparing for her to die. Even when she made it onto the transplant list, I wouldn't allow myself to see a miracle in the making. Morbid as it was, I couldn't shake the thought that more people died waiting on transplants than survived. It felt much too close to desperation.

Linda, of course, was having none of it. Her emails stayed philosophical and accepting but still confident. She and Robin, life partners for some 40 years, set about making preparations to be ready to leave at a moment's notice. They arranged for the house to be looked after, the cat tended, the wild birds fed. They de-cluttered with a vengeance that, under the circumstances, I found admirable if not flat out heroic.

The call came in August and in a matter of hours, they were on their way. I sat in front of my computer and tried to work through a maze of emotions but all I felt was a scattery kind of hope with a side dish of terror. I couldn't find words through the worry and apprehension and after awhile, I gave up and settled for trying to keep myself distracted. It was as close to giving up my agnosticism as I've ever come.

Fast forward a week, and she's out of ICU, off the ventilator, and feasting on watered down applesauce and yogurt with chicken and rice waiting in the wings. Her sense of humor is intact.

“Robin's camping out in my room again,” she texts me, “Where are the marshmallows?”

“Did you remember the fire permit?” I text back.

There's a pause and then the words “Oh, shit.....” and a downcast smiley face appear on my phone followed by “I knew there was something I forgot!”. I have to laugh.

When you're lost and don't know what's around the next corner, it's hard to prepare for what life can and will throw at you and even if you could be ready, there are things you simply don't allow yourself to think about. I never imagined I'd have a friend be murdered, or lose so many dear people to cancer, or have a cousin who needed and got a liver transplant. I never thought about getting to be my age and being surrounded by empty spaces. Even with reality staring me square in the face, I still try not to think about it. My cousin Linda has beaten back adversity her entire life. It's not so farfetched to think that she earned this chance. She and Robin ride out the hurricane in the hospital and just a day or two later are released and head for home.

Miracles happen every day and sometimes we don't notice but here's the lesson: Never underestimate an old broad with blood that doesn't clot and a second hand liver. Way to go, cuz.