Thought for the Day

I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.

Rebbecca West

What do you want to do today?

Her head cocks right, eyes search the ceiling.

We're sitting in the entryway on the reformed church pew.  Mandy catches our reflection in the door window.

Mug shot

"Woof."  "Erruff".  Her body puffs.  The woof comes out with an breathy oof.  "There's a dog in the doorway."

I wave at the man and dog in the doorway trying to show her the connection between my wave and me.  She looks at me waving, then at the reflection in the window of the door.  "BARK". 

It echoes in the enclosed space, bouncing off the ceiling.  My ears hurt.  "Unlax," I tell her.

"It's only me." 

The conversation ends there.  I can't list options because she'll only hear the first suggestion.  I don't want to go outside at the moment.  I feel a need to check out the NWS site and find out why the thermometer is inching up toward forty.  I thought Jorge was pulling my leg when he mentioned a thaw.  The NWS forecasters were and are fairly inconsistent.  Light freezing rain and drizzle never happened in our area after 2 pm.  yesterday.  Below zero temperatures are in the overnight forecast  two days from now.  I need to get oak in the basement wood bin. 

Johann calls.  "Your phone is ringing, "says Dawn.

"I don't know where it is."

"I can't make it over.  Drank too much last night.  I'm in a bad way. See ya."

At eight pm the previous night, he calls to check in.

"Howyre' doin?" he asks.

We're speeding home after eating too much Lo Mein. " I'm OK," I tell him. Actually, I've got stomach cramps and a bad cough.

"I'll be over with the big truck tomorrow.  We can load some firewood, bottle that wine and discuss the greenhouse footings." 

"OK."   He tells me that he's been hanging drywall, working until two am.  Tonight will be another work marathon. 

"Been running hard and fast all day." he adds.

I'm bored beyond recognition and he can't find enough time in the day.

I lazy down at the library with Mandy at my feet reading the local newspapers and trying desperately to have a conversation with my library angel.  Every time I ask a question, be it about criteria for the book cull we're about to launch or about the grocery store in town that's up for sale, I get a long convoluted answer that begins in 1944 and ends with a purse snatching.



 

The Gallery

Boy and his dog

Gimme a kiss.

The other dog

I love to dig.

A nap after lunch

Jonathon Pine

Mandy's friend "Buddy"

The Taming of a Shrew

The lightly falling snow obscures the hills off toward the northeast and the next town giving the impression of heavy fog. The Pooch is focused on an animal under the snow.  The fur on his back is covered with a dusting of snow.

I'm fixing a breakfast which involves several steps so I can gaze out the kitchen window and watch the activity under the bird feeder.

His intent gaze is broken on occasion when a bird larger than a chickadee or junco lands on the feeder.  A mourning dove, for example, finds him paws up against the pipe looking at up the morsel of poultry.  The mourning dove is a ground feeder and will not land with the gray tabby underneath.

First course in an extended breakfast is a bowl of oatmeal.  To combat the cholesterol in  the Amish eggs I consume, I forgo my distaste for cereal of any kind.  I alternate toppings of brown sugar and honey or dried cranberries depending upon my mood.  I watch the cat snowplow in deep snow hoping to catch the varmint tunneling beneath.  He alternates his technique with burrowing and a long paw reach which appears to me as a choreographed snow dance.  He works the animal in a circle, confusing the thing from its original purpose-a meal of sunflower seed.

I'm perplexed when I see the dark, furry shape emerge from its snow tunnel and scamper across the crust of snow.  The Pooch treats it as if it were a snake.  He jumps at it, paws at it delicately and avoids it scrupulously as if if were poisonous.  This cannot be a mouse.  Mice and birds are quickly consumed.

My guess is that the creature below the bird feeder is either a mole, shrew or vole.  The answer is on the inter net.Once I read the Wikipedia article on shrews I understand the cat's reluctance.


Some species of shrews are venomous.  The venom is contained within the grooves of their sharp spike-like teeth. The contents of the teeth of an American short tailed shrew are sufficient to kill 200 mice.One chemical obtained from the shrew venom is considered useful in treating blood pressure disorders, neuro-muscular conditions and migraines.  The saliva of the Northern Short-tailed Shrew contains the peptide soricidin which is used to treat ovarian cancer. Along with bats and toothed whales, some species of shrews use echolocation ( sonar).  Shrews hold 10% of their body mass in their brain which is the highest body to brain mass of any animal, including humans. 

 

This a smart cat.  The shrew merges from the snow tunnel and races across the snow like banshee.  The cat leaps after it.  Then the shrew tunnels back into the deep snow.  The interplay continues while I place the cast iron skillet in the oven to bake my tortilla egg pie at 400 degrees. The shrew seems to be pissed off, struggling and writhing on top of the snow once again.  Aroused from its winter torpor with a simple plan to fuel a metabolic rate as high as that of a chickadee which involves eating  up to 80% of its body weight per day or suffer through a body mass reduction from 30 to 60%, the shrew lies still atop the snow.  

The cat senses trouble brewing.  The thrill of a live toy has worn off. There's no promise of a meal.  He races toward the mouse and veers off at the last moment, leaping over the snow bank onto the sidewalk between the privet hedge and the house.  

Five Dollar Holler

Excerpt from Vagrants, Varmints ,Miscreants & Ne'er Do Wells by Roger A Gavrillo, subtitled "Apologies To The Drunken Artist"  copyright 2000, all rights reserved Seven Roads Gallery Inc.

Lucy 

 The setting is the year 2000. I'm living in Sedona
operating a trading post in downtown Flagstaff , 45 minutes 
and 7000 feet up from Sedona via interstate 17." Downtown"
Flagstaff is sometimes referrred to as Old Town and the location of 
many small shops, cafes and tourist oriented businesses. It is within
walking distance of the campus of Northern Arizona University.

                                                

"The students who head downtown have some weird sense of style. The head gear, for example, could be something retrieved from the Goodwill discard bin or the recycled clothes shop on Aspen Street called Incahoots. Much of it I wouldn't be caught dead wearing even if I were hoping to land a job with the circus.   Cupcake hats, pointy hats, knit hats, hats with tassels, African king hats, Yoruba ceremonial garb but nary a Galoot hat. Perhaps they use the hats to water their horses when they're not wearing them.  Most of them resemble a bowl; and all these people have a dog.  I suspect it may have a connection with the over-consumption of alcohol.

The headline for the NAU student newspaper, The Lumberjack, features a picture of students crowded around a pizza box.  The by-line is Five Dollar Holler, the expression pizza hawkers use when lining up outside bars at closing time.  That also explains the crusts left in doorways and on the sidewalk when I walk to the store in the morning...

The first person in the store the other day was an American Indian lady selling phone cards. Yes, phone cards.Then another babe comes in looking for pinon ash. "What the hell is pinon ash?"  Later on, its dream catchers, then rattles and Hopi flat dolls.  A big, black tour bus pulls up in front of the Christmas store across the street.  On the side of the bus is a lion with a crown crest announcing the modern day stage coach as The Regency tour bus. The only ones who come in the store from the tour bus are an elderly couple from Ontario. He's got a huge bulbous red nose from long Canadian winters and a bottle of Canadian Club next to the TV.  She's just grandma with the plastic rain hat.

A lady from California with a cell phone pasted to her ear walks through. She's engaged in a stimulating conversation about the new set of laundry appliances her friend on the other end has newly acquired. At some point the subject of the conversation changes. She chides the other person about lapsing into baby talk. Baby talk. "Oh, please."  The wretched conversation continues.  The California woman is telling her phone friend that she, "Got a real deal on a Crown kachina from a Navajo woman on the street, only $100."  No more than a minute after the wretched woman from California leaves the Navajo woman comes in the store carrying a cardboard box.  " Are you buying?" she asks.  I look in the box.  The kachinas, if you could call them that, are plastic dolls with a buckskin dress and a tableta. .  Cheap Navajo tourist knockoffs.  "They're $35 dollars," she says.

God just pours these people out like a pitcher of Kool Aid.

Dog Lovers

I've been fighting a particularly virulent upper respiratory infection. When I call my 80+ year old library angel, I tell her,

"We won't be culling any books today. I'm not well."

"Did I give it to you?" she asks.

"Yeah, but I won't tell anyone."

I send Dawn to the library to copy a document. My library angel sends a book home with Dawn. The Last Dog On The Hill by Steve Duno. When she's sick, I bring soup. She gives me books to calm me down and rest. It's hard for me to do nothing.

"He may need some reading material," she tells Dawn.

I'm halfway through the fascinating book which chronicles the life of an amazing dog named Lou. Adding personal details about his life, Steve Duno relates interesting anecdotes about living in California. I'm at the part where he's about to move to Seattle. Duno finds the six month old Rottweiler/Shepard mix on a trip to Northern California. The puppy is infested with fleas, over 50 ticks and has an infected wound on his neck. Duno rescues the dog and immediately drives to the closest vet who tells Steve,

"This dog would have been dead in six months."

Lou has foiled a Seven Eleven robbery, survived an encounter with a rattlesnake, made friends with Daryl Hannah, destroyed more things than Marly and charms gang members and reluctant apartment managers alike.

The other night, I wake up wheezing. I can't breathe. Leaping out of bed, I struggle for air feeling like I'd swallowed a nacho chip down the wrong pipe. Both Mandy and the Pooch run to the hallway where I'm desperately trying to clear my airway. Dawn switches on the bedroom light. "I'm all right, I tell all three."

"Do you remember when Mandy was as little as the picture above?" I mentally ask Dawn who's at work right now. She may be reading this on a break later in the afternoon. When she gets home, we'll marvel at the changes.

My mind strays to the encounter between Mandy and my only granddaughter over a year ago. The granddaughter shrieks in mock fear when Mandy approaches. A consummate actor at age four, Dawn does a tarot reading when the kid is born. The tarot says she'll be a handful. We see the beginnings of manipulative behavior where she refuses to eat a normal meal. Mom feeds her crackers a short time later. Riding in the back seat of a car, she wants to be the center of attention. To achieve this she has to raise the decibel level of singing to drown out the conversation between adults.

Mom reassures me before they come for a visit that the child will be OK around our six month old puppy. She has friends with dogs. I spend most of my time try to train the curious dog from jumping on a shrieking child. Later, I learn from my son that the parents don't like dogs.

I understand why someone would choose not to raise a dog or cat. But not liking dogs is another story. In a blog I follow, a UW-Madison professor debunks supposedly factual testaments of media hype about dogs carrying diseases. She classifies one such story as a corollary. For more information, I suggest booting up www.theotherendoftheleash.com.

My first teaching assignment was a fourth grade classroom in the most inner part of the inner city. I lived on a farm. I'd bring a chicken into the classroom to enrich their lives and find numerous teaching assistants-mostly local residents-terrified of the chicken. Fear of snarling inner city dogs I can comprehend. These same kids, I'd gather on weekends and bring them out to the farm. It was difficult to get them back to their homes after the short one day trip in the country.

The Pooch spends his nights hunting a mouse in the house. Dawn says she can hear his claws scurrying around on the kitchen linoleum. Over the weekend, I cornered the mouse on the first floor bathroom, only to have him escape into my office. The silver lining in that cloud is a completely reorganized office with clear access for the cat into the closet and around furniture. In the evening he'll spend an hour snoozing on a bed on the laundry table in the basement or lounging on a carpet in front of the washer. It's been two days now and I'm surprised that he hasn't left us a gift of mouse on the kitchen floor. It may be one smart mouse or as Dawn says,
"He probably ate the thing."

"G'night Mary Ellen."

It's barely seven am. I pull back the homemade drapes in the second bedroom and raise the dusty rose mini blinds. Dawn ( as in morning) is an ethereal blue mist. A large bird flies off the top of a white pine on the south fence line. It could have been a crow. They always hang around in the early morning, but no, the underside is a lighter color-an off white. The birds of Kickapoo Center sleep in. They're not active until the sun rises over the hills to the east. Of late, that's near nine in the morning. This is no sparrow hawk. It's too large.

G'night Ben.

Mandy stayed up late last night watching A Dog Year. Jon Katz's book is turned into a movie with Jeff Bridges. The star is a Border Collie named Devan(Devin?). Mandy gets so engrossed with Devan, she walks right up to the TV for a closer look. My wife and I watch Mandy and notice the similarities between the two dogs. The cat's on the back of the couch in the groove between the fat, bulging cushions, feet sticking straight up in the air. He appears to be oblivious to the world, but when I toss a barbecued soy crisp nugget at him, he turns over immediately and snarfs it up.

G'night Grampa.

It'll be frigid tonight. Well below zero. When Johann calls at dinner time last night, the thermometer outside the kitchen window says three degrees. It's ten degrees on the hill.

"It's nice and warm in the cabin," he says. "I can't even see my breath."

I counter with a memory of a salt box farmhouse along the Lake Michigan shore. The closest town has a hardware store, the Knotty Pine Cafe, a car repair shop on the road outside of town and a couple of churches. The names of the businesses reflect the Dutch heritage of their ancestors. The next closest town four miles to the south has a summer festival where they wash the sidewalks and streets beforehand. The previous tenants of the salt box farm house let the chickens roam in the kitchen. It took weeks to clean the dirt and filth from the house. The landlord was a crusty, old German truck farmer on the outside of the city. The neighbors were relieved to have a young couple living in the house. They told us stories of the old man, probably a drunk, beating his kids with a belt in the front yard. His pregnant wife ran off after one particularly tumultuous fight. The people across the county roads picked her up walking toward Sheboygan out of concern for the baby.

G'night granma.

We dress the baby in pajamas, snow suit and cover her head with a soft knit cap. There are two rooms upstairs. The larger one serves as our bedroom and the other smaller one facing the county highway is the baby's room. There's a heat register in the floor which is open to the living room below. In the living room is a behemoth oil fired heater. The brown enameled metal smells slightly of fuel oil. In the kitchen we install an Ashely air tight wood stove. If we leave the door to the upstairs open and fill the wood stove to the brim, the temperature on the second floor is a toasty fifty five degrees. When we mention the cold to the landlord, he surrounds the foundation of the salt box with hay bales. The pipes in the bathroom freeze.

G'night John Boy.

Our farm is a twenty acre parcel the crusty old German buys with the proceeds from an onion harvest. He owns the adjacent corner farm, barn and another salt box farmhouse-only larger than ours. A young couple moves in. They mention frequent bouts of illness. I'm suspicious and tell them to have the water from the well located down stream of the barn tested. When the results come back from the state, they are told,

"Do not even bathe in that water."

The crusty old German hears about our suggestion.

"Vat you go tellinth them the vater iss bad," he shouts at me. " I drink a cup all de time and notting happen to me."

He hangs a rusty tin cup on a hook next to a spigot from the well house. Piss and vinegar flow through his veins. Battery acid would probably curdle in his stomach. He knows he can't kick us out, so he raises the rent from 70 dollars a month to 90. We give him notice when the lower flat of an old mansion in the inner city owned by a teacher friend becomes available. We move in the middle of November.