In Another Parallel Universe...

It is day one-million-four-hundred-and-thirty-two of Trump's fifty-third presidency. 

Well, that's what it feels like. 

And yet, I still cannot believe it. 

I can't believe that my fellow Americans actually chose this. 

In a parallel universe, Kamala Harris is president. 

 In a different parallel universe, Kamala Harris is not the first female president, or the first black female president. 

In another parallel universe, slavery ended in the United States in 1834--the same year it ended in the British colonies with the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 (it took effect Aug. 28, 1833). 

And in another parallel universe, slavery ended in the United States in 1807, when the British Empire abolished the slave trade (except in areas ruled by the East India Company, e.g., the American colonies). 

 

In one parallel universe, people are humble because they value humility. Narcissism gives rise to pity. Everyone admires hard work, creativity, and intelligence, but nobody thinks they are better or more worthy of respect than someone else because they happen to be intelligent, athletic, or creative. 

In another parallel universe, nothing is monetized. Everyone gives and shares and takes what they need. Everyone understands that people don't all need or want the same things. They believe that having enough is best. And everyone has enough. 

 In another universe, everyone only takes. They use physical strength to take by force. They use their intelligence to steal and embezzle. They use their creativity to fabricate and lie. They use emotional intelligence to browbeat, gaslight, and manipulate. It doesn't matter if they have enough, they take and take. It doesn't matter what they must do to get what they want. They will lie, steal, cheat, exploit, manipulate, rape, torture, murder, and destroy anything that poses an obstacle to getting what they want. Everyone takes from others, and everyone is robbed by others. Compassion, tolerance, and mutual respect are outlawed. Liberty and justice pose an obstacle to people who take. This universe is dying, but the takers care only about enriching themselves now, and as long as they live--the more so in response to the hate they generate by everything that they take.

Having Lost the Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, Tell Me, How Do You Feel?

You can believe that abortion is wrong and still be offended by the Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that abortion is wrong and every pregnancy should be carried to term to protect the life of an unborn child. 

If overturning Roe v. Wade were about saving the lives of unborn children, then it would stand to follow that Republicans would champion the welfare of children. 

• Republicans would not allow immigrant children to be separated from their parents, nor fail to set up systems for reuniting those families in the future. 
• Republicans would not tolerate warehousing children in cages in detention centers. 

If Republicans cared about all children, then conservative policies would protect the lives of Black children by insisting on quick and thorough investigations by disinterested parties in every case when a black child age 18 or younger is shot and killed by police.

• But we know that Republican policies do not protect children. They have separated children from their parents, they have funneled children into retention centers or foster care, and they have failed to keep track of those children for the purpose of reuniting them with their parents.
• Policies of both parties have long tolerated internal investigations by the police when an officer is suspected of killing a Black child or adult without justifiable cause.

If the Republican Party cared about the welfare of children, its policies would lift children up out of poverty. 

• It doesn't.

If the Republican Party cared about the welfare of children, it would advocate for reasonable gun control to ensure that children were safe in their schools. 

• It doesn't.

There is abundant evidence to suggest that the Republican Party is not especially interested in the welfare of children. 

What if the Republicans' primary motivation for overturning Roe v. Wade were to assert power over (cis) women? 

What would that look like?

• Cis women would lose the right to terminate a pregnancy, even in cases of rape, incest, or medical necessity.
• Cis women would have to carry a pregnancy to term regardless of any plans she might have had to finish school, or to become a dancer, athlete, or astronaut.
•  Cis girls as young as 11 would have no choice but to carry a pregnancy to term.
• Thousands of cis women living in poverty would die as a result of medically unsupervised abortions. 
• Anyone assisting a woman to get an abortion might be found liable in civil court for placing the interests of the woman above those of an embryo or fetus. 
• Any doctor or clinic that provided safe abortion for cis women would be at risk for losing their license or going to prison. 

One billboard at a recent protest said it best: 

"You don't trust me to make this decision for myself, but you trust me to have a child?"

Even if you are a woman who believes that abortion is wrong, you might see, based on abundant evidence, that the motivation for overturning Roe v. Wade was not to protect the lives of (unborn) children so much as it was to take control away from the lives of (cis) women.

If the state is allowed to take a life-altering decision away from (cis) women, then (cis) women lose the right to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" as set forth in the Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration of Independence,

that document published in 1776 which set forth the reason for the United States coming into existence --seven years before the American Revolution was won, and eleven years before the U.S. Constitution. 

The first paragraph of that nation-defining document declares,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed[...]

I ask any woman who is pro-choice this question: 

Do you believe that the only American citizens who have the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should be (white) men? 

Is that okay with you?

Or do you think that these earliest, most dearly held, nationally defining rights should apply to you as well? 

Do you believe those rights should apply to all American citizens? 

Because guess what. 

Women no longer have the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

How could we? 

Please explain to me how we possibly could have those rights without Roe v. Wade. Without decision-making authority over our own bodies, our own lives. 

As a (cis) woman, your most essential rights as an American citizen have been overturned. 

Withdrawn. 

Kaput.

Regardless of your position on abortion, you no longer have the most singular rights of an American citizen as spelled out in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. 

You are no longer a stakeholder in the original American dream. 

How does it feel?

The Good-Luck House (and Barn)

 

Phil and I are sitting in front of a crackling fire. Zarya the dog, is spread out on a drop cloth draped over a long, deep couch. Floor-to-ceiling windows look out onto thin pines and bare trees astride  Keusel Lake, a log home and the illusion of forest on the other side. The sky is overcast. Raindrops cling to the patio furniture on a deck designed to accommodate a big family or a dozen friends.

This is not our house. This is not even the house that we originally rented. The house that we rented had a more worn-in look and feel, more human dander, and a narrower deck.

This is a house of good fortune, a direct result of my having contracted Covid three weeks ago when  infection rates were supposed to have been extremely low. I had just begun to venture out. I think I made it as far as KwikTrip.

Our first night here, in an episode of "The Last Kingdom", a prescient child was blindfolded and tasked with selecting someone in the crowd. She cut a meandering path through the crowd and eventually slipped her hand into a young man's hand. That man then walked over to a fumarole the size of a manhole--we knew that it was a volcanic vent because it emitted steam. Without visible hesitation, he took one step and disappeared into the fumarole without a sound.

He was the chosen sacrifice. His bad luck was brought about intentionally to open the door for good fortune for the group. 

I thought it was interesting, how that theme resonated with how we came to be here in this house. I was reminded of how Covid got us this vacation rental upgrade, seeing that theme reiterated in a ritualized human sacrifice. 

The idea of good fortune requiring a counterweight of ill fortune--and vice versa--seems to go way back. 

In the Bible, God had Abraham prepare to sacrifice his son, Isaac. A messenger from God stops Abraham from completing the grim task, saying, "Now I know you fear God." And then Abraham unbinds his son, sees a ram, and slays the ram as a substitute sacrifice (instead of Isaac).

I am no theologist, nor have I made a study of this particular passage; it just sprang to mind in the context of discussing human sacrifice. 

Even though the messenger tells Abraham that he is satisfied to know that Abraham fears God (and to fear God is to believe in the power of God), still Abraham slays the ram anyway, as a sacrifice. 

Why slay the ram? God is satisfied that Abraham has proven his belief in God. And surely, the ram is not as valuable a sacrifice as Isaac. The ram was not selected by God, as Isaac had been. The ram just happened to be passing by. 

Perhaps the fact that the ram had the great bad luck to pass by at just that minute made it an adequate sacrifice--not because the ram was intrinsically valuable (relative to Isaac), but because it was a ram with truly great bad luck. (Whereas, when you think about it, Isaac was really very lucky.) 

Maybe Abraham slaughtered the ram because of some mathematical law of the universe that requires a balance of good luck for bad. 

Maybe Abraham slaughtered the ram not for God, but to balance out Isaac's great good luck with the ram's truly awful luck. 

Maybe the sacrifice of the ram was not for God, but a simple act of balancing the scales. 

Anyway, that's not what this post is about. This post is about houses. 

As soon as you put a drop cloth and a dog on a couch, that house is yours--while you're in it. The more so if it's raining. The more so if you build a fire. The more so if you have a few dishes in the sink.

But when we prepare to leave, we will have to fold up the drop-cloth, sweep up the ashes, clean and put away the dishes. We will have to initiate a process of erasing all traces of our presence, a process that will be completed by the person who comes to clean the house up after us.

We will go home to our house. 

I am deeply attached to our house, our barn, our 4.5 acres of pines, deciduous trees, lawn, and pasture. 

Don't get me started on the details of habitat, the comings and goings of migratory birds, the raccoon and her kits, the cranes, the cardinals, the storied history of four equines who have found love, safety, heaven, and hell here, on this patch of earth. 

You may not remember this from an earlier post, but for several years, my luck with the horses had been so bad that the veterinarian had suggested I rub sage in their stalls. Moreover, a friend from the dog park advised me that a lot of suicides happen in old barns, which could reasonably set up a lot of bad juju. I had come very close to hiring a...Oh, what do you call those people who have a sixth sense and have various remedies for this type of situation...? Anyway, despite all evidence in this post to the contrary, I was reluctant to go in that direction. Instead, I've relied on data mining among horse-keepers and researched the veterinary literature, leaving no stone unturned. 

I have made a study of aging horses' guts and teeth, of pony feet and pony metabolism. I have heaped a hundred pounds onto the scale on the side of prevention. For the first time ever, all of the horses got through last winter unscathed. 

Nonetheless, it is a great comfort to that this happened: One night this late winter, I slid back the door to the barn, switched on the hay-lights, and what did I see? Was the pony's face oddly misshapen?  

As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw a bird, as distinguished from the pony's head, come into focus (most likely a red-tailed hawk). It was perched on the top oak board, one of two heavy horizontals that formed a primitive gate to keep the horses on their side of the barn. 

The hawk and pony were only inches apart, as if they had been enjoying a visit. 

The fact that the horses were not troubled by my appearance seemed to confuse the bird as to his own attitude toward me. For a moment, the bird and I seemed frozen in place, regarding one another.  

Then the hawk stooped, preparing to take flight. 

I bent my knees, bowed my head, and the hawk flew over me, out the door into the night. 

I reported this event to Sam, an aspiring Wiccan. Sam said, when a hawk crosses your path it means you are protected. 

It meant that my barn and horses were finally safe. 

To verify this hopeful news, I further researched online the meaning of such an encounter with a hawk.

And yes, the consensus among the ...Oh, what is the word for spiritual beliefs tied tied to nature and the spirit world and North American tribal / aboriginal religions / Druidic-pagan / Wiccan cosmologies...? 

 That. 

There is consensus there that such an encounter with a hawk has totemic significance. 

If I should ever build a totem (I really should), I would put a red-tailed hawk at the top. 

I guess this post was not about houses. Maybe it's about finding safe havens. 

This is a good-luck house.

  

Listen to Your Dog

 So, it happened: I got Covid. It wasn't as bad as I expected. 

First off, for some magical reason, I had an overwhelming urge last weekend to go to Trader Joes and buy bags and bags of frozen cuisine, each bag bedazzled with a glossy, 4-color rendering of its delectable contents, sizzling hot and tastefully lit: a moveable feast for skillet or microwave. 

I also went to the feed store last week and doubled up on ingredients for my two senior horses' mash. I even loaded up on dog food and dry cat food. 

And, after a brief moment recently when I was stunned to discover that there was only one roll of toilet paper left in the entire house, I had taken measures to ensure that that would not happen again, barring some sudden and unforeseen extreme shift in the flow of commerce. 

We even had extra boxes of Kleenex on hand, bought when I was loading up on toilet paper.

Moreover, if you can believe this coincidence, a couple weeks ago I had offloaded a substantial amount of work-related ballast to avoid sinking--without having done which, any pause in my rate of productivity would have resulted in something akin to that container ship running aground in the Suez Canal. 

As it was, I could afford to take a week to convalesce and watch Season 11 of The Walking Dead.

It was almost as if I had been preparing all these weeks to get Covid, the same way I might prepare to  spend an entire week in the Bahamas.

Having watched a documentary on Netflix about how dogs can sense people's moods and health, I was more alert to how our dog  Zarya responded to the change in my health. 

When I woke up on Monday with the flu and cold symptoms of the Covid combo, Zarya, our 95-pound shepherd-Doberman mix appeared crestfallen and wouldn't approach me. She hustled out of my room, and would check in only furtively a couple times a day (with my husband). Basically, she acted as if I had beaten her and she wasn't sure it was safe to be around me. 

I won't lie; it was wounding. 

By Wednesday, she began to perk up. And I was feeling better. Not great, but better. 

By Thursday, without being pushy about it, Zarya suggested a walk. Note: She had not suggested a walk on Monday or since, and that is really saying something. Normally, she expects two walks each day, and she is very clear about the timeframe in which these walks should happen. 

By Friday, Zarya had cheered up immensely and no longer treated me as if I were a felon. She insisted I was ready for a walk. 

So, I got up, got dressed, masked up, and Zarya and I walked for 15-20 minutes through the woods at the park down the street. That was enough for me. 

And Zarya was fine with that. She hopped back in the car as thought it had been a really nice long walk altogether from her point of view.

Having grown accustomed to spending gobs and gobs of time alone in my lovely little bedroom under a puddle of cats, I have had a very big day today. (It's Saturday.) I took Zarya to the dog park near a grocery store, and then I went to the grocery store and got piles of groceries. 

Of course, I masked up. 

When will I feel like I don't need to wear a mask in a grocery store?  

Before getting Covid, when I was going around all nude in the face, I was also looking in the paper at the local statistics for covid infections. They were extremely low. 

My friends have been making up for lost time, going to concerts and plays every chance they get...Going to their kids' games and having the book club at their house... 

Why is it I go to the KwikTrip, and BAM! ...Covid. 

My life seemed just on the threshold of becoming normal. 

I was just about to buy tickets for Amy Schumer's 2022 concert in November, trying to picture myself in a crowd of hundreds of hard-laughing people. (November will be here before you know it.)  

Am I now among the super-inoculated? Can I run amok in the mosh pit if I want to? Or am I going to be one of the lucky ones to get Covid twice or three times.

I don't know. But Zarya is saying it's time for a walk.

The Man's Liability: Calculating Damages for Unwanted Pregnancy in Texas

In 1990, in my early 20s, I worked for six months in a women's health clinic in Brookline, Massachusetts. Several years later, an active shooter entered those same offices and killed two women who worked the same job that I did, admitting patients. They too were in their early 20s. In 1990, if a woman was fewer than eight weeks along in her pregnancy, we had her reschedule her appointment to when she was eight to ten weeks into it, for medical reasons. Perhaps now, 30 years later, it is not medically inadvisable to terminate a pregnancy at six weeks. But in 1990, a woman wasn't even eligible to have the procedure before she was in her eighth week. 

Pregnancy is a big, big, big, big deal.

In week 23 of my pregnancy I was hospitalized with contractions from preterm labor. Two days later, I was back in the hospital for a week, hooked up to an IV drip for magnesium that put a halt to my contractions, but made me sick and weak. It would be hard to overstate how sick I was on that magnesium drip. Afterwards, I couldn't go back to work. I couldn't go home to my house. I had to stay at my mother's house so she could look after me while I incubated in bed for another 10 weeks. 

As difficult as that was, I did not have maternal sepsis, like my friend A. whose life hung in the balance when she was pregnant with twins. Nor did my water break early, as it did for another woman in the antepartum ward when I was there who spent at least ten weeks upside-down in a hospital bed in a heroic effort to safeguard her pregnancy. I was not as badly off as Amy Schumer, who was acutely sick throughout her pregnancy, in and out of hospitals for dehydration not dozens, but hundreds of times. 

If you talk to women about their experiences being pregnant, you might be surprised by the wide range of stories you will hear. Many love every minute of their pregnancy. Some have to endure magnesium drips, or a total loss of agency, or both. Many experience dangerously high blood pressure and have to stay home and not walk around for a few weeks. For some, the onset of pregnancy brings unexpected diabetes, or a life-threatening immune response to the pregnancy itself. 

 These are the stories of a few privileged white women who had health insurance, support systems, and financial means. They are not examples of single women without health insurance, or 12, 13, or 14-year-old pregnant children. These examples were not pregnancies brought about by rape or incest. 

Birth control fails. All of it. Not all the time, but occasionally. On an ongoing, regular basis, all birth control occasionally fails. 

And then there's that oops moment, when you thought or assumed that he put on a condom, but you  didn't see him do it, so you couldn't be sure he did, and you didn't mention it or ask because you didn't want to be a wet blanket. Or maybe you didn't want to make him mad. Or maybe he was a forceful about it, so he wouldn't have stopped to put a condom on if you had asked him, (but you like him, so it wasn't rape, right?). Maybe he assumed you were wearing something or taking something, because right after, he said, "You've got something, right? You're on the pill or something?" And then, seeing the blood drain from your face, depending on your relationship, your sense of self-worth, and the kind of guy he is, events unfold.

Pregnancy is hard. Birth control fails. Men get women pregnant.

If, as in the state of Texas, a woman cannot safely, legally, or logistically terminate her pregnancy, then she evidently must bear the full weight of the consequences of being pregnant. 

Those consequences include:

1) Being pregnant, and potentially having a miscarriage, carrying a baby to term and having to decide whether to keep it or give it up for adoption.

2) Medical expenses

3) The cost of raising a child: $233,610 (on average in 2021)

4) Lost opportunity costs related to 

        a. Medical complications related to pregnancy (including but not exclusive to time off from work)

        b. For a pregnant child, emotional, mental, educational, and social opportunities, which would translate into career opportunity costs, which would have to be calculated on a case-by-case basis 

        c. For a college or graduate student, the cost of educational and related career opportunities which may b reduced, or overshadowed by childcare and financial priorities related to parenthood.

This list is situational and elliptical in nature. Suffice it to say, under the best of circumstances, a woman who embraces her pregnancy is at least emotionally prepared to address attendant opportunity costs.  A woman or child who does not want to be pregnant and is not prepared to have a baby will nonetheless incur significant opportunity costs. In addition, she will experience her pregnancy and the disadvantages of cumulative lost opportunities as a series of consequences that she is forced to endure by order of the state. 

Against her will, a woman or child in Texas who does not want to be pregnant is forced to remain pregnant. 

And what about the men?  Without their participation, it would be impossible for any woman or child to have an unwanted pregnancy. 

What are his consequences? 

Does he have to pay a woman $10,000 every time he fails to wear condom? Should he pay $10,000 every time his condom tears, or slips off inside a woman's vagina, and results in an unwanted pregnancy? Or should he simply pay $10,000 each time he puts his penis inside of a woman regardless of whether or not she becomes pregnant because his participation could initiate the start of an unwanted pregnancy?

If a woman has a video of herself and a man having sex, and it is obvious and apparent by the reasonable-person standard that the man did not put on a condom, or that his condom slipped off and became lodged inside her vagina, or that the condom tore and was rendered ineffective, should that be admissible in court as evidence that he should be held liable not only for child support but also for his partner's damages?

What do I mean by damages? 

Caveat: I am not a lawyer, nor did I go to law school, but I am a developmental editor of law school books. In that capacity, and through osmosis, I have managed to absorb some basic legal concepts, such as damages and (we'll get to it) negligent torts. I don't know about Texas state law, and I don't know about this, that, and the other, but I do understand the concept of damages, and I do know a negligent tort when I see one.

Damages are what the judge or jury views as the harm done to one person who is suing another person for having caused that harm.  

For example, say I fail to shovel the snow on the sidewalk in front of my house. The snow melts and freezes. It's a disaster waiting to happen, right? And then you walk along, slip on the ice, and break your hip! 

Now, it wasn't my intention that you should break your hip. However, because I neglected to shovel the snow (or salt the icy) in front of my house, you did fall and break your hip. 

A jury would find that my negligence was the cause of your injury. 

Okay, so the jury decides in your favor. Then what? 

Then the jury (or the judge, depending on the format of the hearing) would determine (in civil court, not criminal court) 

    a) the extent of your damages, and 

    b) how much money I should pay to compensate you for the damage I caused.

Your damages include your medical bills, obviously, plus any money lost from your not being able to work while recovering from your injury, plus pain and suffering.  

If you're 60 years old, a broken hip could actually set off a series of events that could kill you. In that case, your damages would be different and probably greater than if you were 30 and made a quick recovery. 

But if you were a professional athlete, and the broken hip destroyed your entire career? Well then, your damages would be pretty darn high and you'd better hope my insurance could cover it. 

Anyway, that's damages. 

And that's a negligent tort (my failure to shovel the snow). 

Does this remind you of anything? 

I mean, sure, the dude wore a condom, but it was the cheap kind, and he knew it, because they had broken before, several times! 

A creditable witness could testify in court that he told them, while laughing, that that he had torn that same  condom--that same expired box of condoms--on three separate occasions, with three different women,  that he could remember. 

Is unwanted pregnancy a form of injury? 

If an unwanted pregnancy can't occur without a man initiating the process, shouldn't he be at least partially liable for the damages to the woman resulting from the unwanted pregnancy? 

I forgot to mention, there are various degrees of liability for damages. If you slip on the sidewalk I didn't shovel, 100%; but if you're trespassing on my property when you slip on the ice in my driveway? You might be awarded 35% of the cost of your medical bills, etc.

Medical bills, lost work, pain and suffering, long-term opportunity costs...  

According to the principle of negligent tort law (far more prevalent in law suits than intentional torts cases), it stands to reason that where the state forces women to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, it ought to force upon the men a significant burden of responsibility for her damages.

I Know a Lot (and No One Cares)

I am 55 years old. 

55 winters! 55 summers! 55 springs and autumns!

I've been little, I've been big. A teenager, and a young adult! 

I've been middle-aged, and now I'm moving into my seniority. 

I've had friends. I've had lovers. I've had husbands. I've had a child. 

I've had dogs, cats, and horses. 

I've been around for ages!

I've had experiences. 

I read. 

I know a whole lot about a whole lot of things. I could write a catalog of things I know, from A to Z.

I could tell you how to live your life! 

I could provide so much information about so many specific things. Like, how to keep your feet warm when it's super cold: Layers, obviously; 650 down fill (800 is too warm); boots without inserts, not too tight, preferably Sorels; wool socks, not as itchy as you'd think...

Oh, I could go on and on. I know a lot about keeping warm in winter.

I know what bras not to buy.

I know that men's socks are cheaper, and just as good. 

I know that dogs need to be walked, not just brought to the park and left to their own devices. 

Multiple cats need multiple litter boxes.

Tortoises squirm with surprising violence! When you pick them up on the side of the road to keep them from killing themselves, the fury of their jerky movement as they fly out of your arms can be quite a shock. 

But it's still a good idea to know how to help a tortoise cross the road. It's better for your soul. It's better for the tortoise. The key is to have a towel in the car to throw over it, because you don't want to touch the tortoise. And then grip the shell firmly, just below 3 and 9 o'clock. Hold tight.

I know what to feed a dog that has diarrhea. 

I know when to take the cat to urgent care. 

I know how to clean up poop and vomit from most species, and most surfaces, swiftly and efficiently. For carpets, you need a scrubber brush with long bristles, like for cleaning out the tub. Cover the diarrhea with paper towels, then scoop it all up with an inside-out plastic bag, like you're picking up poop at the park. 

For every sort of mess, you need Awesome Orange. Awesome Orange cleaning agent is on the short list of the most important things I know.

Other things on the short list?  

•     Writing is how I discover what I'm really thinking beneath the surface of daily thought, and writing helps me to work through all kinds of unpleasantness.
•     Dogs buoy my happiness and comfort me when I'm blue. I'm someone who needs a dog.
•     Home is super important, even though I frequently imagine being elsewhere. I know I wouldn't actually move unless it felt absolutely right.
•    Exercise can't be optional. That's why I thrive on a farm, where I have to lift buckets, bales, and bags of feed, and push a wheelbarrow loaded with manure across the yard to the big pile.  

I'm also REALLY GOOD with particulars. 

• Don't fill the horses' water bucket more than half way. They'll dirty up the water as soon as they drink, and then you'll have to pour out heavy gallons of water. If you want it to stay clean, just put in 2--3 gallons. They'll drink it, dirty it, and then you're be left with a quart or two to pour out on the lawn. Voila!
• Feed cats wet food, from a can, twice a day to keep them hydrated. Cats generally don't drink enough, esp. males, and frequently die from kidney failure.
• If your cat doesn't show interest in going outside, don't encourage them to experience freedom. Just leave them inside, where they're safe.
• It costs about $800 to fly to London or Paris.
• NEVER, EVER book a flight with a stopover at LaGuardia.
• If you know what you like, shop at Good Will or St.Vinnie's. If you don't know what you like, don't.
• If you're patient, someone will give you a couch. 
• Birds don't become co-dependent if you feed them.  
• Awesome Orange cleans every type of surface except windows.

This is important: RACCOONS ARE OKAY. If they take up residence in your barn and turn it into a nursery, consider feeding the momma some leftovers before you go to bed. Imagine how tired she must be, how she has her cute little hands full. How hard it is for her to go out and scavenge for food with five or six little bandits in tow. She'll eat your offering of leftovers night after night. And then, one night, when you feel you've really developed a bond, she won't come to take the food you put out for her so thoughtfully. She'll have wandered off. And you'll wonder if she got hit by a car, or just decamped. You might see one of her kids dead at the end of your driveway and want to cry. Your husband may gingerly move the small creature to somewhere near and discrete where its mother may grieve it in private. And you'll feel sad. You'll hope that there were four or five other babies, and that they are with her and safe. 

You'll learn that raccoon come, set up nurseries, have babies, need food, and disperse. Because they are wild, not yours. And that is okay. Nothing wrong with raccoons.

My point is, I know SO MUCH. 

But here's the thing--the crazy thing about being so old and knowing so much..?

(Are you ready?)

I'm about to tell you a devastating truth. 

(Here it comes.)

NOBODY CARES. 

Not only do they not care, but they--

(By "they," I mean, EVERYBODY.)

THEY find it incredibly annoying when I suggest a better way, or offer the slightest morsel of unsolicited guidance and advice. 

As far as my 17-year-old is concerned, anything I might suggest is cursed by my endorsement. 

Why, when I could spare them so much effort and trouble, do people insist on muddling through? Why do the want to make their own mistakes when I could spare them that inconvenience? 

It's not like their learning curve is going to flatten out all of a sudden and leave them with nothing to do! 

Even I don't know everything. 

But I do know a lot! 

    

    

Why We Need CRT

Some white people are saying that critical race theory ("CRT") should not be taught in schools because it teaches white kids to feel guilty and bad about being white. 

In that case, we should also not teach kids feminist critical theory--which is very sneaky and insidious--and might come across in subtle ways, such as informing kids that women did not have the right to vote in the US until 1920. 

That's kind of a jaw-dropper. How are boys and girls supposed to feel about that horrid little turd of American history?  

Kids do NOT need to know that women could not own property (like, their own home) in their own name until 1839, when Mississsippi allowed that a woman could own title to property in her own name, but only with her husband's permission. 

Because that's just embarrassing. 

Little girls should not have to learn about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who, while very cute and all, has a biography that includes a number of unfortunate facts. 

 For example, after law school, despite being #1 in her class,  no law firm in New York would hire her. 

Girls and boys don't need to be burdened with that kind of intel. 

a) Boys might experience guilt by association. 

b) Girls might wonder what the heck is wrong with New York City that it wouldn't hire Ruth Bader Ginsburg(!?). 

New York City has enough problems. Now, in the 2020s, it shouldn't have to answer to the consternation of agitated young girls across the country who wonder why the heck New York wouldn't hire Ruth Bader Ginsburg(?!?).

We don't need no feminist critical theory.

We don't need:

Critical Race Theory.

Critical Gender Theory. 

Critical Feminist Theory.

Modern Critical Theory. (Metanarratives! Rationality!)

Post-Modern Critical Theory. (Foucault! Lacan!) 

It's all. Very. Uppity. 

Why so critical? Don't you like your country? 

Can't we just all agree to get along? 

Water under the bridge!

I can never un-know that the British  abolished slavery in 1807, but the land of the free and the brave did not officially abolish slavery until 1863. 

Why know unhappy things?

We don't want to make kids sad!

...Or...

.Do we...?

BAMBI. Probably my most painful early memory.

Until DUMBO.  Why not just cut off an earlobe or pull out a fingernail and be done with it? 

And children's literature? 

Hello?!?!

What the heck is with children's literature?

THE GIVING TREE. 

CHARLOTTE'S WEB. 

OLD YELLER.  (Sobbed, sobbed, sobbed.)

THE VELVETEEN RABBIT. (Heard about it, refused to read.)

THE YEARLING. (Take the other earlobe, please!)

ALL of the Brothers Grimm. 

"The Little Match Girl." 

What were they thinking???

Skip literature! 

Skip history! 

Skip the horrors and tragedies! 

Skip vegetables and organ meats! Who the said they were good for you? I want names! 

Critical Race Theory. It's not a terrorist movement. It's just what happened. And it might make you sad. It might change the way you think about lots of things. 

That's what education does.

Eat your vegetables.

Super Animal Sentience

I'm setting a timer and giving myself exactly one hour to write this post. There will be grammatical mistakes, etc., but that's just the way it has to be.

This post is about salient moments I've observed of super animal sentience.

Story #1. Betsy manipulates Zarya into abandoning the front seat.

Zarya, our new dog, was a very large, very entitled, strikingly good-looking puppy. Even though she was the newcomer and the junior dog, she quickly took over the front seat from Betsy, Border Collie / Lab, 12 years old at the time. We'd had Betsy for 11 years. While Betsy was always very smart, she was never especially self-confident, with no sense of entitlement whatsoever. So, Zarya is riding shotgun, and Betsy is in the back (of the minivan).  Also in the back of the minivan are folded up paper shopping bags, for shopping purposes. But Zarya, the puppy, viewed the bags, like everything else, as toys for her own amusement. When she couldn't ride up front, she would amuse herself in the back shredding my grocery bags. 

That's the scene: Zarya is in front. Betsy is in back. And here's the super smart thing that Betsy did: She feigned interest in shredding the paper bags. She had never known the slightest interest in these bags, but now she made gestures of playing with them--just enough to make a noise that Zarya would hear and think, "Oh! Betsy's shredding the bags! I want to shred the bags!" 

So of course, not one to be left out of any fun activity, Zarya vacates her seat of privilege to go check out what's happening with the grocery bags. 

At which point, Betsy abandons the bags and takes over the front seat just vacated by Zarya. 

In other words, the whole rustling the bags thing was a total manipulation by Betsy of Zarya. Betsy played Zarya. She came up with this scheme to lure Zarya into the back of the van with the singular goal of taking Zarya's spot up front. 

Story #2. Belle Performs Her Best Trick to Show Up Tanner (and Get a Treat)

I had my two Quarter Horses, Belle and Tanner, at liberty in the round pen without any halters on them or tack of any kind. My focus had been on Tanner, who was in more need of training than Belle. I hadn't had Tanner very long, so I was still figuring out how much training he had had. One that thing I had recently stumbled upon while grooming him was that someone had taught him to bow. I had unintentionally given him the cue, and he lowered his head way down between his two front legs, and drew his left front hoof back, bending at the knee (as they say). I had never seen a horse do that in real life before, so I was pretty delighted and amazed. 

So here's the scene: I've got treats in my pocket. I cue Tanner to bow. He bows. I give him a treat. Belle is standing in front of me, watching. After Tanner does his impressive trick, and I give him a treat, I look at Belle, and either say out loud or in my head, "Too bad you don't have such an impressive trick, Belle!" But then, without missing a beat, Belle carries herself over to the mounting block in the middle of the round pen. She positions herself next to it, but a few feet away, and then, with no prompting or cues of any kind from me, she performs a perfect side-pass over the mounting block. 

For the uninitiated, this is a very technically difficult and sophisticated trick. The horse has to walk sideways--the outside front foot crossing over the inside front foot, and the back feet tracking a parallel course. Foot over foot in this manner she has to move front and back feet in a highly coordinated way so the whole side view of her body is moving evenly in one direction like a single wave. And the mounting block passes neatly underneath her belly. 

This was a trick I had taught her a year earlier. We hadn't practiced it since the previous summer. But somehow, not only did Belle remember how to execute the trick--what is more impressive to me is that it occurred to her that it was the most technically impressive trick that she knew, and also that it was comparable in its complexity to Tanner's deep bow. 

I mean, what the hell!? This horse, Belle, she had no rope attached to her. She was functioning completely of her own volition. 

I was absolutely gobsmacked. I gave her a treat, of course, and a pat. But I wanted to burst into tears. Because it was offing amazing, what she had just shown me. 

Story #3. Squirrel. 

I fed the squirrels over the winter. February was deadly cold for weeks on end. Every outdoor creature suffered. I fed the birds. I might as well feed the squirrels. I bought bird seed. I bought critter food. I kept the bird feeders full.  I poured the critter food out in a mounded a trail along the tops of the deck rail. The squirrels feasted. 

In the spring, when the snow melted, the squirrels were able to their caches of black walnuts. Our property has many black walnut trees. So I was sitting at my desk, looking at my computer, working, when I looked out my window. 

Important to note: my window is on the opposite side of the house from the deck where I fed the squirrels. 

I'm looking at my computer, when I see out of the corner of my eye, a squirrel. I see him, and then he's gone. And then I see his paw, and then gone. He's jumping up, grabbing onto something to hold, losing his purchase and falling back down to the ground a couple of feet below my window. I look squarely at the window and watch. He jumps up, gets a good temporary purchase, looks right at me. He's holding a large walnut in his mouth. He's waving one arm. I'm not saying he's waving. I'm not saying he's not waving. He's waving an arm. He's got a walnut in his mouth. He sees that I see him. I smile. 

And then he lets himself drop back down to the ground, and that's it. He's gone. 

Now, I'm not foolish enough to tell you, or to insist, that he was there for the sole purpose of showing me that had his own walnut. You can think whatever you like. I'm just saying, that's never happened before.

I was happy for him. 

Story #4. The Poodle.

I've got 5 minutes left, so I can't even read this over to make sure it's not awful, but I have so little time!

The poodle, HANK, you may remember him. If you knew him, you wouldn't forget him. There was so much to that poodle. 

He would feign sleep. Appear to be napping. Unconscious. But as soon as I closed the bathroom door, he knew that he too had FIVE MINUTES in which to commit as many crimes and misdemeanors as poodle possible. Any food on the counter--gone. Access to the trash? Great! 

You can get a lot done in five minutes. 

I fell for it every time. Every. Single. Time. 

Damn poodle, I miss him so much. 

I know I have more stories, but I don't have more time. 

I have to go edit a manuscript. Ha! Isn't that grimly ironic. 

Good Grief! is a very odd phrase

Good grief! What an odd phrase. If I weren't sunk in it, I'd research the etymology.

But I am. Sunk. In grief. 

Writing is an effort, but everything is an effort, so, I may as well write about this fleeting phase, since writing is how I typically overcome acute bouts of mental squalor. 

I know from past experience that in two or three days, this dense gravity of grief will dissipate. Until then, air is water. I am swimming.

Our surviving dog, Zarya (or Z) is grieving, too. She didn't come in to wake me up this morning--to my room, where Betsy slept. 

A couple days before, I noticed a hand-sized pouch of fluid in Betsy's abdomen. I noticed blood in her urine.  Betsy was struggling to keep up on our walks. But she would still eat. She was still waking me up early to let her outside to pee. She was still leaping unassisted into the van. 

Three months earlier, ultrasound imaging revealed a cancer in her bladder. The vet said that in a few days or a few weeks, Betsy would no longer be able to pass urine. At that point, things would go downhill fast. We should be prepared to take her to urgent care quickly.

But Betsy lived for another three months as if she hadn't received that memo. She continued to go on walks, eat her kibble; steal, hide, and privately relish Zarya's chew bones. Most importantly, she continued to pee.

Betsy continued to accompany me on my chores and patrol the property. Sometimes, when she seemed a bit slow and oldish, I'd bend down, wrap my arms around her, and kiss her face a bunch of times. As though that were tonic enough to cure what ill'd her, Betsy spring to her feet and prance about, wagging her tail in big happy circles. 

On the morning she didn't wake up before six to go outside to pee, Zarya woke me up instead--earlier than she normally would have. 

Everything was off with Betsy, and Zarya knew it. 

Z seemed nervous and silly, the way children behave when something very grownup and serious is happening that they can't quite understand. 

Betsy managed to get up an hour later and go for a halting walk, during which she seemed to be saying her goodbyes to the snow, sky, trees, dirt, and every familiar smell. She left little round pockets of blood in the snow.

This was what the veterinarian warned me about three months earlier: the rapid decline. I could assume that the next day, New Year's Day, Betsy would neither eat nor perhaps be able to get up at all. 

I thought of the fluid gathered in her now distended abdomen, the bloody urine, the discomfort and pain that Betsy couldn't tell me about.

I thought about what it would mean to take her to Urgent Care during Covid in that predictable moment of crisis. We would have to be socially distant as the vet techs strapped Betsy to a stretcher and took her away from us in the parking lot.  

It should not happen like that.

I called Journey's Home, two compassionate veterinarians who euthanize dying pets at home, making a sad event as low-stress for everybody as possible. 

The vet arrived at noon on December 31, 2020, the last day and, as far as I was concerned, the coup de grace of a seriously lousy year. But of course, I was one of the very lucky ones. For millions of other people, 2020 would do so much worse than see a beloved old dog die from a normal end-of-life disease.

But grief strikes when the iron is hot, whether or not you're in luck.

In grief, I tread water. 

I swim to the barn. I swim through my chores. I swim to the dog park to take Zarya, also grieving, for a swim. 

One nice thing about Betsy being gone, Z and I can take longer, faster walks at the park. So it surprised me this morning when Zarya insisted that we take our usual, truncated route. Z doesn't want any more  change. 

At the park, Z focuses intently on her ball. I kick it, she blocks it. I throw it, she catches it. If any dog threatens to take her it, she growls at the dog. 

That is all Z thinks about until we get back to the car. 

And then Z starts swimming again.

Driving home, the radio is tuned to a series of outtakes from comics. I listen, and sometimes laugh out loud. 

Laughing lifts me out of my grief for about 10 seconds. It's like being temporarily carried aloft on the back of a sea turtle. But soon I slip off the turtle and have to swim on my own.  

Sometimes, to rest, I let myself sink. But I have to breathe, so I must soon pull myself back up all the way to the surface, where a gasp of air feels surprisingly good. For about 10 seconds.

In grief, the mind is not super sharp. For one thing, my oxygen saturation level frequently drops before I remember to breathe again. 

Zarya, treading water beside me in the car, forgets to ask for attention. Remembering how restorative affection was for Betsy, I make a point of stroking Z's chest. At first, she doesn't respond. After a few minutes, she drapes her paw on my arm. 

Z's not supposed to be riding shotgun in the truck, per my husband. Oh, well. 

Something so sad about a dog so sad.  

I would like Zarya to sleep in my room, which had been Betsy's sanctuary. But Betsy taught Zarya not to enter our room except under certain conditions. One of those conditions was that both Betsy and I had to be there. And now, clearly, Betsy was not there. So Z won't come into my room unless I demand it, and then she looks really miserable. So, I put a large stuffed Siberian tiger bought at a yard sale on the big new dog bed that I bought for Z.  

The Siberian tiger is better than nothing. 

I moved around all of the furniture in my room yesterday so I wouldn't have to look at the space in the middle that was Betsy.  

I have three unused perfectly good dog beds. Should I give them to a shelter? I don't want to think about it now. 

How long does a dog grieve?  Will Z wake up in two or three days and feel perfectly alright?

Good grief, time moves awfully slowly when you're swimming.  

Stories that Matter in the Time of Covid

 I haven't been writing much during Covid, because I don't feel like writing about trivial things. And these days, everything that isn't a matter of life and death--or survival--are trivial things. 

The stories that bear telling are not my own. 

My friend Rita (not her real name), her experience of Covid is worth telling. 

Rita, recently divorced, is the single parent of a six-year-old boy. 

In December of Jan 2019, Rita received her degree in Marketing, which she completed while working as the manager of a new, high-end fast-food restaurant. 

She had overseen its opening--she hired the staff, worked with Chef on the menu, lined up suppliers...the whole thing, soup to nuts. It was the second opening in a planned chain; there were plans to open a third restaurant, and plenty of room for Rita to grow her career. 

And then Covid. 

For months, Rita's restaurant struggled to adapt, but the setup involved six or eight people coordinating the preferences of a moving line of customers: Quinoa or tabouli?  Brown, basmati, or jasmine rice?  What type of protein? What ethnic spin? Customers could choose from a menu, or customize their own layered meal. 

The restaurant adapted to social distancing by offering pick-up and drive-thru options. There was socially distant seating, at first; and then there was no seating. 

Rita experienced the stress and fear of potentially contracting Covid and losing a job that was more than a job: It was her career. It was her bright future.

The usually brisk foot traffic of a popular upscale shopping center gradually ground to a halt. 

When the father of one of the kids in her son's daycare came down with Covid, all of the daycare kids were considered exposed and were supposed to go into quarantine. 

Rita explained this to her boss. He told her to come into work, regardless. 

Rita explained, this meant she didn't have childcare. Her son had been exposed to Covid. He was supposed to be in quarantine.  He was far too young to be left alone. 

Rita's boss told her to bring her son to work with her, and try to keep him socially separated. Which was impossible.

Soon after that, Rita quit her job at the restaurant. 

Soon after that, the restaurant closed. 

Rita felt the stress and fear of having to find enough shift work or gig work to pay the bills. 

After her son returned to daycare, Rita picked up shifts at a local restaurant.

In the fall, Rita's son started school. It was just a few in-person hours a week, but it gave Rita enough time to work gig jobs.

But then cases of Covid surged, and her son's school went entirely online.  

Now Rita had to figure out how to look after her son full-time and find work that she could do entirely from home. 

Someone suggested that Rita file for unemployment. Someone else told Rita that they had filed for unemployment many weeks earlier, and still hadn't received their first check. 

What is Rita supposed to do?  

What are single parents with young kids supposed to do?  What are parents of young kids supposed to do if they are essential workers?  What are parents of young kids supposed to do if they are medical care providers? 

How are parents supposed to keep themselves and their children safe, educated, housed, and fed? 

Before Covid, I worked from home. During Covid, I work from home. I have dogs, a teenage son who doesn't need babysitting, and a husband who can work from home.

I will not insult people who are struggling like Rita by writing about my ennui. 

The Terrible Nothing Between Somethings

On  Tuesday, Nov. 3, I paid as little attention to the election as possible, knowing that more Republicans than Democrats would vote in person, that there would be a "red mirage," and it would feel like 2016 all over again. If I watched, I would go to bed with a heavy sense of dread and foreboding. 

So, I refused to pay attention and ignored it all, until the next morning, when I peeked at the results as reported in the Times.  

And for the next four days, until Pennsylvania called it for Biden, I was hooked. I kept a steady vigil of watching the incremental changes in fractions of percentages of votes in the battleground states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. 

When Biden won, those for whom it signified a renewal of hope for the soul of the nation and the survival of the planet were elated. 

I felt enormous relief, and a joy that seemed to bubble up from out of some dusty old bin where it had been safely stored. My threadbare joy, smelling faintly like mothballs.

Of course, I didn't literally expect Covid to lift like a fog, just because Biden won the election.

Or maybe I did. 

For a few glorious days, everything seemed brand-spanking new.

Until it gradually sank into consciousness  that I would have to wait until January 20 for Biden and Harris to be sworn in before they could actually take office. 

And though I wasn't among those fretting that Trump would succeed in his bid to overturn the election results, I have never suffered gladly at any time in my life what I refer to as the nothing between somethings. 

In 10 weeks, there will be something, but for now: nothing. And that nothing has come at the worst possible time. 

I have never been patient with the nothing, but this is the worst one yet. 

In Wisconsin, as elsewhere, the number of hospitalizations and deaths due to Covid are so alarmingly high, there is talk of hospitals having to triage healthcare for everyone. People who feel sick enough to go to the hospital may have no choice but to stay home. 

The nothing gives space to denial, and to the yawning gaps in understanding and consideration. It gives space to misplaced anger. Space for disinformation and lies, in place of anything substantive and real.  

A negative response, unresponsiveness, absence of responsibility. 

The know-nothing, knuckle-headed, nonsensical nothingness of nothing. 

Watching Covid numbers is the opposite of election results slowly reversing course over a few days. 

Nothing opens up to a microscopic thing that steals our breath and sets people against each other, like a parasite of the brain. 

There is no number too great to fill the vast open space of nothing. 

Hospitals fill up, morgues fill up, days get shorter, nights grow longer; as we wait for something to begin.

A Day with Betsy

13-year old Betsy is dying of bladder cancer. 

I took the day off from work. I work from home, so I’m not not going to work; I simply am not doing work, though I have a lot of it to do--which is onerous, daunting, and most of all, a blessing. 

In some respects, I'd rather work—to focus my attention elsewhere. To block out everything. 

Work can be a wonderful distraction--with the built-in justification that I am making money as I work, no matter what else I may neglect at the same time. 

Working provides me a sense of control (on good days) over things that have a beginning, middle, and end (sometimes). 

Everything I work on has, like, a built-in timer--a due date. I juggle due dates. They determine my priorities, how I spend my time. All summer long, due dates have been bunching up. Work has been a high priority. 

I sometimes (often) feel relieved that COVID provides an excuse for me not to have to plan family vacations. We haven't gone anywhere or done anything in ages. I take care of the dogs, cats, and horses. I shop and cook and work. 

Occasionally, but not often, I go into a house-cleaning frenzy where I have the motivation, time, and energy to vacuum and do laundry. But, if I don't have the motivation or the energy, I have my fallback position: I don't have the time. And that's never untrue. 

When I work, I'm super focused.  I'm supposed to catch mistakes that other people overlook. I'm not supposed to introduce new mistakes of my own. Moreover, I'm supposed to point out other people's mistakes with such aplomb and good humor that they readily forgive me for doing my job. 

But not today. Today, I am in bed in my room, which is also Betsy's room. Betsy is the dog who is dying of bladder cancer. 

She is lying over there on her old-lady-dog bed. 

When Betsy was young, she could not have a dog bed.  She eviscerated every dog bed I ever bought her, as well as the other dogs' beds. 

I bought the old-lady-dog bed last winter, when I noticed how often she had to get up to change position because the floor was hard. 

Now, I am very cheap when it comes to many things, but I spent good money on the old-lady-dog bed. It was worth every cent. Betsy lay right down on it and didn't move again until she had to go pee.  

The vet says it could be a matter of days, or weeks, possibly months--depending on how fast the tumor grows. The tumor takes up 50% of her bladder. It is positioned in the back, where it may obstruct her ureter. 

When Betsy can't pass urine, I'll know it's her time. 

This type of development--an old dog who has lived a good life having an end-of-life disease--does not seem particularly important these days. I am not inclined to write an epitaph for Betsy, even though the loss of a beloved pet remains, even in COVID times, relatable. Possibly more so now, when many of us cleave to dogs for solace, hemmed in and isolated as we are in the shadow of contagion. 

I'm taking the day to free up my mind to think about Betsy. And now I find myself thinking about New York City, and what disease has done to that city. Can New York still pee? And for how long?  

I'm taking the day to lie in bed with cats. How old are the cats? How much longer will they live? 

Since 2014, I have lost a horse, two dogs, and two cats. 

I replaced the horse with a much smaller horse. I used to have three dogs, and then I had two. Soon, I'll have one. 

And four cats. Recently, we came close to losing a cat--a great favorite in the family. We paid a small fortune to bring him back from the edge. But for a week, he still seemed too close to the edge--not right on the edge, but not a safe distance away from the edge, either. But another week passed, and he came all the way back to center. Now he seems no worse for wear.  

I have a horse that gets younger every year. He came without papers. The first year, the vet said he was 12 or 13. The following year, she said he was 11. The year after that, 9 or 10. The year after that, she said he was 9 again--and that's when I expressed doubt. (I am an editor, after all; this is the sort of pattern of error that I am trained to catch.) I pointed out the unlikely event of my horse growing younger year by year. The vet took photos of his teeth to compare against a chart. Now, he's supposed to be 17, but the vet still says he looks younger.

I took the day off to think about Betsy, sleeping on her orthopedic bed. She has had a good life. It started out badly: We found her in a pitifully underfunded rural shelter in Richland, Wisconsin. She was a five-month-old puppy without a name, sharing a barn stall with one litter mate. She had outgrown the collar tight around her neck. There were dozens of other dogs in the drafty old barn, including a doe-eyed beagle-mix with a half dozen nursing pups. 

Betsy, a black Border Collie-Lab, was fearful and totally unsocialized, but she didn't growl or bite. She recoiled, but didn't growl. She threw up in the back of the jeep several times during the 2-hour drive home. She wasn't an affectionate puppy. But she resembled the dog I had recently lost (Sam).

Bart, our surviving dog—a 105-lb, black and tan, super handsome, Rotty-Lab-Shepherd mix—sniffed Betsy (I named her Betsy on the drive home), summed her up, and gave her his space under the dining room table, where he felt safe and spent most of his indoor time. Having relinquished the table, he hung out with us in the TV room, an uninsulated add-on that Bart had never particularly enjoyed. 

I viewed this magnanimous gesture by Bart as a truly shining  example of canine altruism.

It took 10 months for Betsy to adjust to domestic life, during which time she destroyed our cell phones, CDs, my son's toys, and much else that I've forgotten. 

Bart passed away a year later. We eventually acquired two more dogs, Gretchen and Hank. Betsy became our best-behaved, most well-adjusted dog. It wasn’t a very high bar.

Today, we have Betsy and Zarya ("Z").  Gretchen and Hank passed away two years ago. 

Z, Doberman-Shepherd, reminds us a lot of Bart. At 90 lbs, she's built like Bart, has flying-nun ears, a pencil nose, and the geometry of a reconstructed wolf. She's gorgeous. She's smart. She's human-centric. She's perfect (except for the recurrent bouts of diarrhea). 

So, in a way, Betsy has come full circle, having started with Bart and ending with Z. 

Bart taught her to guard us. And Betsy taught Z to bark at anything that moves. She has tried to teach Z to attack other dogs, but Z remains stubbornly friendly.

It's satisfying to see Betsy so recumbent and comfy, there on her old-lady bed. 

I think I took the day off just to look at her.

 

  

Paddling Through COVID-19

Covid is the current in a Warner Bros. cartoon, drawing our collective canoe downriver toward the inevitable waterfall.

Except it is more cartoonish: We know there is a waterfall up ahead, but some of us are paddling toward the shore, some are paddling upriver, and some are not paddling at all--which is why, at this point, we cannot keep ahead of the current.

Those who are paddling upriver have grown very tired of paddling against the ceaseless current.  Those who have stopped paddling are saying the falls are not really that big and the strongest among us will surely survive it.

But what about the people who can't swim, have heart conditions, are out of shape, or were never given life preservers for some racist reason?

Well, say the non-paddlers, "Maybe they shouldn't be in the canoe in the first place."

But the canoe is life, so, we are all in the canoe. None of us has a choice about that.

I'm more sympathetic to those paddling upriver, against the current, though we won't survive that way. I understand that they want the economy open because they need to earn money to eat and pay rent.

I have friends who had good jobs and bright futures before Covid, but who no longer have jobs now. Their bright futures in the food industry have capsized.

I have retired friends who don't have to worry about money, but they have nightmares about being on a gurney in the corridor of a hospital, struggling to breathe, or being told that they will be put into a medically-induced coma and might never wake up.

I have friends whose senior year of high school was lonely, not at all what they had dreamed it would be.

Even I, who was awkward and shy all through high school, had a lot of fun my senior year. I had crushes, kisses, friends, adventures, and late-night parties on the beach. I laughed and sang and danced. We drove my friend's convertible with the top down, wind in our hair on a warm summer's evening. I wasn't into sports. I barely remember the graduation ceremony. I wasn't a kid who looked forward to making a graduation speech, or to being recognized as an honor students or an athlete. But a senior year is a moveable feast, and I piled up my plate from a narrow section of the buffet. And it was, surprisingly, delicious.

I have friends whose kids were looking forward to going to college, their first time living away from home. At best, they will have an abbreviated semester. They will be limited to a small social group. And the instant Covid breaks out on campus, as it probably will, all in-person everything will be scrapped. Student life to be postponed.

I know people who have experienced Covid first hand are offended by the idea that it all feels kinda Old Testament. It seems to imply that they or their loved ones or those in their care were God's chosen cursed. But collectively, in as much as we've all had our noses pointed at screens for so long, and the aspects of reality that we still enjoyed are being relegated to technology; and in as much as Trump, in my eyes, is a fine stand-in for Pharaoh (apologies to Yul Brynner), would anyone really find a plague of frogs surprising ?

I find the Black Lives Matter movement shines the brightest light on this whole benighted year. The rise in social awareness of what plagues our country (other than the Covid virus) gives me hope for a brighter future--Post-Trump, if not post-Covid.

I am hopeful that Trump's reign will come to an end, and this dilapidated democracy may yet prove "yar" (sea-worthy).

But how to avoid the waterfall that is Covid seems far less clear. We're a citizenry used to paddling our own boats. We don't know how to paddle together.

Trump's Sword of Damocles?

The emergence of the word "officials," now ubiquitous in the news, reminds me of its recurrent use  in Fukushima's Stolen Lives: A Dairy Farmer's Story, a memoir by Kenichi Hasegawa (translated by Amy Franks).  As its editor, I spent several months immersed in what happened to the Village of Iitate in the wake of the 3/11/11 Japan earthquake and tsunami, and the subsequent nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

As the scope of these several disasters unfold, it soon becomes  clear to the author, Kenichi Hasegawa, that a fault line is opening up between officials and citizens, and between minor civic leaders and more senior leaders (aka, officials) and government ministers (also officials).

Kenichi Hasegawa, a civic leader who has long enjoyed a close friendship with the mayor of  his village, finds himself on the outside looking in, as layer upon layer of officials begin circling the wagons in an effort to control information about the extent and ramifications of the disaster.

State officials send national experts on nuclear energy to Hasegawa's village to assure residents that the level of contamination is not harmful to their health.

Hasegawa notices that the geiger counters used around his village top out a certain level. When he borrows a higher-grade dosimeter from an international journalist, he discovers that the actual rates of contamination are much higher. In some places where Hasegawa observes children playing outside and laundry hanging out on lines, he measures levels of radioactive contamination that absolutely pose an immediate danger to the health of the residents--and especially, to the children.

Alarmed, Hasegawa rushes to the Village Hall to tell his old friend, the mayor. But the mayor doesn't want to hear that the village is contaminated. The mayor is focused on preserving the hard-won prosperity of Iitate, which is his legacy as mayor of five years.

Iitate's economy and prosperity--and the mayor's legacy--hang in the balance.  The friends argue bitterly.  Hasegawa points to his dosimeter readings, and the mayor points to the fact that official experts from the ministry of nuclear energy have assured him that the levels of contamination in Iitate are not harmful to the health of residents.

The mayor refuses to initiate a systematic evacuation plan. Week after week, villagers (those who hadn't decided to evacuate on their own) remain exposed to high levels of radioactive contamination.

It is not until international media cast a light on the full extent of contamination throughout Fukushima that officials at the highest levels of government in Japan suddenly reverse course, and initiate plans to evacuate all contaminated areas of Fukushima--in direct contradiction to what they had been telling citizens: that they had nothing to worry about.

I was working on Hasegawa's memoir in 2016, when the scandal about Flint, Michigan's contaminated drinking water broke in the American press.

For two years, lead had been leaching from the city's pipes into Flint's water supply, exposing thousands of children to dangerously high levels of lead.

High levels of lead in children cause significant and irreversible intellectual deficits and behavioral disorders.

Citizens in Flint noticed that the drinking water smelled foul and tasted odd. Officials told them not to worry.

"It's a quality, safe product," said the mayor of Flint. [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/03/nothing-to-worry-about-the-water-is-fine-how-flint-michigan-poisoned-its-people]

Today, in response to COVID-19, the highest official in the land makes wild speculations on TV about possible cures for the virus: hydroxy chloroquine, disinfectants, UV light.

Some local officials, like the mayor of Las Vegas, Carolyn Goodman, decline to implement "safer at home" policies that spell disaster for the local economy--and potentially save hundreds of lives.

I am grateful to Governor Evers, of Wisconsin, for closing schools here on March 16, and swiftly implementing a "safer at home" rule--successfully averting a severe spike in cases of COVID-19.

Challenging Evers' authority to take these measures, Republican legislators are suing him in the state's Supreme Court. A Republican judge is set to hear the case on Tuesday via videoconference.

Also happening this Tuesday, in a desperate bid to prop up the country's economy, Trump will shift the focus of his address from COVID-19 to "Returning to Work."

Without current federal guidelines in place for COVID-19, without adequate numbers of tests for COVID-19, with hospitals (at least, here in Dane county) continuing to solicit donations of home-made masks from area residents, and with no cure or vaccine in sight, our president will encourage Americans to go back to work.

Will going back to work restore prosperity to the country? Will it drive up the Dow and Nasdaq for a few days or weeks?  Will it get millions off of unemployment benefits, at the risk of their health?

Will "Going Back to Work" give rise to a subsequent surge of COVID-19 infections and deaths?

We live in the era of Trump: of lies and propaganda, of misinformation and disinformation...

It comes to us through our phones, computers, and tablets. It comes to us as social media, as news, as the passionate rants and hand-wringing whines of shapeshifting robots and mercenary trolls.

It is tweeted and retweeted, posted and reposted.

It plays on our heartstrings, outrages and depletes us.  It nudges and prods, seduces and tickles us. It whispers. It screams.

It hides in plain sight.

But the thing about COVID-19 is, it can't be spun or repackaged to be made more appealing.

Ignoring it brings predictable consequences.

COVID-19 may be Trump's Sword of Damocles, dangling over his presidency.

Yes, Trump is toxic and powerful, but is he any match for COVID-19?

Journaling Through: 4/16/20

It has been over a week since I journaled, reflecting the fact that I've learned to insulate myself from the COVID-19 situation. I've been spending less time following the numbers.  You know what numbers I'm talking about: Confirmed cases in the world, in the US, in my state, in my county--and the corresponding numbers of deaths.  The morbidity rates from country to country and state to state.
The 20 million people abruptly out of work, filing for unemployment, waiting to receive their first checks (an unemployment check, or the promised support from the federal relief bill).

I'm not watching Trump's daily variety shows.

I'm not watching Cuomo, either, though many find his leadership comforting.

For weeks, I had been laboring under a sustained flight-or-fight response--the brain's normal response to danger.

Concentration was often impossible.

The projects, people, schedules, and action items that comprise my work, normally arrayed in my imagination and memory like CIA agent Carrie Matheson's walls that visually depict targets, assets, subjects, relationships, hierarchies, and the directions in which money flows; as indicated by photographs, a color-coded cat's cradle of yarn; heavily inked arrows, circles, Xs; and scrawled names and designations, like "Bambi: Cleaner."  

The logic and order of my mind-wall had been steam-cleaned by my flight-or-fight mode of brain. 

This forced me to rely only on my notebook, an endless list of memory clues, with asterisks to demarcate action words (something that needs to be done).

I'd stare, shell-shocked, at the list in my notebook, desperately working to connect a few words to their larger context. Each notation was a key to one of many doors, to one of many rabbit holes that pepper the landscape of my work life.

Over 20 years ago, a publisher told me that what he liked best about our market was the fact that it was a small and finite universe, one that he could know it in its entirety.  He could hold it cradled in his mind.

My uncle describes this phenomenon as "surrounding the subject."

I never thought, back then, that I would absorb that same universe in anything approximating the measure to which the publisher had absorbed that universe.  But, over 20 years, quite a bit of that finite world gradually crowded onto my radar.

But the fight-or-flight (or flight-or-fight) response devours the familiar landscape like a storm.

I tried to refocus my mind by attempting to tackle some of my own small problems: A raccoon taking up residence in the loft, and a fat pony that could wriggle out of a grazing muzzle like Houdini could wriggle out of fifty yards of nautical chains in handcuffs.

By Sunday, the result of my quest to relocate a raccoon was that I had managed to live-trap a cat.

All problem-solving efforts ended in defeat.

On Tuesday, the vet came to vaccinate the horses (this is done every spring).

As part of the service, the vet scores each horse's body condition on a scale from one to nine: One is starvation-skinny, and 9 is morosely obese.

The two big horses got 5s, which is good.

Cooper, the pony(slash)mini-horse, got a NINE. (9.)  

Frankly, I think that's a little unfair.  I mean, it really depends on whether you view Cooper as a mini-horse or a Shetland Pony.

I view him as a Shetland Pony, which ponies have pot-bellies and weigh significantly more than mini-horses.

For a Shetland, Cooper is not unreasonably chubby.

For a mini, okay, he's a 9.

Anyway.  The new grazing muzzle arrived yesterday. It is supposed to be the very last word on grazing muzzles: Pony-proof.

I spent an hour yesterday adjusting it to his face and making various alterations.

Finally, he would tolerate it.

Finally, it stayed on his face.

They say it is comfortable and light.

But he looks like Hannibal Lecter.

I discovered another small problem this week: While I was not paying attention, my son's online education ran off the rails.

My 16-yr-old son's productivity these past several weeks approximated my own dysfunction and incapacity. He had gotten absolutely nothing done. Nada.

It was these personal challenges that refocused my attention: away from the numbers, the stories, the unfolding tragedies, the lives set adrift, any imminent danger....

I am vaguely aware of what's going on in the world, but I am not following it as closely as I was.

I am not following it, but I know where it is. I take a quick peek, occasionally.

This is how I am acclimating to the weird new world: by looking at it through half-closed eyes--by squinting, shielding my view as if reality were a disturbing, gross, or violent scene in a movie I'm watching on Netflix.

I am proactively parenting.

I am checking on the pony to make sure that his muzzle is properly on, has not become wedged between his jaw and his mouth.

During my evening barn chores, I listen for any tell-tale signs that the raccoon is still in residence, or has packed up and moved out.  With the scrambling of small claws, a fluffy tail disappears into the hollow of a corner of the barn's sloped roof.

A squirrel?  I'm hoping it's a squirrel.

It would be nice for it to be a squirrel.

I make up my mind that it's a squirrel. Another problem solved.

Journaling Through: 4/6/20

I found it hard to concentrate this morning.  Impossible, really.  So, I took the day off to focus on all this other stuff I've been putting aside: Vet appointments.  Grazing muzzles.  Raccoon.

Because it happened: A raccoon moved into the hayloft.  Last week, I had just fed the horses, I was mucking out Fire's stall, and I heard a commotion overhead--maybe a coyote, or something of similar size, running madly back and forth above our heads (the horse's and mine), in hot pursuit of what sounded like a cat desperately hissing and screaming.

I hurried up the steps to the loft, but by the time I peeked my head above the floorboards: silence.

I watched for any movement. I listened for the expected gasps and whimpers of a victim, which, I hoped with mounting urgency, was not my favorite cat.

Seeing and hearing nothing, I hurried back to the house to count cats.  All five cats were indoors. I was greatly relieved to see Big Fuzz, a Maine Coon. He is a great favorite in our family. He is also the cat most likely to lose a fight with a rabid raccoon.

I returned to the barn, to my chores.  After a few moments of the horses' contented chewing, the commotion resumed.

Was it outside? I walked outside. No, but it was in the southwest corner of the barn.

Back in the barn, I saw the perpetrator poke her masked face down between the rafters and the floor boards.

"Hey!" I said.

She withdrew.

I put my headlamp down over my forehead (very fetching) and ascended to the loft a second time.  I shone my light into the southwest corner: straight at my overturned canoe: her abode.

After a moment, she emerged from behind the canoe: quiet, steady, maybe even curious.  My lamplight glowed in her eyes.

And this is where my story pauses, because OH MY GOD, I REALLY DID NOT HAVE ROOM IN MY HEAD LAST WEEK FOR THIS PROBLEM.

We'll put a pin in this, I thought. We won't let the cats out at night until we take that pin out.

So, today, some days later...(My perspective on time has changed: Days feel like a week.  Weeks can stretch out into eternities.)  But today, I thought:  It might do me good to focus on problems I can solve.

First, the old problem: the pony's grazing muzzle.  He keeps rubbing it off, the muzzle intended to prevent him from overgrazing--so he doesn't develop laminitis or metabolic disease AND DIE.

It's not an insignificant problem.

Cooper's ears are small (and so cute). It is no great effort for him to pull the strap off over his little ears, even despite adjustable velcro straps.  (When I find the muzzle lying in the pasture, the straps are still intact.)

Yesterday, in the spirit of solving small problems, I attached a small bungee cord to the strap behind Cooper's ears and I braided the other end of the cord into Cooper's thick mane.

I thought this was genius.

The concept was deceptively simple: Prevent Cooper from pulling his halter off over his ears.

It worked.  It worked right up until Cooper came into the barn at the end of the day, when he dumped the whole apparatus on the floor with such a smooth gesture that I couldn't even tell you how he did it. But still, he had left it on all afternoon.  I considered it a win.

But then, as if to prove how superior he was, the pony, Cooper, he grabbed the top board in his teeth (I'm referring to a horizontal oak board, one of two parallel boards, that separates the horses from the humans in my barn.  Each board weighs approximately 35 pounds, possibly more.)

Cooper grabbed the top board in his diminutive jaws.  (You really can't believe how small and cute his mouth is.)  He grasped the board, six feet long, and lifted it eight inches, right out of its medal cradles on either side. Then he dropped it at my feet. (In front of my feet, not on my feet.)

And then, as I stooped over to pick up the felled board, this pony--32 inches high at the withers, approximately the size of a Saint Bernard--picked up the second 35-pound oak board in his dainty mouth and let it clatter to the floor, too.

At which point, I stood back and looked at them.  Fire was there too, a much taller horse, standing to Cooper's left (my right).  I am sure that Fire was proud of Cooper at that moment.  Fire had probably never been more proud of another horse in his entire life.  Fire was definitely bursting with pride, because he, an obnoxiously brilliant Arabian, had undoubtedly taught Cooper everything he knows about besting me.

Tanner was in his stall, watching, because even though he weighs 900 pounds, he is the number 3 horse in this herd of 3. He is covered in something resembling acne scars--gratis, Cooper.

Fire, at 1000 pounds, is  number one.

Cooper, at 450, is #2.

Cooper and Fire are standing in front of me, making no move to step over the fallen boards.  It is like something out of The Irishman, which I have not yet seen in its entirety.

They are reminding me that the whole relationship that we have, this whole arrangement, is by mutual consent. Nothing happens to them that they don't choose to go along with.

Cooper knows he has a metabolic issue.  He's aware that he struggles with his weight.  But if I think I can impose upon him this ridiculous-looking gimmick, and spend the whole day celebrating how clever I am...

He's going to point out my mistake.

And one more thing:  You gotta deal with the raccoon problem.

---

My neighbor Laurel gave me a live trap to borrow. She suggested using cat food for bait.

I sat in my van, at an appropriate social distance, while Laurel's husband, Greg, demonstrated how the trap worked.  I hadn't seen them socially in months.  Laurel never changes, never ages.  She is always beautiful.

I feel sad for the raccoon.  I figure, she's an expectant mother.

I'd like to find an article online about how this arrangement could work out for us: for the raccoon, for me, and for the horses and cats.

But there is no article like that, quite the opposite.  This is an oppositional relationship.

She will have her babies and become territorial and perturbed.  The cats will not be safe.

There will be pungent raccoon shit everywhere.  The barn will cease to smell like fresh hay, it will reek of a toxic, pungent, profoundly unpleasant stench.

The kindest thing I can do is to live-trap and drive the raccoon 20 miles away, to "public lands" (which I take to mean a park of some kind...?).

I figure I'd take her to Donald Park, pretty far from here, a lovely drive. Actually, it's my favorite park. I could have my ashes spread there.

Like cats and dogs, and wolves, and homing pigeons, and I-don't-know-what-other animals, raccoons have a homing instinct: She may try to hike all the way back to my barn.

Poor pregnant creature, that awkward raccoon gate, humping all that way like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, across all those county roads. But, I must steel myself, because the problem will only get worse if she has babies in the loft. And Donald Park is so nice, maybe she'll like it there.

It's where I would want to be if I were a raccoon.

So, tomorrow, reluctantly, I take the raccoon for a drive.

And then I guess we'll see what happens.