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.