Month: August 2009

New York Memory

January 2003

I pushed the door of Night Cafe open calling out a “See ya later!” to my work buddies who were still shooting pool inside.  It was cold again.  Too cold again.  I was underdressed for the weather again.  I had told my roommate the day before, “Once you hit mid-January without buying a new winter coat, you kind of resign yourself to waiting ‘til next winter.”  I puffed out fog as I walked west on 106th toward Broadway.  A cab drove by too fast, honking at the van with the out-of-state plates, who, dammit, was in his way.

The bus stop shelter was empty, save for one man.  He was in his late 30s, dressed mostly in denim, but with a black North Face coat.  The hood of his coat was trimmed with fur, and I thought to myself that, if I had had a hood, I sure as hell would’ve had it tied tightly around my face, not hanging back like he had it.

The man was sinking into an imaginary chair, his knees bending slowly, his torso pitching steadily forward like a square rigger off its keel.  His eyes were closed.  I stood watching him unabashedly; he sure as hell wasn’t gonna notice.  The invisible chair was so low.  He was practically squatting when he jerked back to a standing position; his distracted puppeteer had suddenly regained his focus.  Denim man’s eyes opened a crack and his body remained erect for a half-second before the comfy chair began to call him back.  Again, he sank, unevenly, occasionally pulling up an inch.  And again, just before capsizing into the gutter, the crown of his head shot upward.

The M60 lumbered up.  I got on and watched the puppet-man until he was out of sight.

Lessons From the Universe, Part 1

Outside my therapist’s office in NYC, she had hung a piece of paper with a whole list of truths about life. I can remember only the first two, and I’m paraphrasing:

1. Life is for learning lessons.
2. A lesson will keep presenting itself to you until you’ve learned it.

One of the lessons that keeps presenting itself to me is being in the moment. I know that ‘staying present’ is one of the classic human struggles, but seriously, I think I have a learning disability around this one.

Parr exahmpluh (that’s Fronch, for you ign’ants): My new love is contra dancing. It’s fun, it’s good exercise, and the people are, as they’d say in Boston, wicked nice. AND. Contra dancing really forces me to be in the moment. The way it works is: everybody has a partner and another couple (“neighbors”) to dance with; the caller walks you through 6 or 8 eight-counts of movements, which leaves you with a different pair of neighbors; the band plays, and every couple dances that same little routine about a dozen times, each time with a different set of neighbor-couples.

You really have to stay present!  It’s easy enough to learn but doesn’t become so ingrained that you can do it mindlessly.  Nice, right?  Well, at my second-ever contra dance last night, I was bumping up against this lesson YET AGAIN.  I’d see someone I thought I recognized, and while I was trying to figure out where I knew him from, I’d forget what I was doing and run into somebody.  So I thought about it and practiced staying in the moment.  Perfect, right?

This morning I went out into the yard with the dogs.  The sky was barely light, rain continued to plop down in haphazard bursts, and there was one of those leaves hanging from a spider’s thread so it looked like it was suspended mid-air.  For a moment, I was transfixed.  It was sublime.  And then I ran to get my camera.  When I got out there again and started fiddling with the controls, my puppy noticed the subject of my interest, stood up on his hind legs, and snatched it out of the sky.

Dear Redford

Dear Redford,

I cried for nine days straight after Boone died, and Violet lay on the floor in her frog pose and looked up at me, confused, lonely, helpless.  I started reading The Grief Recovery Handbook.  It said don’t try to replace the loss.  At work, I told my friend Kate that I was going to live through my grief and when the time was right, I’d get another dog.  Kate said she was going to give me some advice, take it or leave it.  Kate’s mother had loved animals like it was her job—well, actually it was her job; she was a horse farmer, but she loved goats and dogs and whatever else ended up on her property.  And Kate’s mom would lose a pet and go right out and replace it.  Kate said, “Ame, go get yourself another dog.  It’s what you want.  Get another dog.”  And I did.  I got you.  And I loooooooooooooooove you.

I made the mistake of getting on petfinder.com, and there was this lady Dawn, see, who rescued pit bulls, see, and she could show me some dogs that day, but then she’d be unavailable for a week.  I told her I’d be there by 4:00.  (Just to look, of course.)

I drove way out in Orange County and took a dirt driveway a quarter-mile to a mobile home surrounded by kennels, fenced areas, and broken-down trucks loaded down with bags of Eukanuba.  Dawn was sunburnt and smoking a Camel.  You and your sister and another pit puppy, all about 3 months old or so, were arfing and wagging yourselves into circles.  I petted the two girls, and they were so SWEET and WILD.  But when I scooped you into my arms, you gave me a smooch on the face, let out a big sigh through your nose, and put your head on my shoulder.  So much for just looking.

I made the rounds with you that night, and everybody was besotted.  People kept trying out names.  Rosie said she wanted to call you Cracker because you were the color of a cracker.  Um.  Mary mentioned something about the Sundance Kid, and I’m not sure who said it, but all of a sudden, there it was, hanging in the early-summer humidity above Mary’s porch:  Robert Redford.  You had strawberry-blond eyelashes like him, and you were certainly as handsome.

The next day we went to the vet.  You were a mess.  They clipped your nails and cleaned your ears and put drops in your eyes and treated you for hookworm and kennel cough and injected fluids into your shoulder.  A few days later, I threw you and Violet and Rosie in the Outback and drove to Dan’s house in Princeton, NJ, a nine-hour drive which took us twelve because of the damn traffic around DC.  You were a champ; you peed in the car only once—and hey, what are those rubber mats for anyhow?  The four-hour trip to the Cape took seven.  Ugh.  Again, you were perfect.  And Mom and Dad were so excited to meet their new granddog!  Even Great Uncle Russell, a dyed-in-the-wool Cat Person, agreed you had a “wonderful disposition”.  “Hello, boys!” he’d say when you and Violet came in the room.

Ah, Cuttyhunk.  You loved that island just as much as Boonie had.  We went to the BEACH AND ATE DEAD SKATES EVERY MORNING and CHASED RABBITS FOR HOURS EVERY EVENING.  You showered the Lovells with love.  If anyone could make Dog People out of my mom’s family, it was you and Violet.  Course, you were still suffering from liquid poops.  Son, those are hard to pick up, but I did it because I didn’t want every other beast on that island getting hookworm.  (It would eventually take three more treatments to get rid of the worms and the protozoa that was backstroking around your intestines.  At least, I hope we’re rid of it all by now….)

Anyway, we spent the summer hiking, going to the dog park, and dog-sitting Moby, Katie, Jackie, and Barley.  You remind me in many ways of Boonie.  When you sit, it’s on your heels; your ass never touches the floor.  You have that wrinkly-headed, dopey look.  You poop at the drop of a hat.  You torture the cat when you haven’t had enough exercise.  You chew everything.  (So far:  all of my flip flops, Mary’s flip flops, four blankets, two pillows, a doormat, the cat’s scratching post, and a director’s chair.  That’s in addition to eviscerating all the chew toys I’ve bought you, dammit.)  Your bark gets houndier every day.

But you’re not Boonie.  You’re your own dog.  You love all dogs and kiss them square on the mouth with tongue to let them know it.  When you run, depending on the direction you want to go, your opposite hind leg kicks out like a rudder.  You’re a little wall-eyed which I find staggeringly adorable.

You’re not Boonie, Redford, and that both pleases me to no end and breaks my fucking heart.

Love,

Amy

My Father, Part 2

One day a couple years ago, my dad got up, got dressed, and started his morning futzing. At some point mid-day, he started bitching about how he couldn’t find his wallet. (NB: My father can’t find anything. Ever.) After a while, my mom asked him where and when he had it last.

“Right in the back pocket of my jeans last night!” (He was wearing yesterday’s jeans again, of course.)

My mom went over to a pair of jeans that had been draped over a chair and pulled Dad’s wallet out of the back pocket. “Here it is,” she tells him.

Dad looked down at his pants and said, “Well, what jeans am I wearing?”

Mom took one look and replied, “Mine.”

And It Clears Up Acne

I did a sleep study at UNC Hospitals Sunday night (more on that later).  I was talking with my friend Erika about the ideal outcome of it.

Me: I hope they say, “You have a very rare condition called blah blah blah, but it’s easily treated.”

Erika:  With a pill.

Me:  That comes in a generic.

Erika:  That you only have to take once a year.

Me: The only side effect is weight loss.

When in reality, they’ll probably say, “We don’t know what’s wrong with you. Go do some yoga.”

Zzzzzzzzzzz what the?

In addition to my ridiculous night-time teeth-grinding, I also conjure wild and woolly, fantastical tales in my dreams. The other night, Sharon, who played tuba in the middle school band with me (and whom I haven’t thought of since 1990), was going to be beheaded for a crime she may or may not have committed. Two nights ago, the company I worked for(?) was going belly-up, and my co-workers and I were trying to decide if we could keep our laptops. Last night, my dogs chased after a guy who was riding his horse alongside five-lane Blowing Rock Road, you know, there in front of the credit union; I was terrified they’d be hit by a car. I’m tired all the time.

Redfordyev

So Redford had his man-surgery today, poor wretch. He came out looking even sweeter and dopier than usual, which is some feat. The discharge sheet said to keep them from licking their wounds and that, if you don’t have an Elizabethan collar, sometimes a pair of boxer shorts backwards with their tail out the hole will do the trick. I got a pair of my boxer-briefs. (What? Fat girls wear shorts under skirts so their thighs don’t chafe.) But of course they were too big. I had to fold them over and wrap duct tape around them to get them to stay on him. Then I duct-taped around the legs for good measure. He looks like a little Russian folk dancer. Hey!