Barkley Memories - Dating Classics

This photo of Dog the Bounty Hunter (which was not staged but a discovery one day when I got home from work) made me smile.  Since the news today is full of (surprise!)  news about the election (it's that or the Kardashians any more, which is probably why I gave my TV to AmVets) --today, just some smiles.

Blind dates from hell.  Admit it, you've had one.  In The Book of Barkleythere is a story of my personal shortest blind date, which fortunately, married happily almost 14 years, I can laugh at now.

Tonight, I think I want to laugh again, if only to myself.

 So for you, some Home on the Range Classic Dating Disclaimers.  Feel Free to add your own.

There are good dates and bad ones.  The good ones hold in close and smile. But the bad ones? The statute of limitations has run out on some of those.

Dates from Hell. We've all had one, or will. My worst was a fellow that came over for a fancy dinner I cooked, then proceeded to pull out a little hand held video game and play it for an hour, totally ignoring me on the couch next to him. I finally said "uh, what are you doing? and he said "I'm getting my child to the next level!"

He did NOT get to the next level.

When I was just a pup, one of the mechanics that worked on one of the corporate planes I flew, asked out a lady that was on the city council. She was attractive, liberal and well dressed. He liked the attractive part enough to ignore that they might not have a lot in common. They went to dinner, and did not have anything in common, so he just told her he enjoyed meeting her and they could remain friends but there wouldn't be a second date. She seemed to take that well and thanked him for the friendship.

 That night he started getting phone calls from different people with different voices, but not QUITE different, telling him what a jerk he was and how wonderful this lady was and he should see her again.  It turns out his date had multiple personalities and all of them started to stalk him. He said the one named "Oscar" creeped him out the most. He ended up moving and changing his phone number. She was probably elected to Congress.

But still, we  open ourselves up there in the dating world, which can be a wonderful adventure, or simply that giant rock rolling down the hill at you.

Love can make us do things we normally wouldn't consider. It can lead to a buddy asking a vegan to go turkey hunting, only to have the girl jump up at the first sight of a trio of young jakes yelling "Run Mr. Turkey, Run for your Life!" It made one young lady from a friends workplace, flushed with happy anticipation of her first night with her long time crush, spend $100 for a top of the line push up bra and matching panties. Love made her glad she did, disappointment made her set her new lingerie on fire. In his office. During a meeting with his biggest client.

Chasing it was more fun than catching it.

But we still get out there, we get our hearts ripped out, stomped on and set on fire and eventually we put on our brave faces and get back to living, and if we're lucky, find someone special we can laugh with, admit how horribly we screwed up the last relationship, and move on. (Raises hand).

So, for those of you new to the dating scene, stuck in it or getting back into it, here is some HOTR Dating Disclaimers.

Disclaimer: Dating is for entertainment purposes only. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. All models over 18 years of age. Void where prohibited. Some assembly required. No other warranty expressed or implied. No dogs or horses. Apply only to affected area. May be too intense for some viewers. Freshest if eaten before date on carton. Subject to change without notice.

Terms subject to change without notice.  Times approximate. Simulated picture. Do not attempt to put in pants.  Don't try in your living room, these are trained professionals.. Use only as directed  Breaking seal constitutes acceptance of agreement

May contain nuts.

One size fits all. Edited for television. Keep cool, process promptly. Return to sender. Not responsible for direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages resulting from any defect, error or failure to perform. Penalty for private use. See label for sequence. Add toner. Your canceled check is your receipt. Sanitized for your protection. Sign here without admitting guilt. Limited time offer, call now to ensure prompt delivery. Not actual size.

You must be present to win.

Approved for veterans. Some equipment shown is optional. Price does not include taxes. Reproduction strictly prohibited. List at least two alternate dates. First pull up, then pull down. Call toll free before digging. Driver does not carry cash. No user serviceable parts installed.

You must be this tall to ride the ride.

No transfers issued until the ride comes to a complete stop. Package sold by weight, not volume. Your mileage may vary. For external use only. Tumble dry on low heat. Do not spindle, fold or mutilate.

Safety goggles may be required during use.

Use only in a well-ventilated are. Keep away from fire or flames. Replace with same type. Not liable for damages arising from use or misuse. No substitutions allowed. For a limited time only. Action figures sold separately. If ingested, do not induce vomiting. Substantial  penalty for early withdrawal
Slightly higher west of the Rockies. 
Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball!

Disclaimer does not cover misuse, accident, lightning, flood, tornado, pestilence or projectile (including but not limited to bullets, arrows, BB's, lasers, sharks with frikin lasers, shrapnel, torpedoes rock/paper/scissors, and Alpha, Beta or Gamma rays), neglect, incorrect line voltage, customer adjustments that are not covered in this list, and incidents owing to vehicular accident or snake bite. Detonation of nuclear weapons will void this policy. Other restrictions may apply.

Lastly, for those of us who are no longer youngsters.

Contents may have settled.

Weekday Eats - Taking it on the Chinois

As we get into the colder fall weather

I dust off my "fall/winter" comfort food recipes.  When you wake up and it's in the 30's, you don't look forward to salad for dinner. 

If you are like me you probably have a collection of ground meat in the freezer, beef, veal, pork, venison. Moosellaneous? Easy to thaw and serve, but you can only do meatloaf so many times on these increasingly colder days.

How about a walk on the Canadian side. Pâté chinois is a French Canadian dish similar to English Cottage Pie, Shepherds Pie or the French hachis Parmentier.  Something I learned to cook from a family member, as, there is a Montreal branch of the Range clan through marriage. I'd posted the recipe on the sidebar, and a quick link a while back, but not all of you may have seen it.

I can also teach you some common French Canadian sayings (which I picked up with the cooking and could be useful in both cooking AND in today's election)

Va pèter dans le trèfle.
‘go fart in the clover’.

Baise-moué l’ailKiss my garlic

Il lui manque des bardeaux.
'He’s missing a few tiles'.

Reçu comme un chien dans un jeu de quilles.
'Welcome as a dog in a bowling alley.’

La rondelle ne roule pas pour lui.
'The puck isn’t going his way'.

Grosse Corvette, p’tite quéquette

‘big car, little uh. . . (euphemism here) 

Avoir mal aux cheveux
'To be so sodden with booze and hung-over on the morning after that you are having a ‘hair ache’.

J’ai vu neiger.

I’m not just off the boat.

Ah, but back to the intent of this post. DINNER!

Pâté chinois

I make this several times a year, especially when I have quite a bit of leftover mashed potatoes. It's a wonderful, easy meal for a chilly, overcast day.

To make from scratch:  Boil chunks of 5-6 peeled potatoes and mash with a little butter and milk Just regular mashed potatoes, make your favorite recipe but you're looking for enough to serve 4-6.

Next, chop and saute a large sweet onion  in a little olive oil until just starting to soften and caramelize. Add in a pound and a half of ground meat and three to four roasted and chopped cloves of garlic (or about 1 full Tablespoon of the jarred minced garlic) and cook. I used ground sirloin as I was out of venison. If you are using cheap cuts of beef, drain off any large amounts of extra fat.

In the last few minutes of cooking, add in 2 pinches (roughly 1/4 teaspoon) of cinnamon (yes, cinnamon), the same amount of black pepper, a dash of white pepper (if you have it), and a few shakes of salt and one small squirt of Srirachi (or Ketchup for the meek). Heat on low/medium for a few minutes as it finishes cooking. Spread the meat in a deep casserole or a pan that's 13 x 9, or the next size smaller.

Then, spread over the top of the meat, about 3 cups of corn mixed together (I used 1 cup of creamed corn and 2 of regular corn). Spread on the meat. Cover with the mashed potatoes and sprinkle generously with Smoked Hungarian Paprika. Bake at 375 F for 35-40 minutes, until bubbly.
I'm not sure how the name was coined as the French version of "Chinese pie", but one popular theory is that it was introduced to Chinese railway workers by Canadian cooks during the building of the North American railroads in the late 19th century. These cooks made it under instruction from the railway bosses (who were mostly of English descent) as a cheap and easy to make version of the popular cottage pie with the sauce in the tinned creamed-corn serving as a substitute for the gravy.

click on pictures to enlarge, if you dare.

Allegedly, The French Canadian railway workers became fond of it and brought the recipe back with them to their home communities

However the name was derived, it's good. It's often served with ketchup on the side and maybe some pickled beets and a maple cookie. Or just plain.
Either way, it's comfort on a plate.  And memories of the good kind of family, whether related by blood, marriage or simply by being a long time friend-- those people you just like and admire.

Turning Wheels

The mill stood, three stories about the rushing creek, the turning waterwheel the only moving constant in a landscape of milling people, modern cars whizzing past a hundred yards away. It is one of very few grist mills that do not lie in ruins and the only one recognized as a historical landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The Graue Mill and Museum. Inside, a modern day miller is doing a demonstration of the milling process using 150 year old buhrstones. Outside of the cash register for purchasing grain and some souvenirs, the inside of the mill has been authentically restored to look as it did, so many years ago.

On the second floor, among the many collections of tools, a lovely woman in period costume named Susan demonstrated the art of weaving from flaxen thread to make linen, as well as the meticulous process by which the strands of soft flax emerged from a course stalk.

The third and top floor had several rooms that depicted life of 1850 to 1890 in early Fullersburg, the town in which German immigrant Frederick Graue settled, though his family actually lived in the beautiful house that stood behind, a fine example of Italianate architecture, restored in 2002.

One of the room depictions in the grist house, which included a kitchen and room where the spinning wheels worked, was a little girls room. The furniture was adult furniture, carefully crafted in miniature, the bed, one in which her parents would watch her sleep, praying  that she never knew fear or hunger. On the bed was a doll, a small, clothed artifact of that innocent corridor that is childhood.

Susan had given us a vivid storytellers description of life, not just in this dwelling, in those days, of once a week baths in a shared tub, of clothing made not just by one's own stitches but often ones own fabric, pressed with an iron  that carried with it a burden that was more than weight.  In picking up one of the irons, I  realized that these women, even young girls that did such tasks, would be in physical shape that we all run to gyms to achieve.

On wooden pegs on the wall, hung several female garments.  Much of the material was plain in color and rough in texture, yet there were colorful cottons, formed by as much as six yards of fabric, the material expanding as the body would change in pregnancy.  As I traced one delicate floral design with my fingers, I could picture a  young woman standing in sunlight, the skirt billowing around her, a flash of color, not on a dance floor but among a swirl of chickens as she went to gather eggs.

What dreams did the women that wore these dresses have, there above the looms and irons that engaged them, the children they bore until they often died in doing so? Were they happy or was it a merely a cradle to marriage bed to casket rotation of spent youth and grief, dreams born too late and yet too soon? What stories would they tell had they the time and means to tell them?

Life for the men was no easier. It was a time where if one didn't work, one's family didn't eat.  But it was also a time that even if you did work hard, there was no guarantee you would eat, the grain and its grower subject to the hour and urge of weather, the root bloom of the lands frailty. The tools used for food and life were heavy, sweat and limbs playing a clumsy accompaniment to the music of metal, wood and stone. The work was not only physically hard, it could be dangerous.

I remember the story of my own grandfather, a lumberjack who suffered an accident of tree and ax. There were no emergency rooms, no trauma teams, simply a man brought home to the bed that recently bore his children, bleeding out while his wife could only stand by him with brooding awareness of that pending inscrutable inheritance that is early widowhood.

Yes, the lives of past history are seldom easy, but there would be riches of experience we can not see, the accomplishment of crafting something that would last for generations. There is the pride in your teaching your own family. You teaching, not a school, not a "village", teaching the skills they would need to not just survive, but to prosper beyond the scope of your life. There was also the saving, not perhaps love or riches, but what is left behind in a human spirit when everything else has been taken away.

Need and necessity sometime have ways of obliterating from our conduct various scruples involving compassion and honor. In looking around the mill, I saw a family that had much more than most people did back them.  I saw a family who could have enjoyed it, drank it all in, filled their belly with it, then passed quietly into history, their forms put into the earth and covered as if they had never been.

But they did not.

In the basement, there was something that made me stop and quietly think. A room that at one point was part of the Underground Railroad, a runaway slaves stop on the way to freedom in Canada, by a miller who himself sought freedom in our country, leaving his native Germany long behind him.

How many slaves did Mr. Graue shelter there in the basement of his gristmill? How many people passed through this room, putting their trust in a strangers hands, hesitant perhaps to take hold, as a hand too near the stove remembers pain. How difficult must that have been, trust replacing the whip of whistling air, the blow.

On the walls were pictures of some of the slaves, their eyes all projecting something, not words to be spoken but rather a profound and distracted listening for something they know exists, but do not yet know  its sound. I paused as I looked at the photos, one of those prolonged moments that contains the distance between this place as it was, and what it is now, everything that has been evoked or dared to bring us both to this place.

As I walked up the narrow stairs from that small and once dark place where women and men ran for their freedom, out into the light, an echo spoke which was not mine but rather all of the lost immutable "should haves" which haunt all dwellings, all the enclosed walls of home or heart. It lingers in the air as a hand takes mine to guide me safely away.

I left the mill with some bags of grain, but even more, with a renewed sense of thankfulness. Not just for my lightweight iron and the luxury of a long, hot, solitary bubble bath, but for something else.  I left with a sense of enduring hope for that which is the human spirit, the recognition of a life lived by ones own hand and choice. - Brigid

Need Your Opinion on a Book Cover

My publisher submitted 7 covers for me to review. After running them past friends and family, it's narrowed to 2 and I'm having trouble deciding. Which do you prefer:

Back cover book description:  

 In Paolo Sorrentino’s film Youth, an elderly composer observes, with bewilderment, “I’ve become old and I don’t know how I got here.”

Best-selling author, commercial airline pilot, and retired air crash investigator L.B. Johnson knows exactly how she got here. She just never expected to arrive quite so soon.

In The Serenity Chronicles, Johnson turns her attention from wreckage to reflection. A bout of septic shock and its lasting consequences forced her to reconsider not only the future she had imagined after retirement, but the very meaning of time. Rather than measure life by what remained, she chose to live more deliberately in the days she had.

Written as a series of candid, sometimes irreverent vignettes, this literary memoir wanders through subjects that initially seem wonderfully random, yet gradually reveal an unexpected coherence. Johnson considers the changing landscapes of the body, the ghosts of family history, the persistence of faith, the enduring gifts of love, and the peculiar indignities that aging so generously provides.

There is grief here, and an honest reckoning with mortality. But there is also laughter, gratitude, and the recognition that even an imperfect life can contain extraordinary beauty.

Johnson writes frankly about what aging takes away—and what it gives in return. Readers may wince in recognition, laugh at life’s absurdities, and find some part of their own journey reflected in these pages.  Because being alive is an exercise in enduring surprise.

Sometimes, serenity is not found in knowing what comes next.

Sometimes, it is found in being willing to find out.

 

Cover Number ONE

Or Number TWO

Moments of Memory

12 years ago. It was a night much like this one, an evening out after work with people with whom I shared a lot of history and stories. After saying good night to Partner in Grime, out saving the day on the other side of the planet, I got as dressed up as much as is "dressed up" for me, in blue jeans and a brand-new white silk T-shirt.  I managed to look quite elegant, I thought, seated at a nice quiet table in the corner of the pub.  I have back up and a designated driver.  I don't have to be on duty tomorrow.  I'm simply an adult, awaiting an adult beverage. As always, I had my eyes towards the doorway, backup available.  But like anything we never imagine, it came at me when I least expected it, my six foot two, 240 pounds of muscled and well-armed backup unable to do anything but look on . . . as the world's biggest glass of red wine flew off the approaching waitresses' tray.

Merlot Missile lock-on aimed right at the center of my new blouse.  

SPLOSH! I looked like someone on the losing side on Game of Thrones. Our friend PA State Cop commandeered some extra towels and club soda, as I attempted to clean up, while half the restaurant suddenly seemed to gather round. Many apologies and some semblance of order later, our friend Tam arrived to be asked by the waitress "what would you like to drink?" She couldn't help but mutter, like a ventriloquist, "I'll have what she's wearing".

But you know, it wasn't going to ruin my dinner, as wine stains notwithstanding, it was going to be an evening of good food and firearm tales.  It was the trinity of three friends, much history, together, safe, and intact; something so special because it is never guaranteed.  We look at photos of our younger selves with an "I was in Bosnia when you took that", or "I was in Iraq".  The stories, then told, reminding us just how many thousands of weathered doors we've passed through, some a little more forcefully than others, and all of the rain and ice and deserts harsh heat our skin witnessed to get here, tonight, the flesh in one piece. 

But too soon, it was time to go home, helping house guests get packed to head back east in the morning.  I bustled around, trying to forestall that moment when they said goodbye, taking in that big gulp of air as I looked at their gear, at the orange dog collar on the dresser, so still, so silent. One last breath, to hold me in the airless days ahead.

Still, with moments of laughter, embarrassment and sometimes tears, I wouldn't trade such moments for anything.

Look at what is precious to you, those people, those things that you trust your life and your heart with.  Is it something new and perfect? Is it something cheap and fleeting? No, it is likely to have a bit of wear and perhaps a small ding, there because it had the strength to withstand such things. If you are smart, you look past the dust and the scars as you gather that which is important to you around you. It's that giving over to our gut feeling as to the validity of something or someone, that often reaps the most reward. Look in your gun safe. Is what you treasure the newest or the shiniest? That which you prize the most may be that firearm for which the number of deer that had fallen before it were legion. Your most treasured possession, a weapon in which you knew that the fierce heat of its holding, there in the blaze of new autumn, would renew you better than that plastic fake camo looking one.

Look at the world around you, to that which has withstood time, things carefully tended. Stop at the gun show and talk to that 80-year-old veteran about something more than the price of his brass. Chances are he won't just regale you with stories of the war, no riposte of sweaty storytelling of gunfire and noise which all war stories are composed of, no ragged lines of gaunt infantry beneath the tattered flags of courage. No, what he will tell you quietly, is simple This was my gun, it served me well, but I'm willing to sell it. Let me tell you about it. And what stories it can tell.

It was there in the case at the gun store, so many years ago, an old Belgium Browning 20 gauge. My first hunting firearm. I'd trained on the Daisy and up, under my LEO parents’ watchful eyes, but I was ready for something with more weight, more depth, something that was mine. It was older than me, older than my parents, perhaps, lovingly cared for and then up for sale, sitting forlornly in a locked case. Why? A death in the family, a household strapped and the only source of food the giving up of things carefully tended?

The gun had a long history of care; you could see it in the fine veneered finish the carefully tended and lubricated workings. Somebody deeply cared for this piece for more than one generation. But the gun could not answer from its prison of glass, the ghost of its presence simply asking "why?"

It was a cold fall morning, a few months later. Across the ditch line came a young whitetail buck.  He moved slowly, without the inborn caution yet tested by a fading gout of black powder smoke. I watched the Browning elongate, rising to become a round spot against the light brown spot of a heart’s location, a period on a page soon to be red.

To an outside observer, I would have appeared almost motionless.  But there is a great activity in being the observer from above, standing in a stillness that smells of grass, breathing in so many scents in damp warm air. Sweat, blood and a flower that only blooms in the dark, the wind so scant it's like breath on a mirror. Each smell blended yet distinct, always overlaid with the copper tang of life spilled. The air hums along to the earth's quiet as all I see, smell, and feel forms into a substance I can almost feel on my flesh, capturing it, recording it there in the stillness. 

The truth is often still, inarticulate, not knowing it is the truth. As my finger bent towards firing, he looked up for just a moment. It was a moment that passed with the semblance of a sparrow and a hawk in divine immobility in mid-air, an apparition of death's hesitation. It is a moment between heartbeats.  Hesitation cannot live there, nor fear or any other question of the spirit. It's a time for sure and certain knowledge, somewhere deep within you, outside of rational thought, that by your hand, the deer will drop to a forested plain, the bird will fall from the sky. My finger stopped. Then he was gone, like a small lightning bolt on earth muddled hoof, striking through the underbrush with a crash.

He was just a yearling, and though for that moment I was tempted to fire, he had not lived long enough to fight for that life, and I was not ready to take that from him. For another time, perhaps, there would be that road.  For today, there is only the proof in the eyes and heart of a living woman of what happened that did not, but only for a touch of a finger and a word, which is our honor.

In the years since this hunt, I have learned that there is an unspoken conversation with death between the hunter and their prey. Mors ultima linea rerum est, death is every thing's final limit. Just as it is with the wolf and the rabbit, the outcome of my hunt is settled there, in that first moment of eye contact between two adversaries. In that micro spasm of the moment, there is an exchange of information regarding the propriety of the chase, of the worthiness of the kill. A conversation, of not just history, but of mortality.

So it is, outside of those pistols I have for self-defense, most of my firearms are antiques, guns with history, soldiers’ guns, police officers’ guns.  Go to the gun show and tables of new AR15's are interesting, like a 20-year-old in shorts is interesting. But give me the tables of Mausers, of Colts, of wood and flint and powder, the galloping thunder of guns which have fired through the fading fury of smoke into the night as somewhere a sparrow falls from the sky.

I don't care if my safe is full of plastic and shiny and new. Our lives are sublets anyway and too quickly gone. Give me something with history, something of strength and purpose and years, that will give as much back as I can possibly give it in return. Not everyone understands.

How do you explain to someone whose life is driven by "what will the neighbor's think", that there are just some things essential to you, that when you see them, you not only recognize them, you wish to experience? But I think it's probably the same thing I think when I see a woman's closet with a hundred pairs of shoes and think "why on earth would someone want a closet full of shoes?" If I won't ever understand that frame of reference, why would they grasp mine?

Of course, not everything that is used is useful, not everything of weight has measure. There will be things you find that end up costing you more than money. But you still seek those treasures that remain. You may find them on a table in a hall; you may find them in a house where they've been locked for far too long. You may find them just breathing, at that same moment in time where you are, two being on a small place on a planet spinning in space, destined to meet.

  

You realize then; that what you truly value, what truly makes you happy, is in such small moments, those places where the Trinity is intact as if it had never been otherwise, simply tested by the bold fragility of youth and the passion of yearning. God lost and then found, postulated here in the open arms of our faith and need.re blind to such moments, or we deliberately avoid them, with a deer in the crosshairs look, caught in that moment of life and motion, where if you do not do something, you will cease to live in that very moment between splendor and speed and the piercing of a heart.  And you choose to click on the safety and walk away, to thoughts of how it could have ended but for your inaction.

You choose and time passes. Days become weeks, becoming months and years. You think back to those places, where those choices remained, looking up at trees that grew and bore leaves, while others vanished, burned for warmth, and need. But you don't go back there.  It was just a place along your journey that exists only in the corner of your eye, as you try not and look.  Towards.  Always.

Then one day, you see something and your mind goes there again.  It may be on a table at a gun show, on the floor of a dealer, or simply there, viewed through an open door.  You look and remember. And like that moment in Jaws, where the camera zooms in on Sheriff Brody, and the whole world focuses, it does. For just a moment. And you suddenly notice every little detail around you, the sun running straight and empty, like gash down the corridor, a tiny spider web there at the corner of the room, the sun piercing it, illuminating the empty spaces there between heartbeats. And you see what it is you desire, held at that moment with conviction, that sense, that feeling of home. And you know, you were meant to hold it, for just one moment, that small piece of your history, that large piece of yourself you never knew you needed. And you reach for it, one of those impulses, inscrutable yet unassailable which occurs at intervals in all of us, driving us to set down the known and the safe, and seek the possession of something rare, blind to everything but hope and fate.

Or you can just push it away, leave it behind, common sense taking over, and go home quietly to die.

You won't do that a second time.

For you are like I am, and some night when you are old, you will lay in that tent, that old firearm by your side, unable to sleep, but quiet and peaceful, listening to the night's whisper. The past was your future, but you couldn't taste it until it too was past. Anything else was an illusion. You lay there without regret, for seeking that which you needed, that moment of time, when history and fate were held in your hand and you knew what you wanted. Perhaps it was just a moment before you set it aside, perhaps you made it yours for a lifetime, but at that moment in which you were joined, it was grace. A need so necessary, part of the history that remains.
 - Brigid 

Monday Departures

As you most know, Partner in Grims is a Mechanical Engineer.  His job regularly takes him to manufacturing facilities in other states (and countries)  The last big project has been in a state just 5 hours away so he's been driving, leaving early Monday morning.  To help him on his way, I get up early, make him  a hot breakfast, pack a lunch and snacks and see him off.  He has a little canvas tool bag he carries owith tool essentials.  I "doctored it up" with some patches.  

Monday is NOT a day for a bowl of rice crispies. 

This one I had made by a T shirt print company.  Perfect for Monday

I shouldn't talk, I married someone 24 years younger because he knew how to navigate Windows 8.

If you need an extra little tote bag, this one is fine. 

Because there are just SOME days. . . . . 

Imprints of Life

Seeing the house renovation unfold here over the last 15 years has been a pleasure, though I’m sure burglars will look through the front window, see all of the antiques, the sconces on the wall, no big flat-screen TV, and they’d probably walk away thinking a pair of 80-year-old luddites live here.  Though the kitchen cabinets were completely rebuilt, the walls re-plastered and painted, it still looks like a 40s kitchen. The only newer decorative bits are my mom’s Swedish horses and a jar of marbles I found in my brother’s childhood bedroom, the ones we played with for years as children, crouched down like small gargoyles perched on the edge of the earth. My brother and I were quietly and fiercely competitive, and a game of marbles, like any game, was approached like an act of war, though not as intensely, with the only fire being friendly. 

I can still recall his pale hands gently grasping the larger marble, poised for movement, while I watched like a hawk, to see if I could discern by draw of breath, by the pace of breath, by the dart of an eye, his intention. There were times he was so intent on the task; it seemed as if he ceased to breathe; only the sun is glinting on the marble in his hand, letting me know that time had not stopped. The sun still glints on those marbles as you walk through the kitchen into the living room. As I look around, I note that the time could be the current year or it could be 1935. I like that sense of timelessness as I spent my work years dealing with the machining of lives and law. 

By the time I would get home on some days, I would be breathing slow and labored, like a man with a large weight on his chest. I walked into the house, made some tea, put on some music, and lit a lamp, and the air would go out of my chest in a gentle whoosh. In that instant, I cared nothing for politics, for work, or what was outside, only the slow dance of my evening with my husband.  

Still, at times like those, I missed my brother. He was family, and I loved him as deeply as he loved and defended me. I remembered back to when my brother’s home was readied for sale, and his things were organized after he died, as we sorted through those mementos we wished to keep and those things that could go to charity. His home had no home computer and no TV. The furniture was old and much of it was hand restored. The house was in need of updating, but he preferred to do that himself, on his schedule, rather than pay someone with the fruits of his labor for tasks he could easily learn how to do himself. There, beneath a stopped clock, responsive now only to the last stroke of eternity, sat some tools for yet another project he’d never be able to wield them for to finish.

But despite the lack of modern conveniences, there was one large 80s tape player and a stereo, with both vinyl and tapes to go with it that he bought at a yard sale. In the last year of his life, he played music almost all day, everything from big band to 70s rock. All of those tapes were bundled up in the boxes and boxes to be sorted through after he was gone. Some of it made me cry, some of it made me smile, and the first thing I am going to ask him when I see him in Heaven is why he had a live flare gun on his nightstand.

That last night as we gathered up his things, I realized, that as different as we were in some ways, he being the fellow that always had a hundred friends, I being the one that only allowed a handful in close, we were very much alike, strong-willed and sometimes stubborn. I could almost smell the white smoke of the cigarettes he refused to quit smoking, even as cancer ate at him, watching it burning in the ashtray by his fingers, the smoke trailing out the window into the tattered, tumbling midnight. 

My brother spent his brief adult years in service to his country, something he was very proud to do even as he sometimes disagreed with its leadership. He was quiet in his public opinions on such matters, but in private, with one another, he would discuss with a great passion those fails and omissions of those we as a country put in power, as well as our staunch support of those rights that would keep us from forced servitude. For he knew that with enough power, this carefully built world still contains within it the command to be seized, and we’d make sure we did all we could to lawfully keep that from happening.

His car bore an emblem of the US flag, and his shelf the Bible, and he refused to apologize for either. He had little interest in promotions to higher command, as he realized that although command was sometimes magic, it often contained an atmosphere of officialdom that seemed to staunch human endeavor and he was happier as a simple machinist mate, preferring his hands bloodied or dirtied to the false supremacy of paper and ink. 

 I’m glad I had those days and those memories; for my brother left an imprint of his life behind, one that’s so similar to mine, that in the recognition of, I sometimes feel closer to him in death than our deep bond in life. As my tools were put down as darkness was long  upon us, I looked up at the heavens before heading to bed. What captured my gaze were the unsteady stars, that if blown upon would tumble like large marbles in the sky and then brighten to small specks of light in a wet sheen, that I realized was the view through my tears. With each small thing of his that are now part of my house, I realize that for all of us, midnight will come.

 However, I’m not going to let midnight be flung down upon me. I’m going to drag midnight along with me for the ride, as hammers are swung, and boards are bent, and God is our only salvation. In the end, it may not be done, but it will be started, and that, with the rest and the little death of sleep will be my escape and my reward. Then, when my body is finally free of sweat and the house is quiet, I’ll sleep. It will be sleep without regret, in a slightly worse for wear home in which my God watches over me, and my defender lies quietly in the nightstand, a round in the chamber. 

The Storm Before the Calm

Honey was her rescue name. A purebred puppy with bowed legs, left at a rescue as she wasn’t “perfect". After we brought her home, it hit me. What was I thinking? I’m 66; she’s a PUPPY, with no socialization, and the urgent energy of a furry Velociraptor.  There were moments I wanted to say, "wait, I change my mind", but like that moment when that first labor pain starts, there's no calling it off.

Her first night was great; she cuddled with our senior rescue Lorelei, and she napped. As my younger husband left for another 5-day business trip, I waved goodbye and thought, "I can do this!"

It was the calm before the storm. I likened it to those long, late flights over the ocean when I was an airline captain - storms forecast but not yet visible, the engines humming in a drowsy sky, senses alert to what could be a sudden change in the weather.  When the first spray of rain hit the windscreen as lightning flashed in the distance, you knew it was too late to turn back.

So, I well remember the first expression of small puppy teeth in my flank.  Sunny had discovered that people have bottoms, and she could bite them. If I showed surprise, she thought it was a game. The next thing I knew, she was running and jumping off the recliner, launching herself at the couch like one of the Flying Wallendas, knocking over a plant in the process, while Lorelei looked on, taking notes.

The typhoon had arrived, and we renamed her "Sunny".

The coming months were marked by continued mayhem, including stolen tools and shoes, shredded rolls of paper towels taken from the counter, as well as one late-night trip to the Vet when a dew claw was torn in the Zoomie to end all Zoomies. There was laughter and later tears as we said goodbye to Lorelei.  There were many days I would have gladly dispensed myself of the regrettable opportunity of "guess what I have in my mouth, Mom?"

In the mornings I’d approach her crate like it was the den of some wild beast, with bravery but some bluster. I'd open the door while singing the notes of "Ride of the Valkyries", and our day would commence, measured not in hours but by the kinetic energy of flying fur.

But, as with any storm, the skies clear, the winds calm, at least in the land of Puppy-Ville.

Even as storms occasionally blew through our lives, I took comfort as the shadows gathered again, with the little things of joy I had around me. I learned to appreciate the simple pleasure of a young dog. She did not know loss; she did not know the word "cancer".  She was once as I was, living in advance of an end she will not fear coming, because she doesn't conceive of its existence, that beautiful continuity of joy that knows no limits and no introspection.

 I wouldn't have traded this decision for anything.

 

Goodbye for Now, Sunny

Sunny left us yesterday after a short battle with a very aggressive T-Cell Lymphoma.  She had just turned 3.  We adopted her as a puppy when she was released to a shelter with bowed legs that made her "unwanted" in some's eyes.

A Vet from Indy, where Barkley got his care for years, had moved to the Chicago area as her husband got a position with a big hospital here as a doctor.   She took care of Lorelei and Abby Lab at home at the end for us and did the same for Sunny.  In a moment that reminded me that even with this pain, God's watching over me - she told me her husband's new job is at one of the biggest hospitals in Chicago, one known world-wide for it's transplant services.

He's on my Transplant team.

In Memory

Sunny D. Lab

May 11, 2023 - July 29, 2026

Words from my husband:

"Back when we hadn't had her very long, I was just getting her past the overstimulation phase so I could walk her all the way to the tracks and back.  On one of these trips, I ran across a neighbor from the next block.  He and I had spoken before when Lorelei was still happily begging for pets up and down the street.  He liked dogs; he used to have great Danes, and he had fitted his little shoebox SUV with a bulldog hood ornament from a Mack truck.  

That day he was walking with his wife.  They stopped and waited patiently for Sunny to go through the cautious sniffing phase.  After a few minutes Sunny decided they were her new best friends and was happily getting pets and doing little jumps when she wanted more attention.  The wife was particularly enthralled with Sunny and praised her, saying she loved how, "She looks you right in the eye!"  After more pets and wags we went on our way.

You wouldn't notice it from a distance, but if you watched carefully, you could tell the lady was a bit frail.  It was several months later when I saw them both again.  They were going up the steps to their bungalow and she was leaning heavily on her husband.  They apologized for not being able to stop and pet Sunny, but I told them Sunny was just happy to see her friends and she wagged and gave a little woof.

Back in the spring I bumped into the husband on the street.  He stopped me to let me know that his wife had passed.  He didn't say what the illness was, but it had been a long journey.  He said that she had her favorite comfortable chair next to the front window of the house and that she would always smile and remark when she saw Sunny on the street.  It was always a moment of happiness for her.

That's how I would like to remember Sunny the most.  The dog who always brought a smile to a neighbor's face in her dying days."

Smoke on the Water

They showed up on the lake one night, visible in the morning, silent in the mist, their shapes nothing at all like what we'd seen before on this small body of water.  A few miles away was a large and swiftly flowing river, bringing with it goods from afar.  But this little lake was what we, as children, knew.  The water had seen canoes, and the occasional raft kids made out of a sheet of plywood and inner tubes, but these little paddle wheel boats were something new.

Dad, of course, wants to go for a ride on one, there at that park at the end of our block where he ran three miles every day after work. I didn’t want to go but I loved my dad.  He and Mom adopted my brother and me late in life and he went out of his way to make life normal, now that Mom had cancer.

So, I went with him, like most teenagers, secretly hoping that invisibility was an option but it was not to be. It was Fall, wood smoke from burning leaves drifts out over the little man-made lake in the city park, as people took advantage of the day to be out on the bike paths and walking trails. To make matters worse, he was waving at EVERYONE including other kids my age (invisibility now!) I pretended to be looking up at the birds in the trees, hoping the kids wouldn't notice me, but they did and pointed (forget invisibility, let's go for obliterating lightning bolt).  The ride couldn't end soon enough for me.

Had I been acting less like a teenager I would have noticed the stillness of the water before us, our legs propelling us forward as if in flight. I would have noticed how people reacted to my father, the love, and respect he got even as he gave it out.  I would have noticed  how he looked with an owner's eye upon the water passing behind us like spent memory, the peace of the water ahead, at the simple of joy of muscle and motion powering past those things that weighed us down, disappearing in the joy of a simple evening with his child, like smoke on the water.

We were both quiet on the walk home, me because I wanted to be anywhere else, Dad for reasons I didn't understand quite yet. When we got back to the house, Mom was in bed, tears on her face.  I'd not seen her cry before and I don't think she expected me to, our arriving home early.  The tears encompassed more than pity or pain but rather that inarticulate recognition and despair of that cancer that blazed onto her inescapable earth, its fire, her ashes. I closed the door as he sat down next to her, the whisper of my bare feet on the floor, the only sound I could make

Years passed; the paddle boats disappeared as quietly as they came, with no mention of their passing.

Now, a lifetime later, I am the only family member remaining. As I leave to run an errand, I realize that little has changed, but for me. Dad remained the same man he was when I was a teen and so embarrassed to hang out with him, just as his home remained the same, but for the ghosts that remained.

But I have changed, as I realize that his wishing to watch closely and guide, was not based on control.  Rather, it was his realizing that I was still light in the burden of the years, not yet possessing the weight of the wisdom that keeps one surefooted on an inescapable path.  It was pushing me past the mundane and the limiting, if only briefly, out of that shelter we make for ourselves in times of self-doubt or danger, hiding underneath it as if it's some armor we don without knowing the full extent of what it's protecting us from.

It was his simply wanting me to know joy, while he spent more time with me, even as time ticked its final moments for his first great love.

In those last days before he passed at age 101, I entered the house and he woke, I asked him if he wanted to go for a drive.  He did, as always, hoping for a stop at Five Guys, but we don't go our usual route.  We drive on down to the lake where the paddle boats were docked long ago, walking carefully, he with his cane, down to a bench where we can see the water.

I looked at him and said, “do you remember those paddle boats?” and he hugged me and we laughed.  From the trees the chirps of birds erupted into music, the steady staccato of their sound ticking down the hours of one more precious evening with Dad.