Three trees and a dog

 

I park in the lot above the meadow in Bogart Park. It’s early and cool. As I step out of the truck, the quiet settles on me like the light embrace of a beloved friend.

This is how I know it’s October: The slight bite in the air. The scent of wood smoke that drifts down and hovers in the meadow. The tone of the leaves rustling; soft and lilting in mid-summer when the leaves are new and tender, it is a crisper sound now, as they dry and die and fall.

Maya alights from the truck eagerly, her nostrils twitching. She knows where we are, where the trail begins, and she heads that way at a trot before I’ve barely had time to close the door and hit the lock button.

Finding the trail, she pulls to the end of her twenty-foot leash and takes the rolling hills as if they are red-carpet flat, while I laugh, struggling to keep up as I tell her, “My, slow down, honey.” But she is thrilled to be out here, so I let her charge on, and my tempo increases as my boots kick up dust.

She slows when we reach the big hill. She doesn’t like this trail because she cannot see around the corners as we wind up and around on the climb, but she comes along beside me as I reassure her. Halfway up, she veers over to a single-track trail, a deer path that she has asked so many times to follow. Every other time, I have said no. Today I tell her, “Okay, My, let’s go your way,” and once again she is charging along. I gently slow her down; I have to watch her feet and mine for rattlesnakes, as it is still warm enough to see them out.

I know where this trail goes, and I know it will double the distance of our walk today. But it is a trail I have taken before with Sgt. Thomas Tibbs, and one I have loved—though not chosen—for several years.

We wind down to the far side of the hill, Maya surprised to find the trail opening up and skirting an expansive meadow. She glances often to our right where she can hear the penned sheep that sometimes graze here.

Then we come to the first tree.

 

A fire in the fall of 2016 burned much of this side of the hill down to rubble. Black ash is still visible in the soil along the trail. But look at these oak trees. Strong. Steadfast. Beautiful. How old is this one? How many fires have threatened it? Still it endures.

The last oak we pass before taking the steep trail back up toward the parking lot boasts a picnic table beneath it. Maya waits patiently as I snap a photo… and I imagine myself sitting down with a book or a notebook and a snack, whiling away a few hours in the shade… in the quiet… in the solitude.

 

Maya does that all-over dog shake—as Frost’s “little horse” did when the poet stopped to watch the snow fall in a similarly hushed and serene place.

I, too, have promises to keep.

So we tackle the last arduous climb, then pause briefly in the shade to catch our breath before heading back to the truck and civilization.

There is another way I mark the path into October, and that is by the shorter days, the diminishing light. At one time, October was my least favorite month. As the darkness came on, my spirits would flag, my anxiety rise, often leaving me depressed until January.

No more. The cure for darkness is light. So I will be out here as often as I can be, letting Maya charge up the trail (as long as it’s safe to do so), pushing myself to walk farther each time, to take the longer route, the steeper trail, to hear my heartbeat pounding, to know that I am still alive, still surviving, and will be when the light returns once again in spring.

A Friendly Murder

 

No worries, dear Reader; I refer in my title to a “murder” of crows.

It all began when I read about an experiment conducted with crows in order to determine whether they would recognize individual humans. Not only can they distinguish one human from another, they also, it turns out, are capable of holding a grudge for a prolonged period of time. You can see the results of that experiment in this short video here.

Following that, I found another video which demonstrated how crows either believe in a barter system or are simply and sincerely grateful when humans offer gifts. In return for food, they will eventually offer gifts. You can see that video here.

Jenny the Cat perches on my kitchen table every morning (after her early morning patrol of the perimeter of the property), watching the “big squawky birds” and making that adorable chittering sound cats make when they watch birds. The crows come by every morning about 7:00a.m. to eat the snails and slugs from my neighbor’s yard, and we watch them hop around, squabble over territory, and steal from each other, shouting epithets in crow-speak. I decided, after seeing the two above mentioned videos, to enhance the entertainment value for Jenny and possibly make a crow friend or two myself by feeding them peanuts. (I purchased peanuts in the shell from Chewy.com that are intended for animal consumption. Never feed your local wildlife human food, please.)

That’s when the fun began.

It only took one day and the tossing out of a couple peanuts for a couple of crows to become curious, swooping down and strutting around the peanuts, tilting their heads and eyeing them suspiciously. Then one guy grabbed a goober, flew up to the neighbor’s rooftop, and began pecking away.

The next morning, both crows were there at 7:00 sharp, waiting. I threw down a couple peanuts and retreated to the house. They flew down, each taking one, and flew off to eat them.

That was three months ago.

Now every morning there are no less than ten crows waiting—not so patiently—at 7:00.

"Caw! Caw! Caw!"

It’s like Trick or Treat; I count the number of crows and dole out that same number of peanuts, lobbing them out into the street, then returning to the house to watch the birds at the buffet.

So far, not a single one of those ungrateful bastards has left me a gift. However, Jenny’s enjoyment at their antics nearly matches mine. Here’s what I’ve seen:

Like humans, there is always a bold leader, first to fly down from his perch on the street light and grab a peanut. Conversely, there is the last guy, a small crow who looks on nervously, not sure if it’s safe to descend, often waiting until it’s too late to get a peanut. Because there is the one guy who is never content with just one. He picks up one in his beak, then hops quickly to another peanut, trying to cram that one in as well, often dropping the first peanut in the process. Most days, he is not satisfied until he has somehow shoved two in this beak, at which point he flies to the peak of the neighbor’s roof and drops them, frequently losing the extra one as it rolls down onto the ground. Greed is not an attractive look for anyone, and “Hey, Pal,” I tell him, “you can’t take it with you, can you?”

At any rate, I am still waiting for the day when I will come out in the morning, my fist full of peanuts, to find one of them has left me some shiny trinket. (I guess that’s my own form of greediness, isn’t it?) When that happens, you’ll be the first to know. After Jenny, of course.

Regarding Dolly: An Update

 

Just a quick post here to honor a dog and her human.

Three years ago, in August of 2021, I took my neighbor Linda on a day-long jaunt to find a dog. Her beloved pug mix, Abbey, had passed away some months before, and she and her husband were feeling the absence of a dog’s magic in the house. You know, that quality they have of somehow brightening everyone’s spirits. So Linda asked me to help her find the right dog.

We went looking for “a younger dog” and came home with a fourteen-year-old. Yep. You can read that story by clicking here.

Linda and her husband Bob took that old dog that had been uncared for (and unbathed) for so long, and they scrubbed her up, brushed her out, gave her warm, soft bedding, and started feeding her cooked chicken breasts every night. I kid you not. (Thus the roly-poly Dolly you see in the photo above.) I remember Linda telling me at the time that they were committed to giving her a great life for whatever time she had left, whether that be days or weeks or months or—if they were lucky—years.

And years it was. Nearly three exactly. Dolly passed away this week at the age of seventeen. Seventeen, y’all! And that dog…. Boy howdy, was she a happy girl in her last days! Oh, not at first. She was quiet and reserved and withdrawn (and very wary of Bob). But her humans were patient. And they had chicken. And daily love and encouragement. And that dog finally began to respond, so much so that she found her happy feet. I will never forget stopping by one day and Linda telling me: “Every evening after dinner she goes into the den and dances around.” Dolly might have been too old to do zoomies, but she was never too old to dance.

A good lesson for all of us who are easing into the silver muzzle stage of life, I reckon.

On Not Being Okay

 

Last week I posted on Facebook that I was not okay. I am grateful for all the friends and family members who checked in on me—called, sent a text, sent a private message, sent chocolate…. Okay, no one sent chocolate, but getting those check-in messages was just as good. Better, actually.

Here’s what was going on:

I felt overwhelmed.

When I feel overwhelmed, it’s because things feel like they are spiraling out of my control.

When I begin to lose control over the order of my life—the daily routine, the peace and quiet of the household, the general welfare of my dog and cat—my anxiety begins to skyrocket.

When my anxiety skyrockets, I become paralyzed. I find myself functioning robotically to take care of the necessary things—pet care, etc—then becoming immobilized and simply sitting for hours at a time, heart pounding, breath shallow.

This anxiety is rooted in childhood trauma.

I was an extremely sensitive child. (I still am that child.) And I was shamed by my parents for being so. I’m not trying to vilify them here; they thought that telling me to “stop crying" and "stop being so sensitive” and making fun of me for doing so would help toughen me up to deal with the real world outside. What it actually did was further isolate me, make me feel that my being “different” from others was wrong or bad, something I should be ashamed of choosing for myself. And all of that led me to become quiet and shut down… for which I was further shamed.

I learned to speak only when I absolutely had to. I learned to hang in the background, not assert myself. I learned to be invisible.

The more I controlled these things, the safer I felt. The calmer I felt. In those days, the calmest I ever felt was on Saturday mornings, leaving the house when everyone was sleeping, riding my bike around the quiet neighborhood in the hush of early morning. I was a little girl out alone, and I felt safest there. (You’re already nodding your head if you know me well—this is me now on a hike; I feel safest there.)

Until I started seeing a therapist last year, I was wholly unaware of what caused my anxiety. I mean, when I was feeling anxious, I could generally track it back to what triggered it, but I had no idea why it kept resurfacing. I kept confusing anxiety with fear. It’s the same autonomic response, right? Rapid heart rate. Shallow breathing. But I am not a fearful person.

One day my therapist said, “So, as long as you can control things in your life—your environment, your routine, your interaction with people—you feel safe. Because when you were a child and a teenager, you were being bombarded with stimuli that traumatized you, and you had no control over it. You couldn’t advocate for yourself, and you had no adult advocate. So you lived with trauma. Now, you keep that trauma at bay by creating an environment in which you are in control.”

Boy howdy.

Yes, I understand—as I discussed with my therapist—that we cannot control everything that happens in our lives. Some weeks are like last week—things breaking, service people in the house to fix things, financial worries, pet worries, pressure from others to “just make a decision,” the hopeless desire to never let anyone down….

Last week was a perfect storm of unpleasant events happening. So I felt out of control of my life. So the anxiety swooshed back in hard like a tsunami.

So what did I do? I rode it out. I saw it coming on the horizon and I ran for higher ground. I didn’t quite outrun it, but some folks were close by with life preservers and ropes and that-feeling-you-get-when-you-eat-chocolate, and I survived it.

For a while, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. But the truth is, I just had to be reminded: “Breathe, Kay.” I did. I’m back. I’m okay now. If you’re not, you can always call me. I have time for you. I can find a life preserver. Maybe even some chocolate.

Happy Birthday to Me?

It was supposed to be a birthday present to myself, a road trip with my sister who needed a change of scenery, and a relaxing day for chatting and visiting our father's grave. And honestly it started out that way....

Even though an hour before we were scheduled to leave, I received a call from a woman who was trying to re-home a dog. She asked if I could "come today" to meet her, as she was going out of town.

Well, what the heck, it was essentially... sort of... on our way down to Corona del Mar, so yeah, we'd hop off the freeway and meet the dog.

Except when we arrived at exactly the appointed time, the woman responded to my text saying, "I'm across the street at the grocery store. Be there to meet you in a minute." Which she was... sort of... after she unloaded her groceries while I stood in the sun and waited for her to meet me at the gate to her apartments... only to find, when she arrived, that the dog was, um, not quite "as advertised." I'll leave it at that.

Back on the road, my sister and I chatted about dogs and our kids and our grandkids and our childhood as we motored along Highway 241, a toll road cut through the hills between the Anaheim Hills and the ocean (because of course I have a Fastrak transponder on my new truck, so we could easily cruise the toll road). In no time, we were pulling into Pacific View Cemetery and strolling over to Dad's grave.

It was a pleasant visit. We left flowers on his headstone and sang a duet of his favorite song, "Danny Boy." Then it was back in the truck and a short drive down Pacific Coast Highway (with views of the ocean we hadn't seen in a while) to our destination: Las Brisas Restaurant in Laguna Beach. I dropped Peg at the entrance so she could get us a table, and I went looking for parking, which I readily found, pulling into a spot where someone had just pulled out. I knew the routine: Slide the Visa card into the slot and hope I'm not paying a fortune for the hour or so we'd be eating lunch.

Lunch—was fantastic. Great food, a terrific chocolate mousse cake, which we debated about getting because, with the dog stop in the beginning of our journey, it was getting on toward afternoon, and we knew we had to beat the traffic home, but once we ate it, we both agreed it was worth sitting in traffic for. Little did we know....

We also drank lots and lots of chilled water. Here's how our very slow and often inattentive server offered that:

"What can I get you ladies to drink? We have water or Evian, iced tea, a glass of wine...."

"Oh, you have Evian? We'd like that."

We did indeed like it. So much so that we ordered a second bottle and shared it. We might have enjoyed it less had we known that the chilled glass bottles of Evian he brought to the table and poured into our wine glasses with a flourish were $12 a pop, adding a whopping $24 to the bill when it came. Yikes! I know, I know; a fancier person would have expected that. My brother would have asked the price of the fancy water first. But he's fancier than I am. Whatever. It's only money. And I can be that cavalier about it now, because someone else ended up paying for it. But I'll get to that....

We headed home. Thirty minutes into the drive, my sister told me she needed a pitstop. (All that expensive water, you see.) But we were back in the canyon, driving the toll road. There was nowhere to stop. And she was getting desperate with every passing minute.

"Just pull over," she said. "I'll find a bush."

Let's be honest. Guys do this all the time. One of the advantages of having a small hose (or, okay, whatever size it is) attached to your bladder is that you can drain it standing up. Women can't. And some people would be shocked at the thought of a woman squatting behind a bush. But let me tell you, as free roaming children at a very young age, we did what was necessary so we could still wander and explore (and probably get into some kind of predicament). As adults, my sister and I both went on trail rides on our horses along riverbeds and on isolated trails. I still hike in wilderness areas—where no one has thought to install restrooms. So yeah, it wasn't really a big deal.

I followed the turn-off for Santiago Canyon Road, found a spot to pull over, and Peg walked off into the bushes and relieved herself. We were back on the road in under ten minutes. Easy peasy.

Except....

I merged back onto the toll road to find that apparently a few thousand of our neighbors were also heading in our same direction, so five lanes of flowing traffic became two lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic, the long back-up occurring when both those lanes had to merge into one to join the 91 freeway. We were now rolling slowly, averaging 15 miles per hour.

I'm a California native. Generally speaking, traffic like this isn't an issue for me. I simply sit in the comfort of my Ford Maverick (with excellent lumbar support) and enjoy the scenery (if there is any). But on this day, I had left the house at 8:30, taking Maya out before I left. Confident we'd be back by early afternoon, I hadn't arranged for my dog wrangler to come over and let her out. But now, since it was already 3:00p.m., far past the time Maya should have had a potty break, I called the teen wrangler's grandmother to ask if she could pick the kid up and have her do me that favor.

"Sure," was the immediate answer. Then I remembered: I'd locked the house up tight before I left. Damn.

The next call was to my next-door neighbor, Gus, who told me when I moved in, "Hey, I have a key to your house" (from the previous owner). "Do you want it back? Or do you want me to keep it in case of an emergency?"

Thank goodness Gus has a key, I thought. But... that was eight years ago. When I called, Gus couldn't remember having a key. Or our conversation. "Even if I did have one," he said, "I would have no idea where it is now."

Sigh. Poor Maya! She would have to wait. A much longer time than I anticipated....

About this time, Peg started patting her pockets, scanning the floorboards, and asking, "Where's my phone?" I couldn't help her look. I had to keep my eyes on the car ahead of me so as not to bump.

"When did you last have it?"

"I don't know," she said. "At the restaurant maybe? I might've left it in the restroom. I took it out of my back pocket and put it on the toilet paper holder."

Brief aside here: This is not the first time I've been with my sister that she's left her phone in a public restroom.

Since my phone was synced with my car, I could call Las Brisas without too much distraction. The very kind hostess searched the restroom and their lost and found box. No phone.

I tried calling Peg's phone to see if it was in the truck and she just couldn't see it. We heard nothing, and about that time traffic cleared, and Peg said, "Maybe it fell out of my pocket when I got out to pee."

Oh, lord.

We'd finally made the transition onto the 91 and traffic was moving along at 70 miles per hour. We could be home in another hour or so. I could let Maya out. My shoulders could go back to their normal position instead of hovering around my ears with worry about my poor dog.

But what else was there to do?

I took the next ramp off, crossed back over the freeway and got back on in the opposite direction. We breezed back to the Santiago Canyon Road exit, I pulled up to where I'd stopped to let Peg out previously, and she got out to look. She was roaming through the brush, eyes on the ground, when I called her phone to see if we could hear the ring.

Boy howdy, did we hear it. Or at least I did.

"Peg, come here."

Her phone was in the passenger seat. She'd been sitting on it.

If only there hadn't been all that traffic noise earlier when I called it. If only we'd pulled over and stopped for a minute, had her get out and look. If only we hadn't stayed to eat that indescribably delicious chocolate mousse cake.

Wait. Scratch that last bit. I will never regret ordering that cake.

Back on the toll road with my apologetic sis, I inched into traffic again. Now, however, the traffic was worse. So when I say "inched," I literally mean we were moving at zero miles per hour. The line of traffic stretched endlessly before us. I took deep breaths to belay the worry about Maya. When you're in a situation you can't control, you only make it worse by getting angry or upset. Wise words, no? Yeah, it's only taken me about 70 years to learn that lesson.

So I tried to relax into my Zen mode. We would be home when we arrived home. I would practice patience and deep breathing until then.

Which is when, with a loud thump, my truck was rear-ended, and all my meditative energy exited the vehicle as I did, right in that long line of equally frustrated motorists.

I marched back to the car behind me, looking first at the damage to my beautiful new truck. The right side of the license plate was crumpled. Slightly. That was it. The driver of the car that hit me was a kid, twenty years old. I told him, in my sternest Mom/Teacher voice, to get over to the emergency lane, which meant both of us shifting over two lanes. The cars behind us had seen what happened and let us over.

I took a photo of the license plate of his car, then one of his driver's license.

"Let me see your registration," I told him.

"It's not my car," he said.

"Who is it registered to?" I asked.

"It's not registered," he said.

Then suddenly he was on the phone with his father, telling him what happened in the profoundly mortified voice that only a young man who has previously believed himself to be badass has when he has to call his mommy or daddy and admit to being a dumbass. Deepening his humiliation, I'm sure, was the fact that his buddy was sitting next to him in the car. Nothing worse than looking like a dumbass in front of your bestie.

But Dad had a plan.

"Will you take cash?" the boy asked, his father still shouting instructions on the other end of the line.

We both looked at my license plate again.

"I don't know," I said. "How much does it cost to replace a license plate?"

"Um...." the kid said, still dazed and confused.

His pal was on it, though, showing me his phone when his search turned up the answer. Fifty bucks.

"Okay," I said, "do you have fifty dollars cash?"

"Um... I have Citi Bank...?" the kid replied.

Once again, the coherent passenger was on it. There was an ATM twelve miles from our location. I tapped the address into my phone.

"Follow me there," I told the driver. "Meet me in the parking lot or I'm calling the cops."

Yep, I said "calling the cops." What was it the Apostle Paul said about 'becoming all things to all people'? I learned this as a teacher. Talk kid talk to kids. And I was still using my your-behavior-was-inappropriate voice with him.

It took us an entire hour to drive those twelve miles. But that young man followed right along behind like a baby duckling, pulling into the parking lot and jogging for the ATM. Moments later, he handed me three twenty-dollar bills.

"The ATM only gives twenties," he said.

"I don't have change for you," I said. Okay, yeah, maybe I had two fives in my wallet in my purse in the backseat of the truck, but I wasn't going to fetch that for him.

"No, it's fine," he said, handing me the money and looking like he was about to cry.

I took the money, showing him my phone as I deleted the photos I'd taken of his license plate and driver's license.

"We're square," I said, and I held out my hand. We shook on it and departed.

By then, it was 5:00p.m. We hit the freeway again, and I finally arrived home after 6:00. Maya had been without a potty break for nearly ten hours. But she hadn't had an accident in the house.

Who's a good girl?!? It has taken me years to get her fully housebroken as she was so used to having to do everything in her small kennel. My poor girl. What a good, good girl.

DENOUMENT (if you're still reading, and if you wandered off, I still love you, you tried, dear soul, to get through this interminably long, self-absorbed rant):

I don't really care about my license plate. Anyone who's bought a new car knows it's only a matter of days or weeks before somebody bumps, dings, scuffs, or otherwise mars it. I got away easy. I took the kid's money to teach him a lesson. And besides, check this out:

Final total for our back and forth on the toll road:               $22

Really expensive fancy water:                                             $24

Parking by Las Brisas with a view of the ocean:                   $ 1

Yep, a dollar. The meter still had time on it when I parked.

Really expensive fancy chocolate mousse cake:                  $13

All that adds up to fifty bucks, plus I got ten more for the inconvenience of having to go to the kid's bank. That equals what he handed me in cash. The way I figure it, Peg and I had an adventure, no one was injured, we enjoyed a great lunch, saw the ocean, and most important, we sang for Dad. All things considered, we had a blessed day. True story!

 

Ahhh, adrenaline

For the uninitiated, let me say this: There is nothing that kicks off your sympathetic nervous system response with some high octane adrenaline like seeing three hungry adult coyotes charging down a slope toward you and your not-large dog. Boy howdy. Pro tip: Do. not. run.

If you take off running, you will not gain the experience of seeing how the lead coyote splits off from the other two so that he can head you off while the other two chase from behind. It's amazing, really. They do this without verbal commands or hand signals or walkie talkies. They simply know to hunt prey this way, and it's quite fascinating. And kind of scary.

So I stood still on the trail, Maya close beside me, but I kept my eyes moving back and forth, watching the lead guy, watching the other two. As I did this, I began talking in a voice loud enough and deep enough to make the 'yotes nervous, but I kept the lid on my urge to do some excited shouting because I didn't want to terrify my dog. She knew, though. Maya knew. She'd seen them, too, so when I started making loud growling sounds--something she's never heard me do before--she understood that I was doing this to warn off the very big creatures who had come running toward us.

Also for the uninitiated: Coyotes are damn smart.

So we watch the lead guy peal off and run parallel to us and then ahead of us, crossing the trail and abruptly stopping to hide behind a tall shrub. I know he's there because I've kept my eyes on him, and now I can see the tips of his ears above the foliage. He stands as still as I had moments ago, waiting. Watching.

What to do? We walk straight toward him.

I mean, I'm not going to turn around and go back in the direction of two coyotes, and this is the only trail out, so we're going to--I'm going to--chase him off. Which is what I do, tossing rocks into the shrub, growling, shouting (but not too loud), "Go on, 'yote!"

And he goes.

But we do not stop watching, Maya sniffing the air as we pass that shrub, all senses alert, me ready to reach down and scoop up my thirty-pound dog if I have to. But the coyote disappears into the brush.

Next item on our hiking agenda: Get the hell out of there and back to the truck. Sadly, Maya is now limping badly on her left front paw. When I find a sandy section of trail surrounded only by low foliage, I bend down to check her foot, grateful that finally, after three years, she will let me touch her feet when she picks up a thorn so I can pull it out. There is nothing in her foot pad this time, though, as I suspected. When we stopped on the trail to watch the coyotes, I realized too late we were standing near an ant's nest. I suspect she's been bitten. She licks her paw over and over, then looks up at me. I know exactly what she's thinking. It's this:

Can't you make it better? You always make it better. This hurts. Please make it better.

But I can't. Not out here. So we limp slowly down the trail, me promising to get her home as soon as possible while ever vigilant lest the coyote reappear.

We've gone fifty yards when I realize I left my hiking pole in the trail when I stopped to examine Maya's paw. We have to go back for it, back toward the coyote's hiding place. Maya limps slowly beside me, I finally pick up the pole, and we reverse direction, heading back up the trail toward the truck. It's a long slog. We were nearly to the farthest point out when we saw the coyotes. Now we've got a mile to walk back. And even though it's only 7:30a.m., it's getting hotter by the second.

We stop every time we find shade. Maya immediately crouches, turning her paw up to lick it over and over. My poor girl. We walk on.

Slowly, though, the pain in her paw starts to subside. She limps less and less, and by the time we get to the final steep uphill, she trots ahead of me. She knows the truck is on the other side. Safety assured. We've made it.

Before you ask: No, I don't carry pepper spray. The coyotes would just sneeze it off. I, however, would need to call 9-1-1 for a rescue because my lungs would immediately shut down. No, I would never carry a gun and shoot a coyote. Just no. Coyotes don't attack adult humans. It's only Maya I need to worry about. Because a coyote will hide in the bushes and leap out to steal a small dog off a leash. For this reason, I am hyper-vigilant when out in the hills with her, scanning the sides of the trail ahead for snakes or predators, scanning the ridgelines for coyotes (which is how I saw these three right at the exact moment they saw us). FYI, I often slip a pocket knife into my backpack or hiking pants if I think I may be in a dangerous situation. But we were just out for "a quick walk in the hills before it gets hot." Sigh....

Maya is fine. I am fine. The coyotes are fine but probably still very hungry. For a while. The hills are covered with rabbits and voles. They'll get breakfast, don't you worry about them. I'm just glad the menu didn't include Maya.

Who Is Matt Eicheldinger and Why Does He Make Me Cry Every Day?

 

Seriously, I don't know how his posts starting coming up in my Instagram feed, but suddenly one morning there was this earnest-looking dude holding a coffee mug, apparently sitting outside his house, and with a friendly wave he began a short chat with, "Hi, my name is Matt, I'm a teacher, and today's story is called...." I don't remember which story I heard first, but Matt already had me at "I'm a teacher...." Plus the coffee mug. Plus sitting outside. Plus... Well, you just have to hear the sincerity in his voice.

Anyway, Matt isn't just a teacher (although if that were his only gift, being the great teacher that he is--just listen to some of the stories from his classroom--we would be, as a society, super-blessed). He is also a terrific story teller. And a writer. And an artist. And now an author. But that's not why he makes me cry.

I mean, not yet. His books haven't made me cry yet. I will confess that as soon as I started seeing Matt's daily heartfelt, inspirational videos on Instagram, I became a full-on fangirl, so when Matt Sprouts and the Curse of the Ten Broken Toes released, I immediately bought a copy, read it, and reviewed it. Yes, it's a middle-grade book. So? I love children's literature (and I write it, so there's that). And it's the kind of book my youngest son would have absolutely loved when he was that age--lots of hijinks and mayhem and not much girlie stuff. So yeah, five star review for Matt Sprouts. Oh--and did I mention it has illustrations drawn by the author himself?

But as I said, that's not what makes me cry. Although Matt does have a book coming out soon entitled Sticky Notes that I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to read with a box of tissues next to me, such is the tender Irish heart in me.

Matt makes me cry nearly every day because he tells stories (often originating in his classroom, though some are lessons he's learned in life) that are simple and true. About kids learning how to be better humans. About kids demonstrating empathy. About kids who thought they failed but succeeded in coming away with a wider, wiser perspective. About striving as a teacher to get through the toughest days while still being kind and compassionate. These aren't smarmy stories. Mostly, they're touched with a bit of humor and Matt's goofy expressions as he mimics the way kids talk. (And they're spot on!) But his stories always have some take away, some thought-provoking message that touches my heart, reminds me of my best days teaching, and of course, brings me to tears.

In recent years, as I have learned to overcome that childhood sense of shame instilled in me for crying or exposing my emotions, I have been more open about how often I cry. (Daily. Sometimes hourly. I buy several boxes of Kleenex tissues--thank you, Kimberly-Clark--every week.) The way I figure it, I held back tears for decades, so there clearly must be an ocean full of tears just waiting for the tide to turn (coupla times a day, no?) to be released. Okay, maybe not an ocean. Maybe just the Salton Sea. But still.

So, as a storyteller myself, and wanting to leave you with some satisfying take away, I will (almost) end with this: Find Matt Eicheldinger and follow him. He's on Instagram and now Facebook. There are some YouTube videos. He's probably on Threads by now. (Isn't everybody except me?) Possibility Twitter, but I'm no longer a partner to those shenanigans, so I don't know.

Anyway, follow him. Get your daily dose of "we're gonna be okay" stories. Keep a tissue handy if you have any Irish or Italian in you. You can thank me later.

Addendum for readers who don't know me personally: This review of Matt's work is wholly unsolicited. I received no compensation for spending 45 minutes writing this when I could have been doing something fun like pulling weeds. In fact, by now Matt Eicheldinger probably thinks I'm stalking him because I feel compelled to comment on nearly every story he tells. (What can I say? I'm a writer; I can't help myself.) But... this is what I do. Like Madeleine L'Engle, Matt tried for years to get his first book published, but it wasn't like other books out there, so he had no takers. (Boy howdy, I've been there!) Truly, though, that first book deserves all the attention it's finally getting, and I'm here to help with that however I can. But also I love you (whoever you are), and I think your life might be enriched by Matt's storytelling. So get it. It's free. And it feels good. And who doesn't want that?  

Graduating

 

When I had my vinyl floors put in recently, I had to empty the guest room closet. It’s tiny, but it gets stuffed with all the holiday decorations plus clothing I only use on occasion (like my snow jacket).

One of the items I pulled out was draped in a plastic garment bag, and for a moment I wasn’t sure what was inside. Was it the killer-sexy formal black dress I bought to chaperone prom years ago? No. It was my cap and gown. From 1988.

The “flood” of memories was more like a tsunami.

True story:

In 1984 I left my awful husband who swore he would never pay child support (and never did). At age 30, with no employment experience (despite being a published author), I was having trouble finding a job. A poet friend from my writers group came over one night and read me Wordsworth’s “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey.” I fell in love that night—not with the friend, but with Wordsworth and certainly the poem, which is still one of my favorites. (Thank you, William. By the way, I named a dog after you—but that’s another story entirely.) The poet friend had been trying to convince me that, instead of getting a job, I could go to college and study such lovely compositions as Wordsworth’s poem. That night, he finally convinced me.

Here's what happened next:

I enrolled in our local community college (Chaffey—go Panthers!) and became a fulltime student in the fall following my divorce. Keep in mind, I had four young children, so mornings went like this: Get all five of us ready, including lunches made. (“Sam, for the fifth time, buddy, where are your shoes?!?”) Drop three of them at the elementary school, then drop Sam at pre-school, then drive up to the college and attend classes all day, then pick up Sam, pick up the other three, and head home to do homework, make dinner, get everyone bathed and sorted and break up one or two or ten fights, get everyone to bed. (Shali, I see you still reading after lights out.)

Repeat every day for five, then collapse exhausted on the weekend. Begin again the following Monday.

In two years, I had a 4.0 grade point average and an acceptance to the University of California Riverside—with a scholarship that paid my tuition. I also had a longer commute to school from Chino Hills, but the kids were two years older by then, so things weren’t quite so crazy as they had been my first year but boy howdy, they were still crazy.

There was that time I went out to the car, carrying backpacks and herding kids as I went, only to find I had a flat tire on my little Toyota Corolla. I had a roommate at the time, and she helped me change the tire in ten minutes, I swear. (I think she just wanted to make sure I was out of the house for the day.)

So many memories….

But the kids were troopers and I passed my algebra classes and excelled in my literature classes and two years after I transferred to UCR I was ready to graduate. by the end of my final quarter of school, I was exhausted, having written twenty English papers in ten weeks while nursing three of my four kids through chicken pox. Shali, as a teen, had it the absolute worst. She was so sick she laid in bed for days, commanding me to stay out of her room lest I become sick and miss my graduation. As it was, she missed it, something I felt sad about until, years later, she had her own college graduation.

But I did it, damn it. I did it. Booyah!

At 34, I was the first of my mother’s children to earn a bachelor’s degree, and I did it with a 3.73 grade point average, awarding me, along with 19 other students, the cum laude appellation in the commencement program. Mom came to my graduation and quickly noted—poking her finger repeatedly into the commencement program page—that I had not graduated summa cum laude (“with the highest distinction”) as only three other students had. She wanted to know why.

“I thought you were a good student,” she said. “Why aren’t you over here?” she asked, poking her finger at the page once again.

She wasn’t kidding, y’all. Sigh. That was Mom. All I could do was stare at her.

Dr. Wayne Hubert, one of my favorite profs at Chaffey, gave me some great advice when I let him know I was headed to a career in teaching.

“If you’re going to teach,” he said, “learn how to pat yourself on the back.” He reached his arm around to indicate how I should do so. “Because you may do an excellent job, but most years, no one is going to notice.”

His words remained with me, and despite my mother’s attempt to diminish my success, I gave myself many pats on the back for being, in fact, a stellar student while raising four rambunctious kiddos and somehow keeping us afloat financially until I could get my teaching credential and get a job.

I rocked it. I am prouder of that accomplishment than anything else I’ve ever done.

So I kept that cap and gown (and the stole I received when I earned my master’s degree four years later—while teaching high school fulltime with three teenagers at home so yeah, booyah again, Kay!).

But when I slid the garment bag away, I saw that the gown and the stole had faded. With a sigh, I decided it was time to let them go. I’m retired now, and 70. I don’t want my kids to take on the drudgery of determining what should go in the dumpster after I die. I’ll get this one, my loves.

So the gown and stole were taken out to the trash. I kept the mortarboard, though, tossing it in a drawer of the same nightstand I’ve had since I was a kid. At some point, I’ll toss the cap, too. But for now, I just love remembering, from time to time, how indescribably difficult those years were—and subsequently how empowered I felt when I finally achieved what I had worked so hard for.

 

Getting At Thomas's Story

 

Hard to believe that an entire decade has passed since I started taking notes on a memoir about Sgt. Thomas Tibbs. Eighteen months after being rescued from horrific conditions, he had made so much progress (progress that began with the love and patience of volunteers at Friends of Upland Animal Shelter), I knew I wanted to chronicle his story, beginning to end. If I could discover much about his beginning.

Turns out, that has been a challenge.

Seven years ago, after I retired from teaching and returned to my first love, I pulled out my notes from three years prior and started adding to them. At that time, I was able to contact two gentlemen who were administrators in animal control at the time of Thom’s rescue. One refused to talk to me. The other agreed to a phone interview, then spoke incessantly about how difficult it is to be the director of a county animal shelter—one that is notorious for having a “high-kill” rate. He kept me on the phone for four hours and never answered any of my questions.

Last Thursday was a beautiful day in the High Desert of Southern California. I drove up to Apple Valley to visit the very modern library there, to see if perhaps a reference librarian could help unearth some stories that might have run in the local newspapers in 2013.

Nope. No reference librarian at all. And no newspapers. “We don’t keep those for more than a week or so,” one of the kind ladies at the desk told me. There were two of them, and in between checking out books and telling people the restroom code, they listened, intrigued, as I told them Thom’s story. Neither remembered it from the news. Both wanted to help. One of them began an internet search using names I gave her—and came up with all the information I already had.

I left a bit discouraged, but undaunted. From there, I did a long drive down a dirt road, looking for the property where Thomas was born—Rainbow’s End Animal Sanctuary. If ever a name were ironic…. The property is allegedly (according to a Facebook page, so the info is taken with a grain of salt) on Zuni Road, so I drove the length of that long, meandering road. No way to tell where it might have been.

Still undaunted, I pulled to a stop by some rural mailboxes to snap the above photo (and check in with a friend who had been calling, worried, for hours, knowing I would be on this quest by myself in the middle of a rural area). As my little Subaru idled, a white-haired woman pulled up to get her mail, and I sauntered over to ask her if she’d ever heard of the “sanctuary.”

What she told me in great detail I will not discuss here, so as not to subject you, my dear, dog-loving Reader, to the horrors she shared with me. If you can follow this thread: Her neighbor’s husband’s brother used to work at the sanctuary. The neighbor, a dear friend of the woman I was speaking to, died of cancer.

“So you no longer have contact with the husband?” I asked, knowing all too well the answer.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t even know where he is or how to get in touch with him.”

Maybe it’s just as well.

I couldn’t leave Apple Valley without stopping by the overflowing shelter there, walking through the kennels and finding four or five or six dogs I wanted to take home. Before that, I asked a woman at the desk if anyone working there now had worked there in 2013.

“No, I don’t think so,” was her reply. I gave her my contact numbers, telling her briefly about Thomas, about why I was seeking information. She said she would have someone call me if anyone knew anything.

So far, that hasn’t panned out, either.

Here’s what I know, and it boils down to two dynamics:

1. Somebody up there knows something.

2. I’m not just stubborn, I’m Irish stubborn.

So yeah, I’m not giving up. Thomas will have a book about his majestic self because he’s—he was—beautiful and he deserves it, my sweet boy. And I have a thing or two to say about companioning with a feral dog.

As always, stay tuned.

 

Thank Goodness for Dogs

 

I’ve been busy lately, finishing the last book in my Dragon Singer Series, getting it formatted, ordering books, moving all the furniture around in my house to accommodate new floors, cleaning everything as I moved it, cleaning it again as I put it back to remove the layer of flooring dust.

It hasn’t been exactly stressful, but it has definitely upset my usual routine. Dear Reader, if you’re familiar with the particular quirks of mental illness, you know that those of us with anxiety are at our best when we can follow a general routine that includes making calming, self-care spaces for ourselves.

For eight of the ten days my flooring guy, Jorge, was working, my routine was shot, and I was quite proud of how I managed my anxiety during those days. Until the last day. On the last day, I had simply reached my limit. I needed to have the quiet sanctuary of my home returned to me, and finally, by day’s end, it was.

Let me tell you what kept me sane in the interim: Maya. Even though Jorge was showing up at 8:30 every morning, and even though that meant having furniture (+books, knick-knacks, etc.) moved and the room ready and the pets sequestered by that time, I still walked Maya every morning. We’d head out around 5:30, 6:00a.m. and do a mile in the hushed darkness.

Sometimes, as the sun was coming up, we’d see bunnies munching on the new spring grass. Or quail, power-walking for cover in the gully. Or an awesome sunrise. Or the mated pair of Canada geese winging silently overhead. One morning, just as we strolled under a very tall pine tree, a great-horned owl called “Hey!” (which sounded like “WHO?” in his language) from the top of the tree. The hoot was so loud in the stillness, Maya and I both startled. Then I laughed. And Maya strained on the leash. (“I don’t know what that was, but we need to get to safety, Mom!”) Even on the day it was lightly sprinkling, we went out, both donning raincoats, unbothered by the damp when we knew we would be warm and dry upon our return.

On those walks, I sucked in the clean, fresh, cold air (since residual dust continued to swirl around my home for days), and I used the time to remind myself that (1) the day would be long but not unending, (2) I maintained control of the process; if my anxiety rose to a dangerous level, I could always ask Jorge to leave for the day, and (3) I am extremely fortunate to be able to afford this upgrade that I’ve been looking forward to for so long. (And “so long!” old carpeting.)

Gratitude. Gratitude in everything. The clarity of the stars in the pre-dawn sky, the sharp call of the resident Cooper’s hawk as it awakens, the ability to still do a brisk walk—look, Ma, no sciatica!, the progress of the little dog trotting dutifully alongside me (even though she’d rather be hiking or back in her nice warm bed).

Speaking of Maya’s bed: The first day Jorge worked, I kept Maya in my bedroom and stayed with her (and Jenny the Cat) most of the day. As the days progressed, I felt comfortable leaving the room to move things and clean, but checked on both of them frequently, often just lying on the floor next to Maya’s bed, stroking her head, rubbing her back, and kissing her soft puppy ears. (Okay, yeah, she’s nine, not a puppy. Her ears are still that soft, though.) This, as much as the long early walk, helped to keep me calm and “regulated,” as the current mental health jargon goes.

So thank goodness for dogs. Everyone should have one. Or two. Or three. Stay tuned….

Remembering Harry

Harry Cauley—author of Bridie and Finn and the memoir, Speaking of Cats, recipient of the Writers Guild of America Award and the W.H. Smith Fresh Talent award in England, staff writer on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and several Carol Burnett specials—died yesterday. He was 93.

In recent years, as I have mentioned Harry to friends, I’ve been asked how I came to know him. I get it. The question suggests no disrespect to me, I know, but… How did I, from the very small reclusive sanctuary I have created for myself, brush shoulders with someone who lived and worked and partied in Hollywood? Well, I’ll tell you.

A couple decades and change ago, a handful of other writers and I used to meet bi-monthly at the Barnes & Noble in Rancho Cucamonga. Sometimes the PR person for the store would tell us, “I have a guest speaker for you,” and we would be introduced to someone who was there to promote a book. I will never forget the night we met Harry. He was there to talk about Bridie and Finn, the rich, heartfelt novel he wrote—his first, written when he was sixty-five and had retired from writing teleplays.

What Harry said that night continues to resonate with me. I still have it in a notebook: “Writing is the loneliest profession there is.” He went on to elaborate on how difficult it is to sit alone in a quiet place—how intimidating it is to face the blank computer screen, the blinking cursor—and begin to compose a work of fiction entirely from scratch. Boy howdy.

Harry had no idea who I was that night, of course, and we didn’t really speak, other than my sincere thank you as he was leaving. But fast forward a decade, and our dear mutual friend, Peggy Jackson—PR person for Borders Books at the time—was having lunch with me and another friend in Claremont, California.

“Kay, I loved your memoir about your dogs,” Peggy said. “You remember Harry Cauley? He’s written a memoir, Speaking of Cats. You would love it.”

I did read and love Speaking of Cats. So I reviewed it on Amazon. And Peggy emailed Harry to tell him. And Harry emailed me to thank me for the review. (What a classy guy!) And so it began, Harry and I exchanging emails about books and writing and our love of cats and dogs and gardening.

Harry lived in Cherry Valley, which is where I had planned to retire. When the time came, I ended up in Calimesa, but I was 15 minutes away from his house, and our emails became phone calls and visits. By then, his health was beginning to decline, and, although he was still driving himself around town, he occasionally needed help getting to appointments that were a freeway journey away. When I drove him, he bought me lunch. Oh, the laughter over those lunches! This man had 80 years’ worth of stories! About mowing Albert Einstein’s lawn (because Harry was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and “the Einsteins” lived down the street). About his stint in the army (“I tap danced my way through the Korean War”—and he meant that literally). About his plays being performed on Broadway. About the produce he would bring to rehearsals because he had a vegetable garden and he loved sharing with his friends. About celebrities—the truly nice ones (Carol Burnett), the “bitches” and the “s.o.b.s.”

Harry gave me unsolicited advice nearly once a week—how to train my dog (because he never understood why Thomas wasn’t friendly), how to grow vegetables (as if I hadn’t been doing that for decades), why I should stop looking for love from a man (sigh), how to make soup (as I was making a pot of soup). And I listened, whether I needed the advice or not. Because you don’t get as old as Harry without becoming a deep repository of wisdom and truth.

The pandemic separated us. I didn’t see him for many months, though I left homemade bread and cookies at his doorstep as often as I could. Fortunately, just months before the lockdown, I drove Harry up to Living Free Animal Sanctuary in Idyllwild where he adopted a beautiful black cat named Asher. Asher was his only companion during all the months he was shut in, and we both often remarked on the phone that Harry had selected “the perfect cat” from the dozens he visited with that day.

Asher and Harry were separated when Harry went into assisted living a couple years ago. Please don’t be sad for him; the “perfect cat” continues to be the perfect companion for another human who needed him as much as Harry did.

And now Harry has left his physical shell and gone on to rejoin all the dear friends and family members he has lost in nine decades. He lived an extraordinary life, and he accomplished extraordinary things. Bravo, Harry. Bravo.

This is Winter

 

This is my peach tree, pruned and bare. Every night and every morning before dawn, in our forays into the yard for Maya's last potty, I stand on the walkway and stare at this tree (when I'm not staring at the stars), willing her to once again leaf out, then blossom, then bear fruit. "Stay strong, Peachtree," I tell her. But I know I'm really saying it to myself.

In her gorgeous memoir, A Circle of Quiet, Madeleine L'Engle writes of keeping herself from the darkness of depression by surrounding herself with "candles," as she calls them--those small artifacts in our lives that bring us the light of joy--books, songs, dogs, cats, tall trees, wild creatures, sometimes certain people.... This is my list, not hers. Like a squirrel gathering acorns in the fall, I gather these things around me to prepare for Winter's long nights, the lack of sunshine and warmth, the fleeting sense that everything else has died and death is inevitable and why not sooner than later? That last thought becomes more fleeting as the years pass. The light of my "candles" helps extinguish it.

Winter isn't always dark. When not obscured by clouds, the sun's rays are present, albeit slanted, so that the sun shines at us instead of on us. It isn't hot, but on some days, boy howdy, it is bright. I live for these days, for long hikes with friends in cool temperatures, so I can experience this bliss:

And because some trees are bare... and the slant of the sun is what it is... we are gifted (if we walk through a woodsy canyon early) with sights such as this:

Which brings to mind a few brief lines from Emily Dickinson:

There's a certain Slant of light,/Winter Afternoons - 

The poet feels this slant of light "oppresses," but, all due respect to Miss Emily, for me, it blesses.

And Winter, my dear friends, is only twelve weeks long. I know. It seems to drag on, doesn't it? Much like the dog days of August....

What else is there to do but be grateful in these brief weeks? For books and songs and good dogs and zany cats and the sudden sight of deer grazing in a meadow or a bobcat trotting shiftily across our path or a surprise letter in the box from a much-loved friend and the sweetness of an orange and the satisfying sip of pure Ceylon tea and the comfort of flannel against chilled skin and the brilliance of stars after a storm. I could go on. You make your own list, okay? Let's meet back here next December to compare notes.

Leftovers

 

There are two stuffies that belonged to Sgt. Thomas Tibbs within easy reach under my bed (Blue Bunny and Fuzzy Dog). I see them every day, and every day I tell myself, “I’ll pull those out and do something with them… tomorrow.”

Thom’s collar and leash still hang on the hook (which I installed seven years ago for that very purpose) just inside the door to the laundry room.

There are three carrots in a plastic bag in the crisper of my refrigerator that have been there for a month now. I need to get those out, too. Maybe take them to my sister’s horse. Because what’s the point of peeling and chopping up a carrot if your best boy isn’t there to share it with you?

That’s why there’s a half of a bag of popcorn sitting on top of the fridge. I’m sure it’s stale by now. I’d open a bag and sit down to watch TV, and before long Thomas would come trotting out to the living room, those impossibly soft ears up, the tip of his right ear flopping over. “Is there popcorn?” He could only have a few pieces, so I’d try to eat as much as I could before he appeared, so I could toss him a couple then make a big show of putting it away. “All gone, buddy. All gone. Sorry.”

There are two plastic containers of very special dog treats—the ones Thomas could eat that didn’t upset his very sensitive digestive system—sitting on the counter by the pet food cupboard. Maya doesn’t care for them (because we are both fortunate in that she can eat whatever she wants). How long will they sit there before I can bring myself to do something with them?

A week ago, while cleaning the kitchen, I moved all of Thom’s meds from the kitchen counter and put them on the highest shelf in the pet food cupboard. Why? I don’t know. By the time Maya needs any of them, they’ll be expired. But… you never know.

My profile pictures on Google, Twitter, and Instagram are pictures of Thomas. My profile picture on Amazon is a photo of me hugging Thom’s neck. When… how… do I change those?

My little Ford Ranger--good old "Cloud"--is filled with Thom's floofy hairs. Everywhere. Between the seats, under the seats. There are even some behind the clear plastic dash cover. How the heck they crept in there, I'll never know. I've been saying for years that I would sell the truck when Thomas didn't need it anymore. But... sigh.... With it will go a thousand memories--mostly good, driving him around in it while he stared out the back window, curious about the world that he was too frightened to view walking in daylight. Some bad ones involving vet visits for a bad ear or his bad belly or his bad shoulder. Or shots. No more shots, Thom. No more terror heading into the vet's office.

At least for the foreseeable future, every day that I make a piece of peanut butter toast for breakfast will be a sad one. Because that’s how I finally got Tommy to take a treat from me. Every morning before work I would open the back slider and try to coax him inside with pieces of toast. At first, I’d lay a small piece of crust on the floor. But he was too wary to step over the threshold to get it. He’d crane his neck as far as he could, snatch it up, then run off to the yard to gulp it down. Finally one day, he put a foot in. Over time, I moved the pieces closer to me in the kitchen. He would look at me, look at the toast, and look back again, wondering if he could trust me. I ignored him and drank my tea. Someone suggested adding peanut butter to the toast. Total game changer. One day I looked up, and he was all the way in the house, waiting by the kitchen counter for another bite of deliciousness.

Seeing him learn to trust was everything. Having him be comfortable living in the house took another year or so. But peanut butter toast started the process. And it became a special time of sharing for us.

In recent years, I would put a piece of bread in the toaster, and before long I would hear his limping, old guy gait as he trotted slowly to the kitchen, those goofy ears asking the question: “Is there toast? And can it please have peanut butter? Please?”

That’s what I had for breakfast this morning. Peanut butter toast. Cheers, Tommy. Someday all of this will get… not easier, but perhaps a bit less challenging. And you, my sweet good boy—and all of your good successes—will never be forgotten.