No Dog Yet, You Say?

I started wanting a dog when Tom was sick. I'm sure the pain is the same whether your spouse has brain cancer, or heart disease or any terminal illness (Tom considered his cancer "terminal" with the quotes, having read much about long-term survivors. Few though they were, they were not non-existent.), but brain cancer had already robbed me of my hard-working, cuttingly-sarcastic, animal-loving, handyman-project-doing, car-guy husband, and my sense of loneliness was all the more acute because Tom was alive, but no longer, well, Tom. A dog would love me, and keep me warm, and fill the hole in my heart that I shouldn't have had because I should have just been grateful my husband was there, sleeping right next to me in the bed every night, drinking his coffee and reading his paper every morning. But that emptiness in my heart continued to grow, and my desolation darkened. And that dog? I really just wanted a dog to love me. I wanted somebody to love me. And for God's sake, at least the damned dog wouldn't die of brain cancer.

Then, Tom died. I don't know how else to explain it. Tom died, and the loneliness that I felt finally at least felt normal. My husband was dead, my sons' father was gone, and that the loneliness was expected made it somehow more tolerable. Getting from today to tomorrow became easier after Tom died, as I found myself already partway through the process of grieving his loss. The desperate yearning for a dog slowly subsided, replaced by the quiet belief that there's a place in our family for a dog.

So there we were today, at the Northeast Animal Shelter:  the place Tom took me on our second date; one of his memorial charities; and the place where the sweetest little  Belgian Schipperke x picked us for her forever family. She came with the utterly unacceptable name Skippette, so we're down to business picking out a name. I think her name is supposed to be Zoetje, dutch for "little sweet one". Any dutch speaking readers out there? Please advise.

And say hello to the newest Gentile, Zoetje.

Adventure Day on Maui

Airfare to Maui: $385.20
Admission to the Maui Ocean Center: $60.11
 
When we first arrived in Hono and were unpacking at the hotel, David laughed and brought my attention to his backpack. He had unwittingly but successfully brought his Swiss Army knife through Logan security in his carry-on. Initially surprised, on reflection I assumed that maybe the rules had changed, as they had with sewing scissors, and maybe now it’s okay to carry a Swiss Army knife on a plane. Still, I thought to myself, “We should check that on the way home”.

For our daytrip to Maui, since we had no baggage to check, we planned to arrive about 45 minutes before departure. We drove to the airport, parked in central parking, and started looking for our airline. We finally learned it was as far from where we were while still able to be in the airport. The clock was ticking, and we were about 30 minutes prior to departure now (and we had not checked in online the night before because the Hilton Hawaiian Village charges like, $24 a day for internet.) We finally hailed a cab and jumped in, but the driver seemed not to understand where we want to go. So I got the dispatcher to explain to him, and the cabbie got all bent out of shape that he was only getting a $5 fare from me. He didn’t want to take me, and frankly, I had heard enough bellyaching this week: “ENOUGH! Just take us to the airline, please.” Yes, I may have yelled at the guy, but at least I was polite about it. We finally get to the airline and check in at the counter with a few minutes to spare.

We can walk casually, at last, through security. Shoes and belts off, laptops in their own bins, pockets empty, we walk through the metal detector, and are waiting for our bags to come through, when I hear it. “I need a bag check please … strap” Oh, crap. There it is: David’s knife is still in the pocket on the strap of his backpack (a Swiss Army backpack, by the way, with a special pocket just for the knife). “Ma’am, this can’t go through. You can check it or discard it. What would you like to do?”

Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap.

Now, if this had been my Swiss Army knife, I probably would have abandoned it and hoped that the TSA guy ended the day with a nice new-to-him knife. But this was Tom’s knife, which holds so much more value than any old knife ever could. So, feet still bare, I run back to the counter while the flight begins to board and find Charmaine, the facilitator, who takes pity on me, grabs the bag, literally writes my name and destination on her hand so she can hand check the bag while I run back to the gate. I’m still not sure if she even charged me the $10 checked bag fee.

I get back to the gate and go through security again. The TSA folks smiled at me and were very nice but (and I really think this is a good thing and I’m totally not complaining) were just as careful in their search the second time I went though. Not that I'd ever try to pull a fast one on TSA ...

We arrive at Maui (still wondering where the airport abbreviation OGG comes from), and go to baggage claim. Suitcase. Suitcase. Duffle. Carton. Suitcase. And on it goes, but no almost-empty backpack, save for a Swiss Army knife in the strap pocket.

No one’s in the baggage office, so we make our way to the airline ticket counter where, a few phone calls later, we learn it will arrive on the next flight, in about 90 minutes. Nothing to do except sit at a nearby Starbucks (Is this the only Starbuck’s in the US that doesn’t have free wifi? Grrrrrr.), sip our beverages v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y and wait for the next flight. I used the time to figure out how to get to the aquarium most cheaply, and it turns out Maui has a pretty good public bus system. We could take a cab for about $45 each way, or we could take the bus for $2 each. Ca-ching. Only problem is, the shuttle bus arrives about 10 minutes after the flight lands. If David’s backpack is the last thing off the plane, we simply won’t make the connection, and we’ll have to wait another hour for the next shuttle. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Hallelujah, it’s here, it’s down, down the chute, and at last within reach. I grabbed the backpack and on cue, we all run to the shuttle stop. Within seconds, the bus is there, and we’re on our way to the aquarium. We make our connecting bus, and the bus stop is, thankfully, right in front of the aquarium. We’re there at last, and have a wonderful walk through this marvelous little place, see the jellies, walk through the tunnel, and catch a fleeting glimpse of Geoffrey’s favorite, the tiger shark.

Visit over, we meander back to the bus stop in time for the next bus, and grab a ramen lunch at the Queen Ka’ahumanu mall before making our 4:30 connection to the airport bus, with plenty of time to check the bag and make our 6:18 flight.

So we’re on the shuttle, and the drive announces each stop. She announced the airport stop, and so I prepared to depart. Geoffrey even stood up, ready to leave. But I waited for the bus to stop before I stood up … hmm, I wondered to myself, what’s up with that sign, “Airport Exit Left Lane”? I turned to the passenger behind me. “Did I just miss the airport stop?” Yup.

So I fly to the front of the bus, and ask the driver. No one got up to debark, so she didn’t stop. And we didn’t get up to debark because she didn’t stop. Oh, well, can we just get off here? (We were at a red light.) Nope, only at stops. One thing I had already noticed about the Maui bus is that stops are not every couple of blocks, like on the T, they are miles, literally miles, apart. Stuff in Maui is, itself, miles apart. Little groups of houses and businesses comprising separate little villages and towns, and probably a stop for each.

I was not angry at the bus driver, because I totally get the rule that you can’t just drop somebody any old place they request. But it’s miles to the next stop, and another 40 minutes before we loop back to the airport. So yeah, I’m mad at myself for missing the airport. I look at the bus schedule, look at the scenery (it’s beautiful on Maui), look back at the bus schedule. At the next stop, after about a 20 minute bus ride, I tell the kids to grab their stuff because going to debark and find a cab. The man sitting next to us, a very nice man carrying his pet cockatiel, advised me to stay on the bus, that there simply aren’t any taxis upcountry.

Deep cleansing breath. Okay … we stay on the bus. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. I look at the schedule again and see that we will arrive at the airport at 5:45, and look at our boarding passes (during the long wait this morning, I had the good sense to check in for this afternoon’s flight) to see that boarding will commence at 5:50. Deep cleansing breath.

The bus driver has announced each stop as she arrived at it. At the Hali’imale stop, she had the grace and good sense to add “Next stop: Airport” (unspoken comma stupid). So we pulled that string requesting a stop, and then sat, breathing cleansing breaths, for the remaining 20 minutes. I like to think she picked up the pace on my behalf, because each stop heretofore has been exactly on schedule, but we arrived at the airport at 5:37, a full 8 minutes early. We ran to the ticket counter, checked the bag and ran to security. Shoes and belts off, laptops in their own bins, pockets empty, this time we make it through uneventfully. I had absolutely no expectation that the bag would make it onto the plane this time, though, and had already decided to come back tomorrow and pick up the bag after it arrived on the next flight, whenever that might be.

In line to board the plane, the luggage truck arrives to load everyone else’s luggage – all those fellow travelers that don’t have weapons in their checked bags and arrived the requisite two hours ahead of departure. I see the distinctive suitcases belonging to the family that checked in before us, a family of 10 from Salt Lake City. I am all but certain that their day was less chaotic than ours.

With the sun dipping behind the mountains, clouds circling the island, I saw the most beautiful sight. It took my breath away. I saw some beautiful blue, tinged with red, and some silvery-grey. Not the sunset, it was that sucker of a backpack being loaded into the plane! It made the flight with us, we would pick it up in Hono, and after a quick drive back to the hotel this crazy daytrip to Maui would be over.

Adventure day on Maui: priceless.

Niagara Falls: The New York Side

The new (to me) rules at the border crossing made it unfeasible to go back-and-forth between Canada and the US when we were visiting Niagara Falls recently, staying on the Canadian side. We all agreed we'd stop briefly on the US side on the way home.


We crossed the border with my questionable booty in the trunk, and found, a mere feet away, the entrance to the Niagara Falls State Park in New York. It couldn't have been easier. Flaggers were directing people into parking facilities, which were everywhere. I had passed a small space on the street, but wasn't sure about its legality. So before pulling into my selected lot, I asked the park ranger nearby about parking. It's $10 in all these lots, and yes, parking is available on the street, but only between those poles, she explained, gesturing.

What about that space, there, between the poles? Is it okay to park there? (It was about 6 car lengths in back of me.) Sure, she said, if you can get into it.

I may be weak in the math department, and I may have forgotten every word of Japanese I ever learned, and I may not be the most efficient housekeeper ever to walk on this earth, but by golly, can I ever parallel park.

So I threw that baby into reverse, waived an oncoming car around me, and backed into that spot, turned the wheel, straightened out the tires, shut the ignition and was done. You don't see parallel parking like that in a minivan very often.

The guy supervising the lot across from the space on the street had the best view of my action. He may have lost my business, but I think he appreciated the perfection he had just witnessed, and gave me a thumbs up and a whistle when he saw the job I did.

We had two hours at Niagara Falls, and saved ourselves one cool Hamilton. Tom would have been so pleased.

Mom-to-English Translator

I always feel particularly maternal when I share a memory with one of my kids. I can remember having this exact conversation with my mom at this exact same place on the highway when I was Agent 98's age. Driving home from New York last week, 98 saw the sign on the Mass Pike -  Trucks: Test Brakes. He asked me why trucks needed to test their brakes. With a hopefully inaudible roll of the eyes I explained that trucks need to test their brakes so the driver doesn't lose control when braking on an upcoming steep stretch of road.

Mom, what's that runaway truck turnout for? See, when a truck loses its brakes, and the driver knows because he tested his brakes, he can divert off the highway, and stop safely, and no one gets hurt. Clever civil engineering, huh?

Mom, why do the signs always say toll booth ahead? Mom, what's a fortnight? Hey, Mom, I figured out that if you put Momo's collar on her backwards, she won't bite you when you're putting it on her have you ever tried that because Momo gets pretty excited when I'm trying to put her collar on and she scratches a lot but she likes to be scratched behind her ears have you ever scratched her behind her ear Mom cause she really likes it. The next time you have a tube don't throw it out because I need it to make a mortar with some tape and that leg from a broken chair, just like they did on Mythbusters. Okay, mom?

I don't recall being a chatterbox as a kid, but I reckon I must have been. My mother explained mortality to me, at about this age: God grants you a certain number of words, Linda, and once you use up your words, you die. I think that's Mom for "Oh, for the love of God and all that's holy, please, I'm begging you, please, shut up already, for Pete's sake!"

The trick is that we don't know how many words God has granted us: did he give us a lot or only a few? No matter; either way we certainly shouldn't squander them. Especially when Mom's driving.

Ninety-eight, why don't you take a nap for a little while?  

Ninety-eight, maybe you should pull out one of your books and read for a bit.   

David, can you let 98 listen to your iPod for a while, please? Please? Pretty please? I'll give you cash.

By the end of that car ride with the kids I was humbly apologizing to my mother for every "Mom, it's raining. Should I close the windows?" I ever sent her way. At least she didn't let me hear her eyes roll.   

And I was silently praying that 98 got into the word line twice.

Who Needs Canine Teeth Anyway? We're A Cat Family ...

Agent 98 saw his orthodontist today. We have been waiting for his eye teeth to come in, making room for them before we can really progress with the braces. He won't get the bottom braces on until those two top teeth are dealt with. One's coming in slowly, and will likely need a little "nudge", by which I mean an oral surgeon will open a hole in his gum, attach some kind of bracket to the tooth, and attach a wire to that bracket, so that the orthodontist can begin slowly yanking it down into its proper position. Eww. And that's the good news.

The second tooth, the one on 98's left, not so much. That tooth is growing nearly sideways; in fact, since the neighboring teeth have proceeded to grow in since he got those top braces on, the wayward eye tooth has less guidance, and is moving even more out of alignment, making it look virtually impossible to bring down correctly.

We haven't ruled this out altogether, but the orthodontist isn't really holding out a whole lot of hope that the tooth can be rerouted. We'll know better after consulting with the oral surgeon later this week, but it looks like the decision to be made will be: does 98 get a bridge or does he get an implant?

How do I make that kind of decision for my 12-year-old?

Memories: All Shapes and Sizes

Don't get me wrong, I like the occasional souvenir refrigerator magnet, t-shirt and model, as witnessed by the treasures we returned with from our recent trip to Niagara Falls. But I like my memorabilia a little bit on the funky side, too.

When we first checked into our hotel, there was a very small construction project taking up a couple of parking spaces in the lot, and the area was demarcated with some traffic cones labeled "City of Niagara Falls, Ontario". Ooh, boy, I wanted one of those construction cones. For a souvenir. But it was performing a safety function, even if barely, and I couldn't just steal it. Alas, I had to let the dream of my perfect Niagara Falls souvenir slip away in the wind, like the mist over the Falls.

I needed something --  I don't remember what -- from the car later in the vacation, and there they were: the construction workers, burying the whatever they were burying in that parking lot in the morning sun. I got what I needed from the car, and was returning to my room, coveting the cone once again, but silent about it, when it spilled from my mouth, uncontrollable, "Hi, fellas -- I really want a funky souvenir from this trip, and that construction cone just fits the bill. Do you think it would be okay if I took it?" They looked at me, looked at each other, shook their heads as if to make sure they heard correctly. Whaa? You want our construction cone? THAT construction cone? We chatted for a couple of minutes (I think they were glad for the break from the labor on that very hot day), determined that I did, indeed, want one of their construction cones. They were happy to accommodate, but advised me to wait until the foreman wasn't looking to take it away. With the foreman out of sight, one acted as lookout while the other brought it over to my car while I popped the trunk and threw it in. (Fade out Mission: Impossible music.)

At the car later I showed the cone to the boys and the friends who had joined us on the trip, and told them the story. The boys didn't believe me, and I think they still think I stole it; and my friend Debra suggested I turn it so the label of ownership at least wasn't showing.

Martin wondered what would happen if it was discovered during the border crossing. So, of course, I obsessed about the border crossing for the rest of the trip. But not so much that I would have discarded my booty before being hauled off to jail. I briefly wondered how the boys would get home if I was arrested, and I tried to act innocent when the border guard was interrogating me at the crossing. I must have played my hand well enough, because there it is out there in the driveway, keeping the car away from the basketball court: one wicked awesome safety cone from Niagara Falls.

Home Again. A Few More Photos to Share

We're all glad to be home. I can only speak for myself: I had a wonderful time, but I'm really not a very good traveller. I missed my own bed, and the cats, and the Globe in the morning, and 12-packs of Pepsi priced four for $10 instead of $1.99 per can.

A very pretty rainbow over the falls, from the US side.

Nope, on second thought, this addition doesn't improve on nature's majesty

Ah, here we go. That does the trick!

This was our last day on vacation. We stopped briefly on the US side before we hit the road for home.

During the long ride home, we took a break at Old Erie Canal State Park. What a lovely, serene setting.

Just a few photos ...

Just a few photos to share from our trip to Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada ...

 Here is the only photo so far this vacation of me. So don't say I didn't share any.

 

These black-eyed susies just struck my fancy. I liked the color against the grey rocks.

David, jus' doin' what comes natural.

Near the end of a long, hot day.

Geoffrey, Zach, Madeline, David

Niagara Falls from the Maid of the Mist VII.

Falls: US side from the Canadian side.

Letchworth State Park, New York

If you thought to yourself, when you saw this photo, "Hmm, that looks like a photo of a gender-indeterminate corn snake named Larrietta eating a previously frozen mouse that was thawed in the microwave", well, you'd have been exactly right.

 

David & Geoffrey on the Maid of the Mist

Tale of Two Dishwashers

Originally published on 6/23/10 7:19 PM

What planet was I on when I decided it was a good idea to purchase a dishwasher on June 3 that could not be delivered until July 8?

My old dishwasher — and I use the term “old” loosely, because we purchased it on January 1, 2007 — had died and been restored to life one too many times to justify a  another $200 + parts service call. I knew ahead of time that the part, the electronic control panel, would be about $125. This would be the dishwasher's fourth control panel, and I was pretty clear on the numbers. Nope, I wasn't about to repair this dishwasher with the design flaw one more time.


So I went to Sears, found the dishwasher I wanted, got the details and went home to research it on the web: price, reliability, reviews, etc. Two days later I went back to purchase it, but, alas, the 20% off sale was over, and the salesman wouldn’t budge. So I hemmed and hawed and huffed and puffed and bought the dishwasher anyway (plus a service contract and an air conditioner as well — I figured: that'll teach him!) and scheduled the first available delivery date, more than a month out. Now I sit, or rather, stand, washing dirty dishes day after day, night after night, and pretty much any time in between. There are always, always dishes in the sink. The very surprising upside is that while I'm washing that last sinkful of the day, the boys are drying and putting away. I know it's actually more hygenic to air dry dishes, but I really enjoy those few minutes each night as we accomplish this one little task, all of us focused on a singular goal.

My old dishwasher is not utterly useless, though: it makes a great stand for piling stuff on top of and up against. Hey, anybody want to buy a working dishdryer? Cheap.

The Grotto

Momo has found poor Pixel's favorite spot. And funny how all the older cats now have the honorific "poor" in front of their names when the sentence also includes the word "Momo".

And man oh man, don't I need to wash my windows?

Momo's a Celtics Fan!

We were leading until I snapped this picture.

No Birthday Cake? You Say That Like It’s A Bad Thing

It's my birthday, and you can be sure I brought the boys out yesterday to buy a present AND a card. Gift and card notwithstanding, I'm also enforcing the standard we-forgot-to-get-you-a-gift gift: no bickering for 24 hours. By golly, I'll be queen for the day! But I think I’ll skip the birthday cake this year and go with one of my favorite cookies instead.

I have previously mentioned that I am programmed not to follow recipes to the letter. This particular cookie is a family favorite that I invented one day when I was out of peanut butter, but had hazelnuts in the freezer (far stranger things than this happened when we lived 2400 miles from the nearest grocery chain.)

Kwajalein photo courtesy Sue Rosoff Photography.

HAZELNUT CYCLOPS COOKIES

1 ¼ c all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 c toasted, blanched and cooled hazelnuts
¼ c granulated sugar
½ c butter
½ c brown sugar
½ tsp vanilla
1 egg
Coarse brown sugar (for dipping)
Guittard Bittersweet Onyx Wafers (or Hershey Kisses)


Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt in a large mixing bowl and set aside.

Grind the cooled hazelnuts and granulated sugar in a food processor until very fine. Add the butter, brown sugar, vanilla and egg and continue processing until very smooth.

Pour the hazelnut mixture into the flour and stir together until well blended. Use a wooden spoon instead of a mixer to prevent overmixing, which will make the cookies tough.

Wrap the dough in plastic and chill well, or freeze until ready to use. (If freezing, thaw in the refrigerator before shaping).

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Shape the dough into 1” balls, dip into the coarse brown sugar and place about 2” apart on a cookie sheet. Bake 10 to 12 minutes until slightly browned. While the cookies are still hot and on the cookie sheet, press a Bittersweet Onyx chocolate disk (or a Hershey Kiss) into the center of each. Let the cookies set about 5 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Note: To toast the hazelnuts, spread them in a single layer on a heavy skillet over medium heat, stirring often, until the oils begin to release and the nuts begin to lightly brown. Alton Brown says if you can smell the nuts toasting you’ve overdone them, but I usually toast them until they are fragrant. Cool the nuts completely before grinding.

Variations:

• Mix 12 ounces of chocolate chips into the dough before wrapping and chilling, and skip the chocolate disk at the end. 
• Skip the chocolate altogether and mix about a cup of coarsely chopped hazelnuts into the dough before wrapping and chilling. 

And in case you're wondering, no, I didn't follow the recipe exactly. I didn't chill the dough.

C Stands for Cool, Calm and Collected

This is the first time I've embedded a video, so let's see if it works.

It was early morning one school day, and I was pouring juice or milk (okay, soda) for David for breakfast, to drink with his eggs or cereal (okay, cookies) when I dropped the glass, shattering it on the ceramic tile kitchen floor, inches from C. He didn't move from his favorite spot next to the heating vent, but I noticed a lot of tiny shards of glass in his fur. So what was I supposed to do?

I got out the vacuum, and the rest is now, officially, history.

What's for Supper?

If you know me, you know I know my way around a kitchen. So what the heck happened in my kitchen today?

I had some ears of corn on the counter unshucked from the holiday barbecue, and thought struck to make corn fritters for dinner. Yes, I know they're supposed to be a side dish, not a meal; but I get these urges sometimes, and corn fritters just seemed so right. That little voice inside my head made it sound like such a good idea. And why waste all that space with protein and dietary fiber and vitamins when I can fill it all up with fritters?

So I opened Joy, and checked the googles, and found a couple of recipes, which of course I couldn't follow to the letter because I am incapable of following a recipe to the letter. I had the bright idea to coat my fritters in seasoned panko. I still think that's a winner of an idea, but now I'll never know.

Let me explain, in my most unscientific voice, exactly how popcorn works. The water inside the kernel is heated to vapor, expands, and then, BOOM, explosion, and voila, you have popcorn.

Now, imagine that same scenario, batter-dipped and in 2 inches of 375° degree peanut oil.

Then imagine cereal for supper.

Serendipity

Meet the newest Gentile, Momo. When one cat crosses the Rainbow Bridge on a Thursday, and the following Monday you heed a call about a kitten that’s about to be returned to the shelter because the new owner is hopelessly allergic, how can you call it anything but serendipity? How could we just up and adopt a new kitten so quickly? Let me tell you, it was easy. Mostly white with grayish markings at the top of her head, rump and tail, she is a dirty white snowball of boundless energy, enthusiastically trying to befriend her feline housemates, but sadly rebuffed at every turn. Not so with the humans. She takes turns sleeping with all of us: a few hours with 98, then on to 96’s room, settling in with me by the time I turn out the lights. I try to keep her away from the other cats' favorite spots, but she has taken a liking to Pixel’s bed by the window and Ada’s towel on the couch. Heaven help her the first time she jumps up into the kitchen box window, the one with the shelf I specifically cleared off so the cats could view the backyard unimpeded by pottery and spices. Pix will go ballistic.

Ada, as expected, hisses at every encounter. Scruffy is more curious than the others, tentatively sniffing, and even allowing Momo to share the dinner plate with him. Pixel runs, terrified by the tornado-vortex-like nature of Momo’s friendly advances, but even he is slowly coming around. I walked into my bedroom today and they were both on the bed. In opposite corners, they could not have been further from each other and still both have been been on the bed, but there they were, on the bed “together”.

Everything's a toy when you're a kitten: anything tied to a doorknob, anything that makes noise ... any bit of paper or a hairband or a dust bunny or an ant on the floor is there for the entertainment - or nutrition - or friendship - of our little Momo. We thought about renaming her after a comet, but Momo suits her, so a momo she is, and a momo she shall stay. 

I hope Momo's first human companion is feeling better, and that her allergies are subsiding. And I hope she knows how much we already love her little peach.

RIP, C

If I’m in your Facebook newsfeed, you already know that we lost C recently. He’d been on the decline for many months, and while I didn’t want him to suffer (he didn’t), I mostly just didn’t want C to die before Tom did. They were great friends, Tom and C, and I didn’t want Tom to endure that loss. So we did what we could and we did what we had to: we brought C to the vet when he had the symptoms of his recurrent UTI (he always had a UTI, and you’re welcome for me not explaining in excruciating detail why he was so prone to them) … We brought him to the vet when we noticed maggots falling out of a small wound on his backside … We brought him most recently for an overgrown claw. Since he was slowing down, he simply wasn’t wearing down his claws, and it had grown full circle, impaling itself in the pad below it. It didn’t seem to cause any pain, and we wouldn’t even have realized anything was wrong except that David was playing with him on the bed and noticed it. Not even so much as a limp.

That vet appointment fixed the claw, but uncovered several other troubles: congestive heart failure and a pancreatic mass, for starters. We opted not to treat the mass, put him on Plavix ($50 for 7 pills, and that’s with the AAA discount –  and no, C didn't have health insurance) and some other heart meds and antibiotics, and commenced with another round of “hurry up and wait”. Dr. Zanotti didn’t have to say it when we had our scheduled follow up visit: I knew we were looking at days, maybe weeks; certainly not months. We would keep C’s days as pleasant as possible, and that meant a lot of American cheese and chicken scraps. Just a few hours after that appointment we noticed he was unable to walk, and brought him back to the vet. He had thrown a clot, not unexpectedly, and his suffering would soon begin. So while the decision was hard to make, we really had no choice. C had lived a long and happy life. He had eaten his share of treats, pee’d his way into the cellar floor hall of fame, and barfed with the best of them. He’ll be cremated and added to my little “collection”. And when the time is right, and the ground is dry, and the air is warm, we’ll take Tom’s ashes, and C’s, and Mr. Gibb’s, and Yeti’s, and Neko's, and those good friends will share a very pretty spot high in the Fells behind the house, watching the planes and stalking the birds.

We owe a sincere thanks to Stephen Zanotti, VMD,  and all the vets, techs, medical and support staff at Winchester Veterinary Group for everything they’ve done over the years to help us care for the pets we so dearly love, as well as all the animals that are lucky enough to cross their threshold.

In the beginning, there were frogs. Lots and lots of frogs.

Today would be our 16th daywemet-iversary. I like that word, and if it didn’t cost $325 to trademark it, I’d be totally there. Since I’m too cheap to spend the money – who knows what product or service I might invent that would need the trademark-protected "daywemetiversary" – I’ll just have to stick with a “first use” protection. And this post is the second time I’ve used the word, so there.


Of course, I neglect to mention that if I’d had my way, Tom and I would never have met. I had heard from so many frogs with the personal ad my cat Neko had placed in Boston Magazine that I had officially thrown up my hands and was not going to follow up with any more responses. Tom’s letter was in the pile labeled “I Give Up!”

I don’t recall the exact moment I gave up on Neko’s ad. It might have been these beefcake shots.  If you responded to my ad with your application form to some random dating service I didn't follow up. Ditto if you couldn’t be bothered replying and simply sent me a copy of your own personal ad. If you had your own phone number that spelled something, and that something was creepy, I didn't respond. And if you invited me for coffie, I didn’t go.

If this was you, then I bet you can guess in what direction I swiftly walked. (But the guy did give me a run for my money in the category of "overuse of parentheses").

Some prisons did me the favor of telling me your letter was mailed from an incarceration facility, even if you forgot to mention it. If you were on an extended vacation in the Adirondacks and your postmark was Ray Brook, NY, you were in prison, and I wasn't interested. Even if you were not incarcerated for long, you were actually incarcerated, and I actually wasn't interested. And yes, you might have been one of those wrongly convicted, but that little infraction was indeed a deterrent, and I didn't respond to you, either. And the creepy quotation marks in your post script only made me run a little faster. And even if your non-traditional incident wasn't wanton, I still wasn't going to date you. And when if your parole is granted, don’t hold your breath.

If your first question was about my weight, I wouldn't have gone out with you. And that was when I was 40 pounds lighter than I am today. Sometimes people don’t mention their build in their personal ads because, well, at $3.95 per word, maybe we think other things matter more?


So I gave up on the ad, and decided not to respond to any more responses. My friend Laura had other plans, though, and thought Tom’s letter sounded perfect. So perfect, in fact, that she nagged me daily: “Have you called him yet, Linda?” “When are you going to call him?” “Why won’t you call him? He sounds perfect for you, Linda.” She was getting so fed up with me she finally threatened to call him herself, posing as me. She really wanted me to meet this guy. And I was getting pretty fed up with her, too.

I truly only called Tom to shut Laura up. So I called during the day, when I knew he’d be at work, and left my name and number. He called and we met at the Bertucci’s in Central Square for pizza. How very fitting that just under two years later, Laura was my matron of honor.

To Catch a Bird ... or a Snake ... or a Vole ... Doesn't Matter, Really: Where's the Food?

C came home recently from a nearly weeklong hospital stay, and he's not doing very well. With seventeen years under his belt (Tom and I met when C and Ada were about a year old) I have taken a stroll down memory lane with him this week. What a lovely stroll it was.

I learned early in my relationship with Tom that the way to Tom's heart was through C's stomach. At nearly 20 pounds when I met him, C rarely met a treat he didn't like. On my way to Tom's I'd stop at the deli counter at the Purity Supreme and buy C one slice from the cold cuts section ... bologna one day, roast beef the next. The deli guy knew it was for my new boyfriend's cat, and never begrudged me his time, even though we both knew it was his smallest sale of the day. C, whom we considered a dog trapped in a cat's body, greeted me with enthusiam. Evil grin ... my plan is working! The only time he turned up his nose at my Friday night special was the one time I brought him a single jumbo shrimp. He wouldn't have anything to do with it. Neither would Ada, for that matter, or Mr. Gibbs. Tom had trained his minions well: Don't. Eat. The Fish.

C also liked to supervise household projects. Tom installed the box windows in the sunroom, and they were - are - lovely. Don't look too closely at the window seat, however, lest you notice the pawprints left in the wet polyurethane. They're still there, still visible, and not going anywhere anytime soon. Also in the house repair department was the time that C was so interested in house trim painting (we had a black-and-white cat for a while after that). Not satisfied with climbing the ladder to join Tom, he proceeded to climb up and over Tom on the ladder, positioning himself in the gutter - where he didn't quite fit but thought he had found the best seat in the house. It took an hour to get him down.

Even on his best days now, he never brings home a snake anymore: Ada was into chipmunk and bird inventory control, but C could never resist a garter snake; and I can't say I miss that particular aspect of sharing a house with a pet, or two, or six, but I hope that C continues to enjoy his daily constitutional, a few minutes of sunshine and fresh air, for a long time to come. Then, at the end of the day, that he'll climb the stairs to the second floor, and then climb the stairs up into the bed, so his still-bellowing purr can keep me awake. Enough with the peeing on the cellar floor, though, 'kay?

Free to Good Home

Nothing quite says "kids live here" like a bare spot in the backyard that can be seen from space. That said, there's also nothing quite like the squeal of kids playing in the pool on a summer afternoon. For two summers we set up a 15-foot-diameter above-ground pool that looks like this one (that's our pool, but those totally aren't the Gentiles). But now my kids tell me they're too old for it. What does that make me?

Gone are the days when water of any type attracted my kids like a magnet. Even though within the last week they came home from the woods and had to change out of wet clothes because they were jumping in the creek in back of the house, they're in that period of time when they are too old for something that grownups wish they could do. How many pictures do I have of my kids playing in puddles on Kwajalein? It's a rhetorical question, but let me tell you: a lot.

The pool sat unused in the shed all last summer, and I hate the thought of this perfectly fine thing sitting idle, not earning its keep, for another summer almost as much as I hate the thought of keeping the snowblower in the garage for one more summer because there's no room for it in the shed, what with the garage door being broken by the whitewater in the yard during the flood, but that's a story for another time.

So if you would like an above-ground pool for your very own for the very reasonable price of you-make-some-memories, let me know and we'll set up an exchange. Seriously. I want to get rid of the pool.

Me, 2 Boys, 4 Cats, 1 Turtle, 1 Frog, No Dogs Yet

Geoffrey was a wee bit miffed that I didn’t mention his turtle in the title of my new blog, so this entry is dedicated to King Arthur, who joined our family just before Christmas. Geoff knew he wanted a turtle, so we went to Petsmart to have a look, and I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that the one he wanted was $109, and an appropriately-sized terrarium was another $119. I mentioned this to my friend Lynn, who suggested I look on Craigslist.


I had never been on Craigslist before, but I thought I’d give it a try. I looked in the Boston listings for “box turtle” … maybe even plain old “turtle” since I don’t think we had it narrowed down by species at that point. Sure enough, up pops ONE listing: a box turtle and container, with food and water dish, for $25 in Hamilton, MA. So I contacted the person who placed the ad, and after two or three emails back-and-forth we worked out that I would come to her house, since it was a rather cold December day and I didn’t want to expose the turtle to any more outside air than was necessary … but I made sure to mention that I’d have 3 teenage boys with me. (Might this be some murderous whackjob, trying to lure his next victim with the irresistible promise of a turtle and terrarium for $25? – remember, I was under a bit of stress at the time.) I still don’t quite get why it didn’t occur to her that we might have been some murderous whackjob gang, picking our prey based on their “for sale” ads on Craigslist. But it all worked out in the end, happily.

We gathered up a towel and small container so Geoff could hold the turtle in his lap, and piled into the car with Geoff’s friend John, and headed up to our rendezvous point. The seller, Sarah, was an architect whose grown kids were no longer interested in Lula the box turtle, and was thrilled that Lula would be going to a home with kids who would pay her the attention she deserved. And she wasn’t the least little bit offended when we changed Lula's name to King Arthur, rather arbitrarily changing his gender in the process. Sarah was making seasoned olives as Christmas gifts that day, and her kitchen smelled fantastic. She even sent the recipe along, so act surprised if you get lemony olives for Christmas next year.

Then we piled back into the car for the ride home, and it wasn’t until we got to our driveway that we realized that Geoff went the entire ride home with his seatbelt unbuckled.

So we are, officially: me, two boys, four cats, a turtle, a frog, and no dogs yet. And I haven’t actually considered what I’ll do if we ever find that loyal, smart, friendly dog who doesn’t smell when he’s wet and doesn’t ever poop. Will I have to change the name of the blog then?