Dog Physics and Other Observations

Word of the Day: Heinous

2012-01-17T05:49:00.000-08:00

Word of the Day: Heinous (hay'-nus): Adjective: Evil

As a rule, I don't expect to encounter anything too disturbing while perusing Facebook over my morning coffee, but last week someone forwarded a photo of a little dog that was the victim of an act so horrific, so stunningly cruel that I'm having a hard time finding adjectives forceful enough to even describe it.

Someone taped or tied a dog's mouth shut around a firecracker and lit it.

If you can't imagine the results, or haven't seen the picture - which I can't even bring myself to post - I can tell you that the poor creature's muzzle was blown off. Even more chilling - it was still alive. Its eyes gazed out of the photo in a haze of bewilderment and pain over the shattered mess that had been the lower half of its face. Equally heartbreaking, if you could look past the acute trauma, was the harsh coat stretched over its skinny body. Obviously this poor neglected creature never had a chance.

It just sort of took my breath away, and I slid to the kitchen floor, exhaling in a shuddering gasp that caused the resident canines to leap up and jockey for position in the circle of my outstretched arms. "Oh, YOU GUYS, " I sobbed, "I need a hug!"

The Magnificent Seven were happy to oblige. The big dogs snogged my neck and cheeks; the dachshund and the yorkie mix crowded into my lap, and the two Jack Russells wedged their solid little bodies into the remaining available nooks and crannies. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, " I cried, apologizing as they licked my tears.

I wanted to be angry. Really. I tried hard to stir up a boiling pot of butt-kicking, red-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth rage. All I could muster was a mix of profound helplessness, sadness and dismay. I simply could not comprehend the rottenness of soul that someone claiming to be of my species could possess in order to perform this evil act.

I wondered how I could manage to shake that image and slog through the day when in reality all I wanted to do was hold my dogs and bawl my eyes out. I felt myself teetering on the precipice of a debilitating depression and the truth is, it SCARED me. Nonetheless, I had to pull myself together and head off to work.

Fast forward to my first patient of the day - a young Golden Retriever named Mocha. He hopped willingly onto my exam table, eyes fixed firmly on his 10 year old owner. He clearly adored her and the feeling was obviously mutual. An allotment of fifteen minutes for most routine appointments doesn't allow me a big chunk of time to interact with owners, but on that particular morning something moved me to do it anyway. I spent some extra time allowing the little girl to look into Mocha's eyes and ears. I watched her eyes light up behind her glasses as she listened to his big gently beating heart with my stethoscope and began to feel the moment soothing my earlier sadness.

Several days later - as I was writing the first draft of this essay, sitting in a Greaters' Ice Cream shop in downtown Cincinnati - I happened to overhear two people (yes, I was shamelessly eavesdropping) who'd obviously entered as strangers get into a conversation about, believe it or not, their dogs. A lady at one table spoke about how she'd lost her Maltese of 17 years and still cried every day, but was happy to have recently welcomed a new puppy into their home; the gentleman at another told how his 160-lb English Mastiff had helped him endure - there's no other word for it - losing his son. Of course it was impossible for me to keep my mouth shut and I finally apologized for listening in on their conversation but said that I was a veterinarian who was trying to write about this terrible abuse case and couldn't help but overhear them talking about their dogs. Within minutes we were sharing anecdotes and by the time we left we were friends.

I must admit in retrospect that I couldn't ever bring myself to read the full story about that little Facebook dog and the heinous demons who perpetrated that dreadful act; I'll see that horrible photo in my head for a long time to come. I hope the victim was humanely euthanized and somewhere an angel was waiting to welcome that poor creature to a better place.

Mulling things over, I realized later that the angels had some time to spare for me, too, even though I didn't see their wings and halos. They were dressed like a passel of disreputable dogs, two strangers in an ice cream shop, and a brown haired, bespectacled little girl who reminded me that there is ALWAYS something one can do to help, even if it's as simple as taking a few minutes out of your day to educate and share with one more person the joy of loving dogs.

This Christmas...

2011-12-06T18:31:00.000-08:00

My Dad passed away in January of 1990 after a long battle with cancer; we knew –so, I think, did he - that Christmas 1989 would be his last. Despite our best efforts, it was a dreary one. Christmas last year was fine – we had no inkling at all that Mom would not be with us for the holidays this year.

I always thought I’d have some warning that her time on earth was drawing to a close – an illness, some loss of faculties – but the God she so faithfully believed in took her mercifully between one breath and the next, without suffering, on a lovely Sunday evening last April, shortly after she enjoyed a serving of her favorite seasonal dessert, strawberry short cake. What a way to go.

The front door of Mom’s cottage is barely five feet from my own back door; the proximity that we enjoyed over the years now keeps her memory as fresh as if she were still sitting in the living room in her big easy chair watching FOX news, or curled cozily in her bed listening to late night radio. It seems like I still ought to be able to slip next door and kiss her good night, and it hurts all over again when I realize those sweet moments are gone forever.

Author Susan Howatch wrote one of my favorite quotes about grief in her epic novel The Wheel of Fortune:

“There is no timetable for grief. Grief isn’t a train you catch at the station. Grief has its own time, and grief’s time is beyond time…time is a circle… one day you’ll look across the circle, and hear her echo in time. “

And yes, as the year passes, I am indeed hearing my mother’s echo in time.
Faced with a surfeit of tomatoes from the summer garden, I remembered a little plastic kitchen gadget Mom had bought from a television advertisement - a simple hinged chopping device with interchangeable blades. At the time I’d teased her about buying “TV junk” and she gave me her “wait and see” look, peeking over the tops of her glasses with raised eyebrows and a grin. In desperation I pondered the piles of tomatoes and decided I’d give it a try – and now dozens of bags of neatly diced Romas sit in our freezer waiting for some good Italian winter cooking projects. As we were chopping away I looked heavenward and said “ OK, you were right. Thanks, Mom.”

The week before my birthday, the old, tattered Chex Party Mix recipe that I thought I’d lost fell out from between two cook books. This is the real deal, that first made its appearance back in the 1950’s, and is not for the faint-hearted. It is redolent with garlic and reminds me of my parents’ holiday parties when, as a kid, I’d eat it till my lips shriveled up from the salt. Yum. Mom always made several batches of this treat starting around my November birthday, and took care to include a big bag of it in my finals-week care packages when I was a college student. As the recipe fluttered down onto the counter I shook my head – she hadn’t let me down. Thanks, Mom.

Most recently, after a long healthy spell, an evil respiratory crud attempted to do me in. I am not a person who does “sick” well, and the day had finally come when I could no longer look to Mom for a serving of warm milk toast and sympathy. I woke up hot and pitiful and slouched dejectedly around the house, trailed by the dragging tail of my bathrobe and several worried dogs. Worst of all, when I could no longer postpone the moments of contact between my fevered bum and the icy toilet seat – why is it always colder when you’re sick, anyway? - the temperature differential resulted in a shock that shot up my spine without stopping till it reached the neighborhood of my ears. I perched miserably and prayed for a respite.

At that point an image appeared in my brain: a fluffy knit item that had arrived in the mail last year, another purchase that I’d teased Mom about. I tottered over to the now-quiet cottage. Sure enough – there it was in all its pink splendor, laundered and waiting – Mom’s toilet seat cover. It may not have been exactly the comforting touch of her hand on my cheek…but then again, maybe it was.

This Christmas, Mom will have a ringside seat at the celebrations in Heaven; as for me and mine, we’ll have tomatoes for the spaghetti sauce on Christmas Eve, Chex Party Mix – the real deal –to munch on, and maybe not a ringside seat exactly – but a comfy warm pink one, anyway. Thanks, Mom.

All In a Day's Work...not..

2011-03-01T04:16:00.001-08:00

Being closed in a small exam room with at least one other person and one or more pets many times each day allows ample opportunity for embarassment in the course of any given day at the clinic. Stomachs growl, gas is passed - and I'm talking owners, not patients - you get the idea. You laugh it off and carry on. (For the record let me just say I have yet to emit anything more audible than a stomach growl in front of an owner, in case you're wondering - although not without considerable effort on occasion...). However once in a while something happens that there's just no good way to ignore.

Last night I was speaking with a couple about their dog's allergy problems when I happened to glance down and noticed...my underwear lying on the floor. The following train of thought thundered through my head at lightspeed : "Oh, here's the dog's toy, no wait, it's a cleaning rag, no wait this looks familiar it's got a Victoria Secret logo on the wasteband omigod it's my UNDERWEAR, WHAT THE----!!!"

Well, now what to do? Do I kick it into a corner and pretend no one has seen it? Nope, too late as I'm already picking it up and alllllmost handing it to the owner while thinking it was some item the dog brought in. Then I stopped, mentally shook myself, looked them squarely in the eye and said "ok, I'm going to explain this because I can't think of any other way to handle it."

What had happened was this: I dressed as usual in the morning - when it was fairly warm out - and went on to work. When I came home for lunch, the temperature had dropped about 20 degrees and I had to go out to the barn, so I shucked off the layers on my lower half and threw on some long underwear and sweats. When I hurriedly changed clothes to go back to work, I decided to leave the long underwear on, so I slipped the chinos on over them and off I went.

Little did I know the morning's uns were still lurking in one of the legs of the work pants.

We all had a good laugh about it - they'll sure remember me! - but in retrospect what ticked me off was my choice of apparel. I had been wearing the one pair in my drawer that most closely resembled "granny panties" - plain, off-white. Why the heck couldn't it have been the leopard spots? Or would that have been worse?

Hacking Away at the Family Tree

2011-02-20T11:32:00.000-08:00

Sunny days at the back end of winter generally find me heading out to the woods laden with chainsaw, gasoline and bar oil, looking for fallen trees, broken branches and other dry timber to augment our dwindling woodpile.

This winter’s bad weather pastimes, however, included scrounging around for an altogether different sort of deadwood; in the wake of the recent television series Who Do You Think You Are, my husband and I have been researching our family trees.

In case you’ve been hibernating, or perhaps vacationing in someplace completely lacking technology (and where exactly is that, in this day and age? Even the nomads of outer Mongolia have satellite dishes), each episode of Who Do You Think You Are - which is essentially a glorified infomercial for the genealogy website Ancestry.com –researches the family of a famous person, the kind of celebrity you might run across in the pages of People magazine; so far we have learned that actress Sarah Jessica Parker is descended from a woman who survived the Salem witch trials; country singer Tim McGraw’s colonial ancestors rubbed elbows with George Washington and - in a delightful coincidence - the ancestors of Elvis Presley; and comedian/talk show host Rosie O’Donnell’s family immigrated from a Kildare workhouse after surviving one of the worst plagues in history, the Irish potato famine of the mid 1800’s.

Pretty thought-provoking stuff. Who are we? We took the bait and signed onto the Ancestry.com website for our two week free trial. Keith wanted to learn anything he could about his family; however, being a consummate Anglophile, I had a definite goal in mind: I hoped to find at least one link to Britain.

So to our respective computers we retired on a recent cold and windy Saturday. On the website’s blank family tree, I typed in all the ancestors I knew – the Sicilian grandfather on my dad’s side, the German great-grandparents on my Mom’s side.

Grandpa Ippolito – who changed his name to Burk when he came to America in the late 1800’s - never listed his parents so that line was a dead end for the present. Family legend has it that he may have come to America to escape something or someone. Do I really want to go there?

In any case, the rechristened Frank Burk became a grocer in 1920’s Middletown. He owned Burk’s Grocery on the corner of Broad Street and Girard Avenue, and married a gal of German descent whose maiden name was Buerkle. I followed the Buerkle line as far back as Switzerland in the 1600’s. That was interesting, and probably explains my penchant for chocolate (now at least I have an excuse).

Mom’s mother, who grew up in Rockport Indiana, was German through and through. Great-great grandfather Balthazar Wetzel came to this country in the mid-1800’s from Baden-Baden, I learned, on a ship called the Duetschland. Baden-Baden is located on the edge of the famous Black Forest, and I’m entertained by the thought of being a daughter of that primeval woodland. Bonus: I actually have a relative named Balthazar. I just like how it sounds.

Balthazar’s son Jacob was a pastry chef who studied the art in St. Louis before coming back to Rockport. As seems appropriate for a baker, he was a rather robust individual, and after his funeral – which was held in the old family home in Rockport – the pallbearers, coffin and contents all went crashing through the porch when the wooden floorboards, literally in this case, gave up the ghost under the strain. This is stuff you don’t find on Ancestry.com, but it was another family legend I remembered when I ran across Jacob’s name in the records.

What did all these people have in common? To my chagrin – not one of them was English. That left Mom’s father, whose last name was Cape.

Sidney Newton Cape was a papermaker who was born in Lincoln Nebraska and raised in Coffeyville Kansas; he came east and met Rose Wetzel, my grandmother (who worked in the family bakery in Rockport as a kid, and could wrangle a big pan of yeasty dough into a mean loaf of bread well into her 80’s). In their old age, when they lived next door, Granny would wheel Gramps out to the patio in his wheelchair where he would smoke his daily cigar allotment -two, on a good day- and reminisce. He remembered seeing the notorious Dalton Gang “layed out on the street” after they attempted to rob a bank in Coffeyville and met with a crew of outraged citizens who collectively uttered the 1890’s equivalent of “oh no you didn’t, ” ambushed the Dalton boys outside the bank and blew them away (if you google Coffeyville and go to the town website, you can learn all about the Dalton Defenders museum).

Sidney’s parents were Charles Edward Cape Sr. and Jennie Hinch Cape and..that…is..where…it…stopped. There I was – floundering around in the mid-1800’s with nary a Brit in sight. The little green “hint” leaves beside the names on the Ancestry.com family trees waved mockingly at me. I was Germanic, I was Sicilian…but not a Celt. I had no link to Shakespeare, Robin Hood, William Wallace, Sir Walter Raleigh, William B. Yeats, either Queen Elizabeth, Lily Langtry or Jack the Ripper, for that matter. Rats.

I tore myself away from Kansas and wandered over to Keith’s corner of cyberspace. He swung his computer around to face me, and I beheld a veritable forest of family trees. To make matters worse, they were all…ALL! British!

Honestly, the guy is so WASP-y it’s a wonder he doesn’t buzz when he walks.

Not only that – the branches of his tree were loaded with some really succulent fruit – great names like William Tell Lewis and Truthful Lewis; a family member who began as a missionary and ended up a pirate and even a famous ghost, Ocean Born Mary (yes, you can google her, too).

I retired to the living room couch in defeat. Eventually Keith joined me, not defeated. We watched television, and I stewed. Ghosts. Hmpf. I replayed his oh-so-british family names in my head. He’d gotten back as far as Cary or Carey in the 1500’s, and I knew that name from somewhere. Then it hit me. Anne Boleyn, the unlucky second wife of Henry the Eighth – and the first one beheaded –had an older sister named Mary, who had been Henry’s mistress before he fell in love with Anne. Mary was married to – wait for it – one William Carey. And if contemporary reports can be believed, neither of their two children resembled Mr. Carey.

I sat up in dismay, staring over at Keith as he sprawled dozing on the couch. Could it possibly be that my lanky, easygoing WASP-y husband was related to the evil, megalomaniacal Henry, my least favorite English monarch? I was intrigued and horrified at the same time, and spent the rest of the weekend addressing him as “your Majesty.” He took it well.

As of this writing, I’m still in 1800’s Kansas; a real, not virtual, trip to Coffeyville is probably in my future if I’m going to figure out my past. In the meantime, around my husband at least, I’m going to watch my neck.

Summer 2010 - In Search of the Perfect Cream Soda

2011-01-02T16:10:00.001-08:00

Despite my best intentions to write this piece over Labor Day weekend, summer ended and autumn arrived, and circumstances abysmally failed to provide me with either the opportunity or the inclination to put it all together. We turned back the clocks , and sailed the river of time past the chronological twin pillars of Halloween and Election Day; then the merciless, inescapable current plunged us, ready or not, into the Holiday season….which of course then diligently sucked up all available free time faster than a new Sham-wow soaking up accidents at puppy training class. Eventually the holiday vortex spewed us out into the lazy eddies of January Sunday afternoons, and so, caught in the throes of a rare moment of ENTIRELY FREE TIME, as the sunset burns orange through the bare tree branches and the woodstove answers with a like-minded glow, I find myself thinking of SUMMER. Again. (Incidentally I’m considering entering this paragraph in some Bulwar-Litton competition, in the Most Bloated Opening for an Essay Category…Hmmmm. I could delete it entirely but I think I’ll leave it exactly because it’s so ridiculous.)

Some months ago, when the weather was heating up, I experienced a hankering for a good ol’ cream soda and shortly thereafter, during a weekly trip to the supermarket, I grabbed a bottle labeled Jones’ Cream Soda. What started it all , in fact, was that I liked Jones Cola labels, and the cream soda suddenly sounded good. If you have seen Jones’ Colas, you will know what I mean: those black-and-white “candid” photos of things like cows in a pasture sniffing a camera lens, dogs in cardboard boxes, kids playing – “feel-good” photos. So. The taste was interesting but – to borrow a phrase from the late great author Douglas Adams, “almost but not entirely unlike” cream soda. And then, in a flash of inspiration, the enquiring mind wanted to know: just what IS “Cream Soda” – the teeth-curling sweet “redpop” of my childhood, the pale brown carbonated beverage my upstate New York friends claimed to be the real deal, this strangely labeled liquid I was tasting at the moment, an eclectic drink on a gourmet market shelf, or a battered bottle from the cooler of some out of the way diner, whose owners last took inventory around 1954?

My first impression of Jones’ Cream Soda, as I typed hastily onto a Facebook status line, was “like liquid cotton candy.” I swear. It made me remember a day at the Great American Ballpark a few years ago when I foolishly decided I wanted a taste of my childhood and ordered a big pink cloud of cotton candy. Ten minutes later I was acting like a kid, too: “Hey, let’s run up the steps to the topllevelandwhenwegetherelet’slookoverattheconstructionandoohlookattheriverdoesitlookanydifferentoverhereandheyyoucangeticecreamuponthislevelllllllllllllllllllllllllll…………………….” and on in that vein for the better part of an hour until the sugar high wore off and I slumped back exhausted in my seat, munching on salty peanuts in an attempt to incapacitate the rush and beat it to death. So…Jones Cream Soda, while interesting - and almost as exciting - as real cotton candy, and definitely displaying one of the cooler labels, did not finish first on my list by a long shot.

I next tried Stewart’s Cream Soda, also available at the local supermarket. The embryo of a systematic method for comparison was developing , because I wrote on Facebook: “color: light amber. Taste: Sweet, with a little sparkle and a little spark. A bit more sophisticated than Jones' Cream Soda….” (I was obviously well on my way to becoming quite the cream soda sommelier. ) As it rolled and fizzed across my palate I discovered that this soda was closest to the one my upstate NY friends had introduced me to thirty years ago, and it evoked a memory of walking across a dry grassy field with friends at a tiny village’s “Fireman’s Club Field Days;” playing that delicious mental game in which you wonder if one of these people you’re with is going to make some gesture indicating that he wants to be more than just a friend, and what is it going to be, and what are you going to DO about it, and yet not really sweating it because you are happy in the moment (for the pruriently curious among you, he did, I did, we did. Hey, I was young and it was summer!).

******brief interlude while I think about summers long past******

Ahem, yes. Well. Where was I? Oh yes. Following Stewarts : Faygo Cream Soda. It was time for another installment in the “In Search Of” commentary, so on the fly and looking for anything to write about, I nabbed a couple of bottles at the IGA in Germantown. Obviously I was really working on the methodology by this time because I wrote “Color: Clear. Calories/serving: 110 (the lowest of the three so far). Taste: crisp but a bit too sweet and faintly chemically. Will try it again when it's a bit colder.” (I’m not sure if I meant the soda or the weather, but it wasn’t enough to motivate a second try.) However, although the whole it wasn’t too bad, I found its clear colorlessness disconcerting. Some “oopmf” was missing. Hmmm. Bland. Gelded cream soda, that’s what it seemed like.

Next on the list : IBC Cream Soda. I wrote: “ Wow! Color: Deep gold. Flavor - seriously but not overpoweringly vanilla- light! Tingly but without eliciting that choking, bubbles-up-the-nose sensation. 180 calories/serving.... HF Corn Syrup is the sweetener.” The comparison system was essentially in place at this point, because not only was I scrutinizing the appearance and describing the taste – I was also evaluating the contents. And noting in particular, this cream soda is some pretty high calorie stuff. In retrospect, I should have consulted a professional sommelier’s notes first – then I’d have been able to address other elusive issues such as “nose” and “body” – but hey, what did I know? I started out just interested in slamming back a cold cream soda. Little did I suspect that this whole tasting episode would evolve.

At this point some friends were getting in on the game; a friend/former employee brought me the next entry: Wegmans, from upstate New York: - a "grocery store brand" that was quite surprising! - calories 110; color, dark gold. Not as tingly as some of the others, and I expected it to be like Faygo ("why shouldn't this be red") - instead, it was like "Jones CS" lite! Very nice!

(One of my horseback riding buddies also brought me some “maple seltzer” from New England which, while interesting, didn’t quite fit the criteria for cream soda. Pretty good though, and certainly rather unique.)

In mid-July we made our annual pilgrimage to Cape May New Jersey, where I found sample number 6: Olde Philadelphia Rittenhouse Square Cream Soda - Light gold, 190 cal/serving, "high f. corn syrup and/or cane sugar". Pleasant, not too sweet but not much sparkle either. Pretty smooooooth, overall not bad. And yes, made in Philadelphia. BUT…how do you have syrup “and/or” cane sugar? This from the city that was definitive enough to produce a Declaration of Independence – so NOW you can’t make up your mind? “Corn syrup and/OR cane sugar?” Huh??

Taste tested next: Sprecher Fire Brewed Cream Soda. Calories 125. HF Corn syrup. Light amber, made with HONEY and vanilla, has a creamy head on it like old fashioned A & W Root Beer. A tad less sparkly than IBC, not as sweet as Jones - unique, different, and very nice. This one was made in Wisconsin and purchased and Dorothy Lane Market, as was :

#8: Frostie BLUE Cream Soda. Calories 190. HF Corn Syrup. Clear Blue. (Ingredients include "artificial flavor" - DUH - and "Blue 1.") It was sweet, bubbly...and well, pretty. No distinctive taste. Definitely at the bottom of the list. But hey...it was blue – thanks to “Blue 1.” Was this an old Star Trek prop, or perhaps the official refreshment endorsed by Smurfs? Or worse yet, was it liquefied Smurf? (Perhaps that was what the label meant by “artificial sweetener.”)

#9 - A & W. Calories 190. HF Corn Syrup. Light Golden. This was a nice surprise - light and sparkly, nice taste but not too overpowering. My favorite of the "big" commercial entries.

Almost last tasted..and least liked - #10, Faygo Redpop. 120 Calories, HF Corn Syrup and yeah, it's RED. Memories jogged by this confection did not even vaguely resemble those elicited by Stewarts - unfortunately! - but it did send me time traveling again; I flashed back to moments in my childhood when I was being chased out of my sickbed by a well-meaning parent trying to con me into swallowing some vile cough syrup that was passed off as “cherry flavored.” Bleah.

And #11, the final one: BIG RED! Calories 100 - in a 8 oz can! HF Corn syrup. Color: RED! Taste - liquid Bubble Yum. The thing is, I LIKE Bubble Yum. It’s my go-to vice when I’m stressed out and want to…well, grind away on SOMETHING, if not some body. Even now. Fifty three years old and on occasion I may still be seen blasting down the road in my grey truck blowing BIG bubbles. As an aside, I do NOT advocate blowing bubbles while on horseback; some of them take exception to the snapping sound (guess how I know this). So while Big Red is, shall I say, blatently jazzy and perhaps suggestive of, if it were possible, chewing on a vintage Saturday Morning cartoon, I have to admit I liked it.

Summing things up in an embarrassingly untimely attempt to finally fling this exposition to the winds of cyberspace….where do they all stand, these bottles of liquid recollection?

Well, I’ll tell you. It wasn’t as easy as it first seemed, summing them all up. And no doubt there are more out there waiting to be sampled, so in all likelihood there will be a continuance THIS year, particularly if my travels or those of friends yield some formerly undiscovered possibilities. Watch Facebook with baited breath for updates. In the meantime, here’s my list.

In 11th place, Faygo Redpop, if only because the only medicine I was fooled into believing was “tasty “ as a child - labels notwithstanding - was Cheracol cough syrup, and Faygo decidedly lacked the richness (and maybe the mental side effects!) of THAT concoction. Unfortunately.

In 10th place, Frostie Blue Cream soda. Blue. It just ain’t right.

In 9th place Faygo Cream Soda. Clear, colorless cream soda ain’t right either.

8th place: Jones’ Cream Soda. Just too sweet. If I want a cotton candy rush, I’ll order cotton candy. Besides, if you’re drinking liquid cotton candy, you deprive yourself of the true sport inherent in eating the real thing, which is avoiding either wearing it yourself or getting it in the hair or on the person of the unsuspecting ball park fan sitting in front of you. (Then again, maybe not.)

7th place: Wegman’s. A little more spark would have placed this one higher up on the list.

6th place: Rittenhouse. I have to admit I like the idea of drinking cream soda made in such a historic place, but you’d think that having been formulated in that hotbed of revolution it would have had a little more definitive taste.

5th place: A & W – just not too shabby for a “commercial” blend.

4th Big Red. Because, admit it, sometimes you WANT a little jazz!

3rd Sprecher Fire-Brewed – just an interesting and intriguing mixture, what with that honey and all. Worth the trip to DLM to find. And you can treat yourself to some pastry or “farmhouse bread” while you’re there. And the honeycrisp apples…oh, and the cheese counter..and…uh…well, plan to take all afternoon, anyway…….

And last – I have to say it’s a tie for first and second place, between IBC and Stewart’s. They are both oh, so close to that elusive Upstate New York blend that I enjoyed. The brand, I believe, was Adirondak Cream Soda and I have yet to find it locally, so if you run across some, pick up a can for me. My friends supplied me with “the real deal” by the caseload through vet school, so I have to admit some good memories of THAT time in my life resurfaced when sampling any of the gold or “brown” cream sodas. Studying histology and falling asleep, waking up to find a big highlighter splot on my notes where I dozed off holding the marker; trying to get everything done before 8 p.m. on a Thursday night to watch the iconic, never-yet-beaten lineup of TV shows: Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers, Night Court and St. Elsewhere. Giggling about “sniglets” (words that ought to be in the dictionary but aren’t) with friends when I should have been looking at Pathophysiology of Disease slides (Singlet example: Blibula – BLIB-yoo-la: the place on a dog which, when scratched, makes him rhythmically flap his hind leg). The weight-lifted –off-your-shoulders feel of finishing finals and heading home to Middletown late on a December afternoon.

I really didn’t anticipate a walk down memory lane when I started this taste test research back last June – but it has been an interesting little jaunt and it makes me wonder where it’ll take me THIS year. I’ll get back to you in June.

Ralph's Mom's Ginger Snaps - The Best!

2010-12-14T11:08:00.000-08:00

(Just another cold morning at Strawberry Hill Farm. Happiness is a stock tank heater that works!)

Ralph's Mom's Ginger Snaps (this recipe probably came from England although measurements are now in "U.S." lingo...)

1 1/2 cups. shortening (hint USE REAL BUTTER!!)
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup dark molasses
2 eggs

4 teaspoons baking soda
4 and 1/2 cups flour (or a little more)
1 teaspoon salt
1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Hint: not for the faint hearted - if you like them with a real kick use somewhat more spices than "level" spoonfuls.

Demirara or other sugar crystals

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cream together shortening and sugar, then add molasses and eggs.

Mix in one bowl flour, soda, salt, and spices, then add gradually to the butter/cream/molasses/eggs mixture till well blended. Dough should not be tooooo sticky - add more flour till it is a little stiff and easy to handle.

Chill (or not!) and drop by rounded teaspoon fulls or blobs or chunks into the crystallized sugar, then place on a cookie sheet or cooking stone. I cover either one with bakers' parchment paper. Cook 10-15 minutes - watch for the tops to crack a little. Cookies are done when they darken a bit, crack on top and aren't "jiggly" when you touch or move the cookie sheet You will have to experiment a little - shorter cooking makes chewy cookies, longer makes them crisp. They will spread so leave about 1 1/2 inch between cookies. Easier to get off the cookie sheet if you let cool a couple minutes after removing them from the oven. Even simpler if you use parchment paper.

These freeze really well, as does the dough, so you can make them up now, wrap the dough or the baked cookies well and toss in the freezer till some cold January night, if you have too many sweets right now...
Best eaten with COLD milk!

The Barn Coat

2010-12-12T05:52:00.001-08:00

I have discovered that while we horse owners converse or write at length about our favorite ponies, our trailers, our tack, our show clothes, even our long-suffering spouses, we have blatently ignored that most important item each and every one of us owns...the item completely taken for granted that nonetheless completes every equine enthusiast's wardrobe: The Barn Coat.

It comes in a variety of weights and colors (depending upon local weather conditions, owner preferences, and whatever was cheapest, free or inherited from someone else), and it may or may not be the coat we actually ride in, but it is de rigeur apparel for stall cleaning, grooming, feeding and visits by the vet or farrier.

My theory that Barn Coats are - like dogs - genetically identical despite variations in their outward appearance evolved several years ago while I was visiting a friend after work. For whatever reason (or perhaps none at all) we decided to mosey out to her barn, so she loaned me HER Barn Coat. I put it on, automatically shoved my hands in the pockets (which were right where they needed to be, of course), and discovered that The Coat felt and smelled (!) exactly like mine. While I didn't take inventory, I'd bet a sizeable portion of my income that her Barn Coat Pockets contained, as we say in southwest Ohio, the "exact same" items as mine. In short, her coat felt just like home.

My current Barn Coat (see photo,taken just this morning. The coat is accessorized with fleece hat (Lands' End c. 2005), fleece HeadSox c. 1995 and which, if it ever disappears or falls apart, will necessitate my immediately moving to the equator! - Muck boots, canine action figures and the unofficial uniform of SW Ohio country people, Carhartt Coveralls) , belonged to my father, whose passing in 1990 elevated it to the status of holy relic. Mom gave it to him for Christmas around 1972, so by my reckoning it is at least 35 years old . It's a three-quarter length, fleece - lined Levi's denim model, still held together by its original stitching and whatever nameless goo has been ground into it over the years.

I wash it once a year whether it needs it or not (it usually does), but at its advanced age I view its annual bath with some trepidation; I'm never sure whether it's going to come out of the washer in one piece or dozens. In deference to its geriatric state I use the gentle cycle; this of course is no match for smears of hoof dressing, spots of betadyne, molecules of manure, horse hair, dog hair and particles of hay dust...a biochemical mixture which probably turns into a sort of glue when agitated in warm water. In fact, I suspect this is actually what preserves the aging cloth, and have considered peddling this formula - once I nail it down - to art conservators who deal with antique tapestries.

Whatever the reason, The Coat seems to be made of iron, and I think there is every likelihood it will outlast several washers. Not washes. Washers.

I have to wash it at home, of course. Any self-respecting laundromat manager seeing and smelling the thing would meet The Coat and me at the door and send us both packing.

The laundry soap commercials would impress me a lot more if, instead of demonstrating their soaps' effectiveness on mud-and-fruit-punch stained kids, they attempted to tackle Barn Coat stains.

However, as any horse owner knows, the Barn Coat is much more than a garment designed for warmth and protection from the elements. Because...it has pockets.

About ten years ago, before I got into the habit of giving it a yearly bath, I decided to take a formal inventory of my Barn Coat pockets (Ok, so it was one of those icy January days in which I had entirely too much free time on my hands). The items I discovered and listed filled an entire notebook page - both sides. I was amazed at how much easier my walk to the barn became after I had divested my Coat of approximately 20 pounds of "stuff" though in subsequent weeks about 15 pounds of "really necessary stuff" found its way back into the pockets.

As I viewed the list and the pile, I began to truly appreciate the many functions of the miraculous Barn Coat:

It is a portable tool box (wire cutters, two screwdrivers, and a pocket knife; a pantry (if you crave last year's candy canes, six month old chewing gum, or a worn-around-the-edges Milk Bone); a linen closet (assorted rags); a first aid kit (two Band-Aids, - one used - and a wrinkled tube of eye ointment), a bank, and an occasional cat bed. And oh yes, a repository for Lost Items (my best suture scissors). If the truth be told, the Holy Grail is probably in somebody's Barn Coat (Barn Cloak?), somewhere.

I found surgical instruments that had disappeared years previously. Rolls of Vet Wrap mashed to the density of granite (and speaking of granite, several "neat rocks" picked up on the path to the barn). Fencing material sufficient to repair a five acre pasture. A "chestnut" (for you non-equestrians, this is a part of horse anatomy of callous-like consistency located on a horse's legs) peeled off my gelding's leg and stashed away to keep the dog from eating it now and upchucking it later in the living room in front of New Years' Eve party guests. Enough Kleenex (only slightly dirty) to mop up a classroom of first graders during cold and flu season (and hey, is that lint -covered thing a cough drop?). Gently cushioning it all, having worked its way past $18.73 in loose change - presumably to pay for a parking space at the barn? - to the very bottom of each pocket, was approximately half a bale of prime mixed alfalfa-orchard grass hay. And - wait for it - a hoof pick.

On any given day, my personal Barn Coat will also contain a broken dog leash and a half-full tube of horse wormer. My friend Yolonda added that hers was not complete without a "gross, slimy" tube of Chapstick, and also noted that matching buttons - or even a complete set of buttons - were NOT a a requirement for a good Barn Coat. After all, you can always hold the thing together with baling twine - which of course is in one of these pockets, somewhere...

Despite its frayed sleeves and a permanent crust of what I fervently hope is just dirt, but from which several useful vaccines and a cure for the common cold just might be developed, my Barn Coat looks to be around a while longer. Amazingly, the coat has not yet exhibited even that first symptom of Terminal Barn Coat Disease: ever-widening holes in the pockets that allow their contents to hemorrhage into that hinterland between the lining and the outer shell, never to see the light of day again.

I had occasion several years ago to treat a young relative of our pastor's to a midwinter horseback ride. Of course, in my concern that everything was safe and comfortable, I forgot to change from my Barn Coat to my Official Riding Coat (which might one day become a Barn Coat in its turn, although right now it is still much too clean). The pastor took one look at my Coat and offered to perform an exorcism on the spot (I declined, cackling evilly with my head spinning on its axis...).

Remember that scene in an old Bugs Bunny cartoon, where Bugs spots a Scottish Elmer Fudd playing the bagpipes? Mistaking the bagpipes for an attacking monster, Bugs tries to wrestle the instrument to the ground. If my Barn Coat should ever make a noise, I think that will be all the excuse my dogs need to do the same thing in my defense. And it won't be pretty.

Regardless of the shock value of its appearance, I think I'll keep my old friend going a while longer. However, as time goes by I can't help but give some thought to what actions would be appropriate when my Barn Coat has outlived its usefulness. I am wavering between cremation and a decent burial, but I'm not kidding myself; there's every possibility, at this rate, that my Barn Coat will outlive me.

I recently settled onto the living room couch to watch (for the umpteeth time) the finale of the Lord of the Rings movies. I sincerely believe that if Frodo had concealed the One Ring in the pocket of a Barn Coat, the story could have been told in three chapters, instead of three volumes. Of course, the Fellowship would probably have been trailed anyway by the horses of the Dark Riders, irresistably drawn to the scent of hay, peppermints and old cookies also residing in the pockets!

I'm thinking I should notify the Levi Strauss company. I'm available for endoresments, and so is the Coat, but it insists on signing its own contract.
Bar

The Real, Truly Original Chex Mix Recipe a.k.a. "Scrambles"

2010-11-17T08:10:00.000-08:00

It's almost Thanksgiving, almost my birthday. We've negotiated the twin seasonal portals of Halloween and Election Day (why "twin?" Because both days involve a lot of dressing up, a lot of false faces, the passing out of sweets and other benefits, and once the dust has settled and the papers are picked up , not much to really show for it..). Now it's finally growing colder. Most of the leaves are down, except for a few rattly brown pompoms that shake and rustle in the breezes and in the passing of my horses as they step carefully between trees on our morning rides. We begin to look forward to holiday foods and snacks: turkey and dressing, ham, sweet potatoes, pies and cakes, cookies and candy, hot chocolate and hot toddies. In short, nothing much that's good for you, but hey, winter's coming on and perhaps some primoridal instinct buried deep within our subconscious is responding to the shorter days by trying to convince us it's entirely appropriate to put on some body fat to shield us from the chill winter winds. OK, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

With that in mind, I share one of my favorite holiday recipes: "Scrambles." This one goes way back before I was born (yeah, that's WAY back), to the days when my child-free parents held card parties and other holiday get-togethers. I can remember wolfing down bowls of Scrambles at my parents' parties till my lips shriveled up from the salt. Conditioning my maturing digestive tract with this stuff probably goes a long way toward explaining my current iron-clad constitution, gastrointestinally speaking.

Scrambles are not for the faint-hearted (or for the diseased-hearted, for that matter). If you choose to indulge, do so at your own risk and in moderation at first. But enjoy!

Don't be fooled by the recipes posted online and on boxes now touting the "Original" Chex Mix - it uses bagel chips, and a microwave. BAGEL chips!! WTF?? No one from my parents' generation living outside of New York City had even heard of bagels back in the 1950's, much less bagel CHIPS.

This IS the original. It's been typed with a manual typewriter on a recipe card that is tattered and browned at the edges from use. It was served by the Armco Girls' Association when it and Armco Steel existed here in Middletown, Ohio.
Happy Holidays!

2 lbs mixed salted nuts (I just use peanuts and cashews.)
1 12-oz box Wheat Chex
1 10.5 oz box Cheerios
1 6.5 oz box Rice Chex
1 6 oz bag pretzel sticks or bits or minis
2 cups salad oil
2 Tbsp. worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp. garlic salt (or 1 tbsp. garlic oil)
2 Tbsp. Lawry's seasoned salt.

NOTE: the measurements for the DRY ingredients are approximate; box sizes have changed! Plus - you can add more of the ones you like, less of the ones you don't.

Mix all ingredients in a very large roaster, tub or on a large sheet of brown paper (NOTE: I mix the liquid up first in a blender, then pour it on the dry ingredients that I've shaken together in a big tupperware cake storage tub. Shake, shake, shake...it's the only calories you'll burn with this puppy!).

Spread the coated ingredients out in a couple of big pans and bake in a 250-degree (NOT A TYPO! NOT 350!!) oven (Microwave? We don't need no stinkin' microwave!!!) for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours, stirring every 15 minutes and being careful not to crush the cereals. Makes - a bunch. Store in plastic bags when cool.

Memorable Meals, Forgotten Festivals

2010-11-02T07:20:00.000-07:00

Home and Away Magazine - published by AAA - has a feature entitled "Back Page" which asks readers to submit travel stories on a variety of subjects. The most recent assignment was ""Tell us about the best festival you've ever attended while traveling and why it was special." So I submitted the following. The real challenge was not recounting the story - it was making it short. This should not surprise anyone who knows me.

My mother and I – and a busload of traveling companions - were on a tour of Europe in October, 1995; we were scheduled to arrive at Innsbruck, Austria early in the day with most of the afternoon free to explore, but due to a labor strike which delayed traffic for several hours we stumbled out of the bus late in the afternoon and were informed by our guide that we had exactly 45 minutes to see the town square before moving on to Munich, Germany to spend the night. We were tired, stiff and in my case nursing a migraine, a situation which hunger did not improve even though everyone on the bus had been generous about sharing whatever treats they had purchased along the way. I stared blearily at my surroundings but my interest was suddenly revived by a magical aroma that was wafted along on the warm autumn breeze – brats! There was a festival in the town square and glory be, someone was selling bratwurst. I hurried over to the booth, but realized at the time, coming out of Italy as we were, I had only Italian currency. “Does anyone speak English?” I asked at the bratwurst booth. One person nodded tentatively, in the universal language that translates as “yeah…sort of…” “Will you take lira?” I asked (this was before the Euro became standard currency). “How much?” There was some discussion in Austrian among the booth workers. “Fifty thousand lira,” one said. My head was aching too badly to do the math; I scrabbled in my bag for a 50,000 lira bill. Suddenly another person waiting in line bravely threw herself between me and my waiting bratwurst. More discussion ensued and the booth worker turned sheepishly to me. “Five thousand lira,” she amended. OK – I had one of those too. I handed it over and was rewarded with a plate containing two brats, a huge chunk of rye bread and a puddle of spicy mustard. I never learned the name of the festival, but we remember it and Innsbruck fondly as the location of a truly delicious and reviving meal, as well as for the good Samaritan in line who prevented me from accidentally spending the equivalent of $50 for a brat - although in retrospect I was so hungry it probably would have been worth it!

Some Reflections on Calvary Cemetery

2010-10-18T21:01:00.000-07:00

Several years ago I was asked to fill a vacant space on the Calvary Cemetery Board of Directors (in one of those drily humorous twists of fate that you gotta love, the seat was vacant because the previous board member had - you guessed it - died. How eminently logical and wierdly appropriate....) Up until then I had no idea there was such a board, although I was dimly aware of the existence of the mysterious old graveyard behind a vintage iron fence on Clark Street a few blocks from Holy Trinity Church.

On the Sunday afternoon in March that I attended my first annual board meeting, I decided to take a walk through the cemetery. As I passed under the arch that displayed the name “Calvary” the quiet enveloped me. The traffic from the neighboring streets seemed muted. I began to read tombstones and get acquainted with those whom I felt, as a board member, had become my charges.

Calvary Cemetery was founded in the 1850’s during the pastorate of Fr. Jeremiah O’ Conner. Originally known as Holy Trinity Cemetery, it was the burial place for many of the Irish immigrants who settled in the area west of Clark Street known as “Little Dublin, ” now the site of Trinity Place apartments. Their presence is reflected in the many tombstones inscribed with Irish names: Mahoney, McNary, Sheehan, Flynn, Mulligan, O’Brian, Dillon, Kelly. Some of them speak to us. “It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins,” James Ryan (died March 15, 1862) reminds us, with a quote from the Apocrypha, on his monument. They hoped we would keep them in our thoughts long after their passing.

Parishioners from neighboring St. John the Baptist Parish, and later, St. Mary’s, many of them immigrants from Italy and central and eastern Europe, also found their final resting place at Calvary Cemetery. Their names add a cosmopolitan flavor to the cemetery roll: Scarpa, Earnst, Habig, Lafayette, Neiderlander, Opavsky.

Many of the names are familiar to me: I rub elbows with their descendents every weekend at Mass. Others bring back childhood memories: beloved priests including Reverend John Oberlander, pastor of St. John’s when I attended grade school there. I can remember his funeral, grand and solemn in a standing-room-only, incense-scented church, but most times when I see his tombstone on my cemetery ambles, I remember how he could descend from the pulpit after delivering a high volume, hair -raising sermon on the perils of sin, then come out to the playground and jump rope with us school kids.

Over 2000 people have been buried in the cemetery since its founding. Early records are sparse and unfortunately many were destroyed, along with some of the tombstones, during the 1913 flood that swept away much of the area’s history. An early trustees report which survives, dated 1908, notes that a Mr. William Barry was responsible for maintaining the grounds in “a very well-kept condition” and adds that “rigid economy had to be exercised so as not to exceed our income” (so what else is new?). It too contained many familiar names of dues-paying members including – to my surprise – my grandfather , who died long before I was born – Frank Burk.

This same 1908 report notes that “surely Catholics want their Cemetery to be a credit to them, and all should evince the right kind of spirit and show the proper interest in bringing this about.” Some things never change and yes, a hundred and two years later, the same sentiment might be expressed along with its logical conclusion – a request for contributions to help maintain this cemetery which contains so much of our history as a parish. There are no remaining open lots for sale, but we still have yearly expenses to address, including maintenance and insurance. Virtually our only income, apart from a few burials a year, is our annual collection. We hope you will be kind enough to contribute to this treasured part of our parish history, and perhaps make some time for a quiet stroll on the old gravel paths. What memories will you uncover?

The Old Neck Fishing and Gardening Club

2010-08-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

Note: one of the best pieces of advice I've ever encountered about writing was from a noted author who said above all "write about what you know." Hence the narrator is - you guessed it - a vet. Not exactly a stretch there.

Chapter 3

Two pairs of alarmed eyes were looking at me, and I hated being the center of attention.

“All right,” I said briskly, “no police.” Given the degree of incompetence exhibited by the local law brigade in dealing with even the slightest of misdemeanors, coupled with the general knowledge that if you ever wanted to dispose of a body, Middle Township just outside Polled Neck was the place to do it and get away with it, I figured that since no one was dead despite Patsy’s earliest assumption, , we could simply go into her kitchen, sit down over a cup of coffee, and figure things out. Edna was dozing in the sun, one hip cocked, ears and lower lip drooping, and the dogs were sprawled nearby and snoring. They would be fine, and I could see them from the kitchen window anyway. They were frequent visitors to Patsy’s garden and long ago I had made it clear that dreadful punishments awaited any dogs who decided to entertain themselves by uprooting Patsy’s botanical children. I gestured to the man who was now on his feet, though swaying slightly, and we managed the dozen or so steps to her kitchen door without incident.

Patsy’s cottage was as much a showplace as her garden. The kitchen was a comfortable den of knotty pine paneling that had taken on a warm reddish glow with years of care and elbow grease; a vintage table and chair set that she had rescued from the basement of the Thunder Mug, Polled Neck’s ancient downtown bar, sat in retro splendor next to the picture window that overlooked the garden, and the cottage’s original, shockingly turquoise appliances still chugged obligingly along year after year, having outlasted several generations of repairmen. They had gone well beyond retro into the realm of miraculously cool. When asked by drooling collectors when she planned on replacing them, Patsy inevitably said with a wave of her manicured hand, “when they stop working.” So far, so good.

It was to this homey setting that we helped Patsy’s uninvited guest. He sat down heavily in one of the metallic cushioned chairs and sighed. “Thank you,” he said in a cultured accent that, now that I took the time to listen, was quite clearly Italian. “I am in your debt. “

“You might not be in just a minute,” I said, “let’s get those wounds cleaned up.” I turned to Patsy, who said “I’ll get the first aid kit” and disappeared through the door that led down the hall to the cottage’s tiny bedrooms and bathroom.

“If you don’t want the police, then presumably you don’t want to go to the emergency room either,” I addressed the man who, after clearly trying to decide whether he ought to nod yes or shake no, opted instead for words and said “that is correct.”

“Well, you know we’re going to want to know why. But in the meantime let ‘s get you cleaned up. I’m not a doctor – but I am a veterinarian – so I think I can get you taken care of, if you’re comfortable with that.”

“Entirely comfortable, molti grazie” he said, so I wetted a couple of paper towels at the sink, squirted a small amount of antibacterial hand soap on them, and applied them to the cut on his forehead. He sucked in a breath between his teeth and then relaxed. “If you think this one’s tough,”I remarked , “wait till we get to that arm. We’re going to have to talk about that.” Among other things, I added silently to myself. He nodded, grimacing slightly. “Just so. When your friend gets back---“

At that moment several things happened simultaneously. Patsy was coming back down the hall and had almost reached the kitchen when the front door rattled under someone’s determined knock. Still clearly on edge, she yelped and dropped the first aid kit, which the man gracefully retrieved for her. “Come in,” I called, recognizing that a knock with that degree of authority could only come from our friend Darla Roberson. The dogs out back didn’t care where the knock originated and launched into a flurry of loud barking. In the corner of my vision I saw Edna’s head jerk up when the dogs’ noise disturbed her sleep. Then the door burst open.

“What was that guy doing in your birdba – oh!” Darla stopped in surprise midway through the living room as she saw the stranger reseating himself at the table. “I came as soon as I saw you were bringing him into the house – what the hell were you thinking? A total stranger!!” Privately I wondered the same thing, but I had to admit there was something to this man’s mannerisms that spoke of class – and more importantly of kindness, or maybe innocence. I suppose Patsy and I both felt he merited a chance to explain himself.

“Bon giorno,” the man nodded at Darla, tucking a loose strand of hair behind his left ear. Darla nodded curtly in his direction and thrust out her hand, shaking his in a firm grip designed to intimidate any potential stalker. She was a short, solid woman who would have needed to crane her neck up considerably had the man been standing. As it was, they were nearly eye to eye and she took off her “Neighborhood Watch” ball cap in order to more accurately fix him with a stern blue gaze from behind her round, wire-rimmed glasses. “Who are you?” she demanded bluntly.

“We were just getting to that, Dar,” I said, “but I need to do a little first aid here.” The wound on his temple was clean and had stopped bleeding, so I applied a couple of small bandages, butterfly-fashion, after drying the skin which, I noticed, was disconcertingly warm, smooth and tan. I blinked a couple of times and moved on to his left arm. I held my breath as I peeled away the remains of the shirt sleeve that had stuck to the raw flesh. He gave a visceral grunt but made no other sound.

“Look, this really needs a graft or something, “ I said, “It’s going to leave a nasty scar otherwise.”

He looked alarmed and shook his head again. “Please, no doctors. You do what you have to do. I am healthy – it will heal.”

“Ok,” I said. “What the heck did you do, anyway, catch your arm in something? Did a boat propeller do this to you?”

“No,” he replied, “I was…how do you say it? I was skinned.”

The Old Neck Fishing and Gardening Club

2010-08-11T16:52:00.000-07:00

Note: You may want to read the Prologue and Chapter One first! Scroll down!

Chapter 2

I stood shoulder to shoulder with Patsy, surveying the damage.

Patsy’s garden was her pride and joy, her source of solace and strength, the fertile breeding ground for her botanical works of art and, now that I think of it, probably HER place for epiphanies - not to mention daylilies and hydrangeas. After she and her husband Edgar parted company following the rather explosive revelation that not only had he been married before – twice – but he had never exactly bothered to become UNmarried from wife #2 before marrying Patsy, she plunged all her frustrations and energy into her property, transforming a rather humdrum collection of geraniums, boxwood and yew bushes into one of Polled Neck’s landscape showplaces. At this time of year, a profusion of purple and white lilacs spilled over the stone fence next to an antique hitching post where I had tied Edna, but even the fragrant perfume of thousands of tiny flowers, coupled with the smell of the steaming manure pile the pony had obligingly, neatly deposited next to Patsy’s compost heap , failed to mask the pervasive sour odor of alcohol-laced vomit produced by the victim who lay sprawled half in-half out of the birdbath.

This birdbath – and I use the term loosely, because that was how Patsy always referred to it – was in fact a water feature of surprising proportions given the small garden space which it occupied, but the simple fact was, the structure had been there years before the area had been split into tiny lots by some opportunistic vulture of a developer who saw a chance to make a fast buck offering “beachfront” property at exhorbitant rates back in the post World War II economic boom. The once formidable Singer mansion at the intersection of New Jersey Avenue and Morgan Street had been falling to bits for some time until a quorum of Polled Neck residents declared it to be an eyesore of epic proportions; it had subsequently been torn down and the estate divided and subdivided and sprinkled liberally with miniscule cottages that just – barely – met with the existant zoning regulations (no surprise that said regulations were shortly thereafter substantially rewritten until they were tighter than a bikini bottom worn by a middle-aged matron on the first day of beach season, deluded into believing that she still had a girlish figure). Nonetheless the cottages persisted and, as these things inevitably do, came to be viewed as “retro” and soon found themselves in demand again. Patsy was fortunate to have inherited the bungalow her father had purchased soon after being mustered out of the War following a head injury sustained while fighting in the European theater . In any case, the Brelsford family’s miniature estate happened to be the one bit of property which had a piece of architecture remaining from the old Singer buildings – Patsy’s birdbath.

In reality, the “Birdbath” was actually a sort of grotto-esque water feature, complete with several unnecessarily pudgy putti fastened to the back wall so that they gazed down into the pool below them with what I always thought was an expression of rather supercilious fascination.

At the moment they were gazing at the victim.

‘A quick touch on his neck assured me that he still had a pulse, and in fact his color was quite good – tanned skin, flushed cheeks. His breathing was deep and regular. He was rather the worse for wear, however. His dark green uniform shirt was torn at the left shoulder, the right sleeve was missing entirely, and the shirttail was half out of his pants and gaping from the missing bottom button. His khakis were stained and torn at both knees and his hands, though the fingers were long and graceful, were filhy, with broken nails and numerous abrasions. He had fairly long brown hair pulled back into a disheveled ponytail, dusted at the temples with a few strands of grey. Indentations along the bridge of his nose indicated that he wore glasses most of the time though none were evident at the moment.

“He’s not dead, Pats,” I said, “he’s sleeping it off.”

“But what’s THAT?” she fluttered, pointing a pink-enameled index finger at the ground just in front of the stone rim of the pool. I bent over and touched the grass. My finger came back with a brownish red stain.

“Oh. Well, yeah, that’s blood.” Patsy uttered a tiny shriek. I stooped down, shoving aside the dogs who had finally finished their investigation of the garden’s borders and Edna’s manure pile and had come closer to check on what the humans were up to. I discovered a sizeable gash on the side of his head, on the temple closest to the grass, but the blood had clotted and the wound appeared to be fairly superficial. I was pretty sure it would be sore when he came to, however, and also fairly certain that the wound had not been the result of an accident. How the heck would he have met with accident in Patsy’s backyard, after all?

Just then, with my face was only a few inches from his, he groaned. I took a pace back, stepping on Jasper’s toes in the process and eliciting from the startled dog a high, short yap which caused the man to open his eyes. Jasper retreated with his pinched toes and injured feelings to a safer position beneath a bush near Edna, with Coal trailing solicitously after him. Patsy and I retreated also and with good reason, for the man suddenly rolled over, pulling the lower half of his body out of the pool with a splash , and retched painfully into the grass. It was then that I noticed an injury I hadn’t seen before; the movement had caused his torn left sleeve to flap back from his upper arm, revealing another smear of blood and something more: a jagged square of exposed muscle measuring roughly four by four inches. In short, he had been skinned.

“Patsy,” I said, “go call the police.”

“NO!” she yelped and, to my surprise the man simultaneously bellowed the same response.

I turned to stare at her as if she were out of her mind, then came to a decision. “All right,” I agreed, “then go call the club.”

The Old Neck Fishing and Gardening Club

2010-08-11T11:07:00.000-07:00

Please note: The prologue is located BELOW this post on the blog and probably should be read first...or not. But it is intended to be read first. Hence the name "prologue." Well, that makes sense. However due to technical difficulties it's... down there. Sorry 'bout that...

Chapter One

The beach is where I have my epiphanies.

Mind you, I can’t count on one every day, and I can’t even predict when they are about to happen, which in any case would run counter to the nature to epiphanies anyway; all I know is, call them what you will, the beach is where I have them.

It could be simply because I’m there most mornings. The truth is, I find it hard to keep away. I was born and raised in Southwest Ohio. The closest we ever came to things nautical were subdivisions in the middle of cornfields centered around muddy ponds and given implausible, or possibly optimistic, monikers such as “Spinnaker’s Row.” Boat sales lots occasionally sprouted near tiny creekbeds which could be counted on to be bone dry for several months at a stretch. Care to take ‘er for a test run, buddy? We’ll ask that old feller with the long beard and lots of breeding pairs of livestock over there and see when the next rain’s coming. I grew up and grew used to feeding animals and growing vegetables, and hoping for downpours at appropriate intervals and toting buckets when they didn’t come, so the ocean – with its infinite and ever-changing quantities of water, continues to hold a lovely fascination for me even though I have lived in this small New Jersey town for going on 5 years now.

Forget the churches filled with congregations dressed in their Sunday best – well, not necessarily “Sunday best” in my case, since I attend Mass on Saturday evenings where the pews are full of people who slide in on their way to or from somewhere else, dressed the part: team members on their way to games, praying for victory, seniors dressed to the nines on their way to celebrate someone’s fiftieth anniversary, families still in shorts back from an afternoon’s picnic. No message for me from the Almighty there, not with the Twitchy Thompson family shuffling their stacks of Holy Cards like angels ready to ante up in a game of celestial Texas Hold’Em, not while PTA matrons whisper during the collection about the way the mayor looks at the girls who carry up the offertory gifts, not with overweight teacher-coaches sitting in massive self-righteousness while assault charges are pending over an incident involving fists at the last Little League game - and that was just with the team members’ mothers.

Nope, for me it’s definitely the beach, so it’s no surprise that my story, the story of the village of Old Neck and its Fishing and Gardening Club, should begin, precisely, on the beach.

Old Neck. Our town really isn’t named Old Neck. Officially it’s Polled Neck, founded in the late 1600’s, a vacation town in its glory days back in the last century but sliding decidedly downhill in the past fifty years or so, losing most of the younger, prosperous vacationers to glitzier “down the shore” localities such as Atlantic City, and funkier joints like Seaside. In its heyday Polled Neck had entertained Cabinet members, provided movie stars with quiet spots for weekend trysts, even - rumor had it – served as a hideaway for pirates and privateers ducking into its back bay to take on fresh water at Reed Pond before heading out again to the open ocean. It has a long history, does our little town, but as the more youthful, progressive members of the populace left to find greener pastures, so to speak, the balance of the demographic shifted decidedly in the direction of the over-fifty crowd, and some smart ass shortened its hallowed name to OLD Neck.

Old, Polled. It doesn’t matter. It has a lovely beach, and if our town is a little quieter than it used to be, we are all right with that. The seaside establishments have been busy enough to keep us more or less solvent during the summer and allow us to put a little money by for the slow season, and life goes on. As our friend Joe says, “it’s all good.” And it pretty much is, although with the recent economic downturn we are definitely living a little closer to the edge of the poverty line.

So , as always, back to the beach. This particular late spring morning found me ambling toward the rising sun with two of our dogs, Jasper the chocolate Labrador retriever and Coal the almost-lab, loudly wrestling each other to the sand, and Edna strolling along behind me at the end of her lead. I was zigzagging back and forth between searching the detritus at the high tide mark for beach glass, a rare commodity in these recycle-conscious days, and trying to find that “sweet spot” along the edge of the water where the sand is most comfortable for walking. Edna was following a line of her own, sniffing hopefully at beach vegetation and wilted seaweed in search of something edible, occasionally blowing at some strange piece of driftwood or horseshoe crab carcass that bobbled in the surf. Tiny shore birds skittered ahead of us. The beach was quiet that morning and the ocean was calm, the waves rolling smoothly over onto the sand like sated lovers.

I was savoring the smell of bacon drifting beachward from some occupied vacation cottage, and grinned to myself. Why does a seashore vacation make ordinarily health-conscious individuals want to consume pounds of bacon – perhaps it is the sight of bathers slathered in oil sizzling on the beach?

There you go. A little epiphany, but an epiphany nonetheless. Was it too small to keep – should I throw it back? I was idly trying to decide when in the distance I spotted a woman hurrying in my direction, shirt and pantlegs flapping in the offshore breeze. Jasper and Coal had recognized her and were racing in her direction, spurts of sand flying from beneath their paws. I recognized my friend Patsy. She appeared to be in some state of agitation: her usually neat, short brown hair was flapping over a hurriedly donned visor and her brown eyes, I could see as she drew closer, were huge. I tugged Edna’s head from a particularly appealing patch of beach grass and adjusted our trajectory to meet her. She grabbed me by the wrist, panting. Her carefully manicured nails dug into my skin. As she stopped to catch her breath I said, “Hey, girl - did you find a body on the beach, or what?” Sometimes despite my best efforts my Ohio roots break through; the midwesterner’s alternative to nearly everything is “erwhut.”
“No Teddy,” she gasps, “it’s worse than that!”
I couldn’t magine anything worse than finding a “floater” and I was just about to tell her so when she added, “He’s in my birdbath!”

The Old Neck Fishing and Gardening Club

2010-08-11T10:55:00.001-07:00

PROLOGUE

A Midwestern horse show grounds on a hot, dusty July day. Riders walking, trotting, galloping their mounts in every direction, warming up, cooling down. An announcer’s cultured voice floating out over the crowd describes completed rounds, refusals and occasionally “an unfortunate parting of the ways,” the dreadfully polite and politely dreadful expression she uses to report a fall.

In the start box, a woman sits quietly on a small bay mare. The starter counts down beginning at “thirty seconds…twenty seconds…ten, nine, eight…three, two,one, go, have a safe ride!” “Thank you,” the woman calls over her shoulder after touching her heels to the pony’s sides. The pair canters easily, rhythmically to the first jump, a table, and sails over, the black tail of the pony teasing the air in her passing. They have done this before, many times, often winning. Somewhere in the area of the start box the announcer notes to the crowd that “number 126, Hilltop Edna Brown, and owner/ rider Theodora Lewis, are on course and have successfully cleared the first obstacle.”

Seconds pass, and the only sound the rider hears is the rhythmic pounding of the pony’s hooves across the dusty grass. The pony clears a fence of stacked timbers, then wheels around a pond toward a red painted coop. At that instant the unpredictable, the unplanned, happens. A tiny, excited Jack Russell Terrier escapes from his owner’s grasp and runs toward the approaching pair, barking furiously. The pony, no stranger to dogs, sidesteps to the right at the last minute to avoid crushing the diminutive canine but the rider’s momentum carries her forward, off the pony’s left shoulder, onto and then over the coop, her boots thudding against the hollow structure as her head and shoulders plow into the turf. She has time to register that she is still holding the reins, and then the darkness comes.

What We Did In July - Horses!

2010-07-28T04:21:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, Somebody Around Here (who shall remain unnamed) said, “hey, why don’t we take these ponies and show somewhere different – like Upperville or Warrenton? Not that we’d necessarily win, but it would be fun.” Thus an idea was born – or more appropriately, another hare-brained scheme was hatched - in the dark windy days of February.

Schedules being what they are, it turned out that the famed Upperville Colt and Horse Show, as well as the vaunted Warrenton Pony Show, will have to wait another year. But upon perusing travel plans, I noted that the Region 3 Connemara Show just happened to be the weekend we were due to drive back from our annual New Jersey coast vacation. “Hey” – Someone said again, “why don’t we meet you in Middleburg and do the Region III show?” This to Martha Slamer, my partner in “Team Connemara” (yes, we even have a Facebook page!) – along about mid-April.

If “time flies when you’re having fun,” then it’s no wonder I can’t keep track of exactly what happened next, but at some time during that interval we duly sent our entries to Virginia in a flurry of horsey paperwork (most of which was going to Kentucky Horse Park for the World Equestrian Games this fall).

We managed to squeeze in a couple of small local shows and a lot of schooling time, which not infrequently required hauling out of bed and throwing myself into a vertical position some time before daylight. I also managed to ride Lily (Hillside Lily Brown) in her first competitive trail ride, just a week after she unceremoniously unloaded me up against a jump in front of the best looking male judge I have ever seen. May as well go down in style! (we did ride the course successfully the second time around, I might add….). Lily took to CTR’s like a duck to water, and came in 6th on a 15 mile trail ride in pastern-deep mud. Apart from deductions for a high heart rate (59 BPM, but hey, it’s exciting when a total stranger walks up to you and slaps a heart monitor in your armpit…or legpit…whatever!), she finished sound and springy as ever and I was very proud of her. Riding with us was Celeste Phares, who is leasing Kilfenora Brighanna Day from Brenda Kiniyalocts; Bri also finished bright and happy. We hope to take these two girls out again on a local CTR at the end of August.

So…vacation at Cape May as usual, except that at the end of the week I would see my Paddy at Glenwood Horse Park just outside of Middleburg Virginia. After a harrowing drive along the Death Star Trench that the local DC’ers casually call “the beltway” around the capitol (an imposing religious ediface - the Morman temple - sits above it on a hill for a reason, as we Midwesterners were praying like crazy while hurtling along the highway with an overloaded camper strapped to the pickup), we headed west into Virginia and made Middleburg just before dusk. Wow…talk about the epicenter of horse country! Every mile or so there is some equine facility – steeplechase courses, horse show grounds, training barns, tack shops – and interspersed with those are historical markers denoting Civil and Revolutionary War battlefields – it’s a wonder we didn’t suffer significant neck strain. The land is lovely, rolling, absolutely inviting – yeah, I could live there!

So…. we all came to Middleburg – Martha Slamer and Journey, my beloved Paddy, Pat Reichle along for support, my OTHER beloved (the two-legged one) Keith, and our friend Joe Herbert. We pitched camp on a hillside after greeting Martha, Pat and the horses, welcomed the evening cool, and relaxed till the next morning.

Well…sorta. I was nervously trying to assure myself that I wouldn’t have a brain f---, er, senior moment in the middle of a dressage test, worrying about over fences courses, and wondering whatever else might go wrong – but we had a great day and amazingly, everything went right. Martha and Journey put in a good training level combined test , and Paddy and I managed to do the same at Beginner Novice level, so several ribbons down and time to cool off. After cleaning up we hitched a ride into Middleburg with another show attendee since 5 of us couldn’t fit in Martha’s truck cab (at least, not in the sweaty condition we presented at that moment), had sandwiches at The Red Horse Tavern, ice cream from a shop up the street, and then…well, we did all manage to get back to Glenwood in the pickup , although I have to say I never expected to see the raingutters of Middleburg from the position lying flat on my back wedged snugly between Keith and Joe in the bed of the pickup – hoping no one would notice we were breaking the law!

Sunday’s performance classes didn’t start off quite as well – I think I was just too hot and tired to really focus – but our rounds were clear and I stayed on course – yay! For fun I had entered the “Open Pleasure Under Saddle” as did a group of other riders, though none of us could figure out what was wanted other than “ride on the buckle” – so I did. And in the line up I sat there in the sun thinking “I’m four states away from home, riding an Irish pony, listening to ragtime music - how did THAT get in there? - on the speaker system, and showing in a class in which I have no idea what I’m doing.” To add to the absurdity – we won the class. Ok, that was fun! And to top off the day, we also won the “Bareback Dollar” class – so look out Cathy Blackmon! I told one of the teenagers riding, “look, you’ve beaten me all day, let me enjoy this one!” First place trophies were lovely handmade stoneware plates by Alicia Daily depicting ponies in various poses so I was very happy to get one that looks like Paddy. At the end of the day our contingent also netted the award for having traveled the farthest.

The show was wonderful, well run and FULL of quality ponies and friendly people, particularly Dawn Weniger and her family who helped us get settled and told us where everything was located. The facility was venerable and beautiful! Lots of old trees, stone walls, red earth (plenty of which the ponies brought home….), green grass – amazing. The stalls were sturdy and clean, and our full muck buckets were emptied as needed. We travelers particularly appreciated the opportunity to turn the boys (the four-legged ones, that is) out into a spacious paddock for hours at a time, which I am sure did them a world of good. We also were grateful for the many “watering stations” for people – whew! It was HOT! (Pat Reichle’s trick of the wet washcloth buried in ice in the cooler was also a lifesaver ). Anne Moe and her team in the secretary’s booth were always cordial and patient. In short – which this is NOT – we had a wonderful time and look forward to coming out again, hopefully when it’s a bit cooler! And I have to say that when we passed the Upperville show grounds on the way home I waved and said “see you sooner or later!”

That herculean effort should have been enough for the summer…but the following weekend (July 24-25) was Gemwood Horse Trials north of here in Fairborn, Ohio. My first ever horse trail. Holy cow, what the heck was I thinking? Ok, just “Beginner Novice, Novice Rider.” Some of you old-hand eventers may not even remember your first event so you will laugh at this – but WHAT A BLAST!

Oh sure, I can say that now, but I spent all last week worrying whether or not I was going to embarrass myself (and Paddy) in dressage, completely flub stadium jumping, or simply meet my death on the cross country course. All these things went round and round in my head as the temperature and humidity got higher and higher. Saturday morning found me hurriedly braiding Paddy’s mane and tail, and wishing I was doing something else – like a trail ride. Nerves, I guess. Off we went. Had a little warm-up, did what I thought was a singularly lackluster dressage test – but didn’t forget any of it – and went to look at my placing. The posting said “2T” after Paddy’s name. What the heck was that –short for “too terrible”? ? No, wait – I discovered I was in a tie for second place out of 13 riders..Holy cow, again! Stadium jumping went fine; we were definitely having an “on” day and had a clear round with no time faults despite some slightly slippery footing . So, end of day one, still in a tie for second. But the horrible scary cross country beast still lay ahead.

I went to Mass Sunday morning and made my peace with my Maker. I admitted to Keith that I was scared, but had realized in a moment of clarity somewhere after the Gospel (when I was supposed to be listening to the sermon but instead was thinking “and #4 is the ditch…”) that all I had to do – and it sounded so simple - was RIDE PADDY RIGHT. He’d done this before for Martha, after all. And we’d had some good schooling sessions earlier in the month. Nothing to worry about, right? Except jump 3, a sort bench, #4 (that spooky ditch), and #11, a HUGE log. The new water hazard was an “option” since there had been no opportunity for open schooling, the other choice being to go around the pond, jump a log, then double back onto the course. I figured I would go for the sure thing and school the water later. Resignedly I loaded Paddy and headed to Twin Towers after bidding my mom and my husband and all the pets farewell (gloomy, wasn’t I? But I had a pretty hard fall at Twin Towers last year, and was still uncertain of my ability to ride Paddy “right” at the right time). Nonetheless, sitting in second place and with $185 dollars in fees already spent, I wasn’t going to let it go to waste without a good fight.

The clouds cleared and the day had cooled off. Martha and Journey sailed off on their training level ride and came back with Martha grinning as usual and telling me “you will have SOOO much fun!” “He’ll be fine.” “He can do this!” (OK, if you say so!) We watched Martha’s daughter Sarah take Gamin over her first official cross country course ever – very stylish and elegant despite some hesitation at that #3 bench, black and lurking in the shade. Then it was my turn - “#126, you’re up!”– gulp! And magically…here’s what happened next (in medical terms, I think adrenaline kicked in):

The first two jumps were a small coop and a negligible table, kind of warm-up “freebies”. Paddy sailed across #1 then began the long curve to #2 and I found I was humming the theme to the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Well, that seemed wierdly appropriate. I knew I had to keep calm coming up to #3 – that scary bench – and somehow I did and he was up and over - letter perfect! “Ok,” I said to him, “the next one’s that ditch, and I know you don’t like ditches, but you’ve done this one bef---“ and he was over before I could finish the sentence (I’ll bet the jump judge, Martha’s friend Mary Lou, was laughing at my stream of conversation!). I took a deep breath at that point and resettled myself as Paddy cantered along. “Ok, now we can reorganize,” I said, because jump 5 was an easy log, 6 was several logs – no problem. By the time we had scooted around the pond and doubled back after the log option at #7, Paddy had conveyed to me by his pricked ears and gentle tugs at the bit, “Don’t worry, Ma, I got this!” (or maybe a better translation was “who’s your Paddy NOW?!!”)– and on we went. #8 was a fun table we’d schooled over, #9 was more stacked logs and #10 was an Aiken log – heck, 2 days before I’d never even HEARD of an Aiken log! – but Paddy didn’t care. We galloped on. I knew that somewhere the announcer’s voice was floating over the course, saying something like “and #126 is clear over the Aiken log” or noting “an unfortunate parting of the ways, “ for some unlucky team (her dreadfully polite and politely dreadful term for a fall), but in my memory it was silent except for the rhythmic beating of Paddy’s hooves. It was all good! Even the big fat log #11 (what was that tree, about 400 years old??) posed no problems and by then I knew we had it made because the rest were jumps we’d schooled over. But as we went over log #13, my watch timer went off – oh, crap! Time faults! Well, no matter, we were both still alive. The last jumps - #14-16 - were familiar, and in a straight gallop – red coop, black coop, log/stone jump – and we were done! It was wonderful, amazing – WHAT A RUSH!!! Paddy was sweaty but barely breathing hard. I patted him, praised him profusely, and (best of all, as far as he was concerned) fed him some carrots I had shoved into my pocket at the last minute for just that purpose.

Yeah, yeah – I know, it was just beginner novice, and although the time penalties dropped us to 4th place overall, I’m still just glowing over what we accomplished. What a great pony!

He had yesterday off, and today I took him out bareback for a little trail loop, relaxed and easy through our woods. We stayed out till the horseflies threatened to carry us off, then I came back to chores and the rest of the week’s responsibilities including laundry. Funnily enough, I ran across a great quote, printed on the pocket lining of my breeches, of all things:

“Courage is trusting your horse to get you there.”

Ain’t it the truth.

The Demise of Big Butter Jesus

2010-06-15T05:37:00.000-07:00

Although I have done my best to resist the temptation to write mindless drivel about silly daily occurrences, I have been swept away on the tide of current events, or more precisely, event, this morning, and find I must say something about last night's demise of our local landmark of dubious distinction, made even more famous by comedian Heywood Banks' song of the same name, Big Butter Jesus.

As you know if you live anywhere within 5000 miles of southwest Ohio, "Big Butter Jesus" is....WAS....the monumental sculpture of Christ rising out of a farm-pond sized body of water (Oh. My husband informs me that this pond is properly known as a "reflectionary pool." Sorry...)in front of the Solid Rock Church just off I-75 south of Monroe, bearing a cross that I presume to be symbolic, since in the scheme of things it is way out of proportion - much too small to have hung a human figure of that size from...from which to have hung a human figure of that size, that is. Pardon my dangling participles but I'm still in shock.

After a severe thunderstorm last night, and a tragic or fortuitous (depending on your point of view) lightening strike, all that currently remains of the work is the metal framework still straining skyward.

I kind of like it that way. "King of Kings" might now be left as is and renamed "Technology Triumphs" (although in reality it was Mother Nature who had the last laugh last night). It looks like some extra from the Pixar film Wall*E.

Please don't flame me. I mean no disrespect to the spirit in which the sculpture was erected, and by no means to the faithful of that particular church. I'm Catholic and attended Catholic grade school so I was spoon-fed more religious images and icons before lunch every week day than films in which Charlton Heston played biblical figures; I'm no stranger to all sorts of depictions of Our Lord. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the image of Christ dying horribly on a cross displayed in each and every Catholic grade school classroom I ever did time in as a kid (there I go again. "In which I ever did time..."etc) is in large part responsible for that phenomenon known as "Catholic Guilt" since the good sisters holding court in those establishments wasted no time in bashing our impressionable young minds with the knowledge that "Christ died for YOUR sins." Eeeshh. But I digress....

Pyromaniac that I am, I was quite disheartened to learn that I had missed a fire of such epic (and symbolic?) proportions, but fortunately...dare I say it? - technology triumphs, and here it is already this morning on You Tube. Wow. Can you imagine standing at your window looking out at the lightening storm from your home in the area and seeing lightening hit that thing? Can you imagine being the pastor of the Solid Rock Church and watching it happen? Holy....well, far better humorists than I are probably already attempting to re-create THAT scenario. Have at it, guys.

As has already been pointed out - but I can't resist mentioning - the nearby Hustler store as well as a number of other religious edifices in the area were spared. What, we must ask ourselves, does this all mean?

The local paper reported this morning that plans were underway anyway to "refurbish" the statue this year. What (I also must ask myself) does this mean in light of THAT news? What message was God sending? "Here, lemme help you with the trash disposal on that project." *FOOM!!!!* "Now just sweep up the ash and carry on..."

Or maybe something else. But I'm going to refrain from commenting on the quality of the work (except to say that I use that term loosely...).

I am reminded of the concept that negative publicity is STILL publicity. I predict fortune will rise like a phoenix out of these ashes. Donations are probably already pouring in from all corners of the globe (is that a contradiction in terms?) to help rebuild. Donations which, I might add, might be better put to use helping needy residents in the area. I'm just sayin'...

Let's see. This is June 15th. I have to confess, I'm really curious to see what the whole thing looks like in about...three days, if you know what I mean. Stay tuned.

Taking the Activia Challenge, or What Would Jane Do?

2010-05-11T18:40:00.000-07:00

(Including the author's editorial comments, in boldface)

Mr. Fred Burk of Strawberry Hill Farm was a person held in high esteem by all who knew him. His outgoing, amiable disposition, his willingness to respond immediately and without question if summoned to the aid of those less fortunate, and his ready wit, were happily attested to by family and friends alike. The source of such goodness was discussed, often and thoroughly, by his colleagues, and it was generally assumed, though not to say openly spoken of , that Mr. Burk’s consistent good health contributed in some measure to his equally steady, benevolent temperament.

It was indeed a certainty that, until the illness which claimed his life, Mr. Burk was , in fact, one of those fortunate individuals whose constitution, apart from the occasional sniffling sinus affliction, afforded him no cause for alarm, bestowed upon him some sense of pride, and provided no little occasion for laughter. His family members, used to his habits, knew well enough that he would dependably have need of that particular chamber in the Burk domicile, set aside for ablutions, at a certain hour each morning, and could attest well enough that if their own activities in that room, of which the residence laid claim to only one, required a longer interval than usual, Mr. Burk could soon enough be counted on to make his presence known at the other side of the door, tapping regularly and with increasing urgency, and exclaiming “Geez, could ya hurry up already? I’ve got a pain out here!” When one of the family hounds, lying sprawled upon the hearth as was their habit upon most evenings, would, due to some earlier dietary indiscretion , have recourse to a particularly noxious episode of flatulence, Mr. Burk had often been known to retaliate in kind, giggling evilly all the while.

To his only child, a daughter, Mr. Burk bequeathed , it was noted, not only his property, taxable at the current exchange rate at several thousand pounds per anum, but also his good health, his shock of thick hair, the gap between his front teeth, and his sense of humor, which with its mix of the outrageous and, at times, mildly scatological, was known as “ornery.”

One recent spring day, when in the throes of the urge to participate in that annual project of purging known as spring cleaning, this daughter of the family, known thoughout the township by that time as Doc Steph, realized with resignation that, as usual, simple projects often tended to explode into renovations of a more major scope, such fiascos generally being preceeded by either the phrase “this won’t take long” or the rhetorical query, “how hard could it be?” The thorough scrubbing of carpets throughout the house had led her down the inevitable path toward a similarly thorough scrubbing of the soot from those walls which came under the direct influence of the much loved yet equally maligned woodburning stove; windows of course then had of necessity been enthusiastically squeegeed, and at some point she found herself gazing with no little consternation at the woodwork, whose original shade of “Dover White” had, over the years, been deepend by the accumulation of smoke and ash into something closer to “Recently Deceased Gray.” This, she decided, would not do, and so after a jaunt into town to the nearest purveyor of a satisfactory paint – a jaunt, one might add, that was not in itself without humor – she settled in with her poor beleaguered husband of two years, who was learning rapidly not to ask “so, whadda ya wanna do this weekend?” to finish the herculean projects she casually and offhandedly lumped into the term “tidying up.”

Painting commenced and eventually, as it is wont to do, conversation dried up and the decision was made, with no objection on either side, to turn on the television. After scraping the proverbial bottom of the entertainment barrel, for this was a Saturday afternoon, the hardworking couple finally settled upon a tolerably interesting movie, The Jane Austen Book Club (Ohhhhhhhhh….so NOW you see the connection!). At any rate, Doc Steph thought it might be tolerably interesting, while husband Keith deemed it wiser to keep his mouth shut. Unfortunately the movie choice was presented by a network which appeared to adhere to the policy that the longer the movie continued, the longer the commercial breaks should correspondingly become, and in this case there seemed to be an inordinate number of appearances by the famed cinema actress Jamie Lee Curtis, obviously bent on extending her already not insubstantial range of talents, and presumably her bank account, hawking a product known as Activia, by attempting to act as though she actually gave a rat’s posterior about some total stranger’s “occasional bouts of irregularity.”

The afternoon passed, and after this same commercial had been run at least 20 times, Doc Steph began, as advertising agents would obviously desire, to ponder the miracles of this highly touted substance. The script of the commercial, which she was by this time able to recite by heart, included the following phrase: “ Eat Activia every day for two weeks – if you don't feel the difference, we'll refund your money.” She was indeed blessed , as luck would have it, with her father’s healthy constitution, yet that she was of an inquiring, cynical turn of mind, she could not deny. “All right,” she announced to her husband and the dogs, “that does it. I’m curious – so I’m taking the Activia challenge” and for the next fourteen days she embarked on an experiment of daily ingestion of the substance and the ensuing scientific observation, taking diligent note of the results. Not content with this endeavor alone, she added the corollary, no small obstacle itself, that she would attempt to write about the results in such a manner as to prove inoffensive , even to the vaunted Miss Austen herself. Or, as the said vaunted Miss Austen herself would put it, “without committing the crime of erring against every commonplace notion of decorum.” In short, she would refrain from cheapening herself and her research by, however humorous the result might be, scrupulously avoiding any slang words directly related to intestinal function including, but not limited to…the word “poo.”

Day one passed without incident, and Doc Steph went on about her business, wondering how exactly the yogurt snack she had ingested planned on manifesting itself. Analytically she took an inventory of her physical well being, between vaccinating patients that included poodles, shih tzus and the usual variety of mongrels and feline patients. Nothing different than what was normal and expected occurred upon that particular day.

Shortly after the dawning of the second day, on schedule as usual, Doc Steph retired to the chamber of the house that was now fondly referred to as “the library” because of the number of books stored there, as well as the pleasant seat, expecting essentially the same as the previous day’s results. It was, she surmised, rather early in the study to expect any changes in the outcome of the ongoing experiment. However, she was forced to admit that there was in that day a different feeling in the air, so, dedicated researcher that she was, she felt it was imperative in the name of science to observe the experiment’s results thus far. In short, like most human beings, she looked.

Upon reflection, it is human nature to gaze at what one produces. Artists survey their paintings, writers re-read their words, mothers gaze fondly at their children, persons afflicted with colds and catarrh and various seepages from the sinuses survey the contents of the Kleenex after a vigorous blowing as though looking for brain tissue, the secrets of the universe , or perhaps lost socks.

So, Dr. Steph looked. And was alarmed and amazed at the results. Had someone been there before her? she pondered. Had someone – her husband, a troop of boy scouts, the eight-horse hitch of Budweiser Clydesdales – forgotten to flush? She sincerely hoped it was so. It was a disconcerting moment indeed and she seriously considered abandoning the research project, though whether it was for concern over the state of her internal workings or the desire for the continued well-being of the residence's tempermental septic tank she could not at that point say.

As it happened, within the very week a stranger with the olive complexion of a person from foreign parts presented himself at the home’s front door and announced that he was an agent of the county, here for the required annual inspection of the farm’s septic “aerobic system.” Without further ado he disappeared in the direction of the apparatus and returned a short while later, a faint pallor lightening his Middle Eastern visage. “This system is due for maintenance later in the summer, “ he announced nervously, “but it is low on chlorine already. I suggest you have it serviced a little earlier than its scheduled date.” “I am not at all surprised,” Doc Steph replied drily.

Nonetheless she pressed on, and within a few days her normal biological rhythms prevailed with the exception of, as one might delicately put it, significant volume expansion. This continued until the afternoon of day nine when, after a hurriedly imbibed meal at a local fast food establishment, she became aware that the various legions of villi that made up the whole of her digestive tract were considering, and indeed loudly discussing , instigating a revolt. Fortunately it proved to be but a minor rebellion , but one which made her wonder, what part did the Activia play in quelling what might have been a major episode of crapulence (yes, it is a word! (krap' yoo lens) n. sickness caused by excess in drinking or eating. )? Several extra jaunts to the “library” took care of the problem before she left on her way to retrieve her mother from a visit to the hairdresser’s, but, she wondered, had the Activia saved her from the need to streak across town in search of an alternative chamber, or kept her from finding herself stuck in traffic at an inopportune moment, thus resulting in the unhappy discovery that she was essentially up the alimentary canal without a paddle? Doc Steph was ready to sing the praises of the substance to friends and family alike.

It was then she discovered the fine print on the Activia website , wherein lurks the following statement: “Scientifically shown to help with slow intestinal transit when eaten every day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle.”

“With?” she cried, “what is this ‘WITH slow’? I thought it said ‘TO slow’!” She shook her head in dismay and mentally begged forgiveness for what she had regarded as insurgence on the part of her digestive tract but what may have been, in reality, its attempt to save her from the predations of that bacteria known as Bifidus regularis which the manufacturers of Activia claim populates its product.

As the two weeks of the experiment drew to a close, Doc Steph pondered what she might try next. An ad on the back of a national magazine that often finds its way to the “library” touted a fiber-containing supplement with the admonition “DO MORE than one thing and do them WELL,” but she reckoned that doing one thing a day was completely sufficient for her, and felt that Miss Austen would probably agree.

Author’s note: Doc Steph admits that while she likes Jane Austen’s stories, she finds Jane’s writing style a bit too loquacious for her own taste, if you can believe that. However she enjoys the adaptations to film, particularly Sense and Sensibility due in large part to the presence of the delicious Alan Rickman; in her humble opinion a close second is the Masterpiece Series version of Pride and Prejudice. Colin Firth – what’s not to like??)

A Love Letter To Madison

2010-05-05T12:33:00.001-07:00

On the occasion of the Bicentennial of the founding of Madison Township, May 7, 1810.

It has been thirty eight years since we met, and I am writing this on the occasion of your momentous birthday to tell you something I should have said a long time ago: I am still in love with you.

I was a shy teenager when we first encountered one another, back in March of 1972; on a cold, windy St. Patrick’s Day afternoon we walked through fields still golden with the dry grass of winter, and wandered into woods barely misted with new green. You welcomed me then, and to this day whenever I come home to you I still feel the same sense of welcome. There’s a peace in your presence that I’ve encountered nowhere else in the world.

You are dependable but never boring. You are always there for me, whether I have been away for a long time , a long distance, or both. You still have the ability to take my breath away, and in some cases, give it back. I remember flying into Dayton after a wonderful five- day stay in New York City, and driving all the way home down Diamond Mill Road at midnight with the truck window open despite December’s freezing temperature. I drank the cold clear air into lungs that had been assaulted by that amazing mix of diesel fumes and garbage and humanity that perfumes all big cities, but New York in particular. Every mile and every breath brought me closer to the place I wanted to be – with you.

You are wonderful in summer, magical in spring, breathtaking in autumn , challenging but full of fun even in the depths of winter. We’ve been together quite a while now, year in and year out, and mosey along with the comfortable familiarity of many lucky old couples , but you will always hold some mystery for me, and I think that is part of your charm. I know where you hide your venison and wild turkey, but your spring mushroom crop eludes me still!

A large part of what I have become exists because of you. You showed me first hand the workings of nature as the wheel of the year turns. You taught me gardening – sometimes by trial and error, but those were the lessons learned best. You showed me the ways of native plants and birds. Occasionally, if I am paying attention on my morning walks, I catch little glimpses of your past – broken china and abandoned whiskey bottles, native American artifacts, parts of moonshine stills and abandoned cars – sometimes a shady past, I guess, but as I walk the trails with the sunlight streaming down like a blessing through fresh rainwashed leaves, I realize someday I too will be a part of your past – and strangely, even that is comforting . You will go on to be loved by others, but there will be a little part of you that will always be mine.

Regardless of my mood, I only have to step out the door and you are waiting to cheer me up. You have been there to share my victories and happy moments, and to comfort me in times of loss, tragedy and death. Some of my dearest family members are folded into your embrace. Perhaps, if the fates are kind, my ashes will join them there in due course of time.

We’ve changed over the years, grown, grown older, a little more worn, and I hope - in my case, anyway - a bit wiser. You at least have managed to improve without losing that down-home country charm that attracted me to you all those years ago.

And so, dear Madison Township, I write you this love letter on the occasion of your two hundredth birthday . This relationship we have, you and I, is the equal of any one immortalized by Hollywood. In an early episode of the television series Sex and the City, Carrie refers to New York as her “big ol’ boyfriend,” and while I can see the attraction, he’s not the one for me. As Scarlett O’Hara talks about going “home to Tara,” I know exactly what she’s feeling. And when Dorothy Gale clicks the heels of her ruby slippers together I’m all about it ( even if my footwear is an unspectacular pair of weathered brown riding boots instead of ruby slippers): There’s no place like home.

And Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Humor...

2010-04-21T17:32:00.001-07:00

Cleaning out some old trunks on Mom's back porch tonight and I came across a treasure trove of stuff from high school, including the following essay which, sans typos, I will post verbatim. I think this is circa 1974, Dottie Davey's Creative Writing Class at Madison High School.

Hmmm... Obviously once a nut, always a nut. You will not be surprised to learn that my undergrad. major in college was anthropology.

You know, objectively speaking, the life we lead as American teenagers must be quite a strange one, if we look at it from the angle of one who hasn't been brought up in the middle of it. Let's look at it from the viewpoint of someone who's never heard the least thing about it...say, a rather educated pygmy from the African interior. Here's what he might relate to his companions when he returns to the safe quiet world of the jungle, where all one has to worry about are things like fighting off spastic baboons, whether the Lion Sleeps Tonight or if he suffers from indigestion and is particularly grumpy, and when the next crop of tse-tse flies is due in.

The life of the American Young person is a strange one indeed. Rather than sensibly going from childhood straight into adulthood as we do, they waste their time in a long and unprofitable period known as their teens. Much of this time is spent in a building which is a place of education. While I never saw any effort made to teach them the practical things which they ought to be taught, such as how to make a knife or fight off a spastic baboon, they have learned to sue a weapon which, though not often deadly, does tend to stun the victim: the spitwad. Another method of self defense --or perhaps of agitation--is concealed in the spiral notebooks the students carry --the metal spirals have ends which are capable of snagging one's sweater --or one's skin. Students are also taught chants, particularly how to inform another student of what one's mother was. These chants are often recited before lockers that refuse to open, or overly active water fountains which tend to give one a bath rather than a drink. The personage who runs this place of education must be none other than a god, because each morning his voice floats into the rooms over thin air, informing the students and teachers of what is expected of them during the day. At this time, several students are often called to this god's place of rest, known as "the Office." It must be a terrible place, because commands to report there are usually met with wide-eyed stares, and mutters of "what did I do now?"

There is one period in which the students' endurance is tested, for they are forced to consume some rather dubious looking substances in a chamber called the Cafeteria. Teachers stand guard by the door, and woe to he who gags.

Schools are also the location of a strange ritual that took place every seven days or so while I was there. These took place in the evening, in a large chamber known as the Gym, lined to the rafters with students thirsting for the sight of blood. In the center of the Gym, the warriors from two competing schools did battle in scanty uniforms. In the game called basketball, the object seemed to be how many eyes one could gouge out while attempting to distract opponents with what looked like the gallstone of an elephant. Priestesses as scantily clad as the players led the fans in chants to urge the teams on. Food and drink was sold by itinerant peddlers at stands outside the gym, and a group of people with strange instruments sat off to one side playing music with which to bring out the hunting instincts in the players. One that for some unknown reason stands out in my mind was entitled "Beat-A-Cheetah."

The courtship ritual is a long drawn out process lasting months and often years. It begins with the youth asking a girl to "the Game" (basketball, remember?). Sometimes this question differs slightly - the most unusual one was "Wanna go to my place and listen to my Yamaha?" which must be some strange exotic species of caged bird -- but the most important thing about the question is the insinuation behind it--whether the girl desires her suitor's company or not. If not, she advises him to seek someone else's attention by gently telling him "stick it in your ear." While not following her instructions to the letter, he usually takes the hint. If he does prove acceptable to her, they go off and exchange vital information about one another, such as what color socks he wears and what that funny red mark is on her neck (she usually explains that she ran into a high and vicious doorknob). They also journey to such diverse places as the Drive In, a place specially designed for what they call "necking" and "making out" with larger-than-life figures demonstrating just what to do. While I never had the opportunity to visit one of these drive ins, it is obvious that they are most awesome training places to prepare for what will be expected of them later in life. I never learned just what "making out" meant but "necking" obviously involves our brother the giraffe.

I would like to set down more, but I think I hear a spastic baboon in the distance.

So....if your daughter or granddaughter sounds like this now, in 35 years she could be me. Flee while you can.....

What Happened Last Weekend: The Erma Bombeck Writer's Workshop

2010-04-20T04:35:00.001-07:00

Last week I was lucky enough, due to someone else’s cancellation (thanks, Anna!) to attend the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop at the University of Dayton. I sat through some wonderful, encouraging and challenging presentations on everything from finding an agent to finding your “voice” as a writer and using humor as a means to address heartbreak. The host of this last seminar was Wade Rouse, who read excerpts from his memoirs about growing up – and coming out - gay in the Midwest; after some discussion we were given a 20 minute challenge to write in a humorous manner about something that we feared. I was happy with what resulted from my own frantic scribblings so I polished it up a bit and posted it on this blog on the evening of the day I had written it. So far, so good.

The conference was exhilarating, inspiring and best of all FUN – I enjoyed meeting so many people interested in the craft of writing. I collected a stack of cards with email addresses, websites, and blogs. Everyone was excited to talk about publishing successes they’d had, and willing to share their work experiences. The spirit was great, the camaraderie was amazing. I felt encouraged. I was charged up and ready to write more. What a great experience.

So as you may imagine I was surprised to get home on Saturday evening and read the following comment someone posted after the blog entry about my Mom that was the result of Mr. Rouse’s writing exercise:

Didn't read your blog -- but love how you've managed to mention it in every Erma Bombeck session I've been in. Kudos and congrats on your blatant self-promotion. It's impressive. Again, props to you!

I was crushed. Completely shot down. Almost terminally embarrassed. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Had I been that obnoxious? Had I made a complete fool of myself? One person evidently thought so, and that was enough to shake my hard-won confidence. I’ve worked for years to be less socially backward, stupid, nerdy and geeky than I always thought I was, tried diligently to maintain conversations without the benefit of a dog or cat between myself and the person I was addressing – and here I’d unwittingly blown a cardinal rule of conference etiquette and some good person, evidently thinking to perform a service for the masses, took it upon themselves to let me know. Overnight my anxiety reached epic proportions and by about 3 a.m. I was considering moving overseas and setting up shop in a hut in Madagascar, only the volcano in Iceland was already messing up travel schedules.

Let me explain. We were invited to introduce ourselves when we stood up to ask presenters a question. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t. But on the three occasions when I did, and also mentioned the name of my blog, it was because the presenter had spoken of his or her pets – evidently a favorite subject for many writers - and I hoped if possible to strike a chord which might motivate some like-minded to folks to read the things I had written. Besides, we were invited to tell what we had done, what we had published. I wasn’t the only one. I was hoping for some constructive criticism. I did not expect vitriol. I did not bargain for anonymous, waspish snide remarks made by someone who lacked the courage to simply come up to me at the conference and say “wouldya shut the hell up, already?”

Analytical (and please note the very apropos first four letters of that word!) worry wart that I am, I can’t just let it go without a fight. Therefore, I find it necessary to pick this little bit of cyberspace excrement to pieces and give it the slow death it deserves.

According to my blog, the comment is from “M2.” M2? That’s not a name. That sounds like a pseudonym from some vintage cold war spy thriller. I can just picture “M2” sitting in front of ancient rickety table, pounding out smudged letters on crackling onionskin paper using a manual typewriter with broken keys in a cold little room somewhere on the east side of London, the room illuminated only by a single uncovered lightbulb flickering and buzzing at the end of a frayed wire. The haze from half a dozen stubbed-out cigarettes hovers in a cloud over this unhappy individual’s head as people on the other side of the wall rattle the plaster with an argument or loud sex, or maybe both. M2, indeed.

“I haven’t read your blog” – M2’s loss. Wrong thing to announce, since I’d give the complaint more credence if he/she had read it.

“Blatent self-promotion” – Hello? Speakers were promoting their books or website services. Aspiring writers were passing out cards, authors in the crowd were waving around their self-published books, everyone was asking everyone “what do you write?” “What have you published?” There was LOTS of self promotion going on, in case M2 didn’t notice (maybe no one chose to speak to M2?) M2, if you don’t believe in yourself enough to get your name out there, no one else is going to do it for you. Furthermore, to swipe a snippet of dialog from Pirates of the Caribbean – Jack Sparrow is being held by the soldiers, one of whom says “you’re the worst pirate I’ve ever heard of,” and Jack, undaunted as ever snaps back “but you HAVE heard of me!” M2 DID remember my blog.

In a wonderful seminar called Making Them Laugh On a Wednesday Morning, USA Today columnist Craig Wilson said someone once came up to him in the supermarket and announced “you’re a jerk!” and then walked away. If Craig Wilson can take it, I can.

So M2, if your plan was to hurt my feelings, you temporarily succeeded. But only temporarily. I stepped back into my normal persona on Sunday (or at least what passes for “normal” around here!); with my husband’s encouragement I climbed back into the saddle and brought home the first blue horse show ribbon of the season. In a phone call, a client whose dog had gone through a sudden illness that ended in euthanasia despite our best efforts waved aside my sympathetic wish that I could have done more to help and said “don’t worry, we’ll be seeing you again.” They had not lost faith in me. And a sixteen year old girl whom I’ve been mentoring, - a new mother with a passel of odds stacked against her – called me, excited that she’d been the only one to volunteer to dissect a cat in science class, and said “I figured I’d better do it now, if I wanted to be a vet like you.”

I don’t have to “lift up mine eyes to the hills” for my help – it’s all around me. What a blessing!

And as you see…I am still writing. Climbed back into THAT saddle, too.

By the way, M2 – what have YOU written?

Writers' Conference Challenge

2010-04-16T18:53:00.000-07:00

The speaker: Author Wade Rouse. The Subject: Humor, heartbreak and finding your voice as a writer. The challenge: Write about something you're afraid of. You have 20 minutes.

So...here's a slightly edited and cleaned up version of what resulted, in my notebook at least.

I am a veterinarian. In the course of my work, I've drawn blood from unhappy horses (and no horse is happy to donate blood); castrated calves restrained by two burly - and rather nervous - convicts at an Ohio correctional facility; wrestled reluctant Rottweilers and even managed to coerce belligerent clients to pay their bills. All in a day's work.

Despite resolving any number of virtually unimaginable messes and being covered at one time or another by most forms of yitz, gunk and spoo that animals are capable of producing, I'm ashamed to admit that I'm still grossed out by sick people.

The smells, sights and sounds of hospitals and nursing homes make my skin crawl. A client once raised her shirt in my clinic to ask my advice on whether or not her ten-day post-op mastectomy scars looked "normal" and I felt my innards backflip and try to force their way out my left nostril. My husband complains of an upset stomach and I shove two dog nausea pills and a cold washcloth through a crack in the bathroom door and whisper "call me if you need me," hoping desperately that he won't. And being childless, I have managed to sidestep the rivers of snot and midnight projectile vomiting episodes that I am told Moms are privileged to behold. And I haven't missed it a bit.

But as I am an only child living next door to a 90-year-old mother I've known for a long time that the day was coming when I'd have to square my shoulders, hike up my riding breeches and perform one of those corporal works of mercy the nuns told us we'd have to do in order to gain admission to our happily-ever-afterlife.

It happened just the other day, in fact. My fragile but feisty 90 year old mother shit her drawers.

She'd taken a laxitive, you see, and realized - too late - that she lacked the speed and strength with which to make it to the bathroom in a timely manner.

Fortunately for her, I was sitting on her living room couch, so when her response to my query "are you all right?" was a faint "no, I'm really sick," I shot off the couch, mentally bracing myself to face the inevitable, and hustled to her rescue.

I helped her to the bed and washed her off, then brought her clean clothes and tidied up the bathroom. Although grateful, she was also understandibly embarassed by this (hopefully temporarily) loss of dignity, and I think we both realized this was somehow a watershed moment - the first such unfortunate occurrence but not likely to be the last. But neither of us is overtly emotional, and so on impulse I brushed aside her quiet apologies and tried to lighten the moment with the dry sarcasm that's part of her legacy to me.

"Well, geez, Mom, " I said as I gently wiped her soft, papery thin skin, "I've had my arm up to the shoulder in a cow's ass. You'll have to admit this sort of pales by comparison!"

And then we both laughed and I realized that whatever comes, I'll manage to handle it.

Veterinarian, Heal Thyself (Or Not...)

2010-03-23T05:12:00.000-07:00

March. What a tease. One day, it's warm enough to consider getting out the shorts and sandals; then some time during the night a weather front roars through and when you wake up it's spitting snow: one final bitch-slap from Old Man Winter. Seems as though our yearnings for better weather grow more desperate with each passing year.

But at no time in my life can I remember struggling through this changeable, flirtations month as laboriously as the year I spent most of March on crutches and an air cast. As if March mud doesn't pose enough challenges on two good legs.

"My horse stepped on my ankle and broke it yesterday," I told my family doctor as I was sitting in his examination room, feet dangling off the exam table. He was drawing breath to suggest an x-ray when I wordlessly proffered him the envelope holding the one I'd already taken that morning in my veterinary clinic. No big deal, really - I had calculated the settings, wiped a few stray dog hairs from the machine and took the shot. The only dicey part had been dropping my pants and climbing on the platform without losing my balance, since at the time I was reduced to teetering on one foot and a metal crutch.

He raised his eyebrows and placed the radiograph on the viewer. "Well, you definitely have a fracture," he agreed and reached for his prescription pad. "Now what about some pain medication?" I had already covered that, I informed him, and he sighed, handed me a referel slip for an orthopedic specialist and walked out, shaking his head.

Well, it wasn't that difficult, really. A broken bone is a broken bone, and if I couldn't recognize one with 15 years of veterinary medicine under my belt, I was in trouble.

This business of veterinarians trying to heal their own illnesses and injuries is nothing new. It's not uncommon for an inveterate eavesdropper such as myself (this from long practice of performing operations and keep tabs on one's staff at the same time), at professional gatherings, to hear tales of how one's peers have sutured up their colleagues, treated their own dog bites and cured their children's infections utilizing whatever was at hand in the clinic. I don't believe it's so much a matter of saving money as saving time, but I'm sure it results in no end of exhasperation for their family doctors.

I began to fall prey to this mindset early in my own career. I had just purchased a veterinary practice and needed to have some bloodwork done for insurance purchases, so a phelbotomist assigned by the insurance company made arrangements to stop by my home and draw the sample. I've always held it's definitely better to give than to recieve in any procedure involving needles, so I was looking forward to this ordeal with about as much enthusiasm as I would view impending dental work or an IRS audit. I hoped the needle-wielder would be skilled, and quick.

The technician appeared at my door, took some information and a few vital signs, wrapped a tourniquet around my arm and began tapping the area of the vein crossing my elbow joint and shaking her head in what I've discovered is the universal phlebotomist's sign language for "oh, boy, I'm not gonna hit this one on the first try..."

I tried to make her comfortable. I really did. I joked around that I was a veterinarian and could appreciate a difficult situation; I added that at least I wasn't foaming at the mouth and trying to bite her (well, I thought it was funny). However, after unsuccessful several attempts to collect my blood, which apparently was in no hurry to leave my body, she suggested giving up and calling someone else to give it a try. At this point multiple stabbings were causing my patience to wear a little thin, and the thought of waiting around for yet another appointment was just about more than I could stand. "Just stick me again, and get the job done," I hissed through gritted teeth. I suppose by then my blood pressure was rising because the vessel practically leaped onto the needle and proffered the desired result. It was a good thing; one more failed attempt and I'd have drawn the damn sample myself,and I'm sure I wouldnt' be the first DVM to have done so.

One of the hazards of working in private practice is, as you might surmise, the fact that the veterinarian is subjected to repeated exposure to a variety of diseases. In the close quarters of the average examination room, potential contact with illness is never far away. But forget the animal parasites, never mind bubonic plague or anthrax or rabies; I'm talking about human illnesses. I've lost count of the number of times an owner has placed his or her pet on my exam table in the middle of cold and flu season; the pet is the picture of glossy -coated health but the owner is a pale, clammy, wheezing mess hanging onto the table for support and obviously only a hack away from coughing up a lung. When they can get their breath they will announce, "I've been in bed with the flu but I didn't want Boopsie to miss her appointment." Gee...thanks. I appreciate the loyalty and conscientiousness...but not that much. Some things just don't need to be shared.

Most of the infections that result from such exposure, I'm happy to relate, can be controlled by such medicines as we have on our treatment room shelves anyway, since a large number of them are generics that are available for both humans and animals. However, our attempts at self-medication can occasionally backfire.

One long spring I went through two rounds of what I deemed modern, "big gun" anitbiotics trying to fight off a respiratory infection under my own power. "Why don't you take some erythromycin?" Mom had suggested early on, and I had scoffed at such an "old fashioned drug." One wasted month later, when I had finally dragged myself to the doctor's office at my Mother's insistence he announced "we're going to start you on erythromycin." I was better in two days. Lesson learned: Listen To Your Mother.

On a particularly bad late summer weekend, filled with cases that refused to either die or get better, incisions that pulled open instead of healing, and the failure of a nearby Pretzel Festival to actually HAVE pretzels when I was in desperate need of a junk food fix, I sat in a blue funk at the breakfast table, taking my vitamin, immune system stimulant and...quite by accident...my old labrador retriever Tristan's post-op antibiotic capsules. In this case the drug was a generic that is in general use in the human population but one to which, as I happen to have discovered several years earlier (don't ask), I was allergic to.

I am here to tell you, it is damn near impossible to force yourself to throw up by putting your fingers down your throat if your attitude toward that particular physical function is that you would rather die than do it.

Failing that, I called my nurse friend - this was 7:30 on s Sunday morning - and whined pitifully to her for advice. She laughed in my ear, which for some reason I felt at the time was singularly lacking in compassion, and advised me to "take two benadryl and call the emergency squad if you quit breathing." (It will not surprise you to learn that I did have benadryl in the house - in my stash of animal drugs, of course).

Obviously I lived through that episode though I wasted a large portion of a perfectly good day in front of the TV in an antihistamine-induced stupor, and ultimately suffered the mind-numbing side effect of having a Sunday morning cartoon song playing unstoppably and annoyingly through my head for the next several days.

Then there was the Great Dog Bite Episode. Naturally in my career choice this is an occupational hazard, but while I'd had some near misses, nothing very severe had ever happened to me until I tried to break up a loud and rather violent difference of opinion between one of my own dogs and the neighbor's dog. You know how Your Mother Always Said Never Break Up A Dog Fight With Your Bare Hands? There's a good reaon for that. When I appeared at work the next morning wearing my pajama bottoms because my hand was too swollen for me to zip up my work pants, my long-suffering office manager took matters in hand and sent me to the doctor before I had the chance to try and medicate myself. The bite wound in the area of my knuckle had become infected and threatened to spread to the joint, and as a result I spent several days in the hospital on a combination of intravenous and oral antibiotics and IV fluids.

In the hospital I discovered a whole new aspect of medicine: "the doctor as patient." Man, what a pain in the ass we are! I'm sure I made the nurses' lives miserable when my antibiotics weren't given on time, but they gleefully retaliated by announcing over and over to anyone within earshot - "she's a vet - and her OWN DOG bit her!" My hand healed uneventfully although for some months it was stiff enough that it was difficult for me to make that particular rude gesture which signifies to other drivers that you are the only one on the road with any sense at any given time and in fact DO own the road.

There passed a period of several generally healthy years, until the March day when I slipped in the mud while leading my pony down a steep slope, and provided a landing pad for his rear hoof as he attempted to jump over the ditch and me simultaneously. There was a sharp crack and I remember thinking "boy, I hope that was a stick!" but discovering when I tried to stand up that alas, it wasn't. I lay there in the warm spring sunshine for a short time, while the pony was caught and put away, and thought things through, but ultimately decided against going to the emergency room at the local hospital on a sunny Sunday afternoon where I was sure to share space with victims of chainsaw accidents and kids who'd tried to catch baseballs with their incisors. I crawled up the slope and was helped into the house by a friend, whom I instructed to "bring me a pillow and an ice bag, two big ibuprofens and a shot of whiskey." Hey, the old doctors knew a thing or two about medicinal alcohol. The ibuprofen took care of the pain, the whiskey settled the mildly shockey feelings I was experiencing, and the couch was comfortable. I was good for the night, till I could limp into the clinic and xray my aching ankle the next morning.

Later that next day I sat in the orthopedic specialist's office. A radiology tech approached me and said "I can't believe you took those xrays in a veterinary clinic!" I braced myself for a lecture and said "Oh really? Why not?"

"Because," he said, "you wouldn't believe the junk we get from some doctor's offices. Your x-rays, however, are excellent!"

Once in a while it's nice to be vindicated.

An End of Winter Tale

2010-03-20T17:09:00.000-07:00

On this beautiful day of the vernal equinox - that is to say, the first day of spring - I had hoped to be able to wax joyful about the beauties of the season, but instead I find that what I want, in fact actually need to write about is, instead, what happened at the closing of the last day of winter.

Occasionally there wanders through the clinic door a pet among hundreds which, for some reason or other, becomes very dear to me. Mind you, I enjoy most of my patients, even a fair share of the grumpy ones, but these elect few - I call them "my Feel-Good Patients" - are cats or dogs for whom I almost feel compelled to actually pay their owners because of the sheer bliss that envelopes me when I'm in their presence. It's better than a therapy session. Are they Old Souls? The reincarnation of past pets, or even humans, that I once loved? I'll never know, but I'll tell you this -to me, as well as to their owners, they are special.

There was Terra Wright the old female boxer who could have given humans lessons on how to be WalMart greeters; she would stand in my waiting room wagging her stub-tipped rump and displaying a grin that seemed to split her head in half, thrilled to pieces that other patients and their humans were acknowledging her. She was cheerful to the last, even when that grin displayed the horrible oral tumor that refused to be completely removed despite numerous surgeries.

There was Max Scott, the huge, rumbling tiger cat who lay graciously on my exam table like it was his personal throne, purring with pleasure even as I palpated the cancerous mass over his shoulders that would ultimately take his life.

There was Babe Fuller, the boisterous Doberman girl who succeeded ladylike Doberman Boots and was nonetheless the pride and joy of her sometimes exasperated owner - who had been certain no dog on the planet could have replaced Boots, until he met Babe.

And then there was Morgan.

Personal friends among the readers of this post will of course remember the dreadful week last May when we lost Pete, our 6 year old yellow lab, to intestinal cancer. Pete was my dog-in-a-million, my best canine friend who'd seen me through some mighty tough times, and in the words of a song my husband wrote, been "my angel, my confidante and clown." We were devastated when he became ill, and many clients, among them Morgan's owners, grieved with us at his passing. Morgan and Pete had been young labs together, rowdily socializing when their paths crossed at the clinic and - maybe - teaching each other some manners in the process. Pete liked blondes, and Morgan was a feminine little yellow retriever, with deep dark eyes that squinted whenever she was gazing happily into your face, which was pretty much all the time.

About a month ago Morgan's owners, John and Angie Carr, brought her in to the clinic for a checkup, noting that she had been "vomiting off and on." The Carrs never ignored anything to do with Morgan's health, because we had dealt with chronic allergy issues over the years and they were always quick to bring her in to see me if there was something wrong. Morgan looked good, sitting at attention as always when I came into the room, wagging happily and grinning her doggy grin, fixing her eyes as usual on mine, her seasonal bandanna tied stylishly around her neck. She always made me feel like she was looking into my soul. I gave her a hug - you couldn't NOT hug Morgan - and checked her out. "It's probably something simple to do with her allergies," I said, "but let's do some baseline bloodwork since she's 'middle aged' now and be sure nothing major is going on."

And that is when the nightmare started. I felt my heart dropping as I looked at the printout of her bloodwork. Crap. Oh, crap. She was in kidney failure. Not borderline, not "maybe she's a little dehydrated from the vomiting". Full blown, evil, ugly, goddamit-all-to-hell kidney failure.

I still grasped at straws. We did a urinalysis and it confirmed the worst. We sent the urine off to our reference lab in case there was some freak error in the results. No error. We started palliative treatment for kidney disease - restricted protein diets, neutraceuticals to promote kidney function - and consulted our local specialist, who went out of his way to keep up with the case, even making phone calls to HIS colleagues to try and confirm what we knew was happening: Morgan's immune system was killing her kidneys, and that was killing her.

Despite the phenomenally high numbers indicating the rapidly progressing deterioration of her kidneys, Morgan dismayed all her medical providers by "acting good." Angie would report that she seemed a little tired at times but was still happy, "still Morgan." Until last week, when she called me in tears. We were down to some last-ditch, do-or-die treatments, heavy doses of steroids, and they weren't working. "She isn't feeling good now," Angie told me and asked, "how will we know?"

I'm asked that a lot, and yet I never feel like I've answered that question well. Sometimes, if I know the clients, I can say, "you'll have to tell me. You live with your pet, and I only see her when she's stressed or ill." Other times it's "well, when she has more bad days than good days, it's probably time." Sometimes - in all honesty - I say, "look, I'm the worst putter-offer there is. I've had to go to my Mom, even after all this time as a vet, and ask her if I'm doing the right thing, when it's one of my own pets." The bottom line is there's no easy answer, and there are almost always moments of uncertainty. As grieviously ill as Morgan was becoming, I had to say there was "no bad time."

The whole sickening experience was doubly bad for me because it was like losing Pete all over again - a relatively young yellow lab, an insidiously progressing illness - oh, God. I knew exactly how awful the end of this winter was for the Carrs, because I'd been through the same thing myself not quite a year ago. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

Last night at the beginning of evening office hours, the call came that I'd been dreading all week. Angie said it "was time." We scheduled the Carrs' appointment last, and the evening passed all too quickly for me, knowing that was hanging over my head. I stepped into the exam room and there sat Morgan, squinting her happy greeting at me. She looked a little rough, but not nearly as bad as I'd imagined. I guess her soul was shining through, and she was still beautiful little Morgan. I dropped to my knees and hugged her. How could you NOT hug Morgan? I could feel her body swaying with the wagging of her tail. I whispered that I was sorry she was so sick, and told her that she would soon feel better, and that Pete was waiting to play with her again.

Have you seen the recent hit movie Avatar? In it, the tall blue Na'avi, natives of the planet in danger, are able to unite their consciousness with that of other life forms in nature by means of a connection in the end of their long braided hair. We don't use our hair - but I know where the place of connection is in Labrador Retrievers - it's that sloping, dished-out concavity between their eyes. You lay your cheek right there, close your eyes, breathe. It doesn't matter if the tears you shed roll down across their muzzle - they don't mind. Pete never minded. Morgan didn't mind. Did she know what was up? How could I bear to face her, knowing I was about to end her life? And she had always trusted me. Can you imagine how hard moments like these are for me, knowing as you may how I feel about these lovely creatures, precious pets, treasured friends?

And yet....and yet, I wouldn't have it any other way. Somehow it's a privilege to be there for a family at times like these, knowing they trust me to walk them through this final step in a pets life as - in so many lucky cases - I have been able to walk them successfully through all the other steps, right from the squirmy, wiggly little puppy and kitten beginnings.

And so I brace myself one more time to do the task that is asked of me. I will tell you that with Morgan the technical aspects of the act went as perfectly I could have wanted. Morgan went peacefully to sleep in the arms of her family, and we all cried and hugged each other and said goodbye. She will be cremated and her ashes returned to her family, and somewhere out there I want to believe a star is burning a little brighter with the light from Morgan's beautiful , twinkling eyes.

I pulled myself together to make a housecall and vaccinate the crew of pets belonging to dear friends who understood how I felt, which helped, even though the playing of Blue Oyster Cult's song "Don't Fear The Reaper" on the truck radio as I arrived at their house caused me to dissolve into tears again.

So today when I got up, prepared to greet spring in all its glory, I went for my walk and in passing Pete's grave wept some more, knowing this morning when the Carrs awoke, their house was silent - no ear-flapping, no heavy, hah-hah-hah panting that researchers tell us is the equivalent of laughter in a dog, no toenails ticking along the floor. No smiling Morgan waiting to help them through the day with all the enthusiasm that a lab is capable of sharing with her beloved people. But perhaps there is the consolation of knowing that she is not sick any more, and that no matter where she is, she will always be their special dog.

Out here along my walking trail, the buds are swelling on the bushes, and soon the green mist of infant foliage will fill the woods. The daffodils are nearly ready to bloom. For the rest of my life, these lovely spring flowers will remind me of that sprightly, wonderful, Feel-Good yellow dog who always made me smile. Rest easy, Morgan, and give Pete a kiss from me.

Adventures in Continuing Education - the Midwest Veterinary Conference

2010-03-03T04:17:00.000-08:00

So. It is early March, still wintry outside (my anxiously-anticipated ride in the sunshine yesterday morning was cut short by thick grey clouds and a bitter wind - rats...) and though the mega-icicles are gone piles of ugly used snow remain behind and the kitchen window is liberally smeared with muddy dog pawprints. But...the birds are singing with increasing vigor, the ponies are beginning to shed (Advice: never stand downwind of a pony you are grooming during the shedding season if you are wearing chapstick....), and that most important harbinger of spring, at least in the Wheel of MY Year - THE CONVENTION - has come and gone.

"The Convention," also referred to as "the OVMA" by us vintage vets (OSU '88, GO BUCKS!), is the annual end-of-February, four day veterinary medical extravaganza that takes place in downtown Columbus Ohio at the Hyatt Regency Convention Center. As the veteran-veterinarian (sorry but I couldn't resist that) of many such events (I think I've only missed one) I take some delight in observing its growth and changes over the years since OSU spit me out on an unsuspecting animal population.

A word about the name(s) - formally this event is now called The Midwest Veterinary Conference; it is put on by the Ohio Veterinary Medical Association and was known as "The OVMA Convention" back in the days when I attended as a buggy-eyed, wet-behind-the-ears vet student, bent mainly on picking up bag after bag full of samples of pet food, pens, IV fluid rate guides and assorted other "swag." Along with similar events throughout the country at various times of the year (e.g. North American Veterinary Conference in Florida in January) "the Convention" provides us with hours and hours of presentations ranging from the extremely useful "Pearls of Wisdom" seminars to the questionable ("Aligning Your Chi" Cheeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....) to the coma-inducing (which titles I won't mention at the risk of offending a specialist from whom I may need to solicit advice, but which generally have the term "Metabolism" in the title, a red flag for a seminar guaranteed to be chock full with (*yawn*) charts and graphsssszzzzzzzzz. (Photos - I want photos!! Give me tumors the size of baseballs, wounds into which you can insert your entire hand , kidneys shriveled up like raisins! 'Cause ya know what one picture is worth, yes??) Regardless of our choice of sessions, the hours are totalled and eventually sent in to prove to the State Office Of Powers that Be that we have indeed been good children and racked up the required biannual 30 Continuing Education hours.

(All sarcasm aside, I have been to some really excellent lectures, most of which leave me either a) excited to try new techniques, b)satisfied that I've handled a case correctly or c)more than a little relieved that it IS possible for someone with a more advanced degree than mine to, well, screw up from time to time).

That said, and pushing on..Oh, my, how "the OVMA" as we old farts often still refer to it, has changed. First and foremost - you can now not only register online in the relative comfort of your jammies - you can also get the notes for the classes you wish to attend ahead of time off the website, print them out, and if you are STILL a gunner like you were in vet school ( you know who you are, and in answer to your question, NO, I WASN'T!), you can study them ahead of time. Of course all this goes to waste if a late-February snowstorm leaves your speaker stranded in an airport in, say, Dubuque (I like that word), but it's generally worth the gamble, if only to keep your hand from becoming permanently cramped, and let's face it, it's been a long time since I exercised those muscles that enabled me to take pages of notes for hours on end. Scribbling in patients' charts now is alleviated by the occasional Rottweiler-wrestling session, after all. At least having printed notes prevents writers' cramp by leaving only a limited amount of space in which to scribble, and in fact as often as not my margins are occupied by either swirling doodles or remarks that may eventually be turned into literary masterpieces such as the one you are perusing at the moment. (Butt-cramp, however, is still a problem which I have not entirely sorted out and which, with advancing years, will probably only get worse.)

In the last century, attendees to the conference were presented with a bound book- or books- of printed notes that weighed - and I'm not exaggerating - about 15 lbs, maybe more. Of course if your car was parked in the convenient Hyatt parking garage you could dump the extraneous notes (and swag) and lighten your load periodically but parking farther away - and more on THAT in a minute!! - meant that you were destined to lurch through the convention center like an overburdened camel until you could find enough time to hike to your vehicle and divest yourself of the excess.

About that parking garage: to my knowledge it has not undergone any significant construction to lower the parking levels, yet for the first time this year I was informed that my pickup truck was too high to park in the garage. WTF?!? "I've been parking in here for 20 years!" I told the attendant, who was unimpressed and said over an obnoxious mechanical buzzing noise, "It won't let you park here now." ( What the hell's IT? WHO the hell's IT? Do I need to sacrifically let some air out of my truck tires in deference to IT so that IT will let me park in the garage again?)

Well. It would be simpler to just drive the Honda and let Keith borrow the truck, but I like a my big, gas sucking pickup on I-70 so that tooling down the road at 70 mph I am not in as much danger of being swept away by truckers going 90. So be it. I parked in the hinterlands this year beyond BF Egypt and soothed myself with the notion that at least all that hiking would help alleviate Seminar Butt Cramp ("SBC" - we veterinarians like abbreviations. As you may imagine, we have a whale of a time with license plate letters).

The Conference - since I've been attending - has always been in the Hyatt Regency Convention Center in downtown Columbus, a location which I like for several reasons: it is right across the street from a remarkable emporium known as the Yankee Trader, wherein one can purchase all sorts of ephemera from MardiGras beads to fake anatomy parts (plastic boobs and gluteal enhancements predominate) to rubber bugs and raffle tickets. Essentially it's a store for lawn fete prizes and similar stuff. So if you ever want a spongy, life size red brain, I know where to get one for you. I also like the Hyatt location because North Market just a block west of the Convention Center, enough of a walk, especially if there is a brisk breeze outside with a wind chill of -4 degrees, to clear your head, and enough distance to provide yet another emergency treatment for SBC. North Market has a remarkable assortment of food counters, both foreign and domestic; some of the best popcorn in Ohio; and ice cream to die for. Bonus: the people watching's great. Last year I observed a young guy at the salsa/hot sauce shop, asking for the "hottest sauce" the shop owner had. She smeared some pasty green stuff on a cracker and he tucked in. He grew redder and sweatier as the seconds passed until finally his eyes had swollen shut and steam was rolling off his brow. "Man, is that good!" he choked. Now I'm a firm believer in the fact that food shouldn't hurt, but I had to try, so I dipped into the same sauce although my portion was admittedly a lot smaller - a little bigger than a fingernail paring. Pea-sized at best. And I wheezed and snorted and blew my nose all the way through the first two afternoon lectures on Gastrointestinal Emergency Surgeries. But I had to try! I'm not sure I'm a better person for it but I still hold with the philosophy that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." (I think that was discussed in Gastrointestinal Emergency Surgeries, incidentally....)

Earlier I mentioned the freebies - the layout of the convention encompasses many large and unexciting lecture rooms, but in the middle of it all is...(trumpets, please) The Trade Show. Row upon row of displays of specialized diets (with some samples, though not as much as there used to be), surgical equipment, drugs, supplements, supplies and (ooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh) BOOKS. Not to mention fun stuff such as shirts peddled by student organizations and, just in case you blasted out of town and forgot somebody's birthday or other critical event, a variety of critter jewelry.

Fun. I still get a little thrill out of looking over displays of polished, finely made surgical instruments - must be the silver and gold! - and of course the published material is hard to pass up. I shelled out several hundred dollars this year for a 2-volume updated set of internal medicine textbooks and when the guy said " is there anything else I can help you with?" I said "yes but it'd be hard to pack the whole rest of the display out of here." It's tough to choose! There's just something about new books...The depressing thing about the trade show, though, is all the cool new equipment that is just a tad beyond my reach, financially speaking, to purchase: Ultrasounds, digital x-ray units, flexible endoscopes (yes, those go just where you'd expect them to go....)...wow! Who WOULDN'T be an expert diagnostician with all those toys? The new technology is wonderful, amazing, superb...but it ain't cheap.

The conference, as I mentioned, lasts four days; I only attend the first two because my brain would explode if I tried to do this stuff for four days in a row. In addition, the first two days are quieter, less crowded, more relaxed - primarily because a lot of DVM's and staff are still working and only take the weekend off, but also because the rest of the convention center proper often is not fully occupied until some other event fills in the empty rooms. Most years recently our convention has overlapped some - well, for want of a better word, Cheerleaders' Conference. I don't know what the proper name for this event is, as I try desperately to be out the door before all available elevators are taken over by loads of quivering, overly made-up glittery little girls carrying pompoms and shepherded by overly made-up, equally glittery mothers with attitudes like German Shepherd Dogs. (There is glitter everywhere. EVERYWHERE. On the floors, on your clothes if you share the elevators with a herd of them..it even works its way into your luggage...). I will always wonder at the motivation that makes a woman WANT her elementary school child to dress and wear makeup that screams "slut!" It just ain't right...and I see it, year after year. So I try to be pelting down the highway headed for home late on a Friday afternoon before the first wave of sparklies hits the Hyatt door.

But the best, oh, by far the best conference "overlaps" were the years in the '90's when the vets congregated at the same time as - wait for it - The Arnold Schwartznegger Fitness event (extravaganza? circus?). We DVM's - with our practical haircuts, our work-worn hands, our late winter-pale skins and post-holiday office-cookie flab, found ourselves surrounded by PERFECT BODIES! It was amazing and not a little disconcerting! I remember going up in the elevator surrounded by these flawless women who all looked like versions of Barbie dolls, and since I am a FEMALE vet (sporting all of the above external characteristics) I have to say I just kind of huddled in the corner and oozed out the elevator door to my floor as unobtrusively as possible. The sights were pretty amazing - men with shoulders about 6' across - and there truly WERE "Arnold sightings" as well, though I wasn't among the elect on that score.

My most memorable moment of those convention years occurred early one Thursday morning; I had left the house at 5 a.m. and made the 2 hour drive with a little time to spare, so was moseying along the corridors from the Hyatt garage (yeah, THAT one) to the seminar rooms, idly observing the folks around me, while still in that early-morning, running-low-on-caffeine fog. I remember thinking how nice it was that the unofficial dress code of my student days - business suits and heels for the convention - had become more casual, such that nice jeans and boots had become perfectly acceptable. We could sit through the seminars in comfort, same as we had in vet school! Aaahh...and just look at that gal ahead of me, she's wearing....what is that, black lycra pants? Hmmm...and a slinky leopard-skin lycra top? What was up with her? And that guy with her (the one with the six food shoulders) - what the heck was he doing, wearing the same thing? And that kid with them, also dressed the same...wait a minute! (my fog was lifting...) That's not a kid! That's a DWARF!!! At this point my brain kicked in gear enough to say to the rest of me "what the hell's going on around here???" and I realized I was adrift in a current of weirdly-dressed people (OK, so I don't exactly hang out with body-builders...). About that time I passed the signs that welcomed Fitness Convention attendees, and it all made a sort of surreal sense - but suffice it to say we DVM's had a lot of fun that year.

Anyway, another year, another convention is in the bag; I got eleven of this year's 15 hours done and will pick up 2 more tonight at a dinner seminar on parasitology (this seems like a hell of a time to eat spaghetti, but it's at Bravo's, of all things...), and I got another hour's worth last night..sitting on the couch with my computer in my lap, tapping into an approved continuing education website for a seminar by one of my old OSU professors on Hyperadrenocorticism. And while the technology is better, the subject is as convoluted as it ever was - even if I'm relaxed enough to be wearing pajamas. Just not motivated to try the lycra, though.

World Equestrian Games Connemara Info Feb. 23, '10

2010-02-23T11:32:00.000-08:00

Laura Balding sent me the following information regarding taking ponies to the WEG - it is very concise and has a handy timetable - so have a look. Most significantly, added to what I previously posted is a requirement for Equine Piroplasmosis Testing (must be one by June 1st) AND the fact that documentation for vaccinating, deworming etc. must be sent to the Equine Village office beginning March 1st for influenza vaccinations! So...if you are at all interested - stay on top of the schedule!
Slainte -
Steph

Kentucky Department of Agriculture

World Equestrian Games - Non Competition Horses
Health & Vet Requirements
FEB 19, 2010
VERY IMPORTANT: FOR EACH FLU VACCINATION AND DEWORMER ADMINISTERED,
THE EQUINE VILLAGE WILL REQUIRE A LETTER OF CERTIFICATION FROM YOUR
VETERINARIAN LISTING THE SERIAL #, OR LOT #, AND EXPIRATION DATE, AND THE
NAME OF THE HORSE.
WHEN YOU SUBMIT THIS INFORMATION TO THE EQUINE VILLAGE OFFICE, PLEASE
BE SURE TO INDICATE THE NAME OF THE HORSE, THE OWNER, THE RIDER IF
DIFFERENT FROM THE OWNER, AND THE ASSOCIATION WITH WHICH THE HORSE IS
INVOLVED AT THE EQUINE VILLAGE.
1. INFLUENZA VACCINATIONS:
# 1. Each horse is required to be vaccinated between, January 15 – Feb 28
(The State Veterinarian has extended the date to Feb 28th.)
# 2. A booster administered between, August 1 - August 31, 2010
2. DEWORMING:
All horses are required to be administered a de-wormer, by a veterinarian, that will kill
ticks (an Acaricide). i.e. Ivermectin, doramectin or moxidectin, at a dose rate of
200mcg/kg.
#1. Administered between, March 1 – April 15, 2010
#2. Administered between, August 23 – September 6, 2010
3. CERTIFICATION OF VETERINARY INSPECTION (CVI):
Routine Health Certificate
Each horse is required to be accompanied with a valid certificate of Veterinary
Inspection – Stating the horse was examined by an accredited veterinarian during the
30 day period preceding entry onto the grounds and found to be free of evidence of
illness with and no knowledge of exposure to a communicable disease.
4. COGGINS: Equine Infectious Anemia Testing
A certificate showing the equine being presented for entry has been tested for equine
infectious anemia and been found negative. This testing will have occurred during the
preceding 12 month period. The EIA test certificate must fully and positively identify
the equine being presented for entry onto the Kentucky Horse Park.
The test should be conducted on a sample collected after November 1, 2009
5. EQUINE PIROPLASMOSIS: (EP)
The Kentucky State Veterinarians Office is directing that all non-competitive horses
stabled at or coming onto the grounds of the Kentucky Horse Park during the time of
WEG will require negative tests for Equine Piroplasmosis. Specifically the KY State
Veterinarians Office is directing that each horse be tested by C-ELISA for both
Theileria equi and Babesia caballi.
NOTE: Certification of negative results has to be returned to the Equine Village no
later than June 1, 2010 AND, also accompany each horse upon arrival at the
Kentucky Horse Park.
As of today, the USDA has only one laboratory (National Veterinary Services
Laboratory in Ames, IA) approved to conduct this testing, though consideration is
being given by USDA to approve additional laboratories to conduct this testing.
Practitioners submitting samples should coordinate submission of samples through
the USDA’s Area Veterinary Services office in the State where the horse is stabled.
A listing of these offices can be found at www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/area
offices/ Horses unable to provide proof of testing negative will be refused
entry on the grounds.
Administration and Due Dates
DOCUMENT DUE DATE AT
TYPE: ADMINISTRATION DATE: EQUINE VILLAGE OFFICE:
Influenza #1 between Jan 15 - Feb 28 March 5, 2010
Influenza #2 Booster between Aug 1 - 31 Sept 5, 2010
Deworming #1 between March 1 - April 15 May 1, 2010
Deworming #2 between August 23 - Sept 6 Sept 15, 2010
Certificate/Vet Inspection examined within 30 days of accompany horse
(Valid 30 day Certificate) date of entry to the Park. upon arrival
Coggins after November 9, 2009 accompanying horse
(good for one year) upon arrival
Equine Piroplasmosis/EP test anytime now June 1, 2010
(No grace period)
and accompany horse
At the time of entry onto the grounds each horse will be inspected and the accompanying
documentation examined for accuracy and verification of entry requirements. This procedure will be
performed by a KY Dept of Agriculture (KDA) Livestock Inspector or WEG qualified individual approved
by the KDA.
The Equine Village staff will be compiling a Health/Vet/Certificate dossier for each horse, identical to the
one you will have with you. It is essential we have all documents in our office on the dates requested.
Note: Any replacement or reserve horses must have completed the Health Vet/Certification process as
set out above. No exceptions will be made. No horse will be accepted onto the Park without this
documentation. Here are the contact numbers for The Equine Village Office.
EQUINE VILLAGE FAX: 859-259-4206 PHONE: 859-259-4264/4290
MAILING ADDRESS: Kentucky Horse Park
Equine Village
4089 Iron Works Parkway
LEXINGTON, KY 40511
ATTN: Kathy Hopkins
NOTE: In addition to the health standards set forth here and required, owners should consult
their veterinarians for additional guidance
.

Living the Big Bang Theory

2010-02-16T08:30:00.000-08:00

Recently we discovered the CBS comedy show that airs Monday nights called The Big Bang Theory (ok, so it's in its third season; we're kind of late-blooming fans on this one!). This has become my favorite show since the best days of Friends, and in some ways it's better because while it's a bit difficult to relate to young, beautiful people living in NYC, it's not too much of a challenge to understand the geek/nerd/dork humor when you, well, live it, along with your friends and loved ones. To wit, the following examples:

One, I am sitting at Mom's kitchen table relating the subject of a meeting I attended recently. Among the committee members were - besides Yours Truly - a bank officer, a doctor, and a Ph.D. from Miami. Mom and Keith asked about my contribution to the discussion and I said, "I really didn't have much to say. I'm kind of intimidated being in the presence of people who have "Dr." in front of their names." Pause. "Oh, wait...that's me." Such is my perception of myself...

Two, I email a friend (and by the term "Friend" I also include him in the subset of my acquaintances you could label "Geek/Nerd/Dork" - and as he is a self-proclaimed geek I am sure he will a) not mind and b)recognize himself....anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I emailed him to ask if HE ever watched Big Bang Theory and you know what his answer was? I quote, for posterity: "I have not seen Big Bang Theory; it comes on at about the time I have regular session of online gaming each week." The response was better than I could have hoped - in fact, classic! Could something scripted in a BBT episode be any MORE geeky? Or in the words of Chandler Bing from Friends, "could that BE any more ironic?"

Finally, last night I was standing outside on the patio with Keith, looking at the snow (still) coming down and at the prodigious icicles hanging off Mom's house. Despite the cold temperatures (a given, since it was snowing!) and blowing wind, the icicles were melting, to which the quiet but persistant drip -drip -drip
bore witness. "Oh look, " I said in wonder "it's melting! But how can this be happening? Is it a sign that despite everything (i.e. snow up to our eyeballs!) spring's coming?" (Ok, so that was a "duh" moment for me...). Keith, ever the rational one, looks up and goes, "no, it's because your mom's roof is warm under the snow." He missed the moment! We could have done a Rite of Spring dance - or something.

But of course he was right.

Gotta love it.

A Winter Poem

2010-02-16T07:18:00.000-08:00

or...the facts of life in the country when you have animals:

Frozen turds in the snow -
In winter it's this way, you know:

Horses poop, doggies eat -
It's evolutions frozen treat!
Can't resist em, aren't they sweet?

(Dogs I mean, not frozen turds)
But I can't seem to find the words
for their post-prandial doggie breath -
It truly is the Kiss of Death!

World Equestrian Games Connemara Info

2010-02-13T11:35:00.000-08:00

Hi Folks - glad to see our Team Connemara Facebook page is getting a following. I apologize for having to link you to my personal blog (sounds very self-aggrandizing, doesn't it?) but this was the quickest method I could come up with for disseminating this time-sensitive information to you.

First: The ACPS folk who are organizing our display for the World Equestrian Games are looking for suitable ponies to exhibit. If you think you have a pony that will make the grade, please consider tossing his/her "hat in the ring." See the ACPS website (www.acps.org) for more info and deadlines.

Second: Be aware that there is a timetable for appropriate vaccinations and other health care issues. I'll try to simplify the FEI and Kentucky Horse Park (KHP) Regulations:

KHP: Non-competition horses (i.e. demo models!) brought onto the grounds must comply with FEI rules governing influenza (flu) vaccination protocols. More on that in a minute.

KHP: These horses must be certified by a licensed veterinarian that the horse coming in meets these standards for vaccination.

KHP: Each horse must have a Valid 30 Day Certificate of Veterinary Inspection when entering the park. This must also have attached a valid negative Coggins test certificate from the preceeding 12 month period (i.e. done within 12 months prior to the WEG).

KHP: Each horse must have a valid certification (form to be provided by the WEG Veterinary Committee) stating that the horse has been dewormed with Ivermectin during the 21 day period preceeding the animal's entry onto the Park's grounds (primarily this is for tick control, since ticks are a vector for Equine Piroplasmosis).

KHP: All documentation needed by September 5, 2010. The veterinarians will need to submit SERIAL AND LOT NUMBER AND EXPIRATION DATE FOR FOR EACH AND EVERY INFLUENZA VACCINE GIVEN.

FEI: Horses intending to participate must have an initial primary course of two infuenza vaccinations given between 21 and 92 days apart, folowed by a third dose given 6 months + 21 days after the date of the second primary dose. The last booster must have been given within 6 months (+ 21 days to allow for vaccination requirements to fit in the competition schedule) of the event.

FEI: No vaccination shall be given within 7 days of the day of arrival at the event.

FEI: Horses that had a proper "primary course" of vaccination prior to Jan 1st 2005 (CHECK WITH YOUR VET!) do not need the 2 initial vaccine series as long as they have a booster 6 months (+21 days) prior to the event. You must have documentation of the pony's vaccines!

FEI: All proprietary equine influenza vaccines are acceptable regardless of the route of administration.

FEI: ALL VACCINES MUST BE ADMINISTERED BY A VETERINARIAN.

******************************************

Those are the salient points for us Connemara people. I have just spoken to Laura Balding, who is on the committee designated to decide which Connemaras will be brought to the WEG for display/demonstration purposes. The committee has been determined that that first flu vaccine must be given on or before Feb 15th (that's Monday, folks); it is suggested that you then fax your veterinarian's statement of vaccination (a written statement on his/her letterhead) to the committee c/o Laura Balding @ 636-441-8387.

The committee would also like to see your videos, photos, and other information about your pony ASAP (preferably by March 1st), according to Laura. Given the fact that some of us can only take "snow videos" of our ponies at this point, there is a little leeway (my only video was one done last year, the week after we had a death in the family, and I don't think my head was in the ideal spot for riding. However, Paddy tried his best to make up for the lack of initiative from the Control Tower, saintly pony that he is...).

Rule of thumb: You can never have too much information, OR documentation! Keep your records! This is a BIIIIGGGGGGGGGGG deal - !

So call your vet asap and get busy on those vaccinations. More info as it develops! Please feel free to post any info, questions etc. on the Team Connemara Facebook page and we'll address it as soon as we get the facts for you!
Best Regards,
Steph

Feb. 10th

2010-02-10T18:17:00.000-08:00

Jasper is 8 months old today!
Mostly had a "frittering day" - a couple errands: to the eye doctor for repair of spectacles (yes, "the dog ate my glasses"!), to WalMart for Kitty Litter (7 house cats, you don't want to run low on Kitty Litter), then home to do some little things (like not paying bills...), finally got out to ride Paddy in the snow. Very strange, these woods today - familiar paths not so familiar with the weight of the snow bending the trees this way and that. Silent riding, no hoofbeats with this much snow on the ground, but no deer to be seen - I expect they are bedded down in the valleys somewhere. Riding in the snow is fun, surreal, floaty. Paddy seemed to enjoy getting out. I rode bareback so at least the part of me sitting on his plushy back stayed warm.

Snow In Winter 4

2010-02-10T17:54:00.000-08:00

(There will be some sort of bridging between the last chapter and this part, but I wanted to get this down........)

“I used to be a hunter,” the centaur said reflectively, shortening his stride to match Annie’s as they paced along the trail. “Not like in the old pictures you see, with the longbows or recurves; I had the latest compound model, the best you could buy, laser sights, the works. I tried to be a conscientious hunter – never made a shot unless I had a clear view of the target, made sure I didn’t leave any animals wounded, used the meat, the hide….I didn’t let anything go to waste. Obeyed the rules.”

“You have rules here?” said Annie in surprise.

“Oh, it wasn’t here” he said “it was----“ he gestured in the direction they had come from. “It was there – that world, your world. I was, well, all human then. Anyway,” he shook his head and wiped a hand over his face, “one autumn day - like every autumn day – I was hunting, of course, only this day I saw something I’d never seen before. A white buck – beautiful. He must have been, I don’t know, twelve or fourteen points at least. He was huge. I had to have him. We were up on some bluffs a little way south of here. I followed him but he stayed just inside the line of trees along the ridge , like he knew I was there. He seemed to drift from cover to cover, like he wasn’t quite real.”

He sighed and continued. “But he WAS real. I could see his hoofprints in the dirt beneath the trees where the wind had swept away the leaves; he stopped to rub his antlers on a tree and when I passed it the strips of bark that had peeled off were fluttering in the breeze. I could smell his scent.

“You ever hunt?” he asked abruptly. Annie shook her head.

“Then you can’t really imagine it, what it’s like when you’re stalking something like this. I don’t even know if I can describe what it feels like – but the sensation is visceral, primal. Your senses are sucking up every stimulus as fast as they can and sending them all pounding into your brain at once – you feel the slightest changes in the terrain under your feet, you hear every leaf that you brush in passing, the light is so intense you find yourself squinting, probably because adrenaline is dilating your pupils, you smell and taste the cold air , the sap of the trees, the odor of the buck. When everything’s right it seems like you stop existing in a clumsy human body and instead are nothing more than a whisper on the wind. It’s a feeling every hunter knows once in a while; some, if they’re lucky, more frequently than others. It’s a rush like nothing else you can imagine, and you want it every time you go out.”

“So THAT’S what it is,” Annie murmured, and then glanced up. He was looking at her intently, willing her to understand. “Most hunters I know, they don’t talk about it that much. They just speak about how much they love being outdoors and enjoying nature. But that’s what they’re trying to say, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “ Yes. Anyway, I kept following this buck, hoping for a clear shot, and finally I got one, or so I thought. Maybe I was too eager; I just knew I couldn’t lose him. He stopped beneath the trees at the edge of a gulley, you know, where runoff has washed out the land between the bluffs. He looked like he was going to jump, but then he turned and stared at me. I know he saw me – his ears flicked back and forth and then his head turned in my direction and he flicked his tongue out, trying to find my scent. I was in camo, of course, and didn’t move a hair, didn’t even breathe, but I’ll swear he KNEW I was there. Then he turned his head back toward the gulley and I could see that he was gathering himself to jump, so I drew back my bow and took the shot. It caught him in the air and I was filled with this indescribable excitement - and then I realized as I saw him fall that he was going to go all the way to the bottom of the valley. He crumpled in the air and disappeared from my view, but I charged off after him, bouncing down the slope with the roots tearing at my clothes and gravel grinding into my hands as I went down.” He looked down at his palms as if the cuts and abrasions were still fresh and bleeding.

“Did you find him?” Annie asked as he paused.

“Oh yes, he was there." A shiver passed across the horse hide of the centaur's body, rippling the glossy coat. "He had come to a stop on a little sandbar at the edge of the stream, and I saw then that he wasn’t dead yet. His legs were moving slightly, as though he was still running, and his eyes, well, the one I could see that wasn’t ground into the sand – “ he grimaced - “was flickering back and forth. My shot was clean – the arrow was in his heart, I could see the shaft quivering with each beat, slower and slower until it finally stopped all together and the light left the eye. And then I saw he wasn’t white any longer – the hide had gotten spoiled in the fall, dirty and grass-stained, yellowed where he had lost his urine, and of course stained in blood.” He looked at her and shook his head, and his tail swished in the winter air. “He wasn’t white anymore,” he repeated, as if that explained it all.

Some Reflections On February

2010-02-08T04:17:00.000-08:00

February….I don’t have a lot of good things to say about the month of February. I maintain that its sole purpose is to be a placeholder, keeping the calendar symmetrical in much the same way that the chronologic hinterland between 3 and 4 a.m. keeps the face of the clock nicely balanced. Otherwise I’d really prefer to ignore it.

It’s not that nothing of interest occurs in February; on the contrary, Madison Avenue has fanned the flames of the once-simple feast of St. Valentine into a veritable marketing conflagration; men everywhere agonize over purchasing the perfect romantic gift for their sweethearts even as they are still paying off that perfectly romantic gift they bought at Christmas. And it’s true, the majority of the month is sandwiched between the media events of the Super Bowl at one end and the Academy Awards at the other, both extravaganzas providing us with several hours during which overpaid pop heroes bash against one other interspersed with – if the folks in the advertising world have been particularly creative - a few entertaining commercials.

Mardi Gras of course happens in February, too, but even in this day and age it is overshadowed by the fact that Fat Tuesday celebrations preceed six dreary weeks of Lent. Historically, legions of nuns exhorted hordes of Catholic school children – of which I was one – to give up candy, television, and in short just about anything that made the gloomy, interminable weeks at the end of winter the least bit enjoyable. Catholic guilt being the chronic condition that it is, I still feel compelled to observe Lent by, esstentially, “giving up stuff” (but I draw the line at coffee), and a real moral and theological challenge comes when Ash Wednesday falls before the chocolate bacchanalia that is Valentine’s Day in this household.

By February the cozy warmth of the fireplace has lost its novelty as we slog outside to the woods with yet another bucket of ashes and haul in yet another armload of firewood. Inevitably during this task we leave a trail of bark fragments and other woodsy detritus across the living room floor that is of course hoovered up by considerate dogs who later upchuck it in the middle of the night, ideally within hearing range.

The cuteness of dogs playing in February snow is rapidly replaced by the drudgery of mopping up after them. And the mud, when it appears, is even worse than the snow. There is a peculiar, intensely sticky quality to February pasture mud . If you aren’t careful a misstep into a waterlogged horse track will suck the boot right off your foot, leaving you teetering helplessly on the foot that remains shod, desperately fighting for your balance as you try to locate, and step back into, the wayward boot without soaking your sock in the cold muck (because once your sock is soaked putting it back into the boot and squishing disconsolately back to the house is just, in a word, gross).

Bright, glittery holiday clothing has long since been put away, to be replaced by boots, long underwear, and that essential item of Southwest Ohio farm haute couture, Carhartt Coveralls. The new boot purchase that makes my day does not involve Manolos or Jimmy Choos, but instead a basic black rubber pair on whose box is emblazoned “ The Original Muck Boot Company.” My most recent purchase was known as “Chore” – yes, they have model names, same as any department store slinky stiletto . In perusing the Original Muck Boot Company website, I discovered that there are dozens of styles, in businesslike shades of black and olive (Farm and Ranch styles), camo (hunter models, of course) and in colors such as “Dusty Pink” and “Plum Vine” for the garden . Presumably gardeners dress more cutely than we farm/ranch types. Is there crossover? Is there a hot pink plaid Chore boot? There should be. I’d buy a pair. And what are we to think about styles with names such as “Hoser” and “Woody Max?”

I recently read that adding as little as 9 lbs of weights to an exercise vest worn while walking helps burn calories and increase bone density. While internet surfing on a recent snowy Sunday , I googled weighted vests for exercise and found models with prices ranging from about $30 up. I then took my winter horse-feeding clothes and muck boots to the clinic and weighed the pile on the dog scales. Thirteen-point -nine pounds (this did not include the bottle of hot water I carry to thaw out the barn cats water dish). I’ve got it made! At this rate I should reach my ideal weight …around the end of August, although I’m going to look pretty funny wearing Carhartts and Muck boots and slogging through the woods when it’s 95 degrees out.

In truth, not all is drudgery in February. Along about this time every year the desire to meet signs of impending spring head on (and to drop a pant size or two in the process) impels me to start hiking. The sun grows a little stronger each day. Robins start to appear. True, they sit around looking disgusted, as if one of the group is saying “all right, who said we were supposed to take a left and head north at Atlanta?” Eventually the doves and cardinals start singing – I love the irony in this: those sounds that give us so much pleasure which are in fact territorial challenges. I picture a cardinal perched on a branch announcing with his best DeNiro snarl, “my tree, my chicks. You want a piece of ME?!”

This longing for spring after weeks of cold and darkness probably dates back as far as the history of human occupation in cold climates. It’s likely that nomadic tribesmen asked themselves essentially the same questions as the migrating robins: All right, we obviously though Og knew what he was doing when he said turn left and head north at Lascaux. I say we eat him now.” In medieval and renaissance times, treatises of farming lore known as manuals of husbandry described February tasks that including sorting seed (which reminds me, it’s time to get out the seed catalogs, even as the mercury drops and the snow flies). One Thomas Tusser, in the mid-1500’s, reminded fellow Englishmen that Feb. was a time to repair fence, clean barns and fertilize the pastures. Some 75 years later Nicholas Breton noted that “the husbandman falls afresh to scouring his plowshares.” One detects a common thread in these tasks: they are performed either outdoors or in the stables or barns. I suspect that this was because by February, medieval housewives simply could not stand the presence of their husbands lollygagging in the house another minute and essentially threw them out as soon as it was humane to do so. “Aethelred! Get your fleabitten ass off that wolfskin rug and out to the stable before I shovel you out!”

Oh well. As Nicholas Breton notes: “There is hope of a better time not farre off.”

Team Connemara

2010-02-04T04:17:00.000-08:00

“Hey! Is THAT a CONNEMARA?!” yelled a voice from somewhere in the vicinity of my right stirrup . I was waiting to enter the ring at a local horse show that summer day and I nearly fell off Paddy in surprise; could it be that someone out there actually knew what he was, rather than guessing Arabian, Quarter Horse or “ I-Have-No-Idea”? I turned in the saddle and recognized fellow pony rider Martha Slamer, and we simultaneously cracked up. Obviously she was a kindred spirit who had been through the same kind of quizzing. We chatted for a few minutes and then went on to show in our respective classes.

For over 30 years my riding experiences had consisted mainly of pounding the local trails with a variety of gaited horses. I suppose you might call what happened next a midlife crisis, except that it wasn’t traumatic; on the contrary, the idea occurred to me out of the blue one day that I ought to consider a complete change of pace: purchasing a Connemara Pony. I soon found myself at Grey Haven Farm outside of Middletown, Ohio - as luck would have it, barely 2 miles from my house. It is my sincere belief that the farm’s owner, my friend Brenda Kiniyalocts, was channeling the spirit of some long-dead matchmaker.

“You might like Paddy,” she said, considering me thoughtfully . This was in the spring of 2004; I was looking for a nice, steady mount for competitive trail rides after my current partner, Ebony, was diagnosed with early navicular disease. Brenda brought out a lovely bay four year old gelding with a little bit of bling splashed down his face in the shape of an irregular blaze, and bloodlines that included Springledge Irish Whiskey, the Connemara stallion that completed the 100 mile Tevis Cup endurance ride eight times. The rest, as the saying goes, is history. Paddy ( formally, Grey Haven Padraig MacDaire - Grey Haven Colin O’Patrick x Maplehurst Leah MacDaire) has been my trusted partner in a variety of activities ever since.

“You should meet Martha Slamer, “ Brenda the matchmaker said a few months later. “She lives close to you, and I think you’d really like each other. You’d learn a lot from her.” This pronouncement took place at the 2004 Region V Connemara show in Edinburgh, Indiana, the the first region show I attended with Paddy (and gosh , were we ever newbies!). Brenda pointed out a tall, thin rider who was methodically convincing a tall, thin pony that he really did want to perform a dressage test. I promised Brenda that I would look her up, but it was a busy show and the only times my path crossed Martha’s at that event were during the classes in which she soundly trounced me.

I regret to say the exact details of that momentous occasion when Martha and I actually made it a point to get acquainted have been lost to history but I believe it was when she approached me and uttered those fateful words, “Hey, is that a Connemara?!” In any case, eventually we both heeded Brenda’s prodding enough to schedule a trail ride together, and glory be, we rode alike! There was no dinking around at a walk, no getting off the horse to pick up a penny – we flew around the 11-mile trail loop like the two middle-aged bats out of hell, laughing and chatting all the way. Our ponies barely had time to sniff noses; but I think at the time Martha was still riding Sam (Foothill’s Houston: Balmullo’s Beacon x Foothill’s River Queen), the young grey gelding I had seen her on at the Region show. We talked a lot about competitive trail riding and she thought she might like to try it , so the following summer I guided her through the particulars of a local novice ride of about 15 miles. We placed respectably and had a great time, so much so that we began discussing future outings. Modesty prevents me from mentioning exactly who came up with the name, but at about that time “Team Connemara” was born.

Martha took Paddy in hand the summer I got married, introducing him to the sport of eventing. They placed successfully in several recognized horse trials while I was dealing with trials of another sort (moving a husband - and his stuff - from New Jersey to Ohio). Even more impressive was the fact that it was Martha who finally managed to convince me to take up dressage, a discipline with which I have a love-hate relationship to this day - but it has definitely made Paddy a better mount, and me a better rider. I always swore I’d never do it, but here we are, white breeches and all.

If we had to write a statement of purpose, I would say that Team Connemara – Martha, me, sometimes Martha’s daughter Sarah, my faithful Paddy and whatever ponies the Slamers are training at the time – exists to “get the ponies out there.” In addition to competitive trail rides, we have teamed up for nearby hunter pace and chase events and traveled to countless local shows, where once in a while now, if I work hard enough and the stars are aligned correctly, I even beat Martha ( which is kind of sweet!). On occasions when we could all get our acts together, we’ve traveled to more distant venues, including our memorable trip to the Midwest Connemara Breeders’ Show in Peotone Illinois last summer (that time Team Connemara also included two of the Slamers’ dogs; one cat stowaway – obviously a Team Connemara wannabe – was unceremoniously ushered back to the farm from their truck when she was discovered, about 10 yards out of the driveway….). We’ve amassed great memories – the Illinois show’s successes were nicely topped off watching Journey power Martha over 3’6” fences in the Gamblers’ Choice competition; my “most fun” moment this year came during a schooling show as I was cantering through the courtesy circle prior to jumping a course: hearing a teenage girl exclaim, as only a teenage girl can, “that pony is sooooooooooooooooooooo cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute!!!” To which I thought in answer “and he can jump, too. Watch this!” Through a variety of competitions and challenges we have become true believers in the Connemara breed: their handiness, their versatility and above all their self-posessed sanity and reasonable attitude. What great ponies! Added bonus: we’ve also become real friends.

Which brings us up to Team Connemara version 4.0. Wonderful Paddy is still hauling me over jumps and trails; Martha now owns Loughlin’s Journey (Rosemont Irish Abbey x Elphin April Showers), and is bringing along Springhill’s Liam (Annilaun Oscar x Chilham Eclipse); Sarah is training her halfbred filly Lark’s Gamin, sired by Brenda Kiniyalocts’ stallion *Robuck and out of Sarah’s thoroughbred mare Malarky. (We have all become “horse-in-laws” around here: this one owns that horse – so and so’s gelding’s brother – who’s being trained for someone else, who’s boarding that one’s horse till it’s sold, - etc. It’s more convoluted than a line of Celtic knotwork, but if you hang around long enough, it all begins to make sense). Just a few months ago Brenda gave me “the matchmaker look” again and said “You’d really like Lily. She’s very special and I would love for her to have a good home.” And because I’ve learned to pay attention to Brenda, it wasn’t long before 9 year old dapple grey Hillside Lily Brown (*Bobby Brown x Moxley Cream Soda) had moved in, stepping into her role of Queen of the Pasture as though it were tailor-made for her, bossing the boys around like any self-respecting mare should do. With her quick ways and all-business attitude, she promises to be a whole other kind of fun.

What’s next for this intrepid group of Connemara fans? Stay tuned! We’re hoping to move up and out this year. We’ll be checking out some nearby A-rated hunter/jumper shows – in fact, we’ve got a “recon mission” planned soon, to see what that level requires in terms of tack, clothing, etc. (“It will probably cost money,” Steph realized with a resigned sigh…….). If all goes well, we’ll be loading up the camper again for some distant venues too. And if we’re lucky enough to be chosen, you just might meet us among those who serve as representatives of the breed at the World Equestrian Games at Kentucky Horse Park this year. So keep your eyes peeled for those “Team Connemara” shirts . And if you hear someone yelling , “HEY – is that a CONNEMARA?” followed by hysterical cackling laughter, don’t worry – it’s us!

(Note: for more information on this wonderful breed, go to the American Connemara Pony Society website: http://www.acps.org)

Snow In Winter 3

2010-02-01T04:00:00.000-08:00

Snow In Winter 3

The snowstorm had blown itself out overnight and the dark sky was spangled with stars when Annie let the dogs out early the next morning. All five of them crammed themselves simultaneously out the door and plunged happily into the white drifts. The wind had died, too, and she could hear roosters crowing two roads over as she made her way out to feed the horses a short while later. The sun was still below the horizon but was nonetheless painting the east a brilliant orange, the neighboring outbuildings and leafless trees silhouetted blackly in the distance. The frozen grass crunched under her boots. One of the barn cats was loitering by the path as usual, waiting to be scooped up and borne ceremoniously to the warmth of the hay loft. The cat – her name was Flirt – seemed to think her self -appointed position was Warden of the Horses; she escorted them to the watering trough, stood guard over them as they grazed, and folded up beside them to nap in the sun when the weather permitted. She worked diligently, and evidently felt the transportation to the barn that Annie provided twice a day was her due.

Annie lifted the waiting cat automatically and buried her face in the thick, alfalfa-scented tiger fur. Flirt’s white paws kneaded her arm as she purred with pleasure, but Annie’s thoughts were elsewhere. After a restless night, the fresh cold air offered a bracing taste of reality. Annie had long ago realized she was something of a dreamer; she had come to the conclusion that there were some things she believed in because it was far more pleasant to do so than to accept the bleak alternatives. So, for example, each Christmas she set up a battered antique nativity scene on the server in the dining room. Did she truly buy into the notion that the Christian’s so-called savior had been born in a barn and that shepherds and camel-riding strangers had come bearing gifts at the behest of angels and a star to worship him? The imaginative side of her wanted it to be true, so therefore she would believe it happened. It was that simple, and besides, she personally felt a stable was rather a pleasant place to spend time anyhow. It beat the alternative of some overcrowded, bug -infested inn hands down.

But what about last night? Angels at the birth of Christ, maybe, but a tiny…what, a Pegasus?...on her exam room table was a little too….current. Strangers bearing mythical beasts, she decided as she took down a pocket knife from a wooden beam and cut the two strands of baling twine, just did not happen in this day and age. The leaves of hay in the bale sprung apart with a satisfying pop and the summery scent of dry grass filled the frigid air. This…this was all real, ponies in the stalls nickering for their breakfast, cats purring at her feet, dogs rummaging in the aisle for dropped horse treats, patients awaiting her ministrations at the clinic. She decided she had dreamed it, and neatly consigning the memory to some strange midnight misfiring of her subconscious, closed the barn doors and struck out toward the woods for her morning hike.

Following a trail cleared some years before for horseback riding, the path wound its way west to the corner of the property through a stand of hardwood trees whose dead leaves rustled under her feet. It then turned north and ran downhill through some smaller, scrubby vegetation before stretching up again through the tall oak, ash and shagbark hickory trees that made up most of the woods . It looped around a knob which overlooked a small valley. Glaciers melting in the area many thousands of years before had produced watercourses whose runoff knifed the land with small gullies and larger streambeds, and one of those streams had made the valley over which Annie gazed as she paused for breath at the top of the loop. Three small houses had been built along the road that bisected the valley; two had been inhabited for years by the same families, but the third and smallest of the houses had been recently sold after its elderly residents had moved to a local retirement community. The new owners, in late middle age and childless, had immediately begun making repairs to the rundown cottage on the bank of the stream with the result that it sported a newly exterior and landscaping which featured diligently propagated flower and vegetable plots. Outside the windows overlooking the creek a number of bird feeders had been hung from the nearby trees, and Annie could see that the sparrows, juncos, cardinals and blue jays who participated in the daily morning feeding frenzy had already arrived.

As she stood watching the placid scene, the door to the cottage opened and the man who lived there stepped outside, moving toward the bird feeders with a bag in one hand and a pan in the other. The birds fluttered around his shoulders as he filled the containers. After a time he seemed to become aware that Annie was watching him, and he turned and raised his hand in greeting. She waved back. Somehow that small acknowledgement was the link with reality that she needed, and she continued on her way back to her house in an easier frame of mind. “ ‘Whether you know it or not, the universe is unfolding as it should,’ “ she said to herself, quoting a piece from the poster-buying days of her youth known as Desiderata. She shrugged and shook her head. “Whatever.”

When the next several days passed with nothing more unusual than the surgical removal of a plastic stegosaurus from the small intestine of a young golden retriever who shared its living quarters with several small children, the strangeness of the snowy evening’s emergency began to fade and blur around the edges. It was only when Annie opened her clinic desk drawer and the softly gleaming pearl caught her eye that that her sense of reality took a step sideways and left her sitting in her office, her mind blank. After several days of this, she put the object in her pocket with the intention of tucking it safely away at home where she might avoid acknowledging its existence altogether. She decided she might put it in with the Christmas decorations and forget about it for the rest of the year. At Christmas you could believe in all sorts of miracles and wonders, she decided, and came to the conclusion that after all she had no intention of forgetting the episode entirely; she just wished it wouldn’t resurface from her subconscious to bother her quite so often. Giving it some consideration, she decided it simply messed with her sense of the balance of the universe, or at any rate of her universe, far too much.

And that was how matters stood for the next week. It remained cold, so the snow continued to bring the hills and valleys of the countryside into sharper focus. The paths through the woods became veritable highways for the animals that lived there, and Annie could identify the hand-like front feet and wide, flat hind feet of raccoons, the Morse Code dots and dashes of running rabbits, and the dainty backwards heartlets made by the hooves of deer. Each morning’s walk yielded new patterns. Occasionally she would encounter an area where the snow was brushed and shoveled and divoted in a disorganized fashion, what transpired there a mystery unless a few drops of blood indicated that a scuffle between a bird of prey and an unfortunate rodent victim had occurred. She often heard owls hunting across the pasture at night. Unsettling, true, but as much a part of the winter darkness as a yowling of packs of coyotes in the distance, greeting the moon.

The long dark of January began to wane, and Annie waited for some break in the weather, but the cold refused to release its hold on the land and clouds gathered and stayed, sometimes spitting more snow, more often hovering sullenly overhead as if they had been snagged in the tops of the trees rocking in the wind. Still she persevered with her walks; it got the blood running and her cleared her mind for a new set of challenges. Occasionally she saw one or more of the neighbors from the spot on the knob where she generally paused for breath, but more often the only sign of their continued existence in the three houses In the valley were the thin tendrils of smoke issuing from each chimney. Firewood was plentiful and fuel oil expensive, so most of the area residents used buck stoves to warm their homes. The cozy crackle and warm glow from Annie’s stove was something that always made the winter nights seem more bearable, even when winter seemed to have moved in to stay and bright spring days were only a distant memory .
One particular morning not long after Annie had deposited the pearl in a box marked “Christmas Home Décor – silk flowers/nativity scene/snowmen”, she stood leaning against a shagbark hickory at the top of the path, catching her breath. She watched as the man in the house next to the creek fed his birds and returned his wave as was now becoming usual. But then- for a change – he motioned for her to come down the hill. It was a steep descent and she made a fair amount of it on her backside, grabbing one sapling and then another for support as she went , so as not to arrive on the man’s doorstep in an undignified heap. She dusted herself off, grinning sheepishly , and offered her hand, which he took and bowed over, gravely. “Dr. Winter,” he said with a faint – she thought northern English – accent “my name is Charles, Anthony Charles, and this –“ he gestured to his wife, a tiny plump woman with a gentle expression who had silently appeared at his side, “this is my wife May.”

“Nice to meet you,” replied Annie “I hope you’re enjoying living here. Your home is looking great – I can’t wait to see how your gardens do this spring.”

The woman beamed with pleasure and the man made another bow, slight but low enough that Annie could see the thinning hair combed carefully across the top of his head. “I’m sorry to bother you,” he continued, “but I know you’re a veterinarian and we’ve got a little bit of a problem. Mazie—“
“that’s our cat” his wife added, and he glanced at her lovingly and continued, “Mazie, as May says, is indeed our cat, and she’s-“
“-disappeared into that hole,” May finished for him in one quick rush of words, pointing across the creek to what appeared to Annie to be a hollowed out den under the gnarled roots of a huge sycamore. The ground leading up to the hole was worn and barren of vegetation; something had definitely made its home there, but the dirt was too scuffed to identify any individual tracks.

“Would you mind taking a look?” Mr. Anthony pleaded. “We thought we heard her scream, but we can’t bear to see what’s might have happened to her. “

Annie studied the hole. It was fairly large, at least two feet across, and possibly dug out for use as a den by coyotes or even a feral dog. There was really nothing terribly dangerous for a human in the area, she knew, except for the occasional poisonous snake, a copperhead or timber rattler, but these of course would pose no threat in winter. What had made the cat cry? A raccoon, or possibly a weasel? Well……..she hated to let the couple down, and she had on plenty of warm, durable clothes that would serve as a protective layer.

“Of course, I’ll have a look, “she agreed and the woman beamed happily. “Just let me get you a flashlight, honey,” she said and disappeared into the house with a speed that seemed incongruous to one of such proportions. In a moment she was back on the porch and handed Annie a long, heavy metal light.

Annie tiptoed carefully across the icy creek rocks to the opposite bank, and scrabbled up the slope to the sycamore roots. Switching on the light, she cautiously peered into the den.

It was a surprisingly large hole, and the portion of Annie’s mind that wasn’t preoccupied looking for danger wondered why the tree above it was still upright. The walls were bare dirt, striped unevenly here and there with roots showing through, but nothing within gave a clue as to the fate of the hapless Mazie except a further tunnel at the back of the den chamber, leading deeper into the hillside. Anchoring her the toe of her left boot against one of the larger roots , she pushed herself towards the hole and shone the light in, but there was nothing for it to illuminate. The beam disappeared down into the darkness. How weird is that, she thought to herself and slithered closer for a better look. “Down the rabbit hole” she sighed and squared her shoulders. Lewis Carroll’s characters had always, to be honest, given her the creeps.

Too late, she felt the vertigo and the sucking gravity as the tunnel pulled her in. Somewhere she dropped the light as she was falling, tumbling, bouncing off the walls of a passage that sloped at an angle just past the point at which she could stop her momentum.. Suddenly there was light, or at least less dark, and a painful stop. Annie’s rounded shoulders and ducked head crashed into what appeared to be two tree trunks, sprouting close together from the dry leaves of the forest floor.
She lay still for a minute against the tree trunks, entirely winded, eyes closed. She wondered if, improbable as it might seem, she had stumbled on some sort of mine shaft that passed through the knob from one valley to the next, but within an instant dismissed the idea, as she had never seen any such entrance. “You never saw that den before either, “she told herself, and after a few shuddering breaths decided to try and stand, uncurling and testing her limbs one at a time, fingers first. She grabbed one of the trunks to brace herself and dimly registered the fact that it was warm. And not bark-covered at all. The truth was, it was hairy. She rolled over and realized she had been leaning against the two sturdy brown forelegs of a rather large horse. Instinctively she rolled away, out of danger of the large hooves planted into the icy loam of the forest floor, and looked up.

Quite high, in fact, a rather familiar face was looking down at her, grinning faintly. The brown hair was longer , true, and the beard was gone, as were the glasses, but the hazel eyes were the same. However the most disconcerting fact was that the creature that was gazing at her with a rather inscrutable expression was actually a centaur.

“You’re…..you’re him, that guy with the horse….Mr..” Annie floundered helplessly in the waves of unreality that threatened to drown her…”Mr. O’Ryan, right?” She was on her hands and knees now, backing away slowly.

“Yes. But no Mister. It’s just Orian, “ the centaur explained conversationally, as if he had this chat every day. He gestured overhead. “You know. Like the constellation.”

Snow In Winter Chapter 2

2010-01-27T17:56:00.000-08:00

Snow In Winter 2

Almost perfect, Annie amended to herself. The primary feathers on the same side as the ugly laceration drooped slightly. Gently she smoothed the wing back to a more natural position , but the wing drooped again when she moved her hand away. Nerve damage ,she made a mental note , realizing at the same time she had forgotten to start a chart, or possibly a muscle tear. Using her little finger she gingerly lifted the horse’s lip and checked the color of the gums. Nice and pink. She turned to rummage in the cabinet behind her. Locating a neonatal stethoscope, one of the most useful “freebies” she’d ever received from a pharmaceutical company in return for a large purchase, she placed the diaphragm against the silken hide and held her breath. The creature’s pulse was strong and regular, the rate about 120 beats per minute - what she’d expect from a dog the same size. Was that normal? Who knew?

She glanced up at the client, who was waiting patiently. “Not shocky,” she said. “In fact, quite stable. I gather there wasn’t much blood loss? And what the heck did this?” She took a breath, making a determined effort to control the several hundred run-on questions she felt welling up in her brain, waiting for release.

“No, I managed to stop the bleeding fairly quickly, “ the man said, but offered no further information.

Annie squinted thoughtfully at him for a moment. “Right. OK, now let’s look at that wound.” She raised the horse’s wing again without objection from its owner and surveyed the laceration. It was quite clean, not at all deep, and looked fresh. “I can probably suture this right away with a local anesthetic,” she said, “since the wound is fresh.”

“He doesn’t need any anesthetic , “ the man said. “Just get it sewed up.”

Annie straightened up and looked the man in the eye, more than a little annoyed that he was presuming to tell her how to do her job. “Ever been sewed up?” she asked. “It HURTS. In MY clinic, we use proper methods of pain control.” She glared, waiting for him to protest but instead was surprised to see an expression of approval cross his features.

“Go ahead, then,” he said , “and tell me what you want me to do.”

He appeared capable enough, Annie decided, watching as his stained, calloused hands expertly lifted the creature out of the box and steadied it on the metal exam table. Its hooves slipped slightly on the polished surface, and Annie cast around for something in the clinic on which they could find better purchase, finally settling on a ribbed, plastic floor mat. The animal immediately appeared more comfortable and stood quietly. “I’ll just be a minute,” she said and slipped out into the back hallway, made her way to the surgical suite and began yanking supplies off shelves and piling them on a wheeled Mayo stand. She fought back the pervading sense of unreality by concentrating on the task at hand. Grabbing a sterile surgery pack , she plopped it unceremoniously on the stand, along with suture material, a jar of gauze sponges soaking in thick blue surgical scrub, a pair of sterile latex gloves, a vial of lidocaine and a small syringe with a tiny needle, then rattled back down the hall with it to the exam room.

“We’ll numb the area with a little lidocaine,” she explained as she filled the syringe, “and then clean the whole thing up and suture it closed. Sometimes the lidocaine stings a bit, “ she added “but if I get it right, only the first injection will sting – then we’re home free.”

At that point the task became rote , automatic. There was a wound at hand that needed to be repaired – one of her favorite challenges. She forgot the lateness of the hour, the strangeness of the owner, the complete unbelievability of the patient and the situation. She knew her job, at any rate.

She washed her hands quickly and turned back to the tiny horse. Placing one hand on the warm, silky hide so that her left thumb and forefinger stabilized the edges of the wound, she chose a spot at one end of the laceration to begin. She glanced up at the man. “OK, we’re about ready here. But if you’re going to be my helper I need to know your name.” She laughed. “I haven’t even made a chart for you.”

The man nodded his head and touched a finger to the brim of the hat he was still wearing in a kind of antiquated salute. “Name’s O’Ryan.”

“Ok, Mr. O’Ryan, “ Annie smiled, picking up the syringe of lidocaine. “Steady now. One little stick-“ she pushed the needle into the flesh and injected a drop of the drug, which made a small but visible bleb under the skin. A minute drop of blood blossomed scarlet at the injection site. The horse shifted and twitched his hide slightly but otherwise remained still. “Good. That was the worst one.” She continued to infiltrate the area with the lidocaine, each successive injection entering a spot that was already numb, and advancing the chemical on down one side of the laceration, then back up the other side. After a few minutes she looked up. “That should do it. Great holding job.” The man O’Ryan nodded once. “What next?”

“Next, we disinfect the area a bit. Now this is a very clean cut, “ Annie said, glancing up at O’Ryan, who remained silent, revealing nothing, “but I’m still going to do a quick surgical prep. No shaving, though.” It would have been a shame to shave a swath through the fine silvery hair, which was thin enough in any case. She smoothed the bubbly blue solution over the gash and gently rinsed it off with a few squirts of saline out of a plastic squeeze-bottle. “That will do. And now…we sew.”

Annie laid out the sterile latex gloves and opened the surgical pack and a foil-wrapped coil of suture. Slipping the gloves on, she then picked a needle holder and the tweezer-like thumb forceps out of the pack and shook out the suture, to which a small curved needle was already attached. The long strand fell away from the wrapper and she caught it up with her little finger, allowing the excess to come to rest on the open pack. She rested her elbows on the table and took a deep breath, conscious of the tension running along her spine like an electric current. A wound was a wound. She loved the rhythm of it: a flick of the wrist to push the needle through the skin, then grab it with the needle holders, pull it on through, now twirl the wrist to wrap the suture around itself in a square knot, and a small, quick tug to tighten. Flick, pull, twirl, tug. She sewed, placing a tidy line of purple x’s down the length of the cut. Within minutes it was done.

She surveyed her work with satisfaction. What had been a ragged gash was now a neat seam. The patient curled up quietly on the blue wool in the carrier where the man had carefully settled him.

“Those sutures should stay in about 10 days to two weeks. Please be sure he doesn’t bother them. If there are any problems—“ she shrugged, “well, you know where to find me.”

“What do I owe you?” he asked, and she laughed a little, stretching. “I really have no idea. “

He closed the top of the carrier and straightening, came to stand close to her. She could smell the outdoorsy scent of him , woodsmoke and damp leaves and something she associated with a particularly fragrant brand of pipe tobacco. His hazel eyes caught hers, then dropped to her neck. He reached out and delicately flicked the necklace she wore. “How did you come by this?” His fingertips left traces of coolness on her skin, like a touch of frost, and she shivered.

She reached up, feeling the small silver pendant in order to remind herself which necklace she had put on that morning. It was a tiny, primitive female figure, its rudimentary arms stretched overhead to encircle an amethyst. “Oh, this one,” she recalled, “I got it in Sulfer Springs.” Sulfer Springs was a small, avant-garde college town some miles north. “It reminded me of a predynastic Egyptian goddess figure, “ she explained, even then wondering why she did. “I found it in the Silver Store.”

“The Healer,” he said, meeting her eyes again. “You don’t find her. She choses you.”

Annie blinked. In a few seconds he was gone and his burden with him. Strangely, though she could recall virtually every minute of her treatment, she could not remember his leaving.

On the exam table , its iridescence reflected dimly on the metal surface, lay a large, perfect pearl.

Chapter one, untitled as yet.....

2010-01-26T05:04:00.001-08:00

This is the beginning to a story that's been rattling around in my head for a long time. I'd appreciate comments - if you read this as an opening chapter, would you want to read more? Does anything about it put you off in any way (assuming you like this genre?) THANKS!

Snowflakes swirled in through the clinic door as Annie escorted Mrs. Jackson and her overweight Chihuahua out into the January night, the little dog in her pink carrying bag growling accompaniment to her owner’s litany of health problems with every step to the waiting vehicle. Shivering, she slipped back into the warm foyer, glad that appointments were over for the day and she could head home to a fire in the woodstove and dogs waiting to snuggle on the beat-up couch in the living room. Anticipating nothing more than an evening spent drifting in and out of dozy consciousness as the television droned, she set the locks and turned back to the waiting room.

A tiny movement on a corner bench caught her eye, and suddenly she realized with mild surprise that she had one more patient after all. A man of indeterminate age sat quietly with a battered cardboard carrier at his feet. Annie knew he was a stranger, but when he raised his eyes to meet hers, she felt a faint shock of unexplainable recognition.

“You Dr. Winter?” he asked in a deep, not unpleasant voice. When Annie nodded he continued, “sorry to bother you so late, but could you just take a look at this?” He gestured toward the box. “Shouldn’t take too long but it’s more than I can handle.”

Annie had encountered this before – clients who tried to deal with their pets’ injuries and illnesses by themselves, only to worsen an already bad situation: dirty bandages stuck over wounds that needed vigorous cleanup and suturing, human medications given to animals whose livers weren’t meant to metabolize them , oils and ointments applied where they did more harm than good. She sighed, knowing that in most cases these cleanups required more time and effort to treat than the original wounds would have done. The dogs at home would have to wait a little longer for their fire and couch time.

“No problem, let’s go on into room one, “ Annie gestured at a door across the waiting room. As the man gently scooped up the box, a faint snuffling noise escaped from within, and he bent over the top, making the wordless, crooning noises with which one would soothe a restless foal. He carried the box ahead of her into the exam room, stepping carefully as if not to jar his burden.

With a habit born of 10 years of practice, Annie sized him up as she followed him. He was dressed mostly in shades of brown – a shapeless felt slouch hat that reminded her of one worn by Ian Anderson on an old Jethro Tull album cover, Heavy Horses, she thought; a coat that in better days might have been a fine tweed woolen hacking jacket; worn brown corduroy pants and scuffed leather farm wellingtons. Even his hair and beard were brown, though liberally sprinkled with grey. He might have been any resident in the township, but she was still pretty sure she had never seen him before. When he turned to look at her through slightly askew, thick wire rim glasses, his hazel eyes appeared worried, but gentle and benign.

He set the sagging carrier gently on the examination table and opened the top.

“OK, “ Annie said, “Let’s see what you’ve got in here.” She leaned over to peer into the box and felt her jaw drop.

Inside, wrapped comfortably in the folds of a portion of blue woolen blanket, was a fox-sized, perfect horse. When it shifted and blinked in response to the exam light’s beams, she saw with an increasing sense of wonder that a pair of wings were folded along its body.

She stepped back, took a deep breath, and looked up to meet the eyes of the owner, who was surveying her with a slightly amused expression . She struggled to find the shreds of her bedside – or as she liked to call it, cageside manner.

“Well, Mr. --------------“ she began questioningly but he remained silent, “---sir,” she went on, “what exactly seems to be the problem?” Her mind was already racing beyond the sense of unreality, switching into a mode of professional assessment. The what do I call this thing? She wondered, was quiet but alert, showing no major signs of stress or pain. It gazed up with liquid dark eyes at the humans as the man reverently reached into the box, stroked its satiny white coat, and gently shifted its weight from one side to the other, revealing now what Annie had not been able to see before: a ragged, bloody tear marred the perfection of the gleaming hide.

Still.....Annie’s mind pushed beyond the sense of unreality that insisted on screaming at herpushing on on to do what she always did when confronted with new situations: to hurriedly extrapolate data from similar cases with which she had already dealt. Always, always, the first step was to be certain the patient was stable, perform as complete a physical assessment as possible, and formulate a plan to deal with the problem at hand. The other stuff, she told herself, you can figure out later. Like, are you awake or dreaming?

Tentatively she reached into the box. “May I?”

The patient struggled to its feet , shook itself deliberately and stood steadily on the blue wool. She saw that, unlike the miniature horses of her previous experience, it was perfectly, gracefully proportioned. This was no form of dwarfism. The tiny equine was perfect.

Dog Physics Lesson One Proof

2010-01-26T04:04:00.001-08:00

Addendum to Dog Physics Lesson One, "Dogs at rest tend to remain at rest."

As demonstrated here, the Unholy Trinity is STILL at rest."

Concerning Cows

2010-01-20T08:16:00.000-08:00

“Reproduction is a luxury function,” declaimed the professor from the podium in the vet school lecture hall. It is one of the few statements from my college days that has stayed with me, verbatim (along with “most cases of spontaneous vomiting in dogs resolve in 24 hours with or without treatment” but that’s a whole other story). Essentially, without access to the proper nutrition, a species has difficulty propagating. Kind of a no-brainer, but it took a close association with a less-than-well-run dairy farm to truly illustrate the point.

Dan Houndshell ran just such a farm on the outskirts of the practice territory where I worked during my first year as a veterinarian. He was a spare, sour man whose thin, windswept fields were overgrazed by too many thin, windswept cows. It came as no surprise that these underfed creatures had more than their share of fertility problems and production issues, so hardly a week went by without our receptionists hearing Dan’s dry, unemotional voice on the other end of the phone asking for assistance for yet another patient. We had advised him numerous times that reducing the number of cattle in his herd and feeding them better would have resulted in the same milk yield, but the suggestions fell on deaf ears, and he persisted in the practices he had known for years, if not generations.

I had been working for Larry Smith for several months when he announced that he was ready to take a few days’ vacation – probably the first he’d had in years, since before my arrival he had been a sole practicioner and in addition had helped run his own family’s cattle farm all this time. Apparently he thought enough of my performance as a neophyte vet thus far that he felt comfortable leaving me in charge, or perhaps he was just desperate for a break. Whatever the case, he and his wife Sharon duly packed up their belongings and disappeared , leaving the entire responsiblilty of keeping our busy practice running smoothly squarely on my – in my opinion – insecure shoulders. Hoooo, boy. I squared said shoulders, hunkered down and hoped for a routine week. I’m sure the staff did the same.

(To tell you the truth, I’d like to be a time-traveling fly on the wall and travel back to those days so I could listen to their conversations about me when I was out of earshot. Knowing what I know now, it’s easy to imagine the exchanges:
“Oh my God, she’s so slow, we’ll never get out of here on time.”
“She’s probably never castrated a horse in her life.”
“I just hope Dan Houndshell doesn’t have some sort of emergency.”)

Needless to say, it wasn’t long before the phone rang, Judy the receptionist took the call and, putting her hand over the receiver, looked at me woefully. “It’s Dan Houndshell,” she explained, “and he wants Larry to come out and infuse some cows. What do we tell him?”

Dairy cattle, particularly unhealthy ones, are susceptible to uterine infections which can render them infertile. In the days when I was working for Larry, treatments ranged from placing large tablets, known as pessaries, into the reproductive tract, to actually flushing out the uterus with antibacterial solutions. They weren’t difficult procedures and, though I hadn’t practiced them since school, I knew I could do the work. I mustered up my best authoritative voice and picked up the phone.

“Hello, Dan,” I said, “this is Dr. Burk. Dr. Smith is out of town but I can come out and treat your cattle, let’s see, tomorrow afternoon around one.”
There was a long silence from the other end of the phone and then Dan drawled, “Well, Cher, I know you need the practice, but I’d like Larry to do it.”

Amazing. That master of sparse dialog had managed to insult me twice in a single sentence. Not only had he – as usual – called me Cher, a reference to my ridiculously impractical long curly hair and my beaky ornamental nose, but he had inferred – the nerve of him! – that I actually needed practice! I was incensed. I informed him shortly that Larry would be back at the end of the week and he’d have to call back then, hung the phone up with rather more force than necessary (this was in the days before cell phones that you could actually throw across a room), and stamped angrily around the clinic.

“I hope one of these days he has a big emergency and I’m the only one available,” I fumed to the staff. “It’d serve him right” (how, I wasn’t sure: to be forced to swallow his pride and actually need ME, or to have the inept bumbler that I was certain I was at the time fooling around with his cows).

Be careful what you wish for.

A quiet half hour went by but as luck or the fates would have it, when the phone rang it was Dan on the line again with, of all things, a dystocia.

The term dystocia means difficult birth – in any species. In cattle it can involve as simple a resolution as straightening a calf’s turned-back head, or unfolding a leg; conversely, it can be as difficult a situation as a young heifer trying to give birth to an oversized calf when she is barely more than a youngster herself. I used to call these last ones “teenage pregnancies,” and they were a nightmare, because either way you were in for possibly hours of sweaty work if the calf was alive or worse, a fetotomy – the messy business of cutting the baby up into manageable pieces while still inside the cow – If it was already dead.

I sincerely hoped it wasn’t the latter as I gathered up my equipment and traipsed out the clinic door, clouds of dreary premonition massing into a mental storm and trailing behind me. I assumed the worst. It would be a fetotomy, and I would mess it up. Like many other farmers, Dan would have fooled around so much already in trying to resolve the problem himself that the vaginal tissues would be swollen, even torn, depriving me of much-needed landmarks. There were no two ways about it. With my luck, I was doomed.

What always worried me in these situations was the sure and certain knowledge that the farmer, having worked with cattle for at least several hundred years longer than I had done, would already have tried every trick in the book. What did I, a little horse owner, know that they didn’t?

The ride to Dan’s was pretty grim, and it the situation grew even darker when he had explained that – of course – he had tried to pull the calf himself, using both that interesting tool surely derived from medieval torture instruments known as the “come-along” and, of course, his trusty John Deere tractor, all to no avail.

Glumly he led me to my patient, and I began to feel a little better. This big black and white Holstein was no first-calf heifer; she was a milk cow in her prime, or what passed for prime on Dan’s poor farm. Yes, she had two hind legs protruding from her vulva, but she was a large, full-grown cow – there ought to be enough room to move a couch in there, I thought, much less a calf. Puzzled but not yet terrified, I pulled on a plastic palpation sleeve, liberally basted it with sterile lubricant, and began to sort out the situation by sliding my hand into the cow’s vagina. I forgot Dan standing behind me with his arms crossed in disapproval. I forgot the dirty barn and the cold afternoon wind. I forgot that I was about to look like an inept bumbler in the presence of an experienced farmer who didn’t believe a “girl vet” had a place on his farm anyway. I held my breath and closed my eyes; it seemed that the only part of me that even existed at that moment was my plastic-covered hand, sliding blindly between the two bony legs and into the dark tunnel of the cow’s reproductive tract.

When my elbow had disappeared, I stopped, puzzled. This was clearly a breech birth; the presence of two knobby hocks protruding from the cow told me that, but where I expected to meet the calf’s tail my hand continued to slid deeper into the cow.

And then in the blink of an eye it all became clear and I swear, I heard the Halleluia Chorus being sung by angels in coveralls, probably conducted by a seraph with a pitchfork. My hand was sliding between two different hind legs. There were two calves, and Dan had been pulling on one leg from each calf. No wonder he had been unable to deliver the babies successfully.

I’m pretty sure at that moment a tiny grin of triumph crossed my face, but I managed to maintain my professional demeanor while I pushed one leg back into the depths of the cow, with Dan making sounds of impatience behind me. He was clearly wondering if I’d lost my mind. But I was on a roll now. With one calf pushed out of the way, there was plenty of room in the birth canal for me to fish around, locate the correct pair of hind legs, and deliver the first calf. Being a twin, it was small anyway and it practically fell into my arms when the cow decided that as I had sorted out her problem, she might as well start pushing again. I found the second calf and guided it out as well, then turned to Dan with a satisfied grin. To my surprise, he wasn’t grinning back. Instead, he was grumbling as he worked over the newborns with a filty towel that had seen better days. “Twins never thrive,” he explained. Even then I couldn’t please Dan. But I decided to give it another try.
“Ok, Dan, now that I’m here,” I said and took a deep breath, “how about if I infuse your other cows? Save you paying for another farm call later.”
Now I was talking! He grinned back at last and said, “well, Cher, I’m sure you could use the practice, so go ahead!”

Well, it was a small victory, but it was pretty sweet at that.

Tangling With Toby

2010-01-19T10:33:00.000-08:00

So, she's a vet, you're thinking. How come she doesn't write stories about animals? Ah, but she does. Here's one for you.

One Saturday in late summer, I took a break from office hours at the clinic to go up the road to the local food mart for some truck fuel and a deli sandwich. I was pumping diesel into Old Faithful when I heard that fateful sound: “Yow! YOW!” coming at me from across the busy state route. This was no genteel “meow.” It was a yell of desperation.

“Holy crap, “ I thought to my self, “another damn stray cat.” I looked around and sure enough, there he sat, right beside the road, a tiny yellow tabby with white markings and a BIG mouth. Obviously waiting for some civic-minded soul such as myself to rescue him.

“Why do you do this to me?” I shot upward to God as I crossed the asphalt, not really expecting an answer, unless NOT being run over by a semi is an answer. By the time I got across to the far side, my quarry had disappeared into the bushes, but kept “yowing” at me every time I called – clearly wanting help but scared to death. I wasted a good half hour trying to catch him. He would come sooooo close, and then squirt away again.

I finally gave up and headed back to the clinic to resume office hours, planning to return later but fully expecting to find nothing left of him but a banana – colored smear on the road. However, when I returned, he was howling as vigorously as ever from the underbrush. A fruitless hour passed, and I had to be elsewhere, so I left reluctantly but promised him I’d be back. I was troubled but determined.

Next day, Sunday, after a morning horse show I returned to the scene. Same result. At this point I was becoming rather desperate. He was destined to become a yellow-cat pancake if I didn’t succeed, and soon. However, he seemed to know his way through the veritable thicket of scrub trees, weeds and underbrush ( with which by this time I was becoming rather familiar, myself). Finally I realized some change of strategy was in order, and I went home defeated and stewing.

Monday night after office hours, back to the scene: same afforts, same result. By now I was losing sleep and the entire episode was becoming an obsession of epic proportions. A Plan disrupted my fitful sleep around 2 a.m. “Wait a minute, you idiot,” I scolded myself, sitting up in bed and dislodging several small dogs in the process, “you are a VET. You have DRUGS. You can drug him into a stupor!!”. Mulling over the idea to the accompaniment of Pete the lab’s snores, I thought it had a good chance of succeeding.

I sweated each successive hour of the next day until I could leave the clinic late Tuesday afternoon. Armed with some canned cat food, cat sedative and a pillowcase hanging like a ridiculous flag from the waistband of my pants, I sought my quarry. He was there, yowing away at me in answer to my calls of “keeeeety! KEEETTTYY!” I wandered once more into the thicket and the fray.

He was hungry, and wolfed down his allotted portion of drugged cat food with abandon. I waited a few minutes, smacking at some pesky mosquitos who had joined the party. He soon became a little less coordinated, but no slower. I whipped out my cell phone and called the clinic, placing an order for more sedation. An entire bottle, and another can of food. The supplies arrived and I mixed them up into an interesting-looking soup with enough tranquilizer to slow down a whole herd of obese and angry Chihuahuas. No luck. He ate more, but slept not.

Rats. At this point I couldn’t quit, because if he decided to stagger out onto the road, his demise would be entirely my fault. I persevered.

Approximately two hot, humid hours later, when I was about at the end of my rope and he was feeling as mellow as a teenager at a midnight laser Pink Floyd show, I decided on a new tactic: I would hunt the little bastard down like a starving coonhound.

I pushed deeper into the brush, enthusiastically escorted by a growing flock of interested mosquitos. I herded the little mister away from the road. He was obviously a tad less with it than before, and I figured he would eventually make a mistake and I could corner him or run him to ground or something…but the “something” turns out to be scaling a lightening-blasted tree trunk, about 15’ high and riddled with termite damage.

Now picture this: the tree looked like something off a Lord of the Rings movie set. The lightening had split it into three parts – two “horns” of trunk still pointed upright while the majority of the tree – minus its top – had broken off and slid down at a 45 degree angle. My little buddy, or should I say nemesis, was perched at the very top of the trunk, and worried.

The tension rapidly became as thick as the mosquito cloud: I knew it was my last shot and it had to be a good one. I stood precariously with one foot on the rotting stump, some 3’ off the ground, and leaned tentatively along the length of the trunk, hoping it would hold. My quarry was just out of reach. I tried shaking the trunk – a little – and rattling the nearby branches – no luck. He eased close enough to sniff my finger but still wouldn’t let me touch him. He was getting a little bit more comfortable with me – or possibly yet more stoned – but I knew that would go to hell in a handbasket if I had to grab him. However, he was young – how much damage could he do? I’d had worse. I pushed on. I had to risk it, for the sake of my mental health at this point, as well as his life.

I wheedled, pleaded, cajoled, chatted with God, rested, swore, fed the mosquitos and waited. Finally, patience not being my strongest point and definitely worn by then, I broke off a 1/2” thick, 6’ long branch and managed to reach around and rustle it above him. Right behind his butt, in fact. He looked panicky. I rustled harder. Finally I started tapping him with it. He sized up the situation: could he or could he not get over my head? He inched closer and gathered himself….

…What happened after that? I’m not really certain. There was a mad scramble and a drop of several feet. Somewhere in that few seconds I managed to nab him and wrestle him to the ground, he screaming bloody murder the entire time, maybe me, too. I distinctly remember panting to him as he dangled by the scruff of his neck from my hand, “scream all you want, but I’m NOT letting you go!” I whipped the flannel pillowcase out of the waistband of my pants, where it had hung waving merrily all this time, and swaddled him in it. Well, more appropriately, I BAGGED the little devil.

I emerged from the thicket at last, a dirty, bloody mess, pulling twigs out of my hair, wiping the sweat from my eyes, and triumphantly clutching the wriggling, fussing, furious pillowcase. I staggered into the clinic – disheveled but victorious.

As of this writing, my kitten- inflicted scratches and bites have been reduced to mere scars and the little snot is…where is he?...surveying me from the dining room table. He is a handsome 12-pounder named Toby, who has gotten over his shyness so far as to nibble on my knuckles when he wants attention.

You didn’t honestly think I’d give him away after all that work, did you?

Dog Physics Lesson 2

2010-01-13T16:30:00.000-08:00

The acceleration produced by a particular force acting on a body is directly proportional to the magnitude of the force and inversely proportional to the mass of the body. (Newton's second law of motion).

Given that, what will happen if/when these two bodies collide (as of course they will...)

A Fable

2010-01-12T05:47:00.001-08:00

Once upon a time there was a fair maiden held prisoner by a wicked wizard, for such nefarious purposes as even the Evilist of Evil Overlords among you can only speculate. The wizard's lair was located just a stone's throw from the Town of Deeping (or in the vernacular, Ye Olde Towne of Deeping), and was surrounded by a swamp, creatively known as The Swamp of Deeping (or in the old vernacular, Ye Olde...well, you get it).

Upon this swamp the wizard had placed a number of enchantments, not only to deter ardent suitors who attempted to rescue the maiden (how come you never hear of unfair maidens being rescued? "She cheated at volleyball in gym!!" "Oh, well, she's out, then...") ) and incidentally to protect his collection of Star Wars Action Figures all in the original packages (but that is neither here nor there). Where was I? Oh yes, of all the fearsome enchantments one could possibly encounter should one (or more) attempt to traverse the Swamp, the worst by far was that placed upon the fallen timbers that lay half submerged within the foul, murky waters (what did you expect, a crystal-clear spring??). To an observer these logs appeared to be in terrible pain, for they groaned and sighed (and sometimes sang old Captain and Tenille songs) at all hours of the day and night, and should any erstwhile hero attempt to rescue the maiden by stepping on this collection of waterlogged limbs, they would rear up, entwine him in their branches, beat him to a pulp and drag him into the inky depths, never to be seen again.

Now as it happened, one day there came a young man whose purer heart (and Cheerios Secret Decoder Ring)had allowed him to bypass the majority of the canny old wizard's spells. Past the choking grapevines, past the flesh-eating fish, past the flying monkeys (oops, wrong story) he went, until all that stood (or lay) between him and the fair maiden was a seemingly harmless causway of wood. However - he had heard of this enchantment, and so rather than step across the groaning, wheezing logs, he tiptoed carefully in between them - the water was, conveniently, not so deep after all - rescued the fair maiden and lived, as you may expect, happily ever after.

Years later, whenever his children and grandchildren plied him for the story of how he rescued the fair maiden, he would puff on his pipe, stretch out his feet to the fireplace and say, "Why, it's very simple. I just let Deeping's logs sigh."

**************************************************************************

Now, did you see that coming, or not?

This fable comes to mind in response to a recent comment posted about the essay, recently posted on this blog, about Barn Coats. Persons who apparently have entirely too much spare time on their hands have been wondering, at what moment does a seemingly innocuous coat metamorphose into such a garb as can then be elevated to Barn Coat status, and just exactly what does it take, they ask, to make it so? The final proposition was that the wearer had something to do with it as well.

And of course I couldn't let it go. In stewing over this conundrum - and I HAVE been stewing, through horse feeding, trash-can retrieving, outdoor Christmas UNdecorating, and laundry - put succinctly, how much crap must be put into, and rubbed onto, a Barn Coat, and how long must it be worn so, the actually become a, or rather THE Barn Coat? And does this crap put INTO the Barn Coat include the wearer?

I submit that the whole thing is probably a chance combination of all the right elements at the right time (not unlike the Big Bang, but fortunately on a much smaller scale, or it would blow the closet apart...) and indeed the wearer probably provides the final catalyst...

...you didn't think I would just let that post go, did you??
(Heeheeheeheeheeeeeeee!!!)

The Barn Coat

2010-01-05T07:11:00.000-08:00

I have discovered that while we horse owners converse or write at length about our favorite ponies, our trailers, our tack, our show clothes, even our long-suffering spouses, we have blatently ignored that most important item each and every one of us owns...the item completely taken for granted that nonetheless completes every equine enthusiast's wardrobe: The Barn Coat.

It comes in a variety of weights and colors (depending upon local weather conditions, owner preferences, and whatever was cheapest, free or inherited from someone else), and it may or may not be the coat we actually ride in, but it is de rigeur apparel for stall cleaning, grooming, feeding and visits by the vet or farrier.

My theory that Barn Coats are - like dogs - genetically identical despite variations in their outward appearance evolved several years ago while I was visiting a friend after work. For whatever reason (or perhaps none at all) we decided to mosey out to her barn, so she loaned me HER Barn Coat. I put it on, automatically shoved my hands in the pockets (which were right where they needed to be, of course), and discovered that The Coat felt and smelled (!) exactly like mine. While I didn't take inventory, I'd bet a sizeable portion of my income that her Barn Coat Pockets contained, as we say in southwest Ohio, the "exact same" items as mine. In short, her coat felt just like home.

My current Barn Coat (see photo, taken somewhere in the last century, approximately 1995), belonged to my father, whose passing in 1990 elevated it to the status of holy relic. Mom gave it to him for Christmas around 1972, so by my reckoning it is at least 35 years old . It's a three-quarter length, fleece - lined Levi's denim model, still held together by its original stitching and whatever nameless goo has been ground into it over the years.

I wash it once a year whether it needs it or not (it usually does), but at its advanced age I view its annual bath with some trepidation; I'm never sure whether it's going to come out of the washer in one piece or dozens. In deference to its geriatric state I use the gentle cycle; this of course is no match for smears of hoof dressing, spots of betadyne, molecules of manure, horse hair, dog hair and particles of hay dust...a biochemical mixture which probably turns into a sort of glue when agitated in warm water. In fact, I suspect this is actually what preserves the aging cloth, and have considered peddling this formula - once I nail it down - to art conservators who deal with antique tapestries.

Whatever the reason, The Coat seems to be made of iron, and I think there is every likelihood it will outlast several washers. Not washes. Washers.

I have to wash it at home, of course. Any self-respecting laundromat manager seeing and smelling the thing would meet The Coat and me at the door and send us both packing.

The laundry soap commercials would impress me a lot more if, instead of demonstrating their soaps' effectiveness on mud-and-fruit-punch stained kids, they attempted to tackle Barn Coat stains.

However, as any horse owner knows, the Barn Coat is much more than a garment designed for warmth and protection from the elements. Because...it has pockets.

About ten years ago, before I got into the habit of giving it a yearly bath, I decided to take a formal inventory of my Barn Coat pockets (Ok, so it was one of those icy January days in which I had entirely too much free time on my hands). The items I discovered and listed filled an entire notebook page - both sides. I was amazed at how much easier my walk to the barn became after I had divested my Coat of apporximately 20 pounds of "stuff" though in subsequent weeks about 15 pounds of "really necessary stuff" found its way back into the pockets.

As I viewed the list and the pile, I began to truly appreciate the many functions of the miraculous Barn Coat:

It is a portable tool box (wire cutters, two screwdrivers, and a pocket knife; a pantry (if you crave last year's candy canes, six month old chewing gum, or a worn-around-the-edges Milk Bone); a linen closet (assorted rags); a first aid kit (two Band-Aids, one used and a wrinkled tube of eye ointment), a bank, and an occasional cat bed. And oh yes, a repository for Lost Items (my best suture scissors). If the truth be told, the Holy Grail is probably in somebody's Barn Coat (Barn Cloak?), somewhere.

I found surgical instruments that had disappeared years previously. Rolls of Vet Wrap mashed to the density of granite (and speaking of granite, several "neat rocks" picked up on the path to the barn). Fencing material sufficient to repair a five acre pasture. A "chestnut" (for you non-equestrians, this is a part of horse anatomy of callous-like consistency located on a horse's legs) peeled off my gelding's leg and stashed away to keep the dog from eating it now and upchucking it later in the living room in front of New Years' Eve party guests. Enough Kleenex (only slightly dirty) to mop up a classroom of first graders during cold and flu season (and hey, is that lint -covered thing a cough drop?). Gently cushioning it all, having worked its way past $18.73 in loose change - presumably to pay for a parking space at the barn? - to the very bottom of each pocket, was approximately half a bale of prime mixed alfalfa-orchard grass hay. And - wait for it - a hoof pick.

On any given day, my personal Barn Coat will also contain a broken dog leash and a half-full tube of horse wormer. My friend Yolonda added that hers was not complete without a "gross, slimy" tube of Chapstick, and also noted that matching buttons - or even a complete set of buttons - were NOT a a requirement for a good Barn Coat. After all, you can always hold the thing together with baling twine - which of course is in one of these pockets, somewhere...

Despite its frayed sleeves and a permanent crust of what I fervently hope is just dirt, but from which several useful vaccines and a cure for the common cold just might be developed, my Barn Coat looks to be around a while longer. Amazingly, the coat has not yet exhibited even that first symptom of Terminal Barn Coat Disease: ever-widening holes in the pockets that allow their contents to hemorrhage into that hinterland between the lining and the outer shell, never to see the light of day again.

I had occasion several years ago to treat a young relative of our pastor's to a midwinter horseback ride. Of course, in my concern that everything was safe and comfortable, I forgot to change from my Barn Coat to my Official Riding Coat (which might one day become a Barn Coat in its turn, although right now it is still much too clean). The pastor took one look at my Coat and offered to perform an exorcism on the spot (I declined, cackling evilly with my head spinning on its axis...).

Remember that scene in an old Bugs Bunny cartoon, where Bugs spots a Scottish Elmer Fudd playing the bagpipes? Mistaking the bagpipes for an attacking monster, Bugs tries to wrestle the instrument to the ground. If my Barn Coat should ever make a noise, I think that will be all the excuse my dogs need to do the same thing in my defense. And it won't be pretty.

Regardless of the shock value of its appearance, I think I'll keep my old friend going a while longer. However, as time goes by I can't help but give some thought to what actions would be appropriate when my Barn Coat has outlived its usefulness. I am wavering between cremation and a decent burial, but I'm not kidding myself; there's every possibility, at this rate, that my Barn Coat will outlive me.

I recently settled onto the living room couch to watch (for the umpteeth time) the finale of the Lord of the Rings movies. I sincerely believe that if Frodo had concealed the One Ring in the pocket of a Barn Coat, the story could have been told in three chapters, instead of three volumes. Of course, the Fellowship would probably have been trailed anyway by the horses of the Dark Riders, irresistably drawn to the scent of hay, peppermints and old cookies also residing in the pockets!

I'm thinking I should notify the Levi Strauss company. I'm available for endoresments, and so is the Coat, but it insists on signing its own contract.

The Chainsaw Diaries

2009-12-31T12:00:00.000-08:00

The Chainsaw Diaries

In the tradition of Olden Times, a riddle: What grows in the autumn as the sunshine wanes, and shrinks in the winter, as the daylight gains? (or, as your husband complains. Well, maybe not complains, mainly just gazes and sighs): Answer – the woodpile.

Several years ago I awoke one late winter morning to the disquieting sensation that my nose, and therefore by extrapolation the house, were colder than they should be. Further evidence, such as frantically flipping the levers on (and swearing at) the thermostat and the circuit breaker box to no avail supported my sneaking suspicion that the furnace was in fact on the proverbial fritz.

At the time there was no Man Of The House onto whose shoulders I could foist this annoying problem, but being possessed of a large stubborn streak and an even larger pile of seasoned timber spread liberally over approximately 10 acres, plus a functional woodburning stove, I figured that with a little bit of industry I could keep myself warm until some later date when I actually had time to worry about the furnace problem , like Julyof 2012 for instance . I soon discovered, however, that what I lacked was a working chainsaw and the skill set necessary to operate one.
I approached the problem with no little trepidation, armed with the sure and certain knowledge that any piece of machinery equipped with that tool of the devil known as a “pull start” (or in my case, “that $%!!!(&%$$%!!! thing…..”) was likely to present some annoying, blood-pressure-raising challenges if not wrestled to the ground and subdued right from the start.

The day came when I could put the adventure off no longer. The woodpile was dwindling by the hour, and I realized with resignation and cold toes that I was about to be compelled to buy a chainsaw . Neither of the alternatives: wheedling someone else to cut up the fallen timbers in the woods, or worse yet, actually paying for cut firewood, appealed to me.

“I want a ladylike chainsaw” I told the salesman primly. I suppose this statement would have been more effective had I delivered it while teetering on high heels at the garden store assistance desk; as it was, my rubber boots, dirty sweats and even dirtier barn coat and hat probably detracted from the effect. Nonetheless the young man controlled his reaction while I explained, “it has to be small enough that it doesn’t kill me to handle it, and IT MUST START RELIABLY.” (Or I will have a stroke and die in the woods of sheer frustration, I added silently). He introduced me to a 16” bar bright orange model, its new chain gleaming wickedly in the pale March sunshine. He gave me some succinct driving lessons, made sure I was armed with tips on how to start it, and off I went, secure in the knowledge that I could now use up some of our fallen wood and thereby “stick it to the man” for at least another month or two. I’m not sure which hypothetical “man” I had in mind – the utilities company, the fuel oil barons…who knows? But I felt empowered and self-righteous as I pulled the starter rope and flipped up the choke.

The late great naturalist Aldo Leopold wrote a lovely piece about cutting down a dead tree with a two-person manual saw, slicing through the years with a hypnotic rhythm echoed in his words, interspersed with the refrain “rest! Cries the chief sawyer, and we pause for breath…” While my chainsaw didn’t have quite the same panache, there was a certain satisfaction in starting it up: Vrip, Vrip, putt, putt, vroom, VROOM!

2007’s Hurricaine Ike refused to stay corralled in its Gulf of Mexico birthplace, and sent a windstorm of epic proportion yowling across southwest Ohio all through a sultry, overcast September Sunday. I distinctly remember sitting with my husband of one year on the backyard picnic table, listening with dismay at the sounds of trees being shredded in the relentless gale. On the one hand, I worried about the survival of the most picturesque of our trees – a particularly shapely tulip tree in the front yard, the massive oak and hickory trees that stand as twin sentinels on the edges of our property, a soaring sycamore that we had planted as a bedraggled arbor day twig some 35 years before – but on the other I had to work hard to suppress an unsettling current of excitement – hot damn, we’d have plenty of firewood again!

As it happened, all my “pet” trees survived, but a number of others succumbed to the phenomenon of wind shear, which would rip the top out of one vulnerable tree and send it crashing into the next, beheading that tree …and so on, in a weird arboreal domino effect. Generally speaking the fractures occurred about 20 feet off the ground, so we spent a number of entertaining autumn days drafting plans of attack based on the challenges of getting these sylvan casualties to fall the way we wanted without getting ourselves killed in the process. The resulting large-scale timber operations filled the woodshed to overflowing. Practically a battalion of debtors were able to work off their delinquent clinic accounts. Everybody went home happy, and we stayed warm for months.

In the past five or so years, in a development entirely unforeseen by my younger self, I’ve become quite the lumberjack. I recently upgraded to an 18” bar saw (still orange) with an even more reliable #$%^%!! pull start. Honest - in the vernacular of SW Ohio, it “runs good.” There is a certain satisfaction that comes with revving it up on a cold winter day. And I can walk the walk and talk the talk of fellow chainsaw users – discussing bar size, chain sharpening, the strange alchemy of gas/oil mixes, and the relative qualities of different brands of bar oil (or as they say around here, “barawl”). With my fellow members in Club Chainsaw (including my best riding buddy, Martha, who loves her saw too: a schoolteacher with a chainsaw – the mind reels…), we can chat about the relative merits of wood: hickory(good), locust (hard to get started but long burning), oak (lovely, very little “trash” to remove from the fireplace) and that holy grail of firewood, osage orange, which, when mentioned, elicits a knowing “ohhhhhhhh, yeaahhhhhhhhhhhh” from other experienced local woodburners who then launch into stories about its prowess: “I once put a piece in the stove and it was still burning three weeks later!” “That’s nothing, I completely melted a stove when I stuffed the firebox full of osage!”

Of course, heating with firewood has its downsides: the ash that isn’t continually being carried out the door in a metal bucket applies itself to furniture, walls and ceilings. Your clothes, hair and pets smell of woodsmoke. There are scorch marks on the throw rug in front of the fireplace (and maybe on your pets….) And there is that nagging question hanging over your head for at least 6 months out of the year: are we going to have enough wood to get through next winter?

Despite these problems, we continue to use the woodstove, though the furnace has been repaired long since. I like the white noise of the blower, the warmth and the cozy glow on a cold winter night, and the fact that we can heat the place up to near-sweltering temperatures without burning a bit of fuel oil. I like to watch the pets seek out the heat and sprawl contentedly in front of the hearth at night. It all fosters a certain contentment, a reassurance of sorts that as we now enter into this period of the year which my husband – no mean wordsmith himself – glumly and resignedly refers to as The Long Dark, it’s within our power to make it a bit more bearable, if not downright pleasant.

Vrip, Vrip, putt, putt, vroom, VROOM, indeed.

Last minute - favorite recipes

2009-12-20T07:45:00.000-08:00

I don't cook much, usually under duress. But I thought I'd share these recipes since they are great for this time of year. Of course they are all fattening and not much good for you. Hail to Christmas!

Creme brulee French Toast:(nothin ' in here good for ya...)

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tbsp corn syrup
1 8-9 inch loaf of french or italian bread, more or less
5 large eggs
1 and 1/2 cups half & half
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon rum extract (or a shot of brandy, or kahluah, or bailey's, or whatever floats your boat..)
1/4 teaspoon salt

On the stove top in a small heavy saucepan, melt butter and brown sugar and corn syrup over a moderate heat, stirring until smooth; then pour into a greased (PAM works fine) 9 x 13 inch baking dish. Cut 6 one inch thick slices of bread and arrange them to fill the dish, laying them on top of the syrup mixture. (you can fill in the gaps with smaller pieces of bread if you're artistic, and frugal...). The original recipe says cut off the crusts, but I don't and it's fine. Arrange bread slices in one layer, squeezing them slightly to make them fit.

In a bowl, whisk together eggs, half and half, vanilla, salt and flavoring of your choice, until combined well. Pour mixture over the bread evenly. Cover with aluminum foil or plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Next morning, preheat oven to 350 and meanwhile bring the bread dish to room temperature. Bake uncovered in the middle of the oven until puffed and edges are pale golden, for abour 35-40 minutes (I've cooked it up to one hour - just keep an eye on it).

Steph's notes: I also add a little cinnamon and nutmeg to the egg/ half and half mixture, to taste. I dust the top with powdered sugar after removing from the oven (this is known in elite cooking circles as "gilding the lily.".... )

Holiday Biscotti - originally from a recipe by Giada de Laurentis

2 c all purpose flour
1 and 1/2 tsp baking powder (not soda)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter at room temp
1 tsp grated lemon zest
2 large eggs
3/4 cup coarsely chopped almonds (Giada uses pistachios)
2/3 cup dried cranberries (dried cherries work great, too)
12 oz good quality white chocolate chopped (you can use white chocolate chips)

Holiday decorations -red and green sugar crystals, etc.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Line a heavy baking sheet (I like the stone for this!) with parchment paper. Whisk the flour and baking powder in a medium bowl to blend. Using and electric mixer, beat the sugar, butter, lemon zest and salt in a large bowl to blend. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the flour mixture and beat til just blended. Stir in the nuts and berries.

Form the dough into a 13 inch long, 3 inch wide log on teh prepared baking sheet. Bake until light golden, about 40 minutes. Remove from oven and cool for 30 minutes (Hint: the oven's still at 350 degrees, so throw in some of that ginger snap cookie dough while you're waiting around...).

Place the log on a cutting board and using a sharp serrated knife cut the log ona diagonal into 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick slices. (The log is kind of fragile at this point to it's best to HOLD both sides together with one hand and cut quickly and firmly with a SHARP knife). Arrange the biscotti, cut side down on a cookie sheet and back until they are pale golden, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a rack and cool completely.

Melt the chocolate (I zap the chips in the microwave about 30 seconds, stir, 30 more secs, stir, etc. till liquid; Giada says stir it in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. I think my way's quicker!). Either way, dip half the biscotti into the melted chocolate, shake off the excess chocolate and place on the baking sheet for the chocolate to set. Decorate with sugar crystals, etc. Refrigerte till the chocolate is firm.

These can be made ahead and stored in an airtight container up to 4 days, or wrapped in foil and frozen in resealable plastic bags up to three weeks.

Ralph's Mom's Ginger Snaps (this recipe probably came from England)

1 1/2 cups. shortening (hint USE REAL BUTTER!!)
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup dark molasses
2 eggs

4 teaspoons baking soda
4 and 1/2 cups flour (or a little more)
1 teaspoon salt
1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Hint: not for the faint hearted - if you like them with a real kick use somewhat more spices than "level" spoonfuls.

Demirara or other sugar crystals

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cream together shortening and sugar, then add molasses and eggs.

Mix in one bowl flour, soda, salt, and spices, then add gradually to the butter/cream/molasses/eggs mixture till well blended. Dough should not be tooooo sticky - add more flour till it is a little stiff and easy to handle.

Chill (or not!) and drop by rounded teaspoon fulls or blobs or chunks into the crystallized sugar, then place on a cookie sheet or cooking stone. I cover either one with bakers' parchment paper. Cook 10-15 minutes - watch for the tops to crack a little. Cookies are done when they darken a bit, crack on top and aren't "jiggly" when you touch or move the cookie sheet You will have to experiment a little - shorter cooking makes chewy cookies, longer makes them crisp. They will spread so leave about 1 1/2 inch between cookies. Easier to get off the cookie sheet if you let cool a couple minutes after removing them from the oven.

These freeze really well, as does the dough, so you can make them up now, wrap the dough or the baked cookies well and toss in the freezer till some cold January night, if you have too many sweets right now...
Best eaten with COLD milk!

Seasonal Musings Part 2

2009-12-06T18:15:00.000-08:00

Autumn - and it IS still autumn - seems to be a time of "getting ready" when you live in the country. If the weather cooperates, and you can get it right, by this time of year - early December - the gardens have been put to bed with a final roto-tilling, a shot of fertilizer and a blanket of straw or leaves. The barn is full of hay and grain for the horses (in preparation for the time when it' s too muddy to transport said items there without risking the chance of having to surrender one's vehicle to axle deep, sucking mud). The summer's veggies are put away in the freezer and lined up on shelves in neat rows of mason jars. Firewood is stacked and drying, and I've got a few more dead trees scoped out for the next cutting day. The windows - at last - have been insulated with plastic where they sag in their 50 year old frames, letting the cold creep in unless we take the unsightly but practical approach of wadding newspaper or bubble wrap into the gaps and covering the whole mess with insulating plastic sheets. Yes, the ends of the plastic are right out there, waving in the breeze and just asking for lab puppy Jasper to grab them and pull - but perhaps he won't notice. There's extra plastic, anyway, and it is definitely much warmer once the plastic is up.

When we first moved out here, Dad fashioned wood frames that fit over the whole window (instead of the bottom half we covered up today), with the result that we spent the entire winter feeling like we lived in a slightly murky fishbowl. When we finally allowed ourselves to believe that spring had come and it was time to remove the frames, along about mid-April, it felt like we could breathe again!

Another seasonal activity, decorating for Christmas, begins just after the last horse teams clopping down the streets of Lebanon in the annual Carriage Parade have been made comfortable in their stalls - it's the putting up of the outdoor lights, white in the front and a splash of color in the back, just for fun. Coming home from work at night to see the yard lit up definitely makes me feel in the mood for carols and cookies and parties and all the good stuff that should be happening this time of year, even though I like to stretch out Thanksgiving as long as possible since it's the delicious beginning of the Officially Really Good Holidays (which incidentally includes my birthday, of course!).

So...on to Christmas, and the wheel of the year continues to turn. The days become shorter and shorter, but not for long - less than three weeks till the Midwinter Solstice and the light will grow again, even though we have to get through those dark cold months which my bardically oriented husband Keith aptly refers to as The Long Dark. Living in the country serves to make me, at least, more conscious of a certain rhythm to the year, and in so pondering I am made aware of a delicate thread of connection that still exists between me and mine and the country people of days long past.

I used to get books occasionally from a history book club, and one real gem that I still treasure is Lost Country Life by Dorothy Hartley (Pantheon Books, 1979). It features a month-by-month discussion of how British country dwellers lived around 500 years ago, and is highlighted by quotes from one Thomas Tusser, who lived in Sussex in the mid 1500's and wrote a number of verse treatises on "Husbandry," that is, managing farms and estates (no, not a book of rules for male spouses, though I am sure those exist and if they don't, they ought to, but that, as the saying goes, is a whole 'nother essay entirely). If you've ever heard the saying "it's an ill wind that blows none to good," then you've met Tusser (and you thought this would be something obscure, didn't you?).

Anyway, in his Points of Husbandry for December, he advises us to...wait for it...get your hay and feed set for the winter, preserve your food, and get your firewood in order.

That done, Master Thomas then advises us about Christmas - which for posterity I pass on:

Good husband and housewife, now chiefly be glad,
Things handsome to have, as they ought to be had.
They both do provide, against Christmas do come,
To welcome their neighbors, good cheer to have some.

Good bread and good drink, a good fire in the hall..
Cheese, apples and nuts, and good carols to hear,
As then, in the country, is counted good cheer.

***********************************

It's good to know some things...even over the centuries...don't change - much.

"4 a.m." and Other Seasonal Musings - Part One

2009-12-06T17:09:00.001-08:00

(Above: "4 a.m. Madison Township style!"

My favorite, favorite painting of all time hangs inconspicuously in a hallway in the Middletown Public Library. If you are curious to see it, take a left just past the circulation desk and keep looking to the left. It is a watercolor by Robert Brandenburg entitled simply "4 a.m." and in my opinion it is pretty nearly perfect.

Mind you, I have been fortunate to have seen quite a lot of notable works of art. I seek out Vermeer and other Dutch Masters in every museum I visit ( because I like them!). I have seen collections by John Singer Sargent (wonderful!), Maxfield Parrish (stunning!) and Rembrandt (almost indescribable - almost magical). I have traveled through some small part of the Vatican Museum, and the Louvre. I've stood with the crowds surrounding the Mona Lisa (or La Jaconde, as she is more formally called), and gaped with thousands of others at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

But for sheer evocativeness....the ability to almost grab me by the scruff of the neck, yank me practically out of my shoes, and transport me back to my childhood, nothing does it like "4 a.m." In fact, I make it a point to stand in front of it every time I visit the library, like a junkie getting my fix. I even attempted to learn if copies were available - no luck (so far), so despite my attempts to avoid the more depressing parts of my once-thriving hometown whenever possible, "4 a.m." will still draw me like a magnet to that shadowy passage behind the circulation desk of the library.

It's a simple picture, really - a scene of snowcovered backyards in some older neighborhood, much like Midway Street where I spent the first 12 years of my life (no, I haven't always been a country girl). It is dark, but not quite dark - there is that luminousity that one can only appreciate on a winter night when streetlights illuminate deep snow, with more coming down. The type of night in which, if you're out and about, your realize once your eyes adjust it isn't dark at all - just a deep grey. I'm not sure how the artist captured this quality of light - but I love it. There is an old vehicle under a tree, some backyard fences, a hint of danger: a cat peeks over the fence at a rabbit playing in the snow: the night is not totally safe after all! - but the feature which draws the eye is a single strand of Christmas lights strung over a gate and left to shine through the night.

Wow. Suddenly, standing in front of the painting on a hot summer afternoon, wearing a tank top, shorts and sandals, I am transported: I am a grade-school kid at St. Johns, peeking out the bathroom window (why else would I be up at 4 a.m., after all?) over the backyards;I know it is cold outside, and silent. I know if I stand in the backyard I will be able to hear the hissing of the snowflakes as they patter down to join their brethern, but I am not going out just now. I am snug in my red flannel 'jammies with the feet in 'em, secure in the delicious knowledge that school will be cancelled, MAYBE for more than one day! Mom, Dad and my aunt Cath are all sound asleep, and I am subconsciously secure in their nearness. Christmas is coming, another proximity that makes me happy. The tree isn't up yet - it's still in a bucket of ice water by the garage - but the wreath is on the door and the Nativity scene is set up on the server in the dining room (it will not surprise anyone to learn that I loved playing with the animals). If there is a better assembly of feelings for a kid to experience all at once, I can't think of it. And so I go back, time and again, to stand in front of "my" painting and revisit my childhood.

Inevitably I have to leave the library and throw myself back into the now, but at this time of year the wall of years between "now" and "then" seems to crumble and crack and wobble and just grow a little thinner. The beloved Nativity scene, its animals somewhat the worse for wear, will be set up in the dining room again. My windows now look out over woods and pastures instead of backyards and alleys, but I sometimes see MY cats stalking their prey, and at other privileged times may spy a surprised window-peeping doe who stares back at me before bounding into the cover of the trees, caught in the act of raiding my bird feeders for corn(it's ok, I don't really mind). When the snow is thick on the pasture it's the reflection of the moon, rather than streetlights, that illuminates the ponies moseying on their way to the water trough for a late-night drink of heater-thawed water. Stars hang low, shining through the branches of the trees, and it's the hooting of a hunting owl instead of the distant swish of cars on snowy streets that I'd hear if I stood quietly in the backyard.

The Christmas lights are up out front, a wreath is ready for the door, and soon we will seek out a little cedar tree for the table in the living room; this year we are foregoing a big tree in an attempt to avoid having to remove a collection of decorations from our 6 month old labrador retriever puppy's innards: better safe than stuck in surgery! Our front yard lights are traditionally all white, but in the back, spiraling up into a scrub tree above the horse trough, is a strand of colored lights hanging suspended in the darkness, a swirl of light and life and hope, color and celebration - and yes, a nod to "4 a.m." - in the midwinter night.

I hope it snows.

The Vampire vs. Werewolf Issue

2009-12-02T04:21:00.000-08:00

I have finally gotten around to reading the Twilight series; I was curious to see what all the fuss was about (the last time I did this the result was that I spent about four years repeatedly slogging through the halls of Hogwarts, so it was with no little trepidation that I ventured again into the realms of the supernatural).

If I understand it correctly - and mind you, I have no wish to blow an afternoon or six months at the computer reading all the relevant posts - two rival camps have sprung up as a result of this literary and cinematic phenomenon, each group peopled mostly with tween and young teen girls who dispute issues of such cataclysmic importance as why Robert Pattison was chosen to play vampire Edward Cullen, and who's "better" - vampire Edward or werewolf Jacob.

Now, I'm about 2/3 of the way through book 3, so admittedly I don't know how all this turns out, but I have been giving it some thought from my creaking, middle aged perspective : Vampires vs. werewolves....Team Edward vs. Team Jacob.

Edward? Tormented, romantic, very protective, very powerful. All hot, yeah. But...what happens when your feet get cold in bed at night? Somehow this vampire gig does not seem to lend itself to snuggliness..

Jacob? Also very protective, very powerful...not so tormented, not so tragically romantic. More FUN, and despite his agonies over becoming a werewolf I get the impression now he thinks it's kinda cool. However, some general thoughts about werewolf-husbandry: Do they shed?Do they pee on the furniture? Definitely warmer under the covers! However, do they hog the bed? We've got three little guys (under 15#) in bed at night and as it is I'm on the edge with one foot hanging out...But at least I could manage the health care aspects ("honey, it's time for your rabies vaccine, and your claws definitely need a trim. But could you please try not to bite me this time??" "Honey, for the last time, if you don't put your laundry IN the hamper, I'm bringing home the anesthetic and a surgery pack and it's snip-snip for YOU!"

So, back to the middle age perspective. I am from time to time experiencing these little episodes my (male) doctor laughingly (because he's never HAD one) calls "power surges." Female friends my age know what I'm talking about but for those of you who don't let me see if I can describe it. There you are, about to drift off to sleep, cozy and warm (other than the one foot forced out from under the covers by the aforementioned crowd of small dogs) and suddenly without warning you are producing enough BTU's to heat a reasonably sized midwestern town on a cold January night. It's flip off the blankets or die, open the window or melt. Heaven help you if you're, well, engaging in some sort of intimacy, since your partner suddenly finds himself wondering why you're screaming "aaarrrrghhh, get-offa-me-get-offa-me-NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!").

At this point, I'm thinking...snuggling with a vampire, who's cold to begin with and (from what I just read last night) actually grows COLDER when, um, you know....suddenly doesn't seem so daunting after all.

And what is Edward, about a hundred years old anyway? Middle age doesn't seem so old any more at that.

Is it hot in here or is it just me?

A Representative Sampling

2009-11-30T10:06:00.000-08:00

I like to write, particularly humorous items. I post here an anecdote from my past, for the entertainment of the millions reading this blog (yeah, I looked at how many have visited! Heh...self aggrandisement, anyway!)Enjoy...or not.

HALLOWEEN, MIGRAINES AND YO

So….August in Ohio. Dry grass, hot wind rustling the corn, and autumn just around the corner. It’s the time of year that I always think about migraines, Halloween and Yo.

OK, they would appear at a glance to be completely unrelated items, but bear with me.

Yo was my first technician. I hired her on the very day I bought my practice from my mentor, a 1957-vintage DVM with the delightfully appropriate first name of Merlin. Merlin was one of many old-school veterinarians who had trained his wife to multitask as receptionist, office manager and animal caregiver (in her spare time she raised three children). Apart from those tasks he performed the work of veterinary technician – anesthesia, surgical prep, treatments and so on – himself. He was therefore somewhat dubious about the need to hire, and actually pay, a bona fide tech.

I, on the other hand, graduated in an era in which the university techs not only made themselves indispensable but also wisely shouldered the thankless task of beating that indispensability – is that a word? It should be… - into our thick student heads, thereby perpetuating their own job security (they terrified us not a little in the process). No way was I going to run a practice without a tech, and as luck would have it, Yo had recently wandered in looking for a position closer to her home. It didn’t take long for her to make a believer out of Merlin. Although she had “grandfathered” into her technician’s license rather than going through a college program, she was extremely skilled, compassionate – and hilarious. On the downside…she had migraines.

Now, I have a high degree of sympathy for migraine sufferers, having been one myself until fairly recently. Imitrex injections and hormonal changes – a whole ‘nother essay entirely – have made them a thing of the past for me, but although gone they are not forgotten. I would feel one coming on: it would crawl insidiously up the back of my neck during a particularly trying day at the clinic, then slither around my temple to perch just above one eyebrow where for the next forty eight hours or so it would attempt to drill its way into my brain. During these episodes I generally tried to avoid mirrors for fear I would be faced with the image of Lon Chaney’s 1923 depiction of Quasimodo – one eye bulging, one shoulder hunched, and drooling. You get the picture.

I might add that, as if the brain-pains themselves aren’t enough, there is often some degree of nausea attached to this particular affliction. All in all, not exactly a walk in the park.

While new and better treatments for migraines are constantly being developed, experts generally agree that identification and avoidance of migraine “triggers” is the best defense. Stress was obviously an important trigger in Yo’s situation, and certain stressors – such as employers, perhaps – are admittedly difficult to avoid. But for Yo, the biggest stressor in her entire impressive pantheon of stressors was Halloween.

Oddly enough, and as luck would have it, Yo loved Halloween. She had a whole room devoted to the manufacture and storage of costumes and related paraphernalia, probably enough to last 15 years or so if rotated strategically (not unlike, for example, horse dewormers), but each year around the end of August Yo would become obsessed with the task of coming up with a new costume to wear for the “Oregon District Halloween,” Dayton Ohio’s annual outdoor holiday bacchanalia.

Complicating the entire endeavor was Yo’s man, Otto Otto was – how shall we say it? – large in a number of directions, so coming up with a working costume required roughly the ingenuity of World War II magician Jasper Maskelyne’s attempt to conceal the city of Alexandria from General Rommel’s encroaching Luftwaffe. A similarly staggering quantity of material was also needed.

The conception, gestation and birth of this annual brainchild generally caused Yo no small amount of stress, which in turn would beget – wait for it – a migraine. Without fail. Each and every year.

One year Yo decided to dress as the Statue of Liberty, complete with a crown and torch that actually lit up (history does not record Otto’s costume that year but it may have been the island of Manhattan. Yo, you must understand, did not do these things halfway).

Came the week before the Big Day. The costumes were finished. Yo of course had a migraine of epic proportions by this time, but she was determined to stay the course and make it to Dayton that weekend. The staff and I trod softly, closed up shop that Friday afternoon and watched anxiously as she staggered out the door, giving us a shaky thumbs-up when she reached her white pickup truck. The fate of the evening looked grim but our erstwhile monument to freedom was ready to go, light-up crown and all.

Some time later that evening my receptionist Crystal – a fellow township resident – happened to glance out her living room window toward the road. A glimmer caught her eye and she went out to investigate. Sure enough, Lady Liberty lay sprawled in the ditch, torch and crown still feebly alight, throwing up her socks. The Oregon district did without her that year.

It was a good thing, we all agreed later, that Yo had chosen the yard of a friend and coworker in which to toss her cookies. It saved her the embarrassment of having to explain the fiasco to strangers.

On a number of occasions in the past I have considered writing such episodes as The Great Statue of Liberty Halloween Disaster as a TV comedy script, then dismissed the idea. TV producers, I figured, would probably have passed on the concept with remarks that it was too crazy to be believable. But with the current popularity of reality TV shows, maybe I’d better reconsider.

First, Other Observations

2009-11-29T14:40:00.000-08:00

The first observation being, now that I have an online outlet for my thoughts...none occur. The cyberspace equivalent of stage fright, or a senior moment, or a brain f--t...Be that as it may (does anyone say that anymore?!), here I am.