Fireworks 2019

Last night I saw the best fireworks show ever. Our neighbors do this every year, but we usually have to go home before it starts because it has always made Lukas insane. He could still hear it at home, but it would be quieter and, of course, his barking and shrieking would only bother us, not the entire neighborhood. Zuza would just take it in stride, the way she always has.

This year was different, because they are both different.  Lukas has lost a lot of his hearing. It's harder because he can't hear the quiet praise and soothing sounds we make when he's upset. On the other hand, noise is much less of a problem. Innocent hikers walking by the house are finally safe from maniacal barking, and some trucks pass unnoticed. Woo hoo! Zuza's changes are harder to bear. She had to have an eye removed in January because of an abscess. The cataract in her remaining eye has destroyed her vision. This journey I'll detail in another post, but for the purpose of fireworks, her condition has made loud noise really scary.  She flinches every time there is an unexpected, sharp noise--hammering on the house, a dropped pan, a door slam.  The funny thing is that TV noises don't bother her. All kinds of mayhem can go on and she sleeps right through it. So, we left them home with a TV western blaring on the TV, and they were happy to sleep under a blanket in their best bed. And yes, they have a "best" bed.

So all that to say, amazing fireworks, right around the corner from our house, blossoming right over us.  Incredible colors. Incredible noise, including that sharp whistling that is usually followed by a soldier shouting, "Incoming!"

And suddenly I was a little girl, nestled up against my Dad, on the shore of Lake Winnebago at Lakeside Park in Fond du Lac.  We were talking about which of the fireworks we liked and which ones we didn't. Neither of us liked the "duds", ones that shot up and then, no colors, just an earth rocking BANG!

And who protected who in those moments?  My Dad came home from WWII shell-shocked--that term that became PTSD--and didn't go to the fireworks in my earliest years. I only learned the reasons after his death, in a random conversation with my Mom.  When he came home, she learned not to serve him coffee in a cup and saucer because his hands shook too much. At night he would cry out, and jump, and thrash. She said that she knew it would embarrass him, so she never mentioned it.

All those years, all those memories buried deep inside him.  No one ever let him talk out any of that fear, any of the revulsion he had felt at the destruction he saw.  He never told war stories. To my knowledge, he never wrote to the men with whom he served.  He said that he never wanted to return to the cities he had seen intact...and then torn up.  He never returned to London where he had grow up; he never saw Italy or France again.  And, I believe, he never appreciated the fireworks that I thought were so magical, if a bit unnecessarily loud.

This year, he would have been happier holding my nearly deaf dog on his lap in the quiet of my house, watching a western on TV.  I can't even begin to tell you how much I would love to have that be true.  The little girl I was still misses cuddling up to her Dad, listening to him explain magic.

Playing for Change, an Explanation

I found Playing For Change and linked it to my blog in 2014.  I couldn't figure out how to write on the page; it just didn't let me, so it sat as a draft for the next 6 years.  You can tell that it's not done today since all of the people are outside, surrounded by others an sitting really close to each other.  Remember hugging ? 

I looked at it again today and thought about how amazing it was that technology existed 6 years ago could let people who had never met and were all around the world sing together.  It still completely confounds me, even though I know today that it is still really hard to do.  Well, at least that's what I've heard.  

I still can't figure out how to write on the page, so I just published it and am offering this as a sort of postscript.  (Do only people who are old know what a "postscript" is?  For that matter, do only old people know what a semicolon is?)  Leaning on others seems to be a lesson we really need in today's world, as much, if not more, than we needed it 6 years ago.  So I offer it as an old/new lesson and a bit of comfort in this world filled with the anguish of another Black man's death at the hands of a cop, the indifference of government leaders in multiple countries, and the random acts of kindness in a troubled world.  Lean on me, and please, let me lean on you.

Lean On Me | Playing For Change | Song Around The World

Zuza, 2013

I found this on my blog list as a draft.  I don't know why I never published it; I suppose that I thought that there was something unfinished about it.  I can't imagine what that was, but I was still seeing myself in the not always complimentary light of working at Briar Patch, so perhaps that was it.

Zuza discovers a Bailey's glass

It was a little more than seven years ago.  Seven years!  Unbelievable that it could be that long ago.  This is a picture from about that same time, sleek coat, two eyes--doesn't feel like I'm asking too much, really.  Zuza had suddenly produced a large mass-like swelling on her belly which scared the crap out of me.  She seemed unconcerned, so it might not have hurt at all, but with her, you never know, she really didn't complain much about anything when she was a bit more mobile and closer to the Spring Chicken time of her life. She still doesn't complain much, but she has fewer ways to do things by herself now, so is required to ask for more help.

So here is my Spring, 2013 entry.  It was entitled, "Zuza, Today"

Zuza, brave little soldier that she is, is doing fine.  The unknown mass turned out to be an inguinal hernia which was easily repaired by our extremely talented surgeon.  Our other two doctors were there for consultation and dental cleaning--no kidding, they stitched her up so fast that they had time to clean her teeth.  Carolyn and I left the building while the surgery was happening.  On one hand, I do believe that there is some degree of consciousness that remains when they are sedated.  On the other hand, as she slipped under sedation and began looking not really very alive...I started to cry and figured if she could tune into me under sedation I better not be looking at her as a limp little creature. I am truly impressed with the quality of the team we now have.  She woke up quickly and, I am told, started looking for us right away.  And since it is Briar Patch and not some giant, impersonal place--and this is the bosses' kid--she went from one person's arms to mine instead of to a cage.  She kissed and kissed both of us and we held her wrapped in a blanket until I took her to work with me in the afternoon. 

Poor Lukas was incredibly worried, kept trying to squeeze as close to her as possible, and tried to clean her incision at any moment he could get in close enough.  She, in her generous way with her brother, growled at him every time he tried, even when she was too tired to lift her head.  Head down, grrrrrrrrrrrrrr, like a little gargle.

When we got home she slept in their bed by the fire with Lukas on guard in their chair next to her.  When any of the cats walked near them, he would lunge out, fiercely warning them away.  Okay, he's 4 pounds and not a rottweiler, but he can sound very, very fierce.  Unless he is frightened by scary stuff.  Like Velcro.  Or unexpected dry grass under his foot.  Or just walking around outside for too long.  Sometimes pooping scares him.  BUT, when he appoints himself a protector, it brings out all of his best self.  When we adopted Tenzing and Eddie, Lukas kept them safe when any of the big cats approached them.  He will still stop any of the cats from hissing or fighting.  And when Tenzing was sick last summer, Luke slept next to his cage and warned even Zuza away from him.

So, right now both of my canines are curled into little packages next to me on the chair.  She has a couple of ugly bruises and a tidy incision, (and me); he has his stuffed fox and a blanket, (and me).  And we're all happy.

Miracle of Miracles

So, no kidding, I witnessed a miracle this week and I promised God I'd write about it.  

I have been a tad fragile in the last couple of weeks.  And it means considerable weeping.  I am never good at finding things or keeping track of stuff.  It's just not my strong suit.  And a little deadly disease, disinfecting one's groceries and mail and newspapers, not hugging and not singing with the world's most wonderful choir, well...I'm doing an extra amount of looking for things.  It makes me testy.

A few evenings ago, we were just settling down to watch truly mindless TV in the early evening, when we got a call from dear friend Heather.  Her very big dog had just bitten her very old, little dog and there was a LOT of blood.  And it was the eye that had been bitten and maybe punctured and could Carolyn come over?  Well of course.  It took us forever to get ourselves all put together to leave the house to go into the big dangerous world.  Carolyn packed her doctor bag with whatever she thought she might need, we changed out of the jammie-like clothing we were wearing, located masks and gloves and clothing that could all be washed easily and off we went.  

I'm a decent assistant, although not as good as I used to be before my hands went to hell in a hand basket.  However, when we got there, Heather was holding the little dog like a baby and not only did the dog not fight Carolyn, Heather didn't so much as make a face when bloody awful things were happening.  Since we had left in a hurry, I didn't take my hearing aids out before I put on my mask.  Usually I do take them out.  They're teeny, tiny computers jockeying for space behind my ears already burdened with glasses, and now unruly hair clipped back away from my face, and adding the little loops from the mask is just trouble. But off I dashed off in the darkness, tucking the dogs into the front seat of the car in case this turned out to be a long night at Cornell.  

And when I got home, one of the hearing aids was gone.  We searched the car, the foyer, and the path from the house to the car. I called Heather and she went out in the darkness to search for a little brown thing in the dirt by her house.  Nothing.  Nowhere.   The next day we had monsoon rains and high winds all day.  I just resigned myself to not hearing for the rest of this year.  They cost thousands of dollars that are not covered by insurance and I'm not working for 3 or 4 months. I took the left one out to photograph for Heather and put it in its box.  I couldn't even wear it.  I only have moderate hearing loss so it wouldn't be so bad, right?  (You'll have to ask Carolyn about it because she's the one that is driven absolutely nuts when I can't understand anything she says the first time. Or the 2nd time. Sometimes the 3rd time.)

Yesterday we were gardening.  I wasn't feeling well, couldn't take my pain meds because of my gut acting up, and then I fell, tripping over the incredibly stupid rock walls we have around our garden beds.  They were built badly by NOT Carolyn who was going to rebuild them this summer after we got back from an epic vacation in June.  That was it.  I just lost it.  NOTE: I didn't fall on Zuza.  I wasn't carrying her and didn't drop her.  THAT tragedy was averted, which is handy because it's such a bad time to be institutionalized and I would have had to be sedated if that happened again.  After we were sure that nothing was broken on me, Carolyn went into the house for something and came back out looking at the palm of her hand.  "I found a hearing aid in the driveway," she said.  Unfreakingbelievable.  In the driveway.  Not squished.  Well, huh.

I took it from her and put it on.  Of course, it was dead.  "I'll, uh, go put in a new battery", I said, and left to do that.  I was already trying to figure out what to say to the audiologist.  "Gee, I don't know, it just stopped working." 

So, here comes the God part.  It was impossible that she even saw it on the driveway. It was impossible that we hadn't run it over or stepped on it.  It was impossible that one of the chickens didn't taste it.  It was REALLY impossible that it wasn't swept out to sea...okay, to pond...by the heavy rain.  I fetched a new battery.  And I prayed very, very earnestly.  

I don't really like talking about me and God a lot.  I have dealt with so many people who consider themselves serious God people and who are mostly serious judgmental, unkind, unloving people who believe that I am going straight to hell because my life partner is unacceptable in their god's eyes.  But Spirituality has always been important to me, a driving force since I was about 5 or 6 years old--no, really, I have witnesses--and it has always felt kind of private.  Maybe it was because I was raised Catholic in a small town in the Midwest.  We didn't do a lot of shouting out during services, weren't encouraged to read the Bible or have opinions about much of anything.  But since I'm like a Shih Tzu with separation anxiety, I liked the idea of never being alone, and a benevolent ally with magical powers seems like a good friend to have.  Then came Star Wars.  And Yoda.  (I love Star Wars, original trilogy, thank you).  And I'm watching Yoda explaining the Force to Luke, and I suddenly realize that the true essence of my belief system, of my capital letter "F" Faith is being summed up by a green puppet that sounds a cross between Grover and Cookie Monster.  That was humbling.



But I digress.



You guessed it.  The hearing aid worked.  I understand that it was a tiny miracle in a world that needs much, much bigger ones. But I made a promise that I would sing His (Her, Their) praises and tell everyone.  So here I am.  May you have ordinary miracles that brighten these bleak days.  



And May the Force Be With You.  💚

Lessons from Pets In the Midst of a Pandemic

I saved a frog from certain death today.  Our oldest boy cat, Adagio, really has a thing for catching frogs and bringing them into the garage.  I heard him singing the song of his people--that, "I am victorious with a mouthful of prey" song for which they are famous--and managed to scoop the poor thing up and return him to our pond.  

I am supposed to have been writing wildly for a month now.  Isn't that just what I have been whining about for years--time to write?  Now, there are other important things to do every day, and they have a lot to do with the other residents of our home--the whole thing, not the just in the house.  There are the chickens, of course, all four of them, who must be let out and in, who must be fed and watered, and who try to mob me to shake me down for treats.  Bread.  Little Debbie Snack Cakes.  French fries.  One of them--Foghorn--likes greens a lot, so she gets lettuce and spinach and whatever we have that the cats and dogs haven't snatched up, which means that peas, beans and squash never make it out there.  
Carolyn feeds the wild birds; sometimes I help with that, but she doesn't really need me there.  

Inside, there are five cats, three of whom eat in the garage and two of whom eat everything in the house.  And I mean everything.  Salads, pasta, cooked vegetables, cookies, and anything that counts as an entree. Dog food--lots of dog food. Twice a day all of the cats get a quarter cup of special dental diet food.  They LOVE this stuff which comes in big round crunchies that are designed to scrape the tartar off their teeth as they chew.  

The two little dogs are now 14 years old.  Lukas is deaf and perhaps a little senile, with terrible arthritis and not a lot of teeth in spite of three dental  procedures.  He has kidney disease and is medicated so that he will eat and so that his pain is under control.  Zuza is blind, which makes her much more crippled inside the house than she has ever been.  No more stairs, no happy wandering around the house.  There is a pee pad in the kitchen, just a few steps from their favorite bed and a water bowl to which she will go and use very consistently and efficiently. But then she needs help getting back into the bed, under the blankie and curled on to a warm snuggly--and if it is not warm enough, then there is more heartrending whimpering until she hears the microwave ding.  

Neither have ever been low maintenance about dinner time.  The canned food for Lukas must be cut into teeny, tiny bits and separated from each other.  Kibble is fed one at a time, from my fingers to his little mouth and if the piece is unacceptable for some reason, he spits it out.  Actually, sometimes the canned food has to be fed to him the same way.  Do you know how icky that is?  When they were younger we played Meals on Wheels every night where I would toss the kibble--sort of like the way you skip stones--and they would chase it down.  Of course, the cats would join in with this particular game.  Now the two youngest, Horatio and Calleigh, are right there; Horatio can grab kibble out of the air while Calleigh fields the grounders.  Sadako, with her head tilt and dealing with a world that is also tilted, no longer plays outfield, but insists on her own non-moving portion.  I do this, flinging pieces over my shoulder, while I am crouched feeding the dogs.  I must admit, however, the cats do help stir both dogs into eating.  They crowd around, trying to push their big heads into the little bowls of dog food.  Zuza always eats better if she has been able to say something nasty to any of the cats.

There is chicken coop cleaning...and litter box cleaning...and required sitting in the living room time, providing laps to little dogs with an occasional cat draped across my throat.  There are times that I feel that I have been overtaken by Tribbles.

But...most of the time, they can help keep the anxiety down to an almost manageable level and for that I'm really grateful.  The chickens are honestly really funny, and since we are not yet sowing seeds outside, they follow us as we prepare garden beds and do all of the thankless raking and pruning and soil testing around the yard.  They will jump into piles of leaves to scatter everything again, annoying, but funny-looking.  They will also dig up anything you plant, so we are going to be putting up more fencing as soon as it stops freaking snowing.

We have careful conversations with the cats, especially Horatio, about being gentle and patient and always putting all of their pee into the box.  (We were taught to do this by a animal communicator, and I swear to God it really works.  Horatio really makes eye contact, appears to listen  and occasionally comments.  And we haven't had any more litter box aversion problems which nearly forced us to give him up for adoption last Fall.  Okay, that's another story.)

About an hour after Luke gets his pills he turns into a much younger version of himself, complete with Nathan Lane-esque shrieking, bouncing up and down, playing with Foxy or any other available squeaky toy and demanding food.  Inconvenient, but it helps get me out of my head.  And Zuza...is Zuza, still alerting me when my blood sugar gets too low, still letting us know when she isn't warm enough, full enough, held enough and when it's time to go to bed, damn it.  

And she is still tucking her head up under my chin, cuddling close and letting me know that some things remain unchanged. 

Love is still here. Laughter is still possible.  

  

Susan

Susan Begg 1950-2019

I found her in her bedroom.  Hugger, her cat, had been in the window, calling for help for a few days and finally, the humans in the world had gotten smart enough to go into the apartment to check on her.  She had stopped answering her phone when we called and had not been pleasant to the neighbors that had checked on her; and so we had all backed off to let her figure out what she wanted to do.  This was apparently it.  

Fiercely independent, she died in a way of her own choosing, in the apartment that she loved. We don't really know the cause of her death, whether she had fallen or perhaps had a seizure or a heart attack due to her drinking; the bureaucratic world has made everything very slow for us "not-blood-kin", but indeed she was dead, and we had to deal with the aftermath.  One of the positives is that I had to go through her books and her METICULOUSLY saved letters to and from everyone in her life.  She had important poems and essays clipped to all of her lamp shades.  She had a million photos and journals and lists.  She also had all of the things that her mom had saved, which were just as meticulously identified and preserved as Susan's things.  Lord, Susan was as much a pirate as any of the cats in my life.  (She, being a Navy type would probably really resent my saying this, but it's true, she leapt into people's lives, took them hostage with poetry and a mischievousness that was anchored deep in her being. She held them with her brilliance, her kindness, her sense of fun and a loving heart that could touch a wide variety of people. When she had to leave, she did just that, and you were left with a maelstrom of feelings.)  

And so, she has left us for the last time.

On September 15 it was discovered that the Outrageous Susan Begg had exited this world to attend to whatever adventure awaited in the next one. She was born with at least five lives, perhaps not the requisite nine of feline fame, but definitely more than one.

 She started out a Navy brat, born on July 31, 1950, into a Navy family to Chief Warrant Officer Robert Begg and Renie Begg.  When they were stationed in the States, she spent some of her childhood in Bucksport, Maine, which was the favorite Begg gathering place.  Although most of her childhood was spent overseas and on Adak Island in Alaska, she always felt that tie to Maine.   In all of these places, she learned to love the sea, world travel, and eventually, single malt scotch.

Her next life took her to Smith College where, amidst other brilliant women, she found that she also loved women.  Pretty much all of them. 

Life number three found her enrolled in the Cornell Veterinary School. She thrived and excelled!  She was dubbed “Boomer” by one professor and did her best to live up to the name.  She found another smart woman with whom she would be involved both personally and professionally as she moved out into the world. 

In life number four she did an internship at the prestigious American Medical Center in New York City, and then a residency in Pathology at Cornell. She worked for a few years in Buffalo and then weaseled her way back to Ithaca, leaving a string of broken hearts behind her.  She worked at Briar Patch Veterinary Hospital until she didn’t.  Then she started her own business, Vet Express, where she became loved by every client who needed her to come to their house and attend to their beloved pets.

At this point, the lives she led became somewhat entwined.  Alcoholism followed her from Life #2 until the end of her life. She became very involved with 518.  This relationship was very important to her.  When she was her best self, it was when she had an outside structure, and 12 Step was a powerful influence on her.  She played softball and rugby; she became a fire fighter­­-- a job of which she was particularly proud.  She joined the Unitarian Universalists.  

Then, finally, studying and working incredibly hard, she returned to the sea by joining the Merchant Marine.  In many ways, she felt that she had come home. In each of these lives she found families of friends, lovers, team mates, neighbors and coworkers, all of whom will miss her. She is survived by her cousin, Jane Paxton, by her sweet cat, Hugger, and by a small group of longtime friends—Team Susan--who knew her for decades, and supported her for the last few years of her life.

Starting in 2016, she began to suffer from the beginning stages of an Alzheimer’s-like dementia.  Sometimes she could roll with it, telling friends to call her moments before they arrived at her house because she “couldn’t remember shit”.  As her memory failed more and more, she became increasingly depressed.  She grieved for her mother who died in 2007, but always told people that she was blessed by the friends who rallied around her.  She struggled with her old demons. 

Later it became obvious that most of Susan had headed out to sea, leaving us with a pale imitation of her former, larger than life, self.  Like the Unsinkable Molly Brown, the Outrageous Susan Begg has pulled herself out of the water and charmed her way into the next adventure.

A memorial service will be held at 3:00pm on November 16, 2019, at the First Unitarian Society, 306 N. Aurora St., Ithaca, NY.  In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to Ithaca Community Recovery, 518 W Seneca St., Ithaca, NY 14850.

      

The First Girl I Loved, Part One

It's odd that this should be my first post of 2018.  Odd that I haven't written for so long.  Some other day I will tell you why, but maybe that is why I haven't written.  I don't know the whole answer yet.

Anyway, on my way through my documents looking for the recipe for Tuna Brownies--yep, that's what I said, Tuna Brownies--I came upon something that I wrote a few computers ago and managed, through the magic of computer guys, to save.  (Tuna Brownies are actually part of another story that puts my Lukas in the limelight.)

So, I came upon the first chapter of something I have always wanted to write.  I do tend to do that, write first chapters--or titles.  I have lots of titles, most of them written down on little pieces of paper from the age of no computers.  But I digress.

This little story is true and doesn't even have a specific animal in it, unless you count four year old humans.  It's all true and no names have been changed to protect the innocent.

I think the first girl I loved was Colleen Zimmerman.  Why did she speak to my heart so?  I was three when she moved in next door.  I had a friend—Betty Rather—with whom I’d played since I was two.  But Colleen’s yard bordered mine and her house was built just like mine.  And there was something magic about her and her family and the twin, two-story houses that we lived in then.  I wanted people to believe that she was my sister.  I was a little blond girl, somewhat beer barrel shaped, with her hair in mandatory, pathetically thin braids.  Colleen was a skinny little thing...with longer braids of normal thickness. We weren't fooling anybody.  I spent as much time as I could with her. 

The Zimmermans were perfect for us, with a kid just the right size and gender for each of us.  They had an extra girl, older than all of the rest of us, but I don't think she minded being excluded.  Sometimes we all played together, shooting games mostly, lots of ducking and dying, although one famous variety show, staged in my garage, remains in my memory. Sometimes the four youngest girls became the Lennon sisters, singing siblings from the Lawrence Welk Show.  (I insisted that I be Janet, the youngest of the performing siblings, so Colleen, because she was 3 months younger than me, had to be Mimi, (the actual fifth Lennon sister, who only sporadically performed).  "Kathy" was somehow always on vacation when we performed.  I know now why I refused to be Kathy.  She seemed too much like a grown up.  I had no desire to be a grown up.  I'm not sure that I want to be one now.

Sometimes all the kids in the neighborhood gathered for frozen tag.  For Colleen and I there were dolls and countless pretend games, homes and stores and restaurants and schools, all in my garage. We rescued birds from our cats, caring for them as well as we could, and having elaborate funerals for the victims that didn't survive.  Somewhere in the yard beside Colleen's old garage, there is a metal breadbox with a sparrow skeleton.  

There were sleepovers that we tried to make last as long as possible, one time pretending to sleep until lunch time so that she could eat at my house and we could stay together into the afternoon.  Mind you, our houses were only a few feet apart and there wasn’t any reason that we couldn’t just play together outside.  But, for me, if we slept in the same house, it was more like belonging together.  On Christmas mornings we could run over to each other’s house in our pajamas to compare the haul and to envision the games that would grow out of those gifts.  And when our sisters grew up enough for a summer of playing canasta, we teased them for having become incredibly boring. 

One time, when I had done something that Colleen didn’t like, she stopped being my friend for a hideously long time, maybe as long as a week.  It was the summer after 3rd grade, for me, and I remember yearning after her, heartbroken, certain that I had lost her forever and certain that this was important forever.  I remember standing in my yard calling out to her as she crossed the street to play with the boys that lived over there (that we didn’t even like that much) and wondering if I would survive this. When she deigned to forgive me I was careful to remember my transgression so that I never would lose her again.  

She was my best friend, and in some ways I think I measure all of my friends against that first innocent love.  When we were ten years old Colleen's family moved to Iowa and I felt a hollowness that was nearly overwhelming, made worse because she was initially excited about the move and less devastated than I.

That was the first love of my life, the first real loss for my heart to bear.