When you were a young and callow fellow

Running on the beach the other morning with Mark and Zoë, who outpaced me, and Clover, who ran back and forth between the three of us, I wished I had my phonecamera. There was thick fog, and it was lovely seeing them gradually vanish into it in the distance. Plus, plovers everywhere, the water, the dunes. But it's awkward to fit a phone in the pocket of my running pants* (pockets are full of empty poop bags and dog treats anyway), and freeing to be free of it for a while.

We ran and walked and ran and so did Clover, stopping to sniff other dogs occasionally and run in circles with them. We stretched afterward on the sand and breathed in the fog and the sound of the waves and gulls, lucky lucky lucky.

Today, my favorite thing was the poodle with the mohawk. And my least favorite thing was the guy on Congress Street with the sign that said

MEDIA

WHORES

LIARS

COVID

HOAX

*Mostly I walk in them.

I would swim the seas for to ease your pain

Reminding myself of the chill I got the first time I got a New York Times breaking news email that was coronavirus-related but didn't specifically mention coronavirus. The assumption that 100% of everybody knew exactly what they were referring to. And then a Portland Press Herald headline: NEW CASES SURGE. Just the fact that there was no need to specify cases of WHAT.

Isaac ventured out to the grocery store for the first time in a while, and he wore his suit to do it. It was an event. I've been going the opposite route, hair scraped into a ponytail for maximum mask ease. Gray mask. For a while I was carefully applying mascara before I went into the world, because we're all 100% eyeballs now, but the last few times I didn't even do that. It's all about comfort, and pockets for keeping my debit card handy. Last time I went to Hannaford, I got carded for my tiny box of cooking wine, and I had to scrabble around in search of my wallet and then rifle through it for my driver's license (these masks, they hamper downward peripheral vision, have you noticed?). The whole time I was thinking Really? Do you see these eyeballs? I'm fifty-two goddamn years old and I'm buying 12 ounces of bad white wine.

We've had some days warm enough to open the windows, and it's made this whole situation feel a little easier, although from the look of things it's also made people feel like it's probably fine if they meet up with friends and stand close together, and in the case of my cigar-smoking neighbor, smoke stinky cigars en masse, defiantly. Even Isaac and Edna can't stay away from Christian, who comes by in his sharp outfits (brightly colored jackets and crazy shoes, velvet and suede and satin) so they can take long, socially-distanced walks together and sit, spaced apart, in the back yard.

Gus has stayed with us long enough to celebrate his eighth birthday! He naps so deeply these days, buried deep enough in sleep that I have to put a hand on his side to make sure he's breathing. At night, he snores more loudly than ever. He's taken to eating dirt sometimes, seeming a tiny bit confused at others, but mostly he's still 100% Gus.

I took little Clover to the beach this morning. I like to think that we both looked at this cottage and dreamed of living there, a step away from the sand, with the constant sound of wind and waves.

Come visit any time!

Love in the time of COVID-19

(Updated to add links)

Oh I keep meaning to write something here, but I find myself scribbling in a journal instead (literally, scribbling little sketches of stuff, i.e. dogs, as well as writing words and lists and so on). Here's what's been happening in my house/life:

• Isaac and Edna are here, in limbo as they wait to learn how online instruction will work for the remainder of their semesters. It's a bizarre, sad way for Isaac's undergraduate career to end.
• We've been watching movies:
• Knives Out
• Jojo Rabbit
• And TV:
• The Plot Against America
• High Fidelity
• Better Call Saul
• Homeland
• Even after searching the stores for flour in a frenzy, once Mark had come home, victorious, with a bag from Whole Foods, it took me a few days to decide what I wanted to bake and to actually start baking. Here's what we've made so far:
• Socca, eaten with two friend eggs on top (chickpea flour required)
• Vegan pumpkin pecan bread
• No-knead bread (this is rising right now, and if it works out we'll eat it with this soup tonight)
• Isaac whipped up some focaccia last night, topped with rosemary and flaky salt

It was a more innocent time.

Good things:

• Bare footprints in the sand on the beach 
• A V of Canadian geese flying north overhead
• Clover in her new bed, looking like she's asleep in the arms of a stuffed animal
• The calming properties of a piece of buttered toast
• A video of a man playing Moonlight Sonata on a piano for an elderly elephant's listening pleasure

And finally, notes on getting a massage, which I jotted down over a week ago, which now feels like the distant past (when will we be able to do things like get a haircut or a massage again?):

It sure is weird right now, at this moment in history, to be doing something that involves a stranger putting their hands all over your body. 

Harsh words and scattered syringes

(From a movie review I was just reading: "Rated R for harsh words and scattered syringes.")

Ugh, I've got to get off the social media. Getting embroiled in a long back-and-forth with anti-vaxxers on Facebook was not how I'd planned to spend 2020. In contrast, and confusingly, I also had a lovely interaction with a friend I only interact with on FB (i.e. if I quit FB I lose that connection, and it matters to me). I'm continuing my brutal cull of people and places that bring me down, muting and unfollowing ruthlessly. 

Clover isn't a fan of the new normal around here. It involves a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs and being carried around a lot. No frolicking in the back yard, no off leash play times. Business-only leash walks. NO FUN. Added to our heartbreak is the knowledge that these are some of her last months (or, maybe, weeks) with Gus.

NOT A FAN

As if it had mattered, all of it, every second

It's warm-your-nose-with-your-fluffy-tail season!

The day started off on a shaky note, when I went to fire up the trusty laptop and it just wouldn't turn on. After I'd roused my in-house IT guy from sleep, it magically turned itself on, and then I felt terrible for robbing him of 20 more minutes snuggled up with the forest creature pictured above.

So, fingers crossed, re: laptop. Mark did something to it that may help? Not sure, he's the IT department around here. I did work through all my stuff to make sure there would be no disaster if I were laptop-less for a few days (i.e. it's all in the cloud, I just need to remember how to find all my passwords, etc.).

And then I slippy slid on the icy front steps and dithered for way too long about which jacket to wear (it was freezing, but raining). I went for the rain jacket, and now I'm trapped at the coffee shop watching snow fall outside. It's so cozy, but long past lunch time and a person can only drink so many cups of coffee (1 caf and 1 decaf) and eat so many slices of pumpkin bread (1) before a person needs some peanut butter or something.

I never feel quite prepared for winter. We have dug out the aforementioned accessories and located the ice cleats/snow pants/bucket of sand/et al. Closed storm windows, found extra blankets and hots bags of corn. Still. 

Okay, wish me luck as I head out into a damp November mini-blizzard.

Living is no laughing matter

(Birgit Puve for The New York Times)
ALL OF MY GOALS ARE PRESENT IN THIS PHOTO

Gearing up for the month of November, when it's my tradition to write something in this blorg every single day. The summer was a rush of rabbit rabbits, apparently — and that's how it feels looking back, fleeting and sweet and bright. Oh, summer.

Changes

What a luxury to have a little time to prepare for change! Gus will die of lymphoma, but he is 100% dog right now, happy to walk and bark and eat and lie around in the yard and ride in the car and wrestle with Clover. He is receiving a few last chemo treatments, but they aren't too hard on his body. The last couple of nights it took him forever to work up the resolve to climb the stairs at bedtime (he's always always needed a running start). I don't know if the chilly weather is making him stiffer than usual (if so, I can sympathize). Anyway, it's sad to hear him crying as he tries to psych himself up to do it.

Mom and Dad are moving to North Carolina, and not to jinx it, but they got to have the bidding war of their dreams on their beautiful Cambridge condo. They came to stay for a week while all the open houses were happening, and I think aside from possibly a Christmas or two, it was the longest they've ever stayed with us. Despite my dad's motto about fishes and visitors and how they smell after three days, it was so fun.

The air turned so cold that I put the heat on Friday night for the extremely quick fly-by visit of Holly and Maia, despite the fact that there are still air conditioners in two windows and most of the storm windows aren't closed. Leaves turning, birthdays approaching, my favorite most bittersweet time of year.

Challenges

My weird work life sometimes throws up these challenges, and it's my habit to accept each one breezily and then spend some private time panicking about what I've committed myself to, before ultimately pulling it off somehow. It's so regularly terrifying that it feels like it should pay better. But probably it's good for me?

Creatures

Mark is out of town for a few days and Clover loves me more when he's away! My yard is full of little brown sparrows.

Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts from one foot to the other

• The sound of the dishwasher just doing its methodical job early in the morning is miraculous and soothing.
• There is a worried pup curled at my feet, and across the room a cat, oblivious, threatens to knock a picture off the wall in his campaign for second breakfast.*
• The NPR people are my constant companions, an intelligent background murmur.
• Murmur, what a word, huh?
• Upstairs, three sleeping humans.

*I keep a supply of rubber bands to shoot, not at Theo, but adjacent to him, when he is gently terrorizing this way. I love this cat, but a person's gotta get some work done some time.

It doesn't scare him. It diverts his attention in the direction of the rubber bands. It is extremely satisfying on my end.

Living must be your whole occupation

I'm not off to the best start, as far as this posting every day thing. Ah well! I have been spending my days writing things, printing things, and stitching away on an endless embroidery project while watching Bojack Horseman and Forever. In between, I walk dogs, talk to dogs, pet a sweet cat, and let the dogs out in the back yard to wrestle and chase squirrels. Even though I suspect she's out for actual squirrel blood, I love to watch Clover fly around the perimeter of the yard like a cartoon reindeer.

Mark is helping Isaac and Edna move to a new apartment in Ossining, which looks from photos like it has a lovely ornate ceiling and beautiful floors. I am making holiday plans — I always start off with such energy and focus!

A couple of complaints to follow. My house is so dirty right now. Everything is covered in layers of dog and cat hair and dry leaves. I am washing our duvet right now because I'm tired of sleeping with hair in my mouth. Also, I fear that we really really need a new mattress, unless there's some other reason I keep waking up feeling like I've been cage fighting all night long. End complaints.https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/living

Red rain

Space heroes, Belka and Strelka
ITAR-TASS PHOTO AGENCY/ALAMY

It's raining and raining, making for slick leaf-strewn sidewalks and damp dogs everywhere. Holly and Maia breezed in and out of town, which was lovely, since one of my top five favorite things to do is talk to Holly while we drink coffee together.

Last night the dogs acted ferocious during our late walk, barking insanely at a passing dog as they twisted and lurched around me. I juggled damp poop bags, slid on wet leaves, maintained my grip on their soggy leashes. I did see a terrible outcome flash in front of my eyes, but we made it back without biting anyone, falling down, or running loose into the street, and thus counted it as a total success.

Nablopomo

Palczewski Suffrage Postcard Archive

Here we go, the month of November, in which I attempt to write a little somethin in this blorg every day, even when I've got nothing to say!

Today is November the second, and unless their plans have changed (i.e. their alarms didn't go off in the middle of the night), my best pal Holly and her daughter Maia are on their way to tour colleges in Maine, starting this very morning, with the college that is a mere blocks from my house. I have my fingers crossed that Maia loves this conveniently-located college.

Mark is out of town, so Clover is extra cuddly. It may be due to slight anxiety, but I'll take it. 

My color's green. I'm spring.

Is it just me, or do things feel grim and then grimmer? Looking back at low times, dark times, politically bizarre times now — or times we thought were bad or weird — none of it seems quite so bad. Which makes me nervous about the future.

Mark and I embarked on Phase One of our summer fence project. Monday we tore down the old fence (well, most of it was down already, but we pulled up posts and yanked apart fence sections, and stacked everything tidily in the yard). Tuesday we rented a truck (a moving truck), and we filled that truck with fence and drove that fence to the dump. Eight hundred pounds of fence, give or take. We also threw in some large trash that we'd been hoarding in our basement. Then we drove the truck home and filled it twice more with brush that we'd been hoarding in a corner of our yard. Then we drove those loads to the dump.

The sad thing in this photo is the Big Wheel, not the boat.

Oh, how I hate the dump. Well, I like certain aspects of it, like the areas where like items are stacked, nicely categorized and organized like what you'd expect to find at a Montessori Dump. Hot tubs with hot tubs. Concrete blocks all together, tires neatly assembled, air conditioners with their air conditioner families. But the bulk of it is "mixed," like the above photo, and we were surprised that this is where our fence was meant to go. Also, any brush, plastic, or anything else that happened to ride along in the truck with the fence. Brush and other yard waste that was traveling solo was allowed to go in the "yard waste" pile. Horrifyingly, huge pushing trucks (front loaders? bulldozers? I used to know the names of them all, back when Isaac was a truck aficionado) would loom suddenly up right beside you and abruptly shove all the trash back into the trash mountain when you least expected it. 

The worst thing about the dump was a fox we saw there, slinking around, low to the ground, skinny and sad. Its tail was just so ragged and thin. It made me really sad.

We didn't get all the brush out of here, but we got most of it. Phase Two is erecting the new fence on that side. Phase Three, I regret to tell you, is identical to Phase One except on the other side of the yard.

On the upside, I have been making delicious smoothies with my trusty little mild-mannered blender (matcha, frozen banana, spinach, almond milk, vanilla protein powder yesterday. Frozen banana, peanut butter, cacao powder, vanilla protein powder, almond milk today. I think of this as "the Elvis smoothie" of course). We voted yesterday, and it was busy. I don't remember them loudly calling out your registered political party in the past, but they did yesterday, and I was shocked that there were several Republicans in line in front of me. 

Also on the upside, flowers.

Does anyone not like peonies? We once knew a lady in Kansas who pronounced it "pee OH nee."

She's my girl. My secret life's goal is to get her to love me more than she loves Gus or Mark.

interesting, and modern

There is probably nothing better in this world than Gus's tail.

So, I think of this as "periodically reminding the dogs that they're domesticated." Also known as walking around the neighborhood in the rain.

• Scooping the poop of someone else's dog is almost as bad as changing the poopy diaper of someone else's baby toddler.
• People who let their dogs poop in the middle of the sidewalk vs. People who voted for Trump*
• I need a word for a summer variation on hygge — when the sky goes dark mid-day and you have to turn on lights and pull out a sweater and maybe make a cup of hot tea. 
• A house in our neighborhood sold recently and today is the closing. We assume a walk-through was going on this morning, and there was an annoying** car parked in front.  

*Clearly you'd prefer to be on a desert island with the first person. You'd constantly be stepping in dog poop (assuming their dog could be on the island too), but then there would be a dog on the island! 

**white BMW

My Heart Leaps Up

Taking all kinds of inspiration from Patricia Lockwood's essay How Do We Write Now? There's so much that's good here.

"That your attention is in one sense the most precious part of you, it is your soul spending yourself, to teach you that there’s always more. 

That your attention is a resource that can be drafted, commandeered, militarized and made to march — like youth, passion, or patriotism...

That if you sometimes try to comfort yourself by thinking, Cows don’t know about him, you’re not alone."

Plus, the reminder that looking at a screen, and through that screen at the Interwebs and social media is maybe not the best way to start the day. I like this too:

"The single best way to give the morning back to myself is to open a real book as I drink my first cup of coffee. I’m not sure why real books are best. I think the pages remind me that I have fingerprints. I think I like to see what I have read lying sweetly by the side of what I’m about to read, like a wife."

In a hotel in Maryland with one little dog, drifting off to sleep at 8:40 PM. I'm going to try listening to Max Richter's Sleep all night long, just for fun. 

Your own shivering life

I ended up spending a lot of the weekend fending off some illness (cold, rather than flu, I'm now pretty sure) with spoonfuls of this and hot tea. I started a new stitching project and was greatly comforted by multiple episodes of Great British Bakeoff, the most soothing TV show ever. Last night we ate Mark's roasted salmon with spinach, and I used up great quantities of leftover stale baguette by making chocolate bread pudding. It had to be chocolate to get Mark to eat it (I suspect there's something he finds unsavory about the name BREAD PUDDING, but it's one of my favorite desserts). It was a bit too chocolatey, but otherwise delicious.

A year ago, we hadn't met this cutie yet!

But we already loved her.

Resolve

I am that penguin.

It is cold, the kind of cold that bores through your exposed eyeballs and freezes the inside of your nose (that sensation always brings me back to being about ten years old in Chicago during an endless winter of towering snow). Tomorrow, they say, will be better. We've even slacked off on our regular dog walks, worried it will be too cold for Clover. Her feet get cold, and she holds them up one by one. We have walked only as far as Deering Oaks and a few times a day let them out back to bound around the yard.

photo by Xavi Bou

If birds left tracks in the sky, they'd look like this. Also like zippers, like strands of DNA, like fish bones painted in watercolor.


The inconsequential floor is beginning to shine.

Attack

A post shared by Smith Galtney (@smithgaltney) on Nov 15, 2017 at 10:58am PST

We had an unpleasant encounter this morning on our usual walk. It was quiet and cold, so I let Clover off the leash, and she leapt and raced after squirrels as we strolled with Gus along the path. Mark and I were, in fact, congratulating ourselves on how good Clover is, so reliable off the leash, unlike Gus, whose instinct is to dash off and stubbornly resist coming when he's called (he gives us the side-eye and smiles). A man appeared up ahead, walking toward us, and when he saw Clover, he froze. She froze too. She didn't come when we called her. The man started yelling at her, clapping and lurching (in an apparent attempt to scare her away), and she started barking at him, as I ran toward her to grab her. Every lurch the man made sent her skittering away, barking. After I had grabbed her, he started yelling at us, "YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF LETTING A DOG LIKE THAT LOOSE! THAT DOG ATTACKED ME, I'M CALLING THE POLICE, I'M FOLLOWING YOU TO YOUR CAR AND CALLING THE POLICE!"

We were so taken aback, trying to get away/explain/apologize/contradict him all at once. A runner had come up just as this all happened, and she magically calmed the man down. I didn't really hear any of what she said (I was hustling away with my attack dog), but Mark did, and he talked to her later in the parking lot to thank her. She said something like, "I can tell you're really scared and it felt like you were being attacked," all while assuring him he wasn't, in fact, in any danger, or being attacked. She was a magical stranger, sympathetic to us and yet so kind to this man.

(We are typically so careful about letting dogs off the leash, truly. I always try to see things from the perspective of people who aren't expecting a dog, don't like dogs, are afraid of them, are unfamiliar with them, etc. I feel terrible about it, and simultaneously annoyed.)

Favorites

My favorites today: Watching Clover leap and spring and bound through the woods—when she's happy, she actually skips. A runner smiled as she passed and said, "Everyone is happy here!"

Chatting with a dog person who turned out to have a Scottish accent.

Oh, here's one from last night: I love how the dogs growl in alarm every time they notice that our neighbor the lobsterman has buoys or traps or other mysterious boat-related objects piled on his lawn or in the bed of his truck. It all smells very intriguing, but it's so suspicious.

The ladylike way she covers her feet with her tail.

Wooded

Come on puppies, let's get in formation.

Flying solo, walking two dogs early, navigating poop bags and the season's first gloved hands, making it several blocks before realizing how ridiculous it is that I'm wearing sunglasses.

In the woods, Clover runs and returns, leaps and returns, chases squirrels and returns. Then she finds a pile of something deliciously stinky to roll in. She is so proud, and when we get home, Gus admires her perfumed neck.

Matcha latte and a chocolate chunk bagel from this place = happy day.

10

“That’s another great thing about getting older. Your life is written on your face.” - Frances McDormand, 60, one of my heroes.

Also, Pause by Mary Ruefle, mentioned in the article above.

I love reading wise words about growing older.


This morning we looked and looked for the beautiful red fox we saw yesterday on Mackworth. We've done the Mackworth loop walk hundreds and hundreds of time (it's as much part of my routine as brushing my teeth or setting my alarm for 6:30), but we've never seen a fox there before. This guy was big and fluffy and magnificent, with his head held high (unlike the smaller, low-slung gray Oakdale fox). We looked at him and he looked at us. He only trotted away when we moved slightly closer and Gus barked. He looked like the fox I follow on Instagram.

Sometimes she snuggles.

Hey, we went camping last weekend! We drove farther north and east than we've ever been in Maine, so far up the coast our phones got confused and thought we were on Atlantic time.

I ended up with the warmer (borrowed) sleeping bag, and Mark got chilly and we both woke up from the fact that we were basically sleeping on the ground, and we were late getting to the camp ground in the first place and had to pitch the tent in the dark (of course). BUT, despite all that, it was so much fun. It's been so long since I've camped — we always talked about doing it with the kids, but somehow 25 years went by, and we never did it. I love the food preparation (hotdogs on sticks over the fire) and coffee drinking parts of camping, the smells and slowed pace and lack of screens, etc. And this was such an idyllic spot, right by the water, facing east for the sunrise. And both dogs were angelic, seriously. They snuggled up to us at night in the tent, and were happy to be tethered to the picnic table or to walk on leashes around the (empty) campground otherwise. We hiked too, and make great use of all our (mostly borrowed) camping gear.

38

It's a good day for cover songs. Here is my compulsive collection of covers. Give them a listen, you'll surely like some of them!

Hey, Theo caught and murdered his first mouse last night. He left it as a gift for us in our bedroom. Thankfully, Mark found it first.* Theo proceeded to saunter and strut around all day being proud of himself. He spent hours lying on my arm while my hand was trying to type stuff on the laptop. Purring and smiling.

I keep this on my phone so I can use it for a WOOHOO emoji.

In other animal news, Clover is increasingly scared of fireworks and thunder and breezes blowing window shades unpredictably and so on. We bought some Rescue Remedy for her today and slipped it into her chicken broth appetizer.

Animals seen/witnessed in the last few weeks: turkeys, the usual seabirds, two osprey parents, the usual songbirds, grackles, foxes, skunks, a whistle pig,** the usual dogs and cats, a dead mouse, squirrels and chipmunks, black and white cows.






*Mark historically deals better with dead animals than I do. If I'm being totally honest, he was also better with vomiting children. Speaking of which, you know what I can't handle lately? Gratuitous vomiting on telervision shows. 

**I've converted Mark from "groundhog" to "whistle pig," and Gus is even learning it! Now when I say it, he perks up, like, "Wa-huh? Where?!"