You guys were right.  This thing where Anna and I write together has really been a wonderful way to get to know each other on a new plane.  And it’s just by chance lately.  First she helped me edit, then I helped her with a story she’d written for class.  It’s funny because I’ve noticed since the trip she is in the throws of that 17-year-old state of thinking mom’s full of shit.  That’s not what she really thinks, that’s just how she makes me feel.  She disagrees with anything I think or say, just on principle.  I remember the older girls, that summer before senior year, really pushing to establish their identity, SEPARATE from me; like wanting a new relationship where they were more dominant. 

The writing is a perfect way for her to do this because she’ll be reading my novel and say, “I don’t like this.  It should be:  ……”  And I say, “Oh, you’re right.  Yeah, change it.”  And she’ll make the changes herself. 

But when she reads her stuff aloud and I say, “what about if you …..”  she is stubborn at first but then relents, hearing it sound better.  And  so then we get into these discussions about what my characters or hers might do and it’s such a true way of interacting and so much fun for both of us.

But not as fun as tonight.  For a final project in English she was supposed to make a booklet about something near and dear to her.  She chose color.  We rifled through magazines for pictures to depict the pieces we wrote.  I probably shouldn’t have ( I said I wouldn’t) but I wrote a poem about these flowers I bought.  Plus I wrote a little prose about my favorite necklace.  And she wrote a fantastic poem so we read each other our stuff and then cut out the pictures and she put it all together in such a beautiful way.  What fun.  We’ve managed to play with words three days in a row now and that’s some kind of record for her driving over here.

I was climbing up the stairs for bed last night when I flashed on one of those dinner-time stories; not the content, but the scene.  Any night we were all together at the table was special, and Henry did most of the cooking.  He was a cook in the Army Reserves during the Vietnam War and, because he wasn’t home much during the week, he enjoyed cooking on the weekends.  Often I made something for the kids and he made something for us, and by the time all the food was on the table there were lots of courses.  And there was wine.  And there was music. 

Everyone wanted to talk about their week and fill Henry in on what had been going on.  In our diningroom we had a big, pine, bread table from Ireland and two long benches with backs that had been pews in a church.  I’d painted the ceiling gold and the wallpaper was black with deep, bright-colored flowers outlined in gold. The youngest would sit at the end on a bar stool.   The middle child would perch like a bird on the bench, and Bella would lay under my feet but with her head within nibbling distance of the oldest who fed her under the table.  Anna would leave the bar stool and climb onto the table for a more commanding view of her audience as she launched into one of her stories.  At first it was cute but it got to be tedious and when the older girls would start to talk over the top of her, I would remind them that “Anna had the floor.” 

Standing at the top of the stairs, I remembered how happy we were then.  It’s unnerving how different your life can be from one year to another.  Bella being gone now seems so odd.  I’m here with this new dog, trying to love her like I did Bella, but when I got home from the Vet’s I found my phone in the garage.  She’d taken it apart and the battery was in the kitchen.  Somehow it still works.  Then the next morning I got up thinking we’d have a nice run down by the river now that we didn’t have to worry about Bella not being able to keep up and not wanting to upset her by leaving her at the house.  So I came down to find my new sandals in shreds.  I’d made the mistake of kicking them off while I was sitting in front of the computer.  Today she rolled in something awful, the first time she’s ever done that.  I don’t even know what she could have found out there.

I think I have been so focused on moving ahead with my new life, leaving behind all the negative parts of that old life, that I forgot the good parts.  Holding Bella in my arms, feeling her slip away, it was like losing my old life all over again.  Only this time I treasured it.  I wiped my eyes and went around the table to get one last look at her, remembering what a good life she’d had.

My youngest daughter read what I wrote, in addition to what I sent in (for my final) so that’s 34 pages of totally finished work.  And she hardly found anything wrong today, I mean that she didn’t like or that wasn’t a tense shift or something.  I paced while she read.  BUT SHE LIKED IT.  She said it’s getting a lot better.  She liked the frequency with which I switch back and forth between the characters and she said it was unusual for her to enjoy reading about “old people.”  Most of the characters are my age.  The only thing she changed today was a conversation between the kid and the mom.  She rewrote the kid.  I feel so lucky to have her help.

When she was just learning to talk, where she could tell a story, she would come to the dinner table and go on and on about something.  This precluded actually eating and between going to the bathroom by herself and telling these stories she never did eat much dinner.  She was probably almost three.  And I remember thinking she would make a good writer.  The detail this kid would come up with.  But then she decided she didn’t like to read and for a long time she hated to write.  But on our trip that changed.  So after she read my pages tonight, she wrote a little story of her own (an overdue assignment).  And I could see how much fun it was for her, how good she felt about herself.  If all I do is allow her to see herself as a writer, that’s plenty.

Ode to an Old Dog

 

She was good to me, my “Bella,”

after she quit running away.

As a puppy her world existed

within a five-mile radius.

She even tried the freeway once,

to the home of a little girl who needed her.

 

I always got my Brittany back

but she was a wanderer at heart.

Raised in town but preferring the beach,

always rolling in dead things washed up on shore.

 

Down to the jetty with me on my walk,

back to the jetty with Henry on a run.

Up to town with the kids for lunch

and back and forth with the neighbors.

She was a beach dog.

 

But then we left, she and I.

She saw me through the hardest times

there at the foot of my bed.

She kept a respectful distance

waiting for better times

where we took the trail at more than a crawl.

 

Old dogs CAN learn new tricks.

A dog door leading to a fenced backyard,

she never had to ask permission again.

An acre to roam with a new puppy to train,

she claimed her rightful place.

 

But there comes a day

when it’s time to leave,

and she chose June 10th,

my wedding anniversary.

And now he’s gone and so is she,

my Bella.

Don’t worry, I’m not taking up poetry.  I don’t know how you people do it.  I’m just upset and it seemed the way to honor her.

I e-mailed the first ten chapters to my teacher tonight, as my “portfolio.”  I can’t imagine how people really send work out; how it could ever feel really done.  But I’m glad to have gone through this dry run because I made a lot of progress in a hurry.

Now I’m without a class Wed night and the hospital is offering a drumming class.  It’s free and I could bring my drum so I don’t see why not.

Today was hectic because, in addition to turning the work in, I ended up having to rent a U-haul truck to pick up a table I’d made a bid on over the weekend.  When my daughter and I took our two “rigs” over there the table top was too large to fit either of our vehicles.  Hers is a Jeep and mine is a Blazer. That’s why I used “rig.”  Men correct me and say “truck.”  But that’s misleading.  So is “car.”  So $60 and two trips later my deal wasn’t such a deal.  I got a game table with a reversible top.  I liked the shape and color and price.  The fact that it’s for games is beside the point.

So I celebrated my completed work and my new table (I’ve been fretting over how I’d get it here) and went to the Chinese bar where I met a new friend, a woman Pharmacist.  She was talking about her boss, and I found him intriguing.  He is married but now they’ve moved his LESBIAN sister in there.  When I was nonplussed she repeated the word a little louder, waiting for a response.  The company Christmas party was held at his new fancy house but he couldn’t afford to have Christmas lights because his regular electric bill was so high.  And she said twice how his yard was as big as a park.  But what really got me was when she was talking about how he’s embarrassed about his father; how every time he comes over he does something like get blood on the carpet or somehow dirty up the place.  It’s all white:  rugs, walls, everything.  So she’s talking and I’m wishing I had a pen and paper.  I want to know what the guy looks like.  And I’m thinking how, besides being eccentric, now I’ve become almost voyeuristic about certain people who fall into the category of weird.  Like I don’t even want to know normal people any more; that it’s all about how it will read.  I was freakin’ myself out so I left

  Then it was so warm I went for a walk down by the river and a guy tried to pick me up.  At least that’s what I thought at first.  He was standing on the bridge admiring the water when I walked by.  He smiled and I said, “hi” and then later he found me sitting on a bench down by the water.  He joined me and it was then I realized he wanted to practice his English.  Delightful man.  He’s Chinese and he cooks at a restaurant in Salem.  Drives all that ways.  He only has one eye.  There was an accident in the restaurant; something about chemicals.  The left eye is fairly disfigured; closed and burned.  And his teeth are a mess.  But he’s a beautiful man.  And it was a beautiful night.

I have all this stuff to tell you but I told onigiriman I planned on doing his quiz tonight ( he got it from Inside the Actors Studio) so here goes:

What is your favorite word?
I’m pretty sure it’s “little” but I seem to favor French words, preferably with enough syllables for an accent mark. 

What is your least favorite word?
That’s easy:  “Awesome”!

What turns you on?
Laying in the sun.

What turns you off?
Too much tongue, too soon.

What sound do you love?
My windchimes, water dripping from a fountain or some kind of water feature.  A sexy sax, my puppy groaning when she stretches, the birds outside my window, rain on my skylights, my daughter’s Jeep pulling up, the ocean from my open window, harmony (a cappella), the ice-cream-man’s song coming up the street, the snap and crackle of the fire.  Sorry, I couldn’t stop.

What sound do you hate?
I can’t seem to think of one and I’m not gonna waste any more time trying.  Wait, a child crying in the next room over, when I’m at the doctor’s.  I lay there waiting for the doctor, wondering what they are doing to the poor thing.

What is your favorite curse word?
My oldest daughter can come up with some of the most appropriate uses for “dick,” usually as a hyphenated word.  Her timing is good, too.  My mother didn’t even allow us to say “shut up,” so I enjoy cussing.  I use “fucking” as an adverb a fair amount. 

What profession, other than yours, would you like to attempt?
I think I’d enjoy being a guide on some kind of outdoor adventure.  Or I’d like to be a surgeon. You know what I’d really like is for someone to hand me a bunch of money and say, “Go pick out this season’s flowers and figure out where they go and we’ll have someone else dig them in.”

What profession would you NOT like to participate in?          I would hate to be a police officer.

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
“You’ve learned everything you need to know and now you’re ready.”  Actually, I don’t know that I really think that.  I’m pretty sure I have a few more rounds to go here on earth. 

I found this picture from a couple years ago.  Okay, my skin DOES NOT LOOK LIKE THIS.  I had to make it smaller and when I was messing with it, not knowing the first thing about photoshop or whatever I was in, there were all these choices like softer and despeckle.  Well, I started clicking on everything and now it’s messed up.  And that used to be a pretty good picture.  I sent it to match.com when I was on there, briefly, and they must have doctored it up.

If anybody knows, what are the psychological implications of using the word “little” all the time?  Have you noticed how often I use it?  ALL THE TIME.

Last night Marla and I went to a restaurant I’ve discovered near my house.  I told her about it but I don’t think she believed me.  It looks like something you’d see in the Pearl (that’s where most of the successful, over-priced restaurants are) but it’s two minutes from my house.  I’d seen an espresso sign one afternoon and wondered how I’d missed the place.  Later that day I went back to check it out.  They weren’t open until 4:00 but I could see through the window that it was going to be my new hangout.

I went home to change and at 4:05 I was seated by the grand piano, visiting with the owners.  They just opened recently so we had lots of time to chat, as I was the only one in there.  I took a little tour and was overjoyed to discover a private party room with seating for 8, an elegant room where port should be sipped and cigars could be smoked.  None of that will be happening but I would like to throw a little party for my daughter when she graduates.  That’s the other cool thing, kids can sit anywhere but the bar.

That’s where Marla and I sat while she looked around saying, “I can’t even BELIEVE it.”  Then they brought her the wine list and I thought she was going to cry.  The list of starters is what did it for me.

It gets better.  It’s approaching 7 when the band comes in:  piano, bass, and drums.  The piano player also plays –I don’t think it’s called the xylophone.  But then these kids start showing up.  The owner comes over and I introduce Marla (feeling sort of like a bigshot).  His father was a jazz musician in the 30s and this band is going to back up the local high school’s jazz choir — tonight, actually.  So these kids and their parents are filing in with their video cameras and the kids take turns singing “their first club,” as the band leader puts it.  And he’s darling, this band leader.  He’s the pianist and while he played he would beam over at them like they were his, willing them to shine.  And they did. 

Their parents look like they’ve never been to the Pearl.  This is as fancy a place as they’re ever gonna be and we were all just soaking it up.  I had a grin on from ear to ear and when it was over I went and thanked the owner’s wife for “making this wonderful contribution to the community.”  I just about hugged her for providing such a memorable evening for so many grateful recipients. 

Marla had to go home but I stuck around and ordered a piece of white chocolate cheesecake, glad Marla wasn’t there to count the points (weight watchers).  Next to me at the bar were two parents and the choir teacher.  Over by the piano was one of the kids and the band leader and around the corner, thinking I couldn’t hear them, were the husband-and-wife owners.  They were all talking about what a huge success the night had been.

It seems like a long time since I’ve just sat down and typed what’s going on.  Tonight was my last class (advanced fiction writing).  I ended up at the neighborhood bar, a place I’m drawn to but where I’m going to have to start ordering iced tea or something.  I love how you can just walk into a place, and there’s something about pushing through those swinging doors where in an instant you’re sizing up the crowd and they’re checking you out.  It’s small and by the time the doors have quit swinging you’re seated and everyone’s seen you. 

She calls me “Hon” and wants to serve me a Jack and coke but it’s so late I order a gin and tonic.  Pretty soon and guy comes in, all upbeat and fun.  But he’s not the guy I end up really talking to.  Seated at a booth (I’m at a stool trying to be a regular) is a guy more my age who looks interesting.  He’s eavesdropping and I can tell he thinks “W” is humorous but full of shit.  The guy at the booth is more my style so when the music gets too loud I have to scoot into his booth to hear him. 

He’s all in denim wearing a jeans jacket.  We’re seated but he seems short and wiry.  Lots of grey hair, sharp eyes, wonderful gap-toothed smile.  He’s self-made.  Mike’s been everywhere, starting with Japan.  Fresh out of high school in the early 60s he joined the air force and served in intelligence during the beginning of the Viet Nam war.  He fell in love with a woman whose father was a dentist.  She taught him Japanese and he became part of the family.  But, after four years his time was up and he came home, something he really didn’t want to do.  From then on he has traveled all over the world selling (something to do with lumber). 

After his divorce he married Michelle.  She’s half his age which slightly embarrasses him but he’s a little proud of it, too.  He goes home to her every weekend, home being on the Snake River or Salmon River, I can’t remember which, in Idaho.  That was a great story, too; how he found the land and built a log cabin.

While he’s gone during the week, she’s doing web design and meeting all the neighbors.  Now she wears a cowboy hat and boots.

We talked a little bit about the stock market but mostly I wanted to hear about the places that you all live.  He got really worked up over the “sugar shacks” in Quebec.  He told me all about going to a private party where you had to have reservations.  They dumped maple syrup all over his dinner.  After you drink and eat they turn you out into the snow and you’re so high on all that sugar.  The guy really knew how to explain a place to me.  He thinks I would love the southern part of New Zealand.

For weeks now I’ve been editing my novel.  I guess it was when I had to choose 10 pages to read to my class that I began to worry about things like who was my main character?  What was a succinct rundown of the plot?  Because I have several subplots and lots of characters this seemed daunting.  But after choosing a focal point for that and after discussing the book at length, I finally came up with a way of introducing the main characters without having to start at the beginning of the story.  And all that brainstorming produced a new twist so I’m excited.

The weather here is volatile.  Just when you think it’s gonna be hotter than shit it starts to rain.  So only half my acre is mowed.  I love the excuse of the rain.  “Cause I mean it’s really coming down.  Well, it was yesterday.  Once it gets like this the sky always looks ominous and I just forget all about yard work.  Kinda nice.

My middle daughter is home from college.  She is in some new kind of — she’s no one I want to be around.  But I signed up for tomorrow:  DEQ, DMV, Les Schwabe.  Everything that comes out of her mouth pisses me off.  She seems impossible to get along with so I was saying things like, “Sounds like you are awfully busy, maybe we should just shoot for next time.”  She comes home every few months and this time she seems so unusually contrary. 

I had my puppy spayed and they gave her tranquilizers so that’s been nice.  My oldest daughter took her to the beach house for a couple days to study for her boards.  She’s graduating from beauty school finally.

Memorial Day was a hoot.  I went to two BBQs, one given by my youngest sister who invited all her gay guy friends and one given by my new friend Marla.  Marla and the people at the BBQ are all in their late 30s so that was different.  My world is suddenly expanding.  Remind me to tell you about my best friend from grade school.  I talked to her for two hours after a 20 year separation.  It’s been old home week around here, proof that I’m in the right place.