Dogged: Why This Past Year Felt Like Seven

Adorable photo taken by the dog trainer/boarder just before Millie was kicked out.

As a die-hard cat person, I was surprised and confused to find myself adopting a dog. Not just any dog, mind you: an adult rescue dog with junkyard genes and a sordid past. How did this happen? Granted, there had been ten years of ceaseless begging, topped off with a couple of family crises, a PowerPoint presentation by household teens, and a stream of seemingly sincere promises to love, walk, and care for said canine.

All lies.

But somehow Millie and I have successfully co-existed for an entire calendar year. Proof: we are both still alive. Millie still rolls in dirt and dead things. She still scares the bejeezus out of the UPS guy. She’s been kicked out of dog parks and behavior classes and boarding. Though we’ve made a little progress, I don’t have any successful training tips to share. All I can offer is a little help navigating expectations during the first year of adoption.

What follows is a sneak peek from my upcoming imaginary book: Why This Past Year Felt Like Seven.

Chapter One: The Honeymoon

What a pleasure to be greeted at the door with tail wags instead of the eye rolls and requests for money to which I’ve grown accustomed. For forty-eight hours straight, I was promoted from uber-driving ATM into a beloved human comrade.

Chapter Two: Grieving the Dog You Thought You Had

Rescue dogs know just how to act in order to get adopted. Then—once you and your progeny are completely besotted—many, many other facets of the dog’s vivid personality become apparent. Diarrhea, destruction, and unexplained maniacal barking ensue.

Chapter Three: The Mighty, Mighty Prey Drive

Bad news. Prey drive is a thing. The first time the new pet met the incumbent, the cat’s hindquarters wound up in the dog’s jaws in three second flat. Millie would not, could not let go. Our beleaguered Elsie endures, but she is quarantined in the basement for eternity. If and when the two beasts catch sight of each other in the yard, I end up on a rickety ladder, begging and lurching precariously in the treetops for the neighbors’ entertainment.

Elsie, recalling the Golden Age of the Felinarchy—when the world revolved around her needs.

Chapter Four: When and Where to Walk Your Barmy Dog

Short answer: at night, wherever mortals fear to tread. The good news is, those lurky back alleys don’t seem so intimidating when you’re walking Cujo. To prevent shoulder dislocation, keep constant vigilance for the following: brooms, hoodies, hats, men, garage doors, shadows, ominous-looking recycling bins, and the existence of all other mammals. Be especially wary of the quadruple threat: mammals wearing hoodies while sweeping the garage. Helpful tools: two fingers of scotch for post-walk therapy.

Chapter Five: Predatory Drift, or Why Your Dog Should Never, Ever Play with Snack-Sized Dogs Named Doris

Doris lived—and nobody sued—but our dog’s name and photo were shared amongst dog walkers and owners. Millie was a community pariah for the majority of the past year.

Me too, for that matter.

Chapter Six: Welcome to the World.

Having a dog like Millie means getting to know the city from new perspectives. Where are the best places to find poop and gophers? What’s under those dumpsters behind the grocery store? Do squirrels scream? (Yes. Yes, they do.) Bonus! Get up close and personal with raccoons, skunks, a dead seal, half a rabbit. It’s like living on the friggin’ nature channel.

Image of dog playing at the beach. — Be grateful I chose this photo, and not one of the large severed head Millie tried to drag home that day.

Surprise upside: Since I can’t sip lattes and tootle around the neighborhood like a normal dog owner, my hiking boots are in heavy rotation. During the past twelve months, I’ve walked well over 1,200 miles in some of the most beautiful places in the Bay Area: parks, woods, canyons, beaches.

Plus dark alleys. Don’t forget dark alleys.

Chapter Seven: Sleep, or The Lack Thereof.

The plan was to crate the dog at night. I won’t bore you with the details surrounding the rapid demise of my principles. Suffice it to say that after a number of unforeseen circumstances, Millie wound up crying outside our bedroom door until I caved in.

Someone got a great night’s sleep, but it wasn’t me.

Now imagine sleeping with a fifty-five-pound starfish who hogs the covers and insists on pushing against a human in all five directions.

On the bright side, unlike the majority of household residents, Millie is a morning creature. The moment I open my eyes, her tail starts thumping against that pillow she stole out from under my head. Such behavior stands in marked contrast to customary morning greetings from household teens.

Chapter Eight: Dances with Coyotes

Guess who wins? On her first run-in, Millie got a bite on the ass and—despite my attempts to convince her otherwise—went back for seconds. Since then, I’ve lost count of our coyote encounters, but luckily only the first rendezvous required a trip to the vet. Side note: it doesn’t hurt to carry bits of steak in your pocket and clear the waiting room of all mammals—especially those who look litigious.

Chapter Nine: Hot Spots: Dogs Who Self-Harm

That’s right. Crazy dogs can fixate on all sorts of behaviors: not only lunging, barking, and digging, but also fussing, licking, and nibbling on themselves until they need medical attention. Whoops. Should have hung onto that cone after the coyote wounds healed.

Chapter Ten: Less is More.

Besides your cat, your time, and your bed, you may need to give up your social life in order to accommodate a rescue dog’s special needs. We learned the hard way—after Millie cornered a thirteen-year-old boy, bit a hole in a man’s shorts, and caused multiple guests to flee through the basement window. We’re slow learners, I guess. Apologies if you visited before we knew better.

Chapter Eleven: Those Oddly Charming Behaviors May Indicate Medical Issues

It seems obvious now, but dogs don’t usually combat crawl around the house. And yes, they can get poison oak. Which reminds me…

Chapter Twelve: Advanced Lessons in Poison Oak: Swabbing Your Weeping Rash While Driving, Sleeping, and Cooking

Once Millie moved in, I started sporting a little poison oak at all times. Since we’re constantly out in nature, I suppose that’s no big surprise, and usually a little Tecnu does the trick. But recently I got a doozy of a rash that swelled and oozed through mountains of laundry. This rash required medical attention as well as some interesting fashion decisions. For the home office, I wore hoodies sideways, with the “bad” arm—i.e., the one swollen to thigh-size—zipped out the neck hole. If I had to leave the house, I wrapped my arm in a towel with binder clips, and brought spare towels to swap out when the previous one was soaked through. My advice: get whatever pharmaceuticals your doctor is willing to prescribe.

Epilogue. Why She Still Lives with Us

Excellent question. With all of the crazed barking, I’m having trouble formulating a coherent answer. Still, there are a few benefits of having a dog that come to my muddled mind.

For starters, no one could possibly break into our house and survive.
I’ve gotten to the beaches, trails, and forests more in the past year than in the past twenty combined.
The cat is a lot more sociable now that she is half neglected.
Even on the 366^th day, a Millie greeting is pretty spectacular. It’s like getting a standing ovation every time I come in the door.

Besides, it’s hard to hold a grudge when she is just sitting there looking adorable.

Prairie to Peak

The trail up Mt. Sabattus, which I've climbed every year since before I was born. — The trail up Mt. Sabattus.

I grew up in South Dakota, where the horizon rolls indefinitely in all directions. Hot summer days bred lightning storms and tornado warnings, whose zap and buzz and chartreuse cast I could see from miles away. Despite my Midwestern roots, however, I’m most content at the seashore or—better still–atop a mountain, drinking the view like water for my soul. My first hikes were before I was born, and I’ve sought them ever after–laughing, sweating, berrying, eating warm grapes and half-smashed sandwiches, uttering marriage vows, and spreading a few of my father’s ashes before God and Shawnee Peak.

Thirteen

I remember it all like it was yesterday.

Acne, drama, self-doubt. Excessive mooning about. A variety of binges and very bad decisions.

I behaved irrationally, irresponsibly, disrespectfully, and the one I treated the worst was me.

Yet having a teenager may be even more terrifying.

Still plagued by acne and self-doubt, my lingering woes are compounded by close proximity to this raw lump of developing human–one who wears her disdain, depression, euphoria, and ill-founded bravado at the very surface. Nothing I can say or do will serve as salve. It is what it is–a tough row to hoe.

Brother of Invention

Second oldest built a fruit dryer and a yogurt maker out of light bulbs and scrap wood.

He sprouted tofu and reused plastic bags years before anyone else I knew.

This was not a fad for him, merely a decision to live carefully and thoughtfully.

An early vegetarian, he helped me to attend parties without eating meat–in part by inventing Birthday cake sandwiches and Christmas cookie sloppy joes.

And, in an effort to conserve every last drop of water, plus whatever nutrients it might contain, he also invented pickle juice bread, which left a great deal to be desired.

Hold them very close, then drop them curbside

©2009/2013 Beret Olsen — ©2009 Beret Olsen

The moment you announce that the free ride is over, that this parasite had better get out of your uterus, a tiny tyrant emerges, and you wonder if you might possibly cram it back inside, just to secure a few more moments of sanity and solitude.

This wee, adorable creature demands all of your time, attention, energy, and soul. There is nothing and no one else that matters as much. This is why cherished friendships shrivel, marriages are raked over the coals, and newish parents become unbearable. You are suddenly up at all hours of the day and night. You cannot finish a sentence or focus on anything uttered by an adult. Worst of all, the things you smirked and said you would never do, you see and hear yourself doing without apology.

A little shame, perhaps, but no apology.

The boundaries blend. It is not possible to distinguish where you end and where the child begins. You anticipate their needs, and punish yourself when you can’t identify or remedy a discomfort. They are the center of your universe.

And they grow.

Imagine that you are beside yourself because you are stuck playing Barbies yet again. Each minute stretches into an eternity. You can feel yourself devolving, while politically astute essays you composed in a past life unwrite themselves in your head. You parade a stupid piece of malformed plastic around, babbling the required perky gibberish–all while secretly wondering, “what is the meaning of my life?”

And then, the very next time the Barbies come out from under the bed, just as you are mentally muttering obscenities, your daughter turns to you, and from her lips come the most surprising news.

“Mom.” Accompanying eyeroll. “We are playing in here. Please shut the door.”

A lump forms in your throat. You were already gearing up to feel resentful for the next 45 minutes. What are you supposed to do now?

To the girl with the “shrinking” mother–

Read this yesterday, and it snagged in my consciousness. Both sides speak well and truthfully. I think we have conflated strength and power with their cultural definitions, and it is helpful to step back and rethink. I had trouble posting this, though, and couldn’t get the youtube video to embed properly. The link to the poem’s performance is in there, and definitely worth a watch. It also provides the context for Rarasaur’s essay.

TO THE GIRL WITH THE “SHRINKING” MOTHER–

10/22/2013 · by Rara Saur · in journals. ·

I listened to your poem last month, for the first time. I know, I’m a little late to the party. Your performance was in April.

It was sent my way via an article that said it explained the plight of women, who sacrifice for men. I’ll be honest. Activism that suggests someone is behind because someone else is ahead bothers me. Feminism along those lines is what makes me reject the label with a ferocity that would surprise most people– given that I am the “breadwinner” of my home, and in most ways live the feminist ideal. This type of activism suffocates me, and angers me, and limits my brothers and sisters alike– and though I didn’t intend to– I listened to that poem without a beginner’s mind. I sought offense, and I found it– even though your poem was great, and your performance was brilliant.

I wrote my own slam poetry response. The first parodied yours. Yours played on the idea that men of age are often significantly larger than their wives. Mine played off the idea that women live longer.

“Men of my family have been shaving away seconds of life, for women, for decades.”

The second poem I wrote was structured like yours as well, but along the way led into the idea that my mother is the strongest person I know.

This made me reassess my reaction to your poem, and create an alternate possibility that I’d like to share with you.

You see, I’m nearly 30, and it was just a smidge over a decade ago that I would have scoffed at the idea of my mother possessing any strength at all.

I could barely look her in the eye for a whole year of my teens. She seemed like such a waste– this stunning, genius of a woman– reduced to a mother with a near broken back, working all the time for other people’s desires. I don’t know if she’s ever slept more than 8 hours in a row. As soon as she gains something, she gives it away– whether it was space, or knowledge, or money. Every time I saw her, I feared the same would happen to me.

I worried that I had been taught to drop my achievements at a moment’s notice– in the name of handcuffs created to hold women back– just because of my mom’s dedication to those same restrictions. I was worried that I was born into a kind of slavery.

squigg1 And then there was the car accident.

You see, I have 5 brothers and sisters– so not everyone fits in one car. My big brother had the baby seat, so he was following behind us with my baby sister. The rest of us were with my mom. It was a dark night and we were driving back from dropping my father at the airport– down a fast-moving, icy highway. There were black ice warnings out, and I was in the front seat because I could almost always spot the slippery stuff.

It started to snow, in torrents hard enough to push at the car, and then from the side mirror, I saw it. My brother’s car spun out of control and rolled off the road and down a hill. I screamed his name, and my mom– who witnessed the same thing– put her hand out on mine. She sang a song, to keep the kids in the back of the car asleep, and drove steadily on until there was a place to safely stop. There were tears running down her face, but her voice was clear. She parked the car on the side, put me in charge, took off her 2 inch heels, and walked into the dark snowstorm barefoot– bravely towards what could have been the mere bodies of her children.

squigg3 I’m not sure on the details, but my brother’s car was started again, and pushed up the hill– and both he and my baby sister were fine.

When I saw my mom finally walking back to me, hours later, the sun was coming up– she was soaked through, and covered in dirt and blood. She was holding her children– and a stranger– and she was smiling.

It occurred to me then that a passerbyer might see her as a woman down on her luck, in a position of weakness– but it was the most invulnerable thing I had ever seen. The sort of strength many people never get the chance to witness in a lifetime.

It sounds like you might have blessed by the benefit of an equally dedicated mother.

A dedication to sacrificing is such a brittle concept, and can look a lot like weakness– like late night trips to the fridge for yogurt and wine from a measuring cup– but it is more powerful than words or swords.
squigg5

I of course do not know your specific situation, but the next time you see her tucked away in a small space, consider the possibility that it is because she doesn’t need much space to live the life of her dreams, and that she has faith in your ability to do something brilliant with the extra room.

And next time you see worn hands, or a tired back, consider the idea that it is because she has made a priority out of carrying those who cannot move forward themselves.

When the people around her seem to grow at the cost of her loss, lookagain. Their expansion is her battle cry. She is victorious through nurture and sacrifice.

It is a power connected to the heart of the universe. A strength that fueled a nun to care for lepers, and prompted a man to share a dream of equality. It echoes through every positive change humans have ever seen, and grows every day under the protection of guardians like our moms.

Does that really sound like shrinking to you? Because to me it sounds like something big enough to expand its way right past the hemmed edges of the galaxy.

squigg4 I realize now that I wasn’t worried that I would becomemy mother. I was worried that I would never become the sort of person worth the sacrifices she made.

Snaps to you for showing off your power. I hope you know that your mom is right to give to you: you are worthy of all the good this world has to offer. If you can accept that truth, I think you’ll find you’ll stop apologizing for empowerment. Just do good with it.

With love from a big sister born of the same big power,
Rara

_______________________________

I probably won’t respond to any comments about feminism, because it’s an issue that goes much deeper than my type of blog– but as always, you’re welcome to share your thoughts as long as you play nice. This post has seen the light of day due to a Daily Post prompt, asking about the post I was most nervous to publish, and what it was like to set it free. I’ll get back to you on that last part of the question depending on how scary my comment section ends up being.

Have you ever driven on black ice? It’s one of my top fears, even before this night.

To the girl with the “shrinking” mother–.

personhood vs. parenthood

Last year, I was feeling so smug, because I watered my orchid stick for six months and it bloomed on Mothers' Day. This year, it's just a stick. — @2012 Beret Olsen Last year, I was feeling so smug because I watered my orchid stick for six months, and it magically bloomed on Mothers’ Day. Sadly, this year it’s just a stick. Oh well. Happy Mother’s Day anyway.

One summer day in my early teens, my parents and I went on a long drive from our woodsy cabin to Lands’ End.

Though we had hoped for a sunny day on the coast, the fog was so thick we could barely see the sea from the shore. We meandered along the water’s edge in our own little pocket of cloud, quite separate from the world beyond. I thought I would say something nice for a change–perhaps even express some filial gratitude–when I noticed an odd look on my mother’s face.

She raised her arms, laughed out loud, and launched her sprawled limbs into a cartwheel in the sand. It was so astonishing, so completely unexpected, that I suddenly realized how little I knew about her beyond the character she played at home. Now I might consider her as more than my mother, someone whose inner life might be rich and complicated, someone who had lived a lifetime before she made me.

Not that she ever turned another cartwheel, but still. I continued to wonder about her, too Scandinavian to pry.

The only clue I had to her younger days was a doll she called Judy, which she had lovingly arranged in a child-sized rocker facing my bed. She was eerily beautiful, despite a crack across her cheek, a worn petticoat, and misshapen, yellowed socks. Judy had stared at me tight-lipped for years, never spilling the secrets of my mother’s childhood or beyond.

I imagined my mother quarantined on her parents’ plastic-covered couch, hands folded primly, dreaming of play; dreaming of siblings.

Did her parents have the same ancient hard candies back then–the ones at which I stared during my visits to Grandma’s– arranged in the same fancy china dish?

As an adult I get little glimpses of her as a non-mom. Like the night my spouse got her a little tipsy, and she dropped the f-bomb telling a joke. How lucky for me, that there are still opportunities to hear my mother’s stories. Now, to find the time and the courage to ask.

I look at my kids and wonder: when will I suddenly appear to them as more than a purveyor of fine snacks, a laundress, a driver, a shoulder to cry upon? What will I do or say that will alert them that there is an actual person in my shoes? Chances are, they’re already clued in. I haven’t played the role quite so gracefully as my mother.

I know it’s not Pearl Harbor Day, but I’m thinking about my mom anyway

I stole this photo. As far as I know, no photograph exists to accompany this story. — I stole this photo from http://www.plasticsoldiers.webs.com/. They didn’t even put up a fight.

I try to be a nice person. I certainly want to be one. Unfortunately, I’m starting to believe I might not be genetically wired for punctuality and thoughtfulness. If I have missed your birthday, it’s not because I don’t care about you; I just plain forgot. Like my brothers, whose birthdays are lost somewhere in the sad, endy bits of summer, the problem is that your birthday doesn’t automatically appear on my calendar. Apologies to all of you.

Fortunately, my father’s birthday falls during the Thanksgiving season, and my sister’s is on or around the first day of spring, so even if I don’t write them down, there is always something on the calendar to magically remind me.

Easiest of all to remember is my mother’s.

My mother turned ten the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

That must have been a memorable birthday, with everyone huddled around the radio, speechless and shaken. Probably not the best one, mind you, but remarkable, nonetheless.

Over the years, my mother has championed everyone else’s special days, but on hers she lays low, no doubt hoping someone might step up and do a little something for her for a change. We have tried.

We learned early on that Dad was good for a Hallmark card and a nice little gifty item, but he was not to be entrusted with the cake. In his defense, he did attempt to make one from a box once, but was so flummoxed by the words “ten-inch tube pan,” that he gave up and drove to Piggly Wiggly.

It’s worth mentioning that in our house, store-bought baked goods were a sign of approaching moral turpitude.

After that mini debacle, we siblings started juggling responsibility for the cake amongst ourselves, usually ironing out the details the morning of December 7.

One year, though, my medium brother decided to make an Angel Food Cake. He even started the project the DAY BEFORE. Impressive. We were all reasonably decent cooks, but we had some respect for his ambition. If you’ve made an angel food cake, you know what I mean.

Out came the ancient Betty Crocker cookbook, heavily thumbed and coated with a light dusting of flour from decades of use.

My brother looked so serious, meticulously pouring over Betty’s good book. We thought everything was under control, and gave him a little space to work his magic.

It’s uncertain exactly what went wrong. The reigning theory is that he must have combined elements from a couple of different tricky recipes arranged on the same page.

All I know is that it looked beautiful when he pulled it out of the oven. Betty said to cool the cake by flipping the whole pan upside down and sliding it onto the neck of a wine bottle. That way, the cake would cool but still stay light and airy. Trust me, if you’ve whipped 12 room temperature egg whites into a heavenly cloud, if you’ve sifted the cake flour four or five times, and spun the superfine sugar, you want that cake to be FLUFFY.

Medium brother flipped the pan, only to have a half-baked cake carcass collapse onto the counter.

Sad.

After a minute or two of reverential silence, he scooped the remains right back into the pan and tossed it into the oven for another thirty minutes or so.

Then, the cake and my brother mysteriously disappeared for several hours.

Nothing more was said about the cake that day. We like to sweep things like this under the rug. I figured he had made the shameful Piggly Wiggly run, and was off somewhere, nursing his culinary wounds.

The next day was a Sunday. Everything proceeded normally: fried eggs for breakfast, followed by church, then dinner in the dining room. Sunday was the one day a week that the mail was cleared off the table. My father presented the card, the gift. It was time to sing.

Medium brother thumped down to the basement and emerged with the most astonishing sweet mess I’ve ever seen.

The cake mass had been roughly sculpted into some sort of landform and half-sunk battle ship. These were situated on a homemade wooden platform, which was covered with Reynold’s wrap and an ungodly amount of blue icing. There were American flags, tiny plastic boats and planes, and little soldiers everywhere.

It was, hands-down, the most impressive birthday cake I’ve ever seen, and to top it off, surprisingly tasty. Not like an angel food cake, perhaps–more like an epic Pearl Harbor Day cake reenactment would taste. But not too shabby.

Atonement

It may have been a little unclear, but I was actually happily married until I posted Man Shopping a while back. Obviously, I did not paint a complete picture—I’m pretty sure everyone figured that out. Still, in the interest of domestic harmony, it probably wouldn’t hurt to throw a few compliments in my spouse’s direction right about now.

I would also like to mention my Undying Gratitude that he does not yet have his own blog. I hope he’s not in any hurry to get one, either. Over the years, I have unwittingly provided a great deal of fodder for retaliation.

What follows are just a few of the ways that he generously compensates for buying fröot juice on occasion.

Now that his parole papers are in order, he is the perfect travel companion.

That sounds WAY WORSE than it was. There must be two sorts of parole papers, because this was an INS thing; not a prison thing, as far as I know. Apparently, even if you are married to a US citizen, there is still a boatload of paperwork and a lot of wait time to endure before they let you come and go as you please–which is why I took my friend instead of my groom on our honeymoon.

Now that he has his paperwork in order, though, traveling with this guy is delightful. We are interested in many of the same sorts of places and adventures. More importantly, his attention span for lying around, traipsing about, or absorbing culture is almost exactly the same as mine. We can look and look and know precisely when to leave and get a tasty snack or go for a swim. Having traveled with a variety of other people, I know that this tidy alignment is not guaranteed. Not everyone knows when an intense experience on the streets of Phnom Penh might best be topped off with, say, a Richard Pryor movie and a little air conditioning.

I worried that children might mess with our travel groove, but now that they can tie their shoes and attend to their bowel movements independently, it is actually a joy to have them join us. Now, if only Mary Poppins could come along so we could have a date once in a while…

In truth, we might not be as well suited in terms of musical taste. But, over the years, we have learned that certain music should only be played in the others’ absence. Topping the audio blacklist: Bruce Springsteen, Cold Chisel, Joni Mitchell, and the soundtrack from Hair. I’ll let you sort out who likes which. Still, the fact remains that:

He appreciates good music, played well and played loudly.

Long before kids, my spouse worked in the audio industry, and consequently purchased a set of very, very nice speakers. He set up the living room so that the red velvet love seat was exactly centered between the speakers, facing them, with two more speakers behind. We put red light bulbs in the chandelier, turned the music up to 11, and voilà, the Red Room was born. The Red Room was awesome. It had a great run, too, though I suppose it caused its own demise by inadvertently producing our first kid. That was a particularly great night.

What followed were painful years spent listening to Sesame Street songs as quietly as possible, and struggling to find an inner zen-like happy place when Raffi songs were required. I’m surprised we survived that era.

Now that our oldest child is ten, however, with a blue streak in her hair and a pair of drumsticks to match, we have begun a practice of family karaoke night. I cannot begin to explain how charming it is to see our dainty seven-year-old belting out Hell’s Bells, while the spouse works the mixer and magically gets the lyrics to appear on the TV. He also wins for most enthusiastic musical performance. I might need to up my game a little, frankly.

Who knows, the full-fledged Red Room might even make a re-appearance, though I suspect we would have to cede some of the musical selection to the kids. There is probably a lot more Dev and Taylor Swift in our future than one might hope.

He has the ability to fix almost anything.

He has fixed the dryer, the dishwasher, the car, the shower…He is truly amazing. He can hook up any appliance, rewire the house, and frame a room.

There really isn’t anything amusing to say about this. It’s just awesome.

This has made me aim higher. I have been moved to unclog drains, mess around with the disposal, and even monkey with the color printer. Not always successfully, but still.

Now we get to the most important part.

On one particularly trying day, after many meltdowns, a lot of sass, and a series of eruptions of all sorts, one of my kids stuck a stuffed alligator in her pants at the dinner table. Since I was in a foul mood, I found the harmless incident much more annoying than necessary. My husband, on the other hand, took one thoughtful look and pronounced, “That’s a croc of shit.” It was impossible to stay grumpy.

This man has a knack for sanity-saving comments and for maintaining a sense of humor in the midst of parental hell.

Here is someone who suffered with me through one of the longest hours ever spent. We were watching a production of the Wizard of Oz for the second or third time–a production full of confused small people singing enthusiastically off-key, and mumbling endless and incomprehensible dialogue. To enhance our enjoyment, several lightly supervised boys in the row in front of us made fart noises and punched each other in the arm. Eyes politely fixed on the stage, my spouse leaned over and whispered: “Now we know the TRUE PRICE of unprotected sex.”

As I struggled to keep my composure, he mimed a samurai maneuver, slicing open his torso and extracting an organ or two. That gesture has become a very reassuring symbol of solidarity, and is especially helpful in situations where passing a flask might be frowned upon.

Thanks, pal. You can bring home a fifty pound bag of rice whenever you want.

Let’s put that in the closet with the rest of the skeletons

Taken from the website for Wausau Fire Department home page — Found on the Wausau Fire Department homepage: http://www.wausaufire.com/

My family’s summer home burned to the ground in front of our eyes. We stood across the road in our pajamas, in what should have been the dark.

It had been an airy old farmhouse, with a screened-in porch and a breezeway connecting it to the barn. Dubbed “Viking Villa,” our friends had painted a Nordic vessel on the front of it, complete with red and white striped sail. A long gravel drive curved up and away from the house, making a gentle u through the surrounding meadow. I can still see it so clearly, though only from one side, one vantage point, and in one sort of weather, because the memories I have are not my own. They are borrowed from my parents, my older siblings, and from the single surviving photograph.

I was only six months old when it burned.

The cabin of my childhood still stands strong, tucked into the woods about a mile away. Shortly after the fire, my folks scraped together $400 to buy that little hunters’ cottage, in which they have slowly replaced each board and nail, leaving only a few great beams and the original fieldstone fireplace. It was here that we gathered, summer after summer, to hike, and work, and canoe; it was here that we reminisced about Viking Villa.

We would all troop down to “the old cellar hole,” picking the wildflowers that grew in the ruins, and looking for smoky bits of melted glass. Sometimes we would return at night, too, and lie on our camping tarp in the middle of the meadow there, watching for shooting stars.

My oldest brother would spend hours reconstructing the house and the surrounding tree forts with graph paper and a neatly sharpened pencil. Everyone would pore over his drawings, offering suggestions and admiring his impeccable memory–so precise despite the years that yawned between now and then.

And in August, as the evenings grew cool, and we huddled around the stone fireplace to warm and to read, someone would inevitably launch into the story of the fire. We relived the event, detail by detail, lovingly recounted.

No one knows how or why my mother awakened that night, though credit has been wordlessly given to divine intervention. Despite the fury and speed of the approaching flames, she hustled everyone out safely, telling my sister, “Now is not the time for crying. We can cry later.”

As far as I know, nobody ever did.

A friend had gotten up to use the bathroom at that time, on that night, and happened to glance out the window in our particular direction. It was a series of coincidences for which the whole township was grateful. Seeing the flames and great plume of smoke miles away, he alerted the volunteer fire department, and though it was too late to save the house, they managed to salvage the chicken coop, the surrounding woods, and distant neighbors. Who knows how much of the landscape would have been devoured that night had he slept soundly.

No one mourns the clothing and possessions that went up in smoke, or the pile of cars that our friends had left in the barn for safekeeping. No one even says much about our cat, Smoky, who was never seen again. The only items that were ever mentioned were the hand-typed thesis my father went back to retrieve, and the stuffed dog of my sister’s that he did not.

But the house. How everyone longs for the house.

The clumps of melted glass sit on the windowsill of our porch, where one of us might finger them gingerly, like jewels.

The chicken coop was moved next door to our ‘new’ cabin. We had never had chickens–to my knowledge, we had never used the coop at all–but now it was lovingly cleaned and aired and repainted. A desk was made out of an old door and some table legs, put out there for my father and his friend to finish their doctoral theses. And when they did, the coop was renamed the Institute for Advanced Study.

Meanwhile, we painted and rebuilt and added on to the little hunting cabin, but it always paled in comparison. As if to compensate, we arranged the flowers from the old cellar hole in a bright yellow pitcher, and set it by the fireplace.

After twenty or twenty five years, the cabin finally earned its own name–“Oesterheim”–and a compliment or two about the way the sun threaded through the tall trees, landing in tiny warm pools on the wood floors. Around then, I heard my mother say for the very first time, “You know, I think I like this house.” I guess we were finally coming round.

Even so, we continued to relive the fire at Viking Villa, time and again. It gave me such an odd feeling, as if the house were a sibling I never knew. Sometimes I envied the rest of the family their experience, because it wasn’t my story to tell; my role was to listen quietly in the background.

One night, not too many years ago, we went to one of our annual summer get togethers. The evening was in full swing when, as usual, the conversation turned to the fire.

There was a comfortable familiarity with the discussion, and I found my mind drifting a little, sneaking peeks at the sunset over the lake.

Then, out of nowhere, one family member cleared their throat and spoke very, very quietly.

“I’m pretty sure I started the fire,” they said.

And that is the last time we reminisced about the house.

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