Fall 2012

Googling my name led me back to this blog. I think that it reflects who I am. The few posts are about family and pets, and their intermittent nature is an accurate reflection of the fact that something has to be urgent and unavoidable to get done on a regular basis.... It's not that I don't love to write. I do. But as one of my dearest friends would agree, I don't spend the time on it that I should. Then again, that word 'should' makes me feel pressured and anxious. The Scottish sense of guilt is strong, but not strong enough for me to 'just do it'--in other words, the worst of both worlds.  Oh well. Perhaps the previous post was prophetic, and I'll be back checking on how things are in 2013....

Seasons

I just re-discovered this page, having decided to check out my multiple email addresses. I have 3 I check regularly, 2 dead letter boxes, and g-mail, about which I'm still on the fence. Google led me back to this blog, and it was fun to read about what was on my mind 3 years ago. The dalmation is gone, and a mellow black lab has replaced him. Ceilidh is still crazy, but occasionally manages to resist her impulse to show how much she loves everyone. The last 3 years have included job losses and gains, new grandchildren, National Boards, a dislocated shoulder, weight loss, and a house move. Life has its seasons, but I tend to assume I'm living in springtime--who knew I was an optimist? Maybe I'll get back into blogging. Even if only for me, and to give me something to consider in 2013.

Dogged by misfortune?

My golden retriever is a 70-lb ball of energy--not so good when she knocks me over, as she has now done twice. I thought that I'd hurt my elbow after the most recent fall, three weeks ago, but the doc on duty suggested I not bother with an x-ray, seeing as he was certain my arm wasn't broken. Five days and one emergency room visit later, I had proof he was wrong. Life with limited use of my right arm is interesting. Serves Ms. Ceilidh right that dog-walking is high up on the list of curtailed activities....

Man's best friend--children, not so much.

I had just pulled into my driveway last night, having met my husband at O'Hare, when my phone rang. My grandson had been bitten by the family dalmatian, and wanted me to meet them at the ER. Again. I yelled something about putting the dog to sleep, crashed about as I took my husband's dinner out of the oven, and cursed the dog. My husband, ever rational, pointed out that a dog is an animal, and therefore will sometimes revert to type, and that a muzzle should perhaps have been used. I stuck to the position that if my dog bit my child, its next outing would be to the vet.
I threw crayons and colored pencils in my purse, grabbed a handful of computer paper, and drove to the emergency room. The image in my head was of last time, six months ago, which involved stitches to the lip, and much screaming. I was glad to see that the latest wound was a single triangular puncture to the cheek, but even that required painful cleaning and dressing. The injured grandson behaved pretty well, but I noticed that as his twin was coloring, the pictures changed from being beautifully colored to being done entirely in black crayon. I don't think he was simply being sloppy.
So what now? There is a one-year-old dog whose fate is in the balance. Leaving the ER, my daughter explained: "It's as if I've just discovered that a loved family member is, in fact, an abuser." This story has no way of ending happily.

Book Group

I just finished reading "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy for our staff book group. It's a post-apocalyptic account of the journey of a Father and Son (we never know their names) south, in hope of finding any other 'good guys' who may have survived. It was hard to read at first, not for content, but because I've become used to editing everything I read--that's part of my job as a teacher. McCarthy uses unconventional sentence structure and puncutation (no apostrophe when an 'o' is the contraction) and doesn't divide the book into chapters. Once I got over that, I marveled at his amazing use of language. Reading the book was almost as physical as eating, and I wanted to stop and savor phrases and passages. It was depressing, of course, unless you like the idea of the human race approaching extinction, but the writing was incredibly rich. I'm looking forward to hearing what our leader has to say about the novel on Tuesday. Meanwhile, it's stuck fast in my head, and I'm trying to make sense of what McCarthy is saying to me.

Remember, remember the fifth of November....

Halloween has come and gone, but the photos live on. The grandchildren looked adorable, and were perfectly willing to share category II candy. I didn't celebrate Halloween growing up in Scotland in the 50's. There, we had 'guisers' on November 5th, commemorating Guy Fawkes who tried to blow up Parliament. Read about him here.
Pumpkins are far too easy--in my day, we ended up with bleeding hands after carving our turnip lanterns--rutabagas to my American friends. Yes, RUTABAGAS! Now THAT'S carving. And the smell of warm cardboard still brings back memories of the suffocating little masks we wore as our principle form of disguise. Life was simpler then.