See ya, summer

So many good things about today!

• The angry fish are gone (turns out they weren't angry, they were just beautiful and very, very vain)
• I was actually productive today (I wrote AND shopped)
• I may or may not have purchased a ravishing purple dress 
• Okay, I did actually purchase a ravishing purple dress
• Cooling weather means I don't have to worry about wearing shorts any more
• Ditto bike ride for undue lengths of time
• Ditto climbing up big mountains
• A babysitter (free!) was here all day long 
• My car once again works, after having been drained of its vital juices by a Nintendo DSi left charging in it all night some two weeks ago by someone who shall remain Luke
• Dog smells not too bad 
• Nice manicure (Opi Glitzerland)
• Banking scare turned out to be a clerical error 

The best thing of all, though:

TWO MORE SLEEPS TIL SCHOOL STARTS!
(doing a little dance)

Meet Elvis

This is Elvis:

He's a mixed hound, mostly coonhound, although with a little bloodhound or foxhound thrown in for good measure. He has many virtues.


He dances.

He accessorizes rather well.

He performs high-diving feats of derring-do.

He has a dignified bearing.





















He was once a Hurricane Katrina refugee from New Orleans. He was found under a truck near the intersection of Paris Road and Maria Drive. This is what it looks like from space:

He had a broken back leg, a broken jaw, heartworm, scars from where he'd been attacked by other dogs, and was starving to death. I won't show you the picture of him at the St Bernard Animal Shelter when those good people first took him in because it would make you cry. (If you have spare cash lying around, they would be glad of it--apparently the BP oil spill has forced lots of people to surrender pets they can no longer afford.)

Needless to say, we're not stingy with the gravy around here as far as he's concerned.

A nice American woman who lives around here rescued Elvie and three other large dogs, flying them to the Banff area and finding homes for them all. That first winter, Elvis was one perturbed coonhound--not just the ice and snow, but also the boots and ski sweaters.

It's been 5 years since Katrina. Up here in the voodoo bungalow, we cheer you New Orleansianites on, we wish hard for your recovery, and we're sorry that one of your finest citizens was forced to emigrate. We're taking pretty good care of him though, so don't worry about him in the slightest.

We're sure you'd do the same for us.

Falling Asleep

I once fell asleep while teaching an English class at UCDavis in the spring quarter of 1990. It was 8 in the morning, a muggy bathtub of a morning, with jasmine or something else heavy and soporific in the air, but still: I was sitting at a desk, teaching people about some thrilling point of rhetoric or another, when I suddenly got droopy, drooly, and then shut my eyes and fell asleep. While talking.

That was the morning I knew I wasn't cut out for that professoring thing. I fell asleep and when they woke me up I was mad at them. Not embarrassed, not apologetic. Peeved. I just wanted them all to go away and let me be.

Now I'm a stay-at-home writer. I lie about software, mostly. Sometimes I tell Oriental tales about agile teams or spin a salty yarn about quality control. One memorable day I wrote a series of haiku about travel expense forms. I might have been the only person who realized that the structure was actually a very intricate meshwork of image and internal rhyme derived from a medieval Japanese handbook about haiku. I might have been.

Today, though, it was all earnestness. Earnestness about activating responsive tactical teams and leveraging things and people (should people ever be "leveraged"? It sounds so. . . cold. . . . ).

Anyhow: earnestness + conference call + time zone shift + looming realization that another weekend is about to be sacrificed to gods I do not worship = nap time. When I snapped awake, I was once again peevish with those "around" me and wanted them all to go away and leave me alone.

If I'm not cut out for this writer thing, what next?

Sister 1 is MBA. Sister 2 is lawyer with an eye on higher things yet. Father is millionaire oilman. Dog has press-worthy survivor story and is much sought after as example of how the spirit of New Orleans endures even here in the frozen north. Husband is tenured professor with massive brain and elegant vocabulary--and speaks many languages fluently. There is some pressure here to keep up.

Or--maybe--give up?

If I had a number of diamond bracelets and perhaps an abalone cigarette holder, I could probably pull off the stay at home mom thing with elan, but I've discovered I require a fair amount of mad money. Like a LOT of mad money. Would not working make me less angry, but madder still? Could I really do this thing, this quitting work thing?

One thing's for sure: if quitting my job means feeling compelled to go on Grade 2 field trips, you can just forget about it right now. I'm in for the gold watch.

Shades of grey

Or: all cats look grey at night.

There are good things about letting the grey grow in. The savings, for one thing. Those little foil thingies are fun and make a girl all stripey and rocking, but I can fund a greatly accelerated M&Ms habit for an entire year on what I used to spend per month in roots maintenance.

But, as with most of the choices I've made on this earth, the decision had nothing to do with money. No, they had to do with:

1. Gravitas. People might take me more seriously if I bear the real signs of wisdom and maturity. Serious people don't have to deal with compost. Ever. 
2. Fear. Certain other people (I'm talking to YOU, Kid) might learn to obey me because of my growing resemblance to the witches they're always on about in children's books.
3. Surprise! I have grey hair! And I'm so frigging youthful! I KNOW. How do I do it?
4. Community spirit. Scouts love to help old ladies across the street. 
5. Safety. No one is going to challenge me to a fight because I looked the wrong way at them. No one beats up old ladies. 
6. Grey is the new black. My hair goes with everything. Like that Mercedes CLK. . . . 
7. Victorian hair pieces. Silver hair works beautifully with my recent steampunk hairpiece obsession. (So recent as to be about 5 minutes old at this point.)
8. School field trips. No one expects the elderly to traipse around frozen wastelands looking for small-animal scat in the middle of deepest February. 
9. Movies. I can speak loudly in theatres now and no one will think it's because I'm hyper and rude, they'll think it's because I'm hyper and old. 
10. There must be a tenth thing but I can't think of it right now. If you can, let me know. Where did I put my glasses? Why am I clutching this? I came here for a reason and now I cannot remember what it is. IS THIS THING ON?

Apple Picker?

Or DEMENTOR?

Before you answer, get up at 2 in the morning for a glass of water and just happen to glance out the kitchen window.

Apropos of nothing. . . .

. . . 7yo says over dinner with my parents (his father being absent on account of weekly lawnbowling commitment):

"Laur, I don't mean to be cruel, but I think Daddy is the most enslaved man in this house."

Gleimous

I just adopted this word at savethewords.com. I believe I was inevitably drawn to "gleimous" because of what I found in my son's bedroom this morning. And that is the last I will say about that.

I used to enter his room slowly, gently, savoring the way the nursery smelled. Everything like caramel and baby powder (fine, it's toxic, fine, I used it and he lived and neither of us have lung cancer) and clean laundry. Sometimes I would just stand there, in the middle of the room, eyes closed, inhaling in rapture.

This morning, I wrenched the door to his room open, holding my breath, quickly tore the sheets off his bed, gathered the socks and boy panties and t-shirts and shorts and jedi outfits and Mountie costumes into one reeking armful and didn't exhale again until I was safely past the open door in the kitchen, which marks the half-way point to the laundry room. I gulped in another lungful of fresh air and tore down the stairs and threw the whole pile into the washing machine, which I had readied with its door open. Slam! Start! Relief drenched me in grateful sweat. Life--ah, it is sweet to be alive.

In all the books they write about parenting--even about parenting boys, specifically--why is there no chapter on "Your Angel: Soon Enough He Will Smell Like a Goat"?