Closing the Escape Hatch

25 Thursday Mar 2010

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Cosmo surprised me last night.

While I was letting the dogs out for their final nature call, rather than taking care of business as usual, Cosmo zoomed back to her favorite spot like a rocket toward outer space. Since it was too dark to investigate, I made a mental note to check the area this morning.

Later, while in bed, I recalled an off-hand comment my husband made about the fence a couple of weeks ago. I remembered him saying something about there being a gap in the fence somewhere behind his office. At the time, he admitted to being puzzled as to why the dogs — and in particular, our naughty Scottie Cosmo — hadn’t taken advantage of the opening to explore the forbidden unknown on their own. I’m pretty sure we shared a good chuckle over it — and even pride at our superior intelligence — at the expense of the canine members of our household.

After seeing the size of the gap, I’ve no doubt Cosmo has been exploring far and wide, not once, but many, many times. Was it only a couple of weeks ago now, that I wondered in a previous post, what was keeping Cosmo so occupied behind the garden shed? All I can say it that I was stupid, stupid, stupid not to check this out before today. And if it weren’t for last night’s brazen midnight dash — which offered up serious evidence that Cosmo was charting out new territories to terrorize — Cosmo would still in the space exploration business.

I closed the hatch this morning, with stones leftover from our landscape project. The opening was about ten feet long and six inches high in most places — wide enough for Cosmo to have her pick of escape hatches and tall enough to offer an enterprising gigantic poodle (or two) their own peep-hole to watch Cosmo and the rest of the world go by.

The stones are too heavy for a Scottie muzzle to push around — or even a Scottie girl’s best canine friends — I know since my sad Scottie inspector has given then her seal of disapproval. With defense once again secure, I’ve accomplished my mission. And Cosmic Cosmo’s missions are over.

Not surprisingly, Cosmo has spent most of the day inside with me. We’re getting reacquainted.

To Grandma’s House

23 Tuesday Mar 2010

Posted by Janell in Life at Home, Mesta Park

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Everyday Life, Grandchildren, Mesta Park, Writing

My youngest granddaughter needed a place to hang her hat today.

Karson fell ill Sunday evening; it’s nothing infectious, but Karson didn’t feel up to attending school. Or so I understood, from my oldest daughter’s phone call yesterday. In fact, I’m pretty sure I heard Kate say Karson would likely sleep or lay around all day, same as yesterday.

To Karson’s mother, I say, “Liar, liar pants on fire.” (Forgive me — but since I just spent the last twenty-four hours with a rambunctious kindergartner, certain playground sayings are, for now, uppermost in my mind and at the tip of my fingers.)

Though not exactly in peak form, Karson and I did all the things we normally do when we spend time together. We watched a little television. Karson painted with watercolors while I painted with words. We shared a couple of meals amidst fine table conversation with the television shut off. And best of all, we walked down to our neighborhood park.

It was a great day to go, with temperatures hovering in the mid-seventies and blue skies overhead. Karson and I arrived — with a handsome gray tomcat in tow that we picked up along the way — to a dozen children enjoying the sunshine and playing on playground equipment. Children were being pushed in swings by parents and caught at the end of slides, the way I once pushed and caught Karson, when she was toddling around.

Karson no longer needs me to catch or push her. In fact, she’s growing up fast. Over lunch today, I learned that six-year-old Karson has had a boyfriend for well over a year. I forgot his name, but I imagine he’ll be replaced sooner or later.

But today, with no boyfriend in site (not counting our Tom), Karson played independently or formed playground partnerships with other children — a variation of you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours — which obligated Karson to push one girl on the inter-tube swing in exchange for that girl pushing Karson on the swing.

That little girl wore a pair of Dorothy’s ruby red slippers — just like the ones I bought Karson a year ago. Evidently, as deep once called to deep in biblical times, today on the playground, it was like finding like.

I confess to losing my Nana mojo, as I forgot to bring any liquid refreshment to the park for thirsty hard-playing girls. So after hitting all the rides, we left for home, dropping Tom off along the way. Unlike some, this guy believed in leaving the party with the girls he came with. His mother evidently raised him right.

I suppose I should feel flattered by Karson’s attempts to stay another day. But instead of feeling flattered, I feel flattened by that 39 pound steam-roller of a granddaughter. I praise God she was not running full steam ahead.

Life of Pi

21 Sunday Mar 2010

Posted by Janell in Good Reads, Life at Home, Prayer, Soul Care, Writing

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Books, Everyday Life, Soul Care

My friend Connie couldn’t stop talking about this book.

That was seven years ago. Yet, even now, I remember how Connie’s eyes shined and how my normally articulate book-loving friend stumbled for words when attempting to describe how this story made her feel. Maybe it was this unfamiliar stumbling that caused Connie to pick up the book a second time.

But it was Connie’s third reading that finally garnered my attention. Connie’s action, rather than her words, became an enthusiastic endorsement that led me to plunk down fourteen dollars to possess my own personal copy of Yann Martel’s prize-winning novel, Life of Pi.

Like most of my book purchases, I promptly gave it a home on my bookshelves, to age and gather dust like fine wine. The intent was to read it someday — once I had aged and the words had aged, and once I came into an age of more time and less busyness. My hope was that when someday arrived, once this book and I came to know one another, that my eyes too would shine and my tongue would stumble for lack of words.

Of course, my someday shriveled up and died. There are always other words to read and enough tasks to fill any day. Had it not been for the words of another “Connie,” my someday ship would still be off at sea. It was three weeks ago that, words written by the author of Ripple Effects, stirred me to action: I left my writing desk, walked down the stairs, across my living room to enter my book cellar of a library. I scanned, I found, I pulled, I dusted and carried the book upstairs to place on my nightstand, to live beside other books of more serious intentions.

I had several books in front of it — I was finishing up one novel and had required reading for my Monday night class. So I didn’t begin the story of Pi until a week ago. Until yesterday, I read at the slow rate of a few pages a night. But yesterday’s surprise snowfall offered me the perfect someday to finish the story, which I did in the company of three dogs, a soft reading lamp and a few hours of the clock.

“I have a story that will make you believe in God.” So Martel begins his story — or should I say stories — because two stories grow out of book — and we the readers, get to pick which version we wish to carry with us. Is this a story about God and a young boy, a story about impossible miracles and providence? Or is the story a simple human tragedy with a good ending?

My husband had to come up the stairs to remind me when it was time for us to eat. The dogs had to remind me when it was time for them to eat. I read right through the dog’s dinner bell, which thankfully, my husband answered. And when I finished this story, I didn’t even bother to describe its impact on me.

Like all good stories, I don’t think we really know what seeds are sown from words freshly read. It’s only with time and reflection and space and more time that thoughts of the reader and the writer integrate — likes seeds in soil — and either something grows from the planting or it doesn’t. Perhaps like live seed, it depends upon how much nurture the seeds receive.

Yet there are twinges of thoughts that come as one takes in the words of a great story. Mine was that the Life of Pi could be shorthand for a life of piety, for surely, the young boy Pi is pious in the best sense of the word — as one who has a heart devoted singularly to God, as one who punctuates his daily life with prayer, who has a heart for God that even allows him to love that murderer Richard Parker. And is it not appropriate, that Pi’s nickname represents an infinite number, since piety and matters of the heart should be a never-ending story?

I can’t say whether this is a story that will make one believe in God. But I know it’s a great story, and that it reminds me of other great stories in another great book — stories like the one about Adam, the first zookeeper, and Noah, another zookeeper and his Ark full of animals and Job, who was not a zookeeper, but suffered enough tragedy that led him to question the reasons for life and his feelings about God.

My friend Connie was right seven years ago. The book begs a second reading. Someday.