Eat, bray, love

       

   Magazines, unlike blogs, take a long time to put together, and so the issues on your coffee table or nightstand right now were finished a couple of months ago.  My essay in the latest Ladies’ Home Journal mentions events that happened in January, but as many of you know, that was January a year ago, the cold, snowy day the donkeys came home.

    Here’s what has happened since then, for the benefit of my new LHJ friends:

    Jo-Jo promptly slipped on ice and fractured a bone in her leg, necessitating x-rays that cost more than her worth.  After a month of “stall rest” and painkillers, she and Foggy were reunited, and the rest of the year went by uneventfully, except for that little incident in the Hopkinton police report.  Suffice it to say, by the time she took off down the road, the fracture had healed beautifully.

       Nancy made good on her promise to stay in Jo-Jo and Foggy’s lives, and over the summer, welcomed them back to her farm for donkey camp while the rest of us took a human vacation.   Meanwhile, Nancy acquired two adorable baby donkeys more suitable for the rest of her herd.  So Jo-Jo and Foggy now have “cousins” – meet Eli and Cowboy, from Texas!

    We hope we don’t ever have to go up against these two in a pet Halloween-costume contest, although beating Jo-Jo in a tutu is tough.

   I can’t link to the LHJ piece for a while, so if you’re interested, please buy the magazine, the February issue, which should be at your newsstand about now.  (And, guys, if you’re too manly to buy a Ladies’ Home Journal, you can always download it on your Kindle!)

O Mardi Gras tree

          After Mass this past Sunday, the decorating committee advanced to the altar to take the Christmas tree down.

    Before we reached the back of the church, they had half of it dismantled. The mothers around me looked on with envy and awe, making me think that there is much money to be made in interior un-decorating.  I bet there are a lot of people who would gladly pay $100 for someone to come take their trees down.

     For $10, the local Boy Scouts will haul your tree away from the curb, but good citizens though they are, they refuse to strip it of ornaments and lug the thing outside, which is what I really want done. 

    With a new determination to reuse and repurpose  — doing my little part to save the Earth – I no longer throw away our tree.  Instead, when it leaves the living room, it goes outside the kitchen window, so we can enjoy the birds that perch in its branches until spring, when it starts to brown. When that happens, I’ll strip off the remaining fragrant needles to sew into sachets.  Then what’s left of the tree goes behind the barn to dry out in preparation for another task: serving as the Yule log next Christmas Eve.  

    But before any of that can happen, somebody’s got to take the thing down. 

   And yup, it’s Jan. 12, and it’s still with us.  I’ve written about this before here, the ever-lengthening Christmas-tree creep.   In my 20s, I always put away Christmas on Jan. 2. I seem to add a few days to that every year. The tree has never before made it to February, but may yet.  Maybe even this year.

    But for once, I’ve got a good excuse:   Our tree, possibly the Prettiest Tree Ever, proudly refuses to wilt.  It’s still regal and green and possessed of most of its needles, even though I quit watering it on Christmas Eve.

   Previous trees died promptly, some before their time.  This tree looks like we just put it up.  It still smells wonderful, too.  It seems wrong to put it outside just because Nat King Cole has vanished for another year.

      Still, there comes a time, at some murky point between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday, when a still-lit Christmas tree becomes not a symbol of joy, but a public advertisement of sloth.  So my tree may still be up come Mardi Gras.

     But if it is, I’ll be closing the blinds.

Then one Foggy Christmas eve

            

      True, the Gospels don’t say a donkey carried Mary to Bethlehem.  But that’s our story, and we’re sticking to it.

     Below is a Christmas tale sent recently by a friend.  Is it true?  Probably not. But there is truth in it. And it is as good an answer as I can ever hope to give when people ask me, “Why, exactly, do you have donkeys?”

 

       BECAUSE OF LOVE

     A brother and sister had made their usual hurried, obligatory pre- Christmas visit to the little farm where their elderly parents lived with a small herd of horses. The farm was where they had grown up, and it had been named Lone Pine Farm because of the huge pine that topped the hill behind the farm. Through the years, the tree had become a talisman to the old man and his wife, and a landmark in the countryside. The siblings had fond memories of their childhood here, but the city hustle and bustle added more excitement to their lives and called them away to a different life. 

   The old folks no longer showed their horses, for the years had taken their toll. Getting out to the barn on those frosty mornings was getting harder, but it gave them a reason to get up in the morning and a reason to live. They sold a few foals each year, and the horses brought joy in the morning and contentment at day’s end. 

    As they prepared to leave, the young people confronted the old folks:  ”Why do you not at least dispose of the old one? She is no longer of use to you. It’s been years since you’ve had foals from her. You should cut corners and save so you can have more for yourselves. How can this old, worn-out horse bring you anything but expense and work? Why do you keep her anyway?” 

    The old man looked down at his worn boots with holes in the toes, scuffed at the barn floor and replied, “Yes, I could use a pair of new boots.”

    His arm slid defensively about the Old One’s neck as he drew her near and rubbed her behind her ears. He replied softly, “We keep her because of love. Nothing else, just love.” 

   Baffled and irritated, the young folks wished the old man and his wife a merry Christmas and headed back toward the city as darkness stole through the valley. 

  The old couple shook their heads in sorrow that it had not been a happy visit. How is it that these young folks did not understand the peace of the love that filled their hearts?

 So it was that because of the unhappy leave-taking, no one noticed the insulation smoldering on the frayed wires in the old barn. None saw the first spark fall. None but the Old One.

   In a matter of minutes, the barn was ablaze and the hungry flames were licking at the loft full of hay. With a cry of horror and despair, the old man shouted to his wife to call for help as he raced to the barn to save their beloved horses. But the flames were roaring now, and the blazing heat drove him back. He sank sobbing to the ground, helpless before the fire’s fury. His wife cradled him in her arms, and clinging to each other, they wept at their loss. 

    By the time the fire department arrived, only smoking, glowing ruins were left, and the old man and his wife, exhausted from their grief, huddled together before the barn. They were speechless as they rose from the cold, snow-covered ground. They nodded thanks to the firemen as there was nothing anyone could do now. The old man turned to his wife, resting her white head upon his shoulders as his shaking old hands clumsily dried her tears with a frayed red bandana. Broken, he whispered, “We have lost much, but God has spared our home on this eve of Christmas. Let us gather strength and climb the hill to the old pine where we have sought comfort in times of despair. We will look down upon our home and give thanks to God that it has been spared and pray for the precious gifts that have been taken from us.” 

   And so, he took her by the hand and slowly helped her up the snowy hill as he brushed aside his own tears with the back of his old and withered hand. 

   The journey up the hill was hard for their old bodies in the steep snow. As they stepped over the little knoll at the crest of the hill, they paused to rest, looking up to the top of the hill. Then they gasped and fell to their knees in amazement at the incredible beauty before them. 

    Seemingly, every glorious, brilliant star in the heavens was caught up in the glittering, snow-frosted branches of their beloved pine, and it was aglow with heavenly candles. And poised on its top most bough, a crystal crescent moon glistened like spun glass. Never had a mere mortal created a Christmas tree such as this. They were breathless as the old man held his wife tighter in his arms. 

    Suddenly, the old man gave a cry of wonder and joy. Amazed and mystified, he took his wife by the hand and pulled her forward. There, beneath the tree, in resplendent glory, a mist hovering and glowing in the darkness was their Christmas gift: shadows glistening in the night light. 

    Bedded down about the Old One, close to the trunk of the tree, was the entire herd, safe. 

    At the first hint of smoke, she had pushed the door ajar and had led the horses through it. Slowly and with great dignity, never looking back, she led them up the hill, stepping cautiously through the snow. The foals were frightened and dashed about. The skittish yearlings looked back at the crackling flames, and tucked their tails under them as they licked their lips and hopped like rabbits. The mares that were in foal with a new year’s crop of babies pressed uneasily against the “Old One” as she moved calmly up the hill and to safety beneath the pine. And now she lay among them and gazed at the faces of the old man and his wife. 

Those she loved she had not disappointed. Her body was brittle with years, tired from the climb, but the golden eyes were filled with devotion as she offered her gift.

Because of love. Only because of love. 

Merry Christmas from all of us here, the short-eared and long.

 

 

And they said it was unwinnable

           

     It’s over – finally.

     Months after the siege began, weeks after we declared (mistakenly) that the mission was accomplished, the end has finally come.

     It has been a painful and arduous undertaking, and one that we often despaired was futile.

     Oh, our intentions were good.  We would do the job that most Americans will not do, but contract out to mercenary others. We would do it better than ever before.   We had dreams of a better tomorrow, in which our already strapped resources weren’t disappearing into what seemed to be an endless black hole. Our efforts, we knew, would be unnoticed and unappreciated by the world at large.  Still, we believed in the cause, even when others said the war was unwinnable.

     The mission dragged on for too long.

     Morning after morning, we awoke with a deepening gloom, burdened with the sense that despite all our efforts, things weren’t getting any better.  We had small victories, but few with lasting results.  When we tried to divide and conquer,  sectarian violence ensued.  The insurgents, buoyed by winds of discord, increasingly seemed to have the upper hand.

     We tried different tactics. We stepped up our daily patrols and recruited more troops.  We experimented with old tools and new technology.   We tried positive thinking.  We tried gentle methods; we tried harsh.   We even tried a temporary withdrawal.

    Before it was over, tragically, the lives of many earthworms were lost.

    They had hunkered down under the heavy wet leaves, thinking that winter was here and they were safe there until spring.  They did not know that the Leaf Militia had not yet finished.

   God the Father was on our side.

    Or maybe it was Mother Nature.

    At any rate, the snow that usually ends Operation Leaf Removal before every last perpetrator is raked did not arrive in November. Nor did it come in early December.

  With no snow cover under which to cower, the wilted little rats remained exposed. 

    After Thanksgiving, newly fortified, the troops rallied and attacked again. We did not stop; we did not rest. We tracked them under wet logs and in dry crevices.  We found them under the porch, between rocks, clinging to the grill.   We were thorough and ruthless. We caught not only this year’s perpetrators, but those who have been hiding out for years, right there, right under our nose.

They will not trouble us again.

The War on Leaves is finally over.

For this year, anyway.

Sure, compared to a walrus, I’m thin

   

     A couple of years ago, Newsweek magazine ran an essay I wrote called “Confessions of a Fat Runner.”   Amazingly, I still get emails from people who said they were inspired by it. One woman even told me she had it taped to her refrigerator two years after it ran, truly the nicest compliment a writer can ever hope to receive.

   Right after the essay was published, another person—a man in Tenneseee  —wrote to suggest I write a book on the topic.  I thanked him for the idea and promptly forgot about it for two years.

     Then one day,  in a fit of attitude brought on when I was passed (on mile 8!) by a shirtless wonder, I pulled out all the essays I’d written about running over the past 10 years and threw them together in something vaguely resembling a book.  I called it, appropriately enough, “Confessions of a Fat Runner.”

     Earlier this year, I signed with a wonderful  agent,  Dana Newman, an overachiever who represents authors when she’s not running marathons and being a high-powered L.A.  lawyer.  My good fortune at finding Dana, however, is balanced by my incredibly bad timing of shopping a book around when traditional book publishing is imploding.  In fact, it’s safe to say there is no such thing as traditional book publishing right now. 

       So we’ll see.   Among my early rejections are complaints that I am not “fat enough” to call myself a fat runner.   I think that’s a license to eat, yes?   Terrific news at the start of the holidays.

    I take these charges that I am not fat enough very seriously, although not seriously enough to post pictures of my thighs and even more terrifying abdomen on the Internet.

    What’s fat enough?  It’s relative, of course.  Compared to, say, a walrus, okay, I confess:  yep, I’m downright  wispy.  But I am, undeniably, an endomorph, and will forevermore be, regardless of what the scale says on any given day.  So, when I decided to start a separate blog that’s just about running, I chose the name  “Endie Runners.” 

   “Endie” is short for “endomorph” but I also like the implication of  “indie,” meaning, of course, independent, fiesty, apart from the pack, something different and maybe even daring.  (And, by the way, there’s an “Indie Runners” group in Indianapolis.)

    When I first started to blog, it was just so I’d have a place to follow up on my published articles and essays.  But then, lo and behold, one day I woke up and had you, my tens of readers, and then another day, there was Dana badgering me about my “platform,”  and so this unwieldy thing grew.  But some of you are here because of the running stuff, and others are here because of the donkey stuff, and others are here because they’re my mother, and the rest of you, well, I don’t know….   don’t you have anything else better to do?

    Seriously, I am thankful for every person who visits this page, and even more, for those of you who subscribe.  (If you haven’t, Dana would be most grateful if you would.)  But we all have so much to read and absorb these days, and so I thought it might be useful to streamline a bit.  So, I’m moving all my stuff about running to the new site, http://endierunners.wordpress.com/  and my occasional yowlings about divorce to Jo-Jo and Foggy’s Facebook page here:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jo-Jo-and-Foggy/273575186020342

        They’d be grateful if you would “like” them as much as I do.   Soon to come:  The Donkey Shoppe.  Stay tuned.  Meanwhile, until a long-threatened redesign of my website takes place, this is still the place to go for general musings on life, laughter, and the pursuit of the perfect cup of coffee.

It’s 3:00. Do you know where your donkey is?

         That’s what a local radio station is playing, followed by a bray, as the introduction to the song “Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey.”

       The first time we heard it, my 9-year-old daughter and I howled with laughter, particularly in light of this:

                                                                                                                                                                                For the record,  I would like to point out an error.  Contrary to implication, said officers did not assist in the re-homing of the donkeys.  Never even saw ‘em.   Aided by a neighbor with a bag of apples, we apprehended them ourselves.

     The last time Jo-Jo and Foggy had an excellent adventure,  we took blueberry pies to the neighbors whose lawns they desecrated.  I am beginning to think that people are letting them out while we’re not looking in hopes of getting a pie.

    Incidentally, I’d never heard that “Dominick the Donkey” song before we moved to New England.  Must be an Italian thing.  Or maybe it’s new, and I’ve just been out of the South too long.   Question for you Southerners:  Are your Christmas stations playing this song?    Here’s a YouTube version of it:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQrdxtWgHbE

Where’s Treebeard when you need him?

     In Anne Lamott’s terrific coming-of-old-age novel “Blue Shoe,” the protagonist falls in love with a guy who showed up to kill the rats in her walls, but then didn’t have the heart to do it.

    You all know I couldn’t kill rodents for a living, but I realized on a run this week that it’s worse:

     I also couldn’t kill trees. 

    For nearly six years, I’ve been privileged to run through the 700 acres of fields and dirt roads of Weston Nurseries, known nationally for its landscaping on the TV show “This Old House.” 

     Well, a year or so ago, Weston sold most of its land to a developer, and “my” beautiful running and riding trails are soon to be turned into condos and single-family homes.  Today, when I arrived at my usual running route, I was greeted by a group of men with chain saws and a wood chipper.  They were friendly and said I could still run there, but on the way back, I had to run by a stack of thick, newly felled trees.

    And, I, who thought Julia Butterfly Hill was a nut, wanted to throw myself over them and weep.

    It’s not that I don’t love progress. If there’s a Starbucks in this new development, all will be forgiven.

    And yes, I am aware that the profession in which I was trained is enabled by the felling of trees.

    As is my lovely wood pile on which I, like Thoreau, look on “with a kind of affection.”

      But still.   Damn.  Sorry to see anything so beautiful struck down to the ground.  

     Meanwhile, SLATE recently posited that the flaming fall leaves of New England are waning. Maybe, maybe not; hard to tell under the infernal snow.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2011/10/new_england_fall_foliage_why_bright_red_leaves_are_in_danger_.html

Life here, in four pictures

Do you, America, take this man, Herman?

    My  grandmother votes on the issues, plus an intangible:  how “presidential” a candidate appears.   So Christie is out, Perry is in, and Cain, well, there’s just one problem, and it’s not his looks, but his name.  

      Is America ready for a president named Herman?  Can a man with a first name best known as a Munster govern a country swaddled in Isabellas and Jacobs?   “Barack” was tough enough, but at least there was no antecedent derision attached to our current president’s name. 

       There never was a Pee-Wee Obama.

       “Herman” is in another category, wherein dwell names that, despite noble origin, inexplicably devolved into monikers of shame.

      It’s silly, really.  Names are but random arrangements of consonants and vowels, usually chosen by our parents, by which we choose to identify ourselves.   There is nothing intrinsically better about  letters that assemble to read “John” over those that present themselves as “Albert.” 

     But every  so often, some university comes up with a study that proves that, in fact, there is.  They say the last acceptable prejudice in America is fat, but more furtive is our  judgment of names.    Tell the truth: Who do you want operating on your gall bladder?  Tiffany, Kaitlin or Helen?

      I dated a Herman once.  He was a “junior,” named after his father, and he was a strapping young fellow who, to me, looked more like a “Jack.”   I loved him for a while, but it was in spite of, not because of,  his name.   I could never whisper, “Oh, Herman, Herman” rapturously in his ear, without something akin to a giggle trying to escape. When we broke up, I promptly fell in with an Ed.

      The website howmanyofme.com reports that there are 151,487 Hermans in this country, and 32 of them are named Herman Cain.  It is the 408^th “most popular” name, although once you plunge this low in the rankings, “least popular” ought to be the identifier. At any rate, as a name, Herman is more popular than Adolph and Homer, but significantly less so than Roland.

      (There are, howmanyofme.com says, “one or fewer” people in the United States named Newt, and for this, let us thank God for small favors.)

   Can a name be rehabilitated? Perhaps, but Melville lived too long ago and has proved to be no help from the grave.   “Twilight” author Stephenie Meyer dug into to 18^th-century birth records to name her vampires, who are immortal.   But Jasper and Emmett don’t sound comical, just adorably dated, nor are they racing up the top baby names charts.

       Some troublesome names abbreviate nicely, like Jeremiah which shortens to Jerry.  But there’s no derivative of  Herman but Hermey. You know, Hermey,  the misfit aspiring dentist from “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”  Things turned out okay for him in the end, but you just know the other elves would have treated him better if he’d had a benign name like, say, Gary.

    The books of baby names say Herman means “Army Man” in German, a good thing in time of war. But that bin Laden and Gadhafi are dead may not help citizen Cain in New Hampshire one whit. There’s no getting around the name Herman; unless, of course, you forever replace it with “President Cain.”

    Or are distracted at the top of the ballot by the truly inexplicable Mitt.

What wine goes with duck bacon?

     The fall leaves are near peak here in Massachusetts, but all anyone wants to talk about around here is the new grocery store.

    Wegmans just opened here, and if you don’t understand all the fuss, you’ve never lived in New England or had to feed four children, two donkeys (and 312 barn mice) night after night.

     I go to the grocery store four or five times a week.  And, I’m sorry, but most of the ones around here are insipid.  How bad are they? So bad that, when we head south for the Tour de Grandparents, the first place the kids want to go is the grocery store.  (Yeah, Mom, we’ll go to the water park, but not until we visit the deli and bakery at Publix!)

  But now, there is Wegmans. (Cue “Hallelujah Chorus.”)  I haven’t been yet, because I prefer to be able to move my arms and legs when I shop, but here’s a guest post from STEPHANIE SMITH GIBREE at the scene.

     Today at 11:20ish, I went to Wegmans. I got lucky and got a parking spot in front. I entered the building and got a Wegmans card from one of the many women with laptops ready to swipe your driver’s license and take your phone number, got my coupons and walked in to what I can only compare to Union Station in DC at 5:10 p.m.   TOTAL INSANITY … over food.

   There were elders with 02 tanks and walkers, all clutching coupons; and latte-sipping, cell-phone talking, diamond-encrusted soccer moms; and then there was me.  I had a map and a mission: to get bananas and Canadian white sandwich bread. I was able to get lovely bananas, but no Canadian white bread – nothing even close available, according to the man who kindly offered me help.

   I did purchase DUCK bacon. I have never had duck bacon, but I know I love duck and I love bacon; what could be wrong with that? I never got to use the map I got with my key card; to take my eyes off the aisles would have been suicide.

    Indeed, it was lovely, like a super Whole Food stores on the day before Thanksgiving (or an ice storm).  I mentioned to the clerk that I was totally ineffective; she offered to send someone to find the items I did not get. (I declined because I needed a nap.)  I did, however, get to hear the words, “How much Maytag blue cheese do you want?” and viewed many a premier cru from some of my favorite vineyards (can you say Henri de Villamont ’06? La Tour? La Flaive?  Duck confit?) …so I will be back, but MUCH later.   I hear they close at midnight, so while the soccer moms are doing homework and the elders watching TV, I’ll sneak back.

    Okay, me again:  Can anyone tell me why any grocery store needs to see your DRIVER’S LICENSE to issue a shopper’s card? The day they start asking for fingerprints, I’m buying a cow and a couple of chickens.