Hunter and His Habit

Writer inserting internal dialogue of her favorite canine:  "Hi, my name is Hunter.  I am a garbage-aholic."  SQUIRREL!

There you have it, I've outed him -- broken his anonymity.  I am a bad, bad pet owner.  See, here's the deal.  Hunter is a pound puppy.  When Sarah and I first met him he was behind a wall of glass marked "quarantine" and he had his back to the nice people knocking on the window. Occasionally, he would throw a look over his shoulder in disdain.  Not open malice, or teeth-baring fear... just "really... I've got better things to do than listen to you tap tap tap and make googly eyes at me."  He was disenchanted with the human race.  Possibly this could have happened because his prior "owner" -- master, lover, companion, friend, pet-addict, lonely person type "A" -- whatever moniker you prefer, was a homeless man.  I'm guessing that they practiced dumpster diving as an art form.

We took him home.  He does not like Science Diet.  He does not like Kibbles and Bits; although he does like the generic Nibbles and Kibbles.  Mostly, Hunter likes garbage and when he can get it, used chewing gum.  Bubbalicious.  If nothing else in this world -- you know, I'm a half-decent mother.  I really am.  It's taken me a lifetime to get up the courage to say that and even now I'm quaking in my boots.  So -- I tell this dog, "Listen, bub... that stuff isn't good for you.  I promise to cook you an egg every Sunday for the rest of your furry life -- whether we are eating eggs or not -- if you would simply refrain from the garbage."  He eats his egg, enthusiastically promising to choose a new path.

He burps and lies down like a good dog.  All of us breathe a sigh of relief because we can go to bed tonight knowing that he can't get into the kitchen garbage can with the gray clasps that lock the lid on.  He's in  his house, surrounded by people he loves.  We wake up the next morning, there's dog shit behind the living room couch and what's left of the garbage is strewn from the kitchen to the bathroom.  Or maybe he's been considerate and kept the rancid sour cream lid as his personal welcome mat at the front door.  "No, no, buddy..." becomes "Are you out of your (expletive inserted here) doggy brain?!?"

We are sleep-deprived, exhausted pet owners.  We have hidden the garbage can in the bathroom.  We have kenneled him.  We have shut the bedroom door and missed the cool, Fall breeze (that simultaneously airs out old dog farts).  Basically, we have tried the "perhaps He'll find a higher power, get a sponsor, work the steps" route.  We were perfectly willing to hire the Dog Whisperer -- but he was booked through 2020 and I have a wedding coming up.  I'm thinking about joining a support group for family members of garbage-aholics.  But you know what they say, "Can't teach an old dog new tricks."  Especially when he continues to choose garbage over food.

Hunter, I love you... STOP THAT!!!

Character Recipe - Frank or David?

Okay, here it is.  I do not know anything about how to develop a character because I've never written fiction.  I do know how to explain the character of a living human being I've encountered.  It starts with the fact that my reader doesn't know them at all.  With that in mind, how will I create a character that doesn't exist except in my imagination?  How will I keep him consistent and believable?

This has been playing on my mind for the last three days and I happened upon a blog hop on a new page I liked recently called "Fellow Writers" on Facebook.  (Thank you Jessica L. Degarmo for leading me there.)  I am excited because I have made a few friends on Authonomy, feebly attempted to edit my own book, and have had venereal writer's block, also known as the Clunk, since September of 2010.

Frank or David is the question.  The main character in my first attempt at fiction needs a name.  I figure if I name him first then I can create a visual in my mind.  People-watching is great recreation.  Frank has the name because he would be a play on honesty. 

I know a Frank from my childhood memories.  He was my father's assistant in the pharmacy and he was a hippie that drove a VW bug.  This character is a carny.  He's the mechanic in charge of taking care of a metaphysical carousel.  So, I live on the main street of my city and we affectionately call it "the drunk walk."  There are plenty of Franks out there wandering home.

David?  David is a poet (yes, the same Psalmist or a variation on theme).  Problem is that David, to me, is a blond-haired, blue-eyed sweet boy.  I don't know why but that's what I see in my mind.  I have an inkling of where I want my main character to go because I thought about the story before I went for any characters.

Hell, I never was any good at recipes (much less following directions)...let me try this another way.

1 cup of Steampunk (nuts and bolts included)
1/2 tsp. of curiosity bordering on fascination
2 heaping tbsps. of cynicism and hard living
Dash of hope
Blend well with biker charm school and served without Chianti (he's sober)

I have a feeling the newbie is in for a whole lot of learning and I'm excited to give this blog hop a try.  Hope I did okay.

Change

I think the junior high assignment used to be, “What Did I Do This Summer” or “Where Did I Go This Summer.” Some such, that opened up the gates for the new school of learning to begin.

At the end of May, my husband departed for a two month military training course in Gagetown, New Brunswick. All of my married life – for both marriages – I fought against any type of lengthy separation largely because I was raised by a single parent and spent a lot of my time wishing I wasn’t alone. I hated being alone. When I was alone bad things happened either with my mother or simply by myself. In my layers of memory that fear still lived and breathed. Added to that was what kind of parent would I be to Sarah without the balancing force of Christopher when my anger reared its ugly head.

So I prayed. I walked and I prayed... had long conversations with God about why I was afraid. Most of them were completely unspoken in my head or out of it, but I think that He knew what I was saying in the deepest parts of me that have no language. Please, don’t let me be like my mother. Please don’t let me be like myself, let me be better.

I was better. It wasn’t that I didn’t get angry, I did. Sarah is at the tender age of “me, myself and I.” We all visited that age and some days I still live there. It makes for great memoir writing. Hunter, our dog, managed to catch several glimpses of the anger that lives inside of SueAnn – especially when he chewed up the second pair of flip flops. He sat, ears lowered under the kitchen table avoiding the sweep of my broom. “In the box!” I yelled. The box being his safe spot, his kennel.

To my credit, Hunter spent a lot of time being a beagle. He gets a scent and drags me around the block, down the hill, up the hill – at one point turning my 200 pound frame halfway around with my feet struggling to catch up with my body as he lunged at yet another bicycle rider, growling with his hackles raised. He really does not like many people and finds that he has to be territorial right up until the time that Apollo, the pit bull and something much larger mix chases Hunter up the hill, down the hill and around the track again. Nearly every morning we were greeted by Buddy, the white schnauzer/poodle mix. Buddy’s mom and Hunter’s mom would have them sit to get rid of the leash and they would advance, stop... stare... advance, stop, stare...until one of them (usually Buddy) took off galloping at breakneck speed toward the other one meeting one another in a jump, a circle... a run. You know, I don’t know Buddy’s mom’s name. I just know her as the nice woman who waited for me from 5:30-ish until I got there at 6 and we would walk a couple of laps with the dogs and I would need to go back to get Sarah out of the shower. I had all these grandiose plans about contemplative walking meditation and prayer. Those were supplanted by two dogs and two moms meeting one another in joy. The last day before we went on our vacation, there was a woman sleeping in the park. She was huddled under her sleeping bag and three dogs, off leash, greeted her with curious growls and yips. It seems there are more and more homeless people in our neighbourhood and it worries me for Sarah – and it worries me for them. She looked up at me and declared, “I am not homeless, I am having a hard time.” I said, “Well, I was homeless and it wasn’t safe for me. Get off these streets as soon as you can. For men, it’s one thing – for women, quite another.”

The days ticked on by and Christopher and I texted each other on our cell phones sometimes six or eight times in a day. I don’t think one day went by that we didn’t talk at some point on the phone and life just continued. There were bills to be paid, dishes to be done, laundry on Wednesdays. I entertained myself with lunches out with my cousin-in-law, Bill and my mum-in-law, Barb. My friend Gaetan would meet me with her dog, Gizmo (a Yorkie) and we would walk together and talk. Gaetan belongs, very much, to the grouping of Margo, Dani, Kay, Yancie, Krista, to the human beings I have chosen to call my family. I think I might have found a friend up here, maybe. I am reluctant – at best – to form face to face human friendships because I am solitary and lazy when it comes to relationships. But I found that this does not make for a healthy SueAnn when my best friend is in New Brunswick; it is something that needs work. I depend upon my husband far too much to be everything for me and need to grow past that.
And so I did.

Our vacation is another blog, it was magical and this is our last full day of fun in the sun... Wendy is coming after lunch and we’re going to talk about the history of Stone Cottage and her family. She’s an artist, a painter and a potter. We both have kids in their 20’s and are constantly amazed by the twists and turns of that age. It’s time to stop writing and go outside. Sarah’s already gotten smacked in the mouth by the ball, been in to the plastic baggie full of ice and her father’s lap. Then there is the beach to explore...

Blue Valentine

“I’m interested in family dramas because, you know, because I feel like in a family, you really get to know who a person is. You get to know the contrast of a person, the light and the dark inside of a person.” – Derek Cianfrance

I watched a movie last night called Blue Valentine. The cinematography spoke when the characters were not provided words and it seemed to me that the writer wasn’t sorting out his parents’ marriage or juxtapositioned questions of self. Cianfrance had made this movie speak to a much larger population. In the interviews, it’s mentioned that he re-wrote the script 75 times, that the film took 12 years to make and that the actors lived together as a married couple… creating budgets, grocery shopping and having Christmas. In the world of digital manipulation, I found it intriguing that Michelle Williams had signed up and sat with this script for 6 years and Ryan Gosling had it for 4 before the story came into its own.

Sorted in with the on-line reviews was Jackie Cooper’s: “Gosling and Williams are terrific but the movie is a downer from start to finish. Not just ‘Blue,’ this is a ripped, torn and shredded Valentine.” Why do people think that looking inside the why’s of what we do as human beings is a bummer? It’s the journey. If life has a sign up sheet of “okay, check off this lesson and learn it” then this film would be a term paper on romance, on marriage, on how we love one another and harm one another. It would be a very clear reminder to all of us to embrace the reasons we fell in love to begin with and to hold onto them like a preserver when the tides get rough…and boringly normal.

Gosling commented that if he had to shoot the movie again, he couldn’t because he had put everything he had out there and, afterward, had to do a comedy with Steve Carrell just to shake it off. Williams said that as the script was being written, and re-written, her life’s perceptions had changed and she brought to it this agonizing restless ambition, the drive to have the two cars, the picket fence, all of the “things” we are supposed to have. Both characters lost sight of what they had, him in the quiet desperation of how do I please thee let me count the ways and she in how do I change thee and make us both so much better. How many relationships endure that?

The last scenes as the credits roll are pictures of the two of them from different times in the film, snapshots burning in July’s fireworks. Gosling said that he watched one of the pictures burning, crisping into a heart shape from the outside where the only remainder was their lips touching. I would imagine as the house lights came up, the married couples were reaching for one another’s hands.

It was a Blue Valentine.

Birds of Paradise

In the month of June, Relay for Life events pop up like dandelions; they are everywhere. Rita and I were talking with one another at work, she is from our Sault Ste. Marie office and I am located in Sudbury. I had divulged to her that my best friend had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and I felt badly because I couldn’t go to Texas to be there for her when she went for her mastectomy. Rita suggested that was there was something I could do – I could walk in her honour. She said that she had a list of 37 people she was walking for and I knew that one of those people was…Rita. She is a survivor of breast cancer.

Sarah and I headed for the Sault at 8:00 on Friday night. She had been on a field trip that day and spent six hours on a bus. We were getting ready to spend three and one-half more and that day, everything tried to get in my way of going. First it was that the person that was going to take Sarah for the weekend bailed and I couldn’t go until later. Then we headed out and I had forgotten to fill the car up. That’s a big mistake in North Ontario. You don’t head anywhere out of Sudbury without a full tank. So, we were 30 kilometres down the road and had to turn around because I didn’t know where the next gas station was. It seems like I wasn’t supposed to go. Then I thought about my best friend. About how she taught me to go to any lengths and she didn’t stop and wait for a good time; she trudged ahead in spite of common sense and took me in anyway.

We arrived in the Sault at midnight-ish and there were still people on the track. Thank God that the Relays for Life go all night long because I would have missed it. I called Rita from the parking lot and Sarah and I snapped a picture.

I’m here to tell you that Sarah looked I felt. Rita greeted us at the gate and off we went. People were all over the place. She said that it had thinned quite a bit from the beginning of the night because there wasn’t room to pass another person on the track when she started. People were walking six lanes across in clumps. There were the signature candle tributes to people who had passed, who were in treatment, who were just diagnosed – who survived cancer. I remembered from the first RFL event I attended and I asked where the word “Hope” was located. This group had added additional instructions.


We stopped to read the tributes and I found myself biting the insides of my cheeks because there were children’s faces shining back at me.



Rita told me her story as we walked around the track; of her initial diagnosis, of the lumpectomy and of the chemo afterward. She told me about her hair growing back and the divine discovery of a Julia Roberts’-like blonde wig from “Pretty Woman.” What I saw on Rita’s face was sheer determination. She had seen her worst fears realized and walked through them – and past them.

The next morning I woke at the ungodly hour of 10:00 a.m. I don’t think I’ve slept until 10 (seriously) for five or six years, maybe longer. Something was answered for me that night and I slept without dreaming. Rita was already up and in the kitchen making coffee. Sarah was in the shower and we had about fifteen minutes to trade the opening exchanges of spirit that women do. I read her my favourite passage out of Richard Bach’s “Illusions” and she showed me two recent purchases…birds of paradise. Rita loves birds. She writes children’s books. One that she allowed me to see early on was about hummingbirds. Whereas my writing would send children into therapy for years; Rita has a way that she educates while she is providing warm instruction. She is a Mommy to her toes.

Ruth is Rita’s sister and I believe they have one sister in between them, Helga. The baby is Karin. Ruth arrived for coffee and we sat on the back patio in comfy chairs greeting the morning chattering louder (with more laughter) than the birds. Ruth looked over at Rita and said, “You have something on your cheek, here…” and she reached over and brushed whatever it was away. Then Rita said, “You’re really looking good. Getting ready for your daughter’s wedding?” I watched them together and the casual way that they took care of one another without forethought or embarrassment – sisters. I find that when women are gathered together we discuss the things that make everyone uncomfortable – the squishy, emotional things, the secrets. To me, that is a chief strength in women – our stories, our ability to give the knowledge away that we’ve earned and stumbled upon. When Ruth made to leave, I asked if I could take a picture or two of them. The first one was beautiful.


That’s Ruth on the left and Rita on the right. The second one was unexpected and it was more beautiful.


Ladies – this is what we do for one another. We are the birds of paradise.