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PATIENCE
RENZULLI
Patience Renzulli and her husband Bill live in Paducah and you can visit their website at www.dogwalkers.net.
Mr. Mouse
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I am not afraid of mice. I am not. I do, however, have a freakish instinctual reaction to a mouse running amok in my presence. I do the Screaming Mouse Dance.
I shriek!!!!
So last week as I was typing away in my dark little computer room, and a mouse poked out from under my file cabinet and said hey. Oh, Lord you scared me, I said. Please don't run, I begged, because Bill and the dogs are sound asleep and they won't be if you run. And Mr. Mouse, being a polite fellow, flicked his whiskers a bit in a dignified, sure-whatever-you-say kind of way, and ducked back under the file cabinet. I decided the story I was working on could wait and went immediately to bed.
Mr. Mouse said hi a few more times during the course of the week, in a delightfully stationary fashion, and we became friends. We used to get lots of field mice coming to visit this time of year when the nights got chilly, back at the farm. But though I had expected to see many, this was the very first mouse encounter since moving to this old house in Paducah five years ago. Some old houses in the neighborhood are being rehabbed, and perhaps Mr. Mouse has had to find new digs.
One evening, a friend stopped by. The dogs and I were upstairs. The dogs heard the knocking before I did, and the stampede down the stairs was on. On the way down, something on the steps caught my eye.
It was Mr. Mouse.
Now. I have nine whippets. Bred for centuries to chase small furry things. And all nine whippets crashed down the stairs, barking their greetings to our visitor, stepping on, over, and next to Mr. Mouse.
And, tiny Mr. Mouse was most definitely not stationary any more.
He was leaping madly to try to get up the stairs, but they were too tall. And now there was bedlam. My voice, aided and abetted by my lungs and mouth, but totally bypassing my brain, started the Moving Mouse Scream.
The poor guest who was knocking on my door was entertaining the possibility that I had fallen and broken my leg. It's that kind of scream. I managed to open the door between outbursts, or during them, I should say.
"THERE'S A - GET IT, DOGS - MOUSE - LOOK! GET THE SQUIRRELLIE! - ON THE STAIRS!!"
"There's a mouse and a squirrel in your house?" My bemused guest was understandably confused.
"No. No. The dogs don't know the word 'mouse' but they know... There it IS. GET THE SQUIRREL. GET THE BUNNIES! AAAAAAAAAA! OH MY OH AAAAAAAAAAA!!! LOOK FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET IT!"
And then of all the hunters in the house, it was little Lindy Loo, the baby of the family, who finally saw Mr. Mouse. That set off a whole new fit of screaming from the idiot which had taken over my body. "Get it Lindy! Oh no, don't get it. AAAAAAAA! Look! Help her!" But the dogs, having infinitely better manners than their Servant, were welcoming our bewildered guest, who was standing in the foyer wondering which emergency service she should call to come get me. And poor Mr. Mouse was leaping up a step, only to fall down two, and then he would remember that I preferred my mice to be immobile, and he would hunker down and not move a whisker. When he did this, Lindy Loo would lose him, even if she were standing on his tail.
Finally, Fat Charlie saw our little rodent friend. Uh-oh. This was not good news for Mr. Mouse's loved ones. Now I changed my mind. "No, Fat Charlie! Leave it... Ohhh AAAAAAAAA! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Oh NOOO! Oh.. OHHHHH. LOOK OUT HERE IT COMES! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Lindy Loo, Fat Charlie, Luciano, Mama Pajama, Mr. Mouse and I all tumbled down the stairs, and I was in Full Shrieking Mouse Alarm. I imagine people heard me three towns away and headed into their basements, mistaking me for the tornado siren.
Thank goodness, I provided ample distraction for Mr. Mouse who ducked into the coat closet.
With his disappearance I immediately returned to my un-possessed self, turned to my guest, and said, "Hi! Shall we go out for a bite to eat? Lovely evening isn't it? How have you been?"
Dream On Old Dog
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Every so often I’ll get a panicky email from a new dog owner:
"I think my dog is having seizures. When he is sound asleep he will twitch his legs and his eyes roll around and he yelps in pain. What do I do?"
Ah, dog dreams. This morning - technically it was, I suppose, the middle of the night, three or four AM - Very Old Dog had repositioned himself from our determination of "his spot" on the bottom of our bed, to his determination of "his spot" on my pillow between Bill and me. He had kindly but firmly reminded me of the clause in his contract where in
3 (c) Human Servant shall at all hours, immediately awaken and raise bed sheets to allow access to Canine for snuggling under covers.
OK, so I was a little sketchy on the "awaken" part, but I had managed to lift up our covers and enjoy the warmth and closeness of Very Old Dog. Unfortunately, Bill was fulfilling another clause in the contract
3 (f). Human shall move to the very edge of the bed, taking up no more that six (6) inches of mattress space, and shall uncomplainingly endure doggy toenails digging into all parts of Human's body, including but not limited to chest, back, face, rump, and private parts.
You get the picture: Bill clinging for dear life to remain on his own bed, me feeling warm and snugly with Very Old Dog, and said Very Old Dog entering his deepest REM phase of sleep. This dog was so full of fun in his youth and middle age. He was a dog who would run butt tuck zoomies in figure eights just for the sheer enjoyment of the running. He would play ball until he dropped. He would chase squirrels up a tree and then jump ten feet up the trunk for fun. He still tries - hard - to join when the youngsters now do zoomies and leapies, scaring the living bejesus out of his Servant. He's got some bad discs in his neck, and his legs go all wobbly, and zoomies and leapies are life threatening events. So his Servant, sadly, must do everything in her power to curtail such activities.
But not when he's dreaming. I watch with delight as my darling Very Old Dog paddles madly in his sleep. I imagine him running through autumn crisp gold fields of oat straw, zigging and zagging and leaping to get a better view, just because he can, and just to afford me the thrill. I see my torpid dog's tail thumping on my bed, and I picture him racing by me in his dream, sporting a devilishly delighted grin as he skims past my vulnerable shins, accelerating as he goes by, gaily wagging his pleasure. His eyes, blinking and unseeing in his sleep, sparkle with life and joy and boundless energy in his dream. He purely winks at me as he runs by. And when I hear the quiet, "Yip, yip, rahr, ruhr," of his sleeping voice I translate that into battle cries of the hunt. Oh is there no more beautiful music than that of a hound in full tongue? Or the barks of a joyful reunion? The woof of anticipation at the soon-to-be-thrown toy or ball?
I know my Very Old Dog's dreams are full of pleasure. They allow him the pure canine thrills which now elude him. Perhaps that's why he sleeps so much more these days. I hope I am a part, even a small one, of his dreams. I hope I was a good enough Servant to be included in remembered good times. I hold him close and I feel the dream melt away. He sighs, snuggles into the pillow, and waits for the next dream to take him back to his glory days.
Every day is a gift. Every day is a treasure. Dream on.
The Death Penalty
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I know, you are accustomed to my little stories about life in Paducah with my sweet husband and dogs. This isn’t one of those little stories.
This is about the death penalty.
We all know that if you are poor and uneducated, you are much more likely to receive the death penalty. This has nothing to do with anything except the quality of legal representation you can afford. Or maybe how you present yourself. Death row inmates have been found guilty of hideous crimes. So have criminals who have received life sentences, but are just slightly more sympathetic looking and could either hire better lawyers or were lucky enough to have talented, experienced public defenders. No difference in the crimes, big difference in the sentences.
We know of the wildly successful movement exonerating scores of death row inmates, based on modern DNA capabilities. Think for a moment. I would dearly love to know how many people have been executed wrongly. I think it would be sobering to exhume executed bodies and compare DNA evidence after the fact. Do we want to know how many jurors, prosecutors, judges, governors and ordinary citizens would then be guilty of killing an innocent. Cold, premeditated murder of innocent people. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, since 1973, 126 people in 26 states have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence, one in Kentucky. 126. I just wonder how many of the 426 people who have been executed in Kentucky were actually innocent. Dead, but innocent. What do we say? Oh well?
Death row inmates’ crimes are appalling, ghastly, sickening, and gruesome. Inexcusable. So is government sanctioned killing. We do not have to kill a criminal to protect society from him. He can be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. It costs the state less. Personally, I think life in prison is crueler than death. But when we sink to the level of the criminal, and engage in carefully planned, legislated, premeditated killing, we hurt society. Badly.
Interesting that a state so deeply steeped in Christianity chooses to execute its sinners. Interesting that Christians and their leaders aren’t screaming their outrage, their horror, their moral indignation at this most egregious slap in the face of all of their most beloved teachings, not to mention their Most Beloved Teacher.
Taking the life of another living, breathing, imperfect human being is wrong. And when we do, it is every single citizen of Kentucky who draws up the lethal injection solution and plunges it into the vein of any condemned criminal.
The Death Penalty makes murderers of us all. But we have a unique opportunity for change. We can abolish the death penalty. We can legislate the end of state sanctioned killing. S 2006 study shows that nearly seven out of ten Kentuckians favor a long term sentence over the Death Penalty for convicted murders. Other states are legislating abolishment of their death penalties. In western Kentucky, Representative Frank Rasche and Rep Steve Rudy both sit on the KY house Judiciary Committee. If you are not comfortable with state sponsored killing, if you are not comfortable with being personally culpable for the killing of a human being, please, for the love of God, speak out.
When Everything is Right
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The early morning winter sun in Western Kentucky starts out bashful and timid, but by eleven or so, it cheers up. We peel layers, the dogs and I. My skinny sleek-coated built for speed canines have a hard time staying warm when the temperature dips below fifty. So they wear coats. If they are running, the coats are unnecessary, cumbersome, silly. But for leashed walking or getting in a cold van or hanging around outside for human chatter, the coats are mandatory.
There was a frost this morning, but now I have shed my jacket and sweater and all but the oldest dogs have been relieved of their coats. We drove out to the country to chase toys and each other; to run and run. I can be worried about my world, I can be walking with heavy shoulders and constant sighs. I can feel like I've wasted my life, like I have no talent, like I've done no good. Until my dogs start running and playing on a perfect day in the country and they grin at me as they run past and I am on top of my world.
I've brought my Very Old Dog. He is too fragile at thirteen and a half to rough house with the youngsters. Spinal stenosis divorces his legs from his will. I know he wants to rip and tear and teach those pups just how to run. I know he remembers what it felt like to run like poetry. Eyes shining while legs harmonize with the wind, lungs and heart filling, pumping, smiling and the whole world blurs by in awe.
I keep his leash on while the youngsters cavort. They swoop too close to us and I yell, "Hey! Watch out!" and they laugh at me and cut even closer on the next pass. I can feel the Very Old Dog's heart beating in the leash in my hand perfectly, as though the leash itself were arterial. The valves in his heart are leaky and the big old muscle has to work harder than ever. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. His ears are standing straight up at attention and he barely whines with each exhale: "Let me go, let me go, let me run like I used to, let me go."
I am tempted. My dear friends arrive, and they offer to hold the young 'uns on leads. "Sure. Why not."
I leave Sam I Am loose; he's old enough to be sensible, and he's polite by nature. I hold my breath as Very Old Dog and Sam I Am play tug with a de-stuffed toy. "Be careful of your neck, you silly Old Dog." I silently entreat the Old Dog gods to look out for him. It is so beautiful today. I have even taken off his coat. He is smiling as he wins the toy. Sam I Am is so gracious.
And then Very Old Dog takes off. His stride, once the simple picture of ground eating perfection, is all kattywonkus. (Oh Lord, don't fall down.) Sam I Am feels my concern and looks at me, worried. Very Old Dog feels nothing but the grass under his toes and the sun in his great big heart. He pulls up to me wagging. And every single thing in my world is right.
The Sad Story of a Senile Servant
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Multi-tasking was never a problem for me in my younger years. Shoot. I could talk on the phone, and cook dinner, feed the dogs, and help my son with his homework all at once, no problem. If I tried to do that today, the dogs would eat chili, we would sit down to dine on some geometry problems, my son would have kibble and bits in his notebook, and I would have flushed the phone down the toilet. And here's what I did last night.
Fat Charlie is a big lovable lump of a dog. Sweet and every bit as good as gold. You just never hear the words "no" and "Fat Charlie" juxtaposed. OK, he does hold firm the opinion that any food on any counter is his personal property, but we know that, so fair is fair. (Translation: you leave the three pound hunk of pot roast defrosting unattended on the counter, you might as well just hand it to Fat Charlie, because that's where it is going to end up. This applies equally to coconut cake, Asiago cheese, whole loaves of bread, and very expensive entire catered meals. But I digressed.)
He is quiet, undemanding, ever so soft, and always generous with smiles, wags, and kisses. Last night, I was talking to my friend Laurie on the phone, answering some email, changing over clothes from washer to dryer, and putting the dogs to bed, all at the same time. I thought I had done a fine job of it, and happily went to bed.
This morning, after dragging my raggedy self out of bed at 6:10, brushing my teeth, and throwing on my walking clothes, I began the choreographed routine of letting the dogs out. I could smell the coffee, so I knew that Bill was already down in the kitchen. Giacomino was already... hey! Giacomino wasn't following the routine. He sleeps on the bed with us, and his morning part is to dance around in front of each crate as it opens to welcome its occupant to the day. (Or to say, "Ha, ha. I sleep on the bed and you don't!" But I think it's the former.) I opened Maria's crate, and Mama Pajama's crate, but Giacomino was staring at Fat Charlie's crate with his head pressed to its door. Then I saw Fat Charlie's bedtime biscuit lying in the front of the crate, untouched.
My un-caffeinated morning brain said, "Huh?" Then it said, "Is Fat Charlie under his covers?" (The crates are full of quilts and comforters so the dogs can snuggle against the winter chill.) Then my synapses started firing and the connection was made: Fat Charlie was not in his crate when I closed it last night and gave him his biscuit... Oh lord, where was Fat Charlie? ...What had I been doing when I put the dogs to bed?
Oh my lord was, Fat Charlie in the dryer!!!!!
I raced to the laundry room, in a full panic. No dogs were in the dryer, and just in case... Nope, no dogs in the washing machine either. I ran back into the bedroom to see if I had closed two dogs in the same crate. Nope. By this time Giacomino, Maria and Mama Pajama were looking for someplace to pee, so I grabbed Beans and we all went downstairs. There was Fat Charlie curled uncomplainingly in the new fancy dog bed. "Good morning," he wagged. I got the rest of the dogs out, and then apologized profusely to Fat Charlie. "Oh buddy, did I lose you last night? Were you lonely? Why didn't you scratch at the door?"
Of course he wouldn't have. He would have just sat outside the bedroom door with his sweet head tilted, ears cocked, waiting for me to remember him. I'm sorry, Fat Charlie! At least I hope he enjoyed the box of cereal he "found" on the counter.
In the Waiting Room
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I lived way up north when I was a child. The Berkshire Mountains in Western Massachusetts. But we spent two summers in New Orleans while my father did graduate study at Tulane, when I was eight and nine, and I learned to love the language of the South. I was a mynah bird of a kid, and returned to Massachusetts after each of those summers with a thick, New Orleans accent. I’d say, “Ooh, I bumped mah hay-ed.” My counselor at the Tulane day camp introduced herself as “Danah”.
“Diana, or Dinah?” I asked.
“Danah”. I loved it, and I loved her, and I called her Danah.
I was recently reminded of those southern summers, when my husband had a doctor’s appointment in Nashville. I sat in the waiting room, ironically reading my new issue of Southern Living. Seems like everyone is always talking on a cell phone, and this day was no exception. I truly wasn’t eavesdropping, but some of the conversations were pretty loud, and it wasn’t that big of a waiting room, and before I knew it I was taking notes.
Well, I couldn’t help myself! I was hearing things you just wouldn’t ever hear up north and I was delighted. It was like going on a boring old trip to the grocery store, only to find the Queen of England herself in one of her expensive peculiar hats, shopping right there in the produce isle, checking out the ripeness of the peaches. These unexpected overheard conversations just tickled me.What got my attention was a professionally dressed gentleman seated to my right who answered his phone. After a polite greeting exchange with the caller he said clear as a bell, “Hey! Need any goats? Have you got all the goats you need?”
Now this was exciting. In all my years of doctor’s office visits, I had never heard anyone inquire as to the level of adequacy of the amount of one’s goats. I started to pay closer attention to what people were saying.
“Bless your heart,” said the lady in the chair across from mine into her cell phone.
“Did they have to cut you out? You can get hurt climbing over the seat!”
Back to the goat conversation:
“You let him haul sawdust and all the chicken – well, I need to edit here, we’ll just say “manure” – You let him haul sawdust and all the chicken manure he can haul.”
And across the room a young man was emphatically declaring, “I ain’t ate nuthin’ all day, dadgummit!”
As though in a choreographed Broadway musical, the girl at the front desk said in a laughing, lovely southern accent, “hush it up! Lord I sound just like my Mama, Hush it up.”
“Would you like 2:30 or 3:00 for your next visit?” The old man thought for a moment too long, smiled at the young lady in bright scrubs and said, “3:30”.
Another cell phone conversation floated across the room, “Don’t ‘ok’ me!”
And then from the front, “why, you live smack dab in the middle of Mississippi.” Smack dab!
I was a little disappointed when I was called to join my husband back in his exam room. But then the delightful woman leading the way, turned back to me with a warm, genuine smile which spoke of sweet tea and southern comfort and said, “how’re y’all doin’ today, Sugar?” I do love the south.
Where are all the Wrinkles?
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I worry about things, too many things my husband says, but this one is a doozy. Wrinkles.
Or, I should say, the artificial absence of wrinkles.
Here it is. When I was a kid, my granny had wrinkles. She also had impossibly thick lenses in her horn-rimmed glasses, giving her post-surgical cataract eyes a larger-than-life munificence. Her magnified eyes were like my notion of her: vast, mysterious, deep and different. Those eyes were in a face that could hold my fascination forever. Her skin, soft as powdered pearl satin, had marvelous lines and folds, unique to her. Smile lines, worry wrinkles, the crinkles at the corners of her eyes told of a full life; I was enthralled.
My granny in her white hair and bun and her big eyes and wrinkles told me stories of my ancestors the Pilgrims. I watched the purse lines around her lips as she set her jaw, and I knew every word was true. And Walter Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley had wrinkles too, so you felt you could trust them a little bit.
Today, it’s hard to find a wrinkle. Every public person has been Botoxed at the very least, and their foreheads look like eerie wax replicas of young persons gone all wrong. They are people who seem stretched too tight. Many of today’s grannies sure don’t look like grannies: smooth, tan, tucked and nipped, dyed and coiffed, Lasik’d, and ripped. They look like anything but a granny.
My generation can look at a sixty five year old, with a face like the top of a bongo drum, and know that there has been surgical and/or chemical monkey business. But what about the generation that is growing up now? Do today’s kids think that growing old means that your skin shrinks and your hair grows in plugs? No wonder youth is worshipped in our culture. We’re bombarded with old people who should be proud of their experience, of their wisdom, of having lived through tough situations and coming out whole. People who, instead of advertising their longevity, instead of wearing their wrinkles and gray hair and baldness with deserved pride, strangely choose to look like ridiculous fools. Emulating the idiocy of youthful vanity, they disfigure themselves embarrassingly. Faces that should be full of individuality, commanding respect for their wrinkled passions and wisdom are instead horridly deformed caricatures of their younger, stupid selves.
I drive past billboards featuring two country music icons, each well into their 70s, with smiles sprayed onto faces surgically chopped and photo-shopped to be smoother than their shiny guitars. More hair on their heads than any Afghan hound. It’s creepy! Thank God for Willy Nelson. His is an honest, glorious face, with his thinning braids, and his humanity. You look at all his wrinkles and you just know: he is singing his own truth.
That expression: being comfortable in your own skin. Can you imagine if Benjamin Franklin had his magnificent double chin tucked? Picture Abraham Lincoln’s fascinating face sculpted smooth, dull, expressionless and boring. Our venerable politicians today with their dyed augmented hair with just a dab of grey at the temples and their waxy, slippery smiles. No wonder we don’t trust the lot.
Give us some wrinkles! For heaven’s sake look your age. We don’t want some young dope in charge! I just hope this trend to look like fearsome smooth-skinned cartoon characters ends and soon. Young people need to look up to their elders; to feel they can learn from them. How are we to gain their respect if we’re trying so hard to be like them? That just sends the message that Youth is God. But what a dangerous and vain god, ruled by hormones and short sight.
Nope, let’s get our wrinkles back. We’ve certainly earned them. Well, one thing. All this worrying about the lack of wrinkles will give me more. And I’ll wear mine proudly. When I tell my grandchildren stories about their ancestors, I’ll feel the tiny fingers wandering over my pleated features, and I’ll know there will be no confusion. I’m the granny here, little one, you can trust me.
River
Walk
Listen
to the audio of this commentary here.
I've
never been a water person. I spent my childhood embraced by
gentle mountains. Large bodies of water seemed foreboding, cold,
even cast with a dangerous gloom. Nothing like the warmth of
being snuggled to the Earth's heart. Living, green soft mountains
with their cooling shade and their breathtaking views, and life
everywhere. So when we moved to Paducah and I walked along the
river with the dogs, I mostly missed the mountains.
I
could not understand why, no matter what time of day or night,
there were always some cars parked, facing the river, with lonely
occupants just staring. At what? My eyes saw the same, monotonous
olive drab water, flowing in the wrong direction (rivers flow
east toward the ocean where I'm from), with tugboats straining
to push their impossible loads upstream. But, always, people
watching. Cheerful couples who say "hey" as the dogs and I pass;
lonely men in their sixties and upward who raise an index finger
from the steering wheel in greeting, without smiling from their
sad eyes; just facing the river and staring.
I
imagine those men as retired watermen. Glad to be done with
the hard, dangerous labor of river life, but unable to escape
its current, they are pulled back and they glare longing, damning,
private thoughts. That's what I imagine. When I would look at
the river, I'd think of what was "under there." One day while
my husband and I were walking, the dogs suddenly raised their
noses hysterically saying, "whoa, what is that?" A couple of
guys were standing next to their red pickup, looking in the
back, and they invited us to have a peek. "Whoa" was an understatement.
Taking
up the entire length of that new truck bed was the most prehistoric
monstrous looking giant catfish you ever saw. Evil eyes staring
blankly, still making some feeble efforts with its dying gills
to get oxygen from the drowning air. And that Jurassic fiend
had been under the benign drab water by which we innocently
walked. I shuddered. No, the river was no friend of mine. Four
years later, the dogs and I were walking of an early morning.
It was overcast, and the river was a perfect mirror of the gray
sky. The trees on the Illinois shore were deep mountain evergreen,
just so nearly black, with silver gray frosting; so much richness
and depth of color in that gray. The way black and white photographs
reveal more truth and emotion.
A
tug with nine barges of coal was snuggled up to the Paducah
bank in front of me, while another pushed upstream with pyramids
of rose rust camel river rock. The black mounds of coal, the
rose rust beige, the gunmetal gray of the water and sky. Ah,
I thought. I said "morning" to the sad looking man in the car,
who raised his index finger from the steering wheel and gave
me a serious nod in greeting. I looked back at the river, and
for the first time, I got a glimpse of what they - the river
people - saw. I'd been reading a biography of Mark Twain, who
had been a captain of riverboats just down stream from where
I now stood. I looked through their eyes, the men in the cars,
Mark Twain, and the people who shared their souls with the river.
I
felt the mystery, the power, the quiet glamour of the flow.
Finally, in grayscale my mountain child could see the raw beauty
of my new river home. I paused. The dogs stood frozen, sensing
the sanctity of the moment. I felt the pull of that magical
clarity which is anything we can't control. Like the mountains,
the river was big and silent and forceful and eloquent in its
grayness. I walked on, but I raised an index finger from my
grip on my dogs' leashes, and nodded a serious, reverent greeting
to the next old man in a car.
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