Reformed Dog: Day Two

Ida Jane and I went for our second walk without the training collar. I set the pace; she walked.

Yesterday she kept my pace, but was about six feet behind me, pretending to be very, very submissive. Right.

Last night my husband reminded me: heel means the dog’s head is even with your left knee. I had never made Ida heel because we always tripped over each other. I made a huge discovery today: when the dog is heeling properly, nobody trips anybody. She was perfect, just like a show dog, keeping my pace. Yesterday she seemed to tire, and I was worried about her stamina. Today, if dogs could sweat, it would have been, for her, no sweat.

Her health has improved amazingly in twenty-four hours.

We still have a problem with Ida and rain. Sometimes, not all the time, when it is raining, Ida will not let you know she needs to go out, and will do her business somewhere you don’t want her to – like the bed, the couch, the rug in the living room.

There is no logic to it. During our horrible snowstorm, she went out perfectly, even though the drifts of snow were so high only her nose stuck out. I’ve given up trying to figure out this dog.

I don’t want to humanize her: dogs are different from humans. For example, we think of a crate as a cage. She thinks of it as a safe den, and sleeps in it all the time. We think of a hug as affection. Dogs are not sure what hugs are all about. To them, it is confinement. A good scratch behind the ears: that’s wonderful.

But today she didn’t ask to go out. In fact, she was reluctant to take her walk, even though the rain was warm. She had already done her business, though. She had sneaked around and peed on the rug, but not the usual rug. She peed on the bathroom rug, which lies on a tile floor. Clean-up is a snap. She’s never done that before, but if she pees in the house again (and she will), I hope she does it in the bathroom. (In Ida's defense, she pees in the house only once or twice a year.)

Ida Jane is named after my Aunt Ida, my mother’s sister, who did things her way, just like her namesake.

Good name.

How to Walk a Dog

Did you know dogs need to walk? I didn’t say “be walked.” I said walk.
Evidently this is what dogs and wolves do in the wild. The pack walks (or runs). The alpha wolves are in front.

Today the dog and I walked. I set the pace and told her to heel. Actually she was several feet back, but she kept up. I was the pack leader; she was the follower; we both got a good workout.

I had been "walking" her using the training collar. I very seldom had to tighten it, but when I had tried walking her without it, she would try to walk ahead and pull on the leash. The trick is, I think, is to set a steady pace; I walked, she followed. I broke a sweat and she was breathing hard.

I know she is overweight, but I really didn’t know how to help her. I didn't know how to do something as simple as walk the dog. Before, walks were me following her, and her scratching and sniffing. She walked me. Today I walked her.
Apparently fish swim, birds fly, and dogs walk. Without it, the world is a strange and frightening place for them.

After eight years, Ida Jane, I finally know what to do.

Health Care will Stay Reformed - No Matter What

You think the President is crazy and the Democrats in the Senate are crazy too?

Fine.

You plan to throw them all out in November? Fine.

Just remember this: health care in this country will NEVER go back to the way it was before. Never. Why?

Because of this bill, someone like me, who has preexisting conditions out the wazoo, knows he/she can get insurance. I can't think of anyone I know who doesn't have some condition the insurance companies could classify as preexisting.

Can you imagine trying to repeal that part of the bill? How successful do you think you would be?

Example two: A person can keep a child on his parents' health care plan until he is 26, not 21, as before. Don't give me the "pull himself up by his own bootstraps" speech. You try to get a job with decent insurance. Sure, Walmart, etc. gives insurance (they didn't do that in Maryland until the state legislature made them do it), but it is minimal. I don't know about you, but I want my kid to be able to afford the medical care he needs, period. When he's 26, he's on his own. By that time he'll have a job that isn't flipping burgers, a job with insurance.

Do you think any politician would touch either of these provisions?

No matter what - health care is, not will be, reformed.

I realize there are some parts of the bill you don't like, and you're going to get them repealed. Fine.

But overall, history was made on Sunday. The Senate will pass some version of the bill. Health care in the country will never be the same.

The real change has come. I suspect that was the President's plan all along; people are ready for a change. They may disagree about the changes. Fine. That's America. But change has come.

I Didn't Get in to Sewanee

I just sent off my Bread Loaf application. I haven't blogged since March 4, I see, because I have been racking my brain trying to write something.

I didn't get in to Sewanee; I don't think I'm ready for Sewanee yet. I need to write more.

The submission I sent to Bread Loaf was fourteen pages. I usually write short - and I had cut a lot of extraneous material, so I thought that was positive.

Saint Patrick's day was the third anniversary of my stroke, and thank you, Lord, I am here to write about it.

Life is good.

Common Sense and Pride

Sometimes what you want is not what you need.
Sometimes pride trips you up.

I want to go to Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference this August. I want to see some of the friends I made last year. I want to stay off campus in an air-conditioned hotel room so I have my own bathroom and a cool place to put my feet up.

Last time I left early. The heat was unbearable. Vermont people think they do not need air conditioning. They fool themselves. They make jokes about how Southerners do not prepare for snow – but they don’t prepare for heat.

The conference is held in a rickety old hotel which isn’t quaint, just rickety.

So why do I want to go?

Pride. It’s the oldest conference in the country, the most prestigious, and I want to get invited twice. Common sense says, Nancy, you’ve been once – your first try. You have nothing to prove. Common sense is right.

Common sense says, Nancy, you don’t have anything to work on in workshop.
Common sense is right. The well has been utterly dry lately.

Common sense says, Nancy, if you get into Sewanee they have AIR CONDITIONING. Common sense is right.

Sometimes what you want is not what you need.
Sometimes pride trips you up.

The Real Mary Clementine

The real Contrary Mary Clementine was my grandmother. She was, herself: practical, meticulous, curious, creative, fit, cooking challenged.

She always signed her name "Mary," and she was not a warm fuzzy grandmother, although she loved me.

She ran the farm after her husband died, the grandfather I never knew.

All her life she knew nothing but work. I have never met anyone in my family who had a good thing to say about her father. According to one member, he was "the devil." He worked all his children like slaves until the girls escaped by marrying and the boys by physically beating him up.
I look at the family photo. There he sits, like a king on a throne, solemn, severe, surrounded by his family. I have forgotten how many children he had. (He was married twice.) Who knows what a horror his childhood must have been, to have produced such a monster.

Mary Clementine was the second child. I remember her teaching me to stitch a seam. Her stitches were tiny. Mine were not. When I showed her my seam that had a tiny mistake, I asked if it was all right. She just smiled at me. I did it over.

My mother once told me: "You are like your grandmother. You like to work and read." She always read. It was at her house I first read Grit, a funny little tabloid (in size, not in content)full of recipes, hints, stories (It was the Chicken Soup series before there was such a thing.) I remember the smell. Something about the newsprint or the paper had a salty, bacon-like smell.

And speaking of bacon, she could cook bacon. She could cook bacon because it was pre-seasoned. If she cooked, say, a peach pie, the crust would be perfect, but the filling would be bland, bland. "I don't love cinnamon in my pies," she would say. She would use the word "love" for "like."

She cut her own hair; it was always about two inches long, all over her head, and it curled magnificently. She cut her hair this way because it was practical. The typical grandmother hairdo - in a bun- took too much fuss. And yet she was a beautiful woman.

She was ninety-six when she died. She had to be in the nursing home for the last two weeks of her life. Her doctor was amazed; "She has the heart of a twenty-five year old," he said. He couldn't believe she had had a heart attack in her fifties. Her heart wore out, because she kept it working hard until the very last. I'm not as fit now as she was.

She wore out; she didn't rust out. I hope she knows I loved her.

With Apologies to Andrew Lloyd Webber

Memory
My computer lacks memory
that is why it is stalling
and taking my time.
It's not snail-like
a snail could go faster than this.
Now my screen light- isn’t on.

Memory
I’ ve purchased some memory
from the Amazon website
so I can get done.
I know somewhere
There’s someone to install it.
But for now I- just muddle on.

Every icon
Seems to flash a fatalistic warning.
The cursor flutters
And the screen light gutters.
I need this in the morning!

Memory
I downloaded some pictures
That take all of my disc space
But I mustn’t give in
When the mail's here
The parcel from Amazon comes
And a new page- I’ll begin.