The Five Stages of Musical Grief

I made a horrible discovery recently and I’m terribly traumatized by it.

I can tell the difference between Selena Gomez and Demi Lovado and Elle Goulding. Oh. My. God. I feel dirty.

You may think I’m over reacting, but to me this is both a tragedy and a huge personal failing.

 I am literally going through the five stages of grief.

It starting when  I was sitting in my car at a light, minding my own business listening to NPR, as one does. A 20-something pulled up next to me with her windows down.  She was blasting KIIS-FM and chair-dancing to “Cool for the Summer.”  I started singing along. Loudly. I might have even done a little dancing too.

Then I realized what I was doing. Enter stage 1: denial.

I was so horrified I immediately started changing my radio channels wildly. Desperately I searched for the anti-Lovado, but I couldn’t find The Replacements anywhere. I began shaking badly and was still hitting buttons when the car behind lost patience and blew its horn. The light had changed and I hadn’t noticed or cared.

Didn’t that idiot driver realize this was an emergency of epic proportion? I know the words to a Demi Lovado song? It’s in my head!!!

Okay, I admit I’m a music snob. As a  rock critic, it’s pretty much a job definition. The whole point is to be able to tell the difference between good music (The Replacements, X, Courtney Barnett) and bad music (the aforementioned songbirds Lovado , Gomez and Goulding).

Enter stage 2. Anger.

 I am furious that this music is taking up space in my already somewhat cluttered brain. I absolutely can’t know this. It’s a mistake. A waste. It’s making me question everything.

As most of my compadres in the field as well as serious music lovers will testify, loving good music goes far beyond ‘liking’ a band or a song. It shapes everything in life.

Back in the day when I had a social life, I wouldn’t willingly spend time with anyone with terrible musical taste. It was a bigger crime even than wearing stone-washed jeans.

 Oh, I could forgive them an occasional Britney Spears tune.  “Oops, I Did It Again” and “Baby One More Time” are truly awesome pop tunes. They have catchy hooks and Brit’s voice was pretty good.

But long ago I decided that life is way too short to waste it with anyone who believed N’Sync was godhead, or that Mariah Carey rules. Anyone who actually own anything by Creed was automatically off the list. The good thing is that all my real friends, many of whom were in the business, agreed with me.

Over the years I’ve mellowed a bit, and have trained myself to tolerate people with crappy musical taste. I don’t mind that  acquaintances love Kelly Clarkson or actually care about who is yodeling on “The Voice.”. As long as they don’t talk about it.  Facebook often makes this difficult.

 I can’t get past the attitude that the current crop of pop princesses are passing along to their mostly female fans. Selena and Demi have obviously worked really hard, both as Disney stars and turning themselves into pop stars. They are nobody's fools. But they primarily sing about perfecting themselves for some schlumy guy who obviously doesn’t appreciate their fabulousness. Ever heard of feminism girls?

As someone who grew up listening to tough girls like Chrissie Hynde, Exene and Patti Smith, these girls and their followers break my heart. They really are better than this. At least I hope so.

Hence, stage 4: depression.

But as much as I deny it, some of these songs are really catchy. And “Confident” is awful, but at least Demi is trying to say something empowering. Right?

At this point it's  really important to me that I explain exactly why I know these terrible songs. 

Recently I had to drive a long distance at night. This is not part of my skill set. I get sleepy. Which is dangerous.  Somehow I discovered that if KIIS-FM was playing (this was during a free tryout for Sirius and they only provided a few stations, and KIIS was one) it made me angry enough to stay awake. 

After a lot of time with Ryan Seacrest I discovered a few things. One is that KIIS has a playlist of about eight songs. The other is that I am immune to whatever charms Mr. Seacrest holds.

I digress.

The good news is that I’ve figured out a way to make this okay. Enter stage 4: bargaining.

Now, if I accidently hear a pop song and find myself singing along,  I play some Courtney Barnett for a while. It makes me feel better.  Not only do I love her, but it works as a cleansing mechanism. She clears all that nasty saccharine and auto-tuning out of my brain. Thank goodness.

It’s taken a while but I’m almost through stage 5, acceptance.

I acknowledge that every era of music has its crap. When I was younger there were people who adored Donny and Marie Osmond.  There was that whole era of disco. And hair bands. I could go on but my tummy hurts thinking about it.

But, and this is important, in those days there was no such thing as auto-tuning. Bad singers were just bad. And good singers didn’t all sound weirdly alike.

I guess I’m not completely though the acceptance stage yet.

PS. I kinda really love The Weeknd. Except for the spelling. That annoys me.

I Have Reading OCD

   

 I am one of those lucky people who love to read.  I don’t mean just old magazines while I'm waiting in the doctor’s office, or the celebrity rags at the hair salon. (Though I LOVE those.)

     I genuinely love to read. Always have. I admit I was the pretentious kid who was reading Shakespeare in grade school, and thinking I understood it. I've always loved Salinger – except for “Catcher in the Rye.” Ptooey. Yuck.  How obnoxious and awful is Holden Caufield? I went to school with people just like him; I didn’t need to read his self-indulgent… oops, I digress.

     Anyway, you’d think that as much as I like to hide from the real world, I’d read a lot of fiction. You’d be wrong.  The thing is, while just about anyone can come up with an interesting idea that isn't enough.  Good fiction is really, really hard to write. Bad fiction, not so much.

     Nothing annoys me more than starting a book with a good premise and intriguing characters only to have it all fall apart halfway through. When that happens I’m pissed with the characters and furious with the writer for wasting my time.

     At this point a normal person would close the book and walk away. Not me. I have a weird tick where I absolutely cannot leave a book unfinished.

     Apparently I have reading OCD.  You know how people with regular OCD have to wash their hands a certain number of times, or check the lock on the door twice before leaving or they drive themselves crazy? That’s me with an unfinished book. I can’t ignore the unread pages.

     It’s like being in a bad relationship. I keep going back to the terrible book, knowing all the while that I’m going to be disappointed. I convince myself time and time again that it will get better. It never does.

     The latest example is the IT book of this season, ­City on Fire.  The story is very Bonfire of the Vanities,  (without the humor or  pizzaz), as it follows a group of characters through a moment in 80s era New York.

     Written by wonderkind Garth Risk Hallberg, it’s a first novel that netted the author something north of $2 million after a vigorous bidding war. With all that money invested, you’d think someone would have hired an editor to oversee the project. Again you’d be wrong. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the tome never went under a red pen.

    The City on Fire literally weighs in at Godzilla-like 700-plus pages. (I don’t know exactly; I bought it on by Kindle. The idea of schelpping a book that size around gave me pause.) But it’s not the length that forces me to put it away every night after just a few brief chapters. It’s the writing. It’s labored.

     When I was in school, I was always taught to aim for the brevity of Ernest Hemmingway. Mr. Hallberg must have missed that class. Where good ole’ Ernest was known be so tight with words that some chapters run barely a single page; Hallberg has never met a long flowery sentence he didn’t love. His descriptions run into tangents and he love, love, loves his SAT words.

     I love a good wordsmith, but constantly using terms that force me to constantly flip back and forth to a dictionary is lame and irritating. It not only takes me out of the story (which in this case is tangential enough without interruptions) but it’s condescending. We get it; you’re smart and know a lot of big words. Yay you.

     You get the point: I kind of hate this book. And yet, every night I chip away at it. I’m a fast reader, but I expect to be punishing myself with City on Fire for at least another month. Ugh.

     I love non-fiction. I ‘m convinced that just like a bad merlot is better than a bad cabernet, bad non-fiction better than bad fiction. It’s hard for even the worst writer to make fascinating people dull.  Even though god knows they try.

     Recently I’ve hit a vein of terrific non-fiction, some of which has even popular.  I’ll read anything from Bill Bryson (some is better than others), Jon Krakauer (don’t hold the film “Everest” against him) and Erik Larson (I never thought about the Lusitania or the world’s fair before his books). Those are just some of the great ones.

    I’ve also read terribly written, but really interesting books about flappers, stand-up comedy, Alan Turing, First Ladies, the Roosevelts, hummingbirds and rock and roll managers.  You get the drift.

Some of them were painfully bad.  All could have been made better with good editing. But they were still worth reading.  And yes, I finished them all.

     Currently I have a backlog of books waiting to be read, including some fiction.  I’m sure that by the time I finish slogging through City on Fire the list will be even longer.  According to my Kindle, I’m only 310 pages deep of 903. Which means I should be done sometime after the first of the year. 

Happy Holidays Y'all!

    Lately I’ve been feeling like an outsider in my own country. Since I'm white, female and Jewish that may seem ridiculous.

   I’m second generation on one side; third on the other. When people ask me what I am, I tend to stand there for a second with a blank expression and say, “Um, American?” before I realize they want to know where my grandparents and great-grandparents emigrated from.

   That would have been Russia. Because they were Jews, and not generally loved there they fled to a safer place: America. It wasn’t easy (my Papa Ike arrived speaking barely any English with little money and fewer contacts) they survived and most became valuable, if not valued members of society. (They were still Jewish after all.)

   By the time I came along, the Livetens had settled in a liberal university town in New England.  I went to a school bursting with diversity. My best friends in grade school were a rainbow of races and religions.

   I guess I grew up naïve. Not only did I think everyone had great museums, art galleries and theater in their towns, but I had little exposure to racism and religious bigotry.  It was great.

   Until the first time I someone called me a kike.  At first I didn’t even know what it meant.  I’d been called a lot of names - fatso, shorty, four-eyes. You know, the usuals, but I’d never been attacked for my beliefs. Especially since I didn’t really know what I believed, being more a cultural Jew than a practicing one.

   Because it didn’t happen to me often, I could shove it to the back of my mind and move on. But it still occupies real estate there.

   Which is just one of the multitude of reasons I’m so appalled by the current GOP landscape. 

   Granted, neither Ben “Loosewiththefacts” Carson or Donald “Imnotaracist” Trump have used the slang words for the people they hate. They’ve done worse: they encouraged their followers to do so.. And more.

   Pro-immigrant activists and Hispanics have been attacked at Trump rallies. The Donald’s response is that his fans are “enthusiastic.”  He says it with a grin. He makes me shudder with fear.

   I don’t think I’m being overdramatic, and I don’t really care if I am, but that’s what people thought about those nasty Hitler followers. They were just passionate believers. Wearing ugly brown outfits.

   Currently there are a handful of GOP candidates and millions of registered voters who fervently believe that only straight male Christians should be President. It is one reason why Obama-haters passionately insist that he is Muslim.  It would be damaging politically to admit that they hate him because he’s black (or as Rupert Murdock insinuates, a “bad” black man as opposed to Carson’s “good black man”), but it’s okay to hate him for his religion.

   Silly me. I thought the good ole USA was founded on religious freedom. It’s in the Constitution. You know, that document that the right wing likes to quote, but has apparently never read.

   This week, just in time for the latest GOP ‘debate’ the crazies have trotted out their annual “war against Christmas” campaign. It appears every year about the same time that retailers drag out their holiday decorations. And like the decorations, it comes out earlier and earlier.

   I’ve been hearing clerks and friends wish me a Merry Christmas since I was old enough to understand. I always assumed that it was a friendly greeting, a seasonal version of  “have a nice day.” 

   When some people switched to “happy holidays” I didn’t give it much thought. It’s more inclusive and more, dare I say it, Christian of them, to acknowledge other people’s celebrations. It was nice.

   Apparently I was wrong. It was the sign of the coming apocalypse.

   The latest kerfuffle is about Starbucks cups. Apparently the red and green colors aren’t Christmas-y enough. The old ones had snowflakes and skates on them, which I didn’t realize were traditional Christian symbols. I’ve been in a lot of churches over the years and spotted nary a skate or a snowflake. Maybe they hide them in the back.

  I realize that the cup issue is really just a cover for something far more nasty and insidious.

   Maybe I’m still naïve. I honestly believe that my Jewish grand-nieces and nephews, and my Muslim and Buddist friend’s kids and grandchildren have a right to be leaders in this country. Just as my LGBT friends do.

   What this cup hysteria has done is make me realize that while pockets of the country have grown more and more open and accepting there’s a huge swath of people who are angry at their own failures and problems. Those people are just looking for a place to plunk the blame.

   Those haters zone directly onto folks they see as others: people with different religions and customs and sexuality.  Those haters complain that they are just being true patriots, and are defending their country from people who would destroy it.

   But isn’t the greatest thing about America that it welcomes others? Isn’t that what the whole wonderful ‘melting pot’ is supposed to be about?

  I thought it was. I hope it is. I believe it is.

   As for my celebrations this season? I’m looking for a giant inflatable rubber duck that lights up at night.

  Happy holidays y’all!

Just Call Me the Grim Reaper

Every once and a while you read about some Mensa reject who managed to blow up his house by igniting too many flea foggers. I used to laugh at them. Not any more.

Now I understand. Those poor folks have been driven mad by the neverending onslaught of pests that they will literally do anything to rid their place of the plague, even if it means they may destroy their homes.

I envision the homeowner being interviewed on TV. They’re covered with soot but  gleefully proclaiming, “Yeah, the house is gone, but so are the fleas!  Winner!”

Currently I do not have a bug problem. (That sound you hear is me knocking wood, lighting a candle and doing a preventative interpretive dance.)  Actually my problem is worse. I have mice. 

Over the years I’ve grown accustomed to the occasional rodent.  My barn is within spitting distance of the house, and where there is hay and grain, there are mice.  It was never a big problem before. Usually Poppy the Brittany dispatched them quickly, and that was the end of that.

Not this year. I’m not sure if it’s the four-year drought or something else, but word seems to have spread among the mouse population that there’s good eating at the Liveten household. 

It began when I noticed Poppy staring raptly at the kitchen broiler. She sat for hours, watching intently, still as the proverbial mouse.  The next day I noticed that the cover that is supposed to protect the leather couch from dogs was rolled up. When I straightened it, a mouse fell out. It was quite dead.

I was understandable startled and a little grossed out, but I praised Poppy, picked up the mouse with a plastic bag and dumped it in the trash outside. I figured I was done.  I was so naïve.

Poppy was not. That day she was hanging out by the canary flight cage, refusing to budge. After assuring her that there was no mouse, I proudly moved the cage to show her. A mouse tore out. Unfortunately Poppy misjudged her prey and was stalking the rear of the cage while the mouse sprinted to the closet from the front.

Obviously, Poppy needed reinforcements. My cat was useless. Not only is she confined to her own room for her safety, she gave up mousing the day she moved into Chez Liveten.

Killing anything is an anathema to me. I’ve been a vegetarian for more than twenty years. I once hit a pigeon with my car and it still haunts me. But this was getting ridiculous. I kept thinking I saw mice everywhere. Maybe I was.

In general I like rodents. I had hamsters and gerbils as a kid, and I think mice are adorable. Where they belong. In their natural habitat. Which is outside.

At the store I by-passed the disgusting snap traps and the inhumane glue boards. Instead I shelled out $29 for a wee little wire have-a-heart trap. They don’t kill the animal, so you can release back to the wild.

That night I baited the trap with peanut butter (mice, apparently are fools for the stuff) and set it up in back of the bird cage and happily went to bed.  After mere moments I heard a snap.

I leaped up  and smugly ran to the kitchen. In the cage was a teeny, furious brown mouse with a glossy coat.  I may have even whistled a little as I brought it behind the barn and gently tipped the creature onto a pile of leaves.

Just to be on safe side, I set the trap up again. I caught three mice that night.  It may have even been the same mouse. They all look alike, so I can’t say for sure.

What I do know is that the by the time morning came I was a new person.  A blood thirsty one.  Cute little noses and tiny pink feet no longer had the power to move me. I wanted them dead. All of them. And their families too.

I went back to the store for weapons. I still wouldn’t buy glue traps and poison is out,  since poisoned mice go outside and can be eaten by birds or my dogs.  But I bought so many snap traps that the woman behind the register

eyed me suspiciously as if she thought I was going to sneak them in Halloween candy.  As if I’d waste precious mouse traps on children!

As soon as I got home I set them up. One in the kitchen, one in the closet and one behind the birdcage. I went to bed warmed by the thought that the mice were going to be gone from my life. I even dreamed about the little suckers.

In the morning I checked the traps carefully. The mice had somehow licked the peanut butter off and escaped the traps. I was enraged. I swear I heard the damn things laughing at me.  Apparently I was now feeding them.

Cursing loudly, I reset the traps, carefully smearing the peanut butter all over the bait surface.  This. Was. War!

That afternoon Poppy snagged another one.  Eventually I caught one in a trap. And then another. Right now about half the time I catch them, and the rest of the time they lick the trap clean. But the body count is growing.

I’m not exactly winning the war, but between Poppy and I, we’re holding our own. But honestly, if I thought a flea fogger would kill mice, I’d buy so many you’d see me on the evening news.

My Pets Are Trying to Kill Me

My pets are trying to kill me. Not in a “Kujo” kind of way, that would be far too obvious. They're more subtle than that. Which is why I want it on record that if I go missing the animals did it.

Most likely I’ll break my neck tripping over one of them. Or I’ll be smothered in my sleep when a Great Dane rolls on me during a nightmare. It’s also possible that the sheer weight of them all jumping on the bed at once will collapse it, and we’ll all be crushed.

Recently  the quadrupeds have opted for a slower, more stealth method. They’re going to worry me to death.

For instance, Lucy, my mama horse stopped eating. Oh, she was hungry. She just couldn't eat.

She’d grab some hay (or carrots, or even peppermints) and roll them around until they were chewed and slobbery. Then she’d spit them out. 

This is not normal. Lucy loves her food.  A lot. She is what you might call 'big boned.' Like me; she’s never intentionally missed a meal. When Lucy doesn't eat, it's big.

The first vet went for the simplest excuse and checked her teeth. Since horses’ teeth can become sharp and painful, this made a lot of sense.  Except, of course, they were fine. So was her temperature and blood work.  

The second vet delved a little deeper.  Literally.  She strapped on a head lamp, drugged Lucy and shoved a medieval- looking brace in her mouth to keep it open. Then the doc stuck her head in. Way, way at the back, far from any teeth was a giant, nasty ulcer.

Lucy lives in a field with a bunch of other broodmares and easily could have chomped on sometthing that cut her mouth.  A burr might have even been buried in her hay. 

The confounding thing was that Lucy had little sensitivity around the sore. But with no other leads we focused on the ulcer as the source of the problem. 

Because she still wasn't eating, Lucy was locked in a stall for the first time in three years. That should have sent her in a dither. When she couldn't work for a day she used to stand her stall and buck. Now she just stood around and looked miserably at her hay.

She would eat soaked hay pellets. In fact ,she loved them and regularly dived head-first into her bucket emerging covered from nose to forehead in fast-drying goop. 

Meanwhile the mouth ulcer wasn’t shrinking at all. We put her on anti-inflammatories and  pain killers to see if would encourage her to eat. All that did was irritate her ulcers (did I mention that my girl is a delicate flower?).  The result was that she wasn't eating and had a belly ache. Not exactly progress.

By the third week, the vet had conferenced with colleagues at her clinic, the Davis Veterinary School and pretty much everyone she knew. No one had any ideas.

Nothing was changing for the better. The ulcer was still huge, Lucy still wouldn't eat hay and the muscles on the left side of her jaw were atrophying.  It was time to do a biopsy. Horses don’t often get mouth cancer , but it’s not unheard of, especially given Lucy’s age: 17.

Naturally, getting a tissue sample was problematic.  The ulcer was so far in the back of Lucy’s mouth that the vet was practically doing headstands while trying to get a suitable sample. Even with two of us holding up Lucy’s drugged and braced head, it took three tries. Eventually she got something and shipped it off to the state vet for examination.

As time went on I convinced myself that Lucy was going to die. Lucy never has small things go wrong. Her problems were always huge. She never was lame; she tore two suspensories. She never colicked; she had a impaction and surgery. She couldn’t possibly have a cut mouth it had to be cancer.

When I drove out to visit her a few days after the biopsy I was bracing for the worst. When I'd last seen Lucy she looked awful; she was skinny, her coat was bad and her eyes were dull.

But as I stepped out of my car Lucy and started to holler for me. (She is named after the Peanut’s character Lucy Van Pelt, because when she first arrived she never stopped talking.) Then she demanded some soft peppermints and ate them with ease without spilling a drop.

By Saturday she was chomping down two flakes of hay a day.  Sunday she went to a small turn-out where she bucked and played and otherwise made a fool of herself. Like normal.

The biopsy was negative so we still have absolutely no idea what was wrong.

My theory is that she thought I was spending too much time with her baby and ignoring her, and decided to shake me up a bit. If that was the case, it worked.

I’ve been eyeing her ulcer medication with curiosity. It might just make my now-chronic stomach ache go away, right?

Living the Wild Life in Mill River Massachusetts

I was recently in the Berkshire’s for my annual summer trip East to see the Travers horse race. Er, I mean I went to visit my mom.  Usually I get in a couple of days before the race and leave a few days later. It’s a short and sweet trip.  Not this time.

This year, my nephew got married the weekend before the Big Day. (Silly kid. He thought his wedding was the big day. Maybe to him. But not compared to Triple Crown winner American Pharoah running in the “Summer Derby.”) Anyway, I was there for a while.

               

           Mom lives on about 160 acres in Western Massachusetts filled with flora and fauna. That’s because unlike California, it rains there. It’s downright lush. Grass, flowers you know, green stuff.

                

            There’s also a lot of actual wildlife.  Living in Los Angeles, the only wild animals I see are an occasional coyote or deer. And that skunk that lives next door…  But in Mill River, Mom has wild animals just outside her window.  Sometime even bears.

I’ve never seen a bear, but I usually to visit with the flock of wild turkeys that live in the upper pasture and a deer or two in the front yard. One year there was a giant porcupine happily pigging out on the downed apples in the orchard.  Unfortunately a rabies outbreak wiped out the raccoons years ago but that’s another story.

Last year was a complete wash-out, critter-wise. I didn’t even see a single deer.  Nada. I settled for some chipmunks and a small red squirrel stuffing themselves at the bird feeders. Oh, and a rhino on “Animal Planet.”

I hoped this year would be different. Be careful what you wish for.

The second evening I was driving home in the pitch black, since there are no street lights here. Heck, there’s barely a street . Anyway, something slinked across the road in front of me.  After I slammed on the brakes,  a gorgeous, healthy, red fox glared at us for a couple of moments before it moved on. Nice.

The next evening at dusk I looked out the front window and a couple of adolescent deer were peacefully munching in the field. Most still had their spots. They were adorable. Sigh. I was in my happy place.

The excitement came later that night in the middle of a serious thunderstorm.   Rain! Lightening! Thunder! Lots of thunder. Whee! Having not seen rain in months, I was delighted.

 Mom’s little dog Monty, not so much. When the thunder cracks, so does his composure. He shakes, whimpers and becomes totally pathetic.  A few drops of Rescue Remedy usually helps him regain his dignity.  Usually.

I  was dead asleep at 3:30 A.M. when mom when woke me up. Apparently the ongoing storm pushed Monty beyond the help of Rescue Remedy.  Way beyond.  When he gets like that, mom stuffs him in a closet until the storm passes. There are pillows in there and he can’t hear the thunder.  He must like it; he stays inside and goes to sleep until the storm passes. She needed my help to get him inside.

“Oh,” she mentioned casually. “There’s also a bat flapping around.”

A bat? I glanced around and I didn’t see any bat. I figured mom was just getting loopy in her old age.

Um, no. 

The next evening I was on the phone when a bat the size of a California Condor swooped lazily through the living room. The house has low ceilings and his appearance produced a fair amount of ducking and screeching. All from me. 

My 84 year-old-mother observed Dracula calmly.  “I told you there was a bat. He is a big one isn’t he?”

My friend on the phone, safely back in California, googled “Bat in the house” (the farm internet is spotty) and relayed instructions. They were useless. Finally the monster made its way onto the screened porch. I slammed the doors to the house, opened the screens and hoped for the best.

I’m sure all the noise made the bat desperate to return to the great and quiet outdoors; we haven’t seen him since. Just in case, I kept those doors shut tight for four days. Just to be on the safe side.

A couple of days later mom and I were driving through the little town of Caanan on the way to Brooklyn for the day.  Naturally there was road work, and traffic was at a stand-still.  Directly in front of us was a small pickup. No biggie.

Until a a pigeon head craned out of the truck bed and looked around. Up popped another. And then another. They were quite lovely, shiny and iridescent and gawking at their surroundings.  

Mom and I gaped. You don’t often see a truck full of pigeons. Especially ones staring at you.

With traffic stopped, the driver and got out. He shot mom and me a grin a bed and waved his arms at the back of the truck. A dozen pigeons took off.  He motioned again and more flew out. It was like a clown car except full of pigeons. They flew a lofty circle overhead and took off.

Homing pigeons. Hmm. 

Anyway I'm back in Los Angeles. I saw a deer today at the stables.

Oh, and the Travers was great. Other than American Pharoah losing.

Support Your Right To Arm Bears. And Lions. And Elephants.

I know this will come as a shock, but I don’t believe in hunting.  I’m not an idiot, I know it exists.  I just feel strongly that it shouldn’t.  Like on a moral, ethical level.

It’s not just that I’m a vegetarian and I won’t wear fur. I also don’t eat in restaurants where animals hang on the walls for decoration – and there are more of those than you would think.  And yes, they are creepier than you can imagine. (Who can eat with Babar looking over your shoulder?)

I admit I’m a softie. When I caught a mouse romping in my house, I didn’t kill it.  I released it near the barn, where it probably went directly to the feed room to grab a snack and mull over its next plan of attack.

I admit that Poppy has dispatched a number of the mouse’s rodent relatives before I could save them, but I chalk that up to circle of life. I didn’t use the unfair advantage of a trap or poison.

My whole anti- hunting stance has pretty deep roots. Early on I was traumatized by “Bambi” and have never seen it again. I saw a moose once in Park City and was awestruck. The baby bobcat at my stable makes me smile. I can’t imagine murdering any of them.

The only serious, ongoing battle my brother and I have ever had is over hunting at my parent’s farm. He wants to, and I don’t. Thankfully my mom is still healthy and sides with me. For that and many other reasons, I hope she is with us for a long time.

So mom's land is posted and regularly patrolled by the local game warden. Which doesn’t keep poachers out.  During hunting season we’ve learned stay out of the woods with the dogs and horses, and sing loudly if we’re in the back yard.

But nothing prepared me for the feelings of impotent rage I’ve had since the murder of Cecil the lion by the douchey dentist, Walter J. Palmer.  I probably don’t hate him more than the other small-minded people who hunt endangered animals, but he put a face on the despicable act.  They all deserve to be trolled and cyber hunted. It might teach them some empathy.

It doesn't help that Palmer was more brazen than most. He claims he didn’t know that Cecil was protected. Um, right. Apparently he thought he was paying more than $50,000 to kill a lion because everything was all on the up and up. He truly believed that tying a dead animal onto a truck to lure the lion out of a sanctuary is the way legal hunting is done. Okey, dokey.

I don’t actually care if it is legal; it’s wrong. At the rate that poachers are going, wild elephants will be extinct in Africa by 2020. Five years from now, the only place you’ll be able to see these amazing animals will be in zoos.

And circuses. But don’t get me started on circuses.

Hard as I’ve tried, and I really have, I can’t wrap my mind around someone killing a creature for no purpose but pleasure.  I get, sort of, hunting a maneating tiger that has been snacking on your local villagers. But those tigers are far and few between.

How small a person do you have to be to hire guides with the latest technical advances to go into the jungle, where animals are minding their own business, and murder them? Just to post a picture on social media, and stick their heads on a wall.  I seriously can’t relate.

Please don’t bore me with deer hunting arguments either. I understand that in some places the deer population is exploding. They are trompling on people’s pansies and chomping their lettuce. That there are too many of them and not enough food for them in the winter and they will starve.  Except… they seem to be thriving.

And, by the way, hiding in a tree blind above an area baited with a salt lick, and blowing away Bambi’s mother with a rifle outfitted with scope the size of the Hubble hardly seems like a fair fight. Just saying.

Actually these days hunting is rarely fair. Unless you’re going after an animal on foot, alone with no GPS and only a spear, hunting is not a sport.  Even then, you better be eating that giraffe for dinner and wearing its skin.

I’m going to keep pushing Zimbabwe to extradite Walter J. Palmer (though it will never happen) and I’ll continue outing all those other idiots who are so proud of their murdering exploits (this means you Donald Trump, Jr and Rebecca Francis). 

 I proudly defend my right to arm bears. And bunnies. And lions.

 RIP Cecil.

Welcome to the World Faith!

A friend I hadn’t seen in quite a while came to visit the other day.  She  greeted me perfunctorily and zipped out the back door to the horse pasture, stopping dead in her tracks when my old horses, Murphy and Dezi came up to beg.

              

“Well?  Where is she?” 

               

“Who? They’re both there.” 

               

 “Where’s the baby?”  

                

“Um. In Moorpark. Where she lives.”

My friend’s disappointment was palpable. For a minute I thought she was going to leave. She had come all the way from the Westside and she wanted to see a a baby horse, damn it!

I sort of understand.  Lucy’s foal Faith, (registered name:Way Out West) is five months old, cute as can be, and just naughty enough to be charming.  

Together with her BFF, a colt who is three weeks younger, they are the dynamic duo. Or the terrible twins.  It doesn’t matter; they are always entertaining. And the word is out.

Since Faith hit the ground, people from hip zip codes all over California have been making their way to Lucy’s field to oooh and ahhh.  Even folks who usually argue that they can’t possible travel all the way to the Valley because they haven’t had their shots,  or their passport has expired, have been happily meeting me in Ventura County.

I get it. Faith is that adorable. There simply isn’t a better way to waste time than by playing with foals or watching them run around.  If Faith and Lucy were home I’d get nothing done.

As it is, I barely accomplish anything.  When Faith was tiny I trekked out to see her daily. Now, I’ve cut back to three times a week. Okay, four days a week. The thing is, foals change really quickly. Every day something about her is different.

In the beginning Faith was all legs.  She was also incredibly shy.  As one of my friends noted, she was a wild animal. She hated being touched and was skittish. She kept hiding behind Lucy.

I was in a dither about getting her halter broke. I had visions of working with a full-grown horse with no ground manners and a nasty attitude.

I shouldn’t have worried. By four weeks she’d come up to me to get her throat rubbed if I sat on the ground.  At two and a half months the farm owner/foal whisperer Annaliese had Faith marching along in a halter like the show horse she is destined to be.

Now Faith and her BFF are such pests I never get to spend quality time with Lucy. That will come. Much too soon in fact. To Lucy’s relief, in about a month, Faith will be weaned.

She’s been eating hay, carrots and of course , peppermints for a while, but still tops that off with a slug from Lucy’s milk bar. I already miss the days when Faith was covered with milk from head to toe because she couldn’t quite figure out how those confusing teats worked.

Astonishingly, Lucy put up with it all.  Some of you remember Lucy from her show horse days. To say that she had strong opinions was to put it mildly. Lucy was the mare-iest mare I’ve had, and I’ve had a lot of mares.  She bit me more than once, and wouldn’t hesitate before kicking a horse in the arena.

But she took to motherhood.  After the initial shock wore off.  At first Lucy stared at Faith in shock as if thinking, “What the hell is that? And what am I supposed to do about it?’

Lucy figured it out soon enough and from then on it was smooth sailing. She became such a helicopter mom, and snarled at so many stable mates, that she and Faith were moved from the barn to pasture within a week just to keep the peace.

Originally Lucy wasn’t happy about having anyone near Faith. She tolerated me primarily because I came carrying carrots and peppermints.  Bribes if you will.

Now Lucy is grateful to anyone who distracts Faith for a minute. The babies are constantly all over their mothers – nipping and biting them and trying to get them to play. Playing is something that does not interest the mares. At all.

These days when I visit, if the babies aren’t passed out sleeping,

they're huddled together somewhere away from their moms.  Plotting. I actually had time to give Lucy an entire carrot before they swooped down from parts unknown to demand their carrot chunks and grab a gulp of milk from their tired moms.

I’m told that when the foals are yearlings they’ll go through a ugly, gawky stage. It is true that a lot of the resident yearlings and two-year-olds don’t have model good looks, but it’s hard to believe that my perfect little Faith will ever be ugly. 

Just in case, you might want to call me to get your visit in now, while they are still picture perfect.  Don’t worry. I know who you’re really coming to see.

The Circle of Life Blows

I never saw “The Lion King, ” but I’m all-too familiar with  its ‘circle of life’ theme.  It’s playing out in front of me, and only parts of it are any fun. Like Faith.

This spring my retired show horse Lucy gave birth to her eagerly anticipated and long awaited,(seriously – a horse’s gestation period is 11 months), foal.  From the moment I met her, a half-hour after her birth, I was smitten with Faith.

What’s not to love? From the tips of her four tiny hooves to the tops of her fluffy ears , so far she’s perfect.  Of course she is only four and a half months old.

It’s all been so easy!  Getting Lucy pregnant was a snap, and she was in labor for less than 30 minutes. Even the delivery was simple. Apparently this is truly beginner’s luck.

Immediately after her arrival, Lucy stared at Faith like she was an alien from another planet.  It also irritated Lucy that it took Faith few hours to figure out which end was the milk bar.  But after a few initial squeals of rage, Lucy took to motherhood.

Initially Lucy was a horrible helicopter mom and would only let a chosen few of us near Faith.  But after a more experienced mare came into the pasture with her foal, Lucy chilled out.

By now, almost five months in, Lucy is kind of over the whole thing.  Not me. Faith is about the most fun I’ve ever had.  

The foals are like big nosey puppies. Not only are they adorable but if something is within their reach they wedge their noses inside.  If they aren’t eating or passed out on the ground like dead things, they are busy chasing each other around the field.

Faith already appears to be a nice mover, and she and her playmate jump over all the logs in the field in surprisingly good form.  Maybe there is something to all this breeding stuff after all. Which would be nice since we picked her daddy for his ability.

Murray, my beloved Great Dane is closing in on far end of the circle of life. He’s my heart dog and we’ve been together, since he was just six weeks old.  Now at more than 11, Mur is considered ancient for a dog his size. He is winding down, and damn, I’m having trouble with it.

Like a lot of the elderly, Murray is set in his ways. He has rules and he’s serious about them.

Ever since he was young, Mur has been very particular about his toys.  The only stuffed animals he plays with are what I call his ‘Jew Bears:’ teddies outfitted with Yarmulkes and a Star of David on their chests. Really.  He has bunches of other stuffed toys but carries only his Jew Bear (or its exact replacement; I buy them in bulk during Hanukah) around with him where ever he goes. 

He also felt that way about a tennis ball -sized rubber toy with pointy tips all over. It was his favorite and just the right size to get jammed in a Great Dane’s throat.  Which it did. He started gasping and was turning blue as we pulled into the vet’s office. I’m not sure how he did it, but Dr. Steve somehow performed the Heimlich maneuver on him and the ball popped out.

That wasn’t Murray’s only dabble with the Grim Reaper.  He also developed bloat, an acute condition where the dog’s stomach torques and flips. It’s deadly if not treated almost immediately.

Luckily I was home and lived close to an emergency vet, because it happened as all expensive emergencies do—after hours on Saturday night.  Three weeks and one very expensive operation and Murray was back to running agility.

That’s right. Agility. Murray was a star in the agility ring. All 140 pounds of him. I started running agility with him because I wanted to sharpen his obedience behaviors and was sick of regular classes. Much to everyone’s surprise he loved it.

Great Danes are unusual in agility, and lots of people would make snarky comments when we entered the ring. They weren’t laughing as we left..

He’s always been a light eater and skips eating for a day or so, but now it happens more often. Twice a day I hand feed him pain pills in a spoonful of peanut butter. His hips are shot and some mornings he can’t climb the two steps to my front door. More and more his back legs slip and splay and I have to lift him up.

Murray isn’t perfect; he doesn’t like strange dogs and most men. He snorts, farts and kicks in his sleep  But none of that matters. He’s been my best friend and companion for over a decade and I’m honestly not sure how I’m going to cope without him.

I guess I’m going to find out soon.

Broken and Depressed. Literally.

I have a confession: I am a terrible patient.  For one thing, I am not patient at all. I bitch and complain about colds, sore throats and the flu. I tend to stomp like a brat while whining about how unfair it all is. I realize this behavior is a bore, so I tend to keep to myself when I’m sick.

Right now I’m injured. Naturally, I am pissed. Livid. Even worse, it’s going to take all summer before I'm back to normal.

Last week I was on my way to Santa Barbara for a horse show, so I stopped to see Lucy and her baby, Faith. I only do this, oh, about four times a week.

As usual, armed with a five pound bag of carrots, I ducked under the electric fence and hollered for Lucy and Faith. Faith and her BFF immediately ran towards me with their moms ambling behind them.

I poured a bunch of carrots on the ground in two piles so Lucy and her gal pal wouldn’t bicker, and was breaking up bits to give to the foals, when a mare from the adjoining field came over to beg for a treat. Oops.

Until motherhood’s hormones kicked in, Lucy had a legendary temper. She ruled fields, arenas and wash racks with just a nasty look. That mare might have been in completely other field, but according to Lucy, she was too damn close. Not to Faith, Lucy is kind of sick of her, but to Lucy’s carrots.

In a flash, Lucy wheeled her butt around to snarl at the mare and smacked me into the electric fence.  As I hit the dirt, she stomped on my foot, squishing it as she whirled away.  Double oops.

Next thing I knew, I was on the ground getting shocked by the fence and looking up into the absolutely thrilled faces of the babies. They were so sure I was laying there in order to play with them, they could barely contain themselves. My screams of pain did confuse them a little.

With some effort, I shooed them away, grabbed Lucy’s front leg and used it to shimmy myself upright.  If she thought it was odd, she didn’t react. In her mind it was probably no weirder than some of the other stuff I’d asked her to do over the last 11 years.  

Standing wasn’t one of my better ideas.  My foot burned and the pasture swirled in circles, so I hobbled to the car to think.

This is what I came up with:  I better hit the road. I was late for my riding lesson at the show.  On to Santa Barbara.

Once at the show I took off my sneaker and looked at my foot. It looked normal-ish so I shoved it in a riding boot and rode.  It ached but not too badly.  As long as I could get my boot on in the morning, I was going to compete.

That night I stayed home and kept my foot iced and elevated. It was starting to turn a fascinating shade of purple and black.

I sussed out a nearby urgent care clinic for the next day. After I competed.

Wes looked gorgeous the next morning and I was dying to show. So I sucked it up and shoved my boot on. After a few minutes I could hardly feel my foot at all.

When my classes were over (I was pretty terrible, but I made it around), I headed for the urgent care.

I don’t recommend needing urgent care anywhere, but if you do, go to Santa Barbara.  In well under an hour, a pleasant doctor was examining my X-rays.

Even I could spot the break in my foot..  The doctor sent me away with a prescription, an ace bandage and instructions to see my doctor when I got home. He didn’t specifically tell me I couldn’t ride.

So the next morning I squeezed back into my boot (it was a lot more swollen and had a distinct resemblance Fred Flintstone’s foot) and hopped back on Wes to try and improve on the previous day’s horrible performance.

After an hour I conceded that it wasn’t meant to be.
I grudgingly dismounted.

I saw my new orthopedic doctor the other day. She outfitted me in a nightmare version of an orthopedic Birkenstock with orders to wear it for the next four to six weeks.

She did say I could ride. As long as I don’t use stirrups.

I’m still furious, but can’t even stomp around in a snit.  It hurts too much. Which hasn't stopped me from fuming to anyone who will listen.

Who Is That Blob in the Mirror? Oh No! It's Me!

A while ago I noticed that my clothes were getting smaller.  Things that had fit me only months before, were tight. While the magical thinker in me wanted to blame my new washing machine, (it must be shrinking all my clothing as part of its water saving feature!), my right brain couldn’t fight the reality: I was getting fat.

Now I’ve never exactly been a twig, but I never had a roll of flab around my middle. Until now.

It isn’t all my fault. I’ve reached that wonderful age where even though I’m neither eating more or exercising less, pounds glob on to my once -fit frame.

Also, and this is a biggie, I went back to school last fall, so instead of walking the dogs three miles a day every day, it has been more like three days a week.  You’d think when I noticed the dogs were getting a bit tubby and put them on a diet, I might have done the same for myself. But if you believe that you don’t understand denial. I, on the other hand,  am the Queen of Denial.

Breaking  through denial isn’t easy. It takes something big. We believers need a shove, not a nudge.

Mine came from in the form of an invitation. My perfectly nice nephew and his lovely girlfriend selfishly decided to get married.  In August.  In New England.

Perhaps they foolishly thought this was about them, but all I could think of was me. Not only would there be herds of people attending who I hadn’t laid eyes on in years, but there would be photographic evidence.  And sleeveless dresses. The horror!

After I stopped screaming, I started planning. I got a Fitbit – I have a few friends who had become quite svelte after adhering to the 10,000 step a day plan.  It fit easily into my schedule and like a Pavlovian dog, I enjoyed the little buzz it made when I hit the goal. 

Naturally there was a problem. Most days I was already walking more than 10,000 steps and I kept breaking the darn things. After three replacements failed, the company and I agreed to part.

By this time it was June.  School was ending and I had a little more spare time.  Unfortunately for the dogs, summer in the San Fernando Valley is hot. Steaming hot. By the time I get home from riding in the mornings, it’s too hellish to walk on the streets. Unless I want to burn their paws. Which I don’t.

I already started going back to flow yoga a couple of times a week, and that was making me feel better, but I wasn’t losing any noticeable weight.  The clock was ticking and I needed to get serious. So I reached out to a young, fit, friend who had recently finished the certification and classes to become a fitness trainer.

She invited me over to her place for the first session. Like heroin, the first time was free.  Also like drugs, it also made me feel pretty good.

During that assessment she kept telling me I was in better shape than I look.  Apparently under my rolls of fat lurk abs of steel. Or at least aluminum.

I figured I’d give it a chance for a few months. I had nothing to lose but fat.

Today was my fourth session. The exercises aren’t so easy anymore.  Apparently, the whole point of training is to keep pushing yourself, not to get good at it. If it gets comfortable, you add weight and start all over.

This completely goes against my need for near-instant gratification. My ideal plan is to get better at things and eventually win. It’s the destination, not the journey. Naturally, I’m a pretty bad yogi.

Anyway, today I managed to get through all of the exercises, even with some weights.  ‘Course by the time we were done, my arms were so tired I wasn’t sure I’d be able to shift my car out of park and drive home. Note to self:  next time don’t take the vehicle with manual transmission.

By the time I did get home it became obvious that if I wanted to get anything done I had to rest my arms on the table or they shook too much to type. Aspirin is my new best friend.

After only two weeks, I haven’t seen a change yet, but everyone assures me I will. Eventually.

I don’t expect to have a bangin’ bikini bod, but I would like to be able to wear a sleeveless dress to the wedding and not gross myself out. Or at least fit into my old clothes again.

Spring Slams into Seven Hills Farm West

                Spring came early this year to Seven Hills Farm West. Really early.

    It actually started on Christmas with the arrival of Tweedy Bird. After a lifetime of owning canaries, one of my girls actually hatched an egg.  This my not sound a big deal –  there are a million canaries out there and they all began as eggs - but it came as a huge, and pleasant, shock to me. A miracle actually.

               

               Apparently a lot of people agreed with me. Ever the proud bird god-mother, I posted near-daily pictures of Tweedy’s progress on Facebook and Instagram, and soon found s/he (I have no idea if Tweedy is a female or a male) had many more followers than I did.  They were also more rabid. If I didn’t post photos for a day or so, well, people complained.

                

             What amazed everyone was just how fast Tweedy went from a horrible bug-like creature to an actual bird. By the time he was four weeks old, Tweedy was hopping around eating real food and had grown actual feathers. Eight weeks later he was back in the flight cage with his parents.  He looks nothing like his mom, but is a carbon copy of his dad. Nature is pretty amazing.  Really astounding.

              

             It’s only gotten better. 

February 28th was monumental. Not only was there a driving rainstorm, which is enough to bring out the happy dance in drought-stricken Los Angeles, but  after an anxious 10 months of waiting, Lucy decided to deliver her foal.

I’d been on baby-watch for a week, since the experts told me she was showing all the signs.  Naturally, I was sleeping literally with my phone on my pillow, since horses tend to deliver between 10 pm and 4am in the morning.  For two weeks there was nothing. Crickets.

Then at 10:30 on Saturday night, the vet office called to tell me to be ready to come out, that Lucy was looking ready. They weren’t kidding. Ten minutes later they called back to say she was in labor.  Naturally I left immediately.  I’m not even sure I locked the door. In fact I’m pretty positive I didn’t. I do know that I broke the speed limit driving to the clinic.

By the time I got there, a half-hour later, after a mere nine minute labor, which has made her the envy of all my friends,  Lucy was standing around, looking dazed. On the ground was a tiny, perfect, filly. The doctor was still drying her off as I walked in the stall.

Lucy had done a stellar job but she was staring at the lump on the ground like it was an alien. Which it probably was to her. Lucy’s a maiden mare and probably had no idea what had just happened.  Eventually she sighed and lay down next to the baby and nuzzled it, which made for some awfully touching photos.  

Not surprisingly, I have put the paparazzi to shame. I have taken roughly a million photos. It isn’t enough.

When Lucy got up, the doctor untangled the baby’s legs, which is pretty much all there was of her, and stood her up. She promptly collapsed, but after about a half hour managed to do it on her own.  Almost immediately she was zooming around the stall. I  believe it’s because she didn’t know what else to do with her legs except run. When she stopped running, she wobbled.

Then it was time to try to nurse. She stuck her nose everywhere except where the milk was. And every time she touched Lucy, Lucy would scream. Eventually the vets milked Lucy’s colostrum and tube fed it to the baby. They fed the baby that way every hour until about 4am, when the filly finally got the hang of eating on her own.  Apparently there is actually a syndrome called ‘dummy foals’ because, well they are. Who knew?

Thankfully it’s been off to the races ever since.  The baby has grown into a beauty, and I say that not just because she’s mine. Well, maybe I’m a little biased, but everyone seems to agree with me.

                

            She has a star in the shape of California on her face, and three white socks. She’s going to be bay, like both Lucy and her father, and is already pretty huge.  At a month, she’s no longer gawky, but is still all legs. She looks like an equine giraffe.

                

            She’s quite shy, but will let me play with her and, like a toddler is into everything.  Like her mama, knows exactly what she wants and more typically, what she doesn’t.  Like her itty bitty halter. She doesn’t appreciate that at all and makes it known. For a while I seriously considered calling her Dontwanna, but that seemed like tempting fate.

Instead, her registered name will be Way Out West.  The “West” comes from her father, Westporte. Her barn name, Faith, comes from Lucy, whose show name is Blind Faith.

Already she’s a little mini-me of Lucy.  If Lucy comes for a mint, so does Faith. Of course Faith doesn’t quite know what to do with them yet but she still wants one. 

Then there’s the fly masks. The flies have also come early this year, so Faith has been outfitted with a tiny fly mask which in a bit of serendipity matches Lucy’s. Together they look like they’re very stylish equine bank robbers.

                

            Obviously I’m pretty smitten. People tell me that babies go through a horrible ugly stage when they’re yearlings, but I can’t accept that. Faith is going to always be gorgeous.  No pressure.

                

            It’s a few years down the line before she can be ridden, and thankfully I’m not going to be the first person to do that – which is good for both of our sakes.  But I figure I’ll be on her in about five years.

               

         

 I can’t wait!

Mom's Visiting: Hide the Contraband!

         

 My Mother is coming for a visit. A long one. I like my Mom a lot, so there’s no problem there. But it does take a bit to prepare for her arrival.

Back in the day, that meant that shortly before she landed, I'd leap into a wild flurry of housecleaning.  That mostly involved stuffing things in drawers, vacuuming the floors and stashing various articles of drug paraphernalia. I’d usually miss something: rolling papers, a mini-bong, an empty bindle or two. No matter, she’d either not notice, or pretend she didn’t see while I shoved whatever it was into my underwear drawer.

Of course was that year she arrived stood on the patio of my first floor duplex and remarked on just how healthy my landlord’s pot plants were. She knew full well exactly what they were.  So much for that.

Things are a lot different now.  I don’t need to hide the pot ephemera – it’s virtually legal in Los Angeles, and I don’t smoke much anymore.

 I do still go into a frenzy of house cleaning before her visits. Which is weird if I think about it: mom’s a worse housekeeper than I am. Still, one likes to keep up the illusion.

But in addition to clean floors and sheets, now I have a few more things on my list.  Make no mistake: aging changes everything. Last year I had the plumber install grab bars in the bathroom. This year I measured the doorways to make sure her walker would fit.  I also located the nearest CVS Pharmacy so she could get her prescriptions here instead of schlepping them with her.

I ended up renting a car for the duration of her trip. I actually own two vehicles, but neither is suitable for mom any longer. The BMW is a low-slung two-seater which she can easily get into, but not out of. The SUV is too tall for her to climb into and she objects to being pushed into the passenger seat like a bag of grain. We’ve tried it a few times in the past and she dissolves into a fit of laughter, which makes it even harder to shove her in.  

A different vehicle is less amusing, but more appropriate.  So a rental car it is.

Shopping for anything is a chore to me but food shopping is torture. I look around at all those ingredients and am constantly amazed that people can throw them together and make actual meals. I rarely even try to cook.  I just don’t have that gene. Neither does Mom.

But I know Mom can’t survive on my diet of vegetarian junk food. So I took one for the team. I forced myself to go to Ralph’s and stocked up on the basics: bread, eggs, milk and coffee. I also loaded up on a few things I never have in the house: like candy. And really good Scotch.  Personally, I’m a bourbon drinker, but to each her own.

Part of the reason Mom is visiting is to get out of the winter weather. She’s coming from New England- Massachusetts - which has had a particularly awful January and February. It’s been below zero for weeks and has had a record amount of snowfall.  Naturally that meant that the day before she was due to travel, the snow came dumping down.

This created a certain amount of tension. Would the roads be plowed? Would her flight be cancelled? They were and it wasn’t.

She arrived today and is here for three weeks. The weather is going to be perfect, and I think she has a few PLANS. Three weeks sounds like a lot of time to do stuff.  It isn’t.

  

For one thing, I’m in school, and while class only takes two nights a week, I also have a writing group that meets on Thursday, and most of my days are spent working and writing.

Another problem is the Mom factor. Even in her youth she wasn’t a fast mover. Getting her up and going in the morning was always an issue. It’s become more so as she’s aged.

Also, Mom isn’t comfortable sitting in a car for hours on end any more. So the trips of the past - Joshua Tree, Santa Barbara and Hearst Castle - aren’t going to happen this time. It looks like we’ll probably go to the Getty, Descanso Gardens and maybe the Huntington.

Hell, we’ll be lucky if we do anything. My mare is due to give birth in the middle of Mom’s trip, and if that happens we’ll be visiting her and the baby every day. I mean, she wouldn’t want to do anything else, would she? Actually, I think she’ll settle for just seeing the sun almost every day. That the temperature is going to be the 80s is just a plus.