Language Plain Enough to Comprehend

Over the years I have encountered the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln in histories and various collections of his wit and wisdom.  I knew already I had a collection of quotations of his on my bookshelf, but I still chose to buy this slim volume at a neighbor's garage sale.

Edited by Carol Kelly-Gangi 2007 Fall River Press

Here is a quotation from page three that my desire to communicate well can take to heart:

I can say this, that among my earliest recollections I remember how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could not understand...I can remember going to my little bedroom, after hearing the neighbors talk of an evening with my father, and spending no small part of the night walking up and down, and trying to make out what was the exact meaning of some of their, to me, dark sayings.  I could not sleep, though I often tried to, when I got on such a hunt after an idea, until I had caught it; and when I thought I had got it, I was not satisfied until I had repeated it over and over, until I had put it in language plain enough, as I thought, for any boy I knew to comprehend.

 A remark by  President Abraham Lincoln made to Reverend J.P. Gulliver, from Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln by F.B. Carpenter

Another way this childhood remembrance of Lincoln's desire to understand adult communication encouraged me is that it validated the theme and intent of a short story I wrote a few years back and which I had recently pulled from the drawer to refine up a bit.

I need to clean out those heavy file folders in my drawers and  I hope to do it without being too rough on some of those early manuscripts.  A little validation and encouragement might give me just the right touch.  I miss having a fireplace though...somehow burning old journals and rough drafts feels different than shredding them.  Perhaps it is just that crackle and warmth of the fire versus the mechanical sound of the sheering teeth of the shredder slicing the words into confetti that still needs to be recycled. Ah, but there is is something to the instant finality of flame licking through those pages one wrote and saved and then released as somehow no longer needed...especially those not written in language plain enough to be truly comprehended.

Pedigree Puppies Pay Their Own Way, Don't They? Part 2

Read Part One First Here!

This short story is (c) 2000 by Jeannette at Write Purpose

     When I set out to tell the story of how Gideon came into the world, I really had no idea that the account of his mother’s prior litter would demand to be told first.  I don’t think I had thought of that experience consciously for quite some time.  But then all that that might prove is that I tend not to focus on subjects that are tinged with my chagrin. Now that I have shared my memory of that day, I will as promised, and as straightforwardly as possible, tell you about how Gideon made his costly way into the world and our hearts.  If you are a person who believes in learning from other’s mistakes, this story could - well, forgive me, you can figure that part out probably better than I can. But in case you are afraid of sad endings, I will tell you, as Ma Ingalls used to tell her girls in the big woods, on the prairie and by the banks of Plum Creek, “All’s well that ends well.”  

     Well, well, two years after Josie had successfully whelped five healthy pups, my youngest daughter was reviewing the countless photographs we had taken during those happy weeks. “Look, Mom, here’s Josie’s five puppies all lined up and  nursing. Oh, look at them peeking out of their box.  And here they are the first time we played with them under the apple tree.”

     I was able to avoid saying, “And your point is?”  I knew it would do no good.  Stalling the inevitable would not be a good idea either; if we were going to breed Josie again, it should be at the soonest opportunity.  She had just turned five years old.  

     “It’s probably her last chance to have puppies again,” my daughter said. “ If she got pregnant this fall,” she reasoned, “they would be Christmas puppies.” 

     So my daughter had already thought about the timing. And I suppose that I should be thinking about timing too, as I did promise to tell you this tale forthwith.  So suffice it to say that a very convincing daughter appealed for puppies just one more time and the decision was made. Now I might have to send forth this account into the world without any family proofreading of the same, as it could easily depart from any discussions of my grammar, syntax or spelling and focus at great length on who gets the most attached to the puppies, or whose idea was it to do all this anyway? And so alone, with no support from the real instigators of this project, I submit my account.

     On September 9^th, 1998, the expensive journey began.  In all due consideration to the prospective sire, even though Josie is a very proper stay at home girl, she visited her doctor to be screened for communicable diseases. Her clean bill of health stating she was not a carrier of Canine Brucellosis totaled eighty dollars and twenty-five cents. 

     We were disappointed to learn that the sire of her first litter had retired.   He was a champion fellow and- but wait, if I start thinking about him and all his charms that will take us back again to that first episode and we must press on to the tale of the second litter. 

     A likely second father was found.  I know all the reasons I am supposed to say that we picked him; we had read just enough about line breeding, when to outcross, and how to seek virtues while avoiding or genetically compounding faults to be a bit overwhelmed.  Let’s be honest, we liked his looks, he was spunky and he had a pedigree. 

     Not only was the young fellow sporting a name of a large stock brokerage, and running under the nickname of “Broker,” but his sire also carried the name of a very old and large bank. Was I seeing dollar signs?   It was not until we explored back into the previous generation that we found that a Dame named Dark Memory and a sire called The Black Bandit had also contributed their genetic gift to whatever progeny were to be born from the union arranged and paid for with Broker’s groom price of four hundred dollars.  I suppose it is only fair to reveal that Josie herself had a bit of infamy in her background having a grandsire who earned the moniker of Tom Foolery.

     Alas, Christmas came and went and although Josie gained a wee bit of weight from the treats and goodies pressed upon her to compensate for her supposed condition, she was not pregnant and no puppies were in her Christmas stocking or ours.

     When a reputable breeder offers a dog at stud, there is a guarantee that if the mating does not produce two live births, a second mating is offered at her next regular season. So, on April 14, 1999, Josie once again, in consideration of her mate to be, visited her doctor and this time, for a mere one hundred and fourteen dollars, was pronounced both healthy and fertile.  Are you prudent accountants, keeping track of this?  At the time, the running total did not bother me, because everyone knows for how very much we could sell all the puppies; but I think we are now up to five hundred-ninety- four dollars and twenty-five cents.

     This time we were sure the happy day would truly approach.  We had noticed some abdominal swelling around five to six weeks after the honeymoon and sure enough her appetite had increased.  The normal gestation period for a Shetland sheepdog is nine weeks. We made those little purchases that you hardly think twice about; iodine, surgical soap, straw and shavings for the bed, milk replacer just in case, and a new nail trimmer.  Twenty-two dollars and fifty-five cents here, and thirteen dollars and seventeen cents there and five dollars and thirty-four cents later, we were ready for the big day. I think that brings us to a grand total of six hundred fifty-three dollars and thirty-one cents invested in this prospective new little family.

     As the time approached, we dutifully took her temperature from the nether end, every morning and evening. When it dropped we knew that labor would come within the next twenty-four hours.  We clipped the inner layers of her feathering coat from her hindquarters and washed her tummy with surgical soap.  We sterilized our tools; no plastic handles allowed this time.  

     Josie woke up irritable and anxious.  She whined and wouldn’t eat; the day had come.

Whatever appeared in my backyard, skunk, possum, fox, deer, or a fire breathing dragon, you can be sure I wouldn’t be calling the animal control for any help this time. 

     I just love the books about the birthing of puppies that tell you how you shouldn’t worry or disturb your dog, just speak gently to her and show her the nice clean whelping box you have prepared and she will settle in and begin her labor.  My dog was convinced that where she belonged was outside under a bush in a dirt hole she had constructed under the innate guidance and direction bequeathed to her by her creator, but of course we were there to help her and she eventually capitulated probably out of sheer exhaustion.

     And then the really long night began.  She had roamed around and rested throughout the day.  Finally after our dinner her labor appeared to begin in earnest.  She panted and moaned and let us hold her quivering sides. One by one, exhaustion struck us all. Everyone had had a full day of work or school, but we vowed to always have one of us stay awake with her.

     It seemed strange that she had been through so much and her water had not yet broken. When it did break it should mean that the first puppy was in the birth canal and should emerge within about fifteen minutes.  It was now after midnight and if we were to need assistance we would have to go to the emergency animal hospital.  Every time she got out of her whelping box to pace around we had to disinfect her feet before she got back in. 

     I slept for several hours and then my husband shook me awake at 4am and said, “It’s your turn and she insists on sitting outside on the deck.” 

     I turned two cushioned chaise lounges to face one another and Josie and I began the next watch of the morning together.  I had never felt quite so close to her before. Her soft brown eyes were looking at me with such appeal.  “I know girl, I see your plight.  This is the point of no return; you just have to do it.”  I remember thinking that it has been about this point in the delivery of my first child that I wished that I had been a nun in a convent.  I pet Josie’s head in sympathy.  I had a blanket around my shoulders against the chill of the early summer morning.  The stars comforted me. I thanked Josie for getting me out into a time of the morning I usually miss.   An owl flew from one great tree to another and I lifted my head just in time to see him float over me.  It took my breath away. 

Josie's Owl

     
     Josie’s contractions seemed hard, but nothing that was supposed to happen was happening.  My heart sank.  Light began to creep up from the east.  One of the great white heron that nest in the neighbor’s evergreens flew over the deck.  I got the message.  We had to get this girl some help.  I woke my husband and we mobilized ourselves to be waiting at the veterinarian when he opened.  Her water had broken so now things had to proceed rather quickly.

     We were asked detailed questions about how long she had been in labor and how far apart her contractions had been, had there been bleeding, had she kept moving.  “You should have called me last night,” he said.  It’s amazing that she is still alive. How could you let her go so long?  We’ll have to take an x-ray,” he said. “Something is wrong.”

     I hung my head.  When I expressed my fear that an x-ray might not be good for the puppies.  “Neither would missing their birthday,” the doctor had replied.  My husband and I waited alone in the small room while she was taken off for an x-ray.  

     “There is just one puppy in there,” the doctor said, as he clipped the x-ray onto the light panel in front of us.  “I doubt that it is alive.  I will have to deliver her cesarean to save her life.  She is getting weak.  We’re monitoring her right now.” 

     I looked at the x-ray. There was the spine of my brave girl and within her womb, as if lying in a hammock on a summer day was slung one very large puppy.  You could say that he was both upside down and backwards.  He looked so peaceful in there.  His front paws were crossed on his chest. I could see his tiny vertebrae and the line of his tail.  “Oh, please save them both,” I cried.  The veterinarian said he would do what he could at this point in time and asked me to step up front to sign the necessary releases.  

    We waited, watching others bring in their little friends for shots and removal of foxtail burrs and investigation of ear mites.  Oh the ills to which all flesh is heir.

     Finally a smiling doctor called us in. “I saved him,” he said proudly.  But when I asked if I could name the little fellow after him, perhaps his middle name, he declined stating that no one would want his middle name.

     Apparently Josie had developed cysts, so her ovaries were removed with her pup.  The vet said that it was amazing she had conceived even one pup. The cysts had blocked the release of hormones that would have moved her labor to complete birthing.  She could never have survived without surgical intervention.  We ever so gladly took our two doggies home and cheerfully paid the five hundred fifteen dollars and thirty-four cents bill.  If you are keeping track, this little guy now represented eleven hundred nine dollars and fifty-nine cents.  And when a puppy is that valuable, well, you just have to keep him.  

     I am happy to report that the two of them are happy and healthy together.  The only untoward thing that has happened to either of them of late was that Josie ate one peach pit too many this summer.  Gideon is quite a jumper and they had worked out a deal where he would knock them down and then they’d gorge together. I’m not even going to tell you what the bill was for that little episode.  But I will tell you this; pedigree puppies do not always pay their own way.

Pedigree Puppies Pay Their Own Way, Don't They? Part 1 of 2

a Short Story in Two Parts  (c) 2000

Our dog Gideon is truly fortunate to have found his way into the world.  His mother, Josie, a lovely Sheltie in the Banchory line, had whelped a healthy litter of five in her younger days, but Gideon was conceived in Josie's sixth spring.  Unbeknownst to us, she had developed some troubles of a delicate nature.  Her veterinarian later said that he couldn’t understand how she conceived at all. 

We however, had some idea of how she had conceived, having seen to all the expensive matrimonial arrangements with a sire whose registered name was borrowed without interest from a well-known large stock brokerage.  He is a handsome fellow who answers to the nickname of Broker.  I’m not kidding. 

All monetary considerations aside, the expensive honeymoon seemed to go well. Three days later we brought Josie back home and anxiously watched her for signs of pregnancy.  The weeks passed and she did seem to be with child. We fed her extra protein rich cottage cheese and made her chicken broth to nourish all those little puppies within her.

When she was ready, I was ready; after all I was experienced, this was her second litter.  I felt much more ready than I had been for Josie's first litter though I had tried hard to be prepared then too.  I had my emergency directions on three by five cards and studied several instruction books extensively. I bought sharp new scissors and borrowed a hemostat from my neighbor. But I still remember the afternoon of the first litter with chagrin.  I had been boiling my needed tools in a pot on the stove when a skunk weaving around in our back yard distracted me. It was broad daylight.  I was alarmed.  Was the skunk rabid?  I called animal control and ran around closing windows.  Josie was out hollowing out yet another nest in another flowerbed.  Some prospective mothers hang flowered wallpaper, but Josie went for the freshly dug cool bowl of earth with bowers of flowers above her. 

I realized that I better bring her inside before she got skunked, but she didn't want to come in. She was in the pacing and panting stage of labor.  Oh my, I better get ready; puppies really were on their way.  The last thing I needed was for Josie or me to get skunked.  There might not be enough tomato juice in the world to cut the stench of a direct attack. And then there was the possibility that this drunk looking little guy might be rabid. Come on in, Josie, please.

I still hadn’t yet convinced my primally focused mother–to-be to follow my requests when I heard the doorbell ringing.  It must be animal control, I thought, I’d just go meet them outside, in front of the house.  I could hear the phone ringing inside and hoped the children would just let the answering machine pick it up.

At the front of our house was one of our blue uniformed local gendarmes, Officer Sykes.  He said he was responding to the skunk report.  I thanked him, but expressed surprise that he was from the police department and not from the animal control.

"They only work the county.  You’re inside city limits.  I can take care of it," he said, and laid his hand on his sidearm. 

 At that moment my thirteen-year-old daughter opened the front door.  "Mom, the pot smells awful."

Officer Sykes wrinkled his nose and pushed my front door open further.  I stood helplessly behind him on my own front porch.  He looked at my daughter. "What is that smell and why aren't you at school?" he asked.

Before she could answer him, my sixteen-year-old daughter appeared at her side to announce to me that my answering service had a client crisis holding on the line for me.  "And Mom, the pot smells just awful.  Do you have to do that?"

"And you too," Officer Sykes said, eyeing my darling girl with her long blond hair, padding around barefoot in her flannel pajamas. "Why aren't you in school?" he asked, pulling out his investigative note pad.

"We’re home schooled," the girls answered simultaneously.

"And today we are having puppies," my younger daughter added.

"Smells kind strange here.  I'd better check this out,” Officer Sykes announced as he strode in my front door. “This is toxic, we better open all the windows and air this house out.  Get outside girls.”  

I ran in behind him.  "But I just closed the windows so the skunk smell wouldn’t come in.  And I don’t want my children outside with a possibly rabid skunk,” I said. But the air in the house was worse then skunk.  It smelled perfectly poisonous.

"You know there’s a law that everyone under sixteen must attend school," the officer said as he heaved open a window in my kitchen and the unmistakable strong odor of fresh skunk rushed in to compete with the aroma of the melted red plastic handles of the new scissors I’d been sterilizing.

"Mom, your answering service is on the line, some lady is in crisis and holding," my daughter reminded me.

"Sweetie, just tell them to tell her I will be right there, if she could just wait one moment."  Just what I need right now, a client emergency.

I was more anxious than ever to get Josie in away from the skunk as I was totally bewildered about the officer's approach to skunk control.

"How will you trap the skunk?"  I asked him.

He patted his gun again. " I'm not going to trap him, gonna shoot him," he said as he peered into my saucepan of melted whelping instruments.  “What’s the hemostat for?” he asked.  

“To clamp the umbilical cord of the puppies,” I explained. "If you'd excuse me, I've got to get my dog in and then answer this telephone call.  I thought you would just catch the skunk in some have- a- heart kind of trap.  I had no idea you would shoot it. Won't it stink up your patrol car to take a dead skunk off in it?"

"I'll put it in the trunk in a plastic bag," he said.  "I've got gloves.  Well, I'll just go take a look around."

"Let me just get my dog first," I said. "I'll be right back."  I darted out the back door wondering if I could scare that poor stupid troublesome little skunk off without getting sprayed.

As the door closed behind me I could hear the officer asking my daughter if we didn't have a fan we could put on to blow the plastic fumes out of the house. Why didn’t I think of that?  I found Josie under a huge fern in my shade garden and drug her up the stairs and into the kitchen.  The garden was ripe with his odor, but I’d seen no sign of the skunk.

Back in the kitchen, Officer Sykes unclasped his holster and said, "Okay, you’ve got your dog.  I will be having to check up on this home schooling business, but I guess it was just plastic I smelled in here so I will go get the skunk now. You girls stay inside, I may have to shoot it."  

While Officer Sykes patrolled our yard, I took the emergency client call. It was a very tender hearted woman that I had just started seeing who was worried that her husband might be having an affair.  "Sorry, to make you wait," I said.  "What's going on?"

"The skunk," she said, "the stinking skunk, he does have a girlfriend."  I managed to get myself oriented to her point of view and after we both calmed down a bit we scheduled to meet at my office the following day.

Anyway, you can imagine how relieved I was when Officer Sykes returned from our garden and announced that although the smell of skunk was pronounced (that's what he said), he saw no sign of the offending creature and I'd have to call back later if I needed 

more help.  Oh, and he would be in touch about the school business.

That’s what happened the day that Josie and I whelped her first litter.  As  I said, I was much better prepared and more calm the second time, when Gideon came into the world and into our lives.  

*Josie with her first litter of five*

 The funny thing is that retrospectively it was that first birth that was so smooth. It was such a perfect home birth.  Each one of the five pups was strong and beautiful and Josie was a natural at mothering.  Well, she did nip a tiny toe off one little fellow, but all in all, it was a breeze.

Seven weeks later, named and renamed, cuddled and all loved up, we reluctantly said goodbye to all those five puppies who each were sold to wonderful homes.  Even with all the usual expenses of stud fee, extra mama dog food, new scissors, vet bills, shots and food for the puppies, Josie had earned dog chow and vet bill money for years to come.  

*Growing up and ready for their new families*

So the second time around I wasn’t even worried. You might even say that I was guilty of counting my chickens before they had hatched.  But, if you'll forgive me, the annals of Josie's second litter are just going to have to wait until part two of this story.  These memories of Sykes, skunks and scissors and all have just done me in.  And the police sirens are howling and now the dogs are joining in.  But I'll be back, with further tales of my attempts to have pedigree puppies who would pay their own way and how Gideon actually made his costly little way into the world and our hearts.

Part Two...click Here

                       
all rights reserved (c) 2000 Jeannette at Write Purpose

Touch of Beauty...for Parched Hearts

Tonight I sat and read several blogs of complete strangers...I was struck with how many folks are depressed and write about it in their blogs...and so I came back to my blog and wrote this very short vignette. I know that depression is not a simple struggle and that this is a very small offering indeed, but I hope you like it.

Once there was a woman who got so very depressed she stopped taking care of her little garden and then her house and eventually even her self. The more things piled up around her, the more tired and discouraged she got and the harder it became for her to even imagine making herself some tea or clearing a path through the clutter of her own belongings. She sat in her chair and pondered, sinking deeper into a morass.


One day a child walking by her house noticed one single rose clinging to the vine near the gate and wondered where the lady was that she had often seen in the garden. There had been such lovely flowers blooming on the fence.


The next day the child picked some roses in her family's garden and approached the woman's door. She knocked. She waited listening. All was quiet. She knocked again. The woman inside could not imagine who was at her door. She didn't really care who it was. She wouldn't let anyone in.

The child knocked, very gently, one more time. Something stirred in the woman. She rose and made her way to the door. The child stood with the flowers in her fist and offered them up without a word.


The woman took the flowers. "They need water," the little girl said. She smiled and turned and skipped out of the gate.


The woman stood at the door and saw the rose vine withering on the fence. When had she last watered?

She took the flowers inside and went to find a vase. The vase was dirty, but she held it in the water and washed it carefully. Gently, she made sure the stem of each flower reached down into the water. She took the flowers to the table. The table was a clutter of papers and dirty dishes. One by one she set things away and wiped the table clean.

She set the flowers in the center and sat quietly for a moment admiring the gift of the child. Then she rose and walked out to the parched garden and watered the hardy plants that had hung on through the drought of her heart. Perhaps tomorrow, she thought, she might sit on the porch a bit. If the child passes by, she could say "thank you."

~~~~~~~

Plein Air ~ for Harriet ~

He was late again. What was she going to do with these feelings? What would it be like to not censor myself at all, she wondered as she plucked up a soft camel hair brush off his watercolor table. She imagined how he’d scream if he saw her using it to flit the thin patina of dust off the quiet black telephone. She watched the motes drift in the golden shaft of sun pouring through the skylight. What if his myriad rebuffs, hidden in shadows and turnings, were spotlighted like one of his young voluptuous models? What if she announced them each as duly noted? Was she willing to pay the price?

There was no changing the rules he lives by, that was clear. All she’d said last week was, “ I’m concerned about our relationship.” She only wanted to open up avenues, not make the going more awkward. But within moments everything had crashed and there’d been wreckage in the streets of communion and long after the initial commotion it seemed like horns were blowing and no matter what color the lights strung above the intersection, she could get nowhere.

“If you were more secure you wouldn't even come up with these ideas,” he said. “I don’t want to hear it. An artist must be free.”

And what must an artist’s wife be, she wondered? For days afterward she had been determined to be pleasant and stay in the moment, as he loved to say. But this afternoon, watching the clock mark hours he’d promised to her, she wanted the thoughts and feelings that rumbled disconnected within her to plug into her life. She wanted the surges of power that arced though her mind to light a path for her. She wanted the parts connected to the whole.

She heard his car turn in. She looked at the thin gold watch on her wrist and the way the sun lit the yellow hair on her trim tan arm. It was almost two o’clock and he’d asked her to meet him at noon.

He came in whistling, holding out a canvas. He brought the smell of a wild field and the oils of the drying pigments with him. Unbidden she felt a rush of tenderness for him; he really had been painting.

“I tried calling you but my cell wouldn’t work. Lookie here. The light was so fantastic in the canyon as the noon sun penetrated the forest. I had to capture it. Do you like it?” He held it out at the just the right angle for her to see what he had painted. Light streamed like liquid though a fragile canopy and tenderly lit the creek in Rocky Canyon.

Color by color, stroke by stroke, it was all of a piece. There’s no point in talking about us today, she thought. He’s so pleased with himself. He’ll accuse me of making a scene. “It’s beautiful,’ she said, barely able to trust her voice. “You really capture it. Your work gets better and better.”

He smiled. “You think so?”

“So what do you want to do now?” she asked, wondering if he could hear the little edges of her words as they caught on her throat.

“Why I must clean up. And then I’m hungry,” he said. “I’m quite hungry. You know how a day of plein air piques my appetite.”