What a grand thing, to be loved!

Life and spirits have been renewed!  A new generation has been born!  New life to replace one lost. Yes, I am now a Great-Auntie!  


But, here is where the confusion lies.  Of course, I've always been a great Auntie (if I say so myself), but now I'm a Great-Auntie.  Whoa there. Wait a gosh-darned minute (today I'm going G-rated in honor of my new Great-Nephew, whom I'm sure will also be a great nephew)! 


Why is it that I've been elevated two generations with just one simple birth? Parents become grand-parents who become great-grand parents with every subsequent generation. But, BAM,  Aunties become great-aunties in a blink of two tiny, newborn eyes. 


I've decided to protest. I'm mounting a campaign to popularize the Grand-Aunt. It already exists as a generational demarkation, but it is only equivalent to a great-aunt (according to Wikipedia), and apparently not very popular. I think being two generations removed from this beautiful new life form should receive special and recognized status.  


All right, I may be a teensy bit insecure by the fact that telling people that I'm a great-aunt smacks of octogenarians and BenGay, but, heck, I'm throwing down my cane and jumping out of my rocking chair to claim my grand-hood status.


Welcome, grand-nephew Samuel Gale Williams! I love you more than words can say. Forever, your Grand-Auntie Keren.

Taking time to take the time

Luckily I have my hearing and I know exactly what time it is. Say what? Yes, Art just told me. He struck eleven solid and resonating bongs all the way in the other room and I knew that it was way past my bedtime.


Art is the antique clock that has been passed down to me from my mother, which was passed down to her from her mother. It was given to my grandparents as a wedding gift from a friend of theirs named Art, thus the endearing moniker. This is the kind of stately and beautiful clock that makes the "top ten" list. You know, the list of the top ten things you'd grab if a hurricane was about to hit, the roof was caving in, or the house was on fire. It is strong and majestic.  Classically beautiful.  Functional art, if you'll pardon the pun. 


I wind him every Sunday and he keeps time to the minute, even after 101 years, many moves to various states, and even high humidity. If Art had a last name, it would be Reliability.


It is nice to have this bit of "constant" in my life.  It reminds me of my family, comforts me in the wee hours if I am having trouble sleeping.  It reminds me that I'm running late to work and that I've stayed up too late again. It calms with with its rhythmic tic toc tic toc. It welcomes me home.


Art is a wonderful memento that is the artifact of my ancestors, as well as the possession of my descendants. Future generations that will look upon Art and be reminded that they too are late for a date,  have only fifteen minutes to catch the jet-tube tram, and need to fold themselves up into their sonic sleep chamber.


I think I'll slip a little note inside the back of Art and turn him into a time capsule, if you will.  It will say, "Keren was here and loved this clock. Please take care of it, and it will take care of you."


"Ding!" Shoot, now it is half an hour later and I still need to take the dogs outside.  Goodnight!

I've got an app for that

Aren't Smart phones great? Well, not all of them. I won't mention what brand of phone I had and hated, but suffice it to say it wasn't Berry good.  One of the great things about them, though, are all of the "Apps" that you can get for them.


There I was one evening playing with the new Dog Whistle app that I had newly installed on my phone.  Being an owner of a dog that doesn't come when called, I thought that this new app could come in very handy. I pressed the button. A little bone wiggled on the screen to let me know that the high-frequency sound was emitted. Glancing at the dogs, there was no reaction. Not even an ear twitch.


I tried it again, this time for a little longer.  Nothing.  At this point I'm wondering if maybe you have to train the dogs to respond to the whistle. For some reason I was thinking that the high-pitched and inaudible sound was something the dogs would instinctively respond to. Like morning revelry blown on a coronet or something. They would hear it and spring to attention.


I pressed it one more time, just to make sure.


Finally, my daughter (who was sitting next to me on the sofa watching T.V.) turned to me and quite sharply told me to stop playing with that annoying whistle! She had heard it every time! 


I'd like to think that she has inherited my uncanny hearing-genes, but alas, the only high-pitched noise I hear is from my tinnitus. No, I'm tending to think that she has been bitten by a bat, a mouse, or perhaps a beluga whale and her ability to hear over 45,000 hz is her super power. 


I eventually took the app off of my phone, seeing that the likely-hood of training my dog to come using my Smart phone app seemed somewhat remote. I think I stand a better chance of just buying my dog a smart phone and calling her up on it to see if she'll be home for dinner.

It really isn't about the bone

The other night, I was watching my dogs with the bones I had given them. On the rug in the middle of the living room was a collection of four 6" tubular-type cow bones, some of them quite old, bleached, and gnawed-looking. The dogs switched back and forth from bone to bone, deciding which ones had the best remnant flavor...I thought.  Then I noticed something interesting. Whatever bone the non-dominant dog (Koko`o, the larger of the two) had, the smaller, dominant dog (Bean), wanted. Call it what you will, but there was definitely a power-play going on.  Posturing, tug-of-wars, teasing, and body-blocks were all employed in the "Dance of the Bones".


Their behavior wasn't really about the bones and which one tasted the best; it was about who had control over the overall situation. It is where ingrained behavior bests common sense; enabling a 10 lb. canine to out-maneouver another dog 4 times her size. For Koko`o, it might have been about which bone was the best, but for Bean it was all about control. 


How many times have I beaten my head against the wall because, defying logic, people did not behave the way I had expected them to (i.e. one for me and one for you)? It is all clear to me now. Daily decisions and interactions do not rely entirely on what is right or wrong on a global, humanitarian scale. Decisions are made relying on what is right or wrong for the "ME" in the situation ("ME" being the person needing the most control). I see this behavior over and over again. 


Oh, we all have situations that we feel we need to control, some of us more than others. But maybe every once in a while we can focus more on the bone and less on the "ME". The world would be a happier place, and I would finally get what I want. Just kidding. Kind of.

Survival of the biggest

I am amazed. My little, tiny, eensy, weensy back yard is a microcosm teeming with life. We are hard-pressed on the farm to find enough insects to keep a 1 inch frog alive at work, but here in my back yard I can't even step outside in the evening without bugs flying down my shirt and tangling in my hair. With a headlamp strapped to my noggin, insects of every kind swarm around my face, some even venturing down my windpipe as I tell the dogs to do their business.


This phenomenon got me thinking; then it distracted me from thinking by flying up my nose, causing me to stumble forward after tripping over the dog leash, catching myself before squashing a cane toad. I could see the headlines, "GNAT PUSHES WOMAN TO THE GROUND, CAUSING SERIOUS INJURY". What I thought about then was: 1) how long it would take someone to find me, 2) maybe I should get one of those "help I've fallen and I can't get up" monitors to wear around my neck, and 3) why aren't these mutts of mine bothered by all of these miniature flying pests? Can they not see them (or should I say, no seeum)? Or, perhaps, since I have poisoned their circulatory systems with flea-be-gone, maybe it also repels insects of all kinds. Interesting speculation, but I think I'll hold off rubbing that tiny vial of liquid on the nape of my neck until I study this further.


Meanwhile, I've figured out that by allowing all kinds of weedy gems to grow to about knee high, they attract all kinds of flying insects. By neglect, my landlord has inadvertently created a refuge for every nocturnal invertebrate in the neighborhood, converging in a compact, 200 square-foot area. This, then, creates a Garden of Eden for cane toads; making it an amphibian mecca. They pilgrimage from far and wide to feast on the delicacies offered conveniently within tongue-shot.


These my dogs can see. Well, they don't really notice them until the toads hop. If taken by surprise, it causes either dog to jump straight into the air, tail between the legs. They know, from experience, not to tangle with even the smallest of these poison-laden chew-toy look-alikes.


I figure that I have a few options regarding this miniature science experiment in my yard: enjoy this lesson in biology and leave it be, venture outside with a bug light strapped to my head and a zapper wand in my hand, or, not wait for my landlord to conduct his "yard maintenance" and whack it all down myself. I'm leaning toward the latter option because I know that for every flying insect that I see, there are dozens of little beady eyes watching me from deep within the jungly grass.  If Darwin's truth is going to prevail, I better damned well be the fittest one to survive out there, lord knows I'm the biggest.

Balance restored

Something very disturbing happened to me today. No, it wasn't the fact that when I got home I discovered that I had left my bedroom light on all day (see "senectus" in previous blog).  It was much more upsetting and uncomfortable. If you are squeamish, perhaps you shouldn't read any further.

Okay, now that I've weeded out the innocents, I can tell my horrifying story. I arrived, as usual, to work this morning, but this time I had a cooler bag with me. Inside the cooler bag was my lunch for the day. I went to the kitchen, where I placed the meatloaf and spinach into the fridge, leaving my unzipped bag on the counter.

Several hours later, as I was heating up the spinach and warming the meatloaf in the mircowave, I reached over to grab an apple out of my bag. EEK! A quick flash of black rat fur lunged toward me, gaining momentum as it sprung from my flailing arm. It jumped from me to the floor and scooted underneath the ice box. In that split second, my lungs came to life way before my brain, screaming like a banshee. I actually remember that I took three breaths to let out that scream and when my brain finally did catch up it was yelling to my lungs, "Stop that terrible screaming, woman!"

First to reach me, naturally, was my coworker that has a two-year-old. She quickly assessed the situation and turned away grinning. Another coworker, upon hearing what had happened, felt great relief. He had heard the screams and he was dreading coming into the kitchen imaging copious amounts of blood everywhere and envisioning that he would have to be the one to grab my bloody stump to staunch the flow. Another work mate had thought that I had possibly spilled hot oil all over myself and was screaming in agony.

I'm not sure what is more upsetting to me: the fact that a giant rodent invaded my lunch bag and danced the hokey pokey on my head, or all of my coworkers jumping to the conclusion that I was capable of causing grievous bodily harm while fixing myself lunch.

The culprit was later apprehended and did not live out the day to tell his plague-infested little brood that he made a grown woman scream. Balance has been restored.

Suffering from senectus

Click here for the song

Yesterday it was task-interruptus (not completing a task because I was distracted by another). Last week I got out of my car and walked over to my garbage can to throw away some trash.  In went my car keys along with the rubbish.  It took me over half an hour to even think of looking for them there.

You guessed it; senectus is Latin for Old Age. What is disturbing is that the symptoms are coming now at an alarming pace. The inability to remember someone's name, trying to remember the words to a song, forgotten appointments. It is starting to disturb and worry me.

My daughter suggested that every once in a while I should brush my teeth with my non-dominant hand. Apparently it is recommended to break your routine in a challenging way to improve memory function. This will use brain pathways you weren't using before. Perhaps I could also get out of bed on the opposite side. That sounds challenging.

"Neurobic" exercise is also suggested. This would be like an aerobic exercise for your brain, forcing you to use your faculties in unusual ways, like showering and getting dressed with your eyes closed.  Actually, at 5:30 am, my eyes ARE usually closed while doing these tasks (thus the toothpaste still on the corners of my mouth); maybe I should try doing these tasks with my eyes OPEN.

Learning new skills can be the most effective way to improve memory. So, I've decided to teach myself how to play the ukulele. My fingertips are not thanking me at the moment, but I peacefully drift off to sleep at night humming "my dog has fleas", and chanting my new mantra "G C E A, great cooks eat alot" (apparently musicians can take liberties with common spelling errors).  My dogs don't seem to mind my new hobby; they don't howl, cover their heads, or run for the hills. Perhaps I can even teach them to sing and dance along with my playing someday.

In any case, hopefully, my memory will be preserved, old age will be staved off for awhile, and I'll be an accomplished musician. But first, I need to remember where I put the tuner.