December 25 2009

Christmas morning, and what I get to unwrap is - Sadie's paw! Not sure if the decorative green wrap was in the spirit of the season, or just what they had on hand at Dr. Kate's.
This past Tuesday our girl had surgery on 50% of her paws, one front and one back, plus a tooth pulled. Shades of Brittie from last November, it is one of life's continuing ironies that I, the most phobic person about medical procedures that one can imagine, keep having to face my worst nightmares, which are always about medical stuff. Usually involving pets (but occasionally people too, like Brian's rare but scary ER trips, or learning to inject my Dad with insulin), life presents me over and over again with this particular challenge. Beginning decades ago with my very first dog Mutzie, who was attacked in a park in Santa Barbara by a Rottweiler who almost killed her, and was Frankenmutz for almost a month, through my bunny Dog, who needed subcutaneous water injections for 10 days but died anyway, there's been a series of slice and dice, inject and re inject, stuff, that to my credit (she modestly wrote) I accomplished without killing any patient, but mostly put me on the floor fighting nausea for several hours. Are you feeling the Christmas spirit yet? This makes the whole coal in the stocking thing look pretty mild to me.

On a much happier note, and almost anything would be, Thanksgiving this year was a true delight. Lisa and Josh decided to make the feast at the New York apartment, and Brian, Sadie and I drove in, Sadie of course shaking most of the two hours each way. I must say, traffic on Thanksgiving was pretty easy, and parking in the city a breeze. Also invited was a couple and their very new (seven weeks) infant. Much to my delight, Hyla, who loves all dogs, was particularly taken with Sadie. They had met a few weeks earlier here, where Hyla spent quite a while chasing Sadie in slow motion around the dining table, wanting very much to give her a hug. Sadie thought otherwise. But on Thanksgiving, thanks in great part to the big dead bird, Hyla and I both fed Sadie kibble and rice grain sized turkey pieces by hand. Could they be any cuter?

Hyla is still so small that she could only hold three or four pieces of kibble at a time, which made the dining process very slow and genteel, and provided a lot of bonding time. Hyla did eventually get to sneak a hug under the table (where both she and Sadie spent quite a bit of time), and when we left, managed to kiss Sadie on the nose. I was very thankful for the whole experience!

Lisa and Josh and their friends, who brought two pies and various vegetables, put together a wonderful meal even for those of us (me) who didn't eat the dead bird. And I realized that Lisa knows me better than I thought when after dinner, as everyone else was sampling both pies and praising them, she looked over at my empty dessert plate and asked if I'd like the single piece of very rich chocolate pastry they had in the refrigerator. It was my idea of a perfect meal, great salad (three helping for me, I love radicchio), great cooked veggies, followed by an equally great dessert.

It's nice to see Hyla's face light up in delighted recognition of Grandpa Brian. She may not know his name, but she knows he's HER person. And I see more and more of Margie (Brian's mother) in her as time goes by, not only physically, but in gestures and attitudes too. Like Marge, Hyla is a very social, welcoming little person. And of course I consider myself completely unprejudiced in admiring her adorableness, as she's not a blood grandchild, just a wonderfully cute one!

It was also pretty amusing that the less experienced parents came in with their new baby raising manual, and struggled mightily to stick to it, even as the baby, who clearly hadn't read it, didn't particularly want to eat, sleep or anything else on the book's schedule. At one point in the diaper changing, the new dad was holding the new naked baby, awaiting an assist from the new mom, when the baby started to pee - on him first, of course, and then on the floor. Only Hyla and I were amused, the others calling out to dad to use his tee shirt as an emergency diaper. It never occurred to me when we drove in that anyone other than Sadie might pee on the still newly resurfaced hardwood floors. Life is so unpredictable! Once the baby went in to full scream mode, the parents made a quick exit. Neither Hyla nor Sadie seemed particularly upset by the pee, screams, or much else, though Hyla was not happy when her mommy was holding the baby.

We weathered last weekend's Big Storm pretty easily (and thanks to those of you who thought to ask if we were okay). We only got a couple of inches of light powder here, have had much worse storms with no warnings whatsoever. But everywhere in all four directions around us got really pounded, and in our former stomping grounds in West Virginia, two hours into the storm over 5,000 households were already without power. As it's been bitterly cold here (at least we shared that with some of our neighbors), the snow that fell is still here, not deep, and fairly decorative as long as one doesn't have to do anything about it, or get anywhere. Fortunately for us, we don't have to either do or get. Brian brought in extra wood for the fireplace, we have ample food in the house, and our backup generator has a clear path shoveled from the back porch to it's access. We're as ready as we can be for whatever comes next - at least, weather-wise.


So - that's it from here. All is very quiet and gray right now,even the evergreen rhododendrons look grayish in this cloudy light. On a sunny day everything sparkles, but on days like today it seems as if almost all the color is leeched out of everything and there are only blacks, whites, and shades of gray. Tonight we are told to expect rain that will go on till tomorrow night (which also seems pretty strange for late December, but that's what we're told at the Weather Channel). If that's even close to correct, a few hours of rain should wash all the snow down. I'll just have to bag Sadie's paws when she needs to go out. None of us plan to go any further than the dog run anyway.

November 15 2009

Sitting here on a wet but warm day, with my new foster dog Sadie curled decoratively around her own tail, I am delighted with her company. She came to us about a month ago, very scared and disoriented after her family of eight years first boarded her at her vet's (while someone was hospitalized), then asked the vet to euthanize her because the person couldn't manage to care for her any more.

I am so grateful the caring vet wouldn't do that, and contacted American Brittany Rescue. She's a perfectly healthy, eight year old bundle of love with the BEST tail ever! The first two days were very hard on her, she was pretty much scared of everything and everyone, including us. But soon enough she decided life here is not so bad, and has made it clear that she has picked me as her person. I am honored! She is a very undemanding girl, just a joy to have around. And of course is giving me very good life lessons in living in the here and now, enjoying the moment, and all those great dog dissertations they share with us. She is the complete personification of "bright eyed and bushy tailed".

I am amazed that in just two days my youngest great-nephew Cameron will be a year old. Here he is in his first Halloween costume, an old-time fighter pilot - couldn't be any cuter!
Today is the actual party day, and over forty guests are expected, many, I assume, also just about a year old. I guess I ruminate more on this little one because he was given a Hebrew name to honor my father - and my niece Kim has warmed my heart more than once in lovely emails that make reference to his inheritance, as the following: "As for Cameron, he gets this devilish little grin, like he's up to something and it just reminds me of Grandpa. He also is quite strong-willed which leads me to believe that Grandpa is keeping a watchful eye on him and his spirit is just running through his veins. How lucky Cameron is, for he is named well!" and a week later: "he's really turning into a little jokester (a Grandpa Oscar trait no doubt)!" Last year when I got the birth announcement and photo, I thought I saw something of Dad in that newborn face, but the other family members just thought I was crazy. So nice to finally have some agreement there (and who doesn't love to be right?).


Of course Queen Hyla also trick or treated this year, as the world's cutest monkey - I'm sure you will agree.

As it's actually much warmer now, and lately, than last month, there is virtually no garden to report on. In the aftermath of the mid-October snow (yes, really!), pretty much everything but a few hardy mums just gave up and died back (I well understand the impulse, mine was the same - six months of actual winter is WAY too much). Most of the leaves are down now, and the countryside has that look I've grown used to, waiting for the first serious snowfall to cover everything up and declare the change of seasons. While I still very much miss my dear Santa Barbara friends, and the equally dear oceanside walks, when I'm not completely surrounded by too much cold and snow I find I do enjoy the seasonal changes. The garden, most prominently, but other things as well. There's a different smell to each season, and the first time I catch a whiff, it recalls all kinds of memories from way back to my Chicago childhood. This fall was particularly colorful, if brief, the flares of reds, oranges and yellows were spectacular for a couple of weeks, and then more quietly decorative laying on the ground. Now as we head towards real winter, Brian continues to split the large pile of wood left behind from the two giant trees we had taken down, and our woodpile looks already like we are set for next year (unless of course it is really cold, then it will all go up the chimney pretty quickly).

We were lucky enough to finally find real loggers, a guy in his 70's and his son, French Canadians, who found two oaks on our property big enough to mill, and paid us to take them down and haul off for lumber. They also picked up the two much smaller stems of the paper birch in the middle of our triangle planting. There were two of these when we moved here, that were fairly small ornamental trees six years ago, but especially in this last wet spring got way too big too close to the house. Brian was able to take the one in this shot down pretty easily,(it's the small white stick-looking thing in the front, but this shot was from 2006; by this year it had overgrown the rooftop)
but the triangle one was leaning the wrong way, and overshadowing lots of flowering plants as well. Bri had been strategizing for months about just how to get it down. As it turned out, the Canadians just used the giant claw on top of their truck to grab the top (son was manning this device) while the father did one quick cut on each stem. Then they were dropped over the side in the weeds, much like any of us would toss a toothpick! I haven't been that impressed with tree cutting since the West Virginia days, when a family of six or seven came by (with their own venison sandwiches and moonshine) and spent a day doing what looked like ballet with chain saws.

I hope all of you are well, and that your upcoming Thanksgiving will be full of all good things - with more to come before the year ends.

October 4 2009

Better late than never, here are a few shots of Mom's 90th birthday party from this past August. Seems like such a long time ago by now!

But I think you'll agree Jo is still a beautiful woman, and she made a lovely toast thanking all of us (when of course we should thank her, for always being there for every single one of us).


Surrounded by her children, grandchildren, all their spouses and five great-grandchildren, she is still the great pillar of our family. We are so lucky!



The little ones were very amusing, each one already such a distinct individual,yet with overtones of other family members that are obvious at least to me. I spent the month before the big party making a (very abbreviated) book of Mom's life highlights, using all my minimal computer skills and then binding the pages in the old Japanese hand-bound style. I knew it was a success when I gave it to her, and by page two she had tears in her eyes - success!

Back at home, we consider ourselves lucky to have had any tomato crop at all, as all around us some fungus, encouraged by the cold and wet weather, decimated lots of tomato patches large and small.



But the big windfall for us was through the generosity of the monks at Blue Cliff. As Master Hanh traveled around the US this past month before returning here for a retreat, he took all but two brothers and two sisters with him. As their garden, MUCH bigger and better tended than ours, was also waning, Brother Vu encouraged us to pick whatever we wanted - and we did. We now have packs of steamed chard, lots of chilis, and some tomato pulp bags as well.

The chilis were my obsession, I had no idea how HOT they would be! After Brian had grilled them black,I spent about an hour peeling and coring them,tossing strip after strip on a plate.


After a while my hands actually stung (which should have been a clue). But finally I had my stack of fire, the monastery chiliswhich will see me through the winter.



And now that I've used the chard in recipes that call for spinach, I am willing to grow some of my own next year. I don't know if it's just because the brothers and sisters grew these, but they were really tasty, unlike any other chard I've tried. Apparently plants really thrive on meditation too.

August 5 2009

August started out happily with dogs, dogs, dogs as we had our first ever NY picnic on the 1st. While we only had 8 people and 7 dogs, we all had so much fun we want to do it again in the fall. And one of my former fosters,

Arley the Adorable, was driven down all the way from CT for the event, so we were a two-state picnic! The site was Thomas Bull Park, about half an hour from us, which has a great dog park, beautiful lake, lots of picnic tables, and much more that we didn't even see, like an arboretum and children's park. And for once it wasn't raining! Foster moms Lynn and Tracey not only brought their 4 Britts (Chilly, Pepper,


Brittie and Thurman -and they have several more dogs at home!), but also tons of delicious food, chairs, canopy, and almost anything else that was needed. They were the force behind this get together, and we are all so grateful to them. My new heroes, they just keep taking whatever dog needs a place, no matter what the problem, and are so calm about things that would send me around the bend - like occasional puddles of pee, dogs that weigh over 50 lbs. needing to be carried up stairs, and friends staying with them (they wrote casually) while they looked for a place of their own, bringing their Rhodesian Ridgeback and a Husky. I guess I am really wimpy, one small Brittany at a time is my limit.


Rustyand Pepper (Pepper is the senior lady with the barette) are both senior dogs, at least 15 years old, and Pepper has a heart condition as well as some other health issues. I just hope we can all age as gracefully as they are doing, because of the wonderful care of their "parents". Brittie and Arley, my former fosters, were a special delight to see, so happy and beloved in their forever homes. Brittie dressed up for the event (special home made ruffled collar in photo) and Arley, ever thoughtful, brought me a miniature rose plant. It was the happiest day I've had in months! Thurman is another special needs permanent foster for Lynn and Tracey,and


Chilly ,shown smiling right at the camera, is the tiny (25 lb) Britt that started them on their Brittany journey, and










Ruby, though officially a foster for Daniel, Tim and Rusty, is clearly "their girl" and probably will be officially adopted at some point as Rusty was (he was a foster of Daniel's for over 2 years). We, alas, are temporarily dogless, but I had such fun with the dogs I almost didn't miss having one of my own to drive home with.

We hope to get another foster at the end of August when we get back from our planned trip to my family, to celebrate Mom's 90th birthday. Amazing woman that she is, she still seems younger than I, still goes into the health club three times a week, and the one time I went with her, outperformed me on every machine. So perhaps my next posting will include actual people at the birthday party...

The obligatory garden report is pretty brief: rained out for over a month, all the marigold seeds apparently rotted in the ground, we had not one come up in any of the terraces. However, the coneflowers and beragmot are at least a foot taller than last year, and the hydrangea, living up to the "hydra" part of its name, is very happy.

June 29 2009

Wonderful news - little Rusty Glenn finally found his forever family this past Sunday! Margaret and Russell, the in-laws of my first successful adoption family for Carmen the Wonder Dog (in 2007) came up, along with Carmen, her parents, and the adopting couple's 8 month old female Morkie named Molly.
The contrast between RG's behavior to these four people, and two dogs, as opposed to the two people and one dog he rejected two weeks ago (barking and becoming a completely different dog than the one I had lived with for two months), couldn't have been stronger. From the minute they arrived, Rusty Glenn was his usual happy, loving self to everyone, even the puppy (and we seniors know how annoying puppies can be!). He was happy to let everyone pet him, walk him, and made it very clear that this group was just fine with him. Best of all, he got in their car eagerly, curled up on his bed (thanks again to "auntie" Jeanette) with his Brittany buddy Carmen by his side, and off they went. Brian swears that as they walked out to the car, Rusty Glenn looked back right at Brian and barked "thank you" - and I believe him!

I spoke to Margaret that night, as they were staying overnight in New Jersey with the family before heading out for the long trek back to Charlotte, North Carolina. He certainly is a well-traveled boy, as this trip will be yet another 1200 miles. RG was perfect on the short drive to Carmen's house(about 2 1/2 hours), made himself right at home when they got out, and he, Carmen and little Molly actually played together for quite a while in the yard. When Margaret called, all three were snoozing at her feet. Carmen and Rusty Glenn amused the entire family by chasing each other around the dining room table after dinner - those Brits know how to have fun together! I was delighted to see Carm again after almost two years, and surprised at how small she looked next to Rusty Glenn. I had always thought of him as a "little boy", and compared to my dear departed Saul he is, but Carm is at least three or four inches shorter. I guess she loomed much larger in my memory than in real life.

This is a very loving family, and just as important, Russ, who will be the main man in RG's life, really knows just how to handle him. He was so very gentle, yet firm, and RG took to him right away.

I will have another call from them when they are all home, and they did promise they would keep in touch. Wanda also took lots of digital photos, so hopefully I'll have some of those to show off soon. I was so focused on making sure all went well, and processing the paperwork, and getting all of RG's stuff together, I never even got my camera out.

It was as I expected, a bit sad this morning when no cold doggie nose woke me up, but I am completely satisfied that Rusty Glenn has found the perfect home, where he'll be loved and taken care of for the rest of his life. And of course there are always more dogs waiting, for foster homes as well as forever ones. We won't be dogless long.In other news (and the only other news I have), the garden continues to surprise. The peonies were just spectacular this year, as they apparently LOVE the dampness (unlike me)and I had a hard time picking just which of the many many photos to share with you. The coneflowers also look great, are tall and just starting to bloom, as are the black-eyed Susans. But unfortunately not all of my green buddies are happy.

For the first time since I gathered "Mom and Dad" marigold seeds, I have virtually no crop. We put out hundreds, if not thousands, of seed late May and early June, but the incessant rains have (I think) just rotted them in the ground, as we have entire terraces with not one single marigold. The same for the sunflower seeds my friend Frances sent from her Santa Barbara garden - planted, watched, but alas, not one single sprout. Our vegetable garden is surviving, but the two kinds of basil we put in six weeks ago are just as they were then. They haven't died, but also haven't grown - no sun! The tomato plants are a bit bigger, but they too are not as I would expect by now. They did set some flowers, but those all dropped off in the wet weather without ever forming a single tomato. The pepper plants are like the basil, there but unchanged from their planting height.
The poor eggplant are really struggling, and I empathize with them. Yellow leaves and droopy stems are not much fun, and in just a few days it will be July. I guess all I can do at this point is hope for a sunny month! Of course the hydrangea, aptly named, is flourishing as well as the peonies did - last year, in more normal cycles, we watered it almost every other day. As for the lilies, we might never know. Two does with fawns appeared a week ago, and as the rains washed away the granules and spray that discourages them from munching, they spent most of one night delicately eating off almost all of the flower buds. Apparently no one has instructed them about sharing! The fawns are as cute as ever, but really, can't they all just eat weeds and leave the tenderly planted things alone (not in this world!)?

So the garden continues to instruct me in patience and the inevitability of unpredictability, and the dogs teach me resilience and hope. Now if I can be as good a student as my teachers, I'll make some real progress.

May 3 2009

The biggest news here is the new foster dog, Rusty,
who arrived last Sunday and is already a part of the family. This poor guy was transported all the way from Illinois, over several days, as there are just no foster homes available there. I have a fairly complete history of his travels once ABR got involved, at the end of March, but as he's a senior boy (just right for our senior household) the biggest part of his story remains a mystery. He is the easiest foster I've had, either due to his gentle and loving temperament, or his age (he's also the oldest, my vet guesses 9 or 10). As he encountered many helpful folks along the way from surrender to a generic shelter in a suburb of Chicago by a woman who just said "single working mom don't have time for the dog" and indicated she'd had him about a year, at each turn, I got emails saying the same thing: I'd keep this good boy in a heartbeat if I didn't already have 3, 4, in one case 6 dogs myself. The Illinois vet's office boarded him for a few weeks, and in the end one of the employees known only to me as "poor Jeanette" took him home with her for another few weeks while we worked on transport logistics. Jeanette is the one who sent along kibble, canned food, two kinds of treats, leash, collar, and brand new dog bed. She wrote me that he's such a gentle soul, and so he is. His transport buddies all called and emailed at each step, to make sure he was doing well, and each one repeated what a great dog he was (and is). Now here he is, just about the perfect dog, except that unlike my insomniac self, he is a VERY early riser. Between six and six-thirty in the morning, he will consistently get up and walk over to the stairwell door, waiting to see which one of us staggers out to help him down the stairs, out the porch, and into the run. Luckily he is as willing as I am to go right back to sleep! We had a series of 90-degree days just as he arrived, and I was so pleased that he was quite able to keep up with us on our moderate walks despite the heat. And the first time we let him run off leash in our monastery neighbors' tennis courts, he was thrilled! It made me smile to see him so happy just to run free and sniff - and then I wondered, had this boy ever gotten to do this before? My favorite shot of him so far is among the wood violets, who, like Rusty, are sweet and small and undemanding.
A perfect match! Brian has decided he doesn't look like a Rusty (as if I know what a Rusty looks like, at any given time there are many on the ABR web site and no two look alike). Much to my puzzled amusement, Brian claims he looks like a Glenn. Now who among you reading this has ever looked at any dog and said, "Looks like Glenn to me"? And as Rusty Glenn immediately began following Brian everywhere, his new formal name is Rusty Glenn Shapiro.

In other news, and there is some, we have a dove nesting in our weeping cherry,
exactly where a nest last year was knocked down by the neighbor cats. She's very pretty, and I wish her well, but not only has she made what I think is a very poor choice of nesting spots, given all the 40-foot trees around here, her architectural skills are awful!
I had thought this random pile of twigs was at best an abandoned nest, till I spotted the eggs inside. I hope to be able to tell tales of hatchlings soon, instead of scrambled eggs.

The garden changed overnight the first day of high temperatures, and now we are seeing the lilacs bloom
as the tulips and forsythia drop their petals. The daffodils wilted on the very first day, as did I, and are now just a fond memory. Soon to come will be the iris blooms, then peonies, then lilies.

So that's the news from here. Hope all goes well with all of you, and that your gardens are blooming and your dogs (if you're lucky enough to have them) are thriving too.

March 10 2009

Blooms, beagles and babies: all here for you to enjoy! First, the blooms, which are our forced forsythia stems, second batch. These, as you can see, are in some cases taller than I am!
And best of all, I do believe the outdoor bushes will be blooming quite soon, as we have finally seen enough snow recede to view the ground. Took a stroll yesterday, first time down at the pond in months, and all around the grounds noticed many allium sprouts along with the daffs, crocuses, and one very brave stand of tulips up out of the ground and just waiting for that much-needed warm spell to surge and bloom. The back terraces, as every year, have moved around a bit, so once the ground is not so soggy, Brian will have a big job to do in restacking the stones and supporting the terraces. But after such a very long and bitter winter, I am actually looking forward to weeding (that should last about a month).

Second, the beagle story (unfortunately no snapshot). Last October, mid-month, two nice young guys and their beagle stayed with us for a weekend. I knew I'd like them, as the beagle, Sheila, had more luggage than both of them. We had just gotten Brittie, our then-foster dog, back from the vet's with multiple stitches, so I had to make sure the dogs didn't socialize, but admired Sheila from a distance. Very cute, very smart, and I was primed to like beagles from Uno's Best of Show win at last year's Westminster. They left, and before the month was over, I thought I saw a beagle running across the monastery grounds right after our first snow. But then I said to myself (I talk to myself more and more the longer I live out here) "you're just missing Sheila" - and it happened so fast, I really couldn't be sure that I'd seen anything.

November and December eventually passed, with much snow and really bitter weather. During that time I caught sight of this little dog enough to be convinced I was not imagining things, there was indeed a very little beagle running around without a collar, in the foothills of the Catskills, in the middle of winter. But I also knew that a dog I thought was homeless the first year we moved here, was not, just not being kept to my standards. So I just kept obsessing about the dog, every night I went to bed, wondering who it belonged to, whether it was safe, warm, etc.

And then, in late January, Brian and I went out for our morning walk and the beagle was just on the property line between our neighbors and the monastery - just standing out in way too much snow and barking so sadly. It happened the neighbor came out just then, and I asked if he knew who this dog belonged to. He said "no one", the dog had showed up at their place a week or two earlier and his wife Jackie had been putting out cat food for it to eat (they are, as you might imagine, cat people). Now that I knew this was a dumped dog, I got on the phone and internet for several days, looking for someone, really ANYONE, to help round this dog up and take it to safety. I even contacted three beagle rescue organizations. Only one bothered to write back, and declined to rescue this beagle, telling me that perhaps animal control could take it for a few weeks prior to "putting it down", and that there were worse things than a humane death. Well, I certainly agree with that, but having worried over this dog all winter, my solution was NOT to ship it off to certain death. Finally I was able to convince a no-kill shelter about 40 minutes from us, already overflowing with dogs, cats, horses and birds, to consider taking the beagle. The woman who runs the place (Kerry, my new BFF) wrote that even though they were far too full, the story was just too sad for her to walk away from. So, if we would drive up there, get their trap, and bring the dog in, they'd take her and keep her for the rest of her life if they couldn't find someone to adopt her. YAY! We went tearing off to get the trap (which could have held a mastiff easily), and rushed right back, as yet another huge snowstorm was a day or two away. Our compassionate genius neighbor Jackie, after setting out the cat food and watching the little dog go in and out of the trap without it closing (poor dog was so underweight!), decided to leave a trail of the previous night's pork roast all the way down her path, into the trap, and at the back of the trap put a rather large piece to gnaw on. Success! Clearly not a Jewish dog, or at least not Kosher observant, in she went, gnawed for a while, then took pieces from Jackie's fingers while licking her hands. Up close she looked a bit worse than I thought, but clearly was someone's dog some time, not at all aggressive, just a bit confused. Off we went to the shelter, where I did cry at our goodbyes, but promised Valentine (we took her in Feb. 13) that life was really going to get better now. And it did - before I could get back from visiting my family in the Chicago area, Brian called me to share the big news - she'd been adopted! Valentine was only in the shelter 9 days, and would have been adopted even sooner but the shelter policy required a quarantine period to test for diseases and parasites. I do believe this is the best thing I've done this year!


Last, but clearly never least, the baby. While Hyla never takes a bad photo, this is one of my favorites. Am I wrong or is this not the perfect baby? Doting grandma in evidence as a knee...