Finding a New Friend; and Losing Him

This is about Harley. He is our two year old (three in April or so) who came to live with us after being abandoned as a puppy, and grew, and grew, and grew. Harley is a 200+ lb. St. Bernard with a large pit bull mix brother who he can't play with (because he'll kill him) and a medium-large white and black spotted sister who does play with him, but also plays with the other dog.

Today Harley thought he had found a new playmate. He came running around from behind our old mobile homes all excited, opened his mouth and dropped a mouse on the ground. Then Harley proceeded to bounce back and forth in a playful manner while the terrified mouse ran first one way and then another. Then... so sad... one of his big front paws came down... splat!... on the mouse. And friend mouse played no more.

Harley was quite stunned, and soooooo sad. He sniffed the mouse all over, then sadly walked away, looking back a couple of times with a confused and sorrowful expression. As he sniffed his way around the yard, he kept looking back at the scene of the accident. And before coming back inside, he stopped one more time to look at the mouse, and pay his respects, sort of.

Times like these, I wish we had adopted Rosebud, a distant half-sister of Chelsea, who hung around every day when our house was being built. Then everyone could have a playmate all the time.

(FOUR DOGS??? What am I thinking???)

Eau de Chatte; or The Cat Came Back

It wasn't the cat's fault. It was partly Jack's, and mostly mine.

All the laundry gets hung or folded and put away at our house, except the last load. It gets left in the dryer, and we just pull out the specific garments we want to wear until the next laundry day when the dryer is needed again.

Last evening we rather spontaneously decided to go out for fish and chicken and left hurriedly, with Jack going out the south living room door and me exiting through the bedroom and laundry room. As I passed, I noticed the dryer door slightly ajar and reached down and closed it. Jack had gotten his khaki pants out that morning. It needs to be kept shut, I thought to myself irritably - we probably have cat hair all over our clothes.

We went to Long John Silvers, enjoyed dinner and rang the bell, then brought home leftovers to share with the dogs, who also enjoyed it.

Leana, the cat, was a no-show at bedtime. She's been roaming a lot at night lately, so with no worries, I snuggled in to enjoy my first night's sleep of Christmas break - I don't have to get up at 5:00 am again until next year.

So quite some time after 5:00 this morning, after letting the dogs out and back in, I was just sliding back under the blankets when I heard a scratching at the door. I raised my head and checked - yes, both my doggie roommates were in bed. Ah, there's Leana, I thought. As I reached for the door to let her in, the scratching came again, behind me. You guessed it at least two paragraphs ago. My cat was inside the dryer and had been trapped there for twelve hours.

Our clothes are all ruined, I sighed. One of the absolute truths of life: you can't get cat pee smell out of anything.

WRONG! It's hard to believe, but after sorting the peed-on from the not-peed-on clothes and soaking and washing both groups separately (figuring one was definitely salvageable, and what the heck, I might as well try washing the others too), ALL of them are now clean, dry, and not-smelly!

Maybe because she's just a sweet old lady cat, not a damn tomcat or a queen in heat. Maybe because I got on it really quickly, soon after it happened. Or maybe my not-so-good nose is deceiving me, and the first really warm day in the spring, I'm going to find myself downtown smelling like cat pee.

(Jack sniffed them, too, and declared them cured, but I have to remember his nose has been broken twice and doesn't work that well either.)

Leana has been very purry and cuddly almost all day. Until now, ten minutes to bedtime, and I don't see her anywhere. I might have just a teeny bit of trouble falling asleep.

A Woman of Class

My paternal grandparents moved west from Iowa in the early 1900's. I'm not sure when exactly, but my father was their fourth child, and the first one born in New Mexico, in 1909.

I believe Grandma came from a fairly well-to-do family, and she may have "married down" a bit when she wed my Granddad, who was a carpenter. In any case, they had a nice home with nice furniture, some of which he made. Their fortunes changed when he fell ill with tuberculosis and was unable to work. Doctors told them he might have a chance if they moved to a dry climate, and like many others around that time, they packed up their household goods and moved to New Mexico with three small children. With what little money they had left, they bought a small two or three room house.

Granddad was bedfast, and the family now had no money, so Grandma went to work in a laundry and in a bakery to support them. Between jobs, she rushed home to check on her husband and children.

"Oh, Vi," he groaned, "my back just hurts so..." He was unable even to change positions in bed without help, and the children were too small.

 "Papa's not dead yet," they would say when they met her at the door.

 Their father's health slowly improved. He was never again able to do a full day's work, but he found small jobs to do at his own pace, for the local lumber yard and for the city. Grandma was able to quit the laundry job.

The children contributed, too. They learned how to work at home, and as soon as they were old enough, they industriously sought chores outside the home that people would pay them to do. And every penny was brought home to their mother to help meet the needs of the family. It was this kind of work ethic that earned the family the respect of the community and a higher social standing than one would expect at their level of poverty.

Grandma also made sure that, despite their reduced circumstances, all of her children knew that they were "somebody", and more was expected of them in the way of character, hard work, education, and service. More was expected of them than of others. They must never forget that they represented the family in everything they did. I don't think she ever told them, you are a better "class" of people than some, but she made sure they knew they were not a lower "class" than anyone.

The oldest girl, after high school, went to work for the telephone company and paid for her sister to go to teacher college, and they both paid for four year college educations for their youngest sister and oldest niece. My father took his younger brother under his wing in a business partnership, and served his community in city government.

 My much older brother was the last grandchild to grow up under the influence of our matriarch grandmother, who passed away about the time he graduated from high school, and I was about three. He attributes to her a feeling he refers to as his "superiority complex". He does have one, but not in a bad way, if you get my meaning.

 I still have some thinking to do before I can say how much of my grandmother's influence trickled down to me. I think I'm often a character, but not always classy. It must be in the blood somehow, though, because my daughters are amazingly fine young women.

This week three of them were at my house for breakfast, for my second daughter to meet her new niece, my granddaughter, for the first time. The bookcase under the window was made by my father, the baby's great-grandfather, who was also a pretty good carpenter. And the table was shipped on the train from Iowa by my grandmother, the baby's great-great-grandmother, over 100 years ago.

Skipping Rocks and Puppy Dog Tales

Today is my cousin Don's birthday. I will always remember the summer he went on the road with my family, and we had our birthdays in Del Norte, Colorado. First there was my birthday, when Billy gave me a sparkly elephant pin that I treasured for years. The next day the puppies were born, and then the next day was Don's birthday. He was 16 and I was 11.

There were five of us kids that summer. It could've been the best summer, had I not been the youngest and smallest, and still a child. The others were all teenagers and found it both necessary and convenient to lord it over me most of the time. Billy was 13 and very tall and good-looking. He had been my friend the summer before, when there was no Patty or Don, and my older sister kept strictly to herself and her teen magazines and nail polish. This year Patty, 14 going on 20, was traveling with her aunt, who was somehow related to the show's owner. And Don had come with us. The four older kids formed a close-knit group, exploring the towns and hanging out during the daytime hours, shooting the bull and listening to Billy's large and complete collection of Elvis records before the show opened in the late afternoon. I was forced into the unhappy position of a tag-along little sister, and they never let me forget it.

Thankfully, I had Susie, a little reddish-brown dachshund who had joined our family in Lovington at the end of May. Daddy had parked the trailer in an actual trailer park for the week, and we had hot and cold running water and a small grassy front yard just as if we actually lived there. I had been playing with the little dog all afternoon and was already calling her Susie, when Daddy came home from a long, hard day of setting up the rides.

"Hello there, Susie!" he greeted her, his eyes sparkling and his face crinkling in a smile as he leaned down to pet her. He looked so happy, I recall, realizing now what a special treat it must have been for him to have his family with him for the summer now, after a long spring, during which we would arrive Friday night to work the weekend and leave Sunday evening to be home for school on Monday morning. When Daddy opened the screen door, Susie hopped right into the trailer, the first jump onto the floor and the second jump onto the couch, where she settled happily as if she belonged there.

I played with the little dog every day. Surprisingly, my mother encouraged it. Leave that stray alone, and whatever you do, don't feed it, or you'll never get rid of it, was a lesson already ingrained in me for life. She had observed what I didn't: when I was otherwise occupied, Susie roamed the neighborhood begging for food and affection. Children abused her, holding her upside down and beating her with a stick. On tear-down day, when Mama had finished cleaning the concession trailer and house trailer and all was packed for the move, she suggested we take a walk. We walked around the block with Susie, and Mama spoke to people out in their yards, and even knocked on a couple of doors. No one could say for sure, but everyone believed the dog had belonged to some folks who left her behind when they moved out of the trailer park.

When we left, Susie went with us.

In Roswell, the rides were set up on a busy parking lot beside the main thoroughfare, and it was dangerous for a little dog to run loose. Daddy told Susie and me to come with him, and we carried her right into Sears, where he bought her a nice leather harness and leash. She stepped along at the end of that leash like a show animal, head and tail held high; she was a little princess of a dog, and everyone who saw her smiled.

After Roswell, we traveled north to join the big carnival Daddy had booked us on for the summer. The weeks went by as we moved from town to town, and it became apparent to my parents why someone had abandoned such a fine little dog. Susie's middle grew until she became a big round ball with a head and tail and little short legs, and she had to be lifted into the trailer and up onto the couch. She gave birth there on a old folded blanket, and my sister and I watched and encouraged her. "You can do it, Susie!"

("How do people have babies?" I asked Mama. "The same way," she replied, matter-of-factly.)

Daddy had to help the last one out, which was breech and stillborn.

Since she was my dog, I named her puppies: Sweetie Pie, Sugar Plum, and Honey Bunch were pretty reddish-brown pups like their mother; the others, who were different shades of tan with brown markings, I called Billy, Patty, and Ringo.

In just a few weeks, we were back home for school to start. For the first time in four years, my best friend and I were in the same class, where we made two new close friends, and were all cheerleaders for one of the sixth grade football teams. In the afternoons when I walked home, I was met by six excited, wiggling puppies! Life was good.

Sugar Plum and Honey Bunch were given to good homes. Billy and Patty went with some people visiting our neighbor, and we long enjoyed reports of their wonderful lives on a farm in Arkansas. Susie and the last pretty little girl puppy, Sweetie Pie, just disappeared one day. We never knew for sure what had happened to them, but neighbors had seen the city dogcatcher's truck skulking about. For many years after that, the dogcatcher and families all up and down the street where he lived had pretty little dachshunds in their yards, and my mother muttered almost under her breath yet still in her deep, angry voice, "...them pretty little dogs...that thievin' SOB...!"

Ringo, the one puppy who was not especially pretty, was the only puppy left, and went on to live his own life stories.

************

I'd like to go back and visit Del Norte, where so many memories began. The Rio Grande was just outside of the town, within easy walking distance of the lot, and Daddy took me there and taught me to skip rocks across it. Sometimes during the week when the teenagers were being mean, I walked to the river alone and skipped rocks while daydreaming and thinking faraway thoughts. I had never thought of the Rio Grande being anywhere but in New Mexico while on its way to become the border line between Texas and Old Mexico, far south of where I lived. It was a surprisingly big river in Colorado, unlike what I was used to seeing in Albuquerque and further south where river water was diverted for irrigation and other purposes.

Forty years later I taught the oldest and youngest of my daughters to skip rocks across the Rio Grande on the edge of Texas in Big Bend National Park.

It's Raining!

I can't believe it's raining! Thank you, Don*! I really didn't believe any moisture would make it this far north in Texas. I'd like to be out in it, dancing, glorifying, but there's this dog sitting on my foot.


We were out on the porch and I was noticing some small, but puffy, gray clouds floating around, when CRACK! THUNDER suddenly boomed and even rolled a little. It's been so long, the dogs have forgotten. Frankie and Harley hurried from their respective spots in separate yards to where I sat in my chair by the connecting gate, and Chelsea... Well, Chelsea actually tried to climb up in my lap! She's a little too big for that now. She was almost too big the last time she did it, frightened by fireworks on the Fourth of July three years ago as a six month old grown pup.

Now it's over. I'm so wishing for more, and more, and more to soak into this dry, dusty yard of mine.

Chelsea still hovers, licking my feet, pawing my leg, lying against my foot - any and all reassuring contact with Mom.

I'm about to disappoint her. I'm going back out and try and attract some more. A rain dance, perhaps. 


 *Tropical Storm Don, now giving some relief to parts of south Texas and Mexico.

My Quilt Journal

This morning I started a new blog to share and write about my quilts. I'm not sure how to direct you to it other than type the url, or suggest you go to my profile and click on that blog.

http://fabricofourlives-byjudeann.blogspot.com

I like blogger, and am figuring out what I want to do here. This quilt journal is a must. Judyism, my original blog, will trend more toward memoirs - the telling of stories from my past experiences that make me "Me". There will be at least one more blog to come. I'm not sure anyone is actually reading me yet, including my "followers", but that's all right now. I just need to write about stuff. And if others - family, friends, quilting buddies and dog friends - find it interesting, that will make it fun.

The Birth of a Quilt

The Deer Quilt

(for son-in-law)

My favorite time with a quilt is just after its first wash (hand wash, of course), when I'm drying it on the line, snipping little threads and watching the quilting design pop out.

It's similar, actually, to feelings experienced just after the birth of your child. The work is all done, the hullabaloo is over, and both you and your baby have been washed clean and sweet-smelling, swaddled in your large and small blankets, and left alone to get acquainted. Oh, you already know one another very well - so many months you have spent together in this process of creation and growth! Now it is done, and with pride and love swelling your heart until you feel you may burst, you thoroughly examine this new thing, each crease and seam, each point and curve, and caress its incredible softness. No matter where this child or this quilt may go during its lifetime, it will always be a part of you.

If you look for imperfections, you are sure to find them for none but God is perfect. The birthmark at the base of the spine, the elfin ear, Grandpapa's nose... none of them matter. This is the most beautiful child you have ever seen.

We are more critical of our quilts as we note the slight pattern variation caused by the misplaced square or the substitution for fabric that didn't go quite far enough, and always in my creations, the quilting that meandered off into next block when it wasn't supposed to. It can be very disappointing if we allow it - we hope to someday make the perfect quilt! I'm reminded of the lesson of the Amish, who are widely known for their beautiful, exact quiltmaking. They intentionally include a mistake in every quilt to glorify God. It is a visible reminder that only God can be perfect.

How often throughout the quiltmaking process do I say, "Well... there's my one mistake," and a little bit later, "Well... there's my other one mistake." And later: "Well... there's another one." Hallelujah!

Back of the quilt, in sun and shadow

Chelsea and Frankie showing how good they'd look

on it, back when the top was just completed

A Secret Pleasure

Teehee! It's not what the title would lead you to believe - it's another dog blog!

 Frankie, my 100 lb pitbull mix, is often called "Mister". Mister Personality, Mister Enthusiasm, Mister Tippy-tail. Head into the kitchen, and he leaps up and bounces after you, toenails tap-dancing on the wood laminate floor. The more noise, the better, he thinks, as he clatters across the tiles to the corner cabinet which houses the large box of dog biscuits. By this time, Chelsea is prancing and dancing along as well, and in the bedroom, Harley has sprung up from his lumpy imitation of a wooley rug and is bobbing back and forth behind the hallway gate. You reach through the crowd of noses (yes, two can be a crowd) to get three bones from the box. Frankie takes his and runs back across the kitchen and living room to leap onto the couch and crunch it up, Chelsea hunkers down and eats hers right there on the kitchen floor, and when you pass Harley's through the gate, he whips around and hops onto his futon at the foot of the king-size bed. Throughout the evening, they beg for milk bones, and ALWAYS it's an all-for-one, one-for-all deal - everybody gets one. If one of the three happens to have gone outside, we wait for him to come back in. We do this three or four times every night.

Eventually I slip through the gate to get ready for bed and let Harley out the utility door. Chelsea and Frankie jump up to go out with Jack, as he picks up his lighter and taps out a final cigarette from his pack. When they all come back in, they complete the ritual by having one last dog treat before Chelsea joins Harley and me for the night.

The other night Frankie and Jack could not go to sleep. Frankie especially was still restless long after the other dogs and I were sawing logs in the other room. He began to be quite pestersome, so the story goes, hopping up beside Jack and whiskering him in his face, then jumping back down to the floor and pushing a cold nose in his ear.

"Do you want something?" asked Jack. Smiles and wags replied, "Uh huh."

 Jack sat up and whispered to the dog: "Okay. But we have to be quiet about this - absolutely quiet!" He could hardly believe what happened next.

 Frankie turned and walked slowly on the pads of his feet making no noise whatsoever on the way to the cabinet in the kitchen. He sat very still, waiting as Jack carefully extracted a milk bone from the box and handed it to him. Then, he walked slowly and soundlessly back to the couch and stepped - not jumped - STEPPED up onto it, curled up with his face to the wall, and ate the treat with as little crunching as possible.

 He never ceases to amaze.

The Prankster

FRANKIE

One day I brought home a package of three hard rubber, high-bouncing balls as a surprise for three bouncy dogs. They were curious and full of sniffs, but not overly excited as I led them out onto the big cement slab we called the patio. But when I tossed the first one down and it rebounded high in the air, the game was on! Balls and dogs were all over the place, and if somebody else snatched your ball just before you could get it, it was no big deal, you just ran after another one. Every once in awhile, one of the balls would get lost under something, and Jack and I would help find it quickly before anybody started feeling left out. It was a fun, fun playtime.

After a bit, though, two balls were lost at the same time. Frankie still had his, held under one outstretched paw as he rested on his brisket with the other paw curled in toward his chest. Surprisingly, he just watched as the rest of us hunted everywhere - usually he'd be right in front of you everywhere you looked, completely blocking your view while he stuck his nose in first. Harley and Chelsea eventually gave up, greatly disappointed, and started looking for other dog things to do. The game was over.

I was pretty impressed that Frankie wasn't tossing and bouncing his ball, rubbing it in. Then as I strolled past him, I happened to catch his eye, and it was absolutely sparkling. He saw me looking at him, and then he was grinning. Did he? Could he have? I leaned over to look, and sure enough, just under his chin and hidden behind his paw, were the two missing balls.



He's the mischievous boy! What can you do? I motioned to Jack, who quietly made his way over to see what I'd found, and then the three of us all had a good laugh. Chelsea and Harley glanced up curiously from their dog business for a moment, then got back to it.

The Beautiful Mimosa

I need a few more shade trees spaced strategically around my house and ground. Driving home from work this morning, I spied a shapely, wide-spread specimen up ahead and eased back on the accelerator to get a better look at it. It turned out to be a mimosa, and I laughed out loud.

"Oh! The beautiful mimosas!" my mother-in-law used to exclaim, and it made her son, my husband, crazy. Off he would go into his tirade:

"They have thorns. They have big, sticky flowers that drip all over everything, and it's hard to get off - absolutely RUINS the paint job on your car!! And to top it off, they have a million seed pods, which all take root, and you end up with those damn trees coming up EVERYWHERE in your yard. And you CAN'T GET RID OF THEM!!!"

His mom's been gone for 20 years, but still, just mention "mimosa" and he gets this look on his face - kind of a mixture of disbelief, horror, and outrage. Deja vous - all of the above - makes you want to look over your shoulder at the pick-up to see if maybe they accidentally loaded one or two when you stopped at the garden store this morning.

He's not completely unreasonable. Once he winds down, wipes his brow, and takes a couple of deep, cleansing, calming breaths, he is able to concede that the trees with their feathery branches and pink blooms are pretty, despite being the horrid, nasty things that they are.

I can't wait for him to come home so I can tell him about the beautiful mimosa I saw today.

Do Not Read

No reading? Then what am I going to do?

I am into week 4 of the Artist's Way course by Julia Cameron, a course to help me in unblocking and discovering my natural creativity.

This week I am not to read. What? Not read? Admittedly, I do spend a large amount of time reading, mostly mysteries and detective novels, knocking them out at a rate of five or six a week. If I didn't have obligations of four hours of work and the time preparing and eating a civilized dinner with my husband each day, I'd probably spend even more time with my nose in a book. Besides the occasional really great book, I get hooked on series of novels in which each mystery stands alone, but the secondary story of the life of the main sleuth is ongoing, with new permanent characters being introduced in each succeeding book. I'm especially susceptible to alphabetical series.

According to the creator of this course, reading is one of the ways we blocked creatives try to avoid our own thoughts and feelings and the expression of them. If we are not reading, we will have to find something else to do, and she lists a number of things people might do when they are not reading. On the list are even some of the things I've been meaning to do whenever I get around to it: make curtains, rearrange the kitchen, repot some plants, sort closets, have friends to dinner, paint the bedroom...

I recall a time several years ago when I seemed to have a kind of "reader's block". That is, for some reason, I just couldn't get interested in a book, even a new novel by a favorite author. It was a troubled time in my marriage, and possibly I had thoughts and feelings that were too overpowering to be avoided. It was during this time that I first started blogging. I didn't write about my marital problems, at least not directly, but the stories I told, the memories I shared, and the issues I addressed all helped me to sort things out in my mind.

So I can understand how the reading deprivation may tend to jump start something else, and I'm even a little excited about it. Luckily I only checked out two books at the library the other day, and have just finished the first, so I'm not caught in the middle of one. I can experiment with this for a week.

The Task I've chosen to do, in case anyone is interested in doing it also, is Time Travel. I'm to describe myself at eighty years old, and what I've been doing since fifty that I have enjoyed. Then I'm to write a letter from myself at eighty to myself at my current age with advice and encouragement to follow my dreams.

A Task that intrigues me, but which I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle, is to examine one situation in my life that I feel I should change, but continue to ignore. And answer the question: What is the payoff for you in staying stuck?

Spider Bites

This is our sweet Harley.



That's his good side. Harley had a horrid experience this week. Over the weekend while our tiny grandson Mark was visiting for the first time, the dogs, inexperienced with small children, were separated into different yards for his protection. Sunday afternoon Harley began to show some bleeding and drainage from a small abscess on his right cheek. Jack recalled a recent incident when Leana reached out from the coffee table and hooked him good with her claw - dastardly cat! We were not terribly concerned.

On Monday the cheek was more swollen, with a wide open sore, and his sweet face and front legs were soaked with drainage. He was feverish, lying directly in the cool AC for a few minutes, then searching for a warm spot away from it, and drinking gallons of water. He paced fitfully at night as well, and I was up letting him out and in more than half a dozen times. When he sat, he franticly licked his right leg. He sat pushing against me at 4:00 am. Instead of getting up to let him out again, I began rubbing his rump and talking softly to him. He relaxed a bit, and I was able to reach halfway up his back with my other hand, petting and talking. He lay down with his full length pressed against my full length, and in a few minutes I heard snores. Finally, he got two hours of good, restful sleep.

Tuesday morning, although Harley seemed to feel a bit better after his good rest, the swelling and drainage were even worse. We began to suspect a spider bite - he could have been bitten by a brown recluse under the old mobile home while seeking cool shade. We called Dr. Penny, and she said, yep, that's what it sounds like.

Dr. Penny came in her mobile veterinarian van a little after noon, and she and Jack worked on Harley in the shade on the front porch. As much as he liked the nice lady, she had to sedate him in order to shave the affect parts and examine him. Sure enough, he had multiple spider bites on his cheek and leg. He must have laid down in a nest of 'em! But dogs have much stronger immune systems than humans, and they heal quicker. She shot him full of pain killer that she said would linger on in his system for as long as a month, and a mega-dose of a penicillin type antibiotic. Also vitamin B-12 and vitamin K. And gave him a little bag of pills to take over the next two weeks. She also recommended we get a large tube of Preparation H, which would help with the swelling and also help to draw the poison out.

She recommended that "nurse" Chelsea, our smaller white and black dog, who wants to lick and clean anyone who is wounded, be kept away from him, as the drainage from these wounds was very poisonous. She would have to concentrate her loving efforts on the ears and eyes of Frankie, the large pitbull mix who sleeps with Jack in the other room.

Each day Harley has looked better. And today, Friday, I'm letting everyone know that he is AMAZINGLY better. Yesterday I still had to coax him to eat, but today he ate his usual amount easily, although he does enjoy being coaxed. Who doesn't like a little extra attention, lol? The cheek is a bit crusty, but no oozing, and the leg bites never festered, so Chelsea can sleep with us again.

I've been wondering what Harley might weigh, as he hasn't been in to the vet's office in over a year, and an adult St. Bernard has a weight range of 130-200+ lbs. Dr. Penny isn't able to weigh such a big animal in her mobile office, but she estimates him to be in the 200+ area. She wrote "205" on his paperwork. Later that evening, she called to give us the results of his bloodwork - everything looked good, including his liver, kidneys and pancreas, which she said can be greatly affected by venom, as those organs filter out poisons from the body. I wonder if he fared so well partly because he is so huge.

Good lord! I just realized I have nearly 400 lbs of dogs! Harley at 205, and Frankie at 95... I wonder how much Chelsea weighs. I've been imagining about 70.
　
　

My Room

A task assigned to me in The Artist's Way, a workshop for unblocking your natural creativity, by Julia Cameron:
Describe your childhood room. If you wish, you may sketch this room. What was your favorite thing about it? What's your favorite thing about your room right now? Nothing? Well, get something you like in there--maybe something from that old childhood room. My childhood room was very large, probably about 14 feet square with 10 foot walls. It nearly echoed. It was a corner room in an old farmhouse built in the early 1900's, with two windows on the west wall and one facing north. My father had built a storage unit all across the west wall, which included a closet in each corner, a low six-drawer component under each window, and a vanity and mirror with two small side drawers in the center. The wood floor was almost covered with a linoleum with a light brown and blonde background and a geometric pattern that included some red and green. (At first I was trying to remember a similar floor with a floral pattern, but I think that was somewhere else, as each of the nine rooms and three bathrooms of the house had a different one.) The walls and ceiling had been textured but never painted. The head of the big double bed was opposite the mirror and windows, centered on the east wall right next to the door. At bedtime I could just barely leap from the hallway to the bed and hide under the covers, holding my breath for a long count, thus foiling the under-the-bed monsters. Apparently this was only necessary in winter when dark came early, the linoleum was freezing cold, and the blankets were thick and heavy.

My favorite thing about it? I guess simply that it was mine. In late spring and early fall, I liked the north window opening to the cool side of the house, shaded both by the two-story structure and by tall elm trees along the edge of the property. I liked the vanity, with an old embroidered dresser cloth, and interesting little knick-knacky things I had collected, some bought wih my own money from my little red velvet purse, which Granddad refilled with change from his pocket. I have no summertime memories, because we were never there in the summer.

What do I like about my room now? Ah, I like it because it is, or feels, large. After too many years of living in a teeny-tiny house, I crave space, and my new small house was designed with an open plan to satisfy that need above all. My room has two big walls for pictures or mirrors, mostly created from photos of my own. It has the perfect combination of quieting darkness in the sleeping area and energizing light coming from the bright open living area which has windows all around. My favorite thing about my room is the small nook created accidentally between the curtained closet and the laundry room, where my corner desk fits perfectly just under the one window. Right angle to the window, a short wall now holds an interesting poster, but may later display a pretty painting and/or some small shelves for paperbacks and knick-knacks.
　

Mary Jane and the Panties

If dogs were eligible for sainthood, I would nominate Mary Jane, a three year old Jack Russell terrier. She understands well her familial responsibilities, and carries them out whatever the cost, enduring martyrdom for the love of Emmalee. 

Emmalee is being potty trained, and is doing pretty well. To encourage her, Mommy and Daddy bought her several packages of soft, colorful, pretty little girl panties, an incentive for her to make it to the potty in time to avoid soiling them.

This morning Emmalee was playing quietly in her room with Mary Jane keeping her company, while Mommy worked at her desk. Usually it is very hard to get anything done with Emmalee around, especially on the computer, but this morning was a nice exception. Time passed, and Mommy had become very focused on her task, when she sensed a presence beside her. Looking down, she saw two eyes staring up intently. The eyes pleaded, "Help me... help me!"

Mary Jane was wearing Emmalee's panties - over her head! (And do you see the string of beads?!)

 

Then Mommy noticed that Mary Jane was also wearing a pair of panties on the other end of her body. The little elastic waistband hung appropriately on the dog's even tinier waist, and her little hind feet had been placed correctly through the leg openings. There was no itty-bitty hole in the panties for her tail, nevertheless the little stump wiggled hopefully under the silky material as she gazed imploringly up at Mommy.

When she was finally able to stop laughing, Mommy grabbed her camera and took pictures. Too bad for us (but happily, I'm sure, for Mary Jane), the second pair of panties had slipped down enabling her to step out of them.

The Tah-Heinie Girl

My third daughter, along with my new son-in-law, invited me out for Mother's Day lunch today. Dad was driving home from Amarillo at the end of an exhausting weekend business trip, and with perfect timing, we all converged on the restaurant to share soup, salad, pizza, and strawberry shortcake and, of course, a lot of memories.

Appropriately, I donned my mother-of-the-bride dress, the one she had made me especially for her wedding, but which I didn't get to wear. Instead, there was a frantic last-minute switch to a store-bought navy blue knit dress after the bridesmaids changed their minds about their dresses - we would've clashed. Anyway, I was happy to finally wear my special dress today on a special outing with my special seamstress.

A wise woman (my own mother) used to say that a mother of one knows all there is to know about children and child-rearing, and the mother with two is almost as certain, but the mother of three or more will say that no two are the same. (She also said that the only woman who knows better about raising children than the mother of one is an old maid. I do not know to whom she referred!) Today I indulged in one of my pleasures as the mother of four - I thrilled in the uniqueness of this child, how different she is from her sisters, and indeed how perfect and lovely yet completely unalike are the four of them. I am so blessed! 

When this child was very small and was given her bath, she loved to climb out of the tub and race through the house wet and naked. This led to a game started by one of her older sisters when she reached with one hand to grasp the two little butt cheeks and say, "Tiny heinie! Tiny heinie!" The evening bath quickly became a fun time anticipated by all.

Another favorite memory is taking her grocery shopping. Dad pushed the cart, and she toddled along just in front of him, holding onto the cross bar of the rack beneath the basket. While they handled that end of the business, I carried my list and made our selections. Well, actually I grabbed the stuff off the shelves and threw it in the basket as I raced to keep a few steps ahead of my helpers. Sometimes I just wasn't fast enough, and they would have to circle around through the next aisle and come back to me. She marched and pushed - she never stopped!

With one exception: there was a part of the store we tried to avoid, the one with the tall cage full of play balls. There she would abandon her cart-pushing responsibilities to pull out one ball after another from the bottom and gleefully throw them! We would have balls bouncing and rolling all over the store until we finally got them gathered up and tossed back into the bin. These were the days we bought a new ball, so she would stop grabbing and throwing in order to choose one.

One day she and Dad were hurrying past the canned fruits and vegetables, when they came to a necessary halt to avoid hitting another shopper. A woman of ample proportions was standing in their way as she considered the fruit. She leaned over to reach a can of peaches, read the label, then replaced it and picked up another one, remaining bent over in kind of a half squat while she pondered. My child gazed intently at the woman and then walked up behind her, spreading her arms wide and declaring loud and clear, "BIG tah-heinie!"

It was just one of many magical moments. I've had a wonderful Mother's Day.

The Birth of Judyism

I was born in the local Food Basket, probably somewhere back in the produce department.

It always amused me to say this when, at the beginning of the school term, children were pressed to share their basic information in a get-acquainted sort of activity. It was true enough, although at the time of my birth, the building was still the small Osteopathic Hospital in our small town. Then I liked to follow it up with another tidbit: I was born at 9:00 o'clock in the morning, but I didn't breathe until noon. Also true. Taken prematurely by C-section from a mother with the dangerous and dramatic symptoms of eclampsia, I refused to breathe on my own for three hours, till the doctor cried, "Oh, if I only had a resuscitator!" My father the mayor immediately called the Fire Chief, and mine became the first tiny life saved with the new resuscitator just acquired by the city's Fire Department. Even so, it was a chore to keep me alive, as I also refused to eat. I only wanted to sleep, and had to be forced to stay awake and swallow every tiny drop of my formula.

So there are three things you can learn about me from my birth and childhood: I'm stubborn, I have a habit of using "shock" statements to get attention, and I might be a little brain damaged. Feel free to point out any or all of these possible flaws when coming here to study Judyism.