Clean Carpet, Clean Slate

Even as I wrote the words I could hear my mother admonishing me: don't give it a kenahora. Literally translated (and correctly spelled, if there is such a thing in Yiddish), it's something about keeping the evil eye away.

Sometimes mom would anglicize it for me, her way of dumbing it down: don't give it a canary. No matter how you say it, the lesson has stuck with me. If you boast a good thing, assert it as an absolute truth, you will jinx it. Rarely have I dared to test the correlation; the last thing I need is a gratuitous wink from an evil eye. Alas, if I could only turn back time and press the delete button, unsay what I said about my dog never getting lost or hit by a car when he squeezes himself through an escape hatch in the fence. True, he is not lost and he did not get hit by a car, but the evil eye does not pay all that much attention to tiny details. The evil eye winked, and whatever unkosher snack had lured Manny's head through the small gap was being expelled, once every hour, in a hideous trail through the floors of my house.

So while the guests at my impromptu "say sayonara to my son before he heads back to Japan" gathering enjoyed pizza and watched a not-so-enjoyable football game, I kept a watchful (and if I do say so myself, benevolent) eye on Manny as each new hour approached, hoping to confine his projectile vomiting to small and easy to clean spaces. I was impressive at first. I folded up the edge of a brand new rug seconds before he puked where the rug would have been; I got him off the couch and over to the wood floor just in time for episode number four. As the hour got later, though, my reflexes slowed. By then, to make matters worse, it was just insidious yellow bile, which is particularly insidious when it comes out in random spurts on beige carpet.

At eleven twenty, exactly twenty minutes after the offices of our new vet five minutes away closed, I decided to check the Internet for some insight into what might be ailing Manny. (I had not yet made the connection between the burrowing under the fence and possible food poisoning, so I was going with the flu.) A quick Google search led me to a headline about a deadly dog flu virus that had already killed six dogs in Michigan. Michigan is only a centimeter away from Highland Park, Illinois on the map. I panicked.

The good news about driving to the vet at midnight was I wouldn't have to struggle to get up at two thirty to drive my son to the airport. I cancelled the alarm I had set. After a bit of physical exertion (I had to carry Manny downstairs while my daughter managed to get the queen size mattress off the top of the car, but that's a story for another time), Manny and I were on the road. As nice as they are at the veterinary hospital, I have not been there since I put down my other dog two and a half years ago, unless you count the brief visit to pick up his ashes. As if that weren't enough to stir up all sorts of bad feelings, for the entire time I spent waiting in a cubicle for them to examine Manny I had to listen to two different dog owners moan and cry non-stop while they went through the heart wrenching process of losing their best friend. I clapped my hands over my ears but drywall is thin, even in a fancy pet hospital.

Nobody seemed to take me seriously about the Michigan dog flu (do they not teach geography in veterinary school?) but everybody agreed that Manny was definitely not feeling so great. I think that portion of the visit cost about three hundred dollars. Tempting as it was, I passed on their offer to keep Manny there so they could monitor him and hook him up to an IV, choosing the far cheaper option of taking him home and hoping the anti-nausea meds would take effect.

We arrived home in plenty of time for me to lift Manny out of the car and drop him -- rather unceremoniously -- on the couch so I could get ready to drive my son to the airport. The good news is I was so exhausted I forgot how miserable I was that my son was leaving and he didn't have to deal with my sniffling. The bad news is I have gotten no sleep and there is now a large mattress taking up a lot of space in my little garage and there are vomit stains all over my carpet. But the other good news is I met a really nice eighty-nine year old man at the Home Depot (my new Bloomingdale's) who seemed to know a lot about stain removal and introduced me to a miracle product that will not only erase circles of vomit from my carpet but also clean grease off pots and get rid of brown marks in coffee cups and completely dissolve permanent marker stains. He even demonstrated the marker thing, right there in Aisle 2. I am not being glib. His advice and his kindness made my day, and I am betting he felt pretty good about being able to help. Win win.

Manny is still very lethargic but I am too exhausted to worry, yet. I have constructed a makeshift blockade with patio chairs in the yard to keep him away from whatever enticing little carcass still lies on the other side of the fence, and I have vowed to never again give myself a kenahora. No more canaries; this evil eye crap is definitely for the birds.

At least I can enter this little adventure in the 2013 column, and move into 2014 tomorrow night with an unstained slate.

A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

Sensing Direction

Blind as he is, my dog adjusted to our new home fairly quickly. There are different walls in different places, and he inches along them, just as he did at the old house, occasionally slamming into one. Just as he did at the old house. He is finding his way, and he is more than willing to suffer the occasional low speed setback.

He is far more cautious when it comes to stairs. His conveniently flattened face can withstand endless collisions with plaster, but he somehow knows not to take chances with vertical tumbles. He can sense the plunging empty space of an approaching downward staircase, and he moves with caution, using his paw to locate the edge. He senses the oncoming hurdle of an upward staircase well in advance, and lifts his forepaws alternately in a bit of canine ballet as he anticipates a climb.

A keen sense of smell is certainly an asset, but, for Manny, navigating the world is mostly about preparation, approximation, and risk assessment. He gets lost a lot but he rarely gets hurt. He is on constant alert, readying himself to the extent he can for obstacles. He never seems to know exactly where the obstacles are, but he allows himself a generous margin of error when he knows he is getting close. He gets sloppy when he can afford to, takes extra precaution when the stakes are higher. He knows he is safest when he is by my side, but he savors his independence and is willing to sacrifice a little bit of security for an occasional adventure. He is, in that way, not unlike the rest of us.

When I was in my early twenties, I bumped into a lot of walls. I always caught myself (or allowed someone to catch me) before I went off a cliff, but I was determined to assert my independence. More often than not, I had no idea where I was going or what I was looking for. My parents wanted to protect me from whatever was out there, and I occasionally took them up on it. Security has its appeal, but so does independence. If we are lucky, we can have a bit of both. We all have different comfort levels, we all struggle to find the right balance. Thirty years later, I still get bruised, still find myself way too close to the edge before I turn tail and seek out safer ground.

In our new house, Manny has chosen a favorite spot on each level, a spot where he can feel independent and secure at the same time. He goes where he knows I am close by, where he can hear me and I, in turn, can hear him. Sometimes, when he goes in the yard, he disappears around the side of the house for a long time. I know what he is doing. He is digging, desperately clawing through a chunk of earth so he can squeeze under the fence into the neighbor's yard. Last night, I found him there, with his head already halfway through. I dragged him back into the house. I will try to patch up the hole, and he will keep digging. It's a dance we did at the old house.

I will keep my eye on him, even though I am fairly confident he will not get lost or hurt. He will make his escape, come out on the other side of the hole -- if not this one, another one -- and savor his newfound freedom. And then, as he always did at our old house, he will make his way around to the front door, and wait, as long as he has to, for me to let him back in. Briefly energized by his taste of the world outside, he will be relieved to be safe again, and will once again settle in to one of his favorite spots, staying close but not too close to me as I go up and down the stairs.

Home, for Manny, is where the lady with the food is. No matter where we end up, Manny will wrestle with his yearning for a bit of independence and his need to feel save, and loved. He will take an occasional chance, and he will suffer an occasional setback. But, with a little preparation, approximation, and risk assessment, he will, somehow, seek out his comfort level and find the right balance. He is not unlike the rest of us.

Quiet Reflection

It occurred to me yesterday that the only person with whom I had any interaction on Christmas day was the guy at the drive-thru Dunkin Donuts window. Texts and emails don't count, and frankly I'm not sure the quick, relatively wordless transaction with the top half of a guy handing me coffee through a small opening in a wall counts either.

To say I enjoyed a traditional Jewish Christmas might be a bit of a stretch. I did not exactly go to the movies, although I did watch The Shawshank Redemption on DVD. Nor did I venture out for Chinese food, although I did microwave a package of frozen vegetables that included a little packet of Asian style sauce. The dog and I walked into town, which was eerily empty except for the cluster of cars surrounding the movie theatre. It's a Jewish neighborhood; I assume the underground parking lot was already full.

I am relieved to have Christmas behind me. It's not my holiday, but I couldn't help feeling like a bit of a loser knowing that most other folks were either stuffing themselves silly with sugary cookies while opening presents or lying on a beach in Puerto Vallarta. Or at least out with friends for a movie and Chinese food. I have no burning desire to be engaged in any of those activities, but still. Now, to top it all off, I have to endure the days leading up to New Year's, days filled with way too much free time that I will no doubt use to conduct a pointless referendum on my life.

Reflection sucks. I thought about that as I looked in the mirror this morning, squinting at the reflection of my "just got out of bed" face. Horrifying, but it could be a lot worse. They say the Lord works in mysterious ways, but sometimes her logic is astounding. Like the way she has our eyes begin to struggle with up close vision just as our faces fall prey to gravity and reduced elasticity. The Lord's embargo on plumping facial oils coincides with our difficulty in seeing anything closer than arm's length. Which is why I sometimes practically press my face into the glass, just so I cannot see the wrinkles.

It's the other kind of reflection, though, the hours pondering the things I have not yet accomplished and the things I would really like to accomplish in the coming year but am pretty sure I won't, that makes the horror of the reflection in the mirror seem like child's play. All the should'ves and the shoulds, the self destructive focus on personal failures, real and imagined -- the kind of reflection that makes me want to take the mirror I have conjured up and smash it to pieces. Again, the Lord's ways aren't mysterious at all; there's a reason she has us drink ourselves under the table on New Year's Eve and wake up on New Year's Day with a throbbing hangover. It's all about survival; in our frantic search for Advil and coffee we forget about our false promises, at least for another year. It almost makes me rethink my disdain for organized religion.

At least I am interacting with humans again, now that Christmas is over and stores are open. My conversation with the Starbucks barista seemed downright meaningful compared to the limited exchange at the drive-thru, and later today I will visit the cable company service center to discuss an entirely inane situation. The conversation will be unproductive, but it will no doubt be very long. I am purposely going today, not waiting until after New Year's, when I will have forgotten all my reflections and my resolutions to be nice.

Winter Staycation

This week, the population in my zip code will shrink considerably as a good percentage of my neighbors fly south for winter break. I will be able to stroll into any restaurant at any time and get fed immediately. I will be able to run into the local high end grocery store and have my number called before I have time to come to my senses and wonder why I would spend so much on a thimble full of pasta salad.

If the traffic situation in town is any indication, many of the snow birds have not yet left the nest. Even though the weather has been unseasonably warm for days, parking spaces remain empty a mere block or two from all the shops while long lines of cars clog narrow lanes to wait for spots that might open up within feet of the drivers' destinations. I shovel my own driveway now. I park off the beaten path. I have to admit it all makes me feel a little bit superior.

Given the choice, I have always preferred to tough out a bit more winter before I treat myself to long days of bone soothing warmth, but still, it's hard to avoid an occasional pang of jealousy every time I see a taxi pull up in someones driveway and pop open the trunk. Months of waning sun have left my skin dull and an odd shade of faded olive. I have thrown myself into a new skin care regimen, taking comfort in the notion that I am at least preserving the status quo as far as my wrinkles are concerned. The highly trained esthetician behind the counter assured me that all the peptides and enzymes and exotic sounding botanical extracts would literally glue the crevices in my cheeks together. She squeezed her fist for emphasis; it looked as if I would need a crowbar to pry her fingers apart. The glue has not worked as quickly as I had hoped on the crevices in my cheeks but I remain optimistic; at the very least, my face feels kind of sticky.

This weekend, while many of the neighboring nests have begun to empty, my new nest has had a bit of a population explosion. All three of my children have converged under my tiny roof. Unfamiliar jackets, wet from walks in the icy rain while the lesser souls await perfect parking spots, hang over the backs of every available chair and newel post. The driver's seat in my car never seems to be where I left it as offspring at opposite ends of the height spectrum take it for spins. As if the seat position isn't solid enough evidence of who drove last, the cranked up radio station that startles me when I turn on the ignition confirms my suspicions. I woke this morning to find a motley collection of blankets strewn in the vicinity of the family room couch and the detritus of late night snacks littering pretty much every surface in the kitchen. The dog is confused. I couldn't be happier.

For lunch yesterday, we dined at Chipotle because my son can't get Chipotle in Japan. For dinner we dined at the nearby Jewish-Mexican restaurant because, well, where else can you get delicious and authentic Mexican food in a place owned by Spanish speaking guys named Isaac and Moishe? Who needs the hassle of holiday travel to Puerto Vallarta with all these delicacies so close to home? If I get really desperate, I can always try a spray tan.

By the time all the snow birds return with their already fading tans, the fleeting swell in my nest will be gone. We will shrink back to normal size -- just me, one daughter, a blind dog. My son will be back on the other side of the planet, where burritos are painfully scarce but people seem to live really long. A diet of fish and rice may have something to do with that, but frankly I think longevity without a steady supply of Mexican food is highly overrated. My older daughter will return to her busy life and I will once again have to settle for an occasional quick visit and a lot of quick texts. My youngest will once again be stuck here without siblings to lean on as we recapture the still unfamiliar rhythm of our new household. She will count the days until she gets to fly off on her own; I will too, but probably with a bit more ambivalence.

I will begin to get over the pangs of jealousy as I see the taxis returning to the neighborhood and depositing all the weary travelers on their slushy doorsteps. I will get over my own shrunken nest, or at least get accustomed to it. My innate impatience will help me to save money at the overpriced local grocery store as the crowds reappear and I will feel even more superior than I do now when everybody is back in town and I have to park even farther away from where I need to be.

And I will look forward to my own escape to warmer climes in spring, an escape that will seem particularly sweet after months of snow shoveling and long cold walks. Mostly, I will look forward to the next time the population explodes in my house and it becomes filled with wet jackets and tossed blankets and dirty dishes and the sound of my three grown children laughing together -- even if it's about me.

Number Crunching

It was not until late in the evening yesterday that I realized it was December 12th. Exactly a year from the day on which my divorce was finalized, a day that should be memorable if not for the official ending of my twenty-six year marriage then at least because of its numerical symmetry -- twelve-twelve-twelve.

At the time, friends had come up with all sorts of creative ideas about the significance of the date. Three twelves add up to thirty-six, which is twice eighteen, or "chai" in Hebrew, which means life and signifies "good luck." The date would bring me double good luck -- at least that was the theory. Some of the formulas were darker. Three sixes is the sign of the devil. Three twelves -- well, that couldn't be good. Maybe I was just trading the devil I'd known for a new one; maybe the new one wouldn't be so bad. 

Anniversaries always tend to spark reflection, and the first anniversary of my divorce is no exception. I was grateful it took me so long to remember, that I did not waste an entire day mulling over my disappointments and my lingering uncertainties. In fact, I was already well into a glass of wine by the time I realized what day it was, and the haze cast a rosy glow on the occasion. Not a celebratory glow -- I have never thought a circuit court judge's stamp on a fat document laying out the details of a major upheaval in the lives of a bunch of folks about whom I care very deeply was cause for revelry. It was simply a glimmer of optimism, a recognition of how much has changed over the course of twelve months, and how we are all still standing.

Divorce, no matter how necessary it might seem, does its damage. As intolerable as marriage may have been, we have all -- my children, my ex, and I -- endured our own personal versions of hell in the aftermath of its termination. With other unpredictable crises adding to the mix, I often wondered how any of us would make it through, and, though I can only speak for myself, I am pretty sure we are all still wrestling with demons. Then again, so are most people. We are just not that special.

In my wine induced haze I thought about how a year ago I never would have believed I would be where I am today. I have survived countless emotional roller coaster rides, and I have figured out how to navigate new frontiers with my children and with my ex husband without the benefit of a GPS. I have worked where I no longer thought I was competent to work, and I have filled the white spaces of my resume with a hefty dose of positive spin. I have cleaned out and sold the house where my family took shape -- enduring some minor setbacks along the way, and have journeyed down memory lane countless times without becoming paralyzed by "what ifs." I have moved to a new place and created a brand new space for me and my youngest daughter as she prepares to leave whichever nest we happen to inhabit. I have downsized in terms of square footage, but I have realized that my little house gives me a sense of warmth and coziness I could never quite achieve as I puttered around in my spacious "great room." Things break and I fix them. I have grown fond of physical labor, and I go on shopping sprees to Home Depot instead of Bloomingdale's.  I wield a mean hammer.

Twelve-twelve-thirteen. Thirty-seven, a prime number. I'd like to think that signifies something good.  Statistics would suggest I am well past my prime, but I can't for the life of me figure out when that happened or what was so "prime" about it. Screw the actuarial charts; I'm perfectly willing to believe my prime is yet to come.

Trigger Happiness

On the day I moved, one of the movers handed me the key to a file cabinet I had never bothered to lock. He had taken the liberty of locking the drawers for me, presumably just to keep them from flying open. I thanked him profusely, and carefully put the key away for safe keeping.

Safe keeping and ready accessibility, just as I did with my extra checkbooks and my favorite scarf. All the items that, weeks later, remain safe (from me) and, if they are readily accessible, it must be to someone else. I cannot for the life of me remember where I put any of these things.

Despite repeated promises to myself that I would shed all that is unnecessary, relocate with only the bare essentials, I have spent the better part of the weeks since my move unpacking boxes filled with things I could certainly live without, many of them things I had forgotten I even had. Occasionally I muster up enough stoicism to toss an extraneous memento, steel myself against the onslaught of old memories that, unlike those of the short term, don't get lost but simply remain dormant. Memories that spring to life with the slightest provocation, memories coated with the kind of silver lining that eludes the more recent ones. The kind of silver lining that will make the already forgotten breakfast I had this morning seem, one day, to have been a royal and happy feast.

I think ahead now to my next move, and have learned to cherish the much maligned but surprisingly utilitarian phenomenon of short term memory loss. No matter how many times I dash out to replenish supplies, garbage bags are disappearing at an astonishing rate. I assess every component of every new arrival in the house, and I eliminate every unnecessary item immediately, racing to avoid any triggers of sentimentality. Birthday cards, thank you notes, pretty packaging, coupons, gratuitous refrigerator magnets and pens. My trash can runneth over, but my storage spaces seek some arbitrary but constant level. When I move again, I will have accumulated very little in the way of useless stuff. All but the most significant short term memories will remain buried, and when, one day, the assault of silver lined images of my past begins in earnest, much of the clutter will be gone.

No doubt, though, I will one day enjoy a few "eureka" moments -- when I find the key to the locked file cabinet drawers, my extra check books, my favorite scarf. I will open long inaccessible file cabinet drawers filled with insignificant things, my misplaced checks will have long been replaced, and the scarf will be a relic of some "what was I thinking" kind of fashion. But, like it or not, finding these things will be like reaching into a grab bag of surprising treats. Treats that remind me of a time that, by then, will seem to be a time of youth and adventure and simplicity.

At the very least, recovering these mundane bits of my present will coat the hectic and exhausting days of this move in sparkling, untarnished metal. I will remember fondly the time I left the house where my kids and I grew up and began to build a new chapter, a chapter filled with ordinary and sometimes downright infuriating moments that will one day make me smile.

Postcards from Heaven

I received a text from my dad just before I woke the other day. I had never gotten a text from him before -- it had not yet become popular when he died, in the late nineties -- but this one was brief and clear, as real as any text I've ever received. "Go to Starbucks," it said.

Most of the time, he watches over me quietly. He was never one to meddle. Occasionally, though, he hovers close, makes some noise to get my attention. I got out of bed and made a mental note to listen to him. Even when he was alive, he would rarely butt in; I could forgo the drive thru Dunkin Donuts only minutes away from my new home and brave the cold, just this once.

Like the scraps of paper on which I tend to jot reminders, my mental note was nowhere to be found when I finally headed out for coffee. It didn't turn up until I returned home and dropped the still full cup of Dunkin Donuts brew on the stairs as I tried to balance several other items on my arm and save myself another trip down. Trying to hang on to the rest of my load and keep the dog from lapping up the lethal liquid as it trickled down the steps, I remembered my dad's text. This was his handiwork; a minor catastrophe just to remind me I should have listened.

I would make it to Starbucks. I made another mental note. Again, the mental note was quickly misplaced as I began to obsess about a particular phone call I awaited that would reassure me a certain pesky item of business had been worked out. I busied myself with more unpacking while I made a concerted albeit unsuccessful effort to not think about the phone call and managed to forget about the text with pretty much no effort at all.  To pass the time, I attacked the stack of framed wall hangings the movers had encased in bubble wrap that was as impenetrable as a steel safe. Impenetrable as a safe, maybe, but nowhere near as secure, I realized, when I heard the tinkling of falling shards of glass that used to be my downstairs bathroom mirror. Dad, again.

This time he had orchestrated a minor catastrophe that was far more likely to get my attention, and not just because of the prospect of seven years of bad luck. It was the mirror we had purchased and hung in his honor, finally heeding his complaints about the naked and useless wall over our powder room sink. Back then I didn't necessarily lose mental notes; I just ignored them. But my husband and I had scored a funky (and, come to think of it, quite hideous) frame in a market somewhere in Mexico City, and we both knew immediately what we would put into it and where it would go. Dad, as usual, was right. It was good to have a mirror in the downstairs bathroom, and the hideous frame and the story of our adventure in acquiring it amused him.

The broken mirror certainly got my attention, at least momentarily, and, again, I promised myself I would make it to Starbucks, even though I was no longer in the mood for coffee. My back hurt from mopping up coffee that had managed to drip its way down every step (thank goodness I didn't get a large) and blood continued to flow from the place where my hand had encountered a particularly sharp edge of glass. What I really needed was a stiff drink.

I remembered the elusive mental note. I thought about my dad, and I thought about how I always knew he would make things turn out all right. He was my fixer, my safety net. He was the guy waiting with open arms for me in the pool, his dark hair slicked back after he dove in and swam under water the entire length of the pool and back while I teetered on the edge, marveling at his power and his grace. He would coax me gently but he would wait as long as it took, and he would catch me, and the water would feel strangely warm as long as his arms were wrapped around me. And we would race down the length of the pool and back, and he would stay just close enough to me to let me know that he was not so much winning the race as leading me in.

He must have seen me teetering the other day when he sent me that text. Go to Starbucks. It wasn't that he thought I needed caffeine; he just wanted to remind me he is there, waiting for me in the pool. And as long as he is there, everything will somehow turn out okay. All I have to do is listen. So I went to Starbucks. Nothing spilled. Nothing else broke. And the phone call came almost immediately, reassuring me that the latest pesky item of business had been worked out.

My new home is taking shape. As I continued to unpack yesterday, I stumbled upon a DVD my brother had sent me years ago with home movies from our earliest days. I fast forwarded to a random frame. My father was holding me tight while my brother jumped up and down at his feet, just itching to torment me. I made what appeared to be a half-hearted effort to squirm free. Even then I somehow knew my dad would make sure everything turned out all right.