Lemon Beagle

My husband and I have recently downsized from a four bedroom home in the suburbs to a two bedroom condo downtown.  We have done this to “simplify” our lives, but also to prove to ourselves and our families that we are still young and hip enough to enjoy an urban lifestyle.  A lifestyle that puts us within walking distance of numerous restaurants, galleries, and bars, not to mention a neighbor who sings Italian arias while strolling with his dog, and Carl, the local homeless man, who pushes his shopping cart down the middle of the street every morning at eight o’clock.

When my three grown children announced they would be spending Christmas with us in our new place, we enthusiastically looked forward to showing them our hip new crib.  When they announced they would also be bringing their dogs, I was less enthusiastic.  “Oh, we’ll be fine,” my husband said, indicating I was being overly dramatic.

My son had recently adopted what he called a Lemon Beagle, which I had never heard of, that was going to be flying in with him from San Francisco. 

“So you’ll be carrying him on the plane?” I said, imagining a cute spotted puppy that would fit neatly between his feet.

“Oh no,” he said.  “I’ll have to crate him.”  And then he quickly changed the subject.

Imagine my surprise when, three weeks later, I saw him unloading what appeared to be an elephant crate from the back of my car.  My husband had driven down to Atlanta to pick up my son and his Lemon Beagle, which is apparently code for a cross between a pit bull and a Great Dane.

His name was Finn and he was adorable but clumsy, knocking over furniture with his tail which he swung behind him with the velocity of a bull whip.  My dog, Yoshi, gave him a wide berth.

I rose early the next morning determined to take Finn and Yoshi for a walk. 

“Are you sure you want to do that?” my husband said, sipping his coffee at the breakfast bar.

Undaunted, I set out.  What I soon learned is that, although it’s relatively easy to walk one dog on a leash, it is less easy to walk two.  Especially two that have a combined weight of well over one hundred pounds.  Dogs in a pack constantly jostle for dominance, trying to be the lead dog.  Added to the fact that I was walking both on retractable leashes that were quickly entangled, I soon found myself being dragged along the sidewalk like a musher racing across the frozen tundra of the Alaskan Iditarod. 

This would have been enough to discourage any sane person, but I was determined to go on.  I had a point to prove.  I wasn’t the same old Shrinking Violet I had once been; I now ate oatmeal and miso soup for breakfast, stayed away from saturated fats and dairy, and meditated twice a day.  I could handle walking two dogs along a city street.

It was in the second block that the real trouble began.

By now my pulse had begun to pound ominously in my ears.  My breathing was ragged and strained.  We scooted past a row of neat bungalows set back slightly from the sidewalk.  The middle house had a neatly manicured lawn, with baskets of flowers and ferns set out strategically around the base of a large oak tree.  Various whirligigs spun in the breeze, and a ring of colorful garden gnomes peeked roguishly from between the baskets of ferns and flowers.  It was the kind of yard that announces, “No Dogs Allowed” by its very neatness.

Finn, who had apparently never seen a garden gnome, decided he didn’t like the looks of these strange creatures, and lunged suddenly to the right, bellowing and knocking over baskets and whirligigs with his tail.  Yoshi sprang to the left.  I found myself being dragged, spread-eagled, toward the massive oak and began to shout, “No, no.”  Finn, panicked at the tone of my voice, began now to run in circles, catching two of the larger ferns in his leash which he dragged behind him like a conveyer belt. 

“It’s okay, puppy, it’s okay,” I shrilled, trying to calm him down.  He continued to run in circles, wrapping the retractable leash around his legs until, finally, tied up like a rodeo calf, he lurched to a stop, and fell over.  Taking advantage of his immobility, I glanced over my shoulder to check on Yoshi. 

He was taking a huge, steaming shit in front of a basket of fake petunias. 

It was at this moment that I realized my left arm was numb and one eye was fluttering like a bad circuit.  It occurred to me that I might be in the throes of a medical emergency.  I imagined the couple who owned the house returning in the evening to the wreckage of their carefully-tended yard.  I imagined garden gnomes and ferns and whirligigs scattered in disarray, two dogs hog-tied and squealing, and a middle-aged woman, dead of an apparent heart attack, face down on the lawn. 

I fell on my knees, hard, at the base of the tree, and began hurriedly to set up the fallen gnomes and fern baskets.  Then I gathered Yoshi’s warm excrement in a plastic baggie, untied Finn, and turned and limped quickly for home.

I imagined the couple returning home to find that their garden gnomes had been vandalized, checking their surveillance tape, and uploading it to YouTube, where it would become an instant Internet sensation.   I imagined my children’s friends calling. 

“Dude, isn’t that your mother?”

My husband was still sitting at the breakfast bar when I limped in.

“That was quick,” he said.  “Did you have a nice walk?”

I said nothing, handing him the leashes, and turning, hobbled toward the bedroom to take a nice long nap.

Charred Turkey and Jamaican Qualade Shooters

We’re driving to New Orleans tomorrow to spend Thanksgiving with our two daughters.  The younger one is still in college and the older one has graduated and stayed in New Orleans.  Her boyfriend is a chef at one of the top restaurants in town and he’ll be preparing the meal for us and approximately twenty-five of their closest friends.  The menu includes Roast Suckling Pig, Turkey with Oyster Stuffing, Sweet Potato Casserole with Apple Puree, and Cheddar Biscuits with Olives, among other things. 

            “Shall I bring a Green Bean Casserole?” I asked my daughter tentatively.

            “No, mom, thanks.  We’ve got it covered,” she responded in a tone indicating she saw trouble coming and was attempting to head it off.

            As with most of the country, we’re approaching this most-American of all holidays with a great deal of anticipation and reservation.  Where else but at Thanksgiving do you celebrate so much togetherness, love, and unresolved conflict around a big, heavily-laden table?  Add a well-stocked bar to the mix and the potential for family drama goes through the roof. 

            I’ve promised my husband to be on my best behavior.

            My daughter, when I talked to her last week, sounded confident and unconcerned.  After all, she and Mason hosted a similar crowd last Thanksgiving and everything went off without a hitch, except for the deep-fried turkey which somehow got left in the fryer after someone broke out the Jamaican Qualude Shooters.  We were not at this celebration but have heard the legendary stories of the charred turkey which was greeted (perhaps owing to the Jamaican Qualudes) with cheers and gales of laughter.  Mason served it up on a silver tray.

            I am determined that this year’s Thanksgiving will go off without a hitch, by God.  I will help my daughter whether she wants it or not.

            “Shall I bring the sterling?” I asked her.

            “No, mom, please don’t.”

            “Oh?  Do you have enough silverware for twenty-five people?”

            “Actually, this year I’m making it easy on myself and everyone else.  I’m using throw-away plates, utensils, and glasses.”

            “You’re using plastic?  For Thanksgiving?”

            There was a pause while I imagined my daughter rolling her eyes and making obscene gestures at the phone.  Still, she majored in psychology.  Her education comes in handy when profiling serial killers or dealing with passive-aggressive mothers.  Her voice, when she finally spoke, was calm and detached.

            “Actually, they make really cute plastic ware these days.  It looks a lot like the real stuff.  You won’t be able to tell until you pick it up.”

            “Oh?” I said doubtfully.  “Well, if you’re okay with that.”

            “I am, mom.  I’m okay with it.”

            My husband, seated across the room, was slowing drawing his finger across his throat and shaking his head.

            “Oh, all right,” I said to him later.  “I won’t say a word about anything.  I’ll just keep my mouth shut and drink Jamaican Qualades with everyone else and let Lauren and Mason handle everything.”

            “I think that would be best,” he said agreeably.

            We leave tomorrow for Thanksgiving in New Orleans.  I have been meditating to ready myself for the occasion. 

No doubt, my daughter is doing the same.

Career Day

Somewhere around the third grade, on Career Day, when all the other kids were standing up and saying they wanted to be either a policeman, or a fireman, or a ballerina, I decided I wanted to be all three.  I didn’t want to limit myself to just one occupation.  I wanted to be everything from an astronaut to a monkey trainer.   That left me with only one career choice.  I would be a writer.

My classmates looked at me as if I’d just announced I wanted to make a living euthanizing puppies at the pound.  By now, I was used to being a little outside the pack.   I’m not saying I was friendless, but I played alone a lot.  Still, the other kids had learned I was good to have around when it came to imaginary role playing games.   They knew who to come to when they needed a storyline for Roy Rogers or Tonto and the Lone Ranger. 

My desire to make a living using only my imagination and my highly developed skill at hyperbole persisted throughout elementary school and into high school.    My father was an itinerant college professor and we moved around a lot  - throughout the Deep South, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma.  I was always the new kid trying to fit in, the outsider looking in, the breeding ground of all neuroses, angst, and future artistic endeavor. 

I attended public schools in the days before Ritalin was routinely prescribed for bright, imaginative students who had trouble paying attention.  This was in the 1960’s and 1970’s when a public school education still meant something, back before Self-Esteem became the cornerstone of learning.  When my high school English teacher, Charlie Chesmore, called me an ignoramus and a sloth for coming to his class without first reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he wasn’t too concerned about my delicate self-esteem.  The result of this public humiliation was that I showed up the next day having read the play in its entirety.  Go figure.

I went to college to learn, not necessarily to get a degree.  I took creative writing and literature courses from enthusiastic professors who taught me to be a good reader, and, consequently, a better writer.  Somewhere around my junior year I realized that if I spent any more time studying the great writers I’d be too paralyzed with insecurity to write anything myself. 

I left school, married, had children, worked a series of meaningless day jobs, and wrote.  I wrote essays and short stories, which were never published, and novels which, eventually, were.  It hasn’t been easy.  Still, when I think back to that third grade girl who stood up on Career Day and told the class she wanted to be a writer, I’m not sorry for the choices I’ve made.  It seemed so simple then – just a matter of putting a few good stories down on paper and making them all fit together.  Years of hard work, rejection, and perseverance later, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

I'm More Brilliant Than I Look

My fifth novel, The Sisters Montclair, has recently launched and I’ve been visiting a lot of book clubs.  I’m always slightly apprehensive at these face-to-face meetings, because I have the impression that Cathy Holton in Person, is somehow less impressive than Cathy Holton the Writer.  Looking around at the polite faces as I drone on about some event that colored my last novel, I often wonder if I’m on the verge of putting my listeners to sleep.

Flannery O’Connor once complained, when discussing an upcoming television interview, that she was afraid she’d stare blankly at the camera and utter such memorable lines as “Huh?” and “Ah dunno,” to the interviewer’s questions. I know exactly what she meant.  On the page, writers can make themselves sound witty and erudite.  We have the advantage of that most essential tool of good prose; the rewrite.  We can sit in a darkened room for days constructing and reconstructing one line until we get it perfect.  To a reader it may seem that our perfection is innate, a lucky coincidence of fate and natural-born talent, but I can tell you it’s actually the result of a great deal of hard work and determination.  It takes a lot of effort to be funny, or philosophical, or blindingly lyrical.  Any writer who tells you otherwise is bluffing.  There are few geniuses among us.  Most of us are just competent liars with a good work ethic.

At a recent book club meeting, an admiring reader read out several lines she had bookmarked in one of my novels.  

“Did I write that?” I deadpanned.   Much laugher.  (Occasionally, I can be entertaining.)

The truth is, I remember that passage very well.  I must have worked on it for weeks, rewriting, deleting, rewriting, circling back with a frenzied determination that only a true obsessive compulsive could appreciate.  But in the end, I wrote something that was good, something that I can be proud of for years to come.  A passage that makes me appear, to the casual reader at least, like something of a literary genius. 

Now if only I could rewrite my personal appearances. 

Helicopter Parents

I’ll admit it. I am one. I raised three children and I tried to make their lives as happy and trouble-free as I could. Because I’m a good mother and I only wanted the best for them. I didn’t want them to suffer from bullies, mean authority figures, social events they weren't invited to, bad grades they occasionally made, sporting teams they didn’t make, all those traumatic events that characterized so much of my trouble-laden early life.

I just wanted my children to be happy.

And guess what? They’re not. As young adults, they worry about everything. They fret over every little bump in the road of life they encounter. A boss who treats one of them unfairly is a “psychopath.” A boyfriend or girlfriend who doesn’t return their affection can cause a month-long depression. A job that one performs diligently is suddenly eliminated in a down economy – how fair is that?

The answer, of course, is it’s not fair. Because life isn’t fair. My generation knew that. So why did we raise our children to believe that it is?

My husband recently read an article about administrators who are seeing waves of ill-prepared children entering college, children who’ve never made a bad grade in school, or been cut from a sports team, or had to arrange their own social calendar, much less done their own laundry or kept a check book. Children who’ve been protected from failure all their lives and so have come to expect that life is fair.

When I was a girl, I didn’t get a new bicycle just because everyone else on the street got one. If I made a bad grade in school, my parents didn’t call the teacher and request I be allowed to retake the test because I might not get into the right college. On the few occasions when they attended one of my basketball games, they didn’t call the coach afterwards to see what I could do to get more court time.

I learned that sometimes things work out and sometimes life sucks. I learned that failure means picking yourself up, trying a little harder next time, and going on.

And, hopefully, my children will learn that, too. Eventually. Once I stop hovering.

Indian Princess

As children, my father always told us we had Cherokee ancestry. This wasn’t too hard to believe as my brothers and I had round Charlie Brown heads and, what the neighborhood kids liked to call, “Chinese” eyes. My brother’s nickname was Kato and mine was Suzie Wong.

We weren’t just Indian; we were Indian nobility. We were descended from a Cherokee princess, according to my father. He was a large somber man with a Gaelic temperament, meaning that one moment he would be weeping over a particularly beautiful verse of Yeats, and the next roaring in rage over a bicycle left in the driveway. He was a college professor struggling to earn his Ph. D with a wife and three children in tow, and often seemed to be walking a tightrope between hope and utter despair.

My mother, a sweet Southern girl, ruled him with an iron fist although he was unaware of this, of course, as the fist was clothed in a soft downy glove. Direct confrontation was never my mother’s style. She could soothe and cajole my father out of his moods with a skill I’ve only seen matched by The Horse Whisperer.

In those days my father was on a ten-month teaching assignment, meaning he spent a month teaching at a summer camp for forestry students and the remaining two months of the summer traveling with his family. Our travels, regardless of the mileage involved, were always done in an automobile where my brothers and I, endlessly bored, would devise a series of rough games to keep us occupied. The backseat was divided like Gaul into three parts; as the eldest, I took the section directly behind my father where I could mock him with impunity (and where the belt, should he loosen it and begin to flail over the seat back, could not reach); my middle brother took the middle section with two borders to defend; and my youngest brother, who was prone to car sickness, hugged the far door.

The summer of my twelfth year we took a trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota. My father had brought along Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee for his light summer reading, a horrific account of the massacre of three hundred Sioux men, women, and children by the U.S. 7th Cavalry, and as the vacation wore on he sank deeper and deeper into one of his black moods. We watched anxiously as my mother tried, and failed, to bring him out of it.

“Oh look,” she said, clapping her hands gaily. “A trading post. And they have real arrowheads! Let’s stop, shall we?”

“Three hundred men, women and children,” my father said, eyeing us gloomily in the rearview mirror. “Promised a reservation and then hunted down like dogs. They were our people.”

“I thought we were Cherokee,” I said.

“Three hundred people murdered in cold blood.”

“They have ice cream!” my mother said brightly. “Who wants ice cream?”

Later that night, in the adjoining room, we heard my parents arguing, one of the few times I’ve ever heard my mother raise her voice. As we were leaving the next morning, my father said, “Where’s my book?” He had left it on the nightstand, where sometime during the night, it had mysteriously disappeared.

“Where’s my book?” he repeated, eyeing my mother suspiciously.

She returned his gaze evenly. “Today I thought we’d have a picnic,” she said, smiling. “Won’t that be nice?”

I have no idea if my father ever finished the book. He never spoke of it again and not long after this vacation he stopped telling stories of our Cherokee grandmother, the Indian princess. Even now when I’m at my parents’ house I search for Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee on the bookshelves, but I never find it. It seems to have disappeared into my family’s past as mysteriously as our Cherokee grandmother.