December

I have a love/hate relationship with December. December is all of those things we commonly think about -- holidays, families, snow, cold weather, dark days and long nights, holiday parties and get-togethers -- but it's also my birthday month, which makes for a whole lot of mixed emotions.

No matter how good people's intentions are, when you're birthday is in December, it tends to get pushed out of the way by other festive (and not so festive) events. We already have 4 invitations to 4 different parties/events. We haven't accepted all of the invitations, but there's a tipping point -- after so many you either decide you must go to all of them (small circle of friends) or go to none of them. Picking and choosing is not an option.

I also have a love/hate relationship with the weather in December. I love snow and I love to cross country ski, but as a walking-commuter, it's damn cold and wet and windy out there (especially of late). I walk to work in the dark and I walk home in the dark only to leash up the dog and walk some more. With all this walking I should be 20 pounds lighter, but cold weather, dark hours, and December also mean I eat more...I WANT to eat more. It's like I'm never full. I just want calories...as many as I can stuff into my mouth and all the walking in the world ain't gonna knock that off!

Last week I heard two young teachers talking in the hallway:

Teacher #1-- There aren't enough scarfs and sweaters in the world to keep me warm these days.

Teacher #2 -- I feel exactly the same way. I can't believe these people who walk around in winter with short-sleeved shirts and scooped necklines!

Each of them was bundled head to toe...and then, one of them raised their hand to reach for something on the bulletin board and her shirt pulled up to expose her bare belly. She couldn't reach the posting, so the other teacher helped her and her bare belly, too, shimmered in the winter light.

I wanted to ask: So, your necks get cold, but not your bellies?

But I kept my mouth shut.

I dress warmly, except when I'm having a hot flash and then I'm in a t-shirt -- short sleeve with a scooped neck. I always carry a sweater and on my walks to and from work, I generally stop to either put the sweater on or take the sweater off. Unless it's raining and then I just wear my raincoat over my t-shirt and by the time I get to work (or home again as the case may be) I'm drenched in that kind of cold sweat that happens when you exercise with Gore-tex close to your skin.

See -- love/hate, love/hate.

I like the idea of hibernation...except...

...I'd miss my birthday...

Snow!

Nothing warms my heart more than snow! It came down fast and is still coming down. The only downside...I have to pick up Ann at the airport. She's flying in from, of all places, Phoenix...though it's been raining there for days now. She'll be shocked at how much snow we have. Could be an interesting drive to the airport and back.

More photos on the Rubinations site!

In Ways You Never Imagined

Four years ago we made a decision as a family -- we would own only one car. Our family, at the time, consisted of the two of us and a dog and even though the death of our old dog changed our configuration temporarily, we now have a new dog and still one car.

The choice to be a one-car family was made for a variety of reasons. First, my job was a half mile away. I began walking to work and home again every day. There was no need for a second car. Next, by selling one of our two cars, we were able to pay off the loan of the other limiting our "debt" allowing us to apply for a nice big loan to remodel our house. In fact, when we met with the representative of the mortgage company, she meticulously listed our "assets" and then asked about our debts. Aside from my student loan and what we owed on the house, we had none. She looked up and said, "Really?" We nodded, surprised by her surprise and she said, "Good god, I can get you oodles of money."

The final reason we made a choice to be a family who owned only one car had to do with our commitment to the environment, our commitment to reduce our ecological footprint.

Living with one car hasn't been that difficult though it does limit some of our options. For instance, if one of us has the car and the other is at home without it, it's difficult to run errands or go anywhere particularly if the weather is bad. Yes, we ride our bikes or take the transit if need be, and we even walk 5-6 miles to get where we need to go. There have been frustrations when we both need the car at the same time for separate commitments and occasionally we've had to spend energy figuring out how it's all going to work or worse case scenario, one of us has had to cancel our commitment. Though that rarely happens it still adds a friction we didn't have when we owned two cars instead of one.

But now I've started working with a dog trainer not only training our dog, but learning "how" to train dogs in general. Three days a week I'm driving to a training session 25 miles out of town, which can take me anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on traffic (the 2 hours is rare, but it does happen on occasion). This has made the dance of who gets to drive the car a bit more complicated. And so we have begun to talk about getting another car.

In the past this decision wouldn't have bothered me, but as my knowledge of negative impacts on our enviroment has increased (I currently teach environmental science), I'm struggling with the decision.

We've been looking at more environmentally friendly ideas like hybrid or even something we can run on biodiesel, but my research into these options hasn't made me feel any more comfortable with the idea of being a two-car family versus a one-car family. It's a long and complicated dialogue in my head...

...IF we get a biodiesel car, we lose the car's warranty as biodiesel isn't regulated and car companies aren't inclined to service a vehicle that runs on old vegetable oil purchased from someone's home-brewed concotions...and while biodiesel is becoming more popular, biodiesel stations are still inconsistently available. To fill a tank with biodiesel, we'd actually have to drive about 10 miles roundtrip.

...IF we get a hybrid, well, we're still using gas...less gas, but gas still the same.

But there are deeper issues...at least for me. There's the issue of class and privilege, of being able to own something most of the world cannot. There's the issue of consumption of limited resources, not just oil, used to produce a car. There's the issue of using gas in our other car and increasing our overall consumption of gas as a family. And there's the issue of choice -- and this is perhaps the most difficult for me.

Choosing to purchase another car is the proverbial choosing the lesser of two evils. The best choice, of course, is to stick with one car, or if possible, no car at all, but if I wish to continue my pursuit of becoming a dog trainer, we need at least one car and one car has a negative impact not only on the environment, it also has a negative impact on our lives -- arranging our schedules so we can get where we need to go.

I torture myself with these internal debates. Today, in fact, while I escorted my students on a field trip to see the Sockeye salmon spawn, I heard our guide talk about the evils of oil runoff on our watersheds, the contamination of our oceans from CO2 emissions, and the suffocation of salmon runs by the construction of roads and highways. When we got to the river where the salmon were to be spawning, we found only two decomposing salmon on the riverbank and about 10 or so dead salmon floating in the river. Last year when we went to this very same river, there were at least 100 salmon working their way upstream or rotting on the shore inviting bald eagles and hungry hawks to fly over our heads as we marveled at the salmon cycle.

"Last year," our guide said, "We had about 6,000 salmon for the season. This year, we'll be lucky to see 2,000 at this river."

"What are the issues preventing a good salmon run?" a parent chaperone asked.

"It's complicated, but much of what we know points to human impact with development, pollution, and destruction of the salmon's complex and expansive habitat (from the ocean to the rivers)."

It didn't make me feel any more hopeful, at the end of the day, when we all piled into our 6 different cars to head back to school and it didn't make my internal struggle any easier to resolve.

Though this idea did come to me...

...we could sell our gas-powered car for a hybrid (one with the best gas mileage and the lowest emissions) AND purchase a small used diesel car (sans warranty) to run as a biodiesel for our town driving. While we'd still become a two-car family, the impact of those two cars might actually add up to the same impact as our current gas-powered SUV.

"You need to make an educated choice," I heard our guide say as she pointed to the housing project butting up against the edge of the salmon-free river. "The more you know, the more your choices will have less of an impact on our wild places."

I'm not sure how much our students picked up on the message or how much their "education" will inform their choices, but I know that even if what they learned today does make them better stewards, it's still not an easy road because when you KNOW that very same knowledge can paralyze you in ways you never imagined.

First Impressions

I'm listening to Norman Mailer on the radio. He's died, but his rough and goopy voice lives on. I don't know what I think about Norman Mailer or how I feel about the legacy to which the radio host keeps referring. I think I am supposed to dislike him, to find him arrogant and misogynistic. I think I am supposed to feel offended by him, oppressed by his intellect and use of big words.

But I have never read Norman Mailer. I have only heard him speak -- short snippets of interviews before I change the channel of either the TV or the radio. I seem to dislike the rumor of him. I do not like his voice and for some reason, I don't like the look of him, but all I know of him is his perceived greatness, the greatness now broadcast on the radio after his death.

I form opinions like this often and try as I might, they stick. I feel much the same way about my neighbor. Our interactions have been limited, but his aura, as it were, gives me the creeps. His wife is affable though we call her Mrs. Kravitz because of her rather snoopy nature, but he, the husband feels smarmy and unpredictable.

A few years back, Sharon lived up the street though we called her "Lulu" in reference to the odd and loopy things she did -- sitting on her front stoop in only her underwear and slippers in the dead of winter or her monthly "cleaning" of her house where she threw everything out the front door including furniture, applicances, rugs, and a TV and left it in a pile until a kindly neighbor came by to clean it up.

Last year, as I was walking home from work, a middle-aged woman stopped me on the street and thanked me for being so kind to her. "I was your neighbor," she said once she saw my puzzled look. "I'm Sharon." She looked nothing like the Lulu we'd known. Her hair was clean, her clothes were on and relatively new, and the whirling dervish I remembered of her eyes were now clear and direct. "You were just so kind and I will never forget that," she continued. I had no recollection of what I did other than call the police as I watched her beat her son with a broom handle and chase him down the street, but I bowed my head and said, "You're welcome" afraid to ask any of the questions swirling through my head (where are you living, what happened, why are you sane when I thought you were a lost caused?).

Even as she walked on up the street and I continued on home, I doubted that she'd changed, that she was as kind and as thoughtful as her words.

My first impression stuck and I couldn't shake it.

When this happens with one of my students, I do an excellent job of compartmentalizing my feelings and dealing with the kid on her level. Years later, if she were to stop me on the street I might not remember her or if I did, I wouldn't necessarily give her the benefit of the doubt.

This happened once when I was in a bar. There to hear one of my favorite bands, a young woman approached me and smiled. "Do I know you?" I asked. "Yes, I'm Elsa." And it all flooded back to me. This was Elsa. Perfect Elsa. The Elsa who asked amazing questions in my history class and wrote insightful, powerful essays on the failings of war and the exhausting struggle it took to maintain peace. I loved Elsa. But I didn't recognize her. 17 year old Elsa would never go into a sleazy bar like this one. Elsa wouldn't like this band. Elsa wouldn't be holding a shot glass in her hand and look at her former teacher a bit bleary-eyed. This was not Elsa of my first impression. This was an adult Elsa, an Elsa of her own choosing.

It didn't fit.

I do it with people with whom I work. R. at work who makes me nervous. J. who I joke with in public, but find difficult to respect as a teacher. K. who does everything to bug me, or so I think, even down to her slurpy food that she eats with her hands and spills on the table.

They are good people. They are people doing the best they can and still I keep my distance. Still I find it hard not to let my first impressions limit their potential.

Norman Mailer is now talking about sex on the radio. How sex with someone you love is much different than sex in a brothel. He is articulate. The audience laughs. The host interacts in a jovial way. And Norman Mailer coughs a phlegmy rattle, stopping the conversation long enough for there to be a moment of silence on the radio.

And from sex, he moves on to the topic of Hitler and then Stalin and finally, the radio show ends and I still feel as if I cannot like the man even in his death.

This is not me. I am a good person who tries hard not to judge.

And yet still, the judgment happens. Conversations prattle on inside my head and I argue both sides of pointless debates. My first impressions hold firmly and my kind self cannot seem to get a foot hold in the spiteful mountain of my mean self.

Okay, I'm not mean. I don't actively hate anyone or go out of my way to do mean and spiteful things to people who make me uncomfortable. In fact, I am an avoider choosing to remove myself from possibly confrontational situations even if my judgment of them is visceral. I do kind things too like help the old lady with her groceries at the store or open doors for those in need or smile at the neighbor who sits on his porch watching the world go by.

Still, if I could wipe away my gluey first impressions what would my world look like then?

Dear Tampax

Women all have their stories of when we first used your product. Mine began later in life when, at 25, I ventured to use my first tampon. Up until that point, I used only pads -- saddles in my underwear. My housemate, at the time, helped me insert my first tampon and then later that day, my other 3 housemates came into the bathroom to share their techniques. My first tampon was uncomfortable, but not unbearable. It was, as you advertised then, freeing not to be restricted to the side of the pool during those "times of the month" but now, almost 25 years later and thousands upon thousands of tampons disposed of, I have a complaint.

What the hell were you thinking changing the shape, length, AND WIDTH of the "new" tampon? They hurt, they leak, and when pulling them out, it's much the same feeling as I experience during my yearly pelvic exams. OUCH! I wish I'd known you were changing your design for I would have hoarded as many of the old style tampons as I could have possibly fit into my storage cabinets. I would have hauled away one of those slatted wooden pallets straped high with boxes upon boxes of tampons from Costco. As a pre-menopausal woman, my time left in the purgatory of your recent invention should be relatively short, but still I cringe at the thought of another year or even another month dreading both the insertion and extraction of this medieval device you dare to call "feminine" let alone hygenic!

Alas, I am left with only one option: I am sending out an ad on Craig's List calling all post-menopausal women to scour their cupboards for half-full or perhaps fully stocked boxes of the old-style tampons that have gone unused since the blood stopped. I will pay any price though currently the outrageous cost of any tampon cries out for revolutionary action. Who invents these things? Certainly it is not women. Certainly it is not middle-aged women who've been using your product for 25 years and have grown accustomed to the absorbent structure and the cardboard applicator. Certainly it is not women who, during that 25 years, have literally carved out a "niche" for one particular type of tampon.

For if women of my generation, my size and shape had been part of your research and development team, we would have cried FOUL. We would have stormed the board rooms swinging tampons by their strings over our heads like Xena the Warrior Princess weilding her spiked mace at drooling enemies. We would have bled on your fine boardroom chairs, soiling your white carpets as we raced around your typing pools.

So much for "freeing" me...I now feel enslaved by one little white plug slowly slipping out even as I write.

I no longer want to be a part of this story. Change it back!!

Signed,

Tampooned

Cook a Homo

It's been awhile since I've had a chance to sit down and just write. Between teaching all day long and the 3 classes of dog obedience 3-nights a week, I feel like I've been doing at least 2 jobs and not one.

And in between there's been some interesting fillers:

Last weekend, for instance, we went to a friend's party put on by her financial planner as a "thank you" for she and her partner's business for many, many years. (I'm sure it helps that this friend of mine is rather well-off...) We felt honored to be invited though the announcement of the event made me a bit nervous...

Vegetarian Cooking Class

I am not strictly a vegetarian. I enjoy vegetables and I don't enjoy red meat much (anymore...after a long time of not eating it), but I will eat chicken and a good bratwurst (the German side of me) as well as occasionally much on some bacon, which technically isn't red meat...right?

Vegetarian sounds like a good idea, but I've never been enamored with much of the food or the amount of time it takes to prepare things or the funky texture of tofu (like the slime on the bottom of swimming pools) and so I am often at a loss about what to cook and how to get my proteins and so I stick to my regulars -- Boca Burgers or Garden Burgers or pasta with some kind of sauce.

Boring.

I was intrigued by the idea of taking a cooking class, but worried that I might not like any of the food and therefore be hungry and I don't do hungry well.

But I've lived to tell you that IF you know what you're doing, and have the menus that we had, vegetarian food can be damn good.

But it wasn't the food that was the most interesting. Rather, it was the chef. A small, Italian man with a very heavy accent assumed, I think, that everyone in the room was straight. There were 6 men and 6 women, hence, as most of the world might presume, 6 x 2 equals 12, but he got the twos in the wrong pairings.

No one corrected him. In fact, I don't think any of us really paid that close attention, though it was rather obvious to me when he called all the women "sweetie" and slapped all the men on the back. At one point, as I was cooking with my gay male new friend, Mark (an Episcopalian minister), when the Italian chef, named of all things Tiberius (though he insisted we call him "delicious") asked if Mark and I cooked together at our own house. Mark and I just stared at each other and continued chopping onions and basting eggplant. "Yes" was the answer though "our house" was a separate -- his with his partner, Mike, and mine with my partner Ann, who were, ironically, also teamed up together for this class.

Delicious floated around the room at a frenzied pace imploring us to "cooka on higha, yes?" because it would get done faster and to "justa do ita like thees" skipping whole steps in the recipe and ending up with a finished product that tasted pretty damn good.

But the highlight of the evening was when Delicious thanked us for our interest in his cooking school and for our enthusiasm in the kitchen. "I hope this will inspire you to cooka homo!" And with the clap of his strong hands, he made his exit.

We all sat in silence for a moment and then laughed out loud. "Yippee, we now know how to cook a homo!"

Who knew vegetarian cooking could be so fun!

Tuesday night of this week was the only night I had to just relax. With dog classes on Monday and Wednesday nights, usually Thursdays and Fridays are free as well, but this week as well as weekend, was filled to the brim.

Thursday night we went to watch the UW women play volleyball. This may not seem that interesting, but since I made my athletic career playing volleyball and running track at the UW, it was an intriguing venture back into my past. A parent of one of my students gave us the tickets and we sat in the student section feeling old and behind the times sans a cell phone or some such device with which to text message...as everyone around us was doing just that between the volleys.

The game has changed. It's faster, more powerful and the rules are radically different. Who knew that when the served ball hits the top of the net and still makes it over it's still a ball in play? The players are taller (at 5' 9" I was one of the tallest players on my team) and if at all possible, the uniform shorts are shorter...and the women much, much skinnier.

We had a great time watching, though at one point, I had to turn my back on the parent who gave us the tickets as I was unintentionally party to her conversation with another mother sitting next to her. It was appalling how they vied for position..."well, my daughter went to camp for two weeks there last summer"...."well, my daughter did their survival camp there last summer for a month!" and on and on..."I can't believe that lot is so small...only 15,000 square feet, and the house, well the house is a good price at 1.5 mil, but I worry about that small yard."

The joys of teaching at a private school.

Friday night was again rubbing elbows with the wealthy, but we also rubbed elbows with some of the geekist scientists I've ever met. My dear friend Janice at the Seattle Aquarium got us tickets to hear one of my idols speak. Sylvia Earle is a dynamo at 71 years of age and I would have stormed the doors to hear her speak, but luckily we got complimentary tickets for 7 o' clock at the Aquarium.

There is a great deal to say about this event, but I shall hold my tongue. In the end, it was an event of great irony -- we arrived at 6:45 for a 7:00 start time only to be escorted into the touch tank area where we were served appetizers (nothing with seafood, mind you...it would have been too weird eating salmon by the salmon tank) and milled around amongst the governor's staff, the weatlthy benefactors, and these pods of geeky scientists who hovered around the appetizers like gulls around a fishboat.

Finally, at 8 they let us into the auditorium where we were seated, finally. I was tired. It was Friday night after a long, long week and the last thing I wanted to do was stay out until 11, but Sylvia Earle did not come to the podium until 9. Ahead of her were the many "big names" at the event -- state officials, Billy Frank, Jr. (elder of the Nisqually tribe), and Aquarium sponsors. By the time Sylvia made it to the podium, I was exhausted.

She is a very small woman, hunched with osteoporois (deep water diving?) and spoke in a deep, sultry voice about the fate of the planet. "They say that the new red, white, and blue is green, but I say the new green is blue..." She flashes up the picture of the earth taken from space and yep, it's blue, blue blue.

(Sylvia Earle in 1988)

More blue pictures unfolded as she applauded all in attendance for "getting DC to listen, finally, to the warnings we've all known for years...the ocean is dying and when it dies, we will die as well."

Not an upbeat message, but from her mouth, it was a call to action. "90% of the big fish in the ocean are gone. They are not coming back, but to feed the hungry mouths of humans, we are now catching fish from the middle of the food chain and selling it as a delicacy. You want to know how to kill and ecosystem in seconds flat? Eat from the middle of the food chain!"

I have been struggling with this dilemma since I began working with the Aquarium. Each spring we take our students out to learn to be Beach Naturalists and the more I learn, the more I feel compelled to make a change in my life in an attempt to save the oceans. Ann thinks I'm ridiculous, but I've limited our fish intake dramatically and have even considered going back to eating red meat. "Cows aren't wild," Sylvia Earle says, "but fish are. Eat the cows, eat the cows. We've learned to grow them like wheat. They are a replenishable food source, but the fish are not! You're clearcutting the ocean forests and no one seems to care!"

But I can't bring myself to eat red meat. Ann says I should start slowly, but it's not just the texture or the digestion of something so undigestable or the threat of mad cow or ecoli poisoning, it's the "industry" of it all, the "unknowns" of where the cow came from, how it was treated, how it was fed, how it was killed, and the fact that most people in the world do not eat meat because they cannot afford it...and all those left of liberal reasons that float around in my head.

And now they float around because of the fish and Sylvia Earle and all I've learned about our dying oceans...and ARRRRGGGGHHHH...what to do, what to do?

Despite the inner turmoil, Sylvia Earle was inspirational. She hasn't given up and she's seen it all -- plastic dumped out of dead birds and the expanding dead zones in the ocean -- and I've seen only a smidge and I even though I feel like giving up, I can't because Sylvia, all hunched and crippled, is still fighting the good fight.

And finally, on Saturday, I spend the day at Peggy's horse farm helping to run an Educator's Day when it hits me. I'm watching a teacher from Canada work with a horse and Peggy is telling her things I've heard a hundred times -- not just from Peggy, but from Dave and Becky the dog trainers -- it's your energy...where is your energy?

"Thousands of years ago, when horses roamed the plains with lions, they'd live together on the same piece of land." Peggy's story...I've heard it all before...but this time it hit home..."The horse is munching peacefully on the tall grass and the lion is sleeping peacefully by the tree. They know each other is there, but not until the lion thinks 'I am hungry' does the horse fear the lion. In fact, when the lion just touches the edge of his thought...'I am hu...' the horse has alerted the herd and skidaddled out of danger. It's all energy."

I'm standing at the edge of the arena thinking...My energy is wrong. I'm off balance. I must not think about what I can't eat, but what I can eat. I must not think I am alone in saving the planet, I must think I am one of hundreds, thousands, millions upon millions who right now are working to save the planet. I must believe it before I can see it.

Peggy tells her clients this all the time. "You must believe you can make the horse move towards the cone, then, once you believe, you must see it and every bone in your body must hold that intention."

Time and time again, people scrinch their eyes and focus their energy and I'll be damned, EVERY TIME that horse moves right to the cone, right to the place they are pointing.

Tonight we had a warm kale salad we learned to make in the cooking class with Delicious. Right next to the kale, bathed in pears, nuts, corn, vinegar and olive oil was a small piece of Wild Caught Alaskan King Salmon (on the safe list put out by Seafood Watch.org).

I am always coming back to a few lessons in my life. One of them is learning to be mindful. This week has taught me, in the oddest of ways, to be mindful of my energy. Even in training Rubin, my energy must be forgiving and patient, understanding and grounded or he will train me and not the other way around. My energy around transitioning out of teaching and into dog training must be patient and methodical. I must not rush ahead because there are important lessons to learn along the way...like how to enjoy warm kale salad and marvel at the strength and skill of young women in sport and how to learn from a wise older woman and how to cook a homo all in the same crazy, exhausting, and fulfilling week.

Fenced In

During the falling of Autumn leaves, Bob, our fence and deck man, has been working busily on our new fence and expanded deck. It's looking great, if I do say so myself, and Rubin thinks it's fantastic. He hasn't been out of the house much off-leash, but the new fence allowed him to run wild, circling the house with a big fat smile on his face.

The fence is a gift from Ann's father who died last April leaving her a nice chunk of an inheritance. Perhaps then the fence is really Ann's gift to our house, but David (her father) certainly allowed the possibility of such a massive expenditure.

Behind the fence...well, that's another story...

It's all bare and muddy...not very conducive to a puppy with an apricot coat. He's getting tired of his feet being wiped off every time he comes into the house. And still, STILL there is a dirt path down the hallway after endless sweeping and the removal of all shoes.

Nonetheless, progress is being made. The deck is now twice the size, perfect for a table and four chairs, though it will be awhile before we sit outside to dine.

Our stomach muscles hurt for a week after we spread ourselves like commandos under the deck to lay down the weed barrier. Even our 9 year old neighbor asked, "Why didn't you put it down before they built the deck?"

Duh! Why didn't we think of that?

Actually we did, but life got in the way and before we knew it, the deck was done (or almost...there's still a planter box to be built in the foreground of this picture) and we had to shimmy ourselves like slugs for 16 feet in either direction.

I am now a homeowner. It makes me laugh in some ways -- I never thought this would be my life -- but I suppose it never turns out exactly as you thought it would and if it did, that would be kind of boring, wouldn't it?

I love our home and I shall live here with Ann (and whatever dog lives with us at the time) until I can no longer make it up the stairs! Even then, it might be worth an investment in a ramp, an elevator, or maybe a big strong "maid" to carry me to and fro.

But that's in the future...for now I shall enjoy being fenced in.

Good enough!

Good enough. It's been the mantra of my life. Am I good enough? Now, in a marriage to Ann, the most stable woman on the planet, I face a perplexing shift in perspective. "Good enough?" Ann says, "That's funny, I'm like always saying, 'I could probably do this better."

And then this:

Rubin, our 8 month old Labradoodle, has a tendency to bark. This is not necessarily good. 1) Because it's a loud, echoing bark and 2) I want to be a dog trainer -- having a dog that barks uncontrollably is like being a cobbler who has no shoes or a car mechanic without a functioning car...

His barking, I have assessed, comes from a bit of fear. He IS only a puppy and so some things do and will scare him. It took a bit of training to get him NOT to bark at the vacuum cleaner, but we have yet to overcome his fear of the furnace and the forced warm air through the big vent in the hallway. While he doesn't bark at the vent, he walks on the far, far side of a very narrow hallway to avoid it even when the furnace is not on.

He barks at sounds outside -- like the neighbor starting up his very old and loud Studebaker. He barks at the shadows of people who walk by the house. Early in the morning and and in the evening, when it's dark out, he barks at anyone, whether he knows them or not, because they look like dark shadows coming out of more dark shadows.

This is not good, so over the weekend I emailed the trainer with whom I am working and with whom we have been taking classes. He wrote a very long and wonderful email describing this "time" of Rubin's life -- his second phase of fear (his first being the first few months of his life) and how it's normal that certain things would startle him, but how we react will determine his ability to feel more emotionally balanced.

Okay, makes sense to me, so I keep reading this thoughtful email from the trainer.

Find a "treat" that is highly motivating for Rubin. When he barks, at the moment he takes a breath say, "Enough!" in a happy, positive voice, wave the highly motivating treat in front of his nose and then happily trot back to a designated "neutral" area saying "enough" all the way. Once he is quiet and in the neutral area focused on you (and the dandy little treat) praise him and give him the treat...and another...and another. The point: Have him associate those things that he usually fears with happiness and joy and the chance to eat his favorite treat. Soon (in about a month) he won't bark, he'll just run to his "happy place" and wait for a treat.

So this weekend we practiced. Ann rang the doorbell, he barked, I calmly said "enough" and trotted to the study, just down the hallway. He sat, stared at me in anticipation, I gave him the treats and he stopped barking.

Great! We practiced again and again. And then later, as we sat watching TV, he sprang up, barked at some noise from outside and I calmly said "enough" from my comfy place on the couch and lo and behold -- he ran his curly little bottom into the study, plopped into a sit, and looked at me like, "Okay, baby, cough up that treat!"

I was so startled I found myself saying, "Good enough, good enough!"

Jesus...it's all therapy isn't it? A canine conspiracy of some sort.

Good enough, good enough, we're all just good enough! Woo-hoo!

Mistakes

Does my mother make mistakes?

She's grinning right now. She's probably laughing out loud reading this.

"Of course I do," she'd guffaw. "I make mistakes all the time!"

So this morning I'm in the kitchen making breakfast for Ann and our friend, Laurie. French Toast with caramelized pears. I've never made caramelized pears before, but once I had them served on my French Toast at a fancy restaurant (I even think I was having breakfast with my mother...but no matter...) and they were delicious.

There I am carving out the guts of the nice ripe red pears, dipping the juicy halves into brown sugar, placing them gently into a cast-iron skillet and worrying that they will burn or turn mushy or taste awful.

Ann comes in. "Smells great! What are you doing?"

Me: Caramelizing pears.

Ann: Do you know how to do that?

God no! I'm thinking. Shit! What if I've made a big mistake?

And then I think of my mother who, in my eyes, rarely (if ever) makes mistakes and most certainly never does so in the kitchen.

She had to have made some mistakes, I tell myself. She's not perfect. Weren't their meals I couldn't stand? I search through my memories and while there were meals that I didn't like, everyone else ate them with enough platitudes of gratitude that the food must not have been awful.

No, I concluded, my mother does not make cooking mistakes.

My mother is not perfect either, but she does not make mistakes when it comes to food and the preparation thereof.

Okay, I buoyed myself, I am half of her...I mean, her genes are in me and while I've avoided admitting it, I like to cook. I may not like it as much as my mother, I may not be half as adventurous, but I like spending time in the kitchen preparing things. Hell, even she started out with basic stuff like brownies and grilled pork chops before she took on great feats of culinary wizardry like caramelized pears.

I poured the 1/2 cup of water on the browned pears and waited. Lid or no lid? Are they softening or mushening? Will they still be brown? Is the sauce at the bottom of the pan evaporating, thickening or getting even more watery with the juice of the pears? Is the flame up high enough or is it too high?

These must be all the questions my mother asks herself, I'm thinking. She probably even compares herself to her own mother who cooked for truckloads of people when she was alive and whipped up things like ice cream cakes on a moment's notice. Maybe my mother feels insignificant when she compares herself to her own mother just like I'm feeling now...right?

20 minutes later the pears are done. The sauce is thick and spreads evenly over the pears sitting beautifully on a white platter. The French Toast tasted great, the pears the perfect compliment to the measured vanilla and the sprinkled cinnamon.

Whew! No mistakes...

...this time.

My iPod

Like most people, when I walk there’s something in my ear. I avoid cell phones. I just want to listen. I don’t want to talk. So at first, it was my MP3 player pinned at my side, the black headphones in my ears. Now, it’s an iPod with white cords dangling, unless I feel “watched” and fear an iPod nabbing fast approaching.

There are times when I feel guilty walking around listening to something other than the sounds around me. I feel especially guilty when I’m out walking the dog because face it, this is the time I’m supposed to be “at one with the dog.” Still, I love my dog as much as I love music so it’s a toss up most days and inevitably I end up with something other than my dog’s clanging tags in my ears.

He doesn’t seem to mind. I still talk to him. “Good dog. Good right here. Good boy.” And his tail wags as much if my ears are free or if they’re not. He’s just happy to be heading somewhere. Preferably the lake. Preferably the green corner of the park where we play “chuck-it.” Preferably up the street to the neighbor’s house where his best dog-friend lives.

Years ago, when I used to ride the transit more and before MP3 players and iPods, boom boxes were popular. At the back of the bus, questionable youth would sling huge music players onto their shoulders and slide down the aisle on their way to their next stop. Everyone got to hear the music and sometimes musical selections competed with each other. Then the Walkman was born and headphones vibrated out the heavy beats of the Beastie Boys.

The headphones have gotten more elaborate and the “players” more inconspicuous, but now you can’t seem to travel anywhere without someone listening to something either on a cell phone or through their own personal listening device. Last summer, while stuck on a plane on an O’Hare runway I walked to the bathroom and counted only one person not on a phone or without headphones. Everyone, and I mean everyone was listening to something other than the pilot who was once again apologizing for the delay.

I worry sometimes that I’m disconnecting myself from the world around me by going on long walks plugged in, but I don’t worry enough to stop from doing it. I grew up in a musical family, my parents both music teachers so it only seems appropriate that music is a lifeblood of sorts for me. Yet here I am writing about something that seems as acceptable as it is ubiquitous.

What does it say about Americans that we have checked out, isolated ourselves from the sounds of the world with sounds from another world? It says a lot, of course, but I’m only concerned about what it says about me, another uniquely American quality I suppose.

So on my walks, the dog swinging his happy self at the end of the leash, this is what I think my iPod says about me:

I am well enough off that I can afford an iPod. In addition, I am well-enough off that walking for an hour or two is something I can afford. There are no kids to pick up from daycare, no second job to which I must attend, no bus I have to catch, no appointment I have to make.

I care about my dog. I’ve come to learn, after meeting many other dog owners that a lot of people don’t walk their dogs at least not for a long time. They may take Fido around the block for his daily constitutions, but they don’t just walk so the dog can get exercise. Some just throw the ball at a dog park or worse, just let the dog loose at the dog park and hope he or she gets enough exercise playing with other dogs or sniffing around off leash.

I care about my dog enough that if you were to watch me every day for a week you’d see that the dog walks (as do I) anywhere from 4-6 miles a day. Rain or shine. Furthermore, I care enough that when it’s raining my dog wears a raincoat. Another sign of my affluence or perhaps compulsion – either way, I care.

My iPod says I’m up on current pop culture. I own one where a lot of people my age (almost 50) may not or if they do, aren’t exactly sure how to use it. My iPod says I’m not living as a neo-Luddite. I know what an iPod is and I know how to use. Of course, if passersby could hear what’s on my iPod they would know a lot more about me than what just meets the eye.

I like folk music. There’s a lot of new young folk singers out there and I search, online at the iTunes store for quirky musicians that most iTuners don’t listen to. I know this because there’s nary a review about the CDs I download. Radio stations generally don’t play what I listen to so finding new music is a bit like searching for the Holy Grail – I may not find exactly what I’m looking for, but along the way I learn a whole lot about different artists.

My iPod says I have time. My iPod says I struggle with boredom. In the past, walking the dog was enough, but now walking must be entertaining, more entertaining that watching the dog chase leaves that blow by in windstorms.

My iPod says I can no longer run. I used to run with my iPod, but now my back aches and my knee is “crunchy” every time I go up or down stairs. I’ve given up running, which was very hard to do and the subsequent 20 pounds I’ve gained frustrates me to a raw nerve, a raw nerve that I soothe by listening to music or occasionally a recorded book I’ve downloaded temporarily on my iPod.

I never listen to my iPod while riding my bike, though I have a number of friends who do. I cringe when I see them. I don’t care how low the volume, you miss hearing certain sounds when you’re tuned in to music or even a story.

Some days I don’t listen to my iPod though and I suppose that says a lot about me too. Like I can be forgetful or that some days I need something other than music to bring me back to center. A walk in the rain will do that. A walk in the summer heat will do it as well.

While I may forget my iPod or choose not to take it, I never forget the dog. He could care less if I’m listening to music. He just loves to get out and my life seems all the more important when he’s at my side.

And what my dog says about me perhaps allows a more in-depth view of my psyche.

But I’ll leave it to him to tell that story.

Only Human

You'd think by now I'd learned that everyone is human, that everyone has a flaw or a quirk or more than one. You'd think that by now I'd realize no one is perfect and that all those little crushes I get on people who I think are perfect, melt away after just a bit of time with them.

It's not like a crush crush. It's more like a crush where you find someone really interesting and you want to know them better so that maybe a little bit of their sparkle (false as it may be) might sprinkle on you just enough to make you shimmer on occasion.

I spent yesterday traveling to a conference with someone I once thought perfect. I knew, when I got into the car, she wasn't perfect. Lots has happened to make me realize that simple though really complex reality. The details aren't important, but for the 2 hour car ride to the conference and back, I kept thinking, "No one is perfect so get over it."

I wasn't disappointed to figure out this person wasn't perfect. I wasn't even angry. I was almost philosophical about it. She talked about her two marriages, her struggle with bipolar disorder, her decision to stop her medications after 20 years of being on them, her dabbling into bio-resonance therapy, her indecisions about her career, her posting on Match.Com to find someone who'll make her feel less lonely...none of it surprised me, but her original image in my mind crumbled a bit.

"She's a good person," I kept saying to myself. "She's wrestling with some of the same demons. She's fully human and not some mold of perfection without flaws or warts."

But she was, to use an old cliche, the straw that broke my camel's perfection back. "No one's perfect," I concluded and I could feel myself not only projecting that thought backwards in my memory, but forward as well. "I have never known and will never know anyone who is perfect."

There was no judgment, but there was this revelation: I need to stop trying to achieve it.

It's not like I wake up in the morning and say, "Okay, what am I going to do today to be perfect?" It's more like I have this full glass of "perfect" and every mistake I make causes it to dribble out. That's really the wrong metaphor because it implies that I see myself as perfect. Instead, the glass of perfection is outside of me and my job is to carry it every day from the starting line of the morning to the finish line of bedtime. It's impossible. It spills to varying degrees every moment. Some days I end up with an empty glass by noon and other days I can't even get out of bed dry having spilled the whole thing just by sitting up.

Still, for 48 years I've been operating under the assumption that some people DO end up with a full glass by the time they crawl into bed and what's even more amazing is that they do it for more than one day in a row. They do it for weeks at a time, even a lifetime.

Nope, everyone is as wet as I am...or they're dry because they don't even try to pick up the glass of water. They have actually banished that glass from their lives, which you'd think would make them perfect, but it doesn't.

This is where I thought my friend was -- she was smart enough NOT to pick up the glass of perfection, to shatter the myth that she had to have such a glass in her life. She was perfect in her desire not to desire "perfect."

So yesterday, as we careened down the freeway in her expensive and speedy BMW sports car, I listened to her stories and her struggles, her frustrations and meditations and I realized we were no different. Almost 15 years older, I expected her age to offer me wisdom, the kind of wisdom that would make carrying that glass of water a bit easier or perhaps a bit more successful. Instead, the only wisdom I got was that she's balancing her own glass (or perhaps glasses) along a similiarly bumpy road.

I'm not sure where this leaves me. Does it make me more forgiving of other's imperfections? Does it make me more forgiving of my own? Does it make the glass of perfection sitting in front of me any less enticing or alluring? Will I stop kicking myself for my mistakes?

I can't imagine that it will, but perhaps it will give me a pause, a measured rest long enough where I can breathe in deeply and say something soothing or tempered, something zippy or hilarious, something spiritual or earthy.

But it's like chasing my tail. I shall stop my pursuit of perfection by saying the perfect phrase to pull me from my pursuit perfection only to stumble on the words tipping my glass ass over tea kettle dousing myself in my own ocean of faults.

It's hard to stop kicking yourself when you have such well-developed muscles for it.

Atrophy. A-trophy. Which shall I choose?

Cup O' Noodles

My teaching partner turned to me today and said, "I sure hope people show up for your presentation on Friday."

I've been worried sick that I'll walk into the school in Portland, set up my computer and projector, and then wait only to find that no one decided to come hear my presentation. I've been a bit worried these days and my teaching partner has had to hear it.

"Why do you hope that?" I asked her.

"I can't imagine, after all the work you've put into this what you'll be like if no one shows up!"

"Have I been an ass?"

"No, not an ass, but obsessed." She smiled. She's young and cute and has a great smile and I tried to focus on her smile as my stomach sank.

Obsessed. Yes, that pretty well sums it up.

Then at lunch we had a panel discussion on National Coming Out Day. Three other teachers sat with me in front of most of the school as they ate lunch and we were interviewed by two 8th graders. One of the teachers on the panel loves to talk. I mean, she loves to talk particularly when the subject is about herself. So she talked...at length after every question. The first question: When did you come out and what was that like?

Talkie teacher: ...forget it...I'm not even going to try to summarize her monologue...

Then the microphone comes to me. I sneak a peak at my teaching partner in the back of the room and she is smiling because we are both annoyed by talkie teacher's need to talk ad nauseum about herself.

Me: I was 19. It went great.

And then I handed the microphone to Sally sitting at my left. She handed it right back.

Obsessed. I am obsessed with people who have absolutely no regard for how anyone else feels.

During this discussion/presentation the girls are munching away on their lunches. Sandwiches to my right, a crunchy apple to my left, and a girl, slurping Cup O' Noodles directly in front of me.

I'm not sure what it is about Cup O' Noodles and me. Every slurp is an irritant. Grating. The noodle, wet and limp, flies up, hits the nose and then gets sucked in. Only it doesn't get completely sucked in. Bits fly to the left and right, drop into the lap of the slurper, and the broth, greasy and salty, dribbles down the front of the slurpers shirt.

"How has being gay changed your life?"

Slurp, slurp, slurp all the while I'm waiting for talkie teacher to finish her story.

I feel sick to my stomach. The Cup O' Noodles is being devoured in front of me. Slaughtered and sucked, dribbled and dissected noodle by noodle.

They hand the microphone to me. I can't think of anything to say.

"I think my being gay has changed other people's lives more than my own." It sounded snobbish, but it's true. I've known all my life. The only change was finding a name for what I was, for what I am and then there I was, out. Then back in again when I became a teacher and then out again when I decided to name it again.

"I've always been this. It's not news to me." My eyes are so focused on anything BUT the slurper at this point. "But every time I have to tell someone, which non-gay people don't have to do, there is a reaction. Sometimes it's a good reaction, sometimes it's not."

I can hear the slurper.

"My life isn't changed by their reaction. Theirs is...if only temporarily."

Then the talkie teacher asks for the microphone back and expands her original story. It's changed her life and she's about to share every detail with us.

Next question: What advice do you have for students who might be questioning?

I'm first. They hand the microphone to me.

"Be gentle with yourself. Take your time. Let all possibilities be possibilities. You'll know. Trust yourself on the inside and don't listen to the others on the outside. You're not alone. Find someone to talk to. Be patient. Forgive yourself for your doubts."

I kid you not, slurpy girl tips the Cup of the Cup O Noodles straight up to grasp the last slimey noodle with her tongue. Her lips do not touch the styrofoam rim of the cup. She taps the bottom of the inverted Cup. Her tongue works as if mining the air for diamonds. The teacher to my left has nothing more to add to my statement. She pats me on the back and says, "Nicely stated." The teacher to her left says, "Bravo. Well said." But then talkie teacher takes the microphone and begins a checklist of dos and don'ts.

The last noodle is dangling and the slurpy student's chin is covered in greasy broth, her tongue a flag in an unseen wind.

I will forever associate the sound of the talkie teacher to the slurp and slime of the Cup O Student.

I am obsessive. It is so true. So true.

Same As It Ever Was

I have 19 students this year and 3 whacked parents out of the bunch. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being certifiably nuts, one is a 9 and two are 7's, though they scare me more because they're silent 7's. I don't know they're about to wig out until I receive an email from the Head of School, forwarding one of these parent emails to me.

I've dealt with whacked parents before and that's exactly what hit me the other day: Teaching is no longer new, it's no longer challenging. It's the same conversations, the same dilemmas to solve, the same kid issues and parent weirdness. The only challenge, and that's even the wrong word for it, is having a young teacher as my teaching partner. She's not had these conversations or issues or dilemmas that much so she struggles in dealing with them.

Jokingly, I call her "Grasshopper" like the blind Kung Fu master did with David Carridine back in the 70's. "Take the pebble from my hand, grasshopper." We laugh about this a lot, but underneath it all, it's sad that this is my biggest challenge.

I never realized how much I need to be tested in my life. I seek it though I'd never really noticed that I seek it until now. I changed jobs a lot in my 20s, but then settled on teaching. Even there, though I've switched the grades I've taught, subjects, and now even schools.

I laugh when I read my horoscope. As a Sagitarius, the classic line is always "you feel unsettled with life" and while it makes me laugh, it's actually true. I get unsettled at times, squirmy, and my itchiness has lead me to some interesting places, but it's also uncomfortable and if I'm not careful, it can throw me into a real funk.

I'm a bit funkish now. I'm trying to find excitement in my job. Having a "grasshopper" helps, but it hasn't cured the itch or the funk.

Last night I woke at 2 in a panic about something I needed to do or forgot to do and I started thinking about this section I read in Cesar Milan's new book (Be the Leader of Your Pack). It's all kind of woo-woo, but it also struck me how much what he had to say rang true for me. Basically it goes like this: Your dog senses everything. You can't lie to your dog. If you don't feel like the confident leader of your pack, your dog will know it.

I see it with Rubin. He gets when I'm in a funk. He gets when I'm weak inside. Last night I was feeling weak and funky and he was a monster -- pulling on the leash, not listening to commands, biting his leash. I got frustrated and then I felt guilty -- what kind of dog trainer am I going to make if I can't even train my dog?

Granted, he's only 7 1/2 months old. He's only been living with us for 5 1/2 months. 90% of the time he is great on the leash, follows every command, and wants to please. But the 10% of stubborn, puppy dog feels like my failure, like some god-dog is watching from above and saying, "Yep, you just aren't good enough!"

So last night, after reading a bit of Cesar's book, I went to sleep thinking and woke up in the middle of the night thinking about how many therapists I've paid to teach me this lesson -- YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH ---YOU MUST BELIEVE YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH -- and now I have this dog who sees right through me and can call me on my self-loathing bullshit with the tug of his leash or his racing around the house barking.

I am not the leader of my pack.

I am not the leader of my pack when I feel funky and itchy and weak.

I cannot lie to Rubin.

So this morning, I vowed to do all those self-talk rituals every therapist has given me and face my ultimate therapist once again.

Rubin was an angel today.

I hate it when it's that easy.

This probably has nothing to do with being unchallenged at work, but in my mind the two go together. I feel good about myself when I'm stretching -- physically, intellectually, emotionally. I haven't stretched in months -- figuratively or literally. Rubin's rambunctious puppy-ness made me realize this yesterday.

I think I need to schedule regular visits with my puppy therapist for awhile...

Vapor Rub

My mother just emailed and asked how I was feeling. We communicate via phone and email and now via this blog, which is kind of weird in one sense (my parents get to read about my life whether I want them to or not) and kind of nice in another sense (I get to share my life with my parents...something many of my friends don't get a chance to do). I guess it all depends on how you look at it.

Often when I am sick, I call my mother. I don't know why. I just like to tell her that I don't feel well and that I need my mother. I don't think I really DO need her, but it's nice to hear both their voices (my mom's and dad's) and though it doesn't cure what ails me, I feel a smidge better afterwards.

This cold has been a killer, but finally I'm on the mend. Halfway through the week I figured out that, while the cough syrup was helping, the thing I really needed was Vick's Vapor Rub...which ironically brings me back to my parents.

I don't know what's REALLY in that stuff, but as I stood in the bathroom staring at my sick and pathetic self in the mirror, just the thought of putting that greasy goop on my chesk made me feel better. I slept like a baby that night -- all 12 hours as I went to bed almost immediately after I got home from work. The next night I did the same routine...downed the metallic flavored cough syrup and lathered my chest with Vick's. I even dabbed a little under my nose, just like my parents used to do and once again slept through the night soundly.

It was the sleep that helped, but I really think it was the Vick's too. Maybe it doesn't really do anything, but for me, it brings back memories as well as comforts me when I'm sick. Much like the phone call to my mother, when I'm coughing up a lung or blowing my nose raw, calling her is soothing. I can remember my mother and her rough fingertips massaging the stuff into my chest when I was just a little kid or my dad gently applying a dab in the "V" of my unbuttoned nightshirt. "This will help," they'd both tell me and I believed them.

Maybe it's the Vick's. But maybe it's that I still believe they were right and that belief makes me feel better. Hard to say, but for me, there is nothing better than a scoop of Vapor Rub, a phone call home, and a long night's sleep to make me well again.

Cold and Flu, Cold and Flu

When I experienced my allergies last April, when my face swelled up like a over-ripened plum, I went through a bunch of tests to figure out what it was. Mainly it felt like I figured out what is wasn't -- no food allergies, no pet allergies, we ruled out dust and pollen and even some weird heavy metals. Finally, we narrowed it down to three things, none of which I can spell but are found in the rubber of my Jockey underwear, the conditioner with which I condition my hair, and, of all things, vitamin B12.

I'll admit, I was addicted to the Airborne supplement I put in my water bottle every day and even to the Emergen-C packet I sometimes slipped in my morning juice. Ann always told me to back off, but it tasted good and I thought, "What harm can vitamin C do?"

Well, it wasn't the vitamin C that got to me, it was the Vitamin B12 in its mega-doses that eventually did me in. So I went off the supplements cold turkey and now there are very few vitamins I can take that don't have some form of B12 or B Complex in them.

The end result? I got walloped by a cold bug this past week and I mean walloped. Coughing, sneezing, runny nose, weepy eyes, aches, pains the whole snot-ball of wax. Ann got the cold first and I thought, three days after her "outbreak" I'd avoided catching it. But then WHAM! Like someone injected the virus straight into my bloodstream (okay, I know it wasn't a virus, but that's what it felt like).

Today Ann made me lay on the couch and do NOTHING. This is hard for me, this doing nothing, but I obliged her and eventually fell fast asleep breathing heavy through my mouth. After hours and hours of doing it, I'm feeling remarkably better, but still get short of breath if I walk too long with the dogs or haul laundry up the stairs.

I miss my B12. I miss my Airborne and my Emergen-C. Now I feel like those actors on the Cold and Flu season commercials and instead of healthy vitamins to ward off the bugs, I'm popping DayQuil and Sudafed and cough syrup.

It's not fair, I hear myself whine. Just like my 5th graders who most likely exposed me to the germs in the first place.

It's just not fair.

Excuse me while I go blow my nose.

October's Patience

As we approach October, life and work are slowing down ever-so-slightly. I'm feeling the rhythm again and my days are spent teaching children and my nights are spent training Rubin. Rubin is a far easier student in many regards, but I'm slowly getting to know my new crop of students -- their quirks, their comfort zones, their pet peeves, their rough edges -- so it doesn't feel as foreign as it did in the beginning of September.

It's taken me 22 years of teaching to realize I'm good at it and just when I start to own that, I'm feeling the need to change. I can do this work, this teaching work, but every year I am amazed by the amount of energy it saps from me. I already have my first cold of the year and though it hasn't walloped me, I feel drained and in need of sleep/rest/a vacation.

Meanwhile, I've been lucky enough to take Rubin to school with me 3 days a week. He loves it, my students love it, and the rest of the school (faculty, staff, other students, parents) are falling in love with him. He is darn cute, if I do say so myself, but I realized yesterday that part of my "exhaustion" is keeping my eye on the students and what I'm teaching them as well as keeping an eye on a 7 month old puppy whose patience runs thin at times.

Today he spent the whole day with me at school. This is a rarity. Generally, I take him home at lunch and let him get some sleep and then retrieve him in the afternoon for a long walk. Somehow that never happened today so he was with me the entire time. He should be tired. He got only a smidge of sleep and was ever-alert as the girls moved through their day dropping pens and shuffling their feet, all of which perks up Rubin's ears.

While I know it's going to be a good year, I am so ready for it to be my last year of teaching in the classroom. I'm not resentful. I'm not bitter or burned out. I'm just done. I need a new challenge in my life and now that everything is lined up with the dog trainer, I'm ready to just begin and not simply begin in tiny increments.

I suppose I am an impatient person. Okay, let me state that more as fact than as a pondering: I can be and often am an impatient person. Not with my students, not even with Rubin, but definitely with myself. Some say I'm a perfectionist though that's hard for me to see, but I will admit that I'm the first one to beat up on myself for any hint of failure and the one who punishes myself longer and harder than anyone else who may have been affected by my "mistakes."

It's funny how, if I were my own teacher -- in other words, if I were a 5th grader in my class -- I'd know exactly how to deal with me. It would be endless positive talk and lots of humor and lots of encouragement to make mistakes and be myself. But I'm much better at giving the lesson than I am at receiving it and so, I grow impatient when the world doesn't spin on the axis I've set forth.

I'm hoping October brings more rhythm and more patience. I'm hoping October, contrary to its normal work, is a time of sowing the seeds of change. I'm hoping October washes away some exhaustion and allows me to fully breathe in each day as it comes, finding patience with each and every breath.

Meanwhile, it's teaching in the mornings and Rubin in the evenings and a sprinkling of chocolate in between.

Under the Influence

I don't drink alcohol. I never have. And I mean never. There were many factors that played into my abstinence, but now at 48 I have no desire to drink and so I don't. Without any wrangling on my part, most of my friends don't drink either. Some will have an occasional glass of wine, but others have chosen sobriety because of past encounters or just, like me, decided not to drink.

So when I take medications they hit me hard. Like right now. I took a Tylenol PM because Ann's cold has seeped into my throat and bit into my eyes -- both scratchy and dry -- and so to sleep soundly (in an attempt to get some rest and recovery), I popped the blue little pill.

Every once in awhile the pill wires me. I lie in bed feel as if I am 3 feet higher than my platform bed, unable to sleep and spinning nervously. Generally though, that doesn't happen. I crash, deep into something soft and weighted. Even though the bottle claims that the pill only lasts 4 hours, I'm able to get 10 hours of hard sleep out of it.

I avoid taking the pills though, as it can be a groggy morning not very condusive to teaching 19 ten-year olds. And at times in my life, I needed the pill just to find some bit of sleep. I don't want to go back there so now I limit myself -- only when sick or when I have been unable to fall asleep.

It's early, but under the influence I think I shall wander off to the blue soft sleep of one oval pill.

Work To Do

I have agreed to take part in a presentation for an Independent Schools Conference, but for the life of me, I can't seem to get started on that work. I'm supposed to be creating a PowerPoint showing how our work with Peggy and the horses helps our students build their leadership skills. I've started the PPT about four times now and it just seems like this extremely boring presentation, like Charlie Brown's teacher signed up to speak --- Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa.

I know that inspiration will come, but meanwhile, I blog instead of work. Meanwhile I listen to Rubin under my desk gnaw away on a big beef knuckle bone like he's digging through the earth hoping to get to China.

Work feels a bit like deja vu. I've had all these students before, haven't I? I've had all these conversations about patience and politeness recently, yes? Why do I sound like a repeated, looped message?

So tonight, to clear my head of the deja vu, I took Rubin for a long walk by the lake. Ann is kid-sitting for our friends tonight and so I went with her and then walked back home -- about an hour walk.

Rubin was frenetic, like the leash was electric and he bounced his electric pulses at the end of his tether. When we got to the lake I found a stick and threw it again and again and he swam out far and strong to retrieve it. I thought he was fairly worn out, but when we started walking again, he had more energy than ever.

Even now, an hour after our return, he's racing around the house tossing his stuffed toys and frantically gnawing his chew-toys as if he is fueled by batteries and not expensive dog food.

Okay, he's a puppy still (7 months tomorrow), but still, I thought I'd wear him out. Instead, he's wearing me out on a day when I don't need any more wearing.

Now Ann is home and he is wagging his tail so crazily, it's scaring even him.

My doctor said there are 4 common things that people who live to be 100 do:

1. They walk a lot and rarely depend on other forms of transportation.
2. They eat sour things like yogurt and sauerkraut.
3. They get at least 9 hours of sleep each night.
4. And when they go to bed at night after a hard day they say, "Tomorrow is another day."

I'm working on it...but that last one can be a killer.

Now

The seasonal flood of work has once again floated around my eyeballs for the past few weeks. I am tired, deeply, another seasonal affliction from the dramatic change of pace -- one minute I'm on vacation with nary a question to answer and the next I'm back at work fielding 100 questions a day and most of them repeats.

But underneath it all, I've been quietly working to change my life. Yesterday, I drove south to spend the morning with Peggy, the horse whisperer, as we prepared for our presentation at an Independent Schools conference. There is something about spending time with Peggy that is both ethereal and grounding. It was heady work yesterday trying to grapple with how we meld the classroom experience with the students' work in the arena with Peggy's horses. It's transformational, I have no doubt about it, but explaining how it works or why or even how we evolved to the methods we use is complicated and overwhelming. It doesn't help that we only have an hour and 15 minutes to present, which seems like a lifetime in some ways and like a split second in others.

After Peggy's, I drove north to visit with Dave, the dog trainer, to see if he would be willing to take me on as an apprentice. We met at Starbucks and talked about our lives, our goals, animals, and teaching. In many ways, the conversation with Peggy in the morning was the same conversation with Dave in the afternoon though I can't give any concrete examples of exactly how it was the same.

Peggy talks about the four areas she works on with children and horses -- Connection, Intention, Being Present, and Authenticity. She also uses the term Claiming Space with the girls in reference to all of the four areas, and throughout the school year, we circle back to these concepts again and again. In addition, we add the concept of Intent vs. Impact, of how we can positively claim space versus negatively claim space by examining our intentions and observing our impacts.

See, it's really hard to explain, but the girls get it (probably through repetition more than anything) and by the end of the year, when we head back to Peggy's in the spring, they are able to create personal goals that are more genuine and real than most goals adult set -- I want to be friendlier, I want to know that my quiet way can still be seen as a leader, I want to be aware of how others feel, I want to be more patient...

It's powerful stuff so as I sat in the coffee shop chatting away with Dave about training and life, I could feel myself practicing all those things I've seen Peggy teach the girls -- connection, being present, authenticity, intention, claiming space, and intent vs. impact. I tried to explain it all to Dave and amazingly, he understood.

"It's the same when you work with dogs," he said. "I don't have any scientific basis for it, but if you picture what you want the dog to do, he reads your thoughts. It's that connection that I have to have with someone if we're going to work together. It's why this conversation with you is so important."

Dave is a gentle soul. He's a big, big man working his way through the South Beach Diet to lose 65 pounds or more so he no longer tips the scale at 300 pounds. He was a high school and college wrestler and his fingers are the size of bratwursts. At first glance, you'd think he was brash and loud and burley, but when he works with dogs, he is gentle, thoughtful, and quiet. He can get the most energetic puppy to fall asleep in his arms within 30 minutes of working with them and quiet the most angry of canines simply by slowly massaging his large hands across a dog's back.

I emailed him this morning to thank him for meeting with me and for agreeing to "train" me. He wrote back and said, "We're going to make a great dog trainer out of you" and I felt the same kind of magic bubble I do when I watch Peggy work with my students.

Of course, when I got home I was exhausted. My ass hurt from driving over 150 miles in one day and then sitting in a dining room and then a coffee shop and my head felt heavy with all the ideas and discussion and scheming of the day. I've had a hard time recovering today, but this evening I took Rubin on a long walk and tried, as Peggy so gently commands of my students, to be in the moment. About a mile from home, Rubin got very excited and when I released him from his "right here" or "heal" position, he raced like a crazed puppy back and forth across the grass turning at the exact moment he knew his leash would run out. He smiled and pranced and pounced, growling playfully all the while. A passerby stood a few feet from us and laughed with me as Rubin continued his wild frenzy until finally he flopped in the grass exhausted.

This year is going to be a hard year. I know that. Teaching will drain me as it does every year and the dog apprenticing will be like going back to school again, energizing but exhausting. While I look forward to the latter, I know I must muster up some serious energy to be fully functioning with the former and count the days as they slowly pass by.

Peggy told me, as we sat in her dining room planning our presentation, that if there was one word of advice she could offer me as I transition from one passion to the other it would be to be kind to myself. Forgiving was the word she used. Forgiveness has been one of my life lessons and when hours later I heard Dave say the same thing, "A good trainer must be able to forgive themselves" I realized this is one of those lessons that will present itself to me again and again, no matter how deep the flood of my life.

I shall end this ramble with a picture of Rubin, who along with Ann, is a great joy and a brilliant reminder of staying present, staying connected, being authentic, as well as being intentional while I move into claiming my new space in life.

Rattlesnake Ledge Photos

I meant to put these photos on my Rubinations blog and the current Rubinations blog on this one, but alas, they got switched and it's too much work to correct them...so, here are the photos from Rubin's recent hiking and swimming adventure. (If you want to read the other blog, click on Rubinations at the side...)

Rubin, a bit uncertain on top of Rattlesnake Ledge. There's quite a drop off about 20 feet from him...his toes are gripping the rock!

A bit more relaxed and enjoying the view...

Monty in the sky with a small child at his neck!

At the lake...chasing dreams of being a big dog...

Resting pose...

A dog, a lake, a tennis ball, and a good roll in green grass...does it get any better than this?