Domesticity

Le jour de gloire est arrivée

/ J. F. Riordan / 23 Comments

Well, tomorrow.

What we affectionately refer to as the French invasion begins tomorrow, when our daughter and younger grandson arrive for Christmas. Today there will be a certain amount of bustle as beds are changed, the house is cleaned, flowers are refreshed and we stock up on coffee for our daughter, and bake Christmas cookies for boys.

Also the dog hair must be vacuumed from the back seat of the big car. And Eli, who is responding to the warm winter in true long-hair fashion (he is half long-hair), is blowing his coat. He will need to be taken out to the orchard and brushed. Brushing him near the house makes visitors suspect we’ve had some kind of massacre of enormous bunnies.

I still cannot find the fragile glass icicle ornaments I pack away so carefully each year. Most annoying. They add such a magical shimmer to the tree. And, of course, our appliance debacle continued yesterday, on our first cold day in weeks, when our five year old furnace motor found a dark spot. Whatever that means. I am hoping the new part arrives today.

Meanwhile, only three days of school left for our long-term visiting grandson. Last night he meticulously wrote thank-you notes to all his teachers, and together we put bows and gift tags on his Christmas gifts. He will return home with his family before the new year.

All the bustle is fun and carries the requisite note of Christmas cheer. But there is cooking to be done, and wrapping, and still a few elements of shopping. Ah, and all the bed linens to be washed.

Speaking of cheer, there is one other note of preparation for the coming festivities: A case of champagne and the big bottle of whiskey.

By the end of the night, grandma may require a wee dram.

In any case, she will have earned it.

Update:

My husband, upon reading the above: “You have started calling yourself ‘Grandma’ and referring to yourself in the third person?…Also, where’s this whiskey?”

Small Oversight

/ J. F. Riordan / 27 Comments

Life can be busy sometimes, what with eighth grade basketball practice, slope intercepts, multiple broken appliances, Christmas preparations, and hauling ten eighth-graders to and from an escape room. So somehow, we have managed to wait too long to buy our Christmas tree.

I bought a small one for the library as I do every year, and mostly handled it myself. But our main tree, the one that has to go to the ceiling, is more of a family project, and finding the right time to shop for it has been tricky.

I expressed my concern to my husband last night. “We live in Wisconsin,” my husband pointed out. “The land of Christmas trees.” And it’s true. The trees are harvested in August, then stored underwater in river beds until it’s time to ship across the country. But somehow the supply seems more limited than usual. We always buy our tree from a family who set up at the motel parking lot. They are from “Up North”. They are cheerful guys with rosy faces and thick Wisconsin accents. They are part of our tradition, and when their postcard comes every November we welcome it as a sign of the season. But when I drove past yesterday they only had two sizes left: Too small and WAYYY too big. The local Optimists Club, who sell trees to raise funds for scholarships, were also down to a dozen or so small, but pretty trees. Same with our family-run nursery, and the cut-your-own lot a bit out of town was already closed.

Now, as a confession, last year, when our worries about dried-out trees and fires were fresh in our minds, I bought a splendid fake tree from Balsam Hill. It looks very real, probably, and as a bonus, all the lights are already on it. I am stickler for lights, and yet it is a job I dread in both the putting-on and the taking-off of them. But somehow, for this Christmas with the family coming from France and Washington, it seems wrong to have a fake tree as our main tree. I just can’t seem to do it. And so, it’s still sitting in its box in our attic, doubtless inhabited by singing mice.

We will have to go on a tree hunt tonight after the basketball game. (What is the opposite of “undefeated”?)

It may come down to the fake tree after all.

Gratuitous Dog Photo

Auggie patiently snoozing while I work. No fire; it will be 55 degrees today.

Morning around here

/ J. F. Riordan / 15 Comments

There was a spectacular sky this morning. A front coming through created a sharp diagonal line of clouds moving against the hot pink and orange of sunrise. Two great horned owls conversed at some length. I bestirred myself from my writing and stepped out onto the back stairs to look out over the woods, listen, and breathe. It’s cool this morning, cool enough for snow. But there’s only rain in the forecast.

Eli did not bark at the grandson when he came downstairs. We never know with Eli. He has a strange case of situational amnesia. But now grandson’s off to school, and Eli’s cuddling with his gorilla. Auggie has finished staring at the treat jar because I stopped paying attention after four, and has now settled on the couch.

The day stretches ahead with many tasks.

All is well.

St. Nick

/ J. F. Riordan / 17 Comments

We didn’t celebrate St. Nick’s Day when I was a child. I hadn’t even heard of it until we moved to Wisconsin. And it didn’t occur to my parents–who were not big on following along with the crowd–to adopt the local custom. I never felt deprived.

But St. Nick is a thing, both among the local families, and according to French custom, so with our French/American grandson living with us this year, the old fellow was expected to make an appearance at our house. I bought candy and clementines and a rather beautiful US Passport Christmas ornament, and felt I had met the mark. But when we heard that little brother in France got earbuds, we realized we had to up our game. So a late-night emergency trip to the local drugstore yielded a pocket retro electronic game which Grandpa had observed being coveted, and a crappy-cheapo plush Santa hat, which, apparently, is a middle school thing. St. Nick has dutifully delivered these treasures into the depths of the très chic name-brand boots we bought for the non-existent snow.

The boy is happy. And so are we. Kids make the season more fun. Although the game makes a familiar and annoying electronic noise that may drive me mad.

Should have bought the earbuds.

Paperwork

/ J. F. Riordan / 49 Comments

My niece and her husband—both executives at a big company—run a paperless home. They don’t write notes on paper; they receive and pay their bills electronically, and, well, I don’t know what else, because I cannot imagine living that way.

This is not a criticism. It is a confession.

My husband and I are writers. But while we both use computers most of the time, we do regularly make handwritten notes. When I need to download information for myself, I find that the simple writing of lists in a notebook is somehow refreshing to my mind. My notebook sits next to me now as I write, and on my bedside table at night. I carry it with me into the grocery store and prop it up on the seat of the cart. It often sits on the passenger seat in my car. It travels with me, so I can write on the plane when electronics are prohibited. I will use my phone to make notes if I have to, but I always prefer paper.

My preference for paper extends to a preference for a particular notebook, which seems no longer to exist anywhere in the world, but of which I have an extensive backstock. Occasionally in an idle moment I still search for them, but my hope is gone.

I like pens, too, and I am particular about them. This is not to say that I prefer anything expensive or fancy. The office cheapo store has perfectly fine pens. But they have to feel right in my hand, and they have to move across the paper in a certain way. When I had a day job and traveled often, there was a certain luxury hotel in Washington D.C. whose conference room pens I absolutely coveted. I still have two, and try to spare them for special occasions. The truth is, I love office supplies of every kind, really. Since childhood I have enjoyed a leisurely meander through the aisles of paper, pens, and whatnots. I have always been drawn to those bound accounting books, even though I have an absolute horror of accounting. I don’t buy them, but I eye them speculatively. I am also drawn to boxes of crayons.

But the thing is, we are drowning in paper. Most of it comes in the mail, and it is of no interest whatsoever. That’s easy to get rid of. But aside from the advertising stuff or the solicitations for donations, much of it—despite its unimportance—is unsafe to throw away. It has account numbers, or personal information that you really don’t want floating around. I used to have a shredder, but after a few iterations the shredders went the way of my robot cleaners: Fun while they’re working, but that’s not for long. And so the paper sits around on my kitchen counter, and later slithers out of the bonfire burn bag in the closet and escapes under the door, making a mess in the back hall. You know why I can’t wait for snow? So I can have a big bonfire and get rid of it all.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

And Now for Your Gratuitous Dog Photos

Everybody yawn.

Domestic trifles

/ J. F. Riordan / 35 Comments

I don’t usually sleep late, but I was in the middle of a lovely deep sleep this morning, dreaming about swimming at a beautiful beach and planning to rent a boat, when I heard my husband exclaiming loudly and moving things in the kitchen. This is not his usual routine.

Bleary, I wandered into the kitchen, to be hit with the overwhelming smell of artificial Christmas spices. My husband had two rolls of paper towels and was mopping up the floor. There was sticky liquid and shattered glass all over the floor and countertop and dripping down the cabinets. The dogs, always interested in new activities, were eagerly putting their noses in the middle of everything, and stepping where there were fragments of glass.

A cutting board that leans against the wall had fallen against a bottle of IKEA non-alcoholic punch. One disadvantage of a stone floor is that nothing survives a drop.

Not a catastrophe, but, with the dogs’ feet safe, the mess cleaned up, and the floor only marginally sticky, it is 5:45 and I am still not awake. Not even the vacuum cleaner woke me up, and as the sun rises, I long to crawl back into bed.

But I do feel we had a lucky escape. That punch smelled terrible.

Also, thank God it wasn’t the bottle of Bordeaux.

Your morning gratuitous dog photo. Eli is keeping an eye on the turkeys.

No Golden Dogs

/ J. F. Riordan / 45 Comments

Ah, Monday. Blessed-nothing-planned-no-appointments-on-the-calendar Monday.

We traveled for the holiday, and while it is always good to see family, it is also good to be at home in your own bed, and then waking to watch the sun rise, with the silhouettes of deer and turkeys in the woods, and the sweet soft breathing of big dogs nearby.

When I had a day job my Sundays were filled with dread. On Monday mornings I would stand at the big windows of my bedroom looking out at the beauties of the woods and sky, feeling bereft at having to leave for the demands of the classroom or office.

Now my schedule is mostly my own. And because I have always hated that Sunday feeling, I try to never schedule anything on a Monday. I write in the mornings, and reserve afternoons for appointments, errands, exercise, and domestic tasks. Lately, however, in what seems to be some kind of mechanical conspiracy, we have been on a breaking-down appliance spree, so my autonomy has been interrupted by lengthy bouts of dishwashing and repairmen who schedule their appearances in five hour appointment windows. Today, I have nothing planned except writing, walking the dogs, and making beef stew. There will also be a long, fragrant bath. A perfect day. I hope.

But we never know, do we? Our expectations of perfection are mostly disappointed, and since disappointment is a form of ingratitude, it would be graceless not to appreciate the imperfect blessings of our real lives, no?

And this brings me to My Dog Pete, the children’s book I finally got around to publishing this year after more than a decade of leaving it to languish in a file in my office.

My husband, who is a man of deep insights, recently pointed out to me that the book contains the philosophy of a happy life. I heard this with some surprise, because I was only telling a story, not trying to convey a moral. In the book, a little girl wants a perfect, golden dog who will be handsome and admired. Instead, she gets a mixed-breed, mischievous shelter dog who was probably abused, leaps as gracefully as a gazelle, and smells a little funny. She doesn’t want him. But–spoiler alert–against all her heartfelt preferences, she falls in love with him.

So often in life, when things don’t live up to our expectations, we are frustrated and disappointed. And yet, most of the time, what we get–even though it isn’t perfect–is still something good, and we are lucky to have it.

We must notice the good things we are so blessed to have. Ingratitude is a sin, and in most theologies perfectionism is, too, because it is a focus on self-will and the ego. And also because for most of the world, sadness and misery is a normal day. So now, when one of us doesn’t get exactly what we hoped for or expected, we say to one another: “I wanted a golden dog.” And we remember to relax into the reality of imperfection that is still filled with many beautiful things; many blessings.

After all, in real life we didn’t expect it, but we got Pete. And we wouldn’t have changed him for any other dog in the world.

Hoping you had a Happy Thanksgiving.

Pete, in one of his (many) stubborn moments.
My Dog Pete is available exclusively at Amazon.

The Sword of Damocles

/ J. F. Riordan / 50 Comments

Writing bad poetry is a pastime shared with youth and age. I will spare you mine, but intense emotion always draws it out of me, and I hide it as if it were an addiction to drink or pornography. I am so grateful that Auggie is home. And he is back. This is not redundant.

His stitches are out; the cone is off; his obsession with balls is unabated; he is romping nearly at full speed, and he seems to have a new appreciation for home, and bed, and snuggles. He is insatiably hungry; all I do is feed him. I don’t even need to tempt him. He is healing and his body needs to rebuild.

We almost lost him more than once, and we are so grateful to have him back, whole in every meaningful sense of the word, and sound. But he seems to have muted just the smallest bit, noticeable only to those who know him, and suddenly he is no longer young and immortal, but middle-aged and vulnerable like the rest of us.

We took him in for a check-up and sat studying the veterinary wall chart on dog sizes and lifespans. At six, Auggie is now well into middle age, and his life may be more than half over. His family have lived to twelve and fourteen. While that makes me vulnerable to hope, those ages are not common for big dogs, and Auggie is a lean 112 pounds. Mortality lingers in the background for all of us, but dogs have those first sparkling years, and then the slow sadness creeps in too quickly.

I used to scoff at people who said they couldn’t endure the pain of losing another dog. Now, I’m starting to get it.

But meanwhile, here they both are: vibrant, restless, and ready to run. I’d better go.

Electronic Narcissism

/ J. F. Riordan / 4 Comments

I like silence. Perhaps it is a commentary on the state of my nerves, or maybe it’s because I’m a former musician and my brain is aurally focused, but I find unwanted noises distracting. I need silence to think and to write, and when I want sound, I prefer to choose whether it’s words or music. So I find the contemporary taste for household appliances that ping, beep, and play tunes extremely annoying. 

If I seem cranky, it’s probably because I have been trying desperately to write a novel amidst continual interruption from household appliances.

I have a notion that devices should A) make your life easier and B) not require distraction from your thoughts, and, come to think of it, C) achieve their purposes in silence while leaving me alone. 

In my quest to break my writing stalemate, I recently packed up and left home for the seclusion of the Island. The house I rent when I go away to write is a place I know well. I have been going there for years, and it’s like a second home. It’s a charming place: roomy, but cozy, with a wonderful property where I can walk in privacy with the dogs, and a lovely landlady who knows the precise formula of solitude and companionship to feed a writer. I have written parts of all my books there, and there’s something about the atmosphere that inspires productivity. My days there are a perfect pattern of writing and walking, and no one disturbs me unless I want to be disturbed. The house is not old, but my landlady had just replaced the range, the refrigerator, and the washer-dryer, all sparkling new and ready to be used. She is a generous woman, and likes to buy quality things.

Throughout my first day, unfortunately, I spent a great deal of time debating when to tell my host that there were red squirrels nesting in the roof. I knew it would upset her, and I also knew it would mean workmen disrupting my writing. The squirrels’ chirping and scratching was irregular but loud, and I feared they were doing damage. It wasn’t until late in the afternoon that I finally realized that it wasn’t squirrels, but the new refrigerator. I have no idea why a refrigerator should make a noise like red squirrels. Maybe someone thought it was cute. Or maybe no one ever spent any time in a room where it was running. I suppose it was companionable, in its way. I mean, at least the noise resembled living things.


The stove however, was much worse than squirrels. Writing can be both lonely and vaguely excruciating, and it is during these moments that I usually take a break to cook something nice for myself. Sometimes the food in my novels is actually something I’ve just made. Food, for me, is comfort, and when I’m alone, I look forward to meals as a way of permitting myself a break, and as a kind of companionship. In some ways, it’s as much about the cooking as it is about the eating. Cooking is a pleasant diversion, and creative, but as I’m chopping onions or browning beef, my mind is able to continue the intellectual rambling necessary for building a story.

So, having grown accustomed to the refrigerator squirrels, after a few hours of work and a long walk in lovely silence, I turned on the oven, and was jolted out of my plot-related reverie by a jaunty little tune. It wasn’t just a beep, but an actual musical phrase, only with tinky-tonk noises. When I set the timer it produced another tune, and like so many electronic devices, instead of one smooth dialing motion to set the temperature, I had to press it each time I added ten degrees, each time producing another beep. When the oven reached the temperature I had laboriously set, it sang yet another tune. Apparently each melody has a specified meaning, but I’m not interested in providing room in my head for determining which is which. I found myself missing my vintage stove at home, whose only noise is the satisfying “whomp” it makes when you light the oven with a match.                                                                          

Then there was the new washing machine. I pack lightly when I go away to write. I mean to say: the car is full of stuff—much of it dog-related, and some of it bourbon—but I don’t bring a lot of clothes, so I’m happy to have a washer dryer in the house, and I often throw something into the washer while I’m writing. This new machine could be featured in a museum as The Loudest Washing Machine in the World, and it makes what I can only describe as a rhythmic mechanical gagging sound for the entire cycle. It’s some sort of water-saving design, which is, I guess, mandatory, but seems a little silly when you’re only steps away from—literally—a quadrillion gallons of water. I found the gagging somewhat less charming than the nesting squirrels.  As if this were not enough, it beeps. Not once, for each time you choose a cycle, or once when it’s finished, but every 30 seconds after the cycle, until you interrupt the sentence you’re writing to get up and open the lid. I have had the care of less demanding puppies. 

Thankfully, I was able to close the door to drown out the worst of the noises, but the beeping penetrated the walls. Not surprisingly, the matching dryer is also an electronic nag. But the thing is, if they make weird gurgling noises and show signs of nausea, how would you know until you got them home? I have a new washer and dryer at home, and they both have the options to turn off the signals. I made sure of that. Of course, I don’t live in the same room with them, either. So there’s that. 

But still.

It used to be that appliances would sit silently and make themselves useful. Now, for reasons I do not understand, they seem to feel a need to call attention to themselves, as if, like electronic toddlers, they are announcing: Look at me! Look what I’ve done!

It strikes me as an indication of a deeply flawed society. What personal failings have led us to develop narcissistic appliances? Is it a reflection of modern life, the electronic equivalent of so-called influencers, who must announce their doings on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook, or be forced to question the value of their own existences? Have we created appliances like ourselves? Is there anyone who likes this incessant mechanistic signaling? Or is there something about the electronic miasma in which we all exist that assimilates our nerves into a state of noise acquiescence? Is there some consumer movement I need to join to dissuade manufacturers from this evil path?  

The last time I bought a microwave oven I asked the saleswoman which ones beeped only once and stopped. It was clear by her reaction that no one else had ever asked this question, but she dutifully investigated the beeping of each one, no doubt thinking bad words that I am grateful not to have heard. But each time I buy a new appliance, I find that the noise factor has intensified, as if this has become a signal—as it were—of improvement. I believe it is, instead, an instrument of consumer torture.

A few days after I got home and settled into a new appreciation of my quiet appliances, the brand new, very expensive water heater silently burst a valve and unobtrusively leaked water all over the basement floor. 

I felt oddly grateful.