North of the Tension Line

First sing.

/ J. F. Riordan / 4 Comments

When we were newly married, my husband and I had an agreement: whenever I said I “hated” something, I owed him a dollar; whenever he interrupted me, he owed me a dollar. I hated bad grammar. I hated vinyl siding. I hated..you know…unimportant things. He still interrupts me incessantly. But I have come to rarely say that I hate anything. I’m good with that. Not with the interrupting, really, but marriage is about compromise. I mean: it’s better not to express so much negativity about trivialities.

So you will, perhaps, appreciate the intensity and genuine feeling expressed when I tell you that I hate daylight savings time. Much of that is about being an early riser. After months of the dreariness of rising in pitch black and turning on the lights as if you’d never gone to bed, we had finally been waking in the faint light of pre-dawn. It was easier, and life had a rhythm to it. Even on days off, my body clock would chime, and I would rise at the usual time. It made the mornings effortless.

But last night, we couldn’t get to sleep because it was too early, and this morning, after a restless night with odd and vivid dreams, getting up was dark, and hard, and miserable. It was jet lag, but imposed without the lovely trip to London.

I dragged myself to the kitchen for coffee, and returned to the bedroom, to sit by the window and watch the stirrings of life in the woods. The room felt overheated, so I threw open a window. What I heard made me stand up and go to the doors and open them to listen, just to be sure. Mixed with the turkeys, and the geese on the lake, and the red squirrels, was the song of the first robins. Flocks of them, not just one.

March is early for robins in Wisconsin. Maybe this warm weather is more than just a tease.

 

The Demography of Goats

/ J. F. Riordan / 3 Comments
Goat photo courtesy the Washington Post (Flickr/Bagsgroove)

Goat photo courtesy the Washington Post (Flickr/Bagsgroove)

Is that an oxymoron, since the root of the word demography is demos, meaning (common) people? Perhaps gidagraphy would be more correct?

In any case, I was reminded recently of this story, that ran in The Washington Post last January.

I am not a numbers person. Nor a measurer. Nor a keeper of statistics of any kind. And yet, this particular set of numbers fascinates me.

Go ahead and click on the map in the article. I’ll wait.

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One dot equals 500 goats?? I had no idea that goats were so much a part of the American landscape.

Texas, in particular, seems to be a hotbed of goatishness.

And by the way, please note from the article: “Goats are having a moment.”

 

Dog Joy

/ J. F. Riordan

Whenever I can, I like to take our dogs for a walk in a particular woods. We have to drive there, and the dogs know the place by sight. They also know the difference between when we are actually going there, and when we are only driving past. Even if I haven’t said anything, when the turn signal goes on at a particular intersection, they know we are going to the woods. But usually, just to give them the pleasure of anticipation, I say to them: “Do you want to go to the woods?” and they immediately begin to sing with joy.

Moses, who until recently had been the least vocal of the two, is the most expressive where the woods are concerned. It’s his favorite place. He starts with warbles in a rich baritone, but as we get closer he switches to yipes in an increasingly higher tessitura, until he reaches soprano range, in keeping with his rising excitement. Pete joins in with his characteristic alto.  By the time I can get around to open the door, they are tumbling over one another to get out and run, barking as if they were on the hunt. Sometimes there are deer, or squirrels, and the dogs tear after them, disappearing into the hills out of sight. If I am patient–meaning: not too cold–I let them come back when they want to. But if I whistle they always come. I can hear them coming usually before I see them, and they arrive at my feet bustling with joy and pride.

Their happiness delights me, and is often the best part of the day.

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Gracie’s Delight

/ J. F. Riordan

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Gracie Jagler

A friend of ours has a beautiful daughter named Gracie. Gracie, who has Downs Syndrome, loves dogs, especially her three miniature schnauzers. She has just started a new business, Gracie’s Doggie Delights, which produces and sells home made dog treats. Every time a sale is made–through an Amazon portal, which makes it so easy–Gracie’s phone dings, and she is absolutely delighted.

If you have a dog you love who would appreciate some home made treats, stop by, and give Gracie a very happy day.

Hard Choices

/ J. F. Riordan

My gift to my husband this year was a series of tickets to plays. Our first was this past Saturday, the Milwaukee Rep’s Of Mice and Men. Since this was my husband’s gift, the choice was made to please him, because this is most definitively not my kind of story.

So, embarrassing fact: I was an English major, and I read a lot, as you might imagine (And I should also point out that I am of an age in which English majors actually read literature. No, seriously. It was something that was required.), but somehow, I had managed my whole life never to read Of Mice and Men. I suppose we all have gaps in our educations, but this was an intentional one. I knew instinctively that I would feel bad reading this book, and I hate feeling bad. In fact, I spend a great deal of effort and energy working on feeling good. I knew vaguely that Lennie was mentally challenged, but I was content to leave my information level there.

So (spoiler alert, for those of you whose education gaps are similar) when they shot the dog in the first act, I had a pretty clear idea of where we were headed. Recognizing foreshadowing is an English major thing. My husband, who watched me uneasily out of the corner of his eye pretty much during the entire play, said later that he was fully prepared for me to break out in noisy sobs when they killed the dog. He was holding his breath about what might happen at the end. To me, I mean, not to the characters. He, literate, cultured, and urbane creature that he is, had actually read the book.

Curiously, I was utterly dry-eyed throughout the entire play. This is not typical of me, since, as my family never lets me forget,  I cried at the end of the sailboat race in Stuart Little. But I have been thinking about the story for three days now.

I have been wondering about George; wondering about the choice he made. Could he come to terms later with the relief he must have felt? Could he forgive himself for what he did, even though he did it to spare his friend pain and terror? Did he go on to fulfill the dream he had carried so long in his wanderings? If so, was he able to find joy in it? Or was it poison-filled?

And isn’t living with your choices–without regret–a difficult thing? Or is regret the right thing? Do our souls require it?

If you live nearby and have not seen the Milwaukee Rep’s performance, you should go. The actor who plays Lennie, Scott Greer, is exceptional.

 

Sneak Preview of The Audacity of Goats

/ J. F. Riordan / 2 Comments

TAOG COVER

Lars Olafsen had been Chairman of the Town of Washington for going on twenty years, and a member of the town board for five years before that. He was a dutiful man, and a public servant in the old fashioned sense. He had earned the respect of his constituents through his fairness, his honesty, and his innate, steady, Scandinavian calm.

But Lars was beginning to feel the wear of so many years at the beck and call of his fellow islanders, and had begun to yearn for a reprieve. His children and grandchildren lived downstate in Milwaukee, and his wife was continually urging that they spend more time there. And Lars, though he was only in his early seventies, was beginning to feel his energy wane, and his enthusiasm for the job with it.

The major consideration, however, was one he would never admit to anyone, not even to his wife. Although his feelings were complicated, secretly Lars still glowed with a feeling of heady triumph after his out-maneuvering of Stella DesRosiers last spring in her mean-spirited attempt to drive her neighbor, Ms. Fiona Campbell, out of town.  He had stooped to political blackmail, no doubt about it, and he had suffered many moments of doubt about what he’d done. Had it been a violation of the public trust that disqualified him for continuing in office, or a valiant stroke for the public good? Lars had struggled with this question, but he always returned to the conclusion that it had been no more than Stella deserved, and an act of natural justice. Stella had been bullying her fellow citizens for years without any repercussions other than her unpopularity. And while he continued to wonder whether it was wrong to feel proud of it, his career, Lars felt sure, could reach no greater achievement. “Might as well go out on a high note,” he thought.

And so, one Wednesday night at Nelson’s Hall, when a quorum of his regular circle was in attendance, Lars Olafsen announced his retirement. He was immediately surrounded by a jovial, back-slapping throng, and shots were thrust into his hand in rapid succession.

“Lars,” said Paul Miller, his childhood friend, “you can’t retire. We’re too young.”

“You’ve been an asset to us, Lars,” said another old friend.

“You run a tight ship, Lars. Those meetings will take twice as long without you.”

But the real concern was the one voiced by Jake, who had a reputation for cutting to the heart of every discussion. “You can’t leave. There’s nobody who’ll take your place.”

This was true, as everyone at Nelson’s well knew. Being Chairman was a thankless job, and few people wanted to be bothered with it. There was a slew of paperwork and arrogant State officials to be dealt with, not to mention the unceasing need to wrangle volunteers for committees and other public work, and the inevitable squabbles—both petty and potentially fatal. No, particularly in these days of escalating state bureaucracy, you’d have to be a fool to want the job. And the Island was remarkably short of fools, unless, of course, you counted that new woman, Fiona Campbell.

Fiona would have been shocked to know her reputation. Her intelligence, wit, street savvy, and seriousness of purpose were not things shown to good advantage in a small town. Add into the mix her city polish and lack of practical knowledge of rural life—and the evil rumors that Stella DesRosiers had very particularly and intentionally spread—and an average observer might have an impression of a flighty young woman who wore impractical shoes, was oblivious to the first principles of survival and sensible living, and whose morals were, well, not what one would hope.

Fiona was, in fact, far from being a fool, but this didn’t stop the locals from thinking her one. Many of them—particularly the men—had come to feel a mixture of pity and admiration for her, a circumstance that Stella’s rumors had unwittingly created, and one which frequently worked in Fiona’s favor. In this instance, however, Fiona was exactly as oblivious as her neighbors thought, and it may have been just as well. She went about her business utterly unaware of her many critics, observers, and secret admirers.

 

Like what you’ve read so far? You can pre-order at your favorite bookstore!

Star-crossed Love

/ J. F. Riordan

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I had to stop at a store yesterday to return something, a task I detest, but which you might think was among my very favorite activities, given how often I find myself doing it.

The clerk and I started chatting, and one thing leading to another, I mentioned my two dogs in the car. “What kind of dogs?” she asked. I gave my standard answer: Pete, an Indiana Spotted Dog (Pete is a rescue from a kill shelter in Indiana, and of indeterminate breed, but with a speckled coat that looks like granite), and Moses, a German Shepherd.

Her attention was instantly riveted by the words “German Shepherd.”

“I had a German Shepherd,” she said. “But I had to put him down.” I felt a wave of sympathy. The shortness of dogs’ lives is a looming loss for those of us who love them, and the thought of it can shatter me if I linger on it.

She knew what I have learned: that there is something different about German Shepherd Dogs, no matter what other kinds of dogs you have had or how much you have loved them. I told her what the vet told me when Moses was a tiny puppy: “Nothing and no one on earth will ever love you as much as a German Shepherd will.”

Her eyes filled with tears, and mine did, too. She told me how true that was, and how smart her dog had been, and what a clever jailbreak artist he was. She told me that even when his hip dysplasia had made it impossible for him to walk she had cared for him until his pain became too much.

She seemed so sad. When I suggested that somewhere in the world there was a dog who desperately needed someone like her to love him she shook her head. No. She could never endure that loss again. It was too much.

The store was busy, and people were waiting for her attention, but I wished I could have taken her out for a cup of coffee, and brought her over to meet Moses and Pete, waiting patiently, if a bit odoriferously, in the car.

I have writing to do, and I have to go to Washington for work tomorrow, and I don’t know how I’m going to get everything done before I leave the house at 5:30 in the morning.

But Moses and Pete and I are going for a ramble. Life is all about priorities.

Coming soon: The Audacity of Goats

/ J. F. Riordan

TAOG COVER

Dear Readers:

Are you still there? I apologize for the long silence, but I was getting my life in order so we can put book two to bed and start work on book three.

Book two in the North of the Tension Line series, The Audacity of Goats, will be released by Beaufort Books on April 29, 2016. It is available now for pre-order at your favorite bookseller.

Watch for some sneak previews coming soon.

Working now on final proofs, and then it’s on to Book Three.

I promise to be a better correspondent.