I am a sucker for dog stories. I cried during Homeward Bound when Shadow was stuck in the hole, telling the others to go on. My grandkids, who had seen it before, laughed at me and I sobbed out, “What kind of people can call this entertainment?” Marley and Me – now there was another movie that left me so sad.

Since then I’ve steered away from animal stories. Ironically, there are a few sad people stories I have been following because I once wrote an article about CarePages and CaringBridge pages and while researching it, got started following  a few of the families online. There have been a lot of goodbyes. Today one of the last links from those days posted an update: “He’s gone.” He was seven.

The next email was from Amazon.com about their daily Kindle book special. It is titled, Amazing Gracie: A Dog’s Tale. I felt an obligation to click on it and read this:

Now in paperback, AMAZING GRACIE is a moving, funny, and inspirational canine rags-to-riches story. Tears will stain the pages as you read about Gracie, says USA Today. The Chicago Tribune advises, If you’re short on inspiration, read Amazing Gracie. You don’t have to be obsessed with dogs to love this story (Philadelphia Enquirer), Two paws up (Portland Oregonian), humorous yet poignant (ASPCA Animal Watch)

And this:

In a dead-end job and mourning his dog’s death, Dan Dye adopts Gracie, a deaf and partially blind Great Dane puppy. He learns to cook to help Gracie thrive, and this act of love inspires Dye and his friend Mark Beckloff to start Three Dog Bakery, the successful international pet-food chain.

A story about a deaf, partially blind dog from a breed with short a short lifespan. Oh, yeah, just what I need. But maybe I do. Sometimes I think I have learned to shut out bad things that happen to other people because I don’t want anything to open that  door to a room in my mind of remembered despair.

Seven years old. Gee, that little boy had the lifespan of a Great Dane. Obviously a coincidence – those two email notifications being one after the other. I  one-clicked my 99 cents away and, I guess, bought myself a man’s best friend’s nudge towards empathy.

From amazon.com/kindle

Why am I typing Kendallville, Indiana over and over again? Well, I don’t really know. It could be that when I have searched for past posts lately,  I have not been able to find them. I think the first Kendallville was because it was written about being outside in March.

But, to get on with it, I put on my newly-found Lands End hat and went to a jeweler’s to retrieve a necklace, and when I pulled into the driveway, I knew I could saw some shrub leaders after all. So I did. Only first I had to come into the house to change into my SPAM hat because the LE hat was one of my better ones – not one of those I’d worn over and over again for mowing. I took my yellow-topped head into the shrubs and took out three thick ones.

I’m thinking of moving up to axes.

I just came in from doing basic outside yard work; that’s the kind I like best. I’m not a gardener-type, although I truly appreciate them. I’m more the hike up your pants, get your hair under your hat and dig into crud kind of worker.

I was only out for about 75 minutes, but I am mindful of what my mother so often said when she started getting up in years: I quit before I get real tired; I don’t push myself. I imagine that’s the way to do it. But it’s hard for me in two ways. First, I have a difficult time getting started; and second, once I am going, I tend to be a marathoner. Push, sweat, push, sweat, goal . . . goal . . . goal.  So, I am working on getting up initiative, encouraging myself with the idea of progress. Kind of Panama Canal type digging.

I don’t think it will be so hard to keep myself from overdoing. Yes, it’s sad not to be able to go a little farther than you feel like going, but I don’t find the vision of myself stretched out with a stroke enchanting. AmeliaJake – not able to talk???? ACK!!!

And, if anyone is wondering, while I was working outside, I was listening to Say, Has Anyone Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose? on my ipod. You know, I think we need a burlesque-sque little red-headed friend to entertain at The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse. Guess I’ll post an ad.

I started to write “I grew up with Peter Marshall” in the title slot, and then I realized it could be argued I was referring to the host of “Hollywood Squares”. But, no, I am thinking of this Peter Marshall, who actually died when I was less than 18 months old.

He was a Presbyterian minister who was Chaplin of the United States Senate for the two years prior to his early death at the age of 46. It is this Peter Marshall who was the subject of a book –  A Man Called Peter – by his widow Catherine Marshall. The book was then made into an Oscar-nominated movie in 1955.  I would have been three when the book was published and seven when the movie came out.

My grandmother had been a Presbyterian and later became a Methodist because it was the only church in the tiny village in which she lived. Peter Marshall was charismatic in person and came across that way in the book and movie. I can’t remember not seeing A Man Called Peter sitting on an end table or on a bookshelf.

I remember being very little when I first read Grandma’s edition and I know I saw the movie around the time it came out. I am certain it made a better impression on me than 20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, which left me with a fear of octopi and squid. When you’re that little, you don’t differentiate.

When my mother died, she had literally hundreds of books all over; I remember the appraiser remarked, “She sure did like to read.” On the old maple bookcase that had been my grandmother’s, I found a great number of books about Peter Marshall’s sermons, his prayers and his faith. With them were many of the books his widow had written during the years.

I was moving them last Friday in my organizing mood and succumbed to the urge to open one up. It was written by Catherine Marshall about the different types of prayer. I opened it randomly and found myself in the section about Prayer of  Relinquishment, in which one stops asking God for whatever and says it’s in his hands.

She gave three examples: two where once it was in God’s hands, people got immediately better; and one where a woman chose against marrying a man and was sad but the next year she found someone better. (This is a loose summary here, but I felt it a weak example of relinquishing – not life or death.) Anyway, of course I thought about all the times, people put things in God’s hands and loved ones died.

But it did remind me of C.S. Lewis and the monologue in Shadowlands in which he says that prayer doesn’t change God, it changes him.  And if it makes one more able to transition into acceptance of fate, well, why not?

The nice thing about a blog vs. a term paper is that you don’t have to draw everything together, so I’m off now.

It’s too soon for Daylight Savings Time. We just left it four months ago. What’s is doing back?

It is raining. Not too long ago it was dark and raining, because our hard-won morning dawn was snatched away from us. Some ref blew the whistle and the next thing we knew, we were back on the 20 yard line, having to make the distance to the Sun Goalpost all over again.

I feel like fourth down.

Are we ready? Okay. Deep breath for me.
Here are the bugs sitting in their box on my knee.

And here are the crickets really on my knee.

Here sits the innocent victim. Why, no, Officer, I haven’t seen this man before.

And here is the deed being done to this Scotsman (some generations removed).

So remember the Angry Scotsman with the Haggis? Here he is.

Well, here is his haggis on my knee before I sunk my teeth in its deliciousness.

Uh, here is the haggis recovered from an attempted bite,

So the Scotsman took a knife to it. And he is chewed and chewed and chewed . . . and left the room. So I don’t have his spitting image . . . HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

Sorry

I didn’t post about the bacon bug that was in the box LZP sent because I looked around the room in which I was sitting and thought, “Oh, rats, I’m organizing this place.” Yes, I suffered from temporary insanity.
I closed my computer in the morning and did not open it again until this morning. Oh, God, the insanity wasn’t all that temporary. I may need therapy.

I saw a headline in LATEST NEWS on CNN’s Homepage a few minutes ago: Millions paid in NYC firefighter bias case. I’m going to keep this short because you can easily read the full article here – and it isn’t long.

The article starts right out saying it is about bias based on race relating to an entrance exam for firefighter training. Then, a few lines down, I read this: The lawsuit alleged that the exams had little to do with firefighting and instead focused on cognitive and reading skills. (The boldness is mine.)

I said I’d keep it short, so here is my opinion. An entrance exam is NOT a test of what you are going to be studying; it is a test of your ability to comprehend what you are going to be taught. And hasn’t literacy (reading) been a top goal of government and private groups?

Okay, that’s it.

Okay, a couple of hours ago – or maybe three – I was getting ready to send news of this package. I’d typed the post title and then I realized if I did not rummage through a box of old papers, I would never do it. So I left this message as a draft and when I came back, I saw I had a new email waiting . . . from LZP himself.

Three things arrived; two are pictured here. The bug will be featured tomorrow.

Some at The Leaning Cow folks are uncertain about this:

And then there is this interesting and potential addition to the menu:

Watch for our review tomorrow of The Gummy Haggis which will include the Robert Burn’s poem on the back of the book. And, yes, we will digest the material about the aforementioned bug.

It is raining and windy, and so a day for a fire to fill the house will the aroma of woodsmoke. I think if I could come up with a fabric softener that would make my pillowcases smell as if they were dried in the sun and an air freshener that was of aged woodsmoke, I would be able to open a place in the mall where you could “Rent a Nap” by the hour. You might not want to nap, just lie there in your cubicle lit with a flickering hurricane lamp and enjoy the smells.

Or,  I could go into the “Rustic Bedroom Package” that could be installed in homes. It says safety and comfort to me. Perhaps somewhere people like the sound of a low TV and parents voices  through a door left partly open  and the sound of New York traffic making it through a window. I could expand my business – different options for different reminders of comfort and belonging.

Ah, but back to today and  a fire. Maybe we need to get two fires going; we do have lots of wood since the winter was so mild. A fire in the den and one in the basement and the cheery smell and feel of air carrying the wood-burning ambiance throughout sounds good to me.

You know, I think I’ll just go start the fire in the basement right now.

See ya.