It's about 5 AM. Haven't slept much, neither has my husband Jim. It's the morning of his mother's funeral service and there's a brutal snow storm going on outside. We don't know if one son and daughter-in-law will make it from California, last we heard they were stranded in the Dallas airport. Jim forgot his suit and pants and has only jeans and a sweatshirt. We are three hours away from home. I am worried about the dogs, cats and sheep, and my cell phone won't work. I make some tea in the motel's sad little water heater, and turn on my iPad. As I often do, I click on the New York Times. I skim articles about politics--none seem relevant, as I'm in that strange, underwater state one is in when grieving and yet helping to organize the detritus of a death. I scroll down, and find an Read More
Archives for January 2019
Amazing Maisie
I had a post all planned out (in my head, hadn't written anything), but Jim's mother died early Tuesday morning. It is sad and hard and a huge relief, because the last year and a half of end-stage Parksinon's has been rough on her. She made it to 95, although she wanted to make it to 100. On her 95th birthday last week, during the few moments she was cogent, she began telling people she was one hundred years old. We corrected her once, then thought "To what purpose?" So we all celebrated her 100th birthday--Congratulations, Maisie, well done. We are where most of you all have been at one point or another: Regular life on hold, lots to do, telling her stories, hugging each other, relatives flying in . . . So, just photographs today. It's snowing hard again, it finally looks like Read More
What Dog Training Can Teach Us About Resolutions
Last week I listed my "non-resolutions," not wanting to call them New Year's Resolutions because so many fail within weeks. (U.S. News reports that 80% fail by early February.) But I was on the Larry Meiller Show last week, (you can listen in the archive files) and found myself thinking about how the basic principles of good dog training could increase our chances of keeping resolutions. Here's what I came up with: First, be realistic. Every professional animal trainer that I know has a clear sense of what they can accomplish with the time and resources that they have. Example: Should you spend time teaching a dog like a Great Pyrenees to go walking off leash in the woods? Would you like to invest in my future career as a National League Football Read More
New Year, New Stage in Life, New “Let’s-Not-Call-Them-Resolutions”
Hi. Grandma Trisha here. I'm just back from visiting grand kids in Oregon and still full of the big, soft heart I felt every time I got called "Grandma". Cuz that's who I am now. I'm even growing out my grey silver hair, but then there's always that problem with different colored roots: Oh wait, that's grass that grew from seed under a pipe. That's why it's white at the base. Here's my hair: Seems to me that I can either fight my advancing age, or celebrate this new phase of life that Jim and I have entered, somewhere around our 70th birthday last fall. I'm choosing celebration. Here's the good news for those of us who just turned 70: We're still alive. As a biologist (and a recent reader of the obituaries page), I'd like to note that that's a great accomplishment. Read More