Dinner Party

We sit in the fading light of a glorious spring day. Glowing yellow sunlight bounces off the warm beige walls of the condo. Sue lights the candles on the coffee table then reaches above the fireplace to snap on the Christmas lights that she and her husband Charlie have yet to take down. The colorful bokeh casts a twinkling halo around her blonde, pixie-like head.

“Red or white?” Charlie asks our friend Yvonne as she grabs a seat on the sofa, her flowing blouse settling in around her. She has worked all day at her gift store and is happy to relax among friends.

“Red,” she answers and Charlie bends his tall frame to reach down and pour some wine in her glass.

Joan and Jane steam through the door, a whirlwind of coats, voices, boots and dogs. Joan looks better than she did a half-hour earlier. I left her at her house in pawprint-stained sweats, her graying hair in disarray. She has showered, pinned her hair back and stained her lips with a cheerful smear of peach lipstick. She takes her chair like a queen holding court, suddenly calm and poised. Staring at her square shaped face, which bears more than a passing resemblance to Joanne Woodward, it is easy to envision her in one of her past lives as a model, a role she held in New York City in her younger years. Jane hovers, slightly hunched, in back of her, peering at us from behind coke-bottle glasses. In her flowered dress and brown bobbed haircut she looks strangely childlike.

Both eschew the wine in favor of water and with the niceties complete, Charlie takes his place on the other sofa, closing our circle. Then as if drawn like magnets to fill in the holes, we are barraged by pugs – a small fawn and black army of compact, but solid bodies that feel like heavy sacks of flour landing on our laps. We move and adjust our bodies to make room for them. A very pregnant Truffles hoists her seal-like form to the top of the sofa, resting her head near her owner, Charlie. Chunky, the furry senior, curls up in the unclaimed loveseat. Lily, Josie and Miska circle their mama, Yvonne. Jerry, the grand old dame, hides in the corner. Lorelei, whose legs are starting to wane, shuffles over to Yvonne, placing her head squarely in her lap, begging for attention. The youngster, lanky, black Goofy, bows to whoever will humor him, hoping for play. He is one of the puppies from Joan’s last litter and we have gathered for a reunion to see him again. Joan has brought his mother Griffles, grandmother Releve, and handsome brother, Gryffindor, who also scamper and scurry around the floor. Sweet Pea, another old girl, sits erect on Joan’s lap, as regal as her mistress. The pugs are so plentiful I have lost track of their number. Jane has left Shim and his dogcart in the car.

I survey the room and grin at the lot of us. Charlie, Sue, Yvonne and I sip wine from fine goblets and nibble on the spread of cheese Sue has placed before us, while the pugs chew on the wine corks, try to sneak a bite from the table and occasionally piddle on the floor. We chat about the Boston Marathon bombing, Charlie and Sue’s grandchildren, condo fees, and pug ailments while attempting to keep the dogs corralled and the carpets clean.

“Do you think we need a couple of more dogs?” I joke. Everyone smiles. We would not know each other if it were not for the pugs in this room. I’m not sure how we would have met otherwise. We encompass different generations, have varied backgrounds and live in different states and towns. But we are now going on a decade or more of gatherings such as this one. We have become a comfortable pack.

We talk about when the puppies are due and plan our next visit. We laugh as the visiting pugs catch a glimpse of the resident pugs on the other side of the sliding glass doors and go berserk, charging the glass in an attempt to reach them. “You gotta go around,” Sue explains. “They just bark louder as we erupt in laughter.”

The room fills with it.

I have heard the belief that we live in an ever-increasing age of isolation, turning to our pets to fill the void vacated by humans. There may be times when this is true, but I feel none of that here. I see friendly faces both canine and human. Charlie and Truffles rest eyes half-closed, mirror images of satisfaction. Joan, Jane and Sue giggle as Yvonne shares with them dog videos on Charlie’s i-Pad. I bask in the friendship. It’s true as a single woman I know my share of longing and have some voids to fill, but I have no need of substitutions. I am part of a tribe and its members have both two legs and four.

This may not be a dinner party for everyone, but it suits us just fine. Like a dog chawing on a bone, we find ourselves perfectly at peace.

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One and the Same?

I wish I had taken a picture. Yesterday, knowing that the snow was coming, I agreed to bring the pugs and meet my friend, Joan, Waffles’ breeder, at a Rochester café on the other side of the mountain. She had been housebound all weekend after badly burning her leg by spilling a scalding pan of food. We were supposed to meet to visit a friend and go to a movie, but because we couldn’t predict when the snow might fly, we decided a late afternoon dinner would be a safer plan.

When I arrived, Joan was sitting in her Tracker outside the café.  The sky was gray, the ground white, and Joan full of color. She spilled out of her car like a bag of rainbow skittles hitting the ground. She wore a salmon pink sweater that lit up the world around her. Almost neon in its radiance it was the color of spring and Easter not your typical fare for the eve of a late winter blizzard. Her eyes sparkled blue and her hair, which had grown substantially since I last saw her, was long and wavy. She had used pin curls to make it so. It flew wild around her face and although she is a senior (a lady never tells her age), she gushed her usual childlike glee when she saw Waffles and Alfie. They were equally enthusiastic to see her – wagging their tightly wound tails and shaking their butts as they jumped all over her and I tried to hold them back from hurting her wounded knee.

It was this scene I wish I had captured. This friend of mine, larger than life as if God had sprinkled that something special upon her that only people like Elvis and Marilyn Monroe receive -- a little bit of magic, so although her hair was untamed and her sweater too bright, she shone.

I had to laugh this morning as I stood  in front of the mirror. At first I didn’t think anything of it. I was supposed to go for a long overdo haircut this afternoon, but because of the snow, I cancelled it. Instead, there I was with my own unruly hairstyle, taming it with rollers that once unwound, created as lively a halo as Joan’s hair the day before.  My pugs scampered beneath my feet and I realized that as eccentric as my friend -- who lives in a big, sprawling house with 14 to 18 pugs at any one time -- often seems to me, she and I have a lot in common. Maybe I’m turning into a crazy pug lady after all or maybe, I share a wee bit of that in-your-face chutzpah and mirth, I see in my friend everyday and admire so much.

Music

When the answering machine picks up at my friend Joan’s house you hear, “You have reached the Foster residence where Pugs and Pianos outnumber the people.”

It is an accurate statement. Joan, a former concert pianist and music teacher, has four pianos including her grand and 12 to 14 pugs at present. Thus, my pugs who have come from her, Vader and Waffles, are children of music, raised with the piano ringing through the walls of their home.

Last night a classical song came on the television and I studied Waffles, who shifted from catnap mode to wide awake, cocking her head in rhythm with the music. My other pug, Alfie, didn’t seem to pay much mind, but Waffles was enchanted. While I know there have been studies saying that dogs seem to prefer classical music, I saw in Waffles eyes more than simple appreciation. It was as if this was something she recognized and in all likelihood it was.

My former pug, Mira, who passed away a couple of years ago, was not one of Joan’s pugs and yet, she adored classical music especially Debussy’s Clair de Lune. I would play it on my computer and she would stop mesmerized, head cocked, listening. She would peer in back of the computer as if to see who was producing this magical sound. I imagine her now in her pug glory dancing to just such a heavenly symphony.

Some of Joan’s pugs, her old fawn Mister Egg and her former big black, Tonka, for example, have sat in on her lessons, listening as students learn to make beautiful music of their own. Visit Joan on weekday afternoons and you are likely to hear her students tickling the ivories as her pugs yap their appreciation from the deck. When I’m at Joan’s I often make my way to the living room and sing to the pugs there. From Joan’s bedroom you can hear the radio that’s perpetually on but never quite tuned to a proper station so the static crackles all night long. Dog food bubbles away on the stove and the fire sparks in the wood stove. Outside the snow snaps from the cold. It is music of a different sort.

Perhaps Joan’s answering machine should say something else, “Where Music Rules,” rules, for example, because when you’re at Joan’s it does. She personifies it, whether at the piano or caring for the pugs, she dances to her own tune and when you’re in her world you want to hum along. I wonder if Waffles recalled the echoes of her former life when she heard the classical song last night. All I know is she sat upright, her body alert, but her eyes half closed as if she was listening to something beyond the music, a melody from her former life, the call of home. And, if so, I understand because I have found in this world of pugs a tune to keep loneliness at bay and friends with whom to howl away the night.

Sunday Afternoon

At the intersection of Route 125 and Route 100 in Hancock, VT sits the Old Hancock Hotel, a charming old establishment and an excellent place to share a breakfast buffet with a group of friends on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Yesterday, my friends Joan and Jane and I did just that in celebration of Jane’s birthday. The weather was snowy, the ground icy, but the atmosphere inside was warm and friendly. We sat and chatted long after the buffet was cleared and the doors closed. For Jane and I, it was the first time we had seen each other since Christmas, so we exchanged presents – a red, bedazzled handmade purse for me, a chili cookbook for her. We lingered over our plates, ordering cups of coffee for Joan and Jane and tea for me followed by another round.

We are not a group that typically dawdles. Usually we have pugs in tow that need to be fed or walked or we are on our way to a dog show or headed back from one. We may stop at a diner for a quick bite, but meals for the sake of socializing are not our usual fair. Perhaps that’s what made this afternoon so much fun. When at Joan’s house, where we usually gather, Joan is typically so busy cooking dog food or cleaning that we seldom sit and talk for long. Yesterday was the exception. Joan even brought photos recently mailed to her from one of our new pug families.

Remember the litter of puppies born this summer? Batman’s siblings? Remember the puppy Joan cried to see go? Well, our little Argo Kensington now renamed Bunja, is not so little anymore. Like his brother Gryffindor, whom Joan kept, he is growing large and strong. Kensington went to live with a man named Bob in New Jersey, not far from our friend Bonnie, who took his sister Margot, now Sassy Margot, to live with her. The picture Bob sent shows the siblings together, although Sassy is significantly smaller than Bunja now.

Bob apologized for the pictures he sent explaining that neither he nor Bonnie knew what they were doing. The picture might be blurry, but the image was enough to warm our hearts. These are family portraits of little ones we brought into the world and sent off in faith that their lives would be good. You keep your fingers crossed and wait for cards and photos such as these for assurance that you made the right decision. Sometimes you never hear anything and you are left only with hope.

We sit three women – one single, one divorced, one widowed, happily sipping tea and coffee and oohing and ahhing over our stash of poor photos the way aunts and mothers and grandmothers ogle baby pictures.  Such scenes have become the fodder for jokes – crazy cat ladies, women who find fulfillment with pets because their lives are empty elsewhere. As with all joke, there may be some truth in this, but our lives are not pathetic or empty. We may be lonely on occasion, missing children and spouses, but we have carved a place with each other and with lives so busy that we seldom sit to talk.

Although we may sometimes feel lonely, our lives are not empty. We attend dog shows and catch up with old friends about their wins. We dress our dogs up in funny costumes and reunite with other pug owners at pug socials, we gather together on Sunday afternoons to read letters from the owners of puppies we have raised, and we smile and we eat and we chat and we carve out lives for ourselves. Like everyone else we take our joy where we can find it and consider ourselves lucky that dogs figure into the equation.

12 Pieces of Wood

I called my friend Joan last night. She was still coughing, but she brushes it aside like a tedious fly buzzing around a picnic table. I ask her what she’s doing and she tells me again about the 12 pieces of wood.

The 12 pieces of wood are those she is moving each day, diligently digging and detaching them from the frozen earth and bringing them inside or closer to the house for the fire. The men who delivered the wood dropped it in the wrong place, a large heaping pile soon covered by the endless snow that blankets her driveway. In all the years I’ve known her it never seems like the men place the wood in the right place and part of my mind always picks away at this fact like a tiny scab in my thoughts. I’ve even mentioned it on occasion, but my words disappear into the ether as Joan babbles on in another direction. I suggest she hire some students to help her – a young man happy to lift some logs for some pocket change. It seems like these helpful lads were always in the past and she doesn’t bother to look. Instead, each day she goes out and unburies the 12 logs. Anymore than 12 and it causes her back to ache, her side to hurt. It is slow, deliberate work. She has set a goal of 12

I puzzle over the 12 Pieces of Wood, meditate on them like a Zen koan. – what is the sound of one hand clapping, what is the meaning of 12 pieces of wood? In the question lies both insanity and enlightenment. I turn it over and over like a multi-faceted diamond. Each time I think of the wood, I come across something new.

It is easy to judge Joan for the chaos twirling around her. It is easy to admire her for her strength. It is easy for those 12 pieces of wood to become my own.

That’s it isn’t it? We all have our 12 pieces of wood, problems and conundrums that others don’t understand. From the outside it is easy to assess and judge to offer help, answers, advice. To find inspiration or comfort or disappointment or bemusement in the wood/cross another bears.

Today, I read an article about Michael J. Fox and his morning routine living with Parkinson’s. It was in Reader’s Digest in a section devoted to Optimism and the article was optimistic. Fox spoke about the trials of getting dressed, but noted that once the morning routine was all done, he left the room with a self-satisfied smile because “It Just Gets Better From Here.”

And, it is optimistic that Fox can look at life that way. It is inspiring. But, I’m sure he doesn’t look at it that way everyday. On some days I’m sure he’d like to give up the ghost and on other days he digs out the 12 pieces of wood, the consummate survivor.

I have lived with chronic illness most of my life, nothing serious like  Parkinson’s. Just illness that returns and returns and leaves me sick for weeks on end. And, I have friends who would say its wrong to say that, that I lack faith. And, others who just don’t understand, mountains out of molehills they think. And, others who assume I must be better by now and others who’ve been through it all with me and admire my carrying on.

And, that’s not even my 12 pieces of wood on most days. I have other things I dig and lift and carry more. And that’s just it isn’t it? We all do. Only sometimes we can’t see our own 12 pieces not from the inside. Sometimes, it’s too hard to understand what seems so clear to others and sometimes they just can’t understand from out there. Each of us has our own digging, our own carrying to do. And, so we puzzle over these problems or we don’t. We go through our routines and plant a smile on our face and hope it just gets better from here.

We learn from each other, we frustrate each other, we inspire each other, but in the end only we can determine how we will address those 12 pieces of wood. They are our anchor and our liberation – a Zen koan to which I will return.

Liberated Woman

The snow pelts us like a fighter’s punch – cold, hard, relentless – it stings our face and eyes as we shuffle down the frosty sidewalk. My uncle guides my 92-year-old grandmother by the arm, plowing a safe path for her to keep her from falling. I mirror him, holding my mother upright. We take small baby steps, both of us unsure of our footing; I worry about her bad knees.

I am 45; this is the day and age of the liberated woman. Still, I wish there was someone to hold my arm. I worry should I fall who will be there to hold me up?  I swallow, feeling the tightness in my throat; I have a cold coming on, probably more. It’s the third New Year’s in a row, I’ve been sick. It’s hard not to feel vulnerable at times like this. Winter in New England can be brutal, frigid, and as the temps fall below zero, it is easy for warm flesh to feel defenseless against this bone-chilling dervish.

When we get inside and warm up I call my friend Joan to check on her. She often loses power in weather like this. She answers with a hacking cough that has lingered for the last few months. She has been outside clearing wood out of the snow.  It is a tedious, painful process to watch and I imagine it now as she complains to me about the cold. A former concert pianist, Joan’s hands no longer hold their former strength. She doesn’t share her age, but I know she is older than my parents. She dons fleece and flannel and with the help of her friend Jane the two wrap gloved hands over the logs, yanking and digging to remove them from the ice. Then one at a time they bring them indoors, enough to start a fire for the night.

Living near Sugarbush ski area in a house above the snow line, Joan is a native of winter, an intimate acquaintance of life’s bitter sting. She lost the love of her life, her third husband Charlie, 15 years ago, but she speaks of him with the warmth and blush of a new bride. She lives with his memory and her cluster of pugs, creating a makeshift family for herself with these creatures and the people they bring through her doors. My pugs are my family, and I mirror her, embracing her circle also.

She has a tough outer crust and I look at her with admiration. She has no one to hold her arm when the cold throws its punch. She pulls her own weight.  She sees the night through by mopping floors and feeding pugs and sometimes mutters, “S.O.S. (same ole shit) in exasperation, but inside the hardened shell her blue eyes sparkle and those world-weary hands make music. She wears the face of the liberated woman and hides the heart of a gleeful child. Sometimes I look at her life, shake my head at the hardship and chaos that owning so many dogs can cause, and think she is crazy – come in from the cold, surrender, I’d like to say. Sometimes I look at her as a hero; she is not down for the count.

I go to her house, raise my face to the cold and heave wood – two, three, four logs at a time from the frozen earth. I open my heart to winter and feel ice flow through my veins. I put my foot to the gas and blaze up her slick mountain road, conquering fear. I vacation in her life and feel stronger for it. I know winter, too, and loneliness. The wind blows bitter here, but the sky shines clear and sparkles with razor-sharp stars. Nature broadcasts in high-definition from this mountain. The snow whips and stings here as well, but like a pioneer staking a claim, I feel valiant for having conquered it.

The cold’s a metaphor for life’s hard fist and when it strikes we all look for an arm to lean on, a hand to guide us through. I hang up the phone with Joan, melt into my comfy sofa and embrace the snoring pug she gave me. As a child I used to love to tromp through the snow. Cloistered in my puffy snowsuit I would slide and roll, making snow angels on the ground.

I see Joan do the same. Her angel wings brush each pug.

It is not fashionable to admit to loneliness; we just carry on. But, sometimes, I worry what I will do when my hands aren’t as strong, my knees not as certain. So, I look to my friend who still lifts logs, cares for more pets than most and wields both mop and ice scraper. I look to her and see myself in the dead of winter, amidst ice and snow, racing up that driveway to keep her company for a spell. I see Jane helping her light a fire. Joan has formed her circle, made her pack. I make mine.

It may not be the hand we imagine, but I see we are seldom alone in the storm – not as long as we’re living, not as long as we’re reaching out. I march steadily through life’s tundra, finding liberation in that.

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Photo of Splish and Dumble

Here is one of the photos that Sara sent of Splish Splash and Dumbledore or Ginny and Otis as they are now called. I like their new names, what they lack in color they make up for in warmth. You can't tell they were given in love. I have written often about the names of the pugs--both the names we give them and the ones they receive. They are the thread that binds us to them, their old names to us, their new names to their new owners,  and somehow These people to us as well. It is like an umbilical chord that though cut is never severed.

Why is this important? I can't quite put my finger on it yet, it has something to do with stewardship and responsibility, a lifelong promise that they were sent out into the world with love, a contract that the new owners promise they will keep.  These dogs  may not care which name they answer to, but they care how they are treated. The names are our seal and our promise, because I believe it matters somehow, our relationship with these creatures with whom we share our homes and hearts. it matters even after they are gone.

Splish Splash and Dumbledore

If we are lucky, the Christmas letter I send out for my friend Joan outlining the comings and goings at Pugdom each year, goes out into the world and starts yielding a response. The owners of our Pugdom pups start sending back their own cards, letting us know how the pugs have grown and changed; many send pictures. The responses started coming in yesterday. The first was from Sara, who owns two "Pugdom Pugs" -- Dumbledore and Splish Splash. Dumbledore was one of the magician litter, which also comprised Gandalf, Copperfield, Merlin and Hocus Pocus. Splish Splash was part of our "Champagne" litter -- although in the end the names had little to do with the beverage -- instead we had Reepicheep, Suteki, Sangria and Splish.  Sara took in Dumbledore first and years later inherited Splish Splash from her mother. Both have been renamed. Dumble is now Otis and Splish, Ginny, somewhere along the way she lost an eye.

Sara sent a handful of photographs of the two dogs together and alone. The names on the backs alternated between their given names and the names she chose. She says Dumbledore is 10, graying on the chin and still has the nice trot just like his brother Gandalf. Splish or Ginny appears to be his constant companion.

Each year, I also find many of my cards returned unopened in the mailbox. As time passes, people move and we lose track of them and the dogs we loved. It is nice when we receive the pictures back instead.

For Christmas I received a new Sensu artist brush stylus. I purchased a Nomad artist brush stylus for my sister-in-law. I used the new stylus to create the above sketch and really liked the way it felt and looked like a real brush.

"My Preciouses"

When you shake the family tree you are bound to end up discovering some black sheep and unusual skeletons in the closet. I’ve always suspected as much of Waffles’ own background. I have known her breeder Joan and all her pugs for 14 years so I pretty much knew her immediate pedigree, but like anyone’s lineage I seriously suspected there might be some secrets.

Take for instance Waffles maternal grandmother, TarBaby. When TarBaby was just a wee pup she went missing for 11 days and when she returned, showing up proudly in Joan’s driveway, she looked like a little worm. As she grew, she sprouted jowls and a distinct expression that isn’t exactly Pug-like to my eyes. As the years passed, she very clearly resembled the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I joked with Joan that during those missing days she had taken up residence in a nearby swamp and affectionately have dubbed her Swampi and Swamp Creature. I tease that one day she will sprout gills and fins. Underneath all the teasing I sometimes fear that I am right.

Take Tarbaby’s son for instance, Puddleglum, named for the Marshwiggle in The Chronicles of Narnia series. Joan might act mad when I pick on Tarbaby, but she went right along with me when I suggested we give Puddle his name. In fact, she even let me dub his sister Perrin Pollywog. Waffles, Puddle’s daughter, has always been tiny and spidery for a pug, not much bigger than a tadpole when she was born.

In the months that she has lived with me I have often described her banshee scream – a hideous noise that often sounds like something deep inside her has died.  She whines as well and in between often hisses and snorts. Again, I have had to question her true nature. Tonight, I may have discovered it.

I went to see The Hobbit and halfway through the movie when Gollum appeared, it hit me – it’s Waffles. Now pugs have been described as resembling many a movie creature – Yoda, Gizmo, E.T., but when I looked at Gollum I didn’t see a typical pug, I saw Waffles – the big wide eyes, the hunched over spine, the wide mouth and intense stare and yes, most importantly, the hissing and when his ‘preciouses’ was missing, the same otherworldly scream.

Perhaps Tolkien was acquainted with an early ancestor of Waffles. He was English and Joan received her first pug from Prime Minister Clement Attlee of England, so that might be a logical conclusion. But, I have my own suspicions. Call me crazy, but I suspect that somewhere near Joan’s house that we call Pugdom, on the peak of a mountain in Warren, Vt. is a doorway to Middle Earth. Only an explanation such as this can account for that god-awful scream.

“My preciouses…”

Blog Waffles and Gollum

Tough Guy

Yesterday Shim was young and tough. Not just tough, but the toughest of them all. Those who don’t believe in a pack hierarchy, who say the concept of Alpha dogs went out with wolves, have never met Shim. He was the one dog kicked out of Pugdom, my friend Joan’s home, because he couldn’t get along with other males. He picked fights with all of them and the only way to keep from drawing blood was to send him away. But not too far. Shim went to live with our friend Jane, who only had females and thus, everyone could live in peace.

She tried to show him, but if there were males in the ring, she was out of luck. He just wouldn’t get along. Jane took him to an animal communicator after one show, but what was said has slipped from my memory, probably because it did no good. He remained our Bad Boy. Jane tried calming herbs to no avail. Shim was young and tough, but that was yesterday.

Today, he is old and has mellowed. The mellowing happened slowly, over time. And, not to a point where we could ever say he was truly tame, but the aging? When did that happen? Yesterday, Shim was young and tough. Today, he can’t walk. He has lost the use of his legs in much the same way that my pug Vader did. So, when I saw him last night at my friend Joan’s and he began to whine to go out I went to him. I scooped him up and took him outside, holding up his rear in just the right way so he could relieve himself without soiling his front legs. I bent over him as he took his time, my back aching, my legs shaky and I felt thankful for the opportunity to serve him in this way.

There is a grace that often comes over elderly dogs, replacing what time and illness robs from them. Although they suffer the indignities of age, they gain a peaceful demeanor as if they have already moved beyond this world and found an understanding that we lack. I am privy to this now and I wish that he could talk to me and spill his secrets – tell me what you have learned Shim, I might ask. Tell me what happened to yesterday and how you ended up here.

And, as he finishes and I carry him inside and watch as he struggles to position his useless legs beneath him, I think, be tough old man, be tough.