Getting Over

I was bypassed for a MacArthur Genius grant again this year, but I’ve been placed in the pool of candidates for their little-known Anti-Genius grant, set aside for those lacking in perspective, acting impetuously, or failing to anticipate the consequences of even their best intentions.

See this little guy? He may remind you of someone you know . . . or knew. Gomez had a rough road to his 4th birthday: Found as a stray , starving, with that big sweet white head on top of a rib cage covered with skin. Covered in flecks of black tar. Being fed from time to time by a guy tossing him pans of unfinished burritos, but the rest of the time fending for himself.

At first I was taken with his story, and then of course with his appearance, so similar to Inez. I wanted to help. Ultimately I wanted to make him part of the family, so we took him in as a foster with the intention to adopt and began the process of falling in love with him.

In the three weeks we had him he went from a guy with his tail firmly between his legs to a guy who would wag furiously at the mere sight of us. From a guy who wouldn’t roll on his back to a guy who allowed us at least selective belly rubs. And from a guy who growled at the neighbors to one who at least tolerated the activity in the alley – the car repairs, the idling motorcycles – while he went about his inspections of the yard.

In those three weeks he also bit another dog, jumped the fence, bumped a burner and filled the house with gas, and ultimately sank his teeth into the sleeve of a teenage girl whose only sin was walking past us. And he did these things because he was a fragile and complicated beast, testing his boundaries, protecting the only territory he knew.

And as much as I understood all of that, pulling him off that teenage girl while he had his teeth clamped down on her sleeve, simply proved too much for me. What if he’d gotten her wrist (just millimeters from where he’d bitten down)? What if he’d drawn blood, or worse? What if it happened again? What if I failed the girl? What if I failed Gomez?

I tried to convince myself he was sending me warnings, like the haunted house an old boyfriend’s mother once told me about, where the family was eventually chased away by ghosts, only to have the house burn down a few weeks later. Had they stayed, they all would have perished.

But I guess I’m being romantic. In ways Gomez was sending me a warning – that it was too soon after losing Inez to take this on . . . that I wasn’t prepared to deal with surprises, especially those that brought risk along with them. Damn that Gomez, though, because he forgot to warn me about getting too attached.

So now we watch, in a world of Facebook, as he gets adjusted to his next home – thankfully a home he knew before, with a foster who loves him and feels more prepared now than before to consider adopting him. He’ll be undergoing a rigorous training program with an amazing woman, determined to make him a good canine citizen. And we watch this from the sidelines, so happy for him, but with the pain of that window between us – letting us see, but keeping us at a distance. It’s a distance I chose, but I wish I hadn’t had to.

That's me in the window . . .

. . . eating dinner with John at our favorite restaurant during last night's snowstorm.

It's hard to believe sometimes that we've been in this neighborhood over 10 years, and that this particular eatery was largely the thing that got us here, after a memorable meal in 2001 that made us think, "This feels like home. Let's buy a house here."

In our subsequent decade of dinners, we've:

- Watched the restaurant expand to three times its original size
- Bought the painting that hung above us that very first meal
- Got initiated into local sourcing
- Witnessed two proposals
- Befriended our favorite server (whose wedding I would come to officiate)
- Eaten dinner there with the likes of Richard Russo, Eleanor Lipman, and Charles Baxter
- Enjoyed several complimentary gifts from the kitchen
- Learned to love cava
- Delighted in pairings like chocolate and sage
- Launched a friendship with one of John's rock & roll heroes and his stellar wife
- Spent far too much money (worth every dime)
- Grieved the loss of a talented barkeep
- Discovered the joys of counter seating
- Shared bites with strangers
- Talked politics, or music, or the events of the day, or not at all because we were taking things in

This place has a Proustian lock on my heart. And though you can't have dinner for two under $50 like you used to, and you no longer walk through the kitchen to get to the bathroom, this will still always be a come-as-you-are, neighborhood mainstay for us.

Given the humanely raised veal with black-eyed peas and cinnamon I had as course #3 last night, it looks they'll never lose their ability to knock my socks off with a hat trick.

Adios 2011

I probably should have realized, when the year started with two months of debilitating back pain, that 2011 would be a rough one. Was this the body's way of preparing the mind for what was to come? Hospital visits. Crushing professional disappointments. The loss of our sweet, sweet Inez.

Relativity aside -- no, I'm not one of the Chilean miners or Japanese earthquake survivors. I'm not even one of the affordable-housing tenants in whose interest I spend my working hours -- this was the toughest year of my life. So I look ahead to 2012 with buoyancy and relief. Ready to say good-bye to a rotten year, light an unforgiving calendar on fire. Ready to breathe in the crisp January air, knowing it has put December, and the eleven months before it, to bed.

So . . . how to set the ship right for the coming year? How to lay the groundwork for happier times? Of course there are things I'll never control. There may be hurdles, disappointments, aches and pains I can't get out of the way of.

But there is also this: If there is nothing else I do well in the world (and recent history may bear this out; I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever be a competitive job candidate again, if maybe, after 20+ years of ennui and vain searching, I may have hit the apex of my career), it's to make something out of nearly nothing.

- Homemade soup
- Bread pudding
- A wardrobe from thrifted odds and ends
- Memorable weddings for friends and strangers
- A comfortable home of garage-sale finds
- Random detritus out of fabric scraps
- A puppy fit for adoption after a rough start in the world

Ok, it's a working list, so give me a break :-).

But this may be my year to stop being aspirational and learn to make the most of what I have. To start looking sideways instead of up. To see what windows might open in spaces of turbulence or vague dissatisfaction.

How might I focus on the rewards of my job, for example (flexible schedule, fair salary, voluminous time off) and not its many punishments? How to translate those perks into lucky charms to hang on the coming year? Where is my white space, and how best to fill it?

I've got some ideas percolating, and they require the cooperation of many floating bits of matter. Some is controllable, some not. So I need a good dose of karmic good luck (which means I need to start believing in karmic good luck -- not likely). But I could use a little boost, that's for sure. Not a winning lottery ticket, mind you. These aren't stretch goals. I'm specifically avoiding stretch goals this year. But I need a few pieces to fit together, so if 2012 were a simpler puzzle than its predecessor, I'd gladly be the first to open the box.

Don't touch the burner

This is Milo the foster puppy. He was hours from euthanasia when a rescue group intervened, assessed his temperment, and decided he was worth saving. He'd arrived with a severely broken leg -- the likely result of being used as a bait dog -- and prognosis of imminent amputation. He just needed to clear up a nasty case of ringworm first.

We gave him a temporary home at my urging. They needed a pet-free home, and the sad circumstances of late September enabled us to oblige.

It's been a challenging few weeks. On top of realizing (in neon) that puppies are much tougher than older dogs, Milo has some issues that I'm struggling to get my head around. Sure, he does some puppy things that puppies will always do -- chews pillows, begs for food, whimpers in his crate -- but he's also got a nasty propensity toward biting that seems to go beyond playful antics. What's he thinking up there in his tiny, adorable puppy head? That he needs to defend himself, and if so, against what?

Is he angry? Befuddled? Borderline aggressive?

Am I food? A nemesis? A threat? A chew toy?

Our foster commitment comes to a close before Christmas, and I'm hopeful he'll find a home that can give him both boundaries and limitless love, and perhaps the answers to those questions. I know in my heart I'm not part of that equation, and I feel like a daily failure for it. Especially since so many friends predicted we'd keep him, as if it was inevitable we'd fall in love. How could you not? Look how adorable he is. But we haven't. I haven't.

There have been some good lessons in all of this, and it seems worth listing them here, as someday this period in our lives may be just a fuzzy blip in a long line of animals we ideally come to know, perhaps even make homes for.

1) The best intentions don't always produce the best results

2) It may have been too early for us to take this on

3) I don't have a handy arsenal of tools for conquering things I don't understand

4) Puppies can hurt your skin

5) Puppies can hurt your feelings

6) A lousy potential adopter can be a bang-up foster, and sometimes you need to flip this switch

7) I miss Inez

8) I really, really miss Inez

So there you have it. Another one of my bright ideas that will go unfinished -- one that's left me with a healthy dose of ambivalence and perhaps a dash of self-loathing. I hope we've at least given Milo some structure and stability, and though he won't remember us, I hope we've made it easier for those who might adopt him permanently. May they be patient, loving people. May they welcome a challenge on four clumsy legs. May they hold dear things like fragility, complexity, and unpredictability. May they have thick skin in body and mind. May they count themselves lucky for knowing him. May they make him better, and may they get the same in return.

Experts

This piano may look austere now, but not yesterday afternoon, when John and I were treated to an impromptu performance by Mabel, a concert pianist and also our good neighbor. She'd asked us to come watch a practice session for an upcoming concert -- said it made her less nervous for the real deal.

Mabel's work tends toward contemporary avante-garde, and at times she throws her entire body into the piece, stretching her hands to the farthest reaches of the keyboard, plunking out multiple notes at once, arms spread like a bird alighting.

Watching Mabel work is not only awe-inspiring (even for a musical rube like myself). It also makes you realize there are those people who have their thing: Musical gifts, athletic ability, multilingualism, a knack for sewing, a knowledge of birds, or wine, or baking. And there are those, like myself, who very much want a thing but struggle to find it (sigh). I've tried knitting and photography and learning Spanish and writing fiction and even keeping a sourdough starter, but none of it stuck. I'm even a lousy Luddite.

Sure, I make soup. I perform weddings. Occasionally I keep track of local social policy, but I'll shift from education to employment to immigration on a whim. I guess I'm a consummate dabbler. So it's luminous to watch someone like Mabel strut her stuff. She's been at it 20 years or more, and her piano continues to challenge and excite her, as it does those lucky enough to disappear into those complex notes as they fill up the room around you, like reminders.

The Dozen Things I Carried

These are not farm-fresh eggs.

They're citified backyard eggs, from our neighbors Tim and Conor, who have been raising chickens a block north of us for the last three years. (Not to be confused with the chickens being raised by our new neighbor a block east, recently celebrated in this blog, who modeled the rehab of his house after the aesthetics of his hand-constructed coop).

That parenthetical did not deceive you. We now have two sets of backyard chickens within a block of our house. The country usurps the city. The smog will not win.

I've learned that eggs straight from the chicken have a protetive coating, a "cuticle," that allows them to sit on the counter, unrefrigerated, for up to a month. But I'd like to reassure my mother and anyone else who eats eggs at our house, we're keeping them in the 40-degree safety of the Frigidaire middle shelf.

Scrambled or sunny-side up?

Mummy

My neighbor Allison gave the block a present last week. She and her young daughters planted these flowers in our scrappy little corner garden.

Now when you approach the corner, you're met with vibrant color and a last brief glimpse of . . . well . . . life before winter settles in.

Sometimes you need to make deliberate choices when you live in a challenged neighborhood. Will you measure your days by broken bottles in the parkways? By boarded-up properties? By graffiti on buildings and the time it takes to have it removed? Or will you define it by the efforts to make things not just less ugly, but even, at times, acutely more beautiful.

At least for today, my community is yellow and purple mums and the giving hands that put them there.