Equinox

I've hit rock bottom.

They say you'll know it when it happens.

My moment came last night, 10:47 p.m., as I sprawled stupefied in my recliner in front of the TV, staring slack-jawed at a second re-showing of the final episode of "The Real Housewives of Orange County," a Bravo reality series I've followed reluctantly through two seasons, unable to extricate myself from its mind-numbing spell of wanton consumerism, entitlement and boob jobs, more than happy to watch any number of reruns of last week's episode in the lead-up to this week's, a behavior repeated over the course of two seasons, two fucking seasons, all that precious time down the sewer, my life has become unmanageable.

No matter the chasms of faux cleavage, the augmented cascades of faux blonde hair, the trampoline-taut cheekbones and 35 psi lips, I kept coming back for more. With the purchase of every $500 handbag, every $1500 shoe, I snorted with contempt, then nonchalantly checked Target the following day for knockoffs. Everytime someone lifted a cocktail the size of a birdbath with a two-inch French manicure, I convulsed in disgust, then marveled at how they managed to stay so thin given such appetites, not to mention open mayonnaise jars and negotiate toilet paper given such nails.

I found myself dreaming of eyelashes waving like palm branches. I envisioned my basic black wardrobe supplemented with turquoise and gold. I calculated exactly how many months out of a Northern year (one-and-a-half) I could expect to get away with cubic zirconia-studded flip-flops without risking frostbite. If my daughter was lollygagging past her Tuesday night bedtime, I hurriedly popped in a tape so as not to miss one Botox-driven moment.

(Am I alone? Am I the only one? Is my congenital superficiality finally showing its wannabe-surgically-enhanced face? Is there any hope for me?)

Blame it on Bravo. First they get me hooked on "Project Runway," a popular Class A time-killer of choice, and when I'm hopelessly addicted, they pull a fast one with an inferior replacement, thinking I won't notice, a classic bit of druggie legerdemain, i.e., stepping on the product. It was a full six months before I became aware of the tiny voice at my left shoulder intoning Just Say No, Buttonhead! Turn It The Fuck Off!

But still I vacillated in a downward spiral of shame. Still I wavered, a hapless junkie, nodding off during nightly reruns as (Ka-Chunk!) those massive Coto de Caza gates clanged shut and (Ka-Chunk!) my standards fell like my face muscles and (Ka-Chunk!) my IQ sank into a pond of self-aggrandizing conformity, like the rock George gave Lauri when he invited her to join in his quest to rid Southern California of undeveloped real estate once and for all, forever and ever, amen.

When should the Aha! moment have finally occurred? The tiny voice have finally become audible? Was it when The Wives copped to actually never reading a newspaper? To always voting Republican? To being genuinely surprised to discover that every state in the union wasn't red? Was it when Jo didn't know from Pledge? Or from that smarmy record producer? Was it when one of the cadre of teenage offspring said she "deserved" a $100,000 Beemer? Or when another mistook Vietnam for Iraq?

But, Stay Tuned! Don't Touch That Remote!

(Will the polar ice caps continue to melt? The oceans to warm? The rainforests to retreat into extinction? Will the ozone layer hold up, along with Tammy's breast implants? Will Yours Truly ever crawl out from under this avalanche of sanctimonious rationalization and cancel Satellite? Change her life? Carpe Diem? Now there's a concept. All things being equal, how about today! It is, after all, the first day of Spring. Start of a new season.)

One Day At A Time! Watch What Happens!

Lakewalk

Yesterday was our Twenty-first Wedding Anniversary. Last year we were in St. Lucia. This year we walked on water.

The Lake has frozen over all the way to Wisconsin. Slabs of ice stack up against each other along the shoreline like mountain ranges. If you can negotiate your way through, you step out onto a vast surreal moonscape of windswept gray and white, crisscrossed with jagged faultlines like an enormous jigsaw puzzle.

Surreal. Moonscape. Faultlines. Puzzle.

If these were Password clues, someone would eventually come up with "marriage." At which point Allen Ludden would give that knowing look.

As the traditional folk rhyme goes:

If you wed when March winds blow, Joy and sorrow both you'll know.

Our Twentieth Anniversary was a cakewalk.

In St. Lucia, we dodged geckos and hummingbirds and were lullabyed to sleep each night by a tree frog in the bougainvillea outside our cabana door. We watched the full moon rise up from the Pitons, and once, I swear, I witnessed the fabled Green Flash as the sun disappeared into the Caribbean. For six days and nights we wandered Paradise with winterblind eyes, drunk with color and light and Brazilian champagne, while the equatorial sun wrapped itself around us like a parka.

Fast forward a year. The Ides of March. Up North the crows are gathering, pairing off, announcing it to the world. They keep up a constant commentary as I run the shore road, beside the frozen wasteland of The Lake. I turn off NPR, more interested in "Squawk of the Nation."

One Spring, early in our marriage, when we still lived in The City, my husband and I found ourselves landlords to a nest of crows in the backyard elm. The parents screamed at us whenever we left the house, and when the nestlings finally fledged, they supplemented their screams with dive-bombs. Fledgling crows spend a vulnerable six or seven days moving around on the ground while they learn to fly, so we became their bodyguards, shooing away cats, postal workers and other predators, and dodging their terrorist parents. One morning I woke to the sight of three fat baby crows waddling up the walk and onto the porch, toward a bowl of water I'd left for them.

One by one we watched them "get their wings" as they flew awkwardly into the lower branches, then higher and higher, until one day, sky's the limit, they were gone.

And then so were we.

Meantime, the joys and sorrows and all the years stack up against each other like mountain ranges, like waves, like baby crows crowded around a yellow water dish.

Nothing so black as a crow. As a Caribbean night before the full moon rises. As the water glimpsed through a fissure in the ice beneath your feet as you walk across A Great Lake with your one true love.

Happy Anniversary, Baby.

Being Daisy

The correction is here. Winter has finally arrived, at the backdoor of Spring. Alert the media! Alert Al Gore! While you're at it, alert Michael Mann...tell him the next time he assembles an "America" montage for the Academy Awards, he might consider including a few token members of the female persuasion amongst all those angry young men. The Oscars may have gone green, but its balls are still blue.

Fade to whiteout.

At the eleventh hour, The Big One hits. Eighteen inches and counting. Snow, that is (sorry, Michael). March has come in like the MGM lion. One of the perks of Winter waiting until March to make its entrance is the lack of all those months-old, dirt-and-grime-encrusted snowbanks. Nothing but pristine swells of diamond-dappled white ad infinitum. It makes me want to mummify myself in Goretex and stencil snowangels across the county. Or at least as far as the garage, where my trusty snow shovel awaits, sales tag intact. Every year it's the same: purchase black-and-yellow $7.99 Menards shovel in November, wait for it to break in April, repeat following year.

In spite of the atrocity of snowblowers, the abomination of snowmobiles, I love Winter. I love snow. Call me crazy. Call me a buttonhead. Winter is in my heart. It's in my genes. It's in my psyche. It's in my right butt cheek, where a nasty cramp has set in and refuses to dislodge, even when assaulted with 800 mg. Ibuprofen every few hours. Yes, Virginia, shoveling is a pain in the ass.

But we're politically-correct on this one, a clan who believes in the Old Ways (see above, re annual snow shovel). As in, Don't commiserate about Global Warming and then rev up your 8 horsepower two-stage four-cycle Toro 828LXE to clear your postage-stamp townie driveway. It brings to mind all those Yukons and Humvees combing the rugged freeways of Southern California. When I stepped outside yesterday to commence the daily five-hour manual snow removal detail, it sounded like Saturday night at the Proctor Speedway. I was tempted to wander up and down the alley waving a checkered flag at the neighbors.

We also have a politically-correct Winter Dog. Not that we chose her for political reasons. Rather, I found her attached to my left shin as I headed back to my car that afternoon four years ago when we first locked eyes. Months earlier, we'd lost our beloved firstborn, Starflower, a 14-year-old heterochromic* Alaskan Husky, and it finally occurred to me the only way I was going to get past such debilitating grief was to find another Husky ruff to bury my tear-ravaged face in.

Against my better judgement (like I ever had any), I answered a local ad for "Siberian Husky" pups. Right. Next thing I knew, I was standing on a shit-and-straw-encrusted dirt floor in an unheated outdoor shed in Canosia Township on Valentine's Day, staring at a frozen water dish while a swarm of eleven eight-week-old psycho-doglets swirled around my Sorels as if I were the eye of the storm. I blacked-out momentarily (not for the usual reasons), and next thing I knew, I was standing in a Seventies-era double-wide with the chain-smoking "breeder," forking over an ungodly amount of cash to relieve her of the furry black-and-white barnacle velcroed to my jeans.

Call it a rescue. Call it temporary insanity. Call it a day. Okay, Valentine's Day.

Whereas Star had been a real Husky's Husky, a full-blooded Alaskan from a long line of mushers, dogs bred for strength and stamina with that quintessential Husky aplomb and geniality, it didn't take us long to realize we hadn't brought home Star II. Instead, we found ourselves the forever family of one Daisy Astrila Valentine, a.k.a., the Hound in Husky Clothing. Our lives would never be the same. Amidst the usual new-puppy flurry of adjustment...de-worming, de-briefing, de-joys-of-de-housebreaking...we began to notice certain, er, idiosyncracies.

Where to begin.

Anyone who has ever raised a puppy and managed not to go over to the Dark Side, knows about puppy teeth. A few comparisons...razor blades, Exacto-Knives, surgical steel mortician's tools. Lacking opposable thumbs, a puppy explores the world with its mouth. One of the jobs of The Master is to dissuade the little furball from what is known in dogspeak as "mouthing." As opposed to "mouthing-off," which applies to pre-teen female humans.

Daisy flunked mouthing. She systematically set out to destroy all things fabric, wood, plastic or flesh, and very nearly succeeded. Our house resembled a furniture liquidation warehouse. Our daughter lived on the back of the couch like a mountain goat for months. Our cat relocated to the sauna. I staggered through that first Year of the Daisy with bloody forearms and ripped clothing, the coup d'etat being the gash torn from the back of my $300 Italian swing coat, right where my ass should've been (okay, I bought it at 90% Off, that's not the point). Likewise, Daisy flunked Puppy Kindergarten, coming in dead last out of a class of 24, due in part to the gash torn from the trainer's right thumbpad during a routine "correction." In First Grade she did a little better, at second to last, last being a Great Dane who dragged its owner across the ring and out the front door during graduation ceremonies.

We've come to accept that Daisy has certain...issues. Her initial Fear of Everything has gradually morphed into the more specific Fear of Objects. For a long time she was afraid of buildings. The garage put her in a tailspin, the neighbors' houses rendered her catatonic. Gradually Fear of Buildings narrowed to Fear of Smaller Buildings. Shrubbery. Flowerpots. Hoses. Laundry. Footstools. TVs. And if a particular building, er, object is not in the same place as it was previously...say a chair has been moved, a shoe left in the middle of the floor, the corner of a rug upended...she panics. (Remember this one? How did Helen Keller's mother punish her? She rearranged the furniture.) In our house, bringing in grocery bags is tantamount to animal cruelty, a handful of mail becomes a Taser. When we haul out our bikes in May, our skates in December, Daisy would call her therapist, if she had one.

Like many dogs, she's terrified of loud noises. But being Daisy, she's terrified of silence, too. She can wake up from a dead sleep in the dead of night in the dead of winter in dead quiet, and next thing we know, she's slithered in between us quaking at 7.5 on the Richter. It's like living with a pet Vibra-Bed. She has her own "sleeping chair" in our bedroom, though it took her two years to get over being afraid of it. Now that she's acclimated to the third floor, she prefers to remain there except for emergencies (i.e., eating and shitting), and our bedroom is now referred to as "Daisy's apartment."

Sometimes I think she simply hallucinates...constantly...like a cat. Speaking of which. As mentioned, Miranda, our black-and-white cat (note color scheme), lived in the sauna for six months when we first brought Daisy home. The sauna is in the basement, which is now referred to as "Miranda's apartment." When Miranda eventually emerged from self-imposed exile, Daisy was on her. And has been ever since. Daisy believes Miranda is her goal. Though what the endgame might be, I don't want to guess. Miranda has three eyebrows on one side, one on the other, Daisy having used the rest for dental floss. When I pick Miranda up, I can tell when she's been through another Daisy wash cycle. Daisy gums Miranda mercilessly, pinning her against the floor, though she hasn't yet used her teeth, due to having received not a few cat-claw-text-messages on the snout. Genius that she is, Daisy defers.

My belief is that Daisy thinks Miranda is some oddball hybrid knockoff chipmunk or squirrel, both of which she has dispatched to a far, far better place. Or perhaps one of our daughter's Beanie Babies, which Daisy routinely purloins and buries between the couch cushions. She does likewise with socks, gloves, dishrags, washcloths, napkins and underwear. It's a fabric thing. Once we had guests over, and one of them reached around and pulled a bra out from the corner of the couch. It wasn't what they were thinking, but we let them think it anyway.

Speaking of which. Daisy is afraid of...humans. She's particularly terrified of human males (did I mention she's a genius?). I suspect one of the chain-smoking breeder's boyfriends had something to do with this. Daisy is capable of eventually warming up to female humans...maybe after several dozen meetings...but it can take up to a year for her to accept the other sex. If ever. Meantime, she'll tell you all about it. Daisy is a talker. A gossiper. A yodeler. An opera diva. A disc jockey. If she weren't so pulverized by neuroses, she could do stand-up. If she could stand up. Come to think of it, she can. She walks on her hind legs, front paws waving like a traffic cop. And she sleeps on her back, spread-eagled like an Italian swing coat. And she runs laps through the backyard ad infinitum, then, momentarily forgetting herself, leaps from the deckstairs like a gazelle. Into the air. The dirt. The leaves. The snow. My heart.

Where there was never going to be room for another dog. Not ever. Not forever. Especially some agoraphobic Faux Husky who freaks when a sled harness is fastened around her. Who freezes in place and refuses to Mush! except when it comes to heeling on lead, at which time she'll pull your arm out of its socket. Who prefers the view from the third floor window to any actual participation in what's going on out there. Who worships her own personal pack as The Chosen Few and regards the rest of humanity as Satan's Minions. Who's afraid of doors. Windows. Rugs. Pianos. Earthworms. Rain. Wind. Water. Who's afraid of snow, for godsakes.

Though, I must say, at the eleventh hour, having not seen snow for a year, she's coming around. In fact, just this morning I let her out into the Great White Void, and she did the most remarkable thing. Stepped off the deck into the yard, plowed through the drifts over to "her tree," curled into a donut, tucked her nose under her tail and closed her eyes. I thought I was hallucinating. She did keep one ear revolving like a periscope, being terrified of snowblowers. Of course, being Daisy, she's terrified of shovels, too.


(*Look it up.)