Our Broken Hearts

 

For the last three years of his life, Catmandoo was a dog. He changed his name to CatmanDog, and wouldn’t answer to anything else. He did dog things – peed on strangers’ tires, herded gaggles of wild turkeys out of the yard and glared them down, scared deer out of the yard, went for short rides in the car, terrorized and chased dogs who foolishly entered his space – even ones he’d known for years and never held any bad feelings towards.

 

He was bigger than most small dogs, both in weight and in length, and had the attitude of a (mostly benevolent) Lord of the Universe. On July 2^nd, his current reign came to an end, after nearly 19 years. His kidneys had failed, and he told me he was done. He’s now buried in our animal cemetery plot, next to a nice patch of catnip, next to Bunny, my white cat who he helped nurse through his last days by bringing him freshly-killed mice to eat, and flanked by the Barkie Boys, who finally agreed to let me bury their ashes in the plot now the third dog was there. On one side, there’s the blueberry plot. On the other, the Gryphon and the Dragon – now all the dogs are together again and fiercely guarded – and, probably, guarding.

We, on the other hand, are still crying and lonely.

Big dogs have big personalities, and even before Catman became a Dog, he was a Dude – handsome, mostly benign, opinionated, and in control. Not overly bright, but wicked clever – there was not a cat harness or dog harness that he couldn’t get out of in 3 seconds flat, without a struggle. He disciplined errant dogs by smacking them across the snoot with his big paws – loudly, one could hear the smack from the next room - but never used a claw – and maintained discipline by passing the Boys on the stairs to bed, then sitting on a step half-way up and daring them to go past him. They never did.

He was gentle with the other cats in the house, and allowed Beastreau (who I call Biscuit), the little black stray who he was at least twice as big as, to stick her head under his chin when he was eating and steal food. He always looked surprised and shocked that she’d dare try it – because no one dared be that rude to the Dude; but he also always let her do it. In return, she’d spend hours licking his head for him, which he loved. NO ONE got to touch his flanks, but his head – and his elegant mane – was a loved scritchy brushy licky spot. I brushed his mane regularly, and he’d lift his massive snoot straight up in the air so I could get at the part under his chin and on his chest, purring, purring, purring very quietly. Touch the flanks, however, and get bit. Mama, however – that’s me – was able to nibble the edges of his ears. He liked that.

Catman was a Maine coon cat, with tufted ears, a long snoot, a really elegant mane, and giant paws, easily three times the usual cat-paw size. He was typical coon-cat colors, so he blended nicely into the outdoors – you could be standing next to him outside and not see him. He was an excellent hunter, and ate every part of everything he caught, including guts, feathers, beaks, tails. When he was young, he could jump straight up to the top of the refrigerator, and screened windows were not a barrier – one claw swipe usually opened them, and if not, his giant paws could open any unlocked door.  Until he was old and lost his hearing, he didn’t talk much – the purr was almost internal, there was never a meow. In his old age, he purred loudly and his meow was as loud as a bark.

He also decided, in his old age, to become a gardener, and would spend hours twice daily trimming his many catnip bushes. I don’t know how he did it, but he managed to plant at least nine huge catnip plants without my help. I tried to keep them down to three, but as soon as I dug up one, I’d find another he’d recently started. No one, even Biscuit, was allowed to trim his catnip plants if he was around to see it. He reluctantly allowed me to pick some to bring to Lou, the local vet clinic’s cat, once in awhile.

Catman scared dogs and other cats, and most people. One dear friend who was living with us for a time, a giant of a man with strong muscles and tall, came to me one night and said, please, come move Catman. He’s on my bed and won’t get off, and I need to go to sleep.  Catman wasn’t sharing. But his mom and dad could move him, and when he was older, one of his favorite things was to have us flip him over on his back in our arms, kiss his belly, and carry him around the garden, or to wherever we were working in the yard. He’d become a lover of humans, aged to a perfect sweetheart, from the semi-wild being who mostly just tolerated us when he was young. In age, he craved company; he wanted to spend hours leaning on his person, watching tv, or reading. Catman preferred action movies and mystery books. He’d occasionally tolerate Biscuit curling herself around him. He did not sit on laps – he was perfectly happy to be held, but only if he was up in the air.

 

I don’t know what Catman’s philosophy on life or theory on death was. When he helped nurse my Bunny, who had diabetes and eventually died from it, he brought the fresh-killed mice for many weeks; when he stopped bringing them, I knew Bunny was too ill to recover. Catman tolerated thyroid medicine for his own illness for years, up until a day before he died. After gobbling his pills in the morning, the night before he died he rejected them, rejected his treats, rejected his favorite food. He was done, and told me so. 

 

The thing is, though, that he was still a dog. The day we had him put down, he wanted to spend the early part of it outside, lying in the sun, peeing on stuff. We sat with him; we carried him when he couldn’t walk; we moved him to shade when it was too hot. It took a dog-sized dose of muscle relaxer when the vet administered the final grace. CatmanDog  went out in style, just as he’d lived his life. He was amazing.

And yet, we’re still crying.

 

All photos Deb Marshall or Charley Freiberg

Sigh...

Purple Columbine

 

Sigh.

Corona Virus and sequestering, as a friend said, “Is interesting. We’re going through an historical period; how often does that happen?” She’s right, but remember:  “May you live in interesting times” is a terrible curse in at least two cultures.

Probably good stuff will come of it. Maybe we’ll learn some long-forgotten, basic hygiene. We hope to emerge as a no-longer racist, and less divided, nation. If our legislators really listen and do what they should do, we’ll no longer discriminate against people who are different from us, in whatever way; we’ll have grown a national conscience and heart; and we won’t kick people out of the country for really questionable reasons or lock them up like animals; we’ll have learned not to elect people who have no business  running the country (especially if they’re good at running it into the ground), and we’ll fix that national error and source of shame and present danger; and we’ll start to mend trust with our international friends. 

In the meantime, we’re still in the throes of it. The very best entertainment for myself, as well as an excellent stress-reliever, is to take a handful of clean masks, packed away in clean envelopes, and hand one to the way too many people in public places who aren’t wearing one – summer complaints, I assume, because surely no native New Hampshirite is that selfish and self-centered and foolish – and stare them down until they put it on. I suppose there’s a small chance that the person I’m snarling at doesn’t actually own a mask, in which case I’m happy to provide one. But I doubt it, at this point in the pandemic. Anyone not wearing a mask isn’t keeping their hands off their faces, nor keeping their hands clean. Hello, round 1.2, of Covid 19 spike.

I got the garden planted during the deepest part of the sequestering, but the weather gods are apparently ticked off, because the garden’s suffering from lack of water. I’ve never had to water daily this early in the season, ever. Who knows what will actually become harvestable this year? Which worries me – a full chest freezer of produce is a main part of what feeds us over the winter, and if there isn’t that freezer full, then the living expenses are going to be higher.

And that worries me because even though I’m now seeing patients, the frequent and elaborate disinfecting routines we have to go through, and spacing treatment days to avoid coming-and-going overlap with other practitioners, means  I can only see about a third of the patients I’d usually see. It’s necessary; but comes after three months of not seeing patients. So my professional life – the life that brings in actual cash for bill-paying and grocery buying – has been on hold, and remains in a really tight space now and for the foreseeable future. 

My life during the deepest sequester amounted to spending a lot of time reassuring patients, sending face masks to those most at risk, hunting down facemasks and gloves and disinfectant that kills human corona virus, writing protocols for risk management when I finally could work again, checking in with more fragile or elderly patients, and writing endless notes to NH Employment Security trying to get them to send me unemployment checks. Despite two poems, two begging notes, several irritable notes, and total hopelessness, my application for self-employed unemployment benefits is “under consideration,” as it’s been since the week of April 5. 

Every so often I get a call, responding to a note or poem I’ve sent. They’re always nice folks, but they’re also always not someone who can do anything about it or explain the hold-up. I thank them for the work they’re doing, they tell me to be patient, I point out how long I’ve been being patient, we hang up, and I cry, as I watch my financial life crumble into dust.

I’m one of the lucky ones. The husband, who is also self-employed, started getting benefits almost immediately, and that, plus the government’s May check, has kept us from debtor’s prison, or whatever the equivalent is now. I have a home, and the remains of last year’s produce in the freezer, and a place to plant a garden. For us, stuff gets put off – maybe we can pay this month’s food bill, maybe not, and that’s what credit cards are for. Real estate taxes are going to be impossible this year. An EID grant let me pay my back rent, and the current installment of my professional insurance. It could be worse; it may become worse.

But there are people with no homes, no gardens, no family to help, and the rest of us are feeling strapped, so we have fewer extra dollars to share. But share we must – it’s part of the growing of a national conscience and heart. We must be part of that growth.  Even when we’re poor ourselves, we must share a little of what we have, and insist our legislators do the right thing.

And NHES – if you’re listening, c’mon: it’s been almost three months, for heaven’s sake!

Slightly shorter version published 26 June 20 in the Concord Monitor as "The Curse of Interesting Times."

Deb Marshall photo. 

Spring Photo Gallery

Tulips, May

3 sad amigos - heritage tomatoes that arrived 1 May instead of end of May!

Heather, late April early May

On the wart; 11 June

Irises, June

Butterfly on Johnny Jump Ups

With their guardian, after potting up and moving about from sun patch to sun patch

One of the amigos after 2 weeks in the garden - beginning of June

Marsh marigold through the trees - end March

Marsh marigolds closer up

Fritillaria above, in April

I seem to be unable to get the photos to do what I want them to in this blog; every time I add another, the rest all jump around. Sorry! Have fun anyway looking at them!

 

Boy, Are We In Trouble

Wind-blown Clematis

Boy, it’s been a hard bunch of weeks.

Boy, it’s apt to continue to be so for a whole lot more weeks. Boy, have we pissed off some major gods of decency and humanity. And the weather gods are not being very friendly, either.

So before I get into what the garden’s been doing – or not doing – or doing strangely – let me just say first that just because the governors are opening up our states after stay-at-home orders – too soon, I believe – doesn’t mean you can relax. Don’t take your face masks off, don’t stop sanitizing and washing your hands, don’t go into public places unmasked, and don’t be idiots – if there are too many people packed into a place you want to go, or there’s no real ventilation in those tent restaurants you think you want to eat in, or you see other people engaging in risky behavior near you – DON’T GO IN or DON’T STAY.  And if you’re in a store/post office/etc and there are self-centered, selfish dickheads spreading respiratory droplets all about because they don’t like wearing a mask, snarl at them, lecture them, if you have one hand them an extra mask, and tell them to put it on. Explain why. Then stand in front of them and stare at them until they blink first and put it on. Remind them that it won’t hurt them to wear one and even if they don’t believe it’s necessary, the only human and kind thing to do is to wear it SO THEY DON’T FREAK THE REST OF US OUT!

Yes, I’m shouting.

First Poppy

And then – OMG. Don’t even consider voting for the idiot who masquerades as a president in November. And don’t let our elected representatives get away with all they’ve been getting away with. Find your voice and express it, loudly and often. I’m sorry if you’re a misguided Republican or whoever else was duped into voting for the very, very, very bad man – wake up, don’t do it again, find some balls and say so out loud so all your duped friends and elected officials can hear you, because it’s herd mentality – that’s different from herd immunity – that got us into this mess and has kept us here long past time. 

Or don’t – go ahead and vote him in again and then hand a destroyed democracy, an autocratic regime, a disgusting, stinking mess, over to the next generation. Take the risk that the military won’t step in to put an end to the craziness if we won’t. Watch those armed self-righteous wing-nut militia types hiding amongst us try to take over and have fire-fights with the military on public streets.  That should be fun.

And finally, Black Lives Matter. That doesn’t mean other lives don’t matter, it means we need, as individuals and as a nation, to recognize that the Black lives we’ve for so long relegated to a place of less importance, either consciously or unconsciously, need to be embraced as if they were we. And that means rooting out of our collective activities and institutions and soul whatever makes us think, or feel, or fear, that any other humans are Other and that their tragedies and happiness is not our business. All humans lives and whether they can live comfortably, healthily, fearlessly, are our business – they’re our most important business. Except for the dickheads who won’t wear masks or keep their hands clean – they’re not quite human and you have my permission to subject them to whatever unpleasantness it takes to get compliance. To quote an old herb teacher of mine: Bastards!

When they make me god, there’s gonna be retribution.

Rant over. For now.

Lady's Mantle

So, the weather gods have been screwing with us this year. We’ve had maybe 3 or 4 days of kinda normal June weather, which has made most of us forget how much the weather has sucked, even last week. We had some August weather in April and May, and some March and February weather in April and May and early June, and we seem to be in some sort of drought now, after weeks and weeks of too much early rain. The ground’s dry down 4 or 5 inches, and seeds are having a hard time trying to germinate and grow their little roots in the dust. Watering, unless one can do it for hours daily, only wets the very topsoil, which doesn’t help much – it’s better than nothing, but barely.

Things that usually don’t germinate well – parsnips – have germinated early and beautifully, and no, I don’t know why. Things that usually germinate almost immediately – beans and peas, for example – have taken weeks to germinate. My risky planting of fava beans and peas during August in April did finally germinate, but it took more than a month; they’re in flower now, but the plants aren’t as tall as they should be. In fact, a lot of things are in flower now, desperately trying to produce seeds early and quickly because the weather has been so unreliable, they’re trying to quickly reproduce; thus, all the extra pollen you allergy sufferers are contending with while assuring people that’s what it is, it’s not corona virus symptoms.  Turnips, and carrots, and beets are doing miserably, and they should be well on their way by now; broccoli rabe germinated spottily and then keeled over and dried up when only half an inch tall.

Egyptian Onions forming bulbs at top

Garlic, and Egyptian onions – the one planted last fall and the other a perennial - are doing very well. Leeks and onions, planted this spring, not so much. The asparagus went to seed very rapidly, in less than 2 weeks, and already is sporting a lacy mass of fern and berries.

The hummingbirds arrived during that rainy freezing February in April time, managed to survive it, and Buzzy Boy regularly dive-bombs us. I nearly stepped on a very small toad in the garden the other day – it was shorter than the end joint of my thumb, and a little annoyed with me because I was watering his hidey hole, apparently. This is the year the lunaria are in bloom – masses of white and purple flowers that look a lot like phlox; the blueberries are loaded with flowers, as are the raspberries, and the bees are busy. The rhubarb got big enough to pull and immediately formed flowers, which must be cut off, if we want to continue to pull rhubarb for awhile longer.  The perennials I planted last fall are taking forever to emerge, and I think many were lost, probably because of the terrible spring weather. 

Irises opened three days ago, and lilies and poppies today. The peony buds are swelling, and the rhododendrons popped open over the last couple of days.  Flax is in blue bloom. I still haven’t gotten the annual flower seeds planted: calendula, love lies bleeding, nasturtiums, bachelor’s buttons, cosmos, morning glories. All those will go in tomorrow, and more basil. The self-seeding California poppies are up and everywhere, as are the Johnny Jump Ups, and some of the CA poppies have already blossomed. The few wild flowers I tolerate in places in the garden – patches of white violets, daisies, Black-Eyed-Susans, and a tall feathery-leafed thing that I can’t seem to find in my Wildflowers of New England books – are vigorous and spreading. 

And, it turns out, Columbine spreads itself, and the flowers turn into different colors on different babies; this fascinates me. We had many cherry and pear and apple blossoms, but none on the new-last-year peaches and bush cherry; they’re probably a year or so too young.  And a Green Man with a solar light in his head has taken up residence on the garage wall, shining pale golden light through his eyes at night, looking toward the garden. He looks exactly like The Tall Guy, but while we all recognize it, we think he doesn’t see himself in it.

The Green Man

I’ve been marking the perennials with copper markers so I won’t plant over them come fall or next spring, or weed them out when they don’t look like themselves, and so The Husband can identify them now they’re doing interesting stuff.

Not sure what the final version of this year’s garden will be like. It’s different every year; sometimes annoying, sometimes gorgeous, sometimes disappointing, sometimes abundant.

Sort of like life. And you don’t need to wear a mask in the garden.

Columbine

For the blog, 11 June 2020

See the Spring Photo Gallery for a visual story!

All photos Deb Marshall