I’m youngest in a large family. My sister N., the oldest, is an artist. Sometimes she dresses animals in hats and sunglasses for children’s books. (Yeah, I know it sounds weird but they’re really cute and funny.) She’s also an incredibly kind and gentle spirit. People and animals in need just sort of find her. When there was a stray dog that half the neighborhood had fed and tried to catch at one time or another, he chose her front gate to sleep in front of. He’s now a happy member of the family. That’s just who she is.

Earlier this summer, she was walking the dogs near a park and found a chicken. A live chicken. Just hanging around, waiting for some kind vegetarian soul like my sister to take her home. I was insanely jealous, as I’d love to keep a few chickens around for fresh eggs, but my husband has nixed that idea more than once. There were tornados in southern Ohio earlier this summer, and some had reportedly hit some chicken farms. Perhaps that’s how the chicken came to end up in the park. At any rate, my sister took the chicken home and named it Dorothy. (Dorothy, twister–give it a second) With two dogs, she couldn’t keep it, but found a good home for Dorothy with a friend whose husband is open to urban chickens. N. will chicken sit when necessary.

Dorothy is a lovely chicken. When the kid and I went over to meet it, she was lying in my brother-in-law’s lap, stretched out nice and comfy like a cat while he petted her. Who knew chickens could make such a great pet?

Here’s me meeting Dorothy.

I took the dogs for a very long walk in the woods this morning because I had to take my husband to a doctor’s appointment for a procedure. (More like I needed to be there to drive him home.) He was tired so I figured I’d get the dogs out of the house and tucker them out so he could have a restful day. We went down into the ravine by the creek and were walking along when both of the dogs took off for the trees to my right, near one of the sheer cliffs that were formed hundreds of years ago when the creek was much deeper and wilder. There were two young guys standing over there, and the dogs were prancing back and forth, as though they were unable to make up their minds whether or not these were people were safe.

I walked over to get the dogs but kept somewhat of a safe distance. I love nature but I’m enough of an urbanite to know that any wild animals I might encounter in these woods aren’t as potentially dangerous to me as two random young males might be. The dogs seemed to like them okay, which was a good sign. Then I noticed that the shorter of the two, the one with the thick silver ring and spikey hipster hair was crouched down, taking pictures with his camera phone. The taller, bulkier guy looked like he could be a reformed frat boy, but seemed friendly enough. It turns out they had been on the park side of the creek and waded across because they saw a duckling separated from its parents and wanted to find it. And they were genuinely geeking out about the woods in which we were standing. It is an unexpected bit of wilderness in the middle of a couple of inner-ring suburbs. They walked with me and the dogs along the deer path that goes by the creek. As they tried to figure out where they had seen the duckling and spotted the parent ducks, I stopped worrying that they were walking behind me or that I was about to be the victim of random violence and enjoyed talking to them about how much all three of us loved nature and walking in the woods.

I told them they had to go to the top of the cliff, which looks out over the tops of the trees on the other side of
>the creek and is a view worth climbing for. They were stunned. More camera phone pictures, more geeking out over the beauty of it all. They ended up walking halfway home with me because they wanted to see the neighborhood that pretty much has all this in its backyard. We only parted because they realized they had a long long walk back to their car and I had to get home to get cleaned up and take the husband to his appointment.

It was delightful to meet a couple other nature lovers. I know you aren’t supposed to talk to strangers, but I also think you need to trust your instincts. And your dogs.

I took the two young dogs out for a romp in the woods late this afternoon, around 3:30, when it was still about 86 degrees and humid and no one was out but me and the two canines. There is a stretch of woods about two blocks from our house, maybe 90 acres adjacent to but not part of the local metropark. Occasionally we see other neighbors and their dogs in there, but mainly it’s just the three of us, running, jumping, laughing simply because we feel too good to not run or jump or laugh.

We wandered down into the ravine that runs along the creek, down a steep, rocky path that’s been worn by deer hooves, dog paws, and human feet. It was so humid you could almost feel the air, see it, although in the shade of the woods it was considerably cooler than on the street. I’m always struck by how real the woods look as we descend into the ravine, when I can see the tops of some trees, the middle of others. It all just looks hyper-real, as though up to that point I’ve been walking through a black and white Flatland and have suddenly been confronted by a world of color in three dimensions. The dogs were in constant motion, running back and forth, chasing each other, play fighting, then trotting off to sniff something new, now coming over for a quick pat and a “good dog” from me. On the other side of the creek, on the other side of the trees, we could hear the sounds of kids playing and screaming, guys shouting to each other on the basketball court. They couldn’t see us, couldn’t hear us, didn’t know we were there.

Coming back out of the ravine, there was a fallen tree on the path. The dogs whizzed by me. First was Mason, the gangly seven-month-old black lab mix who is all legs and tail and goofy gawkiness. He’s a little bigger than the log and cleared it easily. Almost neck and neck with him was Juno, a two-year-old furry bundle of energy and canine neuroses who is the most clever dog I’ve ever known. She weighs a shade under 40 pounds. The tree was probably about as tall as her head if she were standing on all fours. Juno looks like a medium brown dog who had dark chocolate syrup dripped all over her back. Her rear haunches sport fluffy pantaloon-like puffs of fur, topped by a tail that curves onto her back a full 360 degrees.

It was the haunches and tail that I saw as she launched herself into the air, over the dead tree. For one heartbeat, Juno was suspended in mid-air over the tree like the figures on Keats’ Grecian urn, always young, always vital, never moving or aging. There. That moment, that’s the one I’ll remember decades from now, when these dogs are dead and gone, when climbing out of the ravine is a chore or maybe even a memory for me. I’ll remember a dog flying through the air, levitated by pure joy.

I like the word “twist.” I like songs with the word “twist” in the title. Twisting is what we do when we dance, when we move, shimmy, shake it like we just don’t care, or dance like nobody’s watching. Herewith, my five favorite “twist” songs.

1) Dire Straits, Twisting by the Pool
Catchier than the measles and with the Happiest Guitar Solo in the World.

2) White Stripes, Denial Twist
I love the simplicity of this song. Just Jack White banging on the piano and Meg White icky-thumping away. There isn’t much of a melody, but what’s there is cherce.

3) Blues Brothers/Ray Charles, Twist It (Shake Your Tail Feather)
There’s something about that Ray Charles “aaaahhhhHHHHH!” that can send a sensible person through the roof. The video from the film has the added attraction of the good people of Chicago doing all the big 60s dances (including some freaking cute little kids).

4) Chubby Checker, Let\'s Twist Again
Why do I like the Obviously-Made-To-Cash-In-On-The-Success-Of-The-Original-Song better than the original “Twist?” Not sure. I wasn’t born/conscious when either song came out, but The Twist just feels like a novelty dance song. Let’s Twist Again bears the slightly hint of nostalgia. Chubby is chubbier and trying to revive the magic of last summer. Who hasn’t been there?

5) The Beatles, Twist and Shout
Because it’s the fucking Beatles, and that should be reason enough.

Honorable mention: This crazy mash-up of The Twist and All the Single Ladies

The other evening I was taking the dogs for a walk when I spotted a fledgling robin sitting in the middle of a neighbor’s driveway down the street. It was just sitting there, little tufts of downy feathers still sticking out of its incoming grown-up feathers, its chest and belly a combination of mottled brown and yellow turning the trademark red. Surprisingly the dogs ignored it. We left it alone and went home. I came back about 15 minutes later with a small wooden box, hoping that the little robin was just stunned and had hopped/flown away. It hadn’t.

I knew if the fledgling was left in the middle of the driveway, a car, a racoon, a cat, or something would get it. I made the decision to take care of it. Very gently, I picked the robin up and put it in the box. It fluttered its wings a little but didn’t make any noise. Its right leg was twisted at an odd angle, not tucked underneath it. I chatted with my neighbor, Kathy, who was in her front yard. She and her family had actually fostered a young robin when she was in high school. Her main advice to me was “Worms. Lots of worms.” I brought the robin home, and the kid and I put some dried grass into the box for a nest and went to the garden to dig up a couple of worms. When I was a little kid, my next-door-neighbor, Sophie, was my age and we played a lot until we were about 10. I always marveled at Sophie’s lack of squeamishness when it came to worms. She’d pick them up and examine them. I managed to get away with not picking them up but retaining some semblance of seven-year-old street cred. Digging up worms for the little robin was the first time in my life that I voluntarily touched (much less picked up) a worm. The things we do for love.

Kind Kathy from down the street came over with a plastic tub full of dirt and worms from her compost heap. We tried feeding the little robin, but it wouldn’t eat. I begged it to eat, all the while having a sinking feeling in my gut that this would not end well.

I was supposed to meet my friend Peggy for a beer and a chat, so I sent the kid to bed and tried to feed the robin again before I left. No dice. By this time, if nothing else, picking up worms no longer bothered me. Dangling a worm in front of the little robin with no response did bother me. I went in, washed my hands for the umpteenth time that evening, and peeked in the box before I left. The little robin was thrashing around, trying to fly or get out. I told it gently that it needed to eat and grow a little more so that it could learn how to fly and that I wanted to help it and that no one was going to hurt it.

Already late to meet Peggy, I left. When I came home about 90 minutes later, the little robin was dead, lying on its side in a corner of the box. I touched it, just to make sure, pretending that I could still see its little chest heaving up and down. Then I just stood there for a few minutes, looking at the bird that would never get to fly.

My dear, late friend Marissa, who was a naturalist, always said that you shouldn’t interfere with nature. If the animal is going to die, it’s going to die. Things are born and things die. That’s what I told the kid next morning. We wrapped the little robin in a paper towel and buried it in the woods behind our house. And we had a nice talk about things dying and becoming part of the earth again. She handled it better than I did.

I can’t help feeling a little guilty, although I know I didn’t do anything to hurt the bird. Maybe I should have left it, so it could become food for another animal. After all, that’s part of the cycle of life too. Maybe I spared it from some pain. I don’t know. Life is such a paradox–living beings are so durable and resilient and yet so fragile. We are so strong and so weak, so wise and so ignorant.

A few Friday mornings ago, I rounded up the kid and the puppy (and a stool sample) and trundled everybody off to the vet for the pup’s last round of shots. The woman behind the desk looked at me questioningly and then gently noted that the appointment wasn’t until the following week. Feeling somewhat foolish, I trundled everybody back home. I did, however, manage to get the pup to the vet at the correct time on the correct day the following week.

Yesterday, the kid and I got out the Father’s Day cards, signed them, got the Father’s Day art from preschool, and presented the entire package to my husband early in the morning. Then we took him to breakfast.

No, you’re right. Yesterday wasn’t Father’s Day. That’s next Sunday.

Back in 1992, when I was living in the Netherlands, I received a letter from my brother-in-law Mark. (Yes, this was back in the days when people actually wrote words in ink on paper, folded it up, put it in an envelope, paid for postage, and mailed it to someone living far away. The recipient could then curl up with the letter and read and reread it to her/his heart’s content. I still have this and many other letters.) Mark stated that he had seen God, and while he was sorry to say that God is male but is at least a minority. This was my first introduction to Victor Wooten, the bass player for Bela Fleck and the Flecktones.

I went to see Bela and the boys last night at Cain Park. It was the original lineup from 1992–Bela Fleck on banjo, Victor Wooten on bass, FutureMan on the drumitar (it’s a cross between a guitar and a drum), and Howard Levy on harmonica and piano. As we walked into the amphitheater, I was pondering how artistic and creative ability grows and changes as we age. I’ve seen Bela Fleck and the Flecktones three or four times now, and they keep exploring new musical paths. The things these four men did to the music is proof enough to me of the existence of genuine divinity, but Victor Wooten continues to be a revelation. The bass has traditionally been one-half of the rhythm section, providing the low whump-whump-whump undertone over which the melody is played. Wooten elevates the bass to a melodic, gorgeous lead instrument. I don’t know if it’s possible to fully describe music through words. The two experiences are so vastly different, the journeys they take us on stimulate us in different ways. Instead of wasting your time in a futile a attempt to explain Wooten’s virtuosity, I would just ask that you take a few minutes and listen to God play.

1. Dogs (see previous post)

2. Dog hair (see #1)

3. Wisteria petals. We have deck attached to the kitchen that has arbor-like beams above with wisteria vines growing thick and high. It’s really pretty, smells great when it’s in bloom (which it was up until about a week ago), and makes it feel like the deck has a living roof. however, each beautiful purple spike is made up of probably 100+ tiny flowers. Thousands of flowers have been falling upon my deck. They end up in the house, tracked in by the combined 18 feet of the residents of our house, both human and canine. So you can be in the bathroom and look down and wonder if that’s a dried wisteria petal or a dead bug. It’s a fun game.

4. Books. My husband got me a Kindle for Christmas in the quaintly optimistic belief that it would reduce the number of paper-and-paste books in the house.

5. Napkins. My husband has the habit of eating or snacking while he watches television or reads. He’s good about grabbing a napkin, just in case anything spills. However, he never picks them up. I find napkins, both clean and dirty (I know, right?) lying all over the place.

6. Paper. Our five-year-old daughter is obsessed with paper. She paints and draws and makes cool three-dimensional objects and toys out of paper. One day a few months ago, I told her that if she didn’t want to take a nap then she had to play quietly in her room. Half an hour later she came out of her room with this birdhouse.

Sooner or later, everyone writes about their pets. Since I’ve been unemployed (two months today, in fact), I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time with our dogs. We currently have three–one very old, one very neurotic, and one very young. At the risk of sounding macabre, we made a conscious choice to have an overlap with the very old dog and the very young dog. Which is not to say that we want the very old dog to die. But she is 17 years old, which is pretty freaking old for a dog. However, she is a Schipperke mix, and they can live to be, oh, 17 or 18 (or 19 or 20). Her name is Scooter. She’s a small, stout,, fluffy black waddle of a dog with cataracts in both eyes, nasty teeth, and breath that causes grown men to pass out at 10 paces. I love her to pieces.

The neurotic dog is named Juno. She’s almost two. She looks like a cross between a Sheltie and a German Shepard but has the moves and neuroses of a Border Collie. She doesn’t seem to get tired (even after I run four miles with her or let her romp through the woods for an hour or two off the leash) and is eager to please to the point of being infuriating. She is also the smartest dog either I or my husband have ever had, obedient, protective, and cuddly. If she didn’t still pull on the leash, she’d be the perfect dog.

Then there’s the puppy. Mason. (The correct pronunciation is more like, “MAAY-son!”) He’s a black lab mix. At about five and a half months, he weighs in at about 38 pounds (or as much as Juno) and appears to be gaining about 2-2.5 pounds a week. He is all legs and paws and head and joyful puppy slobber. When I walked him and Juno this morning (after having already run a couple miles with Juno, which did nothing to deplete her energy level), we stopped and talked to John, one of our neighbors. I mentioned something about the puppy. John looked at Mason and said, “That’s a puppy?”

This is my pack.

I went to see the Cleveland Indians play the Boston Red Sox this afternoon. It was perfect, perfect baseball weather, and I was eager to see if my Indians could win the rubber match of a three-game series against a team I’m not very fond of.

The Indians didn’t win. In fact, they got trounced, with a final score of 14-2. Being at a game when you know it’s improbable (not impossible, but highly improbable) for your team to come back allows you to slow down and enjoy the diverse array of folks who show up for an afternoon game. To my right were my friend Stephanie (and her rally cows) and her fellow graduate student, John, whom I had just met. To my left was an older guy who looked like a sexy Rust Belt version of General Custer along with his adult son. He was good for flexing my somewhat dormant flirting muscles. (I’m married, not dead.) In front of us was an man with his elderly father. The father (we discovered) had Alzheimer’s. The folks in our row took turns talking to him and listening to him talk about being in the Marines during the war and how he played four seasons in Triple AAA ball for a Mr. Rosenblum. Behind us was a man who said “Home run” for every ball hit in the air. It was a fine assortment of Cleveland baseball fans.

On the way home, I was driving along the Innerbelt when I saw a big white van driving along with the side door completely open. There was a big Boxer/Pit Bull mix dog standing in the back. He mellowly poked his nose out the door to check out the view as the van went around Dead Man’s Curve. (Yes, there really is a place in Cleveland called Dead Man’s Curve. It’s where the freeway leading into town turns at about a 90 degree angle.) He had a collar and was leashed to the back of the driver’s seat. He looked to be maybe 85 or 90 pounds, so at least he was heavy enough that he wasn’t flying around the back of the van. Only in Cleveland would someone think that would be a good way for the dog to get some fresh air. We love our pets.