Dogs and Small Boys

My nephew and niece, Jon and Laura, are moving soon, from Chicago to Virginia. This means that our two to two-and-a-half hour trip to visit them will become a ten to eleven hour trip instead. We are thrilled that they have found gainful employment, but we are sad that they'll be so far away.

Much to our delight, they came for a visit on Friday. We ate some lunch (Jon was starving), and played in the park (I think the park is the highlight for the little guys). Then we all headed to the fairground, where there are dog shows all weekend. Friday's show was sponsored by the Grand Rapids Kennel Club.

When going to a dog show, I highly recommend taking along several small boys. It will shorten your stay - we only made it through a couple Best in Group judgings - but the handlers we met were delighted to talk with M and C, and help them pet the dogs. (Admittedly, you should try to find several small boys who are also exceedingly charming.)

When we watched the hound group (my favorite, because: Beagles!), we were positioned at the far end of the ring from the actual judging. So the handlers were pretty relaxed as they came our way, and they chatted with the boys, and showed off their dogs a bit.

Here are C and one of the dogs (unfortunately, I have no great pictures of M):

Mutual admiration: C and a Saluki

These photos (also from the hound group) were taken without flash, and therefore are a bit shaky.

Elkhound, adoring his handler
(and, I suspect, waiting
for a treat)

Petit Basset Griffon Vendéen (PBGV),
just being cute

Beagles! Large (15") and Small (13")

We saw dogs being groomed, and dogs that were just hanging out. I met my first Leonberger - a good looking (albeit very large) fellow. Lots of Corgis wandering around - it must have been near time for their judging. We saw some tiny little Chihuahuas heading out, and many other breeds, all of which M pointed out with glee. (It was delightful to have M take my hand and drag me off to see some dog or other.)

We headed back home, where - surprise! - we went to the park again. After dinner, we played Farkle, and had Laura and Jon show us (again - Joyce had taught us last summer) how to play Liar's Dice. I clearly was at a disadvantage - I could not remember the rules at all (I'm sure everyone was tired of my repeatedly asking for yet another explanation, although everyone was unfailingly polite). I definitely had no clue regarding strategy! Ah well.

Speaking of dogs... I recently read Mary Oliver's Dog Songs. I generally enjoy Mary Oliver's poetry, and (as any who have read my blog will know) I am somewhat fond of dogs. Accordingly, I thought this would be the perfect book - but not so. Shortly after starting this book, I heard the quote from Oscar Wilde, "All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling," and immediately thought of the Oliver book. It is clear she genuinely loves her dogs, but the poetry is, for the most part, below the quality I am used to seeing in her work.

Still, there were some that I liked. I first heard this one on The Writer's Almanac, back in September.

How It Is with Us, and How It Is with Them
by Mary Oliver

We become religious,
then we turn from it,
then we are in need and maybe we turn back.
We turn to making money,
then we turn to the moral life,
then we think about money again.
We meet wonderful people, but lose them
     in our busyness.
We're, as the saying goes, all over the place.
Steadfastness, it seems,
is more about dogs than about us.
One of the reasons we love them so much.

I did like the pencil drawings in the book; my favorite is the cover photo of Ben, who reminds me of our Bonnie.

Bonnie, for whom life is
all about the smells

Everything That Can be Fixed

I am sitting on the couch in our front room (truly our 'living room' - this is the heart of our home, where we spend nearly all our free time). The window behind me looks out on our front yard, where there is a red maple that we planted in June, twenty-plus years ago. If I focus on the reflection on my laptop, all I can see are the branches of that tree, waving in the wind. The leaves fill my laptop screen, and make me smile.

Anyway... I was reading some Mary Oliver poems, and this one matches my mood today.

August
By Mary Oliver

Our neighbor, tall and blonde and vigorous, the mother
of many children, is sick. We did not know she was sick,
but she has come to the fence, walking like a woman
who is balancing a sword inside of her body, and besides
that her long hair is gone, it is short and, suddenly, gray.
I don’t recognize her. It even occurs to me that it might
be her mother. But it’s her own laughter-edged voice,
we have heard it for years over the hedges.

All summer the children, grown now and some of them
with children of their own, come to visit. They swim,
they go for long walks along the harbor, they make
dinners for twelve, for fifteen, for twenty. In the early
morning two daughters come to the garden and slowly
go through the precise and silent gestures of T’ai Chi.

They all smile. Their father smiles too, and builds
castles on the shore with the children, and drives back to
the city, and drives back to the country. A carpenter is
hired – a roof repaired, a porch rebuilt. Everything that
can be fixed.

June, July, August. Every day, we hear their laughter. I
think of the painting by van Gogh, the man in the chair.
Everything wrong, and nowhere to go. His hands over
his eyes.

To go with Oliver's poem, here is Van Gogh's Old Man in Sorrow (On the Threshold of Eternity):

Van Gogh, Vincent. Old Man in Sorrow (On the Threshold of Eternity). 1890.
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands
http://www.vangoghgallery.com/catalog/Painting/340/Old-Man-in-Sorrow-%28On-the-Threshold-of-Eternity%29.html

The Blogger Goes to Illinois

Last Saturday, I drove to the Chicago Temple, in Glenview Illinois. Traffic was light, and it was a beautiful day. The trees along the highway were mostly bare, but every now and then I saw patches of yellow: daffodils? ground cover?

In one wet area, I saw lots of white birds, gulls, or pigeons, I supposed. Then I saw a lone bird flying by - a crane! (It's neck was bent, so does that make it a heron? But it was white - can herons be white?)

Every now and then, I saw a tree with spring leaves just starting to appear; I love the halo of green that spreads as the leaves start to unfurl. Out of nowhere, there was one tree, standing on its own, brilliant with green. It looked like the sort of tree a child would draw: a round green shape stuck on a tree trunk. It was wonderful!

Then I caught sight of deer, grazing among trees by the road - I counted 2, then 3 and 4, before I sped past. Just seeing them gave me an inordinate sense of happiness. I almost felt silly, but then I remembered a Mary Oliver poem, recounting moments with nature that had given her joy. Her experieneces were more personal, whereas mine were viewed from a distance, but: I take joy where I find it.

The Poet Goes to Indiana
by Mary Oliver

I'll tell you a half-dozen things
that happened to me
in Indiana
when I went that far west to teach.
You tell me if it was worth it.

I lived in the country
with my dog—
part of the bargain of coming.
And there was a pond
with fish from, I think, China.
I felt them sometimes against my feet.
Also, they crept out of the pond, along its edges,
to eat the grass.
I'm not lying.
And I saw coyotes,
two of them, at dawn, running over the seemingly
unenclosed fields.
And once a deer, but a buck, thick-necked, leaped
into the road just-oh, I mean just, in front of my car—
and we both made it home safe.
And once the blacksmith came to care for the four horses,
or the three horses that belonged to the owner of the house,
and I bargained with him, if I could catch the fourth,
he, too, would have hooves trimmed
for the Indiana winter,
and apples did it,
and a rope over the neck did it,
so I won something wonderful;
and there was, one morning,
an owl
flying, oh pale angel, into
the hay loft of a barn,
I see it still;
and there was once, oh wonderful,
a new horse in the pasture,
a tall, slim being-a neighbor was keeping her there—
and she put her face against my face,
put her muzzle, her nostrils, soft as violets,
against my mouth and my nose, and breathed me,
to see who I was,
a long quiet minute-minutes—
then she stamped feet and whisked tail
and danced deliciously into the grass away, and came back.
She was saying, so plainly, that I was good, or good enough.
Such a fine time I had teaching in Indiana.

blue sky & hyacinths

close-up of hyacinths - did you know
that hyancinth may also refer to a species
 of parrot, the hyacinth macaw?

a contented sleeping pup never fails to steal my heart