At Five Thirty On Every Rainy Late Autumn Afternoon

She was tucked up behind these white chairs, huddled next to the cedar fence. 

And it was not July, as this photo shows. 

Five thirty on a rainy late autumn afternoon. 

Fresh home from a grocery store run, my husband burst into the kitchen and briskly asked my daughter, "Where's Mom?" before spying me at (surprise) the kitchen sink. 

So I was already on red alert. But what he said next shook me.

"There's a homeless woman setting up camp in our yard. Do you think we should call the cops?"

My heart and mind began to swirl.

First, how sad. How truly, inconceivably, breathtakingly sad that the world has come to this. A human being squatting under my rhododendron bushes on a miserably wet and cold night, bunching up piles of moldering leaves in an attempt to make space for herself. 

At the same time, I feel a chill run through me. Homeless strangers living in my bushes? No, that's not the life I live. I accept that our culture's perfect storm of addiction, unaffordable housing, mental illness, inadequate social support, and perhaps some domestic violence sprinkled over the top, has led to tent cities, cardboard shelters, and people literally dozing in sleeping bags along the storefronts as an everyday reality in our city streets. But in my quiet, mannerly, suburban neighborhood? Yeah, I never bargained on that. 

I wonder to myself how desperate a person would need to be to wander into my neighborhood, see my hedge of shrubs, and think, yeah, this'll work. 

So yes, let's call the police.Let's get this poor woman out of my bushes. Let's help her find a safe place to sleep tonight, tomorrow night. Let's show her a path to get back on her feet and build up her life.

My husband called 911.

An officer came to the house.

By then, the woman was gone.

The officer cruised around the neighborhood for a while, watching out for her, then looped back to check in with us again to see if she had returned.

But she had disappeared into the dark, rainy evening without a trace.

* * * * *

In the weeks since, I'm often outside around five thirty in the afternoons, coming home from walking with my dog. We've been walloped with rain lately, and even though my pants and shoes are drenched, I'm cozy warm inside my GoreTex. On the porch, I serve Gracie up a big bowl of kibble and human-grade canned salmon, and as she eats, I think over my dinner plan and imagine the warm plate of food that's soon to be set in front of me. Warm light washes over me as I open the door and step inside; despite my soggy clothes, I know I'm soon to be warm and dry, wrapped in a blanket of safety, security, and comfort inside my sweet home. 

I think of that woman who tried to camp in my bushes, and I wish her well.

At five thirty on every rainy late autumn afternoon.

Soft Spooky

^ DIY ghosties: wrap white or ivory yard around a six-inch section of cardboard a least fifty times. Slip the bundle off the cardboard and tie  a foot long piece of yarn about an inch down from one end of the bundle to fashion a head and neck. Cut open the opposite end of the bundle to create the bottom edge of your spirit. I hang mine using light wire. 

* * * * *

Corkscrew roller coasters.

Bloody horror movies.

Psycho clowns

And the threat of the zombie apocalypse.

We are not big into hardcore scary things around here. 

Oh, sure, spiders are fine. And the occasional snake. We all genuinely enjoy air travel and I am totally down for some public speaking, as long as I'm comfortable with the topic at hand.

We like our spooky on the soft side.

^ DIY spiders: cut up a cardboard egg carton to fashion the bodies. Paint them black and decorate however you like. When the paint dries, glue on googly eyes and punch eight holes around the body. Cut four eight-inch lengths of black pipe cleaner and weave through the holes to create eight legs. My then-twelve-year-old fourth daughter wove the web with a small ball of fuzzy white yard and a whole lot of knots. 

* * * * *

Oh, sure, spiders are fine. And the occasional snake. We all genuinely enjoy air travel and I am totally down for the occasional public speaking gig.

We like our spooky on the soft side.

^ Store-bought black cat. 

* * * * *

Take our Halloween decorations as a prime example. 

You are not going to find any life-size skeletons swaying from our tree branches, nor sinister inflatable ghosts or witches with warts on their nose.

No fake tombstones.

No zombie arms clawing up through the lawn.

No robotic grim reapers or splatters of fake blood.

^ DIY jack o'lanterns: cut pairs of circles from gold or orange felt. Cut one green felt stem and use yellow felt to cut eyes, nose and mouth as you like. Use hot glue to attach the face pieces to one of the circles; glue the stem to the opposite side of the same circle, so the end of the stem will be inside of the pumpkin. 

(My second-born, middle school architect of this project, chose to glue a two- to three-foot length of white plastic lanyard cord inside in back of the stem, for hanging. We tied thumb tacks to the opposite end of each cord, and push them into the porch ceiling.) 

When all that glue has dried, put a line of hot glue three-quarters of the way around the stem side of the face circle, and attach the matching circle, leaving a hole for the stuffing. Once this hot glue has also dried, stuff a bit of polyester fiberfill into the middle, and hot glue the rest of the circle closed. 

* * * * *

What you will find are soft, sweet, not-so-spooky symbols of the season.

Happy jack o'lantern faces

Heaps of pumpkins

Googly-eyed spiders playing on a fuzzy web

Green glow lights.

A smiling black cat.

A gently abstracted skeleton.

And my personal favorite, soft little ghosties who sway with the breeze.

^ Pumpkins and gourds from Gordon Skagit Farms.

^ Store-bought skeleton and green light bulbs.

* * * * *

As my daughters look back on their thrilling days as little trick or treaters, and I remember my own, we recall the delicious feeling of being just a tiny bit scared. And that's what we try to capture for our young visitors on the dark nights of Halloween. 

^ Gracie ain't afraid of no ghosts. 

* * * * *

Soft spooky. That's the Halloween look we're going for. And I think we've got it nailed. 

Looking For Kelly

The day before my dad drove away from our house, never to return, he bought us a dog who we named Kelly. It was an excellent trade. 

Hillpoint Shamrock Kelly was the Irish Setter of my childhood and oh, what a glorious life he led. In those days - the 70s - and in that place - the lake country of southeast Michigan - dogs ran wild and free. Sure, he had his hands full, keeping up with the four of us kids as we swam and sledded, mini-biked and mucked about on our endless outdoor adventures, but our Irishman had a rich life of his own about which we, his family, knew precious little. Kelly was a charmer, from tip to tail, and lived his life with a sweet swagger that's hard to describe. 

There are countless tales I could tell about his fascinating life - the time he fell through thin ice on the frozen lake and was saved by a neighborhood dad who happened to see him go under and rushed to the rescue, or the opportunity he took to father a litter of puppies with the only other purebred Irish Setter for miles around. But there is one memory that burns brightly among the others.

One day, my youngest brother came home with a prize he'd found in the woods. Now, this came as no big surprise as our woods were seemingly stuffed with endless treasures and this time it was a string of large wooden beads arranged in sets of different colors with a charm in the middle. My brother dropped the beads over Kelly's head and they settled on his sleek red chest as a perfect necklace. I was delighted with our dog's new bling but my mom was beside herself.

"Take that off right now!" she fumed. "Don't you see what that is?"

Well, no. We didn't.

She told us that it was a child's rosary - Catholic prayer beads, she explained, when my brother and I both drew a blank - and she made it crystal clear that God would not take kindly to a dog sporting a religious icon that should be devoted only to the most holy of worship.

So my brother took off the beads and that was that. But I considered that situation over and over again, and I could not figure God having any problem with two kids innocently dolling up a dog with some prayer beads. I didn't have much official schooling on God's ways at that point in my life, but I felt certain that he would choose love over judgment every time. Even for dogs wearing rosaries.

Life went on. I hit my teens and eventually went to college. Kelly continued to live a life of independence and intrigue until I was a junior, and his life ended. I grieved hard. And I worried about where he might be.

* * * * *

One night, several years later, I have a dream.

In that dream, someone tells me that if I want to, I can visit my dog in his new life. They give me directions which lead me deep into a forest and eventually to, of all places, a cave. 

A deep, dark, rocky cave. 

A creepy cave. 

Not the kind of cave where I want my dog to live for eternity.

I go into the cave and, much to my surprise, find it to be delightfully warm, cozy, filled with golden light, and furnished to proper human standards. And tucked into the kitchen at the back of the cave, standing behind a well-scrubbed and timeworn wooden table, I am shocked to see two nuns. In full nun habits. I mean, the long black robes and Flying Nun headpieces worn by the strictest of 60s parochial school-teaching and ruler-wielding nuns on record. But these nuns smile at me benevolently, as if they are not at all surprised to see me come waltzing into their cave.

"I'm sorry, I think there's been a mistake," I stammer. "I came here looking for my dog."

The nuns smile ever more sweetly. "We know. We've been expecting you. And so has your dog."

At that point, I turn back toward the mouth of the cave, and just as full of the Irish spirit and devil-may-care charisma that carried him through his life on earth, my good ol' Kelly comes strutting into the cave. Clearly, this is where he lives. He gives me a warm, wiggly welcome, as if he did indeed know that I would come looking for him. He walks on past me to accept routine greetings from both of the nuns, who love him up in full fashion. And then he circles back around the kitchen table to the mouth of the cave and heads out to continue on his busy adventures in the woods of eternity. 

* * * * *

I've treasured this dream for decades. To be honest, I have no clue what the Catholic symbolism represents, but thanks to my dream, I know one thing for sure. When I show up in heaven, I'll know just where to look for my good dog, Kelly. 

Traveling With Ranger

"Never go on trips with anyone you don't love." -Danny Thomas

^ An actual dirt road in Michigan. Throw in a few mud puddles and you've got an exact match.

I'm walking along a dirt road in the countryside. Tawny, hard-packed sand dotted with milk chocolate mud puddles, the ground under my feet looks like the familiar roads of my Michigan childhood, but the golden pastures behind me, outlined by ridges of soaring blue mountains, tell me I'm far from home. Judging by the beef cattle grazing nearby, I wonder if this might not be Wyoming or Montana.

Up ahead, I see that I'm coming upon a copse of trees, and I hear the rush of an unseen river nearby. As the trees close in on my path, it dawns on me. I haven't seen my dog, who is accompanying me on this journey, for quite some time. Has it been hours or even days since my dashing companion has run alongside me, traipsing through the underbrush, red tail flashing in the golden sun? All I know for sure is that some internal mechanism tells me I have ten more hours of hiking in the wilderness, and I'd really like to be sure that my dog is nearby.

So I call. I hear my voice booming out into the quiet woods, sharp cornered consonants and wide open vowels, as I call my dog's name again and again and again.

I keep walking, my eyes scouting for a splash of that signature red fur. The roadway bends from west to north, and now I'm walking along a high bank that runs parallel to the river maybe ten feet below. Through the lacy yellow-tinged leaves of the deciduous trees growing at the edge of the bank, I catch glimpses of the racing water, and see the wide drifts of flat grey stones that pile up along the water's edge.

And that's where I finally peep my dog, happily wagging at the sound of my voice as she dashes across the rocky shore and bounds up the steep bank to meet me on the sandy path. My heart overflows as we greet each other. I call my dog's name again and again and again, but this time with relief and delight. Apparently, my dog is equally pleased to see me; circling around me and wiggling excitedly from head to toe, I understand that our joy is mutual. 

"We have ten more miles to go today," I explain, and with a stab of concern, I wonder when was the last time my dog had something to eat. In an instant, I slip my backpack off my shoulders and unzip it to slide out the package of pepperoni sticks that I carry for moments just like this one.

"Hey, look what I've got for you!" I pull one stick out of the package, snap off a piece, and offer it to my dog who sniffs once, twice, and then turns away, uninterested in the snack.

And that's when I wake up. 

* * * * *

^ Ranger was always down for a romp in the wilderness. 

My dream beats in my head like a pulse, and immediately I understand. The dog in my dream is not the current redhead in my life, darling Gracie. 

No, this dog is Ranger. Lying awake in bed, I can feel the shape of his name in my mouth, having called him again and again and again in my dream.

And to remove any shred of doubt, the architect of this dream knew that Gracie would gobble up any food offered to her, but during his life, Ranger wasn't interested in eating anything but his basic kibble. The instant my dream dog turned up its nose at the pepperoni stick, I knew who he had to be.

^ " I will not eat your pepperoni sticks, woman. Not in this life, not in the next. "

^ The wilderness is fun, but nothing beats the heavenly comfort of a soft, warm couch. 

My heart expands and tears fill my eyes as the meaning of the dream settles into my soul. Ranger is with me. Even when I can't see him, he's always close by. And though I still have more of my life's journey ahead of me - hopefully more than ten hours but one never knows - Ranger will be traveling with me till the very end. 

Just Do It

"You have to lift your head up out of the mud and just do it." - Teri Garr

"Everyone is different. Everyone has different styles. Just do it the best way you know how." -Vince Carter

^ What my upstairs hallway lacks in natural light it makes up for with cheery yellow walls, and many moons ago, I decided some monochromatic art would boost the vibe. 

Hey, I've got an idea. I'll run to the thrift store, grab a couple new frames, then make some art and hang them in the hall just outside my bedroom door. 

Said me about, oh, maybe two full years ago. 

^ One piece would have straight lines and the other curves. I decided that much long ago. 

I got the frames and hung them right where I wanted them. Perfection.

But when it came time to sit down and make some art, I froze.

Oh, I wanted to create something new. And I had ideas for what I might paint. Plenty of ideas. But for some reason, I could not settle down on a single pair of ideas. I kept changing my mind, looking for new inspiration, and giving myself permission to put off this project.

Ya, that last bit is the really important part.

^ I love the irregularity of the top piece. Yes, I know the darker sections are not straight and the bottom stripes do not light up precisely with the larger stripes above. That's the whole point. The beauty of imperfection.

I gave myself permission to put it off. And so this project gained weight, bogged down, and left me feeling underwhelmed with myself as two full years ticked by.

I felt bad every time I walked by those two frames, which by the way were full of semi-interesting art. But it just wasn't me. 

I wanted art that felt like me. 

Was I scared? Uncertain? Afraid of failure? Worried about what other people might think of my art?

Yes. 

No. 

Maybe. 

All of the above. 

^The swooping curves of the bottom piece zoom out of frame, double back on themselves, almost touch in several spots. They burst with life and energy. And that is their whole point. 

But last week, I hit a wall. Sick and tired of my indecision, I decided that I had run out of excuses for not making the art and was ready, come hell or high water, to just do it.

I still wasn't sure exactly what I was going to paint. 

But I knew for sure that something needed to happen. Now. So I scrolled through my inspiration photos one last time, trusted my instincts, and dove in.

And this is where I ended up.

^ A blurry red dog in a shadow-filled hall that, all the same, makes me smile every time I pass through. 

I know this is not the kind of art that would make everyone happy. But it makes me happy. 

Gracie seems fairly chuffed as well.

And I have taught myself the lesson once again that in this crazy life of ours, sometimes I have to stop worrying, stop obsessing, stop thinking about doing something and just do it. 

* * * * *

P.S. After composing this post, I had serious second thoughts about these photos. Too grainy. Too blurry, The colors too distorted, the reflections in the glass too disorienting, the whole effect a sodding mess. But then I remembered. Just do it. So I posted them anyway. Hope you enjoy. 

Señor Juan Aguayo

 "You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one." -John Lennon

* * * * *

I love writing Yelp reviews. So when my landscape contractor, Juan, asked me if I would write about his work for me this past week, I was delighted to oblige. Here's what I said.

^ Señor Aguayo lays a mean stone patio.

For years, I've dreamed of having a stock tank pool built into my back yard. And over those same years, several people have told me what an expensive, impractical dream that is. Still, I've carried my vision forward, trusting that someday, somehow, I would find someone to help me make that dream come true. 

Enter Juan Aguayo. In the past few years, I've put Juan's considerable landscaping skills to good use: trimming trees, building a small deck, laying a walkway, installing a storm drain. Every time, Juan's work has been right on the money - an excellent product for a fair price - and so I decided to tell him about my pool dream and see if he might help me find a way to bring it to life. 

Juan immediately saw the possibilities for this project. 

He listened to my ideas and remembered my asks. 

He proposed alternatives and patiently debated back and forth with me. 

He brought his keen eye, attention to detail, and commitment to aesthetics to the project design. 

He identified construction complexities and technical details that I had not thought to consider. 

And after several hours of conversation, I gave Juan the green light to begin. 

This was an anxious time for me. It's no small thing to trust your dreams to someone else, to trust them to capture your vision, and to bring it to life. 

^ Juan's two teenage sons work for him and both lent a hand to this project. 

I love to support a family business.

 But that's exactly what Juan and his team did for me. 

Oh sure, Juan does all the little things right too. He shows up when he promises to show up. He keeps a safe and clean work site. He manages his team well. He communicates with me and keeps me involved in daily decisions. His financial systems are transparent and fair. He got the job done on time and on budget, and left my newly transformed backyard as neat as a pin. 

Yet what Juan accomplished is so much more than all that. I trusted him to re-landscape my backyard around the stock tank pool of my dreams, and he knocked it out of the park. If Juan can make my landscaping dreams come true, he can do the same for you. Give him a call.

* * * * *

Photo credits to Alan Aguayo

* * * * *

I'm a lake lady and I need water. 

Follow along as I try to make my pool-owning dreams come true.

Commitment

Pivot

355 Days

Mud Hole

Getting Stoned

Señor Juan Aguayo

Dumpster Diving Dog

^ Look at my delightfully well-behaved dog.

On our daily walk, she marches along through the sidewalks and lanes in back of the local high school, head down, nose ever alert, a well-bred and every so mannerly hunting dog to her very core.

^ Now our journey takes us alongside of the main campus. Notice the large planting beds filled with rangy green juniper bushes, prized for their year-round color and sturdy disposition.

The planters are also apparently valued by students as a handy place to toss their uneaten food and associated litter.

Now the average passerby would have no idea of the bagels, chicken patties, granola bars, and sandwiches that lie beneath these stately shrubs. 

But thanks to her sniffing super powers, Gracie does.

^ In an instant, she dashes across the courtyard, leaps up on the wide ledge and into the planting bed proper. She scouts around and through the branches until she zeros in on her first find.

^ And then she dives deep, until her head, neck, legs, and sometimes her belly, disappear into the shrubbery. She snuffles around until she finds what she's looking for, then comes up for air, chomping with wild relish on whatever disgusting food garbage she's found this time. 

^ Thrilled by her savory scores, she plunges again and again, headfirst into the prickly deep, until I come and haul her out. As much as I voice my displeasure at this activity, she doesn't care. Always entirely well chuffed with herself, Gracie resurfaces with a smile.

And a coat full of dried juniper twigs. Which are covered with sharp, needle-like prickers that stick deep into the shaggy fur of her ears, her legs, her chest, her belly. And can only be removed by snipping them out with a pair of scissors and the utmost care.

A process that can easily take as long as thirty minutes, not a single second of which does Gracie enjoy.

^ But when we are back home, and my girl has been properly fed and thoroughly brushed out, she is once again the very picture of well-mannered behavior. 

You would never guess by looking at her that Gracie is a dumpster diving dog.