Raking It In

The leaves in this neck of the woods are at peak color these days. Our little 1.4 acres is painted in all the usual autumnal hues except red due to the absence of maple trees. Acorns crunch underfoot. Squirrels bury their treasure. It's time to start bickering about the Fall clean-up.

Before we moved here six years ago, we'd spent many years living in a country that defined its seasons in terms of moisture content. It was wet, or it was dry; the vegetation was lush, or parched. Leaves fell off trees in a continuous cycle rather than in a barrage like they do here in the north.

I'd spent all my adult years not raking leaves. After college, I moved to New York City. There were trees placed here and there, but no raking obligations. The big fat sycamore outside our Brooklyn brownstone required minimal upkeep come Fall. All we had to do was sweep the leaves into the gutter where they were sucked up by street cleaning machines.

We were excited about moving to rural New England, where we knew we'd experience a traditional Autumn. But we had no idea how many leaves pile up when you're living in the woods. When the man we hired to plow our very long driveway offered to come and do a fall clean-up, I immediately agreed. When I called to schedule a date, he said the earliest he could do it was the day before Thanksgiving. That seemed fine.

The day before Thanksgiving it snowed 10 inches. Within a couple of hours, our sea of crunchy leaves was hidden beneath a fluffy white quilt. Mr. Fall Clean-up called to say he'd try to come after the snow melted and before the ground froze. I didn't realized how unlikely it was that this would happen any time soon.

Our property remained snowed over for most of the winter. I worried about how the underlying leaf layer was smothering our lawn. I can always find something to worry about.

Sometime in late March-early April, conditions were such that the long overdue clean-up finally got underway. Eight men spent hours raking and blowing and mulching and fertilizing. The smell of gas was intoxicating. We were having the fall clean-up and spring clean-up all at once. When a member of the crew handed me the bill, I was incredulous.

That was the last time we paid to have the leaves raked. For $800, we would do it ourselves.

When Fall arrived, I discovered that no one wanted to rake leaves, and that although I enjoy doing it for a couple of hours under the right conditions, I can't possibly do it all myself. So each year I nag, cajole and guilt the troops into getting out there and attacking the leafage. We argue over when (too soon). We argue over who's put in the most time (me). My boys complain that it's unfair that their sister, who's away at college, doesn't have to do it. It's a recurrent family nightmare, and it goes down the same way, year after year.

Someday (let it be soon) we'll be living in a condo, oohing and ahhing about the Fall color, not lifting a finger to clean up the ensuant mess.

Hope Over Fear

Out here in the woods, politics is strictly local. You rarely see campaign signs for anything other than town-related candidates and issues. Perhaps it's the yankee penchant for privacy that dampens the urge to publicize one's personal beliefs, be they philosophical, religious or political. I have no idea whom my neighbors want to see elected the next president of the United States. Honestly, I don't want to know.

My vote's going to Barack Obama for a number of reasons. I want to live in a hopeful America not a fearful one, an America that's stronger than it's been in recent times. We've squandered so much under Bush's reign, and we'll have to continue paying for these mistakes. His narrow black-and-white views have crippled us. We're a lot less free than we were, in so many ways. It's time to turn the page on this sad era. I believe we can do better.

I have personal reasons to vote for Obama. My family's standard of living has steadily eroded during the Bush years. It was nice paying lower capital gains taxes (once), and I appreciated the rebate checks (last one went straight into my furnace), but what with salary stagnation and soaring health insurance premiums, we certainly haven't been living the vida loca. More like the vida poca. I can only dream about affordable health care coverage, coverage that doesn't cost some $8,000 in yearly premiums alone. If my husband were to lose his job, we not only couldn't afford an individual policy, my pre-existing conditions would surely exclude us from coverage. That's freedom for yah! More like Medicaid.

It's time for change. We need an infusion of fresh ideas, maybe even some new mantras. The old ones are so tired.

This Independent is voting for Barack Obama.

Coffee Kvetch

When I moved to the United States from Costa Rica in 2002, I packed a suitcase full of coffee and shipped it to Rhode Island along with the rest of our stuff. At $3 for a 12 oz. bag, Cafe Britt was the most expensive coffee you could buy in Costa Rica, and it was so good. As the movers were schlepping in our furniture and household goods, all I could think about was that coffee. I'd tried a couple of "gourmet" brands while waiting for the shipment and been disappointed by their flavor. Beginning each day in a state of disappointment is not a good thing.

I savored every cup of Cafe Britt I brewed. I tried to make it last as long as possible, grinding it finer and finer, stretching the silky brown dust as far as I could. As my stock ran low, I desperately considered ways to get my hands on more of this essential elixir.

Eureka! Cafe Britt had launched a website and was selling the coffee out of their Miami warehouse. I ordered a box of 20 bags. When that ran out, I doubled my order to 40 and got an even better deal. What I didn't use myself, I gave away as gifts or sold at cost to the curious. The FedEx guy commented that he loved the smell of his truck when he was delivering my coffee. My habit apparently raised suspicions with Homeland Security because in its zeal to protect America, it seized one of my shipments.

A $700 oil delivery in September got me thinking about how I might reduce household spending in order to stay warm during the heating season. Oil has quadrupled in price since we'd moved to the Northeast, and the way things looked we'd be forking over $4500 or so in the next 6 months. Maybe my coffee habit was getting too expensive? A bag of Cafe Britt now costs $8.95, cheaper if you order in bulk.

I tried the Costa Rican coffee at the local warehouse store. It was less expensive than Cafe Britt but missing a crucial spark. I tried the Ugandan coffee next, which was even more disappointing. It became harder to get out of bed in the morning. Was I being penny wise but pound foolish? After much soul-searching, and after reviewing my IRA statements, I've decided life is too uncertain to spend it drinking mediocre coffee.

I'm placing an order with Cafe Britt as soon as I finish this post.

The Family Legs

There’s a pitted, dented, tarnished silver cup sitting on my bookshelf collecting dust. All I know about this family heirloom is that my great grandfather won it at a cross country race somewhere in New York City over 100 years ago.

My great grandfather, who lived in the Washington Heights area of upper Manhattan, had been a star runner on his high school and college cross-country and track teams. I recently discovered that many of his race results are archived in ancient New York Times articles from the late 1890’s-early 1900’s.

This past weekend, I watched my sons run in the Manhattan Invitational at Van Cortlandt Park, better known in running circles as “Vanny.” You won’t read about Mark in The New York Times, but here’s a link to an interview he gave after winning his race. Mark received a medal and a snazzy watch for his performance. Harry also ran very well, placing 4^th overall on the team.

My great grandfather never competed on this particular course, since it wasn’t designed and laid out until 1913. However, my grandfather raced on it in the 1920’s, thrilled to be running where his father had put in the miles throughout his running career.

My sons, great great grandchildren of the silver cup winner, continue the family legacy of kicking up dust in the Bronx, looping into the woods and back, running for time and also through it.

Teenage Wasteland

We have a battered copy of The Waste Land And Other Poems on our kitchen table. I should put it back on the bookshelf before too much slop gets on it, but I’m enjoying it too much. The slim volume reminds me of our dinner conversation earlier in the week, the one in which we were discussing T. S. Eliot’s poetry.

The conversators (hee hee) were not members of a literary salon, but my husband, teenage sons and me. It wasn’t the first time T.S. Eliot has come up in conversation at our house. It all started a couple of years ago when Mark asked me if I knew the poem containing the following lines:

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper

"The Hollow Men"? I guessed, as a weird stew of shock, wonder and redemption bubbled up in my brain. That’s T.S. Eliot, I said. Yeah, I know. Are you reading him in English class? No, it’s in a video game.

A video game? Bits of the poem are apparently scattered throughout the wildly-popular best-selling “Halo” series. What’s T.S. Eliot doing in teenage wasteland?

Here’s the really good part, especially for English-major parents: Mark ended up writing a term paper that year on how Eliot’s poems still resonate in today’s cultural landscape. I have not railed against video games since.

I don't remember exactly how Mr. Eliot crept into our conversation the other night. Mark mentioned something which caused Harry to remark that his English teacher says "The Waste Land" is one of the greatest and most difficult poems ever written. The next thing we knew, we were arguing about whether "The Hollow Men" is a section of "The Waste Land" (it’s not, which prompted the appearance of the book), which eventually led Mark to quote "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost. Bang, whimper, fire, ice—the world’s ending baby, one way or another. A short discussion of "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening" brought our postprandial talk to an end.

It had been nice to linger at the dinner table chatting about poetry, but my teenagers had miles of homework to do, and I needed sleep.

Be Careful What You Wish For

This past weekend, I finally got my wish. While I was out back grooming the dogs, my husband and my son took up what was left off last Fall: repairing the rotting portions of the railing and spindles on the front entrances to our house. On my to-do list for the entire summer, this is the #1 job nobody wants to tackle. Much of it involves filling in ever-deepening craters with wood putty and replacing the wood that’s too far gone.

It was a brilliant afternoon, punctuated by the sounds of electric clippers (me) and table saw (my son Mark), over-powered by the deafening roar of landscaping equipment (the neighbors). Ah, suburbia! I was just finishing up the dogcuts when I heard my son scream out: Mom! Dad! I instantly knew by the tone and urgency of his voice that he hadn’t just received an acceptance letter to his college of choice.

Mark wasn’t even supposed to be home this weekend. He would have been running at an invitational cross-country meet in Vermont, except that he and my husband had been planning to visit a college in Pennsylvania, a visit that didn’t pan out. Mark had also needed a break from his overloaded schedule of running, competing, applying to college, and dreaming up a plan for his senior project.

The wood repair bugaboo had me seriously doubting my leadership skills. I desperately wanted to cross it off my list so I could proceed to my part of the job--priming and painting, which I couldn’t do until the cutting, nailing, patching and sanding was done. My wish was coming true. Mission was on the verge of being accomplished.

“I cut my finger to the bone!!!”

My husband and I dashed into the room to see Mark holding a bloody hand, wincing and looking pale. The only question was: which emergency room?

In the words of a Monty Python character, ‘twas only a flesh wound. No nerve or tendon damage, bone untouched. Seven stitches closed the hole in his left thumb.

I went out front and put the lid on the wood putty. This is a job for another day, maybe sometime in mid-November when it’s not a race weekend, isn’t raining, and there aren’t any colleges to visit. Maybe I’ll be out there painting the wood in the snow.

Be careful what you wish for.

Dog Day Afternoon

Asta on the Beach

Yesterday was perfect dog-grooming weather: sunny, cool and not too windy. We have two bouviers des flandres who were looking a bit scruffy so I took out the grooming tools and gave Turbo and Asta haircuts on the back deck.

Bouviers are rare in Rhode Island. Bouviers bred and born in Costa Rica can only be found at our house. And yes, they are bilingual.

Bouvier is French for cowherd. Now you know why Jackie O's father didn't anglicize his surname. Bouvier, the dog breed, originated in Belgium. In addition to herding cows (and in modern times, groups of small children), bouviers can pull carts, climb ladders and balance on a bar suspended in mid-air. I mention this last talent because you might have seen it years ago on David Letterman's stupid pet tricks.

Bouviers were used by the Allies in World War II to pull supply-laden carts to the front lines. The Germans put bouviers on their shoot-to-kill list, and in fact the breed was seriously diminished in the post-war era.

Our bouviers keep their talents well under wraps. Mainly they are good at barking, sleeping, eating and being cute. Very cute. Eighty hairy pounds of cuteness. Did I mention they're cute?

Grooming a bouvier is challenging even when the dog cooperates. Turbo and Asta usually just resign themselves to the ordeal, which takes nearly two hours per beast. I'll not elaborate on technique, but it's basically one part sheep shearing, one part raking with a steel brush and one part scissoring until you have a blister on your thumb. Dog treats are essential. In the end, you have a huge pile of fluff, hair here there and everywhere, a broken back, and a much smaller dog.

By the time I finished dog #2, my sciatica was making me wince wildly. My husband suggested that grooming two dogs in one day is a bit much, but I don't like to prolong the agony. If you have two rotten teeth, I say pull 'em both.

Turbo and Asta look terrific. Their groomer is lame.

Betcha by golly, wow

I watched the VP debate last night against my better judgment, knowing there'd be hell to pay today as I drag my tired body around, still scratching my head over John McCain's choice for VP. But my teenage sons were tuning in, so what choice did I have?

Two observations. First, why didn't Joe Biden get the nomination for president? He certainly seemed in command and presidential last night, although the level of competition was decidedly mediocre. I mean, they practically had to dig a trench to get the bar low enough. Second, and here's where I question Palin's appeal with some voters: when did we start wanting the leaders of our country to speak as though they're having a casual conversation in a parking lot? Governor Palin was fine when she was delivering (and re-delivering) well-rehearsed talking points, some of which she appeared to be reading from prepared text. But that folksy patter has got to go. I don't want my VP to talk like that unless she/he's over for dinner

Sentences to nowhere are perfectly acceptable in everyday chatter. Listening to a person who could be president of the United States meander through a paragraph like a person taking a walk in the woods, lost and bumbling their way through a grammatical maze, was painful. Hasn't eight years of listening to Bush flailing around in the English language been enough?

Makes me want to go nukular.

There Is No There There

I was once with a group of women who couldn't believe I'd never been to Las Vegas. (I didn't admit my children have never been to Disney World, which is far more shocking.) They assured me that the very best restaurants could be found in Vegas, many of them replicas of posh eateries from all over the world. As a former New Yorker, I couldn't imagine going to Vegas to eat at New York restaurants, but I didn't say anything.

The other day I read an article about an investor recreating New York's Plaza Hotel in Vegas. It will look like the Plaza only "vastly bigger." Will patrons be able to sip extra dry martinis at the Oak Bar, and then stumble outside to see hansom cabs heading for Central Park, or perhaps enjoy a little shopping at FAO Schwartz across the street? No, but they will be able to see the Wynn casino resort and other mega chunks of high life rising around them.

When you get bored with Olde New York, Paris isn't far away. Or Venice. If Europe's too tame, there's always the Taj Mahal. Why travel to different countries when you can save all the bother and book a flight to Vegas? There's no need to get a passport, and you can skip those immunizations against nasty third world diseases. You won't see tired pleasure domes from yesteryear mucking up the place. When Vegas hotels get old and fusty, they blow 'em up.

Gertrude Stein was referring to the lack of "there" in Oakland, not Vegas. Oakland suffers from, among other things, its proximity to San Francisco. If someday I find myself in sin city, I'll probably avoid the Las Vegas Plaza. It would be a terrible blow to my psyche if I discovered that there is there there.