Growing on My Knees

I arrived early for a meeting one day, and took a 20-minute walk in the neighborhood. These are a couple of sights I considered to be noteworthy.

The apple tree was one of four in a row, probably from an old homesite. Although the wind knocked it over, it was determined to keep growing, to keep bearing fruit. Even on its knees.

It would be easy to make a kind of schmaltzy comparison to prayer, as if I could assume the position of appeal and be guaranteed growth and help. That tree, however, didn't voluntarily fall down to ask God's favor. Instead, it was pushed down to a place of disadvantage, and kept doing what was required of it.

As long as I have breath, I will praise and pray to the God who sustains me.

"I Trust Her."

The plan today was to go to a picnic, socialize, play a game, eat too much, and go home. All of those things happened, but there were a few additional details.

The picnic is an annual get-together of three local groups of people who are blind and visually impaired. I'm not good at guessing numbers, but I'd say there were close to a hundred folks in attendance. I'm a member of one of the chapters, and was looking forward to getting better acquainted with a few more people today. I had also invited a guest.

Shortly after our arrival, one of my acquaintances asked if I could help her run an errand. She had arranged for some song sheets to be printed in large print and Braille, and they were ready for her to pick up... at the downtown Seattle Public Library. "Well, okay," I said. "But you'll have to tell me how to get there."

This gal -- I'll call her Hostess -- works in Seattle and is very familiar with the bus routes and streets of the city. I rarely go into Seattle except to visit two or three specific places. The traffic (and my tremendous ignorance) makes me nervous, as I assume that everyone else knows exactly where they're going and I'm only in their way. But as I said, Hostess knows her way around, and she promised to tell me where to go. Since Guest didn't know anyone else at the picnic, she came with us.

When we left the picnic area, it made me a wee bit concerned when she said to head south instead of north. But, I knew we had to get over a hill and to the freeway, so I followed Hostess's instructions and soon saw the freeway. Traffic got bad, but we inched our way downtown. Once, we made a wrong turn and had to backtrack, but then were right on target.

"There's a passenger drop-off just up here by the door," Hostess told me. "If you leave your flashers on, you can wait here."

"Sounds good," I replied. "If I have to move, I'll circle the block and come back here to meet you."

Simple, right? She got me where we needed to be, and all that Guest and I had to do was wait.

And wait.

And... wait.

Honestly, I didn't look at my watch once, but I think we waited more than an hour. Seriously. No one came to tow my car or give me a ticket, so I kept my emergency flashers on and waited. This is the interesting part of the story.

Since we had been led to believe that this was a simple errand, Guest and I both assumed that Hostess would be gone about ten minutes. When we'd been there for half an hour, Guest began to wonder aloud what was wrong. Now, I don't know Guest well enough to know if she was serious, but she asked me if I thought Hostess had had a medical emergency. I thought that was kind of far-fetched, but it could happen. Since I hadn't heard any sirens, I assured Guest that our friend was probably fine. Then Guest worried that Hostess had gotten lost or gone out another door or had gotten distracted and forgot we were waiting for her. Guest even suggested that we should go look for her to see what was the matter. She was serious, and that's when I finally got perturbed.

"Guest, none of those things have happened. I trust Hostess, and she would not forget us or get distracted. She knows this city and this library much better than I do, so she's not lost. If we park the car somewhere to go look for her, I don't know where to begin looking. Maybe the person who was giving her the papers is busy, or maybe the papers got moved and they're trying to find them. But I trust Hostess, and she'll be back."

People think I'm patient. Maybe I am, but mostly it's just that I don't take ownership of problems that aren't my own. Sure, we were missing the picnic, but there was a good reason for it. Maybe those song sheets were important, maybe not, but that wasn't my decision. As we waited and waited in the car, I pondered the little building blocks that had led me to trust Hostess and make this trip:

* Hostess is very bright and asks insightful questions. She thinks about the big picture and is able to analyze information quickly.
* Hostess had a hand in planning this picnic. She would not do anything to distract from the social networking purposes of the gathering.
* Hostess is fully capable of getting wherever she needs to go, and has obviously been to this library before. If she needed any assistance, she would ask.

Therefore, since there was nothing I could do to help or speed things up, my job was to wait. Calmly.

Sure enough, when Hostess came out of the building with Librarian in tow, she was full of apologies for the time it had taken. They'd had multiple printer problems (bad codes, ran out of toner, etc.) and they'd been scrambling to try to get the job done despite all those obstacles. Being patient and calm was the best course of action, and that's all I was responsible to do, except for driving the car.

Maybe I should have titled this post, "Minding My Own Business." That's one of the lessons I've been learning, but I hadn't expected it to be reinforced today.


P.S. Do I need to point out that the person who was guiding me happens to be visually impaired and has never driven a car? And I trust her.

How Do You Spell Safety?

As the Safety Captain* of my library, I take every opportunity to investigate safety, er, opportunities. Why, just last week I was meeting with some other Safety Captains to discuss safety in our branches. As we talked about the importance of knowing that the emergency exit alarms are fully charged (they make a very shrill noise when opened), I began to investigate the little red fire alarm box next to me. Perhaps you've seen older alarms which require the breaking of glass to pull the alarm? This new-fangled alarm box has a nifty Plexiglas cover that you lift in order to access the alarm. Nice. But is the cover latched, or does it open easily? How simple would it be to figure out what to do in an emergency situation? This is what I wondered.

Did you know that the Plexiglas cover over little red fire alarm boxes are armed? When a person lifts that cover, a very shrill noise startles one's fellow Safety Captains, causing them to move immediately AWAY from the person who opened the Plexiglas cover. Yep.

Fast-forward to this afternoon. My brother and sister-in-law are here from the Midwest, and we took a nice little jaunt on a cute little ferry to Vashon Island. Ever vigilant, I...

No, I did not attempt to open any fire alarm covers. But I did take an interest in the instructions for the ferry's fire suppression system. The first step in dealing with a fire? Vacate the area! Get away! Go someplace safe! After that, work on putting out the flames.

It wasn't until I downloaded these photos that I really looked at the headline sign. Maybe spelling isn't terribly important when your first instruction is to get away from the fire. No one will stand there long enough to see that you didn't run the spellcheck before you made your pretty red sign. CO2 RELAESE -- a technical word, I'm sure.


*Not my official title, but the one to which I aspire.

One Less Dog, But So Many Stories

We finally took Blackie to her final veterinary appointment yesterday. Well, not "we", because I did not go on this trip. That was something I couldn't do. Mark and Jon took her, and she was as cheerful as ever. We will all miss her so very much; she was a wonderful, wonderful dog.

But she had her days...

Her favorite activity used to be to sneak through a barely-open door and go streaking out of the yard to the neighbor's horse pasture. Guess what was in that horse pasture? Blackie's favorite scent -- eu de peeeeeeew! She would roll and roll in fresh horse poo, check out the neighborhood a bit, and come trotting home in all her glory. She hated baths.

One time when the boys were much younger, they left a lovely pizza cooling on the kitchen table while they ran outside to check out a friend's new bike. When they came in ten minutes later, the pizza was gone. The whole thing. Gone. She didn't mind a little indigestion.

When I had mono a few years ago, Blackie loved having me at home, taking a couple of naps a day with her on my bed. She was always patient and gentle, and was old enough to enjoy all the naps we could get. Finally, my schedule matched hers! She hoped I was turning into a dog.

We are going to miss her terribly, but Rufus is here to help take the edge off our grief. In fact, when Andy saw Ruf at the pet store four and a half years ago, it struck me that it might help us to have another dog in the house because Blackie was getting old. Not that Rufus would ever replace her, but he could help our hearts. After all, that's what Blackie did for us many years ago. Our first dog, Pepper, was struck by a car and taken from us too quickly. Although Mark and I thought we should take time to heal, a friend encouraged us to go ahead and get a dog immediately. We knew we were a "dog family" now, so why wait?

Blackie was something over two years old, and had been at the pound for almost a week. The staff recognized her sweet temperament, and tied a bandanna around her neck as well as posting a hand-written note on her cage. They kept hoping someone would adopt her, so they delayed her timetable well beyond the normal stay.

When we first brought her home, she wouldn't eat. I think she went at least two full days without taking a kibble. But she was gentle, she seemed to like us, and she was fully housebroken. We stuck with her, she stuck with us, and we all got to like each other.

On one of Blackie's neighborhood excursions, she met someone who didn't think she was "all that." Although we didn't notice anything at first, after a few days there was an awful smell and a bad abscess on the back of her neck. The vet said she had been bitten, and they had to do extensive work to get rid of the infection. We brought her back home with a tube in her neck and instructions to irrigate the wound twice a day. Blackie disliked the antibiotic pills, but she really hated those irrigation sessions. But, being Blackie, she came into the bathroom with me every morning and evening and let me take care of things. That experience was the seal on our relationship. Although we were already quite fond of each other, those days of careful nursing care allowed our mutual trust to deepen.

In the early days of my novel, Blackie would climb up on the bed with me while I wrote on my laptop. Her quiet spirit encouraged me to sit there for at least an hour and write. After all, it would have been rude to get up when she was settled so comfortably! It was easy to imagine her being a wise muse, and that's how this blog got its name. If she could talk, if I knew what was happening in her dog-versations with Rufus, surely there would be glimmers of insight into the human perspective.

I wrote to some friends yesterday that I can't believe that dogs have eternal souls, so I don't expect to see Blackie in heaven. However, the God who created such diverse, affectionate creatures wouldn't just abandon His wonderful work. Somehow, I think He's got a place in His plan for dogs -- and horses and aardvarks and skunks and all the rest. And someday, I'll get to enjoy these creatures in a new way.


Sorry if I made you cry. It was nice to remember dear Blackie, and Pepper, and Frisca. Good doggas all. And now there's Rufus. Oh, my. Oh, my.

About that Dryer

I am NOT a trained, licensed, bonded, professional dryer repairwoman. This was made abundantly clear this weekend when I discovered that the part I ordered... waited for... received with relief and joy... is the wrong one.

I didn't take the dryer completely apart last weekend. I investigated just enough to discover a broken nylon bit, which looked a LOT like the part I found online and ordered. But it turns out that the piece I found was once a member of a larger thing -- metal and felt and nylon, all assembled together.

My excuses for not blogging last week included my work schedule, the heat, and having to take my wet clothes to the laundromat.

My excuses for not blogging this week will include my work schedule, overcast skies, and having to take my wet clothes to the laundromat. And I'd like to get back to work on my novel, too.

There is good news in all this. The parts I need should arrive by the end of the week, and the laundromat has beautiful new machines and is only a couple of blocks from my house. Sigh.

"Honey, I found the problem with the dryer..."

Our clothes dryer started making an uncomfortable noise, so I decided it would be best to investigate sooner rather than later. You see, the last time a dryer made a bad noise, I spent a couple of weeks hoping it would simply go away. It didn't. And that was one ugly repair job. I learned a few lessons that time around.

So I started taking the dryer apart a couple of nights ago, but it took a while to figure out how to get the top open and then clean what I could reach. (Different dryer, and more than ten years have passed.) This morning I took off the door and front panel, and while I was cleaning, I found... [cue sinister music]



Could this have something to do with why my sons don't have girlfriends right now?

Oh -- that's my hand. Sorry.

Home safety experts tell us it's best to clean all the lint out of your dryer much more often than any of us do. There's lotsa lint in there, and lint is highly combustible, and dust bunnies are plotting to take over the world.

What I really found while scooping out nine years of lint was a little nylon strip that used to be a slide. For $26.17 I can replace both slides and have a happy dryer again, except I'll have to wait for the parts to come and then I'll have to take the WHOLE thing apart so I can install the little buggers. Guess what I hope to be doing next weekend? Eh... just in time for our wedding anniversary.

Oh, and pretend these are decorations. I did get the dryer put back together, but I'm not crazy about using it and listening to the drum scraping... scraping... clawing... trying to get out... Oops -- wrong holiday. Happy Fourth!

Japanese Braille

One of the photos the guys sent from Japan features *authentic* Japanese Braille. I can read American Braille, so I pored over this particular photo to see what I could decipher.

Braille usually consists of combinations of up to six dots per cell, arranged like a vertical six-pack. There are different degrees of difficulty in Braille. Grade One spells out everything letter by letter. People who read this level only have to know the alphabet and punctuation. Grade Two Braille uses a number of short forms for common words or word parts. For example, "and", "the", "ed", "ar", "ing", and "for" each have their own distinct one-cell short forms. There are other signs to indicate "capital", "numeral" and each bit of punctuation.

So, what did I discover about this photo? The short answer is... nothing. The Japanese short forms are, well, Japanese.

But you get bonus points if you can figure out where they boys took the picture. You know, in general terms. Click on the photo to enlarge.

A Picture's Worth...

...a thousand words? I'm speechless.

Japan Team

My camera isn't the greatest, nor is the photographer, but here's a photo taken early this morning when the guys met at the church to head for the airport and points West. They look amazingly awake for 6 a.m.! (And, by keeping the photo rather indistinct, I can get away with not paying them any royalties for the use of their likenesses.)


Here's their blog, where they hope to post interesting encounters during the trip.

Who Says You Can't Shoot a Moving Target?

Son #2 leaves for Japan tomorrow, so I forced the boys to gather in the back yard for a thirty-second photo shoot. Somebody (me) had the bright idea to include the dogs, but Blackie refused to go to the way-back part of the yard and then we used up Rufus's patience. So, here we go with stiffly-posed boys and one dog at a time. Such is life.


And, just to show relative heights, one standing-up-without-a-dog photo.