the stray

 

This dog stood by the side of the road, looking hopefully at every car that passed. I had seen it off and on for a week, getting skinnier. Finally, I called Dianne and told her about it. She said, "Can you go back and try to get it and bring it here?" I turned around and went back, stopping traffic on the highway in two directions—no verges in this neck of the woods. Many of the people who patiently waited were also concerned about the dog. But I had no food, and the dog was afraid of me. Likely abused.

   I didn't see it for a couple days, and then there it was again, this time on a side road. I stopped and got out of the car. All I had was some nuts. I threw them in the road, and the dog hesitantly approached to eat them.  I poured water into the nut can and put that down. I called Dianne to come with food. 

People stopped. This kid Holden, who said his grandmother named him after the kid in Catcher in the Rye, stopped, but the only food he had in the car was candy. He gave me his phone number and said he would take the dog to his place, where he had a big dog and 1,500 acres.

    Frank and Dianne got there with food and water dishes, and Dianne was able to sweet talk the dog closer. As she had succeeded in making it a little less fearful, a woman pulled up who was also worried about the dog. She gave it some wet dog food and said the only way her husband had succeeded in getting a scared dog into the car was to grab it. But when she lunged for it, it ran into the highway. Frank was so mad at her Dianne had to restrain him. We left the dishes there with food and water. We thought we would feed it for a while until it became more trusting and would go home with Frank and Dianne, at which point they would find it a home. (As if once they got that dog home they would give it away. Ahem.)

     So the next day I tootled over towards Frank and Dianne's house with water and sausages and crackers (all I had that I deemed acceptable) to put in the dog dish.

    No dog in sight.  As I was putting the food in the bowl, a woman in a big pickup stopped.

   "Don't you dare feed that dog," she said. "It's making all our animals sick!" 

   "All it could have is worms," I said. 

   "There's a lot of rabies in this neighborhood," she said ominously. "You take those dishes away. I don't want you feeding that dog."

    "They're not my dishes!"

   "Then give them to me. I'll take them," she said.

    Here's where I wish I would have taken her picture and a picture of her license plate and asked, "Is this your dog? Is this your road?" Instead, I meekly took Dianne's dog dishes and put them in my truck. 

     I texted Holden what she had done, and he texted back, "I would of told that woman where to shove it. She obviously didn’t want it or care about it because she left it there so why would it matter that you brought food? Does she want the dog to die? If you see her again please get her name for me."

    When I went back, the woman was nowhere in sight and nor was the dog. Dianne had given me some dog food, but we decided to throw it in the grass so as perhaps the bitch wouldn't see it. "She'll probably poison it," said Dianne gloomily. "If she wants it to die, why didn't she just shoot it, instead of leaving it to suffer?"

      I threw the food in the grass, and put a dish down with water. Dianne told me that  from the thirst the dog had exhibited, it didn't have rabies—dogs with rabies won't drink. I will go back today and see if the water dish is still there. And the dog. 

                                                    Dog whisperer Dianne at work.

  

woodstock

 I find the headlines so distressing that I can't really write anything pleasant. So here's a flashback (not to the fall of Saigon) and another flashback to the events of—gulp—52 years ago.

dinos of mercy

 And now for something completely different. A guest contributor, DC comic author and world-class wit, presents this enchanting preview of her forthcoming series. For syndication rights etc., please comment below and the admin will get back to you.

Welcome to the New Television Series 

                                Dinos of Mercy

A Medical drama in which Inanimate Objects face everyday problems like

Murder, Betrayal and Decapitation by Zombies.

The Cast: Atticus Rex, Chief Resident of the Dinos of Mercy Hospital in Atlanta , Georgia . 

                 Nurse Darling: Head of Nursing 

                 Catniss Andrews-Jackson: Hospital Administrator

                 T. Faberware: The Coffee Pot

                 Hospital Background Extras: The Rat ,  Tiny Intern Rex 

                 Police: D.S. Hercule Pawroit

                                        Officer Furry Mason 

                       

Season 1, Episode 1 :  "To Kill a Coffee Pot "

Dr. Atticus Rex examines an injured coffee pot. The doctor's nurse, FiFi Darling  (on the left, wearing a blue bow,) tells the doctor "Hospital attendance is up thanks to Administrator Jackson’s new ad campaign and slogan: 

"Come in to Dinos of Mercy! We don't want to eat You... We want to TREAT you!"

In the background , a young intern examines another patient. “Don’t show so many teeth, Tiny Dino!”  warns the senior physician.

Dr. Rex takes the Coffee Pot’s vitals and Nurse Darling offers it some warm glue. “Hmmm.. this could be the end for Mr. Faber if he’s out of warrantee. !" murmurs the Doctor. 

Administrator Jackson looks on. 

The Administrator asks Dr. Rex “What is wrong with the patient?"

 

The doctor answers “  My first impression was that Mr. Faberware  suffered an accidental blunt fork trauma to the two-cup level  .. but before slipping into a coma , he said that he was was the victim of a vicious attack … by a spoon of some sort. I think we’d better call in the Fuzz.  Administrator Jackson, do you confur?”

 

"Yes, Doctor, I confur. Let’s get them here before this causes the Hospital any negative 

pawblicity.”

Tune in next week for  Dinos of Mercy

                                     episode 2

                                   "watching the Detectives"

the mouse wars

 This entry is, however, about mice. I found the first traces and freaked out. In my experience there is no such thing as one mouse. There are almost always six. Even so, I was hoping this one was a scout or an outlier. I purchased the cruel sticky traps and put them out. I couldn't sleep that night as I listened to the thrashing downstairs. And, yes, I had caught a poor little mouse. They are so cute. But so destructive. 

   The next night I put out more traps. Nothing. The next night I put out the traps again and turned on the fan so I wouldn't hear anything. Well, I didn't hear the next mouse drag the trap from the stove over to the sink, tumble a glass into the sink then fall in itself, shit all over the place and escape the trap. 

   The next day I chloroxed everything, cleaned the oven, put new liners under the stove burners and put the traps out again. I then bethought me of the fact that I had heard that if you put Bounce dryer sheets in your car, mice wouldn't invade it. In fact, I had some smelly Bounce dryer sheets in the truck for just that reason. I strewed them about the kitchen. I left the lights on that night. The next morning: Nothing.

   The next morning, nothing.

   The next morning, nothing. 

    I figured the Goose was mouse free for the moment, so I foamed up the holes that the pipes came through inside and out. I did a terrible job, but there have been several more days mouse-free. No traps disturbed, though I continue to put them out. Fingers crossed.

    And if all else fails, there is this better mousetrap suggested by David's cousin.

doin' bidniss

This picture has nothing to do with mice. It is from a summer long past when Barrett and I thought it would be hilarious to have a tube rental outfit called "You Tube," which was a virtually unknown platform at the time. We scoured West Plains for truck tubes and finally scored one. Sadly, we did not realize that a black tube would pop if left in the sun. That was the end of that business plan. I then thought of doing I Ching readings. I mean, they are likely not available anywhere in the three-county area. But then, I didn't really want random people coming into the house. Same problem with renting out the Goose. Mostly it's bikers and hunters who rent around here, and I don't think they would enjoy a girlie scene with no TV. We tried selling boiled peanuts, too. That was a bust. Don't think we sold any—though I ate quite a few. Probably the best idea I came up with was to set up an outdoor bar selling Grey Goose vodka and Goose Island IPA. After all, the cafe across the street has no alcohol. However, in the end, like the old sailor, I did nothing at all. I'd rather just entertain my friends and give stuff away.

Everything went but two ratty pillowcases. I'm pretty sure one person takes everything I put out in the yard. Hate to see their place!

and on the other hand

Lest you think we're all anti-vaxers and hillbillies out here, I want to show you the Other side of the Ozarks. Frank and Dianne and I ate fancy pizza at a local vineyard. Actually, Frank had bruschetta and salad. Dianne did NOT approve of the pizza, though it was thin crust wood fired. And we all approved of the peach pie pizza dessert and the ambiance.

Jessica, a town council member, came out to the Goose and drank fancy wine. Needless to say that was supplied by David, since I buy the veriest plonk. Denise came over and cooked fancy chanterelles, which she had gathered herself in her woods.

And, once again, David had me over, this time to meet his brother and cousins. We ate fancy oyster ceviche and oven-fried chicken. Yum!

And for a little international action, Frank and Dianne and I went out again to a Mexican restaurant in Cabool, which town is named after the one spelled (and pronounced) otherwise in Afghanistan. I was charmed by this mural, which turned out to have been done by my one-time landlord at the yoga retreat where I stayed while rebuilding from the flood.  

 
 

aw, shucks

Striking out on all counts. Well, I am white.
 

local color

We were going to try to see some ruins of a spa built around a magic spring and magic cave. But not getting there turned out to be most of the fun. First there was the construction slowdown, which involved sitting still until the jolly flagman waved us on. Several times. And then we became part of an Amish funeral procession, which perforce moved at a slow pace, seeing as the carriages were horsedrawn and the walkers were walking. We were about a mile from our destination—only a short ferry ride across the Current River to go—when it proved that the Akers ferry was out of commission due to the low river level. In a 4wd vehicle we might have made it across, but in the landshark Chrysler it was not happening, so we retraced our steps for an hour or so back home. However, we were better off than the folks  who wanted to cross from the other side. Dude we met below told us that, not knowing that the ferry (behind him) was out of service, a car drove on. Trying to back off they tore off their front bumper and possibly the whole front end. He didn't know. All he knew was that the car sat there on the other side for a couple days. No cell service in this neck of the woods!

 

vacancy

In greater downtown T'ville, there are several options for short stays—the b and b in the former bank across the street, the former beer store cum cottage and now glamping! One tent has a queen bed, bunk beds, bathroom and AC! There is also a shower building, presumably for the other four tents. They are supposed to be riverfront, but the river was so low as to be invisible when I was there. So was the clientele. I will unVelcro and unzip and look inside, but it was evening and the mosquitoes were coming out. Plus I was getting the creeps.

 

the road ahead/behind

Drive time. I spend a lot of time driving here. That's because everything and everyone is, as Ed says, 45 minutes away. It's more than that when you drive the dirt roads though, which I like to. I get to stop and enjoy the scenery. I can avoid the animals that run across the road—deer, muskrats. I know where the blue buntings fly. I can open the windows and turn off the AC and smell the wind. I have my favorite buildings and my favorite trees. Lately I have become obsessed with oak trees. I love how the massive branches spread and the stained glass effect between them. I can't seem to get a picture of what they feel like to me. I'll keep trying. Here are two.

 

man of my dreams!

 So worth it going on Tinder to find Thisguy!

And just so you know what we're dealing with here. .  . and this too!

 And also, this review of our world and Donna's book. 

Scary shit all around

caviar and the bomb

The man's in the kitchen again, though the woman was some of the time as well. I myself was in charge of opening the door to the deck. ( i.e. zip). The man is actually in the kitchen opening oysters, I think from Maine, which he grilled with garlic, butter and parmesan. We then had lump crab remoulade, made by Alison. But first of all we had buckwheat blinis with smoked salmon, creme fraiche and paddlefish caviar. Which led me to try to tell Ed's story about caviar. I couldn't remember it then, but I talked to him yesterday, and he told it to me again.

   He had been covering the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union for Time magazine, and was in Riga, Latvia, on board his plane home, when police came onto the plane and hustled him off. 

    They took him out on the tarmac, where his duffel bag sat all alone.

    Somewhat hampered by language issues, they gestured at his bag. "Bom," they said.

    "No bomb,"  Ed insisted. "Caviar!" 

    "Bom!"

    "No bomb!"

    Tentatively, they approached the bag. Ed motioned to them to open it. Fearfully, they opened the bag containing a metal cylinder and a tangle of wires. The wires were camera chargers and sat phone connections. The cylinder was a stack of 10 tins of Beluga caviar. 

     "Oh, Oh! No bom! Caviar!"

     Ed and his caviar were back on the plane, and within a couple days we were feasting on it at our favorite Irish bar, with our favorite waitress, Marianne, providing us with toast and chopped onion and egg. That's the part I remember.

survival road

So I got this awesome piece of art in the mail from Donna Ferrato. She and i came to Missouri together back in, I think, 2001, to do a story about my newspaper pal, lone voice in the Ozarks, Frank Martin, going up against white supremacists/militia/Christian patriots/the Klan etc.  It was published in George magazine, a publication that perished shortly after its founder, JFK Jr., did.

 

Since then, I bought an old gas station and settled into the Ozarks. I am still in touch with some of the white supremacist conspiracy theorists, though one was so maddened by the article that he refused to speak with me for years. We like each other, despite the fact that we utterly disagree about almost everything. Donna, a fighter and raging progressive, and I argue about whether it is even possible to have contact with people with such views. She says that I am weak, and I need to cut such people out of my life.

But I am a professional listener. If I cut people I disagree with out of my life, who would be left? I am trying to braid together all the strands of my life, from childhood in the Ozarks to journalism in New York City to family life in Block Island. All the places and people I have loved. And one of them is Donna, who, struggling to understand me for the past 20-odd years, as I have her, appears to have succeeded.

 

 

 

down by the river

This may be my favorite swimming hole anywhere ever. It is a section of the river where two springs join it, one coming from a cave that you can get into (not that I have). There is a giant rock that you can climb up and jump off of (not that I have—and every time a kid does it I start thinking about the nearest emergency room). Or you can blow up a tube and just float around, which is what Frank and I did until dark clouds loomed. As the first raindrops spattered, we packed up the tubes and the chairs and headed back up the road, takin' it easy. Frank wanted to take some of the foliage with him (above).

 

outwardly peaceful, but

At a distance, I couldn't tell if that was a horse or a mule. I think a horse, as the other two in the pasture certainly were. Sometimes I like to take the long road home from town. Over the meadows and through the woods and over the streams and past the pastures and up and down the hills. There's always something beautiful to see.

  And apparently we are doing a hella better than New York or Block Island, where they are roasting and sweating and seeing a bloody sun every dawn and dusk from the forest fire smoke.

Inwardly, here things are not as placid as they seem. 

   I have been increasingly suspicious of the couple living in the bnb across the street while they build their off-the-grid house.  The woman seemed friendly enough at first. She said it had always been her husband's dream to live off the grid. She said she had grown up in upstate NY and had an aunt in NYC named Claudia. Upon questioning, she said they had lived in Massachusetts and moved here from Rhode Island.

  Perhaps I asked too many questions or someone in town told her what I was (liberal, journalist, etc), or maybe her husband (?) shut her down, but she didn't want to talk to me any more. When I invited her over to see my place, she hurriedly said they had to meet someone. And then they went in their room and closed the blinds and shut the door. They spend a lot of time that way. When not carrying tools, presumably to their job site.

   I looked at the license plate, and the car is registered in Missouri. She looks to be in her 40s, and he in his 50s. I started to think they were running from something. Ex spouses, or children or the law. I mean, what could they be doing in there all this time? Witness Protection Program? Fucking? 

   Then today my real off-the-grid Hatfield neighbor told me that the guy went to church with his cousin. He said the guy has a lot of guns. He said that the church was comprised of gun nuts, men, with at least 30 carrying during services. I had already noticed that the man across the street went off by himself on Sundays and had theorized that he was going to church. But why without "Ruth"? Now I am doubting that her name is Ruth. Wasn't that the name of the Biblical model wife? Not a popular name these days. And my neighbor said that his granddaughter went to the church once and said the sermon was ok but that martial arts class was part of the service. She has not been back.

   The churchmembers believe that Covid-19 can be caught from those who have had the vaccine, that Bill Gates has implanted those people with magnetic chips and is tracing everybody. And now most of the people in the self-styled church have gotten Covid themselves, as have most people in the county jail and several people in Thomasville. Lord, lord, our population is only about 50! 

   Call me crazy?

   "That couple is running from something," I said to my neighbor. 

   "Probably if the police ran the tags we could find out," he said.

    But of course they have new tags, and we have no police.

 

sleeping policemen

 

The logging trucks roll by, piled with oak logs one to two feet in diameter—sometimes piled higher than my porch.  I wish I had gotten a picture of the pile that rolled off a truck last week being picked up with a front loader. Didn't think of it at the time. People in town have called the state police, but they never come down here. Bill thought he should paint a Keith Haring-like outline of a person on the road. I thought maybe of a dog. I have also considered a midnight installation of quikcrete sleeping policemen. I mean, the posted speed limit is 40 mph, and these trucks are going 80. Carly called the state rep, and I thought that was a good idea, so I wrote "my" state rep and senator. They don't need to know I vote in NYC.

 

"I live in Thomasville, and I am afraid. 

I live right on the road in town, and logging trucks roar past here at 80 mph. Last week, one lost a load of gigantic oak logs right across the street from me. Had they come off a bit closer, they would have taken out my house. 

  When a new bridge was built here some years ago, it was said that rumble strips would be on it to slow down traffic. That was not done. I propose that  rumble strips be placed at both sides of town, where 40 mph signs are posted. Over the years we have lost countless dogs. No children, fortunately, as yet—probably because we don't have that many children. We have no law here, no police. Rumble strips!"

another fine meal

 

I love a man who cooks. Well, I love anyone who cooks! But there is something special about a man. I guess that's sexist. Sigh. Trying to span the gender divide. But. 

   Anyway, it was an ironic, as well as iconic, meal, centered, as it was, around bluefish. You can't give bluefish away in Block Island. That's pretty much all anyone catches, and, as you may know, few fishermen eat their catch—it's about the chase. To make it even more peculiar, David ordered the fish from Citarella's, a store down the street from me in New York. It was overnighted to him in West Plains, Mo. And as he said, "I bet we're the only people eating bluefish in Thomasville." At a guess, we were also the only people who have even heard of bluefish. Around here it's catfish, bass and trout. The end. 

  We actually began with Pacific sanddab, a flounderlike fish, only better! Simply sauteed and served with Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes. Then came the bluefish, grilled and served over Yukon Gold mashed potatoes, with magic sauce and organic ambrosia beans from Mary's farm (too bad Frank wasn't here).  A gala time in T'ville.

PS David, sorry about the pic!

shopping

I am not showing you the scenic beauties of QuikLube or the toilet store or Walmart, but the way home is awesome. As is the produce store and the farm where I buy organic (with yard art!).
 

how is ed?

Everyone is asking me, "How is Ed?" The picture above, taken by Chien-Chi a month ago, is the last time I saw him. He had had his tumor removed but not yet begun treatment. 

   Next he had his head shaved so that he could wear a cap of electrodes which requires carrying around a battery pack. He  has to wear it basically all the time except when he takes a shower. His daughter took the first bald picture below.

   And then he began daily chemo, in pill form, and daily radiation, for which he has to Uber up the FDR drive from Brooklyn. Traffic can make it take a while, though the procedure itself only takes about a half hour. I am not going to send you the picture of that, for which he also has to wear a full-on face mask with an x marking the spot where the machine goes. 

   These procedures are meant to keep him alive longer. His doctors tell him things are looking good. Whatever that means.

   Ed himself is in good spirits. His vision is poor, which makes reading and writing hard and his spelling even worse than it was already. But he can still tell a story and crack a joke. Still my Ed.

floating

 Went floating today. What a beautiful river. Had to be rescued by a fisherman when I got snagged on a log, but made it through the rapids without going backwards as I usually do.

   A contrast from yesterday's gourmet lunch with David. Fantastic shrimp and grits, and awesome oysters from Cape Cod.  Yes, we're in the heart of the heart of the country, but David has his ways.

A triumph! And thanks to Bill and Carla for the float!