Tiny Truths, Big Fun

I'm completely excited to have a tweet published in the Summer 2015 edition of Creative Nonfiction.

Ta-dah! My first anything published in a magazine on sale at my local bookstore!

To join the tiny fun, tweet your own microessay at #cnftweet. No charge. No rules except for the 140 character limit. The magazine retweets choice #cnftweets and also publishes a selection of the retweets in their newsletter and magazine. (Check out the official instructions here, under Tiny Truths) It's a great community of writers in the chaos of the twittersphere. And there's nothing like a little tweet-favorited star to nurse one past a creative block or a rejection letter.

I'm the little black cat @RileyMaclean.

Hope to see you there!

P.S. If you can't handle the tiny, Creative Nonfiction does feature full length works as well (alright, mostly). It's one of the few magazines I read cover to cover. "Wait Times," the winner of the Best Essay Prize this issue, is an essay I think every nurse should read.

Showdown at the Beet Corral

Before we even put Lewis and Clark in their carriers to bring them home, I was in love with them.

Nub, sweet nub!

I knew I couldn't give them back. But obviously, I love Bishrito, too. So I was extremely worried whether or not he would accept them.

Damn right I'm wearin' your underpants. Got a problem with that?

Bishrito was 6 years old, a big tough fellow, and cat in charge. Lewis and Clark were 6 months old. If Bish decided he didn't want them around, I knew we'd be in trouble.

I read up on cat introductions and decided to follow The Humane Society's recommendations to the letter. Click here for The Humane Society's great advice.

We made the kittens a comfy starter home in the sun room, and left Bishrito in charge of the rest of the house, separated from the kittens by two big glass doors.

At first, things looked pretty grim.

WHAT the *&%! is THAT!?

Bishrito did a lot of hissing and growling and crab dancing. He broke out all his scary black cat moves.

I cried about it a little, and prayed a lot.

A whole week passed.

And then, just when I thought the kittens would have to live in the sun room forever, Bish began to get curious.

What are they doing in there?

Grady opened up the big doors, and let them make their introductions.

Bishrito made a token show of force, which wholly impressed the kittens.

And that established, everyone got along better than fine.

Yes, they are all boys.

Thank God!

About That Tuxedo...

After Clyde died, months passed and Bishrito remained an only cat.

The house got cleaner. We tried to heal our hearts. I started to wonder if we even wanted a new cat. No one could ever replace Clyde, after all. Never ever.

Cats are such thoroughgoing mysteries.We imagined Bishrito needed a friend, but maybe he really didn't. He seemed happy enough to be master of his domain. We worried he might reject a new cat.

One fateful evening, after a long day at work, I wandered into the PetSmart rescue center, and who should be there, peering out?

This dapper fellow, right here.

Clark

It was love at first sight. 

I would have adopted him on the spot, except...

The rescue center was closed for the night, and...

His card said he had a brother, arriving the next day, who would love to be placed with him.

When I adopted Clyde, she was in the pound with her sister. At the time, I had another cat and shared an apartment with two girls. We didn't have room for three cats, so we took only Clyde. Ever since, I have worried about her sweet little tabby sister. Did she also find a loving home? Was she heartbroken to be left at the pound without her sister? Did Clyde quietly long for her, all her life? I look back at my 22 year old self, and I can't imagine how I turned my back and left her there.

After all those years of regret, I knew I could never again break up a sibling pair. Clark was patting my paws through the glass. I stood up, blew him a kiss, and tried to harden my heart against him.

We were only planning to adopt one cat.

I called Grady from the parking lot, and asked him how he'd feel about adopting two cats. To my surprise, he said... "Of course!" (I love him. Have I mentioned that?)

We were there the next day, the minute the rescue center opened.

Lewis

And, of course, we had to have them both.

Meet Lewis and Clark.

Our best decision ever.

  

The Littlest Deacon

A funny thing happened after Clyde died. I went back to church. 

I'm a long-standing Episcopalian. But, in the few years preceding Clyde's death, I'd more or less stopped going to church. I'd like to pretend it was just laziness or busyness, but really, I'd had a falling out with God. 

I do believe in miracles. In the early years of my infertility, I kept the story of Elizabeth taped to a window in my room. I fully expected that with prayer and patience, our miracle baby would arrive in time. It never did. I was angry. More than that, though, I was having trouble reconciling my understanding of a loving God with some of the tragedies I'd witnessed in my work as a perinatal nurse. If there is any wisdom in this life that truly makes sense of the death of a baby or a young mother, I haven't found it. 

I still believed in God, but I was starting to doubt that he was very much involved with life on Earth. I thought sometimes I could be at peace with the possibility that God isn't there, that heaven isn’t true, that our souls do not go on, that death is, as some say, only a material decay. To roll as a wave on the ocean, to fall as rain, to grow in a blade of grass, and finally to be swallowed by a star - maybe that is not so horrible an end, even if one’s consciousness does not remain to observe it. Maybe, I thought, that is enough. But then, Clyde died, and suddenly, rational cosmology was not enough at all.

So, I went back to church. But I couldn't be still. There are many Episcopal churches within driving range of The Beet Ranch, but none of them seemed like a good fit. One church was too friendly, the next not friendly enough. Every Sunday, I went to a different one.

A few months after Clyde passed away, we set about getting another cat. I felt as non-committal about this endeavor as I did about my search for a home church. We visited the fabulous San Diego Humane Society more than once, and met a lot of wonderful cats, but none of them was the cat for me. None of them was Clyde. After the death of a pet, the Humane Society recommends getting a new pet completely different than the lost pet, different gender, different color, different personality. I tried to keep that suggestion in mind, but really, I was hoping for a female tabby cat who liked to cuddle. I couldn't imagine a cat as well-suited to my heart as Clyde.

We were talking about taking a break from looking. I was thinking about maybe not getting another cat. Then, one morning, for no obvious reason, I woke up and said to Grady, "You know what? I think we should get a black and white cat and name him Deacon." Grady is a good guy, and this is definitely not the craziest thing I've ever said to him. He said, "Sure."

And so it happened that I was on the look-out for a black and white cat the day I went to All Souls' Episcopal Church in Point Loma for the first time. I was sitting in a pew toward the back, numbly reciting along with the Eucharist and praying for Clyde, when I heard mewing. I started looking around, wondering if I was imagining the sound.  

To my astonishment, marching right up the center aisle came a little black and white cat. She made her way up one pew and down the next, greeting everyone in love, ministering to her congregation. At the communion, she ran to the cushions with all the rest of us and put her paws up on the rail.

And then, as if she knew where she was needed, she came and sat in my lap, and drooled all over me in the most adorable way. I sat there and petted her and cried.

Valentine, the Littlest Deacon.

And so, I found my church home. At first, I came back to see my friend Valentine (the sexton's cat). Then, the church turned out to be a good fit. They have a music director who is also a hopeless cat person, a fabulous painting of the peaceable kingdom, and they celebrate the Feast of Saint Francis every year with a blessing of the animals. Clearly, it is the place I was meant to be.

I saw Valentine for a while every Sunday, and then I didn't. Her owner left employment of the church without providing a forwarding address. I'm sorry to say, the photo above is the only photo I have to include in this post. I am sad I probably won't see her at church again, but I am so happy she happened into my life when she did. Through love, she led me back to God, kind of like another little cat I might have mentioned, a little cat named Clyde.

Love comes to us sometimes in unlikely packages. Some of us are blessed with children, and some of us are blessed with pets.

And sometimes the miracles we don't expect are the best miracles of all. 

Fork it!

And now, a short station break to pay homage to my favorite gardening tool.

 

The fork.

I was introduced to this fabulous piece of garden equipment during a meditation class at Esalen.

My dream garden.

During the class, we did some meditative gardening. I was assigned to harvest green onions with a partner, but we were a little too enthusiastic and efficient. (The next day, we ate green onions at every meal.) So, they set us to turn under a bed of tired kale, and I spent a half-hour in peaceful contemplation of the fork.

It was a revelation.

As a bed-turning tool, the fork is infinitely superior to the shovel. It mixes while it turns and it's a lot easier on the back. 

At the Beet Ranch, our native soil would give a potter fits of delight. It's all clay with a rock thrown in here and there for variety. When we dug holes for our trees, we started with a pick axe, and progressed to a jack hammer. 

I've mixed a fair amount of compost into our beds, but the clay persists. A shovel is hard to drive through clay. I've ripped the bottom out of more than one pair of garden shoes doing the shovel-stomp. Plus, the shovel compacts as it cuts, bringing the soil up in hard shovel-shaped bricks. I've halved a lot of earthworms hacking up shovel pucks. 

The fork, on the other hand, dives easily through clay, and mixes without compacting. 

But is it really that beneficial to turn over soil in planting beds? 

I was feeling a little lazy last month, so I did a little at-home experiment. I forked over half a bed, left the other half un-forked. I sowed buckwheat equally over all and sprinkled a small layer of compost over the top.

Forked (left) v/s unforked (right)

The results, as you can see, were significant.

The buckwheat on the unturned side did sprout eventually, but never as thickly as the buckwheat on the forked side.

My verdict: forking - worth the extra effort. 

Clydiebunny Sets Out

I took a break from the blog for awhile, because I didn't want to write this post.

Clyde passed away in December. She had aggressive lymphoma and we made the hard decision to put her to sleep.

My poor, tired girl.

We miss her so much.

I have a lot to say about Clyde, but so far I haven't found words to adequately express how wonderful she was and how much we loved her.

Right to the very end, she spent her life loving us. We are so thankful for her, for the way she looked after us.

Heart to heart.

I believe she has gone home to the greatest love, the one we will all return to in the end.

I hope, someday, when my time comes, I will meet her again in that happy place, in the bosom of the One who sent her here.

And my heart says:

Thank you God for the ones who love us with everything they have. Thank you God for Clyde.

Love, Actually

At first, Clyde was not very impressed with Bishrito.

We couldn't really blame her.

 Hello! My name is...

 BISHRITO!

For his first few years of life, Bishrito was a very busy guy. He really wanted to play with Clyde. And (in case you missed it) he has always been the kind of cat who would do anything for attention, especially in front of a camera.

 Hey baby...

Does this couch make my butt look big?

Clyde did not think he was funny.

She didn't want to play his kitten games.

She thought he was a disgrace to the noble name of Cat.

OMG. I don't know him. I do NOT know him.

And of course, poor Bishrito was (and always has been) completely in awe of Clyde.

We thought she might never love him back.

I'll take the worms.

 With a side of worms.

But after a few years, Clyde began to thaw.

At first, they seemed to be just tolerating each other.

Good fences. Good neighbors.

Then, one day, after contractors jack-hammered up our bathroom floor, I found them in our bed, under the comforter, huddled together in terror.

Bish looked terrified.

Clyde looked mortified.

They didn't hang around long enough for me to get photographic proof...

But the cats 

(so to speak) 

were out of the bag. 

Bishrito and Clyde still don't lay around licking each other's ears (at least not out in the open where the humans can see).  

Bish still pesters Clyde sometimes, and she still swats him upside the head.

But they are friends.

They sniff and nuzzle in passing. They look out for each other.

 Maybe that's the best part of love, after all.

An Aside About Clyde

Although I didn't make it obvious in earlier postings, we actually have two cats in residence at The Beet Ranch.  Bishrito and...

Clyde.

In case you can't tell by looking at her, Clyde is a girl. We call her Clydiebunny when she is feeling girlie, but most of the time (and especially when she is in big trouble), we call her Clyde. 

That's Clyde E. Bunny to you, human.

Clyde has a very important job at The Beet Ranch. 

Chief Writing Muse...

Motivator...

And Supreme Guardian of the Writing Spot.

She is always on duty for love and creative support. 

Even when the writing is BAD.

Vigilando!

Clyde has been in my life longer than my husband. She was 10 years old when we got Bishrito and enjoying being an only cat. We were planning to let her stay that way. But, sometimes... counter to the best laid plans...

Kittens happen.

Clyde is an extremely sweet cat. She's the kind of cat that melts in your arms when you pick her up; the kind that has fits of drooling ecstasy when petted. We thought she'd welcome the kitten eventually. We thought she might like a friend. We even thought the kitten might kindle her latent maternal instincts.

Nope.

When we introduced Clyde to little Bishrito, she sniffed his nose. Aw! 

Then, she ROARED. 

I have never heard Clyde make a sound like that before or since.

Bish thought she was going to eat him. 

I thought she was going to eat him. 

We all jumped about two feet and Bish pooped in my lap.

Since that day, Bishrito has had a very healthy respect for Clyde. 

Today, at five years old, Bish outweighs Clyde by about ten pounds. He has big sharp claws and womps on me and Grady at least three times a day.

Clyde turned fifteen this year. She is extremely skinny. She has cataracts. She has arthritis in her hips and paws. She doesn't have her front claws.

Bishrito still defers to her at the food bowl.

I still defer to her at the desk.

Clyde E. Bunny, musing hard.

The Bish BOB

Some cats don't mind being trussed up a little.

Bishrito isn't one of them.

Ask yourself: Do you feel lucky, Human?

Maybe it's not too surprising that we found him completely resistant to wearing a halter and walking on a leash, even as a small kitten.

Still, we didn't want to deprive him of the outdoors altogether.

So, I bought Bishrito a stroller.

The Bish BOB.
Click here for purchase information.

 Yes, that's right. At one low point along my infertility journey, I did indeed buy my cat a jogging stroller.

I blame targeted advertising.

From the BOB website.

BOB Sport Utility Stroller

**Kid not included.

Well, I blame targeted advertising and the fact that, for me, being middle-aged without the kids feels something like this:

Bishrito is as much a baby as we will ever have. So, he got a stroller, and a spendy one at that.

On a somewhat less crazy level, a pet stroller did seem like the perfect solution for us. I would have a reason to go jog and Bish would get his outside fix. Everyone would be happy! Bish and I could tour the neighborhood! Mission Bay! The beach!

I was so excited.

At first, the Bish BOB seemed a success. My husband took him on mad bombing runs around the house.

Too close for missiles, switching to guns.

He loved it. (Bish also loves to be borne around the house in a laundry basket like he's Cleopatra Queen of the Nile, but that's a story for another day.)

Trips outside in the BOB were another story entirely. I started by taking him on short trips around the block. As soon as we journeyed out of sight of The Beet Ranch, Bishrito the Badass would abandon all pretense of machismo. For most of the walk, he'd run back and forth in the stroller looking distressed and making little-lost-kitten alarm mews. I thought he just needed a little time to get used to the idea, but, turns out, he didn't.

Bishrito got over the Bish BOB the day we met a pitbull in a pick-up truck who looked Bish over like he was a little kitten bon-bon in a $200 wrapper.

I got over the Bish BOB the day an older neighbor came up to see what was in the stroller, and, on seeing it was a cat (not a baby), backed away slowly and went back in his house. At this point, it began to dawn on me that Bish and I might never be wholly welcome at Stroller Striders.

When Bishrito began to seem less than interested in getting in the stroller, we gave it up altogether.

For awhile, I kept the Bish BOB in the spare bedroom with our disaster preparedness kit, justifying its presence as a handy way to evacuate our cats in an emergency. Eventually, I realized it was making me sad. A lot of people our age have actual BOBs in their spare bedrooms. And they have legos, and story books, and hamster wheels, and skate boards, and bunk beds with Disney-themed sheets. In our spare room, we had a zombie attack survival kit, assorted busted stuff, and one extremely dusty, high-quality jogging stroller for our cat.

We sold the Bish BOB for $40 on Craigslist to a great couple, who wanted it for their bulldog with a broken leg. The man seemed a little embarrassed, but the woman was clearly overjoyed to have found a way to help her injured pup enjoy some walks. And the bulldog, in his doggy way, seemed happy that the woman was happy.

And, in the end, that made me happy too.

So Long and Thanks for the Hives

So, about that doomed Mexican Feather Grass...

It all started when we got rid of our lawn.

I've lived on the East Coast, where lawns just happen and people spend their summers blithely mowing their entire property.  But here in SoCal, lawns are not in the natural order of things. You might not be able to tell by looking, but San Diego is more coastal desert than tropical paradise. We get only around 12 inches of rain per year. A lush lawn here usually indicates major irrigation efforts (with water mostly piped in from the Colorado River or Central California) and lots of chemicals. Here's a link about where San Diego gets its water. Interesting and scary!

When we started work on the Beet Ranch in earnest, my primary gardening principle was: Grow what wants to grow where it's planted.

Lawns do not want to grow here. We ripped out our lawn.

Our next door neighbor happened to be a landscape designer, and he helped us plan a low water front yard including (you guessed it) a big swath of Mexican Feather Grass.

Since we don't have Feather Grass now, here are some pictures of my dream Feather Grass from just up the road in Solana Beach.

I love this little strip of landscaping down the HWY 1.  In fact, I got in a car accident a few years back, right about...

 here.

I was temporarily distracted by the sea of golden waving fronds. No kidding. Actually, I think my exact thought was... How doooo they get their grass to look like that? And then I rear ended a Volvo. 

I loved our Feather Grass when first it was new.

Feather Grass at its most feather lovely.

It fulfilled my then primary gardening principle.  It wanted to grow in my yard, big time. We started out with about six plants, but I really wanted to go for the river o' grass look (see above in Solana Beach). I fretted about getting more little grass plants to fill in the gaps between my big grass plants.  Then the grass feathered, and we discovered we didn't have to buy more Feather Grass, because the Feather Grass was making more Feather Grass.

Tribble of the plant kingdom, tribbling.

Soon every square inch of bare soil in our front yard was covered in a soft mat of clingy Feather Grass seeds and shooting up adorable green baby grasslets.

 Oh! Look! Like little baby kittens!

And we encouraged them. I transplanted baby grasses from crowded spots to bare spots. I watered them. I talked to them.

Unfortunately, before he moved, our neighbor neglected to tell us that Feather Grass needs to be lopped off every winter, like this:

So we didn't lop our grass.  And in the course of one season, it went from garden of the flowing savannah to yard of the natty dread.

Like this, only worse.

All that Fall, I went out and spent hours meticulously snipping off the dreads with clippers. (This was a couple years before I embraced the butt-kicking gratification of the power hedge trimmer.) Still, I was too blinded by love to see that, armed with clippers, I was fighting a losing battle with the Feather Grass.

I noticed that romping around in the grass for a few hours left me all kinds of itchy. I thought I was just getting the seeds and feathers stuck in my clothes and they were tickling me. But then, one day, my mom came out to help me snip, and she had an asthma attack. Bish was enthusiastically barfing wicker furniture. And one morning, walking the neighborhood, I noticed little baby Feather Grasslets sprouting in all the sidewalk strips up and down my block on both sides of the street.

Slowly I realized my beloved grass was a) trying to kill us all and b) take over the world.

My mother-in-law (who is amazing) helped us enormously by ripping the feathergrass out. Then she promptly broke out in hives.

When we planted and subsequently ripped out the grass, I could not find any information about the invasive nature of Mexican Feather Grass. Now, however, there is some discussion about the aggressive propagation of Feather Grass (AKA Nassella tenuissima) in the California agricultural community.  Click here for an article from the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of California about new invasive grasses in California.

My new primary gardening tenet?

Don't negotiate with any plant seeking world domination.

Tempting, but no.