Shoulders

This is an interesting word. We have shoulders at the tops of our arms. They are susceptible to strange injuries, like rotator cuff tears or bursitis, arthritis, dislocation. then there are shoulders on roads, a place where drivers can pull off the road for whatever reason, relatively certain nobody will come along and hit them.There are shoulder pads sewn into some women’s and men’s clothing, I don’t know, to make them look more imposing, more angular I suppose.

And shoulder seasons.

That indiscriminate time when it isn’t really winter/spring/summer/fall, or it’s far enough along in that season where you can sense the beginning of the next one to follow but you aren’t really in it yet.

That seems to be where winter is right now. There are no leaves on the trees but (where I am anyway) we are far enough out of the dark, grey sky months to see light coming. The daffodil bulbs have pushed their leaves up and some of them are blooming. Trees are budding and blueberry bushes have a reddish tint to the tips of their branches where they are waking up and will have flower buds soon. Forsythia, that shrub that my mom’s housekeeper broke off branches whenever she threatened my brother or me when we were little that she was gon’ switch us, and she did not mean have us trade places. Well the forsythia is usually the first to bloom, bright yellow flowers on a bare stem. After the flowers are spent the leaves grow. This has not yet decided to awaken.

The wintergreen plants in the woods that had tiny delicate white flowers last fall are now covered in bright red berries but for the most part the woodland floor seems to still be dormant. We had a couple of weeks here recently where everybody was sure winter was over, balmy temperatures, bright sunshine only to be plunged back into sub-freezing this weekend. Some people call it a false spring where sleeping plants and trees are convinced it’s time to wake up and start pushing out their little leaf buds.

From what the Farmer’s Almanac tells me we’ll be warm/cold here for a few more weeks, with one weekend the middle of this month getting real cold again, snow about 100 miles west of us, but that’s about the end of it. I hope anyway. And the beginning of the pull into springtime. No more shoulder season. Full on spring.

But then spring around here can be pretty short, no “shoulder”, no warning that hinge-melting temperatures are just days away and will last for weeks.

I know the groundhog saw his shadow (hope nobody dropped him this year) but those 6 more weeks of winter only seem to apply to the places north of here that have winter in earnest. I mean more than 3 or 4 inches of snow through the winter where it doesn’t melt and finally goes away sometime in March. April maybe.

Though I love snow, like seeing its beautiful transformation of the world with  white softness nobody down here can drive it it much less rain either so I’m just as happy if we don’t have any. Or if we do have any people have the good sense to stay home.

At least if I’m out on the roads. But then I learned to drive in New Jersey.

Not sure which is worse.

Eyeglasses

Since I was about 9 or 10 years old my vision has changed every year but one. In 4th grade my teacher moved me, row by row, until I was unhappily front and center in the classroom, practically under the blackboard. Finally the next year my doctor convinced my mother I did really need these glasses, and I was incredulous at the sight of each individual leaf on the summer-adorned trees. For a good number of those years I was able to wear contact lenses. I remember my father telling me one tearful frustrating afternoon when I’d come home from school having been called four-eyes so many times I nearly forgot my own name about these small glass disks that could be placed directly on your eyes. No glasses. And you could see like your vision was fine.

I wanted them. Now.

By the time my eye doctor felt I was capable of being responsible for them it was 5 years later. I was thrilled. No one told me if you got an invisible speck of dust in your eye it would feel as though a poisoned dart had been stuck in there. I soon learned how to wash the thing in my mouth and mercifully never got some horrible bacterial disease from this not good practice. I was careful with them, too. I only lost two in all those years. One in a swimming pool and one ice skating (actually a fellow skater did somehow find my blue-tinted lens on the blue-white ice). But sadly in my 50s I became too old to wear them. I could no longer stand the stabbing pain of dust particles, and the last day I wore them one slid off the eye itself and lodged in the corner of my now age-dry eye to the point where I thought I might have to go to the emergency room to get it off. I didn’t.

So now it is quite an event, buying a new pair of eyeglasses. No more taking the prescription, picking out frames and a week or so later picking the finished eyeglasses up. No… there are anti-glare coatings, graduated shading depending on how much sunlight they are exposed to. And different types of lenses altogether– Nikon even makes them. So even though my sales person was the nicest lady I did turn down her best efforts at selling me all these extra things. To compensate though I learned she is 10 years older than her husband and he better not retire before she does. I learned she had just recovered from flu and assured her that I had gotten a flu shot for this year. We spoke at great length of this flu bug that has been going around to the point where I began to feel flu-like symptoms from the power of suggestion. She promised me that she would fit my eyeglasses when I returned, and did I know that even though they tell you it is a week to 10 days they usually are back within a few days?

Mine took the full week before they came in. And no, the very nice lady was off that day, but another equally nice lady was happy to fit them for me and send me happily on my way, clear sighted.

At least my doctor removed the bifocal lenses. I never could see through it anyway.

Exercise

My Dad lived to be 95 years old. Growing up in Colorado he was pretty active. Horses, ice hockey, mountain climbing. He’d had an accident when he was about 16 with a bad fall from a mountain. He lay at the foot of this mountain for about a day until his father came looking for him. His doctor there told him it was just badly bruised, prescribed bed rest but when nothing got better his father took him to Mayo Clinic. They found a smashed hip which they replaced, yet Dad for the rest of his life walked with a slight limp.

So when he was 93 or so he became what some call infirm, but he never got old. His doctor sketched out several exercises to keep him ambulatory, more or less active.

He almost never did these.

I would take him to his check ups. Doctor would ask if he was doing his exercises. “Oh, my yes,” he’d say. I, sitting behind him where doctor could imperceptibly look at me, would be frantically shaking my head, “no”. So his doctor who was quite fond of Dad, most everyone was, would ratchet up his insistence, in a gentle way, and Dad would agree whole-heartedly. But just like drinking his 6-8 glasses of water, it was whatever he chose to do.

He lived on his own terms, good or bad.

So when I had my 60th birthday a year ago I decided 20 years of running most mornings was enough and gave myself permission to stop. Maybe husky-mix rescue dog Lily was relieved, she seemed to enjoy our 3-4 mile-a-day runs. I decided to be kind to my knees. They’d served me well for so long, why risk pressing my luck?

So now Lily and terrier-mix rescue dog Lulu and I walk at a nature preserve here nearly everyday where they can go off-leash and it is a pleasant hour or so walk through 2-plus miles of mostly shaded trails. But sometimes I wonder if it is enough.

In warmer months I also ride my bike 5-10 miles a day but recently I have (in the occasional times I actually watch any television at all) noticed a commercial for a new stationary bike. One that simulates mountain biking (which I have never done), beach biking, and cycling in general. This ad is really tempting. A svelte young woman (who later turns out to actually even be a mom when her husband and child appear as she gently blots glistening dots of perspiration from her brow) in a picturesque glass-enclosed exercise room pumps away on this bike, listening to the digital “coach” encourage her up the grueling digital hills. This thing looks and seems so wonderful, I can almost see muscles forming at her calves, watch her arms as they white-knuckle the handle bars flex as she vigorously pumps.

Yes, I think, I should have something like this.

Never mind that the cost is in the thousands. Or that my day does not have the flexibility to venture forth on these precipitous digital rides. Where would I put this thing? Marketing is clever. We watch these commercials, forgetting we do not have a house like this with a glass-walled 200-square-foot room in which to house the bike. I’d have to build on an addition to my house. Then I’d need to tangle with my HOA and I make it a point never to interact with my HOA. Besides which I do not have any extra space where I could add on anything, certainly not an exercise room.

So I guess it’s huffing along the local rural roads outside my subdivision, and enjoying the sun-dappled walks in the nature preserve.

I’ll take that.

Clutter

I am a clutter queen.

In my last move I listed my house “For Sale By Owner (FSBO)”. I cleaned out pots, pans, clothes, shoes, stuff I’d collected over the years positive I’d need it “someday” which never came, dog toys, kitchen gadgets,towels, beach stuff, even furniture. Then I cleaned stuff out again when I decided not to list my house myself and put everything back.

And again when I listed with a realtor.

Somehow I realized after only living in this next house for two years I still have too much stuff. So I am going through everything again. I had no idea how much wrapping paper, bows, boxes, ribbons, tape, little to-from gift cards, gift bags and decorations I had. So now it’s all been gone through and reorganized. And some of it disposed of.

I have clothes that I wore when I worked but have not worn in more than 10 years. Suits, blouses, shoes (again, and I don’t have that female inclination), dresses, jackets, at least five overcoats. So I found a place to donate these for people trying to get back into the workforce, or just need to stay warm.

Going through the bathrooms I found I have a 3-year supply of toilet tissue (how can you hide an 18-roll jumbo pack of Charmin??), eleven nail clippers (you can never have too many of those), and enough shampoo and conditioner of all sorts to keep a girls’ volley ball team’s hair clean for a year.

I found holiday platters I have not used in years, little fingertip towels on those circle holders on stands I never use, vases, suitcases, earmuffs still in their original packaging.

There must have been an incredible sale on dish soaps and dishwasher soaps because I probably won’t live long enough to use all of it. I counted 19 rolls of Viva paper towels, and that’s what I found the first time through.

For a while I thought collecting unusual baskets and copper tea kettles and chafing dishes was cool to put on top of the cabinetry in the kitchen. The dust is so thick on them now I can’t use them so I’ll try to find a way to clean them (maybe take them in the backyard and turn the hose on them).

I found even in my bookcases several comprehensive volumes of Shakespeare’s works, Mark Twain’s and Oscar Wilde. Probably only need one of those. Then there were those years I thought I’d use herbs for everything, so out went the herb remedy books (thankfully nobody died), and the Good for You/Bad for You food books, all of which are more than 15 years old. Surely there are differing opinions on this by now. Medical people are constantly switching sides for whether eggs are good and if margarine will truly kill you.

I prefer butter anyway.

So you’d think I’d have all this new found space in my house. Not so. I don’t know where all these things are coming from but the closets, cupboards, pantry and garage are still chock-full. I know someone who swears that her towels multiply all by themselves in the linen closet.

Don’t think that’d be true for those nail clippers though…

 

Leaden

I think our little area on coastal NC just had the entirety of blahness for January and February all rolled up in one day. Today.

For almost a whole week the eastern side of the US has braced for a bad winter storm. Even told us to expect some snow. We were very excited. Even people who’ve lived here all their lives speak of how rare snow is in these parts. Instead we got plenty of rain.

Just as the temperature hit that magic number that turns rain to snow, it stopped.

There is a dusting, I can barely see rescue dogs Lily and Lulu’s pawprints in it. But just cold. We walked to the mailbox and when we came back in the house I wondered if my thumbs would thaw out. The wind chill makes it colder (about 5), so there is no point in even going outside!

But the waiting for something that never happened combined with the lead-gray skies, the cold air, this day was one of the longest winter days I can remember. I went through some dresser drawers, boxes in my closet to clean them out and pass time. Only one short hour. Finally now the daylight is waning. The skies will clear overnight so not even a chance of waking to a surprise blanket of sparkling, frozen white in the morning.

All over the state here friends are boasting, “We got 5 inches, it’s still falling!” Pictures on facebook, dogs playing, peaceful scenes of old, gray barns against a backdrop of pure white. It’s beautiful!

Just not here.

Sometimes I wonder if disappointment increases the lack of whatever it was you had hoped for, that thing so dreamily anticipated that never happened. I suppose it does. Me? Just makes me sleepy. So around 2:30 this afternoon when I could see the dusting was all I’d get today I fell asleep into the soundest, most delicious nap I can remember. Mostly naps make me just cranky. Or hungry. Or convinced I’d missed something important, a feeling that takes hours to shake.

Nope. This nap was apparently just what I needed. Not that I have lost a lot of sleep lately, or stayed awake agonizing over things, or just been a night owl. It was a 30-minute restoration where Lulu curled up by me on the sofa, Lily slept on the rug next to us. I even dreamed. Weird dream, but resolved, I think.

Hope your day, snowy or not, was a lovely Saturday.

Endings and beginnings

Sometimes things end too soon– relationships, someone dies before their “time”, games get rained out, an early frost nips a bumper crop of cherry tomatoes, a bird too focused on a tasty dragonfly meets a windshield instead. My Dad advised to leave a party at its height, at the point where I was just beginning to have the most fun. This was logic I could never understand until I once stayed at a party beyond its peak and saw the detritus– people too full of themselves or strong drink saying things they’d regret, others beginning to see more dark than light and speaking of things they might wish they’d kept in their hearts.

I do not wish this for me.

I know this is somewhat prosaic to write about on the eve of the new year (except China, Australia and other places ahead in time) but it gives me pause to think. This is a 24-hour period like any other. For years I watched my parents attend and give parties on this night. Then I, too got caught up in the hype and was allowed to watch the live broadcast of the moment in Times Square when what was new became old and the new was here and unknown. It took a few weeks before I could remember to write the current year on papers, checks, notes.

Somehow as I realize this is another number that marks where we are in our measurement of time it becomes easier. I remember when I was younger feeling sad at the what might-have-beens and now I have no regrets from the year past because I suppose I am living it less fearfully, more consciously. There is certainly nothing I can change about what was done or said, or can I? Things matter, people matter, at least that is what I pray I will better understand as I get older. I give my decisions careful consideration. I seek discernment, direction, am not so impulsive. Not less spontaneous, just less irrational.

I have often admired those people who juggle many things on their calendars. They appear so efficient, accomplished, only to learn their lives are in chaos more than mine because they said yes more times than I did.

I do wish though that people would not feel so compelled to mark such events as New Year’s with fireworks. So do rescue dogs Lily and Lulu.

What begins though is something new each moment. We do not have to wait so many hours, days, weeks, months for this newness. It is here, now. Ok, now… well I’d waste a lot of new moments if I kept marking them. We do mark time though and with each new dawn we see a fresh start.

And sometimes pause. That’s what I do whether out of fear or uncertainty or hopelessness or dependence on something or someone else. Control may not entirely be in my own power but so many things are. How I think, how I respond or react. How much I am sensitive to others or events. Where I go, what choice I make, or don’t make.

We all have these moments, crossroads, times of crisis or decision. Sometimes I handle them well sometimes, I procrastinate, sometimes I jump too quickly, sometimes just enough. It’s just that it does not take the calendar end of one year to help me see this.

The diving in matters most when you cannot see the rock or the shark beneath. Unless you are very hard-headed or can swim really fast.

Travel plans

Unless I can drive and take my dogs I almost never go anywhere. By choice. It’s true. At my age I figure the few places I have left that I want to see I can either get to by car or train.

Except for family trips.

Most mornings I walk husky-mix rescue dog Lily and terrier-mix rescue Lulu with a small group and their dogs. On some days combined we likely appear to be a formidable pack, upwards of a dozen multi-sized and aged dogs with 4 or 5 persons in tow. So it isn’t unusual to have another walker move to the side of the trail with his/her dog/s to let us pass, though our dogs are very friendly, which the person/s who moved aside soon learn. But we must appear somewhat impassable I suppose.

So on this morning’s walk we were discussing our Christmas travel plans, or I was since I appear to be the only one having to go out of town. I am going to visit family in Texas for literally a Christmas visit. I will go tomorrow, Christmas Eve, and come back home Monday, the 26th. Not even 48 hours. But enough so they won’t (I hope) be sick of me and we will look forward to our annual August beach trip together.

But the length, or brevity of this visit reminded me of a truly spontaneous thing I did about 25 years ago.

US Air and other airlines had something called SuperSaver fares. You had to buy the ticket in an alarmingly close to departure date period of time and it could only be 3 days and had to include a Saturday night. This was how they filled surplus empty seats and got money for it. The fares were incredibly cheap for an international flight, so I bought one. To Manchester, UK.

I know no one in the United Kingdom, then or now. I packed a few changes of underwear, my passport and a credit card. That’s it.

So I took the first leg from Charlotte to Philadelphia. On schedule, everything’s fine. Then there is an announcement our flight to England is delayed. Half an hour later it’s cancelled. I schlepped over with all our other passengers to the res desk to see what I could get, if anything.

“Well, I can get you to Frankfurt, then to Manchester?” a weary but kind agent explained.

“Hmmm, ok, this was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing for me, I have 3 days.” I looked at her hopefully.

She thought a moment, then, “Well, I can leave you in Frankfurt?”

Knowing no German and willing to await an opening to Manchester I thanked her and accepted the next option out, to Frankfurt and connecting on to Manchester.

So began an adventure that, only 60-hours or so, I will never forget.

The night before I left a friend from church had called and I explained what I was doing. Did I know anyone over there? he asked. No, I replied, why? Well, in case you get into any trouble here’s my cousin’s number (–forget where cousin lived–), oh, and you will want to visit Chester, not far from Manchester. OK, thanks, I say. We hung up.

So on arrival (finally) I found the “i”desk my friend had also mentioned — i for information, which was truly wonderful. I learned prefacing anything I said with “I’m an American ” helped prepare them for: accent, ignorance, many questions, some small amount of expressed fear, copious thanks. And consequently the interchange went much easier.

I was instructed to go to currency exchange, then bus stop, which bus, the name of a pub in Chester which lodged visitors. Everything was just as I had been told and I wandered the streets of Chester (which was having some sort of festival at the time) enjoying the shops and savory smells of different kinds of food. I found the pub, was assured of a room and went out again with camera to capture this lovely gingerbread town nestled into the hills of northwest England.

This being a Saturday the pub was pretty busy and knowing I needed to find my way to Manchester the next morning I turned in early but nobody else did. Once the pub finally closed revelers continued the party outside, singing just below my window. Exhaustion won out so I did get sleep and found the train station easily in the subdued quiet of Sunday morning.

At Manchester I found another i booth and let them know what I needed. A brief phone call later I was told to wait outside the station for a couple who would pick me up in a gray Range Rover shortly. I did, and they did, to bring me to their bed-and-breakfast. The couple and their children were attending a sort of reverse July 4th celebration, one where England celebrated being rid of the mischief-makers. As it happened I had bought a copy of the Philadelphia Inquirer which headlined the 225th celebration of our independence from tyrannic British rule, would they like to have it? Oh yes! And they were only too happy to drive me to the train station so I might do some more exploring, they recommended a nearby town called Wilmslow they thought I’d enjoy, but I would need to be on my own going back. Fine, I agreed.

At the train station I carefully pored over a map of stops and distance, the time it would take, allowing for my not-too-far walk back to their B&B. While at Wilmslow I stopped in a bakery which had some delicious looking finger foods and pastries, I purchased some and went outside to enjoy, al fresco.

On my walk back a slow drizzle began and even though it was mid-summer it became chilly. I buttoned my grey sweater and braced for a cool but brisk walk. A car approaching from in front of me slowed to a stop and the window rolled down. A gentleman popped his head out and looked at me, so I stopped.

“Do you know how far ‘ -unintelligible name of a town I wouldn’t have known anyway’ is?”

“Oh! I am very flattered but I’m an American visiting, I’m sorry I don’t know.”

He laughed so hard I thought I’d committed some sort of horrible international faux pas. Finally he recovered and said, “Typical! I’m a Scot, I would ask an American for directions!” We both laughed heartily at that.

So I returned to the B&B which had been a mews of a larger estate hundreds of years ago. Built of stone my cozy room was in the loft. Very comfortable, but since this was July and England is at a latitude that allows for some of that midnight sun it never quite got dark. Still, the thrill of what I accomplished afforded me sleep, and I woke bright and early for the day of my return home.

I appeared at the main house for breakfast, a full English breakfast with fried bread, bacon rashers, fresh fruit, fried tomatoes, eggs and coffee. A golf team had also stopped for breakfast before arriving at the course for their tournament. Someone mentioned an American was in their midst which was exciting news for them.

“Do you know Tiger Woods?” they asked.

My safe return home was a wonderful feeling, though I’d had a memorable time in merry old England.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays and Happy 2017 y’all.

Teeth

Combs have teeth. If something is said to have teeth it is thought to be strong, effective. It matters. People covet things and would give their “eye teeth” to have them. People are said to fight “tooth and nail” (i.e.: hard) for something.We clean teeth, floss, brush, whiten, examine teeth. Horses are bought and sold by people who look at their teeth. Floating a horse’s teeth isn’t anything to do with lofty etherea at all but taking a large rasp or file and working them down so the horse stops cribbing or gnawing on the doors or walls of its stall.

Teeth are important.

So when I broke a tooth eating a lot of roasted almonds a week ago I probably should have gone into some kind of panic– will it keep breaking? Is it going to hurt? Have I exposed more of the tooth or just the filling that was in it? I could not see this tooth. It was the last molar in the upper right side. Too dark, and I don’t have one of those little mirrors hygienists and dentists use to see in those dark crevices and corners of people’s mouths.

It was not the first tooth I’d broken, either. Kind of like having more than one child I guess. After the first one things don’t seem so strange and stressful anymore.

So with this tooth.

It broke on a weekend so I had to wait until Monday to call the dentist. I had a lot of things to do that morning– mail Christmas packages to family far away, take my dogs for their morning constitution, take care of some things at home, so I called about 10 or so and at that point it was raining like we needed another ark.

Yes, the receptionist said, it was raining there, too. And thunderstorms. And a tornado warning. Ok, so could I come in that afternoon to have a temporary crown put on?

Sure.

So I get in that chair and they pretty much inverted it so I was at an obtuse angle, I guess reflective of my stupidity in being so hard on my teeth, with that halogen lamp shining directly into my eyes. They went to work on what was left of the molar. They ground, and ground. They changed the grinder and ground some more. It was about the point where I smelled something burning in there that my body began to stiffen a little.

“This bothering you?” they asked.

“Ahh gnahh,” I mumbled.

Finally the grinding stopped, smoke cleared. The tip of my numb tongue touched where the tooth was– operative word, was. I felt nothing.

“Is there anything to glue a crown onto?” I gasped.

“Well, not much but sure, we can get a crown on there.”

Finally after about a dozen or more questions the dentist walked out of the room, so I harangued the poor assistant. Dentist reappears.

“You got the temp made yet?”

Her eyes gaped. I covered: “Oh, I never let her get to work, so many questions!”

Dentist leaves again.

I apologized profusely to this beleaguered woman. Clearly she just wanted to get on with her job and her day. I was positive I didn’t deserve that much of their time but this dentist is relatively new to me and I haven’t had the best track record with many dentists.

Dentist returns, places the temporary crown, explains payment procedures,exits again. Assistant rights the hyper-flexible chair and I’m so dizzy I can barely move as she wanders out to the lobby where I have to pay for all this entertainment.

Somebody asks me if I say Merry Christmas, I reply in the affirmative, my voice sounding miles away.

So a couple more weeks and this ordeal is finished with a shiny new crown for what used to be a molar.

Does this count as my real tooth? I mean the root is still there…

Oh well.

Happy Holidays       !

 

 

Attachments

Because my step-mother survived my father when he passed away my brother and I were given 48 hours to collect our family belongings from his home. At one point we found ourselves sitting at Dad’s desk going through silly, superficial things– his pen holder, desk drawers filled with miscellany– paper clips, empty medicine bottles, toner cartridges, a pair of cufflinks, things that he touched, considered worth keeping. We wished hard for a transference of him as we looked at them, these insignificant items, representative of something that we wanted to give us just one more tangible connection to him, now gone.

Over the years I, too have an embarrassing accumulation of odd things that I cannot seem to bring myself to discard or give away. Someone will have to do it someday if I don’t. I particularly have a huge amount of Christmas ornaments and decorations. I have most of the ones we put on our trees when my brother and I grew up. Funny little porcelain angel bells with dainty faces, a reindeer painted on a sand dollar, a partridge in a pear tree a dear friend of my mother’s made for us.

Then I have ornaments I made the first Christmas I could not spend with my family because I was married, 8 months pregnant and my doctor advised against travel. So I made ornaments. Christmas patterned-fabric wreaths fashioned from little wooden curtain rings, sequined candy canes with little holly leaf and beads, and tiny bells. Sequin-covered stocking shaped styrofoam forms with little brown pompoms to make a bear with googly eyes. Ornaments my son had made in school, at festivals, on his own, and some he and I made one year together.

Then I moved and could not find any Christmas decoration boxes, so I bought kits to make new ones. Eventually over the years I have made or accumulated enough ornaments to decorate at least three Christmas trees. So I had to go through them.

Many of them were not hard to put in the give-away box. My marriage had ended in divorce so those ornaments no longer held any joy. So many of those purchased or made later, though pretty were also non-essential because I bought them in a panic. Not panic that I would have nothing to put on a tree but panic that I could not find those I loved so much.

That proverbial “Someday” when someone will inherit these, or buy them at an estate sale they may not find hands gently holding them with loving memories. But I was a part of what they represented for me, as well as others who were so important to me. And that is what matters. Not so much the things themselves.

The memories, echoes of laughter, and loving hearts.

A different kind of ring

Ok, so when I adopted husky-mix rescue dog Lily in 2008 a year after my precious rescue border collie mix Savannah died of lung cancer I really did not think my other Australian shepherd mix rescue Murphy would learn much from her. After all, Murphy was a dashing young seven-year-old (around 40, in dog years), while Lily was only a year. But she did teach him things– like barking when something moved outside the house without her permission, or flinging herself at trees when squirrels were faster than she was.

But the best thing, he thought, that she taught was how to bury a precious treasure of a bone with your nose.

Oh, Lily dug with her paws like any other dog. She dug holes when she heard a mole under ground, or when the mood struck because the springy earth was nice and soft. But burying something took the finesse of a delicate nose.

So now fast-forward to this year, the night before Thanksgiving. There are no vets open, at least none except the unimaginably expensive emergency vet. Lily is sitting next to me, I look down at her adoringly, and notice something not quite right with her nose. It actually bulged.

I touched it gently, and here will spare you the sordid details of what ensued just prior to the actual skin of her nose slipping away. That’s right, her beautiful coal-black nose, the part just at the top, fell off.

I ran downstairs to get some peroxide, witch hazel and anti-bacterial ointment. I knew none of those things would sting and believe me, that had to hurt. So I proceeded to doctor this as best I could (Lily, though a mature, refined dog now still wiggles a lot). And she proceeded to lick all the ointment right off.

So we progressed this way through the weekend. Ok, I thought, a scab is forming, we’ve got this. Then Tuesday she decided to “bury” a rawhide chip with her nose. She presented herself in the kitchen proudly looking like a Rudolph nosed-doggie. So more doctoring. Then by Friday her nose was  (not bleeding) looking an angry red. Ok, I’m in over my head. So I called the vet.

We know this time of year all about bells ringing, whether sleigh or jingle. And angels getting their wings when a bell rings. And five golden rings, which, by the way I recently learned represents the Torah. But for Lily?

Ringworm.

At least that is what her vet thinks she picked it up from the backyard. Is it transmissible? Yes, wash your hands after treating her nose. Should I disinfect my yard? No. Evidently it is everywhere. I just never encountered it before, not with a dog anyway. He took a culture, sent us home with an anti-fungal medicine, so we will see how this goes.

It’s always something!