Soapbox

So I've got this dog, and I'm trying to decide- how much do I love baby spinach and fresh tomatoes?

Tucker doesn't get walked enough. I admit that. I'm sure Caesar Milan would say to just walk him (and myself) 7 or 8 miles a day and all my problems would be moot. Hah! I get him out for 20 minute walk or so (depending on weather) and frankly, beyond that, that's what I have a yard for! He runs the fence-line when dogs go past, we play fetch and he just wanders and sniffs. That was enough for Boomer.

If an idle brain is the devil's playground, a smart dog is surely demon-possessed, and Tucker proves that nearly every day. He's still technically a puppy and so of course he digs- actually mostly he scrapes little trenches and drops his tennis balls in them, which is not big deal to me. It's just dirt and can be scraped back in. I just have to be careful not to twist an ankle when walking across the yard.

He loves to chew plastic recyclables and will steal them from the bin when the door is open and dash outside with them and tear them up under his favorite tree. Socks from an unwatched laundry basket and unattended shoes will also be spirited away with great glee.

Friday I walked out on the deck and thought, Wait- what's wrong with this picture?… The large plastic pot that I plant basil in every year (the bunnies eat it if it's down in the yard) was gone. Tucker had dragged it- full- off the deck, then dumped it out a few feet away, then tore the pot into pieces. Yum!  (Bear in mind, the house and yard are full of dog toys, which apparently are inferior to the human variety.) 

OK, how much do I want fresh basil all summer?( A lot)  I could buy a new pot and put it up on the picnic table. It would look a little odd but we don't all sit at the table very often. I worry, though- will it just provide him with the incentive to learn how to climb on the chairs to get to it? Or maybe he'll just chew the chairs- they are heavy plastic, after all.

He also likes to chew sticks (perhaps he's part beaver) and will drag apart firewood stacks and brush piles left from pruning. Last week, among the sticks scattered here and there I found one of the bamboo poles from my vegetable garden that I used to let the beans climb. I had taken them down for the winter and laid them right by the fence, so I thought he had probably teased one out through the fence.

So,when I turned the soil in the bed the other day, I moved the poles away from the fence to protect them from him. 2 days ago I found 2 more poles out in the yard, and a distinct bowing to one part of the fence proved he had just jumped over and dragged them out.
Try to keep my toys away from me, will ya, lady? Ha!

Well crap. My fencing is only three feet high, to make it easy for me to step in and out, but the corner posts are taller, so Ted suggested I tie string around the garden just above the top of the fence and string empty coke cans all along it, which will clatter and clank if he hits them. He's kind of skittish of weird noises, so I thought this might do the trick.

My first clue that this problem would not be solved so cheaply or easily came yesterday when I was attaching the twine and Tucker was chewing happily the little tag bits trailing from the knots on the corner poles. He watched with great fascination as I strung the cans, so I wacked them with a stick so they'd make a noise and told him to "leave it". Then I got the bottle of bitter Lime spray and doused the cans (and the knots) with it, just to be safe.

This morning I looked out and sure enough- the cans have already been chewed down and dragged around the yard like lovely, musical toys. Apparently bitter Lime does not taste as bad as twine tastes good. Score canine 1, human 0.

I can go buy new, taller fencing and spend probably an entire day replacing what I have (while Tucker  jumps in and out to see what I"m doing and steals a few tools to see what they taste like, no doubt) but then I have to either fashion some sort of gate or do the pole-vault with my hoe to get in the garden myself. And I'm just not as limber as I used to be. Hmmm… how much do I want my veggies this year?

I could just abandon the garden until next year, when hopefully Tucker will be a better doggy citizen and stick to only jumping in the strawberry bed and eating all my berries, as Boomer used to do. What do you think the odds are of that, though?

Yeah, I should probably just go by 4-foot fencing. Or maybe 5…

I am not your girl friend.
I am not your child.
I don't even know your name, although I did you the courtesy of telling you mine. Yet you don't even use it: instead, you close our conversation, a brief informational exchange between two complete strangers, with the presumed intimacy of calling me "Sweetheart."

I'm not sweet on you, and you're not in my heart. We've never even met! Ah, but you weren't flirting with me when you said that, were you? No, you simply meant it as…a… pleasantry. And you seem like a pleasant guy. You  certainly meant no offense, probably aren't even aware of what you've done, you. I bet that all your life you've heard men- your father, your doctor, your boss- speak to adult women this way: "Honey" "Kiddo" "Girl", infantalizing capable, mature women, reducing them to cherished children as if that is somehow flattery.

So I'm just letting you know: it's not. It's not cute. It's not a compliment to pretend a regard that we both know you cannot feel, or to speak as if  I'm so young and innocent that you just adore and want to protect me on sight. 
It's actually an assertion of dominance, an indirect verbal cue to me that you are the leader here- the one in charge. By calling me, an older woman whom you have never met "sweetheart" you deftly smashed our brief relationship as equals- probably without thinking about it. Six questions into our conversation and you put me in my place.

Imagine a woman walking up to a male police officer and saying "Hey there honey- can I park here without a permit?" You'd think her pretty rude and presumptious. But go ahead- tell me I"m wrong. Tell me I"m imagining it.

No no, of course you didn't mean anything demeaning by it. I believe you. That's why I'm telling you: it is demeaning. It's a quiet, subtle power play, the kind some people throw around every day without thinking. "Don't worry your sweet, fuzzy, (senile?) little head honey, Daddy's here."
Well I have a Daddy, thanks. And he raised me to be a capable, independent woman.

You don't have to call me "ma'am". You don't have to call me by my name. But you don't even know me. So, unless you're courting me, or adopting me- do me a favor:

don't call me "sweetheart".

This morning I had words with my bathroom scales.  I know, I know, but this was a long time coming, believe me.
We have one of those high-tech contraptions where you can program in things like your age, height,  frequency and intensity of exercise, astrological sign and it sends a little zap of electricity through you feet and tells you how much of your weight is fat versus muscles, bone, etc.
Are you kidding me?

Unless you’re trying to get NASA to put you on the next shuttle crew, why would anyone want to know something like that?  I don’t think that a household appliance should be given that much information and power over me.
Next thing you know, it’ll be perusing my credit card statement, critiqueing my poetry and denying me access to the freezer after 10 PM “for my own good.” When I get on the scale in the morning I simply want it to tell me my current weight- in pounds, please,  and no mouthing off.

Today it tried to tell me that I gained over 2 pounds in a day.
Yeah, right.
So I got off and on again. I mean,  I had fruit for lunch yesterday.

    I’m sorry… it said, your total mass in earth-normal gravity  has increased 2.4 lbs since yesterday morning. And is that a new wrinkle between your eyebrows?
Which of course is nuts.

    “No f**king way I informed it. "I had a salad with lite dressing at dinner." and got off and on again.

    Two point four-two pounds, actually: I was rounding down to be kind. And there’s no need for profanity.
    “Listen, wise-ass…” I said, climbing off and on again, "it's not my fault that at my age, my metabolism has just about shut down and even air is fattening!'

    Ah yes, speaking of asses, yours seems to be getting just a little closer to sea-level every day, doesn’t it?
    “I’ve had about enough out of you!”

    Well don’t kill the messenger, lady. And by the way, you can keep getting on and off all day and it won’t change anything…unless you literally do it all day,  which might actually burn off one potato chip…
And then I heard it snicker.

Yeah, so I think I've cleaned up all the little bits of broken spring and plastic now- I worked up a bit of a sweat doing it too, which I’m sure made me lose some weight. Probably about 2.4 pounds
And if it didn’t, who’s to say differently?
Rest assured, the next time I want to know how much I weigh, I’ll ask my toaster oven.

I don’t really think that I’m a poet.
I’m not completely sure why, or if it matters…
there is no standardized exam that one must pass
to obtain the card that you carry around your neck
to earn the designation of a card-carrying poet.
It’s not a black or white thing here
where either you are or you are not-
unlike pregnancy I suppose one can be “sort of “ poetic,
kind-of…

I just don’t really think that I’m a poet.
I'm more a storyteller, which if you think about it
can also be a polite way of saying
“someone who is always talking”… which I am.
When I was three, my grandfather,
with swarms of grandchildren on his knees
could never get my name straight-
kept calling me Trixie or Trina…
but he knew who I was,
so he just called me “ Chatterbox”…
which was cute and endearing when I was 2 ½ feet tall
and had eyes like an animee character
but is generally considered a character flaw in adulthood.

If you’re always talking, you should at least have something interesting to say,
so since I spend so much time with my mouth open
I have tried to structure, and thereby validate
at least some of the sound issuing forth:
acting, singing, reciting “poetry”…
My mother used to tell my father “At least it’s a happy noise, dear” …
my husband perhaps tells himself “At least it’s poetic noise…”?

In elementary school reading and writing came easily to me
but I received, with hobgoblin-consistency
an “Unsatisfactory” in the box,  
“Refrains from Unnecessary Talking”…
which probably went on my permanent record,
and clearly follows me to this day
because honestly,  I still can’t tell what is unnecessary talking
so I can refrain from it…

Poetry, I’m told, is a sketch- not a painting-
an invitation, not the party: a taste, not the meal. 
A poem is an impression, a fleeting glimpse
through the twitching curtain into of the mind of the writer…
but me- I open the door, grab you by the arm and drag you inside,
offer you a drink, show you the new carpeting, ,
apologize for that spot on the ceiling where the roof leaked
and I haven’t gotten around to painting it yet…
…so much unnecessary talking.

And I don’t write with metaphors
of star-laden fingers drawing galaxies on my lover’s cheek-
not because I don’t love the imagery
but because I need to be sure that you know exactly what I mean.
Beautiful poems are like moving clouds or colored leaves
that swirl and float, scatter and reform,
suggesting different things to different people….
I rake my leaves into neat paths
and then bundle them into paper bags to set at the curb,
and say what you will about trite clichés- 
you know what I’m trying to say…
…even if you knew it before I said it.

I learned phrasing when I studied voice-
I would never take a breath in the mid-
dle of a word,
so I can make a story look like a poem on a page,
come in waves like a poem when I speak…
but I’m only telling you a story,
and when my story rhymes- I’m really only singing you a song, whatever I call it.

Although I often dream in poetry and write of dreams,
I just don’t really think that I’m a poet.
If I had been born 500 years ago,
perhaps I would have been a traveling bard:
a story-teller, historian, raconteur, commentator,
chronicler of the times,
wandering from town to town, welcomed for my news of the outside world
and amusing stories ….
Oh hell, who am I kidding?
I probably would have been burned as a witch,
but you see where I’m going.
Once there were no strict definitions,
no erudite graduate programs
dedicated to building walls between poems and mere stories.

So call all this noise of mine one long, grand epic poem…
call me Story-teller, Word-painter, Keeper of the family history, the Chatterbox,
She Who Stands with Mouth Open…   
I don’t really think that I’m a poet…
just a woman with a drawer full of sharp pencils.

     They are welcome words, but quite unnecessary. That message from Daddy has always come through loud and clear.