Love the Old Man Author Friday Round-Up

My husband’s new book is coming out October 15th. This makes it sound like he has an old book but he doesn’t, he has just the one, a quite good one, but I am caught up in the lingo of book promotion, wanting to encourage people to catch this wave while it’s still fresh. So far, I’ve set up an author page for him on Facebook and created a rudimentary website for him on WordPress, a task that was considerably easier when I created my website eleven years ago. Now, all the shortcuts and block editing are tedious and counter-intuitive and somewhat embittering.

At today’s press conference at Street Angels, I became obsessed with my shoes and realized that, at my core, I am a shallow person. I hadn’t expected to be in the line of a camera but when the woman who organized the press conference called for board members to come up front, I dutifully went. Then, as is often the case, I looked at my feet whereupon I realized that I was wearing what I call my “goon ball shoes” which are big and clunky and grass stained and made for wearing to the dog park which was, of course, where we were going right after the press conference. It was like “oh, we found a farmer to invite to the press conference.”

My daughter and her baby went home last Sunday. I don’t miss them. This sounds terrible but I spent years living the schedules of babies and children and when it was finally over and I really let go of all that obligation and responsibility (which takes many, many years, I will tell you), I felt utterly and completely unfettered. So, even though I love my daughter and her sweet baby, I was ready to return to my beautiful bubble of irresponsibility and selfishness. Oh sure, I will emerge and will be glad to do so. I can love a baby with the best of them. But my own, aged life is an orchid right now. It needs what it needs.

The people across the street have been ‘fixing up their house’ for a year. There are plumbers and masons and carpenters and electricians, pavers and gardeners and people bringing new handmade doors. I like home improvement but it is wearing as shit – the noise and the people and, most of all, the lack of parking because there are trucks everywhere. But the other day, a contractor, seeing our frustration of having to leave and losing our parking spot in front of our house, brought over orange cones to save our spot. I loved him for this because it was outrageous and funny and righteous all at the same time. Those orange cones are heavy, by the way. I know this because I carted them across the street when we came back.

Swirl lost his mind last night. For the uninitiated, Swirl is an Alaskan Husky, a retired sled dog who lived outside with 200 other sled dogs for eight years but is terrified of rain, thunder, and lightening. We bought him a Thunder Shirt, a very tightly wrapped contraption that is supposed to calm a dog, but it has only a minor subduing effect on him. So, last night from 2:30 am to 3:30 am he paced and jumped and pawed until I sat with him in the bathroom and rubbed and patted his back – hard – which was the only thing that made him stand still but it was exhausting. At one point, he laid down on his side and I put both of my feet on him. I think the message was “everything is in control, Swirl, nothing bad is going to happen as long as I’m here.” He seemed to believe me, at least in that moment, and then the storm finally passed over us.