Thirteen Things about MissMeliss: The Joy of Dogs Tiny feet that smell like corn chips. Head-butts that invite attention. Soft fur, warm from their basking in the sun. Pressure of a gentle head against my thigh or foot. Happy tails, wagging with joy. Ears that are always alert, even in sleep. Joyous greetings, even if I’ve only been gone five minutes. Ferocious protection of the house, especially from garbage men and pool guys. Instant walking companions. So much more efficient than the garbage disposal. The way they seem boneless when you move their sleeping forms. Soft sighs when you pet them. Puppy kisses that make everything better. Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

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– Working on the short stories in fits and snatches. Am too easily distracted. Need some kind of competition.

– Posted chapter two of Snapefic “Plans” and 2nd fanfic100 TNG fanfic to my blog at MoonChilde.com. Also posted them to fanfiction.net. Username is Ms.Snarky.

– Am re-reading Liner Notes which has inspired me to write more. (Great book, highly recommended.)

– Have urge to bake chocolate chip cookies.

– Am woefully behind in correspondence. Writing letters TODAY. Really. No, REALLY.

(Mooched from MoonChylde at LJ)

The folks at Wired write:

We’ll be brief: Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words (“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”) and is said to have called it his best work. So we asked sci-fi, fantasy, and horror writers from the realms of books, TV, movies, and games to take a shot themselves.

To read the offerings they received, go here. (Opens in new window) Then come back and get creative, if you dare, by posting your own Six Word Story in comments.

Mine (as posted in my friend MoonChylde’s livejournal):
Drought expanded. Seattle survivors remembered rain.

It is a grey, damp, autumn day, of the sort which require the warm glow of lamplight to soften the edges of life.

It is the kind of day best suited for tea, soup, and grilled cheese, for lit candles and the quiet murmur of NPR, for hiding in a garrett and scribbling.

And so that is the plan.

Except, I don’t have a garrett, but a 2nd-floor bedroom-turned-officestudio.
But it’s in the treetops, so it counts, right?

Breathe. Sigh. Roll over.
Realize that the dogs are both sitting on that portion of the pillow.
Glance at clock: 6:53
Ask softly, “Do you need to go out?”
Grunt as the bed bounces beneath puppy feet, and the weight of Fuzzy leaving bed. “I’ll take them.”
Empty bed; full bladder.
Venture forth; return more relaxed.
A cold nose in the palm.
A quick swipe of wet tongue, and then a doggy sigh.
Four feet landing in the lap.
A head-butt.
A warmer nose, and some wriggling.
Three turns and back to sleep, chin propped on my knee.
Some stretching, a chaste kiss from the husband.
Full bed, full heart.
Racing mind.

We’re home. Rolled into the garage late last evening, did light grocery shopping, had dinner, went to bed. Kansas is beautiful in fall, btw, and I’d have liked to have more time to spend poking around Kansas City (both sides) and Wichita. Oklahoma is just as ugly as ever, and apparently no one ever has to pee there, because of the seven rest stops we passed only ONE had a bathroom.

We picked up the dogs about ninety minutes ago. Miss Cleo behaved well, and Zorro was in a tizzy, but the tech said, “Don’t leave, the vet needs to talk to you.” I had a moment of panic, wondering if Miss Cleo had bitten someone’s hand off (literally), and then they said, “About Zorro…” and my brain went to mush.

For those of you who aren’t well versed in MissMeliss-iana, Zorro Dog is an approximately 10-year-old chihuahua mix we adopted as a stray in 1998. He went through several years of ideopathic epilepsy, with cluster seizures (grand mal seizures that would come and go many many times over a 24-hour period) at the worst of it. Many dogs are put down for this. Others are doomed to a life of phenobarbitol dependence. We opted for a combination of Western and Eastern practices, and used pheno as well as accupuncture and a B.A.R.F (biologically appropriate raw foods) diet, and he’s been seizure-free for more than four years now.

In spite of that, he’s the most laid back dog ever – he went through everything the vet through at him, and just whined a little – but in the process we’ve bonded deeply, and he’s my special boy dog.

“He has a stage three heart murmur,” the vet said. “On a scale of six.” She went on to explain that at stage three it may be treatable with heart meds but he has to have a cardiac/senior dog workup, and that it could be serious, as a dog who develops a murmur can have actual heart disease. I’ve asked some vet-friends and trainer-friends for more info, so that I’ll be more prepared when we go to that appointment, but in the meantime, I’m pretty worried.

Still, it’s good to be home, with the dogs curled next to me, and a shower with real water pressure and water that isn’t rusty, or so hard that my hands turn white from the minerals.

And I have tons of IDEAS to write about.

I’m blogging this morning from the Hilton at the Wichita, KS airport – there was a coupon for a deeply reduced rate in one of those travel guides you pick up at rest stations, and we decided (well, I declared) I couldn’t face a Super8 or it’s ilk. Besides, they’re not that much cheaper.

Yesterday, we were up at dawn, having kicked our niece E out of her room. (She was fine with it, having a slumber party in the living room with our other two nieces K and C). At eleven, E looks fifteen, and it’s only her very very protective parents who are keeping her from growing up too fast. Blushingly, she admitted yesterday that the biggest reason she’s excited about her grandparents moving to Brandon (the next town over) is that a boy she’s liked since second grade just moved there. Ah, the optimism of eleven-year-olds.

In an earlier conversation, however, she confessed that her sheltered upbringing has isolated her a bit from her peers. “They wear makeup to school (AT ELEVEN???) and know all this music and stuff that I don’t.” Between church, dance, piano, violin, and soccer, she doesn’t have TIME, but she recognizes, in some way, that her load of extra-curriculars is also protecting her from becoming jaded. Not that she expressed it that way. In any case, she’s becoming an original and unique person, and it’s interesting to see her acting with poise and presence and so “adult” in one moment, and then (after we presented her with earrings), squealing, “Oh! Dolphins! I Love Dolphins!” the next.

* * * * *

While I tease Fuzzy about his rural farmboy roots, the truth is that I have family in South Dakota as well. Granted, they moved there about the same time we got married, and I tend to forget they live there, as they were in California when we first met, just as I was, but they do live in the same town, and, indeed, attend the same Baptist church, as Fuzzy’s brother, so when we knew we’d be in the area, it would have been rude not to call them.

Aunt P and Aunt G are my grandfather’s surviving sisters. Aunt P turns 90 next year – she doesn’t look more than 75. Spry, funny, and a total charmer, she keeps a running tally of her great-grandchildren in her head. Aunt G is more aloof, with a mouth on her that rivals a sailors, but she has a wicked sense of humor and tells amazing stories. B is actually my mother’s cousin, and is Aunt P’s daughter. She’s warm and funny, her new husband, also B, is a doll who dotes on the old ladies, and is clearly besotted with her. (Hey, in the great plains you’re allowed to use forms of “besot.”) J, my cousin, B’s son, swooped through to kiss me on the head and shake Fuzzy’s hand, but couldn’t stay, as we all shared breakfast at Kaladi, a “coffee legend and bistro” that opened in Sioux Falls a few years back. It’s a great coffee house. We arrived there at 8:30, and chatted til 11, before we all embarked on our separate journeys – the old ladies, back home for a hen party-poker game, the B’s for Vermillion and college football, and Fuzzy and I, well, we headed South on I29 for the first half of our journey back home.

* * * * *

There are two ways of getting from SoDak to Kansas, one of which involves taking the 335 toll road (Kansas Turnpike) and then going on route 75 through Nebraska and Iowa. It shaves about 65 miles from the trip, and we did that on the way north, but we opted to take I29 all the way to it’s ending point in Kansas City, which meant we were actually in Missouri for much of our ride. We stopped in Elk Point, SD to take pictures of the ducks (the woman in the gas station said that they’ll be moved to a winter pond shortly, which is near the local high school, and where, when they’re hungry or cold, they often flock to the school steps and honk til the kids feed them. Or quack, rather.) in the city park, which is also part of the Lewis and Clark trail, one of their campsites, as well as being the site of the first election held west of the Mississippi.

From there, we drove a bit in Iowa, and Nebraska, before crossing into Missouri, and despite the weather (damp, and hovering around 39/40 with alternating snow and rain), the drive was beautiful. Rolling hills, fall colors, and at the end of the highway, plus about an hour, Fuzzy’s Aunt E, Uncle V, and cousin D (his wife is ALSO Melissa) and their two-year-old boy E., the latter three of whom live near Olathe, met us for dinner and conversation, which energized us, and made the trip seem less dull.

We surfed oldies stations, mostly out of St. Joseph and Topeka, til we got to Wichita, and then crashed here for the night.

Today, we face the barren landscape of Oklahoma, which is quite possibly the most depressing state ever. I mean, you cross the state line and you can FEEL the failing economy. It’s that thick in the air. (Cousin D said the same thing.) It’s sad, just as what’s happening in the rest of the heartland is sad. This summer was the hottest EVER for much of the country, but Nebraska and the Dakotas are in their seventh year of drought conditions, to the point where the corn and soy crops are failing, and towns like Fuzzy’s hometown are dying (they’re dying for other reasons, too, like kids who go away to school, and don’t want to return to run the family farm). We were surprised to find that Super Unleaded was cheaper than the usual “cheap stuff” in all the Ethanol states, though. (Also, average price of gas on the prairie is $2.15/gallon for the cheapest – remind me not to complain about Grand Prairie, TX being $2.01 when Cedar Hill was $1.99)

If you think the droughts not important, go grab a copy of Kathleen Norris’s Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, and read it, and then read it again. You can’t have ethanol without corn and soy, and you can’t have corn and soy without water. (Actually, you should read it anyway, just because it’s an amazing book. It’s not about farming or water rights, but it does a lot to put you into the culture of the plains.)

* * * * *

I’m about to jump in the shower, and I’m letting Fuzzy sleep late. We’re off to find breakfast in about ninety minutes, and then we’ll finish the trek home, and tomorrow, get up way early to spring the dogs from the Kennel. I miss them. A lot.

Catch you all on the flip side.

Cross posted with my LiveJournal account.

Also, for those of you who’ve left notes, I don’t have the bandwidth to reply – every time I try I time out – so I’ll do so when I’m home on Monday.

TRAIN HELP:
I know someone among my flist is a model train afficionado, but I don’t remember who. So this is a general plea.

In the brooder house at my husband’s family farm, we found a metric assload of old model trains. The vast majority of it is standard HO stuff, but there are some larger engines (O or N scale I think?) and track, and I can’t really identify them. Some of the track is three-rail with the middle rail being ‘live,’ like the old Marklin and early Lionel models, and then some is larger than HO, and two rail, but tall.

I’m fairly certain none of it is valuable, especially after sitting in a mouse-infested chicken coop for 20 years, but I’m curious to know what I have, because the metal trains are worth restoring, even if just to play with. And I was wondering if the three-rail compatible engines would run on the Marklin track I already own.

Can anyone help?

Last night brought us the year’s first dusting of snow – barely more than frost, really, about a quarter inch frosting the rooftops, ground, and cars with sparkly whiteness. As much as I hate the cold, I have to admit that snow does make everything look prettier, and more serene.

* * * * *

It’s been a trying couple of days. Fuzzy’s father is intractable about so many things. We keep reminding him the house has to be empty by 11/3, but that the outbuildings have more time; he keeps diving into the garage, the barn, the chicken coop, the brooder’s house, to pull out things he wants the auctioneer to see.

Monday morning, Fuzzy took me on a walking tour of the property, and identified all these buildings, none of which house animals anymore, just mounds and mounds of the kind of crap a midwestern farmer who lived through the depression considers to be “useful someday.”

An example:

HENRY (6’9″, 76 years old, my father-in-law): There’s a refrigerator out in the old hog barn that works good, just needs a new switch, and those are in a box in the chicken coop.

BILL(6’5″, 44, paunchy, my brother-in-law): If it needs a switch than it doesn’t ‘work good,’ does it, Dad?

HENRY: Well, but someone might need it as an extra. We could take it with us and fix it and sell it in Sioux Falls.

BILL: Dad, we discussed this. We’re not bringing any appliances, you’re buying new things for the new house. You and Mom like new things and it’s time to have them. You’re going to be living in town, and you might get company.

HENRY: Your mother won’t want company.

BILL: Dad…we need to concentrate on the house. We need to have everything out of it by the end of the weekend.

HENRY: Well your mother is already sanding the bed set up in your sister’s room, she thinks it’s worth money.

It went on in the same vein, and Fuzzy’s having similar conversations, though he isn’t quite as forceful as Bill can be – symptom of being the youngest, and not living close by, and such.

* * * * *

We took a field trip to DeSmet, SD yesterday morning to tour the Laura Ingalls Wilder houses. The first is the old Surveyor’s House, mentioned in By the Shores of Silver Lake, which is always smaller than I expect, and yet, Laura considered it a mansion, and until she was married, it was the largest house she ever lived in. It’s a lean-to (like a mud-room), a main room, a bedroom, and a pantry, and then a sleeping loft upstairs. The tour guide takes you on a brief history of how old Laura was when she lived in each place, goes over the timeline, then explains several events from the books.

– She showed us the quality of the wheat that Ma milled in the coffee grinder during The Long Winter
– She explained the corner “whatnot shelf” and showed us the china sheperdess, and then explained that Ma always had a red and white tablecloth, and used a scrap of red fabric to color the kerosene in lamps – to brighten the home.
– She told us where things were in relation to other things, and reminded us that at one point 15 men slept on the floor of the house (for $0.25 each) in the region’s first (unofficial) bed and breakfast.

We had the opportunity to poke about, a bit. On the floor of the lean-to there’s a square marked in blue, to illustrate WHY Laura thought this house was big: a 10×8 square – the usual size of a claim shanty. And then, extended, a 14×8 square, the size of the claim shanty Pa actually built out on the prairie. 14×8, btw, is smaller than most modern master bedrooms – just the bedroom part – and in that space was a cookstove, Pa and Ma’s bed, table and chairs for six, and Ma’s rocker. There couldn’t have been much room to walk.

After the Surveyor’s House, we followed the guide to the Ingalls Home, where Pa and Ma lived out their lives. Laura never wrote about it, because she never lived in it, but it started as a two room house, and ended up as a two story, five-bedroom home. The kitchen’s been turned into a museum, and that’s where many of the family’s items are – brushes, name cards, autograph books, the little glass boxes mentioned in the books, etc.

This house feels warm and cozy, but it’s jarring to see how severe they all looked. And then, Ma and Laura were my height (five feet), so everything is built for people that small, in terms of counter height and shelves and such.

* * * * *

We had lunch at Taco Johns, where Fuzzy handed me the Huron Tourist Guide, which I found to be entertaining, because of items like “game cleaning room” listed in the amenities of local hotels. Also, all the motels take dogs, and offer kennels for bird dogs, and there are several locals who run dude ranches for pheasant hunters.

(I just looked outside. Apparently it’s still snowing)

Last night was the first night the house was COLD, mainly because every other night Henry’s been feeding the wood stove, which heats the house. We were begging him to burn stuff, but he smiled and said, “Why would I stay up all night burning trash when I can just turn the furnace on for you?” So he did, and we opened the register in our room, but there’s no register in the bathroom, and let me tell you, cast iron gets REALLY DAMNED COLD. So does porcelain, for that matter.

* * * * *
I want a bunny. On our walk the other day, a large brown and caramel and white Jack Rabbit came out to say hello, and let me get really close before it decided we might be a threat after all. It was so fluffy, and sweet, and no, I don’t want to take a wild one home, but I want a bunny. (Fuzzy reminds me the dogs would eat a bunny. Zorro wouldn’t – the bunny we saw was bigger than he is – but Miss Cleo probably would.)

On a side note: The cows across the way? One of them has been mooing incessantly for DAYS. And NIGHTS. Cows should so be seen and not heard.

* * * * *
It’s nearly eight, and I’m going to curl up for another hour before leaving this toasty warm room for the arctic conditions of the hall and living room, and a shower (in the basement, where it’s warm). I’m hoping to venture out and snap pix of the snow before the sun comes out and it melts, but don’t hate me if it doesn’t happen.

(I have pictures of other things, but I don’t have enough signal to post them).

I’d forgotten the way the wind never ceases on the prairie, but is a constant presence, sometimes droning, somethings blustering or wuthering, always trying to seek entry in the most secret crevices, the most precious nooks, always bending nature to it’s will – or if not all of nature, at least the tall grassy kind. And the tall trucky sort of non-nature, but…um….yeah.

Am writing this from the front bedroom of the farm in Wolsey, SD, population 418, and it’s been a brutal trip physically, as well as emotionally. How do you help the person you love most in the world come to terms with the knowledge that his hometown is dying, that his high-school isn’t even there anymore, and that the new building erected on the old site now holds the combined schools of two towns, and there still isn’t enough to have a football team every year?

How do you watch him realize that his family is aging, that his brother has gone three shades grayer and more weary, that his father and mother are, in fact mortal, and that yes, everything is smaller at home, not just physically, but because your horizons have been expanded and your perceptions changed?

How do you do that, and balance it with light humor, and still crack the productivity whip and make sure he’s not spending so much time drifting through memories that NOW becomes THEN?

I wish someone would tell me.

In the meantime, I’ll lie hear and listen to the comforting sound of my husband’s breathing, and the mournful keening of the wind.