Ramblings. As in: Have Words -Will Ramble. As in: Ramble: to write or talk aimlessly or without sequence of ideas, to proceed with turns and twists; meander As In: observances of an everyday life in passing through the spectrum of extraordinary.
Bloglight Breaks
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Look what light from that window does break - okay, I might have named the dog SHAKESPEARE but Mr. Wonderful named him Titan and Titan he is - which I must say fits him much, much better.
It feels like fall today in Nashville - the windows are open, the air is off and I'm in heaven - okay, almost. My great apologies to those of you who read this blog with a faithfulness - I've been on the road and missing in action - but I've been THINKING about blogging everywhere I go. Much like THINKING about writing a lot while you are not writing.
And here is A PROMISE to blogger readers and fiction fans - I will PURCHASE a NEW digital camera AND get my GIFTED SON to teach me how to use it so that I can send you pictures of my travels and travails. Okay, maybe just the travels.
Just returned from SEBA, the Southeastern Book Sellers Association convention a few days ago and then turned around and headed down to Florida where the Hicks clan celebrated LISA BEING OUT OF NEW ORLEANS WITH DOGS IN TWO. She had finally caught a ride out with a journalist (I think) and made it as far as Pensacola to be met by family there. All is well and she is full of stories and HAS A DIGITAL CAMERA WITH HER PICTURES ON THERE to prove it.
I would love to have shown you something a little less exciting than surviving a Category four/five hurricane - but important none the less. I would have shown you pictures of the concierge holding court at the bed and breakfast where we stayed. That would have been worth something. Thanks Charles for your magnificent spirit and wonderful help! And forgive me, forgive me, the name escapes me - the night deskclerk that let a few starving late night authors sneak into the 'you know' and get some morning muffins for a late night snack - but DON'T TELL NOBODY!
I would have taken a picture of us with our feet propped up at midnight in the lobby eating chocolate muffins and drinking milk like schoolkids on a field trip. Because that's what being a writer on the road kind of feels like. A great big field trip where everyone has to line up, and wash their faces and hold hands and stay in line from one activity to the next and play NICE. And I love field trips. Don't you?
posted by River Jordan at 5:42 PM
0 comments
 
SEARCHING FOR THE FACE IN THE LAND OF DOGDUM
Monday, September 12, 2005
So in spite of Katrina, Lisa wouldn't leave N.O. and get on the bus without those dogs. And that's the way that I think I referred to them - those dogs. Which is slightly misleading. Those dogs sounds like it comes from someone who is strictly a cat person. And I'm not strictly cat. I'm all about cat and dog and I like having both of them around.
I've owned dogs that I wouldn't have left behind. (Or would have been broken hearted having to do so.) But then, owning them sounds perverse because they became an integrated part of the family and they weren't owned by us anymore than we owned each other. We belonged to them and they belonged to us. But sometimes dogs grow old and die. And sometimes bad things happen and then you don't have them with you and you mourn them and that's what happened to us. We have been missing and mourning for a very long time.
MY mother's little dog died after 14 years and she missed and mourned for a length of time and then everyone decided (including MOM) that it was time for a new dog so we began the puppy search. Now granted Mom has always (for the most part anyway) had small dogs - sister and I decided that Mom needed a different kind of dog. Something that would PROTECT her. Or maybe protect and guide her. Something big so that when people saw it sitting in the car they wouldn't even think about messing with her. Or if some strange out of their mind person was shaking the doorknobs at 3AM that there should be a large bark on the other side of the door as a warning before Mom shot them and asked questions later. Yep, I know all about people that support gun control but Mom has always been very controlled with her gun so it is not a problem. (I come from a background of women who carry guns and know how to use them but that is another blog, another day.)
I am a German Shepard person and have had shepherds all my life. Even as a young girl in elementary school. Husband is a German Shepard person and grew up riding on a canine maximus by the name of HOSS. My sister, who has had an odd assortment of dogs and pound puppies of all sizes and variations, now owns an incredible animal (okay- they belong to one another) and I can't even call him a dog because I'm not sure he is one. He is a German Shepard variety of mythical proportion. Now, she is a Shepard person to the point she will probably never have a different breed. This led us to the point of trying to tell MOM that a German Shepard would be a great option to fill the Gretchen size gap left behind from her dashund baby - but she didn't think so. She was thinking more of another dashund or maybe even a cocker spaniel. So, with all of this in mind, I convinced Mom that the perfect dog for her was a Great White Pyrenees.
Now, wait just a minute as you shake your head in disbelief! You should know the back story is that one of the dogs that we all mourn is one that belonged to my son and was named Beethoven. He was a big, yellow dog that had been part German Shepard and part big-determined-dog-from-across-the-creek and he turned out to be a big, huge, yellow baby that my mother actually ROCKED IN A ROCKING CHAIR and that we collectively ALL MEMBERS OF THE FAMILY INCLUDED - adored. And we each have THE BEETHOVEN STORIES to prove it. So naturally when I was searching on the internet for MOM a dog and reading the characteristics of different breeds - the FACE popped up and although it was WHITE and not YELLOW, it was Beethoven's FACE and I said, "This is the dog for you MOM." And then I went on a search in Nashville and found GWP puppies for sale and trucked right out to Smyrna an hour away to a goat farm that used GWP dogs to herd the goats to look the puppies over. They had 3 to choose from so I picked out the one that had THE FACE closest to Beethoven's which also happed to be HUGE and the largest of the litter. Then, after 3 days of babysitting I packed up the puppy in the car and headed to Florida crying on and off most of the way because I had fallen in love with THE FACE (I'm so not good surrgate mother material so never, never, ask me to carry a child for you and give it back because I will tell you I understand and okay and then I will disappear to a foriegn country with the child which will hurt your feelings) Needless to say, MOM fell in love with THE FACE but after 3 days with the puppy reached theheartbreaking decision that attached to THE FACE was a HUGE puppy (with a stubborn streak I might add) that would grow into a DOG that weighs 100 pounds - or more -(I told you I picked the hugest in the pack!) and did I mention he has a stubborn streak?!
So, after crying on and off all the way to Montgomery because I left MOM puppyless and with dashed high hopes, (I'm searching for a dashund puppy that is just her size) Mr. Wonderful and I are now the proud belongers of a GREAT WHITE PYRENEES PUPPY.
For reasons previously blogged about I don't carry a gun, unlike other women in the family. But if you ever dilly with my doorknobs, a mighty beast will be waiting on the other side of the door to greet you.
 You should just see The FACE!
posted by River Jordan at 3:29 PM
0 comments
SEND IN THE SAINTS
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Hmmmm. It's something to be an armchair quarterback. To know the right answer from a safe place. And believe me, along with the people I speak to here and there and on the street, we all have the right answer.
The questions have circulated, roamed and littered our world for days.
"Why don't they send in cruise ships?"
"Why don't they send in more soldiers? Where are the soldiers?"
"Why don't they air drop food, water and medicine?"
"Why, why, why?"
But yesterday, finally, food and water began arriving. Yesterday, finally, people were being airlifted out. I continue scanning the cameras for a woman with a sick and feverish baby. I keep hoping that he made it out alive. And I'm hoping after a week of tossing and turning, of dreams interupted with dark thoughts and continual images that I might get a nights rest. I am half dreaming and thinking of Betsy but then I realize that Besty is safe. Her family is safe. All the tangible borders of her existance may have been erased but they are all alive.
But where is Lisa? Sister-in-law at large. We heard from her after the storm. We know she was alive days ago. We heard from a friend that made it out and to a phone that she refused to leave because they wouldn't let the labs get on the bus. I knew it. Just knew it would be that way. Lisa doesn't go anywhere without those dogs. So her mother is beside herself and glued to the screen. I tell her that there is water now. There is medicine. All is well. Lisa will be found.
I'm taking a deep breath. I'm saying my prayers. And wishing that when there was no food, no hope, no news - that the saints could have gone walking through those doors. Wishing I could have, for just a moment, walked in that convention center carrying peace like a provision. I think of Mother Teresa, of all I've read about her. And this is what I know. She would not have been afraid of anyone or anything. She would have kissed the babies, prayed for the sick, and held the dying. I look at the destitute and the lost and I think of her. Of what good medicne she would bring just by being there and being herself.
And the collective sigh of relief from visuals of people being rescued are so strong they're audable through these walls.
And now, step by step, little by little, I watch the relocation and rebuilding process begin in earnest.
But deep in my soul, this trains got some disappearing railroad blues.
posted by River Jordan at 4:04 PM
0 comments
Previous Posts
Archives
River Jordan Photo: Anne Marie Truman
|
