Somebody very kindly posted my (Leo) horoscope yesterday or the day before and I’ve been scanning all the comments because I’m wondering if it warned that I would break a tooth and then a computer in one weekend.  I still can’t find the comment with the horoscope, but did get a new laptop today. Mine has been on it’s way out for a long time. It didn’t close and I had to tape it shut when I traveled with it. I guess you’re not supposed to keep dropping the laptops on the ground.  And it wasn’t really my tooth that broke, on Friday, just a veneer. On one of my front teeth. Oh, you thought those were my real teeth?  No, no, my real teeth have been filed down to scary little nubbins in order to make way for the veneers. You see, I had a less than perfect smile.  I had a big gap between my front teeth that somehow looked cool until I was 35, and then, overnight, made me look like a witch.  I’m not sure how that happened but the exact same thing happened to a friend of mine when she turned 35.

But yesterday nothing broke.  Denis and I went to see our daughter play her last high school hockey game.  Holly came along. She is sometimes timid in unfamiliar places so I’m trying to expose her to stuff.  The last time I took her to a hockey game she shivered under my coat, so this time I found a little hoodie for her.

Yes, it’s a hockey sweatshirt! I found it on a stuffed bear.

Lord almighty, ain’t she a cute ‘un, though? (Still missing part of tooth).

She rode on Denis’s lap on the way to the game.

And she rooted for Dev’s team.

Sorry, the hockey photos all came out a little blurry, but that’s our Dev with her stick on the ice (I think).

GO BIG RED!

Yesterday I returned from the city just in time to feed the horses.  As soon as I parked the car, I opened the door to the house and the dogs came tumbling out and we all started jogging up to the barn.

The horses get very excited at feeding time.  If they are in the lower field and see the dogs and me approach they come galloping up the hill and meet us at the fence:

Yesterday, however, as I approached their fence, they did their usual canter up the hill, but when they reached the top, still about 20 feet away from the barn, they all came to a slamming halt.  Then, their necks raised like giraffes, their ears pricked forward and their eyes wide with alarm, they started blowing and snorting with fright.  They were staring at a spot just above my head – at the field behind me it seemed, and suddenly they all wheeled around at once and galloped back down the hill.  I didn’t even look behind me.  I just ran into the barn, the dogs tearing in after me.  After the discussion here yesterday I was sure there was a pack of coyotes in that field, or worse – a bear.

I peered out from the barn door and looked at the field opposite and saw nothing.  The dogs were sniffing around the floor of the barn for mice.  I called Daphne outside, made her look at the field, but she was uninterested, so I knew there wasn’t a giant predator.  I filled the horses’ buckets with grain and went downstairs, to the lower level of the barn where the horses’ stalls are, and filled their buckets.  Usually this will create a stampede into the barn, but when I opened the barn door, the horses, who had tentatively wandered back up the hill, again, gaped above me in horror, and then galloped down the hill.  At this point I was thinking ghost.  There was clearly something unGodly hovering above my head that had spooked the horses.  I looked up, but all I could see was the fuzzy fringe of the fur hat that I had worn up to the barn (it’s fake fur, relax).  The hat that I sometimes wear in the city and to hockey games but never in the country.  The hat that, I now realized completely altered my silhouette for the horses and what they saw, standing in the door of the barn, was a two legged beast with a bulbous fur head.  Some kind of horse-eating manimal.

This is the hat. The photo was taken at the winter classic hockey game in Boston and I’m eating pizza, not horse, but how could my dear beasts know this?  I was unrecognizable to them in the hat.  Either that, or they were just refusing to be seen near me when I wear it, like the rest of my family.

Anyway, I took the hat off and called them. They stared at me from afar, trembling in fright.  I tried to approach, but again they wheeled away and trotted off.  I left the barn doors open, thinking they’d come in on their own once I left.  Hours later, I returned to the barn, hatless, and only then, with some very gentle coaxing, was I able to get them to come into the warm barn, out of the cold, for their supper.

The horses have confirmed what my family has been telling me since I bought that hat.  It’s scary.

But it’s so warm.

We had a full “wolf moon” the other night. I was heading out, and though I was slightly late, I had to stop to snap a few photos before I got into my car.  According to the Farmer’s Almanac, Native Americans named the January moon, the “wolf moon,” because the wolves howled so loudly on the nights when it was full.

Here in Connecticut, the coyotes enjoy a night of song and merrymaking whenever there’s a full moon.  I think it’s because the night’s brightness makes the hunting easier and when they mate,  it’s as if the lights are on, which makes it sexier. There was some very loud hunting and carrying on the other night.  It gave me goosebumps. It made my dogs bark until they were hoarse, and I made the mistake of letting them out too close to my bedtime, and had to wait up for them to come in.  I stood in the freezing doorway yodeling out into the night for them to come. Calling and cursing like a witch. The moon was so bright  that the trees cast shadows across our white fields.

Yesterday I came into the city and stayed over night, for the first time in months.  We went to a party  and then out with some friends.  It was exciting to be in the city.  I always feel a little dazzled by all the beautiful people when I come to the city after having been in the country so long.  All the beautiful, stylish people, all the delicious smells coming from restaurants. The cool hair. The fashionable babies and dogs.  Today, having breakfast with a friend, and then back to coyote country.

Guess who stopped by again? This guy (warning, it’s Bonehead).  Steve knew that if he buried it, the dogs would dig it up again so I guess he hung it high in a tree, deep in the woods.  Today, it was back on our front lawn, being tossed back and forth between the two dogs.  How did it come out of the woods? My guess is that it used its fangs and sort of dragged itself along, grinning and leering, teeth clacking, all the way down our driveway to where the dogs awaited

So, the dogs have had another bath and Steve has tried once again to get rid of the THING THAT WOULDN”T LEAVE.  But it you click on the link you will see that it’s mostly bone.  Steve pasted a bear skull next to it and we’re pretty certain that’s what it is now.

Did I mention that we’re leaving for a trip to a beautiful place this weekend?  It’s a city.  A place without skulls that get hung in trees (I thought Steve had buried it – I didn’t know he got all Blair Witch Project on us) and then mysteriously show up at our doorstep.  Honestly, if I woke up tomorrow morning and the thing was grinning at me from the other side of the bed, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Why do we live in the country again?

Oh yeah, now I remember:

Photo by Andrew Sullivan for the NY Times

Today I received an email from the original man of the blog himself, our very own Alan, who very gently and quietly reminded me that his friend, author David K. Leff, would be reading and signing books at my favorite bookstore this afternoon.  So off I went at 2:00 to hear David Leff talk about his book, Deep Travel: In Thoreau’s Wake on the Concord and Merrimack.  His talk and his book are about what he calls, “a methodology for looking.”  They’re about looking mindfully at the everyday places and things and thereby gaining an understanding of their history and man’s part in it.

I lifted part of a review of the book from Amazon: “Leff follows Thoreau’s paddle-strokes not only by traveling the same rivers, but by creating a ‘fusion of inward and outward experience,’ incorporating essay-like musing about time and place—and the power of both stories and history to evoke them. Deep Travel is a primer on the art of ‘sight-seeking’ and ‘forensic observation,’ and Leff offers penetrating readings of the river, the vernacular landscape, and Thoreau.”—Ian Marshall, author, Peak Experiences: Walking Meditations on Literature, Nature, and Need and Walden by Haiku

David’s talk was very interesting and now I’m dying to get started on the book.  Outside the Hickory Stick we all posed for photos for the blogs.  David Leff has one too.  It’s here.

Now, I hesitate to show these pictures, but I will, as it will serve as a lesson to all you ladies.  This afternoon, as I headed out after hours squinting at my computer, I looked in the mirror and considered applying makeup.  Just a little mascara.  Then I actually thought: why bother, I’ll just have to take it off later.  And I also had the completely delusional thought: at a certain age, women look quite lovely without any makeup at all.

Somebody actually said that to me recently.  That women look “softer” without makeup at a certain age. Well, how’s this for “soft”?

That’s me with Alan, above. Yes, my face is so soft that my eyes have completely disappeared.

Here I am with David Leff:

Yes, I’m displaying my man hands.  No, I don’t usually wear my wedding ring.  Yes, I’m married.  Any other questions?

David Leff also writes poetry and so I will close with a poem that I lifted from his website:

Halftones

by David K Leff

Bathed in drizzle at dawn, I walk down to the river without
coffee or shower, the haze of slumber not yet fully lifted.
I’m quieted by a world hushed in a glaze of moisture. Light
slowly leaks into a dingy sky, creeps silently without wind
as fugitive wisps of ragged clouds drag mist across hills of
dew-lit grass. All is a muted charcoal smudge,
a sketchbook landscape.  Deep within the fog, on a leaden
millpond framed by a fretwork of gray tree-branch
shadows, geese softly echo each other, hoarsely calling
to ignite a pallid morning growing as vivid as the video
dreams that stirred me from sleep.

Photo by Moses Pendleton

HER KIND, by Anne Sexton

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.

It was very spooky at the Daly Farm this week.  All the Little Britches ponies and riders were dressed up for Halloween.

That’s Connor on the left, dressed up as a firefighter. Connor is riding Dually, who is very pleased with his  wizard costume.

It’s been an exciting couple of weeks for Connor, his sister, Em, and their parents.  They’ve just adopted a puppy named Kailey.   Here’s Em and Connor and Kailey on the right.  I wonder if they know that there is a scary witch’s shadow to the left of EM?

I’m sorry about the quality of these photos, they were taken with my iphone, and the light wasn’t great at that time of day.  Em and Connor and their family chose Kailey from a litter of puppies at a local animal shelter.  Em and Connor both love animals, in fact, I am usually with Connor during his riding lessons and he shows a tremendous amount of concern and empathy for his mount, Dually.  I know Kailey is very lucky to have found a home with them.

The kids all mounted up and then we followed a spooky path through the woods.  Ben, dressed as a ninja, led the way, riding Summer, who was dressed as a tiger.

And here’s a Halloween poem for the Little Britches gang.  (That’s superstar rider Audrey with the crazy clown hair next to Connor, below)

It was a spooky, rainy weekend here in New England.  I took this photo of my house the other night.  See all the rain spots on the lens?  Or are they actually ghostly orbs?

Devin is working on her college applications and last night she made the mistake of telling me the topic of one of her essays.  It was something like: If you had to come up with a title that would describe your life up until now, what would it be?

Devin joked that she was considering calling her life Of Mice and Bats.

This got me started.  I wanted to help.  ”How about The Beautiful and Damned?”  I offered.

“No,”

“A Little Princess!”

“Mom!”

“The Scarlet Letter!”

“Okay, stop, I really don’t need your help.”

“The Bad Seed!”

“I’m going upstairs now.”

“Psycho! The Creature From the Black Lagooon! Apocolypse Now”

Silence.

“The Thing!”

What will she do without me next year?

I mentioned in a recent comment that Batman dropped by last week.  I wasn’t here, but when I arrived home, the guys working on my bathroom told me he had been there all afternoon and had rigged up some contraptions that would rid the house of bats for good.  I hadn’t noticed any contraptions, so I went back outside and saw what he had done.

Oh Batman!  Dear, sweet, misguided Batman!

First, I must thank my friends at AuthorBytes, Steve Bennett, and especially  the very lovely and funny Nancy MacDonald for their enduring patience and forbearance with me over the many months that I have been churning out this blog. I’m a slow learner.  And all the things I don’t love about the new format are things I chose, so I don’t want anybody to think that I’m blaming them.  I’m not.

But I hate the way the blog looks now.  I hate the color.  Who chose it?  Me. I spoke with Nancy, several weeks ago, and she showed me various colors for the header and for some reason I chose nun-grey.  At the time, I thought it was a lovely dove-grey.  But it’s actually the color worn by nuns, accented by the colors of death.  For some reason I thought this palate would make my blog look all sophisticated and glamorous.  Instead, it looks like a dead nun blog.  And those are so overdone.

And I need a new photo.  Okay, I’ll be honest.  That’s not a recent photo in the header.  That was an author photo taken several months before my first book, An Innocent, A Broad was published, so the photo is from 2003.   I keep using that author photo for all sorts of stuff because, well, I look a little older now. How much older?  You be the judge – this is what I really look like now:

Of course, I’m not wearing any makeup, and I’m due to have my hair colored.

So, I’ll have to put on a bra and have a new photo taken.

And finally, the blog needs a name.  It deserves a name. Most of you know that it used to have a name.  My blog was called Wicked Good Life. But, what many of you don’t know is that once, over a year ago, I read a mean comment about me on the internet.  It said that my blog was  ”braggy” and as evidence, the mean, ugly, (gulp) spiteful, hateful person (sob) cited my “braggy” title (honk), Wicked Good Life.  That hurt my feelings, internet (hiccup).

So I’m open to suggestions.   Thanks to all of you who have commented so far on the new format.  I really appreciate the feedback!  Also, I will be adding exciting new features over the next few days, so there won’t be so much blank white space.

Awwwwwwww!

We’re having our bathroom done. First, the shower needed to be fixed, and then we determined that the shower needed to be replaced and now the entire bathroom is being gutted and rebuilt. It’s the bathroom next to our bedroom. I really hate the term “master” bath, I always have, since I was a child, but it’s the bathroom attached to our bedroom.

I’m sharing this because they just started the demolition of the former bathroom yesterday. I left in the morning, to work elsewhere, and when I arrived home, the dogs met me at the door, just freaking out. They were explaining to me, with their contortions and whining and carrying on, that they had allowed strange men into the house having no idea that their intention was to attack my bathroom with jackhammers. Daphne and Lulu really seemed to feel reponsible for the whole thing. The noise was incredible. There were two jackhammers going in my bathroom.

As the workers finished for the day, I looked at the gaping holes where our shower and tub used to be and asked if any of the holes led outside. “We’ve had problems with bats,” I explained.

The nice jackhammer guy (let’s call him Jack) said, “No, don’t worry, those holes just lead into your attic.”

“Oh my God,” I screamed, ducking and running from the bathroom, “our attic is FILLED with bats.”

“Um…You live in a house with an attic filled with bats?”

“Yes,” I said. Then, seeing his perplexed look, I quickly explained that we didn’t stock the attic with bats. If it was our choice they’d live elsewhere.

Jack asked why we didn’t have the bats removed and I told him about the bat/wildlife removal expert (we call him Batman) we called in last spring to help us with the bat problem. First, Batman wanted to get rid of the bats in the early spring, by sealing their tiny entrances and egresses, before they had their babies. The bats would be having babies in a few weeks, Batman explained, and if he sealed them from the house after the babies were born, the mothers wouldn’t be able to return to them and the babies would die. He started to explain what a stinky situation that would be, but he had already lost me with the words,”mothers” and “dead babies.”

“Are the mothers pregnant now?” I asked Batman.

“Yes, he said, “so you really need to get them out before they have the babies.”

“But where will they go? What if they can’t find another unoccupied attic in time?” I said. Somehow, even pig-faced, flying rodents become somewhat precious to me when I am forced to consider their babies. My attic was, in fact, a bat nursery, and I had to think of the mothers, all plump and expectant, all warm and safe, hanging by their toes from the ceiling.

I determined that that the bats must be allowed to remain in the attic until after the babies were born and able to fly, and then Batman could seal off the house.

Well, the spring came and went and Batman became very busy, but we decided there was no rush. The bats were not coming into the part of the house where we live. They live in a crawl-space part of the attic where nobody goes. So, we passed the summer watching the bats soaring and dipping over the fields each evening, and I felt a sense of proud ownership toward them, I have to admit. These bats had been born and bred in my own house and they were a fine-looking bunch. These Leary bats are special, I told myself, then I screamed and shuddered and ran into the barn when one swooped a little too close to my head.

Several weeks ago, we got another call from Batman. If we wanted the bats out by winter, now was the time. They would be hibernating soon.  I had thought bats were migratory for some reason and when I heard that they hibernate, visions of sleeping bear cubs came to my mind. Visions of warm, cuddly, sleeping mammals.

“Where will they go?”

“Someplace else,” Batman cried. The man’s job is to get rid of bats and he was losing his patience with me. I was having a hard time letting go. They weren’t just any bats, now. They were our bats.

So I think you know how the story ends. I imagined my bat families flying from house to house, knocking on eaves and loose clapboards, only to be driven off by the territorial winged residents already there (and bats hate those bat houses, we have them all over our property – it’s the one place where bats won’t roost). I imagined them huddled in a tree, the mother’s frozen wing wrapped around her young, the father wringing his disgusting claws in despair, and the little ones asking, “Why can’t we go back in the warm house?”

“Because the selfish witch lady wants the whole place to herself, dear one.”

I explained all this to Jack and I saw him catch the eye of another guy in his crew a couple of times. He wasn’t exactly backing away, as I told him the story of the bats in the attic. He was leaning away. Just leaning.
There was no way for him to cover up all the holes to the attic, last night, so he shut the bathroom door, and sealed the bottom with duct tape, just to keep anybody from crawling over and offering their rabid thanks.
Today, when Jack returns and unseals the bathroom, I’ll take a picture of the mess for you all.