Last night, Denis had the great honor of hosting the annual Navy SEAL Foundation dinner.  The Navy SEAL Foundation provides assistance to families of Navy SEALS who have been injured or killed in the line of duty and last night there were 1600 people at the dinner, which raised a tidy sum for the foundation.

How much?

I’m afraid that’s classified.

As soon as we arrived at the location (sorry, I’m not at liberty to disclose the location except to say that it was CONUS) I withdrew my cellphone and steadied my aim. My mission was to take a photograph of the group, as it was the rarest assemblage of individuals that I have witnessed in this particular geographic region.  The ratio of men to women was about 20/1 last night, and the normal ratio, among the civilian population on this small, but heavily populated island is about three women to every one man.  I wanted to document this phenomenon and later have a debriefing session with my single, female compatriots about the annual event, with the intention of having them infiltrate the group next year. Unfortunately, my mission was aborted.  A tall naval officer/demigod politely requested that I not photograph any of the men in uniform, as it’s against government regulations. I was allowed to take the photo of the video screen above, but when I tried to tweet it, the tweet was disabled.  I was only able to tweet texts from the classified destination, not photos.

That’s when I realized that I was a sort of de-facto member of this group of United States Navy SEALS, for I was allowed to walk freely amongst them, to dine with them and to glean top-secret information from a few (okay, I’ll spill — not one of the highly trained K-9 troops can ride a skateboard, so yes, there are some gaps in their training).

Seriously, last night I was truly humbled by each and every person that I met, from the enlisted men, officers, wives and parents to the highly generous donors who started the foundation and support this very important cause.

Every year, a member or unit of the SEALS receives the “Fire in the Gut” award, and this year the award went to all the canine troops who are so bravely serving our country.  There was an amazing video of the dogs of war, at work and at play, and then Denis welcomed an officer and his dog to the stage where they received the award on behalf of all the K-9 troops. Denis got to hang with the dog backstage!

The woman who organized last night’s fundraiser is a civilian whom we have known for years. She plans many of the top charitable fundraisers in New York CONUS.  She told me that prior to the event, she had been standing in front of the building with the officer who accepted the “Fire in the Gut” award, and a homeless man approached them and started talking to the officer.  The homeless man wanted to know if he was a navy man. “Yes sir,” the officer replied.  The man started to rant about his own experiences in the military, which apparently were, at times difficult to understand, as he was quite intoxicated, but he seemed to have a beef with the navy. The officer listened intently, answered all his questions, addressed him repeatedly as “sir” and then he reached out and shook the man’s hand when they parted.  Later, at the dinner, one of the officers read The United States Navy Seals Ethos which was written by SEALS for SEALS. Here is an excerpt:

“I humbly serve as a guardian to my fellow Americans always ready to defend those who are unable to defend themselves…I serve with honor on and off the battlefield. The ability to control my emotions and my actions, regardless of circumstance, sets me apart from other men.  Uncompromising integrity is my standard. My character and honor are steadfast. My word is my bond.”

I’m not at liberty to share the entire content of the SEALS Ethos with you, except that I was shocked that the words, “I am unbelievably hot” were not there.

Yes, it’s heady stuff, having this amount of power and knowledge bestowed upon me in just a few hours, but I promise to uphold the standard set by the men I met last night.

I hope that you will click on the link above to learn more about the foundation and perhaps to give a donation.

Now if only I could get the phone numbers of the unmarried SEALS for my friends.

Painting by Sandy Oberg

Our own Sandy Oberg painted a portrait of Holly and sent it to me. She was very clever and contacted Bernie, our EMS chief and arranged the delivery of this beautiful oil painting to our firehouse because she didn’t know our address. Then he delivered it to me! Today!

Here it is in front of our model, herself:

Thank you so much, dear Sandy and also you too Bernie!  It was a week of birthday and anniversary celebrations and this was a wonderful surprise in a week of wonderful surprises.

Doe resting near lake

For, lo, the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone;
the flowers appear on the earth;
the time of the singing of birds is come,
and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land
Song of Solomon, King James Bible

I haven’t blogged in several days because, when I haven’t been working on my book, I’ve been outdoors and I can’t see the computer screen in the glare, not to mention how difficult it is to balance a laptop on the back of a horse or on a rowing shell. I have always claimed to be a winter person and I do love the snow and the long nights and beautiful light that we have here in New England during the cold months. But this was a long winter and even the heat isn’t bothering me the way it used to. I’m sure I’ll be griping about it by the end of the day, which promises to be another scorcher.

The other day, I was playing tennis with some friends and a snapping turtle was casually laying her eggs right next to the court. She took her time. It was a slow process, she seemed to have laid most of the eggs before we arrived, but she produced a couple more while we played. When she was finished laying the eggs, which were white and round and rubbery looking, she proceeded to cover then up. Very slowly. She was parked with her tail to the nest and she stared sternly at the woods ahead where a cool river flows. It was clear she would have liked to have been in those cool woods. But she had a job to do, so she cocked one leathery hind leg, ever so slowly, and then pushed back a small amount of dirt over the eggs with her flat, spiky-toed reptilian foot. Then she rested for about half an hour. Then she repeated the process with the other foot. Another half-hour rest.

My friends and I were stomping about the court, chasing the ball, hitting forehands and backhands and sometimes we had to run quite close to the fence against which our indolent old Mrs. Snapper was setting up her nursery, but she wasn’t bothered in the least, nor did our high energy level seem to make any impression upon her, or encourage her to hurry up. We wanted her to cover the eggs quickly, because we knew that birds or raccoons or foxes would get them, if they could find them. We were all moms playing that morning and all mothers worry about other mothers and their babies.

“Hurry, hurry, mama,” we quietly urged her, whenever we took a break. “The crows! The raccoons, hurry!” She just scowled and looked away.  Mothers hate it when other mothers try to tell them how to take care of their kids.

The courts where we play are at a school that that also has indoor courts where we play in the winter, and last month, after playing there, a friend pointed out a lovely fox – a red vixen – who was sunning herself next to a tree. My friend explained that the fox had a litter of babies, little fox kits, hidden in a burrow under the tree. Sometimes, she told me,  the fox allowed her kits to come out and play on the lawn in broad daylight. This amazed me, because the tree happens to be right next to a path where the kids walk from their classrooms to the gym. My friend, whose husband works at the school, explained that she read that foxes have learned that the safest place to have their babies is close to the humans, because we no longer prey upon them, but their other predators (coyotes, bears, bobcats) still fear us and won’t come close to an area like this, where dozens of people large and small, pass each day. This fox seemed to be very unafraid of the children, who had been warned to leave her and her litter alone and to only admire them from a safe distance. They’re crafty, indeed, those foxes, making bodyguards of us humans. This one was especially wise to have chosen a school where there is a rule that all dogs must be kept leashed. I wonder if the turtle was using the same philosophy when she chose to lay her eggs next to a tennis court where women lumber back and forth, shrieking and waving tennis rackets about. What predator would dare approach?

O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock,
in the secret places of the stairs,
let me see thy countenance,
let me hear thy voice;
for sweet is thy voice,
and thy countenance is comely.
Take us the foxes, the little foxes ….
for our vines have tender grapes.

Song of Solomon

 And here it is:

Painting by Carol Johnson

This such a great painting, it entirely captures Mark’s expression.  We were riding on a part of the road where there is a short drop to our right and the river rushes along quite fast there, so Mark believes it is wise to keep an eye on the river.  ”Safety first” is his motto.  Well, it’s one of his mottos.  Another is “every man for himself,” which is what I know he will be thinking should we ever come across a bear, just before he launches me into the bear’s giant outstretched claws and hightails it for the trailer.

Carol tells me it’s hanging at the local bank where she is exhibiting some of her work.  I’ll be there when they open in the morning to check it out and I’m hoping she’ll sell it to me.

Carol’s a very talented artist, if you want to check out her work, visit her website, which is here.

Thank you Carol, I will cherish this.

And now, I want to post a poem. You poetry haters can look away, I don’t want to hear any griping. I chose the poem because it’s called October
and Carol has called the painting October Ride.

It also really touched me, today, because it reminds me of somebody I just met:

October (section I)
by Louise Glück

Is it winter again, is it cold again,
didn’t Frank just slip on the ice,
didn’t he heal, weren’t the spring seeds planted

didn’t the night end,
didn’t the melting ice
flood the narrow gutters

wasn’t my body
rescued, wasn’t it safe

didn’t the scar form, invisible
above the injury

terror and cold,
didn’t they just end, wasn’t the back garden
harrowed and planted–

I remember how the earth felt, red and dense,
in stiff rows, weren’t the seeds planted,
didn’t vines climb the south wall

I can’t hear your voice
for the wind’s cries, whistling over the bare ground

I no longer care
what sound it makes

when was I silenced, when did it first seem
pointless to describe that sound

what it sounds like can’t change what it is–

didn’t the night end, wasn’t the earth
safe when it was planted

didn’t we plant the seeds,
weren’t we necessary to the earth,

the vines, were they harvested?

The Apple Store in Soho has been doing a very cool series of “Meet the Author” events and tomorrow’s event with Susan Orlean is also part of Book Expo America which is taking place in Manhattan this week. It’s free, but seating is limited, so get there early.

Cynthia Kaplan

This coming week I will be onstage with not one, not two, but three gorgeous, funny, brilliant ladies gals chicks oh, you know, broads!

Julie Klam

First, this Friday, May 20th at 9:30 PM, I will be at the West Bank Cafe in Manhattan’s theater district, co-hosting The New Jack Paar Show with my friend, the hilarious author/comedian/songstress Cynthia Kaplan. We have several exciting guests lined up including my dear fellow Hash Hag, Julie Klam! You may make reservations here.

Then, next Tuesday, I will be moderating a Q&A with one of my favorite authors, Susan Orlean. Where? At the Apple Store in Soho, of course. It’s the new 92nd Street Y. In my mind. What will we de discussing? Her new book, Rin, Tin, Tin, The Life and The Legend. And now, dear readers, brace yourselves, because I am about to issue a brag that is bound to echo and reverberate clear across the World Wide Web. Ready?

Susan’s publisher’s have sent me an ADVANCE READER’S EDITION OF RIN TIN TIN!

Susan Orlean

That’s right. I have a galley. It’s clutched to my bosom which makes it very hard to read. But I’m managing.

So, if you’d like to meet Susan and ask her questions about her writing and especially about Rin Tin Tin, we’ll be at the Apple Store in Soho, 103 Prince Street, at 5:00 p.m. on May 24th.

Pupils Equal & Reactive to Light

Well, to begin at the beginning, the dog was kicked in the head by one of the horses. It was Gomer, the Leonberger, not little Holly, fortunately, but he was kicked in the head! He’s fine now, but it has taken me this long to sufficiently recover from the trauma, and then the house flooded and our air was polluted with carbon monoxide…but, wait,  I’m getting ahead of myself.

Our troubles –  our rough patch, if you will – all began last Thursday  evening.  Denis had gone up to the barn to feed the horses their supper.  The dogs had followed him, but the big dogs, Gomer and Lulu, wear invisible fence collars that prevent them from entering the horse fields.  They are banned from the fields because they have a history of harassing the horses.  So they followed Denis to the electric fence line, and then they planted themselves at the very threshold between bodily comfort and an electric jolt to the neck, and put on a great display of ferocity.  They leapt this way and that and they barked hateful epithets at the horses; their hackles were raised, their teeth bared, and their eyes shone with fury, and all the while, the horses gazed dully off at the sun setting over the distant hills, sighing and yawning, nosing around in the snow – completely ignoring the dogs.  I wasn’t there, but I’ve had to view this ridiculous performance a few too many times.

The horses are happy to ignore the dogs, but the problem is that they tend to become excited at mealtime so when they heard Denis rattling around with the grain bins inside the barn, they began to trot back and forth at the top of their paddock, just outside the barn.   The movement of the small herd excites Gomer and he has, on occasion run through the electric dog fence and into their paddock in order to enjoy the thrill of having such massive mammals move away from him.  The shock of the collar has never even elicited a whine from Gomer. We saw him shrug once while he was walking across the fence line …. but never mind, Gomer’s bemused attitude toward the invisible dog fence is another story for another day.

Our horses are wise to the primitive hunting urges of annoying canines and I have seen them, a few times, when Gomer was on their heels, all stop at once, which alarmed the dog and made him skid to a halt, and then slowly back away.  While the horses are in motion  and Gomer is in full chase, I think he imagines that they are afraid of him and that he is a mighty wolf, stalking a herd of bison, all senses keen to any sign of weakness amongst them, so that he might rush in for the kill.  But when they all stop moving, he finds himself alone in a field with three mammals that each weigh in at well over 1000 lbs.  Snoopy  will sometimes lift a hind leg and cock his massive hoof  in the dog’s direction as a warning  (I can’t tell you how many times that gentle beast has warned this dog), and Gomer usually tries to find a dignified way out of his suddenly terrifying situation – all alone in a field with twelve hooves crushing the grass and weeds all around him.  I once saw Gomer, his hunt thus thwarted, suddenly point his nose into the air as though he was catching the scent of some other wild prey and then lope out of the field – glancing back over his shoulder, his tail clamped tightly over his phantom testicles.

But it’s dangerous and we have been trying to keep him away from the horses at all times.  A horse can kill a dog instantly with a single kick to the head.  And though Lulu has never crossed the fence line, we’re always worried that she might one day, and then the horses could be in danger of being bitten, because even gentle dogs can revert to predator mode when they “pack-up” and livestock is moving.

Are you bored yet?  Am I going on too long?  Need a little break?  I’m getting hungry, so how about we all take in a little nourishment and I’ll continue with my complain-a-log a little later.

He’s fine. Really.  But don’t go away for too long. I’ll be back with more excitement. Like this:

Where is all that water coming from?

This week, author Elyssa East and I chatted about her book DOGTOWN: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town, which was published to great acclaim last year and which has just recently been released in paperback. If you haven’t read Dogtown, I highly recommend it. Dogtown is about a very tragic murder that happened in the early 1990s in a part of Gloucester, MA with a rather dark and haunted reputation that dates back to colonial times. I used to live in nearby Marblehead and had heard about the murder so I was very interested in the book when it was first published and was delighted by Elyssa’s writing style and also by the many facts about that part of Cape Ann, that I had never known.

Elyssa grew up in the southern United States, and during our discussion we talked about her childhood home outside of Atlanta, about how the history of a house or a place really alters the way people feel when they enter it, and what initially drew her to New England.

And we also talked about dogs, believe it or not!   There is a sad true story that involves a dog at the heart of Elyssa’s book, and, of course, it’s about a place called Dogtown. There have been quite a few areas in the United States that have been dubbed “Dogtown” by locals, and they are usually rundown areas that have become overrun by stray dogs. Gloucester’s Dogtown was once a village, but its population dwindled after the Revolutionary War, and only a small group of women – mostly widows and “outsiders,” remained. Some were considered witches because they concocted healing potions from herbs and they had many dogs that lived amongst them, for companionship and protection. Honestly, it sounds like the kind of place I would have loved to have live in at the time, given the alternative. I can see myself and all the other hags whipping up our brew and cackling at the antics of our pups while all the stern-faced goodly Protestant wives broke their backs churning butter and kneading bread all day.

But I’m getting sidetracked.  Why not listen to my chat with Elyssa?  It can be heard here.

We had almost a foot of snow on the ground and yesterday we got another foot. So now we have, well, just tons of snow.

This is what that table normally looks like. I’ve been meaning to put it in the garage to protect if from snow. Ooops.

I walked to our barn and back three times in snow that came almost to the tops of my thighs. Nobody came to plow the driveway and I was told that it would be impossible for me to get the pickup truck out, which they really shouldn’t have said, because I was then determined to prove them wrong. I got it out, but it took awhile. And we almost tipped over and into a ravine. But never mind, I wanted it out in case there were any emergency calls. And then Gomer and I went for a drive around town.

But I’m having problems with that effing video!

So here’s a video that I shot just to show how deep the snow is. The music is a little dramatic, don’t worry, none of us dies!

Most winter mornings I wish I could stay in my warm bed instead of having to trudge up to the barn to feed the horses. But not today. We had the most beautiful snow yesterday. Unlike our last storm, where the wind blew the snow sideways and at times, it seemed, right back up into the sky, yesterday’s snow fell gently, as it should, down to the earth. The flakes were puffy and soft and gathered like multitudes of cotton balls on the dogs’ ears and on my mittens. This morning, everything was still and white and as we walked up to the barn there was no sound but the steady, muffled crunch of my footsteps and the excited huffing and whining of the dogs who were trying to sniff out rodents beneath the deep drifts.

The horses’ body heat keeps our barn nice and cozy on winter nights and this morning I enjoyed waiting for them to finish their breakfasts and listening to the munching of grain. They were gazing thoughtfully at the snow as they dined. Today is so different than yesterday.

Even Gomer was happy to come inside this morning. I take a lot of photos of this dog, he’s just so handsome. At some point, almost every day, Gomer will walk into a room and I am so overwhelmed at the sight of him that I cry out, “Good God you’re gorgeous!” which he accepts with a movie star grin and a sweep of that wolf’s tail. He likes to be photographed. I don’t know why, he can’t understand photography, but I think he just enjoys the admiration and praise that I sing to him from behind the camera.

“How about a little sad eyes? That’s it!”

“Now let’s have a little attitude! Gorgeous!”

“Now a profile shot! MARVELOUS!”

“Finally, something sexy. For the bitches!”