Have a Nice Guilt Trip (7 page)

Because of his priors, Pip is not eligible for jury duty.

Ultimately, I was not chosen for the trial. But at the end of the day, I rode the subway home with my new friend, a seventy-eight-year-old smart-aleck, and I felt lucky we were stuck in this city, and this nation, together.

To Catch a Predator

By Lisa

I have a crush.

On a fox.

Literally.

What can I say?

He’s foxy.

Let me explain.

A few months ago, I noticed that there was a baby fox running around my backyard, hanging out in some brush to the left, far from the house. He was red, fluffy, and adorable, with delicate black paws and ears, and I began to spend time watching him.

That makes me sound lonelier than I am.

Also creepier, especially when I use my binoculars.

If I get a GPS on him, call the authorities.

In time, the fox grew up, going from cute to handsome and then some. Imagine Justin Bieber turning into Hugh Jackman, like Wolverine, only nice.

A stone fox.

His body got fuller, his coat glossier, and he sprouted a thick patch of white fur on his chest.

I like chest hair, even if it’s white.

I’m at that age.

In my own defense, I also like nature, especially when it can be even remotely classified as a Woodland Creature.

Chipmunks, call me.

Also I loved that animated movie
The Fantastic Mr. Fox,
so it was all I could do not to catch the fox and dress him in a pin-striped suit. In case you were wondering, my thing for the fox has nothing to do with the fact that George Clooney voiced the fox in
The Fantastic Mr. Fox.
As we know, I’m over my crush on George and have moved on to Bradley Cooper, because crushes are highly transferrable, especially when they’re completely imaginary.

And also this is one smart fox.

I didn’t know that foxes really were smart, but believe the hype.

He darts away if I go out the back door, then sticks his head up from the brush when I go inside, as if he watches my comings and goings. He comes out only at certain times of the evening, when we sit and stare at each other from across the lawn. I begin to notice that I’m looking forward to our end-of-the-day staring sessions.

In other words, dates.

Words aren’t always necessary between us.

Frankly, I’ve had entire marriages that were far less interesting.

By the way, foxes mate for life.

Unlike me.

My fox is so cool and elusive, the ultimate mystery man. Either he has intimacy issues, or I do.

Daughter Francesca came home to visit, and I showed her the fox, but she frowned. “Mom,” she said, “he’s cute, but stay away.”

“I know, he could have herpes.”

“You mean rabies.”

“Right.” I meant rabies. “I was wondering if I should put some food out for him.”

Francesca’s eyes widened. “Are you serious? He’s a predator.”

“So what? They have to eat, too.”

“You
want
him around?”

“Of course. Isn’t he great? I mean, he’s like another dog and cat, combined.” I didn’t tell her he’s my crush. I didn’t want her to think I like bad boys.

So I didn’t feed him, because my daughter is smarter than I am.

But neither of us is as smart as my fox.

I say this because the other day he ran by with a bird in his mouth, and I realized that it might have come from my bird feeder by the back door, which I keep full because I like to watch birds, too.

Though with them I manage to check my romantic urges.

No chest hair.

Although yesterday I did see a superhot blue jay.

Anyway I felt terrible about the bird who was about to be dinner, and worse about the fox. And now I’m thinking that all this time, on our nightly dates, the fox wasn’t watching me, but the bird feeder.

He wasn’t the man I thought he was.

Dog Years

By Lisa

It’s time to acknowledge that, a few weeks ago, we lost our golden retriever, Penny.

You don’t have to acknowledge it, but I do. Nothing for me is real until I write about it, so now it’s official.

And heartbreaking.

She was thirteen and playing fetch until the day she passed, of natural causes, at home in my arms. She died resting in the very spot in the entrance hall where she guarded the house.

No golden is much of a guard dog, and Penny was the worst guard dog ever. And the best dog ever.

She loved everything and everybody, and she was small for a golden, with bright, dark eyes and a tongue as pink as a petal.

If petals slobbered.

She passed lying in the sun, which was as she lived.

Always in the sun, this one.

She was special, but all dogs are special in their own way.

She was the daughter of Lucy, our big red golden retriever, and the half sister of Angie, our middle golden retriever.

Yes, I’m one of those people who talks about their dogs like family.

Because they are.

But my point is that we got Lucy when Daughter Francesca was eight years old, and when Francesca was thirteen, Lucy gave birth to Penny. We acquired Angie somewhere in between, so bottom line, we had golden retrievers for almost nineteen years.

The golden years.

The three of them frolicked around the house, snored noisily, chased Kong balls, swam like crazy, and jumped in the car for rides when they weren’t begging for cake, bread, or leftover spaghetti.

Scottolines love carbohydrates.

They made a matched set of small, medium, and large, which was respectively Penny, Angie, and Lucy, on account of all that spaghetti. They roamed the house and yard like a furry trio, a doggie trifecta, or The Three Amigos.

We thought and spoke of them in one word, LucyAngiePenny.

Until they began to pass, one by one.

Only death could separate them.

Though their remains are upstairs on shelves with those of our other pets, a row of small cedar chests that are displacing the books. Soon I’ll have my own TV show on A&E, entitled
People Who Hoard Dog, Cat, and Horse Ashes.

It’s not a home office, it’s a home mausoleum.

I even save the sympathy cards that my wonderful vet sends me with the chests, because I actually find comfort in that stuff about the Rainbow Bridge, which I believe is right off of I-95. And like a big dork, I posted Penny’s photo on Facebook and Twitter, then cried my way through all the lovely comments.

It’s the people who get us through the dogs.

In some ways, Penny was the hardest to lose, not only because she was the last, but also she was the baby of the family, born in this house, the smallest of Lucy’s puppies, in a litter of nine.

Penny was the scrappy runt who grew into a charmer. Her full name was Lucky Penny.

And her passing is the end of an era.

Losing Penny taught me that we love a dog for her own sake, but we also associate them with the times of our lives, and so their loss brings into relief our own passage of time.

The golden years were Francesca’s coming of age, and my forties and early fifties.

My coming of middle age.

Somewhere in between these wonderful dogs was a disastrous second divorce, so that my memory of that time is one of happy golden retrievers and an atomic bomb.

Lucky Penny, the Golden Girl

And now, happily and sadly, all that is past.

I don’t mind getting older. Actually, I love it. What I mind is losing things I love.

I love and hate surviving.

Which is the ultimate lesson, after all.

Loss is part of life, and becomes more so as we grow older. Life contains the bitter and the sweet, and eventually itself becomes bittersweet.

Still, I’ll take it.

I’m a lucky penny.

I’m on It, Walt

by Lisa

Walt Whitman said, I sing the body electric.

So do I, Walt.

Because now I have an electronic face washer.

And it changed my life.

Looking back, my initiation into the electronic era started with an electronic toothbrush. It was recommended by my dental hygienist, as she was sandblasting my teeth.

“Buy one,” she said, from behind her surgical mask. For me, she needs a surgical helmet. When my plaque starts flying, it’s like shrapnel.

But at the time, the idea of an electronic toothbrush seemed crazy, because I used a toothbrush, powered by my flabby arms.

“Not good enough,” she said. “Make sure you get the kind that says Elite.”

So I bought the Elite toothbrush, took it home, and brushed my teeth. I used it for a month, driving it around my teeth, back and forth, up and down, producing lots of foamy suds. I saw some difference, and so did the dogs, who stopped complaining about my breath.

Dogs hate people breath.

So I was primed for the ads I began to see, for an electronic face washer. I snapped one up as soon as it became available, even though it wasn’t cheap.

Why?

Because I can’t be expected to wash my face all by myself.

That would be free, easy, and normal.

Also I read that the electronic face washer exfoliates your skin, and as all women know, exfoliates is the magic word.

We’re talking pores, not napalm.

This is exfoliating, but in a good way, if you follow.

The face washer promised to polish off the dead skin on my face, and as such, it was calling my name, because my dead skin is really piling up. I might be a foot deep in dead skin. Like newfallen snow, you could stick a ruler in it and measure accumulation levels.

Come to think of it, maybe I could use that snowblower, after all.

I bought an electronic washer, which came in a set, one for the face and one for the body.

I gave the body one to Daughter Francesca, of course. I don’t care about dead skin anywhere but where people can see it, and it goes without saying that nobody is seeing dead skin on my body.

Also I can’t be bothered. I barely shave my legs anymore. I wait until spring.

For this reason, I will never move to California or Florida. I tell people I like the seasons, but what I really like is not bothering.

Anyway, I started using the electronic face washer, driving it around my face, back and forth, up and down, producing lots of foamy suds.

Foam
=
fun.

And miraculously, my skin began to look less dead. I told as much to Francesca, who loved it, too. But then she watched me wash my face, and smiled.

“Mom, you don’t have to move it around that much when you use it.”

“What?” I blinked.

“Did you read the directions?”

“Of course not. How long have you known me?” I never read the directions. I spent my whole life following directions, and now I can’t be bothered. See? Told you.

“All you have to do is move it a little. It’s sonic.”

“No, it’s not, it’s electronic.” I rinsed my face, confused.

“It’s powered by electricity, but it cleans, sonically. It’s made by Sonicare. It’s sonic, like your toothbrush. You don’t move that around, do you?”

“Sure. Up and down, over and out, lots of suds. Fun, fun, fun.”

“You don’t have to. Just hold it still and it does the work. Sonic.”

I looked at the toothbrush and face washer, and realized that Francesca was right. It said Sonicare, but I had gotten distracted by the Elite.

Sorry, Walt.

I sing the body, supersonic.

Stage Mom

By Francesca

I never thought I would be a stage mom, but as I envisioned my baby posing for a photographer, I couldn’t help but feel a surge of vicarious excitement.

My dog was slated to star in an upcoming advertisement for the American Kennel Club’s Meet the Breeds event at the Javits Center.

It started with an email from my dog’s breeder and official Secretary of the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club of Delaware Valley, or CKCSCDV.

The acronym could use an abbreviation.

The breeder wrote me saying that the AKC’s Meet the Breeds event was having a promotional photo shoot in a week’s time and that the advertisement would feature only a Cavalier and a bulldog, “so I thought immediately of Pip, since he is so charismatic and photogenic.”