Notes From The Critter Lady

Hi Folks! Thanks for stopping by!

I had intended to write one story like I always do, but there has been quite a bit of activity happening lately, so I thought I'd touch upon some of the events I've dealt with recently.

As you know, I look after a gang of abandoned flightless ducks at McKinnon's Pond here in Whoville. At last count, there were twelve ducks all living quietly on the pond. Most have mates, particularly at this time of year, which is mating season. They've all staked out a small bit of territory around the pond, and they all tend to respect each other's areas. If someone crosses a territorial line, he/she is quickly sent back across the DMZ!

If you've read my book, Crazy Critter Lady (available at amazon.com), you'll know that there are actually two ponds within close proximity to each other: McKinnon's Pond, and the one I refer to as the "small pond well-suited to ice skating in winter, and quiet reflection in summer." It was at this small, nameless pond that someone recently abandoned six fully grown Pekin ducks.

I'm told that someone witnessed a child leaving the ducks, but six full-grown Pekins is more than one youngster could handle; there's no doubt in my mind that at least one adult was also involved. Regardless, when Animal Control Officer Dave called and told me about them, all I could do was shake my head in disgust. When I went to check them out for myself, I thought tiredly that I didn't have the energy to worry about six more ducks, and I wondered what could be done about them. I left them some cracked corn, but the poor creatures were so terrified that they never ate it. I noticed on subsequent visits that they didn't touch the corn left by my volunteer, either.

It was Officer Dave who proposed rescuing the ducks, and he wanted to do it quickly: he was due to go on vacation, and didn't want to have to worry about them while he was gone. After I consulted a couple of duck rescue sanctuaries on Facebook, Dave and I hatched a plan we were confident would succeed: Dave borrowed some temporary orange fencing of the kind that you see around construction zones. We agreed on the best place to set up the fencing, then Dave went off to round up some teenagers who were spending the summer working for the City of Whoville. When he returned, we discussed strategy with the kids, and put everyone in position.

Dave had assigned me the task of herding the ducks. We were fortunate in that all six continued to huddle together under a tree, rather than separate out in the water. I advanced on them with measured, deliberate steps, walking ever so carefully. I didn't want them splitting up and running in different directions. Slowly, the huddled mass was herded toward the staging area. Dave and the kids flanked us on the right, effectively cutting off any chance of the ducks veering in that direction. Thankfully, it didn't occur to the ducks to run into the water, so I continued to press gently onward until they walked into the staging area. Dave quickly closed them in, and then he and I proceeded to grab the ducks one by one and put them into the cage he had brought along for that purpose. After we all posed for pictures, Dave drove the ducks to their new home, thanks to a name supplied by the local Humane Society. Everyone walked away immensely satisfied by the happy ending.

Make no mistake: we got lucky. We got very lucky! The Gods were definitely smiling on us that day, because when ducks feel threatened on land, they almost always head straight for the water. Had they done so during our rescue attempt, we would have had to come back another day - with a boat, no less! - and try again, and no one wanted to do that. Dave and I knew exactly how lucky we'd been, and ended up so pleased with ourselves that we shared not one, but two congratulatory fist bumps! We parted company hoping we wouldn't be called upon to do any more rescues like that one any time soon.

                                   * * *

Not long after that rescue, one of my abandoned gang was killed by a predator. I had developed a pleasant routine with Mama Duck - pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable - while she was nesting this spring. Mama was a sneaky girl whose nests were always difficult to find. Those nests had eluded my best search efforts more than once: indeed, Little Nipper - whose leg injury required me to rehab him my bathroom a couple of years ago - was one of her offspring.

While I was out looking for her nest this past spring, I happened upon a fellow outside one of the apartment buildings that fronts McKinnon's Pond. Offhandedly, I asked whether he knew of any duck nests in the area, and he immediately pointed me toward a large evergreen shrub, behind which was Mama's nest. Boy, did I get lucky, there: I would never have found it on my own! Since Mama was a very dedicated nest-sitter, and since I knew better than to leave food lying around near her nest (it attracts predators), I got into the habit of picking her up off the nest and moving her a short distance away, where I would dump out a portion of cracked corn for her.

It must be said that Mama never enjoyed - let alone appreciated - this routine. Every time I reached down behind the shrub, she would swivel her head around and nip me repeatedly. Like Pretty Boy before her, though, I think she pulled her punches because those bites never hurt. I would grasp Mama around her torso, leaving her wings free. I was always surprised that she didn't flap those wings in an attempt to get away. Rather, she would extend them to their full width, as though she were gliding on an updraft. Those may well have been the only times in her life that she experienced the sensation of flight. When I set her on the ground, she always made a mad dash for the food. I would walk away content with the knowledge that she was getting a decent meal.

It was the fellow that first showed me Mama's nest who contacted me through youtube (where I've posted a number of videos featuring the McKinnon's Pond ducks), and told me the bad news that Mama had been killed. It's a hazard of doing business, of course - there's never a guarantee that those abandoned ducks will live long, healthy lives in the wild. More often than not, they don't. But knowing that never makes it any easier to lose one.

Later the same day that I got the young man's message, I went to see for myself. The body was gone, but there were several piles of duck down that told the story. I picked up one of the feathers to remember her by, and said a prayer to the Gods, asking that they take Mama right up to heaven where she belongs. I sure will miss our routine!

                                   * * *

Meanwhile, there was a shrub of considerable size growing next to the shed in my back yard. One big branch jutted out in such a way that it looked like two very big shrubs were growing right next to each other. It looked messy, and that bothered the aesthete in me: I like things to look neat, balanced, and orderly, and this did not. I asked Fiance John to come over and remove the big jutting branch for me, and since he's one of those Tim the Toolman types who likes man-toys, he happily brought his chainsaw over and did as I requested.

It never occurred to me, until we started removing the chopped-up branch, that a bird might be nesting in it. It didn't occur to me, that is, until a robin jumped out of the fallen foliage and flew off, chirping angrily. The next thing you know, John discovered the nest, and I discovered the broken robin's egg on the ground. The robin herself chastised us at length from a nearby tree.

I felt awful! I'm the Critter Lady, for heaven's sake! This is exactly the sort of thing that's supposed to occur to me! I picked out a decent nest site in the remaining shrub, and replaced the nest, but there's no indication that the robin is using it. I don't blame her for being angry with me. I'm angry with myself. Next time, of course, I'll know better; it's learning the hard way - at someone's expense - that causes me anguish.

                                    * * *

So that's what's been happening in my neck of the woods. It's definitely been a mixed bag of happy success at righting a cruel wrong, and sadness at the loss of one of my duck friends, and at displacing an innocent bystander who had no idea that her home would be felled along with an ugly bit of shrubbery. I try not to dwell on the sorrow, but it's there nonetheless. Hopefully, I will have a more uplifting story to tell you next time around. In the meantime, have a great summer and please be kind to all the critters!

Something Fun To Do!

Hi Folks!

While you're waiting for me to post another blog entry, why not check out McGuffy's Reader blog site? There's a fun critter-themed interview, and also a review of my book, Crazy Critter Lady. Here's the link, just copy and paste it to your search engine:

http://mcguffysreader.blogspot.com/2012/05/meet-kelly-meister.html

A Little Bit Of Beau

Hi Folks!

Thanks for stopping by!

I want to apologize for taking so long to post a new blog entry. Those of you who are regular readers will recall that the last few months of 2011 were heart-wrenching for me, what with the loss of both my lesson horse, Ruckus, and everyone's favorite cranky donkey, Cricket. That double whammy of deaths really took its toll on me, and I just didn't have the mental energy to write until now.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I had been itching for new challenges out at the barn for some time. Although I loved Ruckus dearly, I felt like I'd gotten pretty much all I was ever going to get out of our lessons. He was great for trail riding, but it became clear that if I wanted to take myself to the next level, it would need to be on a different horse. To mix things up, I started riding Charlie.

Charlie Horse is a challenge because you have to stay out of his mouth and steer him primarily with your legs. My understanding is that Charlie had been treated very roughly before he came to the Harmony Barn, rendering his mouth very sensitive. While it may sound like an easy enough thing to do, steering with your legs, I can tell you that there's definitely an art to it, and it takes time to learn to finesse it. As an example, I've seen a couple of barn urchins give him what they thought was a command to step sideways, while Charlie thought it was the command to lope off. Two inexperienced young 'uns got quite an unexpected ride that day!

Even though there are definite challenges in learning how to ride Charlie Horse properly, I still felt like something significant was missing. In hindsight, I know that that missing element was having a relationship with the horse: Charlie's willing enough to tolerate beginners on his back, but he makes it very clear that he's not interested in bonding with us. My riding instructor will take exception to that comment, but she spends a lot more time around Charlie than we volunteers do. Riding him infrequently doesn't give us enough time to build a friendship.

In the aftermath of Ruckus's death, we all realized that we had lost our go-to horse. A young child stops by who's never ridden a horse? Put her on Ruckus. Take a trail ride out where unpredictable things happen? Ride Ruckus. Reward the urchins for all their hard work on Saturday mornings? Let them get on Ruckus. With Ruckus gone, there was no one to turn to except Charlie, and by the time two or three irritating children had trotted him around the arena numerous times, he'd had enough. It was hard for me to get much out of him at that point.

So barn owner Wendy began casting about for options. There were plenty of horses in residence, but very few actual candidates: rescue Buddy has horrible issues stemming from a yearling halter that was left on too long, so he's never going to let anyone put a bridle on him. Jem has conformation issues that render him unusable as anything other than a pasture pal. Newman's too old, and Magic, too young. Wendy does have an older rescue horse that needs to be ridden regularly, but Angel tends to be shy and skittish, which, as it happens, are the two main reasons I prefer not to ride her! That just leaves Bit.

Little Bit of Beau is an EPM horse. EPM is a disease that affects the central nervous system. Symptoms can include tripping, and loss of coordination - huge problems when you're trying to show or compete on a horse! I'm told that Bit displayed those symptoms before he came to the Harmony Barn, and has been treated for it since coming to the barn. But I don't think that EPM is the reason why he'd never been considered an option for us to ride. I think the reason had more to do with his personality.

I'll be honest here and say that I spent several years not liking Bit. He was much too in-your-face for my tastes. If you stood next to him, he'd push his head against you and knock you off balance. While old Newman ruled the herd with quiet authority, his protege Bit rules with an iron hoof! Where old Newman would only have to walk into the arena for the horses to settle down, Bit feels the need to run around pinning his ears at everyone! He was way too much horse for me, so I didn't give him a second thought until Ruckus died.

I ran the idea by Wendy, asking what she thought about riding instructor Connie giving me lessons on Bit. Much to my considerable surprise, Wendy thought the idea had possibilities. The next thing I knew, Connie and I had scheduled a lesson.

Contrary to his name, there's nothing little about Bit! He's one big horse! Tall, muscular, assertive - he can be quite intimidating. I did my best to act nonchalant as I groomed him that first time, but inwardly, I was thinking about how far down the ground was going to be, should I end up getting tossed out of the saddle. I'd seen a more experienced girl ride him, and there had been a lot of prancing on his part. What chance did I have as a novice who lacked confidence? Connie tried to reassure me, but I was skeptical. For his part, Bit gave me plenty to think about during - and after - that first lesson.

For one thing, if he didn't want to do what I told him to, he'd do something else instead. The "something else" generally involved low-level shenanigans like prancing about (which, for the uninitiated, feels like the horse is about to take off at a gallop and leave you behind), and throwing in the odd buck and rear. These weren't full blown bucks and rears, but rather, just enough to emphasize his point. I lost track of how many times I frantically asked Connie, "What's he doing? What's he doing?" To her credit, Connie managed to stifle whatever chuckling she surely wanted to do. "You're o.k.," she kept saying, "he's not going to hurt you!" And in this, she turned out to be right.

In spite of my trepidation, I was intrigued enough to schedule another lesson on Bit - and another, and another! We've had four lessons together, now, and after every one, Connie expresses her belief that Bit and I are coming together as a team quite nicely. I'm inclined to agree: while he continues to throw his own brand of challenges into every lesson, we are finding ways to communicate together that tell me we're on the right track. Indeed, the most telling communication of all didn't even happen during a lesson. It happened today after we volunteers had finished mucking out stalls.

Being the Critter Lady, I take a lot of pictures at the barn. I take pictures of all the urchins with their favorite horses, and I have them take pictures of me with mine. Anyone who follows me on Facebook already knows that Bit does not stand still for pictures. Don't get me wrong, he stands still just fine - until you aim a camera at him! Then, he's all about swinging his ginormous head around, and trying to use my leg as a scratching post. But not today. Today, he stood still for a number of pictures with me, and even some with the kids, as well. When we were done, I unhooked the lead rope and told him he was free to go boss the herd around. But here's the thing: he didn't leave.

While I took pictures of Lydia and Buddy, and Michaela and Angel, there was Bit, lurking about. While I took pictures of fiance John with old Newman, there was Bit, lurking about. He stood here for a time, then moved a few feet away and stood there for a time, all the while looking over at me to see whether I had a snack for him, or possibly a command or two. The striking thing was that he was looking to me - for direction, for companionship - rather than looking at me, and this was the first time he'd done that on his own, without me on his back. It was a pretty cool moment for me when I figured that out!

There can be a world of difference between what goes on on a horse's back, and what goes on in the mud lot, when he's free to do as he pleases. When Charlie Horse is under saddle, he behaves very well. When he's in the mud lot, he'd just as soon stand off by himself and crib, rather than interact with me or the urchins. And, generally speaking, Bit's usually too busy moving the herd from one side of the poop pile to the other and back again to stop and take notice of what the volunteers are up to. Ordinarily, he would give us all a cursory glance, make sure we weren't doing anything that required his attention, and then go on about his business. To hang around with me for twenty-odd minutes of his own volition was extraordinary. It's something I won't soon forget!

There's definitely a relationship forming between Bit and I, and there's so much more to it than just getting on his back and riding. The time I spend with him on the ground is also an investment in the bond that's developing, and it's just what I've been needing, after suffering the loss of Ruckus. There will never be a replacement horse - there was, and ever will be, only one Ruckus - but as I've said before, eventually, it is necessary to move forward, to form new relationships with other critters, to let yourself love again, even though you know that one day, your heart will be broken by yet another critter death. These wonderful relationships are vital to the well-being of our souls. And, quite possibly, theirs, too.

That's all for now, folks! Thanks so much for hanging in there while I took time to grieve. Until next time, please be kind to all the critters!

When a Door Closes, a Window Opens

Hi Folks! Thanks for stopping by!

As you regular readers know, 2011 ended on a sad note with the untimely death of beloved donkey Cricket. She died mere days before Christmas, casting a pall over everyone's holiday season. No one saw her death coming, which always makes the unacceptable that much harder to accept. So it was with a measure of both optimism and desperation that I read Kenny the Tiger Guy's facebook announcement that he had a donkey in need of a home.

You may recall that Kenny the Tiger Guy is a local fellow who rescues exotic animals. People frequently donate sick or dying horses so that he might feed the lions and tigers in his care. But sometimes, people donate healthy animals that they simply don't want anymore. Kenny's a nice enough guy that he doesn't want to slaughter healthy animals, so he often calls the barn to see if they'd be interested in adopting the critter in need. Such was the case with Cricket: she was originally intended to feed his big cats, but Kenny couldn't bring himself to slaughter her. The barn took her instead.

When I read Kenny's facebook post about that new donkey in need, I immediately sent him a message, urging him to contact barn co-owner Ron. Kenny sent me a message in return, saying that he already had. The barn had agreed to rescue this new donkey! Hooray! This was just what our aching hearts needed!

It's worth noting that the barn took possession of Handsome Harry on New Years Day: it seemed an auspicious start to 2012. He walked willingly into the trailer, and willingly into the barn that was his new home, and seemed to settle in more or less immediately. I went out to the barn twice during his first week, to visit him, to spoil him, to let him know that we strangers were going to take extra good care of him. As I got to know him, I found him to be utterly charming - a complete contrast to cranky old Cricket.

One of the things I've learned over the years is that when a beloved animal dies, there is a tendency to want to fill the void with an animal of similar temperament. In my experience, this is a big mistake: it's better, I think, to grieve the loss of that special pet, and then move on to the next unique personality when you're able.

The fact that Handsome Harry's personality was so divergent from Cricket's helped enormously. Because the two donkeys were as different as night and day, there was no way anyone could think that he was Cricket's replacement; he was merely the next in what would no doubt be a long line of donkeys in need. This made it much easier to accept his presence without feeling guilty: we had all loved Cricket the crabby donkey, and now we would love Harry the charmer.

From my very first contact with him, Harry had this habit of resting his surprisingly heavy head on whatever body part was handy - my chest, my shoulder, etc. He would stand perfectly still this way for some minutes as I - and then, later, the barn urchins - would stagger about, trying not to break the spell by buckling under all that weight. It took me well over a month to figure out that this was a ritual he'd enjoyed with his previous owner.

Kenny the Tiger Guy told me that Harry's owner was in poor health, and could no longer care for the donkey. It must've broken the man's heart, having to give up his buddy to strangers, not knowing how things would work out. Unlike Cricket, whose owners had apparently lost interest in her, Harry had clearly been much-loved by his person. Even so, there was no way for us to know exactly what sort of relationship Harry and his owner had had - until I stumbled upon what was obviously a cherished routine between them.

It finally hit me as Harry once again rested his big shaggy white head on me, and I cast about for ways to respond. Simply standing there holding him up didn't seem to be enough. I started scratching his neck, gently, one hand on either side of his head. Harry has Cushing's Disease, which means that, among other symptoms, he has soft mushy lumps all over his body. Unsure whether those lumps were tender, I scratched him softly, more of a rub than anything else. Suddenly, his eyes closed, and he let out a deep, contented sigh. So that's what this was about! Harry would rest his head on his human, and the man would rub his neck. Given that Harry tried this same thing with just about every person at the barn, it became clear to me that it was a ritual the donkey had treasured, and one he wished to continue.

It's still early days for all of us, and for Harry, too. Barn co-owner Wendy tells me that he's already firm friends with a few of the horses, and enjoys his opportunities to play with them. Now that she has established what she can expect from Harry, she allows him to wander the barn at will while we volunteers work, rather than continue to keep him in his stall. Like the old days with Cricket, Harry seems interested in "helping" us clean, although he never ventures too far from his preferred area. His mild temperament is a welcome change of pace from grumpy old Cricket, even though we all still miss her terribly. Like a balm for a raw wound, though, Harry seems to be the perfect salve to help us with our healing.

My Oxford English Dictionary defines "serendipity" as "the occurrence of events by chance in a fortunate way." That sums up Harry's presence at the barn perfectly. Sometimes, it seems, the Gods do, in fact, open a window where a door has been closed. I hope that this is the end of untimely deaths at the barn. They're bound to happen, of course, but considering that we've lost three beloved residents in less than six months, we're all a little weary, now, and in need of something cheery to sustain us. Little does Harry know that he's that something!

That's all for now, folks. Thanks again for stopping by! Don't forget to take a moment out of your busy days to enjoy the friendships you have with your animal pals. And until next time, please be kind to all the critters!

P.S. Please feel free to leave a comment so that I know you were here! Thanks!

Ode to a Much-Loved Donkey

Hi Folks! Thanks for stopping by!

I was hoping to round out the year by telling you a charming story about how the mouse who lives in my house has set himself the task of carving new designs in my wooden knife handles, but that will have to wait. It is with deep regret that instead, I must report the death of my beloved donkey friend, Cricket.

I always considered Cricket the mascot of the barn where I volunteer. She was the only donkey in residence, and she was a cranky donkey as well, which made her locally famous as someone who might take a bite out of your ankle if the spirit so moved her. I'll never know why she had such a cantankerous personality - we have no way of knowing how she was treated before she came to the barn - but her unwillingness to make nice rendered her surprisingly endearing to all who knew her: Cricket lived life on her own terms, and if you didn't like it, tough beans!

Cricket came to the barn by way of Kenny the Tiger Guy. Kenny's a local fellow who rescues exotic animals. His lions and tigers require a LOT of food, and occasionally, people donate sick or dying horses for that purpose. In Cricket's case, from what I understand, her owners simply gave her up when it became apparent that she was not going to go along with their breeding plans. There wasn't one thing wrong with Cricket apart from being unwanted, and Kenny's a nice enough guy that he didn't want to destroy a perfectly healthy animal. So he called the barn, and the barn agreed to give her a good home.

In the five years since, Cricket wormed her way into the heart of every volunteer who met her. We all loved her, no matter how badly she treated us: if she was in a crabby mood and you were in her way, she would go through you, rather than around. She had a habit of simply - and literally - flicking you out of her way with her big, misshapen head. She didn't care about people's personal space, and she didn't care about manners, which made her far more interesting than the horses who always observed the social niceties. I think we all loved her precisely because she refused to play by the rules.

Her head was misshapen for a reason. No one knows why - she came to the barn that way. Barn owner Wendy, who has seen more animal cruelty than anyone would want to, always said she hoped the injury was an accident, rather than intentional, that perhaps a horse had accidentally kicked Cricket in the head and broken some bones in her face. The bones never healed properly, which created a large, unyielding lump around Cricket's left eye. Not only did the lump impair her vision in that eye, but in hindsight, I wonder now whether the injury caused her the sort of chronic pain that might have accounted for her dark moods.

Even when she wasn't crabby, Cricket was unpredictable. One sunny summer day, as Wendy cast about for some way to entertain the barn urchins, she suggested that we give Cricket a bath. Baths can be a tricky thing when you're trying to lather up thousand-pound animals. Some horses like the occasional bath, some don't. Wendy insisted - in a manner which suggested that she knew from previous experience - that the donkey liked baths, so we walked Cricket out in front of the barn and proceeded to hose her down.

It became clear quite quickly that Cricket did not, in fact, like baths at all. As I clung to her lead rope, she twisted and turned this way and that, trying to get away from the hose before finally bolting altogether and running off down the driveway, dragging me along behind her. Cricket didn't weigh a thousand pounds, but she weighed enough, and it took quite some doing to bring her under control. From that day on, the idea of giving Cricket a bath became a running joke at the barn. Whenever Wendy would try to reassure me about a jittery horse, I would retort, "Sure, and you said Cricket loved getting baths, too!"

One of my more memorable Cricket moments happened a couple years ago. She was being exceptionally crabby one Saturday - to the point where she actually refused a snack I offered her. Turning down a snack was unprecedented for Cricket - a thing that she herself must have realized because just a minute or two later, she tried to pin me up against a stall door. I knew what she was doing, trying to force a snack out of me, but I was unmoved at that point, and said rather loudly, "I already offered you one and you wouldn't take it!" Just as the sentence left my mouth, I looked up to see barn co-owner Ron walking toward us.

After all these years of being a Critter Lady, I'm accustomed to talking with animals. Be it cats or ducks or horses (or donkeys!), I'm confident that they understand my meaning, if not the actual words themselves. But in spite of all those years chatting with critters, I still find it very embarrassing to be overheard by humans! Just image my mortification then, when, the minute I admonished that greedy donkey, I turned around and saw that a human being had heard the whole thing!

I developed a habit, over the years, of loading up a fanny pack with horse snacks, and wearing the thing around the barn every Saturday. Snacks were doled out generously to all and sundry, with Cricket getting the most due to the fact that she rarely, if ever, wanted to go out in the paddock with the horses; she liked staying in the barn with us. Wendy didn't really approve of the fanny pack, and warned me, periodically, not to wander out among the horses with it. I understood: a herd of greedy thousand-pound animals could make mincemeat out of a puny human. But, to me, Cricket was a different story entirely.

Wendy would issue the occasional edict that Cricket was no longer to be hand-fed. Cricket had her own greed issues, and could be every bit as dangerous as a horse. I had seen this up close and personal once, when, on a rare day that she was in the paddock, Cricket reared up in my face. Ears pinned, teeth bared, front hooves flailing, she reared up several times, and I was alarmed by the fact that she was completely out of control. I literally dove between the strands of the electric fence in order to get away from her.

The incident frightened and puzzled me, but I must confess, it didn't stop me from plying her with snacks! To the last week of Cricket's life, I always had a snack ready for her. If Wendy was in the vicinity, I would put the treat on the ground in front of Cricket. If Wendy was elsewhere, I would pop the snack in her mouth with the comment, "Don't rat me out, Cricket!" Indeed, Cricket's love of snacks was so reliable that, the last time I saw her alive, and she refused all the treats I offered, I knew that something was very wrong. Four days later, she was gone.

It was my riding instructor, Connie, who called me with the news. They didn't know what caused Cricket's death, and in fact, even the subsequent necropsy provided no concrete cause of death. Wendy thought that there might have been an infection raging inside the donkey, but we'll never know for certain.

I was in the middle of dinner in a restaurant when the call came. Connie told me that there was time for me to come out to the barn and say good-bye before they buried Cricket, which is exactly what I did. A certain numbness overcame me as I tried to enjoy the rest of my meal, but as I drove through the darkness toward the barn, I allowed the fact of Cricket's passing to fully register, and the tears began to flow.

When I got to the barn, I asked Wendy what had happened. She told me that Cricket had walked out into the arena, laid down, and in less than 20 seconds, had died. She'd been feeling poorly for several days, not wanting to eat much, and running the opposite of a temperature - her body temperature was below the normal number for a donkey. Wendy said that, whatever had been wrong with Cricket, she hadn't suffered much in the way of pain; Wendy had dosed her fairly heavily with painkillers. She gestured to where Cricket lay in the arena and said, "Go be with her." Of all the humans I know, Wendy is one of the few who understand the need to spend some time with the animal's body, saying one's good-byes.

I sat down next to Cricket's head. I rubbed her face as I cried, resting my hand on her nose as I tried to take in the enormity of the loss. I stared down at her face, sending out into the universe the twin thoughts that I would love her - and miss her - forever, and hoping that she heard them. And, because she was no longer there to stop me, I did the one thing in death that she never let me do in life: I stroked her big, fuzzy, rabbity ears. She had always pulled away when I reached for them. Now, there was nothing she could do about it.

I sat with Cricket for quite some time. When I was finally ready to leave, I sought out Wendy, who was topping off the horses' water buckets. I nodded my understanding as she said, "I didn't sign on for this! I'm here to rescue them, not bury them!" Given that, in only a few short months, two horses - and now Cricket - had died, I knew what she meant; that it was simply too much for a heart to take.

I remarked to her the irony in my decision - made months ago - to make it a "donkey Christmas" for the urchins: each would, during our barn gift exchange, receive from me a framed picture of him or her standing next to Cricket. The pictures had been taken over a period of many months, on the rare occasions that the donkey had stood still long enough for me to get the shot. There was no way that any of us could have known that Cricket's time with us would be so limited. The "donkey Christmas" idea turned out to be a sad irony indeed.

The barn is extra quiet, now, without Cricket's unique braying. It was never much of a "hee haw," but rather more of a "chuff chuff chuff eeek-HAW!" I will especially miss the way she liked to keep me company while I cleaned stalls. She would come into the stall with me, and then proceed to block as much of the doorway as possible. She did this to all the urchins, as well, and they could frequently be heard complaining, "MOVE, Cricket!" Wendy dealt with the intrusions by threatening to put her in a stall out of the way of the workers if she didn't vacate the area voluntarily, but I always enjoyed Cricket's presence, and simply chose to work around her. If I couldn't get past her, I'd just stand there and scratch her back for a while. Cricket lived life on her own terms, and I saw no reason to insist that she do otherwise.

That's all for now, folks. May you all have a wonderful holiday season, with health, happiness, and the love of great critters in the new year! Until next time, please be kind to all the critters! And please leave a comment below so I know you were here!

Grief Among Friends

Hi Folks!

Thanks for stopping by.

I feel the need to post more thoughts about the loss of my beloved lesson horse Ruckus, so I hope you'll indulge me while I continue to work through my grief. For those of you who haven't read my blog before, this post will make considerably more sense if you read the two previous ones first.

I had been talking with my riding instructor about doing lessons on a different horse for some time before Ruckus died. It wasn't a matter of me not wanting to ride him anymore, but rather, it was a matter of wanting to learn new things on a different horse. Ruckus had served me well over the years, but if you want to broaden your scope, you need to experience other temperaments and personalities. But Connie has a full-time job, a husband, and a young child to care for, so fitting me into her already-busy life took some doing.

During the same time that Connie and I were in talks about lessons on another horse, I was also keen to do a trail ride on Ruckus before winter arrived. I tried to do one or two trail rides a year, as a way to mix things up a bit: while Ruckus was entirely predictable in the arena, taking him out of his comfort zone and walking around neighboring fields always presented a bit of a challenge. I never knew whether he'd startle over some unfamiliar feature of the landscape, and that uncertainty served to keep me on my toes. Connie and I had done a trail ride this past spring, and I was itching to do another. Unfortunately, Ruckus's untimely death put paid to that idea.

In the mood to move life forward a bit from my grief, I scheduled a lesson on Charlie Horse for late this afternoon. I was looking forward to it. I've ridden Charlie several times and found him to be an enormous challenge. While Ruckus - who enjoyed going as fast as you'd let him - required a certain amount of rein, Charlie is the exact opposite: the rule of thumb is to stay completely out of his mouth and maneuver him solely with your legs. Because of that, I was keen to have Connie teach me how to be quieter in the saddle. It's no good treating every horse the same because they simply aren't. What works for one won't necessarily work for another. And I wanted more than to just ride a horse who would tolerate my mistakes; I wanted to learn not to make any.

The sky was grey and leaden, and it began to rain as I pulled up the driveway. I spent a few minutes grooming Charlie before tacking him up. At my request, we were doing an English lesson, with English tack. I'd taken a few English lessons, several years ago, but generally, I much prefer Western. I always feel naked, sitting on that tiny English saddle! But if I was going to move forward, out of my grief over reliable Ruckus and all our Western lessons, then this was the way to do it: on a different horse, with different tack, and a different style of riding.

The lesson went well enough, in spite of the constant feeling that I was mere milliseconds away from making an unscheduled dismount. The main problem seems to be that, unlike Western saddles made with suede, an English saddle is made with nice smooth leather. Since my riding britches are a nice smooth cotton, there's nothing to provide any grab or friction. It took some doing to get accustomed to clinging more tightly with my legs, but I managed it after a fashion.

After a considerable amount of posting around the arena, Connie urged me to try loping. At first, I resisted - that darn saddle was just too slippery for my liking! But after some encouragement from Connie, I gave it a try, and found, to my considerable surprise, that Charlie wasn't nearly as bumpy at the canter as he was at the trot. By the end of the lesson, my confidence on Charlie had improved considerably, and I felt satisfied that I'd gotten my money's worth - and then some - from the lesson. I dismounted and walked Charlie back to the cross ties, where I relieved him of his tack, then stalled him so he could eat his dinner.

It was then, as Connie closed up the barn, turning off the lights and casting one last glance around the stalls, that we started talking about Ruckus. I'd been wondering about her relationship with him, given my impression, over the years, that Nicky Naylor was actually her favorite. As it turns out, Nicky placed a close second to the first horse Connie had ever owned, a horse she'd had since the age of ten. The subject of his final days came up, and it was then that Connie told me the things that are generally just between friends.

In the gathering gloom of dusk we stood, watching the rain falling outside as Connie detailed Ruckus's sudden colic. Quietly, she talked about her hopes for his recovery, based on the fact that he showed no signs of pain or suffering. She talked, too, about how the vet dashed those hopes when he explained that when the gut twists, it acts as a nerve block, so that the horse doesn't feel pain, even though Ruckus's intestine was, by then, already dying. She shook her head as she said that she simply couldn't make the call to put him down, that it was her mother, Wendy, who had to say, "It's time."

Connie's voice broke as she described walking Ruckus out to the back of the pasture, and her eyes welled with tears as she repeated to me the last words she had spoken to him before he was euthanized. She told him how much she loved him. She told him that he was perfect. My own eyes welled up then, and the tears spilled onto my cheeks because I knew without question that those were the exact words that I would have said to him. Connie and I stood there together in semi-darkness, sharing our grief as she shared details that would never be shared with the barn urchins. Those details were simply too personal, too painful, to explain to youngsters. I'm grateful that she shared them with me.

There are those people in the world who are callous enough to believe that all animals are alike, that if you lose one, it's a matter of simply replacing it with another. And there are those people in the world who, like me, are animal lovers and who, like me, understand the monumental loss when a beloved critter dies. It takes with it an enormous force of personality, just as any human would, and leaves behind a painful void in the lives of those who loved it.

When Ruckus died, he took with him an extremely genial personality, one given to occasional silliness, a fondness for snacks, and a love of running as fast as his rider would allow. He forgave the children their multitude of mistakes, and he trod carefully when they were on his back. He was safe and reliable with me, as well, and he never once put me in any danger. His loss is a huge one, made all the more searing because I never got a chance to say good-bye. After four weeks, my mind still refuses to accept the unacceptable.

So while I enjoyed my lesson on Charlie Horse today, the good vibe was tempered by the knowledge that I'll never be able to do a lesson on Ruckus again. It's not just a new Now that I have to adjust to, it's a new Future, as well, one that won't include my beloved "handsome bubby." Right now, that's just too much for my heart to accept.

That's all for now, folks. Until next time, I urge you to spend extra quality time with the animals in your life, and please be kind to all the critters!

P.S. Please leave a comment so I know you were here! Thanks!

In Memory of Ruckus

It's been three weeks since my buddy and lesson horse Ruckus died unexpectedly at the age of twenty. I'm no closer to believing it now that I was then: the mind cannot process what the heart refuses to accept.

I had known Ruckus for over six years, and had just recently begun giving lessons on him to one of the barn urchins. He was not, nor had he ever been, my horse in an ownership sense; in that regard, he belonged to my instructor Connie. But in my heart, I loved him as my own, got annoyed with him from time to time as my own, took him for granted as my own. It is that last which pains me the most.

It was a regular feature of Ruckus's personality that after one of the urchins dismounted, he tried very hard not to let anyone else get on! Even as I held his reins tight, he would side-step this way and that, trying to thwart the next rider's attempts to climb on. In his mind, once a person got off, that was it, he was done for the day! Try as I might, I never could convey to him the idea that he would be done when I said he was, and not a minute sooner! In spite of his best attempts, though, other riders always managed to get on and have a turn.

He was a safe horse for the young volunteers to ride. He tolerated their mistakes well enough, and never put anyone in danger. Sometimes, though, he just didn't feel like dealing with the kids, and at those times, he'd be a little stinky. He'd walk over to the gate where the rest of the children were gathered, and he'd stop there and make the kids figure out how to get him going again. It was always their biggest challenge, backing Ruckus out of the corner he'd put himself into, and getting him back on track. Horses can be like that: sometimes, they like to make you work for it!

He had replaced Old Crazy as the go-to horse for the children to ride. Crazy would play her own tricks on the kids, like turning right when she'd been told to turn left, completely vexing in the process the earnest youngsters who were trying their best to learn how to ride. After she died, the responsibility of conveying the volunteers around the arena fell to Ruckus. He performed his job well over the years, and everyone expected that there would be many more years of riding him to come. That's always the way, isn't it? How often, I wonder, do we make the mistake of assuming that our loved ones will be around indefinitely? It's an illusion that comforts - right up until it shatters.

It is to Connie's credit that, in the midst of her own grief over the loss of her first horse, she made the effort to seek me out and offer some words of comfort. On the evening of the day Ruckus died, as I sat down to lose myself in some mindless television, my phone began to vibrate. The texts came fast and furious, then, three at a time, all twelve of them from Connie, who wanted to reassure me that Ruckus hadn't suffered, that he'd gone to a better place to keep Crazy, Old Mikey, and Newt the mule company. It was clear that her own heart was breaking when she wrote, "I can't stop picturing his sweet loving face...it makes me sad to know I will never kiss that face again." I was, and still am, grateful that she took time out from her own sorrow to reach out to me in mine.

Last week, searching for some way through this awfulness, I asked barn owner Wendy, "Now what do we do?" Her reply, "I don't want to think about it right now," was understandable. Even so, I was thinking about it. My brain came up with a never-ending stream of stupid questions: who will I trail ride now? Who will the children ride? Who will I take my lessons on? They were admittedly selfish questions for which I have no answers. More recently, Wendy announced that she'd be consulting with Connie about using one of the rescue horses as a successor to Ruckus. Whether that idea pans out remains to be seen.

In the meantime, each of us has dealt with our grief in our own way. Connie has a young son to focus on. The barn urchins all posted "R.I.P. Ruckus" on their facebook pages. My own project involved creating a new facebook album called, "In Memory of My Buddy Ruckus," and filling it full of pictures of Ruckus and I together, along with photos I'd taken of him over the years. So much time spent taking him for granted. So little time spent savoring each and every moment.

It is the agony of knowing that I'll never get another chance to savor him that grieves me the most. There will be other horses, other rides, other experiences, but there will only ever be one Ruckus. And while I told him frequently that he was my favorite Ruckus in the whole world, I also blew a million chances to stop and enjoy the moment, to kiss his face and breathe his scent. To stand with him just a little longer, and give him yet another snack. What a careless fool I've been!

While I know that I'll learn from this experience and spend more time with the horses to come, I know, too, that complacency will creep in, as it always does, and I will eventually find myself back here, writing another blog about having taken another beloved critter for granted. It's human nature to blot out the inevitability of death. No one wants to spend time thinking about life after loved ones. It's too depressing.

So for now, the barn is a bit quieter for me. Animals always take a big presence with them when they go. I expect that the void will be filled someday, but not just yet. The urchins have been subdued as well. A shock like this one takes time to recover from. I really hope Ruckus knew how loved he was!

That's all for now, folks. Thanks for stopping by. Please leave a comment so I know you were here. Until next time, please be kind to all the critters!

All Things Must Pass

George Harrison must have been in a philosophical mood when he named his first post-Beatles album "All Things Must Pass." He was right, of course, even if no one was prepared to agree. Change is a difficult thing in the best of circumstances. At the worst of times, the mind simply refuses to accept it.

When my riding instructor, Connie, posted a facebook comment yesterday informing everyone that her beloved horse had died, I felt a little philosophical myself: Nicky Naylor had had a good long life. He'd been losing weight recently, and the Alpha horse seemed quieter than usual to me. I had known that his time was coming, so it saddened but didn't surprise me when I read Connie's comment. The only thing she'd left out of the comment, though, was the horse's name. Given that there are 15+ horses at the barn, it was important to clarify which one had died. I posted my own "So sorry," comment, then waited for confirmation.

It never came. What came instead was the unfathomable one-word answer: "Ruckus." My buddy Ruckus. My lesson horse. The horse all the barn urchins rode. The same Ruckus I had loped around the arena just this past Saturday. The Ruckus who was younger - and in better shape - than his friend Nicky Naylor. How was this possible? What on earth had happened between Saturday and Monday?

It was a wonder that barn owner Wendy managed to decipher the voice mail I left her. "Sob, snuffle, sob, on earth happened? Sniff, blubber, sob, buried yet?" She called me back almost immediately, and told me what she knew: that Ruckus had been in inexplicable pain that refused to cease. They held out as long as they dared, then, forced to accept the unacceptable, agreed to euthanize. Wendy, wanting answers, had the vet perform a necropsy, which showed that Ruckus's colon was impacted, and indeed, had begun to die off. Euthanizing was the inevitable, and humane, course of action.

I can tell you very little about Ruckus's life before I knew him. Wendy's daughter, Connie, barrel-raced him, and they competed together for over five years. He never had any spectacular wins to his credit, but managed to accrue enough points to at least make Connie willing to keep riding him. He was a good boy with a mild personality. When I met him, he'd retired from competition and been pressed into service as a lesson horse at Wendy's barn.

The Ruckus I knew was an amiable fellow. I learned how to post on him. I learned a lot from him: I learned about patience, and trust, with him. I learned not to be so bossy, to give him time to respond in his own fashion, rather than getting worked up that he didn't do as I asked right away. I learned when to be firm, and when to chill out. I learned to let Ruckus be Ruckus: recently, when I used him in a video I made to promote my book, he pooped on camera. Instead of getting mad, I laughed, and used the footage rather than do the whole video over. Horses poop; what are you gonna do?!

We had a moment, several months ago, that told me that we had created a bond between us. The bond may, in fact, have been there all along, lying dormant until the right situation brought it to the fore. It's entirely possible that I hadn't been paying attention to the state of our relationship. It's a mistake we all make with the critters in our lives: we spend their lifetimes taking for granted that those animals will be with us forever. Or at least for an indeterminate number of years yet to come. And it never occurs to us that today might be the day that that beloved animal dies.

In any case, we'd been loping around the arena. After all the barn urchins had ridden him - pulling the reins too tightly, making the mistakes that inexperienced children make - I would climb on and let him run it out. Ruckus liked running, and he seemed to enjoy the opportunity to have at it. We'd lope a few circles in one direction, then turn around and lope the other way. We were right in the middle of this, and sharing the arena with a pony named Sequoia and his mistress, when one of them accidentally touched the electric fence. The zap it gives you isn't particularly painful, but strangely, you always remember it!

Immediately after the shock, Sequoia panicked in that way that horses do, tossing the 20-something girl off his back before racing around and around the arena. The minute I saw what happened, I pulled Ruckus to a halt. The safest thing for us to do was stand still and let Sequoia run it out of his system. Which is exactly what he spent the next seven minutes doing.

At one point, Sequoia ran into the corner behind Ruckus and I, standing there as though he was hiding from the girl who stood quietly, waiting for her horse to settle down. Sometimes, that sense of panic can have a domino effect: other horses see the one freaking out and figure they'd better do the same. It was to Ruckus's credit that instead of joining Sequoia in his meltdown, he looked to me for direction instead. An interesting conversation took place then, between Ruckus and I. Not one word escaped my mouth, but we talked nonetheless:

Ruckus: So....is there a plan, here?

Kelly: Yep. We're just gonna stand here for a while.

Ruckus: That's it? We're just standing?

Kelly: That's the plan. We'll just stand here quietly for a while.

Ruckus: O.k.

It was the first time that Ruckus not only looked to me for direction in a tight situation, but trusted that I knew what I was doing in the bargain. He finally had enough faith in me to let me take the lead. Ruckus was never a horse to stand still for long, but I'm proud to report that he remained completely still for the duration of Sequoia's meltdown, pointing one ear forward to keep up with the action, while pointing the other back at me, waiting to hear my next command. I was so proud of both of us that day. Proud that I'd learned enough to know that in some situations, your best action is inaction, and proud as hell of Ruckus, who had willingly let me take the lead because he trusted that I could.

That wasn't the only time I was proud of him. In spite of his retired status, a young girl came to the barn this summer, looking to lease him for the county fair. I watched her a few times as she worked with him at the barn. Between you and me, I was a little skeptical about it all. In the first place, the weather during the fair was brutally hot, and those horses have to stand in tiny stalls all week. In the second, the girl didn't look like she knew much about horsemanship. But you know what? She took fourth place with him! Boy, was I surprised!

I never let him forget it. Every time the barn urchins and I would groom him, I'd remind him that he was a "Fourth-Place Champion Horse!" From somewhere near his hind quarters, I'd hear the kids snickering, and I'd admonish them, "There will be no mockage! No mocking the Fourth-Place Champion Horse!" Never sure whether I was kidding or not, the kids would quickly swallow their giggles.

He was, of course, more than just a Fourth-Place Champion Horse. He was my pal. My buddy. My "handsome bubby." The best Ruckus in the whole barn. The kids would laugh at that one, too. They'd roll their eyes and say, "He's the ONLY Ruckus in the barn!" "That doesn't make him any less special!" I'd retort.

I'd give him endless snacks. He had a way of thrusting his head out from the cross-ties, eyes wide as saucers. He'd have the most comical expression on his face, as though he'd been starving all this time and just needed ONE MORE snack to revive him. I always told him, "Work first, then snacks," but I broke my own rule almost every time. Life's too short to be stingy with the snacks.

Stupid questions keep popping into my head. Who will I ride now? Why didn't I arrange a trail ride sooner, when I was thinking about it? In truth, they're not the questions I really want answers to. These are:

Who else will I love as much as I loved Ruckus?

Who else can I trust as much as I trusted Ruckus?

Did he know how much I loved him?

Why haven't I learned by now not to take the animals I love for granted?

Why didn't I give him some extra treats on Saturday?

Why? Why? Why?

Grieving is a process, and not one to be rushed. Grief has its own time-table, and its own stages, too, five of them: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Acceptance may well be the hardest, because the mind has to come to some agreement with the notion that all things must, indeed, pass. That's a bitter pill to swallow. And I'm definitely not there yet.

I'm going to miss you, buddy. More than you could possibly know.

That's all for now, folks. Until next time, please spend some special quality time with the animals you love.

Do-Overs

Hi Folks! Thanks for stopping by.

The regular readers of my blog know that every once in a while, I like to veer off the subject of animals and onto something completely different. The desire to do this usually stems from an event, or "Thing," as I like to call them, and this time is no exception: a Thing happened this weekend, and it's weighing heavily enough on my mind that I feel the need to unburden myself. I hope you'll understand, and find it in yourselves to indulge me here. For those of you who absolutely cannot bear the idea of a critter-less blog entry, try googling Cayr Ariel Wulff. She writes a fun dog-related blog called Up on the Woof.

In any case, the Thing I want to tell you about is my 30-year high school reunion, which took place this Labor Day weekend. Reunions are funny things, aren't they? Because life is such a great leveler, people we voted "most likely to succeed" often haven't. People we thought would be total losers turn out to be bank presidents. Almost everyone in the class has experienced some harrowing setback or other - a death, a divorce, a health crisis, etc. We go into these reunion events remembering how things used to be, and wondering how much has changed. In truth, everything has.

There will always be the characters that make us laugh and say, "You haven't changed a bit!" Donny Whitner seems to fit that category nicely, but in fact, he's seen his own share of sorrow. I recall attending the visitation when his mother passed on, years ago. Life may have smiled on some of my classmates, but if I had polled them this weekend, I don't think that any would have said that life has been easy.

It certainly hasn't been easy for me. Some of you may not know that I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I endured over ten years of abuse at the hands of the one person I was supposed to be able to trust: my father. The resulting damage created what was, essentially, a shy, frightened, obnoxious, angry teenager who had no idea how to Be. You know what I mean: those popular kids in school who always seemed to know how to talk to the opposite sex, the ones who seemed so confident and sure of themselves. How I envied them! How I envied people like Shawn, and Tracey, and Barb, and Renee - who were all so pretty, who always knew how to act and what to say.

The obnoxious angry thing was a wall, of course, designed to keep people at arm's length. I needed a safe place, back in those days, and inside my wall was it. The only problem was, I never let anyone in. How could I, when I had no idea to behave, no idea what to talk about, no idea how to be a normal human being? How could I let anyone get close when I had no idea how to trust them? The end result was that I spent a lot of time alone and lonely, watching my friends and wishing I could be like them.

It may surprise some of you to know that back in those days, I felt ugly. Indeed, I was quite certain that I was ugly. Worthless. Damaged. The fact that guys rarely asked me out only served to confirm what I already suspected: that no one saw any value in me. I can't blame them for that, I probably seemed pretty undesirable: I swore like a sailor, I had no flair for clothes, I was painfully shy, I didn't know how to make small talk. I was not the sort of girl that any guy wanted to take home to meet his mom.

We held any number of dances, throughout high school. A few were formal, but most were informal "sock hop" type things. There was a building uptown that we used most Saturday nights. The partying crowd would usually get trashed at someone's house (often mine) beforehand, then turn up at The Beehive, as the building was known, thoroughly wasted, falling all over ourselves and generally having a fine time while an upperclassman played the songs of the day. It's funny how now, thirty years later, I can still associate certain songs with certain high school memories. Steely Dan's "My Old School" always got all of us on the dance floor. Back then, when high school seemed to go on forever, I don't think any of us could imagine a time when we'd never be "going back to my old school," but we were certainly optimistic about it!

The slow songs were the best ones, of course. Especially the longer ones like "Free Bird" and "Stairway to Heaven." The long ones gave you a perfect excuse to snuggle up to someone good-looking for a few minutes! You can't imagine how I envied all those snuggling couples from my vantage point against the wall! More often than not, if I wanted to get close to a hot guy, I had to do the asking myself. I didn't mind that, really, but it would've been nice if they had asked me instead.

So jump forward in time with me now to my 30-year reunion. I had the great good fortune of finding an absolutely stunning little black Ralph Lauren dress at a second-hand store for ten bucks. The minute I slipped it over my head in the changing room, I knew that it would be my "revenge dress." The revenge dress, in case you don't know, is that little piece of satisfaction that tells all the haters "kiss my skinny little ass" in no uncertain terms. And there were a few people in the class who needed to suffer the wrath of my revenge dress! Lucky for them, they didn't attend, which is fine with me. In any case, between the revenge dress, the minor nips and tucks I've had done over the years, and the 20+ years of therapy, I was stylin'!

That is to say, I looked FANTASTIC!

Now, I knew that I was oozing fabulosity. I've acquired enough self-esteem by now to know exactly what I looked like on Saturday night, and what my personality brought to the game, as well. I turned a lot of heads. Men flirted. Women were gracious about my look. I knew going into the occasion that it was going to be a special night for me, but at the time, I had no idea just how special it would end up being. Because, you see, I had no idea that the Gods were going to let me have a do-over.

No one ever really gets a do-over, do they? None of my friends have ever mentioned having one. Maybe it's a rarity, like Haley's Comet, only coming around once every 82.3 years or something. And I certainly wasn't looking to have a do-over kind of night; I just wanted to annoy a few specific women with my flat stomach and my great hair! But the Gods apparently smiled on me that night, and handed me Barry on a silver platter!

A little background here: Barry was one of the hotties on the football team. Guys liked him, girls wanted to be with him. He was that wonderful combination of good looks, charm, and humor. Self-effacing, easy to be around, willing to get up to a little mischief every now and then. Stories about riding around in his car - which was dubbed the "Death Wagon" with good reason - were legendary. I don't think there was anyone who disliked Barry. He was just that kind of guy.

I had a crush on him myself, in high school. Even asked him to a prom. He turned me down - he had already asked someone else. The rejection was understandable, but, as always, it felt like yet another confirmation that guys REALLY DIDN'T WANT TO GO OUT WITH ME! Let's face it: guys just don't want to be with an obnoxious swearing idiot. What they did want was Shawn - who dated Barry during our senior year, while I watched wistfully from afar.

Thirty years later, we've all reached a certain parity: some of the hot guys then are less so, now; some of the nerds turned out to be really good looking; a number of plain Jane's are now stunning beauties. We've all grown up, gained a little perspective, gotten our shit together (more or less). Now, we're a group of people on the cusp of middle age, fondly reminiscing about dumb things we'd done back in the day, remembering folks who died too young, and laughing at the ones who are still goofy after all these years. It was a fine evening, but it was missing something. That something was Barry, who had other commitments over the weekend.

So I spent some time stalking his best high school buddy, Billy. Hopping up and down impatiently at Billy's side, I said in a stream-of-consciousness kind of way, "Billy-Billy-Billy-text-Barry!-text-Barry!-text-Barry!" As it turned out, Barry was able to squeeze some time out of his obligation-laden weekend, and showed up near the end of the evening. "I'll be there in 10," he texted Billy in response.

I'd be leaving out an important detail if I didn't tell you that Barry's been happily married for a long time, now. So I wasn't looking to do one of those infamous hook-ups that we all hear about at reunions. To be honest, I'm not sure exactly WHAT I was looking for, I just knew it was Barry-related. So I hopped up and down some more while I waited for him to arrive.

The class had rented the Holiday Inn ballroom until midnight - which was fast approaching by the time Barry arrived. I had already consulted the DJ, and then informed Barry in passing that when he heard "Stairway to Heaven" playing, it was time to dance. Then I wandered off to tease Billy about his horse-shaped weather vane.

To the opening strains of that classic Zeppelin song, I glanced around the room, crooked a finger at Barry, and walked out on the dance floor. I turned and looked at him. When I held up my arms, he swept me into the kind of embrace that a woman only experiences a few times in life. And then we danced. For the eight minutes and three seconds that it took Led Zeppelin to sing that song, I was transformed. I was the prom queen. I was the pretty girl that the hot football player wants to dance with. We talked. We laughed. It was easy. It was magic.

I'd never experienced magic before.

We were the only ones dancing. One by one, classmates filtered out of the ballroom, heading to the hotel bar to continue the party. Apart from the DJ, we were the only two left in the room. Neither one of us cared. It was our moment - a moment Barry later conceded was "long overdue," given his own admission, earlier in the day when he briefly crashed the class picnic, to a crush he'd had on me all those years ago. Those classmates must have wondered what was going on out on the dance floor, given that we were clearly in a zone all our own, where not so much as one molecule of air could've passed between us, such was our embrace.

The buzz I got from the evening stayed with me well into the next day before reality came crashing in. That's the way it is with do-overs, though: they're much too fleeting. And then they're gone. Barry, of course, went home to his wife and 2.5 kids. I went home to my cats, my depression and PTSD, to the horrific nightmares that plague me on a nightly basis. Back to the life that's frequently interesting, but never magic. I had no idea how hard going back to reality would be.

I spent the better part of this day crying, off and on. Crying because it took 48 years to experience the sort of magical moment that all my normal friends took for granted back in high school. Crying, too, for Barry's kind willingness to indulge me for those eight minutes. He can't know how much that dance meant to the frightened, ugly, shy, damaged girl who still resides within.

I want to thank everyone who participated in the Perrysburg High School Class of '81 reunion. It was such fun talking to all of you, catching up on new things, and laughing about old things. I'm grateful that so many of you were willing to overlook how abominably I behaved thirty years ago. And I'm grateful, too, for those eight magical minutes with you, Barry. You made a fabulous woman/troubled girl very happy. Thank you!

Something Different for You!

Hi Folks!

As a change of pace, I thought I'd post a link to an interview I did recently. I spent a very pleasant half hour or so chatting with "The Real Dr. Doolittle," Val Heart, being interviewed for her podcast. I've included the URL link to the interview, but my computer doesn't seem to want to work right, so instead of clicking on it, you may have to copy and paste it into your search engine:

http://www.valheart.com/blog/the-real-dr-doolittle-show/author-of-the-crazy-critter-lady-kelly-meister-on-the-real-dr-doolittle-show™/

For those of you who are interested to learn more about Val, here's her bio:

Val Heart is called The Real Dr Doolittle and is an Expert Animal Whisperer. She helps people who are struggling with their animals training, behavior, health, and end of life transitions. She resolves problems in minutes not years because she bridges the gap between people and their animals. She can also teach you how to be your own Dr Dolittle so you can save money at the vet, and resolve behavior, performance and training problems yourself. Free AnimalTalk QuickStart Course (value $79), The Real Dr Doolittle Show™ (free podcast) now on iTunes! (210) 863-7928, http://www.valheart.com

I hope you enjoyed the interview! Until next time, please be kind to all the critters!