Imported from Detroit

I was born and raised in Pontiac, Michigan, a once thriving factory town and home of the Pontiac automobile. The last time I drove through my old neighborhood, I saw boarded-up houses and empty lots, and the streets looked like the grins of gap-toothed skulls. I sobbed all the way home. 

Photo by Liz Weddon on Unsplash

But people still live on that street, some of them my old neighbors, and where there's life there's hope. I love Pontiac. I would never have had some of my best friends and many of my happiest memories without it. 

The other day I was loading groceries into my car when a woman who was parked nose-to-nose with me yelled, "Hey! Excuse me!" I walked towards her. She was a black woman, middle-aged, with glasses and a not quite trusting smile.

"What's that mean on your windshield?"

I looked and saw that she was talking about the decal at the top reading: IMPORTED FROM DETROIT. It was there when I bought the car, used, a year or so before. The salesman explained that it was part of an auto industry marketing campaign and meant that the car was as good as any import. Once he said that, I didn't give it a second thought.

"Oh!" I smiled, oblivious to the potential for confrontation. "It was there when I bought the car. I think it's just a little poke at the imports."

"You sure it doesn't mean Detroit's no better than a third-world country?" 

She didn't look like someone trying to pick a fight. Instead, she seemed to be trying to avoid a fight when there was a possible affront staring her in the face.

My eyes got very wide. "Honestly, ma'am, I never took it that way at all, and if I'd thought that's what it meant, I would have had the salesman take it off. I bought the car used, and it was already on there. I always took it as pro-Detroit, not anti."

"Oh!" she laughed. "That sounds better to me. You see, I'm from Detroit, and I was just about to go a few rounds with you if that was your opinion!"

I smiled back. "Well, ma'am, I'm from Pontiac, and I think people like you and me ought to stick together."

"I think you're right!" she laughed. "You have a blessed day now!"

Life would be a lot better for everybody, and maybe last a lot longer for some, if we listened and talked before jumping to conclusions. 

I know that two men could have defused this tense situation just as amicably. Still, I think it's a good argument for pumping estrogen into city water supplies, just to help things along a little bit. 

  

Swimming Toward the Christmas Lights

I'm writing this on Christmas Eve at the end of one of the most challenging years I can remember. 

My mother passed away in February, a friend died by suicide in September, another died the night before Thanksgiving, an old schoolmate lost her baby granddaughter to a rare genetic disorder, and another friend lost one sister only to have another nearly die in a car accident just weeks later.

And that wasn't all of it. There were other serious illnesses and even deaths among those close to me this year. 

Then, like wolves, arthritis took me down, and these days I use a cane on bad days.

Christmas has a way of stroking our cheeks with the faux fur of holiday stockings, then snapping our bare backsides with Santa's big belt. We find joy in how children wonder over Christmas and then grieve over our own memories of it and just about everything else - the sad, the sweet, the bittersweet. Those memories crystallize into something needle-like and pierce straight into us like thorns on mistletoe. 

A very wise woman once told me that something positive comes from everything that happens to us, no matter how tragic. After some introspection, I'm thinking she's right.

I challenge you to find at least one good thing to come from any memory haunting you this Christmas. Whether it's a lesson learned, a more compassionate self, a ripple effect that's touched others in positive ways, I believe you can find at least that one good thing and maybe more. 

Take me and my arthritis. I don't know how this'll all go down in the long run, but for now, I'm taking it as a scary, painful wake-up call to lose weight, eat better, and move more. I've joined my local Y and am reaping the benefits of swimming, including less pain, more flexibility and a bit more muscle definition in my back. And I'm learning that there are lots of treatment options available to me and that remission is a real possibility. 

I'm also looking at my cane with new eyes and finding that it almost cozies up the entryway. It leans against a table that holds candles and family photos. I think of my Aunt Izzy who lived not only with arthritis but a severe hand tremor. But those things didn't stop her from cooking and baking and lighting our lives with laughter and wit and fun well into her nineties. She's the one who smiled at her nieces and nephews just before she passed, telling them that she was having "such a wonderful death."

I'm choosing - and some days it's hard - to believe that having arthritis might ultimately boost my quality of life as well as my longevity because it's forcing me to make better choices about my health. 

And you? What light has come to you because of the dark? 

Whatever it is, may it guide you to a better Christmas - this year and for all the years to come. 

Sam Spayed, Dog Detective

It was a dark and stormy night in a city of secrets and lies. I hovered over my desk - a hot stove with nothing cooking - and prayed for a scream in the dark, a wailing siren, a ringing telephone - anything, anything to end the boredom, the uneasy sense of uselessness from sitting around doing nothing. Who am I, you ask?

The murderer always returns to 

 the scene of the crime. 

Photograph copyright Teece Aronin

I'm Sam Spayed, dog defective - I mean detective.

I'm a mutt with a nose for crime and no case of mine has ever gone unsolved. But right then I didn't even have a case. And I needed a case. I needed a case like an unscrupulous dame needs an unsuspecting dupe. Yeah, I needed a case that bad.

Just when I thought I couldn't stand another minute of it, the phone rang, its jagged brrrriiiinnng-brrrriiiinnng beating out a hellish tattoo in the dim and dingy office.

I snatched up that phone on the third brrrriiiinnng.

"Spayed here."

The call was from a dame, and a hysterical one at that. It seemed that the cunning jewel thief known simply as the Cat Burglar had struck again - this time in the vicinity of Dogwood and 34th. But unlike the Cat Burglar's other conquests, this was a murder too. I dove into my trench coat, grabbed my faithful fedora and disappeared into the night.

I reappeared ten minutes later at the posh and pricey penthouse doghouse of one Kitty Marmaduke. I was met at the door by the dame who'd called me, the cute little chickie who'd been doing all that yelling. Her name was Furniece Marmaduke and she was Kitty Marmaduke's daughter. 

I'd never met Furniece, but I recognized her from the society pages. She knew me by reputation. I expressed my condolences and we got down to business. She led me across the foyer to the darkened study where her mother was stretched out on the floor, one ankle daintily crossing the other. Near Kitty's head was a pricey looking collar. I picked it up, careful not to compromise the evidence. The collar had a tag engraved with the initials, C.B. 

Hmm . . . Cat Burglar? 

One look at Kitty proved she wasn't posing for a spread in Dog Fancy Magazine; in fact, she was a little long in the tooth to be posing naked, and besides, she wasn't naked. But she did look to be one dead dog, and none of her diamond-studded collars and her lifetime membership to the American Kennel Club could help her now.

"Miss Marmaduke, have you touched anything in here?" I asked.

"No, Mr. Spayed. I remembered I wasn't supposed to. Well, I did turn the lamp on, but that was all. Oh Mr. Spayed," Furniece cried, all breathy and fragile-sounding, "Why did he have to murder Mumsy? She would have handed over her jewels without a fight."

"He murdered Mumsy - I mean your mother - because he knew she could identify him," I said, my eyes skirting the room for evidence. Loose pearls littered the floor and chaise. Maybe the Cat Burglar had yanked the pearls right off Kitty Marmaduke's neck. Or maybe Furniece was wrong and her mother had put up a fight.

Someone growled and Furniece's wide brown eyes locked with mine. 

"Hey, don't look at me," I told her. 

"Well it certainly wasn't me," Furniece snipped. 

That growl was followed by another and Furniece and I turned to see Kitty Marmaduke's ankles uncross. Furniece's eyes were bigger than milk saucers, and she gasped as her mother moved again. 

"Mumsy!" she yelled, high-tailing it to where her mother lay. It seemed that reports of Kitty Marmaduke's death had been greatly exaggerated.

"Oh, my head," Mrs. Marmaduke muttered, slowly sitting up. "Someone hit me on the back of my head."

"That was the Cat Burglar," Furniece explained. Then, sobbing into her mother's neck: "Oh, Mumsy, thank goodness you're alright!"

"Oh, Furniece, for heaven's sake, get your paws off me!" barked Kitty Marmaduke. Furniece looked wounded and came back to huddle against me. 

Like her niece, it seemed that Kitty Marmaduke also knew me by reputation because she snarled: "Get away from my daughter, Mr. Spayed." Then she shot me another order: "And come over here and help me up!"

"Yes, ma'am," I said, strolling to her in my own sweet time. No broad like Kitty Marmaduke was going to order me around. I started wondering how a doll like Furniece could have a mother who was such a b . . . well, you know. 

I helped Mrs. Marmaduke into a chair. Furniece was at her side again in a flash.

"So, ladies," I said, "You've both had quite a night. Whatta ya make of this?"

Furniece Marmaduke looked at me while dabbing her eyes with a hankie. She appeared innocent and vulnerable. Kitty Marmaduke looked at me while rubbing the back of her head. She appeared disgusted and insulted.                

"I would think, Mr. Spayed, that you're the one who should be making something of all this," she snapped. I had the feeling that staying clear of Kitty Marmaduke's teeth was a very good idea.                    
                                                                                                             
"Sorry, ma'am, and you're right," I said. "And I think I have an idea. But it means staying put, the three of us, right here. Nobody goes anywhere. Nothing personal, Miss Marmaduke," I said to Furniece, "but you're a little upset, and I can't risk you saying or doing anything that might spook the Cat Burglar. He'll likely be watching you." 

Something I'd said had all the color draining from Furniece's spots. Would I have been that nervous in Furniece's place, thrown into a plot to trap a jewel thief? I wondered. Her mother, on the other paw, didn't bat an eye. 

"Miss Marmaduke, have you talked to the police?"

"No, Mr. Spayed. I was frightened, had heard about you and just phoned. I'm not sure why I didn't call the police."

"That's alright," I reassured her. The police and I don't often agree on methods and since there was no real murder here, I think we can work around them for now. You know what I'm thinking?"

"Of course we don't know what you're thinking," snapped Kitty Marmaduke. "Suppose you tell us?"

Her barb stung but I let it go.

"I'm thinking that the Cat Burglar will be missing that collar, the one with C.B. engraved on the tag. I also think he'll be desperate to get it back in his possession. So we're just going to hunker down for the night and wait him out."

Hearing these words, Furniece was one scared puppy - even more than before - but Mrs. Marmaduke was one ticked off old dog. And the tick who'd had the misfortune of annoying her at that moment hit the Aubusson rug after a merciless death. 

"What? On the butler's night off? I should think not, Mr. Spayed! The very idea is preposterous! Furniece and I would have to fend for ourselves under very stressful circumstances! Why I never!" 

"You did at least once, ma'am," I smirked, my eyes cutting toward Furniece. I enjoyed having Mrs. Marmaduke by the short hairs. "And besides, if you want me to catch the Cat Burglar, it's best you play along."

I hustled Furniece, who was also complaining about the butler, into an adjacent room. Of course, the pup doesn't fall far from the pooch, so I had to bring her a bottle of Purrier on ice before I could shut her in. If marrying rich meant busting my tail for a princess as spoiled as she was, I'd rather stay single and poor. 

After I got Furniece settled, I rejoined Mrs. Marmaduke in the study and turned the lights back off. There was nothing for either of us to do but wait. Before I knew it, there came the distinctive clicking sounds of someone picking a lock. I then had the pleasure of shoving Mrs. Marmaduke to the floor where I quickly re-positioned her the way the Cat Burglar had left her. Then I slipped behind a curtain. 

It was darker in that room than the inside of a doberman's heart. I held my breath and imagined the Cat Burglar pussy-footing across the floor. Then I sprang from behind the curtain, counting on the element of surprise. 

It worked. The Cat Burglar let out a hiss and then a yowl as I grabbed him and took him down. We struggled for a minute, but cats aren't as strong as dogs, so it was only a matter of time before I had him cuffed. Then I tied his hind legs together. 

When I turned on the light, there he was, a panting, raging little pussycat with his hair standing on end. I opened the door to the room where I'd stashed Furniece and hauled her out of there. To be on the safe side, I took my heat out and pointed the gun's muzzle straight at her.

The Cat Burglar took one look at Furniece and hissed, "It's her fault! She's the one who's behind all this!" 

"Just as I suspected," I said.

"What are you talking about?" demanded Furniece.

"Well, sugar," I said, "the first nail in your coffin came when you said you 'remembered' that you weren't supposed to touch anything. That's not proof of anything, but it did get me wondering if someone might have coached you on a few things. Then you nearly fainted when I said we'd all be playing it cozy for the night and waiting for a visit from Puss-In-Boots over there. It wasn't much of a deduction to figure out the rest."

"But why, Furniece?" asked Kitty Marmaduke, and I have to admit, I felt sorry for her - but only for a second.

"Oh, please!" shouted Furniece. "You and I both know that I'm not even your daughter; I'm your niece! My father ran with that horrible pack and one day he just never came home. Then my mother found out she was expecting me, and you undermined her confidence until I was born and she begged you to adopt me. You even named me Furniece as a constant reminder that you would never see me as your own daughter. I hate you! 

"Then, when we argued one night and you threatened to cut me off without a cent, I put feelers out through the criminal grapevine that I wanted to talk to the Cat Burglar. When he got in touch, we made our plan and part of that plan was that I'd give him one third of my inheritance plus whatever jewelry he could nab if he killed you during the break-in. I hate you!" 

Furniece threw that second I hate you in there just in case her mother or her aunt or whoever Kitty was, had missed the first one.

Still, there was something I hadn't figured out yet. "But doll-face, why did you call me in?" I asked.

"It was a calculated risk," Furniece explained. "Calling you in made me look more innocent. And it did, didn't it, Mr. Spayed? You have to admit that it did. What doomed me came later when I gave myself away."

"And you, pussnick," I said, gesturing toward the cat. "I'm guessing you came back for your tag. Does C.B. stand for Cat Burglar?"

"No - my name - Cecil Batterbottom," the cat muttered, too embarrassed to look me in the eye. 

He had reason to be embarrassed. I burst out laughing then picked up the phone. I tucked the receiver between my shoulder and ear so that I could call the police with one hand and hold the gun on Furniece with the other. I had to admit, it was pretty sweet knowing I'd bagged two criminals with one trap. 

I guess you could say I'd collared them. 

Thanksgiving Quirky

I'm writing this on the Sunday after Thanksgiving 2016 and reflecting on how the day went.

My flower child daughter 
this Thanksgiving.
Image copyright, Teece Aronin

The kids and I were with family and just like previous years, I was told not to bring anything but ourselves because "we know how busy you are." 

It's true, I am busy. But how can I be busier than the others who show up lugging bowls big enough to host nationally-televised football games and baking dishes you could fill with water for small children to bathe in - oh and small children; some people were were lugging those too. 

It might be that I get off so easy because historically not the best things in life have come from that dark, shadowy, cobwebby room in my house I call the kitchen. 

But I'm happy anyway because my family honestly does wave me away lovingly and because they do genuinely care about how much I have to do these days. 

But you'd think they'd at least let me bring the cider provided I buy it somewhere and not try to make it from scratch by pulverizing my own apples which with my track record would turn out to be wormy and rotten.  

So what I do instead of cooking is to bring a nice hostess gift. This year I scored a deal on a huge holiday wreath and that was my contribution to the day.  

Also with us this year were a man who might have been alone otherwise and several other people who didn't start out as "family" but are now that they've been with us at these gatherings for years. 

This Thanksgiving was the one many people felt trepidation over due to the political storm still stalled over the U.S. after the recent presidential race and election. In case you're reading this in the year 3062 and our country has just now managed to forget, a lot of Thanksgiving hosts and hostesses were nervous about the potential for fights at the table and the crescent-roll-turned-weaponry-style battles that might break out during dinner. 

I'd made it through three forkfuls of turkey before some rabble-rouser brought up the election. It turned out to be my own daughter. But one thing to be thankful for was how one swift kick to the ankle made her instantly a-political and un-opinionated. And I was one proud mother to think I still had that much influence over her behavior. 

Then one of the ladies at the table asked my son what grade he was in and when he said "Tenth," the lady exclaimed, "Oh, tenth grade was the best year of my life!" Someone else at the table quietly inquired, "Why - you got pregnant?"

Of course we all laughed and laughed. Actually, we really did. 

After dinner, my daughter let her baby cousins give her a makeover from which she emerged looking like a 1960s flower child and my son posed for pictures placid and dignified in his two-year-old cousin's tiny pink sunglasses.  

And I . . . I thought how thankful I was for everyone there and how delicious dinner had been - partly because everyone insisted I not cook.  

Aging into Beauty

My son, Jon and I were at a mall food court eating sushi one day. A man at the next table, a roughened, Sam Elliott type, said to Jon, "You look an awful lot like your mother, son."

My parents, young and old - and me, top left and middle right.
Image copyright, Teece Aronin. 

I thanked the man, Jon smiled at him, and then the man said, "Someday you'll age into her beauty." Seconds later, the man was gone, leaving Jon and me baffled and staring at each other. 

"So, which of us should feel more insulted?" I asked. Jon wasn't sure so we finished our sushi and went home.

Looking back, I see how I missed the point in a huge way. Worse, my question to Jon fueled all kinds of stereotypes and outmoded thinking. One can be male and beautiful, and older and beautiful. 

As the mother of an adolescent son, I want his ideas of beauty, aging, and gender to be as inclusive as possible, but is that how I acted? No. Jon should have thrown a salmon roll at his mother's head. 

I'm not talking about sixty-something celebs with stables full of plastic surgeons being beautiful; I'm talking about the beauty in real people - older, male, female, LGBTQIA - anyone, everyone.

While we're at it, why not push the envelope and assert that one can be flat out old and beautiful? The older I get, the more convinced I am that it's true. Then again, I have a dog in this race - an old dog - a beautiful, old dog.

And when are we going to stop using the word old as an insult? 

Here's my list of the old and immensely beautiful:

• The translucent skin of my mother's 91-year-old hands
• My father's face lighting up when I'd visit him in hospice
• My aunt, sick and weak in a nursing home, laughing herself to tears when Jon accidentally ran over my foot with her wheelchair
• Another aunt, dying and deeply religious, smiling at the nieces and nephews bustling around her room and proclaiming, "Oh, I'm having the most wonderful death!"
• Canadian singer, songwriter and poet, Leonard Cohen, who stayed sexy as all get-out until his death at age 82

When Cohen was in his fifties, he wrote a very funny, very sexy song titled, "I'm Your Man." A snippet of the lyrics goes like this:

Ah, but a man never got a woman back
Not by begging on his knees
Or I'd crawl to you baby, and I'd fall at your feet
And I'd howl at your beauty like a dog in heat
And I'd claw at your heart and I'd tear at your sheet
I'd say please
I'm your man

To my mind, the older Cohen got, the sexier he became. 

I once read that the lover Cohen references in Chelsea Hotel was Janice Joplin. With that in mind, consider these lyrics from that haunting, lilting, groundbreaking song:

You told me again, you preferred handsome men, but for me you would make an exception,
And clenching your fist for the ones like us who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
You fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind; We are ugly but we have the music."

Eleanor Roosevelt is quoted as saying, "Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art."

True beauty is covered in crosshatch designs and marked up with scribbled arrows pointing every which way, and you learn eventually that looks, age, and attraction don't have much to do with each other. What counts is character, experience, a grasp of what's sensual, and who has the music.

Maybe Baby - Hope in the Current Political Climate

This past week, I felt sadder than I have in a long time. 

Image by Teece Aronin

I felt sad because so many of the people who share the U.S. with me are coming undone. Too many hate each other. Too many are afraid. Too many had great expectations and now are caught like cattle in the crossfire. 

And when it comes to politics, everyone is cattle, either all the time or part of the time; we just don't all know it. 

Cattle, for our purposes, are the innocents, the voiceless, the held back, the poor, the easy to manipulate, the under-educated, and the powerful. The word is not necessarily a slam. 

This kind of cattle has little to do with gender. A steer or a bull could be a woman, and a cow could be a man. The key difference between a bull and a steer is that the steer has been castrated. Hang in there; it'll make sense in a minute.  
Some cattle are calves: At the start of the Obama administration, calves stepped into the light, cautious and blinking, hopeful that their world was now safer. They are the undocumented, fleeing treacherous homelands. They are the LGBTQIA-plus community, victimized in disproportionate levels of gender-based or homophobic violence. They are the working poor, scrambling to live on less than livable wages. They are a lot of other people. Calves are anyone who is unfairly vulnerable. 

But back to the steers: Steers can be naive or easily led, and while most don't fully understand their part in the current political climate, many are convinced they know it all. Steers can hail from any party. When they are castrated, they lose their voices and the critical thinking skills they might otherwise have developed. They can bellow but not articulate. Steers have only wet coal in their bellies where there could have been fire. 

Next come the bulls. Bulls are anyone with power - educational, financial, political - anything that can get or keep them ahead. 

Cows are underrepresented, underestimated, marginalized, and economically disadvantaged people, many of them women, and sometimes they overlap with the calves. The over-simplified reason most cows are held back is because that's what happens when unscrupulous bulls are in charge. People of color, indigenous people, people who lack access to the internet, college educations, and quality healthcare free of bias, are pushed down, trampled, and left behind. 

Since the election, Donald Trump has expressed a willingness to use Obama's Affordable Care Act (ACA) as a framework for a restructured healthcare system, but many of the cows and calves haven't heard this news that might have given them a sliver of hope. 

That slow news drip down to the cows and calves is what makes developments such as Trump's seemingly softer stance on the ACA something like trickle-down economics. It doesn't matter if the news is good or bad or vitally important - because the cows and calves scrambling for survival can't hear it. They don't sit down to read The Wall Street Journal on smart phones over a sushi lunch because they can't afford a smart phone, can't afford sushi, or can't afford lunch.  

Singer, songwriter, and poet Leonard Cohen died Thursday at age 82, right smack in the midst of all this hoohah. His song, Everybody Knows summed up the bitterness many people feel about sinking systems such as ours. It would fit no matter which candidate won last week. 

Everybody knows the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

How dare Cohen die, leaving us in this mess when he was clearly so savvy about what caused it? The answer, I think, was to pursue his muse, Marianne, who died just three months prior. But that's a sad story for a sad essay and a sad day. 

Today, I am focused on hope.

To those of you who say of Trump, "My God, why all the stress? He hasn't even done anything yet," please understand that you probably support Trump and wait with anticipation to see what he does next. You can't imagine the fears of every cow and calf. 

Speaking as a cow, even I can't.  

If you are LGBTQIA-plus, undocumented, have a green card but don't know in which country you'll feel safe in a couple of years, are a working poor person, or one of any number of upended calves, your tender legs quivering in the air, take heart: 

We really don't know exactly what a Trump presidency will look like. Try not to worry. Instead, think constructively. Learn which rights you do have. Look for legal loopholes. Take strength from the like-minded, and respect those who oppose you with respect. Be a helper. Do everything you can to help yourself and others.  

No president delivers on every promise or threat made during a campaign. Trump might prove himself more even keeled than the persona he invoked to win the White House.

Maybe his beltway outsider status and business experience will give him an edge in fixing what politicians haven't. 

If you give him a chance and he still performs poorly, hope for minimal collateral damage and help to repair it.

If like Bill, you're still married to Hillary, maybe she'll get another shot. 

Maybe Michelle Obama will run for President. Thanks to the ground Clinton paved, she wouldn't be the first former First Lady to seek the Oval Office. 

Trump is rolling back much of the angry rhetoric. Besides claiming he will use the ACA as a framework for remodeling our healthcare system, Trump met with President Obama for what was expected to be 10 minutes but lasted for about 90. Unless one of them tied the other to a chair, it's likely there was a meaningful dialog. And when Trump promised to call on President Obama for future counsel, my heart soared. Will it happen? I don't know, but the fact that Trump said it at all gives me hope. 

The fact that we're all cattle isn't as bad as it sounds since cattle are among the finest of creatures. We should combine the bovine qualities we seek to keep with the higher intelligence, gumption, and purposeful kindness that come with our humanity. 

In the meantime, let's try to not kill each other.

The A-Team

The older I get, the simpler I get - and if anyone makes any jokes, they're out of the will while I'm still of sound mind. I blame the A-Team, but more about them in a minute. 

Silas treating the $29 bedspread much nicer than my

heirloom quilt - the little schnook. 

I've always gravitated toward the simple and the quaint but I'm finding that aging and animals have boosted that tendency big time. However, I refuse to allow beasts to completely ruin the House and Garden lifestyle to which I plan to become accustomed. Still, animals can get you simplified REAL fast if that's already your bent. 

Living with the kids and me are Hope, our dog, Kitt, our cat, and Silas, our kitten. Before the fur-clad A-Team (Animal Team) came along, I bought expensive bedspreads. I gave up on that yesterday and picked out a sweet little reversible quilt at a local discount store for $29, and a chair cushion for about five bucks. 

This chair is now squirreled

away in a corner of my

bedroom. Correction: This 
chair now helps make up a
charming little reading nook 
in my bedroom.

Oddly, it seems that cat fights and dog dances atop the bed slowed to a trickle with the new spread. Apparently, the cheaper my decor, the less desire the team feels to mess it up. Maybe they value the simpler things in life too.

I also moved two of my favorite chairs (purchased before Silas' arrival) into my bedroom because he was more likely to wreck them in the living room. 

But on the bright side, I hardly ever had comfortable chairs or a reading nook in the bedroom before, and now I have two - two chairs and two nooks. One single person can never have too many reading nooks in one small bedroom. Sad to say, however, I prefer to read in bed. 

And this is my reading

nook for sunny days when

no lamp is required. 

But the A-Team isn't only Hope, Kitt and Silas. Inspired by a book I bought, All You Can Eat in Three Square Feet, I put in a garden last spring. It became a food bank for every chipmunk, rabbit, squirrel and bird within a five mile radius. Now I have to make another plan - maybe with more container gardening and mesh next year. 

But again, looking on the bright side, outwitting the local fauna helps keep me sharp much as it did for Elmer Fudd. The entire yield of this year's harvest: three tiny radishes, enough lettuce for one small salad, and eight jalapeno peppers. 

But that's okay. I have plenty of dog and cat food, and that's what really matters.