Dream Work

Oh, sleep! It is
a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Goose says she has boring dreams. Often, Moose will roll over in the morning and regale us with the elaborate details of her nocturnal adventures--hilarious work-anxiety dreams, scary unresolved-family-stuff dreams, fleeting glimpses of her late father's tender face, fading echoes of his voice. Goose shakes her head and says, "I dreamed I was in the canned food aisle at Safeway, trying to choose among different brands of tomato sauce."

The other night, though, Goose had an Academy Award-worthy dream. She told me it was okay to share it with my legions of loyal fans because you all know we have been worried about our fish, John, Paul, and George-Ringo, who have endured--we hope--the Washington area's recent snap of very cold weather underneath the thick slab of ice that has formed on their pond in our yard. We've all been concerned, though we know that koi hibernate in winter and that the pond isn't frozen all the way to the bottom.

Anyway, Goose dreamed she had gone down to check on the pond to make sure the water was still flowing. (Pond maintenance is one of Goose's regular chores.) She went and stood on the edge and looked down into the pond. In real life, our pond is about three feet deep and usually clouded by dirt or algae, but the dream pond was crystal clear and unfathomably deep. Not only that, instead of just three fish, the pond was teeming with fish--leaping, iridescent, in varied patterns of orange, white, and black. Goose stood and watched them in joy and admiration. The fish were safe. The spring would come again.


Moose loved this dream. She thinks dreams of water always have great psychic importance and that fish are signs of regeneration, transformation on the deepest levels. She's not sure where she got this idea--possibly from the footnotes to The Waste Land, perhaps from a Celtic folk band she heard in France at the age of seventeen. In any case, the dream made all of us happy and willing to believe that something wonderful was about to happen.

Let's hold that pleasant thought in our minds as we hunker down for the last few weeks of winter. I noted a few other propitious signs this week:

• It looks as though a small but significant backlash against the backlash against Hillary Clinton may be setting in. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd published yet another ridiculous anti-Hillary screed this week, but Vanity Fair writer James Wolcott has a great piece from a few weeks ago that nicely dissects Dowd's mind-clouding Clinton hatred. Meanwhile, over at Huff Po, which has otherwise become a bastion of Hillary hatred, comedian Elayne Boosler offers a full-throated affirmation of Hillary's fitness for the job of president. She praises her toughness, her experience, and even her refusal to apologize for having voted to authorize military action in Iraq.
• Christian conservatives are reportedly unhappy with their choices so far for 2008. Apparently, John McCain can't tack far enough to the right to appease the far, far right, and there is just enough anti-Mormon bigotry among fundamentalists to assure that the flip-flopping Mitt Romney will never get off the ground. Stubborn Republicans are refusing to heed the message of the recent election and seem determined to march in lockstep over a cliff of ideological purity. Moose is convinced that any Democrat could beat any Republican who is likely to get the nomination.
  
• It's almost March. The non-lady Terps have a winning record in the ACC conference and seem poised to get back in the NCAA tournament for the first time in three years. The Maryland women still seem rattled in the big games, but I have a hunch coach Brenda Frese will have her team's head on straight come tourney time.

Cheer the turtle, friends! Spring is coming. The moms and I took a three-mile walk today. And everybody knows Dick Cheney is a freeze-dried lunatic. Things are getting better, bit by bit.

Holiday on Ice

(Photo Credit: Ricky Carioti, The Washington Post)

Old dogs are reluctant to admit it, but we actually don't like to learn new tricks. Which is why I haven't been too pleased by the fact that Mother Nature decided to turn my large back yard into an ice rink this week. My thirteenth birthday is coming up (April 1, for fans who haven't yet marked their calendars), so it's a little late for me to be trying to master the triple lutz just so I can go to the bathroom. Peggy Fleming I am not, despite a certain icy elegance. Indeed, I've been so discombobulated by the lake of glass my world has become that I broke one of my new year's resolutions this week (#3: bladder control) and had an accident in the house. That, of course, was my moms' fault. They hadn't gotten the ice cleared off the deck and stairs to give me a clear path down to the yard, and even though I rather like tinkling on the deck when it's covered in snow, I was so rattled by the disruption in my routine that I tinkled on the basement floor as a form of protest. As a consequence, Moose attacked the deck and stairs with a shovel yesterday afternoon. She had that wild "Mommy Dearest" look she gets in her eye from time to time when there's been some particularly egregious violation of household order. She cleared me a path. My yard is mine again, and Moose has a pleasant ache in her shoulders from her upper-body workout. All is right with our world, except for some lingering concern about how our three fish might be faring in their almost completely frozen pond. There's still a tiny trickle of water flowing in the waterfall, but I can't imagine what John, Paul, and George-Ringo are doing underneath that huge block of ice. I walked out on it one day last week to see if I could find them. No such luck. Poor guys. It's like Gitmo, only colder.

On the other hand, it was a delightful week for curling up on the couch with the moms to watch the fabulous Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, which we did on Monday and Tuesday evenings. Fans of Roxie's World know I was disappointed that a terrier didn't win Best in Show, but I was pleased that James, the English springer spaniel who upset the adorable little Dandie Dinmont everyone had been expecting to win, at least has a tie to the Washington area. (His owners are from Fairfax, Virginia.) I think it's funny that my moms get such a kick out of watching dog shows. It's not as though hyper-obedience and obsessive grooming have ever been goals they've aspired to as dog people. Even the pure-bred thing is a little weird when you think about it, proud though I am of my AKC registration papers. When it comes to people, after all, my moms are all for mixture, variation, and the broadest possible spectrum of difference, so why is it that when it comes to dogs they are riveted by a spectacle of purity and sameness? Moose is quick to denounce pretension in any form, yet all those snooty-sounding breed names trip off her tongue as if she had been born saying them: "Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen," she'll intone from the couch, just because she can. Have I stumbled upon a contradiction, or are the moms just eager to watch some dog-inclusive entertainment on a cold winter's night? In the long run, perhaps it doesn't matter. We're snuggled up and hanging out, together, and they let me know who's "Best in (their) Show" this night and every night.

Just in case that sweet moment of companion-species romance didn't make your teeth hurt, click on this heart-warming story about a great program called Reading Education Assistance Dogs, in which dogs help kids learn to read by offering them a fully present and completely nonjudgmental audience. If I'm not mistaken, my friend Dudley the beagle, who comments regularly on Roxie's World, participates in this program. Weigh in, Dudley, and give us a dog's-eye-view of this amazing concept.

Heads up, loyal fans: As of this post, we've finally switched to the new version of Blogger. Aside from being able to do labels for posts, we're not sure what that means, but stay tuned for a new and improved Roxie's World. As you know, your pleasure is our top priority, so let us know what you think.

What Would Molly Say?

(Photo Credit: Carolyn Mary Bauman, Forth Worth Star-Telegram via AP)

From this day on Roxie's World has an official motto, a motto that nicely captures this blog's spirit of dogged dedication to the cause of justice and comic skewering of the high-falutin' and the high and mighty, not to mention people who are mean to animals or who fail to clean up dog-doo in the park. Our motto, What Would Molly Say?, is a tribute to the late, great, and too soon gone Molly Ivins, Texas populist and rabble-rouser who never met an ego she couldn't knock down to size with a well-turned phrase and who never stopped believing that this wacky, messed-up nation could and would live up to its promises of liberty and justice for all.

I solemnly swear to my legions of loyal fans that Molly's keen eye and irrepressible spirit will live on in some humble way right here in Roxie's World. With every beat of my leaky heart and every tap of Moose's clumsy fingers on the keyboard, I dedicate myself to facing every fresh outrage with a Molly-esque mixture of ferocity and laughter. I call upon you, my loyal fans, to make the same vow, to wake up every morning with Molly's immortal words echoing in your own frail yet fearless hearts:

Keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce.

Every time you turn on the news and see that the Bush-leaguers are cranking up the scary talk to justify some new assault on civil liberty, ask yourself: What would Molly say?

Every time you see a reference to intelligence reports purporting to show Iranian involvement in attacks on U. S. soldiers in Iraq or evidence of weapons development, ask yourself: What would Molly say?

Every time you think about the government's massive failure first to protect and then to re-build the areas damaged by Hurricane Katrina, ask yourself: What would Molly say?

Every time Karl Rove or Dick Cheney or George Bush opens his mouth and some new lie pops out, ask yourself: What would Molly say?

And then, dammit, say it, because it needs saying--over and over, every day, for how ever many days you have left on this sweet, fragile earth. Say it, because you're here and she's not. Say it, because not saying it will pinch your spirit and threaten your sanity. Say it, with a smile on your face and the fire of determination burning in your belly. Say it, and then get up tomorrow and say it again.

Here are some wonderful tributes to Molly, from columnist E. J. Dionne, author Maya Angelou, and her good friends and co-conspirators from The Nation. Read them. Weep, laugh, and then get up off your butt and do something. Molly wouldn't have it any other way.

Update: Moose and Goose are still taking Molly's death pretty hard, so they wanted me to add in a few more tribute links. Here's one to Molly's second-to-the-last column, in which she vows to write against the war in every single column until we find a way to end it. Here is New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's piece that documents Molly's prescience about the disasters that would likely follow a U. S. invasion of Iraq. (We like this one because part of Krugman's point is to show that Molly wasn't merely funny. She was also damn smart.) Finally, here is the virtual memorial service being hosted by Molly's friends and colleagues at the Texas Observer. You'll need a hankie or three to make it through this one, but it's worth the effort.

Peace out, friends.

"One Horse Dies"

Roxie's World takes the unusual step of cutting and pasting in an entire editorial from yesterday's New York Times because this short piece on the death of Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro speaks so eloquently of the majesty of one great horse and the mysteries of the bond between humans and animals. In our household, Barbaro's terrible injury, which my moms and I saw live on the big plasma screen in our living room, prompted much discussion of the ethics of horse-racing (and remember, kids, Moose was born in Louisville, KY), but his death appropriately leads us to honor the dignity of his struggle, the beauty of his achievements, and the fierce dedication of his humans to doing right by the creature they loved.

Maybe tomorrow we'll have something to say about the premature death of another magnificent force of nature, Texas writer Molly Ivins, who did her best to save her home state and all the world from the idiocy of George W. Bush. Oh, Molly, if only we had listened. Give 'em hell in heaven, will ya, Molly? I'm sure they deserve it.

The editorial is titled "One Horse Dies."

Why should we feel so much grief at the loss of one horse? After all, this is a world in which horses are sacrificed again and again for the sport of humans. Barbaro was euthanized yesterday, eight months after he shattered his right hind leg at the start of the Preakness Stakes. After an injury like that, most racehorses would have been put down minutes later. But every race is a complex equation — a balance of economics, athleticism, equine grace and conscience. Conscience often comes in last, but not in this case. Barbaro’s owners gave that horse exactly what he had given them, which is everything. It was the very least they could do, and yet it seemed truly exceptional in a sport that is as often barbarous as it is beautiful.

Barbaro was exceptional because he won the Kentucky Derby and looked as if he might have a chance at the Triple Crown. But nearly everyone who met him also talked of the life he displayed, a vivid presence that was so much more visible to us because it happened to belong to a winner.

Humans are not especially good at noticing horses, but Barbaro was easy to notice. And if his life caused us to pay attention to the possibilities of all horses, his death should cause us to pay attention to the tragedy inherent in the end of so many horses. Barbaro’s death was tragic not because it was measured against the races he might have won or even against the effort to save his life. It was tragic because of what every horse is.

You would have to look a long, long time to find a dishonest or cruel horse. And the odds are that if you did find one, it was made cruel or dishonest by the company it kept with humans. It is no exaggeration to say that nearly every horse — Barbaro included — is pure of heart. Some are faster, some slower. Some wind up in the winner’s circle. But they should all evoke in us the generosity of conscience — a human quality, after all — that was expended in the effort to save this one horse.

Memo to Lady Terps: BELIEVE!

(Photo Credit: Preston Keres - Washington Post)

My beloved Lady Terps suffered a heartbreaking loss last night to the revenge-seeking Tar Heels of North Carolina. (The Heels lost just two games last year, both to the youthful Terps.) They lost 84-71 before a raucous crowd of 17,950 at Comcast Center. (For excellent coverage of the game, see these three pieces in the Post by Marc Carig, Mike Wise, and Kathy Orton.) It's the second time in two weeks that the Terps have been kicked in the gut by one of the elite teams they beat last year enroute to their improbable national title.

Athletes hate being put on the couch and psychoanalyzed when things aren't going their way. They also hate getting advice from arm-chair coaches and disappointed fans, perhaps especially when the advice is offered up on the internets by aging dogs who happen to have blogs. Nonetheless, the moms and Margie and I stayed up late last night thinking and talking about the game, and we came up with some suggestions for the still young though ever mighty women of Maryland. They probably touched on most of these ideas in the locker room last night, but we offer them anyway in a spirit of admiration and high hope for their future:

• Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself: Fear the Turtle? You bet! Fear the Brenda? After last night's totally understandable technical, we reckon so! But watching last night's game, particularly the execrable first half, one got the sense that the Lady Terps have grown a little anxious in the big games. Last year, they played fearlessly because they were too young to worry about what they were doing. This year, with expectations so high and other teams gunning for them, they seem at clutch moments to suffer from pangs of self-doubt. Self-doubt breeds hesitation, and hesitation breeds turnovers (21 last night), poor shot selection (the normally cool-handed Kristi Toliver was 2-9 from 3-point land against the Heels), and missed passes. Coach Brenda Frese is right that her team needs to ease up on itself a little. Think less. Play more. Remember: It's a game.
• Get Your Swagger Back: Coach B. is right on this one, too. You are the It girls of college basketball. Fans adore you. (Last night's crowd set a record for attendance at an ACC women's game.) Opponents respect you. Look in the mirror, and love what you see. Look at your teammates, and love what you can do together. Look at the stands filled with little girls wearing your numbers and screaming your names, and love what you hear. You are strong and beautiful and tough.
• Get Even: Now you've got a couple of ego-bruising losses to avenge. Now you've got the image of Ivory Latta bobbing her head on your home court to celebrate another swishing 3-pointer burnished in your brains. And then there's that last-second shot by Camille Little, taken after you had conceded the game by opting not to foul North Carolina in the final 10 seconds. We want you to remember that bit of poor sportswomanship. Remember it, and use it to fuel your own competitive fire.
• Check the Calendar: It's not even February yet, women. You've got lots of time to make the adjustments you need to make to win the big games. Your rebounding was magnificent last night. You still need to be more effective on defense, and you need to know what to do if Crystal Langhorne is getting shut down underneath the basket. There's a whole lot more right than there is wrong, though, women, and the season is a long way from over.
  

Hold your heads high. Your best is yet to come.

Send In the Twins

(Photo Credit: Moose; Easy-to-Read Anti-War Posters Designed and Painted by: Moose)

First things first: A heart-felt apology to my legions of loyal fans for the unconscionable delay between posts. Per usual, it's my moms' fault. I won't say things have been stressful for them lately, but they did go see Kathleen Turner the other night in the stunning revival of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and left the theater howling with delight. "What an utterly charming romantic comedy!" Moose said to Goose. To which Goose replied, "Oh, yes, and one based on a couple just like us--together for 23 years and 6 years apart in age! It's so seldom you see a great love story focused on middle-aged characters!" "You are so right, Goose. And, just like us, George and Martha had mutual interests and activities that kept their relationship fresh--the drinking, the verbal jousting, the comments about aging, the drinking. I'm surprised we never decided to have an imaginary baby. I think we would have been good at that, don't you?"

As I've told you before, my moms are weird, but I'm glad that instead of an imaginary baby they had a real dog. I'm also glad that one of the shared interests that has kept their relationship fresh as a daisy (and slightly less combustible than George and Martha's) is a passion for peace and liberal politics. (Yes, liberal. My moms think the term progressive is a wienie-word that evades noble Democratic traditions of expanding rights, shared responsibilities, and international cooperation that we ought to be proud to claim.) So of course they hopped on a Metro train yesterday for the big anti-war protest in downtown Washington. My moms just love a good demo, and yesterday's was delightful. The day was sunny and warm, the company was congenial, and the crowd was impressive. Several fans and citizens of Roxie's World were there, including my Official Gay Stalker, the Man Who Will Cure Cancer, Aaron the Anatomically Obsessed Six-Year-Old (and his grandmother), Margie the Eco-Warrior, and Alicia, my Favorite Poet Against the War. They got there in time to hear most of the speeches, including those by Maxine Waters and Jane Fonda, which were especially righteous and moving. They were able to march together without too much difficulty. They kept running into a sizable contingent of folks from Code Pink as well as an impressive group of large-headed papier-mache puppets of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice dressed in prison stripes and all chained together. They saw many clever signs, a lot of sad and angry ones, and one tee-shirt that said Vagina Warrior, which provoked squeals of glee from the Anatomically Obsessed Six-Year Old. All along the route, people kept stopping Moose to photograph her "Send in the Twins" sign, which of course delighted her endlessly. She thinks it's one of her best posters ever.

Roxie's World will not get into the debate about how big the march was, though Margie, who has done a lot of marching in her day, estimated it at about 200,000. From a political standpoint, it's probably more important that the visuals were compelling and that the march is being followed up by a day of lobbying Congress on Monday. Another thing that really impressed Margie, Moose, and Goose (or, as Moose sardonically termed their mini-contingent, the Hormonally Unbalanced Radicals for Peace) were the large numbers of young people in the crowd who weren't there because their aging hippie parents had dragged them along. The Post even had a separate article devoted to youth involvement in the anti-war movement. It reports that, "Many students mentioned the case of Ehren Watada -- the U.S. Army lieutenant facing a court martial for refusing to deploy to Iraq -- as an important step in building a cohesive antiwar movement."

Roxie's World is proud to celebrate all fighters for peace and all those who inspire others to get up off their couches and take a stand for a better world. We give yesterday's march a Five-Paw Rating and an enthusiastic Roxie's World Seal of Approval. But remember, kids, a march is not a movement, and a good slogan never ended a war. March today, but be ready to work your hearts tomorrow--and tomorrow--and tomorrow. . . .

Peace out, friends.



(Photo Credit: Jason Rudy)

Sweet Shiloh: R. I. P.

Shiloh was a cousin of mine, sweetest little terrier mix to ever grace the heart of Texas. He lived in Austin with my uncle Bobby and aunt Judy Smith. He was sixteen years old and died yesterday of a stroke in the midst of the big chill that has hit the Lone Star state recently. We never met, technically, but when I was a wee pup he and his brother Quincy sent me a bone made out of tightly woven colorful thread. I chewed and chewed and chewed that bone. I played tug with that bone and dragged it from one end of the house to the other. For all my hard work, I never managed to destroy it. That bone is somewhere in this house yet, just as Shiloh's presence still lingers with uncle Bobby and aunt Judy and anybody who ever knew him. He's pictured here with little Wesley, one of the more recent loves of his long life. Shiloh was a great kid dog--always gentle, always fun, always ready for a snuggle.

Travel on, little Shiloh. We will miss you here, but we are grateful for all the time and all the love we had with you. Safe journey, sweet cousin. Safe home.