Notes From The Fields, or Coming Home

Note: originally written 5am PST, December 12th in Irvine, CA.

It is hard to come home again.  There are cliches about it, everyone has written about it, everyone knows it.  It’s hard.  People slip into old patterns of behavior, patterns they may have worked very diligently to change, but that are easy to fall back into when they are the behaviors that old family and friends expect.  Sometimes home is all too familiar, and one returns to a hometown that seems small and cramped compared with one’s now wider view of the world.  Sometimes returning home can be painfully different if a loved one has been lost or if one hails from Southern California where the bulldozer of progress has mown over all of the orange and avocado groves and replaced them with identical looking Spanish style shopping plazas.

Merry Christmas!

I have written much about returning home over the years, about the pitfalls and complications, and will endeavor to discourse more on it when I have had time to think.  For now here are a few notes from the field, or rather notes from the house I grew up in what used to be near a strawberry field.  

There Are So. Many. People. Here.

Southern California is crowded.  Duh.  Our forefather and mothers stole the land from a bunch of Native American tribes who were perfectly suited to living in its arable climate and turned it into a paradise and held it by stealing water from many surrounding cache basins, and people have flocked here for hundreds of years now from every direction.

Long story short, there are a lot of people here now.  A lot of people, each driving in their own car.  All at the same time. 

There are a lot of cars here now.

In Chicago and New York there are a lot of people too, but it is not as easy to see that as in LA and Orange County.  Here, the cities sprawl out horizontally, one city flowing into another endlessly until they meet the sea or the Mexico border, the Saddleback mountains or the Mojave.  Whenever Don is out in CA with me one of his favorite games to play while we are driving is to randomly shout “Where are we now!?” every ten minutes or so and see if I can name the exact city through which we are passing.  After 20 years away I’m not very good at this game anymore!

I flew into LAX this trip, and sitting in the back of my parents car (just like coming home from college!) in traffic on the freeway and I went into a trance just staring at the traffic patterns swirling around us.  The slow march of white and red lights becomes hypnotic after a time, and I start to lose myself in imagining all of the people inside each car, and wondering about their lives.  Where do they live?  Where do they work? Where do all of their coworkers live?  How far do they have to drive each day?  Did that truck really pass CA emissions standards?! Eventually I have to tear myself away from the sight and look through pictures of the girls on my phone for a minute to re-anchor myself in time and space.

Everyone Needs to Get Somewhere Faster Than You

You are a slow, worthless asshole.  

Everyone in front of you, next to you, and behind you is more important.  They need to get to their places much faster than you.  They are too important to be bothered with signaling their movements to you with a blinker.  They are too important to be bothered with stopping completely at that stop sign.  They are completely justified in cutting you off in order to gain 10 more feet in their race to the finish line.  That Trader Joe’s gingerbread mix is going like hot cakes and they need to score at least five boxes, and two bottles of Rosé, so get the fuck out of their way, pendejo!

But Also, Parrots

Around 6:30am the wild parrots fly toward the coast from their roosts near the mountains.  Around 5pm they fly back towards the mountains.  We get two wild parrot flock flyovers a day.  Probably not as exciting for people living here full time, especially people in whose backyard trees they roost for a few minutes, chattering nonstop in the early morning.  But pretty exciting for me.  There were no wild parrot flocks when I was growing up, just crows and ravens living in the eucalyptus trees in the parks and greenbelts.  Speaking of which…

Parrots!

EUCALYPTUS

Sometimes you will be driving along, cursing under your breath at the asshole who just cut you off for no logically apparent reason, and then it will hit you.  The pungent, life affirming odor of eucalyptus.  It is everywhere.  Lining the freeways and toll roads, in my backyard, right in front of my face in a vase on the kitchen table, along the railroad turned walking path greenbelts.  Eucalyptus.  

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I can get fresh eucalyptus clippings twice a year at my farmer’s market, and occasionally imported from God Knows Where at the Whole Foods.  And anytime I order a wreath from my two preferred wreath ordering websites I get one with fresh CA eucalyptus included so that our entryway becomes a delicious home of homey smelling goodness.  But nothing beats the omnipresent odor of sun warmed eucalyptus out here!

SQUIRREL!

Merry Christmas!  Edged weapon, anyone?

Found Grandmother Prentice's old recipe box!

Recipe box.  So tactile!

Inscrutable Rosie

Inscrutable Rosie.

Rosie was not the most lovable of dogs.  She came to the Zimmer family by way of a breeding farm (sort of a puppy mill) who basically abandoned her when she turned out to be a "bad breeder".  Having lived much of her early life in a small cage with metal mesh for a floor, she was not well taken care of.  The bulldog breed is prone to all sorts of genetic faults through inbreeding, and Rosie seemed to have inherited them all.  Snaggle toothed with an underbite, one of her lower incisors perpetually peeked out of her lips.  She was prone to fungal infections in her many skin folds, couldn’t go for walks in temperatures in excess of or below 68 degrees due to respiratory problems, and preferred to spend most of her time in her kennel.  She was territorial of her kennel and food bowl, and home in general.  Whenever we used to watch her for an extended period of time the first thing she would do is go into our own dogs kennel and pee on his bed, right in the middle.  “Rosie is in the house, bitches!” she seemed to proclaim.

I can't tell from her face if she is waiting for a treat or thinking about biting my pants.

Rosie was also among the most lovable of dogs.  Having come from a very bad situation, she was incredibly grateful for and loving towards David, her newly adopted father.  Her preference for an indoor and nearly sedentary lifestyle was ideal for a bachelor in veterinary school, and later for a young married couple when Laura joined the family.  When Laura later got sick, Rosie never complained at being shuttled around to different houses (aside from the occasional protest pee).  She adored David, and the feeling was mutual.  And Laura loved her too, and loved even more making fun of her and her various imperfections in relation to the adorable corgi puppy, Wrigley, that joined their family.

Rosie out on a walk in optimal not too hot, not too humid conditions
(with Lucy and baby Riley totally passed out)

But her greatest defining feature of all, to me at least, was her complete inscrutability.  Whether a trick of her specific breed, or an eye surgery she had earlier, she had a total lack of facial expression, a canine equivalent of a poker face.  After meeting her the first time I dubbed her “Inscrutable Rosie” and thought of her in only those terms for the remainder of her happy life.  She could display emotion through her body, certainly.  Her hackles would rise when a child or her new baby brother Wrigley would come too near a treat she was given or a toy she was playing with.  Her body would wriggle and quiver when people would get down on the floor and play tug of war with her.  And when David came home from school or work she would absolutely race to the door and spin in circles, belying the false tale she had woven earlier that she was too tired and old to go outside for a walk.

Her face and her eyes, however, betrayed no expression at all.  Whenever I would stop by her house to feed her or let her out it was honestly impossible for me to tell what she was thinking if her body was still. Was she happy to see me?  Was she just patiently waiting for her dinner?  Was she about to tear my face off and eat my eyes out of their sockets?  As long as she was standing or sitting still (which, let’s be honest, was the lions share of her time) I would feel slightly unsettled.  What was going on under that wrinkled, furry mask?

Merry Christmas! I'm coming at you to snuggle, or steal your snack, or eat your face!

Stinky snaggle kisses!

Whenever I would play with Rosie I would always think of the old cliche “still waters run deep.”  For those of you who have pets, you know they often betray a wealth of emotion in their faces, especially their eyes.  Our Labrador, Boss, is able to express entire Roman Catholic confessions to us just through a glance when we return home and find that he has eaten a loaf of bread or dug through the trash.  But Rosie’s eyes always appeared utterly still to me.  Perhaps it was because I never knew her well enough, but that mystery always made it fun and a little exciting to play with her. 

RUNNING!

What was she thinking?  Was she thinking anything at all?  Was she making advanced calculations in her head about the best way to expedite dinner or a treat?  Was she plotting a takeover of Wrigley’s food bowl?  What was she feeling?  Was she happy?  Sad?  Hungry?  Annoyed?  Completely dead inside until a Beggin’ Strip or her beloved David showed themselves? It was impossible to know, but also didn’t really matter.  No matter her thoughts or feelings Rosie would be certain to find the most comfortable spot in the house (whether or not she had just peed on it) and enthrone herself for the duration (the night, the visit, the week…she had stamina when it came to hunkering down on a pillow chair).

Enthroned

Rosie passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly last Friday in Angola, at the vet clinic where she was first rescued and where she spent so many happy vacations and family holidays with her canine and human brethren.  The whole Zimmer side of the family was gathered in Indianapolis for the Thanksgiving holiday, so David was unable to be with her as she passed, and that was really hard.  She was the second member of his family to die, his wife Laura having passed away over three years ago now.  That is beyond hard.

Rosie, Laura and David at Riley's memorial bench in Pokagon State Park.

To me, losing Rosie is losing a fixture in the family, and a personal mascot almost.  She was weird and often visually unappealing and damaged and incredibly loving and completely loyal and inscrutable.  My God, who among us isn’t?  OK, seriously though, was I describing Rosie just then or myself 99% of the time?  I even peed on the floor of David’s bedroom once after a particularly raucous Christmas party in the mid-2000’s, the legend of which has remained unacknowledged by me until this very moment.  I only thought about her occasionally while she was alive, but I have been thinking about her nonstop since last Friday.

I am 99.9% sure there is a treat involved in this exchange.

To David, losing Rosie is something different altogether, and something with which he has altogether too much experience.  It is losing a beloved family member, and friend.  His companion since the summer he adopted her in 2012, she was with him through veterinary school and then medical school and into residency.  Through bachelor years and married years, through devastation into widowerhood.  She may have been inscrutable to me, but she was family.

Rosie, you are missed.

Rosie and her brother-from-another-bitch, Wrigley.

The Island of Misfit Animals

So…about this goat.  To quote one of the best movies of all time:

Let me ‘splain….no, there is too much.  Let me sum up.

A family from Angola called Matt and Susie (Don’s parents) at their veterinary clinic and said “We have this baby sheep that hurt its eye, can you look at it for us?”  Of course they said yes.  So the family brought in their animal, and the conversation went roughly like this….

            Matt: Well, first of all, that’s a goat.  Not a sheep.  Second of all, its eye has to come out because it’s infected and its body is rejecting it.  So it will be about $x to do the surgery and remove the eye.

            Goat Owners: Well, we can’t really swing that much money.  Let’s just put her down.

            Matt: Well…if it’s all the same to you, I’ve got a granddaughter that would love to play with her.  Can I have her and I will see what I can do about saving her?

            Goat Owners: OK!

So Matt did the surgery, removed the eye, and she was doing fine.  But Matt and Susie had plans to go on vacation for a few days, and didn’t have anyone to bottle feed a baby goat every few hours that just had surgery.  Luckily, we are always on the lookout for some extra chores and responsibilities for Lucy.  We call them Character Building Opportunities.  She already is responsible for feeding Boss twice a day, giving him water, helping empty the dishwasher and load the dryer and make her own bed.  But we were looking for something a little…weirder.  Stinkier, if you will.  So, bottle feeding a goat every three hours and cleaning out its crate three times a day?

Perfect.

You see both the Zimmers and the Prentices have a long history of animal rescue and rehabilitation.  In Don’s family this certainly makes a lot of sense.  After all, his dad is a veterinarian and although they moved around a lot, they usually had some land; enough to accommodate the odd horse, calf, goat, etc.  And I do mean odd. 

Because Don’s families rescue pet stories read like Tales from the Island of Misfit Animals.  Here is the starring cast: a three legged calf named Stew.  A goat with a brain tumor and disfigured horns named Dink.  A tree squirrel that used to bury their house keys in the planters around the house.  A dachshund born with no anus they called Annie.  You know, the normal stuff.

Our family had a pretty normal parade of childhood pets as well, especially in Southern California.  A tarantula named Mr. T.  An iguana named Flash.  A red tailed boa we called Oliver and with whom I used to nap.  Two ground squirrels named Sparky and King (who was, as it turned out, a lady) who later turned into five squirrels.  A parade of rabbits (once again, it started out as two rabbits, until my brother let them out together in the backyard to “see what would happen.”).  And we always had a few Rottweilers, which was super popular with the neighbors in our cookie cutter suburban neighborhood.

So Don and I both come from families with a history of embracing the unknown variables in life, especially of

the animal variety.  I mean, you are talking about the family that saved an infant flying squirrel from certain death last summer by feeding it with an eye dropper and keeping it warm with heated water bottles every few hours.  I caught worms and flies to hand feed it when it got older!  Side note: we miss you Cubs.  We hope you are doing well at the squirrel rehabilitation ladies house down in Southern Indiana.

One eyed baby goat?  Bring it on.  My only caveat was that I get to rename the goat from Molly to Polyphemus.  I mean, if we are going to illegally house a one eyed goat in our city garage, we are going to at least be educational.

So on a random Tuesday we loaded the kids in the car and headed East to Angola.  We had some lunch, we did some chores, we made some dinner, everyone except Riley and me rode horses, and then we loaded up all of the kids (hah) in the car and headed back to South Bend.  Literally thirty seconds into the drive I looked over at Don, panic stricken and sure I had just made a grave error.  He put his hand on my arm.

            Don: You know, it is possible she will make that noise the entire drive home.

            Me: Oh my God.  Yes.  I just realized that…..how long are we looking at here?

            Don: Oh you know, not very long.  Just a few months.

            Me: Excuse me?

            Don: Hahahaha, ahhhh….just kidding.  Like a few weeks.

            Me: OK.  That is more like it.

Eventually Polly settled down and stopped screaming (you know, when goats are upset they bleat.  When goats are really upset, they bleat really loudly.  And when goats are riding in crates in the back of your car and you forget and turn really fast and they go rocketing about the crate, they scream like babies.  It’s super fun).  And we got home and got her settled in her crate lined with newspaper in the garage.  We fed her one last bottle, and we went to bed.

Well that's adorable.

Our days settled into routine.  At night before bed I would mix up a huge OJ bottle of formula for Polly from the large bag of Calf Replacement Formula that we brought from Angola.  It smelled disturbingly like a vanilla milkshake, but did NOT taste that appealing.  As soon as one of us came down in the morning Polly would start bleating for her morning bottle.  The first few nights we kept her in the crate, but we soon started leaving her out in the garage at night to decrease the amount we had to change her crate paper.  You see, goat hooves are like sharp little stones.  As soon as we put Polly in her crate at any time she would immediately urinate on the paper.  And then, within an hour, she would have trampled all of the paper with her sharp little hooves and macerated it into newspaper/urine pulp.  And then Lucy would be unable to scrape it off the bottom of the crate, and I would have to change her paper.  Which did not accomplish any Character Development.  My character is developed enough – I don’t need this crap (pun intended)!

So everything went smoothly for the first week or so.  Lots of kids (human) came over to play with her and meet her.  We talked to them about her eye and how things heal and get better and Greek mythology.  We let them feed her a bottle.  She would chase them as they ran around the yard and everyone laughed when she jumped up in the air and frolicked.  She and Boss goat along very well.  Occasionally I gave her a bath in our kitchen sink, and had to wash the stitches in her eye off when she had some purulent oozing (google that, I dare you).

Mmmmmm....oooooze.

But then she started getting stronger.  Lucy had a harder time feeding her because when she is hungry she butts the bottle with her nose, an instinct that when nursing from a mother goat helps the milk let down.  But when nursing from a bottle, just sprays formula everywhere.  And she would pull on the nipple so hard the bottle would fly out of Lucy’s hands.  And then Lucy started getting lazy about it.  I would send her out to feed Polly a bottle and ten minutes later still hear her bleating.  Lucy would be in the yard riding her bike and the mostly full bottle would be sitting on the steps.

            Lucy: Well, um.  She wasn’t very hungry, so she took a break.

And then there was the poop.  Which was everywhere.  Not in the yard.  Not on the driveway.  It was everywhere in the garage.  Specifically on the steps into the house.  And her favorite place to pee was the welcome mat.  Morning when getting Lucy ready for school, I had mastered the ability to meet three needs in a timely manner.  I could feed and clothe Lucy for school, feed and clothe Riley, and make sure Boss was fed and let out before we left.  But I was unprepared for the fourth set of needs.  Perhaps it was just a matter of time before I mastered the juggling act, but in the morning when Riley was fussing to be nursed and Boss was dancing on my feet waiting to be fed and Lucy was writhing around her room begging that I not go downstairs and wait until she was dressed and then downstairs saying she didn’t want the eggs I had made her but only cereal and tomatoes the addition of the very loud bleating right outside the door into the garage was one need too many.

So tasty....

So, around the two week mark the cost: benefit ration began to turn, and not in Polly’s favor.  I think Don began to see the calculation in my eyes when I would look at her.  It was a look he recognized from the time we were in Africa together.  Every time I would see an antelope I would lick my lips a little bit, and try to calculate with my eyes how many delicious antelope chops and rolls of sausage it would make.  Especially the dik diks.  Tiny little walking chops.

That is the way I started looking at Polly.  Is she edible yet?  Is she worth the poop underfoot?  Is she worth the level of insanity I approach when hearing her bleat on top of all the other cacophony?  Is she really trying to hump my leg right now?  Did she really just head butt Boss?

He saw the crazy in my eye, and he knew it was time for Polly to seek greener pastures.  So, this past Sunday morning, Don loaded Polly back in the car and drove her back to the farm.  I assume she is now becoming accustomed to the life that other pygmy goats have enjoyed on the farm in Angola: limitless access to hay and grain stolen from the horses until their girth exceeds their height.

Good fortune to you, Polly.  Maybe you can come back one day, when Lucy's ability to follow through on her responsibilities exceeds my distaste for tracking your poop through my kitchen.  Until then, watch out for Duke.  You might really be a goat, but he is an Australian Shepherd, and I don't think your specific Genus matters to him.