Irene's Idea of Identity, or How to Integrate the Internal and External

Irene sits in the chair, her psychiatrist sits behind the desk. Irene had a psychotic break a decade ago, and has been on medication ever since. Her psychiatrist has been the father she never had, so seeing him every two weeks is a lifesaver.

"I'm painting," she tells him, "but I've come to that place where I shut down, and things go wrong."

He nods his head. Irene watches him carefully, waiting for him to offer up pearls of wisdom. Instead he begins to cough.

 "I hope you're taking good care of yourself," she says.  

He pulls out a bottle of water and a clean little Dixie cup. "I'm fine, really," he says. "Would you like some water?"

Irene shakes her head. "Chocolate would be good about now. Maybe a Hershey's Kiss."

"You're anxious and getting a little depressed," he says.

 "My cousin, Becky, goes to work everyday and no matter what else is going on, she gets her work done," Irene says. "My friend, Annie, makes applesauce whenever she is having a bad day, sometimes a few days in a row, then she's back on the saddle."  

"How are you sleeping?" the psychiatrist asks. 

"I had a Cheshire Cat bizarre dream," Irene answers. "Colors and nice people and bubbles, like at a party, then it popped and was gone."

"We've talked before about how you struggle with setting boundaries within a creative context," he remarks as he scribbles on his note pad.

"I nearly lost it the day I had to take my cat, Chris, to the vet," Irene says. "In the end, it was easy."

"I have a dog whose given me a few scares. How are things at home?" he asks. 

"The Thai friend who cuts my husband's hair came over last week," Irene says. "She told the story of Solomon and made it sound better than Star Wars. Says Jesus makes her a good life. Gilda, who lives next door, I've told you about her before, still screams at her kids so much that I keep the windows on that side of the house closed."

"Do you feel that way?" he asks.

"No. Not like her. I think she screams to get attention and cries when she doesn't. Kind of her own worst enemy."

"I think you're doing a lot to help yourself. Going to yoga, spending time with friends, painting with serious intent. The painting is important. You need that creative outlet. Could you look at your work from a different perspective?" He's leaning back in his chair peering at her above his glasses.

"Well, this woman, Henrietta, from my yoga class, said her debit card was counterfeited and it upset her so much that she changed her name to Etta and listens to jazz," Irene mumbles.

"Etta James, I guess," he says. "I listen to her in my car and let my mind wonder. I find it very relaxing."

"Stay with my painting, right? Irene asks. "Enjoy the process, right?"

He nods. "Takes a different tilt at times, when you're a creative person."

"I think I understand. Thank you," Irene says.

"See you in two weeks," he says as he walks Irene to the door. "You're doing fine. I look forward to seeing this painting."

"Me too, me too." Irene says, turning away as the door closes. Fifty-five exquisitely sensitive minutes twice a month.  

Henrietta's Headstand

Mr. Cash sent Henrietta and her little brother to live in an orphanage after his wife died. Henrietta's brother went into the military at 18, she became a novice at a nearby convent. But after the end of the first year, it was agreed that she would leave, so she became a housekeeper for a family in Pasadena, California. Over the next several years, she put herself through night school and obtained a degree in mathematics. She never married. 

"Life is lived by virtue of the dollar," Henrietta Cash taught her students at the local high school. "It's all about the math. Easy enough if you keep track. House of cards if you don't ."

Every time she said this, she heard her father's baritone voice counseling her. 

"Henrietta," he'd say, "debtors are the poor unfortunate of the earth. Don't owe anyone anything and you will lead a good Christian life."

He'd kept his accounts within a $.50 error margin. One of his ledger's, yellowed and brittle now, perched upright, half open, on her bedside table. The fastidiously organized austere columns entered in an exacting  hand with neither a smear nor blot reassured her that an orderly life has meaning. 

"If I can't pay for it on the spot," she has said a hundred times if she has said it once, "then I won't buy it." 

Henrietta has lived by the numbers for 60 plus years now. She know that if something costs $9.99 it really costs $10.82 when Los Angeles County tax of 8.25 percent is included. Some time back, the bank sent her a debit card. She stuck it in a drawer.

Semi-retired, Henrietta runs statistical data for a research lab from her computer at home from 4 AM until 10 AM, five days a week, earning a tidy sum of money, which she does not disclose to anyone. Until 10 years ago, her hobby was knitting, but the doctor convinced Henrietta to take up yoga after she gained 50 pounds and her joints ached. She lost weight and her bones stopped aching.

"It's the best thing I've ever done," she says. "At my age, I can do a headstand?" Her father would not have approved.

Then one day she came home from a yoga class and there were four phone messages for her. The first one was from the fraud department of her bank. The second, third and fourth were as well, each leaving the same message with the same number for her to call. 

Still in her yoga clothes  she returned the call but hung up as soon as the computer voice asked for the last four digits of her social security number. 

Finally, Henrietta decided that four messages meant it was serious business. She wound her way through the menus until a live person answered on the other end of the line.

"Why are you calling me?" she asked the female voice. 

"There is a charge for $705.00 on your debit card for gasoline at a station in Bakersfield," the female voice said, monotone and robot-like, although it was a real woman. "Did you make that purchase?"

"NO," Henrietta answered, her voice so high-pitched it hurt her throat, "No, I did not." 

"Did you make a purchase for $792.38 at the same station a few minutes later?" the female voice asked, again monotone and robot-like. 

"Why would I do that?" Henrietta shreiked,  her rib cage clamped so tightly around her chest that she had to remind herself to breath."

"Ma-am," the female voice said, "I realize this is upsetting, but we need to ask. Did you make this purchase?"

"I spend $45.00 on gasoline when the tank is empty, or $34.00 when I have half a quarter of a tank left. I can't imagine $700.00 worth of gasoline?" Henrietta said. She sank back against the wall. "Did the charges go through? Exactly how much money do I owe?" Henrietta practiced breathing in for four counts, holding her breath for four counts and breathing out for four counts.

"I don't know," the female voice said. "The charges will not show up on your account if they were declined. I'm sorry I cannot tell you more right now."

Henrietta stopped counting. Her voice and the female voice continued speaking to each other briefly while a single thought reverberated through her mind. At least $700 is a round even amount.

She sat down at the computer to check her accounts and noticed the bamboo stalks on the screen saver. They were very pretty, fresh, crisp, green, jumbled together one over the other. She did not count them. Her heart thumped in her chest but she did not count the beats. 

She lined up the pencils by length, the pens by brand, the paper clips by color, and two quarters along the edge of the smooth glossy walnut finished wood desk. She fanned out the legal pads like a deck of cards. She piled the pads of post-it notes one on top of the other, in even piles on each side of the fan of legal pads. 

Henrietta admired the symmetry of it all then reached out with both hands as though about to play the piano and suddenly mushed them around, the legal pads falling off the desk, the paper clips sliding beneath the edge of the computer keyboard. Pencils, pens, quarters this way and that.    

Next, Henrietta leaned down and opened the lower left file drawer and removed each hanging folder one by one placing them in stacks near her feet. By the time they had all been removed the files themselves and the papers inside had fallen askew. When the air-conditioner came on, receipts and old post-its that had long since lost their stickiness blew like feathers landing wherever they fell. She opened the top file drawer and pulled the files out in handfuls, tossing them this way and that, their papers flying in every direction. She emptied everything.  

Within the hour, the room appeared to have been ransacked. Henrietta sat down in the middle of the room, smoothing a seat among her stuff, lifting her butt-cheeks side to side until she felt balanced. Her legs crossed in lotus position, she closed her eyes, lifted her arms above her head, brought her hands together in prayer position and lowered them to the crown of her head. She visualized a bamboo stalk in her mind's eye, and allowed her breathing to even out. 

Then Henrietta lowered her hands to her third eye right between her eyebrows, and relaxed her face and jaw, then she lowered her hands to her throat and blew a soft long breath over her fingertips. Finally, she brought her hands to her heart and bowed her head. 

She prayed: I am a strong, secure, successful woman. I will put my office into a new order. I want a playful perspective on life and to align my internal needs with my external life. A little voice, said, this is a work-in-progress.

Henrietta sat up taller lifting the sides of her chest longer and lighter. She took a deep breath and lifted her head and opened her eyes. The darkness of the room broken only by moonlight. Pushing the stuff of her life aside, she placed her head on the rug, her hands behind her neck, her arms on the floor supporting her head and slowly lifted her legs above her head. 

Observing the mess from a new perspective, it crossed Henrietta's mind that a credit card might be very useful. It could cut down on paper. She could call herself Heni on the card... there really wasn't anyone to object. 

Well, maybe she'd be Heni. Henrietta would have to think about that tomorrow.

What do you think?  

Gilda, Gilda, Gilda

Gilda's cousin mailed her a joke. She left out the pictures that went along with it. Here is the joke.

The Eulogy. She married and had 13 children. Her husband died. She married again and had 7 more children. Again her husband died. But she remarried and this time had 5 more children. Alas, she finally died.

Standing before her coffin the preacher prayed for her. He thanked the Lord for this very loving woman and said "Lord, they're finally together." One mourner leaned over and quietly asked her friend, "Do you think he means her first, second, or third husband?" The friend replied, "I think he means her legs."

Gilda (pronounced Gee-l-da) has always been married to the same man. She has two boys, two girls. Once upon a time, she had a half-baked career as an actress, but so many other women did too, that she began play-acting at home and for her friends. Not charades, more like, creating drama and comedy to get it out of her system. Drama, mostly.

"Who do you think you are?" she'd scream at her teenage daughter. "If you don't like what I bought, just say so, but don't talk to me like that." She'd stomp off, usually to wash dishes or put in laundry.

"You have to go to school, get up," she'd bellow at her son, shaking him, jiggling his shoulders like he was a bowl of jello, touching his face--which caused him to roar at her like a lion since he had zits and everyone harped at him not to touch them.

"I'll get up, I'll get up," he'd say as he turned his head toward the wall and fell into a deep sleep.

Gilda announced to her husband that she was going to stay at her cousin's house for awhile. She had to think things over. Things weren't going well, he didn't help out at home, and well, enough just might be enough. What she really wanted, was to learn how to get along with her children, and for that matter with her husband.

She packed a suitcase, her pillow, the laptop, and drove away.

At first, it was fun. They watched a subtitled French movie, sat in the patio and drank tea. They ate pasta primavera. They went to a movie. They talked. They worked crossword puzzles together. Gilda chopped up carrots for her cousin's pet tortoises and watched them waddle over to their food, eating slower than slow. The tortoises made a tiny little hissing sound once in awhile, otherwise, they were quiet.

Her cousin studied a lot. She was getting an MBA. Gilda slept in the guest bedroom that had a futon on the floor, matchstick blinds and a large bright white tiled bathroom with one bath towel and one face towel.

Finally, on the fifth night, Gilda called home. Her husband answered the phone.

"Is everything alright?" she asked. "I haven't heard from you."

"You left in a huff, so why should I be eager to talk to you?" he said.

"How are the children?" she asked, her voice all quivery like she was going to cry any minute.

"Same as ever, doing fine," he replied. "What else do you want to know? I have things to do."

Gilda hung up. Devastated. They didn't care. They didn't miss her. Everythingwasfine, everythingwasfine, every-thing-was-fine. The house was probably a huge mess.

She told her cousin who laughed. Laughed out loud.

"I remember what your mother would say to you that made you furious," Gilda's cousin said, as she put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips and spat our the words. "Who do you think you are young lady, Mary Astor's daughter?"  

Gilda had to laugh even though she really did not want to. "I hated it and slammed a lot of doors," she said.

"When she left the house in a tizzy, you were glad to see her go," her cousin added. "Things quieted down for awhile."

"All I ever wanted was lots of kids, and a loving husband," Gilda started to cry as she said the words. "I've had the same stupid man all these years and four infuriating kids."

"I have tortoises," her cousin said without emotion, looking Gilda straight in the eye. "You got what you wanted."

Gilda packed up and drove home. The house was tidy, dishes in dishwasher, clothes in hamper. It was the middle of the day. The children were at school, her husband was at work. The dog welcomed her at the front door, jumping around and weaving around, between Gilda's legs.

"Are you trying to murder me?" she barked at him. "Stay out of my way."

This time, she heard her own drama. A cup of tea worth-of-time-later on the patio, she spied a green praying mantis on the tip of a rose leaf. Then another one, this one was brown.

In a brillant moment, Gilda recalled that last year her youngest son had brought home a container of tiny praying mantis to keep pests off the rose bushes, as her birthday gift. Both of the large, mature praying mantis sat quietly, gently, peacefully magnificent on their perches.

Francine's File: One Watery History

Francine looked up at the stars, her head flung backward over the side of the seat with her curls trailing down, dangling free. She'd never seen so many stars. And there, clear as could be, was a shooting star. Then another, quartz opal and larger than the first until it flew apart into hundreds of lavender fingers of light that faded into a pale warm glow.    

A man's voice, echoing like over a faulty microphone said, "Wow. You were really flying." His pink Venetian mask with black swirls in a figure eight around tiny peepholes glided into view on a halogen stick. The faulty microphone voice asked "Is there someone I can call for you?

"I'd love to play," she heard herself whisper. "Will there be games with prizes I can win?"

A swirly pink straw with full smiling perfectly shaped red lips slid around from behind the mask. "You must be thirsty, love," it said. The straw dripped warm water onto her cheek. 

Puckering her lips as though for a kiss, water flowed around them and slid sideways.

"You are not the surface of the lake, you are the lake," the water said. The smooth opening bars of Beethoven's 9th played on the current which lowered first her head, then her feet. Her fingertips and toes spread out, warm breath hovered all around like a halo. 

Her father sat erect up front driving a carriage pulled by two white horses. Her mother peered from inside, her fingers beckoning, drawing the halo closer and closer.

Bliss. She smelled it. Like white birthday cake with butter cream icing. 

The lights shifted through a rainbow spectrum. Francine drifted off in a bubble of perfume. 

A vibrant orange silk ribbon wrapped itself around the sphere like a package with a big bow. With her breath, Francine unfurled the bow into translucent bubbles where she saw her reflection. Or was it her mother's reflection? Or was it the reflection of someone she had yet to know? 

And then, poof, the bubble was gone. Francine, Francine, are you there or have you gotten lost?  

Enlightened, exotic, better than Star Wars

Jirapen comes to our house in the San Fernando Valley every month to cut my husband's hair. He brings the old red schoolhouse chair from the back bedroom into the middle of the kitchen floor, while she sets up her scissors, razors, talcum and brush, and spray bottle on the counter. 

It's all very unhygienic, but they've done this long enough that neither one of them even thinks about food and hair in the same breath. It makes me cringe. For the next week, I imagine hair in my food.  The one time I finally got him to put the chair on the patio, the sunlight lasered down on them like a spotlight making little wafts of his grey hair stick wherever they first met sweat.

Jirapen quit trying to brush them off his neck. He didn't notice anyway. What brought the chair back into the house was when those little balls of grey fluff glued themselves on her face, kind of like very soft light fur. She never stopped talking and laughing the whole time. 

I didn't see her wipe her face, but the haircut continued as soon as the chair, the kitchen floor and my husband connected. Her face pale and clear as ever, her big brown eyes all sparkly, her long straight brown hair down her back, and the pink silk blouse smooth as a baby's butt.

"I'm so sorry," I said. "I didn't realize how hot it would be."

"Thailand very hot," she said. "Not like L.A. L.A. not so hot." 

She looked pretty hot to me that day. It was a couple years ago. I don't know if she's forgotten. I sure haven't. 

Now Jirapen is very conservative Christian.  Her father was a well-respected attorney in Bangkok so she didn't get much education because it was always assumed she would marry well and it wasn't, well, I guess you'd say, lady-like in those circles. She had lots of brothers and sisters and her mother lived like a queen, waited on hand and foot.  

But what happened is Jirapen ran away with a boy all the way to the United States. Of course, he wasn't the kind of boy her family had in mind or they wouldn't have had to run away. They married and had a daughter but things didn't work out and she became a single parent. Without an education, far from home, learning a language very different from her own, struggling to make a living. 

She worked at the same place as my husband, who probably liked her because she was pretty, and exotic and fun. I'm sure he admired her gumption. She also knew how to cut hair and offered to come to his house to do it. Clincher right there.

That was all 15 years ago. 

Meantime, she's  hardly lost any of her accent. So, when she says rose it comes out like loses--long o--and and when she says her own name it comes out like Jillapan. Words kind of run together with lots of laughter linking them, and pauses stop the lilting language like light posts.That alliteration of sounds, like chimes and tinkling bells, in a rhythm all it's own with those unexpected halting silences, tells stories without needing to make sense. Still, I think of that day I made them go out to the patio, and feel ashamed.

Tonight as she was cutting David's hair in the kitchen, she asked me if I knew the story of Daniel. She's gesturing at me with the scissors, leaning this way and that while she laughs those linking lilting light l's, looking heavenward from behind the glasses she wears nowadays, and wanting a reply from me, but I'm not getting any of this, just the aesthetics of the sounds.

"The King of Babylon," she said. "He had a dream about a tree, high to sky, and no-body can interpret. What to do?"

My husband sits there. Silent. Comprehending, I don't know? I'm not sure what she's referring to so I don't answer either.  

"Do you know the story of Daniel from the Bible?" she asked me. "King has a dream. Better than Star Wars." 

Now remember all the r's sounds like l's, so I am listening very closely to follow what she's saying which still sounds more like music than speech to me.

"No," I say. I really don't and it's so pleasing to hear her voice that I would want her to tell me even if I did know.

"No one can interpret King dream except Daniel," she says. "King tell Daniel he heard heavenly voice say, cut down the tree because is so beautiful and animals eat from under,  all so big and..."  She's waving her hands over the floor, then lifting them above her head and opening one hands upward, razor gripped in other hand, and laughing again. "You see what I say to you?" she asks.

I nod. I really do.

"The voice said to  leave the, oh what it is called, the thing low to ground...?" She's getting frustrated, unable to find the English word.

"The stump," my husband pipes up. 

"Yes. Voice says to put a round it." Her index fingers point moving like two little spoons stirring a thick pot of stew and moving her body in a circle.

"Put a fence around it," I say.  "Like a chain-link fence, in a yard with things growing on it."

"Yes, yes, yes." She's excited realizing that I get it. However, she has stopped cutting my husband's hair and he's twitching slightly not wanting to show his impatience but the frown is a dead give-away.

"So what happens?" I ask, as I look at her then back at my husband. 

"He has nice hair, you see that?" she asks as she lifts a section of hair between her fingers and clips off the uneven ends. "Beautiful hair, white like an angel." She's sectioning off another lot between her fingers and clipping.

He lets out a sigh and the twitching stops, relaxation drops his shoulders beneath the plastic cape snapped at his neck and draped over his body. His arms move slightly.

"Daniel tells the king tree is you, the king," she says, getting back on story track. "Daniel said worship God first, or he will get cut down and lose kingdom. King look all around, up and round, admiring all he has. God says you become like animal after one year, you admire kingdom still."

Long pause as she sections and measures and clips. A large pink hair clip gets moved to the other side of his head and she scoots around him in the red chair to begin the cutting process again. 

I'm leaning on the cook top completely swept away by the musicality of it all and sort of following the story, eager to know where it is going.

"You know the story now? she asks.

My husband nods his head. Just cut blinks like a neon sign on his forehead.  He's too kind to say a word but ever hopeful of getting this haircut over sooner than later.

"I'm following," I answer, wanting to hear her but also wanting the haircut finished.

"Oh," she's dancing around and laughing again, not cutting. "He had to live as an animal for seven years!"

"I don't understand. Do you?" I ask my husband. I am thoroughly perplexed.

"Yes, yes," he says, not moving his head but blinking his eyes faster and faster. "The king had to live like he was an animal. Head and body of a man, but eating from the ground like an animal." Curtness filling the space between us, which is about three feet. 

Jirapen doesn't seem to notice, clipping tiny fly-away hair now, bending and looking into his face, she's all smiles, he's not.  "Look good. Want to go look in mirror?" she asks.

He practically jumps up heading for the bathroom. 

"Take mirror to see back," she insists. "Broken but you can see how you like it."

The smile and calm and bliss has never left her face, being or body. Happiness radiates around her. "Good hair cut," she says. "Do you like it?" she calls out to him.

So what happens I ask her. 

"You do not know this story?" she says, stopping, silent, waiting for an answer maybe, maybe not. "Okay. Lord bless him and he get back everything. Made him humble not ashamed. God not like shame, he was worship. Why have to wait to see God. Know right away. Love God with all you heart. Feel good."

That's the whole story. Book of Daniel in the Bible I learn from my husband upon his return after asking her to make a few adjustments. 

Then I get it. She never complained about the heat that day on the patio because she is humble and believes, has faith that all will go well for her. She has no doubt about that. And it does work that way for her. Things do come her way. She needs an apartment, and a house is offered to her along with payment for her outstanding bills. She loves God and he takes care of her. 

Besides, Thailand is much hotter than L.A. And, it's only a haircut for her friend who pays her money that she needs. I kiss her goodbye, she says a quick prayer hugging me in the process. A bag of oranges from our tree goes with her. We wave at each other from the front porch. She says something unintelligible to me, but I understand by the look on her face she loves me. My husband walks her to her car and pays her cash which she much prefers to a check. 

We'll do this all over again in a month. That day on the hot patio recedes into the past.  

When you are a whole being, all things come to you. Lau Tzu said that in something like 650 A.D.

Driving Diane to hysterics

It's August and boring in  West Los Angeles. Diane had gotten her hair cut and colored at Studio 210 in Brentwood Gardens. The back bumper was dented when the valet pulled the car up.  She wanted to get rid of the thing, maybe now was the time. A BMW with better mileage came with full maintenance for something like three years. 

"Are you blind?" Diane snapped. "Couldn't you see how far you were from that other car?" She wanted to scream trying to figure what the repair would cost. Wait a minute. She wasn't liable. Diane had never been into math. She couldn't balance the checkbook, used cash, loved credit cards. It was her mother's fault for not insisting she learn. The teacher never tried to help her after school either. 

Diane had cheer leading then dance practice anyway. A math tutor might have been useful, who knows. For now, she was faced with a difficult decision right here in the garage at Brentwood Gardens. All she wanted to do was scream really loud at everybody within hearing distance, especially the parking attendants.

Diane remembered a little picture at home of her and her mother at Sandusky Point, or whatever it was called. The two of them building a sand castle. Her mother was in a two piece bathing suit, fashionable for the time, poised and smiling on bent knees totally at ease with her hands in the sticky sand pushing a stupid bucket upside down on a mound of what was surely disgusting imported dirty stuff.

Diane had stood there in little girl cotton panties either very happy or very bored. It had been a great day like finding a fancy watch buried in that watery mess. It had been so exciting to go back to their motel greasy spoon and eat fish with green beans, tomatoes and radishes. The waitress had been slow and brought her pizza with pepperoni by mistake.

"That's not what I ordered," Diane had said. She hated talking to strangers even way back then. But she wasn't eating pizza with pepperoni. 

The waitress had looked right at her and said, "Yes it is, but I'll be glad to get what you want."

A man at the next table said, "Don't be so impatient, cutie-pie. Relax. You'll get it soon enough." That made Diane feel like a fool. She sat there, but wanted to hide under a table, gross chewing gum wads and all.

"I am not impatient," Diane remembered saying to him. He was trying to pick a fight, that's all.

That day was a metaphor for her hysterical life. Panic mode was her usual state of mind. Yet she wasn't going to let a parking attendant get the best of her. Not today or any day. Diane looked around. A woman with two girls under six wearing bathing suits blathered about the heat and dance lessons. A matron with starched yellow hair and a St. John two piece suit leaned on her ebony cane. A companion kept asking the matron if she would like to sit down.

"No, no, no," the matron said. "I'm not that decrepit yet." She looked at Diane and smiled. "Don't you hate it when they ding up your car?" she asked. "Makes me want to scream, but then I think about who works here. Wouldn't want to do it in a million years. They have families to support, you know." 

Diane rolled her eyes waiting for the manager to show up. She was offered water and generic chocolates. "My car is dinged up," she said. Willing the corners of her mouths to turn upward only succeded in a twitch, her teeth hinged tightly at the jawbone.  "That's not going to repair it."

A Rolls Royce pulled up. The attendant opened the passenger door, the matron's companion helped her inside. The matron shook an arthritic finger at Diane, then stared straight ahead. 

On the way home, Diane pondered how she would tell her husband what had happened. He's going to be angry. What if he looked on the internet and saw housewife, 42, dinged up Mercedes in parking garage? Housewife rudely snapped at attendant at Brentwood Gardens. 

Everyone would know she colored her hair at Studio 210 and not at some hotsy-totsy place in Beverly Hills. Who would invite them to dinner after that? She could throw a party and no one would come. Her husband's business would be finished. How would they live?

Oh, for the life of an independent woman. Why hadn't she gone to law school like her parents wanted her to do? Or she could have written poetry and become a professor at UCLA, praised for her originality and verve. How she envied those industrious women. They didn't need a husband, so when the car got dented there was no one to care.

When Diane got home, her husband lounged on the sofa in the den reading The New Yorker magazine. The dog, Boxy, his beloved Boxer, on the ottoman at his side. Boxy was asleep, kicking one back leg and whimpering, obviously chasing some squirrel in the backyard.

"How was your day?" Diane asked.

"Fine," he answered. "How was yours?" He didn't look up from his magazine.

"Okay," she said. "The parking attendant dinged up the fender."

"What are you going to do about it?" he said, still not looking away from his reading.

"Get it fixed, I guess," Diane replied.

"There's an invitation to a Chaine des Rotisserus evening on the dining table. No charge, we're guests of what's-his-name at work, you know who I mean, " he said. "The food and wine should be great."

It was over. Diane laughed. "I love you," she said. The gripping in her chest let go.

"I love you, too," he said, looking over from his reading. "What's up with you?"

"Nothing," she said.

Cruisin' to Calm with Chris

So, I've been dreading this. Anticipating it for at least a month. We've been having unusually hot weather for this time of year here in sunny Southern California, and neither me nor my lady want to have a brawl.

However, She has made an appointment for me with the veterinarian today. In the name of peace and sanity I hope she has a simple plan. She tip-toed out to the garage first thing this morning, pulled down that big old grey heavy carrier from the top shelf, wiped it down inside and out, then put a few soft old ragtag pieces inside. 

I sprawled out across the top of the dryer while she kept her back to me so I wouldn't see what she was doing. She's really a love, so I take it all with a few bits of dry food. Here's hoping she sprays that old thing with the Feliway stuff. It's to me what a couple of glasses of wine is to her. Meeoouw.

So far, the day's not going well for us. The phone started ringing at 8 AM, seemed everybody had something important to talk to her about. I wanted my time, too, so clawed her yoga pants until she picked me up.  "Stop that, you'll rip them," she says, right before she picks me up. Works like a charm.

She tells everyone about the vet appointment. Has herself all worked up about it.  I'm saying to myself something along the lines of every thing's going to be fine, that vet likes me, I like him. He's a good bud. We're cool. 

It's cool on the kitchen floor. I think it's nap time. Ah, feels so good to stretch out. Wish she'd cool it. Every time she starts to get something done, she looks around to find me. What am I going to do? Run away. Only a dog would do that.

I'm going in her office, get away from her craziness. I can see myself in there, kind of up against the glass on the wall. I'm a good looking big silver dude, fur all nice and fluffy, eyes clear and so yellow, tail moving just how I like it.They don't call me Christopher Columbus for nothing. This is the last place she'll look for me.

Oh great, now she's got that new ear piece on her head. She's shouting to someone how she's got to get used to it. She'll get a ticket if she doesn't have it in the car. Blahblahblah. She's doing the multitasking stuff, never works for her. When will she learn to do one thing at a time, relax, take it easy. The woman thumps around this house like an elephant, too.

Here she comes. I've been found out. She's got that stupid black cat, Merlin, on her shoulder while she juggles the cell phone. Guess the ear piece isn't working. Hah! He moved, scratched her shoulder and she dropped him, phone too. Good thing there's carpet. Okay, so maybe, while she sits at the computer, I can get some peace and quiet.

That pile of papers over there looks like just the place for me. First, I think I"ll pad on over to her and jump on her lap. She'll even let me walk on the computer keyboard. Then I can knock the phone off the desk while I jump to the top of the bookshelf. It's cozy up there. Easy to fall asleep. 

What, what, what's going on. She's creeping down the hallway. Oh no, she's going to put that carrier box right out of my sight so she can slide me in there before I know what's up. Well, I'm not moving. How's she plan to get me down from here? Puuurrr...

I give, I give, don't want her to cry or break something getting me down. Isn't this too sweet. She scoops me up, slouching around like some thief in the night, hustling me into that thing. "It's okay, scrumptious," she coos. "I'm not going to let that mean old doctor do anything bad to you." I'm getting a shot, I just know it.

Maybe I'll kick the door with my back legs just for good measure, right before she closes it. That felt good. Feels pretty good in here, for a big plastic igloo. Why can't she get me something nice? Meow, meow meow. She's not listening.

The rest of this big ordeal goes one, two, three. "Hey Chris," the vet says as he hefts me out of that cage, "you're looking really good today." I want to kiss him, so I lick him. "Let's see how much you weigh."  I hate the weigh-in. If I'm a little over, she gets all worried and wants to change my food.  I like my food. It's always the same, agrees with me, and in the bowl. I won't eat it if she changes it. She should know that by now.

"Healthy," my Mr. Fine Vet says. "I'll be quick," he says to me or her, I'm never sure. So, it sticks and stings for a second. Big deal. I'm a big guy. "That's it for today," he says and rubs me right behind the ears." He is a really cool guy with really cool paws.

But, I'll be walking myself back in that carrier, thank you very much. Ready to go home now. A seconds worth of sting for me, a morning's worth of anxiety for her. 

Wish I could tell her my affirmation every day. Move toward my intention smoothly and easily, eat and nap and play. She sure did waste a lot of energy. Her third chakra needs attention. 

Since she can't purr, why doesn't she try humming?

Peace.