ruby, angel of near death

once upon a time there was a beautiful kitten named ruby who was adopted by a family whose cat community had been wiped out during several fateful months of the same year. she was doted on and loved. she shared nothing with anyone. one day her owners brought her a very special gift. they were so excited and knew she would love it. they carefully opened the box. a huge, yellow cat ambled out. be careful, they told her. he needs a great deal of compassion. they tried to explain to her about his old life, living with someone who ate batteries and socks, about how he might be sick and she should be gentle. ruby tried to rip his eyes out. she tried to bite his face. she hated her new present. she despised him. years passed and the new cat mostly stayed out of ruby's way. at 17 pounds, if he'd ever wanted to impress upon her his own strength, he could have, but he never did. this was just fine with ruby. the big cat slept with her owners while she curled up on the radiator, glaring at the three of them.

then one day her owners did something even more horrible. they brought home a tiny, speckled puppy. be careful, they told her. he's a baby and babies are fragile. he's a very special puppy, an engagement puppy. he's a symbol of something important and she should be gentle. ruby sniffed him. he peed on the floor. she could tell he was stupid. he couldn't pee in a box and he couldn't get up on the furniture without help. his claws stayed out all the time, but didn't seem very sharp. small and stupid and ugly. she hated him. she seethed with rage. the puppy slept on the bed with the fat, yellow cat and the owners. ruby lay on the radiator, glaring. one day, she vowed, she would get them. she would get them all.

but one stupid, yapping beast was not enough in this already crowded brooklyn apartment. on a very cold day the owners went out for a long time, came back for the spotted dog and returned a few minutes later with a very excited spotted dog and a terrified older beast. he smelled awful. like vomit and pee and fear. be careful, they told her. this dog is very old and has been living alone in a garage for a long time. he is sad and afraid. she should be gentle. he looked like a horrible, big rat. furless in most places and sagging and ugly. he shook and his horrible eyes bulged out like the eyes of the dying. she hated his smell and his furless horribleness. although he was old and could not hop up on the bed, the owners would pick him up every night and place him right under the covers with the other stupid dog and that horrible, fat cat and ruby would slink over to the radiator where she would think about how to destroy the largest amount of them before getting caught. she would go for the dogs. everything was really their fault anyway.

she watched. they all drank from the same water bowl so poisoning that was out. the dogs got fed twice a day and the owners did that so she didn't think she could get anything in there. overpowering them was out of the question. the old dog might look ancient but he was strong as an ox. the little dog leaped around too much. it would be difficult to pounce on him and make it useful. she noticed the old dog had been having health problems. perhaps, she thought, he will just die and the little dog will be lost and that will be enough. but the old dog was too tough and he did not die. his owners got him some medicine that made his old bones feel more bouncy and flexible. after several finger amputations and horrible accidents, they brought home a new form of the medicine. a tasty, chewable form. like those delicious flinstones vitamins only dog flavors. ruby thought and thought and thought. if only she could get those pills. an open bottle would be an empty bottle within seconds. she'd seen how the old dog would go for that medicine.

the owners were planning a trip. this trip was special because they had never gone anywhere and left the dogs behind. they found a kind person who was willing to live with all four animals and care for them for a few days. ruby watched the owners prepare. she noticed they got a refill on those tasty pills. a big refill. two months. for a few days she practiced leaping against the medicine cupboard but in the end she didn't need to. one of the owners worried the pet watcher would forget the medicine if it stayed closed up so she set it out on the cabinet in the kitchen. ruby waited. the pet watcher ate dinner. he petted cats and dogs. he watched tv. the dogs curled up with him. he spent some time at the computer. the yellow cat curled up on his lap. finally, he went to bed. and ruby went to the cabinet. she batted things around a bit to get the attention of the dogs. they got up from the bed and wandered into the kitchen. she smiled at them from the countertop. with a quick swipe she sent the bottle of tasty pills to the floor. the old dog could smell them. the small dog knew that he wanted anything the old dog wanted. they began to chew at the cap on the bottle until finally it came off. the pet sitter awoke to a small, crunching sound. he walked into the kitchen to find both dogs licking hungrily at the floor and he saw the open pill bottle lying on the floor. he found two pills.

symptoms of an overdose of this special medicine include nausea, loss of appetite, vomiting, diarrhea, black, tarry stool, abdominal pain, ulceration of the stomach, thirst, lethargy, kidney failure, jaundiced skin, gums, inside of ears, whites of eyes, coma and death. treatment involves the dog hospital. the brave pet sitter called the dog hospital in the middle of the night and managed to get a cab and wrangle both dogs into it around 5am. he called the owners who were most of the way across the country and a few time zones away. they were sad and scared but the dog hospital said coming back would not make a difference. this did not help the owners any. they were afraid their little dogs would die, and both at the same time. somehow, this felt scarier than contemplating separate deaths. they went to a diner for breakfast and told a waitress about the scary things happening to their small dogs very far away. the waitress said kind things. that day was to be the wedding of an owner's brother and they did not want everyone to be sad. they kept their fears quiet all morning.

the dog hospital said it would be very expensive to save the dogs and this scared the owners more because they were pretty poor at this point. it didn't matter, they decided. they needed their dogs back. so the dog hospital induced vomiting and then pumped the little dog stomachs. they refilled the stomachs with activated charcoal and catheterized the dogs. when the owners came back, the dogs had been in the hospital three days. they still could not come home. the owners got to visit the dogs and take them for a walk, but it was scary to see them with little needles sticking out of their paws. the owners went home to a house with only cats. the big, yellow cat was very quiet. he wasn't positive, but he was pretty sure how the dogs got all those pills. he wasn't so sure he wanted to be associated with a cat like ruby. sure the dogs were rough sometimes, but they were mostly playing. and they curled up right with him at night. they all slept together like a family.

the owners knew the dogs would be okay but they were still very sad. they blamed themselves for what happened. this made the yellow cat angry because he loved them and knew they had done nothing wrong. he hated to see them suffer and found himself wishing for the quick return of those silly dogs. and a few days later, they came home. ruby was baffled. if sixty pills couldn't kill them, she didn't know what would. she had counted on their gluttony and stupidity and she thought they had paid off. she had sorely miscalculated. you see, the dachshund is the sturdiest of all dogs. the only dog breed to hunt above and below ground, dachshunds are fierce enough to take on a badger. let me explain. in a fair fight with no weapons, you would lose to a badger. i'm not kidding. a badger could wipe out a human. they are insane. and dachshunds spent their time chasing these monsters down. besides that, any dog bred to be hauled out of a burrow BY ITS TAIL is fierce. the little dogs have lungs that allow them to hunt forever without tiring and the ability to smell a roast you're just imagining. in addition to all that, it would appear that they can ingest 30 tablets of doggy arthritis medication each without long-term side effects. i do not recommend trying this at home with your own dog.

so ruby has resigned herself to being a beautiful but isolated creature. she is the only girl animal in a houseful of boy animals. she is the only one who does not beg for affection. every night the owners go to bed. the older dog has given up his arthritis medication and he now uses little steps to get up on the bed. the smaller dog hops in after him. the big yellow cat curls up after the lights are turned off. and ruby continues to sit in the dark, only a few feet away on her radiator, waiting. thinking. purring.

max pants

if you feel like your life is incomplete without a small, demanding animal following you around, i would like to suggest a dachshund. and if you look at their freakish pringles can form and fall in love, i would encourage you to get a rescue dog. i know those store-bought puppies are cute and cuddly, but dachshunds are always going to be cute and cuddly. even the old ones. the nice thing about recycled dogs is that they're generally house trained. and over the whole chewing, crying, jumping, tearing things up phase.

the poster boy for rescue adoption (in fact, for senior rescue adoption) is our own max pants. we took a ferry to get max from the people who were giving him up. he was ten or so, full of cheap, canned dog food, and terrified. he barfed all over the inside of the pet carrier and himself. we cleaned him up just as the ferry was pulling into the station. he cried the whole ferry ride back and then cried some more on the subway trip home. he shook. his fur fell off. when we got him home, he was a mess. his fur was missing in several places. his ears were furless and crusty. he smelled and his breath was like the stink at the gates of hell. he was heavy and scared and miserable.

we bathed him, fed him good food (no more waffles, no more mighty dog), slathered a variety of fancy emollients onto his ears and ended up spending five million bucks on fang removal because his mouth was a rotten cave of evil.

after only a few weeks, we realized we had a shiny new dog who smelled, well, he still smelled like a dog, but other than that, he was spectacular.


max is not like any other old dog we'd ever met. he quickly established his power over guthrie and impressed us with his ability to jump very high and catch almost anything (ball, snack, gnat) immediately. although max has slowed a bit in the last few years (he's past 15!), he still gets wild from time to time when the kongs are flying.





of course, the real reason we brought max home is because we hoped he'd be a good influence on guthrie. i think i mentioned before that guthrie is store-bought and although we love him, well, he needed a little help. some would say a lot of help. the two guys hit it off right away. they spend a good part of their time on the back of the couch keeping the small front yard free of cats, birds and squirrels. they yell at dogs on the sidewalk who pee on their trees. they keep watch for the delivery guys who bring pizza or super nachos.

max has made guthrie just a little more gentle and he's lent an air of dignity to out otherwise tornado-like family. he sounds like a whale and a walrus and a moose all singing together and he needs little doggie stairs to get up on the bed. although his eyes are nearly white he can glare as intimidatingly as a monstrous guard dog. there was a time we were putting hot sauce on the furniture to keep guthrie from devouring it. i think guthrie cut out many of his puppy behaviors simply because he felt shamed when max saw him. guthrie has learned quite a bit from max. he really understands the value of a good nap.



and we have learned quite a bit, too. max sets the pace in our house. after all, he is the oldest.

escape to monster island

sometimes we use the word "natural" to mean something other than what it means. for instance, childbirth is "natural", but so is a tsunami. neither has artificial dyes or colors and both come pretty much from nature. we often use "natural" to mean "normal" and that's a little irresponsible because normal isn't really a qualitative assessment. it's quantitative. it's just about what happens most. a little example: twins are natural. they happen in nature. however, there's nothing at all normal about twins. they are special and fancy and rare. or at least unusual. now, as people, we've had a tendency to respond to the unusual in some pretty unusual ways- burning at the stake, institutions, freak shows. however, as a culture, we seem to have managed an appreciation for the unusualness that is twins. thank goodness. because i know some.

currently, the mom of these twins (they are new, only out a few months) is having back problems. the problems do not appear to be permanent, but back problems with two small, demanding creatures can be uncomfortable, at best. the consensus is that giving birth to two whole people in one day might have strained some things and they will repair in time. as you might expect, i have an alternate theory, far more sinister, in which a small baby wields enormous and deliberate power. if you are currently pregnant, please turn away. i do not want you to live the rest of your pregnancy in fear.

here goes: labor. babies squirming around getting ready to come out. putting on hats and shoes and all. while one child is searching for a lost sock in all that darkness, the other bursts out onto the scene. it is not what she expected at all. it is horribly bright and cold and the whole place smells like some awful green antiseptic. there is pressure on her from hands and it is not at all like the soft pressure of her last home, fluid and even. it is horrible. suddenly, there is an awful sound and she feels an unpleasant sensation and her lungs fill with this horrible stuff she's never experienced before. it is painful and scary and awful. what would you do? she screams the loudest scream in human history. it is loud enough that her sister, just now at the doorway and ready to go, hears it. her sister backs up a step. she is convinced that her twin was just eaten by some horrible monster. what else could possibly make her scream like that? she peeks out a bit and sees the beasts all standing there with some awful light behind them and decides there is no reason to go out on a day like this. she'll just stay at home. she tosses her hat in a corner, kicks off her shoes and prepares to relax and maybe later build a little monument in there to her beloved sister who was eaten by beasts. what happens next is something she was not at all prepared for.

she'd been living in her small but comfy place the better part of a year and was quite familiar with the structural components of her little apartment. she knows ribs and spine and bands of muscle. she knows if she hangs onto a rib for safety it will be sturdy, but if one of those beasts grabs her, a firm yank might snap it. so she grabs a band of muscle. her mother doesn't feel it at the time because of all the other contracting and writhing muscles in her body. but the child holds on and the struggle continues for quite some time. the thing to know about babies, though, is that they're babies. they can't go very long without a nap. this poor child's grip began to weaken, her eyes fluttered and as she fell asleep, she let go and the muscles i her mom's lower back snapped back into place. she came out into the burst of light, absolutely convinced she was about to join her sister in the belly of one of those monsters.

eventually both little girls actually were reunited and both realized that nobody was tortured or eaten by beasts.they settled in with the kind, adoring parents they initially feared were wild monsters. the second child confided to the first that although she loves both parents and she's sorry she put the temporary hurt on mom, it certainly wasn't entirely her fault. she feels like mom shoulders a little responsibility for not warning them about this whole thing. the first agrees. "you don't tell someone they're coming out and make them think it's like a debutante ball if you're really going to toss them into a mosh pit".

the sisters made a pact. they will be good and loving children. they will not date until they are 25. they will not experiment with any substances their parents warn them away from, except maybe soda. they will do well in school and will rescue injured animals. they will help old folks cross the street. they will be girl scouts and boy scouts and nobel laureates all at the same time. they will discover cures for illnesses we don't even have names for yet. but first, there is the issue of teaching the parents a thing or two about how scary the world is when people leave you in the dark about important things (like being born). it is difficult to tell what monsters are in store for their beloved parents. the girls are good children who dearly love their parents so there's hope that the lessons will be quick and gentle, then there's speculation one of the girls is planning to vote republican in the next election.

that would be neither natural nor normal.

guthrie

this is guthrie. he's strange. last week i was sick and my sweetie was out of town. i curled up on the couch with a chicken pot pie and had a pot holder under the hot plate while i was eating. when i went to put the dishes away, the pot holder must have fallen. guthrie never misses a chance to suck extra warmth off anything and somehow he managed to squirm his way around to get this toasty pot holder over himself. he also catches snow balls. sometimes he eats his own poop.

now that we have a whole house and yard, he's gone mad. he loves to run around outside and inside. he loves the stairs. sometimes he just sits at the top and looks down at us. he's made friends with the upstairs air register and when we miss him we usually find him staring into it. by far his most exciting discovery has been the upstairs porch. it is a tiny porch off our bedroom with pine trees cut into the railing. he can look out onto the front yard and the street and, beyond that, the entire world. this includes several very nice mountains. he is vigilant.

at some point, he discovered that the bottom triangle in the little trees is exactly the same size and shape as his wedge of a head so he shoved it through. i had visions of my small dog squirming through space and splatting on the ground below, but the cut out trees are perfect, allowing him to shove his head through comfortably while his broad shoulders keep him from flying dangerously off the porch.
so he looks like this.

















he reminds me of those crazy gun turrets in tanks or in those underground bunkers for some reason. he's generally pretty low to the ground and we think this may be a little like the stairs. he's power mad. still, he's what i got instead of a diamond ring and a diamond ring is never going to be this funny. not even close. and a diamond ring is never going to catch a snowball in midair in its mouth. or sleep on my neck. of course, a diamond is never going to be so engrossed in something that it doesn't realize it's peeing as it walks across the floor. i guess it's a good thing i don't like diamonds in the first place.

9th grade

first, it is important to mention that i work with students who are labeled "underachieving". i am what's known as a special education teacher and what makes the education special is, i think, the immense need my students bring with them. it's not just academic. there's a better chance a kid in my class has a drug addicted parent than that the kid has a non-environmental learning disability.

today my student teacher brought in a poem because we both spaced "poem in your pocket" day yesterday. it starts out "i wanna read a poem" and it's a relatively long poem, but it gets all riled up. it is not highly literary, but it makes kids hate poetry less. so the student teacher read it out loud, then a student read it and we discussed the first few lines and how to fashion a poem beginning like the one we read. this group is in 9th grade with reading and writing levels ranging between 2nd and 7th grade, spiking a bit when they're interested. the kids got to read their poems aloud to the class. they stand up at the front of the room and read. everyone claps and cheers. they sit down.

one child had a pretty challenging poem she wanted to read. i have a handful of kids like her every year- the kind of sweet, confused kids who make you want to grab their parents and shake them when you find out what they put their kids through. earlier this year the child had an assignment to write about a time she felt afraid. she wrote about when she was three or so and her mom just didn't come home. she wrote about what it was like to be scared and to be hungry and small. for those who don't do much grading, it is difficult to correct spelling and punctuation when you're reading something like that. we knew her poem was about her mom so when she asked to stay seated while she read it, we all agreed. she asked me to hold her hand, so i sat next to her desk and she started in a shaky voice:

i wanna kiss my momma
i wanna let her be loved
i wanna say, "ma, it's all right at
the end" because i'm sick
and tired of saying "go".

she is already in tears at this point and so am i so i keep my head down. she squeezes my hand hard and the room is silent when she pauses for breath. she goes on about what she misses and when she reads the line "so tired of everyone telling me she's dumb and a slut" there is almost a hum in the room but nobody is saying a word. the kids are used to drama but this is like nothing they were expecting in class. it hurts them to be part of this while it's happening. she continues with a stanza about her twin baby siblings and about how she wants to take care of her mom, go get her and bring her home. she finishes up the way she started:

all i wanna do is just kiss my momma
i wanna let her be loved
i wanna say, "ma, it's all right at
the end" because i'm sick
and tired of saying "go".

and the kids don't know what to do. they're not even breathing. i whisper to her that her poem is wonderful and when the student teacher and i start clapping the whole room explodes. nobody wants to be first because they're not sure it's okay. but then everyone claps and yells. several kids have wet eyes. i walk around the room while we're getting ready for the next poem and notice a girl from the back of the class run up to the front, kneel down and put her arms around the child who just read. i hear the word "brave". the reader is still shaking so we walk outside. i don't know what to say so i tell her how my own dad brought his lost dad back into his life, into our lives. i rely on his experiences a lot in my class and the kids have developed a faith in their own ability to survive based on his survival. i want her to know the things she imagined in her poem are possible on some level. other students are putting away books at the end of class when we walk back in and the whole room crowds around this child. they talk about how awesome her poem is and how brave she is to keep reading something so difficult. they do not drip pity. they are in a strange place where they feel completely in awe and fiercely protective at the same time.

i'm always trying to find new ways to show the kids the power of language, especially through poetry. what i'm learning after many years of standing in front of the room saying things in a loud voice is that they always learn it when i'm sitting still in their section of the room, silent. they always learn it better from each other.

lou reed

there is a boy who used to be in my class. he is now in another teacher's class. there was a time in his life when he made a series of decisions that created and awful world around him and some of the fallout of that time and world is that he is a bit older than the other children who sit next to him in class. he is also calmer and gentler. he has had to learn to be these things to get himself back to this world and to the class he is in that is not mine.

i am not sure why but from time to time the boy stops by my class. generally, children who stop by my class want something. they need. they are like vampires. "miss, you have to help me..." miss, i need you to..." "miss, i'm too angry to..." "miss, pay attention to me now..." ninth graders, especially those with disabilities (learning or otherwise), often have very limited ability to see a situation from any position other than their own. their problems ("i need a band-aid, pen, pencil, book, sheet of paper, someone to listen to me") trump any other problem i might be dealing with at the time. if you drag yourself into a room bleeding profusely from the eyes asking for someone to call an ambulance, a child needing to sharpen the pink glitter pencil she's using to "decorate" her story will fly into a rage if you try to get what you need before she does.

back to the boy. he has a class on the same floor as my classroom and sometimes stops by between bells. he is quiet and never competes with other children for my attention. if there is time he says hello. if i am surrounded by a seething mass of 9th grade, he smiles and waves and heads out to his class. he did well in my class after an initial series of mysterious absences and unexplained naps. he is an insightful child, curious and thoughtful. it is a nice gift occasionally, not being required to do, say, find or give something.

the point of this is that today the child came in wearing a lou reed t-shirt. he is not a lou reed fan. he is a teenager from brooklyn. he said he worked security at a show last summer and someone with the show gave him the shirt. it is a nice shirt. i tried to convey that velvet underground's loaded is possibly my favorite album ever. that i listen to it on my old turntable and will flip it over and over, even though it is on my ipod and computer and i could listen to it there without so much effort. i try to explain the sound of an album, the breathing of the needle. i don't think there is any way to get this kid to love an album like loaded or to have patience with the format of a big disc that needs to be flipped halfway through every set of songs. it is a cheesy, poppy album, maybe, but smarter than anything my 9th graders have on whatever it is they plug into their ears. it holds up for me, but it came onto the scene only two years after i did. we grew up together.

what would a song like "oh! sweet nuthin'" sound like for the first time if that time is now? what would happen to a child whose whole experience of music has been that of sound delivered entirely through headphones and ringtones if he heard an album on a turntable? i think it would make a person sick, like drinking a gallon of cream. it would be too much. i told him to download the album and he smiled. he is a sweet child and doesn't want to hurt my feelings but he's not going to listen to it. i wear cardigans and cat eye glasses. someone who makes decisions like those shouldn't influence his musical taste. but he'll still wear that shirt.

sick

caution: graphic portrayals of mundane diseases. not for the weak.

today i am sick. many of my insides seem to be trying to get outside and my outsides hurt. i am a baby when i get sick and i am pretty sure i learned this from my dad who has never put eyedrops in his own eyes and cannot function if his throat hurts. today my throat does not hurt although my voice would suggest that it does. my head hurts. and my stomach. and all my skin. plus my knees and all the other joints i use. when i get sick, my body responds the way a small child's does. it gets a rash. no kidding. it curls around my neck and down my back and chest to my stomach. it is very dramatic.

when i have to stay home i get bored and angry pretty quickly. i turns out i've drawn my own terrible suffering quite a few times, starting with a rash experience many years ago. i have often wondered what goes through the minds of those guys who yell "hey, baby" at women. do those interactions ever pan out? does the guy ever get a woman who screams back, "i've been waiting for a total stranger to pretend to be more familiar with me than i'm comfortable with! take me away with you!" but on this particular day i was sick- red, snotty nose, puffy, bloodshot eyes, hideous rash. who hits on a diseased woman?


a short time later there was the pepto accident. there are lots of ways pepto- bismol will keep your insides inside and your outsides feeling happy, too, but it does not prevent vomiting. in fact, if you take it for that, all you get is terrifyingly pink vomit. if you have a cat you should note that vomiting sounds are fascinating to them. they are very creepy animals.


it is interesting to note that in these two images, drawn several years apart, i am dressed exactly the same. this is especially unusual because i have not owned a purple dress in my entire adult life. although my shoes really do look like that. normally, the dress curlicues would be pretty. when i'm sick, i guess they're supposed to reflect my terrible suffering so everyone will know and be very, very sad.




the nature of my disease artwork has developed over time just as i have. these bits of scribble chronicle my limited variety of hairstyles and fashionable dress. i got new glasses a few years ago and that's how i can tell recent misery from more distant suffering. constant throughout is my ridiculously angry response to being sick and the absolute refusal of my lungs to even try to get along with me. they are jerks. they were jerks when i was born and have been a thorn in my side since. if there's a respiratory infection out there, they rush to get it. they always want to have the newest thing. it doesn't help that i spend all day with ninth graders whose parents have not taught them things like throwing away tissues once they are used, coughing or sneezing into something other than a teacher's face and washing hands whenever possible.

some people are angry drunks. i am an angry sick person. i'm sure my anger is compounded by the fact that most over the counter cold, flu and allergy medications send me into a world generally inhabited by people in restraints. allergy medications double my heart rate and make me weep hysterically. cold and flu medications make me dizzy and disoriented. i get nauseous and paranoid. i shake. my motor skills deteriorate to those of a toddler. i cannot think, type or communicate. and i weep hysterically. my parents must have known this when i was small because my dad gave me whiskey and honey when i had a cough. i didn't buy it at first, but with a doctor's blessing, it is the only thing i use to treat snot and lung related illnesses. we have bourbon in this house- a little smoother in my opionion. mix in a spoonful of honey and it will calm whatever tornado is swirling around in your lungs. if you're feeling elegant and have a gracious caregiver, you might even request a toddy. my own variation is bourbon and honey in hot tea with lemon. if you're feeling especially achy, add a pinch of cayenne pepper. i'm serious. i am told i have inherited my taste for alternative medicines from my great-grandpa, who had a toddy most evenings when his lungs threw in the towel after years of work in mines. my great-grandma made these drinks under duress and under "strict doctor's orders". how many other things have survived four generations without the fda, ama or someone else debunking them?

dragon

there is a small nephew and now also a smaller one. the small one is seven and is incredibly thoughtful. the other day he called to request something for his new cousin- a sweater for fall with circus images all over it. because we live halfway across the country from each other, most of our interactions are by phone. his uncle and i have semi-mythic status (well, his uncle does at least) since we are not around all the time. i love the phone conversations because they are always unusual. he is unusual.

so he wants this sweater for the baby with the circus covering it. tigers and elephants, if i remember correctly, and a woman on a trapeze. when he says "trapeze" i make a mental note to ask his mom if he's got calder's circus by maira kalman. he will need it to read to the smaller nephew at some point and he will love alexander calder. he figures this sweater will take a while and is asking now so i'll have it ready for the baby by fall. he is a smart boy to know to plan this far ahead. this is a wonderful gift. i am trying to imagine knitting tiny animals in a million colors onto a sweater for someone who only weighs a few pounds.

i tell the nephew on the phone that although that sounds like a wonderful sweater, i'm not sure i can do it. i suggest he think about it a while and choose one image to put on the front of the sweater. he is sure i can do better than that. he is also very persuasive. and focused. he is sure the baby would like some variety on the sweater and that anything under three images on it would be unacceptable. i have spent the better part of the last fifteen years manipulating the minds of other people's children. i once gained control of a cluster of fourth, fifth and sixth grade boys with a batch of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. i have convinced a gang member or two to write some nice fiction and once a child gave me a knife he brought to school. i didn't even have to ask. he just knew he ought to. i routinely separate ninth graders from cell phones and blackberries in my class. i have finely honed persuasive skills. i summon my best persuasive teacher tone and tell him he should choose three images, spend the week deciding which one he thinks the baby would like best and then call me next weekend. "look, i'll email you," he says, his frustration with me just barely in check. he does not want to hurt my feelings but he thinks i'm being ridiculous. just before hanging up he mentions he could use a nice sweater or t-shirt with a dragon from pokemon on it. he says the name of the dragon several times but because he is seven and i don't already know the names of these creatures i am unable to decipher it. he is not sure how someone he loves is capable of such frustrating behavior and he resorts to what works. "i'll email you!"

he has been busy this week being a first grader (it seems like he is in second grade, but i have been wrong in the past) and a big cousin so i've decided to find this dragon and see what i'm up against. you'd think it would be easy. i'm intelligent and internet-search savvy. every time i clicked something on the pokemon site there was confusing music or a game opened up. wikipedia was a little more helpful. there are quite a few dragons, it seems. there is, in fact, a class called "dragon". just like there is a class called "middle". they have fire or water properties and some fly. it seems that all dragons use claws and breath in their dragoning. they are overpowered by ice, evidently, and many can evolve. according to pokefolk and wikifolk, this has made them and other pokemon creatures enemies of the christian church. just wanted you to know.

possible dragons i might end up knitting include dragonite, kingdra, salamence, giratina, dialga and palkia. it seems like the one he wants might be dialga.

dialga can control time, which is very cool. he does not evolve, which should please the church, but i think that is because he is already mighty fancy. he is made of steel and his underbelly "is reflective like a mirror" according to wiki. he looks like a cross between the loch ness monster and a swiss army knife. he has many pointy bits and is about eighteen million shades of steel blue. he is a knitting nightmare. knitting him is not my biggest concern. i am already thinking about how to condense eighteen million shades of blue into three or four. i am already looking for the largest, most detailed image of dialga i can find to put into the knitting pattern generator. my biggest concern is that if i accomplish this, which i very well might, i might have to do it again. "my friend," says the small nephew, "would really love one, too."

saucer, yarn, books

the flying saucer is a very good place to spend an afternoon. come up out of the ground at the atlantic terminal in brooklyn. walk up atlatnic toward the water past shops selling incense, oils and prayer rugs, past hank's saloon where i know for a fact they put hot dogs on a grill right on the sidewalk in summer, to a part of the ave that's on the edge of hip but wasn't two years ago. if you're not paying attention you will pass the saucer and will end up in a sea of boutique bakeries and antique shops. you could also stop by a decent yarn store- but head back to the saucer.

the furniture is busted yard sale but the soups and sandwiches are sassy and they make good tea. if you are lucky you will get there when the cookies re just coming out. there's a cranberry orange one whose name never even suggests the butteriness that might send you back to the counter more than once for just one more.

it is a good place to knit and i go there with other knitting fiends mostly but today i had a yarn emergency and ended up there after all by myself. if you sit in the big couch you can watch the world through the front window. if you sit there with yarn and needles, folks feel the need to chat with you or at the very least stare. today a boy was sitting in the window, maybe sixth grade. all by himself on a barstool leaning against a plank counter gazing out the window or down at a book. he had to have come from quite some bit away because there aren't any schools right nearby. when his dad showed up, they planted themselves on the couch opposite mine, dad with a coffee and the boy with a sandwich.

sometimes when you buy yarn it's in a loose hank and you have to wind it into a ball, which is what i was doing because i left my needles at home and if you're a knitter you know that buying yarn without having your needles with you can make you sick, can make your skin hurt and the backs of your eyes prickly. so you have to interact with the yarn some way to keep breathing and rolling it into a ball was just fine to keep me from hyperventilating. when i looked up from my winding both dad and child were reading. sitting within an inch or two of each other, silent, heads bowed. they have the same eyelashes, chin. dad's book is a hardcover that looks libraryish, which immediately makes me want to thank him. the boy's is a new paperback, something with castles or fantasy. i go back to my work and every time i look up they are exactly the same, side by side. every time i look i notice another similarity. the man is maybe 40, not quite like most hipsters his age who come in, but clearly "of the city". the boy is not the sort his peers would consider "cute" but he will grow up to be fascinating. you can tell.

quite some time passes and the two look up and at each other at precisely the same moment. they get their books and go. i resist the urge to pounce on them and tell them about how it nearly makes me cry to see a man and his child reading in public like that, how i wish every student in my class had a dad like him. i want to heap so much praise on him he will blush because what he's doing is so huge and i keep thinking of what a gift he's giving his boy. as they leave together i see the way he looks at his child, like he is seeing a mythical creature, like the boy might disappear at any second. the boy is giving just as spectacular a gift, being such a beautiful thing, loving what his dad loves with his eyelashes hanging over the pages exactly the same way.