Ella

The Story of a Girl (Part II)

Well, I guess I needed a little break to gather my thoughts. Lizzie has been gone now for about 2 1/2 weeks. Sometimes it seems like just yesterday; other times it seems like forever since I've seen her. It is still a really strange feeling to not have her around, but I have mostly quit expecting to see or hear her & have mostly quit instinctively doing those things that I did for her or because of her.

And I do have a new puppy now. It was an easy decision as the new girl, Ella, is not at all a replacement for Liz. There is no such thing. But I needed some life around this house other than me.

Anyway ... on with Lizzie's story.

I learned very quickly that not only was Lizzie energetic and adorable and mischievous, but she was SMART. If she saw a toy or scrap of food or anything you tried to hide from her, she would and could remember exactly where it was hours later and go there as soon as you left the room. So eventually I was forced to put everything "up" -- either on a counter, in the closet, on the dining table, on the entertainment center. Nothing could be kept anywhere near Lizzie's level or she would remember it and find it at the first opportunity. A couple of years into our life together, when I had started working a full-time job with regular hours, I began to notice that instead of whining when I left in the mornings, Lizzie seemed almost excited. I don't know exactly how I could tell, but she seemed to be waiting for me to head out for work.

So one morning I went through the routine, locked the door, and pretended to walk away. I waited just a few minutes and ever so softly eased the key back into the door, unlocked it, and stormed back in the house. And where was Lizzie? Standing, on all fours, directly in the center of my dining table. How she got up there I have no idea. How she got up there so quickly I have no idea. But it was obviously planned in advance. I mean, she knew the second I left she was going to get up on that table and see what was up there. But what was even more hilarious, when she saw me, she completely and utterly froze. It was literally as if she was holding her breath. She didn't blink an eye, twitch a nose, wag a tail, nothing. I guess she thought if she just stood completely still I wouldn't be able to see her. I can still picture her in my mind though. So funny.

I believe I only tried to take Liz to Town Lake once. She was a weirdo and scared of so many things. My primary memory of that trip is that Lizzie WOULD NOT walk over the pedestrian bridge. I guess she felt under her feet that it was different and it scared her to death. I would pull and push and beg and plead, but no way was she walking across. So, every time we came to the bridge, I had to pick her up and carry her all the way across.

I'll end with her funniest, grossest, and most infamous story (I apologize in advance for the indelicate nature of this tale -- do not read if you are eating or have a weak stomach).

I came home from work one afternoon and as I walked across the balcony toward my apartment, I smelled the most awful scent. I was thinking, "Damn, someone let their dog shit right at my front door." But I didn't see anything. So I opened my door and went in and almost fell to the ground because of the smell. A huge congealed puddle of dog crap was right in the middle of my den floor. It was about the size of a large cast-iron skillet.

Now tell me, when was the last time your dog crapped so bad that the smell actually penetrated the walls and door and made its way outside? I bet it has never happened. Well, it happened to me. And why did I describe the crap as congealed you ask? Because Lizzie dragged a jar of Vaseline off my bathroom counter and ate it. So what I had, in essence, was shit-flavored Vaseline all over my den floor. Can you imagine anything harder to clean up? I had to stuff my nostrils with toilet paper just to get close enough to the mess to start cleaning. And by the end of the week I had new carpet -- there was no other alternative.

Lizzie was freaking the hell out. She didn't have a clue what was happening. She was going to the bathroom non-stop, but it would drizzle out & make little popping bubble noises which scared her to death. Never have I seen a dog scare herself by going to the bathroom. She would hunker down to go, but then the bubbly noises would start and she would start yelping and take off like a bullet as if something was chasing her. She did this for days until the last of the Vaseline was finally out of her system.

Yes, it is disgusting, but it was certainly among the defining moments of Lizzie's life, and it is a story I will remember as long as I am on this earth.

You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

The Story of a Girl (Part I)

Lizzie came into this world as a Minnie. Or at least that's what she was called when I first saw her. And no offense to all the Minnies out there, but that just wasn't right. Lizzie was a Lizzie. It just fit. (Yes, I had just read a biography of infamous axe murderer Lizzie Borden, so she was kind of named after her, but mainly, she just seemed like a Lizzie.)

Lizzie, Liz, Little Liz, Sweet Liz, Lizgirl, Lizmeister, Sweet Pickle ... she was all those names.

I owned Lizzie before I owned furniture (except a bed). When I brought her home, I had a bed for me and a new purple bed for her that I bought at Petco. No couches or chairs or tables or anything else. The second or third night I had her, I brought home Wendy's for supper. As soon as I started to eat, my friend Allison called. Having no table or chairs or anything, I put the bag down on the floor to go get the phone. In the 45 seconds it took me to come back into the den, my entire cheeseburger had been devoured and pieces of french fry hung out of Lizzie's mouth. I was both furious and charmed. For years after that, when I went to Wendy's (which was very close to my apartment), I bought an extra order of Biggie Fries for Lizzie. And most of the time, Lizzie went with me and completely finished her order before we ever even got home.

Now, that purple bed. The first couple of nights I put Lizzie in bed with me just because I was so excited to have her. After a week or so I guess, I started trying to put her in her own bed. Every night I would pull her nice wonderful purple bed right beside my bed and put her in it. She could see me and I could see her. I could reach my hand down and pet her. That just wasn't quite good enough though. Every time I put her in, she jumped right out and onto the bed with me. It was a battle until one morning I awoke to find Lizzie in bed with me and pieces of purple dog bed scattered throughout the entire apartment, from the kitchen to the bathroom to the bedroom. From that day forward, Liz slept wherever she wanted, mostly in bed with me in the early years and under the bed in later years.

Lizzie was about 6 months old when I got her & still in the puppy chewing stage. She chewed everything -- computer cords, pillows, towels, and yes, even the wooden legs of the dining room chairs I would eventually get. Two chew episodes stand out the most though. One time she chewed up a pair of leather shoes and swallowed whole the leather sole. I wear a size 13 by the way. How she got that sole down her throat is beyond me. But eventually, and not pleasantly, it came back up. The first year I had her, she also chewed the corners of every single wrapped Christmas present I had under the tree that year. So everyone got these gifts with strange bite marks and ripped paper at the corner.

To be continued ...

My little dog - a heartbeat at my feet. ~Edith Wharton

The Park

(To my loyal blog readers: Please pardon all the grief posts. I'm really just wallowing in it right now, but I'm trying to work it out of my system & the blog helps. This may be the last post or there may be 100 more -- I'm not sure yet.)

I made it all the way to the park today!

I've never walked around this neighborhood without Lizzie, so I felt almost naked without her leash and her company. I'm so glad I started walking regularly three or four weeks ago because Liz loved it. She loved going out with me -- out in the back yard, out on a leash, out in the car.

We only got to walk once in the past week because Liz was too sick the other days. And we hadn't quite made it to the park yet, which she would have so enjoyed.

But I made it there today. For her.

A Long Time ...

I got Lizzie within a month of moving to Austin 13+ years ago. And during that entire time, we were probably apart only 2 or 3 weeks because I mostly took her with me everywhere I went.

That is a long time ...

She's only been gone a day, but the hardest and most surreal part of this whole ordeal is the fact that my body and brain haven't caught up to reality yet. I have heard her paws tapping across the kitchen floor as she comes into the den or computer room to check on me dozens of times in the past 24 hours. I look for her sitting in one of "her places" every time I enter a room. When I get up to go to the kitchen or bathroom, I think "Oh, I need to let Liz out for a few minutes." I went to put a garbage bag up on the counter-top last night only to remember I could actually leave it on the floor for the first time in over a decade because Lizzie wouldn't be around to dig through it.

After hours of struggling against myself, I finally surrendered last night before going to bed and allowed myself to call out as I have done thousands of times, "Liz, you wanna go outside." I knew she wouldn't come running this time, but I just needed to expel that from my body.

I guess one day in a couple of weeks or a month, my body and mind won't instinctively expect to see or hear her. The truth will finally sink in. And I don't know if that will be a good day or a bad day.

Lizzie

Rest in peace my old and true friend.

Various Artists: Red Hot + Blue/The Civil War

1990

1. I've Got You Under My Skin - Neneh Cherry
2. In The Still Of The Night - Neville Brothers
3. You Do Something To Me - Sinead O Connor
4. Begin The Beguine - Salif Keita
5. Love For Sale - Fine Young Cannibals
6. Well, Did you Evah! - Debbie Harry/Iggy Pop
7. Miss Otis Regrets/Just One Of Those Things - Kirsty Maccoll/The Pogues
8. Don't Fence Me In - David Byrne
9. It's All Right With Me - Tom Waits
10. Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye - Annie Lennox
11. Night And Day - U2
12. I Love Paris - Les Negresses Vertes
13. So In Love - K.D. Lang
14. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? - The Thompson Twins
15. Too Darn Hot - Erasure
16. I Get A Kick Out Of You - The Jungle Brothers
17. Down In The Depths - Lisa Stansfield
18. From This Momment On - Jimmy Somerville
19. After You - Jody Watley
20. Do I Love You? - Aztec Camera

1990

1. Drums Of War - The Old Bethpage Brass Band
2. Oliver Wendell Holmes (Quote) - Paul Roebling
3. Ashokan Farewell - Jay Ungar
4. The Battle Cry Of Freedom - Jacqueline Schwab
5. We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder - Bernice Johnson Reagon
6. Dixie/Bonnie Blue Flag - The New American Brass Band
7. Cheer Boys Cheer - The New American Brass Band
8. Angel Band - Russ Barenberg, Molly Mason
9. Johnny Has Gone For A Soldier - Jacqueline Schwab, Jesse Carr
10. Lorena - Matt Glaser, Jay Ungar, Molly Mason
11. Parade - The New American Brass Band
12. Hail Columbia - The New American Brass Band
13. Dixie - Bobby Horton
14. Kingdom Coming - Matt Glaser, Jay Ungar, Art Baron
15. Battle Hymn Of The Republic - Matt Glaser, Jacqueline Schwab
16. All Quiet On The Potomac - Jacqueline Schwab
17. Flag Of Columbia - Jacqueline Schwab
18. Weeping Sad And Lonely - Peggy James, Jacqueline Schwab, Jesse Carr
19. Yankee Doodle - The Old Bethpage Brass Band
20. Palmyra Schottische - The New American Brass Band
21. When Johnny Comes Marching Home - The Old Bethpage Brass Band
22. Shenandoah - John Levy, John Colby
23. When Johnny Comes Marching Home - Matt Glaser, Yonatin Malin, Jacqueline Schwab, Molly Mason, Peter Amidon, Jay Ungar
24. Marching Through Georgia - Matt Glaser, Jay Ungar, Molly Mason, Peter Amidon
25. Marching Through Georgia (Lament) - Jacqueline Schwab
26. Battle Cry Of Freedom - Jacqueline Schwab
27. Battle Hymn Of The Republic - The Abyssinian Baptist Church Sanctuary Choir
28. Ashokan Farewell/Sullivan Ballou Letter - Paul Roebling, David McCullough

Two albums, one post, one entry on my Top 20 list. My blog, my rules!

These two albums may seem pretty dissimilar, but they are closely related in significant ways with regards to the impact they had on me. I remember buying them within months of each other -- maybe 3 months at the most -- as a senior in high school.

With Red Hot + Blue, I just heard about a new album with Annie Lennox, U2, kd lang, Debbie Harry, Sinead O'Connor and others. You'd be all over it, right? I certainly was. That's all I knew at the time; turns out, it was a benefit album for AIDS research, as well as a tribute to Cole Porter, and I loved it. There were so many great songs sung by so many great people. Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye became one of my favorite Annie Lennox songs. Well, Did Ya Evah! and Don't Fence Me In were delightfully fun. Miss Otis Regrets by Kirsty Maccoll was a great discovery, both song and artist.

The Civil War came into our house via the groundbreaking Ken Burns documentary of course. The whole family watched it on PBS, my mother being a major Civil War buff and me being a minor one. All of the music in the series was great, but one particular melody that kept being played over and over was especially compelling. That turned out to be Ashokan Farewell, which remains today one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard.

I closely identify both albums with my parents. After failing a couple of times to win over friends to my musical passions, I moved on to my parents with Red Hot + Blue. I remember sitting on the floor in the den one evening, having forced both of them to come sit down & relax, and playing song after song. It was fully active on my part, giving whatever spiel I wanted about each song as I furiously fast-forwarded and rewound the tape to get to the proper song. It actually worked this time, and my parents responded positively to many of the songs I played. To this day, my dad still asks me sometimes to play "that good Annie Lennox song."

The Civil War was actually a "family album." I initiated the purchase, but decided that we must have it on CD to get the full impact of the beautiful music. I didn't have a CD player yet, so my parents bought a copy for their stereo system. We all listened to it incessantly for months (years, really). My dad particularly loved to listen to music on Saturday morning, so many mornings I would be upstairs laying in bed and hear the the first soft strains of the violin playing Ashokan Farewell, which is a really wonderful memory.

Red Hot + Blue also gave me the opportunity to do something I love to do -- collect. That album was simply the first in the Red Hot series that would eventually include around a dozen albums benefiting AIDS research. I bought them all over the next decade or so, ending up with about 7 or 8 before the themes went so far out of my outside my tastes that I had to quit. There are some great albums in the Red Hot series though, including Red Hot + Rio, Red Hot + Rhapsody, and Red Hot + Country.

In its own way, The Civil War also led to a collection of sorts. It really opened the doors for not just movie soundtracks, but movie scores. In the past, I thought a song without lyrics wasn't really a song; it was just elevator music. Ashokan Farewell changed all that. I started trying to chase down different scores & instrumental pieces, which culminated in my purchasing of one of those incredibly cheesy made-for-TV double CD sets called Instrumental Magic. You know, one of those things put out by K-Tel or something.

Most important, though, both Red Hot + Blue and The Civil War helped expand my musical boundaries. Up until that point, my musical experience was pretty limited to whatever came on MTV, VH-1, or CMT, or my parents' favorites (country and 60s pop such as The Beach Boys and The Mamas & the Papas). But after experiencing these two albums, I began to realize there was a lot of good stuff out there. I listened to a lot of Civil War-era music and then moved to other 19th century music. I particularly loved music around the time of the California Gold Rush (The Days of '49, Hangtown Girls), which led to other traditional folk music and Appalachian music (Oh Shenandoah is an absolute favorite). Then WWII-era and Big Band music. Through Cole Porter, I discovered the music of George Gershwin and Irving Berlin, sung by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, and Nina Simone.

And the exploration into yesteryear's music has never stopped. There is so much incredible stuff out there. Just this past year, I purchased two compilations of sea-faring music called Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys. If you haven't taken time to check out music from the past hundred, two hundred, three hundred years, you're really missing out.