Immeasurably More

Dear Reader, They say that dogs don't have great memories for the mundane.  For example, you can't punish a dog for a mess made on the floor earlier in the day.  By the time you get home and step in it, he's already moved on.  But for Greyhounds, trauma sticks around.* People are like that, too.  We filter out the unimportant stimulus and information in our lives (what did you have for breakfast last Sunday?), but we remember the details of things associated with strong emotional reactions.  (Where were you when you heard about 9/11?) I'm not sure how the memory thing works for rabbits.   I know that when I was a kid, I had a pet rabbit.   (Cottontail, cuz she was black with a white tail.  Clever, huh?)  My parents swear that one day they heard her scream when a loose dog attacked her hutch.  I wonder now if she had flashbacks of that day when, on a day years later, she met her end at ...

Dear Reader, Of course, I should have taken a photo, but Pony doesn't belong to me; he belongs to LandLady and when he jumped the baby gate, I panicked and didn't think to reach for my camera. But I'm getting ahead of myself. As previously mentioned , before I moved in with LandLady, she had agreed to let me adopt a dog. But not just any dog - specifically, a retired racing greyhound.  Because they are quiet and gentle and sleep about 18 hours a day.  Kind of like cats, but you can teach them to do useful stuff, like "come".* Over the course of my first two weeks here, as we discussed arrangements for the dog - Where to poop?  Where to eat?  Where to sleep?  How to train? - LandLady got more and more interested in the breed and increasingly excited about having something to pet.  I suggested that she could get her own dog, but she demurred, claiming she preferred to use my dog as a test of her own emotional and physical preparedness for dog ownersh...

Dear Reader, Because I have a second and unexpected summer in Maine, I would like to begin introducing you to the people who are likely to be mentioned in future posts. It seems proper to begin with my LandLady. I met LandLady last summer when I rented a furnished apartment from her.  When I needed to extend my stay in Maine past the end of my rental period, she let me stay in her spareroom for 2 weeks free of charge in exchange for watering her plants and making coffee in the morning.  She generously shared her fascinating circle of friends with me, one of whom greeted me today with cookies and the remark, "See.  I told you you'd be back." LandLady rents out her apartments as a form of income, but also for the opportunity it affords her to meet interesting people.  She seems to think I am one of these.  She herself can certainly be considered an interesting person.  She is a sculpter and writer.  Also a licensed hypnotherapist, and she told m...

Dear Reader, A friend stopped laughing long enough to suggest I should blog more about my adventures in online dating.   "But they're not funny!" I protested. "Oh, they are!" She insisted. Upon consideration, I realized that most of my readership probably has no firsthand experience with online dating and so may in fact find some of my anecdotes to be novel and amusing though they no longer seem so to me. Hence, I have selected the following opening line from my archive of "strange things to say to strangers." This is also a good opener for sharing the news that Jesus and I left Tulsa on Saturday and arrived in Maine last night.  We are currently debating my options for the future and as yet have made no long term plans (other than, "Let's stick together!").  We are currently still working through the implications of showering after breakfast instead of before.  Once that question has been answered and we have u...

Dear Reader, Jayne and I were recently discussing the possibilities and hazards of meeting men at bars.  One of my most recent dates told me that our last conversation made him uncomfortable and he was no longer interested in seeing me.  Another friend encouraged me not to take this rejection to heart,  though he (the friend,  not the date) teases me about his first impressions of me as the "scary American woman".  And I have always thought it unfair that men's watches come with more interesting faces than women's watches. All that on my mind when I came across this cartoon by Jamie Goodman in Watch Journal (Nov 2015). Well done, Jamie. Yours, LeAn

   It is a sunny afternoon in Tulsa.    I go out to wander the mostly deserted streets.    I cross the street and pass one of many Mexican restaurants. On the opposite corner is a theater with its New Year's Eve advertisement still on the marquee.    I walk away from the theatre and stop to look in the window of a violin shop with four bass violins on display and a bicycle leaning against the counter.  Through the next window I can see a instruments in pieces on the luthier's table.    Along the next block I find two coffeeshops I have never noticed before.    I turn the corner and discover a glass blowing school also with a bicycle visible through the window.  I wonder about these bicyles.  Does anyone ride them? I have seen fewer cyclists than pedestrians in Tulsa.    As I walk past the green, I see a homeless man asleep on a bench.  He looks young and I wonder how he came to be in Tulsa...

Dear Reader, Yesterday a box was delivered to my door, a gift from a friend.  Assembly required.  I was delighted, not just for the gift (a coat rack.  Thanks, Friend!), but also for the chance to assemble something.  I had forgotten until recently how much I enjoy putting together flatpack furniture and that I'm actually pretty good at it.  Perhaps because I always read the instructions. My mail order flatpack coat rack and the counter stools I picked up from Walmart last week are certainly not heirloom furniture.  The aren't going to stand up to 100 years of daily use.  But they have other virtues. I can lift the boxes. The boxes will fit in my car. Until you've spent time on craigslist considering the weight and dimensions of various used furniture listings, these virtues may not rank high on your list of desirable qualities in furniture.  But after confirming that the Tulsan women of my acquaintance do not drive trucks or lift weig...