Motorcycle Roads

    

        When I turned 50 I decided I deserved a midlife crisis, so I bought my own Harley Heritage Springer and learned some beautiful backroads.

 This Harley impulse was fueled by my first ride that had launched my love affair with motorcycles. Sixteen years old, I was invited to Florence, Oregon, to celebrate my friend’s birthday with her family. We went to a high school dance and had a great time; then her cousin and his friend invited us to ride on their dirt bikes. At 11 p.m. we were flying through Oregon woods and back roads, having a heart pounding, terrific time. 

By 2:00, the boys decided we needed to go see the quicksand pits.  Having spent my youth watching Saturday afternoon Tarzan movies, I was already convinced that quicksand was a significant threat in adult life,

 but I swallowed my terror and rode along. Once there, the boys started running across a large pool of quicksand, causing the earth to roll in giant concentric waves from the impact of their footsteps. They could only stop in several spots where grass tuffets grew and the ground was firmer, so it became a game of base running on a dare. First and last time I have ever experienced quicksand. Got back to the motel after 4 a.m. and sunrise. 50 years later, I still remember the scolding…and we didn’t even tell her parents about the quicksand.

***One day I was climbing a long road through a state forest. The sky was wide open and blue, not even a hint of clouds; the road was lined with trees that were cut back from the road, so visibility was clear and there was no sign of people or life of any kind. With no warning, out of the proverbial empty blue sky, SPLAT. Somebody dumped a gallon of water on me. Not raindrops, a big slap of water that hit once and disappeared; no water before or after me on the road, just an abrupt glop of water in the face.

         It happened so fast, I didn't have time to react; I didn't even swerve or brake.  But what the hell? I rode on, slightly in shock, wiping my face. What hit me? From where? Less than a  quarter mile down the road, I had the answer.

From 200 feet up came a helicopter over the trees hauling a big canvas bucket full of water that had evidently slopped over.  The firefighting helicopter was scooping up lake water and dumping it on a forest fire...after baptizing me first.

***It was sunset and the sun had slid behind the mountains, leaving the western sky glowing. The air was soft and lovely, the perfect temperature for riding. Luckily for me, I had just crested a hill and was on a long straightaway doing 40. The darkness was settling in, when suddenly a vast cloud of white moths engulfed me, their albino white wings reflecting my headlights and blocking my view of everything else. I throttled back, but for almost a block (it felt like a mile)  the white fluttering wings engulfed me utterly, reflecting the headlights and blinding me completely.

        The hatch stretched on and on until I was terrified that I was running out of straight road; but I knew I couldn’t stop, someone might rear end me in the endless cloud. Oh God, when was it going to stop, I couldn’t see! Then came an experience that is seared into my memory. It happened in a split second, but I can see his face to this day. Cutting right through the moths and screaming up to within an inch of my helmet came… a bat. 

    His sonar kept him from smashing into my face.

    Luckily he was there and gone so fast, I could not react--which would surely have left me spread across the asphalt.

    I doubt he remembers me, but I can see his black, shiny eyes even now. No doubt he thought I was pilfering his snacks.

For more posts by this author click:  Ruth Ross Saucier Author Page

In Loco Parentis ~ by Ruth Ross Saucier

 Maria and Tod were something like five and nine years old [okay, maybe seven and twelve; I’m getting old, don’t hold me to the details] when they came to stay with us in Seattle for a weekend.

They lived outside of a small town and we lived in Seattle, so we thought we’d share the big city with them, take them out to eat, play games, go to the theater, and see the city.  Share some culture.

 As recent grads of the U. of Washington, we were big fans of their theater program. Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the UW had oodles of theater venues—theater in the round, a theater in a riverboat, you name it. Always inexpensive to attend, the productions were in small theaters so you always got a great seat and a fascinating look at plays from Shakespeare to modern.  The play scheduled for that weekend was completely unknown to us, but we booked four tickets and proudly took them to experience the sophistication of live theater. 

The title of the play was Hot L Baltimore.  Set in a gritty city hotel (the ‘e’ in the neon sign had burned out), it proved to be a bit more enlightening than we counted on.

Particularly so when our lovely second row seats had a perfect view of a scene when, yelling and bouncing, an utterly naked, well-endowed student actor playing a prostitute ran across the stage,  not once but twice. Uncle Fred lunged in an attempt to cover Tod’s eyes, but that failed utterly.

My husband, being sure that his sister would never ever forgive him, swore his nephew to absolute secrecy. On our return home, as a reward, a bribe, and a treat, we made banana splits for dessert. But we couldn’t really find any dishes that would work well, so we christened them “bread pan sundaes” and served them up in loaf pans.

The following morning we were awakened early by Tod bellowing from the kitchen, “Can we have bread pan sundaes for breakfast?” Still recovering from the antics of the prior evening, I considered the ice cream as a variant of milk, the banana as a fruit, the nuts as protein, the virtue of not having to get out of bed, and yelled back, “Sure – just don’t tell your mom!” 

But of course, when Mom appeared later that afternoon, our born-chatterbox nephew ran to greet her and the first words out of his mouth were, “Mom, Mom, I saw this naked lady and had bread pan sundaes for BREAKFAST!”

 Pretty sure she forgave us—eventually.

For more posts by this author click:  Ruth Ross Saucier Author Page

Merry Mazatlan by Ruth Ross Saucier

My friend bought a house in Mazatlan. A lovely house a half block from ocean beach with a rooftop deck that featured sunsets over the Pacific. 

I had seen Tijuana a couple times, but never “real” Mexico, so a visit was definitely in order. From day one I was in love. The first excursion we made was to a supermarket, where we bought a bunch of supplies.  There we found all sorts of lovely options, particularly liquor for sale (a novelty, since Washington State at the time did not allow such indulgences). Here we picked up rum  for me, since I don’t drink tequila, and on the mixer shelves I found a new love: peach juice! 

 Another friend had made punch at one of my parties in the States; it had peach juice as one of the main ingredients, but when I went looking for more peach juice (it goes so well with rum), I discovered that peach juice is not cheap. Not cheap at all in the US.  But there on the supermarket shelf I found canned peach juice that was less than half the price! Thrilled, I bought a slew of the cans and our vacation was under way! 

I had Peach Juice with eggs in the morning for breakfast.  Peach juice drinks at lunch time. And Peach Juice with rum before and after dinner.  But while my friend was drinking tequila, I declined tequila, because I had had an early difficult encounter with that devil juice and swore off it forever!

 

We had a delightful time, walking the beach and shopping and seeing the sights.  Mazatlan is truly beautiful. All the time I was there, I read every sign and pamphlet, trying to retain some Spanish (I have some exposure to five other languages, but not Spanish). I listened to people talking in the streets and struggled to use what little of the language I could acquire. You haven’t lived until you try reading a Lowe’s installation pamphlet in Spanish!

I fell in love with Mexico that week. It was the BEST. I loved my friend, her house, her dog, her neighborhood, the view, the ocean, the beach, the downtown, the food, everything. LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it All.  

And so when the week drew to a close and we were hanging out in the backyard, I found myself trying to read the small print, the teeny-tiny print on the back of the peach juice can. I got to ingredients and found: Durazno. Good. I had already figured out that meant peach.  But what was this? The full ingredients read: Durazno con tequila. 

Con tequila!? With tequila?*

Why, yes.  I had been drinking tequila and peach juice morning, noon, and night. With eggs. With Lunch. In the afternoon. AND with rum: Rum and tequila/peach juice before dinner. Rum and tequila/peach juice during dinner. Rum and tequila/peach juice after dinner.

No wonder I adored everything Mazatlan.

*and no, it didn't say that on the front of the can!

Meet our Members

Ruth Ross Saucier

Ruth lives under the watchful gaze of the Olympic Mountains, somewhere out west of the waters west of Seattle. Today, after 40 years of writing, editing, and wrangling a variety of nonfiction and fiction, she is retired to a life of writing, editing, and investigating any and all curiosities she deems fascinating.

To learn more about Ruth and read her prior blog posts, please click HERE

Sawtooth Vacation

 

The Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho are beautiful, wild, and a terrific place for a vacation.  The family headed there for a long weekend at a resort with lovely log cabins and a beautiful outdoor pool.  True wilderness, which meant the resort clerk made sure we knew that the local bears had come down from the hills and were prowling around for food, so we should be sure to bag up our garbage and use the tie downs on the garbage cans.  But this vacation was not focused on the wilderness; instead four siblings, their partners, mom and dad, and one grand baby were bedding down in one cabin, and the oldest brother and his wife were parked next to the cabin in their posh RV. Luxury and intense family togetherness!

The cabin had a beautiful covered porch where we set up a string of metal tables so everyone could sit down to dinner.  After dinner the whole crew played a raucous game of cards and everyone finally packed it in when the growing mosquito population threatened exsanguination. Snoozing in the RV meant that we needed to plug it in somewhere, but the cabin windows were fixed and the cabin had no external plugs so there was no way we could snake an extension cord safely through a window. So the cord had to come through the main cabin door...leaving it ajar.  Somehow my husband and I were appointed to sleep on the floor up against the door, so we could hold it shut against all invaders, including garbage-hunting bears.

The real guy was cuter.

The night was long and the floor was hard. Every rustle and snore woke us up, so it's no wonder we were awake at 3 a.m. when a rustling noise came from a grocery bag on the floor.  As our flashlight found the bag, over the edge popped up the cutest little pale gray mouse with huge pink round ears and twitching white whiskers...Mickey had nothing on this guy. 

Unfortunately, the discovery that a mouse had been raiding the baby's cereal enraged the new, first-child mom and everyone was up for at least 30 minutes discussing what to do with the rest of the food.  Mickey Jr. got away scot free, thank goodness, but the rest of us took forever to settle down.

 Sometime around dawn, after two hours of never quite falling asleep, the two of us door guardians heard heavy footsteps thudding up the stairs and onto the front porch.  The adrenaline rush accelerated when we heard a rasping sound as something moved around the metal tables, just on the other side of the not-even-closed doors. Something big was licking the tables for leftover crumbs.

My husband jumped up (in naught but his underwear), wielding his flashlight, ready to take on the invader...was it a bear foraging for food, just outside the door, less than a yard away? 

 "What are you doing?" I squeaked, wondering how the hell opening the door was a good idea.

He clearly wasn't listening though. Fixated on the threat, he threw open the door before I could even get out of my sleeping bag, so we were both front and center when a huge head loomed out of the pale morning light and, backlit, filled up the doorway.

My husband inserted himself right up to the door frame, bravely blocking the killer bear and hissed, "Shoo!"

 Shoo?  Shoo?!?

It was one of the resort's burros; they had freed themselves from their overnight shelter and gone foraging for food amidst the cabins.

 

Know Your Librarian ~ by Ruth Ross Saucier

We all make assumptions. Every minute of every day we assume things, and many of those assumptions have to do with people.  So. What do YOU assume when I say, “I’m a librarian?”  

 Mild-mannered? Sensible shoes? Definitely a hair bun. Pencil behind the ear, maybe. Glasses for sure.  Long skirt. Dowdy. Shushing. Smart. Dependable.  Good, law-abiding citizen. Right?

 Well, you can be forgiven for all those assumptions, they are rampant. As a retired librarian, I have certainly noticed the reactions I get when I tell people I’m a librarian…especially if I’ve just told them I ride a Harley Heritage Springer. Many have a difficult time believing I’m a librarian.  But the ones that are the most interesting are those who make all those assumptions above, and act on it. . . like border guards.

 Yes, border guards.  I’ve been across the Canadian and Mexican borders many times. I’ve also flown to Europe a few times, and each time the reaction is utterly dependable.   They ask several questions like: What was your purpose in traveling? Where were you born? Did you bring back any purchases with you? etc. But every time they ask me what I do for a living and I answer, “I’m a librarian,” that is the LAST question they ask.  Doesn’t matter if it is the third question or the tenth question, it’s the last question before they send me on my way.  They can’t be bothered to waste any more time, I’m just not likely to be smuggling anything, because, well, I’m a librarian.

 Of course, if we want to understand how librarians are viewed by the public, examining the movies gives us a full range of impressions. I have a brilliant friend who once wrote a thesis about the public’s perception of lawyers as reflected in the movies. [She was a humanities major who wanted to be an entertainment lawyer, so the topic fit.  And yes, she’s now a legal VP for a major network.] Movies have long reflected public attitude toward many things: if you want to know, for example, who was perceived to be the #1 enemy of the USA in a particular time period, watch the action films from that period. Early James Bond often fought the Russians, for example.

 

Donna Reed, It's a Wonderful Life

A commonplace view of librarians comes from It’s a Wonderful Life. George Bailey pressures Clarence, his guardian angel, to tell him what would have happened to George’s wife, Mary, if George never existed. The conversation ends with a pathetic squeal of an answer that never fails to make me swear:

 

George Bailey: Where's Mary? If this is all real and I was never born, what became of Mary?

Clarence: [hesitates] Well... I don't... I can't...

George Bailey: [grabs Clarence by his collar] Look, I don't know how you know these things, but if you know where my wife is, you'll tell me.

Clarence: I... I'm not supposed to tell.

George Bailey: Please, Clarence, where's my wife? Tell me where my wife is.

Clarence: You're not going to like it, George.

George Bailey: Where is she? What happened to her?

Clarence: She became an old maid. She never married...

George Bailey: [desperate] Where is she? WHERE IS SHE?

Clarence: She's... she's just about to close up the library!*

So librarians are also old maids who have nothing to care for but the library. Whenever I hear this line, I am compelled to answer Clarence with an “Oh, F*** You.”  I’m only 68, though, so maybe before I die this compulsion will finally wear off. If you want a positive view of librarians, I suggest Rachel Weisz in The Mummy: beautiful, smart, and proud to be a librarian.

 This assumption is partly based on the Madonna side of the whore/Madonna complex.  Complex says women gotta be one or the other, and all librarians obviously fit on the side of good girl. But there’s another set of assumptions behind the Madonna label. The good, the prim librarian is ripe for fantasy: take a librarian home, and they rip off the glasses and let down the bun and become a tigress in bed.

Rachel Weisz, The Mummy

Same principle, I think, behind those who fantasize about seducing priests (or Vulcans): they’ve managed to overcome / seduce the inviolable, thus proving themselves the ultimate succubus/incubus.

While I’m sure that most librarians fall safely in the middle of the whore-Madonna spectrum, one has to wonder about those who do not qualify for the Madonna end of that duality. Are there real librarians who are not modest and law-abiding?  Since I adore demolishing the common assumptions about librarians and equally exalt brilliant writing, I will end by sharing my favorite quote about librarians. While I haven’t met any librarians who fit Mr. Schmader’s description, I can allow that they might exist. You’ll likely never know.

 

“Libraries are far from the rarefied cathedrals of secular humanism they pretend to be, while librarians are the shadiest creatures this side of the Russian mob. Scratch the adamantly bland demeanor of any librarian and you’ll find trails of broken hearts, bathtubs full of meth fixings, and covert careers in porn.” David Schmader, Last Days, 17 October 2002

 

 

*imdb.com ,  Quotations section for It’s a Wonderful Life.

Fishy & Felicitous Friends by Ruth Ross Saucier

     When I was a bit down over getting divorced, a good friend, Chloe, became worried about me.  She read an article about how people who live alone live longer and higher quality lives if they have a pet. Determined to enrich and lengthen my life, she walked into my office one day with a large bag containing a bubble-fronted fish tank and a little fatso of a goldfish, complete with huge cheeks. 

     Immediately he was dubbed “Bubbles”. His tank was installed on one of my office shelves, since I was working ten-hour days, six days a week and  wouldn’t see Bubbles if he lived at home.   The janitor fed Bubbles over the weekend, and during the week, the staff would stop in to say hello to Bubbles even more than they came to see me. 

     Bubbles kept us all company for several months before the day he went to that big fish tank in the sky. But his sendoff by way of the local commode seemed inadequate somehow.  The staff, who had been working furiously all through the dark winter to recover from the library’s roof collapse,* were dismayed and quickly hatched a plot to see Bubbles off with pomp and ceremony. The next night we descended on a local restaurant (the Boat Shed, a fitting place to say farewell to a fish). Fourteen or more of us took over the western end of the Boat Shed where we drank several toasts to our little golden friend and saluted his service.

The Boat Shed, Bremerton, WA

      During the course of our drinks and meal and more drinks, we heard from my administrative assistant that her sister, Miss Danielle, was actually in the Boat Shed as well. Danielle was there on a blind date--and was meeting her new friend in the bar at the far end of the Boat Shed.   It didn’t take long for all of us to decide that we needed to offer our lubricated and unsolicited advice to Miss Danielle on the acceptability of her date--despite never having met Danielle or her date! I led the parade as we abandoned our dinner (but took our drinks) and ALL of us proceeded to march the length of the restaurant to introduce ourselves to Miss Danielle and this Mathew fella to see if we approved of her latest “find”.

     The conga line spanned the length of the bar AND the restaurant as each of us introduced ourselves and asked pointed questions of Mathew regarding his intentions and his suitability as, well, a suitor. But when we discovered he owned a local hot tub store, the lobbying began in earnest.  We had just lost 2/3 of our library-media building* and were in the process of planning the new facility.  Would he consider donating a hot tub? We were quick to share our aches, pains, insomnia, and various

conditions that would be alleviated by a soak.  We also had a flat roof right outside the staff lunchroom, and with a little effort, we could possibly talk the architects into making the lunchroom window into a door.

     The heckling went on, likely commensurate with the amount of alcohol imbibed, until the last of the staff had introduced themselves. Once we returned to our table, all of us noted how Danielle and Matthew had laughed their heads off through the entire exercise. We conferred and readily agreed Matthew had the staff’s medal of approval. 

     But while our instincts were excellent (they are still together more than 20 years later), we never got that hot tub.

*a story for another day

Moving Day by Ruth Ross Saucier

We had just bought our first house together. We were out of school but hardly rich yet, so when we asked for help moving from our second story apartment to our new-to-us home, our friends and family volunteered.

Gracious help, graciously given.  Priceless.

One of our friends, let’s call him Keith (a total pseudonym) offered to bring a truck to make the move happen. He worked for a local pizza company that has since closed, driving huge delivery trucks that carried pizza ingredients, large bags of flour and the like, between the stores. But the trucks weren’t used after work hours, so our move was scheduled for the evening.

When you’re young, you don’t have as much stuff; but I’ve never been involved in a move that didn’t have more stuff than you initially estimated. Stuff was everywhere, surfacing from nooks and crannies, popping out of the backs of closets, and spilling out of the remote corners of kitchen cabinets. I had not had time to box it all, not even close.

But there were at least 20 people there, some of them finishing packing and some shuffling boxes and furniture out the back door and down a fifteen-foot ramp to the parking lot and then hoisting things up into the truck. 20 people is a lot of people and very quickly I was scrambling to just cram things in boxes and tell people “yes” when they asked if this or that could go.  Wasn’t long before nobody was asking permission, and everything was flying out the door.

I took the five mile ride up I-5 in the pizza truck, most of it between five and thirty miles an hour.  Not because traffic was bad, you understand.  While this was Seattle, it was 1981. Traffic was moving. Everybody else was doing sixty or more and zipping around the monster truck, blatting their horns just to make sure that we understood we were in the way.  Keith was just struggling to shift, as he hadn’t driven these trucks much, and we were busy trying to ignore the wrath of everyone else who was trying to get home.

When we finally reached our 40’s bungalow, the opposite happened very quickly: stuff flew out of the truck, got hauled up the stairs and carted up the hill into the house where it went … somewhere.  Much of it happened without a lot of supervision, but then it mostly went fine. 

Now as it happened, way back when we had first moved into the apartment it did not include a refrigerator, but the former tenants offered to sell us theirs, and we grabbed it.  It was big, with lovely swing out shelves, and a big bottom freezer. It housed an enormous amount of stuff.  I loved that fridge.

Toward the end of the evening, after almost everyone had left, I stumbled into the kitchen to find my family busily cleaning kitchen and unpacking dishes.  What a lovely gesture! But they lived at least ninety minutes away, and I started shooing them out, thanking them profusely, but begging them to go home and get some sleep.

That’s when someone said, “You know, Merilly has spent the last couple of hours washing your refrigerator and everything in it.”

What the hell? 

My darling sister had undertaken to repair the chaos generated by my friend, Keith, bless his heart.  Keith had taken the initiative to move the refrigerator… WITHOUT packing up the contents.  He had just strapped it to a dolly and humped it down the ramp and into the truck, up the stairs, bent it completely over to pull it up the hill and into the house.

It might have worked, actually…except we had a Costco-sized jar of pickles in the fridge, and it broke. The pickles, the juice, the glass: everywhere. On everything. Inside and out, refrigerator and freezer, absolutely everything. Nothing else broke, but everything else was coated and sticky and smelly. Until Merrily took it on herself to clean it all up, an act I could never repay.

My refrigerator was cleaner now than it had ever been.  Priceless.

Meet Our Members

Ruth Ross Saucier

Ruth Ross Saucier was born and raised on the continental U.S., where its only fjord meets its only rain forest.

To learn more about Ruth and read her former blog posts, please visit her MEMBER PAGE

Lakeside Living 9: Beaver Fever by Ruth Ross Saucier

               

The lake began life as a marsh more than fifty years ago. In a move that would not be allowed today, a developer dammed up the northern end of the stream with an earthen dam, and the marsh soon filled up creating a small lake. Well, it was really a large pond in most peoples’ eyes, and some used-to-be Texans I know remarked that in Texas it would be nothing more than a pothole. But it was water, and the local wildlife approved of the lake and the dam.

Particularly the beavers. Except, of course, they knew that it could be improved, so they set about nestling in and re-engineering the lake in ways that pleased them.  The stream and its new earth dam were a good start, but the beavers had bigger dreams. By the time I moved in and went

exploring, the beaver dam was a wall six feet high holding back a pond sixty to seventy feet across and fifty feet wide.

My home on the lake was bordered by woods mostly consisting of alders and fir trees. Beavers cut down trees and brush for both eating and building purposes. There is nothing more enticing to a beaver mama and her babies, though, than a lovely tender alder between three and eight inches in diameter—the perfect size for munching, cutting down, teaching babies, and ferrying to your perpetually growing home.  So it was inevitable that one day we found an alder eaten mostly all

the way through. Did you know that beavers typically eat about two thirds of a tree and leave it for the wind to blow down? While their motives are unclear, I suspect a beaver OSHA safety regulation. After ascertaining that the tree could slam into the house, we ended up having to cut the tree down ourselves.

In addition to the large beaver dam at the southern end, our local beaver colony had also built a small den on the northern end, directly across from my house.  This locale appeared to be the place for babies to be born and nurtured. Every spring and summer, baby beavers appeared, swimming purposefully in the cove, intent on nipping small brush and carrying it away to their local den with an underwater entrance.  The new babies hadn’t quite gotten control of their tails yet: their tails tended to float and they sculled with their tails up high, slapping the top water with great industry but little effectiveness at first. With time and practice they learned to zoom, but at no time did they ever forget themselves and just play like otters; their lives were busy with purpose and visions of damming the world.

But it was the huge beaver dam at the far end of the lake that was a marvel of engineering. The sheer volume of water it contained gave credence to a bit of local folklore.  Several years before I bought my house there, a few of the locals had evidently taken exception to the remodeling of their beaver neighbors. Not only had the beavers built a huge dam at Lake Symington, they had built a string of dams farther upstream as well. So some of the locals decided to blow up three of the beaver dams —simultaneously.  Each destroyed dam disgorged thousands of gallons of water, trees, brush, mud, and rotting muck into the stream, gathering momentum and volume as it flowed downhill into the lake.  The lake experienced a mini-tsunami, swamping yards and trampling boats and docks.  The homeowners were reputed to have been displeased; but I’m betting the beavers just saw it as a chance to remodel.

Lakeside Living 8: Otterly Ridiculous by Ruth Ross Saucier

      When I first moved to the lake, it took me nearly two years to sort out which critters were swimming in my little cove: otters or beavers?  Chance flashes of tails brought the answer: both. But their tails rarely showed above water and their heads were too close to call; I needed more evidence to reliably identify my neighbors.  Eventually, I discovered their habits and their seasons were different.

      In the spring, the otters would show up in the early morning and fish the little cove in front of the house, diving and swooping, traveling 50-70 feet underwater and only resurfacing for air or to nibble on a sushi snack that didn’t immediately surrender. Their long sleek lines would curl over smoothly as they dove and rarely if ever did they show their long, pointed tails. But their speed and fluidity were unparalleled. 

Otters getting a breath leave the ice pockmarked.

      At some point in late spring the otters would move out of my cove and wouldn’t return until winter.  The lake would rarely freeze; but when it did, the otters came out to play. One year the lake developed a thin skin of ice and snow.  Before the ice melted away, though, the cove was full of otter sign: the thin ice was pockmarked with holes where the otters had surfaced. Each hole soon began to skim over with ice, but the pattern was unmistakable.

      One winter morning I woke to a bleak vista. The lake was frozen hard, with only a few places where the water was still open. There was a bitter wind gusting out of the southwest, causing swirls and clouds of snow to scud across the open ice. But there was something weird out there, a large dark lump on the ice about 200 feet out. The binoculars didn’t help, the clump was unmoving; probably somebody’s stray tarp or … but wait!

      As I watched, the clump began to heave and disentangle itself into two large otters and three babies. The family started a wrassling match right there on the ice, heedless of the frigid wind. They dove and rolled like a frenzied ball of snakes, the orb seething and twisting over and over until one of the babies zoomed away from the pack and slipped across the ice and into the open water.

      A split second later he slipped up and out of the water, rejoining the family frolic. But the whole family got the message now. Running and slithering across the ice, they all took turns sliding and slipping into the water hole and resurfacing onto the ice as smoothly as they left.

     And then they were gone; lured into the dark water and its promise of sleeping fish. And I, once again, was left with nothing but the memory, seared indelibly by my profound joy.

The Big Honk by Ruth Ross Saucier

It was May and we were on our way to the University District Street Fair.  Booths full of food, arts and crafts, and music.  Great fun.

We were walking through the tree line that separated the University of Washington from the “U” district, when out from the shrubbery came bounding two tiny white kittens. Snow white.  Friendly as can be and cute: one had two blue eyes and the other had one gold and one blue eye.  We trotted up and down the fair together and even though I had said aloud that we’d look for someone to take them home, in my heart I knew that someone was us.

Natasha

The two tiny stinkers made themselves to home in no time.  Clearly litter mates and abandoned, we tentatively named the odd-eyed white Natasha. Her brother, Giuseppe, was all blue eyes with a pushy, alpha temperament. Our apartment had tall ceilings and the former occupant was an art student who had papered the bedroom walls in burlap. For us, the result was “meh”—but for Tasha, it was a vertical Daytona 500. She’d race across those walls in tall bell curves, strafing the entire room, usually with her brother right after her.    These two kittens made for a mad house, and these two were clearly in charge.

But the name Giuseppe didn’t stick.  When the nieces and nephews came to visit, they marveled at the size of our blue-eyed boy, remarking on how he was a “big honker.” Soon the name “Honk” emerged, and it stuck. Honk grew to be fifteen pounds and soon it was clear he was different from his sister.  It always took an effort to get him to wake up from naps, but we didn’t figure it out until we compared their reactions to the vacuum cleaner.  Tasha wanted nothing to do with it, freaking out, running, and hiding.  Honk loved the vacuum cleaner, even volunteered to be vacuumed.  We eventually learned Honk was deaf as the proverbial post.*

Honk

We also needed to learn how to get Honk’s attention. Yelling didn’t work.  You could walk right up to him and scream, and he’d sleep right through it. The only thing that worked was vibration. If you stomped on the floor, even from a couple of rooms away, his head would pop up and he’d look for the source immediately.

It soon became standard practice to stomp on the floor to get his attention for all reasons: dinner, a demand for him to stop pestering Tasha, a reaction to his latest unearthing of a houseplant, you name it: floor stomping became an automatic response. We also would yell “HONK!” at the same time—even knowing he couldn’t hear us; it was just an ingrained reaction.

We never got any complaints, but to this day, I often wonder if our downstairs neighbors thought we’d joined an obscure cult that mandated random stomping and bellowing “HONK”. 

  

*White blue-eyed animals of various species are often completely deaf, a genetic condition linked to eye color. We were also told that our white cat with one gold and one blue eye was probably deaf in one ear—the one correlating with the blue eye.  

Jigsaw Zen: Life Skills & Coping by Ruth Ross Saucier

I do jigsaw puzzles.* Here’s why you should, too: creativity, love, patience, calm, and observation.

Writing block. When I need to solve my latest writing challenge, I play Jigsaw World.* My brain free associates when I work on a jigsaw; as a result, I have outlined and written entire blogs while assembling jigsaws. The visual comparisons necessary to complete a jigsaw don’t impinge on my writing brain. I’m free to drift and create without pressure, solving plots and creating characters freely.   And several studies have suggested that doing jigsaws can help enhance cognitive function as you age.

                Aunt Mildred.  She calls every week to share a play-by-play of her latest pinochle triumph and you love her, so you listen and make appropriate noises and ask questions through the hour or so it takes her to run down. But you need to listen, so you can’t just play a wild and wooly shoot-‘em-up arcade game, you might get asked a question and you need to respond. Playing an electronic jigsaw puzzle doesn’t require you use the same part of your brain as listening…so when she tells you something that requires a coherent response, you can drop the game instantly and you’ll still remember she just told you her seventy-six-year-old next door neighbor just got busted for running down the street nekkid. Although that one might understandably warrant a “say that again?” response.

Life on Hold.  Cable techs. Repair techs. Whether it’s for your adjustable bed, your robot vacuum, or your Skynet refrigerator, you don’t love these people, but you do need to listen anyway—when they are on the line, at least. The third set of recorded messages encouraging you to just leave a message or hearing the sixth iteration of that annoying, scratchy music will drive you nuts. Sure you probably have various things you do while on hold, but jigsaws don’t distract you, don’t cause you to forget why you’re waiting. I think it’s because they are solely engaging your visual brain, but that’s just my crackpot theory. 

 

Zen. Peace. Composure. There’s something very zen-like about reconstructing a picture, putting things to rights, making the broken whole again. The calm induced by this low-key activity is seductive. And the marketers of videogames have recognized that players of certain games want that tranquility. Some advertisements for games like Merge Dragons feature taglines like, “Goodbye Anxiety.” I have even read comments from players of Jigsaw World who credit it with helping to suppress their chronic pain.

                Training your eye.  Jigsaw puzzles sharpen my identification and awareness of color and pattern.  I think they help train you to see—something that is a fundamental concept in art appreciation and creation. If the puzzle is a painting, it can also provide you with a close study of technique.  If this is something you’re interested in, though, you really want monster-sized monitors like mine…not the mobile  versions that run on phones or laptops.

*I play a wonderful electronic version of jigsaw puzzles called Jigsaw World (the version on Facebook, because I don’t like the mobile version; I’d rather play on my two monster screens attached to my desktop). And no, they aren’t paying me a thin dime to plug their product.