YOU CAN’T TRUST YOUR MIRROR

I have always felt that the mirror takes advantage of our gullibility. For instance, when I pass a mirror, I see a middle-aged blonde woman, who at one time, if not exactly pretty, is at least interesting.

The word ‘interesting’ is interesting in itself. It’s a word people often use to comment on something, rather than telling them what they really think. If they don’t want to insult the artist’s latest effort, which they hate, it seems kinder to tell them it’s interesting.

Some years ago while we were at a family gathering, while watching a cousin across the room, a relative said “You’re not attractive, and I’m not attractive, but she’s attractive. To show that I don’t hold grudges, I am still speaking to her.

But back to the mirror, I was shocked to find from a photograph, that my hair is silver! Everyone else had told me it was, but I chose to believe my mirror. In the 70’s, when hippie clothes were in style, I bought a long denim dress, which I thought was quite cool. But when I saw a photograph of myself wearing it, I looked just like a mushroom in a long blue dress. The mirror had lied once more.

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I don’t obsess about my clothes, but I must confess that I do have a fixation about my hair. Along with so many other things that youth steals, I truly miss having good hair. Throughout the years I have invested in numerous wigs and hairpieces in a variety of colors, and it has always been fun. I was greeted by a fairly close acquaintance once at a large dinner party while I was wearing a very cute wig, and she asked to be introduced. What is true is that I am older than I look, and the hair on my head is exactly where it should be given the hard life I’ve given it.

At one time or another, I have been a blonde, had various shades of brunette, or a combination of the two, and for one luau we gave, it even became black. Later instead of actually dying it, I bought a black wig. This was after seeing the movie “Chicago” with Katherine Zeta-Jones dancing her way through killing her husband.

I was astonished to discover that the nice woman who cuts my hair, is wearing a wig! You just never know.

I always wanted to have red hair, since so many people in my family have it, but the only time mine became red was an accident. I gave myself a home perm, and instead of following directions and waiting a certain amount of time, I put some brown coloring on it. It immediately bunched up, became brilliant red, and looked exactly like a Brillo pad, or Harpo Marx in drag.

It would have been OK except that a widower friend of ours brought a new girlfriend to dinner that night to introduce us. She was a pretty and much-younger natural redhead with long flowing curls she had a habit of tossing around during dinner. Worse that that, she arrived accompanied by an unannounced Schnauzer dog, who snarled at my two dogs, a German Shepherd and a large Dobermann, who did not snarl in return. It was not a happy occasion. However, it did put the lie to the old saying that people look like their dogs because she did not look at all like a Schnauzer. And they did not marry.

So what I needed to tell you is not to believe anything your mirror or your friends tell you about your hair. If you think you are a willowy 5″8″, and blonde, then you are, and in the real scheme of things, why does it matter anyway? It’s OK to believe whatever you wish.

A CAR NAMED HERMAN

The first Karmann Ghia I ever saw was a classy little red job my aunt and uncle bought in Germany and had shipped to the States. I was smitten, and when a shiny yellow Karmann Ghia took up residence in my garage several years later, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I promptly named him Herman, and happily drove him for twenty years.

The Italians had given the car its cool sports car look; sort of a Porsche, but without the speed. It was made between 1955 and 1974, and a mechanical dimwit could maintain it. I delighted in putting him in the driveway while I polished him, changed the oil and cleaned the engine. That was the extent of my automotive knowledge, except I knew where the gas tank was. The company made only a few colors, and Herman was Manila Yellow. I remember the red, which first captured my heart, and a dark green, but I don’t recall the other colors.

It had only two seats in front, but a very small platform opened down in the back for groceries, dogs or whatever. The gears were four-on-the-floor and let’s admit that Herman wasn’t comfortable going over 80 MPH.

My husband was transferred to Seattle in June of 1969, and I drove Herman to Kirkland, where we would be living, with a cat and his litter box on the back seat, while Dr. Advice took two rather well-behaved dogs with him in his car; a Chihuahua and a pregnant Dachshund. Surely a sign of male superiority, as he probably had the easier job controlling the dogs.

Together Herman and I explored every part of Seattle and its environs during the five years we lived there, while our daughter attended the University of Washington and Dr. Advice explored Alaska and its environs.

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Both dogs who had made the journey with us died during the time we were there, and then we were acquired by Liza, a wonderful eight week old German Shepherd Dog. She seriously did choose us. As we were scrambling around in the breeder’s barn trying to get the attention of another puppy, the very large gruff German lady who owned the kennel growled “Vat are you doing?” I pointed out the pup that we wanted, and she practically yelled “But THAT’S the one that wants you”

We took her home to live with us, and named her Heidi. She whined pitifully all night long so we changed her name to Eliza Doolittle. She never left my side the rest of her life, riding proudly in the front seat of the yellow Karmann Ghia wherever I went.

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A few months after we arrived in Kirkland, it snowed. I had never driven in snow or ice, but I had a tennis lesson in an indoor court in Everett, a town about twenty miles north, so Herman and I braved the weather and set off. It’s amazing how nothing looks the same under a thick blanket of snow, but we finally made it to Everett and the tennis lesson.

Seattle does not get identifiable snow every year, but it does freeze regularly in winter. One such morning I was ready to leave the garage, only to find that the macadam driveway had frozen and risen an inch or two, preventing one of the garage doors to open.

It was a double garage with two separate doors both opening outward, and Herman was a very small car, so I jockeyed him back and forth a number of times thinking I would then simply drive out the operational door.

To my horror, Herman got stuck sideways and refused to move again. Dr. Advice was on a business trip and I knew no one. We lived in the country, with no neighbors, so I was literally “stuck”.

When our daughter came home that afternoon and saw our predicament, she called several football players she knew, who simply lifted Herman off the ground and set him right! And yes, I would have to say that was male superiority!

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We returned to the Bay Area in 1974, and Herman and I traveled our old routes once more, this time with a large German Shepherd Dog riding shotgun.

Two small grandson had joined our family, and a few years later, I was invited by one of them to come do a demo for his school class in Scotts Valley. We did small clay dragons which I took home to dry before firing them, but before that I stopped and had lunch with my daughter at Pasatiempo where they lived.

That afternoon, while driving on the freeway, I was stopped for speeding. Worried that the little sculptures would dry too fast, I told the officer, “If you’re going to give me a ticket, please hurry up and do it, because there are 29 dragons drying in the back seat as we speak.” After looking into the back seat, he gave me the ticket.

That evening my daughter called and asked how my afternoon had been. When I assured her that it was fine, she said “Mom! I saw you pulled over at the side of the road. How fast were you going anyway?” When she heard it was only 75 MPH, she laughed and repeated it to her husband, whom I heard in the background saying “Geesh, I didn’t know that thing would go that fast!”

Herman suffered the same fate as most of us—he just plain wore out. When he left our garage for good, our 10 year old grandson said “I always though I’d drive him to college.”

DAYS OF DOGS AND ROSES

Pomo Indian Girl, Oil on Canvas, KSR

Dogs have many ways to get your attention .  l. When asleep.  2.When awake.  3.  By shaking, sneezing, or low growls.  4.  Sitting quietly and staring with a sweet and forgiving look on their face.  In other words, dogs are part of the civilized world’s most efficient con artists.

They have built-in clocks which if an action  has taken place at a certain time one day, it must be continued on the next, ad infinitum.

One of the best at this is the Jack Russell Terrier.  It is a given that they know what is best for them and for you, and once their minds are made up, there is no going back.  In return for all this, they are one of the most delightful and entertaining of little dogs.

Charlie took over this household a bit more than five years ago, and after frequent discussions and disagreements, he has taken his proper place in the hierarchy, which is somewhat left of center.  He is a bright light in whatever locale he finds himself and has never met a stranger.

Through the years there have been many dogs, each an individual challenge.

Max the Doberman had to vie for attention from Liza the German Shepherd, the resident perfect dog, so the bar was already pretty high.  It took about two years for Max to become a good citizen.   He spent many days lying beside Dr. Advice’s chair in the office emitting noxious odors as only a Doberman can, but he was a lovely and loyal friend and an energetic running companion each morning to me.

I’ve written about Liza before, and at each telling, she becomes more of a paragon of canine virtue.

  There were several serious little dachshunds, and once a chihuahua, who traveled everywhere with us, and they were each happy little campers, cheerfully crawling into a sleeping bag or a boat wherever we went.

Penny and Panda were an unlikely “odd couple”.         Old English Panda was stranded when her home ranch was flooded out.  As country people do, our grandson along with everyone who had a horse trailer pitched in to rescue over 100 horses.                                             The owner had a heart attack at this point, and several dogs  were left seeking new homes.

I have always loved Old English Sheep dogs since I first saw Peter Pan with the Nana nurse dog, but I told my grandson when he ended up with Panda that I could not take another dog.  But when we drove up to the ranch one afternoon, and this amazing Nana dog came tripping down the porch steps and leaped into our truck., all bets were off!      A dog is that wonderful happy roll-around thing that can be a life enhancer, and I could never be without one.  A dog is not interested in politics, religion or the local news.  They are willing to sit quietly and commiserate when we are feeling poorly.  Show me a person who can equal this quality and I’ll marry him!

Now you’re probably saying what do roses have to do with this?  Gertrude  Stein wrote “a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose”.  No explanation needed.  Because we most recently had over 120 roses to enjoy, we seem to be known as the “rose house ” even to strangers in our town.  And if you show me a person who doesn’t like roses he probably doesn’t like dogs either.

                                                                                                                                                                                                    PANDA                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   PENNY

THROUGH A DOG’S EYES

Liza

We are a dog-loving family, never having gone more than a month or two without benefit of loving brown eyes waiting to see what else they can do for you.  After one such period, I answered an ad for German Shepherd pups, and came home with an adorable black puppy whom we named Bella for beautiful.

However, it soon became apparent that there was something very wrong with the pup, so I took her to a well-respected breeder in Washington state to have her evaluated.  The breeder was a German woman whose mother had a large kennel in Germany.  She looked at the pup’s papers and then called several employees over to see the dog.  It seems that through ill-informed breeding this little thing would have a limited life-span, demanding constant care and expense.

After telling the breeder what we wanted in a dog, she asked us to come back in a few days after she had chosen several we might like.  When we returned, she had us go into small stall with about 4 cute 8 week old pups while she waited outside a Dutch door to watch.  As the little pups scrambled all over one another, climbing over and under, one went under a small bench seemingly wanting our attention.  As we went to collect her, the breeder crossly asked “What are you doing?”  We answered that this was the one we wanted.  She said “But THAT is the one who wants YOU!”  pointing out the tiny pup who was trying to shred my raincoat!

I learned a good lesson that day.  Don’t answer an  unqualified ad, and always choose the pup who wants to be with YOU.  Training is easy and fun with someone who wants to please you from the get-go.  You can have a wonderful dog otherwise, but it will take longer to make them trust you implicitly.

I returned Liza to the breeder in a few months to have them look at her.  She was becoming a fabulous looking dog, and they felt they had made a mistake in selling her as a “companion dog”.  She was descended from a long line of international champions, and they tried to convince us to show her.  However, we opted not to take on the responsibility of long hours of care and dog shows.

We lived in the country at that time, with a horse corral in the rear of our property.  When a very young grandson came to visit, Liza herded him away from the fence and back into his proper place.  She guarded us that same way the rest of her life.

Liza was our constant companion for many years, going everywhere with us, whether camping, to the mountains or the seashore, or simply grocery shopping.  She was a fixture in my sculpture studio greeting people as they came in to chat or to share a cup of coffee.  She was a party animal with a big tail wag for everyone.

There is a small sculpture and a large photo of Liza in our home, reminding us that she was a great part of our lives.  Though we have had a number of lovely dogs since then, including a terrific Jack Russell terrier now, Liza will always hold top honors in our hearts.  She was truly a Champion.