To screen, or not to screen?

I have been trying, this week, to understand the significance of the new guidelines for breast cancer screening.

As near as I can figure, the new recommendations are that women in their 40s not get mammograms, and that all women should stop doing self-exams. Stories and interviews about this have been all over the newspapers and the radio, and they are not terribly helpful because of the determinedly balanced method of reporting: Here's a person saying why the new guidelines are good. Here's a person saying why the new guidelines are not good. And we, women with breasts that either should or should not be screened, are stuck in the middle, heads swiveling.

The reasons for not screening (or doing a self-exam) appear to be:

1.) Too many false positives

2.) False positives lead to unnecessary procedures--biopsies, even mastectomies.

3.) False positives cause women agitation. (This reason keeps coming up, and I find it so patronizing I can barely contain myself.)

4.) Even correct positives are generally found so late that the cancer has been growing for years already and it's basically too late to do much. Mammograms do not prevent mortality. (But nothing, of course, can prevent mortality.)

That last point, Number 4, was the subject of a brief interview on "All Things Considered" the other night, and I could not believe what I was hearing. The speaker, a San Francisco doctor, did not explain how he thought these cancers would be found, if not by mammogram or self-exam. He seemed to think the whole thing was futile and it's just best not to know if you have a lump because no matter what, it's almost always too late. Surely that's not what he meant. Surely.

The interviewer did not ask the logical follow-up questions. I can only guess that she was as astounded as I was by what she was hearing.

For clarity, all I can do is look at my life, and at the people around me. At work, several women have recently discovered breast cancers. They have very quietly gotten treatment, returned to work, returned to health. It's not routine, but they make it seem so. I haven't asked them how they found their cancers, but I assume it was either through a mammogram or a self-exam. What other way is there?

Let's be even more specific. Let's use my family as a case study.

My sister Kristin was one who had many false positives over the years. She had dense, fibroidy breasts, and mammograms often showed shadows that turned out to be cysts. So she stopped having mammograms. When yet another lump showed up, she ignored it. Ah, but this one was cancerous. She steadfastly ignored it until the cancer had not only metastasized to her lymph nodes, but had invaded her bones, as well. She was finally diagnosed with stage four breast cancer at age 47 when a cancerous rib snapped. She lived six more years. Mortality was not prevented.

So that's what can happen when you don't do self exams or mammograms, I guess.

My sister-in-law Cynthia, on the other hand, discovered a lump during a self-exam. She, too, was in her 40s. She went to the doctor, endured the arduous treatment, and now, four years later, is perfectly fine.

But according to the new standards, at least as I understand them, Kristin did things right and Cynthia did things wrong. It seems pretty cut and dried to me that that is exactly the opposite of the truth. But I must be missing something. What am I not understanding?

Battening down the hatches

November is a minimalist time. Stark trees. Bare ground. We have raked up the bright fallen leaves and hauled them off to the county compost heap. Pulled the dead flowers from the ground and tossed them in the bin under the bush.

Inside the house, we have stretched plastic film over the front windows and hair-dryered it into place, to keep out winter drafts. Hauled the baskets of mittens and hats out of storage and lined them up on the kitchen bench. (Our 1912 house has no closets on the first floor.)

We took up the straw mat of summer in the living room, and laid down the old plush cherry wool rug, for warmth and color. Started thinking about Christmas: should we put up lights this year? What if I bought my family members each a part of a goat or a cow or a flock of chickens, through Heifer International--would they hate me? (Doug says they would hate me.)

The weather has remained mild. Yesterday over my lunch hour I walked to Loring Park, the sun already low enough, at 1 p.m., to stab my eyes as I walked down the Nicollet Mall. It was warm, nearly 50 degrees, and the sky was the bright blue we missed in October.

Today it is pearl gray and drizzly, but warm enough for a gloveless walk.

Everything feels as if it is waiting ... waiting ... for this:

I'm not saying we're ready, exactly; each winter I feel less and less prepared. But we're as ready as we can be.

And a little bit of razzle dazzle has now passed from the Earth

Oh these feisty old ladies. They have survived so much. Doug's aunt Vi grew up in North Dakota, in a farmhouse with a dirt floor. She had seven or eight brothers and sisters, and when the oldest girl died in childbirth, her baby was taken in and raised as another sibling. They all had great, old fashioned, salt-of-the-earth names--Nellie, and Mavis, and Mary Lou. And that was fitting, because these were old-fashioned, salt-of-the-earth women. They served white bread and margarine at every meal, along with big hunks of well-cooked meat and vegetables boiled vigorously to a pale pea-green, and they always said grace and went to church, whether they believed or not, and if they didn't believe it was nobody's business.

Vi married a guy named George, and it wasn't an easy life, but they had a son, Greg, who grew up to be a lawyer and to play guitar in a Christian rock group, and he and his family have been the light of her life these past 25 years. About 10 or 12 years ago Vi moved from North Dakota to the Twin Cities to live with Mavis, her little sister (and Doug's mom). It was always great fun to visit them on Sundays, two widows, side by side in their matching leather recliners in front of the TV. Mavis, being hard of hearing and a little more subdued personality-wise, was always pretty quiet. But Vi talked and talked and talked.

She was bossy. She had opinions on everything. She read the papers, and she watched television, and she commented with great certainty, primarily on the Minnesota Twins and Vikings football, but also on politics and crime.

One November weekend she told us that she and Mavis had watched the Razzle-Dazzle parade on television the night before. It took us a minute to understand that she meant the Holidazzle parade, which glides, illuminated and glittering, up the Nicollet Mall on weekend nights between Thanksgiving and New Year's. But Razzle-Dazzle was a better name, and Razzle-Dazzle it has been, to us, ever since.

Her health was not good; she suffered from osteoporosis. Some years ago, her older sister, Nellie, had fallen, and Vi had tried to help her up but instead had fallen, too, and heard a loud crack! as she fell, and there they both lay on the ground, two cranky old ladies, unable to get up, and each yelling at the other for the sorry situation they were in. Vi told this story with great humor, but the truth was that when she fell with a crack! she had fractured her own back, and had to wear a brace forever more.

The brace laced up the back and was shot through with metal stays. Doug and I used to take her to the airport for her annual Christmas trip to Milwaukee to visit Greg, loaded down with carry-on bags packed with homemade peanut brittle and fruitcake, and each time she would set off all the metal detectors. She was then forced to stand there, ancient and stooped, teetering on her small feet in their orthopedic shoes, arms outstretched, while the bewildered Homeland Security official went over her whole body with a wand.

Five years ago she grew very ill and moved to Milwaukee to be near Greg (leaving her freezer behind, as many of you know). Her health improved, and she lived in an apartment with just a little help getting dressed and bathing. She and Mavis talked on the phone every Saturday, the last two remaining feisty North Dakota sisters, and last summer Greg brought Vi to the cities for a visit, right after her 89th birthday.

She made it one more year, to 90, but that was it. A few weeks ago, she fell in her apartment and broke her hip. She had surgery and moved to a rehab center to heal. On Saturday night, she and Mavis talked as usual. Vi was in some pain, but she sounded pretty good, up on all the gossip, sounding off about the moves the Twins needed to make in the off-season. On Tuesday night, Greg stopped by and gave her a chocolate malt. The next day, Vi suffered a massive stroke and only lived a few more hours.

My sister was 52 when she died. Mavis's sister was 90. I don't think it gets any easier. It might even get harder. But for Vi, to go out after a chat with her sister, a visit from her son, and a chocolate malt, is not a bad way to go. For the rest of us, it's hard, and we will miss her.

On Veterans Day

Guv served with the U.S. Army Air Force (as it was then known) in World War II. I know almost nothing about what he did or where he was, other than the vague understanding that he was in South Asia--Thailand, and India--and, for some reason, served with the British.

He never talked about his war experiences. He joked about people who did, prefacing long-winded stories with this mocking prologue: "When I was in the service ..." But he never finished that sentence.

He told me a story, once, about being in India and how jackals ran through his tent at night. He told another story about needing to cross a river at night, and finding a man with a boat who didn't want to take him. So Guv took out his gun and took the safety off and held it on the man until the man took him across. And then once he had reached the other side, Guv realized he didn't know how to put the safety back on.

Those are the only two stories I know. Did he see battle? Did he kill anyone? Why was he in the jungles of India, needing to cross a river?

And the big one: Did he come home a changed man?

He kept his service revolver in his bedroom in a drawer, and I used to sneak in and look at it sometimes and then dart away, fearing that it might somehow go off, triggered by nothing more than the movement of the opening drawer and the light of day.

When Guv was dying, he told me about being in India and buying a present for his little sister--a paper cutout sculpture of the Taj Mahal, very beautiful and intricate. He put it under his bed and by morning it had collapsed.

It felt like a metaphor for something, but for what I cannot say. I don't know enough.

After he told me that story, he handed me a small rectangular sandalwood box, beautifully carved. After the collapse of the paper Taj Mahal, he said, he wanted to buy something more substantial, and this glove box is what he came home with.

It now sits upstairs in my house on the desk that used to be his, the one with the nameplate screwed into the corner: his first two initials, L.J., match mine.

These stories are meandering away from his war experiences, because they are all I know. They are all I have.

Maid of Aran

While we were raking leaves yesterday, I kept stealing glances at the compost bin. I really should empty that thing, I thought. What a failure it was. We bought the bin a year or two ago--it's plain and rectangular, made of black plastic. (You can see it in the background in the picture above. It's between the bush and the garage.) It came with instructions, which were fairly simple, but which were, of course, beyond me: you need green (fresh clippings) and brown (dead leaves) to make dirt. Also, oxygen, heat and water. Layer in the clippings, brown, green, brown. Keep it moist. Don't pack it too full. Turn the compost from time to time, to give it air. Try to place it in a sunny part of the yard, for extra warmth. When it's working, you'll know: the whole thing will heat up.

So of course I did none of those things.

I hid the bin under a bush in a dark chilly part of the yard, and then I stuffed it full. Jam-packed full. Weeds from the garden, dead leaves, twigs and small branches, more weeds. I tried to turn it a few times, but it was too heavy and dense. And because it's deeper than it is wide, there wasn't room for my pitchfork to do much; I kept scraping my knuckles against the sides. I did squirt the hose into it a few times, but eventually I just slammed the lid shut and forgot about it, except for every now and then when I opened it up to cram in more leaves.

What a disaster. I'm such a gardening loser I can't even make dirt, for cripe's sake.

It sat all summer, something for Riley to hide behind and that's about it. Every now and then I'd glance at it and see the sticks and twigs and leaves poking out the side and from under the lid, and I'd just roll my eyes at myself. (Which is fairly hard to do.)

Years ago when Doug and I were on the Aran Islands, we went to the visitor center and watched the movie "Man of Aran," which showed what a hard life the early settlers had there. How the land was so rocky they had to make their own dirt in order to grow a few taties. They'd haul baskets of seaweed up from the shore and spread it in the fields with sand, and wait for it to break down. Such patience and diligence. And then there's me, can't even make dirt with a modern contraption that was invented to do just that.

I decided to put the whole thing out of my mind and just keep raking. But then Doug spoke up: "Shouldn't we empty out that compost bin and haul some of those old leaves with these?" He was thinking like me; if the thing weren't so jam-packed, it might actually do what it's supposed to do.


So I went over and lifted the lid. There was black dirt on top; probably from some flower pots I'd emptied last year. I dug down. More dirt. Dug down farther. More dirt. It was dirt! It was dirt all the way down!



I cannot tell you how overwhelmed I was at this, how overjoyed. It worked! It actually worked! I did it all wrong, and yet nature prevailed and did what I had been promised that nature would do: It took leaves and clippings and twigs and grass and it turned it all into lovely black dirt. Oh, yes, there were a few small twigs and some leaves still mixed in, but dammit it really was dirt, glorious thick black dirt.

I leaped around the yard a few times in exultation. And then I got out the wheelbarrow, and I started digging the dirt out of the bin, and I trundled it across the yard and dumped it on my garden. I left the compost bin about a third full of still-composting mass. Then I gathered up a few armfuls of newly-raked leaves and tossed them in. Ran to the garden and pulled up some still-green-but-dying flowers and tossed them in as well. Brown, green. Poured in a big watering can full of water. And shut the lid.

I'll open it again in the spring, when all things are new--including, hopefully, the dirt.

A philosophy of life

The New York Times ran a review of one of the new Ayn Rand biographies last week, and just like that, Bam! I was back in high school.

I had two best friends in eleventh grade--Kay and Carla. They were both stunningly beautiful--one had shimmering blond hip-length hair and huge blue eyes, and the other had shimmering dark brown hip-length hair and huge dark eyes. They were intelligent and highly intellectual and I felt awed and honored that they included me in their sophisticated conversations about Nietzsche (who I frantically tried to understand) and religion.

And then one day they started talking about someone named Ayn Rand. Rand wrote books that had titles like "The Virtue of Selfishness" and "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal," so that gives you a good idea of her outlook on life.

She also wrote big thick potboiler novels that set her philosophy into motion. "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" were about what she called the "heroes"--fabulously gorgeous, brilliant men and women who lived on a higher plane than the rest of us, who worked passionately only to fulfill their own dreams and make themselves happy. Rand believed that selfishness, applied this way, was what would keep the world progressing--that man works hardest and most honestly when he works for himself, and himself alone. There was no room in her philosophy for empathy or compassion, and no room among the heroes for the weak, the aging, the infirm, or, really, the friendly. (Those people she called "the looters.")

Kay and Carla were deeply influenced by her books. If you look at Rand's life, you can understand her abhorrence for anything done for the collective good--she grew up in Russia and was a young teen during the Bolshevik Revolution. Her father's thriving business was taken over by the state and she and her family were forced from their home and into a small apartment that they shared with strangers.

It must have been awful. So I can understand her viewpoint. But for happy, healthy 16-year-old girls from Duluth? To embrace wholeheartedly such a cold philosophy? A little harder to see. Except for the fact that Rand's books were so romantic; it was easy to get swept away with the beauty and riches and superiority and sex sex sex of the incredibly perfect main characters.

Kay and Carla allowed me to listen to their talks about Rand for some time before they solemnly handed over one of her books. I knew this was a test: I was to read "Atlas Shrugged" and report back to them. This was unnerving. I knew my fate was on the line, and I worried I would not measure up.

"Atlas Shrugged" is about the day when all of the heroes of the world go on strike, and the world, left to the inferior looters, grinds to a halt. It is a very long book, and if it weren't for the fabulously steamy sex scenes that livened it up for my innocent 16-year-old eyes, I might not have made it through. Rand wanted to make sure that readers understood her philosophy, and so she hammered it, over and over and over, and just when you wanted to scream "I get it! It's not that complicated!" she stops all action for fifty pages and allows the main character to give a speech that sets it all out again.

I finished the book and wondered what I would tell my friends. Iwondered if they would still be my friends once we had had the talk.

Kay invited me to her house on a Saturday afternoon. Carla was there, too. They sat on the patio in deck chairs, their long glossy hair gleaming in the sun. I scratched my poodle head and shoved my glasses back up my nose. (Of course neither of them wore glasses; heroes, apparently, have 20-20 vision.)

They asked my assessment and then coolly watched and waited while I sweated.

I stumbled out a few things about how brilliant it was and how great it was and what a fabulous read, but, um, it was a bit long, wasn't it, and somewhat repetitive?

Kay and Carla glanced at each other and I was filled with dread; I knew I was doomed.

There were a few ominous moments of silence, and then Kay spoke. "I didn't think there was a superfluous word in the entire book," she said. She and Carla got up and walked into the house and shut the door.

And that was it. Friendless.

The night when children rule

Halloween is past and we're well into November now. The sunlight slants, golden, by 2 p.m. and by late afternoon we're in the dark.

But I'm still thinking about Halloween, and how so few kids came to our door, and how the ones that did were driven up in minivans, accompanied by watchful parents keeping vigil ten feet away, and I'm wondering why this is and what has happened to my favorite holiday. Is it morphing into a festival of safe parties and brightly-lit events in warm houses and echoey school gymnasiums? Is the scary, thrilling magic of traipsing around on your own in the dark, hidden behind a mask, gone?

I loved Halloween as a child. I never felt frightened. I come from a big family, and we were sent out in groups of two and three to trick-or-treat together, but those groups often fragmented and dispersed a few blocks from home. Brothers took off. Sisters got cold. I roamed the neighborhood alone, sweating behind my plastic mask, clutching my brown paper grocery sack that I optimistically believed would be full by night's end.

It was usually bitter cold by Halloween night, and though we had spent half the day ransacking the house for sheets and scarves and gypsy earrings and other likely costume fodder, we always ended up covering the whole thing up with a woollen coat before setting out.

Some houses would invite us in to remove our jackets and reveal our costumes to Granny or Gramps, sitting in an easy chair in the stuffy living room. And we did, blinking in the light, and then went on our way again, candy secured, no harm done, no threats made.

Certainly there were problems: I remember rainy Halloweens, when my paper sack dissolved, the bottom falling out, me on my hands and knees, scrambling. Big kids came by and grabbed some candy and took off, shouting. I stuffed what I could into my child-sized pockets. The nasty stuff--peanut butter kisses wrapped in waxed paper, Bit-o-Honeys--got left behind on the ground in the rain.

One of my brothers was robbed of his treat sack once, by older boys, and came home crying. But mostly I remember the quiet, powerful thrill of walking the streets of our neighborhood in the dark, no adults anywhere, hardly any cars, feeling perfectly safe in my disguise, the condensation from my mouth moist on my face, my breathing adenoidal and loud inside the mask. There were always large groups of other children doing the same thing, and it felt, for that one night, that children ruled the world. We walked fearlessly, pounded on doors, made threats, demanded rewards. And the adults, from the bright warm safety of their houses, handed over the loot. And on we went to the next house.

Parents were to serve us. Parents certainly did not go with us, nor did they dress up. This was our night. The candy was great, but Halloween was really about power, and independence, about a world ruled for one night by children.

We told each other the best places to trick-or-treat, and the worst. Don't go to that quiet dark house down Third Street because the crabby woman gives music lessons and won't answer the door. If you ring the bell, she'll holler at you. Do stop by the yellow brick mansion on Second Street. The bishop lives there, with (we thought) his harem of nuns. Draped in black, their hair hidden under the white wimple and long veil, the quiet women handed out plastic sacks of Brachs party mix, tied up with curly ribbons.

We always talked of going there twice, and getting two bags of party mix, but the idea of ripping off the bishop seemed to be tempting God, and we never dared.

And when the streets grew quiet and the other packs of children vanished, we knew it was time to head home. There, in the privacy of our overheated bedrooms, we would dump out our bags and sort out the nasty stuff (those peanut butter kisses again! so many of them!), and marvel at the riches of the good stuff (anything chocolate), make piles, make plans to dole it out through November, and then, plan abandoned, just sail in, eating our fill and falling asleep amidst the crinkling wrappers, sticky and happy and safe.

Sara Smiles brought the sun

Last week I was complaining to Lo about how Riley doesn't get enough exercise these days. The morning walks are shorter in distance but longer in duration, thanks to the pokey-ness of Boscoe. And, as I mentioned here before, Riley won't indulge me in those long lovely weekend walks to California Street anymore; we get to Como School and he stops and won't go another step.

So Lo offered up Sara. You remember Sara--the dog that so brightened Toby's last days. She's still a wonderful, vibrant, happy, exuberant dog, and a good friend to Boscoe and Riley. This seemed like a great idea, a way to give Riley and Sara both plenty of exercise. So on Friday, Lo (who works the night shift) brought Sara to work with her at 4 p.m., and when I left at 6 I went to Lo's car and retrieved her.

From the second I got home, the boys were thrilled. I had figured that Sara would race around with Riley and wear him out, but I hadn't realized that she'd have the same effect on Boscoe. I have seen him play more this weekend than he has in years--romping and running, stiff-legged but game, going into the play bow, barking with enthusiasm. Sara and Riley spent most of the day in the yard yesterday, except for a blissful 90 minutes while Doug raked leaves, Boscoe helped him (i.e., tottered in the grass), and I leashed up the other two and walked briskly to California.

And it felt so great that we did it again this morning--all five of us, this time. Walking with Sara prompts Boscoe to walk a little faster than usual. Wants to keep that good-looking girl in his line of vision, I think.

To make things even more lovely, the sun came out yesterday and it has been sunny all weekend, and while yesterday was chilly, today is simply gorgeous. The first really gorgeous day in nearly a month. Truly--we've just endured one of the coldest, cloudiest, wettest and snowiest Octobers on record. It has been difficult. So this is a good start to November. We credit Sara, and her ebullient sunny personality. Here she is, playing with the guys. That weird whining noise you hear is Sara's play growl.

The way that Sara has perked everybody up has caused us to think, once more, about a puppy...

Halloween 1965

It didn't do any good to just put on a plastic mask. All the kids at school would know who I was because of my hair. And wasn't that the point of wearing a costume to school? To fool your classmates?

So the year I was in third grade, my mother got the brilliant idea of encasing my entire head in orange crepe paper. She gathered it at the neck, and at the top, and voila! A walking pumpkin! A simple sheet concealed everything from the neck on down. I was thrilled. Nobody will know it's me! I figured, and I trudged off quite happily to school.

I looked mysterious and spooky in my drapey white robes and orange head. But there was one serious drawback to the costume: I couldn't eat. My mother had cut little eyeholes (from which I could barely see), and a slit for the mouth, but not a large enough slit to accommodate food. This made it impossible to partake of the party refreshments, because I couldn't open my crepe paper mouth, and I couldn't remove my crepe paper head.

All I could do was line up the sugary treats on my desk and guard them jealously.

Ian, sitting next to me in a rabbit costume which sensibly left his eyes and mouth free to use, watched me. Ian sat next to me in class, and I did not like him, mainly because he so clearly liked me.

Ian was from Canada. He was blond and always wore a tie and gray flannel pants. This was weird. Nobody wore a tie to Endion Elementary. Nobody wore gray flannel. Nobody called the teacher "ma'am" or the principal "sir." I expended a lot of energy snubbing him and making sure that he clearly understood just how much I didn't like him. This could be exhausting, because Ian had a cheerful nature and refused to be snubbed.

On Halloween, with my pumpkin head rendering me incognito, I relaxed. I let my guard down. There was no point in snubbing him, because I was Pumpkin Girl--or was I Pumpkin Boy? With the orange crepe paper encircling my head there was no way to know.

And so I laughed and chatted with Ian during the class party. We played tic-tac-toe. For that hour, he was not odious, and for that hour I did not hate him.

I remembered my hatred that evening, though, when he showed up unexpectedly at my front door. "Can Laurie go trick-or-treating with me?" he asked my mother in his polite Canadian way. I'm surprised he wasn't wearing a tie with that damned rabbit costume.

I had no idea how he had figured out that it was me behind that pumpkin head, or how he had figured out where I lived. Maybe by my shoes. Maybe by my voice. Maybe by the fact that I was sitting in my own desk.

At any rate, here he was at the front door of my house, and I grabbed my mother by the hem of her apron and dragged her into the closet. NO NO NO NO NO NO, I hissed. I HATE HIM.

My mother emerged from the closet and smoothed her apron. "Of course she can go with you," she said nicely to Ian. Then she turned and shot me a look. He seems like a nice boy, she hissed back. He went to a lot of trouble to find you and come over and politely ask, and yes you have to go with him.

To make things proper and safe, she dispatched my brother David to accompany us, as chaperone.

I could not believe this. I could not believe that I had to go trick or treating with the odious tie-wearing polite blond Ian, of all the terrible people. I slunk down the stairs, bumping a tennis shoe on each tread. I twisted my face into a ferocious scowl, which, sadly, went to waste, concealed as it was behind the crepe paper. As we made our way house to house, I lagged behind, to make clear how uninterested I was. I refused to answer in more than a mutter when he turned and asked his cheerful Canadian questions.

So David and Ian did what boys--or any sensible people--will do, when mistreated: They ignored me back. They walked on ahead side-by-side and left me behind, and I was left to trail after them for the rest of the evening. Nobody noticed my sullenness. Nobody noticed that hey, I'm not having a good time here! It's entirely possible that they didn't even notice I was there at all. By the time the evening was over I was wishing desperately that Ian would notice me again, but by then it was way too little, and way, way too late.

My first date was with a cheerful Canadian rabbit, and it ended the way so many future dates would end: with me unhappy, frustrated, and deeply confused.

Music Lessons, Part Two

Finding a violin teacher was easy: I had absolutely no idea who to ask, so I went right to the top. I called up the university and asked to speak to the head of the music department. Her name was Ann, and she played first violin in the Duluth Symphony. I'd seen her there many times, graceful in her long black skirt, her blonde hair gleaming under the lights as she swayed with the thrilling music pouring from her violin.

Was this audacious of me? Perhaps. If so, Ann never let on. Yes, she gave lessons, she said. Yes, she'd see me.

I had two lessons before Ann figured out a way to gracefully pass me on to one of her own students. She didn't say that it was because I was a rank beginner who could barely read music; she said that it was because she was so busy she couldn't give me the time I deserved.

I don't remember much about my second teacher, who I only had for a handful of lessons as well, but she eventually passed me off, too. Time again, you know. Busy. I was a valuable student and she, regretfully, just didn't have the time, what with classes and exams and all.

And this is how I found Sue.

Sue had brown hair and a merry laugh. She spoke with a twang that revealed her Southern roots. She played viola in the Symphony, and -- what luck for me -- she played fiddle in a string band. And oh, how I love the fiddle. I love the humor of it, and the sweetness, and the toe-tapping-ness of it, and the lively way it can carry a song or just help a song out, plumping it up and filling it out.

It was my love for the fiddle, even more than my love for the violin, that had prompted me to buy my own instrument; years of listening to Bill Hicks and the Red Clay Ramblers, and Kevin Burke with the Bothy Band had deepened this love. And now there was Sue, who played with a band called Home Cookin', and who cheerfully suggested that we alternate: a few weeks studying classical violin, a few weeks fiddling.

This was heaven.

She taught me how to hold the violin properly, keeping my left wrist nice and straight, making a strong unbroken line all the way to my elbow. How to hold the bow, with my fingers spaced just so, and how to use just some of the hair, or all the hair, depending on what sound I was looking for. She taught me vibrato and double-stops. How to wipe down the violin when I was done and put it to bed in its velvet-lined case, covered by a soft cloth.

Every week she would tune my violin for me, because I couldn't really hear precisely how the notes should be, and then she'd hand it back and I would play. We had fun, so much fun. I worked my way through beginning classical books, waiting for the weeks when I'd climb the stairs to her second floor apartment and she'd say, "Let's do some fiddling today."

I bought a music stand, and I practiced like mad. It was delightful to look at those black marks on the page and have my fingers know where to go, and to glide that bow over the strings and have a song come out. Sue was nothing but encouraging. She told me I had a beautiful vibrato.

After a year or so, she brought me to a fiddle competition in a local park and urged me to get up on stage and show the crowd what I could do. I was terrified and demurred, and then kicked myself when I watched someone else, even more rank a beginner than I, sawing his way starting and stopping through a tune. I could have done better than that! I thought.

Ah, so I thought.

Where is the line between making music for your own happiness, and deeply annoying everyone around you?

One afternoon I was cheerfully sawing away at my lesson when I happened to glance at Sue. Her brow was tense, and her eyes were half-shut. "Just slide your fingers--just a hair--ahhhhhh. That's better," she said, and her whole face relaxed.

Violin, of course, is all about the ear. There are no frets, like a guitar. No precisely tuned keys, like a piano. It's all about adjusting as you go, sliding your fingers along those strings to find the sweet notes. Or, in my case, sliding my fingers to find that flat spronk between the notes, never noticing the difference.

That moment gave me great pause. Sue could hear something that I could not, and I could no longer lie to myself. I might learn the mechanics of the violin some day, but I would never master the sound: I couldn't even tune my own instrument. Violin is all about the ear, and the sad truth is that I have no ear.

We kept up the lessons for a few more months, but I had lost my innocence and my joy. I grew self-conscious: how bad did I sound? Was I getting it right? Was I close? How bad was close? Sue praised my double-stops and my vibrato, but I knew that without getting the notes right, nothing else mattered.

One Saturday afternoon, Sue appeared at my apartment door unannounced. She was smiling, but she was delivering bad news: She was moving, heading back down south. She'd be happy to find me another teacher---

And that was the end of my lessons. The glowing violin named David stayed shut in its hard case for years and years. When I left Duluth, I gave it away.

You should study the piano, people said. The violin is the hardest instrument there is. And perhaps I should have. But I don't have passion for the piano; I only have passion for the violin and you can't play the violin if you can't hear the notes.

Over time, of course, I came to realize that it's not entirely true that I don't have an ear: I don't have an ear for my own music. But I do have an ear--heck, I have two of them! And, thanks to Sue and her lessons and enthusiasm and encouragement, I have a heightened appreciation for other people's music. I can't play, but I can listen. And so I do, with joy.

Boscoe's dream come true

"More food!" says the vet. "Give that dog even more food!" His food dish is already loaded high twice a day, higher than it ever has been before, way higher than poor Riley's, who finishes his breakfast in about six seconds and then looks mournfully in Boscoe's direction. Boscoe is King Henry VIII, leaning over his bowl and chewing away forever, wiping his greasy paws on his ermine cape.

But he's losing weight. He's been losing weight fairly steadily since being diagnosed with diabetes last May, when we were in Ireland.

He had another day-long glucose curve test on Tuesday, as we continue to try to figure out the proper amount of insulin he needs. He did great on five units for the whole summer, and I thought, diabetes, no problem!

But then in late September he started stumbling, and drinking lots of water, and we upped his dosage to six units of insulin twice a day. That did the trick for a mere three weeks, and then he started drinking gallons of water and peed all over the much-abused red rug in our front hallway, the same red rug that he peed all over in May and alarmed the pet-sitter.

So last week Dr. J. told us to up the dosage again, this time to seven units.

He did fine for a only few days before defiling the hall rug again, and so on Tuesday he went in for another test. We'll find out the results on Wednesday, though midday reports on Tuesday said he's doing pretty well and we'll likely bump him up to eight units of insulin. But he's skinny! He's so damn skinny! He's lost two pounds in the last three weeks, which would be great if he were, say, my size, but being his size he has no pounds to spare.

He's down to 42.2 pounds, the least he's ever weighed as an adult dog and a full ten pounds less than at his most robust.

So--more food. The trick is getting him enough calories while still giving him only high-fiber, low-fat food to control his diabetes. So no meatloaf. No spaghetti or pizza. No ice cream. No chocolate malts or birthday cake or lemon meringue pie or grilled steak or pie pie pie. No pulled-pork sandwiches, or deep-fried cream-cheese-filled wontons, or mini-donuts or potato chips straight from the greasy bag. No waffles. No butter. No strawberry jam.

Just more of the cardboard-brown, high-fiber, low-fat W/D Prescription Food. We'll supplement it with a little boiled chicken. To be honest, I'm not sure he can eat much more. But he's going to have to. Poor old guy is wasting away before our very eyes.

He's still a sweetie, though. The first thing Dr. J said, when I called, was, "He gave me a big smooch on the nose. He's a crazy old dog!" And that he is. Above is a picture of said Crazy Old Dog, back when he was a Crazy Young Puppy fourteen years ago.

The second half of "Music Lessons" is on its way. Thanks for your patience....

Music lessons

The summer I was 21, I took the bus downtown to Branders Music Shop to buy a violin. I had known the Branders all my life; they were the stout, kind couple who lived at the end of our block. When I was small, I used to crawl under their split-rail fence to pick the starry blue scilla that bloomed in their grass each spring.

Their shop was a small, bustling place, much like Mrs. Brander herself. It had a wall of guitars, shelves of ticking metronomes, narrow drawers of sheet music, displays of noisy-looking drum sets, and, in locked glass cases, glowing golden-brown against shimmering dark blue velvet -- violins.

There was usually music in our busy house, but it was mostly background noise. Nobody took it very seriously. Sometimes it was The Beatles, singing tinnily out of my sister's portable radio in the hot dark of a summer night. Sometimes it was Respighi's "Ancient Airs and Dances for the Lute" rotating on the turntable while we ate; we called it "dinner music," and it was meant to add a calm air to our hectic meals, which resembled supper at a Medieval inn: twelve hungry people seated around two long wooden tables heaped with gallon bowls of mashed potatoes and green beans, platters of porkchops, someone dropping a fork, someone spilling the milk, everybody talking. Sometimes it was my father singing "But Daddy, You Been on My Mind" while he cracked the ice for his evening martini, or my brother Paul, pounding out "Fur Elise," laboriously on the piano.

My father had bought the piano one Christmas as a gift for my mother, who had played as a child. But she seldom played this one; I guess cooking and cleaning and shopping for the twelve of us kept her pretty busy, and when she had a moment to sit down she preferred solitude and silence. Making more noise no longer interested her, not even pretty noise.

The rest of us took to the piano avidly, though without any discipline; we pitched fights in the living room to determine who would get to play; we swarmed around it like puppies, learning where middle C was and how to stumble through a few books of simple tunes. In December, we thumped out Christmas carol after Christmas carol. I kept my foot pressed firmly on the sustain pedal, no matter what my mother advised, to make the music "flow."

All of this is in some way the reason why, on a summer day when I was 21, I opened the jingling front door of Branders Music, a borrowed $300 in my pocket, and picked out a violin.

The violin had a name: David, like my brother. The clerk assured me that it was a fine, mid-level instrument, perfect for someone just starting out. He showed me how to peer through the F hole to find the label; how to tighten the horse hair bow, though not too much, and how to rosin it, but not too much; how to hold the violin between shoulder and chin. The rest of it would be up to me--me, and a teacher.

I tested its heft, admired the lovely mirror-image swirls of grain on the glossy back, wiped away the white sticky rosin near the bridge, lifted it up and clamped it into place with my jaw, and -- then what? I had no idea how to produce even a single note.

(to be continued)

A note on the photos: My oldest brother, John Patrick, as a one-man band. And my sisters and me, listening to the stereo one winter evening.

Thanks, Peg. I think

It is appalling how many of these things I can eat.

Music lessons

I've been asked to write an essay about music for an orchestra magazine. I think I'll try out a couple different pieces for you here.

This should be interesting: while I'm not tone deaf, I do have a rather tin ear. Music and me have never been terribly close. More a matter of me admiring it from afar.

My magic coat

My magic coat does my figure no favors. It is a big, rectangular, green waxed barn coat, with a corduroy collar and a plaid lining.

It is shabby and shapeless, frayed at the cuffs and along the zipper edge and at the hem. Some of the pockets are ripped, and I have to be careful where I stash things because they could slip through and end up thumping around inside the lining.

I have tried to get rid of this coat, have vowed to get rid of this coat, but the simple truth is that I cannot get rid of this coat. It's practical. It's warm. It's waterproof. It's magic.

The fact that I bought it from a little stall on Grafton Street 15 years ago may sound precious, but that is not the main reason that I can't get rid of it. I'm sentimental about Ireland, but not that sentimental. No, it's the perfection of the coat itself that keeps me reaching for it on a regular basis.

It's too big for me; it's a men's medium, and even when I was somewhat heavier it was still too big. But that extra size means that I can layer so much underneath--a bulky sweater and a fleece vest (as I did today), or a polarfleece jacket. A few times, when it's really cold, a polarfleece jacket and a puffy down vest. Everything fits. Its capacity is endless.

Without the sweaters and vests, it's a jacket for September. With layers, I can wear it through the winter on all but the coldest of days.

It has pockets galore, so roomy that I can stash...

*A hat

* A pair of gloves

* dog pick-up bags

* dog treats

* Kleenex

* a paperback book

* my sunglasses

... and still not meet capacity. The inside hem is deep and can serve as an extra pocket on rainy days.

I tried to replace the coat a few years back, ordering another green waxed barn jacket online, but the new coat was substandard in many ways--not as warm, not as long, fewer pockets, not as much room for sweaters and vests.

So now I have two. The newer one is more presentable, and I can wear it to work on wet days. But the older one is my default jacket, my dog-walking jacket, my shoveling-the-sidewalk jacket, my walking in the rain jacket.

Surely you have something like this, too--some item of clothing that you should have gotten rid of long ago, but can't. What is it?

(Pictures are of the coat in action on a dog walk, at the dog park, up north, while snowshoeing, and in New Mexico.)

Riley's birthday week

Today is Riley's birthday. Or maybe it was yesterday. Or tomorrow, or Sunday or, possibly, last Wednesday.

Nobody really knows. We know that Boscoe was born on the Fourth of July, 1995. But Riley? We got him from the pound in Forest Lake, Minn., in January of 2002. All we know is that he was about three and a half months old then, which we figure puts his birthday right around now.

When we are feeling sentimental, we say that he was born on Oct. 14, 2001--the day Toby died.

This fanciful thought would hold more credibility if the two dogs were similar in any way other than four legs and a tail, but they're not.

Toby was passionate about chasing and retrieving tennis balls. Sometimes when I was working at my computer, I'd sense a presence in the room and look around and there he was, sitting quietly about six feet away, watching me patiently. Behind me, on the chair seat, was a tennis ball that he had sneaked up and set there, for me to grab and throw. He would have waited all afternoon without making a sound.

Riley has a shorter attention span and cares nothing for tennis balls, or for retrieving. His passion is running flat-out while holding a puffy toy in his mouth. He wants to chase and be chased.

Toby adored me and wanted to be with me constantly.

Riley can pretty much take me or leave me. He needs his space, and when we're all in the living room together he prefers to go out in the hall or even upstairs. He is Greta Garbo.

Toby had long blond hair; Riley is the first short-haired dog I've owned. He's not built for beauty; he's built for convenience and speed.

Toby loved to go in the car. Riley--well, you know. He hates it. Gets nervous as a cat.

So even if Riley was born on the day Toby died, nobody can pretend that any part of Toby's spirit somehow mystically entered Riley. And, in any case, nobody really knows. So instead of a birthday celebration, he gets a birthweek celebration.

The celebrating is fairly muted. We don't bake cakes for our dogs, or give them presents, or even sing to them. No balloons. (And Riley is afraid of balloons.) What they get is: special attention.

On Wednesday night, while Boscoe was in his fluffy dog bed, half-dozing and languidly mouthing a fleece rabbit, Doug took his dinner plate out onto the back porch and quietly called for Riley. He reports that Riley's eyes got huge as Doug set the plate down (spaghetti sauce) and quickly glanced over his shoulder at the door before bending his head and getting to it.

Last night, I did the same with my stew bowl. Again with the eyes big in wonder.

Tonight? Who knows? An extra walk? (Unless it's snowing.) Another dinner plate? Two milkbones after dinner? Or maybe I'll toss him a puffy toy and chase him around the tree in the dark.

Happy birthday, Riley. You're oblivious to the importance of the day/week, but we're not.

I've been dumped. And it feels good.

When we were Up North, the mysterious "transmittal committee" at the university press met to discuss my book. An e-mail from my editor, Todd, was waiting for me when I got home. He said the committee had decided on hardcover (yay!) and a September 2010 publication date. They agreed on the title. He needs me to get some signed permissions for the photographs. They were still talking about what the cover would look like. That was about it. All good news, nothing surprising.

And then today I got this e-mail, from someone else at the Press:

Dear Laurie,

Just a brief message to let you know that the final manuscript for News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist has now been transmitted from Acquisitions to Production here at the Press. The book will be published early in our Fall 2010 season, in time for the Midwest Booksellers Association meeting.

I will write with more specific information about the editing and production schedules later, but for now please let me know if you have any extensive travel planned for the next year that we should consider when planning the book's schedules.

Best wishes,
A.S.
Production Assistant
University of Minnesota Press

Ah ha! It has been transmitted from acquisitions to production. That's what that mysterious transmittal committee was all about. I've been handed off.

For some reason, I found this e-mail thrilling. My book is no longer in the beginning stages; it's no longer something they're acquiring, but something that has been acquired and is well on its way to becoming an actual book. This message is routine, telling me nothing new, but still, it delighted me, especially seeing the title in bold italics as though it is an actual book and not just some Word files I'm fussing with on my laptop.

I do feel sad, though, that my relationship with Todd is over. He's the one who liked the book from the beginning, who believed in it, who brought it to the acquisitions committee, who read each chapter as I wrote it, who gave me advice and encouragement. But he is an acquisitions editor, and now that I've been acquired, Todd and I are, apparently, splitting up.

I forwarded A.S.'s email to him, and put this note at the top:

so you.... you....you've dumped me????

He wrote back promptly (which is very unlike him).

You'll just have to propose a new book if you want me back.

A new book. I have to tell you, I loved writing that book but I love even more having it done with. I love having my time to myself again, being able to read for hours without feeling like I should be writing. I love not having it hang over my head the way undone homework used to hang over my head in high school.

That said, there's something magic about those words .... propose a new book.

I think that Todd and I will remain divorced for a while. I can play the field. Flirt with reading, with blogging, hell, with watching mindless television. But sooner or later--and I think he knows this--I'm going to come crawling back.

En plein air

Doug went to the Gopher football game yesterday. After a hundred (or at least 20) years in the Metrodome, the team has moved back to campus, to a new open-air stadium. Yesterday was Homecoming. It was also 38 degrees with occasional snow flurries and a stiff wind.

Here are some pictures of how some of the spectators tried to keep warm:









I realize it is fashionable to despise our Metrodome--which the Minnesota Twins will be leaving at the end of this season, too. People say the dome is a soulless, depressing place and that sports are best played outdoors. Hard to argue with that. But today it is not even 40 degrees and breezy, and tonight will be colder. Tomorrow we are supposed to get three inches of snow. The Twins play the Yankees here this evening in the playoffs, and again tomorrow, if they win. I bet they're secretly glad to have the Dome for one last series.

Aaaaauuugggghhhhh

Goodbye, geraniums.


Goodbye, impatiens.


Goodbye, summer.

Ode to Joy(ne's)

On Monday--the day of the Big Blow--we loaded the dogs into the back of the Jeep and took off up Highway 61 for Grand Marais.

You already know that our Up North trip is not about being in the city. It is not about eating in restaurants. And it is definitely not about shopping. That said, we always make a stop at Joyne's. It's the Ben Franklin on the main drag of Grand Marais, and it carries absolutely everything you could ever want to buy.

The store is pleasantly crowded, in a comfy, it's-almost-Christmas kind of way, full and happy, with racks of Pendleton shirts and Woolrich vests in front of you the minute you walk in the door. No preamble, no introduction, just boom! Shirts and vests. To the right are dim narrow aisles stacked high with Carhartt coveralls and blaze orange insulated hats and mysterious boxes that could hold just about anything. To the left are the cash registers, two of them, constantly busy. And straight ahead is a world of ... stuff. Wonderful, browsable, unexpected, funky stuff.

The aisles are narrow and occasionally winding; the shelves are piled way higher than my head; there are mysterious curtained areas in the back, by the shoes (of course it carries shoes! Don't all Ben Franklins?), and rabbit-warreny areas behind the soaps, over where they carry women's Columbia pants and appliqued sweatshirts.

For years I bought my winter boots here every fall--Merrells, and Clarks, and last year a tall warm wonderful pair of Ugg boots that have not yet worn out, so no new boots for me this winter.

But there are mittens ... and hats .... and house slippers, colorful fleece, with rubber soles so you can run outside on the frosty lawn and retrieve your newspaper. And beaded belts made in China, made to look as though Indians had stitched them by hand on the reservation. (I have two of these.)

Shampoo and deodorant and underwear (huge and bright white, even the size smalls), and toothpaste and razor blades and all the things you forgot to pack before you headed up the Shore.

Postcards and coffee mugs that say GRAND MARAIS and GUNFLINT TRAIL, and coffee coasters with maps of Lake Superior, and soap that smells like pine needles, and maple syrup from just down the road, at Caribou Cream, and maple sugar candy, too, shaped like leaves.

And dog dishes! And dishpans! And coffee makers! And books by local authors and artists, even Betsy Bowen!

I am a little more inclined to linger here than Doug; Doug is more of a go-and-get-what-you-need-and-pay-for-it-and-leave kinda guy. But man, how can you be that linear in a place like Joyne's? (Maybe Doug will read this and explain.)

While the wind whipped the gray lake into a froth, and the sailboats in the harbor across the street bobbed and sank, and people staggered down the street in the fierce 50 mph gales, and the dogs waited patiently in the truck, I trolled the aisles, looking for birthday presents for my older brothers. I considered: A package of North Shore stickers. A notepad, decorated with a picture of a moose. Canadian raspberry jam. Piney candles, trimmed in raffia and pinecones. Cassette tapes of rainstorms, and wolf howls. Any number of coffee mugs.

Way in the back, I saw a canvas tote bag hanging from a hook in a dark corner. On the bag was a map of Caribou Lake--the very lake we were staying at! Our road--Evergreen Trail--was depicted, and so were the driveways of each of the cabins. I could count in, one, two, three, and point to the exact spot where we were staying.

Well, of course I had to have this bag, and I added it to my pile. Doug, who knows how many tote bags I already own, did not roll his eyes, at least not that I could see.

I loaded up my loot--presents for my brothers, gigantic underpants (I had not packed well), Canadian jam, tote bag--and staggered to the counter. Only at Joyne's would I find all of this stuff under one roof. Only at Joyne's, once a year, do I allow myself the leisurely aisle strolling, the impulsive acquisitiveness, the magic of serendipity, the odd joy that shopping can be.