How we lost 1 dog and ended up with 8...

Last Thursday I sat on the couch and stroked the fur of my beloved elderly miniature poodle, Willie, and told him it was okay to go if he felt it was his time. He died peacefully at 1pm. We didn't even get a chance to call the vet for euthanasia; they were closed for the day. I felt lucky that he died so beautifully, lucky I was with him and that he wasn't in terrible pain.
I did not feel lucky that he died.
We raised him from a tiny puppy, took him everywhere, taught him an assortment of silly tricks, gave him bad haircuts and incomplete trims. He was cute and very puppy-like in appearance, even as a little old man. And he was my shadow.
I knew I was going to miss him with an ache that wouldn't soon ease. I buried him with heart-shaped rocks.

Two days later by an odd combination of events, we found ourselves at the local animal control shelter, not to find a replacement, but just to observe life. We could have been anywhere else that day. We could have left the shelter early. We could have taken home the big old dogs we befriended there, convinced it was the right next path for our lives' journeys.
But we were there at closing, at the right time to see an old van pull up, and a sad young man bring out a big bin. I knew it was puppies or kittens in the bin. I thought, what kind of person brings a whole litter to a shelter? How irresponsible.
I actively avoided the drama, but it sucked me in: My 12 year old daughter was trapped inside the now-locked shelter, and the keys were with the animal control officers who were talking to the guy with the bin.
And since I saw prison inmates helping in the shelter, I wanted my Emily out of there as soon as possible.
The officers let Emily out of the building.
I let myself relax, then, enough to hear the man's story.
He's unemployed (so's my husband, and the guy across the street, and a few of our good friends, and a few relatives... Here in Michigan it's a common start to a story).
He lost his house. He and his family (wife, two teens with Down's Syndrome -- and that's another story in itself, but to me it said, here's a family with compassion and mercy) were moving to a relative's house for a while. They couldn't bring the dogs.

He found good homes for 3 puppies and the two parent dogs. Mom: full-blooded American pit bull terrier. Dad: half small Rottie, half big chihuahua.
In the bin: EIGHT puppies, age 7 weeks.

The Humane Society sent him away -- too many pups.
Animal Control was closed til Tuesday.
They asked me to foster the pups just til Tuesday. It didn't take long to say yes.
I promised the man we would find excellent (stable, appropriate) homes for the puppies. I turned down his offer of $25 for food until Tuesday.

Katie (age 20) and Emily were thrilled. My husband Charlie... not so excited.
But we did it.
It was an exhausting mix of sleeplessness, cooperation, and cramming our brains with Puppy 101 information from the Monks of New Skete (that's how I'd raised Willie), and Wikipedia, and an Animal Planet dvd.
Many times I felt like Octomom, torn in 8 directions.

I swear, puppies are liquid. Not that they pee a lot (they do) but that they disperse and spread like only a liquid can. This idea came to me at 3:30am as I tried to corral them enough to not lose them to the dark bushes and any hiding predators (we have hawks in the woods behind us), but not so much that they were inhibited about 'doing their business.'
Frantic that we might have 8 puppies forever, I put a note on my Facebook page. Friends came immediately, and some eventually adopted puppies from us. One of my fondest memories is of a bunch of neighbors and my kids and me (and Charlie) on the lawn with the puppies, giving them love and reporting on potty accomplishments and comparing each pup's personality and physical traits.
It was so sweet, and it took me right back to when our across-the-street neighbors had newborn puppies 6 years ago and they let then-6 Emily gently hold them that very day they were born.

As of yesterday, we've found homes for every wonderful pup:
Othello went home with Mary the first night.
Lady MacBeth became Bella, at Tyson, Beth's and Sydney's house. And we've seen her twice since. Yesterday she nearly licked my chin off. I'm convinced she remembered me.
Feisty Helena went home with Diane and Steven, dear friends who swore they were only coming over to help pet the puppies. I'll see her a lot. :) (She likely has a new name too, a comics-related one, because her big dog companion there is named Squee)
Henry became Zeus after going home yesterday with Michelle after a neighborhood picnic. He was perfectly behaved there and lots of people fell in love with him. I teared up kissing his forehead goodbye. If that adoption doesn't work out, I have another lady waiting to take him.
Tybalt will become Zeus also (!) next week on Friday, when he goes home with Heather. It's not yet a good time for them to take him.
Rosalind, Rozzie, is up north vacationing with my son and his wife. She will live here until they find an apartment that allows pets (or negotiate with the current landlord).
Boots Tewksbury is Katie's now, and he will live here until she moves out, maybe this fall. (She's taking a break from college)
Clarence is ours. He's the right combination of spirit and docile, intellect and playfulness, for Charlie, Emily and me.

Those are all Shakespearean names -- did you notice? It all started with a hamster named Hamlet.
I'll probably still tell my funny Willie story in my author events at libraries -- kids always laugh on cue. I won't tell them Willie is gone now. I don't want to cry at author events.
But, maybe soon I will have funny puppy stories to tell, too.

The vet gave us tips on avoiding aggression, and he answered a million questions, and he gave them their first shots.
The neighbor kids come to play a few times a day.
We still have to get up in the middle of the night. Charlie's become an active participant in their care -- he handles the morning shift. I am grateful to have Emily and Katie around -- they're experts in the puppies' care too. Katie's teaching them to sit. I think they've caught on. I also think they've gone backwards, a little, on potty training. (argh)
We aren't looking for new puppy homes anymore -- we're all set.

I looked in the mirror a couple days ago and noticed I was smiling.
The sadness of losing Willie won't evaporate, but I feel very lucky to have had, for one day, the distraction of eight new puppies to love. (the next day it was 7, two days later it was 5, today 4...) But, really, as losing Willie taught me, I'll always have those puppies to love, even if they're in new, far-away homes.

And now, I have to get back to revisions for Ellie McDoodle: Best Friends Fur-Ever, due in stores in 2010. If you see Shakespearean names in the finished book, you'll know why.

(No photos of the pups - my digital camera broke last year. No drawings uploaded yet - I've been in survival mode. At some point I'll upload some)

Charity begins ad hoc

(I'd say charity begins ad hom, and I'd argue it's accurate, but since ad hominem is commonly used for negative, it's better to avoid it here)

My friend Peter Davis wrote this brilliant poem about Neanderthal charity.

My friend Shutta Crum started a wave of charitable contributions by writers for writers, when she offered, in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, to critique three manuscripts for free, and challenged other writers to make a similar contribution to the greater good of our readers.
Quite a few did!
Michigan's SCBWI email group was awash in offers of all kinds -- rhyming picturebook help from Debbie Diesen, magazine/internet help from Patti Richards, non-fiction help from Buffy Silverman, picturebook help from Boni Ashburn, school visit or independent publishing advice from Kevin Kammeraad, novel chapters and query letters crits from Kristin Nitz ... it's heartwarming.
Congratulations to those lucky writers who won the crits, and thank you to the generous writers who offered them.
I hope Shutta's idea spreads beyond Michigan.


Our daughter gave us some Italian cauliflower yesterday. It's the weirdest plant I've seen in ages. This link takes you to the Park Seeds catalog image. It tastes like soft broccoli. I hope Park Seeds will be charitable about letting me post the pic here.
I'd draw it but I'm supposed to be writing a book right now, and that's a pretty complex floret...

Back to work. <3

Larry Garth Bowen, 1943-2008

My dear friend Larry Bowen passed away, unexpectedly. The funeral is on Friday. I found these four heart-shaped rocks on the walk back from the school bus stop this morning. If there's one thing that characterized Larry, it's heart.

(the dip in the middle isn't as evident here as it is in person)

Larry was one of those diamonds in the rough you hear about. A big, tough, burly guy with a heart of soft, mushy, compassion for anyone weaker, especially kids and animals.

I first met him when my then-youngest, Katie, was one week old. Larry's wife Sue worked at the same store as my husband, and they got to talking: "My wife's an artist." "Oh, really? My husband's looking for one for his silk screen business."
This led to our 17-year working relationship and a deep friendship.

Larry knew us probably better than anyone. He was there when Katie lost her first tooth. He said to her, "Wow, you're in luck! The tooth fairy gives $5 for the first tooth!" Katie was thrilled. (Normally the tooth fairy only gives a quarter for teeth, at our house) I shot Larry an annoyed look, and he laughed and laughed. Then he slipped me $5.

When our cat went crazy and bit Katie's face, because she was trying to catch him and put him back in the house (until that moment he'd been an inside cat), Larry was there. It bit him too, on the hand (rotten cat). They both needed stitches, but Larry was only worried about Katie, and he never gave us the hospital bill.

When Katie was in high school and needed a scientific calculator and we couldn't afford one, Larry loaned her his. It was stolen in school; those things cost more than $100. I was terribly upset. Larry said it was no big deal.

Whenever Larry visited, which was about two or three times a week, our miniature poodle, Willie, went nuts, jumping all over the couch, barking and wagging his whole body. Larry said Willie reminded him of his own miniature poodle, Frank, who died before Willie was born.
He told us Frank stories that we still bring up at odd times and laugh about, like Frank's embarrassment at getting a frou-frou dog haircut.
Whenever we needed someone to keep an eye on Willie for a few days when we went out of town, Larry volunteered.

One of my favorite photos which I sent to my son's new fiance last winter, to help her get to know the family, was of Larry posing with six-year-old Joey on Larry's big ol' honkin' motorcycle. Joe says the ride was fun at first, but it turned harrowing -- he thought when Larry turned onto a small cul de sac it was leading to the expressway, and Joe was screaming at Larry to not go on the expressway because it was too fast.
I remember Larry chuckling about it when he brought Joey back home (riding slowly). His grandsons all did motorcycle sports starting as preschoolers, but he never made my son feel inadequate for being afraid to go too fast.

Larry always had candy in his pocket or in the car, for my kids. In fact, it tickled him no end when Katie asked him for candy. I told her that was rude, and it was better to wait for candy to be offered, but he loved it and we decided the rules for Larry are different than for the rest of the world.

Our working relationship wasn't always a bed of roses; his pay scale was sometimes low, and sometimes I disliked the assignments. I dreamed of something bigger and he told me, "You and I will always be middle class," which I resented.
As the internet opened wider, there was more competition for lower-priced silkscreen work, but everyone around here knew Larry was the best.

His work ethic was top notch, his prints were the best in the business and his prices were reasonable. He was honest to the core, morally upright, and had integrity. Plus he was a lot of fun to talk to. We talked about everything under the sun. I knew his family intimately, from his stories, and he knew mine. He advised me on everything.
He gave it to you straight, no baloney, no fancy words. If he saw something that wasn't good for the kids, he told you (like when he overheard a friend say something inappropriate for kids, at a family party).

I stopped working with Larry a few years ago because I wanted to do kids' books, and he was passing his business down to his son. We no longer saw each other often, but I still visited the same CPA Larry set me up with 19 years ago, still joked with my family about Frank, and kept telling myself I should stop by Larry's house and see how he and Sue were doing.

When our oldest wanted t-shirts for her fiance's business a few months ago, she wanted Larry to print them, and my husband and I jumped at the chance to go with her. As a special treat for both, we brought Willie with us.
Larry and Sue sat on the porch with us for a long time, just like when Larry would come to my house and sit and talk for hours. We caught each other up on all the kids and grandkids, and Larry played with Willie. It was a great time.
I think I gave him a copy of my Ellie McDoodle book. I hope I did. I'm so grateful we went. So glad we renewed that friendship. I'm too good at letting friendships lapse because I'm distracted with other things (ADD curse).

Why was Larry such a good guy, when his exterior was so rough and tough?
During a terrible motorcycle accident that should have killed him, just a short time before I met him, he had an honest-to-goodness angel encounter.
It changed his life.
He carried everywhere the scars of that accident; his leg was swollen and infected for 20 years and no doctor was able to completely heal it. He also carried everywhere the magic healing of that accident. Because of Larry, I know angels are real.

When Sue called to say that Larry died, I went into shock. Numb, I phoned each of my oldest three kids. And then the tears came.
I hesitated to even tell my youngest; it was late at night and I thought she might not even remember Larry. She said, "Oh, was he the Licorice Man?" Yes, Larry was the Licorice Man.
I have a million stories about Larry, a million funny memories, but that sums it up as well as anything: He was sweet and good.

The world is a better place for Larry's having been here, and I am diminished by his loss. :(

More heart-shaped found objects on my website, here.