Have you read Marley & Me or seen the movie?  You know how Marley was ‘Clearance Puppy’ — well, my cocker spaniel was on sale, and it shows.  Truly he was bred to be a Christmas puppy, but by February he was a full on teenaged puppy and not as cute anymore and thus went on super bargain saver sale.  He is not right in the head.

First, he is clumsy.  He is only graceful when running at full speed in the yard — the problem is that he has the energy to do that about once per year and then must sleep it off for the rest of the year.  When walking, he falls up steps (mostly forgets that they are there and takes his front paws out from underneath him — resulting in sliding on his belly).  He has been known to bounce off the side of the bed/chair/couch when hopping up and then he is too afraid to try it again until you beg him to hop up or pick him up.

Second, he has weird rules about weather.  He hates things falling on his back like rain or snow, but adores plowing through the snow to run around.  He will have the shortest periods outside if there is so much as a mist falling, but let there be feet of snow over his head and he could poke around for hours.  With this he expects that you will be at the back door awaiting his return and will get upset and pout if you make him wait to return to his nap inside.

Third, he is clueless.  He is neither blind nor deaf, but clueless about the world around him.  When he was a puppy and would chase light beams on the carpet, he never noticed the brown bunny that would hop along outside or the squirrels that would tease him from our front steps.  He would however hunt with passion things like falling leaves.  Now that he is older, he didn’t notice the opossum that visited or the squirrels or the bunnies or the GIANT deer outside ever.  Nope, not once; until today.

Today, during our dog’s morning walk, I saw movement in the backyard a few houses down.  They have collies and so I thought there was a going to be a collie/cocker conference — but then this THING moved.  Now the deer I have that wander around aren’t small — they are more like the size of mac trucks instead of the slight Bambi like things I used to think of as deer.  This deer walked toward our back yard — he/she was 4 feet tall at the shoulder (roughly measured from a fence it walked by).  There was full stop.  The deer looked at the dog (probably wondering if it was going to give up it’s leaf diet in lieu of this tasty snack dog) and my dog was clueless.  In his defense, the deer was behind the dog, but the dog turned around to sniff something (does snow — white snow — have an odor?) and looked up.  My dog might not be bright, but his facial expressions are unmistakeable.  He clearly thought, “Um…..um…..help.” and FROZE.  There was a stare down.  The deer watched; the dog froze. Then, new movement behind the big deer, a small, slight, baby deer walked up behind.  The deer broke the stare down long enough for my dog to seize the chance to stop watching the deer and returned to sniffing.  The deer wandered off in another direction.  My dog, noticing the deer were gone, didn’t come on back in — oh, no…that would have made sense….

He started his whole sniffing, peeing, sniffing, pooping, morning routine over from the beginning with feeling this time.  URGH.  That dog is just not right in the head. (FWIW, he is now sleeping off his excitement — as I expect he will do for the rest of the day.)

The phone would not ring.  I told myself at the time that I’d just missed his call or that the phone had been busy when he called.  My parents, being at the time the most horrible parents in the world (solely because they took breath and I was in middle school) did not have call waiting nor an answering machine.

By the time I was in high school, I had my own phone line with an answering machine.  The boy (surely a different boy by now) still didn’t call; but I told myself that he merely had not left a message on my machine.  The thought that he had no idea who I was or was not remotely interested in me never would have crossed my mind — well, until it did cross my mind and I melted into puddles of tears and teen angst drama.

By the time I was out of college, the invention of caller id was new and on the market.  I had to have it — even then a budding tech addict.  Surely now, I’d see that all the men who I was sure were interested in me were calling and not leaving messages.

Somewhere in my early 20’s, I had the life altering realization — the boys were NOT calling.  It wasn’t that they did call and I missed them, it was that they just weren’t calling.  It was then (and for a few years after that) that I wanted to shun all technology.  You see, it was the invention of the answering machine that allowed us to know someone wanted us to call them back.  It was the invention of Caller-ID that let us know that they had called in the first place.  It was those same inventions that allowed you to know that someone didn’t want you to call them back or that they hadn’t called at all.  It stopped allowing you to create ego soothing excuses for the lack of a date on a Saturday Night.

In those same years, cell phones were growing from bricks in bags (I totally dated a boy who had a phone in a bag off his shoulder — I wish I was kidding — but I’m not) to things so small I now regularly put it in my back pocket.  Then we discovered that we could forward our home phones to our cell phones or get rid of home phones entirely.

In short, technology has allowed us to be overly accessible.  And I’m not just talking about cell phones here.  How many of us Tweet, Facebook, blog, or otherwise share publicly facets of our lives?  We create our own spotlights these days and yet there has been no greater desire for privacy.

I’ve got to tell you that I think the Queen Mum thinks I’m nuts when I wonder aloud why do I have to get so much e-mail or why do I feel like Grand Central Station’s switchboard some days.  In her smile (and frankly, she’s probably laughing at me), she is thinking, “Girl, if you weren’t so out there, people would leave you alone.”  And I’m thinking, “Did you see my Myers-Briggs score lately?”  I digress.

I think about this often really.  Duke will grow up in a world where people seem to talk less and communicate every little detail of their life. (I have a friend whose son is nearly driving age and since he is my friend of Facebook, I know when this kid eats, sleeps, has insomnia, and when his dad takes him shopping for shorts.  I’ve never known so much about a teenaged boy — even when I was a teenaged girl.) Duke will also grow up in a world where everyone is instantly accessible.  When once it was totally ok to wait 3 days to get a call back, an hour seems too long.

As a self-confessed tech-geek, I love the things we can do now that years ago was myth.  When I sat by my princess phone — it had no Disney Princesses on it.  My phone had a rotary dial and could break toes if dropped, I could not have ever imagined the ability to know so much about a person — and yet so little.

But you know the truth — the truth is, I think we know less than we ever knew before.  Because e-mail and texting is easy, we don’t share the things we used to share.  Because our world expanded to more people, we know less about each one.  Our connections don’t seem as deep or as lasting, because they are easy.  When we had to work at it, did we invest more of ourselves in each moment.  We shared more, we gave more, we truly bonded. We may not have talked about what we had for lunch, but we bonded.  I think about my great-grandmother — she knew the art of visiting.  You could go to her house and sit in the front room and just visit.  You could be there for 30 minutes or hours and she’d chat and you’d chat.  You’d leave thinking you’d really shared something and I can tell you that she was more connected with the world around her than any interwebs would allow.  It was because she understood (and practiced) two things: She knew people and how to bond.

So, I’m challenging you (and myself) to step away from the keyboard, to write an old fashioned letter to someone (with a real stamp — it might help the Post Office too), to sit with a cup of coffee and friend and turn off your cell phone.  I challenge you to an hour, single hour, of off time.  Turn off the phone, turn off the computer, don’t text, e-mail, call.  Sit face to face with someone, and learn how to bond again.

Like Frankenhouse, we basically back-up to woods — which is awesome for private park-like setting in our back yard; but it also makes for easy get aways for all of the forest creatures who like to say hi.  We have a lot of deer — BIG deer.  Deer the size of Mac trucks.  I often can sit at my desk and look out to see deer raiding my neighbor’s birdfeeder — which is fun and funny at the same time.  We have a family of bunnies who in the fall visited our yard every afternoon to munch.  (In case you were wondering, my very dumb dog has yet to see deer or bunny — he is really only interested in those things that don’t move — like leaves.)  I’ve seen raccoons, other peoples’ cats, and a metric ton of birds.  One afternoon, I even had a hawk land on my deck rail and stare into my house at me.

So, last night, as we settled into watch the closing ceremonies, one of the cats was curiously looking out our patio doors.  We look up to see a little pointy white face looking back in at us.  I should pause that I am not sure that I’ve ever seen an opossum alive.  I may have seen one scurry across a yard, but NEVER one a few feet away.  I got up, I turned on the lights outside, I stood on the other side of the glass  and we watched each other.  He/She was not bothered by the movement inside or the lights coming on outside.  The opossum walked back and forth on my deck looking in curious about the cat on the other side.

Once the little creature left, I began to think about this incident. First, they are not nature’s most beautiful creatures – one might call them a wee bit ugly, with the white faces and their beady eyes.  Second, I know next to nothing about them (except they (and armadillos) make fine roadkill) so I couldn’t help but wonder if it was trying to get inside to rip my face off in the middle of the night.  Finally, why the heck was it not afraid of me inches away from it (safely behind glass)??

So, of course I consulted Google and answered most of my questions — it will not dig; it can’t jump (though can climb) so it is unlikely to get on my roof and try to get in; it will eat things I don’t like more (snakes, rats/mice, and random backyard garbage.  But the one thing Google was unable to answer for me — was it visiting a human zoo and thus not afraid of the giant behind the glass? Was it trying to get into my house to rip my face off? Should I be worried that one of the things it hunts was also up on my deck or close to?

I work to clear the driveway (and the sidewalk). I work to entertain my child. I work to keep the fire going (I never knew how much work that was). I’m so tired at the end of a snowday that I want to crawl up into a ball and beg for summer.  Only, I don’t really.  Summer is a fine season, just isn’t my season.  I really do enjoy the starkness of leafless trees and white covered lawns.  I like it when the world turns to black and white and even the palest of colors seem bright and vibrant.

So, the grump has gotten the best of me (and it may also be because of a lack of coffee and a 4:30am wake-up — no, I don’t know why, I was just done sleeping); so I give you my current open letter.

Dear Neighbors:

I love this neighborhood.  Really I do.  I love the lots and the sidewalks and the houses and even the deer.  However, have you seen all this white stuff that has recently fallen from the sky?  No, it wasn’t cotton candy, it was cold and wet and we call it snow.  I noticed that as the snow was ending many of you (including me) came outside with our snow blowers and shovels and cleared driveways.  I noticed that a few of you (including me) even cleared our sidewalks.  Here’s the thing — the three of you insensitive oafs who didn’t clear your sidewalk — well, you happen to be the three houses between me and my son’s bus stop.  One of you is a teacher!  You ought to know that little ones need to walk to the bus stop and have no business walking in the street.  Oh, but wait, it gets better.

Did you know that there was also a city ordinance that says you have to clear? Well, I didn’t either, until I did some research — yup, and just like Mrs. Kravits I reported you.  Oh, yes, I proudly can tell you that I was the one who called — know why?  Because my son is the ONLY person who consistently uses the bus stop and when the snow is as deep as it has been, it can take him 15 minutes to walk 5 houses to get home.  And it wouldn’t be like that if you’d take 1/2 second and run that snow blower down the sidewalk.

When I called again this morning, because one person who got the letter and cleared the FRONT of her house, but not the side (the side we have to walk on — which is now inches deep of ice skating rink), the person told me that she heard that some won’t clear because they think they are more liable if they clear and fail than if they never cleared at all.  Well, this rumor is bunk, but has a basis in a case in the UK (please note, NOT.OUR.COUNTRY = DIFFERENT.LAWS) where a business was sued for poorly clearing.  However, after MUCH research, I’ve found that despite the fact that yes you can sue for just about anything, you probably won’t win a case where you fell if the sidewalk was attempted to be cleared.  The exception to this is that if your method of clearing is pouring hot water on the sidewalk and leaving it.  AHEM.

So, here’s what I’m going to do — since obviously not sending my son to the bus stop or to school is not an option, and I’d like to do it safely.  I think there has to be a safe way to get to the bus stop ON A SIDEWALK, and since you don’t seem to want to clear it, I’m going to help you out.  I happen to have some rock salt (the concrete hating kind, that I purchased by mistake), that I will be using to treat your sidewalk on my walks to and from the bus stop.  I’m sure that 10 pounds of rock salt will help melt the ice rink you caused by not taking care of this when it was snow and will do next to no damage to the concrete sidewalk.

Oh, I checked with the city, they said that they will charge you to repair the sidewalk if the damage was caused by over use of rock salt (as they recommend chemicals for safer ice removal).  Just a thought.

Yours,

The Queen

PS — Citizens of Snarkville, this should go without saying — so don’t write me tell me that I shouldn’t purposefully damage someone’s property — I’m NOT going to damage their sidewalk.  That would be wrong.  However, I’m not above snowblowing it myself and sending them the bill.