Julie R. Enszer's Blog, page 25

Not crazy, not a mouse, not a bat . . .

Friends, Tibe is not crazy. There was something there. Let me start from the beginning of the day. Tibe has continued to sniff by the stove and Vita will perch there and watch it, but I had seen nothing. Then today, laboring over a deadline that I had already missed, I saw some small movement in the kitchen out of the corner of my eye. I went into the family room thinking it was Vita in the kitchen, but she was sound asleep on the chair. The beloved was working in the dining room. I went back to stress writing.

Then, I see it, peering out from between the stove and the refrigerator. A mouse, I think. Then it peers out farther and farther. If it is a mouse, it is a big one. A very big one. One might even call it not a mouse, but a starts with r and rhymes with bat. Vita comes rushing in and sits across from where it is, staring it down and if it peers out too far rushing toward it. It then slinks back into its space. Vita does a good show, but after coming close to catching it one time, she looks up at me and say, Mama, this is a big one, we are going to need some back up, and Tibe isn’t going to cut it. He is focused, but doesn’t seem to have the capacity to catch and kill. This one is beyond me.

So I am, as you might imagine, completely freaked out. All of this is happening between 2:45 and 3:10 pm. The beloved is working in the dining room. I have to go to the post office to mail a few packages. I use the time to formulate my plan.

What does one do when there is a large mouse in the kitchen? A very large mouse? I have never faced this problem before. Well, I decide, we need a trap. A large trap. So after the post office, I drive to Menards, the local hardware and general purpose store. I buy a rat trap and a case to protect the rat trap from the dogs and the cat and some bait. It costs $19.

According to the Internet, rats are very smart, and it is not likely that they will enter a trap easily. I ignore this bleak fact. Back at home, I realize I must tell the beloved what we are facing. She reacts with the appropriate understated butch response. I suggest we are all going to need a little more strength than we ever anticipated for this life.

We feed the dogs. I set the trap. I place it exactly where I saw the rat two hours ago. We close all of the doors to the kitchen. I return to stress writing. Around 6:15, we hear a rustle, a ruckus, perhaps a snap, and a few beats of a body against plastic. That large, very large mouse, walked right into the trap less than an hour after I set it. I bagged the whole apparatus and took it out to the garbage. Goodbye, rodent friend. Tibe is still sniffing a little, but not with the same persistence. How it got in we do not know. We hope it is an anomaly. For now though, you might address me as ORK: original large, very large mouse killer.

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Curious Canine Behavior

As I said last night, I suspect I upset a mouse nest while cleaning out the house. Tibe has been obsessed with a few different locations over the past three days, but it seemed odd to me. That many mice? In four different rooms? I went on a search mission.

I call how to determine the extent of a mice infestation from when we had mice back in Maryland one Thanksgiving. There were so many mice then, they were dancing on the counters while we cooked dinner. Or just about. So today I went looking and found minimal evidence in the form of mice “trailings”. (Oh, ok, if you insist, mouse shit.) Odd. And little Vita who generally has an interest in small moving things, is basically uninterested. She would rather sit on her chair. Now I have not tried denying her a meal to see if that increases her appetite to hunt. That seems cruel and we cannot afford to be banned from another county for our animal husbandry.

So I am not sure what is going on in the house. I worry that perhaps Tibe is having a little anxiety disorder. Perhaps he is in need of a psychologist? Here is what has been happening.

Last night, after being obsessed with a small cabinet all afternoon (which I will confess, I did not move or look under. I tried to get my father over to do that but I just did not have the wherewithal for that exploration), he became obsessed with the dishwasher. Sitting in front of it, watch it, sniffing it, then trying to bite it. Finally, I insisted he come up to bed and this morning, he did not seem too interested in the dishwasher.

Later in the day, however, he became obsessed with the stove. Same behaviors. Interestingly, Vita became interested in the  stove today and so I watched her for a bit and when I investigated, she was following a small ladybug. The second I have seen (good news! Spring is nigh!) though sadly Vita killed it and ate it. Tibe continued to be obsessed with the stove and started licking it! Here are some photos.  

Tibe smelling the stove, which is off and has nothing cooking in it.

  

Tibe examine the floor beneath the stove (it is dirty. More on that in a minute).  

Tibe licking the stove, which he did for about twenty minutes.

  

More licking. 

Now he is inspecting the top of the stove.

So concerned about a mouse problem, and channeling my friend Toni, I pulled out the Pine Sol, a mop, and some rags. I moved everything, mopped the floor, and wiped down every surface with Pine Sol. (Yes, thank you for noticing, the house smells delicious!) Still, while I was mopping the floor Tibe continued to sniff and lick. Since the cleaning extravaganza, it has lessened, but he still seems to be on the search for something.

Thoughts? Musings? Suggestions? Interventions?

I have three possible explanations for this behavior over the past three days. Two which make me cringe, well, actually, none of them are happy explanations. First, it could be a mouse. If so, eventually we will catch it or it will depart for moe hospitable spaces. (Would you want to stare out from small spaces as a 135-pound dog and have to duck an 11-pound frisky kitty?) Second, my dad suggested it could be a bat. That seems plausible for the behavior like this in the upstairs bedroom, but highly unlikely. This is probably the worst option. It could be (option 2a) both, mouse and bat. Because, you know, G-d, pile it on. Third, it is the ghost of my mother, annoyed beyond all words by two dogs in her house (she never liked Emma and certainly would not be a fan of Tibe) and the rest of the developments since her death in Saginaw, and playing tricks on all of us seeking a little vengeance.

That all I got. You?

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Tibe’s Anniversary

A year ago, the beloved had been commuting for six weeks to New York, every week, for her new job. I was extraordinarily lonely. The kind of lonely that being strategic about evenings out with friends does not help; the kind of lonely that phone calls do not ameliorate, nor do good books or excellent television series. I did not know what would help the loneliness.

It had been less than three months since we lost our beloved Shelby. We knew all fall that something was amiss with Shelby. He was losing weight for no apparent reason. He never lost his pep though, until the day he did, and he told us with his eyes that it was time. He wanted it to be over. We had the saddest December holidays. A month later we had an amazing vacation for the beloved’s milestone birthday. While on vacation we learned about her amazing New York job. Her career was taking off; mine had hit rock bottom and my dog was dead. It was a sad and lonely month.

Emma and I were taking long walks. Some mornings we walked for more than an hour all around the neighborhood. Neither of us wanted to go home to the space where we were missing Shelby. Even Vita missed Shelby, though buying the cat leash and taking her out on the porch was making her happy. It was in this emotional landscape that I decided it was time to adopt another dog.

Yes, we are coming up on Tibe’s one year anniversary with our family. We received this lovely email from the amazing rescue from where we adopted him:

Dear Julie, 

Happy anniversary to you and Tiberius! We hope you have enjoyed a happy year together and we wish you all the best for the coming year and many more! We always enjoy getting updates from DXL alumni. If you have any pictures or fun stories that you would like to share, we’d love to post them in the happy tails section of our Facebook page. If you would like to make a donation to support Dogs XL help find loving homes for other dogs like Tiberius, please go to dogsxlrescue.org/donate Thanks again for choosing to rescue and saving a life! Give Tiberius belly rubs from all your friends at Dogs XL!

 Oh, I have a fun story to share. . . .I was lonely. I adopted a pup. A few months later our racist, homophobic neighbors organized a campaign to bully us, threaten us, and drive us from our home. Maybe I should have made peace with loneliness.

Of course, though, as we have said many times over the last four months, home is not a physical structure, home is not an address, not a place on the map. Home is what we create in relationship with one another. Home is our commitments to care for one another, even in the difficult times.

We are all home right now, celebrating our one year anniversary with Tiberius (also called Tibe, Beri, and Alberius – my new nickname for him wishing we might have named his glorious self Albus Dumbledore.) One story and a brief note. I am cleaning the homestead we are living in now with more determination and commitment. The process of cleaning out papers, emptying closets, and moving furniture has, I fear, rousted a mouse in the house. This would be fine if the little creature would retreat to some unseen place, but the little pooter is the source of great interest for Tibe and Vita. If the two of them could get together, they could be an awesome hunting team. Vita has the skill, precision, and dexterity to catch a mouse, but she lacks the focus. She loses in test quickly, I fear. Tibe has laser-like focus, but lacks the precision and dexterity to catch anything. He blunders along. Still, we will keep them all. We will stay together as a family and find some way to address this rodent issue. That is the story.

The brief note? We are working on an exit date from our exile. It is coming. It appears I will not have to buy more coffee filters. When things are finalized, I will announce not only where we are headed, but also what the milestones are to get there.

  

Tibe and Vita cuddling up on the couch.

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How Homophobia Works

Before writing this post, I want to note that over my adult lifetime the world has changed where to say something, someone, or someplace is homophobic is to assail that thing, one, or place. It was not always this way. When I was growing up, living in the very house I am in right now, hating gay and lesbian people, what we now call homophobia, was not a bad thing. It was for many positive, a badge of honor, to spurn gay and lesbian people. To shun them, to protect children from them, to ask them to be quiet and unobtrusive in communities, towns, and neighborhoods, was a way to preserve a heterosexual status quo. In the past, most people did not perceive the label homophobic as bad, rather as something that was a form of preservation. Now to say something, some people, some place is homophobic is to deride them. And of course, that is what I mean to do when I say that we were driven from our home by homophobic, racist bigots, when I say the town and its officials a homophobic and racist, when I say we have been bullied by bigots. Let me explain.

Homophobia is the fear and hatred of lesbians, gay men, and all people who express love, commitment, and loyalty to those of the same sex. Yes, homophobia is outright expressions of fear and hatred of gay men and lesbians (all of the times people say, fucking dyke because I am too loud, too demanding, too insistent about what I want, something which happens with alarming frequency), but homophobia is also the implicit derision of gay and lesbian people. Why would someone feel comfortable calling me on the telephone and saying that people are planning to carry guns when they walk by our house to protect themselves from our dog? Our dog who had never been aggressive with people, our dog who had never been off our property without us. Why would someone intimate that the gun was to kill the dog, but it might not be so bad if we were in the line of fire as well? Why would someone suggest that others, particularly men, we’re going to carry guns to protect the fearful women in the neighborhood? Homophobia. Our lives as lesbians were fungible to our neighbors and the heterosexual women around us were thrilled that big, strong, heterosexual men were willing to protect them from our fierce dog and from our life which involves men in no way.

Why would the town send their town attorney to an Animal Control hearing with a definitive statement that our dog, the dog of two lesbians, should be prevented from ever returning to the town when there have been multiple dog on dog attacks and the town has not previously taken a stand on this? When these cases have not gone to Animal Control in the past? When the head of Animal Control said that he did not find our dog vicious but calm in the time he was there? Why were we singled out? And why did the town participate in the harassment and singling out of our dog? They believed that we were vulnerable as two women, that as two women we were unable to control a large dog, we were unworthy of owning such a dog and of having our lives and our property treated with respect and dignity. Two women. Homophobia.

How else does homophobia operate? Many people in town knew what was happening, watched it happen, and did nothing to interrupt the bigoted, bullying behavior. This includes neighbors of ours, the entire town council, the police force, and others. Only one couple reached out to us and spoke up at the Animal Control Hearing. Everyone else was silent. At the hearing, the one neighbor most aggressive about the gun threats said it to the full room assembled for the hearing and no one cared that he threaten to kill our dog. Other people in town recognized that were we singled out and more vulnerable as an openly lesbian couple, but with the exception of one couple, no one else spoke up for us. This is how homophobia works. Isolate people. Assume that the homos have done something bad, something wrong, something that deserves to be punished. Watch injustice happen. Say nothing. Be happy it is not happening to you. 

Then, and this is the really pernicious part, deny that it is homophobia. Say I am queer; I know other lesbians in the town, they haven’t experienced this. The implication being, it must be you. You must have done something wrong. It is not homophobia, it is just you, your bad behavior, your poor choices. 

This is how homophobia works.

I know, I should not speak so bluntly. I should be happy that my dog and the rest of my family got out alive. That is what homophobia wants from me. It wants me to look at the lesbians who have been killed and how their deaths resulting from homophobia have been denied–it was just a neighborhood dispute, what did they expect being so blatant, so unrelenting, so loud, it was just an accident, an unfortunate situation–and be happy I escaped with my life. Homophobia wants me to be silent, grateful for what I have. Homophobia wants me to deny my experience so others do not have to examine their own behavior. Homophobia wants me to deny my experience because others are good gay people, good lesbians, and they haven’t had any problems, so it really must be me, right? This is how homophobia works.

Yes, I would be happier not naming homophobia. Homophobia would be happier too, more able to flourish, more powerful, more viable, more imposing. Somehow though I just cannot be the good gay who plays the nice game. I have to be the loud one. My only regret is that I was not louder months ago, that I did not hire a stronger, louder lawyer, that I took a more passive path to save Tibe’s life. That is my regret. Oh, and maybe there is one other, too. I have spent twenty-five fucking years of my life fighting homophobia, speaking out against it, standing beside those who have experienced it and when it came for me, so close to home, there was no one standing with me. Score a big one for homophobia. Now let’s hear the denials.

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What the Minutes Should Have Said

The minutes of our town council meeting in February included this gem from the mayor’s report: “In regards to the dog attack, the Animal Commission had a hearing in January and subsequently ruled the dog as vicious. If it is returned to Prince George’s County at any time, it becomes the property of the County and is to be taken.”

This is a more accurate depiction of what the mayor could have said, “After a fourteen year campaign, we were finally able to run the lesbians out of town. Granted, we should have achieved this in 2002, when they first moved into the neighborhood. Then the neighbors circulated a petition to prevent them from installing the fence on their property, and we had a town council hearing about it. Sadly, back in 2002, the lesbians hired a lawyer who insisted that the council act according to federal laws, which prevented us from really telling them what we thought about them and their nasty lifestyle and taking action to force them from our special hamlet. We were not yet effective then in our system of harassment and intimidation. We had an opportunity again on two other occasions to harass and intimidate these women when they needed permits to do work on their house, but alas on each of those incidents we were not aggressive enough either. Finally, in the late fall of 2015, we were presented with the perfect issue with the dog bite. We mobilized the resources of hateful neighbors to really deliver on our mission to drive these dykes, er, lesbians, from our nice town. I am happy to report that over the last fourteen years we have improved our strategies of racist and homophobic threats, harassments and intimidation. Phone calls, monitoring the house, threats to kill the dog (and by extension the owners of the dog), and effectively pressuring and engaging Animal Control to further harass and intimidate these women really worked. This time we were successful. The dog won’t be back in our precious neighborhood and neither will the lesbians. Hopefully, we can now all move on in peace since we have rid ourselves of them and the scourge they brought to our lovely town and homes. Thank you to everyone involved; I know it was not easy, but it was job well-done.”

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Tibe’s Vet Visit

It has been almost a year since we adopted our little Tibe. Today we went to a vet in Michigan for our annual check up, shots, and monthly heart worm and flea medicine. We are pleased to report that everything is fine for our little love bug. Tibe has put on a little weight; he is up to 135 pounds of love and joy. The vet pronounced it a very healthy weight. Tibe gave love to everyone at the office and clowned around with his sit and down and we are nearly there to roll over (which is kind of a combination of down and belly and roll over involving belly rubbing and lots of legs akimbo–the phrase we say when Tibe is showing his belly or rolling on his back or side.) Tonight, while the beloved is in New York, everyone is sleeping in the family room with me and snoring. It is blissful.

The sobering conversation with the vet involved skunks. The truth is I do not remember skunks in the neighborhood when I was growing up here. Squirrels and birds and occasionally a rabbit, but no skunks. Now the neighborhood is overrun by rabbits. While human residents are not flourishing in the dying mid-western cities, small wildlife is. Rabbits overrun the neighborhood. Seriously, it is like living in Watership Down. I don’t know how they do it, but they overwinter here (last Friday morning it was 7 degrees when we walked the dogs), then in the spring, they breed like, well, rabbits. They are getting ready. The air, even cold, with the faintest whisp of spring carries the rabbit pheromones. We know it is coming. All of the neighbors talk about it. Rabbits take over everything. Last summer while visiting on my run, I saw eighteen rabbits one more – those are just the ones I counted while on the street. And they are aggressive and human friendly. They come right up to you to see if you have food. And if you are crossing their path and they do not want you to, they hiss. Yes, like cats. There were not this many rabbits when I lived here as a child, but now they are literally taking over the streets of the city. Estimates are there are as many rabbits as squirrels in the summer months. And rabbits are bigger. And they give birth to more young.

Still there is a sweetness to them, furry and inquisitive. While they are not as aggressive as the squirrels (who run up the trees and throw nuts and seeds at the dogs until we leave the area and by throw them, I don’t mean just chuck things down from the branches, I mean literally look where we are and aim to hit), they are aggressive and one might even say an invasive species, though they are indigenous.

I am curious to see how Tibe responds to them when they are out daily on our walks. This story, though, is about skunks. They are here as well. Apparently, there are a lot of them. The vet said they are more worrisome than the rabbits. Rabbits are fast. Skunks are slower; they meander. They address threats not by fleeing but by spraying. The vet had simple advice about skunks: Do not let any of your animals get anywhere near a skunk ever. It takes somewhere between three and six months to get the smell out of the animal, even shaving off the fur. And everything they touch while the skunk spray is on them gets the smell. And the smell lingers. So there is the advice of the day: Do not let any of your animals get anywhere near a skunk ever.

   

Emma sleeping.

 

Vita sleeping.

  

Tibe sleeping.

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Emma, in her show pony glory

   

 

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Can I Take a Picture?

Emma is a rockstar. Everywhere. We realized it the first time we went on a road trip with her. People came up to Emma to pet her. They wanted to pose their children for pictures with her. Here in Saginaw, men in big SUVs blasting music pull over and look at Emma. They want to know, How much does she eat? Does she bark? Is it a lot of work to keep her looking so beautiful? Women in sensible sedans pull over and take pictures of Emma that they text to their friends. Around the corner, a woman, who is generally afraid of dogs, pet Emma. She was charmed by her. We are used to handling Emma’s public at this point (which is partly why it was so shocking when the bigots of Maryland called on Animal Control to put down Emma.)

Tibe has not had such a positive public persona, to make perhaps the understatement of the year. Today, however, was different. It was cold this morning. Only twelve degrees when we all got into the car for our park walk. As an aside, when we walked out the back door this morning, careful of the thin layer of ice that covers the driveway, we smelled a skunk. It doesn’t seem as though the skunk sprayed anything, but the odor was there as we greeted the crisp morning air. Everyday, Tibe and I take a good walk around the park. When there is snow, we walk through the snow. Lately, with over a foot, it is a bit of cardio activity for me, and it even wears out energetic Tibe. After the walk, I put Tibe on the “long lead,” a twenty foot leash that lets him run around, as though he still had a yard, a place to exercise, run, and burn off his energy. When we first arrived in town, I kept blue dragon in the car and would throw that to Tibe on long lead. After six weeks or so, blue dragon was a mere scrap of fabric. I replaced it with purple dragon, an exact replica just in a different color. The extreme cold and thaws along with Tibe’s exuberance for the creature quickly eviscerated it of most stuffing, and purple dragon has only one foot left. So last week, I purchase a big knot toy. It is red and orange. Already, Tibe has started to shred it; little pieces of rope litter the back seat of the car. He loves it, though. I throw it to him on long lead and call exuberantly bring me red rope. Red rope, Tibe, red rope!

We were doing that this morning. Tibe running around in the snow, carrying a raggedy rope, prancing and pouncing, fetching and returning. Then a woman drove up in a new white Impala. I was immediately nervous. This dog is my responsibility; I cannot let anything bad happen again–to him or anyone else. He started to bark even mounted a bit on his back legs. I grabbed the leash. The woman said, Can I take a picture? Your dog is so cute playing in the snow. Tibe cocked his head to the side, shocked. He looked at me as if to say, She wants to take my picture. He was excited and started to pose. She said, He probably smells my ninety-two pound German Shepherd in the back seat. This made me even more nervous. Yet Tibe sat there and posed. She took his photo and drove away. Tibe jumped into the back seat, still preening. He could hardly wait to tell the beloved and Emma: I had my picture taken! The woman thought I was cute. She took my picture!

The beloved and I marveled at how lovely it is to not live with bigots and bullies, at how wonderful it is to have someone recognize the beauty of our little Tibe.

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Credit, Where Due

Today I posted a “humble brag” on Facebook about finishing our taxes (or more accurately the accountant finishing our taxes; we simply signed). Facebook is the most fun when it is the space of humble brags. I love the celebrations of events small and large on Facebook, and, with the exception of the past few months, love posting about the good things in life on the book. Yet, I am more comfortable with the quotidian, the completion of taxes, the delicious dinner the beloved cooked for Valentine’s Day, Vita’s transition from kitten food to cat food, than with humble brags about work.

Barbara Krumsiek, the former head of The Calvert Group, talks about how women need to speak about their experience and qualifications–to project their resume to others–so that they are not minimized and dismissed. I understand the gendered dynamics of this issue, but I hate the assertions of expertise and achievements. 

Fundamentally, I believe that people need to do the work in front of them, the work that presents itself, and the work that people imagine to transforms the world. People need to do their work with purpose and determination and when it is completed, they need to move on to the next bit of work that presents itself, not spend time basking in previous achievements, accepting accolades, or telling everyone about what was done. Because after all, it is done and over. Time to move on to the next thing.

I also believe that it is incumbent upon people to attend to the achievements of people, to research and understand the skills and expertise of others. This impulse is the autodidact in me. When I read a book that I love, I often read everything else by that author. For me, developing a deep base of knowledge about someone and about various topics and issues is my responsibility. I do not expect others to tell me what to read, what to think, what to know.

I recognize though that my reticence to follow the advice of Krumsiek, to project my own qualifications and accomplishments invites people to dismiss me and overlook my work.

Yet, some of the work I most enjoy doing is work that is behind the scenes. Editorial work by its very nature is about selecting then amplifying the voices of others. Building networks, connections and communities is work that is often invisible, yet it is work that is crucial to creating and imagining transformation.

All of this is a long preamble to writing this: in the fall, I worked with the heirs of Pat Parker to place her papers in an archive. Ultimately, the family selected the Schlesinger Library. Parker’s papers are there now, open to researchers, scholars, students, and the public. I volunteered to help the family with this project. It was a complete honor to work on this project. Parker’s heirs are wonderful and committed to continued engagement with her work. Preserving these papers at such an august institution makes a statement about the importance of Parker’s work and the significance of lesbian-feminist cultural and literary production more broadly. I am proud to have worked on this project. This is my small crow.

Now, back to the next project, to the next piece of work that I imagine, the new work that the world presents.

   

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A Day in Flint

Today we went to the Flint Institute of Arts. It is a great collection and a fabulous museum. We had so much fun. It is sobering, however, to make the forty minute drive south to Flint. Flint is such an important Midwestern city and the site of so many extraordinary struggles for workers’ rights. It, like Saginaw, like Pontiac, and of course, like Detroit, has been decimated by the de industrialization of the Midwest in the past forty years. Then of course just as we were returning to Michigan the story of water in Flint and lead in the water system poisoning all of the children of Flint broke to a national audience. Being in Flint is a balance between the cultural gems of not only the Flint Institute of Arts but also the other cultural institutions, many housed along the same strip, and the open acres where manufacturing plants once thrived. It is a balance between the former wealth that endows those cultural institutions and the lack of economic opportunity and investment today.

The trip began with the drive by the Flint Water Plant.

  

There were two special exhibitions at the Flint Institute of Art: an African-American quilt exhibition, which included quilts by the quilters of Gee’s Bend and many others, and a special Jacob Lawrence exhibition of his series on John Brown. It was amazing to see this work in a single room.



The general collection proceeds chronologically and includes interesting artifacts from Africa and native communities along the Artic. There were great Impressionist pieces and an extraordinary furniture and tapestry collection from the seventeenth century. My favorite piece though as this painting of a woman reading.

    

  

After the museum, we ate at the Starlite Diner and then went back downtown to the Flint Farmer’s Market. The market is fantastic. Great vendors. Amazing food. A lovely wine shop. It is not to be missed–and it was packed with people on this Saturday.

A lovely day, but the horrible water situation hangs over the day and in many ways over our time here in Michigan. I feel as though we all have culpability. The disregard for people, their lives, their health, their well-being is breath-taking and heart-breaking. We re better than that as a country, and Michigan is better than that as a state. We all have responsibility for what is happening in Flint; we all must act in solidarity with Flint and create a world where people have access to clean water, jobs with dignity, and lives with honor.

 

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