The Dog, Dying, Hillary, Laurel, Eleanor, and Victoria---Oh My!

I will never understand why the dog always wants to take one of his stuffie toys outside on his first trip in the morning to pee. Does he think his frog, duck or squirrel needs to pee too? Does he not trust me with his toys? I’ve never played with them without him being present, but Levi might not know that fact of his furry little life. It took a long time to train him to leave his playmates on top of the deck when he goes down to his duty yard and often times when he comes back up the steps Levi will sun bath lying next to his stuffie. It’s his ten o’clock ritual here on Widowhood Lane while type on the other side of the kitchen window. 

I heard a story the other day about woman who died and when her daughter got in town to plan the funeral she had the woman’s dog put down. Just like that. Didn’t ask around to see if anyone would take him. Didn’t give him a chance to find another home. I tell everyone who will listen that Levi has a little stippling that follows him for his care, should I die before he does. The idea of putting down such a sweet and likeable dog like Levi for no reason other than my death inconvenienced someone makes me sick. I don’t know. Maybe she thought the dog was unadoptable and she was doing the lesser of two evils. But I doubt that. The person who told me this story said the daughter “isn’t a dog person.” I hate thinking about this topic. 

I also hate thinking about dying. I’m not ready yet and I carry around too much guilt because I waste so much time. I’ve always been a self-absorbed time waster but now that the hour glass is running out of sand, I wish I had more to show for my time on earth. Yadda, yadda, yadda. You’ve heard me sing this song before: Poor me! I’m in one of those moods again. I’m beating myself black and blue because no one but the dog will miss me when I’m gone. This time, it might be Hillary Clinton’s fault. I’m three quarters of the way through her latest book. Now, there is a woman who didn’t let any grass grow under her feet. I know she’s a polarizing figure---I get that---but I also get the truth in the phrase Laurel Thatcher Ulrich coined: “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” Ulrich is a professor at Harvard and a historian of women’s history and she was referring to ladies like Elizabeth Cady Stanton who had a chance encounter with a runaway slave that caused her to break with conventional behavior to become an important figure in the Woman’s Suffrage Movement. Yup, I understand why Hillary identifies with that “well-behaved” line. I wish I could. 

I admire Hillary. With her pragmatism and geekiness she would have been a good president. To the haters who don't trust her I say, "If she did a tenth of what the conspiracy sites and rumor mills claim she’s guilty of doing she’d have superpowers." No one living in a fish bowl, like she’s done since college, could get away with that much "junk" without superpowers. I’m glad this woman I admire admired Eleanor Roosevelt and followed her words of advice, “Do what you feel in your heart to be right---for you'll be criticized anyway. ‘You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.’” Interestingly enough, Eleanor was quoting an evangelist’s sermon delivered back in 1836. He was preaching about how the Bible contradicts itself. “You can and you can't-You shall and you shan't-You will and you won't-And you will be damned if you do-And you will be damned if you don't." The things Google can teach you. I wish it could teach me how to be young again. Google has many tricks up its sleeves but so far, it doesn’t have superpowers either. 

I saw an interview of Judi Dench and Ali Fazal about a new movie coming out titled, Victoria & Abdul. It’s based on the true story of elderly Queen Victoria’s unlikely friendship with a young servant from India, an 1887 story brought to light by a journalist who studied their journals and diaries. In the official synopsis of the movie it says the pair “humorously explores questions of race, religion, power, and the farce of Empire through the prism of a highly unusual and deeply moving friendship.” In the interview these two leading actors shared that at first Victoria was joyless, even though she was the richest and most powerful person in the world at the time, but she was able to find a new zest for life after meeting the servant. That’s the kind of movie I need to get me out of my funk! I thought. We’ve got four multiplex theaters in town with a zillion screens between them but guess what! The only play time I could find for the movie is at 8:30 at night. What is wrong with people? They make a movie that appeals to people in my age bracket but they don’t consider the fact that many of us don’t drive after dark! Jeez! When it’s a box office failure someone will say, “Told you, senior citizens don’t go to the movies.” ©