Leslie’s Blog

September 25, 2011

Iggy and Tootsie in Bastrop

Filed under: stories — Leslie @ 9:26 pm

There is nothing funny about burying a pet, but I found myself laughing out loud as I dug a grave for Iggy.

We had Iggy for about 12 years, and that is a fairly long time for a green iguana. He had slowed down in his last years and I found him lifeless in his cage early one morning just as the sun came up.

 Iggy had never been a “cuddly” pet, but we had developed a respect and understanding. I was to feed him lots of cilantro, and he was to swat at me with his tail. It worked.

Iggy had grown to a respectable size over the years, and I ‘guesstimated’ him to be about six feet long.

That’s where the “funny” part of burying  poor, dead Iggy started.

I am not an overly sentimental pet owner, but I hate like hell to see them die, and it’s sadder than anything to have to bury them.  I adopt a façade of stoic as I go about the job of digging a grave, and I do a little ceremony in my head as I place my beloved pet to eternal rest. Or something like that.

I pushed the tip of the shovel into the sandy dirt under the oaks and pines at the back part of the four acres I lived on in Bastrop, just off Farm to Market Road 1441.  I had picked a place that I had determined would not likely be disturbed for a good long while after interment.

“That looks like it’ll do,” I said to myself, having dug what I thought to be a long enough and deep enough hole. I had wrapped Iggy in an old cotton sheet, because, not being overly sentimental, I don’t like to look at their poor, deceased bodies once I’ve committed to digging the grave.

I placed Iggy’s long, graceful body into the hole. His long tail ran flat for the most part, but as it reached the far end of the length I had dug, it began to curve up. The grave was just not long enough to accommodate Iggy’s lying flat on the bottom.

Dang.

I lifted his body in the sheet out of the hole and placed him to one side as I picked up the shovel to resume digging.

I thought I had it this time.

Well… I didn’t.  But not by much.

 I had to remove poor old dead Iggy’s body one more time, and continue elongating the Grave that now strongly resembled a Trench.

This is when I started laughing. The whole process had taken on a sort of macabre aspect that I certainly hadn’t expected.  Any dignity that I had wanted to bring to the process had disappeared. All that was left was me, standing in the woods, using a dead iguana as a measuring stick for the trench I was digging.

It took one more “digging and fitting”, but Iggy was finally laid to rest, with his tail lying flat in the bottom of the trench, no tip sticking up.

Only a year before, I had dug a sufficient sized grave, on the first try, in that same oak and pine grove for my big black cat, Tootsie, who had died of old age and kidney failure. He and Iggy were now side by side in my little pet cemetery in the Bastrop woods. I placed limestone rocks over each of them, one big cat-sized one for Tootsie, and a long, long row of smaller rocks for Iggy.

When the fires raged through Bastrop weeks ago, among other things, I thought of Iggy and Tootsie. Silly as it may sound, I didn’t want anything to happen to them. They were my friends. I loved them very much. I hoped the fires had not scorched over their rocks, or burned the trees that shaded them.  For whatever serendipitous reason, the fires didn’t go there.

It seems selfish to be glad that they were untouched. So many people lost everything. My little desires seem so foolish. But I am glad the fire didn’t go there. I wish it hadn’t gone a lot of other places, too.

~Leslie~

August 25, 2011

More Summer Reading

Filed under: books — Leslie @ 1:03 pm

I’m just not kidding when I say I’m tearin’ it up in the reading department. It’s a Book Devouring Blitz.

The Pima County Library has a great online system for reserving books, and, like a kid in a candy store, that and the fact that the ‘candy’ is free, I went hog-wild and reserved a bunch of books. I was thinking that they would become available in dribs and drabs, but not so. I received my automated call saying that the books I had reserved were ready for pickup, so I went to see what had arrived for me.

All of them.

  • Animal, Vegetable Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver (my new fave author)
  • God is Dead by Ron Currie (my other fave new author)
  • Mother of Pearl by Melinda Haynes (fun to read, a bit of spooky, great characters, not so sure I liked the ending, but can’t think of how else it should have ended…)
  • House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus (the angst in this became preposterous for me)
  • Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen (kinda disappointing)
  • The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver (yep. I love Kingsolver)
  • The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (very good read)
  • The Road Home by Rose Tremain (liked the writing in this. Only skipped a few places when the pacing lagged. Skipping places is a habit I acquired reading Dr. Zhivago. Just couldn’t keep the names straight, so I started skipping. Fell asleep in the movie, too.)
  • Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick (couldn’t finish this one. My review note to self said, “yuk book”. I’m harsh)
  • They’re Watching by Gregg Hurwitz (review notes on this said, “Good read”. Maybe I’m not so harsh after all)
  • Songs Without Words by Ann Packer (I think I skipped large portions of this book trying to get at some plot pacing. Couldn’t find it)
  • The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman
  • The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
  • An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor
  • The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart by Glenn Taylor

And I am presently working on Independence Day by Richard Ford.

Told you it was a Blitz.

Leslie

July 20, 2011

Summer Reading Blitz

Filed under: books — Leslie @ 11:14 am

What started as the thought, “I need to read more”, has turned into The Summer Reading Blitz.

It began innocently enough with the trip to the library mentioned in my last post, Library Card.  I also mentioned in that post my good intention of writing more in-depth ‘book reports’ on each of the books I had thus far read.

Meh.

What I have been doing instead of writing book reports is  devouring  books, one after another.  The best I can do about the book reports is to say I am  loving  me some books and some authors.

Here’s the list of what I have read so far, not including those listed in the last post:

  • Amy and Isabelle  by Elizabeth Strout
  • American Cream  by Catherine Tudish
  • Everything Matters! by Ron Currie   …this one is fantastic! Has a Terry Pratchett feel to it.
  • High Tide in Tucson by Barbara Kingsolver … my new  ‘fave’  writer person.
  • Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
  • Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver  
  • The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  • The Cajuns by Gus Weill   …so far, out of all I’ve read, this one impressed me the least.  The author got lost in some ‘romatically explicit’ passages that were totally unnecessary to an otherwise rich tale.
  • The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
  • Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
  • White Oleander by Janet Fitch

There you have it. 

I don’t know how long this Summer Reading Blitz will last, but I will say I’m having a great time.  It reminds me of the summer long ago when I settled down in the hammock to read Gone With The Wind.

I have David McCullough’s book about Paris on reserve, and I just know that the phone is going to ring at any moment, and the recorded notice voice will say, “The books you have on reserve with the Pima Library are ready to pick up”…

Leslie

May 13, 2011

Library Card

Filed under: books — Leslie @ 12:24 pm

Armed with a scrap paper list scribbled with titles and author names, and my trusty library card, I disappeared down the P-T aisle of the fiction section of the library. I had just read “Shipping News” by Annie Proulx, and was going back for more of her writing.  I liked it. All of Annie’s book were checked out. I guess a Pulitzer Prize winner can expect that.

The library I use is a close-by branch library of the big downtown one, and if what I’m looking for is not on the shelf, they make it easy as pie to put a book on reserve request using the computerized system. It’s usually the next day that the book comes in, loaned from other branch libraries  that had a copy on their shelves. They even give you an automated phone call letting you know the book is ready to be picked up. How cool is that?

 But I wanted a book to read in bed that night before I turned out the lights, and since Annie was indisposed, I checked my scribbled list for what was next. I was pretty proud of myself for actually having written down the author names I knew I wanted to look for, and then, more importantly, actually remembering to bring the list.

 Kingsolver, Walker, Strout, Fitch… I kept wandering back and forth from aisle to aisle hunting authors last names. There weren’t any books on the shelves by any of those authors. What’s that quote?  Something about “best laid schemes of Mice and Men“?

I decided to resort to my default method of finding reading material at the library… pull any old book off the shelf and judge it by its cover.

By this time I had wandered back to the P-T aisle, and happened to see a book standing up, cover facing out, at the end of the shelf. I believe that the sweet librarians prop up those books, cover out, on purpose,  just to help  us desperate bibliophiles that are wandering helplessly in default mode. They helped me find Treasure, with a capital “Taylor”.

 “An Irish Country Girl” was the title, Patrick Taylor, the author.  I opened the cover, read the inside blurb. It took place in Northern Ireland. “Good enough for me,” I thought,  and I tucked the book under my arm, ready to leave. I had only gone one short step down the aisle on my way out, when another of those propped up, cover showing books caught my eye. “The Marrowbone Marble Company”, author also named Taylor, but this one was Glenn Taylor.  Again, I flipped open to the front cover liner notes. “West Virginia…marbles…”.  “OK,” I thought. “This one comes home with me, too.”

 I’ll do full book reports on those some time soon, but the short version is  “They were both great reads.”

I went back to the library last week after having finished those two books, and headed straight to the “Taylor” section.  “A Summons to Memphis” by Peter Taylor was next. Fabulous read.  My most recent trip and I brought home another of Patrick Taylor’s books, “An Irish Country Doctor”, and another of Glenn Taylor’s, “The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart”.  I just started on “An Irish Country Doctor” last night.  If all my “T” books prove to be as good as the ones I’ve come across so far, I may never get out of that one library aisle.

 Oh, and just to shake it up a bit, I found “Trespass” by Rose Tremain, while I was perusing the ‘Taylors’.   Incredible read.  Rich character development, mysterious plot without it being obtuse, huge psychological insights, all set in the lovely French countryside. Yummy.

Go find your library card, and wander down the “T” aisle…

 Leslie

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