The End, The Beginning

Oh that's quite the dramatic title, isn't it?

The beautiful woman is my mother, Marietta Norton, in her graduation photo from nursing school in Des Moines, Iowa. I wish you could see how blue her eyes were. She died in 1974, when I was twenty. She was younger when she died than I am now.

I have spent hours today unsuccessfully searching for a photo of my own graduation day from nursing school, 11 June, 1983. My six year old son, dressed in a little jacket and tie, with his hair slicked is standing next to me on the steps of the first home Bill and I would make together. It was a week before Bill and I married. My son looks proud. I look so young.

I wore a dress uniform and my nurse's cap, and an expression of happy nervousness. My classmates had elected me to give a speech at the graduation ceremony. Our dog, dear Measly, waited back at my apartment; I'm afraid it was a long day for her. She never complained.

Measly. Our last shelter rescue. Doesn't she look whippety? She was whippet-sized, whippet-shaped, and loved to run zoomies. But I think it was just a happy accident. She was a great good dog.

Tomorrow morning I will restart my nursing career. I will be working at Western Baptist Hospital. The first two weeks will be the hospital's mandatory new employee orientation: classroom instruction from 8 to 4:30. Then I'll do four to six weeks of full time twelve hour shifts of orientation on my unit. After that I start my part time job.

I am as certain as we can be about these things that I'll work at this hospital for the next ten years. Since moving to Paducah, time has been flying by me, catching me in its jet stream, spinning me like a dervish. Occasionally I tap a toe down, and thrust my arms out to stop: eight puppies born, Xela winning at Keeneland, a first draft of a novel finished, treasured visits from friends and family. And then the time whirlwind catches me back in its tornado. Can it be that we just celebrated our seventh year in Paducah? How can that be?

In ten years, I'll be sixty-five. Bill will be eighty. In just ten years.

Ten years ago, Mama Pajama was the #1 AKC Lure Coursing whippet in the country. Fat Charlie received his Award of Racing Excellence, and his Field Championship. Sam I Am's mom, Jessie, got her Championship in the show ring. Every weekend I headed off with friends in the Warburton Whippet Wagon to have some dog fun. My son was in college. We saw patients everyday in Bill's office on our farm. We had eight horses and ponies, who whunkered to me in the early morning when I opened the barn doors.

Ten years ago, we lived on the farm with Uncle (Saint) Opie the black lab, Gracious, Caruso, Giacomino, Maria, Mama Pajama, and Fat Charlie. Luciano and Delia weren't even born yet; they're nine and a half now.

Tomorrow begins the next ten years. I'm excited to be given the privilege of taking care of people again. I've missed that. I'm nervous about how the dogs and Bill will fare. How I will fare - given my well known separation anxiety from the waggle! I'm excited at the notion of being able to enter some dog shows and agility trials.

I'm beyond thrilled to have been hired at the hospital where I will work. I am so impressed with everything I have seen there. It's a good place. I will be proud to be a part of that caring.

I loved being a nurse. It will be wonderful to be a nurse again.

Christmas 1983. I was working straight midnights and Jake had a Dukes of Hazard lunchbox.

hug your hounds and please think of mine

I forgot!

I made a blog for Jake!!! It was so much fun! Just click on the photo above.

hug your hounds

A Visit With Jake

On the way home from the dog show in Youngstown, we stopped off in northern Kentucky to see Jake.

Hold up. That sounded much too calm, too matter of fact, like, "We stopped off to pick up some bread and milk."

Oh, no. This was highly exciting. I was looking forward to seeing Jake again. I was eager to see the brave, talented, and sweet Xela and get a sniff of horse. (Life is better when you smell horse and hay and sweet feed and straw; it just is.) And I couldn't wait to see his other horses in the flesh.

My car - Bill's famous Vous - wouldn't go fast enough.

Jake found a Red Roof Inn right next to the track, and I stopped there and checked in, fed the dogs, and walked them. They were delighted to bounce around the room after being cooped up for so long. Then we loaded back up and went over to Turfway.

Jake has got some awesome horses to train now. While I was in Ohio, his filly, Crawford County (nicknamed Cindy Crawford) won her second race for him, a huge allowance race. Xela was loving life and soaking up all of my attention.

Xela the ham

Xela the racehorse!

Crawford County, who just won a BIG race four days before, snoozing in her haynet. Xela is in the background, jealous.

I got to meet Cohenthebarbarian - Cohen - who is owned by the folks who own Big Brown. (Personally I think they should send Big Brown and ten of his best horsey friends to Jake to train. When you see what he's done with Xela and little Crawford County, well... Yes, I'm his mother, but I'm just saying...)

Cohen is a gorgeous stallion, who was rather naughty when he came to Jake and would never have stood quietly on the track like this. He's doing a lot better.

This is Fire Chief - oh my he's a nice looking horse!

Oh and Jake is riding Oedy. He made over $800,000 in his career. Whe his racing days were over, Jake found him a home with a super nice person. But Oedy didn't like life off the track, so now he's Jake's lead pony. (Things like that are what make me proudest of my son. It wasn't easy turning Oedy from racehorse - and a naughty one who had been ruled off some tracks for causing mayhem and injury - to a lead pony. But Oedy is Jake's buddy.)

And here's the new two year old filly who just arrived. She is impressive, and her pedigree is ... holy moly!!!

Life is good.

Hug your hounds and your sons

Home Again

Just got home from a whirlwind trip from our home in western Kentucky to Eugene, Oregon and back. I was naked as could be, traveling without any dogs.

We had a scary emergency on Monday morning, so before I headed for the airport, Bill in his jammies drove Very Old Dog and me to the vet. I will write about that tonight. He is doing GREAT now.

The hot news which can't wait is that yesterday, Xela won another race at Keeneland!!!! Jake and Xela are two for two! This race was even harder (against faster horses) and he won AGAIN!!! Holy SCHMOLY!!!

Here he is after the race with my son of whom I am so PROUD!!!

You can really see how small Xela is in this photo. and he ran against the BIG BOYs yesterday and he beat them and how!

I'll be back with a story later tonight. Just couldn't WAIT for this news.

Hug your hounds and your horses and your kids and your sweet spouses and your friends and shoot, just hug everything that moves today!

Keeneland Photos

(Someday I will go back to writing dog stories.)




First, thank you to dear reader Gail D. for sending me these photos she took at Keeneland when she was there last autumn.



This is the infield, which was brilliant spring Bluegrass green last week




And this is the paddock, where Jeannie and I got to play big shots, while Jake and the other trainers saddled the horses. Thank you again, Gail; it's fun to show these.




Looky what Jake emailed me last night.



This is after the 16th pole when the big dark bay horse had caught up with him, and Xela (pronounced "Zella," by the way) was taking off again.






This is the official win photo, showing the finish line on top, and the Winner's Circle underneath.



Closer of the Winners Circle. (And you can click to enlarge; use your back button to return.)
L to R - One of Jake's other owners, the Friendly Tour Bus Driver, Jeannie, Jake's kind mentor (in the hat and shades), smilin' mom, Jake's awesome groom, Xela, rider John McKee, Jake.





And finally, a close up of the official win photo. I didn't notice what Jake had the photographer do, until I was printing the photo. "Mom's Day at Keeneland" appears on the official photo!! How fun and crazy is that?

Thank you for sharing this fun day, this miraculous minute and ten seconds with me. No matter how well prepared a trainer has a horse, there is still racing luck. A horse can stumble coming out of the starting gate. A horse can get bumped or squeezed. A rider can not follow instructions. A million little things can go wrong.

If you click to enlarge the next to the last photo, and look at Jake's face, I think you can see all of the things which went wrong last year. Right after the photo was taken Jeannie asked him how he felt, and he said, "It hasn't set in yet. Ask me again when I come to visit at Christmas." I can see that in the photo.

Now, he's smiling. I haven't stopped.


Hug the everlovin' daylights out of your hounds

Wa-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Xela

This is not a dog story, and for that I beg your forgiveness and patience, dear readers. This is a son story, a grand little horse with a big heart story, and a story full of kind people.

I drove to Lexington and back today. My generous and kind friend Jeannie got up at oh dark thirty to go with me. My son had a horse running in the first race at Keeneland.

If you are a race horse trainer, having a horse run at Keeneland is a big deal. But if you are a young race horse trainer whose successful business imploded and vanished after a pile of bad luck so despicable as to have made Job himself shake his head in disbelief, then having a horse run at Keeneland is a huge big deal.

So Jeannie and I piled into Bill's "babe machine" (the Buick Rendezvous, which looks like a Gremlin on steroids) and headed East. Bill would be gone most of the day as he was juroring an art show in the middle of the state. Our kind and wonderful friend Karen let my dogs out at lunch time to potty. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to go. I got to take the Rendezvous, because Jeannie's husband Harvey drove Bill to the art show. Otherwise, I would have had to take the van, which would have been $200 in gas, and I wouldn't have been able to go.

I have to say here, dear readers, that I have been sick with worry for my son. I don't know how he survived the past year. I would not have. But he lives and breathes horses. He loves horses. He "gets" horses. He wants nothing else in life but to train race horses and to do it well. So he started all over. He persevered.

The four and a half hour drive flew by this morning. Jeannie and I talked and lucky Paul Simon sang. My nerves got more and more jangly. It had been seven months since Jake had run a horse, and this was only the second time ever that I would get to see it in person. I'd watched his races on the Internet and had made my poor Bill think that I was being torn limb from limb when he'd innocently come into the house, and I'd be shouting in my little room, "GO! GO! OH MY GOD! Youcango you go aooohhhhhhaoooahahaaaaaaaaaaa Yayayayayay!!!"

We pulled up to the barn, and my handsome son looked cool. If you didn't know him like I do. I saw a man who had everything on the line. He was stretched like a tight rope, but he was calmly rubbing liniment on his horse, putting wraps on his legs, giving his groom last minute instructions.

"He looks great, Jake."

"Yup."

Jeannie and I got to be in the beautiful Keeneland Paddock like a couple of big shots as Jake saddled the horse and gave the jockey a few words. "Just let him run his race. He's got a lot of heart. If he's in the middle of the pack don't abuse him, just bring him back safe. But I think he'll run big today." He gave the rider a leg up and we went into the Clubhouse. Jeannie placed her good luck bet. I don't bet. But I remembered something from when I was sixteen and saw my first ever horse race. I got to the window and said "five dollars to win on number two, please."

We stood at the front watching the horses warm up. I was only watching one little chestnut horse with a number two on his saddle pad and a white bridle on. I was so nervous at this point that I thought vomit might spew out my eyeballs and my butt and my ear holes and my arm pits. That's nervous.


A man in his early seventies walked up to Jeannie and me and pointed at the embroidery on his jacket, saying something about being a tour bus driver and having a safe driving record for forty-nine years. He said he'd bet on the one, three and nine in a boxed trifecta.

"You have to bet on the two!" cried Jeannie. "Her son trains that horse."

Tour Bus Driver Man looked at me and asked if he should bet number two.

I tried not to vomit as I explained the horse was coming off a five month lay off and this was my son's first ever start at Keeneland.

Tour Bus Driver Man pointed to his baseball hat which spelled "GAP". "God Answers Prayers," he said.

I don't bother God with prayers for dog shows and horse races. If I were God and had prayers from mothers with sons in Iraq and Dar Fur and Guantanamo to work on, I'd be right peeved at prayers for dog shows and horse races. But I'd been praying for my son "pretty regular" for a good while.

I said, "I tell you what. You send a prayer up. And if this horse wins, you come down in the Winner's Circle and get in the win photo with us."

Jake came back from the racing office and we ran upstairs to watch from behind the boxes. And the horses were in the starting gate and they were off. The white bridle burst out of the starting gate and was second by just a head, and the horses got in stride and the little chestnut was neck and neck for the lead. I pounded on Jeannie's shoulder blades "Go, Xela! Go!" and the little chestnut colt got his nose in front rounding the turn and Jake whispered, "Be a race horse, buddy, be a race horse now," and I beat poor Jeannie's back purple and I yelled, "GO, XELA! GO! GO XELA OH MY GOD GO!" and then a big strapping big bay colt, number nine the favorite, came up and hooked the little chestnut, and I thought they were right at the wire, and I groaned, "Close, honey, there's going to be a photo," and Jake shouted, "It's Keeneland, it's a long stretch, that's the sixteenth pole, HE's GOT HIM!" and the little chestnut dug in when the jockey asked him to and pulled out and won by a length and a half, just like an answer to prayer. And I stopped beating on Jeannie and I hugged her and Jake grabbed me and he lifted my way up off the ground and he spun in a twirl with his old mom in the air and we ran down to the Winner's Circle.


We found Tour Bus Driver Man looking positively confounded with his winning ticket in his hand and I said, "Come on! Follow us!" I told Jake that there would be a very friendly Tour Bus Driver in the win picture and Jake shook his hand and said it was nice to meet him, no questions asked about why there was a friendly Tour Bus Driver in the win picture. Xela came back, and he had barely even broken a sweat, but his nostrils flared in that inspirational nobility of a race horse who knew he had won. Jake patted him, with respect, and whispered something to him.

People who were part of the Tour Bus Driver's touring group collected outside the Winner's Circle waiving their winning tickets, shouting, "Thanks for the tip, Eddy!"

One of Jake's mentors was there. A generous man who quietly had helped Jake get back on his feet. He pointed out during all the congratulating that Jake would have all kinds of friends today.

"Yes," I smiled to myself. "But only one Mom."


So I beg your forgiveness for not writing about dogs tonight. And I know I've missed Asta's coming home party, and I am sorry for that. But when Jake called me later, he was down at the barn holding Xela outside to graze on the spring grass. He wasn't up in the clubhouse getting pats on the back. He was letting the little chestnut horse with the big heart relax and eat grass.



And I just had to write about that.


to see photos of the day, go HERE.


Hug your hounds

Christmas at 'Chateau Cuckoo'

My son came home for Christmas.

I drove to Nashville yesterday to pick him up from the airport. Southwest airlines decided that Jake's suitcase, and one belonging to another passenger on that flight, would be happier flying on the next plane. That plane wouldn't arrive for a few hours. Jake said forget it. He had his laptop in his carry on. He could go to Salvation Army and get some jeans.

It was a last minute decision to come home, but such a welcome one for me, and Bill, and Jake's cousin. I told Jake that we didn't have a tree, and the only decorations in the house are bazillions of wonderful holiday cards with whippets on them. And that we had accepted invitations from neighbors for Christmas dinners, but I was sure he would be warmly included by all our friends. That was fine, he said, he just wanted to come home. He's not had the best year of his life. You might say that everything that could go wrong for him has. Twice. And if you said that you would not be guilty of hyperbole.

So we talked and talked the two and a half hours home from the airport. We stopped and visited with Phyllis and Maddie and gave them their presents. Phyllis had an only son, and had out lived him. I thought she would enjoy a visit with Jake and I knew he would love to meet her.

At our house, the whippets went bonkers over Jake's magical appearance. Their favorite Jake was home! Ah-wooo, woo-woo, wildness and frivolity! Jake stepped back out to get something from the car while I settled the waggle.

When I looked up through the kitchen door onto the breezeway, Jake was standing there with an eleven foot Christmas tree. What was Jake doing with an eleven foot Christmas tree? A Christmas tree? Where did Jake get a Christmas tree?

"Jake. Where did you get that Christmas tree?"

"Someone left it in the alley for you."

My mind raced. The tree even had a string of lights in the uppermost section. The trolley station is on the other side of the alley. Oh my, did Jake help himself to one of their decorations? He wouldn't. But.

"Where in the alley? What do you mean someone left it in the alley?"

"There's an Indian belief, Mom. If you find a hammer, that means that someone left it for you and wanted you to have it. Someone wants us to have this Christmas tree."

"There are no Indians in our alley, Jake!"

"It was in the alley next to your neighbors' trash cans."

I have an over active imagination. Our neighborhood has had a bit of a hubub over a Christmas tree, which looked a lot like this one. One group bought an artificial tree for an official lighting by the Mayor, asking for donations to cover the cost, and only recouped about a third. The tree had lights and some sparse decorations. Some anonymous elves bought beautiful red ornaments and ribbons and strands of beads and decorated the tree under cover of darkness. The neighborhood celebrated this delightful act of generosity. Only someone somehow misunderstood and there was talk of filing charges against the people who "desecrated" the tree. And that was soundly booed as flabberghastorhetoric histrionics, and the neighborhood was very quiet for several weeks, except for people remarking on the lovely decorating job of the public tree.

I imagined that someone had vandalized the scandalized tree and tossed it in our alley and it was now headed for our living room. That there would be a big empty place where the public tree once stood and a familiar looking tree in Casa Renzulli's living room window. And we would be found out and never live down the shame. But no. This was a real tree, and the scandalous one was fake. I called my next door neighbor.

"Hi Michael. Jake is home for a visit. Yes, I'll tell him you said hi. He just showed up with a tree he found in the alley. Oh you are? It is? Are you sure? OK. Thanks. Merry Christmas!"

So, it turned out that Jake was right about the Indians, only it wasn't Native Americans, it was our next door neighbors. They had opened presents in the morning and then Ashly and the kids had already left to visit family in Texas. Michael is a CCU nurse and has to work Christmas day and the next, and then he will join them. He had just taken the tree down and was delighted for us to have it. Now we have a Christmas tree.

The Salvation Army was closed today. So were the consignment shops. Jake did not want to buy new clothes, as he has plenty of clothes. Another neighbor stopped by with a delectable plate of cookies. She heard the story of Jake's lost luggage, and said, "Well, you're exactly the same size as my husband, and we have a pile of clothes to go to the Salvation Army. I'll go get some." She came back with pants and shirts and even a pair of perfect cowboy boots. Jake practically lives in cowboy boots.

I think those Native Americans were pretty smart. Merry Christmas everyone!

Hug your hounds, and yourselves, and each other too.