Today's Journal entries

1. If you could teach your pet one trick to do, what would you like her to do?

I have a trained cat and dog, I am very proud of this fact. Like raising children, when you have expectations that are high-they will rise to meet it. The cat, in absence of the canine, BECOME the dog for many, many moons. She wants to be held, she actually speaks on command. Then the dog? She is so smart, she learned, 'can you move out of the way, please?'

She'll follow up by moving SIDEWAYS out of your path.

She even knows 'inside voice.'

So to train either one? There's really no point. However, Penelope, the corgi has terrific potential and I think I might be missing the opportunity here to have a show dog. She still jumps uncontrollably if someone doesn't pay attention to her; she can be very rough on those she bumps into and doesn't know.

For me, I'd love for her to learn to be one of those pets that helps childen in the hospital. If only she would be willing to just lie there with some kind who only has cold stuff animals on their hospital bed; I'd love to see her sitting at attention to an elderly person who can't move.

To me, those would be the kinds of tricks I'd love to see her have.

2. If you could have a servant come over to your house once a day for an hour, what kind of servant would you have?

My relationship with the cleanilness has been in a state of flux lately. I know full well that my husband stop by this website as much as I wished he would. So I guess my candor can be more open here. But I used to be a neat-freak.

But living with my husband's tendencies, I've realized I can be just as satifisied with much, much less. He only picks up when someone is en route. Even then, he won't self start until I start waxing down the bathroom.

Don't think I didn't realzie this going into the marriage. He rarely cleaned up his hold home either. So, with him not going to the gym any more, but still picking things up a bit less then ever before? I can live with further disorganization.

That doesn't mean I enjoy it. It means I'm too tired these days to do more.

So if a servant was to come to the house? You got it, a decent cleaning lady.

I guess you could call it a confession, but for those who know me, this tale is as old and predictable as the church's stance equality and polictians non-evidence of honesty. But I never wanted to own a home. As much as I love my husband and all he has to offer him; as much as I wanted a dog to call my own-I could not, for the life of me, own a home. There was too much money involved. Too much work. I mean you're looking at someone who burst into tears when his toilet overflowed and who thought his partner had begun speaking Hungarian when he suggested we...WE... are the ones who pain the house.

I grew up in a condo. Attached to seven other homes. I never knew of a world that had a lawn or needed paint. There was always a clubhouse with a hot tub. Was it ritzy? Nah. But my energies were redirected. I was not held to the listings of chores most kids had. Most kids had to mow that lawn. Some kids had shovel that snow.

I didn't.

So to arrive at this question for a journal topic is something of a joke. Me? Own? I don't want to own anything. For ownership requires a specific dedication to responsibilty that I was never, ever trained to accept.

But this is the case for blue-sky thinging. A building I could own? Who the hell cares?

I'll have to reach on this one. I will say, as part of living and growing up in a condo, I am, truly, a city mouse. I'll venture the dream that I'll need a two level penthouse. With servants. I can still have my dog--but someone can take her out or wait for me to come home from a book talk.

But I'm not thinking architecuraly here and I probably should. So, outside of the sheer fantasy-joy of owning something fun like Disney's Haunted Mansion (think of the Halloween parties!), I'll be serious for this one auspicious moment-I'd go with Rockfalls Manor.

It's a Frank Lloyd Wright building in PA, I believe, that is housed over a waterfall. The design work is truly art-deco. And the formation of the rooms and details are undenable city, even if they are in the country.

Here I could be writing with the cosmopolitain comfort I deserve-with the added joy of knowing that every angle of my home is art=extreme.

So, there you have it!

If you could own any building, what would it be?