Why My Third Husband Will Be A Dog (37 page)

It seems backwards.

Anyway my head was full of these thoughts the other afternoon, as I was hurrying in a downpour through the streets of New York City, there to take my author photo. I know that sounds glamorous, and it would be if I were ten pounds lighter and ten years younger, but take it from me, the best fiction in my books is the author photo.

But that’s not my point.

My point is that I was running down the street in a city I don’t know, with no umbrella in the pouring rain, thinking
about Thanksgiving and the economy and so preoccupied that I couldn’t find the photographer’s studio, which was at number 98. I ran back and forth between numbers 96 and 100 and then between 94 and 102, but I couldn’t find 98 and I was drenched and late. Throngs of people hurried past me on the street, their umbrellas slanted against the rain, and just when I was about to freak, a voice behind me said:

“You look lost. Can I help you?”

I turned around, and standing there was an older man holding an umbrella and wearing a suit and tie. His hooded eyes looked genuinely concerned, so I answered: “I can’t find number 98.”

“Take my umbrella, and I’ll look.”

And before I could object, he put his umbrella in my hand, hustled off down the sidewalk, and disappeared into the crowd. He came back five minutes later, pointing. “It’s three doors down, out of order, after the loading dock.”

“Really?”

“Come, I’ll show you,” he said, guiding me to a glass building that read number 98, where I gave him back his umbrella.

“Thanks so much.”

“No problem, take care,” he said with a quick smile, and in the next second he joined the throng of umbrellas hurrying down the street.

Leaving me in the middle of the sidewalk, suddenly not minding the rain and feeling a warm rush of gratitude. For the first time in a long time, I stopped worrying about Thanksgiving and started feeling thankful.

And not thankful for the usual things, like good health and a lovely child. Not even thankful to the usual people, like my family and friends. Those people, I thank all the time. But this
time, I felt thankful for a complete and total stranger, who went out of his way to help me.

In fact, I realized, I had gotten bailed out, after all.

And it wasn’t money that bailed me out, it was better than money. It was time, concern, and human kindness.

It reminded me of other people who have gone out of their way to bail me out, and I suddenly felt thankful for them, too. Because while it’s easy to look around and wonder why I’m not getting something that someone else gets, that encounter reminded me to be thankful for the many bailouts that come my way. I can recount them now, but I won’t. They’ll be part of my silent prayer of thanks over the turkey and/or tofu served with canned and/or fresh cranberry sauce, sitting with my lovely daughter across a dining room table, and sleeping underneath, several overweight dogs and one very tired puppy.

But you should know, right now, that among the people who bail me out are the people who read me.

You.

So thank you, very much.

And Happy Thanksgiving.

Daughter Francesca and I have been humming holiday music non-stop, which got us wondering why it’s so appealing. I thought I’d let her answer that hard question, since I take only the easy ones, so she weighs in below:

Growing up, we always played the same three Christmas CDs: Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Charlie Brown. And I bought that Mariah Carey one, so I could listen to “All I Want for Christmas Is You” on repeat every year through most of the nineties. But now that I’m freshly on my own (and more interested in gifts under twenty bucks), everywhere I turn there is another recording artist promoting a new album of yuletide tunes.

No wonder performers love cranking out these holiday CDs; they get a free pass. Even obscure, outdated, or talent-challenged artists can put out a seasonal album, and we’ll go easy on them. It’s Christmas, after all.

But some stars really test our generosity. For instance, someone named Lady Gaga teamed up with someone named Space Cowboy to record “Christmas Tree.” I don’t know who either
of these people is, but somehow I thought their title would be a little more creative.

Or take George Michael. He was arrested for crack cocaine possession in a public bathroom—not to be confused with his 1998 arrest for lewd conduct in a public bathroom—but that didn’t stop him from recording a new holiday track, “December Song (I Dreamed of Xmas).” I’m all for second (or third, or fourth) chances, but I think it’s safe to assume that George is on Santa’s naughty list. He might have asked for community service, but he’s getting a lump of coal.

The all-time lows of Christmas music have to be those
Jingle Dogs
and
Cats
albums, where dogs bark and cats meow to the tune of holiday classics. Have you longed to hear “Angels We Have Heard On High” in a head-splitting caterwaul? Me neither.

It’s a shame there aren’t as many Hanukkah albums, but on the upside, at least they don’t have cats singing, “Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel.”

To me, Josh Groban is the newborn king of the modern holiday CD. His
Noël
was last year’s biggest-selling album of any genre. That floppy-haired cutie with the powerhouse pipes gets me—and 3.7 million other people—every time.

So why do we buy these holiday albums? We often say holiday music puts us in the “holiday spirit,” but what do we mean?

I read somewhere that music directly accesses the emotional part of the brain, and I believe it. Music is a language that our hearts and souls can speak. The holidays are a time when we want to get into an emotional and spiritual frame of mind, and these songs unlock something inside us. That Sinatra album is the same music that played when I was little, unwrapping presents in our apartment. The Charlie Brown CD my mom will put on this year is the same that was playing the year that our old
dog Lucy, then just a puppy, knocked over the Christmas tree. The songs Josh Groban sings are the same that I sang when my high school chamber choir went caroling in the halls.

I love that music, because I love those memories.

These songs remind us of family, childhood, a time when it was safe to be vulnerable and safe to believe. After a year of steeling ourselves against life’s hardships, now is a time when we can let down our guard. Music softens us, so that we can come into the warmth of family and un-bundle, so to speak. Because at some point, when everyone is gathered around the table, talking over each other and laughing, and the voices get louder, some voices you hear every day and some not often enough—well then, anything else is just background music.

I’m a fan of the hum-a-few-bars-and-I’ll-play-it school. I mean, I like to throw myself into new things and I figure I’ll learn along the way. It’s worked so far, for everything in my life except romance and chicken farming.

Today, we discuss the latter.

You may remember the chickens I got, fourteen in all, a complete array of Gilbert & Sullivan hens and a Women’s Chorus of Plymouth Barred Rocks. I’ve watched them grow from chick to full-grown, so now they’re all chubby and feathery and friendly. They let me pick them up and turn them over on their backs, which is hypnosis for chickens, and they become calm, cradled in my arms and looking up at me, blinking their round amber eyes. I call this game Baby Chicken, which I’m sure has nothing to do with me being an empty nester.

I installed a baby monitor in the chicken coop, which may sound a little strange, but why stop now? I’d never heard of a baby monitor in a chicken coop, but it turned out to be a fun idea. I keep it on all day long at the house, so I can work listening to the pleasant cooing, clucking, and occasional squabbling you would expect from a house that holds more than two females of anything, especially if they have beaks, nails, and major attitude.