The Dog Doesn’t Die

This is an odd book. I hate comparing authors to each other, but I’m going to do that now: this book reminded me of Patricia Highsmith, except it was way too light-hearted, even amusing in spots. Highsmith couldn’t have pulled it off, but I kept thinking of her as I read. As far as the animals are concerned, there are some unpleasant but brief images, and a pet hamster dies, although we don’t actually see the hamster’s demise. So I am going to declare this book Mostly Safe for animal lovers.

The published reviews for this book are all rather cagey, and there’s a reason for that. I think there’s a tendency among readers to trust first-person narrators, at least at first. But is this trust warranted? If the answer is “maybe” or “no,” it leads to a cagey review. Like this one.

Lanchester takes his narrator through some long, winding asides that are often amusing. I liked the book and recommend it for most readers, but if your primary values are fast pacing and snappy dialogue, this is not the book for you. It’s not a beach read, though it might be a beach-house read, if you get the distinction.

This book, the basis for the movie “21″, is entirely SAFE for animal lovers because there are no animals in it. I’m recommending it because the story is interesting and well-told. I especially like the pacing, which is hard to manage in nonfiction. Mezrich does an excellent job, however.

For those who don’t know, “21″ is about an unofficial (very unofficial) team of MIT students who figured out how to beat the odds playing blackjack in Las Vegas. I am not a gambler, and therefore I know nothing about blackjack, but the story still kept my interest to the point I had a hard time putting the book down. The protagonist, Jeff Ma, who is known in the book as “Kevin Lewis,” is likable without being so perfect as to be unrealistic. I think most people could relate to him and the highs and lows he experiences, first as he enters the world of card-counting high rollers, then as he attempts to integrate this side of himself into the rest of his life.

I have two quibbles, only one of which is with the book. Years ago, I lived near MIT and knew some students there. My observation is that the school presents a psychologically difficult environment, and no one I know who went to school there ever felt differently. I wish Mezrich had addressed this, because my reaction to Ma/Lewis joining the card-counters was “Of course he wants to do something, anything, to break from the unrelenting bleakness of MIT.”

The other quibble is that the movie’s cast wasn’t Asian enough. Yeah, the cast was probably pretty good, but most of the team, including Ma, were at least part Asian. This isn’t political correctness, it’s accuracy! But Hollywood powers-that-be seem to think the default American is a white male and the rest of us are just background. No, we are not.

Anyway, I highly recommend the book. It’s got all the elements of a good beach read or airport book, by the way.

With all the personal drama of the past few weeks, I’ve accumulated quite a backlog. So today I’ll review two books that have little animal involvement and are both Mostly Safe for animal lovers. I don’t have a lot to say about these two books because I wasn’t wild about either of them, though I found the first mildly entertaining.

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris is a comic novel set in a struggling Chicago advertising agency. The narration is in first person plural, which is a device that Ferris pulls off nicely but isn’t worth repeating. It sort of works and sort of doesn’t. Since most of the action takes place at the office, there are very few animals. However, there is one reference to a character not taking his mother’s cats when he moves his mother out of her apartment. Another character worries about what happened to them, and we never find out. I’m projecting here, but my experience is that neighbors in apartment buildings don’t just let yowling cats suffer without calling maintenance or building management. So I imagine the fictitious cats were soon rescued by a more responsible party, though what happens after that would be unclear. Another character has cats and talks to them briefly, but that’s it.

The Dream of Scipio, by Iain Pears, got great reviews but wasn’t quite what I expected. Three stories that take place in the same part of France at different times in history are woven together, but they weren’t all equally good. It mostly fell flat to me, although there were sections that were excellent. In any case, there is a reference to one character tormenting cats and dogs as a child, as if this is a standard childhood activity. No, it is not. And there are many references to horses and donkeys as beasts of burden, including a brief scene in which a donkey in peril is saved.

I have another book on my pile that has lots of animals, while the book I am reading has none thus far. I will review both of them in several days.

So I’m back home and back to normal and deep into processing all this. Someone said the good and bad moments will both come at random moments. So this will be a hodgepodge post of random thoughts about my dad, the funeral, and related topics.

Dad’s (Mom’s) bbq chicken recipe. Dad didn’t cook, except to grill chicken. Mom would marinate chicken pieces overnight in Italian dressing, and the next night Dad would smear them with bottled barbeque sauce and grill them. I’ve since been “educated” as to different styles of barbeque, but this was great stuff! And I don’t remember how on earth the subject came up last week, but it did.

That “quirky sense of humor” I mentioned. My dad has a wild sense of humor, which made it into the homily at his funeral Mass. As an example: A few years ago, Fr. Brian was buying groceries and in line at the checkout. Dad was right behind him. Now, at the time, Dad was taking coumadin, which leaves purple splotches on your skin. And this woman came up behind Dad and said words to the effect of “eww, what’s that?” Without missing a beat, Dad said “It’s leprosy! And it’s contagious!” and began rubbing his arm all over the woman. Fr. Brian was laughing his head off, which is how the woman figured out that Dad wasn’t serious. I’ve always envied how Dad was quick on his feet like that. I’d have said something like “oh, it’s coumadin, a blood thinner,” recited my medical history to the woman, and figured out the come-back several days later.

The “Canada group” The Canada group was a group of men 25-35 years younger than Dad; I went to school with several of them. Starting in the late 70s, this group of businessmen and professionals met for lunch every Friday, went up to Canada each summer to go fishing, and celebrated birthdays together along with their wives. They had the most, and the most outrageous, stories about Dad. They all teased each other pretty hard, and they took his death the hardest. A lot of the most important people in Dad’s life stopped by his hospital room on his last 2 days, and each member of the Canada group made that trip, including two for whom it was a long drive of an hour or more. Our friends enrich us, and I’m glad Dad had the Canada group in his life.

A 21 gun salute. It poured rain the day of Dad’s funeral, and yet at the cemetary a group of older veterans stood at attention in the rain, waiting for the signal to give Dad a 21-gun salute. He was proud of his military service, which included WWII and a few years afterwards, and the honor would have meant a lot to him. Also, the town mayor set aside the day in Dad’s honor and had all flags flown at half-staff.

Visitation. Dad ran a small-town weekly newspaper, and just about everyone who ever worked for him showed up to pay their respects. This included people who had had full careers and are now retired, and people who had to drive quite a distance. Some of them said he was the best boss they ever had.

A couple of days ago, one of my friends said that people who haven’t been through this don’t know what it’s like, and that the gulf between those who’ve lost a parent and those who haven’t is greater than the gulf between those who’ve had kids and those who haven’t. This is all still new to me, so I don’t yet know if I agree with her. But my entire family has had great support through all this, and for that I am grateful.

I have a lot more to write about my dad’s passing, and I have two books to review, but I think it’s time for some levity. At least I need some levity. So here is another piece from my old humor files:

HOW TO KEEP A HEALTHY LEVEL OF INSANITY IN THE WORKPLACE

Put a chair facing a printer, sit there all day and tell people you’re waiting for your document.

Arrive at a meeting late, say you’re sorry, but you didn’t have time for lunch, and you’re going to be nibbling during the meeting. During the meeting eat 5 entire raw potatoes.

Insist that your e_mail address be “zena_goddess_of_fire@companyname.com”

Every time someone asks you to do something, ask them if they want fries with that.

Send email to yourself engaging yourself in an intelligent debate about the direction of one of your company’s products. Forward the mail to a co_worker and ask her to settle the disagreement.

Page yourself over the intercom. (Don’t disguise your voice.)

Name all your pens and insist that meetings can’t begin until they’re all present.

Make up nicknames for all your coworkers and refer to them only by these names. “That’s a good point Sparky.” “No I’m sorry I’m going to have to disagree with you there, Chachi.”

Schedule meetings for 4:14 pm.

Encourage your colleagues to join you in a little synchronized chair dancing.

Send email to the rest of the company telling them what you’re doing. For example “If anyone needs me I’ll be in the bathroom.”

When in conversation, no matter where you are in the office, mutter, “I think my phone is ringing” and leave. Go get a coffee.

Develop an unnatural fear of staplers.

Compose all your e_mail in rhyming couplets.

Include a personal note on every email you send. “On a personal note, I’m feeling a bit tired and grumpy today.” “On a personal note, I’m pleased to announce that I got my highest score ever on Tetris last night.”

Put decaf in the coffeemaker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.

My dad died last night. He was 87 and had been in poor health for several years, especially since November. On Tuesday, he had his last lucid conversation. From Wednesday on through his death on Saturday, he was semi-conscious at best and gasped for air like a drowning man. We decided to put him into hospice on Thursday, which happened on Friday, and I saw him for the last time on Saturday morning, before I boarded a plane and flew home, over the bumpy air above the Appalachians and into another time zone. An hour after I walked in the door, my mother called to say he had just died.

Although I was prepared for it, this is hard. It was much harder watching him struggle for breath, however, and I’m grateful that he doesn’t have to endure that any longer. Even though it was only a matter of days, the fight to breathe went on far too long. Patrick, the family attorney, was one of my best friends in childhood, and he later formed a close bond with my parents. He went up to see Dad Thursday evening. The next morning, we talked on the phone for a while. He said that Dad had recognized him and tried to say a few things but couldn’t. One thing he did say with clarity, however, was “worn out.” Yes, he was worn out. Very worn out. I also wonder if he held on until he could see me on Tuesday, then let go.

People speak of the death rattle. I don’t know what the death rattle sounds like, but I suspect it’s much like what Dad’s breathing was for those four days. He smoked for 40 years, then quit 27 years ago. Quitting bought him the 27 years, but the 40 years of smoking finally caught up with him.

So now I am making arrangements to fly back. Good friends are staying with my mother, who is managing pretty well. Mom has been a one-woman nursing home for the past few months. So she is experiencing a combination of shock and relief. She says it seems surreal to her. She’s going to need help managing details and making the transition, but ultimately she will be fine. She is bright and realistic, a good combination. I often describe her as “the most competent person in the family.” I’m still going to check in with her a lot. She’s a young 75, but she’s also now a widow.

Interesting, creative people are often difficult, as Dad was. He was frequently demanding and even bullying at times. I stood up to him more than anyone else in the family, and yet he favored me. I think by standing up to him, I somehow bought myself the luxury of appreciating the many wonderful things about him: his endless curiosity, his quirky sense of humor, his innocence, his unparalleled love of animals, his generosity, his openness, his optimism, his love of reading, his liberalism, his horror at the suffering of others, his capacity for affection. He drove me crazy, I drove him crazy, and we loved each other like crazy.

As his dementia ate away at our ability to sustain the depth of our relationship, I had to remind myself of who he had been, but I never forgot. I am proud to have been his daughter, and I’m glad that the last thing I said to him before leaving yesterday morning was “thank you.”

I’m going to have a busy week away from the computer, so I thought I’d go to a small journal I kept and see if there were any books I could review in bumper sticker format. I found four.

First up is The Last Season, by Eric Blehm. This is the true story of Randy Morgenson, a seasonal ranger with the U.S. Park Service, who disappeared one winter in Kings Canyon National Park. This is an excellent book, one of my favorites, and I highly recommend it. However, quite a few rescue dogs were used in the search for Morgenson, and one of them was injured pretty badly. This dog did survive, and the dogs are heroic in general. With that in mind, I’m going to declare this book Mostly Safe for animal lovers.

Next is Murder Unleashed, by Elaine Viets. This is from Viets’ Dead End Job series of mysteries, which are like brain candy — not very demanding, and fun. However, we learn about some of the bad things that can happen in the pet care industry, and one of those things really bothered me. So I am going to declare this book Probably Unsafe for most animal lovers.

Philosophy Made Simple, by Robert Hellenga, was quite frustrating. It started off great, then collapsed in the last third. I had a pretty strong love/hate thing going on with this book. One of the hate issues had to do with animals. This book is also Probably Unsafe for animal lovers.

Finally, Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen is a good book that is Completely Unsafe for animal lovers. I loved so much about this book, but my book group felt horrible for the animal characters in this book. If you can approach this kind of book as a forewarned reader, go for it. Otherwise, it might upset you.

There’s a lot of stuff going on this week that’s keeping me from blogging. However, I didn’t start this site just to abandon it, so I went into my old folders of “stuff” and found this gem sent to me by a friend in 1997. I have no idea whether or not this is true, but it sure sounds like it might be!

Anyway… here’s a letter from the Smithsonian Institute when this man  sent them one of his ‘major finds’.

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Paleoanthropology Division, Smithsonian Institute, 207 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC 20078

Dear Sir:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled “211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull.” We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents “conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago.” Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the “Malibu Barbie”. It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings.

However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to it’s modern origin: 1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone. 2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids. 3. The dentition pattern evident on the “skull” is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the “ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams” you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time. This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that: A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on. B. Clams don’t have teeth. It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating’s notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results. Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation’s Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name “Australopithecus spiff-arino.” Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn’t really sound like it might be Latin. However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard.

We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation’s capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the “trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix” that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,

Harvey Rowe

Curator, Antiquities