Thank you to
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sonia for these good questions! If you would like five questions from me, comment below.
1. A favorite moment with a pet?
I was heading out for a walk one fine fall morning with my first dog, Panda. She was about a year old. We lived in Masonville then, a rural-ish area up in the foothills. I was carrying the leash; it was my practice to stop at the fenceline, clip her leash on, then give her permission to cross the fence. Suddenly I realized that my neighbor's bulls had knocked down the fence and were lying down in my pasture. They were young bulls, and I guess not very aggressive, but still, they were bulls, with horns and testicles and everything. And I had no knowledge of cattle, and a loose dog. "Shit!" I muttered.
Suddenly Panda, who was nosing around in the damp grass, stopped and sat. I thought she had also just noticed the bulls, and stopped to think about what she should do about them. I did not want her to do anything about them. "Come!" I said.
She raced toward me. Halfway there, her head turned to the left, then back to me, then to the left again. She stopped, body pointing toward me, head pointing toward the bulls. "Come!" I said again, and she came. I clipped the leash on and we went back up the hill to the house.
I realized that when she stopped and sat, earlier, it was because she thought she heard me mutter "Sit!" That canine double-take while she was running toward me was when she actually noticed the bulls. Thirty-five years later, it still makes me laugh.
2. A book everyone in the group hated but/and the group still talks about it years later? (I'm guessing this happens in other book groups…)
Good Morning, Midnight, by Lily Brooks-Dalton. Everyone in my SF book group hated it, even the ones who are most likely to like books that are both SF and litfic. One person said that it was the only book they'd ever read that would have been improved by a tacked-on "and then he woke up!"
3. A book you never would have read if it hadn't been chosen by a book group, that you unexpectedly loved?
The Great Believers, by Rebecca Makkai.
4. What are you planning for your garden/yard next year?
I'm hoping to tear down the terrible cinderblock garage and put up a carport halfway down the driveway. Then I'll build raised beds where the garage was, and reclaim half the driveway for native meadow. The driveway is gravel (technically; it's actually mostly dirt) but it is so compacted that it doesn't absorb stormwater. The only hitch is that city code says structures have to be at least 5 feet back from the property line, but the driveway and current garage are right up against the property line. I'm hoping they'll allow the carport because it doesn't infringe any more than the current situation. If they don't I'll just tear down the garage anyway. It has a corrugated metal roof, which I am going to turn into the sides of my new raised beds!
5. What helps you get through the dark time of year?
I have plants in the house, and the dogs to make me get up and feed them and get some fresh air every day. It's good to have some restful, indoor time to catch up on all the "deferred maintenance", like writing at least a sentence of review on each of the books I have read! But the lack of sunshine and exercise makes it easy for me to drift away from a diurnal schedule. I've had sleep apnea probably all my life, and my terrible sleep habits have persisted: my brain still tries every trick to stop me falling asleep, even though my CPAP means that my tongue is no longer trying to kill me.
