Right, Write Sentence

Hot damn. I can write a good sentence. At least according to the editors at WRITERS DIGEST. Nina enjoyed reading this one, which placed fourth in the journal’s May/June 2020 Your Story contest:

Ensconced in a pretentious lair and camouflaged among imposters, Roseate Spoonbill surrendered without incident, but not without deceit.

According to Jenny Davidson, writing at aeon.co, sentences are comparable to the tiny components of a house. Some are mostly functional while others are the decorative details we remember. You need both to preserve architectural integrity and individuality. So writing a sentence word by word is easy—no more difficult than building a house by laying one brick upon another. Subject, predicate. Subject, predicate. Roseate Spoonbill, ensconced, camouflaged, surrendered, deceit.

That works, but how do you write well, creating style and substance? William Strunk, in the ageless Elements of Style, advises that, “A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”

Assuming the modifiers are integral to the sentence, they have their own rules structure, too. Mark Forsyth, author of The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase, notes that adjectives must follow a certain order: opinion-size-age-shape-color-origin-material-purpose noun. For example, he says, “you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac.”

Now you get to build that sentence. Writing for The Guardian, professor and author Joe Moran says that a good sentence imposes a logic on the world’s weirdness. If you make each sentence worth reading, something in it will lead the reader into the next one. Good writers write not just in sentences but with sentences. They write paragraphs.

I can do that, too. In November 2019, the opening to my debut middle-grade novel got thumbs up from the panel of judges at the Philadelphia Writing Workshop in a session of “Writers Got Talent.” It reads:

Puffs of forced air exploded in my face with each exhaled breath. I wanted everyone to think I was cold, not anxious, so I spewed a few more. Fingering the wristband that identified me as an unaccompanied minor, I waited and waited and waited in the bleak misery of a blustery train station. After nearly an hour of signing papers and answering questions, it was finally time to leave on my first solo trip anywhere. I blew again and shook off my hoodie. Dad replaced it.

It was as easy as stringing six simple sentences into one cohesive paragraph—simply laying one brick upon another. Using that logic, concatenating 5,000 paragraphs into one compelling story should be easy, right? Wrong. My award-winning sentence took about 20 hours to compose; the paragraph, about 20 years. I want each sentence, each paragraph, each story to be elegant.

Coco Chanel, my heroine of elegance, preached that simplicity is the key. Using her advice, I endeavor to write like I get dressed, starting with good underwear—subjects and predicates. My vocabulary reflects a wardrobe that runs from business to bohemian. Baubles and scarves are the adjectives and adverbs. Shoes move the look forward. Elegance, however, comes with a caveat—before leaving the house, remove one accessory. When writing, remove the superfluous.

Writing is not so simple after all. Yet somehow we intuitively manage to do it. Regardless of how long it takes, you know you got it right, though, when you appraise the final product—words, order, cadence, accessories, and grammar—and smile.

Good writing, after all, is like U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of pornography—we know it when we read it.

Right. Write on.

Simplicity or style: what makes a sentence a masterpiece?

Jenny Davidson

is a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, where she specialises in 18th-century literature and culture, intellectual history and the contemporary novel in English. Her latest book is The Magic Circle (2013). 

A great sentence makes you want to chew it over slowly in your mouth the first time you read it. A great sentence compels you to rehearse it again in your mind’s ear, and then again later on. A sentence must have a certain distinction of style – the words come in an order that couldn’t have been assembled by any other writer. Here’s an elaborate, Latinate favourite, from Samuel Johnson’s preface to his Dictionary of the English Language (1755). We have to train ourselves to read complex sentences like this one, but if it’s read properly out loud by an actor or someone else who understands the way the subordination of clauses works, it may well be taken in more easily through the ear:

When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature, and clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affectation.

The sentence is elevated in its diction, but it is also motivated by an ironic sense of the vanity of human wishes. It is propelled forward by the momentum of clauses piling on top of one another.

Edward Gibbon is one of 18th century Britain’s other great prose stylists. The sentences of Gibbon that I love most come from his memoirs, which exist in a host of drafts braided together for publication after his death. As a young man, Gibbon fell in love and asked permission of his father to marry. But his spendthrift father had depleted the family’s resources so much that he told Gibbon not to. ‘I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son,’ Gibbon wrote. The aphoristic parallelism in that lovely sentence does some work of emotional self-protection. Also from Gibbon’s memoirs: ‘It was at Rome, on the fifteenth of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the City first started to my mind.’ The precision of the place and time setting, the startling contrast effected by the juxtaposition of barefooted friars and the pagan temple, the fact that there is an exterior soundscape as well as an internal thoughtscape, the way the sentence builds to the magnitude of the project to come – all work to make the sentence great.

The first sentence of any novel works as an invitation into a new world. Sometimes that invitation is so powerful that the sentence itself takes on a life of its own. One example: the opening sentence of Orwell’s 1984: ‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.’ The sentence is initially unassuming, simply descriptive, but in the startling final detail Orwell achieves estrangement, establishing the alternate nature of the novel’s historical reality with economy and force. Another opening line from near-future speculative fiction is that of William Gibson’s debut novel Neuromancer: ‘The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.’ The startling metaphor seemed to speak with remarkable directness to a world in which new forms of media and mediation had come to define human consciousness. The passage of time has raised questions, however. Today, to a generation of readers who barely watch TV on ‘channels’ and don’t really know what a ‘dead’ one would look like, the metaphor will be nearly inscrutable.

Hasn’t the sentence become dated? Gibson himself commented on Twitter recently, about his 2003 novel Pattern Recognition, that it ‘was written with the assumption that the reader could and *would* Google unfamiliar terms and references’. It matters to Gibson that his fiction should be highly topical in ways that can also be inscrutable or dated, and that will provoke in the reader not simple incomprehension but rather an awareness of the layering of past and present in palimpsests of language and literature.

Some literary stylists bestow greatness on every sentence without tiring their readers. Many readers feel this way about Joyce, but I have always preferred the subtler beauty of the sentences in Dubliners to the obtrusive, slightly show-offy ingenuity that afflicts every sentence in Ulysses: individually each of those sentences may be small masterpieces, but an unrelenting sequence of such sentences is wearisome. Great minimalist sentences – those of the short-story writer Lydia Davis, for instance – may have a longer shelf life.

Over a lifetime of reading, people form their own individual canon of great sentences. My canon is full of Jane Austen, whose balance of aphoristic wit, psychological insight and narrative pacing is unique. The first sentence of Pride and Prejudice (1813) is probably her best-known line: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.’ However, I have always preferred the opening line of Emma written two years later: ‘Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.’ It has the cadence almost of a fairytale, only the verb ‘seemed’ and the ostentatiously positive sequence of traits (‘handsome, clever, and rich’) hint that the novel will go on to undermine its opening assertion.

If we think of a library as a city and a book as an individual house in that city, each sentence becomes one tiny component of that house. Some are mostly functional – the load-bearing wall, the grout between the bathroom tiles – while others are the details we remember and take away, perhaps recalling their texture and colour when we assemble our own verbal dwelling-place.

Jenny Davidson

This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative Commons.

Big, Big, Little Richard

When I met Little Richard in the mid-nineties, he was huge. Not tall, although he seemed much heftier than his official 5´10˝, 160 pounds. Not flamboyant, either. His trademark pompadour was cropped to a tight Afro and his makeup was subtle. And certainly not entertaining. No, wearing a stylish white suit, minus the glitters, he sat quietly with a few associates in the hushed lobby of the Hyatt Hotel in downtown New Orleans.

What made Little Richard huge was the knock-your-socks-off gusto with which he welcomed my colleague.

Brenda and I had arrived to tour the hotel’s facilities for a conference. Spotting him across the expansive lobby, she traded her unflappable businesswoman demeanor and for that of an enamored fan. “That’s Little Richard,” she gushed, looking at me with her eyes agog. “Come on!” Before I could respond, she made herself as tall as her five-foot frame would allow and marched right up to him. As soon as she introduced herself as Reginald Ball’s daughter, his brand of grandeur was unleashed.

“Brenda, Brenda, Brenda!” He jumped up and his eyes widened with memories of a venue that had been significant in his rise to fame. Her father had owned Ball’s Auditorium, a stop on the Chitlin’ Circuit in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The strong arms she attributed to years of lifting platters of fried chicken at the family business went limp as Little Richard wrapped his presence around her. They talked warmly about her family for several minutes. Everything about him spewed gratitude for the role her father had played in his career.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Lake Charles was a crossroads—literally and figuratively—for Little Richard and others who were paving the way for black entertainers revolutionizing the music scene. They passed through the small city in southwest Louisiana from New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Memphis—all points east and north—on their way to and from Texas. It was a crossroads of musical styles, too, for everything from blues and country, to swing and zydeco, and of course, rock ’n’ roll.  Ball’s Auditorium hosted a slew of entertainers, and Brenda knew many of them—James Brown, Ruth Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, Etta James, B.B. King, Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson, Sam and Dave, and the Temptations.

When I met Little Richard, however, he had traded the Chitlin’ Circuit for Jesus. He was in New Orleans to promote Finding Peace Within, A Book for People in Need, which comes with a print of Little Richard inscribed with, “God loves and cares for you. Please don’t forget that.” I won’t. Nor will I forget that the big Little Richard signed copies of the book for Brenda and me. As you can see, Ron was quite impressed with the signed copy.

Then Little Richard hugged me. That’s when he became huge.

First Word

When Tom Davis recently solicited poems and vignettes related to reading, writing, or public speaking for the Webster’s Reading Room, A Poetry and Prose Anthology, he stirred this memory. At four years old, I was an aspiring writer. Many decades later, I remain fascinated by the alchemy of transforming thoughts into words. It seems Ron and Nina are, too.

Dust danced across
single diamond-shafted western sunbeam
filtered through ochre and absinthe stained glass,
its fleur-de-lis daunted by decades
dignifying mid-century
first-floor flat life.
 
Sprawled beneath,
on nearly threadbare davenport puce,
pigtails pinched neath buster brown bang,
squinty eyes, skewered lips, crumpled nose,
chubby fingers fisting chubbier pencil,
she huffed, puffed, scuffed magic
 
Of scrawled bars,
curls, dots, dashes—random flukes—
guiding archetypal fantasies,
kneading scraps of freckled worth
to timeless, nameless worlds
beyond setting suns.
 
In quietude,
no child—not one of six—resounded.
Alone at home was she, a mere four years?
Or so rapt was the chronicle of
whispered chatters, stylus to skin
that she heard but no one, save her muse?
 
Ribbons plaiting her wake
in flight, she swooped
breathless, waving scrawls midair,
bestowed upon aproned augur,
a gift—my first—of woken ardor.
“Mom,” I prayed the alchemy alive, “Is this a word?”

—Patti M. Walsh  


	


	





	

		
Ailurophiles
	


	
	

		



My friend Ron enjoys many aspects of our friendship. From time to time, we have our own book club.  Unlike many others, we don’t simply meet to discuss a book  we’d finished reading independently. As this picture reflects, we actually sit and read it together, discussing it as we go along.





The book we were reading here is Reflections on Judging by Richard A. Posner. Peculiarly well-qualified to pen such a book, Posner was, for 36 years (1981-2017), a highly regarded appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Before his judicial appointment, he was a popular professor at the University of Chicago Law School.  Many consider him the most influential judge of the late 20th and early 21st centuries not to have sat on the Supreme Court.





Having been an appellate lawyer for many years, I maintain an interest in all things appellate, and, in particular, what appellate judges have to say about appellate practice, in particular, and the law more generally. By osmosis over the years, Ron has gravitated toward my job interests, often serving as a both colleague and muse on days when I worked from home.





 This book was particularly appropriate for Ron and me to read for an additional reason—both Judge Posner and I have long been ailurophiles, i.e., cat lovers. Posner and his Maine Coon, Pixie, have a long-lasting relationship similar to Ron’s and mine. Posner has said on more than one occasion that Pixie is his writing muse. 





Hence, Ron and I, as two ailurophiles, thought it would be fun to see what a fellow ailurophile had to say. And it was fun, indeed. Posner discussed judicial philosophy (Posner and Pixie are legal realists while Ron and I are formalists) and methods of interpretation, as well as a slew of perceived problems with both judges and advocates. But we chose to focus on Posner’s discussion of legal writing.





If you’re like most people who aren’t in the law biz, you probably consider the term “good legal writing” an oxymoron. With good reason. So many lawyers—judges, too—see it as their mission to justify their high fees by producing legal documents that are impenetrable.  So much of it, regardless of the area of law or purpose of the document, is repetitive, monotonous, and verbose. The driving principle seems to be “why say in 10 words what I can say in 150? People won’t think I’m smart unless I fill the page with archaisms, Latinisms, sentences consisting of two subordinate clauses each, and as much hyperbole and passive voice as I can possibly squeeze in.”  Ron, in particular, is put off by passive-voice constructions—so much so that, when we finished our reading one evening, he told me, “Hey Bob, the chicken-based food I was given by you last night was strongly preferred by me over Tuesday night’s pork.” What a joker!





Ron especially liked Posner’s demonstration of the brevity-is-the-soul-of-wit philosophy. Posner took a 3350-word judicial opinion and rewrote it so it said the same thing, much more clearly, in 602 words.





We both agreed that this segment of the book is best summed up by the KISS principle—“keep it simple, stupid.”





	


	





	

		
Aloha Quarantine
	


	
	

		



All this talk of quarantine brings me back to sipping Kona coffee with my husband on a Pacific-facing lanai along Hawaii’s Kohala Coast. Lulled by pounding surf and sultry trade winds, Bob suggested we adopt a simple life: quit our jobs, abandon our belongings, and have the pet sitter ship our cats to us.





Such a move would not be unheard of in his family. Uncle Bill, whom we had visited days before in Honolulu, did just that (minus the cats) in the 1960s. A recent college graduate, he sat for a federal civil service exam in western Massachusetts, where ice pellets echoed off the windows of a vaulted auditorium. Those pings prompted him to select the newly admitted 50th state as a desired location. He moved, met and married Aunt Lydia, and never looked back. He did, however, visit the mainland often.





Among the many considerations Toni Polancy lays out in her book, So You Want to Live in Hawaii, is budgeting for off-island mobility. Island Fever is real, Uncle Bill would say. It’s a form of claustrophobia. Loneliness and isolation, however, are only a couple of the negative aspects of moving to, and living, in Hawaii.





Cost of living is another. Hawaii is expensive—very expensive. According to the Family Support Center at Joint Base Pearl Harbor, it’s at least 35% higher than on the mainland. Despite that, you will live longer—four years longer, statistically speaking. Baked into the state’s cultural luau is a healthy outdoor lifestyle, low incidence of obesity and tobacco use, and high respect for the elderly.





Conversely, those same elderly face expensive housing, high food and medical costs, limited public transportation, and scarce assisted-living options. Yet they enjoy substantial benefits. Pension and Social Security income are exempt from state income taxes, and senior homeowners enjoy ironically low property taxes. On the other hand, many properties are held in trust for Native Hawaiians, so rentals are a good option for retirees.





Many rentals, however,  don’t allow pets—if you can even get your pet into the island state. Strict quarantines keep Hawaii rabies-free. Our tabby, Nina, cringed at the mere thought of a quarantine. Her disdain for change includes seething and ignoring us when we return home from a vacation.





“You may want to move to Hawaii,” she glared when Polancy’s book arrived. Nina reminded us that of our three cats, she alone yowled her way through the airport terminal upon her arrival from Louisiana 14 years ago. Like us, she had lost her home in New Orleans to Katrina and then bounced between Houston and Baton Rouge. Having heard that a pet could be subject to a 30- to 120-day confinement, she glowered.





While the law does allow a five-day quarantine or even direct release after inspection, Bob and I then cringed when we read that between vaccinations, travel containers, and quarantine fees, the process can cost well over a thousand dollars—per cat.





Nonetheless, we looked at houses on the Big Island and Oahu. In the mountains overlooking Waikiki, I jumped out of the car to take a jaw-dropping, postcard-worthy picture of a quiet neighborhood. Golden ‘illima papa popped against the dazzling fetches of the vast Pacific, dotted with catamarans and surfers. Deep purple awikiwiki spilled like leis over neat fences, and puffy white hoawa bushes mounded themselves like cotton into manicured lawns.





While loulu palms beckoned, chords from the London Bach Choir drifted from someone’s lanai. “You can’t always get what you want,” the voices chanted as a karmic typhoon hit my forehead. I sang along, “But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.”





Thus we carefully and honestly scored Hawaii’s livability. In addition to the cost of living and isolation, Nina insisted that whatever move we make, it should involve minimum disruptions, a short flight, and no quarantines.





So we bid aloha to Hawaii. That complex greeting means far more than hello and good-bye. It encompasses affection, gratitude, and sadness. Aunt Lydia always says, aloha a hui hou, which means “so long, until we meet again.” That more accurately sums up our love of Hawaii. Our quest to find a place in the sun will lead elsewhere.





I think I’ll grab a cup of Kona, ponder those possibilities, and bid aloha to quarantines.







	

		

							

					

												

							
													

												

							
							
							
							
							
							
							
														
						

					

				

								

	

		


	





	

		
Snapshot Time
	


	
	

		



I’m sure you’ve noticed it. Today is easily confused with yesterday—or maybe it’s tomorrow. Every morning seems like Saturday—or is it Sunday? You’re hungry for dinner mid-afternoon, or not hungry at all until sometime after dark, when you want breakfast. Without the commute, book club, aerobics class, school activities, or any other mundane marker of daily life, all time has warped. It’s sensory deprivation, a Stephen King thriller, COVID Time.





Apropos of the warp and befitting a lifelong passion, I have been cataloging my life in photographs, the paper kind: cowgirl, prom date, world traveler, yoga hippie, swamp paddler, professional woman. The assemblage of real people doing real things and having real fun delineates a fascinating life. While you generally don’t realize until you are older that your life has been unique, I was blessed with the wisdom to capture its wonderful weirdness on film as I traipsed along.





Thus it was with profound respect that I hauled out my mother’s scrapbook and undertook the tedious process of transferring her memories from a portfolio of paper that disintegrated in my fingers to an archival-quality photo album. The tedious process transported me to a different time and space, much as COVID Time has done, granting me an insight into the woman I wish I knew.





Our tabby Nina seemed as fascinated with the pictures as I was. There are formal portraits of my paternal grandparents along with Dad, who was born in 1912, and his sisters. Mom and her twin brother were born in 1916, when the sartorial trend was nainsook gowns for boys and girls, with boys transitioning into frocks with box pleats and knickers. These photos are more than a hundred years old, yet they are in remarkably good shape.





Although the portraits were professionally shot, I’m sure that Gramp, my maternal grandfather, took the candid ones of my Nana and her babies with a Brownie camera. In fact, most of the pictures in the photo album were probably shot with Brownies. The original box camera sold for a dollar in 1900. According to the Brownie Camera Page, the device was the mass-marketing genius of film manufacturer George Eastman. He correctly predicted that an inexpensive camera in every home meant lots and lots of film would be sold and processed. He pretty much created the snapshot. Mom’s book is full of them.





Prior to being a harried and practical mother of six, she kicked loose, at least long enough to take a road trip with three girlfriends after graduating from nursing school. Lifelong friends, Noreen and Kay were also nurses; Rita, was a teacher. Sporting a broad grin, Rita drove what was obviously her pride and joy—a 1945-ish Chrysler. The pictures confirm what I remember of her. She bucked the shirtwaist dress style favored by Mom and the others in favor of Kathryn Hepburn–like trousers. She was always offbeat.





They drove from Connecticut to Washington, D.C, and then along Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park—routes I know well. Silly girls in hair curlers and sunglasses, they shot pictures of each other sleeping in the car, posing in front of landmarks, squinting into a mountain sun, and doing laundry in a forest cabin.





Giving equal treatment to my father’s career as a firefighter and Army Air Force sergeant in World War II, she compiled pictures of the trucks he drove—a prewar Seagrave Pumper and a postwar Seagrave Bickel Aerial as well as the airplanes he serviced while stationed in England. Writing on the back of a series of photos, he identified one plane as a BC-1A, which was nicknamed “The Duck.” He also modeled a leather fleece-lined jacket that he wore when it was cool. There’s also a hilarious photo of him sticking his head through a cut-out so that he appears to be dressed in full Scottish regalia.





With the same diligence, she compiled wedding snapshots and a honeymoon to Montreal and Quebec. She saved maps, receipts from posh hotels that cost $5 a night, even a napkin from what was probably the swankiest dinner of her life.





Then boom! The nurse and the fireman went on to raise six children. They lost more and more spontaneity with the birth of each baby, but Dad documented our childhoods with his Brownie. I wonder what happened to it. Mom probably threw it away as she did so many things. But I am so grateful she kept her collections of snapshots, and that somehow, I ended up with her photo album.





Nina agrees that reassembling it has been a good way to pass COVID Time.





	


	





	

		
COVID-19, Meet Godzilla
	


	
	

		



Cats, like dogs and other animals, pick up on anxiety and other stressors in their homes. So when I noticed Nina diligently studying the coronavirus online, I realized that this was an apt time to update our emergency preparedness, particularly our Godzilla bag. That’s what Bob calls the satchel we can grab and go if we need to get the hell out of Dodge. Okay, so I’m mixing movie metaphors, but you get the idea—pending doom that goes beyond toilet paper and water.





For a good overview of emergency preparation, I recommend www.ready.gov, the official website of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Its recommendations on preparing for, responding to, and mitigating natural and manmade disasters can be applied to anything from wildfires, blizzards, and floods to COVID-19, Chernobyl, and the Zombie Apocalypse. Think Godzilla!





I first became aware of emergency preparedness when we moved to New Orleans. The annual Hurricane Preparedness Week at the beginning of May caught my attention. Before the formal storm season began on June 1, we learned what to do if advised to hunker down or evacuate. During our 18 years there, we did both. Having a plan made them both easier.





In addition to annihilating buildings and roadways, Godzilla can destroy communication networks and electricity. We learned that the first sign of a pending hurricane is not the storm tracking lines in the Gulf, but the snaking lines at the gas pumps and ATMs. Bob still insists on keeping at least a half tank of gas in the car at all times, for convenience, maintenance, and unanticipated escapes.





For the same reasons, paper records are mandatory. Try proving you are who you say you are without digital backup. If you have pets, make sure each one has a separate carrier. If they sense panic, you don’t need them attacking each other. Our Godzilla bag does not include pet supplies or people food and medicines, but those items are easy to grab. Ready.gov recommends one gallon of water per person per day for a minimum of three days, at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food, and a battery-powered or hand-crank radio.





If you already have an emergency kit, this at-home time is a good occasion to update it. If you don’t, it’s a good time to start. To assemble your kit, store similar items in airtight plastic bags. Stash the assemblage into one or two easy-to-carry containers, like a Homer bucket or duffel bag. Because of personal and financial identification, your kit must be secured. While you don’t want to give anyone easy access to your entire life, you don’t want to be an undocumented refugee trying to withdraw money from your own bank account.





Our kit is in a fireproof, waterproof bag that is hidden in plain sight. Here’s what’s in it:





  • Cash
  • Bank account numbers
  • Copies of Social Security cards, birth and marriage certificates
  • Copies of our will, power of attorney, and advance medical directives
  • List of prescriptions
  • List of contacts
  • Pet photos and information
  • Whistle
  • Alcohol wipes
  • Small first-aid kit with pain reliever, bandages, and topical antibiotic
  • Tissues
  • Non-latex gloves
  • Water purification tablets (Ready.gov recommends bleach and medicine dropper to disinfect water)
  • Paper and pen/pencil
  • Matches in a waterproof container
  • Bandanas (in lieu of dust masks)
  • Toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs
  • Granola bars
  • Prepackaged eating utensils (the kind you get with take-out)
  • Small packets of Tabasco (with a tip of the hat to a Louisiana friend, who says you never know what you may have to eat.)










In the car we keep:





  • Blanket
  • Cell phone chargers
  • First aid kit
  • Flashlights
  • Needle-nosed pliers
  • Maps
  • Water





Whew.





Now that we are all sheltering in place, why not introduce COVID -19 to Godzilla. Never let a good crisis go to waste.





	


	





	

		
Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!
	


	
	

		



Mayday (from the French m’aider, “help me”) is a literal far cry from the festive and buoyant shout outs of a May Day celebration, especially when repeated thrice. “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! is a dire call for help, the verbal equivalent of the Morse Code SOS.





The book, Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!, which I caught Ron reading recently, is Charles Coleman’s true account of his improbable survival in a remote reach of the Pacific Ocean.  The experienced blue-water mariner set out on a solo sailing adventure from Pago Pago to Honolulu aboard the Haleakala, a 56-foot catamaran he had built as a seaworthy home.  Stocked with at least twice the supplies for the month-long trip, and equipped with hundreds of charts and redundant safety gear, Coleman found himself floating amid sharks without even a life raft.





I happened upon this book when a colleague cleared out his office and left an autographed copy in a “free reads” collection. Like a stray cat, it followed me home. This story was so compelling that I read it in one sitting just to find out what happened. Then I read it again to absorb the impact. I harrowingly envision Coleman’s wife Ellie pleading with the Coast Guard to persevere when the initial search reported no survivors.





Although I’ve never been lost at sea, it reminded me of a couple of my own rescue stories. When I was about 10, my sister Eileen and I got caught in an undertow at Fairfield Beach. “Look,” we giggled to each other. Standing in waist-high water, we found it hilarious that although our feet were anchored in the sand, successive waves sucked us deeper and deeper into Long Island Sound. It was funny until we were literally in over our heads. We tried to swim to shore but couldn’t go anywhere. Eileen panicked—as she was wont to do. So did our mother, who watched in horror as her children drifted out to sea. The folks we were staying with dispatched a rowboat to fetch us, but the Coast Guard got there first. They tossed us a lifeline and tugged us to shore.





Then there was the rescue at Sleeping Giant State Park 20 years later. A trek in the woods with my friend Judi devolved into a six-hour ordeal. Experienced hikers, we planned to walk in for an hour then out on the legendary Blue Trail before meeting my boyfriend for dinner. As the sun descended behind the giant’s chin, heavy fall foliage hid the trail markers. We wandered for hours on rocky outcroppings searching for blue blazes. At one point, Judi attempted to bolster our sagging spirits by quipping, “If I had to be lost with anyone, I’m glad it’s you.” “Shut up,” I responded. I didn’t want to be lost, and I sure as hell didn’t want to be in charge. Instead, I  took a deep breath and hollered for help. It was my own version of Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! In the days before digital communications, we took turns shouting into the unknown until darkness set in and our matches ran out. Our SOS distress calls were finally answered—by a Rottweiler. Max’s persistent barks were warmer than the meager fire we built. After an hour or so, his owner finally heard our side of the call-and-response. His call to the Hamden Fire and Rescue Team jibed with my boyfriend’s missing-person report. Max was like Ellie begging the rescuers to continue.





There were other adventures—climbing steep ascents and hugging the rock face of Chittenden Mountain above the tree line of Arapahoe Mountain, or traversing the abysses of Rollins Pass in the Colorado Rockies—that did not qualify as rescues. But as a result of them, I could relate to his one-word reaction to being plucked from the sea: Joy.





Coleman’s book is dedicated to Sadie, a calico cat, his sailing companion. When Ron read Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!, he wondered what happened to her. So did I. Coleman says upfront that you need to read the book to find out. Trying to explain it in a few words would do her injustice.



	


	





	

		
Retire Like a Cat
	


	
	

		



I recently spotted Nina contemplating How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free by Ernie J. Zelinski. The author posits that happiness in retirement is dependent on your willingness to be happy. Our cats posit that happiness is dependent on a place in the sun, adequate food and water, and doing what you want.





What did my husband and I want? With neither children nor aging parents in the equation, we began to pursue that happiness anywhere in the world. We started an informal list of possibilities: Hawaii; Southern California; Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona; Las Vegas and Boulder City, Nevada; Houston, San Antonio, and Austin, Texas; New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and all of Southern Florida. That’s a lot of territory to cover. One priority emerged—a place in the sun. Yet other factors were equally important.





In an attempt to organize such a disparate geography, we gradually created a 25-column Excel spreadsheet that covers every conceivable variable. Excel is easy to set up, accommodates expanded categories, and automatically tallies your scores. We  ranked each from 3 (high) to 1 (low). Obviously, priorities are personal. For example, Hurricane Katrina washed us out of New Orleans and we don’t play golf, so flood zones are more important than tee times.





Other elements, like social connectedness have universal appeal. In its 2016 Social Engagement and Brain Health Survey, AARP found that older adults with larger social networks report better brain health than those with smaller social networks. The National Council on Aging found that social isolation and mental impairment also contribute to crime and safety statistics.





Armed with this knowledge, we counted the number of people we knew within a 2-hour drive (100-mile radius) of each retirement option, and then assigned values accordingly. Anywhere we knew 10 or more people earned a score of 3; 5 to 9 = 2; 1 to 4 = 1. No one? Well, zero is zero.





Other categories are much more subjective. For example, Bob is a lawyer who may want to teach part-time, so he had a column for proximity to law schools. I’m a compulsive walker, which translates to a column in which sidewalks ranked high. Since this is a dynamic process, we often found it necessary to make adjustments, like when friends moved or a major construction project altered a neighborhood’s charm. We also added two final columns—emotional attraction for each of us, with no explanations necessary.





When it’s time to consider retirement opportunities, I recommend creating your own spreadsheet with columns that reflect your priorities. We considered:





  • Average temperature and rainfall
  • State and local taxes
  • HOA fees
  • Community amenities
  • Environment
  • Proximity to healthcare
  • Proximity to veterinarians
  • Proximity to friends and families
  • Proximity to the nearest airport
  • Political climate





In the sample below, the condensed variables represent a wider spectrum. For example, “Cost of Living” may include housing, taxes, and average retail prices. “Setting” may include climate, pollution, scenery, noise, and traffic. “Leisure” may include 55+ active adult communities or museums and theater.





CityCost of LivingSettingLeisureHealth CareEmotionTOTAL
A221229
B3132211
C2332313
D2232312
E1233211
3 = high, 0 = low





NeighborhoodHOA WalkabilityPeople Flood ZoneEmotionTOTAL
A2212210
B2203310
C2321311
D3233213
3 = high, 0 = low





In the first example, City C had the highest score. When scrutinized further, Neighborhood D in City C ranked highest.





I suggest reading How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free. I agree with the author that some people fear retirement because they focus on what they are giving up rather than what they have to gain. This brings me back to our cats. Nina and Ron have an unpretentious approach to life—it’s all about having something to eat, someone to love, and something to do, especially if that something is snuggling up with a good book. Since the feline lifestyle is not easily achievable for most humans, alas, spreadsheets like the one above help you focus on what you have to gain. 





Taking a long, objective approach to retirement allows you the flexibility to start doing what you want. Think like a cat.



	


	





	

		
Approaching a Chronic Health Problem: Easy as 1, 2, 3
	


	
	

		



When your cat is diagnosed with a chronic health problem, you are often faced with the daunting process of balancing state-of-the art medical options with quality-of-life preferences. My journey into the world of specialized veterinary care began with a single step. A semi-annual well-kitty visit revealed that Ron, a 14-year-old black cat, had a cyst on his right kidney.





Ron, a neutered short-haired domestic,  adopted us shortly after he was born into a feral colony. He and his litter-mates were days old when we realized they were disappearing: raccoons, hawks, and cars are the usual harbingers of death for street cats. With help from a local trap, neuter, and release program, we saved a few dozen felines who went on to live healthy lives in our neighborhood.





Ron, however, never ventured far beyond our front doorstep. When the weather turned unexpectedly cold, he slipped in and made himself at home. He was the first of three ferals who moved in with us.





Our only real concern prior to a semi-annual exam was that Ron was pooping outside the litter box. We had tried the usual solutions—another box, keeping the boxes scrupulously clean, treating stains with a deterrent—without positive results. Otherwise, his behavior was playful and affectionate. His appetite was good; we had consciously reduced his weight from a scale-tipping 18 pounds to 14.5 pounds.; and his special diet to prevent a recurrence of bladder stones was working. Regular pathology of blood and urine was unremarkable.





During the visit, however, our vet discovered a cyst on Ron’s right kidney while attempting to draw a urine sample. She referred us to Southpaws, a VCA specialty hospital where over the course of a few weeks, we consulted with an emergency doctor, internist, cardiologist, radiologist, and surgeon. The diagnosis: subcapsular perinephric pseudocyst.





Step One: Understand the Problem





Technically, Ron has a subcapsular perinephric pseudocyst, a fluid-filled sac sandwiched between the kidney’s lining and the organ itself.  Although there is very little information about this condition available online and in print, I learned first that its specific cause is unknown, although it is related to kidney disease.





According to an internist at Southpaws, more than 30 percent of cats will develop kidney disease at some point in their lives. By the time they reach 15, more than half have some form of kidney disease.





Ron had none of the classic symptoms of kidney disease, like abdominal discomfort and vomiting. Routine blood and urine analyses had been unremarkable, except for one marker of early kidney disease. Sonograms showed that his kidney functions within low-normal ranges.





Before we could determine the best treatment option, the cyst needed to be drained and analyzed. Guided by state-of-the-art ultrasound technology that was developed for humans, the radiologist drained 180 milliliters of fluid (about three-quarters of a cup). A pathological analysis revealed no cancer, infection, or other abnormality. Based on Ron’s relatively healthy profile, the internist recommended surgery, but not without checking out another complication: a heart murmur.  





An echocardiogram revealed that one part of the heart muscle had thickened, making it difficult for the organ to completely relax and fill with a sufficient amount of blood. The cardiologist concluded, however, that Ron would probably tolerate general anesthesia, although cats with structural cardiac disease have some risk for developing heart failure after surgery. She also determined that although Ron had slightly elevated blood pressure, he didn’t need medication.





We discussed all these finding with the internist and with Ron’s primary veterinarian. She was always available to discuss this rare condition with us. We wanted to do what is best for him—for his immediate health, his overall quality of life, and frankly, our budget. We had three treatment options for this relatively healthy cat: do nothing, surgical remove the cyst, or routinely aspirate it. Doing nothing was not option, so we met with a surgeon.





Step Two: Collect Data Points





The surgeon explained that he would use a cut-and-cauterize procedure to remove the cyst, but this would not eliminate the accumulation of fluid. To prevent fluid from simply pouring into the abdomen, he would resection the cyst wall to the abdominal wall with omentum, a fold of tissue membrane. Ron’s body would then assimilate and process the fluid.





The prognosis for this procedure is good if there is no underlying renal disease, and guarded if chronic kidney disease is present. Since Ron seems to have the beginnings of kidney disease, this was not an easy call. Furthermore, while the procedure sounded simple and would take less than an hour, the surgeon cautioned that it would be major abdominal surgery, requiring a long and closely monitored recovery. We would have to limit Ron’s activities and his playful interactions with Nina, our other cat. As with any surgery, there was risk of infection, complications from anesthesia, and emotional distress—to Ron, Nina, and us. Moreover, we understood that surgery was not a cure. It would only correct and manage the abnormality.





The surgeon then suggested  we get at least another set of data points before we made our decision. In statistics, a data point is a single measurement. It is irrelevant unless and until it is compared to other points to determine a pattern. The fact that Ron had 180 milliliters  of fluid was a single data point that meant nothing in and of itself. How long did it take for the fluid to collect? Was all of it aspirated? How long would it take to fill again?





Abdominocentesis, the ultrasound-guided aspiration of a cyst in the abdomen, has its own risks. “The shortest way to an abscess is through a cyst,” the surgeon had advised, meaning that each puncture carries with it the risk of infection. Also, because of continual fluid production, it provides only temporary relief.





We had the cyst drained again to begin to plot the pattern. The radiologist invited me to watch. Ron lay comfortably and unsedated in a V-shaped cushion as she drained more than 100 millimeters from a cyst the size of a flattened tangerine. She showed me his relatively healthy right kidney as well as the smaller left one, where a much smaller pseudocyst may also be forming.





We decided that draining the cyst every six to eight weeks would be our course of action. We could keep the cost down by not accompanying Ron to the procedure and not having the fluid analyzed. I had seen how relaxed he was and since we had already had the fluid analyzed, this was a welcome budgetary consideration.





After a third abdominocentesis, however, our radiologist had another concern: Ron had lost a full pound over a six-week period, even though he had a good appetite. She also noted a possible abnormality on his intestines, and suspected low-grade, small cell lymphoma.  This type of cancer is not aggressive and is typically found in  older  cats,  with  males  being  slightly  more predisposed than females. A definitive diagnosis would necessitate a biopsy, and based on its location, this would require abdominal surgery. We were back to that.





She recommended prednisolone. Our primary vet agreed. Beyond being palliative, the steroid regime would reduce inflammation and stimulate his appetite.  Within days he began to eat like teenaged boy; in two months he gained back a pound.





Step Three: Chill Out





In the midst of the initial month-long series of exams, Ron became constipated, setting up another series of alarming calls and vet visits. In addition to having been poked and prodded by strangers, he now suffered the indignity of an enema. Days passed and he was still not normal. 





We called Ron’s primary vet in a panic. Unlike the high-tech specialists at Southpaws, she is more of a country doctor with long gray hair, bright eyes, and expressive hands. She listened to us and then asked for a minute to review Ron’s reports. By now, they were numerous.





“Here’s what’s going on,” she finally said, “Ron’s whacked out. “





She was right. Although we had done a lot to socialize him Ron was from birth a feral. He never had abided vet visits—at best, he tolerates them.





“Give him a quarter teaspoon of Miralax. Get him to drink lots of fluids. Don’t bring him in. Try to establish a normal routine.”





It worked.





We were reminded that as a cat, Ron’s primary purpose is to bring us joy. He eats well, loves to play, cuddle, and even fight  with Nina. He chases laser-point flies and prism rainbows like a kitten.





When we brought Ron home from his first abdominocentesis, he just stared at me. Perhaps he was saying, I don’t know what you just did, but I feel better. Or maybe, I don’t know what you just did, but don’t ever do it again. Or maybe he was telling me, as T.S. Elliot observed,





His mind in engaged in a rapt concentration
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
his ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.





He was just being Ron.