Yes, I know they're cute.....

We have a family of rabbits in my back yard. I've seen at least one parent, maybe two that look pretty much identical, and three or four little ones. They are incredibly cute, and they are eating my flowers. I now truly know the meaning of the word ambivalent.

If I see the little babies out there, I stop everything and watch them. They are eating the dandelion leaves, plantain leaves and clover in the grass, with a little creeping charlie weed thrown in for dessert, so they can stay as long as they want. At the rate they reproduce, I figure they can beat out your average herd of goats in lawn care activities.

Then we get to the parents. I saw one of them heading for the flowers the other day, so I walked out on my back deck and decided to see how close I could get before he (or she) ran off. I slowly and quietly walked to within six feet of the animal, while it carefully watched my approach. Evidently I didn't seem very threatening, as it looked me right in the eye and turned and ate a petunia blossom, one of my favorite purple ones!

At that point I yelled something intelligent like, "Hey, you ate my flower!" and it did run off, but I am certain it was still chewing on its way across the yard. And smiling!

I should have known from experience that rabbits are masters at winning your heart, then eating everything they can get close to in the greenery department. There was a time when our family had rabbits as pets. Yes, we willingly let them into our lives!

We got two rabbits (our first mistake) from the local nature center, which assured me they were both female. One was a beautiful jet black with a white blaze on its ruff, and the other a salt-and-pepper brown with a black head. They were really beautiful animals, and I eagerly built them a nice, big outdoor hutch and put them both in.

What I didn't know, and what the nature center couldn't tell either, was that rabbits figure out what their genders are long before people can accurately discern them. We found this out a few weeks after they arrived when my daughter went out to feed them and discovered eight babies in the hutch. They were absolutely adorable with little pink ears no more than an inch long. Six were coal black like their mom (yes, she was really a girl), and the other two were silver and blonde. We kept those two, and I built two more hutches.

I also at this point built a plywood and chicken wire barrier across the middle of the original hutch, a non-verbal "no touching" order for the mom and dad. Dad ate his way through it, chicken wire and all, and they produced two more babies: one black and one brown. Those two we gave away, and I built hutch number four. Now the rule was "You can look at each other in your various hutches, but nobody is touching anybody!"

We really did have a wonderful time with them, and they lived for a good, long time. I would put up a circle of chicken wire in the yard, and plunk in a kid and a rabbit and let them play for an hour or so. Both kids and all four rabbits seemed happy with this arrangement.

I also discovered that the best garden fertilizer in the world is fresh hay riddled with rabbit poop. I piled in the hay under and in each hutch to keep them warm during the winter, and raked it into the vegetable gardens each spring. My vegetables were huge and very tasty.

The mom lived the longest, and finally went to sleep and didn't awaken at the ripe old bunny-age of eleven years. The moral is I still have a soft spot for rabbits.

So, when the wild ones enter my yard and make at bee-line for the petunias, I head outdoors and put out some carrot-tops or fresh lettuce for them, hoping to stave off the decimation of plants in the garden. I also let my weeds grow without concern, as I know that my friends in the bunny kingdom will not let them get too large. We have reached a gentleman's agreement. They will be fed, and I will keep most of my flowers.

I believe I get the best of this arrangement, as I get to watch the fun.

Next joke on me

Some of the very best stories I have to tell are in the "most embarrassing moments" category, although I have to admit I found them pretty darned funny even when they happened. For instance:

Those of you who don't know me all that well may not be aware that I spent five years of my life in the entertainment industry. Back in the sixties, when the "laugh-In" show was king, and go-go clubs were popping up everywhere, and it was still illegal to bare it all (I am eternally grateful for that), I was a showgirl and sometime comedienne at a very fancy night club in Chicago. I learned a lot of my current people skills working in that place, and I learned a heck of a lot about myself.

The club I worked in most of that time was owned by two very proper Japanese gentlemen, who were always careful to maintain an appropriate and professional atmosphere. All of us in the show were cautious to do our very best at keeping the audience happy, while keeping ourselves safe. For those of you who are dying to know, there were no poles, and dancing on the bar or tables was strictly prohibited.

We had a substantial stage on which to do our thing, and a talented band to back us up. The live music gave us a lot of energy, even at the end of a night (usually about 4 a.m.). When we had a good audience, and the band was having fun, were were nothing short of spectacular.

One of the girls in the show was a fabulous, burlesque-style stripper named Vicki. A statuesque blonde with a dazzling smile, she could do more with a bunch of veils than anyone I've seen before or since. On the night in question, it was my job to follow Vicki, and throw a little comedy into what was a decent, but standard dance routine. She had been absolutely spectacular in her turn, and I was pumped and ready to go.

Ready to go in this club meant you had to get from the dressing room to the stage, which was no small feat. You had to go through a bunch of tables on a raised platform, down a few stairs, across the front of the full length of the bar, through a few more tables, up a couple of steps, and then start your routine. I was so ready to knock 'em dead that I literally ran the full distance.

It was when I made that last turn that things started to go wrong. Ignoring the steps, I leaped for the stage and caught the toe of my shoe on the very edge of the last step. With the full momentum of my lengthy gallop behind me, I went flat on my face and slid the full length of the stage on my belly.

Now here's where it gets interesting. I realized, very quickly, that I had a choice to make. I could lie there and start bawling, which would certainly be understood by those present as a reasonable alternative. I could stand up , brush myself off, and spend the next few minutes picking splinters out of my stomach. Neither of those options seemed particularly acceptable in the rules of showmanship.

What I did do, quickly but carefully, was lift up my head, smile at the very confused and anxious young man sitting next to the corner of the stage, and say, "I always like to start off with a bang!"

I honestly forget the rest of the show, but with that smile and comment I knew I had the audience on my side, and they were terrific from there on. It took my poor belly a bit longer to recover!

I think there is a life lesson in there somewhere. I have always been a glass-half-full, make-lemonade sort of person, and I would much rather laugh at something than sit and feel sorry for myself. I don't have any great insight into how I got that way; it just seems to have shown up on the list of my personality characteristics.

That's not, however, the only point. From that moment on I have thought carefully about what I present to the world around me, whether it be class content in a Sociology lecture, a therapy session for an adult addiction unit, or a corporate presentation. In any situation where life demands a performance, I am determined to start off with a bang.

So far it's working!

This Old House

I am finding myself in the position of needing to seriously consider giving up my wonderful old house. We have lived in it for 35 years come November, and I am ready to admit that it is just too much to maintain, to care for on a day-to-day basis. It is three stories, with five bedrooms and over 3,000 square feet.

The history of our house is kind of fascinating, as it was built by the contractors that built close to a hundred stone houses, of many different sizes, in the town we call home. It was originally a company town, owned by a great big outfit that made, of all things, asbestos. Yep, we are a Superfund Site.

The houses are of different sizes and shapes according to the status of the employee that lived therein. There are a few very ornate, huge places on one street that were obviously the executive homes, then came the management or supervisors' homes, three floors high and 30 feet square, dotting streets all over town. Finally there are sections of large, somewhat ornate row homes, for the factory workers. All of them are way beyond any middle class homes being built today.

Ours is one of the middle-management houses, though actually owned and maintained as an income property by the builder instead of the company. For that reason, our house was rented from 1900, when it was built, to 1975 when we bought it. We are honestly the first owners on the deed.

We purchased the place as a handyman's special, and I truly think it still qualifies! In the first few years we were here, we put on a new roof, redid all of the plumbing (probably lead pipes wrapped in asbestos!), bought a new furnace, put in a sump pump, and started the rewiring of everything. Walls were falling down, ceilings had gaping holes in them, and there was 6" of water in the basement every time it rained.

My kitchen, in need of a current remodel, was originally almost non-existent. It consisted of four bare walls, each painted a different shade of yellow, one built-in storage cabinet, and a metal base with a one-piece ceramic sink and drainboard on it. When we were in fix-up mode my mother decided she would clean the kitchen floor, and she gave up after carrying out and dumping 42 buckets of almost black water. I built our first "real" kitchen, myself, out of Sears do-it-yourself cabinets, which I learned how to hang. I also cut the counter tops and laid the floor. Geez, I wish I had that kind of energy now!

We rebuilt many of the walls and went through buckets of spackle. Paint soaked right in to the old plaster, so many coats were needed. In my kids' rooms, I put up very strong vinyl-coated wallpaper, which is still there. I know I will have to remove it soon, and I also know that most of the walls will come down with it. Home Depot knows us on a first-name basis.

The exterior is all stone, beautiful old Pennsylvania fieldstone, quarried right near town, and lovingly mortared and stacked by a stalwart group of Italian stone masons, imported by the original asbestos company. It has stood for 110 years, and is not going anywhere.

The landscaping has been lovingly accomplished, with trees coming and going, and a carefully built collection of perennials forming a colorful blanket all summer long. My favorite tree is a forty-foot oak in the back corner of the yard, planted gently as an acorn by my five-year-old son. I moved it once, and spent a few years dutifully picking off some bugs that had invaded the leaves. My baby boy is now 32, and it will hurt to leave that tree behind.

Where the tree now sits used to be a ten-foot wide, two-foot-deep pit of sand, ringed by old tires, where the neighborhood kids all gathered and played. I dug it out and filled in the sand myself, all two tons of it! It was a lot of work, but for years I knew where all of the kids in the neighborhood were - in my back yard!

We made a major change to the interior about eight years ago, when we built a twenty-foot square family room onto the rear of the house. The back wall is full of windows, and the ceiling peaks at 11 feet. Happily I had studied architectural drafting in art school, so I was able to develop the plans myself. That room had been in my head for about ten years before then, so I had little trouble with the design. I now spend the major portion of my day doing something-or-other in that room.

There are, as I mentioned, five bedrooms in the house, which are now serving as repositories for the 35 years' worth of stuff we have accumulated. We are in need of a visit by the "Clean House" people. It's not as bad as the homes they show, but it wouldn't take long to get there. I am a collector of many lovely, meaningful things, and my husband collects junk. Of course, he would see the situation turned around.

That's the scariest part of looking at a smaller, cheaper home. What the heck will we do with the stuff? I am in the very slow process of sorting things out, and have managed to throw out more than I thought I could, but we have a long way to go. I was the executor of my parents' estate, and the one who cleaned out their house. I swear I will not leave anything like that for my kids to deal with!

Plans are to stay where we are now for another five years or so. I figure that's about how long it will take me to clean up and sort out our stuff. I sincerely hope that timeline doesn't get shortened, but my husband is in the construction industry, and there is not much going on in that industry right now.

I am mentally getting prepared for this whole process, and have even figured out an area where we could comfortably move, and a much newer house style that I would enjoy. That being said, I think it will take me at least five years to get ready in my heart to pack up and start elsewhere. The most important things for me to take? That's a no-brainer: the memories.

In the Realm of "Be Careful What You Ask For"

I have a lovely friend who knits. She is actually the mother of one of my closest friends, and I guess by osmosis or some other process she has become my friend as well. She is in her mid-eighties, and, as I said, loves to knit. She makes wonderful pure cotton knitted washcloths and gives them out for use by her best buddies. I have been lucky enough to receive a number of them, and they are incredibly soft. Nobody else in my family can use them.

But I digress. A few of years ago I took her to a local book store for her birthday. It is something I like to do with friends, and something they seem to like as well. In this case, she picked out, for her present, a terrific book of knitting patterns, of everything from fancy sweaters and baby clothes to charming knitted animals.

As she refused to get the book as my gift unless I picked out something in it that she could make for me, I leafed through the stuffed animals and came across a very cute little duck. It was bright yellow with an orange bill and dangling orange feet, and I thought it would make a good addition to my collection of stuffed pals. The one thing I did not do was look at the pattern and see what size it actually was.

The whole time she was making it I kept hearing from her daughter that she was regularly cursing out the pattern she was working from, and how very difficult it had turned out to be. I couldn't imagine how a little (I figured maybe eight or ten inches tall) innocent duck could give her so much trouble. Then she finished it, in time for my birthday.

We met with her daughter and son-in-law, again in our favorite bookstore, and I was startled to see the size gift bag she carried. Then I dug into the bag and pulled out "Duckie," named after my favorite NCIS doctor (I am addicted to that series), or maybe because he was a duck. I had to laugh. Duckie was easily two feet tall, and a bright enough yellow to make up for the cloudy day outside. In addition to the brilliant lemon-hued body, his bill, legs and feet were the brightest orange yarn I had ever seen. All of that was topped off by two big black eyes, and somehow he seemed to be smiling. No, grinning!

I took Duckie home and gave him a place of honor atop a sofa in my family room. In spite of the amusement and occasional horror on the part of some visitors, he remains there, four years later. He has become a part of the family.

Oh, and to top things off, for Christmas that year my friend asked me what she could make for me, and I told her Duckie was cold sitting right in front of a bank of windows, so he needed a sweater. She dictated the measurements to take, and I gave her the numbers. By a few days after Christmas, Duckie was wearing a brilliant blue, green, and matching yellow ombre sweater, a perfect fit.

I am so very lucky to have the friends that I do, stuffed or otherwise! I don't know how many fellow adults would understand that I truly did want a silly yellow duck as a part of my home's decor, and that it was equally important that the duck be warm and comfortable in a custom-designed sweater. My best friends are those who easily come along on my little adventures, without ever asking why.

No, dementia has not set in, and I am not certifiable. I simply value the dedication to silliness in those closest to me. It is keeping us all smiling right along with Duckie.

P.S. - His best friend is a tiny bear dressed in a pink bunny suit. They are inseparable.

There's Something About Water

I just returned to my lovely old (110 years old!) stone house in suburban Philadelphia, and am longing to get back in my car and spend another 2 hours driving right back to where we just spent a week vacationing. There is a quiet, all-residential island off of Atlantic City , NJ, and I've been lucky enough to find a delightful 3-bedroom ranch house for rent right on the bay side of this island. No, it's not an ocean view, but somehow the connection to some other land form, even if it's a couple of miles away, makes the island even more desirable. It's as though we could silently thumb our collective noses at the rest of the state, letting them know we want nothing to do with their hustle and bustle and noise.

A week is never long enough for me. I wish we could take long, drawn-out vacations, but I haven't hit the lottery yet, and must settle for what we can afford. It's obvious that other people think houses next to the water are something special, as the rental rates are steep, and the waiting lines long.

Happily, the only company we had all week was a flock of sea gulls, silently perching on some old wooden posts connected to the sagging dock next door. There was also an occasional egret and some other feathered friends I couldn't identify, but they all seemed perfectly comfortable sharing their favorite spot.

The tide came in and went out, changing the landscape in sometimes startling ways. The miles of marsh land covering much of the way across the bay would virtually disappear every dusk, with only tiny patches of greenery poking out of the still waters. By morning they would be back, almost coating the full distance between our lovely house and the rest of New Jersey. I wished I had the patience to watch the whole process, but I could only manage a glance every once in a while.

Other inhabitants include a large number of turtles, who occasionally decide to march from one side of the island to the other, creating no end of traffic problems for the humans. One waddled out in front of me this week, and I stopped my car, got out, picked it up, and carefully plunked it in the grass on the far side of the street so its journey could continue. I didn't realize I was being watched, but applause broke out as I finished my task, from a smiling elder gent who had been weeding his gardens. It was nice to be appreciated, both by the turtles and the locals!

I do love this island, but it is not my only vacation spot each year. The other favorite is a lake in upstate New York, in the Adirondack Mountains. We rent a wonderful house there, on the water, for a week later in the summer. The lake water has a completely different character to it, and is inhabited by ducks, loons, an occasional cormorant, and a bevy of misplaced seagulls. They arrived out of nowhere about twenty years ago, and never left. I like to wonder where they hide in February, when the ice on the lake is 8 or 9 inches thick!

There are also plenty of fish in the lake, where my husband's efforts from our dock on the island have led to little more than a few crabs grabbing his lure, only to let go as they leave the water. In the lake, you can stick a safety pin on the end of a string, bait it with a piece of corn or a Cheerio, and you will catch yourself a sunfish. I know, I have done it, at about age 6.

You honestly couldn't get two more diverse vacation spots, but the feature tying them together is the water. It's slow, deliberate rhythms, whether they be tidal or created by a passing wind, are soothing to the greatest depths of one's soul. A quiet cup of tea in the early morning shared with the rising sun and the barely audible slipping of the water in and out of the shore line can start the most difficult of days on a gentle, determined note. The closing of each day is made calmer and sweeter by that same sound and an always spectacular sunset, perfectly reflected in the water.

I have lived in many parts of the country, and have taken trips to many others, but there will always be a preference in my heart for a place where there is water. It could be stream or a pond, a lake or a bay or an ocean, but for the time I can spend on its shores, somehow, it will become mine.