Truly Madly Deeply - Lincoln, MA

Sadly, my readers, I must confess that I am an addict. I am an addict of breathing in green leaves, sometimes dried, sometimes fresh. And yes, the white stuff too--it makes me giggle crazily as I sink into the maddening piles of it. And the worst of it is that while I love to share my addiction some days, mostly I prefer to feed it alone. 

My addiction is not, of course, to drugs, but to a place once called Preston Woods, now called Beaver Pond conservation area, or by me: "the woods."  A place conserved and managed by the Lincoln Land Conservation Trust and cared for by members of the community (both Weston and Lincoln townsfolk mostly). A place so magical in every season, it is truly addictive.

Trail markings

 Yesterday afternoon I was crabby. In frustration, BH (Brazilian husband) asked "what is going on?" And before I even answered, he figured it out-- "aha, you did not get into the woods today." And he was right--I was missing my woods walk. It is a walk I take, in some variation, every single weekday after my kids go to school. On weekends, I can't get out and both Coal, my 2 year old dog, and I are somewhat crabby about it. I do love my kids truly madly deeply but I also need the woods. It is hard to explain the feeling of absolute joy I get from these trails, leaf-covered, quiet, calming. It is a drug.

John Muir understands me, or perhaps it is I who understand him when he says: "I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out I found, was really going in." The woods are a place for introspection, for wonder, for true quiet. Going in.

Foggy? Rainy? No problem!

Today is pouring rain but it stopped me and Coal not one bit. On went the waterproof pants and jacket, the duck boots and into the woods for my favorite 3-mile hike. On days when I have other morning appointments, I frequently take a shorter and hillier 2-mile hike--each trail is delightful and each day brings us something new. Today, for instance, a brown toad rushed so fast across the wide trail even Coal was taken aback and slow to react. And new tiny white flowered plants are lining the trail where they had not been a week ago.

I have lived in three places that have what I'll call marginal seasons...San Francisco, Miami and Brazil. SF seems to have foggy season and golden season when the dryness browns the hills. Miami has pleasant season and freaking hot season. Brazil has more variety but no snow, to the great relief of many of my warm-weather fan friends. New England has 365 seasons, sometimes all in one day.

Every day there is something new to look at in these woods. Fall is my favorite of course as the trees compete to out-beauty each other.  The smell of fall is indescribable-- a mix of memories, trodden leaves, crisp air and pumpkins. Seriously. The woods put on an incredible huge last party and this is the season when I most run into people on my walks. Who can resist autumn?

Winter was alternately gorgeous, forbidding or comical. Making the first footsteps on a fresh snow = priceless. The crunch, the absolute silence except for the calls of the chickadees or the haunting warning cry of the red-tailed hawk. The lakes frozen tight, the bareness of the trees, all somewhat lonely and scary... until I fell off the trail into a 2 foot drift and could not right myself--my laughter echoing in the trees.

Lady's slipper - beautiful, short-lived, rare

Now spring with its frenzy of growth, leaves popping, new tiny flowers sprouting and dying back on a weekly basis. Lily of the valley, lady's slipper, ferns, and my old friend poison ivy. All reaching and dancing in the dappled springtime sun. One morning I was greeted by a cacophany of spring peepers from a vernal pool--so loud my dog Coal stopped, head cocked, to assess the level of danger. The people are back and I often have to share my woods--with Steve and his grey Weimaraner, or a foreign gentleman with a small terrier that romps and plays with Coal, or horse-back riders and others. But rarely do I run into more than about 3 people on the whole loop. 

The also-rare Haifa, my senior dog

Summer is but a week away and I have yet to experience that season in the woods--we arrived at the end of summer last year. I'm looking forward to it.

Yesterday at a Lincoln Land Trust event on caterpillars, I picked up the Trust's 2014 annual report which contains photos and an article about the Preston family and their land grant. One of my favorite signs in the woods is dedicated to Jean Wood Preston who is honored for sharing her "perennial joy in nature." Her daughter Katherine is quoted saying "My soul was set on its journey by Lincoln--its fields and woods and streams and ponds -- and the people it nurtured."  (you can read the full article on page four here).

I would like to think my soul is also set a journey here--it starts with three miles and ends truly madly deeply in my love of this place. Thank you, Lincoln Land Conservation Trust, the Prestons, and all those who preserve nature. It is the best addiction.

These two photos are from the same spot on Stony Brook just below Beaver Pond. One in January 2015, the other in May. Perennial joy, indeed.

There is No Charge for Awesomeness - Wellesley College, MA

The incredibly cool Science Center, the location of our Saturday night party

I have never been so hungover. Ever. Unfortunately there is no cure (at least for the next five years) since it was neither alcohol nor drug induced. It was Wellesley Class of 1990 induced. 25th Reunion induced. Gorgeous campus and fantastic women of all ages induced. I think you've got it. 

Or not. I will say that if you are not a Wellesley alum, you may find yourself confused by the following post. I have a feeling that no other school anywhere does reunion like we do. I do not have enough time or database space to completely explain about its awesomeness but I will try to convey at least part of the joy.

Reunion started at 1 pm on Friday and went through lunch on Sunday. It's not long enough, yet if it went any longer, we would collapse into a gigantic pile of purple goo. Why purple? Because we are the purple class (class colors are red, yellow, green and purple). I note that over the years we have gotten a lot more purple--while I own little purple in my wardrobe (augmented more recently by the very purple Northwestern University gear which my MBA provided). I had to run out for some purple eyeshadow at least. 

A friend demonstrates how to wear purple nail polish while clutching a purple drink (it is not grape juice, hence the anonymity ;) )

My roomie and I stopped into Severance (hilariously misquoted as "Severus" by one of my sons, who was pretty sure I had graduated from Hogwarts when he saw the castle-like appearance of the Tower Court complex). Purple abounded. Purple chocolate kisses, sugar pops, banners, ribbons, people. A front desk wo-manned by fabulous current students of Wellesley who blinked not an eye as we smooshed our friends in giant bear hugs, met new friends, and generally wreaked havoc. We were handed our purple capes which would be our class insignia for the Alumnae Parade on Sunday. A more appropriate insignia was never created...sheros. She-heroes. Caped crusaders.

Disclaimer: this image has been adapted by unnamed sister alums just for fun, and not for sale.

Yes, I did meet new friends in our class. It turns out that a 650-person graduating class is quite large. I was Econ/Poli Sci, and if you were botany or say, art history, you and I never crossed paths. Yes, I did get through my science requirement by Baby Chem (I learned to diagram Diet Coke's chemical formula), Geology (Rocks for Jocks, of course) and my crew friend Isleen and I slept through many an Oceanology class, which had the misfortune of closely following our morning row on the Charles. The movie on pillow lava exploding during one great nap pretty much scared the beejees out of us. By the way, oceanography is NOT boring--I loved that class.

So, yes, new people. One new person sat next to me in the class meeting at 9 am on Saturday wearing kitty-cat pajamas that I quite admired. One I discovered lives one town away from me in Sudbury. Then I ran into a couple of friends from my living-in-California days (SF 1990-1995) who are still living there--one I remember best for saying "just because we all went to the same college doesn't mean we all have to be friends." This was said after the 18 of us from the class of 90 who had moved there after graduation had had get-together number 4000 and maybe it was time for us to make new friends. 

But guess what? I think we are all friends because we went to the same college. I have girl crushes (is it still politically correct to say that?) on a vast quantity of these women. They are simply awesome and they don't charge for it. There was no charge for a crew friend who was canoeing on the lake on Saturday to rescue another friend whose pedal boat had putted to a stop in the middle of Lake Waban. 

Photo credit:Emily Christmann, Note, that is our class insignia cape

There was no charge for singing and chanting and laughing over memories. There was no charge for a memorial service that brought a number of us to tears for the eight classmates we have lost.

One of the best traditions at Wellesley College is step-singing. Normally held several times during the school year, it is usually on the steps of the Chapel where people line up with their classes. For Reunion, we are all inside of the Chapel to allow for more seating, better acoustics and no dependence on weather. My only complaint would be the college never allows for the size of 1990. I think we have broken participation records every year we have had a reunion. 

Songbook at the Chapel

One of our cheers

Because we are the 25th Reunion class, our songmistress was the overall songmistress for stepsinging. She led the gathered alums through America the Beautiful (written by a Wellesley). We sing what we believe to be the original and appropriate lyrics of "and crown thy hood with sisterhood" and you'll want to put in earplugs for the part we get to "purple mountains majesty" because we will blow your eardrums out shouting "purple." Songs are interrupted by chants from each of the classes -- our standby is "we are high and we are mighty, we're the class of 1990!" and yes, we have some new ones in 25 years.

My favorite from Stepsinging continues to be the Wellesley Composite, sung to the tune of Funiculi, Funicula "Some think it worth their time to go to college, And so do I...some think that only men are fit for knowledge, but not so I , Oh no, not I..." Lyrics were adapted in 1901. Old alum kick ass. So do new alum but imagine the scene at the turn of the century singing that song... I'm going to get back to the old alum topic in a minute.

Where roomie and I studied in the libary

The recently renovated boathouse. Photo credit: Heather Stratton Williams

Earlier on Friday, my roomie and I hiked the campus. The Wellesley campus must be the most beautiful in the world. Before you argue with me, just forget it. We win. Roomie and I busted into our first year dorm which was once the stables. We found signs of habitation in numerous unmade beds but no actual humans. Weirdly a shower turned off but there was no one there. Spooky. A ghost of a former resident goat perhaps. Then we busted into our old sophomore dorm room where we woke up a sleeping student who was pretty confused by us. Shortly thereafter we heard sirens and exited stage left in case Cam-Po (campus police) had been called.

View of a former parking lot, now meadow - photo Heather Stratton Williams

 We were unremorseful though and headed over to Cazenove (where do we get the names of our dorms?) where we busted into our old singles, where we found signs of 1975 alums in the guise of their suitcases. We were almost discovered at the bell desk since we were wearing purple and they were a green class. Finally we stopped into senior dorm Shafer where we definitely were busted by an older alum as we shut the door on the turret rooms. Ah well. No trips to the Cam-Po clink. 

As we headed over to the academic quad, we ran into Winnie. Winnie, class of 1950, was lost and trying to find a lecture on Shakespeare in Green Hall (they ran shortened classes all weekend long, I only made it to one on the Saturn mission--no charge for that awesomeness either). Winnie was, if you pardon my language, a pistol. She had a cane but would not use it on the stairs. As we walked her to where she needed to go, she cared not that she was a half hour late, and told us about her great-great-niece who had graduated from Wellesley a week before. Winnie is 86 years old. No charge for her awesomeness.

Saturday night was the class party and what happens at the class party stays at the class party. I dressed up as an 80s Billy Idol groupie, and others also followed the 80s theme, or wore a lot more purple that I own. We danced for hours to music rolled by an extremely talkative DJ, who sounded roughly like the folks on the loudspeaker on a NY city subway "wah, wah, wah wah...blah". The Science Center, where the party is held, is criss-crossed with bridges two stories above the open atrium. People lined up and danced and revved up the crowd. So. Much. Fun. 

Photo credit:Cassie Chao

Now I could go on and on and on and on, but I think I already have. Before I close out by saying that our Reunion Committee and volunteers are on a level of awesomeness that there SHOULD be a charge for, I must talk about Alumnae Parade. Alumae Parade makes me tear up every single time. All the classes who are "reuning" line up along college drive. The youngest class (in this case 2010) is closest to Alumnae Hall, the destination of the parade, and the oldest classes are at the other end of the campus. We line the route waiting, waiting until finally you see and hear the sirens of the campus police leading the parade. 

Photo credit to one of my classmates

First through the lined route were four alumnae from the class of 1940. These women are 96 years old. They were driven in old Fort Model Ts, in the rumble seats of some other old car, they wore hats, they waved, they smiled. They made me smile. And get a little misty for the fact that the parade started with 1940--when five years ago, it started with 1935... 

Photo credit: Kimberly Bolin

Next came 1945. Some drove, but some walked. Yes, at least six 1945 alums (91 years old more or less) walked the entire route with a banner, waving and smiling. Some followed in cars driven behind. 

1965 can-cans up the street. Photo credit: Michelle Lesowski

Then 1950 (I did not see Winnie, I hope she did not get lost or late to the parade), 1955, 1960, all greeted by cheers of the younger alums. 1965 did a can-can up the street. I kid you not at all. They chanted their chants, we chanted ours...we cheered louder for any purple classes.



And then it was our turn. We headed up the route through the classes of 1995, 2000, 2005 and 2010. And they cheered us. And we waved and smiled. 

See you in five, she-roes. Crusade on!

One is Silver, the Others Gold - Weston and Wellesley, MA

Galen Tower, Wellesley College (photo credit: Wellesley College)

Twenty-five years ago today, I graduated from Wellesley College along with 600+ classmates. It was a terribly hot day and while the campus looked gorgeous (and does in rain, shine, winter or spring), I was not at my best that day. For several weeks our campus had been overrun with media, the KGB and American secret service. You see, the wife of our sitting president was coming to speak, as well as the wife of the sitting president of the Soviet Union. Yes, it was still the Soviet Union then. 

For a couple of months the campus had been embroiled in a media storm--I have little interest in reviewing it when one of my classmates has so eloquently done so here. Yesterday I found my box of newspaper clippings from that time--the media portrayal of my college and its graduates changed forever my view of what is said by the media. Words of classmates were twisted for maximum impact, the overall debate changed (we had "disinvited" Mrs. Bush, according to the media, a "fact" that was never true), and hundreds of unique and wonderful women summarily dismissed as spoiled brats. 

What should have been a time to celebrate and enjoy turned into a bit of a hassle. The graduation ceremony was moved to the big lawn rather than the gorgeous academic quad because of security risks and space constraints. During the actual time that Barbara and Raisa were there at the graduation, I could barely hear speeches over the clicking and whirring of the photographers seated just behind me. When the "famous" speeches were over, half the media packed up loudly in the middle of other events. I have not willingly given a media interview since that time though once I did appear in print for my company in Brazil, and just recently I spoke to the local paper about my college's plans for donated land in Wellesley. It was a learning experience that I appreciate.

Wellesley, more than any other experience (including ex-patriate living in Brazil for 9 years), changed who I was and has guided who I now am. I came from a sheltered small town in Connecticut, much like the small town I now live in--I was a driven, athletic kid and continued that in college. But,  I learned, there were many women more driven, more focused and more athletic that I was. I worked hard. I am proud of my college degree, of those two little words "cum laude" after it. I joined the crew team--I was never the strongest, but I was always there rowing my little heart out.

Studying by the lake, on the way to crew practice

And I met the friends who are the gold. They opened my eyes to different experiences, different religions, new places and bad tv shows (Twin Peaks, for those who are of my generation). My closest friends all lived with me in one of the smallest dorms on campus during the first year--the former stables. While I am opposed to this dorm still being used as a dorm because of its size and isolation (no dining hall), the fact is my best friends were made there.

My second year roommate introduced me to a "new" religion. I had never understood the Jewish religion or its holidays or customs. I learned about Shabbat, she told me what kosher actually meant and I held a candle for her when she needed to speak the words. She and I were so different--she was a college government leader, she loved social activities, she was a night owl. In college, I was shy, an early bird for crew practice and a non-practicing Protestant. Yet, we got along like a house on fire. I can still hear her call out "knock knock" during our senior year as she crossed from her room to mine and just opened up the door.  We wrote each other bad poetry while sitting on purple chairs in the library. During wintersession senior year she studied women Holocaust survivors while I wrote my paper on the tactics and techniques of the Viet Cong--we shared horror stories and ruggalach (I still can't spell it). She is the only one who can call me Krissie.

Another close friend brought me to her home in Bar Harbor where I began a 30 year love affair with Acadia National Park and all things Maine. Well, not their governor. This friend also introduced me to down east humor and story-telling. She would have hilarious dreams mostly about her family every night and make me spit out my pancakes laughing at the cafeteria breakfast the next day. We once had a diet that involved brownies and M&Ms (with salads for lunch) that was an epic fail. 

A third friend was from Connecticut too--we drove to one march for women's lives in DC together. We were similarly interested in economics, and the Soviet Union, and both spent junior year (me just a semester) in England. We had several ski trips together, one particularly exciting one involved fish-tailing her Chevy Sprint all over some northern highway, crashing into a huge snowbank and having to be fished out by tow trucks and her dad. And we still went skiing the next day.

One of my close friends now lives in Switzerland. She had (and still has, I think) Swiss parents and invited me once to travel with her to Luzern to visit her grandmother there. Grandma spoke no English and I spoke no Swiss-German but we played cards together and I learned a cute swear that sounds something like "fieferdeckel" from her. I think it means "darn." We also had a number of road trips in her red Suburu wagon, including to Walden Pond, a place I now live two miles from.

As I celebrate my silver college anniversary today (and this upcoming weekend at Reunion weekend), I celebrate my friends (and others, including crew teammates, that I have not enough space to mention). They continue to enrich my life--one came over to help when my move arrived here in Weston and the moving guys simply dropped and ran. The same one invited me and my kids to her Maine retreat last summer when we had no furniture and nothing to do--her teenaged daughters built fairy houses with the boys, her husband made a crab castle with them, and she allowed the boys to shoot plastic arrows for her Maine coon cats (not AT them). 

Another invited us up to her Maine weekend home and we came complete with a just-off-the-plane-and-traumatized Haifa, my 12 year old labrador with limited mobility.  She piloted the kids around the lake on the pontoon boat, took us out for ice cream and made the Labor Day weekend before school start one of the most memorable for the kids.  And many other Wellesley classmates have held my hand at various points in my life--a recent new friend-classmate in São Paulo even helped us find a mortgage broker and sprang into action when my son broke his arm on the first day here and later with another health scare. My Wellesley degree is priceless, but not for the reasons I expected at age 21.

So, dear Wellesley, I cannot totally embrace my graduation day, which was frankly a pain in the ass.  But I thank you most kindly for bringing me the gold.  To my friends, see you Friday.

Whose Woods These Are I Think I Know - Weston, MA

If I were inclined to frighten the parents of school-age kids in my small town of 11,XXX people, here is how I would do it. I would hire a deaf man around sixty years old, and ask him to walk in the woods—specifically on trails near an elementary school. Then I would alert the school superintendent. Who would then send out a note that looks like this:

“Yesterday an employee working near the Town pool noticed an individual on one of the wooded trails. He called out to him, but the person believed to be in his sixties casually left the area. Out of an abundance of caution, the Weston Police were notified. People being in that area walking dogs is a usual occurrence [sic]. However, the police searched the area, but were unable to locate the person. They have stepped up patrols of the area.

Our ongoing safety and security protocols of locked doorways, camera usage and adult supervision of children will continue. In addition all faculty and staff have been informed and will be carefully monitoring school grounds. Both the Weston Public Schools and the Weston Police ask the public to notify us of any suspicious activity around our schools or in the Town.”

This is, in fact, the email I got from the schools superintendent at 11:15 am yesterday morning. I admit that I was not too worried about it. I didn’t think that it met the qualifications for me to panic and head down to school to search for people in the woods. Heck, I walk in the woods every single day—given my woods are in Lincoln and not near a school; I simply didn’t worry. I forwarded the note to BH and we laughed about it a bit. 

Before you get on me about all the school shootings in the US and why we need to be vigilant, I know. If you are a personal friend, you know the number of times I post stories from Moms for Gun Sense in America about the ridiculous gun laws in this country. If you know me from São Paulo, you know that I have blogged about security and how to be vigilant in every day life in a city of 11 million people with crime rate statistics “rather” larger than ours in metrowest Boston. So I don’t take threats lightly. I just didn’t think this was a threat. I did however enjoy the term “out of an abundance of caution.” Indeed.

But my nonchalance fled with the next email.  At 12:05 pm, I received an updated email from the superintendent with the following message:

"This is an update on a message I sent earlier today. Using footage from our security cameras, the Weston Police have identified the individual observed yesterday behind the town pool. He is a deaf resident of the [Deleted for Privacy], who routinely takes walks throughout the town. He will be advised to refrain from walking on or near playgrounds during the school year. I want to thank the Weston Police Department for their prompt response and cooperation. We are very pleased that this concern was resolved so quickly."

So, we sent our police force after an older deaf man who likes to walk in the woods near his apartment, minding his own business, because he was near the playground of a school.  And told him not to walk in those particular woods, even though he has been identified as being “harmless”.  

This is sad, folks. Are we so scarred from Newtown that we cannot have a community that walks in the woods? Are we not trampling the civil rights of a man who had not done any harm—whose only error was being deaf and therefore did not respond to someone hailing him from behind?  Should we now look at any solitary woods walker as a potential threat?  Would a deaf woman walking in the woods near a school be in the same position of having police advising her to stop walking in the woods?  If he were walking a dog, would he be okay to go?

I am in favor of keeping my school kids safe, but not at the risk of civil liberties. If that woods trail is closed during school hours, it is closed to everyone. Not just deaf men. And all it takes now is one overreacting mom or dad  to tell her kid not to play near the woods because there is danger there to start a ball rolling that I don’t want.  The woods are full of  delights—at this time, it is vernal pools, spring peepers, crackling leaves, bird songs, filtered sunlight and a child’s imagination. Do not make it about danger. We have time for that later.

I moved to Weston for many reasons. Hysteria over people in the woods is not one of them.  And if that deaf man wants a companion on his woods walks in the future so as not to be confused as a bad guy, Coal and I are available. 

UPDATE 4/30/15. I contacted the Council on Aging to see if I could help with this walker and this is the response I got. The man is apparently NOT deaf but does not speak English:

Thank you for reaching out in such a compassionate way.  We are working with the [senior center] management and the Weston PD on the issue with the walker - while I understand he's not deaf, he apparently speaks no English.  Either way the school protocol is going to be communicated to him to ensure his ability to keep walking while respecting the schools' safety procedures.  Our social workers will also reach out to him and his family to see what other supports may be needed. 
 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

And from my title, a chance to visit one of my favorite poets, Robert Frost:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

By Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

Hiatus - Weston, MA

How a hiatus looks as modeled by Henry the dog

So I'm taking a hiatus from this blog. I don't know how long I'm going to "take a break" but more than a week and less than a year. I expect to return, but I also expected winter to be over by now. Snow is expected on Wednesday.

Why am I taking a hiatus? Because the blog is going somewhere I didn't expect and I haven't especially liked. Instead of being amused by repatriation to the US, I am finding it incredibly easy in some respects and impossibly hard in others. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find the words to make it amusing (which is my whole reason for blogging) and I'm finding it instead rather a hard part of my day.

So, I'm going to "give a think" as we say in Portuguese and see whether this continues or if I take a new direction. I won't stop writing for sure, but I will stop publishing for now. I doubt my absence will cause a great downturn in internet traffic numbers but I shall miss throwing it all out there. For now. 

Who knows, maybe I'll even find a day job. Weirder things have happened. 

See you soon.

Kristin

Golden foxxier - Weston, MA

The extremely rare golden foxxier

So you've heard all about Coal, my rescue dog, in at least two prior posts (here and here).  He certainly lights up my life if not that of Haifa, my 12-year old deaf, half-blind and very confused purebred labrador. The kids love him.

When I got Coal from Big Fluffy Dog Rescue, he was described as a 2-3 year old lab-husky mix. The local vet already discounted the 2-3 year part--he is at most 18 months old now (likely only a year when I got him). Then I heard about canine breed DNA testing, and I decided to see what really went on in his past. I was pretty confident of the labrador diagnosis, but the husky seemed a bit far-fetched--yes, he has a curly tail, but after that, not much husky.

Three weeks ago, I sent away two cheek swabs and $75 to test Coal. Yesterday I got the 11 page report by email. I have a dog with a mix of golden retriever, American foxhound and Parson Russell terrier, also known as a Jack Russell. And a whole lot of other mix in there too.  So mixed that the DNA tester obviously gave up and started chucking wacky possibilities like dogo argentino and another fox terrier breed at me. They showed five other possible breed matches--none of them labrador or husky. Note that the DNA testing is only capable of looking up to great-grandparents. 

Wisdom Panel for Coal

The bottom line is I don't really care what he is. Perhaps the foxhound explains the tracking he does in the woods (NINE deer in my yard this morning), the curvy tail and the baying-bark he does. Perhaps the Jack Russell explains the two-paw pouncing and digging at disgusting stuff in the woods. And the eating of dead rodents. The golden can only be seen in the shape of his head and snout; certainly not in his shiny black coat and short fur. He is extremely affectionate and great with kids but personally I don't think that has anything to do with breed. He is, and I mean this in the greatest, most complimentary way possible, a mutt. A Tennessee mountain mutt.

I started calling him a golden foxterrier which a friend shortened to a golden foxxier, which should be pronounced like the French do: "Fox-ee-ay". After all, we do not want to be left out of all the goldendoodle, cockapoo, whoodle, labradoodle fun. If those folks have purebred dogs, so do I. A purebred golden foxxier. Limited (as in neutered) edition. 

Now to petition the AKC...

Native Tongue - Lincoln, MA

Nico adds Spanish to his book of tricks

This morning I was out in the woods with my favorite sidekick named Coal. We ran into an older Asian man with his little fluffy dog, which was off-leash like my dog. I said "good morning" and he mumbled back. The two dogs ran and chased each other and played for a couple of minutes and I tried several times to converse with the owner. Finally it dawned on me that the man spoke no English.  After our dogs tired a bit, I waved at the man and we kept on our way.

My walks in the woods are when I most like to think about "stuff." Stuff like which summer camp my kids should do, whether or not there will be snow at the ski mountain this weekend and if we need milk. Important stuff. Also I wonder about which dead animal Coal is digging up and eating. Okay, other stuff too like what is happening with ISIS, the impeachable president of Brazil, will we ever sell our house there, etc.

This morning I thought about language and how it makes many Americans completely crazy. I can almost see the posts about how someone walked into the restaurant and didn't speak any English!! Can you believe it? Or asked for directions in a foreign language... or answered in an accent that was not understandable. I too am guilty of the occasional facebook post about Southampton soccer coaches whom I can't understand.

Here's the reality. We all need to get out of our country. Not as tourists. To live. I lived in Brazil for nine years. For the first six months of that tour of duty, I spoke no Portuguese. I tried and failed, and then asked the person if they spoke English. Most of the time, they did not. But never once did I get someone saying: "She can't speak Portuguese!! Can you believe it? She comes to our country to live and does not speak Portuguese!"  And I even had a major cheat sheet in BH, who was then BB (Brazilian boyfriend).

Within the first year I could speak passable Portuguese; now I am fluent. Unless the person is from the state of Ceará, and then I have no idea what they are saying to me. Much like how I feel when speaking to Brits and they say stuff like "poncy" and I say "hunh?" Fiona, I mean you. Also native  Bostonians: what are they saying anyway?

The truth of the matter is that I went home and cried every single night that I did not understand Portuguese or speak it. But no one gave me a hard time. When my stepson Pedro came to live with us in Miami at age 14 for one year, his English was terrible. And the kids made fun of his accent (teenagers are notoriously mean anyway, but still). I never saw him cry but he was hurt for sure.

My kids, age 8, have Brazilian accents. I only notice it when I talk with them on the phone. Their English is fine. And they are bilingual, so they have that going for them. Well, except for the fact that they have an American accent in Portuguese. If you make fun of them, you will have to deal with mama bear. That is me. I am frequently crabby.

So although you will find me making fun of Brits at regular intervals because seriously, how can you resist laughing when someone smells "pongy"? But I can guarantee you that I will not be giving anyone who does not speak English here a hard time. Chances are they are trying. Chances are they go home at night and cry because they are isolated.  Maybe they don't. But do you want to be part of the problem or part of the solution?

You are only allowed to disagree with me if you have lived in a foreign country that does not speak your native tongue for a period of one year or more.  Bring it.