How to Get Happy

The Good News: People are sitting down and composing long chatty notes again. Letter writing is BACK! (The Bad News: They’re doing it all online, thus leaving no trace. How will our children ever come to know us with nothing left on paper? I mean, who ties a hard-drive up in satin ribbon and tucks it in the back of a drawer?)The Good News:  Everyone but the family gerbil has a cell phone. Handy for emergencies! Also for finding out what time the movie is! (The Bad News:  Because of this, people are less present in the places they actually are. ) I think to myself, “Behold this lady on the bus looking out the window with an expression of such eager good will. How bad can the world BE if it can summon such ready cheer from someone?” Then I see the device in her ear and realize she’s on the phone with someone. It can really bring you down to see how many people are engaged with this ghost class of invisible others. When they look right through you it makes you feel you’re not here yourself.The Good News: You’re here all right. There are countless ways to know how ‘here’ you are, so let us now leave aside all reference to Bad News and focus only on them. In fact try any one of these tactics to sense again your place in the world:

• Find a bird and watch the way it lowers its landing-gear on approaching the patch of earth or shimmer of water. A miracle of engineering!
• Connect with the people you find standing in line. I stood behind a 90-year-old at the coffee shop yesterday who seemed so angry as her 60-something daughter tried to order that I didn’t dare catch her eye but instead settled for smiling vaguely in her general direction. She clucked and harrumphed for three whole minutes - right up until the moment when the daughter finally got the two coffees, at which point she turned to me with a wide and genuine smile and apologized if they’d held me up at all.
• Get caught up in the enthusiasms of a dog. My sister used to say that your dog greets you at the door and it’s as if he’s saying “Omigosh Hi, you’re here, come in, your hair looks great!” Then when you duck into the bathroom and come back out he starts in all over again: “Omigosh Hi, you’re here, come in, your hair looks great!”
• We should all take a lesson from the dogs.
• Sit with a cat, realizing that with a cat you need to shut your mouth and get calm before you can truly enter into its presence. Cats are the Yodas of the animal world; they can give you ‘the look’ for a solid hour through half-closed eyes until gradually you set aside the ceaseless chatter in your brain.
• A cat will take you straight to the quiet place if you matching your own breathing to its own.
• You can do this with that family gerbil too.
• You can even do it with your houseplants.
• To center yourself amidst the general hubbub anytime in fact, just find any living creature and try matching your breath to its. Imagine your way into the experience of any living creature and you will find peace. You’ll forget that the Internet and cell phones were ever invented. (And at least for a while you won’t even miss them.)

look deep into my eyes....

Which Is Better, Dogs or Cats?

This is my late dog Penny asking for a second coat of polish on her nails (that's a can of acrylic.)OK so here’s a good way to start a lively conversation: go down the path of which is better, dogs or cats. Crosby does this in an episode of “Parenthood” when he’s talking to his girl Jasmine about what she should do to make her new place homey. His recommendation? Get a dog. “Uh, I’m actually more of cat person,” says Jasmine with a look. “Grody, you’re a cat person?!" answers  Crosby. Cats suck! They’re narcissistic, they’re always licking themselves, they’re kinda OCD… ”“Hmmmm” you think hearing this. Cats are grody? because they lick themselves? Maybe we're the grody ones, putting spit on our fingers to wash the faces of People Who Are Not Us. As for narcissistic, until Jasmine and little Jabbar came into his life, Crosby's the most narcissistic person on the show. And cats are OCD? Has he never seen a dog settle down for a nap, the way it goes round and round in a million circles before finally flumping down? I say forget the generalizations, let’s look at real life:When I was five we had a kitten who kept trying to climb up on our heads like a panicky swimmer.  Now in adulthood I’ve had several cats, none of them fitting the nasty cat stereotype. The black one with the little white flame of fur at her throat used to leap INTO the Christmas tree every year. Perched there darkly, she acted more like Poe’s raven than any feline you ever heard about. And the grey one struck lots of people as mighty doglike with his blithe outgoing ways. Once he brought a live chipmunk into the house, not in his mouth but running alongside him, like a little kid arriving for a playdate. In they both burst the second I opened the door. “Hey, wanna see my ROOM?” he seemed to be saying to the wee thing.Come to think of it, my old dog Penny didn't fill the standard expectations either. She was more like a goat; she ate everything. Salad. Wood. The whole bottom of her food dish and that was made of metal. Then, when company came, she sank her long retriever’s nose into everyone’s drink. And speaking of obsessions, she was obsessed with ladies’ underwear, which she presented to all visitors every time the doorbell rang. The minute the parish priest showed up out - boom!  - out came bras, stockings, panties - all our dainty washables. Stunning to behold.So don’t talk to me about “Dogs are like this” and “Cats are like that.” For my money all such talk is dumb. Dumb leaning toward hurtful, because every animal - every person too - is unique. And dogs are great just as cats are great. Hamsters and birds too, and even that four-foot-long iguana my friend Mary has under those eerie purple lights in her upstairs hall.Remember the old Little Caesar’s Pizza ad, “I taught my dog to say I love you”? “As if dogs could talk!” is the joke. Well all I’m saying is Never underestimate what an animal can do. Because it sure does sometimes seem they’re a whole lot smarter than the two-legged fools wielding the can openers.

good old Abe in hound-dog mode