Summertime 2023 On a four week sabbatical, I decide to start writing again. My first project is a vignette quartet about fellow campers in Oregon.
Sometime 2024 Playing with words for my on-line bio, Rabid Dabbler emerges. The rhythm of the words pleases me, but the English language objects of the dabbling do not. Ironically, I find heavy German nouns and adjectives to be satisfyingly lyrical. I become Rabid Dabbler in Bilderfassung of Himmel, Blumen, Wasser and Schlafenden Gelben Hunden.
Dabbler also describes my writing since 2009 - dog stories and trip reports, commentary on my images of clouds, flowers and water, and year end letters that I sometimes share with a holiday greeting, but really are just a record for me.
Summer 2024 Nursing an injury, I soak up essays on Substack and memes on Meta. With growing concern for our country, I break my own rule and post my thoughts on political topics. As I learn from various teachers and calm voices, I hope to nudge friends within my safe community of white, childless dog ladies who also haven't been paying attention during the five to seven decades of our lives.
Suddenly, it is November, with the election results we gravely feared. I hear that in these times, we will need writers to preserve the stories of life as it was before. It is a tap on my shoulder, a whisper in my ear. I sign up for my first writing class.
In my excitement at finding a class starting soon, I (fortunately!) overlook the expectation that my 5000 word manuscript is almost publication ready - I haven't written a single word and have no clue where to start. In answer to my panic, the universe conspires to send me the alphabet writing construct. My choice of topic is easy - 26 letters, I've lived in 25 homes. In a flash, the glimmers fly like a meteor shower.
January 18, 2025 Here we are, watching our world implode, and here I am, pencil sharpened, ready to write. Grabbing a dusty cardboard cylinder off the crowded bookshelf, I peer into my memory kaleidoscope. I see a girl in the sweet spot of women's rights, enjoying music and sports, careers and travel, hobbies and yellow Labs. It doesn't end as I expect.
~~~~~
A - Arizona Nope! If my parents had thought ahead to when I'd write this essay, they would have moved us to Arizona for my birth and then to Brooklyn, where I was actually born. I don't remember living there, but I have a picture of a toddler with my unique birthmark on the steps of a brownstone row-house, so I believe it happened. We get to Arizona eventually, after picking up a few more kids.
B - Babies Soon there was a brother, and then another, two baby girls, and a puppy. Not all at the same time - we were a foster family. We lived in a house on Seneca Street. We watched a lot of Sesame Street.
C - Henry Court - our second home in Dobbs Ferry. During those years, we saw Pete Seeger on the Hudson River and supported presidential candidate George McGovern. I found the campaign button when emptying my parents' house. Three Dog Night sang Black and White, and we thought it was written for our mixed race family.
D - Desert In July, 1973, my parents gave me a camera and told me someday I'd be able to see and talk to my best friend over a combination TV/phone. Future technology was already a gleam in some engineer's eye. I said goodbye to my friend as we loaded up into a small Volkswagen Squareback and headed west.
Lake Havasu City was only ten years old. It stretched along the Colorado River and sloped east towards the foothills, a paradise boasting great views from everywhere. How could I not grow up to love sparkling waters and dramatic sunsets.
We ran wild like kids rarely do today, searching for Indian arrowheads, scraping out a baseball diamond in the rocky field next door - sliding not recommended. With few houses, no traffic on our road and no helmet on my head, I would ride my bike up up up the hill, then turn around and ~~f~l~y~~ back down. Look Ma, no hands!
With all that undeveloped space, teens with cars and six-packs parked on empty cul-de-sacs to "watch the sunset". The environmental movement was growing, so Mom drove us around in a VW Bug to pick up recyclable cans. The local paper reported "Pastor's Car Smells Like A Brewery".
In 1974, our church sponsored a Vietnamese family fleeing persecution from a communist government. Homes and jobs were provided. They started work within a week and were self-sufficient in just five weeks. They've relocated but returned recently to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their arrival.
I started learning music in that house, continuing through my school years - recorder, violin, piano, string bass, clarinet (so I could be in marching band in high school, although I really wanted to play oboe) and bassoon (although I still really wanted to play oboe). This one time, at band camp, I played guitar for two weeks and tooted on my roommate's trumpet for two minutes. I played handbells, and sang in choirs and the car, but never in the shower - shower time is my thinking time, and I've been doing a lot of thinking this year.
Favorite high school scenes in my kaleidoscope are high-stepping halftime shows and parades in purple and gold uniforms with tall fuzzy hats. I continued to play in college, picking up saxophone to play in the jazz band, and juggling instruments in the orchestra pit in West Side Story. I capped off my musical career with a senior recital, unusual for a math/computer science major, to thank my parents for years of music lessons and my clarinet teacher for inspiring me to practice, and to honor myself for my musical accomplishments.
E - Eighties Music It's Still Rock and Roll To Me. By the '80s, we were living the America Dream. My parents, a preacher and a teacher, saved well while raising four kids, and built a new house. They swapped out our old ski boat for a swimming pool, which we shared with the neighborhood kids, since our mom was the one with summers off. Marco. Polo.
I took the required civics class, learned about independent branches of government and checks and balances, and then I checked out, trusting the system. My dad modeled community involvement by serving on the school board and my brother is a published author and professor of history and peace studies, but it took me 40 years to wake up and smell the danger.
F G H I - Freshman, Golf, Hockey, Ice Skating Now you're just being silly, Mom would say, as I toss out four random words to cover the dormitory years. I didn't play sports in college, and never played hockey, but I dabbled in sports most of my life, starting with little league baseball and touch football with the boys. In my 20s, I played league softball and coached a team of five to eight year old girls, batting helmets falling down over their eyes, running to the pitcher's mound instead of first base. Someday I'll make a museum of my equipment - Mom's golf clubs and bike, my glove and bat, bowling ball, tennis racket, roller skates, snow skis, water ski, paddle board, and an agility jump.
Snow skiing was my best athletic accomplishment, attaining advanced dabbler level - some black diamond runs to keep up with the guys, one attempt at a mogul hill before deciding I'd rather keep my knees, thank you very much, finally realizing I just prefer to ~~f~l~y~~ down long groomers. Still no helmet.
J - Job! First career, but definitely not my first job. I started babysitting at ten, worked in restaurants and retail, plus tutoring and on-campus jobs to pay for college.
My first post-college job was computer programming at a high tech startup in Westlake Village, where I shared a condo with a roommate and two cats. We wrote software for designing cell phone and satellite communications. It was male dominated but I was barely aware - I'd always played with the boys. 20 years later, we had 100 programmers, less than 10% women. Three decades later, a quick Google search says the number is now in the 20% range. Last week, STEM initiatives for girls were killed.
K - Kraproom. That's Moorpark spelled backwards.
Ti saw a yarg raey. I dah a yarg tac, devil ni a yarg esouh, evord a yarg car, dna erow a yarg sserd, htiw yarg sgnikcots dna yrag spmup. That's how we dressed in the late '80s.
L - Lived with a boyfriend in Simi Valley. Women could do that back then.
M - Married him and Moved to Munich. I was shy growing up but living in Europe gave me experiences to share. In Germany, we visited castles and concentration camps. Near Austria, we stayed in a lovely pension with the ubiquitous window box flowers, donned leather aprons and slid down an old wooden slide to an underground salt mine, then rode up an elevator inside a mountain to tour Hitler's Eagles Nest.
Through work, we had friends in England, Sweden, France, and Italy. We stayed in their homes when we traveled, a more authentic experience than staying in a hotel, and they stayed in ours when visiting the local office. In later years, I visited Belgium for work.
We enjoyed ski trips in the nearby Alps. Special adventures included the Valle Blanche glacier and the Sella Runda in the Dolomite, including a torchlight run down the slopes after a mountaintop dinner of fondue and schnapps.
One autumn, we rented a little motorhome and drove to Venice, then across Tuscany to Florence, and down to Rome and the Amalfi coast. I had never heard of Pompeii until the day we visited. From Sicily, an overnight ferry took us from Palermo to Genoa. From there, we threaded through the Alps back to Munich.
To move to Germany, I had to quit my job because telecommuting wasn't invented yet, but soon they offered me a contract to work remotely and airmail my work, saved on a tape, to California. I communicated via fax or expensive long distance land line. I like to say I invented telecommuting.
Bavaria offered the best of both German and Italian cuisine. I enjoyed eating like I never had before - Prociutto e Melone, Insalate Caprese, Schweinshaxen, and Oktoberfest Wiesnhendl. In those days, it was easy to pack cases of wine in the shipping container with household goods. We moved over in a 20 foot container, and two years later, came back in a 40. I'm writing these words at my German dining table.
N - Northridge Earthquake! We bought again in Simi Valley, the first house I left in better shape than I found it. Remodeling guaranteed that we would move again just when we got it how we wanted. Hewlett Packard acquired our company and transferred us to the wine country. Incidentally, "acquire" is a word I will never misspell. It's the reason I lost the spelling bee. Some things one never forgets!
We dodged a bullet on that sale, closing four days before the earthquake hit on Martin Luther King, Jr Day. (I wonder if that will be cancelled in 2026? Reviewing this text just a week later, it's been cancelled, along with Black History Month, Juneteenth, Pride Month and others.) The new owners moved in and unpacked all their dishes, which were promptly shattered. Their car was tossed through the new garage doors we had installed.
O - Ocean From our new home, a brand new Victorian with wrap-around porches and a widow's walk, it was a scenic 30 mile drive to the ocean. We weren't interested in having children yet, and in those days that was ok. We got a dog instead, my first yellow Lab. The man of the house named him after a puppy in a PC magazine ad. I decided to save my veto power in case we had kids. I loved taking Network to the beach to run free on the sand while I watched the sunset.
Our favorite destination in those years was the 4WD Rubicon Trail. Friendships came easy. It didn't matter if you were a janitor or a venture capitalist. The love of the outdoors and the challenge of getting the vehicles over the obstacles was our common ground. Our group always left the trail cleaner than we found it, and nobody was left behind if they broke down. Spare parts and mechanical skills were generously shared. I earned my keep running registration for the annual event and managing membership of the national organization. There was so much community spirit on those treks. 30 years later, some of my favorite guys from those days responded to my social media posts about Project 2025 with eye-roll emojis and, sadly, got blocked. Gone are the days when common interests and humanity are more important than who you voted for.
P - Parting ways Divorced. Women could do that back then. I took my cat and half a dog and rented a bright little duplex. The split was amicable. We agreed no attorneys would bait us to drive up their billable hours. I was proud to stand on my own and happy in my new place. One day, I heard an unfamiliar noise. I looked around, and realized it was me. It had been a while since I'd heard my own laughter.
I continued to run registration for the annual Rubicon trip, attending that year on foot with my dog. A friend found a rebuilt pickup and insisted I get it. I hadn't thought I needed a rock crawler, but as soon as I hit the trail, my brain was hooked on the technical driving. I learned to feel the trail through the tires and the steering wheel. I still preferred playing with the guys.
Q - sQuaw Valley Within a year, the dog and cat and I moved from Windsor to Santa Rosa. The modest cul-de-sac rancher next to a vineyard and oak-studded hillside was my first solo owned home.
On the weekends, I volunteered at an animal shelter doing obedience training and photography. Digital cameras weren't invented yet, so I scanned prints to promote adoptable pets on the new information superhighway. After Lily came home with me to stay, I chose to spend my weekends with my two dogs, hiking the nearby hills, and watching sunsets on the beach. I found a service dog program seeking a volunteer with a camera, and did photography and others things for them over the next few years.
I started skiing with guys from work, day trips four hours away to the Sierras, and annual destination trips to Jackson Hole, Sun Valley, Red Mountain, Whistler, Steamboat Springs, and Lake Louise. I had a digital camera that held 16 pictures. 15 years later, I have 3000+ images on my camera, which is also a phone. Just like my parents promised 50 years ago, I can see and talk to my friends on a device.
My commute was five miles to HP on Fountaingrove. Twenty years later, almost 6,000 structures on that hill and surrounding areas were wiped out by fire. Fifty years earlier, another wildfire had traveled the same route, but residential losses were minor because the hill hadn't been opened to development yet. During my time there, I had seen the tremendous residential growth in an area designated as Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone and Wildland Urban Interface. As I write the letter Q, the Southern California coast is reeling from devastating fires in neighborhoods built in similar terrain.
I decided not to bang my head against the wall of a non-existent job market. I was in Colorado! I had a winter friend who wanted to improve his skiing skills, and a summer friend who was available for hiking and eating out between his online dating adventures.
I dabbled in internet dating for a minute myself. One of the three guys I met was suitable. He introduced me to Safe Harbor Lab Rescue. It was love at first sight. Network wrote a letter offering my services as a volunteer and I was enthusiastically welcomed. The rescue let me take their dogs out to explore the wonderful parks around Denver, giving me fresh writing material.
I started a blog and was soon asked to take over the newsletter. I also transported dogs, handled adoptions, and fostered a youngster who needed a quiet place to recover from surgery. After setting Network's spirit free at Rainbow Curve in Rocky Mountain National Park, Sunny and I needed each other, so I became a foster failure. Four months later, I adopted my Most Precious Girly, Star. My little family was complete and we were soon on the move again.
S - Spokane River My love affair with water continued. I settled into an apartment in Liberty Lake, a 2 minute walk from the river, where I enjoyed great sunsets across the wheat fields, coyote sightings and songs, and a moose who must have been lost. I still wrote the newsletter for Safe Harbor, and started volunteering with a non-profit that paired shelter dogs with at risk youth to teach them life skills while they helped the dogs become adoptable. I was also writing a monthly newsletter for the service dog program from California. I was in school, training for my third career, and also learning the challenging sport of dog agility, which would consume my non-working hours for the next 13 years.
T - Temp jobs While pursuing an accounting degree at Gonzaga and studying for the CPA exam, I thought it might be wise to see if I had marketable skills at my age. I found a six month temp job in a hospital accounting department that really had their 💩 together. My next temp job was a perfect contrast of how NOT to do everything. I took one last temp job, this time in an engineering company. Ahhhh, I was back home again. I knew how to talk to these guys. On day 13, my boss said, "We're not going to let you leave". I converted to permanent upon graduation, and two months later, converted from apartment living back to home ownership.
My new home on the north side of Spokane had a park-like backyard, perfect for five dogs. Five, you say? Wasn't it two? Well, yes, it was two when we moved in. But Sunny needed his nurse, our neighbor from the apartments. I invited her and her two Schnauzers to join us and dog sit while I worked hard in my new career. And then I started a remodel. And then I adopted Xander. And then I found out I was losing my job.
U - Utah #1 My Spokane employer announced plans to offshore the accounting jobs to India. If we cheerfully cooperated in training our replacements, we would get a bonus. When offshoring started in the software industry a decade earlier, I had led the integration of our teams, so when this "opportunity" came up again, I ignored the fact that I'd lose my job in the end, and led with my strengths. Instead of getting laid off, I was promoted to the US headquarters. The paint was barely dry on my remodel and we were packing again, on our way to Utah. The three dogs and I and a stash of wine drove through Montana in the middle of winter and settled into a rental house in West Jordan.
V - Utah #2 RiVerton I bought a house with a backyard worthy of 3 dogs, and found another live-in dog sitter. Star retired from agility and Xander and I started to connect as a team. I was still working too much, on a major software migration, the sweet spot of the Venn diagram of my skills in project management, software systems, and accounting. When the project was finished, I took my best girl and ran away for a week to Santa Fe.
SLC was the ideal home base for exploring the west. That autumn, I took my digital SRL and drove to Vegas to visit a friend, then popped over the hill to Death Valley, where I almost died from the orgasmic views in the park and up Highway 395 on the east side of the Sierras, slid into the backside of Yosemite as darkness descended, winding my way through the foggy eeriness, past Bear Crossing signs warning of the hibernation migration. I met up with a friend, drove back through the park, continued up 395, whipped into June Lake for fall color reflections, and off the beaten path to Bodie. Ah Bodie! All the mystery of a ghost town, well preserved by the combination of elements. All the feelings conjured when confronted by a house with the dishes still on the table where the last resident left them.
Back in Utah, I started another remodel project, so you know what comes next. Hard times in the mining industry led to layoffs. I had two job offers in a week and worked another year until an acquisition made my job redundant. My resume had expanded nicely, the housing market was hot, and it seemed like a good time to head back to Washington to be closer to my parents, who were getting to the age when the oldest daughter should be nearby.
W - Washington again I decided to buy a new house this time, so I could stay put for a while, safe from the threat of a remodel. While it was being built, I settled back into the apartments by the river and rejoined the local dog agility community. Someone asked if I was happy to be back. I didn't say it out loud, but I knew that in the next ten years, I would lose three dogs and possibly two parents. Sunny was gone three months later from a quick bout with cancer.
The job I started three days after arriving was a full-circle story. I had reached out to the green energy start-up while I was still in school. The CEO was intrigued by my background, but the junior accountant position didn't offer much room to grow. By going with the mining company instead, I got a ton of experience and then, five years later, when the start-up had been acquired by an Italian global energy company, my experience made this company a perfect fit, and me the perfect candidate for their needs. I've been with the company eight years.
X - Xander By autumn, Star and Xander and I had moved into our new house. Two and a half years went by with a nice routine of work trips to Boston, weekend trips to visit my parents in upper upper Idaho, agility training and competitions, and some long distance trips with friends. Star and I drove a friend and her dog to Tulsa, and I drove another friend and her RV to Tucson where she would spend the rest of winter. On Valentine's Day, we played one last round of golf and I got a Lyft to the airport where I saw the news of Covid-19 in China. We had one competition in March, and then our world shut down.
The first year of Covid didn't personally hit me hard - I had already been working at home since the year before. We were in the middle of another major software migration. That project ended in time to run to Colorado to pick up my #6 lab, Tuc. The agility lifestyle is that way - one retired, one in his prime, one in the pipeline.
Xander and I had a great start to our 2021 season, earning two coveted QQs. Then in the summer, he struggled on the courses. When the weather cooled down, he was back to his usual self for our last trial of the year. My life was changing with the seasons. My parents were needing more support, so I quietly retired from agility on that high note.
Mom had surgery a couple weeks later to remove a growth near the top of her spine. The surgery went fine. She was recovering well, then developed complications. After three weeks in the hospital and seven weeks in my house with 24 hour care, she passed away on 12/22/21, a palindrome. Dad and brother were by her side. My sister, a nurse, watched on Zoom from 1200 miles away. To ease her passing, I played familiar hymns on my piano in the hallway outside her room.
She never really understood where she was during those weeks, but she always knew her family and friends. We were lucky to be able to keep her with us. If she had been sent to a nursing home in those Covid days, we would have never seen each other again. I can't imagine the heartbreak for all of us, especially her, with no idea where she was and why we didn't visit. I know many other families weren't so lucky. What a sad time for the world, what scary times lie ahead with the new Health Secretary.
The next year, the three dogs and I spent half of our time with Dad at his house. Star was totally blind, and by autumn, she was having cognitive issues. It was time to say goodbye. 2023 started off on the wrong foot with major medical issues for Dad, who ended up at my house for three months, in scenes reminiscent of 14 months before. Remember what I said when I moved back to Washington? Three down, two to go. This time, I was able to save Dad. He made a full recovery and is doing great today.
Sadly, Xander started having old dog issues in 2024, and I lost him while writing this, somewhere between the letters R and X.
Y - Yellow Dogs and a Ball of Yarn After losing Xander, I saw my life as a ball of yarn. I started winding up the ball with one cat, then two. Then a dog, two, three. Then the ball started to unwind, from three dogs, to two, and now it's just Tuc 'n' me. As the ball continues to unwind, my working years will come to an end and Tuc will pass on. Maybe I'll become a childless cat lady again. At the rate the country is imploding, I hope I don't become a homeless bag lady.
I don't have another home for the letter Y, because I accidentally skipped a short inconsequential stay along the way to Colorado and caught it too late. There is no letter Z yet. That's the unwritten chapter of the next place I might live (hopefully not in a van by the river). But, this isn't the end of the story.
After outlining the essay, I realized it would be a story about the life I was lucky to live as a mostly single woman in the sweet spot of women's rights, not to brag, but simply to record what was possible. I lived in many places, played many instruments and sports, obtained birth control legally and effortlessly, had good careers, and enjoyed great travel adventures, things that our government doesn't want women to do, because we should be in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, serving, and subservient to, a man.
While I played a lot, what always anchored me in my adult years were my "second jobs", which I did most evenings and weekends - the 4WD club, volunteering with the dog organizations, and the agility. Lately I've been wondering what would be the next big thing? Perhaps I would spend more time with my father, or get physically active again, riding Mom's bike on the Centennial Trail, with a helmet now. Maybe I'd expand the cut flower gardening hobby I started in 2019, to support pollinators and reduce water use with native plants.
But something else is stirring inside of me, which I didn't fully realize until I wrote the outline for this piece. I have had this colorful and carefree life because women for generations before me fought hard for everything I have taken for granted. Is this what they would have wanted for me, for my generation, that we thoroughly enjoy the fruits of their labors without concern for the price they paid to gift it to us? Or would they have said, "Don't you dare piss it away!"
Now I know what I will be doing for the rest of my life. On weekends and evenings, I will be joining with my sisters in the fight to claw back every inch of what we have lost by not realizing we had to work to keep it. This year, as I turn 60, another little girl will be born. Maybe it will take until she turns 20, but I want her to have a chance to experience a full life, with the partner of her choosing, or none if that's her choice, children or chinchillas or whatever makes her smile, a "man's job" if she wants.
I don't want her to worry about losing those rights again, so we must tell the old stories, because now we know how it turns out when we don't.
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