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Stay Cool, Cricket


We are still working on keeping Cricket calm and quiet, while she’s getting her leash on to go outside. My latest attempt is to sing to her. The song that keeps coming to mind is “Cool” from West Side Story. Of course, I had to switch boy to girl, “Girl, Girl, crazy girl, get cool, girl!” The next line in the lyric is, “Got a rocket in your pocket,” and that made me think about the whole question of dogs having pockets. If Cricket has hidden pockets, and she keeps rockets in them on occasion, that would make the amount of time she spends writhing on the floor, scratching her back, seem much more dangerous.


“I can scratch my back if I want to!”

“Keep coolly cool girl?” The lyrics seem a little sillier than I remembered.

“Girl, girl, crazy girl. Stay loose girl!” I can picture Cricket doing the dance moves at this point in the song. She’s outside in the dark, wearing her denim jacket and canvas sneakers (just go with me on this), and she’s getting really low and jazzy and snapping her fingers (side point, what made God decide that dogs shouldn’t have fingers? Do dogs have no need to snap?).

“Breeze it buzz it, easy does it. Turn off the juice girl,” except, given that the goal is to get Cricket outside to pee, I’m not sure this line in the song is very helpful.


“You’re not funny, Mommy.”

“Go, girl go, but not like a Yo Yo school girl,” this reminds me that Cricket is not allowed to go to public school, which still bothers me, because she would love to learn French, and math, and a little bit of social studies, and she would especially love running laps in the gym.

“Just play it cool girl, real cool.”

Cricket responds well to music, actually. She especially prefers it to when I say words like no, stop, sit, and other cruelties of that kind. She watches my face very closely when I’m singing, just like my oldest nephew did when he was a baby, as if he was trying to figure out where the sounds came from.


Music soothes the savage Cricket.

It takes at least the length of the song to get Cricket quiet enough to be leashed and allowed out the door. Once she’s outside, though, all bets are off. She’ll bark at just about anything.

But that’s a challenge for another time, and a longer song.


“I don’t think I can take anymore, Cricket.”


“Wake me when the training is over.”



After a day of inauguration coverage, it was a relief to go to Friday night services at my synagogue, and sing about love and peace and peoplehood, embracing minor keys and unresolved endings with my whole heart. Others raise their voices in protest, at marches, in violence, in artistry, in soaring speech. I sing.

“Spread a canopy of peace, a canopy of love, for everyone!”


Sing it, Butterfly!

The whole past year has been stressful, but in the background there was always the hope that things would get ironed out and government would recede in the national attention to third or fourth most covered topic, at least behind the Kardashians. Instead, we have the constant barrage of tweets that is Trumpiness, or should that be Trumpitude, or Trumptasia? Maybe you need to be on LSD to appreciate this particular era in United States politics.

The fact that newscasters find themselves speculating on where Trump is sitting when he does his middle of the night tweets, is alarming. They seem to have come to the conclusion that he has colitis, or irritable bowel syndrome, given the number of missives sent into the ether.

It feels like we’re living inside of a movie spoof, like the Airplane movies, or something by the Wayans brothers, and everyone’s keeping a straight face while they read their craziest lines of dialogue. A lot of people seem to be energized by all of this, ready to fight and make a stand, in whichever direction. My Facebook newsfeed is filled with writing friends who are adamant and active in their beliefs. My synagogue is humming with discussions and plans and sign up lists. But I feel lost in the chaos.

I feel like I need a whole new vocabulary to help me understand the ways the world is changing every day, words like, Trumpism, and Trumpification, are a place to start. When Trumpcare is created to replace Obamacare, maybe doctors will come up with a new drug, let’s call it Trumpium, a combination of Valium and Opium, to help us all manage the next few years. Trumptastic! Well, at least until impeachment, when I guess we’ll have to think of some new words to make out of “Pence.”

I still feel like hiding under the couch, with Cricket, or overeating with Butterfly (though I draw the line at eating kibble, for now).


Can you make room for me under the bed, Cricket?


Any pizza left, Butterfly?

I don’t feel empowered, or energized, or clear headed, except when I get a chance to sing:

“We are loved, loved, loved, by unending love, an unending love!”

For a few moments, while we were singing together on Friday night, I felt like everything might be okay.


You’re right, Cricket. Peanut butter helps too.