Why My Third Husband Will Be A Dog (19 page)

Boo!

I think we would all be better served if this New Year, we made unresolutions. That is, let’s make a list of things we’ve been doing and we’d like to keep doing.

Who needs negativism around the holidays? Times are tough, and why should we make them tougher? Especially on our favorite people in the world, namely ourselves.

Let’s give it a try, shall we?

I’ll go first.

UnResolution Number One. I sleep in my clothes, and I resolve to keep sleeping in my clothes. I know this sounds weird, and it helps that my clothes are fleece pants and a fleece top, because I work at home. Sometimes I even wear a fleece hat to bed, like a nightcap, because I like my room cold but not my head. Bottom line, I never
have to worry about what to wear, and I’m already dressed, all the time. So now you know.

 

UnResolution Number Two. I kiss my pets on the lips, and I like it. I know people say it’s unsanitary, but they’re no fun. All of my animals expect me to kiss them on the lips, even my pony. And if they balk, I grab them by their furry cheeks and force them to stand still. I’m paying the room and board, and all I want is a little smooch. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.

 

UnResolution Number Three. I don’t own an iron. It’s not the worst thing in the world if my clothes are a little wrinkly. No one really notices, or if they do, they’re too polite to say so, which is the same thing. To me.

 

UnResolution Number Four. I talk to strangers. I get this from Mother Mary, who, when we went into the Acme, talked to the produce guy, the stock boy, and the cashier. She was always up in their business, and in time, they were up in hers. It turned every errand into a little party, a reunion of old friends, but there just happens to be a cash register in the middle.

 

UnResolution Number Five. I make too much food. If I serve dinner and no one at the table says, “You made too much food,” then I feel like I failed. I love the idea that there’s a lot of food on the table. I want everybody full and happy, and I always give the leftovers to the dogs and cats. You know what comes next. (I kiss them on the lips.)

 

UnResolution Number Six. I wear flats. I used to always wear high heels, because I’m a shorty. I thought I
felt more powerful in heels, but all I really felt was more painful. It was daughter Francesca who got me started wearing flats, and it changed my life. My toes are always happy, and I’m still a mighty mite.

 

UnResolution Number Seven. I buy too many books. I love to read and have hundreds of books overflowing my bookshelves and stacked high on my dining room table, in piles. I love living around books, and reading is like traveling without baggage claim. Who needs a dining room anyway?

 

So maybe now you understand why I’m single.

 

Which brings me to UnResolution Number Eight. I live alone, but I’m not lonely. I know lots of you live alone, whether by choice or by circumstance, and you may be lonely, especially around the holidays. I’m not saying you’re not allowed to be, all I’m saying is that the fact that you live alone doesn’t necessarily mean you’re lonely. It means you’re free to wear hats to bed.

 

In the end, our own personal happiness is about figuring out what makes us feel the most ourselves, and living that way—and to hell with what anybody else thinks.

So when you’re making a list of resolutions, please do make some unresolutions, too.

It will be a Happier New Year.

We’ve all heard that when you have to make a decision, you should listen to your inner voice.

But I have a question.

What if you disagree with your inner voice?

For example, here’s what happened to me. I went to Boston to see daughter Francesca in a show that ran for three weekends. I decided to stay for the duration because it was easier than driving back and forth, and happily for me, as a writer, I can work anywhere.

Especially where there’s room service.

I write great whenever room service is around. I love room service like Hemingway loved Scotch. I think the course of American letters would have been completely different if Fitzgerald had known about In-Room Dining. I bet Faulkner would have gone with the mustard salmon with
pommes frites
. He might have written
As I Lay Eating,
instead.

Anyway, I stayed in a hotel and even brought my dog Ruby, who once killed my finger. If I left her at home, I was afraid she’d kill something else, namely one of the other dogs. Besides, it’s fun to have a dog in a hotel.

She likes room service, too.

For the last weekend of the show, mother and brother flew up
from Miami and we had a great time. Afterwards, we were scheduled to drive home together on Sunday, but when we woke up that morning, it was snowing like crazy. Almost a foot of snow had already fallen, and freezing rain, hail, and other pointy things poured from the sky. Only snow plows, salt trucks, and the proverbial emergency vehicles were on the roads. The governor issued the usual travel advisory, which boiled down to:

Are you nuts?

So mother, brother, daughter, and I convened in a hotel room to make a decision about whether to stay or go. Mother said, “It’s cockamamie to drive in this weather.”

Brother said, “Let’s stay an extra day and go home Monday.”

Daughter said, “I vote for Monday, too.”

My inner voice agreed with all of them. It said, It’s only common sense to stay another day. Plus, I can order that roast chicken I like. They’d cook it for me and bring it on a tray with a rose, then take away the dirty dishes, like I’m a baby. A little writer baby.

But I disagreed with my inner voice. A contrary voice was coming out of me, and I think it was my outer voice. It said, I’ve been in this hotel for almost three weeks. It’s costing me a fortune. I finished my book. I’m out of underwear and Iams. I want to go home, and the governor is not the boss of me.

So I said, “I have four-wheel drive. Let’s rock.”

We left at noon in a blizzard, and we were the only car on the Massachusetts Turnpike. At least I think we were, but I couldn’t see much through the sleet frozen on the windshield, in patches shaped like major continents. I couldn’t clear the windshield because ice clung to the wipers, transforming them into twin Popsicles. I blasted the defrost on MAX, but the effect was MIN, except that windows steamed up and the interior temperature hovered at greenhouse effect.

I couldn’t drive above 45 mph because once I hit 50, we fishtailed, which was when I realized that although I had a will in place, all of my beneficiaries were in the car. So if we all died driving home, my hard-earned money would go to the state, in which case the governor would be the boss of me.

We stopped four times on the way, both for dogs and people, and the lowest moment occurred at a “canteen” in Connecticut, when we got out and saw that the car was completely encased in a thin layer of ice, as if it had grown an impervious shell, like the Batmobile.

That is, if the Batmobile contained The Flying Scottolines and a corgi with behavioral problems.

We finally got home at nine o’clock that night. Bottom line, a trip that usually took six hours took three extra. And the whole way, I was hearing voices. It was my Inner Voice yelling at my Outer Voice.

But amazingly, when we got home, neither mother, brother, daughter, or dog said I-told-you-so.

Which is why they’re the beneficiaries.

Mother Mary is visiting, and you know what that means. More Scottoline family hijinks, most recently in the clothes department. The change in climate from Miami to Philly has caused major wardrobe drama, and at all times, we have much discussion about what my mother should wear that day. Turtlenecks strangle her. Wool scratches her. Silk snags. Acrylic is perfect but only in cardigans. Layers are too bunchy. Given how picky my mother is, imagine my surprise when she came down for breakfast one morning wearing a white lab coat over her clothes.