On Hissy-Fitting and Lickety-Splitting

Great Big Baby Dog Woodrow, Old Lady Dog Callie, and I were lying on our bellies looking out my attic-bedroom window at 6:15 this morning.  Snuggling in bed with your dogs looking out the window together in the early morning is one of the great pleasures of life.  I commend it to you.

While we were gazing at the ice-covered woods, the dogs began throwing a hissy-fit.  If you are not from the American south, you may not know that a hissy-fit is a tantrum.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines hissy-fit as a sudden period of uncontrolled and silly anger like a child’s.  I do not think people from Cambridge throw hissy-fits. 

In addition, one does not HAVE a hissy-fit.  One THROWS a hissy-fit.  I do not know why.  

Perhaps it’s because throw is a strong verb.  A good hissy-fit is always thrown.  Most recently I threw a hissy-fit when I dropped my phone in the bath.

But back to the dogs’ hissy-fit.  They threw it because Young Red Fox was lickety-splitting down the cart path. 

The Oxford Dictionary defines lickety-split thus: as quickly as possible.  OD says lickety-split is an adverb, but I prefer it as a verb.  I know the word more intimately than the writers of OD do because I’ve been lickety-splitting all my life, and I doubt that anyone who ever worked on the Oxford Dictionary has ever lickety-splitted.  I can’t imagine a wizened don sitting in a dusty library telling another wizened don, “I need a definition of perspicacious lickety-split.”

Please note that I like verbing nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.  Lickety-splitting is a more powerful verb than running lickety-split.

Lest you wonder whether verbing is a verb, it is.  Antimeria/anthimeria is the act of changing one part of speech into another, such as verbing.    If you change the word, it’s a derivation.  If you don’t change the word, it’s a conversion or a zero derivation.

Lest you think this essay is pointless, let me assure you that I have a point: life is too short to throw hissy-fits by annoyances lickety-splitting through our lives.  Like other people’s antimeria:  Yesterday I was lickety-splitting past another white-haired woman who was throwing a hissy-fit about her daughter-in-law’s use of the word cocooning, as in, “We’re staying home cocooning this weekend.” 

I wanted to say, “Lady, at our age, life is too short for throwing hissy-fits.

“Instead, we should each go home and snuggle on our beds with our dogs and gaze into the snow-filled woods.” 

Dogs who get hissyfied by foxes lickety-splitting by.

Hissyfied?  One of my favorite antimeria is making predicate adjectives by adding fied to almost any part of speech.  So I hope you have been smartified today because I taught you about antimeria/anthimeria. 

And I hope you stop lickety-splitting for the rest of the day, get unhissyfied, and go snuggle with your dogs on your bed and stare out the window together. And thus be blessifed.

 

 

 

The Circle of Life: The Red Fox

Until we moved to Arkansas, I only seen a red fox once.  He came through the back garden of the English cottage where I was staying. He was not the gorgeous fellow of fairy tales.  His hips, backbone, and ribs protruded.   Most of his hair had fallen out.  I tossed and turned all night.

I began studying about red foxes. I learned that December is the month when young females come into estrus and young males try to establish a territory where they can start a family.  I learned that red foxes live in Arkansas.  But I was living in a city in the Texas desert where no red fox had ever trod.

The first morning that I saw a red fox from my bedroom window here at my retirement home in Arkansas, I raced down the stairs to tell Husband Don.  Yes, I was sure.  A big, beautiful red fox.

My big red fox trotted by the house every morning about seven.  He stopped in the commons area behind the creek that borders our yard.  In the summer, I couldn’t see him through the trees, but when the leaves fell, I could watch him from my bedroom in the attic.

He would stand in the clearing and peer north and south, nose testing the wind.  Satisfied, he would head west.  The stuff of fairy tales.

Then, late last summer, I saw him lying in the middle of the road.  A turkey vulture was pulling his already-ravaged body into the gutter where it could feast safely.  It’s the circle of life, I said to myself.  It’s the circle of life.  But I grieved for weeks. 

Then, yesterday morning, Old Dog Callie woke me up when she leapt from my bed and began to bark and scratch at my bedroom windowsill.  Baby Dog Woodrow began barking and running in circles to help his sister, although he had no idea why she was excited. 

I looked out the window, but because of the quilt of red, gold, and brown leaves covering the ground, I couldn’t see anything.  Callie insisted that something was happening.  I let my focus go hazy and stayed alert for movement.  Then I saw it. In the trees, north of where Old Red Fox used to test the air, stood a young red fox.  He sniffed the air to the east and north for a minute and then headed west.  My heart thundered.

“It’s okay, Callie,” I said.  “He’s supposed to be here.” Yes, he’s supposed to be here.  I sat up on the side of the bed and thought, He’s the son of Old Red Fox.  He’s establishing his territory, filling the vacancy left by his father.  He’s looking for a vixen.   To mate.  To start a family.  It’s the Circle of Life.  The Circle of Life.

Old Dog Callie and Baby Dog Woodrow hopped up on the bed next to me.  I wrapped my arms around them both and hugged them close. 

 

 

Stump

Got a stump right smack dab in the middle of my back yard.  As I understand convention, a civilized person is not supposed to have a stump in her yard.  A civilized person who has a stump in her yard calls sinewy, grizzled guys who come out with a contraption called a stump grinder that erases the stump from its spot on the earth.  Erases all signs that a tree ever lived on that spot: purified the air, shaded rabbits, flowered in lascivious glory, sheltered baby cardinals, shattered the air with brilliant color in the fall, made a home for hoot owls as it died. 

Don’t understand why a person would want to erase a stump. 

My stump is a double stump.  This probably makes me only half as civilized as people who have a single stump.  And infinitely less civilized than people who have no stump at all. 

The left-hand part of my stump is eight inches across and two feet high.  The right-hand part is six inches across and a foot high.  The right and left stump faces are cut at 45 degree angles facing away from each other.  Their upturned faces make them look like they are admiring the leaves in the trees who are still living.  Or enjoying the sun.  Or like two good friends standing back-to-back fighting for their lives.  Against sinewy grizzled guys out to erase them.  “I’m on your six,” the short stump would shout to the tall one.  “Got yer back,” the tall one would yell in return.

My stump has borne silent witness to untold joy and despair:  The delight of an elderly ground squirrel at feeling the warm sun on his fur when he emerges from his long winter’s nap.  The terror of a grey squirrel my neighbors trap and carry away as she clings to the cage bars and screams for her babies.  The despair of a naked baby bird who lies crying in the wet grass and waits for his death. The thrill of a young thumbkin bat, amazed at her own fearsome feats, as she cavorts through the air catching acrobatic bugs.  The sensuous joy of my sweet gum tree as the rain caresses her long lean limbs while she stretches them seductively in the wind. To all this joy and despair, and untold more, has my stump borne silent witness.

I know my double-stump is not a living tree any more.  Don’t know who it was or why it died.  Bought the stump along with the house.  Can’t miss the tree I never knew, but I would miss the stump if sinewy, grizzled guys came with a stump grinder in the middle of the night and grinded it.  Would scream and throw books at them out of my attic window until they threw up their hands and skulked off muttering about the crazy woman in the attic.

I am not the only person to whom this stump is important.  Grey squirrels in the trees that line my back yard love this stump.    They scurry down my sweet gum tree and race across the yard to hop up on it.  They raise up on their haunches and gaze back at the sweet gum to admire it from a different perspective.  Then they peer at the oaks and the elm tree to see whether they have changed from the day before.  Occasionally they look directly at me through the attic window and wonder what the hell I’m doing inside on such a magnificent day.

Once in a glorious while, a couple of young squirrels will climb up on the stump to see the world from a new perspective together.  Thrilling to run out of the safe cover of the trees and climb up on a stump, exposed, for the first time.  Like the first day of school.  Like the first crush.  Like the first kiss.

A few minutes ago, in the rain that is washing my stump, a pale five-pointed sweet gum leaf fell on its left-hand face.  The stump is dark-coffee-brown, so the leaf looks like a star in the night sky.  Seems to be stuck there.  Tomorrow, maybe a squirrel will hop up on the stump and push the leaf off.  But for now, I like to think the leaf is enjoying seeing the world from a new perspective.

Maybe we each live in a Life-Tree.  Maybe we live so close to the wonders of our Life-Trees that we can’t see them clearly.  Maybe sitting on a stump from time to time would help us gain new perspectives on our lives.  I don’t know about civilized people, but I think I’d gladly trade being civilized for the perspective afforded me by sitting on my stump any day. 

Everyday Miracles: Toast-Stealing Dogs, Dancing Leaves, and Spider Silk

This morning a dog stole my toast.  Actually, the dog was mine.   Because she was sitting on the bed when I crawled in with my breakfast tray, and because I set the tray down and held my plate in my hand in front of me but was looking behind me while I was scooting backward against the headboard, and because she was sitting directly in front of me, she thought I was offering it to her.

She was delighted to be offered a piece of buttered toast (imported Irish butter, no less), and took it.  I turned around to see her sitting stock-still on the bed in front of me with a whole piece of toast in her mouth. 

What a delightful surprise!  A day when a dog unintentionally steals your toast is a harbinger for miraculous, magical things to come.

My friend, Jessica Dunn, is less than half my age but far wiser than I. She has an old soul.  Last year she told me, “You have the gift of miracles.”

“Huh?” I said.  “I can’t do any miracles.  Oh, I can make a fine pot of Chicken and Dumplings, but that’s where my miracle-making ends.”

She smiled.  “You have the gift of miracles because you see them all around you in the little things in life.  Few people realize they're seeing miracles every day, but you do.”

Oh.  If that’s the gift of miracles, I guess I have it.  So I knew that if my dog stole my Irish-buttered toast, I should encounter at least one more miracle today.  And within the hour, I did.

Husband Don, toast-stealing dog Callie, and I took a walk.  We’d gone only fifty feet when I saw a sweet gum leaf hovering in the air about five feet from the ground.  It tumbled and twirled and danced.   It careened out and flew back, but it stayed hovering in the air.  It knew we were watching, so it showed off.

“Hey, Don,” I said.  “Look at the leaf!  It’s a miracle!” We stood quietly to watch it. 

“It’s stuck on a spider-web strand,” he said. 

“I know!” I said.  “And isn’t it miraculous that it is?  And aren’t spider webs miraculous?”

“I guess,” he said.  “What are they made of? And how do spiders make them?”  (He had a lousy fourth-grade science teacher.)

“Spider silk.  They make it from a gland in their bodies. Once for ounce, it’s five times stronger than steel. NASA studies it for spaceships.”  I’m afraid of spiders, but their architectural acumen and artistry delight and amaze me. 

So today was a day of little miracles, and for that, I offer this prayer.

Thanks God, for everyday miracles.  Thanks for a dog who unintentionally steals my toast, a sweet gum leaf who dances in the air, and the architectural marvels constructed by a fellow earthling with a brain the size of a grain of sand.  Miraculous, magical world. Thanks, miraculous, magical God.