Dear Eartha, Goodbye

Chances are you've heard the Christmas song, "Santa Baby."

Chances are, it was Madonna's version.

Which means you ain't heard it at all. Because nobody--nobody--can hold a candle to the the incomparable Eartha Kitt, who recorded "Santa Baby" first, in 1953. My parents had a record of it, and I grew up listening to Eartha every Christmas. Years later, when I heard Madonna's cover, I couldn't help but think--sorry, Madge--what a flat, thin thing she made of the song, next to Eartha's glorious, throaty purr.

As a kid, I was fascinated with Eartha Kitt. Her name, for one. Her accent. Her beauty and most of all, the air of wildness that came through our TV screen like a beating pulse. I was raised in a strict Catholic household, went to strict Catholic schools, and here was a woman who...how can I put this? It wasn't just that she seemed not to obey The Rules. It was more like The Rules wouldn't dare set foot in her universe. That was Eartha. She was thrilling, she was completely beyond my ken, and she was just the teensiest, tiniest, eensiest bit scary. Whenever I saw her on TV--as Catwoman, as a guest on someone's variety show or talk show--I couldn't take my eyes off her. She was mesmerizing. If you want a little taste of what made Eartha great, this is one of my favorite videos of her:

Eartha Kitt passed away on Christmas Day, at the age of 81. Performing to the end. In interviews, she said that as an orphan, her only family was her fans; she was grateful to them for embracing her, and she loved them.

We love you too, Eartha. We'll miss you.

Goodbye, Students

It’s Labor Day—the last summer hurrah before school starts. And, for the first time in 10 years, I’m not getting ready to teach.

Up until this summer, I taught in a veterinary technology* program at a local community college. Teaching wasn’t a planned career move; I sort of fell into it. After seven years of full-time veterinary practice, I’d begun work on the novel that was to become Tallulah Falls. It quickly became clear, though, that there wasn’t enough time or energy in my days for both a full-time job and writing.

And oh, I wanted to finish that novel.

Changing the focus of my career involved a fair bit of scrambling, a good dose of serendipity, and what felt—at the time—like a jump off a precipice. The serendipity came in the fact that, while there is only one veterinary technology program in my state, it happens to be in the city where I live. And the program happened to need a part-time instructor, at the exact time I began looking around for other, more writer-friendly ways to use my veterinary degree.

Long story short—I loved teaching. I loved that look of sudden comprehension—the “aha!” moment, when a student got it. I loved the story-telling, those “from the trenches” anecdotes that grab the class’s attention and clothe abstract concepts in fur and blood and bone. Best of all, though, I loved how much I learned from my students.

They say if you really want to learn something, teach it. There’s nothing like sparring (nicely) with a skeptical student to make you strive to be certain of your facts and your logic. Our students come to us with all kinds of experiences and backgrounds, and not a term went by that I didn’t pick up a new fact, idea, or perspective to add to my own store of knowledge. For that, and for the privilege of standing up in front of a classroom and sharing what I know, I am deeply and forever grateful.

Publishing has changed my life, not least in this way: I had too many irons in the fire, and one had to come out. I have a deadline to meet for my 2nd novel, and I can’t—I won’t—leave veterinary practice entirely. And so the teaching I fell into, ten years ago, is now fallen away.

I will miss it. I miss my students: energetic, enthusiastic, questioning, stressed-out, sharp, compassionate veterinary technician students. You guys made teaching a blast—thank you. Good luck, and I’ll see you out in the crucible of practice—where I’ll get to see how much you really know (and, no doubt, learn a few things myself).


*Veterinary technicians are the nurses of the veterinary profession. To become a licensed veterinary technician, students must complete an accredited 2-year college program and pass national and state licensing exams. Veterinary technicians provide nursing care, take radiographs, administer anesthesia, perform laboratory testing, and counsel clients, along with a thousand and one other duties. Veterinary technicians are smart and capable people, who would be successful in any number of careers with fewer hours, much less stress (not to mention poop), and way more pay. They do this work because they love it. I work with some of the best, most dedicated technicians in the field. I can’t do what I do without them. The fact that I've had the honor of teaching some of them makes me just ridiculously proud.

Happy Mother's Day

Mother’s Day used to be a day of phone calls, cards and flower-sending.

Now it’s a day of remembrance.

Today I found myself remembering the girly-girl things my mother taught me. Mom loved style, she loved clothes and make-up and shoes, and she had a particular romance with purses. I was her only daughter, and I am not a girly-girl. I used to think it’s because I grew up with older brothers, but I’ve met lots of women who did and who are passionate about girl stuff, so it must be something else: renegade DNA, a woogie bit of brain chemistry.

Whatever lay between that particular difference between my mother and me, it never stopped her from patiently teaching me the finer points of being female. Like how to do my nails. Mom was expert at manicuring her own, and ever since I was a little girl, I thought she had the most beautiful nails in the world. I still do. She kept them long, with perfectly symmetrical curved tips, the color almost always some gorgeous dark shade of red. I remember the lineup of little bottles—some kind of milky fluid, some kind of clear fluid, the polish itself (no red for me, not at 13; Mom started me off with clear, and later, pale rose). And then there were the tools—orange stick, file, the hangnail scissors in their own special green plastic pouch. I remember the burning-hair smell of nail filings, the sharp odor of acetone. I loved those evenings, Mom’s explanations and demonstrations, the sense of received knowledge, of wisdom passed down. As far as the nails themselves…well, I did learn, and for a while, I practiced. But I never have been disciplined enough to spend time on things that don’t interest me, and sometime during the intervening, nail-clipper years, I’ve forgotten the details of my mother’s technique. To me, that my mother’s nails were the most beautiful in the world somehow seemed enough.

Mom taught me how to put on makeup; how to buy clothes; how to scuff the soles of newly purchased high heels, to keep from slipping on a rain-slick sidewalk. But while I always learned willingly, I never felt passionately enough about these things to make them part of my daily life. Even now, when I see a woman beautifully made-up, right behind my admiration is the thought: There’s fifteen minutes of sleep lost.

I don’t need to be a girly-girl, though, to treasure the lessons my mother taught me. It’s part of her that I keep forever, her legacy to me made in an observation here, an admonition there, a funny story, an explanation, hundreds and thousands of them, over the years I was blessed to have her. I dream and I remember, and I long to have her back. I stand in a fitting room and look at myself in the mirror, and I hear her say, “Cute isn’t enough. What does it do for you?”

To all mothers, in this life and beyond: Happy Mother’s Day.