A Bizarre Occurrence at the Coffee Shop

Jennifer joined Mother Goose at the East Gate Cafe this morning. We had met only once before at a meeting of mom entrepreneurs who wanted to do a little networking. We didn’t talk too much at the first meeting, but Jennifer invited me to meet her so we could discuss my big ideas and her projects. Mother Goose was very excited to have a new friend with professional experience.

The scene of the bizarre occurrence — we were sitting in the corner.

I was already working my way through a bowl of cappuccino when Jennifer sat down. We had a preliminary weather discussion and then got down to some serious chit chat about working on our own businesses. She has had some great opportunities and had learned many things over the years and she was very willing to share her knowledge with Mother Goose.

We also got to talking about our families, of course. My large group of children and her only son, Andy — seemingly very different family situations. She and her husband Paul had adopted their son when he was a tiny fellow — they had lived in the city and Andy had attended some fine schools before they had moved to Oak Park.

In the middle school years, he had experienced some bullying by some really nasty kids. They had teased him for being of Asian descent — heartbreaking stuff for kids and their moms, of course.

She told me that Andy was doing well in high school, although he still wasn’t very involved in extracurricular activities. He’s interested in computer science and looking forward to college.

Suddenly Mother Goose had a weird sort of epiphany.

“Is your son a senior?” I asked.

“Yes,” Jennifer replied.

“And you called him Andy?” I asked.

“Yes,” she answered again with a quizzical look on her pretty face.

“Well,” I continued, “I was just wondering because my son is a senior also and his best friend is an Asian guy named Andrew.”

Her mouth dropped open and her eyes got rounder than my bowl of cappuccino.

“My son’s name is Ben,” I explained.

And then all of the halogen lights went on inside our heads. We simultaneously reached the bizarre conclusion that our sons were indeed best friends!

I’m still shaking my feathery old goose head at this amazing situation. As you know, Mother Goose does not believe in coincidences, accidents or acts of chance. I believe that every single activity and meeting under heaven’s stars has a real meaning in the general cosmic state of affairs. And this was just one more proof of that fact — our loving God is totally in charge of every moment in our lives and loves to arrange the most interesting combinations of people. There is no shortage of mysteries in life and He is the grand author of them all, including this one.

Jennifer and I had been chatting for over an hour before the great bizarre situation was revealed to us. Oh, we laughed and hugged and almost cried. We shook our heads and looked at each other with brand new eyes of understanding and compassion.

Suddenly everything made perfect sense!

We will never forget that moment and surely we will be friends forever after this day. Don’t you just love those times when the universe suddenly opens up, love pours down on us and great joy is real and wonderful?

Mother Goose just loves times like these. God bless you today!

Dusty the Hero Pup

The dear sister of Mother Goose has a hero pup. His name is Dusty, and he is a Bichon Frise. When she was here to visit me recently, I asked her, “What were the original Bichons bred to do? Are they hunters? Herders? Tracking dogs?”

His cute little face after grooming session.

Surprisingly, she did not know for sure, so we googled that question.

The answer quickly came back that they have always been kept as companions! Nothing else. There have been no other jobs for this breed of dog except to hang out with humans and make them happy.

Dusty has always done his job.

But last year, Dusty went above and beyond the call of duty.

My sister is a recent hip transplant victim patient. However, sometimes in the process of healing, a patient will experience a dislocation of the hip. Bunn was in her bathroom which is on the lower level of her home shaving her legs. Her husband, Allen, was upstairs asleep.

Without any warning, her hip popped out of its socket! Bunn was immediately flooded with the most excruciating pain imaginable and stranded from Allen. She could not move! Frozen in terrible pain, she could only cry and scream in agony, hoping that somehow he would hear her calls for help, but also knowing that he is a very sound sleeper.

But Dusty heard her hysterical yelling and crying.

This little white package of fluff instantly knew that something was wrong with his mom. He couldn’t do much, but he did what he could. He jumped up on Allen who was still soundly asleep, pawing at him and nudging his face with his cold black nose. He whined and barked and made as much commotion as he could until at last Allen opened his eyes.

“What’s wrong, Dusters?” he asked sleepily.

Then he heard my sister screaming in the basement. He ran down the stairs and saw what had happened. He quickly called 9-1-1 summoning the paramedics who loaded her onto the vertical gurney and carried her up the stairs to the waiting ambulance. They rushed her to the emergency room where the doctors were able to carefully reposition her hip.

Dusty was the Hero of the Day.

Yesterday the hero pup was struck by a car in the street right outside their home. The motorist, probably speeding, saw him standing on the side of the curb and assumed that he’d stay there. He didn’t.

Because Dusty is so friendly, he probably assumed that this car was bringing guests to their house and ran out into the street to welcome the guests. Because that’s what a Bichon does — they are the social committee of the dog world.

The screech of brakes and the scream of the woman brought Allen running to the street where he saw the little white hero pup laying on the ground, blood all around him.

But he was miraculously still alive! They wrapped him in Allen’s sweatshirt and rushed him to the closest veterinary clinic. After xrays, they determined that he had no internal injuries or broken bones. Many of his toes were dislocated, but the worst situation was the road rash on his rear right leg. His skin, muscle and tendon were completely gone down to the bone.

He had emergency surgery yesterday around noon. They cleaned his little leg, and gave him laser treatments to stimulate cell growth as well as corn syrup poultice. High tech and low tech treatments for the little hero. He’s also on really good pain meds, and will have to remain hospitalized until Wednesday.

Dusty and Bunn after his surgery yesterday.

But the little Hero is going to be OK.

He might not run as fast as he used to, and he might walk with a limp. But Bunn and Allen also walk pretty stiffly, and they are just so thankful that their little Dusty is alive. He’s a great companion, and a real Hero.

Hip hip hooray for Dusty the Hero Pup!! And get well soon, little fellow. Mother Goose loves you…

Mother Goose Crashes!

Accidents happen, don’t they? The whole point of accidents is that nobody plans on having one. We usually plan on having a baby, but there’s the phrase again sometimes — accidents happen. We usually plan to get to the bathroom on time, but as Mother Goose is learning in her advanced years, accidents happen. We usually plan to get home from a nice dinner out without any problems, but then — accidents happen.

Mother Goose is fine, dear gentle reader. Not to worry — just a few bumps and bruises on Mother Goose and three of her young tater tots, but we are all mostly fine. It was a dark and dreary night, with rain and heavy traffic. Mother Goose could have been more careful and should have been paying closer attention, of course. I never planned to go plowing into the back of the 2002 Nissan XTerra, of course. But accidents happen.

“I want to be remembered for the work that I’ve done, rather than the car accidents that I’ve gotten into, the men that I’ve not dated – or the man that I have.” Lindsay Lohan

Though I was not given the media attention of Lindsay Lohan in this car accident, I WAS given a traffic ticket from the nicest Chicago cops I ever met. They were thoughtful, efficient in their work and wisely informed us not to use the “chaser” towing service that immediately and miraculously showed up at the scene of the incident. Apparently these scam artists par excellence’ listen to their police scanners and like vultures on the side of the road come swooping in to take advantage of accident victims. They pretend to be our friends, they say they will bill our insurance company directly, they say that they’ll tow our car to the auto repair service of our choice. But BEWARE — they will hook up the damaged car and tow it away to be stored for an indeterminate length of time and turn around to charge the naive victim anywhere from $1,500 to $1,800 to retrieve their car.

So we chased away the “chaser”, called our own towing service, and thanked the friendly officers for saving us big bucks.

Mother Goose also thanked them for issuing her a lovely yellow citation which includes a summons to face the judge next month. Poor Mother Goose in court. Stay tuned for THAT story….

In the meantime, be careful. And bee blessed.