Tuesday, Mar. 01, 2005

Sometimes, labels say it all

By Teri Citterman

It was a brilliant day when Sinclair slipped off the ledge and fell out the window from two stories above the Earth.

In my Capitol Hill Tudor cottage condo, I was sitting on the sofa having a lazy day with the Sunday New York Times. I was scouring the wedding announcements as if they were the op-eds when Matan, my other precious feline, dashed from the dining room and bobbed his head out and down the barely open window of the living room.

I traced his movement out of the corner of my eye, took another sip of my coffee and went to the window. Resembling a Road Runner cartoon, we stared down about 25 feet through a large hole in my neighbor's awning the size of my portly, 18-pound kitty Sinclair. Never a nimble character, he'd slipped off the ledge and plunged right though it.

As Matan and I assessed the damage from above, up walked the UPS guy. "Hey!" I yelled from the window, "Did you see my cat?" "No," he declared, "but I heard a loud noise." Indeed that had been Sinclair's generously proportioned frame blasting through the canvas.

I hurried downstairs and retrieved my shaken kitty from the shrubbery. He wasn't hurt, just surprised and confused about the twigs in his fur.

My concern quickly shifted to my neighbor's awning - what to do about that?

Sometimes, it's not what you do; it's how you do it. Even when you're faced with a $1,000 mishap, it all comes down to creativity and sincerity in your plea for forgiveness and finding a way to convey what words cannot.

I wrote my neighbors - who are fortunately very cool and understanding - a sincere apology note and dropped off a bottle of Motor City Kitty by K Vintners of Walla Walla. It seemed most appropriate for the moment.

On another occasion, I was presented with the opportunity to give a gift in celebration of my friend Craig's new dog Red. Craig found Red on some farm back east - Cle Elum was it? She had been abused and stuck in a trap as a puppy and had a deformed front paw.

Craig had agreed to take her in, despite the warnings of her affinity for raccoons, cats and bicyclists. Red is a survivor, which means she attacks raccoons, cats and bicyclists and is not such a welcome addition to a quiet, charming neighborhood such as West Seattle. Fortunately, Craig has found himself in the right place at the right time and has been able to ward off her prey-capturing tendencies, except for that one raccoon. Anyway ...

Despite her leanings toward hunting the animals I love, this was an easy purchase: Dunham Cellars' Three Legged Red. In a similar dog rescue mission, winemaker Eric Dunham saved Port from a pit bull attack as a puppy. In the end, Port lost a leg, but his fame landed him on wine labels, T-shirts and calendars. He's kind of a Walla Walla rock star, and I think the Dunhams' other dogs resent him. It's the price of fame.

Recently, I was having a discussion with my at-the-time boyfriend about how vast generalizations don't add value to arguments. Perhaps if someone was listening to our conversation, what I call a "discussion" could have easily been interpreted as an argument, but since that's not a word used in most therapists' offices, we will hence forth call it a "discussion."

The discussion centered on the fact that my guy and I agreed it was difficult to engage in debate supported by generalizations that presented no empirical evidence. At that moment, he lunged into an "all people on welfare choose to be there" support sentence. Stunned by this complete contradiction, I tried to gracefully and directly show the violation.

Speaking with someone who argues for the sake of arguing tends to run you in circles, which is precisely what we did until I set the phone down on the dining room table and went about putting the dishes away in the kitchen. If I were a hanger-upper, I would have gladly pulled the trigger.

Days later, he brought up the discussion topic again. "Come on," I exclaimed. "Don't beat a dead horse!" With some enthusiasm, we moved on to the negotiation of where we would have dinner that evening.

Now obviously, relationships are about compromise, and some things can be overlooked when there are more good things happening in a relationship than bad. In this case, there were not. As we drove up the hill to Queen Anne destined for our last supper as a couple, I played out in my head how I wanted the conversation to go. "It's not you, it's me" or "You deserve better." The list of break-up clichés was running rampant.

We arrived at the restaurant and upon opening the wine menu, I knew the right answer. I ordered a stately bottle of Dead Horse by Mark Ryan Winery in Woodinville, and thought this really spoke what I was trying to say.

What a civilized way to end things.

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