Early in my career, a few of my colleagues and I kidnapped and ransomed our creative director’s favorite set prop: a small cheese cow. There were actually two cheese cows, a mama and a baby, but we chose the smaller one for the simple reason that it was easier to ship. We were serious about this kidnapping, you see. This cow had places to go.
I worked at an advertising agency, Bates USA in Columbus, Ohio, on the Wendy’s business, the fast food chain established by Dave Thomas. During my tenure at Bates, Mr. Thomas would eventually pass away, an event that left none of us emotionally unaffected.
But this story is about the cheese cow, so let me start by saying that the cheese cow is not made of cheese. If you’ve been to Wisconsin and have seen those cheesehead hats sold at airports – it was made out of material like that.
We removed the small cow from Gary’s upstairs office one afternoon in early 2001 and stashed it in my desk. He noticed immediately. We all feigned innocence when interrogated. He was a short man, fierce in his bark, soft in his bite. Talented. He wrote many TV and almost all the radio spots, as well as oversaw the creation of the signage that you’d see in-store. In short, he was the kind of higher up you really wanted to successfully prank – but in a harmless, meaningful way. It had to be done just right. Little did we know that the journey of the cheese cow would come to mean so much more to all of us.
The first real trip for the cheese cow was to Manhattan with me. It went on set during a Kids Meal Shoot. At this point, we had already sent a ransom note to Gary, something made from cut out letters and copied like the goofy notes in really old suspense movies. We FedExed the cow ahead of us and opened it upon arrival. When you’re filming TV commercials, they are of course filmed in shorter segments. For Kids’ Meal shoots, there’s what’s called the lock-off, the end bit where all the toys are displayed and the camera pans across them, the voiceover makes its ominous and important promises. My client, Allison, and art director, Rod were in on the gag. We were all in giggles about it. It didn’t take much to convince the director at Curious Pictures to get in on it too. It was quickly decided we would do one last take where the cheese cow would crash through the toy set-up like Godzilla. We would show it during the first rough-cut presentation a couple of weeks later.
The day before the presentation, we received the Beta. It was awesome. There were the toys, and then here came the cheese cow, wobbling its merry way to knocking over every last one of them. The sound team at Curious dubbed in monster noises. Then it hit us: we had to get Bob Levite to approve us showing it. Bob was the President of our office. He might flip if we showed it without his knowledge. All of the presentations, at any level, were always high-pressure. Everything had to be perfect. We always had a battle plan before each one. I remember nervously walking into his office and explaining what was going on. He was dead serious at first. Just looked at me blankly. Then he smiled, just a tiny bit. “Okay,” he said. “But do it after New York has gotten off the line.” I agreed. It made sense. Our New York office housed our head creatives, the guys who came up with Miller’s “Tastes Great, Less Filling.” Their time was not for pranks or gags. Unless, of course, it was their idea.
We went through the normal presentation and as everyone was about to leave the room, Rod said: “Oh, wait. We almost forgot. We have one more option to show.” And there wobbled the cheese cow. Gary just stared at the TV. He looked around the room. “Who has my cheese cow?” We all shrugged. Gary looked at Bob. “Did you know about this?” Bob shook his head and quickly left the room. Now the game was really on.
The cheese cow went to Bob Levite’s daughter’s wedding. Pictures of the cow cutting the cake were sent to Gary. Pretty soon the head honchos at Wendy’s marketing were in on it too. The cheese cow had a travel schedule. It was going to San Francisco, Italy, the Bahamas. People were taking it on vacation. We literally had a spreadsheet of where the cow would be when.
But first, on September 11th, it was accompanying me and a couple of colleagues to Cincinnati to a still photography shoot. I think we were shooting some kind of hamburger. There was an extra person going with us, our junior account executive, because she was training to take over the still shoots. We always drove to Cincinnati from Columbus. It wasn’t that far. We left early in the morning. There were four of us on the drive down and we took someone’s Pathfinder, a fortunate choice, in hindsight. The ride was jovial and lighthearted. The cheese cow was packed securely in its comfy box. When we arrived to the studio the big screen TV was on, which was strange. Usually classical music was playing. Everybody would be laughing and talking. It was oddly somber.
“The second tower just got hit,” Leslie, the lead food stylist said. She and her assistant had just flown in from New York City that morning.
“What are you talking about?”
Everyone stood and staredat us. They filled us in. We sat down and watched in horror with the rest of the world. I called my then boyfriend, who is now my husband. He lived in Pittsburgh but used to do a lot of work in Manhattan. He had lived there for weeks at a time. “My God, we’re under attack,” he said.
It also just so happened that we had a second shoot going on at Giant’s stadium. All of the high-level executives were there. I called my colleague. They were watching the smoke plumes curl into the sky. The National Guard was arriving at the stadium. It was needed as a staging area. Our shoot team had two limos that hadn’t left the stadium yet, so everyone crammed in and started driving. Driving where? They supposed back to Ohio, once they figured out transportation to get that far. The limos were local only.
Back in Cincinnati, our food stylists kept working. They positioned lettuce. They lipsticked tomatoes. What else could be done? Their cell phones were on. Normally they were off. They had friends who worked in the Towers. We all did. We all did what everyone else who didn’t live in Manhattan did. We watched in horror as the Towers fell. As the Pentagon was hit. As the plane went down in Pennsylvania. We cried and kept working. What else could be done?
Near the end of the day, we realized our food stylists would be stranded in Cincinnati. We made phone calls to find a rental car. No luck in Cinci. But there was one, literally one, left in Columbus. We booked it. We found them a hotel room. We piled into the Pathfinder. Leslie rode in the way back with their luggage. Thankfully, she’s about five foot two and weighs ninety pounds. We knew they would have a long drive back to New York, one where they would worry the entire time, wheels spinning, awaiting news of their friends and family. So, as ludicrous as it may seem, given the grave and horrific events that had transpired, we sent them off with the cheese cow and some disposable cameras. A distraction.
Meanwhile, our colleagues who were shooting at the Giants stadium had managed to secure Dave Thomas’s old RV. Someone was driving it up from somewhere several states south. One of the franchisees owned it, and when he heard that ten execs were stranded, he sent it on up with a driver.
A few weeks after 9/11, Leslie mailed us the resulting photos with a note. There were more photos than any of us had expected given the circumstances, but apparently a goofy distraction was exactly what was needed to help keep them going on the drive home.
Why I thought of writing this today is two-fold, I suppose. First, my 2.5 year old daughter and I were slowly wandering past storefronts, going the usual impossibly slow toddler pace. The one where seasons change as you walk. We were looking in the window of a toy shop that had a few garden gnomes interspersed in the display, which reminded me of the Travelocity ads, which reminded me of the cheese cow. And second, I quit my job several months ago and find I have days where I struggle with what I’ve accomplished that day, its relative level of importance compared to contributing in some manner to our GDP. Or struggle with how much I’m actually keeping my daughter entertained and learning, and how much I’m helping anyone outside of my immediate family. And then this morning we had a most fantastic play date with our friends, where the little things rose to the surface, the meaningful things that peek out of the chaos of daily life – the making of sandwiches on a torrentially rainy day, the kids entertaining each other, the sweet sleep of a five week old baby in my arms. The comfort taken in the company of friends.
Or the long drive home with a cheese cow after the world has been forever altered.
When we told Gary where his cheese cow was – the only time we ever told him where it was – he didn’t mind. That was the last trip the cow took under our watch. I expect it’s sitting somewhere in Gary’s house now, next to its cheese cow mother.
From the end of Chapter 10, written from Tina’s POV:
Regina worked at a casino downtown, one of several that had opened since the mine closure. All of them had video game gambling, not the real kind you’d find in Vegas like poker and blackjack with card dealers and cameras everywhere. No, this was Butte style. Small-time stuff that required no skill whatsoever. A few featured restaurants where the tourists could eat steak and potatoes and drink a beer. All the tourists tipped like miser grannies, according to Regina, because they were saving their coins and dirty dollar bills for the machines, but every now and then someone made her time waitressing worthwhile. Even though it was the slow season Regina carefully applied her make-up in the car on the way to work. She pulled her lashes upward with a mascara wand, keeping one eye on where they were so she would be ready for the turns and wouldn’t mess up her artistry. When she was finished, which Tina knew by the red lipstick she always smeared across her mouth last, she said: “So. Have you heard from Sherri?”
“You know I haven’t so why are you asking?” Tina said. She glanced at Jude who was sprawled across the back seat with his feet in the air.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you since you came home that she called me today,” Sherri said. She smiled at Tina in a way that Tina knew meant trouble. “And she ain’t coming back for a good long time.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means that she’s run off just like your no-good mama did,” Sherri said. “That’s what it means.”
“But what did she say?” Tina said. “I mean, what exactly did she say?” She could hear the plea in her own voice and hated herself for it.
“That don’t matter none,” Regina said. “What matters is what we’re going to do now.”
The road blurred before her. Tina checked the rearview mirror again; Jude’s feet were still sticking straight into the air. They passed brick building after brick building. Each slid by her periphery, made watery by tears balanced at the corners of her eyes. This moment was important, she thought. This moment is when something big happens. She kept driving until they reached the casino. Without a word she parallel parked the car on the street and turned to face Regina. What she wanted to say was trapped in her head along with the cool attitude to go with it; now all she could do was try to swallow. Her mouth had gone dry. She wished for a bottle of water.
“This is what we’re going to do,” Regina said. “Don’t think I didn’t notice your eighteenth birthday go by. I did. But it didn’t mean much until he arrived.” She jerked her thumb at Jude. “I figure with you being of legal age it’s high time you paid rent for yourself and for him. It’s only fair.”
Tina slouched into the seat and put her forehead on the steering wheel. “How much?” she asked.
“Five hundred a month on top of your half of utilities,” Regina said. She pulled at the door handle to leave. “Due at the first of every month. But since it’s almost Thanksgiving I figure you can start with January. That’s only fair too.”
Tina heard herself exhale deeply but it was like hearing someone else make a noise.
“You got that?” Regina said.
“Yeah, I got it,” Tina said. Then she whispered to herself: “Bitch.”
Regina climbed out, dragging onto her shoulder. Before she closed the door, Tina asked: “Did Sherri leave a phone number? So I can call her?”
“Huh,” Regina said. “You know, she did, but I didn’t have a writing utensil so I couldn’t write it down. You’ll have to get it next time she calls I guess.” Tina heard the door close. She lifted her head and watched Regina walk into the casino, her purse and coat draped over her arm as if she was preparing to hand it to a valet, like a movie star entering a trendy restaurant.
If you’re looking for something off the beaten path – i.e. not listed on The New York Times Bestseller list, not a classic, not a trashy beach read - check out this web site. They review one book per day, all reads published by small or indie presses.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Amy Greene, Bloodroot, Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Two books have really stood out in the past few weeks. Bloodroot by Amy Greene is a beautifully written novel, beating the pants off other female writers’ take on Appalachia. This one captures the place, the people, and the scent of the woods like no other. It took me about twenty or so pages to trust the narration, as it’s told in first person from various characters’ viewpoints, but once you get the rhythm of the novel there’s just no putting it down.
The second book is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I’d put off reading it because so much of his work is ruthlessly bloody but as soon as I started reading this I wanted to hand him the Pulitzer all over again. The tension on each page is almost unbearable at times. The love between father and son as they move through a dangerous and barren world is finely and sparingly written, and is all the more beautiful for it. McCarthy veers away from his usual style that can make an impatient reader’s head hurt, for a plain, straight-forward approach that works, and works really well. I can’t wait to read this again – once I feel like I can take the suspense, that is.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Another one by Tana French due out at the end of July!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cowboy, Diane Geurts, fiction, novel, writing
I ran across these in doing some digging for my novel – some good quotes here 
- Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or a fool from any direction.
- Don’t squat with your spurs on.
- Don’t judge people by their relatives.
- Behind every successful rancher is a wife who works in town.
- When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
- Talk slowly, think quickly.
- Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
- Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time.
- Don’t interfere with something that ain’t botherin’ you none.
- Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.
- It’s better to be a has-been that a never-was.
- The easiest way to eat crow is while it’s still warm.
The colder it gets, the harder it is to swaller. - If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin’.
- If it don’t seem like it’s worth the effort, it probably ain’t.
- It don’t take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.
- Sometimes you get and sometimes you get got.
- The biggest troublemaker you’ll probably ever have to deal with watches you shave his face in the mirror every morning.
- Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.
- If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some influence, try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around.
- Don’t worry about bitin’ off more’n you can chew; your mouth is probably a whole lot bigger’n you think.
- Always drink upstream from the herd.
- Generally, you ain’t learnin’ nothing when your mouth’s a-jawin’.
- Tellin’ a man to git lost and makin’ himdo it are two entirely different propositions.
- If you’re ridin’ ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it’s still there with ya.
- Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.
- When you give a personal lesson in meanness to a critter or to a person, don’t be surprised if they learn their lesson.
- When you’re throwin’ your weight around, be ready to have it thrown around by somebody else.
- Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin’ it back.
- Always take a good look at what you’re about to eat. It’s not so important to know what it is, but it’s sure crucial to know what it was.
- The quickest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it back into your pocket.
- You can’t tell how good a man or a watermelon is ’til they get thumped.(Character shows up best when tested.)
- Never miss a good chance to shut up.
- If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen are defrocked, shouldn’t it follow that cowboys would be deranged?
- There never was a horse that couldn’t be rode;
Never was a cowboy who couldn’t be throwed.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Diane Geurts, fiction, novel excerpt, writing
I’m at page 64 of the novel, or about five chapters. Maybe six. It’s hard to tell, actually, as paragraphs and entire pages are getting cut and paste, moved to their own chapter or to a different part of a chapter, requiring, sometimes, a total re-write of what was there before. I think I have three solid chapters although they have yet to go through my critical readers so saying that is pre-emptive.
And they also have yet to go through the literal cutting and pasting and marking up that I plan to do later today. I’m printing out all 64 pages in their current versions and spreading them around the basement so I can see where introductions to characters or the mentioning of information has become redundant, where I have used the same favorite phrase or word one too many times. Color coding, Scotch tape, scissors. It’ll be like kindergarten or pasting up a newspaper back in the day. (Wow, I’m old enough to have done that for the high school literary magazine!).
And for all 64 pages of novel draft that I have, I also have a “back-up copy” document, which means copy that was cut but that was worthy of saving, that can perhaps could be mined for use later. How long is that “back-up copy” document? Oh, 31 pages.
In the meantime, I have sent a couple of other stories off to literary reviews. Someday I hope to type the words: “I’m published!” or “I have an agent!” Validation that your efforts are worthy is a nice thing
Here’s another excerpt:
Maureen primly asked if she could help, her white cotton sundress out of place next to everyone’s jeans and t-shirts, but everything was already done so they stood next to each other and sipped their beers, listened to the band play covers of Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton, the burly lead singer’s voice hitting a falsetto surprisingly close to Dolly’s, making his face turn such a red that the hue shone through his beard. Everyone stomped their feet and applauded. The dogs started from their slumber under the picnic tables and barked, adding to the ruckus. The singer bowed deeply and the band moved into a Louis Armstrong piece, jazz turned country, then some Willie Nelson. Dusk had fallen and the party lights cast green and orange shadows on everyone. Between songs, sharp barks of laughter pierced the general hum of conversation, men’s voices raised to braggardly tones as they recounted their victories and sorrows and could-have-beens, if only that damn cow hadn’t pivoted or they hadn’t lost their stirrup or they had known the herding dog already knew to swing wide and other reminisces and plans for next time, next summer. Every now and then talk of the upcoming election would rise up, Bush versus Gore and wasn’t it grand that Cheney was actually from Wyoming, so close to Montana, and bottles would clink together in the night air. The smell of the pig roasting on the spit grew stronger; dinner would be soon but until then everyone ate chips and salsa and drank more beer. Chase joined them, flushed from drink and merriment.
“This is a damn fine party, Linda. Damn fine,” he said. “I didn’t think Damon had it in him to make so many richy riches love him so, but clearly I was wrong. Clearly wrong. All of us lowly ranchers busting our humps over cows and hay are jealous, flat jealous, I tell you.” Maureen shifted uncomfortably at his side, pulling the neckline of her dress down a bit. She had never wanted to be a rancher’s wife and had expected Chase to do something else when she married him right out of high school, but he’d been unable to switch gears and locales after all, his apprenticeship as a Seattle journalist falling apart after he screamed at his editor one too many times. Linda was acutely aware of Maureen’s dissatisfaction with Lonesome Pine running these camps, as were many other locals, whether it was jealousy or saying they’d sold out to the wealthy or any other banality: she had to play the politics.
“Oh, piss off, Chase,” Linda said. “You’re drunk already.” She punched her brother lightly on the arm.
“I’m not drunk. No, I am definitely not, am I honey?” he asked his wife.
“You’re saying everything twice, so you’re drunk,” Maureen said.
Chase looked at them wonderingly for a moment. “Well, hell, ladies,” he said as if in preface to something else but couldn’t think what he meant to say. He turned to watch the party. Beyond the revelry and across the driveway, Linda saw that Lucy had turned on the outside lights to the barn and was grazing King. She rested her hand on his shoulder, content to stand beside him. Linda nudged Chase to look at his daughter.
“Why does my husband want that horse again? Why isn’t he at your ranch instead of mine?”
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fiction, Mary Karr, memoir, The Paris Review
I just finished reading the interview with Mary Karr in The Paris Review, and the last couple of pages really resonated with what I’m trying to get on the page with my novel. She is talking about how even the bleakest circumstance isn’t all bleak; how to accurately protray a difficult or even atrocious time requires writing that is almost devoid of emotion, just putting the facts on the page. We talk about this a lot in the class I’m taking with Scott Driscoll, but the way Mary Karr says it really resonates.
“Memoirists shouldn’t exaggerate the most gruesome aspects of their lives. Otherwise, a reader can’t enter the experience. She can only gawk from afar. You have to normalize the incredible. Primo Levi in Survival in Auschwitz writes more vividly about his own faults than the Nazi’s, whose evils are common knowledge. That is what’s so powerful about the book.
You have to correct for your own selfish motives. I want to look like a nice person, so I paint my ex-husband as a saint. But in truth, I wanted to hit him over the head with a mallet. Once I render that, I don’t come out seeming so nice, which is more accurate.”
The difficulty in writing non-fiction – blogs, memoir – is that sometimes you need permission from others to share your own version of events, and even draped with good intentions, with your most perceptive and sensitive use of objectivity, the telling of a particular story is too close to another’s heart and life to pursue lightly. And as I do not yet have permission, I will tiptoe around this real subject in the hopes that I am granted rights to share this story soon.
In the meantime, this week was rough, from Clare and I sharing a cold to turning in my first 50 pages of my novel for the Wilkes James Jones Fellowship submission. It’s like post-wedding blues. The big event is over, the envelope is mailed. Now what? Now it’s waiting, not to mention the re-reading of the manuscript and realizing exactly how much revising of sentences I’ll still be doing, how I wish I had three more weeks to revise before mailing it off. But ce la vie.
So Clareand I were sick and cranky at the beginning of the week, with bursts of energy and humanness amidst the grump. What made me smile this week was Clare after waking up, playing in her crib with a pair of her boots, holding the shoe strings aloft: “Mama, I’m tying rainbows!” Now, when I tie my shoes I think of rainbows. That’s a nice Zen thing to do a few times a day.
And when I dropped her off at preschool yesterday morning, she pointed at the house as I was unbuckling her from her car seat: “My new school! I’m so happy!” She ran inside and hugged her teacher.
The week is ending on a happy note. After spending all week working on my new business life, today is a rest day. Domestic duties only. Well, almost only. I have to reserve my web site domain but that takes but a second. The rest is playing, baking, and having friends over for dinner tonight. And looking forward to a fun weekend, complete with Saturday night babysitter so we can attend a friend’s birthday party. Happy Friday!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cholesterol, Engine 2 Diet, HDL, health, LDL, Texas, vegetarian
My sister-in-law in Texas recommends this book, The Engine Two Diet, saying that:
”It is a great story, too. His father was a big wig at the Cleveland Clinic and researched/designed programs reversing heart disease through diet. His whole family has eaten vegan for a long time. He becomes a professional triathlete, all the while living on a vegan diet (and ripped I might say). After 10 years racing, he becomes an Austin Fire Fighter. Firehouse fare is notoriously nonheart-healthy…steaks, hamburgers, BBQ, etc. He challenges his house to get their cholesterol checked on a bet and one guy’s was in the 300s. He put them on his diet and their health dramatically improved. So, the story is how a firefighter gets his meat-loving firehouse to cook and eat a vegan diet. Wrote a book, “E2 Diet.” E2 stands for Engine 2, which is his house. He’s been on Today Show, has been working with Dr. Oz, etc.”
Inspiring, huh? Definitely worth checking out.
And for the record and full disclosure, my total cholesteral is currently 140. However, the “good” stuff is at 39 and the “bad” stuff is at 101. My doctor, given my family history, thinks there’s a genetic component at work, but nothing that can’t be counter-acted by an improved diet.
So here’s why my 39 number is no good (it needs to get above 60 to really help against heart disease):
“HDL cholesterol is known as “good” cholesterol, because high levels of HDL seem to protect against heart attack. Low levels of HDL (less than 40 mg/dL) also increase the risk of heart disease. Medical experts think that HDL tends to carry cholesterol away from the arteries and back to the liver, where it’s passed from the body. Some experts believe that HDL removes excess cholesterol from arterial plaque, slowing its buildup.”
And some info on the “bad” or LDL:
Your LDL (Bad) Cholesterol Level
The lower your LDL cholesterol, the lower your risk of heart attack and stroke. In fact, it’s a better gauge of risk than total blood cholesterol. In general, LDL levels fall into these categories:
| LDL Cholesterol Levels | |
| Less than 100 mg/dL | Optimal |
| 100 to 129 mg/dL | Near Optimal/ Above Optimal |
| 130 to 159 mg/dL | Borderline High |
| 160 to 189 mg/dL | High |
| 190 mg/dL and above | Very High |
