Christmas Catalogue Connection

Covid might have derailed holiday plans and traditions, but Christmas nostalgia is deeply ingrained, with triggers as varied as the scent of cinnamon, carols playing on Sonos, Dickens on my bedside table, and the L.L. Bean catalogue appearing in the mail.

 

With a cup of tea in hand and a Bean’s catalogue to browse, it could be any decade from my past: me in a voluminous, unflattering Lanz nightgown, Mom and Dad reading by the fire in Vermont in the seventies, or, in the eighties, my kids in their pajamas, playing with their Transformers and Cabbage Patch Kids. L.L. Bean is consistent, and relatively unmoved by trends. Models smile rather than pout, and stride through snow in sturdy boots and puffy parkas without that awkward hand-on-cocked-hip pose favored in most fashion magazines. L.L. Bean’s catalogue is colorful, familiar, and comforting. 

 

Not long ago, I called the company’s 1-800 line to order some gifts, and a woman answered the phone.  She introduced herself and asked how she could help me.  I had questions about sizing, fabrics, and colors, and she was patient and friendly. I must’ve been feeling raw that day, for her kindness touched some deep chord, and I was inordinately grateful for her gentle voice. 

 

“Can I tell you something?” I said. “You have no idea what it means to have a real person, a nice person, answer the phone.” 

 

I confess, I choked up a bit… I know. It’s pathetic, but so it was.  “Everything now is rushed and impersonal, all about business and money. It means something to have a human connection. Please let the company know how important that is, and how much I appreciated talking to you. ”

 

She was quiet for a minute, then said, “Just this morning, I left home for work and thought, ‘Here I go; off to change the world selling slippers and sweaters. I felt sheepish about my job. But maybe the way I do it does make a difference in someone’s day. So, thank you for saying that.” 

 

Again, I assured her it did, and we signed off with warm wishes for the holidays. 

 

Dave has all the flannel shirts he’ll ever need, and my signature Bean’s rubber-soled boots have held up over the years as advertised. We already have snowshoes, quilts, towels, and turtlenecks, but still, I flip through the catalogue, enjoying the ride: evergreen wreaths, berry-red candles, families in matching plaid PJ’s, and precious Labrador puppies peeking from canvas tote bags. It’s a relief in this time of turmoil, loss, and disease to give myself over to the fantasy of L.L. Bean world and pretend that it is 2020 that is the illusion. 

 

An added note: My husband, Dave, routinely asks for a manager in order to compliment an employee when someone has been helpful. They certainly hear the complaints, but not always the good things, and THAT can make someone’s day.   

 

  

Despite Our Differences

It is Friday and the movie starts at noon. I’m able to park close to the cinema door since my car is one of maybe five in the cavernous parking lot.  Do I have the wrong time?  Is the theater closed?

No. The door is not locked and I ride the escalator upstairs to keep the ticket seller, concessionaire, and ticket-taker company.  For there are only four of us in that vast popcorn-scented multi-plex lobby emblazoned with floor to ceiling “Coming Soon!” posters.  This is the second time in my life that I’ve gone to a movie alone; who knew that I would be so truly by myself?  A little weird, but freeing as well.

I go to the bathroom; give the nice man my ticket; walk down the long hall, and enter the theater.  It is empty.  So, where to sit?  On the aisle, of course, for easy bathroom access.  In the middle row?  Hm. A little too close to the screen, so I move back two rows.  Perfect. Two women enter and, with a laugh, I bid them “Welcome to my theater!” I unzip my pocketbook and pull out the water bottle and granola bar I’d smuggled in.  I feel a little daring about that small felony. Look at me, so bold today!  Smuggling contraband and alone at the movies!

I love Disney, cartoons, and musicals, and Dave does not.  I wanted to see “Beauty and the Beast” and Dave certainly did not. I love previews, and Dave does not…and the fantasy selections blaring and darting in bright light – geared to the “Beauty and the Beast” audience – delight me.  Dave would have been sneering or snoozing over “Wonder Woman,” a sequel to “Pirates of the Caribbean,” and “Coco,” an animated film about a small boy’s journey to the land of the dead.  Now that I’ve braved solo movie attendance, I plan to see them all. 

The ponderous velvet curtains pull further to the side as the lights go down. “When You Wish Upon a Star” swells through the room just as it did at the opening of "The Wonderful World of Disney” when I was a kid.  Onscreen, colored stars arc over the soaring towers of Cinderella’s castle and cascade in a shimmering shower of sparkles. I grin in the dark.  Yippee!   

Oddly, I am weepy several times during the movie, and not just when the brutish Gaston kills our – by now, beloved – Beast.  What are the triggers?  I’m not sure.  Nostalgia? The appeal of enchantment as a solution to seemingly unsolvable problems?  A yearning for happy endings?  In “Beauty and the Beast,” arrogance and bullying inflict pain, harsh judgments reveal the flaws of the judges, exteriors belie interiors, and mob mind and mob violence are shown for the horrors they are.  The themes in “Beauty and the Beast” are not cartoonish: they challenge us now.

Later, when I return home, Dave has to listen to me re-tell the tale because I am so uplifted, so excited, so HAPPY after seeing this movie.  He says, “So, it has a plot like every other fairytale about the restorative power of women.”  Whoa.  I am whipped from a defensive response at the start of his comment to astonishment at new insight in his closing. “Say that again?”

“It’s a story about the restorative power of women.”

While a friend recently told me she’d read an article debating “Belle:  Feminist or Brain-Washed Captive,” with my new Trump World heightened feminist sensibility, I love Dave’s expansion of the traditional take on the movie’s message. For, despite the appeal of powers beyond those human, enchantment was not the path to the movie’s happy ending. Ultimately, Beauty and the Beast is about loving despite differences.  In the film as in life, kindness and love are the saving grace.  

          

The Writing on the Wall

A framed sign on my friend’s bathroom wall says, “Sprinkle kindness like confetti,” so her kids see that reminder with every trip to the toilet, every reach for a toothbrush, every step into a warm tub.  I imagine “Be kind” is written in cheerful crayon colors at the top of the list of guidelines in almost every classroom in the country.  At least, I hope it is.

“Be Respectful” and “Think before you act” are usually on those lists as well, crucial guidelines for living, although they often blend too easily in a sulky child’s mind into the “blah, blah, blah” of adult-speak following an incident of shoving, mean words, tears, and bruised feelings.

There are plenty of axioms for behavior that we teach our kids, all embraced under the wise umbrella of “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” but the Biblical “unto’s” and clichéd familiarity of the phrase blur its significance.  How could it not after thousands of years of repetition? Still, it is worth remembering as we choose our words and actions.

This brutal election has assailed us all, children and parents, via one screen or another, lashing us with cruelty, intolerance, and vile language that not so long ago would have cost a child a paddling, loss of privileges, or at least a sit in the thinking chair with a well-soaped mouth.  And yet in this election, the primary perpetrator has been awarded the presidency.  What will be the ramifications in what we do unto each other?  And will children feel less compelled to act kindly toward others when they see the otherness of those “others” sneered, spewed, and shouted by grown-ups? 

How would I feel if someone called me a fat pig?  How would I feel if someone mocked and imitated the way I walk or move?  How would I feel if someone minimized, even slammed, my loss of a loved one?  How would I feel if someone demeaned or attacked me because of my gender, color, sexual orientation, or beliefs?  How would any of us, all of us “others,” feel?

If I were a child in school and such an exchange occurred, presumably a grown up would intervene.  Perhaps, putting an arm around my shoulders and that of my tormenter, the grown up would remind us of the school code, and ask the bully, “How would you feel if she did that to you?”

I have several friends who feel the president-elect “makes some good points.”  That he “promises much needed change.”  That he “tapped into deep rooted anger.”  Let’s grant him those three.  But he could have voiced his stand on immigration, defense, trade, and jobs without demeaning, defaming, and intimidating so many of us “others”- women, Muslims, African Americans, Hispanics, and gays - fomenting a fury that emboldened one southern sheriff to say, “Folks, it’s torches and pitchforks time.” 

Pause to regain breath.  In despair, my mind leaps to witch hunts and progroms and Japanese internment camps.  To all of the “others” who have suffered before in the tumbling, divisive, hate-fueled wake of blame and scape-goating. When I learned about those terrible episodes in history as a child, I was comforted by thinking they were in the past, that we’d learned from them, that they wouldn’t happen again.

“Folks, it’s torches and pitchforks time”???

As we lurch into four years with a president who appears to have crumpled and tossed his copy of the school code into a trashcan, it is important that we, the people, remember our own otherness, remember our children are watching, and speak up for others, as we would hope they would speak up for us.

Going Up

Tea and cookies at the Mohonk Mountain House is a civilized snack served at 4:00 PM, and savored while sitting in velvet Victorian chairs before a cozy fire.  Today, however, the management graciously invited the citizenry of New Palz (all of them) to a day of skating, hiking the trails, and afternoon tea.  A generous offering, but when Dave and I entered the lounge, the dash of hordes desperate for a cup and the surge of celebrants eager for a sugar cookie convinced us that a walk suited us just as well.

A stay at this resort is a luxury for the most part beyond us, but for several years we have taken advantage of a mid-week, pre-holiday deal that puts an overnight almost within the realm of reasonable.  With its dormers and turrets, balconies and stone arches, porches and picturesque overlooks, the Mountain House is a castle nestled in the Shawungunk Mountains, like Brigadoon, an oasis from a different time, a time where we want to be. 

Despite the dimming light, Dave and I skirted the lake, leaving the castle behind us, taking an easy stroll along a wide graveled trail arched over with evergreens.  To our left, massive blocks of stones scoured from the earth and carried by the glacier jutted from the steep slope that rose to the ridge.  Ahead and above us, obscured by great profiles of rock with soaring foreheads and protruding chins, we heard youthful voices laughing and chattering, three teenagers, we later learned.

“What do you think?” said Dave.  “Shall we add ‘rock-climbing’ to our activities when we tell friends about Mohonk?”

Totally.

Having not done much rock-climbing, or any, we both wore sneakers. I regretted this, telling Dave I wished he’d worn hiking boots so we could legitimately call this outing a hike, but rock-climbing?  Even better.  Besides, we planned only to clamber up a little ways. Just enough to claim the activity.

But we got into it.  Kept climbing.  And when Dave called, “Here’s one of the red arrows that marks the trail.  Wanna keep going?”  I did, so we continued onward, pleased to have the guidance of those who’d planned the best approach.

Cheerfully, we reached for finger- and toe-holds, and where there were none, paused to study our options and plan how to progress.  At times Dave gave me a boost; other times, I stretched out a hand to steady him.  In places, we had to scooch through gaps, or heft our butts up onto a grainy surface, and swing our legs around and up. 

All else receded as we scanned the rocks before us, the chinks and inclines, the heights and spans, to decide the best and safest way forward and up.  It was difficult, but I was grinning, pleased I could still do this, grateful and awed that I was scaling these bones of the earth, rocks shunted and lifted and tumbled into place millions and millions of years ago. Oh, how I need to recall that perspective as I ruminate and worry about every detail of life. 

The light was fading and I yelled ahead to the teenagers, asking if they knew how much further we had to go.  

“Not sure.  Close, I think.  I hope,” a young man’s voice called back. 

“Plenty of time before dark,” Dave said.  He knows where my head goes.

For this is not the first time we’ve headed out for a walk that turned into something else, an adventure if one is charitable, sheer stupidity if one is honest.  Years ago, when I was still on our town’s conservation commission and our malamute Kodiak was alive and fit, we set out with the dog on a November afternoon, around 4:00… a time we should beware of, it seems.  Though the trail was local, it was new to us, well marked with blue splotches painted eye-level on intermittent tree-trunks.  We marched along with Kody straining to run, her ears pricked and swiveling. 

I always felt guilty with this big girl on a leash.  She was majestic, maned, and wolfish, black and white with a masked face.   Bred to pull sleds, but born, it seemed to me, to howl and run wild. I felt honored to be her human, and wished more for her than life in a house and at the end of a leash, but suburbia, hunters, and cars limited her freedom. 

For some reason, I’d thought the trail was only a mile or so.  I was mistaken, but when the sun set in front of us we’d been hoofing for a while and it didn’t make sense to turn back.    Periodically I’d ask Dave, “Are you nervous?” and he said no every time, which calmed me.  But my mind was picturing headlines, “Conservation Commissioner Lost in the Woods,” the “What a Jerk” part unprinted but implied.  Plus I knew this preserve backed up on the 750 acres of Trout Brook Valley, which was adjacent to the even larger Devil’s Den state park. One could wander lost in those woods for days.  Mentally, I whipped up a full-scale search with dogs and helicopters as I plodded on, craning for a glimpse of a trail marker, but no longer able to see them in the dark.

It was a glorious night, the sky velvet and star-sparkled, the constellation Orion overhead, club in hand.  We knew the hunter’s orientation in relation to our house, right above the mailbox, at this time of year.  We’d also taken note of where the sun went down. In the absence of a compass or Boy Scout to guide us, we took stock with those elements, and turned to head in the direction Orion indicated.  Having grown up watching “Lassie,” we also enlisted the dog, saying, “Where’s home, Kody?”  When we loosened up on her leash, she pulled as if she knew the answer, and eventually we spotted the reassuring flash of headlights along Black Rock Turnpike.

Back on the rock face above Mohonk, we’d long ago lost sight of the lights of the hotel, but the red arrows were still visible to mark the way. 

Up ahead, we heard a female voice, shrill with alarm, say, “You’ve got to be kidding.  I can’t do it.”

We heard the exaggerated teasing sighs of her friends, but I’d registered her remark with concern.  “What is it?” I called. 

“The arrow on this rock points straight up.”

Excellent.

Still, I felt some satisfaction that we were closing in on the kids.  I realized it might be because challenging spots slowed them down, but Dave and I had them by four decades at least, and I couldn’t help a whisper of pride. 

Beyond the exertion, this was a physical puzzle.  At times the red arrows were friendly partners, providing good guidance, easing our way.  At others, they mocked us, a joke surely, pointing up the flat face of a boulder without any visible cracks to cling to, and I pictured the painter smirking as he slapped that red sneer on the rock.   Yet, always we figured out a way up. 

Dave was faster, taller, and stronger, but he remained the rear-guard to protect and sometimes shoulder-boost his flower of a wife.

We could heard Kyle, Greer, and Todd just ahead, and had ascertained their names through their taunts and encouragements.  Every now and then we’d glimpsed Greer’s curly head of hair, Kyle’s bearded face and broad torso in plaid flannel, and Todd, enveloped in his navy blue hoodie.  “How much further, do you think?” I said again, but still, they had no idea.

“Sundown in twenty minutes,” Kyle called, and I inspected the overhangs around me, finding no comfort in the specter of a night spent, back to rock, in their shelter, as opposed to our cozy room with its wicker headboard, snuggly quilt, and convenient bathroom. I refused even to think about the meals now roasting in ovens and simmering in pans in Mohonk’s kitchens. 

“Shit.  I am not climbing that thing.” Greer again.

“Yes, you are,” said Todd. 

“What is it?” I said.  The kids were close now, just around the lip of a ledge.

“A ladder.  A series of ladders.  Straight up.  Kyle, I don’t think you’ll even fit in there.  Too narrow,” said Greer.

Too narrow? 

By now, we were in this together.  I was grateful the kids were with us on the mountain, grateful for their company, both in the adventure and in case.  And as we rounded the ledge, we saw two feet disappearing into a crevice above us. 

Later we learned this was the “Lemon Squeezer,” a long, tight crevice with sturdy wooden ladders bolted to one side. As we stood at their base, I reflected that I would kill my kids if they ever tried anything like this, much less attempting it in the dark.

“It’s going to be a good story soon,” I said. 

Dave, my brave one, my stalwart man, stood beside me as we eyed that groove in the rock with dismay.  Still, the ladders guaranteed footholds and handholds at regular intervals, a good thing as it was pitch dark once we climbed inside the crevice. 

Muffled grunts, complaints, and nervous laughter accompanied the kids’ struggle up the rungs. Glimmers of light broke the blackness, filtering past the bodies crammed into the opening above us, as one of them turned on a phone flashlight.

It was work, climbing those ladders.  Well-smoothed by many hands, the wood of the rungs was solid and reliable.  Reach, grab a rung, heave, step up: it was crazy, to be doing this, but I felt strong, capable, and daring.  I didn’t want to be stranded on the mountain that night, but climbing those ladders felt good.

“Thank God!  I see the opening at the top!”  It was Greer.  “Agh.  The ladder stops short.  How do we get out?”

“You’ll be fine.  Press your feet against one side and inch up,” said Kyle, his voice kind.

More grunts and the sounds of fabric rubbing rock, of shifting, and shoving… and then hoots of triumphant relief.  The kids had shimmied their way out… and Dave and I were alone, clinging to ladder rungs inside a crevice, on the side of a mountain, in the dark.  But we knew we were close. 

Reach.  Grab a rung.  Heave.  Step up.  “Can you believe we’re doing this?”  I could hear the grin of satisfaction, along with the effort, in Dave’s question.    

Then, a bright light, and a head and shoulders silhouetted against the opening I could now see. “Here, I’ll hand you my phone.” 

And I could picture this young man, a stranger, Kyle it was, lying flat on the rock slab above us in order to stretch an arm far enough into the crevice so I could reach the phone pinched in his fingertips.  

“Oh my god, thank you.  I’m so grateful you’re here, that you came back with the light for us! Are we near the top?”

“Yep.  Almost there.”

With my right hand, I clung to the ladder, while twisting to the left to angle the phone down to illuminate the rungs below me for Dave.  Once he caught up, I threaded my arm between my body and the rock face in order to hand the light back up to Kyle.  He didn’t leave to rejoin his friends, but waited at the opening, shining the light into the fissure while Dave and I inched, backs and feet pressed to opposing rock faces, out onto the rock ledge, into open air, above the wide spread of the Hudson Valley. 

P.S.  We returned the next day to take pictures in the daylight!

  

           

Whose Space?

Tentatively, I opened the door to the shed and stood, listening.  Silence.  Silence for a while.  And then… a sigh.  A drawn out sigh of resignation that ended in a snuffle. The sigh was deep, both in its melancholy and in conveying a sense of size: something was in the Have-a-Heart trap in the loft, and it was no mouse.

Whatever it was, I knew it was trapped, so why was I too anxious to climb the ladder to the loft and look?  The creature could not hurt me, but maybe guilt was nibbling at me some.  Why is it always animals that lose out?  Why are they always the ones trapped, killed, and removed?  Who is really in whose space?

This is an ongoing discussion for Dave and me… as the groundhog parades her annual litter of three into the yard, as deer browse the just-about-to-bloom flowers in the garden, as something tears down insulation and knocks over stored jars to make his new residence in our shed more comfy.  Dave growls in frustration while I side with the animals.  We live in the woods; we made that choice.  The creatures belong here; we are the ones who moved in. 

When first we heard heavy thumpings in the eaves of the shed and saw the type of damage inflicted, we were pretty sure our new tenant was a raccoon.  A month before, soon after the snow thawed, we’d seen a large, snoozy fellow at our bird feeders.  It was early in the day, unusual, so, concerned the raccoon might be sick, I contacted our town’s Animal Control Department.

The uniformed Animal Control officer arrived within half an hour.  She was soft-spoken and seemed knowledgeable.  Together we stood on the back porch in watery sunlight that held no warmth and watched as the raccoon spotted us and lumbered down a slope and out of sight.  A minute later, he peered over the rise, and seeing we’d come no closer, returned to scavenge for fallen seeds. 

The animal was thickly furred, steady in gait, but wary. “Looks healthy, “ said the officer.  “Just hungry.  Might be a nursing mother desperate to build up calories.” 

I told her I was happy to share seeds, and just wanted to make sure rabies weren’t an issue.  The officer was surprised I wasn’t more adamant about removal.  “Most people aren’t so tolerant or understanding.” she said.  Sad news; I hadn’t thought I was being particularly tolerant and understanding, simply cautious and rational.  “Most people just want to get rid of them,” she added. 

But now, a large something was making a mess of the shed – the shed that holds our garden tools, coolers, vases, portable chairs, and assorted summer-type-stuff – so we had to take action. 

Dave turned to Google, typed in “raccoon in my shed,” contacted the first company listed, and made an appointment.  “Before this guy comes over,” I said, “make sure he plans to release the animal, not kill it.”  Glad I asked.  When Dave called back, he was told that by Connecticut law, “nuisance animals” removed from a property must be exterminated. 

What???

The justification given was the need to curb the spread of rabies, but how many healthy animals snuggle their families into what they think is a cozy little den, except it’s someone’s attic, chimney, or shed?  The creatures are trapped, removed, and often needlessly killed…sometimes leaving behind babies to starve.

We cancelled that appointment, and I called a wildlife organization for advice.  When I described the nature of the damage and the raccoon we’d seen in the yard, the representative at the center also believed the shed-invader was a raccoon, and likely, a nursing mother.  He was well aware of the Connecticut law, but gave me the number for “the only organization we recommend and trust” that might be able to help.  The rep also added, “If it’s a mother and she has babies, it’s really best to leave them in place until she takes them out herself.”  While I was quietly thrilled at hosting this little family and helping them survive, Dave was less so, but resigned to doing the right thing.

When I spoke by phone to Phil, the individual recommended by the wildlife center, he reviewed various removal strategies at length.  Should the raccoon be male, Phil would trap and release it elsewhere.  If it were a female with babies, the first option would be to release her from the trap, sprinkle the area with male raccoon urine, and hope the mom removed the babies herself.  Apparently male raccoons sometimes eat offspring, so females are rightfully cautious.  If, however, Phil found the occupied space to be too large, the urine plan would be ineffective.  “And if we can’t locate the pups,” he said, “I’ll have to release the mother on your property.  You don’t want the babies dying in the wall.”  Definitely not.

The next day, Phil and his associate, Jeff, came by to scope out the scene and set the trap.  Phil walked briskly around the perimeter of the shed, pointing out numerous openings and the smooth hollows in the dirt before them where animals had “bellied” their way in.  Then he went into the shed, surveyed the damage, and took pictures of the area beneath the eaves where Dave and I had heard the thumping. 

“It would be impossible for a human to climb in there to retrieve pups, “ he said. “And sealing all this off?  There are countless ways for animals to get in.  If you’re serious about it, you’ll have to build a concrete foundation around the base of the shed.  For the time being, though, we’ll set the trap and see who shows up.”     

And so, the next morning, I stood in the shed, just below the loft, listening to those sighs, and wondering who had shown up.

Phil and Jeff returned in the early afternoon.  Before we opened the shed door, Phil bid us be quiet so we could listen for the whimpers of hungry babies.  Again, I stood in the entrance to the shed, listening, along with these two kind men.  Shhhh.  Listening.  Shhhh.  Still listening…

Nothing.  If there were babies around, they weren’t giving anything away.  Maybe their Mama had warned them to be quiet until she returned.  

It was time to rescue the poor trapped soul in the loft.  With a gentle voice and soothing sounds, Phil climbed the ladder and confirmed that we’d caught a raccoon.  Jeff called up to him, “male or female?” 

“Male,” said Phil. 

“Are you totally sure?” I asked Jeff.  I hated the thought of stranded babies.

“100% sure,” he assured me.

It was a big trap and a big raccoon, and it took both men to lower the captive over the lip of the loft and down the ladder.  The raccoon turned and twisted, trying to gain footing, but he did not scrabble or hiss.  I felt an odd mixture of relief and sadness; this raccoon had chosen our shed, and we were sending him away.

I followed Jeff and Phil out to the pick-up truck with its bed filled with cages set on end.  Five of them held furry bodies curled within, each with beautiful masked faces that turned to look at me.  One stretched a foreleg up the side of its cage when Jeff lowered my raccoon in beside it.  “Look at that,” I said.

“Sometimes they hug each other,” Jeff remarked as he gently sprayed my raccoon with water.  “In case he’s overheated,” he explained.  “He’s been in that trap for a while.”

Phil had mentioned that a nursing mother and her babies were slated for removal from another property on the same run as mine, so I asked if they’d picked them up yet.  He nodded, led me to the cab of the truck, and bent to pick up a small cardboard box on the floor on the passenger side.  He began to open the flaps of the box, then paused and said quietly, “don’t touch them…” 

Nestled in a soft cloth were four tiny raccoons.  Perfect, fuzzy, eyes closed, and masked.  I wondered which of the captives in the back was their mother.  “They’ll be hungry soon,” Phil said, “so we’ve got to get going so we can give them back to their mom.”

As the truck drove away, my heart was full.  Jeff and Phil were so kind, yet I was teary at the thought of this truck full of animals that had made the mistake of choosing a home in the wrong place; at the thought of other truckloads of similar sad cargo that would be taken away and killed.  And I was so grateful, so very grateful, that these raccoons, my raccoon, and the box of beautiful babies, would be treated with compassion and released in the woods.         

Note:   It is a sad statement that organizations seeking to deal with animals humanely must remain anonymous because of Connecticut’s heartless law, but so it is. I plan to write letters to my congressmen asking them to repeal this law, and I hope others will too.