C1
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2019
CONTACT US
FOLLOW US
Erick Bengel | Features Editor
ebengel@dailyastorian.com
facebook.com/
DailyAstorian
MY HOUSEMATES
DOG, CATS AND PEOPLE OF MY IMAGINATION
Meet the characters
vying for my attention
By MURIEL JENSEN
For The Daily Astorian
T
his is Claire, a Westie/Cavalier King
Charles mix that my late husband,
Ron, and I adopted from a neighbor
three years ago. Apparently her ears were
produced by genes confused by the oppos-
ing characteristics of her breeds because
they stick out sideways. She looks like she
was sired by Yoda.
She is the dearest, sweetest compan-
ion at home, but when we walk around
the neighborhood, she becomes Cujo,
Stephen King’s devil-dog. Westies and
many other terriers were
bred to chase down
small pests on farms
in Scotland and dis-
patch them with-
out mercy. She
believes that’s still
her job.
Only
she
defi nes ‘pests’ as
anything on four legs
coming toward us. It
doesn’t matter what species
it is, or how big it is, she’s prepared to
take it on. As the person on the other end
of the leash, running hell-for-leather into
a brace of German Shepherds, this con-
cerned me. I did research.
It’s true that little dogs have no idea
they’re small. They were bred to have such
determination, such a killer instinct, that noth-
ing is too big to take on. They imagine them-
selves as all-powerful. It’s their destiny. And I do
feed her Fancy Feast paté, so she intends to take
good care of me.
My morning walks used to be about meditation,
refl ection, plotting a new book. Now, walking Claire
is a struggle for survival. Fortunately, I’ve walked
my neighborhood so many years that I know every
shortcut, back lane, detour, so I can ward off a con-
frontation before it occurs. But that means I have to
be vigilant. No more discussing the weather with
another walker while our dogs sniff and nuzzle. No
more being distracted by our phenomenal view. I am
a superheroine who misses nothing.
Dog meets cats
This is Stormy. He’s 11 and moved into our base-
ment during a storm (hence the clever name) when
he was a teen-aged kitten. He ate like a horse, then
slept for an entire day in the middle of our bed. He
disappeared the following day and returned that night
with his sister. I thought I was seeing double. They
are almost identical, except that Stormy has a strong,
alley-cat face, and Melanie’s is more feminine.
Here she is. She’s smaller than her brother, has
become a little more pudgy over time because of an
affi nity for cheese and embodies the term “fraidy cat.”
The smallest noise, a sudden movement on my part,
or a knock on the door and she’s gone until the intru-
sion has been neutralized. The laid-back Lab we had
when the cats joined us, allowed Stormy and Mel-
anie to rule the roost. He was so self-confi dent that
he had nothing to prove. Claire came as an unpleas-
ant surprise.
At fi rst sight of the dog and her very interested tail
wag, Melanie moved into the basement. She was used
to being part of a large dog’s pack, but she’d never
seen something her own size get in her face, in her
Photos by Muriel Jensen
Claire, a Westie/Cavalier King Charles mix, at
Thanksgiving.
food bowl, or on her blanket. Claire never gave chase,
seeming to understand that what lived in her home
required different manners than what lived outside,
but Melanie wasn’t taking any chances.
The struggle for King/Queen began immediately
between Claire and Stormy. The territory is my lap,
particularly if there’s a silky throw on it. The moment
my knees begin to bend to the sitting position, the dog
and cat race each other across the room toward me.
It requires good nerves to sit still and let them come.
The winner (usually Stormy because he’s leaner)
lands on my knees and the other sits beside me, ever
watchful for the opportunity to step up to the place of
privilege. Melanie, who fi nally moved back upstairs,
takes possession of the dog bed — a cool circle of
plush fabric with a memory-foam pillow in the bot-
tom. If I’m on my feet and there’s no lap to fi ght over,
the dog bed becomes the territory in dispute. It’s like
“Game of Thrones” with less murder.
Going bananas?
Lately, there’s no room on my lap because of my
laptop. I’ve been writing. Stormy, a cat of determina-
tion, will jump up beside me, step on the computer,
LEFT: Stormy.
RIGHT: Melanie.
and look me in the eye. “I thought you retired,” he
says.
“Yeah, yeah.”
For reasons I don’t understand and therefore can’t
explain, my brain is suddenly full of story ideas. And
the characters that populate those ideas make them-
selves at home all around us. I try to ignore them,
but it doesn’t work. Anyone who writes fi ction for
a living can tell you that characters don’t exist
simply on paper. If you pretend they aren’t
there, they take up residence in your head and
try to knock their way out. In the old days,
when I was working all the time, and cre-
ativity was a self-generating bonus, they
would shout in my ear from the inside,
“Do me next! Do me! Do me!”
But this isn’t the old days, and the
ideas in my head are new to me in con-
tent and genre.
Following me around right now is
a very pretty blonde in her late 30s,
Megan, who stood with her daughter
on a hill when the girl was struck by
lightning and killed. Megan was struck
but survived with a burn mark on her
temple. Now when she puts her hand
on someone, she can see inside them
— good things and bad. Sometimes
she foresees things. Traumatic things.
She’s a shell of the woman she used
to be, inconsolable over the loss of her
child. She pushed the man she used to
love out of her life so he doesn’t have
to experience her darkness — until one
sleepless night when she “sees” him being
murdered and has to warn him.
How did this idea come to the woman
who wrote lighthearted, often comedic
romance? I’ve asked Megan to explain her-
self and she tells me simply, “Write me, give
me life and I’ll tell you.” She plagues me all
day long.
At night, when I’m trying to fall asleep, I
fi nd myself in a mansion in Regency Period Lon-
don (1811-1820 in England and Ireland when King
George III was deemed unfi t to rule and his son took
his place as the Prince Regent. It’s the time Jane Aus-
ten wrote about.) I know nothing about it, so I don’t
know why it’s invading my space, but it is. There’s a
young couple who’ve married to give the young hero
respectability. His older brother has died, and he,
with a wild, younger-son reputation, must now step
into the role of heir with the success of a large family
business as stake. A wife gives him an aura of matu-
rity. Unbeknownst to him, she is struggling to sup-
port three half-siblings who were pushed out of their
home by an uncle, determined to redirect their inheri-
tance his way. She hasn’t told her new husband about
them because the dastardly uncle is a major client of
his. And the complications accelerate and continue.
What!?
Then there are four women my age who start a
business called “Granny Investigations”; a young
woman trying to start over, who buys a Victorian
chair at a church sale and takes it home to fi nd a ghost
in it; a divorced couple on the run with their two chil-
dren because his research for a true crime novel has
revealed a killer no one suspected.
And they just keep coming! My living space is
crowded with the people of my imagination. So I’m
going to try to sell another book.
Or maybe I’m just going bananas.
Jensen wrote for Harlequin from 1984 until her
recent retirement. She’s published 93 books in the
American Romance line, Superromance and Harle-
quin Historicals. She lives in Astoria with a Westie
mix named Claire and a pair of Tabby cats. She has
three children, nine grandchildren, and the great-
grands are still coming.