Author Archives: wendywelch

Say a Little Prayer for Owen Meany

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This is Owen Meany (the kitten formerly known as Grace). Owen is the little brother of the lamented Mankato. (Last Friday’s blog “Too Short a Story.”)

Owen looks well and is putting on weight, along with his sister Carrie. In the fight to make them gain at least half an ounce per day, let’s just say Owen and I bonded. Jack is used to a few changes in the bookstore while he’s in Scotland. This is a very small change, really; Owen only weighs 1 lb. 4 oz.

How did Owen get his name, when the rest of the brood of nine (yes, nine) are referred to as the Little House on the Prairie Summer Series? (We foster kittens regularly in our bookshop, and give the families literary names to help customers appreciate their merits.)

He started life as “Grace.” You know, when they’re that young, does it matter? Time enough to conform to social norms when his little parts become more evident.

And I have this editor at St. Martin’s Press…..

I’ve been fortunate to work with two women on my book, Nichole the editor and Pamela the agent, who both turned out to be not just brilliant, but nice. And fun. We came together professionally, but clicked. That was an added bonus to this whole making-a-book-thing: to find non-cynical people it was easy to talk and listen to, who loved the meaning of their work even as we all acknowledged the economic engine driving it.

Yet Nichole and I did have one significant difference: she loves John Irving. (His work,that is.) The first draft of the book I sent her dissed A Prayer for Owen Meany something awful, and she e-mailed me a tongue-in-cheek note that she could not publish such a statement. We laughed and joked and went back and forth using Owen Meany as a bargaining chip: “Let me keep the colloquialisms and I’ll re-read Meany.”; “I’ll admit parts of Meany don’t flow well if you’ll revise Chapter 9.” It became a code.

And then, this little guy limped into the bookstore, weighing 8 ounces and looking like he didn’t have a prayer. Again, the bargaining began: God, fix this kitten and I’ll……

So when baby boy here waddled happily into the kitchen yesterday in search of wet cat food, and I watched his fat little butt swinging across the linoleum, I knew ‘he weren’t going noplace,’ as they say in Lancashire. In 14 months of fostering, giving in to the heart tugs of one kitten isn’t so bad. At this rate, it will take me six years to be classified a crazy cat lady. But he needed a name that disconnected him from the rest of the family, that let him be himself instead of in Mankato’s Little House shadow.

And he looks like Owen Meany. If you’ve ever read the book (and why should you?) Owen is a tiny guy with big ears and eyes and a voice–I kid you not; blame Irving for this description–like strangling mice. If you visit us at the bookstore, I’m sure this Owen will meow for you. He does it a lot, demanding food, or to be picked up. (He grabs your ankle and plants his bum on your foot until you bend down and nestle him against your chest.) And you will hear why Owen Meany came to mind.

So, everyone, meet Owen; Owen, this is everyone. And, Nichole? Nyah, nyah, nyah. :p

The Affordable Act of Caring

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I run a small business (a used bookstore). I am married to a British citizen who grew up under the National Health Service. And I am the executive director of an organization that works with public health–a day job that provides benefits for my 70-year-old not-American husband because he can’t get them through our bookstore, full stop.

So by all means, feel free to tell Jack and me about the horrid British “communist” (single-payer) system. Explain to us that entrepreneurs across the country will give up and close their businesses because of the insurance premiums required for employees. Lament that insurance companies will be forced to cover those previously denied coverage, which in turn will send them scurrying for ways to make the premiums of everyone else go up.

And when we’re done fighting each other, could we tackle those insurance companies? Because as I’m sitting here, watching Facebook fill up with words like “death squads,” “monopolies,” and “forced purchases,” these are terms that apply to them: they decide who gets what treatment, who can go where, and what we have to buy.

Business has no business governing health care. Would you like a book recommendation from a bookseller? Read Michael Sandel’s What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. Do you know someone who died a preventable death, because s/he didn’t have (enough) insurance? I need more than one hand to tick off names against fingers. And that is wrong. Wrong, wrong wrong. Wrong for Democrats, wrong for Republicans, wrong for old, young, black, white, brown, American, British, or anyone else. WRONG.

Last year, a firefighting force let a house burn–with two dogs howling inside–because the family hadn’t paid their taxes, but wet down the paid-up house next door. Is this the America we want to live in? What if Grandma had been home?

There are things money shouldn’t have to buy. I’ll support the imperfect Affordable Care Act until something better can be implemented–like the removal of corporate profiteering from the medical marketplace.