Drama, country style

Thursday, 10:00PM

Molly and I set off for our field walk around 7 and down by the old orchard I realized that Peep was coming with us, fifty feet behind. Molly playfully chased her into the old, old orchard, which is a MESS of tangled vines and weeds. So far as I know, Peep is in there still. While Molly was frolicking with Peep, she disturbed a fawn with just traces of spots left on its back and it burst out down into the fourth field (out of sight from the house). Molly thrashed around in the brush for a few seconds and then burst out in hot pursuit and chased down well into (and beyond, I think) the fifth field. Our great recall is off the table when there's a deer in the picture. She came back all smiley and pleased with herself. When we passed the orchard again, Peep and I yelled to each other, she sounding pouty, but she wouldn't come out. Molly thought since she'd had such a good time mining for deer there, she'd give it another try, and BY GOLLY, didn't she get another fawn out of there. The thing came out and almost turned toward me but went across the path to where the old barn collapsed. Molly reappeared and went completely in the wrong direction, but retraced her path. So Molly got to chase not one, but TWO deer tonight.

An hour later, we went down to see if Peep would come out, but she would only call. I'm worried, but the brush is too thick and I can't get in to her. 

Oh. And on our attempt at cat retrieval, Molly found a nest of baby birds a foot and a half off the ground and ate them. It's been a great night for Molly....

I'm hoping to wake up to a Peep cat on my doorstep. If that doesn't happen, we'll be out for an early walk!



Friday, 7:00AM
I was awake at 3, up at 4 making supper to get it cooked before the heat of the day, in the back yard calling and calling for Peep at 4:30. I planned to hold the resumption of the Peep search until the supper was out of the oven, and was sitting on the screen porch when Molly came scampering in from the front yard (the front door was open to let in the early morning cool). I thought she was just coming in to say hello, but when I got up to get her breakfast, there was Peep lounging on the floor. I was so relieved and happy! and rushed to make sure she had kibble and fresh water. 

I wanted to get Molly's morning walk out of the way early while it was still cool, so we set off and behind us, here comes Peep once again. She caught up and stayed on a course parallel to Molly, but forty feet to the east. When we all reached the thickety part, Peep apparently said, "Chase me!" and Molly did. Peep went up a silver maple tree (lots of winding, twisting limbs) and cried for attention. "Watch me! Watch me!" I stood below and observed her performance, as she pranced back and forth on narrowing limbs, chewing off small twigs, frequently casting glowing golden eyes at me to make sure I was appreciating her skill. When she leapt five feet from one limb to another, thirty feet above the ground, I had to leave. I didn't want to encourage her daredevil showing off. I headed back for the house. I looked back and there was Molly sitting and watching her kitty sis. They both reappeared about the same time. Peep is happily and staidly playing with her little bell-balls now, looking at me as if to question why I would worry about her since she is so expert at taking care of her small self.

Gawd.

Miscellaneous thoughts

The 7/6/2013 Quote of the day was Thor Heyerdahl's, "For every minute, the future is becoming the past."
I remember having that thought when I was very young. Even to think "Now!" takes a second that will never come back. When people finish something unpleasant and say, "Well, there's an hour of my life I'll never get back!" I know exactly what they mean.

I have a book on my shelf called, "Living Through Breast Cancer." Every single time I catch it out of the corner of my eye, I think "Better Living Through Breast Cancer," and smile to myself at the silliness of the thought.

For me, lying on the grass with my dog is like yoga. I feel my spine click around, feel my shoulder and neck muscles relax... I become aware that my skin is an organ of my body, and I pay attention to its messages. All that is among the reasons I like warm weather. It isn't as much fun lying on crusty snow with an icy wind blowing over me. I have tried it and I know.

I read the other day that everybody in Europe is genetically related to every other European, as close as cousins. I can't now find the article but it didn't surprise me. It's about the same as the village I work for: if you start counting through people you know, you'll shortly come to a relative of the person you're speaking to. Europe's the same way, just bigger. It's a "six degrees from Kevin Bacon" thing. We are all related. Depending on one's feeling for Family, that's either good or bad.

Perfectionists learn to take time to do a thing properly. I always used to think I was a perfectionist because I was always frustrated with my mistakes. I have, however, always hurried through chores because I wanted to get to the "sitting and reading" part of my life. Morning job and observing Morning Boss have begun to teach me that it's all right to take a little more time to make sure I'm on the right course.  Removes a lot of the tension from any task.

I wish I liked myself better. I have accused so many people of thinking I'm not good enough, when, really, it is I who has no use for myself. (Should that be "I who have no use...?") 

The really good thing about mowing the lawn on the tractor is that I'm creating my own breeze while I'm accomplishing something that needs to be done.

The danger of celebrity

Husband happened upon this pose a few mornings ago.

I fear that Peep is in danger of believing her own press.

Happy Independence Day

I was looking for some pretty-colored fireworks to put in here, but then I kept thinking about how, when the Revolutionary War re-enactments are going on down at the old fort in the village, every time I hear the whump of a gun or a cannon, it is a remembrance of war. And, really . . . haven't we had enough of that by now?

So instead of lauding the rockets' red glare and the bombs bursting in air, I'm going to celebrate that I was lucky enough to be born in this country, have always had enough clean water, enough to eat, a place to live, more than enough clothing, the luxury and joy of pets and private transportation and the freedom to live with one other person in the middle of forty-eight acres of hay fields that belong to us. 
More or less. 
If you don't count having to pay the bank and the taxes.

Around 9:30 tonight, we will sit on the back lawn and watch the tippy tops of the fireworks from the park in the village. Molly will cool her belly on the dewy grass, I'll stretch out completely flat and feel at one with the earth. Peep will come and go and wonder why we are all out in the open like that in the dark, and not jumping on tiny bugs in the grass.

I'll celebrate the fact that tonight when it gets dark, my fireworks will be at the ends of little magical bugs that fly over the tops of the grass . . . and fly, sometimes, far, far up into the sky. I wonder if, every now and then, one of them spies the stars and is drawn that way. 
Who is to say it isn't true?

Pet Rescue Soapbox

Some of the most welcome comments I've received on the last several posts have been from people saying that after hearing about our experience, they've decided to get that cat or dog that they'd been thinking about. That's pretty rewarding to me. 

I've written before about how rescue animals are different. My rescued cats and my two other rescued dogs have just seemed forever grateful and devoted. As if they remembered. I'm sure they didn't, but . . . who knows. 
Molly is bearing out the tradition. She's happy for a loving look, and grins back at us. When she hears her name, her tail wags, even when she's sleeping.
As for the way Husband and I feel, you've seen the change in tone here between "petless" and "happily and completely dopey over our pets." And everybody knows that pets are good for you.

Some of the stories behind these rescues could break your heart . . . 

little Sandy and Mac, for example, 

who're being fostered by Molly's foster mom, Melissa.

North Creek Mutt & Lab Rescue

where we found Molly.

All this to say: 

If you're thinking of getting a pet, Google "pet rescue" and 

take a look around at any of the shelters or rescue sites that you find in your area. 

You might be lucky enough to get a Molly. 

Peace and joy reigneth

Life goes on apace here in the Season Of Happiness. The temperatures have risen to comfort level, day and night, and there is Light. There are a dog and a cat, both beautiful and living excellent dog and cat lives. There is a Husband and . . . there's me. We're all happy and comfortable.

Friday night Nephew and Wife and Darling Great Niece (DGN) came to visit. We had burgers and potato salad. I labored over the latter for many hours the night before, worried that there wouldn't be enough potatoes, enough celery and onion, enough hard-cooked eggs. And the outcome was bland unto blahness: a result of my having forgotten to put in mustard, I believe. It may have been that I do not add salt to anything anymore, having tired of puffy eyes, feet and hands. Everyone ate it, but no one asked for some to take home. A major clue. 
If you see the Russian army traveling by, please direct them to my house for a plate of potato salad. I have plenty left over.

DGN has grown since her birth two and a half months ago. To be expected, and certainly A Good Thing. But the cheeks! She could store a winter's worth of nuts in those chipmunk cheeks! Cobalt blue eyes, perfect lips, a calm and docile demeanor. A perfect child, despite having had her first vaccinations that day. Molly was interested in the small one, and very very gentle. She knows how to act around tiny helpless creatures, having had several rounds of her own in her former life. 

Here she is last January being a Mama Umbrella with her last (EVER!) brood.

Saturday was given over to the usual chores: laundry, groceries, housekeeping in general. We enjoyed potato salad with our lunch and with our supper. Watched "Running With Scissors" last night, and while the movie conveyed some of the flavor of the story, I think the book was better. I always think the book is better than movies made from the books. I do highly recommend Augusten Burroughs' books, with the caveat that one's mind must be open to finding humor in tragic situations. But then, if one could not do that, one could hardly live, could one? Or maybe that's just my life.

Last night at dusk, four wild turkeys came out of the woods above the house. But no. It wasn't four turkeys. It was three turkeys. The fourth being was Peep, stalking them. She stalked them right back into the woods. Her hunting skills haven't improved appreciably; earlier I had seen her waiting in the plum tree for one of the many perching blackbirds to fall into her paws. She does, however, continue to practice, bless her little heart.

Today, the temperature will be a humid ninety-some degrees Fahrenheit. I plan to slurp ice water and read. I have showered and am leaving my hair to drip dry. The result will not be attractive, but I'll be comfortable. 
I am old: comfort is sufficient.

Pure truth

I'm sure I've used this quote before, since I so heartily believe in it. 

But here it is with a picture of a sweet-faced little mutt 

(who, incidentally, reminds me of another sweet-faced little mutt) 

so I'm sharing it once again.

Life here in Heaven

I quite clearly recall saying, many times, that I was looking forward to being dogless. I don't know what world I thought I was living in. The minute we saw the van pull around the corner toward us last Sunday, Husband and I were out of the car, leash around my neck, my hands waving merrily to let Mick know we were there. It wasn't ten minutes before we had our girl . . . she came out of the van smiling and kissing our faces with great enthusiasm.

The ride home was not without incident. 
We stopped, once out of the city, to let Molly out to take care of her . . . toilette . . . and she produced nothing. So back into the car and on to the highway for the last forty-minute drive home. Halfway there, Molly suddenly grew restless. 
Very restless. 
And squatted and emptied her bladder onto the nylon-quilted, foam-backed seat cover I'd installed for her.  I wasn't sure if Mick had stopped to let the dogs out for rest stops. I think, now: not.  
It happens.
Poor embarrassed Molly didn't want to sit on the dirty seat, so she moved her impressive bulk into the front seat onto my lap. Husband pulled to the side of the road and took her out to walk in the weeds in case there might be some kind of follow up action on the way. 
Nothing.
We hurried the rest of the way home.

That was a week and some hours ago.
In these few short days, the mood of our household has done a one-eighty. We are happy, thrilled, on pink clouds of new love for our girl. She is perfect. And Peep, who might have been pouty or nasty or any number of other things that cats can be when their worlds change, has been a happy little elf with her new sister. We have two perfect little female animals.

The very first evening, as Molly walked around the house with the leash dragging behind her, Peep grabbed onto the end and got a slide ride for five or six feet, showing her innate talent for skijoring. Feeling the slight resistance behind her, Molly stopped and looked . . . and continued on her way. 

She lives with a loving look on her face, she sits for treats (a skill she arrived with . . . she could not have learned that so quickly from us!). We are trying to train ourselves to always have treats with us for recall practice, but she wants so much to be with her people that it isn't much of a struggle. On three occasions she has chased deer  several hundred feet into the fields, and has come right back when called. Husband said this morning she did a herding dog crouch pose while she watched one deer before she ran for it. 
I never stop wondering what combination of breeds she is.  I do think she's mostly LoveMutt with enough husky thrown in to make her eyes icy, icy blue-white and her tail curly.

Yesterday Husband mowed a path through the hayfields so Molly can run without getting so much into the high grass. He says she likes the tall grass, but now she has a path all her own, with puddles and mud and all the good smells. They came back very wet and dirty from the inaugural tramp. She seems to dry off and get clean with no effort, so that's an added bonus!

Molly and I had a nice long relaxing session on the front lawn with her Furminator in the afternoon. Peep kept interrupting us, enticing Molly to chase her from the front yard out under the parked car. Happened three times. If Molly had wanted to catch the cat, she would have, but she just chased Peep to HomeFree and came back for more brushing. Then Peep came and sat nearby and played with the undercoat fluff that was floating by.

I think I'm in Heaven!  

Beloved doggirl is on her way to us

If you are driving anywhere between Atlanta, Georgia and Albany, New York 
in the next twenty-four hours, and you see this van, 
please pull over and give it the right of way. 

My girl is on board.

Feel free to wave and call out, "Hi, Molly!"

At this end, preparations have been made and the two fur children's rooms await their comfort. The baby gate will remain in place at the bottom of the stairs until Peep and Molly work out their relationship. From what I know of Peep ("Oh look . . . shiny ball.....") and what Melissa's told me of sweet Molly, I'm expecting it to be a non-event. 

Peep's accommodations

...and Peep-approved Molly's room.

The Week of the Fawns

Early last week I was a mile and a half into my commute to work when I looked up at the cows grazing in a pasture, and beyond them to a whitetail doe who stood at the edge of the field. Underneath her belly stood her tiny fawn. They were hundreds of feet from me, but I was thrilled all the same. In all the dozen-plus years we have lived here, I have seen only one brand spandy new fawn.

photo from Wings Over Alma

Yesterday I started out from home for work, headed down the hill road and rounded a curve to find the entire fourteen feet of road blocked by a piece of Town machinery digging out the ditches so that heavy rains won't wash out big ruts in the dirt track. It's been a long time since that kind of maintenance was done on this road, and the crew had plenty of washouts to fill in as they progressed. 

Shift into reverse, twist around and get settled in a good comfortable position to see out the back window well enough to back up half a mile of twisty road, back into an opening into somebody's hayfield, turn around, go the other way. I passed our lower driveway, went around the curve, and in the road just where the upper driveway comes out...   A doe, with the smallest fawn anybody has ever seen. The baby's legs were all at odd angles, like little weak sticks propping up his skinny little bony body. 

Mama saw me. I could feel her conflict: Run! Baby! Run! Baby! In the end of course, after three or four seconds, she leapt into the field across from the driveway. Left on his own, the rickety little baby took three very unsteady steps toward the edge of the road, and slowly, slowly, slowly, folded himself up, joint by joint, until he was as flat as he could be. The last arrangement was the forelegs stretched out in front of him, his chin on top. The little space he covered with his body couldn't have measured eighteen inches in diameter.

I opened my window and stared at him for just a second or two. His big round dark eyes looked back at me and his whole body quivered with the faintest of tremors, from fear or sheer weakness. Husband think the baby must have been just barely dry from his birth. 

I didn't want to cause any more disruption than I already had, so I went on, worrying all the rest of the day that some other driver hadn't seen him . . . that the Town mower blade had put an end to him . . . that Mama would forget where he was.

As I drove back up the road to home at the end of the day, I kept the car at a slow creep all along the road, checking for a spotty brown bony tiny deer, and saw nothing. No news is good news.

All is well. 

By now the two babies are probably gamboling and frolicking. I won't see them again until their spots are almost gone, and never again so close as these two sightings. 

But how blessed I am to have had those moments of pure natural beauty.

Ta da!

Before you read this post, a disclaimer for Peep's benefit:  We love our little Peep girl. She is soft and funny and loving and curious and beautiful. If she were a woman, she would be Elizabeth Taylor. Back when Liz was living, I mean.
She is about as good a cat as anybody could have. 
A dog is, however . . . a different animal.


On the 18th we went to meet this girl, and oh, what a sweet happy little girl she is. Redder in coat than she looks in this picture, more gold of eye. A perky little heeling dream on a leash, smiling and wagging all the way. 

Carolina

We were all ready to sign the contract and bring her home, but something stopped us. Not one single thing about Carolina said "no," but something about something said, "maybe not right now." So we left the girl with her foster mom. She's small enough that she would fit into lots of homes, and she's just so sweet! 

That evening, Husband looked again at a mutt and lab rescue page . . . one of many rescue websites he'd been haunting . . . and saw again A Particular Face. Those eyes! Not just the ice blue color . . . the bold and perceptive quality of her gaze... 

...and then there was another photo that made her look 

all goofy and googly.

Melissa is her foster mom and Melissa, Husband and I have been in touch many times by phone and email . . . we have sent photos back and forth, I've sent loveletters to the dog... We have not met in person because . . . Our Girl is in Georgia, more than a thousand miles away.  Something I did not know: there is a whole transfer network for rescue dogs. There are people who sell the service of transporting animals in specially outfitted vehicles. Who knew?

So.

Our Girl will get on the northbound bus next Saturday, June 8. Straight through, mapquest tells me the trip would take nineteen to twenty hours. I expect there will be comfort breaks, so . . . longer than that.  

But a week and some hours from now, we'll have a dog again. 

Our hearts are positively soaring! 

All that, "Oh boy, what a relief! No dog to take care of!" It all went bad on me. Apparently through thirty-plus years habit and/or by nature, we are meant to have a dog to care for and to love.

And, you know, in Carolina's write-up, it does say she would do best in a home with another dog instead of by herself....

dogs and the lack thereof, and what to do about it

Since Angus' passing, I've been telling myself over and over again what a relief it is not to have to take care of a dog. I drive into the barn at night and sit in the car for a minute, thanking God that my workday is over and I'm home . . . and that I don't have to rush to the house to let a bursting-bladder dog outdoors. I do have more time. But I don't do anything with that unused time except sleep and think too much. 
When I think too much I get sad. 
I have been very sad. 
I identified a great deal with Hyperbole and a Half's "depression" posts. 

Husband and I talked about dogs . . . should we get another? The cost of the medical treatment! The pain of the inevitable leaving! Oh, wasn't Marly a good dog? And Chase? And wasn't Max just the cutest little fluffball with the little pink puffy hearts floating out of his head? And Angus was such a little tough guy... Our voices begin to turn nasal and crack; we turn away from each other, embarrassed with our moist eyes and quivering lips.
We've gone by turns, evening after evening looking at every dog on Petfinder and every rescue site we could find and then, for a couple of nights not looking at all to avoid the pain of wishing we could save them all. Or even one. Just one, to keep us company. To be happy to see us when we get home at night. To walk around outside with us, barn to house to shed to hedgerow. To ride with us to the hardware store...

And then Husband saw an Australian cattle dog "free to a great home." The dog is four and a half hours away and he sounds like a dream. I've been corresponding with the owner to learn more.
And today there is an adoption clinic where we might meet a girl dog who has pretty yellow eyes and a red-brown coat.

I have come to question rescue outfits' write-ups. I imagine the rescue people see so much that people do wrong with dogs, that they don't see how dogs are when they can run at will and then get called in to watch movies and snuggle with their owners. Country dogs are different from city or suburban dogs. The poor rescue people see the ones that people left behind or dropped off . . . the unwanted ones who aren't out there running around for fun, so the people think unfenced yards are Bad Things. 

Anyway, it appears that the two of us will expire unless we avail ourselves of a dog buddy.
Stay tuned.

A few passing observations

US Deputy Attorney General James Cole . . .

 

. . . looks like the actor, Dennis Farina.

 

Betty Ford admitted she was addicted to drugs and alcohol, got treatment, 

and everybody stood up and cheered for her. 

Such a heroine. 

Where's my parade?
I'm not bitter, you understand. I'm glad for myself, but it came to mind, 
nudged by recent "news" stories.

Angelina Jolie had her breasts removed [and replaced].

What a brave soul!

Her new breasts will have an even bigger following than her natural ones did.

Me, I just go around with my prosthesis falling out the neckline of my top 
and going PLOP! on the floor 
if I bend over to get a package of copy paper. 
Nobody's elbowing me out of the way to get a look at it.

Oh, don't read this.

Joe asked what I've been up to.
Not much.

Spring came out and went back indoors again. If she comes back I won't trust her. What a thing, to be unable to trust even spring.

Peep is a good and pretty girl. She comes when called . . . a high screechy Peeep! Her own voice is so small that she is almost inaudible. She's working on learning hunting, but she isn't very good at it, except with pieces of gravel and half-dead flies. She's pretty good at catching those. She holds the gravel in her paws and stands up on her haunches and twists her body this way and that way and then throws the gravel and runs like a wild cat, her tail twisting behind her. The flies are disposed of much less histrionically.

My nephew's daughter has been born and celebrated. 
I was the fifth person to hold her on the day she was born, as if we were passing her along the branches of the family tree.
She is able to lift her head at the tender age of six weeks. Clearly, she is an exemplary child: no doubt she will cure cancer, rid the world of war, and feed all the poor. 

Husband and I are being murdered by taxes. As is my wont, I shoulder into my Duty mode, hunker down and stow away money each paycheck like a Christmas Club so that when the bills come I can haul it all out and give it away. The assessor says we've been undervalued for years, and only now are we equitably assessed. If equity is the goal, then why is our valuation the same as somebody with three times as much land, a six-bedroom house and nine outbuildings? 
Husband hunkers down too, but he vents, scaring me. 
"We won't be able to afford a pet!" 
"I'd rather live in the city and pay lower taxes!"
I shrink down inside and wait, quiet.

Robert Benchley died before I was born, and James Thurber passed away in 1961, the same year as my father. I've been rereading them both. Their humor is timeless. They make me laugh out loud.

Signed up for Netflix and we're working our way through our free first month. So many movies I haven't seen! I couldn't watch movies while the poodle boyz were still alive: they would bicker and fight and I'd have to take them out of the room. I'm queuing up movies that Husband has already seen, but he doesn't mind, bless his little heart. Saturday evening is movie night. Husband says, "Don't call it that. All the kids at work have Game Night and Movie Night and Margarita Night. I can't stand to have Nights." 

Peep among the books

Peep continues to find Perfect Cat Cubbyholes. The testing for toeholds, that she did on her first afternoon here, has finally been remembered and put to use. Here is the girl, striking a pose.

Happy Easter

from Peep . . . 

. . . and her grateful PeepMom

Reclining animals

Some indoors...

...and others forty feet from the back door.

She shall be called Peep

Thank you, Hilary!

I was able to stand being petless for, ohhh, eight days. 

I had started checking Petfinder.com after three days. Looking at dogs until none of them seemed like a comfortable fit. And to adopt a dog when mud season is at hand is to invite misery into one's life.

On the eighth day a cat face brought me up short, made me gasp, made me sigh: Ohhh. 

I phoned the shelter seven minutes after they had closed for the day, left my name and phone number and the name of my vet's clinic. The next morning a young lady phoned from the shelter to tell me she had already checked with Casey at my vet's office, and all I would need to do would be to come by with my $70 adoption fee and a completed adoption application and I would "be able to take her home this afternoon." 

Oh! All through the rest of the morning, excited as a six-year-old on Christmas Eve! I was in love and I hadn't even met her yet. I was barely able to concentrate at work, and left early. A dash into the supermarket for kitty litter and kibble and on to the animal shelter. I leapt from the vehicle as its last vibrations settled, grabbed the cat carrier in one hand, and ran, unburdened arm outflung, toward the building's door. And waited, dancing foot to foot, behind a couple who wanted to browse for a kitten. I had to run out to the car to retrieve the completed application, left behind in the headlong rush. At last! At last! The shelter keeper moved to a large crate behind her and asked my girl if she was ready to go home, and I had my first in-person view of my beauty. First impression: tail in extra long, nearly prehensile. As I took her from the keeper, like a monkey she wrapped that tail around my arm. She rubbed her face into my hand, let her head be tucked under my chin for a cuddle. It was hard to let her go long enough to get her into the carrier. On the way out the door, the kitten-searching couple held the door for me, peeked through the grille in the carrier. 
"Isn't she beautiful?" I breathed. I had owned her for two minutes and I was already showing off her charms.

The minute she was into the house and out of the carrier, she was up and down, tiptiptiptiptiptiptip up the stairway and pumpumpumpumpumpumpum down again, into every corner, under everything that could be gotten under, examining the bookshelves for toeholds, winding that tail around lamps, happily submitting to interruptions for cuddles and then heading back out on her tour. That was last Thursday afternoon. She has been in residence for two full days only, and parts of Thursday and today. She is now able, for periods of sixty or fewer seconds, to be still enough for photographs.

I have taken care of old infirm pets for so long that I delight in her eating and drinking, her capable use of the litter box, her ability to transport herself from place to place without my help. She makes tiny noises only . . . a hardly audible prt as she runs (always, runs) to me, her face bright with greeting. 

I have a furry to love and to love me again.
I have a small four-footed creature who will care if I come home at the end of the workday.
She has healed my heart.

Angus 1996-2013

When I started this blog I had three dogs and one cat.

Today I am officially petless.

How much cleaner the house will be. 

How much better I will be able to concentrate without frequent interruptions to lift up, lift down, carry upstairs, carry downstairs.

How much more freedom of movement in my bed at night without a warm body smashed up against the small of my back.

I dropped him off at 9am. The doctor and I talked about "what if it IS a mass," instead of a carnassial tooth abscess, and how to proceed if it was.
She phoned me at work at a little after 10am, while Angus was under, and said it was a mass. She couldn't tell if it was cancerous, but it sure was aggressive. She said if she had to guess she'd say it was a sarcoma or something else....melanoma? Or both, now that I remember. She said there was a hole where something normal should be. The swelling had gotten so much worse since the last time she saw him, last week. His mouth didn't have room for his tongue anymore. Does it matter, then, if the mass is benign or malignant?
I said, "I guess it's time to let him go."
She got one of the techs on the line as a witness and I had to say it again.

Jen said, "Why don't you go home June? Take a mental health day." So I left work and I have food, medications, rugs, blankets all out of sight. The food and meds I'll give to the shelter. The blankets will return to "human afghan" service from whence they came. I started to change my sheets but I don't want to wash him out of my bed yet. We cuddled all last night, his lumpy little head on my hand.

I'm going to miss the little boy an awful lot.

Wintering over

Wouldn't you think that peace lily's pot would've lost its price sticker by now???

I've been uncharacteristically vigilant about keeping the porch plants alive over the winter . . . I owe them that . . . they are such a joy to me on the porch during The Warm and Light Time. It's a little bit of an undertaking to get them all watered. I carry them from their perch in the corner of the bedroom upstairs to the bathtub and water them with the handheld shower thingie. 

Works quite well, but after I've finished getting all the drenched potsful of dirt and plant back to their windowside home, my back feels as if it's been broken. 
Small price, I guess. 
A little drink now and then is all they ask.

A late Valentine's Day post, borrowed from Rev. Stephen V. Sprinkle, Ph.D.

Rev. Stephen V. Sprinkle, Ph.D.: 

The Souls of Our Dogs: 

A Valentine's Day Tribute to Our Best Friends

February 14, 2013 13:04:43

No treatise on the soul ever taught me as much as my dog, Winston. What a happy irony! I am a theologian being patiently tutored on friendship, loyalty, and love by a brown-brindle English bulldog. It seems only mete and good to pay tribute to the soulfulness of humanity's best companions on Saint Valentine's Day. For many of us, our dogs are the epitome of love incarnate.

Since our species, Homo sapiens, and our domestic dogs, Canis lupus familiaris, have shared a partnership through the good times and bad befalling the human race for better than 35,000 years, we have had ample time to learn many of the answers to life's deepest questions from them. "Who are my neighbors, and how am I to relate to them?"
Dogs have demonstrated unfailing help in time of need: herding our flocks, hunting alongside us, using their superior senses to warn us of dangers we could neither see nor hear, and watching over us while we slept. "Are we alone in the universe?" Dogs have shown us unstinting loyalty and companionship, offering us warmth to ward off the chill of the void, nuzzling us time and again out of our existential angst with their cool, damp noses--peering into our souls with their unfathomably rich brown, and blue, and hazel eyes. In the bargain, they have won a dependable source of food, shelter, and companionship from us. Little wonder, then, that the earliest elevation of dogs to the status of persons in prehistory took place by burying our faithful friends alongside us in human graves as early as 14,000 years ago.

My bulldog, Winston, knows nothing of these things intellectually. But I am convinced that he possesses all the best hallmarks of his race instinctually. He does not care about my ethnicity or race or gender or sexual orientation, whether I am rich or poor, whether I occupy the clifftop of my theological guild, or inhabit a more modest spot near the bottom of it. All that matters to him is that I am his human, and the joy with which he greets me at the door, flews all aflutter, and toenails skittering across the floor in his ritual dance of hello lets me know that I am home, and all is well. For to the world I may be only a single person. But to this bulldog, I am the world.

The ancient Romans believed that a great she-wolf (a lupus) suckled Romulus and Remus in her cave-den, the Lupercal, along with her own pups. True or not, her gentler great-grand-pups and we humans have been mutually caring for one another long enough for us to know that something of the best within us emerges in the company of the single species on earth who will be faithful to us to the last beat of their hearts.

Pagan Roman priests, the Luperci, and the Christian bishops who succeeded them argued theology to a fault, as the petty wrangling over the festival of the she-wolf, the Lupercalia, and the Feast of Saint Valentine demonstrates. Which was the correct god of the Lupercalia: Faunus or Inuus, Mars, Juno, or Bacchus? What rendition of the Holy Trinity proved orthodox enough to consecrate Valentine's martyrdom and make him a bona fide saint? But the dogs of then and now, Winston's kindred, fetched love away from abstraction and made acts of love obvious in each generation until this very Saint Valentine's Day. For us humans willing to learn from our dogs, it was never the finer points of dogma that counted a biscuit--the celebration of love and companionship is all that ever counts in life: canine, human, and divine.

So, do dogs have souls? When they die, do all dogs go to heaven, as the animated film of the same name suggests? I may remain agnostic about the obscure points of such a theology, but I am not undecided that, as St. Francis of Assisi prayed, all our pets manifest the beauty of creation and the holy joys of lives wholeheartedly lived. Prepare your best Saint Valentine's Day cards for them, then: our pets are our sisters and our brothers, and they call us to be better people and better stewards of creation than we are now.

Winston sighs as he nestles at my feet while I write. He looks up at me with his harlequin face, half white and half black, the yen and the yang in fur and wrinkles and underbite. Theologically, I wish I had something "profound" with which to conclude this post. All I can manage is a cliché I cannot better no matter how I try. In my life, I only wish I could be half as good a person as my dog believes that I am. Happy Saint Valentine's Day, Winston, you soulful dog, to you all your kin!  

~http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/blackberry/p.html?id=2667424

Happy talk

It's nice to talk to people in far away places. 

I often engage catalog call center employees in conversation. Had a long and enjoyable conversation with a woman in Oregon several years ago. We knew each other's life stories by the time we hung up. Poor call center employees probably talk to some surly people; it's fun to joke with them, ask where they are, talk about the weather. I like to think I'm improving their days as I am mine. They probably think I'm crazy. Are they wrong?

Last week at work a man named Frank called me from Southern California and asked how I was. "I am wonderful!" I told him. He then heartily inquired as to how things were in the Great Northeast. 
"Oh, it's lousy," I said. And then I apologized to him, saying, "Sorry, I'm well stuck in my winter doldrums." 
He was looking for information about a property in the village and had been given an out-of-date address. I couldn't find the information in my records, but asked for his phone number in case I found something useful. He ended that conversation with, "You are a delight!" 
I fiddled around and found the property he inquired about and called him back and gave him all the info he wanted, and then he advised me to tell my boss and all my coworkers that I was wonderful. When people say things like that to me, my usual response is "I do, quite frequently." 
I think in this case I responded that he should tell everyone he knows, and to refer to me by name.

Blessed be antibiotics!

The doctor couldn't get a real good look in Angoo's mouth . . . he was a little intractable . . . but she's fairly sure it's a carnassial tooth abscess, like Max had. With Max the abscess broke a hole through his face, which is not unusual. If Angus didn't have cardiac issues the doctor would do surgery, clean it out and send him home with antibiotics. Instead, she sent us home with antibiotics and if the right side of his face is still swollen in ten days, we'll have to reconsider on the surgery.

And she emptied his anal glands which were just full to overflowing.

I don't know if HE's feeling better but I am limp with relief!

I came home and we wandered around outdoors a little and then we came in and he ate his supper and we sat on the couch together. I read, he napped. I didn't bring in wood or fix supper or do much of anything except commune with my beloved little dog.

And I feel pretty good about that.

Angus is sick

Angus has an infection in his head. I fear that it's been there for longer than I'd like to think about. Old dogs, you know . . . even poodles . . . develop a stink . . . so we didn't pay much attention until he really began to reek more than a nearly seventeen-year-old poodle should. I have an appointment for 3:00 Monday afternoon. I'm thinking it's an ear infection that grew into something monstrous. He's always been prone to ear infections. 

We've been living from day to day since the middle of last week, hoping that the doctor will say, "Here's some antibiotic. This'll fix him up in no time," but I'm not really expecting that. What I'm expecting is surgery with the attendant cardiac risks for a dog who has . . . issues . . . in that area. 

Well, what can I do? Que sera, sera.

Husband thinks he's petted out because he can't stand the ending part. Everybody always feels that way, but we've always had at least one dog since our fifth year together. 
What would we talk about if we should have no pet at all? 

Dreaming dogs and weather

A friend sent me this video this morning. If I could exercise like that while sleeping, two thirds of the contents of my closet would become available to me once again. Long ago somebody said to me, "Why do people always wake up dogs when they're dreaming? They always say, 'Oh look, he's having a bad dream!' and wake up the dog. Maybe the dog's enjoying the dream!" That conversation changed my view of dreaming dogs.

Screeny view from the bedroom

We had some snow overnight at the beginning of the weekend, and yesterday and today, sunny. Cold, to the tune of 27F right now (-17C sounds so much more dramatic to me), yet sunny enough that the snow is melting off the roof. I wish it would stay: it's a good insulator.

I am pining for warmth and green. 

Miscellany

When I was in my twenties or thirties a woman who had been my friend for years and years said to me, in a conversation about a mutual acquaintance, "He's like you."

"How so?" I asked.

"You know... Needy," she said.

I was offended, hurt. 

I think being insulted by being called "emotionally needy" is a result of being emotionally needy. There is the chance, too, that my friend was simply indulging in one of the opportunities that long friendship offers, that opportunity being bitchiness in the guise of neutral conversation.

One morning in the last month, the sky, with the sun peeking askance through the dense slivers of clouds, looked just like artfully layered mourning dove feathers. Taupe and pale gray and peachy-creamish and dark gray. It was beautiful. The colors were so gentle and soft, dense rather than wispy, that a photograph would have looked like nothing, would not have conveyed the peace of the light.

When my mother died, I was so relieved that I could finally cut myself free of Family. Now the nephew and niece-in-law have mucked that up with their spring delivery.  If I want a piece of Baby Girl, I'll need to be in touch with my parents' other child. It has been my experience that particular life issues recur until I've dealt with them. I think this is one of those issues. 

Dammit.

And the cold goes on and on. I took a nap this afternoon and I wouldn't have minded if I stayed asleep, or at least in bed, all covered up, until tomorrow morning. Supposed to be all the way up to 21F tomorrow.

Mmmm.

And sunny.

Tried to do laundry today. I've been saving it up all week. The drain pipe must have frozen because as the cycle reached the first "drain," it dripped down through the ceiling into the downstairs hallway and down into the cellar. I took the rest of the stuff to the laundromat where they will wash it and fold it for me and hand it back in plastic bags. Every time I have occasion to use that service, I think, "Why don't I do this all the time?????" Drop it off, pay some money, have the whole day free of laundry!