Interesting Times

Most of us have heard before the Chinese curse, “May you live in Interesting Times.”  There is, not surprising, doubt about its origin, but in these interesting times, I don’t think the origin of the expression matters.  If you’ve been listening to the news at all over the past few days, you know on some level how interesting our times have become.  Setting aside wars in two countries and the threat of pandemic influenza, I am most interested in what I keep hearing about our economy.  Not that it’s bad–that’s not interesting anymore, that’s just somewhere between inconvenient and despairing, depending upon your individual circumstances.  No, what I keep hearing about our economy goes something like this: ”when the economy turns around…” or “when the economy is back on track…” as if our economy is just a stubborn old mule who’s decided he doesn’t want to pack our ample arses up the mountain side anymore.  

From journalist types, to politicians, to common folk, I hear references to our present melted mess of an economy that suggest, in the not-so-distant-future, everything will be all right again.  Here, ”all right” substitutes for the fiscal excesses of the recent past, illustrated particularly well by the herd of Hummers that travels my neighborhood.  The idea that the economy has just gotten off track or stumbled keister-over-tea kettle and has only to get up, dust off, and, well, get on track again, perplexes me.  The economy is entirely on track when you consider what track it was on.  As a society, over the past ten or fifteen years, we had convinced ourselves that we all get to be rich, and that being rich can be disconnected to the fact of our mounting debt.  For example, when my boys were boys, they received offers of credit from once reputable outfits, such as Visa or Mastercard.  Those icons of commercial finance assured my unemployed teens that with their pretty little cards, the boys could get what they wanted, when they wanted it, and pay Visa back later, when it was more convenient.  More so, walk around any high school a year ago–maybe even now–and notice the kids in expensive clothes and shoes with expensive gadgets stuck to their ears or around their necks.  Not just some kids, but the vast majority have communication devices to make Star Trek officers weep.  Who’s paying for all that?  Who agreed to sell it on a promise of payment alone?  What happens now that Mom’s been laid off and Dad’s hours have been cut?  And just try to sell the Hummer.

For the past dozen years, the track of our economy has transformed the last open farmland in Puget Sound into warehouses–got to have somewhere to keep the inventory of futons being snapped up right and left by Ikea shoppers–and housing developments, ironically named for the  natural features obliterated to make way for them.  You know those places: Field and Stream Estates or Babbling Brook and Mountain View Castlettes.  Tulips and corn have had to make way for human shelter.  Hummer-sized shelter. In fact, the housing development company Quadrant is fond of poking fun at how voluminous their homes are, so big you can get lost in ‘em, they like to boast.  Yes, lost is what we are when we build so many 4000 plus square feet homes on one acre that neighbors can borrow sugar without ever leaving their kitchens.  It has an upside, though, no room for lawns reduces mower emissions. 

The track we have been on has not been without its sign posts.  Words like “New” and “Fashion” and “Style” evoke the excitement of a fresh start, which is great if that start is about true rejuvenation, like planting a garden in the spring or beginning an exercise program.  But the message from our until recently red-hot economy was to replace what you have with something else, over and over again, so you’ll feel better about your life and the stock market will soar.  Meanwhile, besides the warehouses and estates that have sprawled up the valleys, storage facilities have popped up like mushrooms in the shade of our mounting acquisition to provide shelter to last year’s patio furniture and an old futon or two.  4000 square feet will only hold so much.

When I hear really intelligent people on the radio reading the tea leaves of financial statistics to determine if we’re back on track yet, I sigh, and heavily.  Can’t we find another track?  Or maybe we can quit the mindlessness of tracks all together and navigate our way forward thoughtfully, engaging with one another to identify our shared and necessary values.  There’s only one planet, and it’s not a giant Pez dispenser.  The track we’ve been on is sometimes called a pie, and many folks have claimed, for many years now, that we can grow that pie indefinitely.  Those folks think that getting back on track means back to growing the pie.  They say that the pie grows when someone makes something and someone else buys it.  I admit I’m no economist, but what’s been made of our economy is a fraud, and I’m not buying it again.

The Princess and the Roller Derby Queen

It’s rainy today, but I can’t complain.  We had four days in a row of mostly clear skies, sun and heat.  It was intoxicating, really, and a far cry from the frosty white days of our extended winter.  It surprises me to realize that it’s been a couple months now since we lost Snohomish on one of those cold, steel-gray days.  So much has changed so fast.  Not only are the drab skeleton-like trees and shrubs of last season now fully fleshed in shimmering green, but the solitary days of Ruby the Princess of Brittanies have become all noise and flying dog-toy stuffing now that Maggie, the sweet shelter dog, has revealed herself to be a bruiser.  It has taken Maggie a couple of weeks to decide that Tom and I mean to keep her, that we truly are the agents of unconditional love.  The poor moppet was a ward of the foster system so long, you can’t blame her for being a bit diffident until she was convinced we meant for her to stay for good.  So like a date believing she’s now the girlfriend–or so my son has described–Maggie has recently presented us her true spirit, one reminiscent of the buxom gal willing to be whipped through the linked arms of the opposing roller derby team.

The best view of the contrast between Ruby and Maggie can be seen each morning  when we let the dogs in to be with us while we muster bowls of cereal.  Typically, Ruby takes up position on one of the capacious green tartan dog beds, nuzzling her much-loved Lammydoodle, until Maggie, chasing an old slimy green tennis ball she’s just tossed for herself, side-swipes Ruby and snatches Lammydoodle as she screetches by.  Ruby’s response most often is to look glum, but on occasion–and I’d love to know what courses through her at these times–she rockets from her bed to leap upon Maggie, who has begun to tear apart what’s left of Lammydoodle’s face, and reclaim her beloved toy.  From what we are seeing, Maggie is never in a mood to leave well enough alone, so the fiesty street kid returns chuck for chuck, and is soon galumphing up the stairs with Lammydoodle dangling from her jaws and Ruby in pursuit only if the Princess deigns to continue the game.  I find myself wandering around the house, bending to puppy level to inspect some new scuff on the walls or pinch a ball of fuzz–or is it Lammy’s innards?–off a chair.  We have adopted a canine pinball and our house has become the game.

In much the same way parents of toddlers ache for a break from their perpetual motion machines, I need the dogs out of my path some of each day.  Because I’m gone from home much of most days, and they are confined to the kennel, I feel a little guilty when I assign them detention and I don’t plan to go anywhere.  But Tom’s and my chief reason for bringing Maggie into our lives was to provide Ruby a companion, so whether I’m gone or home, companion time they will have.  After spending a few hours blissfully alone the other day, I realized that I hadn’t heard anything from the dogs for most of that time.  I was used to hearing the occasional bark at the dogs next door or the commotion of play.  I went out the back door to check on them, and no one was there.  No dogs in the dog house; I called, and no dogs came running.  They couldn’t have got out, could they?  I walked to the back of the house, an extension of the kennel area that provides necessary shade on hot, summer days, and saw two furry butts, presumably attached to furry heads deep inside the humongous holes the girls were digging.  So committed to their work, neither noticed me.  I sized up how far the holes were from the fence, wondering if I had stumbled onto a plan to break out.  A few feet.  Watching the furious showers of dirt, I waffled on whether to shut down the operations, but they seemed so happy.  And happy without me.  So I left them to themselves and their project and went back inside.

That evening I warned Tom that if we felt the house listing to the back, we may need to shore up the foundation.  The Maggie and Ruby Excavation Company had left so many holes–several feet deep and wide–across the back of the house, that a risk assessment might be warrented.  Tom had wanted a dog that would play well with Ruby, and we certainly got that.  But apparently we also got Ruby a kennel mate with a fair amount of initiative.  Let’s hope she doesn’t have the smarts to match that energy, or we’ll be living in the kennel soon.  Maggie’s nearly claimed the house for herself already.

Housekeeping, Interrupted

Yesterday I achieved a milestone.  I dusted one entire room, bric-a-brac included, in one continuous spate of attention.  Yes, my friends, I began at one point of the room, at one point in time, and moved in sequence across space, staying on task, until nary a mote of the light and fluffy stuff was left.  Then I piled dust cloths and polish onto a table in the next room and abandoned the effort.  Tom mentioned today, having passed by the untouched cleaning supplies several times, that my leaving the tools of housekeeping strewn about the house is one of the ”quirks” he loves about me.  ”Quirks?” I said inquiringly, as I took ocular aim at his coat hanging on a dining room chair, one of the several pieces of dining room furniture Tom uses as a closet.  “Oh,” said Tom, “I’ll bet that leaving my stuff hanging on chairs is one of the quirks you love about me.”  I smiled the smile Tom knows to mean, ”You betcha!”  Generous as always, Tom noted that he probably has lots of quirks.  I smiled again and said, “I don’t want to know any more of mine,” and ushered him off to work.

Housekeeping is a Sisyphean task.  I thought that working from home would allow me to do a couple chores each day, break down the monolithic sense of cleaning The House, and save myself from the blitz of vacuuming, dusting, and toilet-scrubbing that used to exhaust me and my Saturday “free time.”  But this do-a -little-each-day thing isn’t working out.  I try setting a daily goal, like do three loads of laundry or clean the upstairs bathrooms, either of which I ought to be able to do in an hour or less.  And with good intention I begin the task, then my cell rings or I remember an email I should send, or I have a coffee craving, so mid swish I drop the brush, run off and forget until Tom or I trip over the cleaning bucket in the master bathroom as we’re getting ready for bed.  A more suspicious man would think I was leaving all the cleaning stuff around to invite team participation.  Tom doesn’t believe in hints, though.  (Sometimes I don’t think he believes in direct requests, either, but that’s another story.)  In the end, the bathroom cleaning bucket, pushed to the side of the room, may sit idle for another day or two until I again determine that the bathroom should be cleaned.  The only way I escape self-condemnation on this point is that I’ve probably started a couple other chores in the meantime, like vacuuming the downstairs hall (and leaving the vacuum in the foyer for the rest of the week), and getting a load of towels through the washer (but not to the dryer). 

With the boys gone and flexibility in my schedule, you’d think that keeping up on house work would be easier.  Certainly there’s less of it.  But I think the problem is just that.  When the boys filled the house with their gangly bodies and smelly clothes, just seeing a clear space on the floor or couch was my definition of house work done right.  I’d walk past a boy’s room and shove a pile of ”mixed waste” that had oozed into the hallway back into the room and close the door.  There’s a chore successfully completed!  Now when I walk past an open door, to any room, I see baseboards, and they are dusty!  I didn’t even know I had baseboards until the boys moved out.  The space they have left behind needs regular attention, it seems.  And of course working from home means I’m home to notice things like dead flies in the window frame.  What used to become of such filth when I didn’t have time to notice?  Maybe Cole, during his Pristine Window Cleaning Company period, used to take care of them.  Regardless, I have raised my standards and now must raise my game.

I’m thinking of spending a few hours on the computer tomorrow designing an Excel spreadsheet listing all the specific chores that go into cleaning the house.  I’ll have a little schedule, maybe some point values for degree of offensiveness, and I’ll draft SMART goals for the downstairs and upstairs.  Then I’ll apply a backwards planning strategy–kind of develop a Housekeeping Improvement Plan.  If I do it right, I can fiddle with that plan long enough to avoid ever actually doing any house work.  Well, maybe I’ll put the dusting stuff away.

Less Wine More Yoga

My friend, Leska, calls me her hummingbird friend; others just call me tightly wound.  Either way, I’ve known I run at high revs since my former mother-in-law told me in my early twenties that I was The Nervous Type.  I remember being stunned to hear that.  The fact that I could break a plate just by holding it didn’t seem to mean anything at the time.  But now, 25 years later, when I still haven’t eased up much, my doctor has advised me to take up some de-stressing activities, like caring for a pet (you know how that’s gone), meditation, or yoga–or wait for a heart attack to unwind me permanently.  So this past Tuesday afternoon I started a six week introduction to yoga class, and I have to admit, I was a little nervous.

True to uptight form, I arrived a bit early to the class–20 minutes.  I hate being late.  I was so early, in fact, the instructor wasn’t even there, so I stood solitary on the sidewalk, while the frigid April breeze coiled around my thinly clad, yoga-panted legs.  To keep myself busy, I read and re-read the hours of operation posted on the door.  No excuse for ever being late now.

Soon a crowd of yoga mat-hauling students collected to join me in reading the signs on the door.  The instructor, delayed by a lying clock, ushered us all into the studio a little bit past class time.  The late-start rankled, so I tried to center myself for the class by thinking how time is like a river, ever flowing, or going dry because someone or something is always sucking it away…okay, I lost the spirit of things a little. 

Among the newbies in the intro class were a number of old-bies, apparently, since no one had to tell them to go get  mats, blocks and blankets from the back, and to stash their purses and shoes in a cubbie at the entrance.  I must have looked agitated, because a woman–an old-bie, I think–kindly showed me the routine, speaking softly and carefully.  I told her I was new and would just copy her every move from then on.  She smiled nervously and moved her mat to the other end of the studio.  (God help them all if I’m that infectious.) I found a spot near the front end of the studio where a slice of light had sneaked in from a part in the sheer curtains diffusing the view through the north-facing windows.  From my modified lotus position (to be honest, my version would better be called “lily pad”), I relaxed enough to get a good look at the studio space.  It has the best vibe I’ve ever experienced in Puyallup.  An old brick building on a side street with soaring ceilings, old glossy wood floors, and an immense image of a rising sun nearly filling the top half of the back wall, and so softly painted in white over sand that it merely whispers itself.  I found myself transfixed by the image, or maybe the yogic effect of being in the company of nearly twenty calm and centered women neutralized the very air I was breathing and drained my body of static electricity.  After a bit, I realized I was breathing, quietly, deeply, and rhythmically, even before I was given the assignment to do so by the instructor.  (Of course I was quite smug at that; being the type A, A grade kind of girl I’ve been, I have always liked to work ahead).

My presence in the yoga studio that day was evidence of my optimism, because I had ventured into yoga before to no avail.  Just after my divorce twelve years ago, when I was living in an apartment building in Kent, I saw a flyer advertising a yoga class to be taught in the apartment complex’s community center.  I was in my mid-thirties at the time, so my youthful muscle fiber was capable of the tenseness of rebar.  Yoga sounded like relief.  I arrived at the first class with a television-based expectation that our class would be taught by a wise and gentle swami, with limbs as pliable as noodles, who would inspire calm and focus in the half dozen of us who had gathered.  But no.  A woman the size of a gnat, and with the energy of a puppy on caffeine, started class by insisting that we all try to guess her age (60), and then insisting that she looked twenty years younger (nope, she looked 60).  She then began to call out directions in a fashion reminiscent of a drill sergeant, “Breath in, breath out, turn to the left, turn to the right, keep up, keep up!”  In a matter of moments my body was one big knot.  I looked at the clock on the wall repeatedly wishing away the hour.  I had finally met someone more wound up than I, and she was my yoga teacher.  I withdrew from the class that night.  Years later, I would give the East another try.  At the urging of a fellow educator, I signed up for a Tai Chi class, not really knowing what to expect but assured by my colleague that it would help me relax.  And there I found my swami.  A wizened old man with long white hair and loose, billowy garments introduced himself to our class of three.  He emanated that peace and centeredness I was hoping to find in a teacher, a slight smile soft on his lips.  I think his hearing was poor, but what did that matter?  Tai Chi isn’t a conversational activity.  The teacher began with simple directions for a series of movements, then began to model.  But as he slowly shifted his body, the teacher began to fart.  Not just a single instance of passing gas, but a series of loud expulsions that accompanied his movement like percussive background music.  I felt embarrassed for him at first, but during a break, one of the other students told me that this was quite normal for our teacher, and that I would get used to it.  If I were a more easy-going folk, perhaps I would.  But I dropped Tai Chi.  I couldn’t concentrate for the noise.

The hour plus of my introduction to Yoga class on Tuesday was everything I had hoped for, though.  In a blink the class was over, yet we had learned to sit, to stretch, to balance, to move, and to stand.  In the dimness of the studio during late afternoon I was able to focus on my instructor’s clear, quiet voice and let my body learn without my mind interfering.  I arrived home so relaxed that when Tom offered me a glass of wine at dinner I declined.  Ah yoga!  To speed up my progress, I am practicing at home.  In fact, I need to end this entry so I can go work on my breathing and maybe get in a tree pose or two.

What To Do

I have never liked surprises.  Even good ones.  Because I was pregnant with my boys before ultrasounds were uber-fashionable, I didn’t have the option to know their gender before their births.  I found that inefficient; knowing would have allowed me to focus my preparations, to select only boy clothing, names, and toys; and to avoid hanging that ghastly pink floral wallpaper in Ian’s room.  Well certainly I’ve weathered not knowing the future in the past, but I’d sure like to know the future now.  Warnings of deep cuts in education funding for next year mean my clientele are going to have few resources, and less time, for organization development.  Most districts will be busy sticking thumbs in the dikes of their programs rather than expanding them, and I’m not a thumb.  The prospect of little to no consulting work leaves me ruminating on what I’ll do with myself.  Tom says garden and write, and that sounds wonderful.  But unless you readers begin to send me a dollar every time you log on, writing doesn’t yet pay any bills.  Some of the garden is planted already for this season, and when we are dining on nothing but carrot soup next winter, I will definitely feel some satisfaction in that pursuit at least.  Meanwhile, I keep studying the horizon for some indication of what I might do for an income while I try to nurture my growing manuscript into a publishable–and sell-able–book. 

When I was growing up, I imagined many careers for myself.  Following one particularly attentive hair cut when I was about ten, I thought I should become a hair dresser.  The woman who had trimmed my tresses really seemed interested in me, and that alone made me want to imitate her.  That phase lasted only a few months, but during those months I compulsively dressed the hair on every doll head I could get my hands on, including Shelley’s favorite red-headed fashion doll that I snitched from her bedroom when she wasn’t looking.  Alas, I had no hair styling talent, which most of you already know, having seen my hair on countless occasions. 

Another memorable intention I had was to become the next Carol Burnett or Irma Bombeck.  I faithfully watched Carol Burnett on Saturday nights (Friday?) imagining what it would be like to sit down and talk to her.  During her monologues at the start of the show she could make the audience split its collective sides with the perfect one-word response to a banal question.  It was alchemy.  I couldn’t imagine myself doing the slapstick or the silliness on stage, but I wanted to think it up, to be in a room of creative types, like Rob, Buddy and Sally on the Dick Van Dyke Show, and toss around ideas for skits and bits and gags.  But I had no idea how one ever got that kind of job.  Could you major in comedy writing in college?  Unfortunately, I never took my funny side seriously.  I wasn’t a class clown.  In fact, I was the class intellectual.  My seriousness got in the way of my funny.

Irma Bombeck, on the other hand, has been an enduring part of my psyche, always there in a corner of my point of view.  I read and collected all of her books when I was too young to lament over house work.  But I thought she was magical in her ability to transform common family experiences into hilarity.  Like Carol Burnett, she could produce wit from the mundane.  Her example infused me.  What would Irma say, I often wonder, when some pest of day-to-day life flaps its absurdity at me.  In the spirit of Irma, for all of my adult life, I have written little essays and commentaries on what I’m thinking when I face off with the ridiculous.  If you broke into my house and rummaged through all my drawers and shelves, you would find folders and envelopes here and there containing yellowed, typed pages of observation and attempted humor.  None of it have I ever submitted for publication anywhere.  Who wants to risk the rejection of how you see the world?

It’s odd to be nearly fifty and still wondering what I’ll be when I grow up.  When folks ask me what I do, and I say education consultant, I really want to say writer.  Both are true, but only one pays the bills right now.  How is it that identity has become so entangled with income?  Are we only what we are paid to do?  If so, someone please send me a fiver.  I’ll make you some good gnocchi to enjoy while you read my blog, and then I’ll add “chef” to my resume, too.

The Dog Days of April

Three consecutive days of sun and warmth in April is precious in Washington, and so a long-planned trip for Elena and me to Port Townsend Tuesday seemed auspicious.  Elena even played fast and loose with the wardrobe, showing up at my place in clam digger-length jeans.  Whoo hoo!   Exposed skin in April!  Since Tom had taken Ruby and Maggie to doggie day-care that morning, Elena and I were free to spend the whole day wandering in and out of the quirky stores of PT and grazing our way through bakeries and waterfront cafes.  We drifted along the sidewalks with no purpose other than to let glimpses of artwork through shop windows invite us in for closer examination.  Just after lunch, I found myself leaving nose-prints on a glass jewelry case.  Staring back at me from inside the case was a hand-wrought necklace: a silver sand dollar disk streaked with gold and dripping a single teardrop of a freshwater pearl.  A reluctant buyer, I am usually content to simply admire a shop’s wares, but this time I asked the store keeper to open the case.  I fingered the necklace gently.  One hundred and seventy-eight dollars he said.  Hmmmm.  Boy, I’d have seriously considered it if it weren’t for the phone call from Tom a couple hours earlier.

About the time Elena and I pulled in to Port Townsend, my cell phone rang.  It was Tom.  We had a cheery exchange about where I was exactly and what the PT plan-of-action was.  Then Tom’s tone shifted and my worry alert went off. 

“The vet called.  Maggie’s doing great, but Ruby was bit…no, really just nipped,” he edited, “by an overexcited dog in day care.  It’s just a small nip,” Tom emphasized, “but ears bleed a lot, so she needs stitches.”

I was stunned.  Today was Maggie’s first time in daycare.  We had been a bit nervous that she might find it overwhelming; after all, coming to live with us was likely exciting enough.  But Elena and I had been planning this girlfriend day for some time, and we rarely can match up open days on the calendar, so doggie daycare was the solution.  Ruby, on the other hand, was an old pro at daycare.  All the staff knows her on sight, and loves her–she’s a charmer.  To learn that Ruby was beat up on the playground and Maggie was doing great was quite a surprise.  To learn that Ruby’s vet care would exceed $200.00…well that was plain painful.  Add Ruby’s costs to the $260.00 for Maggie’s initial vet care the day before, and my purse collapsed from the vacuum.  At least I could still afford a nice day with Elena, but the only swag of the day was a loaf of bread, a cheap scarf, and a book of poetry entitled, Doggerel.  And yes, it’s about dogs.  Honestly, I don’t need another necklace anyway; I only have one neck.  But I’m hoping that two consecutive days of triple digit vet bills is a crazy coincidence not a trend.

When Elena and I got back to my place late Tuesday afternoon, a Brittany with a stocking cap met us at the door.  All Ruby needed to add to look truly cool was a snowboard.  The vet had slid a piece of stockinette over her head to keep her sutured ear protected.  A slit on the right side allowed Ruby’s uninjured ear to flap freely.  She looked fairly lopsided, but so do a lot of the snowboarders.  What a silly pair of dogs we suddenly had.  Ruby with stitches in her ear and Maggie squinting through puffy red eyes.  We seemed to have “See no evil” and “Hear no evil”; was there a mute cat somewhere outside in the bushes?  In a matter of days we had become a convalescent home for dogs.  My amusement (tempered by the costs, of course) at the situation was doused when Tom told me that the vet said that Ruby needed to be monitored closely for the next several days so she wouldn’t tear out the stitches.  I looked at my little dog.  She was standing in the middle of the dining room swaying like a drunk.  She had been sedated, Tom said, for the stitches.  Reflexively, I looked at the wine cabinet.  Sedation didn’t sound so bad all of a sudden. 

Tom the Saint slept downstairs on the leather chair and two ottomans in his sleeping bag last night to monitor the dogs.  I’m hoping we can think more Darwinian tonight and have them sleep outside again.  I don’t think I’m noble enough to do my turn.

Ruby’s Pooped and We’re Awake!

Ahhhaaaa…   That’s the sound of a rested woman.  A full eight hours sleep for me.  I climbed in bed last night about 10:45, worried a bit about Ruby and Maggie sleeping outside–would Ruby bark all night?  Would they be too cold?  Would they fight over the sheets?  But my worrying was no match for my month plus accumulated exhaustion from fractured sleep, and I was out before 10:46.  Ruby the Midnight Rambler will have to do her pitch-black peregrinations in the kennel from now on.

By the time I ambled downstairs this morning, Tom had been up long enough to serve the girls breakfast and was already watching the show.  I joined him in the chilly, promise-of-blue-sky morning to laugh at the pair of knee-high hounds, already fully engaged in tackle dog-ball.  Ruby was running round and round the kennel with a toy in her mouth, waggling it at Maggie who happily pursued.  First chance she got, Maggie leapt on top of Ruby but immediately slid to the ground, flipped on her back and waved her legs in the air like an upended beetle.  Ruby stood over her new pal making her strange ninja-like vocalizations that remind Tom and me of actors in a B grade Japanese spy movie.  Before Tom and I had even had our coffee, Ruby was ready to come inside for a break.

Tom took the morning off to take Maggie to the vet for a rabies shot, among other expensive preventatives, and a look-see at her eyes.  Yesterday afternoon, we noticed that Maggie was rubbing her eyes, and as the day wore on, her topaz peepers became red, puffy and watery.  Her symptoms reminded me of those associated with hay fever, but I’ve never heard of a dog having that kind of reaction.  Tom and I reviewed all the new stuff Maggie had come in contact with since we brought her home and couldn’t point a finger at any likely irritants, save the pollen-clouded spring air.  Upon returning from the vet’s, Tom reported that, besides spending our entertainment budget for the rest of the month, the vet had no idea what was bothering Maggie’s eyes, but gave her an antibiotic and recommended a cone for her neck to keep her from pawing at her sore eyes.  We are thrilled at the prospect of deepening our new relationship with Maggie by one of us pinning her to the floor twice a day while the other tries to pry open her eyes for drops.  Oh yeah, she’ll really be glad to call us her family.

It’s nearly two o’clock, the sun is high, my work is done, and I hear no barking, whining or conspiratorial whispers about how to break out of the chain link joint.  Our two smart and sweet puppies may find everything they need in each other’s and our company.  To reward them, I’m going to take everyone for a walk.  Stay tuned for stories from that circus parade.

Maggie Moves In

Last Sunday, while I clung to the last hours of Arizona sun I would see for a year, Tom traveled to Yakima to meet Maggie, a year old pup of miscellaneous heritage living in the care of Yakima Valley Pet Rescue.  From the photos Tom sent me, Maggie looked like a miniature brindle boxer with the head of Jack Russell.  I was intrigued but not charmed.  I still pined for Dora, after all.  But Tom and I had agreed that the choice of our second dog was primarily his, and while I had right of last refusal, I otherwise would stay out of the pup hunt.  I told Tom over the phone, as I gently turned myself on the spit, that if he fell in love with this Maggie, I’d be willing to welcome her.  I wanted assurance, though, that her dubious lineage didn’t include pit bull or rottweiler.  Assuaging the wife’s fears being the very best part of valor, Tom decided to wait to adopt Maggie until both of us could meet her.  To our good fortune, Yakima Valley Pet Rescue would be bringing Maggie to Tukwila on Sunday, April 5, for a puppy dog adopt-a-thon.  I could meet Maggie then, and we’d take her home if I had no concerns.

So today, sunny as an Arizona Sunday, bode well for a drive to Tukwila.  Tom and I, after talking further with Maggie’s case manager from the pet rescue organization, were assured that while she may have many breeds represented in her genetic material, no pit or rotty was visible.  As far as disposition was concerned, you couldn’t find a less aggressive dog, we were assured.  We arrived at the venue and set about looking for our contact.  Within minutes, Shellie from Yakima was unloading a pretty little pup, tiger striped and petite, whose unusually long and strong tail for such a small dog cut the air whip-like, threatening anyone or anything in its arc.  This was a happy dog!  Maggie rushed to Tom and me with the joy of the eternally optimistic.  For a little dog who had spent its young life stray on the streets of Yakima, then did time at the Humane Society, followed by a reprieve given by a YV Pet Rescue foster mom, to finally come live with us, a family complete with a sister, well, there was only happiness.  Maggie showered us with immediate and generous affection, wagging her body, rubbing against us, and jumping up repeatedly to get a good look and give a good lick.  We could see the boxer in her as she stood surely on her back feet pawing at us with her front two feet.  We’ll work on better manners later, but for a street kid, she was doing just fine.  While Tom signed papers and wrote a check, I put a leash on Maggie and took her for a short walk, away from the near-rodeo of dogs, rescue personnel, and prospective adopters.  Maggie walked on a leash like a show dog, perky beside me, but no pulling or wrestling or mouthing the leash.  I was stupefied.  Years of tug-o-war walking with Ruby has left me with a right bicep twice the size of my left one.  I began to fantasize taking leisurely walks–and maybe even jogging–with Maggie.  And then I felt suddenly guilty, as if I’d betrayed my sweet Ruby.  Silly, I know.  Our greatest motivation for adding another dog to our lives is to provide Ruby a playmate.  We packed the girl into the back of our pick-up to go home.  Ruby was waiting–and wouldn’t she be surprised!

When Tom began looking for a dog to adopt, his greatest concern was to find one that wouldn’t overwhelm Ruby.  The dog needed to be small, but sturdy enough for outdoor life.  We wanted a female with an easy temperament, one that would look for Ruby to lead, even if the idea had never crossed Ruby’s mind.  By mid-afternoon, as Tom and I watched Ruby and Maggie frolic about in the kennel, and then later all over the front yard, we were both pleased and relieved at the match.  Maggie is slightly smaller than Ruby–small enough to squeeze between the gate and the fence post of the kennel, requiring a quick bit of impromptu engineering on Tom’s part.  But there’s nothing delicate about Maggie.  Tom and I tease each other about what a little princess Ruby is, but when Tom suggested we now have two, I pointed out that there is something of the Irish country girl about Maggie; she’s tough and hopeful, and so far, not the least demanding.  We’re smitten.

After more than a month of being woken up two or three times a night by Ruby, Tom and I, besides being sleep deprived, are cautiously hopeful that Ruby and Maggie can sleep outside tonight in the dog castle, uneventfully.  We’ve heard little to no barking from Maggie thus far, but she has a whine to rip your heart out.  We need her to quickly accept that her lot in life is to cuddle up with Ruby in the straw each night.  And that’s not so bad, if you think about it.  Other than the lousy sleep, Tom and I have done all right.