Sunday in New Jersey

Not much better than a long day with dear friends, with dogs doing the thing they love absolutely best, in perfect weather.

Linda has been my friend for thirty-two years. I know that, because she was the first person I told that I was pregnant, and Jake will be thirty-one next month. (How did that happen?) My dogs adore Linda. She is the person in the story "Mama Pajama Tells a Story" that Mama Pajama told the story to! (That is a train wreck of a sentence, but it's 6:21 in the morning, I've had exactly three sips of coffee, and I need to get to the field.) Sam I Am was born at Linda's house.

When we arrived at the field yesterday, I got Sam out to see his Nana Linda. She had placed a bag of blankets out to save us a parking place. Sammy dove his nose into that bunch of blankets and wagged and danced and grinned and wagged his entire body in pure doggy ecstasy. I didn't need to translate; the language of his joy was universal. His Nana Linda was there.

And when he saw her in the flesh, he turned inside out. I know just how he felt! There is something that creates a deep, satisfied soul-sigh when you get to hug a friend. And when you get to hug four soul-sigh friends all in one day, that's a good day. It might make your eyes a little leaky, but it's a good day.

I'll get my hugs in today, too. Rhonda, Carolyn, Mary, and Linda will be well hugged. So will their dogs. And then, after the dogs have run and run and run I will give some last hugs and I will load up my waggle and we will head home. Mama Pajama will lecture me (through her translator Linda) about how bad it is to lose your pack. She will remember how full her life was when she saw her Sisters, Cousins and Friends, and their Servants Linda and Rhonda at adventures every single weekend. And how nobody had to be left home. And how the extended Pack was always one.

But as we drive back over the mountains, I will be wishing I could fly home to my Bill. And to my Very Old Dog, and silly old Maria, and Fat Charlie, Luciano and Delia.

It seems, no matter where I am, I'm always missing someone. I guess that is a by product of being entirely too fortunate.


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Arrived

[Warning: tonight's entry is distressingly journal-like. I'm too tired to make it into a story. I will probably end up deleting these and making them into one better organized, more fun tale when I get home. Apologies in the mean time.]

This hotel is lovely. The dogs kept checking behind the dresser when we first came in, hoping for more stinky seafood. Thank goodness, they were disappointed. Mama Pajama's breathing looks the smallest bit labored to me tonight. I hope I am seeing things. She is comfortable and resting and wondering where her bedtime snacky is. It is insanely warm and humid here; that front should blow over tonight.

I wish I had remembered my camera. The fall colors in the mountains in eastern Tennessee and southern Virginia were spectacular. And, having grown up in the Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts, I'm quite the fall foliage snob. But it was the best autumn scenery I've ever witnessed. The trees went from deep green to brilliant golden to fiery orange and crimson. I bought some new windshield wiper blades, and of course the rain immediately stopped. If only I had bought them before my trip to Minnesota and Wisconsin; all that flooding would have been prevented. I'm sorry, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

We took a detour to visit my son and to meet his beautiful girlfriend. The young 'uns got to meet their first horse, nose to nose. (Whyyyy did I forget the camera... ?) They thought it was pretty funny in a let's run and spin and woof kind of way.

The new dog food is making them fart. Five fartin' dogs in a van for seventeen hours. Woo-hoo, my sinuses are clear!

I'm being silly. Too tired to write. I apologize for this drivel.


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On The Road

We're on a trip... last minute decision to go after agonizing whether or not to for a month. This story will be uncharacteristically abbreviated, as the computer battery is running low and I left the chord out in the van.

The dogs and I travel quite a bit, as there's not much to do in our part of the world. We used to have a wonderful camper, but we sold it. Then I tried putting a bed and a portable toilet in our van. (More on that later, fear not!) Now this is the first trip trying hotels again. And I'm SURE it's the last.

We left our house at 3:30 in the afternoon, after finishing up the last orders, and mucking out the van, and filling the crates with lots of fresh blankets and chew bones. A rather tearful hug to Bill and Very Old Dog and the others who stayed home; I do detest having to travel without Bill and the Other Dogs. The older I get the more I hate it.

I loaded up the elated Mama Pajama, Sam I Am, Swede William, and Lindy Loo, and drove the eight blocks to dear Heather's house to kidnap Lindy Loo's litter brother, Emmett, as I am wont to do. As soon as I pulled away from the curb at our house it started to pour down rain. Again. We'd been having tornado watches all day. It was ninety degrees with thirty mph winds. Freaky for October.

I kidnapped Emmett and fell down the porch steps leaving Heather's house. Drat. Now I was sopping wet on my bottom. And that last cortisone injection in my shoulder and the two weeks of physical therapy? Undone. But I did not let go of Emmett's leash, good Human! I sat in a puddle in the downpour and contemplated if I were capable of getting up, decided I was, and off we went again.

Then it started to hail.

Eek, this computer battery is going to die. Fast forward: it's 1:15 AM. On the fifth attempt we find a hotel with a supposed non-smoking room, for only $80 plus tax. There is not one single blade of grass anywhere. There is a junk yard dog tied in the lot next to the hotel. (A not so Super 8.) The room smelled just horrid, and I thought maybe it was a smoking room.

Until the dogs found the whole clam, shell and all, behind the dresser. Someone had carry out steamers, and one apparently went overboard. And it was long enough ago to stink.

GROOOOSSSSSSSSS! Gross me out. Gross-o-mundo.

Now if the little dog in the next room would stop barking, I'll get to sleep and decide that this is all hysterically funny.

Six hours of driving down, ten more to go!

Later... I think I'm going to dream of the ocean.





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It's raining.

The dogs will not go outside to pee or worse in the rain.

They will stand there for hours, as I block their way back into the house, shouting, "Go pee. You are not coming back into this house until you pee." I cannot get them to understand that if they had gone ahead and done their business, they would be out of the rain by now. They stand in the storm and look sad. "Go pee! No one gets in until they pee."

But of course I let them in. Sodden, but full of bladder or worse. I, too, am soaked by now. I waste a little time. Putter on the computer. Think about the Meaning of Life. (Rain can have that effect on a person.) Towel off the old dogs. Watch the rain in the streetlight outside my window.

"Out, dogs! Right now, time for bed, let's go!" The downpour had momentarily lessened to a drizzle.

With decidedly less than their usual enthusiasm, the dogs slink down the stairs behind me, anticipating another drenching. There is no jostling jockeying to be first out. Noses tentatively poke around the doorway to see if it's worth proceeding. One by one they tippy-toe onto the the breezeway, and then, with me poking the reticent butts, they descend the three steps into the potty yard.

BLAM! Here comes the rain again. But I am at the top of the steps standing guard, and bladder-emptying has begun. It's pouring harder than ever. They have all peed.

They slink by me, casting glances of "How could you? We trust you, and you have made us wet. We are disappointed in you."

But, they're dogs. So the instant they are out of the rain and in the house the celebration begins. "Woo-hooooo! We are out of the horrid wetness! We are wet and silly!" As I attempt to dry them off with the big, soft, oversized towels kept handy for just such an occasion, the young 'uns start the Wet Whippet Zoomies. The Old Dogs bark at them. It sounds to my dog-language-challenged ears as though they are encouraging, rather than chastising the folly.

And then, the sweet smelling, rain water soft, whole happy herd ascends the stairs. They get their biscuits, snuggle into their blankets and dream of sunshine and dry, golden fields where they run and run and run.

Meet the Whippet Waggle

This photo was taken one year ago today by the incomparable Laurie Erickson. I am so lucky to have her as a good, wonderful, generous friend, and also so fortunate to have Sam I Am's brother Rivet and Lindy Loo's sister Simmer living in her gentle, capable care.

Anywhooooo, here's the waggle for those of you who don't know them:

And my other dear, generous, wonderful friend Rhonda took some lovely photos of Lindy Loo



And Swede William at a show this summer when they were more grown up.


William is saying "Yes, I know I am SOOOOOO handsome! Now please give me the liver!"
They both LOVE to show!

Anyway, that is the group.

MOUSE!

There is a mouse in the house.

I am not afraid of mice. I am not. I do, however, have a freakish instinctual reaction to a mouse running amok in my presence. I do the Screaming Mouse Dance.

It is an embarrassing display. I am not by nature a screamer, or even a squealer for that matter. I mean, I've been known to laugh a little too loud, but for the most part I'm fairly reserved. Shy. Quiet. But let a mouse zip by, and I'm suddenly a bobby-socks wearing teenage girl in the presence of Elvis. SHRRREEIK!!!!

That's the history.

So last week as I was typing away in my dark little computer room, Mr. Mouse poked out from under my file cabinet and said hey. Oh, Lord you scared me, I said. Please don't run, I begged, because Bill and the dogs are sound asleep and they won't be if you run. And Mr. Mouse, being a polite fellow, flicked his whiskers a bit in a dignified, sure-whatever-you-say kind of way, and ducked back under the file cabinet. I decided the story I was working on could wait (still haven't finished it) and went immediately to bed.

Mr. Mouse said hi a few more times during the course of the week, in a delightfully stationary fashion, and we became friends. We used to get lots of field mice coming to visit this time of year when the nights got chilly, back at the farm. But though I had expected to see many, this was the very first mouse encounter since moving to this old house in Paducah five years ago. Some old houses in the neighborhood are being rehabbed, and perhaps Mr. Mouse has had to find new digs.

Then, on Thursday night, a friend stopped by. The dogs and I were upstairs. The dogs heard the knocking before I did, and the stampede down the stairs was on. I must grab Very Old Dog's collar as he goes down, as his legs don't always carry out the instructions from his brain, and our stairs are steep and twisting. I looked down to get the right collar. (Oh, yes, I've done that - Very Old Dog is left to his own reduced devices while I mistakenly have a death grip on the perfectly capable but similarly marked Mama Pajama's collar.) Something on the steps caught my eye.

It was Mr. Mouse.

Now. I have nine whippets. Sighthounds. Bred for centuries to chase small furry things, depending on their keen vision to detect moving critters and run them down. And all nine whippets crashed down the stairs, barking their greetings to our visitor, stepping on, over, and next to Mr. Mouse.

And, Mr. Mouse was most definitely not stationary any more.

He was leaping madly to try to get up the stairs, but they were too tall. And now there was bedlam. My voice, aided and abetted by my lungs and mouth, but totally bypassing my brain, started the Moving Mouse Scream.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Aaaaa! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! AAAAAAAAAAAA!

The poor guest who was knocking on my door was entertaining the possibilty that I had fallen and broken my leg. It's that kind of scream. I managed to open the door between outbursts, or during them, I should say.

"THERE'S A - GET IT, DOGS - MOUSE - LOOK! GET THE SQUIRRELLIE! - ON THE STAIRS!!"
"There's a mouse and a squirrel in your house?" My bemused guest was understandably confused.
"No. No. The dogs don't know the word 'mouse' but they know... AAAAAAAAAAAAAA! AAAAA! There it IS. GET THE SQUIRREL. GET THE BUNNIES! AAAAAAAAAA! OH MY OH AAAAAAAAAAA!!! LOOK FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET IT!"

And then of all the hunters in the house, it was little Lindy Loo, the baby of the family, who finally saw Mr. Mouse. That set off a whole new fit of screaming from the idiot which had taken over my body. "Get it Lindy! Oh no, don't get it. AAAAAAAA! Look! Help her!" But the dogs, having infinitely better manners than their Servant, were welcoming our bewildered friend, who was standing in the foyer wondering what emergency service she should call to come get me. And poor Mr. Mouse was leaping up a step, only to fall down two, and then he would remember that I preferred my mice to be immobile, and he would hunker down and not move a whisker. When he did this, Lindy Loo would lose him, even if she were standing on his tail.
Finally, Fat Charlie saw our little rodent friend. Uh-oh. This was not good news for Mr. Mouse's loved ones. Now I changed my mind. "No, Fat Charlie! Leave it... Ohhh AAAAAAAAA! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Oh NOOO! Oh.. OHHHHH. LOOK OUT HERE IT COMES! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Lindy Loo, Fat Charlie, Luciano, Mama Pajama, Mr. Mouse and I all tumbled down the stairs, and I was in Full Shreiking Mouse Alarm. I imaging people heard me three towns away and headed into their basements, mistaking me for the tornado siren.
Thank goodness, I provided ample distraction for Mr. Mouse who ducked into the coat closet. I immediately returned to my unpossessed self, turned to my guest, and said, "Hi! Shall we go out for a bite to eat? Lovely evening isn't it? How have you been?"

You can't blame me for being fond of Mr. Mouse:

Lindy Loo and Swede William

He looks like family!

A Terrible Scare

I spelled gate wrong... but it's a long way from the bedroom down the hall, down the stairs, back under the bedroom out the kitchen door onto the breezeway in this old rambling house.

Thank God for our weird morning routine. (Here it is in my Alone With the Dogs entry.) This morning I came down to the kitchen with the first group, including Very Old Dog, Maria, Fat Charlie and Mama Pajama. They're combined ages equal forty-five years. I opened the door to let them out and instead of heading left to the potty area, they headed right to the yard. It was 6:23, and I am anything but a morning person, but I can tell the difference between right and left, even before coffee. I had baby-gated the breezeway entrance to the yard before bed, so I waited for them to do an about turn and go left. Only they didn't.

Huh, I thought.

Huh.

So I stepped out on the breezeway and looked to the right. This is what I saw:

My very worst fear.

Someone had opened our gate during the night. I don't know when I realized that my bicycle had been stolen off the breezeway, but Maria and Mama Pajama were on the grass outside of the fence. Peeing. (Thank God also for old bladders.) Mama Pajama was scanning for all she was worth for Stupid City Squirrels in the oak tree across the street. Very Old Dog only made it just to the grass on the left, and Fat Charlie, bless him, either didn't notice that the gate was actually open, or the dear sweet good soul just knew he was not supposed to go out that gate without his lead on.

I ran out (in my tee shirt and undies, I might add) and called the girls. They were still peeing; Mama Pajama was still scanning. As I reached the sidewalk outside of the fence, oh relief thy name is good dogs, they came to me. I swear I could feel the panic drip off me like ice cream from a two-year-old's cone in August when there's not a napkin in sight.

Safely back inside the yard, I thanked my four sterling seniors for all I was worth. I sat on the ground and I blessed them. You are the best dogs in the world. Then one car that drove by honked, and I instinctually waved and in the process I remembered about being in my undies.

What oh what if I let all nine of them out at once? The thought of the consequences literally sickens me. They would have zoomed out that gate one following the next, the young 'uns rendered totally unmindful of any potty needs, would have scattered like turkeys at Thanksgiving, looking for squirrels and the evil kitties that tease them constantly, just outside their fence. They are reliable, if a person is going through their gate and they do not have their leads on, they will not go through. But a wide open gate in predawn haze with squirrel-o-rama going on? Oh my soul I just hate to think.

I will miss my bike, but I've always been terrified that someone would open our gate. And it happened. I went to the hardware store this morning to find some sort of locking system. I'm not ever going to see that nightmare again. And don't think for a moment I don't realize how lucky I am.

Good, good, good girls!

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And for all the lovely comments left on The Smile Maker:

Hug your hounds!