I'm Only Human

Right. I got it. Beating myself up for Very Old Dog's skinned up nose was a little over the edge. I'm not God. Thank you, dear commenters, for giving me a little perspective!

Yesterday was more typical of Western Kentucky's January weather than what we've been suffering, errr.. experiencing lately. It was mostly sunny and in the upper 30's. Which felt like the mid 50's in juxtaposition with the freaking, freaky minus ten wind chill of the day before. (Shudder.) I can't make myself imagine what the two Lauries in Minnesota are dealing with. No, it's like imagining being a victim of water boarding, which we can now finally say is torture. Again. Minus twenty? Torture. You betcha.

But enjoying yesterday's (relative) warmth, the three youngsters - Sam I Am, Swede William, and Lindy Loo - joined me after everyone had walked, while I did poo duties in the yard. I'll admit to shirking these duties during the torture time. When it's minus ten, the scooping can wait. The dogs won't stay out long enough at those temperatures to savor poopsicles, so, it can wait. Thus, yesterday's scooping took longer than usual.

And Very Old Dog, toasty in his fleecy housecoat, joined us in the sunshine, too. Lindy Loo ran and ran and ran like ... well, like a whippet. Sammy ran after her, with Swede William in not so hot pursuit. (He tends to wait at the corners and ambush, being the clever fellow he is.) I tried to place myself between the running missiles and Very Old Dog. If a scraped nose had undone me, imagine a collision with a 30 mph whippet. Oh lordy.

Very Old Dog had been an outstanding runner in his youth, in his prime. We had driven from our farm in Maryland all the way to San Diego, California in 1998 for the American Whippet Club National Specialty. And at that National Field Trial, Very Old Dog outran and out-coursed 115 talented whippets to win Best In Field. And he did it with breathtaking ease.

So when the youngsters were careening around the yard yesterday, I saw my Very Old Dog get a look in his eyes. It was a look totally unburdened by the human silliness of worry, regret, wistfulness, caution, responsibility, or self pity. The look in Very Old Dog's eyes said only one thing:

"WA- HOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

And off he tottered. Full tilt, in both meanings of the word. He scampered after the speeding pocket rockets, only to be directly in their paths after they had reached the end of the yard, and had turned around and continued their game of chase.

My heart.

The projectiles that were the young whippets zipped on either side of him, miraculously avoiding the nightmare pile up. Very Old Dog turned around without tipping over and chased after them. He let out a yip.

Now, that took me back. And it took me to the place where he was at that very moment. He was a quiet dog when he was young. But when the "bunny" (the white plastic bags which acted as the lure at the lure trials) would whip around a pulley, suddenly turning, my quiet dog would "yip" in the joy of the chase. "YIP" (translation: "I'll get you, crafty bunny! You can turn, but I'm gaining on you! Woopeeeeeeeee!") When he yipped in the yard yesterday, I realized he was having the most fun.

He "ran" along with the other three until they wore all the way out. If they had knocked him down, I would have felt like the stupidest excuse for a servant on Earth. But they didn't. And as I carried his protesting self up the three stairs to the breezeway, feeling his enlarged heart pounding for all it was worth, I kissed his scabby nose.

I wish I could fill every minute of his every day left with such joy.

I can't help it. I'm only human.

G.U.I.L.T.

Very Old Dog is only three months shy of his fifteenth birthday. He is doing well. He eats everything offered, and charges along on his daily walk around the block, carefully reading all the pee mail, doing modified leapies of unmodified joy. Giacomino, in his youth, would leap straight up off all fours, a capriole of canine enthusiasm, way up in the air, equal in height to my shoulder.

Now he does these precious modified leapies. They're sort of a little jump, bounce and expression of glee. And they make my toes smile.

He does have spinal stenosis, the result of catching too many squirrels while travelling at a speed of 35 mph. Diving for the varmint, grabbing it and rolling, like a wide receiver. Without the padding. The spinal stenosis causes a disconnect between his legs and his brain.

Brain to legs, "Jump up those stairs."
Legs, "Huh?"
Plop.

So I help him with stairs. He's learned to wait at the top and bottom of our twisting, treacherous staircase in the house. It's an old house, and the downstairs ceilings are twelve-footers, so the stairway is steep.

Outside, there are three steps down from the breezeway to the yard. His preference is to leap straight off the top step and land plunk on all fours. This causes my heart to fibrillate. My preference is to help him up and down, but it is his time to fly and he tries his best to avoid my assistance.

I must be vigilant.

Yesterday I failed. I led him down the steps, and ran back in to preheat the oven. We were having dinner guests, and I needed to get the pie in. How long does it take to light an oven? Thirty seconds? It usually takes Very Old Dog a good sixty seconds to pee. But it was cold yesterday. Really cold.

When I turned to go back and retrieve him, he was already at the door.

"Oh! You did the steps by yourself! How about that!"
And then my heart fell out of my chest and landed right on the bloody spot on my dear, sweet, Very Old Dog's nose.



He had fallen, obviously, and struggled to get up. He had another scrape on his paw.

The only way my socks could get me over this one, is if I wrapped one really tight around my neck until my eyeballs popped out of their unworthy sockets and dribbled down my blue, lifeless cheeks.

hug your hounds

A Party for a Great Lady

We have the best Kennel Club in the world right here in Paducah. And one of the reasons it's the best Kennel Club in the world, is because we have the Best President in the world. Mrs. Mary Lee King has been the President of the Paducah Kennel Club since 1991. She says this is her last year, but we don't want to believe it.

We threw a little surprise party at our regularly scheduled monthly meeting to celebrate her eightieth birthday. It takes some serious planning to surprise Lee. But we pulled it off.

My job was to get her there late. I am a specialist at being late, but Lee and Dee are always oh so prompt. They get to the club early to make the coffee, turn the heat up, get their papers copied, welcome members as they arrive. I called early during the day and asked if I could hitch a ride.

"The only thing," I lied, "is that I've been having some intestinal issues. I hope I can go. I'm going to take some Pepto Bismal."

I was setting the stage for my Grand Plan.

Newsletter editor Martha had sneakily notified the membership. Lee and Dee's issue had one glaring omission. Alice decorated the meeting room. Ginia ordered and brought the gorgeous cake. (And it wasn't only pretty, it was delicious!) And our awesome members all brought food.

We picked up Carol, another member who lives in town, and she was a little late coming out her door, as planned.

Lee was just itching. We had a very important meeting scheduled, with lots of crucial issues to discuss. I had been out in the yard with Very Old Dog when they arrived for me, (I'm so devious as you'll soon read), and I had slowly sauntered back in the house, put him away, and fumbled with my keys as I locked the door.

About half way to the Kennel Club, I said, "Uh-oh. My stomach is a little... We might have to stop." Carol worried that I had Spastic Colon.

As we approached the BP station, I said, "Oh, please. I do have to stop here. I'm so sorry."

Lee, who was by now freaking out over the time, kindly sympathised, "When you gotta go, you gotta go."

It's amazing what you can do to amuse yourself, sitting alone in a BP station rest room stall with nothing to do for ten minutes. La la la.




SURPRISE!!!!



Okay, who put the poop candle on the pretty cake?




Dru is going to be a responsible dog owner and pick up the pooh????




We are serious about our snacking!!! That's Alice on the left who decorated.




Newsletter editor Martha checks with her beautiful agility star, Jamie, to see if the snacks she got are acceptable to him.




Kitchen queens, Debbie, Ginia (who got the marvellous cake) and Carol (a different one, not the Carol we picked up).




Sisters Ruby and Tina got their plaque for doing such a great job organizing our first Responsible Dog Ownership Fair. (This doesn't have anything to do with the surprise, but I wanted to show you how much fun we have.)

And I admitted that there was nothing wrong with my intestines.




Lee got a basketful of fun birthday cards, and we all got a chance to show how much we appreciate this good soul.

Happy Birthday Lee!!!


hug your hounds

Support Socks ... part 2

(images from google images)



Is it hyperbole to stand on our recently leaky roof and shout "Support Socks are a miracle"? Do you think so? Well, our roof is now fixed, so think about that.

Okay, okay, so a really nice construction man came in the rain with his lift and some shingles and fixed it, but still. I bet he was wearing support socks.

When we are depressed, burdened, we "walk with a heavy step" or "drag our feet." When we are happy, we have a "bounce in our step" and we "walk on air." And when we are gay - a synonym of happy, we are "light in our loafers," so there you go.

My friend Jean works with energy meridians in the body to get your ch'i flowing. And not just flowing, but in the right directions. She got Very Old Dog over his deadly fear of thunder, and taught me how to calm him by holding the proper points. A lot of those points are below the knees. I think these support socks get my ch'i flowing.



And there's that whole reflexology thing, which no one understands, but hey. Look:






The comfy arch squeezy parts of the blessed support socks calm my adrenal glands, and get my spleen, liver, stomach, spine, colon, pancreas, bladder, and that pesky small intestine whipped into shape! No wonder I feel like a new person!


And then, there's that whole gravity thing. We start out as helpless infants, pinned to whatever surface by the invisible force. We fight to raise to all fours and then to our feet, and spend our lives being pulled down. Along come support socks! Voila! We have the power!


Now, you might have gotten the idea from this blog, if you are a regular reader, that your writer had been a bit down. Losing Maria, having her in an urn on the mantel, brought me face to face with the notion that we can be going along one day, coping pretty well with our world, and the next day we are reduced to literal ashes, just like that. This should have come as no surprise; it is part of having dogs. It is the price of the privilege. And here is Giacomino, Very Old Dog, who has three months to his fifteenth birthday.


And I will soon start working twelve hour days.


It just all weighed me down.


But the miracle of the support socks is that they changed my outlook. Instead of suffering separation anxiety from the thought of being away from the dogs for twelve hours - thirteen really - I suddenly felt so fortunate that in today's economy, I was able to get a job. Only three twelve hour days a week and some weekends. A good job. And I realized I'd have plenty of time to finish my book; instead of thinking I would be giving up that dream. Imagine: I've had the pleasure of Giacomino's company, an unlikely rescue who stayed, my shadow, for nearly fifteen years.


I credit the support socks for this turnaround.


But, dear readers, remember: the socks, and so much else that I treasure in this life, are covered in little white dog hairs, and came from Bill.


Ha. There you go.



Hug your hounds, and support the souls in your life whom you love.

Support Socks

Dear readers, your humble writer recently discovered something of great magnitude. This breakthrough is way too important to keep to myself. The disemenation of the information in this little blog post could change the very course of the world. It's that momentous.

Please take three deep cleansing breaths, eyes closed, to ready your mind.

One.

Two.

Three. Ahhhh. Are you open to the possibility of living at a new level of consciousness? Yes, you are?

Your writer has stumbled (forgive the pun) upon the secret of happiness. Contentment. Being at peace with one's world. Fulfillment, serenity, you name it. Better than drugs, the legal sort of which all have pesky side effects, and the illicit ones which carry peskier jail sentences along with significant health risks. Much better than today's organized religion, which seems to make people feel the need to (a) blow up folks of different faiths, (b) feel all superior to folks with differing beliefs, because nanny nanny boo boo we're the only ones going to Heaven, (c) justify the need to go to people who are perfectly content with the beliefs they learned from their ancestors and convert them due to (b), or (d) just gives us reasons to feel different from "them" whoever "them" is. This secret is even better than yoga, because there's virtually no time or effort involved.

A writer with different motivation than your humble one would find a way to market this magnificent discovery, but no, this is too sacred to taint with commercial gain.

Support socks.

Your writer found herself challenged in the sock department of late. Walking dogs five miles a day, coupled with abject poverty, lends one to holey footwear. (Wholly holey, but not holy.) Compounding the problem is Swede William's predilection of carrying my socks to far corners of the house, proudly, giving them a good-hearted shake along the way. So, as I was dressing for a job interview, I asked Bill if he had any thin socks I might borrow.

"Yes," he said, tossing me a pair. "In fact, you may keep these. I never wear them."

Little did I know, dear readers, that my world was about to change.

Now, let me clear up a potential confusion, before I go one step farther. Your writer has plenty of support hose. Panty hose are the work of the devil. They cut the circulation to your spleen, and cause gaseous distention at the transverse colon. Oh they are hideous evil.

We're talking support socks.

As I tried to put these precious gifts on, I said, "Ummf." This was proving to be no easy feat. I remembered my days as a hospital RN, putting TEDD hose on portly patients. It's all in the technique, and in no time my legs were bathed in support, from just below the knees, down. My toes were free to spread and breathe, but around my instep and arch was a most delicious snugness. I was immediately struck with a sense of well-being and joy.

Oh! These feel good!"

... to be continued HERE

hug your hounds, meanwhile, and by all means find yourselves some support socks

(Image from Google Images)

Watch Dogs... fail.

First, a heartfelt thank you for your kind, wise, supportive words. If you haven't read the older post, read the comments. I was - am - stunned, surprised, warmed, encouraged. And Jenn in the City, thank you for your post.

So we were walking the last group today. Tracey was back from Christmas with family. The whippets were happy to see Tracey and their little friend Francie, the corkie. (I have GOT to get a picture of Francie, sorry.) Tracey and I were flapping our lips faster than little Francie's feet were trot, trot, trotting on the sidewalks. We had a lot of catching up to do.

We were on Broadway, right downtown between 4th and 3rd streets, I think. The dogs four abreast, Tracey and I close enough to be companionable, but not in danger of leash entanglement. And then, without any forewarning, or without preamble or acknowledgement, we were three. We'd been joined by "overhaul man."

Suddenly, stride for stride, in line with and between Tracey and me, walked a third member of our little troupe.

"Y'all gonna hitch them four up to a cart and let 'em pullya? Cause that's what you outta do."

Tracey and I swivelled our heads like Tiger Woods' golf swing, each wondering if the other had been suddenly possessed by an urge to sound like a pudgey forty year old good ol' boy. Nope. We had, in fact, been joined by an honest to god pudgy forty year old good ol' boy. He had just appeared, like those Star Trek transporter things did for Captain Kirk and Spock, in our midst.

Four dogs, each with an ample dose of Excessive Greeting Disorder, and they just trotted along. No warning. No "HELLO!! There's a Large, Overhaul-wearing, Pudgy, Forty-year-old Good Ol' Boy approaching! Be on the look out!"

He just appeared, walked right in our group, and stayed there for a couple of blocks.

Tracey started the giggling, I swear it was her.

Life is grand.

hug your hounds

A Very New Year

Be warned... not my usual post. Feel free to move on to your next blog.

I had a dream last night that I was holding a camera benignly at my waist. Not aiming or focusing it, just holding it there in front of my belly button. It exploded with a loud pop. More resonant than a balloon popping; more like a blown up paper bag right behind your head pop. I looked at my empty hands in alarm and wonder. Huh.

I am finding myself at the strangest junction. Shouldn't I have figured out my life by now? Shouldn't I be settling down with my knitting and tea and good books? Ah, that's the problem: I don't knit.

I am being bombarded with all of the wrong turns I've taken, and lordy there are plenty. Missed opportunities abound. These images fly into my consciousness willy-nilly, uninvited and so unwelcome. While I sliced my banana into my shredded wheat, (after giving a slice each to the beggars Sammy, Swede William, Mama Pajama, Delia, and Luciano), I wondered what my life would have been if I chose to go to Vanderbilt, instead of choosing to go to work with horses, marrying at nineteen, having a child at twenty-two. What if I had chosen Princeton, where my sister graduated and my uncle taught?

What if I had decided to be a veterinarian? Oh the stories I'd have to tell! What if we had stayed on the farm in Maryland, or, what if we had stuck to the plan of buying land somewhere in the Shenandoah Valley, with a modest house and a view of those mountains? I'd be raising several endangered species of farm animals. Smelling the morning barn home air in a mountain embrace. Hosting field trials and race meets. Cursing the mud this time of year.

The grieving the loss of the farm air and the friends has been private, unproductive, and relentless. For the first year, I couldn't speak to Sara on the phone. She kindly took the ancient ponies, Molly and Peter, for me. Nice way to thank her, huh? But the silly untamable keening would bubble out: I was at its particular mercy and it showed none.

I am living in the town of Paradox now. I do not like living in a city. I love this city. I want to move to the country some day, mucking stalls, smelling home. I love the people here. Nets of deep friendships are pitched over me. These golden silk, precious threads pin me firmly on my back, like Gulliver, but seeing only the part of the sky visible between buildings. I couldn't survive the loss of more friends. I cannot wait for the book club to meet.

I do not do my dogs justice.

I must go back to work this year. Bill bears the brunt of this. As does poor Laurie. I am sorry. I am terrified. I haven't been a full time RN on a hospital floor since 1985. I'll breeze through the refresher course. I'll be a good nurse. The kind of nurse you'd want to have. Twelve hour shifts. My dogs. My writing. My book. The Boards. The book club. Is there enough of me to do it all? I'll have the means to go to dog shows again, and that is only good. Financial problems solved.

I am torn whether to post this. So selfish. Sublimely unentertaining. I am blessed. There's something about being fifty-four. Something about looking at a Very Old Dog, who will be fifteen in April. Joy at his small joys. The constant piercing fear of his fragility. My brave athlete who can no longer negotiate stairs. Something about that unfinished book.

Something about all those missed opportunities. And wasting energy on what ifs.

Time to walk the dogs. On the sidewalks. With a wonderful friend.

hug your hounds