walking 2 doggies in below-zero weather

Materials you'll need:

2 big black doggies
2 leashes with pinch collars attached
2 pup lights
4 safety orange booties
just a pinch of the patience of a saint

To prepare:

Lock one very young ADHD dog in the bedroom so that you can get the other one ready in her booties. Do what you can not to laugh at her. She's too cute.

Bundle yourself up so that you can barely move. And you're on your way.

Deputy Dawg

Leaving for our hamburger night out last night, I tell Belly she's in charge. And then I tell Wrigley she's not in charge. But be a good girl.

S.: She's second-in-command.

(Is he just the sweetest darn thing you've ever heard of?)

me: She's Lieutenant Wiggle. Belly's the Chief.

Add that to the list of names. Lieutenant Wiggles, or if you want to get formal about it, Lieutenant Wigginton (courtesty of Ty Wigginton, player for the Houston Astros, whose name I kept hearing this week and it stuck).

swim-swim-swimmin'

Here's a video of the girls swimmin' at White Oak Park yesterday evening. This was Wrigley's second big-girl swim. Her first was last week, and I didn't have my camera with me. Is this the best kind of new media, or what?

Note that the video ends quite abrubtly as Annabelle realizes she can make a dash for it and runs off after a bunny. She's almost 7, but she's still a stinker.

your Wednesday dose of cuteness

Here's Wrigley and Kramer, Julie's dog, when Julie was in Italy. Julie's dogsitter, our friend Marie, brought Kramey and Buddy (who's camera shy) over for a visit while Julie & Rob were gone. I sent Julie this photo while she was in Italy because I know how much she was missing her boy.

And please note the look on Wrigley's face. I'm pretty cute, aren't I, Kramey?

dressed up for a good cause

On Saturday we got up butt-ugly early to drive to Peoria to participate in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. We decided that if we were gonna walk 5K, so were these girls. On Friday night we bought pink fabric and hot pink ribbon to signify that they, too, would race for a cure.

There was a teeny-weeny part of me that was a little bit worried about how Annabelle would do with the huge crowd. But my god, these girls were both SO GOOD. Whenever someone wanted to pet Wrigley, she'd sit like a good girl. And Annabelle let people pet her and even leaned in on a few choice people.

Lots of people took pics of these girls, and the crowd got a good laugh when Belly found the only possible puddle on the entire walk and plopped her belly down in it.

S. had been wondering if perhaps this year's t-shirt would be a bit more gender-neutral than last year's, and, well, nope. But he wore his shirt with pride all the same. His mom died of breast cancer, so we walked for her and for our dear friend Nan, a breast cancer survivor.

What better way to spend a Saturday morning in May?

a different kind of pain

So yesterday S. and I spent about an hour working with Wrigley on the dog door. Both Wrigley and Belly got lots of treats during this hour, so much so that I cut down on Belly's dinner. I mean, come on, the girl wasn't even working, but she got treats treats treats cuz her goofball little sister finally made it through the door.

I'd be outside on the deck, S. would be right inside, and we'd cajole her to go in and out. And then back in again. Wait. We're not done. Back outside again. And on and on, and each time she went through the door she was greeted with loads of praise. Oh, what a good girl we have! What a good baby! Good girl! Good girl! Good girl! Yeah, that's a good baby!

After about 45 minutes of this I said to S., "all this cheering and praise is starting to hurt my face. I'm exhausted."

And Belly said, me too. Maybe I can have another treat?

And Wrigley said, huh?

comfort

Horrible, horrible things I've been eating with abandon since the start of the new year and the major changes in our little canine family:

1. Doritos
2. Brach's candy hearts
3. pop tarts with one serving of whole grain. I shit you not. I actually let myself believe that this somehow makes it okay (not really). Plus, they were on sale for a buck.
4. pizza

Belly's method for comforting herself over the loss of Scully and Mulder and/or the arrival of Wrigley is to spend some quiet time in the crate. Gotta wonder what she's thinking when we shut Wrigley in the crate when we leave for work.

It's amazing to me how much words can be a comfort. S. and I have received so many loving cards and messages and it really helps. It helps to know others understand how hard this all is.

Little Miss Wiggly Wrigley has been a big help, but I can't help but wonder if having her here is getting in the way of mourning. I guess the best answer to that is the very fact that I'm aware that that's a possiblity and to let myself miss the short ones. There is now nobody in the house I can call "short stuff." I'm so used to saying it that I called Wrigley that the other day.

Slowly. It all happened so fast, and now we deal with it slowly.

a week of extremes

This is Wrigley. I took this picture from the Humane Society website, and they had named her Macy. Her cage now has an "adopted" sign on it, and we pick her up on Saturday. Yesterday S. spent more than an hour digging out Belly's old crate from the very secure spot in the waaaaaaaaaaaaay back of the closet that he'd put it when I moved in. Priorities, he was thinking. We're not gonna need this thing any time soon, if ever.

Mulder's not doing well, either, people. I'm carrying around so much guilt about her that I didn't even want to write about her. But I have to. I had a bit of a breakdown on Saturday night, feeling like Mulder got lost in the shuffle of Scully and now she's gonna get lost in the shuffle of Wrigley and I was always yelling at her and now that she's sick I'm being so nice to her. What a goddamn hypocrite I am. Much of what ails her is likely due to her age: 14 1/2. She's like a little old lady who won't eat and is drinking too much water and is likely at the beginning of kidney failure.

On Thursday while Scully was in surgery and we sat in the "sad room" at the vet's office, we alternated between reminiscing about Scully and thinking up funny names for the boy dog we wanted to adopt right away. I love the name Claudius because then we could call him Claude and Clodhopper and we could begin a whole bunch of funny sentences with "I, Claudius...do believe my sister stinks." When we'd catch ourselves laughing, we'd remember why we were there, and we'd feel so much guilt, like we were replacing Scully before we even said goodbye to her. Then on Saturday night after we'd picked out Wrigley--the FEMALE dog we wanted to adopt right away--I was feeling so much guilt for Annabelle, like I was somehow replacing her. I wanted to try to control how much I love Wrigley because I don't ever want Annabelle to feel like she's not my number 1 girl. But of course I can't do that.

I take Mulder in this morning for an ultrasound for her kidneys. That poor little beagle.

And for the record, this is the first winter break that I can honestly say involved very little work.

because we need something to smile about

Here's Belly with her two Christmas toys from Santa. A turtle named Lulu and a hard rubber tire. Likely she'll be giving that hard rubber tire to her NEW BABY SISTER because that little sister will be looking for things to chew on. In one week we'll go back to the Humane Society to pick up her 10-month old sister, a black lab mutt who could very well be Annabelle, rewound 5 1/2 years. More on the new girl soon, but chew on this: her name will be Wrigley. Now, that's a pretty common name for doggies around these parts and lord knows I don't want to give my new girl a common name. But given that S.'s last name is Field, well, how could we NOT name her Wrigley Field? Her full name: Wrigley Juniper Robillard Field.

sunning themselves in winter: a series

The middle pic of Mulder and Belly is my favorite. Notice that Belly is in the same exact position in each one. Doesn't move her head, her ears, nothin'. Just takin' in the sun on a sunny winter afternoon. Mulder, on the other hand, is wondering if the camera is a strange kind of silver food.

I almost forgot: today's LTF's third birthday. Happy birthday to my blog. Three years, three different houses, three doggies. Three pics of two doggies.

(Scully wasn't interested in joining the sun-fest. She prefers dark caves in bedrooms.)

not-so-self-evident truths

1. Every time I teach this course on the personal essay, I get this feeling about half-way through that I'm doing everything wrong, that I'm not teaching them anything they don't already know, that I'm asking too much of them, that it's just too hard for them to write the personal essay because it sounds too much like personal "narrative." Not the same thing. But I gotta get over myself because so far, these things have worked themselves out and students go on to write fantastic stuff.

2. I never thought these words would come from my hands: I'm ready to kill Mulder. The beagle. The one S. has been complaining about since I met him and for years before that. About 8 years, I think. Mulder is 14 years old. Which probably makes you go, awwwwwww, how could a 14-year-old beagle make you want to kill her? Before I moved in here, I was always sticking up for Mulder when S. would moan and groan about her. Now I get it. She is absolutely, unwaveringly, disgustingly ravenous at all times, which results in her following my every move with the hopes that maybe, just maybe, I'll drop a crumb. I've stopped allowing her in the kitchen when I'm preparing food because she makes me nuts.

3. After about 6 weeks of living with S. and a bit of a mini-breakdown earlier this week, I came to a sad and scary insight. I knew coming into this that I didn't really know how to live with someone, and part of that not knowing is likely a result of this not-so-self-evident truth that came out of my mouth last night: I've never lived with someone I didn't distrust. This isn't to say that there aren't people in my life I've trusted. Not at all. There are many. None have ever shared the same roof with me for more than a few nights at a time. So when I convince myself somehow that S. is horrible (he's not), it's because I'm trying to make him into someone I can distrust. Hi, need therapy anyone?

4. Perhaps #3 explains why I so strongly identify with the Seymour Krim line, "I have never learned how to live. I improvise--and fuck up anyway."

update of sorts

Grades are done and turned in and I've gotten no email complaints in the first 24 hours. This is a good sign.

Becky mailed our manuscript on Monday and it's a hefty one. Full of intelligence and insight.

I've been working at the Coffeehouse on the prospectus for the collection of essays I've been working on with grad students for what seems like forever. But for all the publications acceptances in the world I couldn't've gotten out of bed this morning. It was chillers last night: only 48 this morning.

Illinois, this new home of mine, is the most average of the states. Somehow that's comforting.

S. and I are going to NC next Friday to visit his parents. God, it'll be good to get away.

Part of the reason we're both going to need to get away is that S. is having sweet, sweet 14-year-old Kylie dawg put down tonight. He made the decision last weekend, and the vet is coming to his home tonight to do it. This way Kylie's home with her people and all her sisters and isn't freaked out by the vet's office. She's been diagnosed with what is probably Cushing's disease, which causes the body to create too many steroids, which explains the heavy drinking (not that kind of heavy drinking) and the peeing all over the house. But more than the disease, I think it's just old age. She has a hard time getting around. She's increasingly confused. I've never put a dog down. In fact, I've never even seen a dead dog, so I'm not sure I'll be able to be right there when the vet does it. But I'll be close by. As will Scully and Mulder and Annabelle. And there will be many many tears. Knowing it's the right thing to do doesn't make it easier. As I think about how to comfort S. tonight and in the days to come, I can't help but keep coming back to an essay by Sam Pickering called, simply, "George." I taught it this semester in my personal essay course. I hadn't read it before I taught it, and though I knew it was about a doggie dying, I wasn't at all prepared for how much it would affect me. I keep coming back to this:

In general, people weep more over the death of pets than they do over family members. The death of an animal does not disrupt routine or impose responsibility. Consequently a person has the leisure to indulge his emotions. When a family member dies, a person suddenly has so many chores that not only does leisure vanish but the dead person himself disappears. Funerals must be arranged, taxes paid, and estates settled. Clothes must be given away, and houses and apartments sold. In the mail legal forms arrive and thank-you notes go out....

With a dog, though, there's no bureaucratic busy-ness to keep you from your emotions.

The puppy I trained has vanished from memory....No, the dog I remember best and most fondly was old, at first pestered by yeasty ears, then deaf, only able to hear a high whistle. On walks this past year George began to lose his way....

Pickering, Sam. "George." The Best American Essays 2006. Ed. Lauren Slater. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 133-152.

protecting Scully

Scully, aka sausage with legs, has a bad habit of eating books. She's no longer allowed in S.'s office for this reason, but until recently she's not bothered any of the books on the living room shelves. Last week S. came home to find shreds of the cover and the corner of a hardcover book all over the living room floor--and this was a book he's not yet read. Angry. Not happy. Scully, his favorite baby girl, was in the doghouse. At least it wasn't any of his 9/11 books. This is how he comforts himself.

To prevent further book consumption (heh), S. put photo frames and big ol' candle jars on the bottom shelves of the living room bookcases.

Yesterday I got to S.'s house for dinner before he got home from work--he'd stopped at the grocery store and it'd taken longer than he'd expected. This happens when you buy two of everything. My sweet hoarder. So I sat down at his computer desk off the living room and got right back up again when I saw the paper shreds in the living room. Scully had knocked over the picture frames and taken out one of the 9/11 books and, well, chewed the cover and one of the top corners to shreds. Honey not gonna be happy. I cleaned up the mess and hid the book. Then I transferred all books from the bottom shelves to higher ones. I told Scully she was lucky I was the first one there.

He'd had a bad day at work. He comes in with all the groceries and, as I'm helping him unpack all his stuff, including a cool new plastic spatula, he senses something's wrong.

S.: Something's wrong. What is it?

me: What makes you say that?

S.: You're being far too accommodating. You're not giving me shit about buying two of everything and you're not making a fuss about throwing the old spatula away.

me: Well, I was waiting to tell you.

S.: What is it? Just tell me.

me: You're going to be really angry.

S.: [moans]

me: It has nothing to do with us. I'm trying to protect Scully.

S.: She didn't eat another book, did she?

me: Uh, yeah.

S.: Not one of my 9/11 books.

me: Uh, yeah.

And so it went. But the best part was the discussion later.

me: What made you realize something was wrong? Was I really being that nice?

S.: Not nice so much as accommodating. You weren't giving me any shit. You always give me shit.

me: Huh. That's funny.

S.: Actually, it was kinda scary.

I dunno, maybe Eliot had it wrong

It seems to me lately that January is the cruelest month.

It's the metaphorical sugar crash after the binge of the holidays. (of course, it's also PMS, but shhhhh, I'm trying to make a case here)

I just read Nels' post about his baby Auggie girl, and I started crying. Can't stop now.

It's gray and raining and warm and not January weather at all, and I want a big ol' snowstorm to stomp through with my girl.

My oldest and dearest friend in the whole world is going through some tough times, too, though it doesn't seem right for me to blog about that. But it's just more evidence for my claim about Eliot. (ha)

S. and I have been taking all four dogs on walks every night, and it's such a sight to see us all out there, Belly pulling to be out in front at all times, which doesn' t take much since the other three are, as S. likes to put it, "long on the tooth," so quite a bit slower. Kylie's wrapping herself around S.'s legs, Mulder's stopping to sniff everything and anything, and Scully's just bopping along, happy as all hell to be outside, her ears flopping as her little sausage body tries to keep up with Daddy. I usually take Mulder and Belly, cuz despite the sniffing, Mulder's the only one who can keep pace with the big one. I love how little Mulder's butt wiggles when she walks, her tail swaying cuz she's so happy to be out in the world of new and exciting smells.

I. LOVE. DOGGIE WOGS.

12 beers of Christmas

IMG_0678
Originally uploaded by aerobil.

I can't claim to have tried all 12 beers, but the five or six that I did try were yummers. They had names like Rudolph's Revenge and Bah Humbug.

The event was sponsored by the Humane Society, so half of the ticket price went to them. This makes me happy. Drinking for the doggies, as it were.

In the pic are Nan, me, Kelly, and Sarah. Have I mentioned that the coolest thing about the dog park crew is that we represent five decades and we all get along famously? 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. But my doggie is the oldest and most wisdomous.

SOUP-erheroes!

Lately S. and I have been brainstorming who we and all the characters in our lives would be if we were superheroes. This originated, I think, from a game we played on a recent game night with friends. At the time, the question was for Chris, who we all decided would be PERSNICKETY MAN!

S. is suffering from a nasty cold, so the mucous, it is aplenty. Last night on the way into Target, he suggested that perhaps his superhero name should be MUCOUS MAN!, but I revised that to be MUCOUS MEMBRANE MAN! because I love the words mucous and membrane together. Triple M, as it were. When he's not sick, I think we came up with KLUTZO MAN!

Scully the sausage dog who can clear a room in two seconds flat would be, of course, FLATULENT DOG! Annabelle, the sweet sweet stinkbomb, would be PATHETIC-FACE DOG! Mulder the beagle would be HUNGRY DOG! Kylie the sweet but dumb border collie mix would be KLUTZO DOG! I would like to think I could be SUPER SCRABBLE GIRL!, but I think S. had me pegged more as BELCHING GIRL! This, I believe, is for my three readers to decide.

Imagine the influence all six of us would have if we put our superpowers together. Astounding.

stockings and presents and doggies, oh my!

For the first time ever, I will have a Christmas stocking this year. S. and I went out and bought six of 'em on Friday night. One for me, one for him, and four for the beasts. S. keeps threatening Mulder that she's getting coal in her stocking, but don't worry, I got her some greenies and some football-shaped snausages.

It always seemed to me that the stockings were the best part of Christmas. It's the fun little things that are so great to open, isn't it?

We bought some puffy stick-on letters at Target, and last night we spent time together putting all of our names on our stockings. The big dilemma was whether Santa should know Belly as Belly or as Annabelle, but given the size of the letters and the size of her given name, we went with Belly. She specifically requested a blue B cuz, well, her middle name is Blue.

And get this, people. I'm done Christmas shopping already. I will not get caught in mall crowds and I will not put my parking karma to use in the mall parking lot. I just can't take it. Sign number 453 that I'm getting OLD.

I've had so much fun shopping for S. and I wish I could tell you what his extra-special present is, but well, he reads this here blog-o-rama, so that's out. Call me and I'll tell ya.

Life, my friends, is like Christmas. The big presents under the tree are wonderful, but it's the little things in the stockings that always end up being the most fun.

I'll test that theory in a month or so.