Gracious Isabel

Here's another reason why our dog is great:

We got her a new bed today, a special Sealy posturepedic model for the aging pooch. (Ok, so it was a bit of a splurge, but her birthday is Tuesday. She'll be nine.) When we brought it home and showed her, she was polite enough to roll right on it and then lie down and stretch out with a comfortable sigh.

Now that's gratitude!

New Trick

You know it's been a good day when your dog falls asleep in the car on the way home... sitting up.

L is for Let's Go Already!

I am typing this very quickly, because my dog is whining at my ankles. A few minutes ago we asked her if she wanted to go to a party. She cocked her head in that cutest-dog-ever way she has, and when we elaborated, Do you want to see Sonic? Riley? Treat? Bill? Emily? She began barking and dancing around.

Too bad Heidi still needed to change, and I needed a quick trip to the powder room. Isabel whined and barked outside the door, and she is waiting very impatiently by the front door now. Fortunately, I hear Heidi on the stairs, and we will be on our way in just a second.

Life Lesson: Dogs live in the now, and now means NOW!

Moving Mountains

Our Tolerance Club took a group of 28 kids to the Martin Luther King Memorial this morning. I had been by the site from the Tidal Basin side, but not inside, as we had Isabel with us, and dogs are not allowed. This time, we entered from the Independence Avenue side, and I knew from the research I had done to prepare our group that the thirty-foot stones that flank the entrance are called The Mountain of Despair. Once inside, you see the huge center piece that has been removed to create the opening, and from it the sculpture of Dr. King emerges. This piece is called The Stone of Hope.

Both are a reference to a line in the I Have a Dream speech, but the symbolic power of those stones standing for what everyone wishing for equal civil rights faced, the mountain of despair, and what they were able to achieve through their hope and perseverance was very moving to me.

And it was not lost on our students, either. When, at the end of the trip,  we gathered to talk about our thoughts and observations, all of them were able to express their admiration and appreciation for those who had moved mountains to allow them to have the opportunities they do.

Oh Deer

We live in a nice little condo complex. Tucked into the woods and built into a grassy hillside in a very populated area, we chose the location 12 years ago partially for its illusion of privacy and partially for its illusion of nature. Directly across the parking lot from us there is a wooded area of no more than half an acre. It buffers our association's property from a county utility lot and an elementary school. The hill itself seems to be reclaimed-- every now and then tires and bottles poke up through the grass on the steep slope that leads up to the historic neighborhood above us.

Even so, we enjoy the wild raspberries that border the woods and seeing the occasional fox is always a thrill, not to mention the more common raccoons and possums. None of that prepared me for what I saw this morning when I took the dog out. Two young deer were standing on the hill near the edge of the trees. They seemed undecided about where to go, but seeing us at the foot of the hill, they headed up. Mentally, I pictured the parking lot and soccer field they would encounter at the top, as well as the busy streets I knew were up there, too, and I worried for them. In a moment, though, they were back, and with a nervous glance at me and Isabel, they re-entered the tiny patch of woods and disappeared.

Who's Your Daddy?

Fans of the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Milan, are no doubt familiar with his sidekick, Daddy. A rescued pit bull, Daddy became the lynchpin of Cesar's pack, and because of his even temperament, he often helped show the unbalanced dogs just how it ought it be by modeling the desired behavior and energy.

Heidi and Isabel spent the last couple of days with a dog named Lucky. "She can't do any tricks!" her owners assured them. "She's even afraid to pee in the dark!" They underestimated the power of the pack, however, (and of course, treats). It wasn't long before Lucky was sitting and shaking and downing and upping and yes, even peeing in the dark. That Heidi is pretty darn good with dogs.

"Isabel was a huge help!" Heidi told me when she was recounting the events of the weekend. "You should have seen how she guided Lucky just by doing the right thing."

I nodded. "You know what that makes her, right?"

Storm's A-Comin

My mom called yesterday to see if we were all set for the hurricane. "Kind of," I said, "in the sense that we're not really doing anything to get ready."

"Not even filling the tub with water?" she asked.

"Nope," I answered. "I don't really see the point. Anyway, the worst that might happen is that we could lose power, and I've already had to dump the fridge twice this year, so I feel ready for that."

My mom got into the spirit right away. "At least your garden will get a lot of water," she said.

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I just don't have a bad feeling about Irene. The last hurricane that had any impact on our area was in late September, 2003. Many people in the county lost power for a week or so, but we didn't. We got a day off from school and took the opportunity to drive to Pennsylvania and pick up our puppy. We named her Isabel, after the storm, and it all worked out pretty well, as anyone who's ever seen Heidi and Isabel together can confirm.

In fact, I wouldn't entirely rule out a puppy Irene.

W is for a Wild Animal in My Garden

It's funny how kids become famous in a family for certain things they said or did when they were little. My sister used to say "Mo," when she meant "No," and my brother was well-known for his fish face-- the extreme pout he put on when he was verrrry displeased.

Our next generation have all had their memorable moments and quotes as well. When he was two, my nephew Riley fell flat on his bottom after trying and failing to give our cat a good kick in the butt. We scolded him soundly, of course. "What were you thinking!?" we asked.

"I just wanted to kick him over," he answered honestly.

His brother, Treat, is remembered for many things he said when he was a wee beastie, and one of them was, "I'm just going to skip time out... yeah, that's an option." It really wasn't.

Our godson Josh desperately wanted a pet hamster, unfortunately, the one he got was not a very friendly fellow-- he would bite anybody who even tried to pick him up. "He's not a ho'din hamster," Josh would tell us sadly.

Kyle, our nephew, used to call our dog Isabel, "Lisabel," and Lizzy is still one of her nicknames.

When he was very little, my youngest nephew, Richard, loved diggers and trucks. One day, as a dump truck rattled noisily past the house, he ran to see what it was, then turned to us with two thumbs up. "That guy was movin!" he reported.

His sister Annabelle, once saw a possum in the back yard. To this day she'll tell you about it, breathlessly: "I saw a wild animal in my garden!"

Life Lesson: Kids say and do the darnedest things, and even if they usually don't remember them, no worries-- that's what the older people are for.

High Point

A friend shared a real estate listing for a house in Stonington, Maine today. It was a bargain, and I was sorely tempted to become someone with a second home. Stonington is a small lobster and fishing town on the Penobscot Bay. It's also where you catch the ferry to get out to Isle au Haut, which is part of Acadia National Park.

I count the day I spent on that island as one of the best of my life. We drove from Bar Harbor in time to catch the 10 AM ferry. I had made reservations at a motel in town, so we left the car there and walked over to the waterfront. Isabel had never been on a boat before, but once she got over the metal grate that was the gangway, she was fine. Our transportation was really no more than a mail boat, and it was pretty crowded until we made our first stop at the tiny town at the north end. There might have been ten of us who ventured on to the primitive camp ground and trail heads six miles away at the southern tip of the island.

Heidi and Isabel and I disembarked on a beautiful July day-- blue skies, 80 degrees, no humidity. I had a map of the trails that criss-crossed the park. "When is the boat back?" Heidi asked me as we watched our ride chug out to sea.

I thought she had understood the plan for this day. "Mmm... six?" I shrugged.

She was a little perturbed. "What are we supposed to do for the next seven hours?! Hike?"

I had a picnic lunch and plenty of snacks and water in my pack. "Well... yeah," I told her, "We'll just explore the island. We practically have it to ourselves."

Isabel was on board from the start-- she had a grand time on the cobble beaches, granite ledges, and balsam trails, in fact the picture on this blog was taken there, and honestly, it didn't take long for Heidi to come around, either. The time passed at a perfect pace and at 5:45 we were rounding the last curve in the trail that led to the dock. Harbor porpoises and seals accompanied our boat back to Stonington, where we had a delicious dinner of fried seafood in our charming efficiency motel room. I was sorry to leave the next day.

I gave my friend an abbreviated version of this tale when she told me about the property for sale. "It was one of the best days of my life!" I said.

"What does Heidi say about it?" she asked me.

"Well," I answered, "she says that it was one of the best days of my life, not hers, but she's glad she was there."

Me, too.

Impulse Purchase

Today while out and about on weekend errands, we noticed that a new shop was opened not so far from our home. It's actually the second location of a place devoted to all things doggie, and since we've driven to the other side of the county to visit its sister store, we were delighted to drop in and browse a bit this afternoon. They had a fun assortment of things we really don't need-- dog beds and t-shirts, collars and leashes (remind me that one day? I really must write about Isabel's extensive collar wardrobe), but as we made our way to the back of the store, we stopped by the small book collection, and there it was... a book on teaching your dog sign language!

We laughed to begin with-- we have many friends who have taught their pre-verbal children to sign, and based on that alone, this seemed like the ultimate scam targeting DINKs like ourselves-- but as I've written before the desire to truly communicate with your pet can run deep. We decided to buy the book.

Our dog has a pretty good repertoire of tricks, none of which I can take credit for teaching her, and she is nothing if not a willing student, so as we plunked our hard earned cash on the glass top boutique counter, I knew that if any dog could learn sign language, it is Isabel, and if anyone could teach her, it is Heidi.

We'll see.

Dog Day

It was a gorgeous late summer day here; in fact the weather was much more like fall, and we wanted to spend some time outside. The last time we visited Mount Vernon we discovered a surprising fact: dogs are allowed on the property. Knowing so influenced our decision to upgrade our admission tickets to annual passes; at only ten bucks more, it would take just one more visit to pay for the additional cost, and being able to bring the dog along sealed the deal. So this afternoon, Isabel made her first trip to Mount Vernon.

Because it seems so unlikely that dogs would be allowed on the grounds at all-- it's a national landmark for heaven's sake, and you have to walk them through the visitor center both coming and going-- not many dogs are there, and most visitors are surprised to see one, so she was a celebrity all day. She herself was very interested in all the other animals. She has met horses before, but sheep, hogs, and mules were a different story. She enjoyed the gardens, the wharf, and the model farm, too.

I was pleased to be back just two weeks after our last visit, and as we left today, I imagined seeing the grounds in late fall, maybe on a winter Saturday afternoon, and again in the spring. That annual pass was totally worth it.

Dog Years

I read a novel in verse a few years ago called Sharp Teeth, by Toby Barlow. Near the beginning he writes:

Everyone has a dog story to tell...
Each dog marks a section of our lives, and
in the end, we feed them to the dark,
burying them there while we carry on.

Today is my dog's birthday-- she's seven. Seven in people years, seven times seven in dog years. According to that common calculation, she is now older than I am.

Happy Birthday, Isabel.

What's Going on in those Furry Little Heads

We had the pet psychic visit today. Believe what you will, but she has always been amazingly accurate for us, and so it's worth every penny to feel like we have 60 minutes of direct communication with our pets. Even though we're pretty sure we have a general idea of what our dog and two cats are probably thinking and feeling, it's nice to have confirmation, and in some cases, correction.

Our dog started as she always does: she feels gorgeous and everyone always tells her how pretty she is. She likes her toys, ice cubes in her water dish, and sleeping late on the weekends. She's going to the beach this summer, and she likes the garden-- she's very well-behaved there, and even helps a little. Unfortunately, that's where she got the ticks; one was fat and one wasn't. All this without a word from us.

Our younger cat said that she's fed up with the older one, because he's so cranky all the time, so now whenever he gets close to her she screams. She's also a little upset that she can't go out on the deck, and she blames him for that. She knows that if it wasn't for his inveterate deck-hopping, they would be allowed outside. She likes having her own litter box, but wishes she could eat by herself, too. In fact privacy was kind of a theme of hers: she spends only as much time as she wants to with people, and then she goes away alone for a while.

As for the old guy, it was as we feared. He has some sort of a slow-growing tumor. At the moment, he's not uncomfortable, and although this is definitely the last chapter of his life, it's a thick chapter. He'll let us know when it's time to say good-bye.

Oh, and he's NEVER going to sit quietly outside the kitchen and wait to be fed. We should just give up on that one.

Make-do Monday

I've noticed that Monday evening is very busy at my local grocers. Like me, many of my neighbors must put off that chore in favor of enjoying their weekend. I wonder if, like me, too, they consider the grocery store optional on most days. We almost always have enough food in the pantry, freezer, and fridge that in a pinch, or if I can't find parking in the tiny grocery store lot, I can make a decent meal from our home ingredients.

Tonight, after one unsuccessful lap of the lot and a near collision with a vagabond shopping cart, it will be a chipotle-buttermilk corn chowder with tossed salad for dinner, and tomorrow Isabel will be forced to make do with no egg in her breakfast, and Heidi will have to have an apple instead of an orange for lunch. I think we'll be fine.

SOLSC Day 12

As an introvert, I do not trust small talk. It is not something I engage in willingly, not something that comes naturally, not something that I value. And yet, as a person in the world, I am often confronted with the need for small talk, no matter how studiously I try to avoid it. Somewhere along the line, I decided to accept myself as I am, and that meant that I was not a small talker, and that was ok by me. Unfortunately, reality can be a nag, and I still found myself feeling awkwardly silent from time to time. Oh, I tried to busy myself with a magazine or book at the break in a meeting, or I diligently re-read the handouts while others chatted. I was not comfortable, though, and that made me wonder if perhaps my strategy was not the right one.

Things came to a bit of a watershed when we got a dog. Living in a rather urban area, part of dog owning is visiting dog parks. At first I was fascinated by this sub-culture of dog park going dog owners of which I had been until now, unaware. There were many unwritten rules and social cues for both dogs and owners. I liked to think of myself then as an objective observer, a kind of anthropologist. I noticed that the dogs were much more able to negotiate the complex hierarchy of the pack than were the owners. Some humans pretended to be unaware that there was any kind of pecking order at all- they were the equivalent of the gamma girls, like in War Games, they knew the only way to win is not to play at all. The others, though, the others were in a pitched battle for dominance at the dog park. Really, at first it was a hoot to watch them jockey for position: greeting new dogs, “And who is this?”, dispensing advice, and gossiping about the other regulars behind their backs. But then one day, WE were regulars, and that gamma girl act wasn’t cutting it anymore. We were going to have choose sides in the feuds, and step up to our rung on the dog park social ladder.

This is where the small talk comes in. In the dog park world, it takes a long time before you have to reveal your personality-- before that you’re just “Isabel’s mom,” and people greet your dog, not you. It took a while, but the day finally came when one of the other regulars introduced herself, by name, and just like that, no longer was it acceptable to drift into the park with our puppy and watch the fireworks; now we were recognizable, and we had to decide who to talk to, where to stand, how to greet other people. I began to dread going to the park. My days as an anonymous researcher planning my treatise on these people were over; now, I was expected to join them.

I expressed my loathing to go to the dog park one afternoon to the 13-year-old girl I mentored after school. She wanted a ride home, but a quick look at my watch showed that I was overdue at the dog park. I told her so morosely. “What’s wrong with the dog park?” she asked. “It sounds fun.”

“I hate it!” I exclaimed, with uncharacteristic zeal.

“Why?” she asked, somewhat taken aback by this show of emotion, and somewhat intrigued by the weakness she sensed.

“Because you have to make conversation with strangers! I don’t like that.”

Here was a child who came to me weekly and shared her successes, but more often, her failures. I was always patient and full of advice for her. I knew that if only she listened to the wisdom I generously dispensed, she would surely be on the path to a better academic career. She looked at me with what I recognized as the look I so often gave her.

“You can do that!” she encouraged me. “It’s easy.” She knew the shoe was on the other foot, but I was still putting on my socks.

“I can, but I don’t WANT to.”

“Start like this,” she said patiently. “So, what do you do for a living?”

I laughed. “That’s pretty good advice.”

“Then say, ‘What kind of music do you listen to?’ They’ll say country, or hip-hop, or rap. You say, ‘Who’s your favorite singer?’”

I laughed again. It was funny to hear those words coming from her. It was also a sound strategy, but I knew I’d never do it. “Thanks, Raynia,” I told her. “Lets get going.”

That afternoon, I spent a silent 45 minutes at the dog park.