November 15, 2012
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The Source
I have located the source of the barking problem.
I thought it might be the two resident chows on our north, or perhaps the emotionally damaged weimaraner to the south. I was wrong.
It’s the bulldog.
S/he lives across the street at what is either a daycare center or some very well-indulged children’s home. They have, within a small green picket fence, a slide, a house above the slide, swings and other childhood paraphernalia. The bulldog comes outside, climbs up in the child-house above the slide, and sits there.
Looking.
Right into our back yard.
This behavior drives Annie into a frenzy of yard defense.
His/her persistent peering into our private lives is an invasion of unacceptable dimension, so intense and so unforgivable that sometimes she wakes from a dead sleep, bolts off the couch, races outside and warns the Space Invader one more time.
And, of course, because she barks, Riley is driven to bark as well.
I am tempted to squirt myself in the face with citrus spray and see if I can get high on it because I am really, really tired of following the dogs outside to shake a tin can at them. It works. For about 37 seconds, but then, 37 seconds of silence is better than 0 seconds of silence.
* * * * *
Yesterday my Beloved came home from her business meeting invigorated with independence and announced, “I’m going to drive.”
I said, “take the car.”
“Why?”
“It’s easier to drive.”
“For you, maybe.”
We’ve reached the spicy stage, I see. “And because your truck is full of dead bamboo stalks,” I noted.
“I’m just going to drive around the block.”
She called me from the recycling center. “I just dumped the bamboo,” she chortled, “I think I’m going shopping now!”
“Bring chocolate.”
“Can you think of any reason why I shouldn’t go shopping?”
Questions like that just confound me. Every relationship has its own balance of power. I adore Nancy. Part of adoring Nancy is knowing that she does NOT adore being told what to do, having suggestions made about what she should do, receiving hints, intimations or anything offered that could, with enough tinkering, be construed as…being told what to do. We have been together for something like 15 years by now: I am all out of the habit of offering advice. Why would I bother to think of reasons why she shouldn’t go shopping when they’ll just get me into trouble?
“Nope,” I said. “Have fun.”
Some minor problems arose. She’s not supposed to carry more than 10 pounds. This left that distressing distance between the truck and the kitchen, but I’m used to going to out help carry the groceries.
And now she’s driving.
As I was helping her load all of her valuable got-to-haves into the truck this morning, I noted 3 different kinds of walking aides in the kitchen, the walker, the crutches and her cane. She is not quite steady enough for the cane. Really tired of the walker. Still–for the moment–stuck on crutches.
I think she’s doing fine.
