February 28, 2013

  • More Jitters

    The proper door has been installed.

    Both Nancy and I have stepped outside and come back in.

    I opened the door, let Riley outside (he has been campaigning to be a free dog ever since I closed the Conservatory door and cut off his access to the back door-installer) then I put my hand through the new dog door and called him: he raced back to the Conservatory door and came around from the opposite end of the kitchen to see what I wanted. Sadly, we have trained them to do this. The treats for very well behaved dogs, outside barking dogs who come when called, and outside barking dogs who can be tricked inside when we open the treat door, are all stored on the back room by the back door.

    It looks like a dog door.

    It smells like a dog door.

    No way is Riley going through a strange dog door unless Annie goes through it first. Annie has a skull of reinforced concrete, so she runs 100 mph through the Conservatory door and even if it's closed, it will bounce off her head and open for her. (Well, not if it's bolted, but if it's bolted, how would she get outside?)

    Riley knows this. He also knows his skull is not as hard. No, really. You go first.

    So we have waited through 5 months of suspense, three home calls and a four-hour installation to achieve a dog door neither dog will go through. (Okay, we've been here before. The first dog door, if nothing else, was cheaper.)

    Then Nancy and Riley went to work and Annie said, "Unt-hunh, I'm not leaving your side, you might eat something." (Yes, I do. I shouldn't. I will live to regret it, I'm sure, but yes--I share my treats with the dog. It wasn't so much a problem with Riley because he has discriminating tastes. So far Annie has turned her nose up at celery, although she will drag it off and hide it to conceal her dislike.) She is sitting on the Conservatory couch right now where she keep close watch on whatever may go into my mouth. Recently we shared a Cutie. The dog eats skillfully-marketed tangerines.

    I am doing my laundry. I am panicking over my short list of things to do. I'm sure something critical has been over-looked. I counted my small gourds. Twice.

    When I get back I will be ready to do my annual stint as a gourd-painter at ArtWorks, a school program for fifth-graders. I doubt that my class is anyone's favorite, but they keep asking me to come back. I need about 100 small gourds so each of my students can paint one. This is a project that takes less than the allotted time, and I have learned that bored fifth graders are creature of a whole different realm. I'm sure I was one, once, but that was so many broken habits ago. So one of the tasks on my list was 'count small gourds'. I counted them. I have enough. I have them packed.

    Knowing this does nothing to assuage the sense of inevitable doom. (This should not be confused with anything remotely akin to reality; just more of my grandmother gene's moving in, finding things to fuss about.) 

    Oh, dear, something awful is in the front yard. Annie really does not like it when the family splits up. She was fine all morning, even with a stranger doing odd things to our back door. Nancy and Riley left for work this afternoon, and now she barks every 6.5 minutes to alert me to some pending disaster. She is on high alert. Something Is Wrong.

    She has returned to the couch, where intermittently she chuffs, tiny, swallowed barks. I am not happy here. I don't like this situation at all. Could you call Nancy and ask her to come home?

    I'm afraid I'll get there and realize I've forgotten something. What would that be? Nancy won't let me take the kitchen sink. Or the washer. Everything else is packed to the fourth level of redundancy.

    I'm afraid I'll get to the counter and they won't give me a rental car after all, but they'll keep the payment hold on my account for two weeks anyway.

    Perhaps I should go read a book.