April 8, 2013
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Sacred Habits
Shhh! Annie is sleeping.
I bought a book today to read for my reading group, Annie’s Ghost by Steve Luxenberg. I was pleasantly surprised to discover I think I’m really going to like it. (I have really liked most of the books the book group has selected, although almost none of them were books I would have picked out for myself.) My mind still makes profound distinctions between books I ‘want’ to read and books I ‘have’ to read.
Normally I spend most of my days in my chair at my computer.
I sat down on the couch with my book and began reading and The God Awful Creature Across the Street dragged 14 children out into his yard and began torturing them in FULL VIEW of Annie. TGACAS is a bulldog. We hate him.
Bark bark bark, Cheryl, bark bark. Do you SEE this? Bark bark.
I called her into the Conservatory. I said (this seems to work for Nancy) “We’ve got this, Annie, you can relax.”
Torture murder mayhem ritual decapitation ARE YOU LOOKING AT THIS? Bark bark.
I went outside with my book and sat on the box by the back door.
Cheryl, Riley greeted me, you came outside–is everything all right? Should you brush me now? Here, I’ll sit between your knees until you feel better.
Annie ran to the back gate. The postal Delivery Person from Hell is coming, Cheryl, run, grab Riley, let’s all get in the car and drive away now….
I went back inside. Sat on the couch. Read my book.
Oh, my God,he just ate a child and now I think he’s going to eat the mailman…
“I don’t remember why I thought I had to have you,” I said to Annie.
I don’t know how you managed to live long enough to find me, Annie said.
Fortunately, Nancy and I had just survived last evening.
Most evenings are the same, here. Nancy, Ilah and I have dinner together and then play a game while Riley throws himself with a sigh onto the floor and Annie runs to the dining room window to report passersby, dogs on ropes, wind gusts and all manner of intolerable social errors being committed in our front yard. We have taken up feeding her about this time. We now feed her using puzzle toys, which have significantly increased the amount of time it takes Annie to finish her dinner and gives her something to do (other that running to the dining room window to bark.) Then Nancy and I do the dishes, and then we go into the living room where Nancy and Annie crash on the couch and I sit in my chair.
Last night we went to the Conservatory. I had something I was doing on the computer, Nancy was reading a book.
Wrong.
Wrong wrong wrong WRONG WRONG.
Oh, my God the wrongness of it.
Stray postal delivery workers converged on our front yard with picket signs and hand granades. Annie ran around the house barking at everything that moved. Space Invaders! Huns! Godzilla!
Riley raised his head off the floor. Squinted. WTF?
He was too tired to deal.
We tried reason. We tried calming voices. We tried assuring her we ‘had it’.
Annie became more and more hysterical.
Finally we got up, walked to the living room, Nancy got on the couch I got into my chair, we turned on the TV and Annie collapsed, exhausted, on the couch.
We were safe at last.
Order had been restored.
And having learned from that experience, I got up off the couch, where I DO NOT belong, walked over to my desk chair and sat down where I DO BELONG, and Annie has been sound asleep on the couch ever since.
I think I may even be allowed to read over here.
We’ll see.
