In Another Country

It's sunny here and warm. The kind of warm that feels like a hug. My aunt hugs me when she picks me up from the airport. We get to talking before I finish sliding my roll-y suitcase into the back seat. My aunt is a talker. And if you know me in real life, you know that I am a talker too. When we get together, the talking is next level.

Before we hit the highway, we've covered the book I was reading on the plane, what's up with her friends in the condo community, how the little dog she's been dog-sitting is settling in, book banning (we're both against it), the weather (supposed to be hot this weekend in this part of Florida), and all the latest news on my kids--

with a dizzying digression into the past, as my aunt recalls funny stories, sad stories and everything in between about the kids when they were little, about the kids (me and my siblings) when I was little, about the kids (her and her siblings) when she was little, and weirdly, none of it feels in the past. 

My kids are five years old, and I am five years old, and she is, and all of it is happening, is always happening.

And then we are here, in her cute condo with her cute little foster dog, who is suspicious of me but decides to give me a chance. My aunt and I talk way past my usual bedtime. We talk in the morning after she wakes up, earlier than her usual waking-up-time. We talk over lunch. Over dinner. And up late again. And just when I think maybe we are talked out, she tells me a story,

which reminds me of a story, which reminds her of another one. It's been quite a few years since I've visited her, but when I slip outside (WHEW IT IS HOT!) to take a walk, I wonder if I will remember the layout of this neighborhood, the route to a pond where there's a walking trail and all of these condos looking very much the same. What if I get lost?  

But as soon as I set out, it comes back to me. A turn at this corner, a turn at the next. The pond with the signs warning me to beware of the alligator, which I have never seen (but sorta want to!) The palm frond designs etched into the sidewalk squares. A beautiful bird that I don't know the name of, but I snap a picture of it, and only later, remember that years ago, the last time I was here, I saw the same kind of bird and thought the same thing. 

Maybe it is the same bird. Maybe I am the same person. Maybe time stops in this place, and I am always taking pictures of those creepy and yet somehow adorable little lizards that scuttle across the path as I walk. Around the pond, the heat really starting to get to me now, and back to my aunt's condo, only overshooting it by a couple of condos. I have to double-back, where I find her

just setting out the little dog--and it really is so different from her last little dog, the one she loved for years--and yet, it is entirely the same. 

 

Delightful Blather at the Library

Last week the circulation manager at the library where I work was shelving books and I was sitting at the help desk and the two of us were chatting how we do--I can't remember what we were talking about--but I said something about how we could blather all day, and just then a patron nearby piped up that he liked that word,

blather

and why don't people say it anymore? Well, I have no idea, I responded, but I say it all the time. Which got the three of us talking about other words like that, my favorite being the word delightful, something the circ manager often says, and every time she says it, I think: I like that word. 

Delightful. 

I want to say it more. 

How perky it sounds and how happy, especially on gray cold days, January sliding into February, and all of the crappy news of the world, the terrible ways we treat each other on display again and again, it's hard sometimes to remember how people, the world, can also be delightful.   

I just looked up the definition of delightful and it means "causing delight," and so I looked up delight, and that means "please someone greatly," which pretty much captures it. It was me the other day having a ten-minute discussion with a four-year-old and his grandfather about the library's broken elevator. (Long story about the broken elevator) but the delightful part of it was how curious and concerned the kid was and how patiently the grandfather explained how elevators work (or don't work, as the case may be),

or another day when a preschool class of kids tromped inside out of the cold weather and a little boy kept tromping right over to the desk and hugged me, no idea why, but I'll take it. That day, my husband and I had to get a new furnace, and when I got home, the dog was closed up in a bedroom, frantic about noisy strangers in the house, and I went up to keep her company, which only sorta alleviated her stress. 

Probably because I was borderline frantic myself, thinking about how much money a furnace replacement was going to cost us. Plus, it was cold in the house. Later, when the new furnace was at last installed, I could hear my husband and the furnace guys downstairs blathering, laughing like old friends. 

Right then the heat cranked on and wafted through the vents, and let me tell you, it was absolutely delightful. 

 

Two Dog Week

Once upon a time I hated dogs. I was afraid of them. And for good reason. A dog I had growing up bit my face, his teeth tearing through the side of my mouth, a part of my lip left dangling. 

I was twelve. I loved that dog. His name was Sam and he was a rescue. He was sweet. And also, vicious, hurling his body against the front door when anybody dared to knock. But until the moment he bit my face, he had never been vicious to me. The thing was

I'd been stupid, leaning over to kiss his darling face while he was asleep. I'd scared him and who could blame him for lashing out. Not me, is what I'm trying to say. We all do things we may regret when we're afraid. 

But still, there was the matter of the bloody mouth, the dangling lip. I knew I needed help, but being something of a rescue myself, I wasn't sure where to go for it. My stepfather, for example, had threatened to kill the dog. My mother did not typically react well in a crisis. But twelve is old enough to know when there are situations too difficult to navigate on your own.

In the end my stepfather did not kill the dog. My mother did not react well to my bloody face reveal but pulled herself together and got me medical care. Life went on for all of us, me, with a scar no one can see, and for the next twenty-five years, a terror and hatred of dogs. 

Until, 

I got a dog. I won't bore you with the details of her intelligence, her adorable-ness, her loyalty. Over the next ten years what first began as a tolerance, quickly turned into friendship, into love, and beyond that, a love that could extend to other dogs too. Which brings me to the events of this week when my daughter and son-in-law asked my husband and me to watch their dog, and halfway through the week, my husband went out of town,

leaving me alone with the two dogs.

During the period of my life when I was afraid of dogs, I did not know how different dogs could be from each other and I did not really care. A dog is a dog, is what I thought, and please get it the hell away from me. But here I was this week juggling the two dogs, my sweet Zooey, and the bigger, and I don't want to say dumber, but maybe... not quite as intelligent, but still darling, lumbering, goofy Louie. 

I have gotten such a kick out of them, Zooey and Louie, clambering up beside me at night on the couch while I read, their forays into the backyard, bonding over their mutual outrage at the existence of squirrels, our ridiculous walks around the block, the two of them continually stopping to sniff or pee in opposite directions, a near constant crossing and crisscrossing of leashes, leaving all of us tired out and ready to snuggle again.

Once, I hated dogs. Once, I was afraid of them. And all of that fear and anger tangled up inside my childhood self, solidifying as I grew up, becoming an integral part of who I was.

But last night alone in the dark, a warm body pressed on either side of me, the snores and sleepy sighs, the thumps of their hearts, I felt more of that old self untangle. 

Dear Sam, I'm so sorry I scared you. Dear twelve-year-old Jody, it wasn't your fault. 

 

 

Don't tell the dog we're going on vacation

because she gets nervous. Or maybe I am the one who gets nervous. I don’t know where this comes from, my travel anxiety. My need to scour the entire house, for example, before we can walk out the door. 

I mean, I love vacations, I just don’t like the part where you have to prep, to pack, to travel to get wherever you are going. My husband knows this about me after many many years of witnessing it, and mostly he goes with the flow. 

Okay, he says, I get why you want to have clean sheets on the bed, why you want the bathrooms to be clean, why you want to leave a detailed note for the dog sitter, but why are you—what are you—? 

He stops mid-step into the kitchen, where I am presently taking an orchid plant apart in the sink. 

(What led to this was we have an orchid that’s been dormant for two years and I thought it was dead and was ready to pitch it, but this morning I saw a Tik Tok video that shows step-by-step how to revive an orchid plant. It is truly amazing.) 

My husband is slowly shaking his head.

I was cleaning the sink, I explain, which led to me cleaning the windows above the sink and then clearing the plants off to dust the sill, and then I saw the orchid… 

He’s still shaking his head, and I notice him noticing the food I have set out on the counter, the travel snacks I’ve planned for the road. Tomatoes and basil I picked from the garden, which I’m readying to toss into a caprese salad. Fruit I’ve washed. Veggies I’ve cut to go with some hummus dip. The parsley and mint and onions I’m chopping to go into the—

Is that tabbouleh? My husband asks incredulously. Are you making a tabbouleh salad? 

But back to the dog. Typically, before we leave on vacation, she seems to catch my anxiety, whirling around behind me as I scour toilets and change sheets, and erm, revive orchid plants and prepare homemade tabbouleh salad. But the moment she sees us dragging the suitcases up from the basement, she goes into full blown terror mode, panting and crying. I have a brilliant idea as I tuck the now already-perky-looking orchid into a jar of water and set it back on the windowsill. 

Let’s not take out the suitcases! We’ll keep them in the basement and carry our clothes and toiletries down there to pack!

My husband busts out laughing, but God love him, this is exactly what we do. 

Let me tell you the secret of the orchid plant. Over time, the root ball gets tired and tangled up, pieces of it, shriveled and dead. But with a little patience, you can untangle it, cut off the dead bits, clean it all up and get the plant going again. 

Wait. I think what I am actually writing about here is not orchids or worried dogs, but about vacations and why, even though some people are always anxious before they embark upon one, they still need to GO. 

So, I go. I’m gone. I’m here. Away from home and only one day in, feeling untangled and revived. 

By the way, before we left, the dog figured it out. In the morning, as I tiptoed around packing the cooler with what my husband calls the Bougie Travel Snacks, while I thought the dog was still asleep upstairs, she woke up and caught my husband in the act of carrying the pillows out to the car. She paced around my legs and cried. I kissed her on the nose and told her what I always tell her before we leave the house. 

It's okay. We'll be back soon. 

 

 

No words

I stopped writing this week. No words on my work-in-progress. No words in my every-morning-for-the-past-fifteen-years journal. Writing is how I make sense of the world, how I process my thoughts. But more and more the world makes no sense, and I am tired of processing my own thoughts. 

What if, I wondered, I just decided to quit?  

I spent a day cleaning. I spent another day flopped out on the porch swing, alternating between trying to read, crying, and sleeping. It was possible I was having something of a minor nervous breakdown. But then I got tired of that too and took the dog for a walk. It was swelteringly hot and I could feel the energy leaking out of me with every step. How do other people do this? 

But I already know the answer. You just do it. 

When I was a little girl, I used to have panic attacks. Nightmares. I'd wake in the middle of the night and couldn't fall back to sleep. Or rather, I was afraid to fall back to sleep. I was terrified of the dark.

Terrified of someone sneaking into my bedroom in the middle of the night. It wasn't a baseless fear. Even when I was eight years old, I knew that there are bad people in this world, and truly, many of them want to hurt us. To cope, I surrounded myself with dolls and stuffed animals, a particular order and arrangement, their plastic-y faces and hairy heads pressing against me as I fought to keep my eyes open. I always lost the battle. 

There's a road my dog sometimes leads me down when we go on our walks that I call the Chicken Road because it winds behind a house that has a chicken coop in the backyard. The dog likes to run up to the fence and the chickens lazily scatter. Then they scrabble back, not really afraid, the dog, tongue lolling, happily watching. While the animals play this game, I study the small wooden door that someone (the chicken owner person?) has glued onto the bottom of a nearby lamppost. It's exactly the kind of thing I would've loved when I was a little girl. 

Small things because I was small and wished I could be even smaller. One more plastic doll propped on a bed. But what a small door! Where could a door like that lead? To what other world? And off my little mind would go. The colorful, rollicking landscape. The happy and kind people who lived in that place. 

Something I learned when I was eight years old was that while I had no control over my own life, I had been given a gift to slip into other lives. Forget the dolls and stuffed animals. I could write. I didn't do it to understand the senselessness of the world or to process my own thoughts. No. Back then writing was escape. Survival. Magic. 

Power. 

It got me the hell out of where I came from and kept me (somewhat) sane along the way. It brought me to where I am now. Paused for the moment on a winding road with the dog and the scattering chickens. A door fixed to a lamppost, and what can I do... but open it? 

Mercury is in retrograde

and I don't know what that means but it seems bad. Something about the planet appearing to move backwards and maybe that affects relationships? or signing business contracts? This is according to astrologers, so make of it what you will, but how else do you explain

people losing their minds on airplanes, or yesterday when I was first in line at a green light and three cars shot through the red light, or that "doctor" testifying before the Ohio Statehouse saying it was a fact that people who had the Covid vaccine could stick a spoon on their face because now we're all magnetic and she knew this because she saw it on Youtube.

The other day our dog refused to go for a walk, which is so odd, because always, even if you whisper the word (walk) she will come running, but this day, she planted her feet and wouldn't budge. She hadn't been eating, and then she was panting and shivering. 

My husband and I brought her to the veterinary hospital and I was having ptsd, remembering the last time we came to this place with our dying cat, but how kind the people were. They took the freaked out dog from freaked out us and did blood tests and pumped her up with fluids. Nothing physically wrong that they could see. Has there been any recent trauma, they asked.

Well, our daughter and boyfriend moved out a few weeks ago and took their dog with them, but I never thought of our dogs as being friends. Still, who knows what goes on in a dog's head, and then my husband and I went out of town for a week and left her with a stranger, so there's that.

I went to work tired and a man strode into the library without a mask. Which is okay. We have a sign on the door that says Masks Appreciated, but more and more people are ignoring it. Which is okay too. But still, the man seemed to be gearing up for a fight. When will the computers be back, he demanded. When will you have seating? When can we have meetings? 

I was sitting behind plexiglass and I smiled under my mask. We're working on it, I said. 

It was the same thing I told the mom who asked when we'd have toys back in the youth department. I could read the impatience on her mask-less face. We just opened the library a few weeks ago, I said. We'll get there. What I didn't say: Maybe it takes a little time to come out of a global pandemic. 

But I get it.

The masks, the plexiglass, the empty toy room are all outward signs that we just went through something scary. Some of us are struggling with this more than others. IE: losing their minds on airplanes or running red lights or trying to stick metal spoons to their foreheads. 

When I was in California with my son, we were sitting at a red light and he told me his philosophy of red lights, how traffic signals are really the only experience most people have with laws, with the social contract. If we didn't have traffic lights, we'd all just drive straight through. But here we are, stopped, even when there's no traffic going the other way. Most of us follow the rules, 

wear the masks, get the vaccines. We're scared too but we want to do what is right, not just for ourselves, but for other people too. 

The vet sent the dog home with fancy wet canned food and the dog gulped it down and then crawled into bed with us. In the morning I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk and she came running. 

Some days are harder than others

Dog treats at the library check out window

The other day one of my co-workers brought in a box of dog biscuits. The library where I work is at the edge of a park, and sometimes people who are out walking their dogs will amble up to the window to see if they have any books on hold for them. She thought it would be nice if we could give out dog treats.

I have had the opportunity to offer this service to our patrons (well, their dogs) twice in the past few days and it has given me an absurd amount of joy. Maybe it's Month Eleven of the Global Pandemic starting to wear me down. 

The fact that the library is still closed to the public and instead of wearing one mask I am wearing two masks and it's too cold out to have socially distant bonfires and no sign of anyone in my family getting the vaccine any time soon, except for my mother. 

I am grateful for that! Also, I am grateful that I have a job, that the people I love have managed to make it this far, unscathed, and all I can do for the people I know who are suffering with this disease is send them soup. 

Side note about this soup: It is supposedly very good, especially the rolls. 

A friend who recently recovered from Covid went out to dinner alone, in celebration of her wellness and moment of immunity. She Facebook-Lived her experience. The near empty restaurant. The white tablecloths. A drink order. An appetizer. I watched it all in wonder and delight. The last time I went to a dinner like this was almost a year ago. A group of writers and an agent who'd spoken at our writers' group conference. 

I can't remember what I ordered. I really really wish I remembered this! But it was just another dinner to me at the time. This was a place downtown that I often went to, a special place to meet a friend or to impress an out of town visitor. I used to take things like this for granted. 

And who was the last person I hugged who is not my husband or daughter? Who was the last random person I chatted with bare-faced, those times I would bump into a neighbor at the grocery store or out shopping or at the movies. (For the record, I do remember the last movie I saw. 1917. Oh, those poor people who thought their lives were bad living in the time of world war and not knowing yet that a global pandemic was just around the corner. 

Sad update: The movie theater we always went to is closed now. For good.) 

But these dogs at the window! Their owners are bundled up for the weather and sometimes while they wait for me to check out their owner's books, (bundled up myself) bagging everything up because it's sleeting or snowing out there, they'll peer inside, tongues lolling,

and I am so ridiculously glad that I have something to give them. 

Dog Days

She starts crying and shaking the minute I get her into the car. She knows what’s coming. Or she thinks she does.

The entire fifteen minute drive over and the shrieks only get louder. She does this for a normal vet visit and this one will be more than that. A couple of large skin tags under her forearms that keep snagging on her harness have to be removed today.

She shakes when we get into the exam room. When the vet and attendant come in, she pants and drools and backs up, her tail between her legs, until she's sitting on my feet. They’ll need to offer her a shot to make her woozy before they can do the procedure. Not anesthesia, they assure me. I freak out a little thinking about that. Two people I know lost dogs under general anesthesia and both for what was supposed to be a routine procedure. Teeth cleaning. Some kind of grooming.

I'm the one who has to put the muzzle on her. The attendant can’t find a vein in her leg so after much prodding and poking, she tries the other leg. Don't worry, they tell me. She’ll be sleepy right away. But she isn’t. She paces around the small room still panting. Her legs slide apart, but she rights herself. How will she ever forgive me for putting her through this?

Only a few weeks ago I held my dying cat in my arms while they injected her, her body slumping against me, and then going slack the moment the life went out of her.

Finally the dog stops panting and teeters over onto her side. The attendants carry her off and I wait alone in the small room, picking dog hair off my sweatshirt. I have been anxious all day. A dread that started when I read the headlines this morning about the growing fear of a pandemic, the stock market plummeting.

At my weekly grocery store visit I filled my cart with canned goods like people do when a storm’s coming. I am reading a book about a pandemic that kills most of the people in the world. Why would I read a book like this right now?

When my husband and I came home after putting our cat to sleep, the dog greeted us how she always does. Hops and licks and a wet touch of her nose against the back of our hands. If she was wondering where the cat was, she didn’t let on.

This morning when I unpacked the groceries, there wasn't enough room in the cabinets for all of the canned goods. The attendants carry the dog back to me. Groggy. Tongue lolling out of her mouth. She's okay, they tell me. Just sleepy.

Want to go home? I whisper, and her head jerks up. Even as out of it as she is, my voice is a voice she remembers and home is a word she knows. I carry her inside and help her onto the couch and then we both rest for a while.

How a Fearless Possibly Insane Dog Taught Me to Face and Conquer My Own Demons

Every day two battles are fought and won in my house.

Battle # 1 is fierce and loud and stressful and contains lots of slobber and flying hair.

Battle #2 is fought by my dog.

First, a bit about Battle # 2.

So if you have been following my blog for a while, you may recall that after my son went off to college I became a reluctant and later a ridiculously adoring dog owner. My Zooey is the perfect writing companion. She naps by my side for two to three hours at a time, and then she demands a walk, usually at the moment when my eyeballs are burning out of my skull from staring at my computer screen. Zooey is the reason I change out of my pajamas each day. She also has saved me from becoming a sad, partial empty-nester. (I suspect that without Zooey, I would sob every time I walk past my son's empty bedroom.) She has without a doubt saved my daughter from my helicopter mom tendencies. Now those helicopter blades are hovering around Zooey.

How do we keep Zooey from jumping on visitors? How do we teach her not to dig a giant *&^ hole in the center of the backyard? What can we do to keep her from eating sponges and kleenexes and computer mouses/mice? How can we help Zooey and the crochety yet beloved old cat get along better?

And the big one: how do we stop Zooey from losing her freaking mind every single day when the mailman comes to the door?

My son on break from college figured out the answer to this one.

The Zooey vs the Mailman War has been going on for about a year and a half now.

The battle begins when the truck first putters down the street. Zooey is fast asleep, curled beside me.

She recognizes the truck sound--which is somehow different from any other vehicle sounds--and she is UP and ready for battle.

There's five minute tense growly period between when the mailman steps out of the truck and takes his sweet time walking up the street toward our home.

The moments when the guy places his foot on our front porch and passes by the picture window are the heat of the battle, with Zooey in full-blown attack mode, splattering spittle and barking like a wild beast. Time slows. The mail box clicks open. Zooey races to the front door and throws herself against it. The mail box snaps shut. Zooey licks herself furiously, does a victory lap around the house, and jumps back onto the couch to continue her nap.

My son watched this battle take place every day when he was home on break and we'd marvel at the intensity and lunacy of it. On his last day home, we watched the battle unfold again and my son announced that he'd figured it all out.

Zooey is the type of dog who will bark when anyone comes to the door, but as soon as that person steps inside, she sees that the person is a welcome friend and taking a cue from us, she greets them (by jumping on them--I know, not a good dog trait. We're working on it)

But, the mailman is NEVER INVITED INSIDE THE HOUSE.

In Zooey's mind he truly is the enemy. Every day, however, the man has the audacity to drive down our street and waltz right up to our door. Zooey's barking, her brave counterattack against the window, is the only thing that keeps the enemy from gaining entry.

And it works! She wins the battle every single day. The mailman retreats. Zooey has completed her mission. The only solution, my son said, is to invite the mailman inside. (He may be right, but at this point, I don't know if I want to risk the mailman's life to test this hypothesis.)

Okay, you may be wondering at this point what Battle # 1 is.

If you have been following this blog for a while or even for the past month, you may have noticed that it's a daily struggle for me to sit down each day, open my computer file, and get to work. I've written about my struggle here and here and here, in case you want a recap. Apparently I have to learn over and over again that the only solution is to write. It never gets any easier. Regardless of how long I have been writing, despite the fact that I have learned the lesson, that I know LOGICALLY that each day is difficult, somehow my hesitance to get to work still surprises me.

Writing, many days, feels like a battle. A battle against self doubt. A battle against laziness. Steven Pressfield does a much better job than I talking about this in his brilliant little book The War of Art. (This is a must read for any writer struggling to do the work, by which I mean EVERY writer.) Pressfield calls it the battle against Resistance.

Each day I am surprised by the intensity of Resistance. Each day I am Zooey snoozing along happily and shocked at the sound of the mailman's truck turning down my street. That bastard is here again? But I just fought him yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that! Who the heck does this guy think he is?

But like Zooey I fight my battle every day. I spring onto the back of my couch and hurl myself against the plate glass window, drool and hair flying. And at the end of the day, I snap my laptop shut, secure in the fact that I have chased that demon off.

For today.

For the record, this day I have successfully beaten back Resistance 18 days in a row. I sign off now to fight the battle of DAY NUMBER 19.

Wish me luck.

On the Road (and Off): Photo Diary of the Thin Space Book Tour (PS: this my 200th blog post!)

Sooooooo Thin Space has been out for nearly two months and I've been having a grand old time talking it up with family, friends and sometimes, shockingly--people I don't know. 

This has been kind of a whirlwind travel schedule and totally NOT the norm for me, which usually consists of me sitting on the couch and staring bleary-eyed at the computer screen interspersed with multiple walks with my high strung dog. But what I've discovered is that being on the road can be fun too (once I got over my slightly agoraphobic/I hate driving alone-itis issue. See here.)

A display at Parnassus Books, the cool independent bookstore in Nashville owned by author Ann Patchett

My in-laws made cookies shaped like feet.

And I met Jessica Young, author of My Blue Is Happy 

My first book festival--Books by the Banks in Cincinnati--where I learned that having a huge bowl of candy on the table is a helpful marketing technique.

Fellow 2013 debut YA writer Mindy McGinnis, author of Not a Drop to Drink, a dystopian novel set in the not so distant future where water is scarce. (Notice the brilliant promotional thingy Mindy's got going on: water bottles...)  

I hung out with the Ohio school librarians at their annual conference which was held at a waterpark and had a chance to chat with one of my favorite authors, MT Anderson. He was gung ho to enjoy the rides but had forgotten to pack the proper shoes. What I learned: MT Anderson is a good sport. 

A trip to Memphis to visit my husband's and my alma mater, Rhodes College--where we are subtly, or not so subtly, urging our teen daughter to apply.

"Look, honey, can't you just see yourself going to school at this place?" 

I mean, really. THIS is the ceiling of the Rhodes library.

The bookstore in Memphis where I used to work--The Booksellers at Laurelwood. Here I am chatting it up with former students, friends, sorority sisters, former co-workers, and several  people I don't know

Taking a lesson from Mindy McGinnis, I gave out something that tied in with my book--lollipops shaped like feet.

I talked a ninth grade boy into taking off his shoes for an impromptu photo shoot. This was a cool day--visited 5 classes of ninth grade students who were REQUIRED to read Thin Space, which I must say, made me slightly nervous. Those kids had writing assignments and homework and tests on that book!  But everyone was cool about it (or did a good job pretending to be).

A local book club read Thin Space and invited me to chat about it with them at their monthly meeting. They met at a French bistro and I book-talked one of my favorite books, Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell, which they ended up choosing for their next book. Now I want to go to that meeting too.

The Buckeye Book Fair in Wooster Ohio. The feet lollipops were a big hit.

Only downside to my travels: a dog who is less than thrilled. Here she takes out her displeasure on my file folder. 

But that seemed to be the extent of the damage.

Until:

Sigh. This was my favorite journal.

The Reality of Zooey

Two months ago if you asked anyone who knew me if I would ever get a dog, they would've emphatically said no. Let's just say I have never been a dog person. Possibly this dates back to me at age 12, in a moment of sheer idiocy, "kissing" my sleeping dog's face. Said dog reared back and bit a piece of my lip off. I had to get stitches. There was a gruesome scar for a while.

So yeah, I didn't really like dogs. When I visited friends who have them, I'd be cool, acting like I thought their dogs were cute, but inside I was cringing. Dogs kinda smell like, uh, dog. And I didn't like them jumping on me, or God forbid, licking-slash-drooling on me.

My fear/annoyance of dogs even inspired a story. It's called "Chasing the Rabbit" and it appeared in Cicada magazine a few years ago. First lines:

No offense to any dog lovers out there, but Abby didn't like dogs. She did, however, like the idea of dogs. In theory they seemed like good companions. Loyal. Loving. Obedient. Friendly.

But Abby (like me) learned fast about reality. Her new puppy bites her face (hmm, wonder where I got the idea for that?) and she comes to this conclusion: "It was the idea of dogs that had tricked her. Reality was different, and her scar would never let her forget it."

Not too long ago I actually dug this old issue of Cicada up and read this section to my daughter, who had been begging my husband and me for months to get her a dog. My daughter is very persistent, to put it mildly, when she gets an idea in her head, so I was growing worried that her crusade for a dog would eventually wear her father down. (This has happened before. See iPhone, new queen-sized bed, bigger bedroom, for previous examples of daughter's skill at breaking his will. Her tactics include mentioning the object of her desire several times per day, posting detailed lists of why she "needs" this object, and creating elaborate bargains with us.)

I waved my story at her and told her she didn't know the first thing about taking care of a dog--the reality of day to day life with a puppy. You have to take it for walks and clean up its piddle and poops, and wipe its muddy paws when it's raining. Nevermind the stuff it's going to get into--it'll eat your shoes! And anyway, it's going to be ME who takes care of the dog. Let's not kid ourselves here. I'm the one who's going to be home all day with it. I'm the one who's going to have to walk it and clean up after it and train it!

She just blinked at me. There she was sitting in her larger bedroom, on her queen sized bed. She stopped clicking on her iPhone, and said: Now that older brother has gone off to college, don't you think we, the three of us, should have a puppy, to help bind us together, in a new way, as a half-empty nest family?

Cut to:  We got a puppy.

Her name is Zooey.

Yes, it is true, everything I said about the reality of dogs. And it's true, too, for the most part, that I am the one who takes Zooey for walks and cleans up her accidental piddles. She smells like, uh, dog. She enjoys eating the corners of all of our rugs. She's spit up TWICE in the middle of the night in the middle of daughter's bed.

So it's all true, this reality I had been trying to explain to my daughter. But here is what I didn't know:

Zooey. 

Oh, you just can't believe how adorable she is! She's got this sweet little wrinkly forehead and these precious floppy ears. (We got her from the pound and the vet thinks she might be some kind of pug/beagle mix) She follows me around and curls up next to me while I write. She cocks her head when I say something like she's really trying to understand what I'm talking about. And get this: I think she does. We have very intense conversations during the day when we take our multiple walks and I must explain to her that she can't eat the berries or the grass and she should just ignore that other dog's dried up poop in the middle of the sidewalk left behind by some %&^# owner who couldn't bother carrying a poop bag.

She is so smart too. I am not exaggerating. I know every dog parent probably says this, but in Zooey's case it is 100% true. She can sit, and shake paws, and let herself outside. And she can let herself back in too! She has only had three accidents and that was totally my fault for misreading her doggie clues.

During the day while I work on my writing, Zooey works on her latest bone project, carrying it around the yard, burying it, and digging it back up. At night she curls up on my lap and snores contentedly, every so often her eyes fluttering open to gaze up at me, that sweet wrinkled forehead of hers wrinkling up even more sweetly. She loves me. It is clear to everyone who sees us together.

Here is another reality: every morning when I wake up I have to walk past my college son's empty bedroom. It's always dark in there and always clean. Somehow I can brush right by. He's okay. He's happy. He's doing what he should be doing. And honestly, I can't worry about him every second of the day.

I've got a dog waiting downstairs for her breakfast. Not just any dog either. Zooey.