Soapbox

    I would like to go on record here as saying that next summer, or by fall at the latest, Tucker will be a great dog. I firmly believe that.
      He's bright and inquisitive, very affectionate and people-oriented, and has a lot of unique character and personality. He makes me laugh at least once a day. He'll be a great companion for many years, and knowing that he'll be standing at the stairs, fuzzy head tipped to one side, watching for me to come in from the garage when I return at the end of a rough day will be a great comfort. Until that day, however…

      Tucker gets lots of long walks in places where I can let him off his leash, because otherwise, I tend to yell a lot. After being a quiet, good dog all night Tucker wakes up at 5 AM… and so we get up at 5 AM. Breakfast, a bowl of water and then he starts his daily round of trouble: biting toes, chewing shoes and stealing panties from the laundry. So it's important to get him out of the house. But winter is coming, and don't like to be cold.

     Last week, while I was selfishly writing a poem instead of going for a walk, Tucker ate rat poison. I was at the kitchen table and heard him in the living room, being bad. You see, he has a certain bounce to his step that is only present when he's playing with something he knows he shouldn't have. I peeked around the corner to see what he was up to this time and there he was with a packet, or what was left of a packet of D-con pellets. I'm not even sure where he got it! Probably the garage.
    I fished the remnants out of his mouth while he rolled on his back and waved his paws in the air like it was a great game, listening to mommy squeal. After I washed my hands and wiped off the rug I called the vet. Our dog Mischa had gone a few rounds with a pack of D-con when he was only about 10 lbs soaking wet, and after we rushed him tearfully to the vet we were told that d-con is a cumulative poison and he'd be fine. So while I was concerned, I wasn't freaked out.
     Dr. Lehnerd's office informed me that the new generation of D-con is much more deadly than the stuff Mischa got hold of and old Tuckerby needed to vomit ASAP. Better there than here, so I took him to the vet for some doggy ipacec.

     After a few hours of observation he was pronounced "probably OK" and I brought him home with a week's supply of Vitamin K. He celebrated his homecoming by curling up at Steve's feet and, after 10 minutes or so of good behavior, began stealthily chewing  through the computer power cord dangling nearby. Fortunately my "Miss Clavel" instincts kicked in and I suddenly sat forward and grabbed him by the tail and hauled, revealing the cord between his feet.  The cord was doctored with some electrical tape and Tucker was sent outside for a "time out".
    And this was just one day.

    In about a year, I firmly believe that Tucker will be a great dog. Until then, better keep your eyes open when you visit at our house.

    There are four sisters in my family, which by any reckoning, but particularly in these days of small families is a plethora of the feminine.
     My little brother, the last and only male sibling, calls himself “The thumb on the mitten of life” and I’m certain there are times when he feels a mere appendage, subsumed by the sisterhood.
     It has been said, by one who knows us, “Wherever two or more are gathered, there is a coven”. Ah, but there is magic both black and white
in the potent brew cooked up by so many sisters.
     The black magic howls like a hurricane of resentment, jealousy and old hurts,  nurtured on a diet of eye of newt and toe of “mom-liked-you-best” but when the magic is good it can lift you above any pain, any loss or despair  and sustain you, validate you, complete you- because in part, it IS you.

    We four sisters come by all this naturally,  having grown up watching our mother and her sisters, and our grandmother with her sisters alternately support and undermine, love and avoid each other. The sister relationship contains onion layers of affection and hate, competition and unwavering support, approval and resentment all nestled inside each other, contradicting each other making the eyes water and the tongue burn with things said and left unsaid.

     I do not know the bond of brotherhood,  but those of you who have no sisters cannot begin to fathom all that is contained in that small word.
     A sister is a mystery wrapped within an answer, a nemesis wrapped in a hero, a pain in the ass contained within a best friend. Because the sister who will slap you silly if she catches you touching her stuff will also beat the snot out of anyone she catches tormenting you.

     The sister who will still never let you forget the day in 1979 when you borrowed- and tore- her blue sweater is the same one who emptied out her closet and jewelry box for you when she heard that your ex was going to be at the Christmas party with his new girlfriend and you needed to look really, really fine.

     The one who gets out a calculator to figure exactly how much you owe her  every time you split the check at lunch is the one who quietly left 50 dollars on your kitchen counter  when she knews money was tight.

     You know the sister who has no children is the one who will tell you how to raise yours, and the sister with two divorces is the one who
gives you advice on men!
     But the sister who is working 2 jobs herself  is the one who makes cupcakes for your kids’ birthday party because you’ve been taking care of a sick baby all week.
     And the sister whose own life is so screwed up that she seems to be spinning in circles is your first and best lifeboat when you feel your own sanity circling the drain.

     Your sisters are the millstones around your neck and the wings at your back.
     They are the Gladys Kravitz’s of your life, always peering through the drapes, clucking their tongues,  gossiping and spreading rumors about you.
     They are also the superheros,  who will defend you even when you are wrong, love you even when you are hateful, and wait quietly on the porch to drive you home after your tearful break up with that stupid man  that they warned you never to get involved with in the first place.

     A sister can hurt you like no one else in the world and is the one you know you can always count on to make you feel better.

    Sisters come from the same place. They share much of the same stuff. They sat staring at their green beans through the same horrible fights  between your mom and dad, and they too wondered if somehow it wasn’t all their fault.
     They remember falling asleep to the sound of rain on the roof  of your grandparents’ summer cabin, with cousins sleeping like grubby, happy puppies all around, and how perfect and simple the world seemed then.
    They swore with you the same oath 30 years ago to never let mom find out how the window really got broken.

     A younger sister remembers when she thought you were the smartest, strongest,  most amazing person she knew. She watched in awe as you fought your battles,  knowing you were making things just a little easier for her when her time came.
      Your older sister still remembers when you were tiny and helpless
and momma let her hold you for a minute,  and made her promise to always keep you safe.

     Because, if she is your Gladys Kravitz,  your sister is also the Ethyl Mertz to your Lucy ricardo. She’ll get you into trouble and be the voice of reason to keep you out of it. She’ll laugh with you, and at you,
and listen to you even when you aren’t making any sense.
    And when the bon-bons are coming too fast down the conveyor belt in your life she’ll be right beside you, stuffing them into her mouth just as fast as she can.
     She will rat you out in a heart beat- and take your secret to her grave.

    My sisters are the best friends I will ever have,  probably because they know me better than anyone else ever will. Which is probably why I want, so frequently, to kill them and hide the bodies. They know every single button I have and how to push them,  just with the power of their own minds.

While I did not fully appreciate it growing up,  I thank my parents now for giving me so many sisters. In fact, I once apologized to my daughter for breaking the chain and giving her no sisters at all. But having often witnessed the family coven in all its gorey glory,  she just laughed and said “It’s ok mom- I’m kind of grateful for that!”

Sweetheart, there was a time when I too would have gladly traded  a few of my bossy, opinionated, domineering, controlling, beautiful, perfect, all-the-teachers-think-she’s-SO smart sisters for a room of my own.
     But I’ve had a few decades to look life and death, joy and sorrow,
loneliness and companionship square in the face, and I realize how important it is to know that someone has your back…
even if they might be giving you the finger while they’re back there.
>
    No, I wouldn’t trade my crazy sisters for anything.

"Come see me Mommy,
time by time"
she would whisper around her little thumb
as I walked to the door
and turned out the light.

Just four years old
and a little nervous about being left alone at night,
still, she let me go without tears or protest
because we had an agreement.
She knew that in a few minutes
I would slip back in the room
to stroke her hair
and whisper reassuring words in the dark.
And I would keep coming in,
time by time,
until she fell asleep,
secure in the knowledge that even when I was gone
I was never far away.

Today I took her to college.
I loaded up her computer and her bedspread,
her books and posters, T-shirts and funky hats
and drove her to another town
where I left her.
Then, as if it were just another day,
I drove home without her.
I stand now at the door to her room,
my eyes lingering on the scattered belongings,
mostly remnants of her vanished childhood
that she left behind today.
They, like me, are waiting
for her to return.

She’s not that far away.
And I know she’ll be home fairly often
at first,
for birthdays and vacations,
to visit old friends and load up on cookies.
but soon new friends,
summer jobs and study abroad
will become her priorities
and those visits will become fewer and farther between
until this home
isn’t her home
any longer.

"Come and see me baby"
I whisper as I turn off the light,
"Time by time".

So I’ve got this kid… and last week she brought home a pit bull.

   Katie spent her senior year’s internship working at the Franklin County Dog Shelter. She would come home covered with hair, de-wormer medicine and overflowing with love for all the dogs there, large and small.
   On the night of July 3rd as she was coming home around 11 PM and a big pit bull ran out in front of her car just a few blocks from our house and she narrowly avoided hitting him. She stopped to see if he was alright, saw he had no collar and, worried that he wouldn’t be so lucky with the next car that came along, she did what any bleeding heart dog lover would do. She opened the back door and whistled.
    The dog hopped happily in the car, and she drove home.
    "Um, dad" she phoned from the curb outside. "Could you come outside? And… bring a leash?"

   I admit I was taken aback when I threw on a sweater and joined them on the front porch. The dog was huge, and clearly at least one parent was a pit bull. Other than the pit bull-ish features it was quite good looking, very healthy and despite being with total strangers and unnerved by the firecrackers the neighborhood a**holes were setting off all around, seemed gentle enough. Katie put the dog on Boomer’s old leash and said she was going to walk him around the neighborhood for a while, hoping to encounter someone out looking for him.
   "Honey, I"m not sure it’s a good idea for you to walk around after dark" I said.
   "Mom- I"m walking a pit bull!" she pointed out, and what could I say? So I went to bed.
     After she returned she and her dad sat out front for another hour under the porch light, hoping someone would drive past and spot him there. No success. So she put the dog, an old scrap of rug and a bowl of water in the garage, and she curled up on the bench seat that had been removed from my van,  to keep him company.
   When I opened the door and peered out in the morning, Katie was asleep on the seat, curled tightly under a small corner of the blanket. The dog had pulled the rest ont o the floor and was laying on it. He saw me and wagged politely.
   Wow. A pit bull in my house. Guess I’d better feed it.

    We weren’t sure how Rocket and he would take to each other- the dog could have put Rocket’s entire head in his mouth! But they met, Rocket gave a warning "I’m the boss" growl or two, the dog backed away immediately, and things were cool.
    From her months working at the dog shelter, Katie knew that if this guy was not claimed by his owners within 3 days, they would euthanize him.
   "They don’t put pits up for adoption, mom. They  don’t want people taking them just to make them fight. I don’t want to take him there if we don’t have to. Can we keep him here for a few days?" And what could I say to that?
   At first I was worried that this dog, obviously still quite young, would just destroy my house. Pit bulls, after all, are legendary for their jaw power. But this fellow would grab up one of Rocket’s little stuffed "babies" and chew and chew on it- and leave it without a mark! I was amazed.
    Katie made up a bunch of fliers and put them up all over the neighborhood and we hoped for a phone call soon. In the meantime, we figured we needed to call him something other than "the dog" and eventually settled on "Moose". It was appropriate to his big gallumphing size yet gentle nature, and it also seemed very appropriate: we already had a "Rocket J. Squirrel" so now we had "Bullwinkle Moose."

   By the end of that first morning, I was in love with Moose. By the end of the next day, I think that, if he hadn’t been a pit bull, I"d have driven around the neighborhood and taken down the fliers so we could just keep him. He was the most sweet, funny and endearing dog I’ve met. When I was working in the garden, Moose tried to steal my trowel to play with. When I put a stop to that, he went after the small sycamore log I had pulled from the firewood pile to prop the sprinkler head where I wanted it. I shooed him away and tucked the log under the sprinkler. Moose watched me, and after a minute, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him slowly stalk up behind me, lean his head forward and delicately grab the edge of the log with his teeth and pull it out from under the sprinkler.
   "Moose!" I yelled and he snatched up his prize and went running away delightedly, all long legs and flopping ears, begging me to chase him to get it back. So of course I did, laughing all the while.

    But all good things come to an end. After 3 days Katie decided to take fliers to all the local vets offices and out to the dog shelter. That evening, while she was at a friends’ house, she got a call. The woman described her missing dog and when Katie said  "Yep- I"m pretty sure he’s in my back yard" the woman started to cry with relief. Katie came home and she and I put Moose in her car. The woman lived only about 5 blocks from us. Unnerved by the fireworks, Moose had slipped his collar and jumped the fence only a block or so from where Katie had encountered him.
    When we turned onto the street, we could see a woman and two young girls standing on the sidewalk, looking hopefully at our car.
    "Moose- you have kids! You didn’t tell me you had little girls!" I admonished. When they saw his big head through the window, the girls started jumping up and down and the woman put her hands to her mouth. They all rushed to the car before Katie even ahd the engine turned off.
   "Oh, it’s him! It’s Buddy! Oh Buddy, we were so worried about you!! I can’t believe you’re OK!" They swarmed him as he hopped happily out of the backseat. A door across the street opened and a neighbor came out- "Hey- Buddy is back!" (Buddy? No way. You should consider "Moose" instead)
    Well it was the best of all possible endings. The woman, tearful in her gratitude, offered Katie a reward, which she turned down. We said goodbye and drove back home quietly.   We were happy… yet a little sad.
    "I miss Moose" I said the next morning to no one in particular. "If I hear those people aren’t taking good care of him, I"m gonna have to steal him back."

    If there is a dog god, he sent Moose to Katie’s car, I must tell you. How many other people would have taken a stray pit into their back seat? And for his part, Moose made it pretty clear to us that we are ready for another dog in our life. We watched Moose chase Boomer’s beloved kong and walk on Boomer’s leash and were just happy to see them put to use. I think we’ll start actively looking for another dog to love pretty soon.
   I’d like a herding dog. I"ve been looking at Youtube videos of Australian shepherd puppies and falling hopelessly in love. We missed out on Boomer’s puppyhood, so it would be wonderful to see what he must have been like.
  I"m sure we’ll find a lovely dog some day. Of course, he won’t be Moose…

    Today Katie got a packet from O.U. with the student profiles of all the incoming freshmen in the Honors Tutorial program. They are a small and somewhat elite group, many of whom will be living in the Honors dorm, so I guess they want the kids to have a chance to get to know each other before they are living cheek-by-jowl.
    I flipped through some of the profiles to see what they had to say. Kids!

    It’s hard to tell from a one-page questionaire but some of them sound pretty cool. I was pleased to note how many put "The Beatles" in their list of favorite music, and noted an "X-Files" on one list of favorite TV shows! Several had put some version of "I don’t watch TV" on this line. I read this and  thought  either you’re lying or you have very strong parents!

   I particularly enjoyed seeing they answers to "Favorite Book" (and note to English teachers everywhere- not one of them answered "Bartlby the Scrivner"! Why in God’s name do you make children read this??) Some of them were:
    The Great Gatsby, Crime and Punishment   Oh please- these are the kind of answers you put down when your English teacher is looking over your shoulder, kid. What was your real favorite book?
    Catcher in the Rye  Ah, members of the Catcher cult, are you? This somewhat interesting book is one teachers love to have you read so they can seem like a cool, hip teacher, and kids like to list to seem "edgy".
    Lots of kids went for  Harry Potter (clearly those people hoping to ban these books as promoting witchcraft still have a lot of work to do) and also Catch 22, which is a good book but I didn’t read til I was like 40, because in high school I was too busy reading Bartlby the Scrivner- thanks Mrs. Fuller!
   The Poisonwood Bible  Awesome book. Katie should room with this kid.
   The Perks of Being a Wallflower  Several listed this one, which totally sounds like something I should have read in high school.
   (Katie, by the way, listed Flowers for Algernon (shout out to my old pal Hillary Keyes!) and As I Lay Dieing.)

   Another question was "The person I admire most" Lots of "my friend so-and-so’s" for this but a few interesting choices.
    Commander Spock  You… do realize he’s not a real person, right?
    Vladimir Ashkenazy  I actually had to look this one up. Good work!
    Bono and the Apostle Paul  Now this is a totally awesome name for a rock band! But I wonder if this girl knows what a woman-hater Paul was.
    One person answered Robert Kennedy, Ghandi and Audrey Hepburn. An interesting melange.
    Favorite musical group I could have pretty much skipped since I have never heard of many of their answers, although as I mentioned there was a smattering of "Beatles" and "Dave Matthews" and "Pink FLoyd".

   There were enough soccer responses to "Favorite sport to do" that I was forced to relive my mother-guilt for not getting Katie into soccer. (Note to next life- force the children to play soccer!) The Ghandi/Hepburn girl said cheerleading, which I"m just close-minded enough to think is not really a sport, even though I certainly would agree that gynmastics is a sport. I’m not sure why I have this prejudice-maybe it’s all the hand-clapping. Or maybe it’s because they don’t choose you for the gymnastics team based largely on how cute and popular you are.

   The last question asked "In 10 years I hope to be…" My darling daughter answered "Not living in Columbus". Ouch!   Several gave some version of changing the world. I sure hope someone does! Many simply said  happy which is a pretty good answer if you ask me. Because really, the rest comes out in the wash.
   Most listed a career goal within their chosen field of study- good luck with that! The best laid plans, as they say… (hey, come to think of it- no one listed "Of Mice and Men"  as a favorite book. Too bad)
   I loved the English major who said to own a home and have a good-paying career . Dude- you’re an English major!! You may want to re-think a few things!
   One replied Celebrating the 10th anniversary of filling out this wonderful form. Ah, sarcasm! Well done, Grasshopper! Another replied completely disconnected from society. Okay…. it’s good to have a goal, I guess.
   Still Living life to the fullest!  made me laugh myself silly. Holy cow sweetheart! At the advanced age of 28 you want to still live life to the fullest! Most of us pretty much pack it in and head for the rocking chair by 25, but not you!  Well God bless you and the titanium hip you’re going to need by age 29 if you don’t slow down! (Never talk about feeling old around a woman about to celebrate her 50th birthday!)

   And hands down, my all-time favorite answer: In 10 years I hope to be… or not to be. But perferably, "be".  A smart-ass! I totally forgive this girl for chosing Wuthering Heights as her favorite book.

    All in all it sounds like an interesting bunch.  Perhaps Katie will find a new best friend among them.