I just got back from house and dog sitting for friends. It has been 5 years since my darling Tucker died and it has taken me this long to come to grips with it and to even consider the possibility of another dog. While at Rose and Don's I let the dogs sleep with me in the giant bed. They have 2 Chihuahua's (Santana and Freddie), a wire haired dacshund (Jeffery) and Goliath, the giant black lab (who I call Golly and thinks he is a poodle). It is a process getting into bed, some want lifting in and the rest can do it themselves. Golly is huge so doesn't often get in the bed. He puts his head on the bed next to your pillow and thumps his tail. Eventually, as the ear scratching goes on he slides his upper half up onto the blankets to have his underarms rubbed. When I was there he was amazed and a little confused to discover that his hind end, almost by itself, had arrived on the bed and he was suddenly all in. He wasn't sure if he was being naughty and I didn't have the heart to propel him onto the floor.
The little ones do their own special dance before getting settled. The Chihuahua's tend to walk across the top of my head as I am lying on the pillow (ouch you're on my hair) and Freddie likes to scale me like a mountain goat and gaze into my eyes while I scratch his tummy. Eventually I get fed up and push him off and he flips the blanket with his nose and gets under. He likes to be as close to my head as possible. Santana likes to be under the covers too. Jeffery likes to play a bit before retiring so we have a little "I'm gonna getcha" before he settles down on top of the sheets. Interesting to note that all the little ones sleep on the same side, whether Golly is there or not.
Once they were all asleep I had the most overwhelming sense of melancholy listening to them snore and whiffle and twitch. For ten years that was my lullaby and I had forgotten how dear it is to me. I had to race Tucker to the bed and get under the covers because he would jump up and if I wasn't under the sheets he hogged the bed. He had a really remarkable way of spreading himself out so that eventually I was sleeping on the thinnest edge of bed while he happily snored away. He would squeeze me out from the covers like toothpaste coming out of the tube. I had also forgotten about the acrobatic sleep positions I adopted to work myself around Tucker so I could get comfortable.
He loved to have his tummy and armpits rubbed. He would lie on his back and I would lightly tickle him. He would half smile and doze: and like my father watching TV with his eyes closed, could tell when I was about to switch things up and would open his eyes and beat his tail against the floor. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, like coming home to a dog that is glad to see you. I don't know if dogs grieve but I know they wait with heavy hearts. Always, the sad face at the top of the stairs when I left for work and the joyous reunion upon my return. I challenge a man to make me feel so wanted and loved.
He was my Tucky Duck, Tutter Turtin, mommy's pwecious (yeah I know ew!!!), chubby bubby and any number of monikers as they occurred. We walked in Dale Meadows almost every day no matter the weather and had some astonishing interactions with birds, coyotes and came close to a skunk once. He was never a swimmer but he liked to wade in the creek so on hot days we would wander over after supper and he would blissfully wander up and down the creek bed, having a little drink and cooling off. He was never one for the heat.
After he died I couldn't bear to go in the meadow and didn't for about 3 years. When I finally went back I was surprised to see some of the landmarks had changed but the stand of trembling aspen endured as did a dwindling hay bale about 4 years old. The creek was overgrown and a subdivision backed on to it complete with a new footbridge. The old willow had been chainsawed out but the landscape was pretty much unchanged.
I had forgotten how the seasons turned in the meadow. You could tell what was coming weather wise by the temperature, the birds and the trees. The wind would start at one end and you could see it coming for a half mile as the grass waved it along. In the fall and winter the dry grasses hissed like snakes against the gray fence posts and the leaves on the aspens softly rattled and trembled in the summer and fall. There was a gorgeous little hollow under the aspens. You had to cross a plank to get to it and it was sheltered and quiet and unseen. Once while making my way across Tucker bumped me and I ended up with one leg in the creek bed mud and the other on the plank. I am not strong enough to pull myself up so ended up flinging myself, rear end first, onto the muddy bank.
Tuck was overweight and completely and dangerously indulged with people food. He was a notorious table beggar, a mama's boy to the hilt (would not walk with my landlady, who he had known all his life. Just dragged her back to the house), even when he got out of the yard never wandered far from his dinner plate and shed like crazy (all black clothing was removed at the door lest his blond hair get all over it and he was terribly car sick (some gruesome car rides with him slavering and whining in the back seat were had just to go down to the beach). He upchucked on the Boyyo on the way home from the SPCA.
I didn't find out about dog love until late in life. Did you know that dogs sigh? Did you know they bow to you (front end down) when they are inviting you to play? These were all the wonderful things I discovered with Tucker. The best and most important things I gained were the unconditional love of a creature who adored me. He was so easy to please, uncomplicated and giving. I got so much from our relationship and I challenge anyone who has not loved a dog to say they aren't family.
Tucker got sick slowly and I think he eventually had cancer, lymphoma, judging by his swollen face, lethargy and depression. Late in his life as an only dog a dominant wiener dog with issues arrived and Tuck took that hard too. He wasn't the pushy type and Jordie bullied him some and forced his way into our interactions and it hurt Tuck. He couldn't grasp that our love had changed and he moped and sighed a lot. The day he died, I got up and found him with a swollen face. He hadn't been eating or drinking and could barely make it half a block on a walk. I took him to the vet and we agreed that without expensive intervention (I had just been laid off) his life was coming to an end. We decided to put him to sleep. I can barely type this I am crying so hard. I couldn't stop sobbing and while I sat on the floor crying he came over to comfort me.
We laid him down and I lay down beside him and then he died. I went home with his collar.
I have never experienced anything that painful. I felt completely broken. Who do you share the depth of that sadness with? I called my Dad, he and Mom had four dogs. he was sympathetic but then I had to go home without Tucker. I had to put away his dishes and toys and blankets. The next few weeks were torture. I didn't want to go home. Didn't want to go to bed. Didn't want anything but Tucker to tell you the truth.
I still miss him more than I can say. He was a wonderful dog and companion. He filled a void in my heart and life at a time when nothing other than divine intervention could explain his arrival. I am told dogs don't have souls and thus don't go to heaven but this is something me and the church are going to have to disagree on. Tucker had a soul as surely as I do and I don't want to go to any heaven that doesn't have him there waiting for me.
He forgave my tempers, my slacking on walks, late meals and even our 6 week sojourn to Ontario the summer before he died. He loved me and more importantly let me love him with no complications or questions. He gave my day to day life a richness and depth I never would have had otherwise. He brought me friends and neighbours and challenges and hope, especially hope when I needed it most.
I have been really blessed since having raised Tuck to know lots of dogs. It's a bit of an addiction really, the need to have your fingers in the hair of a dogs neck or scratch their ears. My friend Buster, who was a squat little brown and white creature who prayed before he ate, Rookie the wild, who, when taken off leash at the meadow tore across it and out of site like a kid released for summer vacation, Duchess the Newfoundlander who lovingly strolled over and leaned against you full weight while you scratched at the top of her tail and Pip, who at seventeen waddles along at just about the right pace for me and my arthfitic hip to keep up.
There were all the fostered puppies from the SPCA that my landlady and I raised until adoption. We fed them pablum, scrubbed their stiff little pablum collars after meals, cleaned up after them, answered their cries in the middle of the night, chased them around the garden and used them to teach the neighbourhood kids about picking them up and loving them. Happy me to sit with a palm full of puppy at the end of the day and rock them to sleep. So wonderful.
I could go on forever but my advice in closing is get a dog. Go to the SPCA, Humane Society or pound and get your dog love going. There are so many dogs out there waiting for homes and I tell you the rewards are more than worth it. I say this with all sincerity that having a dog has been the second best thing that has happened to me in my life (Boyyo comes first).
I think I might be ready for another dog now. I know what I want in one and God knows what I need so I await divine intervention to deliver me a new love. I have been spoiled by Tucker and I am glad to have been. No one has ever loved me like this. I really look forward to the new character and insights. I look forward to a hairy back pressed up against me in the bed, walking at a leisurely pace, revisiting the seasons and tickling those underarms. I'm not set on a breed or size or gender just so long as there is love. Lots and lots of love.
See you next time
Cheers
Jane
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
I Love Words
Hi Everyone/Anyone
I have been accused of talking too much most of my life. I will admit to, on occasion, being swept away by my own voice but the truth is I love words. I love them. They are entertaining, interesting, stimulating and even a little dangerous and naughty. (Here I see Nana giggling behind her hand). They roll around on the tongue like marbles just waitng to be played. I appreciate their basic design as a tool of communication but they can be so much more.
Advertisers have known forever that words are powerful and far reaching (yeah, reach right into YOUR wallet). I mean why have tomato soup when you can have rich, creamy tomato soup with a hint of basil and Parmesan cheese? Before the advent of TV imagery with its 'sexy' and 'smiling' and 'this can be you' bologna words were king. Marketers had to try to create a desirable portrait of the product seductive enough that you would want to buy it. All done with words my friend.
When I was a teen I used the good old 'F' word within an inch of its life. Everything was 'F'ing' this and 'F'ing 'that. Pointed but not very creative. Then I started to read with a vengence. The classics such as Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and all Margaret Lawrence's books. I fell in love with the taste, the feel, the sensuality of words. Their ability to sweep me away to another time. The dewey moors, the dark bedrooms and the tempermental nuances of an inappropriate love was astonishing to me. I didn't give up the 'F' word until much later but regretted every time I used it for its lazy descriptiveness.
I could hardly read a book anymore that didn't teach me something, introduce a new thought or way of being in the world. I was starving to death and words were the only sustenance I wanted. I read books by Native North Americans and fell under the trance of the native way of looking at life. Their traditions, relationship to the land opened me in a way I had never recognized I wanted opening. I think Black Elk Speaks was one of my favorites.
Oh and how about John Steinbeck...East of Eden.Timshel. If you could see me right now I am practically swooning from the romance of it all. It was unbelievable to me how he wove that word in front and back of the novel. Somerset Maughm is another favorite. I want to be romanced, transported, educated, and maybe even spanked a little (Again, Nana giggling behind her hand).
Now this all brings me to a sorrow I have been experiencing while reading lately. For some reason some of the modern authors I have come across have adopted a short hand sort of style that just isn't rich enough for me. I especially encounter this in short stories, where people and concepts drop out of the air and end the same way with no resolution and to my mind no apparent point. I don't understand the concept and I can't image that I am so antiquated in my needs that it is actually beyond my understanding.
Why do authors think it is okay to write in twitterese? I wonder if they know their literary technique is going to become obsolete quickly. Do they not want their books to stand the test of time? The classics still resonate because, not just their themes but their style remain constant. I sort of think that we have raised a generation where spelling, the dreaded and boring grammar and punctuation have lost their value and magic. I am no genius when it comes to these things but I know the purpose of a well placed comma can be the equivalent of a raised eyebrow or a pregnant pause...forceful, dark, tempting.
Now the inital point of my blog today was talking. I assume that people don't just want to hear the short, and boring version of the story. I assume and they want to hear and I want to tell the overflowing and adjective rich tale. Storytelling traditions are lost in our culture, which is sad because sitting around listening to someone ad lib, rework and embellish a story is pretty fantastic. I don't just want to report I want you to hear the story. Let me paint a picture for you. Here, I'll put you in the damp, pungent forest or how about at the coconut sun tan lotion infused beach. Oh, hey wait have you been to the meadow and stood under the trembling aspens and listened to what the leaves are saying or watched the wind come toward you in waves in the long, itchy, green grass. I can take you to the dark, cool night and sit you in a wrinkled and slouching camp chair where you can tilt your head back and see the big dipper or Orion's belt while being steeped in wood smoke from the fire.
I love words like hubris...arrogance caused by exessive pride (Hello Bernie Madoff!!), or corpulent...fatness, obesity (roll it around on your tongue and it makes perfect sense as a word). I am famous for giving nicknames to people (why use Willow when you can say cha cha or my son doo or doodle? Right?).
I don't want to be petulant but I do want to be corny. How about, stagnant, didactic, incorrigible? More, more, more please. No, no, no to CU or waz up! Save me and save words.
Use them, play with them, make mistakes with them, buy a dictionary and thesaurus (make sure they are good ones, I have one that doesn't even have some of the words I look up..OUTRAGE!!)
Most of all when you talk, fill'er up. Pull every phrase you can out of your hat and give it to people full blow. Annie Dillard is a wonderful wordsmith. Read her. Patti Griffin and Bruce Springsteen as well as Tupac are/were brilliant writers. Do a bit of research on their lyrics and find your own rhythm. It really is music to the ears. Tell people they are up and down more often than a June bride's nightgown.
I am advocating a revolution. Don't settle for medicore. Rise up people and feed your hunger for knowledge and words by using them. Whip out those heavy, mouldy smelling dictionaries your parents had and find a word a day to surprise someone with. Heck, surprise yourself. Go, go do it now.
Ultimately I don't care if I am accused/denounced/indicted for talking to much, because I know I don't just want to commune but decorate. Words are free, a joy available to everybody so why not take advantage of the opportunity/chance/ocassion to make conversation more
flamboyant/ostentatious/ornate. By they way encourage your kids, all ages, to talk, talk, talk with as much joy and depth of expression as they can. Write down those baby words. My boy was tryng to describe an eaves trough at 2 and called it a water chimney -brilliant no? The bees were beezing along and the cows were conspirisizing in the field in his world. Yeah for language!!
See you next time
Jane
I have been accused of talking too much most of my life. I will admit to, on occasion, being swept away by my own voice but the truth is I love words. I love them. They are entertaining, interesting, stimulating and even a little dangerous and naughty. (Here I see Nana giggling behind her hand). They roll around on the tongue like marbles just waitng to be played. I appreciate their basic design as a tool of communication but they can be so much more.
Advertisers have known forever that words are powerful and far reaching (yeah, reach right into YOUR wallet). I mean why have tomato soup when you can have rich, creamy tomato soup with a hint of basil and Parmesan cheese? Before the advent of TV imagery with its 'sexy' and 'smiling' and 'this can be you' bologna words were king. Marketers had to try to create a desirable portrait of the product seductive enough that you would want to buy it. All done with words my friend.
When I was a teen I used the good old 'F' word within an inch of its life. Everything was 'F'ing' this and 'F'ing 'that. Pointed but not very creative. Then I started to read with a vengence. The classics such as Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and all Margaret Lawrence's books. I fell in love with the taste, the feel, the sensuality of words. Their ability to sweep me away to another time. The dewey moors, the dark bedrooms and the tempermental nuances of an inappropriate love was astonishing to me. I didn't give up the 'F' word until much later but regretted every time I used it for its lazy descriptiveness.
I could hardly read a book anymore that didn't teach me something, introduce a new thought or way of being in the world. I was starving to death and words were the only sustenance I wanted. I read books by Native North Americans and fell under the trance of the native way of looking at life. Their traditions, relationship to the land opened me in a way I had never recognized I wanted opening. I think Black Elk Speaks was one of my favorites.
Oh and how about John Steinbeck...East of Eden.Timshel. If you could see me right now I am practically swooning from the romance of it all. It was unbelievable to me how he wove that word in front and back of the novel. Somerset Maughm is another favorite. I want to be romanced, transported, educated, and maybe even spanked a little (Again, Nana giggling behind her hand).
Now this all brings me to a sorrow I have been experiencing while reading lately. For some reason some of the modern authors I have come across have adopted a short hand sort of style that just isn't rich enough for me. I especially encounter this in short stories, where people and concepts drop out of the air and end the same way with no resolution and to my mind no apparent point. I don't understand the concept and I can't image that I am so antiquated in my needs that it is actually beyond my understanding.
Why do authors think it is okay to write in twitterese? I wonder if they know their literary technique is going to become obsolete quickly. Do they not want their books to stand the test of time? The classics still resonate because, not just their themes but their style remain constant. I sort of think that we have raised a generation where spelling, the dreaded and boring grammar and punctuation have lost their value and magic. I am no genius when it comes to these things but I know the purpose of a well placed comma can be the equivalent of a raised eyebrow or a pregnant pause...forceful, dark, tempting.
Now the inital point of my blog today was talking. I assume that people don't just want to hear the short, and boring version of the story. I assume and they want to hear and I want to tell the overflowing and adjective rich tale. Storytelling traditions are lost in our culture, which is sad because sitting around listening to someone ad lib, rework and embellish a story is pretty fantastic. I don't just want to report I want you to hear the story. Let me paint a picture for you. Here, I'll put you in the damp, pungent forest or how about at the coconut sun tan lotion infused beach. Oh, hey wait have you been to the meadow and stood under the trembling aspens and listened to what the leaves are saying or watched the wind come toward you in waves in the long, itchy, green grass. I can take you to the dark, cool night and sit you in a wrinkled and slouching camp chair where you can tilt your head back and see the big dipper or Orion's belt while being steeped in wood smoke from the fire.
I love words like hubris...arrogance caused by exessive pride (Hello Bernie Madoff!!), or corpulent...fatness, obesity (roll it around on your tongue and it makes perfect sense as a word). I am famous for giving nicknames to people (why use Willow when you can say cha cha or my son doo or doodle? Right?).
I don't want to be petulant but I do want to be corny. How about, stagnant, didactic, incorrigible? More, more, more please. No, no, no to CU or waz up! Save me and save words.
Use them, play with them, make mistakes with them, buy a dictionary and thesaurus (make sure they are good ones, I have one that doesn't even have some of the words I look up..OUTRAGE!!)
Most of all when you talk, fill'er up. Pull every phrase you can out of your hat and give it to people full blow. Annie Dillard is a wonderful wordsmith. Read her. Patti Griffin and Bruce Springsteen as well as Tupac are/were brilliant writers. Do a bit of research on their lyrics and find your own rhythm. It really is music to the ears. Tell people they are up and down more often than a June bride's nightgown.
I am advocating a revolution. Don't settle for medicore. Rise up people and feed your hunger for knowledge and words by using them. Whip out those heavy, mouldy smelling dictionaries your parents had and find a word a day to surprise someone with. Heck, surprise yourself. Go, go do it now.
Ultimately I don't care if I am accused/denounced/indicted for talking to much, because I know I don't just want to commune but decorate. Words are free, a joy available to everybody so why not take advantage of the opportunity/chance/ocassion to make conversation more
flamboyant/ostentatious/ornate. By they way encourage your kids, all ages, to talk, talk, talk with as much joy and depth of expression as they can. Write down those baby words. My boy was tryng to describe an eaves trough at 2 and called it a water chimney -brilliant no? The bees were beezing along and the cows were conspirisizing in the field in his world. Yeah for language!!
See you next time
Jane
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