Four’s Flights

 Don’t know if I told you all the mini-drama of our WookieRosie’s adoption. Not a Sarah Bernhardt episode but, for what it’s worth:

    I found out WR was a breeder’s dog, was three years old and in that many years had had that many “homes”, while the breeder retained breeding rights. He’d gotten two litters from her, the last one a C-section. Apparently neither he nor any of her “owners” wanted her. No one had trained her beyond house-breaking. No one had bonded with her, or given her any attention, and no one wanted to keep her because she was badly behaved (big surprise!) and had developed an obsessive digging fetish which turned everyone’s yards into an Iraqscape. I think she was so bored and lonely she’d taught herself to dig just to have something to do, to get some little measure of fun in her life.

   So of course she ended up here. I’ve worked with difficult dogs all my life but WR was a real handful, very hard for me to work with because I’m getting on in years and have problems with my hip and she’s a powerhouse all-muscle big dog. Early on I made the mistake of taking my eye off her as we got our of the car, leashed together for a training session.  While I was reaching for something in the car, treats I think, WR decided waiting was too boring and bolted at full run from the front seat. I didn’t have time to disengage from her leash. The momentum of her leap pulled me literally off the ground and landed me with a whump flat on my side on the hard packed sand of the farm, and knocked me unconscious.

   When I came to, all five of the dogs were standing round me wondering what the mew game was. I have to admit I wondered that too, and then admitted to myself I was stumped. I got them all into the car and back to the house, got on the phone with a trainer-friend, and set up an appointment for the following day.

   It took about two months of hard, often frustrating work, but we finally got through the rough stuff, bonded, and fell in love, always the key to successful training, and she’s a great dog now, happy, responsive, full oflove and fun, and very cooperative.

   And in heat. She’s been through three heats since I adopted her and I’d hoped the breeder would give up on her (two tries failed, one he missed because he couldn’t find the right male for her) but no such luck. he’s coming to pick her up tomorrow for the weekend, to mate her with one of his young males.

    The point of all this — I’m feeling really torn. On the one hand, there’s really nothing in the world I love more than birthing and raising puppies. On the other, her C-section makes me worry for her safety, and on top of that I’m really opposed to deliberately breeding dogs when there are so many put to death every minute for lack of love and homes. I signed the contract, so I have no choice, and there’s no such thing as a morning after pill for dogs so here I am, stuck in the middle with WR and the mop. If she does get pregnant I’ll have to cancel the trip I’d planned with F. for February and I have mixed feelings about that too, but I won’t bore everyone with more ambivalence.

 The gala art opening to raise awareness and hopefully money for Audra’s Chimp Project is tonight, so am going to fasten on my good times face and happy myself up so I can help my friends set up the food and the video equipment, and get on with things.

Poor WR. I keep hugging her, which she loves, but I can see she’s wondering what this new game is. I am too.

🙂

big news, very domestic: F. suddenly (after talking about it for ten or so years), decided to go ahead and put my absolute favorite woodstove in our bedroom (it’s been languishing over at the barn apartment for years, unappreciated) so there’s a bit of constriction going on, lots and LOTS of dust. The floor pad for it, and also the wall behind it, will be covered with the same slates we have in our entryway and bathroom, African Multi which looks more or less like this:

16 x 16 African Gold Slate Tile Floor Flooring Floors – (eBay item 150191885637 end time Dec-12-07 06:27:07 PST)

though I can’t find an exact picture, but you get the idea. Gorgeous. Have been busy hauling them one by one into the bathroom for a wash so I can lay them out, and now the guys are cutting and cementing the bottom two courses of the wall slates, so they don’t need me for the moment.  Washing them felt very strange — it tugged at me that the red clay/dirt I was washing off was here all the way from Africa. I feel such a strong pull to Africa it was hard to watch it swirl down the drain. Can only hope that was not the closest I’ll ever get to African soil.

   Anyway, the stove is one of those semi-ornate Art Deco style cast iron ones with a lovely glass door so we’ll be able to watch the fire in it at night — am so excited! And very glad we’ll have a fireplace in the livingroom, a woodstove in the dining room, two in the basement, and now one in our bedroom, so if anything (knock on wood nothing) happens this winter we’ll be okay. With Frank going away for a while in January, this makes me feel a lot more secure.

    The article on my friend Audra and her chimp project came out (if anyone wants the article, please email me) and there’s going to be a BIG benefit at the Ross School  next week to raise funds and sell Chimp Art, so that’s fabulous news too. In this bleak economic period I worry we might not be able to get the funding for it, but we’re sure going to give it our best shot.

    One of the fattening and fun  seasonal parties was at a friend’s B&B in Southampton last night, our book group, where we discussed a few Donna Leon novels along with everything else going on in the world and ate ourselves silly with wonderful quiches (Kim’s a great cook) and toasted each other with some delicious wines. There were entirely too many desserts which I astonishingly managed to avoid, and then we gave each other presents. Mine was a T-Shirt that says “my book club can beat up your book club” which I adore, made us all laugh. The person who most loves my ornaments fortunately picked my gift, which of course was an ornament, and she’s thrilled with it so I’m delighted.

     Other than that and some more parties looming, not a whole lot new here — hope this little update suffices for my friends on E Street.

 Wondering how everyone else is faring on these brilliant sunny winter days — now better get back to the slates.

🙂

 Have had a totally self indulgent day so far (after morning chores) — a wax and a facial. The waxing wasn’t much fun (minor ouchies) but not bad either (nice Polish woman, very beautiful in a classical European way, named Anita — we talked politics and food), but the facial was pure heaven. Lots of lavender oil/mask massage things and massage of feet, hands, shoulders, neck and head — am now certifiably (no jokes) gorgeous.

F. just flew back from Mass. where he went to help a friend find a school for his autistic boy, said it was a fabulous school, very intense communication between staff and students, lots of healthy physical activity along with the cognitive and social/emotional work. Must be a fascinating place to work. Am glad he landed safely in all this limited visibility.

Lovely gray weather, light drizzle, perfect for sitting by the woodstove in the easy chair  for an hour with dogs on lap and shoulder. Off to make hot chocolate with many, many marshmallows to celebrate the two+ pounds weight loss and the drizzle. Hope everyone is having a splendid, shining day

🙂

just made a pot of Lundberg brown rice blend with a tiny bit of cilantro, a veggie bouillon cube and half a sweet onion in the pressure cooker. The blend has brown, black japonica, and wild rice in it, and is as fragrant and delicious as I imagine manna from the gods would be. broiled salmon and asparagus on top — pure heaven. Am actually wondering what everyone else has had for dinner.

🙂

 Click here: My Way News – Young Chimp Beats College Students

just heard from a recently transplanted old friend who opened a gallery in South Carolina. Along with her continued good health and happiness, she’s managed to sell three of my enormous pots! Am thrilled for both of us!

    We took the long way around the village on the way to Sag Harbor last night, the road that goes past night-black Town Pond, where the blue lights on the Christmas Tree afloat in its center made still glimmered doubles in the water — such a serene, soothing light, even the huge fat swans seem to gaze in awe though they’re more than likely annoyed, being swans. The little ones now quite as enormous as their parents are magically blending themselves whiter every day, so beautiful, but hard to watch as they grow up and get ready to leave us. Soon, the last two of the five babies we’ve watched all these leaf-turning months will be gone to other waters and the pond will be big and smooth and quiet again.

   Freezing salty cold in old whaling vintage-village Sag Harbor, tree lights showing off all along Main Street, windows aglow with ornaments and lovely things. We made our way down a windy side-street in the black night to the reading, the ancient shingles of Canio’s bookstore crinkling with frost in the street lights. All us old poetry nerds and book people wandered in to sit on metal folding chairs, our feet chilled, our senses alight with Marvin Bell’s sure voice and deeply passionate words slowly sinking into internal meaning somewhere inside. Poetry readings are strange and wonderful phenomena: the poems we’ve read on still white paper become somehow living lights when read by the poet aloud, things that glimmer like phosphorescence in water as they enter and mill around the mind.

    One of the faux-literati who haunt these evenings was there in full force, miraculously for once minus his faux fisherman’s boots, faux fisherman’s belt and faux fisherman’s knife for a change, but still fully there with the ersatz bonhomie and hail fellow frenzy of a failed poet. I scooted my chair a bit so as to block the never ending flow of his attention-begging facial expressions with the back of a handy tall person’s head, but his audible breathing,  melodramatic and timed to fill in Marvin’s pauses, was not easily blockable. I spent some time trying to remember Nardy Pest Control’s number, but now their best guy Mike has moved to Jamaica, they probably no longer have a spray for that.

   A little chat with the Bells and El Canio himself with his dashing new artfully trimmed beard after the reading, and then home to seared shrimp and roasted broccoli with a very rich, full-bodied and much-needed Cabernet that finally warmed our feet. Lovely smells from the cherry wood in the woodstove, a three dog night, one under the covers, one curled up tight on the throw beside my pillow, and one snuggled up as close as she could to F’s side where she would stick forever if she had a glue for that.

Nice night, all told.