Down the Line

It was a dingy little storefront in a questionable part of town with a blue neon hand over the door. All it said was “Palm Reader.”

“We have to go!” my adventurous high school friend said. So of course we did. The medium looked like the lady down the street, only more tired, like this might be the end of her second shift. And she wasn’t named Madame-Somebody or Serenity or Natasha or even Lilith. It was something like Mrs. Palmer.

I refused to pay the full $20 for something I didn’t believe in. So Mrs. Palmer read half my life for ten bucks. No kidding. On-sale palm reading. Half my life for half the money.

Here is what you don’t want happening when a palm reader looks at your palm: she looked upset. She sort of had an upset-looking face, anyway, but I’m certain it got worse. More frowny.

And she told me something sort of negative. Then she said she was feeling tired and not very psychic, and she gave me a coupon to come back. I didn’t even get my full half-a-life. Of course I didn’t go back, either.

Much later, I was sorry I didn’t. The negative thing not only came true, but it came true in a big way. In fact, it could be said that it became the bane of my life for a long, long time.

Last weekend, my more adventurous friends exclaimed, “We have to go!” So of course I did. It was still $20 after all these years. Ironic that at my age, I paid for the whole life this time. But here’s the weird thing: I was a little nervous. Silly or not, I was scared that my palm, my fate and my life were tainted somehow.

Instead, this happier-looking palm reader—named Bree—immediately announced that I was a writer. “It’s like you have to write,” she said. I found myself looking at my clothing to see if I had on anything that might give it away. Not a hint. Then she told me that I’d been through some bad stuff, some of which she described so accurately that I felt shocked and raw. How odd it feels to have a stranger tell you your secrets!

But then she told me I’d changed course, and now I was back on track. She predicted some good things. Very good things. “The lines in the hand change, you know,” she said. Did she make that up? I don’t care.

When I was young and smart, I viewed the life I hadn’t yet lived through the safe, logical theory of black and white rules. Now that I am old and silly, I view life through the reality of experience—experience that tells me life is wild and colorful and risky and full of broken rules. I no longer worship logic because I no longer want to explain everything. Life is much more fun with a little mystery. The question is no longer, “What do I believe?” The question is now, “What makes me happy to believe?”

This does. Having adventurous friends who go to see palm readers makes life better. I love knowing even at this age, I have a new hand.

 Not all those who wander are lost. ~J. R. R. Tolkien

Honored

Hard to believe it’s been an entire year since our beloved dog, Buddy, died. The new Chicken Soup for the Soul dog book, called I Can’t Believe My Dog Did That, is coincidentally due out next Tuesday.

A few months ago, I had a dream. I don’t remember my dreams much anymore, so I’ve taken to writing them down. This was a particularly vivid one, so I wrote it right away. Here is what I wrote:

I dreamed I saw Buddy. We were in a pretty, shady park that was lined with hydrangeas, and Buddy was just sitting in front of me, staring at me. Which is what he used to do when he was alive, come to think of it. I knew he was dead, but it was possible for him to come back for a visit. In fact, he somehow let me know that he was back due to a special occasion. I have no idea what the special occasion was—it wasn’t his birthday, which was back in March or April, but I didn't want to ask him because he seemed to think I should know.

Later that day, I looked up the meaning of hydrangeas: friendship, understanding, devotion, gratitude.

Still later that day, I received the message that my story about Buddy, “Happy Holi-dog,” was accepted for publication in the aforementioned book.

Friendship, understanding, devotion, gratitude. I will always feel those things for Buddy. And for Chicken Soup for the Soul, come to think of it.

 Friends are the family we choose for ourselves. ~Edna Buchanan

Improper Poll: Water to Water

I recently mentioned that my daughter’s fish died. This was an especially sad thing, because this female beta named Rory (named after a Gilmore Girl, I believe) was my daughter’s first pet for which she was solely responsible. It was her “college fish.” Even sadder, Rory had developed a tumor that she’d been struggling with for quite a while. To quote from her eulogy, Rory really was a fighting fish.

When the children were little, we had hamsters. They are cute, easy to care for, and I honestly think they are perfectly happy living their whole lives in a little plastic cage as long as they’re well cared for. But they live about a nanosecond, so it felt like we were always doing hamster funerals. I got pretty good at those.  I even made little hamster headstones out of a mini muffin tin and plaster of Paris.

I had my last dog cremated and we buried the ashes under a marble headstone.  Then we moved, so it seemed almost pointless. When Buddy passed away, I did have him cremated, but I didn't retrieve the remains this time. I was going to bury one of his toys, but in the end, I wanted to keep it.

I told my daughter I’d respect her choice of funerals. When she was a little girl, she got upset with me for giving one of our fish the “water burial." But a land burial for a water creature just didn’t feel right. This time she agreed, and it was a nice service—though our funeral party of three was a little crowded in the bathroom we chose.

Do you have a special way of remembering your late pets?

In Loving Memory of Buddy, April 1996-September 14, 2011

Our beloved black lab and terrier mix, Buddy (aged 15 1/2), went into heart failure last night. Today he passed peacefully and at home with the help of the House-call Vet, who even waited for my son to get here from out of town. It was a gentle end to a wonderful, long life. He will be dearly missed.

This was printed in Chicken Soup for the Soul What I Learned from the Dog, © 2009.

Best Dog in the World

by T’Mara Goodsell

Years ago, I owned the very best dog in the world.

I was a child when we got her. She was a graceful brown hound, a foundling who taught me that our pets are not purchased, but ordained.

She romped when I did and knew how to smile in that funny way that only some dogs have. She grew up with me, always there when I needed her. My grown hand still remembers the sleek bump on the top of her head and that gentle divot just past her nose that fit my index finger just perfectly.

She passed away during one of my college vacations. My heart broke then, and I knew that there would never be another dog like her, and there hasn’t been. I was sure that I could never love another dog as much as I’d loved her.

Fortunately, I was wrong about that part.

My next dog came into my life when I was married. My husband traveled for a living, and I was often lonely. This dog grew into a lumbering wolfhound/sheepdog mix who taught me patience. He was a large, grizzled sentry, that dog. He rarely left my side until the children were born, and then he became their guardian, too. I can still feel that swirl of fur along his back and the weight of his chin when it rested in my lap.

When he passed away, my heart broke. As much as I had loved that childhood dog, I had been wrong. This was the very best dog in the world. There would never be another dog like him, and there hasn’t been. I was sure I would never love another dog as much as I’d loved him.

I was wrong again.

We got the next one, a loping black lab-and-terrier mix, when the children were little. He taught me the importance of adapting. He was everyone’s dog from the beginning, and that was just as it should be. When he played tug of war with the children, he dragged them across the kitchen floor as they shrieked with laughter. He always seemed to sleep in the room of the child who needed his company the most.

These days his face is expressively gray, and he spends more time with me since the almost-grown children aren’t around so much. The other day my oldest, home from college, played tug of war. We all laughed—just a little—as the dog was gently pulled across the kitchen floor.

He is, of course, the very best dog in the world. I will never forget that exquisitely soft tuft of fur behind his ears or the tickly feel when he nuzzles. There won’t be another dog like him.

And that’s okay, because we will never be at this point in our lives again.

Sometimes I’ve wondered why two species that get along so well should have such different life spans. It just doesn’t seem right. And then I wonder if that’s part of the lesson: To teach us that love itself has a spirit that returns again and again and never really dies.

It’s amazing, in a way, how they bring to our ever-changing lives exactly what it is that we need at the moment. They make room for one another, this family of dogs who has never even met. And they fit—into our families, into our lives, into our memories, and into our hearts—because they always have been and always will be the best dogs in the world.

One’s first love is always perfect until one meets one’s second love. ~Elizabeth Aston

New Leash on Life

A while back, I mentioned that our 15-year old dog had a large, benign eye growth that the vet said couldn’t be removed because a general anesthetic was too risky. It grew to be so enormous, it looked like he was missing an eye. He was pawing and rubbing at it constantly, not just because it was obstructing his vision, but because it was irritating the eye itself. He’d even occasionally rub parts of it off, which would buy him a few days of semi-relief. It also meant he bled all over his eye, us, and the house. I can’t imagine the constant discomfort he must've had.

It just happened that I found another vet who thought he could sedate Buddy enough to cauterize the growth with a local anesthetic, but on the day of the procedure, I got a call. After taking a better look, the vet realized that the thing was rooted in too massively for cauterization. It would have to be cut out under the riskier general anesthetic.

Fortunately this vet and his associate have both worked at emergency clinics. He assured me they were “pretty good with” anesthetics. Buddy not only made it through the surgery, but he did so well that the vet gave him a partial tooth cleaning (free of charge) and a good nail clipping. If only he’d given our rather dandruffy dog a bath….



One day after eye surgery

 That was one week ago. It was clear almost immediately that Buddy was much happier, even with his eye shaved, swollen and stitched together. Now the swelling is almost gone, and Buddy plays with toys and wags his tail again. He pranced yesterday. Pranced!


Six days after eye surgery

Many, many thanks to Dr. Brad Waltman for improving our dear Budster’s quality of life. And as always, thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers!

Friends are God’s way of taking care of us. ~ Anonymous

Improper Poll: Very Un-Playful Possum

Number one on my list of things to do this morning was “Dispose of dead baby possum on the patio.”  Not a fun start to my day.

I first discovered it when the dog showed me last night. I hoped it was playing possum as they say, but I kept conducting possum checks through the window, and if it was pretending to be dead, it sure was convincing. I enlisted the kids’ help. One of them surmised that the dog might have “squeaked” it, but we're not entirely sure how he could have caught it in the first place, being deaf and as legally blind as Mr. Magoo. 

I admired its acting ability when the rain came and it was still playing possum, but when the hail fell, it could have been nominated for an Academy Award. The flies this morning were the clincher, though I left the plastic bag open in the garbage just in case.

What’s the grossest thing you've done lately? (Sorry if this is lame. I had another question for you, but I've decided to save it till Wednesday.)

Pupdate

Your thoughts and prayers meant so much when I thought our dog had been stricken by a stroke a month or two ago! Here’s an update. According to the vet, this was an inner ear problem sometimes called Canine Geriatric Vestibular Syndrome. He said there are several causes, and if it was due to something less insidious than a brain tumor, Buddy should recover fully within 14 days. Our beloved dog did recover, but it took a little longer than 14 days and he continues to have some residual effects. Does that mean it’s a brain tumor? I sure hope not.

In the meantime, we’ve all adjusted to this new way of being. Buddy is very old (15 and counting) no matter how you look at it. He still carries his head to the side. He occasionally stumbles and bumps into things. Sometimes he falls over when he shakes his head; he’s learned to stand next to us, and we’ve learned to reach out and steady him. In fact, we’ve steadied him so many times that he does what we call The Swoon: He’ll lean in to be scratched and just fall over if you’re not paying attention. He can no longer run without careening into things. He’s almost completely deaf and has been medicated for arthritis for some time. He has cataracts and one of those eyelid tumors that dogs get. The vet said it was too risky to do surgery at Buddy’s age, but it’s getting very close to touching his eyeball. What options will he have when that happens? I don’t know. I just pray whatever choices we make will be the ones he would make for himself.

Other than that, he seems quite happy and has actually earned himself some perks. He got so thin for a while that I started adding special canned food made for arthritic dogs mixed in with his kibble, and he loves it. I’ve elevated his dishes and moved the whole “dish throne” into the dining room because the rug in there is easier on his limbs and helps keep him from slipping. We joke that the dog is the only one in our house who actually dines in the dining room.

He has a bed in a very unattractive and inconvenient place right now: in the middle of everything. But when I move it to clean, Buddy stands in the spot and gives me The Pitiful Look until I put it all back. I figure his heart’s desire is to be in the midst of all of us, and this helps him to be there in comfort. He’s earned it.

He can still go in and outside and has learned to maneuver the two stairs again. This was the most important improvement of all. Carrying a sixty-pound dog down brick stairs is just not fun for any of the involved parties.

He still often whines, barks, and paces in the night for no apparent reason, but I hear that’s all part of extreme dog aging. Once my son got home from college for the summer, he started taking over so I could get enough sleep to function at work the next day. It helped immensely.

Like any care-givers, we are taking it one day at a time. We’re grateful for each one. And as always, we’re grateful for all of your prayers and good wishes!

What a wretched lot of old shriveled creatures we shall be by-and-by. Never mind—the uglier we get in the eyes of others, the lovelier we shall be to each other; that has always been my firm faith about friendship. ~George Eliot

…And it IS Happy

Today is Buddy’s official 15th birthday—at least the one we pretend is official, even though he probably turned 15 a while ago. Just two days ago, I wasn’t sure if he would make it.

Last week, I saw our dear dog crumpled and shaking on the floor and called a vet-who-makes-house calls. And then I lay next to him and sobbed my goodbyes.

But the vet—who called Buddy "beyond old"—said that what he has might not be fatal. Truthfully, we still don’t know. Since then, I’ve slept on the floor to keep him from hurting himself, cooked him special foods and then hand-fed them to him bite by bite, awakened every few hours around the clock to carry him outside in a towel (not so easy with a 60 lb. dog), run home during my half-hour lunch breaks to let him out, rearranged the furniture and rugs to help keep him from falling, kept records of his potty breaks, and cried with joy when he picked up a toy and barked out the window once more at a passerby. Yesterday he ate his first meal in almost two weeks.

And he’s been improving in tiny increments each day. He still has to be helped down the two stairs to the backyard and whines/barks whenever we try to sleep—I am beyond tired right now—but we’re hoping those too will improve. I apologize for having neglected your blogs these past two weeks.  Am hoping to start reclaiming my life.

Throughout it all I've been soothed by your prayers and good wishes. There are times I am certain I can feel them. I simply can't express how much that means to me.

I know that, no matter what, it’s only borrowed time. But the older I get, the more I realize it’s all borrowed—all of it. Now this one borrowed thing is all the more precious to us. As long as living isn’t a burden to him, we hope we have him around. When it’s time to give back our borrowed loved one, we’ll know we did the very best we could with what we had.

Now that’s a birthday gift.

Which reminds me—Chicken Soup for the Soul My Dog’s Life coincidentally came out last week just as we were dealing with Buddy’s illness. My story in it is called "The Last Gift."  If you are so inclined, please read the book and consider posting a review on Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com, and thank you!

And welcome to new blog follower Josh Hoyt!  Don't forget to stop by his blog and diagnose your characters.

And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. ~Kahlil Gibran

Improper Poll: Meanderings of a Muddled Mind

Thank you all so much for your kind thoughts and prayers for our beloved dog! They really mean so much. He ate a tiny bit yesterday, which we’re taking to be a very good sign.

This week’s medical crisis reminded me that I just don’t handle exhaustion well. Not only do I get clumsy when I’m sleep-deprived, I make mistakes. Weird mistakes. Once after way too little sleep, I sprayed Bactine in my hair only because it had a green top like my hairspray bottle. And I’m sorry to say that’s not the only weird thing I’ve sprayed in my hair by mistake. Let’s just say roll-on deodorant can be a good thing. And if my coffee pot didn’t have a timer, I hate to think how often I would make either waterless coffee or a pot of hot water in the morning.

Now that I often use eye drops when I wake up, I find that I must hold up a mental sign that says, “Check the label, Forrest!” Needless to say, I could never be a medical resident. Am I the only one, or have you ever done anything goofy when you’re half asleep?

Book Blurb Friday #7...and Surviving

You know how it is when your normally hectic life gets a crisis added to it so that you go into Survival Mode? I've been in Survival Mode all week. Was sure our beloved dog Buddy was a goner with what I thought was a stroke. According to the vet, however, dogs do not have strokes. In fact, he’s certain that it’s an inner ear issue that he says has a chance of improving within the next week or so. In the meantime, Buddy can’t stand up or walk on his own without falling over or eat without throwing up.  It's been like caring for a newborn again—a really big, heavy, stubborn newborn. We could use your thoughts/prayers/crossed fingers that either the medicine kicks in or the motion sickness kicks out. I don’t know when I’ve been more grateful for a Friday in my life.

Which brings me to the beloved Book Blurb Friday, hosted by Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff! Each week, she posts a pretend book cover. The challenge is to write a blurb of 150 words or less to go with it. Here’s what I came up with last week at a skimpy 65 words.

~Quench: Poetry for a Thirsty Soul~

Just as a brook murmurs its song that refreshes the inner spirit, so does this marvelous collection of soul-quenching poetry speak to the thirstiest of 21st century readers. Prepare to immerse yourself in such poems as “Outcrop,” by T’Mara Goodsell, and “Exhaustion” by T. Powell Pryce.

Allow this marvelous collection of poetry to wash over you. It will quench even the most parched of spirits.

He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how. ~Nietzsche

Can't Say I Wasn't Warned

It’s tornado season here in the Midwest. A few weeks ago, the sirens went off in the night. Tornadoes are supposed to come around dinnertime. It’s just common courtesy.

I have to get up at a time that qualifies as “night” in my book.  We also have a geriatric dog who occasionally decides that the bunnies under our deck require emergency, middle-of-the-night bed checks. So when I am awakened by yet another thing, I assume some sadist has devised more evil plots to keep me from sleeping. First I have to become coherent enough to figure out what the noise means, then I have to tackle the complex project of figuring out what to do about it.

What I did about it was what those legendary idiots do: I wandered out into the backyard to see if I could hear or see a tornado.  Then I turned on the TV to see if they really meant it. By that time my daughter had joined me in studying the map of the area that was painted in alarming swaths of color with a big red circle in the middle. “Why is it I feel like they keep drawing a big red circle over our house?” my daughter asked. It was because they were.

After consulting a while, the winds were picking up, so we decided to awaken the dog. This can be quite a project. When he’s not up conducting pre-dawn rabbit patrol, he is sometimes sleeping so deeply that I have thought he was comatose. This dog is no Toto; he’s a lab mix. After jiggling him for a while, we waved dog biscuits under his nose like smelling salts. This made him twitch and wag, so we had to stop and giggle a bit over those dog biscuit dreams.

After that entire process, which required more dog biscuits to lure him to the basement (because those old guys are experts at biscuit extortion), we remembered that we needed blankets and pillows….which were quickly usurped while we struggled with the ancient downstairs TV. Those old pups are also experts at finagling comfy places to sleep.

Thank heavens it wasn’t an actual emergency, because the whole thing took us about 20 minutes. They were giving the all-clear just around the time we were getting settled, so we hauled everything upstairs again…only to discover that it wasn’t the all-clear, after all, but a second round of tornadoes moving through.

The next day I discovered just before leaving for work that we had lost part of our fence. I found the dog standing on my neighbor’s patio with their newspaper in his mouth.

Sometimes that lab thing comes in real handy.

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain. ~ Sign I saw in a gift shop (Wish I knew the original author!)

Stuff from Around My House: OVER-Stuff

As I’ve mentioned before, our beloved lab mix, Buddy, turned 14 last April. Of course he is the resident spoiled child who gets more excited about Christmas than anyone in our family, but like most elderly loved ones, it’s hard to know what gifts to get him. His digestive system can’t take a lot of variety as far as treats are concerned, and his toys are everywhere. So I’ve taken to giving him beds. To keep the whole thing cushiony enough for his aging frame, I got into the habit of just stacking the beds from year to year. At the very top, I throw a rug over the whole thing to make it easier to wash.

Last year Santa tried giving him those little stairs to help him climb into human beds. The only traffic the stairs saw was from people trying to lure him up with dog biscuits. Buddy learned that the stairs were really weird dog biscuit dispensers.

This year Santa outdid himself with the reasoning that we could streamline the dog’s giant pile of bedding. The box pretentiously declared it the “Dogpedic Sleep System,” constructed of five inches of supportive, orthopedic memory foam. It was the biggest gift under the tree. The human members of the family, at least, were very impressed. After a ceremonious unwrapping (during which the gift recipient himself paid absolutely no attention, distracted as he was with eating and then yakking up a gift tag), we all took turns curling up on The Dogpedic, unanimously pronouncing it more comfortable than our own beds.

Buddy was less than impressed, however. His old bed sags in the middle. In human world this might be a bad thing, but in dog world, I see now that this was actually the goal. That work-in-progress has literally shaped itself into a custom made nest.

The fancy-schmancy Dogpedic Sleep System? After much trial and error, it simply got added to the bottom of the stack, just like every other year. My daughter recently surveyed the whole conglomeration, which is well over a foot tall, and pronounced it “The Princess and the Pea” bed. Yes. That’s it all right, even though I actually pitched two of the nastier layers. It’s hard to see, but the Dogpedic is the lowermost of four beds. So here is Princess-Pea-in-the-Pod himself…perched atop (or should I say, “within?”) the official Budpedic Sleep System.

Snug as a Bud in a Rug.

What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other. ~George Eliot

Reflections

It’s sad for all of us when my son leaves for college. The dog, however, mourns a little bit. And I think my son mourns the dog a little bit, too. Buddy, a lab mix, turned 14 in April. His age hangs in the air these days like a gathering storm.

My son has been packing, but he stops. “I think I’ll take Buddy for a walk,” he says.

We are empaths, the boy and I; we often sense what others are feeling. It isn’t ESP, but there are times when we are so sensitive to each other that the emotions volley silently between us, mirror on mirror. So when the rawness of what he is feeling settles on me and stops me in my tracks, we both look away out of politeness.

“Yes,” I say, to the floor. “He'll like that.”

They only go to the end of the block and back, but the dog—in spite of going blind and deaf—adores their time together. He knows that his boy will care for him always.

So do I.

The language of friendship is not words, but meanings. ~Henry David Thoreau

When Bunnies Go Bad

It started when Buddy barked at falling leaves. The snowman made his hackles rise. Then a distant rock made him very upset. The vet confirmed that it’s true: Buddy has cataracts.

Now the furry woodland creatures taunt him. The bunny family moved in under the deck and grew fat, then obese. They didn’t used to come near us. Now they lounge around all day as if in their own private resort, eating hosta salads. Going inside our backyard fence used to mean they were entering the realm of a predator; now it means protection from them.

When I let Buddy out, I exclaim, “Run, bunnies! Here comes the dog!” But they ignore me. Why would they care? Even if he manages to spot them, they know they can outrun him. They also know they rarely need to: they just hop a foot or two away and he will lose them again.  You can practically hear their little bunny snickers.

I used to like furry little bun-buns. Now I think of them as sullen and defiant. These are gangs. Bunny gangs. They even let me take their pictures.

I’m wondering if I should be insulted.

Spoken by high school boy (with a mohawk) to his friend: “Dude! I can’t go to the library. Those library ladies scare me. They’re like, ‘When are you going to bring that book back?’ and I’m like, ‘Never.’”

Buddy the Talking Dog

I used to call our last dog, Griswold, our “talking dog” because of the way he had of making sure I paid attention to exactly what he wanted. If he wanted a walk, for example, he’d get his leash and put it in my lap. And then he’d bark at me until I obeyed. You could tell he thought I was a little stupid, but he was just so good at training his human that he did eventually get me to understand a respectable number of commands.

But Buddy has never talked. Until lately. Or maybe Griswold was right and it’s just that I didn’t understand his particular vocabulary until lately. Anyway, I give “Budward” a dog biscuit every night at 8:00. But he often either forgets that I’ve given it to him or pretends that I’ve forgotten. So I’ve taken to making a big deal of it, making sure he gets that THIS IS IT. Then the other day, as we were going through this ritual, one of the kids passed and mentioned that Buddy says “yes.” And I realized that he does.

So here I go. This is the first time I’ve tried posting my own video footage, let alone adding a title, and I didn't have Griswold to tell me how to do it.

If I could sit across the porch from God, I’d thank Him for lending you to me. ~Flavia

The Big One-Four

Today is Buddy’s 14th birthday. Or at least the day we pretend is his birthday since he was a shelter dog.  It was probably really a few weeks ago, but we liked the date.  And to think I almost didn't get him because of health concerns!  He was missing so much fur that the vet thought it might be mange.  It was a flea allergy and an untreated case of worms.  Hooray for hybrid hardiness. 

I feel so lucky not only to have had our beloved “Budster” so many years, but to have him still in such great shape. And what’s more, he’s inspired lots of writing. Thank heavens Chicken Soup moved their deadline for My Dog's Life to May 31st.  I’ve submitted two stories so far and have two more I’m working on.

We celebrated by giving one of his toys a squeaker transplant (since he positively doesn’t need more toys) and by giving him some PETCO cookies.  Which he promptly barfed up on the dining room carpet because it's not his senior formula dog food.  Sigh.

The older the fiddler, the sweeter the tune. ~Pope Paul VI

The Perils of Toast

My family doesn’t have the latest appliances. But we do have a bitchin’ toast detector.

Really it’s a smoke detector, a gift from our old insurance company, the one I dropped because the agent was rude. But it’s rather unhandily located near the toaster. And I don’t like wimpy toast. Whenever the smoke detector goes off, we’ve taken to announcing, “Toast is done!”

We discovered we can have our toast and eat it too if we fan the toaster. This became my excuse to pile mail on the center island—ads and other odd pieces of mail make handy toast-fanners.

When I begin fanning the toaster, the dog gets very happy. This is because he knows I am not a very accomplished toast-fanner, and the toast detector often goes off, anyway. Some time ago I took to rewarding him with a dog biscuit whenever that horrible noise started because I supposed it hurt his ears—heck, it hurts mine. I also thought it might be extra insurance. If we ever had a real fire, I figure the dog would come and wake us up if only to get that biscuit. He may not be Lassie, but he sure is a pig.

Only now the dog is deaf, so he assumes any fanning at all means he gets a dog biscuit. If a stranger were to witness the Making of the Toast, they would see quite an ordeal involving fans and barking and very loud alarms.

Then the other day, I smelled a strong burning smell. I followed it clear to the other end of the house and discovered that the microwave popcorn that Santa put in the kids’ stockings catches fire. (Note to Santa: splurge next year and buy the non-spontaneously combustible brands.) My son got the fire out right away, but the smoke smell was still strong.

The whole thing confirmed a suspicion I’ve had: The smoke detector remained perfectly silent. The microwave is located right next to the toaster. And the dog slept through everything because no dog biscuits were involved.

Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand. ~Kurt Vonnegut

P.S. Be sure to check out my friend Becky's book giveaway!

Where the Word "Dogged" Comes From

My dog is dogging my footsteps. Again. In his case, arthritis has its benefits.

That’s because I give this 13 ½ year old lab & golden retriever/terrier mix a variety of arthritis treatments. He actually gets around pretty well and doesn’t have any of the dreaded hip problems, but it’s clear his joints just aren’t as cooperative as they used to be.

First there’s the liquid glucosamine, which I originally bought for myself on sale. One swig, and I couldn’t help but imagine a frustrated chemist in the glucosamine lab, attempting to come up with a way to make this foul fish-liquid into something palatable. First he tries grape soda. Then orange cough syrup. Then chicken broth, Liquid Pledge, a few urinal cakes and some liquid cherry Tylenol. It is a vile and violent war of flavorings, and the even the dog was so unenthusiastic in lapping it up at first that the children and I had time to take bets on whether he’d give up altogether. I guess he eventually decided that anything under the heading of People Food is worthwhile, because now he’s convinced himself that it’s a yummy alternative to the constant diet of senior formula dog food.

After that I give him an omega 3 wrapped in cheese, and it gets sucked down so quickly that I have to stop and count my fingers afterwards.

Then he gets a dog biscuit to help clean his teeth.

I originally spread these things out to make his night more worthwhile, but it’s made my nights miserable with the continuous begging. And don’t tell me dogs can’t count. That dog knows exactly how many things he gets and at what time. So night after night, he stalks me with wide, pleading eyes. And when we are finished for the night, he stalks me some more.

I used to think it was that he was getting forgetful…and then I realized there are nights when I honestly can’t remember which I’ve given him, so I give him some more, just in case.

That dog is smarter than he looks. I’m no longer sure the problem is his senility. Could very well be that he's just exploiting mine.

The dog has got more fun out of man than man has got out of the dog, for man is the more laughable of the two animals. ~James Thurber