It is a cold and blustery winter night. Outside the rapid winds blow the foot and a half or so of fresh powdery snowfall into places it normally doesn't fall. The front porch of the house I'm living in is covered in it, and a thin layer of ice is beginning to form on the high traffic areas. In the last days of my nearly four month stretch of unemployment, I have taken to reading the pile of unread novels and non-fictions I had rescued from my storage unit weeks ago. I find myself consuming the stories within their pages like an addict consumes their drug of choice. When I have finished one, I am pleased, and yet unsatisfied and must quickly begin another. The perspectives of the narrators, the characters they describe, and the lessons inherent in their anecdotes swirl around in my mind making it difficult for me to sleep at night. When my night time meds kick in and drown me in drowsiness, the images left behind in my psyche begin to weave themselves into dreams that make me want to sleep late into the afternoon in order to grasp the lesson they are trying to teach me.
Tomorrow I must move out of the vacation home I have been occupying to allow the owners their vacations. Because of my circumstances, I will move in with Roy and his room mate John (also known as "Wagon"). John is a kind animal loving individual, as he would have to be to be so calm about the chaos that is rapidly approaching his domicile. I myself have two dogs. Lili is a pudgy blonde mix that at the very least involves Beagle and Shar Pei. She is the smallest, but also the oldest at approximately 6 years. Before she was rescued from the pound in Austin Texas by Chrisopher, (the heart-breaker), she had given birth to several litters of puppies. The tattoo placed between her large pink utters is to serve as a warning to any future shelter that she has indeed been spayed. Because she got it at the pound, I affectionately refer to it as her "prison tat." Most of her nick-names (and she has many) are food products like "corn-dog" "sausage" "snausage" and "pancake."
Lili's sister Guinta is not any older than 2, and is a mix between a Rottwieler and a German Shepard. Her name comes from my time in the jungle of Ecuador, and is the native Huaorani word for Dog. So yes, essentially I have a dog named "dog," but it's an odd enough name that it makes for a great conversation started at the dog park. One of her many nicknames is BDD. It alternately stands for Big Dumb Dog, and Behavioral Disorder Dog. Perhaps it was her chewing habit, or her love of fresh garbage that landed her in and out of shelters before she came to live with me. I knew that others had failed to love her enough to allow her to continue shredding their precious belongings every day, but to me, nothing was more precious than her obvious desire to please me. In addition, she is very respectful of my two cats. On her first visit, my eldest cat Leo went to check her out, and as he entered the room she bowed. He gave me his approval, and I signed the adoption papers. I have even caught her and my enormous female cat Luna almost snuggling on several occasions.
Roy also has a dog. Her name is Sage, and like Guinta, she is a Rottwieler mix. Roy keeps saying her other breed is Labrador, but she is much smaller than the Rott/Lab mixes I've met in the past, and she has a little white cream puff on her chest to match her single white paw. By her size and intelligence, I have to assume she's some kind of collie. Sage is already familiar with two of the other three dogs that will be present at Wagons. Shady is another older female… the first Lili (the alpha bitch) will have encountered in their own territory. Each of her eyes is pale blue on top, and brown on the bottom giving her stare the look that earned her such an ominous name. She is older than Lili, and her arthritis makes her snappy. Her bark is piercing, but she is otherwise a relatively gentle dog. Other than my cats having to adjust to a house with six dogs, the relationship between Shady and Lili is what I worry most about.
I have been procrastinating. As I always do with change, I deny they are happening until I am in its throws and can deny it no longer. I put on a CD of Jack Kerouac reciting prose in front of a jazz band as if to distract myself from my own nostalgia by borrowing his. I struggle at first with the shear magnitude of dirty dishes before me, but as they become more manageable I go into a Zen like state and zone out. The music reminds me of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, and I wonder what else Jack Kerouac and Fred Rogers had in common. Later I'm packing up my portable hard drive, mini DV tapes and cables trying not to think about all the work I had planned to get done here, and how much still needs to be done. I try not to think that this fire burning in the woodstove will be the last I light here…. that my evening romp with Roy before he left for his second shift may be our last in this bed….that these boxes I'm packing will be unpacked and packed again in a matter of months. Leo jumps on the table and shoves his furry head into my face, as if he has heard my mental plea for distraction.
