July 25 2013 - Diminishing Perspective

“I know things,” she said and turned away from me.  She wandered over onto her dog bed, curled into a ball and tucked her nose under her tail.

“Prana, it pains me to see you see you so morose,” I said with a smile. I sat down in front of her and crossed my legs trying to find a comfortable position on the wooden floor. 

Prana raised her head and sniffed the air, perhaps sensing some sarcasm and stared at me. “You’re doing that thing with one eyebrow. How do you do that?” she said as her ears unfurled from the side of her head into the lab forward pose. 

“I just do. You just did that thing with your ears, how did you do that?” I countered.

“Ok. Fair enough I guess. But, I still know things” and Prana looked over towards the door.

“What do you know?” I asked and leaned back against the wall and stretched out my legs. 

“It’s better to show you than tell you,” and she stood up and gingerly placed one paw and then the other on my lap and stretched out like a big cat before starting out on the hunt. I scratched the back of her neck, the short copper fur soft under my fingers and then gently rubbed the bridge of her nose.

“Let me guess, it’s time for a walk?”  I asked as I rose up off the floor leaning on the wall for some support.  Prana spun in circles, clattered across the floor and headed down the stairs. I grabbed my sunglasses and followed her out.

It was mid March and there was still a nip in the air as we walked down our quiet residential street towards Wellington Park.  It’s a square park about four acres with oaks and ash trees surrounding the perimeter. There is a cedar chipped play area with swings and climbing structures and on the north side a rectangle field stretches from side to side for soccer games or Frisbee toss. 

Prana trotted past the park only glancing at it to check for off leash dogs. “Let’s go to the place on 72^nd avenue, come on it’s only a few blocks more,” she said as she led the way down the street.

The 72^nd Roseway Parkway slices north and south across five long residential blocks.   It is fifty feet wide and stretches from Sandy Boulevard all the way north to Prescott Avenue. Two long columns of Purple Leaf Plum trees march down its entire length.

Prana led us to the far end and we turned around to gaze down the length of the parkway. Dew shimmered across the tops of the grass and the sun was bursting through cumulus clouds that would soon be thunderheads.   Twenty foot tall trees with skeletal branches careened outward and pink confetti flowers sprinkled across their arched tops.  My eyes followed the lines of sentinel trees down the parkway as they narrowed  into a distant single point.  I walked this path many times, but never noticed the calm that came over me as I focused on the far side. 

“Diminishing Perspective. Cool, huh?” stated Prana as she looked up at me. Her ears were folded over, but they jutted outwards like short airplane wings. She sighed and looked toward the far side too. “Sometimes things just seem better when we come here.  I don’t seem to mind the other dogs, or those sneaky cats, or loud trucks.” 

“You’re right,” I said. “You do know things”.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - Hammer Time

The dogs don’t like it when I lock them inside and they can’t see what I am doing in the backyard. But when I have all the gates open, well then they get locked inside. I decided it was time to get one of those pesky things off of my list. Mostly because I wanted the hammock back up under the Magnolia Tulip tree and that meant it was time to move the concrete rubble.

We had a pond. It was here when we bought the house four years ago and not very well installed. It was a ten feet wide, shallow, concrete bowl and it leaked. It wasn’t deep enough for a decent pump and I fought algae, pesky mosquitoes and decomposing leaves.  So I convinced Lissa it was time to ixnay the ponday. 

She still works and loves her job, but feels guilty sometimes about some of the projects I take on and the demo of our concrete pond was pushing her guilt buttons.  So we decided Saturday was a good day and we would both be available to beat that sucker apart.

 I rented a 65 pound electric Hilti Demo hammer from Home Depot. You know it is going to be a bit of a struggle when a tool comes with its own dolly. I have handled a lot of power tools over the years in the fire department and was looking forward to another adventure.  Lissa got a friend from work to come help. Kathy must have been bored that Saturday to volunteer for this duty.  So we all teamed up and got the beast out of my truck and wheeled it back to the pond. The dogs watched as we passed by the back door, their noses pressed up to the glass door. No Lab Tilt this time, they didn’t want anything to do with this project.

I dragged the hammock stand from underneath the Magnolia Tuulip tree since that would become the staging area for the pond rubble.  Then we moved some short fencing that had surrounded the pond to keep the dogs from charging through mosquito infested, smelly pond water and rolled the dolly down into the dried up pond.  We rotated the retaining collar off the neck of the hammer and lifted the beast off the holding peg. Damn, it was a bit unwieldy and it wasn’t even plugged and doing the jack hammer dance yet.  I squatted down a bit and pivoted the beast onto my bent knees so Kathy could insert a chisel bit in to the collar.  Lissa plugged in the extension cord and Kathy and I looked at each other and grinned. We pulled down our ear muffs and pushed up our safety glasses. I slowly squeezed the handle and the beast started slowly dancing up and down. I stopped and looked at Kathy, “you ready?” she nodded yes and off we went. We started on the bottom and then started to work our way up the shallow sides. As we moved up the sides we had to adjust the strike angle of the chisel into more perpendicular aspect against the concrete or it would skid across the surface.  Several times the chisel would bang down through the concrete and get jammed up and I couldn’t pull the beast back up. So Kathy would grab one handle and I would grab the other handle and we would pull. “One-two-three” and tug upward. We jiggled back and forth and finally got it clear of the concrete. As we made our way around the pond and broke the concrete down into pieces we discovered that they had set down heavy duty wire in a rectangle form fashion to help hold the concrete as it set. So the shoulder of the chisel would jamb under one of the wires and we would get stuck.  At least it wasn’t rebar and we could work our way around it. As we broke away sections, Lissa would come over with bolt cutters and cut through the metal wire to try and untangle the wire fortress. 

We worked for about two hours and our sad, shallow pond morphed into a bowl of rubble. Lissa pitched rubble pieces onto the ground vacated by my hammock as Kathy and I worked our way around the pond. Finally we were done and got the beast back up to the level ground and back onto its dolly. We gulped down limeaide and caught our breath. I had only rented the beast for four hours so I need to wipe it down and get it back to Home Depot.  After a breather, Kathy was ready to haul the rubble to the truck.  It’s nice to have younger friends around with all this youthful energy, but I had to get to the depot and then I needed the truck for another project. “Don’t worry”, I said, “we’ll work on it tomorrow”. So she headed home on her bicycle and I headed to the depot. 

Since we had moved the fence the dogs had gingerly walked across the rubble to explore some ferns and a Japanese maple that had overlooked our pond.  Sunday afternoon Lissa and I had about an hour to schlep rubble to the truck, but did not have time to finish. The wheelbarrow would not work very well because I could not wheel it up into the truck.  That would mean I would have to move it twice and I hate that. So I built a box to sit on top of our dolly to hold two 5 gallon buckets. We dropped big pieces of rubble into the buckets then wheeled them off  to the truck, lift a bucket and dump it in the bed put it back in the box and lift the other bucket and dump it and wheel the dolly back to the rubble pile for two more buckets. Slow and steady.  At least it wasn’t the Shawshank Redemption method where you dig out with a small hobby rock hammer, stow handfuls of crushed rock into your pockets and them shake them loose while doing laps around the prison yard. Oh and that took decades. So not that bad. 

By Monday I was eager to get back into my hammock and peer up through a canopy of warm green leaves into dashes of blue sky.  I worked for a few hours with my buckets and dolly. Sweat dripped off my nose and into my eyes. I thought I better check with the recycle yard that was going to accept the concrete to make sure they could take the embedded wire zinging out in all directions like a bad hair day.  Thy were happy to take concrete with rebar, but the smaller wire would jam up their crusher so I would have to remove all extra wire jutting form the rubble. Crap. So I sat on the rail of my truck and spent about an hour pulling apart wire and cutting it loose with bolt cutters.  Images of me as a kid while my Mom cut bubble gum out from my hair swarmed in my mind. At least she didn’t need bolt cutters. But it was an opportunity for me to practice some sort of Zen breathing. Crap.

I finally loaded all the rubble and made it to the concrete recycle place. My truck was a little heavy on the back end and I think she was groaning like me rising up out of bed on an early, cold day. I spent about 30 minutes shoveling, hand digging and tossing pieces out. I finally got back home and yanked the hammock stand back under my tree. 

Lissa called as I was going in the house for the hammock.  “Hey, you must be exhausted” she said.

I mumbled yes as I reached for the hammock on the shelf in the sunroom.

“Did you hose out under the tree yet?  We have an infestation of aphids and they are dripping sap down on the hammock area. So you might want to spray that down before you set it back up” she continued. 

My head dropped. Crap. The dogs sat next to the door and gave me the Lab Tilt. “OK, I will add it to the list,” I said as I opened the door and they tore outside headed for the dirt bowl.

Sunday, July 21, 2013 -Action Verbs

There are things I should be doing right now. I have a list scratched out on a folded piece of draft paper. Bend a vertical fold in the paper, start my list and each item is about four words. Short, crisp words.  Direct words - action verbs.  A get things done list. But not many things are getting done. Now that I am retired I have turned into a shirker. I shirk them off. Walk away; follow some other path in my head that seems more important, or easier.

Change out stairwell light

Dig out blackberries

Clean 2 windows/day

Demo pond

Weed-wack back fence

Mount chin up bar

And the chin up bar is for my partner, she is way more motivated than I am so at least I can feel part of her work out by installing the chin up bar. Haven’t done that either. That’s ok, she is busy doing push ups and sit ups and I get tired just thinking about her work out. 

Yep, I have turned into a retired shirker. When I was a firefighter, I never shirked anything.  The 24 hours shift started at 7am; get the turn over from the off going firefighter, all my gear on the rig, change into my uniform, and check out the entire rig. Then 8am meet crew for morning talk, and do my chores. Then the entire four person crew would get into the fire engine and we go to a park in our district and run laps.  Then back in the rig and off to the grocery store to shop for lunch and dinner. Back to the station prepare lunch for the crew, clean up dishes. Prepare for afternoon drills or fire inspections of local buildings. Then by 5pm it was cook dinner and clean up and some down time. During all of the daily events we were always in emergency response mode. The response was our priority and it didn’t matter if you were in line to check out at grocery store, running laps in the park, just about to sit down to a hot meal, in the shower lathered up, or asleep after already responding five or six times in the middle of the night.  Respond was what we did. It was why we were there.  I loved it. It was a go-go-go kind of job.

Now, I don’t want to respond to my to do list. Jade and Prana are staring at me because they know. They hang their heads and shuffle off. They don’t need a list. But they respond to a noise. Good grief, they shoot out of the house like we are under attack. We are puzzled and look at each other because we hear nothing different. Their feet spin out on the hard wood floors and then they hit the kitchen tile floor and all of sudden they are pumping hard and not moving, so their head drops and they lower their bodies a bit and gain traction and with a clatter their high rpm legs finally move them to the other side of the tile floor and they dig into the wooden floor and they leap off the back stairs, skipping the three steps down and soar into the air like deer flinging themselves over a hedgerow. And they are gone in woofs, barks and ferocious tails.

Their list is; eat, sleep, play, convince humans to go on walk, convince humans to feed them again, get ear scratches, bark and charge at any threats no matter how imperceptible and I am not convinced it isn’t all show so they look like they are defending our little place. 

So I glance at them while they nap with their feet all together like they are in mid gallop. Head forward and ears all limp around their face. Sometimes I hear a little bit of whimpering as they dream of chasing rabbits. Or maybe their whimpering is another dream. They are sitting in the office doorway with that Lab Tilt look and watching me stare at my list.  “Our list is a lot easier. Time for a walk, let’s go,” they say.  I look up and lay down the paper and stand. Time to go.

Friday, July 19, 2013 -Parlay

What’s the big deal if a dog can spell?  After four years of college and living and communicating somewhat effectively for over 50 years in this world, I think I still have some game to stay ahead of my dogs. Well, the other day, I realized they are learning present and future tense verbs. Now that is disturbing and I blame it on those late night easy buy channels they watch. They got some additional tapes besides ESL to just study Verbs. Then there is a whole ‘nother discussion on how they got my credit card out of my wallet.

There I was on a nice sunny day, walking down our residential roads with Jade trotting along beside me. It was a Monet sky, all pastel blue with some shredded cotton balls drifting by.  A nice cool 65 degrees with just enough warmth on my back to feel the sun, but not too much to wish I had slathered on sunscreen.

We had already had the daily discussion this morning about going for a walk. It is a process we are proud of maintaining in our house.  And both dogs are stellar at the process and we all need to be good at something. In fact, sometimes I call them Pete and Repeat, because it can be quite a repetitive process to get the walk underway.

It starts with the cold wet nose to the hand flung out over the edge of the bed. A sheet still covers my inert body, but they smell the synapses vibrating in my brain that start the unconscious flicker of eyelids.  It is a quick touch, not too starling, not the full wet licks to the face, but I suspect this is another reason I sleep with my head buried beneath a sheet.  A quick wet hand touch. Not enough to warrant a shout, but  just enough to get a hand twitch. I roll over and face the other way. Now my head is uncovered and my brain senses an air flow change. A slight pressure to the far side of the bed. I open my eyes and focus on Jade’s head perched on the bed. She is big enough to sit erect on the floor like a regal Irish Setter and set her chin on the bed.  Paws are not on the bed and no treaty accord has been violated. She stares with lab ears folded over perfectly, the forward alert pose. Head on the bed and eyes imploring. Swish, swish, swish, and pause. Her feathered tail hesitates across the wooden floor.  Swish, swish, swish, and pause. Both eyes blink.  Behind my back, another pressure and a slight touch on my back. Prana who does not have the bearing, manners ,or stature of an Irish Setter type dog, is touching my back with one paw while her other paw holds her upright against the edge of the bed. Another touch and this time with a little bit of nails to make her point.  She is a muscle car. She is not delicate and regal. She is to the point. This time a swipe, “Time to get up. Come on, we have things to do”.  I release a big sigh. Jade now thumps her tail and Prana pushes off and trots to the other side to nudge Jade. “See I told you, frontal assault works”.

“No” Jade says, “That was a flanking maneuver, this is frontal assault”, and she bounds on to the bed with Prana in full gazelle mode beside her. “Just shout ‘Parlay’!” Jade says as she head butts my neck and collapses in a heap with tail thumping.  The treaty accord is busted wide open and I laugh with arms out and recall “Parlay” from Pirates of the Caribbean (it’s really more like guidelines than actual rules...) Great, now they can get into my DVDs too.

So the conversation with the Captain of the ship begins. There is a lot of squirming and sniffing and wiggling. There are furtive glances between them. They are getting their stories straight.  Prana, eager to get going looks over her shoulder to the door. Jade snuggles into my armpit and thumps softly. “ Don’t be so eager, “ Jade mumbles to Prana. “Play cool, chill for a minute”

“But there were cats and squirrels in the yard last night and they might still be there,” Prana insists.

“Scratches come first,” and she rolls over on her back.  I scratch her chest and up along her throat. Prana squirms over and nudges her nose under Jade’s ear flap and flips it over. She begins to lick the inside of Jades ear like there is ice cream in there somewhere. Jade’s eyes roll up inside her head and Prana waves her curved tail back and forth like a slow motion NASCAR caution flag.

You guys are so weird,” I mutter and roll upright.

 Both dogs stop and stare at me. “Is it time? Isittime, isittime???”

“Off you go,” and I usher them off with a wave of my arm.  They dive off the bed, landing on the wooden floor and slide sideways across to the door. I slip into my robe and shuffle to the bathroom.  They park themselves outside the door.

 I come out a few minutes later and the wiggle dance begins. Jade is much looser in the hips, sort of a tango or salsa dancer. Her lips part and she smiles the dolphin smile, all toothy and happy. She starts wiggling from the tip of her tail and reverberates all the way up her spine. I think she is going to jiggle all of her bones out of place. Her feet pump straight up and down, one foot then the other, her body weight shifts side to side and back and forth all at the same time. Her ears are folded tight against her head like a Tomcat fighter jet and her head is moving to the Ray Charles sway. Prana spins in a circle and her feet come of the floor. She is doing the gymnast free style. 

I look down, “I need to get dressed and have my coffee. You guys know this. You gotta give me some time to wake up”. They sit. They glance at each other and then look at me with the Lab Tilt. There is a sigh and they slide down on to the floor, deflated again. Now comes the pout. Head all the way down on the floor, eyes follow me back into the bedroom. Jade sighs and rolls onto her side. Prana gets up and tip toes down the stairs and stops half way down.  She sits on one stair tread with her front feet poised on the stair tread below. With this elevated view, she can jut her head forward and stare out the dinning room window.

I open and close drawers, make the bed back up, shuffle some things around. I grab my socks and pick up my running shoes. Jade lurches off the floor and Prana trots up the stairs. I sit on the edge of the bed and Jade’s head hovers over my left shoe. She begins to wiggle again and picks up one shoe by its laces. Gingerly, she hands it to me, lips slightly curled back, as it the smell was too much to get any closer than necessary. “Thank you Jado. Good girl” I praise.  Her ears perk up. Jado is her other name. I have found that dogs respond to commands better if their names have two syllables. Don’t know why. Maybe the first syllable gets their curiosity and the second one seals the deal. Like moms who call their kids by their first, middle and sometimes last names to get their attention. So Jade has become Jado when commands may be imminent. So, dogs know nouns too. 

Prana looks a bit impatient. She has no desire to pick up anything, unless it is a squirrel that she has run to ground and pounced on. I put on my other shoe and tie the laces snug. Jado lets out a huff. She glances back at Prana, “I can’t believe she takes so long to get ready.” 

Prana’s ears come forward into that lab fold triangle. “Humph, she hasn’t even had her coffee yet” and she turns and walks off down the stairs. 

“Jado, ready for a walk?” I ask. Her front feet come off the ground and she dances for a second on her back feet. Her front feet never touch me. She is balancing hard. She comes back down on all fours and the wiggles start up again. “ok,” I laugh “ I gotta go get my coffee.”  She circles around me, dives between my legs and then I hear her gallop down the stairs. I shake my head and start looking for my sunglasses on the dresser. Galump, galump, galump, I hear Jado gallop back up the stair in three strides. She circles again and herds me out the bedroom door towards the stairs.

I lean on the railing and Jado edges past me lumbering back down the stairs, wiggling and tail rotating in slow circles. I move a little slower these days. Six months ago I stumbled on a dropped object while going down our outside stairs to the basement.  I was carrying a ten foot long piece of lumber to the woodshop in our basement and a pry bar fell out of my carpenter bags.  My left foot slid on that metal bar like a ski while my right foot was still planted on the stairs. Since my hands were clutching the board, I couldn’t grab onto anything,  so I ended up crashing down a few steps to the bottom. 

The first doctor took x-rays, said my ankle was broken, put me in a cast, said stay off of it for 8 weeks and handed me some crutches.  A week later an orthopedic PA took x-rays , said yep its broken, put a new lighter cast on, handed me back my crutches, and said come back in two weeks and we will change the cast. By then I was beyond aggravated with the diagnosis and pushed for a second opinion. The third doctor, an orthopedic surgeon, got me an MRI, said, nope it’s not broken , let’s put you in a walking boot, get you off the crutches, and get you into physical therapy. 

My sister Rae, who has been a Veterinarian for over 30 years and has been the driving force behind her 20 year olds son’s 2 ½ year  on going rehab from a life threatening traumatic brain injury, told me some good advice when I was so exasperated with my ankle ordeal.  She said, “That’s why they say doctors practice medicine.”

I slowly walk down the stairs while Jado sits and waits at the front door mat. Her tail is swishing and she is grinning like a kid who just heard the ice cream truck coming down the street. I wander into the kitchen and reach for the thermos of coffee. My partner Lissa gets up early to feed the dogs, makes our coffee, then she starts her work out routine. We have doing this for a while now and there is an unspoken hand off. She is up at 5:30 am and gets the dogs started and then I come in a bit later and do the walks. 

Yep. Two separate walks. These two are like the worst sibling rivalries when they are walked at the same time by one person. They are too close together. Everything is fine. Then, a squirrel teases them from a tree, or a dog is walking a block away or a cat turns its head and stares. Bam. 

Prana pulls but can’t get to the offender so she turns and rushes Jado, “I saw them first, you can’t have them, and he’s mine.” She grabs onto to Jado’s neck fur.

Jado is lunging at the offender too and shrugs off Prana, “what the heck are you doing? I’m older and bigger I get first dibs, that ‘s the rules” Jado is now snarling at Prana.  

I jerk the leashes, “Hey! Knock  it off”, I yell. Now I’m rattled and my calm, relaxing walk has lost its allure.

So now I take them separately. It’s ok. One on one time is important and a lot easier on my nerves.

Prana has disappeared, probably back upstairs to snuggle in the dog bed. She usually goes on the second walk. I set my coffee cup in the sink and Jado comes up and nudges my side. 

“Ok, you’ve had your coffee” , she mutters and she walks down to the drawer where the bags are kept and the dog treats hide in a little Tupperware bowl. She looks at the drawer. “Don’t you remember? This is where all the stuff is kept.”  She sits in front of the drawer and her tail swishes back and forth. “It’s right here” she glances at the drawer and looks back at me.

I walk over to her and lean down and whisper in her ear, “Okay, okay, want to go for a walk?” 

She is spinning and nudging me and her tail is about to rotate off her back end.  I open the drawer and grab the bag and she comes up and pushes the drawer closed and looks up,” That’s worth something, right. You clearly need some extra help.”

I hand her a kibble, she swallows it whole - no time to taste or crunch anything.  We walk to the kitchen door, I get her in her walking harness , open the door and get her out with out catching the flash of black tail feathers , shut the door and off we go. 

So there we are strolling down the street, glancing at floating clouds and feeling the Sun on our backs. Jado is walking right next to me glancing around watching out for tisking squirrels, distant dogs and sneaky cats. I look down at her and she is so calm and relaxed. “Hey Jado” she looks up at me, little bit of a smile. “Wanna go for a walk?”

She looks down at the ground, still trotting at my side and looks up at me, “Geez, are you kidding? We ARE walking. Didn’t you watch that DVD on verbs?”