Squeaker

The wind smooths back the leaves of a tree, like a mother taming her child's unruly hair.  Parisian music mixes with the grind of an old dishwasher, the kind I grew up with, before we figured out how to encase the rough work of removing stubborn food particles inside the hush of fingerprint-resistant stainless steel.  The dog carefully excises the plastic squeaker from the "indestructible" ballistic NASA-approved fabric of the new toy - a stingray disguised as a leopard. Dogs must think we're crazy with the shit we buy them, even as they wag their tails in thanks.

Shiba Inu

In the beginning, there were five.  All given Japanese names that started with D, like Dosha and Daishiki with English translations that meant things like First and Lovable.  Except one who was just called Dakota.  Her translation was not a translation at all, just a physical description: cream girl.  The other four were brown with black and white markings - a perfectly matched set in a rainbow of colored collars to help identify them to the viewers.  She was solid cream, nude.  Maybe they thought her obvious difference was enough.  No meaningful name required.

I watched them all on the live stream puppy cam whenever I felt overwhelmed, or was waiting for a conference call to start or just wanted the visceral comfort of observing five tiny furry bodies piled on top of each other, breathing as one organism, paws jerking, ears twitching, pink mouths stretched open wide in massive closed-eye yawns.

Awake, they would crash into each other, rolling on and off their shared bed, five sets of jaws clamped onto one empty paper towel roll running round and round the room, like draft horses.  They used each other as step stools, as pillows, as chew toys.  I marveled at their easy engagement, their lack of concern over personal space.

Sometimes the live cam was dark, or the puppies were outside, or gathered in a part of the room the camera couldn't see.  Along the right side of the screen were highlight clips from previous days with titles like "Outside Adventure," and "Crazy Antics" so you could opt to go straight to the cutest moments.  I looked at a couple once but I preferred viewing them live, even if they were doing nothing.  Once when they were sleeping I moved my cursor over Cream Girl's back and at that exact moment she stretched and leaned her body closer to the camera as if in response.  

Twice when I was watching the mother visited.  The first time, she ran right into the center of them, licking their heads and backs and wagging wildly before settling down in their bed so she could nurse.  The puppies clawed and kneaded and nipped at her, disappearing beneath each other to reemerge in a more advantageous spot.  She touched her nose to their bent heads.  She lay back and surrendered herself to their mauling until they drained her entirely, falling asleep mid-suckle, their bellies round and sated.  The second time took place a couple of weeks later.  And though her nipples still sagged heavily beneath her it was as if she had never known them.  She ran in circles around the room as they chased after her, looking down at them in fear and then annoyance as they leapt up at her, her eyes narrowed as if to say "you have no right."  They were undeterred. They jumped and scrabbled and whined, throwing themselves into her path again and again.  They were relentless.  She ran around behind the black-clad legs of the breeder  who stepped out of the way to expose her again and again. It was exhausting. The dam wanting the breeder, the puppies wanting the dam, the breeder perhaps wanting a moment of drama on the screen.  I closed out of the cam entirely.  Later, I noticed the footage was not among that selected for the highlights.

Cream Girl was the first to leave.  I thought maybe she was outside or behind the bed but at the top of the archived footage I spied a still of her in the breeder's lap, a hand raising one of her paws in a wave.  "Dakota bids farewell," it said.  And I knew it was starting.

There is one left now, I think, or perhaps they are all gone and the camera is dark until a new set of puppies arrives.  When they got down to two, I stopped going back.  Watching a puppy alone feels like going to a school playground in the middle of summer.  Is there any sound more wistful than the squeak of empty swings?

Sit Down To It

A thousand and one moments will step in front of your ability to do that. Some of those moments are dog walks, good dinners, fresh air, happiness. There are also the moments of dishwashing, standing in front of the microwave, pumping gas, waiting in line. That's all fine, just a plea - take me with you. Snatch a moment of words from between some other moment, and another, and let my eyes rest where yours once did, tell me some small thing that proves that we have the ability to be two places at once, any time. In front of the computer at work, and on the California coast, or some mountain peak somewhere, or trapped in traffic in sympathy with our very best friends. Anywhere but here.

I didn't get to the raspberry bushes until after that part of the yard had been watered. Last year the berries ripened one by one, most of those few ruby cells tasteless in spite of their color. This year they come in clumps, hidden deep in the overgrown canes, sweet and sun-warmed. Everything is going wrong tonight, in spite of the late evening warmth, the light clouds that will catch one of those vivid summer sunsets. Picking raspberries from the wet canes is like brushing tangled hair, water dripping from the leaves onto my forearms, little drops soaking through my jeans. I come away with a whole pint of them, thinking about how Tom was right about how we should have thinned the canes in the fall, but I wasn't so bold then with the garden, more inclined to leave things as they were for fear I'd only make them worse. I let the mint bully me and take over the greenhouse, the hollyhocks that blocked the walkway to the barn did the same. Now the mint in the lettuce beds is a weed, ripped out with everything else that needs to go.

I keep thinking about the kid sitting on the hood of the cop car just off Farm to Market road, the same road where last weekend someone hit one of the poles holding up the power lines, splintering it so that the top two thirds leaned out over the road, held there by lines staked out in someone's pasture until it was Monday again and time for someone to collect a paycheck fixing shit like that.

Once someone's up on the hood of the cop car, what is there to do? The opportunity to help out has passed. You can stop for a flat tire, but who's gonna say Officer what's the problem here? When that teenager ran into Farm to Market Bakery in the middle of the night this winter, busting through the guard rail and crushing the whole southwest corner of the building, someone told him they had called the cops and he, drunk as he was, said, It's okay, you don't have to call the cops, I just called my dad. Too late dude, the opportunity for dad to help has passed.

I think about the Occupy movement, how that whole thing is about saying Officer what's the problem here, in a sense. On Facebook someone posts a photo of a young white woman with dreadlocks, Missing. She's an Occupyer, it says, last seen at NATO protest. I see from her face that I don't know her, haven't seen her, don't know anyone with dreadlocks any more.

stormy

Between 13,383 and 14,229 feet above sea level what is there but 846 feet of disappointment?

I do not want to turn around. Even though it is the right thing. Probably. But when you are playing for luck you never know the other story. The clouds congregating early for a hallelujah holy-roller service surely coming, but we don’t know when. Or even if for sure. These things change. Uncertainty means we have to weigh the risk. We have to use our own judgment. We can’t know, only choose.

The high-country summer storm doesn’t care one way or the other. It will come, faster or slower, and hit here or there, that peak or this one, now or later. I look at the peak, so close really and we have come so far. I step up. My husband is reasonable when he asks me where I keep the life insurance information.

I know I am angry because I feel like crying. Because I want to go ahead anyway. I think I can scramble up and get back before anything bad happens. Before the rogue bolt finds earth. Because my friend is ahead and still moving and I can’t stand it thinking of her and her daughter there on the top without me. Their happy photos. Mad at myself because I can’t start earlier in the morning. Because now we will have to do this all over again. Because I like to finish what I start. Because I didn’t hike just a little faster. Because he is probably right and wants me to live. And like a guy I tell him that we don’t have to talk about everything for god’s sake. If we are going down, then let’s go on down to tree line and don’t look back. Let’s just f-ing go. Later, I convince myself I did the harder thing. I think.

How it's different

Trail Run:
Rabbit (small).
Rabbit (small).
Rabbit (small).
Stump (big).
Snake (small.)
Ocean (churning).
Surfers (jockeying).
Dogs (black, black, yellow, brown, black).
Umbrellas (red, green, purple, yellow, solid, stripe).
Kites (dragon, stingray, smiley face).
Bridge (misted).
Trees (dense).
Log (rotted).


Town Run:
"Italian?"
"Just took me off the project..."
"My dog's friendly."
"We don't need to park closer."
Honk
"Those boots!"
"If you get it at the gun show, you don't have to show ID."
"Just shut the fuck up Dan, OK?"

Starting Out

Try anything that will help you get out of your own way. The dog is wandering around the house aimlessly, maybe wondering where her person is, or maybe just wanting to go out for the third time today. The bedroom is cool and shaded and noiseless. Outside the sun is finally lifting the whole soggy spring from the soil. There are beds to be cleared out. Everyone needs coffee, except the dog. She lives on sunshine, and kibble and water, and most of all, touch.