Back again after a very peculiar Internet let-down, broken links to all my favourite sites and the pc slowed down to a crawl. I could read two or three Blogger blogs ( no WordPress) and could only access the sports pages (!) on CNN. The IT specialist arrived and said everyone was going through this, supposedly to comfort me.
Right now there are no strikes, protests or riots, but the situation remains volatile. Elsewhere in the country there are devastating floods, more rioting and drug busts.
A handyman came around yesterday and tacked chickenwire all along the lower sections of fence bordering the property. Not as unsightly as it sounds and I am hoping the Canine Escape Artist known as The Chub cannot get out. She ran along the fence yesterday evening looking for a gap and then cunningly began to tunnel, digging herself a neat deep hole. Her Loving Human Companion (me) turned into an Ugly Brutal Prison Warder and carried her indoors. It is like living with the Count of Monte Cristo or the Birdman of Alcatraz. The Great Dane, on the other hand, does not want to get off his sofa and go anywhere. He is the King of Doze. And my other small dog, the fluffy white belle of the ball known as Chloe, is hormonal and perpetually hungry. I have the odd fantasy about tunneling under the fence myself and taking a break from all three of them.
And it is all good. The quiet morning and climbing temperatures, the lively little dogs running around the house, the cuttings of myrtle, rosemary and fennel lying on the counter next to the kitchen sink. The poetry of Richard Blanco, the inclusivity of Obama’s inauguration, visions of belonging, togetherness, an end to prejudice. My idealism rekindled a little.
One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guessing at the weather
of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love
that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother
who knew how to give, or forgiving a father
who couldn’t give what you wanted.
I love the descriptions of your kitchen and your wonderful dogs. They sound wonderful even though I think I don’t like dogs (but I might be changing my mind about that).
If we let dogs into our lives we find out just how lovable they are — I used to think of myself as a ‘cat person’ until I began living with dogs as well as cats.
And so good to hear from you!
Good to be back Mary Christine, did you get my email?
Very good to hear from you — and you made me giggle with the thought of you tunneling under your garden wall to escape the dogs. The inauguration speech was really something, wasn’t it? America seems to be undergoing quite the sea change. I never really dreamed I’d see the day. Wondering what my poor mother thinks…
A good wake-up call for your mother, if you ask me. That mention of Selma, Seneca Falls and Stonewall rewrote history from the underside.
I had to bury chicken wire beneath the ground to keep my boxer from escaping. I did help but she always managed to slip out no matter what I did. She is gone now after 17 years trying to escape. She is probably slipping under some fence in heaven.
I hear you Grace. Buried chickenwire it is. I love to think of your boxer escaping under some pearly gate somewhere!
Mary, glad that you were able to keep the dogs in. No one has ever answered the question of Who Let the Dogs Out!
Blanco’s poem is powerful. And as someone has pointed out, reminds me of Whitman.
I thought Whitman too, Syd and will stay with Blanco’s poetry for a while until I understand him better — there are also echoes of Cuban and Latin American writers like Neruda and Octavio paz in his work.