Canine Compatibility: frolic or folly?

So I come home after working away during the day to discover that Dylan (our 1 year-old
Golden retriever) has not only dug a forbidden hole in the yard (which creates an absence of grass and a proclivity to mud) and left numerous strange white droppings (indicating a recent gorging of some strange and potentially harmful substance), but he has also chewed off the entire top of our neighbor’s ornamental tree, leaving a two foot stump sticking out of the ground and its shredded leaves strewn about the yard.

Something about dogs’ deviant behavior really gets under my skin. I didn’t think I had much of a temper before I owned a dog. (polite chuckle) Only it’s not really deviant behavior for dogs. Dogs are dogs are dogs, and dogs like to chew and dig and bark and get themselves into all sorts of canine trouble. They lead fairly simple straightforward lives. The complication arises from human companionship and our expectation for their behaviors to neatly align with our own homo sapiens standards of living.

So today is no different. However, suddenly I have reached my limit of frustration with the challenge of canine compatibility. I look dumbfounded at the two foot stump of a tree, straight and thin coming out of the ground and ending severely in a hopeless frayed frump. I close my eyes and hang my head in silent resignation of dog ownership. I am the proverbial camel and my back has done broke. The load of straw tumbles through my mind and all the irritations and inconveniences of life with Dylan as I have known it over the past year suddenly vivify and conjure my longing to be free, free, free!

In times past I had vowed never to own a dog in the city as I did not grow up equating dogs with cramped city life. However, somehow my wife convinced me to give it a try – on the condition that we would be moving out of the city in one year. And we left that city – but our home now is not a windswept, tree-lined golden acre of space – we are back in town - arguably better for a dog than the city, but still unarguably inconvenient.

Let’s just say that as first time dog owners we were somewhat naïve. Despite a bag full of doggy books loaned from the library, lots of lessons remained to be learned by experience. House training takes time and lots of accidents. Having a puppy inside the house is great fun – but terribly annoying when your yard is a sinkhole of mud during a northeast Ohio “winter”. Puppies never start out shedding their fluff, but when it does happen, as it inevitably will, daily vacuuming is not enough – one must learn to wear dog hair as though it is the latest fashion. You must be quick on your toes to throw away your child’s chewed up toys before she sees them – so as not to cause undue stress. Active dogs need regular exercise, even when the temperature outside is in single digits, and even when you don’t have any more time in your day – especially then. Dogs also do not self-regulate their plant-eating habits. If they eat poisonous weeds you won’t know it until they lie around half dead, or puke, or have nasty sudden-onset diarrhea.

So during your first year of delightful dog ownership, hopefully you don’t have to learn all of these lessons at once. Ideally these “critical learning points” will be evenly distributed over time and interspersed with lots of the cute cuddly stuff so as not to break the camel’s back.

So today, quickly ascertaining that this line of “critical learning point distribution” had clearly been crossed, I burned inwardly to get rid of “the dog”. (for in times of stress, he loses his rank as Dylan, and simply becomes “the dog”) I was upset and depressed for most of the evening and was brainstorming on the necessary procedures for dog disposal, a task that at first seemed daunting but was quickly gaining enthusiasm within my brain. I talked at length to my wife about how I had really not liked the dog all along and had only been putting up with him – and conveniently forgot all the cuddly stuff.

But upon reflection and time lapse between me and that critical moment, I realize that I am just too uptight – life is too short to be so stressed about mud and hair and inconvenience that I cannot enjoy a healthy, loveable dog. I realize that what unnerves me the most about taking care of him is that it is a constant reminder of my uptightness, my lack of time; my inability to relax, to play, to rise to the challenge of training a dog; to engage, to discipline, to love.

In this sense the dog dilemma is a universal one – whether it is a relationship with a child, spouse, father or friend. Every relationship is fraught with inconvenience, mess and crisis – if we can dare to open ourselves to those critical times and allow our own inadequacies to be exposed and matured- maybe we can find the stuff that makes relationships worth their while.

Where would I be if my loved ones hadn’t learned to put up with me?

favorite photographs from September

pond along manning road

red tree along manning road: I ran past this tree on my running route for weeks before I was able to photograph it

friends: light-colored Rufus is Lyric's closest stuffed animal, here he is seen posing with his darker-haired brother

after school: when Lyric first started kindergarten, the weather was hot and the drinking fountain at school was broken. she came home every afternoon very thirsty. here she excitedly tells about her day in between gulps

Joel

grandpa: grandpa Stoltzfus takes Maggie for a few spins during a fussy spell. his large, construction-ready arms contrast her newborn fragility

to escorts: the final hours before trading in the escort: old, reliable and a good friend

Sickness: the absence of health

so today I am sick, and have been for three nights and 2 days (so far). for me, it is the once-every-two-or-three-year sickness, the kind that always begins in the middle of the night - waking up to find that someone has jammed a ball of rusty barbed wire into the back of your throat making it almost impossible to swallow. sore throats are the worst - and the worst-named. "sore" simply does no justice to the past three sleepless nights. why not call it, "the throat of death" or "torture by swallowing"?

so you lie (or lay if you prefer) awake trying with all your might not to swallow - and all this effort causes your mouth to water profusely until you must either spit or swallow - so you swallow, wincing, and gritting your teeth and become amazed that you have to swallow so much at night and never before realized this phenomenal human need for incessant swallowing. you begin fantasizing about being able to throw your head back and drink long cold swallows of ice cold lemonade - what an untold luxury!

and then there's the fever - this is the one that really puts me over the edge of non-commission. I don't know where I register on the pain-tolerance scale - but a good hearty fever can completely disarm me - and push me to test the limits of the pill-per-hour tolerance allowed by physicians everywhere. (why are you always allowed to take more pills hours after the pain returns?) in the midst of a good fevered pitch, every movement and thought is a conscious, painstaking effort. I begin to dread going to bed at night. the darkness becomes first hours and then minutes of painful intervals that must be passed; dark steps over treacherous landscape that must be plodded - on and on and on until the morning finally comes.

fever and darkness . . . for me, this combination pulls back a curtain in my mind opening into a subconscious, horrific abyss. as I innocently drift off to sleep, my feverish dreams become an endless series of tasks, decisions, obstacles that must be completed, decided and overcome. the mental effort to do so mutually coincides with a half-conscious swallow - so I wrestle with this dark, subconscious, terrorized frenzy and alternately sweat, chill, wake up - and repeat ad nauseum. all the while swallowing, swallowing, swallowing. and you tell me this is merely called "sore throat"?

enough of that - what are the good points to such "death-by-swallowing" sicknesses? not many but I can think of a few.

1 my voice sounds like a combination of emphysema and puberty. its painful, but altogether a great voice for reading Lyric's library books. suddenly my voice if filled with new color and nuance for dramatic characters' voices.

2 I have come to more deeply appreciate a good cup of tea. I've drank more tea in three days than the past three months. it's simply one of the few things that is worth swallowing.

3 I've come to appreciate one simple hour of uninterrupted sleep. as a father of a newborn, I'm already accustomed to sleeping in only three or four hour intervals, but lately I'm lucky to sleep an hour at a time. Maggie is sick too, and wakes up needing to be held and rocked until she stops choking on mucus. but lately I'd rather do that at three in the morning than subject myself to the "throat-of-death" nightmare attempt to sleep anyway.

so today I wonder how many more nights of sleep deprivation I can take. but I am encouraged by my sudden appetite at supper - provided single-handedly and seemingly effortlessly by my wife: marinated chicken, rice, sweet potatoes and homemade "dinner rolls". we've had dinner rolls so few times that Lyric couldn't remember what they were until she saw them come out of the oven. so Lyric and I ate chicken and rice like hungry soldiers and put away three rolls apiece. I complimented my wife profusely and told her she missed her calling. she should have been a stay-at-home mom and I, her plump husband. while making the rolls today, she explained that she just couldn't bring herself to buy them - she wanted to at least teach her children how to make them before she begins to thoughtlessly swiping them out of the grocery store aisle.

this afternoon, after a restless attempt at napping on the couch, I was inspired to take Lyric for a walk down to the "little park" with one slide, a swing set and a bone-shaped jungle gym. I wanted to take nothing along - no bikes, no dog, not even my camera - just the two of us. we looked for colors, pointed out flowers, cats, people and everything we saw. I explained to her how the sun coming through the leaves makes them look like they're on fire. we played tic-tac-toe on those big, silly plastic cylinders you find at dumpy parks. we climbed on the bone-shaped jungle gym and I helped her laugh her way across the monkey bars. The air was crisp and clear, anticipating a 32 degree low. the sunlight was bright and low right before it dipped behind the trees beside the ball field. I pointed out the church steeple in town and we picked up different colored leaves. I gave her a piggy-back ride down the sidewalk towards home in order to hold off the cold penetrating her light jacket.

maybe it's just me but being this sick has helped me appreciate small moments of life.

man it was tough not taking my camera.

Maggie's innocence

Maggie's pondering (the recent economic downturn)

Maggie's self-assurance (regarding her 401k)

Maggie's horror (to learn her parents have not started her college fund yet)

Maggie loved regardless

Lyric's new braid

Rickett's Glenn

Olivia, the idea-inspired, active one, decides the family needs to drink in the fall foilage while walking down a steep trail amidst gushing waterfalls. (or waterfountains if you're Lyric) not only is the scenery and fall weather breathtaking and uplifting to the soul, it is an intense workout for all parents involved. Maggie bobs in the carrier and sleeps. Lyric becomes The Great Rock Climber and decides on a new professional career. Matthew holds Dylan back with one hand and desperately tries to snap pictures with the other. it is a splendid adventure and Lyric only cries twice because of superficial injuries.

Moving: the dislocation of objects, people and self

so I am suddenly at the Union County fair in rural PA, which I believe must be more po-dinkish than I ever remember Wayne County, Ohio being, although this is subject to hot debate with my wife, and I am witnessing an altogether strange gene pool at work before my eyes. these people appear to me as though their heads and bodies and limbs do not go together – but were mysteriously switched in some huge dark closet last night – yet everyone else seems to be at ease with their appearances.

there is very little here in rural PA which might reassure my tensions, that would calm my desperation resulting from nothing of surety on which to stand or depend. everything is in flux: jobs, post offices, grocery stores, schools, banks, churches, family, friends, houses. even my own family is in flux as we adjust to a newborn. we need to find a new car, new insurance, new licenses, new everything. suddenly every aspect of my life needs to be switched over, restarted, begun from scratch.

the jolt of moving is huge, can only be felt over a span of days, months. there are so many little habitual routines, intuitive movements and thoughts, well-worn paths associated with existing in a particular place – to have these all gone in a day, erased by the hammering pistons of the rental truck that carries all of us and all of our things away, away.

we’ve been in this one-half house in Lewisburg now for about a month. we only started hanging things up on the wall yesterday. it is tricky and tiresome to constantly prioritize the various tasks and stages of setting up living space. how long can I put up with this room in complete chaos? walking around these boxes? sleeping without blinds in those windows? my mind wants a rest from a high level of entropy, we’ve been struggling against it ever since we left Akron two and one half months ago. it is easy to think of the time when everything will be in its place in the house as some mythological arrival, a place of peace and tranquility. but if that ever happens, we will undoubtedly be disappointed that the surrounding environment of chaos has merely been an easy thing on which to project our internal dislocation.

last night when we walked in the door, Olivia remarked that she got a little bit of “home” feeling. there was a warmth in the air reminiscent of fresh applesauce and Ranger cookies. what is that feeling of home but a summation of memories and acquaintances and relationships with a space? getting to know the way light comes through the windows, at what frequency the washer vibrates on the rinse cycle, the water pressure of the faucets, how fast the fridge door closes, what sounds the attic makes in a strong wind, how fast the burners on the stove heat up, how many steps up and down the stairway, where the light switches are, where the coldest and warmest parts of the house are and so many other things.

when everything else in my life is dislocated, my wife's hand feels especially familiar when I'm lying in bed listening to strange night noises and watching strange street light come through strange curtains. despite our dislocation, Olivia's laughter sounds the same melodic line, our arguments resound with similar timbre. Maggie wakes up at night in regular rhythm, with the same goofy grin. Lyric’s energy is just as stimulating and grating as it always has been. The fiery life behind her eyes when she teases me seems as if it could never go out, even if we moved to the bottom of the ocean.

living a “transient lifestyle” of moving six times in seven years motivates me to be diligently spontaneous about interacting with my little family. these are the people with whom I will create the feeling of home and shared memory. they are my home.

photo by Lyric