Waiting for Hannah

You can cut the air with a butter knife right now. Until the storm really blows in it's going to be sheer unmitigated misery outside.

Then it will be a different kind of sheer unmitigated misery outside.

Yesterday was borderline horrid but evocative. I've never really been any place tropical but the very tip of the Caribbean was covering Brooklyn, sometimes in sticky stillness, sometimes in a breeze that "almost" made me want to dance. Almost = it was still damn humid, hanging out at between 60 - 80%.

So we wait. I'm in several cycles that I don't enjoy but have to go through. I have two extra dogs today, who hated each other -- "Allen," who needed to be out of the movers, & Henry, whose humans are suffering through the US Open. Tomorrow Daisy and I go to Mally's house for 3 1/2 days, juggling Mally with the other dogs, although thankfully Boomer is away for two weeks -- they hate each other & Roger went after Henry today that left a number of bloody scratches on my left arm & thigh, which is enough for a while.

The best thing about Roger moving, aside from fewer scraps, is that I gave him a red triceratops that is sewn as tightly as any object I've ever seen & is only slightly smaller than Roger. It's become his demon twin & he is hilariously attached & scared by it in turns. The other best thing about this dog is that when he goes in for a scrap, I can pull him out, not only because he weights about 25 pounds, but because he lets me. I hauled him away & we sat & had a talk about being jealous of Henry & I told him about the people I'm jealous of & I cried & he rolled over for a belly rub.

The worst thing about Roger is my sore heart at losing this demon seed. He's a scary, scared dog but so smart & understands me better than anyone but Daisy. Unfortunately, because Daisy owns me, she doesn't give a shit very often about how my novel is going or how much I wish most parts of Henry's humans' lives were mine. The second worst thing is that he didn't kiss me goodbye, but that, like losing weight & waiting for hurricanes, is an act of nature & nothing you can ask for.

The best thing about the Mally gig is his owner asking if I was prepared to hydrate their elderly cat. The cat's nickname is "Little Boo" but Tim put the question both more and less formally: "You OK with Left Pocket and the bag?" You tell me, but I had a long pause in which I had to put various scenes from The Godfather out of my mind.

The latest act of nature perpetrated upon me is that I got on the scale this morning & it told me I've gained four pounds. Oh God, why hast thou forsaken me??? What did I do? It's one of those "All I Want" days: "All I want is to break 240".

All "All I Want" modes are suspicious, even when I think they're realistic. I'd like to say, for instance, that all I want is a shower. But I want a cheeseburger more & I want to NOT want a cheeseburger even more than that. Whatever accounts for those four pounds is in the wait-and-see ether.

Still. I really want to break 240.

This is a grab-bag post. I'm listening to Annie Lennox. I cleaned the tops of my stove today & bought a flame-thrower with which to relight the pilot light in my oven. I walked past a Ford Explorer this morning & thought it said "Extortioner," which made me giggle, & when Henry wanted to kiss a baby's feet & I steered him away, I heard myself saying, "You don't eat babies' feet, Silly. You wait until they're toddlers."

I've spent too much time alone lately. Can you tell?

With more to come as Hannah sweeps up from New Jersey.

Consumed with Details

Stats:

Day 45 of abstinence
Starting weight: 262
Today's weight: 240
Total loss: 22 pounds
Dogs walked today, besides my own: 3
Attitude: frustrated & sad, in that order...


I have more than half of this week off, at least in terms of the first half of the day. Henry & Hero are away which means two - three dogs in the afternoon & I'm done.

I was gonna:

• Exchange my Montana driver's license for a New York State license
• Get a massage in Chinatown
• Finish Chapter Two of my novel
• Got to the NYC Aquarium
• Take the 7 p.m. harbor cruise around the waterfalls
• Visit an old friend in a rest home
• Deal with the enormous stack of NYers dating back to September, 2002
• Get batteries in watches
• Assemble the Daisy calendar for my mother's birthday
• Buy a sleeve for my air conditioner & make arrangements for it to be installed and the dry walling repaired
  

I've managed to:

• Wrap a couple of packages & mail them...but not all because I had to order more printer cartridges as well as a shipping label from Zappo's
• Write my Lab Lady post for the brooklynheightsblog
• Write two sentences of chapter 2
• Get down to 7 New Yorkers, throw out the plastic thingie they were in, recycle a lot of boxes and paper bags, donate school supplies to Housing Works
• Talk to the neighbor who said he would call today (and hasn't) about the air conditioner and dry walling
• Get my hair cut
• Take a lot of pictures for a friend who's painting flowers and doodle them around in Adobe Photoshop, then make prints for another painter-friend who doesn't have a computer
  

Keep these lists in mind, as well as the fact that I'm meeting a friend for dinner in 90 minutes, need to go to meetings tomorrow night and Saturday morning, and am going out to dinner at friends' house on Saturday night. Four of those items mean leaving Brooklyn Heights for a considerable length of time -- visiting my friend won't be a quick heist either.

My dreams have been violent -- dragging a black witch (as opposed to a witch of white magic) around by the ears, teaching tough seventh graders.

Now add the ingredients of five dogs dying this summer, three of them "friends" of mine, and the news that my walking time bomb, Roger, is moving to Long Island in a week.

Roger. Roger, Roger, Roger.

There is a particular kind of love one has for a dog that hates (i.e., is scared of) everyone. There are four people in the world who can pick this little man up and I'm one of them. Only three of us are asked for belly rubs and two of us get humped and I'm the only person he kisses.

And he's leaving.

I've been on the verge of tears or crying ever since I heard. Before I took him out yesterday, we had a long talk. I asked him to remember me. I told him how much I love him. I told him how smart and beautiful he is. I asked him to remember our cookie game, our scary game, how I cam over and crawled into bed with him when he was so sick. I told him I will always remember reaching over to turn his ears right side in, and his gray beard and how he runs in great exuberant arcs. His owner called me today and asked what I did to him yesterday -- he spent the evening asking for cuddles rather than staking out the bathroom as his private territory.

I think Roger understood me, at least emotionally.

And I think I'm weepy not only about Roger but about the loss of Godiva, Barley and Zeke. The privilege of being trusted by a dog to turn up, love it, walk it, make it comfortable, make it feel loved, make sure it has some fun and pleasure has made me public in a way that nothing I've ever done before has. "Are you the Lab Lady?" bare acquaintances are beginning ask now, having read the bhblog. It's gone another step beyond being the Mayoress of Hicks Street's tender.

But it comes down to the dog. I won Roger over the same way I won Godiva over. I sat down on the floor and was. I sat and was Frances, whatever that is. They decided it by looking me in the eye, smelling me, eating some cookies, tasting my skin, walking on me. I feel as though I'm losing a percentage of my love and validation in the loss of Roger.

Old issues. I can see them however, and I can feel my sads and know they'll pass.

I just wish I could have wiped that list out...