Daylight now plays secondary to darkness. Not the awesome state of Dec. 21, but the gradual nibbling away of four minutes a day of sunlight. That doesn’t sound like a big bite of time until added up and you’re twenty-eight minutes behind the game in taking a walk, taking pictures of the last of summer’s flowers or merely reading without a lamp.
Temperatures are also supposed to be heading to lower numbers. The boys will wear shorts until their friends pull out sweats or long jeans. It’s all relative. In March sixty degrees suggests that a sweater can stay in the car or at home. In October someone will pull out a jacket and hat, maybe even gloves, when leaving for work. Spiders find their way into the house, spinning webs where no one wants to see a creepy critter hanging. The hummingbirds are gone, but the geese increase in number, pooping everywhere and honking at ungodly hours.
Since the pandemic, things have changed. Or maybe it’s my age. Instead of planning a fall and winter wardrobe, I found new black pants, a pair of jeans, a new sweater, and comfortable shoes. A writer’s life is simple without office mates remembering that you’ve worn the same long black turtleneck for a few years.
Open the windows for cool sleeping. Bake apple crisp or apple pie or apple cake. Celebrate the passing of mosquitos when walking the old dog. If it wasn’t for November 5, this could be the best time of the year.
Sadie outside screen door expecting to be let inside with her stick after failing to bring it through the dog door.
She’s following in Crystel’s footsteps who has been a vegan for over three years. Sadie helps till the soil, then comes the planting of the seeds. All last summer and winter she brought kale into the house, ripping the greenery to shreds before chewing on the stem. When Jody is making salads, Sadie waits for her portion.
Our dog Buddy used to be Trouble. Sadie is the real terror.
Crystel can no longer put a flat of seedlings on the bottom shelf of her greenhouse. Sadie thinks she’s the gardener. She’ll take out the tray. Nose the organic clump from the cell pot into its former soil mixture. She was put out when Crystel eliminated the bottom ledge. Sitting on her haunches, whining at the greenhouse.
Sadie thinks she ought to make bigger holes than what we think is necessary. Her face a ring of dirt, her feet mud sticks. We try catching her digging so we can parent properly but she knows when she is just outside of our line of sight. She is uncanny like that. I’ve become jumpy not knowing where she is.
It was no surprise that Sadie was the first to find an Easter egg in the garden. I thought she’d eat the money before I stopped her. You owe me her look said.
On walks she trails her nose on the ground. Every few feet we excavate something out of her mouth. A leaf, a stick, a ragged dried piece of a flattened squirrel, rocks, a bird wing, pinecones, even a chewed piece of gum. While we are enjoying the surroundings, she’s picking up litter. I bring an extra bag just for her. The ends of her ears are grey. I’m convinced it is because she drags them on the ground, nosing her way down the street.
Trying to keep Sadie off the pool cover is useless. It’s her water dish after it rains. A trampoline when it’s dry, jumping and leaping, round and round.
First egg found
I told my two 18-year olds that they were easier to parent as children than the dog. They didn’t think that was much of a compliment. They know Sadie. Helped choose her. Named her. She’s a wonderful dog. We all love her. It just makes you reconsider having kids.
Sadie is the first retriever dog that we have ever had. But, boy, leave anything out and she will eat it. Even your distance learning homework.
She’s a COVID dog. She’ll be a year old this month. I guess you could say that she’s done her part, kept up her side of the bargain. Offering us endless distraction.
Was I afraid of other’s judgements, or did guilt keep me from posting the passing of Rosie, our beloved Bichon Poodle on Facebook? Four days after we put Rosie down, we came home with a ten-week-old puppy.
Neither Jody nor I were interested in posting these two life events.
Rosie had been with us for thirteen years. There were times that I thought she would last forever.
Bandit Rose was her ‘real’ name. The name on her vet charts. In time, she became Rosie. The kids were 5 years old when we got her as a puppy. Juan named her Bandit and Crystel said Rose and so it was. She was their puppy.
Rosie soon became everyone’s puppy and grew to be everyone’s dog – the people on the block, in the neighborhood, and anyone (person or dog) we would meet on our walks. She had a wag and a smile that softened your heart and made you better for the day.
Rosie and Buddy
On our walks, she would pull me crisscross across the street back and forth to meet her loves. She expected you to stop your gardening or yardwork to love her. And, you would. She had her own relationship with you. She was your dog in that moment and you were her world.
Rosie joined Maggie (Bichon Cocker) who was already part of our family. When Maggie passed away at ten years of age, we grieved for a year before getting a puppy to join Rosie. We knew it was time when Rosie initiated a game of tag with a lamb while we visited a farm. It was clear that she needed a companion.
Rosie and I grew old together. With two knee replacements behind me she was my dog to walk. Smelling the air together, sniffing at flowers, saying hello to her loves, we took our time. It didn’t matter how many blocks we walked or if we made it around Donaldson Park. What mattered was our unhurried pace and being outdoors.
While I walked Rosie, Jody ran after squirrels with Buddy our Papillion Maltese mix. Jody intentionally sprinted the opposite direction with Buddy when she saw a person or a dog coming her way. Buddy rightfully earned the nickname Trouble.
Crystel and Sadie
Rosie loved Buddy. How she could, I don’t know. He often nipped at her tail, stole her bones, and grabbed at her leash, pulling her this way and that.
Jody and I didn’t walk the dogs together, though we would leave the house at the same time and meet up towards the end of our walk. An enduring trait that Rosie had was running towards Buddy and greeting him like she hadn’t seen him in forever. We all should be so lucky to have a Rosie in our life.
Sadie, our Bichon Shih Tzu puppy is a lot like Rosie. Everyone’s puppy, a lover of other dogs. Greeting Buddy like a long-lost friend. Sadie has even had a mellowing affect on Buddy. He is calmer and learning how to play with other dogs.
Maybe it was just that Rosie deserved so much more than a Facebook post. She needed an entire blog.
She was my girl and I miss her. We all do. Jody’s words have eased my guilt in getting a new puppy so soon after Rosie, “If we could still have Rosie with us, we would.”
