Archive for May 3rd, 2009

It is a lovely, rain-swept Friday morning, nearly everyone but myself is at school, and I am left to relax, perhaps tidy a bit, check my Twitter feed…and chase a certain set of three month old puppies around the house. They dump over the trash, rip up the duct tape I placed on the floor, run up and down the hall at a wild pace, annoy the older dog, search out food, chew up my underwear, and I’m sure, while I’m not looking, soil the carpet somewhere, despite my efforts to a) take them outside, then b) put newspaper down, and let us not forget c) try to put them out again.

See, Basenjis are like cats, and are not to be controlled…just like certain members of the opposite sex whom I will not go into at this moment in time but don’t worry, I’ll get to them too.

The problem today with these animals (don’t worry, we are still on the actual fur-covered creatures streaking about the house) is that they hate water.

They run from it. It takes two people to give our little ten pound Briseis a bath – one to hold the sprayer and the other to keep her from leaping out her skin and out of the tub. When put out in the rain, they will squash themselves between the screen and the door, screaming and yowling and giving pathetic looks, ear back, tails bedraggled, and they aren’t even wet yet. So, on this lovely and wind-swept morn, I can’t take them out, nor can I leave them in their crate, because while I can zone out a lot of things, zoning out frantic Basenji screams is a bit much.

So, I let them in.

I gate them in the kitchen. They pad around there, finding tidbits, chewing on the fridge handle. Then they get bored. They jump up, place front paws on top of child gate, which is much taller than they when standing with all four white feet on the ground. Then, they cry. They whine. And then that doesn’t work, they both in unison jettison off those little back legs and are running about the house. Attempts to tell them to calm down, stay in a room, don’t scream at me, sit in my lap, hey don’t chew that, what ARE you doing, leave the bathroom trash alone, leave BT alone, leave my laundry alone, chew on your own toys, leave my desk alone, leave my foot alone, GET OUT OF THERE, BT, stop growling at them, don’t you pee on my carpet, hey, stop! stop! STOP! — all these to no avail.

As I sit and calmly pull my hair out, massage strained temples, and wonder if they will ever be trained, I ruminate on others in my life who refuse to be controlled, who similarly come and go at their will, and (here the allegory starts to fall apart, I’m afraid to say) though it really wouldn’t break my heart if they just disappeared, I’ve gotten over worse, they refuse to go, and, they, who will remain nameless, insist on staying in my life, but at perfectly infrequent intervals. Do they go? No. Do they stay? No. Do they waver in the limbo in between, where they may be an admirer, or maybe just a really busy friend who says sweet things on occasion, but then disappears the moment the next stop would be taken? Oh yes.

My poor attempts to have a clean slate, meet new people, and move on from those of yesteryear are being sabotaged by both my failure to really leave the area, and that all these guys from my past life refuse to forget about me. I wouldn’t mind if they weren’t serially flaky and undependable. And when I say this I don’t mean if I reach out for help I would go wanting, because I’m sure they would be there to help and walk the line between really meaning anything to me, and then promptly run for the wind.

There are many of them, who contact me once a month or so – they each have their own very concrete schedule – with nice things to say, fun conversations to be had, and then…niente. Until, of course, thirty days or two weeks or three fifths through the next lunar cycle they each turn up again, and the merry-go-round continueth.

So, if any of you are listening, oh boys of flaky crust and charged friendship, get serious or get packing. I actually do have plenty enough male friends (enough to fill acres and acres in my head) and your sweet, unfulfilled friendship is actually nothing new, and if I want, I can go check under every rock between here and Timbuktu for another nice, friendly, almost-flirtatious guy to come to my rescue, pump up my ego, mumble sweet nothings, and really be there…without actually ever taking me on a real date.

So there.

After the afternoon’s events my friend, another friend and myself go out to dinner at a nearby steakhouse. We sit in the bar, because we have to get back to the conference center in time for the raffle, and talk about subjects too dark for everyday conversation.

People who died, that’s what we’re thinking about and sharing about. Also divorce, family breakup, murder, mental health crisis that led to institutionalization, and anything else in our families that isn’t really part of polite conversation.  I tell them about my first mother in law, how she hated me from the very first time I came on the property until, it would appear, the current day.  They listen sympathetically.

One of the women tells me that after about 40 years her first mother in law called her to tell her that she, the mother in law, had been wrong and that the daughter in law was in the right from the beginning. 

“It was a good moment,” my friend said, “but of course, I couldn’t completely accept it. She was going schizophrenic at the time.”

We talk about forgiveness, about hope, about losing the fear of many things and about fears that remain, such as getting older.

“Age is like mind over matter,” I say. “If you don’t mind it don’t matter.” I don’t tell them I stole this quote from an Ice Cube movie. Since I’m the youngest of the three of us, they probably think I don’t understand. But I do, really. I’ve been feeling like I’m getting too old since I was 17.

The food arrives. It is the kind of food I never eat at home – a big juicy hamburger with batter dipped fries and also a Sprite. I enjoy every bite, because, I tell myself, we’re only here for a little while. You can eat anything on women’s retreat weekend and as long as it’s only 2 days a year, it can’t ruin your health or your figure.

At the end of the meal we leave what’s on our plate and pay the bill. No to go boxes this time. This time, we’re traveling light, and we’re not carrying around the extra baggage.