Mary T. Wagner

Running With Stilettos

The Serendipity Loop

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For the record, my plans for last night called for me to be nibbling hors d’oeuvres and schmoozing at a charming little art museum nearby that was hosting an annual get-together to thank its volunteers. The theme was “Hats Off to Volunteers!” And since we were encouraged to wear hats to go with the theme, I’d borrowed a gold-sequinned fedora (with battery-operated lights!!) from my artist daughter. When you add up the facts that I love hors d’oeuvres, I love schmoozing, and I love this art museum, well then…lock and load, let’s get the party started!

Sand and water

Sand and water

The artist herself had just left on a long adventure to the East Coast, which may find her making Philadelphia her permanent residence. Her car was certainly filled to the brim with her belongings in boxes and garment bags and art supplies and healthy food. A half hour after we’d hugged our goodbyes and she’d driven off into the (metaphorical) sunset, I suited up for a chilly dog walk and clipped Lucky to the leash. I had, I thought, plenty of time to knock off a mile trek with him at a brisk pace before returning to the house to get gussied up for the art museum.

Suited up in earmuffs, gloves, muffler, and two pairs of pants, we made it about three house lengths down the sidewalk when my phone rang in my pocket. It was my daughter, cursing her forgetfulness at forgetting a vital—and very expensive—health supplement in the refrigerator. She was by now nearly fifty miles away.

If you know anything about me it’s that motherhood trumps everything in my book, of course, so I gave her the coordinates for a Starbucks about halfway between and told her I’d meet her there in a little while. Then I piled Lucky—who hadn’t even had time to sniff a tree or a fire hydrant—into the back of the car, grabbed the errant bottle of exorbitantly-priced probiotics from the refrigerator, and hit the road.

Reflections

Reflections of Spring

A half hour later, we hugged again, and I handed off the probiotics for a traveling cup of peppermint hot chocolate.

“I’m really sorry you’re going to miss your thing at the museum,” she said ruefully. “I know how much you wanted to go!”

“Don’t worry about it honey, the evening will be just fine!” I said, and then we hit the interstate going in opposite directions.

Lucky, who is a superb travelling companion, still sat silently in the back of the car, nestled on a big cushion. I thought about the long drive home to another walk on the neighborhood sidewalks, and then turned off at the next exit, where a state park nestled on a beach. It just had to be more fun than picking up where we left off!

Lucky cuts Loose!

Lucky cuts Loose!

We got to the park while it was still daylight…but after the staff had closed up the welcome center and gone home. The road through the park to the shore was far longer than I had remembered, and we didn’t pass a single car or hiker. Plenty of deer…but no people. The same held true when we finally reached the parking lot by the shoreline.

I dutifully clipped Lucky’s leash to his collar as we left the car, but as I looked around I realized we literally had the entire enormous park to ourselves. Not much of a mystery there, since it was the dinner hour for most civilized folks, the park itself was located in the middle of nowhere, and a nasty weather system was moving in. I unclipped Lucky and turned him loose.

Birches at water's edge

Birches at water’s edge

Oh, what a happy dog! It has been quite the heartbreaking transition for him to make the switch from a country dog to a city pooch to adjust to my move last year. Out in the country, he sniffed, ran, chased rabbits, and patrolled the perimeter of my lawn at will, challenging all comers. Living in the city, he is always on a leash when he gets outside. His daily life has been muted.

And so we walked, on wet sand and through forest trails, up hillocks and on rocky outcrops. I stopped to take pictures, of course. Lucky dug in and launched himself across flat landscapes at ninety miles an hour for the sheer joy of it. We ambled, and looked around, and explored for a half hour. And then when ice chips started raining down on our heads, we called it and headed back to the car. I recalled that when I first set out to photograph my favorite shoes on a beach years ago for my blog “Running with Stilettos,” it had been at this very same beach…and it had been darn cold and wintry that day too!

Running with Stilettos

Running with Stilettos

It was most definitely not the evening I set out to have. No hors d’oeuvres, no funny hat, no light conversation in an art gallery. But the evening that I got was pretty spectacular anyway!

The Dog Days of Marriage

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A very good friend of mine just took a giant leap of faith and bought a puppy. On impulse on a Sunday afternoon. On the spot. Against the wishes of her husband of many years, who has steadfastly maintained for years that he doesn’t want to be bothered with a dog under any circumstances.

My friend “Ellen” (all names shall be changed to protect the innocent, the guilty, and the completely ambivalent) has been going through some tough times lately. There was a surgery that took a great deal of time and pain to recover from. There is an adult offspring who has sown a very hard row for himself to hoe in the next year. There are any number of the usual variables that go into raising a family and keeping a marriage alive, the minute secrecies and the giant compromises and the resolute keeping a game face on when you would rather throw a rolling pin through a plate glass door. Or so I’ve heard. I pulled the plug on my own marriage after a quarter century of keeping a game face on, and I feel so much better for it!

Still, where Ellen is concerned, she would like to keep both the husband—“Rob,” we’ll call him—and the puppy. And she has long wanted a dog. Her children—all grownups, at least in calendar years—have met the news with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and varying degrees of forthrightness.

Since I don’t have a surveillance camera installed at her house giving me a video feed of the family interactions, I just have to conjure up the scenes as she describes them to me later. And since we’ve known each other for about forty years and we both know where all of the bones are buried, our understanding of what gets described has sort of a shorthand “cinema vérité” quality in our respective imaginations.

And so, amid her witty observations and anguished self-doubts and incredibly patient decision to refrain from responding to one unmarried child’s lecture to her on the nature of marriage and compromise (I would have been tempted to employ a taser if one was within reach), came the unspoken plea for a pep talk. Some sign that I thought that she had somehow, despite all the dust and noise in the short-term, done the right thing.

And I gave it, in spades.

Adding a dog to the family was, in my own estimation, about the best thing she could have done for herself under the circumstances. But then I think adding a dog to a family is always the best thing one can do. It boils down to the fact that a dog is a furry, tail-wagging package of unconditional love that improves everyone’s life that it touches.

Families are complicated, I told her, because every relationship within them boils down to “I love you…plus”.

Parents love their children…plus “stand up straight, eat your vegetables, don’t wear that, finish your homework, get a job, change direction, you should have picked a different career, where did I go wrong?”

Children love their parents…plus “quit bugging me, I’m all grown up, I don’t need your advice, why did you make meatloaf, you just don’t understand me, I know I messed up but I can’t admit it, quit treating me like a child!”

Spouses love each other…plus “I wish you’d quit nagging, how could you, won’t you please go to a movie tonight, why do you have to work so late, I’m tired of picking up your dirty clothes from the bathroom floor, you were nicer to me when we were dating, why can’t you get along with my sister?”

Children love their siblings…plus “you should be dating somebody else, why do you have to be such a screw-up, mom always loved you more than me, quit whining about your job, when are you finally going to quit drinking, you need to help out with the parents more.”

When it comes to a dog, though, ah…that is a gift so pure and simple.

You take a dog into your arms and give it food and warmth, and it will defend you and protect you to its dying breath, no questions asked.  As steadfast and self-sacrificing as a Spartan at the Battle of Thermopylae. And that holds true from the largest bull mastiff to the tiniest Chihuahua.

A dog is always happy to see you, never holds a grudge, and forgives you everything and anything. I love the prayer “Dear God, help me to be the good person that my dog thinks I am!”

And so I hope that the new arrival will win Rob’s heart as it already has Ellen’s. We should all be so lucky to have such uncomplicated love and devotion in our lives. We could learn so much about how to treat each other from our faithful companions’ example.

In the meantime, I see that after a few days of Facebook silence on the subject, Ellen has at last posted a photo of the new arrival, all white fluff surrounding a pair of black eyes and a tiny black nose, as cute as a bug’s ear.

The notes of congratulations keep rolling in for Ellen on Facebook, an absolute avalanche of congratulations and good wishes and welcomes to the world of dog ownership. And I have a feeling that Rob will eventually embrace the new addition. In the meantime, across the miles, in our brief exchanges, I know that Ellen not only has a new puppy, but also a new spring in her step, and new leap of joy in her heart. She’s been long overdue.

My friend’s adventure is just beginning. And I’m so happy for her that if I had a tail, it would be wagging like crazy.

Happiness for $1.88

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I like to think that you can find a lot of happiness in very small things. I’ve been able to purchase it for $1.88, in fact…plus tax.

First, the backstory.  I was still in the early stages of getting used to an “empty nest.” But it still wasn’t entirely “empty”–the last of the kids might have left for college, but the dog and the cat were still here and getting used to this new world order too.  And I got all their focused attention as a result. The dog, Bandit, and the cat, Smokey, were getting a lot more conversation from me too, since they’d both be sitting at the top of the stairs waiting for me to turn the key in the door when I get home.  I couldn’t sit down on the sofa at any time for any reason without suddenly finding an oversized sixteen pound cat that looks like a bear sprawled across my lap, purring.  When I leave for work, I turn the radio on and tell them, “okay, you kids stay out of trouble while I’m gone!”  Yeah, we’re probably all a little nuts.

Changes always bring new routines, and one of mine became spending a little time each day with Bandit, tossing a tennis ball outside for him to chase.  Aside from standing on the sill of the bay window and barking at the world, that was pretty much his job.  Just for the record, that little guy in the picture at the top of this blog isn’t Bandit, it’s my “grand-pug,” Golden Boy, but the working theory fits pretty much most of the dogs I know.

There’s a lot that can make a dog happy.  A hunk of juicy steak.  A rabbit in the yard.  A squirrel on the back porch to chase into the woods.  The words “good doggie!”  But boy oh boy, did Bandit love to chase a tennis ball!  Even more so since we started having “tennis ball time” as a daily routine.  I figured out just how much it meant to him when I woke up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water, stepped out of the bedroom, and found him parked next to the bedroom door…with a tennis ball a few inches away.

So on the way home from work the very next day, I stopped off at a “big box” store and bought a can of fresh tennis balls for him.  For starters, the old ones were covered with dirt and beaten up by the weather.  Next, they were so old they’d sort of lost their bounce.  Which wouldn’t be much of a problem, except for the third thing, which is the fact that I throw like a girl. A limp tennis ball doesn’t go very far when I pitch it down the driveway.

I got home, let Bandit outside, opened the lid and popped open the seal on the fresh fuzzy yellow tennis balls before I even got into the house.  I held one up, and his eyes lasered in on the target.  I gave it a throw, and off he raced in hot pursuit.  The new ball, still clean and dry, bounced about six feet in the air the first time it landed, and it kept my old dog going much farther down the driveway, with a lot more leaps and a lot more fun.  If dogs could smile, he’d have been grinning from ear to ear.  Instead, he trotted back to me with the enthusiasm of a kindergartner kicking up a pile of autumn leaves. There was a fresh spring in his step, and his tail wagged back and forth like a metronome. He dutifully dropped the new ball at my feet, and we did it again and again and again…until my arm finally got tired of throwing.

So, the bottom line is, for about $1.88…plus tax, I got a very happy dog.  And when I’ve got a happy tail-wagging dog, I can’t help but be a happy person too!

Have Dog, Will Travel

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Bandit’s been making new friends lately, under the worst of circumstances.  But you couldn’t find a better friend to sit by your side these days.

Only days after bringing my 86 year old father from a hospital a hundred miles away to a lovely nursing home near me, I was meeting him again in an emergency room at midnight where a number of catastrophic things were happening to him all at once.  The tragic convergence of those ailments and other complicating factors has meant that now, only a week later, he is resting comfortably in a hospice, as we wait for nature to finally take its course.  I am on what amounts to a long death vigil, and I am still trying to keep it “perky.”

I’ve done many little things to try to make these last days nicer.  Filled his room with the German music of his youth.  Installed (with the help of a truly wonderful man) a goldfinch feeder right outside the window by his bed.  Put large pictures up of himself and my mother and other family members on the wall beside his pillow.  Fed him German beer and ice cream on the days that he could still swallow.  In the oldest pictures, he leans casually against his motorcycle in post-war Germany, dressed in a trench coat and a fedora.  He looks like a movie star.  My mother is gorgeous and slender in a gathered dark polka-dotted skirt, kneeling to pet her little dog on a city sidewalk.  They can still be young in these pictures.

And I brought Bandit to visit.  Bandit is a chocolate lab (mostly), and a grey-bearded old-timer himself.  At eleven and a half, with a bad liver, he’s also dodged enough bullets already that I like to say he’s got more lives than cat.  I could drive to the canine emergency room twenty miles away in my sleep.  Some days he wakes up and moves so stiffly that I think he’ll be a goner by nightfall.  A few painkillers later, snuck into a doggie treat or two, and he’s wagging his tail again and following me outside with a tennis ball in his mouth.  Or chasing a rabbit across the lawn at about a hundred miles an hour.

My dad grew up on a farm, in a small village, and has always loved animals.  Until the last one died at seventeen a few years ago, he and my mother had always had a dog underfoot.  And so a few visits ago I fluffed up the fleece dog pad for the back of the car, clipped a leather leash on Bandit, and said “let’s go!”  He’s the center of attention from the moment we step through the door, as one resident after another asks to visit.  He wags his tail, licks their hand, let’s them hug, sometimes gives them a lick.

He’s been a perfect gentleman.  Visiting my father, he sits quietly or stretches out on the tile floor while I fuss with ice cream and swap music CDs and try to urge my father to take one more bite of pudding, one more sip of beer.  I don’t know if my father realizes that he’s there, but I still toss the ball around the room, filling the air with the sound of scrambling feet and toenails on a slick surface.  Bandit usually brings the ball back to me and drops it at my feet, eager for another round of “fetch.”

The first day, though, I got distracted by other little things, and when I finally searched the floor for the tennis ball, I couldn’t find it anywhere.  Puzzled, I stood up and looked around…and realized that he had gently placed it on the bed beside my father’s elbow.

I don’t think my father knew it was there…but I certainly did.  I patted his head and gave him a squeeze.  “Bandit,” I told him, “you’re a very good dog.”

Lucky Dog!

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Bandit made a “squirrel run” yesterday morning.  That’s what I call it when I look out the kitchen window at the bird feeder on the back porch railing, notice a familiar, very fat grey visitor with a luxurious tail dipping into my eight-dollars-a-five-pound-bag of hulled sunflower seeds, and whisper the magic words to my dog:  “Hey Bandit, there’s a squirrel!!”  The squirrel’s not a dumb fellow, and if the kitchen window’s open I don’t want to tip him off too soon by letting him overhear the plot.

This is the kind of thing that makes Bandit’s day.  He’s eleven years old, and getting grey himself, and I think he spends most of his time otherwise pretty much just dreaming about chasing rabbits.  His ears perk up when he sees me beckon with my finger, and the two of us jostle in the narrow back hall as I try to silently (ha! ha! ha!!) open first the main door and then the screen door to ambush our uninvited guest.  The whole thing has the feel of being shoehorned into the starting gate at a racecourse…along with the horse!  Between elbows, knees, tails, paws, doors and latches, the squirrel’s got a pretty good idea of what’s coming before Bandit ever hurtles noisily out of the gate.  It’s a great spectacle that we repeat about twice a week, the squirrel making a successful mad dash for the trees nearby and working off some of that expensive meal he just stole, the dog scrambling down the back stairs in full pursuit and then tearing across the lawn, feeling for a fleeting few seconds like a wolf on the hunt.

Not a very unusual morning around here…except when you think that Bandit nearly died last week from chocolate poisoning, and for a few days after getting home from the canine emergency room he was not his usual perky self.  But for the rest of the story, read “Double Chocolate Lab”.  And remember, if you have a dog, to keep those candy bars under lock and key!

Cat, interrupted

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It’s usually the sound of a large furry body hitting the patio door in frustration that tips me off to the gopher on the porch.  This is the first year we’ve had him for a visitor.  The usual suspects that raid the bird feeders are racoons and a fat squirrel that Bandit, the retriever, loves to chase off the porch.

We have a whole routine going now.  It starts with me spying the squirrel at the feeder through the kitchen window, then whispering and beckoning for the dog to follow down the hall to the back door.  I edge the door open, Bandit nearly jumping for joy behind me in his haste to go through like a rocket, and then they’re off.  Dog scrambling as fast as his paws will carry him down the stairs, squirrel with an airborne headstart, using his tail as a rudder, making tracks for the nearest tree.  The squirrel always wins, of course, but you never see an old dog happier!

Smokey the cat, however, doesn’t get let “off the leash” the same way.    For several reasons–chief among them than I LIKE the bluebirds that nest in my backyard and the hummingbirds that feed just off the kitchen window and all the other dozens of feathered jewels that come to my backporch–he’s an indoor cat.  All sixteen fluffy long-haired pounds of him, a small lion in a domestic coat.

He’s an incredible mouser, when the weather turns cold and the little white-footed mice try to make a home inside for the winter.  But it’s pretty darn funny to watch him at the kitchen window, trying to reach the goldfinches just inches away on the other side of the glass.  And the gopher who sits under the window feeder on the porch a few feet away, waiting for a few seeds to fall, must pose a special temptation and frustration!  No balancing on the edge of the kitchen sill, hoping to not fall into the dish tub–if only that glass wasn’t there, he’d have a running start!  Oh well…

For more about how little critters play with Smokey’s head, turn to  Cat…and mouse

 

Pug and Garden

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A few weekends ago I took my “grand-pug” on a trip out of town to see my friend Liz, who lives “up north” in Marshfield, Wisconsin.

I killed the proverbial two birds with one stone, since I not only got to hung out a friend I hadn’t seen in WAY too long, I got to spend some time playing with my daughter’s still-new puppy before the two of them move several states away when she goes to grad school.

Liz–who I know from way back in the day when we were both young journalists on the staff of The Milwaukee Journal– has a great shade garden. Golden Boy has both a face and a corkscrew tail too cute for words. And as long as I wasn’t at home in my own living room, Bandit, the co-dependent chocolate labrador, couldn’t try to push him out of my lap.

Kids and dogs…they’re so cute when they’re small. But only the dogs have wagging tails!

Marshfield 027