The Life in My Years

“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” Everything has a price.
I’m not giving away anything really tangible here.
Everything has a cost. In this case the cost is your time. I hope that it’s time well spent.”

I have a corrupt canine free to the first bidder. A felonious, evildoer who’s been scoffing our law against digging.

There! That one, the white one, wearing the partial mask as if to hide her identity.

She wears the look of innocence but don’t be fooled.

First she tried to dig up one of the tomato plants and then, once caught, she tried to piss on it (thankfully the tomato cage prevented a direct hit).

She’s also been caught trying to burrow under the fence.

Okay, so we’re not giving her away. Our son would kick up a bit of a row if he found we’d given his dog away. The squat little criminal is Jasmine and her partner in crime is Abby.

Abby’s not a criminal so much as a pretender. She thought she was a hunter when she saw a bird flitting over the swimming pool. Was she expecting a dry landing when she lunged?

Well, now we know that Abby knows how to swim.

The wife and I are dogging sitting while our son and daughter and their families are vacationing in Arizona

Along with our son’s two dogs we have our two regulars.

My dog Lexi thinks she’s the house princess except that she’s anything but regal. In fact she’s nuttier than my Aunt Bonnie’s fruit cake.

Chloe, our daughter’s Black Lab is the wizened old lady with the flecks of grey. She quietly goes about her business and usually manages to ignore the doggy shenanigans around her.

Chloe pines for her family; she’s either curled up at the front door or in the privacy of the bedroom. Meanwhile Jasmine and Abby don’t seem to miss their family. I’d say that they don’t give a shit but they’re dogs, and they’re giving a lot of it and all four of them are keeping me busy with the shovel.

It was with more than a little trepidation that we consented to watching Abby and Jasmine, but after a couple of days it’s been a real joy. Apart from the poop and the digging, the dogs have provided the house with some whacky energy.

It’s bedlam when the UPS guy makes a delivery and rings the doorbell. A chorus of barks and sixteen paws sliding on the hardwood as the four barrel towards the front door, careening off of each other and the walls, looking like hairy hockey players scrambling for the puck.

Oh and there’s that little matter about the door game. Anyone who owns a dog knows the door game.

It starts with the dog standing in front of the door asking to be let out.
Fine, out you go.
A minute or two later there’s a scratch at the door. Dog is sitting in front of the door wanting to be let in.
A few minutes later the dog is back at the door asking to be let out.
The most audacious version of the game is when you let the dog out and she does an immediate about face to come back in. Often met with, “Are you out of your mind? Stay outside!”
Well, we have four of them playing the door game (Okay, three and a half. Chloe isn’t so much into it these days).
Certainly there must be collaboration.  “Hey, let’s just fuck with him for a while. Let’s go to the door.”

It’s actually pretty fabulous to have four dogs in the house.

The old fence
Anybody want some free rotting wood and rusting hardware?

That fence that Jasmine is trying to burrow under is on its last legs.

Sometime this summer the solid wood side fence and the wire view fence in the back are coming down and getting hauled to the landfill to spend eternity with old refrigerators, rusted bicycles and the remains of the guy who snitched on a mob boss.

That fence has served us well for twenty years. These days it seems that it’s harder and harder to find anything that lasts twenty years.

A few days ago I did a quick inspection of the old fence and found that there’s something captivating about that rickety old thing. An old wooden actor may suffer from an acute lack of character but an old wooden fence brims with character.

And so before demolishing it, I took out my camera and bestowed the old fence a last bit of well deserved dignity.

Twenty years of thrashing by the elements have worn down the wood and at the same time blessed it with an aged nobility.

Care for a rusty nail?
There’s plenty of rusting, exposed hardware. This rusty nail is an invitation to a tetanus shot.

This Rusty Nail is an old classic.
2 oz. of Scotch Whiskey
½ oz. of Drambuie
Combine the ingredients in a mixing glass with ice, stir, pour through a strainer into a rocks glass over a cube of ice and garnish with a cherry or a lemon twist.

It’s a commonly accepted belief that liquor is an acquired taste.

I’ve wanted to acquire Scotch. I’ve wanted to be sophisticated; seated in a chair of creaking leather, in front of a cozy fire, surrounded by books and wood paneling. I’d sniff the amber liquid, appreciate it’s fine crafting and age; hold it up to the light to admire it’s tawny color and then take a measured sip. No gulping here. This is a drink of dignity.

I’d rather lick rust.

Try as I might, I can’t get around the memory of the nasty liquid my doctor used to prescribe to calm a nasty cough. Sadly I’m doomed to be a vulgarian.

But I can appreciate a sort of dignity in the rusting hardware of the old fence.