In and Out of the Dog House
March 5, 2012
To err is Human
To forgive, Canine
-Dog proverb
Alice was unhappy when I didn’t come to collect her for our Goodwill excursion exactly on time.
“I was so worried!” she said when I arrived. She sat next to the phone with her coat on and buttoned up. “I almost called one of your friends to go and look for you.”
My brother Michael had a knack for predicting the exact time he would arrive at her house when she lived in Ames. She’d call him and say, “Come over for some orts.” Orts was a word they’d learned from doing crossword puzzles together. It means leftovers. He lived ten minutes away. “I’ll be there at 1:08,” he might say. Or 9:17. Or 5: 22. He always kept his word.
But I am not my brother. Like the flesh on my body, my sense of time these days is loosening its grip on me. Before leaving the house, I’d had to take Brio out for a longer walk than expected, then traffic was unusually intense and I couldn’t call Alice from the road. Besides, before leaving home, I’d told her on the phone that I’d be there in fifteen minutes to half an hour.
One-fifteen or one-thirty, what’s the difference? We were going shopping at Goodwill and not to a medical appointment. (I’m always punctual for those.) All she’d heard, though, was that I’d be arriving in fifteen minutes.
She pulled her gold plastic rain hat over her hair to protect it from the breeze, grabbed her walker, and bustled out into the hallway ahead of me, leaving me to turn off the lights and lock the door.
This was the moment I realized I’d been dispatched to what she used to call “the dog house,” a term from the 1950s that wives used when husbands displeased them. “He’s in the dog house,” some woman would say about her mate.
I apologized, but she was having none of it, so I mentally pictured the dog house of my dreams, kind of like this one:
On our way to the car, we passed a young woman pushing an elder in a wheelchair toward the covered smoking area. “Why does that caretaker have to wheel Lorna all the way out here to smoke?” she asked me irritably.
“Maybe Lorna asked her to.”
“She shouldn’t do that. That’s not her job. Lorna doesn’t really have to smoke. She’s almost ninety years old.”
I got her settled into the passenger seat and heaved her walker into the back. She took off her rain hat and struggled with the seat belt. “Why do I have to wear this darned thing anyway?”
I helped her get secured into place and finally off we went with that old devil, Tardiness, as our back seat companion, puffing on his pipe that he didn’t really have to smoke, fouling the air between us. It was going to be a long afternoon.
“I suppose we won’t have time to get any hot chocolate after we shop,” she said. Without giving me time to answer that we didn’t have to be back at any specific hour, she added, “Have you seen Carmel’s hair? That new caretaker? It’s white in front and black in back. Now what’s the sense of that?”
I hadn’t yet met Carmel but, based on the colorful hair displays of a few other caretakers at The Place, I could imagine it.
“No sense,” I said loudly. It’s necessary to speak in a very big voice when in the car, and I felt like I was yelling, but it felt kind of good to yell, almost like barking. You have to have something you can do while in the dog house.
“And her jeans are too tight,” Alice said. “They all wear tight jeans. They shouldn’t wear jeans to work anyway.”
“No, they should not!”
She looked at me suspiciously. “You’re agreeing with me too much. Are you making fun of me?”
“Yes!”
“Well, stop it.”
“Okay!”
“You were late and I was so worried.”
“Really, you should have called the police.”
“What?”
“The police!” I shouted. “You should have called them.”
She snapped her plastic rain hat against the sleeve of my coat, but I could sense a shift in mood. By the time we got to Goodwill, the complaints had died down, she’d smiled twice (once at some children crossing the street, once at a woman out running with her tiny dog), and she was eager to shop.
She loves clothes. Because she worked in the garment business for many years, she knows the markup in stores is high and the idea of getting a sweater or a pair of slacks for $5 thrills her.
I held things up for her to look at. Whenever she didn’t like one of my selections she’d say tactfully, “That’s nice but not for an old lady.”
She said she missed Meg.
Meg
Meg had joined us on our last shopping trip to Goodwill. “Meg’s off sailing around Puerto Rico,” I reminded her.
“Yes, I know,” she said, “but I wish she was here. She adds to the fun.”
And doesn’t waste time making me look at things not right for my age, she might have added.
Despite rejecting the sweaters not fit for an old lady, she selected a brightly colored fleece jacket like this one:
Sporty Alice.
“Can I get away with this?” she asked.
“Of course you can,” I assured her. She dropped the jacket into our basket.
Next, we spent a long time in the shoe department, where she considered, and then rejected, several pairs of Nike and Adida walking shoes. Like all Midwesterners, she calls all shoes of this ilk “tennis shoes.”
She was delighted to find two strings of beads in the glass jewelry case, one red and one black.
Each little affordable discovery elevated her mood. By the time we got back to our car all signs of crankiness were gone. She looked at a convertible waiting at a stop sign. “That car,” she said, “looks like a tennis shoe.”
“You’re right,” I said.
She turned my way. “Are you making fun of me again?”
“No!”
She waved her rain hat at me, just in case.
As we drove away from Starbuck’s with our hot chocolate, she recited this poem:
I love this little house because
It offers after dark
A pause for rest, a rest for paws,
A place to moor my bark.*
“That’s a poem about a dog house,” she said. “I wonder whatever made me think of a poem about a dog house.”
I sipped my cocoa and kept my silence.
That’s Louis Prima singing Jump, Jive, An’ Wail.
*The poem’s title is “Motto for a Dog.” It was written by Arthur Guiterman.
March 5, 2012 at 12:12 pm
You’ve got a way with words, Andrea! I loved this one.
March 6, 2012 at 3:38 pm
Happy to hear from you, Jane – as always.
March 5, 2012 at 12:14 pm
This is fantastic. I’ve been in the parental dog house as well and sometimes all you can do is laugh and agree with everything they say. Well done.
March 6, 2012 at 3:50 pm
Sometimes it works; sometimes no dice. Luckily, this time everything turned out well.
March 5, 2012 at 1:09 pm
In Australia, they call 2nd handstores “Opportunity Shops” – I think Alice enjoys finding treasures buried amonst the cast-offs…
March 6, 2012 at 3:51 pm
That’s the perfect term for them. Thank you, Kerry.
March 5, 2012 at 1:21 pm
I loved this! It reminds me of a favorite prayer: let me be as good a person as my dog thinks I am. Or maybe, to revise it, let my mom think I’m as good a person as my dog thinks I am!
(you were late, after all, because Brio needed a little extra attention).
March 6, 2012 at 3:54 pm
That’s a very worthy cause to pray for Teresa, but I’m afraid there’s no hope that Alice will ever find me to be as perfect as Brio finds me (although, come to think of it, Brio wants her meals served at exactly the same time each day and if I’m late she looks at me like she’s lost all faith).
March 5, 2012 at 1:22 pm
We call it the “shit list” in my family. Someone’s always on my mother’s. Usually me.
March 6, 2012 at 3:57 pm
Oh yes, I know that term too. I’d rather be in the dog house. At least there might be a dog in there, too.
March 5, 2012 at 2:16 pm
My favorite line:
…. and finally off we went with that old devil, Tardiness, as our back seat companion, puffing on his pipe that he didn’t really have to smoke, fouling the air between us.
I’ve been in THAT car, for sure! Whether it was the Devil Tardiness or one of his impish kin — such as the Devil “Unspoken rebuke” or the Devil “You are so wrong and I’m so right” or the Devil “I can’t believe you just said that” or or or …. Cars can really hold a mood, can’t they?)
Good for you and good for Alice for letting the mood pass along. Your car must have been a convertible with the top down that day.
March 6, 2012 at 3:59 pm
Yes, you’re right, Katharine. I’ve traveled with all those companions too – sometimes great distances, unfortunately.
March 5, 2012 at 2:19 pm
I especially love your including the ecstatic dog video at the end! Reminds me of my various dogs over the years who behave that way around snow (lots of it here).
March 6, 2012 at 4:01 pm
Oh yes, I know what you mean, Barbara. Brio loves the snow. She goes wild. The video is quite fun, isn’t it? I’ve watched it now about five or six times. I play it when I need to change my mood to Happy. Or at least Happier.
March 5, 2012 at 2:24 pm
Your poetic post makes me smile here in North Dakota today.
March 6, 2012 at 4:03 pm
Beautiful North Dakota! Thanks so much for checking in, Melanie, and many thanks too for your comment.
March 5, 2012 at 3:59 pm
I was planning to go to the Unique Thrift Store tomorrow afternoon and now I’m really salivating! I alerted to the comment referring to such as “Opportunity Stores”. I love that & plan to use it!
(I also love your way with words)!
cb
March 6, 2012 at 4:05 pm
The Unique Thrift Store. That name conjures up at least a novella. Think of the possibilities!
March 5, 2012 at 9:57 pm
Oh, this is lovely. Yes, the doghouse…I remember *that* feeling well. My mother wasn’t easy to jolly out of it but I managed sometimes. Probably depending on the severity of my crimes.
And I swear, sometimes there was almost something psychic going on. That Alice was thinking of a doghouse surprises me not at all!
March 6, 2012 at 4:07 pm
I know, Chris. The psychic connection is just there.
March 5, 2012 at 10:03 pm
I seem to land in the dog house at least once per day. In fact, I did actually really end up in the dog house once. I ran away from home, when I was about 7 or 8, and, ran away to the big dog house we had. It had been built by some family friend, and the thing was a sturdy as a house, it was insulated, and had floor covering, and shingles, and was big enough for me, the dog, and I could have had a friend or two over. It was quite the dwelling.
March 6, 2012 at 4:11 pm
Perfect! If we’d had a dog house like yours, I would have gone running there too as a kid – especially if it offered the company of both a dog and a friend.
March 5, 2012 at 10:42 pm
This was really just about perfect writing. I am so astonished at how you weave these ordinary stories into something that’s both hilarious and poignant — I think I love you and Alice for real.
March 6, 2012 at 4:12 pm
Well, as you must know, it’s reciprocated, Elizabeth.
March 6, 2012 at 9:14 pm
this was WONDERFUl, thank you andrea. i LOVED the dialogue between you two in the car. LOVED. i so want you to collect these somehow — maybe with flashbacks, too — to other bits of alice’s life, your life, etc. xoxo
March 6, 2012 at 9:45 pm
I’m so happy you liked it, Anna. I thought the dog in the video looked a teensy bit like your Fred. A cousin maybe.
March 7, 2012 at 5:26 am
I found your blog only recently, but every time I read your words, I feel that I’m listening to a friend–one with experiences so like my own. I love your take on how to cope with those dog-house moments. Humor and perspective certainly work better than frustration!
March 7, 2012 at 8:22 am
Hello, Denise – Thank you for stopping by and welcome to Alice’s world. I’m so glad it feels like familiar territory. Yes, humor works better than frustration, but I’ve been there too. Caretaking has its own learning curve, doesn’t it? I hope you come back. I appreciate your reading and your comment.
March 8, 2012 at 3:30 am
This made me laugh and reminded me of times with my mom…thanks for both!
March 8, 2012 at 9:59 am
If for no other reason than to make you remember times like this with your mom and laugh, I’m glad I wrote this, Nancy.
March 8, 2012 at 5:53 pm
Terrific post, Andrea. I felt like I was right there with you, Alice, and Tardiness. As for the video, I want to be that dog! BTW, I already knew about the meaning of “ort.” I learned that one many years ago when my Mom sent me an article about crossword puzzling. The article’s title was, “Egad, Asta’s eroded the orts!”
March 8, 2012 at 6:15 pm
That Asta! What will she do next? Thanks for stopping by, Katie.
March 9, 2012 at 5:21 am
Perfect responses to Alice. You are both a kind and loyal daughter, but you are also so patient. I love her new fleece…I have one just like it!
Lovely job, yet again Andrea. gin