This never-ending winter needs to knock its stupid shit off right now

Sure, it’s in the low 50s this afternoon in the DFW area but god damn it anyway.

This Texas winter has been so long and so cold and so full of unholy bullshit temperature swings (from 80 to 20 this weekend) that I sincerely am having trouble fathoming how those of you in The Snow Places have maintained any sort of happiness or will to live, let alone how you’ve avoided complete societal collapse or epidemic mass murder.

I know that if you live in Minnesota or on the East Coast or really anywhere besides Texas, California, or Florida right now you would like to mass-murder me for complaining down here from the relatively tropical Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and I do not blame you. In fact that is rather my point. If I’m feeling so profoundly stabby and edgy and depressed by this winter, then I stand in awe of you up there in the frozen nether-lands who have not resorted to ritual killings and human sacrifice in a desperate effort to make the gods of winter knock it right the furk off already for christsakes.

Possibly I got soft by spending the last several winters in northern Italy and southern England, both places where it got chilly but rarely below freezing, and I saw snow maybe three times, and most of all the weather is steady there. Rupert Not His Real Name and I really noticed the stability of temperatures over there; a swing of 60 degrees in one day, or even of 40, would have been wholly unthinkable.

So maybe I got used to that, and found it most pleasant, and now that I’m back here for my first winter since 2008 it’s freaking me out unduly and I’m overreacting.

Maybe. Maybe. Or, maybe this winter is just some godforsaken bullcorn that sucks real bad.

So, I’m sorry for you guys where it’s the worst winter in decades and you haven’t seen green grass in months, where the schools have had so many snow days that you don’t love your children anymore and they might have to extend their school year a week or two into the summer, where your dogs are terrified to even go outside to pee and poo because their snouts might freeze and your back yard is nothing but a sea of yellow-and-brown snow by this point.

Hang in there. Glorious spring is coming and it will be the most welcomed and well-loved spring in a long time.

Meanwhile, here’s my happy new dog to try to make you smile and forget how much you want to hit winter in the balls with your cracked, frozen fists while you sob and ask God why this is all happening.

OMG

We took them on a long nature walk this morning that involved both of them covering themselves in glory, by which I mean river mud and dead animal stink. When we got back, I gave them each a bath, by which I mean a shower. Really, who gives dogs “baths”? We have the perfect set-up, a walk-in shower with a detachable shower head, so I take off my shoes and go in there with them and scrub them down and it takes about 3 minutes per dog and God Bless ‘Murrica.

It’s in the 80s here today and sunny, sorry everybody not in Texas, so after their showers and a towel-drying, they ran out to the back yard and flung their bodies around in the grass to get all the horrifying clean water off of them, and then I cracked eggs while Rupert cooked bacon, and then I peeked outside to see what they were up to on the patio and oh my god.

I counted and there are seven other rugs and cushions out there, and our back yard is not small. This was not closeness out of necessity, it was closeness because I don’t even know why but I love that they have been brought together to share their doggy lives.

Also, Zucca’s belly is all healed up, and she wants you to know it. Mostly she wants you to scratch it.

P.S. About that 80s and sunny weather thing…it’s supposed to be 19 degrees and sleeting here by tomorrow night. Blerg.

Remember when I used to blog about things that were not dogs?

Yeah, me neither. This is a lot less depressing.

Yesterday I found Primo with his arm draped over Zucca for the first time, and then last night this happened:

Rupert and I had been on the couch with them, watching TV after dinner, and usually when we get up to go to bed, Primo jumps down too. Not this time – they were still like that half an hour later, their adorableness compelling us to break our own rule against letting animals on the couch unless a human is also on the couch. We were also so weakened by the scene that we didn’t even care they weren’t both on the purple blanket meant to protect the leather. Screw it, furniture is replaceable, happy dogs are not.

Both of the dogs had to go to the veterinarian this morning, Primo for his bordetella booster and a refill on heartworm prevention, and Zucca to introduce her and have her belly sutures checked because three of them had disappeared in the last 12 hours even though she never messes with the wound. The vet, whom everyone calls Dr. B and that’s even what her nametag says and I love her, says the wound is healing marvelously and is already all closed up so no worries. And literally within one hour of getting back home, the last two sutures were disappeared, too. I’m amazed that a two-inch belly incision can seal up completely in 8 days but here we are.

She also has a runny nose and does that “backward sneezing” dog thing but Dr. B thinks it’s just allergies, not an infection from the shelter, thank god. She weighs exactly 15 pounds and I’m under instructions to fatten her up a little because she’s extremely bony and probably malnourished. No problem there; one day I’ll video this girl eating and you will agree she’s like Guy Fieri rampaging through a pulled pork food truck.

It appears that Zucca very much enjoys Primo’s butt, because this is how I found them this morning:

I went foraging through Sunny’s old stuff yesterday to find something to put on Zucca to formally begin her training in the ancient craft of Dog Performance Art, but everything is huge on her, obviously. All of Zucca is about the size of Sunny’s head and neck. Not even the antlers will stay on this one’s tiny head, nor will Primo’s Jayne hat. Plus even if I tried, she won’t stay far enough away from me to let me take a decent picture unless she’s in bed or nuzzling Primo’s buttcheeks. This is a dog who really realllly wants to be ON you, and she actually will hug you if you let her. Well she’ll learn to get her picture taken good and proper because though I don’t have any green beans in the house, I do have a fresh-cooked batch of beef liver. Get ready, Zucca.

By the way, three or four people have already asked me on Facebook why I’d name our dog something that rhymes with fucka. We have Rupert Not His Real Name and Sunny Peace Be Upon Her, so this one may have to become Zucca Rhymes With Hookah. Or, obviously, with Lucas. Zucca Lucas, bam.

Her name is Zucca.

Last year, my friend crafted a masterpiece of dog headgear for Primo (your dog wants one too, so ) and I was and remain impressed by her talent. Now it turns out her husband, Dan, has his own special skill and that is naming a new dog perfectly without even seeing a picture first. Last week, when we’d adopted the new girl but were waiting for her spaying, I didn’t have a photo because the shelter had taken her online listing down and I’d forgotten to take pics myself, so I described her to my knitting friends (Stacy is one of them) and asked for help in picking out a name, mentioning that I liked the name pumpkin but that Rupert had vetoed it because it was too “cute”.

Dan said, simply, “Zucca”, which is the Italian word for pumpkin. Ah-hah! Perfect! But then I am a spaz and talked myself out of it after saying it loud several times, thinking that it was too sharp or something. Possibly my problem was that I was pronouncing it with the correct Italian accent because that’s how I learned the word. Zook-kuh. Hard Z, both c’s enunciated, all of it in the front of my mouth. So I thought, no, it’s not the name.

Then I spent the last 8 straight days trying every single other name that has ever existed in English or any other language. She has been Gemma, Ginger, Sweetie, Alice, Caramella, and, most recently, Lugnut. That’s right, Lugnut happened for a whole day until I woke up this morning and realized it sounds like we’re cursing her in German.

Anyway, all this time, as my frustration and annoyance at my own self grew and grew, I kept rolling back around to Zucca, first once a day then once an hour. I tried softening it and pronouncing it like an American since I am in fact an American, and even found myself cuddling her and mumbling, oh sweet girl Zuzu and then while eating lunch today I actually called her a zucchini for reasons nobody will ever understand. The point is that I realized her name is Zucca.

Primo continues to be adorable and sweet with her. She gets in his face and is an attention hog in the extreme, but he’s patient and only grunted at her once, when she tried to steal his chew stick. They’re starting to cuddle a little when they sleep; this morning I found them with Primo’s arm draped over her. They moved when I tried to creep out of the room to get the camera because they don’t want to break my blog with their winsome charm.

It turns out that Zucca hates the vacuum as much as Primo does, which is tough for them because now with two shedding dogs, I’m having to bust out that machine every afternoon. The other day they fled together to the staircase landing for safety:

I convinced them the vacuum was gone so they rassled each other for a minute and then Primo decided he’d rather lay down and get his belly scratched, but Zucca wasn’t finished so he got stalked real good. This one is titled “SOON“.

SOON
SOON

Man, it’s fun having two dogs again.

He continues to enjoy sticks quite an awful lot.

A few weeks ago we got a freak day that was in the 70s, so over to the river we went because we knew Primo was missing his regular swimming sessions, and there he found a giant stick that he spent the next hour wanting to marry so they could be together forever or at least until he chewed her into many smaller sticks.

Here’s the 5th of approximately 47 times we threw his one true love into the water that day.

It never stopped being funny. As usual, he wanted to carry the stick all the way home, while also playing keep-away with us because obviously half the appeal of his stick is not letting someone else have it. So to keep him entertained, we had to keep pretending that we wanted his foul river-water-and-slobber-covered stick. Anyway, 20 minutes later…

I realize that’s a pretty boring video, as they all are, but do you like how he briefly lost interest in the stick because CAT TURD! Actually I don’t know if that was cat turd, it was some sort of turd and he has a known history of loving a good cat turd snack in the neighbor’s yard so there you go.

He’s going to be getting a new doggy brother or sister soon. We’re settled into the new house, all the insanity of the move back to the States is completed, the horrific partial kitchen remodel is done (I have stories!), the in-laws’ visit has happened, and the holidays are past. That means the time has come for me to get a job. Which, wish me luck – that’s a whole other post – but the point for this story is that we need to find a companion for Primo before we start leaving him home alone for 9 or 10 hours every day. He just would not do well with that. He copes very poorly with separation from the pack. Trust me, we’ve worked hard on this, have tried every technique known to dog and man to reduce separation anxiety, but he was deeply damaged when we adopted him from the shelter in Italy and that damage has left scars. He needs companionship and I’m going to make sure he has it when I have to start being gone all day.

We’re going to start with a foster dog or two, because I’ve always wanted to do that and to work with volunteer rescue groups. So we figure this would be the perfect solution, fostering dogs and helping them get adopted out, and having dog-company for Primo. He’s extremely good with other dogs so I think he’ll be an excellent foster brother, plus this’ll give us some time to decide if we want to permanently adopt a bigger dog or a smaller one, etc. Win-win-win, I say.

So I’m meeting with a couple of foster groups later this week to see who they need help with. Bam.

Meanwhile, tomorrow morning I start training as a hospice volunteer. I have to find a way to make myself useful until I can get a paying job, and ever since I worked at the cancer clinic so many years ago, I’ve wanted to be a hospice volunteer, so here we go. This particular hospice happens to be just a few blocks from our house and when I mentioned to them that I’ve walked past them many times with my dog, they told me to try to get him certified as a therapy dog so that I can bring him with me into the hospice. Um, YES PLEASE. So we’re looking into that, too.

Honestly though, I’m not sure Primo would pass the test because the guidelines say the dog needs to be completely calm in all situations, but he has a pretty severe sudden-loud-noise phobia. As I write this, he just jumped a foot in the air because the ice maker in the fridge did its thing and now he is trembling like he was just beaten. He nearly wets himself every time I set a pan down on the stove or accidentally drop a fork on the floor. Don’t even ask about wind or thunder or loud rain on the roof. I don’t know what happened to him before we met him but it seems to have involved an owner who was jumpy in the extreme, or who punished him with noises.

But, he is sweet. He loves people, including strangers. Hell, especially strangers. The last time a FedEx delivery came, Primo rubbed against the dude’s shins and licked his hands and then followed him back to the truck and tried to jump in. He wanted to go deliverin’. He does that kind of thing on the regular and sometimes it gives my feels the hurt because WHY DOESN’T HE LOVE ME BEST but mostly it just makes me love him more because he makes people smile and laugh. He would be a marvelous therapy dog so I’m going to at least pursue it and see what happens. Root for Primo!

A lot of people have told me that he always looks sad or serious in my photos of him. That’s just because he’s being calm and waiting for his treat. For chicken we should all be that serious. But it doesn’t do him justice to only show him like that so behold some crappy iPhone pics of Primo on walks over by the river, when he doesn’t have a giant stick in his mouth and is just happy to be living on this planet. And not in a cage. And also in ‘Murrica. Though he would prefer more chicken in his life.

“An indisputable soul in a humble container”

James Lileks is a marvel of a writer, and could move you to tears about most any subject he set his mind to move you to tears over, and I’ve known for about 10 years that when the sad day came that his beloved dog Jasper would leave the earth that I probably should not read what Lileks had to say about it because it would break my heart. But the sad day came last week, and I did read what Lileks said, and I’m not sorry. for a magnificent friend. The main part of it was written in the days before Jasper died…

Last Thursday: a day and a week before the appointed time, he went out at 12:45 AM as is his wont, miserable wind whipping the temps down to minus 10. Snout to the wind to check the news. He decides to walk into the yard to do what needed to be done – I watched from the door, expecting him to get stuck. Last year there were dog prints in the snow all around the gazebo, but close; the year before, the orbit was further out. This year it’s back and forth by the stairs, like an old man who shuttles between desk and bed.

He headed to the back gate, a new objective in recent weeks. Last week he found an open gate and traversed the long march from back gate to front, alone in the snow. This week he stops and turns back. He heads into the snow, heads north, and I realize this means going downstairs for the boots because he’s going to get hopelessly becalmed in the drifts. Bring him inside. Hug. I know, I know. Think: one week. Too soon. Think: overdue. Guilt. Make the usual excuses as I carried him back in. That must be cold. Let’s get you warm. I listen for a grunt of discomfort when I pick him up, a soft whine if I’ve pressed a tender spot. Nothing. I lay him back on the bed and when I check a while later, he looks up with the same expression of patience and forbearance.

Whatever you have asked him to bear, he bears it.

You’re surprised to realize that’s what you’ve done. You’ve been waiting for a signal. He’s been waiting for permission.

Or not. Or not; don’t anthropomorphize. I read a story, a heartbreaking story about an old dog, how it just stopped during a walk and looked up, as if to say “I’m done, if that’s okay.”

As if to say. There’s the phrase that lends an alibi to your decision. If I’d taken that cue the first time his legs got crossed and he toppled, he would have missed over 700 meals, including 50 servings of his beloved Friday Night Pizza. I put him on painkillers and he spent long lazy days drowsing and snoring. He took walks again, all the way around the block. Last month we took a walk and when we got back to the house he kept going, wanting to go up the hill to the Tower where the view is grand. Not that he could see much. But I imagine that a fine-tuned nose hears a symphony up there.

(Oh, dear. That’s exactly how I remember the last days of old Digger’s life. The guilt and the love and the uncertainty all tied up together.)

“I can’t remember him like that,” Natalie said when she watched the movie above. It’s normal. It’s ordinary. It’s heartbreaking, if you think about it: the moment in time when Mom and Dad are vital, the dog can run up the stairs, the children are happy toddlers – and the only one in the group who’ll make it out alive decades hence is incapable of remembering the simple joys of that day when the dog jumped on the bed and the tot laughed and said JABBER and gave him a hug, and the dog had the usual look: yes, well, this again. As far as she remembers he’s always been the silent presence on the periphery.

But somewhere in her memories there’s the buried fact of the wolf associate, the observer, the ally, the constant companion, the one who endured the dress-up sessions, considered taking her hot dog but thought better of it, went into her room now and then to see what was up, lived a confident life and suffered the hugs of crazy human love. The eyes, while dim, ever bright; the ears, having failed, still up and alert. A beautiful dog. An absolute individual. An indisputable soul in a humble container who gave her the necessary lessons in life: love, compassion, kindness in hard times, and the necessity of remembrance.

As I said, he’s alive as I write this. I’m going to give him more cheese now. He loves that stuff. I hate to wake him, but look at it from his perspective: all of a sudden, this? Cheese? Cheese is good. This. The smell. Taste. Joy.

There’s a lot more, read it all if you can; just wanted to share some of it because a lot of us have “known” Jasper for so many years and will miss him.

Primo, of course, is getting lots of probably-unwanted extra affection today. When I started sobbing while reading Lileks’ post about Jasper, Primo paced circles around the table where I’m sitting and then did this.

He’s still doing it, even though I stopped crying. Maybe it’s because he’s ashamed that I haven’t put that plant in a real pot or trimmed its yellow leaves yet, but probably it’s because he’s never seen me weep before. Sorry Primo, I couldn’t help it. Rest in peace, Jasper Dog.

He finds it briskly unfunny and is unswayed from his position that I am a jerk.

He did like the smell of it, though. That wig has been in storage for 5 years and was last seen on the head of a very large, rather stinky Ridgeback, and Primo seemed to know that. He sniffed long and deep on that thing.

I’m writing a few new posts for the coming days because, hell, I’m out of excuses for why I’m such a shitty sporadic blogger. It doesn’t matter anyway, the point is that it dawned on me recently that more than half of my real, true-life friends (which I consider even a few that I’ve never met in person) are people I came to know through this blog, and I wonder if by neglecting it, I’m blowing the chance to make a few more lifelong friends this way. There is something unbelievably valuable in this that I’m afraid I never fully appreciated before now.

Also, it’s an abomination that this animal isn’t on the internet more.

Buon Natale

It’s Primo’s first Christmas in America and even though we don’t celebrate Christmas, it’s still a special day because it’s his first chance to wear Sunny’s old Christmas gear. Last year in Italy he just got to have a Christmas sock wrapped around his head. Obviously nothing fits Primo quite as snugly as it did Sunny and Maggie, peace be upon them, but he radiates dignity nonetheless. As you can see, he did not even move during the entire photo session, because he believes moving makes the treats disappear.

Have a great holiday, everybody.

His first American “snow”

We got a few inches of freezing rain and sleet overnight, so now everything looks like it’s covered in soft fluffy snow but it’s actually rough crunchy ice, which Primo was only mildly disappointed in. Husband walked him to the park, where Primo pranced and frolicked like a lunatic even though he kept slipping, but when they got back home where I have a camera to capture the adorableness, this is all he would do.

Stay warm.

He loves his sticks

Our new house is close to the river that runs through the city, and this river is surrounded by parks and running trails, so I take Primo over there almost every day so I can break the law by letting him run around off leash. I’m sure one day I’ll get a citation, or yelled at by a person who hates dogs, but it’s worth it to see Primo’s uncontained joy. Because even though we have a good-sized back yard with squirrels and soft grass, he can never be in ecstasy in the back yard because the back yard only smells like himself and his own pee. He wants to smell All The Things, especially poop piles from other dogs, and every single tree and blade of grass along the entire river because there is the glorious pee of other dogs on those things sometimes. Also he likes to swim, and chase ducks and cranes, and have huge gulps of foul river water because he is an animal.

But most of all he loves sticks. He’ll find one (or I’ll bring one from our vast collection at the house) and run halfway up the river bank with it and then chew it for 10 minutes while smiling.

Sometimes he thinks actual logs are sticks and need to be lifted out of the river for his chewing business. Sorry for the shit quality once again but if you want to see a little dog being ridiculously over-confident and finally settling for a small victory, watch these two videos:

Other times he decides standing in the river while chewing is the best option even though the water is like 50 degrees.

Sometimes he finally tires of his sticks and stands still on the very edge of the flat part of the river banks, staring at the ducks and cranes resentfully because he wants to eat them but knows he has no chance. All I know is that with an early-morning shadow, my sweet terrier looks like a hyena.

I love this dog so much it’s almost embarrassing. He is joy on four legs and I can’t believe we found such a treasure on a freezing rainy Saturday in Italy just over a year ago. He was so traumatized at the shelter that he wouldn’t even really look at us but something about him made Rupert and me both tilt our heads sideways 45 degrees and say “derp?”, and I’m so glad for that.

A longtime friend of this blog is going through some really hard times with his elderly father these days and this post is meant to give him something to smile about for at least a few minutes. Hang in there, Kensington.

Why can’t I update my blog more often?

I don’t know what my problem is. I’m blog-lazy.

The air shipment from Italy finally came, a few days after my last post so maybe my bitching about it had a karmic effect, or maybe I just bitched too soon and should have cooled my heels and my jets.

It’s so good to finally have all of our stuff, and my husband and my dog, all in the same place at the same time. From start to finish, from when I left Italy to when our stuff finally got here, the move took over 3 months, during most of which time I didn’t live with my own husband, and it was rough and I’m glad it’s over and I hope I don’t have to move again for a very long time.

Hey, anybody have any really good chicken recipes? I’m getting to know my new kitchen and now that I have all my sweet knives and pots and pans, and am back in a country where I can get any ingredient imaginable within a 15-minute drive from my house, it’s time to learn some new shit. I mastered pork roast (for pulled pork) last week and that was easy but I prefer chicken because pigs are smarter and cuter, but I only know about six ways to cook chicken so I need help.

Unintentional paint-huffer

We’re painting every single wall in the entire inside of our new house, and that’s a lot of paint, and even with ventilation I’m pretty sure I’m huffing a whole lot of paint fumes. I work on it for a few hours every day so the fumes never can truly clear out and unfortunately this situation doesn’t get me high.

Yesterday, my dad brought over a tall ladder so we can reach the top of our entryway and thus huff even more paint, and my mom brought Primo a new bed for the living room that matches our new color scheme. I’m very grateful for this not only because Primo loves his new bed but because I was getting tired of having to drag his only other bed from the bedroom to the rest of the house every day so that he doesn’t have to lay on hardwood floors. Shut up he’s spoiled.

He has two other beds somewhere on the planet. I have no idea where exactly because I have no idea where our entire air shipment from Italy is. It did make its way out of Italy a few days after we did, and then apparently it was in the air for 7 days because that’s what the tracking system said, haha, and we know it arrived somewhere on U.S. soil over a week ago but apparently it’s still awaiting clearance through Customs. It’s very important that they analyze every fluffy sock in that container because you just can’t have illicit fluffy socks entering the goddamn United States of America. Look, I get that we have rules about shit that enters the country but let’s admit they overdo it sometimes. It’s one small air-shipment container of household goods belonging to Americans, 90% of which were actually bought in America in the first place, so clear that sucker and send it to our house for crissakes.

I can’t blame Customs officials for my own failure of forethought but the situation is getting a little dicey because we were led to believe we’d have our stuff very shortly after we ourselves arrived back in Texas in early October and therefore we didn’t pack any cold-weather clothes in our luggage when we flew over. So I have literally one long-sleeved shirt and one pair of long pants. All of Rupert’s long sleeves are nice work shirts. We scrounged up a few old things from our stored goods, where we also found two flimsy blankets that aren’t quite doing the job now that it’s getting to the low 50s every night and don’t even tell me to turn on the heat because I won’t do it. It’s not THAT cold. It’s the kind of cold where you just want some dang sweaters and a nice blanket and you’re good to go.

Anyway so yesterday Mom also brought us a couple of jackets and blankets and we’re set for at least another few weeks until it gets truly cold, but if our shipment hasn’t come by then it won’t matter because I’ll be all dead inside as a coping mechanism and I won’t be able to feel cold anymore. Hahaha seriously though.