Working--Sometimes Around Dogs

Sarah is my dog…our dog…our girl. It’s a lot of trouble having her with us on the road and here in Florida, there’s no denying. Back home she and I could take off across the field in the morning, up through the orchards, into the woods, and though I carried a leash with me it was never snapped to her collar. Here it’s different. We’re in a strange place, the houses are close together, the traffic is fast, and all the wide-open spaces that look so inviting are either “No Trespassing” or “Wildlife Refuge.” None are places a dog can run. But I love having her with us and am willing to put up with all the trouble. Our world had a big hole in it after we lost Nikki, and now it’s complete again with Sarah. People who are not dog people think that’s crazy (or pitiful), but dog people understand perfectly.

Sarah’s new friends, Ida and Weiser (the latter short for Budweiser), are Aripeka dogs and always have been. They don’t even wear collars, though Christine assures me they’re up to date on shots. Christine was Donnie’s girlfriend, and Ida and Weiser were Donnie’s dogs, and now Donnie is dead, and we’re staying in his house this winter. The dogs sleep at Christine’s, but she drops them off by Donnie’s house before she goes to work in the morning, because this is where they’re used to hanging out. During the day they come and go as they please, on their own recognizance, as it were. They’re know the neighborhood, they’re traffic-smart, and everyone in town knows them and greets them by name. In warm weather they may take a swim or two in the creek.



I don’t dare let young country Sarah off her leash by this busy road, but I do let Weiser and Ida come into the house so all three of them can play together, and the two Aripeka dogs give Sarah some exercise and social life. The three of them have “worked it out,” as David says. Weiser and Ida pay attention when we speak to them and seem to understand and go along with most of what we ask of them.

Last Friday night, though, Christine was out late, and after sunset the temperature dropped considerably. Ida crawled under the house for shelter, but that wasn’t good enough for Weiser. He sat on the porch, in the dark, and barked for two hours, all the while we were sure that Christine would be along at any moment. Finally, though, we let him in, along with tag-along Ida, figuring it was the only way we would get any peace, but then Sarah was the one who wouldn’t settle down! These were her playmates, and she wanted to play! We only wanted to finish watching our movie in peace and go to bed, to sleep. Well, no dice. The barking had been bad, but the commotion indoors was no better. I was tired. Wouldn’t Christine worry if she came by to pick them up the dogs and didn’t find them? Was I reasoning or rationalizing? Whatever the truth of the matter, I put the Aripeka dogs out again, and we went to bed.

From outside the front door, a persistent Weiser launched once more into the routine that had already succeeded once. Trying to ignore him, I read aloud to David from Mowat’s People of the Deer, but the noise from the porch was incessant. We turned out the lights. The barking continued. I started counting the barks. Five barks, pause, three barks. Repeat. Repeat. Then three barks, pause, one bark. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Finally a long silence, during which I would hope against hope that he had settled down under the house for the night, but after ten minutes at the most the barking would begin again. Pillow over my head (David’s solution was a radio earphone), I canvassed the hopelessness of the situation: I would get no more sleep in Aripeka; the days and nights would be ruled by dogs; I would get no work done. These were late-night, worst-case-scenario, dark-of-soul thoughts.

Then I began to think of it, as David had been doing earlier, from the dogs’ perspective. For them it must seem almost as if Donnie had come back. There was life in the house again! I thought of how they ran to greet the van when we came home in the afternoon from a day’s errands and wanderings. I thought about Weiser’s grey muzzle and the predicted overnight low of near freezing. I caved. The Aripeka dogs came back into the house. I closed the pocket doors between the big room and the back area where our bedroom is and directed Sarah into her crate for the night. A couple of random barks from Weiser, a few pitiful whines from Sarah, and then peace at last!

First light of day brought the whole situation back to me in full force. I began with a trip to the bathroom, ignoring all wagging tails. When Sarah wouldn’t stop whining, I let her out into the big room with the others but after that ignored all three further while making coffee and settling down with my laptop to work on a chapter. There were a few rowdy play skirmishes, but quickly canines got the message that nothing much was going to happen for a while, and they settled down on the floor to wait. A miracle!

I kept working, and four cups of coffee later I had finished a chapter. Another miracle! Okay, time to get dressed now and take the dogs out into the sunshine!

Christine was pulling into the driveway as we started out, and Weiser and Ida casually joined her to have their breakfast, while Sarah and I continued (Sarah on leash) over the bridge, around past the post office and down the road for a serious walk. It was a beautiful morning. It was cold, but the Aripeka dogs were off my hands, Sarah wasn’t being as bad on her leash as she’s been lately, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and I’d finished a chapter! That chapter (the work is all “draft” at this stage) had taken three mornings. Multiplying the number of chapters still to go by three, I concluded that my project was feasible, despite recent time “lost” to fun and dogs.

So maybe this scene will work out, after all. Maybe, in fact, it will be all the better for the social life Sarah gets from Ida and Weiser and the discipline and order I must impose not only on myself but also on three healthy, fun-oriented dogs.

There are so many topics to be addressed this winter, in this place. There is the Florida economy, for one thing. David and I have been aware of changes between Florida three years ago and Florida today, many related to the struggling economy here. Florida politics would be another topic, as would Florida culture--or, cultures (plural). One photo-essay I’d like to put together is a study of Hwy. 19 between, say, Crystal River and Tarpon Springs, looking at bright colors, empty spaces, remnants of “old Florida,” and scenes where new and old, or appearances of prosperity and failure, stand in stark contrast. The flea market is deserving of a photo-essay, too. And I’ve only been making mention of my reading, not discussing the books in any depth.

And food! Just as many languages of the world are to be heard in Florida, so can one find all the foods of the world. Sunday morning at the big USA Flea Market, we found a new Vietnamese “food restaurant” to sample, Trang and Family Place. My “chicken stick” (chicken en brochette with onions and green pepper, kind of a Vietnamese shish-kebab) was very satisfying, and David’s Vietnamese “donut,” a ball of soft, deep-fried dough with a soft, sweet paste inside, sesame seeds outside, was different and interesting.





We’ve been eating well at home, too. Bowls of steaming collard greens, pockets of fresh tabouleh, fresh-squeezed orange juice, whole-wheat tortillas filled with black beans, cheese and salsa, and plates of rice piled high with mushrooms, beans, onions, tomatoes and a few thin strips of beef or pork.

Our friend Sandra takes the prize for home-cooking, though. Here is the beautiful stromboli she made for a birthday party the four of us attended down the pike a way. She promises to tell me how she makes it, though each making is largely improvisation.

It's raining today, with temperatures supposed to be warmer by the end of the week. It would be nice to see the end of nighttime lows in the 30’s.

I’m three-quarters of the way through The Archivist, and we are more than halfway through our bedtime reading, People of the Deer. Last night's chapter, the story of one winter and spring's starvation, was so stark and unsettling that I had to read a couple of pages into the next chapter so we wouldn't have nightmares. If Mowat did go to the Barrens to escape politics, he found politics working--or rather, not working--there with a vengeance. People who need animal fat to survive an Arctic winter cannot make do with white flour, and when they were given guns (to hunt fox for traders) and then left without ammunition, having left behind their old hunting ways, disaster was the result.

David has his painting studio set up now, and my own writing is coming along well. Yesterday morning’s work session was so productive that, the draft chapter produced so long, that in the end I called it two chapters, splitting it at the natural break (this after the good results of the dog-and-work morning). David asked me questions about my novel over our morning coffee. He is full of ideas for his own work, and sometimes when he sits staring into the middle distance, a book forgotten in his hands, I know that in his mind he’s painting. We feel very fortunate to be here, away from the snow, and have this time to work.