Next month, North Carolina is going to have the opportunity to disenfranchise several groups of people, roll back the progress clock, and generally make us look like a bunch of slack-jawed bigots to the rest of the nation. I’m talking, of course, about the Amendment 1 vote, which could add this little ditty to our state constitution:
Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State.
Kinda harkens back to this,
dunnit?
One of the libraries at UNC posted on Facebook this snapshot of one of our state’s previous forays into institutionalized prejudice. Ninety-five percent of the commenters were properly outraged and drew the comparison between it and what could happen in May. But, of course, there was one guy who instructed all comers to read Ezra Chapter 9 of the Bible. So I did. In it, Ezra prays about how Israelites who have married foreign women have caused the shitstorm they’re in. Apparently, mixing blood with other groups and not keeping one’s people separate offends the Lord.
And I can say, with all the love in my heart and the conviction that you’re allowed to hold any religious belief you choose, that I DON’T GIVE A SHIT. Even if you extrapolate and take this as a commandment that whites not marry “octaroons”, YOU DON’T GET TO SAY. You don’t get to say whether they get to marry because the constitution of our state, last time I checked, was not the Bible.
Which brings me back to the vote at hand.
If a person votes yes on Amendment 1, it is because of a religious belief that gays should not marry (and, let’s be honest, that gays should not be gay). That’s the only reason anyone has ever given to me for voting yes.
So I say again, YOU DON’T GET TO SAY. Your interpretation of a Bible verse cannot take away someone’s God-given, and yes I just went there, rights.
Stop trying to shove your Bible in my Constitution.
I CAN’T BELIEVE WE’RE EVEN VOTING ON THIS.
Now everybody go sit around a fire, hold hands, and sing this über-folksy jingle-jangle:
(My only problem with the video, other than the whiff of mawkishness, is the lady at 1:30 who talks about how “many people involved in the arts and a lot of other creative, um, activities […] would be devastated by the passage of Amendment 1”. Just checked the calendar, and yep, it’s 2012. Are we really still under the impression that there are no gay farmers, insurance salespeople, CrossFit coaches, or gas station attendants? Really? They’re still all actors?)
(Why is Ezra’s horse such a fucking racist homophobe?!)
She eats breakfast! The other dogs are outside, so Tulip and I lie down on the couch, stomach to stomach, her head on my chest, for justa minute. Or two and a half hours. Whoa. I guess we’re both worn out. That’s fine, since she’s going to have to stay calm for the next 30 days. She can go on leash walks, said the good ol’ boy vet who did the treatment, but “Whatchu wanna ‘void is the hunnert-yard dash.”
Day 5
In preparation for cheering my friends on at the Dismal Swamp Stomp half-marathon, I drop Tulip at my sister’s house for a sleepover. (Auntie Erika will pick up Redford and Violet from my house after work, and they’ll have a slumber party with their cousin Barley.) I give my small relatives (ages 10, 7, and 2) instructions on food, petting, exercise, correction, meds, and prohibited items (chocolate, grapes, raisins, onions, etc.—things that are poisonous for dogs).
Within two hours, I get an email from Wa saying that, other than her own psychosomatic dog ticks and the fact that Tulip won’t stop humping Eldest Niece, things are going well.
Frog-dog in the flower bed.
Then a phone call. Eldest Nephew had dropped a grape from his snack plate, which Tulip gobbled up. He immediately held his hands over his ears in terror, as if (my sister said) Tulip might explode. (Eldest Nephew inherited the Scotts’ genetic predisposition toward worry.) I assure everybody that a single grape will not kill my foster dog.
The best part is that Tulip freakin’ adores the Scary Man, greets him with wags and kisses, and whimpers and scrabbles at the fence when he leaves.
Day 6
My sister provides me with a list of Tulip’s unauthorized snacks, or attempted snacks. In addition to the grape:
half a crayon
plastic soccer ball
mouse carcass
door mat
golf ball
large plastic egg
Might have something to do with the next email I get, which states that Littlest Niece and Tulip are in competition to see who can poop the most times in a day. They are tied at three times.
Despite all that, my sister says Tulip is really sweet, wonderful with the kids, and appropriately fierce when the neighbor-man appears suddenly over the fence.
I pick up my foster dog in the evening. She’s happy to see me, but I get the feeling she wouldn’t mind staying at Auntie Wa and Uncle Scary Man’s house.
Day 7
We take two walks with two different aunties, the first around my neighborhood which is kind of boring, the second on Duke’s campus which is full of people! and squirrels! and smells! and dogs! other dogs! Tulip wants desperately to make friends with the other dogs and responds not a whit to verbal corrections or tugs on the prong collar I’m trying out with her.
We practice “sit” in the yard on three separate occasions. She sometimes still jumps for the treat but several times executes the move perfectly. Yay, Tulip!
It’s hard work, so we sit on the deck to rest.
This dog is so freaking snuggly.
Day 2
A volunteer picks up Tulip at 6:15am to take her to her heartworm appointment in Greensboro, which is good because I really don’t want to burn $4/gallon gasoline two days in a row.
I drive to Greensboro to pick Tulip up from the vet. She got way cuter while she was gone.
After covering the seats of my new Mazda in old bed sheets, I load her up. Thus far, I have refrained from mentioning Tulip’s nervous tooting problem, but it exists, and she’s always nervous in the car. One hits me as I pull onto the highway.
Rewind a sec: That morning when I post on Facebook about the car, Margo comments, “you bought a new car for 3 dogs to tear up. sheesh.” And I tell her, justifiably so, I think, to
Back in the car, much to my chagrin, I look in the rearview mirror to find that, instead of floating a nervous toot, Tulip is quite literally shitting on my happy. Guess we should’ve taken a potty break before embarking. Thank god I covered the seats. I pull over, clean up the mess, and let her pee. She futzes for the rest of the ride home, giving me tiny heart attacks that something worse will come out of the business end of my foster dog.
We get home without another incident.
She’s pitiful.
She won’t eat dinner, but at least she takes the pills tucked into a glob of peanut butter off my finger.
Two weeks ago, I started a project: get a new car.
The Outback, as I’ve mentioned, was never my favorite, plus it needed a new catalytic converter. I did not want to put a thousand dollars into a car I didn’t like. I’d already dumped so much cash into that beast, goddammit.
And when I say a new car, I mean a new car. My very first new car. Yes. Nobody else’s miles. No major repairs for a few years. Low financing. (I’ve been paying 5.75% to my bank on the Outback for three years, and boy, has that chapped my ass.) So I read through the Consumer Reports magazine my dad bought me and test-drove a whole mess o’ cars:
Mazda3 (My mom had driven a Mazda2 recently and said it didn’t accelerate.)
Toyota Yaris
Toyota Matrix
Scion xD
Honda Fit
Honda Accord (I wasn’t planning on buying an Accord—too big—but the guy had a 5-speed on the lot that he was trying to get rid of, so I took it out for a spin.)
I had planned to drive a couple Kias and Hyundais too, but CR gave them an open black circle for reliability, and after all the intimacy with my mechanic lately, it was an orange circle or nothing for me.
Mazda3 was my fave out of all of them. Good gas mileage, SIX (6!) speeds, and cute as the dickens. I might’ve dug the Honda Fit too if they’d had a manual transmission, but apparently those are pretty hard to snag. Folks in Japan have been replacing a lot of the vehicles swept away in the tsunami with 5-speed Fits, so I couldn’t get too mad at being put on a waitlist.
But I couldn’t really wait. My inspection was coming due, and I needed to get ‘er done before spring break was over. I went back to a couple of dealerships and got some numbers. And of course they wanted to give me chump change for the trade—Mazda twice as much as Honda, but as my boss in New York used to say, double bupkis is still bupkis.
So I put up a warts-and-all ad for the Outback on Craig’s List. I noted that I had dogs with whom I had traveled in the vehicle, that one of them had chewed the inside of the hatch door, that the catalytic converter needed replacing. I priced it accordingly, listing the Kelley Blue Book value and subtracting for cosmetic damage and projected repairs. I got five or six bites, one lowball offer, and one solid, but when I took it to the solid offer’s mechanic, his machine spat out “all kinds of electrical codes” in addition to the cat con one, and the guy rescinded. Another dude lived two hours away and wanted me to meet him halfway so he could look at the car. No thanks. I decided to trade it.
Meanwhile, I talked to my friend, Z—actually, you know him already. Remember the ridiculous specimen of male beauty?; yeah, he’s my buddy now. He had recently traded his car. When I asked if they gave him a good deal, Z said, “I made them give me a good deal.” As I’ve stated, he cuts kind of an imposing figure, what with the tattoos and the muscles. I wondered aloud if he might go with me to a dealership or two. He consented gladly.
Just knowing that gave me a boost of confidence. I wasn’t going to take any bullshit. I went back to the Durham Mazda dealer by myself, and the guy upped his offer by 25%. Now we were getting somewhere, but I wasn’t sure about the color. He had only silver on the lot, and meh. I looked online and thought I liked a hue they called dolphin gray. Durham Guy said he had one coming in “any day”.
I scoped out other Mazda dealers in the area and saw that the place in Cary had a six-speed manual transmission 3 in dolphin gray, so I set up an appointment to go check it out and hauled Z along with me.
Upon in-person observation, the dolphin gray lay well on the School Marm end of the spectrum, but the graphite gray which they also had, well, that shore was purdy. The salesman was an odd combination of pushy and pansy. He tried to offer me 800 less than what Durham Guy was willing to pay, and that was after I told him what the number was! I said, “Uh, no.” Z mostly sat in silence with just one hazy emasculation of the salesman when he intimated that the guy drove a girl-colored car. Perfect.
When Pushy-Pansy scurried back to his manager, Z straightened me out on a couple things: (1) it’s worth something to have your dealer near your house, so unless Pushy-Pansy could beat, not just match, Durham Guy in the price department, you shouldn’t do it, and (2) if you’re financing at 0.9%, it doesn’t make sense to put any money down. Oh, yeah. (“Math is hard,” Barbie said.)
Pushy-Pansy was gone for a long time. I told Z my theory: they make you sit there forever, so when they finally come back, you go, “Well, I’ve already invested so much time, I might as well buy it.” I was thinking of walking out, and Z said good plan. Meanwhile, Durham Guy called to let me know he’d gotten a black one delivered, and I set the scene for him: I was at the Cary dealership, and I was really liking the graphite—ooooh.
Pushy-Pansy came back and gave the final verdict: 300 more than Durham Guy. I told him I’d think about it, and we left. Z instructed me to call Durham Guy and gave me some pointers on what to say.
So I did. I called and said, “Look, I like the graphite best, which Pushy-Pansy has, but it’s also worth something to me to have my dealership close to my house, so if you come up with another 300 bucks on the trade, I’ll come take one off your hands today.” (I actually used those words: I’ll come take one off your hands today. Ha!)
He replied without hesitation, “I can do that.”
I pulled into the lot a half-hour later, compared the silver and the black, filled out a bunch of paperwork, and voilà!
(I've never been one of those girls who named her car, but my friend suggested Bellatrix, and I don't know, it just seems right.)
So my car payment is more than my mortgage payment. Which is not that much. (When the finance officer asked what my mortgage was and I told him, he looked startled, and then when he saw I was serious, he laughed. He laughed out loud.)
But still, it’s a lot of money for me.
And I’m totally paranoid that something’s going to happen to WHAT IS THAT LEAF DOING ON MY CAR? WHY IS EVERYBODY DRIVING LIKE A FUCKING MANIAC?
But it’s new. And I love it. And it’s mine mine mine.
Auntie Melinda comes over to help walk. Again, it goes swimmingly. Whoopee!
Day 6
Guess who else likes to chill on the picnic table.
Tulip and I head to Phydeaux, an independent pet store, in Raleigh for an adoption event. When we arrive, two other foster pits sit out front. Tulip is ecstatic and practically asphyxiates herself straining against her leash to get to them. There are shnurffles and butt-sniffs. She really wants to play with the other doggies and yanks so hard on her collar that she does that sneeze-cough thing and then gaks a pile of dog food right in the middle of the grassy spot we’re sitting in. I do my best to calm her down, but after a while, two other fosters arrive, both with puppies, and Tulip’s like,
OH. EM. GEE. Puppiiiiiiiies!
Yank. Sneeze-cough. Gak.
I take her for a walk around the block to calm her down. We get back to the spot.
PUPPIIIIIIIIIIIES!!!!!!!!!
Yank. Sneeze-cough. Gak.
We go home. We were there less than an hour.
Day 7
I’m gone most of the day. It’s almost 7:00 by the time I get home. Tulip’s been in her crate all day, and she didn’t get a walk yesterday what with the 45-minute drive each way and all the yanking, sneeze-coughing, and gakking. She needs a walk. Violet and Redford need a walk. I shall walk them. All of them. Together in one combustible pod.
I leash up my two in the kitchen and Tulip on the deck. Because the kitchen door opens into the house, I worry about their interacting while I pull the door to. I take Tulip out to the driveway and shut the end of her leash in the car door, go back inside, get my dogs, close the door, walk with calm, assertive eneryee out to the driveway, and release Tulip. We’re on our way.
A couple of times Tulip kisses the other dogs on the side of the mouth. Occasionally, all of them sniff the same spot. Other than that, they all just walk.
Victory.
(Still too nervous to let them hang out together at the house though.)
Even before I start it, Tulip tries to herd the lawn mower, trembling madly and nipping at the wheels. No verbal corrections work. When I get the machine outside the fence and start to adjust the wheels, she yelps and yips and arfs and awwwws. In fact, I can’t believe it’s just her. It sounds like several dogs at once; I keep thinking my dogs have joined in the cacophony. It appears my foster dog is having an anxiety attack.
In the spare bedroom she goes. I open the windows, turn on the ceiling fan, and head out into the yard to mow. I hear her freaking out from inside, and on one swipe across the yard, I look up to find that Tulip is hanging halfway out the window.
I’m somewhere between that fire hydrant and that pit bull-sized hole in the screen when I see her.
I sprint to the sill and shove her back into the spare bedroom. Back in the house, I shut the windows.
When I leave a little later to wash my car, I close the blinds too. When I come home, I see that
she has, in her fashion, dealt with the blind.
Why can’t I learn my lesson about crating?
In the crate she goes when I head to the gym. By the time I get home, it’s after dark. My headlights sweep over the fence.
Guess who’s back.
Mini-poodle.
Day 2
I read online that one way to help introduce dominant dogs is walking them side-by-side. I enlist some friends to help me. Auntie Erika is the first to come over. Tulip is in the yard, Violet and Redford on the deck. I bring my dogs inside to get leashed up. Next thing I know, Tulip is staring in through the screen door. What is it with my foster dogs and parkour?
We walk up and down my street, Erika with Tulip, me with Redford and Violet. And there is excellent behavior. Mostly, we walk a couple feet apart, but a few times, one of the dogs interacts with Tulip briefly, and it is fine. Going to try this again several times over the next week. Fingers crossed.
Day 3
I babysit my oldest nephew (7) and littlest niece (2). Littlest Niece calls my foster dog Puwit.
Day 4
Tulip is in the yard, Violet and Redford on the deck. I step inside for a second and hear a thud. I peer through the kitchen window. Tulip has vaulted herself over the gate, and all three dogs are standing on the deck, alert, sniffing each other. Calm-assertive-eneryee-calm-assertive-eneryee-CALM-ASSERTIVE-ENERYEE, I say to myself… panicking.
I flap Redford into the yard. Violet is being naughty, circling the porch furniture in an effort to stay out of my grasp. Finally, I drag Tulip into the house and hyperventilate a little bit. OK, I think, that wasn’t so bad. Maybe it’s time to introduce them. I put Violet away and take Tulip and Redford into the yard. Same as last time: glee from Tulip; romping; nerves; in the end, bared teeth from Redford. Sigh.
Tulip goes to the vet to make sure she’s healthy enough to go through with the heartworm treatment and gets the thumbs-up. The treatment is scheduled for next week.
Tulip eats her breakfast without much prompting from me and actually ASKS for supper. (She picks up Redford’s bowl and carries it around the kitchen before nosing the food bin.) Yay! She eats!
She hates being alone. She just wants to be with everybody, not stuck in the spare bedroom by herself. She’s so mad
In the evening, I have some friends over to hang out on the deck. My foster dog shnurffles them.
Day 6
The fur is growing back on Tulip’s ears.
I alternate my dogs on the deck and Tulip in the yard with Tulip on the deck and my dogs in the yard. They sniff and bark at each other through the fence railing.
Then sometimes, they’re on the deck and she’s in the house or vice-versa.
She hates being alone. She just wants to be with everybody, not stuck on the deck by herself. She’s so mad
she eats through an extension cord.
Day 7
I go to the gym in the morning and perform poorly. When I get home, I’m determined to give myself some sort of victory for the day, and I decide it’s going to take the form of introducing my dogs to Tulip. It’s been two weeks, it’s going to happen, and it’s going to be great, goddammit.
Betting on the fact that things will go more smoothly if all parties are (as they say where I’m from) plumb-tuckered-out, I take Redford and Violet on the 2.5-mile loop around the neighborhood, then take Tulip on the same loop. Violet goes in the spare bedroom with a rawhide, Redford in the kitchen, Tulip in the back yard. Violet protests loudly from her prison cell.
I let Redford onto the deck, and he and Tulip wag. No hackles. I open the gate. She immediately jumps on Redford’s back. He’s clearly less than comfortable with it but doesn’t show his teeth. I walk around the yard, encouraging them to follow. They romp a bit. Nobody’s being mean. Tulip is digging it, Redford less. There’s rrrring, but it seems friendly. I’m trying to exude a “calm, assertive eneryee” like César Millan says to do. Having trouble, though, because I have to pee. Two minutes, maybe, and I decide that’s enough for now.
I take Redford into the house, pee, and check my email. Try again. Tulip is overjoyed. Redford snarls at her almost immediately. I cave and bring my boy back inside.
Sadness pile.
Tulip and I go to my sister’s house because my dad‘s in town and it’s part of my evil plan to get Bubba to adopt a dog. “Not a beautiful mug, is it?” he says as he looks at her, but he scratches her chest and my foster dog shnurffles him. It’s true, she’s not a beauty like Buffy was, but she’s so cute and shnurffly!
My nephew and I throw a tennis ball for Tulip in Magical Fetchland. I guess she wasn’t plumb-tuckered-out because she spends nearly five hours frolicking in my sister’s yard.
She’s really great around the kids, even the two-year-old. Yay, a plus to go in her bio!
