It’s also important to note that, when my dad was pulling a bottle of pills (yes, a bottle of pills) out of the pocket of his cargo shorts, a tumble of grape stems fell out. How long they’d been there, neither he nor I wagered a guess. I just picked them up and threw them in the rest stop garbage can. When it comes to my dad, it’s sometimes best not to ask questions.
Like why he would toss three loose plastic hangers into the trunk of my car on top of his luggage (a half-filled duffel bag and a grocery bag of toiletries/manuscripts). I pulled the hangers out and started folding his crumpled t-shirts. He said, “I must learn to fold those things.”
I said, “I tried to teach you about five years ago.”
He said, “I know! I can fold towels. You taught me to fold towels. I just haven’t got a hang of the shirts.”
Moreover, my father is alternately insomniac and snoring, so sharing a motel room with him is a goddamn mess.
When I say insomniac, I don’t mean the staring-at-the-clock/quiet-general-fretting kind. I mean futzing around, rattling pill bottles, and, if possible, breaking coffee makers.
And when I say snoring, I don’t mean the regular-tempo honk-shoo of the cartoons. I mean an arrhythmic, confusing series of sounds, not a cacophony like it used to be, but something like
1. a silent intake of breath;
2. a series of 5-8 short uhs (imagine someone pretending to burp) 1-3 seconds apart;
3. a long silence, during which an auditor would certainly assume death;
4. a final exhalation, satisfied-sounding like the one someone might make after passing a fart that’s been held in too long;
You may remember last year when I took a road trip with my father, my two dogs, and a 14′ canoe. Guess what I did recently (hold the canoe)!
Dad didn’t disappoint this year either. Before we even left, he was trying to carry hot coffee through the house, while the dogs made figure-eights around his legs. “Behave!” he told them. “This is the living room!”
Then we got on the road…
Dad, finger in the air: To tweet is to stupidify. I have spoken.
…
Dad, trying to explain his recent orthodontic procedures: …pinion, implant… I’m searching for a one-syllable word. Like a good American.
…
Dad, as a car passed by with “Just Married” painted in the rear window: Idiots.
…
Dad, gesturing at a bunch of idle construction equipment, as we drove through a downpour: Why aren’t these guys working?
…
Dad, post-Taco Bell: …Mexican-type reverberations up through my solar plexus.
…
Dad, at a freeway dragonfly: You corrupt, suntanned, white-Mercedes, lane-skipping…!
…
Dad, in Middleborough, Massachusetts: This is “The Cranberry Capital of the World”, it says. Not “Southern New England’s Garbage Dump”.
…
Dad, to a crotch rocket rider who nearly tagged my fender: You’re a statistic waiting to happen, you little twat!
Her Royal Worminess seems to have recovered. (Oh please, oh please, oh please.)
Day 2
After my second day of professional development (WHY ON EARTH WOULD MY DISTRICT DO THIS AT THE END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR INSTEAD OF THE BEGINNING?), I’m fucking zonked. I head home, throw Violet and Redford in the house, pitch Tulip out—she hasn’t vaulted the fence lately—and pass out on my bed.
Tulip’s so mad
she eats through an extension cord.
Yes, that’s one of the ones she chewed through before and my brother-in-law fixed once already. Grrrrr.
But three minutes later when I’m changing the sheets on my bed, and Tulip won’t stop looking at me and wagging her tail—just sitting there wagging—I’m forced to coo at her and scratch her silly jaws. She’s so goddamn cute.
Day 3
The family tells the organization that they like Tulip but they’re still going to meet other dogs.
Still doing the give-m’self-rope-burns-behind-the-knees technique™ on walks. It works. But it gives me rope burns.
Day 5
Every day, I tell myself, “Today is the day I’ll introduce the dogs again.” And then I don’t.
We go to Auntie Wa’s house for the afternoon. Tulip makes friends at the wire fence with the neighbor dogs and has words at the privacy fence with the other-side neighbor dogs. But she runs back and forth 75 times trying to git them mouthy bastards and thus wears herself out, so that’s OK by me.
Day 6
Now that her gastrointestinal issues are resolved, she gets so excited about breakfast.
(And look at how she waits for the signal now! Remember how she couldn’t do that? Now she can.)
(Ring around the collar provided by the cheap jewelry she wears.)
I was snuggling on the couch with Tulip tonight, reading a book, when somebody knocked at my front door. It was 9:15, so I couldn’t imagine who it would be. There are two doors on the front of my house, a wooden dead-bolted door and a glass one to the outside that I also keep locked. I opened the main door a crack to find a guy saying, “My pit bull got out my fence. He’s tiger-striped with a white chest, and they told me you have him. I’m gonna call the police. You better give me back my dog.”
I said, “Sorry, I don’t have your dog.”
He yelled, “I’m gonna call the police!”
I said, “Do it. I have three dogs, a red-nose pit and two pit mixes. I’ll show them to you if it’ll make you feel better, but I don’t have your damn dog.”
He said he wanted to see them. Keeping the glass door locked, I opened the solid door wider so he could see Tulip, who was making love to a raw hide. “That’s one,” I said and put her in the spare bedroom.
And then I let Violet and Redford out.
You should’ve seen them go Kujo on that motherfucker, hurling themselves at the door, raising hell.
He recoiled and scurried off the stoop yelling, “You’re hiding my dog! I’m calling the police!”
I said, “Call them, you fuckwad. I don’t have your fucking dog!”
And he jumped in his car and sped off. I called 911 and tearfully explained the situation—stupid leaky tear ducts. The dispatcher sent a patrol out. The officer told me to keep the doors locked, and they’d keep patrolling the area.
I wish I could go back and deal with the dude calmly because now I’m scared he’s going to come back and key my car or something. But at least now I know how my babies react when their mama’s threatened.
Tulip stays in the crate all day and then again when I go out for a date. I feel guilty so I take her into my bedroom for the night. She craps on the floor at 2:00am.
Day 2
In the morning, she eats a bunch of doggy salad in the yard and barfs it up/shits blood. How long is this dewormer supposed to take?
During our 25-minute walk, I make approximately 4.7 brazilian corrections.
Day 3
Tulip wakes me up at 4:00am reverse-gulping. I sprint to her crate and try to shoo her out the door. We make it to the living room.
But it’s just spit-up, nothing solid. I clean it up, and we go back to bed.
She won’t eat her breakfast. I email the org with the update and ask for help.
Oh, the funk, when I get in the house after work! Tulip has escaped from her (NEW) crate and, because I forgot to close the bedroom door, blown mud all over the living room. The org tells me to take her back to the vet, which I do, along with a grocery bag full of diarrhea. (What has my life become?) They peek at it under the microscope, give me some special food and a scrip for Metronidazole. Twice daily, ten days. And I’m to continue the Fortiflora powder I’ve been sprinkling over her dinner, which helps build up the healthy bacteria in her gut.
We do the 2.5-mile loop for the first time in forever. I quickly tire of making corrections, so with Tulip on my right, I wrap her leash behind my knees around in front of my pelvis and hold it at my right side. She’s forced to be in the heel position. I give myself minor rope burns in the process, but it’s so much easier.
She makes sure, before I recycle it, that the biscuit box is completely, totally, definitely empty. She’s very thorough, my foster dog.
Day 4
Tulip does not escape her kennel, and she does have a mostly solid poop in the afternoon! Wheeeeee!
Then my foster baby goes to have a sleepover at prospective parent Nelly’s house.
Day 5
Nelly drops Tulip off at my house while I’m at work, so I don’t have a chance to debrief and see how the slumber party went.
Day 6
A family is scheduled to meet her tomorrow at 4:00. Nelly tells me she’s in love with Tulip, but she worries about the long hours she works/studies and if there’s a family who loves her, then they should take her.
Day 7
The family who comes to visit is RAD. I want them to want her. She’s her cute, friendly self. My fingers are crossed.
At the fourth and final Feisty Fido class session, we’re still working on leash-walking and Generally Being the Boss of Your Dog. We’ve done no work on introducing dogs to each other. So I ask the trainer what to do. He tells me to have Tulip on the shortest of short leashes, so all three dogs know that I’m in fucking charge here.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll be in fucking charge. Tonight I’m in a fucking funk.
If you’re new, here‘s the beginning of the Tulip chronicles.
Day 1
Tulip is back on her food. I consider canceling tomorrow’s vet appointment, but I know the moment I do, she’ll vomit in my shoes so I keep it.
A professional photographer who volunteers with the organization comes and does a shoot with Tulip for an hour.
Tulip and I go to my sister’s house for a cookout. She really is a perfect family dog. Or a perfect single-dog family dog. She loves chasing the ball. She’s gentle with the children. She’s interested in your supper but backs off when you tell her no. And she hoovers up all the chips and corn and whatnot that three kids drop on the kitchen floor. Like a Roomba that loves you.
I break my one-day-old promise to walk every day, but Tulip got the romp at my sister’s, and Redford, Violet, and I go to Auntie Erika’s house for a run-around-the-yard playdate for the doggies/So You Think You Can Dance-on-the-DVR playdate for the hoomins, so everybody’s happy.
Day 2
Tulip and I go to the vet. They determine her to be normal in every way, but I couldn’t get a stool sample beforehand and they can’t get one either so they send me home with a cup with a spork attached to its lid.
I intend to go to the gym. Instead I settle on the couch for the World’s Least Satisfactory Nap. When I arise, I feed the dogs and then follow Tulip around the yard, cup in hand. She delivers, and I get to collect the sample, which I must store in my fridge overnight. Gross.
Violet and Redford have a fast and furious playdate with Buffy(!!) and her sister-dog Stella. It’s wonderful. I walk Tulip five blocks to and from my neighbor’s house—I’m feeding her kittehs while she’s away. We have to stop and walk in circles eight or nine times because she’s fired up about some other dogs being out there. I do not introduce Tulip to the kittehs. I don’t know what would happen, and I’m not interested in telling my neighbor that my foster dog hoovered up her cats. “Like a Roomba? That loves you?” No.
Day 3
Tulip won’t eat her breakfast. Wah!
She has a super-runny poop in the afternoon, so I collect that one too and take both over to the vet. She finally eats her breakfast at 4:15pm.
The pics from Monday’s shoot get posted on Facebook!
Chewing on a hoof/being cute.Looking in the mirror/being cute.
Tulip and I walk to feed the kittehs in the nighttime. Poor Redford and Violet. No walk. I’m a bad parent.
Day 4
The vet calls to tell me Tulip has hookworm and whipworm. He recommends two deworming treatments two weeks apart. CCB says they have tons of dewormer and will put some in the mail tomorrow.
I finally make good on my promise to walk Redford and Violet. Tulip got a big visit at Auntie Wa’s house, so she stays home.
Day 5
The house smells funky when I get home from work. I go to the spare bedroom to find that Tulip has escaped her crate and pooped a tiny, bloody poop on the floor. Really? Those three tablespoons stank up the whole joint? I gather lysol wipes and paper towels, clean it up, and turn around to find a giant cowpie of a mess tucked between the sofa and the closet door. Oh. Thur’s yer trouble.
Later, I come home from my date to find it has happened again. I can’t blame her for escaping. If I were about to crap my pants, I wouldn’t want to sit around in it either. And this way, I only have to clean up the floor, not the floor, the crate, and the dog. But I vow to buy a new crate in the morning.
I hereby kindly request that the universe give Tulip a fucking break. She’s had her share of hardship, and probably some other dog’s too. Leave her be.
Please let the deworming medication show up tomorrow.
Day 6
I volunteer at the Walk for the Animals at the ass-crack of dawn. When I return, Tulip has freed herself from her prison once again and left three piles of scarlet gelatin in the bedroom.
The dewormer arrives. Whew.
Day 7
Tulip has a spring in her step that I haven’t seen in a long time. Knock wood.
Feisty Fido class is good but hard. My Fido is so feisty. At one point, the trainer says, “Honey, you’re gonna be walkin’ in circles for months.”
Sigh.
I go tickle, tickle, tickle, and my foster dog go hahahahahaha.
