If you’re new, Tulip’s story starts here.
Days 1-13
My friend Nelly keeps Tulip while I go on vacation. Tulip’s “mostly good”. Except for chewing up that one bra. I offer to pay for the bra on top of the babysitting fee, but Nelly says, nah, it’s still wearable. Haha! I’ve totally done that!
Day 14
Nelly drops her off at my house, and Tulip TOTALLY GOT CUTER WHILE I WAS GONE.
And she’s real happy to see me.
I missed her.
It’s also important to note that, when we sat in motherfucking DC traffic and then blazed (way out of our way) west to Manassas to take Route 15 south but then I missed the turn-off to stay on 15, not once but twice, and I threw multiple Grand Tanties (traffic & getting lost being two of my tantrum triggers), my dad seemed surprised every time and said, “Oh. I’m just enjoying my time with you.”
It’s possible my dad’s the sweetest old bastard alive.
As it did last year, the journey with my father and dogs had a second leg. Here’s some of his wisdom from the vacation and the trip back down south.
Dad: (to my brother-in-law) You’re wearing Levi’s. I have Faded Glory. In more ways than one.
…
Dad: (paraphrasing Macbeth to my mother when his sciatic nerve started jangling his toes) Oh, full of scorpions are my boots, dear wife!
…
Dad: (looking into the freezer at the store) What ever happened to strawberry ice cream? Nowadays it’s all “Moose Tracks” and “Bear Turds”.
…
Dad: (coughing a totally normal-sounding cough) I keep hoping this is hay fever and not the end of the road.
…
Dad: I’ll buy whatever you want for dinner. We could go to a half-decent place. Even a decent place.
…
Dad: (as we pass a gas station in Virginia) $2.99 a gallon?!… (holds out his closed hand) That’s worthy of a fist bump.
[If you don’t know him, this one might not be that funny, but my siblings will find it hilarious. Short version: My father has a tremendous loathing for pop culture. (Also, he pronounced every letter in “fist bump”.)]
…
Dad: You never have to fear when you’re traveling with Leighton Scott’s wallet.
[My dad is not a rich man. And he regularly loses his wallet.]
…
Dad: (as we listen to the Cool Classics radio station) When are they going to make some music that sounds different? This all sounds the same… ‘Course it all sounds good when you’re stoned.
…
Dad: I don’t know why I’m doing this. I know where Hartford is. (looks in atlas) Yep, right in the middle of fucking Connecticut.
…
Dad: I have no problems. Even if I worked for the carnival for $45 a week. Until my clothes rotted off. Then I’d be arrested for indecent exposure.
…
Dad: (as I look at the GPS on my phone) What are you doing? Playing Tetris?
…
Dad: What kind of twerp would buy a Volvo?
Me: Didn’t we have a Volvo?
Dad: Yes, we were that kind of twerp.
…
Dad: (after eating a plate of bacon [“This stuff is great for you!”] and spicy homefries from the Whole Foods buffet) You don’t suppose they sell any healthy Tums in here, do you?
…
My kitchen table, which was admittedly rickety before, collapsed after dad got up from it.
Dad: Well, I’ve done a lot of positive things today. I fed your dogs… I let you sleep in… I did wreck your kitchen table though.
Love you, Dad. Even when you wreck my kitchen table.
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;
5. repeat.
That’s my travel companion.
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!
Here’s the beginning of Tulip’s story.
Day 1
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
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.
Tulip proves herself kinda useless as an attack dog.
Day 4
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.)
Day 7
Still haven’t introduced the dogs. I’m the worst.
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.
If you’re new, the Tulip Chronicles start here.
Day 1
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.
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.
