The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death (20 page)

F
ree from
the obligation to return to the House of Bitch Blood for further “training,” we enrolled Maeby in puppy classes where certainly, dogs had peed, but there were minimum-wage workers to clean it up: at the clean, well-lit, concrete-floored PetSmart.

Which was great, and Maeby did very well with her trainer, Shari, learning to sit, lie down, drop things, to not eat until I gave the word, to heel, and all kinds of other stuff. The only thing the training was lacking, however, was playing with other dogs, and it was really important to me that in five years’ time, I didn’t wake up one day to a dog who believed she was the boss of everybody and was more than anxious to prove it.

I wanted a dog who played nicely with others, and if I couldn’t get that at puppy class, I needed to get it from somewhere. One ill-fated afternoon, we set out for our nearby dog park, and the moment I let Maeby off leash, a smarmy, tiny dog with Ernest Borgnine eyes sidled up to Maeby quickly, then jumped on her and began to do his nasty on her leg, even though he only reached midflank on the puppy, even in midthrust.

“Is anyone missing John Holmes?” I joked, thinking it was funny, and looked down to see Maeby looking back toward the dog, her eyes wide with fear. And then I remembered.

She’s a baby. She has no idea of what’s going on; this
is
her first time at the rodeo!

“You dirty uncle!” I hissed at the little dog, who showed no signs of stopping, even though he was too tiny to even be touching anything.

I tried to push him away, but he just turned and growled at me, looking much like a mouse might if it bared its teeth.

“Get off of her, you pedophile! Go chase an ice cream truck somewhere! She’s an infant!” I demanded, trying to move him off with the toe of my boot. “It shouldn’t hurt to be a puppy!”

I called out for someone—anyone—to come and get him, but no one stepped forth.

“You are lucky her sixteen-week window is already closed, you little shit, or I’d sue your little doggie balls off,” I hissed as I tried to push him off again.

It was useless. He would not leave her alone. Apparently, this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance for him, finally finding some fresh meat at the dog park that wasn’t wise to his greasy, predatory ways and couldn’t whack him out of the way with the swish of a fluffy tail.

“All right, that’s it,” I said, hooking Mae’s collar back up to her leash. “I used to live mere houses away from a real rapist, and if you really want to play this little game, it is on, Mr. Winkle! I still have the pepper spray on my key chain!”

I tugged on Maeby’s leash and we were off.

“Run, Maeby, run!”

I knew that little son of a bitch couldn’t keep up with us with his tiny toothpick legs, but he gave it the attempt of a lifetime, chasing us all the way to the fence and going in for one last lurch before Maeby made a final escape and I shut the gate right behind us.

He stood sorrowfully on the other side of the chain-link fence, still staring at us and barking that his young, nubile harem girl had gotten away.

“You’re an asshole!” I said harshly as I pointed at him, and then I looked up at the whole dog park. “This little dog is an asshole! And so is the asshole that owns him!”

Thus, our day at the dog park ended with me tearing out of the parking lot, but not before I flashed my personal sized can of Mace at a two-pound dog who was still standing at the fence, watching us drive away.

“T
hat is ridiculous,”
my mother said on the other end of the phone. “A day care for dogs? Why does she have to go to day care? Why did you get a dog if you didn’t want her to be home? And why does she have a last initial? Is she like Eman M.?”

“I told you before,” I said with a sigh. “Her name is not May B. It’s Maeby. One word, no initial.”

“Maybe? Like
perhaps
?” she asked. “That’s a stupid thing to call a dog.”

“I know it is, Mom,” I said. “I named her Maeby just so I could hear you say that.”

“I know you did,” my mother replied. “And you called me just to aggravate me about this moronic dog school. This is what I don’t understand: Dogs should be home all day, lying on the floor, not in a big yard running and playing with other dogs, right? Right? Am I right? That’s ridiculous. Since when do dogs even want to play with other dogs?”

“Um, I don’t know. Since they formed a subspecies of wolf. Fifteen thousand years ago, or some people say a hundred fifty thousand years,” I answered.

“Oh,
come on,
” she scoffed. “That’s stupid! A hundred fifty thousand years? Who was around then to write that down? You don’t know that!”

“Okay,” I relented. “Tuesday. The vote was Tuesday. Didn’t your dog vote? My dog voted. She even got a sticker that said ‘I voted today to play.’ It passed by a landslide, although the exit polls in Ohio were a bit iffy.”

“I can’t believe you pay to take her to a place where she can run around,” she went on. “It sounds like a waste of money to me. You could get a good meal for what you pay. Is that what all you tree huggers do all day in Oregon? Take all of your pets to different day-care places? If you had a fish, would it go to fishy day care? Is that what you like to do, living up in your trailer in the woods?”

“I happen to live on a very nice street of well-preserved historic houses,” I reminded her. “Where the trees form a canopy over the street in the spring. I have three professors, a librarian, a retired diplomat, and a psychiatrist for neighbors. I do not live in a trailer in the woods, Mom.”

“Well,” she began, “that’s what I tell people so I can hear you say that.”

“Oh, hang on,” I said. “Maeby wants to talk to Grandma! Say ‘Hi, Grandma!’”

“Oh, no! No no no! Don’t you pu—”

And then I fumbled with the phone a bit, panted into the receiver, then hung it up.

A
nd Maeby loved
day care. She loooooved it. She made friends immediately, and got report cards at the end of every day detailing what she did, and in Maeby’s own voice, leaving comments such as:

“I flirted with Samson a bit, but he’s not up to par intellectually for me.”

“I made a new friend, Nancy. She steals balls and brings them to me.”

“I was voted the ‘Marilyn Monroe’ of the dogs—beautiful and deeper than anyone knows!”

You know, a chunk of questionable sirloin drenched in Alfredo sauce from a mix and topped with tiny shrimp that’s been frozen for four months may sound like Heaven to the diners at Crapplebee’s, but frankly, I’d trade it in a second to read that my dog is smarter than boy dogs, has minions doing her bidding, and is the fairest of them all in the kingdom of day care.

But that’s just me.

If report cards weren’t enough, there were party invitations, and Maeby’s first one came when Lola Chanel, a Boston terrier/French bulldog mix, was turning one.

As we stood in the foyer with a dog’s birthday present wrapped and bagged in my hand, dogs and people filed in and got ready for the festivities. When Mandie spotted us, I had to be quick on my feet, and this time “I forgot the money” wasn’t going to fill the bill.

“I didn’t know we were supposed to stay,” I whispered into Mandie’s ear. “And we have a standing appointment for marriage counseling. We’re learning Morse code.”

“Oh, go, then, go,” Mandie said kindly. “Mae will be fine. She is the teacher’s pet! I’ll see you back here in…”

“An hour?” I said, hoping I hadn’t gone too far. I was also hoping that it would match the time for us to go next door, eat some lunch, and be done.

“An hour is great!” she replied, then took Maeby off to play with the other party dogs.

Apparently, however, Lola Chanel needed more than sixty minutes to get her party hoppin’, the presents opened, and the kiddies on their way, because when we arrived to pick Mae up, they weren’t even done with the game portion of the show yet.

“Come in, come in,” Mandie said when she spied us at the door and waved us in. “You got here just in time! It’s the best part!”

I can assure you that you’ve never lived until you have stood in a circle with ten other childless adults in their thirties and forties, clapping hands and singing “Happy Birthday” to Lola Chanel, who sits in the center, basking in all of the glory with a sensational pink feather boa twirled around her neck.

And P.S., should you, at any point, find yourself clapping hands and warbling a birthday tune to an indulged, comely only dog, don’t get your hopes up. The cake on the table isn’t for you.

Still, I giggled a little as Maeby ate her piece, a swash of yellow frosting smeared on her nose.

Oh boy, I thought to myself. This is fantastic! I can’t wait to call Grandma when we get home.

The Bad Ass Badlands Showdown

A
fter living in
Phoenix for more than thirty years, I wanted some rain.

I figured I was owed some rain.

So when my husband was accepted into the graduate program at an Oregon university, I almost ran there. I fantasized about summers, beautiful, magical summers in which I could actually go outside for thirty seconds without tasting my own sweat, looking at a freckle on my exposed arm, and wondering aloud, “Hmmm, does that look more like a basal or squamous cell carcinoma?” or having an earring brand and subsequently scar my neck should a gentle, though unlikely, desert breeze suddenly kick up. Summers like the ones you see on television, in which little children can play soccer in daylight without losing consciousness, or elderly people with Alzheimer’s wander off into the desert on a weekly basis, never to be seen again.

On our first scouting mission, our flight was about to land at the Eugene airport when I saw that my vision was true. Green, green, green. As we drove through the small town, I saw vibrant lawn after lush lawn after emerald lawn, and I mistook it for pride of ownership until my husband reminded me that water in Oregon was something you couldn’t opt out of; here it came from the sky and not a hose. Outside the room at the inn, a tree with a ten-foot circumference shaded nearly the entire building, and I was so mesmerized I called people in Phoenix and told them of the miracle I had seen. Shade. I love shade. And the shade in Eugene had no end.