When Billy and I were looking for a house we saw this one on Prescott. It's just a few doors down from where we live now. I wanted this house, but it only had one bathroom. I'd pull up into the driveway and feel so at home. I know now why I love this house so much. I mean, it's adorable and charming, but it reminds me of my friend Kyle's house. I spent so much of my childhood at Kyle's house in Covington. So, I was drawn to more than just the house. I was drawn to my own memories and longings. I was ready to be home and I couldn't find it. But driving up is this driveway made me know that home existed, that home was possible, and that I was eventually going to find it.

Gertie sometimes manages to sneak off our porch. She's deceitful and she tells stories(she's a liar). We have a gate, but if I'm not extra careful Gertie will stick her fat little nose through the corner of it and wiggle:wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, until there's just enough room for her to squeeze through. Thankfully, she never goes far away. She's only out because she likes to forage. Food is her obsession. It's all she thinks about. During the summer Angie kept a little bowl of cat food on her porch for a black cat she was trying to tame. Gertie had this little bowl of cat food in her mind always. Day and night. One day she managed to get through the gate. I don't know how long it was before I noticed she wasn't with Billy in the house.
I was frantic, running up and down the street calling her name: Gertie! Gertie!!!
After 5 minutes of total freaking out here came Gertie, calm as a cucumber and fat as a pig out of Angie's yard where she at last had gotten to eat her fill of cat food. I couldn't spank her. I had to pick her up and love on her for coming to me. But I wanted to wring her little neck. She smiled at me and licked my nose. hmmmmpf!
You can see her here with her head low trying to get to the porch before I stop her. Sorry Gertie! Not this time!








When I get the camera out the dogs scatter. They think the camera is some kind of voodoo magic machine that will turn them into a cat. Every time I try to take a picture of them it's like,"Oooh Mama's getting out the voodoo machine out again we'd better go hide."
I can't understand how that little click of the camera makes them feel so uncomfortable, but really maybe that's one way they're like us. We all change in front of a camera, we all feel exposed. Gee, I didn't realize my dogs were so intelligent! Or maybe they're just dumb.

Here is Gertie on the couch. Tell me how you really feel, Gertie. Do you like having your picture taken?

I did manage to coax Blue into standing still for just a second. You can see by his face how happy he is about it.
Blue is my dog. Gertie is Billy's dog. Isn't that strange how a dog will bond with one person and not the other?

Maybe it's us, not them. Sometimes I wonder why it is that I feel so close to Blue. He's kind of a manly dog, a mutty kind of long time ago huntin' dog. He's always hunting. He stares out the window these days, watching squirrels jumping from limb to limb in the front yard. Last week when it was still warm, I let him out the front door and he ran to his place in the corner of the porch where he puts his chin on the ledge to begin his squirrel watching. He was moving so fast and he was so fixated on a squirrel he had spotted that he jumped over the ledge and out into the front yard.

I was terrified.!! I'm always afraid he's going to forget the hard lesson he learned when he ran out across Prescott Street dashing from huge old oak tree to huge old oak tree scratching up the sides of the great trunks treeing squirrels then dashing out into the street and smashing into an on-coming truck. 

He didn't forget. He remembered. I screamed, "BLUE!"

He tucked his tail between his legs and ran around to the side of the porch and back to me. Finally, this wild man knows where home is.

Blue and I take walks every day. Usually twice a day. One reason we take walks is that he follows me around in the morning staring at me, watching every move I make then cocking his head toward the door as if to say, "Isn't it time for our walk?"

I was a good mother, I guess, but I always let my children guilt trip me. I always felt guilty if I was having fun and they weren't. That just doesn't make sense if you want to have strong children. 

I do have strong children but I think that's because I got pushed into a corner and had no choice but to let them go through some suffering.

I can't figure out how to do the same thing with my dogs, though. 

 

I'm not sure I want to.