Waiting for the Other Shoe to Fall

Evidently, that phrase started out as the punchline to a joke in which a traveler arrives late at night in a small rooming house and is cautioned not to wake the other guests as he prepares for bed. Very tired, he accidentally allows one of his shoes to fall heavily to the floor, but is more careful with the other and places it quietly on the floor. He is sound asleep a few minutes later when he is awakened by the guest next door pounding on the wall and shouting, "For the love of Pete, drop the other shoe!"

For the last several winters in Wisconsin our cry has been, “For the love of Pete, drop some more snow!” This past weekend was like discovering the errant shoe-dropper is a centipede.

Even before the storm hit, it was forecast as the biggest in 15 years. Friday night it snowed a buttload (technical meteorological term) and the wind blew like a banshee. Scott and I shoveled/snow-blowed his walk and drive Saturday morning. Then we went to my house and shoveled the walk and drive. Since twice as much snow was supposed to be dumped Saturday night as Friday, it seemed easier to shovel Saturday before the Big Dump and do it again Sunday than to simply wait until it all accumulated in one big drift, then be compelled to call the National Guard and road graders if we ever wanted see our driveways again.

Saturday night witnessed blizzard conditions with snow you could HEAR pelting down, accompanied by thunder, lightning, and 35 mph winds. We were going from Scott’s house to mine to check on my dog Bill, and Scott was driving his 4-wheel drive Explorer. A couple miles from Scott’s house, we hit a spot in the road where there was so much snow we couldn't go forward. That was it. We weren't going anywhere, and there was no way to turn around, so Scott started backing. That worked well until we slid into the ditch, and the Explorer would only wallow in the snow with no solid forward or backward movement.

Snowmobiles were buzzing around getting through the hideous conditions effortlessly. It was the first time I ever viewed them as possibly useful machines for transportation as opposed to simply stoopid recreational crap for goobers seeking to claim a Darwin award by dying young and drunk.

In the meantime, it wasn't lookin' good for the home team. We went through the eternity of probably five minutes of fruitless back and forth effort while we considered that we were probably going to be spending the night on the floor of the farmhouse about 1/2 mile back with hope that the snowplow didn't hit the Explorer the next morning. I was imploring every deity that I thought might have an open line. The wheels caught, and we moved out of the ditch. I don’t believe in miracles—I rely on them.

We were SO happy to get back to Scott's place, and I kept remarking on his heroic driving; he kept proclaiming how lucky we were. Fortunately Bill would be able to get in and out his doggie door; but I still didn't sleep well that night worrying about if he got stuck in deep snow when he went out. He's 14 now and struggles with his hind quarters sometimes even on stable ground.

The snowplows must have started their labors at dark-thirty Sunday morning and worked magic. By the time we set out, the roads were in good shape. Whatever those folks are getting paid, it isn’t nearly enough. A short distance up the road from where we'd been stuck, four vehicles almost formed a circle around the road—mostly covered up where they'd apparently gotten stuck the night before. The snowplow appeared to have made one little path down the center of the road between them that was barely wide enough for us to pass through. We got to my house, and Bill was perfectly fine and happy. We brought the snowblower to my place this time—thank GAWD. When I walked up my drive, I initially couldn't walk up my drive. The first order of business was to climb over the ice mountain the snowplow had created as a convenient blockade to my home. Even when I got over that, every step put me in snow past my knees. Thank the stars for tall snow boots. And a man who is a heroic driver and wields a mean snowblower.

This morning there was about another 2-3" of snow on my walk and drive, but this stuff has become relative. I can get in and out of my driveway, and Sandy the mail lady can make it to the mailbox. The snow was still falling when I left for work, and I had no inclination to pick up another snow shovel.

Scott left this morning for a business trip to San Antonio where he will supposedly experience 84 degrees—all of them occurring at the same time even. If I have to hear any complaints about the chilliness of outdoor dining like the last time he was there, the shoe falling will be aimed to inflict pain for such whinging. Although after his white knight performances through The Storm and its aftermath, maybe I'll just smile and say, "There, there. It'll be all right."

Charlie

At what point do you make the decision that you can no longer afford your dog? And once you arrive at that agonizing decision, what do you do?

I got Charlie, a bearded collie, in September 2005. He was 10 years old, had been fed but otherwise neglected for most of his life, and he had developed a terrible peeing problem. He had been tested for possible health-related issues, but none were indicated. No diabetes. No Cushing’s Disease. My hope was that the peeing was his response to being neglected and that love would overcome all. It didn’t work out that way.

Charlie was housetrained. When he went outside, he did exactly what was expected. Unfortunately, he also peed volumes in the house. The dog was a fire hose. He barked incessantly, so even though he loved being outdoors, I couldn’t leave him out for more than a few minutes if I wanted to maintain my good neighbor status.

With hope for redemption, I spent hundreds of dollars on “belly bands”—male dog diapers—and extra liners. They were helpful as damage control, but they merely limited the amount of urine poured directly into my carpet. I then spent another multiple hundred dollars and bought the best carpet shampooer I could find and used it regularly. In what became an ongoing desperate grab for solutions or even the tiniest of mitigations, Glade plug-ins and Fabreze were employed in further attempts to overcome the Charlie Effect.

As for loving care, Charlie wasn’t much into bonding. He was sweet… or perhaps “benign” would be a better term. Sometimes he would almost giggle when I rubbed his belly, but often when I would pet him, he really wanted none of it and would move away from the attention.

As the mother of an only child who is now 27 years old and quite independent, I nevertheless found myself washing a load of diapers every week. I was the plow horse for a carpet shampooer. And I was the hostage of a dog with the apathetic and “fuck you” temperament of a teen-ager that was destroying my budget and turning my house into a urinal.

A few months ago I started having furtive thoughts of having Charlie euthanized, and I recoiled that I could even entertain such a thought and still consider myself an ardent animal lover. Could I possibly find another home for him? Oh sure, brilliant. Who in their right mind would embrace a now-12-year-old dog that pees everywhere and barks incessantly? Even the idea of a farm that might allow him to be an outdoor dog was stopped cold with the thought of Wisconsin sub-zero temperatures. And I’m not the kind of person who feels comfortable making my problem someone else’s responsibility. I continued to be appalled at myself for contemplating doing anything but The Right Thing and marching into the future on the path I had chosen in rescuing this dog. Every option I considered was agonizing.

Last month I brought it up to Scott, waiting for him to give me an “I thought I knew you better than this” look. But he was completely sympathetic and said I’d given it my best and that he would never expect me to ruin my life for this cause. We talked about euthanasia, the Bearded Collie Rescue, and if it would be best to wait until Bill (my 14-year-old dog) passed to do anything. Bill and Charlie got along but were even less bonded than Charlie and I were.

A couple weeks ago, I brought the subject up to my friend Lori, who was equally supportive. I contacted the lady at the Bearded Collie Rescue, and she said Charlie would be virtually impossible to place. I was amazed that even she was supportive of euthanasia as a potentially appropriate option. I started considering it in more near-future terms.

I assumed my regular veterinarian would consider it unethical to euthanize a dog that still had good years left in him, so I considered an emergency clinic where I would have anonymity. But then I decided I didn’t want to feel like I was skulking around, and I would rather have Dr. Christman openly disagree with me and perhaps think me hard-hearted than to feel sneaky. When I talked to her, she was so compassionate and echoed the views of the others I’d talked to. “You’ve done your best with him, we haven’t been able to find out what the problem is, and something about him is not right.”

Saturday morning Scott and I loaded Bill and Charlie into the car and went to our appointment with Dr. Christman. Just as when she helped Murray make his exit with the final stages of lymphoma, Dr. Christman made Charlie’s passing more like a holy ritual than a veterinary procedure. Afterwards she hugged me and said, “You made the right decision.”

The happiest memories I have of Charlie are when I would walk him and Bill to the beach at the lake a few blocks from my house. I would let him off leash, and he would run and dance and gallop with the joy of a spring lamb. When I get his ashes back, that’s where I’ll scatter them.

A quote from Ralph Bloom goes, “We are not doers. We are deciders. Once we decide, the doing is easy.” I don’t know that the doing was easy, but the decision was certainly the hardest part. I hope Charlie is at peace and galloping along a lakeshore. I know I’m experiencing the most peace I’ve had in well over a year.

Ice, Ice Baby

I was never much of a cold weather person. No, let me rephrase that. I hated the cold. I loathed the cold. I utterly despised everything about the cold. Then on a 2002 road trip I took before my intended move from California to Austin, Texas, I fell in love with Madison, Wisconsin; and I knew that to pursue that love—and the love for this city was so deep and hopless I could do nothing but—I would have to learn to tolerate... no, embrace... The Great White Cold.

My first winter here I bought ice skates and cross-country skis and learned to use them. I bought YakTrax, gizmos that fit on the bottom of my running shoes so I could continue that foolish pleasure on snow and ice with less potential for busting my ass. They say there's nothing worse than a convert. I knew I'd gone to The Cold Side when last winter I was upset that we'd had a month of daily temps above freezing. A Coldie to the core. No, no, not me. Why me, God?

But it doesn't stop there. Now I've fallen in love with this Wisconsin Yankee who believes with all his heart and will even say right out loud, "There's no day that snow doesn't make better." (He appears otherwise normal.) Scott's favorite musical—despite repeated exposure to the best of Broadway in which he delights—remains the Wisconsin original Guys on Ice, a saga of two guys ice fishing and singing such fare as "Fish, the Miracle Food" and "Ode to a Snowmobile Suit". We saw it in Milwaukee this past New Year's Eve afternoon—my first time and Scott's third for this quirky sub-zero version of Waiting for Godot. I loved it. Converted yet again.

Scott owns an ice boat with three other like-minded... er... men-boys. (For more information on this phenomenon of people who take the equivalent of an ice skate with a sail across frozen lakes at dangerously high speeds, see http://www.iceboat.org.) My friend Lori—a fellow Texas girl who moved here at about the same time I did and joined me in acquiring cold-weather sporting skills that first winter—upon meeting Scott and learning this fact, took me aside and all but held a knife to my throat. "I have been waiting four years for you to get a boyfriend with an ice boat. [Who knew?] You will NOT screw up this relationship before I've gotten a ride in it."

The boys got the ice boat out a couple Saturdays ago, and the lake conditions were perfect—solid, smooth ice. Unfortunately, there was no wind, witnessed by one intrepid we saw pushing his ice boat across the lake. Scott and I hoped for conditions that would allow us to give it a whirl the next day, but that night brought major snowfall. So the prospects for ice boating are such that we will be obliged to stay together until next winter if only for Lori's benefit.

Last week Scott was in San Antonio on business, and in our before-bed phone chat, he described how unseasonably cold it was there. He and his colleagues had dined on the patio of a local restuarant where the outdoor heaters did not compensate for the 40-degree temperatures, leaving his poor, pasty Wisconsin legs numb below the knees. I was uncharacteristically churlish in giving no sympathy. Perhaps it was because I had just made my way home through a driving snowstorm. Maybe it was that my workout had entailed shoveling my sidewalk and driveway with the temperature yielding a mere 7 degrees and a windchill at somewhere around minus meat locker. Or perhaps it was being in the kind of cold that required me to chip my dogs off a fire hydrant with a ball peen hammer. Forty degrees? Pah! Wussies!

It's now Saturday. The weather prognostication is for high temperatures in the single digits and lows way below the line for the foreseeable future. This is a world of ice and snow with the Dr. Zhivago theme playing in the background. I'm home, Toto. There's no place like it.