Let's Reminisce

If you are fortunate enough to be blessed with a dog, or perhaps even twice blessed with two, then you know the axiom, "Let sleeping dogs lie," isn't just something clever to say.

It's not even that clever.

A sleeping dog is a beautiful, taciturn thing. Well, okay-- sometimes it can be a grotesque thing, I'll admit. When Finley sleeps, all 68 pounds of him, he thrashes and twitches and snores with all of the feverish intensity of a gored ox. He looks quite epileptic, as all of his limbs erratically jut about, and it seems improbable that he's enjoying any peace at all. Of course, the optimist might say that he's dreaming about himself as a puppy, twelve or thirteen years ago, gallivanting about and racing through the imagined fields of his youth, with unbridled exuberance and glee.

Oh, my darling. Oh, my pet.

Molly asleep is a thing of beauty. Of course, she's pretty stunning when awake, if you don't mind me fawning and falling all over my own dog, but asleep she is magic. When she curls up onto your lap or falls asleep on your chest, there is just nothing in the world like it. The moments before she falls asleep are edible. She will brace herself up on my chest with her forepaw and stare into my eyes, struggling to keep her little head up, as if to say, "Why? Why are we not in bed yet? I... I don't understand." And her eyes will close of their own volition, slowly, and the head will droop, and that'll be that. Her breath makes a gentle whooshing noise, soft and warm, and she's quite gone.

But, life goes on around her. The dryer buzzes and demands attention, we have to get up from the couch to make lunches for tomorrow, the remote slides out from under the blanket and falls onto the hardwood floor, and the beige head and the gray head jerk up. Canine slumber is disturbed. And it's our own little domestic tragedy.

As a general rule, I try to let sleeping dogs lie in my own personal life, too. If there is a situation from the past that caused me grief or pain, I try my best to let it go, to not hold onto anger or sadness over things that happened that I cannot change. I try not to seek people out from the annals of my own personal history and pick up old fights or rehash careworn arguments. Likewise, I'm not someone who especially likes to engage in the nostalgia effect, either. Recently, my wife found a bunch of quite-forgotten about photographs (you know, actual ones-- like, that were developed in a drug store) of she and I when our relationship was younger than it is now.

"These will make you pretty schmoopie," she said, offering me the packet.

"But, I'm already schmoopie," I replied, looking deeply into her eyes.

I don't know what it is, but I just don't want to go there. And so I didn't. I didn't look. The packet of photos sits on top of a green filing cabinet in our office, leaning up against a sewing kit my mother bought Mrs. Apron for her birthday a year or so ago. I guess I just like to let sleeping dogs lie, even if they're nice dogs. Good dogs.

Stay.

I wasn't always this way, of course.

"Mommy," I used to say, "let's reminisce about when I was a boy."

I couldn't have been more than ten or eleven when I would make this request. And my mother would dutifully pull out the photo album that held the images of a long-ago time when a small boy with a large head absolutely covered with long, fine strands of light brown, almost reddish hair could wear a luridly-hued striped shirt beneath Osh-Kosh overalls-- with bell-bottoms.

And my mother and I would leaf through these pages together, in her bed or on the living room sofa.

Me as a doctor for Halloween-- 1986. My father had carefully applied a felt red cross to the breast pocket of a white button down shirt of mine. I wore a brown clip-on necktie, green pants, and in my hand I clutched a plastic, tan briefcase used to house colored markers. A large red cross, also in felt, was emblazoned upon the briefcase. I looked at the camera with a gaze of utter seriousness, as if I were about to perform a craniotomy on one of my stuffed penguins.

My birthday, 1987. I had just opened a package that contained a beautiful white teddy bear, dressed in a black vest and topped with a black bowler hat. I named him "Oliver," after Oliver Hardy. Of course.

There are others, yeah, just like there are in the albums of your past. I could go on, but I kind of like to let sleeping dogs lie.

As I blogged about a little while ago, last month I capitulated and joined modern society and bought myself a new BlackBerry Curve, letting AT&T put a choke-chain on my soul for another two years. It's not that bad and, sometimes, when they tug on it in just the right way, it feels kinda good. The phone plays the theme from "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" when people call, it shows pictures of my family and my friends when they call, it browses the internet with startling speed and efficiency, it keeps my text conversations in that charming little bubble format, and it sends my Gmails, my Yahoos, and my texts and my Facebook updates right to my pocket where, evidently, they all belong.

In short, in matters vegetable, animal and mineral, my phone does everything I want it to do.

It also does something I don't want it to do.

Every now and then, the phone will blip, indicating that I have an email from my Yahoo account. And I'll look.

Sender: Dave B.

The first time it happened, my heart absolutely stopped. It was as if a voice were calling to me from the dead. Not dead, of course. Just from long ago and far away. My former best friend, who stopped speaking to me-- what is it-- almost three years ago now? It's hard to remember.

And I mean that.

I was utterly confused and frightened and sad-- why could he be contacting me all of a sudden? What did he want from me? Why is it that when I'm about ready to put him behind me this stupid motherfucking piece of fake chrome and plastic boops to announce his return? And then I looked closer.

Send Date: April 22, 2006

In the past month, three old emails from Dave have popped up on my phone, all from 2006-- maybe the height of the powerful friendship we shared together for so many years. One email, also from 2006, popped up just a couple days ago-- from the florist we hired to create the flowers for our wedding. And, as touching a memory as reading that one way, I deleted all four emails, because, sometimes, this dog just wants to sleep.

Chicken Toothpaste

As someone who spends a significant portion of time with delusional individuals, I am sometimes unsure about whether I am delusional myself.

You know-- I'll think I hear someone calling my name, and all I'll get is a roomful of blank stares. I'll lie in bed awake at 3:06am convinced, after hearing the smallest creak, that masked gunman are going to enter our home, "Patriot Games" style and place unsolicited bullets into our brains when it's just my wife getting up to use the bathroom.

On Tuesday morning, at the vet's office I was almost convinced that I was delusional yet again when the vet advised me to commence brushing our two dogs' teeth with chicken, um, toothpaste.

Surely you jest.

"Make it a game for them, you know, make it fun!" the blonde, bearded man with the jaunty smile said as he dropped his black Littmann stethoscope on the floor. I noticed that he had an unusual amount of chest hair, for a blonde person, positively billowing out from inside his opened shirt collar.

Hmpf, I thought, if I had an issue like that, I would close up shop nice and tight and wear ties every day. Of course, that is precisely what I would do every day anyway, if I didn't work in a place where psychotic people could potentially use said neckwear to strangle me.

"Make it... fun?" I asked Dr. Furrychest, cocking my head, as a dog would.

"Sure!" he said, picking up his stethoscope and slinging it lazily over his left shoulder-- the reason it had fallen in the first place. "Put some on your finger and let your dogs go bananas over it! Then, stick some more on your finger and slide it all over their teeth."

I was so preoccupied about the impending bill that would have to be settled at the Counter of Financial Devastation in just a few minutes that I was barely listening anymore. I grew confused. What was I putting on my finger again? Was it bananas? It was getting awfully hot in that exam room.

"After a while, they'll start to look forward to tooth-brushing time!" he announced, grinning like, well, a Lab.

"Haha," I said unenthusiastically while Molly, our youngest and most impish dog jumped up on Finley, our oldest and most curmudgeonly dog's head, "that's funny."

"You may think that the idea of brushing your dogs' teeth will be like some kind of a circus, but trust me, they'll love it!"

Ah, I conceded in my head, but, will I love it?

There are plenty of things you think about when deciding to move into one neighborhood or the next. We spent three years living in the Germantown section of the city. We used to find discarded condoms and crack vials on the sidewalk in front of the house where we rented a charming and gorgeous apartment. When deciding to move into the suburbs, you think about things like real estate taxes and school systems and proximity to on-and-off ramps. You think about elementary schools for potential bobbers and whether the roof's been done in the last five years. You think about growing up and growing old. You don't necessarily think about schlepping your dogs to an upscale veterinary practice where they propose doing cardiac workups on your dog because he's had a heart murmur for the past seven years, and where they talk about funny things like chicken toothpaste.

Or was it banana toothpaste? I can't remember. The bill for both of them was $532.05, I can recall with little to no effort.

And that's no delusion, baby.

Like Peeing on a Bicycle

Our little puppy girl, Molly, had an accident last night.

"She's been dry for so long I thought she'd forgotten how to do it," my wife said, slightly sullen.

"Oh, no-- she's all over that," I replied, changing into pajamas at 7:37pm on a Friday night ('cause that's how we roll, 'Cuz).

"Like riding a bicycle," Mrs. Apron sighed.

"No, no," I chimed in unhelpfully, "like peeing on a bicycle."

Setbacks suck-- there's just no doubt about it. Imagine recovering from surgery, re-learning how to walk. Taking baby steps, then grown-up steps, then strides, and then, one day, you just... fall down. Imagine the pain-- the hurt. The embarrassment. The fear of complete and abject failure.

It's real.

What if this is one of those dogs that simply cannot be potty-trained? What if we are going to spend the rest of our natural lives setting the timer on the oven, taking her out every three-and-a-half hours, and watching her like a hawk when she's "loaded."

She's loaded. She's a fricking dog, for Christ's sake. And, like a Borderline in a psych hospital: she runs the show.

I was trying to think of a time in my life where I had suffered a marked setback, so that I could make a pointed comparison between myself and the peeing dog, but I couldn't think of one. Which, I guess, is good. Of course, if you are of the mindset that setbacks make you stronger and braver and tougher and more plastinated, then maybe it's not so good. Maybe because I'm caucasian and bespectacled and I tuck in my shirts and have a M.A.Ed. and a Volvo, I'm not going to have too many setbacks. Maybe I'm genetically altered to have some sort of forward trajectory-- like a mini jet propeller up my tuchus.

More likely, though, I'm not.

No doubt a time will come in my life where I will fall on my face on my way to achieving a goal. I've had fewer setbacks than I've had out-and-out failures. I've either achieved things, or I haven't. I either get the lead, or nothing. One book published, the other, um, not. One play produced, the others, um, not. One girl wife, the others, um, not. I either do it, or, um, not. And maybe that says something indicative about my personality. Maybe I'm doomed to succeed, or preordained to fail, or both, but I have yet to embark on a long-range goal where there have been roadblocks and hurdles and impasses that I have had to negotiate, subvert, challenge, or dust myself off and live to fight again the next day.

There's been no re-grouping for me. No one step forward and two steps back.

One thing I guess is for sure, and that is that life is a lot like peeing on a bicycle: it's uncomfortable, a little bit dangerous, and it only feels good for a very short time.

Earth, Salted

Being human, as I am, I am diligent about some things, lazy about others.

My mother and I will sometimes chat after 9:30pm and, in the wintertime, she invariably asks me if Finley and Molly have been out for "their last walk."

I put this phrase in quotes, because it is, essentially, a joke. "Their last walk" is anything but, especially when it's as cold as Witchtit, Kansas. "Their last walk" usually consists of me or Mrs. Apron opening the front door and shoving the old dog outside to urinate on the pachysandra that constitutes our front yard, and leashing up the young dog to do exactly the same. Maybe some day she will be able to go out there without a leash on, but I expect we're at least 4.5 years away.

Anyway, after nearly two years of dog pee, the pachysandra has, um, suffered. Last night, as I stood in the doorway watching Finley eliminate urine all over one section of brown schmenk that was, two years prior, vibrant and lush green pachysandra, I thought to myself, "Here I am, at 30 years old, feeling guilt over the wanton destruction of my own property." I've made it, kids. Middle age is here. Pardon me while I go trim my ear hair.

Really, though, there is a circular swath of land on the right side of our pachysandra that is wilted, brown, awful, disgusting, and it's, um, large. It calls out, "Here live two lazy shitbirds who cannot be bothered to take their dogs on a proper walk down the block because it's dark and it's cold and they really shouldn't even be allowed to have dogs anyway if this is the way they treat them and, while we're at it, they really shouldn't be able to own a house with a pachysandra lawn if this is how they treat it. Let's hang them."

We're pathetic. I mean, Jesus Christ-- it's pachysandra. One of the heartiest, most durable, most brainless-to-care-for subshrubs out there. Pachysandra's Wiki-entry refers to it as "leathery" with "coarsely-toothed" leaf margins. And yet, we've managed to assassinate it. Drenched under a relentless stream of steaming hot dog piss, the pachysandra that graces our front lawn was doomed from the moment we closed on this house. Sure, we've made improvements inside. We've stripped tons and tons of old lady wall-paper, we've put in a serious closet in the master bedroom, we've even de-Jesuified the house and put our Jew stank everywhere, but we just couldn't manage to keep that pachysandra alive. And, for the first time in my life, I am suffering from an acute case of horticultiguilt.

Seriously. We suck.

Spittin' Nickels

Sometimes, my goodlady wife and I do things that are rather a tad beyond our means.

Last April, bought a used Volvo. I'm still trying to reconcile the decision and the guilt, and the oil changes that now cost $48.00 instead of $39.00 because of the special, hotsy-totsy filters. People like us should not have Volvos.

Our ridiculous-looking, struggling-to-get-out-of-the-sixties kitchen has a brand-new cork floor. Every time I walk on its warm, smooth surface, I feel like an impostor. People like us should not have cork floors.

Yesterday, a dog trainer came to our home, for two hours, to give us scads of knowledge, techniques, and one-on-one attention to attempt to fix our broken, adopted dog, Molly. People like us should not have personal dog trainers who make housecalls.

I was prepared for this visit by Wendy, the dog trainer, to be painful. I expected tears from my wife, and barely concealable frustration and rage from me, but neither happened. And it wasn't especially painful, either. Perhaps this was because we were outside for one hour and forty-five minutes' worth of the two hours Wendy spent in our presence, in 30 degree weather. Who can feel pain when one's extremities are all numb? Actually, I do admit to feeling a twinge of... we'll call it "discomfort" when I wrote out the check for $235.00.

"Don't forget," Wendy said, presumably to re-install a little color into my blanched cheeks, "that includes two weeks of telephone 'tech support'."

Cute.

Don't get me wrong-- I like Wendy, and she wasn't even remotely attractive. I like that she was outside with us for an hour and forty-five minutes in jeans, boots, and a lime green North Face fleece.

"I can't believe you're not even wearing a jacket," I said, ever the Jewish nag.

"I've been outside in winter working with horses since I was twelve-- I'm good," she said with a confident smile.

Everything about her was confident, and I think it might have been a little contagious. She was full of quaint and colorful colloquialisms, which, uttered by anybody else would probably have instilled in me the urge to garotte-- or at least roll my eyes-- but I didn't mind when Wendy said things like, "Look, if she's standing still and not pullin', that's good enough for me. She doesn't have to be sittin' down. She can be standin' on her head spittin' nickels if she wants."

She taught our dog commands to listen for, which she reinforced liberally with training treats. She taught our dog to want to be good on the leash. She taught us patience.

"She wants to watch the cat movie without pulling and going berserk? Fabulous prizes. She walks next to you for five seconds without pulling? Fabulous prizes. She goes on a walk down the block without pulling your arm off, and she looks at you when you call her name? Fabulous. Prizes."

"You gotta meet this gal where she is, where she lives. Right now, she thinks that pullin' is the way to go. That's what she knows. And you guys give in because you know, 'She's gotta poop in 15 minutes or else I'm going to be late'-- you've gotta let go of that."

"Look for small miracles," Wendy advised. "You don't take your two-year-old to the five-star restaurant right off the bat. Get all the antisocial stuff out of the way at McDonald's and work your way up the star ratings from there."

Right now, Molly isn't exactly McDonald's material. Maybe the dumpster behind McDonald's.

But we're trying.

"Gentle."

"About."

"Wait."

The last one might just be more about us than it is about Molly. We've got to wait for her to get her ya-ya's out. For her to mature. For her to listen. For her to grow. And we've got to wait for our patience to catch up with us, with our expectations.

In the meantime, it's going to be a struggle, there's going to be lots and lots of phone calls to Doggie Tech Support Central, but, God... she's beautiful, just beautiful when she's sleeping.

An Open Letter to My Dogs

Dear Molly & Finley,

Do you remember in "The Jerk" when the Chinese-stereotype-man advises Steve Martin, "Mister-- don't call that dog 'Lifesaver.' Call it 'Shithead.'"? There are times when I wish I could name one of you Shithead and the other Fuckface. If it weren't for the fact that we lived in suburbia, I might do it. They wouldn't care in the ghetto. I mean, look at what they call their kids.

(I know-- I'm such a racist-- but let's save that for another post.)

The two of you are really a handful. Finley, just you by yourself, with your near-constant ear infections and your allergies and your propensity to consume large quantities of soy milk and broccoli, you kept us plenty busy enough. We just didn't realize it. I can't believe that your mother and I were so passive and complacent that we thought, "Hey-- you know what we need? Another dog!"

Yeah. Two times the shedding. Two times the shitting. Two times the baggies. Two times the food. And twelve times the ennui.

Walking the two of you together is enough to send me over the edge. Finley, you walk like my great-grandmother-- just minus the diabetic knee-highs and the carpet-like muumuu. Getting you to move it along is hardly worth the effort at all. I understand that you have arthritis and cataracts, and I wish I could apply for SSI for you, but I can't. All I can do is shove Chinese firecrackers up your ass to hope we can complete a walk in under thirty-eight minutes.

Molly, you are goddamned spazztastic. I can't handle you, nor can I fathom you. One walk with you around the block and it's very easy to see why somebody would stuff you in a Moses basket and drop it in the river. That little dance you do on your hind legs resembles ballet on crystal-meth, and, if you weren't doing it to wriggle out of your harness, I might find it charming. You have ADHD. If a leaf falls from a tree, or the wind rustles through the grass, if a neighbor opens his dining room window, if someone shuts a car door, if a praying mantis rubs its raptorial legs together-- you are immediately distracted. And the poop does not exit your behind, and you are not "safe." You are not considered to be "safe" until you have urinated at least once, (twice is preferable), and you have fecefied in the out-of-door realm. Otherwise, you are not to be trusted.

Never. To be trusted. Ever.

I look at normal people with normal dogs and I am sick with envy. How do they do it? How are they not constantly wrapped up in a tangle of leashes as am I? How do they effortlessly swoop down to collect poo when I am constantly struggling against your pulling or your stay-putting, the bag turning upsidedown, spilling shit all over the sidewalk? How is it that other dogs may want to lunge at the feral cats that prowl the environs of our neighborhood, but you two vault towards the felines with all the determination of a Professional Bullriding contestant? You have almost desocketed my arm on numerous occasions just because you think you want to eat cats.

Trust me, you don't want to eat cats. If you ever got close enough to them, they would swipe the shit out of your charming little faces, and really, maybe that's just what you need.

Guys-- I don't know what to say. You're exhausting. Petty, jealous, self-involved. It's like owning two Teen Moms. And I can't imagine that would be terribly amusing-- at least, after a while. Of course I love you, but if you happened one day to score some serious downers, I probably wouldn't complain.

I know there are no solutions here, and I'm sure there are things about me and Mrs. Apron that you wish were different, too. But theyr'e not. And you're not. Just remember to come up on the bed when the temperatures plunge and keep us warm and all will be forgiven.

Unless you pee on our faces, Molly.

Sincerely,
Dad

The Elephant in the Shorehouse

At around 5:00am yesterday morning, I awoke to the uncommon sounds of our elder statesman dog, Finley, making distressed panting noises, pacing about the floor, and generally behaving in a skittish, anxious manner.

I also, coincidentally, awoke to the uncommon odor of shit which, according to David Mamet, all train compartments smell of (vaguely). Our bedroom is not supposed to smell like shit because Molly, the puppy who is currently terrorizing the very marrow out of our bones, is crated during the night, and anyone who’s ever owned a puppy will tell you that dogs will not shit in a confined space, because they know two things, instinctively:

1.) That they are not in a train compartment

and

2.) That shitting inside a small confined space is gross, because, then, you have to lie down in it.

We had been feeding our dogs the bottom-of-the-barrel dog food for a while, and noticed that their fecal output was boulder-like. After I opined about this on my blog (because I am so uber-powerful, I can get you to read posts about dog shit), a couple of my well-intentioned readers suggested cracking open ye olde wallete and pouring some decent coinage into a higher quality of dog food.

My wife and I did this. One of the bags even said, “Venison.” Folks, I’ve only eaten venison once—my fucking dogs ate it twice a day, every day for three weeks.

The results (sorry) have been mixed (sorry). Molly’s shit seems to have normalized in quantity and quality. Finley’s, well, not so much. I’ve been Finley’s master (?) since 2003, and if there’s anyone who knows anything about his ass-leavings, it is I. Finley always, always, always pees before he poops (am I really writing this?) always always always. After consuming this allegedly higher quality food, the moment we hit the grass, he’s squatting to let out some serious Number Twosies. On a quaint walk around the block, he will shit four times. It’s a good thing I’m going to the gym, or I’d never be able to lift the poop bag, with all its requisite nuggetage.

Sometimes, I’m a tad pressed for time and I don’t have time to allow Finley his four squats in a given walk. Like yesterday, for example. So, against what I know was his better judgment and preference, he laid it all out on our bedroom floor in the middle of the night. Of course, as I swung out of bed, slowly realizing what had happened, I stepped in it, because I am the guy into whose eye birds shit, and I am the kind of guy who steps into his own dog’s shit, after he says, “Oh my God, Finley just shat all over the place.”

At least, at 5:00am, I still have the presence of mind to talk like a fag.

All that said, we have secured a dog-sitter for this weekend, because we are going away. On a vacation.

Sort of.

Actually, not really.

I can’t remember if I’ve written about this or not. If I have, sue me. And, while we’re in court together hiding behind our lawyers, bite me. Actually, bite my lawyer—that’s what I’m paying that asshole for, isn’t it? Anyway, a while back, my parents were at a silent auction—the one social event they attend in a given calendar year. The grand, mega-prize was one full week at a fully-furnished beach house in Brigantine. Nobody was bidding on it, so, to grease the wheels, my father put his name, oh, and $2,000 down.

He won.

Now, in a normal, pleasant, happy world, a week at a shore house would be, you know, something nice. The Gilbertian, topsy-turvy twist in this particular world of Apronism is that nobody, and I mean nobody in my family wants anything to do with it. In fact, up until a couple weeks ago, my father was ardently trying to sell the week at the shore to, well, anybody. Nobody wanted it because, apparently, it is cursed-- with our blood. This auction was won in January, and nobody in my family would speak about the details until, oh, last month. It was such a taboo subject that we were actually directed not to discuss it when coming to my parents’ house for dinner.

So we didn’t.

Nobody even knew which fucking week it was until the beginning of July. This, kids, is how we roll.

Anyway, my wife really wants to go. I was dicked out of a week’s worth of vacation at my current job (it will end August 27, and I am not permitted to take any days off until the termination of my job—after which, I can have all the days off I want— woot!) and my wife has lots of time off, but may be changing jobs, so that’s all up in the air. A weekend in Brigantine, with my parents and, potentially, both of my sisters and my sister’s husband and their baby, and now quite possibly my deadbeat uncle, alcoholic aunt and their college-aged twin daughters could be in the offing.

In the words of Gandhi: this does not tickle my wickle.

Regardless of its wickle-tickling properties, I have had to resort to asking a coworker to dog-sit for us. She recently acquired a puppy (which she had potty-trained in a week. Yes, a week. Can you smell the jealousy-pie cooling on the window?) and was, therefore, in my mind, ultra-qualified to take care of our canines. I asked her if she would do this for us on Monday, and she told me she would think about it. She walked up to me at work yesterday morning and stood in front of me without saying anything.

“Oh my God,” I said, “this is where you’re going to reject me, isn’t it?”

She smiled and said, “No, no, no—I’ll do it.”

I was flabbergasted. Stunned. Slackjawed. I actually almost cried.

“I just wish… we were actually going someplace where we were going to enjoy ourselves,” was all I could think of to say. She gave me a comforting rub on the shoulder and said,

“I know. Just try to have a good time.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You, too.”

Molly

Now we've done it.

After we met Knucklehead, the obsessive-compulsive, penis-vacuuming Beagle, I was somewhat disheartened and disenfranchised with the whole dog-adopting thing. Then, on Saturday morning, the phone rang. It was the dog adoption people. I wanted to ask them if this new dog had any Liberace-like tendencies-- a gold sequins dog collar, for example, but I held my tongue and listened patiently to the description.

Female. Golden in color. Short statured. Shy at first. 8 months old. Cockapoolador.

My wife and I drove downtown later that afternoon, leaving Finley at home, to meet this new girl. They said the previous owners gave her up for adoption because they felt the dog "needed more space."

"A.K.A. 'Hi, we got a puppy and it was really cute but now we don't know what the hell to do with it' the adoption agent helpfully translated."

"Needs more space" is something you say to a soon-to-be-former significant other when what you really want to say is, "Get the fuck away from me, preferably out of my zipcode." After meeting this dog, I cannot imagine anyone breaking up with her, let alone not wanting to be in her zipcode.

She was indeed shy at first, very, very wary of my wife and I-- probably because of both of our prominent noses and vintage eyeglasses. I mean-- imagine how all of that looks to a dog. She hid prodigiously behind the adoption center Ford Econoline van, parked inside the gated, pavement-covered area where we were introduced to the dog.

"Her name is 'Miley,'" the adoption agent said, rolling her eyes. "I can barely bring myself to say it-- I'm sure the idiots named her after Miley Cyrus." I'm sure, too. Them and their eight-year-old daughter who promised to clean up all its shit with her fingers crossed behind her back.

That didn't come out right-- nevermind.

Slowly, slowly, Miley warmed up to us. After ten minutes, she crept up onto my lap and stayed there. Until, that is, she started pawing gently at my chest and I rolled back onto the pavement, where she beached herself on top of my chest.

"Oh, man-- you're done," the adoption agent said, smiling, as she walked past us. "You are totally done. She's got you good." Two licks of my chin finished me off.

It wasn't a done deal, for real, though, until we could drive back to our house, throw Finley in the car, and drag his dumpy, gray ass down to the shelter to meet Miley. If he bit her face off, or if she treated his penis like a gasoline syphoning implement: no dice. But the two dogs when put together were largely indifferent to each other. Miley was definitely curious about Finley, and Finley played it with a relatively cool air.

Cool, except for the fact that he began foaming at the mouth like a heterosexual shark inside the Playboy mansion's hot-tub. The froth was as thick as shaving cream and it stuck to his beard and dripped down like stalagtites. I'd never seen anything like it. If it wasn't for his month-old rabies tag, I probably would have had him shot down, just to be safe. I guess he really, really liked what he was seeing-- or smelling. But there wasn't all that much interaction. Yes, the traditional nose-up-the-asshole bit was ritually done, and done, but not much else. She got in his face a couple times, and he did not growl as he had done with Knucklehead. He just, you know, foamed on her head a little bit. But that's what siblings do. Right?

He didn't even mind terribly when Miley climbed back into the relative safety of my lap, and that surprised me. I looked over at my wife. The adoption agent came back.

"Is this a match?" she asked.

"It's a match," I said. I said it before doing the silent check-in with Mrs. Apron, but I couldn't help myself. It was the first time I've ever been in love with two females at the same time in the same space.

"But we've got to do something about that name," my wife said, "it's awful."

"Well," I replied, rubbing the dog's incredibly soft, velvet ears, "I think we can very easily transition her from 'Miley' to 'Molly.' And that's an acceptable, very serviceable dog's name." My wife smiled, knowing just what I meant.

When I used to work for a non-profit that processed loan applications for people with disabilities, one of our board members, a 4'11" elderly blind woman named Noreen had a seeing eye dog named "Molly." When I knew Noreen, she had just gotten Molly after her former seeing eye dog of fifteen years had passed away. He was an excellent dog. Molly, a puppy, was a "goof" as Noreen said. I remember the first time I met Noreen. It was at a board meeting. This board had never gotten together in person before-- all votes and discussions were held over teleconference or by email. The entire board had assembled and Noreen was the only person who hadn't yet arrived. 10 minutes after the meeting began, the doors opened and there was this tiny little woman with a big ass, squinty eyes, and a silly looking black lab, its tongue dangling out of the side of its mouth and its eyes bugging out. Noreen stood there for a moment while everybody looked at her.

"Hi..." she said, in a squeaky, funny little balloon-air voice, "I'm Noreen...." She stood there awkwardly and struggled for a moment, I think, to think of something interesting to say. "And... I'm blind!"

Our Molly will come home on Wednesday. She's being spayed on Tuesday, and, while I feel sorry that she has to have surgery, I'm also relieved. We had a crazy lesbian health teacher who loved to regale us with stories about holding her dog over a vertically-stablized tampon and plopping the dog down on it. I'm happy to admit that I'm just not man enough for those kind of antics, though I'm sure they would make for great blog fodder.

I'm confident that Molly will not wreck our house, or our marriage. She might wreck the car, or the sofa-- but not our lives. I think she and Finley will get along just fine-- she may even make a new man out of him, although I rather like the old man.

I also am pretty sure that Molly will be a little bit of a goof and, dare I say, a knucklehead herself, and I'm also pretty sure that she'll be a great dog.