TheBanyanTree: How to ReInvent Your Life in Twelve Weeks of Summer: a work of fiction

[TLW]

(Continuing)

I was exhausted when I got home from the estate sale, and I went
straight to bed.  I am just not accustomed to getting up at such an
ungodly hour.  When Jasper woke me up with his huffy cool nose, it was
dark outside.  Then he backed up, tail wagging.  He is not used to me
sleeping from daylight to nighttime.  If he'd had opposable thumbs,
he'd have checked my pulse.

I lay there a few minutes, reviewing the events of the first part of
the day.  Really, Tess?  Really??  I blanked out of some bits, but I
was pretty sure I'd left about eleventy hundred king-sized pillowcases
of underwear in my VW hatchback.  It defied quantum physics.  I
climbed out of bed and headed for the garage.

And then I trudged again and again from the garage to my apartment,
transferring case after case.  Jasper trotted happily alongside me,
as if we were on an actual walk.  I ended up with four rooms full of
pillowcases full of someone else's underwear.  And my place only has
four rooms.

Oh.  My. God.  How did this happen?

It was such a fabulous time going through all the stuff, though.  The
perfect full-length slips with the most delicate embroidery, her
intials "SEF" worked into the lace.  Flowers and vines and leaves and
stems worked across the bodices, the thinnest of straps.  Some had
exquisite cloth tagsstitched on an inside seam that read simply "By
Yolande."

Yolande, sweetheart, wherever you are -- and you are almost surely
mending angels' wings now with gossamer threads -- I hope you enjoyed
your work and got deep personal satisfaction from your craft.  Because
it is spectacular, full of detail and delicacies and soul.
Museum-worthy.

Still.  A thousand dollars.  Was I insane?

But look! Look at this one.  Handmade lace.  Appliqued blossoms.
Pintucks.  Scallops.

Pfft.  Money.  Easy come, easy go.

And this one, here.

"GOOD.  Repair and let out."   I loved that.

 I looked at Jasper, who stood patiently, his head cocked, hoping for
a special sign from me.  He of the great heart, the endless well of
loyalty.  The thought balloon above his head said, "Let's go!  Hey!
How about a walk around the block?  I gotta check my    pee mail!" I
smiled into his sweet brown eyes, nodded emphatically once, and said,
"Yes!"
And he was off.  I followed him to the door, let him out the front
gate and we headed for our evening walk.  It was late, by now, ten or
so.  A full moon.  A beautiful June night in California.  Foggy --
which is rare and so magical when it comes as far inland as Hollywood.
 Cool.  A world full of possibility.  I skipped.  I admit it.  I felt
I was on a new --silk!  -- Road, and I was ready for it.

Well, if you have circumnavigated the sun any respectable number of
times, you know already that God has a way of knocking you back to
your senses at times like these.  At least, she does me.  I was being
all dreamy, imagining how I might get these beautiful pieces of
somebody-else's- underwear to poorly isolated women who would truly
appreciate them, and  I wasn't paying close attention to Jasper.  I'd
wrapped his leash around my waist and latched to itself, like I do
sometimes, since he never runs away or makes any trouble.  Right about
now I noticed he was being extra curious about something in the bushes
at my neighbor's house.

"Jasper!" I called in a kind of stage whisper.  Although the night was
cool, it was warm enough for people to have their windows open, and
ten o'clock was late enough for some of them to be in bed.  "Jasper!"
I called again softly.

His pale fyellow milky moon our-legged body made its way slowly to the
street.  He wasn't coming towards me, though.  He was moving slowly,
head down.  I squinted.  What was up?

Then I saw the small woodland creature in front of him.  A cat?  No.
It was sort of waddling.  Or, actually, more like a highly seductive
sashay.

Oh.  Oh, God.  A skunk.  Jasper had roused a skunk.  His nose was
right up its tail, too.  He was wondering, no doubt, why this
intriguging fat cat didn't scat at the sight of him.
"Jasper!"  I pleaded hoarsely.  "Jasper, come here!" I stamped my foot.

 (Yeah, like that ever works.)

The skunk was going to let loose any second.  Jasper's nose was right
there -- a real invasion of privates.  In fact, if I had been that
skunk, I would
have given him the business back in the bushes, out of principle.

I saw Jasper take two more steps forward, freeze, then make the exact
same two steps in reverse.  A second later the ammonia hit my eyes.
"Oh My God!  Jasper!"  I choked.  "Oh no!  Jasper!  Omigod!"
I pulled my shirt up over my nose and ran to him.  He had crumpled on
the ground as if he'd been shot, and was pawing at his nose.  He'd
been hit point-blank by the skunk, right between the eyes and all over
his snout.  Holy moly, if it smelled that strong to me, what must it
have smelled like to him, with his olfactory system eleventy thousand
times more sensitive than mine?  It's a wonder he didn't keel over
dead.

"Oh, honey," I whispered to him.  I pulled his head up, his chin in my
hand.  His eyes were running, just like mine.  We gazed at each other,
weeping, for a moment.  He looked at me expectantly, between hard,
hurting blinks.  His thought bubble: Ruh-roh.  Mom?  Fix it, okay?
Ew.  Like, really, EW... to the millionth power.  Okay.  Mom.  Can you
fix it, please?

Note: This is why I do not have children.  If anything ever happened
to them, my heart would simply shatter.  I would just fall to pieces
and my teeth would melt if they ever got... skunked by Life.  And they
would have, you know they would have.  We all know   Life is a skunk.

I threw my arms around Jas, to comfort him, and then, in the next
second, pushed him away.  He was like a detonated bomb.  It just
blasted the air out of my lungs.  Chemical warfare -- with a dog.

I took his leash from around my waist and snapped it on his collar
(thus effectively latching the barn door mere seconds after the horse
took a rocket off our fair planet).  He headed for home, pulling me,
with visions of my bathtub and lots and lots of suds swimming around
in my head.In his head?  Probably hiding under the house.

I had already opened the door before I remembered all the silk in the
house.  Jasper had just slunk across the threshold when I tackled him
and pretty much threw him back off the porch.

Aren't you glad I do not have children?  I'm sure they are.

Jasper sat in the yard by the front steps, all his inner juices
flowing out of his eyes.  He reeked.  I could see it come off him in
waves in the moonlight.  It was so strong, it almost buzzed.  Bringing
him inside would be like throwing a stinkbomb into a lingerie drawer.

He squinted at me, sighed, and lay down to see what brilliant action I
would exercise next.  He was resigned to it.  He'd given up.

Okay.  I remember, Henry Huggins once had this problem with his dog
Ribsy.  I read Beverly Cleary's books over and over again as a child
and, once, Ribsy met up with a skunk, and Henry had to bathe him in
tomato juice.  (See why it can be so useful to be a pasty-faced
bookworm as a child?  These things do come in handy.  So there.)

I went inside, knowing I had no tomato juice, but I did have some V8,
one of those big family-sized cans.  It's part of my "eat less
chocolate and cheese diet."  I grabbed the can from the fridge, plus a
towel, and came back outside and turned on the faucet.  The water was
ice cold.  Freezing ice cold.  And I felt like I was about to perform
major surgery on my own wide-awake child.

But it turns out that wasn't the worst part.  The worst, I believe,
for Jasper, anyway, was when I up-ended the whole can on V8 on his
head.  Straight from the fridge.

An image I will carry to my grave: Jasper, looking up at me, V8
running down between his intelligent and weeping eyes, with his
thought balloon in italics: "Why do you hate me?"

Okay, I admit it. I kind of panicked.  I did.  It was late at night,
I'd had a somewhat bizarre day, I had no one to help me but my
childhood imaginary friends, Henry and Ribsy, and I didn't exactly
think the whole thing through.  To my credit, though, I turned off the
freezing water faucet and just mopped the V8 off Jasper's face with a
towel.

Okay, so maybe it worked for Henry and Ribsy (although I now have my
doubts), but I'm here to tell you -- that tomato juice as an antidote
to skunk odor is an urban-type myth.

I ended up leaving Jasper outside in the yard while I went inside to
Google what to do.  And, for those of you who have canines in skunk
country, here's the emergency gaunlet:

Make a paste of dishwashing liquid and baking soda.  Rub in into the
dog's fur -- or in my case, all over his face (and now, paws).  Let
that sit there a few minutes, while the baking soda neutralizes the
ammonia/spoiled cabbage/dead-things-mixed-with-goat -urine smell.
Then rinse it off with hydrogen peroxide.  Which will be fizzy, but it
is strangely satisfying.  The odor should be completely neutralized,
and you can shampoo your dog just like usual.

Only I didn't.  I was so done with the whole damn day, I couldn't even
put two thoughts together.  I settled Jasper on the ratty couch out by
the garage THAT WAS ALREADY HERE WHEN I RENTED THE PLACE SO BACK OFF.

 Personally, I think Jasper was scared to be in the house with me -- I
was liable to pull the old fire extinquisher off the kitchen wall, and
let him have it, just because I got some demented jollies that way.  I
pushed aside hundreds of dollars worth of somebody-else's-underwear
and crawled into bed.

When I woke up the next morning, the place was still loaded with silk,
right where I left it.  I  didn't even want to get out of bed.  I have
a personal policy to stay in bed all day at least one day a month.  I
think everyone should have this policy.  It's important that we all
stay in touch with our own lazy galoot, and my policy of
one-all-day-in-bed would go a long way toward making that happen.
Besides, the next day (which is tomorrow), I have a job interview.  I
know.  A miracle and amazing.    Keep reading.

To be Continued. . .