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

[Russ Doden]

Hi Terri,

OMG!!!  This has me laughing like an idiot!  You see, long ago I got
"shot" at near point blank range by a skunk.  I was only in my early
teens, but it is a memory that still is with me!  --- And my poor dog!
 She was even closer than I was if possible.  At the range measured in
less than 1 yard, there couldn't have been much difference.  My poor
folks did all the could for both of us, but it was miserable.  My dog
was restricted to outside for a long time, and the clothes I was
wearing had to be burned!  This really made me laugh.

I hope you are having a great weekend.  It is raining here and I'm
being horribly lazy!

Russ

On 7/3/10, TLW <tlwagener at gmail.com> wrote:
> (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. . .
>


-- 
Take things one day at a time
IF that is too much go 1 hour at a time
If that is too much, go 1 minute at a time
Miracles come one minute at a time.