FARNIVAL Stories

Do you know what makes up for every hour I’m away from my pack? It’s coming home to one of Sara’s hugs. I start thinking about that hug on Sunday night as soon as I leave the racetrack in whatever city I’ve been staying in for the past four nights. Last weekend, I worked in Pomona, CA. Next weekend I’m going to Phoenix, AZ and the cycle continues twenty-four times each year. Sunday nights are the end of my workweek, and each one feels like a mini-Christmas Eve. I even have trouble sleeping the night before I fly home because I’m so excited about seeing my freaks.

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Floyd, Sara, Meadow, and Adriana are sleeping. They are arranged on the bed like points of a compass, together but separate. It’s dawn, still black outside the windows. They know this is the time when I work in my office, even on leaving day, so they’ll nap until sunrise.

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My first day volunteering for a sea turtle conservation group in Costa Rica easily ranks as the most enjoyable day of volunteer work I’ve ever experienced. I’d make up for it the following afternoon, but I wasn’t thinking about manual labor on that morning. And I can guarantee you Nora and Rita weren’t either.

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Mason and I arrived in Owensboro, Kentucky the day before Thanksgiving. My mother-in-law owns a rental property next to the Ohio River. Since we roll with four dogs and need a lot of space, the cottage is perfect for us. It has a fenced yard with plenty of squirrels. Plus, it’s located downtown, so it has sidewalks, which I’ve learned to appreciate since living in the country. We unpacked the car, leashed the dogs, and strode out the door for our afternoon walk.

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I’ve been rereading Mary Oliver poems. When I found this line, I squealed:

A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the trees, or the laws which pertain to them…

–Mary Oliver, “Her Grave”

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I tried to write about my adventures in Costa Rica in one post. I swear I did. But as I explained here, something extraordinary happened on that trip, and I can’t fit the whole story into 1000 words or less. For those of you just catching up, in December I went on a five-day, 700-mile road-trip across a third-world country. Throughout this month, I’m going to write about each leg of the journey, starting with the first 131 miles. Thanks for reading.

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Before I left for Costa Rica, I had every intention of coming home and writing a story about my grueling but rewarding volunteer work for LAST, a sea turtle conservation group. But sometimes, the story we expect isn’t always the one we get. And this time, I was way off the mark. Let me be clear, both grueling and rewarding volunteer work was involved in my adventure, and I’ll touch on that. But, a tale focused only on sea turtles in Costa Rica isn’t the one that’s been brewing. Instead, I can’t stop thinking about three gringas who traveled to a third-world country and had the adventure of a lifetime. Let’s start with a teaser.

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When I talk about my dogs with friends or family or even on this blog, I often call them freaks. I mean it with love. We have four dogs in our current pack, and over the years, we’ve lost several others. I’m grateful I met every one of them for a thousand different reasons. But, this Thanksgiving season, I’m going to explain why I call them freaks, and why I’m so thankful for their freakiness.

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Last spring I caught Floyd in the basement a few times, tongue hanging out, tail wagging. Our basement is unfinished, exposed pipe, concrete floor, and cinderblock walls. It’s not a cozy space, and the dogs rarely hang out in it. So, when I saw him downstairs and so happy about it, I noted it. I remember noting it the second and third time I found him down there too. After a brief investigation, I found nothing suspect and finally guessed Floyd had found some remains our cat had left behind. Floyd has always been extremely food-driven, and he’ll eat anything, so I didn’t put any more thought into it.

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People often send emails asking about our current pack, so I’ve decided to reintroduce all of them except for Boo, our black cat. I’ll save Boo’s story for another day cause it will take a few pages. For now, let’s just say that at fifteen he still regularly murders innocent wildlife. In other words, he’s perfectly content. So, without further ado, here are the members of our nontraditional family.

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Want to be a minimalist? Or at least learn about minimalist values? My best advice is to use your dog as a mentor.

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Adriana sleeps under the covers. She has since she was a puppy. I’ve never discouraged her because sleeping with dogs is one of the greatest experiences of being a dog mom. When I crawl into bed, I slide her warm body against my stomach and spoon all thirty-nine pounds of her. Almost every night, she gets too hot and ends up somewhere by my feet, but for a couple hours we sleep fur to skin. By far, those hours are the most snug.

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Hi y’all. I’m both excited and nervous because I’m leaving for Cuba Sunday night, taking a red-eye from Phoenix (where I’m working) to Havana. I’m excited because I’m going to learn about a new culture and get to practice my woeful Spanish. That whole tropical- island-in-the-Caribbean thing doesn’t hurt either. I’m nervous because I’ve never visited a communist country before, and I’ve already encountered some interesting restrictions.

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I swear we tried to do a Christmas card this year. We bought all the props, bathed the dogs, tried shooting in three different locations. But each time it ended in a wrestling match or a coordinated strike, a downright refusal to participate.

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Since everything in my world revolves around canines, I immediately thought about a dog named Lucy when a friend told me about a viral twitter feed. Danielle Muscato asked women, “What would you do if all men had a 9pm curfew?” Some women said they would go dancing, to the grocery store, and the park. But many others answered exactly like I did. We would walk.

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Mason and I took Miss Annie Daisy canoeing on the Red River shortly after we moved to Robertson County, TN. Miss Annie, a six-pound Yorkshire terrier, was my first dog, my soulmate. I took Annie everywhere, and if that meant doing it illegally, then I broke the law. Over the years, I zippered Annie into my backpack and carried her into stores, restaurants, parties, office buildings, libraries, classrooms, movie theaters, and television studios without anyone even knowing. And she never made a peep because Miss Annie felt the same way about me as I did about her. As long as we were together, we were happy.

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I’ve been waffling about posting this blog because it’s still hard to admit my disease. Then, I ran into Mort, a Vietnam vet, on the greenway. He also suffers from depression, and he was having a bad day. When I told him about my disease, his face changed. For the next twenty minutes, he told me how thankful he was to find someone who understood. For the next week, we walked together every day. That’s why I finally decided to post this. Because I want everyone who feels like Mort to know they aren’t alone.

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I miss fostering homeless mutts for a thousand different reasons, but watching the relationships they formed is one of the top five. In fact, the most beautiful love story I ever witnessed happened between our foster dogs Meadow and Bentley.

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We were driving home after a four-mile walk with our mutts when we saw the abandoned puppies. Our dogs had their snouts pushed out the station wagon’s windows. They looked like wind-riders, ears flattened against their heads, noses slick and working overtime to investigate the cacophony of scents rushing past. Ancient trees edged both sides of the road. Red, yellow, and orange leaves glimmered like jewels in the sky, some raining downwards from the branch-draped ceiling. It was nine years ago, but I still remember that afternoon because it was a perfect October day, too perfect for seeing two starved dogs ditched on the roadside.

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