Category Archives: Project 52

Jan 19

For Love of the Dog (Project 52, Week 4)

I didn’t think I’d become one of those types of people.  The kind that dress their dogs in shoes and jackets, carry them in handbags, and speak to them in baby talk. The kind who disregard people on behalf of their dog (once, my colleague at the vet clinic was working on some paperwork at the front desk while some clients milled around in the lobby. One client came toward the desk and asked “How are you today?” My colleague replied along the lines of, “I’m good, thanks.” The client looked at her and said, “I wasn’t talking to you; I was talking to the dog.” Nice.)

Well, I’m not really one of those people. Sgt. Pepper is too big for handbags. And while she’s willing to wear clothes, she’s so skinny that most stuff doesn’t fit her well, and slides from side to side. Clothing also blocks access to her harness; the most pragmatic item of clothing she has is a pink raincoat, but it’s a hassle to deal with when I need clip a leash to her harness. (The raincoat came from her foster mom; I remember when she gave it to me I asked her if Pepper would wear it. “She loves it!” foster mom said).

So, I’m not quite one of those people. What I am, however, is a person who is thrilled when Pepper meets me at the door when I get home from work. I typically greet her first, though I try not to linger over her too long for fear my husband will notice that she is usurping his greeting. I’m a person who waves to my dog from the car when I see her through the front window, standing on the back of the love seat, poking her head through blinds, watching me leave the house. On one occasion, when I was leaving to drive to Ohio, I backed out of my driveway and saw Pep watching me from the window.  After several minutes of watching her peer out the window at my car, I decided I couldn’t leave her behind and pulled back into the driveway to pack her travel bag and take her along. She was thrilled; I could tell by the wag in her tail. I’m a person who flops on a chair and encourages Pep to join me, and then I rub her belly, and massage her ears, and hold her face in my hands and talk to her in baby talk, and shower her with more attention than is probably necessary (it’s all quite ridiculous, I assure you).

I’m a person who is unnecessarily forlorn at the prospect of leaving Pep behind when my husband and I take a trip later this year. Pep is 7-years-old and hasn’t had the easiest life. She was found as a stray by animal control, and then was taken in by the Animal Protective League. When she was at her foster mom’s, she escaped from the backyard and was gone for 10 days. They found her 5-10 miles away from where she started. She’s very shy around new people and if you move toward her too quickly, she’ll squeal in anticipation of you kicking her. My step-dad is convinced she was abused; I think she was probably shoved or kicked out of the way a lot by her previous owner. It’s the only explanation I can think of for why she’s so skittish and fearful around people’s feet (she comes up to about the middle of my shin, so she’s not a very big dog). She’s very affectionate though, and loves to cuddle, so I don’t know that she was abused.

She hates being kenneled, and barks incessantly when she finds herself in one. I hate the prospect of leaving her at a kennel–she’s not a fan of other dogs, and I hate to think that she’ll think she’s been abandoned again. (Yes, I know she doesn’t have the capacity to think in such terms, but I know she’d be scared. That much I know.) I’m becoming the type of person who considers rearranging all of her plans in order to accommodate her dog. I adore traveling more than almost anything, but a couple of times I thought perhaps it would be best if I stayed behind with Pep. However, I haven’t gone out of my head quite that much, and am most definitely going on this trip. (All of the other trips I have planned for this year are with friends or family members, so I don’t have to worry about Pep’s accommodations–my husband will be home). For now I’ve made tentative arrangements with a friend who has said she will come and take care of Pep at the house.

But for all the traveling complications created by Sgt. Pepper’s presence in our household, not to mention the reconfiguring of my lunch schedule around Pepper’s need for bathroom breaks, I cannot describe the unadulterated delight she has brought us.

Jan 12

Pristine (Project 52, Week 3)

I don’t know much at all about my dad’s time in Vietnam. I don’t know how he felt during that flight across the ocean; his first and last flight across the ocean. (He would always stick close to home once he made it back.) His first sight of exotic grasses and exotic people. What smells greeted him each morning and tucked him in bed at night? Shit and piss and sweat and sulfur and rain and rot?  Was it claustrophobic in the hull of that tank as he tracked across the land? Who was his gunner? Were they friends? Did he have close calls? Did the sounds of bullets and bombs make him flinch, break into a sweat, give an involuntary shout?

I imagine him as pristine. In the war, but seeing none of its atrocities. In the war but not of the war. He sent home a picture of a stray puppy that the troops had adopted. I imagine him as innocent as that puppy. No blood shed near him, no blood shed by him, no blood shed.

Mom says he had nightmares when he returned. He wouldn’t talk about any of it. His brother asked if he’d seen anyone killed over there. He wouldn’t talk about any of it.

He never really did talk about any of it. Just a couple of times with me, when I was a teenager. It was like he needed to get something off his chest. His story made us both cry. That was the only time I ever saw him cry. There had been blood shed near him.

As he got older, he talked more openly, matter-of-factly about it all. But he never gushed with information. He kept in much more than he shared. And all that he didn’t share went with him to the grave. Maybe I should have asked more questions. Maybe I did, but could sense that I shouldn’t have. He was the mellowest person I’ve known. Had complete faith that everything would somehow work out. He didn’t dwell much on the past.

Recently, I located part of a cigarette lighter–I recognized it upon seeing it and was glad to have it in my hands again. It’s a Zippo lighter, metal, the kind that you flip the lid in order to light it, and then shut the lid to snuff out the flame. This is only the bottom part of the lighter; it’s hollow inside. On one side is an etching of a naked woman, reclined on her arms in, what looks like, an uncomfortable position. On the flip side is this saying:

Yea Though I walk

Through the valley

Of the shadow of

Death I will fear

No evil for I’m the

Evilest son of a bitch

in the valley.

Inside the hollow lighter  was a piece of paper that I folded long ago and had placed inside. I pulled it out and read what I had written:

“Jackie McLaughlin owned this lighter when he got killed in Vietnam in 1969. I received it from dad on Feb. 8, 1994, 25 years later.”

Dad had kept that lighter for 25 years. I found it again 15 years after dad first gave it to me. Forty  years after Jackie died. Nearly 4 years after dad died.

I imagine them both pristine.

Jan 9

Just a note

I’ve decided my blog will be updated every Tuesday for Project 52. So, feel free to stop by then for new content and (sometimes) new pictures. I don’t think I’ll be blogging much in between (with this exception, of course).