Switched At Birth

Maggie's Day Out

As you may have noticed, I am gradually repopulating the "lost posts" archives from the original Switched At Birth that didn't make it into the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. I thought it would be an aggravation to retype those old posts. Not so. I'm enjoying wandering around in those yellowed pages. It's reminding me of the value of longitudinal context. 

Part of the fun of blogging is this creation of personal archives that we are all doing. Another significant aspect is the stretching and learning that must occur -- I think of the process as keeping our thoughts fresh like a natural spring rather than the stagnant pool they might otherwise become. I've been poking around, stumbling some, and generally having a blast with two new branches of this blog tree: Sugar Shack, which will tell the story as it unfolds of Beth and Buck’s writer’s cottage, honeymooners’ hideaway, and fish camp on old Perdido Bay, near Pensacola, Florida  and False Dawn, a mircoblog "for 3 am floaters and fragments," those words and half-formed thoughts that come in the wee hours.

Yesterday, Buck and I took the afternoon off to run over to the Sugar Shack and spread some rye grass seed and begin other clean-up, fix-up chores. As you can see from the two photos below, Maggie had another thought.  

  
To paraphrase the late Lawrence Durrell, I can almost hear Maggie's "brain ticking like a cheap alarm clock." 

  And a furry dog shall lead them. Buck and I put down our rakes and brooms and joined Maggie on the dock to experience sunset.

  

 

Camouflage

 

I guess when you have recently had stitches removed from your chest and under your neck, laying flat in a cool spring-fed stream must feel pretty darned good. Can you see Maggie?

  There she is. The square of missing hair on her back that looks like an aerial view of a clear cut forest is where she had another benign-but-growing lump.

A Lot of Puppy in Them

Maggie turned ten last month. Buck took her to the veterinarian yesterday for annual vaccinations. I needed to stay home to meet the AT&T high-speed internet repairman, and so gave Buck a handwritten note for Dr. Cher.

1. Re-check lipoma on Maggie's neck.
2. Clip nails.
3. Look at two small growths on her face and a larger, irritated-looking one on her back.

Getting old is hell.  Why is it that skin tags, age spots, moles, no hair in the right places and too much hair in the wrong places are part of the process? Buck was a lifeguard on Pensacola Beach back in the day. Great summer job for a handsome young stud. But skin has a long memory . It can turn surly in life's winter and become the enemy.

Maggie was a youthful athlete, too, winning a wall full of ribbons as a Field Trial champion. But she is not immune from the gray hairs and skin growths that come with longevity.

 Just look at that beautiful bod! Buck and Maggie both still have a lot of puppy in them. There is nothing sweeter in the world than having the love of an old dog.

Itty and Bitty

               "Dogs never lie about love."  Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

Maggie and I always see at least one interesting dog, person, or situation when we go to Scenic Hill Veterinary Hospital. Yesterday was no exception.

Maggie is a very laid back  9 1/2 year old chocolate lab. She has several nicknames, including "Li'l Brown Sugar" and "The Ambassadog of Goodwill." She sprawled on the cool floor of the waiting room, one eye on the treat jar at the counter, and the other on a cute little girl who kept smiling and pointing in her direction.

A woman came in half-dragging a reluctant 4 month old Bernese Mountain Dog. She told everyone in the room that this was the first time she had put a harness on the pup. He scooted flat-pawed across the slick floor as the woman gently coaxed him from one side of the room to the other. The handsome youngster already weighed more than 45 pounds. Fully grown, his weight will be between 130-145 pounds.

Maggie and I both were just about to doze off as we waited our turn, when the inner door opened, and a tall African-American woman came through, both of her large hands held out in front of her, like protective scoops. One of her hands cradled a handful of something that looked like a small pile of black bird feathers. The other hand cradled its twin. I leaned forward and stared. "Yorkie babies! They're adorable!"

She smiled proudly and came closer so I could admire the tiny Yorkshire Terriers. And then, she just made my day. In a lovely contralto voice, she moved one puppy-laden hand closer to me, and said, "This Itty." And then she brought the other hand even with the first, and said, "This Bitty."

Our eyes met and we shared a good laugh.  Everybody wanted a look at the little tykes, and I could hear her introducing Itty and Bitty all the way out the door.

When Maggie's name was called, we went in to visit with Dr. Chere Ernest, our family vet for the last 25 years. Maggie got her nails clipped, an annual shot, and a general check-up.  Now that Maggie is almost ten, I always have a trill of anxiety when Chere runs her hands over Maggie and listens to her heart. 

Maggie has a lipoma (a benign fatty-cell tumor) in the neck tissue between her chin and her chest. That's an awkward area, and we've been watching it for awhile. The only reason to surgically remove it would be if it is growing, which could make removal in the future difficult and potentially dangerous for Maggie.

Buck and I thought the lipoma has either stayed the same or possibly even shrunk, and Chere agreed. No surgery, just continued watchful waiting.

 Dr. Ernest's assistant has a great dog-side manner. I love their eye contact and facial expressions here.

I grew up scared to death of dogs. Impossible, now, to imagine life without such a great friend.

 

Evening Stroll

It feels like a moonlit walk through a forest susurrant with life. Buck, Maggie and I walk slowly from our office in the old part of the house to our bedroom, where The Cloud awaits, turning off lights as we go.

Maggie stands so close to Buck, her bronze chocolate fur touches his left leg as we move. Each time we stop to pull a plug, to talk for a moment, Maggie sits and leans against Buck's leg. She looks up at him earnestly, trying to read the tea leaves. Is it time yet? Is it time for my cookie?

I move carefully, not wanting to spill a drop of the hot lemongrass and spearmint brew I am carrying in a thick pottery mug cradled in that bony place between my breasts. It is radiating enough warmth to remove an entire day's chill.

The three of us must look an odd parade, stopping at each of three fake Christmas trees that we put up right after Thanksgiving. They have become as real to us as the Velveteen Rabbit.

We unplug the last one. As the tiny white twinkling lights go dim,  I say, "That one reminds me of the lights in the old Driftwood Restaurant, where we had lunch together for the first time."

Buck says, "Yes, it does me too. And sweet baby? Let's don't be in a hurry to take them down. Okay?"

 

Half In The Bag

Like most Labrador Retrievers, Maggie cannot be trusted around unattended food. She is a truly gifted forager.

A few years back, when we were adding onto the house, she developed quite a reputation amongst the subcontractors as a sneak thief, many of whom lost their lunches to Maggie. She could silently jump through an open pickup truck window and steal tupperware containers full of old pizza and sandwiches, take them around to the garage and stuff them through her swinging doggie door to save for later; or snacks (she became especially fond of little bags of roasted sunflower seeds), coffee loaded with sugar and creamer from the junior food store (she would knock it over with one paw and lap it up when I distracted the workers by saying "good morning"), cans of Pepsi when she couldn't find a Mountain Dew (which no kidding she learned to pick up with her paws and swill).

One time I saw her jump down from the cab of a pickup truck with a white plastic Walmart bag swinging from her jaw. Curious, I waited a few minutes and then went to look in the garage. Sure enough, there it was. She had left the bag near her food bowl and gone back outside again. In the bag were two unopened cans of dog food and a package of flashlight batteries. Somewhere in her doggie brain . . . . midnight snack?

The house was completed about 8 pounds later and I was left with an overweight dog with a serious caffeine habit.

It's been tough on the Magster to get her meager cup of dull rations once in the morning and once in the evening. No more scavenging in the ruins of carpenters' discarded Vienna Sausage cans or foraging for crumbs of Little Debbie cakes.

I guess it was only a matter of time until she went on a binge.

When I walked into the garage (Maggie's dining room) a couple of days ago to let her  in through the house and out into the back yard, she was nowhere in sight. Usually, she would be right at the step and ready to race in, turn around to sit for a hug and some talk, then on to the back door. Not this day.

I heard a loud rattling and snuffling sound way over in a dark corner of the room. "Uh oh," I thought. "Some critter has gotten into the garage and Maggie has it cornered."  I still didn't see her. The sound was coming over from behind the treadmill.

I called to her and what I saw, well, let's just say I was totally rude to my dog and burst out laughing. You would have, too.

Maggie had found an empty 20-pound dogfood bag rolled up on top of an empty box and decided to investigate it for remnants. When I saw her, the bag was fulled stretched out and her head and shoulders were all the way inside it. Only her hindquarters and legs were visible.  Those bags are coated on the inside and are slick even before getting a frenzied licking from a dog on a diet, and so Maggie was having trouble getting out of the bag.

Yeah, I know. I should have rushed right over and pulled the bag off her head. But I was laughing so hard, that by the time I came to my senses, she had gotten herself out of her own trap. She looked at me with wild eyes, breathing hard, and made for the water bowl.

Buck and I have a friend who blames her memory lapses on being "half in the bag." I always thought it had to do with overconsumption of hard liquor, but maybe I was wrong.

Classic Maggie, wearing a red clay eyepatch she picked up on one of her many adventures.

The Paws That Refreshes

This post was orginally published on March 6, 2005, when Buck and I had a major building project going on here at Longleaf. I'm still working on getting all of the original 2003-2005 posts re-entered (retrieved from The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine), and laughed so hard at this one, I decided to re-post it today in hopes you guys will enoy it too.

"Your dog is smart," he said.

"What did she do?" I asked.

"Well, she got into my truck and ate my potato chips," he continued.

"Maggie's got a good nose, that's for sure," I replied.

"Yeah, but the thing is, she got them out of a sealed plastic container and ate them without biting the plastic." He grinned crookedly, apparently admiring her technique.

Guess she wanted some cola to go along with her chips. . .

 

 

Sometime after the guys left Saturday, I went out to the garage to feed Maggie her supper. I needn't have bothered. She had shoved another purloined plastic food storage container in through her doggie door. Leftover pizza. Just beside her dish, I found a half eaten snack-size bag of salted sunflower seeds.

This morning, I was looking out over the worksite when something caught the corner of my eye. It was the tip end of a furry brown tail, waving enthusiastically from inside the orange rectangular construction dumpster. Maggie. Trolling for leftovers.

Man, sometimes she is such a dog.

09:13 PM in Homeplace | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Where's The Whistle? Let's Go!

 

Maggie

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