Day: January 7, 2019

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We Don’t Know Why

I decided to wear this Tie o’ the Day in order to be sorta blendy with my shirt. Not matchy, just blendy. Today, I’m playing the clash as low-key as I know how to play it, because Skitter is ailing and I don’t want to add any loudness to the vibes of the house.

The tiny part of Skitter’s face you see here in the photo is pretty much all we’ve seen of her for the past three days. She hasn’t wholeheartedly performed her “chew dance.” She hasn’t even finished eating her daily chew treats. She’s kept herself in her beds, under her Suzanne-made blankets. She does, however, seem to want to do her convalescing right next to me or Suzanne. She has to be close enough to reach out at least one of her long legs to constantly touch one of us. Her paws are pokey.

We don’t have a clue what’s got Skitter down. She doesn’t limp when she walks. She’s not throwing up. I felt around in her mouth, and her teeth and gums seem fine– stinky but fine. She’s not the kind of mutt who digs though garbage cans so I doubt she’s eaten some dangerous food scrap. I also don’t think she has Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

On the other hand, dogs can sometimes sense somethin’s up. Dogs get vibes. The Dog of My Life, the late Araby, once physically and literally saved me from suicide. Araby had passionate, heightened senses when it came to knowing and watching over me.

The mind-meld Araby and I shared also made Araby an excellent editor of my writing. I used to read drafts of my poems to her, and I could tell by how she moved her facial muscles as I read whether a poem needed more work, or whether it was worthy of being sent out for publication. Not one poem Araby okayed was ever rejected for publication. Araby got me. And she got what I was trying to say in my writing. Hell, sometimes I don’t even get me, let alone get what I write.

Dogs get it. They compute. They sometimes call us on the b.s. they see us pull. They can save us from our own mis-steps. Some dogs have better intuition than others, just like some people do, but they all feel us to some extent. So how could Skitter not be hip to the shifts in my bipolar tectonic plates? Poor thing.

Knowing Skitter as well as I do, I’m confident my current mental state is not what’s making her feel icky. I’m sure she’s aware of my crazy head, and I’m sure she worries a bit about me right now. I have no doubt she senses my current depression, but she’s never joined me on my bipolar arc before, so I don’t think she’s following in my head’s swinging now. I think she simply has some kind of doggie flu bug in her system. She’ll be prancing to the mailbox again alongside me and my pendulum head any day now. And I’m hoping it’s tomorrow.

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The More Things Change, The More Things Change

TIE O’ THE DAY took the Sabbath off. We slept in, then binge-watched IN PLAIN SIGHT, and then it was time for dinner at the in-law’s. We drove over to their house, even though they live only about three blocks way. We always drive there, and I think it’s ridiculous that we do that. But we do it anyway. What lazy butts we have. We always come up with an excuse not to walk there. Yesterday, we decided it was too cold to hoof it over. Our excuses are rarely good ones, but that doesn’t matter to us.

Bow Tie o’ the Day has a classic Tiffany glass design. It’s a beauty. I wore it for the express purpose of showing you my latest interior design construction: a trail of ascending/descending books. As a lover of books, I named this the Stairway the Heaven. I design with books, and I thought I’d try this books-on-the-stairs look. It is visible the minute you walk in the front door, and people who’ve come into the house seem to like it. It’s eye-catching because it’s unexpected. FYI It leaves ample room to walk up and down the stairs, which is the most important concern. Safety first!

We are always running short on bookshelves, so I guess I’ve just given up. I try to find other places for the library to live. At some point, there’s no more wall space for more shelves, so I’m making do. So far, Suzanne has been mostly okay with my book spots. She is, however, tiring of the twenty books stacked on the toilet tanks in each bathroom. I can tell she’s had it with that. But, really, I never know exactly what I’m going to want to read when I’m bathing or am otherwise occupied in the bathroom, so I like a large selection handy. I say the books stay. And they will. Until Suzanne has finally had enough and moves them.

We don’t argue about stuff like that. Things like that just stay the way they are, until suddenly they are different. I’ll simply walk into the bathroom one day and the books will be gone. They will have been replaced with a knick-knack or doodad. That’s the clue that Suzanne’s patience with the towers has ended, and I better not put books there again. Well, okay then. Argument avoided about something that doesn’t really matter, in the scheme of things. Score.

Suzanne puts up with a lot, so I rarely have a problem with her sorta having the final word on house design matters. As long as something isn’t in the way of my antics or isn’t hideous, I’ll roll with it. Sometimes, I even know she wants to put something somewhere she won’t even mention. For example, I knew she wanted the Ultimate SewingBox in the living room, where we spend most of our time. But I also knew she would never in a bazillion years ask me if it was okay to put it there, since it hogs so much space and sewing machines are loud. I took it upon myself to suggest the idea and ask if she wanted to put it there. She was gleeful. That made me happy. The television volume does have to be deadly loud though.

Suzanne and I agree upon pretty much all of the bigly things. She even picked out our house without me when we were in the market six years ago and I had to be in Delta with Mom. Yes, we do have veto power over each other’s bigly decisions, but we rarely use it. Think about it: If you don’t agree about the bigly things with the person you live with, why are you even living with them?

Most disagreements aren’t about life-altering choices that might be more important to one person in a couple than the other. Most things don’t matter. Most arguments between couples are about small, unimportant things like who’s turn it is to do the dishes. We should all stop that. What’s wrong with us that we let the tiny, irritating stuff set the mood of a household? Do you really wanna come home to that?