On A Lucky Day

During the dogs’ absence, I have witnessed an interesting phenomenon.  When the cats and I were first on our own, back at the beginning of the summer, they were tentative about moving upstairs to eat or to sleep or play their all-night games of Crazy Eights, because, let’s face it, with the arrival of Chebbi, it was a lot safer and quieter in the basement, where they still had an endless supply of food, several beds to choose from, without being pursued or tormented by a impossibly large creature with unmanageable hair and golden brown eyes.

After a few days, though, Willow began to venture upstairs.  The first day she could only manage a few bites of food before bolting, but gradually she grew bolder and not only did she eat an entire bowl of food, but she took to staying for the whole day, curled up in the vastness of the dog bed. 

Willow at sea.

Having never put the cameras in to track their actions, I can’t say for certain what the cats got up to in our absence, but let’s just say they had become pretty territorial by the time I got back and felt it was within their right to ask for two pieces of I.D. before letting me in. Xena seems to have left her own body weight worth of hair on the rugs, while Duke, when he sees fit to come home at all, sprawls wherever he chooses. Willow has taken to curling up with me when I read, though like the best of cats, her objective is to disrupt my reading by walking back and forth between my book and me.

I can’t help but feel the cats know that their halcyon days are growing to a close.  They have been lounging all over the house and out on the pool deck as if they want to take advantage of every final moment of dog-free existence. I swear they are tracking the dogs’ progress; I’m sure they made Duke look up New Brunswick on the map last night after they heard Phyll had made it to Edmunston.  They probably counted on their paws how many hours it would be before Chebbi and Griff rolled in.

I feel awful knowing that the moment Willow registers the dogs’ arrival, she will retreat downstairs, and I will see her only when I venture into the coolness of the basement. They are cats, they will be fine, Phyll tells me when I express my concerns.  Just get ready, she says as she drives towards home, for a big dog on the bed tonight. 

The reality is that sometimes it’s difficult to make everybody happy regardless of your best efforts. This truth became glaringly obvious to me yesterday when my friend Kelly and I offered to look after our friend Tanya’s twins, Easton and Emmett, for a few hours while she and her husband Ryan packed up their house to get ready to move. Tanya and Kelly live only a block apart, so Tanya wheeled the boys over to Kelly’s in their little wagon, and we took them from there to the nearby park. As Kelly pulled them, I walked alongside of the wagon, and watched as both boys stared at us intently. Facing each other as they rode along, they were content, but as we stopped the wagon and reached down to lift them out, they suddenly realized that we were not familiar, not familiar at all.  And they howled.  More precisely, Easton, as Kelly lifted him into her arms, began to bellow.  Not more than a second or two later, Emmett, now in my arms, chimed in.  Two distraught boys, crying in stereo, can create quite a cacophony. In that swell neighbourhood, I was worried someone might alert the authorities. Now Kelly has raised two sons and is no stranger to the world of a child’s tears, and I have plenty of memories of babysitting children who would suddenly “play strange” as the expression goes, so we both went into distraction mode. Kelly tried the swings and the big digger truck that some kind person had left at the playground, while I pointed out the movable blocks with pictures of animals on them, but to no avail.  We knew we were in difficulty when Kelly offered them each a biscuit and they shook their heads vehemently.  No, no, no. 

They were clearly stressed, and thinking back to my own moments of homesickness upon waking in my camp bunk and wishing desperately that I were home in my bed, I felt terrible for them.  Luckily, the solution for our charges was less drastic than building a raft and paddling home from camp. The moment we placed them back in the wagon and started to move, the crying stopped.  Perhaps the boys thought that as long as they were in motion they were potentially coming closer to mommy and daddy, but I imagine it was more simple than that.  The motion of the wagon was soothing, and the sights and sounds were distracting.  They were fascinated by a man mowing his lawn, and we considered going in search of mower after mower, but because it was one of the hottest days of the summer, shade was our first priority, and we simply walked the streets of the nearby neighbourhoods.  As they recovered from their crying jags, with the odd shudder from the after shock, they began to look around more, and as every good teacher does, I tried to point out things that might interest them. I started with leaves and then amped it up with maple keys.  And that was enough.  Who doesn’t love twirling a maple leaf in his hot little hand, or dragging a clump of maple leaf keys over his chubby legs? Being the mother she is, Kelly came well prepared with bottles of cold water, which they enjoyed picking up and putting down. Simple distractions; simple pleasures. 

Easton and Emmett in motion

We were all relatively happy, if somewhat weary, as we rolled the wagon into Tanya and Ryan’s backyard an hour or two later.  I am happy to report they did not burst into tears upon seeing Tanya and Ryan, though they were eager to crawl all over her as we sat in the shade in the backyard, Kelly and I with a nice cold cider, which I have to say we earned. I was happy to see them splashing in the pool, digging in the dirt, no worse off for the momentary trauma they had experienced.

We do what we can to keep the people (and animals) we care about happy and safe.  On a lucky day, a wagon in motion will suffice.