Detective Ray's Agency: The Case of the Displaced Dachshund

This past week I was head of the pack. Hunter, Tank and I spent a full week at Kevin and Sarah’s since they both needed to be out of town and their baby Birdy needed her grandma. As always, the sleeping arrangement was a challenge with the extra Dachshund. Hunter and Tank have been accustomed to cuddling up to me for oh…the past 15 years so we hardly think about our bedtime protocol anymore. They are old and set in their ways. They are spoiled. So am I. Birdy, on the other hand, is being encouraged to sleep in the kennel next to her parents and I agreed to work on that with her.

Of course I mustn’t be too stern, this is my only grandpup. So our first night together, I snuggle into bed about 9 pm with three dogs and an unspoken agreement that Birdy can stay as long as she was content in one place so we can all sleep soundly. We all fall immediately into a deep pack animal sleep.

Maybe an hour passes before I feel Birdy climbing over me so I swiftly dispatch her to the kennel.
At first, silence, but before long there's a pathetic little whimper from inside the steel bars. But I won't be weak and sternly say "No! Go to sleep Birdy."
The whimper continues, and finally I put the blanket over the kennel and achieve silence from within. Fast forward a few hours into a satisfying sleep, I feel a canine form, it's especially silky coated, sweet smelling...hmm it's a long and lithe daschund scooting up from my feet to my armpit . It snuggles right up under my chin as if to say "I love you" like no other than......Birdy! She settles right back to sleep there.

I'm deep into sleep so I just think "Well she escaped the kennel. She can stay if she remains cozy like this.” And she did.

Morning comes. 3:30am anyway. My tuned in 'mom ears' hear the sound of Hunter needing his early morning wee.
I respond like a pro, throwing off my CPAP gear and reaching for the geriatric daschund I love so much...but where is he? Birdy's in my armpit, Tank next to her...the rest of the bed feels empty. I had visions of Hunter having fallen off the bed, lying helplessly on the floor making his obsessive morning licking sounds...but wait. The slurpslurpgruntslurp sounds he makes are coming from....the kennel! Poor Hunter !

I put the wrong dog in the kennel and he hasn’t looked at me the same ever since.

Hunter’s look of utter betrayal haunted me for the rest of the day.

Love in the time of Covid

To add another level of understanding, play this video for background music while reading.

When I was 12, almost 13 years old, we moved out on Wilson Creek, down Sprouse Lane. That’s when I became the babysitter of Ricky and Mark Talerico, then 1st and 3rd grade, maybe? Captain Joel Talerico and his wife Linda, the parents, were a beautiful young couple. Particularly, The Captain was a handsome, swarthy fireman with a rough voice, whose smile made me wish my house was on fire. Mark and Ricky were cute as could be. Ricky’s round, chubby gnome face and fat lips reminded me of a baby boy, and Mark’s more serious, pointy face with spectacles looked like a little professor.

I babysat occasionally in the evenings, and things seemed to work between us, so when summer vacation started, I had a full-time job. Every weekday I woke up early and walked the 25 sleepy steps to our country neighbors’ home and began my workday. Their house was new, built in a field, so the yard was still sliced dirt, with tracks from the grader fresh. The romper room was mostly done, but not yet dry-walled—their garage became a playroom before it was built. A low piano sat staring at me with the sheet music for Romeo and Juliet (A Time for Us), and so although I had stopped taking formal lessons in fourth grade, I pounded my way through the beautiful melody and imagined that’s what I would do day after day while the boys played nicely.

Of course I didn’t spend too much time on the piano. Boys that age need attention.

There were a few mishaps, I admit.

There was one very bloody nose that I fumbled my way through. There was no Google back then, so I just tried to think of the logical way to treat it. My first impulse was to have him blow it all out, but he had been through this crisis before and he wisely wrestled away from my help. He saved himself as he held his head back with a gob of toilet paper against his blood spout nose, no thanks to me.

At some point, the young fellows had a knock down, drag out fight, and again, I handled it the only way that seemed logical. Out came the wooden spoon, not the good old oiled and solid spoons like my mamma used on my butt, but the lightweight, cheap kind that come as a part of a wedding set. I broke it right across one of their behinds.

Imagine explaining to the parents how I broke that piece of balsa wood across their child. Linda and Joel liked me, but I was young and they began to question my maturity and ability to handle two energetic and mischievous young boys.

Captain Talerico knew of a babysitting course I could take They offered to pay for it—a full Saturday was all I had to give. Saturday was our sabbath, said my mother, and so the answer was no, and thus ended my career with the Talericos.

Fast forward forty-five years. I live in town again after 25 years away and little Ricky does, too. He is called Rick now, but he still has his round, chubby gnome-face and fat lips. We both have some gray hair. We see each other in passing occasionally and always make a big deal of it. Always hug and laugh at time’s tricks. I am his babysitter, and here we are, essentially the same age. How does that happen? I wish we could fall in love and have a funny love story, maybe like the song, A Time For Us, but we don’t.

Now we’re in this pandemic, and being single, are more alone than we have ever been. Creativity and isolation motivates a bold expression of this story. Thank you, Covid 19.

A rock I paint reminds me of his mother, Linda.

I sign it, Love, Mom, and leave it for her son, on his mailbox.

He might like it. Or he might not.

I never know.

6/5/2020

Follow up:

Once more, things seem to work out between us.

11/14/2020

See: Seventeenth Thursday with Rico

September 26, 2020