Pets

Today's my birthday.
It's been overshadowed by an emergency: my daughter's lhasa apso, Tonks, fell down the stairs and managed to herniate two disks. When I found her, she couldn't move her back legs. She was trying to walk on her front paws, and actually doing a pretty good job. It was horrible. Jay and I were on our way out of town. I came outside the house with her in my arms and Jay said, "Guess we're going to the vet." She had emergency surgery, which I had to pay half for up front. 1750 dollars. Right on the credit card I had finally cleared 3 months ago. I never get ahead. Lilly says it's her fault. Poor little dog.
At the doggie ER, I was sort of embarrassed. My dogs are fed and loved, but not particularly groomed. I have 4--3 strays and Tonks, who was purchased to make up for Lilly having no friends in 7th grade. In addition to that, we have a frog and two cats. Pebbles is a deeply psychologically damaged calico, and her son, Marlowe, is really wonderful and loving, but likes to stow away in the car. "Meow?" he'll finally say, 15 minutes into a trip. This is especially bad when it's 6:30am and I'm on my way to work.
"Trouble not the animals," Dostoyevsky said, "for they have the beginnings of souls. " They have more than that, I think.
"Do you think it matters?" I ask Jay, "that my dog looks so scruffy?"
"No," he says soothingly, "it's fine." It's sometimes hard to get a read on what Jay actually thinks of anything. 6 months later, he'll just drop that something irritated him. Since we're so much alike, the way I read Jay is that I figure out what I'm feeling about something, and it's usually the way he's feeling about it, too. But he'll never, never come right out and say it. Probably why he's been married 3 times.
We went to the city for a night. We were going to go rock climbing and camping, but it was freezing and drizzling, so we opted for the civilization experience. After a bottle of wine between us and 2 pints of guinness, we ended up in this strange place--the city museum. It's this labyrinthe of sculptured fantasy--twists and turns and dragons and tunnels and iron gardens, ladders and stairways, an airplane enmeshed in the structure. The gates were open, so we went in. I started climbing through it--it was magic. A dreamscape. Art that you see with your eyes and know with your body. Even freezing cold and wet, the thing kept blossoming in front of me. I wondered if we would be able to find our way back. Like being inside someone's head. Then Jay got nervous, so we came down and went back to the hotel, had some organic cheese doodles and chocolate and fell asleep.
That's my 1/2 hour--well--25 minutes this time.