Bumby the Fat Girl

So Bumby ran away for awhile during our walk this morning. When I had gotten to the place on the hill, after the meadow, before the cemetery, the place where I always stop to put her back on the leash, she was not there. It was foggy and dark and I couldn't see her. I did not hear the jingle of the tags on her collar. I called her and called her. I didn't want to call out too much because it was very early and there are houses nearby with people in them, presumably sleeping. But she didn't come. I waited for a bit, then decided to walk on. But even as we went on, Little Bear and I, I was still listening for the jingle and trying to see her dark grey form down the hill in the dark.

I was worried and distracted as I walked through the cathedral of Norway spruces, fringed black towers in the early grey dark. That is usually a place of peace for me, where I find the stillness inside myself, but not so much today. I have been on the edge of worry and self-blaming for too many days now, and Bumby disappearing like that wasn't helping anything inside me stay calm. The evening before I had noticed the Mother Cat had slash wounds on her head and ear, and she hadn't been cleaning them. One of them looked swollen and abscessed and as I felt it, it broke open and I was able to wipe out the pus with a tissue. But it was still worrisome, the fact she wasn't grooming herself. (Give me a reason, any reason! I am always primed for disaster to strike again.) My daughter began vehemently insisting I not let the Mother Cat outside anymore, but the cat is half feral, and while she was a good mother once, she hates her babies now, she hates all the cats in the house. She won't use the litter box and she growls and is upset all the time she is in, unless she is sleeping. So I have to let her out for a bit, which I did do this morning but with the plan of finding her before I went to work, and bringing her back in.

Also one of the fish had been ailing over the weekend, all loopy and lethargic, and I had been blaming myself for that too. I had lost track in my mind of when I had last changed the water in her tank. But she was better yesterday, thank goodness. Adding all this to my recent financial nightmare and my concerns and disputes with my daughter, I am feeling a bit raggedy around the edges. My black crow feathers are rather ruffled. It doesn't appear anything will come along to smooth them back down anytime soon either.

Work yesterday wasn't any better. My employers were away enjoying a day off in the city, and that left me to open up and get things rolling, that left me to look after the developmentally disabled young man who works there, and that left me to look after the mentally ill widow who also works there. Believe me, my employers do not pay me enough for all that I am expected to handle and to do. Anyway, she freaked out and flipped out early on in the day when I had given her a new job to do. While I was endeavoring to teach it to her (feeling a lot like a vocational therapist), the phone rang and it was a customer wanting to order something from our retail store. The call made me remember I had forgotten to open the store, because I was busy trying to teach Deidre the new task. So, then I had to go back and forth between the store and the phone so as to be able to tell the woman exactly what shape and color Chinese vases (I recited 'chocolate brown, celery green, sky blue, yellow' over and over as I walked back to the phone) we had left, because she wanted to buy 4 of them. I am very good at customer service, so good in fact, I should be given an Emmy or a Tony or an Oscar for my daily performances. Actually a lot of my life is a daily performance, because I often feel so ragged and bereft inside. By the time I got back to Deidre she was over by the windows panicking because she could not see well enough to do the new job. She decided to go home and get her glasses. And her bottle of water! she exclaimed loudly. She had forgotten her bottle of water!

By the time she got back, precisely 12 minutes later, she informed me, she had calmed down and settled in and was okay for the rest of her 3 hours there. By the time work was finished for me, many hours after that, I walked home in the gathering gloom as some poet so aptly named it, feeling bleak and sad. Feeling alone, feeling like I needed some tender loving care but also knowing that was like wishing for world peace--it just ain't gonna happen.

Honestly, I wish I was making this all up but, wah wah wah, it's all true.

So, Bumby ran away and then she had this particular madwoman to contend with when she finally had re-traced our steps and caught up with us. She was slurping and licking her chops in an extremely disgusting manner and I knew then she had been busy eating something. Something dead, or fecal, in nature. I told her she was a disgusting fat girl. I told her that a few times. She walked most of the way home with her tail down (who likes being called a disgusting fat girl?). She knew I was unhappy but, I am sure, in her limited doggy way, she did not know precisely why.

Bumby is a mess. (A shaggy, grey mess, not unlike me before I colored my hair.) She is beautiful inside, loving, empathetic, loyal. But she is also terrier-stubborn and a pig for anything vaguely edible. She came from the animal shelter where she had been living for 3 months (it is a no-kill shelter) because no one wanted her. Her coat is long and tangled most of the time--she is a messy, shaggy dog. She looks like a fat girl but she actually isn't--she is quite muscular and sturdy. She had been abandoned as a pup and ran around a city north of here before being injured and taken to a vet. She lived at the vet's for one month and no one claimed her. Then she went to the shelter, and still no one claimed her, or wanted her.

We came to the shelter a week before I was moving ino the house I had just managed to buy and I was still wondering if this was some unconscious child of alcoholics' self-sabotage attempt on my part. For some insane reason, I was planning to adopt a different dog that a friend had told us about. That friend had also called ahead to the shelter (she had an 'in' there) and told them to expect us because we were "a very good home" for this particular little male mongrel. Except Little Bear had other plans. Seems he doesn't like other boy dogs, and that was the day we found out. He snapped at the little male mongrel and they told us no way would they let us have that dog. Then my daughter started to cry. She was almost 10 then, and she thought we were adopting a dog! She cried and the staff said, go look at the other dogs. So I did. There were so many of them. Finally a staff person brought out Bumby. She was the only one of the 35 dogs there that was not barking. I always remember that because, now that she lives here, she barks really loudly at nothing any chance she gets. My daughter took her outside for a walk . They paraded her past the cats to show me she liked cats. So we ended up with Bumby. I didn't really want her but I would never tell her that. She is very sensitive.

This is how sensitive she is. Once when I was crying and sad, bent over in a chair, my face in my hands, tears leaking out, wondering why I was so alone in this life, a dog toy was sudddenly thrust in my face. That was Bumby telling me she loves me and I am not alone and here's a toy, so let's play! She always tells me she loves me, a million ways every day. Sometimes I don't realize how upset I am until I realize Bumby has been sticking to my side like glue, trying to crawl into my lap when I sit down. I truly think, if she was able, she'd make me a cup of tea and give me some of the TLC I crave. And when she knows I am upset with her because she rolled in something stinky or ate turds out of the cat box, she goes under the couch until I feel better. Or it is time to eat. Or time for bed. Whichever comes first. She is a very forgiving soul and has plenty to teach a grouchy old crow like me. Like, about forgiveness! Starting with myself.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai