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April 25, 2000
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chalow is attacked in her own home The dog must have slipped in when I opened my garage door to go to work. I did go back to the kitchen to get my commuter cup. This dog was always getting loose and she liked to kill other animals it seems. Forrest was upstairs in his office. Chalow was subjected to terror all over the house. Fortunately, our maid showed up in the middle of this melee. Broken vases, blood and excrement and urine all over. Chalow cowering in the bottom of a wardrobe, bleeding profusely. The vet says if she wasn't so fat and furry the dog would have gotten her mouth around Chalow's throat and killed her. Fortunately, she is home from the vet with puncture wounds, a missing nail, stitches and lots of soreness. She is, however, very lucky. Our neighbors are also lucky she is probably going to be all right. The husband called to 'apologize' but refused to really agree that the animal should be destroyed. He says he's not so sure it was his dog. That some other neighbor had the dog since 9PM 'until he returned him' and that Forrest didn't see the dog. He says that, yes, the dog killed another neighbors cat and that, yes, 'when he was foolish enough to have a dog and a cat, he lost the cat and was sad.' Maybe Forrest and the maid should have kept the dog here and called animal control and the police, but, gee, they were busy saving our dog. Chasing him back to his house seemed valorous enough. And, of course, Forrest had to find a new vet since, sadly, Chalow's died last week. I better never see this dog again. [Warning, if you keep paging down you will see a picture of the interior of Forrest's car that is graphic. I haven't photographed Chalow's wounds, though. She didn't want me to.] At work, after I got the call about Chalow, I was in no mood to hear 'paradigm' repeated many times. Or synergy. Or to hear why we need to talk to each other across multiple time zones when an e-mail exchange can actually pin down issues. I don't say much about work here. Because, of course, I can't. But I will say that meetings are, in every company I've ever worked for, way overrated for effectiveness. Forrest went to UT to present our scholarship at the Women's Athletic banquet. I stayed home to irrigate Chalow's wounds and watch her and comfort her. And talk to the arrogant neighbor. Another neighbor who lost a cat on her own property to this same animal called to express concern about Chalow. Forrest said the UT banquet food was particularly awful, they only introducd me even though he alone was there and very, very few other donors were willing to put themselves through the bad rubbery chicken to sit at a table with young ladies who really don't care and some old duffers in burnt orange which is, I'm sorry, the worst color on the planet. My baby is still breathing. I know. I keep checking. I'm going to take off tomorrow morning to watch her breathe (and spray hydrogen peroxide on the puncture wounds) so Forrest can do some business. Did I mention that she got a toe nail completely ripped off? Ouch. We just gave her more antibiotics and some pain killer. After fifteen years, the Met Club is losing its lease in One American Center. Yeah...like I didn't know that was coming since we bought a life membership. OK, we bought it years ago so we probably shouldn't complain. Now Chalow has decided she needs to be in bed with her dad and she's up there in a nest of old towels to catch the blood with her head on a pillow. I kissed her goodnight and promised her I wouldn't let anything hurt her again. Of course, I can't be sure I can protect her. But I'm pretty sure I can protect her against one particular dog. Hmmm...online journalers are in a vortex of bad pet karma. Rob has a sick cat and Susan has a sick cat. Plus someone is writing John Bailey about a sick cat. And, I don't really like pretending community with other people just because we journal. I like to read them, but it's no special bond, right or no? I don't know. In the early nineties, FFP and I fell into this bulletin board (on Prodigy!) with some other folks. We are still friends with a couple of them in that way that you e-mail or call now and then and are interested but rarely see them. It felt like a kind of interesting several years long party on that bulletin board. We met each other in person, too. We made up our own icons and awards. We were Austin Arts. Everywhere else we tried to be we were dismissed by rules like 'off topic.' So...we posted notes on the Arts Bulletin Board, category Other. Then we made the subject 'Austin Arts.' We just replied to each other. For years. We had the tiffs and falling outs and the comings and goings. Flames and love-ins. The journal deal is different, though. Everyone is independent. The baseline is a conversation with yourself. If you do one of these references to others (who me?), then that's extra, but it's not so embarrassing to talk to yourself here? Or is it?? I'm drinking a small glass of Irish Whiskey (I know, it was the first bottle on the rack that's why) and worrying about my dog and feeling responsible for not taking care of her. I should go to sleep, but I can't. I feel I'm right not to be in a ring or burb (these seem to be journalist associations) or anything like that. Because they make rules. And I'm doing this to make my OWN rules. [I don't see anything wrong with these associations, of course, and rely on them myself to find journals to read. So don't flame me for this opinion. As if you could FIND me without the rings and burbs.... Plus, I ask Kymm, the mighty, to join us for an event in New York. She didn't answer my e-mail (she must get hundreds and even more after that plaintive whine). Maybe I shouldn't have invited her to a lame event. But, honest Kymm, I don't care whether we meet or not, really. Life is random. You are interesting. You post a journal. I read it. It's probably more fun for INTJs like me to just keep it that way. But if we did meet, that would be OK. Not so OK that I'd invite you to Daniel, you understand.] Maybe I won't comment on other people's journals again. It could be a good rule. But tonight they are taking my mind off my poor dog. Pets are helpless and depend on us. And we always disappoint them. The guy next door thought he loved his dog. But not enough to keep her away from small animals so that the neighbors wouldn't want to see it die. And I couldn't keep Chalow safe. And, if I could, well, she's nine years old. It's probably her birthday today. So she's sixty-three in our terms. I'm helpless to protect anybody or anything. We all are. But we never figure it out.
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"Qui me amat, amet et canem meum." St. Bernard, Sermo Primus
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damage
aftermath
survivor
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